Developing photos and swimming

It was still effing raining this morning. I wore my yoga pants and they were completely soaked through when I got to the station. Rawr.

At Kanayama, I ran into Yukari, so the two of us rode the subway to school together. We started talking all in Japanese. She speaks so fast, I always have such a hard time understanding her, but it's really good practice for me!

But then we switched to English and she told me again how much she loves English and really wants to speak it fluently. But she told me so far, I'm the only ryuugakusei she can speak English with, even though she's met and talked to a whole bunch of them. She said she feels most comfortable speaking with me. The rest she's too nervous to speak English in front of. 

I understand completely. I'm always way too nervous to speak Japanese with my bilingual native Japanese speaker friends like Ayuko.

Yukari shared her umbrella with me as we walked to school, even though in fine with my rain jacket! And we taught each other various English and Japanese words. It was fun!

At school, we had Mutsukawa sensei for class. We practiced for our conversation test on Friday.

When class was over at 10:50, it was time to swim! I ran into Emma on my way to the pool and she wanted to go eat at Downey's. Argh, I forgot I wanted to go there! I told her I was planning on swimming now and suggested we go when it's not raining. She agreed. So I headed to the pool.

The swimming club must practice later now that school's back in session, because no one was in the locker room when I got there, and only two people were in the pool. One a guy who looked my age and one an old man. It was nice and quiet! :)

I promised the first time I went swimming that I'd take pictures in the future, so here they are!

(Entrance to locker room, where you put your slipper/sandal things)

(The lockers! With the sinks in the background)

(The sinks and stairs up to the showers/pool entrance)

(Just noticed this door today. It leads out to a balcony!)

(View from the balcony)

(The top of the stairs - entrance to the shower rooms. Exit the showers and to the right are the toilets and the left, the entrance to the pool)

(Entrance to the pool. Don't ask me why the pool is on the second floor...?)

(The poooolllll!!!!! *kira kira*)

(Left side. The spiral staircase goes up to the spectator balcony)

(View from the left side)

(Right side)

I loooove the huge windows! It makes the pool so bright and cheery feeling instead of depressing like indoor pools in America. That's why I quit swimming in middle school because when I moved, the new swim team was in an indoor pool that was dark and warm and gross and swimming just wasn't fun anymore...

It felt so great to be back in the water! Especially after so many episodes of Free! I was itching to swim, and it was so great!

I started with a 500 and then swam more for an hour. When I left, the lady at the front desk told me "otsukaresama." Yus! :D

I was starving but I'd told Hikari, the secretary (?) of photography club that I'd be available today for her to show me the dark room. We were supposed to go last Thursday, but I'd gotten sick. So we were meeting at 12:35 in front of Lawson's. I got there early, but I saw Brendan sitting by himself, so I went over to sit with him. We talked about our host families until Hikari got there and then she and I headed out.

She took me to this building next to the pool with a sign on it that said "clubhouse" in katakana. Ohhh, so this was the legitimate clubhouse! And it really did look like a clubhouse when we went inside. Right at the entrance, there was a Nanzan themed vending machine that I wish I'd gotten a picture of! I'll have to go back some time. Then we went to the photography club's room. There were two girls in there who said hi to me. Hikari got the key to the dark room. Then we walked downstairs to the darkroom. On the way, we passed a bunch of various club rooms. The cheerleader's room was full of pom poms and sparkles, haha.

In the dark room, Hikari showed me everything. I helped her make the fix and she showed me some negatives of pictures she'd taken and let me choose one to develop. I picked one of the big ivy covered wall of Nanzan in the green area.

Then she showed me how to shine the picture on the appear and then put the paper in the various solutions to make the picture appear.

It was the exact same way I'd done it in high school, with all the same tools. Everything was so familiar. And I felt incredibly natsukashii (nostalgic)!

Standing there with my wet, chlorine filled hair, in the dark with only the red light on surrounded by the vinegar-y smell of fix...

It was just like I was back in high school, developing my pictures before class after morning swim practice. 

Hilary had asked when I had to leave for class, and I'd lied and said I had class at 1:30 because you know, a girl's gotta eat sometime.

So she showed me this super rapid fix stuff that we hadn't had in high school that she said you could use to fix the picture when you didn't have time to wait. So we put it in there and then moved it to the dryer.

In high school, the pictures had to sit in the drier for like ten minutes, slowly drying. The dryer here was totemo sugoi! You slid the photo in between two rubbery things and it rolled through and came out the back a second later, completely dry!!

Then Hikari gave me a camera to borrow! She said I had to buy film, but once I took pictures, I could come use the photo paper here to develop them! Ahhh! Sugoi! I really want to, but I doubt I'll have time... :(

But anyway, she gave me the photo and then told me to "ganbare" in class and stayed to clean up. She's such a sweetheart! I felt bad for lying, but I was sooo hungry!!

(Her picture I developed!!)

At Dagane, I got misokatsudon! Then I sat and ate it while I watched Free! on my phone like a loner, haha.

(Look it's glistening with deliciousness!)

After lunch, I worked on my PowerPoint to go along with my happyou Friday, and then I headed home. The rain had stopped when I got out of the computer room, so I figured I'd better head home before it started again.

When I got to the bike parking area in Ichinomiya, I noticed the top of the bell on my bike was gone!! No! This was the new bike Chris had given me. I knew it had been there this morning, because I'd used it (I remembered because I'd been all excited because it was my first time using a bike bell!) when this guy was walking slowly in front of me and I couldn't get around him. So I took my bike over to the guy running the bike parking place to show him the missing bell top. I told him it had been there that morning. He had one in the lost and found, so he tried to fit it on my bell bottom, but it was too small.

So we went over to wear my bike had been parked to look to see if it had fallen (which I already did), but we couldn't find it. So he said he'd look one more time in their lost and found.

And he ended up finding another bell top! And this one fit! He had to tape it a bit, but then it stayed on! But when it was on, the little thing you flick would get stuck. He said I could still use it like that, but tried anyway to fix it completely.

And he ended up being able to!! It was like new when he was done. It just shows if you're not lazy, and just fiddle around a bit, sometimes you can make things work! I thanked him profusely and then left.

On the way home, I swung by the guys place who had fixed the old bike for me for 400 yen and asked if he wanted the bike, since Yuko was throwing it out anyway. He said he had no use for it. Ah well. It was worth a shot.

When I got home, I said "tadaima" and then went to my room to study for my huge ass every-kanji-we've-ever-learned test tomorrow. Miya ran by and said "bye" and then everyone was gone. What? No one had said "ittekimasu", or where they were going or anything! I'd had my door open too. Wth?

So I sat in my room and studied and ate something that would make my mom have a cow if she knew what it was, haha. So skip over this part mom!

Yeah, I ate melon pan dipped in the left over cupcake icing, haha. It was sooooo good!

Everyone.     came back in time to make dinner. So we had rice with vegetables. I talked a lot at dinner tonight! I told everyone about the huge kanji test I have tomorrow and then where exactly I'm going over golden week after we get back from Handaa.

Then Yuko and Ken told me that they'd take care of the all the rest of the bike stuff (registration and disposal of the old bike) and I just had to pay them!! Oh, I'm so happy! That takes so much stress off me! They said they wanted me to focus on my studies instead. The school must have talked to them!

Then I went to my room to study. Well, I meant to study. But Shogo (the guy I met Monday) started texting me finally. The "two day rule" must apply in Japan as well.

So yeah, I was pretty distracted. I also texted Emma to tell her he texted me. But she wasn't answering, so I got impatient and started texting her a play by play of our conversation haha.

And then I started freaking out because he said he that he had to take me out to a ball game (yes, he said it just like the song). I was super excited!!! Omg I might actually go on a legit date in Japan, to a baseball game!!! Sugoi!

Now I couldn't study!

Then Emma finally texted me back and burst my bubble. He'd been texting her too (so unfair! I found him first!!). And not only that, he'd texted her the exact same things he'd texted me! Word for word. What a two timer!!

That pissed me off. He didn't say anything else the rest of the night, so I just went to sleep.

Photography club!

Monday, April 14

Guys, three more weeks of classes and that's it! I can't believe time has flown so fast, it's scary!!

We had cereal this morning!!!! Omg it's been so long! It was so so good. :P

On the way to school today, I studied for my test. I took the late train, so I didn't have much time before class. The station was bad this morning; people rushing to get somewhere crashed into me over 5 times! It hurt.

The test ended up being pretty easy. I'm not doing as badly as I thought I would now that we're into chapters I never learned! On the last test, which was the first that covered things I haven't learned, I was the only one who got an A! 

For reading & writing, we had Kandou sensei. She had us play Jeopardy. It was boys against girls and Natalia elected to not be on a team, and be the score keeper instead (since there're more girls than guys).

So at one point, we were tied with the boys, when we got this really hard question worth 400 points. It asked the meaning of "itamitome", which none of us had ever heard of!

It was written like:

痛み止め

With "ita" and "to" in kanji. Then I had an idea! I've noticed you can usually figure out what a word means by looking at the meanings of the kanji. 

I knew the second kanji meant "stop", so I asked Tina what the first kanji meant. She said it was the kanji for "ita", like in "itai", which is the Japanese word for "painful". So I was like "stop pain?"

And Heather was all like "medicine?" 

And I was like "yeah, like painkillers!"

So we all guessed painkillers and we ended up being right!! It was awesome!

All the boys had been cracking up when we first got the question, so sure we wouldn't get it, and when we first saw it, we figured we wouldn't get it either. But we did!! It was so awesome!

When sensei revealed the answer, we all screamed and high fived each other, haha.

So with that huge advantage, we ended up beating the boys. :)

But sensei didn't have prizes today... :(

During the break between classes, Natali had let me use her pocket wifi so I could see if Hikari from the photography club had responded. I'd emailed her this morning asking for the room number again. And she had! It was in F building where we'd gone last week, but was on the 3rd floor, where we hadn't gone.

I also ran to Lawson's with Dylan so I could buy a bento for lunchtime. All the bentos had noodles in them, and I don't like eating noodles in front of people, haha, so I got rice paper veggie rolls and one of those fruit and cream filled sandwhiches with three bear stickers!

Natalia and I ran over to F after class. There were a few Japanese students in there already, who turned out to be the photography club officers. The one in the center who must have been the president was super cute, btw.

Natalia left to go buy a bento and I sat there and started eating, because everyone else was eating their lunch. Then some ichinensei showed up as well. Natalia got back pretty quickly and then Natsumi, the girl I'd been emailing and had met that day showed up as well. She came over and explained that the meeting would start and then we might go around and do introductions or something.

So the meeting started and they read minutes from the last meeting and then had a mini debate because one of the guys wasn't sure about something and kind of arguing about it, but not in a mean way or anything.

Then everyone started going around and saying places they wanted to go in Japan, because the club was planning a trip. Most people were saying Takayama, which is the place Manaka's dad was telling me about with the giant walls of snow. I want to go there too!

When it got to Natalia and me, I said Okinawa and everyone liked that and started talking a bit about Okinawa. Then the meeting was over! So short!

Natsumi came over to explain to Natalia and me that we couldn't use digital cameras (contrary to what she'd told me when she'd met with me over their haruyasumi...), and they'd let us borrow film cameras, but we'd have to buy the film ourselves.

That pretty much killed anymore lingering interest I had in joining. Film is really expensive and I'd rather spend my money on other things, especially when I only have a month left. But Natalia is really into it and is going to go buy film.

Anyway, Natsumi said to email her so we could find a time to go see the dark room on campus. I'm excited about that though!

After the meeting, Natalia and I went to the green area. We found Emma eating by herself (she does that every day, eats at the green area and people watches) so we sat with her for a bit until class started.

I ate the Koala March I got from the matsuri yesterday (the one snack that I was smart and kept for myself) and here is a cute zebra koala!

Then Emma and I headed to calligraphy. We were carving our stone stamps again. Mine is sooo difficult! I should have picked easier kanji, but I wanted the same ones as are on my inkan. #cateproblems 

I was sure I wouldn't finish by the end of class, but I actually did!! It looks pretty bad because I accidentally carved over some of the kanji (where I wasn't supposed to), so it looks pretty broken up, but you can still read what it says and tell which characters they're supposed to be, and I'm fine with that.

Yay!! Next week we have to pick kanji that we like because we're going to make legitimate printings of them. I have no idea what kanji to use though!

After class, I saw the cute guy from photography club and he waved at me!! :D

Then was my all time favorite class!

Sadou!!

We were back to practicing entering the room and using fans today.

(My fan!)

The okashi was adorable today! 

It was called "haru" something and represented the air in springtime. The brown is the ground and the pink and white is the air, because the air in springtime has all the pink sakura petals in it.

It was hard to pick up because it was all jiggly. I was first so I didn't realize how hard it would be and I accidentally separated the pink and brown parts and everyone laughed.

The texture was also really weird. The brown part was good because it was anko, but the pink and white part was all gelatin-like and tasted weird, haha.

Then we made the tea for each other and switched groups. While the second group did the tea ceremony, my group listened to sensei's lecture. After her lecture, we got to make tea for ourselves! She said we could use however much matcha and water we wanted. I put in two pretty big spoonfuls of matcha powder and my turned out to be delicious!!

(And I got my favorite cup too! The one with the face)

After class, Brendan (aka Kuma chan) and I left together so we could talk about the presentation we have to do on The Mourning Forest for Folklore. He stopped at the green area to pick up his bag that he had left with a bunch of the dorm kids. While I waited, one of the Japanese guys in the group asked my name and introduced himself. I found out he's studying law at Nanzan. He was really nice!

So I'd kind of wanted to start working on our presentation today and thought that was what we'd been doing. I'd watched it over a week ago, but had had to wait for Brendan to watch it, which he hadn't done until this past weekend!

But he wanted to each research it first, so I gave him the questions she'd given us to answer last class (that he'd missed) and we split them up.

Then I headed to the computer building to see if I could find and buy the wheel for my bike online. Well, I did find them, but they were all over $500!!! I also looked up cheap bike places and found some bike recycle stores in Nagoya, but the cheapest bike was $50 and anyway I had to get it to Ichinomiya somehow.

Exasperated, I looked down at the time and saw it was already 5:50!! Crap!

So I rushed home. Walking home took feaking forever, so I only got home around 7:20. 

I'd been hungry during calligraphy and had figured I'd maybe get bread or something for the ride home, but since I hadn't gotten a chance to, I was starving now!! I was excited to just walk right in and start eating dinner right away.

But no one was home! Ahhh!! So I ran to my room and ate some snacks. Thankfully everyone, including Ken, came home about 10 minutes later and Yuko whipped up some spaghetti.

After dinner, I wrote the sakubun I had to do for homework and went to sleep.

Sadou under the sakura (and new Kit Kats)!!

 Monday, April 7

Oh my gosh, the trains were insane today! Spring vacation was over for most people, so they were heading back to school. I made the 7:47 and wasn't even last in line, but elected not to take it because it was so stuffed and I couldn't deal with almost fainting again. So I was first in line for the 57, which made for a better ride.

The subway was just as bad! Omg, I definitely don't remember it being that bad in January. Ugh, it was completely stuffed. But guess who got on? Yukari and Sara, my Brazilian-Japanese friends I met at coffee hour last week and then did hanami with afterwards!

So we all rode to school together and I got to practice Japanese with them!

At Yagoto Nisseki, I told them I had to go to Lawson's so I could buy a bento to eat during photography club today. So they went with me. I bought a large bento and then Sara bought a drink and some chocolate. She tried the chocolate with me after she heard I'd never tried it before. It was good!

Then we walked the rest of the way to Nanzan, before we parted ways. 

I went into the CJS office before class to talk to my friends. Mitch (Matsui san) saw me and called me over, saying he wanted to talk to me. It turned out he wanted me to write a little something about last week's coffee hour to go on the CJS Facebook page! Yes, I'd been wanting to be selected to write about something for the CJS Facebook page!!

And he gave me a Nanzan highlighter as thanks! It was a weird highlighter that was waxy, so that it could be used over ink on paper. Cool!

In class, we had a test that I thought was pretty easy, and then we spent the rest of the period reviewing and then starting on chapter 13 in the new Genki book.

When class was over and it was lunch time, I reminded Natalia about photography club because I remembered she'd been interested in it, too.

I had no idea where the first meeting was supposed to be, but I knew there were two rooms where they said they usually met. One was in the clubhouse and one was in K building.

Natalia had brought a bento, so we went to Lawson's to heat them up and then headed to the clubhouse. The clubhouse was just like the clubhouses in manga and Japanese movies! It was so cool. 

There were a bunch of music sakurus practicing. We looked in all the rooms and couldn't find the photography club. We asked one guy we saw and he had no idea where they meet.

So we decided to try K building and if they weren't there, then just give up and go eat our lunch somewhere.

We looked through all the rooms in K too and didn't see them anywhere! We saw a whole bunch of Japanese students leaving a classroom, so we asked two of the guys. One of them was really, really cute!! They were sooooo nice! They told us maybe they were in the kopan and said they'd walk there with us to look. On the way, they asked us where we were from and stuff. I found out they were both ichinensei.When we exited K, they realized we were talking about the photography club, haha. So they said the meeting place probably wouldn't be in the kopan. 

They were really distraught about the fact that they couldn't help us, it was cute! I kept saying that it was fine! I asked what clubs they wanted to join and the cute one said a singing club, so I asked if he likes karaoke and he said he does! Then they told us they want to practice English with us, so the cute one gave me his email. It had "swimmer" in it, so I asked if he likes swimming and he does! I told him I do too and told him to come swim at the Nanzan pool sometime. And then the two of them headed to eat lunch and Natalia and I decided to eat our lunch out in the green area, because it was such a gorgeous day!

We saw Emma eating under a tree, so we joined her. It was beautiful with the sakura petals falling all around us!

So many petals!

Then Natalia left to go to class and Emma and I walked to the lockers so I could get my brushes for calligraphy. But we ended up not using our brushes in calligraphy.

We were starting making inkan with our names that we can use to sign our works of calligraphy. 

We had to rub our block on sandpaper to smooth down the side we were going to carve on.

Then we looked up the kanji in our names and found the super fancy, curly way of writing it. I couldn't find (kei) in the booklet we were given, so sensei had to look it up in her book. And she found it there! Haha, look how weird it looks! But I liked how the bottom looked like a little flower. :)

And here's "to"!

So then we had to draw them on our block and carve it. I chose to carve around the kanji, which is harder, but it will end up looking better, I think.

My attempts at carving the stone. It's harder than I thought!

Then it was time for my favorite class!!! Yay!! Today we had sadou outside so we could eat dango under the falling sakura petals. :D Therefore, I was super excited for today!

The senseis had brought out tatami mats with a red cloth over them and a red umbrella. We took turns sitting on the tatami under the umbrella. I was in the first group.

 

The dango was AMAZING!!! Sensei told us we couldn't eat it off the stick, lol. We had to take the stick out first and then use if to cut the dango (which was harder than you would think!) The green was filled with anko and the pink filled with sakura flavored paste! It was so, so delicious!

When it was my turn to go up and make tea, I had Pearl take my picture, haha.
We actually got to put in the matcha powder today! (Usually it's already in the tea cup and we just put water in and stir).

Me putting in the matcha powder

Both my senseis. I like how the older sensei is in the back with the sakura. It makes the picture look so Japanese!

Me stirring!

All done!

And now giving the tea to my guest

Ah, so fun! After class, I took pictures of the Genki II book in the library so I could do my homework tonight (we can't check out the book). Then I headed home.

Nanzan is so pretty with the falling sakura!

On the way to the train station I popped in Lawson's to buy a snack. I had seen these this morning with Sara and Yukari, so I wanted to go back to get them.

It turned out they were mini donuts! They were covered in sugar and filled with anko and really, really sweet!

On the way home, I stopped at Nagoya Eki because I was meeting Mami under the golden clock so she could give me my glove I'd forgotten on the train yesterday. I got there 15 minutes early, but 5 minutes later she showed up! She told me she'd seen it right after I got off the train, and had run after me, but I'd been gone already. I was like, "so you got off the train??" And she said she did, but it was okay because she caught the next one. Oh my gosh, she is so, so nice!!!

After I thanked her and we parted ways, I was like, damn I should have given her something for coming all the way to give me back my glove, especially since she'd had the day off work today. I was trying to think of what I had to give her, when I remembered the donuts!

So I ran after her and gave her one. She told me they were her favorite! So I gave her another and she was so, so happy! Yay! :)

Then I went home. At home, I parked my bike and decided to walk across the street to Seiyu. When I'd been locked out Saturday night and had gone into Seiyu, I'd seen the new Kit Kats that Miya and I had seen advertised on TV one day, and knew I had to go back and buy them. So I did! And they were on sale!

When I exited, I saw Yuko walking to go pick up Miyabi. I told her I'd just bought the new Kit Kats haha, and then I headed inside.

After we ate dinner, I was still hungry, so I decided I'd crack into the Kit Kats. I brought them into the kitchen to share with Miya and Yuko. Miya was reading the package and told me we had to put them in the oven! It turned out we did, so Yuko asked if I wanted to try it now and I said I did!

We don't have an oven, so we used the microwave, lol. We weren't sure if that would work, but we decided to try!

The Kit Kats!!

Back of the package

One of the Kit Kats

We took them out after a while, but all that had happened was they had melted... :/ What a shame. Yuko told me to try one and then decide if we should put them back in. I did. It was pudding flavored! I decided we should try to bake them more. So we did!

And then we saw them get all brown, so we took them out! Sugoi!! It seems like they melt first and then the melted part cooks!
They were SO SO SO GOOD!!!! They tasted like cake! Holy crap. New favorite Kit Kat!
I told my friends about it at school the next day and now they want to try them too, haha!

So good!

Thankfully I bought another package to take home to America!

What the inside looked like. Like a cookie!

Then I tried one plain and it definitely wasn't as good!

Ahhh, I freaking love Kit Kats!!!! Why are they so much cooler in Japan when they're an American dessert??