April was a little less crazy than March, but there was still a lot on. I took the opportunity of having moved to throw a bit of a housewarming party (cultural exchange right there, housewarmings aren't really done in Japan :D) which was actually pretty big (about 20 people) and went really well. The next day I went rock climbing for the first time with my friend Joe. He'd found a great free climb bouldering gym in Kobe and really liked it, so invited me along too. To my surprise, I found that I really enjoyed it, and I think I might have found a new hobby/sport :) I like it because a lot of it is about technique, planning and intelligence rather than brute strength, although fitness, strength and endurance are important too. It's also good because it has a really supportive community and it's not a team sport, meaning I can go at my own pace and if I mess things up I don't feel bad.

The Tuesday after that my parents arrived in Ako to visit me :) I hadn't seen them for over a year, so it was lovely to catch up. Unfortunately, the new school year had just started, so I wasn't able to take any annual leave to hang out with them during the day. Luckily though, they were able to shoot off to Himeji and explore Ako during the day, and we had plenty of time to catch up over dinner after school each day. Plus, we arranged to spend the weekend in Hiroshima, which turned out to be a blast.

We had planned to go to Hiroshima after I finished school on Friday, but it turned out that I had my kansougeikai (farewell / welcome party) for my day school that night. So, my parents went to Hiroshima during the day and I went to the enkai and then joined them late that night. On Saturday we went to Miyajima and had a fantastic time exploring. It's such a lovely place and this time I had the opportunity to go into Itsukushima Jinja, the famous shrine that's built over the ocean. After that we headed to one of my favourite little bar/cafes, Opium, for dinner, and then I had planned to head out into the great Hiroshima night life. Planned, anyway - after a day in the sun and not having been sleeping well for the past few weeks, I was asleep by 9:30pm, hehe. Still, it was probably for the better that I got some good sleep :)

On Sunday we did our own things, my parents heading up to Shukkeien while I caught up with my good friend Erika. As always it was super fun to hang out with her - we had kaiten sushi for lunch and wandered around the shops chatting about random things. Which is pretty much our MO whenever I go to Hiroshima, hehe :) Finally, I met back up with my parents and we finished up our trip with a dinner at the famous Okonomiyaki-mura. On Monday I said goodbye to them and headed back to Ako for my first day of night school. Which was very boring, hehe.

That week remained pretty boring as well, as I had very few classes at school :/ So I made up for it by doing lots of stuff outside of school hours instead. One of those things was joining the school athletics club. So now, I run for about an hour with the long distance team every Tuesday. Yes, I know, Daniel running ... unbelievable, right? :D I started doing it because I realised that I liked ultimate frisbee enough to want to actually be somewhat good at it, and I needed to improve my endurance and speed in order to do that. I also wanted to lose the weight I put on over winter and get fitter in general, so it seemed like a pretty good deal to me. I'm also thinking of joining the sprint team on Thursdays as well, but we'll see :)

The weekend after that brought with it my night school's kansougeikai, which had a completely different feel than my day school's enkai did. The biggest difference, I think, was that it was much smaller and everyone knew each other much better. So the atmosphere was much friendlier :) I was surprised at how well I was able to understand what everyone was saying, too, so I was feeling pretty good :) And it was nothing short of awesome to be able to sit down and chat with everyone informally, especially the younger teachers. I also met two teachers who had just finished their time there - a friendly young teacher called Kometani-sensei and Toda-sensei's (an English teacher at my day school) wife, both of whom were really genki and a lot of fun to speak with.

Towards the end of the night I got a bit down, though, as I suddenly realised that it was unlikely I'd ever be able to become friends with these night school teachers either. We only work together once a week and naturally they work completely different hours to me for the other days. The weekends are common, but I don't know if they would have the spare time to hang out with me. I suppose the language barrier makes me a bit tentative here too, and although I'm really trying my best, the realisation of how difficult it can be to live in a country where you can't speak the local language fluently really hit home again. Still, I decided that if I never tried, I'd never know, so I made sure I asked Kometani-san for her contact details before the party finished :) I'll be damned if I'm going to let the (rapidly dropping) language barrier prevent me from making friends or being happy in general!! :D