Thank God You’re Back… Can You Read This Kanji?

After a very long and relaxing five day holiday I came back to work, and things were cranking along normally. One of my students couldn’t make class because of an extended business trip, but other than that it was business as usual for me.

During one of my morning classes there was a knock on the door, and it was one of the American inspectors from down the hall. These inspectors live in Japan and work on-site to monitor the building of trains. They are a couple of older guys who are pretty friendly – we’ve gone drinking a couple of times.

The guy knocking on my door was covered in sweat, and he asked me if I knew how to turn on the air conditioning. He couldn’t read the controls (they are in Japanese), and he knew I could, so he asked me to help him out. I showed him how it worked, and he thanked me and went back to his office to cool down. It reminded me of how hard it could be to live here if I couldn’t read or speak the language – something I take for granted recently. Still, he has been in Japan longer than I have, he just hasn’t studied Japanese, so I guess every now and then you get a sweat bath.

Tonight Kuniko is meeting me in Kobe after work for a last dinner at our favorite restaurant SiGassiga. I got a message that they are going out of business at the end of this month, so it is our last chance to eat there. Pretty sad, really – we eat out a lot in Kobe, but SiGassiga is the most consistent in terms of quality of friendliness. I’m hoping tonight I get a clue on where the chef (Atsushi Fujiwara) is headed next. Hopefully he’ll open a restaurant somewhere else – we’d gladly follow him there.