Sorry for the delay in updates, peeps = it's been a hectic couple of weeks since training ended and Aaron and I started actually teaching. We've been sent all over the Osaka/Kansai area so far, generally ending way up in the mountains in the buttcrack of nowhere. It can be an hour commute each way if we're far enough away, which makes it very much like home, right? :P

All of the Japanese staff have been pretty cool, and speaking to students has generally been pretty interesting, with a few key exceptions involving children. After the age of six, children are evil, dirty, creatures who don't want to do anything except cover your classroom in mucus and incubate various strains of disgusting diseases. Before that thought, they're pretty cute, but I still prefer teaching the 16+ crowd. They don't use me as a tissue, which is truly a novelty.

Meeting the other teachers as we've "made the rounds" has also been interesting. We've met a fair number of really cool people, including our next-door neighbors and training group buddies. On the other hand, we've also definitely encountered some of the stereotypes, usually from the "reallyreallyreally want to screw Japanese girls," "couldn't hack it at home," and "genuinely bizarre" varieties, lending a grain of truth to some of the rumors regarding foreign language instructors here. But that's all right - they're easily avoided :P.

Now that we've settled into a sort of routine, Aaron and I have resumed the "adventure" portion of this trip with some success. On Sunday, we headed to Kobe (about 30 minutes away by train) with Val, Norm, and Bev, who are buddies of ours from our training group. We were planning to look for international groceries (mmm, peanut butter...), roam around through Kobe's Chinatown, and see the Kobe Luminarie light sculpture, but we got a little derailed by a HAILSTORM. Put a damper on the plans, y'might say. So, we only ended up getting groceries and exploring Chinatown, which was really tiny and very Japanese for being a "China"-town. It was fun though - I enjoy the "explore" portion of being here a great deal, and it sort of redeems the "snotrag" aspect of teaching.

Other than that, not much to report, as we're just about to start planning for Kyoto, Tokyo, and HOT SPRIIIIING trips. Right now, Aaron and I are more focused on recovering from whatever plague our young students have unleashed upon us ::blech::. Oh! And as there have been requests for pictures, I've attached a few random ones, including a "Holiday" one of me :P

Hope everyone's weeeeeelll! Oh, and pictures of the apartment are forthcoming - it's very difficult trying to take pictures around the sliding doors! :P