After 2 days' wait my 35mm lens finally arrived!!! Feeling relieved since I don't have to wait 2 weeks until my 18-135 is fixed :)

Just randomly took 2 pictures to test the new lens right after it arrived :D

picture on LEFT: ginger, my childhood friend since about 5 or 6? my mom bought it in japan on her business trip. since then ginger has been my favorite. and yes now i brought ginger back to japan, her home country!! heh.
picture on RIGHT: lovely elephant with wings and spinning feathers... a handmade thing i bought in a flea market in kyoto. bought it cos it reminded me of DUMBO (小飛象).. i liked that movie when i was small.

Oh oh the blurring is simply great!! (no-edit for both pics) single focus lens ROCKSsss!!

Lucky that the lens arrived on the afternoon cos I went to this special event at the nursery at night, called the Summer Evening "Cooling" Event!!

FIRST we had a nice dinner together~ the kids spent the whole afternoon cutting vegetables in order to make curry rice!

The potatoes/carrots/onions etc were all in different sizes (laughs)
but the curry was really really good. I could taste the love & efforts they have put into it. :)

THEN it was time for the main event of the evening!! the HAUNTED HOUSE ROOM ADVENTURE!!
(In Japan people talk about scary stories or go to scary places so that they will feel "cold" and thus have a "cool" summer in the hot (and humid arghh) weather.)

Before I go I thought it's not gonna be that scary at all since its for nursery school kids.....
but the teachers were all putting on creepy masks + long hair.. when they cry and move around in the darkness it was sooooo scary for me. The teachers cry and would actually pull/push/touch the kids too. (well I can't watch horror and I can't go into haunted houses.....but I didn't expect haunted house for preschool kids would be this much)

So the kids were supposed to go to the end of the room, talk to the boss in the hell (i.e. the principal of the nursery school lol) and obtain a card from the boss, which proves that the kid had been very strong and brave.

Half of the kids cried, other kids tried their best not to cry but you can see tears in their eyes, and few kids were crying so loud and running to fast trying to escape. One kid was so scared that he started apologizing "GOMENNASAI!!!" loudly. (laughs) At the end all kids got the card except one boy, we just couldn't make him go in anymore as he was running away so quickly.

Before being given the card the kid is asked to sit down by the boss. Then the boss would ask the kid some questions. Since the principal knows every kid very well, she would vary her questions according to who the kid was. E.g.:
- You hate eating vegetables don't you???
- You always bully other kids don't you???
- You make small groups and leave out some classmates don't you???
- You always cry don't you???
- What's your father's/mother's name??

The kids were all so scared that they would either ADMIT EVERYTHING or DENY EVERYTHING. When they deny, the boss would yell at the kids in an even scarier tone. (laughs)
For the father/mother question, they would usually take a long time until they can answer, because they were so scared that they couldn't recall their names right away.. lolol

The boss would always say these statements:
- You need to become a strong boy/girl/elder brother/sister OK??
- Eat _________!! (whatever the kid doesn't like)
- The ghosts always KNOW when you do BAD THINGS!! We are looking at you all the time!!
- SAY THANKS!!
- GO HOME NOW!!
I was acting as one of the ghosts but I did not try to be scary at all.. hahaha was just there to take pictures of their scared faces, faces that I don't usually get to see :D

After the event when I went back out to talk to them they were like:
- It wasn't scary at all!!
- I wasn't scared at all!! I didn't cry!!

Obviously they were all lying. heheh. Everybody had tears in their eyes and everybody looked sooo scared!!
Well this is how proud they look after the event. They get big gold metals and many many presents!!

I have been to summer festivals for other nursery schools before but this is my first time going to their "haunted event". HAD LOTS n LOTS OF FUN!! Gonna miss the preschool kids so much after leaving Nomi in August :(

p.s. had annual body check (for city hall staff) today. feeling dizzy/sick as usual when i had to do blood test. i still recall my bad memories from the past when i do blood tests so i always need to request to lay down and not look at the needle else i would throw up again. hope that i would become a "strong kid" too and become able to do it without laying down someday~