Top left: My badass brother, Yoshihisa. He buzzed his his dreadlocks so his head is just really fuzzy and now and I'm always dying to not creepily rub it.As for my okaasan (host-mom), she's really extremely sweet and always offering me invitations of some sort...I get a lot of どこ/なに/いつ でも。。。's from her telling me to pretty much do as I please. She also vacillates between telling me to eat as much as I want and telling me that I shouldn't eat anything I don't like or if I'm full. It's a bit of a dilemma trying to decide how much of a stereotypically rude 外人 I can be w/o actually offending my family, especially since she keeps encouraging me to be rude o_O. I also have to resist the urge to cross my legs Indian-style whenever I'm in the living room watching tv on the couch. She also keeps encouragin me to use this mini-fridge stuffed with drinks, or she always comes to my room laden with grapefruit juice (OMD I LOVE GRAPEFRUIT JUICE) and iced coffee (I know, I know, I'm not supposed to drink coffee anymore---but it's decaf) because she knows my tastes now, haha. She even brought me a little container full of snacks "to eat while I studied," including delicious cookies from "Ishiya Patisserie"--apparently patisseries are as big of a deal as Absolute Boyfriend implied.
White chocolate filled "Siroi Koibito"---om nom nom! The first night of homestay (Wednesday), she, Yoshihisa, and I went to a sushi place with conveyor belts of food that go around the restaurant. Ashok, Yiwen, Thanu, and I had gone to a similar sushi place just a few days earlier actually, where the plates are color/design-coded to indicate prices. My okaasan was very surprised to see that I ate natto (fermented soybeans), but I definitely feel that natto-sushi is easier on the stomach than really raw, really fresh Hakodate fish. I'm actually okay with the fish part, but that particular place put wasabi in their sushi and I'm not a big fan >.<. Also, I swear, I won't always write about food---I'm turning into Nick, haha. Anyway, as I said before, my house is located right behind 五稜郭公園. Ashok, Yiwen, and I all went there last Sunday after doing some minor shopping at a bookstore and Daiso (comparable to a dollar store in America). We all had fun reading (and successfully translating) a children's book about a white-bear-airplane, aka しろくまひこうき!
Ashok proudly holds up the most amazing book in the world: Sirokumahikooki, takaku, takaku!(White-bear-airplane, higher, higher!)
The three of us wandered about the 五稜郭 area in search of Book Off and a Hard Off (don't tell me you didn't snicker at that, because everybody does) which Adam had told us about the previous night (he was this Harvard grad who'd gotten locked out of his hotel room and decided to chill in our room since he'd heard us speaking English). We got directions from a bunch of locals (including this middle school aged schoolgirl who looked really comically perturbed about why the weird 外人 were speaking to her), but we think they may have all given us different directions (there are about 5 Book Off's in Hakodate, apparently) and didn't help. However, Thursday night, I actually saw the stores in question while driving to some restaurant for dinner with my homestay family and relatives. I'll definitely have to go back and get a picture of the Hard Off sign because I'm just that mature.
Speaking of Thursday night, it seems that I have an aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandparents who live right next to us, woo! The cousins are adorable--Aoi and...Shiyori (I'm sure I spelled her name wrong), both elementary school age, although Aoi may be in middle school. Dinner was amazing and I tried all manners of food, including "Tori Osiri" which means "Chicken Butt." Not even kidding. I also had takoyaki (octopus balls!) and squid (Ika!) and all manners of food. Squid is kind of Hakodate's thing, if you hadn't noticed---Chris, Ashok, and I actually had delicious squid ink ice cream the other day (see: YPMBAsia)--but enough with the food already.
We all sang happy birthday (in English!!! And not just because i was there either, I don't think-crazy!) to my oziisan (grandfather) and had some of the delicious cake that my okaasan had brought. Afterwards, she whips another cake out of her bag in the shape of a bear (cookies for ears and everything!) with icing that read "Yokoso, Taain!" (Welcome, Thanh!) and says "Surprise!" (no, NOT supplies, you racists). Did I mention how much I love my homestay family? It was sooooo good too, especially the delicious chocolate and whipped cream inside, om nom nom. I gave my oziisan the Texas snowglobe omiyage that I had brought for him (Mina had mentioned it was his birthday in an email earlier this summer) and everybody seemed really fascinated by the glittery "snow" and spent some time talking about cowboys and armadillos. Yeah, they're kind of wonderful =). I wish I'd remembered my camera, although I may ask Mina to email me the pictures she took. While on the topic of omiyage, apparently as a return present, my oziisan left with my okaasan this gold pocket watch and the ritualistic message that it was just "つまらない物," i.e., pretty much the exact same phrase that I used when I gave my host family their omiyage. They were pretty much the perfect gift recipients too, oohing and ahhing at everything. Yoshihisa was really excited about the Texas cap, since he pretty much wears a cap ALL the time like I used to, and he laughed a lot about the shot glass, although I'm not sure he drinks. I've only ever see him drink "cora" and tea. And, my omiyage, yay:
It's got a map of Japan on it too! すごい!
Anyway, I'm kind of rambling on again even though I feel as if I've left out sooo much--I haven't said anything about riding the bus with Julia, class, my failtastic meeting with Asaoka-sensee, the Japanese harp concert, and lots of random details about stuff. To reiterate how awesome my okaasan is one last time though, when I was first shown my room (a tatami no heya aka traditional Japanese room with tatami mats!), I found her laptop sitting on my desk in the corner for me to use all summer, until I told her that I'd brought my own. But seriously, wow. And there's wireless internet! Yaaaay. Enough blogging for today.
Also, if anybody wants postcards, send me your addresses if you haven't already! You can mail me stuff c/o HIF too if you'd like---see the squid ink ice cream YPMBAsia link above if you want the address. But for now---study time =(
(P.S. The title of this post comes from the amazing Chris Brown from lunch Friday. Yeah, he's kind of awesome.)
Hermes likes my Tatami no Heya and super comfy futon =)
Speaking of Thursday night, it seems that I have an aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandparents who live right next to us, woo! The cousins are adorable--Aoi and...Shiyori (I'm sure I spelled her name wrong), both elementary school age, although Aoi may be in middle school. Dinner was amazing and I tried all manners of food, including "Tori Osiri" which means "Chicken Butt." Not even kidding. I also had takoyaki (octopus balls!) and squid (Ika!) and all manners of food. Squid is kind of Hakodate's thing, if you hadn't noticed---Chris, Ashok, and I actually had delicious squid ink ice cream the other day (see: YPMBAsia)--but enough with the food already.
We all sang happy birthday (in English!!! And not just because i was there either, I don't think-crazy!) to my oziisan (grandfather) and had some of the delicious cake that my okaasan had brought. Afterwards, she whips another cake out of her bag in the shape of a bear (cookies for ears and everything!) with icing that read "Yokoso, Taain!" (Welcome, Thanh!) and says "Surprise!" (no, NOT supplies, you racists). Did I mention how much I love my homestay family? It was sooooo good too, especially the delicious chocolate and whipped cream inside, om nom nom. I gave my oziisan the Texas snowglobe omiyage that I had brought for him (Mina had mentioned it was his birthday in an email earlier this summer) and everybody seemed really fascinated by the glittery "snow" and spent some time talking about cowboys and armadillos. Yeah, they're kind of wonderful =). I wish I'd remembered my camera, although I may ask Mina to email me the pictures she took. While on the topic of omiyage, apparently as a return present, my oziisan left with my okaasan this gold pocket watch and the ritualistic message that it was just "つまらない物," i.e., pretty much the exact same phrase that I used when I gave my host family their omiyage. They were pretty much the perfect gift recipients too, oohing and ahhing at everything. Yoshihisa was really excited about the Texas cap, since he pretty much wears a cap ALL the time like I used to, and he laughed a lot about the shot glass, although I'm not sure he drinks. I've only ever see him drink "cora" and tea. And, my omiyage, yay:
It's got a map of Japan on it too! すごい!Anyway, I'm kind of rambling on again even though I feel as if I've left out sooo much--I haven't said anything about riding the bus with Julia, class, my failtastic meeting with Asaoka-sensee, the Japanese harp concert, and lots of random details about stuff. To reiterate how awesome my okaasan is one last time though, when I was first shown my room (a tatami no heya aka traditional Japanese room with tatami mats!), I found her laptop sitting on my desk in the corner for me to use all summer, until I told her that I'd brought my own. But seriously, wow. And there's wireless internet! Yaaaay. Enough blogging for today.
Also, if anybody wants postcards, send me your addresses if you haven't already! You can mail me stuff c/o HIF too if you'd like---see the squid ink ice cream YPMBAsia link above if you want the address. But for now---study time =(
(P.S. The title of this post comes from the amazing Chris Brown from lunch Friday. Yeah, he's kind of awesome.)
Hermes likes my Tatami no Heya and super comfy futon =)
The patissier thing is so true... when I mentioned that casually in the car ride home my first day of meeting the host family, the little girls all screamed.
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