Saturday night we hosted some neighbors for a Mexican dinner, and it turned out really nicely.

We had invited the Tojos and the Katos over a couple of weeks ago, but it was postponed to Saturday because Kuniko wasn’t feeling so well. This time around she was in good condition, and so the party was on.

Most of Saturday was spent cleaning up our house. It had been a while since I could give it a deep cleaning, and so I worked hard – even moving the furniture and cleaning under the sofa.

The next stage was making pinto beans according to my mother’s secret(?) recipe, and also working on making guacamole and salsa. I wrapped things up by the early afternoon, just when Kuniko got home from work, so we had a chance to indulge in a two hour nap to get ready for the festivities.

The Tojos have been over several times before, so they are veterans. This was the first time for the Katos. I taught Mr. Kato in my class at work – he works at the same place I do, and it was everyone’s first chance to meet Ms. Kato and their daughter Miyu. Miyu is eight years old and was very well behaved and very polite.

We had a big dinner of burritos, quesadillas, and chips/salsa/guacamole and the conversations were all over the place. Mr. Tojo and Mr. Kato work in the same department, and so sometimes the topic was work, but I did my best to steer it towards something that everyone might be interested in. Ms. Kato turned out to be a former nurse which was very interesting, and she gave some off-the-cuff medical advice to Kuniko.

We had plenty of beer and wine, and it was going well, but I thought that Miyu looked a little bored. I downloaded an easy game on the ipad but she ran through it so quickly it was a little too easy. I went upstairs to dig through our stash and then I found what I was looking for. I went downstairs in triumph. It was time to play Jenga.

Miyu really got into it, and unexpectedly, so did everyone else. At one point we had everyone on the floor playing, and we had to push some furniture out of the way to make space. I was glad I thought to clean there.

It was a fun night, and I hope they enjoyed their time at our house. I’m hoping we can do it again in the future.

The rest of the weekend we lounged around the house, recovered as much energy as possible watching movies and reading books. We still have a ton of leftovers in the fridge, so we’ll be good until the end of the week.

Our next party is during Golden Week when Yoshi, Mamiko and Akira come over. What to cook… what to cook?

The other day I killed off a box of tea that Yoshi brought back for me from a trip to London. The tea was really good, and I kind of got in the habit of drinking some tea almost every morning.

On a recent cleaning binge we cleared out our pantry of almost all tea bags and leaves – it was surprising how much we had laying around. So it was just after tossing out all the old tea that I was looking for some more to replenish my stash at work.

Luckily I did find in another drawer a contained filled with Chai tea bags that we bought back on our trip to India. I was a little worried that the flavor would have disappeared, but in fact it is really, really good. Now when my morning students show up they are greeted with a big blast of cinnamon and spices. Sorry guys, it is just for me.

It is hard to believe but we are at the tail end of the week. It has been pretty busy at work for both of us, and the last two days Kuniko has driven to work because of all the things she needs to do. She gets home around 9 pm each night, so we are both very much looking forward to the weekend. Tacos are calling our names…

It looks like the season has finally turned, and the weather is starting to improve. I’m hoping that it will hold like this until this weekend, so I can BBQ some meat for our taco party on Saturday. If it doesn’t work out, I guess we can do the traditional(?) ground beef style.

My classes have been really good lately. The students have a lot of energy and they are working hard in class. Some are more talkative than others, but that it completely normal.

For some reason a lot of my students will be traveling to the USA next week on business. Some were able to exchange their class times with other students, some were not. I think next week should be interesting – lots of potential holes in my schedule to catch up on paperwork or do some planning.

Tonight we’ll be enjoying soup again for dinner. It is a really good batch – Kuniko knows how to make healthy things delicious. She should be able to come home earlier tonight, so we can enjoy our meal together at a reasonably early time.

This weekend was kind of a slow one. Kuniko had to work on Saturday, but she got off at a reasonable time, and we could spend time together enjoying steaks and a monster Malbec that I brought back from our last trip to America. Sunday morning we went out shopping for a ton of vegetables, and Kuniko cooked up a veggie soup that will be the base of our dinners this week.

Last week we did a similar thing, and we both enjoyed the extra time we saved. Kuniko said she lost weight as well, so we’re going with that theme again this week.

I have a pretty standard week at work, with not so many extra classes. Next weekend we’ll be hosting some neighbors for Mexican food, so I’ve got to start preparing the beans soon. I haven’t had homemade Mexican beans in a long time.

There’s just a couple more weeks until we hit Golden Week, which this year is a relatively short six days. No plans for all that time off, but I should probably do some work around the house and also scan some photos that I’ve been meaning to deal with.

In an hour or two I’m going to teach my first English class with the new employees at the company. They officially started here at April 1st, but they’ve been doing training at the headquarters in Kobe and now they are finally showing up at their future place of employment. Today I’m going to teach them some basic greetings for business and hopefully give them a positive experience using English at work.

Friday feels good! I think we’ll have decent weather this weekend, and I can rest up tomorrow morning. Unfortunately from yesterday Kuniko is back to her regular schedule of hard work and long hours. She came home last night after nine pm, and she’ll be working tomorrow most of the day. That makes Sundays even more important for her to rest up.

As you might be aware, the entire nation of Japan raised their sales tax on April 1st, the first increase in 17 years. It was a modest increase, from 5% to 8%, and supposedly there is another increase planned for next year that will complete the jump to 10%.

The sales tax increase has been a great chance for everyone to raise their prices and blame the government, and one place that this change unexpectedly affected me was at the coffee machine at work. Every couple of days I buy a can of coffee to enjoy on my break. Usually the can is 100 yen, which is 20 yen cheaper than in the stores. I was surprised to see that this changed to 110 yen from the other day, and so I need to dig a little deeper to find two different coins to pay for my coffee.

I’m not sure how a 3% increase in sales tax causes a 10% increase in price for canned coffee. It sounds like a bit of a scam to me.

This week seems to be moving pretty quickly. I don’t have any big plans this weekend, but I’ll probably spend time cleaning the house, exercising, and catching up on TV shows. The usual stuff, really. Hopefully Kuniko will be feeling better and we can grill some steaks or something…

Last night we hit the official four months before our travel date, which means tickets went on sale for the trains we wanted to use. Good news!

I stayed up with Kuniko last night after work and booked some Eurostar tickets to take us under the English Channel between London and Paris, and also some train tickets to take us across the northern part of France to Rennes. From Rennes we’ll get alternate transport to Mont St. Michel, and then back again to Paris the next day. That is a lot of travel in just a couple of days. That’s cool with us – we like to keep moving.

Kuniko is feeling much better, but still the cough is hanging around. Today is the entrance ceremony for her school, and so there are no classes for her. From tomorrow she’ll actually begin teaching classes, so hopefully her cough is gone by then. Fingers crossed!

Wednesday at work for me is turning out to be a bit of a run. I have nine classes, and just a couple of short breaks during the day. It makes for a very fast day, but I can tell I will be tired every week on Wednesday night. I might have to make a new Wednesday cocktail night tradition.

Yesterday after work Kuniko went to another doctor to find out what he thought about her condition. She had trouble sleeping the last few nights – waking up gasping for air and coughing. The doctor thinks it is some form of bronchitis, and he prescribed some antibiotics. It already seems to be having a positive effect, and we’re thinking Kuniko will be back on her feet by the end of the week.

Meanwhile I’m getting used to my new students while they are getting used to me, and in the background I’m working on logistics for our summer trip. A couple of points will be heavy transportation days, but unlike our previous trip to Europe we’ll be depending on trains to get around. I’m also starting to work on my US taxes – as an overseas filer I get an automatic one month extension, but it would be nice to knock it out now. Once we get through the next couple of weeks, we should have plenty of free time to take care of all this stuff…

Poor Kuniko was laid up all weekend, spending most of the day sleeping or being consumed by persistent coughs, hacks and sputters. She went to the doctor and got some medicine and some advice, but unfortunately it seems like she’ll just have to wait it out.

She’s heading in to work today, but luckily she has no classes, only morning meetings. Hopefully she’ll be better before her classes start up.

As for me, so far I have not shown any signs of catching whatever Kuniko has, but I’ve been washing my hands, gargling, and staying well rested just to be safe. We had a sudden drop in temperature over the weekend, and today I came to work in very cold conditions. Unfortunately the building heating system has already been switched to air conditioning, so it is a very cold office I’m using today. Maybe it is time to have some hot tea again…

Given that Kuniko is about the healthiest person I know, it is a rare event when she comes down with a cold. But beginning this week around Tuesday, she did indeed start coughing and struggling with her voice, and now she is well and truly sick.

The original plan was to host a party this Saturday with some neighbors, but we decided this morning to postpone it a couple of weeks until everyone is 100%. I’ve been hanging out with a sick wife for the last few days, so I’m sure I’m at risk for catching the cold myself. Hopefully I can avoid it, but we’ll wait and see.

So that means this weekend should be a relatively quiet one. We’ll stay home and stay warm, and maybe watch movies. Kuniko is still going to work through all of this… she is Japanese, after all. The plan is for her to come home and crash Saturday afternoon. I don’t expect to see her conscious the rest of the weekend.

You can see pictures from our trip here.

The second day in Taipei we slept in a bit, and then met Yoshi and family in the lobby to head out to their favorite breakfast diner.  We emerged from the train station and found a line of several hundred people already waiting for breakfast.  Wow.

We got in line, and ended up waiting about 40 minutes until we got a seat.  Thankfully, the breakfast was worth the wait.  It was hard to describe the dishes, but we several bowls of soup – one was a sweetened soy milk and the other was a salty version with fried bread and spices mixed in.  There was also an egg crepe, a clump of rice that turned out to be surrounding a mixture of dried pork and spices, and then there were some buns that contained meat substitutes, like dried radish and peppers.  It was very, very good.  I was thankful that Mamiko knew how to order all of the foods – I’m sure I couldn’t have gotten them correctly.

After breakfast it was on to the other side of town to try her favorite shorompo restaurant.  This was also a home run.  The restaurant looked like a hole in the wall, and it reminded me a lot of the style of restaurants that you see so often in Asian countries.  The staff recognized Mamiko and set us up at two tables.  There we ate a big plate of shorompo and also an egg spiced sandwich that had some pretty unusual flavors.  It was fun to watch the locals gather in front of the restaurant, and I could tell that this place wasn’t in any guidebook.

Next stop for us was the inside of Taipei 101, a huge skyscraper in the downtown area that houses lots of shopping as well as offices.  We went inside and – what else – decided to eat at the food court.  We ended up choosing some Chinese dishes from a fast food place, but I wasn’t very impressed.  It is definitely better to eat at the shops on the street.  We also did some shopping in the afternoon in the building and at a local bookstore.

The next stop on our gourmet tour was another shaved ice place.  This one was somewhat famous, called “Ice Monster”, and it had a line formed up in front of it.  We were able to get a table after ten minutes or so, and it was interesting to note that they had a minimum order for seating inside the restaurant.  We ended up getting three flavors of shaved ice to share between five people, which was pushing our envelope but we managed to do it.  The three flavors were Milk tea with tapioca, jasmine tea with lime sorbet, and peanuts with milk.  All three were really good, but my favorite was the peanut one.  The nice thing about the shaved ice was that it didn’t seem to fill us up that much, so after eating we were ready to go get dinner somewhere.

We were aiming for a brewpub nearby, and when we arrived we knew we had the right location because of all the beer kegs decorating the street.  We went inside, but there were just a few people sitting around on picnic tables drinking beer, and didn’t look anything like the picture we had from the internet.  We walked around the building thinking we had made a wrong turn, but after taking 15 minutes to walk completely around the block we decided that it must be the right place.  We went inside, and only then did we hear from the staff that they lost the contract for the restaurant, and now all they had was a beer tap and some alcohol for sale on the floor.  We took it in stride, however, and ordered some beer to drink on the patio while we planned our next move.

Since we had such great luck with the night market the previous night, we decided to try another one near our hotel.  After a quick break at our hotel room we went back out on the road, and after walking for about 20 minutes we found a big city street completely closed off and filled with food stands.  We walked through the packed stands, and were quickly overwhelmed by all the options.  We ended up starting with a sit down food stand that had some tables off to the side, where we ordered a variety of local dishes from a menu that even had Japanese on it.  We had bought our own beers at the local 7-11, so it worked out quite well.  Mamiko was even carrying some coupons that she had received from the Taipei Tourist Commision.  They were worth 50 Taiwan dollars each, but if you used them you couldn’t get any change back.  We soon realized that the shop owners were coveting those coupons (maybe they got paid even more when they turned them in?) and so we ate for free thanks to Mamiko that night. Even without eating free the prices everywhere were so low.  The hotel and food was about 1/3 what I would expect to pay in Japan, so life was pretty good.

We ate and ate and ate, and spent probably two hours walking around the market stalking our next meal.  It was fun to buy whatever you wanted without worrying about the price, and Mamiko always had something else that we had to try.  Yoshi and Akira were very patient, and helped us eat everything that Mamiko suggested.  It was a great time.  Finally we decided that it was time to head on back, so we said our goodnights and goodbyes in the lobby of our hotel, and then went to bed with very full stomachs.

The next morning we got up around 7 am, and then caught a cab on our own to the airport.  The Ono family was staying until later that afternoon, so we got a head start back to Japan.  We arrived at the airport a little early, so we had breakfast there, and it turned out to be a very delicious breakfast of rice gruel with fried bread and peppers, and also  a steamed bum with egg and teriyaki sauce.  Even at the restaurant we were able to eat delicious (and cheap) food.  From there it was a pretty simple trip back to Japan, and we were back home by about 5 pm.

It was a great trip, and I think that we will probably be back in the future.  Taiwan is a tropical country, so we have to be very aware of the timing when we go, because it may be too hot or too wet, but we may add it to our list of winter destinations based on how fun, cheap and warm it was.  All in all, thanks to the Ono family, it was one of our best trips ever.

You can see pictures from our trip here.

We’re back from our long weekend in Taipei, Taiwan. It turned out to be a really good trip, thanks to Mamiko’s expertise and experience in choosing where to go and what to eat. It was our first time in Taipei, but she has been there many, many times, and took us down alleys in search of the best foods to try. I think we wouldn’t have even come close to finding anything like this if we were on our own.

This was also our first time using Peach airlines, a budget airline that operates out of Japan. It was very cheap to fly to Taiwan – even cheaper than flying inside of Japan. The only trick was getting to the airport for our early flight. We ended up oversleeping a bit and we nearly missed the ferry to take us from Kobe airport to Kansai airport. Once we got to Kansai it was an easy bus ride to the second terminal dedicated to Peach airlines, and then we were good to go. We met up with Yoshi, Mamiko and Akira there, and caught the flight without any trouble.

Taiwan was warm, comfortable, clean and cheap. Our hotel was in the city center near the main train station of Taipei, about forty minutes from the airport by bus. Our room was tiny, but we didn’t spend much time in there. Mainly we were out walking the streets, taking the trains, and eating so many different kinds of foods.

The first day we spent walking around in town getting our bearings. We ate lots of steamed dumplings from food stands on the street. They were served very hot, and you had to be careful not to be scalded by juice from the meat inside while you ate them. The shopkeepers were friendly, and most spoke English or Japanese so communication was not a problem.

Mamiko led us down a narrow alley lined with food stands and restaurants. It was completely off the tourist radar, but Mamiko had discovered it while scanning Taiwanese Twitter. We pulled up some stools and shared a table with a older local couple, and then ate huge bowls of garlic noodles with soup. The amount of garlic we were dealing with was staggering, and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the trip.

We weren’t eating only savory foods – we also supplemented our meals with shaved ice topped with beans and tapioca, and now and then we had other Taiwanese sweets that were predominantly fried.

On the first day we also took a long train trip to the end of the metro line. There was kind of a beach resort town there, lined with restaurants and shops. It reminded my of Coney Island, with games and amusements combined with food and lots of young people. We tried a tea concoction that was topped with a light cheese cream – it looked like a beer but tasted completely unlike anything I’ve had before.

As we sat outside on a breezy overlook of the ocean we could see a storm coming in, and before long there was lightning, thunder, and sporadic bursts of torrential rain. The temperature was still warm and comfortable, but
we had to whip out the umbrellas and make our way slowly back to the train station while dodging heavy rain.

Once we made it back into town it was still raining hard, and it was tricky to try find our way to the local night market. We moved from shelter to shelter to avoid most of the rainfall, but in the end everyone was getting a little wet, which made it an even better adventure.

For dinner we went to an underground food court that was just a collection of temporary stands and tables serving many different kinds of local cuisine. After one lap around the establishment we ended up choosing a couple of different restaurants ordering semi-randomly from the menus. It was exciting to crowd around a tiny table sharing hot food and drinking beers with hundreds of people crammed into the tables around us. This kind of experience is one that you only seem to get when traveling in Asia, and it is a great vibe. Yoshi, Mamiko and Akira are a good group to crowd around a tiny table – they are constantly making jokes they really know how to enjoy the moment.

We ate at several stands that night, including another round of shaved ice, and then finally headed back to our hotel for some sleep. It was an action packed first day.

It is a very happy Thursday here, as I have the next four days off. We’re celebrating the end of the Japanese fiscal year with a weekend in Taiwan. I can’t wait to eat my way through Taipei. We will depart on Saturday morning early, and come back to Japan on Monday afternoon.

But before the eating starts, we’ve got to wrap things up here in Japan. I am finishing up my paperwork on my students, and have just one more document to take care of before I can call the term officially “over”.

The next term is shaping up nicely, and I heard that they dug up six new students to join my classes, which will mean that I’ll have a full schedule once again. The nice part about the new schedule is that on every day but Wednesday I’ll have one hour for “office hours” after lunch. That means if no students come in for questions I can focus on planning for the week’s classes and stay ahead on paperwork. I think the schedule I had this time last year was just a solid wall of classes with no planning time. Progress!

Tomorrow I have the whole day off, and Kuniko has a party that night, so I’ll spend the time packing and cleaning house, and taking care of some odd jobs. As usual, if the weather is good I’ll try to go out and get some exercise. I’m also planning on letting my stomach get especially hungry… it is going to have a busy weekend.

It is midweek, and I’m going through classes wrapping up the six month term with students. I had just a few classes yesterday, but I did have an orientation meeting with the new students for the next term. The meeting was organized and led by my new supervisor, Ms. Kikuchi, who is taking over for my previous supervisor Mr. Tsukiji.

Ms. Kikuchi hasn’t had any experience at this, and it kind of showed during the orientation. There were scheduling problems and other issues stemming from a lack of attention to detail. It was a little embarrassing to be standing up there during this, but it is how people learn, and I’m sure she’ll be more prepared next time.

Coming up in April and May we are starting to line up some people to come over and enjoy dinner with us. I heard from Mr and Mrs Kato, who had dinner with us last month at Oliva, the Spanish restaurant that we like in Sannomiya. They said that they would love to come, and by the way she just found out she is pregnant. It instantly reminded me of where we were when we found out that Mrs Fukumi was pregnant (Oliva). Weird coincidence?

After work today Kuniko has a party to attend, so I’ll be on my own for dinner. Last night we finally killed the leftovers in the fridge – I think I had eaten daikon mochi five meals in a row. I’m looking forward to delving into the world of curry tonight to liven things up. Tomorrow is my Friday, so it is something to look forward to.

The days of resting my legs are over now, and I’ve been spending more time trying to burn calories. Mainly we’re just eating veggies every night, but since there are so many of them (thanks, Niro) we have had full bellies every night, and I am taking lots of food to work with me for lunches.

Today I have the orientation for the new students that will start in my course next term. I still haven’t figured out what they are going to do about my schedule if there aren’t enough students. I’ve seen the list of students, and finally there are only 13, so I’m not sure what I’ll be doing besides teaching them. Washing somebody’s car, perhaps?

Anyway, this afternoon I should have all the answers. Hopefully they remember my holidays that I requested when they hand out the class schedule to the students!