Today I had three classes of first year students, and I spent one class working with Miyake sensei, so it ended up being four morning classes in a row.

The first year classes were fun. Two of the classes had students that weren’t so shy and were pretty comfortable with me right off the bat. The last class had a pretty quiet class who were a little intimidated. Still, even that class had students that were talking to me at the end.

Two of my classes today were taught with Mori sensei, who seems to overprepare for everything. She worked hard on her self-introduction, and it went pretty well. She timed every single activity that we did and really tried to control the flow of the class. That’s usually something I do, and so I kind of wrestled control from her early on and didn’t give it up. In the beginning of the first class Mori sensei was telling the students in a stern voice, “This is English class. You… will… have… FUN.” I prefer the more natural approach, so I kind of steered it that direction. I was pleased to see that the activities that I had suggested went well.

Not to jump all over Mori sensei, but during her introduction she was listing all the countries that she had visited, because she likes to travel. She said, “I have ever been to France. I have ever been to Viet Nam. I have ever been to…” I think I physically flinched every time she misused the phrase, like somebody was whipping me. The worst part was that she has been to a lot of countries, so she was saying it over and over – really branding it into the kids’ English learning. I know better than to correct her in front of the students, so I had to wait and mention it to her between classes, and then it got straightened out. I hate to think what she is teaching in her other 15 English classes.

The other teacher, Nozaki sensei, was a pleasure to teach with. It turns out that she has been featured on television for her skills on the abacus. She showed a picture of one of her appearances on a variety show (on a segment called “The Super-Housewife Next Door”). It was cool to see her talk about the abacus and how much she loves using it. She reacted well to the flow of the class and at the end said she really enjoyed it.

After my classes finished I headed back to the staffroom, and passed by a few of the first year students that I had taught during first period. They all smiled and said hello to me, and I could tell that before long I’ll have a lot more students that are more confident using English.

I was free in the afternoon, and by the time I had lunch and rested up a bit it was already the sixth period. Time flies when you have a bunch of classes.

After school I went into Kobe to meet up with Kuniko and Antoine. On the way I walked through Akashi park to take pictures of cherry blossoms – it was still quite beautiful even though the weather was cloudy.

Antoine ended up having some trouble arriving on time – he had another engagement that he couldn’t escape right away. When he arrived we walked down the street to a Mexican restaurant that I had heard about for a little while but hadn’t tried yet.

It turned out to be quite good, and quite affordable. We ordered a Mexican salad, some appetizers, two burritos, and two tacos, and the whole thing was only around 5000 yen with drinks. The food was great – very tasty and very fresh.

Afterwards we walked along the Motomachi to Kobe station, and then wandered around Harborland until we found a dessert-type restaurant that was open. It was a cheesecake place, but we had no idea until our order arrived that they were being very literal when they said “cheesecake”. It was a small round white cake, with fondue-like cheese melted over the top. Nobody could decide if it was good or not – certainly one of the stranger things that I have eaten. This coupled with our waiter who was not completely masculine – turned out to be a weird night.

Kuniko and I got home exhausted, and we went right to bed. What a long day… I posted some pictures from today here.

It’s good to be teaching again. Today was a good reminder of why I like doing what I do. I had two classes, one with third year students and one with second year students. The third year students know me very well, and so we got along just fine. In that class I worked with a few students to practice for the interview exam of the upcoming English proficiency test.

The other class was with second year students, and so I came up with a lesson and taught it with Tsutsumi sensei. She is really easy to teach with, and knows just when to interject a little Japanese to keep the lesson running smoothly. I could interject it myself, but I don’t want the students to start relying on me speaking their language.

One of the activities we did in that class was an introduction of new/strange English vocabulary. I mixed one fake word in with two real words, and then explained them all. The three words were “barnstorming”, “cheeper”, and “blog”. I told them that one word was completely made up, and then took a vote after I had explained what each one meant. The students mainly didn’t believe that people would fly planes through buildings. One enterprising student found the fake word “cheeper” in their dictionary – it apparently is something that people call small birds. I didn’t see that one coming – I’ll have to prepare more diligently next time.

After school I met up with Tsuji-san and spent and spent about an hour chatting with her. Her wedding, honeymoon, and new house plans are making a lot of progress since I talked to her last. She seemed pretty happy about how things are going, so that was good to see. I gave her a present that my folks had sent along, and she was really excited about getting it. She said that it was just the right present, and I told her that my mom is a pretty good shopper.

Kuniko requested a healthy dinner tonight, so when I got home a did a veggie stir-fry: tofu, sprouts, two kinds of Japanese mushrooms, and onions mixed in a Malaysian chili sauce. The Malaysian flavor didn’t really come through in the end but overall it turned out pretty nicely.

Tomorrow is Friday and I have three classes with the brand-new first year students. This will be the exact opposite of today – they’ll all be scared to talk to me. It’ll be my job to make them as comfortable as possible, and also make my teachers comfortable as well. It’ll be the first time for them, too. After work I’m meeting up with Antoine in Sannomiya to catch up – should be fun!

Today once again I had no classes, but it was really just a quirk in the schedule – starting tomorrow it will be back to normal. There were some classes going on for other teachers, however, and the staffroom was jumping with activity once again.

We had two new part-time teachers come to school today. One was a computer teacher that I had met previously – he’s one of those really young nervous guys who would get down and polish the floor with his dress shirt if you told him to.

The other guy was an older gentleman who used to be our new vice-principal’s principal. It was a weird connection. They got along great, and the new VP introduced me to him – in English. That was a twist – the new VP is a math teacher by trade, so a full scale intro in English kind of threw me. As for the new part-timer, we had a long talk in Japanese. He was really interested in me because he has a daughter who married a foreigner – an Israeli living in Kobe.

He mentioned that although his son-in-law can speak Japanese well enough, he can’t read or write it, and he was really impressed that I could. The more we talked about what exactly I could and couldn’t do the more I realized that I was just giving this guy ammunition the next time they meet up, so I tried to change the subject.

Arauchi sensei came by to ask me for some restaurant recommendations for my area. I gave him a few restaurants that I like, but really I don’t go out to many places besides the yakitori, and he has already been there. It was fun to give some recommendations, though – in Japanese, too. That goes to show how well I’ve settled into life here.

After school no ESS members showed up, so I made an exit right on time, and got a haircut in Befu on the way home. Kuniko has plans to meet up with a friend after work so I went ahead and ate leftovers for dinner tonight. Right now I’ve set aside some dinner for Kuniko and I’m just hanging out – she should get home any time now.

Tomorrow I can finally teach some classes – I’m really looking forward to that.

No classes today, just a few more ceremonies and a whole bunch of speeches. The teachers that had been transferred came to our school today in the afternoon to say one last farewell. First we had a meeting in which they each gave a speech saying goodbye. Some people just kept talking and talking – seizing the opportunity to have a captive audience with nowhere to run.

One of these teachers was Onishi sensei, who is a retiring teacher this year. He gave a speech last term in the staff room, he gave another one at the last major staff meeting, he gave one today at our meeting, and then he gave another one to the students. In two weeks we’ll have all these teachers over at a going away/welcome party, and that will be the final time I hear him speak.

His speeches aren’t bad, they are just a bit long and his voice is really hard for me to understand. The other teachers had a few short remarks and sat down, which was awfully considerate.

After our meeting they assembled all the students in the gym and brought in the teachers. They sat on stage and one by one came up and gave a speech. These speeches were pretty diverse, and for the most part interesting.

Finally, after almost 90 minutes of listening to speeches the students were set free and the teachers were free to mingle with the outgoing teachers in the staffroom. I had a nice talk with the vice-principal (who is now a principal), and also with Kimura sensei, Kawamura sensei, and Watanabe sensei. I’ll get a chance to see them all again at the big party in a couple of weeks.

I killed the rest of the day studying and chatting with Miyake sensei, who came in to check out her schedule and find out about my lesson plan for the first years. Since yesterday’s meeting about the first year plan left me waiting around for Mori sensei, I didn’t have much to tell her about. We were both kind of confused about why it has to be so confusing, but like me she will adapt and do just fine.

Now I’m back home, relaxing and thinking about the rest of the week. There are a couple of major things I have to get done in the next few months, so I’m working on getting started on those. Little details like finding a place to live, a new job, and planning a honeymoon in Europe. I better get my act together…

Sifting through years of daily archives looking for something in particular can be a pain, so here are a few highlights from my time in Japan. There are so many great experiences – it’s hard to narrow them down. I’ve picked out a few of my favorites and put them in here. If you have some please let me know and I’ll post them here as well. In no particular order:

Arriving in Futami, just off the plane. Bonus: meeting Kuniko for the first time.

Meeting Kuniko’s parents for the first time.

Our wedding day.

Honeymoon in Europe:
Day 1 in Paris, Day 2 in Paris, Day 3 in Dijon, Day 4 in Venice, Day 5 in Venice and Florence, Day 6 in Florence and Pisa, Day 7 in Florence and Rome, Day 8 in Rome, Day 9 and 10 in Rome and home.

It’s back to school time, but not really. I don’t have any classes until Thursday. The first few days of this week will be full of the ceremonies. Today we had the opening ceremony for the 2nd and 3rd year students, which was nothing too exciting. They told the students to work hard this year, to not pick on the new 1st year students, and to generally be nice.

One of the big problems today was that some girls had taken the two weeks off and very slightly dyed their hair brown. Some students can get away with it if they do it really, really subtly. Today there was a line of girls that had gone a little too far, and they were getting yelled at. When every student in your school has black hair, these kids really tend to stand out. Maybe there is a lesson in there somewhere about wanting to distinguish yourself. Maybe my school’s mission is to quash that desire.

After all the students went home the new first year students came to school with their parents for the entrance ceremony, which is essentially the same ceremony as the graduation except no applause at the end. There is so much standing and bowing and sitting – I couldn’t help but wonder who thought this all up. But a part of me knows that you can’t have an ending without a beginning in Japan, and everything that they do completes a circle – sometimes the circle is just hard to see at first.

In the afternoon I was free to study as I pleased. I prepared two lessons for later this week, and ate my free bento lunch that they gave us today. Outside it was raining continuously, so it was nice to stay in and stay dry.

There are lots of new faces around the staffroom nowadays, and none of them are really comfortable talking with the foreign guy. I know it is just a matter of time before I have them smiling and asking how my weekend was – right now they barely acknowledge my existence. They are the slab of marble that I will soon carve into an international-minded Japanese citizen. I’m really writing esoterically today.

Yamamoto sensei is now taking over all the duties that Hayashi sensei had before regarding managing me at work. He’s taking a very hands off approach and letting me do whatever I want, but it is nice to have a backup around since the vice principal has moved on to another school. We were joking around today about a huge subwoofer that he bought to watch movies. He was unaware how powerful it was until he hooked it up. Now he has to turn it to the lowest setting in order to avoid pissing off the neighbors.

I had a meeting to talk about my first year lesson coming up on Friday. All the teachers save one who are involved came to the meeting, and I had put together my lesson plan in advance so everyone could check it out. This was standard operating procedure the last two years, so I didn’t think anything of it. The plan was detailed, down to the last minute.

Everyone liked the plan and was ready to run with it, but one teacher, Mori sensei, wanted to do her own thing. This caused a big logjam and everyone was tiptoeing around each other’s pride for almost an hour. We ended up trying to merge the two plans. I’m not sure what concessions I made and what parts of my plan remain, but I made a power play at the end of the meeting and nominated Mori sensei to rewrite the plan as we had agreed.

Afterwards I was a little frustrated that the plan that I know will work got scrapped, but I can see where she wants to contribute something to the planning stages, whereas the previous teachers were happy to leave it all to me. In a way, it’s good practice for my next job, where I may face the same situation. I’m going to have to let Mori sensei see for herself what works and what doesn’t, but I’m a little bummed that it will be at the expense of my students’ learning time.

I’m really looking forward to teaching with Nozaki sensei – she seems so excited to be teaching with me and her English is top notch – I think probably the best at the school. She speaks smoother than Mr. Hayashi, who was the front runner since I arrived. The other teacher, Okamoto sensei, seems really shy and nervous to speak English. His strategy now is to be quiet and see what the lay of the land is.

He had only one contribution to the hour meeting. Mori sensei asked me to shake hands with the students when I meet them the first time. I said sure, and Okamoto sensei jokingly asked if it was OK to hug them. I’m all for humor and levity, but anytime anyone jokes about that kind of stuff I get uncomfortable. He’s a new guy, though, so we’ll see how he does in the classroom.

Now I’m home and getting dinner ready for Kuniko. It should be a pretty simple dinner tonight – lots of vegetables and a little bit of shrimp. Tomorrow I’ve got more ceremonies and meetings, so I hope I’ll have something interesting to write about tomorrow night…

I posted some more pictures from Mark’s trip in the picture gallery. Check them out when you have time!

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the site – I’ve been busy wrapping up Mark’s visit, and lately we’ve been cleaning up and organizing the house. Next week is the start of school for Kuniko and me, and I’m looking forward to getting in front of some students and teaching some classes. More updates as they come!

Today Mark and I met up with Kuniko’s dad to drive around and see some of the local sites that are really best seen by car. He picked us up in Takasago, and from there we drove to Shoshazan Temple in northern Himeji. The temple is accessed via a ropeway from the base of a mountain, and once you arrive at the top you walk for about ten minutes to get to the main temple.

The walk there was beautiful – we were away from all the noise of the city and the cars, just walking through a peaceful forest. We turned a corner and descended to the base of a hill. On the side of the hill was Shoshazan Temple. It had a dramatic balcony and colored silk flags were suspended across the front. We took lots of pictures, and then walked up the steps on the side of the hill to enter the temple itself.

The temple is pretty famous already, but it was a location where The Last Samurai movie was filmed, so it became even more famous. As we walked in the main entrance, one of the monks asked us to walk in the back way – there was a special exhibit going on. There was a special statue of buddha that was so holy that they keep it hidden away from public view. However, they had it on exhibit to celebrate somebody’s 1000th birthday. They brought it out for the first time in 800 years for the public to see, and then in June they’ll put it back for another 100 years or so. It was pretty cool, but no cameras allowed so we can’t share it with you.

In the front of the temple we lit some incense and candles and did some prayers, and then walked around the rest of the grounds for another hour or so. The whole time Kuniko’s dad told us what he knew about the area and kept us in information. I translated the best I could, but I wasn’t able to pass on all the detail that he was giving us.

After Shoshazan we went to lunch at an izakaya-type place. We had a set meal – Kageyama-san and I had a sashimi and tempura set, and Mark had an eel, rice and tempura set. It was really good, and despite our best efforts to get the check, Kageyama-san picked up the bill.

The next stop was a sake brewery that the Kageyamas often visit. We got a great tour from one of the workers and learned about the process in detail. Even though it was a fairly large-scale operation, the process was pretty primitive, and coming from a winemaking background I was especially interested to see how it worked.

Afterwards we went shopping and tasting in the tasting room. They let us taste anything we wanted, and they poured pretty big portions. We found some bottles that we liked, and Kageyama-san wanted to pay for those, too. We ended up sneaking in and paying for them, and we felt pretty satisfied. Kageyama-san bought some bottles for himself, and then we left.

On the way home we stopped in at the Kageyama farm to check it out. There had been some major improvements in the trailer – now there was carpet, a refrigerator full of beer, and a very comfortable space to relax. A regular home away from home.

Our last stop was the Kageyama household. We tried to get him to take us back to the train station, since Kuniko would be coming home and we wanted to have dinner ready for her. He insisted we visit for just a cup of tea. When we arrived, however, Mrs. Kageyama was cooking away and by the time we got out of there we were carrying loads of takoyaki, a cake for dessert, and the bottle of sake that Kageyama-san had bought… he fooled us by saying it was for himself but then he gave it to us to drink.

He drove us home from there and we arrived right after Kuniko arrived. We ate up the takoyaki for dinner, and then played a couple of games of Sorry. Tomorrow Kuniko has to go to work, but Mark and I will do some shopping in a bid to fufill his souvenir needs. It was a great day today, and we both felt like we saw a side of Japan that most people don’t.

Kuniko and I struggled to get up this morning at a decent hour – it was a chore. We both had to go to work. Kuniko has to work this whole week – I just have to go in today and Friday. We were out the door around seven, leaving Mark in charge of the homestead for the day.

There were several big events at my school today. We had our new teachers showing up for the first time, and so there was a big meeting to introduce the new teachers and staff. Also, everyone had to move their desks to a new location for the new year. That is, except for me. I’m in the same seat that I’ve held for almost three years.

Since I wasn’t moving it was just a matter of staying out of people’s way. I worked on the 2000 flashcards that I haven’t had time to memorize while Mark has been here, but I wasn’t able to catch up completely.

In the afternoon we had the meeting, and they introduced all the teachers. They seemed to be a nervous bunch, which I guess is to be expected – I was nervous my first day, too. There are two English teachers in the group, and I was able to talk to one teacher – Nosaki sensei. She seems really nice, and the early rumor among the other teachers was that she was a superstar in English. I didn’t really think so after talking to her, but if it makes everyone else nervous maybe it’s a good thing.

The cute girl in the office was replaced by another cute girl, and she was introduced with everyone else. I can’t understand the system of always having one cute girl in the office. Do they have a job description for that? Why does the position turn over every year? There’s something odd with that system.

At the very end of the meeting a couple of teachers stood up and complained about the new rules on smoking at school. Today was the first day that it was enforced, and I occasionally saw teachers sitting at the park adjacent from our school smoking. The complaint was that the students that were practicing club activities in the park were teasing the teachers that were smoking, and if the rule was made to keep the sight of teachers smoking from the students, it was having the opposite effect. I’m not sure where they left it, but it must have been an eye-opening experience for the new teachers to see them duke it out over tobacco.

I had a meeting in the afternoon with the English teachers to react to the original meeting, and we decided that a different teacher will be in charge of me this year – Yamamoto sensei. He’s the laid back teacher that invited me to see a concert in Osaka, so I was really happy about that. He’s an easy teacher to get along with. Hayashi sensei will be doing a student trip to Australia when my replacement shows up, so he wasn’t able to perform the duties again.

Now I’m home with Mark. Mark went shopping at IY and got some supplies for a Mexican dinner that he’s making for us. It smells great – I can’t wait until Kuniko shows up so we can eat it…

Mark put together some pictures and posted them in the photo gallery.

We went over Sunday night to have dinner at the Kageyama’s place. This was Mark’s big chance to meet them, and try some home-cooked Japanese food. We ended up having sukiyaki, and it was really good. Mr. Kageyama filled us with beer and sho-chu and keep the stories coming about the area and I did my best to translate them for Mark. Kuniko took over now and then to give me a break – it was hard work.

As usual they sent us home with loads of gifts, and Mark presented them with some gifts, and some stuff from America from my parents. During the evening we arranged to have a tour of a sake brewery on Tuesday from Mr. Kageyama. There might be some other stuff, too – I’m not sure what will happen. Kind of like a mystery tour or something.

Kuniko looked exhausted, so we decided to head out a little early. We got home around ten, and Kuniko spent two hours sewing some bags up in the dining room/kitchen, so she was completely wiped out by the time we went to bed.

Today we’ve finally got some downtime to catch up on what’s been going on. Thursday we went to Nara with Atoine and his parents. Antoine is taking the hands off approach to his parents’ visit. They are staying in Kobe and he’s not really taking any time off to do anything with them. Thursday was an exception, and so we met up with them in Osaka.

We introduced ourselves to his parents because Antoine hadn’t arrived yet, and they seemed really happy to chat with English speakers. Antoine’s dad spoke with a thick French accent that was really hard for me to pick up. His mother spoke clearly and so it was much easier to follow what she said.

Once Antoine showed up we navigated our way to the JR trains and caught a series of trains towards Nara. I wasn’t exactly sure how to get there – the last time I went to Nara I cut through Kyoto, so it was a new route for me. It worked out, though, and we arrived OK. I got directions in Nara from a nice college student who went way above and beyond in describing how to get where we wanted to go.

We toured around Nara all day, and then headed back to Kobe to have dinner. We went to the Belgian beer place, and met Kuniko there, and then tried to go to Asian Days – an all-you-can-eat dim sum place. Unfortunately, the wait was too long, so we went instead to a yakiniku place that I knew about. We gathered around the hot grill and cooked up several plates full of meat.

Afterwards we said goodbye to Antoine’s folks. They are considering a trip to Hiroshima on their own, so I hope that works out for them.

Friday we went for a drive around the southern Kansai area, but first stopped in at a local restaurant for Akashi-yaki. Akashi-yaki is just like takoyaki – little balls of dough with a boiled octopus piece inside. The difference is that you eat Akashi-yaki by dipping the balls into a bowl of broth and ground up hot peppers.

After three plates of Akashi-yaki we walked back to the house, and then jumped in the car and headed to Tarumi. Tarumi has some good views of the Akashi bridge, and we thought we might do a little shopping there, too. Mark found an ATM that worked with his bank card, so we were rolling in dough after a visit there.

Once we had finished shopping in Tarumi, we hit the road for some random driving around. We somehow ended up near Kobe Winery, so we bought some snacks there even though the tasting room part of the facility was already closed.

At home we were definitely Miller time. We are working on drinking Asahi beer just because there is a chance to win a refrigerator robot that pours beer for you. Kuniko drank wine and we sat around drinking and resting until dinner time. We went to Ito Yokado for dinner and ate at the Korean restaurant on the third floor. It was new food for Mark, and I think he enjoyed it.

We got home and played some very competitive games of “Sorry” using the new board that Mark brought. Kuniko was taking it very seriously, and wouldn’t let us quit until she won a game.

Saturday we got up early and met up with a gang of friends in Sannomiya. We met up with Tamura sensei and her boyfriend, Yuri and her mom, and one of Kuniko’s ex-coworkers from Shoyo high school. Together we caught a train to Kyoto, and spent the day sightseeing around there. We went to a couple of new places for me, and managed to avoid huge crowds. We did get stuck in some long lines of people marching down the streets shopping, but for the most part we were able to move fairly easily around the city to see what we wanted to see.

At the end of the day we went to a tea house and had some authentic Kyoto green tea, and then we all caught trains home. On the way back I coordinated with Yasu and invited him over to dinner for pizza. Mark had wanted to try Japanese pizza, so this was his big chance. He agonized over the menu, and finally we got some pizzas to try out and we ordered. Yasu had brought loads of alcohol and by the end of the night we had supplemented that alcohol with some sho-chu that Kuniko’s father had given us.

It might have been tough on Mark since Kuniko and Yasu and I lapsed into Japanese quite a bit, but it was a highlight to see Mark trying to explain a air quotes and a penis pump to Yasu. Finally we sent Yasu pretty drunk with a bottle of sho-chu for his family to drink.

Guest Blogger on the Scene!

After a couple days we are finally taking the time to update the web site. It has been a lazy day today, Bryan and I went over to visit his school. Most of the students are away on spring break, but we met a few and a lot of his fellow teachers and office staff at the school. Everyone was very interested in me and what I thought of Japan. After that we had a tasty lunch in town at a coffee shop, then walked around the Sun Mall there. We decided to head over to Akashi after that, where we spent a long time in Toys R Us indulging me in my love of toys. I managed to get out of the store only spending 300 yen. We also spent some time in Tower Records where Bryan picked up a cd for Kuniko. After that it had started raining, so we headed to the train station post-haste to get back to Futami. Now we are relaxing for a while before heading to a hard night of enjoyment at the local yakitori.

Yesterday was Kobe, and a very busy day. We spent most of the day browsing through different shopping areas. A storm forced everyone indoors in the early afternoon making for a very hectic trip. Kuniko got a massage while we were in town, so Bryan and I did our part by hoisting a couple in a nice bar downtown. I’ve got my eye on a few items in some of the shops there, so the next time we get to Kobe I will probably be picking some more things up. We also had some awesome sushi for lunch, huge pieces of fish on top of a very small amount of rice. Very tasty!

That is the update for now! Tomorrow we are meeting Antoine and his parents who are visiting in Osaka, and we will be heading to Nara for the sights. We haven’t transfered any pictures yet, but that will be coming soon!

Tonight we went to the airport and picked up Mark. He was carrying tons of luggage, most of which was gifts and presents from America. We got him home and then went out for okonomiyaki at a restaurant nearby. He’s a little overwhelmed right now with Japan. Tomorrow we’ll sleep in a bit and then go do some exploring.