F4

The title is F4 only because kk and i have come up with the most ridiculous yet amazing idea in the world. we are going to (with the help of our dear friend, Yuka) write the tv station that has the Arashi game show on it, and then proceed to tell them we should be on the show. our name will be F4 (funny because one of the the fact that one of the Arashi members was on a drama named 花より男子。in which he was super popular and was a member of "f4". there is more of a reason but since i've never seen the show, i doubt i could properly explain it) anyways. our name stands for "funny, foreign, fun, and fantastic" pretty catchy right? i thought so. it will be amazing. really i just want to play the fun games.

In other news, school is lame. I feel less motivated to study here, but maybe that's just because in reality i'm studying while i do anything here. its all around me, its what i see, read, eat, hear, etc. You get the jist. I should work on that i think, maybe later.

Yesterday KK, Antoine, Yaehl, Lea, Shunsuke, and myself went on an adventure. yes an adventure that took place starting between 10:30 and 11 at night. It was amazing. We walked along the road and ended up in a cemetery. Yes, for all of you that know me even slightly you may be asking yourself "why in the world would caty go into a cemetery at night?" my answer- i put my brave pants on.
The multiple cemeteries we stumbled upon held breath taking views of Kumamoto City. The city was lit up and for the most part the cemeteries were dark so you could see stars and every. it was really cool. Cold and kinda scary but cool. Then we went and played in the sketchiest playground i have ever seen haha. The night before we went to a 神社 (shrine) at midnight and ventured into the forest behind it. needless to say i got the holy living crap scared out of me. I went home while the braver ones (kk, yaehl, antoine) went back. Next adventure - yakuza house?

today it was decided that on the way to school, the "short" route was to be taken. Since i had only been that way once, i got lost. kk and i were trying to figure out where to go when this old guy asked us where we were trying to go. we told him the school and he pointed us down a tiny little ally down some sketchy stairs and to a bigger street. Awesome! then we ended up at the main street we would have taken anyways haha. oh well, it was fun.

This weekend i shall go on an epic hunt for food that can be used when we prepare Thanksgiving dinner. yay! Its nice that along with friends i can still celebrate a holiday that isn't really a big deal here. I doubt we can find a turkey though. And by that i mean its impossible , even if we preform a miracle and do find one, ovens big enough to cook it don't exist in japan. oh well. i really just want pumpkin pie, but they don't have real pumpkins either. what? yeah exactly.

last but certainly not least. One of my Japanese teachers returned from a week in America this week. what did she bring back for us? MOTHER EFFIN ELK JERKY!!! it was amazing and tasty. i do love jerky. i miss cheese, real bread (not this only white fluffy not real bread bread they had here) and i miss real cake. odd for someone who doesn't really eat alot of sweets. oh well.

off to another adventure!
-Caty

School Festival part deux

So after my food coma from the day before, i woke up and headed back down to the University to eat more tasty food. So after being bombarded with more and more food (which of course i ate) and being laughed at for eating taiyaki again (trust me it was a different day, it was totally ok. Kai just wanted to make fun of us) we met up with Yudai. He took us to the other exhibits (yeah right? other than food. i was astonished) so then instead of buying food i bought awesome art done by different clubs. that rocked.
Then went to the library sit for a few. after that we went back out and ate more. mmm more food. more tacos. Then the smooth jazz group or whatever played Tank! (cowboy bebop theme) and a Michael Jackson medley. Yeah not so good, but i give them credit for trying.
after that i watched the shortest fireworks display ever. but it was still amazing. Then i drank with (my new friends) the french people. bad idea. they will always win haha.

School Festival

ok so today is the school festival. I showed up expecting to see some clubs doing what clubs do and what not. No today should have been called "school festival aka going to sell you tasty food at cheap prices, so much food you will burst". Thats what it was/is/god i'm going to eat so much today. So KK and i show up around noon- noon thirty (technical term there), and park our bikes. we walk around with the smell of tasty food wafting through the air. We walk around and then we see the BRIGHT pink shirts that let us know our new friends that through the welcome party are selling tasty food. We head over and wave, Jyo (kk's group leader) yells 久しぶり! (long time no see basically) and we head wave to everyone (my group leader 翼 - tsubasa- was there too). KK then asks where Gachi is (he wants to be called that, so we obliged). Jyo told us to wait that he would be back. He then decides to call him and let kk talk to him. the convo was
kk: もしもし？ガチ！
gachi: え？
kk: ガチ！

he was really confused but when he arrived back at the tent he noticed us and was surprised. We then walked around and bought food. Let me list all the food and why we bought it (besides it was tasty.

Waffle with fruit and tastyness on it - because our friends were selling them.
takoyaki - because some random person asked us if we wanted to buy, so we did.
MOTHER EFFIN TACO'S!!! - the english speaking club were selling tacos. i love tacos (with tabasco) so we bought them, we bought them good.
Bubble tea - our Taiwanese friend from our class was selling it. so tasty.
Gyoza - first of all its gyoza, second of all it was by the chinese kids, third its gyoza
yakisoba - wanted some for a long time. plus the baseball kids were doing an awesome looking job cooking it.

Then we sat down for a peaceful snack and became bombarded with offers to buy tasty looking food. since i'm pretty sure saying "no thanks" is illegal in japan, we did what any self respecting person would do...BOUGHT IT ALL!!!

some tasty parfait thing - because they asked
some tasty melon pan looking thing - because they asked
some mochi thing - because they asked.

they just kept asking and we just kept buying. finally we stuffed our face and ran into the library for sanctuary. apparently the memo got out after we first bought takoyaki that the American's buy stuff haha. Oh well it was fun and tasty Probably will go back and buy more soon! pictures will follow

starting to feel at home

As the title says i'm starting to feel at home in Kumamoto. There are a few things i could wish for (a closet, not having to live out of my suit case and what not) but as soon as i move (nov 7th) i get those and it should really set in. I know my way around (kinda) i am getting better at reading and talking to people to get what i need to done. I walk out of buildings on campus and feel ok with it not being the UofM. Its nice.

speaking of moving. the new dorms....ROCK!!!! my friend Yudai (well jamie's friend first but yeah) has a part time job moving all the new stuff into the dorms. So today he said to come during his lunch and we could see them. THEY ARE AMAZING!!. i get a book shelf, a real bed (no more futon and bean pillow...yes!) a closet, a dresser, and drawers under my bed. also i have a little porch thing to hang clothes on, a desk and....AN AIR CON!! each room has one. then we have a shower room, washing machine, brand new IH heater (stove top thingy)a microwave, a microwave oven, table. so much and more. plus its brand spanking new! so amazing.

What else has been new you ask? Not much. well everything thats only since its japan and not the US. I love the food, the people, and even the school. I had to ask my teacher if i could miss class for 2-3 days to help out teach at Mt Aso. I was petrified and carefully figured out how to ask her politely in japanese and everything. Figured out reasons why it would be good for me, etc, then i get there and start to ask and she just goes "wow thats a good school, that would be good for you. we will figure out when to reschedule the quiz's" and i was shocked. also she totally destroyed all my careful work haha also because of the school festival and one of my teachers having to leave on personal matters, i have 2 classes in the next like two weeks. its amazing haha. i suppose the experience is just as important as classes are.

Tomorrow is Halloween and it should be amazing. I get to see a live concert on campus starting at 7 (jamie's friends Taiyo and Ichinose are playing and invited kk and myself) then going with KK's tutor Junko down to Jeff's bar for a halloween party. All while in costume. I'm going to be a giant pikachu. so amazing. There will be pictures.

Speaking of that i need to start showing some.

yes kumamoto castle!
there will be more soon. and more writing but now i need to go downtown. Then off to watch "L: Change the world" is friends!

how time flies by..

So its been 3 weeks now since i have arrived in japan for my year long study. Oh and how fun it's been so far! On friday, (after kk went off for her fun weekend in yokohama) Yudai and I went to find me a bike. yeah someone thought letting me buy a bicycle/ride said bicycle around japan was a good idea. mwahaha. vroom vroom. I bought a "mama chari" or the style of bike mom's usually ride, in an awesome bright green (pictures soon!). i ride it all the time and its fun but slightly scary. Japan has super narrow streets and having small cars whiz by you is a little unnerving, i think at least.

The weekend pretty much consisted of me thinking i was a bad ass and riding my bike everywhere. it was great. On saturday night i decided to head down to Shimatori and Kamitori (two big downtown area's) to eat dinner and grab mr donut. When i show up, what do i find? a freaking huge downtown art plex! i was confused so i walked over to the crowed of people in front of starbucks and started trying to figure things out. They were handing out adorably small samples of coffee so i drank one and went to see what else i could find. Finally some really nice helper gave me a pamphlet that consisted of the acts, the location and the times. I spent a good 4 hours walking around looking at everything (taking pictures of course). The coolest thing was this giant painting of a tiger that two guys were working all throughout the course of the evening. turned out great! followed closely by the clown (hate hate hate clowns) wearing a sparkly american flag vest. pretty much sweet. he was dancing to a quartet of saxophonists.

Sunday i was running a muck again (yeah thanks british people -sarcasm-) and ran into two other exchange students. we chatted for a bit then George and myself went to get food (Paul, from stockton cali, would have gone but no bike. the night before George and him got in trouble with the police for riding together on a bike). I can say that there have been few times when i was stared at more then when i was walking around with George (you know 6'6" British dude) who kk aptly named "G-zilla" . Good times

Monday was deemed by kk as "the try and cry" which basically ment that she was going to talk in japanese as much as possible. figuring this was a good idea, i decided to join in. Yeah it was effing hard. We went to eat Okonomiyaki for lunch with our friend Yuka. sweet jesus Yuka is patient. She was really good in correcting us, understanding what we were saying even if we couldn't fully say it. Sooo nice. The rest of the day was spent in the Library on the internet and doing homework. woo homework. Before bed KK and i watched めいちゃんのしつじ (mei-chan's butler) the stupidly addicting drama we started watching as a joke. no kidding its effing addicting. WHY!!!???

Today has been pretty fun too. I have this class called "key words and expressions in japanese culture". The topic for class was "vertical relationships" and other stuff like that. so we were talking about dates and who pays and what not. It was pretty hilarious, apparently Americans are weird haha. we speak plainly to people, we don't want to always split the bill or have the guy ALWAYS pay for dinner, we hug and kiss our parents (like if we are leaving for a long time. apparently thats a big no in japan), its ok to hold hands in public. I dunno we are weird i guess haha. But seriously, the keeping the navel string thing we talked about, thats just weird.


Things i've learned:
- always downplay a gift if you are giving one (oh its a boring things but please....or.....it may not suit your taste but here...) even if you think its the best gift ever. Also when receiving a gift you need to ask about a billion trillion times if its ok, then thank them a million more times.
- if you hang out with someone and it was fun, sometime within the next two weeks you need to say "thanks for the other day" or they might feel bad.
- everything in japan goes at a slow pace. its super polite to extent conversations and what not. so don't be in a hurry, its impolite.
- noh drama still sucks (ok maybe that hasn't come up yet but seriously)
- if you have an s-rank butler, at one time or another he will do an awesome slow walk towards you with great lighting. ( true story, the drama taught me that one)

good times, food friends, and a new place

It`s been a while since i`ve written and so much has happend. Lets see if i can give a summery of everything without typing for ever and a half.

Lets see. First about my classes. I`m currently taking 7 Japanese language classes, 1 culture class and 1 english literature class (seriously it was the only thing that fit into my schedule and i had an hour to find 1 more credit). I don`t have class on fridays which means i always have at least a 3 day weekend to explore. Thursdays are pretty tough having 4 classes that are an hour and a half a piece. ouch. Classes are fun and i`m meeting alot of new fun people. Oddly enough the people I have been hanging out with are Japanese, not the exchange students (well other than kk). I hear japanese being spoken alot and I would like to think my listening is improving, I need to make a bigger attempt to speak in japanese instead of always falling back on English. I will try.

So other than classes KK and I have been wandering around Kumamoto trying to figure things out. That became alot easier when Jamie came down to visit for the long weekend. He arrived on Friday night and we ate with his friends Taiyo and Ichinose (who are amazing). After that we returned to our apartment and ended up laughing till super later. We woke up and surprised Mao (who was supposed to meet kk and I to hang out but had no idea Jamie was there). what followed was an amazing day:
- used kimono sale- jamie, kk, yudai, mao, and yuka all went and looked at old kimonos. unfortunatly i`m too but for japan so all the sleeves were short haha. I`m going to look at a few other places while im here.
- Went downtown and ate ramen (oh god kumamoto ramen is the best), then we ate mr donut, after that we just hung out for a while untill we went to kumamotojou (the castle) to see what was going on. Mao told us that they were lighting things in the moat and we wanted to find out what it was all about. Turns out to be the autumn festival or something (i`ll double check and update). It was amazing. we walked around for a while, ate some pork and horse (yeah i said it, horse) had some delicious smoothies with the giant tapioca balls, then laughed hysterically when the kumamoto castle mascot (a giant inflatable castle costume) came onstage and was danging and jumping and singing. After that we met back up with Taiyo and Ichinose and went to to "free time". That basically means we did karaoke till super late for not very much money haha. so much fun.

Next day we met up with Aiko and went to suisenji park. Walked around there, took a billion pictures then went back downtown to meet more people. Later that night we went to a Yakinikku place which turned out to not only be all you can eat, but also all you can drink for only 2000￥ (about $20 for 2 hours)...well for the girls mwahaha. it was so much fun, everyone got along so well and we all just enjoyed each others company.

Monday came and we had to say goodbye to Jamie. It was sad but I know he`s coming back for christmas so thats good. I made alot of good friends this weekend and I`m excited to continue hanging out with them.

Today its back to school, but fond memories were made. Jamie showed us alot of neat tricks around kumamoto that will come in handy (i need to buy a bike! kk won one but i didnt. boo) It was also really cool to hear stories about Jamie and his time here and to realize how much fun and how good it is for your japanese (once again i need to speak more japanese!)

Thats all for now but i finally got wifi working on my laptop so while I`m on campus I can finally upload pictures. yes! so i`ll post some and a link to my photobucket.

quick update

things japan has taught me:

1- if you are asian, you will speak better japanese than i do

2 - begginer lvl test means "comfortable for people who studied for 2 years", intermediate lvl test means "what...i havent seen most of this. aka difficult" and advance lvl test means ".....wha...?"

3- futons and bean pillows are only comfortable for so long

4 - i am addicted to the internet

5 - every effing bug is like a billion times bigger in japan

6- i am a scary foreigner to everyone but children, who then run up and speak to me. adorable

7- i am about a 4 inches too tall for everything

there will be more...i promise