Oh cleaning

Okay, you all know how much I love toilet cleaning, but did you also know I love wall cleaning too!? That was my mission impossible this time. I'm going to be really articulate and tell you it was ICKY! I don't know how well you can see the wall in that picture but can tell how skillfully I rearranged the dirt in lovely circular shapes? They must hire a heavy smoker part time to come in there and make the walls dirty. And continuing with my cleaning pictures...

These lovely pristine rags (aka dirt rearrangers) help us clean the floor the walls and sinks oh my! You know you want some to use in your own home. It's like swiffer but brown, I mean better!

Let's learn Japanese! Zoukin (zoh-keen) equals dirt rearranger! That was fun! And if you take out the rearr it leaves anger.

Please note that no one dies from cleaning at my school, not even me, but because I dislike it so much I get to be sarcastic and make it sound terrible and life threatening! Which it is! Beware! Don't clean! Never! Hire janitors! They're your friends!

This deserves its own post!

Last night my host sister and I completed Kingdom Hearts 2 for the playstation 2 (and do I get to mention it doesn't come out until April in the States, yes! ^_^). We played through two small earthquakes and even survived an accidental unplugging when my youngest host sister tripped over the cord and we still managed to get to bed by 2 am! Here's a picture that was on the back of a magazine that we um altered...

Subway Piggy Graffiti

Here's my next random picture for the week. You hardly ever see graffiti in Japanese subways, but I found this little cutie on my way home today. Pig? Cat? Piat? You tell me.

Today was the first day of exams, here's an example of a first year's test. I've darkened the ones they got wrong. It's kinda cute. But what's sad is that the same thing was on their mid term too. Maybe it's not sinking in too well...

Holidays!

Hey everyone! Getting ready for the holiday season? I am here! This weekend my youngest host sister and I did the whole Christmas decorating thing. My host mom took us shopping to get everything we would ever need to make the house seasonal. I took the opportunity to purchase a 200 yen (about a $1.70) Christmas CD called ‘Jingle Bells to Guitar’. Yeah, red flags should have gone up there, but I was desperate for some holiday music. Anyway, we played it during the car ride home and it was hysterical. The first track sounds like some kind of Hawaiian rock. Whoever made the CD took the chance to be artistically creative and alter the songs. Jingle Bells is the worst. And someone tell me if O Happy Day is a Christmas song. But despite the music we were successful in our decorating venture! You can see our tree below. We had some trouble getting the star tree topper on so we used a bow from another ornament (there’s a nakey angel out there now). We also used ‘snow in a can’ to make festive shapes on the windows. We made the mistake of putting Santa in front of the reindeer. I guess it’s time he pulls his own weight! Christmas here is really a commercial holiday though, or as I’ve noticed, the couple’s holiday. All the girls in my class who don’t have the required accessory of ‘boyfriend’ are all bummed out. I was telling them that in America Christmas is mostly a family holiday and this girl goes, ‘so that's why Americans get together with their families’. It must have been a great mystery to her as why we all gather with relatives during the holidays... Like maybe we were plotting something sinister. Well, I suppose not all Americans get it either. And ending on a happy note, winter break is a week away! No uniform during break! Yay!

Our Christmas fern tree thing! Isn't it cute! It narrows out in the middle a lot, but it adds character right! Anyway I think it's probably the coolest fern tree thing in Japan!

Okay! The elusive Mount Fuji! If you enlarge the picture by clicking on it you can see it a lot better. This was the best picture I could get despite the building of condos and power lines and part of the gym building at school... ^_^

This is me wearing the backpack used by Japanese elementary students. Usually they're black (for boys) and red (for girls), but now they're coming in colors! I found the orango one. Anyone want to guess how much it costs? 25,000 yen! That's almost $230. And that was the cheap kind. the red ones behind me were something like $500.

Let's see if I still know how to write in English!

Never fear! I haven’t neglected my blog, for too long. Things got real busy last week. I didn’t get to have a day off! We had school on Saturday and then I got pulled into writing and memorizing a speech in Japanese (in only two days) so that I could come to school Sunday to give it. Let’s just say the speech was written, but definitely NOT memorized. But most people here are pleased with anything a foreigner can say in Japanese. But people who know me know I don’t like making mistakes, so it was kind of frustrating. But my mistakes were still worth 5 pieces of AMERICAN candy as a thank you. It was funny, because the Australian exchange student was asking me what Butterfingers and 3 Musketeer Bars were. And then someone behind me was telling her ‘one is honey comb and the other is strawberry chocolate’. I still can’t let the strawberry thing go, it’s fluffy chocolate, no fruit! I’m hoping there won’t be any more school on Sunday for me lurking in the near future. But I did have a lot of fun on Saturday with my host family. It was my host grandma and grandpa’s 50th wedding anniversary. One of my host sisters was sick (but we got to eat her portion of dessert at the party ;P). We all met at my host grandparent’s house and took a mini charter bus to a hotel. The hotel was near my 3rd host family’s house. It was kind of weird driving by places I thought I wouldn’t see again. At the hotel we took a family portrait. Since it was being professionally done we all had to dress nice, i.e. school uniforms. If you look at some of the pictures I’ve posted below you can see the differences in the uniforms. My second youngest host sister is in a public high school. She can wear whatever kind of sweater or socks she likes. However they aren’t so lenient in the hair department, they still got made when she dyed her hair brown (they made her dye it back to black right away). And my youngest host sister is in middle school. She’s in the blue uniform with the long skirt. You won’t see ANY middle school kids here with their school skirt rolled up short (just their casual skirts). I guess it’s like a coming of age thing, ha! Skirt rolling! And of course there is my uniform, the private school one. Lately girls have been getting in trouble at my school for talking guys into buying them guy sweaters, they ride lower. And then there are a handful of third year girls that change into other ‘unapproved’ sweaters while waiting for the bus or train. Girls who are ‘artistic’ with their uniforms are called ‘gals’, not usually a nice thing to call someone. It’s a whole other fashion world and most kids like it though. We talked about in English class once, if people would like coming to school in normal clothes or not. The general consensus was ‘no! that’s too expensive’. (I won’t say that their blazers cost almost $300). Anyway! Back to the anniversary! After portraits we ate a fancy dinner while singing karaoke. I’m so glad I had the western meal. I can deal with most Japanese food, even raw fish, but sometimes you just have to pass. I sang YMCA during karaoke time. On the way home my host grandma was doing the dance to it saying, ‘oh I used to do this when I was young’!! It was really cute. And so now it’s Wednesday, a day off (FINALLY) and almost time for Turkey Day in the states. I’ll be thinking of all you people with pie, well… I’ll be thinking of the pie at least! Eat up!

Random pictures in front of random Christmas trees, yay!

I can actually see this ferris wheel from my classroom at school.

My host brother. He doesn't think I'm crazy, I promise!

My class, 2年4組, second year class four!

Nonononovember!

Happy November everyone! Time to boycott uniforms and take the SAT subject tests and go to amusement parks! Well I didn’t do that first one, but I swear, making students wear skirts in the winter is a health hazard. And so is cleaning the school. I had the worst assignment for this months ‘big cleaning’. The girl’s bathroom. I think my teacher is out to get me. One of the toilets in there had been stalled for three weeks. Imagine what three weeks would do to milk or a sandwich, or even worse, what I pulled out of the pipe! Since they have toilets on the floor the plunger wouldn’t work right. It kept folding in on itself and, yes, splashing me. So I used these ancient looking rusty salad tong things to remove the uh problem along with other things you might find stuck in a jammed toilet… Needless to say I am now a toilet hero and of course never found without my hand sanitizer. (I think I might have mentioned once they don’t have soap in the bathrooms) Anyway that was how I ended my Friday before running home early to get rested up for the SAT II. I got up at 4 am the next day to go with my host mom to the testing center which was eons away. It was being held at the American School in Japan. I think I suffered from overload of American teenagerness. They were everywhere, and pretty much all of them went to the school. So it was all intimidating and weird, especially understanding all the side conversations going on. I made it through with all my limbs intact though! I took the Japanese with listening test. I think I nailed the listening part, seriously. I’m probably un-nailing it by writing it down, but that’s okay (not really). One poor girl sitting in front of me had her CD player break half way through and there was nothing that could be done! Ouch. Anyway, I was really glad to get out of there. When you’ve been a foreigner in Japan a long time you really start to get that weird feeling when you see other foreigners. It’s like ‘hello yes I know you’re there but I’m just gonna go on my own little foreign way and you can go on yours’. But this was more awkward because all these kids had their own little groups and they all knew each other. It was funny, on the way home this girl got on the train and was so busy staring at me she stepped on my foot. And completely unrelated, there was this guy that sat down across from me. He sat down really fast and wacked his head really hard on the window. He sat for like 10 minutes cradling his head like he dislodged something serious. People are strange! But I did have a really great time on Thursday. I went to Yomiuri Land (I still can’t say it right) with the 2nd year Judo girls. Two of us road everything there, except for the rides for 3-7 years old. Bummer! Below are pictures from our day.

'Crazy Stooon', the name alone just strikes fear into the bravest of men!!

Oh yeah!

We got to ride the amusement park's mascot, 'Land Dog'.

Cute little stray hanging out by the ice cream stand in Yomiuri Land. Come home with me kitty!! =^_^=

Okay!

Thank You Everyone!
I just wanted to say thanks to everyone at home, at school, at Judo, and well, where ever you all happen to be, for a great birthday! So here are some new pics, the last one of me is at school on my birthday.
And I have a few shout outs... Eliana!! I bet you're rockin Italy's world! I have your email somewhere so you'll have to tell me about it all soon! Kel- how'd the tournament go?? I was rooting for ya! KT- I finally sent your real card but HAPPY B-DAY again :) Lil-I saw the new Tim Burton movie and got new socks!
thanks again!!

This little dude couldn't take his eyes off of me. Well, I could just be flattering myself, I was eating some rockin' donuts.

Two of my host sisters, so cute!

Half days, half days! A whole week of half days! It’s time for midterms here. Everyone has the day off to study. And like we do in America, I’m sure they’re up in their rooms studying away with the curtains drawn and the books opened. Because it’s such a perfect fall day, you wouldn’t want to be blinded by the bright sun while studying! No! My classmates were telling me most of them only study for whatever exams they have the night before. Seems to be a global trend. I’m supposed to take the English exams this time around, I might pass if I can read the questions. Anyway, I’m home in time for all the soap operas and talk shows. I think I’m turning middle aged Japanese housewife, I find the Korean dramas more exciting. Oh! I went and saw Corpse Bride with two of my host sisters this weekend. It was cute in a Tim Burton way. Both my sister’s said they liked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory better. I sometimes wonder how the English jokes translate. Like in Charlie they pass a room with a cow being whipped (whipped cream) and I was the only one laughing in the theater. What did the subtitles say, ‘animal abuse is still a serious problem in America (or wherever Charlie lives).’ You think maybe it could translate somehow… maybe. Oh that reminds me of something else! When I was on the bus one morning I overheard one of my classmates talking to a friend about their trip to Australia. She was saying that they had ‘gone to a barbeque and were eating with other people, foreigners you know.’ That last part just kept bothering me. Usually, when you go to another country, you don’t refer to the people there as foreigners, right? Because you’re the foreigner. Even if you’ve come back they’d still be the Italians or Americans or Australians, right? So I’ve come to the conclusion that the true translation of ‘gaijin’, must not just be foreigner but must also be ‘not from Japan’. It made me think about how much culture has to do with language. Even if it isn’t a very good example it got me thinking. It also reminds me of a classmate of mine who is always swearing in English. Whenever she learns a new word it’s like she’s determined to get a reaction out of me, being the only person who really gets the true meaning of what she’s saying. It has gotten a bit annoying for me and now a bunch of the other girls seem to find it very amusing, making songs and swearing at each other. It makes them giggle, seriously, like a-hee-hee-hee giggle. Anyway, that was all thought provoking I’m sure. On the way home today I saw something really rare! A person wearing a helmet while riding their bike. I guess since so many people ride their bikes here helmets must seem inconvenient. Like, for some reason, wearing your seatbelt. This is the first family I’ve had that has actually asked me to wear my seat belt instead of laughing when I put it on. Which is comforting because most Japanese drivers are crazy and the one-lane two-lane roads don’t help. Well that’s all for now! Buckle up everyone!

Yoooo

TGIS! That’s my new slogan, since I’ve just come home from school on a Saturday, again! Well, I had an interesting week of sorts. My class took off to the land of Oz this week, leaving me in lovely Kansas, a.k.a. the freshmen class. Quite a different bunch than I am used to. The freshmen are very vocal and there are a few girls that should be professional clowns with all the makeup they wear. Class wasn’t too thrilling since nothing was relevant to me. However, I got a kick out of the English Grammar teacher. He’s a very large man with a posh voice, he should be British. (he did however wear a different pen around his neck everyday) Anyway, his English was by far the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. He was explaining the sentence, ‘I hope I will be able to speak English better.’ But what I heard was, ‘Aye hopu aye wiru be aburu to speaku eengurishu behtah.’ We’ll leave that at that ;-P Today all the freshmen had special classes to attend. The other exchange student and I had a sado (tea ceremony) class. We went down to our school’s little tea room that is all decked out with tatami mats, sliding screens, and the altar were an inspiring work of calligraphy is placed. Well, I tell you not much is inspiring when you sit for three hours in the seiza style. It’s like amputating your legs without any surgery involved! You could just look around the room and see all the students trying different ways to alleviate the pain. We didn’t actually end up doing a ceremony, just learning the basics. I felt like the native watching the other kids try and follow the directions. But I’m guessing maybe the seiza had the same effect on their brains as it did on their legs (yeah). Well, once the day was over I was out of there. No more frosh classes for me! But as I was leaving with the other exchange student this little dude came up to us. He was from the class across the hall. He had seen one of us foreigners in the cheerleading bit during the culture festival and was determined to be taught the different routines. (NO, it was not me who was a cheerleader!) Anyway, his friend told me he knows dances to stuff from Bring it On and Japanese TV shows and stuff. A little creepy. Anyway I really did get out of there after that. And I’m home now watching old dudes on TV in red thongs perform a ceremonial dance. And someone thought it would be cute to dress the reporter up in the red thong too…

Okay okay, a short aroha! I haven't been up to too much trouble this week. Mostly my class has been getting ready to go to Australia. They are all very excited to buy foreign clothing and Tim Tams. I made sure they all knew that my birthday is coming up and mentioned several times the subject of souvenirs ehehe. Someone offered to get me vegemite (vile-mite if you ask me). Yesterday I got the cutest letter from a girl in class 7. She was determined to write in English. Here's part of it, 'I'm not good at write a letter in English. So my friends help me. I write letter hard for you again.' She's really funny, always singing KISS songs in the hallway. Speaking of strange things, the other day I proofread a wedding speech a Japanese man had written. In the end it said something like 'I invite guests with us to send this couple in Bryant's cut.' I had NO idea what he was trying to say! So I made some sappy stuff up about meat cuts ad hair cuts, just kidding. And another instance today! One of my Japanese teachers was translating English stuff into Japanese and he asked me what 'valiant a smacking' is… He had me and all the English teachers stumped. There's a whooooole other English out there, the strange and mysterious Japanese English, not to be confused with 'Engrish'. Engrish is when the Japanese spell English the way it sounds in Japanese. If you want some good examples make sure you don't have to pee and check out www.engrish.com, there are some that’ll make you laugh so hard and some that'll just have you stumped! Here's one that I took a picture of while shopping...

What would you like with that?

Maybe everyone would like an order of writing to go with that side of pictures! Just maybe? Well, okay! My school had their culture festival last week. It’s a chance for each class to do their own thing and hope the visitors enjoy it. Since my class is going to Australia in October (minus me of course cry cry) they decided to make Ayers Rock. It was a very stinky process which involved soaking infinite chunks of cardboard in water to create what I guess was supposed to be a rustic rocky appearance. Plus the miles of hair removing tape (that is if you haven’t shaved your arm hair off) we had to use to stick the cardboard to the wall. It turned out nice in the end. I don’t think anyone got hurt from the pieces that fell from above the doorway. Korea was a popular theme with the other second year classes since that’s where they go for their trip. They had students dress up as Pe Yonjun, the Korean soap actor who has made more money doing commercials in Japan than Brad Pitt. He’s a favorite with the 35 and over housewife population of Japan. The third years all made food. My host sister’s class made ‘mochi’. I guess I would describe it as rice gum, but it’s really not supposed to be as gooey as they made it. There were also ‘so hot you’ll die’ versions of noodles and curry, I passed on that. For the main entertainment they had a stage in the parking lot set up. I would say the cheerleaders and cross dressers got the most hype. There were also bands set up in the gym; again I’m not really sure what language they were singing. It was a long day of being crazy and scaring people with my foreignness (mostly the little kids who visited, ‘wooow, a foreigner!’). Then of course we had the Sports festival yesterday. In my opinion, far less exciting, but all the more amusing. We started in the morning at 8 with the rain falling on us as we got into formation on the field. Naturally, to prevent injury from rickety joints, we did synchronized musical aerobics before starting. All Japanese children learn the same routine from elementary school, keeping this in mind you can just imagine the music they use! I think it’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen since being in Japan. The rest of the day was spent cheering classmates on in their different events. Although, there seemed to be a fair amount of jeering as well. Two of my friends came back from a class relay crying because people were yelling ‘I hope class four falls!’ That’s one thing about Japanese high schools that’s really evident, the separation by class, year, and gender. Each class seems to fall into a stereotype, the sports course are meat heads, the S class are nerds, the international course thinks they’re better than everyone else, first year girls are evil, (foreigners rock ;P) etc. When we ate lunch during the sports festival there were little groups of blue, sky blue, and red (the different year’s colors), none of the groups were mixed colors except for mine. And that was only because the first year exchange student came to eat lunch with me because the first year girls in her class were being mean. Anyway, that’s my bit of brain snack for the day, until next time!

CULTURE FESTIVAL pictures

Just cleaning up the art room after the festival. That's my host sister about to lose her life to a broom.

Of course my camera's battery had to run out when the guys came on the stage in their kimonos! So I took these on my cell...

The people watching the cheerleaders...

The CHEERLEADERS!

I never knew I'd be lucky enough to meet Stitch!!

My class mates and I in front of the love wall.

I got to wear a sign for our class getting people to come visit and write 'love' on the wall!

High speed curry eating contest!!!

Culture festivals!

Good morning everyone! I’m enjoying a long awaited TWO day weekend! Those two days would be Sunday and Monday. Where has my Saturday gone!? (to school!) Well, this is the season for school culture festivals in Japan! I went to Edogawa High School the other day to see my host sister’s school festival. It was definitely different. Edogawa High is a public school unlike mine so that translates to artistically altered uniforms… For anyone who has read Japanese high school romance manga, well it certainly took place at a public school. I saw my first ‘ganguro’. It’s pretty much the scientific name for a girl who gets really tan and wears white makeup creating the look of a backwards panda. Not to mention the bleaching of hair. All the skirts were quite mini and the socks were quite saggy. If you go to the sock department in a store you’ll see these long white things that look more like scarves than anything, but they’re really high socks. They come as long as a meter and are popular among the more daringly fashion conscious girls. They look much like the skin on a sharpee puppy when worn. And to keep them from slipping further down the leg than desired, well what else would you use but a glue stick! The festival itself was yummy. All the senior classes were making food and my favorite was the taiyaki, a fish shaped pastry filled with chocolate. It tasted like peanuts for some reason though. They also had school bands playing. When we left there was a group called something like ‘George Stroganoff’ playing Offspring songs. It’s a very funny thing to hear Offspring sung by a Japanese high school student. I’m sure there were some English lyrics in there somewhere. Well, I get to look forward to the same thing, without the socks, at my school at the end of this coming week. And then the next will be the school’s sports festival. I’ll tell you about it all if I survive the 20 person jump roping contest! Noooo

Anyone still out there???

It’s been awhile. But you know school started and I somehow just got busy again, imagine that ^_^v Anyway, all the classes are getting ready for the schools culture festival coming up on the 23rd. We’ve been busy designing our class T-shirts and our class project which involves turning our classroom into a mini Australia. All the seniors are doing food. And I can tell you I’m SO glad I’m not, and not because everyone would die from my cooking! But from now until the end of the festival they have to submit a uh... daily ‘kemben’ for testing. Basically they have to do a poo test!! Yuck, no thank you. My host sister is a senior and we had an interesting conversation talking about the ways in which you might get the ‘sample’ into the insanely small test tube. I promise you it’s all very normal. Well, enough talk of STOOLS and other furniture! I’ve just realized no one really knows about my new family!! Well they’re awesome, all nine of them. Three are cats, but everyone should know by now that cats count (one two three…). I have three younger sisters and a younger brother, and the mama and the papa. I don’t know exactly how you spell their names but the cat’s are Popo, Ramu, and Carl. One as an under bite and curly ears, he’s really cute! And Popo can randomly open doors and scare the stool out of you when she sneaks into your room at night. Anyway, I promise I’ll be back again to write more. I miss you guys!!! Bye!

Hello hello! Well, WOW! I’m moving tomorrow to my final family. I still have to pack, I’ll do a little dance when I’m finished because I won’t be packing again until January! Yay. If anyone has seen the movie the Labyrinth, I feel like the old lady who was constantly accumulating random things on her back, chairs, teddy bears, bagpipes. I’m not accumulating anything that exciting but as my host sister said, ‘my things are abundant’. They’re big on fans here in the summer. Just random fans you take outside as to keep from DYING in the humidity. Companies use them for advertising and such. I have one for a new and improved ATM! Woo! I also have two toed socks from the omikoshi, which by the way bruised my toes so they’re now a lovely deep purple (the shoes not the socks), and stufffffff! But anyways, I had a little good bye party today with my host family and friends of their family. Right before that I saw Land of the Dead and my host sister and I were discussing how unappealing spaghetti and hot dogs seemed after seeing it. And then we got to the party and ate… spaghetti and pigs in a blanket! Which were just fine when I wasn’t thinking about man eating zombies. I also went to the aquarium today. I ‘hooked’ up with my new boyfriend (haha I made a funny!). He’s a nice two meters tall! Nothing fishy there (haha another funny!!). Okay, the giant tuna isn’t really my boyfriend, but I just couldn’t help cutting in front of all those little kids to have my picture taken with him! Well, hope to be in touch soon (please let the next house be internetified!) Bye!

Quick Hello!

I’m back from Kyoto! It was so neat I have a total of two pictures to show you! Only because I realized just after arriving that my battery charger was two hours away in Chiba, gah! My day started early at 4:30, this is becoming a pattern. We caught the shinkansen at 7. (spell check wants to turn shinkansen into slinkiness!) I didn’t get a picture of the newer one, the ‘series 700’. All of the shinkansen were covered in big blue words ‘ambitous Japan’, it was cute. It was like taking off on a plane for a really long time except you wake up and think ‘whoo! I’ve got leg space and edible food!’ We checked into our hotel when we arrived and for the first time in 5 months I stepped on, get this, carpet WHILE wearing my shoes!! It was so weird! Other than that it was a normal western style hotel that provided yukatas to sleep in. Our day started right away by going to the kinkakuji, Golden Temple. I think it would be impossible to get lost in Kyoto, everyone kind of blobs in the same directions. Besides, if there are gaijin around, you know you’re near something old or a Starbucks. Anyway, kinkakuji was a pretty neat temple. The original that was built ages ago burned down in 1950 and then they rebuilt it 5 years later. They didn’t actually add the gold until 1987. They also have a ginkakuji, Silver Temple, but it’s kind of sad compared to the Gold one, go figure. The day continued with lot’s more old things and the increasing need for a cane. I still had blisters from the shrine festival. Kyoto is a really pretty place in the summer, everything is really green. But one thing that also comes with summer in Japan are the cicadas! There were places in Kyoto where they had made paths into mini bug graveyards. You’d see a wing here and a head there, very attractive. When the sun finally set we walked over to a river side from where we could see the daimonji. It translates to something like ‘big character’, as in the Chinese kanji characters, not cartoon. Once a year in the summer on five mountains in Kyoto they set fires in the shape of kanji characters. There were people everywhere along the bank. Since it was dark you could see all their cell phones lit up. We crossed the river to a piece of land in the middle. The stepping stones were large and made for crossing, but apparently not for seven year olds and their grandmas. There were at least two wet people watching that night. We ended up sitting next to a group of people from Spain who were talking about going ‘see sighting’, they were practicing their English. On the way back to the hotel I saw this western store from the bus and there was an old Denver Broncos football helmet hanging from one of the clothing racks, random! Well, I’ve once again convinced my host sister that I’m writing my life’s story down and I've put off my hot springs story. What hot springs?? I never went ;P

A whole bunch of umeboshi (up there with japanese pickles) drying inside the temple that is supposed to help you with your studies.

Slinkiness! You can see the A from 'ambitous Japan'.

Just a few hours after we left here there was an earth quake.

Wa Shoi! = what shrine carrying people say!!

IOU one hot springs post because I have something else to write about, yay! Yesterday was a festival in Edogawa (where I live now) that they have only every three years. It’s an ‘omikoshi’ festival. It’s really one of those words that doesn’t have a decent English translation but ‘portable shrine’ seems to work for my dictionary. I would bet some of you have seen one before, it’s the kind of thing they would show on a travel show or something. What it is, is a shrine placed on top of a frame made out of long thick wooden supports. And what do you do with the supports, carry the shrine of course! Every possible part of the wooden beams are placed on top of someone’s shoulder. Anyway, this is all very exciting because I got to take part in the festival and help carry the shrine! We were a little late getting changed into our shrine carrying outfits (seen below) so we didn’t start until 9 am. There were about 6 different shrines that I could see. Our shrine had a decent group of probably around 100 people. We all took turns carrying the shrine. It was really fun and really heavy. Being taller than some of the other people, the beam kind of made itself at home digging into my shoulder. But the short people had it worst because the shrine kind of bounced on them; my older host sister has dark bruises from where the beam hit her shoulders. We carried the shrine all over and people on the sides of the street would throw water at us, so we were soaked and pruning all day. They even had the firemen out spraying us. We got free food which was so awesome (I had a bunch of Mister Donuts donuts!!) I stayed away from the KFC, I think I wrote about that awhile ago. I think my host Grandfather thought I was scared of Japanese chicken because he started talking about American beef and how chicken is fine and beef is bad, it was funny. Anyway it finally ended at 4 o’clock, I had no feet by then. The shoes we had to wear were these two toed things. They didn’t have my size, so the ones I had were a bit tight. I’m not wearing them in the picture but some of the others are. So that was my festival experience! And tomorrow I’m off to Kyoto! I’ll be back in a couple of days, probably postponing my onsen story. But I’ll have Kyoto stories instead!

Animenia

Hi everyone! I kind of went over board posting pictures but I had a really interesting Saturday, so before I talk about my trip to the hot springs let’s talk about Comiket 68! It’s pretty much the largest anime convention in Japan. Anime (please don’t anyone be thinking cartoons, it’s much more!!) is the Japanese style of animation which is most common in comic form (and I promise it’s not just pokemon). There are many genres, some of which I really didn’t need to see today. Anyway I woke up at 7 today and got a ride with my Host Dad to the station to meet the other exchange student from my school. I quickly discovered that there is a distinct crowd that goes to comiket…
I have drawn an accurate picture of what is called an ‘otaku’. Which is really pretty much a nerdy guy with a back pack, glasses, fanny sack, hat (maybe hair too!), a camera for taking pictures of cosplayers (girls dressed up), and who stays up past his bedtime reading naughty comics.
At 8:30 Jovana and I joined the masses in a large parking lot. There were way over two thousand people already waiting, and might I mention it didn’t start until ten. I’ve felt quite foreign in Japan before, but never so much as I did in that crowd, sea… ocean! of black hair. All day I saw maybe five gaijin not including myself (but I’m Japanese anyway! harhar). When we were finally released to rampage the convention site we headed straight for the cosplaying area. It was an area outdoors where all the people who wore costumes could show them off and have their picture taken again and again and again. You always had to ask permission to take a picture and the line most otaku used was something like ‘go mai yoroshii desu ka?’ (can I take five pictures?). Most cosplayers are pretty serious about what they do and never run out of poses or business cards!
Inside, what I swear was an airport gone convention center, were the anime goods. There were eight different halls (airplane hangers) filled with dealers selling their comics. On one floor I was leisurely poking around getting lots of flyers handed to me and when I looked down to actually see what people were handing me, I was greeted with a drawing of a girl who was apparently allergic to clothing, it was quite a shock. Especially since admission was free and there were little kids walking around!! But that seemed to be a common theme in four entire halls. Well, there was far too much going on there for me to write it all down but I’ve probably got enough here to help some ailing insomniac. So, I’ll leave the hot springs for another day…

We'll call them 'THE WALL'! It makes them sound cooler than they look.

In the left corner we have the other exchange student at my school versus some American we ran into! An exciting match!

McDonalds, or 'mahku' as they say here, even has it's own following of cosplayers! The guy who took a picture of them before me started singing the 'I'm lovin' it' song. Badabababa I'm rovin' it!

When I took this picture it was for the cosplayer but check out the background. I'd say that's about 1% of the people that were at the convention. By the way clicking on these pictures makes them larger.

Hey, whose that really cool person? Why it's me of course. Don't you see me? I'm hanging out on the daibutsu's (gaint buddha) feet. It took a lot of stair climbing to fit us both in.

My host sister and I sporting the onsen yukuata (hot spring summer kimono). In the evening everyone goes to the hot springs with their yukatas on. i had to wear a large because I'm too tall! Yay! It's boyish for a girl to wear a yukata too short.

I thought this was an interesting picture of Tokyo Tower and a temple that shows modern Japan and Japanese tradition coexisting, right?

I can't believe I'm posting this but there's me and there's my uniform in the same picture! So embarassing. This was in April so it was cool enough to wear the blazer and long sleeves. Anyone want to guess how much that blazer costs? Well, I get to tell you ;-P About 267 US dollars! Ouch. Glad I'm just borrowing it. Think someone might come after me if a button falls off or something?

I'm posting this one for fun, did it make you look twice? I took this of one of my first host sisters at a shopping center called LaLa Port. The writing on the first floor shop is also amusing but you can't see it in this size. It says, 'The Roux Specialty House may be the world’s first. Pouring cooked meals over rice is we enjoy the Tokyo Roux' Well, at least their meals are cooked.