Rest for the Wicked

Wednesday 5^th October

Trying to teach 6 year olds the English Alphabet – never has a task been so painful and adorable at the same time. After a tone deaf rendition of the alphabet song, courtesy of yours truly, the teacher held up pictures of animals for the kids to yell (loudly) the English word and then what letter they thought it started with. Apparently Lion starts with G, M and R. Dog on the other hand started with just about every letter of the alphabet except D.

On Thursday I had a lovely surprise in the form of a very heavy and full package from home (I’m technically an adult but still have no idea how mum manages to get everything to fit into those bloody boxes…).

Friday 7^th October.

The dreaded English proficiency test. I was asked to supervise one of the third grade classes – which meant sitting there for 40 minutes while the kids struggled through the written section, and then pressing play on the tape recorder for the listening section. At the end of the CD were instructions on how to collect up the papers, in Japanese…So I stood there mentally confirming that no, I hadn’t understood a thing the tape had said, before apologising to the kids and saying my Japanese was crap and subsequently following a student’s instrucitons – I figure if anything it’ll make the kids feel better about their English ability…

The rest of the day consisted of Nabekko which turned out to be a very welcome trip to the beach for a school picnic. The students split up into groups to cook meals which ranged from okonomiyaki and yakisoba, to french fries and pizza. The teachers cooked up a pot of kiritanpo. Wandering around the groups of students was great not only for entertainment value – but also for getting fed. I scored small helpings of okonomiyaki and yakisoba, freuit salad and the biggest toasted marshmallow I have ever seen.

Once the cooking was done the students commenced what is apparently the tradition of sliding down the grass bank on slabs of cardboard, blankets, or in one kids case – on their stomachs. There were multiple hilarious collisions and flailing limbs and shrieks my inner child was desperate to go and join in.

On the walk back to school I got into a conversation with S-sensei and a couple of students about sports etc, one of the kids asked why kendo wasn’t an Olympic sport, S-sensei explained that it might be because in Kendo, if you celebrate scoring a point or victory – the point will be reverted. I asked if this was a case of showing respect to your opponent, and felt like a total boss when I casually dropped in utte kansha, uttarete kansha (be humble when both hitting the enemy, and being hit by the enemy) a phrase which I had picked up from Atsu’s English speech and managed to use in the correct context!

Saturday 8^th October

An early start and a coffee and we were off to Sendai for the day – It’s quite handy when people decide they want to get out of Honjo for the day and offer to take you along. There had been what looked like a rice spillage along part of the road, and the grains were being flurried around in the wind. With the knowledge that in Japanese, raw rice is kome Liam quipped that in the years to come they would talk about this as the day of the great komekaze….

City of Trees or City of Fog?

Once in Sendai the entertainment continued, we were strolling through the shopping arcade and saw what I initially thought to be an incredibly ugly dog – and turned out to be a pig. Someone was taking their effing pig for a walk. It only got better when a dog wearing dungarees stopped to sniff said pig.

We spent the day wandering through the arcades, stopping to listen to a couple of the a cappella  performances that were going on – including an impressive if heavily accented rendition of Adele’s rolling in the deep “deres a fuuyuur stuurting in my huuurt” ….

We went up to an observation deck and got to see just how quickly the fog rolled over the city. A stop at the lindt shop for a coffee and then it was back on the road home – only to pull up right behind a car that had flipped on the motorway.

Sunday 9^th October

 After the immense amount of driving (or in my case – being driven) around on Saturday Sunday called for a lazier start. I ventured into Honjo to discover the delights that Daiso, the 100 yen store held (the amount of self-control required in that place is immense). I then met up with Liam and we headed into the city to meet with Briana and Jan, who are also ALT’s, for shopping and dinner followed by gracing a Japanese Arcade with our presence.

Monday 10^th October

One of Liam’s friends Hiroki had suggested that we go and check out the Akita International University’s cultural festival since everyone had the day off (I do love the copious amount of public holidays we’ve been having recently). There were food stores galore and we also got treated to a bizarre beauty-esque pageant, although I was a lot more excited about the rabbit wearing sunglasses (it’s been a weekend for strange sights that’s for sure).

The campus was amazing and the library made me miss being a student and studying (kind of….).

This has been a case of hashing out a post before I forget everything I did so I do apologise for the poor penmanship.

Having a three day week sure puts you in holiday mode.

Akita International University Library