It was back to work on Monday, and my classes were spread out throughout the whole day. The good news was that my voice was much better, and I celebrated by belting out my English during the classes.

The bad news was that apparently I had spread my disease to some other teachers. Two others were losing their voices, and it was pretty clear who they got it from. I tiptoed around them, but I think they were a little mad at me. That’s what I get for fighting through illness and coming to work – angry infected coworkers.

I was talking with another teacher, Kuroda sensei, and she told me that they had some problems with the captain of the table tennis club. During a match he apparently was laughing at a boy who had lost – I’m not sure which school he was from. The other table tennis club teacher scolded him for doing that, and the captain was pretty upset with the teacher afterwards. He decided to boycott the club for a while, and even though the right thing to do was to apologize to the teacher and the boy he laughed at, he wasn’t able to see that. He was only able to be mad at the teacher that scolded him. There is a little bit of ego at stake here – the boy is the champion table tennis player in the whole prefecture, so he thinks he’s a little above everyone else. I think this will end up being a good lesson for him.

Yasu got in touch today and let me know that he had bought some take home ramen from a really good ramen restaurant, and he wanted to give us some. He stopped by in the evening and gave us some raw ramen noodles and a kit so that we could make it ourselves. We had already eaten our dinner so we couldn’t have it tonight, but we’ll definitely get to it tomorrow.

After Yasu left we took a drive over to Futami to return some movies that Kuniko had rented for her school and to hit Ito Yokado for a little shopping down memory lane. We scored some really cheap (I think they mispriced it) roast beef, and some other goodies for the week ahead. After that we came home and hit the rack early. Kuniko is pretty tired out from working so many consecutive days, so we want to get all the rest we can.

On Friday I was feeling a little bit better, and I was confident going into my classes. It was a rare day when I have all my classes with one teacher, but luckily it was Kuroda sensei. She is an easy teacher to teach with – very flexible and supportive. Teaching with her is the closest thing to actual team teaching that I do at my school.

Kuroda sensei really helped today by acting as my voice most of the time, and with her help I was able to get to the end of the day without too many problems. I was tired afterwards, though, and I spent the afternoon marking papers and staying warm in the staff room.

The big event at our school on Friday was the Karuta competition. It’s a little hard to explain, but I’ll try. Karuta is made up of 100 poems. The poems are several sentences long. 100 cards are spread out in front of the players (in our case today, six students) on a tatami mat. Each card has the last sentence written in easy Japanese. Then, a teacher would read (or sing) the poem. Good Karuta players have memorized many of the poems, and the person that can recognize the poem, find the card with the last part of the poem written on it, and slap their hand down on the correct one wins.

It was a serious competition, something like a spelling bee in the United States. I really enjoyed walking around and seeing the various levels of play. The top students would hear maybe only the first word or two, and then find the card and take it. It was a cool thing to see.

Kuniko was home late Friday night, so she ended up having to cook lasgna late into the night, but the results were worth it. I sampled a little bit of the sauce and it was really good. She’s really tired from working so hard, and she’s got to work both days this weekend for the entrance exam for her school.

Saturday night Tomo-chan and her husband Masaki came over to have dinner and visit. It was just what we needed. With the dinner already made we had more time to sit with them and talk. We talked about movies, travel, ate lots of food, and played plenty of Wii. Maski turned out to be a pretty good bowler, and Tomo-chan beat up Kuniko in boxing. We played until we were physically exhausted.

We sent some leftover lasagna home with them, and then walked them to the station to say goodbye. It was really nice to have them over – they were a great couple and fun to spend time with.

Now it’s Sunday afternoon. Kuniko went off to school early this morning, and I spent the morning relaxing, and straightening up a little bit after the party. There’s a chance that Kuniko will come home in the afternoon, but she is going to the Osaka airport tonight to see off one of her Japanese students who is going to homestay in Australia. She’ll be out late tonight, and I hope she has some energy left for work tomorrow.

I had a rough couple of classes today – the students loved laughing at my weird voice. I managed to survive all my classes (some of them barely) and I gave my voice a rest in the afternoon. Everyone was still concerned, so they sent me home a little bit early. On the way home, I noticed that my voice was starting to come back.

I still have a cold and a cough, but I’d be really happy if I got my voice back for tomorrow’s classes. I never really realized how important your voice is to teaching.

Kuniko cooked up hamburg for dinner, and we’re just going to rest up for the evening.

I was still sick this morning, but I was lucky enough to catch a ride with Kuniko. She had to bring some heavy supplies in to work, and so she drove and I was in the passenger seat. That got me to work a little earlier than usual.

Despite being sick, I worked hard to keep my voice loud and understandable during the four classes. The students were giggling at my Barry White voice, and it was funny to me, too. It was really funny up until the middle of my fourth class when I started to lose my voice altogether. Higuchi sensei alertly noticed and steered the lesson away from my pronunciation and more towards reading and translation. I thanked her later as we were walking back.

By the time I had finished lunch my voice was really starting to fade, and soon I was unable to speak at all. I talked with another teacher and we decided that I should just go ahead and go home to rest my voice. Tomorrow I’ve got another four classes, and I wanted to be as ready as I can. If I can’t speak, I can’t teach.

When I left there were no other teachers to consult with, and so I decided to just go ahead and go home. Technically I’m supposed to tell my staffing agency when I leave early, but they have a really weird structure that makes me do all kinds of paperwork and phone calls before I can leave, and in the end I lose pay for the hour I left early. It makes a lot more sense to just go and worry about them if they find out.

I got home and just rested, and now Kuniko is in the kitchen making us dinner. I think she’s enjoying the peace and quiet. Hopefully I’ll be better for tomorrow!

I’m still limping through my cold. Today I was at the phlegm stage, and tomorrow or the next day I should be at the coughing and hacking stage. Something to look forward to!

At school I had four classes in the morning. In one of my classes, Harada sensei, the slight crazy teacher, had attached name cards to the students’ desks so that I could call them by name. We were talking about it while the students were working on a project, and she said that a professor friend of hers from America said that “real teachers call their students by name”, and Harada sensei wanted me to try it out. I thought it was great – and I wish that I had this system back when I started instead of having it a month before I leave the school.

I’ve always had a tough time remembering names, and this school is especially difficult because they don’t have a picture/name chart laying around. The students aren’t used to be being called by their first names – and so it made for a very interesting class.

On the way home I was walking through the Hanshin department store because of the rain outside, and a couple of people working the shumai booth were quick with a toothpick and offered me a free sample, in English. He even translated the ingredient (shrimp). They were really happy to offer some free food to a foreigner, and I was happy to get it. It’s experiences like these that make me really happy to be living in Japan. I could have broken into Japanese, but since they started it in English I went along with it and everyone was happy.

During the commute home I was thinking a little bit about the people walking around me. When I’m going home I have to walk pretty briskly through Sannomiya station and I’m always dodging people and moving around people going slower than I am. I’m not running or anything, but everyone else seems to be going slower than me.

It makes me think about a lecturer I heard a couple of years ago. He was a foreigner that had lived in Japan thirty years or so, and he was lecturing JETs on long term life in Japan, and getting used to it. He said that whenever he’s walking up the stairs and he gets mad because people are walking down the wrong side – that’s when he knows it’s time to relax a little bit and relieve the tension.

Today I had to dodge and weave a little more than normal. People would stop on the escalator, blocking the stream of people trying to walk up, an old lady walked through the ticket gate and then stopped right in the way to put away her ticket blocking all the people behind, and there were several people walking around with their head in the clouds not noticing what is happening around them.

The trick is not to get frustrated about it. Japan is an aging population, and it’s only going to get older. I’m going to be putting up with bumbling old people for a while to come. Maybe I’ll even be the bumbling old guy someday.

Back home I made up my first batch of oyakodon – and Kuniko was nice enough to give it a positive review. I’m off to take a bath and try to steam out the cold.

It looks like I caught a little bit of a cold, probably from Kuniko who caught one a couple of days ago. I’m feeling OK still, but I could tell my condition was getting worse as the day went on.

Back at school I had three classes – two first year classes and one third year class. The third year students were pretty worn out from the weekend, and weren’t really up for speaking much English. My first year students were full of energy, and it was fun to teach and goof around with them.

Lots of people commented on my haircut – I got it trimmed up on Saturday. The barber got a little carried away, and it seemed pretty drastic to everyone. Overall the reviews were positive, though.

Kuniko and I finished off the lasagna tonight, and we also cracked the giant citrus and ate a small portion of it. Full of vitamin C. It was like a sweet grapefruit – it tasted really good. For some reason it reminded me of a pomegranate… the mouthfeel reminded me of pomegranate seeds.

and afterwards we went on a wild goose chase trying to rent “Whale Rider” to show her students. They are getting ready to go to New Zealand in a few months, and that’s a good movie to give them a little insight into Maori culture. Unfortunately nobody had it, and Kuniko had to go looking for it all the way over in Futami.

The crazy thing is that we have the DVD here at home. It is an American DVD, so it won’t play in Japanese players. I’ve chalked it all up to a conspiracy on the part of the Motion Picture Association of America. The prices of DVDs here are so high, and people are stuck paying the prices because they can’t play other region DVDs. I offered to loan Kuniko the region-free DVD player to use at her school, but it’s a little bulky to lug all the way there.

I’d like to write more but I’m tired out. I need to remember to write a little bit about Zelda on the Wii sometime.

We’re putting the wraps on a pretty nice weekend. Kuniko had to work on Saturday, but Sunday was free for both of us. Kuniko got her hair done, and she did some serious work in the kitchen. She made us shrimp risotto for lunch, and a test run of lasagne for dinner. The lasagne is in the oven now, and we’re looking forward to giving it a try.

I didn’t write about it earlier, but it was a pretty impressive thing to see. Friday I was going to work, the day after the matsuri finished. When I got to Nishinomiya, the stands were all gone, but in their place were heaps and heaps of garbage. The trash was piled up everywhere, and the ground was dusted with a layer of grime from all the foot traffic.

So, I was pretty impressed when I came back after school to find the place cleaned up nicely. All the trash was gone, and the layer of dirt was cleaned off, too.

This week should be a pretty easy one. I’ve got lots of classes at school, but they’re all in the morning. That makes it really nice – I can eat lunch and be done with my workday.

I was so tired writing last night that I forgot that Kuniko and I made a big score in Kobe – we found ricotta cheese in an import food shop. Now we’re full speed ahead on plans to make lasagne for some friends when they come over later this month.

Not much to report from school. Everything went pretty quietly, and it’s just starting to sink in that I’ll be out of there in a month and a half and looking for another job. I’m trying to enjoy every moment that I’m there – who knows when I’ll be back.

Tonight Kuniko is working late, so we’ll just have a simple light dinner when she gets home. Tomorrow is already Friday, and we’ll have to see how things go this weekend. I think she’ll be working a little bit, so I might be free to do some hiking and get out of the house.

While I was running some errands tonight I went into a 7-11 and found three new Kit Kat flavors – Blood Orange, Chocolate Banana, and Musk Melon. Kit Kat is really stepping things up for the high school entrance exams coming up. Some students in Japan think that Kit Kats are good luck for passing the big test.

I was back teaching classes today – and it felt really good to be back in front of the students. I’m sure the students weren’t as thrilled as I was – but they coped with it just fine.

One of the things that happens at the start of a new term is a new seating assignment for everyone. The teachers today posted new seats, and everyone started moaning and groaning about where they got stuck or who they got stuck sitting with. The way they reacted you’d think the students had to marry the new person.

Since the festival was still in full swing, I had invited Kuniko to come over after work and walk around with me eating festival food and to buy a replacement lucky tree branch. The last one seemed to do a pretty good job for us.

Kuniko showed up after school and together we walked around picking foods to try. We bought a lucky branch after tossing the old branch into a giant pile of other old lucky branches. Armed with our lucky branch we ate a couple of different things – a unique version of a gyro (made by a foreign guy in a booth), a hot dog wrapped in egg with “habanero” sauce (really just a mild hot sauce – it wasn’t hot enough to be habanero), fried cheese balls (not much cheese, mostly just fried), and some dessert at the end – a pastry stuffed with white anko.

Kuniko was coughing pretty good, so we made our way to the station and back to Sannomiya. We did just a little bit of shopping there, and then came on home. Now Kuniko is in the kitchen making some interesting foods to snack on over the next few days, and I’m parked in the kotatsu writing up my day.

Just two more days until the weekend. I’m starting to feel the energy drain from work, and I’m sure I’ll be ready for lots of sleep come Saturday and Sunday.

It’s easy to get used to living in Japan when you are here every day for months at a time. I’ve noticed that since I’ve come back to Japan from a brief vacation in California, things seem a little more strange and interesting.

Today Kuniko and I were back to school. Neither of us had classes, just an opening ceremony. For me, the day was pretty relaxed, with the most pressing issue being how to distribute all the omiyage from my trip. I dealt out candies like poker cards, and everyone seemed really happy with the hand that they got.

After the opening ceremony I was free, so I changed clothes and spent about an hour shooting baskets in the gym. The basketball teams (boys and girls) were both practicing in there, so I practiced with them a little and had a good time. The students would occasionally come by and tell me how great I was at basketball. They were really just trying to use English, and I was happy to speak with them a little bit. I know I’m not great at basketball.

I studied a couple of newspaper articles that a teacher had cut out for me, and then in the afternoon I left school. Before leaving I had the vice-principal stamp my time sheet, and I noticed that he had taken the opportunity during the long vacation to dye his hair a shade darker. I have a feeling that there is a lot of hair dyeing going on in Japan.

On the way to school I noticed that they were setting up hundreds of tiny stands around the Nishinomiya shrine, and sure enough, at the end of the day there was a big festival going on. I found out that it is a three day festival. Since Antoine and I were going to meet up in Imazu, I went over there and brought him back to the festival instead.

The festival was packed – the city had closed many roads and people were walking all over the place. Everyone was carrying a lucky tree branch – the main attraction of this festival – and it reminded me that I had a lucky tree branch from a few years ago at home. I wanted to buy a new one, but I first have to bring back the old one and replace it. I guess the luck doesn’t accumulate the more branches you buy.

Antoine and I walked around the place and enjoyed all the sights and sounds. We walked into the shrine, bowing underneath big paper waterfalls that priests waved around to bless visitors. Inside the shrine was a huge tuna fish, and people placed money all over its surface for some sort of good luck.

On the way out of the shrine we walked through a huge sales area. Like I said, the main item was the lucky tree branches. The boths were manned by girls dressed in religious robes and wearing special headdresses. The girls watched us as we walked by, smiling in our direction in the hope that maybe we’d stop by and buy a branch.

After walking around we pulled into a booth and ate some okonimiyaki and had some beer. Antoine told me all the stories about his trip to America with Miwako. He made their engagement official over there, and his family was very excited. He also found out that his sister is pregnant, so there was a lot of happy family members around his household.

The more we walked around the more I bumped into my students. They all wanted to chat with me and Antoine, and it started to become really hard to make any progress through the crowds. We ducked into a yakitori to get away for a while and have a beer. The people were really excited to have some foreigners in the restaurant, and so we talked with them a little bit and ordered some chicken cartilage off the menu to go with our beers.

I’ve been in Japan for more than three years, but I still like to see how excited people get when a foreigner is around. They try hard to speak English, and they are genuinely curious about you and where you are from. It was nice to get a little bit of that tonight.

Finally we finished up there, and then fought through the crowds at the train station and went our separate ways. Now I’m home and I’ve got the place in pretty good shape. Kuniko is at a school event tonight and won’t get home until late. I’m looking forward to tomorrow – I can start to teach some classes again.

Kuniko and I are continuing to slowly get back into the swing of things around here. We’ve got things cleaned up and organized and we’re just resting up for the week ahead.

The wind over the last two days has been really strong. We’re on the third floor, so it’s that much stronger up here. Right now the laundry is barely hanging on outside on the laundry poles. We’ve got to check it every few minutes to make sure that nothing has blown off onto the street below.

One of Kuniko’s co-workers came by yesterday to drop off some ice wine and a giant citrus for us. The citrus is huge – and it’s amazing to see it sitting on our table. It’s bigger than Kuniko’s head.

Today we’re going to go over in the afternoon to pick up our houseplants from Kuniko’s folks’ house, and then go to Mikuriya shrine to do the first prayers of the New Year. The shrine is the same one we went to last year, and the one where I did the matsuri in the past.

Tonight should be quiet – we’ll stay in and try to stay warm. Last night we watched a movie, and ate some okayu that Kuniko made. It’s a special dish – nanakusagayu. It’s to be eaten on the seventh of January, so we had that for a healthy dinner. More later as the week begins!

We’re back safely from our holiday trip to California. It was a great trip, and we’re busy this morning sifting through all the stuff that came back with us. We’re both doing fine and getting ready to do some shopping to stock the empty fridge and buy some supplies for the work week ahead. The good news is that we have today and tomorrow off from work, so it gives us a little time to relax and get ready.

Once I get a little time I’ll post pictures from the trip!

Friday night after school Kuniko and I met up for a Christmas concert that was performed by members of her school’s music program. Whenever I join Kuniko for a school event, we get a lot of attention. Her school is a girl’s school, and the students are always laughing, giggling, and smiling in our general direction.

Bringing someone’s spouse to a school event is kind of unusual in Japan. In my three and a half years of teaching at public schools in Japan I’ve only met one spouse of a teacher. I feel lucky to be invited along to these things, and I think it helps Kuniko out at work – nothing like living with a walking English reference book.

Saturday I spent the day cleaning house, and Kuniko was at work teaching four morning classes. When she came home we went out shopping to prepare for the little party we were having with Chiemi-chan and Ai-chan. We drove to Carrefour, and did a final shopping trip through the store. They will be closing at the end of the year, and we won’t be able to go there anymore. I look forlornly at the wine aisle, the beer, and the Mexican food section. Bye, bye!

We scored some steaks and some other goodies, and then came home and started working on dinner. Ai-chan and Chiemi-chan showed up around seven, and we had steaks, cheese fondue, and salad for dinner. We had two really nice bottles of wine – one from France and one that I bought during my visit to Australia two Christmases ago.

It wasn’t just wine, we were drinking sake, tequila, and white wine. After dinner we played the Wii and it turned out to be really, really fun. We all played bowling, tennis, boxing, and towards the end of the night some drunken golf. It turned out that we ate and drank right past Ai-chan’s last train, so she and Chiemi-chan decided to stay the night.

Since they had a place to stay, we poured more tequila. Lots more tequila. Ai-chan really went to town, and she was paying the price at the end of the night. I was trying to show her how to bowl on the Wii again, but we couldn’t seem to figure it out. People were not walking anymore – crawling was just easier. We stayed up late talking and joking around. The sleeping arrangements had to be pretty creative, but I think everyone got to bed around 2-3 in the morning.

Today I got up early and walked to the nearest combini for breakfast supplies. Ai-chan had to get to an appointment in Shin-Osaka by 10 a.m., so she and Chiemi-chan hit the road early. I hope everyone made it OK – it was a pretty heavy duty hangover I think.

Luckily cleaning the house coincided with Kuniko’s planned “end of year cleaning”. In Japan, at the end of the year people clean their houses thoroughly – it’s like spring cleaning in the USA. This is detail work – and Kuniko really threw herself into it. We cleaned everywhere, and we decided to throw out some old crap and buy some new crap when we get home from our trip. The place looks good now, except for the two giant suitcases in the middle of the living room.

I’m almost finished packing, and pretty soon we’re going over to Kuniko’s parents’ place to do our New Year’s cards and to drop off our houseplants for them to take care of while we’re gone. I’m looking forward to seeing them one last time before we go.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be leaving early for our respective workplaces toting a big suitcase. I’ll be leaving early from work to head to the airport, and then hopefully everything is fine and we’ll be able to get on the plane without any trouble and get going towards San Francisco. Looking at all the weird stuff in our suitcase makes me a little concerned about the customs and inspections stateside. It seems like they are really strict nowadays. I hope it’s not too much trouble getting presents to everyone this year.

Well, that’s the latest. I’m going to bring my computer with me on the trip, so I’ll try to post when I get chance. Merry Christmas!

On the way to work today Kuniko and I bumped into a very strange man on what is becoming a very strange train ride to work every day. At first we used to get on at one particular section of the platform, but there was a guy there that stared at us non-stop the whole time, so we moved to another part of the platform. Not long afterwards we noticed that a guy that got on the train after us smelled really bad. It wasn’t just a “no shower in a long time” stink – it was a weird body stink that comes from strange genes, I think.

Anyway, after two days of stinky guy we moved to another part of the platform, and it has been working fine until today.

Today a guy got on dressed in an unusual outfit. He was wearing a dress shirt, exercise pants, and a bandanna around his neck. He wore a hair band – the kind that girls with long hair might wear – and he was listening to a radio with headphones. As soon as he got on, he threw his luggage on the rack above my head, where it landed on my fingers. Then he proceeded to do a full body workout as everyone around him stared in shock. He was hanging from the rail on the ceiling, doing stretches this way and that – it was really amusing to watch. He did heavy duty exercises for about 15 minutes, and then got off at the next stop. Something was not quite right about him – just this sense that he was a slightly insane. If he’s there tomorrow, we’ll have to find yet another place to get on the crazy train.

At school I had my last three classes of the term, and there was a real sense of completion when we knocked out the last one. The students also were really happy to get it over with and start thinking of all the fun they’ll have with two weeks off.

In the afternoon there was a teacher’s meeting, and after that I had some time to kill so I went upstairs and played ping pong for a while. The students were happy to see me again, and they invited me to join them for a tournament this Saturday. It was really sweet – they all asked me in English if I could come, and the teacher even printed out a map for me to find the place. I apologized and said that I couldn’t make it – we’re getting ready to fly in a couple of days, but I told them that I’d definitely be there for the next one.

After school I met up with Inoguchi sensei at Motomachi station in Kobe. He’s a teacher that I knew during my second year at Takanan. He’s a really quiet guy with a unique personality. Kind of atypical Japanese. Right now he’s not working – just relying on his wife to bring home the bacon.

We walked to a really upscale Japanese-style restaurant. It was very traditional, but with a streak of modern in the decorating. I had a good time chatting with Inoguchi sensei. His English is good but not great, and so I really got a chance to stretch my Japanese to the limit. I’ve got a long way to go before I become a smooth Japanese speaker – it’s times like this where that becomes really apparent. Still, I think I’ve made some progress over the last year or so.

After a course dinner, lots of gossip, and a couple of drinks, we called it a night and I headed back to Okubo. I met up with Kuniko at the station, and together we went to Saty (second time in two nights!) to try to do some Christmas shopping for her parents. They are hard to shop for (just like my parents) and so we looked around for a while but couldn’t find the right gift. We’ll keep looking and hopefully get something by Sunday night when we go over for our final visit before the trip.

Kuniko and I just got out of the hot bath, and we’re off to the electrically heated bed. For some reason I was really tired tonight. I’m hoping to reserve some energy for the trip on Monday – I don’t want to be dead tired when we get to California.

Today at school one of my classes was observed by the head of international studies for the city of Nishinomiya. I have met the lady before, when I first started my job. She’s a really nice lady, and she has great English skills.

Today she came just before the third period class, and the principal called me in to chat with her before the class began. I sat and talked with them, and the principal was full of praise for me. It was almost embarrassing to hear what he was saying, but I was also glad to hear that they were happy with my performance. The observer, Ms. Sakurai, said that she had heard in advance how well I was doing and how well-received my lessons were.

With all that build-up, we went upstairs and I stepped in front of a class with Harada sensei with Ms. Sakurai in the back of the class watching. The students were remarkably well-behaved. It didn’t hurt that the peeping-tom student, Shimizu-kun, was absent. Still, it was uncanny how nice the students were and how much effort they put into learning English today.

The only hitch in the class came from the other teacher, Harada sensei, who seemed a little nervous about having an observer. He made a few mistakes in the lesson plan and occasionally had the students repeat after him, instead of after me. Those were little details, though, and I think the lesson came off well.

After the lesson wrapped up, Ms. Sakurai said goodbye and left with a smile but no comment. I hope she liked what she saw. When I went back to the staffroom, Matsunaga sensei asked how it went, and told me that she had told my students earlier on that the class would be under observation, and urged them to make an extra effort to make me look good. I knew something was up!

My other classes today were really good. All the students performed really well, and the last class of the day was a “quiz show” lesson that I dreamed up. I’ve done it before and it’s always a big hit. The winning team got USA stamps as prizes, and all the other students were so jealous. Kuroda sensei was grinning from ear to ear after the lesson, and I could tell she was really happy with how it went.

After school I came home and boxed a couple of rounds on the Wii before Kuniko got home. We had ham and cheese omelettes in an effort to clear out the fridge a little bit, and then after dinner we took a walk to Saty to get some supplies for our trip. The walk back was exhausting – it was like the day caught up with both of us. We went up the stairs and were ready for bed. Kuniko is in bed now, and I’m heading in that direction.

Tomorrow after work I’m going to meet up with a teacher that I used to work with at Takasago Minami, Inoguchi sensei. He’s an interesting guy and very international-minded. Can’t wait to hear what he’s been up to lately.