January 11-21 (Sat-Tues) - Dad Visits Sabae

Saturday: He’s here! My Dad returned to Japan. The first time he came in the absolute hottest it gets, the second time, well, it’s cold. However it’s much nicer ^^

For our first meal we went to all-you-can-eat with some of the other teachers.

Sunday: I met Dad at the hotel and we walked Nishiyama Park. Some areas were perilous with snow, but the red pandas were out. I asked the worker there where the babies (born in Sep.) were, and she said they don’t go on display until the fall, but would I like to see them? So she brought out Mama (Minfu?) and Baby (Mitsuki?). 

Which one is the baby?

The baby is the one in the back, munching constantly away at the bamboo. At 4 months old she’s only a little smaller than her mother. Red pandas, or Lesser Panda as they are called in Japanese, reach maturity at 2 years old. We spent some time talking with the zookeeper and watching the pandas pace.

We ate a home-cooked lunch, then went to a movie. First time! The screen was small but the chairs were nice and we had good seats. 

Dinner was tonkatsu!

Monday: We met up with Kaori and Alice and took a trip to the great wide yonder…. to a cat temple.

That’s right! A temple with lots and lots of cats. 

And temple stuff. 

It was lovely in the snow.

We lunched at a Nepalese Indian restaurant, yum. 

The bathroom was nice. And I liked the toilet paper.

Coming to this restaurant made me realize that Japanese restaurants don’t decorate. Not with pictures and things, anyway.

After lunch we did some shopping — Dad is no stranger to waiting for girls to shop — and for dinner we went with Alice to revolving sushi.

Tuesday:  We walked along the Hino river for a good view of the valley, and found a Fight Culb.

In the afternoon, Dad accompanied me to my class at Yutaka Elementary. He gave his first introduction (he continued to build these over the trip). 

The 6th graders are on the lesson most feared by us English teachers, learning the folk story Momotaro in English. This means much repetition (of “We are strong. We are brave. We are strong and brave.”…) but only in the first class. In the second, the students were excited and only had questions for me on how to pronounce things. That’s encouraging!

That evening Dad came to my UFO classes. It was fun having another person there.

Wednesday: Long day! Ito Elementary was great, the teachers were pleased to have Dad visit, and the principal sent him home with a gift. Kawada was lackluster and I wanted to fall asleep in class too. But afterwards the teacher told us we could look around the school. We found the library!

The evening classes went well, as I had the kids ask my dad questions and practice what they knew. I was proud of my kids when, without warning, he would ask them their name or how old they were. 

Thursday: I went to Yanagi and Miwa lessons without my Dad, so the highlight of the day was Sabae Higashi. Class 1, wild and crazy as ever. Class 2 spent the whole time asking my dad questions, which was a lot of fun for all of us. 

That evening we went to dinner with my friends, and Dad got to try yakitori — meat on a stick. Well, meat and anything else of course, e.g. I like the lotus root, and we tried the quail eggs too.

Friday: The morning was another walk around the park, to some previously unwalked areas… and we found an ancient statue of Doraemon.

We went to ramen for lunch. In the afternoon we were off to Kitanakayama, where Dad told the kids about New Years in America and answered all the questions they had. They had a lot of questions. It was a lot of fun. 

For dinner we went to okonomiyaki.

Saturday: I had my little kids introduce themselves to my dad, and — lo-and-behold — the first volunteer was the youngest, Chiaki, who a couple months ago wouldn’t say 2 words put together. It’s fun to see kids grow.

Next was off to my class of terror and my class of happiness, then rushed back so I could go meet the parents and student of my new private class. Their house is really pretty.

When I finally eventually returned, we gathered our things and set off to Lake Biwa!!

We arrived rather late in Nagahama, shopped for groceries before we were chased out since it was closing time, managed to figure out how to leave the parking lot, and settled on a close-by purported-Italian restaurant. It was a cute place and we were hungry so it worked.

Sunday: Our hotel was in the perfect location. Here was our view out the window: Lake Biwa to the left, Yutaka Park in the middle, and Nagahama Castle (museum) to the right.

This first day, we breakfasted in our hotel room, stopped at the train station to get Dad’s tickets, then went to Hikone. Hikone castle is one of the several (yet few) original castles left in Japan, and it was very pretty. 

But cold. 

Yes, very cold. 

My feet still shiver at the thought of walking those chilled wooden floors.

We also visited the gardens there,

and the museum— which was heated! And quite interesting. And the signs had some English, unlike in the castle (surprising, for such a tourist spot). This was our favorite scroll:

That night we did some intensive research and finally ended up at tonkatsu. With many tonkatsu dishes you get to grind your own sesame seeds.

We ate that. :O

(plus an appetizer and rice and soup and stuff)

Monday: This morning was full of intensive reading. It was lovely to sit on a real bed, in a heated room, and read. Yay~

Then we walked around the nearby park and discovered… monkeys.

I couldn’t tell you what kind of monkey or their names, because the only signs plastered all over their cage was DO NOT FEED THE MONKEYS and THEY’LL BITE YOU SO STAY BACK. (In Japanese of course.) 

After pausing at this curiosity, we went to the Nagahama Castle (museum). It seemed interesting but had no signs in English unfortunately. (And no pictures allowed.)

Following lunch in our hotel room (sandwiches) we went to scout out the town, and locate our targeted restaurant, and we found a really cute little tourist area. Later we returned for a delicious steak dinner. Ah, real steak. It was excellent. 

Tuesday: Early, early in the morning, while still darkness floated the surface of the lake, we rose and bid a fond farewell. Dad was off to the airport, and I was off to Sabae for my class that starts at 9:30. A set of snow-plows threatened to make my life miserable, but I made it home in time. I’m thinking my Yoshikawa classes weren’t that great, but luckily I had Alice to watch and she gave a little introduction so I only had to fumble through some of it. 

I really enjoyed the visit with my Dad. Thank you for coming. 

Recent Japanese:

(courtesy of Dad) tsundoku (積ん読) = buying books and not reading them (lit. stacked up reading)

kotodama (言霊) = power of words

kurimi (クルミ) = walnut

Dad's Words:
arigatou = thank you
ohayou = good morning
zero = zero
and one more I'm missing... ^^