Outdoors club

Today was somewhat eventful. Not because things happened, but because I found out about things that will be happening.

For instance, had the first meeting of the Outdoor club at school. Back in mid-April I had given my email address to a fellow student for this club, which was really very small, I hoped something would come of it, the club might plan an event together, but until now nothing had happened. Today we met during lunch, where we looked at a few different possibilities the leader had printed out from the internet. A few were just things like go to make noodles, or Japanese candy, but something more adventurous for July is a river race north of Kyoto, in Shiga. From what I understand, you make a raft from foam and PET bottles, then race against other teams. Last year there were 47 rafts together on the river, sounds like fun, so I'll keep you posted.

Next, during painting class, we started on a flower preliminary drawing, but I didn't understand why we then painted on our pencil drawings. Turns out it was to get a rough recording of the colors before our flower wilts away and fades. Then I found out next weeks class will become a field trip into Kyoto, specifically to see a show of nihonga, and more specifically, paintings and work by Sawano-sensei himself. Sugoi! I always enjoy seeing a teachers art, it's an important part of learning, being able to see where they come from, to know them as a creator along with an educator.

Lastly, finalized plans with a classmate to go see the most recent Rambo movie as it's soon to be release here in Japan. Neither of us can speak the others language particularly well, but throwing movie titles back is always something. Foreign movies released in Japan almost always retain the original voice track and are then subtitled in Japanese, so it won't be any problem to understand. Yet another example of the pervasiveness of English here, even though few Japanese have any conversation skills because it's mostly grammar being taught in schools.