Day 2, March 15 (Fri)

Up at 6:30 am. After eating breakfast, reading, unpacking a bit, and dawdling about, I set off to time the walk to the nearest supermarket (under 10 minutes), and learned that it doesn’t open until 10. I got there at 9:20, and the door was party open, and a worker said ‘irasshaimase’, so I went in. But no other shoppers arrived until after 10, the lights were out, and the employees were alternately setting up things and going through welcome drills (‘irrasshaimase:’ ‘irasshaimase!’ ‘oyahou gozaimasu:’ ‘oyahou gozaimasu!’ ‘shosho omachi kudasai:’ ‘shosho omachi kudasai!’ etc.).
I delayed my checkout until, like, 10:05, when someone else was already leaving. I purchased some essentials like kitchen towels, a sponge, all-purpose cleaner (maybe), dish soap (I think), hand soap, toilet paper, shampoo (I’m not sure, though it says shampoo), and instant ramen.

I began to clean, but was thwarted by my kind downstairs neighbor, Randy, who offered to take me out for my first drive-on-the-left-side-of-the-road lesson. Count me in. It’s strange getting used to being on the right of the car and the left of the road, I still have a little bit of trouble measuring the size of the car (cause golly, it’s TINY!), but the worst is that the blinker is on the right side of the wheel, the windshield wipers on the left.
Randy showed me around a bit, we went to lunch (I had donburi for the first time), to a mall with a hyaku-en store (dollar store - best store ever), then returned to UFO.

At 1pm, since it was Friday, there was a meeting for the teachers, where they/we get the schedule for the next week and discuss pressing issues like a barbecue? anyway. I’ve been assigned to accompany some teachers for their classes, they’ve been assigned to take me along (I hope.).
There I met almost all the other teachers: Brad (who has been here 14 years), Hugh (from South Africa), and Chris (he and Brad seem to be fluent in Japanese). I also met Tomoe, one of the Japanese employees at UFO.

Then Randy took me for another round of driving lessons, we went to Eiheiji to see the temple there. It was huge! Very cool. There are automatic doors at the entrance... so an interesting blend of modern upkeep on a 13th century (?) temple. And lots of monks about, cleaning or gardening or whatnot. (Pictures of them prohibited.)

Me at the front of the cool hall:

Cool hall ceiling:

Randy outside with rain barrel:

Next we drove to a teaching location where I go to watch my first class. It’s nearing the end of the school year, so Randy has the kids doing end-of-year videos to show their parents. (Normally in Japan, I think, there are some parent-teacher days where parents come watch the class to see how the student is doing — and how the teacher is doing.) Hugh was also there to help Randy with the filming, but the students needed more practice, and one was missing, so they decided to wait to film until next class. We stayed for a bit of Hugh’s class which followed, then I drove home (in the dark!). 

This time I got to bed by about 10pm (thanks to coffee)....