Back at it

Monday: We had our first teaching experience today with some 7-8 year olds and I cannot say that it went very well. The language barrier is a huge obstacle, especially when the kids aren't that interested in learning in the first place. We were probably a little under-prepared, but we've learned our lesson and will be ready to go next time.

Later in the day we went with Mark to Nishii-Maizuru to teach at the location where we will eventually be living. There was only one boy in this class and I'm sure he was a little overwhelmed having three teachers there with him.

Aside from the work, we are figuring out what kind of foods we like and do not like. We found some great sauce to cook our beef in and I am very, very excited about that because things were looking a little grim. Also, we had our first garbage pickup day (thankfully... it was getting pretty rancid in our kitchen). You need special garbage bags and then there is a spot along the street where everyone drops off their trash. One thing that sucks is not being allowed to leave your garbage out the night before, so you have to get up early to make sure you beat the truck... not a problem since we are usually awake at 5:30 or so.

Keiko has been a huge help to us. She took us to get our Alien Registration Card/"Gaijin" Card today and we were very lucky to have her. Nobody at the city office knew any english and we are useless when it comes to Japanese. Tomorrow we are going to buy mobile phones... we will need them because our schedules are going to be quite different in the coming weeks.

I don't think there are any pictures from today... maybe we'll take some tomorrow and pretend they happened before for those who aren't too keen about reading.