Being chased by Oni's(ogres)

I woke up late because my new alarm clock didn't go off, because I forgot to set it into the alarm mode, but thankfully my internal clock works great, so I woke up at 7:00am by myself, but wasn't able to drag my self out of my snug warm bed into the cold freezing shower until about 7:15. Those fifteen minutes almost costed me a lot. I walked in to the Teachers room at Sougawa at 8:13am, which is 2 minutes before the morning meeting. I drove like a bat outta hell getting to Sougawa. At one point I was going 100Kph in a 50KpH zone. I was able to shave about 5 minutes off of my drive by going fast. It is dangerous to go fast though. Even though 100KpH is only like 60MpH, the roads here are narrow and twisty. Plus there might be ice, but I was figuring there wasn't because the least few days were relatively warm. Anyways, all was good, I arrived just in time for the morning meeting at 8:15am and was able to drink my morning cup of green tea, which they give me at every school. If you come to one of my schools in the morning they'll give tea, in the afternoon they'll give you coffee on a little plate with a little packet of sugar and milk.
I get to Sougawa and do all my greetings as usual. "Ohiogazaimasu" or just "good morning," because I am an English teacher and they do know "good morning." The teacher I sit next to is Numa-san. So Japan loves baseball. So this teacher has the Kansas City Royals hate, you know the hat that is blue withe white lettered "KC." He again goes into that it stands for "Kansas City" and their team is the "Royals." We've had this discussion twice already, but I guess he likes that hat a lot. I've worn a Cubs hat here a few times and that has brought up some discussions about baseball.
So now it is 10:30am. I have just finished a class. I drove home phonics mostly in class today. I think "V" is the hardest letter for the Japanese to pronounce. Most of the older generation can't distinguish between "L" and "R", but most of the younger kids are able to. So now I have just been given my 3rd cup of coffee today. I am going to be wired all day I think. After lunch I will need another cup, or I might end up passing out at this desk.
Well, I didn't actually have another cup of coffee until I got back to the BOE.
So lunch rolled around and it was yummy as usual. For recess, yes I go to recess sometimes with the kids, actually mostly with these kids, the Sougawa kids that is. Instead of busting out a doube-header of dodgeball, we instead played tag. I wasn't too thrilled to play tag, but I played along with them. I needed the excerise anyways. We played in the gym so there wasn't much room to run around and no-where to stand to put something between the person who was "it" and you. The person that is "it" is the big difference in the game between the Eastern and Western versions. The "it" is an "Oni" or 'ogre,' and there is three of them, or more or less depending on how big the group is, usually there are multiple "Oni," in this case we had three. So basically if you get touched by an 'oni' you have to stop and sit down. You can join back in when a 'non-oni' person tags you. The game seems to go on until all the Oni 'freezes' everyone. I don't think the 'non-oni' can ever win. So I was chased by 'oni' for about 30 minutes. I was pretty tired afterwards, everyone was, even the little 1st grade buggers.
On other notes, I watched Resident Evil 2, or Biohazard 2 as it is in Japan(so are all the games too) on Friday night. I thought that it was pretty good for a movie, and great for a video game movie. It reminded me of Escape from New York with Kurt Russell. Also, on Friday night I ran into some people that I know at Roman City. I saw the Junior High's principle there buying supplies. I also ran into the Okumura's, Masayuki and Akane and their mother coming out of Way on the second floor. Almost everytime I go to Roman City I run into people I know from Miyama. I then headed to the 3rd floor, which has an AMF bowling facility, a 3 screen cinema, and a video arcade with a ton of crane games(UFO catchers). I like to check out the UFO catchers to see if there are any ease snags. I once got an easy snag on a big Pac-Man puppet, it is like a big yellow ball. One machine has these two stuffed Winnie the Pooh toys, but it is not ordinary Pooh, but rather a vampire and a mummy Pooh. They are cool, but not worth spending like $10 trying to get. After the run-in's and UFO catcher shopping I got hungry, so what did I do to feed myself? I bought a large double scoop of mint chocolate chip ice-cream from the 31 flavors on the first floor. I got it put into one of those big sugar cones too. The whole thing of ice-cream set me back about $6.00US. That is a lot of money, but I didn't think twice about, especially since the lady at the 31 flavors spoke near-perfect English and set my mind at ease. Sometimes, ordering food and things can be painful(I was looking to use 'argueous' but I don't know how to spell it), but this was pleasant and nice. For the record I did have some udon later at my house.

An expensive but delcious Ice Cream cone from 31 Flavors

Scary baby Pooh-san toys. The Vampire Pooh orginally came in a little black coffin box when they were first made available last Halloween.