Japanese Performing Arts

October 26-28:

Wow, what a weekend it was in Sasebo. I barely got home at all. On Saturday, I went on a tour with FIS (Friendship International Society), the group who sponsors my Japanese lessons. We visited Hirado, then wandered to the next island over, famous for a giant statue of Budda:

And also for a scenic road/trail called the Kawachi Pass:

Though the pictures pretty much speak for themselves, it was very much like being in Scotland again. We had a picnic in the pass, which was lovely, then went on to a small town to take in a local festival.
Our guide, a native of the town we were visiting, said that the festival was a local harvest celebration, held every year to thank the sea god for all the fish they had caught. Usually, there's a Kabuki play involved, but this year, it was "just" some traditional Japanese dance:

We were also told that the dancing was all done by local ladies. I thought it was quite good. Definetely worth the trip.
Also, in Sasebo this weekend was a festival called Yosakoi. The Navy ladies have been getting excited about this festival since early September. Yosakoi, as they described it, is a dance festival. Tons of dancing groups come to town and they (you guessed it) peform dances all over town. While all this is accurate, it doesn't really do the festival justice. It's a very difficult thing to describe, but I'll start with what I know: marching band (sorry for those of you who aren't band geeks). Think of it like a band competition at a high school: there's people in funny outfits wandering around, there's a big arena where people are performing, and lots of other people running around helping get the uniformed people where they're going. Now make the high school a whole city, add two more arenas, and close off a few roads for good measure. Have the uniformed folks running from stage to stage and dancing on the closed roads in between. You'll be getting closer to what Yosakoi is like now. Here's a picture of the main stage from above:

In my head, I had imagined that the dancing would be of a relatively modern sort based on what I see kids doing in parks occasionally. I had also figured the dancers would be college/high school aged. In fact, while some of the music had a modern spin to it, and the moves reflected that, mostly it was a more traditional form of dance, I would say. Also, the dancers ranged in age from just old enough to walk to old enough to be grandparents. Here are some of the pictures, but they don't really do the thing justice. It was a really cool weekend.

Soon to come: Halloween pictures from three parties (more than I've ever been to in one year in the States), and pictures of Dory in her Halloween costume.

Reasons they're not up yet: Grad school, grad school, substitute teaching, grad school, a speech contest, nanowrimo, and grad school. Stay tuned...

Cruisin...

Well time just has been flying along. I'm working on my ARP for my master's degree, lesson planning on the fly, and singing a lot recently, too. I joined the choir at church awhile back, and they invited me to join a Christmas Caroling group for the holiday season. Who doesn't like to sing Christmas carols, right?
And just because I had discovered that I'm now officially home only two nights a week on average, the ship's family readiness group was in desparate need of a President, so now I'm doing that too. (It was either me, or the whole thing would fall apart, apparently.) I know that the family readiness group is supposed to support the families, and that ours is clearly not terribly active, but that's about it. How we go about supporting families? No idea. Luckily, the current ombudsman used to be FRG President, and she's happy to help... or basically just tell me what to do... which is what I really need anyway, so I'll be helping to raise money for and plan a Christmas party on top of everything else. I wonder if it's my job to contact Santa...
As a reward for burying myself in random projects, I got great news from Zack last night. We officially have permission to take our Christmas vacation: a Cruise through New Zealand and Austrailia. I'm super excited, and now I get to plan all of that, too. So far, I have the cruise booked and Dory's trip to the kennel: she got the last kennel spot available for the dates, so we found out just in time.
The funny thing is the more I find that I "have to" do, the more I find myself capable of getting done. Granted, I have been resorting to planning lessons in the morning on my way to school (which I NEVER could have done in the States) from time to time, but I get a lot accomplished in the average day now, so life is good.

General News

So this week I started teaching daily. I'm subbing for another teacher at the Junior College until November, so suddenly my mornings are gone. I can't figure out how I used to teach full time and still have energy to walk the dog at the end of the day. Good thing Dory still refuses to take walks here. I think she's afraid the house will disappear or something.
Zack is gone again. He called me a few days ago with two important pieces of information: 1. He passed a major inspection with flying colors thereby winning the approval of his CO for at least another 24 hours, which is a major major major relief because this was causing a lot of stress. I don't claim to understand all the details, but I know that their ship now qualifies again for the Blue E, which is a big award for a ship. So go Zack! 2. He was on his way into Disney Tokyo. I promptly went to MWR and signed up for two trips in November to make myself feel better.
Other than that, life proceeds quite normally. It's FINALLY starting to cool off, so I'm not using the AC so much. I'm almost done with another class for my graduate degree, and I've also teach two private classes a week now, one of which is in my house, which means I suddenly feel required to keep the dust out of my downstairs. This could be a full time job all by itself. So the time is going quickly. I'm not entirely sure where my September went, but I'm pretty sure October will go much the same way.