Hello

Tuesday came, and once again we woke up very early. We went to what they call a "set breakfast". In parts or all places in Japan you can go to coffee shops in the morning and buy a coffee and they give you a free breakfast. Set because I think there are no menu choices, its just set. This is before 11 AM. Coffee is kind of expensive, 4 dollars for an iced cafe au lait. However, if you are getting a piece of toast, salad, an egg and some noodle thing it's not a bad deal. We are not sure if that is a Japanese thing in general, or if it is just Gifu prefecture or this region of Japan. We have heard both.

After breakfast we went to Plant 6, which is by far the biggest super market I have ever seen. It looked like it could go for miles. It was not only food, but the other side of the store had stuff for your home. We walked around in a slight daze. It's a bit overwhelming at first. The current teachers bought a few things and then we can home for a little while. After that we went back to school to continue training and sitting in on the classes. Again it was a bit of a blur.

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After work we went out with the owner of the school, the secretary and the two teachers. It was quite a lovely meal. After dinner we went to karaoke. It was a bit different than at home. You actually rent your own karaoke room. You can order food and drinks and sing with your friends. I think I like it this way a little bit better, it's not smoky or too loud. We had another late night!

Wednesday came....and what do you know, we were up again early. Now, I guess in the "real world" people get up early for work, but we don't have to be in until the afternoon. On top of that we are going off yet another night of not a lot of sleep, so sleeping in until at least 9 would have been nice. On this day we went out to lunch at Kappa Sushi. This was quite an amazing sight. You sit at a booth and a conveyor belt goes by with all the sushi you could possibly dream of. You can just take what you want. There is also a touch screen menu. You can select exactly what you want. After you done this a fast train, which is directly above the conveyor belt, comes to your table with what you ordered. You often see these fast trains whizzing past your head. They had every type of fish sushi, raw and cooked. They even had corn, cucumber, egg (cooked), tuna salad,and  potato salad sushi. So, if you are not in to eating raw fish, there is something for you! Will's favorites are some kind of squid.

We then went in for our third day of training in sitting in on the classes. At this point I was becoming even more excited at the idea of teaching and I could wait until I got to start. On this day Will finishes at 6:30 and I actually have an hour 20 minutes before my next class. All four of us were able to grab something to eat. We went to a ramen shop. It was so good. We got miso ramen, and Brian and Lesley got soy ramen. Quite delicious!! Lesley and I headed back to school and taught some more. We came home and were suppose to go to Gifu city, but plans got canceled. Let me just say, I was not sad. I was so glad we could actually get to bed at a normal hour.

Thursday....Up early again, surprise! We went to sushi again, but at another place called Atom Boy. It was very similar to Kappa Sushi, but no touch screens. We could have sat at the bar and ordered directly from the sushi chef so Lesley and Brian could order what they didn't see on the conveyor built. I must confess, I thought Kappa Sushi was better, probably because I liked the touch screen and the fast train. After lunch, more training and teaching. Thursdays are long days!

After school they wanted to go to this foreign bar and say goodbye to friends and we tagged along. We didn't really want to go, just because we were very tired. We met some cool people, and a dude from Connecticut taught me that it doesn't get hot in Richmond in the summer, as Virginia is not part of the South. I don't think he has ever been there, but I am sure he has looked at maps. Other than that, we did meet interesting people including one female teacher who graduated from the Virginia Commonwealth, like me!

Will and I eventually went outside to stand, not to be rude, but it was just too smoky for me. It always bothers my sinuses, so it's best not to sit in it too long. Plus you feel obligated to buy more. The drinks were expensive, about $7, $8 a drink. Which, I guess that's normal for a bar. However, if you can buy your own bottle of rum for 10 dollars and make 30 drinks yourself, why waste your money on one drink? That's just our philosophy. We would prefer to either drink at home alone in secret like alcoholics or better yet just not drink at all. Well, I suppose you really go for the company. But we didn't know anyone there and were too tired to socialize very well. I hope nobody thought we were rude. We got home late and went to bed.

Brian and Lesley left at 6 in the morning. We got up to say good-bye and of course could not go back to sleep. It felt like a relief that we didn't have to do anything until we went to work. What a lovely feeling! Brian and Lesley were very nice people and although we were excited to have our own place and relax a bit, we were sorry to see them go. I hope they come back here at least to visit.

Saturday we worked and then had our first trip to Piago, the grocery store. It was very overwhelming, half way through I was going a little crazy, zoning out and what not. Nothing is in English, well maybe a few things....but as far as oil, flour and stuff like that you just have to guess. We finally finished shopping and went to check out....little did we know you have to pay for bags. So, they rung us up, we took our cart to the bagging area. We looked for bags and just stood watching people. Finally we realize you have to pay for them. I pretty much had to mime the word bag and say "are imaska" (sp?) which means do you have. We got them and went home. We then started to clean and rearrange the apartment the way we wanted it. We also realize there was a lot of cleaning we needed to do. So, we had to go back to the store to get a few things. We felt better about this trip. Although we ended up stealing a laundry basket, but not on purpose. We came up the register with our stuff. She rang everything up but the basket. I said to Will, "I am not sure she rang that up. What do we do? If I try to say something it's going to result in mass confusion. I am too scared to try." So, we just went with it. It's kind of funny now, but the feeling that you have when you can not communicate is extremely overwhelming. We are feeling a lot more comfortable than before. In fact we went to buy one more laundry basket the other day, and the same thing happened, only this time we had the confidence and sense to point out that we needed to pay for it. Why weren't we that smart the other day?

Basically that entire weekend we cleaned and worked on things in the apartment. Monday came, our first week at work. It felt good. I really enjoyed it. I'll be writing more about teaching as we collect pictures and actually have some interesting stories to tell. So, far the students are fantastic. We teach all ages from 3 years old up to 70+. The classroom sizes are small, which is nice. We have private lessons all the way to 6 children in the classroom. However, on average I would say there are usually about 4 students in each class.

Our first week went well. At the end of that week we went to a bakery to buy a cake for a one year anniversary. Obviously we couldn't bring our cake topper for the states. It was quite delicious. We celebrated our anniversary by going out to ramen for lunch, and Chinese food for dinner. Yes, Chinese food in Japan. We had the cake at lunch and at dinner. It was so good. I wish I was eating some right now. We are going to go back to that bakery sometime and take pictures....it's amazing.

We had this past week off, which was just wonderful. We really needed the break after all the stuff we had to do in order to get to Japan. (I think that deserves it's own special blog). Then we just cleaned and relaxed all week. Mainly it was moving furniture and putting our things away and organizing. There was a lot of stuff we had throw away and stuff from many teachers of the past that have been left behind, like shoes and clothes. Too bad I can't wear a size 5 shoe, I would have been in heaven with those shoes...they were so nice! Will is also too tall and big-footed for any of Brian's clothes and shoes. Oh well, we have to take them to a thrift store soon.

Ok, more to come, I promise things will be shorter....blogs in the future will not be quite this long :) Will has told me that blogs should be shorter, full of pictures, and more about specific topics. If anyone has any questions or requests for a blog let me know. I'd be happy to try things out here in Japan and let you know about it. :)