Gakkou means school, and shou means small. Altogether it’s elementary school, which is where we visited this afternoon! I had no idea what to expect but it was a blast. We got split up and I was basically led around and showed stuff for a good 20 minutes by three 4th grade girls, to whom I was surely an object of much fascination (by height alone if nothing else). I played some crazy Japanese games that I felt really bad for not understanding after like 5 explanations. Japanese Duck-Duck-Goose involves a handkerchief. Later we were given to the 5th graders. Holy hell those kids were amazingly good at English! Probably ahead of my Japanese at any rate, which is somewhat discouraging. As random and dangerous as most of the stuff I saw there was, I have to say they seemed miles ahead of what I may or may not of heard through a certain person close to me who knows a lot about children of that age. Seriously Mom, you should move to Japan and teach; I think it would be worth your while in stress relief.
Other interesting things today included the second midterm test, which was so long the majority didn’t finish by the time we had to leave for the elementary school. Luckily, Akagi-sensei is fucking awesome and let us finish it when we got back (at the Kan no less!). I love this guy. On the walk from class in building 2 to our point of departure at the front of building 9 Brian mentioned he thought he heard something about going by taxi. I dismissed it as absurd—I mean like 30 people by taxi? That doesn’t seem very efficient for Japan… But sure enough when we got there there sat a line of taxis, and we returned the same way. I guess it was too far to walk and too short to rent a bus. Anyhow, having now arrived at the Kenshukan via car, I have to say it was a very interesting experience flying down “the hill” in a motorized vehicle in like a tenth the time it takes to walk. Yikes.
Tonight the Irish girls, myself, and Don went to Shinjuku to a delicious sushi bar and followed it up with drinking at Wara-wara back in Yuen. Good times.
