Yesterday I did my last production lesson before the holidays, and today and tomorrow are packed with lots of individual lessons for students. I’m starting to get items together to pack for the trip, and we’ve got just a few tiny items to buy before we go. The house is clean, the bottle of champagne is in the fridge for when we return from our trip, and we are just about ready to go.

As for Kuniko, she also has a busy schedule leading up to departure, but I think this is usually the case. Friday night when she gets home late will be the first chance for her to really relax in a very long time.

During this week I’ve been riding the exercise bike every night, and it sure makes me sleep soundly, even in this heat. I wake up every morning with pleasantly sore legs. Hopefully all that leg exercise will pay off while we are walking all over London next week.

Well, one thing that is very nice about going back to work is the abundance of air conditioning. Last week I was at home most of the time and I think I was running one air conditioner or another for almost 24 hours a day. It is nice to let my company pick up the bill this week.

I’m enjoying my classes this week. My students are telling me about their holidays and I’m trying to get them speaking as much as possible before I leave them for two weeks to go on my own holiday.

During this week I am also casually planning my next term with the person in charge of English classes for next term. I’m trying to make sure I have enough time to plan lessons and do a good job for each of my students and also to teach as many classes as possible. Working out that balance is important to my mental health over the term, so I hope we get it right.

One change next term is that I think I’ll have a chance to teach a business English writing class, which is something I haven’t done for this company yet. I’m really looking forward to making up a curriculum and getting started with some motivated students!

Today is Friday, it is 7:58 am, and I’m relaxing at home.  This past week has been a holiday week for me, and I think I’ve used my time wisely.

Firstly, this past week has been brutally hot.  The rainy season is long gone and so now we get the all the humidity with none of the clouds, and each day I’ve tried to go out only in the early mornings.  Still, it is over 30 degrees even at 7 am, and the humidity is right near 90%.  That means a wet T-shirt after about five minutes of walking around.

Mainly I’ve been doing tasks and things that I have been meaning to do for a long time but had no chance.  Scanning photos, organizing the home server, preparing for our trip, reading books and watching movies, cooking interesting meals, and playing video games.  It has been great!

Today I’ll go into Kobe to buy some currency and some other items for the upcoming trip,  and I’m sure it’ll be  very hot there, too.  Luckily most people will be at work so the crowds should be reasonable.  I’ll have to figure out what to get for lunch…

Tomorrow Kuniko has the day off, and then she’ll go to work on Sunday.  Then I’ll just have to do one week of classes and we’re off.  We’re traveling through China this time, and I’ve heard that there are a lot of delays these days, so hopefully it won’t affect our schedule too much.  We’ve built in a short buffer, just in case, but who knows?  Maybe a hotel in Beijing or Shanghai is in our future?

There is nothing quite like a Friday before nine days off. Even better, I only have to work five days out of the next thirty, so I should have a lot more time than what I am used to.

The reason for the next nine days off is a little complex, actually. Next Monday is a public holiday. Tuesday and Wednesday are holidays only for my company, as they are shutting down to save electricity. Companies in the area rotate these holidays to take pressure off the local utilities. Finally, Thursday and Friday are personal holidays for me – just a way to burn some of the holidays that I have saved up over the last few years.

I’ll go back to work on July 28th, and after that regular five day week we’re off to Europe for a two week vacation.

The timing of this upcoming long holiday is really quite helpful. I can organize for the trip, take care of all kinds of tasks that have added up, and also have plenty of free time to read, relax, and exercise. Maybe I’ll have some time to blog while I’m at it…

On Saturday I decided to make the trek out to Futami to walk around town and see what is new and what is the same. Turns out, most of it hasn’t changed much.

I started off taking the Sanyo Railway from Nakayagi station in the south part of Okubo, and it was a 15 minute ride to Higashi Futami station. The station looked the same, but the surrounding buildings seemed to have changed quite a bit. The area was pretty run down the last time I was there, but it seemed like things were improving a bit.

Then I continued on the local train to Nishi Futami station, and walked right into Ito Yokado. A few stores had changed, but really it was just about exactly how I remembered it. I walked through the supermarket, and it was surprising to see the selection. I remembered when Ito Yokado first opened and I walked through the supermarket thinking that I had died and gone to heaven. Up until Ito Yokado came, I was limited to a few basic groceries at a local supermarket, or a long trek north to Carrefour.

Now walking through the supermarket I felt like it didn’t have much compared to what we have access to in Okubo. No imported food store, no wine selection, no craft beer aisle. Sometimes I forget how good we have it.

After a thorough patrol of IY I walked outside and followed my old footpath back to my first home in Japan, the teacher apartments next door. They looked just as old and depressing as I remember, and it looked like my old place was occupied. I didn’t hang out too long, though, and headed down the street to visit the Denya yakitori.

At the yakitori I was the only customer, but I did arrive a bit on the early side. The master was surprised and seemed happy to see me, and we talked about his new situation. He got re-married in March, and his new wife has a junior high school age son from a previous marriage, which makes the master a step father. Also, his wife is pregnant and is due later this year, so he has a son on the way as well. He’s a busy guy!

He called some of the Denya regulars and three of the old gang showed up to drink and talk with me. It was a lot of fun to catch up with them, and we spent an hour or so eating, drinking and talking about old times. They gave me a lift back to Tsuchiyama station, so it worked out pretty well for me.

The rest of the weekend was spent in our usual pattern – resting up at home watching movies. It was a rainy, muggy day outside, so it was perfect for us to relax indoors. We didn’t even go shopping – instead drawing from our pantry stores. Kuniko even squeezed in a nap.

This week I have a pretty standard schedule, but I’m looking forward to the end of the week because I’ll kick off nine days off in a row. It should be rainy on and off this week but Kuniko said she’s driving to work every day, so I should be sheltered from some of the rain. Sounds like an easy week!

We’ve been crunching through this week, keeping busy at work and dealing with rain on the commute just about every day. The humidity has been brutal, and with the oncoming typhoon the weather was pretty unpredictable.

The typhoon weakened significantly as it hit Kyushu, so by the time it got near us it was just a storm, the wind had pretty much died down, and it passed well to the south of us. Crisis averted!

Now we’re just about to the weekend, and we’ve got different plans for Saturday. Kuniko is working during the day and then she’ll go out to dinner with her friend Kori in the evening. I’m considering a pilgrimage to Futami to revisit some of my old haunts.

Next week will be the last work week before I get a whole week off, so it should be an easy run. I’m still working on what I should do with all that time off…

On Saturday night we invited over a couple of my former students for a Mexican dinner. Both of them are quite young, one of them is my coworker in the same department, and I wanted to thank him for taking care of me the last year.

They seemed to really like the carnitas that we served, and after they saw my music setup they were excited to play some of their own music from their iphones over the stereo system. It was kind of like they were guest DJs, and it was fun to listen to some new music.

One thing that was a little odd was that they were really caught up in their smartphones during the evening, and sometimes Kuniko and I were left to just look at each other and roll our eyes when they got distracted by some email message, social network post, or a blog post. Kuniko and I both enjoy our smartphones, but these guys were locked in.

Still, it was a good night, and they enjoyed some cocktails made in our kitchen and headed home at a reasonable hour. One of them was off to Singapore the next day on business, so it was early to bed for him.

Sunday was spent completely indoors watching movies and eating leftovers, and then it was back to work on Monday. I had totally forgotten that I had to attend a mental health seminar that is compulsory for all third year employees. Even though I’ve been working there for longer than three years, I have only been an official employee at the company for three years, so my time had come.

There were about a hundred attendees, and the seminar was given by a very nice guy who is a professor at a university in Osaka. I wasn’t impressed with the organization of the presentation and materials, and it felt like way too much information crammed into two and a half hours. I teach how to do presentations (in English) for a living, so I wanted to give this guy some pointers. However, everyone worked hard to make things easy for me. One of the medical staff gave me an English version of some of the handouts, and even the lecturer stopped by to check on me and see how everything was going. We did some pair work once or twice and luckily I had a former student as a partner and he tried his best to speak in English during our discussion.

In the end I think that it was probably not such a great use of our time, but it had to be done to satisfy the human resources department. Maybe my stress level will go up in the future and the information may become more meaningful.

Tonight Kuniko got roped into attending an informal wine tasting at a French restaurant in Kobe. She’s not a big fan of French wine, and she’s already pretty tired out on Tuesday, so I think she’ll probably be home early tonight. I’ll be digging into the leftovers trying to clear some space in our fridge.

It has been a little while since I’ve written! Last weekend was a lot of fun, and despite the lingering effects of a cold it went pretty well.

Friday I went out with Antoine after work to try a burger place in Motomachi. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite in the same league as Star Child, but it had a nice atmosphere and the burgers were definitely above average. I’d go back there again if the opportunity presented itself. The staff wasn’t really friendly, though, so I think I should go with someone talkative (like Antoine) next time.

Afterwards we hit a couple of places around Sannomiya before calling it a night. Since I was recovering from a cold it was probably best to wrap things up early.

The next day I could spend at home doing chores, reading and watching TV, and generally not using my voice. In the morning my new exercise bike was delivered, so I spent about an hour assembling it – it is a little more complex (and expensive) compared to the previous bike. Hopefully it will last longer!

I felt much better by the afternoon, and was in great shape by the time I arrived in Sannomiya once again to meet Kuniko, Yoshi, Mamiko and Akira for Thai food at Baan Thai. We really pigged out and ordered lots of dishes, and it was fun to try some dishes for the first time. It had been more than a year since I had been to the restaurant, so it was fun to be back.

It turns out that Yoshi will go with some friends to Thailand this July, so he was interested in the food as a matter of preparation. Akira did well with the dishes, even though some of them were a little spicy.

After dinner Kuniko wanted to introduce them to her favorite cheese shop, Reims. It had been a while since I had been there as well, and they had really increased their wine selection. They had lots of unique wines from all over, and some from all price points. We couldn’t resist ordering a small plate of cheese to share with a glass of champagne for each of us (except Akira). In the French style, it was cheese for dessert. We also bought some cheese and wine to take home for the weekend. Yum.

Sunday we spent at home giving Kuniko a break. We did a little shopping but mainly stayed at home sipping sparkling wine, taking naps, and watching movies.

Monday I came home to find that the internet connection in our home was down, and I spent a frustrating hour or so trying to track down the problem. The internet plays a big part in just about everything we do for entertainment at home, so I wanted to get it back up as soon as possible. I didn’t solve the problem on Monday, but did get it worked out in just a few minutes on Tuesday evening. Seems a piece of equipment overheated and reset, and that caused all sorts of trouble down the line. It was a pretty easy fix in the end.

Tonight after work we’re going to Costco to stock up on the usual goods. We’ve got a party this Saturday, so we’ve got to get some supplies. I’m going to make a simple Mexican dinner for some of my coworkers… I hope they like it.

So that should bring us up to date. I can’t believe that July is here already. I received my summer bonus from the company which is always a treat, and it is just a few weeks until I get a whole week off from work for their “power-saving holiday”. What shall I do with all that time off?

Just when I thought I was about over the cold, it came back to haunt me. I’ve had a sore throat the last couple of days, and so that leads to coughs and an even more sore throat. Ugh. Summer colds are the worst.

It is bad timing, too, since I am planning on going out to dinner with Antoine tonight after work. I can’t cancel on him – I had to cancel the last time we had plans for another reason – so I warned him that I’m not at 100% and we’ll see how it goes. He said he’ll order up some Jell-O shots for me.

Tomorrow we’ve got reservations at Baan Thai to have dinner with Yoshi, Mamiko and Akira, so that will be a lot of fun. I haven’t been to the restaurant in a long time, and I’m sure the spicy food will help clear out my system if I’m still feeling like crap.

This weekend should be fairly routine – I’ll be putting together the new exercise bike to be ready once I’m feeling better, and Kuniko has to work on Saturday but she’ll be off on Sunday. We’re probably going to just stay home and watch movies on Sunday to recharge the batteries for next week. I can’t believe it is almost July already…

So now I’m completely off the meds that my doctor gave me for my cold, and it seems that all I’m left with is a slightly sore throat. I’m drinking lots of water and my voice is holding up well. It should be no problem getting through the rest of this week.

Last night I made a big purchase – a new exercise bike to replace the one that I rode into disrepair previously. While looking through countless pages and stats on different exercise bikes I found an interesting stat about the old exercise bike I had. It said that the maximum continual exercise time was 30 minutes. That seems unreasonable to me – but maybe that is how it ended up being sent to the junk heap. Hopefully this new bike will be able to handle a longer exercise time. It should arrive sometime next week.

So since the middle of last week I’ve been fighting a cold, and thanks to my doctor I’ve got some medicine that is very effective. He gave me 6-7 kinds of medicine, and I take them after each meal. I’m not sure which one is working for me, but the sore throat and runny nose almost completely stop when I’m on them. On Saturday I figured I was home free on the weekend and I stopped taking them, but quickly the runny nose and cough showed up, so I’m back on the meds until I run out, which will be today.

The good news is that my voice is in pretty good shape, and I will be able to do classes this week.

On Friday we went out to dinner to try a new restaurant (for us) in Sannomiya. It was billed as a “French” restaurant, but what that usually translates to in English is “upscale Western food”. The good wasn’t bad. We had a nice vegetable salad with some unusual veggies, a pork and foie gras pate, and a leg of rabbit. Everything was tasty but not mind-blowing. There was no wine list, we just had to go with whatever the guy recommended, but the wines we ended up with were not bad at all. It was a little overpriced, though. so I don’t think we’ll head back there anytime soon.

Saturday we spent the whole day sleeping and watching movies, and enjoying Kuniko’s first day off in three weeks. She had to go in to take a test on Sunday, so I tried to rest up and get my condition back to a level where I could teach some classes.

This week will be a pretty normal week for both of us. I have a party with Antoine on Friday, so there is something to look forward to at the end of it. My class load is about normal, so hopefully my voice and my throat will be up to the task.

No blogging for a while, but I had lots of time today to write a little bit… thanks to being sick.

We had a really nice weekend and then I came back to work and suddenly, right around lunch time, I had a hint of a sore throat.  I went right away and gargled, but unfortunately it got progressively worse during my afternoon classes.  In my last class on Monday there was a little rasp to my voice during class.  Bad sign!

I went home and went to bed early (7 pm) and slept all the way through to the next morning, and I woke up feeling a little better but still with a sore throat.  I went ahead and went to work on Tuesday, and I got through the first class just fine, but then my voice just faded away gradually during the day.  By lunchtime I realized that there wasn’t going to be any voice at all soon enough, and I started to think up activities that would keep my students talking instead of me.  By the last student I couldn’t even say a word, so I was reduced to gestures and puberty squeaks.

So I made a judgement call and decided to take Wednesday off to try to not talk at all for the whole day, see a specialist,and try to get my voice back for the end of the week.

Today went just like that – I went to an ear/nose/throat specialist that Kuniko recommended, and I told him that I have an important presentation the next two days.  That spurred him to give me some serious drugs, and hopefully they are having an effect right now as I convalesce at home.  We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.

I’ve never had a cold come on so fast and strike right at my throat so quickly.  Hopefully it’ll leave just as fast…

We had a pretty uneventful weekend, with the exception of a trip into Osaka on Saturday evening. Since Kuniko was attending a conference there, I figured I’d go into town and look around a little before meeting her.

I bounced around the Umeda area checking various shops. Osaka has just about everything if you know where to look. I found my favorite brand of sriracha sauce, a replacement case for my cellphone, and I tried out a few exercise bikes in Yodobashi camera.

After looking around I went to the meetup point, the Umeda Sky Building, but I was still an hour early. I consulted an app on my phone and it pointed me to Craft Beer Base, a standing craft beer bar that had a lot of options. There weren’t many customers but I struck up a conversation with the bartender and one regular customer that works for Panasonic. I ate smoked kamaboko (yum!) and after a couple of beers it was perfect timing to get Kuniko.

From there we walked across Umeda to a Mexican restaurant I wanted to try called Herradura. It was much better than I expected. We really liked the green chili enchilada, the chicken fajitas were not bad, but unfortunately the carne asada was a little overcooked. We also had some chips and guacamole, but the amount of guacamole was really just a spoonful.

Overall the food was pretty good, but generally overpriced. It was nice to know that we could get some good enchiladas anytime, though.

We bought some tacos to go, and then did a little shopping at the station for avocados and cilantro, and then made our way home.

Sunday Kuniko was back to work and I did chores around the house, and also made a big batch of guacamole to make Kuniko feel better. When Kuniko got home we ate it for dinner along with some blended rum drinks, and her mood improved considerably. She’s got just five more work days to get through until her first day off this month. Piece of cake!

Everything fell together yesterday and I had a chance to sneak across town to check on the fireflies. At first I didn’t think I’d be able to do it, but as it turned out, it was a perfect time to go.

Kuniko had a party she was stuck attending, so I didn’t have to worry about cooking dinner. The weather report had said rain but it was clear with big black clouds far on the horizon. There was a fresh cool breeze blowing as well, so it was a very comfortable walk out to the park.

Once I arrived, it was just getting dark, and I needed my phone’s light to see down the pathway and avoid tripping and sliding down the hill. There were a couple of other people also arriving at that time, which I thought was a little unusual for a Thursday night. We quietly and separately waited a few minutes until the fireflies slowly emerged. There weren’t so many this time – I’d guess only five or six were floating along the pathway. Usually I go later in the year when there are more actively dancing around the stream. Last night some of the fireflies would pair up and chase each other around, and I wondered if it was a matter of battle or romance.

After spending about a half hour watching the firebugs I made my way back towards town, stopping to do some grocery shopping on the way home. I also stopped for a bowl of ramen, which is unusual for me. The place was called zundoya, which is a chain ramen restaurant. I really liked it, and the kaedama price was only one hundred yen, which I think is pretty reasonable. Not bad!

Today is Friday and I’m happy to be here. Tonight Kuniko should get off work a little earlier than normal so she’ll have a chance to rest up, and I’m not sure what we’ll do about dinner. Tomorrow we’ll both be in Osaka for different reasons, but we’ll try to meet up in the evening for dinner there. Maybe we can try a Mexican restaurant there and see if there are better options than we have in Kobe…

Although the rain has really yet to come in the rainy season, it is clearly going to happen any time now. The weather has been shifting between clouds and sun, and the humidity has been rising steadily. It is the time of year when carrying a hand towel everywhere is necessary.

We’ve been sticking with simple dinner salads each night, since Kuniko has been arriving late almost every day. I’m expecting this weekend to have a small chance of rain, so it might be my opportunity to do some grilling. Tonight there is a 50% chance of rain. If it looks like the rain will miss us, I might sneak out to see if I can see any fireflies at the nearby park. Apparently they don’t like to come out in the rain.