The Hendersons in Himeji: Community Center Take 2

So every year the city of Himeji hosts two Welcome parties at the community center. They had a party for the incoming Americans in October and now again in January to welcome the new Australians. As you may remember, we had a traditional tea ceremony and they presented us with Kimonos at the party in October so we were excited to see what they had in store for us this time around. When we arrived they had a wonderful Taisho koto concert for us. These ladies were so cute and they prepared songs that they hoped the Australians would recognize/enjoy. After the concert and the introduction of the Australians we were invited to an Ikebana lesson down stairs. For those of you who are not familiar Ikebana you can read a bit about it here. In America we would call it flower arranging. This did not seem too manly but Andre and I figured that we would give it a try... "when in Rome" right! The flowers were beautiful and the teachers were a great help. There are many rules to Ikebana, certain leaves are supposed to be 1/3 the length of other flowers and so on. Then there are special ways you are supposed to arrange them in order to portray different meanings. Thankfully there was a spectator that was also a Ikebana teacher that helped me as my creativity and flower arranging skills were not quite up to par. Audrey, on the other hand was a natural! She did not need much help and her arrangement came out looking great. Unfortunately, we didn't take pictures of the finished products until we got home, after the bike ride home had taken its toll on both arrangements. After arranging the flowers the Koto players offered to teach us how to play. Audrey and I both jumped at the opportunity. Audrey told her instructor that she wanted to play "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and after a couple of minutes struggling through the first couple of lines, she really got the hang of it and did a wonderful job. On the other hand, my instructor wanted me to play a traditional Japanese song. I had hoped that my guitar playing skills would translate to this instrument. It had strings, and a pick so I figured it couldn't be that hard right?! Think again. It was nothing like playing the guitar, but enjoyable none the less. After about 10 minutes I finally got the hang of it and really started having a good time. As I was intently focusing on not messing up the song, a crowd of Japanese people and foreigners began gathering around. Then to close out party, the lady in charge started yelling in Japanese for everyone to gather around for me to play the song I had been practicing. WELL CRAP!!! Now I don't usually mind performing, or being put on the spot like this, but I really wasn't too proud of my koto playing abilities. But not wanting to disappoint the crowd I gave in to their request. Then, to make matters worse, all of the Japanese people started to sing along. Now I was feeling the pressure. Thankfully the song was only a couple of minutes long because I was sweating missiles! When it ended I got a nice round of applause and felt very grateful that they didn't have any tomatoes because I'm sure I butchered one of their favorite songs pretty badly. Once again I was amazed by the kindness and hospitality of these Japanese people. They have been so kind and welcoming since day one and I feel very blessed to being living in such a wonderful country.