Sunday came around and Kuniko was off fairly early to take the TOEIC exam. She has to retake the exam every few years to keep her score current. She got a really high score last time, and she’s a little worried that it’ll be hard to match that. The other night she got the results for the private school teachers test that she took a while back. She got the highest score possible, so she was pretty pleased with that. That means that it will be easier to get a job in the private sector if the public school system doesn’t take her next year. We won’t hear from the public school system for another week or so.

I kicked around the house for a while and then went into Osaka to meet up with Yamamoto sensei to see a Ben Folds in concert. Yamamoto sensei had invited a friend of his – someone he met through an online auction. I couldn’t catch her name and she didn’t offer me a business card, so she will remain “Yamamoto sensei’s friend” for the rest of this narrative.

Yamamoto sensei introduced her at first as his ex-wife, and later let me off the hook and told me it was a joke. I spoke in Japanese to her, and only in English to Yamamoto sensei. We did OK, but very often we had to repeat things in one language or another to get it right.

We got to the venue, and it was actually a concert hall attached to a shopping mall. I’ve been to this mall before, and I had no idea there was a concert hall attached. The mall has the distinction of having a dog restaurant. I’m going to let you guess whether it a restaurant that serves dogs, or if it’s a restaurant that serves dog.

We had some iced coffee and then got in line for the show. There were about a thousand people there, and everyone crammed into a relatively small venue. Yamamoto sensei had been there many times before, and scouted out the perfect place for us to watch.

The show was great. It was my first time seeing Ben Folds, and it’s kind of a piano/rock show. I knew some of the songs, but most of them were new to me. Yamamoto sensei knew every song and sang them all. He danced quite a bit, and it is with a little bemusement that I write this as most people reading this won’t know what a funny sight that must have been.

Ben Folds said a “konnichiwa” to the crowd at first, and from then on talked to us conversationally in English, not really caring that most people didn’t know what the hell he was saying. He played an interesting version of a Dr. Dre song set to piano melodies. His bass player sang a song Fred Durst style with so much irony that I almost missed it.

After about two hours, Ben played a particularly lively song, wrapped it up, said goodbye to the audience, and threw his piano stool directly at the keyboard of his piano. It bounced crazily to the side with surprising velocity, and then it was over.

We stopped for a quick bite to eat at a nice restaurant, and Yamamoto sensei treated us to dinner. From there, I caught the train back to Akashi. By sheer chance I bumped into Jane, my upstairs neighbor on the platform, and we rode the train back together.

She recently got serious with her boyfriend, and she asked me all kinds of questions about love, relationships, and timing. Interesting conversation. It made me feel old.

Today the weather was windy and much cooler, and Kuniko and I both enjoyed our day off more than usual. For Kuniko it’s pretty rare to get a day off during the weekend, let alone three in a row. It made a big difference for her to take care of everything she’s been wanting to do. For the most part we had the day to do whatever we wanted.

We did laundry and hung things out to dry on the sunny back porch. The wind made it easy for things to dry out fast. We had chili for lunch, and afterwards I made up guacamole for the dinner that evening. Everything was moving slowly, the temperature was cool so you weren’t sweating all the time, and for the first time we both got a really strong feeling of the impending fall season.

In the evening Tamura sensei and Takuma-kun came over for a taco dinner party. We sat around and ate lots of tacos, and drank lots of beer. Takuma-kun drank quite a bit, and I felt slightly guilty breaking out the whiskey for sipping afterwards. Our dessert was a combination of Japanese desserts that they had brought as omiyage and also American candy bars that my mom had sent for my birthday.

It was fun to relax with them. We took some pictures of the fun we were having, and eventually it was time to get them home. We’re hoping to get together again next month and try to make it a monthly thing.

Today is a national holiday to celebrate the coming of Autumn, and so we got to sleep in and have a relaxing morning. I got a message from Antoine wanting to meet up, but since we had plans already this evening, I went into Sannomiya to have lunch with him.

Kuniko let me borrow her commuter passes for the train so I didn’t have to pay anything to get there – a big bonus. Round trip it costs me around $12 to get to Sannomiya, the heart of Kobe. I met Antoine in front of the movie theater and we walked around town until we settled on Chinese food in Chinatown.

We ate lots of gyoza and some nikuman, and washed it down with cold oolong tea. We chatted about the upcoming year – it’ll be a pivotal year for both of us. Antoine is going to try to stay in Japan and find a good job here. He’s a little worried about the timing, and whether he can make enough money to sustain himself here.

I stopped in at a local store to buy some garlic paste. There are a lot of stores in Chinatown that specialize in non-Japanese Asian foods – things from Thailand, Korea, the Phillipines, etc. While I was getting the garlic an old guy spoke broken English and tried to get us to buy other (more expensive) things. He tried to get us to buy a monster jar of garlic, and then advertised the flavor of little chips that he said had lard inside. He took the jar off the shelf, twisted off the lid, pulled back the safety seal, and had us smell inside. We agreed that it smelled good, and then he put the safety seal back on, put the lid back on, and put the jar back on the shelf. Yikes!

On our travels we found a new import foods store near the station. Import food stores in Japan are pretty much the same wherever you go. They have the same items, probably because they buy them all from the same wholesaler. This store was different – they were buying products from somewhere else. I scored a could of containers of Stagg chili, and some Kraft macaroni and cheese. They had some pretty good beers there, too. Still no cake frosting, though. That’s apparently impossible to buy in Japan.

I came back in the afternoon and hung out with Kuniko, and then we gathered up our gear, drove to Carrefour to buy steaks, and took everything over to Kageyama headquarters in Kakogawa to cook dinner for her folks. The steaks were decent sized, and pretty fairly priced. I rubbed them with garlic, olive oil, salt, and some spicy rub from America. Then we panfried them quickly and served them up. We also served some microwaved potatoes, but they weren’t completely microwaved and some of them were a little tough. They had to go in again to finish up. We also had a good bottle of wine from JVB vineyards in Kenwood. We picked it up on our last trip to America and it went really well with the red meat.

Kuniko and I finished our meat quickly, but her father and mother savored theirs and ate slowly. I don’t think they have steaks much – it’s still considered a luxury item. It was good to cook for them for a change and give Kuniko’s mom a break.

Kuniko borrowed their sewing machine for a school project that she is working on, and we took off around 10 p.m.

Instead of heading home we drove all the way to the Akashi bridge, and enjoyed walking along the water and taking in the view. It was breezy but not cold – a perfect night to be out there. There were fishermen along the water, too – they were using glowsticks and little lights on their lines to catch fish. When they cast the line out, you could see the glowstick arcing against the night sky and finally drop into the dark water.

We waited around for the lights to change color on the bridge, and then heading home. Along the street there were cars parked – some cars with all tricked out and looked like gangster wagons from L.A., and some had couples inside who can’t afford a love hotel. We jumped in the car and drove back along the water to Futami, and we hit the rack. There’s still two days left in the weekend!

Today we had our Sports Day. This is the third and final one for me to see at Takasago Minami High School. I feel like I’m an expert now about what goes on – the timing, the events, and I can even understand some of the announcements over the PA system. I remember my first sports day – I was a wide-eyed neophyte just taking it all in.

I took lots of pictures, and had a great time talking with the students. We chatted about all kinds of things – in both English and Japanese. I wore sunscreen this time, so I wasn’t too crispy at the end of the day.

As always I really enjoyed seeing the team flags, and the sports club relay was really good this year. Usually the students just fool around in their uniforms and walk slowly around the track, but this year they ran as hard as the could. Even the kendo members clad in armor ran around the track against members of the swim team wearing only swim trunks.

We had the same events as usual, and I cheered on various teams as they worked hard to bring home the prize. This year I didn’t actually participate like last year – in fact, none of the teachers did this year. It was all about the students, and that’s probably the way it should be.

It was a weird day today – we had an abbreviated schedule right in between the practice for sports day yesterday and the real thing tomorrow. The students weren’t paying attention at all, just waiting around for the end of the day.

I had two classes today, and I did my best to rouse the students, but they just weren’t so interested. Most of my time otherwise was dedicated to studying.

One highlight was a visit from some of my ex-students. They were some of the girls from ESS during the first year I came to the school. They all were hard at work in college, and one of them, Haruna, was speaking really good English. They had heard that I got married, and so they wanted to hear all about it.

I cut out of there around 5 o’clock, and got home just a little while ago. Kuniko and I are going to try to conquer the leftovers in the fridge and make some space. This tiny refrigerator is a real challenge with two people, I’ll tell you that. It makes no sense to buy a new one now and then move it later – we’re going to have to try to hold out for a year. I know we can do it!

Tomorrow is sports day – I’ll do my best to take lots of pictures!

Today was the practice day for sports day – the real one is happening this Thursday. Since it was practice, the students did just a few preliminary events. Most of their time was spent marching around the field. They are quite good at marching – I was surprised.

I spent the entire day outside walking around and talking with students. We talked quite a bit in both English and Japanese. Some of the conversations I got involved in were absolutely bizarre.

One boy had learned a few new words, “dick” and “johnson”. I wasn’t surprised that he knew “dick”, but “johnson” is a little bit of a specialized term. After further questioning I discovered that he learned them from Mr. Hayashi. Yikes! As I left he pointed to a student sitting next to him and said, “His dick is very, very small!” in English. The guy who he had indicated nodded enthusiastically and waved goodbye to me.

A couple of boys were pondering how I could look so cool no matter what clothes I wear. I’m not joking and they were not being sarcastic. They thought it was some kind of magical American ability that I have. They were deeply interested in hip hop music and asked me who killed Tupac Shakur.

Girls throughout the day would wave and giggle and say hello to me, and some even said “You are very handsome!” or “You are beautiful!” After two years I still haven’t figured out the correct response to this.

One boy asked me if I was “experienced”. It turned out that he wanted to know if I have had sex. I answered honestly that yes, I have had sex before, and then he wanted details. Where? Did it feel good? I started to pretend that I couldn’t understand and got out of there.

A boy asked me if Americans really call Japanese “yellow monkeys”. One girl asked me for recommendations of places to visit in America. I had my picture taken with several groups of boys and girls.

All in all it was a typical day out on the field. Everyone was glad that there were no classes. We just sat around out in the heat.

The heat did have an effect, however. Every now and then a student would collapse, and they would cart them off to the nurse’s tent. I was sitting next to the nurse’s tent for a while, and at one point there were eight kids laying around trying to recover from some kind of injury. One kid was in really bad shape, so they called an ambulance.

When the ambulance arrived, the drivers got out and looked at all the students laying around and wanted to know which one to take. It turned out they took two, and called another ambulance to take two more. It made for some drama around lunchtime.

I left school early to meet Kuniko in Sannomiya for some wedding planning. She saw me and said I looked exhausted. I have a pretty good sunburn all over my neck and face, so that might be why.

Why spent about an hour and a half at the wedding place, and then from there we stopped in for some ramen at a restaurant nearby. I had some Chinese style spicy ramen with a spicy broth full of sesame seeds and hot oil, and in the middle was a big pile of spiced pork which was tender and juicy. Of course there were plenty of noodles in there too – so good. Kuniko finished her bowl of ramen, but it was a lot of food, and we came back with our stomaches aching just a little.

I’m off to bed now – tomorrow is a regular day at school. I have two classes tomorrow, but they’ve been shortened to 40 minutes each. I can’t wait to see what color my skin will be when I wake up.

Today was a holiday, ostensibly to give respect to the aged in Japan. Kuniko and I used it to sleep in. Kuniko spent the morning making giant shorts for her class activity during the upcoming sports day. From what I understand, two students will be wearing these giant shorts and race around the track. It’s a little hard for me to understand, but Kuniko made some practice shorts for them to use.

We made a morning trip to Carrefour to do some shopping for the party tonight, and we found some good deals. They had some Hawaiian beers that I picked up, and we also got some Mexican ingredients for tacos tonight.

In the afternoon I did some studying while Kuniko did laundry. At around 7 o’clock, Chu-Chu and Chiemi showed up. I hadn’t seen Chu-chu in a long time – we had a chance to meet a long time ago in Osaka. This was my first time meeting Chiemi. We had a great time with them. Both of them had spent time overseas, and were familiar with the concept of tacos, and so it was fun to eat, drink and chat.

For Kuniko it was a great chance for her to catch up with her old friends, and everyone seemed excited about the upcoming wedding. We ate and drank and drank and ate, and by the end we had eaten tacos, chips, quesadillas, a salad, some cake, and some Haagen Dazs ice cream.

It was a great chance for me to practice listening to Japanese. I popped in a comment in Japanese now and then, but I’m still not really confident. I get all excited and start to say something, and then I forget a verb – or worse – how to conjugate it properly, and then I lose the moment and I sound like a retard. Still, everyone was patient with me and I learned a lot about everyone and got a glimpse into Kuniko’s college life. I guess she ate a lot – that sounds familiar.

Tomorrow is Sports Day practice for me, which means no classes. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, probably alternate studying with watching some of the events. Should be fun!

Both Friday and Saturday were Culture Festival days at Kuniko’s school in Kobe. The events kept her really busy, and she didn’t get home from the Saturday festival until past 11 o’clock at night! Kuniko took the camera into school and I’ve posted some of the pictures. She also took some video of a performance from her mandolin guitar club, and some other dance performances.

The dance club performance was pretty good, and I couldn’t believe that these girls dancing were junior high students. We were watching the video on the camera at a train station and I felt myself being self-conscious of what we must look like as these girls paraded around the video screen.

Sunday morning we got up fairly early and caught a train to Osaka to attend the Culture Festival at Kuniko’s old school. It was a chance for me to see the school where she worked so hard, had to live for several days, where she and the other female teachers had to cook for the male teachers, and where she constantly did battle with her draconian boss.

It took us almost two hours to get there, and when we arrived we registered at the gate. Everyone remembered Kuniko, and she introduced me as her husband, and we had lots of nice conversations. Soon after we met Higuchi sensei, one of Kuniko’s coworkers from that time. It is interesting to note that all of her coworkers left at the same time – everyone had a hard time with the boss.

Higuchi sensei was a really nice guy – he came across as a really smart guy, too. We walked around and met former students, current students, and teachers. I was impressed with the size of the school. Not only is it a high school, but it’s also a college. There are 1500 students there, much bigger than my school. In addition it is a private school, so the rooms are air conditioned, there is a TV monitor in each classroom, and everything just looked a bit nicer than what I’m used to seeing.

The big part of the Culture Festival is selling food – and each class had a different them. I was drawn to “American Hot League” which was selling American style hot dogs. They were really pretty small, but they had “ketchup sauce” or “chili sauce” to put on. They were pretty good though. We paid 160 yen for each one with a drink, and the little ticket they gave us said that we had paid 160 dollars!

Afterwards I told the teacher in charge that I’m American, and those were truly American style dogs. He relayed the message to the students, and everyone was very happy.

We met some of the ALT’s from that school, private ALT’s who unlike me work for themselves and not the prefectural government. They were all really pleasant to talk to, and they seemed to have a great relationship with the students. The student’s English level is much higher than my school, so it was amazing to see some students having full conversations with native speakers of English.

We ate plenty of food, maybe too much, but we wanted to try lots of things, and the students appreciated it. We got a lot of attention walking around hand in hand, but I’m getting used to that.

A bonus moment was when we got to meet the Dragon Lady boss herself. She looked like a tough woman. She smiled and seemed nice enough, but I could tell that she probably wouldn’t take a lot of crap from anyone. I wish I could have snuck a picture…

Finally we called it a day and took the long train trip back to Nishi Futami. We snuck in a nap during the afternoon, and then had some leftovers for dinner. The final stage for the day was a drive to Okubo to do some shopping and see a movie. We saw “Cinderella Man”, and it was a really good movie. Pretty violent boxing scenes – Kuniko would turn away to avoid seeing people getting the pulp beaten out of them.

Finally we came on back and hit the sack around midnight. Tomorrow we’re having some of Kuniko’s friends over for tacos and booze, so we’re going to clean the house and do some preparations. I’m going to make guacamole again – yum!

On Friday morning Kuniko and I were heading out the door and at the last minute I figured that I should send off my package of wedding announcements to my folks today, since it will be a few days before the post office opens again. Kuniko watched me getting ready, and thought maybe we should wait and put a few choice items in. It was a good idea that we waited – more on that later.

Kuniko and I walked to the train station together, which is unusual becuase she leaves about a half hour earlier than I leave. We stood on the opposite sides of the platform and I made goofy faces at her and told her how sleepy I was. Other passengers sat and watched us with mild curiosity.

Today at school was went without a hitch. The history teacher made a lot of visits. Lately he’s using a new strategy to drive me crazy. He is watching CNN news, and although they are speaking English very fast he catches bits and pieces, formulates a hypothesis based on what he heard, and then comes in to ask me about it.

This leads to strange situations. Like today, he told me he was shocked that the newscaster was using two words, “refugee” and “evacuee” to describe the victims of Hurricane Katrina. He demanded to know which word I use, so that he could settle it in his mind. There’s no easy answer, and I think he knows it. He wants to get me talking to him as much as possible. He’ll decide that all Americans can’t deal with humidity, everyone in America is cool or rich or rude or cheap. Like so many other people, CNN news is one of the few windows he has into American culture. Scary.

Kuniko offered to cook dinner tonight, so when she messaged me on the way home and asked me what I was up for, I told her -> MEAT. She came through with several packages of beef on sale of Ito Yokado, and she created a vegetable and beef stir fry that rocked. It hit the spot. We each ate big, and there’s more left for the weekend.

Kuniko was bushed after dinner, but we managed to stay up to watch part of a Japanese drama show that I enjoy. I don’t understand, but it’s likely that if I did, I wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much.

I don’t remember if I’ve explained the plot here before, so I might as well tell you. The plot revolves around six students that are supposed to be college students, or maybe they are high school students. They are dressed how a fashion designer would envision cool students. Their teacher always wears the same clothes, always has the same stern, no nonsense attitude, and spends more time berating the students than actually teaching. This is of course because they are not going to show him actually teaching material – that would make for boring TV.

Strangely, he is assisted by four other teachers that come into his class and do teach short lessons with actual learning material. They run in a montage style, with each of the students thoughtful faces getting a closeup. These part time teachers are dressed like historical figures from both Japan and other parts of the world. There’s a traditional Japanese father figure who wears robes and is always fanning himself. There’s a guy that looks like a Japanese Albert Einstein. Et cetera.

Tonight the students were trying to pass a test to get into a school, and the amount of drama that went into just going and checking the results was amazing. I wasn’t affected by the drama build-up – I don’t have much connection with the characters – but it was an interesting insight into how much pressure goes into passing tests in Japan. It’s a part of life here, even part of mine.

Last night it was pretty close to cool outside, and today the wind was blowing around nice cool air. I’m enjoying the change in temperature, to say the least. I don’t know how long it will last, so I’ve got all the windows wide open now cooling down the house.

I just had two classes today, and so I spent the morning studying and chatting with other teachers. I had a good conversation with Miyake sensei. She was talking to me about who I invited to the wedding, and she was concerned that I had invited the vice-principal without inviting the principal. Apparently that’s a slight breach of protocol. I told her that I talked it over the vice-principal, and we’re OK. I’m not doing it to secure my position in a company, I’m doing it because he’s a really nice guy and he’s helped me a lot in my time at Takanan.

My classes were a breeze, and the students were also very appreciative of the cooler weather. They seemed to have a little more energy, and I think they are really learning how to give directions. It feels good to see them step away from their worksheets and still be able to tell someone how to get somewhere in English.

There was a funny moment today when I was talking to Tsutsumi sensei about the next lesson for the first years. I had passed out the lesson (3 pages) to all the teachers yesterday, and when she came and sat down I realized that I had given them the wrong lesson – I had given them one for the second years. The funny part was that they were ready to go with the lesson. She said that she wasn’t sure how it was going to work, but she had confidence that I could pull it together. I printed out the correct handouts and re-handed them out. Embarrassing!

After school we had ESS, which was simply ten girls in a room giggling, gossiping in Japanese, and occasionally, reluctantly, speaking to me in English. Two girls in the club are determined to speak English with me, though, so I had a good chance to talk with them. Matsubara sensei was also trying to get them to speak English, but it wasn’t working. Finally we quit around five o’clock, and I went across the street to Tsuji-san’s place for some Japanese/English conversation.

I’m back home now and Kuniko is working late in preparation for their school festival on Saturday. It looks like it will be a late dinner. She’s going to be working late tomorrow as well, and then be at the school festival all day on Saturday. We might get some downtime on Sunday, but I think that we have a public holiday on Monday and so we should get a chance to catch up then for sure.

My schedule today was mixed up and so I had a really tough lineup at school. I had four classes in a row with just 10 minutes in between, from the first period to the fourth. Luckily I had done a lot of planning yesterday, so it went pretty smoothly.

Matsubara sensei was gone today, so I taught her class solo. It went pretty well, and I only had to break into Japanese once or twice. All of the students were impressed, and I think they paid just a bit more attention.

After my run of four classes finished up, I was able to relax, have a leisurely lunch, mail some letters, go to the convenience store for some cold beverages, and generally just kick back. I studied kanji in the afternoon, and then went to a very boring staff meeting in the afternoon.

The purpose of the staff meeting was to introduce a goal-oriented system to the educational system at our school. It was mind-numbingly boring, and it was met by some resistance from the teachers. From what I can tell they are going to give it a try for a year and see how it goes.

Finally, I chatted with the vice principal about taking time off for the wedding. He signed off right away for the five days leading up to the wedding, but he seemed surprised that I wanted to take three days off the next week. He said that we’ll talk about that in the beginning of November. I’m thinking that he’ll let me take it, and even if he doesn’t the teachers have a plan in place to do my classes without me, so I might call in sick three days in a row. Like I said before – there’s no reason to save my capital… I’m gone in August.

Tonight I got home and went out with Yasu for dinner at Denya. It’s a good chance for Yasu to use his English, and we had a good time talking about all kinds of things. I gave him an invitation to the wedding, and we talked about his future. He went with his brother to a fortuneteller and I guess he found out some opportunities will be coming his way in November. He told me that he doesn’t believe in it, but now he’s paying a little more attention.

Now I’m back home and Kuniko will be getting here soon. I brought back some yakitori for her just in case she missed dinner. Tomorrow I have a comparitively easier day, and Friday should be pretty easy as well. Once I get past Monday I can just cruise into the weekend.

There was some good news today for me – the English teachers met up and consulted each other and came out with the verdict that they could live without me for two weeks. I was thinking a little bit about this process and thinking that I was spending quite a bit of “political capital” with this, but then how often do you get married, anyhow? It’s not like I can stay at the school past next year anyway. I might as well use up all my capital before I go.

The next stage is taking it to the vice principal. It might be a tough sell, but at least I have the entire English staff confirming that it’s OK with them. The timing turns out to be just right. I’ll be gone during the “last review” lesson, and then I’ll be back just in time for interview tests. Perfect!

One of the teachers in my section always makes coffee in the mornings, and offers it to anybody that wants some. I also say thanks, but no thanks – I’m not a big fan of coffee unless it is combined with so much cream and sugar that it’s no longer classified as coffee. Anyway, I found out the other day that he’s been making coffee and putting it in the refrigerator, and it’s free for anybody to take. Today I made a tall iced coffee with lots of cream and sugar and ice. All I had to do was put my feet up on my desk to complete the picture of total relaxation. The air conditioner was pumping, and when my sweaty students came in for a conference or something they saw me enjoying a tall cold glass and probably wanted to kill me and drink it themselves.

I did two classes today, and both of them were full of energetic kids, despite the heat. They listened carefully, and guessed at things they didn’t quite know. They also seemed to take more chances and so I upped the difficulty level just a bit.

Mr. Hayashi left early from school, so I was the sole clean-up commander at the end of the day. The students came down and gave me their clipboard, and I supervised the cleaning of the bathrooms and one classroom. They did a fairly good job, and were endlessly amused by finding dead bugs, overflowing toilets, or saying “urine” over and over in Japanese. It’s not high comedy, but I have learned to make do.

They stood and stared at one urinal that was stopped up and wondered what to do. I came by and told them they didn’t have to clean it – just do the rest of the room. Their celebration was truly epic.

Through the afternoon I studied at my desk and chatted with the other teachers. Tanaka sensei urged me to go home – he said I looked tired. I decided to stick through to the end – I need all the teachers to see me working hard in anticipation of my vacation in a few months.

Finally, on the way home I shared a train with one of the third year students. She is pretty good at English and she is studying it very hard. She went to Australia last year and had a great time. She’s a little shy, but I was very surprised when she came up and sat right down next to me on the train. We talked at first just in English, but I switched to Japanese to keep things flowing. She was really impressed that I spoke Japanese – she asked me lots of questions about how long I have been studying. I hope it inspired her to keep studying English.

Back home I cooked up shougayaki (ginger pork) for dinner with some cabbage salad and tofu on the side. It was a seriously healthy meal, but there was fat hanging on the edges of the pork, so it wasn’t health-freak-healthy. Kuniko came home around 7:30 exhausted from her day. We ate, did the dishes together, and right now she’s asleep in the next room.

Before Kuniko arrived we got a last minute invitation from the Denya master to join them all for some kimchee nabe at a local restaurant. Unfortunately our timing wasn’t right and I had to pass. Still, it was nice to be invited!

Tomorrow I’m going to meet up with Yasu and head over to Denya. It’ll be good to talk to Yasu – it’s been a long time! I’ve got a hectic day at school – four classes in a row from morning to 12:30 in the afternoon.

Matsubara sensei, that is. I was talking to her earlier today and trying to lay the foundation for my time off during November. She casually mentioned that she is pregnant, and is looking forward to the birth of her second child in February. I was happy to hear it, and also I felt like I have some kind of supernatural ability to detect pregnancy.

Elsewhere in the gossip department, yesterday I bumped into Yamamoto sensei and the school nurse standing together in Ito Yokado and looking very nervous that I had caught them. Yamamoto sensei recently got a cellphone after years of not owning one, and that’s a symptom that he’s seeing someone for sure.

Today I bumped into them both separately, and he didn’t seem to mind, but the school nurse looked really embarrassed and found something else to do quickly. Their secret is safe with me – they’ve covered for me in the past, so it’s the least I can do. I just hope none of my teachers read this site!

Like I said before, I’m starting the very complicated process of getting time off for my wedding. I’m planning on taking the week before the wedding and the week after to show around my family while they are here. It’s interesting to see how people view vacations in Japan.

I have plenty of vacation time, so that’s not an issue. In fact, I have five free days off just because I’m getting married. Since the time I want to take off is during classes, it becomes a big deal. Unlike other teachers I cannot be substituted, so I need to make sure that my classes are covered with other activities, and I have to talk with everyone involved. I’m doing this process in the Japanese style, getting tacit permission from everyone before I actually request the time off.

In Japan long vacations are pretty rare. Most vacations last a week at the most. People hurry back to work because they don’t want to leave their co-workers hanging. Oshima sensei just got married at my school and he was gone for about three days. He came back today with a homemade lunch from his wife and acted like nothing had changed. Even some teachers that had gone to Europe or the United States only stayed for three or four days – they spent more time traveling on the plane than at their destination!

My philosophy on vacations is much different from what is normal here, and we’ll just leave it at that.

For dinner tonight we had some Okinawan soup that we found at Ito Yokado. It was my first taste of Okinawan food and it was pretty good. Kuniko says that the food there is great, so we’ll definitely have to make it a vacation destination someday. Two or three days there wouldn’t be so bad.

A while back Struan had told me about a wine tasting event that goes on periodically in Kobe. It’s at the Sheraton on Port Island, and it’s a bit pricey (5000 yen a person!) He was planning to attend the next one because one of his teachers had invited him, and so he in turn invited Kuniko and me.

I met Struan on the Akashi platform, and we caught the shinkaisoku train towards Kobe. The plan was to meet up with Kuniko in Sannomiya, since she was already there because of work. Tanaka sensei was to meet us in the same area, as well.

We sat on the bench seats of the train, and there was a really beautiful girl standing across from us. Struan mentioned casually that she was the woman of his dreams. I settled back to watch Struan try to figure out a way to say hello without seeming like a sexual offender. I came up with a few novel ways to say hello, but in the end he didn’t have the courage. She looked at us a couple of times, and looked away quickly. When we got to the station she happened to be going the opposite way, so we watched her go, and Struan hung on to the faint hope that she used the same station we did, so maybe he’d see her again.

We met Kuniko near the bus stop, and soon after that Tanaka sensei showed up. She is a middle aged home economics teacher at Struan’s school, and we were all surprised how well she spoke English. She was always smiling and she looked serious about tasting wine today. They were hoping to get some “tips from a pro”, so I told them I’d do my best. We caught the bus to the hotel, and walked into the lobby.

It was a pretty nice hotel, and there were Americans here and there among the mostly Japanese staff. The place looked expensive, and it’s in a pretty remote location. The idea I guess was to get traffic coming this direction from the Osaka airport. It’s about a 40 minute bus ride from the hotel to the airport, so it’s not exactly convenient.

We went inside the sports bar, where the event was being held. We duly paid our 5000 yen each, and went inside. The bar was quite nice, and the array of bottles was pretty impressive. There were four distributors, and you could taste from their selection as much as you liked. They had some upscale wines that they were charging for a taste – and it seemed like they were getting some action.

We were some of the first people there, and we got started right away. There was a huge lineup of empty glasses, and so we each grabbed one, I picked a wine to try, we all got a healthy pour and then we sat down to taste it. There weren’t dump buckets, and they poured about a third of a glass of wine. Also, there wasn’t much room to stand in front of the bottles because of the foot traffic, so it was better to go back to our seats. We sat at a dinner table set with silverware, and there was a full meal that came along with it.

We tried lots of wines, starting with whites, then moving to Pinot Noirs and finally into the heavier reds. There were some winners and some losers, but it was a great variety. I tried to explain what I thought of each wine, why I felt that way, what I tasted in each glass, and I think that might have been interesting to Struan and Tanaka sensei. They had both seen the movie “Sideways” and that had fueled some of their interest.

Since we wanted to compare wines we left the first glass, grabbed some more empties, and filled up again. Soon our table was full of glasses. The staff were a little alarmed with that kind of behavior but made no move to stop it. I created little dump buckets out of the first few glasses, and left those on the table. Struan had no dump buckets – he just drank. Tanaka sensei was also hitting it pretty hard – she was funny to watch because she was trying to stay organized and remember all the wines, to rate them on the sheet, and still drink to her heart’s content. I was surprised they poured as much as they did.

The staff was patient with us – other tables were quietly sipping their wines and we were racing through wines and creating a huge collection of glassware. They brought us some delicious food – an appetizer plate for each of us with some salmon sashimi, prociutto, sweet figs, and some kind of shellfish all buttered and garlic ked. They also had all the bread and garlic bread you wanted. There was a main course of a wine marinated chicken with cheesy risotto, and there was a cheese platter with two kinds of cheese (goat and a brie-like cheese) to enjoy afterwards.

I’m not sure when we all arrived at the drunken stage – but it seemed to come at different times. Kuniko was getting sleepy at the table, Struan was rambling on about this and that, Tanaka sensei was giggling uncontrollably and kept saying how embarrassed she was (but in perfect English!) and I was using dump bucket glasses but still feeling a really nice buzz.

We had a time limit of two and a half hours, and we used up every minute. They were selling the wines there, so if you liked one you could buy it at a discount. Struan and I both bought a bottle of Trebbiano from Italy that was really good. Struan also bought a pinot noir that he liked.

From there we headed back to Sannomiya, and then went our separate ways. Kuniko and I went shopping for wedding rings and found a set that we liked at the Sogo department store downtown.

You might wonder if it is a good idea to buy something you will be wearing every day for the rest of your life after consuming so much wine. All I can say is that we really liked the rings last night, and as I type this I hope that when they are finished engraving them and they arrive that we will like them just as much.

We ate a few snacks in Chinatown, got some drinks at Starbucks for a dessert, and then finally caught the train back home. We were both bushed, and crashed out soon after we arrived. I can’t believe we have to work tomorrow!

Saturday morning Kuniko and I could sleep in a little longer than usual. I still had to get up and go do community chores with everybody at eight o’clock. Kuniko offered to join me, but we thought it would be more useful for her to stay in, relax, maybe do some chores.

I put on some scrubby clothes and went downstairs to get to work. I met up with Jane, and we paired off and found a neglected, weedy corner of the facility to work on. We used the hour to catch up with each other. I found out that Jane has a boyfriend – and although she says he’s always over visiting, I’ve yet to see him. We chatted about her plans for the future – it sounds like she’s leaning towards heading home after this year is up. The more I heard from her stories, the more it sounded miserable for her – at least the teaching part.

We wrapped things up and I went back upstairs. Kuniko had to go into work for a little while, so I spent the morning and part of the afternoon doing chores around the house, and doing just a touch of studying. I got to talk to my folks on the phone, and we chatted about their upcoming trip for our wedding. It’s starting to get real, and it’s fun to talk about it and start planning things.

Kuniko got back at a reasonable hour, and we worked on different things. Kuniko was writing the names and addresses of the people she is inviting on her invitation envelopes. She wrote them in beautiful kanji, but kept saying they looked terrible. Maybe they look bad to Japanese eyes – to me they were better than I could ever dream of writing.

For dinner tonight we cooked up tempura for the first time. Lately we’ve had lots of vegetables stacked up around here, and that’s a good way to use them up. We fried up some yams, pumpkin, basil leaves, shrimp, lotus root, some green peppers from my pepper tree, and even some tiny tomatoes that I popped in as an experiment. The first few pieces were a little firm as I wasn’t sure how long to cook them, but then we seemed to find our rhythm and got some great results. We ate the lot of them with some tempura sauce that Kuniko cooked up. Wow! Fried food is just so good.