In which I talk about how my host family is cooler than yours...

As promised, I will now take this opportunity to talk (i.e., brag) about my homestay situation and the reasons why my homestay > yours. However, I should add the disclaimer that my homestay situation is probably one of the better ones out there and by a rather substantial amount. I'm incredibly lucky to have been placed with such a great homestay and I'm extremely aware and appreciative of that.

The ever visible 五稜郭 Tower by which I essentially navigate my side of Hakodate. Click to see the pretty rainbow lighting!

先ず, as I have probably said many times already, my homestay is located in the 五稜郭 (Goryokaku) region. As such, I essentially live right behind 五稜郭 Park (the pentagonal fort used by the rebels during the Tokugawa Shogunate). It's pretty much centrally located and any person here can point you in its direction if you can't already see 五稜郭 Tower looming in the distance. This also means that I can hop on any of three buses (106, 106-27, 6-2), and if the bus times are inconvenient, I can hop on the tram (runs every 10 minutes or so) and just walk an extra 5 minutes from the tram stop to get home. Hanging out w/ friends late in 五稜郭 is never a problem, because even if public transportation ceases past a certain hour, I'm always within walking distance of home. Yeah, location location location! Kind of a big deal. If you don't think so, talk to Ashok or Elliot who live in an entirely different city (Hokuto instead of Hakodate) where all the excitement centers around a Daiso (100 yen store) and Co-op conbini (convenience store) and various rice paddies in the area. Exciting city indeed.

REASON #2: My okaasan aka host mom. She's this small Japanese lady who often pantomimes things for me, frequently breaks out the Japanese onomatopoeia in everyday conversation, is always smiling and/or laughing, and occasionally dances for no reason. She also broke into the "Where the Hell is Matt" dance in the living room once when Yosihisa and I were watching the video on youtube. Whenever it rains, she refuses to let me take the bus to school and drives me, and she always offers to drive me to places to where I could easily walk, such as Iai High School (also in 五稜郭) where I went today for an English Club BBQ (more on that later). More evidence that my okaasan is amazing? She misunderstood something I said the first week to mean that I don't drink things with caffeine and immediately went out and bought tons of caffeine-less coffee and tea purely for my consumption. While on the topic of food, she's an AMAZING cook and my only complaint is that I can't ever finish the amount of food she serves me, although she's quick to notice and always tells me "残してもいい" or "It's okay if you don't finish it," and encourages me to ignore Japanese customs and be rude in similar manners, further described below.



Reason #3: INTERNET ACCESS. And, not only do I have internet access, it's WIRELESS. I'm currently sprawled on my futon in my single tatami room without a care in the world blogging away. For those few others w/ internet access to begin with, most require permission and the use of the family computer or telephone lines, making them less likely to ask to use it. Anyway, my having really convenient, easily accessible internet access has both pros and cons. Pros? Asaoka-先生's tendency to email important assignment/class information doesn't make my life overly difficult as it does the others who scramble to find internet cafes (although those are readily available through the town too). Additionally, I can look at the daily powerpoints in his emails whenever I want and can work on our internet assignments (weekly topic-based email exchange w/ a Japanese grad student) and do internet research for my Independent Study project at my leisure. As a sidenote, IS is pretty much the worst thing ever and makes you hate life. Just ask Victor. More to follow later...

Additionally, those few people about whom I care enough to keep in touch (or vice versa, because in my defense for those of you with whom contact has been somewhat sparse, it requires some degree of reciprocation) I can do so easily via the internets here. I definitely recommend getting Skype because it's free to call other computers that have the program installed and it's fairly cheap if you want to call actual telephone numbers, although I haven't done that. I've been using it mostly to talk to my family (and Bubba! His ears perk up when he hears me too!) and Maji, as well as David, with whom I'm actually conversing at this very moment, plus Kevin (3-way-skype conference call!). They're currently arguing about god knows what right now---I guess I should probably turn my volume down. FAIL.

In all honesty, I probably spend too much time talking to David instead of studying, but he keeps me sane, and sometimes I need to rant/worry/get advice about things with somebody who's actually there to sympathize/listen/give advice instead of just messaging Denno to complain a lot all the time. Even without that, sometimes I just really really need to speak English and be able to converse freely without racking my brains trying to think of a word or grammar structure. I know David reads this but I'm not sure you do, Sunshine, but multas gratias to both of you =). Anyway, I guess this brings me into the one con of having the internet---time spent maintaining contact w/ the people I care about from back home equals time NOT spent with my super amazing okaasan and really making the most of my homestay. Well, that and studying, but studying isn't as important I think...

REASON #4: I have to say my family isn't quite the most traditional Japanese family and doesn't strictly adhere to conservative Japanese customs. Of course there are rules about removing shoes upon entering the house, and we say all the ritualistic phrases before/after eating or upon leaving/entering the house, but I almost have complete freedom in all other regards. I have no curfew nor is there a set time when I'm supposed to shower, as applies for some other students and as the Yale SAC guide booklet warned us was possible. If anything, my family really is very hospitable and if anything overly accomodating with regard to my comfort. I've been told countless times by my okaasan that I should do XYZ whenever/wherever/however I want, despite normal Japanese customs.

例えば, we were at a ramen place a few weeks back and having noted my "ow-everything-hurts-why-did-I-sign-up-for-judo" look and misinterpreting it to mean that I was uncomfortable sitting as I was in a proper Japanese ladylike fashion (legs folded to the side), my okaasan immediately told me that it would be okay if I crossed my legs. I posited a "In Japan, don't only males sit in this manner?" but she admitted that even though that was true, she and Mina didn't adhere to those rules, even choosing to cross her legs "Indian-style" then and there perhaps to reassure me that it was okay.

最後: Yoshihisa and Mina, my host siblings. Unfortunately, I'm just about tuckered out so an extensive explanation about why my host siblings pwn yours will have to wait...bedtime. I leave you with this picture taken the night of the 五稜郭 Musical (Yoshihisa and my host-grandmother who lives next door)

Baba and Yoshihisa! I'm pretty sure it's Enomoto Takeaki and Hijikata Toshizo respectively (click for wikipedia links).

Compromise?

So this blog has pretty much transformed into "Today, Thanh did XYZ..." and just lists all the wonderfully exciting things I've been doing in Japan without anything of real substance. ごめんなさい. I can't resist cataloging every little thing because I don't want to forget any of it. I promise, after I finish dissecting the activities of this weekend (中やすみ-Semester Break!) I'll try to break the monotonous rambling. Compromise? I'll finish dissecting every minor incident from this weekend and I'll talk more about my homestay =).

SATURDAY! Pabots for bowling with Ashok, Juan, and Liz, woo! I SCORED OVER 100 FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. We played 3 games, ate ice cream, and then bummed around the bookstore and Daiso (100 yen store) across the street for a long time, and I actually ran into my homestay-cousin who lives next door to us. Yeah, it's DEFINITELY true that you run into random people in the Goryokaku area all the time.

OUTSIDE PABOTS: It is new century arrival to an amusement.
RISING reverses common sense.
Please spend the pleasant time of a thrill and excitement.

SUNDAY! We had lunch at Goa, this Indian restaurant in Goryokaku, which turned out to be one of the best ideas EVER. Ashok even approved of the place, so you know it's legit. Plus, the Indian guy who was working at the time spoke English, which is always a win, although we mostly answered in Japanese I think. The food was good but best of all was the DVD of Bollywood songs they had playing. Ashok, Juan, Sarah, and I probably sat there for at least an extra hour staring at the screen and dissecting Bollywood plot themes slash analyzing probable protagonists/antagonists/conflicts based upon the way the actors/actresses were dressed. Very educational. After a stop at Mister Donuts we met Thanu and Yiwen at the Russian Orthodox Church near HIF/Mt. Hakodate. The original plan was to visit all the 神社 in the area, but Ashok, Sarah, and I were enjoying the outdoors too much and got left behind as we sat and talked by the fountain, although in all honesty I didn't mind.

Look, Ashok's actually smiling! =)

We ended up running into Asaoka-先生 and his wife, culminating in awkward conversation (all in Japanese of course) and thankfully we used Juan's absence as an excuse to politely refuse their invitation to climb the mountain with them. Not that I don't love Hakodate Yama (sooo pretty!) and not that Asaoka-先生's a bad guy or anything, but it would've been a bit awkward--but just a lil bit :P. After our lovely chat they went along their merry way and we went to get the BEST ICE CREAM EVER. Seriously, if you come to Hakodate check out the shop adjacent to the "floating" chopsticks (picture to follow at some point) ramen place. Apparently there's also a foot onsen there too that I've been walking by every morning, completely oblivious to its existence. We tried that out and chatted for a long time before heading home. Who said you had to go to Sapporo over 中休み to have fun? It was a good weekend =).

Monday was actually spent mostly relaxing at home. I talked to my okaasan a whole lot, and spent about an hour trying to explain Certamen and NJCL. There was a lot of charades (to convey buzzing in...) and gesturing and generalizing of things in really bad Japanese, but I think she got the general idea and definitely said that it was "すごい!" or the equivelent of "Cool!" The times that I'm not dead tired and capable of thinking and speaking Japanese, we actually talk about a lot of things. I'm really going to miss my okaasan a hell of a lot when I head back to the states. She can probably tell you more about me than my actual biological mother can, from what events I did for Track & Field in high school to what my academic major is. Ask my real mother? She wouldn't know either, in fact, she'd probably be surprised to know that I even ran track in the first place. Fail.

I kind of lied about having an extended homestay blog post. I'm actually really tired (when is that NOT the case), so I promise I'll write more next time. Naptime!

Goryokaku: the Musical

I'm about a week behind, so this is just a brief summary of stuff:

Completely irrelevant, belated picture of Goryokaku Tower, just because I finally got around to taking a photo of it this weekend.

SATURDAY: Sunset from Mt. Hakodate had to be postponed again because we lost Ashok (or never found him to begin with because he fails) and dinner @ Brasserie Carillon ran too late. Instead, a group of us crashed Goryokaku (and ran into a bunch of other HIFers there--it really is true about running into random people in Goryokaku all the time) and hit up Pabots for karaoke. Also, Brian and I figured out that we're what he calls "music soulmates" to the point where we were finishing each other's sentences during our discussion about favorite artists the other day. Post karaoke was watching Bryce break out his DDR moves in the arcard downstairs (upstairs? Don't remember).

TUESDAY: 7/7/09, aka the Japanese holiday of Tanabata! We had an early dinner of KFC (I'm not even kidding) so we could get ready for the festivities. Essentially, everybody writes down some sort of wish on a piece of paper and ties it to a special bamboo tree in the hopes that it will come true. Then in the evening, adorable small Japanese elementary to middle school aged children dress up in yukata/kimonos and go from house to house singing a song for which they receive snacks/sweets. SOOO CUTE. Pictures to be stolen from my okaasan will come later. Tanabata traditions vary all over Japan, so wikipedia it for more info if you'd like =)

WEDNESDAY: Speech Contest! DO NOT WANT. I wrote most of my speech the morning the 1st draft was due, and didn't actually do much editing of it out of combined laziness/apathy about the project. It was essentially a really sappy speech about my best friend, composed with the most basic grammar structures possible. Asaoka-Sensei also penned the last 3 lines of my speech during editing, since we were all required to have some sort of message. Ashok's speech was really good, not just because he opted to speak about American vs. Japanese culture (they love that kind of stuff), but also because his spoken Japanese is just kind of really freaking good, despite his "I'm Really Bad at Japanese" shpiel that he goes into so frequently. うそ。上手！ Seriously. Hands down best speech in the class, although Justin and I both agree---"Agnovi[mus] Ashokum esse verecundum."

THURSDAY: End-of-the-Semester-Final of death (okay, so it wasn't THAT bad, but it definitely wasn't enjoyable) and then freeeeedom. Juan attempted the 20 seconds/6 scoop ice cream challenge down the street, and about 5 more seconds and he would've had it. Classic example of polite Japanese culture also took place then when Chris' ice cream almost fell off his cone and the ice cream guy offered him a cup which he at first refused:

(N.B. I'm still using acronym tags so you can scroll the mouse over Japanese for English translations)

Chris: だいじょうぶでしょう。 (the でしょう makes it not rude)
Ice Cream Guy: だいじょうぶじゃないかもしれません (かもしれません shows a polite conjecture/disagreement)

The striking politeness of the exchange is kind of lost in translation, but in any case this is only an example of one of the most basic rules of Japanese etiquette/politeness, gah. Anyway, we then all bought and ate lunch by the seaside (海も山も見えて、とてもきれいな所ですねえ?). Austin turned out to be terrified of seagulls in a manner similar to how I'm terrified of spiders. Also FYI, he also has soft legs. Don't ask.

THURSDAY NIGHT: More karaoke at Pabots with Amalya, Erika, and Mikia (yay, people who sing and don't just drunkenly yell lyrics! Amalya also does a capella and likes musicals too, woo), before being joined by James, James, Jamar, Juan, and Ashok at which point we relocated to a bigger room and unashamedly sang boy band 90's songs from our childhood at the top of our lungs. Win. The few of us who didn't have trains/buses to catch home then got late dinner together after half-Asian James got us directions to a "本当に安いいざかや" (yeah, not translating that one) before parting ways. Reiteration about how lucky I am to live in Goryokaku so I can walk home pretty much whenever. Half-Asian kind-of-really-inebriated James (who still spoke better Japanese in his inebriated state than I ever will--he's in 最上級 at HIF) roadside and ignoring the bajillion taxis that pulled up. I couldn't in good conscience leave him alone so I waited with him until then and got to witness the whole spectacle, which in retrospect was pretty amusing.

FRIDAY: First day of 中休み break! Mister Donuts for breakfast (om nom nom）was followed by 3 hours of intense shopping with my okaasan, who was super excited that I didn't have schoolwork and wasn't busy for a change. I found out really quickly that no matter what answer I gave to "which of XYZ do you like best," the shopping cart somehow filled up with sweets. For once, my usual strategy of making an ambiguous "Mmm" that was open to any interpretation didn't work and anything I liked or hadn't tried before was added to the shopping cart, and any replies of "I don't like XYZ" were out of the question for fear of violating Japanese rules of politeness. Yeah, thanks a lot Japanese etiquette, aka the reason I'm eating so much all the time because it's incredibly difficult to politely refuse things.

Things progressed in in a similar fashion when we arrived at the kimono section where I was made to look at row after row of full sets and choose my favorite kimono/obi, which my okaasan immediately purchased on the spot, at which point I pretty much broke every single rule of Japanese etiquette and (with complete disregard for Fukihisa-sensei's warning at the beginning of the program about using the phrase でも) argued futilely about her buying it for me, only to be met with my okaasan's insistence that it was on sale and that I should humor her because it would make her happy if I wore it. So, I am now the proud owner of a gorgeous red kimono complete w/ extra sashes, proper shoes (geta), and a matching handbag to go with it. I'm not going to lie, I'm kind of in love with it, but I also feel really really guilty about it too. Shoe shopping commenced afterward, and at this point whenever she insisted that I try something on and asked if I liked it, I lied and said that that X was too big/small or that I didn't have any outfits to match X, and about 3 shoe stores later she gave up and we returned from our shopping adventure.

FRIDAY NIGHT: As promised, my okaasan took me to the musical at Goryokaku Kooen about the history of Hakodate and the star-shaped Goryokaku Fort which served as a rebel base during the Tokugawa Shogunate. It was really cool, even if I couldn't understand anything, and the costumes/scenery/special effects/lighting were all amazing. My okaasan also insisted on buying me pretty much everything offered by the vendors, including cake, tea, a cute Goryokaku flashlight you were supposed to wave around during the "Oh Hakodate" song (see video below), and a CD soundtrack. She also kept asking me to pose here and there so she could take pictures too, gah. Anyway, post musical was dinner in the form of burgers and then finally crashing after a long, really fun first day of break.

Historical musical about Hakodate and Goryokaku Fort, now known as Goryokaku Kooen (Park). The musical actually took place AT the park too, which was cool.

Musical! Opening song, minus the first line because my camera is slow and fails.

Dance, dance, we're falling apart to halftime.

More updates to follow later. Study time =(

もう一回！

Here are belated videos from the Onuma Park weekend trip from 2 weeks ago. This act features the Intermediate 2A and 2B classes singing....insert song name I don't know (Elliot, help?). Speaking of Elliot, this particular clip features Yale (and the Light Fellowship's very own Elliot Eaton, Elizabeth Silliman, Jamar Bromley, Leah Itagaki, and Max Ehrenfreund. They did a much better job than my class (Intermediate 1B) did---we had to sing Banzai, youtube link to follow later--- probably because they actually were capable of reading the lyrics to their song whereas I mostly stared at my sheet and tried to decipher kanji during any part of our song that wasn't the refrain.

Anyway, it comes in two videos because my camera died after I started recording:

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.

Onuma Park: Part I

I think I'm going to have to update in installments about the overnight trip to Onuma Park we took, because I have a ton of homework to do, plus it hurts to type. Or move. Or do anything other than sit in a steaming hot bath and relax, but that actually hurts initially too.

This weekend, the HIF students piled into two buses and went on an overnight trip to Onuma "quasi-national" Park! It may have been neither nice nor relaxing, but it was definitely tons of fun and highly enjoyable. My okaasan and Mina kindly drove me to my bus pick up point in front of the Hakodate JR Station, even stopping to pick up additional breakfast fare for me along the way (yummy hot cakes filled with cream and sweet bean paste、although my friends ended up eating most of it because I was already stuffed from breakfast back at the house). My okaasan had originally pulled up next to another car which turned out to be full of HIF teachers, including Asaoka-sensee (my sensee who teaches Intermediate 1B), which was somewhat terrifying. Thankfully, she pulled up ahead to the curb a little later.

Unfortunately (well, I suppose it was amusing in a terrifying sort of way) as I was walking from the car to the front of the hotel where we were gathering, I got stopped by one of the rickshaw drivers who somehow knew who I was and stopped me to chat. I'm about 95% sure it wasn't the same guy I had interviewed for my independent study project last Thursday (I swear, I can tell Asians apart!) but he knew who I was, so he either had been present when I had interviewed my guy or I just fail a whole lot. I swear, it wasn't him though, especially because for this guy I could barely understand a word he said, although that may have been an effect of my brain tending to shut down when I'm too overwhelmed by something and just refusing to function altogether. My okaasan saw the driver chatting with me and laughed about it today and told me how she and Mina had watched from the car and had wondered whether or not I needed rescuing, haha.

Anyway, after that fun chat where I mostly said "Sorry, I don't understand!" a bajillion times, I proceeded to talk Andrew's ear off on the bus for about an hour, which was enjoyable for me at least, although I can't say the same for him :-P. We arrived at the park around 11:30 am and the group of friends I was with decided to do the bike rental and cycle around the park/lake. It only cost 700 yen, so it was a pretty sweet deal, plus they had about a bajillion different kinds of bikes you could choose from. Heng and I both opted for cute metallic silver bikes (hers was metallic pink, mine was metallic blue) with bear baskets, although most of the others decided on more practical mountain bikes with different gears. I personally think our baskets turned out to be more useful than their gears were though:

フレンドリーベア (Furendorii Bea aka Friendly Bear!)

We decided we wanted to spend more time at the park before going to the hotel, so all eleven of us or so decided to sign up for the late bus at the last minute, which turned out to be a great idea and gave us an extra two hours to explore the park. Biking around was a lot of fun, although it took us quite a while to make our way around the lake, given the the number of stops we made to take photos, get ice cream, skip stones, etc. Victor caused a mini traffic jam too as we all got stuck behind him at one point, as he pedaled on slowly but surely.

Note the look of terror and excitement on Victor's face.

Andrew (aka Tae-san) & me on one of our bajillion stops for photos by the lakeside

We got back from our biking adventures around 2:30 pm with an hour or so to spare before the bus came to get us. Sadly, I didn't see much of Brian nor did we get to ride together on a boat like I'd hoped =(. Anyway, It was a really fun if exhausting afternoon, and a lot of us were sunburned, myself included. However, whereas I just got really tan (and can continue to insist that my daddy is from Equatorial Guinea like I usually do), poor Kent turned completely red. I had offered him my Yale 2011 cap to wear and he'd initially agreed with the condition that no pictures were to be taken of him, but after Chien Wei tried to sneak a few photos, he gave up and Thanu wore my cap instead. I guess I can't really blame Kent, because if it were me and I were offered a Harvard cap, I probably would be very hesitant about wearing it too, not so much from personal issues but just from all the unneccessary crap I might get from other people for it.

Post lunch (miso ramen!), a short bus ride to the Greenpia Hotel followed where I mostly tried to not get any of my melting ikazumi (squid ink!!!) ice cream all over myself while chatting with Burton-Rose-san, the really nice (and really old) grad student, who had very kindly kept an eye on me at judo the other day and kept giving me useful tips when I was failing so fantastically at somersaulting, etc. Anyway, we were assigned four people to a room, and luckily I really like the three that were in my room: Thanu, Heng, and Nao, yay! Asaoka-sensee called about 3 minutes after we'd settled in to ask if Heng wanted to play badminton with him, and boy am I glad I wasn't the one to answer the phone. I ended up going over to the hotel gym with them and while they played badminton, a group of us (Victor, Andrew, James, Jason, Koh, Steffen, Cuong, Chien-Wei, and me) played soccer! I miss playing soccer a lot, although I'm not very good considering I played (translation: benchwarmed) all of high school. It was a lot of fun, although maybe not the best of ideas to play without shinguards (and thus, ankle bracing), considering the last time I played indoor soccer w/o them at practice senior year, one of the Hernandez twins took out my ankle and it's never been quite the same since. Fail. Anyway, keeping in mind that my team was one man up, we ended up accumulating a rather large number of goals before we all dispersed to go shower before dinner, where I saw Ashok for the first-ish time all weekend.

Sometimes Ashok and I like to pretend that we're friends and actually get along.

Dinner at the hotel was pretty sweet, with an assortment of dishes of every type individually set up for each person at the table, with our own personal hot pots with which to cook things. It was a really nice spread, with sashimi, lobster, tempura, tofu, soup, fruit, etc etc. I sat with Victor, Kent, Heng, Vicky, Jason, and Andrew, and it was a lot of fun. Afterwards was the dreaded talent show in which my class (Intermediate 1B) along w/ the Advanced Level class opened with an amazing rendition of the song Banzai.Yeah, fail. The other classes were also paired up and had to sing various songs too , so at least we all embarrassed ourselves together, although Ashok and Brian thoroughly enjoyed the experience I think. Koh played "Sakura" on his guitar, Jamar played "Gypsy Dance" on his violin, Andrew played an original peace on his guitar, Thanu and Yiwen sang, and Juan Miguel did a martial arts performance of some sort. Good times =)

Anyway, I'm afraid the rest of the weekend will have to wait though, because I'm way too tired and haven't finished my homework yet. Zyaa, mata!

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.

Baby Steps

Today, a random Japanese couple (tourists from elsewhere in Japan?) stopped me on the street to ask for directions to Hokkaido-something-Church. Yeah, (教会 was pretty much the only word I caught (other than "excuse me," "directions," and "Hokkaido") because I was too busy being completely caught off guard by their speaking to me. I guess being Asian (although I think Asians can generally tell Asian ethnicities apart, to some degree) means I don't get blatant stares from locals, nor am I immediately labeled as a 外人 like some of the others are. Some Japanese boy on a bike apparently caught sight of tall, pretty, white Julia and crashed his bike at the train station (she doesn't live in Hakodate), and I also hear Elliot's quite the popular tall, blue-eyed white boy from America. I personally think it's pretty obvious how foreign I am, given the cap on my head and braid (I think all the girls I've seen have buns or crazy hairstyles), not to mention the tank top I was wearing at the time (i.e., not a school girl's uniform). In any case, even if I was useless in all other regards ("Umm....I think you go straight on this street, but I don't know, sorry"), I was still pretty pleased with myself because:

a) They took it for granted that I could understand Japanese
b) They assumed I had a sense of direction. FAAAAIL.

I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to understand and say as much as I did, which just goes to show that I need to get out and talk to more people if something that minor makes me so proud of myself. Anyway, shortly after, I passed by the little rickshaw drivers' area like I do everyday during my 20-ish minute trek from HIF to the bus station, and although I initially said "Konnitiwa!" and went along my merry way, I finally got my courage up to double back and timidly ask the rickshaw driver who was there if he could spare some time. He was really friendly and didn't mind at all, thankfully, as I explained to him how I was first year student at HIF and we had to do an independent study project and I wanted to interview him, adding the disclaimer that being just a first year my Japanese was terrible.

I had prepared questions beforehand after school had ended (while in the lounge listening to some absolutely awful hip hop song on Ashok's computer which I'll naturally have to look up and download now), and once again was pleasantly surprised that the Japanese seemed to come naturally and I remembered most of my questions (and the right grammar!) so I didn't have to read out of my notebook while I interviewed my guy, Kawahira Takuya. (Disclaimer: I can't actually tell where his last name ends and his first name begins from where he kindly spelled his name out in hiragana in my spiral). I'm also afraid I completely forgot the polite way of asking for his name, so I hope he doesn't think I'm super rude and ungrateful now. I'll have to go back and give him my last remaining Texas omiyage (wikipedia it, I'm too lazy to hyperlink that), which happens to be a shot glass in case you cared. Although he very well may have been using really simple Japanese after my disclaimer, excepting one question, I understood everything he said (and he understood me!) which was super duper freaking cool.

Tomorrow, I think I'm going to talk to random shopkeepers that I pass on the street slash random people whom I meet at bus stops now. Funny because I would never dream of doing any such thing in America because people scare me too much.

Onuma Park this weekend! But for now, homework and study time.

"Make sense simasu ka?"

(Short update because I'm procrastinating, but just a little bit)

Because I'm kind of oblivious to these things until wiser, more observant people (i.e., Ashok) point them out to me, apparently Asaoka-sensee uses the phrase, "Make sense しますか?" all the time. And, just like how when Ashok pointed out that Dr. Kundell always said "hwat" and "hwy" all the time in Human Biology last fall, I couldn't ever not laugh when I heard it thereafter, I now crack up in Japanese class whenever I hear "Make sense しますか," that is, when I'm not spazzing out in my seat because I'm being poked by a certain annoying Morse freshman who sits next to me. He and Brian also have come to the conclusion that I look like an otter, so I have to deal with calls of "Kawausoooo (sp?)!" throughout class and the occasionally pat on the head if I'm not careful.

So good news bad news time. Bad news is class is as difficult as ever, and getting grades back is uber depressing and I find myself lowering my already significantly low standards. Good news is, it seems most of my class seems to be in the same boat, so we're suffering together. Group solidarity, woo! Whenever I've encountered any of the students in Intermediate 1B, without fail, somebody's upset and grumbling about something, and for all of my constant whining, it's not even necessarily usually me. Poor Victor has to redo his Independent Study proposal a third time because Asaoka-sensee deemed it "not fun" enough, because Victor wants to read books and what not in Japanese (which can help him out with his graduate studies too). Poor Victor =(. I miss sitting next to him in class, although I feel less bad about not ever knowing what's going on when I sit and pair up with Brian or Ashok, because they seem equally confused at least some of time. Plus, I don't feel as guilty about breaking the Nihongo Dake Rule (Japanese only rule) when I'm paired up with the latter two who are probably equally guilty.

At the very least, even if my Japanese isn't improving significantly, my Japanese food vocabulary is improving, thanks to my wonderful okaasan! She really needs to stop feeding me though, I'm quite literally eating at least twice as much as I normally do. I'm picking up assorted vocabulary from her and Yoshihisa though, from the names of different fruits and vegetables to words like "gun" and "kill." Win? Also, my okaasan is a FORTUNE TELLER in her spare time. Soooooooo cool. I was wondering why there was a plaque reading "Soul Space" by the other door at the front of the house which isn't actually the front door---her office, と思います. She also has noticed that I've been sneezing a lot (darn you, Japan) and asked if it was alright if she cleaned my room on Saturday while I'm at Onuma Park partying up with the other HIFers, because she thinks that tatami mats carry a lot of dust and she's worried about my health. Seriously. I think I love my okaasan. I feel really bad and tried to politely refuse, but with the way she worded it (something like, "won't you please let me clean the dust up in your room, or if that isn't alright, I won't do it for you, but what do you think?"), it seemed a refusal would have been rude. o_O

Anyway, it's 11 pm and that means back to studying. I'll be taking pictures soon and uploading them, I promise. I have to interview one of the rickshaw drivers and get pictures for my Independent Study project (DO NOT WANT). While we're on the topic, won't you all be dears and comment and think of questions to ask them? Seriously, I'm failing at that. And I have to interview one in Japanese by Tuesday, AHHH.

So far, I have the basic how long have you been doing this job, what kinds of places do you visit, what kinds of people do you usually cater to, etc. Yeah, 助けて下さい！"

Over and out.