A まあまあ day...

Nothing really exciting happened today, but I've heard so much positive feedback regarding this blog that I decided I'd write a post anyway.

That being said, all you lurkers out there, please leave a comment! I love getting comments. They make me happy! :)

This morning at breakfast my iPhone fell off my chair and dented a tiny bit. :( It's really bumming me out. Because that wouldn't have happened if I had a case. But I've been looking everywhere and the only cases I can find are $17 and up. The hyaku en store only carries cases for iPhone 5 and 4/4s. I guess the iPhone 5s is still too new for Japan... Sadness.

But, hey, we did have cereal for breakfast! And the orange tea I really like and was craving last night. But of course cereal always comes with salad... Haha I still can't...

Yuko told me I looked kawaii this morning, so I think with my new 400 yen outfit, I'm finally starting to blend in!

(Whoo selfies! And see guys, no pink! I didn't even wear my uggs because I saw it was supposed to rain. But you know me, I have a pink shirt on underneath ;) )

So I found this Subway earphone thing in the street one day and I really like it! It's cute.

(See? It's a little sandwhich sticking out of my phone haha)

The trains still really baffle me. Like yesterday, I got on the 7:57 train and at 7:58, it still hadn't left yet. It was just chilling there with its doors closed. Then the doors opened again! So I guess if someone had been late they still could have hopped on, but no one did. Then finally, at 7:59 it left.

Today, I got up to the platform at 7:58 (I should have speed biked but I didn't think I was that late) and the train had already left! Whaaat, I'm so confused!

So I had to catch the 8:07 :(

But then, the 8:07 train showed up on the opposite side of the platform (aka behind me) and I didn't realize it, so I missed that one too!!! Ahhhh.

So I had to take the 8:17. Damn I was so scared I was gonna be late to school!

The train I finally got on at 8:17 made a stop before Kanayama, which was weird. I want listening to the announcer because I was too busy trying read what my new game was saying, so I almost got off, but I looked up and didn't recognize the kanji, so I just stayed in the train and thankfully Kanayama was the next stop.

Since I missed the subway I usually take, I was like oh man, I'm gonna miss the blind lady too. I like watching her because I'm seriously in awe of her. But she was on my subway!!!! 

Maybe I caught the one I usually take after all? Idk. Or maybe she was late today too.

So yesterday I bought Pokemon Pearl because I figured I could play it even without understanding it because I played it so much when I was younger. So yeah, it's been a challenge so far. Like at one point this guy on the game was saying something about a monster ball (which I figured meant pokeball) button and he kept saying it over and over again, until I finally realized I had to tap this button on the pokeball on the lower screen to make him shut up lol.

And this is the first screen where I completely understood what I was reading lol.

(Although I've never heard それとも used before)

When I came out of the station, it was pouring rain. That was a fun walk to school. When I got to school, I talked to my friends for a bit. Then I went up to class. One of the CJS ladies told us that Matsukawa sensei was "osoi", and I was the only one who understood that that meant he was late, so I had to translate for everyone else.

Class was pretty boring. At lunchtime, I met up with Rana and Emma and we walked in the rain over to Dagane. Emma told me that her host mother always sees pictures of me on Facebook and has started referring to me as "pinku ga sukina hito" aka person who likes pink. Omg.

I got the sides again because they had fruit and salmon!!

(Whoops someone already ate the noodles :P )

And then I got rice too because I was still hungry. Gosh, I eat sooo much here I've probably gained so much weight lol. But the scale in the bathroom at home is in kilograms and I hate converting all the time.

After lunch Emma went home and Rana went to the dorms with some of other friends. I didn't feel like going, so I went to the library to watch some of the movie, Onmyoji, that I was supposed to watch for class today. Whoops.

It took a while with my broken Japanese to talk to the librarian and find out where to get the movie and where to watch it, but I did it! The system here is that they keep your student ID card at the circulation desk and then you get a remote control and you can go watch the DVD on a tv that's in a little cubicle.

The movie was actually pretty good! I would have liked to watch more than the half hour I did, but I had to go to class. Apparently things get really weird later on in the movie though haha.

And it took me like 10 minutes to figure out how to make the freaking subtitles show up. But I finally saw the kanji for English so I selected that and bam, subtitles!

In class, the teacher was having so many problems with her computer so we lost a lot of class time.

After class, it was dark out. Esteban and I walked to my locker so I could get the manga books Emma gave me.

(The books. The one in the middle looks pretty risqué lol)

And then we rode home together. 

When I got home, I couldn't get the door open with my key for some reason, so I rang the doorbell. Miyabi answered with two girls I'd never seen before and told me they were her friends.

Their mom was here too. It was 7:02 when I got home, so we ate right away. We had curry on top of rice and salad. I spoke a bit of Japanese to the mom of the two girls, telling her where I'd got my outfit (so many people asked me that at school today, so now my secret shopping spot is known among the girls in CJS and this lady, dangit!) and about my long commute to school and how I effed up at the station this morning. It was a little intimidating at dinner because no one had told me we were having guests, so I hadn't been expecting them and I was trying to remember all the things Yuko had taught me about what to do and not to do at the dinner table.

Then I made origami with the two girls and Miyabi. The older girl, Kaori, was really good at origami and showed us all how to make 3D cubes that we all then played ball with.

Then it was time for dessert. We had strawberries for dessert. We each got four of them. They were so, so sweet and tasted better than American strawberries for some reason! I was excited and surprised because strawberries are expensive here!

Then I played with the girls a bit more before they had to leave. Then I played with Miyabi. Finally, after that I sat down to memorize the stupid dialogue I have to do tomorrow.

But hey, at least I'm going to an onsen tomorrow!! Yayyyy!

Oasis 21!!

Guys you don't know how much I've missed bananas. But I got to eat one this morning, yay!

(I missed you, banana)

When Emma and I went to Lawson's yesterday, they still had the banana bunches but they weren't 105 yen anymore. :,(

I should have gotten a second bunch but I like savoring my bananas and having one a day, so I was afraid they'd all turn brown.

What I've been seriously craving lately is pancakes. Japan doesn't have Sunday morning brunch. :((( And no Ihop.

I miss pancakes so so so so much.

Anyway, this morning I was really, really tired and went back to sleep after my alarm rang lol. But I woke up when Yuko called me to breakfast at 6:45! I guess she couldn't wake up either.

I ate really quickly so I would have made my usual 7:47 train but I thought I had time so I decided to get ready really slowly, so much so that Yuko called "Keito, daijobu?" a few times.

But whatevs I still made my 7:57 rapid train. And when I take that I still get to campus 20 min early.

This girl on the subway (I like the subways better because it's all school age kids - a lot of college students, while the JR is mostly salarymen) was studying with this red clear thing. She had all these fill in the blank sentences and had written them in black and blue with the answer in the blank in orange. So when she put the red thing over it, she could read everything but the answer.

It was so cool!! I want one of those.

In Japanese reading and writing class this morning, we wrote katakana. I had a lot of trouble with シ (shi) so I had to write it a bunch of times. So I had a ton of smilies on my paper haha.

I thought of a good way to rememeber the difference between シ (shi) and ツ (tsu). Shi means death, and when you die, your body goes in the ground so the one with the smiley going down is shi! 

Get it?

And Kandou sensei showed us this. Tsu goes to the left and Shi goes to the right.

Kandou sensei told me my now was kawaii. I think she likes me! Which is good because I'm pretty sure Mutsukawa sensei does not haha.

Then it was lunch, hooray! I got an awesome lunch from Lawson's and then met up with Minju, Deanna, and Rana and we all sat with everyone else who hadn't gone home yet in the cafeteria by the gym.

I finally got a nikuman from Lawson's (meat bun). I'd been wanting one so badly but always forgot to order it until after I'd paid already.

(My lunch)

(とてもおいしい sushi and inarizushi)

(肉まん)

And Minju's beautiful ケーキ!

It was only 80 yen from the cake shop. I have to go there some time! 

(((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o)))

I also bought my knives for Hanga class. I really like how they were pastel colored and came in a glittery box. I'm sure the guys loved it as well. ;)

And then in Hanga I turned my beautiful wood block from last week into a piece of shit woo.

Ugh it looks sooo bad!

Minju, Emma, Rafael, and Esteban are in Hanga so it's a lot of fun! It's good for stress relief too haha.

It rained while we were in class, but it was sunny when we got out, so since i had time, I decided to go back to Sakae to get my book. :)

Most of my friends were going to the orientation to use the campus gym. I didn't want to go because you had to go out and buy new sneakers in order to go and anyway you don't need the orientation to use the pool.

When I got to Sakae, I paid the 200 yen and exited the station into Oasis 21.

This turned out to be bad because I was lured into a 300 yen shop and ended up buying these super cute star tights that were on sale for 210 yen!

I hope they fit me. They're for people up to 165 cm which is about what I think I am, so cross your fingers!

(For Bridget. Dinosaurs by the ice rink)

Sahty wan (31 = Baskin Robbins)

Then I went upstairs to see the pool! It was sooo pretty!!!

(Ice rink below. Some of my friends went skating there this past Sunday and said it was like skating on plastic lol.)

I got these Spanish tourists up there to take a picture of me. Then they took pictures with me. It was super awks.

Then my jam (Demons by Imagine Dragons) started playing over the loud speaker and I was like yeaaahhh. 

Gotta love Japan!

After Oasis 21 I headed to SoftBank. I forgot to take a shot of Oasis 21 from the  outside, I'm so mad! But I'll be back. ;)

At SoftBank there was this lady who spoke English with a British accent. She was so nice and gave me a bunch of information about three different things I could get to use a phone in Japan. They were all super expensive though. Ugh.

I spent longer there than I wanted to, so it was already 4:50 by the time I crossed the street to the building behind Sunshine Sakae where Book Off is.

And my book was gone! :( it wasn't where I hid it or where I had originally found it. So I guess someone bought it. I was so sad since it was a really good deal, 3 books in one.

I ended up buying 3 other books. One, Voices of a Distant Star, is one of my favorite books! I have it in English at home, so I'm really excited to try and read it.

Then I got a book of 7 love stories and another manga. I'm going to try to read them! 

When I bought them, I got a coupon for 20% off in February, so I'm going to go back and buy the game I wanted (it's only 950 yen!)

(Voices of a Distant Star, the 7 love stories, and the other romance manga)

I stopped by Daiso quickly to find the bow I hid gone as well. But I didn't buy anything there.

Then I took a bunch of pictures with my phone (rawr I forgot my camera!) because Sakae is so freaking beautiful - I love it!

(Illuminations)

(Ahh some of the Ferris wheel compartments had pink lights!)

(I love this pic. Sakae was lit up pink for a few secs and it was awesome! I think I should forget about programming and become a professional photographer, ne?)

(A heart!!!)

きれいですね！！

I'm in love with this city! :)

When I got off the train at Ichinomiya, Esteban saw me and caught up with me. He was just getting back from the gym orientation and he told me there were monkey bars in the gym! 

I told him I bought manga in Sakae and he was interested because he likes manga. I told him they were all girly, romantic manga but he wanted to see them anyway haha.

I got home finally at 6:30!

For dinner we had a bunch of stuff, including fish with bones!!! Ahhh. That's not okay in America, but I guess it's cool here?

Yuko taught me how to eat correctly with the meal tonight because it was a ton of different bowls and plates. I wasn't allowed to rearrange the plates or bowls and some I had to hold up and some I had to leave on the table but put my hand on. And I had to use effing hashi (chopsticks) for everything.

Like I don't like fish enough to sit there for five minutes slowly tearing it apart with chopsticks (not able to use my hands) to get the bones out. Ugh.

But it was an interesting experience to say the least! And the food was good. :)

Ugh I have soooo much homework and I have I have to go memorize another stupid dialogue. :(

Until tomorrow! (^_−)−☆

Btw I'm going to karaoke with my friends after school tomorrow!!! I'm soo excited!

(((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o)))

Day in Osu!

January 11:

I woke up super sick last night and was still feeling terrible this morning. All that time soaking and cold in the rain finally caught up to me.

Yuko made SO much food for breakfast. Btw breakfast is at 8 on weekends, yay! And so much meat, ugh. I told her I only eat chicken and turkey because I didn't want her to keep wasting so much meat on me but I ate the ham anyway. She told me it's really hard to get turkey in Japan, which sucks because that's my favorite meat.

Miyabi has a loose front tooth so I asked what you do in Japan if you lose a tooth. She told me when she was younger, they'd throw their front top teeth under the house and their front bottom teeth on the roof... Lol

But now they just collect them. I told her about the tooth fairy. She knew kids in America got coins but she and Miyabi didn't know about the tooth fairy. They thought it was so interesting that the tooth fairy uses the teeth to build her kingdom haha.

Anyway, after breakfast I left for the station. I almost took the 10:09 train but I thought it was going in the wrong direction and skipped it to wait for the 10:17 train, which I saw the kanji for  Kanayama on the announcement. But when it came it was going in the same direction as the other one. Fml.

But this box train came while I was waiting. It was so cool!

Some things I've been noticing about Japanese people:

• When they're walking or riding bikes, if the light says don't walk, even if no cars are coming, they will not walk. Idk why. I just go ahead and cross if there are no cars because I'm not just gonna stand and watch an empty street.
• When riding the escalators, they form a line of standing people on the left so people in a rush can walk on the right. I love this because I always like to run up escalators. But at first, before I realized this, I kept standing wherever I wanted and whoever I was with told me to move over.
• They like to form lines. There're long lines for the escalator when the station's busy. (Sometimes I'm a rude American and join the line right at the beginning of the escalator lol). They also form lines to get on the train before the train comes. When the train gets there, the line parts like the Red Sea to let people on the train get out first. So nice!
• I'm not sure if they know what paper towels or napkins are... There are no paper towels or hand dryers in the bathrooms anywhere. On campus students just use toilet paper to dry their hands. It's super inconvenient. And my host family uses a tissue box at the table. I wish I'd brought napkins. My friends tell me their host families don't use napkins either. 0_o
• They say "niiiiin" when they take pictures haha.
• And this one is for Ashley: they say "peen pon" and "pika pika pika" just like Kumazawa sensei!

After we passed Nagoya station where everyone gets out, guess what guys? 

For the first time ever, I had four seats to myself. Ahhhh. So amazing!

Wow my legs look fat. But I have leggings under my leggings and super thick socks, okay?

When I got to Kamimaeza I found Emma at exit 9. We went up to wait outside until Josephine, Jess, and Taylor showed up. They're all in their second semester at Nanzan. When they got there, we headed to this HUGE shopping center with a giant Maneki Neko at the entrance. 

Shrine we saw while walking

Entrance

Kawaii

First, we ate lunch - takoyaki. It was my first time trying it!! It was pretty good. The octopus tentacle was kinda hard and chewy. Emma and I split one because I definitely could not eat 6 of those balls in one sitting. I also had melon soda because I've been wanting to try it forever! It was so good :)

おいしいですね！

Melon soda!

Making the takoyaki right when you walk in

After lunch we headed to the cat cafe. We had to take our shoes off and wear slippers. We also couldn't pick up the cats. It was kind of a waste of money in my opinion, but it was an interesting experience and something I wanted to try   (and check off my list).

Mr. Grumpy. I liked him.

Okay you guys are probs tired of cats now.

Isn't this bunny toy totes adorbs?

My free drink in eigo & nihon. Mmm blood orange!

Next was shopping at a thrift store! I took this picture for Bridget:

They had this awesome 200 yen sale, but I didn't see anything I liked.

Shirt with creepy ass baby angel things

Me being derpy in front of the SWAG shop!!!

You don't know how much I wanted this hat.

I LOVE THESE! But I already have all of them except one lol, so I didn't want to buy one pack for just one eraser.

Adorable dumpling thing.

Across the street was an arcade, which I was super excited about because I wanted to play the UFO catcher! I decide to do the one with little Pokemon dolls in it... and I failed. Not wanting to get addicted, I ran away quickly.

Front of arcade

Me failing at the UFO catcher.

I wanted to do purikura too, but the only machines there were ugly, boring ones. I looked around and watched other people playing games. 

Taylor had this huge collection of cards where each card has a clothing item and in the game she has a character she can dress up. So she was feeding her cards into the machine and customizing her character.

Creepy game covered by these torn black hangings

 While she did this, Emma and I went to go play the taiko game. It's this rhythm game where you hit drums to follow a beat. Emma chose an anime song to play along to that I didn't know. Then I picked this song "Pon Pon Pon" that I knew because we listened to it in Japanese class one time. Then Emma chose "Totoro," which we both knew. I won that round! It was really fun!

We briefly checked out another arcade across the street, but it had the same sorts of stuff so we left.

The next stop was this store I'd heard of before that sold discount anime goods, called "Mandrake." 

Fox girl out front

Japanese sign for Mandarake

It was interesting seeing the stuff in there. The first floor was manga, cards, and video games, the second was anime movies and dolls, and the third was cosplay and these things called doujinishi, which are fan-made manga. Everyone was really interested in those.

They have such an awesome job, getting to dress up every day.

This dress was so cute, but so expensive.

I didn't really want any of the things there. I did go see if I could get a cheap GameBoy game to use to practice Japanese, since that's how my sister learned to read English haha. But they only had rare ones I guess since they were all like $20! (The GameBoy advance games were only $8, but none looked interesting).

I also had a really bad fever. I had the chills and was really, really tired. Luckily I ran into Emma and the two of us went to sit outside while the others finished shopping.

When they were done, we decided it was time to hit up the Pokemon Center. But first Taylor wanted to stop for coffee.

Cute takoyaki stand

Akamon

So we went to this place called Komeda Cafe. The wait was really long. I saw this boy get a giant melon soda with ice cream!

When we were finally seated we all got two pancake things to share. I was really excited to finally try one after seeing pictures of them on Instagram in the past.

I really wanted to take a picture of it but in the rush to split it before all the ice cream melted, I completely forgot! 

Here's what it's supposed to look like though:

And this is what I was able to take, my piece:

With very little ice cream so I didn't die after eating it.

Oh, and P.S.? First bathroom I've seen yet with PAPER TOWELS!!! Omg it was sooo good to feel paper towels on my hands again.

And I took a bathroom selfie for good measure. 

See guys? Still alive and well ^_^

After we polished off the pancake thing and paid, we walked across the street to the Pokemon Center. It was in a giant depato (department store) on the 5th floor.

The 5th floor

Taylor entered this raffle for 500 yen and won a humungo pikachu pillow. Everything was kinda expensive so I didn't buy anything. But I decided to do the gashapon at the entrance:

It's a risky thing to play because you don't know what you're going to get out of it, but I ended up with this super cute keychain!

Btw, this depato wins for best bathroom! The toilets, stall doors, and sinks were all guess what?

PINK!!!!!

It was Heaven ;)

Such fun!

When we were done at the Pokemon Center, Josephine, Taylor, and Jess left on the subway while Emma and I decided to quickly walk through this Chinese festival going on across the street. We had missed all the performances and it was just stalls left over and some recorded Chinese music playing. It was interesting though because Emma said China and Japan hated each other lol.

Illuminations

So we took the train back home after that. Because the stop we were at wasn't on my train pass, I had to pay 200 yen to get back to Kanayama. Then, once I got to Kanayama, I had to pay another 200 yen! I didn't understand why though. I tried arguing with the attendant, saying I already paid 200 yen but I ended up having to pay it anyway. I should have just bought a ticket.

For the first time, I didn't take the super rapid train home. They run less often on weekends, which sucks because they only stop at 1 stop before my stop. Instead, I stopped at like 5 stops on the way home tonight. But hey, the seats were heated!

It was dark by the time I rode my bike back home. When I got home, everyone was gone, but they got back quickly. Ken saw me and was like "Keito, pinku ga suki?" (He asked if I like pink because I was wearing a lot of pink).

I was like "pinku ga daisuki!" (I love pink)

Hahaha.

Then we ate dinner. I told everyone about Osu. It turns out my host family knew Taylor already because they're friends with the family she lived with last semester lol. They kept saying she was omoshiroi (interesting). That's a good word to describe her!

After dinner, I sat around with everyone for a while and then I was too tired to stay up anymore, so I went to bed.