Silver Week

They call this time of year "Silver Week".  Except when I said it in class with a flat North American accent, none of my students initially caught it.  When I repeated myself one student exclaimed "Ah...shi-ru-ba u-ii-ku".  Well, I could've said it that way but using my Japanese method of saying English words wasn't the point of the lesson.

Nonetheless, we get to enjoy three weekday holidays all in a row starting from Monday this week.  This stretch of days off is called "Silver Week" in contrast to "Golden Week" in May.  None of my students have offered up an explanation but I suppose the reason is as simple as the order they happen...gold is first and silver is second.  There.  Simple, eh?  Not sure about the accuracy of my guess though.

Today is Tuesday and, thus, the middle of the stretch of the three days off.  With the weather being quite warm and sunny, I went ahead and did a load of laundry in the morning.  After immersing myself in a computer game, I then headed out in the early afternoon to check out an event at a local park.  An acquaintance had mentioned it when she spotted me at the supermarket the previous night.  She said was going to be doing some "ani-song" DJ'ing.  "Ani-song" meaning "anime show song".

Having completed my visit to my acquaintance's event, and consuming some chowder whilst doing so, I sauntered back home and decided it would be a waste to spend the rest of the afternoon indoors.  So I grabbed a book and hat, then wandered over to the park by Uesugi Shrine.

As it turns out preparations are in swing for the upcoming Fall Festival.  The Yonezawa Fall Festival bills itself more or less as a festival which is held just because there's time to have a festival.  Or something to that effect.  Nothing too complicated eh.  Most of the tents have been laid out but only a portion were raised and occupied by folks selling various types of food.  I wasn't particularly hungry so I made my way to the grassy knoll in the park and set myself down in the shade of a tree to do some reading.

What followed was nothing exciting: I just read, checked out a Wikipedia page about Alice Munro and Munro's Books, and listened to an album by The New Pornographers.  I became immersed in the book, Alice Munro's "The Good Life", and was shielded from the music being played over the nearby PA system by what was flowing out of the earphones I had on.  I essentially lost touch with my immediate surroundings.

At some point in time I suddenly realized that the points of reference on my person had slightly jarred me from my physical location.  I was listening to music in which I could readily understand the lyrics, I was gazing upon print I could readily read, and the web page showing on my iPhone browser was the Wikipedia entry for Munro's Books, a place which I've quite enjoyed visiting in the past.  Those elements put together had me disoriented for a moment.  It was like I wasn't in Japan but I was back in Canada.  The PA system was streaming out Western music then and the sun was in my eyes.  Once I glanced around, that feeling of having been teleported vanished, just as quickly as it had arisen.