New Years Resolutions

I got started on two New Year's resolutions this week:
--I finally found a music book I'd been looking for: "Jazz Hanon" (you pianists and former piano students out there probably remember Hanon . . . finger exercises!) I'm going to get serious again about improving my piano technique and theory, specifically in jazz, so I started practicing from the book this week.
--I've been working on memorizing katakana, the writing system used in Japanese to transliterate foreign words. It's also sometimes used in a way similar to the English usage of italics. I'm over half done with that. Also, I ordered a book that just arrived today. It teaches kanji, the last (and most difficult!) writing system that I need to learn to be able to read Japanese. It's the system of characters originally borrowed from Chinese. I'm planning to start that this weekend.

And for anybody who hasn't already heard, recently I was officially invited to return for a second year of teaching at UICS, and I accepted the offer, so I will start the 2008-2009 school year in April.

Snow In Utsunomiya

A couple of weeks ago very light snow fell for a few minutes, but this morning we had our first snow that stayed on the ground. Only for a few hours, but it did stay. Here is a short video that I took this morning, the first one that I've posted on YouTube for a while:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DQ7Y-HuMP0

Comments?

I just enabled the comments feature on this blog, so now you should be able to send me comments/messages directly through this site. I have at least one friend who was worried about accidentally posting comments; fear not! I have the moderation feature turned on, so I will see the messages before they're posted, and if you accidentally send something you didn't mean to, just send me a second message telling me what to delete, and I will (unless I think it's really funny, and then maybe I'll post it anyway---JUST KIDDING!).

Crispy crunchy chickeny chippy

I've seen some flavors of snack foods in Japan that are very strange by American standards including consommé flavored popcorn and curry flavored, well, just about anything curry flavored (even donuts---no, I'm not joking).

When I saw this in the store the other day, I had to buy it! "Fried chicken taste" chips. Okay, I'm opening it right now . . . it tastes... WOW!!!!!! It's pretty good! I can't say it tastes exactly like fried chicken, but it's pretty close!

Hmm....maybe I should make a regular feature on unusual foods in Japan. Well, we'll see . . .

Back In Utsunomiya

I had a fantastic trip visiting family and friends in the U.S. Here are just a couple of quick pictures, and hopefully I'll get a more complete trip account posted soon.





I took the train from my city to Tokyo and then on to Narita near the airport. My friends Mondo & Aiko met me and we visited Narita temple, had lunch together, and hung out until my plane left. The first picture is Mondo and Aiko standing in front of the main entrance to Narita temple.








One of the things I love about my city Portland, Oregon is all the beautiful lights at Christmas (and at other times too, actually). This is a photo of an old Victorian style house that is decorated with 1,000,000 lights every Christmas (yes, really-one million!).










The second half of my vacation was spent in San Jose, California with family including my cousins and their families and my uncle & aunt. The first and last days I spent there, the weather was fantastic--unfortunately, an Alaskan storm front arrived the day after I did, but that's another story... This is the sunset the FIRST day I was there.

More later . . .

Happy New Year!

This is my first post from America since . . . well . . . March, I think! I'm in the States now on vacation enjoying some time with friends and family. I spent the first 1/3 in Eugene, Oregon; the second 1/3 in Portland, Oregon; and I leave for the final 1/3 in San Jose, California tomorrow morning. Thanks for everybody who hosted me, and sorry that I couldn't see everybody in Portland that I wanted to.

Happy New Year / ake mashite omedetou gozaimasu!
and God's blessings for the new year!