Day 12 in Japan - Power OUT!

I woke up last night at 2 am and my new thermometer/alarm clock told me it was 32 degrees. 32 DEGREES AT 2 AM TO REITERATE THAT!

Today at school, half of the day was spent without water or electricity. Despite the fact that the lack of air conditioning came on just about the worst day for it (temperature was allegedly 38 degrees today!), it was the perfect excuse to get out of the staffroom and wander around the school to talk to some kids. I met kids from the swim team and the boys and girls from the track and field teams. They were all pretty friendly, but obviously a little confused to meet me, and a little shy to try out their English. I really hope to be able to swim with the swim team one day to cool down! I didn’t get to meet any kendo clubbers today, because they didn’t show for training. I can’t say I blame them – donning the armour doesn’t sounds so appealing in this heat.

The rest of the day was spent pulling down the USA display in the English room to start to get ready for a new display all about Australia and me. I spent about an hour cutting big letters out of newspaper and making things bright and shiny. I also stapled my finger really deeply (the staple went all the way in) – never assume a stapler is empty just because it was yesterday. Will chuck up some picture of the wall as it progresses, but I think it will take longer than making a brightly coloured wall of fun should.

Today’s bike ride adventure saw Sam and I exploring the area east (Higashi) of Okubo. We rode all the way to Akashi Nishi (Akashi West) station (about a 45 min ride from school), and then down across the JR train line and then back west to Okubo. Encountered my first hills in Japan, which made me love my one speed just a little bit less. Escaped to air conditioning in the first shop we found – turned out to be a home wares shop, where we spent an hour trying out different floor chairs and couches, and lusting after their double futons (so majestic!). Sam cooked up us a “mystery sauce” stir-fry for dinner (no idea what the sauces all are in the supermarket, so we just picked something that looked OK and went with it), and we tried out our rice cooker for the first time. We had no idea what to do, no instruction manual and all of the buttons are labelled in kanji, so we really couldn’t figure out what to push. Eventually got something rice-ish out of it, but definitely needs a little more experimentation. Had a nice long chat with the family (also figured out speaker phone and the answering machine on our crazy Japanese phone) and now off to bed.

Food highlight of the day: Today’s oishii treat were the puddings we picked up from the supermarket for dessert. We got one each and shared – a berry / whipped cheesecake thing, and a coffee crème caramel with actual whipped cream and custard on top. They were seriously great!