Friday was work as usual, I didn't tell anyone at work it was my birthday, I prefer to keep it low key.
At 4pm I left to catch the train for Tokyo. Normally I stay at work till 5.30 or 6, my contract says 4pm but no one else leaves that early and I'm right acroos the carpark so I prefer to stay on. Friday however I needed to run to get the train. t took about 2.5 hours to Asakusa in Tokyo.
I met Kanae in Ginza for dinner. I said I felt like pizza so she booked a restaurant, I was thnking of normal pepperoni or similar but this place was gourmet. We had a gorgonzola pizza with white sauce (no tomato anywhere) and walnuts and other stuff I can't recall. It was pretty good. Kanae gave me a really lovely tea bowl, but I doubt I'll use it for tea.
My hotel had a sign in the lobby saying they lock the door at 11.30 (Huh??), I had to rush back and made it with 3 minutes to spare. Although the next night I was late and they were still open with heaps of people coming and going. I suspect they have forgotten the sign exists and it no longer has any relevance.
Saturday I went to Tokyo Disneyland and met a bunch of Gunma JETs who were there for Lida's birthday. Lida is a Canadian girl who turned 22 on Saturday. Most of us stayed at Disneyland till closing time, they went on to party all night somewhere in Tkyo, I went back to the hotel in Asakusa.
Sunday I got the train back home and met up with Nami (one of the gils from the Okonomiyake night). Nami is studying English and wanted to practice conversation, we had a nice afternoon, our conversation was broken up with electronic dictionary searches and doodling on her notebook to explain stuff, but I think we understood most of what we were saying to each other.
I saw Andrew on my way home last night, but I still keep getting lost when I'm trying to get to his place from anywhere but my house. he caught me up on what went on in Kiryu while I was away, seems surprising things can happen in 2 days, but it would be ungentlemanly to discuss such things in public.
Now I'm back at work, I have English conversation tests to mark this afternoon. I just found out last Friday actually that I am expected to run and assess the tests. So I've done up some assessment forms and I'll muddle through some how.
I'm a little concerned that without a text book to follow a lot of the students won't be able to hold any kind of 2 way conversation anyway.
We'll see.
