Spring Flowers in Oba-chan's Garden

      I find the garden outside the living room of this house to be astounding.  Oba-chan has been working on this masterpiece for many years and it shows.  Today I am giving you a glimpse of a portion of the garden that I find particularly appealing.  If you know the names of the flowers, I would appreciate learning them from your comments. . .

Yuta's Moving Up Celebration!

       Today there was a celebration at Yagi Minami Shogakko in honor of the sixth grade moving up to Yagi Chuogakko (middle school).  Parents were invited, so I went to see what I could.  I did not understand all the Japanese, but I can now figure out what the topic is.  As I arrived at 10:30 AM, the students in the sixth grade class were already speaking, one at a time.  The topics were their teachers, the school, and sports.  I heard Yuta's teachers name (Orita-Sensei) a few times.  There was much applause and it was all very nice.  Then fifth grade students got on stage and performed an act that used Basketballs to syncopate a beat, it was very well done.  They ended by wishing the outgoing students good luck and to work hard in Middle School.  Then the fourth grade got the stage, and Yuta did a great job.  He was playing a recorder on stage and theatrically falling down when the soloist played a wrong note.  It was quite funny and again well put together, reminding me of a "Drifters" skit (google "Japanese The Drifters").  The entire show took about 2 hours and at one point, several of the sixth grade students were in tears.  They even took the time to say thank you to the audience and community in general.
      One extraordinary event was when a bat (komori) started flying around the auditorium.  It was a Japanese House Bat, very small and harmless.  I imagine that it lives in the building and all the commotion woke it up.  The bat flew around the room and landed on different walls looking for a place to scutch up and hide, until finally flying outside.  While this was cool and certainly caught my attention, the participants in the ceremony never even batted an eye (pun intended).  They just kept right on with the proceedings as if it was completely normal for a komori to be flying around.  I have named the bat "Sir Isaac!" and hope it is doing well.
       This event illustrates for me the vast differences between how teachers and education are treated in Japan and America.  Nobody seemed to mind that the staff had helped put together this event that was partially used to honor them.  There is no correlated event in the States, but maybe there should be.  Does the respect follow the event or does the event come about from the respect the community has for the institution?  This seems like a better version of "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"  Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. . .