Where I am now

Phew... I'm rather glad this week is over. Basically, I've moved the entire contents of an apartment by hand. Because I'm too cheap to use a transportation company, or even a taxi, every day I've been hauling huge loads of bags via the trains, lurching clumsily through every ticket gate, and leaving my stuff at my office.

This morning is the first morning I've neither had to move, nor work. I have a whole glorious day to do nothing. Right now I'm staying at a hotel, and I shall presently go down for a free lunch buffet. ^_^

It really is remarkable how much stuff one can accumulate in just over a year and a half. I sent a package of stuff back to Australia; I threw out about ten huge garbage bags of stuff, and I still had about 20 bags, and a very swollen suitcase, to bring.

Anyway, it's all done now. I expect to move into my guesthouse in a few days. Happily, it's only a few minutes' walk from my school and hotel, and I chose to move in one day before I have to check out of this hotel, so I can do quite a leisurely to-and-fro of bringing my bags in. My room is going to be really small - I mean, considerably smaller than the fairly small apartment I just left. So long as I can physically fit my suitcase in there, I guess it will be okay. I've never stayed at a guesthouse before. Hopefully it will have a nice atmosphere. I haven't even seen it, but I've signed up for one month.

Last night after work I went out for Nepalese curry with some students. After that, we went out to karaoke. We did three hours of karaoke, and I sang at least a dozen songs, and it was the first time I didn't sing *any* English songs. ^_^ Actually I think it may have been the first time I was the only foreigner among Japanese people. It was nice to be able to finish at about 3am, and just walk back to my hotel, without having to feel 'trapped' by my lack of train.

Tomorrow I and another teacher have been invited to lunch at the house of one of my students. She is my child student; the one I have taught the longest, and I really like her and her mum. So it's nice they invited us over. The girl was all 'onegaishimasu!', hoping we would come. ^_^

I've now been teaching my 'last' classes. That is, I taught my last Thursday, my last Friday, and my last Saturday. I will still teach Tuesday and Wednesday next week. So at the end of each class I've been giving everyone a Tim Tam. Several students have given me presents, which is really nice.