A House Too Big

The weather in Kikai changes very rapidly. It was a rainy day yesterday and a great day today until about 4 pm when all of a sudden strong wind came up and blew some clouds in, but no rain still.

As for the pics, I think I mentioned that there were 3 int'l students studying in other parts of Japan in Kikai recently for a 2-week homestay. We went to play ground golf, which is a mix between mini golf and croquet, at the town of Soumachi. The first 2 pics are of us there. The 1st pic is me, a 10-yr-old who is in one of the homestay families, and then the Hong Kong student on the right. The 2nd pic is part of the group posing for a group pic. The other white guy in that pic is the French student, Lionel. The 3rd pic is us at the Hyakunodai Park, the highest point on Kikai. The 4th pic is a pic of the Daiichi Jr Hi School (which translates to the highly original name of "First Jr Hi School," not to be confused w/ DaiNIchi Jr Hi ["Second"]) graduation ceremony, which was, interestingly, pretty emotional for the students and some of the teachers. That is, in the latter part of the ceremony. The 1st 90 minutes were mind-numbingly boring highly formal. Finally, the last pic is a random pic of Aubrey next to some probably soon-to-be-harvested sugar cane during a walk we took around town recently.

We're preparing to move! The Board of Ed has graciously decided to move us to a bigger house, which was previously occupied by a member of the Board of Ed and his wife and 3 kids. Our apt is pretty small, 'tis true, but I don't know if we need such a big house as this one! Don't get me wrong - I'm not refusing a slightly-too-big house, but I just feel a little embarrassed. But we'll make up for it by inviting people over all the time.
Thought we were going to move on Saturday, but Aubrey told me today that it's actually planned for Thurs afternoon all of a sudden. Just FYI, I don't know if we'll have Internet access for a few days, so don't be surprised if we can't answer Skype calls or emails or whatever. Actually, I'll forward the Skype calls to my cell phone, so call away!
Thurs morning I'll help my friend Satoshi the HS English teacher move outta his house and then go move my own stuff that afternoon. Should be great. Looking forward to it. Hope it's decent weather. It'll be great once we're all done.

The last few days I've been hanging out a lot w/ my retired friend Izumi-San. I don't have a pic of him yet but I'll get me one and post it. He's pretty cool - always brews me a really good cup of joe and we just sit and chat on his patio next to his nice garden. The garden is cool b/c there are lots of flowers, tangerine trees, and mejiro birds who sing sweetly. He smokes so much (gotta be at LEAST two packs a day) but at least most of the time we're outside. And now hopefully we can start in w/ a few Japanese lessons. He doesn't need English lessons, but he doesn't have kids and is retired and monetarily well-off and by his own admission has little to do every day, so I think he's just glad to spend time w/ me. And I enjoy his company too, so it's all good. I'm still getting used to his being a tad hard-of-hearing and a bit absent-minded, but he's doing great for 74!

Finally, Aubrey is about to come back from her 4th end-of-the-rotation good-bye party in 3 consecutive evenings. Each time she's more or less dreaded them, but each time she's enjoyed herself. These parties take place to bid good-bye to those workers who have reached the end of their 3-year rotation on Kikai. The JET schedule is a bit off. Anyway. I'm done.