I got acquainted with Mrinalini Ghosh at Badoo. She is an English teacher from India, living near Shinjuku. She invited me to the Korean Embassy in Japan, where there was a small exhibition on Korean Lunar New Year celebrations.
Mrinalini is on the right, and on the left is a girl in a chima jeogori (Korean traditional dress).
This is dduk gook (rice cake soup), eaten in Korea during the New Year.
This afternoon, I got an email notifying me of the death of a classmate who studied together at our laboratory when we were university students. According to the email, last Sunday he suddenly had a stroke related to tyep I diabetes he had suffered from, and passed away. He was as old as I.
It is the first time I have lost a classmate with whom I shared the same memories at school. It is surprising and regrettable.
I can’t attend his funeral and say goodbye to him because the funeral hall is too far from where I live, but instead, I sent a telegram of condolence, and I’ll keep his memory in mind for life.
I went to Tochigi last Sunday to watch a musical show performed by Kokugakuin Tochigi High School’s Musical Club in this high school’s cultural festival held that weekend. I watch this club’s musical every year for these several years. One of my keypads, Mito Saigusa, works for Kokugakuin Tochigi High School as a dance instructor for the Musical Club, so I’m very interested in what the students she is teaching play.
This year’s show was Oliver!, a well-known British musical by Lionel Bart. It’s a story of a little orphan whose name is Oliver Twist.
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
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