Photography club!

Monday, April 14

Guys, three more weeks of classes and that's it! I can't believe time has flown so fast, it's scary!!

We had cereal this morning!!!! Omg it's been so long! It was so so good. :P

On the way to school today, I studied for my test. I took the late train, so I didn't have much time before class. The station was bad this morning; people rushing to get somewhere crashed into me over 5 times! It hurt.

The test ended up being pretty easy. I'm not doing as badly as I thought I would now that we're into chapters I never learned! On the last test, which was the first that covered things I haven't learned, I was the only one who got an A! 

For reading & writing, we had Kandou sensei. She had us play Jeopardy. It was boys against girls and Natalia elected to not be on a team, and be the score keeper instead (since there're more girls than guys).

So at one point, we were tied with the boys, when we got this really hard question worth 400 points. It asked the meaning of "itamitome", which none of us had ever heard of!

It was written like:

痛み止め

With "ita" and "to" in kanji. Then I had an idea! I've noticed you can usually figure out what a word means by looking at the meanings of the kanji. 

I knew the second kanji meant "stop", so I asked Tina what the first kanji meant. She said it was the kanji for "ita", like in "itai", which is the Japanese word for "painful". So I was like "stop pain?"

And Heather was all like "medicine?" 

And I was like "yeah, like painkillers!"

So we all guessed painkillers and we ended up being right!! It was awesome!

All the boys had been cracking up when we first got the question, so sure we wouldn't get it, and when we first saw it, we figured we wouldn't get it either. But we did!! It was so awesome!

When sensei revealed the answer, we all screamed and high fived each other, haha.

So with that huge advantage, we ended up beating the boys. :)

But sensei didn't have prizes today... :(

During the break between classes, Natali had let me use her pocket wifi so I could see if Hikari from the photography club had responded. I'd emailed her this morning asking for the room number again. And she had! It was in F building where we'd gone last week, but was on the 3rd floor, where we hadn't gone.

I also ran to Lawson's with Dylan so I could buy a bento for lunchtime. All the bentos had noodles in them, and I don't like eating noodles in front of people, haha, so I got rice paper veggie rolls and one of those fruit and cream filled sandwhiches with three bear stickers!

Natalia and I ran over to F after class. There were a few Japanese students in there already, who turned out to be the photography club officers. The one in the center who must have been the president was super cute, btw.

Natalia left to go buy a bento and I sat there and started eating, because everyone else was eating their lunch. Then some ichinensei showed up as well. Natalia got back pretty quickly and then Natsumi, the girl I'd been emailing and had met that day showed up as well. She came over and explained that the meeting would start and then we might go around and do introductions or something.

So the meeting started and they read minutes from the last meeting and then had a mini debate because one of the guys wasn't sure about something and kind of arguing about it, but not in a mean way or anything.

Then everyone started going around and saying places they wanted to go in Japan, because the club was planning a trip. Most people were saying Takayama, which is the place Manaka's dad was telling me about with the giant walls of snow. I want to go there too!

When it got to Natalia and me, I said Okinawa and everyone liked that and started talking a bit about Okinawa. Then the meeting was over! So short!

Natsumi came over to explain to Natalia and me that we couldn't use digital cameras (contrary to what she'd told me when she'd met with me over their haruyasumi...), and they'd let us borrow film cameras, but we'd have to buy the film ourselves.

That pretty much killed anymore lingering interest I had in joining. Film is really expensive and I'd rather spend my money on other things, especially when I only have a month left. But Natalia is really into it and is going to go buy film.

Anyway, Natsumi said to email her so we could find a time to go see the dark room on campus. I'm excited about that though!

After the meeting, Natalia and I went to the green area. We found Emma eating by herself (she does that every day, eats at the green area and people watches) so we sat with her for a bit until class started.

I ate the Koala March I got from the matsuri yesterday (the one snack that I was smart and kept for myself) and here is a cute zebra koala!

Then Emma and I headed to calligraphy. We were carving our stone stamps again. Mine is sooo difficult! I should have picked easier kanji, but I wanted the same ones as are on my inkan. #cateproblems 

I was sure I wouldn't finish by the end of class, but I actually did!! It looks pretty bad because I accidentally carved over some of the kanji (where I wasn't supposed to), so it looks pretty broken up, but you can still read what it says and tell which characters they're supposed to be, and I'm fine with that.

Yay!! Next week we have to pick kanji that we like because we're going to make legitimate printings of them. I have no idea what kanji to use though!

After class, I saw the cute guy from photography club and he waved at me!! :D

Then was my all time favorite class!

Sadou!!

We were back to practicing entering the room and using fans today.

(My fan!)

The okashi was adorable today! 

It was called "haru" something and represented the air in springtime. The brown is the ground and the pink and white is the air, because the air in springtime has all the pink sakura petals in it.

It was hard to pick up because it was all jiggly. I was first so I didn't realize how hard it would be and I accidentally separated the pink and brown parts and everyone laughed.

The texture was also really weird. The brown part was good because it was anko, but the pink and white part was all gelatin-like and tasted weird, haha.

Then we made the tea for each other and switched groups. While the second group did the tea ceremony, my group listened to sensei's lecture. After her lecture, we got to make tea for ourselves! She said we could use however much matcha and water we wanted. I put in two pretty big spoonfuls of matcha powder and my turned out to be delicious!!

(And I got my favorite cup too! The one with the face)

After class, Brendan (aka Kuma chan) and I left together so we could talk about the presentation we have to do on The Mourning Forest for Folklore. He stopped at the green area to pick up his bag that he had left with a bunch of the dorm kids. While I waited, one of the Japanese guys in the group asked my name and introduced himself. I found out he's studying law at Nanzan. He was really nice!

So I'd kind of wanted to start working on our presentation today and thought that was what we'd been doing. I'd watched it over a week ago, but had had to wait for Brendan to watch it, which he hadn't done until this past weekend!

But he wanted to each research it first, so I gave him the questions she'd given us to answer last class (that he'd missed) and we split them up.

Then I headed to the computer building to see if I could find and buy the wheel for my bike online. Well, I did find them, but they were all over $500!!! I also looked up cheap bike places and found some bike recycle stores in Nagoya, but the cheapest bike was $50 and anyway I had to get it to Ichinomiya somehow.

Exasperated, I looked down at the time and saw it was already 5:50!! Crap!

So I rushed home. Walking home took feaking forever, so I only got home around 7:20. 

I'd been hungry during calligraphy and had figured I'd maybe get bread or something for the ride home, but since I hadn't gotten a chance to, I was starving now!! I was excited to just walk right in and start eating dinner right away.

But no one was home! Ahhh!! So I ran to my room and ate some snacks. Thankfully everyone, including Ken, came home about 10 minutes later and Yuko whipped up some spaghetti.

After dinner, I wrote the sakubun I had to do for homework and went to sleep.

Sakura in my kimono!!

Monday, March 31

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, coming to school this morning was glorious!

So it started like any other morning. I barely made the 7:57 train, but I jumped on at the last second (I had to squeeze myself in and the announcements were saying that the doors were closing, so wait to take the next train. I was all like hell no, I'm taking this train!), rode to school, met up with Esteban when I exited at Yagoto Nisseki and we walked to school together. Btw the station was packed!!

While I was waiting for the subway at Kanayama, I heard this cute Japanese guy behind me talking to his friend about Nanzan. Must be incoming freshman.

But then we got to Nanzan...

There were people handing out flyers in front of the gate, so we took them, thinking it must be some orientation thing.

And then we entered and holy crap. The main street was lined with football players in their football uniforms!! I have a weakness for football players, so it made it worse that all these cute Japanese guys were in football uniforms! And they were all saying "Ohayou gozaimasu" to everyone who walked by!! Ahhhh!

(See them??)

(Beautiful front gate with the sakura!)

The sakura bloomed just in time for the new school year!

When we got up to R building, I turned around and saw Emma right behind us. I was all like "wasn't that amazing??" And she said it reminded her of a host club with all the guys lined up to welcome us in, haha. She was so right!

When I got inside, after I talked to everyone about how amazing the football players were, I went to answer the priest at Ichinomiya church's email. Since I couldn't make it to the picnic in Kyoto, he invited me to Mie-ken to go with him to visit another priest who's a friend of his. He told me we could go earlier to see a shrine too, if I wanted and I said I did! Then he asked me if I wanted to leave at 11 or 12, and even though leaving at 12 would give us an hour less at the shrine, I decided I didn't want to miss my quiz in class that morning, so I'd go to my first class Friday and then leave to chill with Father John all day.

In class today, Kondo sensei told us that since it's hanami season, we'll probably see a lot of drunk grandpas around town haha. Keep this in mind, for later on in my blog entry. ;)

At lunch time, I was walking to the cafeteria, when I saw the main street was packed with Japanese students! They were all giving out flyers, trying to recruit people to join their clubs! There were also some clubs doing performances on the green area, because I could hear singing!

All the little freshman were walking through and their senpai (upperclassmen) were handing flyers to them. I wanted flyers too, but no one was giving me any! I saw the swimming club, but I think only Japanese students can join the sports clubs because they require you to attend so many practices and we ryuugakusei are so busy!

But then these students from this martial arts club that was like kendo, but different handed me a flyer! The girl was really nice and spoke to me in Japanese about the club. They told me it was different from kendo. I said I'd never heard of it, but I'd like to watch it. We had some trouble communicating, but they were still really nice.

After that, I was bombarded with students handing me flyers! My favorite club was the Japanese Culture Club. The girls were really nice and talked to me in English! I really want to join it.

When I finally made it to the cafeteria, I had a buttload of flyers!

(I can't understand them thoughhhh)

(Sakura tree outside Dagane)

I got misokatsu and ate with Esteban and Ryan. Then Esteban and I decided to go back out and look at the clubs some more. I wanted to go buy ice cream first because I've been wanting to try the red bean ice cream and I wanted to do it before the tax went up.

When I went into Lawson though, the line was soooo long! It wrapped around in the store 5 times! I saw Mitch (Matsui san) waiting in line, so I had an idea!

I asked him if he would buy the ice cream for me, since he was pretty near the front. He was happy to do so!

He also told me tomorrow is the day classes start up again for the Japanese students. They have their opening ceremony tomorrow, the first of April. It's just like in manga, where the kids walk through the falling sakura petals to their opening ceremony!

So I got my ice cream and ate it while Esteban and I looked at all the clubs. It was less busy now and most of them had taken a break to eat lunch. Esteban found his badminton friends and went to go talk to them, so I wondered off by myself.

(Red bean ice cream)

(Red beans inside!)

I ran into Josephine and Deanna. They had found an anime and game club. The guy running the booth was just sitting there, reading a book. Josephine was interested in the club, though, so she asked him for a flyer. I got one too. Then I asked the guy what the club does and he told me they watch anime and write their impression/opinion of the episode and also make comics. It sounded cool!

Their flyer was pretty cool too:

I decided to walk back through once more. This time when I passed that martial arts booth from before, this cute guy stopped me and asked me in English if I wanted to join. I asked what it was and he started telling me how it's more like zen than fighting. Then he got his friend to explain the history to me. His friend was kind of nerdy and spoke English really well! He told me all about the history of this martial arts form.

Then the cute guy told me I should come try out. I asked him when tryouts were and if I needed the uniform they were all wearing (which looked a lot like the kendo uniform), but he told me I could just wear workout-type clothes. He also said they're going to be doing a performance in the green area on Wednesday. I saw I could probably go before coffee hour. Maybe grab some food and eat it while I watch, so I told them I'd go.  :)

And then because my life sucks, the wind blew my hair into my ice cream and it got caught in it. I didn't realize until the cute guy pointed it out to me. And then I basically ran away. 

When I told Emma in calligraphy later, she said I'm like a walking shojo manga, hahaha.

After I finished talking to the cute guy, I figured I'd head over to Dagane to see if any of my friends were still over there. But then I looked at my phone and saw it was 1:32!! Holy shit! I had class at 1:30! Time flies when you're talking to good looking guys. I ran to my locker and grabbed my stuff and made it to class at 1:37! Yes, new record!

In calligraphy today, this dude came in to take pictures of us working. Not okay. I totally sucked today because we were doing some pretty hard kanji and we could pick which way we wanted to write them, but all the ways looked really weird. So I just chose what looked easy and pretty.

(Yay!)

After calligraphy, I walked past all the beautiful sakura to tea ceremony.

(There was another performance going on in the green area)

In tea ceremony, Pearl decided to wear the kimono again. I'd been wanting to wear it again, so when I saw her go over, I jumped up too. I wanted to wear the black one, since that one looks prettier and I haven't worn that one yet. But Pearl chose the black one, even though she's worn that one already. >:(

Ah well. When sensei was dressing me, she told me the red one suited me well. :)

(Today's setup)

We did flower arranging today! There was a huge pile of flowers and we got to choose a vase and flowers and make an arrangement! I got to go first. Of course I chose pink flowers. I picked the ume (plum) blossom branch and then was going to put another color with it, but sensei suggested I put these light pink ones in. Awesome! The more pink the better! :) And I picked this cool vase as well.

Then I waited as everyone else had their turn.

(Sensei with everyone's arrangements and the basket of flowers)

(Our arrangements!)

When we finished our arrangements and listened to sensei's lecture, we moved on to the tea ceremony part of class.

The okashi was yellow springtime butterfly okashi! It was soooo good! I think it was made of the same kind of stuff as our first okashi, the pink flowers. And it had red bean paste inside!

And we had matcha too!

Only a few people got to make tea today, but I made sure I was one of them so I could get a picture of me doing it in a kimono.

First you fill the ladle with water. You hold the ladle as you would a pencil.

Then you pour half of the water from the ladle into the tea cup that already has matcha powder in it.

And dump the rest of the ladleful of water back into the pot.

Next, you use the brush/whisk thing to stir the tea and then whisk it so the mixture becomes thick and green.

And finally, the tea is ready. Examine the tea cup and then place it in front of the black line for the guest to take!

Ahh making tea is so fun! 

When class was over, we took pictures in front of the flowers. :)

Then, because I'd seen girls from the previous class taking pictures in the kimonos by the sakura, I got Pearl to come out with me to take pictures.

Sensei let us use the sandal-like shoes to walk outside!

So we took pictures by the sakura trees in the green area!

(Haha my hot pink socks...)

(Lol sign for curry in the background)

(My favorite!)

(Pearl and me with other non kimono wearing girls from class)

I ran back across the green area after taking these pictures and these Japanese ladies were watching me and chuckling, lol. After we changed out of our kimonos (my toes hurt from the sandals), I headed to my locker to put my  brushes back in and then walked to the station.

On the way, I stopped at Lawson's to buy bread. I got the bag of three apple danishes again. I went over to the counter to pay. Only one cashier was open with no one behind the counter. But an old man was standing there, so I stood behind him. Then he turned around and got really close to me, all up in my face and started counting to 10 in Spanish. I wondered if he thought I was Spansih because I was blonde. But then I smelled the osake on his breath. He was drunk. So what sensei said was actually true! They were ojii-sans drunk from hanami wondering around!

When I didn't say anything, he asked me in English if I was from America, and I said "hai." Then, thankfully, one of the Lawson's employees came over and saw the guy harassing me and opened up another cash register and told me I could go pay over there.

When I got to Kanayama, I was craving green tea chocolate, so I bought the chocolate all we ryuugakusei love. It's chocolate with cookies underneath and comes in milk, dark, white, and green tea. I've never gotten it before because it's a bit expensive but it was only 100 yen here! At least, until tomorrow. Tomorrow it'll be 108 yen. Lame :/

And then I headed home. I rode my bike home at sunset and it was so beautiful! The sakura were really blooming in the park along the river, so I stopped to take some pictures.

(The river)

At home, I played with Miyabi and did my homework. Miyabi and I watched a gameshow on tv. I understood some of the questions and made guesses, but I was wrong, haha.

Miya I also showed me this new notebook she had gotten. In the inside cover it had a quiz to show you what type of person you like. She had me take the quiz first and I got "omoshiroi hito" funny person lol. It was funny because the first question was whether you had a "suki na hito" (person you like) and when Miya took the quiz next, she answered "yes" for that one.

I was all like "ehhhh?? Dare?" (Who?)

But she wouldn't tell me haha. I was like "aw, how come?"

So she asked me "dare?" (Who was my suki na hito) and I said I wasn't telling either, and she was all like "see?"

Haha she's funny.

Then I did my homework until Ken came home and we had dinner. I walked in to the kitchen and there was an entire (head, tail, everything), large fish cut in half chilling on each of our plates...

And the fish was filled with bones! Like it had a giant spine-like bone you had to carefully extract using just your chopsticks, but once that was out and you though you were done, the rest of the fish was filled with itty bitty hair thin bones! Argh!

It took me forever to remove the bones and a couple of times I cheated and used my fingers. When I was done though, Ken told me I was really, really good at removing the bones! :D

Yuko said I probably ate the little bones, but I told her I didn't!

We also had rice, soup, fried tofu, and little fish cake things that were in star-like shapes and came in pink and light green! They were cool and tasted good too!

Also, Yuko asked me if I knew Brendan. I told her I knew a Brendan who's from Texas. She asked if he'd just switched to a host family from a dorm, because her friend now has a new host student named Brendan, but she says he never speaks lol. The Brendan I know is pretty quiet too. Yuko asked if maybe his Japanese is bad, but I said he's in a higher level than I am! Then Yuko said he's big and his friends call him Kuma chan (bear), and I was like yup, same Brendan, haha.

(He's in the above picture of us in our kimonos in front of the flower arrangements)

After dinner, I finished my homework.

Tomorrow Emma and I are going to do a photo shoot with the sakura, so I looked up the best places in Nagoya to see the sakura for free. It turns out there's a river near Mizuho Undojo-Higashi that is one of the best places to see sakura in Japan! So I texted Emma about it and she said it sounds good! Yay, I'm so excited!!

Kachoufuugetsu

This morning, as well as on the way home, I finally started to read my manga on the train! It's super taihen, but I'm ganbatte-ing!

In class today, Mutsukawa sensei told us to look outside because it was snowing! Ahhh yukiiii!!! He asked me if I like snow and I was all "I love snow!"

Between classes today, Natalia brought rice pudding that she had made! It was soooo good. She had a cupful for each of us and cute colored spoons for us to use. I got pink. :) She gave one to Mutsukawa sensei too.

Then we had to walk downstairs to the computer room for the reading and writing portion of class, which we had with Kondo sensei. On the way, Dylan was saying how a bunch of them from the dorms are going to the penis festival on Saturday. I was like "I'm going to the penis festival too!" Then I realized how loud I'd said it. And right as we walked past the open door of the 400 class all my friends are in! I looked in and saw Rafa and Scout looking at me and cracking up, haha.

We had reading and writing in the computer lab because we were doing typing in Japanese today. I rock at that, so it was pretty tedious. Then we wrote an thank you email to sensei and an apology email to a Japanese friend.

And then it was finally lunch time! On the way to the cafeteria, I saw snow on the ground outside! It must have snowed a lot while we were in class!

(See it??)

I got misokatsudon, of course, and then sat and ate with all my friends.

When we finished eating, I looked outside and it was pouring snow! But I went to the bathroom and when I came out, the snow had stopped falling. :(

It started again while I was in calligraphy, though. But the windows in the calligraphy room are super foggy, so we couldn't see it.

Today we wrote 花鳥風月

(kachoufuugetsu), which means "beauties of nature". I really like this word!

It's composed of the kanji of all the best parts if each of the seasons.

The first is hana, flower (for spring). Then tori, bird (for summer). Then kaze, wind (for autumn). And finally, tsuki, moon (for winter). So beautiful!

We were given four different ways to draw each of the kanji and we picked our favorite ways. I chose the ones that looked most like the actual kanji. Because some just looked like weird wiggly lines and you could never guess what kanji it was supposed to be!

(We had to draw the kanji all weird, which is why it's so hard to read!)

After calligraphy, I walked through all the swirling snow flurries to the tea house.

(The setup today. The white flowers are plum blossoms)

(I got a gold fan today!)

(Today's okashi. It was green mochi with yellow decoration. Inside was anko. It's okashi for the beginning of spring!)

We got to stir the tea ourselves in tea ceremony today! It was cool! I was really good at it.

After class I went to my locker and then headed home through all the cold. It's funny how in Japan it snows when it's sunny and a warmish forty degrees, but when it's freezing and cloudy and in the thirties, the snow's gone!

When I told Yuko this weekend how it had snowed Friday, she was really surprised because she hadn't seen it snowing!

When I got home, Miya told me it had snowed today and taught me the word for snowflake - yuki no kesshyou, because a snowflake had landed on her!

We had noodles with cabbage and soup for dinner and salad with mashed pumpkin.

Yuko talked a lot with me at dinner, which was nice. I talked about my presentation I have to do Friday. Miya and Yuko were talking about how Miya wants twins when she's older so Yuko asked me how many kids I want and what genders lol. I said two boys and one girl (the youngest one).

Then I did homework. Ughhh we had so freaking much tonight for some reason!

Hinamatsuri (and mimi no hi)!

It was a beautiful day today! But it was windy so chouto (a little) chilly :/

(Ichinomiya station this morning)

(Japanese (baseball?) team practicing on the field)

We had our test first. It was super easy. The last question of the listening section was "kyou nani o kiteimasu ka."

I talked to everyone after the test and I was the only one who got it. It had tripped me up too, though, at first. I was like is it "what am I asking today?" Or "what am I coming today?" Because both those are kimasu. But they didn't sound right. Then I realized it was "kiteimasu," which meant it was asking what I was wearing today! 

At the end of the first part of class, before he left, Mutsukawa sensei turned to me and was like:

"Biseru san, konbini ni osara o moraimashita ka"

And I got all excited and was like 

"Hai!! Moraimashita!"

He asked if I got the bunny plate from the convenience store haha and I said I did. I was surprised he remembered when I'd only talked about it once, a while ago, lol.

Then Kondou sensei came to teach the second part of class. 

She was going over parts of the body with us and after she said "mimi" (ear), I was like "kyou wa mimi no hi!" (Today's mimi no hi!) and she cracked up haha. She explained to everyone about how 3/3 = "mimi" lol.

Then she had us play this really fun game where she wrote part of a kanji on the board and we had to write as many kanji as we could remember that had that part in it. We got a point for every correct kanji we wrote. I ended up with 14 points! I tied with Fu, the girl from Taiwan.

Everyone was so shocked that we tied since Fu knows a bunch of kanji already (that's also Taiwan's writing system), but I'm American and thus don't! They told me I was really good at kanji haha. I'm sooo not, though!

After class I went to lunch with Heather and Dylan. On the way, they were telling me how they hadn't been able to see Mt. Fuji on the flight over here because it had been dark for Heather, and Dylan just hadn't known he flew over it lol. I told them about how all the Japanese people on my flight freaked out when we flew over it and showed them the picture I took. Heather was obsessed with the picture and Dylan said it looked like it should be in National Geographic. Haha, maybe I'll contact National Geographic! 

(My Mt. Fuji pic in case you forgot)

I only got my iPhone like three days before I left for Japan, but I've already reached the limit of number of photos (over 3800) haha, so I've had to delete some. :(

Today I had misokatsudon because I was craving Nanzan's misokatsu after the Yabaton fail of a misokatsu. 

Ahhh it was so much better! Then I headed to calligraphy. 

Can you read what today's calligraphy says?

It's hard because we had to connect all the characters :/

(Bet you can't, haha)

Next was sadou! Everything was hinamatsuri themed today! :)

(Painted kai (sea shells))

(Wall scroll)

(My fan today)

(Today's okashi. Kai no okashi. The green marking is supposed to represent the ridges on a sea shell)

I was in the first group, like always, so I did the tea ceremony part first. There were a lot of kids missing from both my afternoon classes today. So the first group in sadou only had seven of us, and all girls!

After we finished the ceremony, we moved to the second half of the tatami room area to listen to sensei lecture. She did a little show and tell to help us understand. Ugh, it's so had because she speaks in only Japanese and I'm the only one from 300 in the class; everyone else is at a higher level. But she always does actions along with her words, and I can pick up words every so often, so I get the gist.

In the bag were four seashells. She took those out and explained that these clam shells are a symbol of hinamatsuri because they all have a perfect other half that they fit together with, just like we hope our daughters will find their perfect other half in life. So cute!

Then she showed us the three-colored mochi. She asked what the meaning of the green on the bottom was, and I was the only one who knew. I said grass. Then she asked the meanings of the pink and white and again, I was the only one who knew. She said the pink is actually just hana in general, not Sakura. Man, I have that little boy Joe to thank for making me look smart today, haha!

The little man and woman statue thing was actually a container that held three little balls of incense. She passed them around for us to smell. The host of the tea ceremony lights a fire and throws them in to make the room smell good.

When the lecture was over, we opened the sliding doors that divided the room in half, so it was one big room again. Then we joined the other group and our senseis gave us a second okashi in celebration of hinamatsuri!

We got one big flower and two little flowers. And then they ended up having extra, so we all got a third little flower. :)

(So yummy! They were basically rice crackers covered in sugar)

After class, I asked the senseis about the ritual I'd seen those ladies performing at the shrine in Osu last Friday.

(This one)

They told me this is something older ladies usually do. They rub the papers over the spots of their bodies that are hurting them (I saw them doing that!) and then put the papers on the statue and pour water over it and pray that their pain will go away. 

The senseis were so nice and patient with my horrible attempts to explain in Japanese what I had seen! It helped that I had this picture, though.

After that, I headed over to the CJS office to ask the lady who always helps me about getting the student discount for the Shinkansen. She gave me a paper to fill out and bring back tomorrow and told me she'd look up whether taking the Shinkansen there and the night bus back like I want to do is really more cost effective than booking a round trip ticket on the Shinkansen. I love her!!

Then I headed home. 

(Ichinomiya station this evening)

(The river on my bike ride home)

When I got home, I walked in as Yuko and the two girls who'd been over before and their mom were leaving. Yuko told me to clean my room and then left with them to go pick up Miyabi from piano lessons.

I'm not sure why she wanted me to clean my room, but I obeyed. Just as I finished, Yuko got home with Miyabi. Yuko got on the phone and I went to my room to watch Princess Mononoke, since that's the movie we have to watch for Folklore this week, and I'd downloaded it over the weekend to watch but hadn't had time yet. Miyabi got bored I guess and came in to talk to me about her friend who had come over. I asked her if she knew Mononoke Hime (the Japanese name of Princess Monoke) and she said she did, so I asked if she's seen it (except I asked wrong, but she corrected my grammar) and she said she had. I asked if she wanted to watch it with me, and she did, so we sat on my floor together and watched it. She kept saying "this is fun!" haha, so I think she liked it!

Then her mom called her to talk to whoever it was on the phone.

But she came back later and we watched some more until dinner.

Dinner was really good tonight! It was fried chicken, which I don't like, but at least it's not as greasy here as in America and rice, miso soup, and salad. The good part was the sides! There was cucumbers with seaweed, a bunch of Japanese vegetables that were so good, and Asian sweet potatoes (they look like Yukon gold potatoes, but are super sweet). I don't like Asian sweet potatoes as much as American potatoes, but they're good.

I realized at dinner that I lost the back of my earring. Miyabi went to my room to help me look for it. We couldn't find it, so I was about to comb the halls for it when Miyabi found it! I gave her a hug and thanked her. :)

Then Miya came back in to watch more of the movie with me. She sat with me under my kotatsu and snuggled up to me while we were watching it. She's sooo cute!!

Then Yuko came to get Miyabi so she could finish her homework. Miya realized she didn't have a notebook she needed, so she and Yuko ran across the street to Seiyu to buy it. I started on my homework for tomorrow which I have a bunch of! :(

P.S. Today's Google!

And after I clicked on it:

Kawaii!!