Howie in Japan

Reading: ---
Listening: 桜、ケツメイシ
Craving: garlic bread

Monday, March 26
I woke up early to send Chris off to work and pack up my rubbish for collection. Have I mentioned that Mondays suck?

Upon arrival at work, I discovered two pieces of unfortunate news:

1. My perfect supervisor, Okabe-sensei, will be leaving Miki Higashi next month to work at a school for the blind. She has been requesting placement at this school for several years, and I’m happy that she finally has a chance at her dream job. Selfishly, however, I worry of how I’ll do without her. She has been a tremendous help to me in my first eight months here, negotiating with office staff, the vice principal, and other English teachers on my behalf, whether I’m asking for a shower in my apartment, in need of extended sick leave, or wishing to create unconventional lesson plans. She has been the best supervisor, and I hate that she’s leaving, but I hope that she’ll enjoy herself at her new school.

[Other teachers will be leaving as well, as is customary in the Japanese school system. Several of my favorites are retiring.]

2. Our school has no Internet connection. Without the joy of checking e-mails and browsing Wikipedia or the New York Times, I spent the day writing lesson plans for the new year; I discovered that time does fly when doing actual work at work.

Chris returned to Miki after work. We caught a train into Sannomiya, where we met up with Howard (who is Spring Break-ing it in Japan), his girlfriend Frances, and his friend Regan (a Himeji JET) at Oppaiyama. Our group headed straight for dinner at a nearby izakaya, where we ordered an abundance of small dishes, including shrimp cream croquette, grilled vegetables, chicken karaage, tempura, and two types of fried rice (fish and shrimp). I ate two plates of kim chi by myself. (Yes, I've been craving stinky foods lately.) When we had cleared the plates, I was still hungry, but as everyone else was full, we moved on.

We found a karaoke place where we sang a mix of English and Japanese songs. I ordered a large dish of wilted Caesar salad and “tortilla chips” (I use quotation marks because to label them so would be a lie.), both of which were not nearly as good as the food we had at dinner, but I was too hungry to care. After two and a half hours (?) of singing fun (which ended with a round of "Mr. Roboto"), we said our goodbyes at the JR station. Chris and I hopped back to the Hankyu line, where I bought two pastries at Fred’s Bakery, and we headed home.

We relaxed with long baths and updated our journals before bed. Still hungry (and unable to convince Chris to stop at a restaurant on the way home), I ate one of my pastries, a moist bread filled with plump raisins and topped with baked apples nestled in custard. The entire pastry was sprinkled generously with cinnamon, and I’ll definitely return for another.