Another Concert

I had my Japanese lesson with Ikehara-sensei this morning. Only four of us turned up this morning, for various reasons, including a few “I cannot be bothered”s. James, Lauma, Brendan, and I had an acceptable lesson, though we did not do anything new, just review, but that is good as well. She says that we are going to start going faster from Thursday. Whereas now we are taking three lessons to do one chapter, we shall increase to one chapter covered in only two lessons, which seems ridiculously fast. This is especially so when you consider that we have two lessons on Thursday and Friday, which means we will be doing one lesson a day. It seems like we are going to have a mountain of homework to do, but that is the price you pay for learning I am willing to pay it.

In the afternoon, I watched a couple of anime episodes and put my Japanese notes in my file. I could not find the hole-punch, though, so I was unable to fix them all in the folder. I also started my packing my taking all the cards off my shelf. I could not work out what to do next, without dragging my suitcase out and starting to fill it. I did not feel like I should start packing proper, yet, though maybe I should. I also did my homework.

I left the house at 5.30 and headed to the station, where I caught a train to Futsukaichi. There I met up with Lauma, Binks, and Brendan who were coming to James' concert too. We got the Limited Express to Tenjin, where we met up with Kimiyo. The concert hall was not too far away and we found James when we got there with Kanashima-san and her husband. James gave me his camcorder and we took our places. Not soon after, Keiko (Brendan’s ex-girlfriend), a friend of hers, and Sawako all turned up and took their seats. Brendan was sitting elsewhere, as he bought his ticket at the door, whereas James had arranged all of our tickets for us beforehand.

The concert was good and I recorded most of it, surreptitiously holding the video camera on my lap. The one time I did raise it up, one of the ushers told me that I was not allowed to film, so I just closed the viewfinder and continued with it recording on my lap. I think it shut off halfway through the last movement, though, as it juddered three times and then stopped the slight vibrating that it had been doing up until then. They sung two Beethoven pieces: the first was something I did not recognise and the second was his ninth symphony. I enjoyed it, though I prefer Rachmaninov.

We waited around outside for James, but he never appeared and when we finally got through to his phone he said that he was staying for the party. Kanashima-san and husband left and Sawako and Kimiyo went rushing off to find a giant, restaurant-coupon catalogue, which took them about 15 minutes. I am not sure why they went, either. Drummond is currently on holiday with his parents in Kyoto and Sawako is going up to meet them on Thursday. Brendan upset Sawako by telling her that Drummond’s parents are mean and that if they did not like her, they would be nasty to her. It took a lot of reassurance from Binks to put her mind at ease, I think.

We all came back on the train, in the end, after entertaining ideas of staying out for a drink. I am down to less than 100 yen now, but I am working for Noriko tomorrow, so that will get me some cash-in-hand. I need to budget now, I think, and set some aside for things that I need to do, like pay my phone and air ticket bills.