Hmmm up at about 8:30 to teach this morning, it was an absolutely gorgeous morning (well day actually!) which definitely helped with the whole getting up thing! Somehow it took me ages to get ready this morning though, so by the time I left the house at 9:35, I was running seriously late to walk to Shibuya for ten, so I ended up jumping on the train for one stop, which is so annoying, and getting there at about 10:02. With most of my other students, I wouldn't be so worried about it, they tend to be 5-10 minutes late anyway, but with this guy (the taxi guy), he is obsessively early, so I figured I should really try and make the effort! As usual, he wanted me to write out a couple of things for him (this time explaining the pricing structure of the stretch limousines, which are pretty expensive!), and then we moved onto small talk, which tends to centre around the weather with him.

After we finished at eleven, I basically hung out in Shibuya for a couple of hours, because I had to be in Ebisu by 2, and it wasn't really worth it to go home. I went for lunch at Saizeriya, which is a ridiculously cheap (bowl of pasta for 399Y) Italian cafe/fami-resu. All things considered, it was pretty good... I spent a bit of time studying Japanese, but it wasn't really the kind of place you want to stay in for a long time, it's very much a get em in, get em out kind of idea. Then I wandered through the Jeans Mate (why is that place open 24/7?) since it was right downstairs, and then hit the foreign book section in Tower Records for awhile, always fun to browse! (and pick up the new Metropolis).

On my way to the station, I impulse popped into a very nice, but expensive (yikes!) Japanese School. I'm going to observe a lesson on Friday, but I'm pretty sure that because its a) really expensive, and b) they don't have the one month intensive course that I'd ideally want to do, I'm not going to end up going there. I think you're paying a lot for a gorgeous environment, and while I might do that if I were like 35 and successful, it doesn't so much jive with the starving student thing! At this point, its all a bit of a moot point, but good to do the research about what's out there I guess!

Finally headed to Ebisu, and again, didn't actually meet the girl I'm supposed to be teaching. Her mom is very sweet though, and asked if I could give her a lesson instead, so I did. It was a bit tricky though, because she's studying accounting in English (she's already studied accounting but is now learning it in English), so I was helping her with that, but its a bit hard to explain, especially since I don't exactly make inventory lists every day. We worked through it OK though! I think we're actually going to split the lessons in future now, 1/2 an hour with her daughter, and 1/2 an hour with herself, or every other week or something like that...

After that, I had just enough time to head to Shiba Koen for futsal at 4. It was a bit of a different group than usual, though some familiar faces turned up part way through, and everyone was nice. About 20 minutes into it, both my shins decided to be horrible, so I went and made friends with the physio guy (well he gave me ice and freezing spray, but didn't actually do anything, since I couldn't so much communicate the problem or what I would want him to do for me). He was super nice though - we haltingly got across a few bits and pieces of information - he lived in Argentina for four years studying coaching, and is now a professional level coach over here, which is very cool! He speaks Spanish as a result, but that wasn't so helpful for us today! I managed to tell him that I lived with my uncle, and then that my uncle had lived here for 18 years. Or is 18. I'm not quite sure :p.

Luckily, the break, ice, and freezing spray (that stuff is weird!) worked pretty well, so I was able to play the last hour and a bit in relatively low pain. Iced them for like an hour when I got home, and it all feels OK now, we'll see how the next few days go! It was really weird today though, this one guy from Wales and another guy from Japan found out they went to the same college together at almost the same time, in England, and lived close together and went to the same pubs and stuff - "do you remember the old couple that always used to come in with their dog?" "yea!", but never actually crossed paths.

Also, at the end, one guy came up to me and was like 'I think i read your blog when I was looking for this field on google' which was a bit odd!. I think I might have found another place to play futsal though, where one of the other guys plays twice a week, he said I'd fit in there OK. It's late though -10-11pm, so I'm thinking maybe once a week? It's in Aoyama though, which is great! I also should get a cheap pair of turf boots if I'm going to start playing fairly regularly again, its sooo slippery and hard to play in runners!

Got home around seven, and Hitomi came over at about 8 - we watched an episode of the Grease:You're the one that I want show, and Peter made sloppy Joe sauce with pasta which was pretty good! Tomorrow is a holiday, and Hitomi and Peter are going to a wedding. I'm not really sure what I'm going to get up to...

D