China Town

Friday the 3rd was the first day of real classes. They are really hard. I'm pretty close to the bottom of this class, which is a new experience for me. 

On the bright side, it is pushing me hard, so I'm making pretty good progress. Really, it's all the language partners helping me, and all the homework/self study that's making the difference. All the class is doing is setting the bar really high. So I feel I've already accomplished what I hoped to do here - bring my Japanese up to it's highest level in the 4 basic skills. 

So I might quit this class. It's stressing me out. The desks are really small, 3 of the 6 teachers are unhappy, and don't use positive reinforcement. 4 hours in the afternoon is really hard for me to stay alert. 6 of the 20 hrs per week are devoted to listening practice, and the way they do it is ineffective for me. And the real reason I'm thinking about quitting - they allow one of the teachers to smoke in her office, which fills the whole school with smoke. I mentioned this on Thursday (the first day it happened), and the teacher I reported it to, my contact teacher,  just scoffed at me. She said the smoker was in her own office, so it was ok. I sent my contact an email that night, requesting to speak to the principal about it. The next day, Friday, there was no smoke in the office. I assumed it had been taken care of. 

Unfortunately, I was wrong. Today, Sunday morning, she sent a somewhat negative/condescending email back to me, essentially telling me to stop complaining. I was pretty bummed about it, and that's why I'm considering quitting. There are only 5 days left. The money's already spent, and it wouldn't break my heart if I didn't get a refund. If I quit, I'll probably work with a private tutor for an hour or two per day. I've got some specific grammar areas I want to target.

But then I met with the fabulous Yukina and Miho again, and we did a tour of chinatown here in Kobe. The first picture is of the entrance gate. The food is awesome. We ate some dumplings, ramen, etc, and topped it off with shoe cream. Ok, maybe it was shuu cream, but it was still delicious. Sort of like a cream puff, and very popular here.

Afterwards, we went to the top of City Hall, which is a really nice tall building here. There was a great view of the city and the bay. That's where the rest of the pictures were taken. I didn't mention this before, but Kobe and Seattle have been "friendly cities" or perhaps "sister cities" for over 50 years now. There was a plaque to that effect in the city hall.

Then we went for a long talk in the local park. I'm constantly impressed by the ladies' english. We talked about our goals of improving our language skills for the future. Ganbarimasu!