Sanjo Rehearsal Weekend
Oct 21-Oct 22

Thursday:

After work I was exhausted! But, Ros had mentioned something about going to watch a Papua New Guinea traditional dance show, so I sucked it up and decided to go along. It was a different/strange/moving/calming and amazing show! We hung out with the dancers for a while. It was so nice to finally talk to people in English! After talking to Geo about his life as a vanilla farmer, he also told me that he spoke 6 languages. As a matter of fact, every person in the dance group spoke more than 5 languages. Since PnG has 832 official languages, it is pretty much a necessity to be a natural linguist. It was Geo’s dream to come to Japan and it had finally come true!

Friday:

I had gotten off work, once again exhausted from running around with a whole school of 5-12 year olds and all I wanted was a nap! Around 5, I got a phone call saying that the gang was coming into Sanjo a day early and we were all going out that night with the PnG guys. Since a lot of the people did the musical last year, they had already been to PnG and were good friends with the dance group already. It was a crazy night filled with hilarious stories. Example: Sam (who is basically royalty of one of the tribes) had taken a group of teenagers to Australia. He decided to take them to the zoo to let them see first hand the animals they had been studying in books. He explained lion to them: It’s like a dog, only bigger. period. Keep in mind the biggest animals in PnG are wild boars. The zoo keeper opened up the gates, the lion (which was just a lil bigger than a dog) came out and the PnG teenagers had taken off down the path, shrieking as they went. After coaxing them back over to 10 feet within the cage, Sam asked: “Do you want to see the rest of the animals?” Reply: “No, we want to go home!”

This lady was soo cool...

No caption needed

Me and Natasha...eating again.

KARAOKE

Sam choosing his next musical selection

me and Russel and our PnG beads...(nice pose Russel HA)

Melissa had a night to mark on the calendars. Hey is that guy from Papua New Guinea?

Saturday

Long day of rehearsals and long night of nomihodi and karaoke.

Patrick and Jenny (Melissa in the background trying not to get motion sickness)

I wonder what Reggie was screaming?

This is the strangest pic. Makiko is sleeping and Wil is trying not to crap himself.

Will again...

Sunday:

Some more rehearsing, Pizza Hut, and Kamo Onsen with Ros and Natasha. The conversation is always interesting with those two…never fails! And just what I needed after another TIRING weekend.

Tokamachi Pics from Last Weekend:

the group

Ha what is Decky looking at?

Lopaka/Troy and Evan @ Karaoke

My Ikebana: Very First One

Look what I found!

I got so excited I had to take a pic... Melissa had to wait while I arranged all the cans so that the label was facing front and sit in the middle of the aisle to get just the right picture! HA ha..Im so embarassing!