My birthday!!!

I had such a wonderful birthday weekend! Mom and Anne took me out to cake in the afternoon and then a delicious dinner on Thursday before they left. I had parfaits with Ayano, Cathryn and my EWS friends Friday afternoon. Saturday morning Rachel and I went rice planting What a unique experience!

And Saturday, I threw myself another birthday party. We had a pot luck dinner with about 15 people in my tiny room. Everyone cooked such delicious food and there was even a pile of Mister Donut donuts with birthday candles and singing. Everyone gave me a little Happy Birthday card with a personal message, pretty hair clips, and a lovely navy summer sweater! After dinner, Orion helped me with a tea tasting: genmaicha, puhyr (sp?), macha, and the homemade sencha mom and Anne and I had made the week before. Afterwards, a smaller group of us headed to a club called "World" on Kiyamachi were we danced for many hours into the night. It was a bit of an odd club but we had a good time since we were all together.

On Sunday, we went to Arashiyama to a boat matsuri (festival). We actually rented boats (Grace, Orion, Cathryn, Ayano, and Rachel) and we rowed around this wonderful river while certain special boats were performing Heian period dancing and playing koto music. It was a wonderful day out in the sunshine.

Lastly, on Monday, at EWS, my subarashii Japanese friends bought me a cheesecake, made me a string of paper garland, and sang happy birthday! After class ended, we went to sing karaoke, which I love!

Perhaps it is because we are so far away from home, but friends have become quite dear here in a very short period of time. I believe it was the same in Paris. The thoughtfulness of those I have surrounded myself with here is so striking, I find myself in a sustained state of happy awe.