Entries this day: Kaoru Miki_and_Miki Party last_train

Kaoru

2:29pm JST Wednesday 2 August 2006

Just met Kaoru for our first lesson; she lives quite close to Sakurashinmachi, so it's super convenient for both of us! Her English is money (as Frank would say), and pretty fast, so it was hard at times to make corrections, but I found if I wrote them down, I could be of some benefit to her English ability.

The first part of our lesson primarily involved me telling her that I want to bring Mankind Project to Japan. As I told her about the organization, she agreed it would be positive for Japan to have such an organization here. Awesome. We brainstormed some questions for me to ask Kim when I talk to him next week.

After that I was telling her about my shoulderific adventure, and she was quite surprised that I had been willing to pay the entire amount and not fault the driver for it. I mulled this over quite a bit in my brain; I had agreed with the driver I would take care of my side, and he would take care of his side. At that time, I was in a bit of a hurry to get my shoulder fixed, and not cause more conflict with this guy; I never got his contact information, etc.

I would like to offer him the option of claiming some of it on insurance. Perhaps he is worried about me. (*) Perhaps perhaps... So, I want to present it to him gently... if he would like to help, I won't be offended. I don't want to go all armed with Police and Lawyers and fight him into paying it, but.

(*) not that worried, or he would have tried to contact me...

At the end, we talked about places Kaoru might live; she wants warm weather and internet access.. Hmmm; sounds about like me.

Miki and Miki

2:40pm JST Wednesday 2 August 2006

In Shibuya now to meet Miki and Miki to see Pirates of the C.

4:42pm JST

In the theater now.

Wandered around a bit after buying the tickets and chowing at Lotteria and getting snacks at AM/PM. Todayは Mikiさん　が has been speaking more も English to me 私 instead of just だけ Japanese to に Miki.

Party

11:40pm JST Wednesday 2 August 2006

Super thanks to Miki for inviting me tonight; I'm glad I got to join the party (pile of free food and huge girl to guy ratio)... I was pretty shy at first, but later sorta got speaking some Japanese a bit.

Near the beginning of the party, everyone did introductions, which I generally did not understand, though Miki summarized afterward by saying, "baasically everyone is like PB people, doing cool things and want to do more cool things."

My self introduction was something like, 「こんばんは。私は路武です。アメリカのテキサスに住んで、 ３年前日本に来て、２年間英会話にはたらって、後はいっぱいりょうこ」and I looked over at Miki for confirmation "which one is cooking, and which is travel?" but then sorta remembered, 「りょ うりじゃない。りょうこして、船でひこきでいろいろ、後は自転車で２ヶ月東京から神戸」「うそ！」someone interrupted.「うそじゃない！神戸から天の橋立、琵琶湖、名古屋、箱根、でも箱根でかるまとちょっと大変だっ て、肩をろた。ろちゃった。よろしく。」

Then Miki added some details about me going on PB twice, etc.

Miki was next, being the other guest, then Miki was last, being one of the teachers there.

Naomi is a counselor there; I asked her what that entailed and she tried to give me a sense of what their organization is about. Basically helping Japanese travelers by setting up homestays, work, visas, language training.. basically everything but travel tickets, it seems.

Youko just got back from Turkey for 9 days; she was telling us about it; said it's really super beautiful with all the mosques and stuff.

The people in running this organization seem to be pretty cool: Fujisan (bald and super outgoing; is/has been a gymnast), Madoka (seems to be the secretary / mom of the place; who, during all the introductions (except Miki and I (cause she doesn't know us)), added flattering details for everyone), and Naomi (counselor who told me about the organization). They ran the party pretty well, got everyone comfortably chatting, etc.

At the very end, talking to Naomi and Yukino (who uses her season pass to Disney Land between 1 and 3 times per week (including today)), I found out that Yukino loves roller coasters but has never been to Fujikyu Highland. I told her she has to go because Fujiyama is such a great ride. Drew a picture of Eejyanaika to show Naomi, who recognized it after my scribbly drawing.

At the very very end, another Naomi wanted to ask me something, but was being shy. Youko tried to encourage her, though it didn't actually happen. But we got a picture with Naomi.

Good times.

last train

12:14am JST Thursday 3 August 2006

KG Miki and I needed to take the same line to our respective houses, so I had her check the last train coming back to my station. Just to squeeze those last few minutes of chillin' time out of the dwindling time to last train.

Right now I'm a bit tired, so I know I'm a bit more cuddly than normal, but I know I'm generally safe with Miki because she won't exacerbate any advances. Just smile a little shrug.