Day 30 in Japan - Mecha-niku

(The title up there means robot meat and I thought it was funny)

I had my first interactions with my ESS (English Speaking Society) club today at Akashi Kita. Almost every student in Japanese schools will be involved in some club or another after school, and most schools have an ESS club. Mine will meet twice a week, and we will work on speeches, essays (woo!), and do some fun things like cooking foods from overseas, watching movies and listening to music. Today I met about 8 students from my main high school (Akashi Kita = Akashi North), and it was a bit nerve wracking. They were very lovely, and I am lucky to have some good English speakers in the crew, but I am still a bit nervous doing my self-introduction in these semi-formal situations. It's too casual to do the full "Hajimemashite, watashi wa Tomuson Burianna desu. Douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu", but it's too informal to just say "Hi, I'm Bri", so I normally end up improvising something in the middle and coming across as confused and nervous. Which, actually, is pretty accurate so maybe it's all for the best.

Anyway, we prepared at school today for the ESS Summer Seminar at Akashi High School - more about that tomorrow I guess. But met the kids, and had my first time running through some excercises with them. SCARY. It will get easier as the year goes on, and I settle into my new role I guess.

After work, I did some much-needed repairs on my beautiful bike. I replaced my front brakes, sorted out the screaming back brakes and lubed that sucker up! It's like a new bike now - no more squealing or unfunctional brakes, tyres all pumped up, and the chain has had a hint of oil on it for the first time in years. I still need to buy some more chain oil, and maybe replace my basket, but the bike is already a billion times better. Sam and I test rode it around our carparks, and I totally did a trick. Sam just missed it with the camera, I swear.

My old, worn-down brake pads.

Just before my totally sweet trick.

Our apartment is the one with the broken-down van
(i.e. second bedroom) right outside the window.

Food Highlight of the Day: Tonight we had a Japanese equivalent of an instant dinner - curry rice. The "curry" is a sweet and totally non-curry flavoured dish with a few bits of unidentified meat, some potatoe, onion and a lot of brown coloured sauce. Mix with rice and voila, a very cheap and tasty meal. Just don't ask too many questions about it, and it's fantastic.