This morning I stepped off the train onto the platform at Takasago station, and there was a couple of girls staring at me. As I got closer, I realized that I knew them – they were graduates from my school last year! They had dyed their hair, and they weren’t in school uniforms anymore, but I still recognized them. They made a big fuss on the platform, lots of people looking over to see why these girls are yelling “Bryan!” “Bryan da!”

I stopped and chatted with them for a while, and they were really cheerful and fun to talk to. After a few minutes I said goodbye and headed to school.

At school I had only two classes today, and one of them was a review for the exam we’ve got in store for them on Friday. They listened patiently, being very quiet and taking notes. Even when I tried to solicit some response everyone stayed silent – it was hard to get them talking. Next week I’ll be teaching this class solo, which is against the rules, but I don’t really mind doing it. What should I do? Matsubara sensei said that I can do anything I want. Should it be a real lesson, or should we just play games and have fun?

In the afternoon it was just study, study, study for me. The vice principal and the principal both paid a visit to my desk to chat with me. They like the fact that I’m working hard on learning the language, and they’ve both offered to help me out whenever I need it. It’s very kind of them – they are very busy guys, and I hate to bug them. Actually, I hate to bug any of the teachers – but if I’m gonna bug somebody they will probably be a little lower on the totem pole.

I snuck out fifteen minutes early, and caught the train to Akashi. From there I transferred to the JR line and bumped into Shigata sensei on the same train to Sannomiya. She and I chatted for a while about her new school, her honeymoon in Italy, and good Italian restaurants. Her English is pretty good for being a Japanese teacher, and it was easy to hold a conversation with her. She said that she has a friend that works as a translator (Japanese/English) at the Swedish embassy in Osaka. That sounded like a really confusing job.

I met up with Kuniko in Sannomiya – she came over to the station after work, and it was great to see her. We went over to a ramen restaurant that she introduced me to a long time ago, and we had a big bowl of ramen and shared a small bowl of fried rice. She looked pretty tired from working so hard, and so we didn’t walk all over Kobe this evening. After ramen we went over to a coffee shop and looked at some documents that Kuniko needs to translate for her foreign exchange students. I’d like to say that I was able to help out, but Kuniko had most of it already figured out. I was trying to come up with the English name for that little band you use to tie up a ponytail. Is it a braid? A hair band? A hair tie? If I was a girl I’d know it, I guess.

It was a great chance to see Kuniko, and now I’m back home and getting ready for bed. I’m tired out, but it was worth it to see her. The next few days should be a piece of cake at work – we’ll see if it turns out to be true.

I think I’ve written before about how much fun it is for me to walk around my school. In kind of a high school do-over situation, I’m the most popular guy around. The guys all say hello and the girls purr and coo and giggle when I walk by. Actually, a couple of the guys purr and coo as well.

I’ve got my students trained really well, too. At our school they hammer into the students “aisatsu, aisatsu!” which means “greetings”. One of the things they want to train our students is how to be polite, and being polite starts with saying “good morning” in the morning, “hello” during the day, and “goodbye” at the end of the day when they pass a teacher. Of course, these greetings are all in Japanese.

My first term at my school I did my greetings in Japanese, but soon after that I completely switched to English. After two years the students have caught on, and so now the students will greet me in English. With some exceptions they do really well, and they like the chance to use English in the hallways. Some refuse and stick to Japanese, others will shout out “Good morning!” as we’re leaving for home, but generally my students have got it figured out.

I spent time today with Miyake sensei, checking her English transcription, explaining some difficult English expressions to her (like “hit it off”), and studying English. During our free conversation she told me about a friend of hers from Hokkaido that came to visit. She has two kids, one is two years old and the other is just one year old. Her friend and her husband lived in Los Angeles for three years, and so their oldest daughter speaks very good English and Japanese. The family is trying an experiment, so the mother speaks to the girl in English, and the daughter responds in English. The father speaks to her in Japanese, and she responds in Japanese. It sounds really confusing, but evidently it’s working out just great. At that age kids soak up language like crazy, and does it make that big a difference if you throw in two languages instead of just one? Interesting.

Today after school I went over and played ping pong with the ping pong club. The new first year students were merciless, defeating me on almost every point. They’re pretty serious about ping pong here (called “takkyuu”), and when the guy you are playing against stops to spray chemicals on his paddle after every ten points, you know it’s big time.

I went back to class and bumped into the girls basketball team. They’re really cool and ever since I came to watch some games last year they are really enthusiastic when I walk by. I stopped and chatted with them in English, and met some of the new members. One of them is also in my ESS club, so it was cool to see someone doing sports and academics after school.

Midterms are coming up, and one of the exams that I’m doing involves identifying parts of the body. I downloaded a medical illustration of a guy so that I could have the students write “shoulder”, “arm”, “foot”, etc. The guy is not facing you as you look at it – it’s a drawing from the side. The guy is naked, but he has one foot on a step so it nicely blocks any genitalia from being displayed. It’s a drawing – not hot stuff at all. Still, Matsubara sensei drew pants on him – I think she was worried about the reaction. I’m not bothered by this infringement of my artistic values, but it makes for a funny story. And, he looks funny in little penciled in pants.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to meet up with Kuniko for a dinner date after she gets off work. If all goes well we’ll meet up for ramen noodles – not the most romantic place to go, but we should save the fancy stuff for the weekends.

Thursday midterm exams begin, and I’m hoping I’m on an abbreviated schedule. I begged off the teacher softball game – I’ve seen too many horrible, horrible injuries to people over thirty on the softball field. Friday I’m probably going to meet up with Antoine for a guy’s night out… I think he’s looking for some advice about his future. I hope it’s not a heavy meal.

I dashed off to work today, running a little late because it was garbage day and I was a little under-organized in the trash department. I made it to the platform just as the train pulled up, but I didn’t have to run at any time. I see people running to the train every day, and I wonder how busy their lives must be that they can’t work in an extra minute or two for an easy stroll to the train station. I’m all about the easy strolling.

At work today I had only one class, during the sixth period, and it was a new lesson about time expressions. We’re learning about the differences between usually, sometimes, always, never, occasionally, etc. The students did a pretty good job with the new lesson, and as always I was surprised that I didn’t completely hash it up. I seem to make more mistakes when I’m on the 12th time teaching a lesson than when it’s my first time.

The staff had a little bit of a somber tone as people were talking about Yamada sensei’s husband passing away on the weekend. Some interesting cultural notes: they are a Christian family, so when I asked another teacher if I should hand over the traditional sum of cash for a funeral, they said that since they are Christian there is no money involved. Also, the staff at our school came in over the weekend and organized the memorial, the funeral, everything for her. I’m not sure if that is because she is alone or if it common in Japan.

I came back and self-imposed a media blackout, the final episode of Survivor was being broadcast, and I didn’t want to accidentally find out the winner. That’s happened before, and it’s a little anticlimactic.

Instead, while I downloaded the episode on my computer I watched TV in Japanese on Kuniko’s television set. I watched a horribly acted show for kids about some poor junior high school boy with a crush on an older girl in his school. The theme was interesting, just work hard and eventually she’ll notice you. The boy was so stricken with shyness that he couldn’t just walk over and say hello. That’s not just a Japanese thing, though – I remember being in junior high and being paralyzed every time some cute girl would walk by. It’s part of the junior high experience I guess.

Also it seems to me that in Japanese TV and movies there is a lot of things that go on in the character’s heads. There’s lots of footage of people looking up, staring off into the distance, and silently pondering their fate. Even the print ads for various products and institutions often have somebody staring off into space. Contrasted with American movies and TV, where the characters seem to act out their problems, talk with friends, and generally keep things out in the open.

Tomorrow I should have my episode of Survivor, and then I can come out from the blackout and see what’s up in the world. Until then, I’ll stick with Japanese TV.

This weekend was pretty mellow actually. Saturday I spent my day doing laundry, lounging around the house, doing some pleasure reading, and enjoying my day off. Sunday was a little more fun – Kuniko came over early and we went out to go shopping in Tarumi in preparation for her trip to Okinawa next week.

Originally I had thought that her trip was this week, but it turns out that I was wrong, so she has plenty of time to get organized for the trip.

We did a little shopping in the morning, but by then we were so hungry that we went right over to Tooth Tooth restaurant as soon as it opened at 11 o’clock. Kuniko had the idea of going there because our friend Yasu works there, and sure enough, he was working that day.

He sat us down at the table, gave us some recommendations, and was a really great server. He did most of it in Japanese, but sometimes he snuck in a little English for me. We sat outside with a beautiful view of the Akashi bridge and enjoyed the weather and the food. They had a lunch special with all you can eat bread, so I definitely took advantage of that. I had the salad for lunch, which sounds healthy, but actually it had a fried egg and two strips of bacon on top of a caesar salad dressing. Oh yeah.

We wrapped up our shopping and then went back to my place. While Kuniko was doing her studying, I cooked up a quick dinner made from ready-to-eat ingredients that we had bought at Carrefour. It was sea urchin pasta and beef dipped in a sesame sauce – and it tasted pretty good. I’ve never had sea urchin pasta before.

One bit of sad news, Yamada sensei, a female Japanese teacher at our school, lost her husband on Saturday. Mr. Hayashi called to tell me, and it was really sad to hear. Unfortunately I couldn’t make the service, but I feel really bad for her. Apparently she has no kids, so it’s just her alone now. I guess he was a pretty young guy, actually, so it came as a big shock to everyone.

Nothing much to report from the school front today. The high point was chatting with one of the students from Mr. Hayashi’s STEP preparation class today. This student has broken through the shy barrier, and will stop to talk to me for long conversations in English, even while other students point and giggle at him. He tries hard with his English, asks me questions if he doesn’t understand, and is a pleasure to talk to. When I talk to him and encourage him I can actually see his confidence and interest grow. It’s a great feeling to work with someone who really, really, really wants to learn English.

The low point of the day was the rest of that same class. The girls in this class really enjoy the attention that they get from Mr. Hayashi, and he and they chatted and flirted and talked in Japanese for more than 30 minutes. The boys in this class stare at their worksheets and space out, perhaps wondering if it was really a good idea to take this class, or maybe they just think about what’s for lunch. After ten minutes of flirting, I went to the back of the room, sat down and relaxed. A part of me was hoping the principal would walk by right then and see how well I was being utilized.

The boys got a kick out of having me sit in the back with them, and they stole glances at me – probably wondering what was going on.

With a few minutes left before the class ended, Mr. Hayashi said that we should review the handout for today, so I went up to the front and did some pronunciation. Then the bell rang, and I was out of there.

After school Mr. Yamamoto and I drove over to the welcome/farewell party for the English department in Kakogawa, at a place called Grande Alberto. It was a real Italian restaurant, with real Italian food on the menu. Unfortuntely we had a set menu arranged in advance, so I couldn’t really pick what to have. The food that came was good – my favorite was the spaghetti with homemade salami and peas – wow! Other dishes were made for Japanese tastes, very little garlic and cheese. Other patrons of the restaurant were ordering something with garlic, though – the smell came through every once in a while.

To do the traditional toast Ms. Mori asked what we should drink, and I voted for wine. She thought that was a great idea, so I picked out a Chianti Classico, and we toasted with that. It was really good – and they gave us big monster glasses to drink from.

It was an eight course meal, so we didn’t get out of there until 9:30 or so. Mr. Kimura was nice enough to drive me home, so it was door to door service. I had a really good time.

Planning lessons is something that I enjoy doing. It’s fun to try to figure out things that will get the students excited, plan it all out on paper, run it by other teachers, and then get in front of a class and see how it works out. Today I was dreaming up my next lesson for the first year students. I wanted them to be involved, active, and give it a gameshow feel. I get a lot of ideas from watching Survivor, actually. The things they compete in give me inspiration for the classroom, and although I haven’t had students eating live worms in class yet, I’m sure it’s not too far off in the future.

I had two lessons on complimenting today, and Mr. Hayashi was my team teacher for each class. During the second class I came to the part where I say something in English, and then Mr. Hayashi says something in Japanese. As I turned to Mr. Hayashi to start the exercise, he was walking out the door in the middle of class waving goodbye.

That was weird. Mr. Hayashi spends a lot of time in the restroom, and he’ll often run to the bathroom right before and right after a class, but I’ve never seen him leave right in the middle of a lesson. I was worried that he might not be well, and also worried about what to do about the twenty students staring at me waiting for the lesson to continue.

In the end, I explained in English, and added a few choice Japanese words in there to help them sort it out. After 5-10 minutes Mr. Hayashi came back, and we finished up the lesson.

After class I asked him if he was OK, and he said that he had a phone call from a friend of his at Casio, and it was to tell him that they weren’t hiring high school students this year. Mr. Hayashi is working in the guidance department this year, so he is wheeling and dealing with companies trying to get our students hired. I was a little irked that he took a phone call right in the middle of class, but there’s not a lot I could do.

In the afternoon we had an ESS meeting. Matsubara sensei was out of town on business, so I met with the students and we chatted about all kinds of things. We played “Hangman”, and worked on the English for their upcoming cultural project, an English newspaper. I think it’ll be pretty cool.

Before going home I went to visit Tsuji-san, and we chatted for an hour in mostly English. Last time we talked almost entirely in Japanese, so this was a good chance for her to pick up some pronunciation tips and learn a few vocabulary words, like “wavering”.

Believe it or not, this week is coming to an end. Tomorrow night is the welcome party/farewell party, and then I’ll be able to relax for a couple of days.

Today I had just two classes. Usually today is the busiest day of the week, but Maeda sensei and Oshita sensei asked if I would skip their classes today because they want to prepare their students for the midterm exams coming up next week.

I taught my favorite class in the morning, Matsubara sensei’s class. I had a prize today, a cafe latte flavored KitKat, and I put it on the desk in front of the class but didn’t really talk about it. From the beginning everyone’s attention was riveted on the candy, and everyone listened carefully to every word I spoke.

At the end I had a word search race, and the winners won the candy. It was dead silent as people sweated trying to finish the puzzle by the end of class. In the end, two girls split the big prize, and luckily it’s easy to break up a KitKat into several pieces.

I did some brain-crushing Japanese grammar study through the afternoon, and sat through a mind-numbing meeting of the entire staff after school. Finally, at five o’clock I took off with the new Japanese teacher, Inomoto sensei in tow.

We took the train to Nishi-futami and went over to the yakitori to drink beers and chat. It was really nice talking to him. He’s a 39 year old teacher on a one year contract. He’s definitely different from a lot of the old-timers in our school. He leaves school as soon as possible, right around the same time I do. He works to live, as opposed to living for work. He loves his wife big time and cooks and cleans their home for her when she’s not around. He speaks three languages: Italian, English, and Japanese.

We had a great time drinking beer, speaking in a mix of Japanese and English, and eating lots of yakitori. He brought pictures from Italy – he’s been there many times, and loves studying Italian art and culture. I particularly enjoyed looking at the pictures – how often do you get to see the inside of the Vatican, views from the hillsides of Rome, and some authentic delicious Italian food. He said that he is thinking about quitting his job after his contract ends and moving to Italy to live there for a year.

After a big dinner I walked him back to the station, and I think we’ll probably get together again soon. He’s a really nice guy, and I like his philosophy on life.

Now I’m back home and relaxing. My brain hurts from studying so much today, so I might just do some pleasure reading and hit the hay early.

During my commute to work I spend time memorizing flashcards. I can go through about 85 flashcards if I’m not distracted by the scenery or the other occupants of the train. Once the train arrives in Takasago I walk to school full of smiles and joy, and it’s nice to get some of those smiles returned to me.

At work I settle into my desk, say good morning to everyone, and spend the first forty minutes before the morning meeting preparing worksheets if I need them, checking that my classroom is ready to go, and and then concentrating as hard as I can to try to understand what everyone says during the morning meetings.

Two classes today, and they both went well. It’s the complimenting lesson, and today one of the girls complimented me by saying “Bryan, that’s a nice body you have.” Hey thanks, I guess you are figuring out the compliment thing just fine. Next lesson.

I also spent a period with Miyake sensei, working with her on her English transcription drills. Kuniko does these as well – they listen to English audio, then write down what they hear. It’s a good way to develop your listening skills, and Miyake sensei did a great job with hers. I can tell she’s doing much better. She’s gearing up for the upcoming TOEIC test – a standardized English exam. Let’s hope she does well on this one.

At the end of school I was working at my desk and watched the math teacher, Ueishi sensei talking sternly with one of the students from his homeroom class. Then he asked another teacher to take over talking with him. This is pretty normal – let the kid have it for about five to ten minutes, and then have another teacher jump in and chat with him. They do a good cop, bad cop routine too. The strange thing about this time was that the teacher he passed the kid on to was me.

I sat him down and chatted him up in English. He was gulping and nervous, but he did fine. Ueishi sensei sat behind him observing, and we talked for about five minutes. The kid did OK, considering he was under pressure. My best guess as to why they had him talk to me was that he is interested in English, maybe he told Ueishi sensei he wanted to be an English teacher someday, maybe he was complaining that he couldn’t afford English conversation classes. Anyway, I was happy to chat with him, and I think it was a treat for the kid rather than a punishment that they usually dole out. Ueishi sensei thought it was great.

Soon after five o’clock I was down the road headed for home. I did some review flashcards on the train, bought some prizes for tomorrow’s class at Ito Yokado, and then came home and made rice and kimchee for dinner.

Tomorrow I’m going to meet up at the yakitori after work, so that should be a lot of fun. I can’t believe that it’s already the middle of the week. Time is flying by.

I was pretty beat from my big weekend trip, but luckily today I had only one afternoon class. The day was spent thinking up new lessons, studying flashcards, and reviewing grammar lessons. I did get the chance to speak in Japanese with some of my teachers which was fun.

One of the downsides of learning a foreign language in a foreign country is that when you successfully use some new word or grammar point, nobody is impressed. That’s the baseline, dude. I used a couple of newly memorized words today and I was waiting for someone to say, “Wow, great, it’s impressive that you know that word! Would you mind participating in a parade we’re having in your honor?”

People only notice if you screw up – I rarely seem to get any positive feedback other than successfully continuing a conversation. That’s just the breaks with learning here, and so I have my own little mental pat of the back sessions, when I probably should be thinking about what to say next.

I passed out my omiyage from the trip to lots of teachers, all of whom were impressed that I got to go to Shikoku and enjoyed (or appeared to enjoy) hearing my stories.

At lunch I was talking with Yamamoto sensei about Japanese superstitions. At the train station some guy was changing a lightbulb or something this morning, and he set up his ladder so that you had to walk under it to exit the station. Nobody seemed to mind, and so I was wondering if that was just a Western superstition. Apparently it is, but he told me a good one – it’s bad luck to clip your toenails at night.

I wrapped up my day at school, and Kuniko picked me up at the train station to deliver some stuff from her father for me, and also drop off some things that she’ll need when she moves in here eventually. We’re kind of gradually moving in, so I’m finding places for her stuff as it arrives. So far, so good.

We parked her car at Ito Yokado to avoid another fiasco like yesterday. I talked her into staying for dinner and we cooked up a pretty healthy meal of rice, pork, and miso soup. We had a little ice cream for dessert, thereby killing the healthy aspect of the evening meal, and then I walked her back to her car. Today was a day off for her, so it was nice she could rest after driving so much during the weekend.

It’s fun, fun, fun for me this week. I’m going to have a drink at the yakitori with the Steven King loving man in black mystery teacher on Wednesday, and Friday night is the English teacher welcome/farewell party at a new Italian restaurant in Kakogawa. Should be a kick in the pants.

Well, I’m back from the weekend trip to Shikoku. Shikoku is the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. It’s just south of where I live, and it was surprisingly easy to get there.

Kuniko picked me up early and we hit the road, eager to get there. We traveled across the Akashi Bridge to the small island of Awaji, a place that I’ve been once before. That time Mr. Hayashi was driving me and Kuniko along on a trip to visit his father in the hospital. This time Mr. Hayashi was nowhere to be found and we could go wherever we wanted.

We shot right through Awaji to the next bridge leading to Shikoku. My first impression of Shikoku was that it was the same as everything else that I’ve seen in Japan, but later I found out that I was completely wrong.

As we drove west across Shikoku, the mountains became higher and higher, and the views more dramatic. The weather was perfect, and soon we were on a road following a river through deep forest canyons.

It’s hard to describe what it was like driving through there, and the pictures as I look at them now don’t do it justice. They hills rose on either side of us, and you had lean way over in the car to see the tops. We stopped a few times to soak in the view, and then we moved on.

Every so often we’d drive by a bridge that stretched across the canyon, from one forest to another. At first I was going nuts taking pictures of these beautiful bridges, but I soon realized that there were a lot more bridges than pictures in my camera, so I cooled it down a little.

A couple of highlights – we stopped near a rocky part of the river, and below they were giving boat rides. Stretched above were lots of colorful fabric carp hanging from ropes over the canyon.

We stopped at a restaurant for some udon noodles that are one of the feature dishes of Shikoku. The place was quiet and simple, but the soup was great. We sat at our table and were surprised to find a ninja hanging on the wall above us. As we slurped away at our udon noodles it was strange to have the figure of an attacking ninja in the corner of your eye.

One of the tourist destinations in that area was a really old wooden bridge that crosses the river at one point. We parked near the bridge and paid 500 yen to walk across. It was a sturdy bridge despite its age, and I could see steel cables underneath the wood planks so it was safe. The scary part was the wide gaps between the planks – it would be easy to put your foot in the wrong place and get a big scare. We went across and I took a few pictures but I got nervous about losing my camera so I cut it out.

We got back on the road and headed through another deep canyon area, then finally turned to the south and headed for the ocean. We got to Kochi in the afternoon, and went right to Katsurahama, a beach famous for it’s view and the statue of a famous samurai. Oh, and it’s also famous for dog fighting.

We walked past the souvenir shops, bought a shaved ice, and then went to the beach. I noticed that they had lots of pictures of dogs and ropes, but I didn’t find out the significance until later.

At the beach we took in the view, and I took way too many pictures. The sun was warm and the weather was beautiful – it was a perfect time to visit.

After walking around the beach and seeing the famous statue, we went back to the souvenir shops to look at what they had. From up above the shops I could hear dogs barking and then some horrible yelping, and then I figured out what was going on. What a strange place to have dog fights.

We moved right on out of there and went to check out our hotel and rest up a bit. Kuniko had been driving all day long, and since I’m unlicensed to drive in Japan I wanted to make sure she was well rested.

The hotel was a business hotel, which means it was tiny, but it worked well enough for us. I made a reservation at a delicious looking restaurant on the phone, and then we walked out there to find it.

Kochi is really a beautiful town. The city is built around a series of waterways that come in from the ocean, so there are bridges everywhere. There are lots of gigantic ships harbored there, but then there are neighborhoods surrounded by ocean, too. It didn’t look like a big industrial city – more like what I imagine a European city on the ocean is like.

As we walked around the city of Kochi, Kuniko and I both noticed that we got a lot more attention than we do in Kobe or Osaka. Just from what we saw it appears that foreigners are a little more unusual there, so we had lots of people checking us out. They would look at me, and then look at Kuniko, and it seemed to happen a lot more often than usual.

We got to the restaurant, got some giant beers and ordered up some of the local specialties – katsuo, and kujira. Katsuo is a raw fish with flesh the same color as tuna, a deep dark red. The raw fish is then cooked just on the edges, probably with some kind of flamethrower. Then it is served with onions, garlic, more onions, and basil leaves. It was really good – kind of like seared Ahi tuna, except it is a lot less sear and a lot more fish.

Next was kujira, otherwise known as whale. I had some reservations about trying this one. On one hand, I’m not a big fan of the Japanese whaling practices, and I think that by ordering whale and eating it I’m somehow contributing to this. On the other hand, in this part of the country eating whale is a way of life – a part of the culture. They’ve been eating whale here for a long time. Also, I wanted to see what it tasted like.

It was good. We ordered it served raw over nigiri sushi. The flavor was good, it wasn’t fatty at all, and combined with the taste of the wasabi, wow! I really liked it, but it wasn’t my favorite.

We also ordered a plate of standard makizushi. It was a pretty expensive dinner, so we decided to just eat the local delicacies, and then go out for dinner part two later on.

At Kochi station we bought some souvenirs for the people back home, and then we moved on to a ramen restaurant that Kuniko had seen and we split a bowl of ramen and some chicken in a sour sauce that was really good. I loaded up the ramen with garlic – it also had some tender pork with loads of pork fat floating around in there, so good – especially if you’ve been drinking gigantic beers.

It was a great night and we went to bed fairly early. The next day we got up and walked out to the local castle, walking along a farmers market. We picked up some flowers for Kuniko’s mom, some yuzu juice (some kind of citrus – it’s really sour, but good) for me, and then came back to the hotel and got back in the car.

We drove out of town and headed to the Anpanman museum east of Kochi. Who is Anpanman? It’s this cute character – the story is that he is made of out bread, his head is stuffed with sweet beans (called ‘anko’ in Japanese), and he flies around fighting evil and allowing starving children to take bites of his head. Really.

Anyway, Kuniko is a big fan, and some people say that she looks a lot like Anpanman, especially because of her cheeks. It was a must-see for us, so we drove quite a ways to get there, and then went into the museum and looked around.

It was pretty cool, and it was similar to the Charles Schulz museum that we got to see on our last trip back to California. The design was modern and really well done. The place was crawling with kids all enjoying the chance to see all their cartoon heroes in action, and we took lots of pictures and enjoyed seeing some of the older artwork.

After about an hour or so we headed on down the road. The road through Tokushima Prefecture was even more windy than the road coming in, with lots of rocks and pebbles on the road to remind you that at any point you might get a boulder through your window.

Kuniko was a real trouper to drive the whole way again – windy roads are hard to drive and require all of your attention. I kept the CDs going and just enjoyed the scenery on the way back.

Apparently this area gets a lot of snow during the winter, and I tried to imagine what it would be like then. There were lots of very remote towns, and I also thought about what it would have been like if I had ended up getting placed in some snowy little town in the mountains. Would I still be in Japan? Would I have wanted to stay? It was hard not to be jealous of the mountains – I’m sure there are hiking trails all over the place, and I would really enjoy being close to nature. I don’t know about taking a bus forty minutes to the nearest grocery store, though.

We had a very late lunch in Tokushima, stopping in for some famous Tokushima ramen. The noodles here were smaller but more plentiful, and there was a raw egg in the middle of the meaty sauce. There were also strips of beef in there, and the whole thing was delicious. It was so good.

At last, we headed back to my house. On the way back we saw a factory across the water from my town that was ablaze, but as we got closer it looked like they were doing it on purpose, burning a lot of some unknown substance. It was pretty scary to see, the first for me to see anything like that.

We double parked Kuniko’s car and went inside to drop my stuff off before we drove to Kuniko’s parent’s house. We were inside just a few minutes when we got a phone call from the apartment manager apologizing profusely for bothering us but could we possibly move the car please?

We said we’d be right down, hung up the phone, and then the phone rang again and it was another teacher from the complex warning us that we were parked in the manager’s spot. Thanks, thank you, we’re leaving right now, thanks….

We got out of there without further incident and we went over to Kuniko’s place. It was good to see Kuniko’s folks, and spend a little bit of Mother’s Day with the future mother-in-law. She enjoyed the flowers, and she cooked us all a big dinner. We had a great conversation and everyone is really excited about the big wedding in November. We talked a little logistics regarding the group of rowdy Americans a.k.a. my family and friends who are coming, and threw around some ideas.

Kuniko made one last drive out to my house and dropped me off, and then I went right to bed and crashed. That was great – I’m hoping to visit Shikoku again sometime. It was dramatically different from the Japan I see everyday.

It was back to work today. I went to school in a light rain, shook off my umbrella and jacket, and then went in to say hello to everyone. The teachers at my school had nothing but sad stories about working through Golden Week – I almost felt guilty telling them how I relaxed, went shopping, and there’s just more fun around the corner for the weekend.

My first class was with Mr. Hayashi, and we ground through the class – it was a long fifty minutes. If I’m feeling bored with the class I know the students are. I do feel guilty that they aren’t getting more out of that class. They probably signed up seeing that I would be helping with the class, but in reality they listen to Mr. Hayashi in Japanese for most of the class. I read a few passages and do some pronunciations when prompted. This is apparently very common in the JET program – it’s called the human tape recorder syndrome. It’s not new to me – last year Mr. Hayashi’s classes were the same way.

Afterwards I had two first year classes. These classes have been bumped and postponed due to various holidays and school seminars, so it was my first time meeting some students. I like those classes, and I taught them with Ms. Tsutsumi and Mr. Yamamoto. The Tsutsumi class was really noisy, in a good way. They were really into the class, and not shy at all – I got a good vibe from them. The Yamamoto class was a lot quieter, probably because Mr. Yamamoto is known as a “scary” teacher.

While walking around during my class chatting with students I noticed that I had identical twin girls. They were really funny – I tried to communicate about being twins in English, but it was tricky to explain. They are completely mirror images of each other, they even sit next to each other in class. We have another set of twins in the third year – maybe it’s something in the water around here.

I snuck out a little early in order to stop into Befu and get a haircut. I can’t remember the last time I got one, but according to my website it was 2/17. My hair was getting long and scraggly, always getting in my face and generally a big pain. There was a new barber working, and we chit-chatted about all kinds of stuff. He had a lot more confidence in my Japanese than I did, but I did catch most of it. I wish I had someone like that to talk with more often – there’s no safety nets… if he doesn’t understand then I have to retry another way with another word or phrase. He said that he was glad that I spoke Japanese – it made his job a lot easier.

I went for the whole shave and a haircut two bits thing. Getting a shave in a barbershop is pretty fun, and the I’m sure they can cut some hairs that my electric razor doesn’t get to. I also got a shampoo which felt great. All this for 1500 yen… what a deal.

Coming out of there I couldn’t believe how much better I look. Sometimes I wonder why Kuniko hangs out with me. I must have really looked like crap recently.

I made up a salad using leftovers from the fridge tonight for dinner, watched Survivor, and now I’m packing and getting ready for our trip to Shikoku tomorrow. I promise to take lots of pictures and post them when I get back Sunday.

I’m back at the computer after three very refreshing days off. The Golden Week holidays went really well. It was a relaxed pace, but there was plenty of walking around for exercise.

Tuesday Kuniko and I took the train into Osaka so that we could do some looking around in Umeda. We had lunch at a ramen restaurant, and it was really good. They had quite a variety of different dishes, but since I can only read bits and pieces of the menu I generally have to guess what to have. This time my guess was good – it was delicious.

Kuniko and I hit all the major shopping areas in Umeda, and by the end of it, we were exhausted. We came back to my place and just made up some quick spaghetti and salad. That night Kuniko stayed over and then we got a chance to sleep in on Wednesday. We got a chance to chat with my parents on the phone, and then we were off to Kobe to meet up with Kuniko’s sister Tomoko, and her boyfriend Yamaoka-san. It was my first time meeting him.

When we got there we did introductions and he seemed really nice. He seemed pretty shy, but I did my best to engage him in conversation. At my level of Japanese my conversation topics are kind of limited, but I did my best.

We all went shopping together, and it soon became clear that it might be a good idea to split up and look around separately. I took Yamaoka-san to a bar I know, and we sat down and had a couple of Belgian beers. We chatted more there, but it was tough for me. I would get topics started, but he wouldn’t really follow up on them. He never asked me questions, and he was really quiet. I was undaunted, though. I figured after a few beers he would loosen up, and he did. Our next stop was Tokyu Hands, a big department store full of strange things, which was fun to investigate.

We met up with Kuniko and Tomoko, and then after a bit more shopping we all came back to my place for a steak dinner. I fired up the BBQ and grilled steaks and pork, Kuniko made up some mushrooms for the steak and a killer salad, and we sat around and drank and ate to our heart’s content. It was a rare chance for Tomoko to dig into a giant cut of beef – Kuniko tells me that she really likes meat.

After that we went to Ito Yokado to take purikuras (tiny group pictures) and then Kuniko drove them back in her car. At the end of the night Yamaoka-san was much more relaxed and friendly, and I think I made a good impression on him at last.

Finally, this morning Kuniko came over early, while I was still asleep. She let herself in, slipped into bed beside me, and what a wonderful way to wake up. She had bought breakfast for us, so we had breakfast in bed (yogurts and OJ), and then went to go see a movie in Okubo – “Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events”. We got there for the early show and caught the movie before the crowds got there. It was a pretty good movie – visually very interesting, and Jim Carrey had some great lines.

We picked up drive-thru McDonald’s on the way home and then spent the rest of the day napping and studying. Kuniko went home to catch dinner with her folks, and now I’m just relaxing and getting ready for work tomorrow. It’s just one Friday and then we’re off to Shikoku. I’m looking forward to our trip!

I walked into work all smiles, knowing that today was just a momentary interruption of six days off. That makes things a whole lot easier – Mondays aren’t nearly as tough to deal with.

I am scheduled to teach three classes on Monday, but Mr. Hayashi said that for the first two weeks there is no need for me to show up. My two week reprieve was up today, so I went over to check and see what I needed to do today for class.

Mr. Hayashi told me that they are still doing exams, so I don’t need to come there until sometime after the mid-term exams finish. It’s weird to have me signed up for classes and then not have me come for six weeks. Oh well.

That left me with only one class in the afternoon, so I hit the books hard. I memorized lots of words, did some grammar review, some reading, and generally slaved away over the textbooks. One of the other teachers came by and asked me if I have an exam soon – he thought I looked like I was working against a deadline.

Ms. Mori came by to talk to me. The other day she told me that she needed to talk to me regarding “the future of our school”, and since I’ve only had two other conversations with Ms. Mori in the last year I was curious to know what was up.

She swore me to secrecy and told me that the school is having some troubles recruiting new students, and we’re not considered a popular school to go to. She is going to get a little more proactive and go teach an English class at some area junior high schools. She asked me if I would be willing to help because I am the foot in the door at these places – a rare opportunity for their students to interact with a foreigner.

I agreed, and she seemed really happy, but she abruptly left after securing my agreement, leading me to wonder what exactly I just signed up for.

At the end of the day I had a new lesson about giving compliments. The highlight of the lesson was when we asked the students to each stand up, and alternating between me and Mr. Hayashi, give compliments. They didn’t completely understand, but the ten boys all complimented Mr. Hayashi, and the ten girls all complimented me. There was no alternating going on at all. The compliments were good – some were funny (that’s a nice eye color you have), but we wrapped up the lesson on time and I think it was a success.

I was out of there on time, and I came home to a pretty warm house. After airing out the place I realized that I had nothing in the fridge, so instead of shopping at Ito Yokado I went over to visit with the master at the yakitori.

Holiday evenings can either be really busy or really dead at the yakitori, and tonight it was dead. We sat and chatted about everything we could think of, the master tried out some new English on me, and we had a good time. I like it when it’s not busy, I can order anything I want without feeling guilty for making the master busy. I feel bad ordering something complicated when he’s got a whole crowd of people to serve.

Tomorrow is the start of Golden Week, and Kuniko and I are heading to Osaka to do some shopping and looking around.

This morning it was up early to get Kuniko to the train station on time. We hiked out to Tsuchiyama station again, and I made it home just before the rain started coming down.

I figured because of the rain it would be a good day to stay inside, memorize lots of new words, and just take it easy. Turned out to be a good plan.

I had ramen for lunch, and then steak soft tacos for dinner, so I haven’t exactly eaten healthy today. I also got a chance to chat with my grandparents, and my aunt Nancy called – I also got a chance to chat with cousin Kris on the phone, so it’s been a good day to catch up with family. They had lots of questions about Japan.

Now I’m just listening to music, getting ready to do one last round of flashcards, and then hit the sack. Tomorrow is a regular Monday for me, but then the next three days are holidays. It’s called Golden Week, but it should be pretty mellow for me – it’s a bad time to travel because everyone else is doing it.

Today I got up relatively late and spent the morning cleaning up and doing laundry – not so exciting. The weather was beautiful, however, and the rising temperatures have been a welcome change. Just the other day I retired my electric blanket and now I’m contemplating the air conditioner. Wow.

The gameplan originally was to meet up with Kuniko in Sannomiya after her work ends at around 6:30. She called me a little earlier, though, and so I went in to meet her at the station around 4:00 p.m. While I was waiting around the station a Jehovah’s Witness dude chatted me up in English. I made it clear that today was not the day when I was going to discover religon, and so he was reduced to idle chatter about the bible. I was just about to bring up the dinosaurs when Kuniko showed up, and saved me from being saved.

We walked around Kobe for a bit, killing time by walking through the SOGO department store. Soon we started getting hungry, so we headed over to look for the restaurant. The name of the place was called “Slow Moon Dining”. It was a cheese oriented restaurant – all of the dishes are based around cheese. That’s fine by me.

We sat on the floor and ordered a couple of glasses of wine and lots of dishes to try. We had a salad (with smoked gouda cheese), an appetizer plate of cheeses (gouda, blue cheese, some kind of soft creamy cheese, camenbert, and some yellow cheese that might have been straight cheddar.

Then we moved on to the entrees – a creamy cheese and avocado dish with salmon and some other fish along with a quail egg and salmon eggs on top. We also had some fried bacon and cheese pouches that were greasy but good, and finally a cheese risotto dish wrapped in spinach that rocked my world. It was the best risotto that I’ve ever had – a perfect balance of texture and flavor, without getting to greasy. We had cheesecake for dessert, but it didn’t measure up to Kuniko’s homemade cheesecake. I had forgotten that she had made it for me for my birthday in two years ago – big trouble!

After dinner we walked around Sannomiya a bit, and then caught the train back to Akashi. In Akashi we picked up some donuts at Mister Donut just to cash in on some donut points that Kuniko had. Now we have a Mister Donut tarp – oh yeah.

I convinced Kuniko to come over to my place for the night, and we came back and relaxed around the house before hitting the hay. I’m still sore from my hike the other day, and Kuniko has been working through the weekend, so she’s exhausted too. Lucky we have three days off in the middle of next week!