Rice and Ramen

Homecoming

2012-02-02T17:27:00.000-08:00

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 up to the University library, and if you turn right at the end of the path you get to the highschool building. Then there's the security guard who made sure that we crossed the street safely in the morning.

My best friends here (from left to right): Yukiko, Mizuki, Me, Manae, Shiohara (we all call her by her last name) and Saho. They all came over to my apartment and we ate and played games and later cried.

Rina and Emi, some of the first friends I made here (they walked with me to the train station since we took the same train home. They saved me a bunch of times in September when I wasn't as good with the train system here.

We went to a shopping complex the size of a small American town where I bought my third suitcase. For some reason I find it ironic that in the photo that says "best shoot" (*coughEnglishcough*) we were doing our "hengao" (strange face) shot.

That is the stack of letters I've recieved from home, as well as from my friends here. I'll treasure lots of the things I got here, but I honestly think I'll treasure the letters most of all.

So to everyone reading this blog, WOW has it been an adventure. It's been hard and fun and eye-opening and inspiring and it has made me grow immensely as a person and a student and I don't regret coming one bit! It has given me a new family and a new culture and made me treasure everything I have at home all the more. I guess I'm trying to say "thank you" for supporting me when I decided to go, when I've been gone, and support for when I get back and am totally clueless in school and going through culture shock since I won't be able to decide if I'm Japanese or American. If I start bowing or random Japanese phrases pop out of my mouth...well, I'll try to curb the bowing to a minimum.

Lots of love from the Land of the Rising Sun
T-24 hours!

Claire

This Day Was Full of Happy Things

2012-01-28T06:41:00.000-08:00

There's just no other way to describe it. Today was a happy day. Life could not get better than today.
First of all, the third and fourth periods of our normal Saturday half day was the speech contest that I'd written my lovely rock-paper-scissors speech for. Needless to say, I was sweating bullets. Despite the freezing weather, the contest was held in the gymnasium. Fortunately, everyone was allowed to bring blankets and scarfs so we wouldn't freeze. I was glad of my shivering for one reason: it hid my shaking and gave me an excuse. Of course, as the exchange student they put me as the last person.

It went rather well. When it came time to announce the winners (first, second, and third in both English Speeches and Japanese) for some strange reason they announced that I was the second place winner in the Japanese Speech category.

Go figure...

Then, my friends told me to wait in the classroom once class was over. They contrived something about Gashosai (Music Festival) singing practice, but when they led me down to the first floor I began to get suspicious. They had me go into a room that has a bunch of tables used for the cooking class and I was met with this:

They threw me a SURPRISE PARTY. I didn't have a clue. For such a talkative group, they are surprisingly great at keeping secrets.

There was lunch, and then cake, and then everyone brought a bag of chips each so we passed around 37 bags of snacks. That picture is everyone doing rock-paper-scissors to see who gets to choose their piece of cake...ahaha!

From top to bottom: everyone eating away, me with my four best friends here, and then our class photo. (Yes, I know there's some issues with it...but you can see everyone so it's all good!)

Then they gave me presents (which they REALLY didn't need to do) but the best one I got was this book they made, where they put everyone's picture next to messages they'd written. I am going to treasure it forever and ever and ever and EVER. It pretty much sums up why I wanted to travel abroad in the first place. I nearly cried when I opened it, and I can't wait to take an hour or so to go through them really carefully.

The third awesome thing was I got my grades for the classes I had here, and I gave a huge sigh of relief when I got them because it seems that getting credit for classes should be alright:
Math -B (I half expected this; it's hard enough for me to understand math in English, let alone Japanese...)
Biology -A+ (they actually wrote the plus)
Integrated Science -A+ (kinda like Earth Science)
English -A+
Japanese -A
Home Economics -A+
Calligraphy -A
Art -A
Music -A+
P.E. -A+
Computer -A
WHOO! I don't feel like a failure! Yeah!

On top of all of this, (as if this weren't enough!) the extended family got together for dinner as a combo goodbye to me/welcome back to Ryo. We ate, and talked, and laughed and generally had a great time. And now it's now...and I don't quite know what to think. I'm still a little bit in shock. What should I feel right now? Happy? Sad?
T-7days!

Crafty Things

2012-01-27T03:49:00.000-08:00

As school is winding down (for me at least, I only have 2.5 days left!) I've started to either complete projects or get them back from teachers. So without further ado, I present to you the various crafy/artsy things I've done recently.

Marco the Phoenix from One Piece. Forgive the horrendous way the colors came out, my camera killed them.

Poplar from Working!
Both pictures were sketched and then painted with watercolors for club.

Scarf and pattern detail that I knitted for Home E.C. Now that I'm finished...I wear it, because it's ridiculously warm, if a little short (I ran out of yarn, so I just use a pin to attatch the two ends together and then it stays in place). The teacher had us knit them all ridiculously wide, so each row is 40 stitches...I could have made a longer scarf if I'd gone with 25 or 30 per row, but I'm not in charge so couldn't complain.

Book that I made with some of the calligraphy I did. The middle photo's left page says "ookami" or wolf. (The right side is backwards where you see the ink through the paper. But if you're curious, the right page says "utsukushii kokoro" or beautiful heart). Bottom is binding detail (and cover pattern detail).

Final little project I did, on a piece of cardboard, so you can stand it up or frame it or whatever. It's supposed to look all uneven and wiggly, it makes it more interesting. It's a haiku by one of the four haiku masters, Issa Kobayashi. It says (reading vertically, right to left): kusa no hana/ yondokoronaku/ sakinikeri, which translates into something like:
out of the grasses
the inevitable
wildflowers
(Translation courtesy of THIS WEBSITE!)

I actually like it a lot.
And that's what's up in life. Tomorrow I have my school speech and I'm having dinner with the extended family so I can see them one last time before I leave.
T-7 days (OMG ONLY ONE MORE WEEK!)

Proud Confession: I am a Nerd

2012-01-25T05:36:00.000-08:00

Monday, fortunately, was a day off school, so I opted to do something I've wanted to do for a while and head over to Ikebukuro. I did this by myself, and just to give a hint as to how proud I am of myself for being able to navigate this place all by myself let me put it in perspective: Ikebukuro Station is the second busiest station in all of Japan, second only to Shinjuku. Both of which I've been to and transfered around in, without getting seriously lost. I mean, even some Japanese people don't like those two stations, if my host family is any example, because they said themselves they think they're too mazelike. But I digress. Point is, I felt awesome about myself for a bit.

Personally, I rather like the vibe that Ikebukuro gives off, business and all. To me it has a different beat than the rest of Tokyo, and for some reason it makes me feel extra alive, like I'm part of some large piece of music with this addictive beat running through it. It doesn't make much sense, I know, but it's how I felt.

Also, the fact that Ikebukuro is the setting for one of my favorite animes doesn't hurt either.

Durarara!

Armed with a map that I printed off online that marked out a few of the places I wanted to go, I set about trying to actually find my way there. It looked much less confusing online than it did in person. Fortunently, Ikebukuro is touristy enough to have maps posted on every street corner or so, and with a little comparison I was able to find my way to where I wanted to go: Animate! (Note: at one point, as I was trying to orient myself at an especially large intersection, a very sweet old Japanese lady came up and asked me if I needed help. That is just one reason I love Japan. No one in America does that.)

So there we have Animate, a small heaven for otaku goods. It made me happy. Sometimes going to these sorts of places with someone is nice, but I did want to go alone just once so I could take all the time I wanted.

NINE FLOORS of that. NINE. Including some creepy things that made me pause and go...WTF is that?

QED:

Are those eyes not creepy or what? And the name..Blythe. Reminds me of Scythe. Not a good comparison at all...

From Animate I walked down the street to Lashinbag (I think that's how its spelled) where they have discount manga (YAY), bin diving and doujinshi (fan comics). Fun fact: the street I was on is sometimes called "Otome Road". Which means, more or less, "Virgin" or "Maiden Road". Reason being, most of the goods and doujinshi cater to women...which means you see a lot of BL (boy's love).

In the defense of women everywhere, if Ikebukuro caters to women, Akihabara is geared toward men, so you see a lot of pictures of busty girls and maid cafes and other stuff for your average, healthy boy.

And if I may have my rant, it bothers me that on some level it's culturally acceptable for men to do stuff like that, but if women are into something like that it's weird. Otome Road is sometimes called "Fallen Woman" road (or something like that) or other insulting terms. I haven't heard of anything like that for Akihabara. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but just thought I'd throw that out there...

More manga and whatnot. I didn't go in this one.

Right across the street from Animate is Sunshine City, which is a combo shopping mall/what used to be the tallest building in Tokyo. It has an aquarium and a planetarium and a viewing deck, so it's a pretty popular destination.

I didn't go in it, but there was a bagel cafe where I had a nice lunch special of soup and a bagel and a drink. I stayed there for a while, reading a book and just relaxing.

The view. The building just to the left of the animate has one of the larger (largest?) Toyota showrooms in Tokyo (or something like that.)

Then I slowly wandered back to the station, and popped into the flagship Seibu department store.

That picture does not do its size justice. It is MASSIVE. Ridiculously so. I am very glad I had a purpose for going in there, otherwise I would have gotten hopelessly lost. Deparment stores don't need to be the size of small American towns. I'm sure a few could fit inside of it quite comfortably.

Random Hello Kitty store. Terrifyingly cute?

Then I headed home, where I proceded to begin the rather daunting stack of thank-you notes I need to write. They take three times as long since they're all in Japanese and I have to make sure I don't make any hugely obvious grammatical errors.
T-10 days. It doesn't feel real yet, the fact that I'm coming home soon.

AFS Chapter Goodbye Party

2012-01-21T23:51:00.000-08:00

Sunday was part 2/2 of this weekend's series of AFS events. This one was more personal, since it was the goodbye party for my chapter, Tokyo Nerima. Relatively earlier than I'd like for a Sunday morning my family and I (as well as one of Ryo's friends, who had stayed over the night before) took the train over to the ShakujiKoen Center where the event was held. It was also the same place that the chapter welcome party was held all those months ago.

The first part of it was, for most purposes, uninteresting. Lots of speeches, including one of the three I had to write. So I can check one of those off the list! WHOO!

It didn't go too badly, if may say so myself. Even though it was only in front of host families and AFS volunteers, I was more nervous than I needed to be. But I was confident in the Japanese I had written, and everyone said they understood it clearly, so that's all good.

Huang, the other AFSer in my chapter also gave a speech. Then we both recieved small gifts from AFS.

Then there was a smorgasboard lunch: sushi, pizza, takoyaki, dango (mochi rolled into small balls and stuck on a skewer and usually flavored with red bean paste or soy sauce or some sort of honey glaze), tea sandwiches, truffles...I restrained myself from stuffing my face.

Then, naturally, comes the staple group photo:

And that was about it for my Sunday. I'm going to spend the evening relaxing since I don't have much pressing work, maybe draft some of the thank-you letters I need to write to my teachers and such. Since I have tomorrow off, maybe I'll geek out and head over to Ikebukuro for a half-day or so. :)
T-13 days!

Exchange Students Make Good Performing Animals...

2012-01-21T06:29:00.000-08:00

...that must be why we're always asked to put on performances and attend functions and whatnot. We are paraded out, say our little spcheal ("I love Japan, I have made so many great friends and I don't want to go homeeeeee!"), put on a performance and BOOM! Instant intercultural event! Just add some insanity and mix thoroughly.

Today there was a "Cultural Exchange" at Kokushi high school with some local AFSers and exchange students from two Universities. The exchange students were going to give introductions and a few performances, and the high school was going to demonstrate taiko, other traditional instruments, and allow us to try calligraphy and tea ceremony.

The AFSers all walked from the train station together, and once we'd met up at the high school all of the exchange students were asked to give a brief self introduction. With the self-introductions out of the way, the students started with their demonstrations. After the taiko and koto (which we all got to try:)

their cheeraleading squad gave a short performance. Hate to say it, but that performance was the coolest. Maybe because they tossed people up in the air...

Then the AFSers and university students were asked to give performances. I didn't do anything because I didn't have enough time to prepare (I was only asked in person a day before the event...not happening...)

Even a few other people decided to put on a "performance" as soon as they got there, which ended up in a half-funny, half-pathetic dance.

To answer your questions: yes, that is a guy in a pikachu suit. And YES the guy next to him went and put on a skirt and a blouse and the thing he's throwing to the ground is a wig. *twitch* That was quite possibly the most mentally scarring thing I've seen in a while, especially when the skirt was flying up...*shuddderrrr*

The university students sang a few songs (one Japanese song, then Country Roads, and then If You're Happy and You Know It in all their respective languages).

There was a lunch...some generally awkward intercultural interaction (you know the way it is; you stand in corners with people you know talking about the people in the other corner). We did talk to a few nice students, however, and the guys in our group went to find some cheeraleaders to hang out with.

AFS buddies forever! WHOOO!

Then tomorrow I have my AFS chapter goodbye party. I can't believe I'm almost going home.
T-14 days!

An End and a Beginning

2012-01-16T01:41:00.000-08:00

Today was both a happy and a sad day. Today my host brother, who has been an exchange student in Germany for the past year (that's why I have his room...ahaha) returned to Japan. My host dad came back for the occation, but unfortunently after this his work becomes busy, so it was also the last day I would get to see him before I return to Chicago.

Ryo's (my host brother) plane arrived at eight in the morning, which meant that my host mother and father had to leave the house a little before five in order to pick him up. Ayuko and I wisely--in my opinion--elected to wait at home, earning ourselves some extra (and MUCH NEEDED) sleep. They didn't get back home until a little after twelve, which makes sense once you factor in all the waiting at the airport and the travel time home.

Spending a year away from Japan has definitely made him more open than most Japanese, since the first thing he did when he got home was give me a hug instead of a bow to say 'hi'. My first impression of him was good: a very nice, energetic and funny guy. He showed us photos from Germany, which only reinforced my desire to visit there someday, since the scenery/architecture is simply amazing. I'm a little architecturely starved over here, the Japanese buildings are really just greyish-pink rectangles. Not very interesting.

He battled through jet-lag until the early evening, but was out by 9pm. Before he went to sleep, we took a family photo. (Fun times experimenting with my camera's timer feature.)

(Yeah I had some centering problems.) What was funnier is that for the longest time we couldn't figure out how to start the timers, so we kept getting into position and smiling into nothing before bursting into laughter. But we finally got it.

So it seems like he'll be sleeping in the spare room just off the kitchen for the remaining three weeks I'm here. (That had worried me at one point, since I feel a little guilty for taking up his room. But my host mom told me not to worry about it. But still...) We also take the same train to school in the morning (though I get off well before he does). It should be a fun remaining three weeks here. This weekend is chock full of AFS events, so I'll have more news for you guys soon enough!
Countdown: 19 days

Winding Down, or So I Thought

2012-01-12T05:33:00.000-08:00

Down to 23 days now (yes, I am keeping a countdown). Winter break is over and it's back to school as usual. I thought my work would be over and I'd be enjoying my last weeks here with my friends. Apparently, I was severely kidding myself. I have been assigned three speeches to write and present in front of large groups of people, all within a week of each other.

One of them you already know about, my speech about rock paper scissors that I was toying around with. I did decide to go with it, and over winter break I spent an obnoxious amount of time trying to translate the version I wrote in English. Here's what I wrote in English:

あいこでしょ

There is a saying that goes “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. It can be applied to books, of course, meaning that you shouldn’t judge the quality of a book based on the quality of its cover—or, things are not always what they seem—but it can also be applied to other, everyday things such as rock paper scissors (RPS).

RPS is a game that is known around the world by many different names. Here in Japan it is, of course, “jan-ken-pon”, while in English the three symbols mean “rock”, “paper” and “scissors” [show gestures w/ meanings]. There are even more meanings for these three symbols, for example, in Vietnam and Indonesia the ‘fist’ represents a hammer, rather than a rock. The frequency RPS is played was one of the things that surprised me about Japan. In America, RPS is used for the same purpose from deciding who should use the bath first to who should partner up for a project—but in Japan it’s used much more frequently than in America. Even more surprising was that it wasn’t just for kids: adults played RPS as well without batting an eye.

All of the RPS I have played to play brought to mind one of my classes from last year, Game Theory, which essentially combines statistics with psychology in order to achieve the “optimal result”. Obviously, Game Theory can be applied to bigger issues, but RPS is also an example of Game Theory, albeit a simpler one. In RPS, the “optimal result” is achieved by being completely random in what you throw. However, the “optimal result” in a series of RPS games would be an equal amount of wins, losses, and ties, but the goal isn’t to lose or tie, it’s to win. Humans in general are also terrible at being truly random. That’s where the psychology comes into play. There are several strategies that—while not perfect of course—increase the chances of winning.

1. Beginners and men are more likely to use rock on their first throw. Why? Rock has a powerful and strong connotation, which appeals to men. So if you are playing with a guy or a beginner, you can use paper to counter them.

2. Strategy two is to lead with scissors. You do this when you assume that your opponent is also trying to play a step ahead. I.E. you assume that they know you would counter their rock with paper, so you play scissors. That way you are guaranteed a tie at worse and a win at best.

3. Strategy three is to be aware of someone using the same throw twice in a row. When they do, you can be sure that on their third throw they will change. The reason is that humans in general hate to seem predictable, so in order to be more “random” they will change their throw. That way, you can eliminate one option and use what would give you either a stalemate or a win.

4. Strategy four is, when you have no idea what to do, use paper. You do this for two reasons; one of which being it beats rock, the most common throw, and also because scissors is the least used of the three options, by a few percentage points.

When you look at the simple example that RPS provides of analyzing your opponents, making predictions about what they would do based on your analysis, and then acting on that knowledge, it’s easy to see how the mindset of RPS can be applied to larger things: such as in business, when trying to outsmart a rival, or in war, when trying to outmaneuver your opponent. The latter is an extreme example, of course, but the principles remain the same just on a larger scale and with more at stake than not getting that last slice of pizza.

So the next time you need to use RPS to decide who gets that last cookie, or the order for using the ofuro, with a little extra thinking, a victory is within the palm of your hand.

The title is pronounced "aikodesho" and you say it when you have a tie--it means something along the lines of "one more time". I'm quite aware that I could have gone much more indepth with the strategies (there are loads more) and some of the analysis, but this is already bordering on too difficult for me to translate as it is. The ideas are so techical that I had a hell of a time figuring out how to express them. And by all the red my teacher put on the first page of the translation, I still have a ways to go. But I'm not upset, I took on a challenge, so perfection was not expected.

The second speech is one AFS asked me to do, talking about "My Experience with AFS Japan" and partially a thank you to my host family. That is also supposed to be 4-5 minutes and I have to say it at the farewell party on the 22nd in front of AFS people, exchange students, host families and probably some other people as well. Slightly easier topic, which I finished writing yesterday and had my host mom look over. Not too many edits, just a few phrases that I'd written awkwardly were corrected:

六か月。八月に私は六か月がとっても長い時と思いていました。しかし、いま六か月が飛んで行きました。いま、私はアメリカに帰るのが信じられません。日本はすごく楽しかったです。そうして、ＡＦＳと私のホストファミリのおかけで私は楽しい時をすごしました。私はたくさんの大切な友達を作りました。私もはＡＦＳのいろいろなイベントに参加しました。感謝の気持ちでいっぱいです。

去年四つのＡＦＳの出来事は私にお気に入りの思い出になりました。その出来事はＪｅｎｅｓｙｓ　ＦｅｓｔｉｖａｌとＤｉｓｎｅｙｌａｎｄとおせんべいを作りている工場と銭湯に行ったことです。そのイベントはすべて日本の文化がありますからそれらは私の日本の経験を表します。

おせんべいの日私はおいしいせんべいを作りました。それは私のはじめてのおせんべいを食べた日でそうして私が作ったおせんべいの味は愉快でした。

次は銭湯に行った時です。日本でそれは私の一番こわい経験です。アメリカには比べるものはありません。バレリアと彼女のＬＰといっしょに行きました。とっても楽しかった絆の経験です。銭湯の牛乳もはおいしかったです！今も私はその牛乳ポーズを覚えています。

三番目はＤｉｓｎｅｙｌａｎｄです。その時に私はジェネシスの人たちやたんだひろしさんと仲良くなりました。私たちはたくさんの楽しいアトラクションを乗っているあいた私たちの国の文化について話をしました。とっても面白かったです。

最後はＪｅｎｅｓｙｓＦｅｓｔｉｖａｌです。そのフェスチバルがＡＦＳの心を描くと思います。イベントのテーマは友情と理解、二つとも私は見つけた。

ＡＦＳと私のホストファミリは毎日励ましてくれました。時々私は心配したりストレスをかんじました。しかし、毎日大切な人が私を助けてくれました。私はみんなさんをぜったいに忘れません！

ＡＦＳと私のホストファミリ、みんなさんおかげで本当に楽しく過ごしました。日本にいる間に私は自分の心が成長しました。その中でもこわがらないことが一番重要なです。完璧な文法はいいですけど心配しないでください。人たちが自分のポイントを分かる、それでいいです。そうして、未来の留学生へがんばってください！本当に私の心からありがとうございました！この六か月私はとっても嬉しかったです。

Honestly, I'm rather proud of it.

The third speech is my school asking me to write a brief goodbye speech which I have to say in front of my school year. I kept it short...two paragraphs, mostly just saying what a wonderful time I had, thank you, I won't forget you and other general mushy stuff.

So now that they're all written...next comes the practice, because my reading lacks flow. *Sigh* More work for me...why couldn't I just get to relax?

Friends and Large Buddhas

2012-01-07T22:39:00.000-08:00

The day after my lovely Ghibli adventure, I was invited to chill for a bit at one of my friend's house. It was the first time I had been to someone else's place since everyone is usually super busy with club and what not, and if we did hang out it was someplace in Tokyo. So I was rather excited. I took the train to her house, and then we took purikura (what else) at her home station, then did normal girl hanging-out stuff. Ate lunch, listened to music, watched a movie...just generally talked. It was a lot of fun.

I also met her Mom and older sister, who were both very nice. Had a blast using google earth to show them my house and around my neighborhood.

Then the day after that I got up at six thirty in the morning to take two hours--TWO HOURS!--worth of trains to Kamakura to hang out with Troy. (TWO HOURS. GAH). I had my first experience with Tokyo rush-hour trains. Two words: they suck. We were all packed like sardines into that train. I had a guy in my face and a guy right up on my ass (yes, ass, it was like that) and fortunently I only had to go a few stops like that. Singularly unpleasant.

But putting that aside, Kamakura was quite lovely.

Went to a shrine and prayed, then went into the Kamakura museum which had a bunch of old religious statues and some prints. (Unfortunently, no photos allowed.)

Then we walked down to the beach and strolled along, eating Baskin Robins ice cream (they call it 31 here).

I'm a sucker for that sky.

Then we took another short train ride to another part of Kamakura where we went to see Daibutsu, or "Giand Buddha".

Construction began in 1252, and it's 11.3m tall (without the pedestal). It weighs 121tons. You could go inside of it too and look at how it was put together. We hung around Kamakura a little more, then took the train partially back to Yokohama where we had a lot of fun in purikura *happy grin*. Lots of Kiwi love for me!

And that was the end of my two days of friendship fun! I can't believe break is almost over. And that I'm down to 28 days before I come home. When I say it that way, it doesn't sound like such a long time after all.

Ghibli Ho!

2012-01-06T20:13:00.000-08:00

Aaah, Ghibli, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...
On Wednesday, while my host dad was still in town for New Year's, we made a family excursion of it and all went to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. Having been there two years ago when my family went to Japan for YaleGALE over the summer, I was excited to be going back.

So it was early on Wednesday morning when the family (and one of my host sister's friends--Miho--who went with me to Harajuku way back in August) set off to the museum by (of course) train.

That is the Ghibli Museum. Unfortunently, the museum doesn't let you take photos inside of it, so I can't show you its wonders, I can only describe some of them. When you go in (and your ticket is for a specific date and time since a limited amount of people are allowed in the museum each day) you are given a movie ticket for their short-films theater. The movie we got to see was a short animated film about an old couple living on top of a mountain, going through their dull day-to-day routine. One night, the old man spots five mice walking like people and dressed like sumo wrestlers heading off into the woods, so he follows them and watches them get creamed by five much larger white mice. The next day, he and his wife make a bunch of fattening foods and leave them for the six grey mice to eat. Then, they go to the woods again to watch the rematch. The match went down to the wire, with the final spar as the tiebreaker. It was, naturally, an epic battle...which ended in the grey mouse winning. Then the old couple and the grey mice return, laughing hysterically, to their mountain cabin. The end. It was a very cute story, and I'm pleased to say I understood all the Japanese.

The rest of the museum has a bunch of animation displays, as well as sketches from all of their movies, which are just gorgeous. If you haven't seen a Ghibli movie...my god are you missing out!

If you climb to the top of those stairs, you reach the roof, where there is a giant statue of the robotic warrior from one of Ghibli's earlier films, Laputa: The Castle in the Sky. (Not my favorite of all of Hayao Miyazaki's films, at one point I have a vivid memory of my brother and I keeping a tally of how many times the female protagonist screamed in fear...I think we had gotten up in the 50s or 60s...)

There's also a block from the hidden weapons in Laputa that you can sit on and whatnot.

Also, to all my relatives who so generously gave me Christmas spending money, I used it to buy this:

A pair of earrings from the movie Kiki's Delivery Service, which has Jiji, the magical talking cat and Kiki's ribbon. So thank you very much!

To go home we walked to Kitijouji station, through a very beautiful park.

We had a late lunch and then took the train home. I was very, very happy. One of my Japan goals can now be checked off! Yay! Coming up next: hanging out with several sets of friends and Giant Buddhas.

Enter 2012: The Year of the Dragon

2012-01-01T20:12:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone! Even though I hit 2012 fifteen hours before you guys, I decided to wait to put this post up until we were all safely into 2012.

That is the New Year's card that my family sent out; (they send out New Year's cards instead of Christmas cards) and look who's on it! Yay! It has the names of everyone in the family with a sentence or two about what's going on in their lives (the card is only the size of a postcard, you see).

My little blurb on the bottom says: "An American who comes from Chicago. Will be leaving in February. Loves Japan and anime." (My host mom wrote it.)

On January 1st, at 12 a.m. my whole family walked to the local shrine. You might expect the shrine to be slightly empty, but no, the line we waited in stretched from the shrine down the 4 flights of stairs and well around the block.

Thankfully it wasn't that cold, so the 25 minute wait wasn't too bad. We got to the shrine, and tossed some change into the box. Then you bow twice, clap twice, make your prayer, and then bow once more. If you have bad feelings that you want to chase away, you can ring one of the bells that hang above the shrine.

The next morning, despite our late night, we all got up at 8:30 to eat breakfast with our grandmother, which was a bunch of traditional New Year's food.

I do not like most of it. I know the traditions stem from the time when there was no access to much food in the winter, so what they had in January was a lot of root vegetables, but I still don't like them. Once they've been steamed, I think they lost all taste and texture and become colorless lumps of mush. To be fair, this holds for most steamed veggies at home too; it's one of the reasons I don't eat the vegetables in soups.

After breakfast, we went and cleaned my host mother's father's grave and put fresh flowers in it. Then we took the train to my host father's parents' house, where we met up with his brother and nephews. We ate more food (I mostly ate the tuna sashimi. OMG. It was like BUTTER. IT MELTED IN MY MOUTH. It has easily been the best sashimi I've had my entire time here. I'm drooling just thinking about it.)

Then we played Wii games for...a very long time. Bowling, golf, SmashBros, WiiParty. It was a blast! And then all the kids got money from their parents. I got money from both sets of grandparents, my parents, and my uncle. I now have more money than I know what to do with. I feel like I should go shopping, but I don't know what to buy...

We stayed there until 9pm, upon which we went home and pretty much went straight to bed, since most of us were exhausted by this point. And my host parents had been drinking sake. That pretty much sums up how I spent my New Year's. But now it comes time to recall my favorite things of 2011:

Favorite...
Japanese Food:
That sushi I just ate yesterday. Or sushi in general. It's hard to beat good sushi, and where better to get good sushi than Japan?

Japanese Sweet:

I know I've said it before, but Pure gummy is just too addicting. Some of these will definitely be finding their way home in my suitcase.

Place in Japan (that I've been to):

Okinawa, most definitely. Partially because I've never been there before, but also because of the stunning views, culture, and food. I want to go back in the summer.

Japanese Kanji: It's a tie between the kanji for wolf, 狼　and the kanji for sword, 剣.

Movie:

Absolutely no contest for this one. Epic movie of epic epicness. Couldn't be beaten. Side note: favorite HP character = Snape. I cried like a baby when he died, and I thought Alan Rickman played him to perfection.

Book:

Usually this is a difficult, if not impossible, question for me to answer. Not this year. Maggie Stiefvater is quite possibly my favorite author, and this year was great because she released two new books: Forever and The Scorpio Races. The Scorpio Races actually came out in October, but I didn't get to read it until December 24th. And I was absolutely blown away. Her writing style is lyrical and emotional and I got lost in it. The Scorpio Races is part magic, part realism, partly wild and untameable, part love, part strong heroine and all wonderful. If I have to recommend one book this year, this would be it.

Song:

An Toll Dubh (The Dungeon), by Runrig has an intoxiating beat that makes me put it on replay for hours at a time. I judge my favorite songs by how quickly I tire of them, and I have yet to tire of this one.

*Warning: Advertisement Ahead, but you'll get a good food recipe out of it:*
Post by Maggie Stiefvater on her Blog:
My Name is Maggie, I'm a Perfectionist and I Never Stop Editing

The reason is she has invented a recipe for November Cakes, which (since I haven't gotten to make them yet though I have big plans to as soon as I get home) looks like part muffin and part cinnamon roll, except instead of cinnamon there's orange and icing and fluffy goodness. I can't cook to save my life, but I can bake a pretty mean cake/cookie/brownie etc. so I can't wait to tackle these.

And that, unless people want to know other favorites of mine, concludes 2011. Cheers to 2012 everybody. Let's live it up, just in case the world DOES decide to end.

Okinawa: The Final Frontier (Day 3)

2011-12-29T20:15:00.000-08:00

The three days in Okinawa really flew by. Today we were more sane, and slept in, ate a leisurely breakfast and then checked out of the hotel. Then we piled into the car for one last, long drive to a place that was called "Okinawa World". Go figure. It was a park complex that had a cave, some traditional culture and crafts, and a snake museum for Okinawaian snakes.

First we watched an Eisa dance demonstration. Eisa is a dance form practiced in the Ryukyu islands, and is usually performed at the end of the Japanese Obon Festival in Summer. It's a very energetic dance, with drums and jumping. (What I mean is, the people with the drums are jumping while beating them and yelling...it looks exhausting.) We weren't allowed to take photos during the dance, so credit to whoever took this. (Actually, from what I can tell...it's from the same place I was at, so someone was cheating at some point...)

Then we walked around the crafts area. The Ryukyu islands are known for their glasswork, so we stopped by the local...kiln? Workshop? Whatever you call a place you make glass...

Lots of what you could buy was touristy, but they do have a professional who can make awesome stuff like this:

I drooled over the teapot and cup set for a long time but the price...*wince*

Then we went to the snake museum, where there was a demonstration with harmless snakes, a cobra, and the local poisonous snake, the Habu.

The second photo, with the ballons, was proving that the habu snake uses heat to sense its prey; and sure enough, when the two balloons were place inside the cage, it lunged for the blue one and popped it.

Then we got to take a photo with a snake:

Actually, I think snakes are rather awesome. They're not slimy and they feel really smooth and nice. As long as they don't want to bite or eat me, I'm all good.

Just a snake on display. (I rather like this photo, actually.)

Finally we went into the cave, which was the entire length of the park and took about half an hour to go through. But it was really neat. Caves in general are just neat.

The last photo is from a section where the stalagmites (whoot, I actually do know the difference between them: stalagmites rise MIGHTILY from the ground, while stalagtites cling TIGHTLY to the ceiling. I love mnemonic devicces...) are supposed to look like rising dragons. I kinda see it...

After that, it was time to drive to the airport, return the car, and head home. Travel time, which includes the three-hour flight and the three trains, meant we didn't get home until about midnight. Yay for sleeping in the next day!

And that was my little adventure in Okinawa. Next up: New Year's! The year of the Dragon.

Okinawa Day 2

2011-12-28T20:13:00.000-08:00

On Day 2 of 3 in Okinawa, we once again woke at 6 a.m. Had a breakfast buffet courtesy of the hotel, and then because it was only 8 a.m. by the time we were done, we returned to our room. I fell asleep again for another hour.

Then we headed to the hotel's private beach, where we got on a boat with a glass bottom, made for viewing fish.

The water was so clear that you could see all the way to the ocean floor, and yes, all the fish and plants swimming below. They were obviously smart fish: they knew what the boat meant. At one point the guide tossed some food off the side to illustrate that point and it was torn apart in a few seconds.

If I wanted to, I could have reached down and touched a fish.

After the boat ride, we bought lunch from a nearby convenience store (when AREN'T you nearby to a conveniance store? or a vending machine for that matter...) to eat at our next destination, which after another hour of driving turned out to be the Churaumi Aquarium.

It was a concrete structure (all the buildings in Okinawa seem to be made of concrete. Not the...most attractive of building materials) set into the side of a hill. For the most part it was your average aquarium; lots of cool little fishes swimming about. If I could read more kanji, I might be able to tell you what they were...but I can't, except for the first one, which is a sea horse.

UNTIL you got to their main attraction: WHALE SHARKS.

To give you a picture of just how FRICKING MASSIVE those are, I might estimate that I am about the height of one of their tail fins. And they had THREE of those. THREE. I can't really do justice to how it felt to see them swimming by. But there was something mesmerizing about it.

Oh, and the tank holds the record for 1. the largest viewing window in the world and 2. the longest time whale sharks have been kept in captivity and 3. some manta ray breeding records. Pretty neat stuff.

We ate our little lunches on a bench, and then drove some more (there was a lot of driving during this vacation) to our final destination: Pineapple Park. Pineapple Park is exactly what it sounds like: they grow pineapples, let you see how they're grown and then try and sell you stuff.

The short, spiky bushes in the foreground are the pineapple plants. After the brief tour, there were pretty much shops galore, selling everything from pineapple wine (tried some...not bad, actually, a bit like a sweeter white wine. I'm partial to reds myself.) to soap to little pineapple characters. I did get to try some straight-up pineapple though, and I won't lie, it was some of the BEST PINEAPPLE I have ever eaten.

After our pineapple experience, we returned to our hotel. For dinner we ate at their BBQ house, one of those awesome DIY restaurants, where you pick what meat etc. you want and grill it up yourself.

A yummy ending to a pretty epic day. Next up, Okinawa: The Final Adventure.

Okinawa Day 1

2011-12-28T00:45:00.000-08:00

It was Christmas Day and I was up by six a.m. per usual.
The reason I was up, however, was a little bit different. Instead of waking up with my brother in order to rush down the stairs and open our stockings while we impatiently waited for our parents to arise, I was blearily making sure I had everything for a three-day trip to Okinawa. The four of us: my host mother, sister, grandmother and I left our apartment at seven a.m. sharp and caught a train at 7:07. That train took us to another train, which took us to another train, which eventually got us to Haneda International airport with an hour to spare.

Traveling...airports and flights are airports and flights. For once I slept on the plane, and I never do that. So it was before I knew it we had arrived in Okinawa, which was warmer than Tokyo, albeit threatening to rain. More travel logistics ensued, mainly consisting of finding our rental car. We started driving and I fell alseep again...

...and woke up when we arrived at a castle.

We toured Shurijo Castle, which was the seat of Okinawa's King from 1429-1879, when the King abdicated his throne to the Meiji Government. The castle itself was built sometime during the 14th century and burnt down several times; most recently in 1945 when it was razed during the Battle of Okinawa. So the structure there today is a restoration.

What can I say, it was a castle: very big and intimidating, with a great view of the town below. Kings always did get the best views. We toured the King's throne room (last picture) as well as the buildings where the day-to-day affairs of state took place.

After the tour, we watched a demonstration of traditional Okinawaian (if that's how you say it) dances.

(Those are women.)
The dances were all composed of slow, precise, often subtle movements. It was windy on top of the hill, so it was a little chilly, and I'm sure I would have enjoyed them more if I wasn't shivering a little.

The interesting part came afterwards, after I'd had my picture taken. A man approached me and asked, in perfect English, if he could interview me and use that interview as an advertisement to attract tourists to Okinawa.

He explained briefly that he'd been a member of the air force and then proceeded to ask me a few questions and what not. He ended with "and could you say a few words encouraging people to come to Okinawa". What could I say? I'd been there for three hours, and most of that time was spent sleeping in a car. I said something, and at any rate he said the video would go up on youtube in a few days. So if it shows up...I'll link you guys to it.

And that pretty much concludes Okinawa day one. We went to our hotel and checked in, ate dinner, took a shower...went to bed. Here's the view from our balcony:

It's my first non-cold and/or snowingn Christmas. It feels a little bit odd.

メリクリスマス

2011-12-23T23:18:00.000-08:00

That, for those who don't know, says "meri kurisumasu" which is the romanji spelling of "Merry Christmas".

The presents, if you recall the previous image of the tree I put up have, uh, multiplied.

And here is where I would like to get some mushy stuff out of the way before I bring in the funny.

If you are fortunate enough to be able to spend the holidays with your family, be very grateful for that. Even if Great Uncle Ned chews with his mouth open or your Aunt Sally persists in showing you pictures of her dozen cats over and over again, they're still your family. And you don't really realize what not being around them is like until, well, you're not. So to all of you at home, from the bottom of my heart I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Go enjoy the holidays with family and friends: live it up! Relax over break! Eat too much! Curl up with a good book, stare at the light of a Christmas tree...just enjoy being together. That's what it's all about, after all.

...

OK! Mushy out of the way! Now, I'd like to regale you with some...tales of Christmas in Japan (dun dun dunnnn).

The easiest way to say it is this: Japan has commercial Christmas down like an ART FORM. Starting in December the malls all busted out their Christmas decorations and started promoting shamelessly. At some level it makes sense; I mean, Japan is not a predominantly Christian society. (They do have Christians, but most of them are in Kyuushuu, the southernmost island) So to them, Christmas is just a big party. That's what most people will be doing on either Christmas Eve or Christmas: having a party with family and/or friends. They'll eat Christmas cake (that's the thing here, to eat Christmas cake...it's usually a shortcake or something) and their Christmas meal of choice.

Just for kicks, I'd like all of you fine people to take a guess at what the Christmas meal of choice is. Go on!

Keep guessing...

Alright. The Christmas meal of choice in Japan is this:

Look familiar? Surprised? I was too. I asked my Japanese teacher WHY, for the love of God, KFC would be the Christmas meal of choice, and she said that the Japanese have this image of foreigners/Americans eating turkey at the holidays. Since the Japanese don't eat turkey, they eat chicken instead. And what's the most foreign chicken you can get? KFC. I think they've got their holidays mixed up. Anyways, lots of my friends will be eating KFC for Christmas dinner (I asked them). I will not, partially because we'll be in Okinawa and we didn't make reservations for our chicken bucket (yeah...it's so popular you need to RESERVE it) and a long time ago I told my host mother I didn't like KFC. Which is true, I think it's greasy and generally unappetizing. But it's really popular here.

That's pretty much Christmas here. It's a "one night thing". They have Christmas lights,

but as soon as Christmas Day is over, SHOOP, they come down. After that, it's time to prepare for New Year's which is the big holiday here. Lots of cleaning and specific food to be made. It should be fun.

So I'm going to wrap this up and go pack for my three-day vacay to Okinawa (whoot, 70 degree weather oh yeah!). My first warm Christmas. So I won't have computer access until I get back late on the 27th. Then I'll give you guys a big post about whatever went down.

So, Merry Christmas everyone! Holiday wishes acomin' at you from Japan!

Tennis

2011-12-21T06:28:00.000-08:00

So. Tennis. Or rather, lack thereof. After playing once a week for three and a half months (mid-August-December) I stopped. Partly because my Mondays were insane with club after school, the hour commute home, and the fact that the tennis didn't start until 8:30 at night. So I wouldn't get home until 10:20 pm, then I'd have to shower, and if I still had schoolwork after that...well, I pushed 2:00 am nights a couple times. Not fun. The other part was because the classes themselves are just not what I'm used to. Midtown's stellar coaching has definitely spoiled me.

So I went one last Monday to say goodbye to everyone.

The man in the blue is Coah Oomura. The two guys are Kosei and Kohei (gah, names...so similar...) and the girl is Kaho. After this photo, they all wanted to take individual shots with their cameras, so I was like, "Ok, sure, no problem".

The next thing they asked was how Americans took photos, since I said that, in general, we don't do the whole "peace sign" thing. So I put my arm around Kosei, like you do with a friend.

And he BLUSHED.

Like CRAZY.

As did Kohei, when I took my photo with him. Kaho was fine. But still, everyone was laughing, and Kosei was just like "all of you stop it". I hate to say it, but it was really...cute. In a little kid kinda way.

That's what the courts look like. They're sand on indoor-soccer turf-ish stuff. I don't even know.

That's Junbei, who stopped about a month before I did, because he got a part time job.

Kohei, the guy on the left, has the most KICK-ASS awesome serve ever. He's easily the best out of us, and I know for certain he plays down a bit when there's "point-play".

And that's about it for life right now. Hanging in a few more days until BREAK! I repeat it like a mantra: BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK...

It was a Giant Family Reunion

2011-12-17T06:24:00.000-08:00

Hip hip hooray for AFS events! Today was the Jenesys Festival, an event marking the end of the five-year program that brings people from Asia and the Pacific to Japan. (It was sponsored by the Japanese government, and the contract expires this year.) Most AFSers from around Japan and all of the Jenesys students on the two-week summer program gathered in one large room for this festival. All 1500 of us.

That made for a very crowded and hot room.
But I got to see people I hadn't seen in a long time (as much as four months). It made for a lot of shrieking--"AAAH, I haven't seen you in FOREVER! HISASHIBURI!" type screaming. It was a large family reunion. Everyone hit it off great, which put worries that most of us would have grown apart, to rest.

The festival itself wasn't the most interesting. Mostly speeches by important government officials affiliatd with Jenesys, AFS people, and short statements by representatives from each of the thirteen Jenesys countries.

There were, however, two very moving speeches by high school students from the prefectures affected by the March earthquake and tsunami. With two obviously rehearsed but emotional speeches, they talked about how they had been effected by the earthquakes and about the outreach they recieved.

They put up all the speeches on large screens, which was a good thing because we wouldn't have been able to see anything otherwise.

After that, we had to sing a song together. Yes. 1500 of us singing a very tacky song with a Laos "pop-princess".

Maybe we sounded all right as a group, but here's what we sounded like from MY section of the room:

After that the festival wrapped up, and I went out to dinner with Troy's AFS chapter. You remember Troy:

All in all, a very fun day. Next week: WINTER BREAK begins, CHRISTMAS, and off to OKINAWA. Epicness will ensue.

Tokyo Disney--The Land Where Dreams Come True; Epic Weekend Part 2

2011-12-14T05:31:00.000-08:00

On Monday a group of seven Jenesys scholarship students (Jenesys is a program that lets highschoolers come to Japan from Asia/Australia/New Zealand etc.) came to Saitama. They are in their second week in Japan, and as part of their trip they would be spending two days at a school.

My school.

So AFS and Jenesys coordinated to have us spend Monday at Tokyo Disney (and they paid for everything...train fare, admissions ticket, lunch...it was incredibly generous). AFS also called my school and got permission for me to be absent, so I was literally all set to go. I took a train or two down to Nerima station, where I met up with my LP and three of the people; two girls (one from Australia and one from Malaysia) and the unofficial chaperone, a teacher (also from Australia). Also present was Hiroshi Tanda, who is going to be an AFS exchange student next year, and as such has been to lots of the events this year.

(I take one moment to brag: easily the most fluent non-native speaker, I felt so AWESOME because I had to do some translating between people. I'm so used to speaking Japanese that I turn to the exchange students and start speaking quickly to them, and have to consciously switch over to English when faced with their blank expressions.)

From Nerima, we took two more trains to get to Tokyo Disney (which, ironically, isn't actually in Tokyo, it's in Chiba), meeting up with more people along the way. I'd guess it took about an hour and fifteen minutes.

And then, we ARRIVED:

Disney was all decked out for Christmas, with a massive tree and themed parades. We split up into groups, and Hiroshi as well as two of the girls and I decided to go together. The first thing we did was get a fast pass for Space Mountain, which gave us a few hours to kill.

So we went on race cars.

That kick-awesome hat is my host parent's early Christmas present for me, which I got in Yokohama. I actually really, really like hats...but I'm always too cheap to get them for myself, and I absolutely LOVE that one to death.

Then we went on Alice's Teacups and into the "It's a Small World" boat ride.

They were both very nostalgic...I haven't been to Disney World in what, eight years maybe? Not since I was little.

After that, we decided to go get some lunch, which we ate right next to Space Mountain. When we'd finished eating our burgers (we found burger/drink/fry sets for under the thousand yen we were given, yay!) we breezed into Space Mountain.

(The giant spaceship that hangs above the roller-coaster).

For those of you who have been on roller coasters with me, I don't scream. I laugh my head off. Call it a coping mechanism or whatever you like, but I literally don't stop laughing until the ride has been over for a minute or so.

After Space Mountain, we waited about an hour to go on Splash Mountain, which was also incredibly nostalgic since it's the only Disney ride that my entire family has been on together. (It's my Mom's favorite ride--the only one she likes, perhaps.) Either way, the waiting was boring but the fact that I remembered the little story and song they told as you float up to the plunge was well worth it.

We killed the last forty-five minutes wandering around before we had to meet up with everybody at the entrance.

There we all are, with Wendy from Peter Pan. Man, I really want to watch that movie now...maybe I'll find it on Youtube or something...

Then it was time to go home! But this is one of the last things we saw:

There is just something awesomely awesome about the Disney castle, can't lie.
So all in all, I had a BLAST. The next big thing is on Saturday, which is the Jenesys festival. Most AFS students from all over Japan are coming to Tokyo for this event, so I'm excited to see people that I met four months ago again.

And when that's done I"ll just be holding out one more week before CHRISTMAS (though not as exciting here), WINTER BREAK and OKINAWA. Fun times ahead!

Here's to hoping everyone at home is having a great holiday season! Missing you all dearly!

Yokohama and More Anime Club; Epic Weekend Part 1

2011-12-13T00:39:00.000-08:00

So I have lots and lots to tell you guys, and to draw out the suspense, I'm going to give it to you guys in two parts.

On Saturday my host dad came back for the weekend (he got home while I was getting my hair chopped...my bangs had grown down to about the bridge of my nose, and constantly flipping them out of my eyes made me seem like I had a tic or something). Since none of us had any plans for the next day (one of my rare, AFS event-free days) he asked if I wanted to go somewhere. My host mom and I discussed some options, and decided to go down to Yokohama for half a day. We left at nine in the morning, and the drive down took about an hour forty-five. I slept for most of it, but before I dropped off one of the last things I saw was Mt. Fuji positively glowing in the morning sun. Hard to top that.

This is where we went in Yokohama. I have to say, even if it doesn't tell from that picture, if I have to move back to Japan...Yokohama would be the place. It is very modern, and the streets remind me of Chicago, wide and open. The red brick buildings, which used to be warehouses, are actually a series of very chic stores. They were having a Christmas market, so I was happy with the most traditional Christmas foods I've seen here. Also reminded me of a smaller version of Chicago's (and forgive me, I'm going to butcher this spelling) Christkindel fest that they have in Daley Plaza.

After we wandered around, we went to Yokohama Chinatown for lunch.

Had these very yummy dumplings that are filled with a broth, so if you're not careful they squirt all over you. Then we had a lunch set: fried rice, wontons, noodles, tofu, and jelly for dessert. Then, pleasantly full, we drove back home.

When I got home, I finished up the two paintings I needed to do for Anime Club (aparently there's going to be some sort of Open House or something and everyone needed to draw two pictures. Here's one:

That is the giant robot Dix-Neuf from the Original Video Animation (OVA--it was never a manga) Diebuster (or Aim for the Top 2, whichever you prefer). Watercolors. Haven't painted in watercolors in a long while, and I am very happy at how the shading turned out. Maybe thirty minutes for the initial pencil sketch and 4 hours for the painting? (Includes the time it took for the paint layers to dry.)

Then for fun, I decided to take step-by-step photos for my second painting.

Initial pencil sketch of Mashu from the OVA The Money of Soul and Possibility Control (or [C]). Time...25 minutes.

I did the red of her outfit and horns first. That in itself is actually two layers: one for the light-red (at the top of her stockings) and a second for the darker red (that does the shading in her skirt). Time: 30 minutes (I was being really careful with it.)

Again, this one is actually three layers later (not really step-by-step is it?). Two layers for the purple: one light, and one dark for her ribbon and at her feet, and one layer for her skin. Also did some final touches on the red shades.

Second, subtle layer for the skin. Two layers of brown for her hair, grey for her shadow (yes, she floats!), and then I sharpened watercolor pencils as thin as I could to lightly outline her and help hide the pencil lines. Did some subtle shading with them as well, and used them to fine-tune the features of her face (like her eyes and mouth). Then I let the whole thing dry, took off the tape I'd used to keep the paper from crinkling (I really wish I'd figured that out for the first drawing....), and trimmed the paper so it would be even.

Then I just turn it in tomorrow! So that was Sunday. Next time: TOKYO DISNEY!

Rock, Paper, Scissors...Shoot!

2011-12-09T02:53:00.000-08:00

In January, I've been told I have to participate in the school's annual Speech Contest, and give a speech in Japanese in front of everyone, along with the other contestants. I have a maximum of seven minutes to talk about whatever the heck I want. Which brings up the very important question, since I have no restrictions, what the heck should I talk about?

During a procrastination session late at night I was browsing Stumbleupon (and if you don't know what this is, and you have procrastination issues, I recommend you DON'T go check it out. But if you have good self-control, check it out HERE) and I came across this:

And then I thought: BINGO.

Why Rock-Paper-Scissors you ask? Well, in America it's not such an interestinging thing. I mean, who plays rock-paper-scissors anyways, unless you're a small kid? And even then. Over here, however, it's a little different. Called Jan-Ken-Pon, it's used by everyone to decide things. For instance, when we want to decide who's going to use the shower first, we all do rock-paper-scissors and keep going until one person or group beats the others (for example, if one of us throws paper but the other two throw rock, the paper person goes first and then the rock people face off for second and third.) They do this in giant groups too, almost like rock-paper-scissors tournaments.

Curious, I checked the all-knowing source, the Internet, and found that there are, actually global rock-paper-scissors tournaments, and as the above picture shows, the strategies can get pretty cool. (If I may nerd for a moment; in my Game Theory seminar last year we talked about it a bit, and I think the mentality behind it is fascinating.)

So, as of now, my plan for my speech is this:
1. Comparison between the rock-paper-scissors of America and Japan
2. Talk about the different strategies behind rock-paper-scissors and mention the global tournaments

Hey. If I had to listen to a bunch of speeches, a least I'd want to listen to a unique one. My Japanese teacher, at any rate, thought it was a good idea. But how about you guys? Drop a comment or send me an email letting me know if this is honestly stupid. Because otherwise I'm going to start writing it, since I'll need to practice.

Last Note: Some of you on facebook may notice that my name is now Claire D. Ace. That is currently stemming with my potentially dangerous obsession with this guy:

Portgas D. Ace from One Piece.
He kicks (kicked, I suppose, since he died) some SERIOUS SERIOUS ASS.
That's all. (I'm currently in mourning for him.)

Various Artsy Projects

2011-12-05T01:46:00.000-08:00

Back again folks, this time with updates on the various projects I've undertaken (mostly for school classes). Nevertheless, I'm pretty proud of (most of) them.

First off, the yukata (Japanese summer kimono) that I've been working on since what feels like ever since I arrived is finally (FINALLY) finished!

That's more or less what it looks like (I had to stand with one leg on my bed and the other on my desk to take this photo, so it looks a little odd). I am SUPERDEDUPERDEE proud of this, mostly because I had to use a sewing machine on my own for the first time ever. And it doesn't look that crooked in real-life, I was trying to get it so you could see more or less what it looks like on.
Time it took to make: GAH don't even want to think about that...25-30 hours, maybe? It made me think of Project Runway where the judges are like "ok guys, go make xyz" and in a day they whip out a design. I bet they could make this in a day, easy. *30 hours grumble grumble*

Second off; art class projects: my chopsticks and box, and ring:

Very proud of the chopsticks, but the box ended up being kinda half-assed, to put it frankly. I just painted it and put small circles of shells (mother of pearl or something) on it. I wanted it to look like a gradient of stars, but it didn't really work out. The chopsticks, however, I LOVE.

First I had to carve them from two rectangle pieces of wood, then I had to fine tune the tips and the ends (and since I'm not super familiar with the shape of chopsticks, this took a bit of sneaky observation of the other people in the class). Then I had to sand them until they were smooth (I mean, if you were going to eat off them you wouldn't want a splinter.) After that I painted the ends in a purposefully-sloppyish gradient from white to blue. That got 2.5 coats. Then I used a natural stainer for the bottom. And then after they had dried: VOILA!
Time to make: about 8 hours
Box: (which I didn't make, ,just painted and decorated) 2.5 hours The box is maybe not quite done.

This is a ring I'm making, which is most definitely still a WIP. (The art class is technically over since it's a 3rd year art class and they all have tests now, so I have to go after school next week to keep working on stuff). What looks like a random knick is actually some sort of geometric cut-out, just FYI. First I had to draw a pattern on a slip of paper, then you pasted the paper onto the metal and were given a small saw to carve out what you wanted. The pattern on the inside was made by drilling a hold through the metal and then sawing from that hole. After that you blow-torched the metal until it was malleable, then hammered it around a metal cylinder to make it a circle. Then you heated it again and put some chemical stuff (I didn't understand the explanation) to seal the crack. Then you hammered some more. Now I'm in the middle of the filing stage, to smooth out the sharp edges and to make the ring shiny. Next I polish it. And then, unless there's a step I don't know about, I'm done.
Time so far: 3.5 hours

That's a project I did by myself: an advent calender. I thought I wasn't going to get a tree this year, so I decided to make my own little one. It sits on my desk and every day I lift a flap, check the day off, and get to eat a piece of chocolate. :) However, it turns out my host family did have a small (fake) tree:

The presents underneath (sort of) it are from me to my host family. Not what I'm used to *sniff, pine smell!* but it's better than nothing!

What else is going on? Well, we launched model rockets in science class today.

I actually like this teacher best of all (except for my Japanese teacher) because even though he does do a lot of talking, he brings a demo of SOMETHING to each class. Last time it was a demo with an egg; something to do with air pressure I think. But since this week all the classes are 30 minutes (because the afternoons are parent-teacher-student conferences) I think this was a throwaway class. Still, it was really cool!

That's me, in uniform, getting to push the launch button!

You can't see the rocket, but if you look at the smoke trail, that's the path it took. That one landed on the roof (accidentally)! Whoops!

And that's all that's going on! The countdown to winter break continues!

Family Togetherness

2011-11-29T07:22:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday was full of being with the family. In the morning, my host mom, father (who was back from Nagoya for the weekend), host sister and I went to a temple to pray for one of my host mom's dead relatives. In Buddhism you have to go to pray at the temple on the 3rd, 7th, 13th, 17th etc. anniversary of the person's death. We all wore black (even my host sister had a black pantsuit).

The temple looks exactly as you'd expect it to.

It was a beautiful fall day; chilly but the colors of the tree were absolutely stunning. When I picture "Japan" in my mind, it's usually something like this.

We went inside and spoke with the monk and his wife. I'm pretty sure they live there, since the main room was set up to meet guests and was connected to the alter itself. The side rooms I saw as we walked past had chairs etc. and looked lived in. When we went to the temple, we sat down on folding chairs in a line while the monk began chanting--really, it was more like singing. After a bit, we opened up a pamphlet we were given and chanted along with him. Then we got up one by one and took two pinches of incense, touched them to our forhead and sprinkled them onto hot coals. Then you bowed, prayed silently, turned and bowed to the monk, and then returned to your seat.

With the smell of incense, and the monk chanting behind you while banging rhythmically on a drum the whole thing was actually rather trippy. I spent most of it, when I wasn't chanting along, looking for pictures in the incense smoke.

Afterwards, we went outside to the grave and each lit incense for that as well. Then you took a dipper of water and splashed it over the grave.

For dinner, my family as well as my host father's relatives (brother and wife, parents, and nephews) all went out to eat Chinese. It turned out to be a MASSIVE SEVEN COURSE DINNER.

First up was jellyfish with bitter greens in some sort of mustard sauce.

I can honestly say I didn't like it. The jellyfish tasted all right, but it was crunchy and squishy at the same time. And the greens were, as I said, pretty bitter. So I tried some of everything and then said pass, as did my host sister.

Then there was a sashimi salad, with greens, tuna, and fried wonton skin. It was delicious because the tuna just melted in your mouth. Besides the dessert, this was my favorite course.

Fried softshell crab and chicken. The crab was so good, crispy without being greasy and light and fluffy inside. The little bowl had salt in it. Second favorite course!

After that, I forgot to take pictures. My bad! But then there was a thick chicken soup with glass noodles, a noodle and vegetable dish with creamy shrimp, Japanese sweet potatoes and meat in this sweetish barbeque sauce, "chahan" or chinese rice, and for dessert blue cheese icecream with walnut and honey. That was surprisingly delicious, because the blue cheese wasn't that strong, and with the honey it had just the right amount of sweetness.

All in all, a lovely evening, even if I didn't want to see another food product for a day.

And on a side note, Nanowrimo = completed! (Even if the story is far from finished, I hit my 50k, whoo!)

In Which I Geek Out

2011-11-25T22:24:00.000-08:00

Now that the midterms are finally over (for my friends at least--now they can stop studying for 8 hours at a time. I swear! It's not healthy...) we had a day off school. Knowing that I wanted to go to Akihabara, a section of Tokyo for anime/manga goods and the like, we decided to make a day out of it.

When you walk down the streets of Akihabara, you are usually looking at stuff like this:

There are people galore, all pushing into the stores. Maids stand on every corner handing out fliers for their cafes. Government people talk through loudspeakers on the top of cars. It's very fun and lively. The five of us met up at the station, and as we set out for Animate (a giant store for anime/manga books and character stuff) we ran into these:

I bought too much; some stuff for me and some stuff for friends. Unfortunently, what's "in" right now is a lot of more female-oriented stuff, so I actually couldn't find much for my friends who like more shounen (male) manga and anime. Fairly frustrating. Of course, I could have gotten them something along the lines of this:

or something else that they might have appreciated, but the thought of that is awkward beyond the extreme so sorry, some of you guys, I'm still looking for something for ya.

After that, we went and had ramen for lunch.

And took purikura:

(That seems to happen on every outing. American REALLY needs to get those...)

Then we continued wandering around, popping into random stores whenever the mood took us. Eventually, foot-sore, we wound up at Denny's which is MUCH CLASSIER here than in the US. Just look at the yummy desserts you can get:

I returned home tired, but happy. I think the next outing we have semi-planned (meaning, we essentially said "ok, let's do this in the future" with no definite time) is going to an aquarium.

I love geeking out! :)

Pounded Rice, Communal Nudity, and Churches on the Second Floor

2011-11-19T22:00:00.000-08:00

It is time for another wonderfully long post about what Claire does on her weekends. All of the interesting things I do now happen on Saturdays and Sundays, usually because they're related to AFS. Last Tuesday, Valeria and her LP invited me to join them to make mochi, which is pounded rice and traditionally eaten during the winter/new year and to go to a sento: a public bath. (Different from onsen, which is natural hot springs.)

So I took the train out (gradually getting better at navigating trains!), and Valeria, Akira (Saitama chapter volunteer) and I went over to a local elementary school where they were making the mochi.

Mochi is pounded rice. First rice is put into the wooden bowl (for lack of its proper term) and mixed around with the two mallet (again, for lack of the proper term). Then it's smashed with the large mallet (too heavy for me to swing properly!) while a second person turns the rice during reloads. Slightly dangerous, since if they get the rhythm wrong the turner gets his fingers bashed in. When the mochi is fully pounded you can do stuff like toast it in a pan, eat it with curry, put anko (red bean paste) or soy sauce or kinako (soybean flour, I don't know how I feel about it) on top. It's super chewy, kinda like taffy.

We each got to try with the smaller mallet. I swung too enthusiastically once and accidentally, uh, broke some of the wood.

After mochi, we went to Akira's house and talked with his parents while we waited for Valeria's LP to come pick us up. We started making our 1000 cranes, which we're doing for no reason. When she arrived it was off to the Super Sento (yes, that's what it was called). Wikipedia does a pretty nice job of explaining what a sento it, how it works, and its history so for your education (should you want it) here's THE LINK! WHOOT CLICK THIS!

The first thing you do is wash yourself briefly, mostly just a rinse, before you get into the ofuro (hot tubs). There was one that was boiling hot (LOVE LOVE LOVE), one where there was a stone seat with strategically placed water jets, another stone seat with lukewarm water for cooling off, another hot pool except the water was milky white, and even this one seat that ran electric currents through you! Where you felt the electricity, sort of like someone was pushing on a tight muscle, it's where you were stiff. Aparently I'm stiff in my lower back. Mostly it just made me feel all tingly.

When we were done soaking we went into a dry sauna, which had a TV in it. Evidently, people stay there quite a while. When we had finished roasting, we went and actually showered and shampooed. This you do on personal seats with personal shower heads. It's quite relaxing. When we'd finished I felt all refreshed. Then Valeria's LP told us about a sento tradition, which is milk drinking right afterwards.

You stand with your feet at shoulder width, take the bottle of milk in your dominant hand, and put your other one on your waist. Then you drink for as long as you possibly can--I think I managed about 75% of the bottle. It was indeed very refreshing, I highly recommend it.

Something like that, except with milk and not a tote bag.

When I finally got home at around 9:30pm, a giant box was waiting for me from the Youth Group of COS.

Very, very, very happy. Played with the noise putty for about forty-five minutes, seriously weirding my host mom out. I can't WAIT to bring it to school...my friends are going to freak out.
I love all of you guys so much, thank you!!

And that brings Saturday to a close.
Sunday morning I got up to go to church. It was the Saitama International Church, which had 9:30am English services. I got to the station and followed the map I got online, looking for a church. I wasn't expecting it to be large, but I wasn't anticipating this at all:

Despite Valeria having gone before, I actually pulled out my house key in case I needed to stab someone strange.
Fortunently, no stabbing was necessary. The church was set up in a room with folding chairs and a pulpit. Everyone was very nice, and the prayers were earnest, if not what I'm used to. They sang a lot of songs. And the sermon was about the good semaritan and finding eternal life. No communion, which was a pity, but ah, well. I talked with some people afterward...couple people from Wheaton, and this guy who's here teaching French to business people. Nice enough, but since it's an hour away and the train fare really adds up for the round trip, I don't know if I'll go again.

And now I"m going to wrap this up and go play with my putty again!

No, I do NOT want any Free Paper

2011-11-15T02:38:00.001-08:00

Today was the second time in a week AFS got me out of school. Unlike the previous day, I still had to get up at my usual ungodly hour to make it to the station where I was meeting my LP. And it still took three trains and an hour to get where we were going.

Today we (Huang, Valeria and I) were going to talk to a group of mothers (25 of them, maybe?) who are interested in having their kids be exchange students in the future about well, being an exchange student. We were driven to a fire department (I'm 99% certain of that) of all places, where there was a meeting room. We introduced ourselves to the entire group, but then split up into three smaller tables with two half-hour rotations. (So each of us went to two different tables.) Mostly they asked questions about my experiences in Japan; what food I liked, was school fun etc. Pertaining to being an exchange student in general? Not as much as I thought it would, but they were enthusiastic and attentive so it was time well-spent I suppose.

In the downtime while the AFS Saitama Chapter President was wrapping some stuff up, Valeria and I went to the small park across the street and became small children again.

(Artistically crooked image?)

Being mature is so much fun!

After the event, the AFS group took us out to lunch. Feast your eyes upon the dessert I had:

Valeria and I joked, "Let's get fat together!" since we both had large desserts. We also made plans for next Saturday, when for once I'm going to crash Valeria's party and go make mochi and go to a sento (public bath). Exciting times!

After lunch we bid adieu to the AFS people and went to Oomiya station, where we took more purikura and played a guitar-hero like drum game. Then we went shopping and found a store where they have christmas cards that light up and sing.

*sniff* Christmas...

While we were walking into the department store, one of the people who tries to hand out fliers approached us. Usually what you do is ignore them and just keep walking, but this guy--pegging us as (quite obviously) foreign--came up and said, "Do you want some free paper?" It was quite obviously a brochure for something or another. We tried the ignoring trick, but he kept pace with us and said, "It's very interesting, take it!" and other such stuff. We had to say a few times (firmly!) in Japanese that no, we were all right, before he got the picture and left.

And that's what's going on in the Life of Claire.

Oh Rice Crackers!

2011-11-12T03:14:00.000-08:00

Today was yet another day of AFS extensive-commute semi-awesomeness. (I say "semi" because today also involved 4.5 hours total of train riding. And too many transfers to count. Why can't these events be closer to home?)

Anyhow, today my AFS chapter went to Soka City (in Saitama) to a small"osenbei"--Japanese rice cracker--factory. Aparently the area is known for its osenbei.

We were driven to the factory, which was very small and traditional looking. There was a short tour and presentation about how osenbei is made, of which I understood maybe half.

The fun part was when we actually got to make osenbei. We didn't make the inital cracker, considering that takes a long time, but we did get to cook them.

The center of the structure, where the metal grille is, is where you put the crackers to cook them (there's a fire underneath). In one hand you wear the white glove (for protection) and in the other hand you flip the crackers with a pair of chopsticks. The pink things under the gloves are presses, which you use when the cooking cracker starts to curl at the edges--you squish it flat again. (And pushing it into the grille gives it some nice marks).

As you keep flipping the cracker it gradually puffs up and gets bigger, as well as turning this yummy toast-brown color. When it turns completely golden you pull it off the fire and let it set for a bit.We each got to make three crackers.
(The guy there works at the factory and helps you out; he said mine looked the best, and I had to agree: they were the color of a PERFECT pancake.)

Then you take the cooked crackers and paint them with this soy-sauce mixture.

And then you eat! They were delicious, and I got some to give to my friends at school--"omiage", souveniers.

There we have the AFS group!
So I've been gone since 9:30 in the morning and it's now 8:15. Yeah....I'm tired. Good thing tomorrow is Sunday. I"m going to sleep like a rock.

I have another event on Tuesday as well, AFS certainly keeps me busy!

What Happens in Anime Club...Is Obviously Not Staying in Anime Club

2011-11-10T06:10:00.000-08:00

Because I'm spilling the beans! But before I do that, I have a shoutout to my very best friend ever: April Bell.

Today when I got home from school, there was a suspiciously heavy package waiting for me at our apartment adressed to me from Kate Keatly. So I opened it, and guess what I found:

Oh my goodness! I was so surprised! Halloween candy (including sour patch kids, my favorites!), a jar of Jiffy peanut butter (I am SO digging into that with a spoon tomorrow!), lip balm, PEEPS!, photos, a squeezy skull that has eyes that pop out (I scared the bejeezes out of my host mom with that!), pictures of us/ her (which nearly made me cry, April you look so pretty!), Seventeen magazine (just the sort of smutty-smut I wanted), and a copy of the Mash which she writes for (and has a small blip that I'm featured in, whoo hoo!)

Here was my reaction:

I am very, very, very happy. On a scale of 1-10 I'm registering at 1000. I love you so much April!!!!!!!

So. Onto the anime. I picked a pretty laid back club, if I do say so myself. It only meets twice a week, Mondays and Wednesdays, and there's no set time you have to leave, so some days when I have a lot of work I only stay 45 minutes, and if I have nothing to do I stay until about 5pm (hour and a half). What usually happens is that everyone sort of does their own thing for a bit, which is anything from card games to studying to drawing on your own (I said it was laid back, didn't I?). Then usually we do a character swap. We draw numbers out of a hat and pair up. Then we say what anime character we like and the other person draws it for us. If you pick an obscure character, you usually give them a reference picture or something.

So here's some stuff that I've drawn/ had drawn for me (and all of them have that annoying arm shadow in them, but I tried to make the pencil has visible as possible).

Inuyasha, that was the first picture drawn for me

Kazehaya, from Kimi ni Todoke; he is probably one of my dream anime guys. (I also did not draw that one)

THE SEXYNESS!

Ranka Lee from Macross Frontier. Mostly I just like that anime for the music. Drawn by one of the cutest first-year middle schoolers. She always bows and is so polite. I just want to hug her!

(This was actually the reference photo I gave her.)

Dead Bones Brook from One Piece (this one I drew)

Luffy, also from One Piece. Possibly my new favorite anime. Luffy = boss.

He's gonna be the Pirate King! `(^^)'

Maka from Soul Eater. She also kicks some serious butt, as shown by the deadly SCYTHE she's wielding.

The reference photo I used.

Ikuto Tsukiyomi from Shugo Chara. Also drawn by a middle schooler, and she called me SENPAI (term for someone above you in school). It was a complete manga moment and MADE MY DAY!

He is also sexyness!

And that's what goes on, more or less. But since midterms start for everyone next Friday (but not me, muahaha!) there's no club. So I guess I have more freetime to work on my Nano novel, now 16k/50k into it! Now I'm going to go read my new magazine...

Six Trains, One Festival, Four Hours of Commute Time

2011-11-06T03:03:00.000-08:00

So today there was an International Festival in Saitama city, and AFS had a booth. So they asked me, Valeria, and Huang to go and hang out, as well as promote AFS. (Sometimes I feel like an asset they trot out at events, like a prize dog, but whatever.)

My LP (the person who you can go to if you are having problems) said to meet her at Nerima station at 11 am, so I took a train and then another train to get there. No prob. Except then she dropped this bomb on me that there were four more trains we had to take in order to get to this place. Initially she wanted me to get there on my own but I took one look at the long list of trains and went NO #$%@@*! WAY (politely) so we went together. Except I hadn't brought enough money on my train pass card (because I hadn't been told!) so we had to get more money and whatnot. All of you, who know how I am about plans and not knowing what's going on can probably imagine my emotional state on the happiness-to-anger scale.

So it took two hours total to get from my house to this festival.

(I only WISHED I was on that train. Possibly one of the coolest trains ever.)

The festival was held right by the Saitama Super Dome where they have concerts and sports events and whatnot. Part of the festival was held outside, and part of it was inside.

There was lots of international food, as well as local culture and whatnot. Valeria, Huang and I wandered around trying stuff like tofu doughnuts (which were surprisingly sweet and yummy), and icecream and russian bread and brazilian sausage (the greasiest, yummiest sausage I've ever had).

(Didn't eat those, but definitely thought they were awesome. The Japanese do amazing things with their sausage, don't they?)

So we walked and ate and eventually ran into these people from JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching--more info at THIS LINK): people who come and teach English. They had a pinata (it broke before my turn, very sad).

Valeria and I talked with them for a bit, and they were pretty interesting (as well as impressed we were high schoolers! At first they asked if we were in college...) After the festival Valeria and I decided to go to Omiya, where there was a mall, and hang out for a bit in the awesomely awesome stores.

They are full of awesomely awesome things.
Then I took the train home (trains rather: omiya to ikebukuro, ikebukuro to tokorozawa, tokorozawa to sayamashi) which took about an hour forty-five. *sigh*

AFS has at least two more events lined up for November, and some more in December (like the JENESYS festival). Blah. It is what it is.

Cheers everyone! (Also, I think I'm going to be editing the tags on some of my previous posts, so if they all show up again as "new" I apologize.)

Empty Wallet, Thicker Waistline

2011-11-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

First of all, everyone has the lovely April Bell and my Grandfather to thank for this post. Since they both asked on the same day for more postings, I racked my brain for something to talk about. And this is what I came up with: snackfoods.

After school, unless I know there's something yummy sitting in the cupboard at home I usually go to a convenience store (7-11 actually, since there's one right by my train station on both ends). Because I'm hungry. Breakfast is early and small (for me)--usually just a single piece of toast, so I'm starving by lunchtime. And then hungry again when school gets out, doubly so if I have club activities. I've tried some new stuff while I've been here, but I've pretty much narrowed it down to some of my favorites, which I'm very happy to share with you here (and I'll try to bring some of them home too!)

1. Pure gummy:

They delude you into thinking it's "healthy" because they've added viamin C and collagen for your skin. It's a sour-ish gummy candy which I really like because the texture is awesome, it's not too sour, and a pack of these is less than 100 yen. Potent combination there. (And they come in a bunch of yummy flavors, like lime, lemon, grape etc.)

2. Pocky

I know we've got pocky in the US (heck you can find it at most Walgreens) but they have a lot more flavors over here, like spaghetti and maple pancakes. Plus there's just something nice about JAPANESE pocky.

3. Meiji almonds

Three words: almonds and chocolate. NOTHING is wrong with that statement. I love meiji chocolate, it's so creamy and delicious. But it really packs a caloric punch...one of those almond boxes is like 550 calories *gulp*

4. Caramel-milk pudding

This is quite obviously not the picture of the actual pudding here, but it's the same thing. It comes in a plastic container, which you upend on a plate, break a little plastic tab, and the pudding pops out caramel-side up. It's yummy, and I love pulling the tab (I compare it to opening a new can of tennis balls).

There's some more stuff I have my eyes on that I want to try, but as of now those are definitely my top four! Hope I've got your taste-buds watering! Now I have to go do PreCalc, some Japanese booklet about Germany, and write my 1666 daily words for Nano! Ciao!

I am Still Alive, and to Prove it, here's a Ridiculously Long Post About Life

2011-11-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

SORRY! I have not abandoned all of you fine people at home. I do indeed remember that I need to write things and post them in order for people to know what's going on! My deepest and humblest apologies.
Now, back to talking about what's interesting:

Halloween passed with little fanfare here in Japan. There was one girl who came in all week in a witch hat, and some people had candy on the 31st, but there was no trick-or-treating or jack o'lanturns. I was rather sad about that. The ECR (English Conversation Room), which is run by the three non-Japanese English teachers had a little "party" which I went to:

There were games like sticking your hand into a box and feeling "eyeballs" and "brains" and "dirty diapers" (which were diapers with melted chocolate in them...surprisingly gross feeling; memory; mystery food and the like. And that pretty much sums up the Halloween festivities...or lack thereof.

So on Sunday I went to Shinjuku, one of the shopping and nightlife (not that we went for that, of course) districts of Tokyo, which is only an hour away by the humble train. I went with another AFS exchange student that I met at orientation, the illustrious Troy Stade (and if you want to see what's going on in HIS life, I highly recommend you check out his blog, HERE! (THIS IS A LINK ^^))

We walked about this large park-thing, went into some stores (I bought a birthday present for one of the friends I made here) ate some crepes, took purikura, took pictures of buildings. It was refreshing to finally get to play the unabashed tourist.

You'd better be scared of us!

Tuesday was a half day of school, because in the afternoon the entire student body was going to see some cultural demonstraion of traditional Chinese, Korean and Mongolian dance and music. But in the morning, something hilarious happened (some of you might already have read this on facebook, but anyhow).

One of my English teachers had the class introduce something (school, themselves, Japan, food etc.) as an English writing assignment. Then during class while everyone was working on these exercises she gave me the stack to read. Grammar...questionable, but ultimately I understood everyone. However, here are the three pages that one girl wrote (you should be able to read them if you click on them to make them bigger). I hope you laugh as much as I did:

Page 1, all normal

Page 2, getting funny here...

Page 3, SMOSTH MOVEMENT! "It is smooth that I have a movement..."

I just sat there silently laughing and finally the teacher came up and asked me if I was ok. Aparently it looked like I was having a seizure.

So we had a three-class period day (easy for me: English-Japanese-English) and then we ate lunch before walking with our obnoxiously heavy bags for 20 minutes to get to the auditorium where the event would be held. I actually really like traditional music, so here's a small sampling (and ignore the video quality, I was in the very last row)

Mongolian music.

Korean fan dance.

After the event was over, I then had a 45 minute walk from the theater to the train station...fun times.

Then today I missed school because I had to go get my blood drawn for my 3-month labs. So my host mom drove me the 1.5 hours to the hospital, got my blood drawn, met with a doctor (everything is good, I'm healthy) and then drove back. We ate lunch at this restaurant:

Which is named after one of the men who was at the air base that's 10 minutes from my house. (Yes, it's annoyingly loud...you'll just be sitting and then an airplane goes by. And supposedly there's an air show tomorrow so our area is going to be obnoxiously crowded.) I ate a "Johnson burger" which was delicious, and then some cake. I'm very full now.

I hope this has reassured you that I'm still alive and haven't forgotten about you guys! Now that this is done, I'm going to go fold the laundry and then write some more of my Nanowrimo story...day 2/30!

Making Sushi and Dazzling 5th Graders (Or is it 6th Graders?)

2011-10-24T07:14:00.000-07:00

Come one come all and listen to the tale of Claire, an English speaking girl who has to catch a train by herself to a strange location known as the Ooizumi-gakuen station! You will be dazzled with the history of her wit and skills at navigation!
(As if!)
Sunday was an AFS-Nerima chapter event, where Valeria and another exchange student, Huang (who is from Vietnam) were going to make sushi! Yummeh, I know. Anyhow, I had to get there myself, and my host mom printed out a sheet with my train times: I had to take the Seibu-Shinjuku train from my home station to Tokorozawa, which is big and busy. Once at Tokorozawa I had a minute to find my transfer and get on it.

I missed it.

So there is Claire, standing in this station trying to figure out the map of what trains go where. And taking an educated guess, she gets on the Ikebukuro train which seems like it'll work.

Fortunently, it does. CRISIS AVERTED!

There ended up being quite a group of us: Valeria, Huang and me, plus some AFS volunteers/ moms and some Japanese students who are going to be exchange students next year:

But look at all the yummy food we made:

I made most of those, except the one where the lettuce is exploding. That's not mine. They were YUMMEH, and I know I can make them again if I get the right ingrediants, and make some sticky rice. (So Mom, Dad, Pete you're in luck!) And yes, some of that is meat and cheese.

Then we made this fruit-cocktail dessert thing with shirotama, literally "white balls", which is some rice-type thing? It's chewy and doesn't really have much flavor, but when you eat it with the fruit it's pretty good.

Then Valeria, Huang and I had to give brief presentations on our home countries. But guess who forgot her flashdrive with the presentation on it?
I'll give you some time.
.....

If you guessed Claire, you were right! So I ended up using a whiteboard and making some inaccurate drawings of the US and famous Chicago landmarks and just generally babbling on. It worked all right!

Then today, the 24th, my school had some standardized tests, so I didn't have school. Instead, I went with another exchange student in the highschool and three exchange students from the University section of Musashino Joshi to give country presentations to Elementary School 4th years, which I THINK translates into 5th grade here (they were 10) but I'm not 100% sure).

Being rather horrible with names, I don't remember them. But, going from left to right they're from the Philippines, Korea and China.

We each went to different classrooms and gave presentations. I brought a poster, pictures, some American money and a book in English. The talking went all right, but the pictures, money and book really impressed them. So it all ended well. Afterwards we played this game where you toss sticks in the air and move pieces around a board (my team won) and ate lunch together. It was a BLAST!

Peace everyone, Claire out!

Shabu Shabu

2011-10-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

No I don't have a cold! I just ate some awesome meat.

It's like a do-it-yourself stew, where they place a pot of water at your table, you boil it and then put in paper-thin meat and veggies and tofu and noodles. And then eat! The meat there has three layers...and we (me and my two friends, Emi and Rima) ate 2.5 layers of 'em. As well as multiple veggie/tofu/noodle helpings.

Food babies abound!

But before we ate dinner, we
A. had to sneak out of our school uniforms by changing in the bathroom of the train station, and
B. went and took purikura (Japanese photo booth pictures)

(Rima is on the left, Emi on the right. Guess where I am!)

Going out with friends was really nice, and it felt AWESOME.

And in more cultural news, here is some calligraphy I did in shodo class:

Seikou=success
Even though I don't have any examples, I've graduated from the blocky, make-every-stroke-precise style into the more fluid style. (Which is SO much prettier! I'll try to get pictures soon...) I'm happy about it, since I have to do all of it right handed. (Sorry if you read this on facebook already.)

Also, an example of awesomeness:

Click for larger view, and slightly better viewing ease. That is JAPANESE BIOLOGY HOMEWORK.
'nuff said.

What's Stuck in My Head

2011-10-17T06:52:00.000-07:00

These are the songs that get me through life here: studying, sporadic homesickness, boredom. I listen to them all the time. And now I'm spreading the joy! They're going in order (more or less) of,
A. how much I listen to them and
B. how much I like them

Enjoy!

This song= addicting as chocolate. And that's saying a lot.

Possibly the coolest thing ever. A 2000 person virtual choir. I recommend either headphones or turning the volume up on the speakers to fill your brain with this glorious sound.

Video, kinda odd. Song, epic.

This is my official sleepy song. When I can't sleep because I'm thinking or worrying or whatnot, I turn this on and go right off to la la land.

Normality Does Not Make for Good Storytelling

2011-10-14T23:21:00.000-07:00

On one hand, normality=yay, me becoming a successful part of Japanese culture has been achieved! On the other...it leaves me with nothing to tell you guys about.

So I figured, now that I'm more or less a part of this all, what have I achieved? So I went back two months to my Bucket List.
Here's what was on it:
1. Learn how to make miso soup
2. Go to a Maid-cafe
3. Return to Chiiori (What's that? Click HERE. No, seriously. CHECK IT OUT IT'S REALLY COOL.)
4. Go to a movie in Japanese
5. See Kabuki theater
6. SUSHI and RAMEN

Here's what I added to it:
1. Go to Tokyo Disney
2.Go see From Up on Poppy Hill, the new Ghibli movie

And here's what I checked off:
1. Sushi and ramen (I've had each about five times. Yummy, every single time)
2. Go see From Up on Poppy Hill, which covers both that and "see a movie in Japanese"

...long way to go, folks.

Language. Ah, language. How I miss effortlessly speaking!
But on the plus side, I've gone from knowing next to nothing to being able to hold coherant coversations. I can now,
1. Conjugate some verbs, past/present/future though sometimes I get them mixed up (like the verbs to write and to buy: kaku and kau. In the present tense, to write is kakimasu, while to buy is kaimasu)
2. Conjugate adjectives, past/present/future (WHY DO ADJECTIVES NEED TO BE CONJUGATED?)
3. More vocab and generally more kanji, though I can't read for my life
4. Expressing I want to do something/have something
5. Particles (to, from, subject etc.) in the most basic sense. I'm not lying when I say that this is the most confusing thing for me (besides kanji).

Could be worse!

In Which Claire ALMOST went to Tokyo Disney

2011-10-11T03:13:00.000-07:00

As some of you probably saw, I posted a very enthsiastic, capital-letter message stating how I was totally going to Tokyo Disney. And indeed, that WAS the family plan...which subsequently got interrupted becuase my host father got sick. So I did some other fun stuff instead.

Like going to a zoo and becoming an excited five-year old, because chicks are soft, fluffy and cute.

And watching monkeys.

And eating a bunch of sausage at this market which was full of pork. It was literally a shop full of meat and then full of people scrambling to buy said meat. Probably because ot was really good. One of the best hot dogs I've ever had. EVER.

And then I did something I've wanted to do since I came to Japan and saw an advertisement for it. You may know (or if not, you know now!) that I love, love love love love Studio Ghibli, which does these amazing animated films. Of which there's a new one that just came out in July.

So I went and saw it. In Japanese.

Then I surprised myself by actually understanding the plot. Occationally I didn't know what a character was saying specifically, but I easily followed along with the movie and did understand what characters were saying at least half of the time.

That was really cool.

So in the spirit of things, here's the teaser trailer. Enjoy, and if it comes out in the US, GO SEE IT!

A Matter of Trains

2011-10-06T05:52:00.000-07:00

Now that all the really interesting school festivals and events and whatnot are over, I wonder if I'll have much of interest to post.
So I guess I'd like to talk about trains. In particular, trains as a second home, the same way our cars are often our second home. First of all, I have to say that I LOVE Japanese trains, even though they're usually packed (and really, in the scheme of things when you really need to go somewhere the train you want is always packed, so it makes no difference). The seats are super comfortable...they have actual, plush padding, and they have decent width so you're not constantly spilling over into someone else's personal bubble. The most desirable seat, I've noticed, are the two end seats where there's a wall you can lean on. Because everyone, everyone (even standing people!) sleep on the trains. I'm always way to scared to do this, even in Chicago, because I have this paranoid fear I'll miss my stop. But the people here seem to have some internal sense of when they've arrived because they always wake up as soon as the conductor says "mamonaku (coming up) xyz, xyz desu") Just to illustrate how much people desire these seats, yesterday it was raining really hard so the floor of the train was pretty slick. This man--50s maybe--was rushing to get to the end seat before everyone else that he did a classic foot slip fly in the air and land on your back fall. But then got right up and got his seat. Yeah. Japanese intensity for you.

Japanese trains are a lot like what are cars can be to us: second homes. People sleep, watch stuff on their phones, talk with friends, relax, put on their makeup...the only thing they don't do, even though it's not expressly forbidden, is eat on the trains. Which is part of the reason they're so awesomely clean.

Haven't seen any perverts on the train yet, but I keep my eyes peeled and have my "spacial awareness" sensor on high at all times. But I still love those trains.

Shave and a Haircut...

2011-10-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

I've gotten to listen to a lot of new music over here in Japan, and I just thought I'd share some of my favorite songs with you.

moumoon-Tiny Star

Sakanaction-GO TO THE FUTURE

The ending theme from one of my favorite Ghibli movies, Itsumo Nando Demo.

And I've saved the best for last so DEFINITELY LISTEN TO THIS SONG:

I spent one morning actually translating this one--Arrietty's Song--and here's what I came out with:
I'm fourteen years old, I am pretty
An energetic and small little lady
I'm always underneath the floor
Borrower Arrietty
Sometimes I'm happy and sometimes I'm blue
I want to meet someone

Feel the wind blowing in my hair
Gazing at the sky
I want to give a flower to you
Over there is another world
Look, butterflies are waiting
I am waiting

Don't replace anything in
My tiny world
I don't hate it, but you
I want to know more and more
Joy and sadness
Are always blended together

CHORUS

Under the ocean
Surrounded by flowers
Spending all my days with you
This heavy heart is moving to
A new world
I (word I was unable to figure out) live

Naturally, forgive the lack of lyricality in my translation. I just really wanted to know what it meant, so I sat down and with my trusty dictionary and computer went at it. I tried to get at the meaning, and not just the literal translation, but I don't know how well I did there.

Also, here for your viewing pleasure is school uniform versions 2.0 an 2.1

Version 2.0 Winter Uniform Box-Suit Form Claire!

Followed by:

Version 2.1 Flight Attendant Claire!
(In these pictures you can probably see my haircut, which is exactly the same as I get at home. Except with the best shampoo head massage I've ever gotten. Period. And all under 5000yen, or around $50.)\
Which wild Claire form do you like best?

Claire's Awesome Weekend of Awesome Awesomeness

2011-10-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

...because just one awesome wasn't enough. I have so much to tell about this weekend, be prepared for a long post!

Day 1: Saturday-School Sports Festival!
The second of the most manga-cliche school events! At Musashino, everyone from middle school to highschool is divided into four color groups: Green, Blue, Red, and Purple (I was in the Green group) who compete against each other in a variety of events. Not structured sports, like soccer or baseball for several reasons:
1. Matches in those sports would take way too long and not enough people could participate and
2. They require special skills/equipment etc.
Instead, there are a lot of races, from straight out sprints, to funny races (like where four people are running in a pair of giant pants for example) to relay races, or other stuff like tug-of-war. You get points based on how your groups do in the events, and the points are tallied up to find a winner at the end of the day. Pretty simple.

Here's what I did:
1. This dance to the Lion King opening song that all second year high schoolers did.
2.　綱引き (Tsunahiki-tug-of war) and
3. Ran a segment of a relay for one of my friends who ended up not being able to do it

That's me with a group of my friends from my class, just before the Lion King dance.

That's us in a brilliant example of coordination and precision.

And us again, tugging the war! We faced off two groups, Red and Blue, and beat the Red group but lost to Blue. Could be worse; Purple lost both of their tug-of-war battles. Yes. BATTLE.

Unfortunently, we came out last. Blue won, and Red came in second. But it was still fun, even if my legs did not thank me the next day. (That had been the first sprinting and whatnot I'd done in a while. Speaking of the relay, I was the 18th runner, and by the time it got to me we were so far behind there was nothing I could do. I kept us out of last for my segment, but then the people after me didn't do so hot...oh well.)
Which brings us to the next day.

Day 2: Sunday-Flower Viewing and Eating Too Much Food
Bright and early on Sunday morning, my family and I went to this awesome place about thirty-minutes from our house:

Those, my dears, are rhododendrons. A literal red ocean of them. Quite possibly one of the coolest things 've ever seen.

I have very few words to describe those. Except, that I've been studying genetics in Japanese so the first thing I thought was, "Ok, so these flowers are all red, meaning they have a dominant RR gene. But the few white flowers [not shown, but they were there] must have a recessive rr gene, which means that some of these flowers have to have a Rr gene combo so I wonder why more flowers aren't white..."

Yeah.

I scare myself sometimes.

Anyhow, all of us were very tired by the time we got home, so we all took naps. And then for dinner, since my host mom was a little under the weather, my host sister and father and I went out to a revolving sushi restaurant.

I can't recall if any showed up in this video, but at first the sushi was going by. And then some fruit. And then some juice. And then some cake. And then there was the touch screen computer up by the counter where you could specifically order what sushi you wanted and it showed up on the conveyer.
BEST. RESTAURANT. EVER.

I ate too much. My food baby, as dubbed by David Watson, has been named Wasabi.
And now I'm going to poof and get my hair cut, since my bangs have encroached too much into the eye-zone. Cheers everyone, Claire out!

On Japanese Education Part II

2011-09-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

(The first part being, of course, my rant about the way classes are conducted. Fear not, this is more of a comparison and just general explanation for how it works.)

Actually, their grade levels are split up similarly to ours.
小学校 =shuugakkou-elementary school, which they have six years of from ages 7-12

中学校 =chuugakkou-middle school, which is three years from ages 13-15. Middle school is actually their last required formal education. High school is optional, though most people do end up going.

高校 =koukou-high school, for three years (ages 16-18). Here I'm a 2nd year high school student.

大学 =daigaku, University. University students live at home for the most part. (I am allowed one comment aren't I?I really think that dorms are more fun and give you an earlier experience at independence without your parents doing stuff for you. There, done.)

And also, because you didn't really see what my school actually looked like, here ya go:

That's my building, which has both middle school and high school in it. Honestly, it's a bit mazelike and I still don't know my way around completely. How hopeless am I?

And that's my classroom. I sit in the back left (the farthest corner actually) next to the window. Perfect for daydreaming!

Japanese English Makes me Laugh (a lot)

2011-09-28T02:16:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are familiar with Japanese and Korean music know that randomly in the middle of the song they are liable to throw in an English word. So you'll be listening to this song and you won't understand it so it's like this: laelriajwelifafie....BABY...aleifaelifj...I'M YOUR MAN...faliejflaiejf...

You get the picture.
Turns out, the same principle is applied to random items as well. And often this English makes me laugh, because it's either
1. Gramatically incorrect, and they have absolutely no idea when I ask them if they know what it means
2.Gramatically correct but doesn't really make sense when you read it. Or rather, it seems like it should make sense, but on some level it doesn't.

Allow me to illustrate:

That's the cover of my obento box. I mean just read it!

I like this one too. The picture isn't very good, but it says, " Campus notebooks contain the best ruled foolscap suitable for writing." FOOLSCAP? I thought only monks and people in old books said that.

Inspiration comes of working. Uh-huh...

This is for a cram-school. A CRAM SCHOOL. And it says that. I just stood there and laughed for a few minutes before I could walk away from this. I'm sure people on the street thought I was quite the crazy foreigner.

Random plastic shopping bag. I just give up.

And just for kicks, here's a song example. This is a K-pop (Korean pop) group called SS501, and I actually really like this song. It just happens to be a great example for what I'm talking about.

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

2011-09-25T19:59:00.000-07:00

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. I helped cut and paint and set stuff up...it was pretty tiring. Friday night I actually came home and fell asleep on my bed at six and slept until eight before waking up for dinner!

Then on Saturday morning bright and early I headed off to school. We all had time slots for who was making the bananas and who was selling them, and on Saturday my only job was to make bananas for about an hour and a half.

I was in charge of chopping up the strawberry chocolate, so it'd be easier to melt and then of dipping the bananas in the chocolate itself. (All while wearing face mask, plastic gloves, apron and head scarf.) Look and drool my friends, look and drool:

And one tray=100yen, or a little over a dollar. Not a bad deal, if I may say so myself. Anyhow, the hour I was making bananas was literally mass chaos, because we literally could not turn out bananas fast enough. We kept running out of chocolate, and had to keep making more, and before the hour was up we'd used up all the chocolate for that day (we had to keep some back for Sunday, naturally). So on Saturday I did not get to taste the fruits (ahaha) of our labor. But my friend, Valeria, who came over on AFS with me came over, so we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around and having a blast.

We went into a haunted house, and I ended up laughing my head off for a variety of reasons, one which I won't name here just in case, but partially for the fact it wasn't very scary, even though everyone else was shrieking their heads off while we were waiting to go in. But we wandered around, ate lots of food (I think my day one list was: hotdog, churro, and crepe.)

Well, that's me and Valeria with Mika (red shirt) and her friend (who I don't know). I'm wearing the awkwardly frog-green class shirt, which says Banamin on the front and then has everyone's name (including mine!!) on the back. I got the shirt in a medium, assuming that Japanese shirts would be small, but no, it's huge. I duck-tailed it with a hair-tie to keep from looking like a giant frog.

Then we went to see the dance club, which was SO FRIKKIN POPULAR. Everyone was shrieking like they were at a pop concert, but I do have to admit, they were AWESOME. View:

And that pretty much concludes Day 1 of festival awesomeness.

Day 2 I wasn't cooking and technically I wasn't signed up to sell anything, but I decided to stay and help anyways because hey, wandering around by yourself for nine hours is boring and just plain lonely.

Staying, as you can see, turned out to be a good idea.

That's me with my homeroom teacher, Hishiyama-sensei (or her nickname...Hishimama). Then after selling some bananas and chillling out and eating too much food (day two list: hotdog, baked potato, churro, half an order of takoyaki, crepe, chocolate bananas (we got to eat all the leftover chocolate and bananas). I feel very, very fat right now. Then in the afternoon I wandered around with my friend, Mizuki. And we checked out stuff and avoided haunted houses since she doesn't like them. I got a bunch of stares from guys and a few awkward "hellos" which I laughed at. All in all, it was AWESOME. And now we get two days off of school, so no complaints here!!
Oh, and we sold 50,000 yen worth of bananas, which comes out to about $650 dollars, so not bad on our part I believe.

Food Diary: Part II

2011-09-20T01:51:00.000-07:00

Heya folks! So in lieu of something more heavy (everyone's comments on the education post were really interesting) here's my Food Diary: Part II (part one being the one with the ramen). Now I shall tantalize you with images of delicious Japanese food:

That was a bowl of soba my host mom made. I don't know how well you can see it, but there's two different eggs up there. Remember how I said their eggs were orange? Well, compare the left egg to the right egg (which is our typical yellow).

Chicken and vegetable cream stew, with cucumbers (upper left) and bread.

Because Suntory is the boss!

And last but not least, the pinnacle of Japanese cuisine:

I was proud it took me a month before I had McDonald's! And it was DELICIOUS.

Also, just one random note:

TOTORO! And I'm very happy. :)

In Praise of American Teachers

2011-09-16T06:49:00.000-07:00

SPOILER ALERT: This post is going to be part rant, part commentary and part revelation, so be prepared for a lot of text and some opinions (which may be rather harsh).

Since I've had about a week of school I think I'm just about qualified to make comments about the type of education in Japan, and a bit of confusion I have about world education rankings. Let me be rather blunt at first: a dull teacher at an American school is already more intersting than a teacher at a Japanese school. The best examples I have for this is comparing American math and science classes to Japanese math and science classes. Science and math classes that I've always had have been very teacher-student and student-student interactive, with discussions, questioning, and interactions with the material. Japanese math and science classes are completely lecture based, where the teacher either reads directly from the textbook or instructs the students to. Even when the teacher wrote on the chalkboard (yes, chalkboard: they have no technology in regular classes. This puzzles me since Japan is usually known for advanced robotics/technology etc. ) there was no questioning from the students just injestion. Either they have the best information I've ever seen or they do a lot of studying on their own. Either way, there's not a lot of interactive thinking going on. And while that may be great for test scores, it doesn't make for a very engaging class and certainly not motivational!

And while the American schooling system is far, far from perfect, it definitely one-ups the Japanese system for innovation. This may just be my personal opinion, but I feel like an American student could get a lot more out of the same material than a Japanese student simply based on how the class was taught. And this is where the world rankings that the US keeps dropping in puzzles me, because it seems like we should be doing much better. Then I question if it's motivation to learn that American students are lacking, or if the tests that the rest of the world goes through are sufficient motivation for studying.

So American teachers, keep doing what you're doing! Trust me, if you keep classes interactive and questioning you are definitely on the right track!

There's No Place Like Home

2011-09-14T02:23:00.000-07:00

So I confess: I've just about hit the month mark, and this morning I had a moody bout of homesickness. I was just sitting at my desk before class started and suddenly this thought popped into my head: "Why did I do this? I'm going to be killing myself when I get back." So I was sitting there indulging in a pity party, when one of the English teachers, Abe-sensei, walked in and mentioned that I looked a little sad. One short explanation later she essentially told me to quit whining and deal with it. All with classic Japanese politeness, of course. So I figured I'd post this reminder of home instead:

We made chocolate chip cookies! They didn't taste quite the same, probably because I had to convert from our measurements to grams and stuff, but they still tasted like home.

And per request (yup, I do read the comments, even if I haven't figured out how to actually reply to them!) Here's a breakdown of my school day by class for today:

8:25am- Buddhist prayers

That's my prayer book and beads. We have to wind them around our hands and chant something that I don't understand. Since I'm (obviously) not Buddhist, I just stand there in silence.

1st Class: Self-Study. I have two of these a week. For now I'm working on a poster about America for the school, but after that I'll either read or drill on my kanji or something. (Unless they give me more to do.) It's a pretty nice break to work on something that you understand.

2nd Class: Japanese. I have three of these a week; two of them by myself and the third with the other exchange student. I have a textbook that AFS sent with me, so I flip through it and identify things that I don't understand and then the teacher goes over them with me. She doesn't speak much English, which makes for an interesting class, but we get along. Today we reviewed the 自己紹介 (jikoshoukai-self introductioin) that I wrote in Japanese for the school newsletter and then worked on different versions of 'this'. これ，それ，and あれ (which mean this, that, and that over there) and all variations therof.

3rd Class: Domestic Science. I have two versions of this class; in one it seems like it's health (at least the textbook I have is about food) and in the second version I'm sewing a yukata (Japanese summer kimono). I am learning how to use a sewing machine, which I've never used before, in Japanese. I have no idea how this is going to work out. Thank goodness my classmates are super helpful!! They are all so awesome!

4th Class: Computer Studies. The current assignment is to write a 3,000 word newspaper article, Japanese style. The teacher said I could write in English, but I'm working on writing it in Japanese as much as possible. The topic was open-ended, so I picked the history of AFS (something I knew about!). So with the aid of my trusty dictionary I am very slowly writing something. There will be English at the end, it's inevitable. Mayuko, one of my classmates, said the teacher was impressed that I was actually trying. Aparently other exchange students just sat there or something.

12:30 LUNCH. And an obento (boxed lunch) made by my host mom! We all eat in the classroom and just sit around and talk. Usually I just listen since everyone talking at once gets pretty overwhelming. We get a full period for lunch, which I'm pretty sure is something around 40 minutes.

5th/6th Class: Biology. The science classes are the ones that I have NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON. Because the textbooks are naturally all in Japanese and since it's mostly lecture style I can't really follow. Slightly worrisome for when I get back. But I guess I've decided to try to identify the topic of the day and then do some poking around on my own on the internet. Today's topic was (I'm pretty sure) about blood types, HIV, DNA/RNA and something to do with volcanoes. I take as many notes as I can (whatever the teacher puts up on the board) and try to translate at least the topic name. Which leaves some free-thinking time, where I usually just zone out.

And that's my normal Wednesday! I'm trying to join the tennis club, so possibly I'd have tennis practices at some point but for now I just head to the train with a group of friends. Tomorrow is a school-wide 大樹際 (taikusai-sports festival) rehersal, so no classes YAY!

Sorry for the large block of text folks, it looks like I got pretty detailed there.

Culture Shock and Routine

2011-09-12T03:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay guys, school started and I was freaking a bit, so I just sort of...forgot to post stuff. My bad! But I'm starting to get a routine now, so here it is:

6:30 am-wake up and get dressed in my supremely awesome uniform. Eat breakfast (usually bread and jam) and get ready for school

7:00 am-out the door and down to the station where I catch the 7:13 train

7:13-7:40- riding the rails. Usually standing with my annoyingly heavy one-shoulder bag. Good thing I'm used to heavy school bag weight, I thank CPS for that.

8:00-arrive at school, head up to my classroom and just sort of hang out.

8:25- school starts, and every morning we have this Buddhist prayer thing with chanting and this rosary-type thing. Monday mornings we have a longer one where we go into an auditorium with everyone. (I did mention my school was Buddhist, right?)

3:30-school's over. I have six classes everyday, and lunch, naturally (my mom makes me obentos! yay!) I walk to the station with a few classmates since we get on the same train.

4:30- get home, since it takes about twenty minutes to walk to the station and then about thirty-five home. I haven't joined any clubs yet, so I have free time.

8:00-usually when dinner is, so I just hang out until then. Then after dinner we shower and I'm usually trying to sleep by around 11:00 pm.

That's my usual weekday (and Saturday! GAH SCHOOL ON SATURDAY THE HORROR!)
Then yesterday was this festival (that not even my host family knows the name of). It was in Sugamo, which someone described as "old people's Harajuku" and it was true that old people were abundant there.

THAT essentially happened for three hours, with immense cheering everytime sake was offered. It was interesting, but heck if I understood what it was for. The thing they're carrying is a mikoshi, essentially a portable shrine.

And that's what's going on in the world of Claire. Coming up in a few weeks is my school's School Festival! CAN'T WAIT!

Birthday and School

2011-09-08T00:29:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! First of all, I just wanted to thank everyone for the birthday wishes, whether I recieved a letter in the mail, or an email, or a facebook post. It means a lot to me that everyone was thinking of me. (Sorry, wanted to get the mushy bit out of the way first.)

My birthday was pretty nice. It was the day before school started, so I pretty much just chilled out. Midday, my grandmother called me up to her apartment, where one of her friends presented me with this:

They hadn't meant to give it to me on my birthday, so it was really just a very lucky coincidence. It's a beautiful kimono, and I'm really lucky.

That was the cake I had for my little family celebration. Much as I would have, I didn't eat them all: I had the shortcake, my mother had the mont blanc and my grandmother had the chocolate (Ayuko was in Osaka, so it was just the three of us.)

Then here's the picture you (might) have been waiting for: *drumroll*

TADA! Summer school uniform! It's a navy pleated skirt, white socks, loafers, and the sailor-ish shirt. There's a sweater you can put over it, but it's so ridiculously hot I didn't bother. The navy bag is the school's bag too. Girl's definitely get the short end of the stick for uniforms: a guy's uniform just looks like dress pants and a nice white shirt, which isn't such a bad thing, but girls get the whole long-skirt shebang. But I have to admit, it's kinda fun to wear (no, I didn't just say that).

Today was just the opening ceremony, so I met my homeroom teacher and class, and then had to go to this Buddist temple-place where the principal was going to talk to the whole school via wireless TV (like they have at Payton) and then I had to get up and give my little speech thing, which went well. Everyone in my class is so LOUD! It seems like my all-girl's school life is going to be energetic. Classes start tomorrow; and here's a list of what I'm taking (but first, pity me people, I have school on Saturday's too since it's a private school!)
PE
Math (unspecified)
Science (unspecified)
Art
English
Japanese
Home E.C (aparently I'm sewing a yukata...ulp!)
Biology
Calligraphy
Music
and there's some Self-Study periods thrown in there as well. Which is what "Reading" and PC (computer studies) will be.

Ladies and Gentlemen it Gives me Great Pleasure to Introduce...

2011-09-05T22:14:00.000-07:00

...my family! I've given up on that video, everytime I try to upload it, it goes: *coughcoughmetalliccomputerbeep* I'm sorry, there was an error uploading your video.

But THEN it occured to me that despite frequently referencing my family I haven't shown you pictures of them at all. And since nothing major has happened recently, here goes:

All right! My host sister, Ayuko, is the one on the far left and my grandmother is the second from the right (the last lady is one of her friends.) I'm the awkward looking one.
Some stuff to know:
1. Ayuko is incredibly cute and nice. Kinda quiet, and a little slow-moving (and that's self-described) and loves Snoopy and the color green.
2. My grandmother can literally do everything: paint, cook, sew, misc. crafts. She made me a shirt. I mean, really! It's like she's the 80 year-old superwoman!

From left to right that is: Asako, my host mother; Osamu, my host dad, Me, and my host father's parents. I just call them grandma and grandpa, like usual.
More Stuff:
1. My host mom is, like I said, a nutritionist, so she weighs everything. For example, I eat 120grams of rice. She eats 150grams of rice. That sort of thing.
2. My host dad isn't home much, but just spent three days with us. He is preparing to take this English exam, so he spent a chunk of time studying, but he keeps trying to learn more.

Those are Ayuko's twin cousins, Yujiro on the left and Tatsuya on the right. They're 19 and studying to get into university. Actually, they asked to take their picture with me first, on their cellphones. And they like my hair. They have an older brother who's 20 but I didn't really get to talk to him much.

Everyone is very nice, and I'm just enjoying the last two days of summer break before school starts. *sigh*
Cheers everyone!

Home Pickins'

2011-09-02T18:39:00.000-07:00

I kept trying to upload this video where I gave you guys a tour of my house, but it refuses to upload. I'll try again later. In the meantime:

...since nothing much has happened recently, here's more food pics:

There, my dears, is the first bowl of real ramen I've had so far: miso ramen. It was HUGE and it was DELICOUS. It literally MADE MY DAY. Just enough spiciness and mm mm mmmm!

That is egg rice. It's really easy to make:
1. Make rice
2. Put some in a bowl
3. Crack an egg over it
4. Stir it up
5. Eat

And that's the snack aisle from the 100 yen shop. I resisted the urge to buy stuff, be proud of me! Ate some taiyaki instead (pastry filled with anko-red beans-and shaped like a fish); much better deal.

More random Japanese Life Info:
1. They don't eat the skins of anything: if the fruit has a skin, they peel it off.
2. Portion sizes, like the size of a yogurt cup, is annoyingly tiny since I love me some yogurt.

(One last note, which won't apply to everyone: Dolores and/or Dr. Strople and co. I haven't missed a day for pills!)

Typhoons, Earthquakes and...Showers?

2011-09-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

Just letting you guys know what my priorities are there! I have exactly a week until school starts, so I've been just hanging out and getting my bearings. If you want to know the list of things I miss, they are:
1. My tempur pedic pillow
2. Cereal
3. Steak; like a plain steak with nothing on it because I've eaten a lot of rice and miso lately and I could do with a steak. Or McDonalds. I'll probably cave for that in a week or so.
4. Air conditioning

So to answer any questions, yes there was an earthquake yesterday. It was really tiny, so not a big deal (wah, I half wanted my first earthquake to be really exciting!). My chair and curtains and the floor of the apartment started swaying from side to side, and by the time I realized that no, it WASN'T my imagination, it was over. Hooray!

There's also a typhoon. Which means a lot of rain, since the city I'm in is landlocked.
So that's the extreme weather news from Claire Williamson!

NOW, to the real point of this message: Japanese Showers. In case you don't know, here is what they look like:

It's a movable shower head and a stool (the white thing). The bath is the tub on the left, but what you do is shower first and THEN get into the bath. Which makes sense if you think about it, since who wants to sit in their own dirty water? One of the reasons I don't take them.

ANYHOW, Japanese showers are the ultimate lazy persons way of getting clean. You sit (or at least I sit) on the stool and just let the water run over you. At no point during the shower do you actually have to get up. It's wonderful. My family hasn't taken a bath yet since it's summer and we have no reason too, but in winter I am very much looking forward to it!

One last note: found this at the tennis courts:

HARAJUKU (Fangirl squeel)

2011-08-30T05:41:00.000-07:00

Probably the most tourist-y thing I've done at all since I've arrived here! A haven in Tokyo for teenage fashion, strange or not. I went their with Ayuko(left) and her friend, Miho(right), who is super nice and super smart!

We took the train from Sayama to Harajuku and MAN as we got closer did the train get CROWDED! But considering it was the last weekend of summer vacation for most schools, it shouldn't really have surprised me.

Let me indulge in my girlish-ness and say OMG: so much shopping and so many people!! Let me give you guys an idea of how crowded it was:

That is the place where we ate crepes (so delicious...a strawberry cheesecake crepe...I couldn't finish it). Kinda hard to see from this angle, but the line stretched around the corner and it was so hot! Aaah! But the crepe was worth it.

I can't really remember how many stores we looked at...probably ten or so. But it was worth it! If anyone cares about what's in in Japan right now the answer is
1. Polka dots
2. Lace and
3. Fuzzy things (like furry earmuffs!)

I like fuzzy things! They call that 気持ち which means anything from emotions, feelings, snug, and comfortable.

Just some FYI about Harajuku, it's the Tokyo teenage fashion district, and know for unusual clothing...like lolita, goth punk etc. I was half surprised to find that most of the stores are actually pretty normal. And I only saw a couple of people in funky getup....this one girl had waist length pink hair!! (Unfortunently, it was walking by so no picture of that.) The "teenage" part of that equation mean that there are also idol shops (as I call them) where you can buy posters and other goods of your favorite idols.

And you guys have no idea how PACKED it was down there. Lots of pretty boys in Japan! Though I'm more partial to this guy:

Matsumoto Jun (or MatsuJun). ((Josephine--high five!! He's everywhere!))
And that pretty much sums up my Harajuku experience. I'm much happier (and my wallet lighter) for it.

Baby Talk

2011-08-27T03:09:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure some of you have been wondering how the heck I communicate (and if you haven't been wondering that, well, hopefully you are now). A typical conversation might go like this:Host Mom (HM): astlakawelnvalekjf....book...aodlfoeijwfd...understand?
Me: Nnnn...nnnn....un! Wakarimashita! (FYI the "nnn" noises are understanding noises, like "yes, yes...yes"

It's amazing what a deep conversation you can have with different inflections of the "Nnnnnn" noise! One of my friends put it quite nicely when he said you essentially become a child again, unable to communicate for yourself the majority of the time. My host sisters' electionic dictionary is greatly abused, and I'm marking my level of language success by the frequency I have to use it.

I have been learning new words etc. (However, some of them are probably a little useless.) Still here is an example of some of my new vocabulary:
せみ (semi) -cicada
蝶 (chou) -butterfly
湯便局 (yubinkyoku) -postoffice

Surprisingly, I've used those words a lot since there are a multitude of cicadas...

...and butterflies, and I've had to go to the postoffice several times.

Also, some of you might be familiar with my love of a certain author, Maggie Stiefvater:

and her very lovely and lyrical trilogy. Well guess what I found in Japan:

That, my dears, is a very bad picture of a very happy me holding the Japanese version of her first book.

And tomorrow I go to Harajuku! Happy day!
Cheers everyone!

Let's Play a Game: Guess What I Just Ate

2011-08-26T02:17:00.000-07:00

Sup peoples. I just ate something very interesting and also slightly disturbing, so in honor of that fact here are some more food pictures:

Believe it or not that was at a Chinese restaurant.
And I guess that's my only new food photo before my surprise. So DON'T SCROLL DOWN until you guess what I just ate. Take a few minutes, and I'm pretty sure you won't get it at all.
Keep guessing...5...4...3...2..1.. OK SCROLL DOWN.

That, my dear friends and family, is small dried fish and almonds. Surprisingly, it was good. The fact that I thought it was good scares me.

Japanese Life (Just some Stuff you should know)

2011-08-25T05:58:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Life is pretty quickly settling into a routine here. Summer vacation leaves us with a lot of free time, though since school starts September 8th that will quickly change. Be forewarned: this post is going to be pretty long since there's a lot of stuff I want to mention.
1. Walking around Sayama (my new home). Sayama is pretty nice with everything you could need within walking distance; and if you can't get there by walking the train at least is only two minutes away so catching one is no problem. ((Quick note on trains: they are ON TIME. Last night we checked a train time-8:28 am. Guess when it arrived: 8:28 am ON THE DOT.)) Here's a quick look at Sayama:

The view from my おばあさん’s room on floor 14.

That large building on the right is our apartmet complex. We're on floor 6.

A cute sign and the train.

2. Found a book store! Guess what I found inside of it??

MANGA. (My little piece of heaven.)

Also found a tennis magazine.

SIDE NOTE: Want to see what my current reading material is? Prepare to be amazed:

I am at the reading level of a three year old; and reading one page still took me about a half-hour since my vocabulary/ verb conjugation level is zero.

3. For those of you YaleGALE people who may be reading this, look who I met today:

NEMO! Good to see him again and catch up about stuff in Shinjuku with Asako and my host mom.

4. Finally, just some interesting facts:
A. Japanese egg yolks are orange. Not yellow, ORANGE. A nice orangey orange. But they taste about the same.
B. They rival us American's for TV watching.
C. IT IS H.O.T. I am sitting here writing this and sweating, and I just took a shower. I will just sweat off all the food I eat so I won't gain any weight.

That's about all I can think of to write about for now. I got to see my school today, and got my uniforms (one summer, one winter) but you guys won't get to see pictures yet. The principal asked both exchange students to get up and give a speech at the opening ceremony...GACK! Wish me luck writing it!

New Food and New Lodgings

2011-08-22T05:59:00.000-07:00

Arrived at my host family's home! My host-mom Asako Arai and my host-sister Ayuko Arai picked me up and drove me to their apartment in Sayama. They are both very nice and evern though my Japanese needs a lot of work we manage to communicate (Ayuko's electronic dictionary is a lifesaver!!)

I figured I should put up a few pictures of what I've been eating:

イチゴミルク: strawberry milk that I bought from a vending machine (I LOVE those things). Very sweet, but delicious.

One of the meals at the Marubeni training center: cold pork, miso soup, dumplings, rice (that stuff is everywhere!) and a fruit pudding dessert.

This is the meal that my host mom made tonight: cabbage, miso soup, and a hamburger which was melt in your mouth delicious!!!

I got to take a Japanese shower (where you sit on a small stool) and I got to watch strange TV game shows. I've unpacked completely as well and my room now feels almost like home. We spent a lot of time talking about Chicago, and they looked a lot at photos I brought. Tomorrow I have to go register myself as an alien, and I think I'll walk around the neighborhood and see where there is to be seen.
(Also I want to vist a コンビに (kombini--convenience store) and look around.
I've probably used up my allotted daily computer use time (I'm guessing it's around 30 minutes, so I'll close out with a picture of my new (lovely) abode:

Finally Orientated

2011-08-21T06:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the large rush of posts in a row guys, but since I found the internet cable--haha!--I decided to post as much as possible about the week. But still, not much to say, so really this post will be a lot of photos. Tomorrow I leave the orientation and go to my host family. It's very difficult to describe how I'm feeling about that, but ultimately I can't wait!

Here are some photos of the orientation that took place:

That is Furufuru (right) and Haruka (left) my group leaders.

And here is my group, Group 2, at a shrine. We were all American.

Japanese culture both old and new!

Tokyo and Orientations (Again?!)

2011-08-20T04:29:00.000-07:00

FINALLY IN JAPAN! It's kind of hard to believe that I'm really here. To be thinking about this date for months and to finally have it happen is surreal. Everyone at the orientation is really nice; and meeting people from around the world is something you don't get to do everyday. We have a lot more in common than you'd think, and I've already talked to people from New Zealand, Australia, Finland, Denmark and Belgium. It doesn't get much more multi-cultural than this! (Oh, and the video above is just us as we were just getting into Tokyo.)

And that's probably the most interesting that's happened. We've been getting "orientated" these past two days about culture and experiences and a lot about AFS structure. My group leaders--Hanako and Furafura (isn't that the coolest name?!) are super cool. Lost of the stuff is things that I learned already from my previous trip to Japan, but it's allright. Getting to spend lots and lots of time with everyone makes up for it.

Tomorrow we have one more day, and then I get to go to my host family! AHHH! I'm a little nervous if you can't tell. But hopefully everything turns out all right.

The Waiting Game

2011-08-17T22:24:00.000-07:00

こんばんわみんな三！(Good evening everyone!)
This will be my last internet opportunity for a while since I depart from LAX tomorrow morning and won't have any internet until after the Japanese orientation once we arrive. (Which apparently is supposed to be 1-2 days. I can't believe they have that much to orient us on, but I'm quite sure I'll be proven wrong.)

Today has been pretty dull, all things considered. Long flight delays, introductions, and general waiting made for a pretty SNAFU. The orientation today was definitely the most interesting thing. The two groups that are leaving out of LAX are AFS China and Japan, and of the group that is here probably 17 of us are going to Japan. Everyone is very nice--and very quirky! I met someone who would be staying in my prefecture, as well as some people I remembered from the facebook group. Everyone seemed to get along pretty well, though I'm alone in the room I'm sharing right now since most people went to Walgreens or something. I'm at my 20th awake hour right now, I'm not going ANYWHERE!

Here's one of the most interesting things we were orientated about: I like the last picture.

So, now that I've had some time to think about things, here's my Japanese Bucket List:
1. Learn how to make miso soup--this one is an order from my mother, but I wouldn't say no to delicious food
2. Go to a Maid-cafe--this is a very お宅 (otaku, or anime-nerd) desire of mine. It's a cafe where all the waitresses dress as French maids.
3. Return to Chiiori (What's that? Click HERE)
4. Go to a movie in Japanese
5. See Kabuki theater
6. SUSHI and RAMEN--I'm drooling already.

Doubtless this list will be added to, but as of now those are definitely on my to-do list.

Also feel free to comment guys! I always want to know what you're thinking, and I'll pretty much always respond if you guys have any questions and suchlike.

Cheers!

日本世こそ！(Welcome to Japan!)

2011-08-16T15:56:00.000-07:00

Here I am, sitting at my computer, and typing away my thoughts before I have to crack down and finish some last minute summer homework. You could consider this my procrastination. Almost everything is done; I just have a few loose ends to tie up and then my life will have been compressed into one 27" suitcase, one carryon, and one backpack. My life is now portable!

A lot of people have been asking me if I'm excited and the answer to that is yes. People have asked me if I'm nervous and the answer is yes. Scared, worried, happy...yes, yes, yes. I've got a little bit of everything inside right now.

I've also been asked a lot where I'm staying, so here are the facts: I'm staying in Sayama-shi in the Saitama prefecture, which is just northwest of Tokyo (yes! weekends in Tokyo!). I'm attending Musashino Joshi Gakuin Buddhist school, which is an all-girl's school that goes from kindergarden to college. My host sister, who is 18, is attending their college and studying to be a pharmacist. My host mother is a nutritionist, and my host father works in another city and apparently doesn't come home much. Their grandparents live in the same apartment complex, but on a different floor. I can stay with them because my host brother is staying in Germany for the year, so his room is open.

I think this is all the procrastination I can think of for now. I'll leave you with two fun links that I've found.
Translation Party - this one is a lot of fun, the crazier the sentence the more amusing the result!
Your Name in Japanese - technically most western names wouldn't appear in kanji, but this is just kinda fun.