Today I had nothing to do but re-record a listening test for my first year students. They won’t get the test until Friday, which leaves me with a lot of free time between now and then.
My vice-principal invited me out to lunch, and so we went to a traditional Japanese restaurant and sat on the floor. I ordered kushikatsu, which is just fried food on skewers. It was greasier than I expected, but as you might expect, it tasted great. We talked about all kinds of things in English. About ten years ago the vice-principal was an English teacher, in charge of ALTs like me. He had some interesting thoughts on what makes a good ALT, and he even told some war stories about his days working closely with newly arrived ALTs.
He asked me if I hang out with other ALTs, and I said that I do occasionally. He said that when he was in charge of an ALT, they often had “sex parties”. I asked him for a little clarification, but he turned red and didn’t want to repeat it. He told me that it was top secret, and that he was sure that I wasn’t doing something like that. What a weird lunch conversation.
Once I got back I got the word that I was free to take off, so I went home and spent the afternoon planning for the upcoming trip. I did some last homework for my Japanese correspondence course, and listening to lots of 80’s music. Around five o’clock I caught the train to Himeji to meet Carrie for dinner.
On the way I was fooling around with my cellphone, and in a classic moment of “what does this do?”, I ended up completely erasing everything on there. Phone numbers, emails, everything. Gone! Bummer. Now I’ll have to collect all the information again. Oh well.
Carrie and I met up in front of the 31 flavors in Himeji, and on the way to the restaurant we bumped into some other ALTs, including Yuri, who I had dinner with just two nights ago. They said that they had to get going, so we all went our separate ways.
Carrie was raving about this new ramen restaurant that she found, and I’ll tell you that it was well worth raving about. The gyoza were delicious, and vegetarian. The ramen was also great – smaller bowl, smaller price, and really good. I got “milk ramen” which had a good creamy flavor to it, kind of like what I imagine the ramen in like in Sapporo. Yum!
After dinner we had cake at another restaurant nearby, and we talked about all kinds of things, including my upcoming wedding, our future plans, Carrie’s sister who joined the program last year.
Finally we took off from there, and I went home via the JR train line to do some shopping at Midori and Carrefour. Now I’m back home and getting ready for bed. Tomorrow is another easy day, and Mr. Hayashi has promised to take me out for a big steak lunch.
