First Day of Junior High!

I am very tired after a long day. The kids and I started school today at the Chu-gakko. We started the day with a welcome ceremony where I said a speech in Japanese. I didn't understand anything that I said but apparently I said it well with good pronunciation!
I helped in an English class today (not my scheduled day) and I worked with the principal to try and get the program for the kids distance education downloaded and set-up. It took many tries and still did not work on their computers but we worked it out so the kids can take the computers we brought to school if they need to work on anything online. Whew! I am glad to have that dealt with. Taran and Joisan have promised to write a paragraph each about their first days of school but it is too late now so they will have to do it tomorrow.
After school today we went to the cable tv station and taped a segment for the local station that will be running for the next few days. They interviewed us and welcomed us to the community. It was lots of fun and we will likely be on again another day doing something else. Ian would like to do something regularly and I found some lesson plans in my desk for quick lessons for tv so we might do some conversation lessons for them.
After the tv station we came home and got the kids organized for their evening by themselves and Ian and I went out to the local hotel for the Ohtaki Jr. High welcome party. We ate some amazing food - including sashimi, squid, tempura, a local chop suey and oh so much more! We were soooo full! After much eating and drinking and speeches (every member of the staff welcomed us in English!) we went to relax in the Onsen (hot springs). It was amazing and scary and wonderful! It's amazing because it is so fabulously done - very spa-like, very posh; it's scary because it is just so weird to be naked around other people and it was a little uncomfortable at first (and second and third!) but it got easier; it was wonderful because it was just so lovely to be there together with the people who will be my friends and to relax and build the "naked relationship" (apparently they have a word for it in Japanese but nothing that translates well!) I will definately go back - it was fun!
We're just home now and need to head off to bed to ensure that we can be up at the appropriate time. We need to invest in an alarm clock so that I don't have to worry so much about getting up at the right time!
Goodnight all! Tomorrow is another big day - kendo and ballet - so we'll have some good stories I am sure!