Rice Planting... and Going to Tokyo tomorrow~ Yay~~

Tomorrow is finally the Re-contracting conference!! yay!! Can't wait to meet Naoko, Noriko and Yuki (gotta hear all about this "I'm getting married next spring" thing from Yuki...). It might be a bit strange coming from Kanoya, and now to the big bad city Tokyo (AND shinjuku too!). hee hee

Today went to KAPIC to participate in the planting rice field event and the chinese sweet cooking class. The rice planting thing was loads of fun! Heather planted quite quickly and both Nanette and I think that she's finally found her calling... that's until the guy in charge told us that we've all planted off the lines... and apparently Heather and I have merged into one line at one point. Oops ;p

Joe got his huge boots that he got at Hokkaido.. They looked pretty heavy but he seemed to like it better than soaking his feet in the rice paddies. hmmm didn't seem like a bad idea.

I was wearing my oilers t-shirt (should've brought my oilers hat to match it...), and it got really hot... But then it became a little cloudy (thought it was gonna rain), so we were not that baked. Then we started feeling a bit cold. But the kids are just having fun on their own, rolling around in the rice paddies and getting all dirty.

After that we had lunch and then took a nice long break before the Chinese Ibunka session starts. The sweet that we prepared was actually really simple, basically cut a lotus root in half (or rather in 1:3 ratio) and stuff it with mochi rice, then broil it with sugar water for 1 hr or so. Slice it and then voila, you're done! It didn't take too much time, and while we were waiting for it to be done, the Ken CIR Ka-san from China talked about some sweets kids eat in China and the games they play at home. She brought two "Jian Zi" which is kinda like a hacky sack but with feathers and a coin on the bottom. Oh... that's when I forgot that the point of having those is for the kids to play... I started doing it.. and remembered that I used to be really good too. :p

Anyways, so I realized that the kids should be the ones playing, so I just sat back down and watch them try desperately to "kick" it... Eventually the Jian Zi got all broken, the feathers fell out and the bottoms are no where to be seen. I think the kids finally did it... poor Ka-san, I wonder if she can fix them.

So, we got back home after the thing was over.. I started cleaning my house a bit, and packed for Tokyo. Watched "Gosford Park" while packing... great movie~