They're beds, what do you expect?!

I was walking through Midori Denki the other day and saw this bed on display. I thought it was funny that they would need to put outlines of people sleeping on the beds...they're beds, I'm sure customers can imagine what they're used for.

I also thought it was interesting, the concept of sleeping arrangements families have in Japan. The dad on his side, on the tiny bed with no room to roll, and the mother and child(and the child isn't a baby either!) on the slightly bigger bed. Well, at least this family is sleeping in the same room. Often times, the dad sleeps in his own room, and the mom and kids sleep in another room.

I hope he wins!!

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Yup, that's how I feel too!

Midnight madness

There's this 6-part TOEIC (a type of business English test) course that my boss is teaching every two weeks now, on top of our regular class schedule. I'm not teaching it, but I'm helping with the transcript translation, which is turning out to be a translation of basically the whole textbook. Neither of us had this in mind when we planned this, so the prepping gets insane the night before the class, 'cause even though we try, we just can't get it all done until the night before.

We've had two classes so far, meaning we've basically had to do an all-nighter before each class. It's crazy. It's really hard to try to do massive amounts of translating 5-7 hours straight in the wee hours of the morning. My brain stops functioning.

So my boss has had to teach the 2.5 hour class with 1 hour of sleep last time, and 2 hours of sleep this time. 2 down, 4 more to go! I hope my boss doesn't pass out from exhaustion one of these days!

What were we thinking...

Food again!

As I mentioned before, people over here often bring you food. Today, a student came by to take a practice test for about 2 hours...neither I or my boss had to actually teach or anything, she just came to take the test on her own, we just provided the material. About an hour after she left, I heard the front door opening and wondered who it was...the student came back with two chirashi-sushi sets, saying thank you! I appreciated her gesture, but it was loaded with seafood, so I gave mine to my boss =).

Earlier in the day, another student came by and brought coffee and tea for us!

This custom of receiving food (out of the blue, to me it seems) always surprises me. I always think "Wow, thanks, but geez, what's this for? What did I do to deserve this???"

Rose along the sidewalk

I was waiting behind my condo complex for my ride to come and saw this lone rose standing tall. I felt like it was calling me so I walked over and smelled it...it had a really deep scent. Sometimes I feel like nature can talk...this rose seemed to call me over and tell me "hey, I'm standing upright by myself over here and living the moment...hope you do to."

Sushi.....minus the fish and meat

Would it come to you as a surprise if I said I like sushi....even though I'm vegetarian?!

Well, I do.

I like going to the kaiten-sushi, the restaurant that has plates of sushi coming around to you on a conveyer belt and you can just pick whatever you want to eat. It's quite entertaining. When people imagine sushi, it's usually raw fish on rice. But I don't do fish....in matter of fact, I don't like to do anything that once used to move. So what do I eat, you say?!

There are eggs, corn-mayo, sour plum rolls, natto, and avocado-shrimp(I yank the shrimp out!). There are some others, but I can't remember what. Most people have a hard time narrowing down what to fill their stomachs with, since they have like 30 different kinds of sushi they have to choose from. Me, I have no problem at all! There are probably less than 10 for me to choose from, and typically I only eat the same 5 kinds, so I don't have to constantly keep one eye out on the sushi passing by, and one eye on the sushi I'm eating.

Another odditiy of mine is that I CANNOT under NO circumstances, eat WASABI. If I have to, I'm willing to wash down seafood or meat, but not wasabi. That stuff just makes me wanna gag. So when I go eat sushi, I always order the kiddie plates that have no wasabi =).

PS. Shino, I know you're laughing at me! My version of "sushi" is flat-out not even considered "sushi" in your book, huh?!