Prada prices for the cinema

I have only been to an actual movie theater once since arriving in Okinawa. In the States we frequently complain about ticket prices, but can always opt for a little matinee to save a few bucks. Here, though, the prices are downright outrageous. It costs 1600 yen on a normal day to see a movie. That's about $15 USD. Unreal. They do have a Ladies Day on Wednesdays where prices are a "low" 1200 yen. The one time I was willing to pay the Ladies fare was to see Johnny Depp in "Pirates." There are just some people worth paying the big bucks to see on the big screen. Anyways, yesterday a fellow ALT found out that tickets were only 800 yen! What a bargain! So a group of girls decided to go see "The Devil Wears Prada." We arrived about 45 minutes early and the lines were immense. Normally no one goes to the theater past 8 pm, but this time the lines were excessively long. We decided to buy tickets right then and got the last seats. Literally. Front row in the middle. Now, wouldn't it make sense --- since so many people turned out for 800 yen night --- to drop prices for everyday movies? They would definitely rake in more money. In Thailand, we saw every new release they had as they were opening in the United States. And for about $3 with popcorn. Here, you have to wait six months, although James Bond is here and I wish I would have seen that one, but it was already sold out... and there's no concept of matinees... Two good points about last night. 1) They don't rip you off in the popcorn section, so I got to enjoy some caramel corn and pop for a very affordable $3!.. and 2) The movie put me in a serious mood for shopping. Watch out for Rachel and her debit card in three weeks! Unfortunately, my neck still isn't moving properly. I've only sat in the front row one other time (don't worry, Ken, I won't mention which one) and last night I had nightmares about Meryl Streep's pores.

This was my first time wandering Mihama on a weekend night for quite sometime. I saw numerous students in groups wandering around, eating in the food court, following me on the escalator. It is shocking to them that I'm outside of school and it is hilarious to watch them process the fact. Generally, I say, "HELLO!" and they say, "Huh. *sucking in breath* Sensei!" and then they start grabbing all of their friends and pointing and saying hello. At least here they don't tail me and follow me home like they did in the States. Even if I don't see the students, I hear that they saw me the next time I have in class. Of course, they're too afraid to actually tell me this, but the teachers translate. Speaking of translating, this week, a fellow teacher and I took a major step in team teaching and taught an entire class in English, forcing the students to pay attention to both of us in order to understand what was going on. It worked amazingly well, but she's one of the few teachers who is very confident in her English and she truly wants her students to learn the language. Some of the other teachers don't speak English the entire class period. I don't even know if they do when I'm not in the classroom.

I wish I had more exciting things to write about except movie prices, but this week was rather dull. I did actual teaching and lesson planning and spent my evenings at home. This weekend is being spent cleaning and doing random shopping, plus some affordable movie renting!