am tired. mom's in town and we have been busy ever since she landed wednesday night.
she has been to my school and visited a class during which the kids managed to ask her a few questions and involved her in a game they played. she ate school lunch which also happened to be her first japanese food. she has been officially welcomed by my BOE with a party at a local restaurant. My supervisor presented her with a present and flowers and speeches were made. On saturday she was a great help to me during the Okinawa JET Gumball Rally, which turned out to be a great success. 6 teams participated and gathered lots of hilarious photos and surprising objects as well as the ones required by the list. I hope the photos turn up somewhere in the future and i can copy them and post them. During the race mom and i went to the Urasoe Art Museum and saw an exhibition of Asian fiber art recommended by Brett. The exhibition was small but wonderful. I have never seen fiber art so formally presented and it was quite intriguing. The museum itself, however, is not so impressive with a small permanent collection of Okinawan lacquer ware. After the gumball rally finished a few of us went out to dinner at an izakaya and then it was karaoke time. Mom was a brave soul and stayed up 'til 3am with us and sang a few songs, including the only russian selection available, TATU's "Ya soshla s uma."
This morning was cloudy and rainy and my plans to take mom to her first Okinawan castle were ruined. But we had a great day, nonetheless. First lunch with the wonderful and stylish, Ms. Wiebe at DFS and then a stop at Cape Manzamo in Onna village on the way back home.
Back in Ogimi we stopped at home to pick up some russian sweets mom brought and went to the Sunday night adult class i teach. The members of the class decided to welcome my mom with a potluck dinner, so we gathered at Kei-san's house and mom was treated to beautiful food and wonderful company. I think she enjoyed herself. i know i did.

so that's the start. mom will be here for another 12 days and we hope to make the most of it without tiring ourselves out too much. no more staying up 'til 3:30am unless we can sleep in after.

i'll try to update but most likely won't have much time to....so check back in a couple of weeks.

love
-e