Day 58: Last Week

My last week started Sunday technically, but today was the first school day of my last week. Ryota was sick this morning, so he didn't go to school with me. He was soaked yesterday in the cold rain, so I am not surprised that he is sick. Before going to school I made a few important calls. One to my friend Josh, who I will be climbing Mt. Fuji with on Friday. The second call was to my brother Justin, who lives in Saitama, Japan. I will be staying with Justin, his wife Asako, and their son Tiger starting this coming Monday.

At Notre Dame, I watched the broadcast of the morning television show. Today's show focused on the Notre Dame students who took part in the Gion festival. They were the "heros" of Gion. It was nice that they showed a video clip of the kids in the parade, since I missed them yesterday. My day at school was not very exciting, because all of the English classes have been cancelled for the week. I spent most of the morning catching up with my work from the Enei Gaashuku trip away from school. A good chunk of the day was also spent making sure that I get my final evaluation completed and a letter of recommendation from Mr. Yukita.

I ate lunch with the students today, and enjoyed every minute. When I finished my meal, I worked my way around Marion Hall, saying hello to all of the students. This week classes at Notre Dame end at noon, so that the home room teachers can have parent-teacher conferences. Reiko picked me up, and we went home. Ryota was still feeling a little sick, but better than the morning. I worked for a while, called my parents to tell them I survived the long-distance swimming camp, and watched Ryota until Reiko came back from a meeting at school. Just after four o'clock we drove to Ryota's karate class. The sensei had me take part in the class as well, suiting me up in a karate kimono and everything. It was fun doing karate again. I really loved the part where we actually got to kick the teacher. Of course he was wearing pads, but it was fun. Some of the kids even practiced full contact fighting., which was a lot of fun to watch. I was shocked to see them using hard, high kicks to the head and everything! After karate, we bought my ticket for the Shinkansen (bullet train), which I will be leaving Kyoto on Thursday evening.

The Kato's made yet another of my favorite dishes tonight: okonomiyaki. I still love okonomiyaki. It was delicious. I enjoyed watching Ryota trying to flip the okonomiyaki. Ryota and I played some more hand baseball after dinner. I really enjoy the game, and even Rex the dog helps me retrieve the ball and get Ryota out. All Rex asks in return is a treat, but sometimes he just runs away with the ball. I shared my photo album with Reiko and Ryota. They shared albums of Ryota when he was younger. He is a cute kid.