新狭山 Shin Sayama
Today, I taught a student at Honda Motor Company, near Shin Sayama Station, in Saitama Prefecture (outside of Tokyo). Since the factory is in the country, and I only had to teach for two hours (and he had an important meeting to go to, so we quit a half hour early), I definitely spent more time traveling to/from the class than I did teaching it. But that happens a lot, actually. I also took my time going home. I walked around and had lunch and took pictures. Since I had the rest of the day off, I didn’t worry too much about time.
After I got back to the station, I looked out the window. I could just barely make out Mt. Fuji. I’d been there once before. Last winter, when I was there, I could see Mt. Fuji very clearly. It is easier to see it on clear winter mornings. This time, the sky was cloudy and it was hard to make out. If I hadn’t known where to look, I wouldn’t have seen it at all.
I had a nice conversation with my mom while I walked back to the station. While I was talking to her, I saw this restaurant. It wasn’t anything special, just a basic Chinese chain restaurant, but after I finished talking to her I had lunch here. It was inexpensive and pretty good. I had a set lunch with fried rice, gyoza (dumplings), soup, and kimchee (spicy, red Korean cabbage). I even had a beer…why not!
Finally, it was time to go. To get to this station, I had to use a private company line (Seibu). In Tokyo, there are MANY trains. Some trains are elevated. Some trains are subways. Many of the trains were built at least partially with government funds. There are also train lines built by private department store companies (”Come shop at our stores…here, we’ll even build you a train line! :lol:) I ride the Seibu line to go to my high school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I had a reusable ticket. But I took a picture of the ticket machines, anyway. There is a map to help you find your fare. After you buy your ticket, you proceed to the ticket gate, which is to the left of this picture, behind these people.
Here is another view from the station.
Here comes a train. I took my Canon A95 digicam today. I tried to take another picture of the train, but my camera was too slow. One thing I noticed is that my Nikon D70s is much faster! I am used to speeds more like 3 frames per second…not one frame every 3 seconds! 
(Oh well.)
Oops! I just missed this train!
高田馬場 Takadanobaba
I meant to get off at an earlier stop, but i was on an express and I forgot. So I ended up going to a different station (Takadanobaba) than I expected. I teach a private class in Takadanobaba, so I usually go here once a week. It actually worked out better, because it didn’t add any time to my commute (ignoring the fact that I stopped to take pictures), and I was able to sit down and rest the whole way for a change!
In case you didn’t know, Japan is famous for its vending machines. They even have vending machines for batteries, magazines, and other items…but the most common is for drinks. They rarely have candy or chips in vending machines…
I’ve often wondered if these Shakey’s Pizza Shops were any good. They have a few in the more “foreigner friendly” areas–which I tend to avoid! 
電車中 On the Train
Finally, it was time to go home. I took the Tozai Subway Line, because it goes directly to my home station, Ogikubo. About halfway to my station, it comes above ground and merges with the JR (Japan Railways) elevated train line.
Here is a pic from Asagaya, just one stop before mine.
When I got home, I took a nap for a couple hours. This morning, we had a really bad thunderstorm, and I woke up around 4:30am. We lost power for about 30 seconds. It was hard to sleep, so I was pretty tired.
Now, the day is over. It wasn’t an exciting day, but that is good. I had to travel out of the city to teach, which I could have been annoyed about. Instead, I turned it into a relaxing trip.
Generally speaking, I am not supposed to use Japanese in class. In fact, many places, like my high school, require me to pretend that I can’t speak Japanese. It is pretty retarded that I can’t use Japanese outside of class, but that is part of the job sometimes. 
But I remember when I started teaching this group, there was actually a complaint that I didn’t use enough Japanese! So I always tried to teach and explain everything in both English and in Japanese. And eventually, they got used to English and I used less Japanese whenever possible.
You may have noticed my blue sidebar moved to the bottom of the page. The frustrating thing was that I didn’t have a chance to fix it for a couple days (more on that in a sec), and some of you saw the site for the first time like that!
