December 4, 1999 - Saturday
Today I had one of those, "My God, I'm in Japan!" moments. I was biking to work and
I couldn't go my usual way so I took a detour. I passed a very traditional looking
house and a temple. I looked at it, really looked at it, and it was so typically
Japanese that I realized "I'm not in Kansas anymore." (I have never actually been to Kansas
you understand, it's just a figure of speech!) The trees and some of the shrines
in the temple grounds were covered by bamboo wrappings, but the jizo
* was covered only by the traditional scarf and apron.
Continuing the typically Japanese theme today, one of my students cancelled his lesson
due to a hangover, and then after work I went out with my manager to a sushi restaurant. Yum.
It's owned by one of my students and her husband. My student makes the best miso
soup that I've ever tasted. Once you get used to the shrimp heads floating in it, its
brilliant. She always give me some when I go there, she knows how much I love it.
Work itself was fine today. My classes went quite well, except there was only one
student in my final class. It was a 2 hour class, so I felt a bit sorry for him.
It must have been boring for him to only have me to speak with.
I came home tonight and watched a video that a friend of mine had given me. It was
okay, nothing to get too excited about... the remake of Born Yesterday with Melanie
Griffith, Don Johnson and John Goodman, answered some of my growing mound of e-mail
and then wrote this. Next, I'm off to bed!
Nighty night.
*for those of you who don't know what a jizo
is, it's a kind of statue that you find in Japan. They are a kind of memorial to
lost babies...those that are lost by abortion or miscarriage. (If I'm incorrect
in this, please let me know.)
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