なまけもの

Here is another random post with little tidbits about my life. I promise I will post a legitimate, thought out and well written post at some point. I have ideas floating around in my head, I am just too lazy (today's title: なまけもの) to put them to paper (or iPad, in this case). I will probably do so after the speech contest, which is this Friday. My school hosts it annually at this time of year, which would have been fine if I had come in March like intended, but because I have only been here two months it has proven kind of difficult. Anyway, I am trying (perhaps in vain) to learn my speech off by heart.

Today marks the two month mark in Japan. In three and a half months I will be back in Australia. The thought is exciting and scary. I am looking forward to going home for a multitude of reasons, but the idea of only having a few months left in Japan is also kind of terrifying.

Moving on, so I had a really good weekend. On Friday after school I went to karaoke with some friends, which was fun. Then Saturday I went shopping in the next city with my host sister (bought earmuffs! Yatta!) and hen ate gyudon which was freaking awesome (I got the kimchi gyudon which was amazing- gyudon is just meat and rice but the meat is kind of thin and fatty, I don't really know, all I know is that it tastes super good and is cheap!). Then we went to the town festival with our exchange company. We dressed up in yukata first then practiced dancing for like two hours. Then we went outside and danced in this procession along the main street for about another two hours with something like 2000 people. It was really, really fun.

The next day I went with the other exchange student's host family to where my host dad and brother work, which is about an hour and a half away. It's like this weird old primary school building and it was an open day, so they had all this really cool art on display. I dressed up as a samurai, made a Japanese flute and just looked at the art. It was really fun. Afterwards we went to lunch and then went to onsen (hot springs)! It was my first time going to onsen and I was a bit nervous (you have to be naked...) but it was actually really okay and the onsen itself was so nice.

Yeah, that was my weekend. When I am not so なまけもの I promise to do a proper post!

週末

Yay, last weekend was a long weekend because of some random national holiday on Monday. This week is test week so I've been studying hard (ha) for my three exams. I had an English exam, which would have been difficult because all of the questions and instructions were in Japanese, but my teacher, who I like a lot and who speaks pretty much perfect English, explained all the questions to me during the exam. There were some translating things I couldn't be completely sure about, but mostly I think I did quite well. Next I had a science exam, because the teachers asked me to do another subject as well as Japanese and English, and I figured science was a good option (no idea why). I understood little to nothing on the exam, but I know I got at least 1 point which is good. On Friday I have a Japanese test which I actually am studying for. 頑張ります！

After school on Tuesday I went to McDonald's with two of my friends which was fun, and today I went and got lunch with another two friends.

Anyway, the purpose of this post was to talk about my long weekend so here goes! On Saturday I went out to lunch with my two host sisters to a Korean restaurant that we have gone to multiple times already, and which is so amazingly delicious! We then went to this really awesome shop that is cheap, but still has really nice clothes, shoes etc. I bought a jacket (my first Engrish purchase: 'Genial Greetings Bring Happiness To The World') which I have pretty much been wearing since.

Sunday morning I helped my family harvest sweet potatoes (now we are eating heaps of sweet potato, not that I am complaining; it's so delicious!) and then explored other parts of my town with the other exchange student here. After that our host families had a barbeque together which was fun, and we watched movies and just hung out.

The next day we had an outing with our chapter of the exchange company we came with. We went to a temple, prayed for 20 minutes sitting cross legged, practiced calligraphy and just looked around. Then we went to lunch at a terrible restaurant, which was actually so cute and had so much character, but the food sucked. It was trying to be Western, but it was obvious they couldn't cook Western food so it was just a mess. I came home and studied, and also tried making sushi!

So that was my weekend :)

今日

I figured I should just post about my daily life, so here is my post, about what I did today :)

The other exchange student in my school, one of our school friends and one of her friends went to another school's culture festival. It was kind of boring but there was a Haunted House and it was utterly terrifying. People crawling to you on the floor, someone in a scream mask, a hockey mask and so many others. We also had to literally climb in this tunnel, lie on our stomachs and crawl through. It was made a little less scary by the fact the scary people in the haunted house (students) could tell we were foreigners and gave directions in Japanese and English, and we were kind of having a conversation with them. When I said 'please dont kill me', they laughed. And then they asked us if we were high school students, and we were like, yeah exchange students and then they recommenced being scary haha.

One thing very obvious about the culture festival was the slutting up of school uniforms. Everyone wears their school uniforms to other schools' culture festivals (no idea why) but they slut it up big time. The skirts become the kind that barely cover underwear and they tend to wearva long sweater over the top, and their shirt unbuttoned a lot lower than normal. They also tend to wear a lot of make-up.

Tangent: one thing I have noticed a lot in Japan is that SO MANY girls are fake looking. Western looking girls are always said to be cute, so Japanese girls try to make themselves look as Western as possible, but in the process, turn kind of weird. A lot of Japanese girls die their hair blonde, which can look really cute but also kind of eh. Then so many girls also use double eyelid maker glue, which involves basically gluing your eyelid up (in the process, sticking a little plastic fork looking implement above and sort of behind your eye, ick) to make double eyelids, because most Asian people have single eyelids. Also fake eyelashes, everyone uses them here. Anyway, there was a girl who ticked all the above boxes, including the uniform, at the culture festival today, which is why I thought of that. She was cute, but so so so fake.

After that we went to McDonald's for lunch and took purikura (the photobooth sticker photos). We had a scary moment coming home, the exchange student and I returned home by train together because the two Japanese girls lived in a different town. We found the platform and there was a train there so we quickly hopped on, and then saw the screen talking about going to Nagoya (about an hour away) and even as far as another prefecture (state). We freaked out but eventually figured out that it was the right train, and were very relieved, to say the least.

After that we went to my house, and my older brother's friends came over too, with plans to cream pie his face when he came home, because it was recently his birthday. We got wrapped into it too, and when he came home, used party poppers then all grabbed a plate of cream and smashed it on his face, then obviously got whipped cream on our faces as well.

So that was today :D Tomorrow I have big exciting plans to work on my Japanese speech. Yippee.