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Sunday evening as I was sitting around in my pajamas, watching TV and chatting with friends online when my doorbell rang. It wasn’t too much of a surprise, as sometimes my neighbors bring food by or Catherine pops in unannounced, but I was shocked when I opened my door and it was the three Northern Kamigoto girls. What a surprise! My immediate thought was, “What does my apartment look like?” Laura says my facial expression was pretty memorable. Well, they got to see my place in it’s natural state—all in disarray. They came in for some tea and to sit under my new kotatsu. It was Yuka’s birthday and they wanted to do something special. We went out for yakiniku at Narao’s best restaurant and had a wonderful time. Good laughs and great stories accompanied by delicious food. I have to have the girls down to Narao more often!

Special thanks to Laura and Yuka for sending me the pictures! My camera will be here soon I hope!

Kerry and I sitting under my kotatsu and drinking tea.

Yuka and Laura in the restaurant, waiting for our food.

Kerry and I again, patiently waiting.

The grill with our meat and vegetables.

After having our fill of dinner…

Monday marked day one of triathlon training. My plan was to do a 30 minute run and an hour bike-ride. I took my bike out toward Wakamatsu for 30 minutes, got off and ran across the bridge and around Wakamatsu for 15, then ran the 15 back to my bike and got on for the last leg home. All went well, until about 20 minutes into my ride it was getting dark and I was speeding really fast down a hill and the front tire popped. I don’t know if I hit a rock or if I didn't have enough air. Luckily I was only about 2 miles from my house and could walk my bike back home, but it was very dark by the time I got there. The last part of the highway goes through a dense forest and is all uphill. I had only the moon through the clouds to light my way home. It was kind of scary, but I was thankful it didn’t pop any sooner or I would have had to hike a really long way back.

Once home I ate some dinner and went off to tennis practice. I wanted to skip practice, but since the tire popped I figured I should take it to Asagami and see if he could repair it. I need to be better about checking the air in my tires before I ride miles away in the evening. Asagami said he could fix it and I ended up playing tennis until 9:30. I was really exhausted and after a hot bath went right to bed.
Tuesday I was at Wakamatsu Junior High School and how do I love those students! They are so genki in class that even the silliest of games works with them. My first period class was especially happy to have me back and I couldn’t stop smiling the whole 50 minutes.

I got home and checked my email quickly before heading to the pool for Day Two of Triathlon Training! I got an email warning about a scandal at AquaBlue, the gym and pool I use. Apparently the guy who owns the place has or had set up cameras in the changing rooms and filmed people changing. I don’t know if it was true, where or how long they were there, but I was sure to do a little naked-dance in the changing room before going to the pool. I can’t imagine it’s true, but it does make you wonder. I’m sure if it is true we’ll be hearing more about it in the near future. As of today my school knows nothing about it. In fact, my Kyoto-sensei wonders if they are in the men’s changing room too. If so, my supervisor wants to buy the video of him… we’ve been joking about it this afternoon. Who’s the next porn-star of Kamigoto? Anyway, it didn’t stop me from going to the pool yesterday and doing my work-out. Then I went to karate on the way home, but it was pretty boring. There were very few students and all of them were below me so we practiced stuff I already knew. I was just went around attacking people while they practiced the defensive moves.

Koichiro, my neighbor, has been absent from school this week. His grandmother passed away and he left sometime over weekend. I miss not having him at work and karate especially. My kocho-sensei invited us over for dinner on Thursday night (for sukiyaki) but if he’s not back yet I will go with Masami instead.

I’ve been looking at more Habitat for Humanity trips and I’ve found one to Sri Lanka that has better dates so I don’t have to take as much vacation time. I’m on the email list and getting informed about the trip and the country and it looks pretty good. The dates are April 28th to May 8th and gives me 11 days in Sri Lanka. I’m not sure if we’re going to a tsunami affected area to build homes, but we’ll find out in the coming weeks. There are still many people who need housing, not just those in tsunami areas, so I am happy to go anywhere. The group of JETs going are from Nagoya, I believe.

Well, that’s all for me. Tonight I’m going to the pool and gym again. My foot has been hurting since my run on Monday, but have no idea why. This has happened before but it’s never so serious that I need to stop working out. Hopefully it will go away soon.
Love, Sierra