We started a bit late partially because Daniela had not been feeling well to her stomach and partially because they had decided class was not going to start until 1pm on Tuesday (after lunch). Obviously, Han and I had a 45 minute trip to take to get there so we decided to eat lunch before getting to the office.
Daniela and I left the hotel at about 10:30 and walked over to the Pronto which is a cafe just around the corner. I was sure we could get reasonably good coffee and/or tea there and something to eat. The girl at the counter spoke English very well. She was young but I suspect it is a product of a lot of tourists eating someplace western in nature.
We each had a pasta plate. Hers was tomato and mozzarella and mine was just meat sauce. The spaghetti was actually Japanese noodles but it was good like that. The texture is different but still very enjoyable. I had a blood orange juice and a coffee and Daniela had a Masala Chai which she liked a lot. After she was done she had a cappuccino.
We walked to the 7-11 and I took out some money and she made copies of her passport. Then we walked back to the hotel and I got my stuff and met Han for the ride to the office. We took the Tsukuba express followed by a taxi and arrived at about 12:30pm which gave me a few minutes to set up. The translator arrived and all the students in turn. We then just started the class right away. It is a very different experience than I have teaching at home and also different than the class I did in Peru because I have a translator. I speak then she translates. I have little room for humor and I am just going through the very direct route to providing the information. I can say it is going to be a tough class to provide but as long as the students manage to learn it will be ok I guess. I am sure it will not be great for my ego. We managed to make it further than I thought with the time I had before the students had to leave but we didn't get through all the material for the first day. We'll see how this sets the class in order.
By the end of class I had a massive headache like I haven't had in a long time and I just ended up getting back to the hotel (we walked to a different station on the Tsukuba express for speed and then rode back to Asakusa where Han continued on to Akihibara to buy some electronics. I basically went right to bed and spent the rest of the night sleeping. We didn't go to dinner or anything. I was apologetic to Daniela of course but I don't think it would have been fun with my headache like that.
The pictures from Japan Day 4 are located here.
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