Denny's with Hotaru!!

Read the previous post too!!

Sunday, May 11

Today I got to hang out with Hotaru!!

First I ate breakfast with everyone before church. They were heading out to visit Obaasan for Mother's Day. But they let me stay home since I had a final tomorrow. Yuko told me they probably wouldn't be back until late, so she gave me $6 to spend on dinner. 

So I went to church and then had planned to leave right after that, but I'd forgotten my train pass, so I had to run back home to get it. I threw my laundry in the wash too so it could run while I was out.

I met Hotaru at Kamimaezu at 12:30 because we were going to have lunch in Osu. Ah, I went to Osu twice this weekend! 

We walked around a while looking for this restaurant Hotaru wanted to eat at that had hamburgers, pasta, and sweets she said. I don't like hamburgers, but the pasta and sweets sounded like Sweets Paradise, so I figured it would be good! 

On the way, I stopped in that super pink 300 yen store where I got my kitty tights that time and bought a pair of each the kitty, bunny, and bear for my sister and me (since my kitties are starting to tear), and then I bought extra kitties with pink cheeks for myself. ^^

Then Hotaru told me the restaurant was up on the second floor of this arcade, so we headed up to it.

Well guess what it was folks? A good old American Denny's! I was like "this is an American restaurant!" It turned out Hotaru had had no idea haha! She said we could go somewhere else, but I could tell she'd been really wanting to go here, so I said it was fine! Plus I was really craving pancakes.

So yeahhh, Denny's in Japan really is like a five star restaurant! The best deal was to buy an entire meal that came with main dish, salad, drink and a dessert, so that's what we got! Also, there was free wifi in the Denny's that my phone automatically connected to. :)

I was like, man I hope they have melon soda, but they probably don't. But guess what y'all? They totes did! 

Man I'm gonna miss melon pan and melon soda. 

After we got our drinks, they brought us our salad! It had this mushy orange stuff on too that was actually really good!

Hotaru told me she got me a goodbye present. Aww she's so nice!! Today was originally supposed to be a going away party for me, but them Yukari and Sara couldn't make it because it was Mother's Day. :( Aw well! 

It was wrapped in wrapping from "Kiddy Land", so I was all excited. And guess what it was?? A Rilakkuma pencil pouch!!! Ahhh!! She remembered how much I like Rilakkuma! She's the best!!

(Me with my new Rilakkuma pencil pouch!)

(Hotaru and moi)

We both got the chicken don dish because I looove chicken over rice!

It was awesome! It came with tomato, kabocha (pumpkin), avocado, and sweet potato!

And then the best part!! Dessert!!!!! I got these fucking amazing caramel pancakes!! And Hotaru got a humungo matcha, azuki, mochi parfait!!

(My noms)

(Hotaru's noms)

(Me with my noms)

(Hotaru with her noms)

Gosh it was so, so good!! 

Then after lunch we went into the arcade to take purikura. Turns out it was the same arcade I went to way back in the first week of school with Taylor, Megan, and Emma where I played the UFO catcher!

We ended up doing two different sets of purikura and I paid for the second since I felt bad that Hotaru had given me a gift and I had nothing for her in return!

Man, I'm gonna miss her so much! She says she's going to try to go to school in Kyoto in a year or two to continue her Asian literature studies there.

(I decorated this one and I really like it!)

(I decorated this one too :D )

Aw we're so cute!!

After putikura, we went to Seria, the 100 yen store to look around. But Hotaru was in a shopping mood and I really needed to get back home to study, so I told her I needed to go study and she understood. :( 

At home, I finished my laundry and did another load, and studied a bit. Then I went to Seiyu to buy dinner. And guess what was there on sale???

(Suika!!!)

It was 30% off of 285, which made it hella cheap compared to the one I saw yesterday! So I bought it. I also got the inarizushi and sushi combo I'm obsessed with and a chocolate chip melon pan. And it all totaled to 608 yen, so I only paid 8 yen for dinner! Woohoo!

Then I went home to eat and Skype my mom while I ate.

And you know, take watermelon-eating selfies...

(Omg I can't believe I ate the entire thing!!)

After I finished eating and cleaned up my mess from the watermelon, I headed to my room to study some more. Then everyone got home from Handa. Yuko came to my room and asked me how dinner was. I said it was delicious and she was all like "what did you buy?"

So I told her a sushi bento and suika. And she was like "whooaaa, suika!" Then she asked if she could talk to me for a bit after Miyabi takes her bath. But I said I was about to go to bed now (you know, since I have a final tomorrow and everything...), so she asked if we could talk now. I said sure, wondering what the heck this was about.

So we went into the kitchen where Ken was sitting at the table waiting. Then Yuko told Miyabi to do her homework and closed the doors dividing the kitchen from the living room. She'd done that with the bike talk too, so this must be serious. But then she brought over her iPad so I figured she was just going to help me find hotels some more.

But then she was all like "do you like living here?"

Well that was out of nowhere.

I was like "yeah..." (Haha yeah right)

And she was like "really? You've never lied to us before? Not even about the bike?" 

What? What would I have lied about with the bike?

At this point, I was thinking Mitch had broken his promise and told her everything I'd told him at school. But then she was like "I read your blog."

Hahahahaha ohhhhh fuckkkkkk.

I was like "my blog?" (Huh? What blog?)

And she was like "yeah" and shoved her iPad towards me which had my Obara post up on it.

She was like "a dear friend told me about your blog." 

Fuuuuck, so Rana's host mom had finally squealed. I thought it would be safe with her knowing about it because she can't really read English and has known about it since January and so far hasn't said anything. But apparently not...

So yeah. I got seriously scolded. She said a whole bunch of mean shit to me, including, I kid you not:

"I'm sorry, but out of all our host students, you rank the worst."

And 

"We only liked you because you were nice to Miyabi and played with her."

At one point I was nice and said "I'm sorry" and she was all like

"Oh, you will be sorry." 

She told me I've caused them so many problems like the fact that I was almost raped and then that I got hit by a car. Okay, no. Neither of those were my fault! Yes, it was my fault that I forgot my key, but that's another thing I wish we'd gone over. What to do if I ever forgot my key. One of my friends told me that in their host family's house, there's always a door secretly left open in case that happens.

She also said that the reason she hadn't helped me with the train pass and the bike and other stuff (I'd told her that was the main issue, that I wished they'd helped me more, since living in a new country whose language you're not fluent in is scary enough even when things go well) was because she wanted me to learn from my hardships by doing everything on my own, because was the way she was raised. What a load of bs! Like, if that was really her reasoning, then at least she should have helped me the first month while I got settled in and then if I seemed capable enough, leave me be for the next four months.

But even that is pretty rude. Because part of living with a host family is having someone there to turn to when you need help.

I sat there shaking with anger, but hey, I didn't cry!! My friends all said later, they would have started crying. But I didn't want her to think she'd gotten to me.

And then she told me that my mom and sister can't stay there anymore and that they're not going to my closing ceremony anymore. Big whoop.

Oh and she was all like "do your parents know about this blog?"

And I was like "yeah, they read it every day"

And she couldn't believe it. She was speechless after that.

Ken just sat there nodding along with everything she said. So when they were done talking, I was like "so should I go to school tomorrow and ask to be moved to a dorm?"

And they said yes. And Yuko said she'd call the school as well.

So guess what guyzz, I got kicked out of my host parents house even though I only have one effing week left!

I left without saying anything else and went to my room after to call my parents. My dad answered and cracked up when I told him she read it, haha. Then I texted Emma and she told me her host mom said that she's heard a bunch of bad things from students about my host family. Like that Yuko only wants students so she can practice English, that they live so effing far from the school, and then one time this girl moved to another host family halfway through the year, but still invited my host family to her end of year party. But when my host family came, they were super awkward and didn't say anything to her the entire time...

So I told Yuko I'd take down my blog, but I just changed the URL for a bit because I didn't want all you lovely readers to not be able to read my blog anymore! So yeah, I changed it to heckofanadventure.blogspot.com.

Also, I looked at the views for each post and it looked like she'd only read the Obara post. Wth? I wrote like nothing bad about them on that post. Just that I preferred Kuya's parents. Nothing to kick me out of the house for!

Gosh, imagine if she'd read the other posts, particularly around the time I got hit by a car, hahaha. I'm pretty sure I called her a bitch on one of those...

Yeah... Then I went to sleep, dreading the super awkwardness of breakfast tomorrow morning.

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!