More informative randomness

Okay everyone, let’s take a moment to appreciate some of the events of yesterday!
First of all I got to play with Aibo, super intelligent Sony robot dog (cute too). He was roaming the floor of a Sony Lifestyle store the other day in Tokyo. He has sensors everywhere and acts just like a puppy! I’m guessing Sony realized that if they made an Aibo cat it would, obviously, be too smart and take over the world or something. Then they’d make a movie ‘I Catbot’ et cetera et cetera.
My second monumental event yesterday occurred at a pet store in the rodent and giant disgusting bug aisle. They had a prairie dog! It was the cutest little thing and it had a little pudgy tummy. He was very intent on escape. As were the aforementioned… insects. They’re really popular here with little kids. They even have a Pokemon-like game called ‘Mushi Kingu’ (bug king). And I’ll have to run away if it catches on like Pokemon did in the states.And last and most specialist of all! I saw the next, in probably an endless evolution, of the Playstation consoles, the PSX. It was so cute! Anyway, it’s lunch time and it’s one of my favorites!

My fingers are melting into the keyboard!

I of course thought of a bunch of things to write about before sitting down and having the heat sap it all right away. It’s about 32ish here and way humid. I’ve had two popsicles already! Desperate measures. Watched a food show today with a Japanese guy who had ‘mastered the art of creating American burgers’. I’ve seen three of those shows. They make them as big, fatty, and towering as possible, ‘American’ I suppose. My first family asked me once when we were watching a diet show (referring to this rather round and rolly woman) if everyone was like that in Colorado. They were rather surprised when I said not really. Some of us can still get out of our dents in the coach, though I like mine, especially when Lost is on ^_~ But wouldn’t you know right after that they had this show come on about dangerously overweight people in foreign countries. And wouldn’t you know one of them was a 400+ pound truck driver from Colorado. Go figure. A question I get asked about a lot is the size of McDonald meals in America. They don’t have supersize here. It makes me think of ‘Supersize Me’, the documentary that makes you swear to never eat McDonalds again. Speaking of documentaries, they actually had an add on TV the other day for ‘Fahrenheit 911’. I was pretty surprised to see it, but it would be interesting to know how people receive it here.
バイｘ２

Hello! (echo echo??)

I’m ba-ack! No joke! My third family has the internet! Now don’t everyone fall out of their chair because they’re so elated to hear from me! So much to write, so much that I’m sure left my brain the instant I set out to write this. Let’s start at the middleish! I went on a road trip with my last family to Kamogawa (home of Oscar, giant orca of Japan’s Sea World and the origin of my embarrassing farmers tan). First we stopped at a place called Tateyama. I swear we climbed AT LEAST 2,000 stairs to see Japans biggest stone carved Buddha. I’ve seen the largest bronze one too, minus his face, it was stuck in the clouds. Anyway, after dying from stair overload we went back down the mountain (stairs) to the beach. There was a sign that said ‘no swimming’ yet there were surfers every where. My host Aunt explained that they never actually ‘swim’, they stay on their boards and let the surf carry them in. I don’t know how they get out in the water though… I managed to retrieve some ugly rocks and some pieces of neat looking plates from the waves, only getting my pants soaked to the waist. I blame the ugly rock I was bending over to pick up when a big wave snuck up on me. We stayed at a ryokan, traditional Japanese hotel. I ate whale for the first time and it was SO good. However the whale jerky took some getting used to. Some of the sea food I ate around, but I also tried sea urchin. Later on I went to Tokyo with my host father. First we went to Tokyo Tower. We went to the highest part where you (theoretically) can see Mt. Fuji, but wouldn’t you know it was a cloudy day. The view was amazing anyway. They have a wax museum and I had my picture taken with Mona Lisa, the Beatles, Frankenstein’s monster, and of course our… lovely man Bush. Tokyo Tower also has a neat trick art gallery where you can appear without a head or being eaten by a genie. After T. Tower we walked (can anyone imagine the stubs I must have for legs now??) to a nearby water bus port. The water bus travels up a river to take you to Asakusa. All along the river is a place which I believe is called ‘blue street’. If it isn’t, it’s blue something. Anyway, it is a well known place where the homeless make their… homes. They use mostly blue tarps, which led my sharp intuition to believe it is blue street. In Asakusa I experienced the occasional wave of stinkyness. Did I mention the brown cloud I also saw from Tokyo Tower? That only lasted until I was then hit by the smells of Japanese pastries cooking (smile smile). I only ate one, not big on bean paste. Mmm… yeah. I will write again later. My host family is convinced I’m writing a book and there’s this thing called sleep which I quite enjoy.

Natsu Yasumi! Summer Vacation!

I’m writing probably my last post before I change families for summer vacation. I’ve got my bags out and filled but I still have so much STUFF! I’ve gotta get packin’. I change this Sunday. I’m looking forward to experiencing a different family structure. I’ll have my first brother and live-in grandparents and my first chance sharing a room. So many new things! Except my sister did seem happy to mention they eat bread for breakfast (I’m well known now for liking sweet pastries). Oh and do I have good news! My family that I’ll have for five months, the next next next one, has three cats! Now don’t everyone get all excited at once! I can’t wait to meet them (the people too! ;P), I still haven’t figured out Japanese cats. Maybe I’ve lost my touch! Well, I’m sure this topic is extremely interesting. So, yesterday my host mom taught me how to make my favorite dish, it’s real easy. It takes like five minutes, two eggs, some rice and the special ingredient! Not really, just the instant stuff that comes in a bag and makes it into ‘Chahan’. Another food I’ll have to help catch on in the States. Today at school I watched one of the teachers grade the English tests from this past exam week. I haven’t been so puzzled in my life. If you want to feel good about your language ability just look at the tests from the sports course (sorry, the jock stereotype is totally true in Japan). According to one student July is spelled ‘seve’. How come no one ever told me! And the months, all this time I had no clue! December, that’s wrong, it’s really ‘dessembre’. And August=Ougust, February=Flebulary, and well I think you get my drift. One poor first year was having brain farts or something test day because for the multiple choice section he just rewrote the letter choices in random order… Who knows. It was enlightening to say the least! This is after I found myself reading ‘Junior Prom’, because I forgot all of my study books. Advice, don’t read anything with ‘prom’ in the title. I have no clue why TGU High School has that book. Some of the other titles they own range from ‘Little Lies’ to ‘Just Sixteen’. Haha, I won’t forget my study books again!!!Well everyone, I hope I get to stay in touch over the summer break with my blog. If not… don’t cry, I’ll find a computer with the net somewhere someday!

Kabuki!

And what you've all been waiting for, not really, is my reflection on the Kabuki play I saw a little over a month ago! It was a special production for students so some things are different than the normal Kabuki production. And I was feeling quite sarcastic when I wrote this, so have fun.
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In the time I’ve spent trying to figure out how to start this reflection, one kabuki actor could have put a decent number of teenage audience members to sleep. Not to say it was boring, ‘Kenuki’ had all the ingredients of a Hollywood box office hit, I promise. Two lives were lost to the dramatic crescendo of the shamisen’s… cooing (oh, a sword was involved too), there was a damsel plagued by magnetic hair pins, and even a hero enlightened with the skill of flashing cool poses.
Maybe I’m exaggerating on the effectiveness of Kabuki’s sleep inducing power, but I found the pre-production introduction to Kabuki much more interesting.* First, I must admit, it probably doesn’t help when some of the only words you catch from the production are ‘uso’, ‘ohime-sama’, and ‘jigoku’.**
The workings of a Kabuki play are quite inventive. There seem to be little tricks for everything from flying daggers to transforming babies into stone. Of course nothing could happen as smoothly if it wasn’t for the invisible assistants. The assistants dress cleverly in black to blend into the background. This works especially well when the background is blue sky. Their purpose is to assist the kabuki actors with props. So, when an actor is in need of, say, giant tweezers, they’ll magically vaporize (because you can’t see the invisible assistants of course!).
The props are also interesting because they cannot rely upon electricity to create movement or special effects. My favorite was the innocent looking carp that appeared to be dead-like on a table until a hidden string was pulled causing it to flop to life, or flop to death as the case may be. I think the fish’s pose hooked more of a reaction than some of the actors’.
I still found the actors’ different poses enjoyable. I have a feeling the mood surrounding the poses might have been more lively with an audience of regular patrons. Only at the end when striking down the hanamichi*** did the hero get his round of applause and shouts of approval.
Another notable element would have to be the onna gata, the actors who played women. They certaintly nailed the stereotypical geisha ‘pale and fragile’ look. However, once they spoke it was jarring, in an amusing way. For example, when Ohime-sama was lamenting about her cursed hair, and who wouldn’t, it sounded like an old granny out to kill all her vowels with a rolling pin. Maybe it would have sounded even better with background music from an MD player, I should have asked the whole row of students from the school behind me. Still, I have to give Ohime-sama some brownie points, in real life he’s a 16 year old high school student, which is extremely rare in the Kabuki world.Ala in all, I found ‘Kenuki’ to be a gratifying experience (as I hope you have found this reflection to be). The Kabuki style of acting definitely creates a different atmosphere than anything else I have ever seen. It is obvious a lot of care goes into keeping true to tradition while still producing something that cool hip people (like me) can appreciate. But next time I’m drinking more caffeine and bringing my own rolling pin.
* the pre-production was special for just us students to enjoy
** 'that's a lie', 'Princess', and 'hell'
*** what reminds me of a cat walk where the actors go to do special poses!

We interupt this program with an important announcement...

I SAW STAR WARS!
Yes yes, Episode III came out two months ago in America but I saw it a week early here in Japan! I went after school with the other exchange student at my school. We both decided we wouldn’t be able to live normal lives if we returned without having seen the last Star Wars. So we got to the theater two hours early to get tickets that cost about 15 USD (but it was star wars so it was worth it). We had to wander around a lot because they wouldn’t allow people to be seated until 10 minutes before the show. So we had fun taking purikura with our tickets and drawing us with little light sabers. Have I mentioned purikura before? That sentence might have sounded weird for those of you who don’t know what it is. Purikura is short for photo club (I promise) and it is WAY popular among Japanese girls. For 400 yen you take pictures in a photo booth and then you decorate them on a screen outside the booth. They come out on a sheet about the size of a large index card. Depending on what quantity you get the purikura are usually 2 cm by 3 cm. It’s popular to put them on your keitai (cell phone), electric dictionaries, and all the girls have albums for them and people trade them too.
Today I went with my host father to a famous place in Lalaport, 東京パン屋ストリート, Tokyo’s Bread Shop Street. Bakeries from all across Japan decided to gather in one area to sell their bread. We had to get there 40 minutes early to avoid what everyone describes as ‘Disneyland like lines’. And it was a good thing we did, people were wrapped all around the outside of the mall waiting to get in. However we got screaming baby sandwiched. This little girl right behind me would not stop screeching but the ringing in my ear helped drown it out, haa. I went to three different bread shops and got some awesome bread! I just ate it for lunch. It was all fresh and gooey! But there were $6 hamburgers that I didn’t understand. Afterwards while waiting for my host dad I poked around the Lalaport bargain area. They had foreign sweets so I decided to check those out. Nothing too special, they had questionable cappuccino flavored popcorn. I saw this funny day timer that said on it ‘NO TOUCH NO SMOKING: don’t touch my body. smoking is harmful to your health’. I don’t know how someone decided those two things are related. Well, that was my adventure today. Bye everyone!

This months scoop!

Alright! So today after school I met with the two girls who will be my sisters for the next two home stays. Okay first is Manami, a really cute 1st year in the international course at my school. I’ll be moving to her house on the tenth in the afternoon, that means dragging out Mammoth (my suitcase) among other things such as packing and… organizing!! Ah! Anyway, back to Manami! We’ll be sharing a room together for awhile until she leaves for Atami on the 20th to go to a summer cram school for a week. She comes back the day before I have to change again. She lives with her parents and grandparents, who I’ve heard LOVE to talk ^_^. She rides a bike to the station to get to school, but we have summer break so we might not be riding together often (I have Judo). She is in the English Conversation Club. And for breakfast they eat bread, yay!! The one after that is with Misako, a second year in the class across the hall from mine. She also is petless. Oh quick update, I did break my three month streak of never touching a cat, be happy everyone! Now just to break my three month of chocolate milklessness. I go to Misako’s on the 27th. I’m not entirely sure when I leave her family. I have my own room at her house and will probably get rides to school by CAR! Whoo! It’s super rare, everyone takes the train or their bike because going anywhere in Japan by car is expensive and takes forever. So, they both seem really awesome. Everyone was shy and nervous and didn’t know what to say, mostly lots of giggling ^_~ I’m excited, but I’ll miss the Ohnishi’s! They’ve been my family for over three months now. Soon my name will be Hannah Lemmer Ohnishi Yoshino!