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Because the only way I would ever go to a history museum is by accident
As the days get busier, my updates get further and further apart don't they? Well, pretty much all I have is happy news, but where to start? Conversation class has changed again, back to the way it used to be. Apparently the teachers decided the experiment wasn't working. It raised my respect for them a lot. After all the only way they were going to know if the new format would work was if they tried it, but they were also willing to ask us what we thought, and give up on it when it didn't work.
It took nearly a week, but I am better from my cold. Sunday night many of the students gathered at school to watch fireworks over the neighboring harbor. The view was great, and the fireworks were even more interesting than the ones I saw in Nagoya. My favorites were these cascading willow-like displays, a type that changed color several times, and some shaped fireworks that resembled butterflies. (They also had multi-axis rings and smiley faces.)
Last weekend was a three day weekend, and so on Monday I headed into Yokohama to visit some of the local attractions. I spent a lot of my time in Chukagai, or Chinatown. There was a lovely, colorful temple there, lots of interesting stores (again with sizes I couldn't wear!) and of course tons of Chinese food. I tried chahan, (essentially a type of fried rice), which is also often eaten in Japan. I also tried roasted.. chestnuts maybe?
Afterwards I walked back through part of Yokohama that I had been through after the boat trip. I found this interesting building, and walking around it realized it was a museum in the old British consulate, dedicated to Perry's opening of the port of Yokohama. So it was sort of accidental, but I ended up paying the small admission fee to look around. Fairly interesting. (Note: by accident is about the only way I would ever go to a history museum!) All told at the end of Monday's adventures, I had a slight sunburn, the first one since I got here, but nothing serious.
A couple days later I went over to the house of Yasuda-san, the lady I met on our boat trip. She showed me how to cook one of my favorite Japanese dishes: 3-color donburi. (This was in fact the dish I had been looking for when I went to Murasaki that was no longer on the menu.) We spent several hours talking about various things. She teaches Japanese sometimes, and so was very helpful in correcting my grammar mistakes. She also showed me this interesting thing the Japanese do at New Years. We send Christmas cards, they send New Years. But apparently the post office issues special cards with lottery numbers on them. And if your card number matches, you can win a prize.
Between Yasuda-san, Katou-san (who I will get to in a minute), and trying to arrange a meeting with Mertz-sensei and Shimizu-sensei (two of my Japanese teachers from college) I suddenly have this sensation of "Why am I so popular at the END of my trip?" In an unrelated note, I got a very flattering offer from back in the states, which I am greatly upset I will have to decline. Dr. Tyler, who teaches strategy at NC State's MBA program, has a project she is working on, and specifically asked if I would be available to help with it. She is a really cool lady and I love the subject areas she is into, but there's just no way I will have the time with half time work and my normal TA duties. This is one of those instances where I had to really fight my desire to do EVERYTHING, but as someone pointed out to me last semester, knowing when you have to say no is a part of time management too.
I took what will probably be my last long trip into Tokyo last week (though I may make a couple more for the express purpose of meeting up with friends). I took my last run through girl's row for shopping, and successfully reserved the book and ticket for the book signing my favorite manga author is doing next week. I took a long trip on the Tokyo subways out to Asakusa temple. This was with the plan to eat shabu shabu, one of the few Japanese cuisines I have not tried, but it was closed. :-( So, I had unagi instead. This was really only fitting since it was in fact, the traditional day in Japan to eat unagi. I also went to K-square, which is the showroom from the company that publishes one of the comics by my favorite manga artists. As before (I went to a similar showing the last time I was in the country), her original artwork was breathtaking. She usually works in watercolor, and the delicate shading of the medium gets lost in normal copies. I also had a nice chat about the upcoming signing with some of the workers there.
The next day I met Katou-san (the Japanese business men I met on the bus to Fuji) for dinner. He had just gotten back from India. I definitely enjoyed both the conversation, and the chance to try Japanese food with someone who actually knew what the things on the menu were! After a couple hours, he called his kouhai (subordinate) to come join us. Even though it was almost 10 pm, Yamamoto-san was still in the office. It was extremely interesting to actually watch the sempai-kouhai dynamic which I have heard so much about.
A final note that will probably mainly be appreciated by my aunt who lives in Baltimore, and my friends who have seen the show Tenshi ni Narumon. One day this week while eating lunch, I saw this little boy running around Queen's Square and hugging to the bottom of the indoor lampposts. Once attached, he would start going "mi..mi..mi.." in an impression of the summer cicadas. After a few seconds he would then move to another lamp post. It was really quite adorable.
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