samiam.xiromethod.com

First I have to apologize for it being so long – be forwarned.

So today would have to be up there as one of the best days I’ve had so far in Japan. I don’t know if it was just me being in a really good mood – I’m sure that was a part of it. So a normal full day has 8 lessons. Today I started at 10am. I got to work a little early because I thought it was the start of a new week for kids classes – new flashcards, vocab, etc. But I was wrong. Not so bad, I had time to review throughout the day. I had 3 kids’ classes (2 kinder – 3-5yr olds and 1 junior – 6-9 yr olds). They actually went really well. I had a couple trouble makers but overall it was still okay. Then I helped out Steve, another instructor who was doing his first kids class today. He was a little nervous. After that, I took my break. Walked the short distance to the Daiei (grocery store) but it was super hot. I grabbed some fresh pineapple pieces and a thing of sushi that I thought was tuna. When I brought it back I asked another instructor to tell me what it was and he said it was Natto (not exactly sure on the spelling), which are fermented soybeans. In case you didn’t know, Japanese eat quite a bit of beans. They have a ton of bean paste type desserts that I just haven’t taken a liking too. Anyway, a lot of students have told me that I should try Natto, kind of laughing saying that most foreigners don’t like it. So here I am in our staff room, with Mark and Kaori, one of our Japanese staff. They’re both watching me intently waiting for my reaction. I take a bite, at first, not so bad, not the most pleasant thing, but then as I continued to chew, it just got worse, it kept getting more and more gooey and NOT good tasting. So, at least I tried it. Kaori was laughing hysterically at me. I’m glad she got such a kick out of it. A lot of the students in the voice classes (classes where we just sit around and talk casually for 40 min.) also said I should try Fugu (blowfish). This for those of you who don’t know, is kind of a delicacy here, pretty expensive, but most of all, it’s a poisonous fish. Prepared improperly results in death. It’s eaten mostly in winter time I guess from what they were saying. I’m still pondering.

After lunch I had a man to man (single lesson where the person pays for all the seats in the class (up to 4 people total) to be the only one with the instructor). It was with this pretty nice woman. She was 15min. late though so the lesson was really short. And she just wanted to continue talking about exchanging money in case she goes overseas. After this lesson I had a free so I was reading up on this special kids summer school thing that we’re going to do in August. Next was supposed to be voice. Normally we have tons of people and they are the same people that come everyday and they stay all day. But today this was not the case. There was no one there. So I had another free. My last lesson was a no show so that was 3 free classes in a row!

Going a little backwards, Thursday and Friday were our 2 days off, our weekend if you will. We spent a nice relaxing two days off. I cleaned a lot, got a lot of laundry done and just enjoyed the time off. Last night we took about an hour walk sort of in our neighborhood. It was pretty nice out by this time as the sun was beginning to set. We walked up hill quite a bit and got a great view of most of Kobe city. We could see all the way down to the ocean. We could see huge ships out quite a ways. I wish I had brought my camera with me. I’ll have to take that walk another time and bring it with me so you can all see what I mean.

I do have a couple more photos for you. Oh, Before I forget, I was thinking about today how I need to take some pictures of some of the girls here. They dress so strangely. The best way I can describe it is Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan – Or more simply put, like hookersJ It’s bizarre.

So first are a couple pictures of the shrine in Sannomiya (the central part of Kobe)

Then I took a couple pictures of my school and the Train Station which if you look carefully are right next to each other. In the Train Station photo you can see Nova Flags, that’s my school.

And last is a silly picture of Chris – I really like taking these, and as you can see by his face, he isn’t quite as amused as me. But this is kind of our living room area. Which is in the same room as our kitchen. More photos of our apt to come.

Oh last thing – Tomorrow is my 27th birthday – Happy Birthday to me!!! I have to work… oh well. It should be a fun topic of discussion for my classes.