Hana no Hi

"Hana no Hi" means "Flower Day," which is coming up tomorrow. The only reason I mention this is because I'm in the hymn chorus that is going to be singing in front of the entire school. Just a wee bit nervous (seriously). I'm sure it will be fun, and it means no school! Although I don't do much (OK, any) work here, it's still much less boring. And I bet you can't guess what I'm going to be doing after school... karaoke! Surprise surprise. It really is fun, and cheap too if you plan it right. This one place near school has huge rooms and if you go on a weekday it only cast about 2 dollars for 2 hours. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Wish me luck! I really hope we weren't supposed to memorize those songs...

Ja ne.

Been busy lately

Not only have I been getting home late because of various after school activities, but on both Satuday and Sunday I didn't get home until well past 11, and combine that with my normal tiredness while I've been here, and you can see why I haven't posted.

Last Friday Jen (exchange student from New York), Moritz (exchange student from Germany) , and I went to the main shopping mall in our area to get a good idea of what was being sold. I was in search of a backpack because I can't keep using my laptop bag for school, it's just not big enough. Moritz and I decided to go back the next day because my brother would be out and about and Moritz had no plans.

Saturday we went to see Kindom of Heaven, which was OK. The story was great, but Orlando Bloom doesn't really have the charisma to play a leading role. Every once in a while there would be these pointless close-ups of him looking around, so you know that they're just trying to get the teenage girl audience to come see it. The movie production people probably got Orlando Bloom to do a movie first and then tried to decide what story they should put him in.

I was successful in finding a backpack though! It's really quite nice, I may even use it when I get back as my normal bag. It's actually a messenger bag, not a backpack though.

Sunday my host brother's class had a party which I attended. Everyone met at Coco's (an American restaurant apparently popular here) and then headed to karaoke for a few hours. Tons of fun, I'll see if any of my pictures came out well.

Wednesday I'm going to karaoke yet again with classmates from Moritz's class. Should be a lot of fun.

As always, be sure to comment on stuff you want to know, because if you don't you'll probably never get to know.

Ja ne.

P.S. Brynn IS incredibly cute.

Need sleep No time

Will post on weekend.

Meals

Breakfast is usually laid out for me by the time I go down to the kitchen (it's the same for everyone in the family, but I get up later than everyone else because I can get ready much faster). Breakfast consists of orange juice or milk, a bowl of plain yogurt with sugar, and a bowl of either Frosted Flakes or Coco Crispies. Occasionally my host mother will make me ham with a sunny side egg on top, but as far as I can tell it's a spontaneous gesture. The really amazing part is that I actually eat it all.

For lunch all of the children (this includes me) get bentos (box lunches) prepared by host mother. She usually will give me leftovers from last night's dinner (that's definitely not a complaint, as you will see) or she will make something the night before. I've gotten anything from fried noodles to shrimp to beef to french fries (I could go on and on). But it's always different everyday except for onigiri (rice ball wrapped with nori, or seaweed), which is the staple in my lunch. By the way, I now like nori. Most of my friends in school get rice and put some stuff they call furikake on it, which seems to be some kind of yummy topping. But for me, onigiri just plain tastes better and is more convenience because I can hold it with one hand while I use my hashi (chopsticks) to eat the rest of my food with the other hand (as opposed to constantly switching back and forth between rice and other food with your hashi, which is what you are supposed to do, and what I do with the onigiri is what your are supposed to do as well).

Dinner is always different, but I'm sure you could've guessed that one. I don't think I've tried anything new, but that's only because I've already tried everything they offer me in LA. Well, actually, I probably tried some new kind of fish and didn't know it, but it was probably good. The only things I don't like here are natou (sticky bean things you have for breakfast sometimes) and mayonnaise (I'm pretty sure you all know what that is).
I'll list the different meals I've had in another post.

Yes, the toilet seat does have a cool warming functionality, and it is really quite nice on seriously

cold days. It doesn't have a bidet like ones in hotels here, but it'll do.
I've written enough for one post (although it would have been longer if I didn't accidentally delete part of it).

Ja ne.

Small things I probably forgot to mention

Laundry is done twice a day on most days.
The bath here has jets.
Almost no one rides the car. If you do, you're lucky (this includes me).
Japanese daytime TV sucks. Badly.
Only VISA cards work everywhere in Japan.
Playing rugby makes you tired.
Frogs are loud and plentiful when it rains.

Ja ne.

Ichigo greenhouse and Swing Girls

We got to go into an Ichigo (strawberry) greenhouse in which we ate whichever strawberrys looked good right when you picked them. You didn't even need to wash them. They were delicious!

I just saw a movie called Swing Girls with my host brother on DVD. It was about a group of girls in high school who didn't really care about school at all. In a twist of fate they are needed to replace the brass band for an upcoming game in one week! It's a great movie if you have access to foreign films, and of course there are English subtitles.

Ja ne.

Karaoke

Karaoke was lots of fun, I wish I could be doing it all the time. Although if I did that, I'd be broke in a week. I also took more Purikura (photo booth stickers) with people, so I have a whole wallet full of 'em. There seems to be a strawberry green house near where I live so we are going to go pick some today (at a price, but they say they're worth it). I've been getting lots of sleep over the weekend and I'm trying to drink and eat more. Laying off the caffiene is a good idea too.

Ja ne.

Sport's Day preparation

Today and yesterday after lunch our classes have been preparing for Sport's Day. I'm not really sure what it is, but we have to make a class flag, class T-shirts, and a class performance. It's been pretty fun. Our class performance is a dance (the music is Japanese, so I don't think anyone would know if I told them who it is). I've been tired lately. Very tired. Last night I just could get to sleep, I must have been rolling over in bed for more than an hour. Anyone have any recommendations on good sleep?

Ja ne.

P.S. I'm open to going to karaoke, be it in New York or LA, although it has to be 'box karaoke' where you have your own little private room.

Karaoke again

Looks like I'll be going to karaoke again this weekend, I can't wait! I'm a horrible singer, but I love to do it (my poor friends...). I'm crashing today though, caffiene doesn't work anymore.

Ja ne.

I like that anonymous people read my blog

I just got invited by my best friend's mom, who is Japanese and living in Tokyo, to be taken sightseeing with her! How cool is that? I'm probably going to go to Akihabara (anime and gadget paradise) and Studio Ghibli! The place where they make Miyazaki Hayao's films! I probably won't be going for another month, but I already can't wait. I'm going to take pictures every two steps and document each one of them. That's how cool these places are. If anyone wants ANYTHING AT ALL anime related, ask me before June 16. From the newest anime and merchandise, to the oldest manga and memorobelia, it's all in Akihabara. How can I be so sure? I visited there for a mere few hours last year, but I'm sure I can spend upwards of a week looking at all the awesome stuff. Better start saving money...

Ja ne.

Hmm... *Pondering readership on account of no comments*

I visited Lake Biwa today. Very big, very beautiful even though it was overcast. I took a cruise on a boat called Michigan with a southern banjo band playing on board, go figure.

If you haven't seen the new teaser trailer for The Goblet of Fire, it's definitely worth a look. Some really amazing visuals.

After going to the lake I went to see Constantine, which was luckily subtitled in Japanese and not dubbed. It's a pretty cool movie. Sorta makes you think 'People believe this crap?!' It really makes you wonder whether they wrote the bible as an inspiration for some awesome movie scripts. By the way, before year 0 was the world in total chaos? They must have some explanation for that. All in all it was a good catholic movie, but there were some pretty stupid punchlines throughout the entire film.

School tomorrow.

Ja ne.

Update: I'm not tired, so I should be a bit more coherent

It's just been one of those days that you take it slow and do nothing. I don't mind them so much as long as I can do something relaxing, but it was mostly boring today, meaning there was nothing good on TV.

Tomorrow I go to Lake Biwa and go to see Constantine, which I think is going to be subtitled (go Japan!). Lake Biwa is the biggest lake in Japan and was formed from the same tectonic shift that formed Mt. Fuji. Should be fun!

Ja ne.

Kisarazu Cat's Eye

I'm pretty sure all of those who read this blog have absolutely no idea what the title means, unless you have an incredible knowledge of Japanese movies and are updated at least weekly. It's the name of a movie which I saw a little while ago on TV and thought would never be brought up again (although it was a pretty funny movie). Little did I know how popular it was. For our class performance on Sport's Day we are going to dance to the theme song of that movie (and what a catchy song it is, seriously). Wish me luck on that because I need it.

By the way, art club is very very fun, mostly because of the cool people in it and how art mainly consists of anime over here.

Ja ne.

Art Club

I've been incredibly tired lately starting at around 2 or 3 pm, which is probably because I'm not used to staying in school for longer than 6 hours and here I go to school for around 8 hours. By the last period I'm completely wiped out. It could also be that speaking Japanese has just completely tired me out as well. Therefore Kendo does not sound like a very appealing club at the moment. I've been going to Art Club for the pat 2 days (people Kendo Club said it was OK, especially since I'm only here for 3 months so I can try a lot of things) where I can just hang out and talk and draw, it's really relaxing.

Tiger has been installed successfully on my iBook, by the way. It works great so far (although I can't test that too thouroughly without an internet connection).

Ja ne.

So very tiger-- I mean tired...

I could barely keep my eyes open all day, even though I had a particularly fun day. I feel like I'm picking up a lot of Japanese, but I am not concious enough to test if that's true.

I got Tiger today in the mail! I'm still trying to determine if I should wait until tomorrow. I think I might wait until the weekend, most likely Sunday because Saturday we're going to karaoke, 'we' includes me, my host brother, a German exchange student, and a Swiss exchange student. It's going to be a lot of fun and my host brother seems as excited as I am.

Ja ne.

First day of school after a long holiday

I miss the long holiday already, but school was pretty fun. Nothing new, but I got to sleep a little during my last period because everyone was taking a test. I couldn't get to sleep last night after the long holiday of sleeping in.

I have this one class every monday during first period in the international center for the exchange students which is a lot of fun. The teacher is British and has been working at the school for 10 years. The whole class we just talk about anything we want and get perspectives from all the different people and where they live. It's really quite interesting. Other than that it was just another cloudy day.

Ja ne.

Lazy day + AYUSA meeting + haircut (not me)

Not much to report today, although I had a great conversation with my AYUSA (the program I used to come over here) representative. It was just to check up on me.

My host brother got an awesome haircut (no pics). They do things about the same way as in LA except the styles are cooler. Everyone agrees my hair is good right now though, so I'll just stick with my 1+ month old italian haircut.

Ja ne.

New Zealand exchange student left

As you probably read from the title, the exchange student from New Zealand left today. He was a cool guy, had plenty of fun. It was much easier to go through this kind of experience with someone else at first.

Tomorrow is a Takoyaki party! For all of you that don't know, takoyaki is dough shaped into a ball with octopus, onion, and other various delicious ingredients fried. The party is for our good friend's birthday, which means getting up tomorrow to find her a present... this I'm not so good at.

Hope all of you did well on the AP test (those of you who took it)! I'm real tired from a long day at the airport.

Ja ne.

Re: Poor disturbed youth of our nation

These AP tests seem to suck. I guess I'm lucky that I don't have to take them (this year), but I have sympathy for those of you that are too busy studying to read this blog. Whether a homocidal psycho jungle cat-- er, high school student, or just plain disturbed, you should try not to stress because it's not fun. Why is the guy living in someone else's house thousands of miles away saying this? I don't know.

The foreign exchange student from New Zealand is leaving tomorrow so he's packing his stuff up today. I'm just sitting here working on chemistry.

Ja ne.

Farewell party for my fellow exchange student

Today was the farewell party for the other exchange student staying in the same house as me as well as the other exchange student from New Zealand. It was a lot of fun. We went to this little cafe in Hikone where there was a band that was playing 50s rock and roll and we were all dancing and having a great time. A night to remember.

Just in case you haven't heard, Stephen Colbert of the Daily Show is getting his own spin-off. Watch it and tell me how it is because... well, I'm in Japan and it's not so easy to watch American TV.

By the way, they call soccer football here.

Ja ne.

A little frustration

So I've pretty much been chillin this whole 3 day weekend, except for one helluva time yesterday. First Jin, Hitoshi, Tomoki, and I played a game of 2-on-2 soccer in which I wiped myself out after about an hour and a half. Then we went on a bike ride (first time I've ridden a bike in years) and went up and down hills, around the town, stopped at a convenience store, and then finally we were home.

As some of you may know, the new Mac OS, named Tiger, has come out. I use my iBook over here and I really wanted this major upgrade, so I bought it online. It will be here in a few days and it will be rendered pratically useless because my family has stopped the use of my computer to connect to their wireless internet. Allow me to explain. I have been hooking onto their wireless router and using their insanely fast DSL connection since the day I got here, the problem was that it would sometimes totally disconnect the internet from anyone's use every once in a while, but all you needed to do was power off and on the router and it'd be back up in no time. They told me today that I couldn't use it today because of this problem. I asked them why and they explained that there are two computers in the house and they signed up for a contract that would allow only two connections to the wireless router. Now somewhere in that contract part must be a lose end in translation. If my computer knowledge serves me, as long as you have a wireless router to the internet and you have a sufficient amount of ports (which they do mysteriously enough) it should work totally fine. What I think the problem is is that they have programmed this wireless router for two computers and either don't know or don't want to change that configuration. Controlling the amount of computers connected to a wireless router in one's own home is not possible, or if it is, not very highly advised, and I'm pretty sure they are just afraid something will go wrong if I connect with the router. So here I am typing on this crazy Japanese keyboard on a PC running WINDOZE (I can't stand it much longer) just so I can communicate with all of you. I'm meeting the AYUSA representative soon anyways and maybe she can translate more accurately.

Otherwise, I'm doing great! Just don't expect anymore pictures (that means zero) and no more timely responses to emails. I'm pretty sure I can still look at blogs through Bloglines, but not for very long. I've got to get this sorted out or else I'm not going to know what's happening in the world. I won't be able to watch the Daily Show anymore! Wish me luck.

Ja ne.