Dinner and a Family

One of the nicest things I got from my predecessor wasn't the TV, or the (ugly) couch, or the bookshelves, or the kitchenware. You see, my predecessor left me a family.

Once a week on Wednesday or Thursday usually, the Iwada family welcomes me into their home. Mr. I is a psychiatrist who wants to get a fellowship in the US and live there. He is working hard to study English and hopes to get a good enough score on the TOEIC test to get a position in the US. Mrs. I is a stay-at-home mom who studies English every day and is trying to get over an 800 on the TOEIC. They both took the test last month again, and the missus improved her previous score by 100 points! (up to 620) So I hope I can be of help to them, teaching them English.

Oh also, they have offspring. Ma-kun and Ma-chan. They are cute. I mean, they are adorable. I mean, they are a 5 year old boy, and a 2 year old girl. Today was my third week visiting them, and Ma-chan hugged me! It was really nice, because the first day she was so afraid and would cry she caught me looking at her the wrong way.

The kids have the most hilarious books. I'll blog about them sometime. We didn't read books tonight so I can't remember the plots, but they are these children books in English written by a Japanese author for Japanese children, and the plots tend to be bizarre, or end suddenly, or totally change halfway through without warning. Oh I remember one of the plots a little, it's a book called "Balloon Cat" and the ending is "Balloon cat floated up toward the moon." next page, pictures of opposite things! "Short! Tall!" etc. WHAT?

Even if they didn't pay me 3 watermelons worth a week in yen for the pleasure of their company, the food alone would be worth it. There's always 4 or 5 different things, and fruit for dessert. It's quite lovely and saves me the trip to the conbini (convenience store) for a premade meal. Or cooking myself a small portion of spaghetti...again. :)

But ah, to spend the evening with learned, well-travelled Japanese people with fairly competent English levels explaining the differences between "abbreviation" and "contraction", or "any of them" and "some of them", whilst eating everything in sight and playing with baby children.

Also I learn some new Japanese as well!

Ah...so far, this is one of the best things about Japan for me. Every week I have something to look forward to.