Day 104 in Japan - HI MUM!! HI DAD!!

Today I had almost the last "What's the Matter" lessons at Akashi Kita. At the beginning of the lessons, I give the students pads of sticky notes and get them to write out the body parts I call out and stick them onto one hapless volunteer. As a results of 18 classes with 4 or 5 groups in each group, and 13 body parts written by each group, I had so many left over sticky notes! It's been a really fun warm up, but I didn't want to waste all of that paper, so I decided to make a Christmas tree out of them. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out...

The leftover sticky notes from 15 classes. Now watch me turn them into...

A STICKY NOTE CHRISTMAS TREE! (with added bonus body part vocabulary)

And then the real excitement began - it was time to go into Sannomiya and meet Mum and Dad fresh off the airport bus.

MUM AND DAD ARE HERE!!!!!

We made them wait a few minutes, because they got onto the bus that we thought they would miss, and were in Kobe a few minutes before our train was. We found the right bus stop, and I could see them waiting at it from the overhead footpath and broke into a run. Sam thought I was an idiot, but it was so exciting to see them!

After many hugs and smiles, we got them onto a train back to Okubo, walked them up the road to our house and gave them the grand (30 second) tour. By that time, it was pretty late, so we headed out to one of the only places we knew would be open - NAKAU! Ordered rice-and-stuff from a vending machine, and sat and chatted and marvelled at the fact that we are all actually in Japan!

First train trip in Japan!

Lugging luggage in a crowded train from Kobe. 

Then we headed home to try to navigate the logistics of fitting all four of us and our stuff into our small house without losing toilet access. Managed fairly easily, and then got to bed to get ready for a big day tomorrow!

Food Highlight of the Day: Gyudon (beef bowl) from Nakau is my favourite gyudon! And Mum and Dad agreed that it was delicious too :)