Continuing on the sports theme...

Continuing with the theme of sports, today I went with Ms Kitamura to the rehearsal of Fantasy on Ice 2015, an ice skating exhibition/show-thing that's being held in four cities across Japan. The list of stars is actually...really good.
Shoma Uno- winner of the 2015 Junior World Championships
Javier Fernandez- winner of the 2015 World Championships
Yuzuru Hanyu- gold medal winner in men's singles at Sochi
Evgeni Plushenko- speaks for himself
Johnny Weir- two-time Olympian who also speaks for himself...
(And there were more, these were just the names I recognized!)

Gave me an idea of how professional figure skaters support themselves though...and retired skaters...

We were actually at this rink for a really long time. Each group of skaters had practices of 50 minutes each and there were...five groups. And of course the athlete that Ms Nishimura wanted to interview was in the last group, which didn't finish until 3pm.

One of the younger Japanese skaters...Marin Honda.

A blurry photo of Shoma Uno.

Some weird Russian duo that did acrobatic pair skating...there was another woman with hula hoops and a guy that did backflips on his skates...

And then there was Johnny Weir who I was suddenly told I could ask some questions to after his practice was over.

Even though Weir never medaled (and some thought he should have) he's really active in the fashion world and outspoken about LGBT issues. He's also quite popular in Japan. I read on a fan blog, as I was trying to think of what to ask him, that fans met him at Narita and gave him gifts (and they also wear green rings to match the color of his eyes...)

And here's a brief video of him skating during practice.

I ended up interviewing him briefly (and babbling I'm sure; no clue how seriously he took me) about his impressions of Kanazawa (beautiful and hot) and what he wants his fans to take away from the show and his performance (he wants them to come away feeling something--anything--rather than indifference). I typed up his answers in Japanese and gave them to Ms Kitamura for her to use in her article should she have the space and/or desire. It's definitely difficult to think of new and unique questions to ask athletes: I'm sure they get similar things wherever they go. But what can you do with three minutes, really? I've yet to find out.

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文化祭！(Bunkasai--Cultural Festival Days 1 and 2) and Man I'm Tired!

So this weekend was Musashino Joshi's annual Cultural Festival, an event that all high schools (I would assume) have, where the school is open to the public and classes and clubs put on events, or set up quiz games or food booths. Essentially it's like a carnival. Traditional culture...not so much (though there are aspects of it). Mostly it's just good fun. My class was doing a chocolate banana food booth, so on Friday (the school-wide prep day, even though techincally it was another Japanese holiday) we got cardboard and began making our booth, which was Hawaiian themed. And you'd think it wouldn't take very long, but it took the entire day and then about half an hour on Saturday. (Also, what' you're seeing is Summer Uniform Form 1.5, where there's the sweater over the shirt.) But in the end the booth turned out pretty sweet, if I may say so myself: The top says Chocobana, and the sides of the poles are made to look like palm trees with a monkay on it

Enoshima: The Heavenly Maiden and the Dragon

This past Monday was a national holiday -- Mountain Day -- so, of course, Troy and I headed to the beach instead. Well, to an island near a beach since (as some of you may know) I'm not exactly the beach-going type. Plus I'd just climbed Mount Fuji, which was more than enough mountain for me. Enoshima is a small island off the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture, fairly near Kamakura. It's connected to the mainland via a bridge, so you can just stroll on over from the train station. The entire island is dedicated to Benzaitan, the goddess of everything that flows -- time, water, speech, music, and knowledge. According to the "Enoshima Engi," (a history of the shrines and temples on Enoshima) there's also a legend associated with the creation of the island involving Benzaitan and a dragon. In brief, the area around Enoshima was once wracked by violent storms and earthquakes. Eventually the tumult ended and a heavenly maiden (Benzaitan) descended from the clouds.

Homecoming

This is it. It's Friday, February 3rd and in less than 24 hours I will leave this house for Tokyo train station, which will take me to the airport, which will take me...home. Most of this week has been taken up with goodbyes: to schoolmates and teachers, and later, close friends. There were tears involved. I think the photos will do it a lot more justice than I could: Kohei, from tennis group. All the tennis people got together for dinner at an okonomiyaki (think cabbage pancake, with yummy stuff like shrimp in it) but first we went to a boardwalk which had nighttime light shows. Top: Anime Club. They threw a small party for me, where we ate lots of food and watched (what else) anime and talked. Bottom: one of my English classes. They asked me to teach them an American game for the last day, so I taught everyone how to play Heads-Up 7-Up. They were pretty good at it. The other exchange student, Nom, and my Japanese teacher. The last view of school: the walk leading u

Rice and Ramen

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