Sayonara

Whew, we have lots of ground to cover today. :)Sunday was my last day of sightseeing in Singapore. Katie and I had pretty much worn ourselves out on the first 2 days so we decided to take it easy. Our first stop was the botanical gardens! They're huge, and mostly free. There were tons of families having picnics, and it's definitely a cool place to hang out. I love that Singapore has so many lush green areas to counteract the big city feel.
My favorite part of the garden was definitely the orchid garden. They were gorgeous! It was a little too hot for me to spend too much time enjoying them, but they were really pretty. I took tons of pictures!After the garden, we walked around in Orchard Road, a huge area known for its shopping (especially the ritzy variety). We saw a ton of designer shops along with a really cool art museum. Here's one of the sculptures inside...cute puppy!Our next stop was the Charlie Brown cafe! Apparently they're all over Asia...Peanuts characters are really popular there. The food was nothing to write home about, except for the crepes.They have little characters on them! I had the Charlie Brown one and Katie had the Lucy, but they also had Snoopy and Woodstock crepes. Adorable!

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful! We had a mac and cheese party with some of Katie's friends (which was excellent), and went swimming at the campus pool and went to bed early. XD

Monday I went to classes with Katie! She had 3, all of which I don't remember the names for. I first attended the class on physics applications to medical equipment - for example, the lecture when I was there was on radiation and the various machines used to dispense the treatment. We had a lovely talk during the break about the nuclear plants at Fukushima - it was nice to talk to someone who knew what was going on. XD Afterwards, we went to the opposite side of campus for lunch. Before that, though, we stopped by the school market. All of the buildings on campus are clustered into groups (science, arts, engineering, etc.) and are their own islands, kind of. You take the bus to get from cluster to cluster. And each cluster has a huge market! A bunch of people set up tables and sell things, usually clothes and jewelry. I found fork and spoon earrings. XDLunch was in the huge cafeteria in the arts building, more like a hawker center than anything else. I had Chinese food, which was okay. After that I went to Katie's Malay tutorial session. She had a Malay dialogue book which I borrowed from her to try and learn a bit, because the lesson didn't make any sense to me. I managed to learn "Apa khabar? Khabar baik" (How are you? I am well.), "Nama saya Kelsey" (My name is Kelsey), and the various greetings (Selamat siang, for example, is good afternoon). It was fun. :) Her last class of the day was about natural conservation of Singapore, and I must admit I wasn't a huge fan of the class - it was the same conservation stuff we always learn!
We had dinner in the canteen (ie cafeteria) in Katie's dorm, and I got to have pad thai! It was tasty. And afterwards we headed out to Clarke Quay, the area of Singapore known for its nightlife! The cab driver we had was a really odd guy...he talked to us about all sorts of things (but especially safety when crossing streets/exiting cabs and our boyfriends). XD Clarke Quay is gorgeous at night!We also went to a bar called The Clinic. All of the bars and clubs in Clarke Quay are themed. A lot of them are themed around foods - Indochinese, Mexican, Brazilian, Japanese, and more. But some are really quirky, like the Clinic. It has a medical theme! You sit in wheelchairs or on couches that look like medical beds and you can get drinks that come in "IV drips" and big syringes. We decided not to get any of those because they were super-expensive (there's a really high alcohol tax in Singapore, probably to discourage drinking), but I did get to try a Singapore Sling. We then just wandered around Clarke Quay some more before heading back home. It was a great last night!And Tuesday was probably the longest day of my life (no, really). I woke up at 3:30 to catch a cab at 4 am to get to the airport for my 6 am flight. I had my last fresh-squeezed juice and a quick breakfast before heading through security. Note the "Texas Chicken" sign. :) This state follows me everywhere! My flight from Singapore to Nagoya was fine - I watched a really silly Japanese comedy and chilled out on the plane. I had an hour and a half layover in Nagoya, where I picked up a few last-minute gifts as well as my last shaka-shaka chicken (T.T I'm going to miss that) for lunch. While waiting for my flight, I sat next to a really cute American family who had just adopted a little boy from Vietnam. They had a son about the same age, and they were getting along really well. :)

The flight from Nagoya to Minneapolis was not a very pleasant experience. I sat on the aisle (big mistake), with a woman and her young daughter sitting next to me. The daughter wanted to get up every hour or so. X.X Add that to an inability to sleep on planes and an hour and a half of solid turbulence and I was SO ready to get off that plane.

I was so excited when we landed in Minneapolis because I could text people again! I spent my 5-hour layover going through security (no big deal), eating at Chili's(my second lunch of the day!) and catching up with friends. When the plane took off out of Minneapolis, I was dead asleep. And then I arrived in Dallas at 8:30! (yes, still Tuesday).

I must admit, it was a little emotionally exhausting to arrive back in the states. When I got to baggage claim in Dallas and saw my parents, I almost burst into tears. Sort of silly, isn't it? During all of this mess of dealing with leaving early, I've teared up all of twice. And then, the waterworks turn on as soon as I get home. But, life is starting to get back to normal. My first day home I slept in until 2 and schlepped around the house, but I've done quite a bit since then! 2 weekends in College Station and quite a bit of time spent at home trying to get my summer plans squared away. So much to do now that I'm back!

So, with this last post I'm afraid the chronicle of my semester abroad has come to an end. I wish it could have lasted longer, but I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! I like that I will have something to look back on to remember the trip by.

Your last language lesson of the blog is the word "sayonara". Everyone knows that word, right? If you ask anyone on the street what Japanese words they know, the first that come to mind will be "konnichiwa" and "sayonara". But "sayonara" has a more specialized meaning than goodbye. "Ja ne!" or "Ja ato de!" or "Ja, ashita ne!" (bye, see you later, and see you tomorrow respectively) are used on a day-to-day basis. Sayonara is a word used for more special occasions, in which you're saying goodbye to someone you may never see again (or will not see for a while, at least). So it's a much more formal saying. I'd say it's proper for this post, since it is my last!For those of you considering study abroad or even traveling in Japan (or elsewhere!), I highly recommend you go! Japan is an amazing place, full of really cool things and incredibly nice people. And my study abroad experience couldn't have been better, even with all of the "fun" we've dealt with lately. I've made so many good friends and had an awesome semester where I wasn't overloaded with work and had time to just relax. I feel like I've come back with a totally different perspective on life. So, JCMU, thank you! And to the rest of you, thanks for listening. :) I hope to see you soon!

Bread and Shinies

Hi! This will be another assortment of random topics...I just have some interesting pictures to put up, so I have to include the stories. :)

First, kanji lesson of the week! Aizawa Sensei likes showing us random kanji, so I'll post some of the fun stuff here. First, in Japan clubs are a huge deal in high school - everyone is in one, pretty much. The term for students not in a club is pretty amusing (I think, anyway): 帰宅部. '帰' comes from 帰る, return, ’宅’ derives from お宅, the polite term for house, and 部 means 'club'. So, it's the "Return Home Club". XD Another one is more abstract. This character, 門, is the "gate" radical - it's in a lot of things. And the kanji for sound is '音'. Put them together and you get 闇, darkness. Why, you ask? It's because the only sense that is any use is your hearing...sound is your "gateway" to understanding what's going on in the dark. :D
Moving on to shiny things! I have to show off my Japanese cell phone a bit. Thanks to the 100-yen shop down the road and a bit of ingenuity, I now have a garish-fantastic phone that actually looks like a Japanese phone. My phone charms are a bit lacking (ie I only have 2), but this is a pretty good representation of peoples' phones here. Absolutely everything on one's phone is customizable, and people go to town on theirs. And most phones come in at least 6 different colors - it's easy to have an individualized phone. Makes me wish you could do this with things other than iPhones in America!I will miss all the various smilies you can text. This is one of 8 pages of icons! Some are animated, while others aren't. My personal favorites are the ferris wheel, the ghost, and the rocket ship (none pictured here). As far as other cell phone tricks go, the Japanese predictive text option is great! It's a really clever system. English texting is sort of really fail, but livable. Having a cell phone here makes life really convenient. I can't access the internet or text internationally, but it's so much easier to stay in touch with people here! Plus, I feel much safer when traveling by myself.Besides the normal class stuff, we haven't done much this week but bake! We made apple bread and strawberry bread yesterday, and it was delicious! I really wish I had the implements to make something like cupcakes, but that will have to wait until I get home.

As far as travel plans are concerned, we're running out of weekends to go places so I'm starting to make final plans. The TM Revolution concert was sold out (sad day!), so instead I'm going to Nagoya with some friends before they go to a concert themselves. Jury's still out on if I'll join them. :) Other big plans are Tokyo in 1 week, Osaka (again) in 3, and Nara in 4. Might as well make the most of my time left, right?

Have a great end to your week!

Random!

Hello! I hope you all are doing well. :)

Not much to report here at JCMU, except that we have some Japanese students living here now! Students from Otemon University in Osaka are here for an intensive English course, so they're staying in the dorm for the next 10 days. One of the girls, Junko, is my conversation partner for the duration of her stay so we've been talking some. :) We had a welcome party yesterday for all of them, complete with Digiorno pizza and cookies from Costco! I had butterscotch for the first time since my arrival in Japan. Mmm!

Also, we had a really amusing Japanese lesson a few days ago. Aizawa Sensei was trying to explain to us the difference between 2 verbs, both of which mean "help". "Tetsudau" is used when you are helping someone continue what they are doing, like paint a house or do their homework. Tasukeru is used when you are helping someone out of a situation, like if they have a flat tire or if they are dying or something. To demonstrate, Aizawa Sensei had a student pretend he was drowning, and he acted as the lifeguard. When the swimmer said "Tasukete!", he "swam" over and rescued him. However, when the swimmer said "Tetsudatte!", he came over and "dunked" the person further down. XD I will never forget the difference now!Yesterday, I went with Brad to a type of restaurant I've never been before - a yakiniku place! Yakiniku literally means "cooked meat", and that's exactly what they serve you. The coolest part is probably your table - you have a little charcoal cooker nested right inside! They just turn on the gas to heat things up, and then the rest is up to you.You can order all sorts of different meats, but the easiest thing to do is to get a set so you get assortments of lots of different kinds of meat along with some vegetables. 2 of my favorites are here: Japanese pumpkin (kabocha) and Japanese sweet potato (satsuma).
Once everything is cooked, then you get to experiment with sauces. Instead of a plate, you get a compartmentalized tray, so you can have multiple sauces at once. I forgot my Japanese dictionary so we just sort of guessed at what everything was. They had sesame, teriyaki-ish, lemon, garlic, and even chili sauces. Plus, you can add other things like chili paste or sesame seeds to add texture and flavor. Mmmm.

Definitely a treat! :) If you ever go to Japan, I highly recommend going to a yakiniku place. They can be a bit pricy, but they're definitely worth it.

One more thing. :) I'm going to another concert! A band my friends have introduced me to, Abingdon Boys School, has a lead singer who also makes solo albums under the name TM Revolution. And he'll be playing in Otsu! That's between here and Kyoto, making it pretty close. It's going to be in a nice concert hall and everything. So, that's something to look forward to in a few weeks. Here's a sample of his music, as well as ABS's. :)

TM Revolution - Invoke
Abingdon Boys School - Howling

Have a great week! Sorry, I know this was kind of a random post. But this is what happens when I don't have many new pictures. XD

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!

Back to Class!

Let's start with a fun subway icon. :) These are on the special reserved seats you're required to give up for the various people on the squares.

I have more kanji fun for you today as well, though it is a little morbid. The characters for euthanasia are 安楽死. These characters are in the words 安い(inexpensive), 楽しい(fun/enjoyable), and 死ぬ(die). So, together it means "cheap fun death"! In actuality the first character can also mean "to ease" and the second can mean "pleasurable", so it really means "to ease death/make it more bearable". Kanji is fun, right?

On Monday I met with my internship supervisor and went to the elementary school to get a weekly schedule figured out. The school I'll be working at is called Johoku Elementary (which literally means 'north of the castle'), and I'll be working on Mondays for 2 hours a week. The internship actually only lasts 4 weeks as classes end for students in March (and the new school year starts in April!), which is sort of a shame but it should be a fun few weeks. Another girl is doing the internship with me, and we're going to be at the school for 2 periods: one period in which we help teach English, and another in which we participate in club activities. I'm joining the science club. ;) I'm a little nervous about starting on Monday because I really don't know what's going on besides when I should show up, but it should probably all work out in the end!

As far as interesting adventures, not much has gone on this week. We've mainly been watching shows (my count of shows-in-progress has now reached 7) and studying (because preparing for class every day is becoming lots of work!). However, we did make blueberry bread on Monday. Fruit is expensive here, but it's totally worth it because the bread was so very tasty. I now am master of the convection oven, and have figured out that a half-batch of bread (ie 1 American loaf pan-worth) makes 3 Japanese loaves - great for sharing and using as incentive to get kitchen helpers. :D My friends and I have decided to make this a weekly thing! I think we're going to give apple bread a try next.

I also had Indian food today! The main shopping thoroughfare in Hikone is called Bell Road - it's about a 15-20 minute ride away. They have lots of stores and restaurants along it, including an Indian place called Sapna. It had the best naan and chicken curry I have ever tasted. I'll have to get a picture the next time I go because it's so so so good.

As far as life in general in Japan is going, it's going well. It's amazing how quickly the weeks fly by. I can't believe tomorrow's Thursday! The weather is starting to warm up a bit...we haven't had snow in almost a week! This is making it a lot easier to get around town, so I'm biking more. I'm getting used to classes and hanging out with people lots(42 and study parties - almost feels like home). I was a little homesick earlier in the week, but it's easy to not worry so much about that with so much going on! It sort of feels like life at home is on hold while I'm here - I keep forgetting I have to worry about things like class registration for next semester and figuring out grad schools when I'm here in Japan. I'm sure it will hit me once I'm home again. :)

Anyway, I hope you're having a good week. I know there's a "snowpocalypse" blanketing the US right now, so stay warm! Also, in case you've heard anything about the volcano eruption in Japan, don't worry! Kyushu(where the eruption is occurring) is a completely different island, and very much south of us. Take care!

Because I have no new pictures, here's another one of Hikone Castle's garden area. Except for the fee to get in, it seems like it would be a great place to sit and study/read when it gets warmer! :)

So, I have a random Japanese word of the day. :) We learned it in class: gorogorosuru. It's a verb, that means "to be a couch potato", essentially. Gorogoro, incidentally, is also the Japanese sound effect for boiling water in a pot. Sort of sounds like a sinister bubbling cauldron to me! :)

Once again, nothing really exciting has happened lately. Sorry to disappoint! We've just been doing homework and watching shows and playing 42 (and the count of people, excluding me, who know how to play is 6 now!). I suppose life is starting to settle into a routine, now that I've been here 3 weeks (which is crazy, by the way. I somehow manage to forget that I'm in a foreign country sometimes...then I look around and see all the kanji and feel silly for not noticing). This weekend, however, we are heading to Kyoto (and it's a definite trip this time, because I'm in charge of figuring out when and where we're going. :P).

Japanese class is about the same...I'm sort of getting used to having 3 hours of language class a day but I don't think my speaking skills are improving any. XD The history class is still awesome, and really interesting. We just finished covering the Tokugawa period, which is from 1600-1850, and I believe that we'll get to the modernization of Japan next class! Right now we're watching a drama that's actually on-air right now, called Gou: Himetachi no Sengoku (Gou: The Warring States of the Princesses). Oda Nobunaga, one of the 3 men responsible for the unification of Japan and the Tokugawa period, had 3 nieces, all of whom grew up to be very influential and powerful women. Gou is his youngest daughter, and the drama follows the story of her life, starting with her parents. We watched most of the first episode in class, and now I'm hooked - it has awesome music and a good story. If you're interested, you can watch it here (and don't worry, it has English subtitles).

Also, I found out today that I got the elementary school internship that I wanted! I don't know exactly where or when yet...we have a meeting on Monday to talk about it. But it should be fun. :)

Have a wonderful week!

A Quest for Baking Soda

Hi! It's still snowy here. :) We're supposed to get snow this evening and tomorrow, so I may not ever be able to ride a bike around here again. I've been walking around town instead, which I kind of enjoy. You get to stop more and enjoy the sights. I love how pretty everything looks with a nice coat of snow. It's really beautiful!
It's the Ogawa River, I think. This river is about 3 minutes away from campus. You can see a guy fishing in the shadows - usually they just catch them, then throw them back.
A Japanese cemetary. All of the monuments are little obelisks and they're clustered really close together. I don't really know the traditions relating to burial here, though I am curious. I feel like it's a little rude to ask, though.

I have to insert a random kanji (Japanese character) interlude today. As a quick background, kanji are Chinese characters that have been adapted to Japanese. A lot of them are kind of pictographic. Most complex characters are made up of a bunch of simpler characters called radicals. Some radicals have a specific meaning in every kanji. For example, all kanji containing イ have something to do with people (ie 使う, use), all kanji with シhave to do with water (洗う, wash), and so on. So, sometimes you can piece together the meaning of a character by looking at its radicals. It's a really clever system. Here's an example we learned today: the character for bird is 鳥. It contains the radical that means white, 白. ((By the way, I hope you can read all the characters...just realized that might be an issue)) The character for "crow" is almost exactly the same, except for one thing: 烏. If you would notice, the white radical has a line missing. That's symbolic of the fact that because crows are so dark, you often can't see them. This is why I love learning kanji - absolutely fascinating.

Yesterday, after class Amanda and I finally caved and had to go to the grocery store. It was still treacherous getting there by bike, so we decided to walk. No big deal, right? It was a 40-minute walk to the store. Honestly, though, it wasn't bad! I totally didn't notice the time until we got there and then I was a little surprised it took as long as it did. Once we got there, we tried this little snack called taiyaki. They're little fish-shaped (not -flavored, thankfully) pancakes that are filled with something. I tried the custard- and red bean-filled, but I've heard the chocolate ones are also good. :)

I was doing pretty well with finding things in the grocery store, except for baking soda. I needed it for Amanda's cake, and while I found the baking aisle (which is really about a third of an aisle, and full of sprinkles and not much else) I could not find the baking soda. So, Beisia shop clerk to the rescue! Sort of. In our pidgin Japanese, Amanda and I attempted to explain what we wanted. "For baking a cake." We started with. He grabbed a fellow clerk to come help us. We tried to tell him its name in Japanese but apparently garbled it because they both looked at us funny. Then, I tried to explain that it makes the cake rise, but ended up just saying, "When you're making a cake..." and making rising motions with my hands. They were still confused, not surprisingly. I told them the name in English, and they said, "Aa! Baking powder!" "No, not quite..." I answered, at which point he started grabbing boxes off the shelf to show us. And, wouldn't you know it, the baking soda box had "Baking Soda", in English, clear as day, written on the side. Fail. But, the important point is that we now have baking soda, so I can make her cake tonight. And Japanese grocery store workers are exceptionally helpful. I cannot tell you how many times I have asked them, "Sumimasen, ____ wa doko desu ka?" (Most useful phrase ever: "Excuse me, where is ____?", and they are always super-nice and usually take me right to it. I love Japanese customer service.

After shopping, we grabbed dinner (because every grocery store here also has a food court!) - I had ramen while my roommate had McDonald's. Remember the Texas burger? It's not the only one! There's a whole series of 'em: Texas2(with chili; they had the original Texas burger last year with fried onions and barbecue sauce), Idaho(with a hash brown and bacon), Manhattan(with what looks like a deli sandwich crammed in there), and Miami(with nachos on top). :D They all look unappetizing to me!

So, after that adventure (and buying TONS and TONS of food, it seemed like), we took a cab back to JCMU because it was cold and icy and we had lots of groceries. And my roommate called a cab all by herself! I was very impressed. Hopefully I will get to that level of confidence in my speaking skills someday.

Today's been pretty uneventful so far! Besides a bread adventure for lunch. We walked through sleet to go get Vidal, and I have now had tasty custard-filled bread and an orange-chocolate loaf waiting for me for breakfast tomorrow. :D We just had 2 hours of class (and a listening worksheet to complete on our own) today, and besides a quick meeting with one of my teachers I have a free afternoon. My plan is to make something new for dinner (gyuudon, a rice bowl with marinated beef and onions on top, mmmm), bake a cake, and play 42. I promise to have pictures of the carrot cake odyssey...I'm hoping it turns out okay, because I've been craving cream cheese icing.

Have a lovely week! Enjoy staying warm...I keep seeing the weather in Dallas and being a bit jealous.

First Exam and More Viva City!

I'm afraid I don't have any Kyoto pictures yet - our trip has been postponed to next weekend, unfortunately. But that's ok! I still have lots of pictures to post. :)

First things first! We had our first exam on Friday - I thought it was pretty easy, so it went pretty well. After that we had our first cultural activity/presentation thing. It's on ikebana, the Japanese art of flower-arranging.
There's a big difference between Japanese and American floral arrangements. In ikebana, the basic structure of the arrangement is a dish filled with water with a little disk in the middle filled with needles. You stick 3 branches on the needles (which impale the branches/flowers to allow them to stand up) to form sort of a triangle, then you just add flowers as you wish. To the Japanese less is often more - your focus is on making each individual flower stand out instead of putting a bunch in a vase.Here's mine - we each got to make our own after a brief demo. :) The name card has my last name in katakana ("Uitto"). Also, you have a lot of creative license here. The 3 branches (and their lengths and arrangement) are required, but the rest is entirely up to you!

I was up late last night teaching some friends to play 42 - they ended up really liking the game, so I'm sure we'll be playing again soon. :D I'm glad I have someone to play with again, because I was missing it.

Instead of Kyoto today, Amanda and I went to Viva City for some shopping. I had less restraint this time so I bought a lot of stuff. But now, I have pictures to prove to you why it's so hard to NOT buy things.

EVERYTHING is just so darn adorable! There are 3 shops on the first floor dedicated to cute stationary things and jewelry and such. A lot of times things will come as part of character sets - there are several "character sets" that appear on a lot of different things(pens, pencil cases, notepads, etc). One example is Sanrio's Hello Kitty (though you actually can't find a lot of her stuff at random stores). They range from the heart-meltingly cute to the really really strange. I've found 3 sets that I really like - the Alice in Wonderland theme and the Fairytale theme(chibi/miniature versions of Snow White, Peter Pan, Ariel, etc.) are everywhere. But my very favorite is pretty new (and so so so so cute): Sentimental Circus.:3 I love it. It's all cute animals and old-fashioned circus-looking things. How can you not like it? I just looked at the kiosk for a while to figure out what to get. I ended up getting a pencil case, a little elephant phone charm, and some stickers for starters. Honestly, though, I wanted to buy out the whole thing.

Besides oohing and aahing over cute things, we also had lunch! At McDonald's. XD I know, I know. I feel like a bad study abroad student for going. But their fries are delicious! And I actually had something not offered in American restaurants, so it counts as acceptable. :P It made me laugh that they had this outside, though.

I'm pretty sure this is the lovechild of a cheeseburger and a barbecue ribs sandwich. First of all, throwing barbecue on something doesn't make it Texan. I kind of felt the need to defend my state. There are so many better Southern food items you could advertise. Like sweet tea. :P

We also went clothes shopping, with limited success. Japanese clothing is cut differently from American clothing, for two reasons. The first is, of course, that the majority of Japanese women are short and slight in build. Curves don't really factor in to Japanese clothing design. The second reason is due more to fashion. Japanese fashion works towards a different "ideal" than American fashion does - different parts of the body are accentuated. So there are plenty of things that fit...they just fit oddly and don't seem flattering in an American sense.

However, I did find a sweatshirt. Amanda and I stumbled across some really spectacular Engrish clothing, and I found this beauty.
I don't really know where to begin! There are so many parts of this obnoxious sweatshirt that give it cool points. First, there's the screaming bright pink color. Second, there's a rainbow - a glittery rainbow (and I know you can't see the glitter but it's there!) - and some glittery stars. Third, random turtle. Fourth, there is so much Engrish ("I want study something from this beautiful ocean", not to mention the random words). And last, but certainly not least, the shirt contains the words leniency AND undulate. I decided I needed it. And it was less than $10. So I'm wearing it right now. I doubt I'll ever wear it out in public, but it's fuzzy and warm and perfect for cold days where I just stay inside. :) So, yay for garish sweatshirts!

Today was one of those days where Japanese is kind of starting to click some! I'm able to understand a lot more than I used to (even compared to starting out here a week and a half ago). For example, I could read the train marquee that asked if I had eaten crab yet this winter (do I know why this is important? No. It's a start, though. :P). I was able to understand when the crepe lady told me that they didn't have chocolate ice cream and wanted to know if vanilla was an acceptable substitute. And I was able to overhear a father telling his crying toddler son to "Try your best for your mother, okay?" It's a really good feeling to know how much you're learning. I can also order properly in a restaurant, ask for stamps at a convenience store (which took a TON of practice to get right, let me tell you!), and follow directions in a grocery store when I ask someone where something is. I look forward to seeing how my language skills improve over time!

That's about all I know for now! To everyone back home, enjoy your weekend and have a wonderful day. :) And drop me a line if you get the chance! I'd love to hear from you.