Monday, June 5th, 1989

Note:  This is a series of journal entries from my two years living in Himeji, Japan (1988-1990).  I'm archiving them electronically through my blog.  Last names have been deleted and replaced with first initial only.  For details on this series of blog entries, see this post.

Friday I got some stuff done in my office.  At lunch I practiced with the jazz group.  In E.D. we applied stage makeup.  I used Chinatsu as a demo model.   Most of the girls put make up on like they were going out for a date, but some did what they were supposed to.

Before my koto lesson (which went awfully) I met Daniel M., and only because Karl's door happened to be open, & I went in.  I met Sheila by leaning out my window as they were all leaving.

Friday night I taught my 1st class at the city bldng. Y-san picked me up at 6:30.  We were early.  There are 9 students.  Of course they aren't as high level as I was led to believe and all of the material I brought was too difficult, so I had to "wing it".  Ugh!

Saturday I went to Ashiya Gawa for Mikaila's and Paula's farewell party.  We had lasagna and played Risk.  Dave killed most of my army on his first turn. 

I stayed with Kimberly.

On Sunday we got up at 7, and went to Akashi.  We met Koji and two of his friends- Miho and Kayo.  We spent the day in Kyoto.

 Japanese wedding presents being delivered to a newlywed couple!

First we went to a temple sale.  I found an antique wedding kimono for only 9,000 yen (about $80.00).

There were lots of antiques and pottery at the sale.  Unfortunately the experience was marred by a nasty prejudiced old Japanese guy at a booth I was looking at.  I saw some cute cake molds made of wood, but the guy started yelling at me.

Koji and Kayo just stood there with their mouths open- they were shocked.  Koji wouldn't tell me what the guy said, because of politeness, but only said "he was angry".  How humiliating!  (My solace is that maybe all of the people who heard were embarrassed because of his behavior, and not agreeable with what he said)(jerk)!

After the temple sale we went to Kiyomizu temple.  It's in the woods and very rustic.  The area is known for pottery, and I would have loved to shop, but we didn't.

After Kiyomizu we went to a 350 year old restaurant for Kyoto tofu (3,000 yen for a variety of tofu...).

After lunch we went to the golden pavilion...

...then to the handicraft center.  The handicraft center is a shoppers dream (or nightmare)...seven floors of Japanese crafts and etc.

  A cool junk shop we saw while driving around Kyoto!

After the center we dropped Kimberly in Sannomiya, then came home.  I had to walk from the station.

It was a really hot day, but really fun.  It was also really exhausting!