I’m tired out from an evening on the town with Kuniko. We met up after school in Kobe – she was busy taking one of her students to get her hair dyed (back to black). I got out of work a little earlier and we met up at the bookstore. After picking out a few selections we headed to a little ramen place we both like near the motomachi station, and settled down in front of a huge bowl of noodles.

I had ordered the cha-shuu ramen, and the rim of the ramen bowl was draped with roasted pork – you just grab a piece and dip it in the noodles and broth whenever you like. As if that wasn’t enough we split an order of fried rice and a plate of gyoza. Wow.

After that we walked around a little bit and ended up having a couple of cookies and some coffee at Starbucks, and then finally we caught the shinkaisoku train (running 8 minutes late) back home. I’m whipped.

Work is going well – everyone there is sick but me, it seems. I’m almost at 100% now, as might be indicated by my diet. I was spared visits from the history teacher today – he was on a business trip.

I spent some time in the afternoon fielding questions from a group of girl first year students who wanted to know what “fuck you” meant. Dangerous territory there, but I think I explained it quite well. I don’t think they’ll be using those words in public in the future.

I’m off to bed – tomorrow is a busy day with students performing commercials, and some students coming over in the evening. They are really into the conversations and want to come twice a month, so we’ll be seeing a lot more them around the house.

I saw a funny thing on the way to work today, a little insight into how some things are so different here in Japan from what I’m used to.

I was walking along the road in Takasago, just about five minutes away from my school. Ahead of me the sidewalk was wide open, there was only two people approaching each other. I watched the two people walking towards each other, both of them with their heads bent down looking steadily at the ground. It became apparent to me that one or the other was going to have to look up soon and see that they were on a collision course.

But, nobody did, and they jumped out of each others way when each other’s feet were in their range of vision – maybe less than a foot apart. It was strange to see given that the whole rest of the sidewalk was open and empty for as far as I could see.

I’ve noticed that people that walk around tend to not be so aware of their surroundings – at least not as aware as I am. Before today I have written it off as me being a little frustrated with the slower walking speed around here, or maybe some frustration at being stared at all the time. But now, I think it is just that people here don’t need to be so aware of their surroundings. If they bump into somebody, nobody is going to make a big deal, nobody is going to yell at them or push them, and nobody is going to pull a knife or a gun. It is interesting what living in a relatively low crime society can do to people’s awareness.

Through a scheduling fluke I had no classes today, and had six separate visits from the history teacher. Despite this I was able to study most of the day and plan a lesson for Wednesday. Outside it was snowing pretty hard in the afternoon – big fluffy flakes that melted soon after they hit the ground. The flakes were the size of quarters or half-dollars – and even though they were falling fast and thick it just wasn’t cold enough for them to collect on the ground.

The English educational system in Japan was struck a critical blow today. The history teacher received a teacher’s license to teach English. He’s been working hard on papers and exams, and somehow, he passed. As I sit and listen to him tell me, “I have great interested in telling you what you do this weekend,” and “Today I hit the punch!”, I wonder who gave him a license. He’s missing some huge fundamentals, but apparently it’s enough to teach English in the public school system. I feel sorry for his students. He wants to keep the certification a secret for now – he’s afraid of the reaction of the English teachers. I don’t know what I would think if I were them.

This afternoon the vice principal stopped by and invited me to join a class being taught by an American college professor from Osaka. The VP said that he was going, so he invited me along. I told him that I’d meet him there, and headed upstairs a little while later. The professor was teaching away, and the students all turned back to look at me with an expression of “what the hell is this guy talking about?”

It turned out he was lecturing about the upcoming iPod/Levi’s jeans cross-promotion, and he had the students looking up words like “frenetic” and “drooling”. I walked around and tried to help the students out. The professor had a great lecture, but it seemed like it would be better suited for a college or higher level high school class. The professor asked me if we had some speakers to plug his iPod into to play some music, but unfortunately we didn’t.

Overall I thought it was a wasted opportunity, but something that the school will publish as one of the advantages of going there – courses by college professors. The guy was nice enough, though, and he was really happy to have me around.

I was looking at some of the major events coming up in the next six months for me and Kuniko. We’ll be taking a trip to Hokkaido at the beginning of next month, Mark will be in town at the end of March, I’ll need to renew my passport at the embassy in Osaka, and then change my visa to reflect my new status as married. The visa is important because it will allow me to stay in Japan regardless of my job status. I would hate to be against a deadline for a visa and take a crappy job – this will give me a little more flexibility. Finally, I’ll need to get a new re-entry permit once I get all the other things taken care of, so I can come back into Japan if I leave it.

Lots of fun paperworky-type stuff to look forward to, with a culmination in hopefully a honeymoon trip in the summer and a new job soon thereafter.

Friday night Kuniko got back from her hike fairly late, and she was exhausted. She had brought along dinner – some makizushi from Ito Yokado. Friday was setsubun – the last day of winter. The tradition is interesting – you are supposed to eat sushi facing in a particular direction (this year, south-south-west).

We ate sushi and gyoza, and Kuniko had even bought grilled sardines, which apparently is another tradition for today. I skipped those – I’m not big on eye contact with my food.

Today Kuniko had to go into work again, so I’m here doing laundry and concentrating on getting my health back. Relaxation, Survivor, maybe some Battlestar Galactica – it should be fun.

One thing I did the other day that was fun – I downloaded some of the music from Disneyland. Not from the movies – from the park. I’ve got a few tracks from all over the park, and it’s fun to listen to audio from the rides. There are even some tracks from the ambient music in the park, and from the lines. Especially good is the ambient music from the line of Indiana Jones the Ride.

Laundry is calling – back to work!

Today the history teacher had only one class, and that was my signal to make myself scarce throughout the day. I was preparing my classroom, working with the ESS students, and overall avoiding my desk most of the day.

As usual my classes were a lot of fun. I’m really going to miss teaching my students when I leave. I was talking to the ESS students and it suddenly dawned on them that I’ll be leaving this year. They were all disappointed, and it was nice to see that they cared.

I was teaching English to a lot of Japanese teachers today – Tanaka sensei and Yamada sensei were both asking me questions about how to say things in English. One thing that strikes me about the staff at my school – they are all interested in English. It’s an interesting trend that I’ve noticed. Even teachers that can’t speak it at all will ask me how to say a phrase in English now and then.

After school I visited Tsuji-san and talked with her for over an hour. She had big progress with her wedding – her fiancee came over and asked her parents again for permission to marry, and this time her father said yes. Now everyone is happy and they can get busy on planning the wedding and building a house. Tsuji-san will quit her job once she gets married because that is what her husband-to-be wants, and so she’ll be staying at home and studying English and Spanish all day.

I’m back home now and waiting on Kuniko. She’s getting home late tonight, so I’ve got curry all ready to serve when she gets here. Tomorrow she is going on the hike with her students, so she’ll be really tired for the weekend. Tomorrow is setsubun – the last day of winter, and the start of spring. There’s an interesting tradition of eating sushi facing a particular direction. I’ve got to figure out what direction it is the right one for tomorrow!

I had a great day today at school, and it just kept getting better afterwards.

I had just two classes today, half as many as I normally do, and they were both fun. The first class with with some second year students and Kobayashi sensei. We met in my classroom and watched parts of “The Incredibles” while the students listened carefully and tried to understand the English dialogue.

It went really well and the students were surprisingly interested in the class. It’s amazing what adding a TV and a DVD can do to the student’s interest level.

In fourth period I taught a class with Maeda sensei. His students are the highest scoring English students in our school, so I introduced a project for next week – they will make their own TV commercial and perform it for our class. Maeda sensei is going to bring his video camera, so we should have some good video of some Japanese TV commericals next week. The students are allowed to use English and Japanese in their commercials, so I’m not sure how it will turn out. If it was just English the project would last four weeks – with Japanese we can do it in two.

After school three second year high school students from Akashi Nishi high school came over and we had a great English conversation. This was the second visit for them, and they were a lot more comfortable with speaking English compared to last time. They brought pictures and omiyage from their school trip to Malaysia. We had a great time talking about their trip, and it was nice to see them getting comfortable with speaking English. I don’t speak any Japanese with them, and as far as they know, I don’t know how to speak Japanese. It’s a good experience for them.

Kuniko got home a little bit after the girls left, so we went out to Denya to deliver a letter and some pictures from my mom, and have a great dinner. We ate a wide selection of yakitori and talked with the master and Masao, a friend I made last time I was there. Kuniko translated the letter from my folks, and the master looked very happy.

I’m off to bed now – the rest of the week should be considerably more relaxed.

Things are ramping up at school – the exam period is over for the third year students, so now they can come and go as they please. Their school responsibility is over until graduation. Still, some students are still looking for some guidance, so they’ll be around now and then.

Since their exams finished they let the students back into the staffroom, and that livens it up a whole lot. I’m looking forward to having more visitors at my desk to chat with.

I had two classes today and I helped out Mikyake sensei with some dictation that she did, so I was fairly busy. I spent a bit of time getting ready for tomorrow’s lessons – two new ones for the second year students.

One of the first year teachers, Yamamoto sensei, came by and chatted with me for a while in English. This is a pretty rare thing – he’s not very confident in his English. He seems to be getting comfortable with me, though, and more and more he comes by to say hello.

Today he told me that he told his homeroom class about how hard I study in the staffroom, and the unique way I learn vocabulary – by using the handheld computer. He said that his students seemed pretty impressed. A couple of students asked me about it later, so I think it made an impression.

Now that I’m using the handheld computer instead of flashcards, I can’t imagine ever going back. My big fear is breaking or losing the handheld – if that happens I’ll still have the data backed up on my computer, but I wouldn’t be able to memorize anymore. I’ll have to think of a plan just in case, and be really careful.

Tonight Kuniko and I are going to try to organize a trip to Hokkaido in the beginning of March. Neither of us has been yet, and we want to go enjoy the snow, the crab, the scenery. It’s supposed to be beautiful up there.

With only one class today there wasn’t a whole lot to write about, but I’ll try. Being a desk jockey all day has it’s benefits, and it’s drawbacks. The drawbacks are easy: I feel like the cop that got assigned desk duty and I’m off the street. My ass gets wider. And, I’m a sitting duck for the history teacher who can come and bug me at will.

The history teacher came by today looking for deep conversation. His 50th birthday is coming up, and he thinks he has only 20 more years left in him. He still isn’t married, and he’s sure that he needs to learn English before he croaks. He was telling me all the things he still wants to do today, while I sat in my desk and tried to cheer him up. I could tell he really had a brush with mortality.

We talked about spirituality (and my lack of it) – comparing Buddhism, Shintoism, and Christianity’s concepts of the afterlife. I hate talking about deep stuff with the history teacher because of the language gap – we end up simplifying things to the point that it isn’t deep any more. Also he takes anything I says and expands it to include every American. So I mention that I don’t believe in the afterlife, and he says “I didn’t realize Americans didn’t believe in the afterlife.” Enough to send me running for the hills.

But I didn’t just chat up the history teacher today, I did teach a class in the afternoon. My first year students did pretty well with the culture shock quiz that I give, with the exception of the last question. To a man my students believe that Italians sometimes wear spaghetti in their hair.

At the end of the day the vice principal walked by while the history teacher had cornered me and told the history teacher he should think about paying me for my time. And he was serious. The history teacher stammered and hemmed and hawed and left for his desk, saying that someday he will show his appreciation.

Also the principal came by and asked me how my home life was working out. Since most people don’t live with their spouses before marriage, I think there can be a shock when you move in with someone for the first time. I took the chance to tell him all about how we both do housework and share the cleaning and cooking, just to show him how the future is looking. I also got to use a new word I learned the other day, “tomobataraki”, which means “both working” – usually people get married and the wife quits.

Kuniko just sent me a message and she’s on the way home, so I gotta go and put some nabe on the burner. More fun from the trenches tomorrow!

I’m continuing to feel better, but it’s a gradual process. Saturday morning Kuniko and I were able to sleep in a little bit, and we spent a nice relaxing day at home, studying, watching TV, you know – the usual weekend fare.

In the afternoon we headed to Kakogawa and stopped in at Uniqlo to get some gear for Kuniko to wear on her Sunday hike. Her school is going to be hiking next week, so Sunday she and her teachers are going to walk the route to make sure it is acceptable. Kuniko is not a big fan of hiking, so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes.

We got some good gear for her to wear, and from there we went over to the big mall in Kakogawa to meet up with Robert and Junko. They were already at the theater and they had bought tickets for us to see “Oliver Twist” with them. We all gave it a good review but Junko, who has enough depression at her workplace to have to take it in during her free time.

After the movie we went to Befu to catch dinner at one of their favorite restaurants. We drove there and it was an out-of-the-way place – in a building that didn’t look from outward appearances like a restaurant at all. There was only a small sign in front, otherwise you’d think you’d be stepping into someone’s house.

The restaurant was an Italian place, and the owner and his wife were a friendly couple who cooked us up a great meal while we drank wine and ate cheese. We really enjoyed the atmosphere and the food, and it was one of those times where you feel like you’ve stepped out of the normal routine of your life – like you are tucked away in a little corner of the world where nobody can find you. We’ll definitely remember the place and come back again.

The owner was nice enough to pour us a couple of glasses of a Turkish liquor that he had gotten as a souvenir from a friend. It was licorice flavored and at 45% alcohol was quite a drink. We barely got it down – and I was tasting it for a couple hours afterwards. It was like Sambuca from hell.

From there we split up and headed our separate ways. Kuniko has her hike tomorrow, so I’ll be hanging out at home and doing a little bit of clean up. We’re planning on meeting up with Kuniko’s folks tomorrow night – something to look forward to.

Hey, it’s Friday and I’m feeling a whole lot better. I woke up with clear sinuses, and once I shake this cough I’ll be back in business.

I had two classes today, and after I finished marking papers I left work early to come home and rest up. I figured that it’s best to kick this disease while it’s down and not push myself. I limited myself to one load of laundry at home, and spent most of the afternoon doing job research online.

Kuniko came home exhausted this evening so we just had store-bought sushi and sashimi for dinner. Luckily, Kuniko has tomorrow off, so we’ll get to sleep in and get some rest. We are probably going to go out and catch a movie with Robert and Junko (otherwise known as the Dan senseis). Other than that, there is not much planned for the weekend.

That’s it – I’m heading to bed to do some reading and catch some Z’s….

Today I woke up with another headache and a head stuffed full of snot, and I maintained my plugged up state right up until now, as I write this. Rather than give you the full details on being sick, it suffices to say that I am still sick and hoping for a recovery by the weekend.

The history teacher was worried about me today – he said that my eyes look tired. He said that usually my eyes are like a hawk’s… always alert and looking around. He said that instead my eyes look like a, well, he couldn’t think of a suitable animal to compare it to. He just said I look tired.

Despite being tired I managed to teach two classes today, and they went pretty well considering. It was a new lesson, and I really enjoyed it. Despite feeling crappy during the day, teaching in front of a bunch of crazy students really cheered me up.

Right after my classes I went home to try to get some rest. I cleaned up around the house and then decided to lay down and take a nap. I slept soundly until Kuniko got home, and she cooked us up a great dinner of mabodofu donburi. Now I’m typing this out as she’s in there doing the dishes, and I’m experiencing sick husband guilt.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to find the road to recovery – I’m eager to be able to taste my food again.

It was a tough call whether to go into work today or to stay home. I’m feeling a little better, but I don’t have any classes today so it would be perfectly OK to call in sick. I decided to go in to work, though, on the premise that I’ll get more done at work than I would at home.

I did get a lot done at work, and I’m all set with my new lesson for Thursday. It should be a fun one – I’m not sure if it will last long enough… we’ll find out tomorrow.

We continue to get reports from Hokkaido on the antics of our students skiing there on their school trip. The vice principal stands up in the morning meeting and gives us a dry report on their activities. Luckily they are relaying pictures back to be posted on a website, so we can see all the fun they are having. I’m so jealous!

After a solid day of studying, I’m back home now. I just finished straightening up the house a bit, and I’m looking forward to staying warm inside tonight. It still smells a little like kerosene in here, though. Nobody light a match…

On Tuesday I wasn’t feeling so great in the morning, but since I have two classes scheduled, I figured that I had better go in and teach them. Kuniko woke up early and made me a lunch to take with me to school, so at least I would have a great meal to look forward to.

Everybody at school was worried about me, and just about everyone that walked by asked if I was doing OK. I appreciated the concern, but it only made me wonder why I was at school at all. I got through both of my classes – unfortunately the last one was a sixth period class, so I couldn’t go home early.

I got home and managed to spill kerosene out on the back patio while filling the heater’s tank, and then an hour later I spilled lamp oil while filling the oil lamp inside the house. The whole place smelled like kerosene and I had to air out the house for about half an hour.

Kuniko got home late in the evening, so I ate earlier and saved her some dinner for when she arrived. She came home with a basket of fresh strawberries, and so we’ve got some fresh fruit for the next few days.

I’m going to bed early to get some rest and try to shake myself out of this cold…

I woke this morning feeling a little better today, and so I got my gear together and left for school at the usual time. My plan was to do my only class for the day, and then head home and rest up.

On the way to school the streets were covered with a thin layer of snow that made walking a little more treacherous. It is much colder in Takasago than in Futami.

At school I asked the vice principal if the plan would fly and he said no problem. Everybody at work was worried about me – I’ve never taken sick time before.

I survived my third period class and wrapped things up at school and went home. I just finished the bento lunch that Kuniko made for me and now I’m back off to bed. I’m exhausted. Luckily Kuniko is feeling much better – maybe that’s an indication that I’ll be getting back to normal soon.

Well, hello there! It was a quiet weekend at Fredricks’ Residence East. Kuniko wasn’t feeling well on Saturday, so we stayed home and I took care of her while she slept through the day. Then on Sunday I woke up sick with a 101 degree fever. Kuniko drove me to the hospital and they checked me out and gave me some medicine. Then Kuniko was stuck all day taking care of me.

The worst part of the sickness was the headache – it was a tough one to endure. In the afternoon I woke up sweating and the fever had broke. From there it was just rest up in preparation for Monday.

For the last two days I’ve been commuting into Kobe to attend the Hyogo prefecture JET conference, sponsored by the prefectural government annually. It is usually a pretty strange conference – you really have to work hard to get good material out of it. Most JETs who go use it as an excuse to party at night and see friends that they haven’t seen in a long time.

I met up with Nel, Struan and Antoine at the site of the plenary session on the first day, and we sat through a couple of boring opening speeches. The keynote speech was quite good, however. The keynote speaker was this absent-minded English professor who struggled through a speech littered with digressions and grammatical errors, but was very entertaining and got everyone thinking about how to teach English just a little differently (and maybe, more effectively).

Afterwards we were free for a 90 minute lunch, so we followed Nel south to the station, and then even further south to a cafe that he knew. The cafe was pretty good, but not worth the long walk south. We ate and then had to rush back, and I ended up walking into the first workshop five minutes late. Oops!

The workshops seemed designed to make the Japanese English teachers attending speak more English. They had several exercises that were designed to get them to talk more – usually they are really shy at these meetings. Who can blame them… I can’t imagine holding a discussion as complex as this in a second language. The teachers in my group did well, though, and the native speakers of English tried their best to give them a relaxed atmosphere.

Once the workshops were complete, we rounded up the team. Somehow, Struan ended up bringing three other JETs – I knew one of them, the other two were new this year and I think they were pretty lonely. We set out a plan and followed it – first to the Belgian beer place for a couple of beers, and then we went to Cafe Lois for an Asian fusion dinner.

Antoine and Nel weren’t so excited to have a couple of first year JETs with us – the first years were complaining about this and that, and talking about all the crazy things in Japan which by now are second nature for the rest of us. We listened to their stories with a frozen smile on our faces and I think Struan was regretting his choice of dinner companions by the end of it.

Once dinner was over I made noises to indicate that it was late and we should be getting back, and that effectively broke up the party – I came back home on the same train as Struan, and he actually apologized for inviting the others along. I didn’t mind – maybe shaking things up now and then is a good thing.

Friday we did the whole thing again, with more workshops, more speeches, and a closing ceremony. This is my third and final year on the JET program, and as such there is really a sense of detachment with all the activities that are going on related to the program. I’ve never really used all of the services and support that goes along with the JET program, maybe because I’m older than the average JET, but as things were wrapping up at our last official JET meeting, it was a little sad to think that it will really be the last one.

Struan went home early after the second day of the conference, which left just Antoine, Nel and me to wander the streets. I suggested going for a quick drink somewhere and then walking up to Kitano to House Of Pacific for dinner, and everybody seemed into the idea. We walked by a hot spring right in the middle of the city. They have a little pool in a shack outside the building – you can sit on a comfortable bench and warm up your feet in the water. Nel and Antoine were all excited to go try it, but when we got there there was a homeless guy with his pants rolled up and his bare feet in the water, dozing away. We decided to skip the hot spring.

We made it to a bar that Nel had suggested, and it was inhabited by quite a few foreigners like us. We were looking for places out of the mainstream, but apparently this one was a gaijin bar. The owner responded to my Japanese in English, and so we ended up drinking a quick beer and getting out of there, as more and more foreigners and people that wanted to meet foreigners were coming in.

As a group we walked north for about half an hour into the Kitano neighborhood. Kitano is a really upscale, quiet neighborhood that is busy with tourists during the weekend, but it’s generally calm during the weekdays. We walked up the hill to the top and then turned right and up another small hill. I knew Antoine and Nel were going to love it as soon as they say all the torches lit outside the restaurant. We walked in and the receptionist and I talked about what we would like to do.

The House Of Pacific has great service. We mentioned that we’d like to sip something at the bar, and they took us upstairs and opened up their new bar (new to me) for us. We sat on comfortable chairs in front of a wide polished wooden bar with a view of hundreds of bottles of alcohol in the foreground and a view of the nightscape of Kobe in the background. I ordered a 15 year old single malt scotch, Nel had a margarita, and Antoine had a shochu. They hung our jackets up for us, and we took in our surroundings.

The place doubled as their wine cellar, and as their cigar storeroom. They had a glass case full of cigars and a humidifier running in there blowing full blast. The waitstaff saw that I was the leader of the group, and from then on worked hard to make sure that anything that we wanted, we got. They asked me if we had a car, they would be happy to have it warm and ready in front when we left. I mentioned that we were so sorry that we didn’t make any reservations, but were wondering if they could manage a table in the dining room for later. They had the table ready in a couple of minutes. Everyone was wearing small earpieces and radios, and they relayed messages to each other – “Bryan’s party would like a table in the dining room”, “Bryan’s table is ready”, “Bryan’s party is just finishing their drinks, and will be in shortly”.

We had a fantastic dinner with another beautiful view of Kobe. They had a great special going for dinner – an appetizer, main course, dessert, and coffee for 2800 yen – under thirty bucks. We sprung for a bottle of wine and really had a great time talking and eating.

I had a roasted Spanish pork with pear and apple sauce and a sweet mashed potatoes on the side. Antoine had a monster rib eye steak, and Nel had Chinese style duck. We ate some great desserts, and then hit the road. They had a lady waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs with our coats, as we left the chefs were lined up at the window and they all bowed to us, and the lady walked us to the end of the street to say goodbye.

Antoine and Nel were blown away. We joked about what the other JETs were probably doing – drinking cheap beer in a foreigner bar somewhere and eating french fries and popcorn, maybe. It was a fitting end to the three year experience on JET – now we’re on the home stretch.

When I got home Kuniko was hanging in there – exhausted from yet another day at work and looking forward to some rest this weekend. I’m hoping that we can sleep in tomorrow and relax.

I took some pictures from the last couple of days and put them in the photo gallery.