I <3 weekends
I did not actually complete one of my goals for this weekend, which was to finish my chem paper. I am maybe halfway done, but I feel like it's more important to blog and go to sleep now than anything. Anyway, I have till Thursday so I'll finish it later. It's just pathetic how long it takes me. I do my research in english even, but still deciding what I want to say and then trying to say that in Japanese... just takes forever.
Friday.
I got home, and watched some dramas, including Stand Up, and Hana Yori Dango 2. It wasn't a particularly good episode, except for when Tsukushi suddenly moves into Doumyouji's house and his sister tells him, "Tsukushi is gonna live here now," and he is like, "oh, I see." and does a very Doumyouji-esque doubletake and says, "EHHHHH?!??" It's so great how people here actually say that in surprise though, not just in anime and dramas.
Saturday.
We were supposed to go to the 3rd years' graduation, but on Friday night my host mom came into my room and was telling me what time I would have to wake up, etc., and I just stared blankly. She was like, "wait, the high school students are required to be there, so you have to go, right???" And I'm like, "well, probably, but I don't want to go." "What do you mean?? What is this not wanting to go??" "Um... I don't want to go?" "Do you have something you want to do?" "Nothing in particular, you know, sleep, watch dramas, talk to my parents... just not go to school."
At this point my host mom either saw my brilliant logic, or more likely, realized that she had exactly zero power to make me go the next morning (how exactly would she MAKE me?), so she gave in.
Saturday morning was awesome! I did all of those things -- slept, watched dramas, talked to my parents, and I planned to meet Takashi in Sannomiya at 2:30. The real reason I needed to meet him was that I needed to give him back his copy of Nodame Cantabile (one of the best dramas ever!) and blank dvds so that he could make copies for me, Katja, and Cori (YESSSS)... We were all supposed to hang out, but Katja and Cori were like, "no I will be tired from school... and I have homework and stuff." Except that I was talking about doing homework during school on Friday, and Katja was like, "huh, you have homework???" So I am pretty sure they were just blatantly lying. But whatever. About 5 minutes before I had to leave to meet Takashi, Noriko came home (because she went to school on Saturday like a good girl) and I felt so incredibly happy that I hadn't just wasted the past 6 hours sitting on trains and in the auditorium like she just had.
When I got to Sannomiya though, I hadn't taken ten steps out of the station when I saw the first people I knew. Two girls from my math class (don't know their names), still in their uniforms. They waved at me and said my name and I waved back, and there was the awkward part where they probably wanted to ask, "wait... why are you here alone, and not in your uniform... weren't you at school today?" But luckily I just kept walking. I met Takashi at the butt statue, and complained about how I always see people I know in Sannomiya.
We walked around, and he showed me various good shops -- I now know a very good sheet music store (it's above the McDonalds near the butt statue...) and then we decided to walk to Harborland. We were crossing at the big crosswalk slightly south of the station, when on the opposite side crossing was Yukari and Yamamoto (yes Hannah, if you still read this, YAMAMOTO)... In contrast to my math classmates, they had changed out of their uniforms and were wearing plenty of makeup. We were all so shocked (well, honestly I wasn't that shocked, but I pretended to be really shocked) that we stopped right in the middle of the street, in the little island, and started talking. There was the totally awkward, "OMG ARE YOU ON A DATE?!?!?!" No, not particularly. "WELL THEN WHY ARE YOU TWO ALONE?" "Um... cuz I have no other friends?" The fact that I have actually no friends at school is made quite obvious by the amount of people I run into while I'm in Sannomiya. They're all there, just no one has invited me. In fact, I finished my purikura notebook, and aside from knitting club with Machiko and Mari, I haven't gone out with any girls from my school since December, and that time (the luminarie) I wasn't even invited, I invited myself.
So by this point the cross signal had long gone and we were awkwardly standing in the middle of the street as cars went by on either side. We had to kill time until the next cross signal, and we had nothing to say to each other, it was quite awkward I must say.
Then I had to explain to Takashi who those people were. He was like, "well, do they have boyfriends?" and I didn't know about Yamamoto, but Yukari in fact does! I felt very proud of myself for spreading gossip because Yukari having a boyfriend is apparently a big secret... he would have been Takashi's class but is going to school in England now... Takashi thinks this dude's name is Ishidzuka.
So we walked to Harborland, which I hadn't done since August, so that was fun. We went to Sweets Harbor, which is the big famous place where zillions of cakelike things are sold, but we walked through and were like, "um... I don't particularly want to eat any of this," and were probably the first two people in history to ever do that, because everyone goes insane about these stupid cakes. There were crepes but they didn't look good like the ones we ate in Osaka, so no. Osaka knows what it's doing food-wise.
However, on the way back, we were in some building, and I saw something that made me VERY HAPPY:
I WAS REUNITED WITH BUBBLE TEA! I had only had that tiny tiny bubble tea in China Town in January and that did not satisfy me. Thus, I ordered beni-imo bubble tea and it was heavenly.
The look on my face in this picture can be interpreted as, "If you even think about taking away my bubble tea, I'm going to kill you." Takashi didn't care about bubble tea so he had ice cream. Totally missing out, I tell you.
Let's count all the WONDERFUL things in this picture: Kobe, bubble tea, good hair days.
Then we had nothing else to do so we went back to Sannomiya, took purikura, and went home pretty dang early. My host mom was very happy with me.
Sunday.
Morning was orchestra. It was a different conductor this time, not the usual one, and Cori told me I would not like him and in fact I did not. Music-wise, he was nothing special, but more importantly, he was totally insulting to my Japanese ability. He questioned me about who I was, where I came from, etc., but insisted that I talk in english. I pretty much didn't comply, but it was incredibly annoying. I didn't come to Japan to speak english to you, dude. But whatever, the orchestra practice was good, except that I got in trouble for trying to stab the floor with my endpin and make a hole because I didn't have a rock-stop. This was by a cellist who wasn't there last week, a woman, and I was definitely getting "what do you think you're doing here" vibes from her. The dude I met last week (who was also here this week) doesn't seem to mind that I have entered, but this lady and I did not mesh. But that's orchestra -- it's never just orchestra, there always has to be hate and resentment... if there isn't any, it's not REALLY orchestra, now is it?
Then I came home, and ate, and watched more dramas. Machiko had invited me to a recital she was going to be in, where she would play the koto (I told you guys about the koto -- the 13 stringed Japanese instrument). I wanted to go, but it was in a totally NORMAL location, which means it takes forever for me to get to. She was going to be onstage at 4:30. I left my houst at 2:45, but the bus was four minutes late. This meant I missed the express train at the station and I had to take the normal train. This meant I missed the express train I had to change to in Sannomiya and I had to wait an extra ten minutes for the next express train. This meant I arrived at my meeting place with Mari, who also went, at 4:15, when we planned to meet at 4:00. Of course we had been properly phone emailing so she knew where I was, and luckily she knew exactly where it was so we made it to the auditorium with maybe 2 minutes to spare.
It was totally awesome, actually -- Machiko was playing koto in what was sort of like a Japanese version of an orchestra, with koto, shamisen, and these flute-like things. She was really good at playing koto, even though apparently she has been playing for less than a year... wow. Koto is hard, I swear, there's too many strings! It was cool, and she was wearing a sweet kimono. So while I did spend an hour and a half getting to a performance that lasted maybe 15 minutes tops, I was glad I did get to see it.
On my way home, I was walking around in Sannomiya a little, and there were these four asian-american guys, maybe 2 or 3 years older than me, were standing at the crosswalk as me. I heard their American accents and my ears perked up, and then it became quite clear that they were enjoying the advantage that comes with NO ONE AROUND BEING ABLE TO UNDERSTAND YOU (except me, of course). But they were having really loud, quite inappropriate conversations, along the lines of, "You know, I really just wanna RAPE someone right now... I wanna, like, stick my dick in..." Lovely, right. So then they noticed me staring at them, and one of them was like, "Dude, sorry!! He's crazy! He's Indian!" Pointing to his friend. Who did appear to be Indian.
Today.
Spent the morning making (green tea!) muffins and chocolate because apparently we have to give everyone sweets on Valentines day. Then we went to this woman's apartment nearby where we had done brushwriting in January. She had had everyone's brush-writing framed and we got to take ours home. It was really boring, and you guys know there's nothing I love more than spending time with rich anorexic middle aged Japanese women. Who are incredibly rude. Yes, they are polite in their rituals, such as everyone bringing little gifts to this lady's apartment, just because they were invited over (we brought some of the muffins we'd made, which Noriko individually wrapped in cute paper and tied with ribbons. I wanted to puke.) they are actually incredibly rude. They knew from the start that I could speak Japanese, but even so I thought that when talking about me in front of me it was because they assumed I wouldn't understand. But they did it to Noriko too, so I think they're just obnoxious. They were all wearing almost exactly the same outfit -- some turtleneck or high necked sweater set, and dark fitted pants, or a skirt with dark tights. Noriko and I were wearing just normal shirts, that were pretty low necked. I wore a contrasting bra such that my straps were showing, just because I know it is totally unacceptable in rich anorexic middle aged Japanese woman society and it would get on their nerves. You couldn't see Noriko's bra straps, but either way, these women kept going on about how we are so youthful because we weren't cold even though our shirts weren't turtlenecks. "Shoudlnt' they be cold???" "What kind of shirts are those two wearing??" "It must be SOOO cold, AND you can see that one's bra straps!" Yessss!! Points for successfully bothering a RAMAJW! Also, the woman in charge took pictures of everyone with what they had brush written, and everyone was looking at the pictures of me and Noriko. "Look at these pictures, they're so pretty compared to our pictures," "Oh, well they're only pretty because they're young."
Right. Thanks bunches.
So finally I got to come home and do half my chem report, which was interrupted by dinner, at which point I had a clash with my host family, over the fact that I refused to eat fugu.
Sorry, but I'm just not gonna eat a poisonous fish.
They thought I was totally crazy, of course, but I thought they were totally crazy for eating it, and I refused to eat any fugu or anything fugu touched. My host dad was like, "The poisonous parts are removed!" and my host grandpa laughed at me and said, "You really hate fugu??" the same way he asks me every time why I hate raw eggs (yep, don't eat raw eggs either, what a freak). Personally, not a fan of salmonella or DEATH. There was plenty for me to eat -- sushi rolls and leftovers from lunch, so it's not as if I went hungry. They also got mad at me for eating my sushi rolls with wasabi, because it was apparently not the kind of sushi rolls you eat with wasabi (excuse me, I like wasabi). I'd just rather be alive and eat my inappropriately wasabi-d sushi rolls than eat fugu and die.
So if my entire host family is dead tomorrow of fugu poisoning, you know I hate to say "I told you so," but...
Friday.
I got home, and watched some dramas, including Stand Up, and Hana Yori Dango 2. It wasn't a particularly good episode, except for when Tsukushi suddenly moves into Doumyouji's house and his sister tells him, "Tsukushi is gonna live here now," and he is like, "oh, I see." and does a very Doumyouji-esque doubletake and says, "EHHHHH?!??" It's so great how people here actually say that in surprise though, not just in anime and dramas.
Saturday.
We were supposed to go to the 3rd years' graduation, but on Friday night my host mom came into my room and was telling me what time I would have to wake up, etc., and I just stared blankly. She was like, "wait, the high school students are required to be there, so you have to go, right???" And I'm like, "well, probably, but I don't want to go." "What do you mean?? What is this not wanting to go??" "Um... I don't want to go?" "Do you have something you want to do?" "Nothing in particular, you know, sleep, watch dramas, talk to my parents... just not go to school."
At this point my host mom either saw my brilliant logic, or more likely, realized that she had exactly zero power to make me go the next morning (how exactly would she MAKE me?), so she gave in.
Saturday morning was awesome! I did all of those things -- slept, watched dramas, talked to my parents, and I planned to meet Takashi in Sannomiya at 2:30. The real reason I needed to meet him was that I needed to give him back his copy of Nodame Cantabile (one of the best dramas ever!) and blank dvds so that he could make copies for me, Katja, and Cori (YESSSS)... We were all supposed to hang out, but Katja and Cori were like, "no I will be tired from school... and I have homework and stuff." Except that I was talking about doing homework during school on Friday, and Katja was like, "huh, you have homework???" So I am pretty sure they were just blatantly lying. But whatever. About 5 minutes before I had to leave to meet Takashi, Noriko came home (because she went to school on Saturday like a good girl) and I felt so incredibly happy that I hadn't just wasted the past 6 hours sitting on trains and in the auditorium like she just had.
When I got to Sannomiya though, I hadn't taken ten steps out of the station when I saw the first people I knew. Two girls from my math class (don't know their names), still in their uniforms. They waved at me and said my name and I waved back, and there was the awkward part where they probably wanted to ask, "wait... why are you here alone, and not in your uniform... weren't you at school today?" But luckily I just kept walking. I met Takashi at the butt statue, and complained about how I always see people I know in Sannomiya.
We walked around, and he showed me various good shops -- I now know a very good sheet music store (it's above the McDonalds near the butt statue...) and then we decided to walk to Harborland. We were crossing at the big crosswalk slightly south of the station, when on the opposite side crossing was Yukari and Yamamoto (yes Hannah, if you still read this, YAMAMOTO)... In contrast to my math classmates, they had changed out of their uniforms and were wearing plenty of makeup. We were all so shocked (well, honestly I wasn't that shocked, but I pretended to be really shocked) that we stopped right in the middle of the street, in the little island, and started talking. There was the totally awkward, "OMG ARE YOU ON A DATE?!?!?!" No, not particularly. "WELL THEN WHY ARE YOU TWO ALONE?" "Um... cuz I have no other friends?" The fact that I have actually no friends at school is made quite obvious by the amount of people I run into while I'm in Sannomiya. They're all there, just no one has invited me. In fact, I finished my purikura notebook, and aside from knitting club with Machiko and Mari, I haven't gone out with any girls from my school since December, and that time (the luminarie) I wasn't even invited, I invited myself.
So by this point the cross signal had long gone and we were awkwardly standing in the middle of the street as cars went by on either side. We had to kill time until the next cross signal, and we had nothing to say to each other, it was quite awkward I must say.
Then I had to explain to Takashi who those people were. He was like, "well, do they have boyfriends?" and I didn't know about Yamamoto, but Yukari in fact does! I felt very proud of myself for spreading gossip because Yukari having a boyfriend is apparently a big secret... he would have been Takashi's class but is going to school in England now... Takashi thinks this dude's name is Ishidzuka.
So we walked to Harborland, which I hadn't done since August, so that was fun. We went to Sweets Harbor, which is the big famous place where zillions of cakelike things are sold, but we walked through and were like, "um... I don't particularly want to eat any of this," and were probably the first two people in history to ever do that, because everyone goes insane about these stupid cakes. There were crepes but they didn't look good like the ones we ate in Osaka, so no. Osaka knows what it's doing food-wise.
However, on the way back, we were in some building, and I saw something that made me VERY HAPPY:
I WAS REUNITED WITH BUBBLE TEA! I had only had that tiny tiny bubble tea in China Town in January and that did not satisfy me. Thus, I ordered beni-imo bubble tea and it was heavenly.
The look on my face in this picture can be interpreted as, "If you even think about taking away my bubble tea, I'm going to kill you." Takashi didn't care about bubble tea so he had ice cream. Totally missing out, I tell you.
Let's count all the WONDERFUL things in this picture: Kobe, bubble tea, good hair days.
Then we had nothing else to do so we went back to Sannomiya, took purikura, and went home pretty dang early. My host mom was very happy with me.
Sunday.
Morning was orchestra. It was a different conductor this time, not the usual one, and Cori told me I would not like him and in fact I did not. Music-wise, he was nothing special, but more importantly, he was totally insulting to my Japanese ability. He questioned me about who I was, where I came from, etc., but insisted that I talk in english. I pretty much didn't comply, but it was incredibly annoying. I didn't come to Japan to speak english to you, dude. But whatever, the orchestra practice was good, except that I got in trouble for trying to stab the floor with my endpin and make a hole because I didn't have a rock-stop. This was by a cellist who wasn't there last week, a woman, and I was definitely getting "what do you think you're doing here" vibes from her. The dude I met last week (who was also here this week) doesn't seem to mind that I have entered, but this lady and I did not mesh. But that's orchestra -- it's never just orchestra, there always has to be hate and resentment... if there isn't any, it's not REALLY orchestra, now is it?
Then I came home, and ate, and watched more dramas. Machiko had invited me to a recital she was going to be in, where she would play the koto (I told you guys about the koto -- the 13 stringed Japanese instrument). I wanted to go, but it was in a totally NORMAL location, which means it takes forever for me to get to. She was going to be onstage at 4:30. I left my houst at 2:45, but the bus was four minutes late. This meant I missed the express train at the station and I had to take the normal train. This meant I missed the express train I had to change to in Sannomiya and I had to wait an extra ten minutes for the next express train. This meant I arrived at my meeting place with Mari, who also went, at 4:15, when we planned to meet at 4:00. Of course we had been properly phone emailing so she knew where I was, and luckily she knew exactly where it was so we made it to the auditorium with maybe 2 minutes to spare.
It was totally awesome, actually -- Machiko was playing koto in what was sort of like a Japanese version of an orchestra, with koto, shamisen, and these flute-like things. She was really good at playing koto, even though apparently she has been playing for less than a year... wow. Koto is hard, I swear, there's too many strings! It was cool, and she was wearing a sweet kimono. So while I did spend an hour and a half getting to a performance that lasted maybe 15 minutes tops, I was glad I did get to see it.
On my way home, I was walking around in Sannomiya a little, and there were these four asian-american guys, maybe 2 or 3 years older than me, were standing at the crosswalk as me. I heard their American accents and my ears perked up, and then it became quite clear that they were enjoying the advantage that comes with NO ONE AROUND BEING ABLE TO UNDERSTAND YOU (except me, of course). But they were having really loud, quite inappropriate conversations, along the lines of, "You know, I really just wanna RAPE someone right now... I wanna, like, stick my dick in..." Lovely, right. So then they noticed me staring at them, and one of them was like, "Dude, sorry!! He's crazy! He's Indian!" Pointing to his friend. Who did appear to be Indian.
Today.
Spent the morning making (green tea!) muffins and chocolate because apparently we have to give everyone sweets on Valentines day. Then we went to this woman's apartment nearby where we had done brushwriting in January. She had had everyone's brush-writing framed and we got to take ours home. It was really boring, and you guys know there's nothing I love more than spending time with rich anorexic middle aged Japanese women. Who are incredibly rude. Yes, they are polite in their rituals, such as everyone bringing little gifts to this lady's apartment, just because they were invited over (we brought some of the muffins we'd made, which Noriko individually wrapped in cute paper and tied with ribbons. I wanted to puke.) they are actually incredibly rude. They knew from the start that I could speak Japanese, but even so I thought that when talking about me in front of me it was because they assumed I wouldn't understand. But they did it to Noriko too, so I think they're just obnoxious. They were all wearing almost exactly the same outfit -- some turtleneck or high necked sweater set, and dark fitted pants, or a skirt with dark tights. Noriko and I were wearing just normal shirts, that were pretty low necked. I wore a contrasting bra such that my straps were showing, just because I know it is totally unacceptable in rich anorexic middle aged Japanese woman society and it would get on their nerves. You couldn't see Noriko's bra straps, but either way, these women kept going on about how we are so youthful because we weren't cold even though our shirts weren't turtlenecks. "Shoudlnt' they be cold???" "What kind of shirts are those two wearing??" "It must be SOOO cold, AND you can see that one's bra straps!" Yessss!! Points for successfully bothering a RAMAJW! Also, the woman in charge took pictures of everyone with what they had brush written, and everyone was looking at the pictures of me and Noriko. "Look at these pictures, they're so pretty compared to our pictures," "Oh, well they're only pretty because they're young."
Right. Thanks bunches.
So finally I got to come home and do half my chem report, which was interrupted by dinner, at which point I had a clash with my host family, over the fact that I refused to eat fugu.
Sorry, but I'm just not gonna eat a poisonous fish.
They thought I was totally crazy, of course, but I thought they were totally crazy for eating it, and I refused to eat any fugu or anything fugu touched. My host dad was like, "The poisonous parts are removed!" and my host grandpa laughed at me and said, "You really hate fugu??" the same way he asks me every time why I hate raw eggs (yep, don't eat raw eggs either, what a freak). Personally, not a fan of salmonella or DEATH. There was plenty for me to eat -- sushi rolls and leftovers from lunch, so it's not as if I went hungry. They also got mad at me for eating my sushi rolls with wasabi, because it was apparently not the kind of sushi rolls you eat with wasabi (excuse me, I like wasabi). I'd just rather be alive and eat my inappropriately wasabi-d sushi rolls than eat fugu and die.
So if my entire host family is dead tomorrow of fugu poisoning, you know I hate to say "I told you so," but...
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