In the rush to finish up the work week, ship out presents, write and mail a hundred New Year’s cards, we haven’t had any time at all to prepare for our upcoming trip. Last night was Christmas Eve here in Japan, and we decided to forgo the cake and fried chicken to focus on killing off all the vegetables that we have laying around the house that would go bad while we’re off in Thailand.

After dinner we did decide to go ahead and open presents, and we had a lot of loot to go through. Presents from my aunt, uncle and cousin in San Diego, my cousin and her family in Hawaii, my brother and his wife in Oregon, and my folks back home in Glen Ellen made for a lot of opening. We got some great stuff – thanks to everyone who sent gifts! Kuniko got me a new wallet to replace the smelly one that has been in my back pocket for years now, and also according to our tradition some new underwear to wear on New Year’s Day. I got her a book on champagne, a bottle of Bollinger, and a kitchen steamer to make even healthier meals.

Christmas Day has been pretty normal, except for a shopping trip during my lunch break to get some stuff for my ex-student who lives in Thailand. He requested some interesting items, so I ran around the Nagata area of Hyogo looking for the right stuff to bring. I got back just in time to teach my afternoon classes.

Tonight will be packing and prep, and then we’ll be flying early tomorrow morning. Pictures and stories when we get back!

I was walking around between classes on a short coffee break today and I struck up a conversation with a guy that I have seen around the office lately. It turns out the guy is an American expat working as a contractor with a company in the USA as an inspector of the equipment being built here. He lives in Yokohama and commutes in every week via bullet train to various factories. It seemed like an interesting job, and he must be in demand if they pay him to take the train halfway across the country twice a week.

But actually this guy was really interested in my job. As I talked about what I do I recognized what I saw in this guy – it was fear. I’ve been around people that have needed jobs before (and I certainly have been in that position a little more often than I’d like to admit) but the smell of fear on this guy was palpable. He was concerned for his job situation, and looking to jump ship. Weird dude.

I read in an article on the internet yesterday that Wendy’s is pulling out of the Japan market, and they expect to have all their stores closed by the end of the year. I like Wendy’s, I don’t love it, but tonight I am doing a little shopping in Kobe after work so I’ll swing by the store in Sannomiya and see if it is still open. It might be my last chance for some Wendy’s food until I visit the USA again, and if I go all the way to the USA I probably will want to go to nicer places (like In N’ Out Burger or Hodads). Tonight might be my last meal ever at Wendy’s.

Once the shopping is done I’ll head home and relax before my big day of teaching tomorrow. It is my last day at Kobe University, and we have a full schedule of presentations that should keep me on my toes through the evening.

I received the bill from my cellphone company last night for the first month of iPhone usage. The bill for Internet usage on my phone for 30 days came to $1450. Luckily the unlimited usage plan covered about $1400 of that, but it is an impressive number. Definitely a heart-stopping moment when I saw the first number.

Being firmly locked down under a non-disclosure agreement I don’t have a lot to blog about when it comes to work, and since most of my time now is spent at work, there just isn’t a lot I can blog about. Every day I hear some good blog-worthy stories but unfortunately I cannot relate them here. The students were at first a little reluctant to speak, but as they get more and more comfortable with the situation they have become more inclined to speak out. More than once I’ve thought that some of the students see the English lesson as a kind of therapeutic escape from their daily grind, and the freedom of speaking a different language really helps them open up. Often students come out of the 45 minute class looking refreshed rather than exhausted.

For me it is mentally exhausting to keep the students progressing on their different tracks, remembering each person’s current project, workload, family members, and make sure the lesson ends right at 45 minutes so that the next guy isn’t waiting too long. The good news is that the preparation isn’t as time-consuming as group classes, and the day flies by quickly. And I get to talk with interesting people all day – that is a big plus.

This weekend I had to cancel a meet up with Yoshi because I caught a cold. Actually, I had the strong symptoms of an impending cold, but taking the night off from drinking and staying home, gargling iodine medicine like mad, and a ton of vitamin C saved the day. Saturday I spent staying home in the warm living room doing odds and ends, and by the time Sunday rolled around I was back to normal. Dodged a bullet, really. Sunday afternoon Risa and Anthony came over for lunch, and I grilled up a monster roast to serve with couscous and salad. Overall it turned out well, and it was great to see Risa and Anthony again. They both look the same as always, and it was fun to catch up with them. We even broke out the Wii for a little fun and games after lunch. Good times.

My schedule this week (outside of work) is rather light. I have to do a little shopping for the holidays sometime this week, and sooner or later we have to get organized and figure out what to do when we’re in Thailand. We also have to send out our New Year’s cards – luckily we are ahead of the game this year and all that is left is to write messages on them and drop them in the mailbox.

Kuniko has a few events this week, and next weekend we’ll be entertaining again, so the calm won’t last too long. I’ll try to enjoy it while I can.

This Sunday we had a small lunch at our place for Nozaki sensei, Miyake sensei and the new ALT that is teaching at Takasago Minami, Zara. It had been a long time since I had seen Miyake sensei – we had a lunch over at Nozaki sensei’s house to say goodbye to Brenda in the summer. She brought over a beautiful vase for the house, and we so we sat around eating nashigoren and sausages and caught up.

It was nice to meet Zara, who is an American from Tuscon AZ. She seems like she is full of energy and looking for a good outlet for it. She studied drama, Japanese language, and is a big fan of Glay, so it seems like she is in exactly the right place right now. Hopefully she’ll settle into a groove soon and do well while she is here in Japan. It is a tough place to live for foreign women, however, and there are a lot of challenges that I never had to face. It was an interesting opportunity to hear about some of those.

After we walked everyone back to the station Kuniko and I did a little shopping, and then went home to clean up and relax. We had leftovers for dinner, and then spent the evening listening to music and doing our own thing most of the time. Just trying to charge up the batteries before the work week starts up again.

On my 6th drink….

Waiting around for classes to start at Kobe University.

This morning on the way to work I happened to leave the house just at the same time that one of our neighbors, Ms. Fukumi, was leaving. Usually she rides to work with her husband, but apparently he was on a business trip today and so she had to walk to the station and then catch a bus. We were both going the same way, so we walked together. This has happened once before, and we talked in Japanese about her English study. This time around we had the entire conversation in English, and I was pretty impressed with how well she did. She speaks better than some of my professional students, and it was obvious how much effort she has been putting into it.

I asked her how often she studies English, and she said that every night after work while waiting for her husband to get home she studies about two hours a night. Every day! Two hours! The best I can get out of my exhausted students at work is 10 minutes of their time while they commute home, and sometimes an hour or two on the weekends. Her progress really showed and it was impressive to see how far she has come even in the few weeks since we last met.

This year is the first time since I’ve been in Japan that we’ve had a proper (fake) Christmas tree. It’s my first fake tree, but it turned out to be pretty good. We spent the evening last weekend decorating it with lights and ornaments, and we had to dig pretty deep to find some ornaments from our past. The end result is a pretty good looking tree, and the only thing missing is the smell. I don’t miss the sappy hands, though.

The other day on the way home on the train I noticed a slightly funny situation. On the way back from Kobe during rush hour the folding seats near the doors of the train cars are locked in the up position to free up more room as people come in and out. The regular seats are still in operation, but these auxilary seats are there for people to use the rest of the day outside of rush hour.

Once they leave the station next to mine the seats unlock, and the conductor announces that they are available for use, but since I am always getting off in one or two minutes I don’t really have a need to use them. Also usually the train is still quite full, so taking up the extra space is sometimes considered a little rude.

Anyway, the other night they unlocked the seats and standing in front of the nearest one was a high school boy and an older guy reading an English textbook and giving off a whiff of the crazy. You could tell (well, at least I could tell) that the guy was off. Apparently the boy couldn’t tell, and he asked the guy if it was OK to put the seat down and sit. Since they were both standing where the seat would eventually sit down, it is only polite to do so. The guy said sure, and they both sat down. Normally that’s where the story ends – they sit on the same seat together silently for the remainder of the ride and then get off when they arrive at their stop.

This time was different. The crazy guy saw the boy’s request to use the seat as an opening into a conversation, and he started making comments to the boy in a loud voice that had most of the train car looking over to see who was disturbing the tranquility of the train ride. The crazy guy commented on how clever the boy was to suggest sitting, how kids these days weren’t that smart, how horseracing is becoming more popular in Japan, how long a train ride it was, how the kid’s haircut was very appropriate for playing baseball. He kept making weird comments, and the kid nodded politely and looked for a way out. He even tried sleeping, but the comments still came.

I felt bad for the kid – he was just trying to be polite while he grabbed a seat. Instead he had to endure the crazy guy. They were still sitting together when I got off in Okubo… for all I know they both enjoyed the experience. It reminded me of a slogan that Terry Nolan used to hang up in the winemaking office at Benziger – “No good deed goes unpunished”.

As part of having a smartphone and ubiquitous internet access, I’m trying to consolidate my email account to Gmail. So if you don’t already, please use this email address for me in the future:

bfredricks@gmail.com

I can get the mail around the clock and respond from anywhere in the world. The old fredricks.net address is still good, but I only check it now and then, and you probably won’t get a quick response.

So from now on, please use the above email address. Go ahead – try it now and say hello!

All is well here in Kobe-land, and both work and home life are moving along swimmingly. In fact, work is going so quickly that I’m beginning to worry about my retirement age. Since I spend every day speaking with people constantly (9 students over 8 hours) it makes the time pass. As soon as the first student arrives for class I know that I’ll be out the door and heading home soon.

The iPhone has also been great. At least it has been great until the first bill hits. We’ll see how reasonable it is then. There are a few interesting applications, especially ones designed specifically for Japan, and it has been fun exploring those. Kuniko is still getting used to me having the internet at my fingertips – it’ll take some getting used to.

Friday night Kuniko is going off to stay in Kyoto with her college friends (and our Xmas party regulars) Chiemi, Chu-chu and Ai, which leaves me partying with Yoshi that night in Sannomiya. Who knows what kind of trouble we might get into… but we’re both old married guys so I don’t think we’ll make any visits to the topless snack or the girl bars. Just good food and drink, I’m guessing.

We’re also trying to gather Christmas presents for the great shipment early next month, as well as get a design together for our New Year’s cards and also start to think about exactly what we’ll do in Thailand during our week long visit. So plenty of things on the horizon – just the way we like it.

Last night Kuniko and I celebrated our 4th anniversary by going out and enjoying a meal in Akashi, at the Italian place that is getting serious about contending for our top spot in restaurant rankings. It is an odd place for a number one restaurant, sitting out on the waterside surrounded by apartments and cheesy bars, but the food is great and the most authentic we’ve found in Japan. After dinner we walked back to the station and headed home. We were both pretty tired from a busy week, but this weekend is a three-day weekend so we’ll have some downtime.

Last weekend I took the plunge and got an iphone. The quick review is that I like it a lot, and for longer reviews I’m sure you can find plenty of fanboy love on Google. It does what I want it to do, it works well in typical situations in Japan. I’m still getting used to it, but Kuniko said it best when she said that it looked like it could “make you stupid”. Beautifully stated – I can see how people could become dependent on the device, and it’ll be interesting to see to what extent I fall into that trap.

During a conversation recently with a student we talked a little bit about the different animals that make up the Chinese (and Japanese) calendar. Every year has a different animal, and pointed out that in China it is the year of the pig, while in Japan the same year is the year of the boar. I did a little research after the conversation, and it turns out that every sixty years is a “golden year” that is particularly blessed, and the golden year of the pig is one of the most auspicious of all birthyears in China. I read an article about Chinese births suddenly increasing during 2007 (the last year of the pig) as Chinese families planned the birth of their child to land during this year.

Also interesting was that a rumor had started that 2007 was a golden year of the pig – and that had even more people excited and trying to have kids within that year. According to the article the information was incorrect – the last golden year of the pig was in 1971 – the year I was born. Sixty years before and sixty years after, and my folks ended up hitting it just right.