Absence and party
Okay, I know I'm way behind on this and stuff. Basically, since last Friday, I've been staying with Jeff's family because my host mother went on a trip to Germany. (I never figured out exactly why she was going, but oh well.) She's going to be gone until next Tuesday, a total of 11 days. I've had to accustom myself to Jeff's family's schedules, so I haven't had a lot of time to myself lately. This week hasn't been terribly eventful though, so I can probably just skip most of that anyway.
Last weekend Jeff and I went to Harborland with his host mother. That's basically the whole area near the harbor of Kobe, so it includes a shopping area, several hotels, an amusement park, and some tourist stuff, including Kobe Port Tower. It was the first time I'd been back to that area since my first day in Japan, so I took a lot of pictures, since it was a nice day. I'll put some up later, hopefully. This time we actually did go up inside the tower because now Jeff and I could get in for free with our Konan tourist passes. His mother still had to pay though. There was also an electronics shop nearby, where we found some cheap games.
On a separate trip, we went to a different electronics shop, where his family bought a VCR. The one that had been in Jeff's room was really old and heavy and didn't want to record to tape any more, so they decided to get a new one if we'd help pay for it. In return, Jeff gets to use it in his room, and I get to take the old one to my room (if my host mother doesn't mind) and use it there. I wanted that because the TV in my room is too old, so it doesn't have any place to plug in a playstation. But if I connect the VCR up to it, then I can connect the playstation to the VCR and play games on it.
Wednesday we were supposed to do mini-presentations with pictures in Japanese class about an interesting place, so after the Harborland trip, I stopped in Sougou-undoukouen to take pictures of the park there (kouen means park). We also had to interview someone as part of the assignment, so I basically picked someone that looked like he was just sitting around and not busy doing something. He was watching his daughter play in a sandpit area when I approached him and asked if I could ask him a few questions. The weird part was that we were supposed to get a picture of our interviewee as well, but it seemed like a strange thing to ask, so I asked if I could take a picture of his daughter instead (she was pretty cute - maybe seven or eight years old). I think that'll be fine. I didn't actually get to give my presentation on Wednesday though because two other presentations somehow took the entire time. They were only supposed to be five minutes, but one presentation about a tennis club, with three people in the class doing one together, ended up being a live interview with some girl from the club. I don't really think they fulfilled what was asked, but I guess it's not being graded too seriously, since it's supposed to be kind of a practice presentation.
Friday night there was a costume party held by Konan students. Jeff and I didn't really have the time or the desire to spend enough money to get costumes, so we just went in normal clothes. Some people went all out on costumes though: two girls dressed as Miss America and Miss Canada (they were both from those respective countries so it sort of made sense); one Japanese guy had a Pikachu outfit that was really good; Tassa bought 100-yen makeup and painted her face to look like a zombie; and the most amusing thing was that several Japanese guys were wearing Chinese dresses! The scary part was that they pulled it off, too.
Anyway, the party was a lot of fun. The first thing was a sort of bingo using our names instead of numbers. Each of the Japanese people had a blank bingo sheet to start with, and during a certain time after we arrived, they had to come talk to us and ask us to sign places on their sheets. Then the hosts (who were members of the IEC club that was throwing the party) had us, one at a time, come up to the front and draw a name, until enough people got bingos. It took something like fifteen names until more than 12 people had gotten bingos (that's how many prizes there were). I never was drawn, but I got to draw a name. I ended up drawing Aurelie, the French girl.
I'd thought we were supposed to get dinner, but the amount of food served was actually not very much. I wouldn't have thought it worth my money if I was a Japanese student and had to pay 800 yen to come to the party. Luckily it was free for exchange students, which made sense once I realized that we were part of the entertainment. It was all in good fun though. Later on, there were arm-wrestling competitions. I didn't compete, but one Canadian girl, Helen I think, won a prize for winning three rounds. Two girls and two guys won prizes, but the other three were Japanese. Somehow, it was a lot of fun to watch. After that, they had music and dancing for something like fifteen minutes. Several of the exchange students later commented that it seemed like such a short time and then the party seemed to end really early. The previous party ended pretty early too, so that must be a common thing. A lot of times Japanese students go out drinking or to karaoke after a party though, so it wasn't like they had to all go home right away either.
I need to go to sleep now, so tomorrow I'll write about what happened after the party and then what we did this weekend.
Last weekend Jeff and I went to Harborland with his host mother. That's basically the whole area near the harbor of Kobe, so it includes a shopping area, several hotels, an amusement park, and some tourist stuff, including Kobe Port Tower. It was the first time I'd been back to that area since my first day in Japan, so I took a lot of pictures, since it was a nice day. I'll put some up later, hopefully. This time we actually did go up inside the tower because now Jeff and I could get in for free with our Konan tourist passes. His mother still had to pay though. There was also an electronics shop nearby, where we found some cheap games.
On a separate trip, we went to a different electronics shop, where his family bought a VCR. The one that had been in Jeff's room was really old and heavy and didn't want to record to tape any more, so they decided to get a new one if we'd help pay for it. In return, Jeff gets to use it in his room, and I get to take the old one to my room (if my host mother doesn't mind) and use it there. I wanted that because the TV in my room is too old, so it doesn't have any place to plug in a playstation. But if I connect the VCR up to it, then I can connect the playstation to the VCR and play games on it.
Wednesday we were supposed to do mini-presentations with pictures in Japanese class about an interesting place, so after the Harborland trip, I stopped in Sougou-undoukouen to take pictures of the park there (kouen means park). We also had to interview someone as part of the assignment, so I basically picked someone that looked like he was just sitting around and not busy doing something. He was watching his daughter play in a sandpit area when I approached him and asked if I could ask him a few questions. The weird part was that we were supposed to get a picture of our interviewee as well, but it seemed like a strange thing to ask, so I asked if I could take a picture of his daughter instead (she was pretty cute - maybe seven or eight years old). I think that'll be fine. I didn't actually get to give my presentation on Wednesday though because two other presentations somehow took the entire time. They were only supposed to be five minutes, but one presentation about a tennis club, with three people in the class doing one together, ended up being a live interview with some girl from the club. I don't really think they fulfilled what was asked, but I guess it's not being graded too seriously, since it's supposed to be kind of a practice presentation.
Friday night there was a costume party held by Konan students. Jeff and I didn't really have the time or the desire to spend enough money to get costumes, so we just went in normal clothes. Some people went all out on costumes though: two girls dressed as Miss America and Miss Canada (they were both from those respective countries so it sort of made sense); one Japanese guy had a Pikachu outfit that was really good; Tassa bought 100-yen makeup and painted her face to look like a zombie; and the most amusing thing was that several Japanese guys were wearing Chinese dresses! The scary part was that they pulled it off, too.
Anyway, the party was a lot of fun. The first thing was a sort of bingo using our names instead of numbers. Each of the Japanese people had a blank bingo sheet to start with, and during a certain time after we arrived, they had to come talk to us and ask us to sign places on their sheets. Then the hosts (who were members of the IEC club that was throwing the party) had us, one at a time, come up to the front and draw a name, until enough people got bingos. It took something like fifteen names until more than 12 people had gotten bingos (that's how many prizes there were). I never was drawn, but I got to draw a name. I ended up drawing Aurelie, the French girl.
I'd thought we were supposed to get dinner, but the amount of food served was actually not very much. I wouldn't have thought it worth my money if I was a Japanese student and had to pay 800 yen to come to the party. Luckily it was free for exchange students, which made sense once I realized that we were part of the entertainment. It was all in good fun though. Later on, there were arm-wrestling competitions. I didn't compete, but one Canadian girl, Helen I think, won a prize for winning three rounds. Two girls and two guys won prizes, but the other three were Japanese. Somehow, it was a lot of fun to watch. After that, they had music and dancing for something like fifteen minutes. Several of the exchange students later commented that it seemed like such a short time and then the party seemed to end really early. The previous party ended pretty early too, so that must be a common thing. A lot of times Japanese students go out drinking or to karaoke after a party though, so it wasn't like they had to all go home right away either.
I need to go to sleep now, so tomorrow I'll write about what happened after the party and then what we did this weekend.