awesome weekend + plans

i am really settling into nagoya quite nicely. i am in my third week of teaching and it is going pretty well. i am still gaging how much english comprehension the kids have and seeing what works well and what doesn't work so well. i have done a few activities that have worked, some that have just been okay and a few that have fell a bit short. i'm not sure if it is the game itself, how complicated it is or if its just plain dumb. i hope to learn more as time goes on what will really be fun and educational for them and i am sure i will. 

i had a great couple days last weekend. on friday night a friend suggested we try and find a mexican restaurant. of course, i was into that! we walked in and it was filled with other foreigners! kind of funny, all of us feigning for our mexican food fix! it took forever, but the food was pretty tasty. i had a bean and rice burrito and split a quesadilla. yum yum! we started talking with some other people in the restaurant and ended up going to another bar with them.  some of them had been in nagoya/japan for 3-5 years, mostly teaching english at various companies. 

saturday a friend who lives in a nearby suburb came to town and we spent the day hanging out. we had mcdonalds lunch. then shopped for english books. they had american magazines. cosmo was like $22! ridiculous! then we headed to a big mall because my friend was searching for running shoes. the mall had a big sports store. also a huge department store called jusco. it has stuff for cheap so i picked up two pillows. then we navigated our way to a thai resutrarnt we found in a brochure. it was pretty tasty! then we decided to visit a "canadian" bar because my friend is from canada. well... we found it but nothing about it was canadian. kind of funny.

sunday i wanted to shop at LOFT, my favorite store in japan thus far. i decided to bike over there. it was a little bit of an adventure but i didn't get too lost. i did have to check my map about 12 times but i made it. the ride was about an hour so not too bad and all flat. this was a great discovery because now i have so much freedom on the bike. it was great! the weather was lovely and biking around was so fun. i got to see some of downtown that i hadn't yet seen and it was very nice! nagoya is lovely. new, clean and modern. 

today was my first day biking to school and it was nice and quick. work was boring but oh well. gives me time to write letters! charles is visiting me in 5 weeks and we are talking about visiting the philippines. i found super cheap airfare online so we are looking into it. from what i have seen, it looks beautiful and is very cheap. score, score! our initial plan was to ferry into china because it's very cheap, too but it requires a visa and a two day ferry trip which could be awesome or maybe kinda lame. we'll see what works out, either way this summer is going to sure be some fun! i can't wait! hope everyone at home is doing well! i miss it.