Day 5 Japan Trip 2015- Okayama

Okayama 岡山

In the evening of March 6th, I met up with a former student's family for dinner. I started teaching Yujin when he was 3 years old! Now he's 10. Of course he doesn't remember me at all, but I've maintained a relationship with his mom and grandparents over the years. A few months ago his grandparents visited Hawaii and I took them around for an afternoon. I also taught his older sister, Leika when she was around 6 or 7 years old and they had just moved back to Japan from the states. Leika wasn't able to join us because she was on a school trip.

We had dinner at the AEON Mall in Okayama. The grandparents insisted on driving me back to Chisato's house. As we were leaving the mall my mind was totally blown. We'd had dinner there and got the parking validated, so as we were driving out of the parking lot the gate automatically opened! No need to roll down the window and put in the parking ticket. Somehow the machine could scan the car (?!) and find the ticket to know that it had already been paid for. BOOM! Technology is insane.

When I got back to Chisato's house they were sitting down to dinner. So, I ate more! We had nabe and yakitori. That night Alyssa finally opened up and was singing and dancing and talking like crazy. Ellen is such an adorable 20 month old who is constantly talking and babbling.

The coolest technology in their house is that they can turn on the ofuro (Japanese style bath) from in the dining room. They can set the temperature of the water and everything. Japan is just too cool.