Hisashi's reunion lunch

Hisashi is temporarily back from Switzerland for an emergency meeting with his office! Kyoko asked me out for lunch without tellng me that he was back and what a pleasant surprise I had! It was really nice talking to him again...too bad Takeshi is in Okinawa for a marathon and couldn't join us.

We lunched at a sushi restaurant called Little Hokkaido. Hisashi treated Kyoko and I to lunch saying that he is "very rich now". I had a delicious sushi and mini tendon lunch set that came with chawan mushi (egg custard) and miso soup.

My singing debut

So today my singing group, Dekopon, performed Edelweiss (first in English then in Japanese) at the IUJ music festival.

But first, off to feed our stomachs...nasi goreng set dinner at the IUJ canteen, which tastes nothing like nasi goreng...

(L-R): Yamaguchi-sensei (P.E.), Matsumura-sensei (Japanese), Takanami-sensei (music) and me

Yamaguchi, Matsumura and Takanami-senseis formed Kabosu (name of another citrus fruit), while Matsumura and Takanami-senseis and I were Dekopon.

Dekopon was the first act to perform, which was great because after that I could just relax and enjoy the other performances. The audience had no earlier performances to compare us to and gave us a very enthusiastic round of applause. All in all, I enjoyed the concert. At the end, all the performances were called back to the front and presented with a small bouquet of flowers. I received some light pink sweet pea flowers...very pretty...looks a little like sakura.

西山町のハクチョウ Nishiyama day trip

Niwayama-sensei took me and a few other teachers to his hometown, 西山 Nishiyama (about 2 hours' drive). Nishiyama is a really remote residential town with an aging population where there's a big lake which is home to a few hundred ハクチョウ(hakucho) white swans every winter.

Actually, there were many grey swans and various kinds of ducks too.

It was fun feeding the swans and ducks. Did you know that swans live in families and bully swans from other families by pecking their necks, bodies and tails when fighting for food?

(Yoshida-sensei tosses bread crusts at the swans while his wife looks on)

Niwayama-sensei's father feeding the swans with rice (?!) He has been feeding the swans for more than 20 years. He drives for about an hour to pick up 50-60kg of unwanted bread crust for the swans from a bakery in Nagaoka city every week. He religiously keeps records of the swans' visits and daily feeds every year. He's appeared in the newspapers as the swans' caretaker.

Traditional hina dolls set up at the Niwayama family home for the 2 granddaughters. This is a full set of 8 tiers that cost about 200,000-yen (S$3,000).

十日町雪まつり Tokamachi Snow Festival

Pretty snow lanterns in the woods on the walk to the festival venue

Big snow sculpture of hands cupping a baby

This year's stage is a replica of some famous cathedral in the Italian town, Como, which is Tokamachi's sister city.

There were 3 rather famous singers (2 enka and 1 oldish pop singer), Albirex cheerleaders' performance, and kimono fashion show (Tokamachi is famous for kimono and soba). Enka is the Japanese version of the Fei Yu Qing genre of songs. You can have a listen to a short snippet of it here if you want...it's boring though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MPNKHjzVJU

Finale

Takeshi and I with the cute Nenjo-chan (?) mascot with a snowflake head

Enjoyed the traditional tea ceremony in a snow garden. The tea is made in this pavillion and then served to us by ladies and little girls wearing kimonos.

Kyoko and I going down the snow slide in a massive rubber tyre

Shiozawa's Hina Matsuri (Doll's Festival)

In the lead up to the Doll's Festival on 3 Mar, Shiozawa town is holding a Doll's Festival exhibition. Many shops display sets of Hina dolls that are traditionally displayed in the homes of families with daughters. These sets of Hina dolls are bloody expensive! The largest set (8 tiers) costs about 200,000-yen (S$3,000), basically more than the cost of my car!

Small set in the garage of one house along the main shopping street

Slightly bigger set in a flower shop

Big set at a cake shop. It had 7 tiers. This set is more than 40 years old.

The top-most tier is always what appears to be the emperor and empress, followed by courtesans, treasure chests, wagons, cups and bowls.

No one has yet to be able to adequately explain to me why Japanese do this, but most say that the dolls are displayed about a month before the Doll's Festival and must be kept soon after the festival or the daughter(s) of that family will not be able to get married early.

Lonely grouchy snowman standing along the street

The usual festival street stalls

Daruma (dolls) for sale. Japanese usually buy these at the beginning of the year and write a wish on them. The dolls are then burnt at the beginning of the next year.

Big box of surprises!

Dear sweet Takeko sent me this huge box as a Valentine's Day present! Initially I thought it was 5kg worth of mikans (mandarin oranges) cos that's what the box said, but I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box...look!


Wow! There were apples, mikan, senbei (rice crackers), chocolates, chewing gum, seaweed, instant soup packets, canned fruit juices, beer, canned tuna, and even a 1 kg bag of rice! Her husband owns several plots of rice fields. This is officially my best Valentine's Day present this year!

Valentine's Day!

Like I mentioned last year, Valentine's Day is a day when only girls give chocolates or some kind of handmade cookies/cakes to their friends, teachers and boys they like. Guys will give candy to girls on White Day, which is a month later (i.e. 14 Mar).

2 girls gave me presents! YAY!

Saori made brownies and Anna (pronounced Ahn-na in Japanese) made some slightly chow-tar cookies.

Another student, Kazuyo, told me "Cindy is loved by everyone". Aww...I love my students!!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!! :)

舞子スキー場 Maiko ski resort

Kyoko, Takeshi, Seki-san, Manami and I set off for Maiko at an unearthly time of 7am today. We wanted be there before the crowd gets in. Great ski resort...big with many courses (but not too big that it would be impossible to find each other), good fresh powder snow from last night but it was cold with occasional snow and very low clouds obscuring our vision.

Kyoko

Takeshi

Me

After a happy but tiring day of skiing, we went to a hotel with a fantastic onsen bath on the rooftop. Photo isn't very clear cos it's taken with Kyoko's cellphone (which is clearly not as good as mine! ;P) under low light conditions. There's a large rock onsen bath with a spectacular view of the town. 気持いい (kimochi ii)! Feels good!!

What better way to finish off a great day like this than to pig out at a big korean dinner at an authentic korean restaurant! Now I know how Japanese spoken with a Korean accent sounds like. ;P

六日町 雪祭り Muikamachi Snow Festival

Freak winters while I'm here: last year we registered one of the 3 highest levels of snowfall in Japan's records...and this year is setting the record for the least snow for our area. Nevertheless, the much-anticipated annual Snow Festival must go on. The grand castle stage could only be partially built with snow...and even then, it was some rather dirty snow probably dug up from some rice field.

The kamakuras (igloos) were still around. Many of them are shops.

Michiko in her kamakura boutique
An art gallery kamakura (this artist does Japanese and Sanskrit calligraphy)
(L-R): James, Kyoko, Takeshi and I in Kyoko's kamakura which has closed shop for the day
Beautiful candles lighting the way along Kamakura Alley
A kids' film corner with a beautiful candlelight panel
Genki Panda-san touting the renowned local brand of sake 八海山 Hakkaisan sake in the Food Alley (I kid you not, the Hakkaisan brand of sake is well-regarded throughout Japan)
My friends and I with Hakkaisan Panda-san (not sure who the girl is though...she just ran in when she saw us taking the picture)
Fire poi (fire performance similar to the Maori poi dance, except with balls of fire in place of the furry poi balls)

Surprise birthday party for Takeshi in Kyoko's kamakura

The grand finale - fireworks! And the snow decided to join in the show. This is Phoenix fireworks series...meant to inspire local residents to move on from the devastating 2004 earthquake in the area.


video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPReFHf0Ugw

Passed!!

I passed level 3 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT)!!

Ta-dah! My certificate...

Congratulations also to the amazing Con-chan who passed Level 1 (better than native speakers' level...seriously, my Japanese friend who helped me with my studies looked at the level 1 questions and said she wasn't sure what the right answer was) with an "ok" score (read: fantastic score...she's mastered the Japanese trait of being very modest...and you need at least 70% to pass level 1). コンちゃん、おめでとう　ございます! すごい　なあ!

ありえない!! ARIENAI!! UNBELIEVABLE!!

The most unbelievable thing happened to me today...it's still sinking in...

This afternoon I accepted a seemingly innocent invitation by the music teacher to attend her music class with the first-graders. When the lesson ended, I was made to stay to join Matsumura-sensei for her vocal training session. Simple ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah (in an increasing pitch) type of exercise, with music teacher playing the piano (she's a professional opera singer by the way). Then, we moved on to singing "My Way", opera style (?!). ありえない! Unbelievable!

Matsumura-sensei found it hard to keep up singing in English so we tried singing the Japanese version (yes, there are Japanese lyrics for My Way!), which I succeeded in cos the pace of the song was slow enough. Jubilation all round! Wow, I sang an entire song reading it completely in Japanese! ありえない! Unbelievable!

Then, we sang what you guys would know as "Sukiyaki" but the actual Japanese name is different, and a couple more other songs. But before I could say "Thank you very much, I really had a good time", I was suddenly part of a 3-girl choir group called デコポン Dekopon (a kind of orange which is frightfully ugly and expensive but is very sweet). Check it out...the cheapest kind of dekopon: 2 for 498-yen (about S$7)...expensive ones are sold singularly.
And worst of all, we're gonna perform at a music festival on 24 Feb! Music teacher/opera singer is registering us for the festival tomorrow! Of course I tried to refuse...but those 2 overly-enthusiastic dekopons just don't take no for an answer and kept saying "ok! no problem!". Oh...my...god...

How did I go from being a closet bathroom singer to a reluctant member of a 3-girl choir group that's performing at a music festival in 2 weeks' time within 2 hours?!?!! ありえない!! UNBELIEVABLE!!

ミナミ スキー場 Minami ski resort

Beautiful view

Abe-sensei and I

It was coooold...hence my "The Fly" look