Bento picnic with Japanese friends!

Tuesday, April 15

It was just an ordinary morning on the trains. I was super tired and hadn't finished my homework (I'd been planning on doing it at school once Esteban gave me his book because it was in the new book, but he ended up forgetting it. But the homework wasn't collected anyway.). At Kanayama, though, I ran into Chris (the guy who'd helped me get my train pass back in January) and he solved everything I've been stressing about these past few days! Because you know what he told me?

He bought a bike last semester when he lived in the dorms and wanted to go to the grocery store to get food. But now that he was in a host family, he didn't need it anymore. He'd left it at the dorms so one of his friends could use it, but it was still registered in his name and he was just planning on leaving it in Japan anyway after he left in May. So he said he'd give it to me!!!! Omg omg omg. I freaked out. He's so awesome

So yeah, now the only thing I'm stressing about is how to get it back to Ichinomiya since you can't take bikes on the subways or trains and I can't read Japanese maps well enough to ride it back (also that would probably take like five hours...).

But yeah, I don't have to buy a $150 bike!! I knew things would work out somehow :) Chris is like an angel coming in my time of need, I'm not even kidding!

When we got to school, Chris asked his friend if I could have the bike at the end of May when he was done using it, but his friend said he barely used it, so I could just take it now! Ahhh!!! Yay!!!

Chris and I talked about the bike for so long and then the lady who always helps me at the CJS office joined us when she came over to tell me Yuko had called yesterday (what?? Yuko never told me that!) to say I could take my time deciding about what to do about the bike. So yeah, I was almost late for class! But I made it in time, which was good because I had a vocab quiz I had actually really studied for and wanted to take.

After I aced the quiz, we started class. Kondo sensei had us play that game again where we grab the cards of the kanji she says in sentences. I lost but there weren't prizes so I didn't really care.

And then it was finally lunch time! I was excited because I'd invited Tomomi and Saki to eat lunch with Emma and me today after the Kyoto trip Saturday, since Emma and I had been planning to eat in the green area together today. 

Last night, Yasuko had messaged me on Facebook and said we should eat together sometime, so I invited her to eat with us today as well! I'd bought a bento at Seiyu this morning in preparation. It ended up being kind of expensive (over 500 yen) :/ Ah well, it was good! And then I drank the orange juice from the matsuri.

I met Yasuko in front of the fountain in the middle of the green area and we went to go sit in the shade, over where Emma usually sits. Then Tomomi found us! She was leading a huge crew of girls and asked if it was alright if they sat with us too. I said sure! It turned out they were all part of Tomomi's German class.

They all started eating, so Yasuko and I did too. I introduced Yasuko and Tomomi to each other and it was awkward because it took me a second to remember their names... I'm so bad at names!! But after that I'll never forget their names! I just played it off as me not knowing how to introduce people in Japanese, but I think they realized. I felt so bad!!

My delicious lunch! And I just realized, there're sakura petals on the ground!

My adorbs drink. I gave Miyabi the apple one and that one was cute too

Then Emma finally showed up. She'd been buying a bento from the bento lady. But she was jealous of my bento because it had sushi in it, haha! All the other girls had brought their own cute bentos they made at home. Ahh it was just like in manga, haha.

The girls were all really interested in Emma and me. They kept asking us questions, haha. I felt bad because I realized Yasuko is super shy, so she hardly said a word. I kept asking her questions, though, so she would feel included.

So anyway, the girls asked us our hobbies, so Emma and I both said we like reading. And I showed them the Japanese manga I was currently reading. They all freaked out, thinking that was awesome! They asked if I liked manga and which ones. I told them the only one I actually follow, Kimi ni Todoke, and they all squealed. Haha they were funny. I've gotten that reaction a lot because Kimi no Todoke is such a girly manga.

Then they asked what types of foods we like, and I said misokatsu and they squealed again, lol. They told Emma and I that we were really good at using chopsticks! I'm glad because when I got to Japan, I found out I was using chopsticks wrong my whole life, so I had to re-teach myself and it was really, really hard! Another thing I had to re-teach myself was writing the katana and hiragana character "ka". I always drew the slanty line going down first, but you're actually supposed to draw the weird boxy part first. That was really hard to re-learn, but I can do it now!

Hiragana ka: か

When it looked like everyone was pretty much finished, I decided to take a picture. When I said I wanted to take a picture, all the girls squealed again! Japanese girls really like squealing haha.

I managed to get everyone in! I used the trick Sara had taught me where you can press the volume switch on your iPhone to take a picture, and all the girls were so amazed! They were like "She didn't press anything! How did it take??"

So yeah, here it is!

Yasuko is to the left of me, and Tomomi and Emma are to the right. And all the other girls are behind me.

Later I put in on Facebook and wrote my ever half Japanese, half English status! (All the cool people studying Japanese always write in both languages, so I've been wanting to do it too!)

Yeaaaahh, and it's actually 31 likes now!

Afterwards, we had to rush to class. I told Yasuko that next time we should have a lunch with just her, Emma, and me, that way we'd get to talk with her more and she agreed! 

Then Emma and I headed to Hanga. We talked about how fun the lunch had been and Emma said she was glad I was there too since I talk a lot, and that way she didn't have to talk so much. Haha, she's just like my sister!

In Hanga, I spent the entire class period carving Totoro and only got about half way done. Argh, Hanga is so hard!

That morning, I'd seen Deanna post something on the CJS Facebook page about a free Kyary Pamyu Pamyu concert at Oasis 21 in Sakae today. It only started at 6 (too late for me), but beforehand she was supposedly doing some "handshake event" (whatever that means) and selling her CDs. So I'd decided I'd go check it out. I told Emma about it and she said she'd go too. I invited Minju, but she had a big paper for her literature class due Thursday, so she figured she should work on that instead.

I had to be home by 6 though, because Father John had told me he'd let me borrow his bike so I could ride a bike to school again, and I was meeting him at 6 to pick it up.

After Hanga, Emma went to fill her water bottle. I was thirsty too, but I hadn't brought my water bottle today, so I decided to get a drink from the vending machines. I saw an interesting-looking "white grape and aloe" drink, but I decided to get another that was bigger, but the same price. It looked like orange or apple or something, I wasn't sure. But I wanted to try it.

OMG! It was AMAZING!!!!! It turned out to be Asian pear flavored! And it had little pieces of Asian pear floating inside! Holy crap, it was amazing! I really want to drink it again sometime.

When we got to the station, Emma said something about her DS and I realized, crap, I'd left my DS charging in K building where I'd had Japanese class this morning!! Nooooo!

I told Emma, she should just go on ahead to Sakae and I'd go back to school to get my DS. So we planned to meet by the information booth in Oasis 21 half an hour after whenever Emma got there, since I'd probably be half an hour behind.

I ran back to school feeling like an idiot for forgetting it. When I got to K22, the room I'd left it in, it wasn't there anymore! I was freaking out. My friends have told me stories of leaving phones on trains and stuff, but finding them turned into the lost and found later, so I didn't think someone stole it, but I had no idea.
I ran to the CJS office and told the lady who's always helping me about what had happened. She told me to ask at the police box/information booth thing when you first walk into Nanzan. I asked her what I should say in Japanese and she referred to the 3DS as a game system, so I did the same thing when I got to the police box.
The lady working there was all like, "oh, a 3DS?"
And I was like "HAI! pinku"
And she pulled it out for me! It was in a baggie with my charger too. Yay! I had to fill out a form with my name and gakusei bango, and then she showed me that the game was still inside, and gave it back to me. Woohoo!

So I rushed back to the station, where I caught the train right away and then switched to the Higashiyama line, since that's on my pass now. That train came right away too. Nice! So I got to Sakae way quicker than we'd thought I would because Emma took the longer way.
Since I figured I had about twenty minutes to kill, I decided to look around Oasis 21. There were people buying Kyary Pamyu Pamyu CDs from a little table, but Kyary Pamyu Pamyu was nowhere to be seen. Weird...

So I went into the 300 yen store. There was a place where you could fill up bags with candy! But it was 300 yen for every 100g which was a total ripoff!

Look at those totes adorbs panda cookies!!

And these pieces of chocolate shaped like little cakes!! Ahhhhhh

Then I sat around outside the Information place until I saw Emma approaching in the distance. I went over to her and told her how Kyary Pamyu Pamyu wasn't here yet. Then I showed her the candy. She thought it was cute too.
I only had about 10 minutes before I had to go, so I suggested we get the cute bunny sundaes at Baskin Robbins that I've been wanting for a while. Emma agreed ice cream sounded really good right now, so we headed in.
I was all excited... until I saw the prices. The bunny sundae was just one scoop of ice cream (perfect for lactose intolerant people like me) with cookie ears. And it was 400 yen. Yeah, no.
Also, a cone with a scoop of ice cream was 300 yen. Like, seriously? Those are like a buck in the U.S.
Needless to say, we didn't stop at "Sahty-wan."
I had to leave, but Emma wanted to go to McDonald's (don't ask me why), so I left on my own.

At Ichinomiya Eki, I stopped at that mini drug store with the 71 yen chocolate and bought two more packs of the chocolate matcha on top of cookies. Help, guys, I'm addicted...
Then I found the pack of two taiyaki for 100 yen and bought one of those, as well as these oval shaped waffle things with cream inside because they were also 100 yen.

I ate the waffle things on the way to the church because I was starving. The cream was weird and gelatinous, but other than that, it tasted good! I probably won't buy it again, though.

I didn't realize it says waffle until just now...

 At the church, Father John came out to greet me. I told him a bit more about my accident and then he showed me his bike and how to lock it up and I was free to use it! He's so nice!!
It felt amazing to ride a bike again! It was taller than my bike, but it was a lot smoother, because it's newer.

When I got home, I had a package on my desk from a friend of mine back home! So I opened it right away. It had really cute colored tissue paper inside.
And first thing I saw??? CADBURY EGGS!!!!!!!! MY FAVORITE EASTER CANDY! Gosh, I love those things so much. I hadn't eaten the ones my mom sent yet, because I wanted to save them for Easter, but now that I have so many, I decided to eat one after dinner tonight. It was a chocolate crea one, which I'd never had before. But it was delicious!! The chocolate cream was more like chocolate syrup and so rich and sweet and nom.
She also sent me stuff for my bruises!! Thank you for reading my blog and thinking of me! ^^

And a game for Miya was in there too! I showed Miya and she was really excited. But we didn't get to play it because dinner was ready.
After dinner, I had Miya help me memorize my dialogue for my dialogue check tomorrow. We went over it a bunch of times and soon she had it memorized too!

The day I got hit by a car...

Tuesday, April 8

Yes, I was literally run over by a car today. My life incredibly sucks. Read on for the full story...

This morning I emailed Mitch with my words about coffee hour. He later emailed me back and told me at school that they were wonderful and he really liked them! Here it is on Facebook! :)

After that, I went in to eat breakfast with everyone. Miyabi was all excited because today was her first day back at school. She's a ninensei (second year) now! She was wondering what class number she'd be in. She wanted 4 or 5, so she'd be close to the library and she wanted to be with her best friend, Tina.

Then I headed out on my bike to go to school. I noticed how pretty the shrine by our apartment looked last week with the sakura trees in front and it still looked gorgeous today, so I took a picture! All the Japanese people kept saying the sakura only last for a week, but it's been a week and three days now and they're still going strong! Everyone was freaking out, thinking the rain would wash them away, but we actually didn't get that much rain. :)

The entrance closer to our apartment

The entrance closer to the station

Then I continued on my way. I got to a crossing that I cross every day with no problem. I slowed down a bit, because I saw a red car approaching the crosswalk. There's no light telling me to walk or not here, so usually the cars slow to let bikers go. And this car did slow, so I charged ahead. But he must have been looking the opposite direction, because as I accelerated, so did he - a lot! And bam, he slammed right into my side!

Thankfully, I realized I was falling before I hit the ground, so I put my arm out to block my fall. But I landed on my wrist and sprained it badly. The force of the fall caused me to fly off my bike and slide across the road. Thank goodness I'd worn yoga pants instead of tights today! And man, Victoria's Secret makes excellent yoga pants, because they didn't rip at all!

But my knees got completely torn up underneath. I had really bad road rash.

The guy driving got out of the car and kept going "Daijoubu? Daijoubu?"

I just nodded and said "daijoubu" while trying not to cry. Then the crossing guard came over and was like, "daijoubu?" When I said yes, he left. 

There were also a bunch of people around who witnessed the crash, but they all continued on their way, not stopping to see how I was.

The driver had run over the front tire of my bike, so he backed up his car and then helped me pick up my bike. He watched to make sure I could walk and waited until I got on my bike and rode it a little to see if it still worked. It did, so then he left.

Damn, I was so freaked out that I wasn't thinking and couldn't speak Japanese or anything. I really wanted to yell at the guy or something, but I don't know enough Japanese. It was so hard. And the lack of people around doing anything really frustrated me. Like, if this had happened in America, I'm sure someone would have offered to call the police or something!

I kept going and a police officer type of guy who'd been standing at the next corner and saw everything was all like "ki o tsukute ne" when I passed.

The bike seemed a bit wonky, but I figured something was just stuck from the fall, and whatever it was would come out. And anyway, I was almost at the station and I was able to ride it just fine.

I was really freaked about the accident the entire way to school. I met up with Esteban at the subway and told him what happened. The subway was packed again, and the doors took several tries before they could finally close.

At school, Taylor and Minju were in the CJS office and I told them what had happened and they freaked out! Minju gave me a hug, which was just what I needed! Then I told the CJS office and Mitch told me to go to the clinic. I said I would, but I was going to take my quiz first because I didn't want to get a 0 on it. 

When I got to class, I told Kondo sensei I was going to the clinic after the quiz. Everyone freaked out when I told them what had happened. I took the quiz and it was super easy, and then I left to the clinic.

The lady at the clinic was so nice! She asked me all these questions about the accident, like where it had happened and stuff. I realized then that I hadn't gotten any information about the guy like his name or cell or license plate number or anything! I was so freaked out I didn't even think of it.

But the lady gave me one of those cold square sticky things the people in manga always have on their foreheads when they have fevers, to put over my wrist. And then she disinfected my knees and put bandages over them. Then she put these weird gauze sack things over my wrist and knees. I felt much better after that.

And then I was allowed to go back to class! The cold thing on my wrist was so nice. My wrist hurt a lot for a bit after, but by the end of the day it was feeling so much better!

All bandaged up!

For second period, we had class in K buidling. I freaked out because the room looked just like the classrooms in manga, haha. And I got there first, so I stole a seat by the windows! :)

See the protagonist's seat back there?

The erasers that look like sushi!

And the colored chalk!

Ah, it was beautiful! In class, after our kanji test (which was easy), we played a kanji game where we had cards with various kanji radicals and we had to put them together to make kanji from our chapter. It was fun!
I got second place!! First was the Taiwanese girl, of course!

Sakura out the window on the stairs

At lunchtime, I went to eat misokatsu at Dagane. I sat with Josephine and Jose and this other girl who I see a lot (she's in my calligraphy class), but who's name I don't know. There were so, so many people eating lunch!
There was a girl at the table next to us who's birthday was today, and a group of her friends came in and surprised her with a cake and a present of lip gloss! It was so cute! Then they all sang "Happy Birthday" in English. For some reason, "Happy Birthday" is always sung in English in Japan...?

After lunch, I walked outside and ran into Emma. I followed her to the green area where she'd eaten lunch and we sat there for a bit. Rana, Ben, and Devon found us there and sat with us and ate the bentos they'd gotten from Valor, a grocery store nearby. I told everyone the story of my accident and they were so surprised I was so upbeat and joking around about it! The scariness had worn off and it seemed kind of funny now. I'd been hit by a car! #shitthathappensinJapan

The beautiful sakura

In hanga class, I drew Totoro! I'm excited to carve him next week. :D

After class, I had a meeting with Fukutomi sensei, my project work sensei, to make up for the class I'd missed last Friday. I went to the CJS faculty office at 3, when we were supposed to meet, and finally got up the guts to use the microphone outside the office to ask for Fukutomi sensei. Another sensei came out to tell me she was still teaching class. So I went outside the office where I ran into Yukari! She asked what I was doing and when I told her, said she thought Fukutomi sensei's office was on the 7th floor. So we went up there, but it turned out those were all offices of English senseis. Yukari asked two people up there, but they didn't know who Fukutomi sensei was. So we went back downstairs, and as we entered the CJS office, Fukutomi sensei was coming out of the faculty room. Oh, good! I said goodbye to Yukari and then explained to Fukutomi sensei what had happened. She apoligized for being late.
Then she had me practice saying my interview questions and told me to interview at least two Japanese students by Friday. Ok, I can do that!

As I was leaving, I ran into Deanna who told me Minju had told her about my accident. She asked if I was okay and gave me a hug. People here are so nice! ^^ Also, Mitch let me know one of his colleagues had called my host family (whaaaat?? I hadn't wanted to worry them! I was waiting to tell them face to face so they could see I was fine!) and Yuko had said they could take me to the hospital if needed. Oh, gosh! I didn't want this to turn into such a big deal!
I went to the library to write my blog for a bit and then headed home. As I rode my bike home, I noticed something was definitely off. Every few seconds, the front wheel would catch on something and slow me down. It turned out the wheel was tilting one way and kept rubbing against the brake pad. It took me forever to get home.
I decided something was definitely wrong with it.

When I got home, Yuko made sure I was okay. I told her I definitely didn't need to go to the hospital because I could use my arm fine, so it wasn't broken. Then I told her that I didn't think the bike was okay, so she said she'd ask Ken to look at it tomorrow.

Argh, this is turning into such a hassle!

For dinner we had fried peppers with beef inside. They were good! We had salad, soup, and rice too! It was such a big, yummy dinner that filled me up! :) Miya told me she'd gotten into class #1. I was like, "aww, not by the library?" And she was unhappy about that. I asked her what class Tina had gotten and she said 4. That was the one she had wanted! Aw, man. I felt bad for her.

Tomorrow our class is during the CJS festa, so we'll just be talking to Japanese students during class! Yay!! I'm so excited! And that means we only have to be at school at 1:30! Whoooo!!
But I had the idea in hanga today to go for lunch at Sushiro, so Minju, Emma, and I are all going to meet at 11:30 tomorrow morning to eat there. Yay, I get to sleep in! 


Also, here are the links for the pep rally movies I uploaded to YouTube (because they weren't working on my blog). Please watch them!

Shirtless football players for the ladies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAa8McKyFNc

Cheerleaders for the guys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUveIgohIOw

And cheerleaders singing what I think is our school song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0T3MHFh4cA