Tuesday, November 30, 2004



I was going to write this blog much earlier yesterday as my morning schedule was empty at work, but I ended up with a 7 page technical report to proof read. A technical report that was amazingly written. I was hugely impressed and told him that. Only MINOR a/an/the mistakes and a few count verses non-count problems. His picture inserts were great. I was VERY happy.

Anyway, now for the weekend blog.
I had a very good weekend.
First the weather was AMAZINGLY beautiful!!! Cool, crisp, yet warm in the sun and totally clear. A perfect fall weekend. Ahhhh. The best was being able to wash my clothes and hang them out side. The weather was sooo perfect they dried in 10 minutes. Way better than any drying machine.
Then Kim phoned me and invited me along to a supermarket called Big Fuji. A wonderful place out in Yaizu that is just a tad far to bike to but I have done it a few times before, not pregnant. This place is only open on weekends and their meat is soooooooo cheap. Which rocks as the normal supermarkets are soooooo expensive right now. I filled up my freezer nice and full with steak and hamburger and also bought some fresh veggies, all for only 50 bucks. I have been spending almost double that at the local supermarket on almost NO meat and the basic veggie and house stuff. NICE.....
Li thought so as well when he came home and cooked himself up a fresh steak for dinner.
I then went to Japanese class and felt really good about it.
After I came home and did some speed cleaning as Jean and Kim were coming over for a girls night. We ate too much chocolate, popcorn and Li cooked us up some cool stuff. He makes this great plate of quick fried peas and lotus root. NICE. Plus he has been working on perfecting the art of a simple tomato and onion salad.
Jean was great as she showed up with a bunch a free baby stuff for me - a pink and wicker bassinet, 5 baby bottles, an in the microwave bottle steamer and some mattresses for the bassinet. PERFECT! Plus word from the neighbor who gave her most of the stuff that she has more stuff to give, please let her know. YA!!!!
Free is always good.

Sunday Kim, Li and I headed out on a hour and 20 minute train ride to Mishima to visit our friend Dan and check out the shrine and park. The park had a special Mum flower show going on. This weekend was the last weekend and the flowers were not looking perfect but it was still pretty neat. The mums were trained into some interesting shapes and were growing on these miniature houses. The look was even more perfect with the Maple trees all in their fall red clothes. Lovely pictures.









We went on a beautiful walk around the lake and Li was mauled by a slightly aggressive swan. There was also a small zoo that had these lovely prairie dogs and this OVERLY cute panda thing. It was soooo adorable I actually thought it was fake!!!





Then we headed over to Mishima's huge shrine. This place was beautiful. It is also fairly large. They hold a famous Matsuri every year during the Summer Obon festival. They also do this Matsuri that involves horses and bow and arrow stuff. Inside there was a tiny shrine that was dedicated to a horse - dont know why. There was also this large enclosed area full of deer. YES deer. Again, don’t know why. I have been questioning every student and will continue to ask around until I find out why to both questions.

Anyway, this place was really very beautiful and we were very lucky as there were many people there celebrating ShichiGoSan. This is literally translated to 7-5-3. In Japan there are many age years that are considered special, and some that are not so special. The special ones for little kids are the one month baby time, and then for boys it is five years old and for girls it is three and seven years old. Well parents bring their children to the shrines for these expensive ritual ceremonies performed by the priests. Everyone is all specially dressed. A lot of mothers and grandmothers put on their kimonos and the little boys are dressed in these Samurai style costumes and the girls in the most adorable kimonos - full makeup, full hair dos and the little shoes. The scary thing is that most parents do not rent these costumes for the one day ceremony, they buy them. My one students whose daughter is seven this year spent 2500$ on his daughters kimono that she will never be able to wear again due to growth. Even though they are scary expensive they are all soooo beautiful and it was really neat to see. And sooooo cute. We lucked out to be able to see the beginning of one of the ceremonies. It was interesting to note that the immediate families were given these special white vests to wear to signal them out from special visitors.

We also spent time with Dan whom we hadn’t seen for a while and it was really nice. We probably would not see him before his birthday as he will be heading to England to spend Christmas with his family.

I had only planned to use one role of 36 while in Mishima but everything was so beautiful and I had a great time that I ended up taking 2 rolls.
I start my maternity leave holiday on Christmas Day – Merry Christmas to me – and the first few weeks are planned with many moving around things that I have to get out of the way immediately. The remaining few weeks I need to stay fairly close to home and try not to ride the bike too much. Not hugely safe when you are about to pop. I have started preparing many things for me to do so I am not bored. One of them is to do some picture scanning and put some more pictures on my pic page for you all. I will add some of the Mishima pics. Some of the garden ones were totally beautiful.

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Posted by (Top)Andrea::11/30/2004 :: 1 Comments:

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