Monday, February 27th, 1989

Note:  This is a series of journal entries from my two years living in Himeji, Japan (1988-1990).  I'm archiving them electronically through my blog.  Last names have been deleted and replaced with first initial only.  For details on this series of blog entries, see this post.

Yesterday I slept in until about 10:30.  I got up and puttered around the apartment until 3:30.  I caught the bantansen, then the shinkaisoku, then Hankyu Rail, and went to Rokko.  I got there at 4:30.  The key arrived at 5:00.  We had practice.  It went well.  We'll be ready for next Sunday's debut.

I led music during church, and only blew it on 2 songs.  Oh well...2 out of 4 isn't bad??!!

After church we attempted to locate a place, and find people to go to the b-day party for Paula, Mitsuko, and Isaku...fun...since none of them were there for church.  Paula went home tired, Mitsuko came after church, and Isaku met us there.

We finally found a robata in Okamoto.   We had such a good time!  It started with the ordering fiasco.  We threw items out to vote on and the waiter kept writing everything we said down.  We asked him to come back later, and finally decided.  Among the items were sashimi, yakitori, butter corn, and someone ordered blowfish...you know...the kind were you could die eating it...no one died, though.  I didn't try it.

The entire evening everyone in the restaurant stared at us.  Of course it didn't help that one of us picked up the head of the fish and dropped it screaming when a nerve in it twitched.  It also didn't help that it landed right in a water glass.

Decorating the birthday cake for Mitsuko at our table didn't help either.  Nor did singing happy birthday to her, or doing karaoke (and not always very well, I might add).  We were so used to being stared at by the time we got the cake decorated, that we decided to go around to each table and give everyone a piece of it.  I got lots of pictures!

Isaku and Masami were horribly embarrassed that no one ordered beer or alcohol (that's the thing to do at robata).  I obliged by ordering a chuhai.

We forgot the girl from Germany, so called her later & told her how to get there and she came (we didn't know she was coming).

I took JR home from the eki near the robata.  I had to take the kaisoku.  I didn't get home until 1:00 a.m.

Today I had to get up at 7 to teach at the business school with Mike.  It was fun.  The class was pretty good.

A limo picked me up to go.  When we arrived the doorman let us in, and all of the workers saluted us as we went in. We had tea in the reception room, etc.  They paid for a taxi to take us home.  What a swanky place!  It was a really nice place.  It looked a lot like a hotel.

This afternoon I ran my film downtown, bought choir folders, and went to the grocery store.

Now I'm waiting for Kayo to come, hoping not to fall asleep.