Well, I just noticed it's been over a month since my last blog entry-I've THOUGHT about blogging a couple of times a week, but just don't seem to get around to it.
LOTS of music preparation is going on right now: 1) we are preparing for "Joyful Christmas" 2008-similar to what I participated in last year. The church rents out one of Utsunomiya's largest concert halls for a Christmas program. 2) This Sunday, our school is having a culture festival with a short drama, music and artistic presentations. 3) And a local Starbucks is interested in having us (Shinya, Eriya, Hisato and me) play in their store, so we're also practicing for an audition for that.
Yesterday I went on a tour with some members of the church up to the mountains to Chuzenji Lake to see fall leaves (for those of you that know or remember, near the town of Nikko). Most of the trees were past their peak colors, but there was still some very beautiful scenery. I'm including a couple of pictures.
In spite of the title of this entry, not very surprisingly, Halloween isn't a big deal here. It's mostly seen as an opportunity to put up some decorations in stores, and sell some themed treats. As I noticed last year, some of the decorations include small trees with Halloween theming. Kind of a Christmas/Halloween hybrid-very unusual by American standards.
I takes longer here than in Oregon for autumn to settle in; the nights are just now getting much colder, but the change was quite sudden and noticeable. I picked my last green pepper a couple of days ago, so my garden is completely empty now. I thought about growing some herbs, but since I can't seem to get more than one blog entry per month done, maybe I'll skip the herbs . . .
