Not only that, but my host mother also excited me to a local temple to attend a flower arrangement/tea ceremony/kimono display sort of event. She even gave me tickets to come, as she and her daughter actually had their own flower arrangements on display. It was a very nice sort of way to spend the afternoon, and it gave me a wonderful chance to interact and see my host family outside of the house, as it were. It was also the first time I had seen Shizuka and my okaasan in kimonos!

After two months of practices and an equally strenuous practice week, Prime finally had their first performance this past Saturday at the Nanzan school festival! It was a ton of fun, a lot of friends came out to see us. Despite some small slip-ups and occasional rain, we all got through the actual dances just fine.

It’s a bit surreal to realize that without knowing it, a lot of these girls have become quite good friends while we worked together to learn this routine and put everything together. I’m happy that we still have 4-5 more festivals and such where we can do this all over again. I’m thankful that we got the opportunity to join them, to be taught what they know, and to have fun together. I honestly never thought that I would be able to actually go into a dance crew and come out with any skill, but I tried, I worked hard, and I think it paid off.