week 37 and 38

First week back at school… and no lessons all week. Someone pass the gun. Jeez! It was painful and I hated the whole week! The only excitement I got was from the gym, and tennis. At the weekend I met john, kim , beata and andy for sushi in fukui, and then on Sunday becca and Meagan came to maruoka for the hanabi matsuri- cherry blossom viewing festival. There were so many people in mauoka! It was a gorgeous day luckily and the blossoms looked super. We had tea ceremony outside infront of the castle, watched a little of the weird stars in their eyes style performances- although a lot more serious!! We then simply sat soaking up the atmosphere and chatting. It was lovely.Another short and uneventful week to report! Thankfully I had a full week of lessons and was really busy, it was great. The ichi nenseis were very genki enthusiastic and cute which was wonderful and it was delightful to teach them. They even sung loudly when asked! What suddenly makes them change into quiet, shy people?
Once again the rest of the week was filled with gym and tennis. On Saturday I met jill for sushi and coffee and some shopping in lpa. We really are creatures of habit! Then on Sunday we headed up to kanazawa on the train. We walked quite a way to the Ninja temple. This was amazing! It is an old mysterious house that has lots of hidden doors, levels, rooms and passages. Its great! It was a watch house for the city and the castle, and actually has nothing to do with ninjas! We got a tour around and had an English book to explain stuff as we went. It would have been the most amazing house to live in as a kid! The curved beams, creaking floors and the detail of everything in this place was fantastic. After this we went for coffee and did some shopping in the center next to the station. It was amazing to see a real shopping mall again- lpa is nothing! Jill then went home whilst I stayed and went to the gold leaf museum. Kanazawa is known for gold leaf production hence a museum dedicated to this art. I was the only one in the museum and I was given my own little tour, and treated like royalty! I had no idea how gold leaf was made and so this turned out to be pretty interesting! Gold leaf is 96% pure gold. It is heated and then rolled and hammered to be about 0.001mm thick- you can see through it when put up to the light. It has to be handled with bamboo instruments due to static. After looking at the information area i had the chance to drink tea which had gold leaf floating in it, whilst wacthing a lady cutting the sheets of gold leaf with bamboo cutters. Although she spoke to me entirely in japanese i was amazed at how much i understood.