Better Late then Never

SO I am just now getting around to blogging about my time in Japan.

I will recount yesterday, since There has already been so much that happened that I am not going to try and retell most of it till later when I have a ton of time and am really bored.

Yesterday, I had work. A bunch of third year middle-schoolers were coming to Hakuryo High School (my base school) because they are candidates for next year's incoming class. So I had to go into work on a saturday. For the first time since I have been here, I went to work without my morning shower. I woke up about 10 or 15 minutes before I needed to be at work. However, the day, for me, was rather uneventful. I had to classes to attend so I sat around the office doing this and that. I got started on the Rosetta Stone, and got a few exercises into it. Since the Obento woman didn't come to sell us lunch, I went home and made Texas toast and a sunny-side-up egg. Then I got my much needed shower and headed back to work. Again, I didn't do much while at work, but towards the very end of the day I got some more notebooks corrected and filled out some paperwork for my bills. Andoh Sensei picked me up at my house a little after 430 (i needed to get changed) to take me to the concert.
After we got severely lost, which usually happens when Andoh drive in Sapporo (he lives in Otaru), he finally dropped me off at Nakajima Park. The concert hall, Kitara, was on the other side. I got there around 545, I was hoping to find Hatano Sensei there but when I didn't see her, I just went inside. After looking for a seat for a few minutes, I saw a couple of the third year girls that i played volleyball with the other day. They offered to let me sit with them, so I did.
The concert hall was AMAZING. It was a beautiful design and VERY up-scale, it didn't hurt that i actually fit in the seats, either.
I didn't have to wait long before it started and about 50 of the Atsubetsu students trucked, in school uniforms, out onto the stage. While I didn't think that anything would impress me more then the hall, i could not have been more wrong. My students was breath-takingly good. The first half was very classical pieces. After a short intermission is when I really started to perk up. They performed more modern pieces, and they were perfect!
When they had returned from the intermission they had all changed. They were wearing yellow shirts, with the band logo on them, jeans, converses, and many with glow sticks or ribbons or something to add a little flair. Their first piece was some sort of hybrid disney song that was amazing. They were almost whack-a-mole like, different sections would suddenly pop up and face the audience, swinging about as though they were a marching band. I was literally laughing out loud with excitement. I was SO proud to be a teacher at Atsubetsu. I know they didn't have to struggle with formations, like Tobias did, but I can almost guarantee that they would have blown the marching mountaineers, band of distinction, out of the water.
I wish I could have recorded it, they were so amazing! Apparently they won some sort of gold metal, in something, at some point. That's about all the girls could translate for me at the time.
I left the performance walking tall, as a teacher for that school. My Vice-Principle invited me to come eat dinner and drink with him at his house. This vice-principle being the one that calls me konishiki, and told me that he was surprised i didn't blow the tires on my bike when I ride it. He is a cool little guy, he is barely taller then 5ft. So after the concert we hit up an alleyway that was nothing but ramen shops. We watched the 8th inning of the Fighters vs the Hawks game. Then headed back to his place and picked up a few beers on the way from a convenience store.
He lived near-by, in the part called Susukino, where all the "fun" stuff happens. He lived in a really nice apartment, or as the japanese call them "mansions", that i later found out, he paid $260,000 for. It was really nice. automatic bath, really nice japanese toilet, tall ceilings, one of those cool automatic garages that you pull into then it takes your car up and hangs it there till you come back. It was cool. So he, his wife and I just sat around having a few beers, shooting the breeze. It was a good time. He had me crash there and drove me back in the morning. It was a great day!
Then I came home, and have been chilling since then, later I will get to cleaning the house. It desperately needs it.