Wow, sorry for not posting in so long. I have been occupied by other things and found doing more super long posts flat out scary. I will get back on schedule with one post and will force myself to do it all in a limited time, so this one may be vague and fast, but with this, I will be back on track.
NOTE to Papa: Apparently the only church near my house is presbyterian.
Day 108 is the 1st of January, and 125 is today, the 18th.
The first three days of New Year's, we had special breakfast food for New Year's. Some I liked, some I did not like.
The first, New Year's Day, I went with my host mother, Yuuma (bro), and Manami (sister) to Yokohama. We started off doing a Hatsumode, or the first (Shinto) shrine visit of the new year. It was amazingly crowded. My host mom bought me a charm of protection and good luck called an omamori, and an Omikuji (a fortune that says if you have good or bad luck). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omikuji We also offered a prayer at the shrine and randomly ran into my host mother's sister in law there also doing the Hatsumode. Then we went to a famous building in Yokohama called Landmark Tower. We went to the top and got a great view over Yokohama from probably the tallest building in the area. It was cool. Afterwards, we took the train again and went to my host mother's house, where we met up with my host dad also. there, we are a lot of food (especially sushi that was delivered to the house), people did a very tiny gift exchange, drank beer (I only had one glass, and had other stuff the rest of the time), and chatted a lot. My host mom's parents even gave me Otoshidama (new year's money gift given by adults to children), yay!!! After the party, we went home, at this point it was dark. It was fun, but it was somewhat awkward for me because while some people talked, most people only did for a short time, then spent most of the time talking with others, so I was just sitting there eating for a while, or talking with my host dad.
The next day we did more or less the same thing at my host dad's house. The main difference being there were fewer small kids, so it was much quieter and two people, my host dad's sister, her daughter, and a sister in law talked with me the whole time. I had people to talk to the whole time, so I found it a bit more fun and less awkward than the previous day. I left with a book from the parents to try to read, and a loaf of really good bread from another of my host dad's sister's bakery (apparently it is good enough to make the front page of a magazine even).
The day after, I slept in a bit and spent the rest of the day doing homework that I probably should have done earlier in the day.
Saturday, I joined 2 friends for lunch, then we hung out the rest of the day, until around dinner time, then one left for her job, the other went home to study, and I went home for dinner.
Sunday was a Niji event, Mochi-tsuki (making mochi). This is where you manually pound the rice into a thick sticky mush using giant wooden hammers. I have done this before. It is really fun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJXv01HPpU (NOTE: we were not professionals and did not have any professionals, so it did not go nearly this fast or smoothly).
Most of the rest of my time up until now has been spent studying, hanging out with friends, and eating yummy food. There has not been that much that sticks out as something different, or special worth mentioning besides I met up with friends for lunch twice.
The two other bits worth mentioning: Once I had lunch with Mika at a cafe, then afterwards, we went to an empty classroom and corrected each other's essays (I had a Japanese essay and she had an English one, so we just traded), then I helped her study English a bit for a test called the TOEFL.
The other time, I met up with Miku (not Mika) for lunch and to wish her a happy birthday. I gave her two gifts, one was a stone hotplate from Seattle with a nice painting of Seattle on it, and the other was a little figure that you attach to your phone. The figure was the Character for Imabari, Bary-san. She seemed to really like it.
That pretty much brings me up to date. Nothing too exciting recently besides hanging out with friends. I will call this a good enough update for the whole first half of the month and will try to continue doing posts regularly again; doing a lot at once is no fun.
NOTE to Papa: Apparently the only church near my house is presbyterian.
Day 108 is the 1st of January, and 125 is today, the 18th.
The first three days of New Year's, we had special breakfast food for New Year's. Some I liked, some I did not like.
The first, New Year's Day, I went with my host mother, Yuuma (bro), and Manami (sister) to Yokohama. We started off doing a Hatsumode, or the first (Shinto) shrine visit of the new year. It was amazingly crowded. My host mom bought me a charm of protection and good luck called an omamori, and an Omikuji (a fortune that says if you have good or bad luck). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omikuji We also offered a prayer at the shrine and randomly ran into my host mother's sister in law there also doing the Hatsumode. Then we went to a famous building in Yokohama called Landmark Tower. We went to the top and got a great view over Yokohama from probably the tallest building in the area. It was cool. Afterwards, we took the train again and went to my host mother's house, where we met up with my host dad also. there, we are a lot of food (especially sushi that was delivered to the house), people did a very tiny gift exchange, drank beer (I only had one glass, and had other stuff the rest of the time), and chatted a lot. My host mom's parents even gave me Otoshidama (new year's money gift given by adults to children), yay!!! After the party, we went home, at this point it was dark. It was fun, but it was somewhat awkward for me because while some people talked, most people only did for a short time, then spent most of the time talking with others, so I was just sitting there eating for a while, or talking with my host dad.
The next day we did more or less the same thing at my host dad's house. The main difference being there were fewer small kids, so it was much quieter and two people, my host dad's sister, her daughter, and a sister in law talked with me the whole time. I had people to talk to the whole time, so I found it a bit more fun and less awkward than the previous day. I left with a book from the parents to try to read, and a loaf of really good bread from another of my host dad's sister's bakery (apparently it is good enough to make the front page of a magazine even).
The day after, I slept in a bit and spent the rest of the day doing homework that I probably should have done earlier in the day.
Saturday, I joined 2 friends for lunch, then we hung out the rest of the day, until around dinner time, then one left for her job, the other went home to study, and I went home for dinner.
Sunday was a Niji event, Mochi-tsuki (making mochi). This is where you manually pound the rice into a thick sticky mush using giant wooden hammers. I have done this before. It is really fun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJXv01HPpU (NOTE: we were not professionals and did not have any professionals, so it did not go nearly this fast or smoothly).
Most of the rest of my time up until now has been spent studying, hanging out with friends, and eating yummy food. There has not been that much that sticks out as something different, or special worth mentioning besides I met up with friends for lunch twice.
The two other bits worth mentioning: Once I had lunch with Mika at a cafe, then afterwards, we went to an empty classroom and corrected each other's essays (I had a Japanese essay and she had an English one, so we just traded), then I helped her study English a bit for a test called the TOEFL.
The other time, I met up with Miku (not Mika) for lunch and to wish her a happy birthday. I gave her two gifts, one was a stone hotplate from Seattle with a nice painting of Seattle on it, and the other was a little figure that you attach to your phone. The figure was the Character for Imabari, Bary-san. She seemed to really like it.
That pretty much brings me up to date. Nothing too exciting recently besides hanging out with friends. I will call this a good enough update for the whole first half of the month and will try to continue doing posts regularly again; doing a lot at once is no fun.