Experiencing

This is the second half of my last post that was not posted. So if you didn't read the other one yet, scroll down and do so! ^_^

Like I said before, I haven't done a lot of traveling since Asuka (that will change tomorrow, I'll explain later), but instead have been spending my time experiencing more of everyday life. As a result, this post is going to be a lot of pictures with explanations.

First off, I want to thank my parents for that wonderful box of American snacks and forgotten clothes! And thanks to Aunt Tina for the extra bags of chocolate truffles. I love those things (and Okaasan does too)! ^_^



Taiyo loved the Spaghettios and Oreos, but I don't think Okaasan liked him having them. He made a huge mess. >.>



I taught him the proper way to eat an Oreo though!



Taiyo also discovered that I have a video (I took with my camera) of a train pulling into the station on my laptop. Since then I have become his favorite person, and he loves to sit on my lap and make me play it over and over again.



Aside from the Yakiniku restaurant, my host family also took me to a Soba restaurant. Soba is a long, brown noodle made from buckwheat, and it's a traditional Japanese food. The portions were HUGE.



This is also the day I found out my host father has a twin. O.o Can you tell which one is Otousan? The older lady is Otousan's mother.



This is Taiyo holding the menu. Yes, that wooden block is the menu.



Before eating soba I visited Otousan's mother's house, which was really cool because she had a kotatsu! A kotatsu is another great Japanese invention to be used when your house doesn't have central heating. It's a table with a heater on the underside of it, so when you put a blanket around it the heat is trapped inside under the table, and you stick your legs under it to keep them warm. It was so cozy!



I mentioned that I went to find the Japanese bagpipe band, and find them I did! It's actually apart of a Scottish Academy that works as a preschool and teaches British English to Japanese children. The founder, her daughter, and an assistant teacher about my age are from straight from Scotland, and their accents are so thick that sometimes I can't understand them. I love it! Okaasan couldn't understand them at all.



Also, the children are the drummers. Kind of scary at first, but they're not too bad though!



While I'm talking about instruments, I also had the chance to hear a koto performance. The koto is sounds something similar to a harp I suppose, but it's definitely different. It's a traditional Japanese instrument.



Japan has crazy photo booths. Unlike the boring ones in America where you sit on a bench with a curtain behind you, Japan's photo booths are walk-in booths with green screens. You can fit almost your entire body in the picture, and the picture quality is amazing. You choose the backgrounds you want, and after taking the pictures you get to draw all over them on a computer-like screen and add lots of fun stuff! You get printout stickers, and you can also have the pictures sent to your (awesome!) Japanese cellphone. The booths are called Purikura, and I've been in one with as many as 8 people. That one was fun!



I believe I've mentioned before that I have an awesome view from my host family's apartment. For one, I get to see great sunsets!



Oh yeah, that's awesome.



I mentioned in my last post that I have unfortunately caught a cold. Blegh. I didn't bring any cold medicine with me, so I asked Okaasan where I could get some. Apparently in Japan if you want medicine you go to the hospital, not a drugstore? At least, that's where this stuff came from.



I promise it's not something else (I think. >.> Okaasan got it for me). It threw me off when I first saw it, because in America we only have the liquid or pill kind. This is like little pellets that you pour on your tounge and swallow with water. It seems to work ok, only it makes you feel a little weird. This is definitely the "take and sleep" kind of cold medicine.

My favorite food/snack that I have found here so far is Taiyaki. Ironically, it's shaped like a fish.



But it's not fish at all! It's made from mochi (like a sweet rice dough) and filled with all sorts of yummy things. You can get custard (the favorite Japanese sweet of all time - basically just pudding), chocolate, green tea, caramel, and white or black anko. Anko is my favorite, mainly because anko is my absolute favorite sweet in Japan. Yay for sweet bean paste! This picture is of the white anko.

Some friends and I had the chance to order pizza one time. It tasted about the same as American pizza, but was really tiny. This was a medium, and was only about 10 inches.

Also, a friend of Okaasan made us brownies at our home. He made them from scratch and cooked them in the nabe pot, and this was the result. They were good but sort of dry, so I'm wondering how the brownie mix from home will do baked in the nabe pot. I think I'll try to find an oven.

Also, the microwave in my house is sentient. It knows when I'm lying. O.o

"Uso" in Japanese means "lie", like "I lied to you". I was trying to cook my spagettios but didn't know how to work the microwave, so I just hit the "toast (bread)" button and it gave me this message (it also didn't work). Creepy! O.o Okaasan later explained that it doesn't really say "lie", but it still looks like that to me...

March 3 was Hina Matsuri, which is Japan's "Girls Day". It's the national day for girls, and girls get to dress in pretty kimono and eat sweets, like cake. A special doll stand is set up about a month in advance, and the tiered stand is filled with dolls that each represent a member of an imperial court. On the highest tier is the emperor and empress. Since my family only has a son we didn't have a doll stand, but Okaasan and I visited her friend's house who did have one. This is a simpler one.

I got cake. It was delicious, and oh so cute.

Okaasan also bought me two other cakes, which I did not eat all at the same time. They were also good, and both had chocolate and strawberries!

Wow, that was a lot. If you're still reading this, kudos to you!

I said earlier (was it even in this post?) that I will be traveling again soon. I leave tomorrow for HIROSHIMA on a class field trip. This trip is going to be amazing in so many ways. I get to ride the Shinkansen, the bullet train that uses magnetic levitation instead of wheels and goes about 180 mph, to Hiroshima (Taiyo is incredibly jealous of me right now). The Shinkansen makes the trip to Hiroshima in about an hour. To tell you how insane that is, riding the regular train to Hiroshima takes about 6 hours.

So yeah, the Shinkansen. But my favorite part about this trip is that the class will listen to a talk from an atomic bomb survivor. There's no way to express how I feel about that, and we've been preparing in class for the moment that will occur when she finishes speaking. My teacher has told us there WILL be a silence when she finishes, not because it's an order or anything, but because no one will know what to do. Do you clap? Do you ask questions? What questions do you ask a person who survived one of the only two nuclear weapons ever used? I'm excited about the opportunity to hear an atomic bomb survivor, but I'm also feeling something else that I can't describe. Worried? Anxious? Weirded out that I'm excited? I don't really know, but I do know that I'm going to give the speaker an origami crane. I'm also taking origami cranes to leave at the Children's Peace Monument.

I'll let you know next week how this weekend goes.

Alright 6th graders, I've got an assignment for you. Why am I taking origami cranes to Hiroshima?