paparaziied

Woke up at 5:30, out of the house by 6:00 and drove through the dark and pouring rain to the highway bus busstop.

By the time I caught the bus I was tired, wet, had soggy socks and was ready to just go home- and it wasn't even 7:00am yet.

But, soldiered on and headed to Nagano City where I was hobnobbing with people with very important titles and self-important speaking styles.

I spent the day being followed around by two Japanese men with clipboards and cameras and a host of local media.

Everything I said they nodded and wrote down. Everything I looked at they took a picture of. It was exciting for the first ohhh 20 minutes and then it got kind of annoying. I mean when you're just standing, waiting for someone to call a meeting to order and suddenly a news camera is right in your face you get a bit dithery- should I look serious? confused? smile beatifically? definitely not bored, right?

Six foreign residents of Nagano were chosen to represent their language group (so I wasn't from Australia, I was from 'the English world') and tell Nagano City, Nagano Prefecture, JR East, Nagano City Tourist Bureau, Nagano Prefecture Tourist Bureau, Nagano Allied Bus Union etc etc how easy Nagano Station/ the bus from the station to Zenkoji Temple is to navigate for foreigners.

I think this is a fabulous idea.

I also think it would have been a lot more real if they had of picked a few backpackers off the street- real tourists, with real tourist level Japanese language skills and followed them around for a day.

Instead, in order that all the above important organisation's representatives would not actually have to communicate in any of the target languages they arranged to have 6 foreign residents fluent in Japanese come along.

So, while pretending we are completely reliant on the foreign language signage at the station we are dashing off comments in Japanese- remembering to use our politest and most showoffiest language as we are being paparazzied by the press the whole time.

Rather odd....

and for a 10 second glance at me being interviewed you will have to wade through the news slot here.

Caught the bus home in the rain and the dark, picked the girls up at 6:00pm- they were the second last kids to be picked up and Meg has satisfied her curiosity as to what everyone does at kinder after she goes home, and came back to a cold dark house in a bit of a state as K had done the morning routine by himself with the girls, almost perfect, they ate, dressed, brushed teeth and fed animals but he left their hair in the same plaits it was in from the night before. Oh well. Not bad. So tired and caught up in the evening routine I almost didn't even see myself on TV but B mailed to say she'd seen it and I remembered I had been paparazzied just a few hours before... amazing how quick the limelight fades back into teatime/ bath time/ bedtime/ night lights...

Thanks B!

time warp

Matsumoto Castle has the coolest gimmicks.

There's the free evening concerts for cherry blossom and moon viewing, the New Years ice sculpture festival, the New Years Day free entry, the horseback archery demonstrations, the kid's kendo competitions on the lawns.... and that's just the events I've been too!

But this weekend they topped anything I'd ever seen before:

Look closely....

On top of the moat wall...

That's right- a man in full samurai regalia was walking very slowly and purposefully around the grounds with lots of paused poses for us to take his picture.

How cool is that?

tuppence a bag

Remember the song "feed the birds, tuppence a bag" from Mary Poppins?

Always made me sad.

That little old woman trying to get people to buy bags of bird feed for so little money and noone buying...

We took our visitors into Matsumoto to see the castle and M remembered that I had said next time we went she could feed the pigeons.

So we did.

50 yen a bag of dried soy beans is practically tuppence these days.

But there was no little old lady to help. Just an honesty box in front of a cashed up Shrine... Beer money for the monks I reckon...

But it still made me sad...

Nothing a rousing round of Supercalafragilisticexpieledocious in the car on the way home didn't fix though!

then and now

The first time M and N played together:

The second time:

(how's the determination on Meg's face??)

And today:

Here's to many more years of fun together for you girls (and for us mummies too!)

coming home

Living at the foot of the Alps you don't get the mountain views... well you do but it's more of a head tilted right back, the mountain is blocking the view sort of thing.

That's why I love going somewhere else.

It means you get to come home again.

And coming home means:

I love the mountains in late Autumn dusk.

I don't love that dusk is 4:30...

it was their idea- really!

Well we made it.

A week of home detention.

And it has been quite easy, really.

See, the kinder's yakiimo-kai (BBQed sweet potato party?) was cancelled as it was on this week.

Meg and Amy were really disappointed

We have sweet potatoes...

and tinfoil....

and lots of fallen leaves....

I told them we could have our own sweet potato party.

"But at kinder we collected all the leaves ourselves."

Hey. I won't stop you!

They have spent two days raking leaves and scooping them into the wheel barrow and pushing them around the side of the house and emptying them into a big pile in the field.

I am feeling rather guilty at shameless child labour exploitation but every time I offer to help I get told:

"We want to collect them by ourselves".

Now that we've cleared all the leaves I am thinking it's only right that I should point out they're missing out on all that handwashing of the floors they do at kinder, too...

not that small

When I was an exchange student in Osaka I was part of an International Friendship Group. Cynical me spent most of the year poised to run as soon as they brought out the white gowns/ word from the master CDs or whatever as I couldn't believe it wasn't some kind of cult but no, seems there really are friendly, kind people who give up their Saturdays to go on outings to historical sites, village Sport's Days, seasonal picnics, tea picking, konnyaku making, taiko drum learning, kimono wearing etc etc.

All this was free for foreigners and a cover-costs-only stipend for Japanese. Sounds fabulous right? Why would I be suspicious? Well, at the end of each outing, no matter where we were, we stood in a circle....

held hands and....

sang....

It's A Small World...

Still can't hear that song without cringing!

But I've had a few 'it's a small world' type experiences recently.

#1

My boss's wife's mother and aunt (following this?) came down to help clean up after the Halloween party. Found out from Aunt that an American friend in Nagano city was in hospital. Looking at rice-farming, grandmother-of-two boss's wife's Aunt I really couldn't think how she would know funky, young mother-of-one-baby American friend. Ahhhhh, I underestimated Nagano- why she lives in the same city as funky friend's husband's (quite famous it turns out) family and is family friends with a woman M who takes funky friend's belly dancing classes and that's how she knew. And how did Aunt know that I know funky friend? Why belly dancer M figured out that I was working for her friend K who married R who is my boss. Phew.......

#2

Went to the gospel concert of a friend, K. She is an amazing woman- Montessori teacher extraordinaire, gospel singer, mango salsa making maestro and just all round fun person to be around. So anyway, went to concert and sitting next to me is one of the Japanese helpers from the English Playgroup the girls and I belonged to before they started kinder. The playgroup that was 4 whole towns away from where we are now. Said hello, did the how are you thing and asked if she was a member of the church where the concert was. Nope. Looking puzzled.... "I teach English playgroup with K three times a week." Ahhhhhh! I knew K taught playgroup in tandem with a Japanese woman. I knew Japanese woman who helped out at our playgroup taught elsewhere as well. I have know them both for years now. I just never put two and two together that women I knew from places four towns apart knew each other. Freaky...

#3

There is a rumour going around that this January a couple are moving into one of the vacant houses on this street. This is big news for so many reasons- noone moves into the old houses here (well except us and that was 4 years ago), January is mid-winter and not a traditional Japanese moving season, the couple apparently have no ties to the neighbourhood and noone just randomly moves here (well except us....), they are moving from Mie- a long way away and... the wife is American. This last information I'm taking with a grain of salt- many of my neighbours equate white skin with America in a: is white? is American. Is American? Is white kind of thing. But still, another international marriage right here on my street? So today as I was driving the girls into town we pass a Japanese guy and a blonde girl pushing their bicycles up the hill. All excited I stop and say Hi.

"Hi! How are you?" (stupid question as they are both puffing and panting and pushing their bikes)

"Good."

"This is a strange question, but are you from Mie?"

"He, is. I'm from America."

"Oh wow! I'm Heather, I live in the white house with the lawn up there. I'm so excited I met you. Everyone's been telling me you were moving in in January. Have you already moved in? You'll have to come in for coffee. I'm just heading into town now but we should be back in an hour-"

"Ummm, we're not moving here. We're just going for a bike ride...."

Oops. Oh well. Quite embarrassed, I wished them a good ride and went on my way.

Guess it wasn't that small a word after all. But really, what are the chances of a different international couple with a guy from Mie happening upon my street while I was going past?

It's a world of laughter, a world of tears...

Off to listen to some heavy metal to get that sugary tune out of my head...