The next few days...

The next few days were pretty standard, and I don't want to bore my limited readership too much with boring details...

Monday
We were a little hungover, apparently Japanese beer is stronger than in the UK. Hmmm, maybe... We went to the internet cafe, and chilled out at the station coffee shop for a while watching the locals go about their daily routine. Later on, we joined Lawrence at the dojo for a Shiramizu English class.

Tuesday - The quest for Joyful Honda
Joyful Honda, despite having a rubbish name, is huge, and sells almost anything you could want, at reasonable prices. It even sells pets, though their puppies are very expensive!

Anyway, we knew that this place was on route 4. Route 4 is the main road through Sugito, and it houses most of the food places; baseball ranges; bowling alley etc... But we didn't know where exactly.　

We set off north from our home, towards Sugito Takanodai station (about a 10 min walk). I was pleased to find a McDonalds near to the station, which I quickly marked on our map. We decided to ask someone for directions, a good way for Amy to practise her Japanese... After we got directions, we turned right and walked for miles... and miles... and we didn't find the place! Amy’s Japanese can’t be very good yet, because we ended up in the wrong direction (which i later found out!).

We had a few Shiramizu English classes later on, with Karate training afterwards.

Wednesday
This morning Arakawa sensei had arranged for me to have an Interview at a very exclusive local kindergarten for a job starting in September. Sensei also teaches Karate here, so it would be good for me to work there, because I could then help Sensei with the classes.　

I wasn't absolutely sure what the job was that I was applying for, but I still wanted to make a good impression, so full suit it would be. Amy had also been asked to turn up too, so we walked the 5 minutes from home to the kindergarten. When we got there, we were pleasantly surprised to be greeted by Rei and baby Ema (Richard Sensei' wife and child). After a few minutes, we were also met by Arakawa Sensei. - I had my own entourage for the interview, I felt like a VIP!

Apparently, the interview went well, with both Rei and sensei translating for me. I think it went well because baby Ema was there, and as the Shiramizu mascot, she's a pro for getting all the attention. Though I am told that I have a nice smile. Arakawa Sensei gave us a tour of the place; he knows it well because he runs a branch dojo there. We watched a few classes, and got a feel for the place.

The kindergarten is private, and quite prestigious, so it's good for the Internship to work here again. I got the job (?), and I start in September on Monday & Tuesday mornings, I will basically meet and greet the kids and parents and talk English with them, I don’t have any set classes either, so thats pretty good.

Rei kindly took us home after the interview, and waited for us to get our Gi’s on, and then dropped us off at training for the morning adult class. We went for a meal after training with some of the class and instructors.

We had a Shiramizu English class on the afternoon, and then a private lesson afterwards, so I missed the evening training session.

Thursday
A pretty ordinary Thursday. I was at work all day in Nerima with Lawrence, I finished work with a splitting headache. Once we got back to Wado station, we headed home, got changed and went to the Dojo for training.

Friday

We went to the internet cafe on the morning before I went to work at ACTY in Yoshinohara at 2.30pm.　Lawrence stayed behind at work for a meal with the owners. A sort of thank you for the past year, I was invited too as a ‘welcome’ but i couldn’t face sushi – sorry!

This was the first time that I would be getting the train back on my own, so I'm pleased to say that I had no problems.

When I got back, I got changed and headed to the dojo for the kids High performanceclass. Richard Sensei turned up part way through training. He had cycled all the way from Omiya on his wife’s old bike, it took him 66 minutes! Not bad, considering the distance... It shows how much of a nice guy he is, he could have quite easily drove or took the train, but he wanted to give Amy the bike so that we could both have one.

Near the end of the class, Arakawa Sensei had us (Me and Amy) in a line up doing a lot of high kicks against focus pads, he kept changing the kids that were with us. I'm not sure if it was to make us work up a sweat, or to test our skills, or to maybe give the kids a taste of European kicking techniques, or maybe a combination of all three.

Also, sensei was teaching his students how to fight against a south paw fighter i.e. Me! Since i’m the only one (that i've seen) at Shiramizu, which I think is slightly unfair (lol) but it can only serve to improve my fighting.

We went for a meal afterwards with the other Sensei, unfortunately Richard Sensei had to get dropped off at Wado station because baby Ema was poorly. Despite this, we had another good, if very late night.