It’s July already! Unbelievable! I am trying to organise myself to come home now and it is no easy process. I have things boxed up and I am cleaning out all the closets. I need to send two very heavy boxes home right now and I know it is going to cost a mint. On the weekend, I went to Shirakabako for a very short time. It was a long drive to get there and it was kind of a crap place when we arrived. It was one of those towns that was probably at its peak in the economic boom a few decades ago but not it just looks run down and creepy. It was nice to go for a drive though. We went back and went to a karate enkai in the evening. Lots of karaoke and drinking. Very tired. On Friday night I went out to the Reggae place in Matsumoto with Erin and stayed there for the night. There were two delightful Korean girls there drawing mustaches on each other. It was quite hilarious. Then we met a group of Brazilian Japan Drift drivers. It is some kind of car racing. I had some delicious taco rice and many gin tonics.

The cats are killing birds like there is no tomorrow these days. I am not stopping them either because I know they will be house bound when we are back in Canada. Why did they start killing after I got them fixed? Recently, they brought a live bird in the house which screeched and flew all over the show. It was about 5:30 in the morning so I initially stayed in bed and hoped they would quickly kill and eat it. Unfortunately that was not the case. It continued to screech and fly until it found a safe haven behind the oven. I couldn’t get it out. I tried to catch it when it flew around from time to time but I couldn’t. So I went down to the Seiyu (our local WalMart owned grocer) and purchased a net. I still couldn’t catch it. When it was time for Tom and I to leave for work I still hadn’t got it out of the house. I had to leave the doors shut so the cats wouldn’t keep coming in and make it worse. So at 7:20, Tom comes into the house, the bird flies past him and he snatches it out of the air with his hands. That man may be a ninja. He has the reflexes of a jungle cat! The bird was returned to the wild to be killed by the cats another day. It's a very difficult catch and release programme. Good luck bird!

Below is the photo of the new school rabbit. The kids feed it all the veg scraps left over from the making of school lunch. The pile is larger than the rabbit itself. No wonder the last one died. They claim the last one died of bird flu. They are a worrying group of people there.
Last night I went to an Indian cooking night at the culture centre. My friend Rishi was making curry and various other dishes. It was tasty. There was a fun little kid there who I hung out with for most of the night. His name was Masaki I think. He made videos using my camera of a dancing pig that came with my bottle of dakara. It’s some kind of sports drink or something. I am doing a demonstration lesson next week for the parents of one of the elementary schools. I don’t really like doing them because they are quite artificial. We carefully plan a lesson and the parents stand at the back to see how their kids perform in class and what it is that I do in class.
I have just informed the open class students at junior high that I am going back to Canada this month. It was rough news for them. They are the class of students that are not with the regular classes for various learning and social disabilities. I am trying to entice them with the news that an exciting new AET will come and take over my life. They are not impressed. Well, its nice to be loved. We have a small class so I know each of them very well. I am supposed to be teaching them English but sometimes I sing songs for them or just have a general chat about their lives and interests. It is good communication practice for them. I will miss those kids.
I gave a bit of a recital this past week in a local shrine. It was a good experience for me because I have always been a nervous performer. People ate dinner while I sang songs and play some music I wrote for the piano. It was a really nice evening and they gave me loads of amazing food for dinner. I may do another one before I leave.

The last photo is of the kids harvesting their onion crop. The whole school smelled like onions.

Speaking of leaving, I am indeed coming home next month but no flight has been secured just yet. Maybe today or tomorrow I will find out. I’ll keep you all posted.