Music and Dancing

Hello! We have embarked on our first short week of the semester - we get Thursday and Friday off as our spring break. I'm going up to Sapporo, but I'll wait on all of that info until later.

We went to Nagoya on Saturday! The Matenrou Opera concert was on Saturday, so we got all dressed up and headed to Nagoya. I felt much less like a foreigner because I was dressed like the typical Japanese girl dresses (and rode my bike to the station in said outfit as well).Note the short dress(shorts can be substituted), boots, and tights even in cold weather. I still don't know how they do it.Our main sightseeing stop was here, at Nagoya Castle. It's huge! It's famous for its "dolphins", big gold fish at the top of the castle.Lunch was a Nagoya special known as kishimen, a noodle soup bowl with really wide noodles. Mmm.

After lunch we headed over to Electric Lady Land, the site of the concert. But first, we managed to find a cool shopping area to wander around in. Hooray for following random alleyways!

I wish I had pictures from the concert, but all cameras were practically confiscated so I kept mine hidden. Japanese concerts are so different from American ones! For one thing, everyone stays in their own bubble - no one tries to get in your way. And the fans are so polite! Yelling is kept to a minimum, and after ballads you clap. CLAP. My favorite part, however, is the hand movements. Depending on what's happening in the song, you perform certain dance moves. You might move your hands or pump your fist or headbang sideways - it's all choreographed by some obsessed fans and you just follow along with them. So much fun! The best part was that it was at a tiny venue so the band actually lined the exit so you could shake hands with all of them. Really awesome.Dinner afterwards was equally delicious - Katsu Curry. It's a pork cutlet covered in curry - 2 of my favorite things means you can't go wrong. :D

The Nagoya trip was almost completely successful, but with one exception. We had to change trains 3 times on the way home, because trains run less after 9 pm. The plan was to go from Nagoya to Gifu, Gifu to Maibara, and Maibara to Hikone. We got to Maibara at 11:20, but the last train for Hikone left at 11:05. We ended up just taking a cab back - luckily Maibara station isn't far from JCMU. Lesson learned, though! :)Yesterday was pretty uneventful, with the exception of samurai kenbu. It's a ceremonial dance performed with swords. We actually got to dress up in costume and everything. It was sort of luck of the draw, but mine thankfully matched. XD Wearing the costumes really made it awesome.We did a dance, which was fun(though I was no good at it). And then we took lots of pictures!

I also had my first internship today and met my conversation partner, but I'll save those for later. I'm tired. XD Apparently I'm still not used to being busy all the time. Have a good week, and I'll talk to you all on Wednesday. :D