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So this weekend AFS had a little excursion planned for the three other exchange students and myself. No biggie, just going to 長崎 (Naga-saki). You know, the usual. とても楽しかった！ It was fun just hanging out with the people I went with.
I left on Saturday morning. Our AFS chapter president came and picked us all up: that kid that lives near me (and since he mentioned to me that I never say his name on here, I'll refer to him by his name from now on), Andres, then me, then Anna (the other girl in my chapter from Germany, and the other boy Julian who's also from Germany. Fun stuff. We rode in the car for a good four hours, which was filled with struggling to get a toy open, food, and lots of making fun of Andres. But what else is new? :P
When we got to Nagasaki, we went straight to the Atomic Bomb Museum, no kidding around, we went straight there after eating lunch. As it probably sounds to most people, it was super interesting and at the same time kind of eery. Pretty much anything on exhibit there was from the rubble found after the explosion. Think about it... you're going through multiple rooms filled with the remains of a horrific part of history that real people lived through.
That was the first room that we walked into. I'm not going to post all of the pictures I took but this was one of the rooms that was probably the creepiest. It was also a very difficult room. Like, it just didn't want to cooperate with my trying to take a picture of it. It was dark for maybe a minute, then it would light up for maybe 5 seconds, and then go dark again. HDGHSIUENVFJUHSEURTH. Curses! So, yeah. I got this one and then gave up.
After the museum, the six of us (two adults and the exchange kids) went to two different parks, the second one being the more amusing of the two, in my opinion. The first one was the Peace Park, and it was basically a fountain, and a path lined with statues that led to this giant plaza thing-y with a GIANT statue in the middle.
The picture doesn't do it justice, because it looked so much bigger in person. It's called.... the Peace Statue! Wonder where that came from. The park apparently commemorates those who died from the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. So there you have it.
The second park we went to was the Glover Garden, complete with a mansion and giant garden. Massive. Like, you can't even see the whole thing from one spot. The thing even had a giant pond with a bunch of koi fish. And these aren't the tiny ones you normally see in a Japanese steakhouse in the states. They were literally 1-2 feet long and probably weighed a good 25 pounds.
SO MANY KOI FISH.
After the Glover Garden, we stopped to grab some ice cream. I got this castela flavored stuff since apparently castela is a really popular bread in Nagasaki. It's Portuguese, and just like regular bread, it was introduced to the Japanese by the Portuguese and therefore has a Latin-sound to it. Yay history!
After eating our ice cream, we headed off to the hotel to check in and set our stuff down. Then it was off to dinner. We ended up in Chinatown (kind of funny, for some reason. Chinatown in Japan...?) and as such we ate at a Chnese restaurant. We ordered some noodles and this mound of meat, vegetables, crunchy stuff, and sauce. Wow I'm descriptive. The point is that it was all surprisingly delicious, considering the presentation of them.
Once we finished eating, we walked around Chinatown for a bit before heading back to the hotel. For some reason we all got our own room. I wasn't complaining, it just seemed like sharing rooms would've been more cost-effective. Why am I criticizing the room choice? No idea, because it was actually really nice having a room to myself.
When we got back from dinner our chaperons went to bed and of course the four of us stayed up for a good two hours and were ridiculous together. A lot of embarrassing dancing that will never be spoken of to anyone happened.
The next day we ate breakfast at 7:30 and were out of the hotel by 9. Our first stop was to see the Cosmos flowers.I've never seen so many of the same flower in such large quantities.
And there was more than that my friends, my camera just couldn't fit them all. THIS is why haiku was born here, people. Because it's so easy to find something to write about!
Our second and final stop before heading back to Kumamoto was an outdoor museum-y thing. Either my English is getting really bad or I just suck at describing these things. It was a whole bunch of houses that had been buried by a volcano that erupted a while back. At first I thought the houses had been incorporated into the ground or something and then I realized they were just buried. O_O
Once I was done being stupefied by the fact that these houses had actually been buried under ground, we drove off to get something to eat and catch out ferry back to Kumamoto. The ferry was something I was quite pleased about, as I've liked them since the first time I rode one. I saw jellyfish again, but the ones I saw this time were unfortunate looking as opposed to mysterious and pretty like the ones I saw the last time I rode a ferry.
The trip didn't have any epic ending but it didn't really need it. Everyone (or just me....) was too tired to talk much on the way home. And alright, maybe I was the only one that slept practically the whole way....
All in all, a fantastic weekend, and thanks to the three other 留学生 (and AFS) for making it that much more fun. :)
I'm going to close this post by mentioning something hilarious that happened to me today. I'm sitting at my desk at lunch, and one of my favorite teachers walks in with a book. This woman is kind of on the crazy side, and that's probably why I like her so much, and she's always got something very odd to say. Today, she held up this book and asked me if it was famous in America and if I knew it. The book was called What's Your Poo Telling You? If I haven't said it before and meant it I'll say it again and mean it this time: I died. The funniest part was that she was dead serious. She teaches English, so I'm pretty sure she knew what the title said, and for some reason she was totally serious about her question. So if anyone reading this has ever heard of this book... that's a little weird, and please let me know.
On that smelly note, I'll end this post abruptly with my name. Shocker, I know.
-Ellie
RANDOM POST TIIIIIIIIIIIME! I've been wanting to do a post like this for a while and today seemed like an alright day to do it since nothing exciting has happened since I last posted. Except for joining the track & field club, but that's for another day.
Today I want to talk about some things that I've noticed about Japan that are different from Chicago. OF COURSE some things that are said or done in Chicago are different from other parts of the world; even within the U.S., so this is just my Chicagoan observation at work here.
#1 Convenience stores.
They're EVERYWHERE. And they're 20x nicer than American ones. I'll elaborate on 7-elevens because that's usually where I go. They have entire aisle dedicated to Shonen Sundays, any other manga magazine you can imagine, and any other magazine in general you could possibly want. Quick side note: While manga in America can cost over $10 per volume, here they usually cost about 340 yen or so (that's about $3.50). WHAT IS THIS INSANITY? Side note end. The next aisle has stationary and a little bit of candy. The aisle after that is candy bliss. My mother is reading this right now rolling her eyes because she thinks I've been buying loads of it (I tend to eat a lot of candy at home...). Well guess what? ..... She's right. I can't help myself. Every single candy in a 7-eleven here is new and interesting to me so of course I have to buy it. :S Anyway, after that aisle there's the bread, refrigerated goods, and microwaveable/convenient products. This includes instant ramen! Funnily enough, I see the Cup Noodles brand here a lot. 7-elevens also have a vast array of refrigerated obentos, ice cream, and hot food. Yesterday, my host mom bought our entire meal at 7-eleven, and although I wan't fond of much of it, it was all very decent quality food. So yes, コンビニ (konbini) in Japan are much better than American ones. Point for Japan.
#2 The Moped thing-ys!
It may very well just be where I am, but the people around here love their mopeds. Actually, they may be something totally different, but I'm pretty sure that's what they are. I don't see that many legitimate motorcycles, but I've defnitely seen some. You have to be 18 here to get your license for a car, but I believe you can drive a moped at 16, so that might be part of the reason why. It's funny to see a man in a business suit or a woman all done up riding around town on a moped though, gotta say. When I first got here I was surprised that they would cut in front of all the cars in any given lane at a stop light. This seems kind of dangerous to me, but if we don't have an accident every day I guess it's alright.
#3 Boys
First off, they're usually pretty shy (at least when it comes to girls). I think most of the guys in my class were either terrified of me the first few weeks, or did not wish for my presence. I'm thinking it was the first one, but if you're in 2 の E, lemme know. :P ALSO. Boys here tend to be a little more feminine than the boys I'm used to back at home. No, they don't run around proclaiming their love for hello kitty, but most tend to be more open with their emotions than American boys. There is a boy in my class who acts very masculine; sags his jeans (most Japanese boys don't do that), is cocky, and has a very boyish aura about it. The only odd thing is that he has a pink pen, pink pencil case, pink folders, and (this one really puzzled me) a pink phone. And I'm not talking light pink, I'm talking shiny, hot pink. O_O But, you know, whatever floats your boat. It's also very okay here for guys to hug, and I've even seen a boy sit on another's lap. Ah, culture.
#4 TV Shows
Go youtube a Japanese program. Not anime, one with real people. They're hilariously and awkwardly random. I've seen average women dressed in kimonos wrestling (don't get any ideas), snails being stuck on people's faces, and oh so much more. And the subtitles, oh god! It's like CNN on steroids. Almost every single thing said has subtitles in varying colors, sizes, and fonts. Sometimes, the hosts of the show will appear in a little circle in the corner of the screen as you're watching a video being replayed. It's very strange, and yet I've somehow grown to view this kind of TV as normal. It really is entertaining, though, I recommend watching it, even if you can't understand (that'd probably make it even funnier to watch).
#5 English
This one's short and to the point: Most Japanese do not speak good English. They're totally good sports about it and try really hard if they see you can't speak Japanese, but many of them (at least here in Kumamoto) do not speak very much.
#6 Bread
Whether you love white, sliced Japanese bread, hate it, or are somewhere in between (I LOVE it), it's obvious that the Japanese love their bread. And not just sliced bread; they like filled bread, savory bread, bread with all kinds of spreads, melon bread, and the list goes on. Usually the filled ones have some sort of cream or jam. They're all delicious, so it doesn't really matter. If you're ever in Japan, stop by a convenience store and look at the bread, pick anything, buy it, and eat it. You will like it.
#7 Cars
If you ever come here, you'll know what I mean. While Honda, Nissan, Toyota, etc. are Japanese brands of cars, they're VERY different from American models. I have not seen a single Toyota Rav4 (sorry mom) or Nissan Altima. The cars here tend to be extremely boxy (think a Cube), and the closest thing to 'sleek' I've seen is a Toyota Prius. So... yes. Not too interesting here. Most cars look pretty much the same.
#8 The streets
If you get into the suburbs, you'll see that the streets here can get SUPER narrow. To the point where I've thought multiple times I was going to die because the driver would crash into a wall. And at intersections you can't see around corners so they all have those convex mirrors so you can see around them. Scary stuff right there. I didn't notice them at first so I thought the driver had to make a complete guess on when to go.
#9 .....
Some things they don't have here: STICK DEODORANT!!! How I will miss you so when mine is all gone. They use some spray deodorant that I don't think works as well, so I'm very sad to say that once my deodorant runs out, I will very likely be a sweaty blob living in Japan. Please, if you have any kindness in your heart, think of my poor, poor underarms. .... Or don't. Yeah, just don't. Think of ME!
They also don't have cereal. Or at least the vast array that they have in America. I haven't specifically looked for any, but the other exchange kid here says they don't even have Cheerios here. Yes. Shock and disbelief. The king of all cereals is dead in Japan.
There's also not that much peanut butter here. I've seen a teeny little Skippy jar a few times and that's it. They have ピナッツクリーム (pinattsu kuriimu - peanut cream), which doesn't taste much like peanut butter at all and can never replace peanut butter's deliciousness. The peanut cream taste very artificial and way too sweet to be peanut butter, but my host family really likes it. >___>
Alright well that's enough text for me today. I'm kind of bothered by the fact that I ended at 9, but I ran out of steam.
Hopefully you enjoyed my random post. I'm off to bed now, so goodnight/goodmorning/good day! (Wherever you are)
-Ellie
I've been so bad about this the past few weeks! It's already been a week since I last updated and it only feels like a few days. Time here is absolutely flying by. And not like a plane, like a rocket or something. I've already been gone from home for 53 days. FIFTY THREE DAYS. That's five tens and a three. I've never been away from home for this long and I had no idea how okay it would be. Not that I don't miss my family and friends, I do! But there's just been so much to do and take in here that I've had almost no time to think about home. It only just struck me the other day that it's been almost two months since I was in my own house.
I'll get to the good stuff now (good...? Interesting...?). I left off after the ぶんかさい (Bunka Sai) my school had last week. Not sure if I mentioned it, but after the festival my entire class went to a restaurant to celebrate the fact that we were DONE and to say good bye to a boy that was moving. It was very emotional for everyone because of how tight-knit they are. Not sure if I've mentioned this either, but my class is so attached because they've been together for almost two years now and they're together for most of everyday. It's pretty much a second family for everyone so having someone move away is like having that family ripped apart. I wasn't really sure how to react since I'd only been here a little over a month so I wasn't that close to him, but it was still sad to see everyone else so upset. Anyway, I'd post pictures but they're all embarrassments to the people in them. :P
So anyway the next two days were days off from school to recuperate from the festival. On the 8th, my family took me to a park where we played badminton and threw a Frisbee around for a bit. I think I had a breakthrough that day with my two youngest host siblings, because after playing badminton with them, we ended up interacting (I won't say talking because most of our conversations are pretty one-sided; I kind of just laugh apreciatively and nod a lot) for the rest of the day.
After playing at the park for a bit, we all headed off to...... get ready for it.....
ONSEN! Ahhhhhh so exciting! And the perfect way to unwind after the play and everything. This onsen was a lot bigger and more modern looking that the 道後 (dogo) onsen in 四国 (shikoku). Nevertheless, it was just as enjoyable. This one had an outdoor onsen as well, which was probably my favorite part of the whole place. Obviously there were hedges all around, but it was really nice to have a combination of cool air and hot water. I stayed out there for most of the time we were there.
After the onsen we went home to pick up おじいちゃん (ojiichan) and おばあちゃん (obaachan), and then headed off to eat sushi. Oh my gosh, best day ever. Ordering sushi and having it brought to your table in Japan isn't as common as it is in America, and most people prefer going to the conveyor-belt ones anyway because they're loads cheaper. It's interesting how the kids here are totally unphased by the moving sushi but then there's me totally freaking out about how awesome it is.
That pretty much sums up its amazingness in one picture. This sushi restaurant was different from the one I went to the first day I was here in a totally awesome way. The first one I went to, you ordered the sushi and it came out for you to find and pick up off the belt. This one, however was (I think) all-you-can-eat and you just took whatever you wanted off the belt. ZOMYGOODNESSS HEAVEN ON EARTH. When my host mom told me I could take any I think a teeny part of me died of happiness. They had the weirdest sushi, too. Some were sashimi, and they had squid or some fish with cheese broiled on top. I had corn sushi (yes, I was interested as well). I like corn and I figured it couldn't taste that bad. I was correct! It was, in fact, delicious. The other cool part about this one is that there was a little shoot that you slipped your dishes into as you finished your sushi. The kids WERE NOT floored by this. What has the world come to?
The day after that wondrous one my host parents took me to eat ramen. I fangirled a little bit when I walked in because of how legit it looked. And the RAMEN. If you're ever in Japan, find somewhere that sells ramen and eat it. It's the best thing you will ever eat.
It came with gyouza and rice, but I thought the ramen was the part y'all should be focused on. That's pork, I believe seaweed and green onions. Tasty stuff right there. I burned my tongue pretty badly but it was totally worth it.
This weekend was much less eventful. Yesterday my host mom and two youngest siblings walked to a corn maze (yes, I live enough in the country that I am within walking distance of miles of corn). We ended up giving up on trying to find the exit and worked backwards.
Today, at 8:30 am (why, God, why?) my host parents and siblings and I all went to a museum in downtown Kumamoto where we got to see a presentation in the planetarium on stars. It was so awesome; we were in this huge room with a rounded ceiling where the stars got projected. I know there's a name for it I just can't think of it. I'm happy to say I got the gist of what was being said for the part of the presentation I was awake for.....
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I fell asleep. It was the morning, I was in a dark room in a super comfy chair under the "stars" and I couldn't help it. Sue me. It was wonderful. :)
That's pretty much it for the highlights of my week. Next weekend I'm headed off to Nagasaki for some AFS thing, so tune in for that next week! (I sound like those promos at the end of a tv show telling everyone to watch next week's episode. Blogger, what have you done to me?!)
-Ellie
For this post, I'm gonna focus on the last three days, because that's when all of the interesting stuff's been happening. Also, just as a forewarning, this post will not have very many pictures, if any. I haven't had time to take pictures because I've been so busy, so you'll have to listen to my ramblings this time around.
This week was the week before our school's ぶんかさい (bunka sai), or culture festival. They're a really big deal here so the world pretty much stopped for it. On Friday, the school had a huge gathering to celebrate the high school's 30-year-anniversary. The entire day was set aside for all of the students to sit in the gym for the day and listen to various speeches and presentations. Fun stuff. We (the students) have been practicing a Beethoven song for the past month so that we could sing it at this thing in front of the school board.
Anyway, the day of this anniversary, everyone had to wear their entire winter uniform (jacket too). If it hadn't recently started getting cooler out I would have protested, but it wasn't too bad. Which reminds me, you haven't seen the winter uniform.
Very awkward pose and face, but it's 11 at night, I've been awake for 19 hours, and I'm not putting that uniform back on. I actually prefer it over the summer one; I think it looks better. Definitely hotter though...
Everyone already knew where to sit from our 2-hour practice the day before. Once we were all seated, the school board's members arrived and started to sit down. When they first started walking in and we all started clapping I was like, "cool, normal. Clapping." But after a good minute of straight clapping it just started sounding awkward to me. I'm assuming we clapped for so long to show our respect. That went on for a good two minutes, after which we bowed and sat down. Thus followed a slew of short speeches, introductions, and lots of Japanese that I couldn't understand. Seeing as the whole first half took 3 hours, I spent a lot of the time sleeping. Surpringly enough, it was okay to sleep sitting up. Not too sure why; I would've thought it'd be considered rude but I wasn't complaining. That day I became a master at sleeping in the most uncomfortable positions ever. Sleeping while sitting in a metal chair is anything but a comfy bed. You either rest your head on your chest (PLUS I was afraid that if I slouched I'd get yelled at, so I had to slep sitting up straight), or somehow rest it to the side. The latter was painful for me so I stuck with resting my head on my chest. After about a half hour of sleeping, I would wake up, listen for about five minutes, get bored, and go back to sleep. Longest 6 hours of my life. e____e Makes for a good story, though, so looking back I don't mind.
Saturday was so busy I can't even. Since Saturday was the day before the festival, I literally spent the entire day at school preparing. From 8:30 in the morning to 10 o'clock at night, we were there practicing and setting up. These kids are ridiculously motivated, it's incredible. No one complains, no one gets annoyed. Everyone ENJOYS it. It's really nice, actually. And it made staying there so late much easier.
We didn't get much relief that night, however. Since our play was at about 9 the next morning, we had to get to school 5 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING to get ready. Dead. For real, I was dead this morning. I woke up at 4:25 and somehow made it out the door by 4:40. I'm still exhausted. The play went exceptionally well. Pretty much everyone cried. Everyone was really stressed about the whole thing and I think it built up so much anticipation that when it was all finally over, the figurative rubber band snapped and all of these emotions came pouring out.
After the play everyone was allowed to watch the other performances and walk around the school to see what each class had done for the festival. Basically all of the classes are open to the public (whoever comes to the festival) and most (if not all) serve food and have desks set up as tables. It's all very organized and you can tell every class put a lot into decorating and preparing everything. And the food's delicious, which is always a plus.
I met three ALTs (assistant language teachers) that were at the festival because they knew the kids at school and felt like paying a visit. One from Chicago (HOLLA), South Africa (awesome accent), and Canadia. All three were super nice, and, as it usually is when I can find someone who speaks decent English, it was nice to talk to them. People who understood sarcasm FKSENHLKFMEAOFJ so exciting! There were many laughs and even though they were all at least six years older than me (DUDE six years older than me is 23!) they were really nice.
After the festival the entire class went out to eat to celebrate the performance, but mostly to say good bye to one of the boys in our class because he's moving away on Wednesday. Considering that these people have been together for a year and a half (their classes didn't change this year), this was a huge deal for everyone, and if most people cried after the play, EVERYONE cried about this. Including a lot of the boys. Tonight was the first time any of the boys in the class and I actually exchanged words (very few, but they meant a lot to me, as cheesy as it sounds). Huzzah! A breakthrough!
And now that this is done, I'm going to sweet, sweet sleep. Going on 19 hours awake and I'm so. Tired. Sorry for the boring post, hopefully I'll get a chance to take more pictures soon. All of the pictures I took today were public embarrassments to the people in them (all very ridiculous poses and face; good blackmail ;P).
-Ellie
P.S. OH! Carlos, if you're reading this, I finally ate Melon Bread!
There it is, in all of it's glory. It tastes nothing like a melon, but it does taste like delicious sugary bread deliciousness. Delicious. That's some tasty 食べ物. (Food)
You can tell I really took the time to think of a creative title. The sweat, the tears...
It's been a week since I last posted so I'm sorry I didn't get around to it sooner! Usually by the time I go to my room for bed I'm too dead tired to write. But since it's been exactly a week I knew I had to update today because a week overdue would be unacceptable.
Here goes.
Last week I had just gotten back from a wonderful trip to 四国 (shikoku), and this weekend I had a 3-day break! Only I'm not sure that today would count as the holiday that it was supposed to since I spent about 4 and a half hours at school. 2 and a half day break maybe? Anywho, I'll start on Saturday because that was when the interesting stuff started. Saturday I went to downtown Kumamoto City with the other study abroad kid in my town. It started off pretty slowly (it probably didn't help that we picked the day before a typhoon was supposed to hit us AGAIN. What is it with the typhoons here?) but by the end of the day I felt very accomplished... which is always a good feeling I guess.
We started off in the main square that had a roof on it (a lot of markets/shopping centers around here have those), and somehow we ended up meandering off the main road and ended up in a street with a bunch of much more quaint-looking, smaller and less busy shops. We found a store that had everything priced at 409 yen, final price. EVERYTHING. Which, if you've ever been to Japan, you know that's pretty good. I found a shirt with a raccoon on it and for some odd reason the weirdo within me just had to have it. It's pretty sweet, if I do say so myself.
After our detour to the bargain store we went back to the main street to find FOOD because I was hungry, and I know myself well enough to know how cranky and whiney I can be when that happens. And even though it would've been loads of fun to subject my friend to that, I wanted food. So after some indecisiveness, we settled on this random burger place we found and I got some salsa burger they had. It was TEENY. Granted, I was comparing it to an American restaurant's burger, but it literally took me four minutes to eat, and afterwards I was STILL hungry. We had walked by a donut shop earlier so I demanded that we go buy some donuts, especially since the kid I was with had said how delicious their donuts were. I have a pretty picky donut taste bud (those don't exist, but humor me.) so I didn't have high hopes for this so-called Mister Donut. Let me tell y'all: BEST. DONUTS. EVER. They had some honey glazed donut thing and I think my mouth almost exploded it was that delicious. It was even better that they were having a 50% off sale, so I bought three and my hunger was finally satiated.
We also went to Tsutaya which is basically a giant book/manga/videogame/arcade store thing-y. I FINALLY bought my beloved manga and of course since I was with a dude we had to visit the videogames. After which I was dragged to the arcade (I don't usually do arcades) and ended up enjoying the whole thing quite a bit. We took purikura! Which, anyone that knows Japan is aware of how freaking popular that is. EVERYONE has taken purikura here. What is purikura, you ask? It's basically a photobooth on steroids, if you will. Same concept, with a whole bunch of amazingness added in. You take your pictures in one of these:
You probably can't even tell that that giant black thing with the Via Doro thing is a photobooth. They're massive. And there's so many to pick from. We picked a random one and since he actually knew what to do I was asking every 5 seconds "what's this?" "what does this do?" etc.
That's the inside of the first room (yes, there's multiple rooms). It's SO bright. Like, blinding. There's the camera and the computer screen. That's where you can pick how big you want your eyes to look (yeah), and how much you want it to lighten you. We picked big eyes and the normal brightness. After a very awkward few first shots we succeeded in getting some decent ones. After we took the pictures came the fun part (which I was totally unaware of).
It's insane! There's a touch screen and you can 'decorate' your pictures. This is what we ended up with. Note how much like dolls we look:
Yup. That's basically purikura. Quite the experience, and I definitely recommend it. I will certainly be doing it again, this time with some experience under my belt. Yes, I would say you need experience to be a good purikura taker. These are amateur shots, wait til I do it right.
Enough of the purikura, you say? I can't say there's much else for Saturday. We rode the bus home that night and the man sitting next to us attempted to have a conversation with me in Japanese. I understood about 50% of what he was saying and had a very brief, but very fulfilling conversation about what I was doing in Japan. Hooray!
Sunday was some Welcome Party for the AFSers in the Kumamoto chapter. It was a surprisingly good time. I ended up seeing the German boy I came here with so it was nice to see a familiar face. We were the only two semester students, and the year ones came later for a lunch. There was the boy from up there ^^, and another German (a girl) who have both been here since March.
I had to present my country to everyone (WHAT?), much to my surprise. In fact I had no idea I'd have to until the boy before me was presenting his. It wasn't a total disaster, but I wouldn't exactly call it a total success either. I have so much Japanese to learn it makes my head hurt just thinking about it.
Today was a pretty relaxed day... aside from practice. Sigh.
I had odango today! Finally! I'd been waiting to try it!
There it is, in all of its delicious glory. For some reason I was under the impression that it was savory. It's actually soft, sweet spheres (I will not use the word balls in this sentence...) on a skewer. And actually, I think it's the sauce on them that's so sweet. In any case, I grew to like them after the first two; they totally weren't what I was expecting so I was a little weirded out at first.
And then we had Japanese curry for dinner! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh favorite food!
It's seriously one of the greatest-tasting things on the planet. I'm totes stealing my host mom's recipe and taking it home with me.
Yup, that's my uber interesting weekend for you all. Tomorrow if the weather's good we're going to 月見 (moon-viewing) which I'm really excited about so I'm praying for clear skies tomorrow night!
Hope you enjoyed this post; probably considerably less interesting than last weekend (kind of hard to follow that), but I think you have to experience everything firsthand to really enjoy these things. What does that mean? COME TO JAPAN!
I'm awkward and don't know how to end this post, so bye!
-Ellie
HAH. Yeah, right.
There's so much to talk about in this post that I don't even know where to attack it from, so to speak.
I guess I'll just start on Friday afternoon. I left school right after class let out because I wanted as much time as possible to get all of my stuff together. I got home around 4:15 and we weren't leaving until 6:30ish so I definitely wasn't pressed for time. Everyone took a shower before leaving and a little after 6, お母さんとお父さんと妹と弟 (My host mom, dad, sisters and brother) all left for 四国 (Shikoku) island! You thought I was never going to tell you where we were going... My host family was going to their friend's daughter's wedding and since the RSVP was way before I was part of the picture, I was headed off to do some sightseeing. Exciting stuff right there.
We drove off in their very boxy blue car and headed off to 北九州市 (North Kyushu City). That took about 2 and a half hours, during which we also stopped by a McDonald's to have dinner (the Japanese LOVE their McDonald's). Now, I haven't had McDonald's in probably close to 2 years, as I've never been a huge fan of it, but I figured how many times have I gotten Japanese McDonald's in my life? Plus, I was hungry and I wanted food. Honestly, Japanese McDonald's aren't that different from American ones. The only difference between the one we went to and the ones in Chicago is that this one was smaller.
Moving right along. We finally arrived at 北九州市, where we drove right up to a dock because.... we were taking a ferry. Children (even though most of you reading this are probably older than me), I have never been on a ferry before so this was quite an exciting prospect for me. It wasn't anything fancy from the outside so I won't take up space here with a picture but I will talk about the inside. The first room that we walked into was a giant food court type area. There was a bar, a smoking area (if I remember correctly), a place to sit down and eat, COUNTLESS vending machines (in Japan, anywhere there's an outlet, you will find a vending machine), a game room, and an information desk. This area wasn't even that big, mind you, so everything was pretty crammed in there. We didn't stop for any food, so we went right to our room where we'd be spending the night. I was under the impression that it would be similar to a hotel room. Instead, we got this:
I'm not complaining by any means, it was just totally different from what I was expecting. Basically, it was a giant room for everyone to share. All females, of course, but still took a bit to get used to. You can kind of see what the beds looked like in the picture. The 'pillows' they gave us were basically just blocks of hard foam, except I think I was one of the only people that found them uncomfortable. These were the awesome doors we had leading to the hallway:
There's that button on the left that you press and boom, the door slides open.
The next morning for some reason I woke up at 5:30 by myself. God knows why, but I think it had to do with that pillow...
Pretty much everyone else had left by the time we headed off the ferry (about 7 o'clock) so getting off was quick. We drove for about fifteen minutes and came to my host father's friend's house, which was where we would be staying for the weekend. When we entered the house it was pretty chaotic, to say the least. The parents, their two daughters, the grandma, and the already married daughter's husband were all there, running around trying to get everyone and everything ready for the wedding. I kind of just sat by (which I tend to do a lot right now; I feel like a mute) and watched.
At about 8:30 or so the mom and bride-to-be left, and the sister, husband, father and grandma left a while later. We left the house at about 10, and I was dropped off at the information center for 松山お城 (Matsuyama Castle) where I met my tour guide for the day. I just made myself sound so tourist-y it's not even funny. She spoke pretty good English by Japanese standards and we were able to communicate very easily, which, trust me, makes a world of difference. First, she took me to the Matsuyama Castle Ninomaru Garden. Basically, it's a giant traditional courtyard-type deal. When we first walked in there was a flower display so we stopped by there. SO. MANY. PLANTS. So many interesting plants. I wish I could put pictures up of all of them but I still have so much to talk about so I'll move along.
After the flowers we moved on to a tea ceremony. GAAAAAAAHHHH so exciting! For anyone that thought they knew anything about tea ceremonies (at all) has another thing coming. It's SO involved and there's so many little rules that I'm sure I probably broke a hundred while I was there. There were two women (dressed in the whole kimono getup) who walked us through the ceremony. One of them was more for talking to us, the other prepared the tea. Whenever she would hand me my tea, I would have to bow with my hands in front of me, with the tips of my fingers and thumbs touching. You hold the tea cup with your right hand on the side, left hand supporting the bottom. After you finish, you set the cup down, and it's polite to look at it afterwards (not complaining; they're really interesting). You bow to either side of the cup to look at the sides of it and then you pick it up and hold it like this:
And I know I look really funny but I swear that that's how I was supposed to do it. By the way, sitting like that is VERY painful. After 5 minutes I seriously thought I had done permanent damage to my feet.
I'm going to hurry the tea ceremony part up because I could seriously make a whole post about it. After we were done there, we headed to the actual castle. We ended up taking a chair lift, which was amazing and terrifying at the same time.
That was my view, and that's my guide in front of me! It was so much more terrifying in person. There's no seatbelt or anything so you're basically suspended 15 feet off the ground in a tiny chair.
We got to the top of the lift and continued up the mountain to the actual castle.
That's the main part of the castle and I was standing in a courtyard-type deal. Everything there was very traditional and Japanese-looking. And I know a lot of people will read that and say "Well duh, you're in Japan." But guys, you don't understand until you've been here and see everything in person.
I can't post pictures of everything because this post is already huge but you get the idea. Awesome castle, so much fun. We spent an hour and a half just walking around.
I do have to include this one though. That was at the very very top of the whole thing. Everything looks so tiny!
Alright, moving right along, we left the castle and headed off to the onsen bath house! You do not understand how excited I was about this part. I was also very reserved about it for obvious reasons, but it was something I was definitely looking forward to.
Yup... that's me looking awkward as ever. I don't even care though because I was at an onsen. Dogo Onsen. That's what that sign says. I'm proud to say that before my guide even told me, I could read the first two characters by myself. :D
So anyways, onward ho. Definitely did not just say that.
We bought our tickets and left our shoes in these cubbies at the front. Then we walked down a hallway and up a flight of stairs to a long room with a bunch of baskets that had yukatas neatly folded in them. We were seated, and once we were ready we headed off to the change room. Which honestly should be called the undressing room or something. You're not really changing; you're taking your clothes off. Yup, all of them. I'll just say that it was SUCH an amazing experience. Which probably sounds really weird to some people but if anyone that's reading this ever gets a chance to try onsen, DO IT. For anyone that had no idea what it is, it's basically a giant hot tub. There you go, reason enough to go to one.
After you finish, you get out, put on your yukata (Japanese-style bathrobe) and head back out to that long room with the baskets where someone brings you green tea and cookies. Good stuff. You're all warm by the time you start drinking your tea and you feel so relaxed it's crazy.
That was probably my favorite part of the day.
After the onsen, my guide and I spent the last hour or so shopping, since that part of town is very tourist-y and has a lot of shops.
At a little before 5, my host family picked me up and I had to say good bye to my wonderful tour guide. T_T We had such a fun time and she was so wonderful, so if she ever finds this blog and reads this: Thank you so much!
Later that night we all had dinner with the family we were staying with (excluding the newlyweds) and I'm happy to say that I could understand little snippets of conversation here and there.
The next morning we headed out at around 10:30. We drove for I don't even know how long until we stopped at this parking lot at the top of a giant mountain. I had no idea what we were doing until my host mom explained that we were going to walk about 20 minutes to a lighthouse at the very end of the peninsula we were parked on. A daunting task, if I do say so myself; climbing up and down the mountain was super tiring and really the only thing that kept me going was how freaking BEAUTIFUL this country is. No wonder haikus originated here; pretty much anything you see out here you can write a poem about.
That's a camping spot that looks so quaint and adorable (especially against the water and the green) that I had to take a picture.
This was at the very tip of the peninsula right in front of the lighthouse...
After the trek back to the car we were all pretty tired so a lot of us fell asleep for a bit.
These pictures are from earlier on but I want to share them with you guys because I want you to see what I'm talking about when I say this country is FREAKING BEAUTIFUL.
SO MANY MOUNTAINS. I gave up taking pictures after a while because there was so much to take pictures of and honestly, there's nothing like seeing it in person anyway. I was so sad that my family couldn't see any of this because it's so breathtakingly beautiful that these pictures (and any that I could have taken) wouldn't give it the justice it deserves. It's that amazing. I literally spent 30 minutes of the car ride looking out the window as we drove through the mountains because of how gorgeous everything was. The mountains here are completely covered in trees, giving them a very fluffy appearance, and when you look at the actual trees on the mountains, there's a million different types of trees and all of the different textures combine to make the most amazing.... I don't even know. Something. It just looks incredible. I've never seen anything like it. We also drove by a bunch of towns by the sea, all of which were so quaint and Hayao Miyazaki-looking that I thought I was going to pee myself from excitement. Not really, but my level of excitement equaled that. Not even joking there. Plus, oh my Lord, is it beautiful. The ocean winking at you, the mountains, the sky blurring where it meets the water, the WINDMILLS, the plethora of tunnels... This weekend, I fell even more in love with this country. And almost purely out of vanity; it's so... ugh, I can't even find a word to describe how it made me feel. As cheesy as this whole paragraph sounds, if any of you ever are as lucky as I am to come here, you will sound just as cheesy.
Anyway, back to the day. We finally made it to the ferry that we would take back to Kyushu. During the boatride I spent most of my time on deck where I got to watch the water and more beautifulness. Which isn't a word but it should be. I saw jellyfish! So many of them, too! You could see them just under the surface of the water, big white blobs. I've never seen a jellyfish in my life so even though it wasn't a clear view of one, I was excited and enthralled nonetheless.
Oh, and the WIND on deck. Crazy stuff. I'm surprised my hair wasn't completely ripped out of my scalp. As graphic as that is, that's about how hard the wind was blowing. By the time I got back inside the boat my hair was totally windblown and a giant mass of knots. And all worth it. :)
We got home at around 8:30 because we stopped to get food on the way home and everyone went to bed right away because we were all completely spent.
I'm sorry for how long this post was. Truthfully, I could have made it 4 times as long; I left out a bunch of details for the sake of not boring you all to tears. I'm still really mad that I can't show you what I saw in person because it really is one of the greatest things I've ever seen. If you ever get the chance to go to 四国 island, DO IT. Or any part of Japan, really. It's all gorgeous.
Japan, I've fallen in love with you even more.
-Ellie
This post is (hopefully) not going to be as long as they normally are because it's almost 10 o'clock and I don't feel like sleeping in tomorrow and missing school. Actually, I wouldn't mind that, but AFS would, so I'll go anyway.
I say last minute because I wasn't going to update until about half an hour ago when I decided that it's probably best before the next few days.
I'll get right to last weekend. "What?" you're saying, "You already talked about it on Saturday." Yes, yes I did. However, the fun didn't end there. The day after, on Sunday, my family took me downtown to Kumamoto City to watch a local festival. The name of it escapes me, which I feel really bad about because it was actually really fun. My host father said it was Dentetsu... But when I searched that on google nothing came up so... Either we had another miscommunication or this festival is unpopular enough to not make it onto google. And judging by the amount of people that were there, it was NOT unpopular.
We took the train (電車 look at me and my kanji... ain't it beautiful?) downtown which only took about 25 minutes and then walked for about 7 until we came to the busiest street in the area. After walking past what was probably about 50 small stands altogether (it looked just like what you would imagine a Japanese festival to look like; very traditional looking. If you don't know what I mean, go watch some anime), we came to.... wait for it.....
A SHRINE. Holy crap I was so excited when I saw what we were doing.
Before you walk into the actual shrine you have to rinse off your hands; cleanliness is important when you're praying. There's a fountain thing-y with these cups on sticks (I'm positive that there's a word for them, but my gai-jin phrasing will have to do) that you dip into the water and pour over your hands.
That's the back of my host sister's head.
So here's the shrine. SO. FREAKING. COOL. I felt very Japanese, as lame as that sounds. That's my dad, other sister, and brother. I hope you're enjoying the backs of everyone's heads, cause that's pretty much all I've got.
This is where you take your money and throw it. Woah that sounds really dumb. It's kind of like the fountains when you were little and you would ask your parents for a penny to throw in... No one else? Really? It doesn't have to be much; I threw in 1 yen. It's a box with these slats in the top that the money falls through. You throw the money in, put your hands together in front of you and 'pray'. And I say 'pray' because I didn't really do anything, I just did it for the effect. I'm not even sure if I was supposed to be praying, but I felt totally legit either way.
This:
Is basically what happened during the whole parade that we watched. And that was not meant in a bad way. It's basically 60+ different groups of people that dress up in traditional clothes and waves fans in the air, beat drums, and scream at the crowd to get everyone excited. Now that I say it like that, it sounds like a high school pep rally. But BETTER.
With every group comes the fan wavers (for lack of a better word), a horse (which I'll get to in a sec), someone carrying a massive flag, and this guy. ^^ A man with a microphone. Who yells. Now, I couldn't understand a word any of them were saying but judging by the energy that they were creating, my guess is that they're there to excite everyone and really get them all into the festival. Oddly enough, it works. Normally I can't stand anyone yelling at me but these guys were strangely engaging.
Here's the horse I was talking about. Only there were 60+ different ones and I didn't take a picture of each one. I know how much you all wanted to see them ALL.... I still don't really understand the point of the horse. I got the impression that it wasn't tame because each one had people on either side of it holding it as they lead it through the street. Kind of terrifying at times, especially when it would all of a sudden jerk towards me.
More people; as you can see, every group had a different color.
And this was me taking a creeper shot of a random person's shoes because I was thinking of this blog and how I wanted to show what their shoes looked like. They really really really look like socks to me. And some of them made people's feet look very Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-y which was greatly amusing to me.
I'm not usually one to like crazy loud gatherings of people (and believe me, this was one of the loudest things I've ever heard in my life), but this was so different that I SO enjoyed myself. Everyone in the parade was smiling and laughing the whole time. It was so great to see everyone enjoying themselves so much.
End mushiness.
All-around a great day. Unfortunately, we didn't stay at the festival very long; not too sure why, but we were only there for about 2 hours. Sad Ellie. One of these weekends I'll go back downtown and come back with a load of awesome pictures.
Not much else to report; school pretty much consumes my week so I don't have much time to do anything worth mentioning. This weekend I'm doing plenty, however, so whoever out there is reading this: I'll have plenty to talk about next week. ;)
-Ellie
