When we arrived in Kichijoji, Jun (Keiko’s partner who is a pianist and singing teacher) asked me if while we were here I would be able to help him with his English. I said of course I would and so today was the first of these ‘English Lessons’. When we sat down to discuss it, he said he was mainly interested in practicing his intonation and pronunciation. Jun has a fascination with language and has learnt several, French, Russian, Polish and of course English. He has quite a good vocabulary, but like most Japanese trying to speak English, it’s the pronunciation and rhythm that is tricky.
So we sat down for an hour reading over his text book, making corrections to the English as we went along, and recording my readings so he can study at his leisure. Though the textbook which is a music theory textbook is so technical, I struggled with making any corrections, firstly because it was already translated quite well, but also because the concepts and language are beyond me.
Later that morning, we went out with Mari to purchase the Shinkansen tickets for our trip to Kyoto. While we were there we also bought a ‘Suica’ pass for the kids and myself. It’s a smart card that acts not only as a train pass, but can be used at many other places such as, buses, taxis, kiosks, convenience stores, vending machines, as well as our new favourite shop, Yodobashi Camera the huge electronics department store and I’m sure many more stores that we’re unaware of. Grant was super excited to get one, but when Mari told him that it could be ’re-charged’ and used at the kiosks, a light bulb lit up above his head. ‘Wow, my own credit card’. I did warn him though, that if he went wild at the shops and kiosks, when we travelled by train next, he’d be left behind at the train station on his own.
The cards are great and work very simply. As you go through the gates, you wave the card above the scanner at the front of the gate, then as you walk through to the end of the machine, it gives you a readout as to how much money you just spent and how much you have on your card. As the kids go through, to distinguish between adults and children’s cards, the gate machine makes a very cute, ‘tweet tweet’ sound. The first few days in Tokyo before we found out about the passes, we kept hearing the tweet and wondering if the stations were full of birds!
Around lunchtime, we’d decided to give one of the Kichjoji ’Cat Café’s a try. Tokyo is a huge city with many of it’s population living in apartments and condo’s, and as such, there are a lot of people out there who would love to keep a cat, but can’t. So in Kichijoji and I’m guessing in many other well to do suburbs of Tokyo, Cat Café’s have sprouted up offering patrons not only a coffee and cake, but a cat to sit on your lap and pat and play with, while you’re there. Now I have to say, that this sounded like heaven to Zoe and so Mari offered to take us to one today. However, it wasn’t to be today. On the way there, we were passing under the railway line at the end of the station and saw a group of people peering through a line of signs and trees into a small alcove. As we got closer, we heard what was the sound of a kitten in distress. The people surrounding the area had tried to rescue a kitten stranded there since about 8am this morning (so the florist said) and no one could get into the small area to help it.
Now, Mari is a bit of a cat lady you could say. She has one cat of her own, but feeds many stray cats in the neighbourhood, and as we found out her friend is the local ’cat rescue’ lady, so she quickly got on the phone to her. In the meantime, Grant realised he was the only one who could fit between the signs and trees and so squeezed through to where the kitten was. Unfortunately, the kitten was very wet, cold and frightened so when Grant got near it, it went into protective mode and wouldn’t let Grant near it. So he came back out and we waited for the rescue lady to arrive. Grant and I went off to do a quick shop as she was going to take 10 – 15 mins to get there, while Zoe and Mari waited there. By the time we got back, she still hadn’t arrived, but as we got closer we saw Zoe standing there cuddling the kitten!
When I asked what had happened, Mari the cat whisperer, said she made noises like a mother cat (shrug) and the kitten came over to her. Zoe says that’s not quite how it happened, but it was pretty close. The kitten was shaking and in a bad state, but luckily the rescue lady finally arrived. Her and Mari whisked the kitten off to Mari’s house and then off to the vet for a checkup. Zoe was slightly disappointed that we didn’t end up at the Cat Café, but was excited about rescuing the kitten. Also when she heard that the rescue lady had over 30 cats at her house at the moment, and couldn’t take any more, she was overjoyed that Mari would have to look after it until they found it a new home. Which, by my recollection would be very soon as the kitten has the most gorgeous colourings and is so cute, it will be snapped up once it has recovered. Needless to say, Zoe’s offered to adopt it and bring it back to OZ with us!
After a quiet lunch, the kids went back to Mari’s to see the cat, but were disappointed that it was still at the vets. They stayed and spent a bit of time with Mari while I did a bit of cleaning around the house.
The major event of the day was the Seikei Cowra Exchange 40th Anniversary Dinner. The dinner was held at the Meiji Kinenkan, a multi-story reception centre with a large amount of function rooms and many other functions being held the same night as ours. We saw at least one other wedding reception on our floor and one on the floor below. It was a real bonus to be able to see so many ladies dressed in beautiful kimonos.
The night started out with drinks and greetings and a few official speeches. After dinner all the past and present exchange students were asked to go up on stage and sing Waltzing Matilda while Jun accompanied on the piano. Zoe and Grant got to drive the projector which displayed the words to the song for the ‘audience’ to sing along with us. It was lots of fun, and the rest of the night was spent meeting old friends and teachers, while watching a power point presentation of photos from years gone by and reminiscing the night away.
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