I woke up exhausted from the concert last night, and dragged myself to the train station. I had to wear nice clothes since I was going directly from school to Himeji for the big party to welcome new teachers and say goodbye to the old ones.

My schedule had three classes – a first, second and third year class. The second and third year classes were fun because they were with students I had last term. The third year class was with Mr. Hayashi, and he runs these classes on his own. I’m just there to help with pronunciation and to correct sentences that the students write on the board. This is nice for me – I don’t have to plan a whole lesson every week. This is the third class like this that I’ve taught with Mr. Hayashi and he has an interesting habit that I’ve noticed – he only calls on girls to answer questions. The boys are getting a free ride. Usually he asks students questions maybe ten times in a class, but it’s never a boy. I’ll keep an eye out and see if the theory holds in future classes. Strange.

On our way out of that class a student in the next class stepped out in the hallway to say hello. She is one of the ones that has a crush on me, and Mr. Hayashi and I said a quick hello and moved on. Once we turned the corner, he told me that she had asked him how to approach me to ask me out for a date. Mr. Hayashi had given her the whole “he’s a teacher, you’re a student” speech, which I was very happy to hear. He did tell her that once she graduates she’s free to take a shot – he thought that was funny. Thanks a lot.

I taught a class with Ms. Tsutsumi and she said that we had four new students sign up for ESS yesterday – wow! That pretty much doubles the size of the club. Next week we will have a welcome ceremony and they will have to introduce themselves in English. That’s scary enough that they might quit right there.

I snuck off the to cafeteria and got some katsu-curry. The cooks there know me enough to give me the big sized katsu without me asking – nice! As I sat down a second year girl’s P.E. class walked by and everyone came in to watch with fascination as I ate my lunch. I knew quite a few of the girls in the class and so we talked in English in between bites of katsu. It’s the times like this that I feel like I’m having the most impact on English learning in this school. The students were in a comfortable setting with a foreigner and able to have a full conversation. The classroom setting is OK and we have fun there, too. It just seems like the casual out-of-class conversations give the students a lot more confidence.

After school Mr. Hayashi drove Mr. Komuri and I to his house to drop off his car, and then Mr. Hayashi’s wife drove us to the train station. It was great to see Mrs. Hayashi – she’s a really nice person with a good sense of humor. We jumped on the train and we were in Himeji in fifteen minutes. We were almost an hour early, so Mr. Hayashi and I introduced Mr. Komuri to the English term “front-loading”.

We pulled into an izakaya and ordered three large beers. These mugs were huge – almost two liters of beer in a heavy glass mug. It was hard to pick up. We also ordered some greasy food to absorb some of the alcohol and sat around talking. Mr. Komuri and Mr. Hayashi traded barbs in English about their various personal problems, laughing the whole time. Mr. Komuri had apparently gone to a special clinic to deal with a prostate problem, and somehow heard that Mr. Hayashi had been there for an erectile dysfunction problem the day before.

I’m not sure either of these guys expected these personal maladies to be published on the world wide web the next day, but I had to sit through the painful conversation, and I might as well share it here. Apparently Mr. Hayashi got caught about five years ago with a woman in Korea, when he was supposed to be in Hokkaido at a teacher’s conference. He thought that he had his bases covered, but one of his co-workers called his home to ask a question, and got his wife instead. Busted! Ever since then, he’s had problems performing.

We joked for almost an hour about their (very) personal problems, and then got out of there. We walked a couple of blocks to the hotel and stepped inside. They had ushers guide us to our seats, and to my relief I was sitting between Ms. Tsutsumi and Mr. Hayashi. Miss Shigata was safely at the other side of the room sitting next to the new P.E. teacher.

Thanks to our “front-loading” we had a nice buzz during the opening speeches – each teacher that was leaving made another speech – about forty minutes of speeches in total. Finally, we made a toast, and then everyone started drinking. They had a Japanese bento type thing in front of us, but they also had a fork and knife. I enjoyed using a fork when I really should have used chopsticks, and talked with Ms. Tsutsumi for a long time.

Every once in a while a drunken teacher would come up to pour something for me, and even the new principal staggered up to pour. His face was pink, and turning red fast. He expressed his love for me through Mr. Hayashi, whose political capital has gone up enormously with the changing of the principal and vice-principal. I just smiled, nodded, and kept drinking.

Towards the end of the evening I was happy to point out to Mr. Hayashi that Miss Shigata and the new P.E. teacher were getting along pretty well. They were laughing together and leaning a little closer to each other than was normal. Mr. Hayashi agreed with me that it was pretty good news for me – I hope this means that the pressure from that direction is relieved.

Mr. Kimura and I were heading to the same station, so we made the trip back together. We talked high-tech on the way home- one of Mr. Kimura’s favorite topics. I pulled out what gadgets I was carrying so he could check them out. He loves electronics.

I walked home from the station and got back around 11 o’clock, and went right to sleep. I’m hoping to catch up on some rest this weekend. Whew!

I continued to have more classes with my new teachers and students. Today Mr. Maeda and I taught together for the first time. He has transferred from another school, and he was pretty nervous, too. He brought in some props like I have to introduce himself and his family. The best part was when he was describing his hobbies – he said that he likes fishing a lot. Then he pulled out a monthly fishing magazine and he was on the cover. Nice! The kids were not so impressed.

After school I had arranged to leave early to head over to the concert. Unfortunately, today was the registration day for clubs. I wasn’t holding out much hope for ESS, but Satomi and Ms. Tsutsumi said that they would handle it for me. I hope we get some new folks!

I dashed home and changed my clothes, and then met Yasu out in front of the apartment complex. We walked together to the train station and then Yasu led me to a discount ticket shop in Akashi. We saved about 600 yen by buying discount tickets – that’s about $6. I’d like to think that I could go there and be able to order the tickets from the lady myself, but it sounded pretty complex. Afterwards Yasu admitted that even he didn’t understand what the lady was talking about.

We wanted to catch something quick to eat, and Yasu had mentioned a place that he knew in the area. We walked across the street and along the shops in front facing the station, and then suddenly Yasu turned down an alley – it is one of those alleys in Japan that are filled with tiny shops. We stepped over wet broken pavement and passed by many doors and windows with plastic food inside to entice customers. Yasu found the place he wanted and we ducked in. Three old women were in there reading a fashion magazine, and they sat us across from them so they could keep an eye on us. The place was tiny, and Yasu ordered up some akashiyaki and okonomiyaki. This was one of the places where you cook your own okonomiyaki, so Yasu had a go and it turned out great. It’s an interesting experience.

After dinner we caught the train and started making our way to the show. We did lots of transfers, and Yasu knew some shortcuts. I memorized the station names and the subway lines so that I could come back on my own someday.

As we got closer to the station, we bumped into more and more foreigners. At one point Yasu and I were crammed into a tram car with about eight foreigners that teach for Nova. It sounded like there were some Americans, some Australians, and some British folks in the group. It was strange to stand in a train car and be able to understand what people were saying.

I’m starting to show some signs of “going native”, which is supposedly normal after living in a foreign country for a certain amount of time. The group of foreigners were loud and exclaiming with big arm motions, and as I looked at the Japanese people on the train they were looking away, almost embarrassed. I’ve heard that it’s rude to speak loudly on a train, and these guys just didn’t care. They were talking about the show and some were drinking beer and belching loudly. I probably wouldn’t look twice at a group like this if I was in the U.S., but here they stood out. By standing next to them on the train I was automatically included in the “rude group” by most of the Japanese people there – it was weird, but it bothered me a little bit.

Anyway, once we got to the arena we produced our tickets and went inside. There weren’t seats so much as zones that we were allowed to enter. We had the front zone, so we got fairly close and just waited for the show. Shows in Japan start and finish early so people can catch the trains home. This show started promptly at 7 p.m., without an opening band.

I’ve never seen Radiohead live before, and they put on an excellent show. I recognized almost all the songs, and they had put a lot of money into the design of the stage and the lights. In between songs the place became so quiet – I’ve never been in a room with so many people being that quiet. People just patiently waited for the next song, except for the odd screams or yells which likely came from the foreigners in the crowd.

The played a two hour set with two encores, and then the lights went up. Yasu and I were both happy about the show – the played all the songs we wanted to hear. We crammed ourselves back in the trains and headed home. As the first train pulled out I noticed that the parking lot for the event was about the size of a grocery store parking lot back home. Most people just don’t drive around here.

We were hungry and thirsty after the show so we stopped in for some noodles and beer at a little ramen shop near Umeda station. That really hit the spot and made the long train trip home much easier to deal with. After standing at the concert for two hours, we had to stand on the train for the hour trip home. We pulled in Futami around midnight, and I went right to sleep… tomorrow is a work day – yikes!

I’m so glad that I remembered to tell this story – I saw this early this morning on the way to work and I remember thinking that I’d forget it for sure. Luckily for you, I didn’t.

I was walking to work near the Mikuriya shrine, and it was raining. Not a ton of rain, just a hard sprinkle really. As I turned a corner a lady was walking my direction with a tiny dog on a leash. The dog was wearing a whole raingear ensemble. First, he had a pink slicker that covered his whole body, including a little flap that went over his head. The lady must have been worried about his little paws, because she had wrapped each of his four legs with plastic grocery bags, and secured them with rubber bands. The dog walked past me making that plastic bag sound as he trotted along, and he even peered up at me from under the pink rainsuit. He didn’t seem embarrassed at all.

At school I had three classes, but before my classes began I got a chest X-ray along with all the other students and teachers. It was free, so what the heck. They had a bus that pulled up and we just lined up, walked in, and we got zapped.

I had my first two classes with the new students, and they were polar opposites. The first class was with Mr. Oshita, and if you take the “a” out of his name it pretty much describes his attitude about team teaching. I didn’t even know he was an English teacher until the end of my second term at my school. He did such a great job of hiding and avoiding me that I never knew. Well, now his time had come.

He walked in and he was so nervous. He was doing a nervous giggle, his hands shook, and he was stuttering, even in Japanese. Luckily, the class was perfect for him. The first class was full of students that were quiet, obedient, and basically sat quietly and watched me in amazement. The pressure was off Mr. Oshita, and that helped a lot. He started to calm down, and we did about 90% of the class in English, which is a new record. I think that number will start to slide over time, but it went really well. The class seemed really interested and I think they’ll be more energetic as they get to know us.

The next period was the exact opposite, and I was teaching with “tough as nails” Ms. Terano. She’s a really nice teacher with a great attitude but not a lot of confidence in her English. It’s quite good, but she’s just scared to try. She did a great introduction for our class, and then I did my introduction.

Sometimes the free format that I do can be helpful for students to relax. These guys were very relaxed. They were walking around the classroom, making lots of noise, and being really disruptive.

Except everyone was speaking English.

These kids were pretty good – not all the English made sense, and often it was strange mixes of popular band names and commands, but the last thing I’m going to do is yell at somebody to stop speaking English. It was great. Ms. Terano was kind of like a deer in the headlights, and I don’t think she knew whether to yell at everyone or congratulate them.

Finally I regained a little control by introducing another activity, and that seemed to get everyone focused. I introduced the idea of a bonus point system that we did last year, and they really liked that. I asked a couple of easy questions to get them used to the idea, and pretty soon people were scrambling to get my attention and speak English. It was great!

After class ended about eight girls came up to ask me questions, and proclaim their love for me. I just smiled and said “thanks”. Ms. Terano looked a little disturbed by their behavior but probably it was because it was the first time she has taught with me. One of the boys walked by Ms. Terano as he left and said “Very young beautiful teacher!” in English. That really flustered her.

After school my ESS members met up to eat snacks, play cards and hope for new students to drop in. Today we had a couple of girls show up, but they were pretty scared. They said that they have to join a club, and I think we were last on the list. We poured them some drinks, gave them some snacks, and put on “Pirates of the Caribbean” on the TV. We watched the first quarter or so.

The new students said they would consider the club and took off, so the rest of us talked for a while, and then we broke up the meeting and went home.

On the way home there was kind of a zen moment as I walked by the cherry trees by the temple. The blossoms are falling now, and the air was full of fluttering petals heading slowly to the ground. There was a little kid standing under the trees trying to catch the petals as they fell, and they slipped between his fingers as they fell all around him. I didn’t have my camera with me today, but I realized that it was one of those moments that isn’t quite the same on film. I was glad that I was there to see it.

Many new things happened today at school. For starters, I taught my first two classes of the semester, and I taught with Mr. Yamamoto who is new to the second-year teachers. I hadn’t ever done team teaching with him and he hadn’t done team teaching for two years or so. The lesson went pretty well, but you could tell that he was nervous. I had taught all these students last year, so I had no trouble.

Another first was that we taught in the student’s classroom rather than my classroom. That was actually kind of fun. You definitely get a feeling that you’re on their “turf” when you walk in, and Mr. Yamamoto did a good job showing that he was the boss right off the bat. Whenever students come to my class they are thrown off by the different seating layout in the new room.

Between my classes I joined two of my ESS students to make a short speech to the new first year students. It’s a measure aimed at recruiting students into our club. The first year students had to listen to speeches from all of the clubs, and they got to listen to a performance from the band, as well.

We had practiced the speech earlier, and we watched as students before us went up and talked about volleyball, baseball, and various other clubs in a bored, scared monotone. Many of the first years were watching me to figure out why I was among all the students, and I was hoping that might make a difference in getting some new recruits. Our speech was pretty good – half in English and half in Japanese. Satomi and Mayumi both did a great job.

After school we met up in my classroom to greet any first years that want to join, but unfortunately nobody came. I had kind of anticipated this and did some shopping for snacks and fun stuff to kill time while we waited around. It was a little demoralizing, but we still had a pretty good time.

I had a long talk with Atsuko, the newest member of the club. She is still pretty excited about English, and she told me her dream job – she wants to work in the United Nations as an aid worker. It’s an ambitious goal, but she seems determined. She’s picked a college in Tokyo that has a sister school in California. I gave her plenty of encouragement – it’s rare to find one of my students actually wants to leave Japan. We talked about the Japanese people that had been kidnapped in Iraq, and Atsuko seems determined to go on despite being a little scared. She said that she wants to help out in the world – whatever she can do to promote peace rather than war.

It sounds like a lot of peace, love, and sunshine but there is something about the determination in her expression and attitude that makes it seem possible. She also sees what I am doing as proof that someone can work outside your own country, have fun, and be successful. It’s a scary feeling to be a career role model.

Tomorrow we are lounging around the “clubhouse” again, so this time I promised to bring some cards. We are going to play a few hands of “Old Maid” to kill the time.

According to my schedule, Monday was filled with other activities, so I didn’t have any actual classes of my own to teach. Mr. Hayashi invited me to fill in and help him with some of his, and so I went upstairs and surprised some students by appearing unexpectedly.

I spent most of my day lesson planning, and I’m starting to get an idea of what is expected of me. For some of my classes I am working with teachers that want to follow the textbook closely. Most of my classes are similar to last year, where I come up with the entire lesson and then run it by the teacher. Although this method is a lot more work for me, I tend to prefer it.

After school I came home and then went over to the yakitori to catch up with the master and his wife. We chatted for a long time and they cooked me up some kimchee fried rice that was delicious. They said that after the volleyball game they went through four cases of beer, one case of Chu-hi, and two big bottles of Sho-chu. It sounded like everyone was toasted. Luckily the master’s father was there to drive everyone home.

Well, it’s Sunday evening and I’m getting ready to call it a night. My weekend went pretty well. On Saturday during the day I peeled apples and made applesauce according to my mom’s secret recipe. The peeling was kind of a pain, but the sauce turned out great. I was putting together a big dinner for Kuniko, who showed up around seven o’clock. She had to work on Saturday – apparently her school has them working every other Saturday. She was exhausted from her first week.

I served up Jamaican chicken, green salad with real ranch dressing, sauteed mushrooms, the aforementioned applesauce, and corn with black pepper and jalapenos. The dinner was a success, and there was a lot of leftovers. I should be busy eating for a little while.

The reason Kuniko came over is because we were both invited to a volleyball match/BBQ by the master of the yakitori. I couldn’t completely understand what it was all about but the master was picking us up at 9:30 in the morning, so we wanted to get an early start in Futami.

In the morning we walked outside the apartment and met the master, his wife, and his father in the family wagon. We went off to an elementary school in Nishi-Akashi and went inside to use the gymnasium. There were lots of regulars from the yakitori there, as well as some people I didn’t know. I thought this was going to be a casual game, but soon they had set up spiking drills. It became clear that there was a women’s team playing, and soon thereafter it became clear that we were the opponents.

Kuniko got lucky and got to sit out and watch us embarrass ourselves. The women had the uniforms, knee pads, the communication – everything that makes a good team. We had a bunch of beer drinking guys and a few inches of height advantage, but it was really no contest. I played in three of the six games that they played, rotating out to let others play and to catch my breath. It was a workout!

The time was later than we expected, and Kuniko needed to head out, so we bowed out of the BBQ and walked over to the nearest station at Uozumi, and then I rode with Kuniko to Akashi. We ate lunch at the Indian restaurant there, and then walked back to the station. After some ice cream, we were walking through the station and bumped into my old buddy Struan, who is sticking around another year like me. He asked about Antoine, and we started talking about poker night. Ever since we both lightened Antoine’s wallet in poker we’ve been thinking about getting a game together. Hopefully this time we can pull it off.

I saw off Kuniko at the gates, and then took the Sanyo line home. I took a long nap in the afternoon, had leftovers for dinner, watched the movie Timeline and amused myself by saying “dude” out loud after everything that Paul Walker’s character said. The movie wasn’t too bad actually, but I can’t say that I recommend it.

I’m off to bed now, and if I’m lucky I’ll get to teach some classes tomorrow. I’m anxious to get started.

It’s Friday night, but I spent a quiet evening at home cooking dinner, watching Survivor, and drinking beer.

Work today was another day full of assemblies and opening ceremonies. We also had meetings and assemblies relating to the departure of some of our teachers. Everyone came back today to say goodbye to the students, and make a brief speech in front of the teachers. If this wasn’t enough, we are having a big party for everyone next Friday in Himeji. Apparently it isn’t a real goodbye unless you’re drinking. Seriously though, most of the teachers that left have been working here anywhere from 8-14 years. My time here in Japan is really just a blip on the radar – these people have years and years of the same job ahead of them.

I walked through a crowd of the new first year students on my way to the weight training room, and everyone stopped talking and watched me go by. As soon as I was past and walking away I heard three things – “hello”, “goodbye”, and “I love you”. I just smiled back and waved. They’ll learn to hate me once they get their homework assignments.

Two other things are worth mentioning. The now infamous part-time biology teacher that is rumored to be gorgeous by Mr. Hayashi showed up today. She is gorgeous. I think she’ll have her hands full fending off all the single teachers. My money is on the new P.E. teacher that will sit right across from her. I give them six months before we start to see some developments. A new office worker is also really good looking, so between the two of them they have the boys talking.

Also, Ms. Miyake came in today, and she has the distinction of being one of two teachers at my school that actually know about Kuniko and I. Kuniko told her about it a couple of weeks ago, and swore her to secrecy. Ms. Miyake were talking today and I broached the subject – she was really happy about it. Five minutes later she completely forgot about the secret part and asked me in a loud voice whether I was going to see Miss Kageyama this weekend. I looked around quickly, but nobody was within earshot. She realized what she had just said and called herself a fool in Japanese. I hope that the secret lasts – right now it’s looking pretty shaky.

Dinner tonight was homemade gyoza (pot-stickers). Kuniko taught me how to make them a while back, and so I tried it out on my own. I made two batches – one plain and one with extra hot sauce. They were both great – and although they were hard work to make, they tasted great.

Tomorrow Kuniko is coming over for dinner, and so I’ve got some cleanup around the house and I need to go shopping for ingredients. I’m hoping dinner turns out as good as tonight’s was.

It was as if I made a loud announcement during a teacher’s meeting. “Hello everyone, I have Tuesday off!” Within minutes of walking through the door Mr. Yamamoto asked me if I could take two more classes, effectively killing my free day on Tuesday. I put on a jovial face as I accepted the extra work. I’d have probably been bored anyway.

Our first year students came in today for the opening ceremony, and like the graduation ceremony it was full of speeches, standing up, sitting down, and repeat. I sat with Mr. Komuri who alternated between telling me rude jokes in English and sleeping, all this right in front of the very earnest parents of the new students. He’s close to retirement, so I don’t think he worries too much about making a great impression anymore.

I passed the time making faces at a little kid that was sitting with her parents, and she seemed to get a kick out of a foreigner with a sense of humor. It was fun.

After the ceremony we had a free bento lunch that was pretty good, but they did have a little paper cup full of tiny fish – their little eyes all staring in different directions and their little spines starting to bend. I call them “bent fish” because I don’t know what the real name is, and it’s one food in Japan I don’t plan on eating. The sashimi was good, though, and there were plenty of fried things to keep everyone happy.

School finished up and we took a group picture in front of the school. Once that was finished, we all took off. I went home to cook up a quick meal before Yasu came over. Kuniko had gotten him some omiyage at Tokyo Disneyland and I wanted to give that to him sooner rather than later. We used the occasion to drink beers and practice English – it was a lot of fun.

I’m bushed now – I’m heading to bed. Tomorrow is Friday and I’ve got some shopping to do – I may be cooking dinner for Kuniko on Saturday night.

At work things are slowly getting back to normal. We have more meetings now, and more and more students are coming to school to study or hang out. One big event today was that they released our schedules, showing what classes we are teaching and when they are.

I got my schedule today and was very surprised. The last two terms I taught 17 classes a week, which is a pretty solid schedule. I also do an ESS club meeting and a teacher’s class, making the total 19 classes out of 30 possible slots. This term (and the next two as well) I have only 11 classes. My schedule is pretty light, and I have Tuesday completely free of classes.

Mr. Hayashi took one look at my schedule and said that we’d have to make some changes. When they send my schedule to the head office along with everyone else’s, apparently there is a good chance that they’d assign me to another school on Tuesday. That means commuting to a new school, having another supervisor, and meeting a whole new staff of people.

It also means that Mr. Hayashi would have to share me, and he wants none of that. He’s going to sneak in a couple of fake classes on my schedule before it goes out to the head office. They’re not actually fake, I’m just going to drop in and say hello every once in a while. That will make me indispensable on Tuesday and unavailable to do other schools. Mr. Hayashi seems to know all the tricks.

The history teacher has been taking more and more of an interest in me, and so now he meets with me almost every day to review the schedules and meetings, and to basically cover everything in detail in broken English. Normally I would appreciate the information, but Mr. Hayashi and I have a great system worked out that has been successful for the past two terms. I ignore the meetings and speeches, and he tells me if I need to be somewhere or to do something.

At some point I’m going to have to rein in the history teacher a little bit – it’s like having two bosses. Today he was telling me when I could go home. I appreciate the help, but I’d really like to deal with just one person, and we’ve already got someone in place. If it continues during the school term, I’ll talk to Mr. Hayashi and arrange some kind of intervention. In the end, I think the history teacher is just a lonely guy who has alienated most of his coworkers and has latched on to me as someone to relate to.

Tonight I had two dinners – an early leftovers dinner of jambalaya, and a late dinner of homemade ramen with sausage. Now I’m getting ready to do some stretches and hit the sack. Tomorrow is a really busy day – so busy that they are buying lunch for us. Raw fish coming right up!

I went in early to work today, and as expected I had a very short day. At around 11 a.m. I made my exit, pretending to go to lunch. Mr. Komuri also pretended to go to lunch, but he was going to play tennis. As long as we don’t officially say we are cutting school, it’s fine to do so. Weird.

Anyway, this time since I knew I was getting out early, I had contacted Kuniko in Osaka and found out that she had the day off. I got on the train in Takasago, and an hour and 10 minutes later I was getting off the train in Shin-Osaka. I picked up some Rondelle and Carr’s crackers at the imported food shop in the station, and then walked over to Kuniko’s apartment.

Kuniko really cooked up a storm for me – we had Korean bibimba and soup for lunch, and we had Japanese style hamburgers, vegetables, and vegetable miso soup for dinner. I picked up dessert at the local convenience store – liquid ice cream that you suck out of a nipple. Interesting.

Anyway, I just got home, and tomorrow is picture day at school. That means I have to wear my suit – ick.

Sometimes it’s how the light is hitting the trees and buildings, sometimes it’s the warm weather, but today it was just that I was feeling great. I walked back to the little grocery store because I needed some ingredients for jambalya.

As I walked there and back I seemed to notice all the flowers – it’s not just the cherry blossoms that are going nuts right now. The colors seemed more vivid and with the slightly warmer weather it is really starting to look nice around here. Four boys were playing a pickup game of baseball in the yard behind the temple, right beneath the cherry trees. Two ladies stopped to talk to me as I walked along, remembering me from some chance encounter we had earlier.

Maybe it has something to do with living through a couple of months of cold temperatures and rain, but now everything seems to be coming to life. The simple act of walking down to the store and buying whatever I want for dinner, and even a candy bar or two for dessert really lifted my spirits.

I’m sipping a Guinness, I’ve got jambalaya cooking in the rice cooker, and I’m feeling pretty good about things right now.

I pulled in today at my normal time, but there were only a few people at work. I used the time to go up to my classroom and hang up some more pictures – photos from Seoul, Sydney, and Tokyo.

I talked for the first time with one of the English teachers that has been avoiding me since I arrived at the school. This term there is no avoiding it – he’s going to have to teach classes with me. Mr. Hayashi told me that he’s been studying English very hard in preparation, and today he got to use a little bit with me. We had a nice conversation about his weekend, and he did a great job. He’s got nothing to be afraid of.

Mr. Hayashi came in at about nine o’clock, and didn’t even go to his new desk. He sat in his old chair next to me and we shot the breeze for a while. He apologized for me staying where I was. Apparently the last two ALTs spoke almost no Japanese, so they moved them along with Mr. Hayashi. He said that they think my Japanese is good enough that I don’t have to be held by the hand all day. I’d tend to disagree, but it was a nice compliment.

More from Mr. Hayashi: I should be fine to take two weeks in July to go home to California, I can leave early on the 15th of this month to go see Radiohead, and there is a new part time teacher that is, as Mr. Hayashi describes her, “very charming”. The history teacher almost fell out of his chair trying to get details, so I already feel bad for this poor lady.

I packed up my gear and left around 11:30 and did some shopping on the way home. I also stopped in at the Miyakura shrine to take some pictures of the cherry blossoms there.

I had planned on going hiking this morning, but when I woke up, it was raining pretty good outside. The last time I went hiking on Takamikura after the rain it was really slippery, and I didn’t want to repeat that episode.

Instead I spent the day relaxing. I made onigiri rice balls for lunch, and some macaroni and cheese that my folks sent me for dinner. Tomorrow it’s back to school, and I think I have to work a full day – imagine that.

My Saturday began with a bit of laundry and organizing around the house. I cooked up a big breakfast for myself and then worked on cleaning up. I made plans to meet up with Antoine in Kobe in the evening, and burned a CD full of pictures and music for him to check out.

I made my trip out to Sannomiya, and met Antoine at the movie theater underneath Motomachi. We walked around the block a couple of times before we found a promising restaurant. It was a yakiniku chain that promised all you could eat meat for 1800 yen. We walked inside, but were quickly intercepted by a waiter who talked in rapidfire Japanese. I could catch every couple of words, but it sounded like they were full, and we could walk to their other store near JR station. He gave me directions, and then we marched off.

Strangely enough, we found the place, and if you’ve ever been to Sannomiya on a Saturday night, it’s pretty hard to find anything. We just walked in, I gave my name and we sat down at a table with a big grill in front of us. We ordered beer and meat, and just relaxed as they started bringing food. The waiter came over with some English menus, and we saw that we could choose what kind of meat they brought out. Chicken, rib meat, generic beef, tongue, heart, intestine, stomach, what would you like? We crossed off most of the things from the list and then said knock yourselves out.

We went through three big plates of meat, cooking it ourselves in between us on the grill. There were two sauces available for us to dip the cooked meat in, but I didn’t realize that until we were almost finished. I’m thinking that the next time we do something like this, I’m going to smuggle my own sauces in there and do it right.

After dinner we had a sweets fixation, so we went to one of the many bakery/cafe/coffee shops and sat down for some dessert. Looking around we were surrounded by women talking, gossiping, and trying not to stare at us. Definitely not our scene. A very feminine male waiter in a beret took our order, and then we sat around trying to look comfortable. Weird.

After dessert we felt like more beer, so we went to the bar down the way that serves Hoegaarden, and sat down at the bar between a young couple and an older women that looked like she had been at the bar for the last three years.

We ordered our drinks, and Antoine ordered Sho-chu, which is the Japanese “old man’s” drink that he prefers. Everyone at the bar reacted when he ordered it, and murmuring could be heard in the wings of the restaurant. The bartender asked three times to make sure he understood correctly, and Antoine, who must get this reaction all the time, just confirmed the order and even specified the brand.

I sat drinking and talking with Antoine, with the older woman sitting immediately to my left and the young couple around the corner of the bar to Antoine’s right. As I looked around the bar the female member of the young couple was giving me the look. The “I want to practice English with you” look. Her male friend was too absorbed in his cigarette and beer to notice.

A few minutes later the guy got up and went to the bathroom, and I asked the girl about the beer she was drinking, so she passed it over to me to try. That opened things up and we started talking in English and Japanese. Antoine joined in the conversation, and pretty soon her man came back to find two foreigners talking up his girl. He was cool about it, and we backed off when he came back. She kept giving me the eye the rest of the night, so I don’t know what her issues were.

We settled our bill and got ready to go, and the drunken old woman to my left said in English – “so… SAD!”. We tried to ignore her at first, but she said it again, and so I grudgingly talked to her in Japanese to see what she wanted. She cackled with a cigarette ruined laugh and ordered us two more drinks. We were stuck. We sat back down, and then she tried to hit on Antoine, giving him meaningful looks, mentioning that she is taking the same train back home as Antoine – basically trying to bag a foreign boy.

I tried to run interference by speaking Japanese in between her slurred English attempts, but she had her sights set on poor Antoine. This called for drastic measures – we both chugged our entire drinks in two gulps and made our goodbyes. Antoine was lucky to get out of there in one piece.

Anyway, it was a fun night in Kobe, and it was good to spend some time chatting with Antoine. His background is similar to mine, and he’s got a good sense of humor. We’re hoping to do some traveling together in the future – he wants to go to some of the same places I do.

After all our big meetings yesterday it was back to slacker-time for all the teachers. I slept in and didn’t stroll into work until around 9 o’clock. All of the teachers that I had partied with the night before hadn’t shown up yet, so I felt like a real hero getting there first.

The strangest thing was to see all the new teachers that had introduced themselves in business suits yesterday walking around wearing T-shirts and sweats. Apparently they know the routine, and they just started to fit right in.

I studied Japanese for about an hour at my desk, and then changed my clothes and went to the gym to work out. After an hour doing that, I came back to the teacher’s room and still no Mr. Hayashi or Mr. Komuri. I decided to take matters into my own hands and left around 11:30. I stopped into Seiyu for some sushi and went home.

In the evening Kuniko dropped by – she is staying in Kakogawa until Saturday night so we thought we’d go do something fun. At first we stopped at the mall to shop for a watch – hers broke a little while ago. After striking out at the mall we drove into Akashi and walked through Akashi park.

The park was bigger than I had realized, and we passed lots of people partying under the cherry blossoms. The place was gearing up for bigger parties on Saturday, and the weather should be nice for that. The parties are supposed to be about viewing cherry blossoms, but in reality they can get pretty rowdy, with everyone drinking way too much.

We did a big circle through the park, about an hour’s walk, and then when it started getting a little cold we headed back to the car. We drove back to Futami, and then I invited Kuniko to join me for dinner at the yakitori.

The gang at the yakitori had met Kuniko informally during the Futami Matsuri. Afterwards they had asked all about her, trying to figure out whether she was girlfriend material. When I stolled into the place with her Friday evening, there was quite a reaction. Two regulars that I always bump into there jumped up and started making the Japanese sign for “girlfriend”, which is the extended pinky finger. The master jumped smiled and shook his head.

We sat down and ordered up lots of food, and talked with the master a bit. They are doing a cherry blossom party/volleyball game on April 11th, and he invited Kuniko and I to come. It’s on the weekend, so there is an outside chance that Kuniko would be free. I’m hoping she can come along – the parties with these guys are a lot of fun. We ate big, with frequent visits from my two drunk friends who gave me neck massages and words of encouragement in Japanese. I think they figured this was a first date and they wanted to get me relaxed – I’m not sure. Anyway, they were harmless and it was a fun time.

Saturday night I’m planning on meeting Antoine in Sannomiya for a recap of last month and to chat about April. Sunday should be pretty relaxing – I’m hoping to do a hike on Takamikura in the morning, and then relax the rest of the day.