Flight Arrangements

I had my Japanese lesson this morning, with Ikehara-sensei. We began with a listening exercise, which involved learning a new grammar point to be able to accomplish it, and it was not that easy either. I am not sure why we did that one, as surely we should only have listening on the things that we have learnt. That way, we can do the exercise! Anyway, we finished off the chapter and started on the next one, which was good, though we have mostly taught ourselves this chapter as well.

After class, I had Ikehara look over my speech and, despite Maki-san, Ikema-sensei, and Seb all having looked at it, she still found a wodge of mistakes/improvements. I hope that it is almost finished now, but I could not read some of her handwriting when I got home, so I will have to ask someone what it says.

I had curry-rice yet again (so tasty) before the afternoon’s class, which only James and I attended. It was not really a class, but a review test, which we did without too much trouble. I waited around afterwards for Katherine, who I met at the AU (mobile phone) shop next to Futsukaichi station. We were going to try to cancel our phone contracts, but the woman told us to come back on the day we wanted it cancelled, so we shall return the day before we fly home.

I went into Tenjin, meeting Kimiyo on the way. She was in a rush to get to an interview, but got on the fast train with me, when she only wanted a medium-speed one. I hope she made it in time, as she had to go back to her station after getting off the train. Anyway, I went to the JAL office, where I had more success than last time: it was open. I went to the third floor, where a woman told me I wanted the second floor, so I took the elevator back down. When I got off the lift, the same woman was standing there, which was rather odd and disorientating. These Japanese folk are obviously master illusionists. I went in and explained to the woman in my best Japanese – she understood what I wanted the second time through. She was a little concerned that I might not be able to understand all she was saying, though the most English she could muster was, “Please wait a moment,” which she said when she went off to prepare my ticket. In the end, they simply stuck a couple of stickers on it and charged me 5000yen. It took a while though, so she brought me the latest edition of their in-flight magazine to read!

Afterwards, I went to Media Mall Tenjin to look at computer games and related things, but I did not buy anything. I came home after that, via the Nishitetsu store, where I bought bread and orange juice. I have been getting used to breakfast in the mornings.