I had a really nice couple of days. Kuniko came over on Saturday, bringing lots of omiyage from her trip to Okinawa. There was delicious candies, Okinawa beer, even Aomori (the Okinawa version of tequila). Together we went into Kobe to drop by her school and pick up some exams that she needed to mark during the weekend.
It was my first time going to her school – it’s on the top of a mountain on the north side of Kobe, and it was an uphill walk to get there. Once we arrived we snuck up a side road to get there to keep out of the eyesight of any of her students that might be walking around. We made it there successfully, and then I waited out on a bench while she went into the staffroom to get her paperwork.
While I was waiting a couple of students walked by, and the groundskeeper came by to ask me some questions and figure out if I was just hanging around the check out the girls or if I had a real reason to be there. He seemed satisfied with my response, and a few minutes later Kuniko came out and we hit the road.
After running a few errands in Sannomiya we went back to Akashi, and met up with Nel and Kiyomi there. Nel is a really laid back guy who is fun to hang out with. I felt guilty not talking with him for so long, but we got right back in the swing of things. We went out for okonomiyaki at the restaurant right across from the Akashi Castle hotel – the hotel where my friends and family will likely be staying for the wedding.
Nel and Kiyomi handn’t heard about our engagement, so they were really happy and we chatted for a long time. They are in much the same situation that we’ll be in – Japanese wife, foreign guy, and since they had already gotten married Nel had some good advice for me. He’s also got some interesting ideas about working after JET, so I’m definitely going to pick his brain about that.
After okonomiyaki we went on to Donkey and had some beers and drunkenly threw some darts around. That was a great chance for Kuniko and Kiyomi to talk girl to girl while Nel and I threw darts and drank beer.
After a fun time there we headed out to the train station, and we went our separate ways. Kuniko and I came back to my place and hit the hay – all this hiking around has a way of tiring you out.
Sunday we went out for a McDonald’s breakfast. I hadn’t had one in so long that it sounded really good when Kuniko mentioned it. It turned out pretty good – the hot cakes tasted great, the Egg McMuffin was excellent. From there we went to the movie theater to catch an early show of “Million Dollar Baby”, which just arrived here in Japan. It was really good – Kuniko and I were both pretty quiet after the movie absorbing it all.
We spent the afternoon grading papers, studying, and relaxing. Kuniko worked hard and graded all her papers, so afterwards we went to Ito Yokado and bought some groceries for dinner. I made steamed gyoza (pot stickers), we had a pre-made salad on the side, and some rice. There were four different sauces to choose from, a chili garlic, a Thai hot sauce, regular old gyoza sauce, and jalapeno mustard. We ate dinner with a couple of Okinawa beers, marked ratherly strangely as “Hard” and “Soft” beers. Yum!
Another great weekend in the books. This week should be pretty straight-forward. I have a health examination at school, so I’ll be at home Monday practicing peeing in a cup in anticipation of the big event.
