towards enrichment!

after sitting on my ass doing nothing for so long, i've finally begun down the road to self-improvement! (i hope).

i was planning all along to take up some enrichment classes while here in japan, and i've stopped procrastinating - yoga and calligraphy classes for me! yay! i initially wanted to join the calligraphy club in my school, but well... never mind, i'll go to the one at the community centre nearby. yoga will be at the community centre too, and it's great cos it's really near my house - about 9min away by bike :)

enrichment classes dont come cheap in japan though, which makes it even sweeter that my cc has what i want to learn. almost everywhere charges you a one-time membership fee to join on top of the regular fees for classes, and so far most classes cost about 2000yen per class. that's so super duper expensive! i'm not paying that amount of course, but that's another reason why i'm doing yoga + calligraphy and not something else.

i wanted to do something japanese + something else, and the ideal combination would be ballet and japanese dance. unfortunately, the japanese dance classes are sooooo crazily expensive - if you add the membership fee to the cost of classes, it would come up to about 4000yen per class for 12 classes!! i was considering going for the trial class yesterday - for 2000yen - but i was lazy and shelved the idea, mainly because i know i wont take it up for good. i guess i missed an opportunity to experience for myself what japanese dance is all about, but well. if i really want to, i can always go for the trial class another time. 

as for ballet... that would have been 1500yen per class (which is cheap actually, as lots of other places are charging at least 2000yen).. and compared to roughly 600yen per class for yoga, i suppose i made a rational decision considering my current financial status. haha. a good thing i didnt sign up for the ballet though, cos the calligraphy classes arent all that cheap.. they come up to about 1200yen per class, and i have to buy the materials for calligraphy too, BUT considering calligraphy is a japanese cultural activity as well as a chinese one, i think that's something i ought to learn! haha. get in touch with my roots via japan or something i guess. i'll say it's a useful thing to pick up. and because the class has an "open concept" where you can drop by anytime between 2 to 9.30pm and stay for as long as you want, i suppose i can stay for longer to get my money's worth. muahaha. and i promise to persevere until i can at least write something decent... otherwise the $$ i have to fork out for the brush and ink etc will go to waste!!