Raccoon Dog

Hey all,

The first week of work at the kindergarten is done. The first two days were a bit overwhelming. We were shown so many different things:
storage places, how to run the copier, English teaching schedule, cleaning schedule, after school program rotations, etc…the list literally goes on. As if that’s not enough in itself, all of these directions are either written or spoken in broken English. Top that with the cherry of 350 kindergartners screaming Japanese, grabbing any of my extremities, probing crevices, and dangling from my mandatory “teaching apron.” I guess I was pretty tired the first few days, but Fridaaaaaaay was a comin.

Everyday I find something that really makes me laugh. I guess it doesn’t really matter if things are funny to anyone else, so long as I get amusement/joy from them. Here are a few of the funnier moments:

1. Finding Daisuke. This little guy will repeat pretty much anything I say, in English obviously. How about some dialogue?

Mike- “Good morning”
Daisuke- “Good morning”
M- “How are you?”
D- “How are you?”
M- “I’m fine, thanks.”
D- “I’m fine, thanks.”
M- “Mike’s really cool.”
D- “Mike’s really cool.”
M- “Mike’s pretty funny.”
D- “Mike’s pretty funny.”
M- “Haha.”
D- “hahahaha.”
You get the drift… That’s really good and cheap entertainment here.

Daisuke playing in Dino.

2. While studying my Japanese lessons today, I learned how to write and say many different animal names. Like, snake = he bi; dog = i nu; horse = u ma; and…………………………………......drum roll……………………………………….
ta nu ki= raccoon dog. I laughed for a long while at that. Maybe my laughter came from my intense studying or from the thought of an actual raccoon dog. Funny for you too? In any case, please re-read the aforementioned, bold sentence.


3. Reading t-shirts here. Absolutely priceless. My top 2 so far:

“Don’t swallow around the chaos.”
“North Dakota Justifies”
“Their are so much bring.”


After a very experiential, yet not too delectable dinner prepared by the girls, we all grabbed our one speeds and biked through the misty rain to the Big Hop mall in Inzai Shi.
Big Hop----------------------------------------------me @ Big Hop.

I brought my laptop so I could chill and catch up on some blogging while the girls shopped. I was hoping to snag some f. fries from one of the restaurants in the food court but they apparently closed sometime before 8:40. Bummer! I guess we will just have to hit up the Mini-Mart on the way home to settle this hunger battle once-and-for-all.

Tomorrow, we are going to the Ueno Zoo. Apparently it’s supposed to be rad. Peace be upon you.

Bye everybody, bye.

mike.