blog from Japan 10
It's been a while since I wrote about anything so you would think that I might have a lot to write about this time.
Well, sorta. :)
Let's start with... eh, Thursday; karate night.
It wasn't anything too exciting really. Throughout the whole practice we did something I'm going to refer to as floorwork and something similar to step-sparring. It's different, totally different than what I did at A-West Karate and it makes me feel like a beginner but it's also fun.
When we were doing floorwork with the pads, I worked with Fran (he's the one that I mentioned before that can speak Japanese really well, I finally learned his name haha.) We did four rounds of roudhouse kicks, and it really wore me out so by the time we were finishing that up, he told me to hit harder... which I tried haha. That fellow's kicks are amazingly strong for roudhouse kicks though and my arms were shaking when we finished that.
After that, we did ...what should I call it I wonder? Something like one step sparring? Basically we just took turns doing whatever the captian told us to (apparently that's how I am going to refer to Makoto-san from now on haha. At least, here. :P) and yes Emily, I had to work with the boys this time because the only other girl that was there was the other exchange girl (and I would rather work with the boys anyways, because they're more helpful in my improvement. I don't want to say anything mean but... well... let's just say that there is absolutley no way that she would be able to correct my mistakes.) and I have no idea what more than half of their names are still. It's bothersome not knowing when I try to talk about it. I need to learn them. When I was working with Omura-san, the other guy who speaks English well (the Japanese guy though) told me that I was punching like a girl (in Japanese) but then he told me that it was okay to hit Omura-san because his "father is doctor" which made me laugh. I still didn't hit him though, that would have been weird... everyone I worked with except the captian went out of their way to NOT hit me (most of us had these weird looking sparring glove kind of things on.) Besides, I wonder how much power they expect me to get out of that punch? It's not even a punch really, it's more like a flick... I can't explain it haha.
After we were told we were done (the people who have been in the club for a longer time were practicing for a tournament) I sat and watched them spar. Their sparring is different too, because they don't wear headgear and foot pads. All they use are the gloves and then they wear this chest pad kind of thing. In all honesty I'm scared of that because it's very intense. It was amazing to watch though :P One of the black belts (whose name I don't freaking know) is AMAZING. I have NEVER EVER seen anything like him EVER, I can't emphasize how amazing watching him is. During this time, Sana (the other exchange girl that joined) left because I wasn't going to go eat dinner with her (I wanted to watch them spar, she didn't that's the end of it.) and so did the other guy whose name I think is Ben, so I was sitting watching with one of the new students. He talked to me a little bit, and his English is even better than the other guys but I had no idea that he even knew English because I have never even heard him talk before. It turns out that he is really nice, his name is Keigo and he's a freshman who just joined the karate club this semester too.
After they finished sparring I went and changed, talked to Hanna a little bit in the locker room (she's joined the cheerleading club which is at the same time) and came home to eat dinner. It was about nine by that time... -_-
Friday was boring... I had an exam in Japanese that I forgot about... so I got a B- ...which I shouldn't have because I know this stuff, but like I said, I forgot about it. It happens sometimes.
After class on Friday, I came home instead of going out with Geri for her birthday because I needed to read and work on papers that were due today. Plus, I wanted to talk to Katie and she was planning on getting up early to talk to me so that's what I did. Emily didn't go with Geri either because she wasn't feeling well, and I think that it would have been too weird for me to go without Emily. Like, don't get me wrong I really like Naoko but I don't know Tiffany, Momo or Jamie that well so it would have been too weird for me, specifically because they went to karaoke and I am NOT comfortable singing around people I don't know that well.
I waited for Katie for a long time... she ended up sleeping in, leaving me waiting until midnight my time (and I am just totally picking on her right now) so I ended up staying up until 2 am talking to her. I did however, get most of one of my papers done which was nice last night...
Saturday, we went to Kazu-san's hometown Odawara. Since I was tired from staying awake so late, I fell asleep in the car so I didn't get to see everything on the way there. Once we got there though, I was nervous because we were going to his parents home to stay the night. I met his parents about a month ago and they are very nice but it was still kind of scary. ...but, his parents house is probably the coolest house that I have ever seen in my life. It's a traditional Japanese house, with a room with tatami mats and everything. We had to wait for them to come home (they went to pick up Aki-san and the kids from the station,) so Kazu-san turned on the t.v. Right away I heard someone's voice who was familair to me. Arashi was on T.V.!! Kazu-san gave in and let us watch their show, even though we didn't really get it (but Kazu-san said that it was talking about how Aiba is the least popular out of Arashi, at least in that television studio) and then they came home and the show ended.
Once Kazu-san's mother showed me a magazine she bought with Arashi on it (she is a fan somehow LOL, and apparently my rival for Sho hahaha) we had lunch, which was home made udon and delicious. After that, we went to Odawara Castle which was really neat and had a museum kind of thing inside of it. It was free that day, but apparently it usually costs about five dollars. I couldn't take pictures inside the museum which is sad because I would like to show people what it looked like... really neat.
After that we went to the beach together. The sand in Japan is not white like the sand I see on the commercials for the resorts, it's black which I thought was really interesting. There were a lot of people fishing that day, but I didn't see anyone catch anything. Even though the day was dreary (I think that every time I go to the beach it is destined to be dreary or something) it was still very pretty, and before the waves crashed into the shore the water was this amazing blue green color.
Next, we went to dinner at an OKONOMIYAKI RESTARAUNT and it was delicious, but I think that I like Aki-san's okonomiyaki better. They had this thing called a "drink bar" which you could get unlimited soft drinks... okay, whatever right? No. If you got the drink bar then you can also have shaved ice and cotton candy too.
The shaved ice didn't taste any different than back home. :P
Saturday night, Chelsea and I watched Tensai! Shimura Dobutsuen which was cute like usual. I don't get why Aiba is the least popular in Arashi, because he is very handsome, really very much so now that he has brown hair again. (He's on Tansai! Shimura Dobutsuen, which is a show where the people on it pretty much just have to learn about animals and try to get along with the animals? I guess. It's amusing and I learn about the animals and how to say their names in Japanese...) And then after that we watched Samurai High School, Miura Haruma's new drama which even though it didn't have subtitles, I understood what was going on and it was hilarious.
Sunday, we got up and had a pretty traditional Japanese breakfast (with azuki beans -_-) and then we went to pick up Kazu-san's sister from the train station. (I don't know her whole name unfortunatley, so I just refer to her as Ma-chan which is what her mom and Kazu-san call her) and then from there we went to pick up her friend. She said that her friends would want to talk to us in English because Odawara is "countryside" and there are not many people to talk to in English there. We picked up her friend Shiho and then we went to a Buddhist Temple and Shiho acted as our tour guide which was neat. She told us that this temple is where the Zen Buddhist monks trained, and their training is intense. Because this temple is in the mountains, it gets very cold during the winter and even though it's so cold the monks just meditate for like 12 hours per day in their thin robes...
That temple was beautiful too, I have pictures from there :)
Next we went to the ONSEN!! (Onsen is hot springs) We had lunch at a buffet there, and they had some really good croquets, kara age and noodles... I was full after one plate... After we ate lunch, we went to a room that they had reserved and hung out there for a while (all of us... like... 12? I think... Ma-chan's husband came to join us there too, Kouji-san.) After a little while Ma-chan, Shiho, Chelsea and I went to the onsen. It was a little weird because in Japan you can't um... wear clothes in the hot springs (I think everyone knows that right?) so it was akward for a little while. You can however take the small towel in with you, but you can't like... put it in the water (even though on the tv programs they do for obvious reasons. The onsen are seperated for men and women but it was still very very weird being naked with all these other people.
We went into the hot springs one more time, and we ended up talking about idols because I know so many and Kazu-san and Aki-san think it's hilarious so they told everyone about it. Kazu-san's mom asked me if I knew who Oguri Shun was, and she was taken aback when I said yes but I don't really know why they think it's so amazing haha. Of course I know Oguri Shun, if I didn't Soo would have a heart-attack, right? Hahah.
After the onsen, we went to a Chinese restaraunt for dinner which was in all honsety much better than the Chinese food in the US. The ramen that we had was AMAZING... and so was the other food but I can't remember much what else we had. After that, we went back to their house to hang out for a little while, while Kazu-san took Aki-san and the kids back to the station to come home. Apparently, the girl who did homestay with the Amemiya's before has a birthday coming up, so they took pictures and wrote things in a book for her, which was really cute. Kouji-san was the funniest though, because he tried to write to her in English but he majorly failed. He wrote something like "Happy Birthday, I miss you. Bye Bye." but then Ma-chan and Chelsea gave him a hard time and said that she would be fine with Japanese probably so he wrote on the top of the page "It's English test!" and put arrows from each of them, but instead of putting the right Japanese for any of it, he put;
I miss you ---> 元気ですか？ (Are you well?)
Bye Bye ---> こんにちは (hello/good afternoon)
He had us all laughing really hard at that, because it was just so absolutely ridiculous that we couldn't help it. After they finished with that silliness, we left to come home... it was 8 pm with a two hour drive ahead of us. Did I mention that Chelsea and I still had homework to do? We got back about 10 pm, and thankfully we bathed at the onsen, because that was one less thing to do. (Katie, tell your dad it was pretty much the same as a public bath.)
Today was uneventful although I am missing something, I don't know where to put it...
I am still writing back and forth with Ami, and we were talking about trying to get tickets for an Arashi concert in December. I had kind of given up for trying to see them this year just because Ami is so busy with job-hunting right now that I don't want to bother her too much about it. BUT She said that she did research about the concerts and found that the pre-sale is what is sold out right now, and they will do another lottery for the concerts... and we might be able to get tickets... and I just realized that the shows in Tokyo are on the same weekend that CIEE is taking us to Hiroshima and Miyajima... WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY???
Ugh, I am almost ready to cry now. Seeing Arashi is one of my dreams while I am here... and the concert in Tokyo HAPPENS to be the same, WHAT ARE THE ODDS?? SERIOUSLY?
That is so depressing... I can't even describe... my tension just fell through the floor.
I was going to write about seeing Nino and Sho on t.v. tonight, because that was cool, but now I am really sad.
嵐を見たい、本当に見たい！嵐は私の一番大切なもの・・・ Okay that's a lie haha. They aren't, but they are pretty high up on my list... right up there with AIR. ><
T___T
I can't even fan girl about how good Sho looks ... Boo this is sad.
Maybe I can ... tomorrow... or something. Because, he really looks so handsome right now... boo Sho... I want to see you in person! WHY CAN'T CIEE TAKE US THE WEEKEND AFTER? WHY IS JOHNNY'S SCHEDULING LIKE THIS? ARGH how FRUSTRATING!!!
Well, I have to go to sleep, although I don't know if I will be able to now, what with this incredible disappointment and all...
Pictures are here...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=118918&id=501763026&l=d914758d2e