Wow

My first week at work is over! I think it couldn't have gone any better. The kids were better than I expected and the classes weren't as hard to teach as I had first thought. But now, It's the weekend and it's time to forget about work. Last night, I headed to Kurashiki to hang out with Nat after work.

We ended up having dinner at some really quaint restaurant. It had really cool 1950's Japanese beer posters and a manga library to read from. I really liked it. We ate edamame and I had omurice (a rice omelette with gravy on it).

Afterwards, Natalie and I walked around town aimlessly looking at everything. Japan is so well presented. Everywhere I go and everything I see is well presented. The plants and decor are so immaculate. I've never been anywhere so sophiticated where almost everyone cares so much about appearance. Then, we also ended up trying Doppo Peach beer. Doppo is a microbrewery in Okayama city. We decided that the beer was good but that it needed more beer and less peach. We also stumbled onto a red light district of sorts. It was really strange. There were tons of drunk men and a few women dressed in Kimono's vying for all of the men's attention. The alley was really weird. When we finally walked out of the alley, a bunch of cops showed up for some reason. Weird. After, we also ended up going into a tiny little bar. The bar caught our eye because the entrance had a bunch of Christmas lights around it. It just looked interesting so we went in. The bar was really tiny! It had two really small rooms. Inside, it had darts, hello kitty pictures, backstreet boys music, and just general Japanese weirdness. While sipping our beer, the owner of the bar came up and started talking to us with whatever little English he had. He was really really friendly and curious about English and about us. We really enjoyed talking to him.

In the end, that just reaffirmed that Japanese people are some of the friendliest I have EVER met. I have not met one rude person in my three weeks in Japan. For example, yesterday, I asked some older lady in Japanese for directions and she went out of her way to take me to where I was going, all while being super friendly and helpful.

I love Japan. Today is Sunday so I'm going to head out and enjoy the beautiful weather while it's here. Apparently, a Typhoon is headed our way.