Happy Birthday Papa Bear

That`s Sean to most people. We went to En, a bit of an upmarket izakaya compared to where I am used to, to celebrate last night. I have been a couple of times before, so am not always a povvy guttersnipe, but it was most definitely a treat. The fried chicken was amazing (not very nihonno, but never mind). Afterwards we went to the deserted Space Bar and watched and talked over West Ham vs Liverpool. Sean skipped around like a loon when the penalties went in Liverpool`s favour - it was almost like being on the Costa del Sol. I had the whole bar telling one barman how kakkoii I thought he was and when I offered my email with the pathetic excuse of offering English lessons, all the other barmen laughed. He was like a J-Pop star (a good one), so I was aiming high. A few of us went to karaoke after, but stayed a bit too long. My voice had gone and so sounded even worse than usual and by 6am we were all wilting in our seats.

Friday I had to work in Iwatsuki, which was a long and boring day, although the receptionist is lovely, so hopefully it has yielded a new friend, as well as an extra ￥5,000 for doing a six-day week. All the students loved me too, which was nice, although perhaps they felt like that because they have had so many difference teachers lately, they just want to cling on to anyone. I had some nice kids classes, although one bunch of five- and six-year-olds were virtually unmanageable - it was more like a creche. I would have normally let them fuck about and just concentrate on those that were interested, but the receptionist was peering through the door with some of the mothers so I had to make an effort. The adult classes were all fairly high level and none had books, so it was mainly free conversation, which was good. I had a very interesting chat with a middle aged Catholic who thinks the yakuza have really let themselves and their manners go.

Today I ventured into the optician`s, which was weirdly pleasureable. So many people have bad eyesight in Japan they have really put a lot of effort into designing nice, reasonably-priced frames. It was almost as enjoyable as shoe-shopping (something I am missing terribly with my gaijin-sized plodders). At one point I was considering buying three pairs, although this would have been a ridiculous extravagance - I could barely afford the one I ended up with. No one in the store spoke English (from a Japanese person, this means we could conduct a stunted, but understandable conversation at a very slow pace and with lots of gestures), but I thought I might be able to soldier on in Japanese. Fortunately, optomotrists are well educated, so he did have a small amount of English and we fumbled our way through his most painful appointment of the day. I had to read a hiragana sight test, but the questions were still the same and I still couldn`t work out if red was clearer than green.