A Little More Independence: Bike Riding

It really is unfortunate that I'm practically half way through my homestay. When I was able to zip through the hilly - or should I say mountainy - streets of Toyohashi, I had an exhilarating feel of independence. On Sunday, Ryotaro, Yuuki, Shinji (two friends from my middle school days - hah) went out to go eat at kaitenzushi (or basically sushi that spins around and around various tables where you can pick and choose what you'd like). Now, I've always wanted to go to one, so I suppose that helps explain the giddy and crazy feeling I had riding a bicycle that day. But it was probably the frequent altitude changes.

When we got there I probably looked like the most wide-eyed tourist (which has been a frequent theme as of late) when I saw the little dishes of cakes, sushi and my favourite type of sushi... EBI! When we special ordered ebi (shrimp), they pitched in the complementary head, which was pleasant to rip off.

Yuuki's hand brace is the product of judo practice. He just attained his black belt, so we're amazed by his skills and talents. Still, the kid is a gentle soul, so he only uses his super special powers for good... like collecting black belts every so often.

He probably has his sights on a particularly delicious piece of sushi in the photo. Meanwhile, Ryotaro is washing down his 14 dishes of sushi with a nice warm cup of green tea. The place was pretty amazing, and I was constantly reprimanded for even remotely coming close to touching a plate of sushi if I wasn't intentionally planning on eating it.

Shinji (left) and Yuuki (right)

Playing sushi.

Fun times.

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Today was my first day of high school. It was a 40 minute ride by bicycle and while it was pretty nice and scenic it was also pretty tiring. I know I can do it for the next few days and I like just being on a bike and getting the exercise, but it certainly isn't the easiest thing. At leas I'm glad in the fact that I can bike 10 miles or so and not feel like dying.

The kids at the high school were surprisingly nice, but the screaming and general fandom and paparazzi-like qualiites of some of the people didn't leave me feeling completely comfortable. Kids have the latest cellphones with high quality picture-taking capabilities, home-room turned into a make-shift paparazzi-purikura. This all was happening pretty silently while I was talking with a foreign English teacher. Out of the corner of my eye I saw three girls, armed with Vodafone's latest models snapping away and appropriately giggling when I gave them a weird look.

Today I was happy partly because of the new experience and getting my first bento box!!!

It was delicious and I ate every last bit of rice with furikake (rice seasoning), tamagoyaki (sweetened fried egg), the weiner and cucumber mini-shish kebabs, the au gratin with teeny shrimp, the mini meatballs and of course the yakisoba. Washed down with grape juice and a cup of tea. The tiny little foods were surprisingly very filling. I'm definitely buying a bento box or two before I leave Japan.

I also made quite a few friends, the most funny of whom is this joker named Keita. We surprisingly like a lot of the same bands and kinds of music and I was amused by the fact that he knew of Elephant Man's Pon de River song. Immediately following his intro, a couple other people joined in. It was mini-karaoke during homeroom!

When I read that Japanese dress codes were really strict, it looks like things have gone very lax lately. I felt like the most properly dressed student there. Kids had the craziest colors, hair-styles (ala Kat-Tun, News, Arashi or any other popular Japanese boy band ruling the country right now), girls had their skirts hiked up so high, one need not the use of stairs and kids were generally rowdy when the home room teacher came for first hour and the last hour. Even I dozed off (only for 15 minutes) when the heat simply lulled me into a slumber. (It was also during History class.)

I feel like my Japanese is getting so much bettter, but when I called obaasan to ask her to tell my mom that she could pick me up at 6PM, I couldn't really understand a lot of what she was saying. I thought I understood (and apparently I was correct and what I thought she said) but I wasn't 100% sure, I eventually ended up handing the phone to Keita and he handled it in 10 seconds. My mom was on the way and it looked like she was already waiting for me. My new friends met her and they were so impressed it seemed they wanted to host foreign students of their own. Let the trend go strong...

Anyway, I feel pretty good about everything right now. I'm looking forward to a new day of high school and starting volleyball tommorrow. Which apparently is hell, but I'm looking for a workout challenge, should I even consider trying to do Cross-Country again this year.

My host mom sent off my blog URL and picture blog off to a friend whose son went on a homestay to Canada. So now, he's translating most of it for them to read. While it's kind of weird for them to be able to read my fully "articulated" thoughts on Japan, I think it's cool. Hopefully, I'll be able to meet the trusty translator kid who probably has superior English skills. After getting off the phone with mom today and speaking in a mixture of English and Haitian-Creole, I frequently replaced words with Japanese. I love how I'm already forgetting my native language. And it is a good thing, at least for now.