I forgot to tell a story about Friday night. Recently Ian bought a fancy version of Skype in which it forwards any calls from his American cell phone straight to Skype. He uses it when he needs to make calls back to the States, which prevents us from using our Japanese cell phones or having to rely on family to call about everything. Anyway…he received a call the other night from his former manager at AT&T. He had a woman freaking out about cell phone plans because her military son was being sent to Okinawa. Knowing nothing about Japanese cell phone plans, he called Ian. Ian was able to calm her down and discuss what options are available to her and her son, recommending the iPhone for its face time quality. I was so proud of him, and I think he felt pretty good to be able to help out that lady. From half a world away, Ian Reed still managed to sell cell phones! 
Saturday was a whirlwind of activity. Literally. It was incredibly windy all day. I opened the windows in the house, but soon decided to close them because the wind made it too chilly. However, I was trying to dry some clothes, so I left open a few and closed the doors to the room we were in. Our house is drafty as is, so even though the doors were shut, they were rattling in their tracks, and we still had a fairly good breeze blowing through. It sounded like our house might just blow right down. 
I learned a very valuable lesson that morning. When it’s ridiculously windy outside, don’t leave the bathroom window open and tampons on the top shelf. About a dozen of my tampons (a prized commodity in Japan!) ended up in the toilet. 
I walked into the bathroom, and the entire box was upside down in the toilet. Luckily our toilet doesn’t hold a lot of water, so the entire box wasn’t ruined. To make matters worse, Ian was Skyping his sister and meeting her boyfriend for the first time when this happened. I didn’t know that, so I walk into the room shouting about the travesty with a fistful of tampons only to see his sister and boyfriend staring back at me. Yay for first impressions!
We had several Skype dates in the morning, which led right up to 2PM in the afternoon, when we had to be at a town concert. The brass band at the JHS is phenomenal. I think that with my untrained ear, but Ian completely agrees with his trained musical ear. He’ll point out an especially difficult part to play and tell me how the band members do it flawlessly. It’s quite amazing. I will say that about the Japanese….in whatever club or activity they choose to do, they practice it so hard and often that they are darn near pros. I thought that the concert would only last for an hour or so, but it actually lasted for nearly three! There were two intermissions, but I was getting so anxious and antsy that I was READY TO LEAVE. Despite majoring in humanities and fine arts, I can only take so much of it at a time. I’ve never been that big into theater, musicals, concerts, or anything of the like. Small doses are okay, but my gosh, by hour three, I’m seriously going to be counting down the minutes! It was good to see fellow teachers and students in a non-professional setting. I saw some of the JHS kids in actual normal everyday clothes as opposed to the school uniforms that they ALWAYS wear. In addition, that was the last time to see Ms. Fuchita. Although our paths may cross again at some random conference or in Kuma-gun, we won’t work with each other anymore. She gave me a “goodbye” gift of really nice tea, which put my simple box of chocolate that I picked up at the super market to shame. Oh well.
After the concert, we went back to the house very quickly to change before heading to Kuma village to get pictures of the cherry blossoms. It’s just past Hitoyoshi, so it’s about an hour’s drive there, yet as soon as we pulled into the parking lot, Ian realized that he forgot a memory card. 
Regardless, we had fun playing down by the river climbing on rocks for a little while until we needed to leave. We had dinner that night in Hitoyoshi with Amanda, Shara, Rebeca, Justine, Mary, Krista, and Krista’s family who had JUST flew in that morning. (It’s always so nice to meet our friend’s family because not only are there new foreigners in the gun, but it almost feels like it’s our own family visiting! 
) Originally, we were just going to go to Baskin Robbins to get 31% off our ice cream on the 31st, but since Amanda’s birthday was Friday, and Shara’s was Saturday, we decided to go to dinner and then have ice cream to celebrate birthday time.
We went to a yakiniku place for dinner. Amanda had called and made reservations for us, and Rebeca brought party supplies…including hats, napkins, cups, etc. The food was a little pricey but the experience was very fun. We ordered several plates of meat and cooked them over a BBQ in the middle of the table. In addition, our meal came with salad bar, miso soup, and rice. All of us ate until we were stuffed silly, and then we went for ice cream so that we could eat again! I think Ian really enjoyed talking to Krista’s dad. There are so many girls in the gun, so anytime Ian gets to have a little guy time, I’m happy for him!
On our way home, Ian and I scared a Japanese lady…not on purpose, but it was funny regardless. We stopped at a light, listening to music loudly, and singing even louder. She was at the crosswalk, noticed us, gave a slight look of horror, and got back as far away from our car as possible. HAHAHA!! Ian and I both looked at each other and laughed uncontrollably.
Sawada emailed me on Friday to tell me about a town festival on Sunday morning. Yunomae is turning seventy-five this year, (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YUNOMAE!) and on Sunday morning, a lot of townspeople were meeting in the park to celebrate. Everyone was going to get a balloon, draw something on it, and then be arranged into the shape of the kanji of Yunomae so that someone could get an aerial shot above. It sounded like a good idea, and originally I thought yes, but the festival began at 8AM. We already had a long day ahead of us by climbing Ichifusa, and I was afraid of cramming too many activities in one day, so we didn’t go.
Our climb on Ichifusa deserves its own entry, so I’ll stop here.
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