As the date of the big test looms, I’m getting less and less confident. Although I passed the practice test yesterday, I was totally baffled by another practice test today. I’m just going to have to balance some studying and some brain rest over the next two days.

At school they have installed the big heaters in the staffroom, and today they were fired up for the first time. It’s starting to get notidceably colder at school, and the students are already complaining about not being fast enough to catch the warm seats near the windows.

I had a nice discussion with Tanaka sensei, the kendo and Japanese teacher who sits behind me. I alternately think he is a really nice guy and an intolerant nit-picker. The nit-picking is towards the students though, and he always treats me and the other teachers with respect. I enjoy his conversations because he is genuinely curious, unlike the history teacher who talks to me just to impress other people and pump up his own ego.

I had a visit from an old friend of Kuniko’s at school today. There is a part time teacher that is working at our school temporarily. She is working as a home economics teacher, and she came by to introduce herself and say hello. She wants to get back in touch with Kuniko, so I said that I’d pass on the message. She got married this year to a Canadian guy who has been living in Japan for seven years. Maybe one of these days we can have them over for dinner or something.

After school ended I went over to Tsuji-san’s place to do another Japanese lesson. We talked for the whole hour in Japanese just because my test is coming up. I think it was good practice. Kuniko and I had thought that we would just talk in Japanese at home for the week running up to the test, but we are just too comfortable with our weird mix of both languages.

We often speak both languages at home, and so it makes things hard to follow. I’ve honestly lost track of what language any person is speaking at any given time. We do have one rule that we try to stick to – don’t mix two languages in the same sentence unless we’re translating something. That seems to be a good strategy to avoid confusion and bad habits.

Tomorrow night after school I have my school’s end-of-the-year party. They tend to be pretty mellow affairs, because most of the teachers at my school are in the 50+ age bracket. I’m not saying that 50 year old people don’t know how to party – it’s just these folks tend to be pretty conservative. The groundskeepers always get loaded and they are fun to watch, though. Anyway, it should be a fun time tomorrow night.

I’m going to take a crack at garlic cheese naan bread and store-bought curry tonight. The bread is already cooked really, I don’t have the facilities to make naan bread from scratch, but I will do some bread surgery to add some cheese and garlic to them. I hope they turn out well!

I was joking around in my two classes today. All the students are gearing up for exams, and they were listening carefully for clues to what might be on their exam. I gave my students loads of clues. I circled important words that they should memorize, and spent about 30 minutes trying to get them to study.

Usually they end up complaining that it was too hard, but I think it’s a good experience for them.

I had the latter half of my day with no classes, so I locked myself in my classroom and took the Japanese language proficiency test from two years ago. I’ve been practicing with last year’s exam, but the one from 2003 was completely new to me. I followed all the rules, used the same time as the actual test, and after almost three hours I passed the test. It was just barely, though, so I know that the actual test may be even closer. Yikes – I hate close shaves.

On my way back home today I noticed that there were lots of kids and mothers preparing for the upcoming Xmas party at my apartment complex. The amount of work they are putting into it is amazing. For the past few nights they’ve been working in the meeting room – painting, drawing, hanging things up, decorating the tree, etc. I’m looking forward to being Santa for the party, I should be pretty relaxed by then and ready to chug eggnog with a bunch of kids.

Home life is still in a little bit of disarray around here. Kuniko still has no voice, and has a nasty cough. I’m fighting off my cold and I think it is in it’s last throes. We’ve cleaned up most of the boxes and gifts, and are compiling a list for thank you notes. I never thought getting married was so much work!

I forgot to mention that Kuniko and I took the plunge and bought a heater for the house last weekend. We had been planning on getting one since the little electric space heater I have wasn’t going to cut it for two people. While they were here my family gave us money to buy one as a wedding present, so now it is sitting in the kitchen waiting for it’s first drink of kerosene. We got an empty kerosene drum to fill at the gas station, and as soon as it cools down enough we’ll fire it up and try not to asphyxiate ourselves.

We’ve been on an early schedule lately, and I’ve been leaving the house much earlier than usual. Part of the reason has to do with our bathing habits. Since I converted the shower to a bath, we’ve been taking baths in the evening, and then I just jump in the morning to wash my hair. It works pretty well so far, and I am kind of enjoying taking a long hot bath before bed. It heats you up to the core, and suddenly I don’t need that electric blanket quite so much.

Anyway, we don’t need to get up so early but we end up getting up anyway, and I hate to just sit around the house when Kuniko is gearing to go, so I’ve been following her out the door.

This early arrival has not gone unnoticed at my school. I think it makes a couple of teachers nervous. They are used to being the early guy at the school and when someone else beats them there, they lose the bragging rights. I don’t mind – I use the time to study, especially with the upcoming test.

Today in one of my classes I went in without much of a lesson plan at all. This is a big deal, usually I plan everything down to 5 minute intervals. I went in with a small photo album of wedding pictures and a worksheet to test their memory. It worked out that the groups that finished the worksheet got to see the wedding pics. Girls were screaming and saying how cute Kuniko was and I didn’t know what to say but “Yes, she is cute!” I guess more modesty is called for in that situation, but I can’t do it…

I had a good recording session with Yamamoto sensei for the listening test. We did it all in just two takes. He only flubbed pronunciation of “blueberry pie”. Now we’re all set for next week’s listening test.

Back home I bought some ingredients for tortilla soup, and Kuniko helped me cook it up when she got back from school. Her voice is still missing, so we’ve had a couple of quiet evenings lately. There are signs of improvement, though, so she should be good to go tomorrow. I hope.

The first round of pictures have arrived. There’s so many and I’m still sorting them out, but you can leaf through them and at least get an idea. I put them into a web gallery using some free software. I’m sure it’s not as easy to view as when I usually post them, but this takes me about one minute to post, as opposed to the other method which can take over an hour.

Picture Gallery

There will be more pictures later next week when we get the professional photos in, but until then, I hope this will do!

Kuniko and I survived the weekend, and got a lot of work done. The house was a disaster, the laundry had piled up, and we both have a cold, so it felt like we were totally crappy homemakers.

I think we’re getting close to catching up. Over the weekend we had time to catch a movie, I converted the shower into a standard Japanese bathtub, and I took my first Japanese-style bath in my own home. It was nice – it really warms you up.

Today I went back to school, and things were just how I left them. The schedule today was light so I got some much-needed study time in. I delivered all my return gifts to people that had given me wedding money/gifts. Now that that’s off my back, I can get cracking on my school work.

Tonight Kuniko came home late after stopping in to see a doctor. After her lessons today she lost her voice, so I cooked her some hot and spicy dinner and then tucked her into bed.

In other news, I got tapped by the apartment complex mothers to play Santa Claus during the kid’s Xmas party in a couple of weeks. Kuniko and I were smirking about that for a while – that should be funny. I hope I can get some pictures. The apartment manager ladies came to my door and asked, and they were so excited when I said yes. I cannot wait to freak out some little kids.

What a couple of weeks! I thought rather than break everything down day by day and struggle to remember every detail, I’d do an entry for the wedding, and an entry for everything else. As usual there were tons of pictures, and I’ll post some of them here. Later I’ll have more that we had taken professionally – I’ll get those posted as well. For now, it’s time to settle into the old routine, and get things organized and cleaned up after all the activity.

I was really looking forward to showing everyone around, but it was more challenging than I expected. Any time you have a group that diverse, people are going to have different things they want to do, different speeds they want to do them, and lots and lots of questions. Sometimes I felt like a really strict tour guide – I hope they didn’t resent me after it was all over.

Probably my biggest surprise in planning things for my family to do while in Japan was how much walking is involved. I don’t think about how much walking I do every day, and especially when you throw in a bunch of sightseeing trips – it makes for some very sore legs.

My family pushed through and did a great job. When it came to sitting around a table on the floor, they sat. When it came to eating strange unidentifiable things, they ate. I was really proud of them. I was especially proud of my mom, who subjected me to a lot of “eat this, eat that” when I was a kid. She wasn’t afraid to try anything.

Kinsey flew in on Friday night, and despite a miscommunication with Kuniko we got it figured out and Lynn and I took the bus into the airport. It was a long ride, but we swapped stories and talked all about the fun we had at the soba party the night before.

When Kinsey appeared at the gate she looked like she was full of energy. She grabbed the attention of everybody waiting for her, and the attention stayed on her for most of the trip.

We came back on the bus, and lugged her hot pink luggage onto the train and all the way to Akashi. She struck up a conversation with a very surprised guy in the elevator, and I think until then it hadn’t really dawned on her that people don’t speak English. The guy rebounded nicely, though, and spoke to her in rusty English. I think he thought that she and I were on our honeymoon in Akashi.

We checked Kinsey into the hotel and then went across the street to the okonomiyaki restaurant. The master was happy to serve us up again, and I enjoyed watching everyone showing Kinsey the ropes. She ate the onion and beef tendon okonomiyaki without a problem, and Lynn had a sly grin as he let her say how much she loved it. I understand he told her what was inside the okonomiyaki the next day.

Saturday was the day before the wedding, so we took it easy. Kuniko served up a traditional oden dinner, and everyone gave us presents. We had so many presents laying around, and little did I know at that time that it was only the beginning.

Sunday was the day of the wedding, and I wrote a whole entry just on that – you should go check that out.

Monday was the day after the wedding, and I think everyone was exhausted. I had caught a cold the night before, so I was pretty miserable. We had some people come over in the middle of the afternoon to hang out, and then we bundled everyone up in two cars and drove to the Kageyama farm, just about 15 minutes away from their home in Kakogawa.

I think everyone enjoyed seeing the fresh vegetables growing, and there were lots of questions for Mr. Kageyama. He answered and Kuniko or I would translate, and then there would be more questions. It was a really challenge for the translators, but we did the best we could. After touring the farm we continued up the hill to a temple that I had never visited before. We walked around and took some pictures. Kinsey and Kuniko rang the temple bell once, but apparently it was OK to do it – nobody came running to stop them. Apparently the bell was used in the past to signal that a fire was spotted, but I think those days are gone.

From there we drove out to a yakiniku place and my family had their first experience with self-grilled meat. Everyone ate a lot – even Kinsey who usually doesn’t like the idea of mixing her chopsticks with other people’s saliva. Since everything was being cooked on the fire, it was OK. My family treated the Kageyama’s, and they gave a big protest but finally relented. It was a real battle, though.

Tuesday was an early trip to Himeji, and then on to Hiroshima on the bullet train. That was a great experience for my family – the bullet train is very expensive, so to get a chance to ride that was really cool. Kuniko organized the tickets, and we jumped on board and in an hour we arrived at Hiroshima. We were sitting in the “silent car”, which was for people that might want to get some sleep in. There was a ticket holder to hold your tickets in case you where sleeping and didn’t want to be disturbed. Kinsey and Nancy loaded up their tickets in the holder, and when they got off they left them there. Oh, no! Kuniko did some talking with the station manager who ended up letting them through, mainly because they were foreign and we all had the same tickets.

Hiroshima was a whirlwind trip, but it was awesome. Our first stop was Miyajima, a kind of sacred island full of shrines, deer, trees, and shopping. We had to take a ferry to get there, and once we arrived everyone enjoyed playing with the deer. From there we walked through a ton of shops to get to the main attraction – the view of the shrine gate on the water.

We spent some time looking around, taking pictures of the trees changing colors, we had a quick lunch with some oysters, and then headed back to the heart of Hiroshima to see the Memorial Peace Park, the Atomic Bomb Dome, and the museum. By then Kuniko and I were both pretty bushed and we had seen both things before, so we waited outside. Before long everyone came out, and so we caught a taxi back to the station for a bit more souvenir shopping, and then we caught the train back.

We ate dinner in two groups upon arriving in Akashi. There was a sushi group and a ramen group. Kuniko lead the ramen group over to a pretty good ramen place across town, and Kinsey, Ray, and Lynn followed me underground to the tiny sushi place for a full on sushi dinner. He kept us in sushi and rolls and enjoyed the attention – it is a really good atmosphere, and we ordered plenty of hot sake to keep us warm.

Kuniko came and picked me up after they finished the ramen dinner, and together we went over to get a surprise for Lynn over at her house. Finally around 11 o’clock we hit the sack.

Wednesday was spent in Kyoto. We brought the surprise to Lynn on the train, and everyone was staring more than usual at a foreigner walking around with a gigantic Japanese bow and quiver of arrows. The bow is more than 7 feet long, so we made quite an impression. Lynn loved the bow. He was talking about it for quite some time and really enjoyed playing with it, checking the angles, and asking questions. Kuniko’s dad had used the bow during his school years, and it seems they both have a big interest in archery.

Wednesday was a national holiday in Japan. There were tons of people in Kyoto. For the first time, my family could see wall-to-wall people and get a feel for what it can be like sometimes around here. We split up into two groups for lunch again, and from there took a wild cab ride across town to Kiyomizudera. It was so crowded. The road that we walked up was filled with people, and there was a huge line just to get into the temple. We ended up skipping the actual temple and walked around taking pictures of the trees and scenery. Because of the crowds and a little bit of a late start we couldn’t see very much of Kyoto at all, but I think it was enough to give everyone a taste.

Finally we headed back to the station, walking almost the whole way, and then took the train to Sannomiya. There we ate at Asian Days, a really good all-you-can-eat dim sum and shabu shabu place. I think that everyone liked it, and we all went home with our bellies full.

Thursday we got everyone packed up, checked out of the hotel, and headed to the bus stop in Sannomiya. Kuniko met us there, carrying bags of presents from her students, and we got my family tickets on the bus to the airport. There were lots of tears, lots of hugs, and lots of staring from the people walking by. Still, it was a good chance to thank everyone for coming all this way. Kuniko gave them one last gift – a CD of music from our wedding, and a stuffed Anpanman for Kinsey. After we sent them off, we traveled all the way back to our place and completely crashed out. Kuniko is getting my cold, so a lot of rest seemed like the best thing.

Friday it is back to work, at least for one day, so we’ll try to take it easy until then.

I thought I might be tossing and turning the night before Kuniko and I got married, but we both slept soundly, got up like any other day, and dressed up in some nice clothes. Luckily the hotel had a bus picking up my folks, so we had an easy morning without having to worry about the logistics of getting them to the wedding in one piece and on time.

We took the train into Sannomiya, and walked the fifteen or so minutes down to the wedding place. We had made this walk so many times before – late at night, on weekends, after work, in the rain, in the heat, and it felt great to be taking that walk again, maybe for the last time.

I relaxed in the lobby and Kuniko went in to get her makeup and dress started. About fifteen minutes later they came and got me, and I got all dressed up in a flash, then together we went out in the hallway, bumped into my family who were just arriving in their dress clothes, and we all went up the elevator together and into the lobby.

In the lobby there were lots of friends that had already arrived, so we said some quick hello’s while the wedding people tried to herd us into two separate rooms – one for the bride and her family, one for the groom and his. I tried my hand at making tea, but I guess I screwed it up… it turned out that it wasn’t tea at all. The lady came in and made it properly. Everyone seemed nervous, but I wasn’t feeling nervous at all. Soon the photographer came in and introduced himself, and then we all kind of broke out of our defined rooms and went into a photographic frenzy.

When I say frenzy, I mean it. We went inside a huge lobby and sat down on two seats set up for the purpose. There were tons of people there. Kuniko’s ex-students from last year were there, all the people we invited, and it was overwhelming. Everyone was taking pictures, and it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that I felt like a movie star surrounded by papparazzi. We would sit there and smile into the flashes, and just go from side to side, with people switching places behind us. Kuniko had an assistant to help her with anything she needed – she kept things in her kimono for us and stayed out of the way just enough to not be noticed, but if anything came up she would come forward and take care of it. She was a big help that day.

After almost an hour of greetings and photographs we went down to do the ceremony in the chapel. Everyone was seated inside, and as we walked to the door our wedding organizer picked that time to say that she was sorry but she couldn’t find another priest for us, even though we had specifically asked not to have the one that was there today. Oh, well – nothing to do about it now! Good timing on her part.

While we waited outside for everyone to get seated, the priest tried to relax me by chit-chatting, and he asked me if I remembered everything. I answered truthfully that I remembered about half, and he didn’t seem too concerned. He gave me the address of his church and tried to get me to drop by and say hello some time. Thanks, dude.

The doors opened and we went inside, and although I’ve never been to a Japanese wedding I’ve seen plenty of pictures. The groom always looks like he’s on death row, so I really tried to look as relaxed as I felt. I think I pulled it off, but we’ll have to wait for the pictures to know for sure.

Then, they played “Here comes the bride”, and Kuniko was walking through the door with her father. They walked up to where I was, and her dad and I bowed to each other. He made his move to his seat, and I took Kuniko’s arm and we stepped up onto the altar.

The ceremony was very simple, and we avoided any major disasters. The ring exchange went perfectly, and everyone said “I do”, so it was a success in my book. I didn’t get as long a kiss as I would have liked, but at least I got a kiss on the lips.

We went out the door, hid in a little room, and then they had everyone go outside. We came out another door into the empty chapel, and then out onto the steps. Everybody clapped for no other reason than we pulled a nice disappearing act. Then we walked around the perimeter of people and they threw flowers on us. I’ve never down a flower shower kind of thing in a circle. Usually isn’t it with people on either side of you? Anyway, everyone got their licks in, even some of my students who made the trip all the way from Takasago.

Once that was finished we took a group photo, and then got everyone inside. Kuniko and I set up in the first room of the reception area, which was set up like a lounge/bar. I had a staff of two waiters who helped me pour drinks. Really, they did all the work. I opened one bottle of wine and that was about it. I’d rather spend my time talking and taking pictures.

Kuniko and I worked the crowd separately, and came together now and then for a picture for people. We had paid a lot of money to have the photographer on hand to take pictures for us. We both thought he was taking a lot of pictures of other things, though. I would see him taking a picture of a wedding present, or an artsy picture of the organist’s hands. Hey, those pictures could be from anybody’s wedding. I want pictures of my guests, buddy!

Then, we ushered everyone into the room, and made our own grand entrance. From there the whole thing was pretty well orchestrated. We tried to keep it simple. We had a couple of speeches, but mostly it was hanging out with friends and family. Their were two musical performances – one on piano by Kuniko’s friend Tomomi-chan, and one by Komori sensei playing the ocarina. Both of them were great, and everybody raved about the performances afterwards. It’s hard to play in front of a lot of people like that, but they did a great job.

At the end Kuniko read a letter to both sets of parents, and got lots of tears from everyone. We wrapped it up soon after that, and got everyone out in the lobby. The Denya yakitori gang wanted to get us out on the balcony, and there they tossed me in the air three times Japanese-style. Then, they got Kuniko and threw her up three times, too. I was there helping – kind of like a hip-hip-hooray on steroids.

We held a second party at a place called Arcobaleno in Sannomiya. There was a pretty good turnout, and the master of the yakitori organized the whole thing. We had picked the place earlier, but he handled all the money and the attendance. I had been to a second party once before, and it was pretty organized and centered around karaoke. Not much talking to people – at that time I don’t think I was introduced to anybody new.

Kuniko and I were determined to avoid that, and I think we succeeded. There was a little table for the two of us to sit, but neither us was there for long. We spent our time introducing people, talking to people that seemed to be lonely, and trying to bring together friends from all parts of our life.

There were some interesting connections – Tsuji-san, my Japanese teacher had been a student of Tsutsumi-sensei. Carrie’s vice principal was Miyake-sensei’s husband, Maeda sensei and Yamamoto sensei hit it off with the yakitori gang, and even set up a date to drink together over there. My dad was a big hit with Kuniko’s friends, who kept trying to get their picture taken with him. Lynn and Antoine and Kimura-san (the big guy from the yakitori) had a really interesting discussion in both English and Japanese about muscles. It was a blast to see, but there wasn’t much time for me to eat or to drink, really. As long as everyone else was enjoying themselves I was happy.

To wrap up the second party everyone in the place did one big clap of their hands, and then we started filing out the door. The master did a great job of wrapping things up, and Kuniko and I distributed small gifts to everyone that hadn’t been to the wedding.

We all gathered at the steps at the bottom of the restaurant and said our goodbyes. Kuniko and I had arranged for Tsuji-san to guide my folks back to their hotel, and so we were pretty free. We had previously agreed to head home and have some leftovers and then just relax. But – I had a surprise in store.

We broke apart from the crowd and walked along the Motomachi towards Sannomiya station. We were rolling a suitcase that we had brought just for this occasion – we had to transport lots of stuff back home from the ceremony.

I rolled the suitcase to the right suddenly and told Kuniko to jump in a cab. I threw the suitcase in the trunk and then got in and told the driver to take us to the Oriental Hotel. The Oriental Hotel is a really nice hotel on the ocean that is pretty dramatic – Kuniko was really surprised.

We got there, checked in, enjoyed some steak sandwiches via room service, and went out on our balcony to enjoy the view of the Kobe port and the ocean beyond. What a nice way to end a great day.

Yesterday we had another full day – starting off with a run to Mr. Donuts. This is one of my favorite donut places in Japan, and they have some unusual flavors. While Lynn went over to Starbucks for a coffee, Nancy bought us all donuts and coffee. I had some nikuman and an old fashioned glazed, while everybody else was eating a croissant type roll with a hot dog and cheese embedded inside.

From there we went to my school in Takasago, and really surprised all the students. They were really friendly, and came by to say hello. They were hoping for a glimpse of Kuniko I think, but unfortunately she had to work this week.

We were led into the principal’s office where he greeted everyone and said I translated as best I could until the vice-principal made it there. We talked for a little while, and then had a chance to sit in on Mori sensei’s international understanding class. She wasn’t aware that we would drop by, so I felt a little bad. Afterwards she said that she was very happy that we stopped in.

My dad was right at home, and went over to talk to a couple of students. Luckily he was talking to one of the better students, so I think they had a good conversation.

After that we had a chance to walk around and meet lots of students who were very curious about us, and we also got to meet Tsutsumi sensei, who is really a great person. Finally we wrapped things up and left. I thought it went really well. Everyone was nice to us and I think they were genuinely interested in my family.

Next stop was the grocery store for a quick snack to eat at the train stop, and then we caught the train to Himeji to tour the castle with Kuniko’s parents. They met us at the train station and gave us a big bottle of sake that we forgot last night, and then we walked to Himeji castle.

I’ve been to the castle several times before, and it is always very dramatic. As we walked there we could feel the temperature starting to drop – the weather is really changing up around here.

Everybody seemed to enjoy the tour, and the tour guide was really nice and did most of the tour in English. At the end we headed back, and everyone was trying to make conversation with the Kageyamas. The language barrier is tough, though. My mom managed to have a short exchange with Mrs. Kageyama, and she was really happy about that. I talked with Mr. Kageyama on the way back, and we were happy with how things went.

They walked us to the station, and so we got on board the Sanyo line and headed to my station.

We met Kuniko at the station by chance, and after a pitstop at my place for a bathroom break we went to the yakitori for a little dinner party. The master was there cooking away, and he greeted everyone, and even spoke some English for everyone. He must have been working hard on studying for us.

The food was great as usual, and we ate plenty of food. We went with an assortment of different foods, and the master kept serving us my favorites. The pork/kimchee dish was popular, and the mushroom dishes were also very popular. For a while we were the only people there, but soon a couple of regulars came in. They called some friends, and then I was able to introduce five regulars to my family.

They’ll be at my wedding, so we’ll get a chance to hang out again, but I was glad for them to be able to meet in their “natural environment” – at the yakitori.

Nancy was really enjoying the Okinawan Aomori, and by the time we got out of there, everyone was really happy. My dad bought everyone’s meal, and a round of drinks for the regulars and one for the master. What a nice guy!

The final challenge was for everyone to get on the train without assistance and go home to Akashi. They did great – dad called in once they arrived and said they had no problems.

Today we’ll be taking it a little easier, and going to Komori sensei’s house for a soba party. Friday will be Osaka – I’ll need to dream up some fun things to do there.

We are continuing to cram everything we can do into each day, and I think everyone is holding up well. Last night we went over to Kuniko’s parent’s house, and it went really well. Considering the culture and language barriers, everyone seemed happy to find out the new members of the family are nice people.

We ate and ate and ate and ate, and talked about all kinds of topics. At first it got started very slowly. The Kageyamas were working hard in the kitchen, and when Kuniko arrived she started helping them, leaving all of us to sit in the living room staring at each other.

Finally we coaxed Mr. Kageyama out of the kitchen and we all did a quick toast. Once the alcohol started flowing, people seemed to be a little more relaxed.

We had sukiyaki for dinner, with some rolled sushi on the side. Everyone did really well with their chopsticks – nobody asked for a fork. After dinner there was a big gift exchange. The Kageyamas seemed to like their gifts from my family, and they returned the favor by giving everyone giant bottles (twelve!) of sake and sho-chu.

We came on back to Akashi and tucked everyone into the hotel. Today we’re going to visit my high school, tour Himeji castle, and then finally have a party at my local yakitori.

It has been a challenge to squeeze everything that I think they should do into the schedule. I’m really hoping that we don’t have to sacrifice too much, but I don’t want to drive everyone to exhaustion. We’ll see how it shakes out!

So everybody showed up safely last night at the airport, and we gathered everyone up and took them back to Akashi. It was a long trip back by bus, car, and train, and during that time we were able to hear all about their plane trip. I guess it wasn’t so bad – no screaming babies and just a little turbulence.

My mom did really well according to the rest of the family. She’s never been much for flying, but apparently she did great. Everyone was in great condition and great spirits as they checked into their tiny hotel rooms and set themselves up.

After checking in, we all went across the street for okonomiyaki. The restaurant wasn’t so crowded, and the master gave us a funny smile when he saw how many foreigners were coming inside the place.

They served up some great food – and it was Nancy and Lynn’s first time eating okonomiyaki. We had tonpei-yaki, Hiroshima-yaki, butakimchee-yaki, and negisuji-yaki. I think everyone liked the food.

We went for a quick beer at Donkey, and again we got a funny look as the Donkey master watched us all file into the bar. By now, everyone had been drinking at least a couple of beers, so one more seemed like a good idea. But people were starting to fade fast, and it ended up being a quick drink. These guys had been awake for a long, long time. We took them back to the hotel, and then Kuniko and I drove home. Tomorrow will be a recuperation day for them, and then dinner at the Kageyama’s.

I thoroughly enjoyed sleeping in this morning and seeing Kuniko off at the door. She’s a real trouper – she’s driving to work today which is a major pain in the ass in Japan. The commute is scary, and the toll roads are expensive. But the good news is that we’ll meet again in Kobe soon and drive to the airport together.

Since her car is so small, and there is quite a bit of luggage and people arriving, we’ll probably have to split up things a little. Still, we were both up late last night, too excited to sleep.

We’ll get them all settled into their hotel tonight, and then tomorrow we’ll take them over to Kuniko’s parents for dinner. Hopefully we’ll have some time to walk around Futami a bit and look around. I guess it depends on how hard jetlag hits them.

More later!

Today we slept in again, getting our sleep while we can. My back is still bothering me, so I popped some aspirin and did some stretches. Unbelievably bad timing, I’m telling you.

Kuniko and I had a long discussion about what to do about the photo albums for the wedding. Along the way I managed to hurt her feelings, we came up with three different ways to do it, and in the end decided to just do something very simple. Now I’m in the doghouse with a week left until the wedding.

We went to Kuniko’s parent’s place to pick up some wedding stuff, and a big blanket to keep us even warmer, as it’s getting colder these days. Then we stopped into a few stores on the way home. We went to Uniqlo, which is my favorite clothing store in Japan. While we were shopping there I bumped into one of my students. He is a cool third year student. My big memory of him was when Kuniko and I were teaching his class together. She used to walk by him and he got a dreamy look on his face. So you can imagine his surprise when she came walking up next to me and said hello. He didn’t know that we are married, so he asked if she goes shopping with all the English teachers – maybe Kimura sensei is next? It was a good joke, but I only got it after Kuniko explained it to me later.

But we weren’t finished breaking hearts. We left and went to lunch, and on the way back to the car parked in front of Uniqlo we walked by two women, one of whom I recognized as somebody I say good morning to every day on my way to work. She had a look of surprise, and I smiled and said hello, and Kuniko was wondering who that was, and I think everybody walked away surprised.

We stopped in at two more stores on the way home, and now we’re back here getting everything prepared to drop off at the wedding place tomorrow. Actually, I’m doing the website and Kuniko is doing all the preparing. I better wrap this up and help out. I’ll probably post a little more tomorrow before I head to Osaka to pick up the family. Maybe we’ll have a guest blogger soon!

I woke up Saturday morning with a tweaked back. I don’t think there was any specific time when I did it, but it’s pretty painful. It feels like I just need to stretch it, so that’s what I’m trying to do. Bad timing. Getting old is a bitch, I guess.

First thing I had to do was community cleanup. I worked side by side with Yasu who had invited Kuniko and I over for breakfast after the cleanup job. We staked out a small corner and snipped branches for a while. Not a tough ordeal. I came back after cleanup, took a shower, grabbed Kuniko and went over to Yasu’s place.

They had a great big breakfast set up, and we ate like kings. Yasu had made French toast for us, and those were great. I think I had four pieces, and I still had my eye on the ones on the plate when we left. They are really nice people, and they will be going to both the wedding and the second party.

Kuniko had to go into work for a little while, and then afterwards she ran off to Osaka to pick up some things for the wedding. I spent the afternoon doing laundry and talking with my folks. They are getting close to coming to Japan – it’s just a matter of days now. They sounded really excited about it. It’ll be fun to see them at the airport in Osaka.

It was a pretty mellow day otherwise. We cleaned house and did some chores and laundry. Just getting ready for lots of busy times ahead.

I’ll work on getting my back back into shape, and we should be good to go for next week. I’m still not sure if and/or when I’ll be updating the site while my family is here. I have a feeling I’ll be busy showing them around. We’ll just see how it goes, but I’m guessing there won’t be daily updates for the next few weeks. A little more spotty, I guess – sorry!

Kuniko and I split up some bakery breads for breakfast and took some to work for lunch. We’re skipping the bento lunch today because we will have to go into the wedding place one more time for some last minute decisions.

At work we had a short schedule, with only four classes lasting 40 minutes each. The classes were shortened to make room for a speech our school is attending at the community center near the train station in town.

Before the day ended two of my classes were conducted by a visiting professor from one of the local junior colleges. He is an American guy – he came to our school last year, too. I wasn’t too impressed with his lesson last year. He just pointed the kids towards a web page with lots of English games and activities, and then walked around making sure they understood everything. He gets paid a lot to come here, but whether he guides the kids on the activities or someone else does – I don’t think it matters a great deal.

Anyway, today was much the same as last year. He speaks one or two words of Japanese, but mainly he tells the students how to do things in English, which is great. The activities that the students did were created using an online website, and they were Jeopardy-like quizzes. The kids really enjoyed them, and for the most part it was a successful lesson. The students’ skills on the computer varied quite a bit, so I walked around and helped here and there. The students liked getting help from me rather than the strange short old foreign guy from New York.

One of the kids followed a wrong link somewhere on the website, and ended up with a tough question from somebody elses quiz. It was about landfills, and so one of the Japanese teachers asked me what a landfill is. I thought to myself that it was a pretty tough question for a high school English quiz. As it happened the guest teacher came by and saw it. He pointed at the screen and said, “That’s not mine!” in a defensive voice. That confused the student and the teacher, and they both thought that they had done something wrong. The guy could have calmly apologized and put in the right web page, but he just kept saying “That’s not mine!” in a louder and louder voice. I was beginning to think he might have snapped, but he shook himself out of it, and I set up the kid on the right page.

At the end of the lesson he pulled me aside and showed me his web page. I politely watched as he showed me his page, and he clicked on link after link to various internet resources. He led me to a movie script archive and said “Name a movie, any movie! They’re all here, and they’re free!”

I mentioned “Gone with the Wind” off the top of my head, and he said “Oh, that’s easy”. As you might have guessed, he couldn’t find it on the list. I just smiled politely and thought about how much money this guy was making to be bumbling through this lesson. I’m thinking I should do something cool on the web and show them how it’s really done sometime.

After classes ended I got a really nice wedding gift from the first year teachers, a set of cherry blossom ice cream bowls with pink plates and gold spoons. It was a really nice thing for them to do. I took all my stuff with me to the train station, locked up my gear in a coin locker, and then went with the rest of the students to Takasago City Culture Center.

The students all lined up outside under a sky that was threatening rain. We were a little worried that everyone would get rained on, but as it turned out only a few drops fell. My job was to walk around and chat up the students. We joked around and talked about how exciting the speech was sure to be. Little did we know….

Once we got in, everyone got settled, and they introduced the speaker. He was an older guy from a college somewhere in the area. He started the speech with everyone awake, but within 45 minutes nearly half the audience was asleep in their chairs. I was struggling myself to stay awake, but in the end I made an activity out of estimating the number of people still conscious in the auditorium.

The speaker made no attempt to make his speech interesting. It was mind-numbingly boring. He just spoke and spoke, never checking with the audience for feedback, no visual aids, no pictures, illustrations, or props. I haven’t done much public speaking, but I do know that keeping your audience engaged is an important part of it.

The students weren’t the only ones crashing in their chairs. I’d say about 40% of the teachers were asleep, too. Down the row from me Mr. Yamamoto was sleeping soundly. Around 90 minutes into the speech he started snoring.

At first it was just heavy breathing, but soon it turned into audible snoring that had some of the students who were still awake looking. I started giggling to myself, and the students near me saw me giggling and I think that undermined my status as a teacher a little bit. After a few minutes, an embarrassed teacher came over and woke up Mr. Yamamoto. I steadily looked the other way so as not to cause him further embarrassment.

As soon as the speech ended I wandered to the lobby looking like I was stepping out for a cigarette. I walked along the front of the building, took a look around the corner as if I was wondering if there was a restaurant around here, turned the corner, and BOOM – I was gone, baby. Fourteen days off in a row, oh yeah.

I hightailed it to the station, raided the stuff from the locker, took the train to Akashi and put the stuff in a locker there. Then it was a train to Kobe to meet Kuniko. We had dinner at Taro – one of my favorite ramen places – and then we went to the wedding place to make some final decisions.

Actually, it was pretty easy tonight. We did a run through of how we are supposed to stand, which hand to hold the gloves, how and where to kiss her, etc. I’m sure I’ll forget all that the day of the event.

Finally, we headed to Starbucks for a nightcap and then went home collecting my packages on the way back. The last stop of the night was at Denya. I stopped in to chat with the gang about the second party. They are really looking forward to it, and they asked me all sorts of mysterious questions, including how much I weigh. Sounds scary.