I went to bed last night and just plain forgot to post about yesterday. Maybe because yesterday wasn’t such an exciting day. I only had one class to teach, and the rest of the day was doing legwork for all my classes today.

We had an after school staff meeting, and included in that was an announcement that we’ll be getting 30 computers in the staffroom, and they will be distributing them to teachers that don’t have computers. They spent 20 minutes telling people not to panic, don’t let your students use them alone, and don’t be afraid of new technology. It was almost comical.

Kuniko got home early, so we used the opportunity to sneak over to Befu and go to the DIK store, which had been renamed to a tamer “DAIKU”. Insert DIK joke here.

We got some planters, a hot water pot, and some planks for a construction project, and then came back home and had cream stew for dinner. Kuniko had made it up, and it turned out great. There are lots of leftovers, so we can enjoy it over the next night or so.

Now, it’s Wednesday morning, and I’m getting ready to head to work. Tonight we’ll be doing some more wedding planning here at home. Things are getting down to the wire!

I was up on and off throughout the evening with pain in my shoulder and some good bruises tattooed there. Fortunately, the pain isn’t as bad as last year, so I should be OK by the end of this week.

Today I would normally do lots of studying, since I have only one class on Mondays. Instead I spent the whole day on preparation for the rest of the week. I prepared for today’s class, and also I did prepwork for two other classes on Wednesday. As a result I am feeling pretty guilty about not studying even one word of Japanese today. Maybe later tonight I’ll succumb and memorize some words.

My class today was a new lesson on ordering in a restaurant. I wanted to make it a fun lesson, so I pushed two desks together, put a tablecloth over them, lit a candle and set two places with a couple of teacups instead on wineglasses. It was the first thing students saw when they came in and they were all impressed. I was hoping that feeling would last through the lesson, and remarkably, it did. They tried their best and later when I had them dressed up as waiters delivering imaginary food they hung in there and did a pretty good job.

I spent some time talking with one of the office ladies while we were copying things in the copy room – she told a great story about her niece who is getting married to an English guy. She had them over for a get together along with a bunch of other family, and it amounted to almost 20 people. For a Japanese household, that’s pretty big. She commented that this gentleman’s disposition was much different from mine – she said that I am always bright, cheerful and outgoing when she sees me, and this guy seemed kind of quiet and introspective. He’s planning on bringing his Japanese wife back with him to England next year. It was a nice, kind of unintentional compliment from somebody I don’t normally speak with very often.

Today I had a really good time with my students, especially the third years who were hanging around the staffroom after class. We joked about this and that, mostly in English, and seeing how relaxed they are with me reminds me how soon it will be that I’ll have to start over making some new students comfortable. I was thinking more and more that I can’t imagine doing something else besides teaching. Maybe I am just in a great situation now – if I had unenthusiastic students would I still like teaching? That’s going to be a big question for me as I get ready to change jobs soon.

I’m sure I’ll have more deep thoughts about this later on, but for right now everything is going just fine.

I cranked myself out of bed Sunday morning fairly early with a pretty good headache. It was probably from all the different drinks that I had at the house party last night. While we ate lots of nabe and sat and talked I drank two glasses of Aomori, two glasses of sake, two glasses of red wine and one glass of white, and a beer. It’s not the amount that got me, just the diversity of weird things in my stomach.

First thing I did was to go to Ito Yokado to buy socks for my new matsuri outfit. Last night they delivered some brand new official matsuri clothes for me to wear. One of the wives demonstrated how to wear it, and so I was pretty sure I could figure it out. I got the socks and came back, and Kuniko told me that the master had called and wanted me to go to Denya right away. I took off and met the gang in front of the yakitori, and then we went inside and they helped me get dressed into the outfit.

There was a white undershirt, some white pants that tied around the waist, some white tabi shoes with soles built into the bottom, and then a wool wrap that I wore around my midsection to keep me warm. The wool wrap doubled as a pocket to carry my valuables, so it was quite useful. Over the whole thing I wore a colorful happi, sporting the bright orange and blue colors of the area we were representing. The collar said that I was a member of the fireman’s group – but I was just borrowing it, so it was no big deal.

The master bought me a rice ball from the convenience store next door, and then we walked to the matsuri. The crowds were building, and we walked by some of the other groups on our way down to find our other members. I got a lot of stares, especially since I was wearing the traditional outfit. The last two years I just threw on the happi, but this time I looked like I was serious about it.

We went all the way to the harbor and stood around by the sea, dipping our toes in, drinking sake out of paper cups, and then we all headed up to meet up with the mikoshi (portable shrine). Once we got there somebody had a case of beer that they distributed around to people, and so some folks had sake in one hand and beer in the other. Police vans full of cops drove slowly by on the way to the matsuri to provide security, but they didn’t seem to mind that everyone was sitting around drinking in public at ten in the morning.

At first the shrine is on a rolling platform, which works great for moving it around on flat surfaces, but once we got inside the shrine grounds, we removed it from the platform, and then carried it around the shrine. The first time around went so smoothly, I couldn’t remember why it had seemed like such a difficult chore the last two years. During our trip around, lots of people were pointing and staring at me, and I heard lots of talking about me. I had plenty of old guys around to give me advice, and at one point somebody stuck a TV camera in my face. I posed for a few pictures for some photographers, and I was somewhat of a minor celebrity, if not a major curiosity.

We had some time to kill in between laps around the main building of the shrine, so we walked around, talked to some people, and had some lunch at a restaurant across the street. Everything was going great, and it seemed like it was going to be a really easy day.

We went in for the second lap, and everybody grabbed the mikoshi and we set off. This time, it went really poorly. First off, everybody seemed to be a lot weaker – in the back corner they kept dropping it. Our leaders, instead of mixing the people around and moving stronger people there, just kept toughing it out. Then at one point we dropped the mikoshi hard and it came down on some poor guy’s ankle. Everybody started calling for an ambulance, and then instead of giving the guy space to breathe, people crowded around him. The police helped a little bit, but they seemed a little confused. Then, while the guy is still on the ground waiting for the ambulance, a couple of fights broke out between our drunken guys and some people in the crowd. Then a couple of our own guys were pushing and shoving. They finally got the injured guy out of there, and so we continued on, but there were more and more fights. The policemen would come and prevent them from fighting, but they wouldn’t do anything else. In the end they had to take some of our guys away, and that left even fewer people to carry the mikoshi.

It was another hour or so before we could get the mikoshi back to where we started, and by that time, I had had about enough of carrying around portable shrines. On the way back we had bumped into the branches of a cherry tree and rather than move the mikoshi around it, one of the Denya gang had torn the branches down in a brutally impromptu pruning session.

By that time, Kuniko, Antoine and Miwako had arrived, so we got to chat a little bit. This was Antoine’s first real matsuri, so it was interesting to get his thoughts on it all. Kuniko had taken a few pictures of the events while I was lugging the mikoshi around, and she got to hear people all around her pointing and talking about me while she watched anonymously.

While the four of us walked around the matsuri, Kuniko bumped into some of her students. I stayed away – Kuniko is trying to keep me a secret from her students. Unfortunately they sniffed out the truth, and so I introduced myself to them and they were sufficiently shocked that I am sure the whole school will know about it tomorrow.

Rather than stick around for the evening lap we all went back to our place and I took a shower while they sat around and talked. From there we headed to the closest okonomiyaki restaurant and had a feast. We sat and talked and ate, and then moved to 31 flavors in Ito Yokado for a dessert session. At around 8 o’clock Antoine and Miwako headed home in Miwako’s car – and we headed back to our place. Before we could get there the master called and wanted me to bring along my happi to return it. He said that it would be my last chance to carry the mikoshi, and although I was mentally finished carrying the mikoshi, it seemed like we should head over there.

We got there and had to wait for a little while for the master and the mikoshi to show up. It was back on it’s wheels, and full of kids when it arrived. I was relieved to see that the barn where the mikoshi is stored had wheel grooves that matched the wheels on the mikoshi platform – we could just push it right in there. The master said I should put on the happi and help put it inside, so I dutifully donned the happi and stepped up to the mikoshi with the other members, still wearing the clean nice clothes that I had changed into after my shower.

You can imagine my shock when everyone pulled the heavy mikoshi off the wheels and started bouncing it around on our bruised shoulders again. Kuniko was sitting there waiting for me, and I decided that I had enough – it looked like they were going to take a while before they put it in. I returned my happi to it’s owner, and we drove home from there.

Kuniko was nice enough to massage my bruised shoulder, and then we crashed out. What an exhausting day – and I have to go to work tomorrow…

This morning we got up at the crack of dawn to throw in the first load of laundry. With a bit of foresight last night we loaded up the machine and hung out some, so we had a good start. Living together makes for some huge piles of laundry – today’s was a biggie.

Kuniko and I split the workload of cleaning the place up, and Kuniko made up some delicious nabe for lunch. Just as we sat down to eat the nabe, the doorbell rang, and it was three Japanese Jehovah’s Witnesses. They spoke perfect English, and offered me a pamphlet – they wanted to talk more, but courteously left when I said I had some nabe on the stove.

We talked with my folks a little bit on the phone, and soon afterwards Kuniko was out the door and headed to Osaka to go drinking with some of her old coworkers. Tonight I’m going to head over to a dinner party with one of the Denya regulars. I’ll be heading out the door pretty soon.

Tomorrow is the matsuri, so I don’t want to be too hung over for that…

We brought the students back to school on Friday and tried to teach them with normal classes for one day after four solid days of exams. The result was as you might expect, a load of exhausted students who had a hard time paying attention.

Despite this, we pushed through three classes today. My students were really looking forward to going home and getting some rest. They were also looking forward to their sports clubs – they cancel sports club practice just before and during exams, and so now they’ll be staying at school late at night and on the weekends to practice hard.

I got home a little earlier than usual, and Kuniko made it back soon after me. She had a good field trip – they had made pottery, had a picnic, and at the end they had eaten chocolate ice cream. By the time she got back, she wasn’t so hungry. We postponed our nabe feast until tomorrow, and instead we went shopping over at Ito Yokado and I bought some sushi and some Chinese sesame pork.

It was a pretty mellow evening, especially for a Friday, and we were in bed relatively early. I think we’ll need the energy for this weekend.

Thursday was the last day of exams for the students, and the last day of preparation the teachers had before they have to get back to classes. I spent the day continuing to cram vocabulary into my brain with the idea that maybe they will come in handy someday. Now I am exclusively studying for the exam, rather than studying for my own benefit. I’ll keep this up through November and take the exam in early December.

On the way home from school Kuniko sent me a message saying that she was off early today. We ended up meeting in Ito Yokado, and going on a grocery shopping spree. We bought ingredients to make our own ramen, and plenty of supplies for the weekend.

Back home we ate big bowls of steaming hot ramen, with cuts of pork, Chinese bamboo, green onions and bean sprouts floating around in among the noodles. After dinner Kuniko watched some Japanese TV and then did some marking – I watched the latest episode of ‘Lost’ on my computer, and then went to hit the sack.

This weekend should be a lot of fun. We’ll be cleaning house on Saturday, but Saturday night Kuniko is going into Osaka to have dinner with some of her old co-workers. I’m heading over to one of the Denya regulars’ house for a house party. Then Sunday I’m going to go to the Futami matsuri once again and try to injure myself. Antoine and his girlfriend will probably come by, and Yuri, Tamura sensei, and her boyfriend will probably all meet us for dinner afterwards.

I negotiated an early exit from school and went into Kobe in the afternoon to meet Kuniko for another picture session. I arrived early, so I went shopping at an import food shop for chili. I got four packages of Stagg chili – oh, yeah…

When I arrived I was ushered right into the dressing room and an older lady who cackled at my Japanese helped me change into my outfit. It was a stark contrast from yesterday when two young women helped me get dressed. The lady did a good job, however, and the outfit was a lot simpler this time around.

I met up with Kuniko in the hallway, and she was all dressed up in her wedding dress. She had her makeup and hair done, and she looked great. From there we went to the studio for some pictures, and then all over the wedding palace taking pictures in different areas. It was actually pretty fun to do so much posing. At first we really enjoyed it, but after a few hours we got tired.

The photographers were really nice guys. They led us through the routine, and one of them held onto my camera and took lots of pictures with it. I could post some pictures right now, but it doesn’t seem right. Maybe after the wedding ceremony.

We got out of there fairly late, and headed home – exhausted. Luckily Kuniko had cooked our dinner in preparation the night before, so it was pretty easy to heat it up and eat. We had oden and beer – a beautiful combination. I haven’t had oden since last year, and it really hit the spot. Every time I sipped the beer it made me want to eat oden, and every time I ate oden it made me want to drink beer.

Today at school I spent the morning coming up with my next lesson for my first year students. I’m planning on doing a lesson on ordering food at a restaurant. More on that next week. I had a couple of pieces of bread for lunch, and then snuck out of there early to meet Kuniko in Kobe.

Actually, I left on time, but I had wanted to confirm that it was OK. There were unfortunately no people around to check with, so I just left.

Kuniko and I met in Kobe to have some wedding pictures taken. The place where we are getting married is going to take pictures of us in our wedding gear on Wednesday. We wanted to have our picture taken in traditional Japanese clothes. Our wedding place also can do that, but they were charging an arm and a leg for the service. Kuniko shopped around and found a cheaper place that looked good.

We showed up and talked over what we wanted done, and then Kuniko went in to get her makeup, hair, and kimono started. I had an extra 30 minutes or so, and so I walked around the area and did some sightseeing before coming back. Kuniko was sequestered away in a private room, but they came and had me change into my outfit.

They explained to me how to put on the inner layers, and left me alone to do that myself. As I was taking off my pants I realized that I made a poor choice in underwear for today’s event. I had no choice but to stand there as two female employees came back in and suited me up. They couldn’t stop giggling while they got me dressed, but I think that might have been more to do with my bad Japanese.

Finally I was all suited up and I came into the studio. Kuniko and I saw each other and we had completely different reactions. Mine was “Wow! You look great!” Kuniko just looked at me and laughed.

We did lots of different poses. It was the first time for me in a long time to have my picture taken professionally. They did a great job, and Kuniko pulled through even though she was wearing a very heavy kimono.

They had tons of pictures already loaded up on the computer for us by the time we changed back into our regular clothes, and Kuniko and I tore through them, discarding lots of them right away. We finally settled on two pictures, and they will be delivered to our place sometime in early November. I was dying to get the whole load of pictures – they had the data right there in the computer in front of us, but they were charging about $1000 for a CD with all the photos. Yeah right. We just got the two pictures, but it was a little sad to see all the other great shots of us getting flushed down the digital toilet.

We came on back home on an insanely packed train – I barely made it inside. Kuniko and I did a little shopping at Ito Yokado, and then Kuniko cooked up tonight’s dinner (oyakodonburi) and tomorrow’s dinner as well (oden).

Tomorrow we’re having more pictures taken in Kobe, this time in our official outfits. We’re trying to take advantage of this easy week at school.

Today the exams started for my students, and for the teachers it was the first day of a relaxing week. I put in lots of study time in the morning, and after lunch the teachers went over to the gymnasium to play a few games of soft volleyball.

I was wearing some old leftover sweats and a T-shirt that I use for sports and it seems to me that I should probably have a little bit nicer clothes to wear when I’m exercising. That might be something I ask for during Christmas. I think I really stood out – everyone else was well dressed for the occasion.

The fun began with a speech and an opening ceremony, just like most things in Japan. The principal and vice-principal said a few words. They actually weren’t going to play because they had a business meeting off campus (which means they went out drinking). They asked a PE teacher to lead us in some warm-up exercises to get started. I thought it was funny to see them doing exercises with us, even in their suits and ties. There is always a sense of doing the same thing as the group here, and that was a great example.

There were three teams, not enough for a tournament, so the captains of each team played rock, scissors, paper to determine who would play first. We won the round, so we got to sit, and we automatically won second place no matter what.

The first two teams played three grueling games, each of them close, and they walked off the court exhausted. Our team rolled over and died and we lost two straight games. They awarded the winning team a case of beer in tall cans, and the second place team (us) got a case of beer (regular cans). It was strange to see that the other team won nothing, even though they won more games than we did. In fact, the only game we won was rock, scissors, paper.

After all the sweaty fun I headed home to take a shower and relax. I oooked up breakfast for dinner – scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, and fried potatoes with some fresh peppers that I harvested from my little pepper trees out on the patio.

Kuniko enjoyed the dinner, and she’s on the schedule to cook tomorrow. I wonder what it will be? Because we both have exams this week we have more free time, so she will be getting home at a reasonable hour.

The next two days after school we’ll be meeting in Kobe to have our pictures taken in various outfits. No digital cameras allowed, but maybe I can take a picture of a picture and do something with that on the website. No promises, though…

Sunday we tried to sleep in a little bit, and then we were off to Osaka to see a concert. However, our first priority, as usual, was food. We wanted to go visit the Indian restaurant that we liked so much in Shin-Osaka. When Kuniko was living there I was always visiting – making the trip from my place in Futami all the way to Osaka to visit. We would often go to this Indian place. The curry is great, they make a garlic-cheese naan bread, and the people that work there are really friendly.

Our lunch was really good – it was all you can eat for 1200 yen (around $11). The naan bread was bigger than my head, and really good. I got seconds on the tandoori chicken but contented myself with finishing up Kuniko’s curry and naan bread.

We thought about walking around the neighborhood, but we didn’t have a lot of memories of the neighborhood. When Kuniko was living here we would mainly have dinners and stay in at her apartment. Kuniko said that there were lots of perverts walking around, so she has some scary memories of those guys. All in all it sounds like she’s glad to be free of that place.

The concert was at the Blue Note in Osaka, which is a blues club that was really well designed. There is cabaret style seating, and we had two tickets reserved for us by one of the members of the performing group. The group, Takarabune, had sold out the show, and this is a pretty nice venue, so I was really surprised.

Kuniko predicted that the show would be a little more jazzy than their regular show, and it turned out she was right. This was the lead singer’s last show before she moves away to Tokyo and gets married. One of the other members was taking over, and so they kind of passed the torch at the show.

After the show the members lined up to say thanks to everyone as they left, which was a really nice touch. I got to meet Kuniko’s friend who seemed really nice, and she was happy that we enjoyed the show.

We did a little shopping afterwards since we were in Osaka, and although we didn’t buy anything major we did walk past a flower stand that was selling conventional pumpkins for Halloween. They had a human head sized orange pumpkin for 1500 yen. I might come back and get it next weekend for our ESS Halloween activity.

We arrived back home and did some shopping for our dinner. Kuniko bought ingredients for nikujaga (meat and potatoes) and while we wandered around we walked by a stand selling kimchee. The guy gave us a sample, and it was spicy and delicious – much better than the regular stuff that you can buy in stores. We decided to go ahead and buy it, but we found out the hard way that they only sell them in bunches. That made the price for our little bag of kimchee almost 1500 yen. That’s $14 worth of kimchee. They priced it per 100 grams, but the minimum they sell is 500 grams. Sneaky.

Granted, the kimchee is delicious, but the way they sell it is misleading. I doubt that if we bought kimchee made in North Korea by Kim Jon Il himself it would be so expensive. But it is so delicious, and it was a great match with our dinner.

Monday it is back to work, but we’ve got a relatively easy week because of exams.

It was fairly warm at school Friday. The clouds have started to roll in, and it looks like we’ve got some rain in our future. We had a morning awards ceremony, and they used to opportunity to cajole the students into doing their best on the exams next week. The awards part of the ceremony went kind of long, and my next class was abbreviated to 20 minutes.

Other than that short class I had just one other class, and once that was wrapped up it was 12:30 and I was eating lunch with the weekend stretching out before me. Oh yeah…

After school I went over to Tsuji-san’s place and we talked in Japanese and English for about an hour. She gave me a birthday present (chocolates!) and a belated birthday card. It was fun to figure out what the card said – good reading practice.

Kuniko came home late because of the STEP test at her school, so we had a late night dinner of macaroni and cheese, with a Chinese salad that I had picked up at Ito Yokado.

The rain started coming down this evening and it rained right on through the night. Kuniko and I kind of slept in a little longer than we should have, and Kuniko had to dash out of here to catch her train.

I’ve just been doing chores around the house, watching Japanese language videos, and wishing the laundry would dry in this rainy weather. I went over to Ito Yokado to look at some new undershirts. I found some on sale that were still pretty expensive. I wasn’t sure about the size, so I asked one of the clerks to help me out.

While I was talking to her I had a little out of body experience and I couldn’t believe that I was piecing these words together – making a full, complete sentence. Unbelievable! I’m speaking Japanese! What a cool feeling – all that hard work is starting to pay off.

I’m not sure what the plan is tonight but we have to go return the movies from last week, and we’ve been having a craving for gyoza from Oshou. We might stop in there and bring some back. I could go for a cold beer, too.

Tomorrow we’re heading into Osaka, hopefully without getting rained on, for a concert by Takarabune, the acapella group that Kuniko’s friends are members of. We’ll try to do a little shopping while we’re there – we need a few things for the kitchen…

I’ll bet you are tired about hearing how my day went at school all the time. Let’s talk about some other stuff.

I download three television shows a week to watch on my computer. Obviously I cannot watch American TV without a satellite dish, so that leaves me to pulling them off the internet, which is no doubt illegal. It’s a bit of a gray area, though, since the shows are free to begin with – as opposed to movies which cost money to see.

Anyway, it’s interesting to watch the shows without any other outside stimuli relating to them. For example, I am never hanging around the tea machine at work when somebody says “Holy cow, did you see Survivor last night?” I never see commercials for my shows, so I have no idea what is happening during the next one, and I never see any interviews either. In short, I’m watching TV in a vacuum. It’s nice to focus just on the show, without any distractions.

Last night I tutored three students for one hour. I guess it was a hit – on the way back they told Miyake sensei that they really enjoyed it, and they are looking forward to meeting again next month. They said that I made them comfortable by being so friendly and by making jokes. I’ve found that the more comfortable the students are, the more likely they will try hard to use English.

An interesting note about last night’s tutoring. Each student paid 3000 yen for the one hour session. That means that I made 9000 yen in an hour – about $80. That means that I made in one hour sitting around in my living room chatting with Japanese girls in English what I used to make in a week of part time work lifting and sorting boxes of books in the back room of Barnes & Noble. Wow.

Persimmons are in season here, and they are everywhere. There are trees full of them, and the shelves of the stores are also loaded with persimmons. I hadn’t really tried persimmons in America, but here in Japan they are quite good. There is a really sweet seedless kind that is probably some kind of genetically modified version, and then there is a harder, less sweet version with big seeds inside. Both are good, for different reasons. We’ve got lots of persimmons in the house nowadays, so I’m eating them all the time. Soon oranges will be in season, and I tend to go nut with those. They sell these tiny little oranges that peel really easily – and they are cheap, too. I think in America we would call them tangerines.

I was dreaming today about some good American beers at work. I read an article about some premium Japanese beers that you could order by mail. They’ve got a good reputation, and so I looked into them at their website. By the time I figured out the cost, they would work out to about 400 yen a bottle. It dawned on me soon afterwards that I can buy three kinds of Anchor Steam beers from San Francisco right next door at Ito Yokado for about 350 yen a bottle. The answer was right under my nose….

Just in case you are dying for an update on how my classes went, I put in the busiest day of my easy week. I had three classes in a row in the afternoon. The last class was a combined first year class of 40 students. Those combo classes are always interesting. I have built a rapport with both halves of the class separately, so when everybody gets together then the chemistry is all different, and it’s like starting over. The students are used to learning together, but not with me around. The noisy kids that usually are a disturbance might be sitting next to a big guy that doesn’t like it when I get interrupted – girls that are quiet might be next to their best friend and they will chatter away. It makes it a lot more interesting.

Tonight Kuniko is coming home late because she has an English teacher’s meeting after work. She said she’d be home around nine… wow! She’ll be nice and exhausted by the time Sunday rolls around.

Today we had the presentations from my second year students. They’ve been (hopefully) working on an original skit that they would perform in front of the class. We’ve been gradually working up to this over the last 5-6 weeks, so I was looking forward to seeing how they turned out.

Some were really good. They put a lot of effort into the props that they used, but when it came down to memorizing, there were not a lot of successes. There was a unanimous winner, though. Two boys did a skit about an earthman meeting an alien in space. They casually discuss the destruction of the earth, and then they play rock, scissors, paper for the fate of mankind. The human won, and the alien’s last line was “Oh, I lost. Shit!”

One pair of students brought their script up to the stage and didn’t want to surrender it. They said that they hadn’t prepared at all. Way to bomb your midterm grade, girls.

After work we had a teachers meeting, which was interrupted by some loud shouting outside in front of the school. All the teachers ran to the window except a few, including me. Turns out there was some sort of scuffle out there, and the police came by. I don’t know if it involved one of our students or not. I guess I’ll hear all about it tomorrow.

Today after I got home Mikake sensei came over with the three students who want to learn English conversation. I met each one of them, and we all introduced ourselves. It was great that Miyake sensei was there, it was a nice transition for them. I speak some Japanese, but if there was a miscommunication Ms. Miyake could easily jump in and help out. I made a few mistakes with my Japanese, a couple of them intentionally, so hopefully they won’t be afraid of making mistakes in the class. We’ll be meeting once a month, so it should be interesting to see how it goes. Kuniko came home just before they left, so I was able to introduce her and make everyone even more comfortable.

Everything is on the up and up, but the fact remains that there will be three high school girls coming to our place once a month, and there might be times when Kuniko won’t be there. I’m not sure what their parents feel about that, so I wanted to make sure that everything was kosher.

Dinner tonight was shrimp tacos – they turned out great. I went for the baja style, with shredded cabbage and a lime/mayonnaise style sauce. There was just a small amount of mayo, so they turned out pretty healthy, too.

We’re both pooped – I have got to hit the hay. Tomorrow is already Thursday… it’s time to start thinking about the weekend!

We had so many leftovers from the big dinner last night that Kuniko and I didn’t have to make lunches today. That meant that I could sleep in a little bit longer on my birthday. Nice!

At school I was sitting at my desk early, before most of the teachers or students had arrived. One of the students called me over to the door, and wished me a happy birthday in English. I was really surprised – I don’t really advertise my birthday and the student who said it was someone that I don’t speak with that much – we just exchange hello’s in the hallways.

We had a schedule change today, so I had only one class the whole day. That gave me plenty of time to study, and also to think about this weeks lessons. As it happens this will be a really easy week – the teachers are doing last minute preparations for the students before the midterm exams, so they don’t want me hanging around riling up the kids.

I walked by another student, a third year, who had remembered all the way back when I had first started at the school two years ago mentioning that my birthday was today. His birthday is close to mine, so he remembered it well. He gave me a big congratulations, we talked about what it felt like to be 34, and he slapped my ass as he said goodbye and went upstairs.

As for birthday wishes, that’s about it. Nobody else knew and it was nice just to relax and stay under the radar. Tonight Kuniko is going to cook me a birthday dinner – after so many huge meals I’d be happy with just rice and miso soup.

Tomorrow night I’m going to start a once a month private class with three of Miyake sensei’s private students. Tomorrow Mikake sensei will join them for the first session, and then from then on they will come over to learn English conversation once a month. The pay is pretty good, it’s an easy job, and it’ll be fun to teach private students again. This time I don’t have to hike a long ways to get to them – they’ll come to me.

I have a feeling this week is going to fly by quickly…

Monday morning we both slept in, had a nice breakfast, and putted around the house all day. I put in only an hour of studying. Instead of hitting the books I was lounging around reading while Kuniko was in listening to English tapes. We also made reservations for a birthday dinner on Tuesday night at one of our favorite restaurants in Kobe.

In the evening we went over to Kuniko’s parent’s place to have a birthday dinner for me. Kuniko’s mom put on quite a feast – we had this meat and mushroom dish that is really good… Kuniko has made it for me before. We also had sandwiches, and chirashizushi rice balls with sashimi rolled up on top. We ate lots, I had a couple of beers and some sake afterwards with her dad, and then they pulled out a homemade cheesecake with candles on it and we ate that, too.

Kuniko spent a lot of time upstairs going through her leftover stuff looking for warmer clothes and photographs for a wedding project. That left me downstairs alone with her parents putting my Japanese to the test. I got by, but barely, and I’m a long way from being able to hold a conversation without sounding like a caveman. Um, food good. Bryan ENJOY!

As usual we were sent home with loads of home-grown vegetables, and plenty of leftover sandwiches. We got home, stretched out of the futon, and decided to cancel our dinner reservation for Tuesday. Over the past three days we have eaten way too much. Instead of something elaborate, we’ll aim for a nice simple dinner at home.