Japan is so much fun!

Hi… I hope there’s some people still checking this. I know I’ve been really bad in the last while for posting updates, but you know… I just sort of feel like, with one month left, I’m so close to the end that most things that I have to tell now can just wait till I get home. But I guess a month is still quite awhile, so here’s a quick post:

- I’m still doing well! I’m healthy and happy, have lots of homework to do this week, Japanese lesson test tomorrow, oral exam on Friday, a million ceramic pieces to finish, other papers, etc. due this week and then next week is… FINALS. My last day of finals is the 17th and, well, you know how that feels… I’m pretty excited. School’s not too stressful here, but it’s still a lot of work and I’ll be glad to have that part over.

- Luke arrives here on the 16th. We’re starting to finalize some travel plans… we’re gonna go to Tokyo for about 5 days, check out that big place, maybe stay in a capsule hotel for a night, go to a big design festival (Design Festa) that’s being held May 26th and 27th, go to Harajuku area which my Lonely Planet describes as “trendy teen fashion-land”, in Osaka plans include a Hanshin Tigers baseball game (baseball is a huge deal over here, I hear that games are quite cool), dinner with my host family, my “graduation” ceremony, party with my friends (I’ll need to say bye to them!), go to Dotonburi and Shinsaibashi streets maybe… Also we’ll tour around Kyoto for a couple days maybe, perhaps half a day in Nara to see the big buddha…. we’ll see. Kind of all still up in the air, as for specific plans. Oh, and Korea. South, of course. We’ll go there from the 29th to June 3rd. I’m not sure yet what we’ll do there, but I’m really excited to go.

- I’m gonna miss my family when I leave. They’re so nice, and I’m sure there’ll be days after I’m back at home when I’ll just want to walk into their little house and sit down for some rice, miso and fish. Aw…

- This past week was Golden Week, which meant Mon Thurs and Fri were all holidays. Everyone in Japan travels and everywhere is busy. So some of my girlfriends (Lucy, Megan, Amanda, Leah, Maria [Spain], Maria and Adriana [both Colombia]) and I went to a little tiny town down south on the coast, where there was… umm…. basically just a youth hostel. It was fun though. We had a sushi and takoyaki picnic on the beach, drank some beer around a bonfire on the sand (that I made! i have outdoor ed. to thank for the skills), borrowed bikes from the hostel to go to a supermarket (the only one was pretty far away, haha) and ate at one of two restaurants, I think. It was a relaxing couple days.

- I’m already feeling torn about wanting to go home, but not wanting to go home. It’s gonna be hard I think. I’ll definitely miss lots of things here. The uber-punctual transportation system, the food (rice, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, chirashi-zushi, my mom’s pumpkin soup, miso, convenience store rice balls…), my friends from so many parts of the world, seeing buildings and things that are really really old, the fountain on campus, sleeping on futons, riding bikes with baskets, etc.

- BUT, I will be glad to be back to many things at home. Clean air, actual rivers, having people drive on the right side of the street, being able to understand things, my family/friends/boyfriend, watching TV and movies, cooking, having public transit that runs past midnight, shoes stores having shoes that fit me, etc.

Well, I’m gonna keep working on this paper now… Bye guys.

last weekend… sunday spent walking around kyoto… saw some geishas dance, play music and be pretty… went to ginkakuji temple… took pictures… had fun… went to an english pub for pints of beer and fish and chips

Momoyamaminamiguchi Station

Hey!
I’m getting better at this finally… I’m posting photos that are from today!

I went to Uji, in Kyoto, today with Sacchan (who I met because she was my “speaking partner” but now she’s really just my friend) and her friends Tomoko, Kanappe, Yuri-chan and Rea. They all speak English pretty well and are really sweet and nice to me. It was sooo fun. They all ask me heaps of questions about everything and seem so interested in Canada/my life/life in general. Really sweet girls. They even bought my lunch for me (the green tea flavoured udon shown below, a specialty of the area).

And!… I got to wear a kimono, which this old Japanese lady dressed me in and then let me walk around the area a bit to take photos. It was pretty funny, since I was one of very few foreigners around (I think I saw only 2 others) I already stuck out, and once I had the bright green kimono on, I stuck out even more! But people loved it, they kept saying “kirei, kirei” which means beautiful, and some random people even wanted to take photos with me (the old ladies in the picture). So funny… but sort of weird, and the shoes really hurt my feet, so after wearing it for maybe 15 minutes I just wanted to take it off. But the best thing about the kimono is that I got to wear it for 1/10 of the usual cost. The lady said that she usually charges foreigners $100 for it, but I only had to pay $10. I tried to ask how much it would be if I was Japanese, but no one there understood my question.

So after that we had lunch, and went to Byodoin Temple, and then went on a boat ride.

In other news:

• I cut my hair the other day. And by that I do mean I myself cut my hair… not got my hair cut by someone else. I was in desperate need of a trim and didn’t feel good about getting it cut by someone who didn’t speak the same language as me.
• My host dad got a promotion, and now is the treasurer of Kadoma city, which is another small city close to Hirakata. He says it’s going to be stressful since the city has no money.
• Luke is coming to visit me. (And I think we should go to Korea!)
• I realized recently that I probably drink a billion cups of tea a day.
• I pretty much have only a month left of classes… which makes me kind of sad.

ps- again, hold your mouse over each picture if you want to see my little description of it.

一番: This is the entrance to the main train station in Kyoto. It’s an enormous building and is the most expensive train station in the world. I’m writing a short paper on it for my architecture class.
二番: With that class I went to Daitokuji temple, which is actually many temples. They are Zen Buddhist temples, so lots of Zen gardens and such. There are little stone figures in one of the temples.
三番: Zen…
四番: Kyoto is so nice. I love it there. There is a height limit for the buildings, so other than Kyoto Station there are no tall buildings or skyscrapers. The whole place just feels old and nice.
五番: At the side of this temple, overlooking this mossy garden, you could buy maccha (the kind of green tea used in tea ceremonies) for 400 yen and drink it here. So I did. It was really nice, very relaxing and I felt very… Japanese.
六番: I recently learned how to say “Is it ok to take a picture?” in Japanese, so I thought I’d ask these girls.
七番: Now is the time for hanami. Everyone (especially business men, who really like drinking) grabs a tarp under the cherry blossoms (in parks and temples all over) and drinks sake and eats food. Some places, like where we were in Kyoto, have food booths around, selling “fair”-type food… Japanese-style.
八番: This is me!
九番: Up until now I’ve noticed that people around here don’t really stay out late. Maybe it’s because it’s still cold-ish out, or because the trains and buses stop around midnight. But in cherry blossom season, they all come out! It’s nice to see some activity outside at night.
十番: A group of young Japanese kids came up to my group of friends and asked if we wanted to share an big bottle of whiskey with them. “Ummm… sure…” we said. Turned out to be hilarious and fun. This guy had a guitar and both he and Lucy played English songs that we all knew. What’s more fun that a sing-song under the blossoms?!
十一番: They proceeded to get extremely drunk (these hanami parties seem to be a big deal, like a it’s-once-a-year-so-let’s-drink-as-much-as-we-can type of thing) It was fun watching them, but I can’t say I really took part.
十二番: This girl was crazy! Look at all the charms on her phone!!!

I skipped my Japanese class today. We had a vocab quiz, and I didn’t have time to learn the words, so I just didn’t go. BUT, it’s ok… because my teacher drops the lowest quiz mark at the end of the term, so this will be my quiz that doesn’t count. Which is good, cause I got a big fat 0.

Japanese class is kind of boring. It’s pretty easy and the stuff I learn in a hour’s worth of class could be learned from the textbook in probably 10 minutes. But that’s alright, I usually go anyway.

Even though the class is ho-hum, that doesn’t mean I don’t love learning Japanese. I’m having lots of fun with it and am always excited when I learn new words that I can use with my family and when I’m out and about.

My other classes are really good though. Ceramics is as fun as ever and now that I’m getting more comfortable with the whole clay things I’m starting to actually have control over how things turn out. I can sort of design something in my head and then try make it. Uhh… it’s still really really hard, but I’m getting better. My ceramics instructor (sensei) is maybe my favorite person in Japan. I’ll make sure I get photos of him before I leave. I love the days when he plays Bob Dylan… and I can just sit in the studio and make things.

Soon I’ll be starting a paper on modern architecture in Japan and how it incorporates some aspects of traditional Japanese aesthetics… using Tange Kenzo’s buildings as examples. Should be fun… or maybe not fun, but at least interesting…

Right now I’m in the school computer lab, waiting for friends to get out of class and then go for lunch. I usually eat in the main cafeteria on campus, which has the usual… soba, udon, rice, curry, random things… I’m kind of sick of it, but it’s alright. Once in awhile I’ll mix things up a bit and go to the “good ramen shop” down the street. There’s two ramen shops close by and one’s good and one’s bad. (We still go to the bad one sometimes though cause it’s closer and dirt cheap, haha…)

Umm, that’s it for now. Oh, the weather here’s been kind of miserable. Rainy and windy and a little cold. The cherry blossoms are out, lots are almost finishing though.. They’re really lovely, I wish it could be sunny every day so that I could enjoy them more. But I’m not complaining! It’s all good!

Hey, here are some photos from my spring break trip to Hokkaido. It was FUN and you’ll all hear more stories about it when I come home.

ps. If you hold your mouse over the photos a little description should pop up.

sorry i’m sooo busy with things right now. there’s school, cherry blossoms, (sort of) nice weather, class trips, papers, etc. plus, my internet at home hasn’t been working, so i have to use to computers at school which makes posting photos more difficult. oh well. i’ll try to post some more interesting things soon.

everyone email me though! i want to hear from you!

Hey everyone,

I’m back from Hokkaido, which was amazing (heaps of good snow, food, fun times) and now I’m just trying to get used to being back in classes again. Just found out this morning that I need to learn about 25 new Japanese verbs for a test tomorrow morning. Yikes.

Anyway, just thought I’d mention that I experienced an earthquake yesterday for the very first time in my life. It was small here in Osaka (at the time I was thinking “hmm… why is someone shaking my house?”) but was apparently pretty strong elsewhere.

So incase you were wondering, I’m fine. Not crushed under a house or freeway.

PS I’ll write more about Hokkaido later and post some photos.