Today was a mild day at work – no classes for me, just meetings and coaching students. I spent about half and hour with Hasegawa-san, our entry in tomorrow’s speech contest. I’m actually one of the judges, so I will have to be the model of impartiality tomorrow.

After school I went with Mr. Hayashi to Kakogawa City Hall to register for the big hike on Sunday. It’s a long one, around 25 miles, so it should be fun. The hike is actually two days long – I’m only participating during the second day. Mr. Hayashi says that over 100,000 people attend and march both days. I expect that the crowds will be smaller on the 40k trail. I even got a little tag that I wear to identify myself and get free goodies along the way.

Tonight I am running a little laundry. I was planning on running down to the yakitori with Melanie, but she called in sick. Now I’m deciding whether to go down there or to cook up something last minute here.