Christmas Party

This year's Christmas party was on a slightly smaller scale than previous years, with about 40 people in attendance. We started with a beautiful performance from the Nikko group who played a selection of pleasant Christmas tunes.

Other musical delights of the evening included the Let's Sing group's Christmas carol recital, including Walking in a Winter Wonderland and Jingle Bell Rock. The Tuesday reading group also sang Jingle Bells, with the twist of a high-energy game thrown in. Competitors had to make as many steps as the could register on a pedometer by dancing throughout the song!

The other game of the evening was pass-the-parcel, except instead of music, the competitors listened to a story and passed the parcel right when the narrator said "right" and left when they said "left".

Along side the music and games we also had two theatrical performances. The Tuesday evening reading group did a recital of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, and the sign language group treated us to a performance of The Tongue Cut Sparrow.

The evening was of course complimented with Hiroko's wonderful Christmas dinner including a whole turkey and delicious stuffing and bread sauce.

We ended off the night with a traditional New Year song, Auld Lang Syne.

Halloween Party

Today was the children's Halloween party. We had almost 200 kids come to join us in an evening of tricks, treats and scary stories.


The event began with a play put on by the English-speaking staff that told the story of how the Jack-O-Lantern got its name and was narrated by our guest story teller in Japanese. The storyteller also did her own story and told many spooky tales all through the night.


Afterwards the children were free to enjoy all the stalls and activities. The Haunted House was as popular as always and created a few screams. The new events included a science corner where they could make a tree grow icicles, play with slime, make a head foam at the mouth and experiment with air. The treasure hunt was also popular, but a bit much for some with some tricky clues.


The regular events were the pumpkin carving, craft and cooking. This year the children made their own candy-floss. Thanks to all our helpers it was a very successful night.

International Festival

On September 19th, Zenrinkan hosted its annual International Festival, Lunch, and Bazaar in the hallowed halls of the chapel. Events started at 10 o'clock with the doors opening so guests could peruse the many items in the charity bazaar. There was quite a menagerie waiting to be recycled into new homes and bargain hunting browsers eagerly bought up the goods.

At 11 o'clock the International Lunch began to satisfy the appetites of the curious and the convivial. For 200 yen, a person could buy a ticket which entitled them to sample food from far away lands. The countries represented at the International Lunch came from Peru, Columbia, the U.K., the United States, Bangladesh, Korea, Zambia, and China. The foreign fare was ravenously consumed by the hungry horde which represented the diverse international community in Morioka and the monies contributed to charity.

Summer Party

Tonight was the summer party at Zenrinkan. It was a lovely party, but it was also a little sad because it was Ryan's farewell party too.


We had a pot luck style dinner. Hiroko made some yummy quiche, cottage pie, guacamole, hot dogs and salsa and people brought many other dishes, such as corn, jelly, biscuits, rice and so on.

The evening started with an ice-breaker where everyone had to find someone who fitted the description on their paper. Then we had an evening of entertainment with many songs and recitals.

There was also a quiz all about Ryan, and we learnt lots of new information about him!

Finally, everyone joined us for a dance with Ryan. He taught us a short dance and then we all danced together. It was a lovely end to a lovely evening.

An evening of gore!

Tonight we had our second Murder Mystery Night at Zenrinkan.

The waitress

This time the setting was 1920's India. Everyone was sitting down to enjoy Elizabeth's 21st birthday party, when the body of a young Leuitenant was found on the croquet lawn.

The weapon

As the evening went on it was found that more and more people had a link to the dead man. Some would get money, some sent a secret to the grave, some had been spurned in love, but all of them had a reason for revenge.

I won't tell you what the answer was, but I will tell you that our investigators did a fine job and sentanced the true murderer.

Japanese Calligraphy

Today was the first of Zenrinkan's monthly calligraphy classes.

Even though it was the first time, we still had about 10 students come and participate.

Many of the participants were trying calligraphy for the first time, so we practiced breaking-in a new brush and talked about the history of calligraphy and ink.

First we made a very thin ink and thought about what image this colour brought to our minds, such as mist, condensation and smoke, and then we wrote a Chinese character to represent it. We then made it a little darker and wrote a different character and finally we did it with a very dark ink.

Once we had practiced writing these characters, we wrote them on a postcard and put them in a frame. Everyone wrote very beautiful letters.

We finished the lesson by learning the first basic stroke technique, the 's' shape, and practiced drawing horizontal lines.

Our next lesson will be on the 30th of June from 4pm, so I hope you can join us!

Hanami picnic

We had our annual Zenrinkan cherry blossom viewing picnic in Iwate park today. After a cold and rainy morning, we were very lucky and the sun shined for us.

Many of our regular students joined us and we had quite a feast, including mochi, dango, sushi and....

...locusts!!!

Murder!!

Recently, there was a murder at the Zenrinkan!! No, not really, but we did have a lot of people acting like there was. We had the 1st ever Zenrinkan Murder Mystery Night!

A murder mystery party is kind of like a play, but the characters and the audience are all mixed together. At our party, the story was that Lord Stratsbury was murdered, and his family (his wife, his daughter, and his grandchildren) and some employees at his residence (the cook and the gardener) were all suspects! They all gathered together with some investigators to try and find out who the murderer was.

Everyone had reasons to kill the Lord - the wife wasn't in love with the Lord anymore, one grandchild needed money for his failing business, the other grandchild needed money for her modeling career, the cook had just been fired by the Lord, and the gardener was in love with the Lord's wife - and it was the investigators' job to find out who had committed the crime.

The gardener

The evening was led by two detectives, who gave us new information throughout the evening - such as a letter firing the cook that was discovered and also the murder weapon itself - a high-heeled shoe!

Our two detectives who led the evening

We also had a wonderful 5-course dinner prepared by our marvelous Zenrinkan staff. Between the courses, people had free time to stand up and ask the suspects questions.

The waitresses

No one knew who the murderer was until the very end - not even the murderer himself! In the end, it was an incredibly fun evening for everyone.

The businessman grandson with one of the waitresses



The local vicar and one of the investigators

The murderer!

Dearly departed Lord Stratbury

Preparing for dinner

The next Zenrinkan Murder Mystery is planned for July. We will be investigating the murder of First Lieutenant Charles Chance. The setting is India, the year 1930. Everyone is a suspect, but only one person is the murderer!

Cottage Pie

Today 12 students got together and tried making traditional English Cottage Pie.

Everyone put on their aprons and in teams of 4, worked very hard to finish it all in time for lunch. Then we ate all together.

We all tried a little of the other team's dish too and it was amazing how different each one was. One team used very little salt and pepper and theirs had a more natural taste. One made theirs the very traditional way with no cheese on the top and the herbs they used were a little spicy. The final one was for me most similar to my mother's cooking, probably because of the herbs used.

Why don't you try making it too?

Ingredients:
1 onion
1 carrot
1 tbs of oil
500g beef mince
2 tbs of flour
1 tbs of ketchup
1 tbs of Worcester sauce
Peas
Corn
Mixed herbs
285ml stock
4 large potatoes
1 tbs of butter
salt and pepper
Grated cheese

Method:

Preheat the oven to 190°C

Peel the potatoes.
Cut into 4 pieces and place in a saucepan with cold water.
Add a little salt to the water and boil.
Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.


Peel and chop the onion and carrot.
Heat the oil in a large fry pan.
Add the onion and cook.
Add the minced beef and sauté.
When the mince is brown add the flour and cook for one minute.
Add the tomato sauce, Worcester sauce, carrot, peas, corn and herbs.
Gradually add the stock and boil.
Reduce the heat and cover for 10 minutes.
Add salt and pepper.


Drain and mash the potatoes.
Add butter and a little milk to make the potato creamy.


Put the meat mixture into a dish, then put the mashed potato on top.
Make lines in the potato with a fork.
Sprinkle cheese on top (optional).
Bake until the potato is a light brown colour.

Kids' English Festival

Today was the kids' festival! We had 40 children perform songs, games and plays, and over 100 parents and grandparents watching! The proceedings were opened by Nicola's Wednesday class and then they were joined by two of her Saturday classes to sing "Five Little Monkeys".

Next was Susan's class demonstrating their ABCs and then Careen and Hiroko's class presented Bill Martin's "Brown Bear".

Next Ryan's class did a skit based on the story of the Candadian who exchanged his way from a red paper clip to a house.

Then Nicola's Elementary 2 class told the Story of Momotaro using Kamishibai story boards.

Kazuko's class treated us to a quiz and many audience members answered questions about famous stories.

Careen played a Chinese Whispers game (伝言ゲーム) with her Elemetary 4 class.

Next were two plays, the first called "Lion and the Little Mice" by Ryan's class and "A Bullying Bear" by Yasuko's class of Elemetary 5th years.

After a little break while everyone could eat their snacks made by Hiroko, we all played a giant game of "What's the time, Mr. Wolf?".

Mini Music Night

Some people might remember when Karen worked here, she often organized Music Night at the Zenrinkan. Unfortunately, when she finished working here, so did Music Night! Many people missed having Music Night, so, last night, we had a mini Music Night!

One of the important things about Music Night is that it is NOT a concert! It is a time for people to get together and enjoy music of all kinds. Some people bring musical instruments, some people sing, some people try instruments for the first time, some people just listen, and everyone enjoys being surrounded by all kinds of sounds. No one is a professional, and any level, beginner to expert, is welcome to perform.

Last night, we had 13 people come to the mini Music Night, performers and listeners.

We heard a few songs from students in Zenrinkan's Niko (二胡) classes.

We heard a man play the Quena, which is a wind instrument from South America. He played the standard quena, and also many other sizes (which all have different names, but I don't remember them)

Also, students in the Saturday Let's Sing class sang a couple of songs for us, Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are", and "I Say a Little Prayer" by Burt Bacharach.

Ryan played the didgeridoo, which is an instrument from Australia. It was originally made and used by aborigines.

We also had a kind of drum circle (actually, a percussion circle). People played many kinds of percussion instruments while we took turns playing the didgeridoo. Then, we had a guitar performance including original songs.

All in all, it was a fun evening for everyone. We also had delicious snacks that Hiroko made for us. Thank you everyone for coming!