Another week has flown by. It is less than a week until Lauren arrives and I can’t believe it. It has been one of those things that has always been so far off in the distance I didn’t think it was real until now. I have started cleaning like mad today and I have made some headway. I will never make a good wife, I’ll tell you that. The weather was gorgeous once again today. I had all the windows open and I walked the ferrets with the help of Tom although he was reluctant. Apparently the idea of a very tall man walking a very tiny animal in the public was unappealing somehow. We stayed close to home though so it was ok. I had to admit it did look a little clownish though.
The school year is winding down here. School will be over in two weeks. They get a two week break between school years. I think this is not enough time but I guess we are used to a bit too much time off back home. I went to an appreciation luncheon at my elementary school and they made some brightly coloured desserts and gave me a card that they had written nice messages in. This is a picture of the kids at my table. We ate in the Home Ec room. The cubes you can see in my purple pudding dish is a type of clear gelatin that is made out of seaweed. We also played some charades. They really like that game over here at any age. They are really good at it too.
That night I went picked up Gisela and brought her over to my place. She has been really sick with influenza A so she has been house bound for a while. She has had a string of bad luck because she also broke her foot recently. The people at the gym were really helpful and have been calling her to make sure she is okay and is healing well. They refunded her membership and everything. We never know what to do in these situations so Gisela had taken in some omiyage (individually wrapped seasonal gifts) to thank them for their kindness. She had a co-worker write down a few sentences so they would understand why she was giving the gift. They nearly refused to take it though. In the end they did take it though and she was glad. Then yesterday, the guy from the gym showed up at her apartment with a gift and an envelop from the gym. They gave her 50 dollars to express their sympathy and some papers to fill out so all her medical expenses would be covered by the gym. Then she started coughing and he asked what was wrong. She told him she had flu A and he fled the apartment. It was all very odd. They are really afraid of flu here. We thought this was strange at first but then we saw how sick we all got from it. All four of us have had it now to varying degrees. Gisela had a temperature of 103 degrees for two days. We are all much better now and but she won’t be allowed to return to work until Tuesday.
Saturday I headed off to Ina for an international story telling day and some strawberry picking. After that I was to meet my friend Dec for dinner. Unfortunately, I just didn’t get there on time for any of it because of a screw up with the trains. There was lots of needless back tracking and so forth. It took me four hours to make a one hour trip. Luckily, even though I was an hour late, Dec had still waited for me and we took a tour of the city. We went to a recreation centre and wandered around the grounds for a while and then had a lovely dinner back Kiso Fukashima. It was graduation day over Friday and Saturday in our prefecture. I saw many tear streaked faces of high school grads in my travels. They see graduation as a very sad time here. In North America, we call it commencement because it represents a new beginning and the good things that are to come for the student. But here, graduation represents the deconstruction of a group. Japanese people enjoy being in a group and often see it as a source of personal stability. They refer to school as “our school”. Even if a kid is bullied it still seems better to be a part of the group then someone on the outside. Japanese friends have told me that adults feel the same about being a part of a company.
I came back up to Shiojiri this morning and commenced cleaning. I seem to have broken my bed in the process though. Time to get the tool box out. The pictures are of a ball park in Ina, a mountain run off trench in Kiso and then another one of the river it drains into. This town is full of tiny water wheels. They love the flow of water and the sound of it in Kiso. Then there's the train platform. Time for bed now, but I'll write again soon. There is a lot to talk about these days and not much time to blog. Nighty night.