During the weekdays I worked my regular hours. At work I still mainly spend my time in the SkillUp room however now I have a schedule for what classes I will be assisting in. On Mondays all I have, class-wise, is a seminar for the second year students. Seminar is somewhat like study hall where the students come to the SkillUp room and work on homework or have their weekly 15 minute English conversation with the TA’s. After that is over I don’t have any other classes so I just stay in the room and help people who come with questions about their homework or grade stuff. Tuesday I help in two conversation classes. These classes go over more casual English and how to hold a conversation in English. I help teach both a first and second year class. In these classes I usually help the teachers with examples, and work with students when they work on stuff in their own. When I’m helping the students I try to sneak in some Japanese practice. Usually when the students are not understanding a certain concept in the lesson I try to explain the meaning in Japanese. It is pretty difficult for me but a lot of the times the students have a better understanding. Wednesday I have another seminar and a conversation class. Thursday I have absolutely nothing so I just work in the SkillUp room. Friday I have another conversation class and then end my day with another seminar. We started a game in the room where we put up the teachers’ and TAs’ baby pictures and the students have to guess who’s who. The fifth picture is the board. Can you guess who I am?

The first four pictures are of things that are around where I stay. The first picture is of a shrine that is very close to my social house – when I was walking to Koganei Park I stumbled across it and offered some money and rang it’s bell. The second picture is of a part of Koganei Park. I saw on Google Maps how big the park was but going there really put things into perspective. It was huge. There were so many families playing together in the open fields and a lot of people just walking around on the sidewalks. The next two pictures are of my commute to work. Everyday I walk to the Higashi-Koganei train station and get off at the next stop, Musashi-Koganei. After that I take a bus and that goes right to Technos College. The trip usually takes about 30 minutes. The third picture is of the view I have when riding the train and the fourth picture is of a park that I walk by on my way back to my place.

During the weekend I decided to visit Kishimojin, a temple which is close to Mejiro. The sixth picture is from the walk I took from Mejiro station to Kishimojin. When I got there I saw that a lot of the temple was under construction. The seventh and eighth picture are of the old Gingko Tree, a 700 year old sacred tree and of the gates surrounding it. Honestly I was pretty bummed that so much of the temple wasn’t visible but after I saw the temple I decided to just walk around. At a couple minutes I found Keyakinamiki Street. There I found a small shop called “Showroom”. So far going to this site has been the best experience I’ve had here in Japan. The tenth picture is of the inside of the shop. The owner rents out a house and uses it as a store. All the pottery there was handmade and there were a lot of hand sewed hats, aprons and bags that are made out of a Japanese cloth. The owner saw that I was looking at the display outside her shop so she invited me inside and explained what everything was. I originally spoke to her in Japanese but after a couple minutes I realized that she spoke English extremely well after that, we spoke mainly using that. Her and I continued having a conversation for a while and then she went back into the kitchen and brewed some tea for the both of us. She brought the tea out and we sat on the floor, and we continued our conversation. I learned that she loves India and we started sharing our memories from our trips there. Time honestly flew by, we talked well over an hour. I genuinely wanted to stay and keep talking but I needed to catch the train back home. So after we finished our talk I picked it some nice things to buy and said goodbye. Being in a foreign country and exploring alone can get somewhat tiring but being able to meet a stranger who was as nice and open for conversation as the shop owner is something that I’ll never be able to forget.

The next day I finally decided to go out and treat myself to a nice dinner. One of my bosses recommended a ramen shop that is very close to the Higashi-Koganei station so I decided to go there. I ordered the Shōyu Ramen (soy sauce ramen) and that was probably the best thing that I had so far. While eating, there was a person sitting next to me who could tell I was a foreigner and started a conversation with me. Since both of us are but originally from Japan we talked about our experiences here. After dinner we exchanged information and plan on grabbing some food again.

After that nice dinner I had a 20 minute walk back to my room and that was the end of my week. Still the main thing that I need to do is to make sure how much money I have in coins, but I am definitely getting better at it.