Holiday Weekend

It is now the last day of a three day weekend, actually a four day weekend for me since I do not work on Fridays. The national holiday is Sports Day, which is fitting, considering the way that I am spending it.

Friday, I walked five kilometers with my pack (total weight about seven kilograms) and then spent the rest of the day beginning a new drawing, playing with Tomone, and watching TV. The drawing is a composition of the ropes looped over the posts on a sailing ship. I took pictures on the deck of a ship in Yokohama and have used one of those as the basis of my picture. I'm working in pen and ink with some graphite shading added at the end.

On Saturday, Masayo and I went to a workshop on Japanese drumming. In addition to some actual performances, they showed and demonstrated various drums used in festivals throughout Japan. It was very interesting, especially since we had seen the group in 1975 in the US. As part of their training, the group runs in marathons and that year was the first time they ran in the Boston Marathon. It was big news at the time. After the show, we bought a DVD of the group and had it autographed by the leader. We told him we had seen him run and he was quite surprised. We, then, took the subway back to Izumi Chuo where we had lunch at Starbucks - coffee and a sandwich - following which I took Masayo to the art exhibit containing my drawings. In the building containing the art exhibit, we stopped at a new shoe store and I was for the first time able to buy a pair of shoes that actually fit me. They are 27.5 centimeters long and the width is size G - two sizes bigger than EEEE. They are the walking shoes I will wear for my Henro pilgrimage.

Sunday morning Ian and I walk nearly 20 kilometers. In the afternoon I tried and failed to do the NY Times crossword puzzle and worked some more on my new drawing. I have now more than half finished the underdrawing in pencil. It is taking a long time because it is a complicated mass of ropes, and the ropes are large enough that the detail in their construction (braiding) shows. Also, of course, I played with Tomone.

Today, Monday, I will walk again with Ian. In fact I am waiting for him now. He walks down the hill to my house, then we walk together up the hill to his house, and finally I walk down the hill alone for a total of just under 20 kilometers. This afternoon we are meeting some friends in Izumi Chuo. Actually they are the couple whose marriage ceromony was our excuse for the trip to Yokohama. The bride was my student more than 10 years ago. She went to Australia with us and then later took a year's leave of absence from school to stay in Adelaide, Australia, for a year. I arranged for her to be a special status student in a nursing school there. After graduation, she became a school nurse in the Yokohama area and eventually married a mutual acquaintance from Adelaide. He is now a junior high school English teacher in a Japanese school in the Yokohama area. They are passing through Sendai on their way to her home town further to the north.