8th Week - Saturday and Sunday (010308 - 020308) First Wekend of March!

Wow! Time passes so quickly and now it's already the start of the third month. I still feel like I'm living a dream and this is too good to be real sometimes. Haha... And this is what I have done for the weekend...

Saturday (010308) - Peace Park, Suki Yaki Dinner and 'Jumper' Movie

Basically went to the Peace Museum to get some postcards. There were too many exhibits along the way but today's not the day to view them. Will make a formal visit to the museum and document the exhibits in the future. But as I walked past the exhibits, it was really touching and at that moment in time, I just stopped and a lot of questions just popped out of my head. "What exactly are we living for? What's the purpose of life?" These are the questions that we should constantly ask ourselves and take actions in achieving them. Life is not just about partying and enjoying ourselves with all the food and material things that money can buy... It's really really sad to see the exhibits of people's sufferings and a sense of emotion just ran through me. Global peace must start from each of us and for me, I need to work on my weakness and challenge myself to win over them...

After this, I went around the Peace Park to take photos of the monuments and waited for the sun to set to take a different set of photos. This time round, the sun sets at 6.30pm, much later than it was one and a half months ago. And at 6.45pm, I rushed back to put down all my stuff and headed to Hashimoto-san's house for Suki-yaki dinner.

Suki-yaki is basically a steamboat with beef slices, veges, tofu, mushroom and other ingredients all immersed in suki-yaki sauce. Each of us has an raw egg for us to mix our beef and other ingredients from the steamboat and it's simply delicious!!! We managed to finish up the whole suki-yaki and I was too too full!!! (I skipped lunch today so as to be prepared for the dinner. Haha...) Think I ate two and a half bowls of rice... :) We ate and chatted with Hashimoto-san and wife until 10pm when they need to sleep early so as to wake up at 5am tomorrow to deliver newspaper.

Claire and I having Suki-yaki dinner with Hashimoto's family...

We left and I almost forgot that my colleague is waiting for me outside my apartment to pick me up for the late night movie. I ran to meet him and together, he drove to pick another colleague before heading down to Diamond City's Wald Cinema to watch 'Jumper' at 11pm. (Finally, I can feel the sense of Saturday night life and I haven't got this feeling ever since I reached Japan. Haha...) The interior of the threatre is something similar to our Eng Wah at Suntec and although it's the first day of screening, the threatre was only half-filled. The show ended at around 12.45am and we agreed to catch other shows in the future...

(By the way, Hiroshima football team, a Division 2 side, won the Japanese Super Cup over the League Champions! Yeah!)



Sunday (020308) - Def Tech

Got a morning call from Atsu-san at 10am telling me about a meeting in the kaikan later at 1pm. Hence in the morning, I just lazed around, listing the things I need to do and checked my mails. Then at 12.40pm, I went down to wait for Atsu-san to pick me up. Upon arrival at the kaikan carpark, I was surprised to find all carparks fully parked and a lot of people walking to the kaikan. Atsu-san told me about someone popular coming down to perform but I have no idea who he or the band was.

As I entered the main hall, I was surprised again to see it fully packed with people. We were asked twice to stand up and shift to the front to make way for more people coming in. The banner at the stage shows the words "My Way セミナ一" by 西宮佑騎 - さん (Micro). Then after Atsu-san told me he's from the band "Def Tech", I suddenly recalled Kumiko telling me of this band more than one year ago. This band consists of 2 person and one of them is a Gakkai member. They are really popular in Japan and wow! I'm really fortunate enough to see him live in person unknowingly!!!

Nishimiya-san sang an opening song and the whole hall greeted him with thunderous applause. Then he went on to share about his own experience with Daishonin's Buddhism and how he transformed from a skate-boarding and BMX boy to one that writes songs and performs for the humanity... He then ended with another song called 'My Way" which I found it quite familiar as I heard Kumiko singing the last time. Haha!!!

Atsu-san then brought me home at 3.30pm and from then on, I just stayed in my room did the things I planned out to do...