Lunch and Purikura

10.1.07
Today I had lunch with one of my campers from LCLC named Yumena. I believe I taught her sailing when she came to stay in the United States for the first time four years ago. When she came, I remember her being very shy, timid, and sad to be so far away from home. It didn't help that she hardly knew any English and did not have any friends. Little did I know that the same ladies that helped her come to the United States that summer would be my employers four years later. It's funny how things work out this way.

Anyway, I had been talking to Yumena on Myspace.com after she friended me not too long ago. I told her that I was moving to Japan for a year and we were both excited to find out how close we live to one another.

I called her when I got to the Tsudanuma station. I was going to meet her outside the station until I turned around and saw her talking on her phone (keitai) walking in my direction. Perfect timing! She introduced me to her friend Eriko and we all walked to a little restaurant called Goemen Spaghetti where I ate spaghetti with chopsticks for the first time in my life. I don't know what my Italian relatives would say, but the experience went well; it wasn't too embarrassing.

Afterwards, they took me to a game shop to get our pictures taken in the photo booths. This experience of "photo booth-ing" is called purikura in Japan. Before I explain what it entails, I would like to say that the game shops are basically full of games that remind me of "the claw" from Disney's Toy Story (see 3 Miscellaneous, 3.1 Squeezy Toy Aliens). You invest your tokens to win all sorts of prizes, but you must be savvy enough to grab the prize from the right angle. The shops are huge, bright, and I must admit, rather loud. Just about every game has it's own little song. Therefore, all of the songs added up leads to a crazy cacophony of cute little jingles.

Back to the purikura! I was expecting to see one little photo booth tucked away in a little corner of the game shop, but was very surprised when I saw about six of them all full of girls sporting school uniforms. They must have been there on their lunch break. Even though there were so many girls ahead of us, it didn't take long before we stepped behind the curtain of our very own purikura. It as fun and after selecting the best pictures, you had the option to personalize your pictures. Here were some of the final products (Yumena emailed these to me from her phone. Yes, you also have the option to send two pictures to your phone.):

The interesting thing about this picture is the fact that I blend into the background. I was wearing a green sweater that was the exact same color as the green screen behind us. Yumen is on the left, me, and Eriko on the right.

My lessons were alright today. I am slowly learning that it is okay to be "mean" in order to gain control of the class. As Lauren says, "you're not being mean, you're just practicing classroom management". I really think this experience teaching in Japan is good for me. I'm learning to be more assertive, commanding, and in order to do both of those things you have to be confident in yourself. So overall, I'm learning to be more confident.