Hello all!
It's my last night with the Muneoka Family, and also just about the half-way point of my time in Japan. I can't believe how quickly time is passing, and I'm sure it's just going to get faster from here.
Next week is fall break, and I'm sure that once I get back I'll have all sorts of stories to tell. I'll try to write something up for each day so that I can remember what to talk about when I return :D Anyway, starting tomorrow my life gets a bit crazy, so I'm posting a text update since I don't have time for a video at the moment, and this is likely the last chance I'll get to make an update for the next week and a half.
Since my last update:
On Tuesday, the entire KCJS group went bowling instead of to Japanese class. It was supposed to foster group unity, I think, but since we played in groups of four and only played one game, I didn't feel like I really got to know anyone any better. It was pretty fun, but I bowled an AWFUL game. I think my final score was in the 40s (and yes, I actually was trying...) I ended up getting a prize for second-worst of the entire group. Wooo. Afterwards, Hilary, Derek, Trisha, Anthony and I went to our favorite Indian food restaurant for lunch (800 yen for two plates of food, chai tea, and ENORMOUS naan). It was delicious as usual.
Wednesday, I spent the day with Trisha to plan the details of our fall trip. It was fun, but exhausting. I now know that I never want to be a travel agent, as much as I like traveling. There are just so many options! And for someone chronically indecisive like me (and obsessed with making the "best" decision) planning a 9-day trip for 6 people is just draining. We ran into some trouble finding a reasonable hotel in Hakone (everything was inexplicably booked) but I'm happy with what we ending up choosing. Anyway, to celebrate our finished plans, Trisha and I (mostly Trisha-- actually, pretty much only Trisha) made peanut chicken rice with cucumber. Ahhhhhhh foooooood.
Thursday was crazy as usual, compounded by the stress of needing to inform my host family that I would be moving in week. The housing director sprang this on me about 5 minutes before I was supposed to leave school, giving me just under 2 hours to figure out exactly what I wanted to say in Japanese to explain why I was leaving. It would be an awkward conversation even in English, not to mention trying to figure it out in Japanese. Forget speaking tests. This was by far the most anxiety-inducing Japanese conversation I've ever had to memorize. Despite all my deliberation, however, the conversation actually went just about as well as it possibly could have. My host mom took the news very well and has generally been understanding and helpful through the whole moving process. I'm more thankful to her now than I ever have been, even though I'm about to leave.
Friday I went to Uji despite the rainy weather. I got there early to get my Gaijin Toroku (ingeniously forgetting that government offices are CLOSED on weekends...) and so had an extra hour to kill before everyone else arrived. I wandered around and got a fairly good sense of the layout of the Uji area. After everyone else arrived, we went to a traditional-looking restaurant for Uji's characteristic cha-flavored cuisine. I had cha-soba and cha-anko-mochi soup (both sooooo good!). Afterwards we walked to Byoudoin, the temple on the back of the 10 yen coin, but it was closed, so we made our way to the Culture Center for the Uji Dengaku Festival, an annual traditional-style festival celebrating Uji's culture and history. We didn't stay for the entire thing, but I got a few good videos. One amusing point was that the festival was opened by a Kyoto idol, who sang a few modern pop songs. One was a sad love song, but whatever emotional impact it might have had was utterly destroyed by the presence of Mayumaro (the... mascot? of Kyoto) who greatly resembles an egg with big black eyes. With Mayumaro dancing in the background while the girl sang, I couldn't stop cracking up. After the festival, my host mom invited Trisha, Michelle, and Angela over for yakinikku, which was also fun. We watched some bizarre Japanese drama while we ate which involved animal-people and some kid with huge ears. I don't get it either.
Sunday I went to a temaki-zushi party hosted by KIX, the international student group at Kyodai. The sushi was amazing (even though I ate too much) and I made some cool new Japanese friends.
I probably have more that I can say, but I'm going to sleep. Yesterday I was frantically packing and doing homework, and today I was running around going back to Uji to get my Gaijin Toroku (for real this time), going back to school for a conference, and getting coffee with one of my mom's friends from high school. It was really fun, but with midterms this week, fall break plans still underway, and my move to top it all off, I'll definitely going to be going crazy over the next few days.
More after break!
Michaela
