Today’s classes went really well – only three and they were finished by lunch time. The afternoon I spent studying and avoiding the history teacher. He did catch me long enough to get me to help teach some junior high school kids next week. They are going to be working in the library, and he asked me to drop by and speak with them for a while. No problem!

I also spent some time with Yamamoto sensei today talking about our open high school lesson next week. It will be an introductory lesson aimed at the junior high school students that are interested in going to our school. Apparently there aren’t very many. We are going to do a lesson on Thanksgiving, and so we talked about some of the details. Mr. Yamamoto has quite an adventurous spirit – we may actually dress up like Pilgrims and Indians to do part of the lesson. I’m not sure if he’s serious, actually. I’m guessing that I’ll be the Pilgrim.

After school the ESS club was a no-show, so I started working on lesson plans. At 4:30 one of my students showed up, so I went with her to the classroom and we continued working on the ESS bulletin board. After a while another student showed up, with two boys in tow. She was enjoying the attention she was getting from them, and she kept them busy slaving away. They are just fools for her English lovin’.

Iku-chan, probably the most hard-working new ESS student, brought in some scones that she had baked. She gave me one wrapped beautifully with a note in English that said, and I quote, “Dear Bryan: Please, Bryan eats this scone to heat on microwave oven, and spread butter or margarine, honey or jam. I hope that Bryan had better cold. See you…”

It was very sweet, and I had the scone for dessert later on – delicious. The girl can cook! I followed her advice and had it with a bit of butter and some strawberry jam. Excellent.

This evening I went over to Ito Yokado to look for shirts, but they didn’t have any with my collar size. I’m going to have to expand my search radius a little bit. I did buy some goodies at the grocery store, so I’ll be eating healthy for a couple more days.

Antoine called and I chatted with him about election results. He’s taking things pretty hard. I’m going to get to see him on Sunday with his girlfriend, so that will be fun. Hopefully we’ve gotten all the politics out of the way and we can talk about fun stuff when we meet up.

I’m off to bed – tomorrow is Friday and I can gear up for the weekend.

Talk about an easy day. I spent all my time inside today, with only a few pushups and stretches for exercise. I watched three episodes of the new Battlestar Galactica TV series, and I watched Blazing Saddles in the evening.

During the day I peeked in on the election returns, did some laundry, and just tried to rest. All the relaxation has paid off, though. It’s about bedtime and my cold is just about gone. My knee has turned a beautiful yellow and purple, and I have no pain at all now. Tomorrow I’m going in to work and I should be close to 90%.

Watching the election returns via a website was an interesting experience. The web has come a long way, and now I have many kinds of data that I can analyze any way I want. In the end, I’m not sure it means much. In the end, the winner was still in doubt.

Today Kuniko attended the wedding of one of her college friends. The wedding was somewhere in Osaka, and talking with Kuniko on the phone afterwards was interesting. She was able to see everything and decide what she liked, what she didn’t, and take lots of notes. I even lent her my digital camera to take some spy photos.

One last weird thing that happened yesterday – when I was shopping they gave me my change back and the money was different. Completely different, actually. I asked about it, and they said that it went into effect on November 1st. The money is full of anti-counterfeit devices and watermarks, a little more interesting. I’ve only seen the 1000 yen note, but soon I’ll be able to check out the other ones. I’ve always been interested in money and to suddenly have new bills to play with is kind of exciting.

Well, I’m off to do some studies and then get to bed early. I want to be well rested for tomorrow.

Today was back to school for our students, after a day off yesterday to celebrate the founding of Takasago Minami High School. I had a full schedule of four classes, but they were pretty easy classes. Everybody commented on my cold, and I got a lot of sympathy from both teachers and students.

I learned a new word in Japanese today – 鼻声, “hanagoe”, which literally translated means “nasal voice”. That’s what I have – a nasal voice. I love it. The kanji characters are simple enough – the first one means nose and the second means voice. After a while learning Japanese becomes wonderfully simple sometimes. Another example, the hair on your forehead, what I would call “bangs”, is called 前髪, “maegami”. The first kanji is front, the second is hair – literally “front hair”. I wish all the words were that straightforward.

I managed a little time to study at work today, but mainly I was busy preparing for upcoming lessons. Some students brought in some sushi that they had made in the home economics class, so I scored some free rolls of sushi that were really good.

Mr. Hayashi cut me loose early, so I got home around five p.m. I stocked up on some supplies at Ito Yokado, since tomorrow is a holiday. I figure if I rest all day tomorrow then I’ll be fully recovered on Thursday.

I’m not sure what the holiday is tomorrow, but it’s a national one. Kuniko has the day off and she’ll be going to a wedding in Osaka. I’m going to be staying home, and thanks to the time difference I’ll wake up tomorrow and it’ll be early evening on the west coast of the United States. That means that I can follow along on election stuff through the morning as I do laundry and enjoy a slow sunny morning. Excellent!

Sometimes being sick has it’s priviledges. Still nursing a cold I went into work and everyone was surprised to see me, except for Mr. Hayashi. Everyone else had assumed that I’d be taking an official day off to make it a three day weekend. Mr. Hayashi had told me to come in, and so we studied Japanese for a couple of hours in the staffroom.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending) my coughing and sniffing made it hard for us to concentrate on the studies, and finally when we had finished Mr. Hayashi offered to drive me to the station so that I could go home and rest.

I got home at 11:30 a.m. and it didn’t cost me any sick or personal time at all – nice!

I stopped in at Ito Yokado and got a couple of new houseplants to brighten up the place, and also ran into a display of new vegetables that they are getting in – avocados and red onions. I bought some avocados and one red onion, and went home to make guacamole again. I’m on a roll here with the guacamole.

My day at home was not too exciting. The sun came out today and streamed through my place. Normally I’d take that as a sign to go hiking, but since I’m sick I took it as a sign to take a nap. I planted my new houseplants, and then had a very simple dinner of soup, chips and guacamole.

Jane came by in the evening – she was inviting me to go to Mexican food at a restaurant in Kobe, but the time conflicts with my dinner plans with Kuniko and Antoine on Sunday. She also asked me to look at an essay that she had written, so I did some comments on that, but there wasn’t much to fix – she writes very well.

I’m off to bed early again – tomorrow is a full day, but Wednesday is a holiday. What a weird week.

I’ve set up the ability to send pictures from my mobile phone directly to this weblog. It posts automatically from wherever I am. I’ll try to remember to do it every once in a while, but for now here’s a dramatic picture of my kitchen area.

I woke up today with Kuniko sleeping next to me which is the best way I know how to wake up. We had a breakfast from some of the goodies that Kuniko had brought last night.

Kuniko is attending a wedding on Wednesday, so I lent my camera to her to take pictures. We see this as a great opportunity to do some research about our own wedding. I also gave her some homemade guacamole and some plain tortilla chips to take to her family. I made the guacamole spicy and garlicky for me – I hope it doesn’t freak them out. I’m not worried about Kuniko – she’s tough – but I hope it doesn’t give the whole family bad breath.

I walked with Kuniko to Tsuchiyama station so that she could meet her sister and go together to the hospital. I returned home and I’ve been resting again. I did a little laundry, and tried to just stay inside and take it easy. It’s been raining on and off, and occasionally a loud group of thunderheads will blow by. The first one that went by was louder than any thunder I’ve ever heard – it sounded like there was a battleship off the shore of Futami firing right over our apartment.

Ms. Miyake was nice enough to carve a pumpkin for me again this year, and so I’ve been lucky to have a jack o’ lantern again. I don’t think I’m going to get any trick or treaters this year again. I’ve got some candy here, just in case.

Dinner tonight was some Japanese comfort food that Kuniko had brought over – 玉子がゆ, kind of like an egg soup with rice – it was very good.

Right now it’s really raining hard and there’s thunder and lightning every once in a while. I hope it’s clear tomorrow because it’s back to work for me. I think that we have no students at school tomorrow, but I’m not sure why. Could be an easy day!

I spent most of Saturday resting at home, watching movies, and studying Japanese. I had some supplies to keep me going at home, so I didn’t need to go out at all.

In the evening Kuniko called when she got home from work, and I invited her to come over. She made the long train trip because she was planning on visiting her father in the hospital on Sunday. She risked getting sick to come visit me – what a woman!

Before she arrived the guys from the yakitori called up and wanted me to come down and drink with them. I explained that not only am I sick, but I was waiting for the girl of my dreams to show up. They understood, but I got another phone call from another one of the guys about 30 minutes later asking me to come. They are all great guys – I wish I could have been there.

Kuniko arrived while it was pouring rain outside, and she was carrying loads of food and fruits and snacks for me. I had been curled up reading the story of 桃太郎, about a boy born from a peach who kills demons. Kuniko was nice enough to help me with some of the stranger concepts in the story. What’s the sound a peach makes when it rolls? It’s “donburako-donburako”. Try looking that up in a dictionary.

We went to bed fairly early as Kuniko was tired from her day at work and I was tired from being sick. It was nice to fall asleep with the sound of rain outside.

Days at school are always full of unusual events, and I usually chronicle the ones that I remember after I return home – there’s plenty of things that slip through the ever-enlarging cracks in my memory. Today was a pretty normal day as far as classes go. I had four classes, and they were nice easy lessons that I’ve done before, so no problem.

My tutor, Tsuji-san, is qualified to be an interviewer for the STEP test, and so I dropped her name to Mr. Hayashi, and today she came by to meet him and to fill out an application. I went over to chat with them, and it went pretty well. She was so nervous, and there were students running all over the place, and so she had a hard time with the English part of the conversation.

Afterwards, I had some free time and so I sat down next to Mr. Hayashi and we waited for the end of the day to come around. For some reason, today everything that Mr. Hayashi said was rubbing me the wrong way. Usually when this happens it’s because I’m stressed, or in a bad mood – something that I have control of. Today I was totally relaxed, but he was just saying all the wrong things.

I let him talk for a while, and then finally made some excuses to go back to my desk. Hopefully after a couple of days I’ll reset myself and be fine.

Since I have caught a cold everyone was commenting on it today. Mr. Komuri told me that because I take a shower in the morning I will easily catch a cold. Taking a shower in the morning is very rare in Japan – it’s usually a bath before bed. I asked him how many colds I had last year, and he said (correctly) two or three. I asked him how many colds he had last year, and he said two or three. I asked him if he takes a shower in the morning, and then the light came on. He smiled, and said “You win the debate!”

On the way home I picked up some groceries and made homemade guacamole. Along with some miso soup and some corn chips I had a pretty good dinner. I’m still tasting the garlic!

This weekend will be pretty slow – I went to stay in and rest up. I’ve warned Kuniko that she shouldn’t visit unless she wants to get sick, so it may just be me in quarantine for a couple of days. That should be exciting. I’ve got some books that I’ve been meaning to read, so I’ll probably dig into those.

Today I packed up my goodies and walked to the train station with an armload of Halloween paraphernalia. I got lots of looks from the other passengers. It reminded me of what Azusa said the other night. She was invited to a Halloween party, but getting on a train in full costume can get a lot of attention in a country that doesn’t observe the holiday.

I got to school and worked through three classes, and then I had the rest of the day to study and relax. I split my time between the teacher’s office and my classroom, in a blatant attempt to dodge the history teacher.

After school the ESS students gathered along with the cooking club to have the party. We had a good turnout, and Satomi-san had the recipe all figured out. We made some cakes with pumpkin frosting. My aunt Nancy had sent some sprinkles and they were a big hit with the girls. Kuniko had contributed some cookies, chocolates, and candies. I brought along some tiny pumpkins, and they also went nuts over the Pixy Sticks that I had brought from America. It’s pure sugar, and these girls were all over it.

The cooking club girls were great to hang out with, and their group dynamics meshed with ours pretty well. Everyone was struggling with English, but we managed to communicate. I just tried to stay out of the way and help when I could. The history teacher somehow found out I was in the kitchen cooking and came to visit – he startled some of the cooking club students.

The girls asked me about Halloween in America, and we had a mini-lesson talking about it. Everyone was impressed with the holiday – it’s clearly not a big deal around here.

After making the cake we had a mini-feast, and then we delivered the leftovers to various teachers. I gave a piece to the vice-principal in an attempt to curry favor. We’ll see if it works down the road.

Now I’m back home. I’ve caught a cold, despite all the vitamin C I’ve been taking. This weekend will be mainly resting – between my knee and my cold I’m feeling like an invalid. It’ll be nice to get some serious rest time, although it’ll make for some boring journal entries.

Today started unfortunately with a cold. I woke up in the middle of the night with a sore throat and by the time I woke up in the morning it was a full blown cold. Just to spite the cold I went ahead and ate a crab and cheese omelet for breakfast, and then got organized and headed to work.

It was definitely colder going to work today, and soon I’ll have to break out the long underwear. It’s still not to the “I can see my breath” stage, though.

My day was moderately busy, with only three classes. One of the classes was moved and it caught me by surprise. They came into my room one period earlier than usual, but I was all prepared so no problem. It’s actually my favorite class of 1st year students. I give out “participation points” to students that volunteer to give out an answer. The average student in any of my classes has one or two participation points. This particular class, however, probably averages five or six. They are fearless to a man and just the class I’d want with me if I was invading an English speaking country.

Lots of weird English conversations today with students, almost none of which happened in my classroom. I had a heart to heart conversation with four of my boy students over lunch in the cafeteria. We talked for a long time about American women. They wanted to know a lot more than I gave them, but hopefully it’ll be enough for now. I also talked with a couple of girl students at my desk, who asked me “Are we in the way?” in a chorus of giggles. I had no idea what that meant. Finally, after school was over I talked with one of the soccer team members, who came up and had a serious extended conversation with me. He looked absolutely comfortable talking and it made me think that he was winning a bet or something by doing this.

A while back I had the ESS club working on a bulletin board, and I’ve kind of left the project in their hands. Today I went up to my classroom after school and the two girls that have been working on it had recruited three boys to help out. Cool! It helps that there are some cute girls in ESS. Maybe I’ll finally get some boys in the club.

Tomorrow we are having a Halloween party, so today we went shopping for supplies. I joined three ESS members for a walk to Seiyu to buy goodies for tomorrow. There’s nothing quite like going shopping with three giggling Japanese schoolgirls. I was definitely the odd man out. Students from other schools kept a close eye on us, and when my ESS students spoke English to me, I could tell everyone was impressed.

Finally we got what we needed and I headed back on the train. I had a quick dinner at Ito Yokado and skipped my place and went straight to Azusa’s house near Carrefour. We studied there for an hour, and she had pulled out the kotatsu to keep warm. What’s a kotatsu? It’s a table with a heating element built-in. The heater is under the table, and the table is surrounded by a skirt that keeps the heat in. You can just kind of sit at the table and it keeps everything warm. Some people sleep in them, I hear.

Azusa’s lesson went really well. Her L’s and R’s are improving, and she’s getting a little more confident as she gets more comfortable with me.

Azusa’s mom insisted on serving me coffee after my lesson, and it was nice to walk home with something warm in my stomach. On the way home I had one of those weird moments when I am surprised to be in Japan. I was walking along by a small waterway, and we’ve almost got a full moon. It was a clear night and walking through the rice paddies towards Carrefour in the distance, I passed a couple of old tombs that are part of a tiny graveyard.

I guess that eventually I won’t have many moments like this as I get used to where I am living, so for now I’m trying to enjoy them when they come.

I did one last trip to Ito Yokado for a couple of tiny pumpkins to bring to the party tomorrow, and now I’m back home. The day has flown by – I need to take some time to relax tomorrow.

This morning the swelling on my knee was down quite a bit, and a spider web pattern of bruises are beginning to form. It’s too bad the weather is cooling off, because it would be fun to wear shorts now. I’m still limping everywhere, especially on stairs.

One of our teachers, Mr. Yamamoto, was absent for the second day in a row. At our school we don’t hire substitute teachers for one or two day absences, everyone else just covers the best they can. Mr. Kimura pitched in to help me with my classes since Mr. Yamamoto was gone.

The classes went just fine – teaching with Mr. Kimura can be an interesting experience. He tries very hard at English, and he does his best to speak only English in the classroom. Unfortunately, the English that comes out of his mouth is impossible for me to understand, so I’m sure the students are just as confused. He’s trying though, and I guess that’s what counts.

Also, one of my classes is way ahead of all the other ones due to all the holidays and typhoons this term. This week that class gets to skip a lesson and relax. We decided to have them come in and watch Harry Potter. That particular class is a really well behaved one. They pay attention to me when I do the class and they work hard. We watched the first part of Harry Potter with English audio and English subtitles, and nobody went to sleep – they paid close attention. I was impressed. The students in Mr. Hayashi’s class sleep right through the lesson – sometimes as many of twenty of them are sleeping at any given time.

After school wrapped up I walked home, and sat across from some of my students on the train ride back. We chatted in Japanese since they were afraid to speak English. The bad side to that is that anybody can listen in on our conversation.

On the way home I stopped in at Ito Yokado and bought some basics to make some soup. I made a really nice miso soup with seaweed, chikuwa (steamed fish cake), and crab meat, and had a side of rice and an orange with it. It turned out great – a simple semi-traditional meal. I’ve got some extra crab meat so I’m thinking about making a crab, cheese and egg omelet tomorrow for breakfast.

Now I’m getting ready to go to bed early. Tomorrow I’m teaching Azusa, so I won’t get home ’till late. It’ll be a good test for my leg – she lives pretty far away.

I woke up this morning bright and early and was immediately relieved that I hadn’t spent half the night tossing and turning. I had a little trouble getting up, though. My knee (actually, the muscles just above it) looks a little like Stallone’s face at the end of Rocky, but after some stretches and more ice, it could support weight. The more I walked around the house, the better it felt.

Kuniko called me from her work, and I gave her a status report. She was a little worried after last night. I decided that I was going to go to work, so I got organized and headed out the door.

The first challange was the steps. I can’t believe how many steps I climb up and down in a day. I felt every one of them. When I was on flat ground, I had no problem, but up and down were a challenge.

I made it to school limping noticeably, but nobody made any comment at school. I explained to my classes that I was a bit sore from carrying mikoshi, and they seemed to understand. The classes went really well, and in between I did lots of stretches and downed aspirin that I brought along.

Finally, my last class came, and we had a guest speaker from an English college near Himeji. He talked about communication to our students, who tried hard not to fall asleep but were clearly bored with the lecture. I was bored too, since it was only in Japanese and on the dry side. The principal and vice-principal were sitting in on the lecture though, so I stayed awake.

After the lecture we had a cup of coffee with the guest speaker. Most of the conversation was in Japanese but I figured since the guy is an English professor I should make him work a little. We spoke in English for a while, and he did fairly well.

At five o’clock I headed across the street to Tsuji-san’s place to practice my Japanese conversation. We chatted for about an hour in both English and Japanese, and caught up with each other’s escapades. Even though I was sitting on the floor my knee was doing just fine, and I walked home with a much smaller limp.

Now I’m back home and my knee is feeling pretty good. I bought some disinfectant type medicine to put on the scratches and the swelling is way down. I’m thinking that by tomorrow it will be black and blue but I should be able to move it more comfortably.

I slept in a bit this morning and got up to make myself a gigantic frozen yogurt and pineapple drink. As I was congratulating myself on the flavor of the improvised morning cocktail, the yakitori master called me up and said, “let’s go”.

I jumped in the shower, and headed out towards the temple. People were starting to gather and things were just getting started. The first portable shrine (mikoshi) was already through the gate, and the master and his posse were helping carry it. As soon as they saw me they gave me an orange happi to wear, and I shouldered some of the burden.

Carrying a mikoshi is hard work. Each one weighs around 5 tons. My approach this year was to just support the weight across my back as best I could, and get the hell out of the way if it started to fall. I quickly learned the chants and knew when we would be lifting the mikoshi up on our outstretched arms, and when we would be putting it down. We actually covered a lot of ground when it was up that high, but eventually we’d lose control and then everyone would just kind of control the fall. Five tons comes down pretty hard and pretty fast.

Some of the other mikoshi teams had special moves where they would lift the mikoshi, and then drop it on purpose, only to lift it right back up as soon as it touched the ground. Our group didn’t want to drop it, because we didn’t want to pick it up again.

Inside the mikoshi there is a big taiko drum with a little kid banging away at it. Around the little kid are four other kids who watch and chant. They also trade off on the drums. When the mikoshi goes flying, they have little ropes to hold on for dear life.

I get stared at a lot, but when I’m the only foreigner at an event like this, and I’m actually carrying a shrine, it’s really an eyeful. I’m not sure how they choose who carries the shrines, but the master had vouched for me and earned me a place (of honor?) carrying. Some of the looks I got were interesting – some people were pleasantly surprised, and some looked like maybe they didn’t think much of having a foreigner helping. I just lifted and did my best, and we made it all the way around the temple.

After the first lap they still had seven other mikoshi to bring in, so we relaxed for a while and watched the other guys sweat. Some of our gang took off their robes and helped other teams. As long as they weren’t wearing our colors while carrying some other mikoshi, everything was fine.

Like I said, as I walked around I got a lot of attention. I stuck close to the master’s part time worker, and we had some snacks and scouted the crowd. He explained some of the stranger foods to me, and later when Jane and Jennifer came by, I introduced them.

Jane and Jennifer only stayed for a little while, and they were the last foreigners I saw that day. Usually you see at least somebody walk through, but nope, just me. I found that people were kind of following me around. Later I noticed that people would walk up to me, and then look around, find somebody, and leave. I realized later that I was kind of a human landmark of sorts – they’d tell their friends and family to meet them near the foreigner. No kidding!

The master’s wife and baby made an appearance, so we spent lots of time catching up. She’s looking good and healthy, and his baby was all smiles. Some of the other yakitori friends came up and I found myself holding babies a lot. I held a one month old baby for a while, and that was amazing. She took one look at me and then cried and cried.

Just before lunch we took the mikoshi for another sweaty spin around the temple, and then they took out the golden mikoshi from inside the temple and did some ceremonial carrying of that one. People would rotate into the group carrying it, representatives from the other groups mainly. Lots of white-robed priests officiated that one, and I was definitely not getting near the holy gold shrine. It kind of reminded me of the Ark from the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

We took a break for a late lunch/early dinner, and I had a couple of beers. The master bought me some dinner, so I bought him some beers. We had a nice little arrangement going. Afterwards we went across the street to loiter on a street corner and wait for the last mikoshi carry – the one where we carry it outside the temple grounds.

Finally we decided that it was about time to go back in, and after some more yakisoba we joined the group carrying our mikoshi and took it to the front of the temple. One by one the mikoshi left, and to occupy our time as we waited in line we picked ours up and bounced it around. All through the day we had been accidentally dropping the mikoshi and everyone would scatter out of the way. It became second nature to be aware and move, because five tons would squish a human body pretty quick. Unfortunately, me and another guy were slightly injured.

We were on the front corner of the mikoshi, and as it dropped it teetered over on it’s side. I felt it coming down on me and kind of ducked out and away, but the guy next to me wasn’t as fast and kind of slowed my escape. The front edge of the mikoshi frame caught the top on my left knee, and the side of his leg. We both were knocked down and we both got right back up. I wasn’t bleeding, just a little scuffed up, and the other guy was fine. We kept right on throwing around the mikoshi, and about thirty minutes later we finished for the night.

I said my goodbyes to everyone and walked home. When I got home I relaxed on the couch and when I looked down at my knee I realized there was a big shiny lump forming there.

I broke out the frozen vegetables and iced it down, took four aspirin, and cleaned up the scratches. Then I sat back on my bed and rested my aching shoulders. What a day – the bruises on my back look like hieroglypics and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to walk tomorrow. No matter what I’ll have a more colorful body tomorrow morning.

Kuniko and I slept in late on Saturday morning, and then we hit the road for Tsuchiyama station so that Kuniko could pick up her car. She came back with it after lunch and together we went to catch a movie in Okubo.

The movie was Collateral. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I’ve really enjoyed other movies (and TV shows) directed by Michael Mann. This was stylish and well done, but some of the characters were just too hard to buy – I wasn’t impressed. There was a lot more shooting than I expected – less thriller and more killer.

One good thing I took out of there was a great soundtrack. Good stuff mixed in there, some original songs for the movie were really catchy.

We left the movie place and went over to Carrefour so I could do a little shopping for the Halloween party at my school later in the week. After that we made a trip to Kakogawa to meet up with a former ALT from Kuniko’s former school in Kakogawa.

Kuniko had said that he was a strange guy, but she wasn’t too specific. She said that occasionally his behavior was childish, but that was all I could get out of her. When we picked up Colin at the station he jumped in the car and we took off. After some quick introductions partially in English and partially in Japanese, he spoke to us in Japanese most of the time after that. He speaks Chinese and English as well, and he uses mainly Chinese and Japanese now for his job at a Japanese company in Hong Kong.

At first I had trouble catching what he was saying – his Japanese was rapidfire and hard to catch. Soon I got used to the rhythm of it, and I could understand what was going on. We spoke a little in English, but Colin confessed that his English was pretty rusty, so we stuck to Japanese the rest of the night.

We ate at a restaurant that I had seen a couple of times and always wanted to visit – “Bikkuri Donkey”. It’s a hamburger place, aimed at a younger crowd. In Japan, they serve hamburgers in a big size, call them Hamburg, and there is no bun. Just a fried patty with various things on top. Kuniko had one with cheese and onions on top, Colin had one with mushrooms, and I had one with a fried egg. They were great tasting, but the puddle of grease on the bottom of your plate is pretty alarming when you see it. Colin finished his entire plate in about a minute and a half, before we had even really gotten started. Then he just kind of fooled around with the stuff at the table while talking. Later Kuniko pointed to that as a good example of acting like a child – wolfing everything down instead of eating with us.

While we were eating I noticed two girls at the next table checking me out, and I did a double-take… one of them was one of my students. She waved to me from her table and then madly started to gab with her friend. This was the first time that I had been publicly spotted with Kuniko, and we were both sure that we would be the talk of my school on Monday.

Kuniko offered to drive Colin to his next destination, Murphy’s Irish Pub in Akashi. I went along for the ride and we had a long quiet ride to Akashi. Colin wasn’t much of a conversationalist, and preferred to kind of space out. To be fair, he was at the end of a long, busy trip, so it must have been nice for him to relax.

He invited us to join him at Murphy’s, but Kuniko and I made our regrets and said our goodbyes. Since we were in Akashi we went down to the waterfront near the Akashi bridge and walked along enjoying the lights on the bridge as they changed colors. The weather is starting to cool off, and we had to stay close to each other to keep warm. The last time we were out here it was our first date, almost a year ago.

Kuniko dropped me off at my place, and she went home to be with her family. Her father goes in for surgery on Tuesday, so she wants to spend some time with them before she goes back to Osaka on Sunday night. As for me, tomorrow is the Futami matsuri.

My last easy day today – the last day of exams. Mr. Hayashi stopped by and helped me with my Japanese, and mainly I studied through the morning. After the exams finished the students were running through the halls, very happy to be done. Some even came by to visit me. At lunchtime we gathered the usual suspects and had lunch at the coffee shop across the street.

When we got back everyone was making motions to leave, and kind of a mass exodus began with the teachers trying to be subtle as they snuck out for an early weekend. It was funny to watch, they’d stretch, quietly gather their bags, and pretend to walk outside to see a student or look out the window. And then they were gone.

I was looking to do the same thing, but a couple of my ESS students dropped by and wanted to work on the English bulletin board. I set them up but told them that I had to be going. They looked a little disappointed.

I returned home and did a quick clean up around the house, and just kind of relaxed until Kuniko showed up around five. We went out to dinner at one of the restaurants in Ito Yokado – there are a group of restaurants tucked away on the third floor, so it was cool to explore those a bit.

Finally we came back and got caught up on the last two weeks – it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other. We’re hoping to catch a movie on Saturday, and then afterwards we’re going out to dinner with one of her friends from Hong Kong. Should be interesting!