another day, another challenge

Even though today's my day off, it's super busy. (It started at 5:30am by yet another person calling who has trouble with the 15 hour time difference...but I don't mind; people can call anytime they want.) I just got back from going out with some friends for lunch and boy am I stuffed. In typical Japanese style we each got a whole big tray of food with about 7 different dishes; my one friend even got a mini wall on her tray with two different levels. Maybe it didn't help that we baked both a blueberry upside down cake and banana bread and ate some of each before we went. So I baked and ate at my house, then I went to a restaurant and ate, and now I'm sick of eating.
Tonight will be intersting though. One of my friends teaches hip hop dance, so starting tonight I'm her newest student. haha. I cannot picture it in my mind or know what to expect, so I just have no idea how to prepare myself mentally for that one...it'll be...an experience. But maybe by the time I come home I'll be cool and be able to dance haha.
The leaves have been changing color here, and kind of like the cherry blossoms in the spring, people get really excited about it. Yesterday morning I took a gondola up Moriyoshi Mountain with some friends, and then hiked the two hours or so to the top and back down; apparently you could see 100km away - it was absolutely beautiful. But maybe I would've appreciated it more if my legs hadn't been hurting so much. I do nothing for excercise (I can only say that for a couple more hours until my first hip hop lesson haha...) so it was a little humbling climbing the steep part of a mountain and realizing how un-strong I am now. But there's nothing like eating your lunch outside on a mountain; it makes it taste so much better I think.
Just a side note: I had gone up that same mountain (just not to the peak) in the winter when there was tons of snow. Yesterday when we were there, we went into this little two level warm up/information shack; last time we were there there was so much snow that we went in the door on the second level...I didn't even know there was a door on the bottom level because it was covered with snow. (I can't wait for that snow to come again...)
But I'm off...I need to start on my Hawiian Quilting potholder. I am obligated to make it because one of my students owns a Hawiian business and gave it to me to make...and I teach her tomorrow... so today is the day I begin yet another challenge.
Wish me luck, so I don't lose too much blood from the holes poked in my hands or break a leg while I'm trying to find my rhythm. :)