On Tuesday I wasn’t feeling so great in the morning, but since I have two classes scheduled, I figured that I had better go in and teach them. Kuniko woke up early and made me a lunch to take with me to school, so at least I would have a great meal to look forward to.

Everybody at school was worried about me, and just about everyone that walked by asked if I was doing OK. I appreciated the concern, but it only made me wonder why I was at school at all. I got through both of my classes – unfortunately the last one was a sixth period class, so I couldn’t go home early.

I got home and managed to spill kerosene out on the back patio while filling the heater’s tank, and then an hour later I spilled lamp oil while filling the oil lamp inside the house. The whole place smelled like kerosene and I had to air out the house for about half an hour.

Kuniko got home late in the evening, so I ate earlier and saved her some dinner for when she arrived. She came home with a basket of fresh strawberries, and so we’ve got some fresh fruit for the next few days.

I’m going to bed early to get some rest and try to shake myself out of this cold…

I woke this morning feeling a little better today, and so I got my gear together and left for school at the usual time. My plan was to do my only class for the day, and then head home and rest up.

On the way to school the streets were covered with a thin layer of snow that made walking a little more treacherous. It is much colder in Takasago than in Futami.

At school I asked the vice principal if the plan would fly and he said no problem. Everybody at work was worried about me – I’ve never taken sick time before.

I survived my third period class and wrapped things up at school and went home. I just finished the bento lunch that Kuniko made for me and now I’m back off to bed. I’m exhausted. Luckily Kuniko is feeling much better – maybe that’s an indication that I’ll be getting back to normal soon.

Well, hello there! It was a quiet weekend at Fredricks’ Residence East. Kuniko wasn’t feeling well on Saturday, so we stayed home and I took care of her while she slept through the day. Then on Sunday I woke up sick with a 101 degree fever. Kuniko drove me to the hospital and they checked me out and gave me some medicine. Then Kuniko was stuck all day taking care of me.

The worst part of the sickness was the headache – it was a tough one to endure. In the afternoon I woke up sweating and the fever had broke. From there it was just rest up in preparation for Monday.

For the last two days I’ve been commuting into Kobe to attend the Hyogo prefecture JET conference, sponsored by the prefectural government annually. It is usually a pretty strange conference – you really have to work hard to get good material out of it. Most JETs who go use it as an excuse to party at night and see friends that they haven’t seen in a long time.

I met up with Nel, Struan and Antoine at the site of the plenary session on the first day, and we sat through a couple of boring opening speeches. The keynote speech was quite good, however. The keynote speaker was this absent-minded English professor who struggled through a speech littered with digressions and grammatical errors, but was very entertaining and got everyone thinking about how to teach English just a little differently (and maybe, more effectively).

Afterwards we were free for a 90 minute lunch, so we followed Nel south to the station, and then even further south to a cafe that he knew. The cafe was pretty good, but not worth the long walk south. We ate and then had to rush back, and I ended up walking into the first workshop five minutes late. Oops!

The workshops seemed designed to make the Japanese English teachers attending speak more English. They had several exercises that were designed to get them to talk more – usually they are really shy at these meetings. Who can blame them… I can’t imagine holding a discussion as complex as this in a second language. The teachers in my group did well, though, and the native speakers of English tried their best to give them a relaxed atmosphere.

Once the workshops were complete, we rounded up the team. Somehow, Struan ended up bringing three other JETs – I knew one of them, the other two were new this year and I think they were pretty lonely. We set out a plan and followed it – first to the Belgian beer place for a couple of beers, and then we went to Cafe Lois for an Asian fusion dinner.

Antoine and Nel weren’t so excited to have a couple of first year JETs with us – the first years were complaining about this and that, and talking about all the crazy things in Japan which by now are second nature for the rest of us. We listened to their stories with a frozen smile on our faces and I think Struan was regretting his choice of dinner companions by the end of it.

Once dinner was over I made noises to indicate that it was late and we should be getting back, and that effectively broke up the party – I came back home on the same train as Struan, and he actually apologized for inviting the others along. I didn’t mind – maybe shaking things up now and then is a good thing.

Friday we did the whole thing again, with more workshops, more speeches, and a closing ceremony. This is my third and final year on the JET program, and as such there is really a sense of detachment with all the activities that are going on related to the program. I’ve never really used all of the services and support that goes along with the JET program, maybe because I’m older than the average JET, but as things were wrapping up at our last official JET meeting, it was a little sad to think that it will really be the last one.

Struan went home early after the second day of the conference, which left just Antoine, Nel and me to wander the streets. I suggested going for a quick drink somewhere and then walking up to Kitano to House Of Pacific for dinner, and everybody seemed into the idea. We walked by a hot spring right in the middle of the city. They have a little pool in a shack outside the building – you can sit on a comfortable bench and warm up your feet in the water. Nel and Antoine were all excited to go try it, but when we got there there was a homeless guy with his pants rolled up and his bare feet in the water, dozing away. We decided to skip the hot spring.

We made it to a bar that Nel had suggested, and it was inhabited by quite a few foreigners like us. We were looking for places out of the mainstream, but apparently this one was a gaijin bar. The owner responded to my Japanese in English, and so we ended up drinking a quick beer and getting out of there, as more and more foreigners and people that wanted to meet foreigners were coming in.

As a group we walked north for about half an hour into the Kitano neighborhood. Kitano is a really upscale, quiet neighborhood that is busy with tourists during the weekend, but it’s generally calm during the weekdays. We walked up the hill to the top and then turned right and up another small hill. I knew Antoine and Nel were going to love it as soon as they say all the torches lit outside the restaurant. We walked in and the receptionist and I talked about what we would like to do.

The House Of Pacific has great service. We mentioned that we’d like to sip something at the bar, and they took us upstairs and opened up their new bar (new to me) for us. We sat on comfortable chairs in front of a wide polished wooden bar with a view of hundreds of bottles of alcohol in the foreground and a view of the nightscape of Kobe in the background. I ordered a 15 year old single malt scotch, Nel had a margarita, and Antoine had a shochu. They hung our jackets up for us, and we took in our surroundings.

The place doubled as their wine cellar, and as their cigar storeroom. They had a glass case full of cigars and a humidifier running in there blowing full blast. The waitstaff saw that I was the leader of the group, and from then on worked hard to make sure that anything that we wanted, we got. They asked me if we had a car, they would be happy to have it warm and ready in front when we left. I mentioned that we were so sorry that we didn’t make any reservations, but were wondering if they could manage a table in the dining room for later. They had the table ready in a couple of minutes. Everyone was wearing small earpieces and radios, and they relayed messages to each other – “Bryan’s party would like a table in the dining room”, “Bryan’s table is ready”, “Bryan’s party is just finishing their drinks, and will be in shortly”.

We had a fantastic dinner with another beautiful view of Kobe. They had a great special going for dinner – an appetizer, main course, dessert, and coffee for 2800 yen – under thirty bucks. We sprung for a bottle of wine and really had a great time talking and eating.

I had a roasted Spanish pork with pear and apple sauce and a sweet mashed potatoes on the side. Antoine had a monster rib eye steak, and Nel had Chinese style duck. We ate some great desserts, and then hit the road. They had a lady waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs with our coats, as we left the chefs were lined up at the window and they all bowed to us, and the lady walked us to the end of the street to say goodbye.

Antoine and Nel were blown away. We joked about what the other JETs were probably doing – drinking cheap beer in a foreigner bar somewhere and eating french fries and popcorn, maybe. It was a fitting end to the three year experience on JET – now we’re on the home stretch.

When I got home Kuniko was hanging in there – exhausted from yet another day at work and looking forward to some rest this weekend. I’m hoping that we can sleep in tomorrow and relax.

I took some pictures from the last couple of days and put them in the photo gallery.

I’ve been busy the last couple of days and I fell behind updating the site. Yesterday was a pretty light day of work, just a couple of classes and some planning sessions. I made a stew for dinner, and I ended up throwing in all kinds of ingredients and making something that was not quite Mexican, and not quite Asian… I guess it turned out OK.

Today I had my busiest day in a long time. I had four classes in a row – and they all were chock full of activities. After school I had a class with three students of Ms. Miyake’s.

My classes at school were fun – I discovered a couple of sound effects that my kids got a kick out of, and I told them not to eat yellow snow on their school trip next week to Hokkaido. I didn’t explain the yellow snow comment – I’ll let them figure it out.

I also had my first class with Kobayashi sensei. She wasn’t quite sure how to handle it, because she is essentially dropping in to a new situation. She did great, though, and I think the students seemed to warm up to her. Afterwards she complimented me on my teaching style, and said that she really enjoyed the class. That was nice feedback to get.

After school I came home and straightened up the house just a bit before my students showed up. We talked for about an hour about all kinds of things, and they did really well. I’m speaking at a more natural speed now, and they are getting used to my English. It was fun to hear about their holidays, and they are all excited about getting ready to graduate.

Finally, since I got some cash from payday and the private lessons, I took Kuniko out to dinner for yakiniku. We had a bowl of bibimba, a mix of different meats, and a big salad. It was so good – it has been a long time since I’ve had bibimba or yakiniku.

I’m off to bed now – tomorrow and the next day I have a conference in Kobe, so that could be interesting or boring – we’ll see which way it pans out.

There wasn’t much to write about on Sunday – a day at home studying, followed by an evening of sushi and gyoza. Sounds like par for the course.

Today I was back at work with only one class. I spent the first few periods writing lesson plans for later in the week, and I got things pretty cleared up. I passed out the lesson plans to the teachers that belong to, so I should be getting feedback over the next day or so.

My new memorization program has turned out to be great, but it’s a strict memorization master. I threw every word I’ve ever memorized in Japanese into the machine, and it comes up with a plan to review words based on when it thinks I might forget them. Some words I know really well, others have slipped over time.

Every morning I wake up and look at my little computer for the bad news. Today I had 900 words scheduled to review. Yikes! I got through them, but barely. Tomorrow there are bound to be more. I don’t mind all the review, because I definitely need it. I guess it just goes to show how relaxed I was with the other program – I wasn’t pushing myself enough, I think.

Tonight Kuniko came home with a sore throat – her voice is starting to go away. I served up chicken parmesan, and it was a hit. Afterwards, we ran a few errands and got some medicine for her and some kerosene for the heater.

I’m off to bed – I’m afraid to think how many words my computer will have waiting for me tomorrow.

Today I was holding down the fort since Kuniko had to go to work early in the morning. Theoretically, I was supposed to do cleaning of the area around the apartment complex with the other residents, but since it was raining so hard, they postponed until tomorrow. That means that I won’t be able to sleep in on either weekend day – that sucks. Since Kuniko also doesn’t get to sleep in on either day (she’s gotta work), I guess that’s fair.

Today they had a manzai group over at Ito Yokado. Manzai is like stand-up comedy in Japan, except that there are two people – one plays the fool, and the other continually gets tripped up by him. It’s very hard to understand for me – they talk fast and I usually can’t catch what they are saying. Kuniko really likes this pair, called Waraimeshi, and they are often on TV and pretty famous. Certainly more famous than Nishi Futami.

They were doing two shows, so I went over for the first one, and there was a whole lot of people waiting to see them. I parked over on the side and watched the crowd grow and grow. After a little while I noticed where they were moving people to the stage, and before I knew it they were walking by and they ducked into the little preparation room they had set up. I noted the time, since they had a second show later in the day. I figured I could set up in this area again and take some pictures of them as they walked by.

Their performance was OK; I couldn’t understand really what was going on, but everybody in the audience was getting a kick out of it. They kept saying “no pictures” before the show, but once they got on stage everyone took them anyway. So, I joined in. The comics even joked about it, wondering out loud if everyone had heard the anouncement or not.

While they were on, another ALT that lives in the next town came by and we chatted. His name is Chris Yap and he’s originally from Hawaii. He looks a lot like one of the guys from Waraimeshi, so he came to see if there really was a resemblance. I took a goofy picture with him to show Kuniko.

After a little while I came on back and spent more time memorizing words and cleaning house a little bit. Just before the next show I went over to Ito Yokado, set up in a good spot, and waited to snap a good picture for Kuniko.

It was just like in the movies. They start walking towards me, I’m the only one there who knows who they are, they both smile and nod in my direction, I push the camera shutter, and the screen says “Check camera battery”.

I couldn’t help but smile. Oh, well – it made a good story.

Tonight Kuniko made up homemade okonomiyaki, and it was delicious. While she was cooking I was in watching the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica.

Tomorrow we’re pretty much on the same schedule. I’m hoping for rain in the morning so I can go back to sleep and get some more rest. If not, I’ll be out there cleaning while Kuniko is out working.

Friday I spent a solid day at work doing something I haven’t done in a long time – I worked. I had three classes today, and by the end of the day I felt like I had earned my salary teaching.

My first year student classes were combined, so I was teaching 40+ students at a time, which is always a chore. My classes are interactive and they get loud, so sometimes it is tough to maintain control. Luckily, when there are combined classes, both the teachers show up, so we actually have three teachers in the room.

After school I caught a ride to the station from the history teacher, because the weather was turning to rain. I did a little bit of shopping at Ito Yokado, and then came home and heated up some chili for dinner for us. Once Kuniko got home we sprinkled some cheese on the chili and ate big. Then we both took a hot bath, and headed to sleep. Kuniko has to work early tomorrow and also again on Sunday – so she needs to get some rest.

Today was a big day because I finally had some classes to teach. I had two classes in the afternoon, both new lessons. The students responded pretty well, and despite the fact that I’m always nervous about teaching new lessons, it went just fine.

I continued to put in a ton of time reviewing flashcards and working with Supermemo. I feel like it’s helping – but we’ll have to see if it pays off down the road. It’s definitely working better than the old program I was using.

After school we had an ESS meetup, and I prodded the students into an activity. They were more interested at hurling insults at each other in Japanese and they only started doing the activity when I brought in the new English teacher, Kobayashi sensei. I practically had to hold a gun to their heads for them to ask her a question in English, but by the time I was done we had an interview. Then I typed it up and we’ll get it posted on the ESS bulletin board in the next few weeks.

I met up with Tsuji-san for some Japanese/English conversation, and then came back home and cooked up a healthy meal for dinner – sauteed bean sprouts and tofu. It tasted a lot better than it sounds – the bean sprouts were sauteed with sesame oil and garlic, and the tofu had raw ginger on the top and then I liberally doused them with soy sauce. Kuniko added some green onions on top, and it turned out great. A simple, healthy meal.

Tomorrow is Friday for me, but Kuniko is getting robbed of her weekend once again. She’s going to be stuck at work for both days getting ready for the entrance exam for her school. I’ll be here holding down the fort, and trying to stay warm.

Last night I went to pick up Kuniko at the train station and walk her back home. She had a school party, and the whole staff was there to celebrate the new year. The party was at the Oriental Hotel in Kobe – arguably the nicest hotel in town.

It turned out that she came in first place in bingo. The first prize was a lucky plastic tree branch with some lucky charms hanging from it. It came from a shrine in Nishinomiya, and according to everyone it is very famous and they only sell them one day out of the year. The second prize was a voucher for a night in the hotel. I hope that we have a very lucky year. Actually we had a good laugh about it as we walked home. We’ve already spent a night at the Oriental on our wedding night – no need to go again so soon.

Once again I had no classes at school today. I stayed close to my desk where it was warm, and prepared for my first two classes tomorrow. Mr. Kimura came in today with his hair (what little remained of it) completely shaved off. It caused quite a stir, but I actually think it looks cool. He was wearing a leather jacket to stay warm and it was a good look for him. Mark my words, he’ll have a date by the end of the month. Mr. Kimura is a nerd’s nerd – he has five computers at home. Five computers isn’t crazy, but when there are only three people living at home, it seems like a lot. Anyway, he looks much cooler now – way to go, Mr. Kimura!

I’ve started looking at jobs in the area – which is a lot different than looking FOR jobs in the area. Nobody is going to hire me now with a start time in August, but I’m taking a look at the market to see if I can find something good. So far there’s not a whole lot, but we’ll see how things go as time goes on. I’ll put more time into it gradually. I’m looking at the lucky plastic branch and hoping that it works out for me.

I’m back at school, but classes for me don’t begin until Thursday. Today I spent a whole lot of time with a new memory program for my handheld computer.

I’ve been using a program called Stackz for more than a year now. The process for learning new words is pretty complex. I see a word that I want to know, I look it up, and then I add it to an Excel spreadsheet – the word, the kanji, and the definition in English. Then, once in a while I load all the words into Stackz, and memorize them when I get the time. There are more than 5000 words in Stackz, and so even as I learn new ones, there are old ones in the background that are slowly being forgotten.

With Stackz it was a chore just to stay on top of the words that were going stale – not to mention remembering the new words.

I converted to another program called Supermemo. It is a seriously hardcore program for the computer, but thankfully much simpler for the handheld PC that I have. I was in front of the computer for the longest time trying to get my data converted over to the Supermemo format, and finally it’s all in there. Now I have to review every one of those almost 6000 words so that Supermemo can get an idea of how well I know each one.

Until that happens I’ll be busy cranking through words. Just today I went through around 900 words, and I was surprised how many I had forgotten already. Hopefully Supermemo will do a better job of keeping them fresh in my head.

Kuniko has a school New Year party tonight, so I stayed home and cleaned up taco leftovers from the fridge and played around with the memory program. It seems like it will work out – I’m looking forward to using it more.

Kuniko and I are wrapping up a three day weekend, and getting ready to go back to school tomorrow.

The weekend was busy, but not as busy as it could have been. On Saturday we ended up postponing our trip to Nara with Inoguchi sensei because of snow in the area. He didn’t feel comfortable driving, so thought it would be better to wait.

Instead Kuniko and I cleaned house and stayed inside where it was warm. We left early in the afternoon to do some shopping in Kobe. We found a book that I had been looking for in the bookstore, and we looked around some of the sales in the department stores. There were tons of people in the stores – and I couldn’t believe that this was after the mad shopping rush at the end of the year. I could barely walk without bumping into people.

We went over to Asian Days for some dim sum, and then got out of there and rushed over to catch the bus to the airport.

Kuniko was going to see of one of her international students, Tesa. Tesa is from Australia, and has been studying in Japan for almost a year. I decided to come along to keep Kuniko company, because it is a pretty long trip out to the airport and back.

We got to the airport, and we didn’t see anybody we knew – I guess we were a little early. I amused myself with walking around taking photos, and we each got a coffee at Starbucks to kill time. While we were walking around they paged “Mr. Peter, Mr. Little Peter” over the terminal intercom. Some foreigner was having fun killing time.

After about half an hour we found Tesa sitting with her host family, and another teacher from Kuniko’s school, Hakogi sensei. We sat and chatted with everyone while waiting for the plane, and I had a fun conversation with Tesa’s host mother. She asked me how long I have been in Japan, and I mistakenly answered “Two hours” in Japanese. Oops.

Tesa was fun to talk to as well. She seemed like she was ready to head home, though. She was quiet but I think she understood Japanese fairly well. According to her host mother she was a picky eater – no fish!

Hakogi sensei gave us a ride back to Sannomiya and saved us a lot of money, so that was nice. We came back and took a hot bath, and we were ready for bed.

Sunday we had some guests over for tacos. An old friend of Kuniko’s came over with her husband, a Canadian guy named Robert who has been living in Japan for almost eight years. He was a big friendly guy, and we sat around the table eating cheese that they had brought and then started in on tacos, chips and guacamole.

We hung out with them for a few hours and they seemed like an interesting couple. Robert is working on his MBA and looking for a job. It sounded like he’s having a tough time getting something good, though, so I had to think about that as I’ll be looking for a job myself pretty soon. They are really big into movies, and so are we, so we might get together sometime and catch a movie.

The rest of the day was pretty mellow – I worked on a project on the computer, watched a little TV, and we just relaxed. We made a short trip to Kuniko’s parents’ house to pick up some rice, and we just had leftover cheese and crackers for dinner back at home.

Today was “Coming of Age Day” in Japan. People that turn twenty years old this year get all dressed up and go to a ceremony at the city hall to recognize that they are legally adults. The girls usually dress up in beautiful kimonos and look great, the boys dress like an Oakland pimp. I would have taken pictures today, but I always feel like a pervert walking around taking pictures of 20 year old girls.

Kuniko and I hiked up to a waterfall in Kobe that I’ve been to a couple of times. There wasn’t much water flowing this time of year – it hasn’t rained in a while – but it was a big event because it was the first time that Kuniko and I have gone hiking together. She’s not a big fan of it, and I am, so it was nice of her to indulge me a little bit.

We did fun going up and down the hill – we kept it short – and enjoyed a view of Kobe from the top, and met a cat that lived up there. The cat was just basking in the sun, enjoying the attention from the people passing through.

After the hike we went to Yoshinoya for a quick bowl of rice, and then came on back to Futami. We got a couple of new pillows and a warmer bed cover – it turns out that Kuniko is pretty aggressive while she is sleeping. I’ve woken up without covers a couple of times, and she will literally growl in her sleep if I try to steal them back. Hopefully this new arrangement will work out.

I put a few pictures from the weekend in the gallery – just click on the link at the top right of this page to see them!

We had a quiet day at work today – just one meeting, and the most interesting part of the day was when a teacher would come in having just returned from a vacation somewhere. They would tell us details about their trip and hand out omiyage.

The meeting was not so interesting – they laid out the schedule for the term, and it seems like it’s going to be a very short term. I don’t remember the last two winter terms being so short, but back then I couldn’t understand what was going on at the meetings, so I guess it just blew by me. Now I look at the term and see that I’m only going to have a couple of classes with my first years, and then it’ll be exam time.

Despite it being such a quiet day, the teachers seemed to be hanging around well after lunchtime. I was beginning to think that I’d be stuck at school until five, but around three I saw an opening and snuck out of there.

On the trainride home my train made a sudden stop, and everyone started looking towards the back of the train. I’m not sure what was happening, but even the engineer from the front of the train went running back there. We’re on a local train, so I was worried about the express train that was following us – it isn’t too far behind. After a few minutes we got going again, but I have no idea what happened.

I made up some chirashizushi for dinner and it was hot and ready when Kuniko got home. After dinner we did a bit of shopping at Ito Yokado, and now we’re back at home. While we were walking back from Ito Yokado it started to snow, a light flurry of snowflakes started blowing across the parking lot.

Tomorrow we are planning on a roadtrip to Nara with Inoguchi sensei and his wife. If it is snowing, though, we’ll have to cancel. I’m hoping that the weather will improve, but I just checked the weather forecast for Nara tomorrow and it looks like snow all day. We’ll have to wait and see what happens…

It was pretty much an instant-replay of yesterday today. The studies are coming along, I got a chance to plan out the next few weeks, and I got all ready for tomorrow’s big teacher’s meeting.

Kuniko came and got me around 12:30. She took me home and cooked me fried rice for lunch, and so I cooked up some pasta for dinner. I went a little overboard and cooked up italian sausages and garlic bread, too. I loaded the sauce with so many mushrooms it was hard to get a bite of anything without having a mushroom in your mouth. I love mushrooms – what can I say?

We’re staying in tonight… Kuniko has to work tomorrow and then we have a three day weekend. We’ll be doing a trip to Nara with Inoguchi sensei and his wife on Saturday, we’ll have some friends over on Sunday, and then we’ve tentatively scheduled a hike for Monday. Busy, busy! Hopefully there’ll be lots of pictures by the time it’s all over.

I left Kuniko in a warm bed and walked off to work today. It was nearly dark as I walked around Ito Yokado, and when I got to the station there was nobody else there. Once in a while an express train would blow past me carrying a few people, but until my local train showed up I didn’t see anyone else.

Some people have longer holidays than I do, I guess. I walked to school and was the second teacher there. I spent most of the day bowing to people and wishing them a happy new year. I chatted with the vice principal, too – he was in a really great mood after having so much time off. A couple of teachers had taken a group trip to Singapore, so I scored some chocolate omiyage. The librarian had taken her family to Guam, and she told me all about her experiences there. It sounded like the whole thing was set up just for Japanese tourists.

Kuniko came and picked me up and together we went out to lunch at McDonald’s. We wanted to try a burger that they have for a limited time – it’s a double cheeseburger with Japanese mushrooms and a slightly sweet sauce. It was really good – I would it eat it again. They also had a shrimp version of chicken mcnuggets, and those were pretty good, too. A little expensive, though.

Tonight Kuniko went out drinking with some friends, and so I’m holding down the fort here. I made a simple dinner of rice and store-bought yakitori to go with some leftover kimchee. Tomorrow Kuniko has the day off again, and I’ll go in to work for the first half of the day. I need to start thinking about a lesson plan for my students and get ready for classes starting sometime next week.