Saturday, September 17, 2005

Saturday Night Fever

One of my student's does traditional Japanese dance and she gave me tickets to see her perform at a concert. So in the morning, Cheryl and I headed to the 'Kobe Culture Hall'.

We watched a few performances before my student came on. There were group and solo performances with beautiful kimonos, smoke machines and lighting effects all accompanied with traditional Japanese music. Many of the performances we saw were older women who probably did dancing as a hobby and even though they were out of sync, they looked like they were having a good time.

It was quite amusing when one older lady yelled out across the silent hall from behind us. Her friend had just come on stage and she yelled out something along the lines of "Good luck! Give it your best!"

My student was amazing. Her kimono was far more elaborate than all the others we had seen so far. She was done up like a maiko (apprentice geisha) and did not look like one of my 17 year old students. After her performance we took photos with her backstage and gave her some flowers and chocolates. We met her family, who ofcourse thought I was just another student and Cheryl was the teacher.



Then Cheryl and I went into Sanners and she showed me where LUSH was. Just the smell of the shop reminded me of shopping back home. We were there so Cheryl could pick up a birthday present, however we both ended up getting something for ourselves; delicious honey soap and a matcha (green tea) face mask.

That night I met up with Hana, Sam and Leigh for dinner. I also met Rachel (a new Kobe JET from the US) and Miwako (? their Japanese language exchange friend). We went to Sapna, an Indian restaurant with a really good and inexpensive mini course set. It said 'mini' but I was stuffed and the lamb curry actually had nice chucks of lamb in it. Along with the nan, rice, salad, a piece of tandoori chicken and a cup of chai at the end - it was perfect.

Afterwards we made our way to Polo Dog for some drinks. It was nice to meet a lot of the new Kobe JETs and they were out in full force that night. Highlight would definately have to be Sam's danceoff with the random, older Japanese guy (acutally I have met that guy in Polo dog before, he speaks good English) to Michael Jackson's 'Beat it'. They had us in stitches! You didn't need David Bowie to call this danceoff, it was simply GOLD! Everytime I need a good laugh, I can just watch the video footage I got on my camera.

And the older lady (we affectionately called 'Grandma') with lovely, long, grey curls gets RESPECT for giving Sam a run for his money with her booty shaking moves. This obaa-san could seriously bust a groove.

Rubbing the monk's newly shaven head for good luck.

Scenario: Dragons

Scenario: Ugly crew of pirates

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