The pool

Today was such a beautiful day! It was a day just like in Blacksburg. Sunny, upper 30s, and snow still on the ground. My favorite type of day! :)

It was harder to ride my bike today, though, because the snow was all hard and icy, but I'm getting the hang of snow biking!

I saw this cute snowman on my way to church this morning! All that's left of my snowman is two lumps of snow lol.

(I'm pretty sure this snowman one-ups mine lol)

After church this dude came over and asked in Japanese if I was from America. I told him I was from Texas and he was like "ahh, Texas. Cowboys"

Lawl. That's the first thing everyone always says when I say I'm from Texas haha.

When I got home, we had pan for breakfast and jelly and fruit. Mmmmm. Then I did my laundry and we watched some of the skiing on the Olympics.

I hung all my clothes outside and then we were off to the mall! It was so nice not bringing any homework along for the car ride. :) Yuko played this CD she'd bought for Miya that had dialogues in both English and Japanese. Miya repeated the English and I repeated the Japanese haha. Yuko and Ken thought it was funny.

When we got to Aeon, the mall, I got to roam around for an hour while Yuko, Ken and Miyabi went to go look for learning tablet things (like a LeapFrog thing) to help Miyabi learn English. I went to the Ghibli store. It was adorable! I almost bought a Spirited Away folder, but then I didn't.

(Ghibli store)

(I want this Totoro in my room...)

(Ahhh cute Totoro food charms!!)

(Finger puppets from all the Ghibli movies)

Then I went to Sanrio and some clothing stores. Everything was pretty expensive, like in American malls. I wish they had a place like Kohl's here!

("Enjoy sweat", guys)

Then I went in this awesome hot pink store, called "Pink Latte".

There was a huge interior part built to look like a tour bus driving through New York.

(Pink Empire State Building!)

(Front of the bus thing)

(Weird store name...)

Then I met back up with Yuko, Ken, and Miyabi and we left. They ended up not buying the tablet thing, but said they were going to come back next week. The  parking garage had an amazing view of the city!

So we went home and had lunch. Omg guys, we had Tex Mex!! We had taco fillings in tortillas, basically burritos. And we had avocados!!!! Ahh I missed avocado SO much!

Apparently they're called "taco"s in Japanese, which is weird, because "tako" is octopus lol.

Ahh lunch was so good and it made me miss home a little.

After I brought in my clothes from outside, we headed out to the pool. The pool was all the way past that castle with the red bridge I always see from the train (btw the amazing Ayuko gave me the name and website of that castle so I'm going to go sometime!). Ken dropped us off and Yuko said he was probably going to take a nap in the car or something lol. I guess he doesn't like pools...

It was really cool! We got changed and then Yuko gave me this mesh bathing cap that everyone was wearing because we were required to.

The pool was awesome! Way cooler than the pools I swam in as a kid. It had a lazy river we went around a bunch, a wave pool, hot tubs, a giant slide, and a lap pool. We tried everything. Well, Miya wouldn't go down the slide with me. There was one a little lower down than the other, so I wanted her to race me and she really wanted to, but was just too scared!

There was this 10 minute break at one point and I thought it was like adult swim or something, but it was where literally everyone in there had to get out of the pool, so everyone flocked to the hot tubs to stay warm.

Once I told Yuko I used to be on swim team, we went to the lap pool so I could do laps and Yuko lent me her goggles.

Holy crap I was out of shape. I remember the good old days when I could swim 100 laps straight, and now I can barely swim a 200... T_T

It was probably due to the fact that I was wearing a bikini, you know drag and all ;)

Which btw I was the only one wearing a bikini. Like in the onsens everyone's naked and stuff, but in the pool no one was showing skin! Maybe because the opposite sex was around and all... Idk

I swam so many laps and went down the slide a bunch of times. We were all really tired two hours later, at 5, when we left. Miya was really unhappy about leaving haha. 

But after we got changed (Yuko told me I change really fast. I guess Duchesne ingrained it in me haha), we sat in the lobby and ate ice cream while we waited for Ken to come get us. Yuko told me the grape sherbet was the only one without cream, so she got me that one. It was good!

I didn't realize I had to take the wrapper off to eat it haha, but they showed me.

(Miya with her cookies and cream)

When Ken showed up, we got in the car for the long ride home! At home, I went to my room and meant to pack for Osaka and Kyoto, seeing as it was already 6 and I'm leaving tomorrow and everything. But I ended up sitting and eating the rest of my box of Oreos (there were only like 3 left, okay?). Then I sent my mom a picture of the empty package in the hopes she'd send me another one haha. Yeah, right.

So yeaaaahhh. I hate packing so much. 

But I did it eventually. And it only took like 2 seconds. But still...

We had nabe (hot pot) for dinner. It was a pot full of meat, spinach, tofu, and mushrooms. So good and warm!

Btw I completely forgot about my bonsai haha. Thanks for the reminder, mom!

So I checked on it today and it had SO many flowers!!

(Awww look at it!)

Whoo Osaka tomorrow!!

❅ SNOW!!!! ❅

I was lying in bed this morning when I heard Miya run out of her parents room and shout "yuki ga fute!"

I sprung up out of bed and ran to my window to open it. Sure enough, tons of snow was falling!!

I went into the living room and saw Miya and her dad watching it. Then I ran outside to take pictures.

(So pretty!)

When I got back in, Yuko had gotten up and was serving us breakfast. We had soup and hot tea. Ahhh.

(The chocolate cake thing was a choco banana muffin made by Yuko's friend and she didn't use milk or butter, which I really liked!)

After breakfast, I showed everyone my purikura, which prompted Yuko to bring out their family purikura. They started when Yuko was pregnant with Miyabi and then took one every month to see how much she'd grown. It was so cute! And they did really cool ones where it looked like they were sitting on merry-go-rounds and in onsens and stuff!

Then Ken and Yuko left to take Miya to the doctor for her foot. So I Skyped my roommate from last semester and then I went out to play in the snow some more because it was falling really heavily now! Humungo flakes were falling!

And I made a snowman!

(I left it chilling there for everyone to see when they came home haha)

(Me with my creation)

Then I headed out. It was my first time biking in the snow ever!! It was easy in the slushy parts but really hard in the deep powder. It had stopped snowing and started raining, ugh!

Ichinomiya in the snow: 

(I like this one a lot)

(When I knocked the snow off my Uggs, it came off dyed pink!)

I was so soaked and freezing from riding through the rain. My pants, gloves, and Uggs were completely wet. :(

So I took the JR to Nagoya Eki. On the way, it started snowing again! 

I went outside the station to the Herhey's kiss thing to watch the snow.

(It's hard to see here, but it was pouring snow. I felt bad for the crossing guard standing out there. A bunch of snow had collected on his cap!)

Then I went to find Big Camera. The lady at Information directed me where to go. I found this place called SoftMap and under it it said Big Camera, so I figured that was it.

I went in and talked to the SoftBank guy for a while. He was showing me tis plan that sounded pretty good. It was only about $15 and I'd get a smartphone I could use here. But then he said there was a $30 fee the first month and then I'd have to start a 2 year contract, which I would have to pay to cancel!

So I was like, "aren't there any prepaid phones?"

And he said "we're out of stock, try Big Camera"

What?!? I thought I was in Big Camera! He gave me pretty bad directions to it, so I had to ask someone else. This guy was really nice and took me out in the snow to show me it was across the street.

So I talked to the guy in Big Camera who spoke flawless English. He told me the prepaid phones were out of stock and to try the SoftBank on the other side of the station. Ugh I had just had such a hard time slipping and sliding through the slush to get over here I didn't really want to do it again.

(The Mode school (aka the twisty building) in the fog)

But I tried it, and it turned out they were out of stock too. Fml. Soaked and shivering, I boarded the JR once again to Kanayama. It only took 3 minutes to get there! So I was 40 minutes early to meet Emma. All my clothes were wet and I was so cold, so I went upstairs where it was warm and sat outside a restaurant and wrote my blog.

(I saw red bean sandwich kitkats!! I really want to try them. One day...)

When it got close to 2:45, I went downstairs. 

There was this weird show thing with samurai going on... Idk

We were meeting at the East exit, but I hadn't been able to find it, so I went to the tourist information room and asked them. They showed me on a map and then asked my nationality.

So I went to East exit to wait for Emma. When she hadn't showed up at 2:45, I walked back out into the station and saw her walking and waved her over. It was such a hard exit to find!

Then the two of us walked over to Nami's English room where the English cafe we were going to was being held. Emma's host mom had told her about it and Emma had invited me along.

Nami was super cute! We were the first ones there, but everyone else showed up shortly after. Everyone was Japanese except Emma, me, and this guy from Jersey.

(Nami's cute Totoro rug)

Ugh all the Japanese people were really good at English! I always get so jealous when I meet people who are good at both Japanese and English. Even this one lady who wasn't so good was still better at English than I am at Japanese . :(

It was really cute though. We ate brownies, chips, and wafer things and drank tea (well I had this amazing caramel hot chocolate stuff). And everyone was so excited to talk to Emma and me. I met some really cool people. I talked to this one girl for a long time who had gone to Nanzan for graduate school!

When it was time to go, Emma and I left with a girl, Mami, who really like manga and anime and stuff. I talked to her a bit about Naruto, and we talked about the latest chapter that I'd read in the Jump magazine I bought.

Then we all went our separate ways. I asked Mami for her Line ID, so Emma and I could friend her. Then I went home on the JR. The streets were completely snow free, but there was still a bunch of snow around. :)

When I got home, Miya and Ken were watching some Anerican history show lol. The first thing Miya said to me was "snowman!" and pointed outside. I guess she liked it haha.

She talked about it a lot more as the night went on and I asked her if she liked it and she nodded. :D

So dinner was awesome! We made dumplings!! (Gyoza) I love gyoza!

There were hard to fold right at first, but then I got the hang of it.

(The meat)

(The dumpling dough)

We wet the top half of the edge of the dough, put the meat on the dough, and then folded the dough in half and made the ruffles.

(Mine are the closer ones. I think I did pretty well :D )

Then we fried them!!

Ken covered them up after I took this picture. Then we waited a while before he opened it up again and poured water on them. The water sizzled and tons of steam was produced!

Then we closed it up again for a bit. And then they were done!!

(Yummmmy)

Miya and I had rice with furikake and miso soup while we waited. Ugh I was sooo full after I'd had about 8 dumplings. But man, it was a yummy dinner and it warmed me up! ^^

After dinner, Miya and I played while Yuko and Ken finished eating. Earlier I had realized I had left my Line bear earphone plug outside somewhere when I'd been building the snowman, but I hadn't been able to go look for it yet. I told Miya that I lost kuma (bear in Japanese) and she said "poor kuma" and then went outside to look for it! I followed her out. I thought I saw it in the snow, so I went to go investigate and there it was, half buried in snow!

So yay, kuma's back! :)

Then we all sat in the living room and watched this Japanese sing-off kind of show that this black dude who was fluent in Japanese ended up winning lol. I also texted a bunch with Mami, so I really hope Emma and I can hang out with her sometime and practice our Japanese and help her with English! Miya and I played a bunch with her string too. That kid never gets tired of her string.

Tomorrow we're going to the pool!