Finally getting into the spirit of things...
So, this week was boring and extremely depressing. The only good thing was I had nothing to do, so I had nothing stopping me from just working on my writing almost the entire time. But suddenly everything picked up on Friday morning, when Jinno-san, the girl I met at one of the manual labor places I worked at the week before, sent Fujita-san an E-mail. She was planning on going to Kagawa Prefecture to see a light show/exhibit with some people on Saturday, and wanted to ask me to come with, but was too shy to ask me directly, so she had Fujita-san pass it along to me. (Adorable, right? Even if a little strange, since we had already exchanged contact information a week ago.) I felt a little bad because to go, I would have to skip out on a new acquaintance's mini-concert, and later, another gaijin party, but I figured there would be other chances for those, so I accepted, and I'm glad I did!
It was a small group, just me, her, her husband Akira, and one of her friends who apparently worked for Ichimiya in the past. I think they're in their late 20s, early 30s, since she said Akira is 33, they're probably close to that age too. We had a companionable hour's drive or so to Kagawa, and on to Mannou Park, where the light show was to be held. There were lights covering the grass, decorating the trees, arranged in different shapes and patters, and also scattered with special Santa shapes or lit-up reindeer figures...the sort of things you could see in America. There were lots of little stations where you can rest, warm your hands by a fire, and buy something hot to drink. Christmas music was playing softly everywhere, and for the first time this year I felt a little more like it was Christmastime, probably because it was closer to the sort of thing I'm familiar with seeing back home. I tried to take a lot of pictures, but of course it was tricky to get it right, since it was dark and the lights were bright and all...
Then we had a fabulous dinner at a mostly-fish place, and stopped by what they call a recycle shop before going home. It was full of (mostly used) clothes, movies, games, etc, but the best part was they had a TON of anime/manga and related merchandise. I couldn't find anything I really really wanted out of so much awesomeness, so I didn't buy anything, but for the first time in a while, I felt more like myself because I could weave around the store just being terribly excited about everything I could see, and even better, there were people with me to be excited about it too. ^^
We're going to karaoke tonight. Just two hours or so, but it's better than nothing. It's been far too long since I've "performed" for people. XD Besides, before Christmas is over, I want to see what kind of Christmas songs they have in the machines around here. Could be fun. ^^
Today, I just got back from the Ichimiya mochi pounding event... it went three hours past the scheduled ending time! We were moving pretty fast, and there were usually plenty of people to help with all steps of it, but I think someone just ordered too much rice to be made into mochi for that amount of time. Even just molding the finished mochi into little cakes was hard work, because there was just so much of it, but I wanted to be a good, enthusiastic participant, so I stuck it out, even though it was very cold. I was pretty proud of myself for going on that long.
I have another week ahead of me of doing very little at work, aside from finishing up my monthly report (I want to add in the mochitsuki part and also the bounenkai--end of year party--Kaihatsu Group is doing.) At least one person (family?) has gotten back to my Japanese teacher about hosting me for a homestay over New Year's break, though they can only do it one night, from the 29th to the 30th. I may accept if they're the only ones who can do it, because it's better than nothing, but I'm really hoping either someone else will be willing to go longer, or to take me in on different days... otherwise, I'll have to try making very last-minute travel plans, and the longer I wait, the more expensive everything is going to get... I may just do a bunch of day trips, at this rate... o.O
Revisions of my NaNo are going well. I'm finally naming other people and places this time around... in the interests of time I didn't bother for the first draft at all, instead saying (surname) when I needed a surname somewhere, or (forest) for the name of a forest, etc. XD I wonder how many of those I have scattered throughout the draft now? lol