Another Day In The Life Of

I left early today from Ikura Chugakko, as they had nothing for me to do. The kocho sensei interviewed me for the monthly school paper, and I confused the shit out of them by listing "fire poi" as my only hobby. A dictionary consulting session followed, and "poi" was found to be a small Chinese potato. No, no, the other poi. Google images came to my resque (but what will the students think when they read it in the paper? Will they expect fried potato omiyage from me?)

Ikura Chugakko is on top of a hill, so getting there requires a drive up quite a steep incline. I'm sure all the kids in the school have beautiful calves. During my time at the school, three teachers asked me, with pride shining in their eyes: "So, what do you think of our slope? Steep, isn't it?"

After driving my car down the steep driveway, I stopped at a Lawsons for a tuna mayo onigiri, which I've recently become addicted to, and drove back to my tiny apato in Tetta-cho. I'm becoming more and more comfortable with breaking the 40 km/h speed limit, and I really am enjoying taking corners at the crazy speed of 60 km/h. It's almost an adrenaline rush.

As I get to my apartment, I decide to set back my plans of cycling to Niimi in favour of cleaning up the mess. I'm worse than a bachelor. A month down the line I still have papers from Tokyo orientation all over the show. I just started the systematic cleanup, when my doorbell rang. I picked up with a "moshi-moshi!", and a kid's voice replied something unintelligible. I opened the door in any case, and let Mizuki-kun in. He's a six-year old boy that seems to enjoy chilling with me while rambling away in Japanese, while I sit and clip my toenails and ask "nani? nani? nani?" the whole time.

Mizuki brought his Dragonball Z PS2 game. He had it there yesterday as well, and Nihongoed me though all the character profiles. Today he was convinced that my cd player was in actual fact a playstation, and tried repeatedly to get the disk to work. I looked up the word for "music", and kept repeating "ongaku, ongaku" while pointing at the cd player, but he was determined to transform it into something more.

Then the doorbell rang again.

"Moshi-moshi!" (I love saying that...) Reply is.. something in Japanese.. uhm.. so I open the door. There's an old Japanese man whom I've never seen before. He smiles and makes cutting motions in his hair with his hands. Uhh, no, I did not cut my hair.. Who are you? Maybe he was mistaking me for the previous ALT, who had long blonde hair and looked in no way the same as me. I introduce myself. He keeps rambling in Japanese. "Ahh, gomen nasai.. Only.. sukoshi Nihongo.." I utter.
He understands, and proceeds to include at least one english word per sentence.
"We have.. party for you? Yes? When?" Most of my evenings end in a beer drinking session with local gaijin, so it's not like I have a schedule or anything. We swop numbers and agree on next Monday. He says he'll phone me to confirm.

Back inside, Mizuki-kun is still trying the game on my cd player, stopping only to try on all my jewelery. He raids the fridge, and I give him chocolate. He colours in the pictures in my 100 yen katakana practise book. I have no idea what he is saying, but he doesn't stop talking. Eventually he just says "goodbye!" and runs out.

I make use of the opportunity to get on my mama chari (old-skool bicycle with a basket, but no gears), and cycle the 20 minutes or so to Niimi, where I can make use of free internet. While I'm replying to some mails from fellow South Africans, my phone rings. It's.. the dude from earlier. I can't remember Japanese names, as they all seem to be made up of different combinations of "yo", "ya", "ma", "no", "to" and "ri". It's all the same to me.

I moshi-moshi again, but this time with some apprehension. Ahh, they decided to move the party to tonight. I lack the language skills to fight, so I say that it sounds wonderful. Nan-ji? "roku-ji-han", he replies, which translates as 6:30. "So that's eight-sirty", he says. I can't muster up the enthusiasm to correct him, or attempt to figure out which of the times is correct, so I say my goodbyes, and decide to be home by 6.30.. and then wait. Who knows what the evening hold.

Nippon? Ahh.. sugooooi..