I found out yesterday that one of my students decided to pull the trigger and buy the property down the road from us, so we’ll have a new neighbor around March of next year. I think they will be a good addition to the neighborhood – he seems like a really nice guy. Plus, he’s addicted to yakitori like me.

It is Friday, and I have a drinking party after work with some of my ex- and current students. It’ll be the first time in a long time that I’ve seen some of my ex-students, and it’ll be fun to catch up with them. We’re heading to Sannomiya after work, so it might be a late night…

Some of my students at work already heard about our plans to ride the Glacier Express in a couple of weeks, and this week they’ve been asking if I’m still going to ride. I told them that we are going to do it, and they seem to agree with us – go for it.

The interesting thing is that all of my students are railroad engineers, designers and executives, so they have lots of professional curiosity in the derailing in Switzerland.

One guy showed me his analysis of the accident, what he thought the reason was, and gave me his assessment of the risks for us. He said that he thought a derailment like this could be expected only about once every ten years, so since it just happened we should be fine. Thanks, man. I feel better, I guess. It is not everyone that can have a professional risk analysis of our rail trip.

Since yesterday was a day off for Kuniko, she cooked a big dinner of Indian curry, tandoori chicken, and homemade naan bread. She even made some lassi for dessert. Yum. She also baked some maple muffins, so we delivered some to Ohori-san down the road to try to pay her back for all the bread and snacks she delivers to us.

Yesterday was much cooler thanks to a heavy layer of clouds, and this morning it is pouring rain. Still plenty of humidity, but a very short break from the heat is welcome.

On the way out the door to work yesterday I bumped into Yamaji-san outside watering her garden. It was the perfect moment to ask if they would be around during the two weeks that we’ll be in Europe, and it turns out that they will. That was very good news, and I think I persuaded her to come over and water our plants now and then while we’re gone.

The summer temperatures are continuing, so our plants will definitely need some attention. I’m glad that they are available – I hate to have Kuniko’s dad drive all the way over here every couple of days.

Today Kuniko has a rare day off. I’m not sure exactly why, but we’re not looking a gift horse in the mouth. She’ll be relaxing here all day, but I have a normal schedule. It is alarming how fast this week is going, and it’ll be vacation time before we know it.

One of my students has been looking for a place to build a house for the last six months. He started his search in Tarumi, halfway between where we live (in Okubo) and Kobe. Because of it’s location by the sea and the proximity of good shopping areas, and also because of two train lines running directly through it, Tarumi is an expensive place to live. You can lower the price by getting a place to the north, and then taking a bus to and from work every day, but near the station is way too expensive.

We discovered this pretty quickly, and we started moving west, away from Kobe until we found someplace we liked – that ended up being Okubo. As it turns out one of my students followed pretty much the same path, and the property he is looking at in Okubo is in our neighborhood.

Yesterday he spent most of his lesson with me asking me about the area, the neighbors, and any other information he might need to make a decision. It sounded like they are serious about the place, though. I would love to have some more friendly neighbors, but I tried to give him unbiased advice. We should hear sometime in the next few weeks.

Last night was taco night (again). This time we made chicken and avocado tacos. The availability of cheap and plentiful tortillas has made Mexican food sort of a staple in our house lately. Usually we have some kind of Mexican dish at our parties, and so it falls to us to eat the leftovers. I don’t mind – like Kuniko says, I could eat Mexican every day.

Inception turned out to be perfect Sunday afternoon entertainment, and afterwards we came back home and grilled some chicken, and had some cheese and champagne to wrap up the weekend.

It seems like this week might be a little easier for Kuniko, with a midweek day off, and a couple of days where she can leave early. As for me, I’ll be on a regular schedule for the next two weeks before we leave for our trip. So I should be plenty tired before departure.

The weather continues to be hot every day, but today it looks like there is a little bit of cloud cover. Hopefully it will make the commute a bit easier. Once I get to my office I will be in a temperature-controlled environment all day – so it is just the mornings and evenings I need to worry about.

The anniversary dinner the other night was a big hit. We tried some new pasta – eggplant gnocchi – and the sauce was excellent. We decided to try to replicate it at home, but I think it will take a lot of research time.

As usual, dinner was great. I gave some earrings to Kuniko and she gave me a new bag/briefcase to take to work every day. By the time we got home we were pretty tired out, and the heat and humidity even late at night didn’t really help.

Friday was a pretty normal day, and since Kuniko was working on Saturday it wasn’t much of a wild Friday night. I think we were in bed by 9 pm after a dinner of leftover tacos.

Saturday while Kuniko was working I prepared for Yoshi and Akira. Mamiko couldn’t make it because of a cold, but when they arrived we barbecued some kebabs and sausages, ate way too much guacamole and chips, and some pork that I had cooked up during the day.

Akira was full of energy as usual, and he really got into the Wii games. We actually had to set up a physical barrier, as he kept getting closer and closer to the TV. We were afraid he might crash into it.

We also talked about the derailing of the Glacier Express. It was on the news here a lot because one of the people that was killed was Japanese. We’ve got reservations for the same train in 3 weeks – I hope they sort out the problems by then. I asked Kuniko if she is still up for riding the train after the derailing, and she replied that if we’re going to die, that would be a pretty dramatic way to go – no worries. That’s the spirit!

Today we’re going to do a little bit of shopping and then go see Inception at the local theater. The heat outside is damn near oppressive, so we’ll try to stick to air conditioned environments to avoid heat stroke.

I thought I’d surface for just a bit during my five days off in a row. Things are going pretty well – just relaxing, doing some yardwork, and I even squeezed in a trip to the beach today to take a dip. Tomorrow we’ll be hosting a Mexican dinner for Kuniko’s coworkers, so we went to Costco the other day and scored lots of interesting goodies.

I made beans yesterday, and I’ll be on guacamole and carne asada duty tomorrow. I’m looking forward to challenging carne asada in Japan – I hope it turns out.

Finally, my aunt and uncle sent some books to check out from America, so between the housecleaning and cooking tomorrow I hope to do some reading and relax some more. So far the holiday has been all that I had hoped – very relaxing.

We had a chance to sleep in an extra 40 minutes today – instead of getting up at five we got up at 5:40. Kuniko has no students today, so it’ll be an easier day for her. We took the train into Kobe together, and it reminded me of the time I worked in Nishinomiya, going into work together every day.

While Kuniko has a free night, I’m going to meet up with Yoshi after work in Sannomiya. It’ll be good to see him again – it has been a while since we could hang out. Also today is my last day of work for a bit. KHI has a power conservation holiday next week, so I won’t go back to work until Thursday. I’m looking at five days off starting tomorrow. Nice!

A recent Newsweek article on creativity was a good read.

Oh, great – technology has finally caught up with me. After taking a long break from flashcards because dealing with a separate device (an old HP iPAQ windows mobile device) and the old, touchy software (supermemo CE) was a hassle, I finally got modern.

For a long time I have been watching the development of Anki, a customizable, free desktop program that allows for tons of variations in how you study and memorize. Until recently the mobile options were limited, but the developer finally decided to make an iPhone app, and I bought it recently and have started to use it. It is really well designed, and it makes updating my vocab list a piece of cake. As I work with it more I will probably post more details here, although probably it is of little interest to readers of this blog.

So back to the vocab – let’s see how much I forgot…

This morning there was a heavy rain warning, which means various things to various people. For me it means a normal day, with maybe a wet commute. However, looking out the window now it seems like pretty normal weather.

For students it means that there is no school today. Everybody checks the TV in the morning, and all schools close based on this government issued warning. But unfortunately, teachers still have to go to work, and be there just in case. So Kuniko went off to work this morning, and she’ll have to sit around school for most of the day. The good news for her is that she will probably be able to get home much earlier than usual.

The tough part will be for parents that expect their students to go to school, and may have to change their own schedule to take care of their kids. I don’t know how many of my students it will affect, but I’m sure it will throw a wrench in somebody’s plans.

Yesterday at work one of the inspectors that I was drinking with last week stopped by to say thanks for coming, and he urged me to join them more often. He said it was nice to have somebody along that could translate things, and since most of the translators that he bumps into at work are Japanese, it is nice to get information flowing the other way, into clear and understandable English.

It was nice to hear that they had a good time – I did too. The only downside is all the cigarette smoke. So I think I’ll have to pace my visits to their party and try to avoid getting lung cancer.

After work I also had a good chat with one of my ex-students. He is one of the smartest guys I know, and he has a good sense of humor, so a good combination. We talked about some deep topics, and he helped me out with some questions I had. Very productive discussion yesterday.

Last night we woke up at about 3:30 am to the sound of a huge deluge of rain. It was so loud that you start to wonder whether you are on high ground or not – at least I did in my fuzzed out half asleep brain. And just when you thought it couldn’t get louder it does – heavy, heavy rain. It lasted for about 20 minutes and then moved on. I’m just glad we didn’t get caught in it while walking to work.

We had a nice (although rather high calorie) weekend, and now we’re getting ready to go back to work. Friday night I met up with some of the inspectors at work, who in turn were meeting up with some friends of theirs, and it worked out to be a fun night at the tachinomi bar. The inspectors were in rare form, with three glasses breaking, complaints from the staff about their noise, and general debauchery. I was happy to quietly drink in the corner and chat with their friends, who were really nice.

On the way home I stopped in at Red Spanky for a couple of drinks and to practice my Japanese. It was pretty quiet there, however, so I went home soon afterwards. The next day I cleaned house in preparation for Kuniko’s homecoming, and then met her in Kobe in the evening. While I was waiting for her to arrival I gave some blood at the new blood donation center in Sannomiya – it was really well designed and easy to use (although there was almost no English language support).

Kuniko and I met up finally and celebrated the end of her study camp with a dinner of yakiniku at a restaurant that we like near Motomachi station. It was delicious as usual, but that is a lot of grease going into your body – not the healthiest of meals. After dinner we saw Toy Story 3 (very good) and then headed home where Kuniko crashed out. She didn’t come back to consciousness until about 2 pm on Sunday, and so we just rented some movies and stayed home.

I woke up this morning and checked the scale, and I weighed in at 87 kilograms – which at 192 pounds is probably the most I’ve weighed since I came to Japan. Time to get more exercise – I just need to figure out when to get it.

For Japan’s own good, it’s high time to get into that holiday thing