IrishOboe

For those of you who are keeping track, this weekend comes right after my crazy night out to dinner and karaoke with fellow teachers and right before the week of exams. Friday (Sept 23) was this Autumnal Equinox so there was no school. I slept in until 9am recovering from the night out. I had the urge for pancakes so I walked to the train station to retrieve my bike and go to the store. They were out of maple syrup so I had to go to another store and in this close comparison I was able to see just how much more expensive the close store is compared to the far store. This is part of what inspired my search for another store (which I wrote about, I think). Anyway, after a breakfast of pancakes I cleaned a bit and studied Japanese. I then took the 4pm train to Otsuki where Meagan and Chris (husband and wife fellow Christians and she’s a JET) live, so we could hang out and go to Tokyo together the next day. Otsuki is halfway between Kofu (where I am) and Tokyo so it only took me about an hour to get there and it put me much closer to Tokyo for the next day. I listened to my Japanese tapes on the train and Meagan and Chris met me at the station and we stopped for pizza on the way back to their place, which is in a lovely little spot. We had dinner and watched some movies since they are big movie fans and I trusted their taste in movies better than my non-Christian friends. First we saw The Last Samurai. I don’t know if I would have reacted differently to it if I’d seen it before I came to Japan, but I really enjoyed it very much. That is, after I determined that it had no grounding in logic or history whatsoever. It’s a beautiful fantasy story that borrows the culture of Japan for its setting. It is also a wonderful look into what is beautiful about Japanese culture. I don’t know too much about it, but from what I do know it seems fairly accurate from that standpoint. I wouldn’t, however, recommend it to children since it is about samurai (warriors) so there is a fair amount of fighting. Even so, it is 90% tastefully done (and I can forgive the 10% of it that was a little too graphic for me) and the closest you get to a sex scene is a kiss. I’m glad to know that Hollywood hasn’t forgotten how to elicit strong feelings without being vulgar.

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