Chapter 18- Tuesday 1st July 2008
Today was my birthday!!!!!!!!!!! “34 and Holding” as Jack would say!!! Brian and I went out for breakfast at the BIG CAFÉ and ordered our BIG DRINKS and got breakfast thrown in!! (see photos). Decided to have a quiet day as tonight was our first ‘Music Night’. We have changed our planned schedule since we arrive as things are not quiet working as we expected but we are being flexible and things are flowing really well. So we have decided that instead of a Joy of Singing course we are having ‘Music Nights’ instead.
Tonight was a ‘Harmony Night’ next Tuesday night will be ‘Gospel’ night and the week after that ‘Voice Training’ night. We are being asked to do lots of different workshops so offering them on a regular basis. A nice guy attended,Peter, an Ex-pat American who has lived here for 30 years. He runs a studio in Kyoto and has dancers, singers and directs plays etc. He really liked what we were doing and has asked us to run a series of workshops leading to a small concert. So looks like we may be visiting Kyoto on a regular basis. The class went really well and everyone had a great time with several joining New World Rhythm Chorus which starts tomorrow night. They sang me happy birthday and presented me with flowers and pressies, I felt very loved!
I took concentrated notes on how to get to class from Kobe (several train line changes- mostly in Japanese and a bit of a walk in between.) I will have to get there on my own next week as Miyuki will be home in Nagasaki and Aki will be back in Fukuoka. Brian will be coming back from Tokyo. He is doing a whirl wind overnight trip to visit with his brother Gary who is on his way back from Australia having a stopover in Tokyo before heading home to the UK. Brian’s dad, Darryl is having urgent triple bypass surgery and Gary flew there this week to surprise him. We are sending him lots of love beams.
I put Brian and I on a couple of ‘English Teaching’ websites and Brian got a call within 5 minutes of registering him and was asked to apply for a part time job on offer in Osaka teaching conversational English. What fun!!!! We are open to lots of different experiences here and teaching English is one of them.
After the workshop tonight we went for some dinner (Yep we do everything really late here- dinner at 9.30pm and I just realized its 1 am !!!!!! as I am writing this as we just got home and I have just roused on the girls and me for being up so late…….again!!!!) We stopped at a local café on the walk home to the station and it was so cool!!! It has little chimneys over the tables and they bring these little round pottery BBQ’s with hot coals in them and you cook your own food and it was just fantastic. (see photo). One of my favourite restaurants so far, (as good as Jack and Chieko’s favourite café!!) We had corn on the cob, little round rice patties that look like little rocks until they are nearly ready and then they puff up in the middle. You eat them wrapped in nori (seaweed sheets) and dip them in yummy sauce. Then we had the ‘neck of the chicken’, they eat every little bit here…….the neck is considered one of the best bits and they are not wrong………yummy! Dipped in this sauce that tastes a bit like lemon but spicy. They put a pottery container with lid in the centre, we were still cooking other stuff around the edges, and inside was a whole camembert cheese. We flipped it when it was toasted on one side and then when it was ready the waiter came with heavy clampy tong thingys and took it off the BBQ. We cut it up and it was served on toast…………all gooey and hot…………….yummmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!! It was a really nice way to end my special day. Speaking of ending the day I am going to put my foot down and send all these people off to bed as it is now 1.35am!!!! Goodnight!! Next episode coming soon……………………………………………
”MARTINSSSSS INNNNNNNNNN JAPANNNNNNNNNN!”
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