Weddings, and b-day's and ballets oh my...

After last weekends travel adventures in Sado all I wanted to do this weekend was veg out and do nothing, but that plan never works out in Japan and I nearly spent perhaps 6 awake hours in my apartment this past weekend and 5 of those were spent talking to my Mom's entire fam in Portland (I hope you enjoyed your turkey grandpa:) including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins (Christian thinks I am in a pan-hehe), phew. I had a wedding party, a birthday party and a ballet recital to attend all in one weekend, waoza. Once again it was one of those unforgettable weekends.





the flower shop

The Wedding
One of the Japanese teachers got married last weekend and invited all the teachers to attend a party (not the actual ceremony) at her husband's family flower shop. It was the most beautiful amazing totally Japanese party I have been too. The flower shop called Hanaichi (flowers in Aichi) is quite large and beautiful but could not hold all of their guests so they held two different parties, the first was a more formal party with family, bosses and the older guests while the second party (the one we attended) was for the younger, fresh, hip crowd :) j/k It was amazing, the flower shop was completely decked out in the most beautiful flowers you have seen.








The beautiful flower shop



Yumiko the bride was gorgeous and wore an amazing pink dress (later changed into a her bridal dress) and her husband Toyakazu is the cutest, most gentle guy.






Yumiko and Toyakazu






At Japanese weddings they typically charge you to attend, so we had to pay 5000 yen (little less then $50) when we got to the the flower shop-but dif. worth it. They had the most amazing food-pasta, seafood, chicken, salad, steak, fruit, and little finger cakes (big cake came later). There was an announcer who said everything in Japanese so I had no clue what they were saying or what was going on. There was also a singer and guitar player who sang/played music for us, they were great. She sang both English and Japanese songs. Then they brought out the wedding cake and played some flower arranging games. Once all the festivities were over the guests were allowed to disassemble the decorations and take home any flowers you wanted. It was soo fun and amazing to see 50 people take off all the flowers and make their own bouquets. Then Toyakazu's parents came out and arranged all your flowers into gorgeous bouquets.









And with that the party was over, but my night was not.

B-DAY PARTY
We returned home around 9:30 from the wedding but that was just the beginning for Lizzie and I. We meet this American couple Casey and Mandy from PA a month ago and were invited to a bday celebration for Casey's Bday. So, at 11 we were out and about again and meet up with the party and spent a lovely evening with a bunch of strangers singing karaoke. Good times!

Ballet Recital

Mirri and her Mom

Sunday Yasuko, Charissa and I were invited to watch our students Mirri (Yasuko and my student) and Anna (Charissa's student) perform in their first ballet recital ever. It was quite the ordeal, I expected a quite little recital that was 1/2 hour long-cause these are 4 and 5 year olds we were going ot watch-here let me explain. We had to take the subway into the center of Nagoya and arrived at the Aichi Arts Center this massive Auditorium. When I say massive I mean larger then the Sacramento auditorium where I have watched Broadway shows. We walked inside and there were literally 6 tiers of seats and the stage was massive. Professional Ballet companies perform at this Center. Luckily for the kids it wasn't full, but if I was a 4 year old I would have ran off stage as soon as the curtains were drawn (surprisingly no one ran off stage). As soon as we arrived the parents found us and found the best seats for us, they moved us about 3 times, each time closer to the stage and towards the middle. The parents were soo cute, they made little bags of candy for everyone they invited with Anna and Mirri's pictures on them. There was also a mini KIS (Kids International School-my school) cheering section, I was surprised to see quite a few of our students show up with their mothers to watch their classmates dance.

The performance was about 2 hours long, and was the entire academy from the beginners (Mirri and Anna) to the advanced, so we got to see the whole she-bang. Each class danced 2 times, the first part of the recital was more technical showing off what they have been learning and dancing to the piano, after intermission was the fun part-all the ballerinas wore really beautiful bright costumes and the dances were more fun and lively. Mirri and Anna were absolutely adorable, they were the youngest kids up there and Mirri the smallest. They kept watching each other to make sure they were doing the dance correctly. After the performance we went out to the lobby to say hi, they were soo cute and shy-I have never seen Mirri soooo quiet and shy before.

And with that my crazy busy weekend was over.