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.

Toyota Factory Tour!!

At breakfast this morning, Ken still hadn't opened the jam. Rawr. I really want jam. I was thinking about trying to open it under hot water, but it wasn't worth it. I just had peanut butter on my bread. I'm seriously craving jam though!

I ate alone again today, but while Yuko was doing the dishes, I told her I was going to the Toyota Factory today. She thought that was really cool and told me she and Ken have never been.

When I left for school, it was pouring outside. Sadness. 

I decided today would be the day I finally got a bike pass. So I did it! It was a bit hard communicating with the bike worker, but I managed to figure things out. Filling out the form was really easy because I've filled out so many of those! I know now to always put "26" in for the year instead of "14" because Japan counts years based on the emperors. When I first came here and didn't realize that, I was confused as to why the forms I had to turn in were all due in 2026 lol.

I bought a pass for a month. It should be 1300 for students, but it ended up costing me 1700 because of the stupid tax increase. But at least I'll still be saving a lot of money!

Then I hopped on the 8:07 train to school.

I made Kondo sensei laugh in class again today. She filmed us reading this folky ale the past two days and told us today that well be watching it tomorrow. Ugh. I hate seeing myself on camera. So I was all like "ashita yasumu tsumori desu." 

(I plan to be absent tomorrow)

And she thought that was funny and told me not to do that haha.

I was like "nanchatte!"

When class ended at 10:50, I ran to the cafeteria to get misokatsudon!! And guess what??

For some reason they gave us 6 slices of katsu today instead of the usual 4! Omg! It was awesome!!

And then because I really wanted to try the sweet potato ice cream Minju had gotten yesterday, I went to Lawson's to buy some.

When I got back to the table, everyone thought it was super awesome and wanted to know if it tasted good.

It's so cool because it actually looks and tastes like a sweet potato! It was delicious!!

(Looks like a sweet potato! Since Asian sweet potatoes are yellow inside)

(It had sweet potato flavored jam inside too! Mmmm so good!)

Ah it was amazing! I'm gonna have to get it again sometime. Although I want to try the red bean ice cream too.

After lunch, Esteban and I went to watch Departures, this week's movie for Folklore in the library. We did it together, so we got a big flat screen tv, because they're reserved for pairs! 

We were only able to watch 20 minutes of it, but it seemed pretty interesting so far.

Then we went over to the CJS building to meet up for the field trip. They had a giant bus for all of us. I sat next to Emma.

(Bus selfie!)

And we were off! It took about an hour to get to the factory. 

At the factory, we got out and met our tour guide. She showed us some of the new Toyota cars and gave a history of the company. She spoke in all Japanese, but luckily the displays were all also in English. We also saw a movie of the base of the car being made. They dumped all the bases in a huge bucket of paint so they were painted too! We didn't spend too long in there before we got on the bus to drive over to another part of the factory. We probably could have walked but maybe they drove us because it was raining?

In the next area, we actually got to see the robots making the cars! It was pretty cool. We weren't allowed to take pictures though. :(

They said white was the most popular color for cars in Japan, and there sure were a lot of white cars! All the cars we saw being made were only one of three colors: white, silver, or black. Weird. We noticed one guy applying the rubber trim to the inside of the doors!

My second favorite part of the factory was the little hands on games they had to show you what it's like to work in a factory. There were various things you had to do in a certain time limit, so it was a race against the clock. The one Emma and I played was one where you had to flip these pieces that were red on one side and yellow on the other so that the opposite color showed. Like if they all started out red, you had to make them all yellow. It was hard! Emma beat me, haha and managed to do it in the 14 second time limit.

There were some other games that we didn't get a chance to play. But we did try this rope game where you had to wind the rope around different pegs in a certain direction and order. That was really hard too!

Then we watched more cars being made. At the end of the tour, when we walked outside the factory, there were some cars on display. This was my favorite part because there was a hot pink car!! It was so beautiful! I really wanted a picture with it, but they still wouldn't let us take pictures even though we were outside. But they did take a picture of all of us in front of it!!

There was also a car with all these tiles glued on it. The tiles were all signed by factory workers I guessed. And the on the tiles on the front, a cute character was drawn.

Then we all got back on the bus and our tour guide came with us as we headed to the Toyota museum. Here we were allowed to take pictures!

When we first walked in, we saw two cars and two Toyota Partner robots on display. 

One robot was like a moving chair kind if car thing. One of the staff came over and let us sit in it!

(Whoo!)

(It changed colors!)

The other robot was holding a trumpet!

The sign said he would be playing a song in 7 minutes, so while we waited we went over to the car area and took pictures in the cars!

(I liked the color of this one!)

(You couldn't get in this car :/ )

Then we went back over and saw the robot play! He was so cute!!

After he finished his song, we walked around the rest of the museum. 

(Cool car that's wheel chair accessible)

(Racecar that looked used!)

(Cute staff uniforms from the 60s)

(More robots!)

(Hybrid car)

Then there was this awesome driving simulation game! Esteban and I did it together. We each sat in a little fake car. You put a seatbelt on and you had a pedal and a brake. You went through different obstacles like ice on the road, fog, crazy drivers, and flat tires and you had to brake or steer to keep from crashing. It was hard and the chamber shook a ton when you crashed and the seat belt got all tight. I got really good at driving on the ice. I just pumped the brake every so often and by the end I could go over ice patches no problem!

At one part, I drove up a hill on the side of the rode accidentally and my chamber shook like crazy! Everyone watching outside laughed.

(Me failing)

When it was over, I accidentally took off my seatbelt too soon and my car thing tipped sideways, haha. It was still crooked after I got out!

We didn't have much time so not everyone got to try the simulation, which sucked. :/

Then Emma (who'd gone before Esteban and me) and I walked back over to the lobby area.

(We took this picture)

(And I took this one)

Then the robot with the trumpet started playing again. He played Over the Rainbow!! Here's a movie I took of it:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtube_gdata_player&v=TLuGy3Y9J3Y

The lady working there told us he actually had lips and released air, so he was really playing the trumpet!! So awesome!

Then it was time to go. There was a lot of traffic, so it took a while to get to Akaike Eki. Emma got off at Akaike because it was closer to her house than Nanzan. I ate this apple pie thing I bought from Lawson's earlier (for the bear sticker) because I was getting kind of hungry. It tasted just like American apple pie!

Then the bus took those of us not getting off at Akaike back to Nanzan. From there, Rana, Rafa, this guy Joe, Esteban, and I took the subway. Everyone but Esteban and me got off at Aratama Bashi. Then Esteban and I travelled together the rest of the way home. The train home was delayed and then when we got on, it was really packed. Mendokusai! (That means suckish. Like taihen, but it's an adjective).

At home, as I was about to open the door, Yuko came out. She was going to pick Miya up from Kumon, I think. She asked me if it was raining. It had finally stopped!

Ken was already home. Yuko came back with Miya shortly after. I did my homework, which was a sakubun about some holiday in the US (I chose the 4th of July). Then we had dinner.

We had curry for dinner. Mmmm. I'd been craving that recently!

During dinner I told everyone about the Toyota factory and museum.

Then I finished my homework and went to sleep. I was pretty tired from the field trip!

(Oyasumi nasai!)

Misokatsu and more with Mami!

Yuko made a really good breakfast this morning with potatoes, ham, and lettuce. It tasted really good but was super greasy :S I found out Ken actually didn't come home last night. He'd stayed the night at Obaasan's house because he'd been preparing for the harumatsuri parade and then drank osake so he couldn't drive home. So it was just us girls for breakfast.

When I sat down, Yuko asked if my hair was natural. I figured she was asking about the color, but she meant the fact that it was curly. I'd not brushed it after I showered last night and hadn't brushed it yet this morning, so it was in the ringlet curls I hate, but my sister is super jealous of. I told her it was and she was super jealous! She said she always has to perm her hair and it's so expensive. And one time they messed up her perm, so she had to get it redone and ended up damaging her hair!

I told her I've always wanted straight hair haha. Everyone wants what they don't have! So yeah, I ended up not brushing out the curls today.

I decided to go to the 10 am mass, so I could see Atsuko and also Manaca and her dad (who's house I'm going to on the 30th), but none of them were there!

Manaka's friend and her friend's mom were there, however. Manaka's came right over to me and said "ohayou gozaimasu" and that I looked "kawaii" today! Then her mom invited me to sit with them.

These greedy old ladies stole handfuls of the sweets before I got to try any of the cool-looking ones, so I settled for this white roll cracker thing that was actually really good!

The mom (who's Filipino and speaks English) introduced me to her Filipino friend and Indonesian friend who can speak English. The Indonesian one was like "she's beautiful!" (referring to me) and then the first question she asked was "Do you have a boyfriend?" I was really taken aback. Then the two spoke among themselves about setting me up with some guy they know. Uhhh...

Then the mom had me talk to her daughter in English. The girl was really shy, but I asked her about school and The Hobbit, because she said she'd seen it recently.

Then I talked to this guy from Madagascar. I asked him if there were lemurs there lol and he said there are! He's been living and working in Japan for 6 years.

After that, everyone left so I did too. I walked over to the train station. It was still before noon, and I was meeting Mami at 1:30, so I had a lot of time to kill. I decided to get off at Nagoya Eki to use the Bank of Nagoya ATM there and check, just for kicks, to see if my money had come in. AND IT HAD!!!!! Omg!! It was so exciting to see that the balance wasn't 100 yen anymore haha!

Then I got on the JR wifi to text Mami that I was free now and see if she wanted to meet earlier. While I waited for her to text back, I went out to look at the spiral Mode building that I love. :)

Then I found a free wifi outside the station and connected to it and got a text from Mami saying that that was good for her! So I hopped back on the JR to Kanayama and then took the subway to Kamimaezu. There I followed the signs to the west wing and then went to a map to try to find where exactly the west exit was, because that was where we were meeting. But then Mami found me!

So the two of us walked out into Osu. She said she was hungry, so we decided to go eat. She aske me what kind of food I liked, and of course I said misokatsudon, so we decided to go to the place Minju's always raving about, Yabuton. The famous misokatsu place in Nagoya. Mami said the wait is usually really long. But we decided to go check it out anyway. When we got over there, the line wrapped around the front of the building to the side, but still wasn't as long as the line at Mizuno in Osaka had been and there, we waited out in the cold. Mami asked the dude taking orders how long the wait was and he said about 20 minutes. I told Mami I was fine with that, so we decided to wait. And I'm glad we did, because five minutes later he was taking our order and then leading us in to sit at the counter area. We'd both ordered the special famous misokatsu with the Nagoya specialty: red miso.

Everything in Yabaton featured that pig mascot (I put a picture of the pig on the outside of Yabaton on the Planetarium post when we passed by Yabaton on the way to the museum). Also, the restaurant has it's own theme song, that was playing outside as we waited haha.

(Above where we sat at the counter, in front of the guys cooking the food)

(My chopsticks. The wrapper as well as the actual chopsticks featured the pig)

(The curtains to the kitchen)

(The dishes and napkins)

One of the cooks was super nice and asked if we wanted him to take a picture of us with our food. He was all "one... two... three... Yabaton!" Hahaha.

I love how in Japan it's socially acceptable to take pictures of your food! The girl next to us was snapping a pic of her katsu and Mami did as well. ;)

I actually kinda didn't like this misokatsu. It had a ton of fat in it! Ugh. I like the cheap misokatsu in the Nanzan cafeteria waaaayyyy better! And it's only 400 yen while this one was about $17. But I lied to Mami and told her this one was better because that's what you do in Japan. She to me this was her first time coming to Yabaton as well!

When we were finished, we went over to pay, and I told the dude "betsu betsu" (separate), but then she was like "isshu ni" (together) and the dude was all ok, isshu ni! Why did he listen to her, not me?!?

So Mami paid for lunch for me! I was like nooo, it was so expensive! But she wouldn't let me argue! Ah she's so nice! Although it's also apparently a thing in Japan that older people always treat younger people and she's 25. Emma had said Mami bought dinner for her as well when they hung out last weekend. 

After we were all full from lunch, we went to go take purikura!! Whoo! I loooove purikura, and now I have more to add to my collection! 

We went to the second floor of an arcade to take them. It was a dress-up one and girls were dressing up in sailor uniforms and wigs and stuff. We decided to do the Oh My Girl one I'd done with the guys in Sakae that time. As we went over to it a dressed up girl was exiting alone. I wonder if people do that a lot, a hitori de (by yourself) photo shoot? 

Our pictures were so cute!! I insisted on paying for them since I felt so bad Mami had spent so much on me for lunch!

After that, we spent the rest of the time shopping. I'd said I wanted makeup since the eye liner pencil I'd brought had broken and I'd lost the sharpener and my liquid eyeliner had dried up. So Mami showed me a makeup store. It was actually the second floor of the store I'd been in Friday where the girl laughed at the fact that I was reading all the English on that T-shirt. I didn't even realize that was what the upstairs was!

When we walked up, this girl at the front gave us these yummy pineapple hard candies. The prices of the makeup were exhorbitant, though! All the eyeliners were $10-12!! I finally found some eyeliner pencils for 630 yen that were really cute because they were glitter eyeliner! I would never spend over $6 on makeup, but the black glitter was so cute and I've never invested in quality makeup, so I was all set to buy it when I saw the back of it. It was covered in tape, as if it had been opened before. And they were all like that. It was also Korean which made me suspect it was really cheap in Korea and they put an extra charge on it here because it was imported. So I decided not to buy it.

And good thing, too, because after looking quickly in some clothing stores, we headed over to a 100 yen shop and found eyeliner there. Now $1 for eyeliner is a good price. And this time I got one of the twisty kind you don't have to sharpen, yay!

(One of the entrances to the covered shopping streets)

After that, we walked over to Osu Kannon shrine, where I went with Rana that time when it was under construction. Today it wasn't under construction any longer! We walked up to it and Mami gave me 10 yen to throw in and shake the rope. She asked if I'd gotten a fortune before and I told her about getting one with K and Keiichiro and that I got Kichi. She told me she got Yokukichi this year!

(Osu Kannon temple!)

(Us in front ^^)

(Close up)

(Cool building next to the temple)

It was 3:30 then, so I had little over an hour because Yuko had told me to be home before 6.

So we decided to walk to Sakae. On the way Mami showed me a cheap clothing store in a department store behind the department store with Book Off.

It had some pretty good deals! Mami bought socks, but I ended up not getting anything. I had fun looking at all the Engrish though! I taught Mami what Engrish was and she thought it was funny, and pointed some out later, haha.

("Apple of eye")

("I don't know your love. Please.." 

I like that the ellipsis is only two dots haha)

(Definitely my favorite! "Bony!")

("You must go place with all people")

After that, we headed to Oasis 21. The Christmas decorations and ice skating rink were gone and had been replaced with these colorful balls and a stage for an SKE48 (the Sakae version of Akihabara's AKB48) concert that had happened last night. The concert stage was being taken down as we were there, though.

We went into the 300 yen shop where I bought my star tights, but didn't buy anything. 

(It had cute toast pillows!)

Then Mami wanted to get ice cream. I really wanted some, especially because they had special Hinamatsuri sundaes, but I had started to feel kind of bad and knew ice cream would make it worse. So Mami didn't get any because I couldn't eat any (I felt bad!)

(Cute Ohinasama icecream)

(Waaaahhhh, I want!)

Then we walked to the subway area and headed our separate ways. It was so fun hanging out with her! I spoke a lot of Japanese too, because Mami's level of English is about the same as my level of Japanese, maybe a bit higher, so a lot of times I had to explain myself in Japanese. It was good practice for both of us!

I totally would have made it home before 6 if I hadn't gotten so sick. I think I'm cursed so I can't go out and eat with friends without getting sick. Arghh. And it took forever to find good bathrooms without lines in Nagoya Eki. I had to use a squatty potty one of the times. :(

At Icinomiya Eki, I stopped into Daiso to buy chocolate chip melon pan for school tomorrow (help, I'm addicted!), and then walked home. I hadn't ridden my bike this morning in an effort to save 100 yen.

I arrived home at 6:10ish to an empty house. 

The ohinasama display looked kind of creepy all lit up in the dark! But Miyabi and Ken got home shortly after. 

Miyabi came in, shouting "Cate!"

I was like "yeah?"

And she said in perfect English "today I got my hair cut."

I was like "lemme see!" 

Aw, her hair was all cute and layered and her bangs now do the arch thing that's currently so popular in Japan.

Yuko got home a bit later, and we finally had dinner at 7, even though Yuko had told me this morning dinner would be at 6:30. Ah well. I wasn't feeling too hot anyway.

Dinner was delicious! We celebrated hinamatsuri tonight, since Ken's working late tomorrow, so we ate foods traditionally eaten for hinamatsuri. I loved having the rice with edamame and tuna! And the shishkebabs were kishkatsu! So they were basically katsu on a stick! Soooo good!

Afterwards, we had strawberries and that pink mochi stuff we had the other night. The strawberries were so sweet! I'm really excited for ichigogari (strawberry picking)!

Oyasuminasai!