Last Minute Message

So I don't really have a lot of time to post anything new because I'm leaving in 5 minutes. But this experience has been the most incredible one of my life I can tell you that. I tried to cover it all in this blog - I don't think I succeeded - but even if I told you every minute detail, it doesn't beat being here and experiencing it. You have to see the Japanese people for yourself and experience this great country on your own. It's truly worth it, knowing that peaceful, good people exist in this world. We aren't isolated, we're all essentially the same.

I truly feel as if this family has become my own. I want to come back and visit them and be a part of their lives for the rest of mine. And I think it's been an incredibly rewarding and rich experience. Hanai family - thank you!

And I close with a silly picture of course:

LIVELY!

YFU TRIP: Nara

So YFU, happens to throw at leastone get-together for all of the YFU students in particular areas. Last Sunday, kids in and around Aichi-ken gathered in Nagoya and headed off to Nara for a day of lots of culture and a couple interesting sights and experiences.

I think I was the one who brought the mom family with me, my host dad, host mom and little host brother. Everyone else either had their mom, dad, a host sibling and I know of one kid who even came alone. Everyone actually looked a little weathered, or maybe it was the really crappy weather that day, but people did look a little tired. (And I thought, I wasn't going to be the brightest, sunniest person that day) I actually meet up with Yamamoto-san, who my family happens to love for his language skills and amiable demeanor, and hung out with his host brother and this other kid from Sweden doing a one year homestay. We happened to stand in the center of this chaya (tea house/coffee house) of sorts and just rambled on about politics - mostly European - unabashedly. While it isn't my standard topic of preference, just being able to speak lots of English was refreshing.

When we first arrived in Nara, we went to the tera where daibutsu or the big statue of the Buddha lives. I've always wanted to go and see it so I finally glad to do so. But there was so little light, I really couldn't take any nice photos or even see it very well. Before entering the tera, there's a huge incense bowl of sorts where people light incense before entering the building. Inside the building there's this huge wooden column where at the bottom, there's a generally small, squarish hole. Those who can squeeze through are said to become happier because of it. Well it was a bit painful, but I did it and so did about 10 other people, including some adults, who happened to jump in and take the challenge.

Photos before I continue rambling on:

Sojiroh and my host mom lighting it up in the incense bowl.

The first entrance into the big otera where the daibutsu resides.

The first entrance into the big otera where the daibutsu resides.

Sojiroh folding his fortune, where everyone elses are tied. He got a good, my host mom got a very good, my host dad got slow luck and I got bad luck. My fortune warned me from making an travel anytime soon.

It said that if you rub your hand against any body part on this statue and then rub it on your corresponding body part, whatever ailment you have there will be cured. I rubbed its nose, then mine, since I had a small cold. Afterwards a man not so sneakily rubbed the statue's crotch area and then his. Maybe it's the next Viagra?

My first hurdle to being enlightened/happy, FOR LIFE. If there's one reason to come to Nara, it's this!

After scouring the Daibutsu's crib we moved on and ate at this little joint. Buckwheat noodles and tenpura - it was delicious. Afterwards we fed these little ones, called shika or more simply deer, some biscuts:

They also get aggressive once they catch sight of you with the precious food, on sale in every shop in Nara. They also snatching paper for people's hands or just off the ground and eating that too.

After that we rode jinrikisha - which are rickshaw's. Two people ride and one incredibly skinny but powerful man pushes. The guy's name was Yamamoto, but he asked us to call him Yama-chan. I couldn't help but chuckle a little, but I think it came off as a friendly smile. Nonetheless - the ride was awesome!!!

My day in Nara was pretty great, except for the incessant rain. After we got back to Toyohashi, we had dinner in this little ramen shop in the back, which apparently my family frequently visits. It was also some of the best ramen I've had. I'm certainly going to miss, cheap and authentic Japanese cooking.

I've got more to post about later, when I don't feel so tired. Videos from my stay, tales of my 1st visit to a 100 yen shop, which totally blast American 99 cents stores out of the water, second-hand CD shops, where prices are slashed 90% but the CDs are like-new and tons of other stuff. I guess I've got to ramp up the posting before I leave. 4 days left. :(

Mickey!

Thursday was my last day of school in Japan. It was pretty uneventful. We went through a whole assembly where teachers checked the length and uniforms of the students right before summer vacation began. The usual banter about studying hard, how summer vacation really isn't a vacation and other random sayings about school were said by the faculty.

At the end of the day (which was sort of a half-day) class ended, the kids piled out and I didn't even get to get a picture of the class. I admit, I did forget until it was too late - but I got a few goodbyes. I also got a nice present from kyoto-sensei or the Vice Principle and afterwards ate lunch with Ryuya and waited in homeroom until my host day could come and pick me up.

The day before though was a little more interesting. The whole school went to the local opera house to see Megaimon. Which is apparently an opera, but looked and sounded like a musical. Of course at times, the actors did get a little melodramatic so I guess it'll pass.

Anyway here are some pictures. I couldn't really understand much, but I know it was pretty funny (I was laughing at all the pantomime) and the actors were pretty good. I'm just glad I got to see a piece of Japanese theatre at work. And hopefully when I return, I'll get to see some truly great stuff out there.

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Today I just got back from watching some hanabi or fireworks here in Toyohashi. Of course they were beautiful, but it still amazes me how much the Japanese are amazed by fireworks. Of course, they're beautiful - but they truly do enjoy them it's really nice to watch. I've been feeling a lot like a kid lately... because yesterday my family took me to TOKYO DISNEY SEA!!!!

Okay - the emphasis placed on that might be a little scary, but I was truly looking forward to going. And I'm glad I finally did get to see a piece of Tokyo Disney magic. Of course, the whole affair is almost a sacred occasion for my family. They are truly Disney freaks and they have a shrine with all sorts of Disney collectibles and memorabilia in their living room. It's cute and the Disney Co. should be very thankful for their over-zealous spending habits in its stores. I tried to resist, but even I ended up buying quite a bit of Disney junk. Hey, I've always wanted those Mickey Mouse gloves my mother refused me when I was 9.

When the Japanese go to Tokyo's Disney attraction it's fascinating to watch because (1) they dress up in all sorts of Disney-sanctioned clothing, (2) they buy, buy, buy oh and (3) truly freak out when they see Mickey Mouse and Goofy suits walking around. The whole operation seemed a little more involved and lively here in Tokyo than back home in Florida. And of course, a hell of a lot more cleaner.

While the rides were pretty tame but I still had a wonderful time. The gloomy rain wasn't too much fun, and I didn't get much sleep since we drove all the way from Aichi-ken to Chiba-ken where Tokyo Disney Sea is, but my family's sheer excitement more than made up for it.

My face when I get no sleep and eat a delicious breakfast. A confliction indeed.

Rio has some of the scariest faces in the world I think. She's the weirdest kid I think I'll ever know and I love her for that. Her obsession for Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride and Edward Scissorhands is understandable.

My family gets crazy when they see Disney characters.

These two were a pretty good duo and the lady had a nice soprano. My host dad knows more Italian songs than I do.

Disney fireworks are pretty amazing. Putting a show like this one, every day (which I'm sure is a lot less during the rainy season of Japan) must be a ton of cash. It was beautiful nonetheless. Yes, Mickey's really screechy voice and really okashii (odd) Japanese included. (i.e. Minna-san, natsu wa daisuki desu kaaaaa???)

Spending too much at the big Disney Store. (i.e. my dazed and confused look in this picture) I didn't really like much of anything because it was either obnoxiously plastered with Mickey's silhouette, or it was annoyingly subtle. The amount of branding really bugged me, but Disney sure does run a tight and profitable ship here in Disney. I'm kind of surprised at how much I spent. Half out of peer pressure watching my family buy stuff, hahah.

S-U-M-O

So, I haven't posted in 9 days. And naturally, lots of things have happened. I've had heart-to-heart discussions on how hard it is to get adjusted to Japan, I've gone to a sumo grand tournament in Nagoya, I've eaten LEVEL 3 ramen. And I've had an overall malange of emotions; all good. I'm also accutely aware of the limited time I have left with my family. And well, I frankly don't want to leave them. At least not yet, I feel like there's so much more to do and so much more to share, especially now that I feel adjusted - now that I feel like a true member of the family. I'm literally already thinking about when I can come back to visit them. When YFU said you'd truly have a life-long relationship with your family, I believed them - but I was thinking a lot of letters and presents and New Year's nengajoo cards and maybe a trip to Japan somewhere down the road.

But I already want to come back!

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Yesterday I went to my 1st Grand Tournament Sumo match. It was pretty cool and very chill (no really, we were seated in far away seats, directly under icy-cold air conditioning units). That's why obachan (pictured bottom left) boguht me a little sumo towel to keep my warm. I felt like a little child, but it was cute nonetheless.

Sumo guys are truly a wonder. They're (naturally) huge, have impeccable hair styles (which are supposedly supposed to double as head gear) and their feet are so fat they can't even fit into their extra-large special sandals. The matches consist of 4 minutes of ritualistic glaring, salt-throwing and special movements to drive away spirits and the matches last from 5 - 20 seconds. If you're pitied against a yokozuna (grand master) just try to fall somewhere where it won't hurt too much. Of course, trying to make this decision in 5 seconds while being slapped around, doesn't make things easier.

The journey to Nagoya was pretty long and involved quite a bit of different transportation, city bus, train, tour bus. Packed with tons of old people. I felt so out of place, seeing as I nearly double in height over my obachan and the old people there were all in awe of this tall, lanky "future American president," which I promptly laughed off as ridiculous and slightly scary. A lot of the people wanted to speak with me in English, which was surprisingly pretty good. There was this one lady though, who spoke in the tiniest of voices, so even though her English was good, I was straining to understand her small-than-a-mouse's-voice voice.

Toyohashi station - this line runs all the way to Nagano, but we stopped in Toyokawa, another Aichi city neighboring ours.

In the subway station, promptly after having butter bread and warm maacha bought for me. Cause, obachan's always feeding me you know.

After perusing as Japanese bus stop. Which are impeccably clean by the way and very funny to navigate when you see lots of old people shopping for foodstuffs after a nice bout of sumo. (But with this picture, we happened to be on the way and not back.)

The tour seemed tobe organized as part senior citizen's trip and part political campaign. Which was weird, because I just can't imagine Jeb Bush organizing recreational trips as part of a political campaign. Anyway, the lady seemed to be fielding lots of questions and answering back in a joking matter. Her political literature too was funny. It had a huge picture of her face plastered onto an anime character's body. She also had a corny original campaign theme song, with a huge picture of her holding a huge onigiri ball set against a background of a rice field. She's campaigning to be the Governor or jicho of Aichi.

When we got to the Aichi government offices, we were given a tour of the current jicho's office (which was pretty lavish) and we also got to see a tour of the law-making chambers. Where she took more questions and also took pictures with us. I couldn't help but feel out of place, in a very gray-haired portrait. I'm sure I ruined her campaign images showing how she works hard to provide for the country's growing senior population. Or her cameraman might have just cropped me out.

Sorry for the crappy picture. Since we were indoors practically all day, flash was freqently turned off.

After our little tour and a lot of her excited and peppy talk. We saw sumo. Picture speak a thousand words (well, maybe mine speak a hundred, they're not that great):

I also got a glimpse of Nagayo-joo, the castle with special gold models of killer whales on it's roof. I really want to visit it, but I think I'll have to wait till I return to Japan to check out it's castles.

I'm really glad I had the opportunity to see sumo. Of course next time, I need to get better seats, because almost 90% of the excitement of the matches is the first 4 minutes of glaring and ritualistic rice-throwing and whatnot. I could barely see their faces from where I was sititng, but of course I stupidly forgot the batteries for my big camera and my glasses. Always next time...

I close with a picture of my crew.

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.

The Past Few Days

If I were to write about my experiences in Japan everyday, I still don't think I'd have enough time. So while I haven't written anything in a while and I have pictures and hopefully Blogger will work with me and let me put up more than just one photo... I'll start barraging you with the latest.

My week (and one day) of going to Japanese elementary school always began with this lady's face and a healthy dose of a loud 'OHAYOU GOZAIMASU!' (GOOD MORNING!) I was always fumbling for my digital camera to snap a picture of her, but this one was conveniently taken on my last day (Thursday) on the way back from school. Which was incredibly lucky, because she is, disappointingly, never there after school.

Thursday I happened to head back to the elementary school for my truly last day since my middle school at the time were having tests. It was incredibly fun! The kids organized an impromptu 'George and Recreation' day and to top it all off we did some more dancing when a group from Zimbabwe came tot he school to play music and make us dance. At first, the crowd of Japanese kids were predictably meek, but that soon changed when the dancers came around and started dancing with everyone. I have embarassing video footage of my futile attempts at trying to keep up with the energetic kids, but I'll spare you (and myself).

My motto - pictures tell a thousand words (that I don't feel like totally narrating right now):

Ah I love elementary school. At the end I got a little farewell plaque with messages from all of the kids and a kite made by the teacher.

The next day was my last day of middle school and while I will have spent the least amount of time there, the kids were still very cool about having me. Except maybe, more aggressive hounding compared to the adorable elementary school kids. I've never been smiled/stared/squealed etc. etc. at so much before. I don't expect it to get much better when I start high school tommorow, but I can confidently say I've been thoroughly conditioned. Now I know why Hollywood stars hate the paparazzi so much.

Anyway, I wasn't have too good of a day on my last day of middle school which kind of sucks because it was my... last day. But at the end of the day, the kids presented me with an orgami-crane necklace/lei. It was amusing and also really nice, after only four days of getting to know some of the kids. But thankfully, I did make quite a bit of friends and my host mom wants me to stay away from one particular girl who wants to 'hang out' over the summer vacation. Honestly, truly funny.

And some pictures from my days at the middle school:

'Kengaku' (or sitting and observing) for Judo:

Yesterday the family decided to go out for a little bit... which turned into basically an all-day affair. After futile attempts at getting my debit card to work at two different ATM locations, we went to JUSCO (a shopping mall chain), got McDonald's (which tastes absolutely the same...) and when the afternoon came around we headed to downtown Toyohashi.

This made me very happy because while I love Toyohashi for being a nice and quiet town, I also missed the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. And it was only worse because the other YFU students were only there for a day. While of course, nothing can really top Tokyo, the city-ish feel was pretty amazing. After being asked a million times what I would like, after foisting through a million Japanese food terms in my trusty (Lonely Planet Phrasebook w/ a horrible 2,000 word dictionary included) I stumbled upon agemono. Which is basically... Japanese fried food. And boy was it good!!!

I appropriately end with one of Ryotaro's ridiculous faces. Because my host mom spent a ridiculous amoutn of money filling his stomach with agemono, hahah. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! I'll try to update as much as possible so I can spare you and myself long entries like this!