Going home orientation and Farewell coffee hour

Wednesday, April 23

When I came into the kitchen this morning, Yuko asked if I'd been able to sleep last night and I said I could. Then she didn't say anything else, but I'm pretty positive she was referring to Miyabi getting sick.

I ate my cereal while she went to tend to Miya. When she came back, she said something again, making sure of slept well and I told her I heard, but I was stil able to fall asleep because I was really tired.

Then Miya came in to eat too, so it looked like she was feeling better. Yuko said they were going to go to the doctor later today.

After breakfast, I got ready for school and then headed out. I had to stand on the JR from Ichinomiya to Nagoya, but at Nagoya, it emptied out so I went to get a seat. I don't like sitting in seats with both of the seats open because then I have to slide in to the inside and that's pointless when the ride from Nagoya to Kanayama is so short and I'd have to climb over people to get out. I saw a single aisle seat open a few rows back, so I went to that one.

But people were starting to come in the doors on this side, and a man was heading to this seat too. I got to it literally a millisecond before he did and slid in. I felt bad about it, but I mean I'd been standing for twenty minutes and kind of wanted to sit now. But yeah, it was kind of awkward. Especially because this guy couldn't get the seats behind me because they were nabbed by people entering from the other door, so I think he had to stand.

Ah well, in Japan it's like a life or death race to get a seat on a crowded train. No giving up your seat to a lady or any kind gentlemanly things like that.

The subways were super crowded like always. It's so fun to listen in on people's conversations when you're on crowded trains or walking through crowds because literally everyone says "yabai" after every other word (that means dangerous), so you just hear "yabai", "yabai", "yabai" from all around you!

I decided to walk out the entrance of Yagoto Nisseki that's the longer way, but you only have to cross one street. And it's a good thing I did because there were people passing out super cute packs of tissues!!

See??

I caught up with Esteban at the light, so we walked to school together. And then we hung out with the rest of our friends in the office before class. I told Emma how this Japanese guy who lives in the dorms and is friends with a bunch of the ryuugakusei who live in the dorms had friended me on Facebook last night even though I'd never talked to him before. But I'd added him back anyway because he was cute, haha.

In class, we had our last ever vocab quiz!! Woohoo! It was super easy. I'm going to miss those easy 100s though.

Then we had to practice noun modification, so Mutsukawa sensei was all like "you all want boyfriends or girlfriends, right?" and I was like "ohh yeah" and he thought that was hilarious.

So he made us describe our perfect boyfriend/girlfriend. I said cute and likes to talk to me. And he asked what I want to talk to him about and I said my life, haha. But then I realized I should have said smart too, because everyone else was saying smart. Dangit. But every time they did, Mutsukawa sensei would ask if that person wanted their significant other to be smarter or dumber. Chris said dumber, but then the girls said smarter. Heather kept going on about how sexist that was, that the guys want to be smarter than their girlfriends.

At the end of class, Natalia brought up Japanese tongue twisters and asked Mutsukawa sensei to teach us some. I was like "omg I already know a bunch!" So Mutsukawa sensei had me say the ones I knew. I said "basu gasu bakuhatsu", which is Miyabi's favorite, and then I was like "my favorite is the momomomo one," so Mutsukawa sensei wrote that one on the board too.

"Sumomo mo momo mo momo no uchi."

Hahahahaha!

Then he taught us the most famous one in Japan, that everyone knows. And I asked if he remembered the frog one, because I couldn't and he knew that one too!

I headed over to Dagane with Heather for lunch. 

My balanced lunchi with misokatsu as a side, yay!

 

When we got there, Emma was already there eating, so we joined her. We started talking about Avril Lavigne's video for her new song "Hello Kitty" and I brought it up on my phone and played it. It was strange... Haha. It's been getting a lot of hate on the Internet now because she's trying to be all cutesy and Japanese, but her accent when speaking Japanese really sucks! Like she says "air-ee-gatou." I think she's not so popular in the US and Canada anymore (since she's been around since the early 2000s), so she's catering to her fans in Japan, because everyone loves her here! She's always doing concerts over here.

But yeah, the first thing she says in the movie is "Mina saiko arigatou." Heather, Emma, and I couldn't for the life of us figure out what "saiko" meant! We asked Esteban, Rafa, and Rashaa, who were sitting at the next table over, but they didn't know either!

I had to meet Kanno (the lady who's always helping me out in the office - I finally remembered her name!) to talk with her and Chris about the bike at 12:35, so we headed over to the CJS office. Outside the office, we saw Mikki, who's in 800, so we asked her what "saiko" means and she said "the best," so Avril Lavigne was saying "thank you everyone for being the best." Ohhhh!

The song's catchy, I'll give her that. But I liked her way better back when she was doing "Sk8r Boi."

So when Chris showed up, he, Kanno, and I all sat at a table to discuss the bike. The current problem was that Chris couldn't find the little proof of registration paper he got when he bought the bike. And in Japan, everyone has to have their bike registered with the police so that if it gets stolen, it will be returned to whoever's name it's registered in. But the problem is there are super retarded laws like if you don't have the original registration paper, then you can't cancel your registration.

So now that Chris has lost his paper, the bike will forever be registered in his name. So if one of Yuko's future host students loses the bike, it won't be returned to Yuko once it's found. 

Kanno called up some places though and apparently Chris can write a letter saying he turns the bike over to Yuko and then sign the letter and that should work the same as canceling his registration.

But they said Yuko might not like that idea, and want a new bike instead. Arghhh, this is so taihen!

And theeeen, Chris explained to me that there had been some confusion between me, my host family, and Kanno. He said apparently it was rude that I went and got the bike fixed on my own and then said it worked and was fixed. 

I told Chris, I thought I'd been helping out, getting it done on my own and I hadn't meant to be rude. He said he knew that, but apparently it sounded like it came off as rude to Yuko.

Then Kanno was all like, "the Japanese way is to put yourself in other people's shoes and look at things from their point of view. So put yourself in your host parent's shoes, their bike is broken, so you see what they want?"

And I was like "yeah, I know, they want a new bike." But really, if that's the Japanese way, how come they didn't put themselves in my shoes? I'm completely new to this country, can't speak the language, and I just got hit by a car. Like, I wished they had tried to help me more and talked with me instead of talking through the school.

Afterwards, Emma, who had come about halfway through our talk, told me she would have started crying with the fact that they kept telling me I'd been rude and everything. But I told her I'd been too angry to cry.

After Kanno left, Emma, Chris, Tom, and I just sat there for a while fuming about stupid Japanese laws. Chris was super pissed off about not being able to go up, show his ID as proof he owned the bike and renounce his ownership. But instead, he needed a little paper that he'd deemed unimportant and probably threw out.

Then it was time for the "going home orientation" that everyone in CJS leaving next month had to attend. So we headed upstairs to this huge room where almost all of our fellow ryuugakusei (those not staying past May) were sitting. When we walked in, we got a packet of paperwork as well as a big leather folder thing that we can use to hold the diploma we're getting at our closing ceremony. I was disappointed that it didn't have Japanese on it. It just said "Nanzan" and had some Latin with the Nanzan crest. But it did open backwards like Japanese books do!

Diploma thing

 

Heather described this perfectly: "A packet full of sadness"

 

We talked about all the things we have to do before we return home, like close our bank accounts and cancel our foreigner cards and health insurance. I found out we can't keep our pretty, colorful foreign resident cards. This makes me so sad, because I figured I'd be able to. But we have to give them back at the airport on our way home. :(((

We also got questionnaires about our host family. Ooh, that will be fun to fill out!
Although I didn't have too great of an experience with my host family, I really loved Nanzan!! It's such a great school and I had fun everyday. I actually looked forward to going to school. I wish I hadn't underestimated myself, thinking I wasn't outgoing enough to be able to make Japanese friends, because I have! I have so many Japanese friends at Nanzan now that the Japanese students are back and I definitely speak more Japanese at school than I do at home. In a perfect world, I would go back to America to work this summer and then come back to Japan to spend the fall semester at Nanzan, when the Japanese students are there all semester and live in the dorms and continue my Japanese studies...

Anyway, during the orientation, Mitch talked about what kinds of things we'll feel when we get home like sadness, like we're misunderstood, whatever. And then he told us about the stages you go through when you study abroad. I thought they were interesting because they were actually true for me, and from the sound of it, most of my fellow ryuugakusei as well.

1st-3rd month in a foreign country is the Honeymoon stage, where everything's new and exciting and you're having a blast, etc.

4th-6th month is the Hostile stage, where you're all like what the heck? Why do they think like that? Why is that their culture, that's stupid! I miss my country, where everything makes sense.


Wow. Those are exactly the sorts of things that Chris, Emma, Tom, and I had just been saying downstairs...


6th-12th month is the Sympathetic stage. I didn't really hear what he said for this one because I was still reeling from what he had just said about the Hostile stage. I'm guessing it's where you start to see what the country's values are all about and try to follow them to the best of your ability.


12th month on is the Understanding stage, were you finally understand the culture of the country for the most part and are able to fit in and live life like the natives of that country.


So I guess I actually did go through the two stages I was supposed to for doing a five month study abroad. Huh, funny.


Anyway, then the orientation was finally over. And I guess as thanks for sitting through the entire thing, we got T-shirts!!
I already knew we were going to get them because I'd gotten all jealous when Emma got a shirt for being picked to write about 400 in the Nanzan brochure, but Mitch had told me we'd get better shirts tomorrow.
And these were better!! Because guess what? They had Japanese on them!!! Whoo!!!! I wanted a Japanese Nanzan shirt! The bookstore ony sells English ones.

It has the Nanzan crest in the frocket area

 

Heather and I were trying to figure out earlier who got picked to write about the 300 class, because neither of us did and Natalia hadn't said she'd been picked. Then I saw Mitch give Ryan a shirt. Had he been picked?? He always sleeps through class and never has any idea what's going on when he gets called on!

Anyway, when the orientation was over, it was time for the Farewell coffee hour! I convinced Emma to go. When I got there, I saw Kazuki and then Sara, Yukari, and Hotaru. There were the usual drinks and then both sweet and savory breads as well as a bunch of packages snacks.
Emma left right after she ate because she's lame. So she missed out on the event.
The coffee hour leaders had a basket with slips of paper. Each slip had a question in Japanese on it about what we liked best about Japan, what was convenient, a cool experience we had, etc. And them ryuugakusei could go up and take one and answer it (in Japanese) in front of everyone. Some people had trouble reading the kanji, but the girls who were leading the coffee hour would read out the kanji and the ryuugakusei always understood then. I didn't know a lot of the words though. But then again I was the only one in there in 300. Everyone else was above 400. :/ So when Kazuki, Sara, and Hotaru tried to get me to go up, I wouldn't do it because I was too afraid I wouldn't be able to read it or if by some miracle, I could understand it, I wouldn't be able to say what I wanted to say. If they had pushed me a little more, I probably would have gone up, but they didn't. And then the leaders said only two more, and two people volunteered, so it was over after that.
Although later, with just Sara, I went up and pulled one out. I forgot the kanji for "benri," so she told me it and I realized it was asking what the most convenient thing was, so I said the trains and she liked that. Maybe I could have done it. Oh well...
Then we all took a bunch of silly pictures!

But I like this one with Sara that she took of us. :)

After that, Sara left, so she missed the big group picture they took. I left right after it and did some homework. Then I went out to the green area to lie down because it was that nice time of afternoon/evening (prevening for you Big Bang Theory fans), where everything looks golden because the sun's really low in the sky and everything is casting super long shadows.

The green area is like a baby Drillfield.
But Japanese people don't sunbathe or sleep on it like we do on the Drillfield at VT :(

All the bushes around Nanzan and the dorms around Nanzan are blooming with beautiful white, pink, and purplish-pink flowers! Here are the purplish-pink ones in front of the Nanzan sign.

 

 

Then I made my way home. Here's a pretty totally filtered picture I took by the bike parking area at Ichinomiya station.

When I got home, Miya dragged me into the living room to show me the new Hoppe keychains she'd gotten in the mail. These things are all the rage in Japan right now. All the preteen girls have them attached to their cell phones. Rana's host sister has two of them on her phone. And even Yuko has a brown one (I'm sorry, but the brown one can never not look like a pile of poop), on her phone. I had finished almost all of my homework, so I let her show me all of them and then she arranged them all plus the bear and her stickers so I could take a picture, haha.

Then I brought my homework into the living room to do while she did hers because I haven't been doing that recently since I've had so much and didn't want to be distracted (jk, the real reason is because the wifi has started working better in my room, though not completely perfectly). Well having a lot of homework is actually part of the reason.

Yuko came in and saw me sitting cross legged and told me not to sit like that when I'm wearing a skirt. So I showed her that it was actually a skort. But she was like, you still shouldn't sit like that. And then she made some comment about my tight tears too. At least these tears weren't as bad as the last ones she saw!

Ken came home for dinner, so we all ate together. Yuko asked if I'd decided where I wanted to go with my mom and sister yet and I told them I had and then listed the places I wanted to go. Yuko then told me it would probably be better to get a hotel the night before our flight home (instead of staying with them) so we'll be closer to the airport since our flight is so early. I agreed, so Yuko sat on her iPad and wrote down some hotels for me while I drank my tea.
The hotels were all super expensive. Also, she wrote everything in kanji, I guess forgetting that I'm not Japanese, haha. So I asked her what some of it meant, thinking she'd get the hint and write the rest with furigana. She didn't.

I went back to my room after that to start my homework for Friday. I was doing it when Miya came in to tell me it was dessert time! There was a box of a bunch of individually wrapped long oval-shaped hazelnut cookies with a thin layer of chocolate on top. They were delicious! I had three of them.

Then I went back to my room to eat more chocolate and watch Free! like I've been doing every night. I need to stooopppp. Every morning I come to school and am like, "Emma, I ate too much chocolate last night," haha. She said I'm starting to sound like a broken record.

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.