Outrageously overdue

Ok, so I kind of let the blog get away from me for a month and a half, but to tell you the truth, not much has happened in that time. Some things of note:

My trip to Southeast Asia was great and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I highly recommend Malaysia as a tourist destination because 1.) everyone speaks English, and 2.) even though you're almost guaranteed to get the runs, the food is awesome. The best parts were the cheap food and tropical weather. Also, I enjoyed meeting fellow travelers from all over the world. In fact, that was probably the most interesting part out of the whole trip. Based on my encounters, I feel nothing but love for Canadians, the British, Australians, Austrians, Germans, New Zealanders, the French, Koreans, Chinese, Bulgarians, Bengalis, Malays, Indians, Swedes, and of course, my fellow Americans (one of whom was in the process of bicycling across Asia). I learned that I should be eternally grateful that English is the most popular second language in the world, because were it not for that, I wouldn't be able to talk to a great majority of these fine people.

Katie and I met up in Tokyo and saw quite a bit of the city. We were especially impressed by the good eats in Roppongi (including a relatively inexpensive Thai place which boasted a commanding 13th-story view of the city) and by the plastic food in Kappabashi, between Asakusa and Ueno. If you ever asked yourself, "Where can I find quality refrigerator magnets that look like pieces of sushi?" then this is the place for you. Of course, Tokyo being as large as it is defies even the most determined tourist to see everything in a mere three or four days, so Katie and I will definitely be going back for more.

On the home front, the third years are done with classes, which means I have even more free time to screw around on the computer at work. I also read, and sometimes, if I'm especially motivated, I open my Japanese textbook. On a positive note, however, I've pretty much learned what works and what doesn't in my classes, and my students' eyes don't seem quite as glazed over as they used to. I learned that they love intonation practice. The Japanese language being fairly flat in terms of intonation (think how a robot sounds when it talks), my students cannot seem to shake themselves of this habit when speaking English. To correct this, I overemphasize the sentences I read to them to a cartoonish degree. Example: "HOW do I GET to the STORE?" taking extra care to force my voice through its full range. I then have the students repeat over and over again, refusing to stop until they've all made complete fools of themselves. Only then can the real learning begin.

In other news, our friend Adam, who now lives in Korea, visited us this past week. Unfortunately, Katie and I had to work, so he was forced to explore the local sights largely by himself. He seemed like he had a pretty good time, all in all, but I got the sense he was pretty disturbed by how cold it actually was in our house. He brought us delicious homemade kimchi (pickled vegetables, usually cabbage, in chili sauce), which we appreciated greatly.

For whatever reason, Katie and I keep getting sick. I got some kind of cold when I got back from Singapore, Katie got a horrible 24 hour stomach bug, which I got about two weeks later, and now we both have colds again. Ugh. It seems everyone's sick right now, though. Everywhere you look, the Japanese are sporting those surgical face masks all over the place. I can't imagine that they actually do anything for you other than signaling to other people, "Hey! I'm sick! Stay away!" But when you're riding trains and buses all over creation, and the little old grandpas and little old ladies haven't quite mastered the art of covering their damn mouths when they cough, it's pretty easy to contract all manner of nasties. I can only hope that this will improve as we move into spring and, hopefully, warmer weather.

Because of our frequent illness, Katie and I haven't been out gallivanting around Japan as we were wont to do, so you won't find too many new pictures or descriptions of all the new places we've been. We'll try to get on that as soon as we stop coughing...

-Bob