September 2-8 (Mon-Sun) - Counting rice and bugs and stuff

Monday: No TKD, but I had a koto lesson.

I got these because they looked interesting. And say banana.

Sadly it’s just white bean paste with banana flavoring. Meh.

Here is a shot of outside my bedroom window... before the rice is harvested. Also you can see the imprints where it was smushed by the wind.

These are brown-rice noodles.

So I made spaghetti. 

It was good but I’ll stick with real noodles, thank you.

Tuesday: I tried the brown-rice bread.

It’s actually really good, toasted with butter.

Schools are back for summer, folks, and that means I got to kill 10 minutes every class asking how their summer break was :p but it also means more classes. Yoshikawa and Yutaka today. All 6th-graders on the same lesson. Go straight, turn right, turn right!!

Wednesday: Murata class went well. Although one of the guys has a newborn in the hospital, the woman was sick, and I had to give them another stupid test :(

I ate lunch with them again.

Class with Miki that night. We talked about strange foods. I guess in one part of Japan, the people eat dolphin. And you can eat horse some places around here. Well and we already know they like ‘harumon’ (intestines) and liver here. And cow tongue (I tried that). (I’ve tried the harumon too. Eeew.)

Thursday: A tiring day.

Friday: Kitanakayama Elementary. These classes are usually pretty fun, the kids are funny. (The second teacher always looks so tired though. I’m glad I can help her out at least a little.) At this school, they actually use English. The teachers ask ‘what day is it’, ‘how’s the weather’, they say ‘take out your pencils’ and things like that, the result is that some of the students can actually understand a good deal of English. I’m impressed. 

Then I found out I was going to get extra classes. Casey is assigned an extra class, so I’m taking over his Fukui classes on Friday nights. *sigh* I might still be able to do ballroom dance afterwards. So Casey asked if I wanted to take the classes this night, as he had just finished a lesson plan, so I did. They went pretty well, and afterward I had Kaori over and we watched a movie. So there.

Saturday: Here’s lunch.

I was really tired. That’s it.

Sunday: Hugh had a Judo competition/testing (if they win at least 2.5 of 4 matches they advance in rank) so we didn’t do our normal morning stuff. Kaori and I did breakfast, went to the hair salon for her to get her hair cut, then headed to Fukui to go watch Hugh’s matches. He passed his written test, so it was just the competition he had to pass to get a black belt. 

He did well (I think) but unfortunately came out at exactly 2 wins and 2 losses, which is a no go. (If he’d tied one of the losses instead, he’d have passed.) But I’m glad we went to see. Then Kaori and I went shopping for dinner ingredients, made dinner, watched movies, then called it a night.

Look at this beautiful insect.

Recent Japanese:

sakuban (昨晩) = last night — I kept asking people how to say last night, and they always say ‘kino no yoru’ meaning yesterday’s night, and that always bothered me. I just came across this term by accident in a podcast.

kaaningu = lit. cunning; to cheat

ichijiku = fig

inago = rice grasshopper; locust

honyuurui (哺乳類) = mammal

danbooru hako = cardboard box

shinryaku (侵略) = invasion

yushutsu (輸出) = export

ippanteki (一般的) = popular, general

oufuku (往復) = round trip

kokyuu (呼吸) = breath

kousaten (交差点) = intersection

fusegu (防ぐ) = to prevent

And I learned this song that teaches counters: 

ippon demo ninjin

nisoku demo sandaru

sansou demo yotto

yotsubu demo gomashio

godai demo roketto

rokuwa demo shichimenchou

shichihiki demo hachi

hattou demo kujira

kyuuhai demo juusu

jukko demo ichigo

one ~counter for thin objects~ but two (ni) carrots

two ~counter for shoes/socks~ but three (san) sandles

three ~counter for boats~ but four (yotsu) yachts

four ~grains~ but five (go) sesame-salt

five ~counter for large objects~ but six (roku) rockets

six ~counter for birds~ but seven (shichi) turkeys

seven ~counter for small animals~ but eight (hachi) bees

eight ~counter for large animals~ but nine (ku) whales

nine ~counter for liquid in glasses/bowls~ but ten (juu) juices

ten ~counter for small objects~ but one (ichi) strawberries