It really is past time for another blog post … I have such a hard time working up the motivation to write a blog post after writing so much in my journal, then writing letters to various people. But, here goes.

First I will give a small account of Golden Week. I didn’t do much, as I was sick that whole week. A friend named Hailey, who is teaching at Eikaiwa (English conversation) schools in Nagoya took the Shinkansen up to Oyama in order to visit some friends here. (There are 4 of us that she knows here in Oyama.) One day she went shopping in Tokyo with another friend, while the rest of us pretty much hung around and relaxed at my apartment. We’d planned a Nikko trip another day, which I didn’t go on because my strange cold had moved into my chest and I was coughing a lot. Also, I just felt exhausted the whole week. The smallest things made me tired, and I knew a day-trip would only make that worse. I was very sorry to stay home, but I did end up getting a lot done. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, so I did several loads of laundry and hung our futons outside to air out and bake in the sun (which should be done far more often than I’ve actually done it!). I also read like crazy. I finished book 13 of The Wheel of Time over the holiday week.

On Sunday the 6th, our last free day before school started up again in earnest, we had some delicious Peruvian food. Through Hailey we met someone named Gisel. Gisel’s family is from Peru, and they speak Spanish. They were very excited to meet Drew and speak Spanish with him, especially her father, Raul. Due to miscommunication, we arrived after everyone had eaten and cleaned up (like, 3 hours after the fact…), but they had some left-overs which they kept telling us wasn’t enough. When we looked at how much was left, we assured them it was plenty. They worried because theirs is a culture where you eat food fresh, and you eat A LOT of it, but they served us anyway and did all they could to be great hosts. The food was delicious!

Really, that’s about it. Both my Golden Week weeks here in Japan have been lame. Guess I have a seasonal sickness. Or maybe it was all the rain, then sun, then rain, then hail, then sun weather changes. Lame or not though, the break was appreciated.

Raul convinced Drew to start teaching him and his son some English, so we’re going over there once a week now. This last week, they were very excited to find out that I speak an okay amount of Japanese, so they can communicate with me. They expressed frustration at not having been able to communicate with Hailey while she stayed with them. They felt like bad hosts. They are such kind people!