Kyoto

What have I done lately? This week went by so quickly because I only had two classes. Natural world, we spent watching a video that was actually narrated in English. Then I had my Japanese writing class on Wednesday. We finished learning Hiragana and are about to move on to katakana.

Uh, it really is hard to think of what I did. Just the usual stuff. Had an anime night tonight. Made people watch Ouran High School Host Club. Christ likes it, Mitch didn't watch, Chris and Brian cringed a bit. I giggled. One of my favorite animes right there.

Then I left to shower and sleep. Ended up also packing and taking out the trash, then settling online to update this. We're leaving for Kyoto in 4.5 hours so I really need to get a move on with that sleeping thing. I'm not sure why it's so troublesome to manage.

The Kyoto trip seems like it'll involve a lot of tour busing. Friday and Saturday we have 6 hour tours to go on. We're taking the shinkansen to get there in the first place, which is the super fast bullet train. Friday night we have the group endless drink and food dinner, with the shabu-shabu hot pots as well. Saturday we're turned loose to find our own dinner. Sunday we get a lot of free time until the ride back home. We'll see how this trip goes. Should be fun

Update

So... haven't posted in a while again. Finally uploaded some images to help me figure out what I need to say. Though, I've already reached the limit in photobucket. Whoops.

Went to that festival with people. Then we went to this castle during a night bike ride. Got back just in time for a group picture of the dorm. Saturday I had class in the morning but the vocab quiz was postponed so I don't have to worry about it again for a while, since I don't have that class this week. Then we went to a Softbank Hawks baseball game. We left because it was 4 to 1 and we were losing and Brian was restless. So we went to the mall next door and shopped around, and later found out that they'd pulled off a comeback win. Also missed out on taking pictures on the baseball field, which kind of bothered me, but I guess it's alright.

We did something at midnight, got back and found out people were deciding to head out at 3am to bike to a park. So we joined in, which meant me, Chris, Christ, Brian, Abdul, Alecs, Aliyah, Edwina, Jennifer, Roxane, and maybe a couple more I'm blanking on went out. The park was crazy. The first one had an Eiffel Tower of ropes to climb up. The second had rope bridges and tunnels that skinned us up as we raced through them. We played freeze tag on the playground and you couldn't touch the ground so it was tough.

Then we decided to bike to a place to watch the sunrise and lost everyone but Brian, Aliyah, Chris, Christ, and myself. On the way we heard a dog barking ahead from the dark, Christ panicked and screamed to run for it, and we realized a short while later that it was just a puppy that wanted attention. We got to the beach and sat on a wall to watch the sun come up, then headed off to a pancake place only to find that they only offered a breakfast buffet at that time and it didn't involve pancakes. So we left and returned home to sleep.

Woke up, did stuff. I hardly remember what. No class Monday so we slept in, then biked to Tenjin and went shopping. Chris bought a bike so he could go with us without constantly borrowing. Me and Mitch stocked up a bit on Mountain Dew because there's a machine in Tenjin with it. I have three cans in my fridge now. About to meet to watch either Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle because several people haven't seen it. Not sure whose room we're going to do it in, so I have to go check that out.

I thought I only had class Tuesday this week, but I have one on Wednesday too. I forgot that I have two different Japanese teachers then and only one canceled. Oh well, that's still not too bad.

Blah

Haven't done much lately. Haven't uploaded pictures either. That'll be done sometime that is not now.

Just wanted to say that I went to a festival the other day. It was just rows and rows of tents selling food, merchandise, or games. There were a couple haunted houses, but we didn't go in. Aki and Shin took us, so we had real Japanese guides to show us around and help us navigate the train. It wasn't as bad as the fireworks one getting home. We weren't stuffed in and squeezed front to back, since then everyone had left at once and here people just left when they felt like it.

There was a shrine at the festival too.

Uh... I bought a bike today. Almost everyone in the I-House has one, and if you don't, you get left behind. People bike to Tenjin now. That saves us 500 yen every time. An hour walk there is 20 minutes on bike. We're more inclined to go out to places because biking is so much faster. It's pretty great. I'll let anyone who cares to try guess the color of the bike I got. It's awesome and I want to take it home somehow. But it sucks going uphill.

Then we went to this place with a giant USA flag above the door. It was Texas themed. The waitress wore a cowboy hat, as did the cooks, and they served steak and burgers. Except, the burgers had no buns, and both were served on a bed of bean sprouts. Otherwise, it could've passed as a resemblance of home, though it definitely tasted great. My burger slab had cheese cooked right in.

Next we did homework, watched a Very Potter Musical Sequel, I showered, and now I'm about to crawl into bed.

Not sure what the plans are tomorrow. Class and then paying my rent at the bank. Dinner somewhere, bed... then wake up for Saturday classes. Japan sucks in that regard. You don't tip, everything can be biked or walked to, tons of other cool things, but you have to make up missed classes on Saturday, even when the teacher is the reason they were canceled in the first place. Another thing is, I don't think you can take home leftovers from restaurants. I've never seen anyone do it.

Oh, but classes are canceled on the 20th and 23rd for holidays. Then Friday we're leaving for Kyoto at 7:50am so we're skipping that day of classes as well. I hope we won't have to make those up...

Update

So, haven't posted in some time now. Haven't done too much really. Friday was spent lazing around. We played a lot of Brawl mostly. Saturday we biked to Tenjin, but biking was difficult and I was left behind for a long while. Caught up and they immediately said "Ashley's here, now we can leave!" We'd gone to a book store. But, I went inside with Brian and Chris and got manga adaptions of Miyazaki's Spirited Away since they had the whole set and each book was $1 about. The rest of the group went to eat nearby, so then we headed off to return to the dorm.



Everyone has a bike. I kind of feel like I need one too because if you're walking and everyone else is riding, you're left behind and ignored. But, I won't until I found out some things, like if I get to stay for the year.

There, me, Chris, and Brian gathered up Christian, who'd had to give up on the bike trip 'cause his tire had a hole, and we went to some crowded, noisy Japanese food place. After a late night swim at the beach to follow and a couple card games, we headed to bed.



Sunday... another lazy day? I hardly remember doing anything. Just went to Sunny for food. Didn't even bother eating out.

Monday, had my single Beginning Japanese class of the day. Lunch in the cafeteria. Around 5 we headed to the public library to see what it's like. It was closed so we decided to walk to this pretty far off mall to look for food. Ended up being a shopping mall with only two food choices; an expensive cafe, or McDonalds. We finally caved and ate at McDonalds. I have to say, it wasn't bad. We got big burgers and lots of fries, but small drinks. I had a teriyaki burger, and it was wonderful. Then we walked to the closer mall because I'd found a hat I wanted and we wanted to find a cheaper one. We ended up finding the same exact hat for a bit less, so I bought it. couldn't help myself. I've been searching for a hat for forever.



Umm... Then we headed back and watched Pirates of the Caribbean 1 while Brian and Christ decided they wanted to straighten my hair. And now bed.

Hmm

What have I dooone lately? Uh, Thursday. Thursday is my long day. I start at nine and end at.. something. But today my last class was canceled. Normally that'd be awesome, except here when a class is canceled, it's made up on a Saturday. So I'm not very thrilled about that.

I'm supposed to go to some free baseball game on the 18th, but I have two make up classes that day and I have no idea what time any of those three things start at.

Christ keeps braiding my hair, begging me to seriously dress as Laura Croft, so that may be more than just something I say and never return to.

At some point I played badmitten with Chris and all of the French kids (Corallie, Brice, Linda, Thibaut). Andrey and Alecs joined in later, but it was pretty awesome fun.

That day we also went to an Italian place for some food resembling home. We tried to find the source of the good smelling place the day before that and ended up at an Indian place.



Forms are due tomorrow to extend my stay here to a year. Waiting to hear back from my school if there is room for me to do that. Meanwhile, I'm turning in what I have ready tomorrow to the office. Er, I guess it's today now. I'm not really sure how the time passes so quickly. We go do homework in someone's room and suddenly it's 4am. It's only 3 right now though. But, we're already talking about how miserable we'll be back home after all the stuff we're constantly doing here. Uugghh...

ANYWAY. Tonight we tried something new for dinner. I had my first sushi! We went to the conveyor belt places, where the sushi goes by and you grab what you want. Though, we kind of just ordered specifically what we wanted. I had 2 tempura, other shrimp, and tankotsu, which is pork. Each plate had two sushi on it and it was pretty awesome. The tempura was my favorite, followed by the pork, because both of those were warm and cooked, not cold and raw.



On the way out, we noticed an ABC Mart in the mall and rushed over. Christ and I had made a deal to buy awesome shoes at some point before heading home. Well, we did. The ones I got were on sale for about half off, putting them at around $31, which I thought wasn't too bad all things considered. Besides, they're awesome.



Let's see... after that is when we got back and jumped right into homework. I have three classes tomorrow, one of which involves a presentation on America's health problems.

Heading to bed now... but first one more picture.

Lazy Day

Today I did nothing. We went nowhere. I went to class, then sat in my room until I was retrieved. We went to a little shop while waiting for others to end class. There was one of those seats with the storage space inside, so I peeked in... and there was a helmet with a head inside it in the seat. It was terrifying.

Then we gathered up people and went to find the source of a good smell we often walk by. We ended up at an Indian place. There seem to be quite a few around. While there, we realized that Chris says baggle instead of bagel. He followed the scene perfectly, so much that I first thought he was faking it. "You're saying bagel wrong." "No, I'm saying it the same way you are!" "Bagel." "Yeah, baggle!"

If you don't know what I mean, watch this.



Anyway, we watched the last Lord of the Rings movie, then Christ braided my hair and begged me to dress as Laura Croft or whatever from Tomb Raider for Halloween because my hair's so long. Meanwhile, Brian was staring fixedly at me as he examined me and envisioned the type of make over he wants me to try. Apparently he's really good at dressing up girls, and I'm his newest target.

I also need money to pay for my dorm, and for my school to reply to my email so I can extend my stay, because they haven't and I feel lost and nervous. I need to get this stuff turned in.

Oh, and that typhoon that was supposed to hit? We got like.. a little gust of wind and sprinkled showers of rain.

Typhoons

So apparently it's Typhoon season, and one's supposed to hit tonight and continue on pouring well into tomorrow. We have to watch the school website to see if it causes a class cancellation. Though here, that just means it'll be made up on a Saturday. Still, everyone's hoping for it. The eye of the storm was supposed to go right over us, but then it veered off, so I don't really think we'll get such horrible weather that classes will be called off. Though, I can hear the wind hitting at my window a bit.

Anyway, today was... uneventful? Had Japanese class again. We had to answer questions into a microphone and it was recorded so we could listen to it later or something and compare to how much we've improved. We also had a quiz and I think I did pretty well on it. We'll see on Wednesday, probably. Tomorrow all I have is Natural World.

But after class we went to Tenjin, where we ended up eating at a burger place. I found out I can't handle greasy foods anymore, or something. It upset my tummy pretty badly. Anyway, while we were eating we heard this man suddenly go "GAIJIN" really loudly, which means foreigner, so all our heads jerked around toward him. Then he asked where we were from. We said America, and he replied with "I thought all Americans were large". I guess that's a compliment..? It surprised us, in any case. It was an older man with a college looking kid with him.



Christ looked at shoes and we decided we're going to someday buy horribly colorful shoes for ourselves, Brian bought a shirt, and I got mountain dew from a vending machine to take back. Only got two though.

Then we ended up watching Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, to continue from the first that we watched last week or something. It's now pretty late and I've showered and am ready for bed. So goodnight!

Fireworks, Shrines, and Extensions

So, Saturday... What did I do? Nothing really. Woke up, went with Christ to Hotto Motto for lunch. It's an obento (lunch box) place. Um... oh! I went to a fireworks festival. The cost and time of travel wasn't really equivalent to the fireworks though. Like, we left at 6pm and got back.. probably closer to midnight? But they were neat. They had huge ones and the hundreds of people there would make sounds of awe in union at every one of them. Some fireworks were smiley faces or heart shaped too.



But you know how you always hear about people being stuffed onto Japanese trains and things? It was like that. There were a ton of people there and no room on the train. So a girl grabbed my bag to make sure I stayed with them and pulled me onto the train behind them, where I was squished up against two people; Jeff and some random Japanese guy, with a random girl pushed into my back. It was really awkward, since with the train's constantly stopping and going, everyone on board would rock and sway into everyone else. It was really hot and awkward and scary.

Anyway, instead of going to bed after getting back so late, I got online, Skyped a little about extending my stay to a year, and then was dragged off to the beach, at midnight, to go swimming. It was actually a lot of fun. We stayed for a few hours. More I-House people kept showing up. We swam and joked until we realized we were freezing and finally headed back. But not before Alecs had dug a massive hole and we'd buried Christ in it.



Then, a 3am Sunny's run left us with various sweet breads and sugar highs, so we watched TV on someone's computer and finally crashed around 5:30am.

Then today, Sunday, we woke up and went with Christ's friend Eri to a shrine. Chris came along too, as well as one of Eri's friends. We met at the dorm, then hopped on various trains and ended up at an Italian place for lunch. Then we got on another train and went to the shrine, where there was also a museum. We prayed at the shrine for good luck and drew fortunes. I got the littlest amount of luck so I had to tie mine up with others in the hopes it'd increase later, or something. It was actually really cool though. Christ and Chris both got the luckiest luck so they kept theirs on them.



We also tried mochi, which is kind of like this stretchy, chewy rice paste/dough filled with bean paste. It was alright.

For more pictures, visit this album.

Got back, hung out in the lobby then met on my floor's lounge to work on homework. I realized quickly that I'd accidentally already done mine thinking it was due my previous class on Friday so all I had to do was study. But there's kind of a lot, though I know large chunks of it already. We have our first lesson quiz today. I'm not really sure why I'm still awake.

We all studied together for quite a long time until I realized I was falling asleep and left. But taking out my contacts always makes me briefly feel wide awake again so I'm waiting for that feeling to pass and uploading more pictures. Hooray?

Seriously working on the steps to extend my stay for a year. I remember having complications trying to get the proof of my money last time so I guess I really need to get on that again.

Friday~~

Title says Friday but this was made Saturday. I guess that's alright. Um, yesterday marked the completion of our first full week of class. I had Japanese in the morning first, because Health was canceled since the teacher's at a conference in.. Hong Kong? Or something. All the professors seem to be constantly wandering off on conferences around the world.

After Japanese was manga class, though we didn't watch a movie so it was kind of a let down and more boring than last week's. Disappointment.

It's like... 2:30pm here right now. I'm about to head downstairs and see what people are doing, if anything. Or maybe I'll just wait for Christ to answer my mail asking the same question.

Oh, I'm already regretting the decision to return the futon. It actually did help. The bed was still hard with it, but without the mattress is a rock and it's painful. I'm pretty sure I have some bruises from laying on it. I wonder if some place would have cheap bed pad things that I could get... I might have to check on that later. Haven't yet paid my dorm rent and stuff for this month either, but I did withdraw the money to get it done so I may do that today too.

Still debating the one year thing, though I'm running out of time to submit it. I may, I may not. I don't know.

Canal City II

So, went back to Canal City. Mitch and Christ hadn't gone, and apparently neither had Jeremy so they all came too. We ended up with a group of ten or so, 'til Robin mysteriously disappeared.

I was in class all day. 9am to 6:20pm. I am exhausted and I still have a CD to listen to. But it'll be really easy so I'm taking a blog/picture post/shower break. So I started with psychology, chapel break, beginning Japanese I, lunch break, intercultural communications, beginning Japanese III, and finally ended with economics. Apparently we're taking a trip to Nagasaki that day, so that should be cool. The communications class is going to this big rival baseball match between schools or something too, but it's over the weekend, as an extra thing. We were all excited to go until we realized it's the Sunday we'll be in Kyoto. Oh well, I guess.

After class we went to the dorm, swapped books for cameras, and headed back out. So, took the subway back to Canal City. It's the stop after Tenjin, and it starts with a G, but I keep forgetting what it's called. Goin, maybe? I'm not sure. But we started with the Pokemon Center again where some people stocked up. I got a Jirachi 'cause it's super cute. Jeremy got one, and three others including Roark and Arceus. I forget what the last was.



Um, then we wandered the mall a bit. Canal City is a giant mall, by the way. We found a store full of Miyazaki stuff from all his movies and I finally got my phone a keychain strap thing. I am no longer a social outcast! Mine is the cat with the strawberry that's on the far left of this picture:



Christian got one of the little forest sprite things from Princess Mononoke.

We ended up getting ramen, which I'm kind of getting tired off. It had a strong smell too, and not in a good way. That's where Robin disappeared. He's allergic to meat or something, and ramen's cooked in fish.. broth or something like that. But instead of saying he was going, he just vanished. He was lurking outside and then poofed. I haven't seen him since and am assuming he made it home.



We finally left a while later too, then had a mini-study party of me, Chris, Christ, and Brian in Brian's room. I did all my homework except for the CD listening, since Brian's laptop doesn't have a CD drive for some reason.

I'm on Skype right now kind of lingering to see if anyone will get online. This blog's time settings are wrong and I need to fix it, but it's currently just about 2:30am on Friday morning. I need to shower after this, then listen to the CD real quick and get to bed. I don't have class until 1pm tomorrow, but I'm meeting people for lunch at noon. I also have to pay this month's rent and fees tomorrow or so too.

More pictures here.

Canal City

Guys, I update every day and I can't help it. It's become a before bed habit.

Anyway, today I woke up and went to my second ever beginner Japanese class. She moves really fast, but I'm sort of maybe catching on? At least with numbers and time I can do it. Not sure about sentence structure order and stuff, but I'll get it. Every one of my closer friends here seem to be in the other classes, pre-intermediate, intermediate, and advanced, so I can ask for their help. A couple Japanese people have offered help if needed too, so I'll be fine.

After class I got back and did my homework in the lobby with Chris' help for part and did the rest myself. Then it was announced everyone was heading to Canal City, Corallie said that I was coming, so I did. It was awesome. This giant mall with a stream of sorts running through it. There's a pokemon center too. Amazing. People split up, deciding to go shop and eat and meet back at 8:30pm. Then they realized it closed at 8pm. So we told them we'd head on since the food places around seemed expensive. We looked around for food, got all the way back to the subway, and then realized some people wanted to go back home to have ramen, which we do every day almost. So three went on back and six stayed.



That Growlithe is the first thing I bought for myself that wasn't necessary for living.

We ended up going back to the mall, since the food places there actually stayed open 'til around 11pm or so. We picked this Korean place and all ate together. Me, Corallie, Jeff, Roxane, Nancy (Wing Wa), and Jenny and we had a pretty awesome time. I think we had at least 20 people come initially and it's hard to do anything with so many people. Most food places seem to be small and can't accommodate us all and it's hard to decide on things to do. So a group of six was perfect.



I had like.. a veggie plate. Four pieces of meat, tons of mushrooms and onions and stuff. I ate it all but there wasn't much.

After that we stopped by a crepe place we'd passed a million times and there was a discount if you got a crepe and a drink. So I got a chocolate brownie/ice cream one with a melon soda and they were both super amazing.

Then we found a random shrine so we stopped to take pictures and they closed the door behind us so we got there just in time for closing. In, pictures, out. Done.



More pictures can be found at this link.

Finally returned to the dorm and I joined Brian and Christ in watching music videos. Ended up switching to playing Robot Unicorn Attack. I set the bar at 50,000 and we called it a night soon after. I'm in every single class tomorrow. Starting at 9am, ending at 6:20pm. I get breaks from 10:30-11am and 12:40-1:30pm and that's it. Japanese psychology and society, beginning Japanese, intercultural communication, beginning Japanese, and Japanese economy. I hope I don't get a ton of homework. Um, we recently parted for bed. Chris scared the crap out of me and Christ because we're still freaked over that movie. I screamed, Jeremy, Justin, Andrey, and Mitch all came out of their rooms to see who was dying, I apologized and now I'm in my room. I wish I could've seen their faces to see how mad they were because I don't have my contacts in right now. I'll apologize again tomorrow...

Have to pay rent tomorrow too so I need to withdraw some money for that and pay it. Our t-shirt design came in and is amazing so we're turning that in for the final order tomorrow too. Then we're going to Canal City again since Christ didn't get to go and we'll need a break after the solid day of classes. I think he's in all but one or two also. There's also some phone keychains at the pokemon center and we're in desperate need of them since without them we're social abominations.

And, that's it. I'm going to bed because I have to be up in 7 hours.