Slurrrrp!
I would describe Japan as a pretty polite culture. I would probably give them precedence if one of their mannerisms directly contradicted one from where I grew up. Where I grew up, it's not polite to make noise while eating. In Japan, it's pretty much rude not to. Here, you pick up the dishes off the table and shovel stuff into your mouth. You're encouraged to eat things with your hands. You can pick stuff off of plates in the middle of the table using the same chopsticks you eat with. Its like the local Miss Manners turned her conscience the right way up.
And then, there's Rice. I swear, the Shinto religeon must worship a rice demon for a god or something. Rice is served with everything. The words for "dinner" and "rice" are the same, "Gohan". You can stick your chopsticks into anything else on the table like a fork, but a pair of chopsticks stuck in rice is a symbol for death. You don't put stuff on your rice, except for a few specific things (Nori, Sesame, and Umeboshi).
Japan would probably have a collective heart attack if they saw what I usually do to my rice in the US.
July 11th
Had a verbal interview test today. I'm not sure how well I did, the teacher kept using words I didn't know. Oh well.
During lunch, poor Danielle got herself into a conversation with Alex about religion. I managed to stay out of it for the most part, but some of the evolution stuff going across was too absurd to avoid. Catholic vs Philosopher vs Atheist, with some Hindu and Mormon thrown in for good measure. Everyone is still friends, I think.
Went to Labo party tonight. Nana wasn't there but there was this other really cool guy named Takeru. He didn't know a whole lot of english, but for some reason his pronunciation of the english he did know was really good. Usually I get to make do with people swapping Ls and Rs or Vs and Bs, but... yeah. He showed me how to make an origami peacock, but I think I already forgot.
July 12th
Today was the last day of school. We split up into groups and preformed skits that we wrote about our experiences in Japan. Some of the people had their host families come and watch, after the skits we had a little "graduation" ceremony. We got our report cards and a cool completion certificate in japanese. I got 100%, w00t.
I spent the rest of the day packing my suitcase. Damn, all this stuff adds up. It all fits, though. Now, for great sleepageness.
July 13th
Today I visited Take and Hide's school. Got to stand up in front of a classroom for an hour, explaining my experiences and answering questions. We also got to play some games... duck duck goose is a lot more interesting on a hardwood floor with socks, and hot potato was a hit to. It turns out that simon says doesn't work too well through an interpreter, though. After I thought I was done, I got to go through the whole thing again with Hide's class.
The kids were great, though... both classes made me a big bag of oragami souvenirs, and Hide's class even made me a book of thank you notes after I left.
After that, I went out to lunch with Mayumi and the Labo tutor. The food was good, but the restaurant was busy and had wailing kids, and I was kinda tired, not to mention I've got something of a cold going on. Oh well.
After I got home, Hide and I went through the oragami thank you notes, with him reading them and me trying to keep up. There was a lot of cool stuff in there.
Before dinner, one of the neighbors, Asami-san, came by and gave me a present, some manga I didn't have yet. She was nice, I'm sorry that I didn't get a chance to meet her sooner. She came by not two hours after I had shipped off my suitcase with my extra presents in it, too. Oh well... I wrote her a thank you note on a post card, at least.
July 14th
New City Hotel, Nishi-Shinjuku
Today was my last day with the Mitsuda family. They all came down to the hotel for a goodbye ceremony, where anyone who wanted to went up and related their best experiences. There was a lot of crying and goodbyes, but everyone is gonna stay in touch, I think. I went up and talked about my experience with Take's school. I got plenty of pictures, too.
After that, everyone got some time off to explore shinjuku and find dinner. That is, almost everyone... the people who were transferring to LEX for their second homestay had to leave pretty soon after that, including Kage, Ben, and Becky. I'll miss Kage, I liked her.
We walked all around the freaking block looking for a place to eat, and short of a McDonalds and a couple conbinis, we couldn't find one. We had given up and were trying to find a shortcut back to the hotel through some back alleys, when this japanese speaking chinese dude popped out of some random door, and irasshaimasenned us into a little chinese restaurant shack hidden in the shadows. We decided to eat there (I don't think the guy was really giving us a choice), and navigated the menu to find something appetizing. I found what turned out to be tofu in a spicy sauce, with bits of something else that the waiter assured me wasn't meat. I didn't get upset in the stomach (aside from the spiciness), so he must have been right.
Ryan tried to order a plate of four potstickers, and ended up ordering four orders of potstickers. They weren't so expensive, so we survived, but then it turned out that they charged extra for the bowls of rice that they gave us with our food. My bill was reasonable enough, but some of the others' was kinda higher then they were expecting.
After that, we went back to our rooms. Danielle, Victoria, Bryce, and I went back to Danielle's room. Bryce pulled out a little ear piercer and pierced his ear on the spot, with a little help from Danielle and Victoria. He missed the right spot on the ear, and got it too close in. So, he yanks it out and whips out another piercer, and does it again, getting it right. By that time, I was pretty close to barfing, so Danielle gave me some chocolate and I went and bought some Haagen Daz out of the vending machine, and went back to my own room.
I'm sharing a room with Ryan... he's an ok kid, but sharing a 10' by 8' japanese hotel room with a 14 year old homo is not an experience I'd repeat in a hurry. The toilets in this hotel are terrible, too. When you sit down on them, the little asshole cleaner sprays downward for a minute or two, kind of a cleaning cycle or something. I wasn't really expecting it, see, and it kind of took me off guard... there's a good reason America hasn't adopted toilets capable of becoming freaking overlords.
July 15th
Yokoo house
Happy Birthday, Julia, but I think the gift I got today kinda pwns all yours' put together. I got a new host family, they're awesome!
I woke up a little later than I planned to, and almost missed breakfast. At our orientation, Victoria and a whole bunch of people had to leave during it, because they were being picked up or going to other parts of Japan. Our induction ceremony ended up having like 15 people out of maybe 80. I was a lot more confident this time, and didn't choke up on the podium.
The Yokoo family is awesome! Naoya is 16 years old, and already on summer vacation. He's been taking English for four years, and he's more or less fluent. Everyone else in the family is more or less fluent, too, especially Hirokazu.
After the ceremony, they took me to the Tocho government building, and this time we went in the south tower. The view from up there is amazing, and I got some photos this time. After that we visited Kouki's work, that curvy skyscraper I always walked by on the way to school. They had an art museum in there, and the collection was pretty impressive, it included Van Gogh's "Still Life with Twelve Sunflowers".
After a stop at an udon shop, we took the train home to Matsudo, in the Chiba prefecture. I met Kazuki and Hirokazu too, they're both pretty cool. Hiro lives in a dorm at his university and has to study a lot, but he comes back to the house for the weekends.
Before we went to bed, Naoya pulled out his Gamecube and proceeded to school me in the art of Daigasso Smash Brothers DX. I wasn't really in form, but I don't think the results would've been any different had I been.
July 16th
This morning Naoya went to lacrosse practice at like 6 in the morning. I kinda slept in. I talked with Hiro a lot about his experience in the US (he spent a school year in Virginia), and wrapped him up in an english quiz test thing on my kanji dictionary. He's easily the most fluent in english of all the Japanese people I've met.
After that, we went to a LABO meeting at a community center. It's just the senior group, but there were like 10 people there. They're finalizing a play they've been working on, "Prometheus and the Gift of Fire". It's pretty impressive, how they're able to do plays without props or costumes.
I got to show off some more juggling, and one of the girls even knew how already. Naoya managed to pull off three catches pretty fast, within five minutes of picking up the balls. He hasn't gotten much further than that, though.
July 17th
Went to Akihabara with Naoya today. There's an express line that goes straight there from his station, in less then 20 minutes.
We spent most of the day there, exploring the backstreets and finding a lot of awesome stuff. If I ever want to build a PC, I would go there... tons of used dirt cheap stuff, for blocks and blocks. We visited the Apple store there, too. Tallest apple store in the world, I bet, it was like 6 floors.
I bought the rest of the Azumanga Daioh books, some gifts, a few more games, and an ice cream crepe. I swear, I could save enough money in Akihabara to counter the national debt... if only saving money wasn't so expensive. Sigh.
July 18th
Naoya took me shopping today... apparently it's culturally acceptable for Japanese guys to spend more time then my mom in clothes stores. We went to some obscure fashion district near his station, with tons of clothes shops.
I still don't really get the fascination buying clothes yields, but we managed to spend a good chunk of the day there. Naoya got his polo shirts for lacrosse camp, and I got to look at more engrish T-shirts than I ever cared to. You'd think it would be fun, but most of them aren't as ironic or funny as the ones you see on the web, just nonsensical. Like what the monkeys banged out before they pulled off "Hamlet".
After we got back to the station, Naoya called his mom, but she couldn't pick us up since she was just going to a labo meeting. So, we walked the nice 15 minute walk back to his house. Once we arrived, we discovered that she had locked us out of the house. So, after half an hour of climbing around the house failing to get in, we decided to take the bikes on the 20 minute ride into town to find his mom. After getting lost and finally finding our way to the community center, the community center didn't know what a "labo" was. We looked around, and found them in a closed room on the third floor.
In exchange for the key, she ushers me in in front of 10 toddlers and their parents, and has me do a self introduction speech in Japanese. After that, we get back on the bikes and go back home, dodging pedestrians. Oh yeah, it was raining the whole time, so we got to ride the bikes while holding a more or less ineffective umbrella in one hand.
We were pretty wiped after that, so we played some video games for a while before going to bed. Gitaru Man is pretty fun, but we've only got one song unlocked for multiplayer. (Gitaru man is made by the same people who did Ouendan, btw)
July 19th
"Where's the shampoo?"
"Oh, just squish the pig."
It's been raining for several days now, but it's really starting to pick up. Two of Naoya's lacrosse practices have been cancelled, so we've been sleeping in a bit.
I got dad's package! Some psychic ethereal force commended him to send me an extra pair of shorts, and I'm really glad he did. Now if Kozue-san misses a day on the laundry, I'm not screwed. (Thanks, Jeanette!) The hacky sacks are perfect, too, just what I needed... I've been somewhat deprived of sacking for the last month.
We watched the Naruto Movie 2. Naoya was pretty geeked out over my iPod AV connecter, and he's put it on his list for the next time he visits Akihabara. Both he and Hiro have the same iPod I do, they both like music a lot.
July 20th
"What was that bright explosion over there? Fireworks?"
"No, I think it was a bird."
It wasn't raining today, so Naoya went to lacrosse practice. Kozue took me to a local park, and we went for a nice walk. They had gardens, a baseball field, a dirt soccer field, tennis courts, and like 50 totem poles made by graduating elementary school students. Apparently she's planning a Labo barbecue there, so I'll get to come back.
Naoya and I tried hacking out in front of his house after he got back. He loves the game, and he's pretty innate at it, too. The biggest hurdle for him was the not saying "I'm sorry", but he's not any worse then me now. We were out there for a good two or three hours, until it was time to go to a Labo meeting.
The first part of the meeting was the elementary school group, they were practicing a play of Alice in Wonderland, the part with the Queen of Hearts. I brought a hacky sack, and played with them a bit during the breaks, but mostly it was just sitting and watching. I looked out the window, trying to read some of the signs on the street, and found a sign saying "igo" next door. I think it was a go parlor.
After the younger kids' practice, we went to the conbini across the street for dinner. I got an inari instant udon, an umeboshi onigiri, and some other stuff. We took it back to the center to eat, but we went to a different room for the older kid's meeting. Turned out it was a tatami room with a bunch of go and shogi boards stacked up on the wall. After we ate, the group practiced their play while I played a game of go with myself on one of the nicest boards I've touched, one of the big ones with legs like in Hikaru no Go. White won, 49 to 47 not including komi. I made some pretty dumb moves, too. I would make a move, look up for a while, look back down at the board, and go "woah... how'd that hole get there?" and proceed to kick my own ass.
One of the girls brought a package of plastic pocky, and if you took the wrong one, they'd all shoot out at you. I didn't pick the wrong one, despite her offering it to me like three times.
And then, there's Rice. I swear, the Shinto religeon must worship a rice demon for a god or something. Rice is served with everything. The words for "dinner" and "rice" are the same, "Gohan". You can stick your chopsticks into anything else on the table like a fork, but a pair of chopsticks stuck in rice is a symbol for death. You don't put stuff on your rice, except for a few specific things (Nori, Sesame, and Umeboshi).
Japan would probably have a collective heart attack if they saw what I usually do to my rice in the US.
July 11th
Had a verbal interview test today. I'm not sure how well I did, the teacher kept using words I didn't know. Oh well.
During lunch, poor Danielle got herself into a conversation with Alex about religion. I managed to stay out of it for the most part, but some of the evolution stuff going across was too absurd to avoid. Catholic vs Philosopher vs Atheist, with some Hindu and Mormon thrown in for good measure. Everyone is still friends, I think.
Went to Labo party tonight. Nana wasn't there but there was this other really cool guy named Takeru. He didn't know a whole lot of english, but for some reason his pronunciation of the english he did know was really good. Usually I get to make do with people swapping Ls and Rs or Vs and Bs, but... yeah. He showed me how to make an origami peacock, but I think I already forgot.
July 12th
Today was the last day of school. We split up into groups and preformed skits that we wrote about our experiences in Japan. Some of the people had their host families come and watch, after the skits we had a little "graduation" ceremony. We got our report cards and a cool completion certificate in japanese. I got 100%, w00t.
I spent the rest of the day packing my suitcase. Damn, all this stuff adds up. It all fits, though. Now, for great sleepageness.
July 13th
Today I visited Take and Hide's school. Got to stand up in front of a classroom for an hour, explaining my experiences and answering questions. We also got to play some games... duck duck goose is a lot more interesting on a hardwood floor with socks, and hot potato was a hit to. It turns out that simon says doesn't work too well through an interpreter, though. After I thought I was done, I got to go through the whole thing again with Hide's class.
The kids were great, though... both classes made me a big bag of oragami souvenirs, and Hide's class even made me a book of thank you notes after I left.
After that, I went out to lunch with Mayumi and the Labo tutor. The food was good, but the restaurant was busy and had wailing kids, and I was kinda tired, not to mention I've got something of a cold going on. Oh well.
After I got home, Hide and I went through the oragami thank you notes, with him reading them and me trying to keep up. There was a lot of cool stuff in there.
Before dinner, one of the neighbors, Asami-san, came by and gave me a present, some manga I didn't have yet. She was nice, I'm sorry that I didn't get a chance to meet her sooner. She came by not two hours after I had shipped off my suitcase with my extra presents in it, too. Oh well... I wrote her a thank you note on a post card, at least.
July 14th
New City Hotel, Nishi-Shinjuku
Today was my last day with the Mitsuda family. They all came down to the hotel for a goodbye ceremony, where anyone who wanted to went up and related their best experiences. There was a lot of crying and goodbyes, but everyone is gonna stay in touch, I think. I went up and talked about my experience with Take's school. I got plenty of pictures, too.
After that, everyone got some time off to explore shinjuku and find dinner. That is, almost everyone... the people who were transferring to LEX for their second homestay had to leave pretty soon after that, including Kage, Ben, and Becky. I'll miss Kage, I liked her.
We walked all around the freaking block looking for a place to eat, and short of a McDonalds and a couple conbinis, we couldn't find one. We had given up and were trying to find a shortcut back to the hotel through some back alleys, when this japanese speaking chinese dude popped out of some random door, and irasshaimasenned us into a little chinese restaurant shack hidden in the shadows. We decided to eat there (I don't think the guy was really giving us a choice), and navigated the menu to find something appetizing. I found what turned out to be tofu in a spicy sauce, with bits of something else that the waiter assured me wasn't meat. I didn't get upset in the stomach (aside from the spiciness), so he must have been right.
Ryan tried to order a plate of four potstickers, and ended up ordering four orders of potstickers. They weren't so expensive, so we survived, but then it turned out that they charged extra for the bowls of rice that they gave us with our food. My bill was reasonable enough, but some of the others' was kinda higher then they were expecting.
After that, we went back to our rooms. Danielle, Victoria, Bryce, and I went back to Danielle's room. Bryce pulled out a little ear piercer and pierced his ear on the spot, with a little help from Danielle and Victoria. He missed the right spot on the ear, and got it too close in. So, he yanks it out and whips out another piercer, and does it again, getting it right. By that time, I was pretty close to barfing, so Danielle gave me some chocolate and I went and bought some Haagen Daz out of the vending machine, and went back to my own room.
I'm sharing a room with Ryan... he's an ok kid, but sharing a 10' by 8' japanese hotel room with a 14 year old homo is not an experience I'd repeat in a hurry. The toilets in this hotel are terrible, too. When you sit down on them, the little asshole cleaner sprays downward for a minute or two, kind of a cleaning cycle or something. I wasn't really expecting it, see, and it kind of took me off guard... there's a good reason America hasn't adopted toilets capable of becoming freaking overlords.
July 15th
Yokoo house
Happy Birthday, Julia, but I think the gift I got today kinda pwns all yours' put together. I got a new host family, they're awesome!
I woke up a little later than I planned to, and almost missed breakfast. At our orientation, Victoria and a whole bunch of people had to leave during it, because they were being picked up or going to other parts of Japan. Our induction ceremony ended up having like 15 people out of maybe 80. I was a lot more confident this time, and didn't choke up on the podium.
The Yokoo family is awesome! Naoya is 16 years old, and already on summer vacation. He's been taking English for four years, and he's more or less fluent. Everyone else in the family is more or less fluent, too, especially Hirokazu.
After the ceremony, they took me to the Tocho government building, and this time we went in the south tower. The view from up there is amazing, and I got some photos this time. After that we visited Kouki's work, that curvy skyscraper I always walked by on the way to school. They had an art museum in there, and the collection was pretty impressive, it included Van Gogh's "Still Life with Twelve Sunflowers".
After a stop at an udon shop, we took the train home to Matsudo, in the Chiba prefecture. I met Kazuki and Hirokazu too, they're both pretty cool. Hiro lives in a dorm at his university and has to study a lot, but he comes back to the house for the weekends.
Before we went to bed, Naoya pulled out his Gamecube and proceeded to school me in the art of Daigasso Smash Brothers DX. I wasn't really in form, but I don't think the results would've been any different had I been.
July 16th
This morning Naoya went to lacrosse practice at like 6 in the morning. I kinda slept in. I talked with Hiro a lot about his experience in the US (he spent a school year in Virginia), and wrapped him up in an english quiz test thing on my kanji dictionary. He's easily the most fluent in english of all the Japanese people I've met.
After that, we went to a LABO meeting at a community center. It's just the senior group, but there were like 10 people there. They're finalizing a play they've been working on, "Prometheus and the Gift of Fire". It's pretty impressive, how they're able to do plays without props or costumes.
I got to show off some more juggling, and one of the girls even knew how already. Naoya managed to pull off three catches pretty fast, within five minutes of picking up the balls. He hasn't gotten much further than that, though.
July 17th
Went to Akihabara with Naoya today. There's an express line that goes straight there from his station, in less then 20 minutes.
We spent most of the day there, exploring the backstreets and finding a lot of awesome stuff. If I ever want to build a PC, I would go there... tons of used dirt cheap stuff, for blocks and blocks. We visited the Apple store there, too. Tallest apple store in the world, I bet, it was like 6 floors.
I bought the rest of the Azumanga Daioh books, some gifts, a few more games, and an ice cream crepe. I swear, I could save enough money in Akihabara to counter the national debt... if only saving money wasn't so expensive. Sigh.
July 18th
Naoya took me shopping today... apparently it's culturally acceptable for Japanese guys to spend more time then my mom in clothes stores. We went to some obscure fashion district near his station, with tons of clothes shops.
I still don't really get the fascination buying clothes yields, but we managed to spend a good chunk of the day there. Naoya got his polo shirts for lacrosse camp, and I got to look at more engrish T-shirts than I ever cared to. You'd think it would be fun, but most of them aren't as ironic or funny as the ones you see on the web, just nonsensical. Like what the monkeys banged out before they pulled off "Hamlet".
After we got back to the station, Naoya called his mom, but she couldn't pick us up since she was just going to a labo meeting. So, we walked the nice 15 minute walk back to his house. Once we arrived, we discovered that she had locked us out of the house. So, after half an hour of climbing around the house failing to get in, we decided to take the bikes on the 20 minute ride into town to find his mom. After getting lost and finally finding our way to the community center, the community center didn't know what a "labo" was. We looked around, and found them in a closed room on the third floor.
In exchange for the key, she ushers me in in front of 10 toddlers and their parents, and has me do a self introduction speech in Japanese. After that, we get back on the bikes and go back home, dodging pedestrians. Oh yeah, it was raining the whole time, so we got to ride the bikes while holding a more or less ineffective umbrella in one hand.
We were pretty wiped after that, so we played some video games for a while before going to bed. Gitaru Man is pretty fun, but we've only got one song unlocked for multiplayer. (Gitaru man is made by the same people who did Ouendan, btw)
July 19th
"Where's the shampoo?"
"Oh, just squish the pig."
It's been raining for several days now, but it's really starting to pick up. Two of Naoya's lacrosse practices have been cancelled, so we've been sleeping in a bit.
I got dad's package! Some psychic ethereal force commended him to send me an extra pair of shorts, and I'm really glad he did. Now if Kozue-san misses a day on the laundry, I'm not screwed. (Thanks, Jeanette!) The hacky sacks are perfect, too, just what I needed... I've been somewhat deprived of sacking for the last month.
We watched the Naruto Movie 2. Naoya was pretty geeked out over my iPod AV connecter, and he's put it on his list for the next time he visits Akihabara. Both he and Hiro have the same iPod I do, they both like music a lot.
July 20th
"What was that bright explosion over there? Fireworks?"
"No, I think it was a bird."
It wasn't raining today, so Naoya went to lacrosse practice. Kozue took me to a local park, and we went for a nice walk. They had gardens, a baseball field, a dirt soccer field, tennis courts, and like 50 totem poles made by graduating elementary school students. Apparently she's planning a Labo barbecue there, so I'll get to come back.
Naoya and I tried hacking out in front of his house after he got back. He loves the game, and he's pretty innate at it, too. The biggest hurdle for him was the not saying "I'm sorry", but he's not any worse then me now. We were out there for a good two or three hours, until it was time to go to a Labo meeting.
The first part of the meeting was the elementary school group, they were practicing a play of Alice in Wonderland, the part with the Queen of Hearts. I brought a hacky sack, and played with them a bit during the breaks, but mostly it was just sitting and watching. I looked out the window, trying to read some of the signs on the street, and found a sign saying "igo" next door. I think it was a go parlor.
After the younger kids' practice, we went to the conbini across the street for dinner. I got an inari instant udon, an umeboshi onigiri, and some other stuff. We took it back to the center to eat, but we went to a different room for the older kid's meeting. Turned out it was a tatami room with a bunch of go and shogi boards stacked up on the wall. After we ate, the group practiced their play while I played a game of go with myself on one of the nicest boards I've touched, one of the big ones with legs like in Hikaru no Go. White won, 49 to 47 not including komi. I made some pretty dumb moves, too. I would make a move, look up for a while, look back down at the board, and go "woah... how'd that hole get there?" and proceed to kick my own ass.
One of the girls brought a package of plastic pocky, and if you took the wrong one, they'd all shoot out at you. I didn't pick the wrong one, despite her offering it to me like three times.