Post-Tokyo

Thursday

Right after school we went back to the dorm and got ready to leave for Tokyo.  Lots of last minute things going on; last minute cleaning, packing, computering... We went to the bus stop but when we got on the bus, Ele realized she left our Hotel check in stuff for Yokohama in her folder for school back at the dorm.  She and Tyler got off the bus and went back to get it, and John and Marikriz and I went on the bus to the station.  Ele and Tyler met us there by Taxi, and we went to eat at McDonalds before we left.  We seem to do that a lot.  Our train ride was long, and we transferred once at Echigozawa Station.  The second train that we took into Tokyo was pretty cool; it was a double deck Shinkansen.  We were on the second floor, but we were also asleep most of the time.  Plus, it was dark anyway.  When we got to Tokyo we switched to the JR line and took a train to Yokohama.  Our hotel was near the station in China Town, so we walked there.  It’s actually a really nice hotel, so it’s too bad that we only stayed for one night.  Also, our friend Masa came to see us.  We met him in Hawaii when the students from Kanto Daigakuin came to see us.  It was really nice to talk to him and see him again, but we were really tired, so the whole encounter was rather loopy.  I was using a really bad mix of Japanese and English.  We finally went to bed really early in the morning.

Friday

Friday we woke up and got ready, packed up all our stuff and took it downstairs to check out.  We left our luggage at the hotel and went to walk around Yokohama.  We walked down to the harbor, which only took about 10 minutes, but it was hot and humid as hell >.>  We were actually staying very close to where I stayed last year, but we took the train to the harbor last time.  We walked along the harbor and took lots of pictures, and we passed a park that translates into “Elephant Nose Park”  That was pretty entertaining :)  We went to the red brick warehouse, which is a shopping mall near the harbor, and they had Kua Aina there, so that’s where we had lunch.  It was kind of expensive, but it was soooo ono.  The girl that was working at the cashier was really cute, and she had just been in Hawaii two weeks ago.  She spoke really good English too.  After that we walked to the big Ferris Wheel.  I forget the name of it, but it’s one of the biggest in the world, I think, and it has a clock right in the middle.  Last year I video tapped it at night when the lights looked like fireworks :)  We rode the Ferris Wheel and the water ride that was there, because it was so damn hot.  We don’t really have amusement parks like that in Hawaii, but in Japan it seems like they have little ones like that all over the place.  After that we took the train back to Chinatown, because we were feeling lazy from the heat.  We walked through Chinatown a bit before we went back to the hotel to pick up our bags and take the train to Tokyo.  Then we transferred to the Yamanote line and got off at Kanda Station, and walked to our hotel, which was five minutes away.  We relaxed there for a while because we were all really tired.  I’m pretty sure everyone took a nap.  Then we left for Roppongi to meet Okamoto Sensei for dinner, except we were like, an hour late.  Which is really bad in Japan.  We went to a Mexican restaurant with her.  It was a little expensive, but the food was really good.  Also, Roppongi is full of black people.  As in, black people from Africa.  I’ve never seen so many before; I think Sensei said that most of them are from Nigeria.  They were calling to us to come to their clubs, and on our way to the restaurant one of them touched my arm and called me princess.  I’ve started to feel less guilty about ignoring people that call out to us on the street, because there are just so many of them.  After dinner Marikriz and I changed clothes because we were going clubbing in Shibuya.  We spent maybe an hour or so looking for the club that we had found in the book, but the club next to it was the one that everyone seemed to be going into, so we went to go in there instead.  Except we needed ID, and Marikriz and I had left our bags in a locker at the station.  Also, the guy at the front said I couldn’t wear my slippers in there.  So, we broke into three groups.  Ele went inside, John and Marikriz went back to the station to get our bags, and Tyler and I went to find shoes for me.  This was a problem, because it was like, 11-something and most of the shops were closed.  Also, I have monster feet, so shoes in Japan don’t fit me.  Eventually we ended up at ドンキ, which is nothing like the Don Quixote at home.  Their Don Quixote is more like a Walmart shopping mall complex department store thing.  They had shoes on the second floor, and we found the only pair that I could squeeze my feet into, which were size LL (shoe sizes in Japan are S, M, L, and LL).  Even so, they were about two sizes too small, I’d guess.  We walked back to the club and I changed shoes a little ways up the street, then we called Marikriz to bring my ID so we could go in.  It was soo much fun dancing in there.  There were so many people, and the DJs were really good.  They played a lot of songs we knew, and everyone was jumping up and down and having a blast.  The last train that we could’ve taken home left at about 12 30, and we were clearly not on it.  We were switching between floors of the club, but I never got to go to the fourth floor, where they were doing like, trance techno music or something.  It sounded like fun.  We ended up staying there until what we thought was 3:30 in the morning, but was actually 2:30.  See, the train station started running again at like, 5 am, and we were all starting to down, so we thought we’d leave, wander around for an hour and a half or so, then go home.  But it ended up being longer than that, so we sat at the station for a loooong time.  Tyler ended up falling asleep on the ground against the statue of this dog that was so loyal to his master that he would wait for him at the station every day, even after he died.  I fell asleep leaning on John.  We also met this guy who came and sat next to us and was talking to us who works for IBM or something.  Between his English and our Japanese it was a pretty good conversation, I think.  Then we finally got on the train and went back to the hotel.

Saturday

Saturday I woke up at 8am to take a shower, because we were supposed to leave the hotel by 9, but Ele and Marikriz were still sleeping.  I took a shower and then told Ele it was about 9, and lay back in bed and fell asleep.  I woke up an hour later and there was no one else around, so I thought they had left without me.  I got up and grabbed my stuff and went to knock on the boy’s door, but no one answered after 30 seconds and I was in panic mode, so I went and grabbed my stuff and went downstairs to wait for Ele and Marikriz to answer my text.  I almost went to the train station to meet them, but they said John and Tyler were still there, so I went back to the hotel and knocked on their door until they answered, then I sat and waited for them to get ready to go.  I was pretty mad that morning, because I would’ve thought that they would’ve at least left me a note saying that they were leaving and that John and Tyler were still at the hotel.  Honestly.  We ended up catching up with them in Harajuku, where we had lunch at this burger place called Loteria.  Then we went to Asakusa to meet up with Harumi and Natsumi and Michi.  They showed us around Asakusa.  We went to a temple with these huuuuge lanterns and we went to Japan’s oldest amusement park and rode some of the rides there.  We also took Purikura :)  I always tend to forget how much I love purikura until I take them again.  It’s ridiculous amounts of fun, especially if you have people with you.  After that we went to the Meiji temple in Harajuku, and it was really big and actually really, really clean.  Then we all split up, because we wanted to do different things.  Harumi and Marikriz went shopping in Harajuku.  Michi and John went shopping in Harajuku.  Tyler went shopping in Harajuku.  Natsumi and Ele and I went to Ebisu Garden Place to see the HanaDan site <3 <3  It was actually a lot smaller than I thought it would be, and they put planters around it.  The space in general is smaller than I thought it would be.  But now when I re-watch HanaDan I can say that I’ve been there :)  We were going to try to go to Ueno Park too, but we didn’t make it there :(  But I’m happy that we went to Ebisu.  I was so thrilled, you don’t even know.  Gah.  Anyway, we went to meet everyone in Akihabara, but we went back to the hotel first because we were sticky and gross and wanted to relax in AC, but we ended up being late to Akiba.  When we finally got there we met up with one of Aida’s friends and had dinner with her.  She printed out coupons for us because we were going to Yuneesun the next day.  Usually the admission would have been 3100￥, but because she gave us the coupons, we got admission and a buffet lunch for 3000￥ each.  An amaaaaazing deal.  After dinner Michi and Natsumi and Hiromi had to go home, so we said goodbye to them and everyone was kind of sad. But Natsumi is coming to Hawaii in October, so I told her to give me a call so I could hang out with her there.  Hopefully I’ll have my license by then >.>  According to daddy, I’d better have my license by then.  Then AChan can meet her!  Ele wanted to go to Shinjuku, so we took the subway there and went to Kabukicho, which is the red light district where they have all the Host and Hostess clubs.  The guys are all dressed up and their hair is ridiculous and they have the purikura action going on so that they look like girls, but they were really pretty.  There were a shitload of people there too.  Also, it started raining, but we didn’t really mind because it was so hot, the rain was actually kind of refreshing.  But Aida’s friend’s friend who was with her wanted to get an umbrella, so we stopped at a combini, and they bought us all umbrellas.  We walked around for a bit, and then we had to get on the train back to Kanda before they ended, so we didn’t get stuck like we did before.  It was about 11 30 pm and the train station was CRAZY.  There were SO many people and a bunch of them were drunk, so they were falling all over each other.  Saying that it was a little difficult to get to our train is putting it lightly.  And there were a million people trying to get on all different sorts of trains before they stopped running.  We finally did end up getting home, thankfully, and went to bed because we had to be up early to take the train to Hakone the next day.

Sunday

We left around 10 or so to take the train to Hakone.  We wanted to get there early because we wanted to spend a lot of time at Yunesun.  Yunesun is AMAZING.  It’s pretty much an onsen waterpark.  When we first went there we went to sign up for the buffet, because we were starved and hadn’t eaten breakfast.  It was sooooo good :)  Then we went to the actual park.  The main building had a lot of different pools, like the Greek bath and the Salt bath and the Sauna, and then they had this HUGE pool in the middle where all the small children were playing.  It was also super bubbly, so all the parents were hanging around in the bubblies like it was a Jacuzzi.  All the water was warm, if not hot.  The Salt bath was super amazing.  It was like the Dead Sea, not that I’ve ever been there.  But it’s so buoyant that you can’t stay on the ground.  You can just sit cross legged and float with your head above water.  SO MUCH FUN.  Outside was an entirely different story.  They have all kinds of different pools there.  They have a coffee pool, a wine pool, a green tea pool, a sake pool, a charcoal pool, a rock pool… so amazing.  We were hopping between all the different pools, and we also went to the coffee show :)   They threw coffee on us.  They especially threw coffee on Tyler.  It was pretty hilarious.  Then that night we went to our Ryokan.  It was amaaaazing.  We had this wonderful dinner at the hotel, and the dessert was so cute.  Then we went to the onsen spa near the hotel because we had free coupons.  That place was really nice too.  The outside portion of the onsen was really big; bigger than any of the ones we’ve been to before, so we got to walk around outside naked and hop between the pools.  The pools were REALLY nice.  I loved the rock pool that they have; it felt like being a mermaid or a water nymph :)  I wish we got to do that sort of thing all the time.  It’s the best way to take a bath, I think, walking around outside sans clothes and hopping between the pools.  There was a cold water pool too, and something called a plasma bath?  I think it had something in the water that would help your skin or something.  We had to get the hell out of dodge before 11 though, because that’s the time they were locking the hotel doors.  We ALMOST didn’t make it because Tyler took so damn long.  We had to run back to the hotel.  Then we all fell asleep watching TV.  It was a good day :)

Monday

We spent ALL DAY on transportation devices.  When we woke up we took the bus to the station, then took a very old train to the very last station.  The trail was a switchback, so we kept stopping and the drivers would run from one end of the train to the other to switch places.  It was really funny.  And it seemed like everyone took the time on public transportation to sleep.  The old train was really fun, and it was also super adorable.  After we got off the old train, we hopped on a REALLY steep, one track train that took us up to the rope way.  That was really fun, and I think by far may be the best way to travel.  We got to see the whole side of the country, and it was really beautiful.  We also got to see the sulfur where they boil the black eggs.  It was very interesting and very smelly.  Then when we got to the end of the ropeway we got on a pirate ship and sailed across the lake.  No joke.  It was pretty cool.  After that we took a bus back to the station, then a bus back to our hotel to pick up our bags, then a bus back to the station.  Then we took a train to Shinjuku, and then a train to Echigoyuzawa, then a train back to Kanazawa, and then a taxi back to our apartments.  WHAT A WEEKEND.

Pre-Tokyo

All in all, I think I’d call the weekend win.  I mean, especially since we started early.  On Thursday night we had a party in Aida’s room with lots of dancing and music.  Then we woke up early on Friday to do research for our History projects.  I’m looking into Japanese interior design; specifically, how the old styles affect today’s designs, because a lot of Japanese people still have tatami mat rooms in their homes.  But on the other hand, a lot of houses are become more and more westernized… I’m not exactly focused yet (^.^;  But I’m getting there.  Then we went to preschool and oh my god do I love those children.  My favorite is a little girl named Miho and I wish I could understand better what she was saying to me so that I could talk to her.  We were drawing together.  Then when we came back from preschool we had a picnic in the park near our building.  Everyone cooked food and we brought all the tables and chairs from the building to the landing next to the river.  It was actually really fun, and we danced a little bit and got to know everyone a little better.  A bunch of the IJST students came and a lot of our Japanese friends came too. After that we had a party in Tyler’s room, and I ended up giving everyone massages.  It was a lot of fun, but my sleep schedule is definitely skewed.  I don’t even know when it started, but it’s been pretty messed up for a while now.  We usually stay up until like, 4 am on the weekends, and don’t wake up until well after noon.  So on Saturday we didn’t wake up until like, noon or something.  And I kind of spent a couple hours lying in bed being emo because the weather reminded me of Kailua and it made me homesick really bad.  Also, I was listening to Hawaiian music.  So I wandered downstairs and found Savannah and we watched a whole bunch of Hana Yori Dango Returns.  And I want to watch it again because I’m feeling emo again.  I kind of want to watch Hana Kimi and Kimi wa Petto and Smile and Riida’s new drama, Kaibutsu-kun.  Then we went to Karaoke and that was really fun… we were there from like, 9pm to 4 am.  Those are the hours that Japanese people karaoke.  It’s kind of ridiculous, but at the same time amazingly fun.  We also had all you can eat ice cream.  And we sang a bunch of Arashi songs and had a lot of fun.  Then I didn’t wake up until three on Sunday.  Then I watched Shukudai Kun with Ele and couldn’t fall asleep last night at all.  Craaaazy.  Our Karaoke on Sunday got canceled because I guess Keita was busy with something or another.  Today for JSS we basically went to the other campus to walk to an ice cream place :)  It was good times, definitely.  Tomorrow I have to go to Nonoichi to get my new Alien Registration Card before we go to Tokyo on Thursday night.  I’m pretty excited for that :)

oh love, in sadness

I can’t believe we already have to leave soon.  We only have like, four and half more weeks here.  The last time I started counting down from four or five weeks was when I was counting down to leaving Hawaii.  Now I’m counting down to go back, and even though I miss home a lot, it feels like I definitely haven’t been here long enough :(  I heard SGE is already planning our farewell party.  *tear*

Since I have to update for the entire month of June, because I suck so much at updating this thing, I’ll just go with the highlights.

IJST

The other international students came early this month.  I’m pretty sure everyone was REALLY turned off by them for a while, just because they were so ridiculously… mainland.  I know that sounds bad, but they’re really different.  Even our teachers have admitted that there’s a difference between people from the mainland US and people from Hawaii.  And I think Fudano Sensei likes us better ;)

Admittedly, they’re not ALL bad.  But of the ones that I see most often, I usually only hear complaining or bragging.  Sometimes, they do both at the same time, which I didn’t know was possible, but I guess I was wrong.  There are some really nice ones though.  There are these two boys who are both named Tim, and they just so happen to be roommates.  What are the odds, right?!  Also Taylor and Alex and Johnny are pretty cool.  Some of the girls are nice too.  But there are a lot of them, and I don’t know most of their names.  Oh well.

The Friday after they arrived, SGE had a welcome party for them, and we were all invited.  Except, when we first got there, I totally didn’t want to be there at all.  Even though I know IJST comes to KIT every year, and that we’re actually the unexpected group, I can’t help but feel like their stealing OUR friends, and when it comes to my friends, I’m kind of ridiculously selfish.  So we were at the party and I was super down, so I drank like, five glasses of soda and got kind of hyper, and was bouncing around talking to people, which apparently left an impression, because when we got back to the lounge, this girl knew who I was even though I hadn’t met her because I was the “really happy one.”  Anyway, we met a bunch of people, new and old.  Yu was there and goodness gracious is he pretty :)  I talked to him for a while.  We also met these guys that ended up taking us to a club that night :)  I wanted to feel pretty so I dressed up and we went dancing and it was AMAZING fun.  I really want to go again :)  We had an amazing time, and I danced with a boy all night and he held my hand :)  Also, if I had to compare him to a celebrity, he looked like Oguri Shun.

Animizu

KIT owns this seminar house on an island in the middle of a lake or something.  Every year IJST and SGE go to the seminar house to spend time together (??) and since we were here anyway we went too :)  The morning we left we went to the Eco House, which is this eco-friendly house that they built as a model.  It’s actually a pretty amazing house, if I do say so myself. 

After that we went to this harbor-side mall like place to get lunch, and there was this amazing sushi/udon set for only 1000円.  And it was amaaazingly delicious.  KIT owns a boat, so we went to another harbor and took the boat to Animizu instead of riding the bus all the way there.  The bus took our bags and met up with us on at the seminar house.  The boat ride was sooooo much fun.  We took lots of pictures.  Well, more like I had people taking a lot of pictures of me.  My classmates are so strange <3  I was watching the water and we saw big jellyfish going under the boat, which was amazing :)  When we got to Animizu we had an orientation and then we had a lot of free time while we waited for the Japanese Students to come.  There were about 40 of them, because it was SGE plus some student government plus some exchange students plus general students, and about 40 of us, and about 10 teachers, so that’s like, 90 people.  That’s a lot.

We had a BBQ with the Japanese students, and that was a lot of fun :) At first it was like the IJST welcome all over again, and I didn’t really want to be there, but after a while it got to be a lot of fun.  Yu came to Animizu too, and we had a lot of fun with him.  Tyler and I ended up taking over one of the BBQ too after we were done eating, so we were cooking up a storm.  Japanese people have these thin, long fish that they actually eat whole.  I tried one.  It wasn’t that bad, but it had a kind of bitter after taste.  The BBQ was really fun though.  I enjoyed myself :) After it was over we all went back to the seminar house and a bunch of the Freeman girls went straight to the bath, partially because it was really small and we wanted to beat the crowd, and partially because we felt nasty ass dirty.  We’re all pretty much used to seeing each other naked anyway.  I’m really going to miss public baths, actually.  I feel much cleaner after them than I do after regular baths.  Weird, right?  The bath water to soak in was HOT.  Boiling water hot.  I could feel my insides cooking, and after we got out everyone was red.  After we got dressed we went to the gym to see what was going on, and Ele and I met these guys.  Their names are Masaki and Keita, and Keita kind of looks like Oguri Shun.  I’m not even lying.  We talked to them for a while and Ele got phone numbers :)  After that we stayed up all night playing cards.  Okay, not all night.  But until 3 am.  ALSO.  Before we started playing cards, we found Yu, and he was looking for a hair drier.  So Ele lent him the hair drier brush thing she bought, and then he had her blow dry his hair.  It was hilarious and something I don’t know that we’ll ever have the chance to do again.

At 6:20 am they blasted Pachbell’s Cannon throughout the ENTIRE building.  I like that song, but not at club-volume, and not at 6:20 am.  They played it until we were all definitely awake, and we all went to the gym.  Animizu is very traditional, so we watched them raise the flag while they played the national anthem, had one of the teachers give a short speech, and did the nation stretches that are learned in elementary school.  I think it was a good way to start the day :)  After that we all got dressed and had breakfast and then we had a culture class where we learned about Anthropology and where Japanese people are from and discussed cultural myths.  It was a really interesting class, and the teacher was really cool.  And I think I met about three people named Tomohiro.  Ridiculous.  Then we had a break.  We were all chilling in one of the girl’s rooms and Yu popped by.  That boy really knows when and where to be.  We were painting nails, and he came and sat with us and painted some of the girl’s nails.  He was SURROUNDED by girls.  The other guys should seriously learn from him.  Also, we ran around taking pictures of everyone.  After we left Animizu we visited this love temple, which was really depressing since I didn’t have anyone to be lovey dovey with.  Boo.  But we got to play music in the bus on the way back, because as always, our bus driver absolutely loved us :) Also, we had Mario Kart tournaments.  When we got back to KIT almost everyone crashed out for a couple hours.  When I woke up we went to watch Paranormal Activity in the laundry room with a couple of Japanese people after the World Cup game that Japan lost (>.>)  Hideki and Daigo and this other guy who’s name I can’t remember came over.  Anyone who knows me knows that I can’t handle scary movies, so I was screaming all the time and covering my eyes and Hideki was telling me to look at the screen.  I think he teases me about being scared all the time now.  But I’m kind of glad we’re all good enough friends now that we can tease each other.  Either that or I’m totally being ridiculed and I don’t know it.  I’m pretty sure it’s the first one though.  Anyway, after that we watched Gladiator.  It was a lot of fun :)

The past two days

Yesterday was absolutely grand.  We did absolutely nothing in both classes.  I saw Yu and he was wearing a lavender shirt and he pulled it off, which I’ve never seen a guy do before.  I was in the lobby of Building 1 eating lunch and studying and Takaki came and sat with me the whole time.  And I saw Keita and he smiled and waved at me.  I took an epic nap after school and Ele watched Arashi no Shukudai Kun with me when I woke up.

Today we didn’t even have class; we went on a field trip.  First we went to the other KIT campus where all the graduate students study.  And they’re studying smart stuff too.  Disaster simulators and making hip replacements and nano technology and cameras that follow the direction of your pupil and theater chairs that move.  We had lunch at their cafeteria and then we went to a temple in Komatsu.  It was amazing there.  I think maybe my favorite temple so far.  We climbed all over the mountain side and on a cliff and just had so much fun.  It was really beautiful there.  Then we went to the Origami museum and saw a bunch of really cool origami.  They make whole scenes out of pure origami!  I also got an origami book and origami paper :)  AND.  They have like, a microscopic paper crane.  It’s super crazy, I think.  When we came back Ele told me she invited Keita and Masaki to come watch Indiana Jones 4 with us.  After that they had dinner with us and invited us to go to Karaoke on Sunday with them.  We went to FaMa to get ice cream and Keita brought his car to show us and oh my good lord it is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.  It’s totally a racing car, and it’s red and it sounds amazing and I really want to ride in it.  Seriously.  We were totally fawning over it.  Then when he was leaving he revved the engine and sped off just to show off, which was kind of cute :) But at dinner, Tyler did 20 questions on them, which was ridiculous. 

I think that’s all.

travelling == win

Fail at updating this thing.  So bad.  Like, it's been half a month.  In my defense, however, we have been extremely busy over here.  たくさん宿題がありますよ。  We skipped out on club for like, a week and a half or so because we were all so busy.  But now that I've got a little bit of time, I can update :)

But, I can't recall all of the past month, so I'm just going to talk about our study tour to Kobe, Hiroshima, and Kyoto.  It's much easier that way.  Besides, that's when all of the exciting things happened anyway.

Kobe

The night before we left for Kobe, we all stayed up late making the last of our 1000 paper cranes for the children's memorial.  Most of us stayed up really late.  Personally, I stayed up all night.  We were folding cranes and stringing cranes and ended up watching Beauty and the Beast.  Then I had to stay up in the third floor to clean the lounge, and by that time it was about 6 am.  At that point it was pointless to go to sleep, really.  Also, I hadn't packed yet. So I stayed up packing, and cleaned my room to the point where it was spotless.  Vacuumed and everything, and the front room where I was sleeping.  Then I tried to go to Fama and Post Office, but the Post Office was closed, so I couldn't go :(

We got on the bus and went to the station to go to Kyoto.  We took one of the regular JR trains to Kyoto, but we had reserved seats, which was good, because it means less chance of people getting lost.  I sat next to the window and John sat next to me.  Actually, that was the seating for almost every train ride we took, now that I think about it.  Anyhow.  Because I didn’t get any sleep the night before, I slept all of, if not most of the two hour train ride to Kyoto.  I think most of us did.  I know Ele didn’t sleep the whole time, because she has a collection of people sleeping from the various vehicles we rode in.  By the end of the trip I learned to sleep with my sunglasses on and my hood pulled over my head.

We arrived in Kyoto and then quickly transferred to the Shinkansen (!!!!) to go to 新神戸駅.  新幹線はすごいだよ！ It’s amazingly fast and travels really smooth.  The ride to Kobe was… maybe 45 minutes long?  I don’t think I slept on that train.  I think I just finished my lunch.  When we got to Kobe we dropped our things off at the hotel, then went to walk around this district where all the foreign style houses are built.  These buildings are HUGE and when you’re walking there, it doesn’t feel like Japan at all.  It looks like what I picture in my head when someone says “English Countryside”.  I walked around with Marikriz and Reid and Fudano Sensei, and we climbed this steep street towards this thing called the fish-scale house, and this guy speaking French was coming down the street opposite us, and I said bonjour and he called me sexy and it was awkward.

The fish scale house is named such because the side of the house looks like fish scales.  It’s actually really pretty.  Side note: I think a million people must get married in Kobe, because they have bridal stores like ABC stores.  One on every corner, it seems.  We actually saw the end of a wedding while we were walking around.  I thought it was a funeral, but Fudano Sensei told us it was a wedding.  Apparently, you can tell because the men wear silver ties at weddings.  Also, we got some delicious ice cream.

After walking around, we met up and caught this adorable little bus to the coast where the Tower of Kobe is.  It seems like a little mini replica of Tokyo Tower, except smaller and a different shape.  I guess the only thing that’s really the same about them is the color: red and white.  Anyhow, we went up the tower and we could see EVERYTHING in Kobe.  The view was pretty amazing.  One thing that stood out was the fact that they have a buttload of chapels; further proof for the weddings theory.  I called my people from Kobe Tower; I also dropped my camera, causing it to malfunction and absolutely refuse to work.  That sucked.

From the tower we saw a Ferris Wheel and a little theme park and mall area that we wanted to go to, so Fudano Sensei said we could :)  Tyler and Ele and John and I went on a grand adventure to the amusement park.  They rode around on these huge stuffed animal things that walked, and I wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel but Tyler had us go into the Haunted House instead, which in retrospect could have been a lot scarier, considering it’s Japan.  We didn’t ride the Ferris Wheel but I did drag everyone to Purikura ^.^  I can’t find the pictures thought T^T  After that we ended up at the arcade and I raced with John and lost :(  But only just.  Ele is really good at that Taiko Drum game.

After that we went to the Earthquake Memorial.  It happened in 1995 (?) and pretty much destroyed all of Kobe.  Knowing that, it’s pretty amazing how fast they managed to rebuild the city and get their lives back so quickly.  When we were finished at the Earthquake Memorial some of us went into Chinatown with Yagi Sensei and Fudano Sensei.  We ended up eating at this little restaurant that had all you could eat for 90 minutes.  Except, the service kind of sucked.  They were slow and didn’t bring us what we ordered, and we were on a time limit.  So Fudano Sensei talked to them and went all Mama Hen on them.  It was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself :)  Then we went back to the hotel where I met up with Sayori, who I met about a year ago in Yokohama.  She lives in Kobe ^.^  I was so happy to see her!  She came up to our room and hung out while we finished stringing paper cranes for Hiroshima.  She also brought me TVXQ CDs ^.^  But they’re in JAPANESE!!  I’m so used to them singing in Korean, so it sounds weird right now xD  But I’m sure I’ll get used to it soon.  Just like I’ll get used to typing on my laptop again soon.  The keyboards are so different, it keeps throwing me off.  After we finished stringing the cranes, we went to sleep.

Hiroshima

We woke up and went to a buffet style breakfast, which everyone was grateful for because it’s been such a long time since we had anything but Japanese-ish food.  Then we went to catch the Shinkansen to Hiroshima.  The train ride didn’t take that long, and we went to the hotel to drop off our luggage before going into town.  Since I needed a new camera, we went to an electronics store, and I got the same camera John and Ele have, except for less than they both paid for it because the store was having a sale.  Score!  Then we went to eat Okonomiyaki, which was huge.  And delicious.  But mostly huge.  I really think we should have an Okonomiyaki place in Hawaii.  It would probably do really well.  After that we headed for the Hiroshima A-Dome, which was once one of the government buildings in Hiroshima.  The Atomic Bomb exploded almost right above the dome, so it was more preserved than many other buildings.  We were walking around the building and I was trying really hard to be somber and respectful, but there was a school band across the river (the park itself is absolutely gorgeous, by the way) playing the theme song from Super Mario, so it was really hard to be sad.  You can’t be sad when you hear Super Mario.  Then we went to the Children’s Memorial and donated our cranes.  Reading all the plaques was really emotional, and looking at the park around us it was hard to believe that it had all been completely totaled 65 years ago.  They said plants would never grow again, and they have the amazing, beautiful park.  It got me thinking though, what would that be like.  One second you’re alive and life is going as it always does and the next second you’re not and the world is burning.  I can’t imagine it.  Everything changing so drastically and so quickly doesn’t seem possible.  We went into the museum, which was even worse, and something I kind of don’t want to talk about, because it was so emotionally draining.  The pictures speak for themselves.  The thing I definitely couldn’t handle was all the pieces they had about the children that died.  And there were so many of them too…

The whole day was actually kind of depressing.  Coming out of the museum it seemed like everyone had aged a few years and looked really tired.  We rode around on the bus looking for places to go but everything was pretty much closing, so we all went back to the hotel and took a nap.  When we woke up we had dinner and just kind of stayed in that night.  I found the internet connection in my hotel room so I connected to the internet for a little bit.  Then to bed to get ready for the next day.

The next day we checked out of our hotel but left our luggage in the lobby and headed out for Miyajima Island.  Miyajima is the home of Itsukushima Shrine, which was thought to be so sacred that people couldn’t approach the actual temple back in the day.  The closest they could do was to approach the tori by boat.  The tori of Itsukushima Shrine are built so that during high tide, water covers a good portion of the bottom of the tori, which makes it look like the gate is floating in the water.  It is for this reason that Itsukushima is known as the “floating temple”.  Backstory aside, I love this little island.  People actually live here, and that sounds so tourist-y of me to say.  Also, THERE ARE DEER!!  They’re so adorable, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen them <3  I could possibly be in love with the deer.  The whole island kind of reminded me of Hawaii.  They even had sand and everything.  It was so beautiful there.  The specialty on Miyajima is oyster, so I had this oyster donburi for lunch, which was magically delicious.  Then we went around and did a bit of shopping, and I found Daddy’s oni mask :)  I think he’s going to love it.  I bought a lot of presents, actually. 

 Kyoto

After we got back from Miyajima, we hopped a train to Kyoto, which took 4 hours, which involved more sleeping.  Once we got to Kyoto, we checked into our Ryokan.  A Ryokan is a Japanese-style inn, which means one room, tatami mat floors, and you sleep on a futon.  So… kind of like our rooms at school.  And they had a public bath.  I love public baths.  I went twice while we were in Kyoto.  For some reason, I feel like I do a better job cleaning myself at a public bath.  Might have something to do with the fact that I don’t have a time limit there; we can’t run the hot water in our apartments for more than 15 minutes or it gets shut off.  Anyway.  We checked in, changed clothes, and went to a different hotel restaurant to meet Kobuke Sensei for dinner.  Oh, sweet reunions.  Everyone was so happy to see Kobuke Sensei, and she seemed really happy to see us :)  We went to eat at what is apparently a very fancy Japanese- style restaurant.  All the staff was dressed in yukata, so I believe when they tell me it was high class stuff.  I sat with Micaela and Reid and John and Yagi Sensei and Okamoto Sensei, and I ate a giant fish head.   I kid you not.  There are pictures on facebook.  It was pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.  The meal was really delicious.  There were a lot of courses that they brought one by one.

The next day we went shrine/temple hopping.  It was actually really tiring, going around to so many places in one day.  We visited a shrine first that I can’t remember the name of.  Then we went to Kyomizutera, which is this huge temple up in the mountain.  The view of the mountain from the balcony of the temple looks like Totoro’s forest.  I kid you not.  There’s also this huge stage that’s really high above the ground below, and in the past they said if you made a wish and jumped off and survived your wish would come true.  But, they’ve since banned that, for obvious reasons.  We also drank out of the spring that the temple is famous for.  After we were done we went to a tofu restaurant.  Kyoto is famous for tofu just like Hiroshima is famous for Okonomiyaki.  There was SO MUCH TOFU.

After lunch we visited the Silver and Golden Pavilions.  As it were, the Silver Pavilion isn’t actually silver.  Maybe it was planned that way, but it never really happened.  It is a beautiful place though.  My camera died while we were there :(  Not happiness.  But I borrowed Tyler’s, so I still have a bunch of pictures from that day.  The Golden Pavilion is actually covered in gold leaf, but it’s a replica.  The original was burned down by a crazy pyro monk.  True story.  After that we went to the manga museum, which is a museum, but is more so a GIANT collection of manga, and people pay an entrance fee to come in and read for as long as they like.  We hung out there for a bit, and Marikriz and I made plans to take pictures dressed as maiko, which are apprentice geisha.  By the by, geisha are called geiko in Kyoto.  After we went back to the Ryokan, our guide for the day offered to go with Marikriz and I to find the studio we were supposed to be at, since it was on her way anyway.  The bus driver also gave us a ride.  We’re so lucky :)  When we got the studio our guide ended up staying with us the WHOLE TIME to help us with the translations and everything.  Transforming into a maiko was really interesting.  You close your eyes and they paint your face and neck and chest white and you open your eyes and don’t recognize the person in the mirror.  And the layers!  There had to be at least… 10 layers on.  And the hair was ridiculous.  It wasn’t our real hair, of course.  That would’ve taken way too long, and I don’t think I have enough hair for that anyway.  We wore wigs.  Taking the pictures was difficult because we couldn’t show our teeth when we smiled.  But it was really fun, and I’m glad I did it.  Once in a lifetime opportunity, right?

The next day Tasha and I went with Yagi Sensei to Sanjusangendo, which is the hall of 1000 Buddha.  It was really impressive.  All the Buddha were different in some way.  We couldn’t take pictures inside though :(  Mom would’ve loved it.  I bet she could’ve spent an hour in there, at least.  After that we went to Kyoto station and wandered around, going shopping and having lunch.  I think Yagi Sensei should come shopping with us more often.  She’s really fun :)

At 1:00 we got on the train and came back to Kanazawa.  And that’s the end.

Also, I fail so hard.  I lost my wallet, and at the moment I’m feeling really emo about it.  It must have fallen out of my bag somewhere on the train or at Kanazawa station.  I really don’t want to think it was stolen :(  Everything was in there too.  Everything but my passport.  My BoH card, my Hokkoku Bank Card and Book, my student ID for Kapiolani and Windward, my KIT ID, my alien registration card, my Hanko…  The only think I didn’t lose were my keys and my passport, both of which were collected before we left.

I can’t remember the last time I fucked up so bad.

i can write a paper in japanese!!

Granted, it’s at like, a second grade level.  But it’s definitely a start.  Trying to express college level ideas when you have a second grader’s writing skill is extremely difficult.  But I think we’re getting better.  I think I’m beginning to think more in Japanese.  Some of my classmates write the paper in English and then translate it into Japanese, but I don’t’ feel like I can do that.  I have to write it straight in Japanese from the very beginning.  I hope I’m getting better at this language.  In two weeks our program in Japan hits the half-way mark, and it doesn’t seem like we’ve been here for a month and a half or however long it’s been.  Why is it that the Japan portion of the program goes by so quickly when the Hawaii portion seemed to drag on and on?  I’m so puzzled.

On the 28 we’re going on a field trip!  We’ll be going to Kobe, Hiroshima, and Kyoto.  It’s going to be very exciting, and our sensei said we’re going to be staying at very nice places, and we have to thank Papa Freeman for giving us so much money.  I fully agree o.o  But I emailed Sayori and she said we’ll probably be able to meet each other in Kobe because she doesn’t have classes on Fridays.  Happiness!!!!  I haven’t seen her in such a long time, and I’m sure her English has gotten really good, and now that I can speak at least a little Japanese, we should be able to talk to each other :)

This week went by really slowly, but it seems like it went by kind of fast.  That’s really strange to say.  We had a lot of fun at fight club on Tuesday.  Ele and I went, and we were practicing how to defend against a katana attack, and we were working with Takashi Captain the whole time.  In the middle of practice he said we were going to take a break and we started practicing Aiki, which is this method where you use as little energy as possible.  It’s really all about taking the energy that your enemy is using to attack you and redirecting it to use against them.  It’s sooo much fun, and Ele and I ended up just scrapping, and whenever we would get into a certain position Takashi Captain would come in and show us a move we could do to get out of it.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile and laugh so much.  It was really fun :)  But, Tuesday is the only day we went ^^;  I feel really bad about that.  Oh!  Thanks to fight club, I can touch my toes now!!  It’s very exciting.  I like it a lot, and I hope I can find a branch of it in Hawaii, because I’d love to continue it.  If only I could remember the moves correctly…

On Wednesday we had a ninja party for Ele!  It was really fun, but we got all wet and cold going to pick up chicken and her cake.  We did end up having a lot of fun though.  Then after the party Tyler wanted to play ninja, so we turned off the lights on the second and third floors and were hiding from him, but the sensei saw and thought it was the crazy old lady again.  So… we don’t get to play ninja anymore.  But we HAVE discovered that for seemingly no reason at all, Japanese people pop fireworks in the summer, just because.  Not anything big like we have at home.  Mostly just sparklers, I think.  But we’re doing fireworks next weekend with our Japanese friends :)

Also, we found a little arcade down the street a while ago, and I keep winning the racing games, which is a little unsettling, because I’m playing against people who actually have a license…

We went to talk to an English class too.  They were so nervous.  I swear, there’s like thirty people in that class, and three of them are girls.  That pretty much explains the whole demographic of the school, actually.  On Monday we’re going to sing karaoke with them, but only English songs, because their teacher said so.

Everyone is trying to get all their homework done tonight because we want to go to the ninja castle temple tomorrow :)

Jaa <3

look what i can do!!

先週(せんしゅう)の火曜日(かようび)の夜(よる)カラオケ(からおけ)をしました。日本人(にほんじん)の友達(ともだち)とロブ(ろぶ)さんとカラオケ(からおけ)に行きました(いきました)。午前(ごぜん)１２時(１２じ)から４時(４じ)までカラオケ(からおけ)をしました。カラオケ(からおけ)はとても楽し(たのし)かったです。たくさん日本(にほん)の歌(うた)があります。アメリカ(あめりか)の歌(うた)もあります。日本人(にほんじん)はアメリカ(あめりか)の歌(うた)が好き(すき)ですけど日本(にほん)の歌(うた)の方(ほう)が好き(すき)だと思(おも)います。私(わたし)も日本(にほん)の歌(うた)の方(ほう)が好き(すき)です。歌(うた)ったあとでこの写真(しゃしん)を撮(と)りました。私(わたし)は日本(にほん)に来た(きた)時(じ)からカラオケ(からおけ)をしたかったです。日本人(にほんじん)はカラオケ(からおけ)が大好き(だいすき)で私(わたし)も大好き(だいすき)です。日本人(にほんじん)にとってカラオケ(からおけ)はとても大切(たいせつ)です。自分(じぶん)の歌(うた)が下手(へた)でも大丈夫(だいじょうぶ)です。みんなはとても優しく(やさしく)勇気付けます(ゆうきづけます)。カラオケ(からおけ)は人間(にんげん)関係(かんけい)を良く(よく)します。誰(だれ)もがカラオケ(からおけ)でハイテンション(はいてんしょん)になって雰囲気(ふんいき)が良い(よい)です。カラオケ(からおけ)は楽しく(たのしく)友達(ともだち)を作る(つくる)ことです。これは日本(にほん)の良い(よい)ところです。私(わたし)は新しい(あたらしい)日本人(にほんじん)の友達(ともだち)が好き(すき)です。私(わたし)はまたカラオケ(からおけ)に行きたい(いきたい)です。カラオケ(からおけ)も私(わたし)の研究(けんきゅう)に役立ちます(やくだちます)。早く(はやく)読む(よむ)練習(れんしゅう)に役立ちます(やくだちます)。




Translation:
Last week Tuesday night we did karaoke.  We went to karaoke with our Japanese friends and Rob.  We did karaoke from 12:00 AM until 4:00.  Karaoke was very fun.  There were many Japanese songs.  There were also American songs.  The Japanese like American songs, but they prefer Japanese songs.  I also prefer Japanese songs.  After we sang we took this picture.  Ever since I came to Japan I wanted to do karaoke.  Japanese people love karaoke, and so do I.  Karaoke is very important to Japanese people.  Even if you are bad at singing, it's okay.  Everyone is friendly and encouraging.  Karaoke is a good way to develop human connections.  Karaoke creates high tension and a good atmosphere.  Karaoke is a fun way to make friends.  It is a good point of Japan.  I like my new Japanese friends.  I want to go to karaoke again.  Karaoke also helps me to study.  It helps me learn to read quickly.


I write like a second grader, yes.  But I can write!!