The past couple of days at work have been pretty nice. I've been working on various collages for the upcoming 4H conference in the states. We even had a day where we rearranged the whole office and I was in charge of shredding all the old files they hadn:t gotten around to disposing of. I've gotten into the habbit of going somewhere in shibuya or ikebukuro after work, even though after about an hour of being alone in the crowds I start to feel lonely and make my way home. I think one of the most facinating things is going into Seibu or 109 where there are so many little stores that are style specific and have some outragous things. But my problem with clothes shopping in Japan is that I don:t have a Japanese figure. It:s very frustrating, but good for my wallet i suppose.
Yesterday was a pretty exceptional day though. I woke up kind of late, ate a piece of toast and then my host mom and I hopped on bikes and rode to the train station. (the best part about riding bikes in japan is that it is SO FLAT) From there we went to Nerima where we switched to the Toei Oedo line and got off at Hikari Ga Oka. From the platflorm we rode up the escalator 4 floors through an enormous shopping center to the NHK floor and where I will be having my Japanese woodcut classes. My host mom and I had the opportunity to watch in on the class for about an hour and a half before deciding to take it or not. The professor is a very skilled artist as I mentioned before and the class has 5 students (not including me) which means I will get an opportunity to have one on one time with him, but unfortunately he doesn:t know any english, so I've got to work my hardest to communicate with him. But it:s a visual class, so I'm hoping it will be easier. I:m looking forward to starting a week from next.
We grabbed lunch in the mall before making our way to the nearby park. Okay..little history lesson: Hikari ga Oka used to be a WWII army base that remained there for quite a while afterwards (as occupation) before being turned into a huge park with a library, sports center and bird sanctuary. Surrounding this park are several skyscraper-like appartments whose occupants rush to the park on a nice saturday afternoon like yesterday. It was really nice to be around trees and to be in a park atmosphere.
from there I went straight to my hippo family activities in Hibari ga oka (not to be confused with the place mentioned above...Hikari ga oka...confusing? tell me about it!) At hippo we spend about 45 minutes dancing to various songs (with really interesting coriography) and then we try imitating stories in various languages (including english and japanese which we all get a good kick out of acting out very dramatically), we try to recite stories in other languages without the cd and then it:s sharing time. Our evening clubs have a lot of members so our meetings usually run from 7 to 10 (which is pretty long for hippo). We have a large number of highschool and college age kids in our club, which seems like a huge advantage, but right now it feels more like tease. I miss my friends in Boston and Maine all the time but on saturdays it seems to feel real serious. I cant talk with anyone my age, i don:t know what to say or talk about, and they are extremely shy towards me. It makes me feel kind of sad since all I want to do is be friends with them but the obsticle seems much bigger than i had imagined. I just keep telling myself to be patient, it will all come in time. Afterall, this month gives me some opportunities to get to know them outside of Hippo. I'm going to a Barbaque with some hippo members, visiting a printmaker's house with Yuyu's friend and her daughter, and I'm going to a hippo member's double touch tournament (if his team wins they go to the world championship games in NYC). I'm looking forward to all of this and hope that it will break the ice a bit.
today I'm going to the Kabuki za in Ginza to see a Kabuki play with my host mom and Waka chan. I'm really excited to watch kabuki since it's so beautiful and interesting. its long though...its like 4 hours of old Japanese (like shakespeare..but japanese) but it should be a lot of fun.
anyway, i should grab some lunch. we need to be on our way in a little bit.
ja ne!
Jess
Yesterday was a pretty exceptional day though. I woke up kind of late, ate a piece of toast and then my host mom and I hopped on bikes and rode to the train station. (the best part about riding bikes in japan is that it is SO FLAT) From there we went to Nerima where we switched to the Toei Oedo line and got off at Hikari Ga Oka. From the platflorm we rode up the escalator 4 floors through an enormous shopping center to the NHK floor and where I will be having my Japanese woodcut classes. My host mom and I had the opportunity to watch in on the class for about an hour and a half before deciding to take it or not. The professor is a very skilled artist as I mentioned before and the class has 5 students (not including me) which means I will get an opportunity to have one on one time with him, but unfortunately he doesn:t know any english, so I've got to work my hardest to communicate with him. But it:s a visual class, so I'm hoping it will be easier. I:m looking forward to starting a week from next.
We grabbed lunch in the mall before making our way to the nearby park. Okay..little history lesson: Hikari ga Oka used to be a WWII army base that remained there for quite a while afterwards (as occupation) before being turned into a huge park with a library, sports center and bird sanctuary. Surrounding this park are several skyscraper-like appartments whose occupants rush to the park on a nice saturday afternoon like yesterday. It was really nice to be around trees and to be in a park atmosphere.
from there I went straight to my hippo family activities in Hibari ga oka (not to be confused with the place mentioned above...Hikari ga oka...confusing? tell me about it!) At hippo we spend about 45 minutes dancing to various songs (with really interesting coriography) and then we try imitating stories in various languages (including english and japanese which we all get a good kick out of acting out very dramatically), we try to recite stories in other languages without the cd and then it:s sharing time. Our evening clubs have a lot of members so our meetings usually run from 7 to 10 (which is pretty long for hippo). We have a large number of highschool and college age kids in our club, which seems like a huge advantage, but right now it feels more like tease. I miss my friends in Boston and Maine all the time but on saturdays it seems to feel real serious. I cant talk with anyone my age, i don:t know what to say or talk about, and they are extremely shy towards me. It makes me feel kind of sad since all I want to do is be friends with them but the obsticle seems much bigger than i had imagined. I just keep telling myself to be patient, it will all come in time. Afterall, this month gives me some opportunities to get to know them outside of Hippo. I'm going to a Barbaque with some hippo members, visiting a printmaker's house with Yuyu's friend and her daughter, and I'm going to a hippo member's double touch tournament (if his team wins they go to the world championship games in NYC). I'm looking forward to all of this and hope that it will break the ice a bit.
today I'm going to the Kabuki za in Ginza to see a Kabuki play with my host mom and Waka chan. I'm really excited to watch kabuki since it's so beautiful and interesting. its long though...its like 4 hours of old Japanese (like shakespeare..but japanese) but it should be a lot of fun.
anyway, i should grab some lunch. we need to be on our way in a little bit.
ja ne!
Jess
ps. check flickr
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