Genki Musical!! - げんきミュージカル！！

So I think I have mentioned this already, but I’m going to be in the Tosa-ben Musical that a bunch of the JETs here are putting on in order to raise money for a scholarship for a few students. Tosa-ben is the dialect here so that is what the musical is written in. Don’t worry, I have no speaking parts, I’m just a dancer. I’ll be in 3 of the dances. There is the waltz, the  zombie dance (Micheal  Jackson’s Thriller), and the finale which is a naruko (these japanese wooden clapper things) dance. We have had a few practices, and a couple weekends ago there was a dance retreat where everyone who was in any of the dances for the musical  went to this one place far away and learned all the dances and zombified clothes and made props all weekend. On the way there I left my purse in the restroom on one of our restroom stops. I had my wallet with like $200, my DSi, my Ipod, my license, ID,  and everything in there, but I got a call like an hour later because someone had turned my purse in. And nothing was taken. I swear, only in Japan does this happen, lol. So I picked it up on the way back from the weekend retreat. Anyway,  the musical is going  to be AWESOME!! The storyline is a mesh between Kochi’s most famous story revolving around the Harimaya Bridge and the fairytales we all know,  like  the three little bigs. It’s called Kanzashi Fantasy. Marisa was nice enough to translate a   brief preview of what it’s about so here it is with the flier after it:

Kanzashi Fantasy

The familiar tale of the Harimaya Bridge meets a collection of twisted fairy tales in this adventure-fantasy!

After a series of misfortunes, the star-struck lovers Junshin and Ouma happen upon a mysterious old lady who tells them that their future depends on a kanzashi hair accessory. They manage to find the legendary hairpiece at Harimaya Bridge and begin to swear their eternal love. But, before the kanzashi can work its magic, the two lovers accidentally drop it into the river! In a moment of panic, they dive in to save it.

On the other side of the river, a magical world awaits. With the appearance of Cinderella and the Three Little Pigs, Junshin and Ouma’s out-of-this-world adventure begins!

What will happen to Junshin and Ouma?! Come see for yourself!

土佐の皆さんにはお馴染みの、はりまや橋とそのちょっと変わったおとぎ話の冒険物語。純心とお馬は幾多の苦境に陥った末、謎の老婆に「将来は幻のかんざしにかかっている・・・」と告げられる。その後、はりまや橋でかんざしを見つけた二人は、運命を決定しようとするその瞬間、痛い目に合い、かんざしと共に橋から落ちてしまう。川の向こうには幻の異世界が待っていた。シンデレラや三匹の子ブタたちによる、別世界での冒険が始まる！果たして、純心とお馬の行く末は？！お楽しみに！！

Graduation

So this past Saturday I went to my Junior High’s graduation ceremony. It was pretty interesting. There was lots of standing up and then sitting down and then standing up and bowing a lot and then sitting down, and then standing up and singing songs and then sitting down, and then listening to a bunch of speeches and seeing each kid get up, bow to the city representatives, then the teachers, then the presenters, then get their diploma thing, then walk back and bow to the city representatives again, and then the teachers again, and then sit down. And all this while, just like in the dramas where there is dramatic heart-wrenching music in the background to get the emotions peaking, they had that same music playing, lol. It was very drama-esque as one student made her speech with this music playing in the background, and then as each graduating student stood and mentioned some memory about some of their underclassmen that they would remember. Then there was the slideshow of the students in their 3 years at the school. During some of the speeches I admit that I zoned out and started going over the dances for the musical I’m going to be in in my head, but when you can’t really catch all of what they are saying, it’s hard to try and listen after a while. Plus, the gym was sooooooo cold so moving my feet in vague resemblance of the Thriller dance was keeping my circulation going. No central heating in the schools is a real downer. But overall it was a pretty interesting thing.

School’s Ending

On my last visit to my junior high before the graduation, instead of having class I went out with the 9^th graders and we played a game of capture the flag. It was kind of hard though because we played in the wide open, so there was no sneaking around and no one ever really won because it was too hard to get the flags. Then in the classroom they gave me this little square tile thing that they had all written me notes on. It’s sooo cute. I think they must have found a phrase book somewhere and copied some of the phrases out because I’ve got some pretty funny stuff on it, but I love it!! One student said he was sad I was leaving and he’s out of his mind with loneliness, another said she’s on cloud nine and that my smile is sun, a couple said it’s great to be alive (I have no idea where that came from, lol), etc etc. Then one of my elementary schools gave me a notebook with a picture of me and the school on the cover and a note written to me from each of my students, these all in Japanese, but most are simple so I understood them. One kid was like, I don’t really understand English, so thanks for the chocolate. Lol. They are so cute. The Kindergarten sang some songs for Marisa and me, and I had another elementary school sing me a song that was half English, half Japanese called Goodbye Good day or something like that. Then today I went to the Kindergarten for their Spring concert, and while I thought that Marisa and I were going to be teaching the kids the song Amazing Grace, it was really that Marisa and I were going to sing it by ourselves for the concert. Lol, surprise! We were first, and then we just got to sit with the rest of the audience and watch the kids sing. They also had this really good pianist that lives here play. I think she is younger than me. Anyway, the school year is ending here and my last class is tomorrow morning at the junior high with only the 7^th graders. Then it is Spring break (for the kids. Teachers and ALTs still have to go to work).

Dead Spiders and Flying Nuisances

So recently since it has been getting warmer the flying bugs have been coming back. Somehow they get in my house (I suspect they wait around my front door till I come home everyday and swoop in once I open my door) and are annoying as heck. I just keep my pink slippers on the floor, one  in the kitchen and one in the front room, to be on hand in case I see one land so I can swat it. Also, when I am sleeping I get woken up by buzzing around my head in the middle of the night as one of the little nuisances tries to attack me in my sleep. So then I pull the blanket over my head, only to start suffocating with the lack of fresh air. It has been a rough couple of nights and the battle wears on.

Then there are these weird occurrences of dead spiders. At first I called them huge, but as Marisa pointed out to me, there are much bigger ones here, so I guess I am left calling them medium sized spiders. Anyway, I have found them dead in my house. I never see live ones in the house, only these dead shriveled looking ones that are about the size of a nickel without the legs spread out. They are just in a ball, dead, on the floor. The first time I found one I was stepping into my shower, and I almost stepped on it. It was just dead there on the shower floor. Freaked me out. Had no idea where it had come from. This last time I was walking to my front door and it was right in the middle of my hall way. I mean, I guess I can understand if a spider dies against the wall or in some corner or hidden place, but both of these were like in the wide open, where I step often. What is with that? And where are they coming from? And why do they just die in the middle of the floor?

Earthquakes and Tsunamis

Remember the earthquake that happened in Chile a few weekends ago? Well, this is the story of that weekend for me. So on Saturday, I had to go into the city because I'm in a musical that the JETs in Kochi prefecture are putting on (I'm just a dance person, nothing more, lol) and we had rehearsal for the people in the waltz. And I was supposed to be there at 10:30am. Then I have church in the city every Sunday, so I was like, I don't want to go back and forth, back and forth, so why don't I just get a room somewhere. So I started doing it at work, but then was like, I guess I shouldn't really book a hotel room at work, so I decided to do it at home. This is on Friday btw. So I get home, and I try to make the reservation online, only to discover that I had to have made the reservation earlier in the day. So I had no reservation. Then I figured that it wasn't meant to be. So I would be going back and forth and waking up extra early. Ok, so I wake up the next morning and have plenty of time to get ready because I actually wasn't feeling tired. I even had time to eat breakfast (a rarity). So I get to the station, think that I have plenty of time, and that I will catch an express train which costs more, but takes half the time. I thought it left at 9:04, and I got there like 7mins before it left (our station is tiny so it was plenty of time), only to realize that the express left at 8:53, and the regular train at 9:04. So when I thought I would get there at 10am and have 30mins to get to the other side of the city by street car and reach the place just in time for the 10:30 rehearsal, in reality, I would arrive in the city at 11am, and then get to rehearsal an hour late (11:30 - the express train takes an hour, and the regular takes 2). So again, I am thwarted. I get to the rehearsal and stuff and then it is over by lunch time. So ya, missed most of it. Then we all go eat and it is good, and I figure, I am in the city, with the day ahead of me, why don't I do stuff that I can't do while in Kubokawa. And I have been previously thwarted every time I have tried to watch a movie in the Theaters in the city, so I was determined that I would get to see one. So I check the bus schedule at the station, and have 35mins before the bus leaves to the mall where the only movie theater is. So I go to Book Off (a store that you can buy and sell a bunch of used books, manga, games, consols, etc - I love this place) which is at the station there and I finally have the chance to sell back my DSlite and get a DSi. So I do that, and it had been like 35mins exactly. So I run out and across the station to the bus terminal, and turns out the bus was like 2 mins late. So I guess that worked out for me. Anyway, I get to the mall, and to the theater. I stand there for a while because I kind of feel dumb being there and wanting to watch a movie by myself, lol. But I said, who cares, you don't even live in this city. So I look and of the movies playing in English that weren't dubbed, most had just started and wouldn't play again for hours. So I just kind of have to wander around the mall for 4 hours by myself. I ended up buying a bunch of bread from a bread store and sitting and eating and reading at a table for most of the time. After I went and bought a toy hamster from Toys R Us, lol. I go to the movie theater 20mins early and the guy said they weren’t letting people in and I had to wait a while. So I got to stand there on date night by myself waiting to go into the theater, lol. I had decided on the movie Valentines Day to boot, lol.  I am let in, and I go to the theater, and it is empty for a while and I think, well, that isn't too bad, no one to see the weird foreigner who watches movies by herself. Then people started coming in. So I guess I did finally get to see a movie too, after a 4 hour wait. Then I walked outside, and it was dark and late, and I asked this traffic director guy about the buses and he told me the buses had stopped running at that hour. So I have to get back to the station to catch my train, but I can't really figure out where the cabs go to pick people up at the mall. So the traffic director looks around and he sees this one cab on a street at a stoplight and says that one is open. So I wait and cross the street when the little man turned green, but that was also the cabs signal to go, so it was gone. Lol. Then I just start walking along the dark street until I hit a supermarket, and figure it was light enough to be seen, so I just kind of stood on the side of the road waiting for a cab to pass by. However, I have never in my life had to hail a cab down. I always just found them waiting somewhere and got in. So I stood there not knowing what to do, and 3 cabs passed me, lol. I had never seen anybody whistle for a cab in Japan, and don't even know how to do that, lol, so finally I just leaned out into the road when I saw one coming and started waving around, and the guy pulled over. And I went home. The next morning I got up for church but not in time for the 7am regular train that I always take, so I decided to go on the express again but that got me to church late even though it was an hour faster since it left at 9am. I didn't make it in time for them to confirm my calling. Which is greeter, lol. Like the only thing I can do. So I get to church late, and find out everyone is leaving right after because a tsunami was coming. Although they kept saying big wave when they tried to explain it in English (even though I understood them in Japanese) and kept asking what tsunami was in English. I kept answering tsunami and they were like, ya, that's the word, what is it in English. Lol. Anyway, they took me to the station and I was going to leave on the 1:50pm train, trying to avoid the tsunami which was supposed to hit between 2:30 and 3pm. Kochi city is at sea level. I got to the station around 1:20 only to discover  the trains weren't running. So I figured I would hunker down and wait till it had passed and catch a later train. I waited and waited and the news people showed up (shown below), they passed out free tea, made the same announcements a bajillion times, etc.  I ended up waiting for 9 hours, just to discover that the trains weren't running at all and might not even be running the next morning either. Geh. So it's late at night, and I have to go out in search of a hotel. I find a cheap one, and sleep. Not having a computer to check when the first trains left, I woke up early and headed to the station. When I got there, I found out I had missed a train by 2 mins and had to wait another hour and a half about. So I did, and finally got on a train home. I made it back at like 11am missing the first half of the day at work. But don't worry, I had filled Marisa in and she told them, and then Tagashira-sensei called me and asked about stuff. When I got back in to work, I had to fill out a form for half a day of my 3 days off left. So now I only have 2 and a half days left for all of summer when the kids are on break. Sigh. And that was my weekend.