Latskadittles

Shaggy~

Wed, 06 May 2009 00:31:28 GMT

Hopefully to be a member of the family very very soon. I don't look as happy in the second pic but really I am.

Rich Rocks My World

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 03:40:36 GMT

Among other things I just found a ton of Yanawaraba to download~ This is my favorite song:

www.youtube.com/watch

Ok ok. I thought about posting a few times but didn’t get around to it.

So now I will… I’ve just forgotten everything important that I was going to ramble about… Which is a bit of a problem.

Riha and I have been watching dramas like crazy this January… Seriously. We even got our “roommate” Brittany to watch two with us. I’m pretty amazed that she’s been living with us this month. We hadn’t seen her more than a few minuets a week before. It seems like we’ve actually gotten to know each other a little bit. Except for Sarah, she’s off on her internship… Well you can’t have everything…

Rich mailed me my favorite coffee today~ It was the stuff I drank all the time in Japan. Honestly the best omiyage ever. You rock my world doormat.

Oh and I got a package from Okaasan a while back. Crazy socks, cookies, DBSK cd and all. I maintain that my host family is amazing.

That is all… Oh my exciting life.
.

BoA Crossover project~

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 04:18:37 GMT

Hey~

So this website http://boa.ningin.com is hosting a contest that gives away signed BoA swag. The idea is to pimp her as much as possible to spread the word of her imminent takeover of the U.S. I look forward to it and hope that eventually she brings DBSK with her.

Here are some links to videos I uploaded to youtube for the contest.

This first video is her English debut Eat You up:
www.youtube.com/watch

This is her Rock With You MV:
www.youtube.com/watch

Moto MV:
www.youtube.com/watch

Girls on Top MV:
www.youtube.com/watch

Fan responses to her in Times Square:
www.youtube.com/watch
www.youtube.com/watch

I've got some more content I could share but it's finals time at the moment so this is all I'm putting up.

If you want more let me know.

Election

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:11:39 GMT

Not much here just that. OBAMA totally kicked the shit out of McCain and I wanted to celebrate a little. 324 Electoral to 124. Hell yes.

Post End.

Icky papers...

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:45:44 GMT

Wooo. I had to write my first REAL paper in like a year last night. I feel brain dead. I harassed dearest Riha for most of the night trying to figure out what to write.

It was not pretty.

She says she didn't mind. I'm not so sure.

Hey and we had to peer edit them in class today. It turns out that despite the good 5 hours I spent working on it I STILL managed to spell a word wrong, boarder vs border. It was wrong every single time. At least I was consistent right?

Anywho. I've lost all confidence in my writing... Partially Japanese's fault and partially mine for not keeping up. *sigh* It was a draft though so hopefully by the time I get it back for revision I'll have some of my old skillz back? I'm tying to think of how to best get back to where I left off but I'm not sure.

Maybe I'll just spend some time typing at my computer and write like a short story or something, start plotting for NaNoWriMo in November... Anything should help.

And now I would post some pictures but LJ is being stupid... So some other time.

Hello Mr. Fishy

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 01:17:57 GMT

So today as I packed for the dorms I realized that one of the shirts I bought in Japan is missing.

I have one guess as to where it could be.

And Katie will never see her fucking beta fish Mew agian if I don't get my damn shirt back.

Random things...

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:49:45 GMT

Oh noes! The end of summer is coming faster than I would like.... but I wouldn't like it even if I had another month of summer. *sigh* There is no way to win.

Dun dun dun.

Ages ago I was with Katie at Barnes & Noble and she wanted this pic. I'm posting it now because I forgot all about it and was just crusing through my pics... Anywho here you go Katie~

Took this from my grandma's hospital room in the beginning of June, it was such a nice view.

At the Whiz Bang parade there were more fat people than I ever remember seeing in a long time. Nothing like looking at that to make one feel better about them-self. Also there was a chick with a pink tank-top that had the outlines of stars all over it. She was rather large and blond and the most amusing thing about it all was that the chick on the exact opposite side of the street had the same shirt on and was also heavyset with blond hair. *dies laughing* The could have been twins.

This guy was hanging out outside. Mom scared him away before I could get a pic of him with his wings open. :(

These crazy shoes were at the Mall of America. Amiee kept knocking them and calling them ugly, but I actually liked them a lot. Not enough to buy them mind you, but I thought they were pretty freaking cool. If only the pic was less blurry...

I guess that is enough random for now... Yes that means I have more.

heavy sigh

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:24:19 GMT

So move back in day is coming faster than I would like...

*rawr* I could have sworn that I got an email from Gustavus at the beginning of the summer advertising free food in the Lund Center at the Back to School Bash the first night back. But a couple of days ago I got another one saying we'd be charged with the meal if we went to it. LAME.

Like paying $37,000 in tuition isn't good enough to get a free meal once and a while.

I guess I'm just being a little whiny because I don't want to go back just yet. Or rather I wish I was going back to my amazing host family.

I miss Toki and the rest of family. *sigh*

On another note I accomplished something the other day~ Somehow my sound-drivers got deleted, and I'm 99% positive that AVG is to blame. As it was I ended up spending a fruitless hour on the Toshiba website looking for the drivers another fruitless half an hour on the phone with tech support because of how poorly laid out the Toshiba website is and then finally.... success!

The tech guy wanted me to bring my computer in and pay to have it fixed at the repair center and since I'm not overly fond of driving out to Hopkins I went through the website in one last desperate attempt to find the drivers and there they were~ Now I have the web page in my bookmarks and the hell if I'll let anything happen to it.

Nara!

Sat, 24 May 2008 23:56:23 GMT

A while back I made my second trip to Nara with Emily, Nikki and Emily’s friend Judy who was visiting from Canada.

Judy was pretty nice after I got her talking, we had a few awkward silence bouts when we first met then figured out we have a lot in common. She’s I think a year younger than me but has a 35 year old boyfriend. It bent my mind a little at first too but I guess they’ve just been together for a while and they fit. It’s just she wasn’t born soon enough? *shrug* I guess it happens.

As is the case with Nara there are lots of deer. Hungry hungry deer.

This time I went through the whole in the pillar that is supposed to give you enlightenment in your next life or if you’re Christian good luck for the rest of your life. I guess they needed motivation to convince all the tourists to try going through the hole too?

Somehow I always end up with a group of Asian people that aren’t necessarily Japanese but I’m the only one who looks like a foreigner. So all the Japanese people gathered around to watch me squeeze through the hole and ignored my equally foreign friends because I’m the white one.

I’m not gonna like I was a little afraid at one point that it would be a no go. I did end up with pretty bruised forearms because I thought there would be a little more room than there was. In any case I managed it. (Worst picture ever... I blame Emily but I didn't want this recorded exactly in the first place...)

The picture below has nothing to do with anything it's a bag of chocolate puff things. That says "The picture on this bag is an image." And it just seemed so... Obvious that I thought I would share.

Tono

Sat, 24 May 2008 22:44:12 GMT

Again forced to swallow my own words…

I was just complaining about how I haven’t talked to Tono in forever and I ran into him. I think we were both trying to force the other person to talk first and this time he won. Not that I was given much choice. As it went I ran up to him and was like "Tono! Ohisashiburi!"

Kind of changing the subject: I have these great memories of that time way back when in December when he was like “I’m hungry but its cold outside so lets wait to eat lunch.” I’m not sure what the temperature was but it close to 50. Celsius screws with me… In any case let it be known that I was happy in a T-shirt and it wasn’t all that cold.

Now keeping that in mind guess what he’s been saying, he wants to come to Minnesota to visit this coming January. I have no idea what I’ll do with him in Minnesota… But I’ll have to figure that out as it goes. Not too hard to entertain a pop-sickle though.

He finally seems to have decided that my Japanese is good enough that we can talk in it. Last semester he had this idea in his head that he had to speak in English no matter what or I would never understand. But apparently my Japanese kicks his English’s ass, hardcore.

Personally I promote the Japanese-English combination so long as you communicate and you know, get somewhere… But with Tono the happy medium is at a loss.

I had to explain in Japanese to him why it seems like I have lots of friends but really there aren’t that many that are close. He doesn’t really understand the difference between say American and Japanese friendships.

How ironic I find that I had to explain it to him and now I’m writing about it for Intercultural Business Communication. I’m not sucking up I swear it happened.

Anyways he was like “You seem to have a lot of friends.” *blank stare Tono style* I had to launch into an explanation about how it looks like we have more friends because we’re more outwardly friendly to people that aren’t really that close to us. In Japan you have a smaller circle of close friends and not that larger one full of acquaintances that Americans seem to possess. He didn’t believe me.

And that is my tale.

Oh this photo is so old. Blank stares say so much more than you might think they would in a conversation. I do have a picture taken right after this with us looking at the camera but this sums up everything. That's Katie by the way. I miss her terribly. =(

One more thing. For those of you who watch too much Anime and might be thinking right now. "Tono? Like does that mean Lord?" The answer is all in the kanji. 殿原 first kanji there is Tono or "lord" as in "mi-lord" and the second is Hara for field or plain. I've heard his name is very "rare" I would say not too many people have it in them to name their kid "lord" *shrug* that's just me. As it goes his nickname like any good nickname is two syllables because Tonohara is annoying to say in conversation all the time. Plus I think he likes the ego boost of being called Lord. I've never really asked him about it though.

Something Something

Thu, 15 May 2008 11:53:48 GMT

I finally got a picture of the (dog?) bus not so long ago~ I'd been trying to get it for ages. =D I love seeing this thing as I walk from Gotenyama to school.

I also ran into a pet shop in the Shinsaibashi area a while back. Pet chipmunks? I think they're cute but somehow the little guys should be out digging up my flowers and not sitting in a shopping area in Japan waiting to be adopted... Part of me wonders how likely they even are to be adopted or if they'll just sit out on the street getting looked at until they die? Who knows... Wow that had a gloom and doom feel to it... Sorry.

(Ted, Yuka, Me, Nikki) <Picture taken from Nikki's facebook>

For Nikki’s big 21 we went to Arashiyama in Kyoto it was a four-person deal as you can tell from above.

We decided to take a bus from (Shijou? Shijou, Shichijyou, Sanjou… too similar for me) somewhere towards the end of the Keihan line in the Kyoto direction in any case. As it was even Yuka couldn’t figure out the bus schedule so we ended up waiting about half an hour until a bus that said “Arashiyama” on it came through. It was also during golden week so it was packed.

Initially we went because Nikki wanted to see the monkeys but in the end what happened was Ted didn’t want to spend the 500￥ to get into the monkey park so we spent 700￥ to rent row boats and tool around the lake for an hour instead.

We designated Nikki and Yuka’s boat “Nihonjin boat” (Nikki is a forth generation Japanese-Canadian) and Ted and I got “Gaijin boat”. Ted and I even found a motorcycle in the river~. And we poked at it like any good curious twenty something’s; it had been there for a while…

(Gaijin Boat) <Picture taken from Nikki's facebook>

We also found some delicious Sakura Mochi ice cream and played in the river with all the Japanese kids. Ted and I didn’t stand out at all. *cough* *cough*

<Picture taken from Nikki's facebook>

My host family warned me before I went that you can’t go to Arashiyama with your boyfriend and certainly not ride in a boat because it means you will break up. Good thing Emily wasn’t there because she and Ted are kind of together and she was in Tokyo for the weekend showing someone around.

Ted puts a lot of energy into coming up with new poses for pictures so I feel like I have to put them up so he can get his due credit.

Random fact:

Nikki is what one would call a genetic designated driver. Apparently she’s allergic to alcohol, I’ve heard of it before but I’m not so sure how common alcohol allergies are. Maybe I’ll look it up because it makes me wonder… And that really was random wasn't it...

I hate group projects.

Thu, 15 May 2008 10:56:00 GMT

Maybe don't read this... o_O

Ugg. I had to do a group project with a total ******* (use your imagination). I tried to talk to him about meeting up before hand and checking both our parts of the presentation but he flat out refused. It was a “create a hypothetical or real conflict caused by difference in culture” type deal. Shorter and concise being on the better side naturally because the aim was to start discussion. Mine was shorter and I thought it might spark a conversation but it was all kinds of fail.

I can think if he hadn’t been such a jackass and we had gotten together and actually known what the other person was showing up with we could have gotten some type of discussion going but what we ended up with was dead silence. Maybe I could have kept him from writing something two pages long and confusing as hell at the very least. That kind of presentation always makes me wish I could make cricket sound effects.

~~And he basically told all the members in the class the message that American girls casually “hook up” which irritates me but I kept my mouth shut, stupid and offensive stereotype to spread.~~

He runs into lots of people who are willing to do that, maybe but one could ask him what crowd he hangs out with and if that’s the type of person he aims to be with? In which case it would mean he spends more time with type of people as opposed to say, people with standards or who suffer from afflictions often referred to as morals or self-respect?

I could whine for hours but it won’t make it any better than it was… Maybe I learned an important lesson about being a psychotic bitch and demanding group meetings even if the rest of them think it’s a "pointless waste of time"…

Having to do with cancer sticks...

Thu, 15 May 2008 10:53:40 GMT

So starting from June 1st in Osaka you’ll need a Tobacco Pass or Taspo to buy cigarettes out of cig vending machines. It amuses me because my old buddy Tono’s birthday is June 1st (the big thing we have in common) and he’ll just be legal to buy cigs (20 is the everything age here). Cutting it close if you ask me. He’ll probably have to get his pass a little after though I’m sure he can buy enough to last until it comes if he has to.

I haven’t heard from the kid in ages… Wonder if he’ll talk to me before I leave? Maybe I’ll just never hear from him again. *shrug* so is life.

Tono as taken by Katie. Hehehe. He is so un-photogenic.

Anyways. Vending machines with ID cards to buy things like cigs is an interesting idea. Doesn’t stop people from borrowing cards from friends or relatives that are of age. I guess we’ll have to sit back and see what happens, except I’m leaving so I can’t really see for myself… My bet is that it has some effect but doesn’t stop underage smoking entirely. I do wonder if it will work better than having people ID or not? I don’t think that they try all that hard sometimes in the U.S. In fact I know that they don’t from observation.

They don’t really card foreigners here when they buy alcohol but there really aren’t that many 19 year olds or under that study abroad so I can understand why they don’t care so much. Doesn’t matter so much in my case in the first place because my host family is my chief supplier of alcohol. And I don’t really care to drink anyways. Alcohol is just a step away from lighter fluid in my book for the most part. Plus I have enough trouble coordinating when sober I don’t think being drunk would make it any better.

This is a close up of the train notices. Poor sucker's name is Tobacco Tarou... What were his parent's thinking? Alliteration tsk tsk tsk poor kid will be bullied until he dies.

Train Rides...

Mon, 12 May 2008 10:29:33 GMT

As I rode home on the train today I noticed a few things. Or rather I’ve noticed them before, but just decided it made not so bad blog material.

Throughout my stay in Japan I’ve spent a fairly decent amount of time on the train. In fact about an hour a day depending on where I’m going. I spend less time on the bus if any this semester so I can’t say much for it except public transportation is public transportation and it’s probably about the same.

First off the things that people seem to think are worth staring at Gaijin (foreigners), children (they are so darn cute), noisy high school students (the evil eye will shut them up), people talking on cellphones (noisy, rude), and people wearing crazy clothing or with crazy hair (self explanatory), people using laptops (it’s a rare occurrence).

Normal train behavior consists of pretending to be asleep, actually being asleep, typing emails on cellphones, listening to music (but not so loud that others can hear it), talking quietly is sometimes ok but usually glared at, sitting with your head down not looking at anything, reading, staring at foreigners (everybody does it), some girls do their makeup (and its is sometimes frowned upon), and so on.

Usually what happens is as the train pulls up and they neatly line up on either side of the doors to wait for everyone who is going to get off to get off. They then rush in for seats that they already have their eyes on and settle themselves as quickly as possible. If they’re slower or wearing heels that are hard to walk in they move for a space and sometimes bow slightly to get the other person to move. What usually happens is that when they sit the leave enough space for half a person on either side and as the train gets more crowded they’re forced to move closer together.

There are times where they don’t actually leave that much space between them and the people near them so when other people walk up to see if enough room can be made for them they sort of shift and make like they’re trying to move. I guess appearance is everything?

In my case usually a couple of things happen to me when on the train. One is people will sit next right next to me, this occurs mostly when I’m writing on my cellphone or studying Japanese. I usually chalk this up to curiosity, they want to know if I’m typing in Japanese or what I’m studying. Sometimes I get on and sit in a well designed gap and the people on both sides of me will shift as far away from me as possible or at ocassionaly do sort of a sitting position moving crab walk as far as they have to get away from me. I also usually get a gaijin bubble when standing or sitting that no one ventures into. It’s interesting…

What Japanese people do on the train is shut people out. When they do it it makes the public space that they’re in a lot more personal. It has a wired effect and makes it seem very much alone even though you’re in a crowded place because you know that they will avoid at almost all costs interacting with you or the rest of their environment for that matter.

Anywho those are my lengthy thoughts on the subject.

I like how in my picture that they are so focused on not looking at anything that no one even noticed I was taking a picture of them...

Kamigamo Jinja and a garden...

Thu, 08 May 2008 08:59:56 GMT

I went with my Shinto class Kamigamo Jinja (Shrine) on the 19^th of April and we were taken on a tour including the inner sanctum. The priest spoke to us in very well memorized English with not terrible pronunciation. I tagged along with a friend last semester when her Shinto class went and decided to do it again with my class because it was pretty interesting.

The first time I went the tour guide was an older fellow who had worked as a salaryman and been sent to America for a few years to work and while he was in America he came to a realization that Shinto was an amazing way to bring people together because it accepts everyone and embraces nature.

Though I’m sure all gaijin can say that walking into a Shinto shire just makes you look like a tourist and you aren’t really thought of as participating in the religion. In which case I think I can say with some confidence that Shinto isn’t bringing the world together in a mutually respecting brotherhood anytime soon.

That said we got a different tour guide this time. He is apparently the son of a shrine and is going though training at Kamigamo until he can take over his family shrine. This meant that he had a different view towards Shinto. It wasn’t something he went to because it was interesting or called to him but because it’s his family’s livelihood.

We also got him to agree with us that the two identical houses for the god that sit next to each other in the inner sanctum were a little ridiculous. They sit right next to each other and the theory is if something bad happens to the main house where the kami (god) lives that he merely moves to the one next door. So of course someone happened to ask “Since they are right next to each other what happens if they are both destroyed?” And he looked at us and was like “You know I thought that too.”

Also when someone asked, “What do the different color pants mean?” And he was like “Blue is the lowest then there is also purple and purple with patterns (and maybe he said white?)” He then looked down at his blue pants and with embarrassment and tried to hide his face.

That was about it… Questions ask away~

After Kamigamo Kate from GAC and Kristina from Denmark and I went to the botanical garden that was in the area. I got some cool pictures but putting them up is kind of time consuming and after a while no matter how crazy the flower its still just another plant…

The park did have this awesome playground along with mushroom things that were full of books. On the side in Japanese it said, “Lets all take care of the books and return them.” I wish we could do something like that in the U.S. but I somehow think it would turn from reading the books and putting them back to “free books!” and then that would be the end of it…

Parental Units

Wed, 07 May 2008 10:41:25 GMT

I somehow got distracted somewhere along the line of “I have big Japanese test tomorrow” and ended up at “Wonder what Mr. Smart is doing?” Anyhow. Anyone who didn’t have the privilege he was my first Japanese teacher at Cooper for that first semester of Japanese before they removed him and gave me that one teacher who’s name I don’t even remember. Honestly all I remember was playing stupid flash card games…

I think part of what brought this about was the presentation I watched/listened to in my IBC class today having to do with a good career and capitalizing on things that you are both good at and enjoy… Also my parents emailed me today... Anywho you will see the conection soon enough.

Mr. Smart. Amazing Teacher.

He won teacher of the year last year for Minnesota. And I guess he has a blog up now (http://www.toymn.org/) I swung by and gave it a look but no commenting from me. I only had a semester with him so he had a limited affect on me though it was a good start. I guess my mom decided to take the liberty and she wrote him a letter about how much he influenced me and so on… He was one of my favorite teachers but my desire to study Japanese was there before I even walked into his classroom so again I can’t say how much of a difference he really made for me. What I can say is that it annoys me that my mom went and tried to speak for me. I hate people speaking for me. *cough* Keli *cough*

I also started to think about way back when at the beginning when I started studying Japanese sophomore year of high school. My family knew from the end of freshman year that I was going to stab myself in the face before I went through a fifth year of Spanish but they somehow decided that it was better for me. And after all no one speaks Japanese right? They then went and called in my Aunt Linda who teaches art at a Catholic school in Illinois and my Grandma. And together as a group harassed me to continue with Spanish even though they knew I hated it.

I finally got to the beginning of the year and made it to the first Japanese class of the semester when my parents stepped in and forced me to drop it for a drawing class hoping that a year off from Spanish would make me want to take it again later. Four days later I walked myself to the counselors office picked up a drop/add form and put myself back into Japanese I. Four and a half months later when my semester report card came in the mail my parents were livid.

I still remember with relish the looks on their faces “What the hell is this A+ in Japanese I?” Four years later in the spring of my freshman year at Gustavus I remember telling them that I was going to study abroad this year. “You’ll be a sophomore. You’ll just come crying home because you aren’t mature enough to be away for that long.” Exact quote courtesy of my father. I guess I’ve decided that the thing I’m looking forward to the most when I get home is something along the lines of “Who couldn’t do what?” and “I told you so.”

And here I write my blog for one of my second semester courses in Japan. Heck yes I'm going to rub it in. >:] Oh what a horrible daughter I am.

Family...

Tue, 06 May 2008 04:46:29 GMT

Today is my day of reflections while I shrink responsibility like the plague. I keep trying not to think about going home because it makes me depressed… It’s a combination of things but most of it comes back to my family(ies) and not wanting to leave/go back to them.

At home I know that my twin’s boyfriend Ryan is going to be there all the time and I honestly hate waking up to someone I don’t know well being in the house and going to sleep with him still there. Even added onto that is that I know if I cook something or bake anything he’s going to eat it or possibly all of it.

Its funny because I know I have Japanese friends with boyfriends who have never met their parents and probably won’t until it they’re about to get married. But at home I’m practically trapped in the own house with my sister’s all the time and with how volatile most college relationships are I doubt it will make it that far. My only reprieve from the kid is my usual eight-hour workday Monday through Friday but with how things are sounding at my work I’m not sure if I’ll have a job to go back to.

I think the Easter bunny is dropping in popularity… Meaning they need less of him and he consequently doesn’t need a full time college student cleaning and repairing him through the summer… Yeah thats right guys somebody has to fix him up so you can get a picture with him.

Also every time I kick back at home here and hang with my host family I have to keep thinking about how I’m leaving them in the not so distant future. I’ve got my 66 years old planetarium employee father, 54 sweets shop part-timer mother, 35 year old “public servant” sister Mao (Yeah I’m not so sure what her job is) and my seven year old little brother Toki.

I’m going to miss my mom a lot. I think we have really similar senses of humor so we’ve gotten along really well this year. She thought it was just as amusing as I did when I explained to her that my speaking partner Kaori didn’t want to study abroad at a college with a religious affiliation because she’s strict Buddhist (Soka Gakkai, http://www.sgi.org/ ) but likes to wear crosses as a fashion statement.

My dad and I don’t talk much, he smokes a lot and watches tv quietly. He always insists that I sit in a certain place which is basically the most comfortable one downstairs and always clears off the table by me if I come with a book in hand. He even makes a pretty serious effort to take himself to a different room when he smokes if he thinks it’s bothering me. Honestly at first I didn’t think there was any way in hell that I would get along living with a smoker but I’ve come out of it just fine.

Mao is Mao, she drinks a lot of beer. The woman weighs 39 kilograms and is sustained on a diet consisting mostly of alcohol. Not that she’s an alcoholic, she just likes to drink, beer with lunch, beer with dinner. She laughs a lot and tells a lot of stories like when she went to Okinawa and got a free cab ride because a cabby spotted her walking to the beach alone and insisted she let him drive her. I think she has a harder time than she lets on. Whenever Toki goes to spend the weekend with his dad she gets really depressed and when he comes home she puts the death grip on him. She works a lot and I’ve caught her sneaking out of the room she shares with Toki at night to work and gets up early in the morning at five to make his lunch just to crawl back into the futon they share before he wakes up to notice she’s gone. A while back we had a barbeque with her friend and they both are divorced living with their parents and with sons. They started to joke about their failed marriages but never really said anything bad about their ex-husbands just that they were going to have to move into nursing homes to die alone.

Toki is a ball of energy. The other day in the grammar form that you get taught as “respectful advice or things you should do because they are good for you” he told me to do my homework the next day and to play Legos with him. One day last semester when I went to the grocery store with the family he grabbed me by the hand and dragged me around the store running while saying “good exercise” over and over again. It really really was. He loves pokemon to death and keeps waking me up with “Sarah-neechan Pokemon shiyo?” The other day we went on a bug hunt around the neighborhood because one of his big beetles died but came up with nothing, much to my relief.

Long story short. Don't make me go home. =(
________________________________________________________________________________

A little bit about Soka Gakkai. It’s a form of Nichiren Buddhism. They claim on their website that they split from the Nichiren Buddhist branches but the truth is that they were kicked out for various reasons. I think that they’re akin to a form of cultism and I’m often creeped out by them. They are slowly taking over the world so you have been warned…

Hanshin Tigers Wooo!

Mon, 05 May 2008 11:37:46 GMT

BASEBALL!

So I ended up at one of the Hanshin Tigers vs. the Hiroshima Carp baseball games a while back.

It was insane. The had giant flags that they waved around when their team was playing and some fans came with trumpets and assorted brass instruments to play so that they could make sure they were heard. You also at the beginning of the seventh inning right before your team went up to bat you bought balloons and blew them up and released them.

It was dark so of course taking pictures was pretty impossible but I got a couple and some videos of the cheers that all the people seemed to have memorized but I couldn’t get more than that they were different depending on player and involved yelling said players name. It was about as opposite of a Twins game as you get. Where at Twins games I feel you mostly sit back and talk to the people you’re with and watch from time to time the Hanshin fans were fixated on the game and cheered the whole time.

Anywho, the happy group was Nikki, Ted and Nikki’s friends Susan and the girl with the heavy New York area accent. One of the cool things was they let us bring in our own food so we bought it outside cheap and ate it inside. The only thing the didn’t allow was aluminum cans, but right before you went in there was a station set up for people who wanted to bring in their own beer in cans, it was poured into cups and after that one was free as a bird.

The only annoying thing was that Susan is a kind of a big girl and we were in the cheap seats with the insane fans, meaning we had segmented benches lacking barrier. *cough* her ass was eating my leg *cough* and she was also pretty obsessed with taking pictures of herself with her camera, which got old fast as I was stuck next to her. Lesson in tolerence learned.

After that… There was a British guy sitting behind us with a Japanese friend speaking Japanese. Large group of foreigners we were we spoke to each other in English. The British guy’s Japanese friend started to ask his buddy to translate what we were saying so we turned around and said, “It’s not really anything worth listening to.” He was less than pleasantly surprised but it was fun. >:]

Girl whose name I don't remember, Nikki, Crazy Carp fan, Susan, nice girl but eater of my leg.

On the way home me met the Carp fan even though he was from Nagoya…? Yeah I don’t get it either. He made the costume by himself, yes those are blue spandex pants.

That is my baseball story.

Oh Tigers won 5 to 0.

The red sign is a Kansai Gaidai ad. You can also see some of the huge flags.

Sakura~

Mon, 05 May 2008 10:47:32 GMT

Anyway way back when, in March I think I went to Hanami (flower viewing) where one sits under the Sakura trees, eats and drinks and that’s about the long and short of it. It also seems to be a good general excuse for anyone who has the desire to get plastered. *shrug*

The Sakura only last about a week before they all fall so you have to get out and seem them fast. I went to both Yawatashi on the Keihan line and to Himeji Jou (Himeji castle), which is about a two-hour trek. I went to Yawata with my host mom and two of her co-works. And finally learned the families last name because they kept calling my mom “Nagatani-san”. Yeah I had no idea… Yes I’ve only lived with them since September.

My mom is in the blue jacket. I assume you can all pick me out. I feel like a giant...

Himeji was with my friends Nikki, Emily, Ted and Nikki’s older brother Drew and a couple of the people who he teaches at his English conversation job. Conversation job as in he is paid to speak English, and sometimes hand out flyers.

The Castle~

Pic stolen from Emily's facebook. I was eating... Hence the evil look.

Can't think of anything else to say... *shrug* Question away if I have not satsfied your cruiosity.

So far behind...

Mon, 05 May 2008 01:26:23 GMT

Yeah. I dropped the ball again... Surprise surprise. I have trouble keeping up unless I give myself deadlines...

On another note I did accomplish something~ I went back and fixed all the old entries. None of them seem to feel right... I guess they don't have much of my voice I just wrote them to have them written so I didn't feel like they reflected things very well and there was just had an awkwardness to them. Anyways. They still suck but they are a little better. Maybe...

Humm. I suppose I've got a few things I could talk about... My host mom told me on Saturday that the Yukata she put me in at the beginning of the year is going home with me. She just threw it in the middle of a conversation "By the way that Yukata that I put you in in September, I'm giving it to you." I feel kind of guilty taking something so nice from them but past experience has already taught me that I can't refuse when they really want me to have something.

Its also might be an indication that I'm one of their favorites. I can't help but wonder sometimes how I compare to the last 17 host students they've had. I'm pretty certain though that they haven't all gotten Yukata as presents. I'm also pretty sure that I'm the only one who's stayed the whole year. It sounds like a lot of the former kids did one semester with the family and then moved into the dorms.

In any case the honest truth is that a Yukata or Kimono were the two things I've never had any intention of buying. It is very traditional and so on and I do think they're pretty but practically speaking I'm a white kid and it would have made me feel like a hack. Now I just have to worry about if I ever actually want to put it on whose going to help and who back home can tie an obi? Probably no one. Oh well one problem at a time. First I'm gonna have to get it in my suitcase, which could be a feat...

Thats me Mao, my little brother Toki (Mao's son) and Rebecka. One of the past host students from Sweden when she came for a visit in September. I like the crazy way she spells her name. And I look pretty awkward if I do say so myself. Anywho. I can't accurately describe the number of clips and strap things and so on that go into getting one of those things on. I'm almost 100% sure that its physically impossible to put yourself into a Yukata or Kimono without help. Ok thats all for this episode...

When I get around to it I have, Baseball, Arashiyama, a Street Festival, the planetarium, a second trip to Nara, and Hanami to talk about. I'll get cracking later...

Kyoto

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:09:06 GMT

Kyoto Light Up!

Yeah thats the only good picture I got. Taking pictures at night takes a lot of energy and steadier hands that I typically have.

So I went with my host mom and two of her friends. The ones who love Korean dramas like no other.

Anyways the point to my story. As it so happens the sterotype that Americans are fat has reached Japan.

"Sarah I notice you aren't fat. Why is that?" Mom's friend.
"How can you say that?" My mom.
"Well you'll get fat when you get old won't you?"
*blank stare* "Maybe?" Me in close to disbelief.
"Her mom isn't fat. Right?" My mom.
"Um not really."

Then I almost died laughing.

Maybe I get out more than I give myself credit for....

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:13:15 GMT

So I went to a ramen museum. And I got to see the wall of ramen~ Yeah a wall of ramen…

The ramen tunnel!

My friend Rich and I also did the decorate and pick the contents of your ramen cup activity. It as pretty funny. I think we were the only and or exceedingly rare foreigners who want to pay to draw on a cup ramen with all the five year olds. And it was totally worth it.

Oh yes. Space ramen.

Thats about it... I don't really have any amazing cultural observations out of this trip....

Yeah Rich has become a fixture to my life... It's gonna be wierd to go home and not have him around...

A haiku Justin wrote for me when I asked him to write my blog for me.

Justin's first entry
As I walk through Tokyo
I see lots of stuff

Basically that means he won't do it.

The Movie Village

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:59:34 GMT

Toki and I in jail.

My host family decided to take me to the Edo period Movie Village in Kyoto where I was used by the actors in two skits. The first one was a ninja skit. I’m guessing they needed time in between to give the actors a chance to prepare for the second half so one of the actors grabbed me out of the crowd started talking to me in English with a really heavy Japanese accent and was like “I want you to take a picture with me! You speake veery niice Jaapanese.” Which is on my host sister Mao’s camera but she promised me copies so it will have to wait for a while. Honestly I almost had a heart attack when he grabbed me out fo nowhere...

Later after it was over my host family was like “By the way did you know that the actor that pulled you out of the crowd appeared in The Last Samurai?” Yeah… I had no idea but he gave me a handkerchief for being a good sport though. I looked him up and he wasn't a very big role, Lee Murayama if you want to search. All that really pops up is "The Last Samurai, from the Samurai Ensemble."

The other one was a skit that this guy was doing about an amazing medicine that can heal cuts in an instant and he started talking the crowd and I guess he just decided to try talking to me… Then he figured out I could speak a reasonable amount of Japanese and my host family was like “She’s really good at Japanese.” (Standard phrase attributed to anyone who can say "nice to meet you") So he was looking for a volunteer who’s arm he could cut and he was pretty graphically describing how the blood was going to squirt out across the stage and then he was like “How about someone in their thirties whose life hasn't gone so well?” And no one wanted to volunteer so he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me down to the stage and I got cut then healed with the amazing medicine. And was given another handkerchief.

We then had a Shiruken throwing contest and we discovered that I'm better at it that Toki. Score one 外人。My host family was also very insistent that I get carried around the park in a (word I cannot remember in English) thing. That was an experience. Nuff said. o_O

What I've been up too...

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:46:56 GMT

Hey guys… In my couple weeks of incommunicado I was busy studying for midterms and wondering around… Which means I’ve actually had some interesting stuff happen that might be worth talking about.

Of course nothing will ever compare to the concert I just experienced but it was fun stuff nonetheless. For the record I would marry any member of that Korean Pop band and bear them children. God they’re so amazing… Anyways on to relevant things.

I went to Sumo on the 15^th. It was pretty cool I even got my picture taken with an Osumo-san but that’s on someone else’s camera so I have no way to get to it. *sadness* But that’s how it goes maybe if I meet her again I can ask for a copy.

We managed to sneak into the two hundred dollar seats for the first half when all the small fries were competing and I got out with a couple of good vidoes. Including a young looking referee in a pink outfit who was very very put out by his outfit.

Aya and I rocking it with the cardboard cut outs.

Oh my God. DONG BANG SHIN KI!!! TOHOSHINKI!!!

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:55:40 GMT

Ok so just to make this fangirly and kind of short.

I went to the Tohoshinki other wise know as Dong Bang Shin Ki concert today.

It was amazing. Somehow when Reiko got me tickets we ended up with fifth row. And that also subsequently put us on the corner next to the middle walkway that lead to the smaller stage that kind of floated in the crowd so we were nice and visible.

Here’s the most amazing part. The two white females managed to scare the super famous Korean boy band. I'm not even kidding.

They kept walking by our seats and they would look into the crowd and you could tell they didn’t expect us to be there so you could start to see their eyes bulge as the noticed us. Literally one member at a time we watched them all tweak out as they noticed us. Xiah even started to stare at us.

The first one was Yunho because I was liked “Oh my God. Yunho is right there” and he looked down and sort of twitched and I was like “No freaking way??? Did he just SEE me?”

So we were like “lets wave at them because by the way their eyes keep tweaking out they have to see us so if they wave back we know they spotted us” It was an especially good strategy because none of the Japanese girls waved they just like swayed back and forth with their red glow-sticks.

And it totally worked. Mickey Youchunn saw us and waved back then later when he came back singing he pointed us out and threw “I love you” into the song. It was absolutely the most amazing three hours of my short insignificant life.

Oh there was even more but I don’t have time to type it all up because I have a test tomorrow and I should sleep for it though I have way too much energy right now…