| Wow it's been a long tme |
[Feb. 12th, 2009|09:35 pm] |
Yeah I know I haven't been posting at all...I really need to change that! But for now I'll give a quick update on what has happened so far...
November
The last time I posted was back in November when it was finals week the 2nd trimester (in Japan, the school year starts in April not September), now it's almost the end of the 3rd trimester. Anyway, after finals were over, my friends and I took a trip to Okinawa ( a small "tropical" island) We spent 5 days and 4 nights there and it was so much fun. (only costed $390 for hotel and plane ticket!!)
We took a plane from Haneda Airport near tokyo, which is for domestic trips only. It was so cool though to have our plane tickets in Japanese and also they have this electronic check-in where all you do is put in your names and your flight arrangements will popup and then you can change your seats anywhere on the plane. It was really fast, no lines, and no dealing with people. lol.
We got there 2 hours later in the main city, but we only stayed one night there and the rest of nights were on the other side of the island.
It was so beautiful even though it wasn't that warm out.
Throughout the five days we went souvenir shopping, went to an aquarium, and went to a small island off the coast which is where the picture was taken. The water was crystal clear all over the coast. Mainly we just had fun doing whatever...one night we went to a traditional Okinawan bar and there were two siblings who sang traditional okinawan music...i really liked it.
This wasn't them, but here's a video of one of the songs they sang.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFp7tqfXxU8
December
After the trip, we came back refreshed and ready to start the new quarter...well sort of. ^_^
After taking around 14 classes last quarter, I decided to go with the bare minimum 10 credit hours = 8 classes
5 japanese classes, 1 for tracking animals in Nagano, 1 Ling. Anthro, 1 English Idioms
Once the quarter started, I really felt like I was getting the hang of Tsukuba and it's messed up system. I was actually able to understand everything in my classes, I didn't to look up EVERY kanji character, and classes were pretty interesting.
Before I was in a Snowboarding club, but the people in there weren't very easy to talk to, so I changed to a Kayaking club カヌークラブ. The people were much warmer, and invited me to a drinking party the first day I got there!! This is how the week played out:
wednesday:
I had applied for a short Homestay with a Japanese family in a nearby town Moriya 守谷, so I had finally gotten the information about it and had to call the family that day to let them know that I was coming on saturday morning. I had talked on the phone in Japanese plenty of times before, but I don't know why but I was actually really nervous and found myself browsing through JSL (my japanese textbook from OSU) looking for clues..lol...I figured out what I was going to say and made the call, but actually it wasn't that difficult at all. I just used as much keigo (polite Japanese) as possible and left a message for the mother who was the one who had applied for the program. It went very smoothly and wasn't bad at all!
Went to my first meeting, and was introduced to everyone. There were around 6 girls and 2 guys at the time. The were talking about the up coming 忘年会 (bounenkai: literally Forget the Year Party) that Friday. All over japan, they have a 忘年会 where they drink alcohol and talk. lol...I just found a wiki entry for it!! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C5%8Dnenkai
Then they started talking about the big competition coming up クリスマスカップ, so they asked me whether I wanted to go to the competition. Since it was my first time in a club meeting it was really hard for me to understand them...so at first I thought they had asked me whether I wanted to be IN the competition, but really they were just talking about going to competition to practice and support the other club members. lol. I said yes, and they talked about how it would be in two weeks. Since it was coming up soon, we decided to practice on friday afternoon.
Thursday:
Went to class all day and then had tutoring for an hour at Bigboy (yes! there's Bigboy in Japan..how random! but unfortunately it's completely Japanifide T_T I tutor about 3 times a week: Toru, Sato (friends who work together, I met Toru through Nate, and Sato through Toru), and the last one is with two high school guys (their family has been hiring exchange students for years: each one passed down from the one before. As far as I know, an Australian girl gave the job to Kyle who gave it to Nate who gave it to me..lol. and I will late pass down this tradition ^_^) ohh yeah Kyle and Nate are from OSU, but Kyle graduated and is back in Japan with the JET program.
So Toru and I had arranged for us and Sato to have dinner at his place with his family on Friday.
Friday:
12pm: went out in the pond on campus 天３池 (ama san ike) and kayaked around the pond. It was my first time kayaking in a pond, but I had kayaked in rivers since I was around 7 or so. However it had been 5 years since I had last kayaked so I was kind of nervous.
3pm: went shopping with my friend Clara to look for gifts for our host families (it's customary in Japan if you are going over someone's house you should bring a gift, usually food). I bought cookies for Toru's kids, candy for him and his wife, and Tskuba Omiyage (souvenir) for my host family. (Every Prefecture/city something they are known for [food or activity], a mascot, and a Omiyage お土産
5pm: get home and take a shower and get ready to go over Toru's house.
8pm: picked up by Sato and head over to toru's house where we greet his family (I give him the gifts) and sit down at the table. That night we were having Tsukiyaki which is basically where we cook cut up meat on a portable burner on the table with some vegetables and then we take it off the burner with our chopsticks and dip it into raw egg. I was disgusted when I found out what we were dipping it into, but actually it was so good!! So we sat there ate a lot, talked a lot, and ended up going home at 11pm.
11:15: get home and text one of my club members to come and pick me up for the 忘年会. She picks me up and we arrive at a house. We walk in, take off our shoes, and walk into the living room: HOLY CRAP! I wish I would've taken a picture of this because it was insane! There had to have been almost 30 people crammed into this tiny living room on couches, chairs, the ground or in the kotatsu which is a japanese style table with a heater inside while blankets cover the sides. (since there is no central heating in most areas of Japan, there are a lot of these type of gadgets). Anyway, I had no idea there were this many ppl in the club because I definitely did not see them at the meeting. lol. The minute i got there, a guy got out of the kotatsu and let me sit down there!! it was so nice!
But it was soooo much fun. I was talking to a girl I had met at the meeting who was telling me about her study abroad in Australia. Then we started talking to another guy who reminded me of my older brother..lol..because he was so funny and blunt. We were talking about how different manga series are popular in each country. A series that is popular in Japan isn't always popular in the US or Australia. Everyone was soo nice, and I was so surprised at how much I actually understood! We stayed there until 4am and went home.
Saturday:
9am: got up and ready for the train to go to Moriya for the homestay. Met other Tsukuba int. students who were doin the homestay too, and we were all nervous and excited to go..lol. We were talking about what we were giving our homestay families as omiyage.
10am: we arrive in Moriya meeting up with the head of the program, who ended up being my homestay mother! lol.
11am: we arrive at a community center for a welcome party. There were so many Japanese people there..lol..and only 8 foreigners. They had us register and line up with the other japanese people there. Then they proceeded to call off the int. student's name and then her host family's name....going down the list of names. Then they came accross my friend Clara's name and then her family, which ended up being an old guy by himself. She walked over to him and they took a picture of them and I swear it looked like a rapist picture!! lol. But actually he ended up being a high school principal and really nice.
My host mother was busy with planning the party, so I mainly talked with her daughter who is around my age and goes to Waseda University. Her name is Tomo-chan. We are surprisingly a lot alike, and she was so easy to talk to. So we just spent the rest of the party eating sushi, pizza, and fried chicken talking to everyone. We did some calligraphy 書道 and made our own hanko 判子 (Instead of signing your names, Japanese people use a stamp that had their kanji characters on it, when they have to sign an important document for the government, they need to have a specially made one)
4pm: the party ended and everyone was going home, but there ended up being yet another party nearby which my host mother was running, so we headed over there right after the party. However, it became so tiring talking in Japanese for so long and meeting so many people at once. But that didn't matter because we still had to help prepare for the next party. This one wasn't connected with the homestay program but with the townspeople.
the party started and it was really interesting.. I met the most random people! The minute I said I was the US, everyone started telling me about their random travels there...one person start speaking spanish to me. I told him i didn't know spanish but he continued to speak it to me and then walked away. lol.
But one thing that keeps annoying me is that I try so hard to get away from using english, but people constantly speak english to me. Other Japanese people even tell the person who's speaking english to me (this has happened so many times I can't even count) but that person continues to speak in english. Sometimes I have no idea what their saying their english is that bad. **sigh** I didn't think it would be so hard to speak in Japanese in freakin' JAPAN! I want to hear what phrases are used in different situations...how am I supposed to do that when they use ENGLISH?!?!
8pm: finally ended the party and went back to their home. I was exhausted, but we continued to talk.
Anyway, I'm sorry I'm gonna have to end this now, but I will post again with the rest!! See ya!
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