Day 11 in Japan - At the Movies with Bri and Sam

I think that Ito-sensei must have been bored at work today, because he decided he was taking me out to lunch. First we went to see some of the karate club practising their kata, and met some very enthusiastic first year boys while doing so. Then we went for a drive to a big shopping centre for some kaiten sushi (conveyer-belt sushi). I got cold udon and nigiri sushi, and we had matcha tea, of course. It was good to chat to Ito-sensei – he’s a funny guy. I think he also took pity on my lack of shopping skills a little bit (or really wanted to get out of work) so he took me for a walk around the shopping area and the supermarket and talked to me about what everything was. I can now locate and prepare konnyaku, know what the mystery paste that I’ve been eyeing off is (miso, of course!) and can navigate the alcohol aisle a lot easier. He even took me to a large electronics store to buy an alarm clock. Another English teacher took me for a tour around the school as soon as we got back to work, so maybe everyone is a little bored at the moment. Tomorrow I plan on going to the kendo club – will hopefully just watch tomorrow but I’d really like to get the confidence to join them at some stage.



After school, Sam and I had our first experience of the eigakan (movie theatres). We saw Inception in English (with Japanese subs). What a fantastic movie! Will be thinking about that one for days, I think. It was a bit odd to be coming out of the movie thinking “I think I probably understood more of that than anyone else in this cinema” – I’m not sure if the subtitles would have done that one justice. It was also funny because I have been making up name cards to play games with in class, and Ken Watanabe was one of the people I was looking up today, and then HE WAS IN THE MOVIE. I even noticed in the credits that his daughter I only found out that he had today was his PA. How’s THAT for applied knowledge?

Food highlight of the day: Nigiri sushi platter for lunch – my first sushi in Japan! The wasabi is better here :P. Sam’s food highlight was teriyaki chicken crepes for dinner with purple bubble tea.