July 22-29 (Mon-Mon) - Hana hasu to hanasu, or, Peek-a-Boo

Monday: I ate this bento box for breakfast and lunch. Isn’t it pretty?

Lots of fish. And fish on top of the reverse-mochi! (anko on the outside, mochi on the inside). And only one little pack of sauce for all that tenpura. 

I enjoyed a lengthy talk with my instructor, then in the afternoon set off for another koto and tea-ceremony lesson. It was fun but difficult! Then Mrs. Miwa sent me off loaded down with omiyage. I was so astounded at the amount of stuff I forgot to ask from where they were souvenirs. 

After this, I went to investigate Hanahasu Koen. Looking for events in Fukui, I happened upon a site that showed a single event for July — the Hanahasu matsuri, which is basically the entire month. What did I see at Hanahasu? Mostly this.

And this.

And lots of these.

And some of these.

When I arrived, I was actually shocked. I have never seen so many lotuses in my life, it was just beautiful. 

And I didn’t know lotus looked like shower heads.

I’m a little obsessed with frogs on lily pads. 

I also chased dragonflies....

...and caught this one hiding where he thought he was safe.

I’m so glad I decided to go investigate!

Here, you can pretend you were there too.

Tuesday: I ate this mochi Mrs. Miwa gave me. It was wrapped in a cute leaf. 

And here is a little cake she gave me.

Today was the first day of Level Up (some special set of classes at UFO Academy). My first class was great. My second one almost made me cry, the students didn’t want to do anything. At all.

Wednesday: Business class in the morning. Level Up in the evening, today went very well.

Thursday: Baby class. Level Up only one session, good.

Friday: In the morning, I accompanied Hugh and Yuka to Hugh’s demo lesson at Miyazaki (elementary school). It was quite interesting, I got some game ideas, also it was nice to see the teachers working so hard learning how to teach English.

Look, Subway!

And the Miyazaki people gave us some treats. Here is a cutely wrapped brownie that, as with many Japanese sweets, looked a lot better than it tasted.

But these other two tasted quite good. The plainest one was the best, the little flaky thing was chestnut I think so it was good too.

One level up class that evening, then finished! Yay.

Moths are everywhere now. Aren’t they cute?

Here they are en masse at Kaori’s workplace (we had to stop there on our way home from dance, because her car started, uh, stopping :O). She said the next day they had to hose off the egg-packs left by the moths. 

Saturday: I had some extra work in the morning, which was OK. Seems like a good group of kids but I was instructed to go over what turned out to be basic stuff. Oh well.

Other classes went better.

This evening, I babysat. 

Well, it’s more accurate to say Yoshie babysat me, because I’d never been to a fireworks festival before and had no idea what to do, whereas she is an experienced festival-goer. 

The option was given to me to go babysit the 3 teenagers and see fireworks. It was a long and rather awkward wait, and a long and rather awkward bus ride (but at least don’t need to worry about traffic!!), but the fireworks were AWESOME!

Yay for my first fireworks in Japan!!

And I ate kakigoori (shaved ice) for the first time too :)

View fireworks videos here(1min) and here(2min). 

Sunday: We did zumba, yoga, and tai-chi, again joined by Mako and her friend Yuka. It was great fun and everybody felt good afterward. Kaori and I (well, ok, mostly Kaori) made kinda-tacos kinda spring-rolls, with rice paper wrap, for lunch, then hung out until dinner. 

For dinner we made thai curry. Kind of. It was a mix between what Kaori made (usually she used Indian curry powder), what I knew (with curry paste), and the veggies I had in my fridge. Hugh and Mako joined us for dinner and Hugh found great amusement with my stuffed animal.

Monday: After a good long morning workout, since it was almost COLD today :O I had a short koto lesson, sadly, then returned to do stuff like update you on the blog. It’s raining and it’s beautiful.

Now I'm off to meet with my Murata students.

Recent Japanese:

hitai = forehead

namaharumaki = fresh spring roll

kyuuryou = salary

okawari = seconds!

ga = moth

semi = cicada

dansa = difference in level

jisa = time difference

July 17-21 (Wed-Sun) - I chased dragonflies

Wednesday: Business class, evening classes, and I probably cleaned or something.

Thursday: During my morning walk, I took my camera, with the intention of finally getting footage of the elusive black dragonfly. Ok, not elusive, just too small for phone camera.

I ate taiyaki!! Well. The ice-cream version. 

And guess what’s inside —

 ice cream and chocolate and... azuki beans!

And I ate this weird pudding thing. 

It came with a little creamer. I had no idea what to do with it so I poured it on top. You may think the stuff at the bottom is chocolate, but you would be wrong. It’s azuki. But it was good anyway.

Friday: We had the UFO Meeting. I was handed some vocab sheets and told, for this upcoming week’s ‘Level Up’ program, I would be teaching these lists of vocabulary. Then playing a game or something. Very specific. I don’t really get it. 

It was wonderful almost-cool weather. I walked to the store during the middle of the day and it was nice :O

Look at the progress of the rice:

I ate this strange jello thing. 

I’d been wanting to try one. It’s basically just a jello thing. This one had azuki and kuri (chestnut). 

Dance class was fun, though we spent the whole time on the rhumba. 

Saturday: My baby class actually went well. Wow. Rest of the day ok. Kaori and I did zumba.

Sunday: We went to the beach again! Yay! We went rather early, which was nice, there weren’t too many people there. The weather was perfect and the water was great.

In the afternoon I went to Kaori’s house. Her mother did an informal tea ceremony for us and we chatted. That evening we pitched in to help her make okonomiyaki. Kaori’s version was veggies only, but (after asking if I would eat ika) her mother made our version with squid and pork. It also included cheese and tomatoes and liquified yamaimo (mountain potato). We cooked them on a big table-top grill, along with various vegetables. I ate a lot. 

Recent Japanese:

hourensou = spinach

katayude tamago = hard-boiled egg

uku = to float

joukyou = situation

sono toki no joukyou ni yotte kawaru = it depends on the situation

kona = powder

aku = astringency (taste) — or to soak [eggplant] in water to lessen the bitter taste

aonori = type of seaweed (sprinkled on top of okonomiyaki)

July 9-16 (Tues-Tues) - 心配ない: I didn’t eat the puffer fish

Tuesday: I think I taught some classes or something.

Wednesday: Class with Miki was interesting (though I was too tired!). I learned that she went to a high school where they didn’t allow the students to have jobs, but she did anyway (she was found out). She says most private schools don’t allow the students to have ‘baito’ (part-time jobs), but public schools usually do. (I think.)

Thursday: One of my least favorite classes has become my favorite. The teacher changed a few weeks ago, and the students are completely different. Really well-behaved and cooperative. Today the teacher took a minute at the end to tell the class they were doing good being so genki at the end of the day (last class of the day), and he told them to give me a good ‘thank you’ and that I would be coming back in September. So they all said ‘arigatou gozaimashita’ very properly and waived me goodbye :)

I learned that 1 + 1 = 42. And ‘ooohhhh’ is very funny. So is ‘toast’. 

Friday: Morning classes went well, and they were the last Elementary School classes until September! Waa! What shall I do with all the free time! I’m so excited. Even though I think after the break it will be busier than now... but maybe I can prepare, over natsuyasumi. Minna, ii natsuyasumi o!

That evening, Kaori and I attended shakai dance class for the first time in a while. It was super fun! Yappari, real lessons are good. We spent a lot of time on rhumba, which isn’t my favorite but thanks to everyone’s special attention (since we’re still the only 2 newcomers), I felt I actually got the hang of it. Then we spent some time on something that isn’t flamenco but kinda seemed like it — just for fun. Fun class. Yokatta.

Saturday: Was a tough day. I didn’t really get to see the fireworks. But I didn’t die driving in the torrential rains. I hate Saturdays. End.

Sunday: This day was great fun. Kaori, Mako, Mako’s friend Yuka, and I all did zumba then yoga. Then we all (including Hugh and Yuka’s husband Ayden(?) who is also from minami-africa) went to the beach!!!

So there, you people now at the beach. I’m not jealous anymore!!

Ok, maybe I still am. A little.

But it was great fun. The area was so pretty, hardly any people (!!!), the water was clear and lovely, but further out it got nice and rocky with tons of fish. We even saw fugu! Puffer fish. 

Like this guy.

But he’s dead. For sure. I’m pretty sure I saw a live one out in the rocks. I saw large shima-shima (striped) fish, smaller colorful fish, and so forth. Hugh says he saw a tiny octopus but it went away before I could see it. Meccha tanoshikatta!! I was so happy.

Monday: Kaori and I did zumba and yoga, walked to the store playing shiritori (myra: 1 win, 3 losses), made lunch, and hung out. In the evening I went to the wedding-celebration-party for Yuka and Ralph. Nice location.

I ate delicious yakitori. And some very strange not-so-delicious yakitori (chicken innards are a big thing here). And we did some karaoke :) I really enjoyed hearing everyone sing and singing along. I love karaoke!

So it was fun. But expensive.

Tuesday: Despite not sleeping until midnight, I woke at 7. So I was kinda tired as I kinda got stuff done.

Recent Japanese:

tsuna = climbing rope

fugu = puffer fish

betobeto = sticky (wet)

nechinechi = sticky, persistent 

kangoshi = nurse

jisaboke = jetlag

biidama = marble

hechima = spongue, loofah

otamajakushi = tadpole

baie dankie = thank you (in Afrikaans — I remember learning this from Rose!)

July 4th-8th (Thurs-Mon) - Happy Birthday America, or It’s Tanabata Again

Thursday: was a long day.

Friday: I took a much-needed morning walk, and it would have been more refreshing but for the slug-like remains of frogs strewn over the street. I do not know if the frogs engaged in mass-migration from one tanbo to another and were waylaid by a crowd of stomping children, or if the crows and other creatures feasting on the frogs are picky and messy eaters.

Classes went fine. At the UFO Meeting we had to film the commercial. I hadn’t really been aware I would be in it — and even if they had implied that (which they really hadn’t), nobody told me it was on Friday (until Hugh did). But I was at least mostly presentable, and did my 2-sec appearance.
2 commercials — my life as a film star is underway.

To continue my food diary — these candies are pretty (but not really tasty).

And this is black-sugar anpan. Yum.

This evening Kaori came over and we practiced dance. It was super hot. But after she left I practiced some more dance. And was super hot. Hot hot.

Saturday: Again, it was hot. I made it through my classes (even enjoyed myself a little in the afternoon ones), and that evening went to Kaori’s for Zumba!!! Then we watched a movie and ate chips.

Sunday: Just Kaori and I today. First we met for exercise. Slash running, enter Zumba. Much more fun. And a better workout. We also did yoga but didn’t have time for Taichi, because we had to get to the D-1 Dance Competition in Fukui. We were there supporting our shakai dance classmates, who were performing (I mean, competing), but it was actually really fun. They were the only ballroom dance, then there was 1 ballet group, 1 traditional-dance group, 1 cheer group, 2 hula groups,

2 jazz-jazz groups, 3 belly dancing groups, and a ton of hip-hop and jazz-pop groups.

It was super fun, there were some fun dances, but there were also some pretty bad ones.
The judge was brutally honest and said he didn’t didn’t think anyone was particularly good, and of my 3 favorite dances, 1 (jazz) won the competition, and another (bellydance) the Orihime award (since it IS Tanabata).

Speaking on Tanabata, yeah, this is my second Tanabata in Japan, and I totally wrote a wish and hung it on the bamboo bush-thing.

Oh, the judge also performed a short number, as he is Samurai Hammer, I guess famous during the 80s/90s. He was good. Realllllly good.

We went to a cafe for dinner, then chatted for a while and called it a night. Also Casey installed a new router so my internet may be better (not sure yet though).

Monday: I tried to kill myself. Several times.

I had a nice TKD class. But it was hot. I was sweating hard even though I didn’t move that much. I learned the rest of my pattern though!!!

So up to this point I’m ok. But then, I feel guilty for not having practiced my patterns in weeks (since I can’t really in my apartment), so I go over to use one of the classrooms and practice for an hour. It was a great work out. But did I mention it was hot?
Then I also played around with dance stuff and handstands and tricks and things so I can impress kids if I get a chance. I held a handstand for like 2.5 seconds. Yeah.
But you know, it’s hot. My clothing couldn’t get any wetter.

After lunch I packed up the koto (you know, it’s hot outside too), and drove to my lesson with Mrs. Miwa. You know, it’s hot outside.

It was fun! We played koto for a while, I learned the notation for staccato notes and a couple other tricks, and I only had to stretch my legs once during that part of the lesson. But it was hot.

Then she took me through the whole tea ceremony — I mean, the real whole thing this time, from the whole how to open the door (right hand, 5cm; right hand, halfway; left hand, all the way) to how to walk across the room when entering (right foot crossing the lines) and exiting (left foot). It’s super detailed, like a TKD pattern — hold your hand this far from your body, at this angle, use this hand, then this hand, in this way, turn this only this much, etc. Except that it’s all done in seiza.
All of it.
And I stayed there. Without stretching out.
For too long.
Don’t do it, I don’t advise it. I almost twisted an ankle trying to stand up because my right foot had no feeling (uncontrollable), and I kept almost tripping because I would catch my toes on the floor. I’m not the most graceful of people but this was pretty bad. And then I had to drive home and my right leg didn’t work properly, I can tell you that’s dangerous!!
From now on I will not try to gaman-shite through more than 15-20 minutes of seiza.

I ate this maccha latte-ice thing. It has azuki (red beans) in it too.

It was actually really tasty. And cold. Because, you know, it’s hot. Hot. Hot. And what am I doing on the computer? It’s hot too. Goodnight.

Recent Japanese:
sukuu = to scoop or ladle
koseiteki = unique (personality; individualistic)
shibou = fat/gristle
kafun = pollen
yamabuki = kerria (flower); light golden yellow (color)
tome = what they call the pin on a fan