Yesterday

I did not post anything yesterday because I didn't really do anything worth posting about.  At least, not until the evening.  Around 6 last night I met up with Angus (one of the adjunct instructors) for dinner.  He rode a train into Tokushima Station and I rode my bike.  After meeting at Starbucks, we took a walk around the area.

I'm fairly comfortable with the space immediately surrounding the station, however Angus let me see one of the arcades (in the old form of the word) or shopping alleys.  He said when he first arrived in Japan and up to about 5 or 10 years ago the place would have been packed with people.  There was a defunct fountain, and places for scores of shops.  Some are still functioning, and I will likely head back down there at some point.  We talked about the "Americanization" of the smaller cities.  The downtown area dies off and shopping malls take over.  His guess is the shopping malls will die off here in the next 10 years or so to be replaced with whatever we're doing in America.  Online shopping?  Strip malls?  I don't know.

In any case, we went to an izakaya, which is like a pub.  We ate a lot of deep fried and grilled food and drank a lot of beer.  Around 7:30 or 8, Mark showed up and the three of us just sat eating, talking, and drinking.  Sometime around 10 or so Angus asked one of the workers when they closed.  Midnight.  And, I finally had my "American in Japan" experience.  Three university students approached us to "talk to the foreigners."  Yes.  They did want a picture.

Mark and Angus have been here for 30 years - which is about 8-10 years longer than the people who approached us seeing as how they are in their 20's.  If you live in the States that long people stop thinking of you as a foreigner.  Here because they are white with European heritage (Angus from New Zealand and Mark from England), they will always be foreigners.

We were kicked out at midnight.  I could not get my bike because the bicycle parking garage closed at 11:30.  So, I walked home.  This morning I walked back to recover it.  The attendants had tagged it as being there overnight.  It still only cost me 100 yen.

The rest of today will be mostly cleaning and preparing for the week ahead.  I have a talk about American Values for my class on Wednesday, I think we'll do a lesson on slang in my Tuesday class, the farewell ceremony happens Wednesday at lunch (it was the only day all the administrators were available), Friday I'll make a presentation about studying at SVSU, and next Monday (July 19) I will go to a high school to talk about what it is like to be an American student.

Fun, fun, fun!