Setsubun!

This morning I was texting back and forth with my parents about the Super Bowl. I'd completely forgotten about it! Unfortunately I couldn't watch it or the Doritos commercial created by a Hokie because I had school. :( Lame. Who schedules school during the Super Bowl?? Oh right, Japan.

Breakfast was really good this morning! Obaasan had bought a shit ton of fruit yesterday and gave it to us, so we had orange slices, bunny apples, and a half a banana along with toast and marmalade. I was a happy camper! :)

I decided to finally dump some of the water out of my poor drowning bonsai.

I went outside and dumped it in the grass and Yuko let me leave the bonsai outside while I went to school today! :) So it got some fresh air and sunlight (even though it was super cloudy all day).

As I was walking to school from the station, I saw Emma so I ran to catch up to her and asked about her weekend. She told me yesterday she'd gone to see a Setsubun demonstration at Osu Kannon temple and they threw beans! But she didn't catch any. I told her about the mochi catching I did and she thought that sounded way cooler lol.

Class was meh. I had a test second period that was a sinch. I finished in like five minutes lol.

This girl, Natalia (the one who was supposed to go to the onsen with me but got sick) brought us all these muffin things she made. They were really good!

Then we got out for lunch ten minutes early! So I went to Dagane and quickly downed some food.

(Mmmm so good!)

Then I went to the computer lab because I wanted to send some emails.

Next, I had calligraphy. Ugh, calligraphy turns out to be kinda boring. Like we sit there for an hour and a half and write the same freaking word over and over and over. Today we wrote "shiba inu" in katakana and mine got progressively worse and worse.

I wished I was in programming class instead. Jk, no I didn't. Not even for a second!

I took an artsy photo though! Lol.

Then was sadou! Yayyyy!! Tea ceremony is definitely my favorite class. We went around and did introductions. We had to say something we liked about Japan, so I said I liked temples and shrines and talked about visiting Atsuta Shrine. 

Then we did the same thing we did last week, but we had different wagashi.

It was really cute wagashi. I'm so mad I didn't get to take a picture because sensei was watching what we did today and was watching me closely since I was one of the first to go. :(

But I googled wagashi and found one like it! It's called namagashi. And sometimes kuri (grass) namagashi because it looks like grass. Ours looked like this one except it was white with little black dots (so it looked gray) and instead of the kuri on top, it had a little white and pink flower thing made of the namagashi. Inside was anko, just like the ones last week! It was sooo good!

After class, I went home. When I got home, I checked on my bonsai. Dumping the water out must have done it some good, because now it has ten full flowers!! Double what it had yesterday! So of course I subjected it to another photo shoot lol.

I'm such a good mother, guys. Raising plants is the first step to raising humans ya know.

I went online to see how often I have to water it and the website was all like "it's difficult to know for sure. It takes most people three years to figure it out." I was like are you fucking kidding me?

But then it said to just look when the top quarter inch of the mulch stuff is dry and that's when you need to water it. But you need to check every day because both overwatering and underwatering cause illness in the plant. Ugh, taihen desu ne!

Yuko came home and then I sent a few more emails until Miya and Ken got home a little after 7. I asked Yuko about Setsubun because I knew it was today, and it turned out we were going to celebrate it, yay!

So for dinner, we had long sushi rolls! Emma had told me that morning that on Setsubun you eat those long sushi rolls that are sold in konbini, without cutting them!

But we made our own. :)

(The table all set up)

(Fillings. I really liked the hot pink one!)

We all went around and made our rolls. I went last. Ken took lots of pictures of me making my roll and rolling it up!

(My roll)

(All rolled up!)

(Making my roll)

(All done!)

Then we all had to face a certain way and eat them in one sitting without speaking while we were eating, haha.

It was hard! Ken took lots of funny pictures of us with the rolls in our mouths. 

(Facing the direction we had to face)

When we were finished eating them, we used the extra seaweed to make mini handrolls.

So ever since I was in America, I've heard people complain about natto and how gross it is. Many Japanese people don't like it either. So of course I've been wanting to try it. So when I saw natto on the table, I made a grab for it. Yuko and Ken freaked out and made me eat just a bean first, since most foreigners hate it and they didn't want to waste it. 

Yuko went and got a tissue in case I needed to spit it out haha. Everyone was so amazed when I chewed it and swallowed it lol. And then when I decided to have a bit more. Yuko said the fact that I thought the umeboshi was too sour, but I ate the natto was "new" because usually with foreigners it's the other way around!

Yuko asked if I liked it and I said I didn't like it, but I didn't hate it lol. It definitely tasted weird and kind of rotten, but it wasn't gross. The gross part was how it looked like the beans were held together by snot!

(OMG I'm eating natto guys!)

While we were eating dinner, a postman came to the door with mail for me! I got my ATM card for the Bank of Nagoya and A PACKAGE FROM MY MOM!! My mom had written four notes on all sides of the box, one for each of us. Yuko, Ken, and Miya all read their notes and mine out loud. They were all really excited to have been included. I was surprised Ken was so good at reading English since a lot of the time Yuko has to translate what I say for him (he always gets all quiet and sulky when she does and says she's so good at English and she thinks it's funny. Lol it's cute)

Yuko and Ken also got a package today from their previous host student so they opened that first. She sent hot chocolate mix, chocolate marshmallow Santas (I love those things!), and ranch dressing and hot sauce for Ken because Ken loves Ranch. She sent a letter in both English and Japanese too. Miya read the Japanese outloud.

Then I got to open Mom's package. She sent so much!! I love her! And she included all these little sticky notes that everyone tried to read but had trouble reading her handwriting so I had to read it for them haha. Miyabi loved how my mom had written her name on things!

Mom sent all my favorite stuff like pink cake mix and pink icing and golden Mega Stuffed Oreos and pancake batter and peanut butter and jelly and raisin bread and Dove chocolate hearts and rainbow marshmallows and ughhhh I want to eat it all!!

(Miya and me with the bounty!)

And then we celebrated the next part of Setsubun! Where you throw beans! Miyabi explained to me in Japanese the reason you throw beans is because oni doesn't like beans. Oni is the monster. So Ken put on a mask that came with the peanuts Yuko bought and he was the onii. Then Miya and I each got a bag of peanuts and chased Ken around the house throwing peanuts (I guess we were using peanuts instead of beans) at him. Only in Japan, guys. 

I was literally pelting him with peanuts and it was okay because I was supposed to. Like what the heck haha.

We had to shout "Oni wa soto!" (aka "demons out!") and "Fuku wa uchi" (aka "luck come in the house"). It was fun! Yuko took pictures of us. Then Ken fought back a little, throwing peanuts back at us. When we were done the floor was covered in peanuts!

Then we had to eat our age in peanuts. Since they came in pods of two, I just had 10 peanut shells, which equaled 20 peanuts. Yuko asked me if we could buy peanuts in shells like this in America and I said yes, that's what people eat at baseball games. She didn't know that, but Ken did! Then we cleaned up all the peanuts from the floor. Maple (the dog) helped us find any that were hidden.

(My 20 peanuts that I only ate 10 of)

Afterwards, I couldn't take it any longer, I cracked open the Oreos and offered them to everyone. They really liked them! I explained about all the different flavored America has (Japan only has original and not in the package like this). Although I told them about some years back when Japan got limited edition green tea and red bean Oreos and America didn't! But they hadn't known about that.

We all had two Oreos except Yuko. She said they were choto amai (a little too sweet for her). Lawlz. Then I doubt she'll like the cupcakes I make.

Then I did my homework and wrote this post. I saw them talking about the Super Bowl on tv. They kept showing shots of my lover (Peyton Manning) and saying things in Japanese about him. Idk what though.

So yeah, exciting day! I completely forgot about Setsubun this morning and expected today to be super boring, but what with that and the package from my mom, it was far from it!

Nagoya-jo!

Last night I was soo tired, so I went to bed at 8 and Yuko thought I was crazy lol. I didn’t see Ken at all because he didn’t get home from work until late and then when I got up at 5:50 to shower, he had already left for work! Geez, these Japanese people. Smh.

I was still tired this morning. I’m not used to not getting my 10 hours of sleep in. :(

Yuko made miso soup and onigiri and bunny apples for breakfast. She also had whole umeboshi out. She let me try a piece of one and it was SOOO sour! Needless to say, I didn’t eat the rest of it. I only ate the umeboshi onigiri (I like the umeboshi when it’s cut in the strips like what’s in the onigiri because it’s not as sour), so I took the salmon onigiri for lunch. Then Yuko gave me the salmon onigiri Miyabi didn’t eat to take too!

I finally mastered the trains! I didn’t have to ask anyone for help today. :) When I got to school, no one was there yet so I went outside to the balcony. The mountains looked really pretty, so I took a picture of them. 

  

Then I walked down the stairs to the tennis courts and around the building. 

 

 

There was this weird house thing that I decided to check out. I unlocked and opened the door to find it was just a storage shed. But it looked so cool!

 

There were bamboo plants!

When I went back in, I saw Emma and Taylor. We all compared street pass tags. I got someone from Okinawa on the train that morning and now have 18 regions in Japan! Then I headed up to class. The quiz was easy, as I figured. Then we practiced freaking numbers. At least it was good practice because I never really knew when to say “pun” and when to say “fun” when talking about the number of minutes. We also did jikoshokai (self introductions) which I’m a beast at thanks to Japanese Conversation Group at Tech. :)

Also, we were doing telling time and Matsuda sensei asked me what time it was in America.

And I was like "doko de?" because I don't think he realized America, unlike Japan, isn't just one timezone lol. 

So he asked for the time where I was from. I did Texas time, which I converted quickly in my head, and correctly, to my surprise. I guess constantly converting between timezones has allowed me to do it automatically!

Because today’s Wednesday, Japanese classes are only half as long as they normally are because we only have communication, not reading and writing. Yay! I was dying of boredom. And I was starving.

It was snowing when we got let out for lunch, so I got to walk through the flurries! 

Entrance to the gym

I found my friends at Lawson’s and then we went to the cafeteria by the gym to eat. I like that cafeteria because it has big windows and a really good view of Nagoya and the mountains. I’ll have to take a picture someday.

Because we got out early, we got to have lunch before the Japanese students so the lines weren’t as horrendous as they were yesterday. But I was just eating my onigiri anyway. Oh, and I wrapped them all by myself this morning. :)

Such skills.

I also got this momo tea from the vending machine because everyone’s been raving about it. 

Happy Up?

 HOLY CRAP it was good! I could seriously drink this every single day, but I’d lose all my money. :(

After lunch, we all met back up outside the CJS office for our field trip! We had to get into groups. I was in group A with Rana, Emma, and Pearl. Our group leader, Natsumi, was a Japanese student. We all followed one of the CJS faculty who carried a flag that said Nanzan. It was so cute!

The back of Ryuskei

We all rode the train together. 

Such gaijin

I talked to Natsumi a bunch to practice my Japanese. When we got to the station, we all walked from there to the castle. Our group, Group A, got this adorable old Japanese guy as our tour guide. He was nice and did the tour in both Japanese and as much English as he could. He thought his English was bad, but it was actually really good!

The entrance

Natsumi told us this meant that when you died you'd be born again.

The castle was AWESOME. I really enjoyed it. We learned stuff I already knew about how it burned down in WWII and then was rebuilt later.

Super cute omiyage (souvenir) shop

This dude was the strongest man at the time. He was able to move the boulders to build the castle.

Even the castle had cute drain covers!

 

This is the corner tower. There were 11, but only 3 remain now.

We got to walk through this gold building. We had to take our shoes off and leave them and our backpacks in lockers. But we got these awesome slippers to wear! Then we got to go around and take pictures of all the rooms.

Entrance to the castle grounds

Gold building

My slippers

Natsumi told us this was a list of all the names of people who donated to the castle. I found the kanji for "Ichinomiya" and Natsumi told me they were from Ichinomiya!

When we came out, we regrouped with our tour guide. He showed us these markings on the stones. They’re old family crests because families would fight over the boulders, so they marked them to claim them as theirs.

And then we saw the castle! The two, I call them fish, but they’re actually dolphins apparently (even though they really look like dragons), are made of 18 karat gold. They’re called kinshachi in Japanese, which means "golden dolphin". They’re bronze and lacquer on the inside, with .15 mm of gold on the outside. The one on the left is male and the one on the right is female.

Natsumi, Rashaa, Pearl, Rana, Me, Emma

Then we went into a small museum near the castle where we learned about how the wooden blocks were put together. They didn’t use nails. Instead the blocks were cut in such a way that they fit together like a puzzle, and could only be pulled apart in a certain way. They had a hands on demo where we had to figure out how to pull various blocks apart. It was fun!

Picture in the museum. Birdseye view of the castle.

The castle at night. I want to see this someday!

The four kanji in the middle say "Nagoya-Jo" = Nagoya Castle

Then we finally got to go inside the castle! We all went to the bathroom first. The girls bathroom was so cute! I’m so used to the heated seats that I went in all excited to sit on a warm seat and it was FREEZING cold! Everyone else had the same expectation and reaction haha. 

See? It has that cute doily hanging thing in the doorway

The first thing in the castle was this giant life-size fish dragon (dolphin?) statue. I asked the tour guide (in Japanese) why one scale was black and he freaked out telling everyone I asked a really good question, the question of the day, haha. It turns out it was because when the economy was bad, they took the fish down to redo it with less expensive gold and someone stole one of the scales!

Then we rode the elevator to the top of the castle. There was windows all around (like at the top of the Space Needle of the Empire State Building), so we got an amazing view of Nagoya. The tour guide showed us the Nagoya gym where you can see live Sumo tournaments in July. I asked him about this twisty building I always see in pictures and have been wanting to go to and he told me it’s a mode school (idk) where students study arts, computers, and sewing. Wow. I mean, I guess I could fit in with the computer kids. He said I can go there to shop too.

The twisty building!

Next we went back down through the castle, taking the stairs and stopping at each floor. On the 5^th floor was a demo where you could try to pull a stone made of plaster that we didn’t have enough time to try. There was also this huge kinsetsu you could sit on! However, to sit on it you had to spread your legs more than was comfortable.

The rest of the floors were less interesting. I liked one that had a traditional Japanese village with a honya (book store) and restaurant and stuff. The hangings on one of the shops had this symbol, which is the old symbol for Nagoya (it’s the kanji for 8, because Nagoya had 8 prefectures).

Symbol for Nagoya

 We saw the Samurai ornamental armor that the jedi from Star Wars were based off of, lol.

When we left the castle, it was the end of our tour. Our tour guide thanked us for improving his English and bowed a bunch of times. Then we took a huge Nanzan group photo with these two guys, one dressed as a samurai, and one as some other type of Japanese person.

I got a picture with the non-samurai guy, because he was cuter. :)

Then some people went in the gift shop or ate ice cream and the rest of us left to go home.

The station entrance

I went home the same way as one of the CJS faculty, so she rode with me for the first two stops. I got to practice my Japanese with her!

When I got to Kanayama, the local train was at the station. That’s the one that stops at every freaking station and takes half an hour. The one I took into school this morning and yesterday. I decided I’d had enough of that train and waited another four minutes for the super rapid train.

It’s funny how little decisions like that can sometimes mean so much.

On the super rapid train, I was sitting (on a non-heated seat) looking over the words for the quiz we have tomorrow, when a lady standing next to me asked me (in Japanese) if I was studying Japanese. I told her I was, at Nanzan Daigaku. She asked something else and then said something in English and then turned away. I studied a little more and then thought to tell her that her English was really good (because most Japanese people who know some English are too afraid to speak it because they think it’s bad). She was so excited! She told me she never gets to use her English, though.

So I told her I’d practice with her. She loved that. She wanted to know where I lived and when I could meet. She lives in Ogaki, but she said she’d come to Ichinomiya and she’d help me with Japanese if I helped her with English! I suggested we swap emails. She agreed, but told me we should meet in person, too, to work on pronunciation. So yeah, I have a new friend now.

And her name’s Akiko!

I have no idea if this will even work out or if I’ll have time to meet. And I already have such limited access to wifi (none at Nanzan and at my host family’s house, it only works in the central living room area), so I’m not sure how well we’ll be able to keep in touch. But I’m willing to try!

I got home before dark, yay! It got warm today, in the high 40s I think. I rode my bike home with the sunset and saw an amazing ginormous full moon, so look out for that tomorrow night, America! 

Cute shrine on my way home

Something hilarious happened at dinner! Dinner was good btw. We had karage, which I think is fried chicken? But it tastes WAY better than American fried chicken! It was so unhealthy I bet, though.

Anyway, after dinner we were just sitting around the table eating the peanuts I brought from America when I decided to tell Miyabi about how people in America look for Santa Claus in peanuts.

If you're not familiar with this, my sister taught me about it some years back. Basically, you break open a peanut and one half will have a raised part that sort of looks like Santa Claus (with the beard and stuff) and the other side will have an indent that the Santa fits into.

Anyway, Yuko and Ken thought this was hilarious because they told me in Japan, Japanese people get drunk and open peanuts and instead of looking for Santa, they look for onna no ko (girl) and otoko no ko (boy). I was like, waiiiittt am I being perverted or are they talking about how one peanut half has the raised part and the other has the hole where the raised part fits in...? And then Yuko was like, "It's kind of embarrassing to explain."

And I was like, "Ah, I gotcha. I see it now." And they laughed. Hahahaha. It was so funny!

But I don't think I can ever look at peanuts in the same way again...

After dinner, I watched TV with Ken and Miyabi. There was this special on about Studi Ghibli and it had a bit of an interview with Hayao Miyazaki! I love him! It was so cool to see it on tv in Japanese instead of like on the Internet or whatever.

It also had an interview (in English with Japanese subtitles) with the guy who wrote Little Miss Sunshine and how My Neighbors the Yamadas  was what inspired him! I had no idea!

So yeah, today was a much better day than yesterday! Here's to a good rest of the week as well, hopefully! :)