A new post!?! Japanese 401 Speech

Hiiii. Yeah, it's me. I've been neglecting this blog. You may have noticed, I still haven't written about the last several (very eventful) days in Japan. But I will! I will write about them. The thing is, as a junior, this is the time when I start taking all my tough major classes- I only have one class that isn't in the 400 level! So the little free time I have, I usually spend it on facebook, relaxing and being lazy. But I figured it was time to post something here, so I'll post my speech from my Japanese 401 class.
We had the choice of two topics, either talking about a controversial societal issue that is prevalent in America and possible solutions, or talking about something that is popular in America but not so much in Japan, and explain why. I did have a controversial topic in mind, but the character limit was 600 characters so that our speech wouldn't go too long. People who had started writing before me were having a tough time writing a good, detailed speech with such a tight limit, so I changed my mind at the last second and I ended up writing about cider mills. In Michigan, we have tons of these and I've always just taken them for granted, but earlier this fall some friends and I went to a cider mill. One friend who was from Ohio (our neighboring state to the south), we completely surprised by the cider mill. She said she had never even heard of one in Ohio (I'm sure there are some though, maybe just not as many as here). So I looked into it a bit, and I found out cider mills exist only in a bit over a dozen states here or so. Apple cider isn't solely an American thing, in Europe, historically cider has been popular, but cider mills as tourist destinations have sorta become an iconic thing in America.
I do have a video of the speech for you guys to see. Of course there are some mistakes, but I take pride in knowing I was the only one not to use note cards. I'm sure everyone else memorized theirs, but I think they fell into that trap that if you bring notes up with you, you end up constantly looking at them and reading from them. I knew that would happen to me too, so I just...didn't make any XD. Good thing my topic was pretty easy. There were people who talked about mock trials, technology dependency, the American school system, and a lot of other elaborate things. Even though mine was simple, I'm proud of it because I think I did a good job presenting it, comparatively, and it was easy for everyone to understand, and only 9 new vocab words. Also, I hate public speaking. A lot. Especially in Japanese. Which is why I have about 1,000 heart attacks every time I have an oral exam. In fact, I don't actually remember giving the speech here, that's how terrified I was, I just blocked it from my memory. It was even worse because you could see yourself on a giant tv in the back on the room. **shudder** so scary. Ok, but anyway, I'll post the video. I'm not going to sub it, but I will write a translation underneath so if you're curious as to what I said. I hope you enjoy this! Hopefully I can actually return to writing this blog regularly in the future ^_^

Apple Cider and Cider Mills
Autumn in the season for the most delicious food. Since it is the apple harvest time, apple cider is very popular in fall. The drink apple cider is not the same as the Japanese soda called "cider". Apple cider is unprocessed apple juice, but it does not taste the same as apple juice. Since cider is more natural, it spoils easily, and can only really be drinken in the fall. Cider is made in cider mills. In Michigan, there are over a hundred, several of which are rather famous. For example, in my home town, Rochester Hills, Yates Cider Mill has appeared on the Food Network channel and other "Best of" lists. Because of this, it's become more famous, and now in the parking lot you will see many licence plates from different states the visitors are coming from.
At cider mills, not only do you drink cider, but often cider mills will have their own attractions. For example, you can buy pumpkins, go apple picking, ride horse drawn wagons, have fun in corn mazes, and moreover there could be a petting zoo.
Every fall, I go to the cider mill at least once. There, I always buy fresh cider and donuts, and then dip the donuts in cider and eat them. Apple cider is my favorite drink, so that combination is very delicious. Historically, cider has been America's most important drink. A long time ago, instead of water, people would drink cider. Even today, apple cider is loved throughout the country. If you go to a cider mill too and drink America's beloved cider, I am certain you will come to love cider too.

notes: For those of you who don't know, cider in Japan (and Korea), is like what we call sprite...actually, the flavor is more like 7up. They do have other flavors too, but essentially it's just a type of soda. I'm not quite sure where this comes from, because historically, since the middle ages, cider has always referred to fermented fruit juice, most commonly apples. Also, I don't know why I didn't say this in my speech, but maybe people are confused as to why cider was the drink of choice and not water. Actually, in the colonial days, the water was not safe for drinking. Cider is really easy and inexpensive to produce, so that was usually what people would be drinking. If there are any other questions, feel free to ask.

Mary

Location: Dorm room
Mood: Procrastinating. Avoiding studying for finals XD
Listening to: Salvation for a Proud Nation - Immediate Music
Japanese for the day: 一番好きなのは＿＿＿です。ichiban sukina no wa ______ desu. My favorite one is _____. --> so if someone asks you your favorite food, drink, brand, choice for something, etc, just fill in the blank.

Taga (多賀町) and the Mansai Matsuri

Even though I've written about the graduation, the adventure is not over yet! I plan on continuing this blog for a while, so don't give up on me now, folks! XD

Since our host parents couldn't have us spend the night that night, Alisa had asked her host family if it was alright if Alex and I spent the night at her homestay in Taga, a small town not too far away from Hikone. Alisa and our friend Scott went to go grocery shopping and planned to meet us at the station, and by the time the group of us who was going was ready, we were kinda all thinking screw it to walking to the station with all our bags, so Alex, Ivan, Lu, and I got a taxi together. At the station, we went to a different platform that I had never seen before that seemed old and creepy and seldom used XD. There was nothing automated there, and I had to figure out on the map how I would get to Taga and then give my money to the attendant behind the gate. It was the weirdest thing, waiting there, and eventually getting on the old looking train with lace and ugly Victorian seat coverings. I was at the same station, but after being surrounded by modernity for so long, this seemed so foreign. Even the people there seemed un-mondern, housewives with kerchiefs, salary men in suits... Anyway, after transferring trains and a bit of wandering being confused, we arrived in Taga, and I was greeted by this:

but more interestingly, this:

Yes, that song was playing. All day long. But actually it wasn't that annoying- probably if you lived right next to those speakers it would be, but Alisa's house was on a side road, so you couldn't hear it that well from over there, so when we were walking along the main street it was fun to dance to it XD. Maybe you can hear me say it in the video, but the music and the lanterns there were all for the festival that was to take place that night, the Mansai Matsuri. Now, I might be wrong about my information. I can't find anything on the internet about this festival, and so I only know what Alisa told me because of what her host parents told her, so if something is wrong, please correct me!

Anyway, since Ivan had visited Alisa's house before, he luckily remembered the way to her house. Along the way, some old, very difficult to understand Japanese people wanted to talk to me and Alex since they figured we must be friends with the American girl in the town. They didn't really notice Ivan or Lu since they are both Asian :P. We got to Alisa's house where Alisa's host parents and their friends were socializing while Alisa's 3 and 5 year old host siblings ran around. Essentially we were there as babysitters, since we seemed to be their new play things, which I got the notion was what Alisa usually had to do when she was there. Lu started cooking, and since I'm next to useless in a kitchen (as you may have been able to tell by the pictures of the meals I make myself, aka cup ramen), I played with Haru-chan and Ko-chan, the kids. Shortly after that, Alisa and Scott arrived. Alisa helped with the cooking while the 6 foot 5 Scott became the new jungle gym. Poor Scott. He is too nice to say no, so the kids literally were climbing all over him and making him lift and throw and spin them.

comically tall Scott with Haru-chan

         

        the cooking masters

       

making shaved ice

For dinner Lu made Cola fried chicken wings and Mapodofu, which is a really really really spicy tofu dish. It's the only way I can stand tofu, but it's too spicy for me :P. Alisa also made tacos and we had chips and salsa too. By the time we finished eating it was beginning to get dark, so all of us headed out towards the big shrine. I took several videos in which you can see what is happening and I explain things. Although we know from experience that the sound quality of these is awful, so I'll explain a bit more after.

Oh goodness, those videos took a long time to load. So anyway, I was told the lanterns are supposed to represent dead ancestors, and that is why the bon odori is preformed as the people walk to the shrine, in honor of the dead. The Bon Odori can vary from place to place, as can the song it's played to, but ultimately it is very similar to what you see and hear in the videos. The reason the groups are all dressed differently is because they represent different companies in the area. After watching the procession, we joined the sardine tin tight crowd in praying at the shrine, and enjoyed some music and entertainment and had fun doing shopping and whatnot. There was one thing though...
At one point, the gang of kids wanted to go to the main road to look at the food there, so Alex and I were going along, but we asked them to wait a second because Haru-chan wanted some shaved ice. In the short time it took us to get it, they were gone without giving us indication as to where they went. We walked Haru-chan back to her parents, but then Ko-chan wanted some shaved ice too. We took him down to get the treat, and when we got back to where his parents and their friends were....no one. Alex and I were doing our best not to panic, but as we wandered around the huge shrine grounds, the people were becoming fewer and fewer. Ko-chan didn't seem worried as all, he just went around contently eating his shaved ice, but Alex and I were not pleased. Apparently Alisa's family thought it was fine that as long as their five year old went with us somewhere, they were no longer in charge of him, and we can totally FIND OUR WAY BACK HOME. Because that's where they had gone, back home. We know this because eventually we made our way out of the maze that was the shrine and found the rest of the gang buying things on the street. We idoled around, waiting to see if Alisa's host parents would come out, and when they didn't, we went back. What if we hadn't even found Alisa? I had already asked them where she had gone to, so they knew we didn't know where she was...grr, whatever, I just hate being put into that kind of a situation, especially since they were just taking advantage of us as babysitters. But it's in the past, so it's not a big deal. Anyway, here are more pictures.

When we got home I was rather exhausted from several very busy days, that, and being a human jungle gym, but the kids just wouldn't go to bed! By 10:30, I was like "Ok, Mary needs to get to sleep now" XD. Alex, Alisa, and I settled down for our last sleepover, before heading out early in the morning for our penultimate destination.
 I'm going to add this part now afterwards, because Ivan said that I sound ungrateful since I talked mostly about just the negative story and only skimmed the good things. To clear up,  Taga was actually a lot of fun, and although I didn't write about everything we did at the house, it was really cool, like a mini party, and it was a great way to cheer up after the sadness of leaving our host families and friends we made at JCMU. The kids really adored us, and they were super cute- really tiring though. I know I couldn't play with them all day everyday like that, and I could see why Alisa already looked tired after just a short time since she went through that everyday XD. I think Alisa was quite lucky to have such a host family, since I know people who didn't have it nearly so good. It was actually really sad to leave them the next day, especially because when we missed the train, they drove the three of us to Hikone from Taga. Alisa tried to be cool about it, but we could see she was sad to leave them, and even her host dad was about to cry when they hugged goodbye. I was so thankful we were allowed to stay there, like I wrote in my previous post, and I'm sorry I didn't mention it more throughout this one. I'll try to be clearer next time, and speaking of next time, this story is to be continued... 

Mary

Location: mah beeed
Mood: hungry. huuuungryyyyy!
Listening to: Ryouhou for you - Ulfuls
Japanese for the day: だめ！dame! - NO!/ No good!/Don't do that please! >_< (especially useful when chastising obnoxious children **ahem ahem**)

Graduation

Alex and I then spent literally an entire day packing. It was such a problem, trying to get all of our newly acquired possessions into our suitcases. Even though our flight wasn't for another five days, we needed to send our larger suitcase to the airport, since there was no way we could carry those things around with us, and also because we had to leave our homestay early. Okaasan and Otousan were leaving for Tokyo very early in the morning after our graduation in order to babysit their other two granddaughters, which meant that we had one more night we needed to find a place to stay. When we found that out earlier the week before, we were a bit worried, but luckily our friend Alisa said we could spend the night with her at her host family's house, so we were so relieved and grateful for that. However, that still left the rest of the trip. Mizuho actually went out of town and Yuki had had a surgery and didn't feel up to keeping us occupied, so that meant returning to Tokyo early was not an option. We had actually wanted to go back to Osaka and hang out there a while, and since Miki, Saki, and Mayumi had all seemed eager to hang out again, even saying we could stay at their place, we thought that would be a great option. We had sent them all texts about our situation, but no one responded. We started sending out texts to all of our friends in Japan. No one was answering us. Mind you, this isn't facebook where you can be like, "oh, he just doesn't go online often", no, we are TEXTING them, and they have our number, they know who we are. We believed it was because they either couldn't or didn't want to take us, but didn't want to have to tell us no. Japanese people don't like having to tell people no, which for Westerners can be very frustrating, since we take things at face value and to us it's the speakers' job to convey the message, not the listeners' job to read through the given answers to interpret what you want. When dealing with Westerners, it's best to just say what you mean, even if that's not what you normally do. Of course you can be polite about it, but don't say things just to make them happy. Especially if they ask you "do you understand" and you say yes even when you don't. I have had SO much trouble with that over the years with exchange students from Asian countries. I like to help, and I understand how frustrating it is to not understand what's going on. Yeah, sorry, I had to rant a little about that for like two seconds, but I'm done, I promise. 
Anyway, a week later, Mayumi texted us asking if we meant to stay at a hotel or at her house, which was fairly obvious since Alex wrote "can we stay with you at your house" in the original text, so it seemed like a delay tactic. Alex responded, but Mayumi never answered until the day before we were leaving, which by then we already had other accommodations. We went to Okaasan and asked if we could just go with them to Tokyo, but they weren't staying at their son's apartment, but rather at a nearby hotel, so that would be impossible for us. Okaasan suggested though, that we stay in Moriyama with her other son's family, since Tomoko-san is a teacher and she will be there during the day since it was summer vacation. We arranged to stay with the other Mabuchi family and we booked seats on a night bus to Tokyo and then a hotel in Tokyo at the airport since our flight left at 6:50 am on the 8th. It was like a huge weight was lifted off our chests, and I think we both felt so bad for putting everyone in such an awkward place, but there wasn't really another option, and we were just so glad something worked out.
Once we finally packed everything up, Okaasan and Otousan took us out to dinner to a restaurant that served Chinese dishes. The restaurant was really casual, but the food was really good, and no one really talked much since we didn't have anything to say really, since we'd just been home packing all day. I thought about how it was our last meal together, and I was really saddened by that. But it was really nice.

お母さんとお父さんと最後の食事

The next day we got all dolled up for our graduation and we started to get in the car. Okaasan had us put our bags in the front seat, so I asked where would Otousan sit. She said he wasn't coming, and it was then that it hit me that I was leaving them. I ran out of the car and Alex and I gave Otousan our card and said goodbye to him. He watched us leave, and I was already crying. At school, we all had a run through of what we would do for the ceremony, and I had time to take a few pictures with friends before the host families came in to watch us graduate. We had a speech from our director, who I was not very fond of, and it amused me that he was worse at giving speeches in Japanese than the students were, so haha. Then a representative or two from each level would come up and give a speech. My friends from level one were adorable, and Helen from level two and the guy from level four were very good, but Alex's speech for our level was really something special.

After we had really cute Japanese desserts and drinks and talked and took pictures until we could get our grades. Okaasan tried to leave when we were going to Matsui sensei's office, but I made her promise to stay.

Me, Jeff, and Alex

Level 1 kids' speech

Level 2 speech

Alex, giving level 3's speech

Level 4 speech

The Environmental Science kids' speech

Matsui sensei

Me and Melville sensei

Our fancy desserts :D

三年生！

I was not at all happy with my grade. I swear my teacher was biased. I think she knows I think that too, which makes her even more biased. But my speech was really really good and I only made one mistake total and she gave me a B +. It's not like that's bad, but my speech was really good, and really interesting comparatively. So I ended up with a 3.0, and I was already sad and what not, so this didn't put me in a better mood. And then Okaasan had to go. She tried to just shrug it off like it wasn't a big deal and leave, but Alex and I ran after her and hugged her as we cried, and before long she was crying along with us even though she was telling us not to. Alex asked her to please remember us and she said she could never ever forget us. She left, and soon afterwards Alex and I had to leave too, so we grabbed our duffle bags, said our last goodbyes to our friends, and headed off to Taga with Ivan and Lu.

Mary

Location: My bed in my dorm, where I have been literally all day while writing this.

Mood: sad, because now I'm thinking about saying goodbye to Okaasan (´Д｀。)

Listening to: Never Forget - Gothic Storm

Japanese for the day:　全然分かりません。zenzen wakarimasen. - I don't understand at all.

Fireworks, Karaoke, and Conversing with Strangers in Japanese

Alright, so I lied about me being able to update often after I came home...I didn't know I would be lying, I swear! XD See, although JCMU's summer program goes EXTREMELY fast (1 chapter every 3 to 4 days O_O), there still isn't enough time to finish one whole year's worth of lessons in two months. So in order for me to be caught up with the 400 level here at Michigan State, I had to learn 5 chapters by myself, and truth be told, I am not finished. It's really hard to do this alone- any Japanese students out there, I am using the Tobira textbook, and in said textbook, the focus is primarily on the reading material for that chapter, so I have to learn the vocab, learn the kanji for that vocab, learn all the new grammar structures, make sure that's all memorized so that I can actually go back and read the reading material, as well as the conversation practice, cultural notes, and any other things in there. And mind you it's about 60-80 vocab words, over 50 kanji, and about 15-18 grammar structures per chapter. Sorry, this post isn't supposed to be about my work load, it's supposed to be about my last few days in Hikone.
On August first, there was a festival in Hikone right along the beach road which is right by the school. I was really looking forward to going to the festival to cheer me up after the disaster that had been my oral exam earlier that day. Around 6 o'clock, Alex and Alisa came back from a bike ride with lots of food and said there were already stands selling things along the road. I went out with a couple of the guys from my class to get something to eat. I was a bit disappointed, since everything was so expensive, well, relatively speaking. At all the other festivals I had gone to you could get food and drinks rather cheap, but then it felt more like in America when you get ripped off for the prices of food at amusement parks and such. I did end up getting shaved ice though, which you can find at any festival in Japan (if you are looking for some, look for the sign カキ氷, and it's pronounced kakigoori ^_^). By the time I'd bought that though, it was already getting dark since in Japan the sun sets super early, even in summer. 
Alex, Alisa, and another girl Frannie met up and we went to find a spot on the grass to watch the fireworks. The fireworks were launched from platforms in the lake that in the dark looked like battleships XD. The fireworks themselves were great- not only did they have your traditional style fireworks, but being Japan, they also burst in the shapes of other things, like Hello Kitty, Doraemon, Hikonyan, hearts, and smiley faces. Unfortunately it's hard to capture the shapes of these with the camera, even by using special settings (at least for me it is), but I do have other pictures of the fireworks as well...actually, I took like 100 XD, but I'll just post a few here. The show lasted for two hours and fireworks were constantly being launched the whole time. :)

Some of these are the launch boats and some are just boats with spectators

This is the Doraemon one, but as you can see, from our angle it doesn't look like much :P
This is what Doraemon looks like

A great way to end our trip :) The only thing though, was that it meant we got home late even though we had to study for the exam that was the next day T_T.
The next day, I decided since I'd never gone to karaoke in Japan, it was about due time (I know, a travesty, ね?) I had to turn in my bike that day, so I thought it would be easiest to go to the place right next to the station where we had accidentally gone to that time when everyone else went to the other place. Unfortunately, everyone I talked to was being wishy washy about going. I was feeling rather downtrodden because I didn't think it was going to happen. Alex and I did go home to Nagahama to have dinner and such. Alex had plans to meet someone at 9 so she was going to go to Karaoke with us first and then go out. There was a hitch though, and by the time we got to the station, we had already missed the train. We took the next one, which would have arrived only a bit late, but at the major station before Hikone, the train waited there for 15 minutes! I was so mad because I had made a big deal about what time to get at the Karaoke place, and now I was the one who was late. On the train though, a rather strange guy started talking to us but then wanted to meet up with us later and when we told him we were leaving in a few days, he said he would hang out with us in Tokyo...he gave us his phone number, but we never did give him ours...I mean, yeah it's nice to talk to people, but I don't want to hang out with a stranger really, not one who I know nothing about other than the fact that he is in his upper twenties and he happened to be riding the train to Kyoto...
Anyway, we were late, and Alex's friend decided that despite the issues of communication we'd been having with him, that he would meet us up and go with us to karaoke. But he was wasted. And of no help to us. None of us actually knew how to go about this whole karaoke business, and we were very confused. We happened to run across a guy we'd met from Shiga University there and he helped us book the room and get our complimentary drinks and whatnot :). But once Alex, her drunk friend, Ivan, Frannie, and a kid from a different JCMU program named Evan found our room, we had no clue how to work anything. We were given this complicated remote control thing with a screen so we could pick our songs, but we couldn't figure out how to browse through the songs. Alex's drunk friend just sat there not helping us, so it took us about 10 minutes to figure out that you can't really browse through the songs in general, but you have to already know what song you want and just type it in. Eventually we got the hang of it, and eventually the drunk guy left, so we had a ball singing and being goofy for 2 hours until Alex and I needed to leave to catch the last train to Nagahama.

Karaoke in Japan entails you getting a private room with couches to chill at, and we all got complimentary drinks. That touch screen thing that Ivan has is what you use to choose the song and then it'll be on the screen, nicely enough with furigana, meaning having hiragana above or next to the kanji so you know how to read it. I'll go more in depth about that kind of stuff another time if you still don't get it. Even with the furigana, often times to foreigners, Japanese is like a tongue twister when you have to say it fast, so a lot of times our singing came out as gobilty gook XD If you wanna see us be absolute idiots and like, not able to sing in Japanese, I have a video :P We did actually sing another song together pretty well, and luckily it was during that song that our friend from Shiga that helped us book the room decided to pop on in and listen. I didn't film that one though :P.

After we got back to Nagahama, Alex and I hopped on our bikes and were heading home. Nagahama Ootemondoori seemed deserted until we passed a skinny little building with a light on in the upstairs. The sign read that there was a bar upstairs. I was a bit apprehensive since I thought we would be bored and just feel obligated to buy drinks, but Alex wanted to check it out since it was one of our last days in Hikone and also Okaasan knew we would be home late so wouldn't stay up for us. We went in the bar. It was really tiny, but one of the first things I noticed was a corner that had a raised platform with two low tables and cushions to sit on that was sectioned off by bead curtains. After standing at the bar counter for no more than 10 seconds, the people at one of the low tables in the sectioned off area waved us over in permission to use the other table. Alex and I sat down there next to the 3 sorta drunk guys and the 1 rather drunk girl. One of the guys started to speak broken English to us, so we answered in very simple English, but after they asked us if we study Japanese we continued in Japanese from there. And as it went on, they were shocked by the level of Japanese that we spoke. Alex and I didn't really want to pay the prices for drinks (bars in Japan are expensive), but they convinced us to get some, and then they gave us some of theirs, and then somehow we got refills, and all this time, Alex and I are discussing complicated Japanese topics like the Japanese education system and religion in Japan and all these random this we have learned in class. I actually went out of my way to use all the most recent vocabulary structures we'd learned, and they were so impressed by our vocabulary. Alex and I stayed just two hours at the bar, but we'd probably spoken more and better than all of our classroom experiences combined! But too bad that wasn't our final exam instead of the awful awful test we had taken earlier that day. We would have passed with flying colors. Our friends then left the bar and kindly paid for our drinks since they had so much fun talking to us. Alex and I rode our bikes home very elated because of the great night we had had and the fact that we were done with JCMU classes forever :)

Mary

Location: My bed...in my new dorm room that I moved into yesterday :D
Mood: Empty headed (￣▽￣)
Listening to: My Sweet Darlin' - Hitomi Yaida http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIzxrBeKzLA
Japanese for the day: 初めまして、私の名前はメアリーゲビーです。よろしくお願いします。hajimemashite, watashi no namae wa mearii gebii desu. yoroshikuonegaishimasu. - Nice to meet you, my name is Mary Gebbie. I look forward to working with you/ please treat me kindly (something to that regard).
^^this is the standard greeting I use when meeting people. It's not super formal, nor is it informal, and it can be changed depending on if you are the one starting the conversation or you're replying to someone or what not. This is probably one of the most important phrases you can learn, ok?

It's Time for Another Picture Post!

Indeed it is, for I have many pictures that don't have an entry to go with them. Since a lot of the things I haven't actually gone into detail about, I'll write a little bit about them :)

                 

 That festival that Alex and I went to with our friend Alisa, that Tanabata festival I think it was, lasted for the whole weekend, so on the last day Alex and I stopped by and I stalked some cute girls in yukatas.

Is it sour cream and onion? No! It's seaweed and salt! :D

The day after we got back from Osaka, Okaasan and Otousan took us to Moriyama to visit their oldest son's family, aka the family with Haru-chan and Ha-chan. Okaasan, Alex, Ha-chan, Haru-chan, their mother Tomoko-san, and I went to a cool shopping plaza in...uh...I forget what town...(maybe it was Kusatsu? Or Yasu...?), despite the fact that Alex and I were out of money XD. Well, I did spend the remaining 600 yen I had at there while at Kiddy Land, aka the cutest store ever. :P

In Japan, they just make desserts like this all the time. Yeah, maybe their slices of cake are small and whatnot, but when they make sundaes and parfaits, and anything of the like, they go all out XD

Japan is also big into fortune telling. This little doohickey was based on your zodiac sign, but another method they often use is your blood type. They also say your blood type defines your personality, but that's never been my cup of tea, because I can't believe there are only four types of personalities in the world. Anyway, this one dispensed a little ball that opened up to reveal a little folded paper telling you your fortune/all of your lucky things for the week.

Kiddy Land!!! :D (I went to one in Tokyo too)

Japanese Baskin Robbins, but in Japanese they just call it Forty One Flavors, so if you say Baskin Robins they won't always know what you mean XD

Okaasan and Haru-chan

Tomoko-san and Ha-chan

Pretty scenery as we drove back to Moriyama

One of Haru-chan's favorite pastimes was to set the timer on my camera to take ten rapid pictures so it looked like a movie. So afterwards, I made them a movie XD

Okaasan was very amused while we were making this :P

A friend of mine uploaded this picture of me playing the koto :D

We did purikura with Okaasan :D

One day Alex ran over a lizard with her bike, and every night after, this lizard would be on her window. We are convinced it's a ghost.

The tatami mats where we hang out after class

There was a yukata festival in Nagahama after we came back from Kyoto

Little kids showed off talents in a contest

 Since it was summer break, Haru-chan stayed over at our place for a few days since his family was busy being busy. The first night he was over, they bought fireworks for us to play with, which really are just sparklers without leaving a trail in the air for you to draw things with. But it was fun anyway :)

We had our purikura with Eri sent to her phone so we could upload it to the computer. :)

One day I did a photoshoot of my friend Helen who is a grad student from MSU who is taking the class at JCMU since her husband is Japanese and she wants to learn the language better :)

Although Japan is relatively safe, they have a big problem with chikan, or perverts. Often times you will see signs warning you against them or they will try to give special places for women to get away from them. At one point I was touched on the butt by a guy on a train though... T_T

There was something in Hikone called the Human-Bird Contest, where people built human-powered aircraft and attempt to fly the length of Lake Biwa. I went all the way over there by myself and there seemed to be more prep time than actual fly time, so after an hour of standing in the hot sun, one plane finally launched. It seemed to not plummet like many of them usually do, but I was bored so I went home :P

On the way home there was a giant parade of people walking somewhere. I have no idea what it was, but it made me laugh XD

My favorite sign in Hikone. Le Sel Poivre is what it says there in French, which means "The salt pepper", and the picture is of bread, and the flag is the Dutch flag :)

A picture I stole from Alex's camera of Abby, me, and Alex in Osaka

I hope you can hear it, cause in this video I tried to get the sound of the cicadas we hear every day as we go to school. Japan is FULL of cicadas in the summer and they (like all of Japan's insects) are big and creepy and obnoxious...and did I mention creepy? In the video they weren't even as loud as they normally are, usually it's like they are swimming around your head. And I see dead ones occasionally on the side walk there, along with other creepy, dead, large beetles. Man, bugs in Japan scare me. The bees in Japan...oh my, don't get me started on the bees. They are HUMONGOUS, as well as deadly- if it stings you too close to your heart, you die. T_T bees...

They sell Dragon Ball Z drinks in a vending machine near our house XD

 We ride past this river every day to school and it's usually FILLED with birds- herons, cranes, egrets, the like. I think there are like 12 here in this picture, but usually there are about 30 or more. That's something I didn't know about Japan before I went there, there ARE little birds like sparrows and finches, but they are not as numerous as the large birds like cranes and herons and birds of prey like hawks. I also have never seen so many crows in my life. They are eeeevery where. Any time you see road kill or something, you know it will be gone in no time at all, because the crows will just get it. They are big and freaky. Ugh. I don't like the crows. >_<

Pretty glass in the Nagahama station

Our last time in the bike park garage

There is Mt. Ibuki in the distance

 Our house has one of those creepy Tanuki statues. Tanuki is usually translated to English as Raccoon Dog, but in reality it is neither racoon, nor dog. Wikipedia can probably teach you about it better than I can, but like how rabbit's feet are lucky to westerners, Tanuki balls are lucky in Japanese culture, and the bigger the balls, the luckier they are. Almost EVERY household in Japan has one of these statues- the tanuki with the hat and the walking stick, staring with huge, vacant eyes, it's giant balls just being there. It is beyond creepy.

Recycle and sort your trash! Or this bunny and this kitty will cry!

Yeah, I think this is it for now. There will still be more posts to come, so look forward to it!

Mary

Location: The couch, but not that couch that I was on last time, but the couch I was on the first time.

Mood: Unmotivated. NO WANT STUDY  ・゜゜・(/□＼*)・゜゜ 

Listening to: the tv. Star Trek the movie is on. Yay!

Japanese for the day: 日本語を勉強すべきだけど、したくない！nihongo o benkyou subeki da kedo, shitakunai! - I should study Japanese, but I don't want to!