Asuka's arrival and Furnishing the Apartment

It has been an eventful and interesting week since I last wrote. First off, as some of you know, Asuka finally arrived in Japan to join me in Kawajiri. She came Tuesday night and was pretty impressed with the place. It’s been a busy week since she got here, we spent most of last week visiting all the 100 yen stores and buying things for the house because I really hadn’t brought much before she came. We made like 5 visits to these 2 shops in Kure and got a lot of china ware and a bunch of house supplies. Asuka got a bunch of stuff that no man on earth would know you would need in a house and lots of stuff to make a place feel like home. We also decided that we really needed a couch, so went spent all Friday looking for one. We visited about 3 stores and spent the whole day walking until we finally decided on this big white sofa bed, its really nice and a lot cheaper that I would have thought. We also picked up a table- that we plan on taking back to Canada with us-called a kotatsu. The table is really utilized in winter because it has a built in heater. Basically it looks like a regular table but has two parts where the top part opens up and you slip your blankets in between and a heater warms up the blanket allowing you to stay toasty when it gets cold in the winter. Hard to explain, but I’ll illustrate with pictures very soon. So the place is really starting to feel like home with more furniture and more personal touches, I’m planning on doing a big picture taking of the house next week and I’ll post it up on the blog. Other than that it has been nice having Asuka here as my dinners have improved about 10 fold, as she has made lots of yummy Japanese food. I was getting a tad sick of grilled fish with rice, as I had been having that for 2 weeks straight. On Thursday we stopped in Kure for dinner and went to an izakaya (Japanese bar/restaurant) and had a huge dinner with some friends. If you wanna try an izakaya, there are 2 in Richmond that I know of, both on Alexandria beside Kam Do on the huge bubble tea strip. Has lots of good food and drinks. Picture above: me cleansing my hands at the temple in Miyajima

As for work it has been a fun week in the most part. Last Friday I had the bad 3^rd year kids again, and some of them sure are little shits. This one kid I swear has ADD and just has these weird schizophrenic manoeuvres, and a lot of the kids just chat during the class. The bad kids have basically given up in school, but I try to create lesson plans that they can enjoy and the majority of the kids give the class a shot. But I usually entertain myself by mouthing the kids of in slang cause they have no clue what i'm saying. But overall most of the kids are good, it just that school isn’t there thing and that’s understandable cause its not for everyone. But I try to make sure they at least try and have some respect for the teachers, cause Ms.Asatani the Japanese teacher I work with tries so hard to get the kids to listen. As for the other grades, they have been great. Both the first and second year kids try really hard and I really enjoy their classes. Today was the last day of my introduction lesson in Junior High school with the 1^st year kids, who were listening really intently. This one kid told me he loves Star Wars and drew little action poses of the characters on his self-introduction sheet, pretty darn cute kid. At the end of my self-introduction I usually have a question period and every kid that asks me a question I give them a Canadian penny. You’ll be amazed by how this motivates them and how quickly the hands go up. I got lots of normal questions and lots of weird ones. Usually they ask what is my height, age, birthday, favourite foods, color, marriage status and where I live. I get some interesting ones too, like blood type- which is really popular in Japan, shoe size, what brand are my glasses and also some tough ones like who is my favourite Japanese singer, comedian or celebrity. Overall, class has been good and tomorrow I head to another elementary school. They called me this morning and spoke to me just in Japanese, luckily I caught most of it and I’ll have a welcoming ceremony and then more introductions. I’ve done it about 20 times already and I still have 3 more elementary schools to go to, can’t wait till I finish them all. Picture above: Crack of dawn at Mt.Fuji

Oh I also have a 3 day weekend coming up known as Autumn Equinox on Friday. Asuka left on Sunday for Tokyo to meet up with some friends and family and will be coming back Friday, where she and two friends will be in Hiroshima city. I might go meet up with her in Hiroshima city and visit the peace park and Atomic bomb museum or I might take a day trip to somewhere close with some friends. So yupe, all in all Japan is treating me well and I’m still enjoying my time here. As for Japanese Factoid #3, I will talk about Japan and some of their little etiquette stuff that foreigners sometimes don’t know. For instance, during meals when you get those wooden chopsticks you aren’t suppose to rub them together to get rid off the wood splints, its considered rude. Also, you really aren’t supposed to talk on the cell phone on the train or bus, though looking at dirty mags is okay. Shoes are really big here as you they have outdoor and indoor shoes distinction. At school I have to bring a pair of slippers and I can’t wear my outdoor shoes in the school. There are also separate shoes for the indoor gym, like when you actually go workout you must have shoes that haven’t been worn outside. There are also bathroom slippers that you put on when you get into the bathroom and take off when you leave. Also, everyone house as its own little cornered off area that actually has its own step so that you know the division between outdoor and indoor shoes. So yupe, you really have to be cognizant of what shoes is needed as sometimes it can get quite confusing. Oh did I also mention that I’m a size 11 and in Japanese people have elf feet. The largest size you get usually find is a 9. So, shoes are definitely damn hard to get here for me. Fortunately I think I brought enough and Asuka was kind enough to buy me a new pair before she left. Picture above: Last night in Vancouver playing Catan!