In my absence from this place I've since moved and am enjoying my new family. Things are much different: I have two young host-siblings, a 2-year-old sister named Koharu and a 6-year-old brother named Kousei. They are both extremely active and want me to play with them, talk to them, etc. pretty much all the time. I think it's great and I like to give them attention but I've pretty much lost all privacy before 9 pm. I'm lucky the workload is minor.
Otherwise, the mother is super nice and the father is a cool, worldly guy and I get along quite well with all of them. No complaints.
Hm.
It's been so long that I've forgotten the sorts of things I say in these updates. I suppose I should mention places I've been to recently, but it's mostly been repeats or local things, so...
We went to Kyoto again and saw the bamboo forest of Arashiyama;
Absolutely stunning scenery and packed with people. Bamboo forests are just so much more serene than evergreens or otherwise, I don't know exactly what it is.we went to the Hatcho Miso factory in Okazaki;
The tour was a bit on the slow side (as soon as you figure out how miso is made it's all a bit dry) but the restaurant was amazing. I tried miso-flavoured ice cream, miso-flavoured gyoza, miso-flavoured beer, and miso-flavoured curry udon.I participated in a volleyball tournament at my school;
I was invited last minute as a sub, but I played for half the games and scored some devastating spikes. We didn't win but we won most of our games!we saw a meteor shower;
It happened just yesterday, near Orion. The falling stars were huge and bright, and I saw at least 8 of them. Gorgeous.Julian stopped by and we hung out for a day in Nagoya and Okazaki;
We discussed the differences in Asian cultures and countries, and ate kaitenzushi for lunch and tebasaki (and beer, of course) for dinner. I also taught him the basics of kendo.and various other things I'm forgetting or choosing not to mention, like neat shrines or shops/stores we happened upon.
Coming up we have Nagano, multiple Christmas/New Years parties, a drinking date with one of our teachers (a fabled sake master), an all-you-can-eat market appointment, Kyoto and Nara again, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Tokyo, and possibly a Buddhist mountain retreat.
I've been studying Kanji a lot... I find it so interesting, its history and components and usage all combined. It seems strange to me when I can read some sentences with Kanji in them, because I'm reading it as though the Kanji themselves are letters in an alphabet ("This one is typically 'tabe' but in this situation it's read as 'shoku' so the word is 'shokudou'"). As such, my reading and writing have greatly improved, my listening is coming along nicely as well, and as usual, my speaking hasn't really improved at all. Well, a little bit.
Because of my busy next few weeks I may be unreachable after a certain point. Feel free to comment below or e-mail me and let me know what's going on for Christmas or New Years in your neck of the woods and I'll make sure to read them all and do a big update in early January, when I get back to my homestay.
Pictures:
Kyoto
Random
Old pictures of me courtesy of the Katos, my first host family
Pictures of me being a gangsta
Picture of me high-fiving a ninja
Totoro, awesome! Everything I ever wanted.
ReplyDeleteHave a good Christmas and New Year bro, your updates are sick as Haitians.
You and your nerdy shirts. SO MANY. Does anyone ever bring any attention to them? At least the Ness-pattern shirt? I'd think it would ring a few bells for the people of Nippon.
ReplyDeleteThat hot-pot-looking thing has me dying with jealousy. I'd eat that shit every single day if I had the money or knowledge in prep. You are one lucky duck.
Also, I hope you have a good holiday time. Here will be fairly uneventful, besides sushi with friends, hanging with friends (oh Peter, lookin' at u~), being with family on the major days, and just trying to get un-sick. Might actually be making progress with that.
Oooh-AH.
Man, this is an awesome picture update. It has everything I like about the image component of this blog - Gorgeous Japanese architecture and nature, awesome animal statues/Totoro cutouts, food, crazy lighting, hilarious signs, gangsta Sean and ninja-high-fives.
ReplyDeleteI'm kinda curious about one thing. Do your host siblings play video games? I'm curious what Japanese kids are playing these days, seeing as over here they're basically all about the 360 and FPS games. Seeing as those aren't popular in Japan at all, what are they playing? How into it are they? I'm getting rather wistful, nostalgic, and creatively frustrated/generally oldfag about games these days.
One more request. I'm a little curious, and this might put you in danger of stepping deeper into livejournal territory, but I wouldn't mind a brief rundown of your Japanbros. A sort of mini-profile for everybody you're having fun with that ISN'T ME.
I tried to message you on Skype but I had been up for 30 hours and slept instead.
@Stefan: it's better than a brand name. And no, Japan isn't really the place where someone would randomly talk to you in the street. The best I've gotten for my Ness shirt is one of my friends (in Vancouver) saying "You look like Ness or something :I"
ReplyDeleteI have, however, been asked many times about my No Velociraptor Attacks shirt, and it's 10x as amusing to try and explain in Japanese than in English.
@Peter: my little bro plays Pokemon White on his DSi:LL. He only plays like, 20 minutes a day or something. It's regulated.
ReplyDeleteIn general though, people play games pretty casually. Pokemon games, rhythm games, and sim games are common, and the DS and PSP are always whipped out on the trains, but (normal) people don't really have it as a past-time: it's reserved for otaku. That's of course a sweeping generalization but it's what I've noticed.
Haven't really pierced the arcade scene yet. The only arcade I've been to with fighting boxes (no Third Strike or SSFIV though) was completely empty except for 2 old dudes playing virtual slots.
As for the second question, I spend a lot of time with my other two colleagues from Cap because it's easy to do so. We don't, like, *hang out*, but we take trips together and such.
I basically hang out with anyone in the school who I feel like talking to. Everyone knows us and they're all eager to have us join in with whatever they're doing. That's how I got into the badminton class and invited to the volleyball tourney and shit. I spend a lot of extra time at school just doing stuff like that.
Of course, we also have a group of friends (all girls) that we typically hang out with for parties and such, and a couple others who have decent English that we try and do things with. One of the latter, named Yuki, is taking us to Nagano.
And then there are the friends I met in Vancouver before I left whom I meet up with as often as possible. I'm pretty tight with my friend Mao in Kyoto and we have good times.
I hope my comment didn't seem offensive. I suppose the term "nerdy shirt" does seem fairly negative. Let me rephrase it and say that you have very many nerdy shirts, all of which are actually pretty cool, and given the chance, I'd wear in public. Not shit like this: http://images.paraorkut.com/img/pics/images/g/geek_tshirt-13812.jpg
ReplyDeleteThe Japanese shyness/politeness/etc. slipped my mind entirely. Should have known that had it rung any bells, people still most likely wouldn't approach you about it.
Also, once you pierce and explore the arcade scene some, and the majority are barren like the one you mentioned, my mind will be blown. I guess they all moved here to play their own games :|.
Miss uu~