耳をすませば

Hey all!
I'm sorry for the lack of reporting this week.

I finally got around to getting the DVD player and Tsutaya membership card.  Tsutaya is kind of like the Japanese version of what Blockbuster used to be in America.  It's a large chain and can be found all over the country.

This weekend we watched Kurosawa's Rashomon, and Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart, which in Japanese is called 耳をすませば Mimi wo Sumaseba.  Since Rashomon is older, there were no English or Japanese subtitles.  Luckily Elliott had seen it before and explained what was going on.  We started watching Whisper of the Heart only with Japanese subtitles, pausing it often to translate what they were saying, but the weekend slowly crept away from us and we decided to just watch it all the way through with the English subtitles.  This is probably one of my favorite Ghibli movies, but I'm not sure why.  I think it's mostly because the main character is obsessed with books.

Next weekend I'm either going to Matsumoto Castle in Nagano, or going to an archery course near my town.  I'm trying to only do one or the other to save a little bit of money, but I jumped the gun and agreed to do both.

I'll try to get some pictures up of Shimane this week.

Hope all is well!

Lana