11/05/2007 and 11/06/2007
11/05/2007 Monday
We had a lecture at 9:30AM in the morning so I had to wake up at 7:45AM to get ready and catch the train/bus etc. Our lecture was given by a woman named Okabe. She knew a lot of English words but wasn’t a great speaker. She said herself in the beginning of the class that she wasn’t good at English. But our lecture, which was about Japanese Trade Policies and Regional Economy, was only 50 minutes long so it wasn’t unbearable. Lehe didn’t show up again. In fact, he didn’t even know about the lecture at all and sounded really confused when Mat called him to ask why he missed it. After the lecture we had about 3 hours to waste until it was time for Lehe’s class, so we sat around outside for a while, got some food at the Family Mart convenient store (I had a niku-man and a tuna onigiri) and then Charlie, Nick, Mat, Jeff and I went to the computer lab and stayed there for a little over an hour. Charlie and I left and found Calaya and then we found Rob just walking around and we went to class. Everyone was already there waiting in the lobby, everyone except Lehe of course. So we are all talking amongst ourselves and Lehe rushes passed us goes into the classroom and shuts the door. We were expecting him to tell us to come into the classroom, or at least acknowledge us, but no, he just sits in the room alone, just waiting. I think it was a power test to see who would give in first, class was supposed to start at 1:20 and Lehe sat in the room until 1:40 when he finally came out and told us to come into the class, which we did of course arguing about why we didn’t come in right away. We argued that we didn’t know why he rushed past us into the classroom without acknowledging us and shut the door and we figured that since he knew we were right outside the classroom that if he was ready for us he would let us know. Anyways, so we had our two hour class and it was alright and afterwards we went home and Charlie got some bad news that a close family friend had died so we didn’t really do anything that night. I made myself some instant curry, took a shower, and Calaya and I watched the first episode of Hana Yori Dango (I think I got another one hooked!). Calaya is very interested in Japanese music, both pop and rock, so I have been showing her some videos and answering her questions. It has been pretty fun actually. Also, we are thinking of going to a concert together if the opportunity presents itself. Then we went on our computers and sometime after that I went to bed.
11/06/2007 Tuesday
We got to Kameoka station by 9 o’clock to meet the rest of the group for our fieldtrip to a traditional tea ceremony experience. While everyone was waiting, all of Chiyokawa except Charlie who not only had to deal with the problems from the day before, but also had to pick up his host sister Yoko from the train station, we met Alan. Alan is a South African boy who has been studying in Japan for 10 months and was the one who helped incompetent Lehe find his house the first week. Alan was invited by Mat and was basically filling Charlie’s empty position. He was pretty cool and we all talked a lot about social problems in the world and he seemed quite knowledgeable but couldn’t really find the good in anything. He almost seemed whiny/pessimistic. But it was really interesting having him around. Anyways, the tea ceremony was pretty cool. We split into two different groups. The group I was in was served first, so we had okashii that had hazelnut and an bean paste in it. I loved it! (So good) And then we had our green tra made for us by the other group. It was pretty funny to have the instructor correct their mistakes and she was so surprised when she tried Nick’s tea because it actually tasted good! She kind of squeaked and yelled “bikurishita!” (you surprised me) because he was had to correct him a lot. Then it was time to switch and the only bad comment I got was that I needed to make my tea a little more bubbly. After the tea we walked around some display areas and then they showed us what the inside of a traditional tea serving room looks like. After that we had some bento (lunch boxes) provided for us. The majority of the time we just listened to Alan and his views on Japan, America and South Africa; it was pretty cool. From there the groups split off and Alan, Christine, Calaya, Taylor, Chris and I went to the International Manga Museum that the school gave us free tickets for. The museum wasn’t that great, but it wasn’t too bad; it was definitely better than sitting around and not doing anything. Once we had seen all of the museum we wanted we went back to Chiyokawa and met Yoko. We all ate at McDonald’s together and then took the train to Kameoka. From there we walked to Rob’s apartment for a combined birthday party for him and Tatsuya. Yusuke made tacos for everyone. Megan (who left super early to do homework), Christine, Calaya, Taylor, Shadow, Yusuke, Hiro, Tatsuaya, Rob, Chris, Charlie, Yoko and I were all there. We had fun talking eating crackers, chocolates, cake, and I had a alcohol apple drink. Everyone made fun of my funny way of asking questions again and we stayed there for quite a while. Eventually we left because Charlie and I had to finished our sakubun (papers) and we had to study for our Chapter 1 test. We got home and Charlie, Yoko and I bought some more alcohol, I finished my paper, and Charlie and I had some study-session drinking games. First it was vocabulary, Yoko would say a word in English or in Japanese and we would have to say it in the other language. Whoever was last had to drink. The second game was grammar, Yoko would tell us to make a sentence using a grammar point and we would go back and forth until one of us made a mistake. After a couple of drinks we were tired of studying and played circle of death (with only 3 people!). There were some funny points, for example, Yoko had categories, so she picked “Japanese food” she started with yakiniku, I said udon, and Charlie throws up his hands and yells “KARAOKE!” which he told us later was what he was thinking he shouldn’t say and that he had intended to say onigiri. Then we played a new game that Yoko taught us called Ichigo-san where you flip over cards and if it is a 1 (ichi) 5 (go) or 3 (san) you slap it. Charlie was SO bad at this game… we played two rounds and Yoko and I combined only drank about 8 times, the rest were Charlie. We then watched part of an episode of South Park with Chris (who was doing homework the entire time we were drinking) and then I went to bed around 2:45AM.
We had a lecture at 9:30AM in the morning so I had to wake up at 7:45AM to get ready and catch the train/bus etc. Our lecture was given by a woman named Okabe. She knew a lot of English words but wasn’t a great speaker. She said herself in the beginning of the class that she wasn’t good at English. But our lecture, which was about Japanese Trade Policies and Regional Economy, was only 50 minutes long so it wasn’t unbearable. Lehe didn’t show up again. In fact, he didn’t even know about the lecture at all and sounded really confused when Mat called him to ask why he missed it. After the lecture we had about 3 hours to waste until it was time for Lehe’s class, so we sat around outside for a while, got some food at the Family Mart convenient store (I had a niku-man and a tuna onigiri) and then Charlie, Nick, Mat, Jeff and I went to the computer lab and stayed there for a little over an hour. Charlie and I left and found Calaya and then we found Rob just walking around and we went to class. Everyone was already there waiting in the lobby, everyone except Lehe of course. So we are all talking amongst ourselves and Lehe rushes passed us goes into the classroom and shuts the door. We were expecting him to tell us to come into the classroom, or at least acknowledge us, but no, he just sits in the room alone, just waiting. I think it was a power test to see who would give in first, class was supposed to start at 1:20 and Lehe sat in the room until 1:40 when he finally came out and told us to come into the class, which we did of course arguing about why we didn’t come in right away. We argued that we didn’t know why he rushed past us into the classroom without acknowledging us and shut the door and we figured that since he knew we were right outside the classroom that if he was ready for us he would let us know. Anyways, so we had our two hour class and it was alright and afterwards we went home and Charlie got some bad news that a close family friend had died so we didn’t really do anything that night. I made myself some instant curry, took a shower, and Calaya and I watched the first episode of Hana Yori Dango (I think I got another one hooked!). Calaya is very interested in Japanese music, both pop and rock, so I have been showing her some videos and answering her questions. It has been pretty fun actually. Also, we are thinking of going to a concert together if the opportunity presents itself. Then we went on our computers and sometime after that I went to bed.
11/06/2007 Tuesday
We got to Kameoka station by 9 o’clock to meet the rest of the group for our fieldtrip to a traditional tea ceremony experience. While everyone was waiting, all of Chiyokawa except Charlie who not only had to deal with the problems from the day before, but also had to pick up his host sister Yoko from the train station, we met Alan. Alan is a South African boy who has been studying in Japan for 10 months and was the one who helped incompetent Lehe find his house the first week. Alan was invited by Mat and was basically filling Charlie’s empty position. He was pretty cool and we all talked a lot about social problems in the world and he seemed quite knowledgeable but couldn’t really find the good in anything. He almost seemed whiny/pessimistic. But it was really interesting having him around. Anyways, the tea ceremony was pretty cool. We split into two different groups. The group I was in was served first, so we had okashii that had hazelnut and an bean paste in it. I loved it! (So good) And then we had our green tra made for us by the other group. It was pretty funny to have the instructor correct their mistakes and she was so surprised when she tried Nick’s tea because it actually tasted good! She kind of squeaked and yelled “bikurishita!” (you surprised me) because he was had to correct him a lot. Then it was time to switch and the only bad comment I got was that I needed to make my tea a little more bubbly. After the tea we walked around some display areas and then they showed us what the inside of a traditional tea serving room looks like. After that we had some bento (lunch boxes) provided for us. The majority of the time we just listened to Alan and his views on Japan, America and South Africa; it was pretty cool. From there the groups split off and Alan, Christine, Calaya, Taylor, Chris and I went to the International Manga Museum that the school gave us free tickets for. The museum wasn’t that great, but it wasn’t too bad; it was definitely better than sitting around and not doing anything. Once we had seen all of the museum we wanted we went back to Chiyokawa and met Yoko. We all ate at McDonald’s together and then took the train to Kameoka. From there we walked to Rob’s apartment for a combined birthday party for him and Tatsuya. Yusuke made tacos for everyone. Megan (who left super early to do homework), Christine, Calaya, Taylor, Shadow, Yusuke, Hiro, Tatsuaya, Rob, Chris, Charlie, Yoko and I were all there. We had fun talking eating crackers, chocolates, cake, and I had a alcohol apple drink. Everyone made fun of my funny way of asking questions again and we stayed there for quite a while. Eventually we left because Charlie and I had to finished our sakubun (papers) and we had to study for our Chapter 1 test. We got home and Charlie, Yoko and I bought some more alcohol, I finished my paper, and Charlie and I had some study-session drinking games. First it was vocabulary, Yoko would say a word in English or in Japanese and we would have to say it in the other language. Whoever was last had to drink. The second game was grammar, Yoko would tell us to make a sentence using a grammar point and we would go back and forth until one of us made a mistake. After a couple of drinks we were tired of studying and played circle of death (with only 3 people!). There were some funny points, for example, Yoko had categories, so she picked “Japanese food” she started with yakiniku, I said udon, and Charlie throws up his hands and yells “KARAOKE!” which he told us later was what he was thinking he shouldn’t say and that he had intended to say onigiri. Then we played a new game that Yoko taught us called Ichigo-san where you flip over cards and if it is a 1 (ichi) 5 (go) or 3 (san) you slap it. Charlie was SO bad at this game… we played two rounds and Yoko and I combined only drank about 8 times, the rest were Charlie. We then watched part of an episode of South Park with Chris (who was doing homework the entire time we were drinking) and then I went to bed around 2:45AM.