Visitors From Abroad

Alrighty!  So the last week of September saw the arrival of our exchange students from Australia and two of their teachers.  They were here for two weeks and it was awesome.  It was a small group, only six students this year (last year they sent eleven, and I think that was too many).  They were an absolute blast.  A couple of the girls (we had four girls and two boys) were fairly reserved in the beginning, but they got over that fast enough.  One of the boys, though, was a character from day one.  He definitely got the most out of this trip, I think.  He was enthusiastic about everything they were doing, and he had a sense of humour that was by turns ridiculous and smart-ass (but never in a mean-spirited way).  The best thing about this kid, though, is that he got my kids to talk.

You know I’ve bemoaned my conversation classes before.  The third years are noisy and like to talk to each other all the time in Japanese but won’t talk much in English, my second year class with Morita-sensei has a couple loud-mouths and about twenty kids who stare blankly at me and wait for Morita-sensei to translate my instructions into Japanese because they can’t be bothered to even try to understand my basic English, and my conversation class with Tanimura-sensei is so quiet you could hear a pin drop.  And that classroom has carpeting.  So when the exchange kids come, we set up their schedules so that they all come to our conversation classes, and then we set them up in groups and have them rotate around to the different groups and each time they rotate they’re given a different conversation topic and a time limit.  Last year this went well, but last year I only had one conversation class, and they were a lot… I don’t want to say better, but… they were better.  So I was worried.  And there were still a couple (mostly one in particular in Tanimura-sensei’s class and I don’t even know why she’s taking the class in the first place, and for the first couple months I would have sworn she was actually mute) that didn’t say much and it was like pulling teeth, but for the most part my kids were excited and eager to talk to the Australian kids.  The teachers came to my third year class as well, and the kids loved that.  Trying to run a legit class with them was a whole other story, because Morita-sensei kept throwing things into the mix (sometimes by interrupting while I was trying to do what my lesson plan said), but even that went off fairly well.  But anyway.  Yeah, the class where they just had to talk to each other was awesome.  

We had the farewell party for them on Friday after school, and there were a lot of tears from the students (even the ones who were still going to see them later because they were hosting the kids and they weren’t actually leaving until the next day).  One of the girls came up to me, thanked me, and basically told me I was so pretty and so awesome and that she basically wants to be me when she’s older.  That was possibly the biggest ego boost I’ve ever gotten in my life.  She was so sweet. 

So yeah, basically the last two weeks have just been a series of awesome experiences.  I got along well with the teachers, too, and we had some good laughs.  I was also invited (read: Morita-sensei said, “Mel, you should come to this!  Please come!”) along with them to check out the kyudo (Japanese archery) club.  Things you need to know:

1. I took a 10-week archery class when I was in Grade 6.

2. While I’m not the most awful person to hold a bow ever, I’m really not good.

     2b. I hit three bullseyes during that 10-week class.  On the target next to the one I was aiming for.            Two of those were in the same night.
3. An unbent Japanese bow is more than two meters tall.  I am decidedly not tall enough to properly draw this bow.

All of these things worked together to ensure I was probably the worst archer to ever step foot inside that club.  If the objective was to hit the lawn, I performed admirably.  The objective was not to hit the lawn.

After they left, I got to meet up with a friend of mine who’s visiting Japan with a couple of her friends.  This was especially exciting for me because it was our first time meeting in person (I started editing her Kingdom Hearts fan fiction nine years ago, back in university, because we’re nerds).  There was squealing and hugging and excited fast-talking, and then we headed out to explore Osaka! 

I’ve been to Osaka before (my first time there was with last year’s exchange kids, when I was asked to accompany their field trip), but I haven’t really seen a whole lot.  Mostly I go there because there’s a wax salon run by a lady who was trained in England, so I don’t have to worry about things being miscommunicated.  And I went to USJ for my birthday, you may recall.  But I’ve never really done Osaka before, so this was a new experience for me, too!  We started out by heading over to Expo City (leftover from the 1970 Osaka Expo) to hit up the Pokemon Expo Gym.  I figured it would just be me wandering while they looked at all of the things since I'm not super into Pokemon, but I actually picked up this really cute tin that had coffee cookies in it (that will later house my loose teabags, because I always seem to have some of those lying around).  We checked out the mall at Expo City, and then headed back into the city center to check out Osaka Castle.  I’ve been through that park before (it’s a nice walk, and there’s a Domino’s Pizza nearby), but didn’t go inside the castle.  We decided to bypass the ridiculous line for the elevator and hike up to the 8^th floor lookout via the stairs.  That…was a lot of stairs, but it was worth it.  It was gorgeous afternoon weather, and the lookout area is actually outdoors, so that was fantastic.  There was a craft beer festival with some food tents in the park right by the station, so we stopped there for some grub and the guys got some craft beer.  I'm not actually sure what Katy and I ate.  It was meat from an undetermined part of a cow in some kind of tomato sauce and served over a white puree that we have absolutely zero idea what it was.  I'm going with beans.  Pureed kidney beans.  The last part of our day involved going up in the HEP Five ferris wheel near Osaka station for another great view of the city (but pictures taken from inside don't turn out well).  I headed back to their hotel to pick up the bags of Reese's Katy was kind enough to bring over for me (I'm aware that I have a peanut butter problem; I like to think it gives me character), before catching the train back home.

Now I'm back to work for the last week before midterms.  But because it's the last week of classes before midterms, all of my first year classes have been cancelled so that the teachers can make sure everyone's learned all of the necessary grammar.  And my conversation classes have their in-class midterm.  So I'm sitting here, typing this.  But I took off the actual exam week to go back to Disneyland like the uber-nerd I am, and also to hear the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra with Ros.  So excited!!!!