A friend I am teaching English too once a week is actually a fairly famous stylist, and since I am teaching him English he gave me a free hair cut. Afterward we went out for food, sweets, and English conversation. The fig tart was pretty good.

Last weekend I went out with a new friend of mine. I was telling him that I used to go to a climbing gym in Okinawa and he was interested. So he took me to a rock climbing wall located at a nearby outlet mall. It wasnt an actual gym, but a giant boulder with many climbing routes inside a sporting goods store. He went first, but unfortunately couldnt make it all the way up. I was next and although I havent been climbing for a while made it all the way to the top . We also saw the new Indiana Jones movie at the movie theater conveniently located at the outlet mall as well. I cant remember the last time I payed $18 for a movie ticket… Movies in Okinawa were cheap thanks to Ken

I went a picnic with some people from my new guest house. They decided to go to someplace I am very familiar with, Koganei Park. We all had a good time eating and playing frisbee and games at the park. We also went to Koganei Park gymnasium and played some table tennis. One of the guys was really good, but I still beat him.
Aftwards we all went out for dinner and drinks in Shinjuku. Then we headed up to Toshimaen Niwa no Yu to go to the pool and onsen for the evening.

On Sunday I climbed Takao with a friend. Although he has been living in Tokyo for many years now it was his first time to go to Takao and I was his guide.

We saw one of those gigantic worms again.

This is a bit embarrassing… Last week I was teaching a group of students actions in English. I taught sit down, stand up, run, walk, stop, and jump - maybe a little too well. "OK, everyone, now a big jump"and I jumped as high as I could. Little did I realize I was standing directly under a TV stand. My head smashed directly into the stand, I saw many pretty stars, and the next thing I knew I was laying on my back on the floor with all of the students crowding around gaping at their teacher on the floor. It wasnt very painful, but the kids made sure to point at me and yell in Japanese the equivalent of "ewww, hes bleeding”. As I tried to get up the kids, who remembered the English I just taught them, were saying "stop! stop!”. Anyway, I went to the school nurse’s office who disinfected the area. It wasn’t a very bad cut, but the school, fearful of having to take the blame, sent me to the hospital with the nurse.
At the hospital, they disinfected the area again and then, without saying anything, preceded to insert two staples into my head. The stapler, which looked like on of those office staple guns, hurt more than when I actually hit my head. As I tried to explain that my head was not a stack of papers, the doctor smashed the second staple into my head. All he said was to come back in a week so that he can use one of those staple removers on my head.

I started teaching English privately once a week to a friend of a friend. As I know Japanese and can explain what English words mean in Japanese, it is much easier for beginners to learn English with me as apposed to a foreigner that speaks no Japanese. It seems that people like me are in a very big demand for private lessons in Tokyo, but since the person is a friend of a friend I prefer accepting sweets and a meal than money. This week was a really good apple pie.