Sorry it took so long!

Wow, it was quite the weekend. Even though I work through Saturday, my weekend did in fact begin on Friday night. A lot has gone down since I last posted and I apologize in advance for how long this may be. Friday: As I always say, and will try to say less often now, slowly but surely my teaching is improving in the sense that I am more comfortable with it and on top of all the steps I have to attend to in class. Other than that I have no real news of a serious nature, but there is once again a funny situation with the same kids class as I had that one awkward moment with last week. This time, I am actually trying to teach and am in the middle of doing a game activity with the kids. One of the girls is already done and out and I let her draw on the board behind me while she waited. No biggie. The problem presented itself as she turned around and touched both my butt cheeks with her hands and rubbed em for about a second till I stopped her (in a playful kid way I guess though) . . . Man those kids. I will be on my top guard for this class on Friday. Who knows what I face next with them?

After school, two co-workers (later to be joined by our manager), two students, and myself headed over to a local izakaya to wind down. It was a fun and relaxing dinner as we got to know each other and laugh over life’s simple or exciting pleasures. Nights like that are one of the many things that keep me smiling at work ^_^

Saturday:

As usual, Saturday is a busy day but it was a good one nonetheless. This was somewhat entertaining also. So, my head teacher needs to watch me teach a lesson and sits in on a lesson I am teaching to an 18 and a 20-year-old girl. For those of you who know me, stop laughing cause this isn’t going to be what you think . . . Jerks. Anywho, the class was about calling people on the phone and for the most part it went really well and while I am at the last ten minutes of class, I have one of the girls pretend she is calling a guy’s house, but he isn’t home while the girl (other student) is and she is his girlfriend. I didn’t even consider where they were gonna take this -_-

So here is the convo:

Student 1: Hello? This is (can’t say her name) . . . is Wes there?

Student2: No this is ___. I am Wes’s girlfriend (“oh geez” I thought to myself) Why are you calling here? (OH IT GETS BETTER)

Student1: Oh . . . I am also Wes’s girlfriend . . . (and the skit goes on, but that’s the funniest part)

So I got a little red, but we all got a good laugh out of it. Things like this definitely keep work rather interesting haha. In terms of my head teacher observing me, He liked me better that I expected. I did manage to forget a big chunk (which I had never done up to that point), but it wasn’t too big a deal. There are some preparation things I need to work on and a couple other fine details, but other than that, I am doing ok. I now have a better idea of how to improve and am grateful for it. He says he plan to watch another class this week. Hopefully I knock his socks off =P

After work, three of us teachers and one of the students went down to Yokohama city to have a night in the town. We got there around eightish and had ourselves a good time. We went to this pizza joint that is pretty popular here called Shaky’s. I guess it's a US based company with all the English and American culture that was all up in the place. The pizza was quite good though. Of course we had some pepperoni, but we tried some terriyaki chicken also, which was quite delicious.

From there we went and did some karaoke for about an hour and later took the show to a local arcade. It had several floors and all sorts of games you would and would not recognize. There were also a lot of those claw games where the prizes were anything from food to watches. Some of my friends would have never left hehe. I played this game that is like guitar hero but for Taiko drums (Japanese style drums). Very fun, and I posted pictures of it on the profile. Before we headed home, we went to this department store called Don Quijote. Its like the Wal-Mart of Japan 0_0 they had everything there >_<>

Sunday:

I met up with an old friend who actually lived next door to me in my first year at college. She was an exchange student doing a home-stay and I saw her quite often before I got deployed. It was nice to see her again after so long. We met in the city of Asakusa and initially checked out the Sensoji shrine that was there. It was an amazing site (pics posted). The structures of the gates and buildings were very impressive, and so was the long network of souvenir/snack shops between the inner and outer gate buildings. Not to mention there was a ton of people there that day. My friend said that over the New Year holiday, it is so crowded that one can’t even move around in the crowd. Crazy. Even though the place was hella crowded, I still felt the same way around this shrine as I did the one back in Omiya. It was amazing. We then proceeded to just walk around town to watch people and catch up on the 4 years we were out of the loop with each other. There were plenty of interesting people as well as sights. For instance there was this 4 or 5 story building dedicated to televising horse races for gambling. I never guessed it was so popular here. We also walked by a movie theater where I was surprised to see provocative pictures of scantily clad women in the middle of what seemed to be “romance scenes.” When I asked my friend what that was about, she told me that XXX theaters do exist here and that they call them “pink theaters.” I thought that was funny. Then, we just chilled by the river for a bit next to the Asahi headquarters building and enjoyed the peaceful and pretty afternoon. Gosh, Japan is so peaceful at times!

Next, we stopped a few cities over in Ueno. There is this big shopping center there called “Amayay okocho.” This place was also hella crowded, but that had pretty much anything you needed in terms of shopping. I managed to get myself this really handy coin-organizing wallet. Now I won’t jingle like santa clause with all the change I carry here.

We then bought a couple of bento dinners and cans of umeshu for ourselves and ate lunch in Ueno park. It was very relaxing as well as entertaining. There were plenty of people to watch and we also had to intimidate some crows that were intent on snatching our food. My friend said that this park is a prime spot for Sakura watching during April. She pointed out that basically all the trees lining the walkway would blossom. It sounded breath taking. Maybe I will make a stop there during April. Once we finished our meals, I then got to experience my first movie in Japan . . . Transformers 2!! It was in English and I liked it a lot better than the first one. Also, theaters in Japan are a little different but not really so much as to make for the necessity to comment more on it than this.

That was pretty much the excitement of my weekend. On Monday I just did errands and took care of ish at home. I guess I just need one of those days to relax. Work was fine yesterday and more or less uneventful. Though one of the staff is having her birthday on Saturday and we may do something after work. We shall see. You know I will keep you informed.