Tags
friends, fujioka, izakaya, jazz, karaoke, maebashi, odaiba, pottery, sake, tokyo, tsuchi-to-hi-no-sato
This past month or so has been a tight one financially, what with the trip plus a plane ticket home, so we haven’t traveled anywhere or done a ton of activities. At the same time, it has been fun to relax and only have a few things to look forward to on the calendar… it seems more fun that way, since you get to wait for them and be excited when the day finally comes. Here are a few things we have been doing:
A Jazz concert on the 21st of May in Maebashi. One of Kenji’s and my old students, Aizaki-san, invited us along. The club was tiny and cozy, and we were right up with the band, who was very good. It was great to just sit back, relax, and enjoy the jazz with a bottle of wine!
That same weekend, Kenji and I started our pottery again, this time on the electric wheel. I like this much better than making it by hand to be honest… I can’t wait to see what they look like when they’re finished!
June is the rainy season, and there is something kinda nice about walking to school in the rain! I loved this spider web and the raindrops. If you look close at the last picture, there are some cute kittens hiding in the bushes. I didn’t see them on the rainy day, so their mom probably found them better shelter.
I baked cookies as “thank you” and “happy birthday” presents, etc. And of course, I ate a few myself too!
Speaking of birthdays, we successfully gave Mizuki a surprise party on May 27th! Hey Ibuki, look at the camera okay?
MOS burger and karaoke on June 5th, an awesome combination. It was a fun night! Brandt is mimicking a tambourine maniac on TV in that video!
The very next day we went to a wedding Nijikai in Tokyo’s Odaiba. The groom is one of Kenji’s old middle school friends from Seattle, and I was able to meet 4 of his old friends from that time. I really liked everybody, and the nijikai was fun! I also happened to win Bingo… the one person in the room who didn’t know ANYBODY. I got tequila, so I gave it to Kenji! I hope we can meet up with those friends again!
So, we’re moving. I’ll explain in the next post about it, but we wanted to visit our little izakaya around the corner before we moved out of the apartment. This glass (box?) of sake is what gets me in trouble, you can’t tell how much you are drinking, and they overfill into the plate as “service”! There is an izakaya across the street from our new house, but I’m going to miss this one!
Finally, another kitten picture, taken on my way to work this past week. They all popped their heads up and looked at me as I walked by, and I couldn’t resist grabbing my camera. Thanks for holding still, guys!
This month has gone by pretty quickly; we’ve been busy packing and moving. This weekend is the big one!