Abby Goes to Japan

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Hello everybody and a happy 父の日！ That is Chichi no nichi, which means fathers day! Last night me and my host family celebrated a little early with a cake roll, which is my おとおさん(host dad's) favorite treat! That was just one day of a pretty good week(conversation test aside). Last week, two international students from another program stayed at my house. They were really nice, and to welcome them, my host family had a barbecue! The food was pretty good, chicken, beef, and vegetables grilled then covered in teriyaki sauce. We even had some watermelon! Strange how much of a treat that is now, but fruits here are expensive. After the barbecue, the two students, me, and my host mom all went to a karaoke place! This place was a little cheaper than the one I went to, so it didn't have nearly good of a selection, but it was still pretty fun. I really liked the mascots of the place, which were Siamese Cats! Now that it is summer, there have been quite a few festivals going on. I have gone to the Yosakoi Soran festival and the portable shrine festival. Both have been quite interesting. Yosakoi is a type of Japanese dance that blends modern and traditional moves, and different groups perform in a parade at the festival in really cool costumes. Then at night, the final groups dance off against each other! I spent about two hours at the festival and saw a few dance groups perform, they were really talented. Unfortunately, there were so many people that it was hard to get a good view of all the groups. There were stands lined up on the streets, but I needed tickets for those and I didn't have any. So I only stayed until about 3:30 and then went home. I did get to watch the finals on tv that night though. I even saw the Hokusei Gakuen Daigaku group perform! One of my BCA group members danced with that group, she was pretty good! I only got to watch about five groups perform before my host mom switched the TV over to the Korean drama she watches every Sunday. Oh well. Then this Saturday, I went to the portable shrine festival, where people parade around in traditional dress carrying, you guessed it, portable shrines! The shrines can range from small to huge, and are very ornate. The parade aside, the festival itself was OK. There were so many people that I could barely move, and I couldn't really see any of the stands well because of it. Plus, they have a festival game that I really don't like. They have baby turtles or baby goldfish in a tub of swirling water. the kid playing has to scoop the fish or turtle out with a net, and if they manage to scoop one, they keep it. It was pretty sad, considering most people don't know how to properly take care of a goldfish or a baby turtle. The turtles were especially sad, as the current kept flipping them over and bouncing them around everywhere. So that was a downer. However, there were a couple of stands that used fake fish and turtles, and those were much better and had better prizes. After about an hour, we walked around the beautiful nakajima park, and then spend two to three hours looking for a cat cafe. Cat cafes are places where you spend ten bucks to play with a bunch of cats while drinking coffee and tea. Dogs and cats here are very expensive, so this is a much cheaper alternative for animal lovers to spend time with our furry friends! My host mom is very allergic to animals, so I haven't even petted a cat or dog in over two months, and I severely miss my kitty! So I really wanted to go to this cafe. Unfortunately, we never found it. There are directions on the cat cafe website for it, so we will have to print those out. Me, Lexi, and Andrew are going to try to go next week. So that was my weekend. As for my week, on Wednesday I got to do いけばな(ikebana) or flower arranging. It was pretty fun. There is a very specific way to arrange the flowers, and the lady teaching us kept coming over and changing stuff until she thought it was perfect. The flowers look awesome, though, and are displayed in the front of the international building! They aren't as good as the flower arranging exhibit pictures I posted last time, but I think they look pretty good for our first time! And lastly but most importantly, my sweet little niece Remy Ann Niederman was born!!! I was so excited when I got the text from Daniel that I think I scared some of the locals in the grocery store I was in! I rushed right home though, and was able to skype them before they went to bed! I'm the first in my family to see her, but I will probably be the last to meet her, since I don't come home until mid July. Remy is usually a boys name in English, means oarsman, but apparently it is a popular girls name here. My host mom already calls her remy-chan! Depending on the kanji you use for the name, it can have a variety of meanings. I am really going to have to restrain myself from buying too much for my nieces and nephew, but is so difficult! Everything here is so cute and perfect for little kids! Anyways, I would show you some pictures, but blogspot is being difficult again and won't let me upload my pictures. I am getting really frustrated about this. I will try to upload the pictures again soon, maybe blogspot will be a bit more cooperative then. See ya!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Ok, I am going to try to upload my pictures again today, as it failed last time. Meanwhile, I suppose I could tell you a bit about my week. On Friday I went to Lexi's birthday party. It was at a pizza place in Odori, and it was all you can eat and drink in two hours for 2,168 Yen. That would have been great if the waiter hadn't disappeared an hour in. We buzzed for him 5 times and he never came back, so I only got one drink and a couple slices of pizza(which are tiny!). Oh well, it was still fun. My host father's mom is pretty sick(she's 92), so they went to see her. For the entire weekend I stayed at Kirari, the college's international housing. It was OK. I really missed homemade meals, as I had to buy breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the Tokou store, which mostly consisted of cheap sandwiches and melon bread. I felt like the staff at Hokusei doesn't really trust us Gaijin. We can't use the building's lobby and we can't have guests. On Saturday, I was invited to a takoyaki party by my conversation partner, Minami. Takoyaki is kinda like Japanese squid pancake balls. It's good, trust me. Anyways, the event took place in Kirari kitchen. When I entered the lobby(just below where I was living) the security guard was treating me very suspiciously. He wanted to know exactly why I was using the lobby, He escorted me to the kitchen(in the next room) and asked the Japanese girls if I was supposed to be there. I felt as if he were treating me like I was up to no good and about to steal something. I can't imagine the outrage at Manchester if we treated the international students like that. I was really happy when I was able to go back to my host family's house. On Sunday me and my friends went to a flower arranging exhibit and the Pokemon center! The flower arrangements were beautiful, and looked like real works of art. I will show you some pictures if my stupid account lets me. Afterwards, the ladies working there had us write on a paper flower how we liked the show and put it on the wall. I felt mine was very simplistic, I said "きれいなはなです！" which means "these are pretty flowers!" I feel like I sound like a two year old sometimes, I wish my Japanese could be more articulate. The ladies also gave us an origami flower top, which was pretty nice. Overall, a great experience. After that, we attempted to find the pokemon center in Sapporo station. That place is huge and interconnected with all of these different areas, so it took us a while to find the store. We finally made it and it was pretty cute, I bought a fish pokemon phone strap, although I wish they hadn't been sold out of Ponyta and Rapidash, the fiery horse pokemon. Alyssa, you would like that one! Next time I am there, I will look for that one and I might buy a little something for Levi, as his other gift was a bit small. They cute stuffed animals and chopsticks for little kids with pokemon on them. So that was pretty fun. Not much else has happened this week so far. I bought an Obi for my Yukata(cotton kimono), so all I need to buy now are the shoes. I had to take a big exam on Tuesday and I have a Kanji test tomorrow, which should be fun. And this week is the Yosakoi Soran Festival and the Hokusei Sports festival, so we have Friday off! Yosakoi Soran is a dance festival, and one of our group members is dancing in it! Her group previewed some of their dance moves on Tuesday, and it looked pretty awesome, so I will probably go see them in the parade. That is pretty much my week thus far, and I will see if I can upload these pictures. Yay Success!

Tarot readings in Photography club