September 15-20 (Sun-Fri) - Yay for holidays

~I have officially been here for 6 months.~

Sunday: After zumba and yoga, we did a simple huge delicious meal of egg sandwiches and fruit. Then we watched movies, ate ice cream, ate yakisoba, looked at Hugh’s pictures — apparently they went to South Africa for the Obon holiday!! I didn’t know. So that was fun.

Strong winds and rains attacked over the weekend. Fortunately Sabae isn’t much effected by typhoon (taifun) and I don’t think anywhere here suffered damage. (Aside from closed roads I heard.)

Monday: A little exercise in the morning, sandwiches salad and fruit for lunch (aren’t we healthy :), a little bit of studying, then we parted ways. That evening Kaori and I walked over to the Seishoji temple for a free live performance. We were really early so we got good seats, and were able to watch them rehearsing a little. I’m glad, because I took some video, and of course I couldn’t during the actual performance. So you can get a little taste of it in this video. But the real performance was much, much, much cooler.

And cooler. The taifun had ended — luckily!! — but it was cold.
It was a ‘kangetsu’ performance, looking at the moon, so it didn’t start until 7. Well, the opening introductions and naming all the donors or whatever started at 7. A half-hour later, students from a local(ish) dancing school performed a fan dance (a dance in the loose sense, far as I’m concerned). Their costumes were cool. And they were well-trained, their movements very precise.

After that, the real performance began.

On the shakuhachi (bamboo flute), Iwata Takuya 岩田卓也
On the koto, Itou Erina 伊藤江里菜
On the wadaiko (taiko drums),  Kanazashi Yuuta 金刺由大

It started out with a beautiful duet of wadaiko (taiko drums) and koto. I did not know koto could be played like that. It was so cool.
Next the taiko man stepped out and the shakuhachi (bamboo flute) man stepped in. Flute and koto gave us 3 duets. The second was a jazz song that I absolutely loved.
Shakuhachi and taiko had one, the taiko had a solo where he used 3 different types of drumsticks, then it was back to koto and shakuhachi for THIS song. I managed to find this version. It was beautiful. (This is the only piece they performed that I could find....) For this piece the koto player was on a 17-string koto. (She was on the 13-string the rest of the time.)

Then the 3 played a song together but it wasn’t that interesting. I’m glad we saw them rehearsing together :)

At this point Kaori and I were frozen to the bones. We snatched some dango, appropriately white as the moon,

then went back home as fast as we could to warm up. I ate ramen and drank tea and was finally warm. It was really cold that night.

Tuesday: The next day was warm. Go figure. (And it was warranting-AC-hot on Saturday.) The air is actually cool, but the sun is horrendous. Which is why it was so cold with all the clouds.
In the morning, I went over to Fukui to check out a music shop. I wanted to buy koto music but I was having a really hard time, so I asked my Murata guys if they knew. One of them asked a friend and got a location, then he even went by there to check it out, grab a picture of the tiny shop so I could find it, and he told me the opening hours. Talk about helpful. So I had absolutely no problem finding it, thanks to that :)
And I bought koto music. I spent a good part of my free time the rest of the day struggling through how to tune the koto so I could use the music. I finally figured it out by bedtime. Yay :)

Yutaka Elementary today. Evening classes went well — Mrs. Ishimoto stayed through my trouble class, and her presence made the boy behave. Ok, not behave — but he was better. She asked me afterwards how it went, I said great, she said ‘but he won’t even sit!’ and I said yes, but normally not only will he not sit, he’s running around and throwing things and hitting stuff. So thank you.

Wednesday: After the rice is harvested, these mysterious bags appear on the fields.

When there are many, they look like sheep. Also, the husks.

And good news! I figured out what these leafy plants are — edamame (look closely).

Business class went well but because I had to give them another test to evaluate how much they are learning I wasn’t able to teach them as much as I’d planned.
Kawada Elementary in the afternoon followed by evening classes.

Look at these cute marshmallows.

Look at these cute s’mores.

Thursday: Yanagi babies. Sabae Higashi. Miwa private classes — 2 of the kids would not behave for anything. At least by the end I left the third one singing ‘one little two little three little indians’ even if the others wouldn’t do it at all. Small victories.

And — FINALLY — I found another flavor of kit-kat. Behold — pumpkin pie.

Late that evening I went to sushi so Casey and I could rehearse and talk about a recording we’re doing for a JH test. I guess. He has good tips on voice recording.

Nathan found this. It might be a stag beetle.

Friday: Miyazaki started with 4th grade as well (then 5th and 6th), meeting, then Kitanakayama, then over to Fukui for three classes. Friday has become a tiring day.

But I finally tried these cute little mushrooms. I put them in yakisoba. They taste like apples.

Recent Japanese;
shakuhachi (尺八) = bamboo flute
wadaiko (和太鼓) = Japanese taiko drums
kuwagatamushi = stag beetle

From the article I translated (my homework)
jiyuu no megami (自由の女神) = Statue of Liberty
dokuritsu kinenbi (独立記念日) = Independence Day
hanran (氾濫) = flood
songai (損害) = damage; or 害をあたえる
tassuru (達する) = to reach
hikiokosu (引き起こす) = to cause
kachi (価値) = worth, price
buji (無事) = unharmed (buji datta!)
shuuzen (修繕) = repair (buildings etc.); or 修理(shuuri) for like your car or table
sculptor (彫刻家) = choukokuka
sekkei (設計) = design
yuukou (友好) = friendship
yuukou kankei = friendly relations (i.e. between nations)
kinenhi (記念碑) = monument
dokuritsu o sengen suru (独立を宣言する) = to declare independence
kobu (鼓舞) = inspiration
imin (移民) = immigrant
saikai (再開) = reopen
yokujitsu (翌日) = day after