Tea Ceremony, Dry Ski Jumping, and Karaoke

This past weekend was full of good times. We celebrated Karmen's birthday by hosting her friend, and now mine, Akio, from Tokyo. He was super cool, and really shy at first because it had been a long time since he was in a situation where he had to speak so much English. and i can finally say that i have started to really pick up on my Japanese. Two months into it not so bad. (I guess)

On Saturday Karmen and I took our first road trip in our little car. We drove to Nagano City, yep where the Olympics were held. It was a beautiful drive. And it is only about an hour and fifteen minutes to the heart of it. We saw all the apple trees, mountain trails, and ski slopes on the drive (now we are really excited for winter). Duncan, I need to ask you a few questions about boarding when you get a chance- difficult to call you since you are like 15 hours behind- so tell me when the best time to call you is- Well we went to Nagano and picked Akio up from the shinkansen (that is the highspeed train here in Japan- so if anyone visits you will get a day in Nagano and a ride on the shink. And I would pick you up there= it is easiest due to my location in the south of niigata= the nagano prefecture border is really only about 25 min away from me- just passed Mount Myoko.

Then Karmen went and practiced taiko and Akio came with me to a Japanese tea ceremony that my students had invited to me. The ceremony is very formal and rigid (formal ceremony- not necessary for formal style- got me?) But there is a proper way to drink the tea, hold the cup, spin the cup, set the cup down, hold the chopsticks- say things- and i knew none of it. It is very traditional and many girls and ladies train at some point in their life, and I took Akio who had never been, so he was just as clueless as me, but he surprised me by trying to help translate as much as he could. but both of us did not do everything right we found out- no matter how much we tried. oh well. The problem and hilarity is that the sempei (like a sensei but more of a mentor, and always older- Mr. Miagi is a sempia to DanielSan) stuck me in the first chair- intentionally- so i was the first served. When I was served she goes- Dozo. which means go ahead. but i waited for someone else so i could follow- but no one else would be served until i was. so i whispered to akio what do i do, he said he had no idea and we waved over the sempei and asked her- oh the hilarity of the whole thing- she proceeded to tell me- but she left our the traditional things that i kind of knew so akio asked her about it and she told him for us it didnt really matter what we did. yep classic. after that ceremony we went into the tatami room where we had to sit kneeling for like 45 minutes through another ceremony. when was the last time you sat kneeling on your knees sitting on your feet for a long time- it is not comfortable, nor natural. when we began some ladies asked me if i was going to be ok- akio was complaining but i was sure i was fine- until about the ten to fifteen minute mark were the pain from my feet falling asleep began- and then about ten minutes later it passed. Gambare! Go fight win! but it was nice , the tea was frothy and the rice candy surprisingly delicious. After the ceremony we went to catch the end of the taiko festival and out to dinner with my taiko group- of which no one speaks english and i was actually doing ok- don't ask me how- the wonders of a dictionary and some understanding that grammar doesn\t matter at this point and a lot of pretending to understand (on all parties so i don't feel too bad) Karmen, Akio and I had a nightcap of sake and then off to sleep.

The next morning we headed up Myoko for the Summer Ski Jumping Event. This was my first ski jumping event so it was even more interesting to see it dry. We picniced on the slopes with Keko and her husband- keko is the lady who let us join taiko. she is awesome. she also comes to the coffee club events that Chieko plans with us- so she is a member of that too. There were six olympic jumpers there- and no crashes- well one junior high kid crashed but before the clouds were broken up early in the morning so nothing too bad and not anyones fault. there were times during those practice runs where there was no visibility. But I learned a lot of words like TOMBO- dragonfly and taught Keko a lot of vocab too. After dryskijumping we went to an onsen and then home to chill out before the night ahead of us for Karmen's birthday celebration.

We went to Takada for nomihoedai, which is all you can have for a time limit kind of thing. Well we nomihoediaed it for two hours- then followed that with nomihoedai Karaoke for two hours. So four hours of nomihoedai. Very nice. very enjoyable.

Well I am getting ready to catch a bus to Tokyo for the weekend, so I will have more stories next week. I hope all is well with everyone. Oh yea, I work too. All day everyday. longer than i am suppose to, because that is the culture. The kids are good- I am developing my favorites, and i have some classes who are little brats, but i will get them.