Week 64: the week that wasn't.

Well, Ok, it was, and it was a long week, but it didn't really FEEL like anything.  It went by very quickly, in a bit of a haze.

Monday took a while, but mostly because the entire time I was just wishing that I could go home and open the blamed can to see if it was, indeed, caramel.  It didn't help that it being Monday meant that right after school I went to the Chiropractor.  When I made it back, I had to make dinner.  THEN I couldn't find the blamed can opener!  Right when I was ready to give up, I finally found it!  And guess what!

it's Caramel!

It was really good! It's dipping caramel, good for apples, ice cream, and....I think I wanna make brownies with caramel at some point, that would be tasty.  I showed it off at English class on Tuesday, and they were all impressed.

So, the rest of the week was fairly normal.

singing practice

playing practice

and everyone was in a tizzy over the arts performance.  ONE interesting thing I saw, was the practicing of helping peoples in wheelchairs.  I'm not sure what grade it was, but I saw people going around in groups, with teachers, taking turns learning the various ins and outs of the school and how to navigate and help people in wheelchairs.

(with the teacher, they couldn't do races)

wheel chairs waiting to be returned.

As far as I can tell, the schools can borrow basic wheelchairs for their crutch bound students for the longer moving around stuff.  Ah, if only I could speak Japanese.

Saturday was the performance, and it dawned COLD and RAINY.

this did not stop everyone from showing up.

not shown, all the parents in back in "standing room only" FILLING the space.

The shows were done in two shifts.  First shift was 1,3,5th grades, second show was 2,4,6th grades.  This was actually a really good idea, because that meant that the little ones didn't have to sit through EVERYTHING, and...frankly they couldn't have fit all the parents in at one go.

seriously, lots of people. Also not shown, the large section in the front of parents sitting on the floor.

I got a chair, in the veeeeery back corner.  But I got a cute seat mate.

awwwww!

There was singing

Pretty sure that's the first graders

And music!  See if you can recognize these!

"kiss a wookie! Kick a droid!"

If you can't I am very disappointed.

They also did "Tequila" including the shouting portion, which I had to snerk at. :)  and...something called "Samba" which I THINK was a song from the latest Olympics?  And lots of Japanese songs, of course.  Anyhow, it was lots of fun, and really cute. I wish I could have seen ALL the different schools perform, because I heard ONE of my schools practicing THIS one....

And I woulda LOVED to hear the final product.

And that was my week!  I mean, it was long, but it just felt normal, I guess because there was nothing to really break the monotony.

After the kids finished performing, they went home and we said goodbye to all of them.  I told the teachers they did very well, and some of them seemed surprised, like "really? you thought that was good?!" and I was like "You probably heard EVERY. LITTLE. MISTAKE. but really, the most important thing is...it's finished now!" :D

All the teachers had lunch together, and I started in on some prep work I had been procrastinating the previous week when my liaison teacher sidled up to me and said "the vice principal says we can go at 2:00, but he was like 'I'm whispering this to you...'"
Which basically means, I'm TECHNICALLY not supposed to let people go ahead of time, but really, who wants to stick around?  You don't tell anyone I let you go early, I won't tell anyone you left early.
I was FINE with this. :D

I went to the bath house.  Much better use of my time.

Oh, and I saw these pretty berries on a tree/bush!

Week 63: This week, nothing happened.

I mean, it was normal.  There were nice days, there were rainy days.  The leaves are changing colors

The students are getting ready for Arts day.  Remember sports day? (I hope so, that was a fun post) Well, in November, they have arts day. (You can see last year's if you go in my archives) Last year was visual arts, so you had students who painted, sculpted, used band saws, etc.  So this year is performance arts!

No, they're not dancing.

They're singing!  And performing instrumentals.

They've been working on it for a while now, and the teachers are tearing out their hair with worry, of course.  I still don't speak Japanese, but when the teacher in charge starts clapping along exaggeratedly and yelling, you know darn well they're saying something like "WHY ARE YOU SLOWING DOWN THERE?! WE'VE PRACTICED THAT AT SPEED A HUNDRED TIMES ALREADY!"

The thing that continues to amaze me is the fact that the students are going to be performing the singing pieces and the instrumental pieces (all very complex with harmonies and parts and stuff) without music!  I'll try to get some recordings next week.

I think most my schools are doing their performances this weekend, so I'll be going to school on Saturday, but it will be a full day concert, so I'm not too chuffed.  The school district is getting on the schools' backs to use us language teachers to their full ability, so my school tried to think of how I could teach that day, but the kids are going to be either performing or helping with other performances!  And I said "I don't think they'll fuss about that one." (and if they did, it would be too late.)

Monday, I went to the Chiropractor.

I've been meaning to show this to you guys for a while. A monument to the cutie cosmonaut.  :shrug:

Tuesday it was cold and rainy, so when it was time to go to help at English class, I called up the missionaries and said "nope".

As mentioned, not much else has happened this week.  Because (as mentioned) the schools are trying to get the most use out of us, I'm not bored at work, though I am a little drained at night.  (I still think it beats being bored)

As an example of how boring this week was, here's a picture of a culinary adventure I had.

spiced orange sauce!  (with oranges) over ice cream!  They actually tasted better over yogurt.  I also had them with oatmeal the next day, and that was very tasty as well.  for some reason, as I've been eating my oranges, I kept thinking "these would be so good warm.  With cinnamon. and nutmeg.  So I looked it up to see if it was a thing, found a bunch of recipes and smooshed them together.  Very proud of my accomplishment. :)

Saturday, there were no festivals on!  AAAAAAA!  I went through withdrawal.  I also cleaned my room.  And completely switched my summer stuff for winter.  I kept thinking I would get out and go for a walk, maybe a short hike, but then I'd get distracted.  I finally went out in the evening.  The missionaries were showing a video of a play one of the members had been in.

It was really cute! Very Japanese.  One of the sister missionaries sat next to me and translated bits where she could, and I repaid her by making snarky commentary about the parts she couldn't.  She said she enjoyed it, so I think it was a symbiotic experience. :)  They had dancing at the end (for some reason) and when I looked in the back of the room....

Why yes, that's the Elders dancing.  :)  (no, they're not possessed, the light just hit their eyes right)

In all, it was a good week, just not something much to write about.  (though I obviously have)

I actually DID do a comic this week.  I have several! I'm not behind!  I just...haven't scanned them.  :sigh:

This evening was a bunch of culinary adventures as well.  I made Zuppa Toscana!  And apple cake in the rice cooker!  And I'm trying to blow myself up!  Well, ok, actually, I'm trying NOT to blow myself up.  I'm making caramel with the sweetened condensed milk I got at the store.

Well, ok, here's the story. I THINK it's sweetened condensed milk.  It says condensed cream, but I've tried it before and it SEEMED sweetened.  So, I figured one way to check is to make caramel out of it.  And to do that, you boil the can, unopened, for three hours.  The trick is to make sure the water never uncovers the can.  So I'm stuck downstairs for three hours until it finishes. Because I'm not gonna risk forgetting about it and only finding out that the darn thing DID explode the next day when I'm trying to pretend I know nothing about what's going on.

Edit: good news, I did NOT blow anything up. The can is now cooling on my balcony. (I don't want to keep it inside in case it does decide to go)

Week 62: Happy November!

Ok, I mean, TECHNICALLY, Halloween was on Monday, but really, almost everyone had gotten their Halloween out over the weekend.

But hey, I did go to ONE party this week.  Tuesday. November 1.  :)  The adult English class held their party then.  Of course, Adults weren't the only ones to come.

But we did get to play games

I never did get the point of this one.

don't eat Pete

She ate too much Candy, so her mom took over the eating part.

Then there was food.

YAY FOOD

And it got a little late

So eventually we all went home and that was the last of our Halloween.  All that was left was marking the papers left over from class.

this was honestly my favorite one.

See how he's running away from the Jack-o-lantern, because they guard houses! :)

Wednesday's big thing was, I was still suffering fatigue and I thought "well...maybe I"m dehydrated. I doubt it though."  after about two hours and a gallon of water, I felt much better.  So I think I was dehydrated.  I've been forcing myself to drink more water now, and am feeling MUCH better as a result.

I guess I forgot to take into account how dry the air has been lately.

Thursday helped a lot too. It was a day off!  I slept in! I laid about my bed and read!  I did laundry and cleaned my room and organized my fridge!  I got SO much accomplished, and all before noon!  And then I went out.

I have no idea why they had the day off, and the only festival I saw didn't interest me, so I went shopping.  Had a few things I needed to pick up.

I was not the only one with that idea.

It was actually pretty darn crowded, but any time I went to take a picture, this happened. :P

I saw some fun stuff!

This cake has seen things.

This cat purse regrets what it has seen.

Yes, they are selling Santa masks. That's not creepy at all.

And I got the stuff I needed, which mostly was a walk outside. :)  I headed back home with my spoils and then took the Sister missionaries out to dinner.  Well, it was going to be an appointment, but the people couldn't make it, so we made it dinner.

I still find it odd how much Japan loves Indian food.

GUESS WHAT THEY HAD!

Sakura Lassi

Throw that on the list of odd Sakura flavored things I've had! :)

I had to go back to school on Friday, but after such a lovely Thursday, I felt much better about it.

Saturday was much like Thursday. Sleeping in, cleaning up, etc.  Then in the afternoon, I headed off! Festival time! (it's an addiction, it really is.)

There were SO many festivals this weekend, and one of them was a metalworking festival I remembered seeing last year and wanting to go, but I was sick, so I thought I'd check it out this year. Then I saw it was in Miki.  "Miki, hummm, that sounds familiar...Oh, right! Summer camp was in Miki!.....2 hours away.  Lets go to Kyoto!" :P

So there were two festivals in the Kyoto area I wanted to see, one was "Shinsenen Kyogen- A classic Japanese Performance art"  Ok, so Kyogen means "mad words" and is a traditional comedy that teaches Buddhist beliefs through funny stories.  This particular form of Kyogen is done in masks with no dialogue.  So I figured I'd understand as much as anyone else.

the stage

The only problem was...

no pictures.

But..... yeah.

I wanted you to see them anyhow.

I found it interesting how they kept the masks on.

with lots of strings.

And I'm not sure WHAT teaching the first play covered unless it was, "if you get attacked by a spider demon, don't lose."

isn't his coat GREAT?!

look at that thing, I want one.

paper streamers to simulate webbing.

 The demon was defeated in the end.  And about this time I got in trouble for taking pictures, so I stopped.  (so did everyone else taking pictures, so I didn't feel too bad) :P

The next play was much more comedic, it was about a burglar who was thwarted when the servant coated him in soap so he and his masters could get away, and everyone started slipping all over the stage.

I really only had two complaints.

1) from what I've seen, all Japanese theater is the exact OPPOSITE of fast paced.

2) it was accompanied by the same two measures of music the entire time played by gong and high pitched flute. I was constantly torn between annoyed and asleep.  :P

I still enjoyed it a great deal, but it is definitely an acquired taste.

I checked out the nearby shrine/garden.

very picturesque

And then I went to the second festival!  It was in a city nearish to Kyoto, so I figured I'd see it while I was out.

lantern festival!

Remembering that my phone doesn't like night pictures, bear with me.

This is a festival celebrating Kusatsu, which was an important post station in the Samurai period.

SPARKLY

you can tell kids made this. They colored plastic bottles.

At least it was easy to find.

The streets that were included were lined with little lights.

some bigger than others

And the venues that were incorporated had booths and food and music.

There were some lovely shrines and temples along the walk.

what you can SEE...

and me without marshmallows

they had soft music playing, that was nice.

And there were lanterns EVERYWHERE

the only carved pumpkins I saw all night

these are made out of tofu boxes. Recycling!

a more traditional lantern

this one is an advertisement for the night.

I liked these

TOTORO!!!

And at one point I saw a bunch of people going into a house, so I was like..."that looks like a tourist thing.  I wonder if it is?  What if I just get in line...."

and it was!

It was a historical house!

that's a really open floor plan

ooOOOOoo

the coloring there is lights.

the kitchen!

Daimyo toilet... :P

But it was really neat to see!

Oh, and there was one shrine that gave me fire!

BWAHAHAHA...I gave it back after.

And there was a historical crafts section!

Shamisen break it down

Black smithing!

how do they DO that?!

these lanterns are made of wrought iron lace.

::sigh:: I want to throw again.

glass art

Wood working

look! the kid gets to help!

It got a little chilly, so I was glad I was wearing all the layers I was.

In all, it was a lovely day.  Lots of walking, the evening was a calm and pleasant festival.  (some day I will learn how to spell pleasant without spell check)  Though there was so much to see, I almost wish the festival had lasted another half hour.  :)  Since the town was outside Kyoto, I got a seat on the ride back

which one, which one

Which would not have been an option if I had picked up the train in Kyoto.  It was a fast train, so it went almost directly to my stop, and then I had to limp home.  I was tired, chilled and just so content, I died and slept wonderfully. :)

Hope your week was wonderful too!