In the afternoon I went over to Mr. Komuri’s house in Akashi to have a New Year’s soba party. He met me at the station and told me that unfortunately his sister and her family had fallen ill and couldn’t attend, so it was just me, him, and his son.

It was my first time meeting his son, who is a third year high school student at Akashi Nishi high school, the school right next to my apartment where Jane works. He was pretty good at English, and we had some good conversations.

Once again we brought out the soba noodle making materials, and this time it went really well. The soba was delicious. We also made gyoza (pot stickers) and cooked them right there on the table. By the time it was time to leave I was full – Mr. Komori kept trying to give me beer, and I didn’t want to turn him down.

After leaving him to prepare to entertain another set of New Year’s guests, I went to Akashi station and met up with Kuniko. She and I drove to Portopia Island, a man-made island where I had my mid-year conference. It’s just south of Sannomiya, and there is a theme park there. Theme parks are popular places to go for New Year’s Eve, especially with people in our age group.

We got there early and walked around a bit. It was interesting to see a Japanese theme park – it wasn’t owned by some American company like Universal Studios Japan or Disneyland. That being said, there was a distinctive European feel to it – and the whole place seemed like it was designed like somebody’s vision of an eastern European country.

One thing that was tough to deal with was the wind. It was pretty cold, and the wind was blowing hard enough to really chill out any exposed body parts. We kept our hands and faces buried in our jackets as we walked around, and during the rides it was particularly cold. Occasionally we would stop in the arcade to warm up. There were really interesting games there, including a horse race game where you actually ride a mechanical horse.

Finally just before midnight we gathered in front of a stage. They had an acapella group performing just before midnight, and one of the members is a friend of a friend of Kuniko’s. Sometime in January we are planning on going to see them in concert, and this was a free preview. They were pretty good, but Kuniko said that didn’t sound so great this time around.

Finally the moment of truth came, and they did a one minute countdown. At the stroke of midnight they let loose with 30 minutes worth of fireworks. It was great – fireworks in Japan are a little different than what I’m used to. Some of them seem a little more dangerous.

Freezing from head to toe we went back to the car to take off, and thanks to a good parking spot we got out of there quickly.

We came back to my place to spend the night, and tomorrow we’re going over to spend time with Kuniko’s family on New Year’s Day. It should be fun!

I was puttering around this morning on a rainy day and when I looked outside I observed that it is snowing! Not enough to collect on the ground, but it’s beautiful to watch the snowflakes fall. Did you know that there is no Japanese word for snowflakes?

All right, back to my breakfast. You can tell I’m from California, can’t you?

Kuniko and I woke up late this morning, and had a big breakfast of bagels and donuts. I had a little surprise when my donut was actually stuffed with shrimp and mayonnaise – it wasn’t really a donut, more of a pastry. Unexpected, but delicious!

We gathered her stuff together and I walked her to Tsuchiyama station – she was heading over to Hoden station to meet up with her sister and go visit her folks for New Year’s. I’ll be over there on New Year’s Day, so it’ll be fun to catch up with everybody.

I went home and hit the books most of the day. In the evening I watched a couple of Seinfeld episodes from the DVD that my brother sent. Dinner was leftover patrol – fried rice, kimchee, and a quesadilla. Weird combination, but that’s leftover night for you.

Tomorrow I’m going to head over to Akashi for Mr. Komuri’s soba party. He said that it will be noisy party, but I’m not sure what he meant by that. It should be interesting. Afterwards Kuniko and I are planning to meet up and look for a good place to have a midnight party.

I had just written a long update about my trip yesterday to Kobe with Antoine, and another website caused my browser to crash, and I lost the whole entry. Now I’m left with an empty feeling and I don’t want to rewrite the whole thing. Instead, here’s the brief abstract:

Went to Sannomiya, bought lots of cheap warm clothes at Uniqlo, played pool with a semi-sick Antoine for a couple hours. Had a tiny diny at the Mexican restaurant (way too expensive for the portion size). Had another dinner at my favorite ramen place, and then I gave Antoine his Xmas present – a bottle of Wolf Blass Cab Sauv. Finally headed home, and Kuniko came over a little later. I hooked her up with more Xmas presents – a Japanese DVD and a Starbucks card.

There – boiled down into one paragraph. It’s so depressing when I write all that stuff and then I lose it. Ugh.

Today at work I showed up a little later so that the heater would be in full operation when I arrived, and that worked out just fine. Everyone was in a good mood because today is the last day of “work” for us before the New Year’s holiday.

The history teacher made a stop to catch up with me. He asked about what I did over Christmas weekend, and I told him “oh, lots of things. I went here and there. It was fun! How about you?”

Usually this works to change the topic, but he was pretty persistent.

“Where did you go?” he asked.

“Oh, various places. East of here,” I replied, looking for some breathing room.

“Which places did you visit?”

Finally, I said that it was a little rude to ask so many times, and maybe it’s a sign that the person doesn’t want to tell you. He understood then. He apologized, but I said that it was no problem. He really was onto something, which makes me think that he saw me somewhere, or just wanted to confirm a guess. Weird. I’d love to be able to tell the truth, that I spent time with Kuniko in Osaka, but we’re still in secret mode for the time being.

I jetted out of there after an hour or two and went home, where I did more studying through the day. I took a break to grab lunch at Ito Yokado, and the makings for a big pan of fried rice for dinner later on.

When dinner time rolled around I brought out the ingredients.

The most important ingredient is beer, and I picked four types of Kirin, and I had a leftover Suntory winter beer. Once I broke into the beer I could properly cook up the rice.

The rice had egg, grilled pork, mushrooms, snow peas, kimchee, and green onions in the mix, as well as plenty of garlic and good dose of seasoning salt. It turned out really well – I made enough for three or four meals, because it stores really well. I only drank two of the beers, actually, so I’ve got some extras for later.

After dinner I cleaned up and continued reading a book that I borrowed from my tutor Tsuji-san. It’s a kid’s book in Japanese, probably about third or fourth grade elementary school level. It’s still really tough – I have to have the dictionary right there to figure things out.

I think reading is definitely the best way for me to study Japanese. I’m always challenged by grammar and words that I don’t understand, but I’m also forced to recognize words in kanji that I’ve memorized a long time ago. I’ve got probably 15 or 20 sets of 100 flashcards that I’ve memorized in the past, but it’s getting to the point where it’s unwieldy to keep reviewing them. Reading is good because I will bump into these words a lot and it keeps them fresh in my mind.

I read for about an hour and a half, and then hit the rack. Tomorrow is a full day off, the start of many lasting until after the first of the year. Antoine and I are planning to meet up to shoot some pool. He’s been sick lately so we’ll be taking it easy. We might go catch some Mexican food at the restaurant in Kobe that I’ve been wanting to visit.

I went to work this morning, and I was the second person there besides the janitor, which is pretty damn early. Actually it’s the regular time I always go – the schedule is pretty light since we have no students. This week I only really have to show up twice, and then the official holidays start.

We got the heaters going and I sat down to do an hour or two of studying. Unfortunately, the heater nearest me ran out of kerosene, so the temperature started dropping again. The janitor promised to take care of it, but then I didn’t see him again for 40 minutes.

As people came in they all commented on the temperature, and everybody (and I mean everybody) asked me if it was OK to turn on the heater. It got to the point where I wanted to make a sign and put it on my desk.

Mr. Hayashi finally booked his flight to Korea, and is living tonight around nine p.m. He’s looking forward to the trip, if only to sit in a coffee shop all day and read Newsweek. Actually I think he’s hoping it will increase his family’s harmony – his solution is always to throw lots of money at his problems. He tells me that his wife and daughters will be happy after getting the chance to go shopping in Korea.

The history teacher had enough of the cold room and brought in the kerosene himself, but just at that time Mr. Hayashi and I made our move out the door, and I was home around lunchtime. I stopped in at Ito Yokado for a bowl of ramen, and then went home to study. I put in a couple hours, and also spent a little time playing Half Life 2, a game for my computer that my folks got me. It’s pretty fun – I haven’t played computer games in years.

I made up some potato and chive soup for dinner, with a lot of chipotle flavor thanks again to my family who have kept me well supplied in hot sauce.

I’m off to bed – tomorrow will be another short day at work, and then I’m hoping to get together with Antoine and find something fun to do.

Not much to report on this fairly quiet day after Christmas. I spent almost the whole day inside cleaning house. I did just a little of studying, but I’m waiting to go to school tomorrow to really get some work done.

This evening I made a trip to Okubo to do some shopping, and stopped in at Carrefour and Midori on the way home. Carrefour was really busy – I was surprised. Everytime I go in there it’s dead.

I made a simple rice dish with some meat that Ms. Miyake had given me last week, and it was really good – a flavored beef sauce that I heated and poured over the rice. That and a side of kimchee and I was all set.

My headache was much better today. There’s still the edge of it in the background, so a day of rest might have been a good thing.

Tomorrow I’m off to work, but it should be a short day. Mr. Hayashi recommended a short visit only. He’s going to be in Korea, so it’ll be Bryan on his own tomorrow. I need to remember to ask for a day off after the new year. Kuniko and I are planning a trip to go eat lots of crab at an inn she knows. Should be fun!

Merry Christmas! I woke up this morning around 11:30 – actually barely still in the morning category. I was dead tired after the late night pool antics.

I got cleaned up and organized, and then decided to open Christmas presents. My family had sent lots of stuff, so I got started tearing stuff open. I received a lot of cool stuff – DVDs from my brother, some new artwork from my parents, the Two Towers DVD from Nancy and Lynn, gloves from Kinsey, and lots of other stuff.

My parents had sent a light outer shell jacket to replace the one that had been stolen a while back. It was wrapped up in a small box – I was very surprised when I opened it. It’s a nice jacket – lightweight, but big enough to wear layers underneath. It’ll be great once the rainy season hits. The jacket Kuniko got me is great for the cold weather we’re having, so now I can finally stay warm during winter.

After opening presents I talked to my family on the phone, and we talked about the last couple days and all the great presents I got. Tomorrow they’ll open their presents, so I hope everything I sent made it OK.

For some reason I got a serious headache, and I was swallowing aspirin like candy trying to fight it off. I think it was caused by my glasses, because they are so old and the frames a slightly warped. Anyway, I struggled through, but I thought for a while that it might be time for a trip to the hospital. Ouch.

Later on that evening I went over to the yakitori to attend the softball team’s end of year party. There was a good turnout, and we toasted the year’s team and also a wished a very loud “Merry Christmas!” to everyone.

The master had created quite a spread of fish, meat, and soup. We made two big bowls of nabe, had lots of sashimi, and plenty of beers, sake, and sho-chu. The master also contributed a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau. He handed the opener to one of the guys, and it was the Thornton Winery opener that I had given him a while back. Free advertising in Japan!

We all drank lots, and there were lots of questions about how strong I was at drinking, how I reacted to different foods, and once again they called for me to join the softball team. I declined – that’s the last thing I want to do – throw my back out running around the bases.

Finally we wrapped things up and went our separate ways. They wouldn’t let me pay for anything, which was nice. I’m planning on having a party at my place sometime in January, so everyone is invited to have a Mexican meal.

It was a different Christmas for me, but a good one. I had a traditional Japanese meal and was able to participate and converse with seven drunk people in a foreign language. I’m sure next year’s Christmas will be just as interesting.

I took Christmas Eve off so that I didn’t have to report in to school early. That paid off big time because I could relax with Kuniko Friday morning and then pack up all my gear and leave. Kuniko was off to an interview, and then to serve her “prison term”, an in-school four day live-in seminar. Ugh.

I caught a train home, and had a painless trip back. Once I got back I spent the day relaxing, catching up on e-mails, and doing laundry. I got to cook up some leftovers from our Christmas feast, which was really nice.

For dinner I made Korean pork and rice, and then a little later I went over to the yakitori to have a beer and check to see if our Christmas party was still on. The master was in a good mood, and spent a lot of time with me trying to speak English. He’s been watching an English learning TV program, and he asked me a few questions. We chatted for about 45 minutes, and then I headed home.

Around 10:30 at night the master called me and asked if I was tired. I said that I was OK, so he invited me to join him and his part-time worker playing some late night billiards. I said sure, so I went over to the yakitori at around 11, and the master closed early for some recreation.

We closed up the shop and drove to a bowling place in south Kakogawa – I’m not sure what the name was, but it had the word “Funky” in it. It was a strange place – definitely the biggest bowling alley I’ve ever been in. They had five pool table for rent, and also some games and amusements. The setting was pretty shabby, though, and the late hour added to that feeling some hour.

We played a quick game of nine ball, alternating players. It was fun, but I taught them how to play “cutthroat”, and we played that the rest of the night. Three players can play at once, and it can be a good-spirited mean game. The part-time worker had been boasting of his ability all night, but he didn’t do any better than the rest of us. We all won our share of games, though.

Finally around two a.m. we left, and stopped at a 24 hour udon restaurant for some late night food and beer. After that, the master dropped me off at home and I went right to bed. I’m looking forward to the next pool game night. The part-time guy was already saying he was preparing for a “revenge game”.

Since Kuniko is stuck at school from Christmas Eve until the 27th, we decided to do our Christmas today. We got up this morning and Kuniko cooked me “medamayaki” (fried eggs in the Japanese style), and then we headed out to Umeda.

We’ve both been having lots of trouble finding gifts for each other. I had been looking for a bathrobe for Kuniko for the longest time, but size was a problem – I couldn’t find the right size anywhere. Kuniko was also having trouble coming up with something for me. Christmas is a little different in Japan, more of a romantic holiday, so she hasn’t had a lot of practice buying Christmas presents. In the end we decided that we’d go shopping together and find something for each other together.

We looked at jackets in a couple of stores and it was tough finding one that was my size. Also, there were some pretty expensive jackets out there – with Gore-Tex they can get pretty pricey. I knew what I wanted specifically, so I was pretty picky. Finally, I saw the one I wanted in a Timberland store. I tried it on and it fit well. It had all the features I wanted and wasn’t as expensive as some of the others out that we were looking at.

Kuniko insisted on buying it for me as a Christmas gift. I thought it was too expensive for her to pay for the whole thing, but she insisted – pushing me physically out of the way to pay for the thing. She had the clerk wrap it as a present, and we took it out of there.

Now as you are reading this, remember this point in the story. This is the point where I screwed up. I’ll explain later. Remember this point. OK?

Next we went to buy some of the ingredients for our Christmas dinner. We went from store to store. We got a cheap fondue set, some fondue cheese, a roasted ham, a bottle of champagne, and a couple of salads. We had to jump from store to store to find them, but eventually we collected everything.

Next stop was to pick up the Christmas cake. Like Kentucky Fried Chicken, Christmas cake is a big Christmas tradition in Japan. Kuniko had made a reservation for a cream cake, and we picked it up at the store. They were set up for volume – just about everyone was going to come pick up a Christmas cake in the next couple days.

Now that we had our arms full of stuff, most of it needing to be refrigerated, I suggested that we head back and put it in the fridge.

Well, as you see, we still hadn’t gone shopping for Kuniko, and we both misunderstood each other. We talked it out later, and really I should have taken her shopping at the point mentioned above. We rarely have miscommunications, and this was a big one. Her feeling were a little hurt, and I felt really bad.

Once we dropped everything off at her place, we went back to Umeda to do some shopping for her present. As luck would have it, we found a great bathrobe at “Mujirushiryohin” (No Label Goods) store. I also got her a sweater that she picked out. Later she tried out wearing the bathrobe and it worked out great, so I think it was a pretty good gift.

We took our gear back to her place and started on dinner. The dinner turned out great. The fondue was awesome – we used French bread and Dutch crunch, and it was definitely my favorite. The ham was good too. We tried dipping it in the fondue as well, and it was a good match.

We opened our presents, from each other (not a big surprise) and also Kuniko opened presents from my family. She’s never really had a Christmas like this, and I think she was a little overwhelmed by all the gifts. She was really happy with everything she got. For dessert we ate the Christmas cake, which was rich, creamy, and delicious. It was a good match with the champagne – finally we crashed out with full stomachs.

Today I came back to a very curious group of co-workers. Everyone was asking me where I was, what I was doing, who I was doing it with. I told them it was top secret, which only made them that much more interested. Mr. Hayashi was dying to know, and he ventured a few guesses to see how I would react. If they knew what I was doing they wouldn’t be so excited.

I had three classes today, and Mr. Kimura and I had our last classes together. He was really excited about wrapping things up. Once we finished, I went back to the teacher’s room to relax. I had given out a couple of Christmas presents today to the people I usually drink with, a bottle of Anchor Steam Holiday Ale for each of them.

I took off early with Mr. Komuri and Mr. Hayashi to have a last coffee. Mr. Hayashi wanted to know what I was doing over the holidays, and didn’t seem to buying my “nothing special” answers. I just finally told them that I was going East.

After coffee I was out the door and on my way home to pack up and organize my gear for my trip to see Kuniko. Shortly afterwards I was on the train to Kobe to meet up with her. We met up at Sannomiya station, and then went south to check out the Luminaries.

I’ve heard that the Luminaries were created to attract people to Kobe after the earthquake. It’s a big draw now, with people coming there from all over Japan. It’s beautiful, but there’s always a big crowd. We waited for about half an hour for the crowd to get moving, and then we walked through. On our way we stopped in a few stores to look at jackets – I’ve been looking for a replacement since my old favorite got stolen from school.

After the Luminaries, we went north of Sannomiya to put in a reservation at a dim sum restaurant that we like. Unfortunately the waitress said the wait was an hour and a half, so we left our phone number and went to go have a drink.

We had a couple of Hoegaardens at another place that I’ve been before, and I showed Kuniko the way to crack a peanut. We cracked peanuts for at least an hour, and then we decided to head to the restaurant and wait there for the last half hour. Unfortunately, when we got there we waited for another whole hour.

Kuniko noticed that they seated some people in front of us that had come in after us, and by the time we sat down we were pretty bummed. We were starved and it was almost nine o’clock. We ate big – it’s all you can eat – and when we had our fill we finally headed home to Kuniko’s place in Osaka.

I went to Akashi station this morning, which is the opposite direction of my usual commute. It was a little surreal to be standing on the other side of the platform and seeing all the people I usually stand with on the other side. They were looking at me like, “dude, you’re on the wrong side.”

I took the train to Akashi a little early, so after I did a little recon on the proper bus stop, I went into Mister Donut for a couple of donuts and an iced milk. The person ringing me up asked me in English if I wanted to eat here or take it away, and so I conducted the rest of the transaction in English. I could tell she was happy to be able to speak English, and it was a good reminder that sometimes it’s best to be a foreigner and act like one, too.

After my donuts I got in line for the bus to Yashiro, and I saw Chelsea, and ALT from the next town looking around for the right bus. I flagged her down and we figured out that we both had the same top-secret mission.

We had lots of time to chat on the long bus ride to Yashiro. Chelsea came to Japan with her husband and son at the same time I did, and so we have a lot of shared experiences. She comes from Wellington, in New Zealand, and I’m already thinking about a trip to visit them when they leave the program. They are really nice people, and they have a great outlook on life.

Once we got to Yashiro, Mr. Hasegawa picked us up and briefed us on our assignment, consulting on the entrance exam for Hyogo high school students. We went over the exam carefully, over and over again, to make sure that all the questions were fair and that everything sounded natural. It was tough because some of the natural English that we were used to had not yet been learned by the students. It’s a careful process because this exam will be taken by more than 30,000 students in March, and the exam will be published in newspapers for everyone to see (and critique) later on.

After a full day of reviewing the exam we took the bus back to Akashi. I toured a new store that had opened recently with Chelsea, and then she went off to a class.

I decided to treat myself a little bit, so I went down the street and downstairs to a little sushi restaurant that Komuri sensei has taken me to a couple of times. I sat down and the sushi master knew already that I was a bit of a neophyte. He helped me through the selections, and I used some of my new vocabulary to order some sushi. As always, it was delicious, and there were two young women there with their mother who were watching me carefully to see if I would drop my chopsticks.

I had octopus, shrimp, tuna, tai, yellowtail, and cod. I also got a free sample from one of the ladies of abalone. The abalone was great – I tried to order some more but the master was sold out. Next time.

Afterwards I went off to Donkey to throw a few darts. I ordered up a Guinness, and the master poured me a free glass of sake that I had commented on. The liquid in the bottle was cloudy – it looked like milk. It was the raw form of sake, unfiltered and pretty strong. It was my first time trying it, and I liked it.

I played darts with a couple of the Donkey team members, and surprisingly, I won. I got out of there quickly before they could start trying to recruit me for the team again.

Now I’m back at home and I need to get organized for a busy couple of days. Tomorrow is my last day of the week. I’ll have four days in a row off, because of Christmas. I’m going to meet Kuniko tomorrow night in Kobe, and we’ll have a good time doing some Christmas shopping (for each other) and sightseeing before going back to her place in Osaka. Thursday is the Emperor’s birthday, so we’ve got another holiday. Kuniko has to work during Christmas so we’ll celebrate our Christmas on Thursday.

Today I went into work and had a relatively busy day – three classes. Two of my classes were listening to “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” which was OK for me the first few times, but I’m rapidly approaching the breaking point. The other teachers only listen to it a couple of times, I get it ten times. How do DJ’s do it?

During the morning break the principal called me into his office alone, which is really weird since he doesn’t speak English and I can understand about 20% of what he says in Japanese. The gist of it is that I’m working for the prefecture again tomorrow. I can’t tell anyone, even the vice-principal, who is normally in the loop on these things. He gave me a faxed document that said some strange things.

Tomorrow I’m going to Yashiro, which is pretty far away. There was no mention of what I will be doing, but I’m supposed to bring my bank book and my personal seal. That’s really weird – why would I bring those? It’s even more hush hush this time around, and I have no idea why. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

After school Mr. Hayashi discovered 3000 yen in the ESS budget that we had to burn before the end of the month, so we went over to the 100 yen store and went nuts. We got lots of stuff that will be useful for the ESS club – colored paper, audio tapes, Christmas decorations, a Santa Suit (only $1!) and other things of dubious quality.

Afterwards we had an hour or so to kill so we went over to the coffee shop. Mr. Hayashi lately has been telling me all about how to date a Japanese woman. I think he’s convinced that I’m dating my Monday Japanese tutor, Tsuji-san. Maybe that’s because it’s the only woman that he knows I associate with outside of work. Anyway, he’s been giving me a lot of advice today, and some of the nuggets of wisdom are truly amazing.

For example, he says that most Japanese women are not used to hearing the words “I Love You”, and so if you say that, they will swoon. He says that if you take a girl out to dinner twelve times she will see that you are interested, and start having feelings for you. He said that Japanese women are really very tolerant and will let you get away with all kinds of things. He cited his own wife for example, and the fact that he frequently has drinks or dinner with single women without a problem. He says that if he does that more than three nights in a row, he gets in trouble though.

There’s lots more where that came from, but I didn’t want to encourage him by asking questions.

We went back to school and I got my gear together and went over for my Japanese lesson. I found myself speaking Japanese for a little longer this time, and then I read Tsuji-san “The Polar Express” so she could get an idea of how to pronounce the words. She’s going to read it to her students (high school students) later this week to get them ready for Christmas.

I’m definitely an inside shopper at Ito Yokado now. One of my favorite places to visit is the meat counter, where the two ladies that work there know me by sight. I walk up and they both say “hello” and “how are you” and “the pork is really good today”. I know a lot about roasted pork now.

Today I asked for about 100 grams, and she did a nice move where she weighed out 100 grams, printed the sticker, and then put another 100 grams or so in the container. I think she said that it was going on discount soon anyway. Thanks!

Now I’m off to bed – tomorrow is my secret mission!

We slept in big time this morning and didn’t get rolling until around 11 o’clock or so. Our plan was to catch a movie in Ibaraki, the next big town northwest of Osaka. It was my first time to go there, and to add an element of danger, Kuniko mentioned that her students often go shopping there on weekends.

Kuniko led me through the streets of Ibaraki to a big shopping plaza, and there we went upstairs to buy tickets to “The Terminal”, a new (in Japan) Tom Hanks/Spielberg movie. As we waited in the long line, it was getting close to getting sold out, with the next movie almost five hours later. We really wanted to see it, but we didn’t want to have to kill that much time in a shopping center. We went down to the wire, and we ended up getting tickets in the front row.

Since we had about an hour to kill before the movie we went to the nearby food plaza and had Korean food. We signed up for a table, and then I led Kuniko over to play one of those crazy “whack-a-mole” games where you hit the little things that pop up in an attempt to get a higher score than your opponent. As usual, Kuniko won.

When we went back to the Korean place the our name was already crossed out and they were seating the next people. We made ourselves visible, and they seated us right away.

For lunch we had three different dishes – some meat and vegetables cooked over a big iron plate on your table, a Korean pastry made from cheese and potatoes, and we split a big bowl of Bibinba. We barely made it out of there we were so full – but it was delicious.

We went back to catch the movie, and boy was that screen big. I got used to it after a while, but it was pretty tough at first. The movie itself was pretty good – I really enjoyed the story and even though it was a tough to believe in Tom Hanks’ Eastern European accent, eventually you got used to it. I especially enjoyed the parts early in the show where they had miscommunication problems, probably because they hit so close to home.

After the show we did a little shopping and had a cup of coffee together. We also split a piece of cake aptly titled, “Chocolate Explosion”. It tasted better than it sounds.

Kuniko and I parted ways on the platform of Shin-Osaka station, and I rode the crowded train back through Kobe all the way home. The trains are busy lately because of the Luminarie light show in Kobe. Kuniko and I made an appointment to see it together on Wednesday night.

I slept in this morning after staying up so late the night before. Mostly I spent the day cleaning house and doing a little studying.

In the afternoon I packed a backpack and headed into Osaka to meet up with Kuniko. I had originally planned on stopping in to buy a new textbook in Umeda, and then going on to Kuniko’s house. As it turns out, thanks to the wonder of mobile phone technology, we met up in Umeda and we went shopping together.

Shopping at the big bookstore in Umeda is always interesting, especially around the English book section. There’s always lots of foreigners walking around, and everyone is really friendly. I out-maneuver a few people to get the textbook I wanted. There were two I was looking for, but they only had the one. I took a quick glance through it and it looks manageable, but not too easy.

From there we went back to Kuniko’s place on the JR line, and you could barely hear us talking over the growl of our stomachs. We ordered in a pizza, and I unwrapped the insulation from the two big cans of beer that I brought. The pizza was really interesting – four different types of pizza on one. There was a spicy section with jalapenos, an egg section with cheese, egg and broccoli, a standard pizza section, and then an Italian section with lots of spices and good Parmesan cheese. Very nice.

We’re leaning towards seeing a movie tomorrow, but it depends on when we wake up. It’ll be nice to sleep in!