no more school + cranes

i finished at my schools on feb. 12. i have just completed two work free weeks of being "on-call". i haven't been called yet although several of my friends have been asked to subsitute at elementary schools in the surrounding suburbs. it's nice to not have anything to do but geez, it is very, very boring. it's sort of a double edged sword - good and bad at the same time. i find that when i have very little or nothing expected of me i do very little or nothing instead of being productive, etc. it is a bit hard here to stay entertained without going out and spending money that i need to save. i have been riding my bike around town. sometimes i will just go around for fun or ride into town.

on wednesday i rode to atsuta shrine. it took just under and hour to make it one way. i met up with a friend there, took some photos and then after got a kebab at a nearby cafe. it was so tasty. while at the shrine i noticed something colorful hanging at a prayer area. i went to have a closer look and realized it four sets of 1,000 paper cranes. it was the first time i have seen that at a shrine and i was pretty amazed. i vaguely remembered hearing the story of the sick girl who tried to make 1,000 cranes to make a wish for her illness to go away when i was a kid. seeing 1,000 cranes in person was so cool. they were so colorful and very interesting. i took so many photos. when i got home i looked up the history of the tradition called "senbazuru" and learned they are made for a wish or as a wedding gift to wish the new couple 1,000 years of happiness. i was enamored and decided yesterday that with all the spare time i have and the last 30 days i have in japan i was going to try and make 1,000 paper cranes.

so off i went on my bike to town to buy the supplies. i read it's possible to buy a set with all the paper, thread, needle and beads needed to make senbazuru. i didn't find a set but bought some individual supplies - a variety of papers and some yellow beads (i still need to buy the thread and needle). i came home excited and googled "how to make a paper crane". i have made a couple in the past but it was under supervision and given step by step instructions so i needed to re-learn it. after two different youtube videos, a set of written instructions and charles on skype we learned together how to fold the little suckers. he mentioned that the head and tail on mine looked wider than his but i didn't really think so. after making about 10 of them i started to question it and looked for some photos online. sure enough i had been making them wrong. ha ha... i was missing one last fold over so it was an easy fix. i started over and last night made 40.

after learning how to make them i found it takes about 5-7 minutes to fold one making the goal of 40 per day a serious commitment! i'm going to give it my best shot though. it's common for senbazuru to be from 25 strings of 40 cranes each. my goal is to make one string per day for 25 days. we'll see if i can keep up the crane production. it's not impossible but... i don't know, it's going to be close. wish me luck!

also, i have been watching the olympics on tv. right now they just had the award ceremony for the ladies figure skating. mao asada is from nagoya and got silver! go japan!

photos from atsuta shrine and the paper cranes that inspired me.