Sunday was our wedding anniversary. Actually, we have two anniversaries a year – today was the anniversary of the entering of my name into the family register. That is the actual legal wedding, and it is surprisingly easy to do. Our wedding was in November, and that is usually the “big” anniversary.

Kuniko and I decided to go out for dinner, so I made arrangements at a place that we had drinks and cheese before – Si!Gassiga. When we had been there before the people were really nice and they had a good selection of wines. They also had delicious-looking food, but since both times we had been there before it was after dinner this was our first chance to try their cooking.

I had made a reservation with Atsushi Fujiwara, who is the president of the company that owns two restaurants in the area. He has spent time in California and he knew a great deal about the area, especially the wine regions. We were seated at a window and enjoyed the view of Motomachi below us while we waited for dinner. They even sent over a couple of glasses of champagne to toast our anniversary.

We started with a big appetizer platter of different fish, meats, cheeses, and bread. The flavors were excellent, and the sheer variety of different foods on just the appetizer platter was awesome. We ordered a bottle of wine, an Acacia Pinot Noir, and it was delicious. I’m always a little nervous to buy wines from California in Japan because I’m not sure how they survived the trip over. This wine was doing just fine, and it was a good match with dinner.

We shared a pasta dish, penne with gorgonzola cheese sauce and prosciutto, and then moved on to the main course(s), roasted chicken with vegetables, and a tender cut of steak that we shared. The meat was so tender – it has been a long time since I’ve had beef of that quality.

The staff also surprised us with a dessert platter, with a congratulations message written in chocolate around the edge of the plate. It had our name, the date, the logo of the restaurant, and a congratulations message all hand done in chocolate sauce. Wow. The dessert was a mix of different things, but we both commented that the tiramisu and the raspberry sorbet were the best we had tasted.

By the end of the meal we were overwhelmed – everything was so good, and the staff were so friendly that it seemed as if we were dining at a friend’s house. I was especially happy to have a great dining experience because it has been harder and harder lately to find a good restaurant that you can rely on to deliver a good dining experience.

So I think Si!Gassiga is my new favorite restaurant in Kobe. We added it to the short list of places we love, joining Tapas and Baan Thai in Sannomiya, and Kitano Club in Kitano.

They also have another restaurant that I’d like to try, Hola!Achaho – it is just around the corner. Anyway, if you happen to be in the Kobe area, definitely try out Si!Gassiga. The combination of great California wines, excellent Italian food and great atmosphere make it a can’t miss in Kobe.

After dinner Kuniko and I thanked them for a great experience, and then decided to walk to Kobe station, which is a good way to burn calories after a big dinner. Kuniko was tired out by the time we arrived, so she slept on the train ride home, and we got home around 10:30 or so.

Great dinner, great night, great anniversary. We’re looking forward to visiting that restaurant again.

One of the jobs I have to do this weekend is put together the school newsletter. As I mentioned before Nozaki sensei is going to be out of town for a little bit, so I’m going to cover that chore. That means writing a lot of Japanese that will be inspected by all my students and their parents. Luckily Kuniko is my secret weapon and she can help me fix the errors that will surely crop up.

Another tradition recently is to publish some pictures of me that my students have drawn. The age range in my classes is pretty big, so we got submissions of all kinds. Nozaki sensei gave me some of the pictures to choose from this month, and I couldn’t resist posting them here, too.

I like this one a lot. My stubble makes a prominent appearance here, as it is a big talking point in class along with my arm hair. Kids love touching my arm hair. The artist here is Mia Nakamura, who is 7 years old and in one of my beginning English classes. Nozaki sensei said I look Japanese in this picture – kind of a tired old salaryman look.

Bryan in manga form. This one creeps me out a little bit and looks like me about as much as Mona Lisa does. Where did my stubble go? This one is by Arisa Takeda, who is one of my junior high school students.

I only have two classes on Friday, which gives me an extra hour in the morning to get things done (or lounge around) before I leave for work. The weather was beautiful when I walked out the door, and it was so nice to walk around and enjoy the sunshine.

The train stop I use to get to work is called Higashi (east) Kakogawa. They are totally redoing the area, and the station is completely remodeled. The area around the station is undergoing some serious changes, so it is fun to watch what things they are working on every day. An old lady parked her bike right in the middle of the makeshift path they had made around the construction, and I got to watch her verbally duke it out with a weathered old construction worker. Fight, fight, fight!

As usual during the walk to work I passed college students walking home from school, and I bumped into a few that I knew from Takasago Minami and also a new girl that they introduced me to. She sounds like she is really interested in speaking more English, but I’m not sure if English is where her true interest lies.

Nozaki sensei was at home when I arrived. This is pretty rare – I usually only see her once every week or two despite spending five hours a day in her house. She is getting ready to go to a 合宿 (gasshuku). It’s one of those trips you have to do with your students in an effort to create stronger bonds among the group. She had to go somewhere near Tokyo, so she’ll be taking an overnight bus, spending three days, and then taking an overnight back. Ick.

Kuniko is also doing a 合宿 next week with her tennis club. She has two this year – another one is just before we leave for Hawaii. It’ll be pretty quiet around here starting next week.

During my last class rain started pouring (cats and dogs) and so I ended up having to walk home in the rain. Luckily I had my fold-away umbrella and I at least kept my upper torso and head dry.

Kuniko was waiting for me in the station because she didn’t have an umbrella, so we shared mine and got home reasonably dry. I cooked up some pork steaks that I had marinated in lemon juice and black pepper, and also cooked up some Kraft mac and cheese that I had been craving. Kuniko had kind of a rough day, so we each drank lots of beer, and then decided to walk over to Vivre to do our grocery shopping instead of the nearby Jusco.

The walk back to Vivre was in a torrential rain, but it was far from cold – actually steamy hot – and it was kind of a pleasant experience to walk in. Kuniko and I did some shopping for some of her exchange students who are leaving, and then we got some groceries and came home.

Pretty mellow Friday, actually. Tomorrow and Sunday Kuniko is stuck at work, but at least on Sunday we can go out for dinner. Something to look forward to.

During the day today I did some reading practice using a political leaflet that was dropped in our mailbox. It was easy to read, but it did have some new words for me to learn. The picture on the back showed the politician making a speech, and as is common in Japan he held a bunch of microphones clumsily taped together.

It is interesting to me because my first impression was that it looked pretty jury-rigged and cheesy. Doesn’t he want to make a good impression? But here in Japan, they apparently see it differently. They see it more like this – the guy is so popular that he has lots of news organizations clamoring for his speech. This politician is very humble and will accept the burden of holding all these microphones – and humility is a big deal here. A politician holding one microphone is small time . One exception to this rule is apparently if it is a speech specifically for TV, or if it is at a podium speaking to a group of seated people. Then, one microphone is OK.

Anyway, one of the reasons that I love living in Japan is that I find stuff like this fascinating, and spend probably a little too much time trying to figure it all out.

Today I had the normal three classes for Thursday, and they were pretty quiet and uneventful. During my middle class one of the boy students, Junki, had his grandmother drop by with a big heavy box. It was more 中元 for me. Later I opened it and it turned out to be 30 mini-cans of soda – Coke, Sprite and Grape Fanta. I split it up with Nozaki sensei, and now we’re in soda for a while.

It was a very laid back evening. Kuniko had made up somen noodles and bought some tataki-style sashimi. It was a cold dinner that tasted great during the hot weather.

After bad days it is pretty common to have a good day. Your bar is set pretty low at that point, and almost anything is an improvement. Today I had a really great day at work.

My first class is a noisy class but their hearts are in the right place. They are easily distracted, and today I did a new thing where if they got really noisy I would start counting in English. The students would hear and start paying attention – I never mentioned any consequences, but I had some in mind. Next week I will explain what those consequences are, and that should do the trick. It was nice to get some success, although it was completely unexpected.

My second class was with my oldest elementary school students, and I enjoyed that one as well. We did a normal class, I helped them get ready for a recitation contest we’ll do next week, and then I did an English newspaper word scavenger hunt. They really got into that, and it was hard to wrap up the class at the end because they didn’t want to put down the English newspapers.

The last class was with newer students. They have only had me as a teacher, and they are generally well behaved with the exception of Hayaki, who can get out of control sometimes. Today we had a student come with her mother and (tiny) little brother to observe and participate in the class, and decide if she wants to join. If you remember I had that same thing happen in my younger kids class last week and it didn’t go very well at all.

Contrast that with today’s events. The other students realized that they had a guest, so they behaved really well. Since the new student didn’t have a textbook Ryoka shared with her, Hayaki kept things under control, and we did lots of vocab review and played vocabulary memorization games to really drill it in. The new student did her best and although she was really shy I think she would fit in with the group. Her mother seemed to have even more fun with the class.

At the end she said that she really wanted to join, so I hope that I see her in class soon. We lost two students last month for various reasons so this new one will help make up for that.

Kuniko beat me home again, and she had made Chinese food for dinner. We had a homemade mabodofu and an egg dish that I forgot the name of. Both were good but the mabodofu had extra heat in it because we like it spicy. Afterwards Kuniko did some serious exercising and I retreated to the cooler bedroom to do some reading.

This week is wrapping up and I’m already looking forward to the weekend. We’ll be going out to dinner for our anniversary (the paper one, not the ceremony one) in Kobe at the restaurant that Antoine and I visited last weekend. Can’t wait!

Tuesday I had a class with the younger students, and after last week I was hoping to try some new things and see if I couldn’t get them a little more under control. My first big break came when one of the parents said that her oldest daughter couldn’t make it today, but she delivered Yuzuha, the youngest of the class. Yuzuha explained to everyone that her mom was mad at her sister, and after last week I could believe how that might happen. I got everyone else settled in, and we started the class.

It went fairly well, but about the 30 minute mark one of the girl students (Mai) who is usually pretty well behaved, thought it would be amusing to stop studying and hide under the table. She learned that trick from Karin, the troublemaking girl that was absent today. She encouraged the other students, and there’s nothing like peer pressure to make a class full of Japanese students grind to a halt.

She continued her mission to not participate for the remaining 20 minutes or so. I don’t mind if one or two students has trouble staying focused the whole class, but when they are telling other students who are enjoying the lesson that they should stop I think that is bad news. The worst part was when I finally got Kento, the quiet boy in the class to sing and act out one of the songs. Mai, who hadn’t spoken a word to him in the last three months started telling him to stop. Apparently the humor in the situation stemmed from me doing the activities without them accompanying me.

Anyway, the class went better than last week but in no way could be considered a success. Bummer.

My other classes went just fine, and I had a junior high school class in the evening that helped cheer me up. When I got home Kuniko was already home and she had made a cold udon noodle salad for dinner. Delicious! I drank wine and drowned my sorrows, and went to bed fairly early. What a day…

Not a half hour after I posted about not feeling any earthquake an aftershock came along and rocked our house a little bit. It was oddly satisfying.

Monday was a really nice slow day which I spent hiking, reading, and studying Japanese. In the late afternoon rain started to fall and so I opened up the window in the bedroom and enjoyed the sound of the rain falling and the occasional crash of thunder.

I made up some chicken tacos for lunch and for dinner, and that really hit the spot. I’ve been in a Mexican mood lately. Kuniko got home from her tennis match at around six, and we watched some TV and had dinner. It was a relaxing night, and we’re both gearing up for tomorrow’s back to work schedule. Luckily Kuniko has no students this week, so that makes for an easier time for her.

Didn’t even feel it but I guess there was a rather large quake in Japan to the north and east of us. I always feel cheated when I don’t feel them. It’s like I’m taking the risk by living in an earthquake-prone country but I don’t get the benefit of an fear-induced adrenaline rush now and then.

We had a good evening with Tomomi-chan and her husband Kohei. They came over in the early evening, and we spent a nice time eating tacos, playing Wii and drinking and eating some of the spoils of 中元 (chugen).

Nozaki sensei called and said she had some presents for me from some of my students’ parents, so she was nice enough to drive them over. There was a big box of beer, some somen noodles, and lots of sweets. Luckily Tomomi and Kohei helped us out with eating the desserts.

Tomomi wasn’t drinking, and when Kuniko asked why she told us that she was pregnant! That is exciting news for them. They are such nice, gentle people – they’ll make great parents! They are expecting sometime around February of next year, so it’s pretty early in the pregnancy but you could tell that they were really excited.

Kohei did the drinking for both of them, and he very gamely had a shot of tequila with me, and drank beer and wine throughout the evening. We all had a great time with the Wii, and I’m a little bit sore from playing so much tennis with them.

As usual it was a great evening with them. We walked them to the station and promised to get together again soon.

Last night it got windy, it got rainy, but nothing really dramatic ever happened. The typhoon that was approaching stayed on a southern course, and we missed the brunt of it. Kind of anti-climatic after I braced the stuff outside for a beating.

Today is Sunday morning and we’re just cleaning house, relaxing and doing laundry. Usually Kuniko doesn’t have this much free time, so we’re trying to enjoy it.

Tonight we’ve got a taco party to look forward to, and I bought a little bit of Garlic Tabasco sauce to prepare. We’ve got to go get some avocados across the street (only 99 yen each!) and then we’ll be ready to party. Tomorrow is a holiday, so we might need to bring out the tequila too…

I’ve put together a new blog to cover all the work I’m doing while studying. There are a lot of online courses and since most of the discussion is online and digital so I thought I should have a place to keep everything separate from my day to day posts here.

I probably won’t be posting nearly as much as I do here, but if you are interested feel free to stop by.

Friday night I met up with Antoine after my classes, and together we tried to search out an alternative burger source since our favorite burger place, Star Child’s, went out of business.

Burgers are a big deal. Star Child’s had been doing it the right way, grilling the burgers, big patties, and lots of fresh vegetables and toppings like avocado and real cheddar cheese to make it seem like a burger from back in the United States. Unfortunately, they are gone, and we had to follow up on a couple of rumors before we decided to try a new place tonight – Freshness Burger.

At first when we went in it looked like just another burger chain. The good news was that they had a really big burger on the menu, not just the usual McDonald’s sized burgers. We both ordered the big one, and then drank some Miller beer out of bottles and waited. They also had lots of condiments and hot sauces sitting around which I considered another positive sign.

The burgers came and they reminded us a lot of In-N-Out burgers. They were really good, and although they weren’t grilled they satisfied the burger craving I had. I put some hot sauce and garlic chili sauce, and that made them taste even better.

It took us less than a minute to eat the burger, much to the surprise of the staff, and then we hit the road for our next stop. We walked through Chinatown looking for a seedy Chinese drinking hole but surprisingly almost everything was closed up at 9 p.m. on a Friday night. There were a couple of places that looked spooky and mysterious, but they weren’t the kind of places that two foreigners just walk into. I’d like to find a good place to drink in Chinatown, though. The atmosphere there is really interesting.

We ended up drinking a giant beer at the Sapporo German-style beer place, talking religion, Japan, and driver’s licenses. Since we kind of had a late start to the evening it was already getting late, so we went for one last drink at the Spanish restaurant that Kuniko and I had visited a while back.

We had a glass of port with a big plate of cheese to serve as dessert, and I talked a little bit with the lady working the bar. I asked about all the California wines on the wine list, and it turns out that her husband is the owner and he has a lot of interest in California wines. I told her a little bit about my background, and she soon brought over her husband from the kitchen and he talked with us for a long time. It was really nice to chat with him, and he asked us a lot of questions about what we are doing and also about my background in wine.

We stayed for about an hour, and since the place was pretty empty I think the staff didn’t mind at all. We promised to come back for dinner sometime, and then hit the road. Antoine stopped in the bathroom on the way out, but there was somebody in there. While we waited patiently chatting with the owners suddenly there was a banging noise from inside the bathroom – and it was loud. The owners flinched and Antoine and I looked at each other, but what do you say in that situation? A moment later a drunk foreign guy came out mumbling and walked by us back to his table. Scary.

Anyway, we got back to the station and each went our separate ways. Kuniko was home watching movies when I arrived, and we stayed up until about one a.m. or so before finally heading to bed. The typhoon continues to approach slowly, and it should be arriving right in the middle of the weekend. The good news is that Kuniko has lots of time off because of the bad weather. She might get a very rare three day weekend out of this. My rain dancing is starting to pay off.