All of the Fun

Yesterday was the thing where we all had to give speeches in front of teachers, host families, and Japanese students.  Mine was on the difference between American and Japanese concerts, and honestly I didn't try very hard.  You get an A just by participating, and I don't like reading aloud no matter how many people are in the room, so I didn't really like it.  I did, however, like seeing everyone else's things.  It was a good experience.  First was the practice session, during which the teachers all decided how high the microphone needed to be for each person.

This was my lunch for the day.  That Ramune has a picture of the cast of Pretty Cure (a show for little girls) on it, so I bought it because AHAHAHAHA.  Ramune is a lot like Sprite, by the way.

Here are most of the international students sitting down before everyone came in.

And here's about how crowded it got.  All the host families, including mine, were there to see.

This is a picture taken druing Cermet's skit.  I just took one picture of the proceedings so everyone could see what it was like (there will be videos later anyway).  Some people did skits, some people did speeches, some had Powerpoints, and some didn't.  I didn't have a Powerpoint for mine, but it was generally well-received anyway.  There was lots of standing around  and talking after it was all over, and this happened.

Sunglassesssssssss.  Micha, Masa, and Yukiko became cool.  Cooler.

After that, I went to McDonald's with these people.  Hard to tell who's there but it's Evelyn, Sona, Sophie, Lucas, Dominik, and Wesley.  Again, Japanese McDonald's is nice; they play jazz and the employees wear makeup.

MASA.
SUNGLASSES.
MASUNGLASSES.
I don't know whose these were, but they made the rounds.  Also at this point we had gone to Asahi (the place from Sophie's birthday party), where pretty much every other international student was already.

Yukiko was making a face I was trying to capture, but then Alex came and poked her just as the picture took.

Karaoke was offered, this time by a circle of which I'm not usually a part.  Because it was karaoke, I jumped on it.  Always karaoke.  All the time.  Once again, I was a big hit.  If you've never heard me do "Satsugai" from Detroit Metal City, you're in for something.  At one point, two other groups of international students showed up to the karaoke place.  Pretty much everyone that actually goes anywhere with friends here was in the buidling, so I made the rounds and spent my time in all three different rooms.

Jenna and Micah had already left the building when everyone else was paying, so here's me spying on them!

Jenna was probably the goofiest the whole night (everyone but me had some alcohol), so since she lives near me I escorted her home.  I didn't actually know where I was once she got there, but it turns out I was wa,y way closer than I thought, so it worked out fine.

Ice Cream Buddies

Today was actually a little fun, as our first classes turned into computer time.  We were supposed to be practicing for the speech thing tomorrow, but seeing as how memorizing your speech is not necessary as long as you don't just stare at the paper, I'm not too worried about it.

At lunch, Alex (left) and Lars (right) did this with their hair.  It was a big hit and I laughed.

This picture was taken because Misaki (right) is always feeling good, and Kayo (left) is always feeling tired.  This is remarkable because Misaki is the one in that group that everyone makes fun of.  It's not that they don't like her; she's just kind of a weenie.
Kayo is always tired because she commutes two hours to and from school every day.  She lives in an entirely different prefecture.

Misaki and Kayo decided to go get some ice cream because they're Japanese girls and it was hot today.  I was invited along, and we took an Ice Cream Buddies picture.  I forgot what kind everyone got.

And then for some reason Kayo put on glasses for all of five seconds.

HERE'S A JAPANESE CAT

HERE'S ANOTHER.  They don't want to be friends over here and are just content playing alone.  Some day I'll make a cat friend here.  Tomorrow is this speech-giving thing everyone has to do, so I'll let you all know how that goes.

Not the pictures you need; the pictures you deserve.

There wasn't much going on today outside of class, but I felt like taking some more pictures than I would have normally.  I guess they can serve as a way for everyone to see what a good time I have here every day, even when all I do is school.

To begin, I ended up missing some of class this morning because I desperately needed coffee.  While getting said coffee, I ran into Sakiko and we talked for much longer than we should have.  She wasn't in class, but I was, so I probably should have left.  But I'm in Japan, SO INSTEAD WE TOOK A SKIPPING CLASS PICTURE.



I only missed about ten minutes of the three hours, though.

In the second half of Japanese class, the teacher kept telling me she was going to check my speech I have to read, but always left the room when she had time to do it.  When she finally sat down with me, she had me read it an kept interrupting me with the next word every time I paused for more than a second, even if I did so to fix some grammar on the document itself.  So I essentially made no progress on that.

Then it was lunch time!  Nana had noodles and we all decided it would be best if I took an unflattering picture of her eating.

My spot for lunch, however, was with my normal lunch group.  Sakiko was there again, and I decided to take some goofy pictures.  This one was almost normal, but I said something stupid so she'd react and ruin the picture on purpose.  We all laughed about it.

Yukiko is on-and-off about wanting to be in pictures.  Half the time she'll throw up a peace sign before you even know she saw the camera, because she's just that Japanese.  Knowing whenever a camera is being pointed at you is a common super power over here.

You may have heard that we like making Yukiko say "Peter Rabbit" in her best American accent.  It's hilarious. Because of that, with Ayaka's help Yukiko briefly became Peter Rabbit.

And Misaki also tried, but it's different when you use your own arms.

And then Ayaka jsut wiggled her fingers around Yukiko's head like it was a crystal ball or something.

Ryouko doesn't like pictures.

And I was trying to take a too-close shot of Ayaka's face to make everyone laugh, but she started spinning this bottle in way, which resulted in this.

Today was also the day Wesley and I had signed up to go see the school's tea ceremony club do their thing. It was happening on the second campus, so we had to wait for everyone to show up before getting into the van that would take us there.  While waiting, we noticed that this quote is in the corner near the window.  No one knew why, because no one ever goes into that corner and the only reason anyone ever goes on that floor is to work in the office or enter/leave the building.  

Here's the van.

Second campus is much nicer-looking, but it's also a bit empty.  At around the same time on the first campus, there would be a good amount of students left over, but on the second campus everyone had more or less gone home already.  Also, the architecture and often the furniture were very 1970's, so the whole place was a little eerie. 

Below is the room where we actually had the tea ceremony.  If you don't know what that is, it's essentially a long, drawn-out way to make tea that, to put it lazily, is practiced as a form of non-religious meditation.  The tea is made from a powder rather than a bag, and tea ceremonies have been going on for a very, very long time.  You have to do stuff like "present the best-looking side of the bowl to your guest", an it all takes a very long time.  I've actually seen it all before, but not in Japan, so I had a very pleasant time.

The last few pictures were just more of the second campus, in case you couldn't tell.  When the van took us back to school, the driver ended up letting us out right next to Sophie and her Cambodian friend.  His English is severely unpracticed and it's a bit hard to talk to him because of it (he wouldn't use Japanese).  Though I left my bike at school, I walked Sophie part of the way home because I am nice.  While we were waiting for the train to pass, she wanted a picture taken of how the red stop light made her hands look like this:

She's funny.

Can't Stop the Party

In Japan, there will be days when absolutely nothing happens, and then there will be days when everything seems to happen.  This was the latter.  Though I had a slow start (I left the house around 12), it was just non-stop business from there.  To begin, I went to Popora to look for another old game.  They didn't have it.  I stopped in Geo to look at something, then I went to Tsutaya to see if they had Denkare's Gig Grimoire CD that came out today.  They did not.  I then went way, way out of my way to go to that one used book store where I bought Clock Tower.  They also didn't have the game I was looking for today, but that's okay because I don't need it and I bought something else anyway.

I went to school to wait for people until it was time for Sophie's birthday party, but I remembered again that Denkare's CD came out today, so I decided to take Wesley and go to Mandai Shoten (that tremendous anime store).  I knew they'd have it.

I didn't end up having the go that far, though.



Because the Animate in Kawagoe on the way there had one copy.  I bought it, and also took a picture of the store.  Animate stores are delightful for some reason.

Even after I found it, we wanted to go to Mandai Shoten anyway, so we kept walking.  We found where Kawagoe Castle used to be!  It's not much to look at anymore, but at least we found it.

This is just the street near Mandai Shoten.

And here's a parking lot.

We took a taxi back for whatever reason, so here's the inside of that.

Once we got back, it was time for Sophie's birthday party!  She's twenty-five now.  Or tomorrow.  At some point between now and midnight.

Noemi, Sophie, Evelyn, and Sona were there, as were Dominik, Lucas, Wesley, and myself.

I forgot to take a picture of my food (yakisoba) before I started eating it, so that's why it looks a little sparse.  This place had really good yakisoba.

Sophie is very, very hard to catch on film.

BUT I DID IT.

This is her birthday face.

And this is her birthday cake.

This is my piece of her birthday cake.  It was really good.

Birthday sister picture!  There's frosting on Sona's face because Sophie came around and did that to everyone.  It may or may not be a Korean thing.

And cake was good.

Matt, the program coordinator (this isn't him, this is Dominik) was also at the same restaurant entertaining some guests from a school in California.  When he heard it was Sophie's birthday, he bought her a giant beer that she probably didn't need.  She and Sona were positively goofy the rest of the night.

At karaoke, Lucas was also goofy.  But that's just how he is.

Sophie is helping Lucas sing.

Dominik does songs in German because he is German.  His English is just fine, but he still has an accent ("wegetables"), so this is interesting to hear every time.

Sona was at this point staring into space and breaking mid-song to read the back of a bottle, so that was pretty funny.

But she and Sophie also did a funny song in Korean.

After karaoke, we all squatted outside and talked about things.  Sona kept asking questions like if Wesley's heartburn medicine was "for your tummy".  Her accent had also gotten heavier.  Oh, Koreans.

Here's the stuff I bought today!  On the top is the thing I bought at the nameless book store where I got Clock Tower, a Japanese guidebook for Super Mario Sunshine.  There's very little merchandise from that game, so a guide was really the best I could do.  It was really cheap, so it'll be fun reading material on the plane I guess.
Under that, from left to right are Days of Memories 2, Denkare's Gig Grimoire live CD, and I've Sound's Regret.  Days of Memories is a silly game that uses characters from games made by the company SNK, and Regret is an old CD by the now-famous I've Sound collective of singers and composers.  Kotoko started with them, if anyone knows her.

So yeah, busy day.  And there's school tomorrow!  Whoo.  That will be fun.