November 21, 2007 - Wednesday

Rainy and snowy. Horrible weather.

I had an okay morning today. I got up at my usual time to watch the news. What wasn't usual was that Fumihiko hadn't eaten the bagel that I left out for him. Even worse, last night when he set up the coffee pot, he hadn't put any water in it. I saw the timer on it and thought that he had reset the timer for me, but nope, there was no water in the machine. It was on, but there was no coffee. On top of that, I turned on the kerosene heater and 2 minutes later it loudly complained that it was empty. Argh. It's bad enough that there wasn't any coffee, but no kerosene either? Luckily we still had some on the balcony. I showered and got ready for my day. I had a light lunch around 1pm, did up the few dishes that I dirtied, and got ready to leave.

I was meeting my friend Shimi for coffee. Biking to the mall was not fun. It was pouring with rain, and it was cold too. The road was under construction and was very windy in some places. Still, I made it.

Shimi and I had a good time in Doutours. I think we talked for an hour. After that, we both wanted to go to the hundred yen store, so we headed upstairs. We separated in the store, with a promise to repeat the meeting if we could next month.

I was walking around the store, looking for Christmas stocking type things, when I bumped into an ex-student of mine! We had a nice chat for a few minutes, and left with a hope that we can get together soon for a meal or coffee.

I picked up a few things at the grocery store, then headed home. I got there safely, even though it was getting dark and was still cold and rainy. Fumihiko came home early today, he'd taken an hour off work tonight. We both changed and then headed out.

For the first time in my 10 years in Japan, I went to the Bunkokaikan. That's the local concert hall. One of my students also takes ballet, and had invited me to see her recital tonight. Fumihiko got a ticket too, so we went to the concert hall. While I was there, I ran into another ex-student...one from my Sakata days, and even saw one of my present students too.

We took our seats nice and early. We were good audience members. I do have a complaint though. The seats were terribly narrow. They were obviously made for the thin Japanese people of the past, not the more sturdy versions we get nowadays. And, the builders probably never considered that a large western lady would ever want to visit the hall! When the bell went at 10 to the hour and then 5 to, I expected the doors would close and not be opened. Wrong! For the next 20 minutes, even after the ballet had started, people kept coming in. And, at two points in the production, someone's cellphone rang. I can sort of understand the first time if it was an accident, but twice? It sounded like the same ring, although it is possible that it was a different person's phone.

The ballet was done in two parts. The first half was mostly the ballet students, the little'uns. They were trying so hard and were cute. I saw my student and she did very well. The first ballet was Snow White. There were a few adult dancers, but mostly it was the children. There were no little boys. A bit sad that! After the intermission, ballet changed. I can't read the programme so I don't know if the adults were students, teachers, professionals or what, but it was "grown-up" ballet. They didn't do full ballets, just excerpts from some. It was all very beautiful, but a bit boring. I'm afraid that I dozed off a little in places. I love ballet, I really do, but the hall was hot and we were quite far away from the stage.

After the ballet, we left the concert hall to a white world. It looked like there had been a hailstorm while we were inside. We got to the car and then decided where to go for dinner. My first choice place was already closed, so we went to M's Dining for pasta.

We came home via the grocery store where I bought stuff for our dinner tomorrow night. Yep, I'm going to attempt cooking again.

We watched Desperate Housewives and I had a diet root beer, while Fumihiko had the real thing.

That was it. It was a pretty interesting day. I saw and talked to more people today than I usually do. That was rather fun for me.

Tomorrow? Well, I'll keep you posted! Got to go! Night night.