2006 October 29 Sunday.
Today, Mebae Kindergarten had their annual Oyuugi Kai. It is sort of a school arts festival. The photo on the left shows the exact same hall where I teach my English class to the kids. Today the hall was jam-packed with with many parents and grandparents using still cameras and movie cameras as well, to capture the precious moments for future viewing. In fact the hall was so jam-packed, that I had to stand outside the door to take this photo. I didn't really want to go inside the hall, because it was TOO HOT in there! You can even see the steam in the air from this photograph. I only stayed at Mebae for about 20 minutes before I drove over to HyakuMan Volts, and electronics store not far from my classroom to get some essential classroom supplies. Then, I came back to my classroom to do some more research into various things. At about 17:00, me my wife and Mr. T. got into my van and drove over to the Dinos Sugai Cinema Complex to watch the new movie "The Flags of our Fathers" written and directed by Clint Eastwood. The move started at 18:05 and lasted for over 2 hours. The island of Iwo Jima has a very special meaning for me, because I lived on that island from January 1976 until December of the same year, while I was in the United States Coast Guard. The entire island is only 8 square miles big, and I walked around just about every inch of the place, finding many leftovers from the horrendous battle that was fought there during February and March of 1945. The movie we saw today, was quite realistic and graphically shows what happens to the human body, when it comes into direct contact with pieces of metal, flying through the air at very high speeds. It is not pretty. It is not patriotic. It is insanity. Even the filming locations looked very similar to the actual island of Iwo Jima. I think some of the scenes were filmed in Iceland, where they have the same kind of volcanic ash black sand as does Iwo Jima. When the movie was finished at about 20:30, we drove back to Kagura and then walked over to Kamui to eat yakitori at とりせん. As usual, the food was very good, and as usual, Mr. T. and I drank too much and started getting loud and obnoxious. Sorry ToriSen!!! We will behave better next time. Please let us come back again. Finally at about midnight, we all got into a taxi and came back to Kagura, where Mr. T. lives also. When I got back into my classroom, I discovered that I had lost my turquoise necklace. Imagine that. I have no idea what happened to it. If I can't find it before the first snow falls, I will never see it again. Alcohol can sometimes cost more than just the sticker-price.
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