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!

Today we had no classes and instead went to the Takasago City Hall. There is a city amphitheater there – our students were going to watch a “cultural performance”. It’s called Rakugo, a cross between stand-up comedy and storytelling.

A long time ago people traveled from town to town, making a living by telling stories to anyone that would listen – kind of like a bard, I guess. This is considered an integral part of Japanese culture, and I was looking forward to checking it out.

We all entered and sat down, and after we were settled in, they started the show. The performer sits on a pillow on stage in front of a small lectern, and he wears a special outfit. At a certain points during his performance he raps a metal object against the table to emphasize a point, and it is loud enough to get your attention. Also, each performer at some point took off their outer jacket, and there was some symbolic meaning to this, although I’m not sure what.

I couldn’t follow their stories very well, because the Japanese was rapid fire and very colloquial. They also switched characters very quickly in mid-stream, so it was really tough. I was able to catch the drift of the story, and the personality of the characters from the tone of voice and the body mannerisms, but really I was just lost.

There was a magician that came on stage in between performers, and she played terrible 70’s disco music that was certain to have come from a 100 yen shop CD. It was terrible, really. Appalling in it’s mediocrity.

However, her show was quite good, and she had some good comic moments. She had one of our teachers come onstage, and played a few jokes on him.

The final performer is supposedly well known – he’s often on TV and some of the teachers were interested in seeing him. He did a very non-traditional performance – there were stage props, and he did a scary story instead of a funny story, which I guess is unusual. He did have a scary voice, and at one point somebody squirted blood on the paper wall behind him. Suddenly, a figure burst through and ran into the crowd, and the reactions of 500 screaming schoolgirls and maybe 100 screaming schoolboys was classic.

Afterwards, the main performer came up and accepted flowers from the school body president. He made a speech about following your dreams and doing what YOU want to do, not what people say you should do. Interesting.

The students overall seemed to enjoy it, if only for the chance to sleep in their seats in the dark for an hour or so. Even some of the teachers were sleeping – I was surprised at that. I couldn’t understand much at all but I was still awake. Some students were checking for my reactions, so I wanted to be a good example.

After the show I hit the road – arriving at home around 5 p.m. Today the post office was delivering a package, and they had said they would arrive between 7-9 p.m. I made a big Korean dinner of BBQ beef and rice, and I tried to make a Korean soup but I chickened out on all the salt that the recipe called for. That’s way too much – I don’t want to die at sodium poisoning.

Nine p.m. came and went, and still no sign of the post office. I gave up and went to bed around ten o’clock. How very un-Japanese to not show up.

I was rousted out of bed at 11:15 p.m. by the doorbell, and I stumbled in the dark to the door. There was a postal service guy there, and the first thing that came out of my mouth in Japanese was not “good evening”, or “oh, hello”, but “it’s late”. Not very polite – but then again I was still kind of asleep. Here’s this poor guy delivering my package after 11 p.m. and what thanks does he get? “It’s late!”

Anyway, I signed for the package and went straight to bed.

Today at school I continued my Christmas lessons. I’m having the students listen to “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”. It’s all fun and Christmas-y, until the teacher translates the part about finding Grandma dead at the scene with hoofprints on her forehead. The students’ reactions vary from laughter to shock, and the teacher tells them not to worry – that it’s black humor. Still, it beats “Jingle Bells”.

A funny thing happened when the teacher today was translating. He got a little confused and asked me, “So did Grandpa kill Grandma?” and I told him, “No, no. What kind of Christmas song would that be? It was Santa!”

He just nodded and explained to the students. My sense of humor is rarely understood, no matter what country I’m in.

After school I met up with Keiko-san, and she took me over to the local coffee shop to have dinner with a bunch of her friends. They are an enthusiastic group of women that are really into studying English. I spoke with all of them in a group setting, and then did some one-on-one conversations. They really rely on my Japanese, though, and they are clearly relieved when the conversation switches to Japanese. I still feel the same way when I speak with my Monday tutor – I need to get out of the English habit and really just speak Japanese.

We had a good time, and the first group of women left around 7 p.m. The others asked me to stay a little longer, so we chatted for another half hour before I said that I had to go. It was a fun time – they are really nice people.

Tomorrow should be a relaxing evening, and I’m looking forward to it. It’s been a busy week for me. Jane invited me to join a group of her friends for a run to the Mexican restaurant in Kobe, but I’m leaning towards skipping it. Later I’m hoping to go to Kobe with Kuniko to see the Luminarias, so I want to wait it out.

After my lesson with Azusa this evening I stopped into a ramen shop for a big bowl of noodles. They drop in some sliced pork, and a couple of the slices were probably 70% fat. This is pretty common in noodle shops. There are a couple of shops that put better pork in there, and I try to stick to those. Still, it would rude to leave them behind, so I ate ’em. And they tasted great.

At school today the duel between Mr. Hayashi and Ms. Mori continued to rage. They had a confrontation during a meeting today, and Mr. Hayashi challenged some of the things that she had said. I think if I was at the meeting I probably wouldn’t have even noticed, but the other teachers were all talking about it, and Mr. Hayashi came by my desk to give me a blow by blow account of his verbal victory.

He gave me a lot of details, and some of the things they were arguing about involved me, but I didn’t ask for too much information – I don’t want to get involved.

Tomorrow night I’m going to join Keiko-san and her gang of English-speaking women for a dinner at the coffee shop. They’ve been dying to chat with me and so we’ve finally figured out a time to get together. It should be fun – they really enjoy talking.

Today was an easy day for me – no classes to teach. I did help out Mr. Hayashi, though. They have a budget every year to hire some guest speakers for each department, and he had made contact with a college professor originally from New York who has been living in Japan for the last 20 years. We drove over to his college to pick him up, and he was a really nice guy. He was actually one of the first people on the JET program when it started, so he had some interesting insight into what kinds of things have changed over the years.

He had asked that we set up in the computer lab, so preparations had been made, and the class showed up ready to hit the computers. We got them all ready, and then the professor introduced himself, gave the students a web address, and then waited for everyone to load it up.

The site that we went to was really interesting – it was created by Voice of America to encourage people to learn English. There were tons of lessons and activities for the students to play with. The professor just walked around and earned money – he was a smart guy. The students enjoyed the activities, but they slowed down after about 30 minutes, and I could tell they were getting a little bored by the time 50 minutes rolled around. Maybe if the professor talked a little more, or led them through an activity in English it would have been better. But I don’t want to be a backseat-teacher.

The principal and vice-principal were really enjoying it. They came in and the vice principal was snapping pictures for the yearbook. He had me posing in a couple of them – I was like “Oh my gosh, an adverb clause!”, and some other vaguely unnatural teaching positions. It’ll look good in the yearbook, though.

I was surprised how quickly the students took to the computers – they did a great job and had almost no trouble. If they had questions they would ask me in English, and so maybe just the change of scene was a big help.

After the lesson we went to the principal’s office for the ceremonial cup of hot tea and post-visit discussion. This is always interesting for me because you just go in there and sit and drink tea and pretend like you’ve not a care in the world. We talked in big bold terms about English education, but nothing groundbreaking. It was fun. Our visiting professor doesn’t speak much Japanese despite being here for 20 years, but I caught him understanding some complex Japanese, so he’s been learning something.

We finished up with the cup of tea, and then went outside the office to do the bowing and goodbyes. After that Mr. Hayashi drove us to a nearby cafe for lunch. Over lunch we talked a little about what life is like for a college professor in Japan. I’ve heard that it’s the English teacher’s nirvana – good money, less hours, stable job. I was interested to hear the scoop from him, and I got his contact information – he seemed happy to be able to tell me all about what he does.

I got trapped in an English teacher’s staff meeting later in the day. I knew it was trouble when they said it was only a 15 minute meeting, and then they postponed it until 15 minutes before I was going to leave. I had no pressing engagements since the master cancelled our dinner party, but if I did have the party I would have been screwed. I didn’t get out of there until 5:45 – what a boring meeting. We just talked about the students that were likely to fail this term. Luckily, none of my students are on the edge.

I got home tonight and spent some time with Kuniko on the phone. She’s doing well but a think she’s a little worried about her job situation. Both of our career futures are a little up in the air right now, so although we’d like to have something nailed down for the long term, right now it’s just the short term that’s taken care of.

A simple dinner tonight of spicy miso soup and rice. No alcoholic beverages for the first time in three nights. My body appreciates the detox time!

After school today I went over to Tsuji-san’s place for a Japanese lesson, and then went back to school to meet up with Mr. Hayashi. He was planning a get together at Amuse, and he didn’t invite a few people, so it was a delicate situation. I bumped into the history teacher as he was leaving, and I had to lie and say that I wasn’t sure where we were going.

Mr. Hayashi pulled into the parking lot a moment later with Ms. Yamamoto in the car, but I don’t think the history teacher saw them. I was thinking that it was a bad idea to go to Amuse since the history teacher often goes there anyway.

We picked up Mr. Komuri, and then the four of us went over to Amuse to do some eating and drinking. We talked and laughed – comparing stories about the end of the term and the next few weeks of “meaningless” classes. Mr. Komuri and Ms. Yamamoto teased me a little about the history teacher always visiting me to chat, and it was just about that time that the door opened and in he walked.

The history teacher went right to the bar and either didn’t see us or pretended not to. We nervously sat there waiting for him to see us, but since he didn’t look over, Mr. Hayashi decided not to attract his attention. I’m sure he could hear us talking and laughing in English, though. I guess he sensed that he wasn’t invited.

Finally the history teacher made a trip to the bathroom and gave us a big hello. He didn’t stop by, just kept on walking, and later said a quick goodbye when he was finished with his dinner.

We left shortly afterwards, having drunk six rounds of beers and endless plates of food. Mr. Komuri and I took the same train to Akashi, and we were the annoying loud drunk guys on the train. Mr. Komuri has a great laugh anyway, but add a lot of alcohol and the fact that we were speaking in English and we got a lot of attention. What the heck, it’s that time of year.

When I got home I snuck over to the yakitori to chat with the master. He had originally planned on bringing some friends over to my place for dinner tomorrow night, but when I got there he told me that some people had requested that he open up the place on his day off for an end of year party, and the money is too good to refuse. That gets me off the hook for drinking Tuesday night. My body could use the break.

It wasn’t until I got home and the thought of the history sitting at the bar alone eating dinner and listening to us laughing and carrying on really got to me. I felt bad for him – on one hand he’s got nobody to hang out with, and other people make specific requests that he not be invited to various events. That’s sad and I feel bad for him. On the other hand, it’s entirely within his power to change how people feel about him. A little introspection would do some good. It’ll be interesting to see how he acts in the future towards Mr. Hayashi and I.

Here’s more information and some pictures of the spooky buildings we visited last night. Kuniko did some research and found some new information. It’s a waste treatment facility!

Sometimes a day doesn’t go anything like you expected it to. Sometimes that’s a bad thing, but today it was a great thing.

Kuniko picked me up in her car a little after noon, and we hit the road. Originally we had thrown around the idea of going to Himeji and looking around there a little bit. Kuniko had other ideas, however. We decided to drive into Osaka and have some fun there.

A while back Kuniko had told me that at Universal Studios Japan they have the tallest Christmas tree in Japan. We decided to go check it out. We took our time getting there, and both of us went through our first drive-thru in Japan to get lunch.

Finally we arrived, and the place was packed. We parked so far away – it was a 15-20 minute walk just to get to the entrance. The good news was that they had a special for people showing up late in the day – a little over half price to get in. We took advantage of that and started walking around. Unfortunately, as soon as we got in it started to sprinkle. Also the lines were pretty long, with the longest wait time at 150 minutes.

But did we let it get us down? No! We bought a cheap umbrella, walked around people watching, did the Backdraft ride which was only a 20 minute wait, and finally wrapped up our visit with a trip to the tallest Christmas tree in Japan. They had a lighting ceremony at 5:45, and I’ll admit that it was very impressive. They had a Japanese boy band singing at the start of the ceremony, and the lights of the tree were timed with their song – it was pretty good.

I hadn’t planned well since I thought we’d be local. I didn’t bring my camera or my phone on this trip so I can only let you imagine the sight of the tallest Christmas tree in Japan.

We left the park around 6:30 or so, and went across the way to eat dinner at Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Company, a guilty favorite of mine from America. We ate big and the food was really good. We sat and enjoyed the seafood and the servers didn’t bug us too much like they tend to do in American Bubba Gump restaurants.

At one point a guy in a Santa Claus suit walked by outside, working the crowds and waving to everyone. This was a foreign guy like me, and I couldn’t help but wonder what career choices put him in a Santa suit in Japan this holiday season, and how close my career path might run to his. The guy stopped at the window outside our table and waved to us, and then smiled under his fake beard at me and pointed a finger pistol at me before being ushered off by his helper.

Filled with shrimp and all Gumped out, we made the long trek back to the car in the rain. Good news – only one umbrella, so it was a great way to stay close to each other on the way back.

Still feeling a little adventurous, we got in the car and drove across the bridge to a couple of big building complexes that we had noticed a couple of times in the past. The buildings from a distance look like part of a giant cartoon castle. It reminds me of modern art, Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, and Aladdin’s Castle all in one. Up close there was nothing to change that impression.

We both were kind of creeped out by the buildings, empty but lit up, strangely painted walls and towers built to look like half tree, half stone. I noticed a tree growing out of one of the windows on the side of the building. The signs in front of the building said that it was for a construction company, but it seemed like more than that. I can’t begin to do it justice by describing it – it’s surreal and is too big to be a joke.

Kuniko and I got out of there in a hurry and we headed back home. Kuniko dropped me off and went home, but then found my sunglasses in the car and drove all the way back here to give them to me. It gave me a chance to exchange gifts with her parents. I sent a bunch of cream and raisin filled pastries, and they sent back some chocolate, a homegrown radish and some shitake mushrooms, and a gigantic apple. Kuniko invited me to spend New Year’s Day with her family in Kakogawa. That should be a lot of fun.

I’m off to bed – I’ve got classes tomorrow on a strange schedule. I’m not sure how it works, but I guess I’ll figure it out when I get there!