04.04 - Sunday
Morning went by slowly. Finally slept about 8 hours and woke up at 9. Ate a delicious breakfast！
This is what the living room/kitchen/dining room area looks like:
living room
dining room
kitchen
Continued trying to teach host sister how to cube in very broken Japanese (I don’t know the words for turn, side, block…and it’s already hard enough to explain how to solve a cube in English! Haha). Also watched some anime with her—one ep of Ouran and then also Fruits Basket. I think she likes me so far since she likes to come in my room, and I also let her eat chocolate yatsuhashi (which are delicious by the way). She’s a very active and energetic girl, and it’s pretty neat to get to talk to her :D
My host mom was really nice and too me out to 宇治 (Uji) today. Uji is like…4 trains stops away, and it's famous for its tea. Tea shops lined the street and you could smell tea everywhere. So delicious!
There's also a river. It's pretty!
shrine looking thingy!I saw people cormorant fishing (鵜飼)...I think this is a picture of it, but not very clear as I was far away :(. They even had fire and everything and made a show of it!
She bought me green tea ice cream, and a ticket to ride a small boat on the Ujigawa river. ^__^
As we were waiting in the long line for the boat ride, she also bought me 焼きトウモロコシ (yakitoumorokoshi - fried corn). Delicious!
Boat ride was awesome. So pretty--see all the sakura trees lining the river?
Showdown with ducky
(I like taking pictures of little kids the best.
They're always so cute!)
All in all a great day. Afterward hung out with my host sister a bit more.
Oh! I also unpacked in the morning, and realized I already have half a big luggage of souvenirs I bought. I hope I can fit everything back…if I keep buying souvenirs at this pace I’ll be in trouble! [Update: I just found out I'll be doing an internship in Tokyo. If I am spending another 2 months in Tokyo I hope I don't go too much over the plane weight limits for checked in baggage ;__;] I figure though that after school starts tomorrow, I won’t have time to buy any souvenirs anymore. I want to join extracurriculars and start practicing flute everyday, so I won’t really be able to go to souvenir shops, haha. [Update: Practicing flute everyday has been kind of fail. More like every other day, since there's so many things to do here...and extracurriculars are out of the picture now. I have a lot of friends I made with whom I want to explore more of Japan with, and I feel like I can only do that here--whereas while martial arts clubs at Stanford aren't quite the same as martial arts in Japan, it's still martial arts--I can't explore Osaka or Kyoto when I'm at Stanford anymore :(. I barely have enough time to do homework, I feel like, because there's just so much I want to do here!]
I meant to start practicing again today, but went out with my host mom—so I think I’ll start practicing in the mornings this week. Tomorrow morning won’t work because I have to go get my alien registration card (Japan really makes things hard on foreigners :P) but hopefully starting Tuesday I can practice!
04.05
First day of school today!
Walking took a realllyyyy long time. Good exercise I suppose.
Host mom made oden for dinner!! So delicious :D
I think I have a lot of freedom compared to some other people in the program. I don’t have a curfew (though of course my host parents prefer that I get back earlier) and then there’s not a set time exactly for breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc. It just kind of changes each day and even if I get back really late my host mom says she’ll make dinner and leave it for me on the table. She also just gave me a key so I can get back whenever I want… And I don't have to worry about bathroom slippers vs normal house slippers vs socks. I can do whichever whenever I want, whereas I heard some people's host families are really strict about always wearing slippers in the house except on tatami and then switching slippers when they go to the bathroom.
Tired. Not much else going on for now…already have homework, haha .
04.10
Wow! Haven’t written for a while…
Here’s a montage of tons of DELICIOUS things that my host mom has made for me to eat!!
4/6 Okonomiyaki – a kind of Japanese pizza/pancake with tons of things in it...but I don't know where the picture I took is right now ;___;
4/7 Yakisoba – fried noodles!! With really delicious sauce :D
4/10 Angel hair pasta for lunch (it was SO good)
We went this particular morning to gather vegetables. My host mom's friend and other friends helped make this gigantic garden they have that has broccoli, spinach, leeks, and other things I don't know the name of. It was really cool! Guaranteed healthy since they don't use pesticides or anything :).
it was so gigantic!
I learned this morning that they have Disney Channel. And that they can have the characters speaking English or Japanese! The Japanese dub is horrible though, since the words and the mouth movements don’t match up at all.
I went to my friend Elvia’s host family’s home in the afternoon to hang out. My host mom was nice enough to take me to Rokujizo so I could ride the Tozai subway line all the way to Uzumasa Tenjin (Rokujizo is the first stop, Uzumasa Tenjin is the last).
Elvia’s staying in a place that is like…better than a 5-star hotel. I didn’t take pictures (but I’ll try to remember to next time) and that place is HUGE. She has her own bathroom to herself, and there’s an automatically flushing toilet and a gigantic counter and sink and like…WOW. And the kitchen and living room and dining room all run into each other and are huge, and she even gets her own like 35” TV in her room, with wired (fast!) internet access. @__@
She has two really cute little host sisters (Ayako and Reiko)—they tend to be pretty mischievous, haha. We played cards with them first, then after eating played with them in the backyard (hide and seek, giving them piggyback rides, spinning them around and around, etc.). Playing with those kids is exhausting! But it was really fun, and a good workout.
After I got back to Rokujizo, my entire host family was nice enough to pick me up and they took me out for an early birthday dinner. Since I told them my friends and I wanted to go eat next Saturday and karaoke, they decided to celebrate a week early.
We went to a restaurant called Saint Marc Craftsmanship and it’s a restaurant bakery. The inside decorations are awesome, and they even have mirrors that look kind of like windows to give the impression that the restaurant is bigger.
bakery
decorations!
I know what you're doing restaurant! You're using optical illusions to make me think you're way bigger than you actually are!
I was fascinated by the candle all throughout the dinner—I think just because it was floating on water…
when dinner started
near the end of dinner--the wax floated on the water and looked kinda like..bubbles? coral? kinda?
They also gave our table special mats because it was for a birthday celebration! My host parents had also ordered a full course meal, and I was really excited.
The food was REALLY good. Every 4 minutes or so, a waitress would come by with a basket of freshly baked bread, asking if we wanted any. There were so many different kinds—cheese breads (THOSE WERE SO GOOD), chocolate breads, croissants, strawberry breads, sesame ones, milk ones, blueberry…too many to list. Each time I had one, it was hot and extremely fluffy.
milk bread and corn bread and butter yum!
I think I ate too many breads early on, though, because I found it harder to eat the main course later…just because I was already too full :P. Everything was really delicious, though!
I think this is the appetizer:
Everything on it tasted really good…
Then we had chicken as the main course:
The chicken was SO JUICY…probably the best chicken I’ve ever had in my life so far!
And then tea and delicious praline ice cream dessert!
The tea thing was really cool because you could lift up the top after you’d steeped the tea to your liking, and it lift up the bag/leaves and you would have the perfect tea. ^__^
I've only seen such cool contraptions for tea in Asia (at least that I can remember).
America, why can't you also have awesome tea things? :(
When we got home, I was already really happy and assumed my birthday celebration was over. However, I was completely wrong—my host family then came to my room and gave me presents! The dad gave me these really really cute animals I think made out of clay. There’s a really cute rabbit (hehe Matthew) and an elephant balancing an apple on its head, then a really cute pig with a bow. My host mother got me this really awesome white jacket that has a dragon on one side then sakura leaves all over (including on the back). I really like it! I hope it doesn’t get dirty though. I also was sad to find I’m size M in Japan :P. hahaha XD I still find it really funny that XS in the US is M in Asian countries… Then, my host sister gave me this cute purse with two dogs in it, since I think she knew I really like stuffed animals. It was extremely sweet of them and I’m really, really happy ^__^.
so many presents!
04/11
Today was really nice and relaxed—I can’t believe there’s school again tomorrow :(…don’t really wanna have to deal with work right now. It’s nice being able to just hang out with my host family and learn about Japan.
My host mom took me out today! Did I mention how cool the car is? It has a GPS thingy (she says it's normal for cars in Japan) and they even have a TV in the back.
We had cold somen for lunch, which was really good, and afterward my host sister and I did homework in my room.
We had sukiyaki for dinner and it was SUPER delicious. I was a bit apprehensive about eating the raw egg, but mixing in the food from the big pot (is it a pot?) into the egg tasted great.
So I learned that in Japan they put the date that the eggs were laid on the packaging.
Everyone's chill with eating raw egg so long as the it was laid on that day, so I hear.
Afterward my host sister and I watched Fruits Basket, and then now I’m doing some more homework.
4/17
Birthday! I’m now 21. No drinking for me tonight; I don't like the smell and taste of alcohol. Also, turning 21 in Japan is underwhelming since I’m legal here at age 20.
Went with my host mom in the morning to help her carry bags of rice that she bought. They're gigantic 30-kilo bags of rice or something. Apparently they still had the husks on them, so they have these nifty machines in Japan that make white rice for you!
rice machine
brown rice in
white rice out!
On my way to my birthday celebration I passed by the river and saw the big birdy!! For some reason I really like the river--there's lots of animals there and there's this heron-looking bird...I think someone said it's an egret.
birdy!!
The scenery was too beautiful to pass up with the great weather, so took advantage of the fact I had the camera Matt gave me ^__^
Doshisha also looked beautiful, so here's another two shots:
We went to a Chinese 食べ放題 (tabehoudai) restaurant in Shijo (which is kind of the downtown of Kyoto)! Tabehoudai meaning, all-you-can-eat. I was expecting a buffet style kind of restaurant, but this was actually tabehoudai as in, you can order as much as you want off the menu (this was not a nomihoudai, however, which meant we did not have an all you can drink option). Hidemi, one of my friends here, helped make the reservation and everything! She basically saved my butt for my birthday, haha :).
People at the table: Sean, Isabelle, Chris (Kyoto University student auditing our WWII SCTI class), Hidemi, James, Christian, me, Elvia, and Kevin ^_^
Sean and Isabelle!
Elvia, James, Christian
Chris, Hidemi, Elvia
Kevin eating
Sean the lobster!
Elvia creatively made me candles with chopsticks! Thanks Elvia ^__^
It was delicious, but the restaurant was pretty clever—in order to make us really full and to prevent us from ordering expensive things off their menu, they have this set course for tabehoudai customers, and you are required to eat the set course they give you as well as anything else you order (you can’t leave food on the plates). So, of course, the restaurant gives us tons of carbs and salads (because vegetables are cheap) to make us full really fast and prevent us from eating other things off their menu. Guess businesses have to make money somehow. Thanks to Christian, and especially Sean, who kept on eating till the very end, we were able to finish all our food!
Then, Hidemi guided us to Jankara, a karaoke store, and then had to leave early; Chris stayed, however, and really helped us out in terms of getting a room, figuring out how to put in songs, and order drinks! Yayyyyy ^__^
Jankara Karaoke place
Chris singing
We had a smattering of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and English songs—yay for Asian diversity! It seems like everyone had a good time—all in all a really fun birthday :)
4/18/10
Spent most of today trying to do homework. We have an essay due tomorrow for Japanese class :(
I got to go eat Beard Papa’s today though! It was in a Japanese supermarket and they had a really crunchy cookie puff and also strawberry flavored cream puffs. So yummy ^_^
For some reason it is Beard Papa, not Beard Papa's, in Japan. Engrish fail?
For dinner, my host mother took me and my host sister out to kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi). It was a restaurant without tenkabutsu (additives) and therefore was really popular; it was extremely crowded when we went in and even more crowded when we left.
So many people.
The food was DELICIOUS and I think I ate like 15 small plates of sushi. Or maybe 16. Or 20. I’m not sure. I think I ate what my host mother and sister ate combined, haha =___=…it was SO good though!
Delicious sushi....
The Japanese have this restaurant stuff figured down to a science. Each table had a hot water dispenser and powdered tea, and then a computer where you could order food if what you wanted didn’t come on the conveyor belt (or had been taken away by other customers first).
Chopsticks, tea powder, all at the table.
Hot water dispenser, soy sauce, and plate disposal.
so much sushis!
They placed people’s orders on the red bowls that you can see in the pic above and a beeping sound would alert you that your order was coming soon.
Electronic ordering computer thing!
They also had this toy thing where each time you ate 5 plates (and put it in the plate dispenser), a lottery would happen and if a match occurred you’d get a small toy. We ate a total of 38 plates and only won twice :(. It was really funny though—and a good way to get customers to try to eat more plates just to make that set of 5 :P.
Toys!
Rounded out dinner with ice cream puff :D
PS my host mom helped record this Nodame Cantabile special that played last night and I got to watch some of it today! Need to finish my essay before I can watch the rest but …
ITS SO EXCITING (like THIS exciting 
) even though I can’t understand all the Japanese. Really want to see the newest Nodame movie that just came out in theaters too...my host sister does too so hopefully we'll get a chance to watch it within the next few weeks!
Filled with happy memories and sad to go
and wanting it all to stop please.) I had a bunch of homework to catch up on (I felt like this: 
) and things just kind of snowballed until school ended just last week. Happy with my grades and now getting ready to leave for Tokyo tomorrow.
Soooooo tired! 
