Good news. Over the weekend I managed to get my kerosene heater working. It had been blowing smoke every time I'd tried it and I'd temporarily given up on it thinking that either the kerosene was bad (not sure how kerosene would go bad) or that the heater itself had some problem. I wasn't sure what to do about it all. But this weekend I tried it again and after the third try the smoke stopped and the thing blew only heat. So I let it run a few minutes (I was doing all this outside for obvious reasons) to make sure all was ok, then brought the thing in and now, I am happy to report, I am not a prisoner in only one room of my apartment. Now the problem is....how do I go about getting more kerosene? I could easily take my large jug to a gas station and have them fill it up, but the catch is getting it home. I imagine it's about a five or six gallon jug and is too big and heavy for me to carry home all that way and I don't think it will fit in the basket on Amy's bike. So that is the next obstacle. But for now I do have a little left in the jug and the tank in the heater was filled yesterday. So for now I am ok. Damn nice, though, to be able to heat more than just this one little room.

This morning Amy and I woke up (she stayed over after watching sumo and then the playoff game, tape delayed between the colts and chiefs) around 6am. When she stays on a night before a workday (this is usually due to our Monday evening Japanese lesson) she has to catch the 6:50am train in order to get back to her place and then to work on time. So she left around 6:30am this morning and I continued getting ready for my 6:55 departure. I had to get up to Shizen Gakuen today (small school up in the hills) and always catch the 7:21 train. But about five minutes after she left, my phone rang. So I picked it up expecting it to be Amy on her cell and sure enough it is. She tells me, "It's snowing out here," to which I look out the window and try to see snow with the sky just beginning to show signs of light. Sure enough, it was snowing. Not really hard and not sticking, but snow nonetheless.
So with the wet pavement and the assumption that snowflakes would be getting in my eyes, I decided to leave a little earlier than normal. So I left at 6:50 giving me a full half hour till my train was to leave. It was cold outside but there was that insulated feeling one gets with snow. So it really was rather nice and I enjoyed my ride to the Kencho. I locked my bike up and then walked to the station with that great feeling one has when one is a little early for something. I had no worries and was happy to finally be going to a school instead of sitting at the Kencho.
But as I rode the escalator up and removed my gloves in order to be able to get my wallet out, something hit me. I wish I could say it was just another little snowflake in the eye, or even a snowball in the back of my head, but no, I realized I had forgotten to grab my wallet on this, the most expensive of all my travel days. So I checked my pants pockets, my coat pockets and even my bag, just to be sure, but yes, I knew it, it was nowhere on me.
I wasn't sure what to do, but I really had no choice. I spared the Japanese people any expletives I was thinking in regards to myself as I will spare you them, but I was not happy with myself. It would be one thing if all I had to do was bike home, bike back, catch the next train and be a little late to school. But I knew that this was more than just that. My trip to Shizen Gakuen runs like a well oiled machine. I catch the 7:21 train to Nirasaki and get off at 7:35. Then I catch the bus at 7:40 and ride up the hill to Shiokawa where I get off at about 8:30. Then I walk over to a small bus and take it the last fifteen minutes to school where I walk into the teacher's office at 8:45 and then begin my first class at 8:50. So you see, if any one of these steps is off by more than a few minutes the whole thing breaks down. So here I was at 7:10am in the Kofu train station with enough change on me to get me to school but not enough to get me back. Later I thought that I probably could have gotten to school and then borrowed the money to get home, but I really didn't want to do that and it didn't occur to me until I was already halfway home anyway. I also considered going home and then showing up at the Kencho at my normal time, telling them the story and letting them call the school to say that I wouldn't be in today. But that thought lasted about three seconds. I didn't want to spend the day at the Kencho and besides, that would have been giving up too easily. I had to at least make an attempt to get out there.
So I walked back to the Kencho, grabbed my bike, and headed home for the wallet. I got home, grabbed the wallet and then checked the train schedule. Next train to Nirasaki, 7:51. Now, that's only half an hour behind schedule but I had no idea about the bus situation and I don't have a schedule (not even sure if they make 'em). So I biked back to the Kencho, locked the bike, walked to the station, bought a ticket, and went down to catch the train.
About twenty minutes later I got off the train in Nirasaki (now 8:05) and went over to where I normally catch the bus. The schedule is printed on the pole where you are supposed to wait, but much to my chagrin, the next bus wasn't until 9:25. That would put me at the school at about 10:30 and that was only if the connection up the hill worked well. But even if it did, 10:30 was too late for my liking. So I walked around a bit not sure what to do when I noticed the taxis.
Now, as some of you may know, taxis over here are pretty expensive. Just to get in one is 650yen (about $6). So I was hesitant because of the price but also because somehow I had to tell the taxi driver where I wanted to go, and I knew that Shizen Gakuen would not be one of their normal destinations. But what else could I do? I wasn't going to give up. So I walked over to the taxi and poked my head in the back door.
"Sumimasen," I said, interrupting the guy on his cell phone. ("Excuse me")
He told the person on the other end of the phone to hold on, "Hai?" he said to me.
"Uhmmmm.......Shizen Gakuen....?" I was hoping he'd heard of it.
"Shizen Gakuen awakahimusensatofugajima," he said to me. (that means nothing and is about what I heard)
"Uhh...." I pointed to myself, "Shizen Gakuen eigo-sensei." ("Shizen Gakuen English teacher")
"Ah," he said to me and repeated the school's name and then a lot more that once again I had no clue about but thought I'd heard the verb for "to go".
"Hai," I said still rather tentatively , "Uh...ikura des ka?" ("how much is it?")
I'll spare you the rest of my pathetic Japanese but I did manage to get a rough estimate of about 8000yen ($75). So I thought about it for a couple seconds and came to the conclusion that I was being paid enough to correct my own mistake and told him I'd do it. And I knew I had enough in my wallet.
So we left and then he said something to me and then we pulled into a small parking lot where he stopped the car and did a little paperwork. I was very confused at this point but thought to myself, "Hell, I've done everything I can. If this guy wants to stop to balance his receipts, then so be it." But really I thought, "he might be figuring out what the fare is going to be just to make sure I have enough." Strange but what else could it have been? I really had no clue. But then another guy came over to the car, they said a few words to each other ("Shizen Gakuen" being two of them), the old driver got out while saying to me "Sumimasen, arigato" ("excuse me, thank you"), the new driver got in greeting me with "Ohayo gozaimasu" ("good morning") and we pulled away. But a few seconds later we stopped next to what was obviously his car where he said to me "Sumimasen, chotto mate" ("excuse me, just a minute") and then got some stuff from his car. He came back with a few things, two of which were one plastic bottle of tea and one small can of cold coffee. He handed the coffee to me saying, "dozo" ("please") and we were then off for real.
So I just sat in the back of the taxi, drinking my coffee, hoping that all this would work out. And lo and behold, about 40 minutes later we pulled into the school, I paid the guy 7530yen ($71), told him "thank you" several times (in Japanese, of course) and walked into the teachers' room a mere fifteen minutes late. Success!
And get this...after I apologized to Shindo-sensei for being a little late, she told me that she had just assumed that the bus was having trouble getting up the hill on the partially snowy road. She really hadn't been worried about my late arrival in the least. But I did end up telling her the entire truth about what had happened and she looked at me in shock that I would make such an effort and then thanked me many times for coming to school today. And so, at this point I decided my $71 taxi ride was well worth it.
Hope I don't have to do that again, though. Is one of those things that is fun to look back on but is not any fun living through.