Hinamatsuri
It´s time for an update again. Two new developments since the last time - Audrey's school has ended one month before graduation due to the Corona Virus scare. She is now trying her best to do her work at home.
Her JH uniform will not arrive in time for her to wear it to her graduation like most children, so we will have to prepare something else - either a hakama (pant style kimono for students) or a "fake uniform" jacket and skirt. Either way it will cost more than we'd hoped. We actually don't know if they will even have a graduation, whether it will be just students, or if parents will be able to participate.
Some more tidbits re the panic ensuing due to the virus. Nowhere can we find any mouth masks - that Japanese item for colds, allergies and now for protecting ourselves against Corona. Many drug stores are also out of tissues and toilet paper, diapers, menstrual pads and even instant ramen. People are buying these up because they want to stay at home as much as possible, and also because the whole family is at home including children so it is assumed more of these things will be necessary... The unnecessary panic is pretty pathetic, but I blame it on the news for even reporting such occurrences, made it a panic "pandemic" instead of being contained.
The second development is that I've finished the choir contest. Many other concerts, sports events etc. were cancelled, but not ours. And our group was not about to throw away money by not participating if it was going to be held. We all went with the masks we scraped together for the occaision. It was interesting to watch how almost every single person on the train had a mask on, and how no one touched the handrails or the grips. I enjoyed singing but the recording was not as great as I would have hoped. There were three songs, and the Hungarian song and the English song turned out pretty good, but the Japanese song, which is easier note-wise, didn't turn out very well. It was too loud and the start of the song was sloppy. Plus, the mike for the recording was bad and I felt like I could hear my own voice way too much - it is true the others don't really have the voice volume I have, and I felt like I didn't belong. The whole thing made me rather depressed.
We did go out for sushi afterwards and had a wonderful time there.
I have work as usual for two more weeks, then spring break. And, I'm just feeling like ignoring responsibilities as much as possible. .
I've finally finished watching Van Helsing Season 5 - I had a hard time getting the motivation after watching The Last Kingdom, which I enjoyed so much. Van Helsing was enjoyable, but I skipped through a lot. It was just not as engaging and I was getting tired of the "savior of the world" theme. Out of stuff to watch, I finally convinced myself that if I enjoyed The Last Kingdom so much then I should enjoy Outlander too if I could just watch it as a show and not as a live version of the books I adore, so I went back to Outlander after how many years?! and watched up to the end of Season 4 on Netflix. I did enjoy it much more than I had before, and it was better when I didn't have to evaluate each episode separately but just binge watch the whole thing. In a way, I wish I could have done that with the later episodes of SPN as well.
Afterwards, I finally went back to CW to watch the episodes of Flash I had left for later while I mooned over TLK. So now I am all caught up on all the shows I have been watching.
Here are some pictures.
Plum blossoms at the old park, where branches were cut last year. There is a saying, "The fool who cuts the branches of a cherry tree, the fool who doesn't cut those of a plum tree." Plum trees need to be cut to flower, but I guess we have to wait two years to see the result... :P
An early type of cherry tree.
Happy Girl's Day!