Minami Elementary, Senami Onsen, Eikaiwa (Wednesday, June 3, 2009)

My mom's mom, aunts, and uncles

My grandma literally took the kimono-yukata off her back and tied it on me...in her underware.  Nanae's snapping pictures, and everyone is just about crying laughing.  I didn't know why everyone was laughing until they explained the funny situation to me.  Once I got it, it WAS pretty funny.  

Goodness gracious today was a busy day!!  Actually the past two weeks and continuing through next week, every single day has been and will be busy, but today was especially busy!

One of my favorite great aunts, Nanae, emailed me multiple times out of the blue from mysterious email addresses.  Some probably ended up in my spam folder, but a couple got through.  She emailed to let me know that her and my grandma and their sisters were coming to Murakami’s Senami Onsen via two of my great uncle’s driving abilities.  It would be great if I could join them, take it easy, drink some beer, and spend the night…only I have to work AND teach an Eikaiwa class on Wednesdays!!  There was no way I could NOT meet with them, so I took one of my remaining 7 hours of vacation time left off, hauled butt straight to Senami Onsen, hung out with them for exactly 2 ½ hours, and then rushed to Eikaiwa. 

During my 2½ hours with the grandma and great aunts, they fed me generously, gave me exactly four bags of goodies, snuck me into the classy onsen for free, and then dressed me in a kimono-esque yukata.  Phewf!!

Before the onsen though: The FUNNIEST thing happened at lunch with the same 5^th grade class from last week, only a different group of kids.  One boy was making fun of the girl sitting across from him for sneezing and burping at the same time.  He then proceeded to act out action of what sneezing and burping at the same time looks like.  Needless to say, the whole cluster erupted in laughter.  Meanwhile the boy sitting next to him was in the middle of drinking his milk.  Luck must have been with me today as I miraculously glanced over to him at the exact moment the milk started to spill out of his mouth AND nose!!!    Oh GOD, THAT was funny!!

Then after the onsen: I rushed to Eikaiwa.  From way back when, I remember that a sure-fire way to get a class talking was to offer up chocolate.    Well, I had 4 bags of chocolate and have always thought it would be fun to throw food at people.  It worked: the class was talking AND it WAS fun to throw chocolate at people!!