The last couple of days have had me traveling around a little bit looking for shoes that fit. My idea was that I could get a new pair of hiking shoes for the upcoming trip – we’ll be walking quite a bit and I want to make sure that my shoes are up to it.

To make a long story short, I confirmed what I already knew – nothing in my size is out there. I did find some shoes in a US size 11, but I really wear a 12 or 13, and I don’t want to squeeze my feet like that. It’s time for another overseas trip for shoes.

While I was running around yesterday I bought some Euros at my bank in preparation for the trip. What strange looking money – just as colorful and almost the same size as Monopoly money. That’ll take some getting used to.

I did find one good thing yesterday – ravioli. It was on a shelf in an import food store in Kobe, and so I took it home and cooked it up for Kuniko for dinner when she came home. She got home at a reasonable hour, and she also had time to get her hair done on the way home. It looks really good – you’ll see it once I post the vacation pictures when we get back.

Today I’m going to go back to Takasago Minami to meet up with some English teachers and then take a trip to Yashiro to meet the new ALT. I remember clearly getting off the bus in Yashiro three years ago with Antoine beside me cracking jokes. The sound of cicadas was really loud, and I remember wondering what that horrible screeching noise was. Then they lined us up like we were being picked for peewee baseball. That was weird, and now I get to see it from another perspective.

I’ll get home late tonight because I’m going to help her get settled in. The week is going by quickly – before you know it it’ll be time to leave for the airport.

Kuniko was up early and gone this morning. I woke up with her and made some quick breakfast, tried to help out wherever I could, and said goodbye at the door. She looked really tired, and a little frustrated with having so little time for herself.

Meanwhile, I’m playing the stay-at-home-husband today. I did some laundry early and hung it out to dry, and I’ll do a little bit of shopping across the street at Jusco later on.

Speaking of Jusco – this place has an interesting feel to it. I haven’t spent much time in the midwest, but this place looks to me like a tiny supermarket that you’d find in North Dakota somewhere. It’s shaped like a big igloo or quonset hut, and you can just imagine walking there in the snow, kicking the snow off your boots, and then going inside to buy groceries for the family back home. Except they probably don’t sell boiled octopus in North Dakota supermarkets. Maybe, who knows?

I really like the feel of the place, and since it is right across the street and it’s open until midnight, we’ll be regulars there just like we were at Ito Yokado. So far the people have been nice and friendly, and only once was I accosted by a drunk old lady trying to get me to buy eggs because they were only 99 yen a box.

Anyway, Jusco (pronounced JAS-CO) will figure prominently in my daily writings from now on – I’ll try to take a picture of it next time I’m walking by.

Today I’m going to the bank to buy some Euros for our trip, and I was considering a run to Carrefour because in the back of my mind I thought that they sometimes had large shoe sizes there. I don’t know if it’s worth a trip or not, though.

I got a new kanji program for the Nintendo DS, so I’ve been playing a little bit. The bad news is that they assume that you are Japanese and have already studied kanji at least through elementary school. That makes it a little challenging. The good news is that they test everything, and they do it in a fun way, and already my kanji writing skills have improved. I’m hoping if I stick with it I will improve steadily. It’s embarrassing how bad my writing is.

Well, more later. For now I’m off to clean house and do a little bit of studying.

Well, despite what I said the other day about there being not much to write about… in fact, there is.

Sunday Kuniko went off to work early in the morning for her tea ceremony session with her students, and so I had all day to kill by myself. The weather was brilliant – sunny and clear. It was hot, too, so that factored into my plans a little and I decided to skip a hiking trip that I had considered for fear of heatstroke.

I hit the road to Akashi in the late morning on a quest to do something I hadn’t done in a long time – get a library card.

The Akashi city library is located right in the middle of the city park, built on top of and around the ruins of the Akashi castle. The park is beautiful, and I’m very happy to be living a little closer to it now. I walked through the park after leaving the station, and there were all kinds of activities going on. There was a traditional dance competition that was quite large – teams of people in costumes practiced together all over the place, and then there was a big stage in the middle of the big grassy area in the front of the park for them to perform on. There was TV coverage as well, so it was pretty involved.

In the park’s baseball stadium high school teams were playing each other to represent the area in the all-Japan high school championship held every year over at the Hanshin Tigers’ stadium – Koshien park.

I walked through all the commotion and climbed the hill that used to make up the backside of the castle foundation, heading towards the library. The walk was nice, and as always I felt that tinge of “Wow, I’m in Japan!” as I walked through the forest being buzzed by dragonflies and butterflies, crossing Japanese-style bridges along the way.

Finally I reached the library – about a 10 minute walk from the station, but it felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. I’ve only explored a small portion of the library – there is an academic section that I haven’t really looked at as well as some special rooms and even a restaurant.

I worked with a nice lady who helped me get up with a library card, checked out my first book (Dick Francis’ 10 lb. Penalty in Japanese) and even helped me reserve another book that I want to read. The only downside to all this is that the check-out time is around three weeks, which is no problem for English books but a little tough for Japanese. It beats buying books at the store all the time, though.

After the library I walked back to town, did a quick search for shoes (my size not available) and finally grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed home.

In a very pleasant surprise Kuniko got home around 4:30 in the afternoon – which is pretty early for her, even on a Sunday. We relaxed around the house and then decided to go out to dinner to celebrate – she hasn’t had much time off at all lately. She’ll be working right up until the day we leave for Europe – it’s a tight schedule. She’s only had a few days off last month, and those days we were moving. In an effort to relieve the stress we went to an Italian restaurant across the street from our place for dinner.

The place had a good atmosphere, and wasn’t so busy. Even though it wasn’t packed, food came at a very leisurely pace, and it was a good thing we weren’t starving. We had a octopus and vegetable salad that was really good, a pasta with gorgonzola cream sauce, and a cheese pizza with various cheeses on it – really tasty.

We walked off the dinner by patrolling Saty and Vivre, and finally came home and hit the sack. Tomorrow is Monday, and Kuniko will be leaving early to fight in the trenches again.

Saturday Kuniko had to go into work, and since I am unemployed it didn’t feel like anything special to stay home all day. There isn’t much to tell you about. I worked on unpacking all day, did some laundry, and made one shopping trip.

The shopping trip was to get some super sunlight-reducing curtains for the bedroom. The morning sun seems to shine right in and heat the place up early in the morning. Luckily I found some good curtains that looked like they’d do the trick. I had a little trouble with the dimensions – the kanji for height and width were some that I hadn’t seen before. Luckily when I got them back and hung them up they look fine.

I bumped into one of my ex-students with her mother on the way back. I said a quick hello in Japanese and greeted me back and kept moving. I used to be surprised how often my father, an elementary school teacher, would run into ex-students. I now seemed to be doomed to the same fate.

I bought some upscale groceries on the way home, and made a big avocado and ham sandwich for lunch. I washed it down with an Australian beer that I found in Vivre (Victoria Bitter) and then went on cleaning up the house.

It went like that for the rest of the day until Kuniko got home, and then I served up a cold salad for dinner and we sat and talked about each other’s day. We had to drive to Saty and drop off the mistaken furniture – they took it back, embarrassed, and didn’t so much as offer us a parking voucher. Kuniko bought some fabric for her tea ceremony event on Sunday, and also we got a DVD, even though we don’t even have a TV.

We gave our TV to Brenda, so now there is a great big hole in the living room. Actually, there are two holes – we gave away our sofa, too. We sit on the floor in the empty living and stare at the corner. To rub it in, we’ve got a whole rack of DVDs to watch, but nothing to watch them on. We had planned since before our wedding to get a new TV after we moved, and we’ll probably get it soon after we get back from our vacation. We both want a plasma TV, and the prices have been falling recently so it might be a good time to get one. Big, big, big!

Since I’m going to be doing not much at all over the next week or so, I’ll fill in the time by describing the new neighborhood, instead of describing in detail what boxes I unpacked lately. I like the neighborhood, and there are some really interesting things to write about.

Today I got up early with Kuniko even though I really didn’t have to. There was nobody expecting me at work today and I had no special plans – just build furniture and unpack the boxes that are laying around the bedroom and living room.

I started by building the bookshelves that we’ll be using in the living room for DVDs. The instructions were well illustrated, and even though everything was in Japanese I was able to work out what I needed to do. It took about 30 minutes to build, and afterwards I loaded it up with DVDs and it looks pretty good.

Next I brought in the laundry storage rack that we had bought. This sucker was heavy. After I opened it I saw why – there were two boxes inside the one single box. They had given us two laundry racks for the price of one. It was a 7000 yen mistake – I had only paid for the one piece. Now we’ll have to drive back there and give them back the extra one. I like laundry racks but we don’t need two.

After building all the furniture I went to the post office to mail some stuff, and then did some shopping at Jasco and came home. I ate a chicken bento that was on sale across the street. It was good, but not so healthy. If I’m going to be properly unemployed for the month of August I’m going to have to come up with some cheap meals for lunch. I picked up some lunchmeat so I can make sandwiches, and maybe I’ll have that for lunch starting tomorrow.

I finally got the internet connection up and running and spent some time catching up on e-mail and seeing what is happening out in the world. We don’t have a TV now, and without the internet connection I had no idea what was going on. Luckily, not much new.

I also got a chance to talk with my folks on the phone. They had a great trip to Idaho recently, and it was nice to hear about the good times they had. I gave them our new information, and here it is for you:

312-1-301 Okubo
Okubo-cho Akashi-shi Hyogo-ken
Japan 674-0051

Our phone number is 078-935-2825

Well, I’m back to unpacking and doing some laundry while there is some sun out. Tonight is Friday night but I think we’ll be taking it easy and resting up. Kuniko has to work both Saturday and Sunday, so we’ll need to take some rest whenever we can get it.

I went into Futami around 9:30 in the morning and met up with two members of my office staff to check out of the old apartment. We had to wait for a member of the prefectural government to come out and check the condition of the apartment, and so we shot the breeze for a while until he showed up. The guy was very thorough, and he didn’t give me any trouble about the condition of the place – it’s an old place and he was realistic.

There was a slight deviation from protocol because the new tatami hadn’t arrived yet. I heard from the tatami people that they couldn’t install the new tatami until the evening, so that kind of sucked. The guy was understanding enough, but I think he’ll have to come back out and check it out later. We heard from him officially that my successor Brenda wouldn’t be living in this apartment – she’ll be moving into a fourth floor single-sized apartment. Bummer, Brenda.

To his credit, the office manager gave the representative lots of crap about not only getting a single but also hearing about it a week before she arrives. He really laid into the guy, although he couched it in lots of very polite language. My office manager was older than the prefectural representative, so that gave him an advantage and he could really dig into the guy. I enjoyed watching the show.

I am a little worried because a lot of the stuff that I left Brenda might not fit in her tiny apartment. The last thing I want is somebody telling me to take it back, when I’ve just finished squeezing everything into our current place. That’s my big worry now, and it won’t be resolved until sometime after Brenda returns.

After checking out of my place, we went up and looked at Brenda’s apartment. It was tiny – and i’m glad that I didn’t have to live there. The cooking area of the kitchen was about the same size as my old place, but the bathrooms were tiny and the sink to wash your hands after using the bathroom was in the kitchen. There was a fair amount of storage space, however, and I think it will probably work out.

After surveying the apartment we headed back to school, and I spent the day saying goodbye to people and delivering presents to various people. I gave wine to the principal, vice principal, and the office manager who helped me get rid of all my crap. I gave a copy of my favorite book to Tsutsumi sensei, and another book to Nozaki sensei. I gave two Allman Brothers Band CDs to Yamamoto sensei, and to everyone else I gave them a small piece of paper with my address, phone number, and email.

I finished up everything around noon, and I was a little hungry, so I decided to make my move and take off. I gave a final goodbye to everyone and walked out to the front of the school, taking my pair of inside shoes with me – the same pair that I’ve been wearing at work for three years.

In front of the school I took a second to turn around and take it all in, and then I headed down the street one last time to the Takasago train station. On the way there I passed a few students, and they cheerfully called out “Goodbye, Bryan!” in English to me, and that was a great way to end my stint at Takanan.

Even though it was my last day of school, I’m going back next week on a volunteer basis to help out with getting Brenda settled. The trick will be to avoid moving all my old crap up to Brenda’s apartment on the fourth floor – hopefully I can stay busy until that is taken care of.

Next stop was Akashi, where I had some cold ramen noodles at a restaurant near the shopping center there. It used to be an expensive trip from my old place to Akashi, and now it is a short trip and much cheaper from my new place. That means I’ll probably spend more time there which is good news for the underground sushi restaurant, the okonomiyaki place I like near the Akashi Castle Hotel, and most of all for the owner of Donkey. Maybe I should join the dart team…

I went up to Toys R Us in Akashi to look for a kanji training game for the DS. Unfortunately they were sold out like everyone else – I should have bought it earlier when I had the chance. It looks like a great way to learn how to write kanji. It’s designed for everyone from kids to adults. I’ll have to keep searching.

It feels weird to be shopping in Toys R Us as an adult. I’m sensitive to the looks I get from the mothers shopping with their kids. The look is like, “Shouldn’t you be at work now?” combined with “Aren’t you a little old to be playing with toys?” I got out of the quickly and didn’t linger over the cool robot toys. Maybe when I have a kid I won’t feel so nervous in there.

I came on back home to Okubo and ran some errands around town on foot. The air conditioning is really nice in the house and it makes a big difference when you come in out of the heat into a nice cool room. How could you live without it?

Kuniko got home a little early today, and so we both sat around and talked about our days until around 5:30, and then we headed to Saty to buy Carrie a farewell present. We found what we were looking for in a store called “Starvations” – a T-shirt store that has shirts with strange expressions and funny English.

We picked out a shirt that had an illustrated alligator with his jaws wide open, with a couple of little birds sitting on his nose. The English caption read “Be Suddenly Hungry”. It was so cool that Kuniko got one, too, and then we caught the train to Akashi and met up with Carrie one last time.

We met up and walked over to the okonomiyaki place for dinner. The owner remembered us and asked how my family was doing – he’s a really nice guy and I felt a little bad for not going there more. We settled in and ordered food, and talked over beers.

Carrie’s next stop is the Philippines with her boyfriend for a couple of weeks, and then she’ll come back to Japan briefly and fly back home to Seattle from here. She doesn’t have a job lined up yet, but I’m sure she’ll find something soon. She’ll be trying to maintain a long distance relationship with her boyfriend in England, which may be a little bit of a challenge, but I’m sure she can pull it off.

We talked a long time and then headed back to the station to say goodbye. We both got a big hug and then said farewell. I’m sure I’ll be seeing Carrie again before long. She was one of the really nice people that I met when I first arrived in Japan.

With a couple of beers in us we decided to head into Saty on the way home and shop for shelves. Lately we’ve been shopping for shelves quite a bit but for some reason have had trouble finding something that both of us like. Like when we picked out our wedding rings – we just go shopping with a bit of a buzz going and everything works out fine. We found some shelves pretty quickly, and we also got some shelving for the bathroom, too. We bought them but realized that they were way too heavy to carry all the way back home, so we left them there and then went back and got the car. Kuniko passed an impromptu sobriety check, so she drove the 5-6 blocks back to Saty and we loaded up the two heavy packages into the car and came home.

I took the first piece up the two flights of stairs to our apartment, but when I came back down for the second piece, Kuniko’s car had automatically locked itself. I had to run upstairs and get Kuniko to lean out our door and use her clicker to unlock it again. Then I went downstairs and headed to the car, but as I approached it – it locked again. Kuniko had already gone back inside, so I had to run back up the stairs again, and this time I brought Kuniko and the keys with me and finally I was able to lug the last heavy piece back upstairs. It was like something out of a movie.

We were both too tired to do any furniture assembly tonight, so that’ll be on list of things to do tomorrow, my first day of unemployment.

Wednesday I went off to school, taking the long way on the train system because there is no direct train line from Okubo to Futami. It is a little expensive, but since it is just a few days this week I can afford it. I worked for a couple of hours in the morning organizing my desk, but the whole time I was stressing over the pile of difficult to dispose of garbage on the back porch at home. I was hoping to ask Yamamoto sensei for some help in getting rid of it, but unfortunately his father passed away recently, and he wasn’t at school.

Instead I went and talked to the office manager about it. He is a really nice guy and is just realizing just how much Japanese I can understand and speak. We talked about it for a while and we decided to drive over there and take a look. I showed him how to get there, and when we arrived we looked around at the apartment, mostly empty except for the stuff that I am leaving for my successor.

He looked at all the weird junk and said that we should load it in his car and take it back to the school. On Thursday a representative from the prefectural government was coming to check out the apartment and make sure it was OK. I soon realized that it was more important for the office manager that we have a clean apartment than any inconvenience for him moving crap around. We loaded it all up, and then the office manager asked me to maybe clean up just a little bit more before tomorrow.

We got back to school with my junk and pulled up next to the maintenance worker shack. He was surprisingly not so concerned about us dropping off all my unwanted crap next to his shed. In fact, he got excited about some of the stuff and I was very pleased that someone might get some use out of stuff that I was expecting to have to pay money to get rid of.

The rest of the day was pretty mild, and I went home a little early to get a jump on the cleaning that the office manager had hinted about. I came back to Futami, and bought a few last minute cleaning supplies at IY, and then spent about an hour gathering every last thing and doing some detail work around the empty house.

Kuniko got off early from work, and we worked some logistics and she came over in her car to Futami. We met up in IY where I was shopping for some farewell presents for teachers, and from there we packed her car with the last load out of the old house, and then took off. Before we left we used the last of the points on our IY card to buy some groceries, and then we headed to Carrefour and Midori to look for some good shelves for the living room. Unfortunately we struck out on the shelves, but we did get some cheese, flowers and wine at Carrefour.

That night we stayed home and had cheese and crackers for dinner, and relaxed in the evening. Our repaired Nintendo DS arrived in the mail, so we hunkered down in the air conditioned living room and played games and relaxed. We’ve still got lots of unpacking to do, but it has been so hot and we’ve been so tired in the evenings that we haven’t been able to make headway. Luckily, I’ll be unemployed starting on Friday, so I can get a lot done then.

Tuesday I had to go to work, and then come home early because the air conditioner guy was coming over. At work I just hung around and talked to people. Students were surprised that I was still around, and I talked to a few of them for a while. Money continued to come in – various people gave me cash to help me with my new life.

Around noon I was gone and arrived home in time to let the air conditioner guys come in and get to work. Actually, the guy is a friend of Kuniko’s dad. He wasn’t clear on my relationship with Kuniko’s dad, but he was cheerful and they worked hard. There wasn’t much I could do while they were working. They were working in the two rooms with all the boxes. I did laundry, and worked on some odd jobs until they were just wrapping up when Kuniko got home in the afternoon. She wasn’t feeling well at work so she came home early.

She actually knew the air conditioning guy, and they set the record straight on the relationship and you could see the light dawning in the guy’s eyes. He left around five and we had two cool rooms thanks to the power of air conditioning and the power of Kuniko’s dad’s wallet.

He actually dropped by that evening to check on things, and we served him some tea and let him sit in our cool living room and enjoy his present to us. Before long he left, but I could tell he was really happy that we’ll have some cooling this summer in the living room.

We were still working on the pumpkin, so Kuniko made mabodofu (pumpkin instead of tofu) and pumpkin fried rice and both were great. We finally finished off the pumpkin, and we got several great meals out of it.

Monday I had taken the day off from work to continue cleaning and organizing. I hung out in Okubo organizing there, and was there when the NTT guy came over to hook up our phone. Still no internet – hopefully we can get that taken care of later in the week.

I spent all day unpacking at home – I had plenty to do, and to tell the truth I didn’t really make much of a dent. The biggest chore was getting the washing machine installed so we could do laundry. The washer connects to the water source in the wall, usually by screwing on a fixture that has a gasket inside. Then the other end is a quick release connector attached to a hose that runs to the machine. Every time I screwed on the little fixture and turned on the water, it would leak. I went to Saty to buy a replacement, and the guy said that I was doing it wrong and showed me the right way. It made sense, so I went home and tried that, but it still leaked. I went back to Saty and bought a new fixture, and then that was leaking, too.

Finally I gave up and went looking around town until I found a hardware store, and asked the guy there what I should do. The guy was extremely helpful and said that many people have the same problem. He had another solution involving a big wrench and a new stainless steel piece, and I gladly paid for the wrench and the new piece, because I could see that there was no way this was going to leak. I got home and with great satisfaction hooked up the machine and started doing laundry.

Kuniko came home and we went shopping for curtains, and also got a stove for the kitchen for a pretty good price. We went home and got to work hooking everything up, and we were set.

Kuniko’s folks gave us a pumpkin from their garden, and it was a fairly big one. Kuniko got to work on making some dishes out of it. She worked hard in the hot kitchen and came up with three delicious pumpkin dishes – a baked pumpkin quiche, a cold pumpkin and onion salad, and a pumpkin spaghetti carbonara. I opened up a bottle of good red wine and it made a nice complement to all the excellent food. It was way too much food for one night, so we sampled everything and then put the leftovers away for breakfast the next day.

Sunday I headed over to the old place to clean, and Kuniko went to work for a little bit and then started unpacking in the new place. I took the early train to Futami, and it was weird to arrive at the Nishi Futami station and head for the apartment so early in the morning. It already felt like it wasn’t home anymore. Ito Yokado wasn’t open yet, so I walked around, and then got set up cleaning in the old place.

During the packing there were lots of things that piled up that we didn’t want. Usually we could just throw things away, but these were not legal to throw away for various reasons. Everything was junk, but it was not burnable or it was hazardous. I was really worrying about what we were going to do with these. I piled it all up on the back porch, and spent the rest of the day cleaning the house. I bought some cleaning supplies and some water and ice from IY when it opened, and plugged in a radio and listened to a strange Japanese FM station that played a mix of western music and contemporary Japanese jazz. Outside it rained steadily, and I just kept scrubbing until five o’clock. Kuniko came over and took some of the last stuff in the car, and we went back to Okubo. She had completely unpacked the kitchen and started arranging things in there. I liked her layout – we’ll try it out for a while and see what works and what doesn’t.

We ended up eating 100 yen sushi at a Sushi-ro, one of our favorite conveyor belt sushi places for dinner. We ate 25 plates of sushi between us, so we left full and it wasn’t so expensive. We still need to buy a stove for the kitchen, so until then we get to eat out for a while.

Saturday we got up early and moved two loads of stuff to Okubo before Kuniko’s parents arrived at our old place in Futami. Kuniko’s dad got to work right away uninstalling the air conditioner, since we were planning on taking it with us. Kuniko and I started moving big stuff into her parents’ truck, and finally we all drove over to Okubo with two car loads of stuff.

I really hate moving. There was a stretch of time some years back where I moved maybe five times in three years, and each time was hell. This move was right up there with the toughest moves I’ve done. In the middle of summer, in another language, up two flights of stairs – there were lots of challenges. To make a long story short, we did two loads on Saturday and got 90% of our stuff into the new place. The weather worked out for us – sunny all day. I would hate to have done that move in the rain.

Kuniko’s dad remarked that it was nice to have air conditioning in the bedroom, but what about the living room? He decided to buy us a present of a new air conditioner for the living room. We told him that we were fine – we survived with just one in the teacher’s apartments in Futami, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and made arrangements on his cell phone to have it installed along with the old air conditioner.

Finally we wrapped up the day and Kuniko’s folks went home. Kuniko and I made a trip to a store that changes tatami mats and fusuma doors – I was on the hook to buy a new set for the old place since I was moving out. Andy, my predecessor, had to buy new tatami and fusuma doors for me – it cost him about $1000 U.S. I was worried about the price – that’s the cost of a round trip ticket to America! But, we found a cheap place and it ended up costing only around $500. Not so bad. Sorry you got reamed, Andy.

For dinner that night we ordered in pizza and sat in the living room with the fan blowing on us surrounded by boxes. We drank some cold beer from the Jusco supermarket across the street, and enjoyed relaxing in a new environment.

The good news about this place is that it has a real shower, and a super digital bathtub. The hot water comes right out of the faucet, so the days of turning on a big furnace and waiting around for the bath to heat up are over. To tell the truth, we didn’t really realize that this place had that feature – shame on the guy who showed it to us because it would have been a lock right away.

So the shower is great – I had a shower for just a little while in Futami but it was only really effective in summer. During the winter it wouldn’t deliver hot water. I unhooked it and started taking baths. Kuniko’s old place in Osaka had a great shower, and we always used to talk about how nice that was back in the day. This new place has the exact same shower, so it’s like a return to the golden days of bathing for me.

The super digital bathtub is really cool. You set the temperature of the water, and push a button, and the bathtub fills to whatever level you like at exactly the temperature you want, and then when it gets there it sounds a little alarm to tell you that it is ready. It maintains the temperature by adding more hot water automatically, and it’s big enough for two.

Anyway, all this sweating and heavy lifting had taken a toll, so I took a cold shower, a hot bath, and then a cold shower again. I ended up taking about an hour to enjoy it, and came out refreshed and clean. Seriously – this was a pinnacle moment in my life. I’m never going to forget that shower and bath.

But, it’s back to reality and we’ve still got a lot of work to do. Tomorrow, we’re going to split up the workload.

On Friday we decided to get a jump on moving day. We both took a day off from work, and we started packing up stuff in the car and ferrying it over to the new place. With key in hand we unlocked the new apartment and looked around – it had been almost a month since we had seen it. The place looked good, though, and we started putting our stuff inside. It is up two big flights of stairs, so you really had to try to take a lot. That made for a couple of very tired people at the end of the day.

It was a cycle we went through – load up the stuff in Futami, get in the car all sweaty and depend on the air conditioning until we reached Okubo, then unload everything and get back in the car all sweaty again. I carried a towel with me at all times to deal with all the sweat.

We had lunch at a ramen place near our new apartment, and unfortunately it was one of those really greasy places that puts lots of extra fat into the broth. Everything else was good, but the fat was a real turn off for us. Luckily we were burning it off so fast today that it wasn’t likely to stick around long.

In the afternoon we spent time at the old place getting it ready for the big move the next day, and we were so tired that we even fell asleep for a little while. We woke up on time though to head into Akashi and meet up with Tamura sensei and her boyfriend for a farewell dinner for Yuri.

We hadn’t seen any of these guys for quite a while. Tamura sensei is not working now – I’m not sure if that is by choice or not. Her boyfriend Takuma is going to school and working on landing a part time job. It sounds like he’s got a full time job lined up after he finishes college, so that is good news. Yuri was sad to be heading home, and it was sad to say goodbye to her. We showered her with presents, and there was even another guest – a friend of hers that she met randomly in Japan along with his wife and their baby.

Their baby was cute, but she was scared of me – big time. I tried holding her and she broke out in tears. I felt so bad – usually I’m good with kids. Maybe it was the smell of sweat from all the moving we did.

We ate lots of food and left the place stuffed. We said our final farewells at the station, and then everyone headed off in different directions. I was sorry to see Yuri go, but I’m sure she’ll have a great time back in the states. She wasn’t sure if she would stay the last year or not – I think sometimes she regretted sticking around as long as she did. She’ll do fine, though – she’s smart and funny and bilingual – that’s a big plus when it comes to finding work.

We slept soundly at Futami that night, keeping in mind that it would be our last night there. Kind of the end of an era for me.

Today was a big day. It was the last day that I would be at school with the students – they were having a closing ceremony, and starting tomorrow most of them wouldn’t come to school. In the staff room I was asked to make a goodbye speech to the teachers, so I did a short goodbye in Japanese. I was pretty nervous, though. The teachers all smiled and clapped, and I sat down with some relief at the end of the speech.

Soon after we had the closing ceremony in the gymnasium. I sat on the stage to one side in a chair, and then the principal came up on stage and spoke from the podium. He told the students how I had found a new job, how I had spent three years at the school and had even gotten married a year back. He pretty much stole the thunder from my speech, but that was OK. I listened politely off to the side while a thousand students watched me from the floor. As I looked around the gym and looked at faces I was struck by the fact that I could look at each student and remember something about them – in class, in club, in the hallways – somewhere we had had a conversation or made some kind of connection, and that was pretty impressive.

Finally it was time to make my speech. I stood up and spoke in English, thanking the students and telling them how happy I was to teach at the school and how much I would miss it. Then, I switched to Japanese and spoke for about five minutes. I told them about how I learned Japanese, what I will be doing next, and where I will be living next. It was fun to speak with them, although I was pretty nervous and I made lots of mistakes in Japanese. The students were smiling and reacting well, though. After my speech the student council gave me flowers, and made a short speech in English thanking me for my time at the school. I thanked them for the flowers, and then stepped down and walked to the back of the gym. As I walked down the line of students they smiled and nodded at me.

There was more ceremonial stuff to take care of, but at the end I stationed myself at the exit and as students walked by I said goodbye and good luck to them.

Back in the staff room, everyone congratulated me on the speech and gave me words of encouragement. Also, surprisingly many teachers gave me envelopes of cash. It is a Japanese custom, but I certainly didn’t expect it to be applied to me. At the end of the day I had nearly $400 in envelopes.

In the afternoon things slowed down quite a bit. I waited until there was a staff meeting, then headed home to do a quick wardrobe change and then go to Kobe to meet Nel and Kiyomi.

Nel and Kiyomi had organized a final get-together with me and Antoine, and they had invited Kuniko and Antoine’s girlfriend Miwako to meet up as well. Unfortunately Miwako couldn’t make it, so it was just the five of us. We all gathered in Kobe’s Harborland, and together went to a buffet style restaurant to pig out.

I hadn’t seen Kiyomi in a long time. She and Nel met in America, and she came here with Nel to live. They actually got married here in Japan. Kiyomi is from the Tokyo area, and they are planning on moving back that way in the next couple of days. Kiyomi is not shy at all about using English, and it is very good because of all her time living in America.

We sat around a table and talked and laughed and had a great time. Kiyomi and Nel told us about their new place in Tokyo (near a Mexican chain restaurant!) and Nel’s new job, and also that they were pregnant! They’ve been trying for almost a year now, so that was great news. It will be nice to have some friends in Tokyo – next time we visit we’ll have some futon space.

Antoine was happy about landing a job and someone to sponsor his visa. He’ll be teaching elementary school kids in Nishinomiya – the same city where I’ll be working, and is really happy about being able to stay in Japan. Anyway, everyone had good news to share, and we ate lots of food and drank plenty of beer. Afterwards we walked along the pier and then back to the train station. After doing a little shopping at an import foods store, we all made our way back home. It was a fun night, and a busy day for me.

It was pouring rain all night last night. I woke up once and groggily asked Kuniko what that noise was – it was the constant sound of rain dumping outside. We checked the television and there was a flood warning for my area. That meant that the students were not coming to school today, and that also meant that I had taught my last class at Takasago Minami High School. Today was supposed to be my last two classes, but I guess yesterday was my last day teaching.

Kuniko was off again to work early today in her car, but she dropped me off at the station to spare me from getting too wet on the walk over there. I arrived at school early, and was able to get some vocabulary done as the teachers trickled in.

Everybody was happy about the warning because it means an easy day at work. Usually everyone sits around and then sooner or later the vice principal announces that everyone probably has something better to do, and then everybody leaves. I had previously arranged to leave early to sign my new contract in Osaka – now it looks like I wasted half a day off of nenkyu (time off) – but at this point it probably doesn’t matter. I’ve got short-timer syndrome, and I think I could probably take more time off later if I needed it. As it stands now I’m taking a long weekend to do stuff related to the big move.

At around 10:30 I hit the road for Osaka, trying hard to stay dry along the way. I knew the route from last time, and it was really no problem to get there. I spent a little time shopping for some souvenirs for Yuri who is leaving Japan next month, and because the guy couldn’t make change I had to buy a frozen orange slurpee thing at the food court. I felt clever for buying something small to break the big 10,000 yen bill, until I realized after drinking it that I probably stained my tongue orange before meeting with my new employers.

After scraping my tongue repeatedly with my teeth I went into the office, and the employees there were sitting around the table finishing up lunch. They were all really friendly this time around and I got a good vibe from them. They all speak really good English, so that is a big plus. A few minutes after I arrived, two other new hires showed up, and we introduced ourselves and read over the contract together before signing it.

The other two guys were interesting. Both were Canadian. One was named Corey, and he was about my age and married to a Chinese woman with Japanese nationality. He is finishing up his second year on JET, and he’s looking for a temporary job to keep him out of trouble until his wife finished grad school in Kobe. He’s been in Japan a long time, and he had a kind of calm air about him – he projected patience and understanding. Interesting dude.

The other guy, Louis, was fresh off the boat – his second week in Japan, and he was eager to glean information from us. He was in the wide-eyed “Wow, I’m in Japan!” stage, and it was fun to see someone enjoying themselves so much. He’ll be a good teacher – all the eagerness will pay off in class.

We wrapped up the paperwork as fast as possible, and then we all got out of there. Corey was off to a farewell party at his old school, and Louis was off to Takatsuki where he lives. I took at look at a shop on my way out and then ended up bumping into Corey on the train back. He got along pretty well – we’re both quiet and calm, and we’ve both got a lot of experience in Japan, so it was nice to share part of the train ride back.

Since I was in Osaka I took the subway across town to see if I could get my Nintendo DS fixed. There was a Nintendo store listed on their website, so I tracked it down with the help of some helpful people on the street, and eventually nearly walked by a big stone non-descript office building. The only way I could tell that it was Nintendo was by reading the kanji on a small plate next to the door. There was no Nintendo logo and no signs elsewhere – it was like they were trying to keep a low profile.

I guess I was expecting something else – something flashy and full of life-sized Mario dolls or something. I walked inside and there was a single reception desk and a huge lobby filled with empty couches and some abstract artwork. The receptionist confirmed that this was indeed the right place, and so I told her about the problem. She listened to my weird Japanese and then offered to fix it for free. Unfortunately it will take anywhere from 10-14 days, so Kuniko and I will be in withdrawls until it comes back.

I left the Nintendo DS with them, and then hit the road back to Osaka, and caught a train from there back home. I made a stop in Akashi to buy some sushi for dinner, since we’re running out of dishes and foodstuffs at home in preparation for the move. I also spent time on the phone getting the utilities switched over. Telephone operators at the utility companies were merciless as far as speaking speed – they talked fast and didn’t slow down their explanations for me. It was a challenge, but I think I got it all figured out. We’ll see what reality is like on moving day.

Also, with the end of the JET program coming up it is my last chance to see some close friends. Thursday night Kuniko and I are going to meet Nel and his wife Kiyomi, and Antoine and maybe his girlfriend Miwako in Harborland. Nel got a job in Tokyo, they found an apartment, and rumor has it they might be pregnant, too. Friday night we are meeting up with Tamura sensei and her boyfriend to say goodbye to Yuri, who is finishing up three years in Japan on the program and heading home to California.

Next week we’re going to try to meet up with Carrie and Struan at two different times, so we’ll be spending a lot of time saying goodbye.

I was a little sluggish today coming out of the gate, likely due to all the alcohol from last night. Kuniko drove to school today, so I walked alone the the train station and caught a ride into Takasago. There are not so many days left in this commute – just a couple of weeks left.

At school I had two classes. In the first one I talked with students that had taken the English proficiency interview. They told me all about it and how they thought they did. I think my coaching helped them a little – at least I hope.

The second class was with Tsutsumi sensei, and she had arranged a small surprise for me. Each of the students wrote a farewell note to me and read it to me in front of the class. I knew it was just an assignment, but the students seemed sincere and it was fun to listen to them and the nice things that they had to say.

I had a short break between periods and then in the fourth period we had a lecture by a guy from Western Australia. The connection is that our school sends a field trip every summer to Western Australia, and this guy lives in Japan now but represents Western Australian businesses looking to open up in Japan.

He did the lecture in English, although I heard that his Japanese was fluent – he studied it in college and grad school. Mr. Hayashi was off-stage and he read a translation of the speech, so it had a weird disembodied voice effect that was mildly disturbing.

There was a reporter from the Kobe newspaper there, and she was smoking hot. She interviewed some of the teachers in the school office, and they must have had seven other teachers just checking their paperwork to get a chance to gawk at her. She walked around with a giant camera and took pictures during the speech, and even took a couple of shots of the audience. The funny part of that was that about 70% of the students were asleep. I wonder how those photos will turn out.

Other than the fact that this guy represents Western Australia, there wasn’t much else that our students could sink their teeth into. The speech was a canned one that highlights business opportunities for Japanese companies, and as such was not really interesting to 17 year old high school students. He even told them they should drink Australian wines and urged them to go visit Australia because the drinking age is lower.

Things got a little hairy when they went off script to do questions. The questions came from two businessmen in the audience as guests of the principal. They were long winded, and came out of left field, and the speaker didn’t quite understand the Japanese being spoken (I know I didn’t). Mr. Hayashi translated their questions into English, and then the speaker gave his answer and then Mr. Hayashi translated back into Japanese. If it sounds like a long boring process, it was.

Afterwards I was chatting with Nozaki sensei and she and I both noticed that Mr. Hayashi had dropped a lot of pertinent information out of the translation. I think that Nozaki sensei is pretty sharp – she caught all the details and I think she would do a great job in the same position.

The rest of my day was pretty mellow – I stayed out of trouble and inside where it was dry and air conditioned. After school I stopped in at the eye doctor to buy some contacts, and now I’m back home getting ready to cook dinner (okonomiyaki).

Tomorrow I’m headed into Osaka to sign my contract for the next job, and on the way back I’m going to a Nintendo store to have them look at some strange behavior in our Nintendo DS lite. I hope it isn’t a serious problem – there’s a new kanji game that comes out Thursday. Want, want, want!