Friday Aug. 24th:
I was extremely nervous about going to Nishijin again because last week two of the kids were so disobedient, but I was confident I could put them in line. I was also nervous about getting back to the office in time to teach my next student . . . Thankfully, everything went well! The "bad kid" came in late so I couldn't seat him away from his friend, but I didn't really have to this time. He first started acting up by not coloring in the lines nicely, so I made him color nicely and from then on, everything was great! I hope that it continues, but I'm glad that I didn't have to be forceful. I was about to get to the office early, except that I misjudged the time and jumped on the wrong train! I was on the train going in the opposite direction . . . I didn't realize this until 2 stops later, and unfortunately the train stopped in Meinohama where I had to waste 10 minutes waiting on the next train back to Tenjin. Of course, I was five minutes late to the office and very embarrassed and out-of-breath. It was the first time I'd met this student, so I'm sure it wasn't the best impression especially since he looked like a business-man. We were so busy that night that I didn't get a chance to talk to my boss about it.
Saturday Aug. 25th:
I was surprised to see that Ms. Maeda (the manager) wasn't there. I asked my boss and she told me that Ms. Maeda was following this band around and had seen their concert 4 nights in a row! She apparently was chasing some guy in this band. It was the funniest image ever, I'm not sure how old she is, but she's definitely too old to be so boy-crazy! I'm going to tease her about it on Monday :P
My boss finally was able to ask me why I was late coming back to the office the other day, so I explained. She didn't seem mad or anything which was good, but obviously it was a very bad thing. It was a quiet day besides the political guy yelling on a megaphone so that it was even too loud in the office. They've been doing it at least every Saturday, and all I've been told is that it has something to do with politics and people bashing the government. I didn't know they did that in Japan.
After work, I met Madoka and a couple of her Japanese friends. They said they couldn't speak English, but after we had a beer at an authentic Fukuoka restaurant, they started talking in English. It was a lot of fun, but of course I couldn't read the menu hardly at all. In Japan, they usually eat family-style, meaning that everyone shares the dishes, so they just picked everything out. Madoka wanted me to try Fukuoka's specialty food: beef guts. I was a little nervous about this at first, but I had four other dishes before it to prepare myself. We had a Caesar salad with the best bacon I've ever tasted. The bacon was thick and didn't taste like bacon but like sweet, fried ham. Then, they brought out four little dishes of random things. One had the clear noodle-like seaweed that I had before, another had three little fishes (head, tail and all), another had tiny pieces of what looked like pork and bean sprouts in a type of sauce, and the last one had beans and other random vegetables. They were all really good and I was proud of myself for eating one of those little fishes. It even had its eyeballs still on it, but I didn't think about that while I was trying to eat it, otherwise I might've gotten sick. It was of course very good, it's just the idea of it that I'm not used to yet :P The waiter then brought out shrimp covered in a sweet sauce. They were so good and crispy! After this, the next dish was eggplant stuffed with what looked like tuna and other things, all fried in a batter. It was so delicious! I dipped it in a sweet, dark sauce. Finally, they brought out a burner and put a pot with raw beef guts, tofu and vegetables. We let it cook for a while and they tried to get me to speak in Japanese. I asked them how to say things like "where do you work?" and "Do you have any siblings?" but it was hard since I'd never learned these phrases before! It will take me a few times to remember it. I was too embarrassed to write anything down and thought it might be rude while we were eating, so I'll have to ask another language partner how to say these things again. It was so much fun though and it was good because it forced me to try and understand what they were saying when they spoke in Japanese. They also spoke slowly which really helped! Once the dish had finished cooking, I was the first to try it. I felt all of the eyes watching me. I could already tell it would be delicious from the smell of the broth. It was very soft but slightly rubbery. However, the broth had such flavor to it, that despite the fact that it was difficult to chew it, it was so tasty! I really loved it and they made me finish it since they were all full ^^; After this dish, we had rice and the waiter poured the rice into the remaining broth, stirred it up, and cracked an egg in it! He stirred the egg around until it cooked. It was so good! They made me finish the rest of this too, but I didn't mind :)
After the restaurant, they wanted to go to a bar, but the Mexican bar was closed so we walked around looking for another one until the Madoka's friends had to leave. I didn't have enough money to go to a bar anyway, and I was kind of worrying about how I would tell them that, so it worked out! It was really fun and I'm glad that I got to meet her friends, too. She wants to introduce me to more of her friends, so I hope that it will force me to learn Japanese faster!!
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