The third week of back to school, and the end of the first month of spring.
April is an interesting month.
One day it will be very warm, say up to about 17 degrees Celsius and then on that very same day, during the nighttime, it can get down to -5 degrees Celsius.
That is a rather large change in temperature for just 24 hours, don't you think?
Not only that, but April has its fair share of cold and rainy days as well.
If you live closer to the mountains, you may even see some snowflakes falling out of the sky, from time to time.
For some folks, April 29 which is now known as ShoWa No Hi 昭和の日, is the start of Golden Week for 2008.
In fact, on Wednesday April 30, I was absent minded enough to drive all the way out to the Kosei Nursing School, in order to teach my English class to the first year students, only to discover that there was almost nobody at the school.
When I got to the teacher's lounge, and opened my folder, I discovered that today and tomorrow and every day after that until May 7, is an extended holiday for all of the students.
Imagine the surprise of the very few staff members who were at the school on that day, when they saw me walking around in the building.
I was surprised too, but I shouldn't have been.
After I got back home and looked at my own personal schedule book again, I was amazed to discover that I had NOT written down that a KNS class was scheduled for April 30!
Even though I should have double checked my schedule book the night before, for some reason I did not, and had ASSUMED that I did indeed have a class on April 30.
You know what they say about the word ASSUME; "It makes an ASS out of yoU and ME."
Yeah, it sure did that today.
Jeez, what an idiot I was.
However, being located all the way out in East Asahikawa 東旭川, and not far from the Asahiyama Zoo 旭山動物園, I took advantage of my huge blunder and drove over to take a look at the zoo, from outside of the gate.
Apparently, they open the zoo at 9:00, because there were a lot of guardsmen standing around directing traffic, as people were lining up to get into the zoo.
A lot of tour buses were also heading for the East Gate of the zoo.
Being rather cold and overcast today, is not the best day to visit the zoo, but if you have come all the way from Taiwan or Korea to Asahikawa, it's a good day, because it is not raining.
Say hello to all of the friendly animals for me.
I'll come back again, on another day.
