De Maarten techniek

久しぶり～Long time no see! Yeah, my bad, my bad. Anyway, here I am again. I will be applying the Maarten technique in order to catch up. In other words, lots of pictures, short descriptions :P Just a note before I get started, typhoon missed us thankfully, there was a bit of a strong wind, but it didn't even rain, and the earthquake everyone is talking about is a few 100 if not thousand km from here. So, I'm fine, no worries!


June 16th: Went to see some friends perform with their bands. Here is Kento, scantly clad.

And here is Masa!

On june 20th we clebrated Aya's birthday, a friend and Sahim's girl
friend. Relatively non-eventful evening of drinking nihon-shuu.


June 22nd I went to Harumidai, to the school where Yamashita-san from taiko works as a teacher. There was a talk on peace and stuff by the woman who had survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and had quite an impressive story to tell!

June 24th was Taiko general assembly. So after 2 hours of talking about future taiko plans, the party finally got started. This lady has a grill thing right in the middle of her living room, which meant the loveliest indoor bbq I've EVER had. It was just gorgeous! Right up until the moment where they were putting lobster and clam-thingies on the bbq, zoned out after that (though I did have a piece of lobster!)



June 27th Gerrie and I went back to Harumidai but this time we gave a short presentation (in Japanese) about Holland for some of the kids. Making the presentation was fun, but actually being there and stuff was great. Played a few games with the kids too, had lunch together (Japanese school-lunch is something else!) and were then rushed off again. I will see them again july 28th, hope they won't mind Gerrie not being there (he's very good at making himself very popular amongst Japanese kids...).


We ended the day with Sahim's birthday, who had the most random selection of presents, including a working gas mask....


July 7th! Erika's brass band performance (Erika is one of my 2 Japanese tutors). She plays percussion instruments in the university brass band, and they had this huge performance thing. It was a really cool mixture of modern and classic brass band music with a hint of comedy in the middle with various student comedians doing their thing and a paradoy on Hana Yori Dango, a VERY popular Japanese tv drama/show.

July 8th was TAO! After taiko practice where I met one of the founders of our group who moved to New Zealand with her husband 2 years ago, we went to see TAO, a pro-taiko group. No pictures allowed I'm afraid, but it was véry impressive!



July 10th was one lo~ng day. I had class from 9 to 4 (with the last class being like a private tutor session as I was the only one who showed up for class) and then this last teacher coached me into participating in the origami class. Yes it was fun, but with having to work straight after that, I was well done in by the time I got home!!


July 13: I went to visit a Japanese friend of mine, she lives in the neighbourhood. The day before we had met up and gone to Biado's and she invited me and Maarten to visit her house the next day, and so off we went! See above for the result of our very silly but seriously fun night :)


July 14: typhoon day! We had been warned for a typhoon which was supposed to be heading straight for us. I got myself a few supplies and decided not to go out. In the end the typhoon missed us by far (thank goodness) and a bit of an eery sky and a bout of strong wind is all we really noticed.


July 16: Oomura!!! Kyouhei, a Japanese friend who is from the town of Oomura invited us to visit his hometown aaaages ago, and we finally found a suitable date, so off Gerrie, Maarten, Andy and I went!! Kyouhei picked us up in his big family car and we toured Oomura in style, after stopping for lunch and HUGE ice creams at the cafe where he works. The weather was a bit lousy in the morning, but it turned into one fine, fine day! Thanks Kyouhei :D

That brings us back to today, sort of anyway :) At the moment I'm really busy with writing papers, preparing presentations, I have my last exam (and coincidentally my last day of class!!!) tomorrow, haven't studied yet. You were wondering why I suddenly updated my blog? It's called postponing studying ;) Just kidding, it will be fine, have a whole day to study still, and I don't think it will be that bad, have paid attention in class and stuff! So yeah, the semester has come to an end. Next week is our big presentation (I'm doing mine on wadaiko) and I have to hand in another paper (all in japanese, of course) in about one and a half weeks time, so busy busy busy!! Coming sunday I have another taiko performance, there are birthday and good-bye parties coming up, the weather is getting hotter by the day, and the time in Japan getting shorter and shorter. Less than a month to go! So far the plans are leaving Nagasaki on the 12th, visiting Risa in Osaka, and then my flight leaves the 14th. Then it's sleeping in the guest room of my parents house for 2 months, because I also have a room in Leiden now!! Okay that was a very illogical sentence. Let me explain, I can't move in to the room until the end of October, BUT, at least I have one, I'm not going to be homeless, yayy :D Alright, enough babble, on with the studying. See you guys soon!

x Jenn