Spring Vacation!! 春休み…関西で‼

Originally, I thought that I would only have a 3 day weekend at the end of March, but it turned out that I actually got 6 days off!! When I originally thought it was the 3 days, I decided I would go out to Kansai and hopefully catch some sakura as well as a live, and when I found out I got 6 days, I just decided to extend my time in Kansai a little bit.

The first day of my vacation, I met up with a friend from university who is from Nara.  Actually, I met her and her mom in Nara.  When I got there, we took a little walk through Nara Park and tried to look for some sakura in bloom, while we caught up (it's been about 4 years since I'd seen her last!).  Unfortunately, it turned out that there weren't really any in bloom yet.  It was a little bit too early. 
Disappointing.

The one blooming weeping sakura in Nara

And, when they found out that I'd actually visited Nara Park a few times before, we changed our plans a little bit.  Instead of looking at things that I'd seen before, they decided we should go into Osaka, as they had to go there anyway to look at some things in a shopping street.  Before we left, Ayumi's mom asked us to wait for a minute, as she had something to do.  When she came back she was carrying a little bag.  I didn't find out what was inside until we got onto the train.  It turns out that she had bought me some of Nara's speciality foods in a bento to eat before I went to the live on the following day.  I was so surprised and really touched.  It was so incredibly kind of her!

When we got to Osaka, we stopped for a late (and giant) lunch of okonomiyaki and yakisoba, and it was, of course, delicious!  After that we wandered around in Doguyasuji shopping street which has various shops full of cooking things, supplies for restaurants (signs, cash registers, menu pads, etc.) and the food samples that you see outside of restaurants here.  It was quite interesting.  After that it was already quite late in the afternoon and Ayumi's mom was getting a little tired so they left to go back home to Nara.

Sakura at Osaka Station

The next day, I did so many things!!  I started the day by heading out to Kobe to drop my things off at the hotel that I needed to change to since there were no hotels available on the Saturday night in Osaka (and I had looked at the beginning of February -- nearly 2 months ahead of time!).  Once I dropped my things off, I headed back into Osaka, where I had a nice little lunch, and then visited Osaka Castle in hopes of seeing some sakura blossoms.  I did get to see a few, but many of the trees there were only just starting to open up.  Not to mention, there were so many people there, as there was some kind of event going on. 

After wandering around Osaka Castle's park area for a while (did I mention the weather has been beautiful?) I hopped onto the train again and went to Tennoji, as I had found out that one of the bands I liked was doing a street live there.  As I had never been to the Tennoji area before, I had to do a little bit of wandering around to find the location of where the live was. It turned out that it was in this interesting bridge area near the station. 

When I got there, the other musician that they were doing a joint live with was singing a song and when he finished they got shut down by a couple of policewomen.  Having been to street lives before, I know that sometimes after they get shut down, they will start up again after waiting for the crowd to clear off and the police to leave, so I decided I would go take a walk and check out Tennoji Park which is right across from the station since it was such nice weather.  It turned out though, that the park itself was closed due to construction, so I was only able to walk around it rather than through it.  

After that I headed back up to the area where they were doing the live, and sure enough, they had started up again.  This time, I think I got to listen to about three songs or so before they got shut down again by another policeman.  Bad luck. 

ソラモユート and Taisuke

At this point I decided I would go try talking with them, and actually ended up talking with the other musician they were doing the live with (his music was really fun and he got everyone kind of pumped up).  He actually introduced himself to me in English and said, "Hi, my name is Taisuke.  I'm Japan's number one musician!"  Which definitely got a laugh from me -- why would Japan's number one musician get shut down by the police (multiple times)?  Anyway, he talked a lot and really fast, and I somehow ended up taking a picture with him (although it's not really such a good one of me).

Taisuke and me

After talking with him, I wanted to talk with ソラモユート, the two guys who I'd actually wanted to listen to, but somehow I ended up talking with an older lady instead who gave me their pamphlet and told me to check out their website, twitter, etc., and told me about a live they're having at the end of the week.  And then they had packed up their things and already started leaving.  Too bad.  They came back again later, but at that point I had ended up listening to another group who was doing a live close to where the others had been and by the time I realized that ソラモユート was singing again, I had to leave.  Oh well.  Another time, I'm sure.

ソラモユート

The reason why I had to leave was to go to ヨシダヒロキ's live which I had already booked tickets for.  This live was at a live house in Shinsaibashi, another area of Osaka that I'd never been in before this weekend.  (I had checked it out the evening before though to see if I could find the location so I'd know where to go --- I actually didn't find it that night, but that's a story for another time).  When I arrived at the live house, ヨシダヒロキ was there greeting everyone, and when I came in he asked me if I'd been in Nanba the day before, which I had (that was where I had lunch with Ayumi and her mom).  I was definitely surprised by that question, but it turned out that he'd actually either seen me waiting for a train when he was on one or he was on the same train but further down (I wasn't really clear on which it was), but anyway, I guess he'd seen me and recognized me.  Surprise!  Anyway, as usual, it was a great live, and lots of fun!  He and マルシェ also autographed everyone's tickets after they were finished performing and then took a group picture with everyone. 

 

Signed ticket

Everyone after the live!

Good times!! It's going to be great again when he comes to Takamatsu in April (he actually told me to send him an email about how many people I'm going to come with!)

ヨシダヒロキ and me

 

On Sunday it rained, and I didn't really do much worth mentioning at all.

The next day the weather was back to being lovely and warm so I took a walk from Sakuranomiya all the way down to Osaka Castle area (well actually I went further than that, but that's not particularly important). Anyway, the sakura have started to open up a lot more and as the entire way along the canal is lined with them, it was a really nice walk!!

After this lovely walk I ended up back at Osaka castle and I decided to go back to Tennoji to see what street lives were happening in the afternoon, and it turns out Taisuke was doing another live so I stopped and listened to him again (for more than just two songs this time). After about an hour or so he got shut down, but it was good timing for me as I had to go around then anyway. But before I left he came over shook my hand and thanked me for coming out again.

At that time, I headed back to Osaka station area since that's where I wanted to eat my dinner. After I finished doing that, I found another street live on my way back to the station, and since I had a couple minutes to spare, I stopped and listened. This pair (they were called フタリシズカ) switched back and forth between playing the piano and singing.

フタリシズカ

After watching them for a few minutes, I headed out again to go to...(yes, I know, it's probably not too difficult to guess)...another live!! But before I talk about that...I really wish I'd had a bit more time to listen to these two because their piano and voices were quite nice! But they sent me messages on Twitter, so maybe the next time I come, I'll be able to listen to them again.

This time it was off to FASE's live. Lucky for me the live house where he had his live was fairly easy to find. While I was there, I saw the older ladies who are so clearly his big fans again.  His live was also pretty fun although there weren't so many people there -- maybe 5, but I guess that's alright. He had two other guys (separately) opening up for him. The first one was ok, and the second was more energetic and kind of amusing and played piano really well. I was jealous. But this musician (山本義則 [Yamamoto Yoshinori]) also started talking to the audience between some of his songs and at one point asked them for some Japanese words that he wrote down as cues for songs later. I was really surprised when he suddenly switched to English and started talking to me directly. After the live I talked with them for a bit (both FASE and 山本義則 could speak English quite well). FASE talked to me about ヨシダヒロキ for a little bit and said he should start talking with him in English the next time he sees him. That made me smile -- I think it would be an interesting conversation to listen to. ~_^ Anyway, it was a good evening and I'm glad I went. 

And for my final day in Kansai, I headed out to Kyoto's Arashiyama area to get out of the cities for a little bit and to see some more cherry blossoms. Since it was Tuesday, I didn't expect there to be so many people, but they were everywhere!!! The streets and trains were packed! I can only imagine how much worse it would've been on Saturday or Sunday. Anyway, I stopped of at a zen temple and garden, Tenryuji, which is also incidentally a world heritage site. There were many different plants in flower, but too many people!

 

 

 

After that I went across the bridge to Arashiyama Park where there were many sakura trees in full blossom. Very pretty!

 

Then I took a walk down by the river which led up to a short little hike to another small zen temple on the top of a hill.

And that was more or less how I spent my spring vacation. Not too bad, I'd say!!  Although, I was really sad to have to leave Kansai, because it was so much fun! I didn't want it to stop!

To see more of my spring vacation photos, click here.

Sky Class Graduation

For the last month or so, life at work has been really busy getting ready for the graduation of our Sky class as well as preparation for the new school year.

Graduation day was held last Saturday and it was a really nice day for the students and their parents.  It is also one of the only days of the year where our staff has to wear formal work wear.

By the end of the ceremony there most of the people in attendance had cried at least once. (and not just the students, but the parents as well).  As Rainbow class teacher, I also was an MC for the day as the other full time preschool teacher was busy doing things such as presenting diplomas, giving a speech and leading the graduating students in a variety of things.

Throughout the ceremony, a variety of things happened.  The students received their diploma, read a letter to the students in the younger classes, gave a gift they made to the school, received gifts from students from the other classes and from the teachers, listened to speeches by their teacher, our boss and one of the mothers of a student from the graduating class, listened to letters from the younger students, sang a song, presented gifts to their Sky class teachers, and also presented flowers to the teachers who will no longer be at our school for the next school year, and it was finished with a song sang by one of the student's mothers in addition to group and other pictures.  It was a busy day for them, but they had practiced a lot and worked really hard, so I'm glad it went well for them.

After the ceremony, all of the teachers saw the younger students get picked up by their parents, and then we proceeded to take down decorations and return all of the things that had been taken out of the classroom back to their proper spots.  By this point, we were all quite hungry, and headed out to a really nice lunch all together, which was a combination of a year-end and farewell lunch.  We ate a multi-course Japanese meal.  It was delicious!