Whoo, it's the first day of March!! You know what that means, everyone? The penis festival is in 14 days!! I found out the Naked Man festival already happened. :( It was on February 4, a school day! So I would have had to skip class (since I have class on Tuesday until 3), and I probably would have, had I known. Oh well! The penis festival is the one I want to go to the most!!!
Finally it was time to meet Atsuko (the old lady from church last week who invited me over to her house for lunch today). I left the house and headed over to Seiyu, worrying that she might have forgotten about our meeting. But she was there! She spotted me and surprised me by giving me a hug! (People don't hug in Japan) I have her Texas chocolate and then she led me to her car where her husband was sitting in the driver's seat. She sat in the back to talk with me as he drove us to their house. On the way we passed a shrine, which she told me was Iwato Shrine and is a famous shrine in Ichinomiya.
When we got to their house, I saw she had a bunch of potted plants and flowers out front. They were so pretty! She took me inside and I saw she had the table all laid out with food already! Then we went into her backyard which was adorable with one of those garden arch things and lots of plants.
She took me into a little mini guest house type thing with only one room and no heat, so it was a little chilly. This was where she had her Ohinasama dolls, just like we have at home.
Atsuko also showed me the water color paintings she'd done that were hanging around the room. She was so good! She also gave me a paper that talked about Ohinasama in English. It also talked about how the third of March is also a holiday I didn't know existed, called mi no hi, "ear day"! Because the Arabic numeral "3" looks like an ear and 3/3 can be pronounced "mi mi", which means ear!
Then we went back into the main house for lunch. Atsuko's friend, Yoko came over then. Yoko teaches calligraphy and brought calligraphy gear for me to use!
Lunch was amazing!
(In the black things was soup with seafood!)
There were also tomato slices with cheese and lettuce, but Atsuko had a bunch without cheese because she remembered me saying I couldn't eat milk products!
And she'd bought this bottle of nonalcoholic sake for us to drink. It was really cute and sooo delicious! I didn't get to take a picture of it, but luckily I found one online! This is what it looked like.
After lunch, Yoko broke out the calligraphy supplies. She had a bunch of papers with various kanji written on them, and I impressed everyone by reading all the kanji out loud.
She brought brushes, the black ink holders we use at school, and the liquid ink. I impressed her when I told her we use the ink blocks at Nanzan to make our own ink.
I practiced writing whatever kanji I wanted and then she would give me a thick board with a gold border for me to write it on. She said I could keep them as omiyage. Then she had me sign my name. She asked if I knew how to write my name in kanji. I told her I found out the correct way to write it is:
毛糸
Which means wool, but that I'd chosen different kanji when I made my inkan. I couldn't remember how to write the kanji, so I used my dictionary app to look up "kei" and then "to" and searched through the kanji until I found the ones that I'd used. They really liked the ones I'd picked and the fact that it meant "wise road" :)
Then Yoko wrote a poem in all hiragana and had me read it. It was difficult because some of the hiragana didn't have the apostrophe things, but were still pronounced as if they did. Like は was pronounced "ba". I was like wtf. That's why poems are hard for Japanese people to read.
Then she had me practice my hiragana by writing the theme song to My Neighbor Totoro. And she wrote it too on a board for me.
Ahh it was so much fun!! I told Yoko over and over how much fun I had. In the middle of doing calligraphy, we broke for a snack. Atsuko brought in a children's book in Japanese for me!
Then, because she wanted to teach me about Hinamatsuri and other aspects of Japanese culture, we had tea, mikan, and dango, which is traditionally eaten at the time of hinamatsuri. I'd had dango in America once and hated it, so I'd always thought dango was gross, but eating it today I discovered it was actually really, really good!! I loved it! It was made of three mochi dough ball things. The top was pink, the middle white, and the bottom green.
Here's a picture of it I found online:
After we'd finished the calligraphy, we headed back outside to the Ohinasama room. Before we entered it though, we went to the front, where Atsuko has a garden and she picked some daffodils and lavender for the Ohinasama room and let me smell them. It started to rain while we were out there.
Back in the Ohinasama room, Atsuko broke into the chocolate I'd brought. Yoko really liked it and ate a lot of it haha. Then Atsuko pulled out some books about Japanese culture that she showed me. She also had the book of Spirited Away, that a friend of hers had bought for her in LA!
I excused myself to go to the bathroom and Yoko showed me where it was in the main house. When I got out, Yoko was leaving. I thanked her again for the calligraphy lessons and fun and then she left.
Atsuko and I headed back to the Ohinasama room and I tried to call Yuko to tell her I was still coming home for dinner (because it was already 3, so I'd been there 3 hours already!), but no one answered at home or Yuko's cell.
Atsuko told me her daughter and granddaughter really wanted to come and speak English with me because they'd lived in Michigan for a while and knew English, but the granddaughter had ballet until 2:30. Could I wait for them to come over by train? I said I could, so we waited.
While we waited, Atsuko showed me all these picture albums she had full of pictures from all her travels. She'd been to so many countries!! The first was from her time in the US. It was back in '96. I recognized and had been to all the places she'd been to, like Yosemite, Vegas, Salt Lake City, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Santa Monica.
Then she showed me Germany, England, France, Switzerlad, and Italy!! It was so awesome! She'd gotten to go to all these places because she's an English teacher and she applied for the trips and then on the trips, she got to practice English and stay with host families. I'm so jealous!
Atsuko also brought out these cute flower shaped okashi for Hinamatsuri, in iro iro iro (various colors). They were delicious!!! I thought they tasted like Froot Loops.
Atsuko's daughter finally got there around 5, and brought her son and daughter (Joe and Miyu). Her son looked about 7, and her daughter was 11. Both told me their names in English and a few phrases like "nice to meet you."
Then when we got to talking, I realized her daughter speaks perfect English! Because she went to elementary school in America, she has no hint of a Japanese accent. Her mom was good at English too, but she was better! Over and over again, her mom would tell her something in Japanese and have her say it in English to me.
We moved back into the main house where it was warmer and then ate mikan, apples, and the flower things and talked and talked. They asked me a bunch of questions! I was curious to know how long it had taken Miyu to learn English, and she told me 2-3 years. Her grandmother had taught her basic phrases before she left, but she had a lot of trouble reading, writing, and understanding in America. She went I English classes through, and her American friends helped her a lot. I'm so jealous she's bilingual at such a young age!!
Also, I asked her what her favorite part of America was and she said Disney World, haha! She went twice while they lived there.
Joe said that the dango represented pink for sakura, white for snow, and green for grass! I didn't know that!!
It was so fun talking to them, I was sad to leave at 6, but I'd tried Yuko again earlier and she'd answered and I'd told her I'd be home for dinner, so I had to leave. We all took a picture outside and then Miyu, her mom, and Atsuko's husband took me in the car back to Seiyu. Then Miyu and her mom got out and hugged me goodbye and I walked home.
At home, Miya and Yuko got all excited over all the stuff I brought home. They really liked the children's book and all the calligraphy I had done. Yuko told me I was really good at calligraphy!
Oh, and a funny moment, Miya's shirt sleeve had fallen down so her shoulder was exposed, and Yuko was like "shekkishi" (sexy) and pulled it up to cover her shoulder. Haha. Then Miya kept pulling it back down and smiling and Yuko kept being like "dame!" (Bad) and pulling it back up again. Hahaha!
We had dinner shortly after. Ken didn't get home until after I went to sleep, so it was just Yuko, Miya, and me. We had oden!!! Yay!!
This time there were those pouch things in it. They were full of mochi!! They were good, but I still like the pink things the best. I asked Yuko if she made the pouches or bought them, and she said she bought them, but some people make them.
She also told me the stuff in oden varies but region. Like it's different in Osaka and Tokyo. In Tokyo it's more bland. Oh, we also put miso on our oden tonight an it made it taste soooo good! I love miso, so I'm glad I picked Nagoya to study abroad in (since it's famous for miso!) And Yuko said her mom always put octopus in the oden lol!
Sadly, this is the second and last time we'll be eating oden because it's a winter food and it's already March!
After dinner, I helped Yuko scan my Line QR and add me on Line, so I can text her if there's ever a problem and I happen to have wifi. Then she had me add her on Skype as well. We tested video calling each other using Line and Skype and the Line video call sucked, it kept freezing. Skype worked perfectly, though!
Then we watched the doubutsuen (zoo) show, with all the cute animals. There were kittens and Pomeranians, and lemurs on tonight so we all died seeing all the cuteness!
Then Miya and Yuko showered and went to bed pretty early, at 9.
I texted Mami (the girl I met when Emma and I went to Nami's English Cafe) and asked if she wanted to hang out tomorrow, and she said she did! So were going to walk around Osu and go have lunch somewhere. I'm so excited!!
