My first day of elementary school

Yesterday was my first day at the elementary school in the next town over, called Yamasaki-cho. Cho means town. It is a small town out in the boonies. It took me 45 minutes by bus. I started out by looking for the bus station where I thought it was supposed to be but I had never taken the bus here before. I rode my bike in circles looking for it and had NO clue where it was. I saw buses driving around and knew I needed us 51 and it was scheduled to leave in about 5 minutes and I was starting o get nervous I would miss it. I showed some lady on the street my map and asked where. She pointed right here. She was waiting at the stop too. Apparently its too much to pt a sign where the bus stops. While waiting who walks by me n their way to school, but lil old Shinji? Nows my chance to whip his ass once and for all! Jk But he just yelled "Don-yell" while tring to rub his head on me and I just kept punching him and pushing him away from me while laughing at him. He’s weird but makes me laugh. Anyhow I got on and it was crowded and had to stand for about 15 minutes. My feet started hurting and the bus was full of high schoolers on their way to school. Finally a seat opened and I grabbed it. Right behind the driver. I had a lil sign made up in Japanese saying "Would you please let me off at _______ stop?". He shook his head yes and I sat down for the nice long ride.
While sitting I am quite observant. I noticed that people just put in a handful of money as they leave to pay for their fare. The sign at the exit tells you how much that should be based on how many stops you have traveled. I knew mine was the last stop on the bus and would be almost 780 yen!! RIDICULOUS!!! So I watched for a while and figured that there was no way that machine could know where you got on. I decided 780 yen was just too much for my liking. Anyways we rode for a while past some rice fields and really pretty countryside and finally we were coming p to my stop and I was the last one on the bus. Once I got to my stop, I decided to just drop in about 600yen to test it. (Eric laughed at me as I explained this wasn’t ripping it off as bad so wasn’t a big deal_ but I was testing it. Up, it doesn’t know and I saved myself some money! That’s like 15$ a day to ride to and from work!
There to meet me for the first day was the principal. I was surprised it was a lady. She drove me to school in her Mercedes, which by the way she drove like a race car driver. Anyhow I had to stand n front of all the teachers who all didn’t speak English and introduce and talk about myself. After that lovely scene she had them all introduce themselves to me. Then I was gven coffee (which I stillll hate!) and told to sit in my sit. I sat for an hour then helped with a 5th grade class.
I taught about colors and read flash cards of animals and fruits and had to go around and introduce myself to every student and shake all their dirty smelly hands! I noticed one kid picking and eating his boogers just before I shook their hand. I tried the fist pound instead but the kids didn’t et it and the principal stayed the whole time to watch and take pics. It was fun as the kids were all excited! The teachers I will be working with here speak no English so its kind of difficult at first to figure out what to do.
I taught 2 classes of 5th grade then 2 of 3rd grade. They were even cuter!
All the school seemed to come by the teachers office and poke there head in the door and get a peak at the freak English teacher. I would look up from my desk and make a crazy face and they literally would SCREAM and run away! It was funny. I don’t think they see many foreigners in these parts. They waited out there about all day to say "Hi-ro" to me. They made me some sweet paper planes, one kid gave me his too, and even made me a sweet paper Chinese star. They chased me and wanted me to take more PICS on my camera with me. During lunch they gave me there lunch. PS there were like 20 flies (not exaggerating) circling my food while I was trying to eat. It was really ross, and I showered that morning so wasn’t sure what was up.
After a quick intro period I was off to my goofy self. I was making faces at them, dancing or whatever else it took to get them excited. I had them screaming during BINGO, which was pretty good for a boring game. Anyway, lunch was awful. The teacher made me buy it. Only 220 yen though. You could tell it was still cafeteria school lunch food. Whole cheap milk, fried snack, "chicken sausage" (What the hell is chicken sausage?), and some udon noodles. Filled me up nonetheless and of course I ate every last piece and even got some from the kids.: ) They serve the food too which is funny and eat it in the classrooms as there are not cafeterias in the schools here. Its always fun sitting and eating with 7 year olds. We get to talk about boogers, and bugs and other gross things. One kid thought it would be funny to place a monstrous praying mantis on my back while I ate.
Then the bell rang from my last class and te principal drove me to the bus stop. She was very kind, unlike the principal I see everyday who NEVER soaks to me even though he knows English. He has cancer but still just putters around here al day. In these schools, the principals job is a figure head while the vice does all the work. Eric said his principal at his jr high earns about 100,000$ a yr. Anyway I got my own seat on the bus on the way home. By the way the schedule says the bus will be there at 3:01 and it REALLY does get there at 3:01. Crazy! Wish Phx was like this, I would actually ride it. Next Thursday it will be a new elementary school way out in that town again. Long haul bu the kids are cute. I have 3 elementary school total. Its at least something to look forward too. Most of my day sucks sitting like I am know being ignored by every one above the age of 12. Same at night, no one in my building does anything!
Tomorrow Im leaving for Hiroshima solo and have to be at the station at 5:15 s it’s a 5 hour train ride to Hiroshima. I’ll let ya know how that goes.
Other random notes: Daniel Powter the singer is really popular with the younger people here. They all asked me about him. And James Blunt and one kid about Green Day and Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
Doing my best Japanese accent and impression is reallly funny to the kids. They crack up about it.