I'm a bowing machine

The above title is probably something that The Vapors were kicking around before they finally settled on "I'm Turning Japanese" as the name of their big one-hit song. Both are a fairly good description of myself these days. Now don't get me wrong, in most respects I'm still a stupid, ignorant foreigner but when it comes to bowing it's amazing how easy it is to do it and not even realize you're doing it. I'm not talking about a full fledged bow here but rather a slight head dip forward of the shoulders and a little nod of the head. The annoying part is not that I find myself doing it but rather I can't seem to stop. Not around Japanese anyways. Around Westerners I feel no such urge...so far. My classes usually end up going something like this:

Myself: My name is Brendan. And you are?
Student: My name is Hiroko. (bow)
Myself: Ahhh. Nice to meet you, Hiroko. (bow)
Student: Nice to meet you too. (bow)

This process is then repeated for each student in the class and is often done again at the end of the class. Multiply that by 6-8 classes a day and that's one heck of a lot of bowing. Fortunately I haven't started bowing when answering the phone.

I do have a cell phone now but I'm not sure how much talking I'll actually do on it. Contrary from North America and maybe everywhere, in Japan you don't actually get charged for any received calls on your cell phone. I think us Westerners are so enthralled by this luxury that we just wait for people to call us hence nobody ends up calling anybody. If there is any kind of communication it is usually by email between phones. I have the slowest thumb of all time so it usually takes me 10 minutes just to write a two sentence message.

Since today is the begining of my weekend (I get Monday's and Tuesday's off) I was going to head out with my camera and get some good pictures of the cherry trees before all the blossoms fall off. Unfortunately it has been raining all morning so i may try tomorrow. I'm also going to try to get some pics of my place and neighbourhood so everyone can see what this place looks like. So check back soon for lots of pics!