Boom Boom Pow

...or, as Brian was singing in class the other day, Bun Bun Pou, followed by Ashok's Tan Tan Go. It makes sense in Japanese. Make sense simasu. 文文法。。。単単語。。。

HIF IS OVER. HOLY CRAP. I'm leaving Hakodate tomorrow morning! I was so looking forward to the end of school, but now that it's arrived I think that I can even suffer through class so long as I get to stay here with all friends I've made and with my amazing host family. Dinner today was kind of a trial trying not to cry in front of everybody, actually, and it was a pretty close thing at that. Anyway, I'm doing most of this blogging retroactively, so that will have to come later though. For now, CULTURE CLASSES...I went back and resummarized previous classes that I've already blogged about just to get a sense of wholeness about the program:

TEA CEREMONY
Pretty self-explanatory. Lots of fun, but there wasn’t nearly enough time to go through all the rules and etiquette required (both of a guest receiving the tea and of the host who is preparing it).

IGO
Kind of like Othello, but less confusing (assuming I understood the rules correctly). I was partnered with Yaeger-san and beat her by an overwhelming amount, due more to luck (arbitrarily placing down stones) than anything else. Will has a board at school so I might try and play with him sometime this fall if I want to learn actual strategy, etc, and pretend that I’m smart.

IKEBANA
Other than confectionary making, Ikebana or Flower Arrangement was my favorite culture class of the program. The flowers were super duper pretty, and there was something very relaxing about trimming the flowers and impaling them on spikes in a picturesque arrangement. Yes, I know, I do have a way with words. It really was a lot of fun though, and oddly relaxing, and although most of my arrangement was actually done by one of the assistants, I enjoyed the experience, and I had gorgeous flowers to bring him to my okaasan afterwards, and she seemed pretty happy about that.

CALLIGRAPHY
I also signed up for Calligraphy class but didn’t end up going, opting to work on 作文 for class and study for the next morning’s test. I think I was also in a deep conversation with Caity (my band-mom) about something at the time too, which may have been part of it. I’m a little sad I didn’t end up going, but I don’t regret it, especially because in the end I did get a lot of work done during that time. Anyway, just to recap all the other culture classes of the program one last time:

Jimmy's work of art, and one of my favorite Japanese words:上手

JUDO
Painful, embarrassing, but something you should definitely try out. I went for one day and although I never went back (partially on account of the amount of homework we had slash my being awful at it) I would definitely wholeheartedly recommend that everybody at least show up for one practice and give it a go, if only to say that you did.

KYUUDO
A lot of fun, and this class I definitely considered returning to but once again lack of time and too much homework squashed that idea.

KENDO
Never did Kendo because it was on the same day that I had signed up for Kyuudo originally before they changed the dates, but I hear that it was a lot of fun and probably the favorite class for a lot of the students. Ashok definitely tried to bully me into going on several occasions, and I do regret not having gone at least once. Oh well.

CONFECTIONARY MAKING|
Om nom nom! So much fun! We learned how to make wagashi and not to brag or anything, but I was pretty good at twisting the shape of the roses such that I traded one of my pretty cakes for Kent’s so he could bring a pretty one home to his family. If I can get ahold of the ingredients in the states without too much trouble, I definitely plan on making them again.

KIMONO & ETIQUETTE CLASS
Also pretty self-explanatory. Plus, you get to try on kimonos and take pictures in them to post on facebook, which I’m sure is why half the people go (or take pictures). I thought it was really cool though, especially because I now have my own kimono to wear---possibly this year’s liquor treating costume?

Wedding Kimono

JAPANESE COOKING
How to cook squids. Not my cup of mulsum, so I didn’t go, although I hear it was fun.

The end. More retroactive blogging to follow later...

Your Indian friend...is he always eating curry rice?

I'm not quite a week behind in updates yet, so let's see how much I can cram into this post:

Thursday: Malika convinced me to sign up to go on the Buddhist お寺 (Temple) "tour," which turned out to be pretty cool in addition to getting me a Niko Niko Point. I haven't really mentioned them before because 実は I could actually care less, but you get points for doing various activities and being a good student and supposedly at the end of the year whoever has the most points gets a prize...or eternal glory or something like that. Anyway, at the very least, the pictures I took on my camera gave me some conversation material for future discussions with my okaasan.

This temple had an adorable cat (and I don't even like cats that much) infestation for some reason, distracting many of us HIFers from the actual tour while we played with the kitties.

Thursday continued: Stever-先生 from Yale took us to dinner at Izakaya!!!!!! She's one of my favorite senseis, PLUS we had dinner (and unlimited drinks) provided (I assume we have the Light Fellowship's extreme generosity to thank once again), and it was wonderful. Ashok, Malika, and I had finished our homework earlier that afternoon, so that night was a complete stress-free, much needed break from our normal schedule. Additionally, WE DIDN'T HAVE A TEST THE NEXT MORNING. We'd been having tests every three days, but for whatever reasons that Friday was both test and quiz free. Anyway, such being the case, I may have liberally tried a little of everything drinks-wise, but given that my alcohol tolerance doesn't correlate with my size, gender, or ethnicity (not that I would know from past experience of course), it was fine. Karua Miruku aka Kahlua milk (essentially a White Russian, but keep in mind that this was made with Hakodate's famous rich, creamy milk) still remains my favorite though. Drinks aside, it was nice to sit there with the 14 or so other Yalies and just relax and take it easy for a change. Thanks again, Light Fellowship!!!!!

Stever-Sensei came to visit from Yale and took us all to dinner, yay!

Friday: I ended up spending a good portion of Friday morning worrying because our host families were sitting in on the 3rd hour of class. I think Friday was also the day where I dropped the "...海?" line that had everybody rolling in their seats and even Asaoka-先生 cracked a smile, but really---if somebody asked you what lies between Japan and America, surely you'd think of the ocean instead of 日付変更線 (international dateline). Fail. Fortunately, that shining moment on my part didn't occur while our host families were there. My okaasan and Mina both seemed to enjoy class a lot and I tried very hard not to notice when Mina was aiming a camera in my direction during class, and mostly joked around with Ashok all throughout class like I normally would.

Speaking of which, my okaasan dropped me the most amazing line later that night about Ashok, which roughly translates in English to her asking me whether my Indian friend who sat on my right side was always eating curry rice. Yeah, I kind of love her. Brian had walked up later after class too and introduced himself to her, and she smiled and nodded her head a lot and said "そうですねえ" (much in the same way I do when I have no idea what's going on) only to confess later that she had had no idea what he'd said, although she did say he was cute, haha. I just though it was really ironic because I pretty much do the same thing all the time when I don't understand a word of whatever so-and-so is saying to me.

Anyway, both my okaasan and Mina agreed that our class seemed very difficult and that even they couldn't read all the kanji from the powerpoints. She also said without any prompting on my part that Asaoka-先生 speaks very quickly, and that it's the general consensus that Japanese men are generally tend to be harder to understand than Japanese women. Apparently, my okaasan also told some of the staff that she's worried that I study too hard and she's worried I'll get sick from going to bed so late/getting up so early to work, which left me rather embarrassedly fending off compliments/concerns about my health from people in the HIF office the next day. I don't actually mind though, and I think I like being mothered and taken care of for a change. On that note, my okaasan also always walks with me out the door every morning and waits and waves until I turn the corner for the bus stop, which makes me feel warm and happy inside. Don't laugh, Brian said the same thing about his host mom.

The Kyuudo sensei gave a super long, dramatic demonstration of the proper form and technique necessary.

Friday continued: Yeah, it was kind of a busy end of the week...so Friday afternoon was Kyuudo (Japanese archery) class at Iai High School (all girls). I was pretty tired and not planning on going actually, but while in the process of making weekend plans, Juan convinced me to go for our "trial session." The high school girl who was helping me tie the special glove ot my hand was really flustered and cute and adorable and had to ask one of the 先輩for help in the end. She told me to call her Bun-chan and was SOOO cute and got really excited and clapped her hands when I did something correctly (occasionally, I can do things w/o screwing up) and in addition to telling me that my Japanese made me sound like a 3rd year instead of a 1st (soooo not true), asked me if I had done Kyuudo before. I really like her, and I think I might go back for further lessons if only because of Bun-chan, as she told me to call her. The head instructor/sensei guy actually helped us one by one when we actually shot the arrows, and he may have bent my bow a little too far back so my arms were shaking from the strain of trying to keep it bent when he let go, although my arrow did go really really far....and into the wall. Oops. Everybody laughed and clapped a lot, haha. Oh well.

"Yosh!" aka what you yell whenever somebody's arrow hits the target.

More Friday! Yeah, it never ends...After dinner that night Yoshihisa became super excited when he heard we were going to "31" for ice cream, and I was really surprised when we arrived at the place and I found myself at a Baskin Robbins, woo! I had a Java/Coffee flavored single scoop cone and watched in amazement while everybody in my host family polished off triple scoop cones, wow. The place was located in the middle of a department store/supermarket, so my okaasan loaded up a basket full of snacks and treats that she wanted to buy me, while encouraging me over and over to pick this or that, although naturally that meant I tried as hard as I could to politely tell her that whatever was fine and that she didn't have to get me this or that. Seriously, it was what kind of chips/candy/cereal/cheese do you like? AHHHHHHH. So much food.

Too sleepy to blog anymore. More updates to come later. Also, today's TANABATA! Explanation and stories to follow. =)

...Tiny Fork?

Let's see how much I can remember from this week's shenanigans...continuing from my post about the Onuma Park trip, post-talent show at the amazing Greenpia Hotel was karaoke! Seriously, the hotel had just about everything: karaoke, bowling, merry-go-round's, a jungle gym, a real gym, horseback riding, water slides, go-carts, etc. I may have mentioned all those things already, but I don't remember. Karaoke was a blast, and the HIF kids took up about 3-4 adjacent rooms with definitely more than the allowed 5 people per room, and Austin kind of wowed everybody (or at least me) with his singing abilities. Austin and I had both realized that neither of us actually knew the other person's name at dinner that night, and when I finally admitted it first and he was staring at me thinking furiously about what my name could be, Chris Brown held up a fork behind my head and pointed at the tynes to which Austin goes "...Tiny Fork?" It was kind of amazing. Anyway, post-karaoke was mostly hanging out w/ all of that gang and trying not to get locked out of the hotel and get eaten by bears.

Karaoke! Koh isn't blinking, he's actually pretty much asleep, haha.

Afterwards, Thanu, Heng, and I all stayed up and had what Thanu dubbed "girl talk" although I successfully deflected most of the questions directed at me until Nao arrived from her drunk people babysitting activities and we crashed for a few hours until we got up at a ridiculously early hour to go to the onsen (public bath) which was really really nice! My group had gone through multiple "Hey, you guys want to go to the onsen!?" conversations the previous night only to arrive at the conclusion that onsen-ing it up meant splitting up by sex, which was lame. Well, you know what I mean. We may have gone through that scenario a few times since drunk people tend to forget things though. Anyway, Brian was definitely a big fan of the onsen anyway:

Awwwww. Also, my host mom met him yesterday and said he was cute, haha.

Breakfast at the hotel followed and the 30 minute bus ride back to Hakodate. Chien-Wei, Andrew, Thanu, and I wanted to go squid-fishing but that fell through so we ended up grabbing lunch at Lucky Pierrot (it's this must-go-to hamburger chain that's famous here) before I headed home to tackle homework. Yuck. Everything since the weekend gets pretty hazy from here because my memory fails a lot, but a general update about the various going on's of the week:

Monday: Kimono & Etiquette Class! It was surprisingly really really interesting and they taught us how to bow, open sliding doors, etc, and then we all tried on kimonos with a LOT of help.

Obi tied in the butterfly shape (I think--my Japanese isn't great)!

Elliot towers over the other Americans and 外人 even, haha.

Wednesday: Asahi Elementary School Visit! OMD I WANT A SMALL (or big) ADORABLE JAPANESE CHILD. They had made us name tags and prepared a welcoming ceremony and grabbed our hands and led us into the middle of the gym to play various games, including rock-paper-scissors (Jan-Ken-Pon!). When the cutesy music stopped, you had to go up against the nearest person and whoever lost Jan-Ken-Pon grabbed the winner's shoulders and joined his/her party until a bajillion rounds later, only one giant train of people remained.

Ahhh, Japanese children, WANT.

Afterward, we learned the infamous Ika Odori squid dance that we'll be performing later this summer! Anyway, apparently I volunteered to help teach the kids new games because I wrote my name on that sign up sheet I was handed but couldn't read that one time. My group (Juan, Victor, Allison, and I) had 5th graders (I think?) and they all lined up and handed us little slips of paper with their names and drawings and in really shy, English said "My name is ______" and it was ADORABLE, especially for the shy ones that mumbled it really quickly before running away. We taught them how to play Oshiri, aka, Big Booty, in Japanese, as well as this similar animal game that they had a real kick out of. I really wanted to steal the little boy who chose to be a penguin for his animal, he was sooo cute. Post Asahi Elementary, I joined Brian et al. to go to a 100 Yen store before heading home. Lots of fun.

Intermediate 1B class ftw: Erika, Ashok, Malika, Amalya, Brian, me (blinking fail), Allison (Victor and Juan are further down the row)

Anyway, Thursday onward will have to follow later---Brian wants to go watch the sunset from Mt. Hakodate (since I couldn't make it Friday after Kyuudo class when he went w/ the others) so I'm going to take a short nap and then run to catch the bus to where we're meeting---over and out.

Judo!

I'm exhausted, but I don't want to have to double post when I get back from the Onuma "quasi national" Park trip this weekend and hopefully have tons of pictures and stories to share--ahh, I can't wait! I'm dying to use one of those rent-a-boats, and I fully intend to sing I'm On a Boat at the top of my lungs all the while. Brian also fully intends to have a sake party, although I don't (Edit: what a place to have a typo, I forgot the "don't" here) plan on drinking any of it (not a big fan of sake) but I'm very much looking forward to seeing a drunk Brian. He spent all morning teasing me about not having played pokemon before, i.e., my apparent lack of a childhood. Sad. Oh, and btdubs, I feel the need to add the disclaimer: drinking age in Japan is 20.

Anyway, other news (but it's going to be brief because I can barely keep my eyes open). HIF shows two movies everyday after school for a week, with a new movie the following week. Chien-Wei talked me into watching "Magic Hour" today and it was AMAZING. The wikipedia plot description kind of fails, but seriously, it was hilarious and definitely kept me from getting any homework done because I was too busy watching the movie. The English subtitles were really good, so my failure at Japanese wasn't a problem either.

Afterwards, I had my judo trial at Chubu High School. I was mostly fine as far as fitness goes, but I was way too hesitant about throwing the smiling, polite, non-English speaking small Japanese high school girl who was unfortunate enough to be my partner (trainer?), so that was kind of a fail. To be honest, I probably flipped her harder (or more awkwardly and painfully) than I had to because I was so hesitant about it---that and my lack of any coordination. Seriously, swing dancing is hard enough, but judo? Faaail.

My only other fellow female HIF judo-goer today: Mikia from Princeton!

I decided to walk home instead of waiting for Mina to pick me up although she had offered, and it was actually kind of nice. Guess the 20 minute walk to and from school plus all these other side trips keeps me in shape, given the amount of food my okaasan piles onto my plate. Speaking of which, after I got home about 20 minutes later (I can't believe my sense of direction in Japan is better than mine in America, because I totally knew the way just fine), we all went to a ramen place, followed by a soft-serve mocha and vanilla mix ice cream cone---OM NOM NOM.

But for now---to bed.