Hey, there – long time no talk. I’ve spent the past four days on holiday, so the last thing I thought about doing was sitting in front of the computer and blogging. A holiday is a holiday…

During my holiday I didn’t do much – saving money by staying at home, actually. I did some hiking, reading, and watching movies. A pretty good start to October.

From today, I’m starting a new course. Everything is different this time around – I have a new schedule, new classroom, and new students. Each day will start with a group class of five students, and then I’ll have two private lessons. After lunch another group class of five, and then three private lessons. Today I’ll set up in the new classroom that they have prepared for me at work, and all my stuff is in boxes right now, so it’ll be a bit of a rush to get ready.

The good news is that I have Tuesday and Wednesday off this week. So I’ll have time to reflect on what went right and what didn’t during the next two days.

Yesterday after I finished up my classes at lunchtime, I headed out to the train station, met up with my mystery guest, and headed out to Osaka. From Osaka it was an easy transfer from JR to Hankyu, and then we took the train towards Minoh city. Just before reaching Minoh we got off at Makiochi station (牧落駅) and then walked across town about 10-15 minutes to find Minoh brewery. It was located across from a small park, in what appeared to be a regular neighborhood.

Luckily I had written an email beforehand, and one of the three daughters that runs the place gave us a quick tour of the place. It was small and very suited to craft beers. We were able to taste some partially fermented double IPA, as well as some just finished peach infused wheat beer (not sweet, but a slight peach taste made it interesting). At the bar in front of the place you could buy beers buy the bottle, or from the tap, and so me and my guest sat around for an hour or so talking beer and enjoying the various kinds that they had.

We bought some beers to take back with us, and said farewell to the staff. They were exceptionally friendly and knowledgeable, making it a very pleasant visit. I know how I felt when working at the winery and visitors suddenly came walking through the workplace, so I appreciated that they took the time to show us the brewery.

Luckily I have a source for Minoh beers in Akashi city, so I can stop in there anytime on the way home from work. The price point is a little higher than Yona Yona ale, but the quality is certainly there, and it is one of the very few local beers from Japan. Hopefully this trend of more craft beers will continue in the future.

Yesterday morning I went off to get my Japanese driver’s license renewed. Here is the process.

1. Go to the DMV renewal center. It is actually in a separate building from the DMV. I screwed this one up right off the bat.

2. At the front desk hand over your current license. They download your info from the IC chip and then print out a form to fill out.

3. Fill in the form with your updated information. In my case it was already up to date, so not much to do here. P.S. No English forms available.

4. Go wait in line number 2 to pay your fee. 4600 yen.

5. Go wait in line number 3 to double check your forms are correct. I missed one check box, but then I noticed that everyone else did, too.

6. Go wait in line number 4 to take a vision test. Piece of cake.

7. Go wait in line number 5 to triple check your forms are correct. No problem this time.

8. Go wait in line A, B, or C depending on what time they want your lecture to start. At the front of the line they take your picture. No smiling!

9. Go to a classroom and listen to a two hour lecture. Two hours because this is the first time to renew my license. If I don’t have any accidents in the next three years lecture time drops to 30 minutes. The lecture was common sense stuff, but the movie was great!

So that was it. I finished about 12:45, and then I went off to the office to help out with a couple of orientations for the next group of students. I did my best to scare them straight – we’ll see if it worked starting next week.

Today I’m doing a regular set of classes in the morning, and then sneaking off to a brewery in Osaka from 12 pm. Don’t tell anybody. I’m also bringing somebody who is playing hooky from his/her job, so I can’t give away their identity here. A full report on the brewery next time!

I had a good weekend catching up with old friends and relaxing around the house. Yesterday I went hiking with Yoshi, starting at Suma station, walking west to Suma Ura Koen station, and then heading east over the mountains all the way to Takatori station. It was a long hike with lots of ups and downs, and my legs are feeling it today. This is the first time I’ve been hiking in about four months. The heat of summer pretty much keeps me off the trails. Yoshi was a good hiking partner though, and kept us at a good pace for a little longer than I would have gone alone.

Friday I went to “Kawasaki World”, which is a museum run by Kawasaki inside of the Kobe Maritime Museum in Meriken Park in Kobe. See some pictures here. Two of my students were exhibiting model trains and pictures of train that they had taken, so I wanted to see firsthand what they’ve been working on. The model train exhibition was very impressive, and my student ran some trains that he had made at top speed around the huge track. They also had a special room where they ran trains in the dark, and it turns out that lighting trains has come a long way since when I was a little kid.

Afterwards I wandered around Meriken Park, watched a photographer taking pictures of a model, and then walked harborside all the way around the port and back to the train station. Since I had the afternoon off I grilled up some super-thick pork chops (thanks Meatguy!) along with some baked apples and onion garlic cous cous. Yum.

Saturday was a morning trip to Kuniko’s school to attend her culture festival. We walked around together to see the various exhibits done by her students and others, listened to music, enjoyed tea made by the tea ceremony club, and endured the giggles of hundreds of her students as they saw us together. This event is always good for my ego – it’s like Beatlemania except on a slightly smaller scale.

Saturday night I met up with Komori sensei for drinks at Donkey, and then dropped into the underground sushi restaurant for a quick bite. The sushi master and his wife were happy to see us, and kept us in sushi while we caught up. Mr. Komori even picked up the tab, which was probably pretty expensive. I’m trying to break him of the habit, but he won’t budge. Back in Okubo I waited at Red Spanky for Kuniko to get back, and talked with the regulars there for a while. By the time Kuniko was back and we had a drink at Red Spanky I was in pretty rough shape. We headed back home and went right to bed, but that was setting up a tough hike the next day with Yoshi. Luckily I survived.

Today I have a weird schedule – soon I’ll go to Akashi to renew my driver’s license, which is sure to be an interesting experience. Then in the afternoon I’ll go in to work and do a couple of orientation sessions with my new students. I should be back by 5 pm or so. Hopefully an easy day, but anytime you are dealing with the Japanese bureaucracy things can take time.

Yesterday’s typhoon came through right in the middle of the workday. That meant that although it was very windy outside, I was safely locked up in my office and felt almost no effect. During my lunch break I looked outside, and it was blowing very, very, hard. By the time I left work things had calmed down quite a bit, and I got home without a problem.

Kuniko’s students had a day off due to the typhoon warning, so Kuniko was able to come home around 3 pm – very nice. She cooked some cream stew with vegetables for dinner, and even made some yummy hamburger buns for us.

Today is Thursday, but since tomorrow is a holiday it feels like Friday. I have a drinking party after work with some soon-to-be-ex-students, so it’ll be interesting to see how that turns out. This weekend should be fun, too – I’m going to meet Komuri sensei again, visit Kuniko’s school’s culture festival, and visit “Kawasaki World” in Kobe to see one of my student’s exhibitions. Should be fun!

Yesterday I walked off to work in the middle of a rain storm. Today is a typhoon, but yesterday was just the front getting pushed along, and it was a huge amount of water that fell. I sat at home waiting for rain to slow down, but it just got harder and harder. Luckily my umbrella and shoes held up until I got to the local train station.

Unfortunately my luck didn’t last once I arrived at Hyogo station. There was even more rain here, so I went over to the taxi line to catch a ride – but there were about 60 people waiting for a taxi. So I figured I had to forge through the weather. Bad idea.

About halfway to work the rain penetrated my shoes and I could start to feel moisture between my toes. Just before arriving at the office it started raining inside my umbrella. When I arrived inside my office I had to walk past the concerned receptionist, as my shoes slurped on my feet with every step. How classy!

Up in my office I dumped out the water from my shoes into the garbage can – about 100 mL each. Then I squeezed out my socks and went around barefoot for an hour until my classes started. Most of my students showed up without socks – I guess I wasn’t the only one – but by the time the day ended my socks and shoes were dry enough to wear, although they were still a bit moist.

Today there was a typhoon warning, so I’ll try this all again with a different pair of shoes and an extra pair of socks. Kuniko is giving me a ride to Hyogo, so maybe that will help a bit. Wet and wild around here!

Last night a whole bunch of heavy rain came in just as I arrived at home, and all night it has been raining hard. The bad weather is due to two typhoons nearby. One small typhoon passed to the south of Japan and just brought bad weather, but the second stronger one is predicted to hit Japan directly, and we should see it late tonight or early tomorrow. The combo of two typhoons so close together has resulted in a bunch of rain. Ugh. I hope my umbrella is up to it…

We’ve been using every weekend lately for mainly shopping and eating. For me, hiking has fallen out of the equation due to the hot weather that won’t seem to go away. October will be here in a couple of weeks, though, so I’m trying to organize a weekly hike on Sunday when the weather is cooler.

Friday night we had dinner at Baan Sukhotai in Sannomiya. It is the sister restaurant of Baan Thai, which is our favorite Thai restaurant in our area. Baan Sukhotai was good, but not quite as good as the original. We accidentally over-ordered (the portion sizes were much larger than we expected) so we had to take some home with us, but other than that it was a very nice meal. They made the curry spicy for us, and that really got the sweat going. Yum.

Saturday we went over to visit Risa and Anthony and their new baby son, Kohki. He is four months old now, and was really cute. It had been a long time since we’d been over to see them, and they also had a new dog – a tiny Yorkshire Terrier. So much cute in one house… Risa made a shepherd’s pie for our lunch, and we spent time in the afternoon watching funny videos that Anthony had collected. They even sent us home with some hot peppers and hot sauce from Brunei.

Sunday morning we drove off to Costco, and got in and out of there in record time. The thing with Costco in Amagasaki is that they open earlier than the posted time, and if you arrive early you can shop without other customers clogging up the aisles. So whenever we arrive it is like a race against time, as gradually it gets busier and busier. Usually by the time we leave there are very long lines at the registers, but this time it wasn’t so bad at all.

Back home we watched a couple of movies (Pale Rider, In Her Shoes) and had enchiladas purchased from Costco for dinner. Now today I’m off to work, but the rest of Japan has the day off. Luckily I’ll get this day back next week…

It’s Friday, and we’re both looking forward to a fun weekend. Kuniko’s weekend is three days long, which is a pretty rare thing for her. Tomorrow we’ll go visit Risa and Anthony and their new son Kohki over in Asagiri, and then Sunday we’ll make a Costco run to stock up on goodies for the upcoming autumn.

Although Kuniko (and most other people as well) has the day off, I’ve got to go in to work on Monday. I’m sure she has some fun activities planned, though. Next week I’ve got Friday off though, so some small consolation.

Survivor is back on TV, so last night I could watch again for the first time in a long time. Now it is the only TV show that I’m watching, until Amazing Race and Mad Men come along. It’s kind of nice to catch some cheesy American TV now and then…

I received the class list for my next course starting in October, and it held a couple of surprises for me. Most of the members are taking the course for the first time, but three of the members are taking it for a second time. And I was scheduled to meet one of these guys that very evening at a drinking party.

Getting a second shot at my course is a pretty tricky deal. You have to have either some pretty compelling reasons to need an intensive English course, or you’ve got some pretty good connections in the HR department. I’m not sure which of these categories my repeaters fall into, however. But it’ll be nice to see some familiar faces this time around.

After work I met up with two of my students – one current student and one former/future student. We met up in Tarumi, and they took me to an izakaya that they apparently frequently visit. Since they both live in the employee dormitories that are in Tarumi I guess they know the area pretty well, and they picked a pretty good place to eat and drink. We talked mostly in English at first, and as we drank more it kind of shifted into a combination of English and Japanese. Speaking a couple of languages is a funny thing – if you ask me today what subjects were in English and which were in Japanese I couldn’t tell you. We each just kind of used whatever seemed the most appropriate to get our ideas across.

We called it an early night since it was only Tuesday, but it was fun to hang out with these guys and chat. I don’t usually spend time with them outside the classroom, but I hope we have a chance to do it again in the future.

After all the parties and drinking over the weekend, last night we gave our livers a break and had just soda water and juice. Dinner was a very healthy dish – cold udon noodles topped with kamaboko and green onions, and I had a small bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for dessert.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Where did you find that in Japan, Bryan? Junky cereals that remind me of my childhood are definitely hard to come by in Japan. I’ve found some mail order companies that will sell them to you for 2000 yen a box. That’s $25 US dollars for one box of sweetened oats. Until recently I refrained from buying from them – the allure wasn’t quite strong enough to fork over the big bucks.

Last week I was talking with one of the inspectors at work. He’s ex-military, and he told me that he often goes to the commissary at Iwakuni military base to do shopping, and sure – he could pick me up some cereal. I gave him a list of four cereals that I was looking for, and yesterday he delivered three of them to me.

I asked for and received two boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, one of Captain Crunch, and one Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. Unfortunately they didn’t carry Golden Grahams. He joked that perhaps the Marine Corp didn’t consider Golden Grahams to be quite manly enough for them. But I didn’t care – I got three of my old favorites – four boxes for ten US dollars.

So this week I’ll be working on sweetened cereal in the morning, and try not to think about what this stuff is doing to my intestines…

Friday night I met up with some of my ex-students to go to a beer garden in Kobe after work. We had tried previously to go, but they are pretty popular, and we weren’t able to make reservations. This time we were able to pull it off, and we sat underneath Hotel Okura while drinking some beers and eating some snacks. It was fun to hang out with these guys and celebrate the upcoming end of summer. One of the guys is getting married in November, so I told him all about the American tradition of the “bachelor party” – something that hasn’t come to Japan yet. He seemed pretty interested, but where am I going to find a strip club around here?

Saturday Kuniko and I spent the day doing fun stuff in Kobe. She had to work in the morning, but we met on the always half empty Rokko Island to see “Tree of Life” at a deserted movie theater. I’m not sure how they stay open – there were just a handful of customers. The movie itself was slightly baffling but interesting enough. Not sure if I could recommend it, though.

After the movie we went back to busy Sannomiya to do some shopping for some friends, and also to hit a few stores for ourselves. We had fun in a few stores in Motomachi – a spice store in Chinatown and Kaldi import foods. We made a stop at one of our favorite cheese stores – they recently moved across town to a better(?) location. We were able to snack on a few pieces of cheese and drink a couple of glasses of wine right there in the store, but the atmosphere wasn’t quite what I expected. What they really need is a window, I think.

Finally we went over to Kobe and had yakiniku at 満月 (Mangetsu). The place was busy but we were able to get a table and kicked off our meal with a plate of ユッケ (yukhoe). Afterwards we filled up on meat – loads of meat. We don’t usually have very much meat during the week, so I think we ate several weeks worth in one meal. We grilled it ourselves at our table and were very satisfied with the result.

Sunday we spent mostly at home, just going out to do a little bit of shopping for dinner. We watched a concert I downloaded of Cocco, and I grilled up vegetables for our dinner using a siracha marinade that really livened up the veggies.

It was a good weekend, but a hot one. Hopefully in the next few weeks the temperature will start dropping…

Yesterday there was a pall thrown over the workday when we found out that one of the employees at the company where I work had died suddenly at home the previous day. He was forty years old. He lived alone, so he wasn’t found until his boss went over to his place to try to find him.

I taught several of his coworkers yesterday, and what resulted looked more like a therapy session than an English lesson. I’ve always had an attitude of “enjoy life now, before it’s too late” because of some experiences in college and soon afterwards that had a big effect on me. So it was more of the same during my classes yesterday. Most of my students overwork as a general policy, and to suggest that they don’t work until 10 pm every night is something like heresy. But yesterday I think a couple of my students saw the light – or pretended to, anyway.

This weekend is a little bit busy – Kuniko has a big presentation that she will make today, and we both have drinking parties afterwards. Tomorrow we’ll go catch a movie in Kobe, try a wine and cheese tachinomi place in Sannomiya, do some shopping for some friends, and cap off the day with yakiniku. Sunday will be completely open and free – I’m sure we’ll be looking to burn some calories by then.

This month I’m wrapping up the six month course and my current group of students will be done with their twice-a-week English lessons. I was very happy with the students this term, and I’m hoping the next batch are just as good. Some of my students were very shy this term, and it was sometimes difficult to overcome that in class. Now I think I’ve got just about everybody chattering away in relative comfort in English.

As usual the end of the term is always a little strange in terms of scheduling. Because we want to leave some flexibility for sudden changes, business trips, and any sick days on my part there is about a week to ten days that are open right now. Some of those days I’ll teach a half day of classes, and on another day we’ll have an orientation for the new students starting in October. Hopefully soon I’ll have the schedule for my new course, and that’ll tell me when our starting day is. Since the schedule is in flux I may get a few days off, but these days will be spent making lesson plans for the new students. Based on the number of classes next term, I’m hoping to get a lot of time off to work on lesson planning – I have no time available during the regular work day to do it.

When I first came to Japan I inherited a small noisy washing machine that was stored outside my house on the balcony of my apartment. I would throw my clothes in there with a little detergent, and then come back outside in an hour and pull the clothes out and hang them up right on the balcony to dry. It is a pretty common way to do laundry around here, but during cold weather you can freeze your ass off hanging the laundry, and if it is raining you can pretty much forget about doing laundry at all.

That’s why I love our washing machine now. We are pretty busy and not around very much during the day, but that doesn’t stop us from taking care of the laundry. We load up the clothes in washing machine, and then set a timer. After nine hours it kicks on, washes the clothes, then goes ahead and dries them for us, too. I get home twelve hours later and the warm, clean laundry is ready to be folded. Rain? No problem. Typhoon? Who cares? I’m glad I experienced doing laundry on the cold balcony so I can appreciate the technology we’ve got now.

Actually, there are a lot of timers in our house. Our rice cooker, living room and bedroom air conditioners, heated floors, computers and media server, ventilation fan for the shower, dishwasher, and even the digital picture frame operate on timers. Living in the future!