Today was the second and last day of the seminar in Kobe. I was again responsible for moderating two morning workshops, and I spent that time with my Japanese English teacher directing the participants to organize skits and perform them. I did my best and we were able to finish up 15 minutes early, so everyone from my group had a little longer lunch.

Before the break we had to choose our favorite group to perform in front of the whole conference later in the afternoon. Everyone did their worst, hoping to avoid being in the spotlight. Essentially we voted for the people that did the worst poor job that they could. There’s a lot at work here besides stage fright. The Japanese members of the groups didn’t want to have to go up and speak English in front of all their peers for fear of making a fundamental mistake – it seems that it’s much safer to keep quiet than to try and fail. This, I feel, is one of the big reasons that Japanese people in general have a hard time with English.

As we were leaving one of the Japanese teachers pulled me aside and said that I had done a great job. It was a nice compliment because it was so unexpected. I noticed that people in the workshop would see me later and give me a bigger smile and treat me with a little more respect.

In the afternoon the best skits were performed onstage, and then all the helpers took the stage for a quick thank you. Finally, we wrapped things up with a meeting with Hasegawa sensei, the big boss. A special surprise, though, when the even bigger boss, who wore no name tag and was therefore unnamed came in and said thanks to all of us. The way the other Japanese teachers reacted, you could tell he was a big wig. I think he even had a security guy with him. He ominously said that next year we may very well get another phone call to help out.

Nel, Antoine, and I detached ourselves from the area and made tracks to Kobe Harborland. I didn’t have my camera, but Antoine did, and he’ll send me pictures later. The area was all decorated for Christmas, and things were just beautiful. We reached the waterfront and took some pictures of the Kobe skyline – very dramatic in the darkening partly cloudy weather.

Below us a party boat was loading up several hundred schoolgirls for some kind of school excursion or dinner. It was quite a sight to see all these girls in sailor uniforms getting on a boat and sailing off.

We snacked on some food at a cafe, and then went over to the amusement park area and rode of the mini-coaster – a $4 ride that was actually pretty good. I barely fit in the car – this thing was tiny.

We ended up at a really classy bar, the only patrons for the evening. This place was top-notch, and when I ordered an Irish cofee they brewed the coffee right in front of you, directly into your glass. I recommended a White Russian for Antoine, and soon Nel was ordering one too. The drinks were beautiful – the ice cubes were block sized and custom made for the size of the glass. When they put a large spoonful of cream on top of their iced drinks – it was froze up into an alcoholic ice cream drink.

We split up from there, with Antoine going to Sannomiya to meet up with Miwako, and Nel and I heading to our homes. It was a busy couple of days, but now I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend with Kuniko. We’ll meet up in Osaka tomorrow and I will be looking for some big foot shoes.

Today was the mid-year seminar for all the Assistant Language Teachers in my prefecture. I was lassoed into helping out this year, so that meant that I had to go in early, and leave late. Bummer.

I got there early and met with other lucky(?) people. We got a brief explanation of our roles. We were expected to handle registration, and then moderate the discussions in the afternoon. We were paired with a Japanese English teacher, and together it was our job to run things. I knew I was in trouble when the Japanese teacher said, “Oh, I’m so glad that I’m paired with an ALT – you can do all the talking!”

Registration went just fine. Mr. Yamamoto, the teacher representing my school came in late, and left early. Sneaky guy, that one. During the speeches we had a short meeting with Mr. Hasegawa, the head honcho, and then we got an early start walking to the building where they hold the workshops.

My JTE partner, Ms. Shiomomori, and I had lunch at a soba place and talked over our strategy. The more we talked, the more I realized that I was going to be running the show. In the end we had about 60 participants, and I had to keep them on schedule and communicating effectively. Two years ago I would have balked at the task, but after being in front of a bunch of crazy high school students, this was easy. I cracked all kinds of obscure jokes, and just tried to enjoy myself and be natural.

After a very busy day of workshopping, I met up with Antoine and Nel and we went out to a Thai restaurant near Chinatown in southern Motomachi. The place had a great atmosphere, with water running in resevoirs throughout the restaurant. They had built bridges inside the restaurant to cross the resevoirs, and the ambiance was really nice.

Thai food was great – especially the coconut curry. From there we walked back to the train station and went to Akashi to hit Donkey. The place was packed – they were having a Gamay Beaujolais party. They had a small barrel of Beaujolais, and everyone was drinking heavily. Since we didn’t have a reservation we ordered beer at the bar, and watched all the fun. Unfortunately the dart board was blocked by the party, but the master assured us that we could play at nine o’clock.

To kill time we drank a lot. Antoine was drinking an angry beverage from Okinawa that was really strong, and Nel and I drank beer. We struck up a conversation with one of the regulars, who insisted on buying us several rounds. A drunken woman started talking with Antoine, and her language was really bad. She seemed to know only a couple of phrases – “Fucking A”, “I’m melting!” and “Sex In The City”. She tried hard to introduce us to the master’s daughter who was working that night. She also introduced us to a friend of hers who she claimed wore a bra with an “F” cup. She said that they were “F”uji sized.

I think it was Nel who came up with the idea to say that we were all gay dancers. We all have wives and girlfriends and we weren’t interested at all in the advances from the master’s daughter and the drunken lady. Throughout the evening Nel kept saying that we were all gay dancers, and so we weren’t interested. Everybody liked the term “gay dancer” and used it over and over again, enjoying the chance to use some contemporary English.

Our friend who was buying us drinks didn’t seem to mind hanging out with a gay dance troupe, so we played quite a few games of darts and had a good time. Finally, we had enough, so we got out of there. On the way out, the master’s daughter gathered up the courage to ask me if I was really a gay dancer. Since I go in there more than some of the other guys, I had to tell the truth, and she looked relieved. Now our secret is out. We’re not gay!

We walked back and said goodbye until tomorrow. We’ve got one more seminar, and then it’s the weekend. Boo-yah.

I’ve been wanting to write about how different the idea of touching someone else is here in Japan, and today one of my students forced the issue for me. I was groped by a student. More shocking – it was a boy.

When I first arrived in Japan, I was a little shocked to see women walking hand in hand down the street. To me, that meant that there was a certain level of intimacy between them. As it turns out, it’s perfectly common here, and I’ve grown used to the sight of women holding hands, holding each other’s arms, etc.

When I got to the classroom, I noticed that the behavior extended to the boys as well. Boys in my classroom sit on each others laps, drape their arms over their friend’s shoulders, and get really comfortable with each other physically.

Again, I was pretty surprised. Things are different here. In a culture where homosexuality is very rare, things like giving your classmate a neck massage in the middle of a lesson aren’t nearly as provocative.

Today in class one of my students was all over me – he was feeling my chest, my arms, my stomach, and generally trying to get an idea of the muscle tone in my body. Before I could say no thanks, he had made a pretty thorough evaluation. I’ve been touched before by other students both male and female. One of my students cannot resist reaching out and touching me every time we pass in the hall. This was a weird experience, but more weird in that nobody else found it strange at all.

Even though I’ve been here a year, the sight of members of the same sex touching each other like that still surprises me, and I suppose it’ll take some time to get used to.

This evening I went over to the yakitori for dinner after my tutoring lesson. I had a great time chatting with the master. We are going to try to arrange a dinner one of these nights. He wants to invite the entire softball team over, and I imagine that the noise from that size of party would get me kicked out of the teacher apartments for sure.

He also invited me to a year-end party in the yakitori on Christmas night. Kuniko is going to be stuck at school that night, and since I’ve got no special plans for Christmas, I might as well head over to the yakitori and participate in a drunken bonanza.

Tomorrow and the next day I’m going to be attending a conference in Kobe, and I’ve been tapped to help out with the organizing and moderating some workshops. As I told one of my teachers – it’s not often that my name is mentioned in the same breath as the word “moderation”. He just stared at me and waited for the punchline.

Usually I write down what happens to me during the day, and if there are some interesting stories along the way, I relate them. Along with the occasional interesting story comes a lot of run-of-the-mill day to day stuff that is less than exciting. The result is that these pages are pretty factual and there’s not a lot of information about what’s going on in Japan, what I’m thinking about these days, or what things are driving me as a person.

Over the last few days I’ve been toying with the idea of a change. I thought about stopping the daily updates, and doing it only when something significant happens, or when the need to write strikes me. I thought about dropping the weblog altogether, and focusing on other things.

This afternoon at school I came up with the idea of continuing the daily updates, but focusing less on the strict reporting of facts, and instead take a more general view of the day and what’s been going on. I’m not sure if there’s enough information to do something every day, and I’m not sure if I have the skill to come up with an interesting short essay every day.

While writing down what happened every day seems difficult, it’s really the easy way out. I can skip the things that I don’t want to talk about, and I never have a lack of material, since I just try to remember what I did in the last 12 hours.

For the next few weeks I’ll be experimenting on a new style of writing, and I hope you’ll bear with me. The worst case scenario is that it becomes a pain and I go back to “just the facts”.

Speaking of “just the facts”, I did have some interesting classes today. My second year students have been working on a presentation project all of this term, and so today the first half of all the classes performed “on stage”. The students did a much better job than I expected, and I told them so. Some of the highlights:

One skit was two baseball commentators calling the game in which Ichiro Suzuki set the record. It was great – they did a deep loud voice, and they even had a guy being Ichiro. He went through all the motions of making the hit, and he ran around the stage while the class cheered. They really put in a lot of effort.

On the other end of the effort scale, two students came up with the script written on paper. I had told the class that they had to memorize their script, but I was worried that something like this would happen. The other teacher, Mr. Yamamoto, had the great idea that all of the other students would evaluate and comment on the performances. When I got back all the sheets, people had written mean comments to the pair who didn’t bother to memorize, and they got a low score. It worked really well.

Another group of three had what at first seemed to be a very boring skit involving buying a digital camera. At one point the whole class was surprised when the customer and clerk got in an argument, and the “clerk” punched the departing “customer” in the back. For real. I heard the thump from the back of the classroom, and the kid almost went down, even though he was expecting a punch. I hope he didn’t crack a rib or anything.

In other groundbreaking news, I’m starting a diet tomorrow. Tonight in the interest of killing off leftovers, I ate way too much. The thing was that I wasn’t really that hungry, but I had food that needed to be eaten, and it was dinner time, so I ate it. Now I’m sitting here with a full stomach wondering why I did that. The diet is pretty simple – I’ll eat when I’m hungry. Actually, it’s a little more complex than that, but I’m sure you’ll hear plenty more about it later on.

Lastly, I’m sitting at my desk wearing sweats, socks, and trying to keep my slippered feet off the cold floor. I’m looking through the living room out the window and there is a beautiful crescent moon perfectly aligned with my field of vision. The sky is clear and cold, and tomorrow is supposed to be even colder. Time to drag out the heater.

The temperature continues to drop in my part of Japan, and this morning I had the pleasure of a walk to work in the cold and the rain. Usually if it’s raining it’s cloudy, and usually when it’s cloudy it’s warmer, but today it was pretty chilly.

I had a wide variety of classes today, some old and some new. I also had a Japanese lesson from Mr. Hayashi that went really well. We talked strategy on how I will study after I take the exam in early December. I’ll need to study hard after that exam to prepare for the next year, and we talked about some of the ways to do it.

It seemed like all the teachers were tired today, and I was no exception, having been deprived of one of my weekend days. On Thursday and Friday of this week I’ll be in Kobe attending a conference, but the good news is that I’ll be able to come home at night and sleep in my own bed.

When I got home tonight I made a caesar salad, had some roasted pork, and a side of Korean rice. What a feast. As soon as I finished I got an e-mail from Yasu inviting me to go over to the yakitori with him for dinner. Bad timing. We’re going to try to go sometime next week since I’ll be in Kobe at the end of this week.

The master of the yakitori called just a few minutes ago – he was checking in to see how I was doing. He hasn’t seen me since the matsuri, and I think he was a little worried. I’ve been a good boy and haven’t been eating out – and I’ve been so busy that I’ve been neglecting my duties. I promised him that I’d drop by soon. I’m thinking I might head over there after my lesson on Wednesday.

Well, I’m off to bed early. It’s getting cold in my apartment, and that giant warm comforter is calling to me.

Today was the STEP test, another way to make easy money in Japan. I went to work a little early and helped with some of the setup. We gathered all of the interviewers around a big square table and did introductions. One of the best parts of the introductions is that Mr. Hayashi introduces some people, and he’s always saying funny things about them. Some of them are true, some are part true, and most of them are weird. He likes to use obscure English that nobody in the room is likely to know (like “lingua franca”).

He was also very sly in having all the interviewers that are not qualified to sit facing me. That way later he could point them out easily. They are all in via a grandfather clause, but Mr. Hayashi would love to get rid of them. He tries to make them as uncomfortable as possible, by asking them to introduce themselves in English, conducting the instructions in English, and generally trying to shake them up any chance he gets. The problem is that the money is so good that they are willing to put up with quite a lot.

My interviews went well, and I had quite a few of my own students trying to pass the interview test. Some of them I had been training over the last few weeks, and they were relieved to see me in the interviewer’s seat. I didn’t give them a free ride though, and I’m sure they’re going to give me a hard time tomorrow. Still, I don’t want them to think they only passed because they were lucky enough to have me as an interviewer.

One guy came in and passed the test with flying colors. I got the impression that he was either an English teacher or someone from headquarters doing a quality control check.

Another student was in second or third grade of elementary school, but did pretty well. Some girls would smile at me and giggle and hope that would soften me up, and some boys stared at me expectantly like I would give them the correct answer because they wanted it so bad. An interesting mix.

We wrapped up the day, and Mr. Hayashi gathered Miss Yamamoto and I and we went to Sannomiya to have our ceremonial post-STEP dinner. We met Mr. Kimura in Sannomiya and then went to the restaurant. Originally Mr. Hayashi had planned to invite a girl that’s been helping out, but he chickened out at the last minute because he thought his wife would figure it out.

Dinner at Graciani’s was fabulous as usual. We had the roasted duck, and some great warmup dishes including a lot of fresh crabmeat and apple shavings wrapped in smoked salmon. I had a couple of glasses of wine, and we joked around and had a good time. I had everyone scrambling for their dictionaries when I called Mr. Hayashi “cantankerous“. He actually called himself “hard headed”, and I said “cantankerous”, and nobody knew what that meant. I was a little embarrassed when the dictionary translation came out a little harsher than I thought it would be.

Mr. Kimura and I took the train home for Kobe, but the line was delayed because of a broken signal somewhere, so we had to wait an extra 20 minutes or so. Now I’m home with an extra 20,000 yen – it’ll come in handy when I finally get a DVD burner. My poor computer is chock full and I need to make some space.

I was definitely enjoying the chance to sleep in this morning. I kind of drifted out of sleep around 7:50 in the morning. I was savoring the chance to lay there in bed with nothing to do, and gradually I noticed that there was an unusual amount of noise coming from people outside. Apparently today was a cleaning day, and I had ten minutes to get out there and help.

A couple of strategies went through my mind, including just laying there and pretending I wasn’t home. The only bad thing about that would be that I would have to hide for a while afterwards, too. In the end I just got up, threw on some work clothes and went outside to help.

I worked outside for about an hour, raking the occasional leaf, and then checked my name off the list and went inside. I spent the morning cleaning house and then called my folks and talked with them for a while. It sounds like their kitchen is taking much longer than they expected. It must be frustrating for them.

Kuniko got off work early, so she came to visit around 3 o’clock. We went over to Ito Yokado and picked up some groceries, and I got a fresh papaya to send back with her to her parents. They’ve sent me stuff lately, so I wanted to send something back.

Back home I cooked up some chicken breasts, sauteed in olive oil with lots of Italian spices. I also sauteed up some mushrooms, and Kuniko made up a big salad for us to share. For dessert we had cream puffs that Kuniko had brought as a present.

Throughout the visit Kuniko and I reflected on being together for just about a year now. The time really flies – we went on my website and looked up our first date. The changes in my life are well-documented on these pages, but Kuniko also has had a big year. She became a full time English teacher, she moved to Osaka, she got engaged to a foreign guy, she went to Australia, she passed the top level of the STEP test. What will next year be like?

Kuniko wanted to get back to her parents’ place to stay there, and it seemed like a good plan since I have to get up early tomorrow morning to do the STEP interviews at Takasago Minami. It’s getting pretty cold outside, so I made a couple of big cups of cocoa, spiked with Kahlua, and then we hit the road.

I saw Kuniko off at the Tsuchiyama station, and I just got home. I’m off to bed soon – it was a good day.

Friday – oh yeah. Nice. Today I had four classes, and I even had a free lunch. The vice-principal paid for me and Mr. Urakami (the history teacher) to take the two junior high school students out to lunch at the cafeteria. Prompted in Japanese by Urakami sensei, they asked me a couple of questions. I could tell they’d rather be eating their lunch in peace.

Mr. Hayashi and I taught a class together, and this one went much better. He caught the interest of about half the class early on, and then used me to bounce ideas off of – it worked well. He really changed his style. Is he reading this?

I had a real challenge in my first period class. Ms. Tsutsumi (who usually splits the class and teaches in another room) was gone in the morning, so not only was I teaching one classroom in a foreign language, I had to teach two classrooms in Japanese. That was quite an adventure. I would set one group on a project, and then go check on the other group and make sure they were being quiet and busy. I was tired afterwards, but I think it went OK.

After school Mr. Urakami had arranged for me to catch a ride with someone over to Amuse to have a small party. Everyone bailed out on him, though. He talked another teacher into joining us – a really nice teacher that is coming out of his shell. I don’t know his name, since I don’t really run in his circle, but after tonight I’ll be speaking more with him. He’s got some great English skills, and he’s not afraid of using them. Once we got him talking we couldn’t get him to be quiet. We indoctrinated him in the English phrase “Sausage Party”. Mr. Urakami’s female target cancelled (smart girl), so it was just the three of us.

Dinner was excellent. Once again the history teacher had phoned ahead and we had plenty of food. Fresh sushi, a spanish omelet, pizza, pork ribs, spaghetti, spicy grilled shrimp, and a beef and mushroom stew. Wow. The shrimp were really good – it turns out that one of the regulars of the restaurant owns a shrimp company, and he had supplied them.

We had a couple of beers, and I finished the evening with a vodka tonic. Urakami sensei was really drinking a lot, and the more he drank, the more he complained. I let him vent and I think he felt much better. I urged him to talk to a lady that was sitting at the bar alone, but he was too shy. Finally as we were leaving he said hello, and they had a little mini-conversation. Good for him.

As we left the owner gave us a big box of cake and a big chunk of BBQ pork. We flipped a coin for it, and I won the pork. It’s going to be a giant pork sandwich for lunch tomorrow!

Today was a quiet day at school, especially where I sit. I’m in the first year teacher’s section, but all of them were at Universal Studios Japan with all of the first year students. I would have gone too, but I had a bunch of classes to teach. It turns out that I was lucky I skipped it – it was raining all day and I heard it was a little miserable for the students.

I had two classes with Mr. Hayashi, and the first one was with a small group of second year students. He always complains that the class is sleeping during his lectures, but he often has side conversations with the two girls that sit in front. The rest of the class just shrugs and does other things, until he finishes his conversations. Then he tries to get them to pay attention. Sometimes he’ll only lecture for 30 seconds or so, and then he’ll talk to the girls again. The class is used to it, but it’s pretty boring for me. I just stand there and wait patiently.

The history teacher asked me to come and visit with two junior high school students that are working in our library for the week. I chatted with them in English, and the history teacher moderated for us. They had lots of questions ranging from the political (Who did you want to win the election?) to the personal (Do you have a girlfriend?). It was fun – and I asked them a couple of questions which they answered in Japanese.

Tomorrow the history teacher wants me to eat lunch with them in the school cafeteria. That should be interesting. The vice-principal is buying, though, so who am I to turn down a free meal.

After school Mr. Hayashi sat down with me to kill some time and offer me some dating tips. I listened patiently and nodded in all the right places – he’s got a pretty scary outlook on relationships. Enough said. He wants me to ask out another ALT that works with Yamamoto sensei in Kakogawa. Yikes!

I came home tonight and had a nice big chef’s salad for dinner. Oranges are on sale at Ito Yokado so my dessert was three tiny oranges – delicious. Tomorrow is a full day of classes, and then the history teacher’s party in Kakogawa.

Today was almost a regular day at school, except that the last two periods were reserved for a speech by a Tibetan lady who is now living in Japan. The theme of the speech was not so political, more just a speech about being aware of how good Japanese students have it.

The speech opened with a video that she had shot with some friends on a visit to a school in Tibet. It was really well done. It wasn’t professionally done – and it was chopped together rather crudely, so transitions were abrupt and a little disorienting. Somehow it added to the flavor, and you felt like you were there. From the video taken from the passenger seat of the Land Rover climbing the steep mountainside, to the grinning schoolkids pushing to get into the camera shot – lots of great stuff.

The school was very primitive, with dirt floors. The students were studying not only their own language, but Chinese and English as well. They were reading outside the classroom during breaks – every one of them reading out loud at the top of their lungs.

After the movie, the speaker told stories about her arrival in Japan. She had met a Japanese man in Tibet and they got married and came back here. She’s been here ten years, and her Japanese was fantastic. I understood about 40% of it.

Following her speech she sang two Tibetan folk songs, and then did a Japanese song. The students were patient throughout the presentation, and didn’t cause any disruptions. I thought it was a great way to show the students that there is more to their world than just Japan.

I went home around the regular time, and then went over to Azusa’s to tutor her in English. Her brother and sister-in-law were there, and they looked surprised when I popped in for an hour. They didn’t speak any English, so I introduced myself in Japanese, but they were both really shy.

On the way home I walked through Carrefour and saw some shirts and shoes that may be a little closer to my size. Later in the month I think I’ll go visit and do a little shopping. Carrefour was close to deserted – I don’t know how long they are going to be able to stay open. Ito Yokado is rarely deserted, even late at night.

I came home and made a quick bowl of corn soup for dinner, and now I’m off to bed. Tomorrow the first year students are going to Universal Studios Japan, so a third of the school will be gone.

What a weird day. It was a good one, but weird. We had another open high school day, and that meant that the place was crawling with prospective students again. After yesterday’s presentation, everyone was telling me how great it was, especially the part with me in it. I’m in it? What? Today I attended the presentation to watch.

They had an introduction by the jazz band – they sounded great. They did two songs, and then some students came in to do some dance numbers. This morning I was chatting with a group of girl students that were on clean-up patrol in the teacher’s room. They told me that I had to watch them dance in the presentation. They were struggling for the right word, and so they asked Mr. Hayashi to translate. He said “transvestite”, and the girls proudly told me that they were transvestite. When they took the stage in the afternoon, I saw what they meant.

The boy students were dressed as girls and vice versa, and they did a dance number to Phil Collin’s “You Can’t Hurry Love”. It was pretty good, and the girls did dance really well.

Afterwards they did a slide show presentation, which was pretty standard stuff. Watching the show you’d think that school life at Takasago Minami is 90% sports and fun, and 10% classes. Actually it’s probably closer to half and half. They had a section on special subjects, and a couple pictures of me teaching different classes. The voice-over said that “Bryan-sensei is very nice, and makes it easy to learn English. He’s also very handsome.” I hope the students aren’t making a decision on what high school to attend based on how hot the English teacher is.

I knew from the day before that next was a long boring interview with the school principal, so I snuck out to wait with the band. They were outside the east entrance waiting for everyone to leave so they could retrieve their instruments.

I chatted with a group of first year students, who took the opportunity to examine me up close. They all wanted to hold their hands next to mine and compare the size, they all touched my hair, marveling at the softness (like a kitten, they said) and also the color. They didn’t believe that my hair was really that color, and they wanted to know why the five o’clock shadow that I had was dark hair, and the hair on my head was so much lighter. I tried to explain it as sun exposure, but they just laughed. They also were really interested in the depth of my eyes, physically, compared to wear the bridge of my nose is. Their faces tend to be more flat, so they all wanted to feel the top of my nose.

The sound of all the junior high students leaving saved me from further touching and prodding, so I said my goodbyes and got out of there. I went over to my classroom and we had a good lesson on Thanksgiving, with a much smaller class. The students were really quiet and it was hard to illicit a reaction from them, but they all said on their survey that the class was great, and they all took their turkeys home with them.

I went back to the teacher’s room and did some studying for a little while since the staff room was pretty empty. Around 4:30 it was still pretty empty, so I grabbed my bag and hit the road.

At the Takasago station I bumped into a bunch of junior high school girls that had been at my school the day before. They all remembered my name and flagged me down.

It seems that the younger the students are, the less shy they are. I don’t know why, but these junior high students and my first year students are probably the least inhibited of all the ages I teach. Including the adults.

We got off at the same station, and the girls were full of questions. One asked me if I had a girlfriend. I gave my standard answer automatically, “No”, and she volunteered for the job. Some of her friends were spouting English like crazy – “You are tall”, “You are handsome”, “Do you speak Japanese?”. It didn’t hurt my ego any to be surrounded by lots of girls like a rock star, and since they were speaking English I felt like I was actually doing some good.

I arrived at my apartment complex and one of the kids from the area asked me what I was going to have for dinner. I told her curry and rice, and she started ragging on me in Japanese that I eat that too much. I told her in Japanese that I didn’t have much time tonight, so it was a nice easy meal. She laughed and imitated my accent, and it was funny to hear my own words come back at me, exaggerated by a child. I wanted to hire her on the spot to help me out.

I just finished dinner and I’ve got lots of chores around the house to catch up on. Tomorrow things get back to normal at school.

Today was an abbreviated day at school because we were sponsoring an “open high school” day, where junior high students could check out our school and see if they wanted to try to attend it.

I get the sense that our school is not so popular among students. The exam is supposedly very easy to pass, and so it’s not like we’ve got an sort of discriminating taste in what students we are trying to attract.

Mr. Hayashi asked me to hang out with him at the registration desk, so I put on my big smile and said hello to most of the 300 students that arrived. One girl said hello back, asked me my name, and was carrying on so much that I thought she was going to ask for my phone number. Definitely not your standard reaction, but it was fun. All of the students went into the gym to watch a presentation. There was a Powerpoint slideshow, a couple of videos, a dance routine, and to top it all off – an interview with our principal (gasp!). I told Mr. Yamamoto that it’s best to close with your most exciting thing; we agreed that the principal interview wasn’t a good closer.

Mr. Yamamoto and I have been planning a lesson for the prospective students. They came in and sat down, and we jumped right into it. The lesson was on Thanksgiving. I had put the lesson together, Mr. Yamamoto added a few dramatic touches, and it turned out pretty good.

Teaching to students like this is always a little weird. You’ve got no rapport with them, they don’t know what to expect from you, and they are always very shy. I got a few of them to open up. Some of the boys were definitely not having a good time, but I got a couple smiles out of them.

We explained the meaning of Thanksgiving and it’s history in about three sentences, and then we had what may be the cheesiest and possibly most absurd conversation possible, between an Indian and a Pilgrim.

The funniest part was that Mr. Yamamoto insisted on dressing up as an Indian. He had a small headdress that he borrowed from a friend, and I put some war paint on his face, right in the middle of the lesson. I played the part of the white guy. I wasn’t aware that he was going to dress up, but I’ve got my paleface impersonation down pat.

Anyway, after the initial shock of seeing some crazy teacher dressed up as an Indian, the students relaxed and we had them do the conversation as well. They did a pretty good job with it. Then to finish we did a fun activity that I had remembered from my school days – making a turkey from a hand tracing. They turned out nicely, and the students really enjoyed doing it. I brought some pictures of wild turkeys so they could compare with the real thing. I was genuinely surprised how well it went.

We finished up the lesson and handed out a questionnaire/evaluation sheet, and I was pleased to see that our class got, on average, the highest ranking possible. It was the war paint, I’m sure of it.

Another bonus was that one of the students asked if she could talk to me about entering the ESS club at school. I showed her some of the projects that we’ve been working on, and we talked about her background. She wasn’t as shy as some of the other students, and I’m hoping that she’ll be able to enter the club if she enrolls in our school.

At the end of the day the history teacher invited me to a dinner sponsored by him at Amuse in Kakogawa on Friday night. It turns out that it’s a bit more than a friendly invitation. He invited one of the female teachers that he’s currently chasing, and she said that she wouldn’t go unless I went. Now he’s looking for a favor from me to lure her there so he can hit on her when I’m not at all interested but I can’t tell anyone involved in this situation that. Is that clear enough? Wacky stuff.

After school I went over to Tsuji-san’s place across the street and had a nice long conversation in Japanese and English. I’m getting closer and closer to some kind of major Japanese breakthrough. I feel like I’m getting to the point where I go from broken Japanese to just Japanese. Once I get there, I’ll feel a whole lot better and the improvements will just keep getting more and more dramatic.

On the way home I got some stewed pork and had that over rice with a Caesar salad for dinner. I’ve just spent almost an hour and a half updating the site, and I’m still tired from the weekend. Tomorrow will be another Thanksgiving lesson, and I may get out a little early. I’m looking forward to that.

What an interesting day this has been. We left from Shin-Osaka and took the Hankyu train line into Takarazuka. It was an easy trip to the southern part of Takarazuka, and we got off the train and went right into the Takarazuka Hotel.

Why are we going to a bridal fair? Because we’re getting married someday, and likely that’ll happen in Japan. I wanted to get an idea of what a Japanese wedding is like, and so this seemed the best way to figure it out.

There are two types of weddings in Japan, a traditional Japanese style one, which is not so popular, and a Western style one, a “Christian” wedding. The only thing Christian is the reverend, but people love it. That’s the style that Kuniko wants, and I guess it’s appropriate since I’m a Western style person myself. Besides, you should see the weird outfits they wear for the traditional ceremony.

The hotel was hosting the bridal fair to drum up interest in the use of it’s facilities for the wedding. Japanese weddings are pretty expensive, and the hotel offers all kinds of different options, but in the end they want you to get married there. We weren’t expecting the full on treatment that we got, though.

There were about twenty couples, and believe it or not, I was the only foreigner there. Starting off, we had to fill out a questionnaire. I figured they’d use that information against us later, so we put in lots of fake info. One great question was, do your parents know about the wedding? Ha! We took a quick tour of the hotel, and checked out all the special rooms.

After walking around a bit, we sat down and watched a fake wedding performed by actors. They did everything that would happen in a real wedding, except that the audience were all total strangers. People clapped at all the right places, and even did a little prayer led by the foreign pastor. I thought it was funny. The gave us flower petals for the “Flower Shower”, and we sprinkled them liberally on the bride and groom as they left.

After the pseudo-ceremony we went into one of the dining halls for a “bridal fashion show”. We sat down and they poured champagne for us. The real stuff, too. I thought they’d just pour one glass and be done with it, but I went through six glasses. They brought out course after course of food, and we ate up. We dutifully took pictures of each entree – they were pretty good. We had an appetizer, a soup that had a crust baked over the top of the bowl, a big beef filet with foie gras, a mushroom platter, the hits just kept coming. It’s a testament to how good the beef dish was when I don’t have a picture of it. It looked so good we forgot all about the pictures and dove right in.

The brought in another couple of actors who went to the front of the room and each poured some kind of chemical into some glasses – when the chemicals mixed they started glowing, and then our servers came around and poured some chemicals into a special glass in the middle of our table (that I had eyed earlier thinking it might be champagne).

Then the “fashion show” began. It was quite a show, and words really fail to describe it. Luckily I took lots of pictures.

There were a few traditional type dresses, but they really leaned more towards the bizarre. The music was catwalk music and the models all did a good job of being cool and beautiful. Considering we had just eaten a gigantic free meal and I had about a bottle of champagne, we patiently sat through it and amused ourselves with some of the kooky designs.

Finally we got a chance to get out of there. We couldn’t believe that the whole thing was free, though. We’re ready to go somewhere else next weekend and have another party.

After we walked around a little more, we met up with Antoine and his girlfriend Miwako. This was Kuniko and my first time to meet Miwako, and she was really nice. We were really curious since Antoine doesn’t speak and Japanese, and she supposedly didn’t speak much English. How do they communicate? How do they make it work? Turns out Miwako doesn’t speak quite a bit of English, and Antoine did a good job of following our conversations, so apparently he’s getting good at listening to Japanese.

We all went to a restaurant near Antoine’s house that was kind of a bakery/restaurant. Lots of food here, and I was lucky to find a club sandwich on the menu. It was pretty good – chicken instead of turkey, but the best I’m liable to find around these parts.

We chatted for a long time and learned all about each other – Miwako is a student living in south Osaka, and she also works part-time. She has a great personality, lots of smiles and was very friendly. I hope that we get to hang out with them again sometime soon. She said that she’d be interested in poker night, which should make it a more exciting game. Her personality is a nice fit with Antoine’s. Both of them have a good sense of humor. With Kuniko around to translate, Antoine was able to explain to her that he often uses sarcasm, something that she hadn’t been aware of until this evening. How surreal is that?

Finally Kuniko and I headed to the station, we got on the next train. We were both exhausted from the busy day. Kuniko and I headed in different directions at Nishinomiya Kitaguchi, and I finally got home around ten p.m. On a school night, too – I’ll be really tired tomorrow.

Ahh, a day off. I slept in this morning, took care of some household chores, did some laundry, and was very domestic. The weather outside was clear and cool, and I did take a walk in the early afternoon, but mainly stayed home.

In the afternoon Kuniko called and invited me over to her place for the evening, so I gathered up my gear and caught a train to Osaka for the first time in a long while. I took advantage of the train ride to rock out with my music – it makes the trip go by so much quicker. I’ll never get tired of riding trains around – it’s nice not to have to worry about traffic.

Once I arrived in Shin-Osaka I searched high and low for a flower shop, but when I found one the selection wasn’t all that great. I did the best I could, and went to see Kuniko.

She was fighting a sore throat, so we decided to go get some ramen for dinner. She pointed the way to a new place for me, ramen from Kyushu. The noodles were a little smaller, but the pork was the main event. The pork was rolled and grilled, so the inside was super tender, and the outside was almost black, but still soft, salty, and delicious. Oh, yeah.

After a big meal we went home to relax and watch some TV. As my Japanese improves I can start to understand the gist of what people are saying. I’m not saying that I understand Japanese TV – I never will. One show had guys dressed up like famous foreigners (complete with big fake noses) who rolled a dice to see who would be beat up by the others. Wacky stuff. There was also a comedy show, and one of the guys on there was a graduate from the school where I teach.

Tomorrow we’re headed into Takarazuka for a bridal fair. Should be interesting!

At just under ten degrees Celsius you can see your own breath in the morning. Today was the first time for me to see my own breath this season. Soon I’ll be putting on layers of clothing and struggling to stay warm in my own home.

No complaints about today – lots of classes, but a nice mix of different lessons. I’m tutoring students on taking the STEP English proficiency interview. I may even be interviewing some of them – if they take the exam at Takasago Minami I am scheduled to be one of the interviewers next weekend.

After school I went home and relaxed a bit. I downloaded Survivor and watched that, had a traditional(?) hot dog and caesar salad dinner. The caesar salad was kind of an impulse buy because they just started carrying the dressing at Ito Yokado. The dressing is quite good – I give it my gaijin approval.

Since it was Friday night I hit the orange juice pretty hard, in a bid to be 100% healthy for the weekend. We’ll see if it pays off.

I rely on my laptop. It’s my lifeline to news, family, this website, everything. It’s got all my pictures, all my music, all my files. It sits in the middle of my dining area, and I occasionally eat in front of it or around it. Over the last year lots of little crumbs and things have fallen on the keyboard, so I went over to Ito Yokado to get a can of air to blast them out of there.

They must have thought it was strange to have a foreigner inquiring in Japanese about where he could buy air. Especially when I pantomimed the blasting of my keyboard, and tried to explain that it was for cleaning. Eventually they just said no, we don’t got air.

I went over to the music shop, which has not only CD’s and DVD’s, but musical instruments as well. I found a can of air there to clean guitar pickups, and after confirming with one of the employees that it was just air and not chemically treated, I was good to go. The employee was thrilled to talk to a foreigner, and we spent about 15 minutes talking about various things, mainly in Japanese. He had been to the States once, to Detroit. I don’t know much about Detroit, but we talked about music too. He’s a heavy metal fan. We got along well, and I’ll have to drop by next time I’m on the third floor.

In the spirit of visiting people I also dropped by the bookstore to chat with the English-speaking employee there, Megumi. She was finishing up her shift, and we talked for a while. She is planning on joining Jane and some of her friends on a trip to Kobe to go to the Mexican restaurant. I wish I could go – I’ll have to wait until next time, though.

Finally I headed home with my can of air and cleaned the computer thoroughly. The typing is much smoother now. Cleaning up the computer has got me thinking about backing up some of the important stuff I’ve got on here. I’m going to shop around a little for either a DVD burner, a new hard drive, or both. It would be good to take care of some of these things in case something dies.

This weekend I’m headed into Osaka to spend some time with Kuniko, and we’ll both go to meet Antoine and his new girlfriend in Takarazuka, as well as take in a bridal fair at one of the hotels there. I’m going to be interested to see how that is – lots of interesting questions to be answered there.