Day 90 in Japan - My friend from Korea

There were still exams on at Akashi kita today, so I didn't teach any classes again. However, I didn't even have time to eat my lunch, because I had 400 exams to mark. And 12 English journals to read and return. And two papers to write and/or change for sciences at home. And a blog to catch up on. But I only got to do that in the morning, because at lunch, when the students finished their last exam, it was FLOWER PLANTING DAY! Each class was in charge of one flower bed, and they had to weed it, hoe it, add some fertiliser and till it, and then plant pansies, crocus and tulips. It was really fun, and a great way to get the students to work together, while doing something to brighten up the school. And that's why Akashi kita is great :) I got to plant flowers with one of the classes, but when I look at the photos that Ito-sensei took with my camera, my knickers are showing in most of them. Oh dear. I didn't put any of the shots with my undies in the them below - this isn't that kind of a blog.

I loved this answer - the students had to listen to various sentences
and fill in the missing words. This was supposed to read "main".
Maybe they are having a little trouble with my accent?

The kids were surprised, confused and a little happy to have me help.
I will read nothing into the fact that they gave me a hoe.

The girl with the fringe and the skirt is in my ESS club,
and has been practising her speech with me all week,
which explains how thrilled she looks to see me.

The 1-9 students (the science course class and my secret favourites)
spelled their class number out in flowers. 

Story: the guy standing without a watering can had been
trying to fix up a bulb that needed more dirt over it for about 3
solid minutes, and every time he bent down to try again, he got watering canned.
The watering can guy kept laughing, and saying (in Japanese)
"No, this time I won't. It's OK", and the 5 seconds later - WATERING CANNED.
This continued until there was no water left, and we were all laughing until we cried.
Some humour is universal.

As the speech contests are tomorrow, we had ESS club practise ALL AFTERNOON. I am talking like 3 solid hours of listening to the same two 5 minute speeches over and over again, while I looked longingly at my uneaten lunch over the other side of the classroom. The girls were really excellent, and I gave them a present from Australia because I am so proud of them. I hope that it was a nice gesture to show my appreciation for their hard work, as I intended, not a creepy thing to do. 

Oh, a major achievement of today was finding something even WORSE than a socks-and-sandals combo. I recently bought tabi socks (socks with the big toe separated from the rest of your toes - toe apartheid, I guess), and this morning I was a little late, so I just shoved on the shoes closest to the door. Which happened to be thongs. Yes, tabi socks allow a very comfortable socks-and-thongs combo. As I have to change to my indoors shoes when I got to Akashi kita, I pretty much got away with it. But I am actually pretty ashamed of doing this. Only time will tell if I'm ashamed enough to not repeat the same mistake twice...

Tabi socks and thongs. So who wants to put in an order for tabi socks now?

After my ride home, I had a peaceful and unproductive hour reading a book - I am addicted to Kindle app! It's so nice to be reading various stuff again, even if almost all of the free books that Amazon has offered have been classics or "erotic romances". Due to my propensity to just hit YES! if the book is free, my recommendations list is now populated with some really odd things. Reading this afternoon was just killing time while we were waiting for our new arrival - JAKUB! Jakub is a guy with Polish parents from South Australia who I met doing my PhD in Wollongong. He now lives in Korea, so it was really confusing when people with only a little English asked me where my visiting friend comes from.

Jakub managed to get all the way to the station by himself - walked down and met him. Came back home and dropped off his bags, then headed out to our izakaya. I think we are regulars now - they remember us! My favourite waitress was working tonight - Asuka! She is so cute, and I wrote a recommendation for her in very poor and slightly drunken Japanese on the suggestion sheets in the toilets. I am pretty sure she will know it was me. Met two dudes whose job was making big steel buckets. They were really friendly, and it was awesome that we got to talk to some people who weren't just out to improve their English, but actually wanted to tell us a bit about their lives.

Jakub was kung fu fighting. He was as fast as lightning.

We weren't ready to stop making noise, but also weren't really up for too much more izakaya fare (and Asuka's shift was over), so we headed to the only place you can be loud and annoying late at night in Japan - karaoke. Was a pretty poor karaoke effort after the majesty of Aaron and Corey's visit, so we called it a night after one hour. Finally got our tired heads to bed after midnight.

Food Highlight of the Day: My midnight microwave cheeseburger from the Lawson. It was terrible and scarily unrefrigerated for a "meat" product, but it was the right food at the right time in a country sadly devoid of kebabs.