You would never know that an enormous festival happened here just a week ago. There are a few tell-tale remnants; uchiwa fans with beer ads on them moldering in the bushes, a few red and yellow lanterns still strung up near the beginning of the night district. Otherwise, Tokushima has recovered from the surge of humanity, and once again become the lazy backwater of a city that I know and love.

They are filming a movie in town; a love story called 'Bizan'. (The name of my favorite landmark of a mountain). The crew had set up a little stretch of street to look as though the Awa Odori was still going on, so it was nice to walk downtown and hear the familiar sounds of the awa music. Leading up to the festival, that was all you heard everywhere; biking through Tokushima park, every 15 meters, you'd come across another group practicing. I miss the sense of expectancy that filled the air... If I'm still here next year, I really would like to join an awa dance team (and for those of you familiar with my dance skills, keep the sniggering to a minimum!).

Work is still good; new students join up, and old students slowly stop coming-- every day as I'm pulling files to plan my lessons, I'll see the name of a student that I used to see almost every week, and now not at all. There used to be this one girl we nicknamed 'The Shark', since she was always prowling about with her business cards all ready to hand out to the first foreign person she came in contact with-- school policy dictates that we can't befriend the students, so avoiding her got to be quite challenging. She once followed me around the mall, until I finally lost her by hiding behind a rack of ball caps. She doesn't come anymore... I don't mind so much. But then there are those that I really miss. There was this one college student with anime hair and an infectious giggle-- I remember him well, because he came to my special presentation on Canada, and kept the Canadian flag sticker I gave to him stuck on his electronic dictionary from that point onward. We once did a lesson together on planning a day at a theme park-- it was fun imagining that we could actually be friends, organizing our day together at Tokyo Disneyland. Not being able to befriend the students sometimes makes brilliant good sense, and at other times infuriates me. I'll just play it safe, and stick to policy.

I went to my first beer garden the other night with the Japanese staff and Bani, Neil and Alex... it was a none-to-covert operation to try and talk Bani into staying in Tokushima. But what could we really say or do to change his mind? When someone feels that the challenge and adventure has gone out of a position or situation in life, what sense is there in staying on? I have to respect that. At any rate, the beer garden was nothing like the ones tossed together at festivals back home; it's a semi-permanent summer fixture on the roof of the Clement (Tokushima Station) building. For 2900 yen, it's all you can eat, all you can drink, self-serve fun. The beer machines are hilarious-- you put your glass down, and a little robotic table swings the glass into the correct pouring position, fills it seven-eighths full with beer, then squirts a disgusting topper of prefabricated head on top. Luckily Tomomi showed me the 'stop' button so I could avoid the icky foam. I made friends with a parcel of kids running around the garden (yes, kids in the beer garden) and they took me to the ice cream machine, and showed me how to work it-- with pedals, like a car. I then freaked them out by putting popcorn on my ice cream (they were out of rainbow sprinkles) and played with them as best our language barriers could allow. That meant: making funny faces, playing junken (rock-paper-scissors), and impressing them with my ability to read the Engrish on their t-Shirts. Tomomi repeatedly came to 'rescue' me so that I could come back to the table and drink more beer... but really, when it comes to having fun, the kids know what they're doing! My manager, Ayumi, wanted to make sure that I let the kids know that I was a Nova teacher. Always looking for the pitch...