Friday, February 25, 2011

Best day ever?

Happy Friday! Because we have a test every Friday here, when I finish that I really feel like it's worth celebrating. :)

What made Friday so good, you might ask? Well, it was just one of those days when everything goes well! It's my first weekend since January I get to spend here in Hikone, so we actually made plans and I wasn't busy rushing off anywhere. The test was okay - I won't say it went really well because it didn't, but I think I did plenty well enough. :) After the exam, we had another cultural activity - Wadaiko!
Wadaiko means "Japanese drums". These three awesome ladies came to perform for us, then taught us a short piece to play. There's a story behind these masks. The person in the middle is a random guy heading home on an errand along a mountain path. He hears this weird noise up ahead, and discovers it's a demon and a monkey, playing drums right in the middle of the path. The man wants to go home but he can't pass by so he has to play the drums in front of him. He likes it so much he decides to continue playing!

I'm afraid I don't have any photos of me showing off my mad drumming skills, but getting to play on that kind of instrument was pretty cool. We also sounded really good!After wadaiko we went out for Indian food out on Bell Road, one of the main thoroughfares in Hikone that's full of shops and restaurants. The restaurant, Sapna, is pretty new but has such tasty food. Look at the naan! It's amazingly delicious...my trial when I get home will be to find an Indian place that's up to snuff.Then, we did karaoke for 4 hours! Japanese karaoke is pretty awesome. You can queue up songs on this little display so there's no time wasted on choosing songs after you finish one. And they have SO MANY SONGS! Of course, their Japanese selection is pretty prodigious - basically every song in Japanese I knew was in that database. But they have a lot of other stuff too! We sang 2 K-Pop songs and I found Nightwish AND Sonata Arctica AND Kamelot! None of my favorites of theirs were there, but the fact that they were there at all was pretty fun. I ended up singing a combination of symphonic metal, random Japanese songs, K-pop and anime intros. I love karaoke, and I can't wait to go back. :)

Tonight we spent teaching more people to play 42! Its popularity is constantly spreading, which is awesome. We played for about 3 hours, and definitely recruited more to the cause. The current count of people here who know how to play is 8, and we have 2 more wanting to learn. I'm so glad I can continue one of my favorite pastimes here. :)

ALSO, I found white button mushrooms at Beisia! I didn't think they were here in Japan at all until I saw them in Kusatsu while shopping with my homestay family last weekend. And they magically appeared at the grocery store. Guess who's making pasta with sauteed mushrooms? :D

Have a fantabulous weekend!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Crepes and Verbing


Hi! So, I think I'm on the mend. Besides a nagging cough, I don't feel too bad at all. :) I'm hoping I'll be completely recovered by Friday...I won't be traveling this weekend (for once), so we're celebrating with Indian food, karaoke, and 42! Friday post-exam is going to be awesome.

Monday we had an adventure and went to Omi-hachiman! My friend Addie's homestay family lives in Omi-hachiman (a town about midway between Hikone and Kyoto) so we decided to accompany her there. We mainly hung around the station, which was fine because there was a big shopping mall right nearby! As with most big cities, the station has a lot of cool stuff nearby. Including a CREPE OJISAN! Oh my, delicious. So, we had yummy crepes and went through shops full of cute things (and I now have Sentimental Circus mugs! :DDDDD) and a music store and generally wandered around the mall for a while.

We've been taking liberties with the Japanese language here at JCMU. In class, of course we have to speak properly, but certain things have been co-opted into our everyday language. Easy ones to integrate are "sumimasen" (excuse me/I'm sorry), "daijobu" (are you okay/I'm okay), "yappari" (as expected), and "tabun" (probably). I'm pretty sure I will be using all of these phrases upon my return - it will be a hard habit to break! My personal favorite, though, is changing the part of speech. For example, the adjective for something you like is "suki" (pronounced "ski"). My roommate today used it as a noun: "This is my suki." And you can sometimes conjugate adjectives as verbs, like daijobu! Using verb conjugations we just learned, you can use the phrase "Daijondemite kudasai", which literally translates to "please try to be okay". That one is probably the silliest, and therefore my favorite. And I'm sorry for the lengthy language lesson, but I've found it amusing.

Besides the Omihachiman trip, not much has happened! I had a paper to write for history, so that (and being sick and a little miserable) has sort of taken up my time. Life is going as normal otherwise, so I don't have much to report. Which is why you get another picture of a plum tree in a pot. XD

New song! It's by Super Junior, a Korean band (yes, another one). It's called Perfection. Ignoring the fur hats, I LOVE the video. I'm definitely becoming a K-Pop fan. :D

Good luck with the rest of your week!

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Weekend Recap

Goodness, there's a lot of ground to cover today! :) I'll start with this cool picture - it's a building near Hikone Station, and is neither a Disney castle nor a church - it's a hotel! And by hotel I mean normal hotel, not the love hotels that are also pretty common here (I think you can figure out what those are!).
On Thursday night we made tacos! One of my friends is good friends with a professor, who picked up some tortillas for us at Costco (which is in Japan, just not anywhere near here). Add that to taco seasoning mix from a friend's care package and we have taco night. It was fantastically delicious, and reminded me a little of home. All I need to figure out how to make now is queso, and then we'll really be in business!
Friday we did not have class! Instead we visited an elementary school and played with kids. It was a lot of fun, because they were all so excited to see us! We got little name tags and everything. And they performed for us! This is a pic of them playing "Puff the Magic Dragon", complete with Japanese lyrics. :3We did calligraphy and played card games with this class. All the kids were amazed that I could do calligraphy properly - thank you, Sanada Sensei! Mine is "tori"(bird) - the complicated one. XDWith the second class, we played a bunch of random games (and they performed for us as well!). There were 4 different stations, at which we did juggling, kendama (a cup and ball game - more on that later), played with tops and also played a game that's a cross between marbles, checkers and pool.

Once I got back to school, it was time to leave for my homestay. My family is the Ishisaka family (which means "stone slope"), and they lived in Kusatsu, a town about 35 minutes away from Hikone by train. It's a pretty big place, as Panasonic is headquartered in Kusatsu. I liked Kusatsu a lot! It's a nice place, from what I've seen of it.Like most traditional Japanese homes, the Ishisakas had a tatami room(named for the flooring) that is used as a guest room. That's where I stayed. The house had no heating, but the 50 layers of blankets I had on my futon made up for it. :) The big display in the background is for a festival known as Hina Matsuri, on March 3rd. Every family that has a daughter has one of these displays and they display them every year to celebrate their daughters' life. There are a lot of different styles to the dolls, but the same structure is present in every Hina Matsuri display: the royal couple, other members of the royal court, and some props (like lanterns).Another traditional aspect of Japanese homes (one that I hadn't experienced before) was the low table. Most Japanese households have Western-style kitchen tables, but a lot of older families use a low coffee table to eat at. It's not as comfortable to sit at, but you do have the advantage of getting to use a kotatsu. Basically, the underside of the table has a heater on it, and you place a thick comforter between the tabletop and the heater to keep all the heat in. So, even if the room is cold you can keep your legs nice and toasty.

Back to my homestay. The Ishisakas were really nice! Eicchi, my homestay father, was about 70 and spoke some English due to his former job as a patent clerk for a pharmaceutical company, though he encouraged that I speak only Japanese. He also has about 50 hobbies: ballroom dance, piano, watercolor painting, gardening, karaoke, ikebana (remember flower arranging?), and even go. Etsuko, my homestay mother, was also about 70 and spoke no English, but spoke slowly and clearly enough that I could understand her pretty well for the most part. They were really really welcoming, and I liked spending time with them.We did the bulk of our sightseeing on Saturday. The family's daughter, Naoko, came with her husband Naoto and they took us to Ishiyama Temple (literally, "rock mountain"), the site where Murasaki Shikibu wrote her great Japanese epic (and one of the first novels ever, and the first written by a woman), The Tale of Genji. I was expecting just a dinky little temple, but it was huge AND gorgeous. Probably one of my favorite temples!
For lunch we had a Lake Biwa special, really tiny clams(in EVERYTHING!). I was not too big of a fan of the meal, but I managed okay - I'm not a big fan of super-traditional Japanese meals, I've decided. It looked pretty, certainly!After that, we went to the Lake Biwa Museum. It had a freshwater aquarium as well as a geologic history of the area and all sorts of conservation stuff. It wasn't the most interesting museum I've been to but I still enjoyed it. There were plenty of fossils to keep me a happy camper. :)
After several grocery store runs, Ishisaka's son Tsuichi and his wife Shoko came for dinner, along with their kids Koichi and Fumika. We had sukiyaki, absolutely my favorite Japanese meal! It was a lot of fun spending time with the whole family. I love their family dynamic - it's not like so many families I know in which the parents just let their kids run wild when they visit other people. The kids were well-behaved and their parents interacted with them a lot. Cute. :)
Sunday I was really expecting to just head back to Hikone, but no such thing! We traveled to the city of Nagahama, which is actually on the other side of Hikone from Kusatsu. Currently the plum blossoms are in bloom so they have a big potted plum tree exhibition. The exhibition was in a building, but the grounds were gorgeous too.
There were tons of pink and white blooms everywhere! I thought it was really pretty. Some of the tree cuttings are hundreds of years old, and they varied in size from little baby trees to ones taller than me (even without the pot).
Nagahama is definitely a city I will be coming back to visit! It's full of pretty glass trinket shops, so I browsed there for quite a while. I mostly looked, because everything was so expensive. But glass jewelry is a weakness of mine, so of course I had to get a piece. These figurines can be made a part of a hina matsuri display! They're a little more stylized than the traditional setups, but I like them!

After Nagahama, I headed back to good old Hikone to catch up on homework and hang out with people. It's so good to be back! As fun as traveling is, it's tiring and I'm glad I just get to chill out here this weekend.

Today I haven't really done much...I've been feeling a little under the weather all day, so hopefully it won't become anything too bad. Have a wonderful week!

Friday, February 18, 2011

So, I was going to post about how fun our elementary school visit was today and how excited I am about our weekend homestay and how good the past 2 days have been. But then I spent 30 minutes scrambling to try and find my room key so I could lock it over the weekend. Needless to say, posting did not happen (and neither did the essay I intended to finish today). So I'm afraid you'll have to wait until I get back!

Have a good weekend! And I'm sorry about the fail post. Good news, though - my key was found.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Nothing but blue skies...


Look at this beautiful weather we're having! :) I was worried when I arrived home to snow on Sunday, but we have clear skies (clear enough to see the mountains on the other side of Lake Biwa) and decently warm weather - it was 2 degrees Celsius(36 F!) today. ;)

Monday was fun - I started my internship! We helped out with an English class for an hour, which was fun. Mainly we played lots of little games and then folded origami. And then the students gave us a bagful of origami figures. They're adorable! I'm kind of amazed by how interested in us the students are - they want to sit next to us and hold our hands and say hello and talk to us in Japanese and English. They're adorable, and all the teachers at the school are really nice. I really enjoy this internship!And today has been a really good day, too. I've biked all over Hikone, it feels like. We first went to lunch at a restaurant that is pretty much as close as you can get to Americanized Chinese food - I have never been so excited for sweet and sour pork and spring rolls. We also rode by this hotel - yes, it is a hotel - on the way and I had to get a picture. My second trip out of the day was to City Hall with a friend, then to the grocery store. I feel like I'm finally getting used to riding a bike around town - it's becoming less of a chore and more relaxing.

This is kind of a weird week - we don't actually have class on Friday! Normally we'd have a test, but we're visiting an elementary school instead so our exam of the week is tomorrow. So we have a listening exam during the end of second hour and an exam during third hour. To make things more confusing, our test is on chapter 15 but we've been covering chapter 16 stuff ALL WEEK. Last week we didn't have a test due to our vacation day so we're a week behind on testing. I think it should turn out okay, though! Plus, tomorrow night we're having tacos, thanks to a friend's care package and a professor's trip to Costco. Mmmm, tastes like home.

That's all I know for now. :) Have a wonderful week! Before I go, though, have a music pick-me-up: it's my homestay sister Kana's current favorite song. It's so cheerful and everything. The song may be in Japanese, but it's actually by a Korean girls' group - there's a lot of crossover between K-Pop and J-Pop, as it's called (but no Japanese person has ever heard of J-Pop, as I discovered a few days ago!). Enjoy!

Shojo Jidai - Genie

Monday, February 14, 2011

Sapporo

Happy Valentine's Day! :) In Japan it's celebrated a little differently than in the US. Here, girls give the guys they like chocolates(not the other way around!). Of course, you also can give chocolates to your friends, but the focus is on the guys. But don't worry, girls get presents in return on March 14th, known as White Day!

I got back from Sapporo yesterday around 3, after a 10 AM flight and lots of train rides. It was a long day. And the weather is about the same here, surprisingly! It's snowing again (lots) - I rode home from my internship in this weather and got completely soaked. Hopefully it won't ice over tonight, as I need to go grocery-shopping sometime soon.

But back to my adventures in Sapporo! It was a pretty whirl-wind trip, but I had such a good time! Forgive the copious amounts of writing...a lot happened this weekend. ;)I started with lots of train travel. This is an eki-ben, short for "eki bento" (station boxed lunch). Each region of Japan has its own specialties, and it's a nice and portable lunch. Mmm!

The first night, I stayed with the Shiratori family, my homestay family from when I performed in the yosakoi festival 3 and a half years ago. My 3 homestay sisters have grown up so much! Mai(left) is going to be a senior in high school (and intending to go to college abroad), Yui(right) is about to attend a music conservatory for high school, and Kana is in 4th grade and incredibly tall. I love them. :)

We went to the snow festival together first - I was amazed by the amount of skill and attention to detail these builders had. My homestay mom actually works as an English guide for the festival, so I got my very own private tour of the place! It's huge! Odori Park, the site of all festivals (including the Yosakoi festival) is 12 blocks long, and every block was covered in ice sculptures. Some were small, like this cute little Toy Story alien. :3

And others were huge - this is sort of a tourism gimmick, as it has Hokkaido's wildlife as well as the Great Wall of China. o.0There was also a sculpting competition - all of them were completed in less than a week! How crazy is that? :)After chilling in Sapporo station to get warm, have lunch and do puri kura, I met up with my other friend Yoshi. We went to Maruyama, Sapporo's zoo. It's too cold for the animals to be outside, so they're all in one room. It was kind of weird.The highlight of Maruyama was definitely the huge ice slide, though.After that we had a small party with some of Yoshi's neighborhood friends. It was fun - they bought me a cake and everything! We had nabe, which is a type of large pot. You typically use it with a tabletop heater so you can cook everything as you go. Nabe can refer to a lot of different dishes, but we had shabu shabu, in which you just boil everything in water. "Shabu shabu" is the sound effect of swishing meat and veggies around in water. I love Japanese onomatopoeias!
I also had a pet dog for the rest of my stay - Chelsea! She's a little bitty papillon, and so so so sweet. :3

End full day one. I told you we did a lot!

We started out Saturday by going to Shiroi Koibito (literally "White Lovers") - a white chocolate factory. It is quite possibly the single most whimsical building I've ever seen.
We got there right as the clock struck eleven - there was a little puppet dance complete with music and bubbles. :D The factory also has a rose garden, though they were all buried under snow this weekend.I loved the museum - it was so cool. The guy who owns the factory just collects random things so we got to see all sorts of random things like chocolate drinking cups, old chocolate packaging, and more.
You can even look down onto the factory floor - and even the factory is pretty. AND the factory has an all-you-can-eat buffet of CAKE. Be still, my heart. I didn't eat there, but I didn't need to - it was just the fact that it was there that mattered!

After Shiroi Koibito, we headed to Hokkaido University to see some old friends. First we stopped at a popular restaurant for Sapporo's specialty, soup curry. So tasty!
We then toured some labs of some of my friends - one girl is doing research on cancer cells, so her lab setup is a lot like the one I remembered from when I worked in a lab. We whined about PCR together for a while. XD
Hokkaido University (Hokudai for short, here) is a lot like A&M, in that it's one of the largest schools in the country and has a big focus on science, engineering, and agriculture. I liked the campus. :)After Hokudai we went to Otaru, a town right off the coast of Japan, for another snow festival. This festival was more rough-hewn, but I really thought it was cool. We stayed until after sunset, which made all the candles really stand out. What a romantic setting!

We even got to contribute to the festival as part of a tour around the city. It was really cold, but I enjoyed it.
Our last big activity was a party at my friend Shio's house. 12 of the Yosakoi festival staff came, and we had a lot of fun together. We had nabe (a different sort this time) and caught up on each other's lives. Everyone's really busy because graduation is next month for them(as are national exams for med school and the like), so I was really touched that so many people came just to see me. Most of them are moving on to other places for careers and grad schools so I'm so glad I came when I did. It was a great ending to a fantastic weekend.

Which brings me to Sunday. I basically just traveled home, baked a cake, played 42 and crashed. Awesome, awesome day. :)

We're not doing a whole lot tonight...celebrating a friend's birthday (with another cake I made - pictures to come next time) and then watching a movie. I'm glad to be relaxing - definitely needed a vacation from my vacation. Enjoy your Valentine's Day - celebrate all the love in your life! <3

Friday, February 11, 2011

Snow Festival

In case you were wondering, I did in fact make it to Sapporo safely(and mostly uneventfully, even!). After 3 30-minute train rides, a 1.5-hour flight, 2 more 30-minute train rides and a short drive, I made it to the Shiratori family's house. I spent the night with them, and then went to the snow festival with them. After that, I met up with my friend Yoshi and went to Maruyama, a nearby zoo that had some cool winter activities (including a giant ice slide). We had dinner at his house, a bit of a welcoming party. And now I'm completely worn out from a long and busy day, so I'm just going to post pictures! Explanations can come later.










Tomorrow is going to be just as busy. I'm going to Shiroi Koibito (a white chocolate factory - otherwise known as heaven in my book), Hokkaido University, Otaru (a small town near Sapporo), and another party with my old friends. Should be fun! Have a wonderful weekend.