≡≡≡=(ﾉTдT)ﾉ
AAAAAAA!
Today Masao was kind enough to ask one of his employees, Sakuko, to give me and Dave a free Japanese lesson to help us prepare for the JLPT. We worked together for almost three hours and she really helped us poor, ill-prepared Americans. At the end of the lesson Sakuko said I was 優良 (yuuryou, excellent) as a student. I immediately had to look up what that meant so I think I probably have a long way to go to live up to that compliment. (T_T)
Dave had been telling me about the tutoring center in Hirakata Sun Plaza, but it looked like rain again and I had laundry hanging outside my window, so I hurried home to make sure it was safe instead.
Later in the evening, my neighbor Ted asked if I wanted to train with him after his work, so I went over and he taught me really good form on exercises with which I am less familiar. He is meticulous so he was able to teach me good form for a deadlift, and he also showed me how to do some abdominal work with a TRX suspension trainer. It's the first time I've worked out in over a week. It felt great!
After working out we went to a 回転寿し (kaiten zushi, conveyer sushi) place nearby called かっぱ寿司 (Kappa-Zushi). The waitress we had was one that a mutual friend of ours had thought was really cute, so we laughed about that, reminisced, and since Ted works here he told me about work culture in Japan. Also, I had forgotten but at Kappa-Zushi the orders you make on a screen above the conveyer belt are delivered to you on a mini shinkansen (bullet train).
picture: Kappa-Zushi's mini shinkansen
(disclaimer: this photo is from http://www.kappa-create.co.jp/en/index.html and is not my own.)
Culture note: Japanese washing and drying tends to be a little
different than in the United States. Families have a tendency to do one
day's laundry at a time, for all members of the family. Washers ask you
to specify how many liters to use for a load (usually with 3 options
between 20 and 40), instead of selecting a light, normal or heavy load.
It's common for people to hang their laundry outside rather than using a
dryer, so there are metal poles secured outside windows or sliding
doors and on balconies for drying. Hanging underwear outside or at least
in plain view is a little impolite, however, so it is best to have a place to hang those things inside.
(All names used in this blog are pseudonyms.)
