Residents from the Beppu area were invited to chat with us for about an hour and Ishimaru-san happened to be one of the people assigned to our little group. She's one spunky lady - regularly climbing mountains and globe trotting at her age. She's the type of woman I want to be in sixty years time: someone who brims with happiness and vitality and doesn't let old age stop her from doing the things she enjoys.
Lol, remember how she called you '無-kun', Liam? After our hour was up, I exchanged contact details with her and being the atrocious letter writer that I am, I never got around to sending her a letter after I returned home. A month after I returned home, Ishimaru-san sent me a letter accompanied by this beautiful picture that she took at the top of Mt Tsurumi in Beppu, Japan during winter.
On the back of the photo she wrote:"From when I looked down at Beppu from Mt Tsurumi (1.378 m) which is at the back of Beppu. When snow sticks and freezes to the tree branches on mountains, they're called 霧氷/むひょう/muhyou"
After receiving her letter, I felt pretty guilty about not sending her a letter back so I set about writing a reply...which took me almost a year to send. Right before I left to study in Beijing though, I kicked my incredibly lazy butt into gear and wrote up a Christmas card for her and sent her a packet of Tim Tams, praying that they wouldn't melt or get crushed along the way, and here's her reply!
She's so cute! She even put "-san" (the standard honorific title on the end of a person's name in Japanese) on the parcel. Awww!
Opened by Quarantine?!?!
Lol, no point telling me what I shouldn't mail to Australia since I'm the one receiving the package, not mailing it.
You're going to have to turn your head to the right for this one. Blogger refuses to upload the image the right way round for some insane reason or another even though I resized and flipped it beforehand.
Same here. Learn to deal with it.
The pretty pastel-coloured box opens out to reveal beautiful traditional sweets and konpeito for the Hinamatsuri (Doll Festival)!
Hehe, more eye-candy for you all (yeh, bad pun, I know)I was pretty stressed out that day from my pre-prac visit to the school I'll be teaching at starting from next week so the package really made my day. She really is such a sweetie and reading her letter brings back memories of Beppu and the wonderful time I had there. Thank you, Ishimaru-san!
I'm thinking of sending her back some lanolin cream with my reply to thank her for the beautiful gift. What do you guys reckon? What other Aussie souvenirs might she appreciate?
4 comments:
Send her some whale meat.
Hahah
Lol, can I even get that through Japanese customs?
Aw! That's heaps nice of her! I still haven't replied actually, thanks for reminding me... I must get to it one of these days. Provided that she still remembers me lol
Whatever you send back, just try not to start a gift-giving war! You know Japanese are notorious for that, and it won't be good for your wallet!
Hmm you're right. Maybe I should send some photos instead. That way I don't cause her to feel obliged either.
I feel so rude when I write to her though since I keep to desu/masu form but she writes in full blown keigo.
Lol, I'm sure she'll remember you. Just write something like: 僕の事を忘れましたか。オーストラリアの「無」ですor something to that effect.
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