Right, well when did this moratorium start? September right? Well, hmm let me see...September the weather was still wonderfully warm, so of course I spent many weekends at the beach.
There was also the much anticipated live in Takamatsu from ヨシダヒロキ, where I had an AMAZINGLY AWESOME time!!! It was a little difficult for me to find the live house, but after asking a few clueless citizens, I finally found one who knew where it was at! When I went in, I think the thing that struck me most was how small it was. There were maybe a dozen chairs, and they were all filled up (with me too) but I think that made it even better. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. That night I also bought his new CD, and he signed it for me. Possibly the best evening in September?!
I also did a workshop through the international center here in Takamatsu where a small group of foreigners made wasanbon together (a Japanese sweet) and then we also went and made some origami as well. Getting my culture in!
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| The wasanbon I made |
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| Many kinds of origami! |
Also, in the evenings throughout August and September, the night was always filled with the sounds of drums from the shishimai (Japanese lion dance) practice that was going on in the shrine behind my apartment. We were also lucky enough to have some shishimai dancers (including one of my students!) come to our school one morning as well. I finally got to see what all the noise was about!
Moving on to October...at the beginning of the month, my weekends were still spent enjoying the lovely weather at the beach. At school we had our sports festival, which we'd been practicing for since September. My duties included being MC along with the other native teachers, leading my rainbow class in marching, leading them in dancing and helping out with parent-student games. It was really busy, but definitely fun. The weekend of the sports festival was the weekend I went to Kobe (see the previous blog post or click here).
After visiting Kobe, I spent the next weekend hiking up Yashima, a mountain here in Takamatsu. While I was up there, I met this pair who was dressed up in some interesting old traditional clothes, and they taught me about kawaranage, which are these little clay discs that you try to throw through hoops that they have set up -- if you get it through, whatever wish or dream you were thinking about is supposed to come true. They gave me one to try. I missed.
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| Views from the top of Yashima |
My pictures from Yashima are included in this album of random photos from around Takamatsu.
The weekend following my trip to Yashima I spent my Sunday volunteering at a Halloween parade/party in Marugame-machi, with my fellow teachers. Basically we had to dress up, get our students who had registered set up with their packages, give out treats to kids, help out in a haunted house, participate in a parade, and then clean up the whole haunted house area. It went all day long.
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| Me and one of our teachers at the Marugame-machi Halloween party |
Following that, it was of course actually Halloween, which was a rather busy day for me. In the morning, I got to see all of our students in their adorable costumes, and we of course took class photos. Then there was the haunted house for our older students. Myself and another native teacher took turns leading small groups of students through it. Some of the groups were only slightly scared and worried about it although they all required a little bit of pushing to get through the rooms with the 'monsters', but I also had one group who started crying and hanging on to me before we even started! That particular group was actually probably the most fun because they were so scared. When we went through and the 'monsters' came out some of literally jumped on my and started climbing up me to try to get away. Who would've thought it would be so much fun to scare little kids?
That was followed by clean-up and then I had to rush off as I was heading out to Tokyo to meet my parents who were going to be visiting Japan for a few weeks.
The weather in Tokyo that weekend wasn't so great -- it rained the entire time, which was kind of disappointing, however, I was able to take my parents to Asakusa on Saturday, where they went on a rickshaw ride, visited the Kaminarimon temple, and then we went over to SkyTree town (we didn't go up because it was so cloudy, we wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway). While we were wandering around in that area, we came across a pair of jugglers who were doing a live performance and stopped to watch that for a while -- it was funny!
Sunday, I took them out to Mt. Mitake (one of my favorite mountains to hike!) Again the weather wasn't so pleasant, but at least it was only foggy not actually raining. Regardless of the weather, it was still absolutely beautiful out there!
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| The river outside of Mitake station -- so pretty! |
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| Shrine at the top of Mt Mitake |
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| Cute bench end |
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| Such bright red leaves! |
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| The fog made for some cool pictures |
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| At the rock garden section of the hike |
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| Yes, I took this picture...yes, this is real |
That weekend was also conveniently a 3-day weekend, so I was able to take the Monday to go back to Takamatsu, (although it took longer than anticipated as many of the buses from Osaka were fully booked and I had to wait for a later bus). Not to worry though, that just meant I had time to play in Osaka and listen to a couple street lives that were happening that evening.
The next weekend, I met up with my parents in Osaka. On Saturday, I took them on a whirlwind tour of Nara, and finished the day up with watching ヨシダヒロキ do a street live at Grand Front. (Yes, I may love listening to his music too much!) Mom and Dad didn't stay for the whole thing, as they were cold and had had a long day, but I did, and as usual, had a nice little chat with him afterwards.
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| At Nara Park |
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| Can't go to Nara without taking pictures of the deer! |
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| Pretty colors in a garden |
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| ヨシダヒロキ street live |
The following weekend, my parents came to Takamatsu for the final leg of their trip. We visited Ritsurin garden, and my apartment on the Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday, I took them hiking up Yashima and we visited Sunport afterwards. On the Monday afternoon, they came to my school and met some of my students.
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| Ritsurin |
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| Sunset view at Takamatsu Sunport |
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| View on Shodoshima |
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| Pretty maple leaves! |
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| Amazing colors on Shodoshima! |
And now, onto December. After the past extremely busy months, I've been trying to relax a bit more and not do so many things. Not to mention, it's rather busy at school at the moment as we're ramping up for our Christmas performance day (I'm kind of looking after both Rainbow and Sun classes' plays and teaching Rainbow class their dance, and everyone has to practice singing "Let it go"), plus there are report cards to deal with as well.
The first Sunday in December, was absolutely BRILLIANT!! (any guesses about what went on?) That's right -- ヨシダヒロキ came back to Takamatsu to do another live, just as he told me he was going to!!! I can't even describe how much fun I have at his lives. It's just one of my favorite things to do! Not to mention, he's incredibly sweet -- the day before the live, he sent me an e-mail reminding me he was coming to Takamatsu and checking if I was coming. I think part of the reason why I enjoy his lives so much is not only because of his music, but because he's just a really nice person too, and is always ready and willing to talk to the people who were listening to him afterwards.
And that brings us up to this weekend -- nothing too exciting happened, I went out and found the movie theatre in Takamatsu and watched the final part of the Hobbit, which I enjoyed as well.
Next weekend it's work on Saturday to prepare for the Christmas performance which is on the 23rd. Christmas Day I'll be working and then I'll be heading out for my winter vacation -- going to Okinawa! (Which is only slightly ironic as I've been saying how much I want to go skiing...)
Update complete!
