Thank goodness for kind people!

So the one thing that I hate about my job is the long hours. The job itself isn't difficult at all. It's just that I travel so much that I'm never home. I'm either working or I'm sitting on a bus, train, or tram, or I'm walking somewhere. I leave early in the morning and I usually don't get home till about 9 PM. By that time, I don't feel like going to the grocery store (my fridge is the size of a mini fridge (only slightly bigger) so I can't stock stuff, planning a meal, and cooking it. We eat a lot of fast food because of this, i.e. Mos Burger. Times like these though are when I'm extremely thankful for the awesome students that I have. I teach this group of mostly housewives late in the evening after an extremely long day. I've posted about these wonderful ladies before. They're so much fun, and really interested in learning and are always doing incredibly nice stuff for me.

One day one of the ladies whcn she was driving me home (she always does this because she lives close by and she's super nice), and we passed this restaurant that I'd heard a little about. I asked her if she'd ever been there, just making conversation. She said yeah and that it was good, and then pulled over and ran into the places and ordered some take out before I could say anything! She even got some for Markian, whom isn't even her teacher! So, it was incredibly nice and I didn't have to cook that night and it had been a particularly bad, long day anyway. Above is a picture of what she bought me. They are little bento box meals and they were wrapped up so nicely (as are most things in Japan) that I had to take a picture. Below is what was inside.
Above: Fried Chicken, apple slice and cabbage, edamme, and ume rice balls (Japanese plum and rice wrapped with seaweed.

Below: Mushroom and vegetable salad, ume rice balls, sesame potatoes, pickled lotus root, fish paste flower, and a couple unidentifiable things.
Anyway, they are always going out of their way like this and doing really nice things for me, and it sure makes me day (which always starts off badly at the first school I go too), a little more manageable.