Another Thursday & Friday combo

Thursday, April 17

I talked to my host family in Japanese a lot today and spent a lot of time with them! I like when they include me and I get to be around them a lot, since that’s the reason I picked a homestay in the first place.

At breakfast, we were eating cereal when I brought up the fact that I would be doing presentation with Brendan today, since they know Brendan and everything. Yuko asked me what the presentation was about and everything, so I told her about the movie and how it was kind of boring, so I wasn’t too happy about doing this presentation. She asked if we would be presenting together and when I said we would be, she said that that’s better. 

After breakfast, I went to Seiyu because I wanted to get the sushi and inarizushi combo I always get at Lawson’s because it’s about 100 yen less at Seiyu! It was really early and so the staff were still putting the food out, but I was able to find one and buy it. The cashier gave me chopsticks too, yay! Also, I passed by the bread display and saw a bunch of 80 yen breads!! The chocolate chip bread Yuko had given me when I went to the Inuyama matsuri and the “grape” bread she gave me when I went to Kyoto were there. I decided to get to a chocolate chip melon pan and then I saw an 80 yen anpan (the real kind with black sesame seeds on top and actually anko paste with the whole red beans inside), so I got that too. 

As I was leaving Seiyu, an old guy was leaving at the same time. So I opened the door and held it for him, but he told me “dozo” and let me go first! Awww, so nice.   :3

When I got to school, I saw Kasumi! She and I had a quick conversation in Japanese about classes today. It was fun! I have so many Japanese friends at Nanzan now who I keep seeing around and they always wave at me or come over to talk. :)

At school, I talked to Brendan about our project. We had two and a half hours after lunch before class to work on it, and I knew because it was only a PowerPoint, we could throw it together in two seconds and I wasn’t worried. But he was freaking out because he hadn’t used PowerPoint since middle school and thought it would take forever so he wanted to work on it right after class ended and eat lunch later. But I had already told Emma I’d join her in the green area to eat with her. So I asked Brendan if we could eat first and then work on it, but he wanted to go to the Japan Plaza before class.

So I was like, how about you work on it first while I eat, then I’ll come back and work on it with you and then you can leave and I’ll finish it up. But he told me he didn’t remember his password for the computers, so I was going to have to get on my account for us. Smh…

We had the reading and writing portion of the test we had Monday today in class. Mutsukawa sensei changed one of the questions which had a really long answer so that it would have a shorter answer and for some reason this threw a bunch of people off. 

Finally it was lunchtime! I went to the computer room quickly to log in for Brendan so he could start working and then I went to go eat with Emma. Sara and Yukari saw us eating, so they came over and asked if they could join and we said sure! Then their friend Yukari, who I’d met before we went to karaoke that time and who I’d seen after hanga class on Tuesday came over as well. I asked her what class she had after our hanga class and she told me an art class where they did hanga as well! But it was only Japanese students in that class.

After we finished eating, I had to go back and work on that stupid project. Also, the ants were starting to crawl up my legs and bite me, so I headed out. Emma left with me. Then I went up to the computer room to help Brendan. He’d put in his part, so then we worked on some of the slides that we could work on together. Then he left to go the Japan Plaza and I put in my part and made the slides look pretty. When I was done, I thought it was a pretty darn good presentation.

Then, because I still had an hour left before class, I went to the library to watch some of Ghost in A Shell 2 (the movie for two weeks from now). It was all in Japanese, but was still scary. Especially because this one creepy robot girl kept whispering “tasukete” over and over and I know that means “help me.”

And then it was show time. Brendan and I went up to present. Brendan doesn’t like public speaking, so I did most of the talking. I had researched the “oishii hanashi” (cool facts) part really well, so I killed that section. But she wanted more symbols from us. That was Brendan’s part. Ugh… But I probably should have realized we didn’t have enough symbols. And we also left something out she had written because I didn’t realize what it meant. Oh well, I’m sure we still got a passing grade and that’s all I need from this class.

And then we had the rest of class, the super boring part where we discuss themes in the movie. It wasn’t too bad today, because I had presented on the movie and thus knew a lot about it. A lot of people brought up things that Brendan and I hadn’t even thought of though. But I’ve never been any good at analyzing things. I just read/watch things for the story, not all the hidden meanings lying underneath.

Also, during class I interviewed Theresa, this girl from Germany for my project work project, because sensei wants me to try to interview 5 ryuugakusei not from America as well.

When class was over, I headed out with Esteban to the subway station. I was complaining about my host family and the bike and stuff on the walk down. And when we got to the station, my Korilakkuma train pass holder got stuck in my backpack and I don’t know if Esteban realized or not, but he ran ahead and caught the train because it was leaving, and I got left behind and missed the train. But I had to pee really badly anyway, so I didn’t mind. But it kind of sucked that he left me.

So anyway, I rode the rest of the way home alone. When I got home, everyone was home (Ken has gotten home in time for dinner every night this week, it’s weird. Maybe because he worked super late every night last week?), so we ate pretty quickly. We had the donburi I really like that’s rice with soybeans, egg, and ground beef on top. While we were eating, everyone was saying stuff and I wasn’t saying anything like usual. But then Ken asked if I’d gone drinking recently (I think). And Yuko was all like, “yeah, at karaoke, right?” I just said yes because I wasn’t sure if they were talking about me going to karaoke with Hotaru, Yukari, and Sara (which they could only have known about through Facebook), or when I went to the nomihoudai with Banana and Yuri and all my friends way back when. Idk. 

But that got them talking to me at least! Because then Yuko asked how my presentation went and I told them I left out a bit of stuff that the teacher noticed. Then Ken wanted to know what the presentation was about and when I told them the movie and they hadn’t heard of it or the director (who’s name I know now!), Yuko looked it up on her iPad and she and Ken watched the trailer. They thought it was scary and “heavy” so wouldn’t let Miya watch it because she had wanted to.

After dinner, I went to my room to study for my vocab quiz tomorrow. Then Miya came in with a rubber band and asked if it was mine. When I said I didn’t think so, she and I started playing a game where we shot it at each other. Miya kept wanting me to aim for her “oshiri” and hit it, haha. It was fun!! We played for a really long time and she kept laughing and squealing and making me laugh.

Then Yuko came in to put Miya to bed and told Miya to thank me for playing with her lol. 

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Friday, April 18

We had cereal all five days this week!!! It was so totally awesome! It was probably just Yuko being lazy, but I love cereal, so I don’t care! 

It was supposed to rain today, so it was cloudy out and the air was heavy and humid. When I went in to say I was heading out, Yuko was all like “kami ga fuafua” (you’re hair’s fluffy). 

NO! I DON’T WANT FUAFUA HAIR! That’s not okay! Rawr.

Emma skipped school today with Taylor and Megan to go to Osaka to see some show that’s a reenactment of an episode of Ouran High School Host Club. I watched a few episodes of that in high school, but was never too into it. But Emma was ecstatic to go.

When I got to school, I walked across campus to the North gate and then exited to go over to the 100 yen Lawson’s so I could buy bananas. I had brought the wheat bread I’d bought at Seiyu the other day and almond butter my mom sent so I could make a peanut butter and banana sandwhich. So I found the 100 yen (+8 yen tax) banana bunches. Most were four bananas, but I saw one with three. And I ended up finding one with five! So I got that one. I also saw a bento with inarizushi and sushi just like I like! It was only 200 yen!!! Aaaaand, it was on sale, 30 yen off. So I had to get it. I decided I’d have that for lunch instead, but I still got the bananas.

I went to the computer room and found the Genki II workbook online for free, so I printed off the pages I have to do for homework in the next few weeks, because I don’t want to buy the workbook now and have to carry it home. I’ll get it in the U.S.

We had Kondo sensei in class. We planned a class trip to a monkey café because Kondo sensei likes monkeys, lol. I’m excited! The vocab quiz was a synch. I interviewed Chris (from Indonesia) and Tina (from Taiwan) for project work. Last night I had Facebooked Hotaru (fron China), so now I had 4 ryuugakusei. For her first image of America, Hotaru had said guns. Smh…

In project work, sensei was totally cool when I told her I’d only been able to get 4 ryuugakusei. I told her I could interview my friend Babette, from France next week, and she said that’d be great. Then we went over the results I got from the ryuugakusei and compared them to the Japanese students. None of the ryuugakusei had known how many states America has! Most said something from 55-59, and Chris hadn’t know. Lol. I wasn’t surprised, though. It had shocked me that the Japanese students had all known! And everyone knew Obama. Well Tina had forgotten his name. She’d been like “that black guy…” hahaha. At least she knew what he looks like!

Then I wrote the paper and started typing it. Sensei told me next week we’d go listen to the 400 kids’ presentations and then have class after that. I’m excited!

When class was over, it was lunchtime. Since last week, I hadn’t gotten to go to the Japan Plaza for lunch, I made sure to today. I saw there were Japanese girls with bentos in there again! Yay! I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, I saw Yasuko had joined too! 

So I went in and sat with the girls and ate my 100 Lawson bento, which was delicious!!

This guy from Mexico, Oswald, was there too. He’s part of the CJS program too, but I’ve never talked to him. I found out he’s been here a year. Last semester he was in 300 and now he’s in 400. But he seemed to be on about the same Japanese level as me. The girls thought he was funny because he talked really slowly with his eyes half closed like he was drunk or stoned or something, haha.

Yasuko said next to nothing, I felt bad because the girls with their bentos were way more interested in talking to me and Oswald than Yasuko (I mean I figure they came to the Japan Plaza to meet foreigners). But yeah, we all talked about our interests and stuff. I found out one of the girls lives in Ichinomiya too!

They were all really nice and talkative and asked us a lot of questions. I definitely want to come here for lunch more often! It’s way more fun now that there are Japanese students participating as well, instead of just the boring, un-talkative TAs. 

But today, I had to leave at 1:30, so I could get home in time to meet Father at 3. He was going to take me to a bike shop nearby to see how much it would be to fix my bike, because if it was cheap, then I could just do that instead of finding some way to get Chris’ bike to Ichinomiya.

While I waited for the subway, I read the play Dylan had written for our 300 class to do during our last day party. We had all got a copy of it in our mailboxes today.

And I started completely cracking up because my first line is that I'm looking for a boyfriend. And the entire time were all going to find the princess (Heather), I'm just talking about how I want a boyfriend and then when we get there and she grants out wishes, I wish for a boyfriend. Hahahaha! Is this how Dylan sees me?

I biked home first using Father's bike, and then I walked my broken bike to the church. I got there 15 minutes late because I forgot it would take so long to push the freaking thing! But he was ready for me. He called the bike place first and then we walked over. It was really close! I can't believe Yuko hadn't told me there was a shop this close! 

The guy who worked there was super nice and young, which was a relief. He took my bike right away and looked at it. I showed him the broken spoke and he said he could fix that, but it might need the entire wheel replaced. Father asked how much that would be and he said 2000 yen! Damn, I would pay that!

But then he was like "shite miru," which meant he was going to try replacing the spoke first. So he deflated the tire and pulled it off the rim. Then he thread in a shiny new spoke.

After he did that, the wheel was still rubbing against the brake, so he adjusted some more spokes using this little tool he had. And then the wheel stopped rubbing the brake!! It was fixed! He told me this would do for the next month and I could ride it. Yayyyy!!!

And the best part? It was only 400 yen! I thanked him and Father profusely. And then Father told me I could ride home while he walked, so I did. And the bike worked perfectly! It made a little clicking sound, but other than that, it was a smooth ride.

When I got home, Miya was shocked I was home so early, haha. Literally a second later, she left with Yuko to go to Yuko's lesson. I called my mom then to tell her about the bike. I was so, so happy it was finally fixed!

We talked for a long time and then I made the almond butter and banana sandwich I hadn't made earlier and ate it.

When I finished eating, I went into the living room and saw this:

(Cutie)

I decided I'd go to the Good Friday prayer service Father had told me about, so I texted Yuko that I was going to it and then I headed out.

At the prayer service, I saw Manaka and her mom. Her little sister and older brother were altar serving. It was interesting. I've never been to a Giod Friday service in America, that I can remember, so I'm not sure if it's different here. But one thing I'm pretty sure is different is that at one point Father brought up a cross to the altar and then everyone went up to bow to it. I hadn't understood the instructions, but I just followed what everyone else did.

Afterwards, I talked to Manaka and her mom. Her mom invited me to dinner with them after the mass tomorrow night! Yayyy!!! So I guess that means I'm going to mass tomorrow.

Then I told Father I'd brought him his bike back and it was outside and I have him a chocolate bunny as thanks for lending it to me!

After that, I headed home.  Ken wasn't back yet, but Yuko had left dinner for me. When I finished, Miya wanted to play the rubber band game again. But I reminded her about the game my friend had given her, so we played that instead. She loved it!! We played it again and again and then she got out the harder, Japanese version called "Forty-one" which looks like Chinese checkers. It was fun! The instructions for the English one said things like if you had one peg left, you were a genius, two you were pretty smart, there you were dumb, and four or more you were really dumb, so I translated this for Miya haha. She really wanted to get just two or one!

I also brought in the magic eye stereogram thing my mom had sent me to show Miya and Yuko. They both thought it was totally awesome! They tried and tried to see something in it, but thy weren't able to! They didn't understand how I could, haha. Yuko said you probably have to be young to be able to see it.

Bento picnic with Japanese friends!

Tuesday, April 15

It was just an ordinary morning on the trains. I was super tired and hadn't finished my homework (I'd been planning on doing it at school once Esteban gave me his book because it was in the new book, but he ended up forgetting it. But the homework wasn't collected anyway.). At Kanayama, though, I ran into Chris (the guy who'd helped me get my train pass back in January) and he solved everything I've been stressing about these past few days! Because you know what he told me?

He bought a bike last semester when he lived in the dorms and wanted to go to the grocery store to get food. But now that he was in a host family, he didn't need it anymore. He'd left it at the dorms so one of his friends could use it, but it was still registered in his name and he was just planning on leaving it in Japan anyway after he left in May. So he said he'd give it to me!!!! Omg omg omg. I freaked out. He's so awesome

So yeah, now the only thing I'm stressing about is how to get it back to Ichinomiya since you can't take bikes on the subways or trains and I can't read Japanese maps well enough to ride it back (also that would probably take like five hours...).

But yeah, I don't have to buy a $150 bike!! I knew things would work out somehow :) Chris is like an angel coming in my time of need, I'm not even kidding!

When we got to school, Chris asked his friend if I could have the bike at the end of May when he was done using it, but his friend said he barely used it, so I could just take it now! Ahhh!!! Yay!!!

Chris and I talked about the bike for so long and then the lady who always helps me at the CJS office joined us when she came over to tell me Yuko had called yesterday (what?? Yuko never told me that!) to say I could take my time deciding about what to do about the bike. So yeah, I was almost late for class! But I made it in time, which was good because I had a vocab quiz I had actually really studied for and wanted to take.

After I aced the quiz, we started class. Kondo sensei had us play that game again where we grab the cards of the kanji she says in sentences. I lost but there weren't prizes so I didn't really care.

And then it was finally lunch time! I was excited because I'd invited Tomomi and Saki to eat lunch with Emma and me today after the Kyoto trip Saturday, since Emma and I had been planning to eat in the green area together today. 

Last night, Yasuko had messaged me on Facebook and said we should eat together sometime, so I invited her to eat with us today as well! I'd bought a bento at Seiyu this morning in preparation. It ended up being kind of expensive (over 500 yen) :/ Ah well, it was good! And then I drank the orange juice from the matsuri.

I met Yasuko in front of the fountain in the middle of the green area and we went to go sit in the shade, over where Emma usually sits. Then Tomomi found us! She was leading a huge crew of girls and asked if it was alright if they sat with us too. I said sure! It turned out they were all part of Tomomi's German class.

They all started eating, so Yasuko and I did too. I introduced Yasuko and Tomomi to each other and it was awkward because it took me a second to remember their names... I'm so bad at names!! But after that I'll never forget their names! I just played it off as me not knowing how to introduce people in Japanese, but I think they realized. I felt so bad!!

My delicious lunch! And I just realized, there're sakura petals on the ground!

My adorbs drink. I gave Miyabi the apple one and that one was cute too

Then Emma finally showed up. She'd been buying a bento from the bento lady. But she was jealous of my bento because it had sushi in it, haha! All the other girls had brought their own cute bentos they made at home. Ahh it was just like in manga, haha.

The girls were all really interested in Emma and me. They kept asking us questions, haha. I felt bad because I realized Yasuko is super shy, so she hardly said a word. I kept asking her questions, though, so she would feel included.

So anyway, the girls asked us our hobbies, so Emma and I both said we like reading. And I showed them the Japanese manga I was currently reading. They all freaked out, thinking that was awesome! They asked if I liked manga and which ones. I told them the only one I actually follow, Kimi ni Todoke, and they all squealed. Haha they were funny. I've gotten that reaction a lot because Kimi no Todoke is such a girly manga.

Then they asked what types of foods we like, and I said misokatsu and they squealed again, lol. They told Emma and I that we were really good at using chopsticks! I'm glad because when I got to Japan, I found out I was using chopsticks wrong my whole life, so I had to re-teach myself and it was really, really hard! Another thing I had to re-teach myself was writing the katana and hiragana character "ka". I always drew the slanty line going down first, but you're actually supposed to draw the weird boxy part first. That was really hard to re-learn, but I can do it now!

Hiragana ka: か

When it looked like everyone was pretty much finished, I decided to take a picture. When I said I wanted to take a picture, all the girls squealed again! Japanese girls really like squealing haha.

I managed to get everyone in! I used the trick Sara had taught me where you can press the volume switch on your iPhone to take a picture, and all the girls were so amazed! They were like "She didn't press anything! How did it take??"

So yeah, here it is!

Yasuko is to the left of me, and Tomomi and Emma are to the right. And all the other girls are behind me.

Later I put in on Facebook and wrote my ever half Japanese, half English status! (All the cool people studying Japanese always write in both languages, so I've been wanting to do it too!)

Yeaaaahh, and it's actually 31 likes now!

Afterwards, we had to rush to class. I told Yasuko that next time we should have a lunch with just her, Emma, and me, that way we'd get to talk with her more and she agreed! 

Then Emma and I headed to Hanga. We talked about how fun the lunch had been and Emma said she was glad I was there too since I talk a lot, and that way she didn't have to talk so much. Haha, she's just like my sister!

In Hanga, I spent the entire class period carving Totoro and only got about half way done. Argh, Hanga is so hard!

That morning, I'd seen Deanna post something on the CJS Facebook page about a free Kyary Pamyu Pamyu concert at Oasis 21 in Sakae today. It only started at 6 (too late for me), but beforehand she was supposedly doing some "handshake event" (whatever that means) and selling her CDs. So I'd decided I'd go check it out. I told Emma about it and she said she'd go too. I invited Minju, but she had a big paper for her literature class due Thursday, so she figured she should work on that instead.

I had to be home by 6 though, because Father John had told me he'd let me borrow his bike so I could ride a bike to school again, and I was meeting him at 6 to pick it up.

After Hanga, Emma went to fill her water bottle. I was thirsty too, but I hadn't brought my water bottle today, so I decided to get a drink from the vending machines. I saw an interesting-looking "white grape and aloe" drink, but I decided to get another that was bigger, but the same price. It looked like orange or apple or something, I wasn't sure. But I wanted to try it.

OMG! It was AMAZING!!!!! It turned out to be Asian pear flavored! And it had little pieces of Asian pear floating inside! Holy crap, it was amazing! I really want to drink it again sometime.

When we got to the station, Emma said something about her DS and I realized, crap, I'd left my DS charging in K building where I'd had Japanese class this morning!! Nooooo!

I told Emma, she should just go on ahead to Sakae and I'd go back to school to get my DS. So we planned to meet by the information booth in Oasis 21 half an hour after whenever Emma got there, since I'd probably be half an hour behind.

I ran back to school feeling like an idiot for forgetting it. When I got to K22, the room I'd left it in, it wasn't there anymore! I was freaking out. My friends have told me stories of leaving phones on trains and stuff, but finding them turned into the lost and found later, so I didn't think someone stole it, but I had no idea.
I ran to the CJS office and told the lady who's always helping me about what had happened. She told me to ask at the police box/information booth thing when you first walk into Nanzan. I asked her what I should say in Japanese and she referred to the 3DS as a game system, so I did the same thing when I got to the police box.
The lady working there was all like, "oh, a 3DS?"
And I was like "HAI! pinku"
And she pulled it out for me! It was in a baggie with my charger too. Yay! I had to fill out a form with my name and gakusei bango, and then she showed me that the game was still inside, and gave it back to me. Woohoo!

So I rushed back to the station, where I caught the train right away and then switched to the Higashiyama line, since that's on my pass now. That train came right away too. Nice! So I got to Sakae way quicker than we'd thought I would because Emma took the longer way.
Since I figured I had about twenty minutes to kill, I decided to look around Oasis 21. There were people buying Kyary Pamyu Pamyu CDs from a little table, but Kyary Pamyu Pamyu was nowhere to be seen. Weird...

So I went into the 300 yen store. There was a place where you could fill up bags with candy! But it was 300 yen for every 100g which was a total ripoff!

Look at those totes adorbs panda cookies!!

And these pieces of chocolate shaped like little cakes!! Ahhhhhh

Then I sat around outside the Information place until I saw Emma approaching in the distance. I went over to her and told her how Kyary Pamyu Pamyu wasn't here yet. Then I showed her the candy. She thought it was cute too.
I only had about 10 minutes before I had to go, so I suggested we get the cute bunny sundaes at Baskin Robbins that I've been wanting for a while. Emma agreed ice cream sounded really good right now, so we headed in.
I was all excited... until I saw the prices. The bunny sundae was just one scoop of ice cream (perfect for lactose intolerant people like me) with cookie ears. And it was 400 yen. Yeah, no.
Also, a cone with a scoop of ice cream was 300 yen. Like, seriously? Those are like a buck in the U.S.
Needless to say, we didn't stop at "Sahty-wan."
I had to leave, but Emma wanted to go to McDonald's (don't ask me why), so I left on my own.

At Ichinomiya Eki, I stopped at that mini drug store with the 71 yen chocolate and bought two more packs of the chocolate matcha on top of cookies. Help, guys, I'm addicted...
Then I found the pack of two taiyaki for 100 yen and bought one of those, as well as these oval shaped waffle things with cream inside because they were also 100 yen.

I ate the waffle things on the way to the church because I was starving. The cream was weird and gelatinous, but other than that, it tasted good! I probably won't buy it again, though.

I didn't realize it says waffle until just now...

 At the church, Father John came out to greet me. I told him a bit more about my accident and then he showed me his bike and how to lock it up and I was free to use it! He's so nice!!
It felt amazing to ride a bike again! It was taller than my bike, but it was a lot smoother, because it's newer.

When I got home, I had a package on my desk from a friend of mine back home! So I opened it right away. It had really cute colored tissue paper inside.
And first thing I saw??? CADBURY EGGS!!!!!!!! MY FAVORITE EASTER CANDY! Gosh, I love those things so much. I hadn't eaten the ones my mom sent yet, because I wanted to save them for Easter, but now that I have so many, I decided to eat one after dinner tonight. It was a chocolate crea one, which I'd never had before. But it was delicious!! The chocolate cream was more like chocolate syrup and so rich and sweet and nom.
She also sent me stuff for my bruises!! Thank you for reading my blog and thinking of me! ^^

And a game for Miya was in there too! I showed Miya and she was really excited. But we didn't get to play it because dinner was ready.
After dinner, I had Miya help me memorize my dialogue for my dialogue check tomorrow. We went over it a bunch of times and soon she had it memorized too!