We got to sleep in a little bit on Monday, and then we headed to Kobe to do a little shopping and see a concert put on by Kuniko’s school’s music students. I was eager to get in a little culture – Kuniko’s school has become my primary source of culture lately.
After doing a little bit of shopping, and having some yakibuta donburi for lunch, we headed to Kuniko’s school so that she could take care of a few things before the show. Then we walked back down the hill to the concert hall and went inside.
The concert hall was pretty small. It was, like a lot of Kobe, underground, so we went down some stairs into the hall and took a seat near the back. We looked through the program until the show was ready to start, and Kuniko smiled and nodded at students and co-workers who were giving us curious looks.
There were 32 students in the class, and each one was set to perform. They had each picked a different instrument to play, and I was looking forward to getting a good variety of different performances. Once the first student started playing (a piano piece by Chopan) I realized that we were in for a long show. She finished in about 10 minutes, and doing the math I realized that we were probably in for a four hour show.
So we buckled down for a long show, and the first couple hours were great. It did drag on a bit, and since all the students had Kuniko as a teacher it didn’t seem cool to walk out part of the way through. After it was over they were all really happy that we had seen them perform, and some mothers even came over to thank us.
Chatting with some of the students and parents afterwards (in English) I realized how much joy they get from communicating with a foreigner. It was something that I’ve been out of touch with lately, and it really was cool to see their faces light up with the realization that I had understood what they said.
It wasn’t all the joy of English, though. Some students came over to Kuniko and said that they loved foreigners, especially blondes, and they didn’t seem to think it was weird to mention that right in front of us. Others just giggled and said “so cool” when I walked by. Prop up the old ego, that will.
After the show we were tired out, and we succumbed to the temptation of being too close to Freshness Burger. After a couple of burgers we headed home, stopping in at Vivre to do some shopping for the week. It had turned out to be a long day, but I had a good time and any day I spend with Kuniko is a good day in my book.
