Owl selfies…

This weekend was unexpectedly awesome. I was anticipating a nice relaxing time, at home with as little activity as possible. I got some rest on Sunday morning, but I was unable to stay committed to my plan to be as lazy as possible.

Last week was my week of open classes. All of my kid’s classes were observed by the student’s parents. I get along well with most of my students and therefore their parents at least pretend to like me, so it wasn’t all horrible. I think some of the parents actually enjoyed themselves. I had them playing some games with us, and participating in some other class activities. Some were very advanced English speakers, but some were significantly less fluent than their children. It was interesting seeing how the students acted with their parents in class. Some were exactly the same, some were even more rowdy and energetic, but most were a bit more timid and slow to speak. Overall this round of open classes went MUCH more smoothly than the last time. I think it was part experience and part me being much more comfortable with the parents and the students. That being said, I couldn’t be happier to be finished with these open classes.

Saturday night I had plans to go out with one of my students -Yuki- for dinner. He is a big baseball fan and is very interested in American culture, so we became friends pretty quickly. He and his wife picked me up from the station after I got off work, and we headed to Osaka to a very nice yakitori -chicken skewer- restaurant.

It was about a half hour drive away, so we had a nice chat and listened to the Hanshin Tiger’s baseball game on the radio. Of course the broadcast was all in Japanese so I had no idea what was going on, but when Yuki cheered I joined in. After we finished high fiving he would inform me why we were celebrating and recap what was going on in the game. In the end the Tigers won by about 6 runs and completed the sweep of the Tokyo Giants, to advance to the Climax series finals, which is basically the World Series of Japanese baseball. Yuki said he would try to get tickets, but he doubted he would be able to. He said he would definitely invite me over to watch a game at his house though. Although we have some difficulties with language sometimes we get along well. He was shocked when I told him I was 24 though. He is 27, I guess it is weird for people in Japan to hang out with other age groups. Maybe someone should tell all my other friends who are all really old, like reeeeaaaallly old. Koichi is 31… and a half…. I know you are reading this ojiisan.

So Saturday night was good. I got home around 11, which was the best part. All I wanted to do all week was sleep. I put on a movie and passed right out. The next morning I woke up much earlier than I wanted to, so it took a real concentrated effort to stay in bed for another two hours. I put on some college football and enjoyed my morning much like I would enjoy my Saturday and Sunday “mornings” in college, laying down watching football being outrageously unproductive. It was great.

I had planned on going to a food festival with some friends on Sunday afternoon, but my lack of motivation so early in the day deflated everyone’s spirits and everyone ended up flaking. I opted for another festival closer to my home, and much cheaper. I made it there around 2, walked around a bit and got some food. Claudia and Koichi joined me after a while and we got some more food and watched the parade. It was a pretty cool celebration. I am not sure what we were celebrating, but everyone was having a good time, there were a lot of people and some really interesting things in the parade, not to mention the food.

We hung out at the festival until around sunset and then headed back into the downtown area. Claudia had the bright idea of going to an Owl Café. An owl café is exactly what it sounds like… if it sounds like a café that has many live owls perched all around the room that is. There are many theme cafes in Japan. From Nintendo 64 cafes to maid cafes (these maids have a very limited dress code) to the owl café, which seems to be among the more popular of the theme cafes.

This particular owl café was on the second floor. It was a pretty small room with about 5 or 6 tables, and about 15 owls of various species perched around the perimeter of the room. We had to pay an entrance fee of about $13, which included a drink of our choice. We just sat down at first, completely confused about what to do. All the other people were petting and photographing the owls, and the owls just sat there staring back very creepily. Eventually, the manager came over and guided/bullied us into petting the birds. We got a few good pictures… mostly selfies. The owls were kind of intimidating but they were really gorgeous up close. It was very cool to see, but I am not sure the owls enjoy it as much as the people do.

After the owl café, we decided to go to a nearby pub for a beer before Koichi had to head home. We got a snack and hung out for a bit. When Koichi left Claudia and I decided to hang out for a bit longer then go to a bar where she used to work to play some pool and get some cheeseburgers. I was not expecting much from this place, but the burger really impressed me. I know it has been over 7 months since I have had a proper American cheeseburger,  but this bad boy definitely satisfied a craving I have been trying to suppress for several months now. I was happy.

We ended up going out with some of the people from the bar to some other places then I caught the train home in the morning. I guess the visit to the owl café encouraged me to let out my inner spirit animal. This all nighter and the rainy weather outside made it the perfect set up to sleep most of the day. I watched a movie and tried to work on some Japanese, but overall I took it very easy, which was exactly what I wanted to do this weekend in the first place.

It was not exactly the weekend I planned, but it was a very good one. A kind of normal one. I didn’t go travelling anywhere, I just hung out with friends and enjoyed some things going on around town. Today, I finished the last of my open classes. My Tuesday classes are on lesson behind the rest of the week due to scheduling, and all of my open classes were the same lesson. Now that all of that is done and I am a bit more well rested, I feel much better than I did this time last week. I have to work this Sunday for a half day, but other than that I have no plans. Hopefully I can avoid Osaka and save a few dollars, but that is most likely not going to happen. Halloween is coming and I have just been having to much fun there recently to miss the celebrations. Other than that I need to get ready for my trip to Okinawa in 2 weeks and try to organize some other plans. Hopefully I can be as productive as I need to be.

Thanks for reading everyone. Have a great week.