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Will's Tour Diary - updated daily (ish)!

Will's tour diary - What? Why? When? Where? - Shows - Seminars

Saturday Nov 18th 2000

Kyoto. 

Second morning at Mr Shikata's house. Mr Shikata is not only a university professor, and our current homestay father, he is also our alarm clock: at 8.50am "Richard, Will, get up!" was our gentle waking call.  

 First - a show  at Mukaijima Primary School - third and fourth year students. (at most other schools we usually teach all the students) Mr Shikata drove - the Genkimobile we left resting, wedged tightly in the Shikatas' driveway. 

Mukaijima is modern. Large. Big gym. The students - abut 180 in all - assembled in front of the stage as we ran the soundcheck. The teachers stood in attendance.
A crowd of parents came along to watch. 

Richard's voice was returning. - and although the kids seemed a little tired (double PE perhaps?) we soon had them standing, sitting, jumping, spinning, and most importantly, singing the songs (loudly!)

After coffee with the Principal we had to squeeze in lunch before our afternoon seminar. Lots of traffic - we were running low on time, and inhaled our soba and sushi lunch!

Teresa Conference Centre. 3rd Floor. Very swish.  Kids' English Education (KE.E.) is a Kansai based study group created for the purposes of learning effective English teaching techniques. In his capacity as the head of the group Mr Shikata had invited us to speak and demonstrate Genki English ideas and methods to the assembled group of primary school teachers.  Even Mr Shikata, who had been a little skeptical at first, admitted that he was won over to the Genki way (he had to see it to believe it!) 

After us, Ms Ikoma (whom we had met briefly the previous day, but not yet spoken at length with) gave a demonstration using the tale of Red Riding Hood. Ms Ikoma professes that she is not young, and cannot move around like we do, but in reality she fairly crackles with energy. (Speaking of which, Richard told me off for hitting the teachers too hard in the Hammer Game.)

After the seminar some people had to go, but. a group (including us) adjourned to the convention centre's restaurant, where we picked each other's brains about English teaching. I explained that in Australia, although we indeed have an accent we still maintain a distinction between the sounds "die" and "day", and that everyone should stop believing the 'story' of someone going to an Aussie hospital and being told to go home "to die". 

After dinner I half-jokingly said "It's such a shame we won't be going out tonight..". Ms Nakae, the youngest of the teachers present, suggested going out in Kyoto proper. How could we decline? We got changed at the Shikatas place and caught the train into town. 

Kyoto by night. Gion - the old section of town. Yasaka-jinja - a collection of shrines lit by hundreds of paper lanterns. Shijo - the entertainment epicentre, crowded with people out on-the-town. We even saw a maiko-san (apprentice geisha), shuffling along in white makeup, kimono and geta.

We wound up in an izakaya (a word which can be very loosely translated as 'pub'). We ate. We drank. Wound down. Caught the last train home, missed the last connecting train and walked back to the Shikata residence, weary but happy.

I like Kyoto. I could get used to Kyoto....

Will

email: will@genkienglish.net


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Opinions expressed in this diary are personal views of Will Jasprizza. They do  not necessarily represent those of Genki English, especially where he is  making jokes which sounded better at the time!!! Please be understanding!

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