Recently in some of my classes we have been discussing this new invention by Japanese brewer Kirin:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/japanese-brewing-company-kirin-invents-frozen-beer-foam-l/story-fn5fsgyc-1226324652159

Frozen beer foam is poured over a cold beer and served to customers during the summer months.  It looks great, the frozen beer foam is also made of beer so it won’t water down the beer, and it will be served all over Japan this summer.

It makes for a good discussion topic as we move into the summer season, and my students seem to get a kick out of the topic.  In fact, tomorrow I’m planning to go to a restaurant that has one of these machines to try it out for myself.

Yesterday, one of my students brought in a flyer that he picked up at a convenience store.  Apparently, if you collect 96 stickers from Kirin beer cans, you can have one of these machines (what they call the “home version”) delivered to your house.  I’m eager to do some field research tomorrow – if it passes the test it’ll be time to switch my beer brand to Kirin for a while.  96 beers is a lot of Kirin…

Last weekend also marked the end of a two year project to rate each and every one of the songs on my hard drive.  It turned out to be around 35,000 songs, so a couple years ago I decided to try to knock it out gradually.  I ended up rating about a hundred songs a week, and to take the weekends off.  Just like any project this size, it started out fun and ended up feeling like work. So it felt great to finish it up.

There are a lot of benefits to having everything rated.  I can do all kinds of things with smart playlists – for example, having the DJ computer choose to play only songs 4 stars or higher that I haven’t heard in the last month in whatever genre I choose.  Another benefit was discovering some songs that I had no idea were so good.

My master playlist includes about 5% of the three star songs, just to double check once in a while and see if I missed anything.  Probably there is no reason to go back to the one and two star songs… they are essentially dead to me, now.  My computer is also set up to automatically choose the next song if the music ends, and sometimes it will dig into the one and two star songs if they were popular and related to the previous song somehow.  So I guess those may appear again in the future.

But for now it feels great to press play and have only my favorite songs playing, all the time.

It was a pretty straight-forward, relaxing weekend.  Kuniko had to work both days, but I had plenty of time to read, clean house, do laundry, and cook.  Last night we were craving curry after all that turkey, so we snuck over to Swaad for some Indian food.  I asked the cook to recommend a curry that was a little unusual, and he made up a chickpea and onion curry that was really spicy.  Yum…

After that we did a little bit of shopping and then headed home to relax and get ready for the week.  It is a pretty standard week for us, although I do have a drinking party on Friday to look forward to. Should be a fun week…

After three weeks of working without a holiday, Kuniko is starting to show some signs of finally getting tired.  After dinner last night we went for a walk to do some shopping, and she was moving pretty slowly.  She still has a couple of weeks to go before she’ll have a day off, so I’ll do my best to make sure she’s got nothing to do when she finally gets home each night.  It is a seriously tough schedule.

Tonight I’m planning on cooking up some meat to give her some stamina.  I pulled some steaks out of the fridge, and despite the rain on the forecast I’m going to cook them up.  I want to try cooking a steak on a cast iron pan to see how that works.  Hopefully the smoke isn’t too thick in the kitchen…

Yesterday I taught the new production department employees, our future factory workers, and I was surprised how much more relaxed they were.  The last time I taught them they were fresh from high school and plenty nervous about not only studying English but also about working at a new company.  This time I could feel the difference of two months of training and coming to the factory every day.  They had started making friends with each other and they seemed more comfortable in general.

And that made my lesson that much better.  It felt like they did a lot more in class, they tried hard to answer my questions, and the class went very smoothly.  I’m already looking forward to teaching them again in one month.  The only downside is that their classroom doesn’t appear to be air conditioned.  Gotta remember to bring a towel next time to wipe up the inevitable sweat.

This morning I will be teaching the new employees in the production section for the second time.  It is a really interesting class because they are completely used to the traditional Japanese learning style, which is to sit at attention, take notes, and memorize whatever is written.

And that is obviously not a good way to learn how to speak English.

Last time I let them off easy with some simple warm-ups and lots of practice.  This time I’ll try to get them off their seats and into conversations.  I’m not sure exactly what the reaction will be, but I hope it goes well.

Saturday our washing machine crapped out on us, and so after checking the error code I was on the phone with Hitachi customer service.  They told me that we’d have to wait until Monday for a repair guy to come out.  Yesterday I came right home after work, and the guy was patiently waiting for me outside our house.  He got right to work on the washing machine, and within five minutes had it apart and had found the problem.

According to him, this small circuit board fan had died.  The fan looked exactly like what you’d find inside a PC to cool the inside, so I was pretty happy that it was such a small, cheap part and not the entire motor of the washing machine.  The repair guy said that he’d replace the fan, and also he’d have to replace the circuit board that controls it.  I was instantly suspicious, however.  Why not just change the fan and see if that works?  But the price he quoted me for the repair was really cheap, about a quarter of what I expected, so I didn’t complain too much.  He fixed it all up in about 15 minutes, and we are now good to go on laundry. Hooray!

Laundry is one of those critical things that you don’t think about until your washer dies.  Luckily this time we didn’t need to make a trip to the laundromat.  But we were thinking about it…

One of the new programs at Kuniko’s school, called Waku Waku English, is designed so that the students in the courses are speaking a whole lot more English than before.  The teachers are using more English in their classes, too.  Kuniko, as head English teacher, has to really push the other teachers hard to use English, though.  Teaching English using English is a bigger stretch than you might think.

Anyway, yesterday I helped out at an event to try to attract new students and introduce them to this new teaching style.  I worked with a couple of other native English speakers, and many Japanese English teachers, and we taught for about half the day to 14 students.  The lessons were well organized, and I had a good time with my students.  Some were a bit shy, but after a couple hours they warmed up and started to participate a little more.

I think the event was a success.  It was interesting to see the different styles of teaching from the other teachers, too.  After the event wrapped up and we cleaned up a little, Kuniko and I went home to grab some yakitori and beer at Komedori and then headed home for an early bedtime.  I think I’ve decided that working on Sunday is not my cup of tea.

It should be an interesting weekend.  As usual Kuniko is working both days – on Saturday she’ll have to stay overnight with students, so I’ll be on my own tomorrow.  Then, I’ll head to Kuniko’s school to help her out with a special lesson for prospective students.  I’ll join a couple other foreign teachers to show off the school’s English program.  I think it’ll take most of the day, so I had better get in all my relaxation on Saturday.

I don’t have any big plans this weekend.  I heard the weather will be crappy on Saturday, so I think I’ll probably stay indoors, and maybe go out and get a haircut.  I’m reading a new series of books that is really good, so maybe this is a good chance to make some progress…

A month ago the Vivre in town was remodeled and opened to the public.  At the time I was so happy to see so many gourmet foods on the shelves.  There was (and still is) a shop selling imported foods, and other shops carried some pretty rare items.  At the time Kuniko and I both wondered aloud if Okubo was ready for this kind of thing.

As it turns out, the answer seems to be “not quite yet”. Gradually over the past couple of weeks the shelves have quietly shifted away from imported items, and bit by bit are moving back to “normal” Japanese items.  The change is gradual, but enough that I really noticed yesterday.

One of the big differences is in the bakery.  The first week of opening they had lots of rolls and breads that were made for sandwiches and things – but now most of the breads are sweet and more popular with kids.  I asked if they would make some of the breads from the opening for me if I special ordered, but they flat out said “no”.

Luckily the import food store seems to be holding up, and the booze corner is still stocking lots of imported and craft beers, so we should be OK for the time being.  Still, it is a little sad to see things starting to return to the products that every other supermarket in Japan sells.

Yesterday one of my students wanted to practice giving a tour of the factory in English.  We spent the previous lesson getting ready for the tour, and she memorized lots of English for each station of the tour as well as some useful phrases like “Please follow me” and “Watch your head”.

So during my last class of the day yesterday, we toured the factory.  There were a few sprinkles in a cloudy sky as we started off, but not enough to merit bringing an umbrella.  But as we progressed through the tour, the rain started up in earnest.  By the time we finished touring the warehouse where they did final assembly and painting the rain was coming down in torrents.  Huge buckets of rain accompanied by thunder and lightning.  Serious rain.

We waited a bit inside the factory until things calmed down a bit, and then we ran for it back to the offices.  By the time I started walking home 15 minutes later, it was almost sunny outside, and the rain had moved on.  Bad timing for a tour, I guess.

Anyway, my student did a pretty good job with the tour, but there is plenty of room for improvement.  We’ll go back to work in the classroom for a bit until she’s ready to try it again.  And we’ll pick a sunny day to do the tour, too.

We continue to work through what has turned out to be a ton of leftovers from the party last weekend.  Taco salad, guacamole, homemade salsa, beans and carne asada – it has been Mexican on the menu for the last few days.

I think we’re going to change things up tonight and do wine and cheese – there’s a lot of cheese in the fridge, too.  The Fukumis brought a huge bag of stuff to the party – beer, wine, cheese, sweets and snacks, even chu-hi.  We’ve got a lot of work to do, but it is the kind of work we like.

The temperature has been climbing steadily upwards recently.  Last night was the first time to open the windows to cool the house when we got home.  The air conditioner probably isn’t too far off on the horizon.

I had a pretty nice weekend.  Friday night I cleaned house (!) and then went over to Red Spanky for the first time in a long time to have some pizza (shrimp, mayo and tomato) and cocktails until Kuniko got home.  It was good to see the place, but I was still on the early side of their schedule, and there were just a couple of other customers.

Saturday the Fukumis came over for dinner.  I made up carne asada street tacos with little 4 inch tortillas that my folks had brought when they came to Japan.  Over dinner we looked at the pictures from their recent trips (Singapore and New Zealand) and talked about Mr. Fukumi’s upcoming change of scene.  He’ll be working (and living) in Tokyo during the week, and then coming back here on the weekends to be with his wife.  It sounds like a hard schedule, but actually, it probably doesn’t change their situation that much.  Already he works so hard that they don’t have much time to spend together during the week.

Finally, yesterday Kuniko had to work during the late morning and afternoon, but I spent the day reading on the sofa with the windows open and a nice breeze running through the house.  I can’t remember the last time that I spent just relaxing and reading.  Thanks to Sunday’s day of relaxation, I think this week should be a pretty good one.

Every day our morning routine proceeds while the TV morning show is on.  One of the segments they always do is famous people passing away recently, and as you might expect, in a country as old as Japan this happens quite a bit.  You can always tell because they change the background music into a slow, sad, piano number while they show film of the recently departed in slow motion.  This happens just about every morning, and it is starting to get a little depressing.

So the weekend is nearly here.  We’re going to host the Fukumis for dinner tomorrow night, and so the task falls to me to clean the house and cook dinner for them tomorrow.  I think I may get a start on cleaning tonight when I get home.  Kuniko will probably be out late tonight due to a school event, so I’m on my own.  Maybe some cleaning, some loud music, it should be fun.

The other day Kuniko dropped by Costco on her way home to pick up some beer for the upcoming party.  As kind of an afterthought she bought a little rotisserie chicken for a couple hundred yen, and we had some for dinner that night.  And the next night, and maybe the next.  This is the chicken that keeps on giving.  I carved it up like a mini-turkey, and last night we had sandwiches.  Chicken, avocado and horseradish, and also chicken with olive mayonnaise.  Yum!

Tonight we’ll finally be off chicken… but what to cook next?

This week seems to be passing really quickly.  For Kuniko it is no big deal, like each day is Monday for the next two weeks.  For me, I’ve got my eye on the weekend and I’m looking forward to lots of time to read. Recently I started a new fantasy series, and I’m really enjoying it.  I spend some time each morning, lunchbreak, and evening reading a tiny portion at a time, but this weekend I should have plenty of time to dig in.