This morning was reasonably slow paced. I spent some time on the phone with my mom and we caught up on things. I made myself a nice breakfast of eggs, tortillas and salsa. The weather was pretty nice – with some high clouds and no rain.
Around lunchtime I walked over to Carrefour, and picked up some luxury items. They have a big machine that cuts up a fresh pineapple and leaves all the good stuff for you to buy in a bag for 400 yen. I picked up one to try – the one I got at Costco was a lot of work to cut up, but it tasted great.
I also picked up a selection of beers – Guinness Bitter, a beer that I first saw in Scotland at a grocery store there back in August 2000. It’s taken this long for me to find it again. I haven’t tasted it yet, but I’ll post a review when I do.
I got two other beers, a bottle of El Sol from Mexico, and a bottle of XXXX from Australia.
Besides beer and pineapple I got some firestarter cubes to try with my BBQ in an attempt to keep the smoke to a minimum. I also got some chicken breasts for dinner on Sunday night.
After I got back I sat down to study, but ended up giving up and taking a nap. I ended up waking around five o’clock. Twenty minutes later Kuniko called – she and some of her friends were heading my way and wanted to see if would join them for a movie.
I got organized and ran outside just as rain was starting fall. Kuniko picked me up, and behind her car was a car with her friends – a teacher from her old school and an ALT friend from Himeji that I’ve heard a lot about… Yuri.
Yuri is a Japanese American who learned Japanese as her first language. She looks Japanese, she talks Japanese, but she also speaks fluent English having been raised in Los Angeles. She has signed up for a second year on the JET program, but it sounds like she’s already getting tired of it. She’s looking to settle down somewhere.
We went to Kakogawa and saw “Big Fish”, which was a strange but pleasant experience. I enjoyed some of the visuals and the jokes – but nobody else in the theater was laughing. Maybe it was a tough translation.
After the movie Kuniko drove Yuri home to Himeji, and dropped her off there. By then it was pouring rain, and so our goodbyes were very brief. It was good to finally meet her – for a long time she was the “other ALT” that Kuniko taught with, and it was interesting to hear about her experiences through Kuniko.
Kuniko drove me back to my place, and even though it was getting late I talked her into coming up for some fresh pineapple. I had the benefit of a nap so I wasn’t so tired, but Kuniko was exhausted. The pineapple was a nice treat to cap off a relaxing day.
