And there was one very bright star in the sky
What I did yesterday:
1. Talked with family on Skype.
2. Went out with Ojiisan to meet one of his sons, meet up with his girlfriend and go to a fancy lunch at the Gifu Miyako Hotel (I felt guilty that when they asked if I ate meat, I answered that I did because they might have thought I was a vegetarian. Turns out there were actually asking if I wanted a very expensive steak, which they ordered for me and I couldn't finish. So guilty!)
Aterwards we went to Gifu castle where Oda Nobunaga once lived. We had to go up a rope lift first to get towards the top, and then had to take a bunch of stairs to get to the very tip top where the castle/museum was. It made my inner samurai/history fan very happy. I took some pictures, his girlfriend bought me a couple cell phones dangles I liked from the gift shop, and even though it was early afternoon, I got a bunch of mosquito bites. I think- I hope!- this is just a Gifu thing. I get a bad enough reaction as it is in the United States, but here the moment I would get bit I would start to puff up and get red at the bite site. Not cool. On a positive note about bugs, there are lots of dragonflies and some very big black butterflies where are very pretty.
3. Went to see the high school I went to last year a bit. How nostalgic. There something very comforting in a place being exactly the way you picture it in your head, all the details not having changed. Even the guest room, with it's decorative screens, tatami mats, and papered window screens take me back to my ealiest mental images of Japan.
4. Spent the evening with the Chikaoka family, and they made a ton of okonomiyaki. Fortunately, I wasn't the only guest, as Ryoji was visiting home and brought over a bunch of his friends he's known since elementary school. Ryo-kun was my rock-star body guard last year while walking to school, and was very popular with the girls and very talented at music, I told him he should get famous. This year, it turns out he's studying music in Tokyo. Ha ha, yes! You can do it, Ryo-kun! Although I was a little surprised how good he was at making girly crafts.
Also hung out with Miki-chan, his younger sister, who is one of my cousin's good friends in Japan. Even though it's summer vacation, she still had to spend five hours practicing at baton club at her middle school. Seriously, the dedication people have to their clubs here is pretty impressive. I plan to join a club at KGU, but which one... hmm. And what kind of time commitment am I looking at??
Also talked a bunch with their mom, who was telling me about the exchange student from Denmark they had stay at their house but had recently switched to a second host family. They know the people at Seki Shoko very well, so they invited over a few of the girls I knew last year: Asami (there were two Asami's), Maiko, Saki, and Mari. It was nice to see them again, but by that time I was glazing over with sleepiness and my Japanese skills abandoned me a little.
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Today I head out to Kansai Gaidai. Hopefully there will be no mosquitoes there.
1. Talked with family on Skype.
2. Went out with Ojiisan to meet one of his sons, meet up with his girlfriend and go to a fancy lunch at the Gifu Miyako Hotel (I felt guilty that when they asked if I ate meat, I answered that I did because they might have thought I was a vegetarian. Turns out there were actually asking if I wanted a very expensive steak, which they ordered for me and I couldn't finish. So guilty!)
Aterwards we went to Gifu castle where Oda Nobunaga once lived. We had to go up a rope lift first to get towards the top, and then had to take a bunch of stairs to get to the very tip top where the castle/museum was. It made my inner samurai/history fan very happy. I took some pictures, his girlfriend bought me a couple cell phones dangles I liked from the gift shop, and even though it was early afternoon, I got a bunch of mosquito bites. I think- I hope!- this is just a Gifu thing. I get a bad enough reaction as it is in the United States, but here the moment I would get bit I would start to puff up and get red at the bite site. Not cool. On a positive note about bugs, there are lots of dragonflies and some very big black butterflies where are very pretty.
3. Went to see the high school I went to last year a bit. How nostalgic. There something very comforting in a place being exactly the way you picture it in your head, all the details not having changed. Even the guest room, with it's decorative screens, tatami mats, and papered window screens take me back to my ealiest mental images of Japan.
4. Spent the evening with the Chikaoka family, and they made a ton of okonomiyaki. Fortunately, I wasn't the only guest, as Ryoji was visiting home and brought over a bunch of his friends he's known since elementary school. Ryo-kun was my rock-star body guard last year while walking to school, and was very popular with the girls and very talented at music, I told him he should get famous. This year, it turns out he's studying music in Tokyo. Ha ha, yes! You can do it, Ryo-kun! Although I was a little surprised how good he was at making girly crafts.
Also hung out with Miki-chan, his younger sister, who is one of my cousin's good friends in Japan. Even though it's summer vacation, she still had to spend five hours practicing at baton club at her middle school. Seriously, the dedication people have to their clubs here is pretty impressive. I plan to join a club at KGU, but which one... hmm. And what kind of time commitment am I looking at??
Also talked a bunch with their mom, who was telling me about the exchange student from Denmark they had stay at their house but had recently switched to a second host family. They know the people at Seki Shoko very well, so they invited over a few of the girls I knew last year: Asami (there were two Asami's), Maiko, Saki, and Mari. It was nice to see them again, but by that time I was glazing over with sleepiness and my Japanese skills abandoned me a little.
---
Today I head out to Kansai Gaidai. Hopefully there will be no mosquitoes there.