Japanese Immersion Program - March 31

This is a day at sea and I am hitting the ground running. First up is a meeting of the Knitters and Natters. We had about 12 people show up. I haven't worked on my cross-stitch project for a few months. It felt good to be picking it up again.

I went to see what book they were handing out for the Princess Book Club. I was pleasantly surprised to find there were three. I picked The Valley of Amazement, by Amy Tan. It's over 500 pages. Why, oh why do they pick such long books for the book club? I think I am going to have to trade blogging time for reading time.

I went to find out what the Bon Odori dance class is all about. I found out that Bon Odori is a style of Japanese folk dancing that is popular during a festival that occurs in August. The instructor is a young Japanese assistant cruise director named Ken. He is a wonderful teacher. I learned two dances. One is called the Coal Miner Dance. The second one is called Tokyo Sounds Dance and is about "enjoyment" and the beauty of the moon.

Following the dance class I attended a Japanese language class. Politeness seems to be an important aspect of the language. 

Next up: an origami class. Here is what we made:

I don't think it's odd that some Japanese people came to the dance class and the origami class. I was a little surprised that there were a few Japanese people in the language class. Maybe they were hoping to improve their English through some type of reverse osmosis. Now that I think about it, that is probably something I would do if they had an English class. I would want to see what they were teaching and who came to the class, and snag some good handouts, and so on.

Oyasumi!