The weather turned cold and gloomy after Kanazawa. Had a long week. Taught at a high school on my Saturday, which was… and experience. I’m definitely an elementary teacher. Then took Kevin to a judo tournament on Sunday and watched kendo and karate and wandered a little festival in Kofu enjoying a bit of sun and an apple pastry that tasted of not enough sugar. Then we went for Subway and I remembered what a real sandwich tasted like before the weekend ended and led into a slightly better week. There was a full moon, a praying mantis and a cool cloudy sunset over Fuji and then it was the weekend to which I would be rewarded with!
Just in time to combat a bit of homesick Nikki arrived with all my favourites: skittles, coffee crisp, smarties, St. Ives apricot exfoliating scrub and my best friend! We had a fabulous weekend in Tokyo despite it being rainy and ridiculously warm and humid for October. We went out for ramen and curry and did some shopping and had a fabulous time!
However the highlight was the concert that I had bought tickets for in the second month I was here and back when my Japanese was so awful that I stumbled over ‘concert ticket o kaitai desu.’ Maybe I didn’t even get that out as it took thirty minutes before I conveyed to the combini clerk what I actually wanted. But in the end I had two floor tickets to see Owl City in Tokyo!
`Reality is a love place but I wouldn’t want to live there.`
Owl City is by far my favourite music! Adam Young, the singer, composer and master of every musical instrument and words, was absolutely stunning and it was such a nice cozy venue! So many words came to mind as I listened but now I’m at a loss for them. It’s such a magical form of music that makes me sway my hips and clap my bangled clad wrists in the air so I’m greeted with a view of Adam framed in a sea of rejoicing arms and the chime like sound of my jewelry chorusing his beautiful lyrics.
`Back and forth if my heart was a compass you’d be north
Risk it all because I’ll catch you if you fall
Wherever you go if my heart was a house you’d be home.`
Needless to say it was amazing and so worth it! During Fireflies he had the audience sing the chorus and everyone knew it! (A feat remember as I was in a crowd of non-English speakers.) As one of the songs overplayed in Canada, hearing him sing it outloud to us gave it a new light and I loved it again as much as I did the first time I heard it.
Walking back to the guesthouse I could have cared less that I seemed crazy as I danced my way home twirling in circles and pulling at random fragments of his lyrics to patch together into a resembling song. It was a warm night and a shiver of past excitement still energized me as I fell asleep humming.
The next morning we went to the Sunshine City Aquarium in Ikebukuro and saw some pretty cool fish and sharks and assorted sea creatures! There were this really cute little wormy guys who peaked out of the sand and one stood alone striped orange and black while the others were sand coloured so he was really cute. And we saw sunfish which I have never seen up close before but they were huge! There was this pretty neat tank that had a cave like design and little glowy fish and another section that had all sorts of jelly fish including one that looked like red eyes. In the outdoor section there were sea lions that had this cool figure eight tank above us and there were penguins and pelicans as big as me at feeding time that dove their head in this little tank to open their mouths wide enough to eat me. But the biggest surprise and my favourite thing there had nothing to do with water! Two little fenix foxes played in a corner of a habitat with a lemur and three armadillo! It was really random but I love! foxes! So I didn’t mind that they seemed more than a little out of place! They were so so so so SO cute!!! We watched them for forever until dragged away by hunger we ate pizza and tiramisu for lunch and slowly made our way back to the guesthouse to collect our things.
Three hours later found us back in Otsuki sharing a meal with Kevin and being thoroughly exhausted. It was such a good weekend but do I ever love home! It’s nice having Nikki share it with me for a couple of weeks! A common cure for a bit of homesickness and now I can share some of my favourite places with here! This weekend I am revisiting Kamakura and Enoshima!
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