According to my schedule, Monday was filled with other activities, so I didn’t have any actual classes of my own to teach. Mr. Hayashi invited me to fill in and help him with some of his, and so I went upstairs and surprised some students by appearing unexpectedly.

I spent most of my day lesson planning, and I’m starting to get an idea of what is expected of me. For some of my classes I am working with teachers that want to follow the textbook closely. Most of my classes are similar to last year, where I come up with the entire lesson and then run it by the teacher. Although this method is a lot more work for me, I tend to prefer it.

After school I came home and then went over to the yakitori to catch up with the master and his wife. We chatted for a long time and they cooked me up some kimchee fried rice that was delicious. They said that after the volleyball game they went through four cases of beer, one case of Chu-hi, and two big bottles of Sho-chu. It sounded like everyone was toasted. Luckily the master’s father was there to drive everyone home.

Well, it’s Sunday evening and I’m getting ready to call it a night. My weekend went pretty well. On Saturday during the day I peeled apples and made applesauce according to my mom’s secret recipe. The peeling was kind of a pain, but the sauce turned out great. I was putting together a big dinner for Kuniko, who showed up around seven o’clock. She had to work on Saturday – apparently her school has them working every other Saturday. She was exhausted from her first week.

I served up Jamaican chicken, green salad with real ranch dressing, sauteed mushrooms, the aforementioned applesauce, and corn with black pepper and jalapenos. The dinner was a success, and there was a lot of leftovers. I should be busy eating for a little while.

The reason Kuniko came over is because we were both invited to a volleyball match/BBQ by the master of the yakitori. I couldn’t completely understand what it was all about but the master was picking us up at 9:30 in the morning, so we wanted to get an early start in Futami.

In the morning we walked outside the apartment and met the master, his wife, and his father in the family wagon. We went off to an elementary school in Nishi-Akashi and went inside to use the gymnasium. There were lots of regulars from the yakitori there, as well as some people I didn’t know. I thought this was going to be a casual game, but soon they had set up spiking drills. It became clear that there was a women’s team playing, and soon thereafter it became clear that we were the opponents.

Kuniko got lucky and got to sit out and watch us embarrass ourselves. The women had the uniforms, knee pads, the communication – everything that makes a good team. We had a bunch of beer drinking guys and a few inches of height advantage, but it was really no contest. I played in three of the six games that they played, rotating out to let others play and to catch my breath. It was a workout!

The time was later than we expected, and Kuniko needed to head out, so we bowed out of the BBQ and walked over to the nearest station at Uozumi, and then I rode with Kuniko to Akashi. We ate lunch at the Indian restaurant there, and then walked back to the station. After some ice cream, we were walking through the station and bumped into my old buddy Struan, who is sticking around another year like me. He asked about Antoine, and we started talking about poker night. Ever since we both lightened Antoine’s wallet in poker we’ve been thinking about getting a game together. Hopefully this time we can pull it off.

I saw off Kuniko at the gates, and then took the Sanyo line home. I took a long nap in the afternoon, had leftovers for dinner, watched the movie Timeline and amused myself by saying “dude” out loud after everything that Paul Walker’s character said. The movie wasn’t too bad actually, but I can’t say that I recommend it.

I’m off to bed now, and if I’m lucky I’ll get to teach some classes tomorrow. I’m anxious to get started.

It’s Friday night, but I spent a quiet evening at home cooking dinner, watching Survivor, and drinking beer.

Work today was another day full of assemblies and opening ceremonies. We also had meetings and assemblies relating to the departure of some of our teachers. Everyone came back today to say goodbye to the students, and make a brief speech in front of the teachers. If this wasn’t enough, we are having a big party for everyone next Friday in Himeji. Apparently it isn’t a real goodbye unless you’re drinking. Seriously though, most of the teachers that left have been working here anywhere from 8-14 years. My time here in Japan is really just a blip on the radar – these people have years and years of the same job ahead of them.

I walked through a crowd of the new first year students on my way to the weight training room, and everyone stopped talking and watched me go by. As soon as I was past and walking away I heard three things – “hello”, “goodbye”, and “I love you”. I just smiled back and waved. They’ll learn to hate me once they get their homework assignments.

Two other things are worth mentioning. The now infamous part-time biology teacher that is rumored to be gorgeous by Mr. Hayashi showed up today. She is gorgeous. I think she’ll have her hands full fending off all the single teachers. My money is on the new P.E. teacher that will sit right across from her. I give them six months before we start to see some developments. A new office worker is also really good looking, so between the two of them they have the boys talking.

Also, Ms. Miyake came in today, and she has the distinction of being one of two teachers at my school that actually know about Kuniko and I. Kuniko told her about it a couple of weeks ago, and swore her to secrecy. Ms. Miyake were talking today and I broached the subject – she was really happy about it. Five minutes later she completely forgot about the secret part and asked me in a loud voice whether I was going to see Miss Kageyama this weekend. I looked around quickly, but nobody was within earshot. She realized what she had just said and called herself a fool in Japanese. I hope that the secret lasts – right now it’s looking pretty shaky.

Dinner tonight was homemade gyoza (pot-stickers). Kuniko taught me how to make them a while back, and so I tried it out on my own. I made two batches – one plain and one with extra hot sauce. They were both great – and although they were hard work to make, they tasted great.

Tomorrow Kuniko is coming over for dinner, and so I’ve got some cleanup around the house and I need to go shopping for ingredients. I’m hoping dinner turns out as good as tonight’s was.

It was as if I made a loud announcement during a teacher’s meeting. “Hello everyone, I have Tuesday off!” Within minutes of walking through the door Mr. Yamamoto asked me if I could take two more classes, effectively killing my free day on Tuesday. I put on a jovial face as I accepted the extra work. I’d have probably been bored anyway.

Our first year students came in today for the opening ceremony, and like the graduation ceremony it was full of speeches, standing up, sitting down, and repeat. I sat with Mr. Komuri who alternated between telling me rude jokes in English and sleeping, all this right in front of the very earnest parents of the new students. He’s close to retirement, so I don’t think he worries too much about making a great impression anymore.

I passed the time making faces at a little kid that was sitting with her parents, and she seemed to get a kick out of a foreigner with a sense of humor. It was fun.

After the ceremony we had a free bento lunch that was pretty good, but they did have a little paper cup full of tiny fish – their little eyes all staring in different directions and their little spines starting to bend. I call them “bent fish” because I don’t know what the real name is, and it’s one food in Japan I don’t plan on eating. The sashimi was good, though, and there were plenty of fried things to keep everyone happy.

School finished up and we took a group picture in front of the school. Once that was finished, we all took off. I went home to cook up a quick meal before Yasu came over. Kuniko had gotten him some omiyage at Tokyo Disneyland and I wanted to give that to him sooner rather than later. We used the occasion to drink beers and practice English – it was a lot of fun.

I’m bushed now – I’m heading to bed. Tomorrow is Friday and I’ve got some shopping to do – I may be cooking dinner for Kuniko on Saturday night.

At work things are slowly getting back to normal. We have more meetings now, and more and more students are coming to school to study or hang out. One big event today was that they released our schedules, showing what classes we are teaching and when they are.

I got my schedule today and was very surprised. The last two terms I taught 17 classes a week, which is a pretty solid schedule. I also do an ESS club meeting and a teacher’s class, making the total 19 classes out of 30 possible slots. This term (and the next two as well) I have only 11 classes. My schedule is pretty light, and I have Tuesday completely free of classes.

Mr. Hayashi took one look at my schedule and said that we’d have to make some changes. When they send my schedule to the head office along with everyone else’s, apparently there is a good chance that they’d assign me to another school on Tuesday. That means commuting to a new school, having another supervisor, and meeting a whole new staff of people.

It also means that Mr. Hayashi would have to share me, and he wants none of that. He’s going to sneak in a couple of fake classes on my schedule before it goes out to the head office. They’re not actually fake, I’m just going to drop in and say hello every once in a while. That will make me indispensable on Tuesday and unavailable to do other schools. Mr. Hayashi seems to know all the tricks.

The history teacher has been taking more and more of an interest in me, and so now he meets with me almost every day to review the schedules and meetings, and to basically cover everything in detail in broken English. Normally I would appreciate the information, but Mr. Hayashi and I have a great system worked out that has been successful for the past two terms. I ignore the meetings and speeches, and he tells me if I need to be somewhere or to do something.

At some point I’m going to have to rein in the history teacher a little bit – it’s like having two bosses. Today he was telling me when I could go home. I appreciate the help, but I’d really like to deal with just one person, and we’ve already got someone in place. If it continues during the school term, I’ll talk to Mr. Hayashi and arrange some kind of intervention. In the end, I think the history teacher is just a lonely guy who has alienated most of his coworkers and has latched on to me as someone to relate to.

Tonight I had two dinners – an early leftovers dinner of jambalaya, and a late dinner of homemade ramen with sausage. Now I’m getting ready to do some stretches and hit the sack. Tomorrow is a really busy day – so busy that they are buying lunch for us. Raw fish coming right up!

I went in early to work today, and as expected I had a very short day. At around 11 a.m. I made my exit, pretending to go to lunch. Mr. Komuri also pretended to go to lunch, but he was going to play tennis. As long as we don’t officially say we are cutting school, it’s fine to do so. Weird.

Anyway, this time since I knew I was getting out early, I had contacted Kuniko in Osaka and found out that she had the day off. I got on the train in Takasago, and an hour and 10 minutes later I was getting off the train in Shin-Osaka. I picked up some Rondelle and Carr’s crackers at the imported food shop in the station, and then walked over to Kuniko’s apartment.

Kuniko really cooked up a storm for me – we had Korean bibimba and soup for lunch, and we had Japanese style hamburgers, vegetables, and vegetable miso soup for dinner. I picked up dessert at the local convenience store – liquid ice cream that you suck out of a nipple. Interesting.

Anyway, I just got home, and tomorrow is picture day at school. That means I have to wear my suit – ick.

Sometimes it’s how the light is hitting the trees and buildings, sometimes it’s the warm weather, but today it was just that I was feeling great. I walked back to the little grocery store because I needed some ingredients for jambalya.

As I walked there and back I seemed to notice all the flowers – it’s not just the cherry blossoms that are going nuts right now. The colors seemed more vivid and with the slightly warmer weather it is really starting to look nice around here. Four boys were playing a pickup game of baseball in the yard behind the temple, right beneath the cherry trees. Two ladies stopped to talk to me as I walked along, remembering me from some chance encounter we had earlier.

Maybe it has something to do with living through a couple of months of cold temperatures and rain, but now everything seems to be coming to life. The simple act of walking down to the store and buying whatever I want for dinner, and even a candy bar or two for dessert really lifted my spirits.

I’m sipping a Guinness, I’ve got jambalaya cooking in the rice cooker, and I’m feeling pretty good about things right now.

I pulled in today at my normal time, but there were only a few people at work. I used the time to go up to my classroom and hang up some more pictures – photos from Seoul, Sydney, and Tokyo.

I talked for the first time with one of the English teachers that has been avoiding me since I arrived at the school. This term there is no avoiding it – he’s going to have to teach classes with me. Mr. Hayashi told me that he’s been studying English very hard in preparation, and today he got to use a little bit with me. We had a nice conversation about his weekend, and he did a great job. He’s got nothing to be afraid of.

Mr. Hayashi came in at about nine o’clock, and didn’t even go to his new desk. He sat in his old chair next to me and we shot the breeze for a while. He apologized for me staying where I was. Apparently the last two ALTs spoke almost no Japanese, so they moved them along with Mr. Hayashi. He said that they think my Japanese is good enough that I don’t have to be held by the hand all day. I’d tend to disagree, but it was a nice compliment.

More from Mr. Hayashi: I should be fine to take two weeks in July to go home to California, I can leave early on the 15th of this month to go see Radiohead, and there is a new part time teacher that is, as Mr. Hayashi describes her, “very charming”. The history teacher almost fell out of his chair trying to get details, so I already feel bad for this poor lady.

I packed up my gear and left around 11:30 and did some shopping on the way home. I also stopped in at the Miyakura shrine to take some pictures of the cherry blossoms there.

I had planned on going hiking this morning, but when I woke up, it was raining pretty good outside. The last time I went hiking on Takamikura after the rain it was really slippery, and I didn’t want to repeat that episode.

Instead I spent the day relaxing. I made onigiri rice balls for lunch, and some macaroni and cheese that my folks sent me for dinner. Tomorrow it’s back to school, and I think I have to work a full day – imagine that.

My Saturday began with a bit of laundry and organizing around the house. I cooked up a big breakfast for myself and then worked on cleaning up. I made plans to meet up with Antoine in Kobe in the evening, and burned a CD full of pictures and music for him to check out.

I made my trip out to Sannomiya, and met Antoine at the movie theater underneath Motomachi. We walked around the block a couple of times before we found a promising restaurant. It was a yakiniku chain that promised all you could eat meat for 1800 yen. We walked inside, but were quickly intercepted by a waiter who talked in rapidfire Japanese. I could catch every couple of words, but it sounded like they were full, and we could walk to their other store near JR station. He gave me directions, and then we marched off.

Strangely enough, we found the place, and if you’ve ever been to Sannomiya on a Saturday night, it’s pretty hard to find anything. We just walked in, I gave my name and we sat down at a table with a big grill in front of us. We ordered beer and meat, and just relaxed as they started bringing food. The waiter came over with some English menus, and we saw that we could choose what kind of meat they brought out. Chicken, rib meat, generic beef, tongue, heart, intestine, stomach, what would you like? We crossed off most of the things from the list and then said knock yourselves out.

We went through three big plates of meat, cooking it ourselves in between us on the grill. There were two sauces available for us to dip the cooked meat in, but I didn’t realize that until we were almost finished. I’m thinking that the next time we do something like this, I’m going to smuggle my own sauces in there and do it right.

After dinner we had a sweets fixation, so we went to one of the many bakery/cafe/coffee shops and sat down for some dessert. Looking around we were surrounded by women talking, gossiping, and trying not to stare at us. Definitely not our scene. A very feminine male waiter in a beret took our order, and then we sat around trying to look comfortable. Weird.

After dessert we felt like more beer, so we went to the bar down the way that serves Hoegaarden, and sat down at the bar between a young couple and an older women that looked like she had been at the bar for the last three years.

We ordered our drinks, and Antoine ordered Sho-chu, which is the Japanese “old man’s” drink that he prefers. Everyone at the bar reacted when he ordered it, and murmuring could be heard in the wings of the restaurant. The bartender asked three times to make sure he understood correctly, and Antoine, who must get this reaction all the time, just confirmed the order and even specified the brand.

I sat drinking and talking with Antoine, with the older woman sitting immediately to my left and the young couple around the corner of the bar to Antoine’s right. As I looked around the bar the female member of the young couple was giving me the look. The “I want to practice English with you” look. Her male friend was too absorbed in his cigarette and beer to notice.

A few minutes later the guy got up and went to the bathroom, and I asked the girl about the beer she was drinking, so she passed it over to me to try. That opened things up and we started talking in English and Japanese. Antoine joined in the conversation, and pretty soon her man came back to find two foreigners talking up his girl. He was cool about it, and we backed off when he came back. She kept giving me the eye the rest of the night, so I don’t know what her issues were.

We settled our bill and got ready to go, and the drunken old woman to my left said in English – “so… SAD!”. We tried to ignore her at first, but she said it again, and so I grudgingly talked to her in Japanese to see what she wanted. She cackled with a cigarette ruined laugh and ordered us two more drinks. We were stuck. We sat back down, and then she tried to hit on Antoine, giving him meaningful looks, mentioning that she is taking the same train back home as Antoine – basically trying to bag a foreign boy.

I tried to run interference by speaking Japanese in between her slurred English attempts, but she had her sights set on poor Antoine. This called for drastic measures – we both chugged our entire drinks in two gulps and made our goodbyes. Antoine was lucky to get out of there in one piece.

Anyway, it was a fun night in Kobe, and it was good to spend some time chatting with Antoine. His background is similar to mine, and he’s got a good sense of humor. We’re hoping to do some traveling together in the future – he wants to go to some of the same places I do.

After all our big meetings yesterday it was back to slacker-time for all the teachers. I slept in and didn’t stroll into work until around 9 o’clock. All of the teachers that I had partied with the night before hadn’t shown up yet, so I felt like a real hero getting there first.

The strangest thing was to see all the new teachers that had introduced themselves in business suits yesterday walking around wearing T-shirts and sweats. Apparently they know the routine, and they just started to fit right in.

I studied Japanese for about an hour at my desk, and then changed my clothes and went to the gym to work out. After an hour doing that, I came back to the teacher’s room and still no Mr. Hayashi or Mr. Komuri. I decided to take matters into my own hands and left around 11:30. I stopped into Seiyu for some sushi and went home.

In the evening Kuniko dropped by – she is staying in Kakogawa until Saturday night so we thought we’d go do something fun. At first we stopped at the mall to shop for a watch – hers broke a little while ago. After striking out at the mall we drove into Akashi and walked through Akashi park.

The park was bigger than I had realized, and we passed lots of people partying under the cherry blossoms. The place was gearing up for bigger parties on Saturday, and the weather should be nice for that. The parties are supposed to be about viewing cherry blossoms, but in reality they can get pretty rowdy, with everyone drinking way too much.

We did a big circle through the park, about an hour’s walk, and then when it started getting a little cold we headed back to the car. We drove back to Futami, and then I invited Kuniko to join me for dinner at the yakitori.

The gang at the yakitori had met Kuniko informally during the Futami Matsuri. Afterwards they had asked all about her, trying to figure out whether she was girlfriend material. When I stolled into the place with her Friday evening, there was quite a reaction. Two regulars that I always bump into there jumped up and started making the Japanese sign for “girlfriend”, which is the extended pinky finger. The master jumped smiled and shook his head.

We sat down and ordered up lots of food, and talked with the master a bit. They are doing a cherry blossom party/volleyball game on April 11th, and he invited Kuniko and I to come. It’s on the weekend, so there is an outside chance that Kuniko would be free. I’m hoping she can come along – the parties with these guys are a lot of fun. We ate big, with frequent visits from my two drunk friends who gave me neck massages and words of encouragement in Japanese. I think they figured this was a first date and they wanted to get me relaxed – I’m not sure. Anyway, they were harmless and it was a fun time.

Saturday night I’m planning on meeting Antoine in Sannomiya for a recap of last month and to chat about April. Sunday should be pretty relaxing – I’m hoping to do a hike on Takamikura in the morning, and then relax the rest of the day.

Back to work, and what a strange day to return on. The first good news was that nobody really noticed that I was gone for three days until yesterday at about lunchtime. Mr. Hayashi turned in my time off request for me, and so I got three days off for the price of four hours. Oh yeah…

The day was strange because it was the day we met all of the new teachers and staff that have replaced the folks that transferred. Everyone was nervous, and to start with the teachers all moved to their new desks. Initially I had heard that I was moving along with all the other teachers, but it turns out that I’m staying right where I am. The seat next to me will be occupied by a part-time teacher who rarely comes in, so there’s a free seat for anybody to use anytime they want. Today the history teacher, Mr. Urakami, made judicious use of the seat and wouldn’t leave me alone. He visited four times and even came to talk to me while I was eating lunch. I tried to give him the hint by answering his questions with my mouth full, but he just kept on talking. Yikes.

We had several meetings today, and the new teachers had to do their self-introductions, which is pretty nerve-wracking, believe me. They did OK, and the two new English teachers seem pretty nice. One is really nervous, so I hope she lightens up and starts to relax.

After all the meetings, Mr. Hayashi had arranged a big BBQ at his place. We all piled into his car and drove over to Kakogawa. On the way we picked up Kuniko, and we pretended like we didn’t just spend six days with each other 24/7. Mr. Hayashi built a pretty good BBQ and we had sausages as an appetizer while drinking cold beer. He had purchased some tenderloin filets, and he cooked those up next with some scallops. We ate and talked and drank, and halfway through the meal Miss Yamamoto came by after her first day at her new school. She said that almost no English is spoken in their English department, so she’s afraid that her English skills will suffer there. At least there is an ALT there to speak with. It’s a British girl, so she’ll have to do some accent adjustment, but I’m sure it won’t be a big deal.

Everyone was having a great time, and when it got dark we went inside and had a cheesecake for dessert and talked with Mr. Hayashi’s son from Shikoku. He understood most of what we said in English, and did a good job holding up his side of the conversation.

Finally, we packed up and Miss Yamamoto gave Mr. Komuri, Mr. Kimura and I are ride to the nearest Sanyo train station. Mr. Komuri was pretty happy, and once we got to the station we made a wrong turn on appeared on the wrong platform directly across from us. He decided to sneak across the train tracks instead of going all the way back around. I’ve seen a lot of weird things in Japan, but seeing someone dash across train tracks that frequently have a speeding train on them is pretty scary. Tomorrow is Friday, and I’m definitely ready for the weekend.

Wednesday we went out to explore another part of Tokyo, Odaiba, which is known for being the home of Fuji television. We took several trains to get there, and then walked around the area while I took pictures and took in the sights. The place wasn’t so crowded, and we explored the Fuji Television building, with very strange architecture and many equally strange characters inhabiting it.

In the distance we could see a ferris wheel, so we went out to the wheel and gave it a ride so I could take some more pictures. Along the way we were very impressed with a big building sponsored by Toyota. Inside you could see many of their cars, and even drive some of the minute cars they use for commuting around here. The test drive let you go around a miniature track, both inside and outside the building, with automatic doors that opened and closed after you pass. Reservations were required, otherwise we were game for the experience.

After the ferris wheel we went inside a big shopping center designed similarly to many of the shopping centers in Las Vegas. The place was called Venus Fort, and it had lots of restaurants to choose from. We picked one out mainly from the lighting and interior design, and enjoyed an all you can eat (called “Viking” in Japan) meal. There were some things that I haven’t had in a long time, some meat that unintentionally was similar to carnitas, smoked chicken, and pretty good pizza. We both ate big, and then we made the long journey back to the Tokyo train station.

This time around we spent an extra $20 and got reserved seats for the Bullet Train. What a difference those made – we had tons of leg room, the seats reclined way back and we were in the back of the train so there was nobody to bother when we reclined. After the grueling three hour standing trip on the way here, it made the $20 seem like the best investment I’ve ever made.

Kuniko and I shared my headphones on the way back and the trip went by in a flash. We had thought to bring drinks and snacks, which helped a lot. We pulled into Shin-Osaka station, and together we walked over to Kuniko’s apartment to grab my stuff. She walked me back to the station, and I was home around six o’clock – tired and exhausted.

Now I feel like I’ve done Tokyo justice, and covered at least the major sights. There are a lot more things to see and do there, but I think I can give that town a rest for a while. I’m looking forward to some small town comforts here in Futami-cho for a little while.

Even though we were both exhausted from walking all over Tokyo the day before, we got ourselves up early and made it to Tokyo Disneyland an hour before the gates opened. As we walked down the ramp from the train station to the park, I had that childlike feeling of excitement building inside. We both walked faster and were joined by many people also making the trip to the park. We got in line for tickets, and waited about an hour for tickets. Then we got in line to go inside the park and we waited 45 minutes to get inside. By the time we got in, the park was pretty busy already.

The park was laid out similarly to Disneyland in California. There were some minor variations, but that just made it more interesting. The rides themselves were exact copies – I mean exact. Some small changes were made to allow for more or less real estate, but basically it was the same thing. The pirates spoke Japanese on the Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as the ghosts of the Haunted Mansion. There was some English on other rides, but for the most part it was converted to Japanese language.

We did a couple of rides right away, and the lines were relatively short to start with. As we walked around, though, more and more people came in and by lunchtime, the lines were ridiculously long. The caramel corn line was 35 minutes – no joke. We waited for 30 minutes for a fast pass to come back in a couple of hours, which was pretty handy.

After spending some time in Universal Studios Japan, a much more modern theme park, I could see a lot of room for improvement. Disneyland Tokyo has been around for 20 years, and how they handle crowds seems a bit antiquated. Many of the lines spilled out across major walking areas, so people couldn’t get through. Some lines were so long that people were getting in line without knowing what they were waiting for.

Despite the crowds, we managed to do all the rides that we wanted to except one, and we left the park around 2 p.m. On our way out we did omiyage shopping. The shops were designed for Japanese shoppers, with packages of omiyage, really cute character items, and plenty of different stores along the way to catch every last yen in your pocket.

We made the trip back to the hotel, and crashed out – and we didn’t wake up until almost seven o’clock. While we were sleeping it had started pouring rain, so we ran out to the nearest convenience store and bought an umbrella, and then together we walked the streets until we found a decent ramen restaurant. Afterwards we walked around a bit more, and then went back to the hotel to watch more strange Japanese TV programming and hit the sack.

Around 7 a.m. we walked over to the train station, went into the ticket booth and plunked down around $120 each for a ticket to Tokyo on the Bullet Train. We got our tickets, walked up the stairs to the platform, and found our car. Once we got inside, we realized that we had bought unreserved seats. That meant that along with everyone else in the last three cars we had to find our own seats or stand. Of the back three cars that we could use, one was a smoking car, so that wasn’t an option. We did what everyone else did – we stood in the aisles holding onto anything solid, and hoped that somebody near us would get up so that we could get their seat. Unfortunately, during the three hour trip, a seat didn’t open up until the last ten minutes. That meant that we were on our feet for almost the whole three hours, which was pretty tough.

We had also jumped on the train without buying anything to eat or drink, and although we had a big breakfast, we got pretty thirsty. I was dying for something to drink, and I found out later that there were vending machines in the front of the train. We stood and suffered through.

One highlight came after we passed Nagoya closing in on Yokohama. The guy standing next to us motioned for us to bend over and look out the window, and when we did we had a startlingly good view of Mount Fuji. The day was clear and the top capped with snow was an amazing sight. That is one big mountain, and it seems to sit there along without any other hills nearby. I’m hoping to climb it later this year, but after seeing it I’m thinking that I had better start working a little harder to get in shape.

Kuniko and I counted down the last hour until we arrived, and finally we were able to get off the train and walk into Tokyo station. The first thing I did was buy a big bottle of green tea and chug it, and then we sat down and looked at our hotel options.

We found a travel agency that had some cheap hotels listed on a brochure, so we called around using Kuniko’s cell phone. I realized how nice it was having a native speaker around that could not only handle details like accomodations, but also read signs along the way and smooth over lots of little bumps that would have spun me out.

After making a reservation at a hotel (the cheapest place with it’s own bathroom was about $120 a night), we tried to figure out how to get there. The brochure said it was a five minute drive from the station, but getting there by train proved to be a little more difficult. We could have taken the taxi, but we found a way to swing through some of the more scenic areas of Tokyo and then drop off our stuff at the hotel between stops. Kuniko worked out the transfers on a train and subway map that she had brought. I had brought a map, too, and I could have figured it out myself if I was alone, but in the end I just was lazy and let Kuniko handle it. What takes me five minutes she had done in five seconds, and so I just lived with the guilty feeling and went along with her directions.

Our first stop was Ueno park. I had wanted to visit Ueno park since hearing about it from my friend David Schmidt back when I was taking Japanese at Grossmont College. Kuniko and I found our way there easily, and walked through. The place was crowded with people, and when we found the right path and walked through the park, we joined a huge stream of people enjoying the blooming of the cherry trees. The path way lined with blossoming trees, and it made for a pretty dramatic sight.

At Ueno park we had a quick lunch at a small cafe, and the highlight there was checking out the automatic beer refilling machine outside the cafe. The next stop was Asakusa, the site of a famous temple and gate that was swarming with tourists, both Japanese and foreign. Loads of incense burned inside a big pit, and we waved the incense into our hair and clothes to encourage good health and success.

We found our hotel afterwards, and checked in. We had reserved a “Japanese style” hotel room, which meant futons on the floor and tatami mats. No big deal, it’s the same setup I have at home. The bathroom did have a cool automatic toilet seat that squirted water just about anywhere you liked, and a nice deep tub.

We unloaded all our stuff and sat down for a bit to plan our next move. After consulting our maps we found that our hotel was near a station that was actually quite convenient, and near to all the things that we wanted to see while in Tokyo. We decided to book the same hotel for another night, and then we left most of our gear in our room and headed out again.

What followed was a whirlwind tour of neighborhoods and areas on Tokyo that I was unable to see during my first visit – mainly because I was afraid of getting lost. We visited Roppongi, and toured the area surrounding the Asahi television studios. We walked around Shinjuku, a different area that I had toured while in Tokyo initially. We wound up our trip by going to the Ginza area and then back to the Tokyo station to meet up with Tomo-chan, Kuniko’s friend that lives in Tokyo.

We met up and had dinner at a place known for it’s California cuisine. I started to get excited when Tomo-chan said that the portions were much larger than your standard “Japanese-sized” portions. We ordered some spaghetti, Tex-mex fajitas, and a Caesar salad. Everything was great. The spaghetti was delicious, the fajitas were pretty close to what you get at Chevy’s, and the Caesar salad was perfect. I had a quick seminar to show Kuniko and Tomo-chan how to make a fajita, and then we all started eating. It was a big highlight of the trip for me.

After dinner we went to the top floor to enjoy some nice views of downtown Shinjuku, and then we took a cab back to the hotel. Kuniko and the cab driver spoke in Japanese all the way back to the hotel, and I was surprised how much more I could pick up when Japanese people use the polite form of Japanese. As soon as they switch to the more informal form, I start to have a hard time.

Exhausted from so much walking and standing we crashed out on our futons, but not before deciding on our next destination. We decided to splurge and visit Tokyo Disneyland. We’ll go as long as our feet will hold us, and despite a rain warning, it should be a good time.