Andrea's Rambling Notes - once from Japan, now from Canada

::Andrea's Rambling Notes - once from Japan, now from Canada::

My notes and my memories: sometimes about a mom - sometimes about a wife - sometimes about a woman - sometimes about our life

::Author::

Name::Andrea
From::Small city/town, B.C., Canada
I am a short girl from the west cost of BC, Canada and I am a proud Canadian. I went to Japan in 2000 because my Dad told me I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn't. He was right. I lived a good life found my husband from the other side of the world and have a beautiful daughter. Basically we lead a pretty normal life filled with normal ups and downs. We both come from different cultures: me Canadian, him Chinese. Living in Japan was a real eye opener about who I am and about the people I associate myself with. I lived and loved in Japan but the time to move on came upon us and in May of 2006 we left and moved to Canada: a huge move for us all. We are now trying to start up again, remodel our lives and create our future for our family. I now feel like a tourist in the country of my birth, my eyes see different and my life will be forever changed. This blog is my notes and observations of our life, our changes, our adventures and new beginnings. Welcome.
View my complete

::Recent Entries::

::Personal Links::

My Japanese Culture Teaching Notes

::My Family's Sites::

Alisha - a site set up by friends and family of my little sis

Phrax - my step-brother

Blue Mountain Stable

::Index::

An Index of past posts - the Japan Years

::Archives::

::Image Event Album::

My Image Event Photo Album

::My FlickR Photos::

www.flickr.com

::Tech Sites::

Tech2all

Blog Flak

::Extra Internet Info::

Canadian Atlas

National Geographic

Wikipedia

World TimesZones - please check this BEFORE calling me!

Currency Converter

eigoNavi - a pretty good language converter

The Samurai Appliance Repair Man - a funny repair site for N

::World News::

Generation Woman

Japan Times

Counter Punch

Japanese General Union - a must! read before working in Japan

::RSS Feed::

Blogarama

Buttons created with the Chicklet Creator

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Recorder concert

Yesterday JiXiang and I went to a concert.
Li was supposed to take Ji but at the last minute he changed his mind and decided that having her would make it too difficult to study. I just about killed him. I barely arrived on time due to the sudden packing I had to do to bring her with me. Good thing I am so organized.

I was dressed up a little bit. Generally there is never any reason to dress up in Japan and here they don’t dress up for things that I am accustomed to looking nice for:
Going to a play
Going to a concert
Going to a nice restaurant
Going to a work party, especially Christmas.
And so on.

Usually Li and I feel a little over dressed at these things but it is what we are used to doing and both of us consider it respectful to dress nicely for these types of events. As this was my student’s concert and I consider her a friend, I dressed nicely but not too much. It also makes me feel good. That ‘I am a woman’ feeling.

Anyway, this was a recorder concert.
The entire band was recorders.
No it was not boring.
There are about 30 people in this band and the only instrument is the recorder, thing is, there are about 16 different types of recorders. Some are as short as a piccolo and others are MUCH taller than a man. The only other instrument is a simple drum played by the conductor for a few songs. They play classical and pop music and it all sounds great.
This year the song that Hideko complained about the most was Jupiter.
-It is sooooo hard. Dududududududdududdu as fast as my finger can go. SOOOOOOO hard.
Sounded pretty good to me.

Ji fell asleep during the first half but stayed awake through the second half. I fed her her afternoon meal during intermission. She sat like such a perfect girl while eating and watching everyone going by. She was totally thrilled because we were sitting in the balcony area. I knew that she would find that much more interesting and I was right. When she first arrived she was leaning against the railing (with her pants firmly gripped) and jabbering away about all the people below her. She was quite fascinated with the instruments but was not totally sure where the noise was coming from.
She was a perfect kid until the last two songs and I decided to take her out into the lobby and finish listening with the lobby speakers rather than attempt to prevent her from talking.

She later pushed her stroller into the elevator and made all the girls giggle over her.
Later we met up with her daddy at the Chinese restaurant and she pigged out on chyahan (fried rice) and on the tofu and egg in hot and sour soup.

After that we decided to check out the toy section at Seiyu (aka Wal-Mart) and I was drooling all over the cool kids toys that Li would not let me buy.
Ji was much more interested in sticking her fingers up her daddies nose.

Return Home

Posted by (Top)Andrea::11/20/2005 :: 2 Comments:

Post/Read Comments

---------------------------------------