I’m back at work again and I can’t help but feel I should have been granted this time off. There are three other people here. And none of them speak English. Thanks a lot Board of Education office for your fine decision making skills. Well I can’t complain too much because I did take two days off to go to Nagoya with Karen. We have once again been packing the days with as much as humanly possible. On Friday, I got my old car back after it passed its emissions testing with flying colours. I think that they were a little surprised that I have put 2500 kms on it since mid January. Well I like road trips people, what can I say. After the car trade up, I went home to pick up Karen to head off to my friend and former coworkers house in Seba. Midori and her mother are both studying English as well as Japanese cultural activities so they wanted us to come over so they could practice on us. Her mother showed us three kinds of tea ceremonies and Midori dressed us in kimonos. Then we took pictures in front of Midori’s hina doll display. It was recently Hina Matsuri here which is a holiday for girls. Each girl gets a new doll and the whole set must be displayed by the family for one month. If they are taken down too soon, the daughter will never marry.
On Saturday we rode bikes around the neighbourhood and shopped all morning. Then we went to Matsumoto and continued a little more shopping. Sunday, we headed out early with Tom to go to Nagano City to visit our shared home stay family. These people are the coolest! Chiyoko is the mom. They have two kids, Eri and a son who I don’t think I have met. They took us to Zenkoji Temple with another lady named Yuka. Zenkoji is an important temple because it is one of the only ones in Japan that allows both men and women to join. We partook in all the rituals of the temple and we saw the bell that was rang to signal the beginning of the winter Olympics when it was held here in 1997. It is so great to see this stuff with Japanese people because they explain so much you would never know about. Then we grabbed some snacks and headed up to the monkey park! There are several onsens in the north of Nagano prefecture. One of them is the host to about 200 monkeys that bath in the hot springs all year long. You can walk among them which is really cool but a little frightening. There are signs telling you not to look them directly in the eye. We had to hide our plastic bags form the gift shop so the monkeys wouldn’t see them as well. The whole place reeked of sulfur and the water was very red in colour in places. I have never been so close to wild animals like that before. We were literally standing in a troop of monkeys.
After that, we headed back to Obuse where Chiyoko lives to meet a local master of Kimono. This old lady was incredible. She dressed Karen and I in the most beautiful and expensive Kimonos I have ever seen! Then we had tea ceremony in the kimonos and she let me play the koto which was so amazing! The koto is a traditional Japanese string instrument. You would probably recognize it if you heard it too. She gave us a fan which was really nice of her. She told me I could study koto privately with her if I wanted to. I would love too but she does live over an hour away by car. I would like to see her again though. I was completely blown away by everything that both Chiyoko and the kimono lady did for us that day. Karen and I both agreed we should by them dinner before we left that night so we went out for Italian.
We got home late that night and packed for Nagoya. The next morning we blissfully over slept the alarm clock and then caught then next available train to Nagoya. I accidentally said good evening instead of good morning to the cabbies outside the station. They just shook their heads at me. Oh well, I’m just trying to be friendly. We got to Nagoya and saw the castle there. It was beautiful. For some reason the mote was filled with deer. Not you traditional piranhas but I would imagine they are just as effective at guarding the castle. As you can see, the cherry blossoms have already started in Nagoya too. It was about 15 degrees there and an absolutely beautiful day. This is a real change from my area. It is currently snowing again here. After this unfortunately, I started to feel a little funny. I couldn’t see right for some reason and I though it was because it was sunny out. It ended up that I had a migraine that came on very suddenly and I had to go to the hotel and ride it out. That sucked but I was back on track by the evening. The ryokan we stayed at was pretty good. I wish I could have enjoyed it more. After a late dinner we put on our yukata (onsen robes) and watched some weird Japanese game show. Then the next day we headed out and did some more sightseeing and shopping and then headed for home. We had two hours before my night class so we went out and grabbed some dinner and then Karen came to the night class with me. Now Karen is at home organizing her stuff and I am at work. Tonight we will have dinner at Miwa’s house. I work for her privately. Sh elived in the USA for a while so I don't think she will serve anything that will freak Karen out. You never can tell though. She has just moved into a new house. Their old one was too small for them and the three kids. They figured that by building a bigger house, they could have Miwa's mother move in with them too. Her kids are pretty much the cutest things on earth so it should be fun to have dinner with them.
I can’t believe how fast this month has gone. Spring break will be over and the kids will be back to school soon. After I take Karen to Tokyo on Saturday, I will go the Tokyo Pet Expo. I am pretty excited for this. Then next week, I plan to do next to nothing as much as possible. But then again, I say that every week. I need a nap.