A long time ago I accepted an invitation to have lunch with the school office manager, Sato-san, at Hamawaki Junior High. She really likes English, and is a member of several Toastmaster clubs. She has a monthly English conversation group, and she invited me to be the guest of honor. I begged off the first time, but I finally got roped into going, and today was the big day.

Kuniko had to teach two classes in the morning, and so I puttered around the house doing some laundry and straightening up, and then just about as soon as she got home I was out the door and headed to Koshien.

Koshien is the area around the Hanshin Tigers ballpark near the outskirts of Osaka. It’s a nice part of town, actually, and I’ve liked what I’ve seen the few times that I’ve been there.

Since I had a commuter pass the trip was largely free, and when I arrived I waited only a few minutes before one of the club members picked me up. She is a semi-retired doctor, and her English was pretty good. We took a bus together to “Rainbow Town” – a huge area of mansions painted in all the colors of the rainbow. The mansions were huge – very tall and there were so many that they blocked out a fair amount of the sky.

The doctor said that when you ask people in Japan how many colors there are in a rainbow, they always say seven – no more, no less. I don’t know why that is, but it was an interesting piece of trivia. I’ll have to try it out.

We got to Sato-san’s place, and everyone else was already there. The place was part of the Rainbow Town complex, and it had a really old feel to it – it reminded me of the teacher apartments that we recently lived in.

We sat down and everyone introduced themselves, and then we just started talking and talking – just in English. The members of the club were quite intelligent, and I think they are pretty adept at using English. Besides the doctor and the office manager, there was a college English instructor, and a college science teacher who spoke not only English but also Japanese and her native Chinese. There was also a retired medical translator, who was the oldest of the bunch but perhaps had the best English.

While we were talking we ate a lunch prepared by Sato-san. I had brought a bottle of wine, and we opened that and poured it around. I got the feeling like they didn’t normally have alcohol at these things, but everybody drank and everybody liked it. Maybe I should have brought another bottle.

Although we talked about all kinds of things and it didn’t seem formal at all, right at 4:30 Sato-san said “Time’s Up!” and everybody started gathering their things and saying goodbye. It was a sudden end, but maybe those are the rules they use. We all went off to the train station by bus, and I shared a train back to Sannomiya with several of the members. We talked a lot more on the train, and by the time I got home I was pretty tired from talking so much.

They invited me to join their monthly group, but I’m a little hesitant about doing it. It’s pretty far away, and giving up one afternoon a month seems like a lot. On the other hand, maybe it would help build connections for the future. They have lots of friends and lots of experience in Japan, and it could be a way to open some doors for me someday. Hmmm….

Kuniko had dinner cooking when I got home, and she served up a delicious healthy dinner of mackeral with a dark savory sauce and some miso and noodle soup that was really delicious. I took a nice hot bath, and I slept like a baby – it was a budy day, but relaxing, too.

Friday at school was pretty nice. I had just three classes, and two of them with Kuroda sensei, who is the only English teacher of the second year students. Her classes are always fun because we play games and do activities – and the students look forward to doing something other than boring lectures.

Kuroda sensei recently broke up with her boyfriend of two years, and I could tell she was really off her game today. I took control of the class on several occasions where normally she would do it. We talked a little bit afterwards, and I tried to give her some advice and to cheer her up a little, but it just takes time. She’s a really nice person though, and pretty good looking, too – she’ll have another boyfriend in no time.

It was my lucky day today because the teachers at school were having a meeting a 3:30 in the afternoon. Strictly speaking I’m supposed to stay until 4 p.m., but the vice principal and I reached an understanding where I can go ahead and skip out if they have a meeting. I waltzed out the door right before the meeting started, and I got an early jump on heading back.

Today after work I took the train all the way back to Nishi Futami, and got off there to do some errands. It was a really weird feeling to get off the train at my old station and walk towards Ito Yokado and the teacher’s apartments. The Japanese word for it is 懐かしい (natsukashii) – kind of a pleasant feeling of remembering fond memories of a time, place, or situation. There’s not really an English word for that – but similar to nostalgia.

The first errand was to the eye doctor, and I waited around the office for almost an hour for an eye exam, and then I got some new contact lenses. The prescription was the same, I just needed some more. They have really good prices at this doctor, and I like the guy. During the eye exam the nurse asked me to read the Japanese characters, and I did a great job if I can be allowed to brag a little bit.

Next stop was Denya, to catch up with the master. I was the only customer at that time, so I bought him a beer and we drank together and I ate some of my favorites from the yakitori. He caught me up on his family and what’s been going on in the neighborhood. He’s such a nice guy – I wish I lived closer so that I could visit more often.

After drinking and hanging out for a while some other customers came in, and it looked like he was going to start getting busy. I took the opportunity to hit the road and did some shopping at Ito Yokado before heading home.

Kuniko came home late tonight, too. She was out drinking with some of her coworkers, and it sounded like she had a good time with them. We’re going to try to invite them over sometime soon – but we’ve already got quite a list of people we want to have over. There’s just not enough time to do all the entertaining we’d like to.

This evening I met up with Kuniko after work at Kobe station, and together we headed over to Kobe Culture Hall to see a concert performed by students from her school. On the way we caught some dinner at a little Japanese style restaurant. I had a good tempura donburi, and Kuniko had eel donburi that was pretty tasty, too. From there, it was on to the show.

I had been to the Culture Hall once before, as part of a JET seminar, so I was familiar with the layout. We met some students at the door, and Kuniko introduced me to a couple of them. They were all giggly and excited to meet Kageyama sensei’s husband. One of the girls had spent some time in Los Angeles, so she made a point to shake my hand and tell me all about herself.

One thing about shaking hands in Japan, is that there are a lot of people that don’t know quite how to do it correctly. The thing that bothers me most is, some people don’t let go of your hand right away, they hold on to it during the conversation. The principal from Takanan did that, and this student did it tonight. I was standing there talking to her and holding hands kind of involuntarily, and it made things a bit uncomfortable for me. Finally she let go, and Kuniko and I went inside to see the show.

The concert started out on the weird side, with some strange choices of music. There were pianos, organs, marimbas, and woodwinds, and they performed in various combinations. There was a full orchestra near the end of the show that was quite good, and the highlight was the chorus at the end – the students did really well on that. I wanted to get a recording of the song – it was that good.

On the way home we resisted the temptation to shop at the import food store at the station, and so we got back at a reasonable hour. It was nice to go out and take in some culture for a change, and it was fun to make an appearance with Kuniko in front of her co-workers and students.

We’re closing in on the end of the week – just a few more fun things to do before the weekend.

Wednesday morning we walked past the junk on the ground on the way to work, and then headed out on the train to Kobe. Kuniko always gets off at Kobe station, and I get off at Sannomiya station. There’s lots of time to chat, even though the whole train is quiet and you know that everyone is listening and trying to figure out what you are saying.

I had a really busy day at school, with five classes out of six periods. The classes themselves weren’t so tough, but there wasn’t a lot of free time. Before I knew it, it was time to head back home.

Rather than heading home, I went back to Takasago to meet with some teachers and hang out. On the train to Takasago I bumped into some ex-students, and they giggled nervously and said some quick greetings before getting off the train.

I walked to an okonomiyaki restaurant near the school to have dinner with a group of teachers. The occasion was the beginning of exams at Takanan, and everyone had played softball earlier in the day so people were sore and aching.

Mainly I hung out with Yamamoto (Satoshi) sensei, and we talked music and travel and English. I talked with a few other teachers, though, and we all got a chance to listen to Oki sensei talk about his terrible school. A couple of years ago he was transferred to an agricultural night school, and this is apparently the bottom of the totem pole for high schools in the area. Every time I see him he’s complaining about it, and tonight was no exception.

As for the food, it was really good. I’ve been to the restaurant before, and it is run by just one lady who cooks everything. We had some big orders, and other people also were there, so we ended up serving ourselves drinks. It’s kind of fun to pour your own beers, and by the end of the night I was getting pretty good at it.

After hanging out for a while, I decided to head home. I tried to pay my share, but they wouldn’t let me. So, I called it a night and left for the station. On the way home I walked by lots of snack bars and nightclubs – Takasago is a completely different town at night.

I took the train back to Akashi, and then transferred to the JR line and came home to Okubo. I managed to get some bathtub time before bed, so that was a bonus. Kuniko and I worked on solving an English test that one of her students took recently, and then it was time to sleep. The rest of the week should be just as busy.

The longer I live in Japan, the more I get used to it. The more I get used to it, the less often I have stories to tell – things that surprised me or crazy behavior that I observe. It’s only natural that living here I’ve come to expect certain behaviors, and so I think nothing of them now, but maybe when I first arrived I was flabbergasted. Sometimes, though, there are things that make me just wonder why.

For example, near our apartment there is a little station to put out your garbage. They are big on recycling in Japan – so there are certain days that you put out your burnable trash, certain days you put out your non-burnable trash, days to put out plastic bottles and aluminum cans, other days for cardboard, and other days for glass bottles. It’s quite complex, but if you have a little chart you can sort it out.

So there are little stations like this all over the place here in Japan, and so if you put the wrong garbage out on the wrong day it sits there until you walk by and notice that you screwed up, and then you take the garbage back and put it out on the right day. But maybe while you were at work that garbage was picked apart by crows, or swelled up in the heat and exploded, or started leaking vile fluids. So you leave it, and it sits out there until the proper day, smelling worse and worse. There is nobody who comes to clean that stuff up, and so it becomes smelly and ugly and it bothers everyone.

Or, maybe you put out something that the garbagemen won’t take. For example, a TV, or electronic components, or a bag of mixed recyclables and trash and non-burnable stuff like batteries. The garbage man comes, sees that it is bad news, and slaps a sticker on it that says, “Sorry, we can’t take it”. Then it sits out there. Who is going to venture back out there and take back the bag? Your neighbors might be watching – are you going to go out there and pick up the bag and show the world how ignorant you were? No way.

Near our place there is a couple bags of various things and a box full of other various things. They have stickers on them that say “Sorry, we can’t take it”. But it’s going on a month now, and who’s going to deal with it? The answer, according to everyone I ask is, nobody. It can’t sit out there forever, but it’s making pretty good progress towards that goal so far.

Anyway, every day we walk to the train station and pass these bags of crap on the street, and I wonder why they are still there in a country that prides itself on cleanliness. Maybe it’s just something that has slipped through the cleanliness cracks.

At school today we started with full-on classes after the exam, and it was very interesting for me. In the first year and the third year our classes are split in half, so there is a teacher with me and one group of students, and then another teacher handles the other half of the students in a different classroom. After the exam, they switched the teachers, so now the Japanese teachers of English are working with students for the first time. That puts me in a very unique position of knowing the students better than the teachers I am with. I’ve already built a little bit of rapport with them, and it’s fun to see the normally confident teachers off their game.

Matsunaga sensei was stunned with the behavior of the new students. She usually runs a tight ship, but her partner, Harada sensei, usually runs it pretty loose. It looks like she going to really have to work hard to whip them into shape. She seemed a little daunted by the task.

I had a good time chatting with some students between classes today. They are getting more and more confident speaking to me, and I do my best to make the conversation run smoothly, even if I have to work a little harder behind the scenes mentally. Sometimes they make mistakes, but I really try to prevent that from stopping the conversation – I try to work around words that they don’t know or concepts that they have trouble communicating. It’s a little bit of a challenge for myself, and I’m getting to the point where I can kind of figure out where students might be going with a train of thought.

Tonight Kuniko is coming home a little late – she’s got to babysit the study room students. I’m back home resting up and maybe I’ll watch a little TV tonight and work on my listening comprehension. Leftovers for dinner – and then probably right to bed. The week starts getting really busy from here on, so updates might be a little late in coming.

I was not so busy at work today. The teachers were reserving most of their classes to return and go over the recent exams, so I had just one class today with Harada sensei. We watched part of “Whale Rider” on DVD, since the textbook had a reading exercise featuring the story.

The reactions of the students were mixed, but it’s hard to get a grasp of the story from just the short pieces that we showed them. Overall I think they were happy to not have to study the same old stuff, and I was really happy to get a DVD player in a classroom and set a precedent. Hopefully I can do some more things with the player in the future.

Other than that class I was desk-bound, and so I studied like crazy and got ready for the rest of the week, which is a little more of a normal schedule. I’ll be busy with lots of classes each day, so I touched base with a few teachers to get an idea of what they were expecting.

Kuniko got home extremely early today – before six. We had some leftovers and are just kicking around the house. It’s a rare event that Kuniko has so much time free at home. I think she might celebrate by going to bed soon.

Here’s the weekend update – I’ve been getting lazy lately and have been writing a little bit less. Kuniko has been working both days this weekend, so I’ve been on my own most of both days.

Friday was a test day at school, and so I had no classes. I just hung out all day at my desk and studied. It has actually been a long time since I’ve had so much study time – I got a lot done. After school I met up with Antoine at a quiet little town called Imazu, which was just one stop away from my school stop. We sat and talked about his relationship with Miwako and how it is progressing. It was very interesting, and we might have some developments in the near future. Friday night was a quiet evening at home – Kuniko and I just watched some TV and relaxed.

Saturday morning Kuniko had to go to the opening ceremony of the prefectural sports event for disabled people, and so was gone during the morning. I received an order from Amazon and so I got a chance to start reading a book that I’ve been looking forward to, 13 moons by Charles Frazier. So far, so good.

Today is Sunday and Kuniko is gone to work – so I’m just hanging out here at home. Today is a special day for the movie theater – all tickets are 1000 yen. I went early and picked up two tickets for a movie tonight, and so when Kuniko gets home we’ll head over there and watch Black Dahlia. I’m going to cook a mexican soup for tonight’s dinner, so pretty soon I’m going to get that cooking. My mom sent some interesting ingredients so I might try some of them out.

That’s about it. It’s back to work on Monday, and I’ve got a normal week ahead of me. I’m going to meet some teachers from Takanan on Wednesday, and there’s a school concert that Kuniko and I are going to see together on Thursday. Friday night I might take a trip to Futami to buy contact lenses and have dinner at Denya. Other than that, pretty quiet.

Today in class I had a couple of interesting observations. At one point, the teacher I was teaching with, Mr. Harada, asked me to pronounce “aunt” for the students after telling them over and over how to pronounce it. He pronounced it the British way, and so when I pronounced it like “ant”, he was a little surprised. In that situation, we just went through it, and he was a good sport about it. I certainly wasn’t going to pronounce it another way, so it was up to him to adapt. Maybe he should have checked with me beforehand.

Another observation was that the students on a couple of occasions have had to translate English into Japanese, and they seem to prefer translating into katakana English – that is, words borrowed from English and adapted for use in Japanese. In many cases there are traditional Japanese words available, but the students prefer to use the ones borrowed from another language. Does this mean that the original Japanese words could be lost in the future by falling out of general use? I like the idea that the Japanese language is gradually sounding more and more like English.

I did some recording of listening tests in between classes today, and I think we’re all ready to go for the big test day tomorrow. I have no classes – so I’m going to go to work and just hang out and get paid. Nice!

Tonight we ate chicken tacos for dinner, and now we’re just chilling out around the house. Kuniko is in the middle of one of her long stretches without a holiday – she has to work both days this weekend – so I’m just trying to give her every chance to rest up when she’s at home.

I’m off to study kanji – I’m still not brave enough to bring the Nintendo DS to work and study there. When I’m punching away at the DS I’m sure everyone will think I’m playing Super Mario or something. That’s the big drawback to using it as a study tool for adults. There is a little bit of a stigma about using it. But in the comfort of my own home, anything goes…

At school today I had a surprising amount of birthday wishes, both from teachers and from students. Back when I had done my self-introductions, some of the students had asked when my birthday was, and I guess they remembered and made sure to swing by and wish me well.

As for the day at work, I had only two classes. One class was cancelled, un-cancelled, changed, and then finally cancelled in the end. So there was a little bit of suspense, but nothing more dramatic than that.

After work I met up with Kuniko in Sannomiya, and we went to have a birthday dinner at Baan Thai. It’s a really good Thai restaurant near the station in a risque neighborhood. It’s a tiny place, and it’s hard to get a seat without a reservation. Luckily Kuniko had called ahead and taken care of everything. We sat down and ordered some juices, and then picked some dishes from the menu.

The menu is pretty big, and there were lots of dishes to choose from. We picked out four different dishes, and when they arrived we had a variety of different flavors. Everything was awesome, and we were both glad that we ended up choosing Thai food. The more I ate, the more I liked it.

After dinner we caught some dessert at the Haagen Dazs ice cream store – somewhere I’ve never been before. It was pretty good – they had some flavors that I had never seen before. Finally we headed on home, and went to bed soon after with our bellies full.

I’m watching the Japanese version of COPS. There are some big differences. Most of the time they are chasing people for not wearing helmets on motorcyles, no domestic disturbances yet. They just chased down one guy who tried to run and led the cops through the city on a chase. The first thing they said when they caught him – “Are you OK?”

That’s some serious culture shock. Now the cops are eating ramen and fried rice instead of donuts. It’s fun to watch them suit up in kevlar and hit the mean streets of Japan.

I went into work today sleepy, but not sore – despite all the heavy lifting yesterday. My students were seriously sleepy today – hard to believe that they had three days off. Maybe they were harvesting rice, too.

I learned that my first year students have no idea who Britney Spears or Brad Pitt is. There is hope for our youth. They did know who the prime minister of Japan was, and they did know who Tom Cruise was. We’re doing a class on the third person, and so I introduced a bunch of people that I was sure everyone would know – and I was surprised at the result. It was an interesting experiment, though.

I had a scary moment when I showed up for my third period class with Harada sensei. She looked at me like I was crazy and told me that I was in the wrong classroom. I though I was in the right place, but she produced a schedule that showed me somewhere else. There was a moment of panic before I realized that she had an old version of the schedule. I ran upstairs and got the updated schedule and showed her, and so she had to put together a class right on the spot. She was a little embarrassed, but the students never cottoned on to the fact that we were improvising like crazy.

It’s evening now and I’m back home cooking some eggplant parmesan in the oven. Kuniko is due to arrive in the next thirty minutes, and I’ve got nothing planned this evening but a lot of ironing. I’m starting to convert from warm weather clothes to cool/cold weather clothes. It’s right at the turning point of the season – and the wardrobes are going to have to change.

Monday was a holiday, so we slept in a little bit, and then headed off to lunch at Kuniko’s parents’ house. They had bought a couple of bento boxes for us to snack on, and from there we headed to the family farm to do some work and kill time until our appointment with the rice polisher.

Kuniko’s dad had already harvested the rice, and so at around 3 o’clock we went over there and they had already processed the rice. The guy there used a machine to meter out the rice into bags, 30 kilograms at a time. 30 kilograms is around 70 pounds, so they were pretty heavy bags.

Everyone gathered around and tied them up, and then I threw them onto the truck. We got three truckloads out of there, and now everyone will have plenty of rice to last the whole year long.

It was a good experience – and despite carrying so much heavy stuff it wasn’t too tough. We came back to the homestead after that, and Kuniko’s mom cooked us a big dinner, with curry and sashimi, and we drank cold beer and just relaxed. It was a good end to a long weekend.

It wouldn’t be a visit to the in-laws without being sent home with loads of fresh vegetables. We had several bags, and even some birthday cake that Kuniko’s mom had made for me.

On the way home we hit Ito Yokado to take advantage of a sale and to see our old hangout. We even bumped into Yasu’s mom, and got to see pictures of Yasu’s brother’s new baby.

After that we came right on home and took a hot bath together. The nice thing about the bathtub is that we can both fit in this one. I’m hoping to take a bath every night this winter. Tomorrow is back to school – but I don’t have a really tough schedule this week so it should be a piece of cake.

It’s the middle of a long weekend, and I’d better get you up to speed on what’s going on. Friday was a pretty quiet day. I took it easy at school and got home right on time. I bought a couple of steaks and cooked them up with beans when Kuniko got home, and full of protein and energy I settled in for a long weekend of rest.

Saturday Kuniko had to go in to work, and I stayed home and sat on my butt watching TV and movies all day. I did a little laundry and some housecleaning, but that’s pretty much it. We had a nice dinner of yakisoba that Kuniko made, and after dinner I was feeling better so we went out to catch a late movie at the local theater. It was “Lady in the Water” and I’ve never been more disappointed in a movie. I’m still kind of in shock – what a weird one that was. It wasn’t weird like Adaptation, it was weird like “What was the point of that”-weird.

It’s Sunday today and we’re lounging around the house. For a time Kuniko was flirting with going in to work, but she got over the temptation and we’re in for the day. In the evening we’re going to head into Kobe to meet up with Antoine and his girlfriend – that should be fun.

Monday is a holiday, and we’re signed up to help lug around some rice that is being harvested at the Kageyama family farm. After helping to plant the rice a while back, it’ll be fun to get to see the final stage of growing it. Another first for me.

Signing off for now – more later!

I was still feeling crappy today, but the weekend is in sight, and so I’m just trying to get through the next two days.

My students were in a weird mood again today. In my classes they were joking around with me a lot and I’m starting to realize that they are really just starting to get comfortable with me. One kid between classes was whispering things like “Your breath smells bad” to me on a dare. He would look back at the other kid and giggle. I would just smile and shake my head and pretend I didn’t understand.

Some other students came in and asked me how to say “hair growth cream” in English. I’m sure they wanted to torment some poor balding teacher, so I played stupid and it worked nicely.

I had the afternoon free, and so I tagged along with the first year students on a field trip to a local sake brewery.

Interesting story – the school is practically surrounded by sake breweries. There are at least five that I know of, and since they are a big part of the local economy, the students went to learn more about it. Unfortunately they didn’t do any tasting for us.

I went with one group of students to Hakashika (White Deer) sake brewery. To be precise, we went to a sake museum rather than the brewery itself. The museum was full of some pretty nice displays, but there were a few cheesy dioramas in there, too. The students really enjoyed running around instead of being in class, and I guess I did, too.

I asked the age-old question of how to know whether to drink the sake hot or cold, and got the answer I expected to. As we walked back with the students I reflected on the fact that I have a job that lets me visit a sake brewery in the afternoon, and I think I’m pretty lucky. It was a fun change.

Spending the afternoon at the brewery put my studying behind schedule, but it was worth it. I caught up on the train home, and now I’m back and getting ready for Kuniko’s arrival home. We’re going to have a simple salad for dinner tonight. I always start throwing in exotic ingredients into my salads – tonight I’m going to try to resist the temptation.

Tomorrow is Friday – finally.

The biggest thing to report about Wednesday was that suddenly on Thursday night I started to get a sore throat, and then I woke up properly sick in the morning. The sore throat was bad, and I was already sniffling and coughing. I’ve never had a cold come on so fast.

Despite being sick I went ahead and went into work. I had some good classes, and they gave my voice a workout. In a couple of them I had to read some long passages, over and over again. I kind of hoped the teacher would take my condition into account, but no such luck.

At the end of the day we had an award ceremony, and it went on and on. It seemed to me that nearly half the students in the school won some kind of award or another. I usually stand in the back for those kinds of things, but I found myself sitting along with all the other students after the first hour or so.

Finally, we went and did cleaning, and during the cleaning there were some crazy kids across the way screaming out English phrases. At Takanan it was hard to get anyone to even speak English, but here they are screaming out English unbidden. I enjoyed listened to them shrieking out things like “Jelly is delicious!” and “Koro was disappointed!” The other teachers were a little concerned, but in the end they just let them go for it.

After work I met up with Kuniko in Kobe. There was a grand opening of a new Hanshin department store in Sannomiya (oddly named “Mint”) and so we went over together to check it out. It was fun to look around. There were lots of people doing the same thing we were, and it took a while to cover the place. We found some interesting restaurants on the top floors – including an oyster bar and gumbo place, and a branch of a ramen restaurant that Kuniko and I used to like to visit near her old place in Shin-Osaka.

We came on back and had ramen at home, in an attempt to save money and soothe my throat in one shot. The ramen totally hit the spot, and not long after that I went to bed and crashed. Kuniko is really covering a lot of the household chores while I’m sick, so I hope I can get well soon to pitch in and help.