Saturday: These flowers say HELLO:
That night Kaori and I went to see Hugh and Miki’s band perform. It was fun.
Afterwards, we picked up stuff and went to the restaurant/house where Ralph and Yuka made us spaghetti, and Mako and I played Scrabble.
Sunday: Kaori and I went to Kanazawa. (Spoilers ahead, Mia-tachi.) Our goal was to see Kenrokuen, one of the most beautiful gardens in Japan, where my family visited before and my family will visit after.
On our way to the park, we encountered these guys:
It’s funny how many old-car-shows I’ve encountered by accident.
The show was actually in the castle grounds, which we hadn’t known, so we missed it. But we got to see the stragglers, and we picked up a new car.
Ok, not really. I couldn’t drive with those mirrors anyway.
Kenrokuen was a really pretty garden. I like Japanese gardens, I like gardens, I like tea houses,
I like learning that tea houses put out this stone to keep you out when a ceremony is in progress,
I like trees,
I like pine trees,
and I like moss.
But it was kind of crowded, and a bit hot, so we were a little tired by the time we went over to see the castle.
This is it.
It was AMAZING!
Well, we were amazed anyway. Unfortunately, although the signs say it’s open until 6, the buildings are only open until 4:30, last entry at 4. So we only went inside one tower:
But really the grounds and outside were beautiful. It’s build on the site of the old Kanazawa castle, which probably burned down, and construction is supposed to be finished in Heisei 27. It’s Heisei 25. So I’ll just have to go back in a couple years.
The castle looks beautiful, of course, (it’s white!),
and it’s cool to see a CASTLE under construction,
What struck me most was the smell.
Look at this.
This is new wood. It looks new, and it smells new. The smell of ‘new’ is not really what I associate with castles.
I loved the doors too.
It tickles me that a castle is being built in this era.
Of course, when I land that multi-billion dollar whatever, my home will be a newly constructed castle. Of course.
Monday: Morning exercise followed by a movie, more exercise, then we got together with Team Sunday and pseudo-cooked pseudo-hamburgers. Then we watched another movie.
Tuesday: No morning classes, but my morning was taken up by.... THIS:
Casey and I will be the forever immortalized voices on Junior High school listening tests in Sabae for the rest of the school year.
It was fun to record in a real sound booth.
Wednesday: I didn’t realize I didn’t have morning classes until the night before. Yippeeee. So I drove to Fukui to pick up the koto music I ordered. At last!! You can bet I tried that out! Once I figured how to tune the koto for it. I think I’m getting this.
On the way back, I stopped at Book Off. Stupidly I had updated to iOS 7, and after that iCloud didn’t sync the only note I needed so I couldn’t buy CDs this time. But I had extraordinarily good luck and finally got piano music!!
And I saw this:
I didn’t get it. But I thought it was cool.
Kawada Elementary. Sometimes the teacher takes charge, sometimes she doesn’t do anything, so I always have to prepare a lesson, just in case. Sigh.
But I laughed really hard. We were teaching directions, and to see how well they knew ‘left’ vs ‘right’, we had them close their eyes, and I shouted out, ‘turn left’ or ‘turn right’. (At the end you see who’s facing the correct way.) One kid had it absolutely backwards from the beginning, and the teacher and I began to crack up. I would say ‘turn right!’ and he would say, aloud, ‘hidari ka’ (left?) and not only was it causing the others to break out laughing, some of them got confused and began turning the wrong way too. The. Best. Ever.
Evening classes were fine. I was genki. Sometimes when I’m too enthusiastic I think I go too fast and the kids have no idea what I’m talking about. But oh well. The ones who care catch on.
Class with Miki!! Fun as usual. She told me about Memphis. She definitely knows more about places in the U.S. than I do.
Thursday: I had an early, active start, then cleaned, did laundry, got mobbed by babies, took my car for an oil change, went to the mall (?) for special coffee filters — gave in and bought this delicious cookies&cream yukidaifuku:
Spent the rest of the day working, and wrote a long response to the new girl. She doesn’t come until January. She’s from Italy.
Look at these cute string chocolates.
Friday: It was a really long day. Hugh took my classes that night, and I went to dance. It was super fun but my feet really hurt afterward. Not real smart way to start a weekend of travel! But oh well. A little pain builds character. Yeah.
I cooked with quail eggs.
First I tried frying them.
Cute, but might as well do a bigger egg. I ate them with fried onions and eggplant.
Next, I tried them hard-boiled in ramen. This is the way to do it :)
Recent Japanese:
omotenashi = hospitality
waseigo (
和製語) = Japanese word made from a foreign word, like ‘jetto koustaa’
ochanoko [saisai] (
お茶の子) = piece of cake (lit. child of tea)
hetoheto = dead tired
sao (
竿) = rod, pole
boin (
母音) = vowel
todoku (届く) = to reach, arrive
itasha (痛車) = car decorated with anime images, lit. painful car
utsuru (
移る) = to move, transfer
mikoshi = portable shrine
uzura = quail
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