So much to catch up on…..so not enough time! Before I delve into our Osaka trip, there are a few day-to-day things that I wanted to talk about first.
Our friend and new ALT Margo was telling us how weird it is for her to feel so safe here. She was telling her supervisor how she felt totally comfortable leaving her house and car unlocked and even leaving her cell phone and money sitting on the dash of her car for all to see. (YOU JUST CAN’T DO THAT IN THE STATES!! However, all of us know that here nothing will happen to it.) Her supervisor took a completely serious mood and said something like, “Margo, you have to be more careful. There are bad people everywhere. For example, some guy stole three onigiri (rice balls) from the supermarket the other day.” 
Is that honestly the worst offense that happens here? ….yes. I guarantee you that people at home steal things from Walmart or the grocery store at home DAILY. While I’m not advocating stealing, shoplifting rice balls is equivalent to stealing a couple packets of gum. It’s nothing big, and in the long run, it’s not going to kill the store’s profits. However, here if people do it, it’s almost the same as a serious offense like stealing something large and expensive like a TV, smart phone, or other electronic device. People just DON’T steal here, so the rare times it does happen, it’s a BIG deal, and people get all freaked out and worried about it. Ha! Ha! What would they think of the States…where stuff gets stolen all the time?? 
Since Ian has started teaching more classes, he has really started learning more Japanese grammar and has become much more aware of English grammar. Lately he’s been working on dialogues for an English textbook, and he has to be careful of what vocabulary, grammatical structures, and tenses he uses. It’s funny because he analyzes EVERYTHING now. The other day I said something to him, and he replied back with “Can you repeat that sentence?” I did, and he said, “You just used about four different tenses in that one sentence.” 
No wonder people find it difficult to learn English!!
We got some pretty great news last week. Mary went back to the Chinese Embassy in Fukuoka to get her Chinese visa for when we fly back from Australia. She said that the lady at the counter told her that we don’t need a visa. Actually, we can’t even apply for a visa. The transit visa is only for travelers who are staying for longer than forty-eight hours while waiting for a flight out of the country. The traveler’s visa is for travelers who plan on staying up to a week or longer. Both of these visas require the traveler to have an address in China where he or she is staying whether it be a hostel, hotel, friend’s apartment, or whatever. Since the address of our lodgings is the airport, the lady told Mary that we couldn’t even apply for a visa. Woo-hoo!!! 
That’s $280 that Ian and I get to keep in our pockets!
I think I’ll stop here and keep this as a short little blog so that I don’t have to start on my Osaka story and then stop halfway through.
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