I had a pretty quiet day today. I cranked through several readings for school, and another chapter in the textbook before getting ready for work. Then it was a pretty mellow day in the classroom. The students were all pretty tired because of the heat, but they were still able to make a little bit of effort in the classroom.

Just as I was leaving I bumped into Nozaki sensei coming home. She was also away (near Tokyo!) for a sports camp and looked exhausted. She was nice enough to bring back some souvenirs for Kuniko and me, which was very thoughtful.

I did some shopping on the way home for dinner (cold udon noodles) and just as I was about to arrive home Kuniko sent me a message and asked me to meet her at the station when her train arrived to help carry some of her luggage. I had time to cook up the noodles and get them iced down before running to the station to meet her.

She looked just as exhausted as Nozaki sensei did. This overnight camp thing looks like a real painful experience. We walked home and feasted on noodles (and leftover butakimchee) and washed them down with cold beer (Premium Malts Black) which turned out to be really good.

It has been getting even warmer lately, so the air conditioning has become a critical part of our evening. Tonight we hung out in the bedroom and stayed cool. Hard to believe that the heat is really only just getting started.

Today I studied through the morning, and then around lunchtime I went in early to work to prepare for today’s lessons. It was a lot cooler in Nozaki sensei’s air conditioned classroom than it was sitting around the hot house here.

Around 2:30 Miki sensei dropped by to help out with the young kids, so we went over my lesson plan for a while and traded war stories relating to the students that we have both taught. She was surprised at some of my reports – both good and bad – and it was fun to catch up.

Before we knew it the kids started showing up, and they were really surprised to see two teachers waiting for them. I had told all my horror stories about previous classes and the problems that I’ve had, and so she was ready for the worst. Of course with another teacher it wasn’t so bad, but the kids were acting up enough for her to see what I meant.

I had expected that the students would be better with two teachers around, but I was eager to figure out a way to extend this beyond today, and I was eager for some advice from Miki sensei. After the class we talked a little bit and gave me some pointers that might help in the future. She was surprised that it was a 50 minute class, because the kids are so young that they lose attention quickly.

Miki sensei stuck around for the next class, and it was one of my better classes. It went swimmingly, and I was glad that she could observe me actually teaching a class proficiently.

The third class was just two students, and so Miki sensei hit the road. The students and I breezed through the class and then I was headed home.

Kuniko is still at her sports camp, so I had the place to myself again. I cooked up some butakimchee for dinner, but I only ate half – the spiciness had me sweating in addition to the baseline hot temperatures in the house. Bad idea, dude.

The rest of the week should be pretty smooth. Kuniko will be back tomorrow night, but she’s got a lot of parties to attend as her school term wraps up, exchange students come and go, etc, etc. Maybe I’ll go on a somen diet for the next few nights….

I’m a home alone bachelor these next few days because Kuniko is off at 合宿 until Wednesday. Monday I walked her to the station in the morning, and sent her off to two whole days with the tennis team. Have fun!

I had a relatively quiet morning studying, doing laundry, and reading a little bit of the new Harry Potter book. It was kind of cloudy today, so it kept things relatively cool.

I left for work a little early, and bumped into a crowd of ex-students on the way home from college. They had a little Bryan-cheering-section going on, and I just waved and kept moving. The other people walking around did a double-take trying to figure what the big deal was.

My classes went OK, but my younger kids today were in a weird mood. I was explaining a picture from the textbook and acting out the part of two kids. I said, “Hello, my name is Matt” pointing at the little picture of Matt introducing himself. Then I played the part of Meg, and pointed at the picture of the little girl saying the same thing. That set off some of the students in calling me an okama, the Japanese slang word for “gay”.

In Japan homosexuality is repressed to the point of invisibility in rural areas, and pretty rare to see outside of Osaka or Tokyo. Because of this, there are a lot of misconceptions, and that’s partly why a bunch of seven year old kids thought it was funny to call me that. I just smiled and ignored it, but apparently this was this was humor at the highest level, and they kept it up the rest of the class. I was a little peeved, not for being called an okama but for not knowing how to deal with it appropriately. We’ll see if it is still going on next week, and if so I’ll deal with it then.

The rest of the day went smoothly. I had an evening class with Yuka. It is the last class before she leaves for New York, so I helped her with some last minute questions and English expressions. She’s going to do just fine in America – her skills are pretty good. She’ll pick up a lot of vocabulary there as well. Her mom has some unrealistic expectations, though. She was saying that she expected her to absolutely pass the next text level after spending 10 days with a host family in New York. I tried to lower her expectations a little, but I’m not sure if it worked.

The evening was quiet without Kuniko around. I did some reading for school and stayed cool in the living room. Tomorrow I have my challenging little kids class, but Miki sensei will be coming back to sit in on the class and maybe help me get these little munchkins under control.

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.