Homemade Okonomiyaki!

Wednesday was another half-Kirita, half-office day, but this time I went to Kirita first. Only two (out of the four) students were asked to come in for practice, so I was finished before lunch. Back at the office, AH and I went off on our own for lunch at the soba place across the street, Oirase-ya.

After work, I really wanted to go to taiko practice again, but we (AH, J and I) had to “teach” at an English conversation class (eikaiwa). That was fun too—we met S-san (a former All-Japan soccer player!) and other nice people—but just hearing the taiko practice going on outside made my hands itch to grab some sticks and to drum.

Thursday AH and I went together to Sanbongi JHS to help the students with their speeches for the contest. T-sensei was supposed to pick us up from the school (to take us to get our gaijin cards and to open our bank accounts) afterwards, so I decided to walk.

Luckily I left a LOT of extra time, because I actually managed to get lost!! For some reason, I thought the school was further south than it actually was, so I overshot it and had to ask for directions to get there. As I started going back north, I decided to ask someone for directions, just to be safe. Well, that turned out to be a bad idea since the first person I asked was an elderly lady who didn’t really know where it was. When I talked to her, I thought she was giving me rough directions, but it turned out she was actually just suggesting that I look for someone else to ask!

Of course, I didn’t figure this out until I’d walked a fair distance back south (the way I’d come—the wrong way) and finally saw another person, whom the old lady then told me I should ask. Thankfully the lady (a storekeeper) knew where the school was and was able to give me directions that I could actually understand.

So I ended up going back up north, but a little more west. Thankfully I made it just on time.

We were supposed to finish around lunch time, but we ended about an hour and a half early—just about 10am. Not knowing what else to do, we called our office (well, I asked AH to call since I hate phoning!) and made arrangements for T-sensei to pick us up from AH’s house.

T-sensei took us out for lunch at a restaurant in a downtown hotel. We all had the unagi special—yummy! Then AH and I finally got gaijin cards and opened our bank accounts! It was quite the process, since you can’t make any changes/corrections on a form, AH and I ended up having to re-write our forms a couple of times.

AB and RB had invited us to their place for dinner that night, so AH and I made plans to meet up at J’s place, but I was late because I missed the turn off of Route 4 and ended up going WAY far south. (Yes, I made the same mistake twice in the same day!) On the plus side, though, I found the Uniqlo!

Anyway, we (re: I) eventually made it to A&RB’s, where we enjoyed homemade okonomiyaki! The way RB made it was different from the restaurant in Aomori in that she didn’t mix the egg in with the batter, but just cracked it on top and let it fry that way. It was really delicious—even better than the restaurant’s!