Love love love Osu Kannon area. I bought a Kimono and a scarf and ate Tacos and Beer. What a wonderful wonderful world!

Well Japanese is over for the week. That means I can start thinking in English again. I had a mean and nasty Japanese written test and then an oral test where they asked me lots of questions and made me call the front desk of a hotel and complain about the service. I suppose that is useful stuff to know. But it is over! YEAH! This weekend I will be working at the Nanzan University Festival helping to make okonomiyaki for the swim team fundraiser. I am very excited, but I have to work 8am-5pm Friday and Saturday. I love the swim team though. I'm not really sure what the festival is going to be like, but it sounds similar to the Craft's Fair McQueen has every year, and those were always so much fun. Today I am off shoping to buy more clothes. Actually I really want to buy long underwear. It has become cold here and it turns out the Japanese don't believe in heating their houses (or classrooms). They are crazy. I was losing feeling in my toes as I ate breakfast this morning, then when I looked up I realized it is because the kitchen window was wide open. All of the windows in the school are open even though the classrooms are freezing. I'm going to come back to America a funny shade of blue.

I went to Kyoto this weekend. It was amazing. Incredible. Fabulous! Saturday we took the Shinkansen from Nagoya, visited Sanjusangendo (the temple to Kannon), Kinkakujin (Temple of the Golden Pavilion) , and Ginkaku-ji (Temple of the Silver Pavilion). I absolutely loved it! Friday night we ate dinner while Geisha (A Maiko-san and Geiko-san) performed for us. Maiko-san are like Geisha in training. They become Maiko-san after they finish junior high school until they are 21. Then if they have finished all of their training and are ready they can become geisha. They were very beautiful and poised and we were able to talk to them for awhile and ask them questions.

Sunday we went to Kyomizudera, and a bunch of other temples. I loved Kyomizudera. I was ready to move in. I actually picked out the spot where I want my hut to go. I figure that instead of becoming a professional flower arranger I can become a philospher and sit on the mountain looking over Kyoto for the rest of my life and think. It will be kindof like being a monk, but I can think about whatever I want. It is a great plan. The maple trees were beginning to turn red and the light glittered off the leaves and the sky was blue and clear and the smell of incense was in the air, everything was peaceful, quiet, calm and I could see all of Kyoto and I felt like I was standing on the top of the world. There are certain moments that you want to live in forever. They usually don't last long, but they make an impression on you. That is how I felt on top of the mountain. I wanted to stay in that moment forever and ever. Happy and at peace with myself and the world.

"I love
My hut
At the foot of the Moon-awaiting Mountain
And the reflection
Of the sinking sky"
Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436-1490)

I met a man named Mr. Yes
outside a bar in Kyoto.
We both talked,
though neither understood.
Then he left.
The End.

Yesterday we went to the Toyota factory. I have to say I didn't have much of an opinion of Toyota before going there, good or bad. But I left with a very favorable impression. They are developing green cars (as in environmentally friendly), they recycle, the factory was very clean. They have a policy of taking suggestions from employees and last year something like 80% of the employees suggestions were implemented. Everything seemed very nice. The only thing that bothers me is that they have so few female employees. They have 0 female executives, and less women than the average Japanese company, and the average Japanese company isn't very good.

Today was my Ikebana test and I got an A+. I was very excited. I think I am going to become a professional flower arranger. Not a florist, but a flower arranger. It will be great!

I need to think of a halloween costume for the nomihodai tomorrow night! Ack!

This weekend was lots of fun! Saturday I met my host mother at Sakae around 4pm. I was right on time, but she had gotten the time of the parade wrong, so we only got to see the last 2 floats. I was ok with that, but she was very insistent that we were going to see more of the parade. So we went "Parade Chasing" a new activity I don't think other people engage in. We had to chase after the parade weaving and shoving through the crowds of people on the sidewalk and street. My host mother is very small and proper. She was wearing heels, it was raining, and we chased down the parade.

We went to Osu after that and wandered around watching performers for the Matsuri and browsing through all of the cute little shops and sidewalk stands. It was a lot of fun. The performers were great. There were people balancing tea cups on their noses, and rolling balls on umbrellas. There was a mime dressed in red who performed to jazz music (a personal favorite). There was even a live juke box. when I say live, I mean there was a man in a brightly decorated box who (when 200 yen was deposited) would play whatever song you requested. We drank Sake out of little wooden boxes and watched Geisha (not real geisha, just for the matsuri) stroll past. It was lots of fun.

Sunday I met my friends Ayako and Makiron at the University and we went to a Matsuri near Makiron's dorm. She lives in a dorm that is over an Obento shop, where she also works. The woman who manages the shop was really nice, and we called her Obasan (grandmother). We had a lot of really good food, played some games with a bunch of children that were there and won prizes. Then we went to a local temple and stood inside a square surrounded by scaffolding. People got onto the scafollding and threw down Mochi (rice cakes, they were wrapped in plastic). Everyone went scrambling for the Mochi and it became quite violent. It was a lot of fun though. Machiron was throwing the rice, but the rest of us ended up on the ground. Those little old ladies were quite adament about getting the Mochi and weren't opposed to pushing up down. It was a riot. Literally and firguratively. But a lot of fun!

Yoga night! Yoga night! Yeah to Yoga night! And tonight Christian and Rebekah are coming with me so that I will not be the only American looking silly. Yippie!

Today I am going to go to an antique fair, maybe. This weekend is the Matsuri (Festival) in Nagoya, so there will be parades and drunken revelry in the streets for the whole weekend. Apparently in Toyko they have problems with the portable shrines being crashed into eachother as people get into shrine fights. Hee hee hee. It reminds me of the fighting monks a few years ago. Different sects would battle eachother in the streets. Whoever said Buddhism was peaceful?

I have something that has been irking me all day. Actually for longer than that. Since I came to Japan the news has been going crazy with the story of the Japanese kids who were kidnapped by North Korea 24 years ago. President Kim of North Korea finally admitted to Prime Minister Koizumi that there were still some of the kidnapped kids alive (they are around 40 now) and there have been pictures of everyone involved all over the news. The kidnapped Japanese got to come back for a week to visit, and it really is very sad for them and their families. But what bothers me is the attitude of the Japanese. They make it sound like there is this horrible wrong that has been committed against them, and the North Koreans are the most evil people ever. But they very quickly forget how many Koreans they kidnapped and brought to Japan to make pottery. They never apologized or admitted that they did something wrong. The Japanese committed terrible atrocities in Korea as well as China, but steal a few of their citizens and you'd think the world was ending. Not that it isn't sad, but their attitude bothers me as slightly hypocritical. It reminds me also of America's attitude after the 9-11 attacks. Not that we don't have a right to feel hurt and violated, but we should recognize that we are not the first people to ever feel that way. And we have caused plenty of suffering ourselves and should remember that when we start to sound self-righteous. Maybe we aren't so different from the Japanese.

Today my Japanese teacher put a poster of a family on the chalk board and told us to pretend to be Stevie Wonder. Then we had to talk about how we were giving presents to our mother that looked like Cher, our teacher who was definitely Dick Chaney and our girlfriend who was very Marsha Brady-esque. Now if that doesn't sound like fun I don't know what is.

Yesterday I went with my host mother to the Matsuzakaya Department Store Museum (all the big department stores have museums in them). We saw a collection of art by Hokusai. He is really famous for his Ukiyoe prints (woodblock prints), although all of his work was absolutely amazing. It made me feel like such a failure to see his prints after I had just come from my hanga class. The small detail was absolutely incredible.

I just read the news, I suppose a trip to Bali would be out of the question now. I live in a little bubble in Japan, totally protected from the outside evil world. I hadn't heard about any of the terrorist attacks lately, or the sniper in DC. I was happily innocent. Some friends and I had even been talking about a trip to Malaysia. I suppose that would be a bad idea now too. I hate all of this violence. Reading the news online this morning was such a bad idea. It just reminded me that the world is not as happy and peaceful as my world in Japan is. Some of the other students just don't ever read the news because they don't want to know.

Saturday I had swim practice and then studied. Not terribly exciting, but I have a big test on Tuesday.

Saturday night my family took me to a Chinese restaurant where I got to try Jellyfish and shark's fin soup. They are really good. Although I didn't believe them that I was eating jellyfish at first. The waiter had to come explain it to me. I had always assumed jellyfish would be poisonous. I also had Shanghai crab, which I was told is the best in the world, but I was unimpressed by the crab. I would definitely rank Baltimore crabs higher.

I started Yoga last night, my first yoga class ever. I spent a FRIDAY night doing yoga. And I learned that I am incredibly unflexible. But it was really fun! So Friday nights are now designated Yoga nights.

Swim team is getting slightly easier. Today I only decided to quit twice. Once when I had to wake up at 6:30am on a Saturday, and the other time when I had to jump into a cold pool. That is pretty good for me. At the other practices I have decided to quit at least a dozen times during practice. By the end of practice I always feel better though (or too tired to bother) and so I put off quitting until the next time.

I have to go home and memorize a 5 minute Japanese skit that we are performing on Monday, and then study for a monster test that is on Tuesday. Somehow I got talked into being the MC for the skits. I was raising my hand to volunteer to be the time keeper (I figure after all that debate I should be able to take the time) and they signed me up to be MC despite my protests. Oh well, just a few million more lines to memorize.

In the post office they sell Winney the Pooh towels and cups.

Liz B- Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are chou faboo! I got your package and it made my night! The Chai tea was fabulous. I had forgotten how much I love that stuff.

My plans for next year

The Japanese just love Engrish!

Today we went to a Nursing home on a field trip. It was interesting, although very similar to American Nursing homes. I met a woman who is 103 years old. She was pushing herself around in a wheel chair. I want to be able to push myself when I am 103. It was really incredible. I think she is probably the oldest person I have ever met.

Sunday (I forgot to mention this) we went to Sumo. It was very exciting. There isn't much to explain about Sumo, it is fat men who try to push eachother out of a ring. But there is a lot of ceremony and tradition that goes along with sumo that you don't see on television. There was even a dance performance.

Things I love:
1. Friends
2. Friends who send me EZ Mac in the mail (hint hint hint, my address is listed below)
3. Planning trips to Malaysia (even if I probably won't end up going)
4. Sumo
5. Chocolate
6. Buying Jazz CDs at the 100yen store
7. Umbrellas
8. Fieldtrips during school (I definitely miss that about elementary school).

To continue with my "I want to be Sei Shonagon" phase....

Things that really drive me up the wall:
1. Being locked outside at night in the rain for 40 minutes because my host family won't give keys to "children"
2. The lack of dryers in this country. (You'd think with all the technology here they could handle making a few dryers)
3. Sleeping on the floor (no matter what anyone says, futons are not just as comfortable as beds)
4. Not being allowed to cook my own meals (children probably aren't allowed to use the stove in my house either)
5. Being ignored
6. Being stared at all the time (even when I am not wearing a scandalous dress

I thought I was going to die today. First day of swim team practice. In the middle I started to wonder what made me think that I could be on a swim team. I've never actually been on a swim team before (unless you count the month of swim team training I did in high school before getting bored and quitting). But they were very nice about my near death experience. They didn't even try to kick me off. I figure I will keep plugging away until I die or they kick me off.

So to be on the swim team I have to go to 4 practices a week. I have to write a weekly report about something to do with swimming (I'm a little unclear about this, but at my level of Japanese, anything I write will be a miracle). I also have to answer a page of questions for a magazine that is published yearly on the members of the swim team. It is the strangest list of questions I have ever recieved, and in a very odd order also. Here are some of the questions (and I swear I am not making this up):

1. Birthday, zodiac sign, and blood type?
2. Ideal significant other?
3. Why did you join the swimming team?
4. Favorite place?
6. Favorite Thing?
7. Favorite word?
8. Stress reliever
10. How do you want to propose/be proposed to? (yes we are talking about college students and marriage here)
11. What are you proud of
12. Message to the swim team.

My life in a nutshell: I joined a gym. Start the swim team tomorrow. Tonight I am going to a Latin Music Festival, and tomorrow is Jazz Music. Sunday I get to see Sumo. I have a million books to read (although I just finished Madame Butterfly, which the opera and Miss Saigon are based on). And I miss strawberries.

Dinner last night was fun. Yuki and Nagao both spoke very good English. Nagao (Yuki's boss) lived in San Francisco for 3 years and Yuki (my host sister from Kanazawa) studied at a Technology Institute in Indiana. I didn't use very much Japanese for most of the night. But then I started to explain something, and explained the whole thing in Japanese (maybe 5-7 sentences), and when I finished they both sat there in shock. They had assumed I didn't know much Japanese because I hadn't been using any. It was really funny.

I would also like to say that I still hate GW Bureaucracy (that word looks funny). Even in a foreign country I can't escape it! With my luck they will forget to ever give me my diploma too. Grrrrrrrr........

Today I made friends and figured out how to program phone numbers into my phone. Today was a good day.

I also didn't fail my quiz, and I am meeting my host family from Kanazawa's daughter and her boss for dinner. I'm not really sure why her boss is coming along. I have noticed that I tend to be treated like a trained seal in this country though. People are brought over to 'meet the foreigner' and I perform by speaking my few words of Japanese, they practice English with me for a few minutes and then I am ignored. It is like I am the entertainment provided for the night. I'm pretty sure that is why the boss is coming along. So he can talk to a gaijin while he drinks his beers. I honestly don't mind that much, it means I get to meet a lot of people (even if I do have to perform).

Typhoons are not exciting! Not at all! They are cold and wet and miserable! And my umbrella broke in the middle of it. Ugh!

Why won't they give up on this fried green gelatin? I would be happy if I never saw another piece of fried green gelatin again (especially for breakfast).

Rain, rain, go away (to somewhere far away like Siberia)
Come again another day (In January when I have left Japan)
Carissa really wants to do laundry (and without a dryer it is hard to dry clothes in the rain)
Rain, rain, go away!

By the way: Take cover! A typhoon is coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!