The Big 6!

Although I am over halfway through my exchange, today was the official six month mark. And somehow it makes more of an impression on me, six months sounding much more legit than 5 and a couple weeks. I feel like I should have some wise reflections about my time so far and my current feelings, but I can't think of any... maybe I'm just tired. So I'll just talk about some more little things in my daily life.

I'm taking some really fun and interesting classes right now, doing things I never did in America. I have an art class with the middle school 3rd years (like high school freshman), and we're making wooden spoons! We're all given saws and big files and are free to hack away at our blocks of wood as we like. The sensei goes around helping, but I was surprised by the amount of freedom the students have. I feel there would be more safety regulations in the US. In music class, there are like 40 guitars so there are enough for everyone to learn how to play! Right now we're split into groups and given one of six parts for the Mickey Mouse March. With everyone practicing at once, it's noisy but really fun :) I also go to a Japanese Manners class, and we are currently learning how to sit, stand, and bow properly, and how to handle a fan. I think it's so cool how this is a part of modern Japanese culture, since there's really nothing like it in America. Finally, we cook in home economics! Today we made crêpes and rolled cakes (those are incredibly popular here). My group definitely had the most struggles though... We had the wrong amount of ingredients in things, so the first crêpes didn't cook right and turned out looking like scrambled eggs. The cake ingredients were wrong too, so we had to triple everything. And then we put too much filling on the rolled cake, or maybe the cake part was really thick since we had so much batter, so it ended up more like a taco, and less like a roll... But I'm pleased to say that all tasted good ^_^

I may have mentioned this before, but they never eat apples without peeling and cutting them. So it was a big adventure tonight when I got tired of doing that and ate one normally, and all the kids wanted to try. And I guess it takes more skill than I realized. Also, they don't use peanut butter nearly as much here, but for some reason my family had a few jars so I've been teaching them all the ways to eat it. They only seem to eat it plain on bread or toast, so no wonder they don't like it, all sticky like that. Literally no one has heard of peanut butter and jelly, and they think it's the weirdest thing. I really don't understand how it's such a universal sandwich in America but America alone. I've also taught them about peanut butter on apples, bananas, and celery, all equally alien ideas.

More on Valentine's Day. Even though I didn't go to school on the 14th itself, I still got a huge amount of sweets. It actually started two days before, and continued on Saturday, Monday, and even Tuesday. There were a variety of cookies and chocolates, some awesome chocolate pudding tarts and even mousse. The presentation is also important, so everything was in cute little bags with ribbons and doilies. Wow actually just this moment I got another one, in a cute pink bag with pastel teddy bears and bunnies. And ooh it's a macaroon! At home it was even more ridiculous. I have never seen so many boxes of chocolate outside of a chocolate store. I had to self-impose a ban on chocolate for a couple days. But it was really fun!

Halfway Already!

Soo it's been a while, sorry about that. I passed my halfway point a couple weeks ago, on February 1st. Wow. On the one hand, it seems like I haven't been here that long, but on the other hand, August was a long time ago. I still have five months, which I think is about right.

My family is fun, although sometimes a little trying when I am tired. There was an episode a few weeks ago when my host mom left for a couple hours, and the 4 year old Taichi didn't take that well, since before I came she always had to take them with her. I still have scratch marks on my hand from keeping him from leaving the house, in the dark, to find her -_- But I think he felt bad later and was super nice the next day. I only have a little over a week more with them, so fast!

Now that I go to different classrooms once a day, I'm meeting more people and going through all the beginning interactions again. Everyone tells me in English that everyone else "is crazy," and asks me lots of questions. And I realized that nearly everyone asks me what food I like, which is not something I normally ask about when meeting someone, going back to how important food is here. One class was having some struggles, though, first asking "DO YOU LIKE FOOD?" (the boys often shout their English at me) instead of "what food do you like?", and I'm like "...yes." And then, trying to tell me someone was gay, "HE IS HOMO SAPIEN." "Why yes, he is." I'm not sure how they knew that word, but I was impressed.

A couple weeks ago I had my odori performance, which I guess went as well as it could have. It was at a showcase of various traditional Japanese arts, mostly with music on bamboo flutes and kotos, large stringed instruments, and a group doing awa odori, an upbeat festival dance. My sensei, two sisters and I were the only ones doing the slower style with fans. Thankfully the audience was relatively small, about 100 people. We wore nice kimonos, again quite a process, and the others painted their faces white with red around the eyes. Apparently it looks strange on westerners, though, so I didn't. It wasn't terribly encouraging after the rehearsal, when my sensei was like, "Hirona, you can fix this. Yuzuki, this. Brianna..... *smiles kindly and pats me on the back*" But I had only been dancing once every couple weeks for five months, not years, so there wasn't much I could do about not being nice and smooth, so I didn't worry about it. I think it was one of my better performances, I didn't mess up at least, so it was fine. But afterward during the scene change I was brought out with my sensei to be interviewed by the announcer lady, and it was definitely not my best Japanese, so that was kind of embarrassing. But at least it's over, and I'm not sure yet whether I'll go to more lessons.

There's a fun ritual on February 3rd, sestsubun, the day before Spring. To drive away the evil spirits, usually the male head of the household wears an oni (demon) mask and stands outside, and everyone else throws roasted soybeans at them while saying "oni wa soto!" (Demons out!) It was really fun, and we all took turns at being the oni. Then you usually eat as many roasted soybeans as your age for luck, but we didn't. We actually did it on the 2nd because on the 3rd I was going to Tokyo. I think there's also something with eating uncut makizushi (the rolled sushi) but we didn't do that either.

And then I went to Tokyo for three days!! With my four host sisters from my first family :) It was so much fun!! We got a nice package for the airplane, hotel, and Disney. We flew out at 7 Monday morning (I just kind of skipped three days of school), and it was a little under an hour to Tokyo. It was exciting being in an airport again, and I really wanted to be flying off to a different country (nothing against Japan, but I love traveling!). It was my little sister Yuzuki's first flight! We put our bags at a luggage drop-off service and took a bus straight to Tokyo Disneyland. It was a nice day, kind of cold but clear, but I was surprised by how many people there were for a random Monday in February. There were many college and high school students, and a lot of the high school girls were wearing their uniforms because I guess it's cool to be all matching. But they wore their skirts rolled to past mid-thigh, which I have no idea how they can stand in the cold. I've been seeing this all winter, how cool it is to show a lot of leg. Definitely lots of goosebumps at Disney. Many people also wore head accessories, Mickey/Minnie ears especially and other character hats. A lot of girls even had their hair in two buns to make Mickey/Minnie ears of their own. Eventually I got a Minnie bow too and the others got character hats. The rides were pretty identical to all other Disneylands', the food expensive and not great, and the parade at the end was nice, lots of lights. Almost all the princesses and princes were Western actors. My sisters knew many finger games to keep us occupied in line, which was fun. We bussed back to the hotel where we had a nice standard room with five single beds. I forgot how nice it was to have a good stand-up shower and actual bed, my first since coming here.

Tuesday we bussed to Disney Sea, which has more jet coasters and things than Disneyland. But again, there were surprisingly many people and we didn't time things as well, so we only got to three things plus a cute "Under the Sea" show. It was cold and drizzled throughout the morning, turning to heavy snow after lunch, which was fun and pretty. We became skilled at making our four umbrellas into a little shelter against wind and snow while moving through the lines. But by the end my boots were soaked through and freezing, despite the feet warmers, and it was good to get back to the hotel. Artificial warmers are very popular here, hand warmers and feet warmers and squares with sticky backs to stick all over your clothes.

We had to be at the airport by 2pm on Wednesday, and made plans to do as much Tokyo sightseeing as we could before that. But somehow it just didn't work out and we seemed to spend most of the morning riding trains. The only tourist site we made it to Asakusa, which has a famous Buddhist temple, Sensō-ji, where I drew a really bad fortune. I always get bad fortunes, and I dropped and broke the foot off of the horse good luck charm I got at New Year's, so I'm kind of scared. After that we had awesome savory creeps for lunch and went to some famous chocolate shops. From the little I saw, Tokyo looks much more international than Osaka, with more international restaurants, the best part. I would love to spend more time there. There were also many more foreigners riding the trains, particularly businessmen. We had to go back too soon, and it was back to school life. Omiyage, souvenir-like gifts, are a huge part of Japanese culture. People get them for family and friends after any trip, even day trips, and bring them whenever they visit someone's house. Often they're snacks– cookies or rice crackers or other sweets. I got presents for my family and friends and cookies for the whole class, which seems to be typical whenever someone misses school for a trip. But it was really awkward when the container lied and we were several short... oops.

Last weekend I went to Ise Jingū (Ise Great Shrine) with Rotary, an hour and forty minute train ride from Osaka. It was soo much fun, I love my fellow inbounds. Ise Jingū of the most important shinto areas in Japan, and the shrine is rebuilt exactly every 20 years, the last time in 2013. It was interesting to see the new fresh one next to the old one. We had a fancy traditional lunch, which I seem to be having a lot of lately. We all agreed that the highlight was the quality bathroom, which not only had especially fancy toilets but everything from free toothbrushes/toothpaste to hairbrushes and a hair dryer. Afterward we went to a busy street full of little shops and food stalls, and it was great because my friend Maya is shameless about taking everyone's free samples, so we tried a lot of things. Tofu doughnuts are actually good. We found a train-themed purikura booth in the train station on the way back, so great.

On Valentine's Day here, traditionally girls make or buy chocolate or chocolate-themed sweets to give to the person they like. Then on White Day, March 14, boys do the same. But in recent years it has extended so now girls give sweets to all their friends. So Thursday night I stayed up really late making Hershey's Kiss peanut butter cookies, only to have a snow day on the 14th! Well, school was still open, but I guess it was too hard to drive from my mountain to the train. But it was a nice day anyway, I slept and we made an igloo and sled hill in the backyard.

It's Olympics time! But unfortunately most of the things are past my bedtime, so I haven't seen much. PSA, please take note of the figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu, you'll know him by his gold metal. So beautiful. And bonus points for his good luck Pooh Bear tissue box that he brings to all his competitions. What I do see is mainly reruns, and most of those are of this guy.

I was so sorry to hear some bad news earlier this week. My deepest sympathy to the Viswanaths, Prama was a smart and wonderful girl who will be dearly missed. Also prayers for Uncle David and the Uhrigs, thinking of you.