Exchange Students AKA Performing Animals (Oh, and Coffee)

Today was my last PII cultural activity: oshie (literally "presssed picture"). Along with a cohort of other PII students we went to the Ishikawa International Lounge where we were each seated in front of a small craft kit to make an oshie cellphone strap:

Above is all the pieces of the kit, both in the bag and laid out. On the back of the fabric was a piece of shaped cardboard. You cut slits into the fabric to make it easier to shape around the curves, and after putting glue on the cardboard you pulled/pressed the fabric until it conformed to the shape of the cardboard.

The finished product!

The most interesting part of this experience was that a comedy duo from a legitimate Japanese television network came to film/talk to us. (My host father knew who they were, I'm just spacing on their name right now...) One guy wore a red tracksuit, the other wore a blue tracksuit and played the guitar, especially at the punchline of a joke. All their reactions were very exaggerated...and apparently I had the funniest comment. When they entered they said "hi" and we said "hi" back. They promptly went "your Japanese is so good!" and I responded, "How do you know if it's good or not, we only said hi."

Anyways. The clip is going to air in August and hopefully PII or the people who work at Rifare will tape it and somehow share it with us so we can see ourselves on TV.

Then my friend Kat and I went to a coffee shop called Oh Life, which was advertised as a book cafe. It was glorious inside...simple and clean with books (mostly food books) everywhere. The owner is a baker and made delicious kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) scones...

Some of the books for display/sale.

Cafe o'lait.

Behind the counter. Note row of tomato cans?
There's a very good lunch deal (soup, sandwich, drink) at this shop so I'll probably be back within the next week to take advantage of the quiet, out of the way atmosphere and get some reading and/or work done.

Comments

文化祭！(Bunkasai--Cultural Festival Days 1 and 2) and Man I'm Tired!

So this weekend was Musashino Joshi's annual Cultural Festival, an event that all high schools (I would assume) have, where the school is open to the public and classes and clubs put on events, or set up quiz games or food booths. Essentially it's like a carnival. Traditional culture...not so much (though there are aspects of it). Mostly it's just good fun. My class was doing a chocolate banana food booth, so on Friday (the school-wide prep day, even though techincally it was another Japanese holiday) we got cardboard and began making our booth, which was Hawaiian themed. And you'd think it wouldn't take very long, but it took the entire day and then about half an hour on Saturday. (Also, what' you're seeing is Summer Uniform Form 1.5, where there's the sweater over the shirt.) But in the end the booth turned out pretty sweet, if I may say so myself: The top says Chocobana, and the sides of the poles are made to look like palm trees with a monkay on it

Homecoming

This is it. It's Friday, February 3rd and in less than 24 hours I will leave this house for Tokyo train station, which will take me to the airport, which will take me...home. Most of this week has been taken up with goodbyes: to schoolmates and teachers, and later, close friends. There were tears involved. I think the photos will do it a lot more justice than I could: Kohei, from tennis group. All the tennis people got together for dinner at an okonomiyaki (think cabbage pancake, with yummy stuff like shrimp in it) but first we went to a boardwalk which had nighttime light shows. Top: Anime Club. They threw a small party for me, where we ate lots of food and watched (what else) anime and talked. Bottom: one of my English classes. They asked me to teach them an American game for the last day, so I taught everyone how to play Heads-Up 7-Up. They were pretty good at it. The other exchange student, Nom, and my Japanese teacher. The last view of school: the walk leading u

Enoshima: The Heavenly Maiden and the Dragon

This past Monday was a national holiday -- Mountain Day -- so, of course, Troy and I headed to the beach instead. Well, to an island near a beach since (as some of you may know) I'm not exactly the beach-going type. Plus I'd just climbed Mount Fuji, which was more than enough mountain for me. Enoshima is a small island off the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture, fairly near Kamakura. It's connected to the mainland via a bridge, so you can just stroll on over from the train station. The entire island is dedicated to Benzaitan, the goddess of everything that flows -- time, water, speech, music, and knowledge. According to the "Enoshima Engi," (a history of the shrines and temples on Enoshima) there's also a legend associated with the creation of the island involving Benzaitan and a dragon. In brief, the area around Enoshima was once wracked by violent storms and earthquakes. Eventually the tumult ended and a heavenly maiden (Benzaitan) descended from the clouds.

Rice and Ramen

Search This Blog