Lunch Today

Today I had lunch with 小学校 1年生 students (elementary school 1st graders) and it was ever so lovely. . .

The meal was fine, some saucy meat and veggies, bowl of rice, bowl of soup, and a scrumptious piece of strawberry/ vanilla cake! The students I ate with (there are only 6 of them in that grade) were all excited that I was there, as always. It's adorable to see them excited like that.

They also really enjoy watching the way I eat and copying me. . . they never get the chance to see such strange and exciting things during meals! Once before, we had a long roll of bread and some weird kind of pumpkin, onion, cheesy stuff. The pumpkin stuff was a bit strange on its own and the bread was dry, so I put them together in a sandwich. Sounds normal to me, but these kids went NUTS! Everyone made these sandwiches. They also like when I dip my bread into the soup and copy that as well. Today, we had that saucy stuff and rice, which I mixed together and they all went nuts again. This is just not done here, the mixing of food things. They assured each other, as they tried it, that it didn't taste bad. It was actually delicious! The teachers usually give a faint look of disapproval, but the kids love it.

We also have random little chats together These are the moments that make these awkward times worthwhile!