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So she sayeth...
Wednesday, July 25, 2001 03:01 p.m.
Okie, yeah. I haven`t updated for many days. With the exception of the night, Sunday was pretty boring and not bloggable at all. Sunday night was fun because I spent several hours in the computer lab talking with people about video games, influencing the decisions that others made in the games they were playing at the time (^^ *snerk*), and generally acting silly. I just had to start a quote book because of that day too. Actually it had been a few quotes in the making thanks to another one of my JCMU friends (another of her fine quotes is today`s TOTD.) Anyway, on Monday I went to class and it was really hot. In the afternoon I found out that I could go back to my host family`s house that very day. So I had to race off since someone from the office was driving me so there was no time to blog or email.
Things are all right with my host family. They didn`t ask me to pay for anything even though I offered, and they didn`t ask JCMU to pay either, which is really nice of them. And per the custom, instead I get to buy them a gift, but I`m not sure what that will be yet. I`m out of ideas so someone in the office is helping me. Tuesday was really really hot. It`s averaging about 93 F everyday this week. One thing I will not miss about Japan is the lack of central air and inexpensive energy, although that appears to be changing right now, but I`m not that up on the news. o_o
Tuesday was our last cultural experience of the year. It was naginata or Japanese spears. *_* oh, did I have fun with those. I`ve decided that if the opportunity arises, I`m going to learn how to use one. I really like the idea of the spear-like weapon. Yes, thanks to my years of watching SM no doubt. My favorite weapon on the show was always the Silence Glaive, which is basically a naginata. After that a friend and I went to Viva City to hang out for the rest of the afternoon. We were bad. Oh so bad. We bought school girl socks. XD! Hey, they`re a good personal omiyage, even if I don`t end up wearing them. Also, my arm was turned sharply behind me and pulled as I was dragged kicking and screaming to the DDR machine in the arcade and promptly robbed of 200 yen and forced to DDR for the first time in public. o.o It was sugoku fun. XD I`m addicted after only one game--one very sucky game even though we DID manage to at least clear three stages. I need to become jouzu at this. Or at least play more. ^^ Last night the family and I went out to a yakitori restaurant. It was all right. We spent far too much time there and I didn`t really get to start my homework until a quarter to 10 last night. O_o; Bad me. Especially when my final presentation is in two days. I really need to get going on that.
Today I got caught up in the blogs and IMing to do much else. ^^ One of my apartment mates and I have made the command decision that there will be no English in the apartment. We`ll see how long that lasts, but I`m planning on putting forth much effort to make sure we do. Of we five apartment mates, all of us have had at least one year (I think) of Japanese (the highest level will be about 4 years sans part of a year because of Knox`s lack of beyond 2nd year classes) and four of us will have been to Japan by December. ^^ I`m so looking forward to the school year. It will, as they say, roXXor. ^^;
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `I don`t need protection. I have an extendible straw!` -- a fellow student
Saturday, July 21, 2001 08:18 p.m.
Tired. Oh, so tired. o_o Today I decided to take it upon myself to do something. Yes, something. While hanging around JCMU all day yesterday was fun--I got to talk to a lot of the other people hanging around, eat dinner with a classmate of mine, finish a lot of my project, and frown and scratch my head repeatedly at all the people who sat in the computer lab all day and played computer games--in all, I really just wanted to go out somewhere and do something. Well, as I had written, I wanted to go to Nara. Well, having only been there once by bus and having no one to go with me, I decided that I didn't want to go by myself. Instead, I went back to Kyoto all by my lonesome. I had *so* much fun. ^^
After finding my email devoid of new mail thanks to the attachment that was sent to my last night that was so big it blocked all other messages, I shoved some necessities into my backpack and headed for the station. My first stop was Sanjusangendo, the temple with the 1000 Kannon statues, one large Buddha statue, and 28 guardian dieites including Raijin and Fuujin. (BTW, Fuujin and Raijin are actual figures in Buddhism, and of course they're wind and thunder gods, respectivly. I was amused when I learned about this, having just completed FF8 recently before. ^^) Anyway, I found the place pretty easily. I kinda went off course a bit, but only by a block. It was very interesting being in this long hall filled with these hundreds and hundreds of statues. After that I accidently found the Kyoto National Museum (it was right across the street from Sanjusangendo), but didn't go because, well, I don't remember why I decided not to go, but I think it was because I was starving and wanted lunch which was in the other direction--I had spotted a McDonalds on the way in. XD
But instead of going to the McDonalds I bought some apple juice at Family Mart (convience stores are your BEST friend while travelling or living as a student in Japan. Trust me. The food is good price and they offer more than just the junk food you see in American convience stores. It's cheap food, but still, it's really tasty.) But then I decided that I didn't have anywhere to sit and eat the food I could buy there so on my way to the McDonalds I found an actual Japanese restaurant so I went there instead. From there I snagged a bus to the closest bus stop near Kiyomizu-dera, one of the most beautiful areas in Japan I've been to. I wandered around there for awhile, took lots of pictures, marveled at the beauty, and left to find water. It was really hot today in Kyoto. I also saw a snake. I hate snakes. ¬.¬; From Kiyomizu-dera, I wandered back through the shops I past on my way in and looked for some things to buy. I found this cute little stuffed owl and bought it, but that was it. ^^
After the shopping I decided to head back to this temple my friend and I saw and were dumbstruck by the last time we came to Kyoto. We didn't get to go into it because it was closed that day, so I figured that at 3 in the afternoon on a sunny Saturday, it'd be open. It was a long walk, but easily navigated. I thought I got lost at one point--lost as in I knew where I was, I'd been there before, but I wasn't sure if I was heading in the right direction--but it turns out that I WAS where I was supposed to be and going in the right direction. So I got to the temple, whose name escapes me right now, and walked around and took pictures of the temple and the Kyoto Tower. (Yes, *Kyoto* Tower. It's kinda like the Tokyo Tower, only it's on top of the Kyoto Tower Hotel, and it really doesn't look like the Eiffiel Tower.) Unfortunatly, I found this guy who just really wanted to talk to me. o_O; He stopped me and asked me a couple questions, which was all right. He wasn't that scary. He was half way between middle aged and elderly, so he wasn't very dangerous looking. He did tell me that today they were having free Japanese tea if I wanted some. I said no thanks. When I went into the temple, it seemed like he was following me. o_o Discretely though, which made me even more unamused. Of course, indiscretely would have also made me upset, but the discreteness made it creepy. So finally he came up to me again and asked if I wanted to drink the tea they had. I was like, "fine, if it will satisfy you and get you to leave me alone. Yes, I'll go drink the tea." So we went over to this place that turned out it was a damned VENDING MACHINE that was providing free tea. O_O; From the way he was going on, I had thought it was something interesting and cultural. So I was like, "ok, too bad. I'm leaving now." And he asked me more questions about why I was there and such, and he asked if we could "communicate more" if I had time (he spoke English, but I could not understand the man half the time). I said I was busy and had to get back, and that was finally good enough for him to leave me alone. o_o; I've been thinking about it, and I've come to the conclusion that it was the same guy who talked to my friend and I outside that same temple the previous time we were there and wandered by it. I think. Anyhoo, despite certain people, I was very pleased I went to that temple. Apparently, it's the largest wooden structure in the world. And it was pretty darn big. One room had 401 tatami in it. And that was just one building. There were several others.
From there I was going to go home, but it was still a little early, so I stopped in at the shopping center under the Kyoto Tower and shopped for a little bit before I went back. ^^ So beyond that odd instance with that ojisan, it went off without a hitch. Without planning. Ok, there was a plan, but that was: 1. Go to Kyoto 2. Get a map 3. Go to Sanjusangendo 4. Do other things 5. Go home ^^ Sometimes the best trips are the unplanned ones. But still, the unplanned ones can be the utter worst ones too. Luckily I didn't have anyone to worry about not liking my plan, so it went off splendidly. ^^
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Those are the kind of dreams I like. No freakiness, no problems, no monsters trying to consume my soul. We were just there, having fun skiing." -- Matt
Friday, July 20, 2001 04:55 p.m.
Oy oy. Slow days these days. Yesterday I bought food for the weekend, did some homework, and watched Beverly Hills Cop 1 and 3 (rented from some local store--they had Japanese subtitles) with some people into the wee hours of the night. Very funny movies! XD Oh, and there was class too. ^^ And I did buy these really cute bags at the 100 yen shop with some exquisitly cute Engrish on them. But that is my Thursday in a nutshell. I'm sitting here regretting not being somewhere else, like say, Nara, but I've been working on my report that's due on Tuesday, so at least I'm getting some good accomplished. Perhaps tomorrow I'll go to Kyoto or somewhere. Either then or Sunday I'm going shopping for family presents and, well, personal presents. ^^ Going back to Big Bang because I heard they had a 100 yen CD bin. I have never gone through that place thoroughly, just flitted about and noticed that everything I ended up looking at was rental. O.o;
So today's pretty slow too. Did some of my report, IMed, emailed, etc. etc. Watched many people playing video games to their hearts content. ^^ Well, computer games specifically. In Japan console games are "terebi geimu" or television games and computer games are "conputaa geimu." o_o I think I miss my Playstation. I haven't played anything since, well, since before finals actually. One of the things on my shopping list for when I get back is to buy myself a new memory card. I found out that that's what was making my controllers and memory card slots not work. I found out when I tried to upload my BaG2 data on Matt's PS and discovered that the second controller wasn't working. Took out the card and the controller worked perfectly fine. o_o Don't ask me how that works, but I'm hoping that a nice new card will solve all my troubles.
Next week prepare for some whining from me. I've got that report due on Tuesday, but also we get to have a nice long presentation on our report that has to be 100% memorized due Friday. o_o; Immediately following that on Weds. or Thurs. is our final exam. Following immediately by grades, closing ceremonies, final weekend, and going home. o.o While I'm ready to quit school for awhile, and ready to be home again (plus I want my film developed XD), I also don't want to leave either. First of all there's that godawful international travel and at the same time I'm gonna miss the beautiful mountains, water, Lake Biwa, Hikone-jo, the strange English and snacks and TV, cheap manga, all the senseis and students, and everything else that I've come to be accustomed to and love. ;_; But then again, I get to see everyone and everything else I left behind in America. ^^! Mou. What a dilemma. Anyway. I've blogged for long enough. Ciao.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Ack! There's too much blood in my caffiene system!" -- a classmate of mine
Wednesday, July 18, 2001 04:49 p.m.
Happy Birthday, Karen! XD You'll get your present when I get back to the states. You should love it.
Well, there's more evil going down as a result of yesterday's little rain catastrophe. Basically, I have to stay in the dorm longer than they orginally expected, but they're still not sure exactly what day. They told me that I'd be staying into next week when I was figuring that I'd be going back sometime this weekend, likely Sunday. ><; Tomorrow I'm probably going to be meeting with the director about what I can do to about repaying them and whatnot. I'm not sure what will come of that yet. In other news, I found out that I'm paying for room and board by the day so I'm not paying my host family for the time that I'm not there, but instead, JCMU is getting the money. I should also be getting a refund from my time here as long as I don't use my utilities very much. I guess that's one good thing that's come out of this. Still, we'll see if and how much of that I have to use for the tatami...
Not much else. I've been coughing uncontrollably all day long. I miss my huge pillow supply even more now because I can't prop myself up in bed when I got to sleep. Usually that helps because laying down never helps my coughing. ._. Today is our second all-JCMU BBQ which starts in about an hour. Should be fun! XD Still, a bunch of homestay students aren't coming because they forgot to tell their host families about the BBQ so they have to go home. X_x; And in other bad news I won't be going back to Nara with a friend of mine like I planned because she's going to be going to and environmental summit. Sigh.
Random Celestial thought OTD: "*cough cough cough*"
Tuesday, July 17, 2001 10:16 p.m.
All right. Where did my life go wrong that I had to have such things happen to me. >_< While these things aren`t horrible things--just very unfortunate ones that have left me displaced and VERY annoyed--I can live through them. I`m just not happy about the fact. Reason, below. But first the happy news.
Yay! There`s going to be a new Slayers movie with the TV series cast! Woo hoo! More Zel and Gourry and no Naga! XD BTW, they understate Tottoko Hamutaro`s popularity. It`s like the new Pokemon as far as merchandise in the stores. :P The thing is everywhere.
School day was just that, a school day. Went well. Whoop. After class I had a great lunch with people where we discussed a range of matters outside of the Japanese experience, namely American politics. ^^ From there it was on to the week`s cultural experience--kareoke. Kareoke is more than a phenonmenon or a fun thing to do in Japan, it`s a way of life. They not only actually have kareoke bars that you can go to and sing at, but also private rooms you can rent by the hour so you and your friends can go sing to your hearts` content. We went to one of those today. One English sensei, a guy from the office, and seven or so students piled into this little room and belted out J-Pop, anime songs, and a couple American tunes for a good two hours. ^^ I`ve realized that of all the J-Pop songs I`ve heard and like, I don`t know any of the words well enough to follow the kana/kanji mix that they provide for you on a TV in time with the music. I managed to find `Yakusoku wa iranai` from Esca and sang that by myself. This other guy and I sang `Real Folk Blues` from Cowboy Bebop and `Cruel Angel Thesis` from EVA. ^^ The Japanese office workers were highly amused that we knew EVA and Cruel Angel Thesis and could sing it. hehe. Too bad they didn`t have any Maaya Sakamoto. Even though I didn`t end up singing much, it was still great fun. :D My voice held out and wasn`t too bad, but that was probably due to the fact that my cold moved from my nose to my throat. Meaning now my nose isn`t stuffy, but I`m coughing instead.
After we got back I had a meeting with my sensei when we noticed that the sky was getting a wee bit...black. o_o And green. Two colors you really don`t want the sky to be during the day. Fifteen minutes later the hugest storm that I`ve seen in awhile ripped through the area. Trees and the rain were blowing horizontal and the downpour was tremendous. Thunder and lightning were a plenty. We homestay students were impressed, but not amused by the storm since we usually start going home within an hour of the time the storm started. It stopped, but not before we were being driven to the station and saved from riding in the rain. O.o; When I got to the station I began to notice exactly how much rain had fell when I saw that one of the track areas was almost completely filled with water. We`re talking several feet deep. When I got to Kawase, I saw that there were streets and parking lots flooded too.
So then I got home and raced up stairs to check whether or not my window had managed to get shut while I was away. Nope. Nope. Nope. ._. Aparently my host mom never even thought to go into my room to check if the window was open because generally people tend to close their windows whenever they go anywhere despite the fact that it`s horrible hot AND they keep their doors closed so there`s no circulation of air whatsoever in the room. No one ever told me that so I left the window open because it sure as heck didn`t look like rain this morning, especially not that heavy kinda stuff. That was the reason I left the window open so my room wouldn`t get so ungodly hot. To make things worse, it had managed to rain into my room despite the odd angle that the house and the house not 10 feet away from my host family`s house sits. Thankfully, none of my things were damaged or rained on, but instead, the bookcase that was in front of the window, one corner of the bed, a curtain, and the floor were rained on. Which wouldn`t have been so bad...if my room was not a tatami room. >_< Oh yes, there were consequences to this.
So my host parents decided that they needed to replace the tatami piece that got rained on. Ok. Unfortunatly that takes 4 to 7 days to replace and whatever. I`m still not sure why though. Even more unfortunatly, that means that they have to move all the furniture in the room that sits on that piece of tatami--namely the closet and the bed--when they replace it meaning I can`t stay in that room during the time of replacement. Too bad for me, there`s apparently no other place in the house I can sleep. So for the next 4 to 7 days I get to live in the JCMU dorms again. o_o; So now I`m faced with the fact that now I have to pay for all my meals until I go back plus the fact that there`s a piece of ruined tatami in my room caused by my leaving the window open. It`s only one piece that got damaged, but still, I don`t know how much that costs. o_o; I feel bad about what happened, but I still can`t help but think that there was some miscommunication on both our parts. I`d like to make up for it somehow, but I really don`t know how. I guess I`ll offer to help pay for it, but at the same time they`re not buying nearly a week`s worth of food for me. Maybe that will cover it, but maybe it won`t. Depends on how much the replacement costs. I`ll just have to ask when I get back. o_o
Oh, and there is just one more bad thing. The room I got stuck with. I was told that it hadn`t been cleaned yet, but I was not expecting the bathroom floor to have grime ALL over it. There`s some green stalks of something growing out of the kitchen sink and there are little bugs running around out of the drain. o_o; Tomorrow I`m going to see if someone can take care of that because I`m not really in the mood to clean up someone else`s mess. If not, I guess I`ll have to. Yuck.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `No, it`s usually not good when the sky is green. Why do you ask?`
Monday, July 16, 2001 03:53 p.m.
Yo! The bad blog updater is back with an update. Here's what I did over the past three days or so. Enjoy, na?
Friday
Friday was our mass field trip to Nara. After a nice, long bus ride we made it to Todaiji, the temple where the Daibutsu--largest Buddha statue in Japan--is located. As they say, it's big. Real big. And very impressive. It's hard to believe that people could make something like that so long ago with only simple tools and lacking things like power drills, ^^; but dang it, they did it. We toured the main building for awhile, saw some more big statues and watched merrily as people tried to fit themselves through a hole in one of the supporting beams of the temple. Legend says that if you can make it through, then you'll become smarter. Well, although a bunch of JCMUers managed to squeeze through, I refrained. :P Luckily, depsite forboding weather reports, it was sunny all day so I got to take a lot of pictures, including slide pictures for my presentation in the fall. Instead of rain, it was extremely hot instead. Hot beyond mere words could say. o_o I'm so tired of being soaked to the skin in my own sweat. Yeah, gross, but it's really hard not to when you're wandering around in 95-100 degree weather for a day.
After leaving the temple we wandered around Nara park which is famous for having over a 1000 tame deer living there. We petted them and took their pictures. We explored more of the grounds near Todaiji and had lunch at a nice soba shop. From Todaiji we drove back toward Kyoto to Uji where we visited Byoudoin, where another famous Buddha, although not an incredibly large one, is located in the Phoenix Hall. If you look on the back of a 10 yen coin, you can see this hall. Again, very impressive, but very hot. Thankfully they had a museum we got to wander around in for awhile that was air conditioned. Air con ga daaaaai suki! :D Anyway, from there we went back to Hikone and I went back to my host family's house.
Saturday
Saturday I got sick. Summer colds are wonderful, aren't they? XP Someone on campus got a bunch of us sick as I found out today when one of our classmates in level three
didn't come to class and our sensei was even ill, although she came to class. I had nothing to do on Saturday since everyone was either busy with homework, gone to Tokyo and Osaka, or off somewhere else. So, I just hung out at JCMU for the afternoon since emailing and IMing people are far less boring than sitting at home watching your host mom make crafts all day. :p I had to bike around a lot in the heat before I came home, which I'm sure now worsened my cold, because when I got to Al Plaza for some shopping, I had to turn right around and go back to JCMU because my bike lock key snapped in two and I couldn't get it out. No one was around to help so I managed to get the thing out myself and reattach it with some tape I bought at Lawsons. Went home. Collapsed. Saturday night was horrible because for some reason I kept waking up every 10 minutes, actually sitting up in bed too, for about three hours during the middle of the night.
Sunday
Despite my cold and what I was sure was a fever, I dragged myself to meet my friend in her town to go to Kyoto to see the Gionmatsuri festival with her, her host mom, and host sister. I`m still not sure what the Gionmatsuri is supposed to entail but it`s a month long festival that many many people go to. There were tons of people where yukata and lots of food and shops and games to play. We ate and shopped in Kyoto station for awhile (because my friend`s host sister was tired of wearing her yukata.) There my friend and I bought Engrish T-shirts! :D Mine is hilarious. It has a rhino on the front and it says `New Value: This is a brave animal!!` and the back has two layers of words mixed together. One reads `Pure nature be will forever` and the other is something like `Everything was born from the sea organic.` ^^ So after the station we toured the festival and survived the crowds. Her host mom bought us stuff. o.o; Not much, but still, it was more than enough. She not only bought us lunch, but a crepe and a little wall scroll. She bought my friend a skirt too. By the time we were half way through the festival we were too scared to look at anything else for fear she would buy it for us. o_o As much as I like gifts, there IS a line. After that we went back to her town and hung out and ate at a ramen shop. I went back late and got caught in a downpour on the way home. Fun.
Monday
Not much to say about today except that I`m still sick. My senseis have been like, `Daijoubu?` all day. o.o I must look sicker than I feel. Anyway, I guess I`m gonna go home earlier today so I can finish all my work earlier so I can go to sleep. Tomorrow we`re doing kareoke for our cultural experience. I`m not sure exactly how we`re going to be going about that, but I`m pretty sure it`s going to be very interesting. eheh. I`m wondering if they`ll have English songs or just Japanese ones, but either way, it`s kareoke so it will be fun. I haven`t decided whether or not I`m going to sing anything (especially now since my voice is probably all shot due to the cold) but we`ll see. :D Later.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `Hoee!?` -- Sakura
Saturday, July 14, 2001 03:34 p.m.
Note the email change! Netaddress is going to kill free email on July 31. I will continue to check that address until then, but from now on, send all email to the address over yonder. Oh, and yes, I went to Nara yesterday. I'm going to Kyoto tomorrow. I will blog on Monday. I'm taking care of email business now. :D Later.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Boo ya!"
Thursday, July 12, 2001 01:50 p.m.
mini-update because my mind is mush: o_o yeah. so I've been forgetting to blog this interesting tidbit, and I want to write it down before I forget yet again. Factoid: there's a sushi restaurant in Viva City (a mall in Minami-Hikone) called Sushi Boy.
It is so bloody hot here. ARRGH! I need air con, but no more class today so I get to sit in the dorm until I find something better to do. Goody. Anyway, I didn't blog yesterday due to lack of time--today was our second midterm, and it went...well, it went. I don't think my oral went too well. There was a time where I just sat there staring and trying to remember the word for "superior" so I finally just said "boss" instead. I know she's going to mark me off for that. Anyway, the written part was better, but still icky. For some reason I must have just studied the wrong material or she wrote it a different way from the way we practice. Kanji sucked. I could write almost every word we were supposed to translate into kanji, but I could not fit them into the dialouge, which is what we were supposed to do. o_o I'm so sick of fill in the blank. But it's done. I can breathe. If only the air wasn't near liquid state.
Well, I've got a full weekend ahead of me. Tomorrow we're off to Nara and Sunday I'm going to a festival in Gion (the old geisha district in Kyoto) with my friend and her host mom and possibly host dad if he can get his work schedule to work. I felt good telling my host mom that someone else's host parents were taking their host child and someone else's host child on a trip. XP Especially right before I told her I asked if there were any plans with the family this weekend. Of course, there were no family plans. Everyone was either golfing, working, going out with their own friends, or staying at home making things for the free market at the local festival that takes place in two weeks. Hah. Let that bit of info sink in. Saturday is still open. Not a lot of homework to do this weekend, so I want to go somewhere. I found out that I've been somewhat invited to that neighborhood festival my host parents have been planning and helping out to prepare for on the 28th. Well, I've been invited really. They said in so many words that they'd be happy if I came.
I saw the most amusing commercial the other day. I have no idea what the product was, but the commercial consisted of a soccer team playing soccer, but instead of using a ball they were using an old tea kettle. After one team kicked the winning goal, the commercial came to an end with the slogan "Oyu ready?" "Oyu" as in the word for hot water. XD It was written "oyu" in kanji/kana and "ready" in English. I thought it was a really amusing pun, and so I laughed but my host family, who was watching TV near me at the time, didn't even blink. ^^; I wonder if they didn't get it or if it just wasn't that funny to them.
I talked to the director of JCMU yesterday with a friend of mine about teaching English in Japan. Its starting to sound like a really good idea. Great way to spend a year in Japan, retain your English skills while learning more Japanese, and earn money for things like grad school and what not. I've been thinking a bit about the future lately and what the heck it is I'm doing after graduation. It's weird to think that after June I can just join the work force. o_o I'm such an academic. I have this feeling I'll probably be sticking around school-like things for the rest of my life whether it's grad school or teaching or research or translation or something. Just don't know right now, but the year in Japan looks a lot better than going straight into grad school. I've actually been in school for 7 straight months sans about 8 days and it's really starting to take a toll. I want summer. I want travel, sleeping late, doing fun things, just taking a break from learning all the time. :P
Anyway, this blog is getting a bit long. So I'm gonna run off to be social until I go home. :p Later.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Here. Have some meat."
Tuesday, July 10, 2001 03:50 p.m.
Not much today. In happy, surprising news I got a nice fat refund from my boarding fee today. I hadn`t figured that I would get one since I`m doing homestay for the whole time and they told us that we wouldn`t get one if we were, but since I didn`t leave for homestay until two weeks after I got here, they only charged me half boarding fee for the month of June. And since I didn`t use my utilities very much during those weeks I was here, I got 13,000 yen back. :D Quick! To the mall! ^^ heh. Nah, I`ll use that money for something more constructive. Like trips! And food! And cultural experiences! o_o Ok ok, and buying things at Viva City...and Book Off.
In other events, we had our calligraphy cultural experience today. It was fun and interesting as calligraphy can be. Other than that I`ve just been doing homework, hanging with people, freting over the midterm, and longing for going to Nara and somewhere else this weekend. I have the chance to go to this festival in the Gion district of Kyoto this weekend if my friend`s host family is able to go. They were going to take her and they said I could come along (of course I`d be paying my own way) but due to her host father`s work scheduling, they might not be able to go. If not, we`ll go somewhere else. Perhaps Osaka or back to Nara or Kyoto anyway.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `Ohhhh, jouzu desu ne!`
Monday, July 9, 2001 03:21 p.m.
It's kind of sad that I don't have much to blog about today. o_o I didn't do anything this weekend because I had to stay home and write my report for today. Blech. It took me WAY too long to do, too, but I finished it Sunday and immediately made a break for freedom. I ended up at Viva City for some shopping. ^^ I saw many things I want to purchase, but I only bought myself the CB Vitaminless soundtrack. So yeah, that was my weekend. I did a lot of lounging too because I didn't want to do my other homework after working on that paper. One thing I did do that was interesting was watch TV.
Japanese TV is so amusing. ^^ Amusing, but not necessarily entertaining. Like American TV, there's not much on during the weekend. Still, I did manage to find some interesting things. I found the all-anime network. I caught the last bit of an episode of--surprisingly enough--Ranma. I even recognized the storyline from reading the manga. After watching some commericials on the station I came to discover that they're reruning Sailor Moon. Bikkuri. I also got to see Shingo-mama on his very own show. ^^ It was really funny. He snuck into someone's house and made them breakfast. He nearly scared one of the daughters in the house half to death, but as soon as she saw who it was and he said "Oha!" she recognized him Everyone in the house knew who he was too. Even the mother. Unfortunatly he had to leave quickly because the daughters told him that their dad was scary and would be really mad when he woke up and found him in the house. ^^;
Sunday was the day I went shopping and when I came home we went out to dinner with one of the neighbor families. Apparently they thought it all right not to tell me we were going until a half an hour before hand. Good thing I came back earlier than I had originally planned. -.-; They often don't tell me much. Or even talk to me much. It's really fun coming to school and hearing about everyone's fun adventures with their host families. Everyone in the house just does their own thing and lets me do mine, which usually amounts to my homework during the weekdays. Fun. Yipee. Can you tell I'm excited? I'm so sick and tired of doing nothing. This weekend I'm going somewhere. Don't know where. Don't know with who, but it's going to happen. ¬_¬ Friday we're going to Nara and then on to Uji (which is in very very southern Kyoto). So I might just take off from there.
One thing that did really irk me this weekend was that when we were at the restaurant, my host mom ordered my food for me. -_- We only had one menu between three of us and I was looking at it while she was pointing to things she thought I would like as she said "is this all right?" I nodded, figuring, "Yes, those look all right." Well, a little miscommunication resulted because she must have interpreted that this was what I would like to eat and because everything she pointed out, she ordered for me. -_-; While I guess some of that was my fault, I was not very amused at the results. Food was fine (you know you've been to Japan when you've eaten mashed potatoes with chopsticks) but still. Dammit.
Tomorrow will be happier. I promise.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "That's mighty good Asse." (all of those words are spelled properly; allegedly Asse is the name of a Japanese chocolate candy ^^ I haven't seen it myself though)
Friday, July 6, 2001 05:23 p.m.
Yo. Well, didn't write yesterday because there was nothing to talk about. I got a conversation partner the other day. The English classes are over and done with here so I'm not sure how often we're going to be meeting in the future, but we'll see. This weekend I get to stay home and write my report for Monday. Yay. But it's not a bad weekend for it. Weekend homestay starts today so half the remaining students here are probably going to be gone anyway. Other people are starting the second half homestays so they're busy too. Mou. Ack, less than a week until the next midterm. -.- What kinda of a cruel joke is TWO midterms anyway? Grr.
Anyway, after I had lunch with my conversation partner, today a bunch of us met with a group of high school students from somewhere in Shiga-ken. It was hard trying to hear the students we were talking to over the din over everything else. We broke into groups of about 8 since there were so many people. We spoke to them in English first off, doing self-introductions and such. Then we asked them a couple of questions--they were a quiet group. Actually, half of the table was the quiet type and the other half was, I think, the "popular" type. I dunno, after four years of high school and three years of college to compare it with, I think I can tell. At one point they didn't understand a question we asked in English, so I tried to repeat it in Japanese and they were SO shocked that I actually spoke Japanese. ^^; Even though they knew, or at least we had told them, that I'd been studying for over two years. After that they became even more impressed with our ability to write our names in kana and write our hobbies in Japanese with kanji. Oooooooh! Kanji! After that they were instructed to teach us how to introduce ourselves in Japanese. -.-; A bit embarassing. Since, well, we learned it quite awhile ago. Heh. I shoulda used keigo. ^^; That woulda thrown them.
So after that, we used the remaining time to make a picture story. Ours was Cinderella. We drew pictures and had fun and such. Then we discovered that we were supposed to present our story in Japanese. o_o So, two of the girls wrote the story for us while everyone else continued drawing. Before we finished it was announced that the governor of Shiga was going to be there to watch. (Actually, we'd been told he would come earlier in the week, but I'd forgotten. ^^) Then we presented our work before the entire group and the governor. I've discovered that reading in straight kana is really, really hard now. o_o; I need kanji to break it up, otherwise it all just runs together. We did all right. I stumbled over words that I hadn't heard before, but did ok with everything else. I actually only got to read through it once before preforming since we discovered that ONLY the JCMU students would be reading the story once the presentations started. o_o; So we quickly had to redistribute the dialouge.
So that's my fun Friday. See you next week.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Prince Liquor. He lives up to his name." -- JCMU student
Wednesday, July 4, 2001 02:41 p.m.
Holy cow! O_o; Someone licensed Weiss Kreuz. Bikkuri...
Well, happy July 4th. Somehow I don't think there will be much going on around here because of that today. Too bad I don't even get the day off from school. :P
Oh, BTW, in my tiny rant, well, not really a rant, but an explanation, I failed to mention two other reactions to gaijin in Japan. One is to just ignore you, treat you as just another person walking down the street, shopping in the mall, etc. Yet, there are also people who will try and talk to you in English. o_o That can be interesting. Especially if they're school kids. Sometimes it's harmless, but other times you get the feeling that you're just their entertainment of the moment. Take for instance yesterday, I was riding home and passed these two girls who appeared to be junior high students. Maybe high school, I can't always tell people's ages very well. Anyway, so I crossed their path when I crossed the street on which my host family lives. Suddenly from beside me I hear, "Hello!" to which I responded, "Hello." And to my surprise, a huge burst of laughter, and as I turned back to look at them one of the girls had such a contorted, glee-struck, look on her face, she looked as ifshe was going to fall over from the sheer amusement of what just happened. ¬_¬ I love being the object of people's amusement like that. Reminds me of why I hated junior high...
Hmm, well, not really much to report here. It's been a couple of really hot days this week. Argh. I've never been so thankful for air conditioning before in my life. I've also never wanted to go swimming so much before in my life. o_o; Well, I guess I did do a few things. A friend and I went out yesterday and the day before just riding around the countryside in search of picture sites. We revisted this little road-side shrine we found last week. We found a lot of spiders hanging around and scuttling about there. Actually, it seems there are spiders everywhere you look around here. It's creepy. We also went back to the temples I went by on Sunday. We visted one, but didn't go in the actual temple because it cost money and we didn't have any. We also visited this Shinto shrine that appears to be permanently closed. Still, very cool. That was actually my first visit to a Shinto shrine. Hopefully I'll be able to make it to one of the big ones in Nara next week. ^^ I know which one, but I can't recall the name right now.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Ah no shi roo i tah tay mo no wah nan day su ka?"
Tuesday, July 3, 2001 02:12 p.m.
I dunno if you two read this blog, but congratulations to you, Juri and Greg. ^^
Well, shucky darn, one thing I did forget to mention in my last blog was the fact that in my little trip out to Viva City we discovered the huge arcade on the top floor. Filled with, among other games, three, yes, three versions of DDR (original, 4th, and 5th mix)! I chickened out and didn't try because, well, I suck at those kinds of games first off, and I wasn't going to have my first DDR adventure in front of many people in a mall in Japan. :P Although, thinking back, it *would* be a good story.
I finally got to have more gyoza last night at dinner. *_* I could live on that stuff. So tasty. Now I just have to find myself some fresh nikuman. Anyway, lots of homework has started to pile up. I read way too much last night before going to bed--that's non-school reading stuffs, not homework, btw. ^^; Anyway, today after class and a much needed lunch, we had our weekly cultural experience. This week it was koto (Japanese harp) playing. We watched as someone demonstrated how to play and she answered some questions, but then we got to try it out for ourselves. It was very neat, let me tell ya. ^^ I wanted to try playing the koto ever since a troupe from Tokyo came to Knox a year or so back (Spring 2000, I believe). It was hard trying to keep track of which string I was supposed to be plucking and when, but I managed to play through the whole song. We played "Sakura sakura"--a song I recognized that we sang at one of the elementary schools we went to last week.
Not much to report beyond that so, I'll write about my promised thoughts on being a gaijin in Japan. So basically what being a gaijin in Japan boils down to is that you stick out. Very very much. My guess is that roughly 90% of all the people living in Japan are Japanese or some Asian nationality. This means that it's relatively uncommon for the locals to see non-Asians biking along the side of the road, buying things in the mall, paging through books at the bookstore, etc. However, I wouldn't say it's rare. I often see other foreign-looking people around town and where ever city we happen to be travelling to. Either way, as a non-Asian person, you stick out in a crowd, espeically if you happen to be larger than your average Japanese person. Like me. It was really amusing when I got on an elevator one time packed with about 12 other Japanese women who were a good five inches shorter than me. But you don't even have to be tall to stick out. So, once you stick out, people tend to look at you. It's usually not much more than a look or a double take, but sometimes it amounts to repeated looks or plain staring. Yet sometimes the look reads like "What are *you* doing here?" or "Oh, look at the gaijin." If you're travelling in a group bigger than yourself, you're more likely to earn more glances in your direction, especially if you're not speaking Japanese. Or maybe then if you are. ^^ In my experience, and from stories I've been told, people also tend to assume you either speak no Japanese or you speak enough for them to speak to you as if you were a native-born speaker. Those who don't assume you speak Japanese are probably assuming you're a just a tourist rather than say, a study abroad student. That kind of is annoying when you're trying to learn the language and you WANT people to speak to you in Japanese, all be it stuff you can understand. But other times it's much simpler if say, you're at a loss on where to get tickets over a certain price in Osaka station. ^^;
I've gotten to the point where I'm experiencing a mix of emotions about the whole staring and language thing. It varies throughout the week or even the day. At one point I don't care, then at another point I'm simply annoyed, sometimes I just kind of bristle with annoyance/anger. Usually I hate it when people abnormally pay attention to me anyway, so I guess that really doesn't help matters. Sometimes I just want to call out, "Hey, yeah, the hair's somewhat blond, I'm about the size of Godzilla, the eyes are blue, and yes, that IS English I'm speaking. Is there a problem?" I never do though. ^^ It's kinda rude, ne? Anyway, there are a variety of ways of dealing with Japanese people who stare at you for a little to long, although some probably don't help the American stereotype any. I tend to just ignore it. I guess my view is kinda askew in that sense because I have been ignoring passerbyers. One of my classmates tends to just say "Osu!" (a rough way of saying good morning mostly used by men) to people who look too long. ^^ And if you're American, you're actually quite trapped by the stereotype of Americans. ie: Americans are very friendly, even to strangers. I guess the really best way would be to jsut smile and nod--maybe throw in a "Konnichiwa".
Still, when you see English sprinkled across the products of this country AND see all the non-Asian people on TV or on posters selling things AND see how many American things like music, animemation, movies, even a few mannerisms, Western style stuffs, etc. have found their way to Japan, it gets hard to accept that being a foreigner in Japan is viewed as so weird. o_o; Anyway, so that's my rant. I don't think I necessarily pinned everything down, but yeah. That's good for now.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "I have many skills." -- Xena (I think o.o;)
Monday, July 2, 2001 02:24 p.m.
Attn! My email service at netaddress is going to be put to sleep at the end of the month due to the axing of the free email. I'll be changing it to something new in the near future. Probably this week. Until then I'm still at that address.
Monday's are always fun. There's so much to report. :p Anyway, yup, so I finally saw the subbed version of Mononoke Hime--actually they showed us a fansubbed version. ^^ And I must say that I actually understood a lot more of what was going on and a good feeling for the characters now that I've heard it in the original Japanese. The dub was all right, but see it subbed too. Fansubbed, if you can. I heard that the official subbed version left a lot for want.
After the movie was a little town meeting for all the JCMU students. Basically the director asked us if we had any problems. We didn't except for the fact that the juice/tea/pop machiness haven't been filled probably since before we got here. We're all a happy little family thus far. o.o So then the BBQ that was not a BBQ happened. It was really a cookout because other than the bottles of BBQ sauce, there was no BBQ to be found. We had American style hamburgers, hot dogs (with American style hot dog buns which are different from Japanese style), potato chips (did you know they had nori (seaweed) flavored potato chips in Japan?), Oreo cookies, and plenty of pop. It was a ton of fun and any craving I've had for American food lately has disappated. ^^ After that we went down to the lake for fireworks (mostly just sparklers) with a couple of the sensei. That's another thing that's interesting about Japan. You can buy fireworks at the local convenience store. Granted, I don't know about states other than Iowa and Illinois (where fireworks are illegal) because I've never lived anywhere else on a permenant or semi-permenant basis, but that just seems strange to me. ^^ But useful and fun actually. After that everyone went off to party further but I had to go back to my host family.
While Saturday brought about new adventures, they were small in comparision to, well, anything. I got to finally sleep late (8:30 a.m. which was pushing it. The sun has been rising here at 4:30 a.m. every morning -.-;). It's been a few weeks. I purposely didn't plan anything for the weekend because I thought that I would hang around with or do something with my host family because I really never do anything with them. Basically, I come home, do homework, eat, do more homework, watch tv, bathe, and go to bed. The mornings are filled with just getting ready and leaving. So I figured that weekends I could do something with them. Well, how naive am I. -_- My host sister and father went off to do their own thing, work or what not, and my host mom didn't have anything planned either. So, I hung around until she invited me to go shopping with her at a glass gallery and the grocery store. After that I just read and did a little homework until it was time to go to bed. I found some cute and nice things at the glass gallery--which was actually an area of glass shops--but they were way to expensive for my budget. I found a cute owl wall scroll, but it was 6000 yen. O_o; I passed. What *was* an adventure was that I got to experience Japanese style pizza. No, not okinomiyaki, but real pizza, but really strange toppings. I had the "original mix" pizza with cheese, bacon, ham, onions, green peppers, and corn. Yes, corn. It's everywhere just like sweet bean paste and green tea flavor. Other toppings included fruit, tuna, a variety of sea foods, and more corn. With all the corn here you'd think they'd know where Iowa was. :p Just kidding.
Sunday was more fun. I came back to JCMU for the day to benkyou (study) with people, but decided that since my Saturday was boring and I was pretty much done with my homework anyway, that I'd just go do something. That and it was really nice and sunny yesterday too. So I and some other people went to Viva City and Book Off! for some shopping. I picked up 12 volumes of CCS and a really funny GW gag doujinshi for less than 2000 yen. After some touring of the panya (bread shop) we went back to Hikone and looked about at some of the temples down the road. They were neat, but closed for the day so we didn't spend long there. Today for some reason I could just not speak Japanese. Even when I tried to form the sentence in English first, nothing would form. O_o; It was loads of fun...I wonder how much of that killed my daily grade. Ah well. Tomorrow is a shortened day and our weekly cultural experience this week is koto playing. Unfortunatly next week is our second midterm. Goody. But fortunatly that is immediately followed with our trip to Nara. Ooh, culture. ^^
Today's blog and random entries there after will have a tiny section dedicated to what I will miss and not miss about Japan. What I will miss: bread shops and the fine pastries there in. What I won't miss: one size fits all products at restaurants. Example: at the Dairy Queen where I bought a Blizzard yesterday, they only came in one size--small. Granted, the small sizes are making me eat less, I *do* like the option of a choice.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "So then he tried to explain what the spoons were for and I was like, 'Hey, we have those where I come from. They're like a staple.'"
Friday, June 29, 2001 01:09 p.m.
I am vehemently opposed to the existance of this mouse. It refuses to click on anything. Very annoying. Anyway! Life, however, is not annoying. The boredom is gone! Yesterday I was down in the dumps because nothing remotely bloggable happened. I did, however, remember what my interesting cultural discussion was: the simple phenonmenon of being a gaijin in Japan. Also the phenonmenon of (at least) Japanese cooking shows snatching themes from other shows. Last night I heard DDR`s `Butterfly` in the BGM of a cooking show about spare ribs. O_o; Ok, really, that was basically my whole story about that, but, you know. ^^ More on those topics in a later entry
This link was sent to me by someone who emailed me about my blog. They`re various pictures of Hikone taken by someone who appears to have been a summer student last year. If you look really closely at the picture `City seen from Hikone Castle, looking towards JCMU.` You can just barely see the school. It`s directly to the right of the really tall, white building in the back. The two long, green rooves are JCMU. Thanks again for the link! ^_^
Much to say and less time to say it in. So, today we JCMU students when to elementary schools to play games with the kids and talk to them. Only three people went to a single school, however. My group went to talk to two classes of 5th graders. We talked to the vice principal for awhile, a little too long, in my opinion. Even though I`m not entirely fond of kids--I never know what to say ^^--I had a lot of fun. All the kids were nice and very friendly. They gave little presentations on Hikone and various aspects of it. Then after each presentation they quizzed us on what they had just taught us! ^^; Unfortunatly they talked very quietly and disjointedly, so it was hard to understand what they were talking about. We managed to answer a couple of the questions correctly, like, what`s the name of the castle in Hikone. ^^! After that we did a little calligraphy. They were learning the `tomo` kanji, the one in `tomodachi` (`friend`). Then we had a little question and answer session with the kids. They asked us about our favorite foods, how long we`d been in Japan, what sports we liked, etc. They were very impressed with the fact that my favorite show on Japanese TV right now is Inu Yasha and that I liked fencing. The minute I said `Inu Yasha` the whole class was like `O_O OHHHHH! :D` ^^; One of the girls in my group told them she did karate, which also impressed them. We made origami balloons with another class and had another question and answer session after that. Fortunatly for us, their teacher spoke pretty good English and was able to explain or restate what the kids said to us during that time. Thank goodness too, since they were often too quite for me to hear very well.
We had to leave right before lunch though, which was really disappointing. I wanted to stay and do more because it felt like we really didn`t do much. The school itself was very interesting. Some of the kids spoke a little English to us like `Hello.` Apparently they were taught how to say `Nice to meet you` for us too. ^^ One thing that really impressed me about the school was the great amount of trust the teacher had with the students. He would just leave the room sometimes to take us somewhere, but he`d of course come right back. Also, kids would leave the class room to get things and run in the halls, walk in lines that weren`t straight, or not even any lines at all, they moved small pieces of furniture like tables before and after we did origami, etc. I don`t know about anyone else`s elementary school experience, but I don`t remember ever expereiencing that kind of freedom except on the playground. o.o We *always* had to walk in the halls, we never left the room in large numbers, always had to be in line going from place to place, and the teacher never let us out of her/his sight. We sure as heck never moved furniture. All of that was done for us. I just don`t remember that feeling of openness that I felt at the elementary school today. And while I guess the teacher leaving the students alone could be seen by some people as some form of neglect, but I see it as a form of trust that the kids wouldn`t run wild or anything like that. I`m sure if a teacher in the US ever had that policy and a parent or administrative person saw it, they would get in trouble. Still, I haven`t been in an elementary school for a long, long time, so maybe things have changed. :]
More later. I`ve got to run off to see the Japanese language version of Mononoke Hime. I`ve seen it twice before, but in English dub form. After that is the all-JCMU BBQ. ^^ Jya!
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `My stomach is hungry.` -- a JCMU student
Wednesday, June 27, 2001 04:36 p.m.
o_o I'm very damp. Very. I just got back from a tour of Shiga University with a group of people. The English Speaking Society showed us around. It was pretty much a college campus, only in Japan. ^^ It was really fun seeing a real college campus in Japan rather than the little America we have here at JCMU. ^^ We have one academic building and one dorm. That's it, but it's enough. We only have about 40 students in the Japanese language program. Anyway, it was very interesting, but on the way back after a very nice day, although hot, and the sky full of nothing but fluffy white clouds, it started to rain. not that much, but the wind is blowing like you wouldn't believe. We had to bike home into the wind too. X_x Bleah.
For lunch today my class made oyakodon with our sensei and her apartmentmate, one of the first year professor, who I discovered was an exchange student at U of I at one time. ^^ Oyakodon is a very tasty type of donburi made with chicken and egg. After that of course it was back to class and then off for our tour. I can't wait until Friday. Grar! Why does Thursday even exist. I've disliked Thursday since high school. It's ALMOST the weekend, but it's not. X_X Anyway, on Friday we're having a campus-wide BBQ with the English language students. We don't have class that day either. Instead we're going to another elementary school for fun with the kids. Not sure what we're going to be doing, but we'll see. Dunno what's going down this weekend either, but hopefully it will not be very rainy. ^^
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Why do you need your umbrella? It's nice weather today!"
Tuesday, June 26, 2001 02:35 p.m.
Karen, yes, we must hang and we must see more anime! *_* I know for sure that I saw eps. 1 and 2 of Inu Yasha, but I was just unsure about the `3-4` I saw. Actually I discovered that the show is still actually on the air. It`s on Monday nights at 7. ^^ Followed immediately by Conan. I`ll look for those if I get back to Book Off.
Yup, so I saw more Inu Yasha last night--just one episode though. Unfortunatly it looked like it was from a portion of the story quite far beyond the point I had to stop reading the manga because I wasn`t in CR anymore. I actually got to see the bad guy without his monkey suit! Interesting. o.o; I`d love to comment, but I don`t want to spoil it for anyone, so... Anyway. I didn`t do much last night but my laundry and my homework. It was actually sunny for the whole day today, which also meant that it`s really hot. But that`s better than 100% humidity AND hot that it has been. XP I think it`s supposed to start raining again tomorrow and continue until all the water in the world has been dropped on Japan. O_o; In other words, if you come here during the summer, bring your rain gear. You`re screwed without an umbrella.
I had some insightful cultural discussion in mind for the blog earlier today or yesterday, but I`ve plumb forgot what it was. Anyway, today we had class and our cultural experience of the week. This week was a lesson in akido, a Japanese self-defense martial art. It was very cool, very fun, very useful, but a bit painful. ^^; My arm still hurts. Students from the Shiga University akido club came and gave a demonstration and taught us a few quick moves. I`ve been thinking about taking up some sort of martial art just for the heck of it, but I haven`t had that much gumption to do so and have thus never have, but today I`ve started thinking about it again in more serious terms. Now I know how to take a person down if they try to either punch me or grab me by the collar from the front. We learned one or two other things, but they`ve already escaped me. ^^;
This afternoon I`m just working through my pile of stuff and escaping the heat. I`ve got part of my project due on Thursday and I need to interview a couple more people. Tonight I`m going to ask my host mother about how to make okinomiyaki. ^^ It`ll be a very useful dish in the apartment next year. Tomorrow my class is going to make oyako-don (chicken and egg donburi) during lunch break with our sensei. I can`t wait. I`ve been hungry for donburi since this weekend when I saw some in a shop window in Kyoto. I got the omuraisu (rice omlette) instead.
Random Celestial Thought OTD:
Akido instructor: Itai?
Me: Hai. O_o;
Akido instructor: Itai? Itai???
Me: HAI! Itai itai! x_X
Monday, June 25, 2001 02:41 p.m.
o.o Yup. Been awhile. Yup. Anyway, this weekend was an interesting one. I sorta refuse to use a word with happier connotation. The test went very well on Friday, in my opinion, but who knows. We'll get it back sometime this week. The best part was when we got to the bonus question: write the students names and the teacher's names in kana. 1 point for each one correct. The funny part was that before the test our professor had written the names of we students on the board to mark the order of our oral exam. XD She didn't even realize what she had done. I didn't bother to mention it though. ^,^;
After class we went and toured Hikone castle and the surrounding garden and the museum. It was awesome! One of the best feelings I have had in Japan was going into the museum, noticing this screen that they had on display, and immediately recognizing it as something I had a picture of in my Japanese art history book. That was cool. We were on our feet walking around for three hours so my feet hurt royally. After that I just went home. While there I watched the first four episodes of Inu Yasha in raw Japanese. *_* Kirei. I adore the opening song, "It's Wonderland" I think it's called. The animation is lovely and the voices are nice--no one I recognized though. XD Anyway, I *must* see this subtitled when I get back home. I was kind of confused while watching eps. 3 and 4 because it seemed to jump around a bit after the first two episodes. For some reason, the flea guy wasn't introduced, he just showed up and somehow Inu Yasha has the sword (whose name I forget right now) with also no explanation as to why he has it, even though it was a whole story arc in the manga. His brother is in the opening, so I'm assuming the story arc is there somewhere.
Saturday I went with some people to an elementary school to play with the kids and stuff. Now, I've never been entirely fond of children, I still am not, but it was a lot of fun. ^^ We played games, sang Japanese kids songs, taught them how to play "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," played with toys, did origami, calligraphy, etc. Lunch was great. We had a variety of tasty things. Apparently I had some fried cuttlefish at one point. I seriously thought it was chicken. O_o; That's exactly what it tasted like. After that I came back to the dorm and eventually headed off to Kyoto. We got there too late to do anything that night except eat dinner and wander around. We walked around the Gion district, best known for its tea houses and geisha, for awhile. It was interesting. We think we found some actual tea houses. Not that we went in of course. :p Not that we would have even been *allowed* in of course. After that we decided to go find some lodging. It took us over three hours of wandering around, taking trains, and asking various people for directions before we finally found the damn guest house. ~_~; During that time we did pass by the Imperial Palace several times, which was a keen thing. We didn't get to see the actual palace however. o.o;
So after rising quite late on Sunday, when we had initially decided to get up pretty early, we finally went off to find museums and temples and the like. Fortunatly it had stopped raining by then. It rained all day Saturday. Unfortunatly, we didn't know the exact location of the museum we were tyring to get to, so it took us another two or three hours until we finally found it. We knew the general area--around this certain university in Kyoto that I forget the name of. We actually only found it after we decided to go back to Kyoto Station to head for Sanjusangendo, a temple with 1001 Buddha statues in it. My friend wanted to go to the museum, I wanted to go to the temple so I did not feel very responsible for knowing the location of the museum. I was very irked at one point when she claimed that she didn't even know the name of the place. -.-; Not that it wasn't written in the travel book she was carrying, but you know. Anyway, we had interesting fun at the museum--the Kyoto Museum for World Peace, is it's name. It's based around the events of World War II, focusing mostly on Japanese actions. After the museum we headed off toward the temple, but continuing our theme of "almost getting to where we were going" we wandered back to the station and missed the last train that could have gotten us back to Kyoto Station in time to get to Sanjusangendo before it closed. -_-; By three minutes. So we just gave up and came home to Hikone.
I'd like you all to know that the moral to that story is: find yourself a damn good map BEFORE getting to your destination. Don't simply rely on sketchy descriptions from guidebooks and maps you can pick up at tourist information in train stations. Japan is filled with alley-streets, as I call them. They're like alleys, only they're streets. But. They're not streets because they don't have names. There are also no number addresses on buildings in Japan. -.-; If you find a police box, use it. O_o; Also, if you speak even just a little Japanese, you can get around in Kyoto, even if you're lost and need to ask people for directions. You'd be surprised at how many people actually know just some English. ^^
At one point my friend and I decided that the next time we passed some lost-looking gaikokujin (foreigners) we would talk to them in Japanese and try and help them, pretending not to know English. XD We never did do so--because we're nice--but we thought about it when we passed this family of tourists trying to navigate through a train station in Kyoto. Another interesting story: we think we surprised a convience store clerk when we were talking about the price of an item at the counter and Japanese numbers just came out of our mouths mixed with English. ^^;
Anyway, that's my little adventure for this weekend. Last night my host family had another little party with their friends. This time they served okinomiyaki! :D It's actually very very tasty. More like a pancake than Viz comics would have you believe (Japanese pizza was their description as I remember the description from Ranma 1/2.) But it's not a pancake and it's not pizza. It's really both I guess. oo; Just imagine a pancake with various meat and vegetables thrown in the batter. Then cook it like a pancake and serve it with brown sauce and mayonaise. ^^ Dinner is always an adventure at my host family's house. Last week I had spagetti with meat sauce. Unfortunatly my host mom felt that it's appropriate to serve potato soup with spagetti. O_o; It was either that or clam chowder. I didn't want to ask because it was a scary white color and I just didn't want to know. Yet the next day we had fish. It was so fresh that it still had scales, bones, and eyes on the other side from where I was eating. :p
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Oh! It's hyaku NI juu en! ^_^;;"
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