Another normal week at work. Getting into the grind of my new responsibilities. I have had a lot of prospective student interviews and other counseling meetings. Still happy to be busy.
I wish I had some more good stories about work but everything is kind of routine for me now. There are some different things going on with different students and stuff. Nothing too crazy worth sharing, but to me it makes things more interesting. I feel like a lot of my students are becoming my friends now. Even the little kids. This morning these 3 year old twins whom I always play with in the lobby had a teacher come back in the office to ask me to come out and say hello. I was pretty surprised because until about 3 weeks ago these kids didn’t want anything to do with me. They would hide behind their mom whenever I said hello to them. My adult students seem to like me too. Some more than others. I always tell my students about my weekend trips and they always love to hear what I think about their home country. They also have tons of recommendations for other places I should visit. I have a long list of ramen restaurants to go to now, and every week at least one student asks if I have been to any of the places they recommended yet. It is nice to have these relationships with my students. It makes work a lot less work like. I definitely am enjoying work a lot more as time goes on.
Unfortunately, I had a short weekend. I only had Sunday off, then I had to go to some follow up training at the head office in Osaka on Monday. I had a good day on Sunday. I met a friend in the northern part of Kyoto called Arashiyama. My old coworker Siobhan always raved about Arashiyama so I have wanted to go there to explore for a while.
It was raining pretty hard as I rode the train up there Sunday morning. It rained for a few minutes after I arrived but then slacked off. By early afternoon it was all cleared up and turned into a really nice day. In Arashiyama we went and saw a bamboo forest and some shops around the town. It was pretty nice. A really small little tourist town in the mountains. Lots of little shops and restaurants along a nice river. I will definitely go back to visit again when the weather is a little bit nicer.
After Arashiyama we went to visit some other places. We first went to Kinkakuji (The golden temple) it was one of the coolest things I have seen in Japan so far. The temple was completely covered in real gold leaf. There were a ton of people there so it was hard to chill in one place and really enjoy the scenery. I guess I will have to go back there as well. If anyone ever goes to Japan I would most definitely recommend Kyoto and most definitely Kinkakuji. It is amazing.
After Kinkakuji, we headed to Ginkakuji (the silver temple). The silver temple was not so silver as the gold temple was gold. I have heard that when building the temple the builders ran out of money for the silver leaf. There was a nice garden around the temple. A lot of carefully raked sand, plants and small streams and bridges. I liked the second temple but no where near as much as I liked the Golden temple.
After the Silver temple we went to catch the bus back to the downtown area of Kyoto. My friend Greg lives close to to the city center and he had a friend from home visiting him. I hit him up earlier in the day and we decided to get together that afternoon. We had a few drinks and just hung out. I hope to go up to Kyoto for a night sometime soon. The people there seem pretty nice and there are a lot more foreigners and English speakers there so meeting new people is a bit easier.
I made it home by the last train and went right to bed. The next morning I got up and headed into Osaka for some training. Obviously, I was not all that thrilled about losing a day of my weekend, but I wasn’t too bummed. I wasn’t stressed about my demo lesson and I was looking forward to meeting some other teachers.
Overall training went well. My demo went smoothly. I didn’t get ripped apart too bad by the trainers. I got some good tips that I can use in my future classes, and my fellow trainees were pretty cool. We managed to make it through without too much headache.
After my training I met up with my friend Claudia for some dinner. I had to pick up a gift we are all sending to Akio, Yoko and the kids we stayed with in Kanazawa last weekend. We are still planning on making another trip to see them again sometime.
After a pretty delicious dinner I headed home and passed out. Work today was pretty normal once again. I am almost all planned for the week. This week I am working on finalizing my plans for my trip to Malaysia next weekend. I leave on the 10th and return to Japan on the 17th. I am really excited. A little nervous, but it should be a great trip.
Hopefully this week will go by smoothly. Next weekend we have a real welcome party for Elizabeth, with students and everything else. After the party I am heading to Osaka to meet Greg and his friends from home. Sunday I am planning to go for a BBQ at a lake around Kyoto with some friends and hopefully catch up on some rest on Monday and maybe actually make it to the boxing gym for the first time in weeks.
We will see what happens. Have a good week everyone. Thanks for reading.
Love your reviews of your adventures. LYTM