Day 3, March 16 (Sat)

...And woke at 5:30am. Eh, that gave me plenty of time to shower (with towels!!!!), clean every single dish in the place, and try to make breakfast (stupid fry pan....).

Then I hung out on my computer for a while writing some of this stuff, until Randy came by to ask if I wanted to watch him prepare for his first class of the day. I watched him prepare, asked some questions, then watched the class. This was a class of tiny little kids, very cute (but attention spans are like 0).

After that Randy showed me a bunch of the teaching materials available, then it was time to head out to the next set of classes. Randy’s international driver’s license is expiring, so I’m his designated driver, which works out because I want to watch as many classes as I can (and I guess I’ll be taking over some of them once he leaves?).
These kids were 9-12 years old, with some more advanced English than the others I’d seen, and they were pretty well behaved. Again, Randy was filming for the end-of-year video, and the kids were nervous, but did pretty well. (Also it probably doesn’t help that I’m there, a new person, watching.)

That evening Randy showed me the walk to the train station (30-40 min.), and we took the train to Fukui to see a performance of the band ‘hiroshima’ since Randy’s student Miki is the drummer. Miki was nice, Randy found a wig, and Hugh was there to hang out for a bit, so it was fun, but I don’t think the punk-rocker scene is really my thing. That’s ok though.
I’m getting a little more comfortable with Japanese (not like comfortable, just not totally uncomfortable), my ears are still training to listen, but I’ve actually spoken a bit in Japanese. That’s good. I successfully answered ‘futska mae’ (two days ago) when asked when I arrived in Japan. Goodie.

The band didn't actually perform until like 9:00. They only did 3 or 4 songs, they were pretty good and I’ve never seen someone playing bass (or guitar or drums for that batter) that close. (There were like 10 people in the room, and that was probably half-capacity).
Then, from the Fukui train station, I successfully navigated my way back to Sabae and back to UFO alone! In the dark! I’m rather proud of myself for this accomplishment.

Mall with 7-stories of escalators I rode to the top and back down while waiting for my train: