Not Just Ninjas

I’ve finally gotten my butt out of my house and into the community a bit. I’ve begun to explore the offerings of the community center in noshiro, which is small to be sure, but has a stunning variety of (mostly) free classes, including traditional Japanese dance, taiko, and (of all things), yoga.

Last week I crashed a salsa class w/ my JET friend Claire. Who knew Noshiro had enough booty-shakin’ soul to offer a salsa class? Sure, there were only 4 students. Sure, the only guy there was the instructor (who also happens to work at hair club jail as a stylist). But it was SALSA, BABY! I would honestly go just for the music. And you haven’t lived until you’ve listened to your Japanese teacher explain salsa moves with basic English and the occasional Spanish term thrown in (everyone do “Para ti Para mi” , followed by “Enchufla”!) So watch out Wyatt… I’m going to be a salsa fiend when I return to visit San Diego.

Last night I mustered up some courage and went to the free Japanese class that my other JET friend Frank attends. I’m usually not in the mood to study for two hours after working all day… but it turned out to be a lot more fun than I expected, and the Japanese teacher I worked with was awesome, speaking slowly enough for me to understand, and working around my limited vocabulary. The class was really informal, so we just steered the conversation to whatever we wanted to learn. Apparently, this Japanese class is taking a field trip to a mine in a mountain this weekend… I’m not sure how all that ties together (a mine?), but it sounds like a unique opportunity for socializing, and, let’s face it, it’s free, so we’re going.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Ambiance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.