It looks like the rain has finally let up, and we should have a whole lot of sunshine, starting today. Outside the sun is shining, and everything is starting to dry out. I’m trying to figure out what to do this weekend, but whatever it is it will involve the great outdoors.

Tonight after work I’m going to meet up with a group of ex-students – Mr. Minamimoto, and two Mr. Yoshidas (Shu and Nao). The idea is to recap the dating party from last month, but I think that’s really only an excuse to go out drinking. I don’t mind – it’ll be good to hit Sannomiya again. It has been a while.

Kuniko is stuck at work tomorrow, but we should have most of Sunday to relax together and unwind. Maybe a hike on Sunday?

Once again we’re faced with a day full of rainy weather. Yesterday really delivered, with a big rush in the evening just after I got home. There is even a typhoon coming today, but it looks like it’ll pass well to the south of us. Just a wet, wet day.

With all this rain I’m starting to wonder if our rice seedlings we planted last week will be OK. A week ago today we went over to help Kuniko’s parents plant rice seedlings in trays to prepare for the rice planting in June. This part of the job isn’t so tough, but at the end we built miniature greenhouses over the seedlings so that they’d be nice and warm as they grow. Now I’m wondering if the greenhouses can withstand all this rain.

Last week was a good opportunity to wish Kuniko’s mom a happy mother’s day, and give her some flowers and a little bit of cake for dessert. We also got to see Kuniko’s sister Tomoko and her husband Atsushi, who dropped by to help out. It turned out to be a somewhat rare extended family get-together.

This week is wrapping up quickly. Tonight Kuniko has a party so I’ll be on my own to clean up the leftovers from the fridge, and tomorrow I’ll have a party after work with some ex-students. It’ll be nice to end the week and get back to my days of leisure…

Apparently the rainy season is still about a month away, but you wouldn’t know it looking out the window. It is pouring rain today, just like it was pouring rain yesterday. The forecast is rain the rest of the week, as well. Ugh. I must wear a tie to work until the “Cool Biz” program kicks on June 1st. It’s an interesting insight into Japanese culture that no matter what the temperature might be in May, the ties must stay on until June 1st.

But now the humidity is really high because of the rain, and the temperature is also fairly warm. That means hot, wet and sticky. I’ll just have to get through the rest of this month wearing ties, and then it will be sweet relief.

We hosted a couple of parties at our place during the Golden Week. On Tuesday night Yoshi and Akira came over for grilled carne asada tacos, and we spent most of the evening playing Wii and drinking way too much. Mamiko couldn’t make it because she had a bit of a stomachache, but I think she’s feeling better now.

Also Mr. Tojo and his wife came over. We introduced them to Mexican food, and I think they liked it, but I’m not entirely sure. They were really friendly and I think they’ll make good neighbors. They live just a minute or two walk from our place, and are really friendly. They also enjoy drinking – we killed four bottles of red between the four of us, on top of the beer and cocktails that we started with. I guess that it’s good that they live just down the street – it was an easy walk back home for them.

OK, time to face the rain (and the sweat).

I’m back to posting, after a very satisfying Golden Week. Each day was relaxing, reading, drinking, eating, and taking things slowly. So nice. The next long holiday isn’t until July, so I’ll have to make do with some shorter holidays between now and then.

Yesterday was my first day back at work in about 10 days, so it was a slow start. My students were also adjusting to speaking English again – it wasn’t just me. Hopefully by the end of today we’ll have our momentum back and be able to start making progress soon.

One of the things that I did during the long holiday was make a trip to Osaka to run some errands, and check out the newly opened (and much bigger) Osaka station. The station has been open for train business all along, but the buildings and shopping centers in the same building have been completely remodeled, and there were plenty of people there when I went. Luckily I went on a day that wasn’t an official holiday, and didn’t have to fight quite as many crowds. The place looks great, and it is much easier to navigate – I don’t go to Osaka often but I was able to quickly move through the station to my destination. Much better than the underground and overpasses that characterized the old station.

I’m off to work, but I’ll try to keep up the recaps of Golden Week this week.

We had a pretty nice weekend to kick off Golden Week. Friday night was a quiet night at home eating Thai food – but Saturday I met Kuniko in Kobe after she got off work and we attended a mandolin guitar concert put on by her students.

After the concert we headed over to a small bar that specializes in homemade sausages, called Bratwurst. I really liked some of their sausages, some of them were a little boring, however. And I don’t really understand why Japanese sausages have to be so damn small. I’m sure there is a very good reason for it, but I have yet to find the answer. And furthermore, despite being a sausage restaurant/bar, they only had two beers on tap – boring old Suntory. What a great opportunity to sell a variety of beers and keep people drinking.

Despite all the criticisms, we enjoyed eating there – the atmosphere was very nice and most of the sausages were great. I guess I reserve my deepest criticism for the restaurant that gets so close, and then punts on the details.

After snacking on sausages and beer we went to a restaurant that Kuniko recommended, a vegetable-centric place called 農家 (Nouka). They have a partnership with an agriculture co-op and sold fresh vegetables out in front of the restaurant. We had a couple of small plates of vegetarian dishes – steamed vegetables served with walnut oil and Okinawan salt, a deep-fried assortment of veggies to go with our beer, and a vegetarian pizza stacked high with gobo and lotus root. It really hit the spot, and we went home satisfied.

Yesterday we got up early and drove to Costco. Talk about crowded – I couldn’t believe how many people were waiting in line to get in. This is a big holiday week, so I guess it makes sense. We got in and got out in record time, however. Some products we were able to get – a huge bag of organic tortilla chips, a cheese plate of various flavors of Sonoma Jack cheese, pita bread for Yoshi and family. Some products were unavailable this time – flank steak for carne asada, Malbec from Argentina, and cheese bagels were nowhere to be found. You win some, you lose some, and we certainly didn’t go home empty-handed.

After a relaxing evening last night Kuniko went off to work this morning, and she’ll be stuck at work until late tonight. I’ll be doing some odd jobs at home but mainly relaxing and catching up on my reading. It’s time to enjoy the holidays.

Today is a national holiday for most people in Japan, but at the factory where I work they are keeping it open. They don’t like single holidays much because it involves shutting everything down, putting everything away, and then coming back the day after the holiday and starting it all back up. What they’ve done is move all the single holidays into strings of holidays during the hot summer months. What that means for me is that I’m one of the few people going to work today in Japan, but later in summer I’ll get a day off to relax while everyone else heads to work in the heat. And I’m just fine with that.

This is also a special day because next week is Golden Week, and most people have the whole week off. I’ve got a relatively easy day at work today, and then, let the relaxation begin. I’ve got about four books lined up that I want to read, as well as a couple of movies I want to watch.

Last night I had a plan to meet Renato, an OTC coworker, after work in Nishi Akashi. Usually my office hours end at 5:30, and I have plenty of time to get to Nishi Akashi at 6, but yesterday I had three students show up out of the blue to ask questions, and I ended up being 20 minutes late. Renato was a good sport and killed time with coffee and donuts in Mister Donuts.

We caught a quick meal and some beers at a small place that Yoshi took me once before, with lots of international beers available in the bottle. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I had a rare chance to drink a Samuel Adams, and I was a bit disappointed. It was a lot lighter than what I remembered. Oh well.

The dinner was good, the beer was cold, and it was fun talking with Renato about his work, life and travel plans. He’s a really nice guy.

OK, I’m out of here soon. It is a holiday train schedule so I’ll likely have a chance to sit down on the morning commute, which is a very rare luxury for me. More updates later…

Last night after work I joined a couple of ex-students, and we went out for Chinese food in Sannomiya. The restaurant turned out to be pretty good, with a lot of spicy food. My favorite was a stir fried strips of tofu with very spicy green peppers – yum. My eating and drinking companions spoke only Japanese that evening, so it was a good workout for my Japanese skills. We got a great deal on the dinner, too. Lots of food (probably too much) and all you can drink for 3000 yen a person. Nice deal, considering we went right for the pai-chu. At 55% alcohol that stuff packs a punch.

I also got an update on the new Costco in Tarumi. Although before the earthquake they had been planning to open in September, it now sounds like it will be pushed to the beginning of 2012. So I guess we’ve got a little more waiting before we can casually drive out to Costco any time we want. On that note, we’re planning on visiting the Amagasaki Costco this weekend to purchase supplies for the long weekend and recharge our wine cellar. I guess we’ll get to visit Amagasaki a few more times before giving it up for Tarumi.

Tonight after work I’m going out drinking with a different group of ex-students than the usual bunch. It should be fun to see their chemistry – every group has a different one. Add in a predominantly English-speaking teacher and we’ll see what happens. Usually everybody wants to speak Japanese at first, and then slowly the English comes out. I’m looking forward to the party, though.

Tomorrow I’ll catch a beer on the way home with another OTC teacher that I haven’t seen in a while, and then Friday I’ll have a day off from parties before the big holiday starts. My holiday calendar is also starting to fill out a little bit – Friday I’ll spend the day in Osaka and Thursday Kuniko and I will go over to Kakogawa to help out around the rice paddy with Kuniko’s folks.

So, lots of the horizon – looking forward to the Golden Week holidays!

So a while back I received a small bonus for wrapping up my previous year’s contract competently. I was wondering (on this blog) what to do with it so I guess I should report on what I did. I used a small part of it to buy some books and blu-rays that I was hankering for, but most of it ended up going towards a small wine cellar.

Summers here get brutal, with temperatures inside our house reaching as high as 40 degrees (104 F) and 80 percent humidity. Until now I’ve stored our wine under our house, but I was still a little worried about some of the nicer bottles in our collection. So I got a super-powered cold box that will keep the wines at a constant temperature all year round. It holds 26 bottles, so it is just the right size for us. The real test will be in a few months when temperatures start to sky-rocket. Hopefully it can handle the heat.

Kuniko’s got a half day off today, so with any luck I’ll have a dinner ready for me when I get home. I’m looking forward to seeing what it could be… Last night I whipped together some simple okonomiyakis for dinner, but I couldn’t resist adding a little garlic. Just a dash of garlic seems to really bring out the flavor.

Friday night was the big dating party that everyone (while, maybe not everyone) was looking forward to all week. The four men (including myself) gathered on the platform in Sannomiya, and we ventured to the restaurant where we met up with Kuniko and her three friends. I was unsure exactly how to proceed, but once the alcohol started flowing the conversation inevitably followed, and we could enjoy the evening. It was pretty hard to tell if it was a dating party or a regular party. Maybe that is a sign that it was a success. But the real sign of success will be if somebody signals somebody else that they’d like to meet again. So far, no sign of that. Today I’ll go to work and see if there are any nibbles from my side of the table.

After dinner we went back down to the street and said our goodbyes, but two of my members joined Kuniko and myself for a couple bottles of wine at our favorite wine bar. We had a couple nice wines, including a particularly tasty Louis Jadot, and spent a while recapping the evening and just talking. It was pretty fun, but everyone was a little on the drunk side as we caught a train and headed home. I was surprised to find that we got home after 1 a.m., which is pretty late for us lightweights.

As for the rest of the weekend, Kuniko should get some kind of award for cooking up a storm. Saturday night we were craving avocados, so she made pasta with a creamy avocado sauce which we ate with much gusto. Awesome taste. Not content with a great dinner, she went on to make bagels and then made fresh basil, cream cheese and prosciutto bagel sandwiches for our lunches. On top of that was some homemade anpan for dessert. Seriously, she should win some kind of award.

Also during the weekend we managed to finally buy some basil and cilantro to plant outside to keep us in herbs through spring. It was fun to work in the garden during the afternoon on Sunday, and hopefully the work will pay off in the near future. We’re hoping to cook a Mexican feast for Yoshi and family next week.

OK, back to work for me. One solid week of classes and then I have nine days off in a row. Golden Week, here we come.

Yesterday I was sitting in my office/classroom waiting for my next student when a knock came at the door, and a person I didn’t know at all started to walk in the door. He spotted me and stopped short, and I took the opportunity to say in very professional English, “Good afternoon, can I help you?”

The poor guy got a double shock for walking into the wrong room, and unfortunately wasn’t able to recover. He said something like, “Ah… ah… mmm… no… uh…” and then ran for it.

Actually this kind of thing happens about once a month. The office that I’m in is marked as “reception room 4”, but unfortunately on the same floor there is also a “meeting room 4” and “inspector’s office 4”. That leaves plenty of chance for confusion. I actually enjoy the experiences very much (probably too much). I guess it breaks up an otherwise routine day.

Tonight is the big night, and we’ll bring together six single people in a restaurant with all you can drink alcohol and see what happens. It’s my first experience to witness 合コン (go-kon) up close. It should make for some interesting stories next time!

Here in Japan GW means Golden Week. I’ve got a particularly long Golden Week set up – nine days off in a row. Kuniko’s is not quite so long – she has six days off broken up with classes in between. Although we don’t have any specific plans (other than a visit to Costco) some of my students have some pretty dramatic plans. If you watch the news it says that travel is down in Japan due to the disaster, but from the small sample of my students it seems like just about everyone is going somewhere – domestic and international trips.

We’re hoping to set something up with Yoshi and family during Golden Week, and perhaps do a little hiking, but other than that it’ll be chillout time. I have a couple of projects that I want to get done: organizing music, looking at the wiring of our TV in the attic, and maybe planting some cilantro in the front yard.

Thursday is here, and the big party is tomorrow. I’m looking forward to seeing how that turns out…

This week so far has been cold and windy. What happened to spring? I’m back to wearing my long coat – luckily I didn’t take it to the cleaners last weekend.

Not much to report these days – no news is good news, as they say. We’ve been eating well lately, with a lot of beef on the menu. Last night was carne asada tacos with Canasta tortillas (which last quite a long time in the fridge) and they really hit the spot. I was a little worried about how long the meat was in the freezer, but it turns out there is nothing to worry about. I’ll buy twice as much next time we hit Costco. Which I think is in a couple of weeks.

I had a dream last night that we were shopping at Costco, but I hadn’t brought a shopping list. I was going up and down the aisles trying to remember everything that we needed. I was really stressing out because I was sure we were forgetting something, and since we don’t go often it would be a big problem to miss something.

I guess I gotta get out more.

Anyway, off to work. Already Wednesday, and we’re starting to think about the weekend.

For the last six months or so I’ve been going back to re-watch the HBO series The Wire. The first time I saw it it blew me away, and with so many cast members and so many plot lines going on I figured I was bound to miss something. I get to an episode every couple of weekends, and last weekend I wrapped up season 3. If you haven’t seen it, it’s an amazing series, and one hell of a commentary on the way things are done in the U.S. of A.

At the end of this week Kuniko and I will be hosting a party in Sannomiya made up on single friends looking for a significant other. It should be interesting – my first experience in a “dating party” – and I’m looking forward to seeing how it works out. I’m bringing three single guys, Kuniko is bringing three single girls, and hopefully somebody will hit it off with someone else. This will be on Friday night after work – which will be a fun way to get the weekend started.

Kuniko has a half day off today, so she should be able to catch up on some rest this afternoon. She had to work both days this past weekend, so I’m thinking she could use the rest. I think we’ll be starting in on the carne asada tonight. Yum.

It was a strange weekend – very strange. It started on a very good note with a meet-up with Inoguchi sensei after work on Friday. Together we went to a Thai restaurant near Motomachi station. It was good to see Inoguchi sensei – he’s always full of interesting conversation topics, and I’m always hoping some of his intelligence will rub off on me. We talked about his recent trip to Hong Kong, and talked about my future trip to India, and enjoyed some pretty good Thai food. When in Kobe eating Thai food one must measure the quality of the food by comparing with the top Thai restaurant – Baan Thai. I’m happy to report that this one did very well, and it wasn’t that hard to get a table. After dinner and coffee we called it a night, and I got home at a record-breaking 9 pm on a Friday.

Saturday I spent at home cleaning house, watching The Wire (season 3), doing laundry, and resting up. For dinner I went out to Red Spanky and had the master cook up some dinner. Since there was only one other customer I asked him to make up whatever he wanted for me, and ended up enjoying a baked chicken, cheese and meat sauce dish with a side of salmon salad and garlic toast. Yum. Soon after I finished eating things started getting busy, and unfortunately I was the only there were nobody really to talk to. My plan to practice speaking Japanese daunted, I checked out on the early side and headed towards home.

Since I felt like I had a little more party left in me I stopped in at “Jin” on the way home. Jin is a small drinking hole between our house and the station, so it is certainly in a convenient location. It is usually only open late, so it is pretty rare for me to drop in. This was the second time visiting, and despite that the master remembered my name (which is an impressive feat considering how strange my name is in Japan).

I wasn’t the only one – three women were drinking and laughing at the bar, and I squeezed in between them and a quiet old guy that appeared to be pretty drunk. The master served up some hot sake for me, along with a couple grilled sardines. I had a nice conversation with the ladies, one of whom was a train operator for JR. One lady ended up having to leave, so she had the master call a cab and then lurched towards the door once it arrived. That freed up a seat for a solitary, serious-looking gentleman that came in afterwards. He sat between me and the ladies, and didn’t really seem like the talkative type. That left me with the soused guy on my right, which also didn’t look like a good option for conversation. While the master was in the back cooking something, I sat and stared at the wall hoping she’d come back so I could check out and move on. I looked over at the drunk guy on my right and he suddenly sprayed all the beer that was in his mouth all over the counter and the bottles in front of him. Uh, yeah. Check, please!

Finally disentangled from Jin (and not likely going back), I was able to meet Kuniko at the train station coming back from her party, and we went home together and could go to sleep with the smell of smoke still in our hair.

Sunday we had a small get-together with Kuniko’s folks to celebrate her father’s birthday. Niro was turning 61, and so I cooked up some beef on the BBQ, Kuniko made some risotto and a salad, and we had a good time. I opened up a bottle of Benziger Merlot as well, and it really brought back memories of working here when it was called Martini & Prati winery.

Now we’ve got enough meat leftovers to feed an army of carnivores. While grilling a giant roast I also pulled out some carne asada that I had in the freezer and cooked it as well. Even after giving lots of food to Kuniko’s parents to take home we’ve still got way too much. I guess it will be an all-beef week.