Ticket to Ride

I ended up spending most of Saturday with my host mother Jun-Jun, but Sunday was spent primarily with my host father Iijima-sensei. Since I would be traveling to so many different schools other than his, he was nice enough to spend a good chunk of the day teaching me the train and bus routes to some of them. Luckily I had gotten my train/bus card (called a Suica) when Heather and I were with Keiko-san on Friday, so I didn't have to worry about figuring out the cost of tickets or how to buy them. Also, it just so happens that the Iijama's live very close to the biggest station in the city, which makes it much easier to find an easy route to where you want to go without having to transfer.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the station is not very crowded on a Sunday, which was nice because not only could I see where I was going, but we were able to get a seat on every route instead of having to stand. We only practiced the route for two schools, but that still took almost 2 hours and was enough to get me through my first week. I got to use both the bus and the train - which was useful. I can't say that I have anymore piercing insights into Japanese public transportation other than to say that it's very nice and I wish we had more like it in America.

After train practice we went to lunch, which turned out to be another Italian restaurant. Who knew I would end up eating so much Italian in Japan? Of course I wasn't about to play it safe, so I ordered the squid ink pasta. I did take a picture of that, because how often do you see pitch black pasta? I had read that it doesn't really have a fishy flavor and is mostly just salty and maybe a little briny, which is exactly how I would describe it. It did take me a while to eat it though because the taste does take getting used to - but I ate the whole thing! I have noticed that I eat much slower in Japan - probably a combination of the unfamiliar tastes and having to use chopsticks more (take note Mom!).

After lunch Iijima-sensei was kind enough to take me to the local science museum. I didn't realize until we were in there that it is actually a children's museum, so we didn't stay that long. There were some pretty cute exhibits/activities - my favorites were the puzzles of the various way the continents used to be connected and the computer that scanned plastic models of various types of sushi and told you about the fish they were made of. My favorite part of the museum as a whole was not an exhibit but the little library they had. I don't think you could check out the books (I could be wrong), but I thought it was a really nice touch.

After the museum and on our way home we stopped at an electronics shop briefly because I needed an adapter for my laptop. American two-prong plugs mostly work in Japan with no problem, but you do need an adapter for three-prong plugs. You can get one really cheap though in Japan, mine was the equivalent of around $3, so if you plan to visit Japan don't buy an expensive one before you go; that's my travel tip for the day.

Now I believe that I have mentioned before that Iijima-sensei speaks almost no English. He also has a stutter. As you can imagine, this made spending most of a day with him was a little awkward. That's not to say that we couldn't communicate at all - I have Google Translate on my phone and he had this little handheld translator he can speak into. I hope his translator wasn't too expensive because it did not work well at all, but it was good for entertainment when it translated what he said into nonsense. Google translate however, is incredibly handy and can even roughly translate printed text using the camera (and it's free!). But yeah, it was a little weird.

Once back home it was basically a lazy Sunday afternoon until dinner, when we went out to eat with Ayako and her daughters. Iijima-sensei is so cute with them, especially Miko (the three-year old). I guess Ayako's husband works a lot on the weekends so her and the kids spend a lot of time with her parents during that time. Just like at the hobby club, little Koto spent a great deal of time intensely staring at me. She had quite the appetite, but Miko is apparently in that phase where she takes forever to eat. Nothing exciting to report really, but I had to tell you all of this so I could include the adorable pictures.Read more