Already more than two months! I can't believe how fast they went. And sorry, I've been reprimanded for not updating.
Observation: People go all out dressing for whatever activity they're doing. A while ago I went to an acorn cookie-making thing with Mayuko, my oldest sister, and Yuzuki, the 10-year-old, at a really big park at Osaka. It was fun, we went on a short walk and collected acorns, then made cookies out of them at picnic tables with tabletop grills. The weather was awesome. But anyway, the walk was like 15 minutes, mostly on a sidewalk, but at one point going about 20 feet off trail onto some grass. Not intense. But people had full out hiking gear, like boots, khaki hiking pants, big backpacks, and those hats with neck flaps. Goodness. I've noticed this a lot with running, too. Almost everyone looks like they're dressed for a 20+ mile run, which maybe some are but I highly doubt everyone is. Even when it was hot out, many people had long sleeve tech shirts and tights under tech running shirts and shorts, and lots of various leg braces. And then full running belts or even Camelbaks. I feel very plain in my shorts and cotton t-shirt, but they work just fine.
Soo what have I been up to? A lot apparently since the last post... my bad. First there was the acorn-cookie thing in the park. After it was over we walked around the park and found a "free market" (although we had to pay to get in), which was a large parking lot full of people with tarps and tents, selling pretty much anything, like a giant yard sale. Lots of old clothes, shoes, accessories, toys, crafts, and other random stuff. So that was interesting, it seemed more like things I've seen in other countries, not something I'd expect in Japan. After that we found a little place in the park that gave free 10 minute hot lavender water foot soaks. We had to wait a little bit, then were given the choice of a pretty outdoor pool or a hut with a trough in it. We chose the hut because it was sunny out. So that was also cool, and felt really nice :)
My class returned from France! Yay. They brought me chocolates, cookies, and sweet chestnut paste ^_^ It seemed very fun, but they were all tired. There were mixed reactions to the food; everyone loved the bread, but most people weren't big fans of the other things, some recognizing that while it was probably good, they weren't used to it. They visited a school and were surprised by the lack of uniforms and said that everyone was very expressive. Unfortunately there was apparently a fight between the girls in my class, not open but the subtle girl kind. So now they're friendly on the surface, but don't eat lunch all together like they used to, which is annoying because now I have to keep switching around to still be friends with everyone. Drama. It's nice though, I'm starting to form more actual friendships, not just the initial, "yay an American!" ones. And my Japanese is steadily improving, so it's getting easier to communicate. Now I can understand a good amount of what people are saying to me, because they use easy Japanese. I still can barely understand when they talk to each other, though, but I can sort of grasp the subject.
The following weekend was the main weekend for danjiri festivals, although I think they'd been happening in different areas for the past few weeks. Each neighborhood or something, I'm not quite sure, has it's own festival, which I believe celebrates it's founding? Feel free to look it up, I don't have wifi at the moment. Mine ran for three days, Friday through Sunday, and I went Friday and Saturday nights. Mainly, there are wooden floats carried on poles by about 30 guys, who look like they're dying from the weight. I think I noticed a rotation system to give them some relief. I've also seen pictures of other festivals where the floats were on wheels and pulled by ropes. There are four children in the float, beating a drum, and a couple people on top. I'll get pictures up on Facebook at some point. Each float has a large entourage, with girls following behind with big fans, people to keep the crowd back, and maybe some other random people to help chant. Everyone wears a special outfit, with traditional-like pants and shirt and cloth rubber-soled shoes with a split separating the big toe from the others. Each float has different patterns on their clothing, and I think different outfits on different days. All the girls' hair is super intense, cornrowed and braided and teased. One of my classmates said her hair took four hours. I was surprised by all the dyed hair, since Kenmei doesn't allow dyeing, and I guess I haven't seen large gatherings of young people elsewhere. Along with the spectrum of brown to blonde, there was green, blue, orange, red, purple, and probably more. It was like a rainbow of heads. I felt kind of left out, until I realized that my hair is already light. At one float, two of the lifters were Westerners who were head and shoulders taller than me, and I was blown away by their height. I forgot people could be that tall! Most people are at most half a head taller than me, but I don't really notice because everyone is and I can't see myself in comparison. These guys looked like giants.
On Friday night, each float paraded through the streets and ended in a small square a block from my house. There they chanted and lifted the float up and down and moved in circles, which I think they also did periodically while they were parading. Then each moved into a large cubby for the night, followed by confetti, streamers, balloons, or smoke. Afterwards, all the people involved helped sweep up, and somehow seeing all the guys with little brooms struck me as very Japanese. On one side of the square there were also a handful of old-fashioned and well-used looking booths selling food, toys, and old-fashioned games. I played one where I had to catch as many goldfish as I could with a paper scoop before it fell apart. The guy took pity on me and gave me a second free one and some tips.
On Saturday, I think they paraded throughout the day. They were out practicing when I left for school and a number of my classmates were absent. They had been practicing for weeks. Hannah, the girl from Florida, said she lives right next to a building where they practiced, and she could hear the drums and chanting when she woke up and when she went to sleep. On Saturday night the floats were all in a circle drive area, and they moved around and did the same things as Friday, lifting up and down and turning around. Also, the people on top threw towels out to the crowd (I'm telling you, they're everywhere). Some people gave speeches, too, but I had no idea what they were saying. We didn't stay as long on Saturday because the weather suddenly changed, getting cold.
Around this time I discovered my great love for omu-rice. It's tomato sauce-based fried rice with an omelette on top, served with ketchup. Not strictly Japanese but soo good.
That Saturday I also had my first traditional tea ceremony lesson. I think Yuzuki was also a beginner, and we mostly learned how to accept someone else serving us and how to fold some cloths that we'll use while making the tea. My host family is so great at giving me all these cultural experiences.
On Sunday, I went to Universal Studios Japan with the other Rotary Inbounds and Rotex. I found that one of the Rotex actually goes to Kenmei, so that's nice. It was fun and great to spend time with them, but a busy day to go to USJ. We only got to two rides, both with two hour lines. It's amazing how standardized these places are all over the world, it looked so American. I'm sure I'll go back; it's a main place to go in Osaka.
The next week was test week, where the students took two or three tests in the morning, then left by lunch time. This seemed kind of mean right after their France trip; I think they should have switched them. It meant a fun week for us exchange students though! The first two days we played a surprisingly fun role-playing game with one of the American teachers. Thursday we watched Princess Mononoke and Friday we actually worked, which is kind of a first when we're all in the English Lounge together. We wrote responses to Princess Mononoke, in Japanese, and it was actually kind of fun. And then there was a two day weekend, hooray.
That week I also had a wonderful visit from Suma, a family friend, who had a workshop in Nagoya and was nice enough to come see me in Osaka. She stayed a night with my host family, and it was a fun evening for everyone. Yukiko performed the tea ceremony, Yuzuki did her odori routine (traditional dance), and Suma gave all the females henna, which they loved. My classmates were all very interested in mine, so I taught them about it, too. She also brought stuff from home, so now I can make a pumpkin pie with the canned pumpkin she brought :)
On Sunday, Hirona, Yuzuki, and I went to a special program about dolphins at Osaka's big aquarium. It was cool, we watched them being fed and got to pet and feed them ourselves. We also made toys and then threw them all in the water hoping the dolphins would bite them and drag them around, which they sometimes did. The trainers can't really instruct them to play, though. But still, I pet a dolphin!
This week wasn't terribly eventful, but everyone got their tests back. I think tests are harder here... I don't know about the other subjects, but the class averages for the math tests were about 40, and I think the other subjects were similar. So it was considered good if the score was in the 50's, and really good if it was higher. Scores in the 20s and 30s were common. It was weird because at Uni, most people get at least a 70 on tests, and many people in the 80s and 90s. So I don't know what's up with that.
Tomorrow is Kenmei's bazaar, which I don't really understand yet, but should be fun! These school events, like the shureisai, are apparently the prime time for romance, which I noticed at the shureisai, but now am really noticing. Like the two weeks leading up to an event I guess is just a good time to confess to your love, and new couples form. It's great, Gabbi and I are thoroughly enjoying all the drama. Her friends do things like eating their bentos during the morning break so they can go buy bread at lunch, just in case their third year sempai crushes see them there. Hannah actually got a boyfriend, and apparently the teachers saw them holding hands and they're all very worried for her because she's an important person. I did my best not to crack up as one of them was telling her about their concern.
I felt my first homesickness the past couple weeks, as the weather got colder and reminded me of fall things. Again, morning is always the worse, but then like magic everything always gets better by lunch time. And there's always someone to hug. So, still doing ok.
Sorry for the lateness and length!
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Rotary Adventures (Misadventures?)
Rotary things! In the past two weeks, I had my first district conference, finally getting to meet my fellow inbounds, and gave my big presentation about my life in America to my club. Neither went exactly as planned, but I took it all with a smile and it was just fine.
On the day of my district inbound orientation, my host family was all busy so I had to navigate the train system for the first time by myself. I had to change trains three times, and I just knew something was going to go wrong. It was all fine until my last changing, where I had to switch to a different train of the same line that branched off to where I was going. I barely had any time to switch, so I wasn't able to check very well which train I was getting on, so I ended up just switching from the express I had been riding to the local train, instead of the special branch line. I realized at the next stop, and didn't stress out or anything, but I lost time waiting 15 minutes for a train back the other way. I then had some trouble finding the actual building, and had to ask a few times, but eventually I got there, only about ten minutes late.
I walked in to a girl singing the Mexican national anthem, karaoke style, and then a girl singing the German anthem. I wasn't looking forward to "The Star-Spangled Banner," but apparently I had missed it, so I didn't have to. Then the chairman said, "ok, now please give your three minute speech reconfirming why you want to be here, and your plans for the year, in Japanese," and I noticed that all the other inbounds had full sheets of paper, covered in writing. That was a nasty surprise. So I whispered to the nice Rotex next to me, "uhhh no one told me about a speech..." and she and a nice man on my other side helped me quickly scribble something. I was third, so there wasn't much time, but I did my best and thankfully this not getting nervous about public speaking thing has been holding, so it was ok but way worse than everyone else's. I later found out that the chairman had emailed everyone the week before, but he had my address wrong so I didn't get anything.
The chairman then gave a lovely welcoming speech about how if we even broke one rule, we'd be sent home, and then I finally got to talk to the other students. There are six others, from Minnesota, Ohio, Mexico, Germany, Indonesia, and Australia, all with good English. The girl from Australia has already been here six months, so she can show us around. They're all girls except the boy from Minnesota, and I really like all of them and am excited to spend more time with them. It was sad because some of them met on Saturday, but I had SCHOOL and couldn't go :P Even though everyone's in France anyway and Gabbi was gone. Actually it was really random, instead of studying like usual we watched a movie, in English, about the Holocaust, then wrote an essay about it. So cheerful. While everyone else was out having fun. Anyway, the Rotary meeting ended fairly quickly, and my club counselor was very nice and gave me a ride home.
This Monday I met with my host club for the second time, to give my PowerPoint presentation about myself, and that got off to another rocky start. This time there were no problems with the train, the meeting was only two stops away from my station. However, there were great problems in the hotel, trying to find the room. First I went to the third floor, where it was last time, but no one was there. So I went down to the desk to ask, and was told to go outside to the adjoining building. I went there, and the ground floor was just a small lobby with elevators, so I took one to the eighth floor, which was the first one accessible by elevator, realizing I had no idea which floor it was on. The eighth floor was just a few blank halls with blank doors and no one around, so I decided to go back down and over to the desk to ask which floor it was. The guy called over a lady to help me, and we went back over to the adjoining building. She read the signs, put me an elevator telling me to go to the eighth floor, and left. So I went back up to the totally blank floor and decided to open a door, which happened to be the door to the Sakai Rotary Club office, but not meeting. Soo I went back to the main hotel side to the third floor again, because I had seen some people there before. I found some other important looking event, with cameras and people wearing sashes, definitely not my meeting, but I asked the hotel staff outside where the Rotary one was. So one of them went with me to the desk again, but this time asked someone who actually knew and was able to point me to the fourth floor this time, where I finally found my meeting. They could not understand how I had gotten lost in the hotel for 25 minutes, but it happened. Thankfully the meeting hadn't started yet, I was just supposed to get there early to set up my presentation. So I tried to do that, but it turned out my host family's big laptop that I had lugged around only had 8% battery left, and it died while I was setting up. Luckily the presentation was on a flash drive, so this awesome butler dude who had been helping with the projector was able to find a different laptop somewhere. The presentation itself went ok I think, but I had to give it mostly in English because I don't know enough Japanese. My counselor helped translate, but I feel like a lot was lost. Oh well. They gave me some adorable little towels as a thank you, so Japanese. I think my club and counselor are mostly amused by me and all my mishaps, so that's good. However, they were all a little concerned about me going home alone, which I did just fine, thank you.
On the day of my district inbound orientation, my host family was all busy so I had to navigate the train system for the first time by myself. I had to change trains three times, and I just knew something was going to go wrong. It was all fine until my last changing, where I had to switch to a different train of the same line that branched off to where I was going. I barely had any time to switch, so I wasn't able to check very well which train I was getting on, so I ended up just switching from the express I had been riding to the local train, instead of the special branch line. I realized at the next stop, and didn't stress out or anything, but I lost time waiting 15 minutes for a train back the other way. I then had some trouble finding the actual building, and had to ask a few times, but eventually I got there, only about ten minutes late.
I walked in to a girl singing the Mexican national anthem, karaoke style, and then a girl singing the German anthem. I wasn't looking forward to "The Star-Spangled Banner," but apparently I had missed it, so I didn't have to. Then the chairman said, "ok, now please give your three minute speech reconfirming why you want to be here, and your plans for the year, in Japanese," and I noticed that all the other inbounds had full sheets of paper, covered in writing. That was a nasty surprise. So I whispered to the nice Rotex next to me, "uhhh no one told me about a speech..." and she and a nice man on my other side helped me quickly scribble something. I was third, so there wasn't much time, but I did my best and thankfully this not getting nervous about public speaking thing has been holding, so it was ok but way worse than everyone else's. I later found out that the chairman had emailed everyone the week before, but he had my address wrong so I didn't get anything.
The chairman then gave a lovely welcoming speech about how if we even broke one rule, we'd be sent home, and then I finally got to talk to the other students. There are six others, from Minnesota, Ohio, Mexico, Germany, Indonesia, and Australia, all with good English. The girl from Australia has already been here six months, so she can show us around. They're all girls except the boy from Minnesota, and I really like all of them and am excited to spend more time with them. It was sad because some of them met on Saturday, but I had SCHOOL and couldn't go :P Even though everyone's in France anyway and Gabbi was gone. Actually it was really random, instead of studying like usual we watched a movie, in English, about the Holocaust, then wrote an essay about it. So cheerful. While everyone else was out having fun. Anyway, the Rotary meeting ended fairly quickly, and my club counselor was very nice and gave me a ride home.
This Monday I met with my host club for the second time, to give my PowerPoint presentation about myself, and that got off to another rocky start. This time there were no problems with the train, the meeting was only two stops away from my station. However, there were great problems in the hotel, trying to find the room. First I went to the third floor, where it was last time, but no one was there. So I went down to the desk to ask, and was told to go outside to the adjoining building. I went there, and the ground floor was just a small lobby with elevators, so I took one to the eighth floor, which was the first one accessible by elevator, realizing I had no idea which floor it was on. The eighth floor was just a few blank halls with blank doors and no one around, so I decided to go back down and over to the desk to ask which floor it was. The guy called over a lady to help me, and we went back over to the adjoining building. She read the signs, put me an elevator telling me to go to the eighth floor, and left. So I went back up to the totally blank floor and decided to open a door, which happened to be the door to the Sakai Rotary Club office, but not meeting. Soo I went back to the main hotel side to the third floor again, because I had seen some people there before. I found some other important looking event, with cameras and people wearing sashes, definitely not my meeting, but I asked the hotel staff outside where the Rotary one was. So one of them went with me to the desk again, but this time asked someone who actually knew and was able to point me to the fourth floor this time, where I finally found my meeting. They could not understand how I had gotten lost in the hotel for 25 minutes, but it happened. Thankfully the meeting hadn't started yet, I was just supposed to get there early to set up my presentation. So I tried to do that, but it turned out my host family's big laptop that I had lugged around only had 8% battery left, and it died while I was setting up. Luckily the presentation was on a flash drive, so this awesome butler dude who had been helping with the projector was able to find a different laptop somewhere. The presentation itself went ok I think, but I had to give it mostly in English because I don't know enough Japanese. My counselor helped translate, but I feel like a lot was lost. Oh well. They gave me some adorable little towels as a thank you, so Japanese. I think my club and counselor are mostly amused by me and all my mishaps, so that's good. However, they were all a little concerned about me going home alone, which I did just fine, thank you.
Shureisai and More
Lots has happened! My school festival, first Rotary inbound orientation, and the departure of my entire school grade to France. Except me and six others.
First more observations!
Food is a really big deal here. There are many TV shows about food, not just about cooking, but watching people eat. These just make me hungry. A common conversational question I get is what I had for dinner the day before. Whenever I eat anything in school, everyone asks if it tastes good. There's a focus on all food being delicious and pretty.
There are no stop signs! Instead, there are just white lines painted on the ground, often with とまれ (tomare, stop). Also there aren't many sidewalks, only on main roads. Pedestrians and bikers just walk in the road, on either side. I think I'm figuring out some biking etiquette, though, in that if someone is biking at you on the wrong side of the road, you have to go around them. I'm surprised there aren't more accidents. Actually, a middle school boy from Kenmei was recently hit by a car and killed as he was biking home from school, so that was really tragic.
The shureisai, my school festival! I had heard much about school festivals before coming, and knew they are a huge deal and everyone puts in a lot of effort preparing for them. However, it was totally different than I expected, and honestly a little underwhelming. I knew that my class was making popcorn, and we worked after school for a week and spent the whole day before making decorations for our classroom. I imagined that most of the festival would be like a fair, moving between the different classrooms. I knew the dance club and some other clubs had been preparing performances, and I pictured everyone watching these outside or something.
Instead, on the first day (it was two days) we all filed into the auditorium, and I had to sit in the very last row because the rest was all full. Happily two very nice friends stayed with me. I thought there would just be a couple opening things, but instead we sat in there all day, from 9am-4:30pm, with a break for lunch. Mostly the middle school classes performed dance numbers or skits, and one did a really cool puppet show. The skits were apparently funny, but unfortunately I couldn't understand them so they were lost on me. In the dance numbers, there were always one or two people who knew what they were doing, and then everyone else who looked like they had been unwillingly dragged into it. There was one girl who kept trying to leave the stage, but was pushed back on. I think I have been spoiled by the amazing talent show at the CSRYE conference in Grand Rapids, where everyone actually had impressive talent.
Then at some point in the morning, just as I was thinking how nice it was not being the one on the stage for once, Gabbi, Hannah and I were called up to give our comments on the festival. They had some poor boy try to translate our English, and the whole thing was very confusing.
The handbell choir was impressive though, I had never seen one of those. They played songs from Beauty and the Beast and Phantom of the Opera. The baton/cheer club was really good as well. The English Speaking Society gave brief presentations about tourist sites in Osaka, which I thought was cool but no one understood. Also, at the beginning of each day, their main English-speaking teacher, who is sort of in charge of us exchange students, would shout, "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Kenmei's 2013 shureisai is now opennn!!!" met with absolute silence instead of cheering. My friends were like, "I think he said something about 2000 people?" The same thing happened with the head student of the English Speaking Society. He asked "How are y'all doing todayy?!" Silence. "I said, how are y'all doing today??" And finally Hannah shouted out, "We're doing great, thank you!" Awkward... On the whole, though, the day was very long and honestly boring, at least for me.
The next day was better. There were a couple performances in the auditorium to start the day, then we went back to our room to finish preparing it for selling popcorn. There were many other classrooms selling food, all more intense than popcorn. To get food, we needed tickets specific to that item, which we had bought the week before. Tickets were also sold the day of, but they sold out quickly. I ate chocolate hottoku, which was basically a filled pancake, tamosen, which was like egg and some sauce and other things between two big crackers, and yakitori, a chicken kebab. I tried to get things that looked Japanese, but there were also frankfurters, pancakes, hashed potatoes, muffins, waffles, yakisoba, and udon. Also the school was giving away free "pan" for some reason. I worked in our class collecting tickets, which was kind of silly because then I had to be the one to keep explaining that we were out of popcorn for the moment, with my lack of Japanese. There were two haunted houses as well, and I went to one with some friends. The decorations were pretty good, and it was mainly people jumping out at us. After a few hours, most people had used their tickets and the day started to drag again. We had a brief closing ceremony, and finished.
Ok I realized this will be too long with Rotary also, so I'll make that a different post. I have been on some interesting outings with my host family, though!
Last Monday, which was a school holiday I believe for the fall equinox, I went on a fishing/BBQ/airplane-viewing excursion with my host mom and two of my sisters. We got all dressed up in rubber boots, aprons, and thick gloves, and got on a little fishing boat with two other families. After a few minutes we stopped and watched one of the men take in fishing cages, with little fish and lots of octopi. They were so cute. We moved to a different location and took in a large fishing net. We all got turns with this one, mostly catching more little fish and some big crabs. I'm sorry, I have no idea what types they were, I'm not good at seafood names. Since we were also conveniently near the Kansai International Airport, we spent the next 45 minutes cruising around waiting for airplanes to take off or land. We saw about three, and I can't say it was thrilling but I found the whole idea amusing, and it was nice to relax on the boat. Back at the harbor, we watched them skin and gut the catch, and each family was given a platter with fish, octopus, oysters, sausages, and corn on the cob to grill on these long grills. Soo good and fresh. So it was nice experience and I didn't even get sunburned! Something else I've noticed is that barely anyone wears sunglasses, even on this sunny day out on the water. Unfortunately, I forgot mine in America and haven't gotten new ones yet.
This Sunday I went out again, with my host parents and little sister, to Minoh waterfall on the outskirts of Osaka, about an hour of train rides away. The place looked like a cute little resort town, and we stopped to have soba in this beautiful outdoor restaurant overhanging a picturesque river. We also ate the specialty of the area, deep-fried momiji, small Japanese maple leaves. I didn't actually taste the leaf, just the sweet deep-fried batter. It was a pretty shape, though. The walk to the waterfall was about 30 minutes, on a paved path. The whole way was beautiful, through a valley full of maple trees. Apparently it's breathtaking once the leaves turn. I think we might be going back to see that. I saw a number of foreigners along the way, and many runners. It looked like an awesome place to run. The waterfall was nice, and my host dad and sister stopped to sketch it, which they are both good at, while my host mom and I went to look at a temple. It's so nice how these beautiful nature places are so accessible, so I can have that, the big city of Osaka, and the area where I live, which is quieter and mostly residential, all connected by the train system.
In school right now it's really sad because my whole grade is on their school trip to France for two weeks, but I wasn't able to go. That would have been soo much fun! Instead I go to school until lunchtime only, thankfully, with Gabbi and the other six students who didn't go. We actually have to study, but it's good because I've worked on my Japanese a lot more than I had been.
Also, I leave the country for a month and a half, and I learn that the government is shut down?!
First more observations!
Food is a really big deal here. There are many TV shows about food, not just about cooking, but watching people eat. These just make me hungry. A common conversational question I get is what I had for dinner the day before. Whenever I eat anything in school, everyone asks if it tastes good. There's a focus on all food being delicious and pretty.
There are no stop signs! Instead, there are just white lines painted on the ground, often with とまれ (tomare, stop). Also there aren't many sidewalks, only on main roads. Pedestrians and bikers just walk in the road, on either side. I think I'm figuring out some biking etiquette, though, in that if someone is biking at you on the wrong side of the road, you have to go around them. I'm surprised there aren't more accidents. Actually, a middle school boy from Kenmei was recently hit by a car and killed as he was biking home from school, so that was really tragic.
The shureisai, my school festival! I had heard much about school festivals before coming, and knew they are a huge deal and everyone puts in a lot of effort preparing for them. However, it was totally different than I expected, and honestly a little underwhelming. I knew that my class was making popcorn, and we worked after school for a week and spent the whole day before making decorations for our classroom. I imagined that most of the festival would be like a fair, moving between the different classrooms. I knew the dance club and some other clubs had been preparing performances, and I pictured everyone watching these outside or something.
Instead, on the first day (it was two days) we all filed into the auditorium, and I had to sit in the very last row because the rest was all full. Happily two very nice friends stayed with me. I thought there would just be a couple opening things, but instead we sat in there all day, from 9am-4:30pm, with a break for lunch. Mostly the middle school classes performed dance numbers or skits, and one did a really cool puppet show. The skits were apparently funny, but unfortunately I couldn't understand them so they were lost on me. In the dance numbers, there were always one or two people who knew what they were doing, and then everyone else who looked like they had been unwillingly dragged into it. There was one girl who kept trying to leave the stage, but was pushed back on. I think I have been spoiled by the amazing talent show at the CSRYE conference in Grand Rapids, where everyone actually had impressive talent.
Then at some point in the morning, just as I was thinking how nice it was not being the one on the stage for once, Gabbi, Hannah and I were called up to give our comments on the festival. They had some poor boy try to translate our English, and the whole thing was very confusing.
The handbell choir was impressive though, I had never seen one of those. They played songs from Beauty and the Beast and Phantom of the Opera. The baton/cheer club was really good as well. The English Speaking Society gave brief presentations about tourist sites in Osaka, which I thought was cool but no one understood. Also, at the beginning of each day, their main English-speaking teacher, who is sort of in charge of us exchange students, would shout, "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Kenmei's 2013 shureisai is now opennn!!!" met with absolute silence instead of cheering. My friends were like, "I think he said something about 2000 people?" The same thing happened with the head student of the English Speaking Society. He asked "How are y'all doing todayy?!" Silence. "I said, how are y'all doing today??" And finally Hannah shouted out, "We're doing great, thank you!" Awkward... On the whole, though, the day was very long and honestly boring, at least for me.
The next day was better. There were a couple performances in the auditorium to start the day, then we went back to our room to finish preparing it for selling popcorn. There were many other classrooms selling food, all more intense than popcorn. To get food, we needed tickets specific to that item, which we had bought the week before. Tickets were also sold the day of, but they sold out quickly. I ate chocolate hottoku, which was basically a filled pancake, tamosen, which was like egg and some sauce and other things between two big crackers, and yakitori, a chicken kebab. I tried to get things that looked Japanese, but there were also frankfurters, pancakes, hashed potatoes, muffins, waffles, yakisoba, and udon. Also the school was giving away free "pan" for some reason. I worked in our class collecting tickets, which was kind of silly because then I had to be the one to keep explaining that we were out of popcorn for the moment, with my lack of Japanese. There were two haunted houses as well, and I went to one with some friends. The decorations were pretty good, and it was mainly people jumping out at us. After a few hours, most people had used their tickets and the day started to drag again. We had a brief closing ceremony, and finished.
Ok I realized this will be too long with Rotary also, so I'll make that a different post. I have been on some interesting outings with my host family, though!
Last Monday, which was a school holiday I believe for the fall equinox, I went on a fishing/BBQ/airplane-viewing excursion with my host mom and two of my sisters. We got all dressed up in rubber boots, aprons, and thick gloves, and got on a little fishing boat with two other families. After a few minutes we stopped and watched one of the men take in fishing cages, with little fish and lots of octopi. They were so cute. We moved to a different location and took in a large fishing net. We all got turns with this one, mostly catching more little fish and some big crabs. I'm sorry, I have no idea what types they were, I'm not good at seafood names. Since we were also conveniently near the Kansai International Airport, we spent the next 45 minutes cruising around waiting for airplanes to take off or land. We saw about three, and I can't say it was thrilling but I found the whole idea amusing, and it was nice to relax on the boat. Back at the harbor, we watched them skin and gut the catch, and each family was given a platter with fish, octopus, oysters, sausages, and corn on the cob to grill on these long grills. Soo good and fresh. So it was nice experience and I didn't even get sunburned! Something else I've noticed is that barely anyone wears sunglasses, even on this sunny day out on the water. Unfortunately, I forgot mine in America and haven't gotten new ones yet.
This Sunday I went out again, with my host parents and little sister, to Minoh waterfall on the outskirts of Osaka, about an hour of train rides away. The place looked like a cute little resort town, and we stopped to have soba in this beautiful outdoor restaurant overhanging a picturesque river. We also ate the specialty of the area, deep-fried momiji, small Japanese maple leaves. I didn't actually taste the leaf, just the sweet deep-fried batter. It was a pretty shape, though. The walk to the waterfall was about 30 minutes, on a paved path. The whole way was beautiful, through a valley full of maple trees. Apparently it's breathtaking once the leaves turn. I think we might be going back to see that. I saw a number of foreigners along the way, and many runners. It looked like an awesome place to run. The waterfall was nice, and my host dad and sister stopped to sketch it, which they are both good at, while my host mom and I went to look at a temple. It's so nice how these beautiful nature places are so accessible, so I can have that, the big city of Osaka, and the area where I live, which is quieter and mostly residential, all connected by the train system.
In school right now it's really sad because my whole grade is on their school trip to France for two weeks, but I wasn't able to go. That would have been soo much fun! Instead I go to school until lunchtime only, thankfully, with Gabbi and the other six students who didn't go. We actually have to study, but it's good because I've worked on my Japanese a lot more than I had been.
Also, I leave the country for a month and a half, and I learn that the government is shut down?!
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