birthday in japan

If you have to have a birthday in December, a great place to celebrate it is in Japan. Especially when on tour with Sonosians! They have made me feel so welcome and then surprised me twice!

As Michele blogged, on Dec 12 we went to dinner at The Garlic, right beneath our hotel in this warren maze of little restaurants. It was delicious and at the end the waiter brought me a yummy dessert with a sparkler in it and everyone sang happy birthday. i thought that was the end of a wonderful day spent IMing with my honey Ian all morning, getting an email picture card from my kids, then braving the habitrail and observation deck at the floating gardens, wandering around speaking german in Japan at the Weihnachtsfest at the base of the gardens' building, having a creme brulee venti starbucks coffee looking out at the rain (yes, there are starbucks all over the world), finding a camera battery (much to the chagrin of my fellow sonosians, i take almost as many pics as jason!), and then having a fabulous dinner. BUT, that wasn't all. Back at the hotel i was going to be a good student and practice my challenge piece, Porgy and Bess, with Kathie and Missy. Nonchalantly I walked into Kathie's room ready to work, and was greeted by the whole group. Their ruse had worked and we all gobbled up yummy "Happy 39th" Cake and toasted with our cans of stout and coke zero. Rounding out the evening was an initiation round of snerd, a cutthroat competetive version of group solitaire.

Thinking this was one of my most memorable birthdays, I blithely ignored the conspiracy signs the next day. In the second half of the concert Jim stopped to speak in Japanese to the audience. As all good bell ensemble members know, we rarely listen to what the director is saying. I figured it was something about the next piece we were going to play and had completely tuned out. All of a sudden Sunghe played a bell and everyone was looking in my direction. I turned to see what they were looking at, and then heard the entire audience of 800 Japanese singing happy birthday. Wow.

Thank you guys! What am I going to do to top this for my next 39th birthday?

(I have lots of pics, but no card reader right now. Promise to post some pics later)