Day 27 in Japan - Akashi feels like home!

Goodbye, Yashiro.

Last day in Yashiro, and the breakfast this morning was all the sweeter for knowing it was almost over. The last few seminars were pretty relaxed, and atmosphere was much more familiar. There was the usual last minute scramble to exchange contact details as soon as they let us out of the last session, and then Arjan and Rob and I half-ran for the bus to get us back to Akashi before 5 pm. We had about 5 mins to wait at the bus station, and I managed a really spectacular fall on the sidewalk trying to chase a car up the street to see what Mitsubishi Magnas are called in Japan. I know it must have looked pretty bad, because rather than copping shit off Arjan and Rob, I got sympathy. Magnas seem to be called Diamantis, by the way.

Current population tallies for Men, Women and all people in Akashi.

Got back to Akashi 1.5 hours later with plenty of time to spare to sign up for some language lessons at Akashi International Association. It’s a fantastic deal – only 250 yen for a two hour lesson with a native speaker! They volunteer their time, so it’ll depend on who’s available for the lessons, but I am really excited about getting to do some lessons. The three of us also headed to Akashi City Hall to pick up Arjun’s alien registration card and to let him get shut down by the hot office clerk. We got takoyaki (totally delicious - I’ll explain below) and then headed our separate ways.

I had every intention of grabbing Sam and then heading back into Kobe for a big Welcome Party for the new JETs tonight, but I got back home later than expected (6 pm, when the party started at 5 pm) and we decided to instead just go and get some dinner and have a night to recover and get ready for our Osaka trip tomorrow. We accidentally got Chinese food for dinner in Japan (Fletch: Excuse me, I would like some Chinese food), and then went to get ice cream at Baskin Robbins – I had praline cheesecake and coconut caramel flavoured ice cream and thought of Crosbi and how much she would have loved it. 

Baskin Robbins praline caramel cheesecake (bottom)
and coconut caramel cashew nut flavoured ice cream (top).

Food Highlight of the Day: takoyaki - fried dumplings with octopus inside - almost like an octopus donut - with demi-glace sauce and bonita skins on top.