Again, sorry for the delay but I temporarily lost my internet connection here at my apartment. Between that and the fact that I haven't had a day at the Kencho since I last wrote in here, not much is getting done in terms of this journal. But, with all that said, you'll be happy to know that I got my connection back. "What happened?" you ask? Well, when I signed up for the service I filled out a form that should have set up automatic withdrawals from my bank account. I even had a Japanese speaking and reading friend help me. But, unbeknownst to me, something must have gotten screwed up. Of course, I didn't know this and just continued to use the service and assume that money was changing accounts as need be. Oh, and I was getting these "receipts" in the mail telling me how much had been taken out of my account so that I could dutifully and responsibly record all this in my "records".
So here I am living in the 21st century with a nice, fast internet connection to the world. And then, all of a sudden, last Friday my connection was no more. "Damn," I thought, "I wonder if my phone line is working." So I checked it and it was. Then I tried resetting the modem a few times and then playing with my computer's setup. "Hmmm, I wonder what it could be," I thought as I searched for a phone number so that I could have Dilek call for me at some point.
I then found an envelope that I had gotten in November and had never opened. Hell, why should I open it? I can't read it. So I opened it and oddly enough it had a form just like the one I had filled out in September for all my bank info. "Now why in the heck.....?" I thought when it suddenly hit me.
Turns out that I hadn't paid one dime (or 10 yen piece if you will) to the company since October. So, they shut me down. Apparently those "receipts" I was getting once a month in the mail were actually bills. So with this knowledge I got a bill this last Monday for about $130 and promptly took it down to the am/pm (you can pay bills at convenience stores over here, how convenient, aye?) and paid it all off. Two days later my modem was suddenly working again. Happy ending.

So I left you hanging during Gaylyn's visit. I am way behind in this thing but I'll just have to do what I can.

Anyway, on Saturday, Gaylyn, Amy and I were invited to Tanoguchi's (the old guy at Yuda) house for what was his 72nd birthday party. It was a small affair but was pretty fun with much laughter. He picked us up around 11am and drove us to his place. First, though, we stopped off just short of his house and he showed us the location of his "side" job. He has a small, very small, private language school where he teaches English to about five or six teenagers.
When we pulled up he told us he was going to go park and said to get out, go up those stairs and say a few words to the people in there. Amy and I have gotten quite used to being the center of attention so we took it all in stride but I think Gaylyn might have been wondering what the hell we were doing. I would have thought that too a few months ago. But anyway, we went up the stairs and said a few words to Tanoguchi's students. I guess this had all been planned because they seemed to be expecting us. This didn't last long though and soon we were walking down the side-street (an alley) towards the house.
So we went in and sat down and were served by his wife. She was very nice but spoke no English. She served us tea, and cabbage prepared in some way, and a couple other things. All of it was quite good and we sat around with Tanoguchi and his 14 year old grand daughter, talking and laughing. One thing you should know about the old guy is that he never stops joking. He is always getting me at school, telling me something that is funny to him, and then asking me, "Can you understand?" with a big grin on his face. He's great. And this day was no different.
So we sat around for about 45 minutes or so and then went to the big house across the small yard. This house was his son's and Tanoguchi thought it quite funny that he and his wife lived in the old house while his son and his family lived in the great big new one.
So we went over there with Tanoguchi, his wife, his two sons, one of their wives, and four grandkids. There we sat under the low tables and gathered around the cake. The cake was quite large with lots of icing and was actually for both Tanoguchi and one of his grandkids who had turned 10 earlier in the week. After the small bonfire was blown out the cutting ceremony commenced and I was given a piece about the size of a shoebox. This wouldn't have been all that strange and funny except for the fact that we were going to be going out to eat lunch quite soon. Those of you who know me might know that I much prefer the meal to the dessert. I ain't much for sweets. I prefer the meat and potatoes part of the meal, so to speak. But here I was with a large piece of icing attached to a substantial piece of white cake and I wasn't sure about the whole etiquette thing. "Do I have to eat the whole thing?" "Will it be rude if I only take a few bites and then tell them that I am saving room for the meal?" This was going through my head as I ate bite after bite, washed down with champagne, of course, and looked around the room at everyone else's reasonably sized pieces.
Eventually I was saved by Tanoguchi telling me that I didn't have to eat the whole thing, that it wouldn't be rude. So I stopped and tried to recover before our meal.
We all drove over to a soba (a Japanese noodle) restaurant and were seated in a private room. Not too private as everyone could see us, but our own room nonetheless. It was here that Gaylyn's true test of food would come into play and although she didn't eat much, we did get through it. You see, Tanoguchi is an old guy who is rather set in his ways and doesn't exactly understand that certain people don't like certain things. Hell, I don't exactly understand it either. But whereas I just roll my eyes and say "ok" he insists that you eat something. Actually many Japanese seem to be that way. They just want you to at least try it. Understandable if you ask me. But anyway, Gaylyn wasn't really interested in any of the food offered to her but we went ahead and ordered her some soba and tempura.
Tanoguchi and I also ordered some sake and drank it while we ate. The lunch was quite good but in all honesty soba is rather bland to me. I much prefer houtou or sashimi but there is nothing not to like about soba. So we all ate, or rather, some of us did, and we talked and laughed and made faces at the kids and generally had a grand old time.
As lunch was finishing up, Tanoguchi informed us that they would drive us back to my place and we all walked out of the restaurant, took a few pictures, and then took off for home.
All in all it was a great little adventure and Tanoguchi's wife asked Amy and I if we would go with them sometime to eat sushi. "Of course," I said and we made indefinite plans to do so at some point in the future.

I still have Sunday to tell you about but I'll do that later. Want to tell you that this weekend Amy and I are going with Tomoko (our Japanese tutor) and one of her friends to go snowboarding. It will be our first time. I expect to spend nearly all of Saturday crashing and generally terrorizing the Japanese hillsides. What's more is that Amy will probably be worse than me. I've seen her trip over nothing, so I imagine that with a plank of wood nailed to her feet she will be even less graceful. But it should be fun.
After that we are apparently going to an onsen (a Japanese hot spring bath). Now, before you say "Oh, that sounds cool," let me tell you that I have never liked sitting in hot tubs. I have never liked sitting in hot water with nothing to do. It bores the hell out of me. And get this...I won't even be able to talk to the girls while I sit there. Why? Because you sit in the water naked, thus, they have a male side and a female side at nearly all onsens. So while Tomoko, Yuki and Amy are chatting it up, I'll be sitting in the male section of the onsen by myself. Call me strange but this sort of thing does not appeal to me. I asked Tomoko if there is a bar there, saying that I'd just go in and have a drink while they do the onsen thing, but she told me there wasn't. People have told me that onsens are great, "Oh, they are so nice and relaxing," and I usually go into things with a fairly open mind, but my idea of relaxing is a football game on tv with a beer in my hand. Ah well, I'll let you know if I hit some revelation while I'm there. Sitting in hot water??? I don't even take baths at home.

Ok, that's all for now.

Alright, here we go again. Sorry for the time off but I had to recharge the old battery.

Life is still plugging away over here. Schools are going well and the weather seems to be slightly warming up a little. I can actually turn off my heaters during the day (if I'm home) and just let the sun warm the room. At night it is still quite cold but I have gotten used to it and still prefer this chill of winter to the hot humidity of the summer. I am not looking forward to that heat again.

Gaylyn's visit went well for the most part. Think she was a bit shocked by the differences over here but she seemed to enjoy seeing a different way of life. The most difficult thing for her was definitely the food factor but with some effort on my part, and the part of one of my teachers we managed to keep her fed and satisfied.
I picked her up at the airport on that Friday and we rode into Tokyo where we checked into the hotel and went to eat and drink and wait for Amy and Dilek. So we did all that and on Saturday got up with a full day of sumo before us. I am becoming more and more knowledgeable on the sport and am thus liking it more and more. It is a great sport with personalities, tactics, controversy, and lots of ceremony. I'll explain it to you over a beer sometime. Gaylyn liked it too and we had a great day. After that we rode over to Shibuya (part of Tokyo) and walked around before heading to a TGIF's for dinner (American food for Gaylyn). Dinner was good but not that big a deal, which surprised me considering I hadn't had a real burger in months. I thought I would be missing American food by now, and I do miss certain things, but not as much as I thought I would. Anyway, while we were in there it started snowing and we came out to a heavy snowfall of big, thick flakes. It was quite cool. So we walked around for a while and then headed back to the hotel.
Sunday we woke up and went to Shinjuku for a bit of shopping. Not my favorite thing to do but it wasn't about me, so I tagged along trying not to fall over from looking at yet another purse. Eventually we finished all that nonsense and went to the station to catch a train back to Kofu.
On the ride we noticed that there seemed to be this strange white substance all over the hills and ground that wasn't there when we left. "Well, by golly," I said to Amy, "I think that thar white stuff is snow!" We were a little excited by it all being from California and all. Dilek (from Iowa) was noticeably less impressed.
So we got in to Kofu, said "goodbye" to Amy, who had to catch another train down to Ichikawa, and the three of us caught a taxi to the apartment building. Gaylyn, upon getting into a car for her first time over here, said "I don't think I'd want to drive over here." Not sure if was the small roads, the close walls and buildings, or all the pedestrians, bikes, and other cars that make up the moving obstacles, but she seemed happy to let the taxi driver do his thing.
So Monday I had to head down to Minobu and decided to let Gaylyn stay in Kofu. The teacher and the kids don't speak much English and I thought that it might be a bad school to make Gaylyn's first. I'm getting used to it all but even for me, Minobu is a challenge. So she was free to rest that day.
Tuesday I would have loved to take her to school but it is a long bike ride out there and I wasn't sure how to get Gaylyn there. So again she rested. She was going to go explore downtown but I don't think she ended up doing it. Not really sure why, but I think the next three days made up for it.
Wednesday we went to Yuda. I think Gaylyn liked this school. The first class ended up singing to us half the time and then we sat around and talked. My second class's teacher was sick so there was change of plan. We instead went with Yazaki-sensei (normally my third class's teacher) to a class I had seen only once before. The girls seemed interested and all went well. Then my third class was as normal. Gaylyn isn't much on talking to groups but she managed to say a few words and then sat down to let me run the show. So it went pretty well. One thing the girls were interested in was how tall Gaylyn is. She's 6 feet, I believe, and although there are tall Japanese women around, they certainly aren't in abundance. So the question, "How tall are you?" was asked many times.
JAA was Thursday and once again, I think Gaylyn had a good time. The students there are mostly boys and they asked me several times whether Gaylyn was my girlfriend. I kept telling them that "Amy" was the name of my girlfriend and they all thought they were being quite funny. The other teachers out there seemed to like Gaylyn and I could tell the feeling was mutual. So Thursday went well.
Friday we went to Yamanashi Gakuen and I had my normal four classes. Gaylyn liked this school too but less so. The junior high kids were less interested in her than the high school kids had been and more interested in just playing games. Understandable, I think. But again the teachers all wanted to talk with Gaylyn and I think she left feeling rather good. She even got to sit in while two kids (from the high school) practiced their speeches on us and we gave them feedback.
So I think all in all Gaylyn enjoyed the school thing. She even mentioned that she'd like to go home and perhaps attend one of her nephews classes at some point just to see what its like.

I have to tell you about the weekend but it's gonna take a while and I have a couple things I need to do here at the Kencho. So check back in a few days.

Yes, I realize I haven't written in here in a few weeks. I apologize for that. Between Gaylyn's visit, a lack of Kencho days, and me being sick, I just haven't had the time and/or energy. I do have a bit to tell ya, but it'll have to wait. I am home for lunch right now and then have to go back to school for the afternoon "chatroom" (English conversation). Hope all is well with everyone and I shall return to my updates shortly.