Pep Rally, Coffee Hour, and a legitimate Hanami with Japanese friends!

Day 2 of feeling like I was going to faint on the trains. I was only like two minutes early again, so I was close to the last in line and had to be squished in. But I was pushed in farther this time, not by the window, so it was really hot and claustrophobic... Within two minutes, my forehead was wet with sweat and they didn't turn on the air like they did yesterday. It was so, so, so, so bad. I can only imagine what summer is like...

 

Anyway, my friends in 400 had a conversation test today, which meant they all came in at different times throughout the morning, so I walked to school alone today. I stopped at Lawson's so I could get something to eat for lunch while I watched the martial arts guys perform. But it was too early in the morning. The employees were still stocking the shelves. But I got an anko sandwhich which got me two bear stickers!

 

When I got to school, the football players were in the entranceway again! No other Japanese students were around, so it was just me walking hitori de through all those guys. They didn't say anything (because they don't really shout at us ryuugakusei), but then #1 (remember the cute one from yesterday?) turned around and saw me and shouted "Ohayou gozaimasu!" so then all the other football players chimed in after him with "Ohayou gozaimasu!" And then #1 like stuck out his chest all confidently and said "Morning good!"

Omg hahahahaha. He was all cocky and he said it completely wrong and didn't even realize! It was so adorable. I just laughed and was like, "Good morning!"

 

 

We had Mutsukawa sensei again for class today. He was back from America and had caught a cold because it was rainy and windy in Philadelphia. He told us that this week was all freshman orientation and the rest of the students aren't coming until Friday! What??? There are so many kids on campus already, and this isn't even all of them? Geez!

At the end of class, he was trying to write our full names in katakana and said he has to read them out at graduation.

I told him I wanted him to say "Keito dake" (only Keito), so he said he would, and fixed it. And then other people started asking him to change their names too, but he wouldn't do it, lol. I feel special. :)

 

Then finally, class was over! Emma had gotten the last time slot for her speaking test, so she got done at 10:50 too. I was happy because I'd invited her to eat with me on the green space to watch the martial arts guys. While I waited for her, I signed up for the field trip to Kyoto! I'm so excited for it!! I didn't realize it cost ￥2000, but thankfully I had that with me! Τhen Emma signed up while I went to Lawson's to get more lunch now that I was later. I'd been worried the Lawson's on campus would be packed at lunch time, but it wasn't! I think a lot of the new kids had brought their own bentos.

 

So I got my favorite sushi (the one I had on the Shinkansen) and orange juice. The raise in tax made my lunch a lot more expensive than I thought it would be. :( The sushi had gone up 10 yen!

 

Anyway, I went down to the green space and saw Emma sitting there already. It was such a beautiful day!! We waited a while, and finally at 11:30, the cheerleaders came out and did a show. They're called the Koalas. It's weird. Nanzan has two cheerleading teams, the Koalas and the Rustles. I don't understand...

 

Emma and I mused about how different Japanese cheerleaders are. They're way peppier, their voices are way more high pitched, and they're more cutsey than slutty (like American cheerleaders).

Also, they ALL look exactly alike. It's kind of creepy.

 

Here's a movie of them:

They also did some awesome things with their pom poms! I wish I'd known they were going to do them and I could have taken a movie, but at least I got these good pictures! They did everything really fast, too, so it was hard to take them.



Nanzan!



An emoticon! It's face changed :D



Enjoy (with a music note!)



Ichinensei! (it means freshmen)  I love how I got the girl flying!

Emma had the same sushi I did, haha! She loves it too. It really is good sushi!
She also bought three dango, so she gave me one! Springtime dango (the three-colored one) is what is traditionally eaten when you do hanami. It was good!

Us with our dango! And the sakura tree in the background.

There were sakura petals falling all around us, it was beautiful! See them in the grass?

 

After the cheerleaders finished their show, this guy with an armband came out and shouted stuff and then directed the cheerleaders in a song, which I think may be the school song. It was cool!

 

Here's a movie of it:

 



 

 

We waited around after the cheerleaders were done performing, but nothing more happened! I saw some of the martial arts guys standing around in their uniforms, and thought they would do a show, but I guess we missed it! Argh, oh well!

 

Then Emma and I decided to head in because I felt like I was getting sunburnt. We ran into Heather and Natalia on the way and Natalia wanted to take my picture with the sakura, so I let her do a mini photoshoot, lol.

 

Then Emma headed off to the movies to see Frozen (she was seeing it in Japanese) and then I went to coffee hour.

When I walked into the building, right away I saw Kazuki! He thanked me for coming and said hardly anyone had shown up today. Oh no!

I had expected that because most people had plans for this afternoon, but when I went in, there was only Brendan and this other guy Eddy (from China) and then the coffee hour leaders. Where were the Japanese students?

 

This shy girl came in then and then a bunch of freshmen after her. For the next hour, because we had so little people, the coffee hour leaders decided not to play the games they had had planned, but to instead just let us mingle the entire time. That was awesome, because I got to really practice my Japanese.

The students all stuck in groups with their high school friends, so I just went around to various groups talking to different people. I met these two freshmen girls who were half Brazilian, half Japanese, but have been in Japan for a long time so their Japanese is just about perfect. Their English was pretty good too and they are going to do the two year English program at Nanzan and then hopefully study abroad. Then I talked to the shy girl, who I found out just came from China five days ago and is going to start graduate school at Nanzan. Her Japanese was also really good, because she studied it in China for four years! Her English was also great. Argh, I was jealous, haha. Kazuki came over while we were talking and I asked him what about the hanami party he'd been planning on throwing. He said maybe we could go tonight to see the sakura.

 

After that, I ate some food and talked with these two Japanese girls (below me and to the left in the picture below). The one in the leather jacket really wants to go to New York, so she asked me a lot about New York.

 

Then we took this picture. 

After the picture, two new girls came in, and one of the coffee hour leaders took them over to me to talk. They were adorable! They were from the same high school as well. One was studying English (her English was about at the level of my Japanese, maybe a little better) and the other, German. I talked to them a lot about different things. The one studying German was shy and talked really fast, but the one studying English (her name was Haruka) talked really slowly so I could understand!
I talked to them all about American music and tv shows. Haruka watches Glee, so we talked about that. She also likes Avril Lavigne and Taylor Swift!! Ahh!

Too soon, coffee hour was over. Haruka gave me her email so we can keep talking. Then the Chinese girl (the kanji in her name is "hotaru" in Japanese (that means firefly, so pretty, right?) so that's what everyone was calling her) came over and asked if we were doing hanami tonight. I was surprised, because I didn't realize it was actually happening! She went and got the two Brazilian girls and then I grabbed Kazuki. I said I couldn't do it tonight because I'd said I'd be home for dinner, but how about right now? They were all free, so we decided to do it. I felt bad for Hotaru, too, because she lives alone in an apartment and hasn't made any friends yet.
Kazuki said he'd meet us there, so we all went to the station to ride the subway to Tsuremai Koen (another famous place to see sakura). No one knew the way to the subway station or how to ride the subways, haha (the Brazilian girls were from Okazaki (about as far out as Ichinomiya), and so didn't come around here ever), so I had to teach everyone. They told me it was awesome I was so good at navigating!

Communication was a bit difficult. They all really wanted to practice English, so we did for a bit, but they kept reverting back to Japanese because it was easier for them. It made me really sad that I suck so hard at Japanese...

When we got to Tsuremai station, it opened right into the park! The park was beautiful!

Lots of food stalls!

I love these lanterns!

 We took pictures by the sakura! We kept asking random people to take them so we could get all of us, haha.

Sign for the park

 We walked around the areas where people were doing hanami and took more pictures. Then we left that part and went to the less crowded part where there was a beautiful bridge and lake.

Cherry blossoms that fell in the water

And we took more pictures by the lake

We also found this pavilion thing that had music notes along the railing. It was so pretty! It was in the center of a large amphitheater, so there must be concerts there!

 

 

Then we headed back over to a gazebo sort of thing by the lake to sit down and wait for Kazuki (he'd called and said he was in the park). The sun was all golden and shining on me and everyone started obsessing about my eyes, telling me how pretty they are and how they wished they had blue eyes! It was so nice!

Hotaru was also in love with my hair color lol. She likes her the color it is now, but was telling me how hard it is to dye.

 

Finally, I saw Kazuki on the other side of the lake, so Sara (one of the Brazilian girls), whistled super loudly and he saw us and walked over. He had brought Jose with him too.

 

We all walked around the lake some more.

 

Cool little rock bridge crossing the lake

 

Kazuki took a jumping picture of us, haha

 Then we walked more around the park. After we left that lake, we were standing while Jose looked up something on his phone. Sara leaned over and pulled a sakura petal out of my hair! I thought it was cool that a sakura petal had landed in my hair, and then everyone told me it means good luck!!! Whoaaa! I didn't know that! Awesome!
Afterwards, we found a pretty area where the sakura hung over the lake.
 

 

There was a huge group of college kids having a hanami here. It looked really fun. They had drank a lot. We got them to take a picture for us. Then Kazuki started talking to them and they talked for a bit. We all laughed about how quickly he had made friends!

 

Us by the riverside. These are from Hotaru, who likes to edit pictures like crazy, haha!

We walked some more, heading back towards the hanami area. Kazuki and I saw a lot of couples. So cute! I felt bad because he kept saying things to me that I didn't understand... T_T why is my Japanese crap??
 

 

It was getting late, so we went to get alcohol. Even though I tried to tell him not to, because they were expensive, Kazuki bought me a beer. He asked me if I wanted Asahi or Kirin, so I asked which is better, and he said he'd get me his osusume (recommendation). It was Asahi. Everyone else had brought bottles of water or tea.

Then Kazuki asked the beer dude if we could have some of the empty boxes, so he let us. We tore them open and used them to sit on since we didn't have a blue tarp like everyone else. We were able to find a little space of ground and we sat next to a large group of sakuru (club) members that Kazuki thought may have been from Nanzan. 

 

 

 

 

Getting dark

 

After we did kanpai, Kazuki told us that usually at hanami, everyone starts by introducing themselves, so we all went around and did jikoshyoukai, haha. It was fun! When we'd finished them, it was time for me to leave. The Brazilian girls and Hotaru were leaving as well, so we headed out and Kazuki and Jose picked up the boxes and then left as well.

I really wanted to stay until dark because Kazuki said the lanterns light up, and the sakura look really pretty at night. He ended up going back that night, and I wanted to too, but I live so freaking far away. That's one of the disadvantages of living in a homestay. :(

 

But I'm going to try to go back Saturday after the concert, since the concert venue is nearby. Hopefully the rain won't have washed away all the sakura.



 

All that beer!!

 

Blurry, but there were a ton of food stands!

 

We all parted ways at the station. On the train home and while I was riding my bike, random Japanese words kept popping into my thoughts in place of their English equivalents. It was so weird! For example I'd be thinking "Yeah, crossing the street first is better," but what I'd actually think was "Yeah, crossing the street first is no hou ga ii" Ahhh, it happened a lot. Probably because I'd just spent the past five hours converting everything I wanted to say into Japanese.
I think this is one of the first steps to thinking in Japanese/speaking fluent Japanese. Heck yes!

I got home just before 7, but Yuko was still making dinner. I played with Miyabi. She showed me her new nerukeshi (moldable erasers). I asked her what she did today and she said she'd gone with Yuko on their bike to a park and did hanami. I was jealous! I asked her if she ate anything and she told me she ate oobanyaki. I looked that up and saw it was the circular anko filled bun Mariko had tried to buy for me at the zoo.
Ah, I want to try it!
Maybe I'll get to at the Inuyama festival Mami invited me to this weekend!

Then Ken came home and we had dinner. It was pasta with bread. Even though I see her do it every day, it didn't sink in until tonight that Yuko microwaves the bread to toast it!! Do toasters not exist in Japan? How weird!

After dinner, I had a bunch of texts from my new friends. Hotaru had created a group text on Line, so we could all talk to each other and send pictures. I failed with my attempts at texting. I accidentally said the word for yesterday, when I meant to use the one for tomorrow. But it was all good!
The girls all want to do karaoke together some time and then have a goodbye party for me in May. They're so nice!! I really wish I wasn't leaving Japan so soon!

I studied for my test tomorrow and then went to sleep, because I was exhausted and had a bit of a headache.