Dinner with some teachers

I think it was nice to be invited by some of my co-workers to their house and to enjoy dinner together. I mean they are very nice people and are interesting people. This was the only thing on the agenda for today, so I lounged until then. I mean I didn’t get up till around 3pm today, which only gave me about an hour and half to get ready and go.

The trip didn’t take as long as I thought it would, since they live near the Motosumiyoshi station on the Tokyu Toyoko line. I arrived just at 6pm when they asked me to be at the station. One of my co-workers was already waiting, and told me that the other teachers would be late by 4 minutes. I thought that was kind of precise, but in fact they were late by 6 minutes. We then went to a little grocery shop to get something to drink for everyone, and then went to their house. I mean it literally is one minute away from the station. For me when I get to Hongodai station, it takes one minute to get out of the station.

They have a nice little apartment. I think I have more space in my room than they did in theirs, but they had bigger furniture than I do, so I really couldn’t tell. But I think it’s a typical Japanese apartment…small. It’s nice and cozy and later I found out that all their decorations and things are all from gifts. I mean their wedding gifts. Even the dishes we were using for our dinner. The menu for the evening was oden, which is a traditional Japanese food. I’ve had it before at one of my school’s festivals. Mrs. K also made onigiri – rice balls. They offered some tea and crackers afterwards as we were watching a historical drama on NHK.

I think this was when we all really started talking to each other. One of the teachers that was there is really trying to start to learn to speak English. And she wants me to teach her. So we had a little conversation, something that I’ve noticed is that they change from topic to topic without letting you know. I mean they just jump around, but it’s not that way in Japanese, but I’ve noticed that a lot of people do it. That’s something I’ll need to keep in mind. We started to talk about what our dream was, and I’ve learned a little about the people I work with. I mean I don’t even know all of their first names. But, Mr. K wants to have a big house with a garden and pool somewhere in Germany or Switzerland. You could tell that he likes alcohol. Mrs. K and Ms. Tmura wanted to be a teacher when they were young. Since they have now achieved their goal, Ms. Tmura wants to have a small dog. She struggles to answer that question because for them, after they achieve their dream, they don’t know what’s next. Ms. Tguchi wants to travel around the world and speak to many people in English… like in France. But we pointed out to her that they don’t speak English in France, they speak French and despise English. She was kinda shocked to hear it.

We ended the evening around 10pm because they had work the next day, on Valentines and I had a day off, or a week off. So I wasn’t in a hurry or anything. I had given them their gift at the station, and told Mrs. K that her cooking was good, despite of what the boss says. Which really gets me to think why she was saying that Mrs. K’s cooking was horrible. I’m really surprised. I hoped they like their gift. When I got home, I started talking to BH. I haven’t talked to her in a long while, and I could tell that she had left her MSN on. We went into a lengthy conversation. One that didn’t end for me until 7am. I hope that she had seen something that I had seen while I was reading the book on the train. Something finally made sense to me about goal setting and how to get what I want. I’m really enjoying my train rides because of the things that I’m learning while I go from place to place.