Easing back in

Saturday morning I went down to Hiroshima in an attempt to distract myself from being back in Japan and about to face an entire week of work. R cam ewith me and we so we did a few touristy things as he had never been looking around Hiroshima before. A visit to the peace dome and the museum and so on. The Peace Museum was packed as always. I have been there about 3 times now. The first time I went I found it all a bit overwhelming, but now I have gotten to the point where I don't stop to read stuff, I just give it a cursory glance which is a good example of how easily humans become impervious to even the most emotive situations. Or perhaps I am just more cold hearted than most!

At about 4 I met up with my Japanese friend who lives in Hiroshima and we headed straight to Molly's for some refreshments. I updated S on my adventures in Thailand and Vietnam and she patiently waded through the 2 kg worth of photos I had taken of the event! At some point I was heaps surprised to see an old uni friend come out and start working behindthe bar. He was workng there when I was living in Hiroshima, but last time I was here I was told that he had quit. We had a quick catch up but he was quite busy so didn't get long for chat. Maybe next time... While we were there a guy came in and sat by himself next to us. While he ate we sussed him out for converstaional suitability and eventually when he looked up I waved him over and he came and sat with us. Turns out he was a high school student from Denmark studying here for 10 months or so. His Japanese was very good given his short stay here and his English was fluent. How jealous was I that he can speak so many languages at such a young age?! He ended up hanging out with us for the rest of the night until his host mum came and picked him up when she got a littl too concerned about his being ou so late. He is only 17 after all, and I don't think that Japanese parents are used to being quite so liberal.

On to the next stop, Spud Love. More drinks, more chat with randoms. Turns out that my friend who has just come back from study in Ohio in the States was working in the shop right next door! So she didn't have far to come to meet up with us at all. She was looking very well and her English has improved out of sight which was good to hear. We all ended up at G's again, singing karaoke and so on. Bit of an odd night though really. No dancing unfortunately. Next time. We ended up at someone's birthday party at an okonomiyaki shop at some point too. I didn't atually drink that much, but was heaps tired and fell asleep almost immediately in my usual internet cafe accommodations! Actually I had to search for one that had chairs left this time and got a bit concerned that I might end up sleeping the peace park with all the vagrants (yes, no comments about how appropriate thanks), but luckily someone pointed me in the direction of a place I had overlooked in the hondori and it turned out to be about $5 cheaper too!

So, however distracted I was on the weekend, I am back at work again. BOO. This morning these was a massive meeting and then an English Activity workshop during which I heard that Australian English is "weird". That's the technical term of course, in layman's terms it would be "innappropriate for study since it's not spoken in America". Interesting that they also do not consider British English "normal" when that is where the whole thing comes from originally! Yes I am certainly back at work.