Today, I turned 20.5!!

I had a really hectic morning today. I was planning on coming back after school today to drop my stuff off, relax, and then get ready to go out, but when I told Yuko this, she was a like "why? You should just use a coin locker to store your stuff or drop it off at Rana's beforehand." Okaaay. Change of plans.

So I had to pack this morning and cram all my clothes in my backpack, plus Yuko gave me a big bag with all the anpan she made.

So I left around 7:50, which was later than usual, but still ok. I'd just take the 8:07 train instead. But I'd biked two blocks when I realized I'd forgotten my omiyage! Crap!

So I went all the way back home, balancing all my crap in my bike basket, and grabbed it. Now I wasn't making the 8:07. As I was biking to the station, I realized I should have grabbed one of my gift bags to put it in. But it was too late now. :(

When I got to the bike parking place, it was 8:09, so I had to take the 8:17 train. I wasn't freaking out because I'd done that the day I missed my usual train and then didn't see the 8:07 leave lol. And I'd still gotten to school on time.

But when I got to the card scanning area, the 8:07 train was still on the board! Could it have been delayed?

I ran up to the platform and saw a message in red, which means delays usually and I saw 10 and the kanji for minutes!!  It was delayed 10 minutes! It ended up coming at 8:15, though, so I got to leave a bit earlier than I thought I would :)

School was meh. Project work was fun though! I got to read an example presentation. It was cool because there was a whole bunch of kanji I knew without the furigana that I got to practice saying. A few of them I used the wrong pronounciation for that word, so sensei corrected me.

Then sensei helped me write my report about the matsuri and next week in class I'll type it! Ugh, typing in Japanese is so hard!

After class, I threw all my crap in my locked (I hadn't had time to that morning) and then headed to the bank. I got there a whole lot faster this time because I went the back way. Oh well. 

(Lawlz this store I passed was called "poo")

At the bank, they told me the money I deposited still hadn't made it to my account and they didn't know when it would. Ffffff.

So I cashed a traveler's check because after paying for the nomihoudai tonight I would be out of money otherwise.

Then I headed back to school. I stopped at a grocery store on the way and saw these cool vegetables:

But there wasn't anything else I wanted, so I ended up buying my lunch at a 100 yen Lawson's. 

Then I headed back to campus to eat and Facebook message Rana that I was ready to go.

(The lunch I bought at Lawson's)

Next to me was a whole table of Japanese guys who, when I first sat down, were all drinking juice. When I looked over again later, however, I saw this:

(Seriously? It's not like they were waiting while one of them finished eating or anything. They were all sleeping! Why didn't they just go home? I mean, they're on vacation!)

When Rana messaged me back and I'd finished eating, I got my stuff from my locker and met her outside the CJS building. 

Then the two of us walked to the station. We took the subway to Aratama Bashi (about halfway to Kanayama) and then it was a 20 minute busride to her stop and a 5 minute walk to her house. So short!

There was no one home when we got home, so we headed up to her room and she helped me lie out my futon. Yes, I got to sleep in a real futon!! The one in the hostel in Osaka was super thin, but at Rana's, I had a mattress pad, the futon, a furry thing to sleep on like on my bed at my host family's house, and then a flannel blanket and a comforter (like at home). It was sooo comfy!

(Yeaaahhh first real futon!)

I also ate the orange I'd bought today at the 100 yen Lawson. It had been in sale for only 50 yen!! I was super excited to eat it because it was nice and big and juicy. That is, until I peeled it. And saw it wasn't an orange. It was a grapefruit. I hate those things!! Ugh but I ate it anyway and tried to make myself think I was eating an orange. So sour!

Then Rana's host mom came home, and we went down to talk to her and I gave her the presents from Yuko and me. She loved them!

Then Rana and I had tea. I had a matcha latte and Keiko (Rana's host mom) gave me some of the matcha chocolate pocky I've seen and wanted to buy! It was really good!!

(This one)

Rana and I went out for a bit to a huge department store by their house to look for cool Kit Kat flavors, but all we could find were matcha, dark chocolate, and regular. :(

We saw these adorable ice creams at Baskin Robbins, though! We both want to get them sometime.

So we went back home and then got ready to leave for the nomihoidai. We took the bus back to Aratama Bashi and then the subway to Kanayama. We got there 20 minutes early so I showed Rana where I had sat when I waited to meet Emma that time we went to Nami's English Cafe. It was nice and warm up there. 

At 7:10 we headed down to the North Exit. We saw Banana right away! Then everyone else started getting there. Banana and Yuri had brought their friend Sakiko. And Rana and I had brought Heather, Emma, Esteban, Rafa, Cam, Ben, this Japanese student from Nanzan named Ken, and Ken's girlfriend whose name I never learned (she's a foreign student like us). Rana and I had only told Banana and Yuri there would be 10 of is total, but now there were 11 lol. It need up not being a problem though!

Sakiko ended up being really nice! And she was good at English. While we were waiting for the dorm kids (Ben, Heather, Cam, Ken, and Ken's gf) who were late, we all spoke Japanese and Banana told me my Japanese had gotten a lot better!! I was so happy! She had a really good memory too, remembering I couldn't have milk, I went to the illuminations in Mie (where Sakiko lives), and that I was computer science!

We all were trying to get Cam with one if the Japanese girls because Cam's kind if shy, but is really good at Japanese! He and Sakiko seemed to really hit it off. :) 

At dinner, Esteban did some rearranging of seats so he could sit between Banana and Yuri haha and I think he ended up having a really good time with them. The girls definitely liked talking to American guys. I kind of wished they'd brought guys too.

But we had some pretty interesting conversations, including the ways the dating process differs in America and Japan.

I sat between Emma and Sakiko. Rana, Ben and Rafa were sort of in their own corner speaking English, so I felt bad. But I'm happy I was sitting by Banana, Yuri, and Sakiko because our half of the table spoke in Japanese the entire time!

I think I'm better at Japanese when I'm tipsy, believe it or not! Because I think less before I speak so I can say more and don't have long pauses in between my words and I'm not as afraid of messing up.

I had 6 drinks total and a shot of sake that I downed (it buuurnnned). In America I would have been throwing up, but here I wasn't drunk at all. Just a tad buzzed, and reacting a bit slower than normal. My cheeks were on fire though!

The drinks I had were pretty cool. The first was an orange something that was sweet and really, really good! Then I ordered a Khalua milk which was so bad for me to drink but was so so so good! 

After that, I had a ringo shouju (apple drink mixed with this nasty Japanese alcohol I had but it actually tasted really good in this drink!). Then I had a peach mixed drink that was gross. Then I asked Esteban what he was drinking because it looked like scotch and he told me umeshuu (plum wine). I made a disgusted face and said I hated umeboshi, but Banana, Yuri, and Sakiko immediately started assuring me that it was sweet and did not taste like umeboshi at all! So after some convincing, I tried Esteban's and it was SOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!! I freaked out and everyone cracked up. So yeah I ordered two of those as my last drinks. Damn it was amazing!

(Esteban and Banana amazed at all my drinks!)

The food was good too! They just kept bringing out plates of stuff that we shared among four people each. We had an amazing salad (with a creamy but good dressing), kanishes (everyone else was lame and didn't know they were called kanishes), pieces of raw salmon, some sort of meat with fruit sauce, this one that was like a quiche with shredded seaweed on top (tepanyaki I think it was called), okonomiyaki (by this point I was getting kind of full), and then fried rice that I had to force myself to finish.

I think I'm forgetting something else we had... Oh well.

(Okonomiyaki)

Banana's pix from the nomihoudai: 

(She uploaded them like 20 min after we left! So fast!)

(All of us!)

(Heather, Sakiko, Emma, Banana, me)

(Sakiko, me, Emma. I really like this picture!!)

(Um... yeah... Me & my drinkz)

Then at the end, they brought out crepes! I took a bite, realized it had cream inside and gave the rest of it to Esteban. I didn't want to push it after I downed the entire pint of Khalua milk.

(Crepes)

There was a bunch of salary men and women at the table behind us who were drunk off their asses. One of them stared at me as I came back from the bathroom. When we were leaving,they thought it was so cool we were foreigners. The one who had stared at me pointed at me and shouted "Russia!"

I was like, "Iie, Amerikajin." And he was like "harro. harro!"

I was like "hi..."

Yeah. Then we left.

At the subway station, we parted ways with Banana, Yuri, and Sakiko. Sakiko added me on Line. Then the guys were still hungry (idk how!) and it wasn't yet 10, so we went to Denny's.

Emma decided to leave along with Ken's gf.

So Rafa, Cam, Ken, and Esteban sat at one table and Rana, Heather, Ben, and I sat at another. Heather ordered this chocolate brownie thing:

And Ben ordered everyone wine on him because he thought it would be hilarious to all drink wine at Denny's. It was Denny's house wine and it tasted like shit, so I only drank about 3/4 and let Ben finish it off.

When Rafa, Esteban (Esteban was staying over at Rafa's host family's house so he didn't have to go all the way back to Ichinomiya), and Ken headed out, Cam came over to our table to chill with us. He gave me a lot of good advice about how to improve my Japanese like that I should try to think in Japanese and listen to audio from anime on my iPod.

Around 11:40, I made everyone leave so we could make the train before it closed for the night. Rana and I headed for the Meitetsu line because her dad was going to pick us up at a station on the Meitetsu line. Ben, Cam, and Heather took the subway back to their dorm. 

Rana and I ended up catching the last train for the night, so I'm glad I rushed everyone! It got into our stop (the last stop) at midnight. Then Rana's host dad came in his car to pick us up from the station. It was so nice!!

Back at their house, Haruka was asleep but Rana's host mom had stayed up to ask us how it was. We went to sleep pretty quickly afterwards.

Also, I just had to put this on here. This is Haruka's door hanging haha. Rana and I don't think she realizes what it looks like but omg it is just too funny! I think she might have been making an infinity and then needed a way to hang the infinity? Idk... Haha

Annnnddd: 

THIS IS MY 50TH POST!!!! Yaaaayyyy!

Back to school, guys...

Ugh I forgot how awful my commute is. I got squished like a sardine for the long ride from Ichinomiya to Nagoya and it was sooo bad. I really wanted to cough and sneeze and spread my germs, so people would back away from me, but it wouldn't have worked because there's no room for them to move away from me. It sucks. It was so bad I was daydreaming of lying on the huge expanse of the drillfield with no one around me.

Anyway, the smartest decision I have made thus far is showing Miya that days of the month rap. Omg. I needed to know those for my test today, so when I was studying on the subway, I was like "hmm I think I have to know the days of the month. Crap, I should study those..." 

And then I was like psh, who am I kidding? I know those by heart from all the times Miya and I would sing that freaking rap! I have the rap memorized and it covers all the irregular days, and the rest are easy.

Today I was really sick. I went through packs of tissues like chain smokers go through packs of cigarettes. I even seriously considered wearing a sick mask haha. But I just couldn't make myself do it.

I ran into Taylor as I was walking to school and she had gotten new kitty tights and she'd found ones where the kitties had little pink cheeks!! Ahhhh! I have to have them! She said she got them in Osu. Omg omg omg!

Then I went in to the CJS office to sit with my friends and we all talked about our breaks. Emma went to Tokyo all alone, but she had a really good time! She told us how her bus got cancelled too, so she took the Shinkansen but it was delayed because of all the snow in Tokyo, so she got back after the subways had stopped running and had to crash in a karaoke bar for the night! And the karaoke workers really wanted her out lol. Ugh, sounds miserable! She also gave me this map of Tokyo and the Tokyo subway for when I go next break! :)

In class, Natalia talked about her break. It sounded like she had an awesome time and I'm jealous! She applied for this year long program (even though she'll only be able to do about 3 months of it) where she works in various places around Japan and gets free meals and stays with host families in the area. So for this break, she went around Kyushu, including Fukuoka (ahh so jealous!). So all she had to pay for was her plane ticket!

She said out of the three days she spent there, she only had to work two hours!

She got to work on a farm (all she had to do was pick up leaves) with giant strawberries and as a hostess at a hotel! At the hotel she said "irrashaimase" to the guests (aka "welcome") and gave them chocolate on Valentine's Day! So she got to practice a bunch of Japanese and got to go shopping (she bought this adorable backpack for $5) and sightseeing as well!!

Then this guy Henry in my class who's never taken Japanese before and is the worst in our class (he's the one I told about the fruit the day I got all that fruit at Lawson's grand opening) told us all about his part time job he worked over break, here in Nagoya. Turns out he worked as a host in a cafe, where his job was, get this:

To hit on girls!!

Yeah, believe it or not, he got paid to flirt with girls in English! Hahaha. 

I really wanted to ask how much he made per hour. I'd love to get paid to flirt with guys!!

In class, we had to do a bunch of those "write about what you did over the break" exercises. Ugh. Those suck in English and are even worse when you don't know how to say half the things you want to!

I bought my lunch at Lawson's today. The girl at the cashier next to me bought two sandwiches, which means four bunny stickers!! I really wanted to ask her if I could have them, but she's super quiet, I've never seen her speak. So I dont know her name or anything about her and have never talked to her before... So yeah, I didn't ask her. >_< 

And then she had disappeared by the time I was done buying my lunch. I guess she went to eat somewhere else?

But I went into Dagane to sit with my friends and got a bunny sticker each from Heather and Autumn and one from my strawberry filled bread, so I'm up to 16 now!

My lunch:

(Super yummy! And they warmed it in the microwave for me at Lawson's!)

Oh and you know my bread? Yeah so I ate it later and I was all excited for it because it looks like strawberry jam filled bread, right?

Well it was bread filled with cream and strawberry jam! :( That's the last time I'm getting that. The cream totally ruined it!

After lunch was calligraphyyy. I still suck. But whatevs.

Today we wrote "seiten". We had to do the weird diagonal lines in the kanji (we couldn't pick up our brush between lines). I don't like them, though. They make the kanji look ugly). 

(Ugh sooo badddd)

And then came my favorite class!!! Tea ceremony!

First we each got a fan.

(I chose a pink and purple one ^^ )

Then we practiced entering the room. We had to take our fans everywhere with us and alternate between sliding around our knees and walking on our feet.

We had to bow when we first entered and at the scroll. We had to admire the scroll and this flower arrangement:

And admire the pot of hot water and the tea cup and ladle.

Then we got to eat okashi! Yusss.

(Today's okashi)

It was called "snow flower" because the topping was supposed to look like snow.

I think the outside was made of rice and inside was bright pink stuff that I think might have been anko even though it was pepto bismyl colored. Omg it was delicious though. I really wanted another one. I asked the older sensei where she buys these and she told me a place behind Nagoya-jo. Ahh I have to find it!

Then we were served our tea. When we got it, we had to say

"Mou ippuku ikaga desu ka"

to the person before us,

"Osake ni choudai itashimasu"

to the person after us, and 

"Otemae choudai itashimasu"

to the host.

It was hard!

(My adorbs teacup)

Gosh I love this class. And at the end she said next week and the week after we'll be wearing kimonos!!! AHHHHH!!!!

But we can't wear jeans, so I have to remember to wear tights or my leggings!

Today I managed to sneak in a lot of pictures. :)

(Class. The younger sensei is the one in the kimono there)

I saw this awesome pocky on the way home I'll have to try one day:

(Matcha chocolate!)

When I got home, Miya sat in my room and helped me practice for my dialogue check tomorrow. Then Ken came home and we had dinner. We had a lot for dinner tonight, which was good because I was hungry!

We had rice, cooked pickled daikon, spinach, pasta, lettuce, fried tofu chunks, mushrooms, aaaannnddd...

...guess what??

THE FISH!!!

The ones where it's the entire fish. I wasn't going to eat one but then Yuko asked if I wanted one and said the entire thing was edible but I didn't have to eat the head if I didn't want to. So I was like what the heck and I ate the entire thing except the tail.

It's mouth was open and everything!!!

And I ate it!

Yuko and Ken were really impressed that I ate the head! :)

Then Yuko and Ken asked me about the nomihoudai with Yuri and Banana-chan on Friday and told me that because I'm staying over at Rana's house that night (so I don't have to ride my bike drunk lol), I have to get a present for her family (like a box of chocolate or something) because that's what you do in Japan, and Yuko and Ken have to get something to give them as well! Wow!

I also realized today that Friday is my half birthday!!! Omg guys. I gotta get shwasted...

(Heather and me from my first nomihoudai (in Osaka!) that I forgot to upload. Hopefully I actually get buzzed this time...)

After dinner, Miya and I watched cartoons (in Japanese) and some of the Olympics as well.

Then I went to bed early because it was so hard to get up this morning!