I'm Joining a Club

Starting next week I will be in the Japanese sign language circle/club. I can alsread say a few things like my age, where I'm from, things I'm good and bad at, things I like etc. I'll never ever use it.. but it's still fun.

Okinawa Day #5

Our last full day in Okinawa was spent in the Old craft village north of where we were staying, near the American marine base. This old village was created for a TV drama and turned into a craft and activity village for locals and the occasional tourist.

Four of us weaved a cloth thing. It was actually pretty fun, even though my stripes weren't even and my OCD-ness prevented me from liking it to much. I took a lot of cool pictures there. We walked through the banana tree green house and had a good time just chilling there. We ate lunch at a place across the street. And the others did some shopping there as well.

Taking pictures was my favorite part of this day, so the post is a little boring. Wait for the pictures later.

Okinawa Day #4

Our fourth day was spent at the glass factory and wonderful Okinawa world!

We took two cabs to the glass factory to save about 2 hours in our commute. John, Andra and I were in one cab, where the guy kept talking to us in Japanese... Andra was the only one talking to him. I was reading a book and John was listening to music.. and I was purposefully ignoring the driver LOL. Andra sort of understood him I think. Anyhow we got to the glass factory safely. At frist I wanted to pay to blow glass, only 2000 yen, but everyone was too chicken to talk to anyone and too chicken to do it with me so we decided just to shop instead. I got a few cool things in the glass store. I bought my favorite souvenir here that I will show everyone when I get back.

If I ever go back to Okinawa I would come back here! Okinawa world is a cultural theme park all about Okinawa, (no cool rides). We got to watch traditional dancing and drum playing. We went to a snake show. John wanted to see the famous Okinawan Snake vs. mongoose fight but alas no gory fights were shown. We went to the cultural museum there. Had a wonderful lunch in the cafeteria. (can't remember what I ate anymore though sorry). We all bought Hibiscus tea, which I LOVE because when it's cold it's sweet and when it's hot it's bitter. My host parents don't like it much but I think it's 'Yum.'

I think the best part of Okinawa world was the underground caves we got to go in. I'm going to say it's about a 20 min fast walk through. Prob. took us a little under 50 mins because we were taking a lot of pictures and stopping here and there. There was one area in the caves that completely freaked me out. The room/area had a step down area and when you walk out into the open area you look up and thousands of little spikes are starring at you. I was paranoide that they were going to break off and fall on me and kill me.... even the smallest one would have. Then this stupid little kid ran by and shouted really loud and banged his feet on the ground. I was making choking motions in his direction because I really wanted to kill that kid! Brat! Other then the scary parts the caves were very pretty.

Okinawa Day #3

Our third day was spent at the beach. It was a GREAT day weather wise. We took the monorail and the bus. The bus ride took about an hour and a half and was very expensive. Buses ni Hirakata are 220 yen no matter where I go, at most 250 yen. In Okinawa a normal ride could and did go up to 1000 yen. It made transportation very expensive for the rest of the week, (we rode the bus to get to our destinations). It wasn't beach season in Okinawa so the close beach was closed. It was really nice, warm weather to us foreigners but we saw people walking around in fleece sweatshirts. The hotel people didn't understand we wanted to go swimming in weather they think is too cold.

Not much to write about this day, we swam, took pictures, had fun and went back and had some famouse okinawan food. Pictures tell this story better than words.

Okinawa Day #2

(Sorry for the long wait guys I was a little busy with a paper this week)

The second day of Okinawa we all woke up early to go to Shurijo Castle, an old Ryukyu Kingdom castle. (The Ryukyu Kingdom inhabited the island for hundred of years before the Japanese took over in the late 1800s). We took the monorail and walked a little ways. If you don't take the monorail or bus... you have to walk everywhere.

When we finally found it, about 15 mins into the walk, we walked up the ramp and into the castle grounds. We toured the entire grounds, inside and out. When we went inside the guest quarters and the main throne building we had to removed our shoes. I had worn sandals that day and most of us were walking barefoot. It was an interesting experience (I have never been barefoot in public in Japan.. weird feeling, socially awkward). I took a bunch of pictures but the buildings were dimly lit and most of them didn't capture the beauty of what we saw.

A lot of famous places in Japan are undergoing renovation. Half of outside the castle was under construction so you can see it in the pics, so I bought a postcard with the entire pretty building showing.

After the castle we took the monorail to the 'Mile' which is a mile long street with famous shops and eating places on it. We bought most of our souvenirs there. We ate a a spagetti shop for dinner. Japanese spaghetti is different, different ingredients, different taste. Not at all like Italian or American style.

Okinawa Day #1

I went to Okinawa with Emily, John, Andra, Tiffany, and Mieko. We left on Monday morning to the Kansai airport around 10 in the morning. I over packed by a lot and my shoulder hurt walking with my duffel bag. Taking the train was VERY expensive for usual train costs here. I prob. spent 20$ to get to and from the airport. We took the limited express trains, and got there at about an hour or so later. We chilled in the check in area waiting to pick up our tickets. When we got in the terminal we just waited around at the gate. Japanese domestic flights have the nicest security. Didn't have to take off my shoes, didn't have to take off my sweater, very fast and convenient. We took a JAL flight, and the snack they gave us was this slice of hard Italian-type bread that was dipped in white chocolate... MMMMMMMmmmm! I loved it. The flight was a little less than two hours there (took less no the return trip).

We took Okinawa's monorail to our hotel. Okinawa doesn't have trains, just a single monorail system and buses. (We were soon to find out that taking the bus in Okinawa would deplete our funds). We walked about 5 minutes to our hotel. It wasn't the nicest hotel, but it had great access to the monorail and good restaurants around it.. and for the price we all paid it was very good. We got three hotel rooms. Mieko and I shared a room. We survived off of convenience store food the first night.

Spring break is Over

And I'm too lazy to post. I will write the posts tonight and quickly add them tomorrow morning.

Note To Readers

Obviously I am not taking my computer to Okinawa. So please don't expect any updates after This weekend. When I leave I will not be posting again until I am back in school, with access to good internet. Thank you for your time. :]

Weekend/ Vacation Plans

Tonight I am going over my neighbor's neighbor's house to meet the three girls that live there. They invited me over for dinner. One girl is in high school, one in junior high, and one in primary school. They've been wanting to meet me since my host parents told their parents I was coming. Sounded like fun and they know English and I can try out my short form Japanese on them.

Saturday Is up for grabs. Don't really know what we are doing. I think Lunch and karaoke are being talked about.

Sunday I am going back to the Kyoto Flea market at Toji temple. Then Sunday night we are going to the light festival. For the past two weeks, certain temples in Kyoto have been lit up at night and we all wanted to go. The last day is Monday so we decided to go on Sunday.

Monday morning everyone that is going on the trip is meeting at Hirakata station, then we are taking the train to Kansai International Airport/ KIX. Our flight leaves around 3. We are going to Okinawa for the whole week. We don't have specific plans once we get there, but some people want to swim (they are crazy cause it's freakin cold still) and I am happy to sit on the beach and sleep/ or read. I want to take a glass boat ride to see some coral and try Okinawa's unique food. But that's about all I have planned.

Awesome Teacher

Update on Midterms

Midterms are completed. A week of Japanese tests exhausted my studying skills. They are a bit rusty you know. The last time I studied for a Japanese test was freshman year. Classes here are way tense and I couldn't not study for them. I think I did really good on my reading, kanji, and translation. I think I did OK on my interview and my grammar sections.

I got my culture test back. I got a 101!Yay for bonus question~! Also, the story for the picture. I got finished with the exam really early and there was this picture of Godzilla at the bottom of the page. I decided it was my duty to 'finish' the picture. I got comments back on it. ;P

Grandma Camp

Dear Grandma,

I'm glad I got to say goodbye before I left to Japan. I'm glad I got to say 'I Love You' one last time. I'm glad that you are no longer in pain. But I'm not glad that I couldn't be with you in your last few days, or even at your funeral. I hope that God has blessed you wherever you are now.

I love you Grandma Camp.

Sunday with Okaasan.

Okaasan took me, with her friend, to Hirakatashi's once a month flea market. I didn't buy anything big, but we sampled a lot of food. Okaasa was mean on Sunday though. Here's how it went down:

We were walking along the stalls and she went off to buy something and get free samples. I went to the handmade jewelry shop to look around. She came back with a spoon full of something I didn't recognize. I had been chatting with the shop owner as best I could up until that point. (Basically she asked if I was a college student, and I replied yes, I go to Kansai Gaidai, I'm here with my host mother). Okaasan stuck the spoon out for me to eat it. I asked her what it was but she insisted I just eat it. I should have been suspicious when the shop owners started giggling at us. I ate it. It was Natto wrapped in a brown lettuce thing. Then Okaasan asked Is it delicous? I said, in a very loud voice, NO IT IS NOT DELICOUS. Then the shop owners laughed at me more.

My Sumi-e Midterm

Waterfall

Friday/ & Osaka Aquarium

Last friday the gang decided to go to the Fire festival in Kyoto which only happens once a year. I was torn between going and studying for my tests this week. But since I knew that Sat. we were going to the Aquarium I stayed home. Luckily for me, Unlucky for them, they got there late and were about a mile away from the actual ceremony. So they didn't see much, but two torches. They didn't get to see the Temple on fire (not really on fire, but the torches ON the temple) so I didn't miss anything.
On Saturday morning we left for the Aquarium, with Tiff this time. YAY! Tiffany usually has club things on Saturdays so I was happy she could come with us. If I said Kobe reminded me of Baltimore, then Osaka Aquarium reminded me on the Inner Harbor even more so. The Aquarium wasn't as big as Baltimore's but it was still REALLY nice and I had fun going through it... up until my camera decided it didn't want to take any more pictures.. T___T I was in a bad mood up until lunch for this reason. We had lunch at this mall place next to the Aquarium. I had my frist Japanese KFC... and it was amazing. Emily got Subway. And I can't remember what everyone else got. After lunch we walked around, found a Hello Kitty store and a Ninja/shinobi store where I bought my geisha doll and two postcards. After we shopped around it was time for our Imax movie. We bought tickets to go see the "Under the Sea' Imax movie. It was in Japanese so we didn't understand it.. but the visuals were great and there was such pleasant music we all got a little sleepy. After the Imax movie we went to buy tickets for the big ferris wheel. It used to be the biggest in the world a few years ago, but it has since been outmatched. Never-the-less, it was HUGE. John was a little scaredy cat so he sat on the floor while the rest of us enjoyed the view of the Sunset from it. After that..we walked to this park, where a sign declared the park was 'Japan's smallest mountain' It was really a hill. We were all confused. We went back to Hirakata for dinner, because we knew the food was cheaper. We ate at a chinese restaurant, and I got Ramen.

Yay Free time!

This week is midterm week so I've been very busy studying for my exams. SO far I have done my Culture midterm, my Speaking Japanese Interview, and my sumie painting midterm. Today I have my Reading test. Thursday my Listening Comprehension, and Friday my Kanji test.

I have a small paper to write for April 1st, which I'll be doing while on vacation next week. Since I had some free time today before my test I figured I'd update people on what's going on.

ICK

Last night I didn't finish my dinner. I wasn't even close to getting halfway. My host family thought I was sick. I was sick. Sick from disgust. I didn't have the heart (or the stomach) to tell them their food was horrible. Horrible in every sense of the word. Period. One bite out of the bean curd filled with a mysterious substance made we want to gag the other food I could get down. I usually eat the nasty food first, I USUALLY can get it down, but not last night.

I lost my appetite after the mystery food for the rest of the night and because of that my host parents thought I was sick. They kept pestering me to eat stuff, (which would have made me vomit right on the spot), they kept asking if I was ok. YES DAIJOUBU!(I'm ok) now leave me alone! Aaagh -___-;

Parents...

Memorial Garden

My Photography
Otousan took me to Kansai's memorial garden with his photography club. I don't remember what the memorial is for, but having been here a while now I'm sure it's either about peace, or about taking care of the earth. The people in his photography club were really friendly and I had so much fun that I was thinking about getting a SLR camera and persuing photography more. The park/garden was HUGE and Otousan got us lost a few times. Most of the park was pretty, except the late Spring/Summer area which ahsn't bloomed yet and looked completely dead still. I'm sure it will be amazing later though. It seems every time I get to go flower viewing it's either raining or Freeeeezing. On Sunday, I had both. Despite the cold though I had a lot of fun and I got some great pics with my mini camera.

Memorial Garden- Picture

My photography.

Shin Saibashi

I bought a new purse and I finally bought a bento set. I couldn't decide between a Charlie Brown style or Hello Kitty, but the Hello Kitty ones had more pieces so I picked that. The Hello Kitty store in Shin Saibashi was where got it. I got the My Melody one though, because the Hello Kitty one was red, and I wanted pink. It comes with chopsticks, two onigiri packs, the bento box, and the carrier. It's very cute.

Shin Saibashi was even more crowded than Namba, but this area is very famous anyway so I guess it's expected. I found the Glico man and took the 'tourist' photo with him. (Glico makes pocky for those who don't actually know who that company is) We found some weird people wearing pokemon PJs in the street... I still claim that Japanese girls can make anything look cute on them... even those bright neon fuzzy overalls I found in the mall.

Namba Walk

After the Peace Museum the girls (and John) and I took the subway to Namba. We originally wanted to go to Osaka castle, and to eat lunch. But we couldn't find a place to eat and it wasn't really a nice day to go see the castle. We walked around the castle gates and I got to see the NHK building. They are the Television station that my Host parents watch everyday. I watch the NHK news every morning. We checked out the inside of the building and then decided to go to Namba cause we were getting hungry. Namba is another large underground mall. I'm beginning to think they are very popular in Japan. It cuts through the subway/train station so there's a good number of people. We had lunch here. I got this takoyaki mac N cheese thingy, with a shrimp and cheese over rice thingy. I also got a strawberry parfait. It was very good, and I was glad I spoiled myself that day. The Namba walk was fun and we were there a few hours looking around, but nothing worth blogging about happened. Lol

Osaka Peace Museum

On Saturday Morning I finally got the chance to go to Osaka. Emily, Andra and I followed John and his class on their field trip. The museum was a WWI museum. It is a localy funded place so the biggest portion of the museum was dedicated the Osaka bombings from the B-29 bombers (hope I remembered that correctly. The bottom half of the museum had pictures and memorabelia from the era. There were old propaganda newspapers, guns, diary entries talking about their inscription, etc. There was a VERY small space dedicated to the Pearl Harbor attack. There was a huge section on the atomic bombs. They had pictures of affected people.. (really nasty to see, made me kind of sad). They had pieces of melted debri which was cool to look at. We got to see an educational video that gets shown to elementary schoolers who visit there. This is where the different in educational systems are shown. The video was animated but is showed gore, violence, it didn't put the war in context, kind of put a bad light on the Americans, although we weren't actually mentioned by name. It portrayed the US as arbitrarally bombing all over Osaka, but as John's teacher taught us, they were strategically picked areas that were bombed (important gov. buildings, railways, etc.) I wouldn't go as far to say it is a propaganda video, but I can say that it is specifically made for little children to be scared, getting an emotional rise from students. My impression of the museum is so so.

Update

Nothing much is really going on nowadays. I don't do many interesting things during the week to blog about. I've been getting things ready for adding classes for the Fall. I'm going through all my leftover requirements. They are mostly Gen Eds. (Two of which are sciences/labs that I haven't done yet D:) I have to get my course equated again, since I didn't take the classes I signed up for.

In my culture class we discussed the Japanese school system, with comparisons with the American and Chinese school systems. The Japanese (elementary level) school system we looked at emphasized collective and group interactions/togetherness, peer to peer interaction, and little adult discipline/rather discipline from your peers. Sounds boring to some but I was entertained by the discussion.

Eating lunch at New Dehli again. The Indian restaurant across the street from the school. I can taste the curry now Mmmmmm....

Midterms and Spring Break

Midterms are next week! Haha The semester here is shorter and it doesn't really feel like I've been here for over a month but I have. I saw the schedule posted for midterms this morning which is reminding me to get a head start on some of my work for the second half of the semester (the more I do now, the less I ahve to do later).

Also, my Spring Break plans are set in stone, paid for, etc. etc. My group, John, Emily, Andra, and I, are going along with our friends Tiffany and Mieko to Okinawa! We will be there from the 22nd to the 27th. (We planned this before all of the earthquake nonsense. So hopefully they won't come again while we are there.) We bought a package deal through Kansai Gaidai's travel service. We will be flying there and back. We will be staying in nice hotel, which thankfully is pretty cheap. I personally plan to do some reading, and catching some ZzZ's on the beach, try out some of their famous food, and maybe take a glass bottom boat ride to look at coral.

Raw Egg for Dinner

I narrowingly escaped eating raw egg for dinner last night. It's a popular food here in Japan aparently, where you take your bowl of cooked rice and mix in a raw egg. I politely declined.

Flower

Plum Blossom

Hanami (Flower Viewing)

The first signs of spring have shown themselves in Japan. The flowers have started to bloom, so my Okaasan decided we should go out to have a picnic. In the morning we made onigiri and some fried chicken and a bunch of other picnic foods and packed them up in the car. It was nice inside the house, but after a while it was a little cold outside. But we toughed it up and sat in a really nice area. A little crowded but not in our general area. I don't think anyone in Japan minds the cold because it doesn't stop them from doing things outside. The flowers were just beginning to bud and I can't imagine how pretty that area will be in a week or two more when the flowers are fully bloomed. We ate, too a bunch of family photos and took a walk around the lake to warm up.

Cooking Class

This weekend was full of new things, just like always. This weekend my group from school had all different schedules so I decided I'd give this weekend to my host parents. (After our Friday's weekly karaoke night of course) Saturday began with a whole day of fun for me. After I did laundry and hung it outside I got ready to go to Hirakatashi. I needed to get my new train pass, which was more difficult than I thought. I forgot to get the slip of paper from Kansai Gaidai so I could only get a one month renewell instead of the three month pass. I'm going to lose a few bucks over this, but not too much. After I got my new pass I walked over to Hirakata's community center where my class was. My host mom does a lot of things with community centers so she signed me up for this cooking class (she often ahs me help her in the kitchen at home and it's fun to learn how to make Japanese food). There were a few other Kansai Gaidai students, but most of them were just other foreigners living in Hirakata. Hirakata is home to a large population of forigners, because of Kansai Gaidai and businesses. This class taught us how to make a bento. Everything was really simple and I fully intend on making more bentos when I return home. As I said on my facebook photo albumb: I made Onigiri, chicken wrapped over carrot slices and a green veggie, fried tofu, two different types of bean curds, one with a boiled egg and one with beef and carrots. We made rice noodles and an apple, fake cheese and cucumber salad. I wrote down all the directions (I'm going to make everyone try it when I get back! :D)

After class I went back home. On the way back I bought a mini fower arangement for my otousan because tonight we were going out for his birthday. We went to a western style restaurant about 20 minutre drive away. It had all you can eat bread. The 'bread people' I dubbed them walked up to each table about every 3 minutes to give you more. I got to eat with a fork and knife again.. T_T We had cold water to! We ate chicken and asparagus and shrimp in a white sauce thing. Carrot soup. Deliciousness. Mmm

Request

I've been requested to find out what the Japanese people think about Hiroshima. Now normally I have no qualms about asking people personal questions.. I just do it, but I don't know if that kind of outgoing... / assertive behavior would go over well in asking. So I did it anyway and asked my host parents how they felt about it. (They are an older generation and I figured they'd give me a better answer than my speaking partner). This might shock some people, because it shocked me, but they were honestly taken aback, not about the question, but that I knew about it. Odd right? Well maybe, maybe not. A little explaination is in order here.

Japan's education system has a notorious/historical reputation of rewriting their history text books to suit the state's needs. (For example, if you want to instill national pride change your history books to show that you were 'always' a powerful nation, etc. ) I honesty don't know if this practice still continues, if it does it's not very noticable. But yeah moving on, my personal thoughts on this is that they think all countries do this so the states can keep their dark secrets from their people. Again, only speculating but the only thoughts they shared on the subject were ones of suprise at me knowing about the atomic bombs.