Midterms, Parties, アルバイト!

久しぶり！

Mid-terms are over so I don’t feel guilty spending an hour or so on this now.  It’s been a while,  I even have to check my planner so I can remember what I’ve actually been doing! It feels like a lot but I can’t recall any of it…in which case, I’ll just reel off new developments.

I have 2 part-time jobs now!

Which is easy money, 2000yen/hour, 3 hours a week, just having an English conversation with Japanese students, so I’ll try to live off money earned from now on instead of eating into my loan.

(For anyone going to live in Japan at any point, teaching jobs are very easy to come by. Japanese people take English lessons from the age of twelve as part of their education, but they don’t ever have much chance to use it, so I get the feeling they jump at any chance they get. )

So with that income I can save my loan to squander on the other stuff I’ve got scheduled. Like a trip to Seoul, South Korea in February.

 Why, you ask? ‘Cause it’s right next door (and £160), and apparently beautiful, shares a lot of history with Japan and there’s good food, and aha, I like the Korean dramas. Gabrielle, these guys comes from there:

Tae Kyung from the most popular Kdrama series 'He's Beautiful'

It’s a place where pretty boy bands are thriving, and hold a lot of power over people.

Aside from that, it’ll be a nice lil holiday before I Shinkansen it down to Tokyo for the 26^th February Tokyo Marathon.

Yup, I got through the lottery! My gaijin status is good for something :D I’m theorizing that there weren’t as many foreigners applying this year on account of the (ahem non-existent ahem) ‘radiation’ thing from the Fukushima plant.

So I’ve started my running plan, on Mondays, Wednesdays and weekends. So far I’ve been doing fairly well, considering the knee that hurt while I was coming off a mountain started aching o_0. But I looked it up, it’s ‘Runners knee’, so I can for the most part just ignore it. Just rest, buy new trainers maybe.

So I’ve been busy making plans. But also these past two weeks there’s been two welcome parties! One was like a children’s party, and I won a One Piece Jigsaw Puzzle at bingo!

well actually I won a samurai umbrella but I swapped it with Ryan. I know my priorities.
After that, nomihoudai ^^

The other welcome party had lots of food and great music, and I discovered that I could trick Japanese people into thinking I’m actually good at Japanese for a good 3 minutes into the conversation! Progress!

But then it gets to the awkward post-standard info sharing (name, degree, which country am I from, how am I finding japan what’s my favourite food why study Japanese have you got facebook wow you’re good at Japanese no no I’m not an so on…)  and anything of any depth is jilted and contrived. But from now one I’m going to do my best, it gave me some courage.

That weekend I had no break – me and Caroline went to Kyoto (note to self: the hankyuu train line is half the price of JR, damnit!! D: ) for the Jidai festival conveniently outside Calyx’s house at the imperial garden and the Fire Festival,  and aha, it rained as though god wanted us to drowned. So, festival cancelled. We did shopping and print club instead.

But I did get to see Calyx again and walk around the Imerial Gardens, so I really can't complain. It was beautiful:

pfft xD

And the day after that, stumbling home late looking as though I’d hauled myself out of a swimming pool (which don’t exist in japan o_0 public ones are very rare and pricey because space is an issue), it was Tokishi’s birthday!

between the four (three excluding Takamitsu who works in Tokyo),
we'll be having htis for dessert for weeks to come...

He's 5 now! 5!

My host parents didn’t know whether to laugh or panic when the giant American cake they had brought stained their kids mouth an unnatural blue.

They settled for giggling nervously and shaking their heads and muttering how ‘kowaii’ it was (scary), and it got me thinking – Japanese food, like strictly Japanese food, is really quite healthy. It explains why no matter how much I eat I haven’t actually gained any weight at all.

Speaking of eating,  yesterday I ate a lot at this little tacoyaki restaurant in Osaka with my Japanese Literature class. Sensei paid for most of the food so we ate and drank as much as we wanted:

But it wasn’t just a random outing, it was the natural follow on from a Bunraku (traditional japanese puppet) play!

Bunraku is a type of puppeting that has three people in black moving the puppets in such precise movements that their gestures and acting becomes intricate and completely brilliant. The acting on stage is accompanied by a deep chanting voice of the narrator, think buddhist chant, who does the voices of all the characters in the puppet show too. It was such hard work, the guy was bright red in the face.

 The language used in Bunraku is so old that even Japanese people can't follow well, so we had no hope

The stage was fantastic; in one scene the old man and the traveller were trekking along on the spot while the foreground trees slowly moved and the background stayed stationary, giving the illusion of them actually moving along. The little hand gestures are made possible because of the three men per puppet. All in all it was really interesting! I highly recommend the experience to theatre lovers, or fans of classic Japanese literature. The whole performance was stunning!

And this Sunday I went climb Rokko mountains with some friends, these hills behind Konan where the Inoshishi (wild boars) wander down from occasionally. It rained the whole time. Wish I had my Gortex jacket T-T

the promised 'rock garden' wasn't what we'd expected xD
but hiking in the rain is great

There’s an old couple that bicker at the base of it. Apparently they’re quite dangerous when they have kids to defend but as they barely came up to my knees and as I was wearing my kick ass Dr.Martins, I had no fear. They were just minding their own business anyways.

Inoshishi ~

Now that I feel more settled in to life in Japan, despite being busy I’m itching to make more plans. I know enough now to know that I want to go to Nara to see the deer wandering around, to Okinawa for the beaches, to the Ghibli museum in Tokyo, to the Onsen in Arima etc, the list goes on. There’s clothes shopping that I haven’t done at all because I’ve been stingy with my money, living off 100yen (an 80p bowl of udon for lunch with free tea) everyday, so the 1900yen top I want I can’t help but see as over two weeks worth of lunch!

And if you’re concerned about the 80p lunch a day thing, I don’t do this because I’m struggling with money (yet).  I do it because I can. Udon is filling, I’m saving a lot of money without any hardship by doing this, so it’s not a problem. The obvious drawback is that this method of money saving is messing with my psych.  Everything seems expensive to me now!

I called this blog midterms, parties and part-time jobs because that is what has been eating up the majority of my time. From now on it’s going to be the same, but worse. I start my second job on Monday, and I’m going to start running for more than an hour each time. Which means the remaining time will be spent studying hard merely to survive and traveling while I have the chance.

So if I haven’t been/don’t respond to e-mails for weeks at a time, please forgive me! It have simply truly forgotten no time.  Thank you for your patience.

decorations at the konan women's uni where my other part-time job is at

Halloween tomorrow.  The americans are making a big deal out of it, which is nice. I’m gonna go into uni as a scarecrow J

体育の日 Weekend, Tokishi's Undoukai


 




 Remember what I said about the name plate? aha, well never mind. Look what my host mum made for me!

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looklook at the cute autumn scene with big ben in teh background! xD

a preying mantis outside the house



SO, went to the cinema's today and had some Tacoyaki in Osaka!  They are surprisingly easy to make, and delicious. The city is so clean and apparently the people there walk the fastest than anywhere else in the world. I also got introduced to the largest book store in Osaka called  Kinokuniya. Thanks, Kei ^^

tacoyaki lit. means 'fried octopus' :-P dad should be proud of me

I spent the day before today at the Midosuji Kappo festival with Caroline, which I failed to take a lot of photos of because it was mostly for children and didn't have much appeal to us. The drum performance was a bit amazing, and we found a really cheap hyaku yen manga shop where we brought some japanese books to practice our reading skills. It was a good day, lots of walking, until I put Caroline on the wrong train home -_- sorry !

(For those going to Kansai area Jpaan, this site is great to get to know what's going on in the nearest city: http://www.kansaiscene.com/ )

we saw several dogs dressed up like this,but  I only got this shot of one

My favourate one was a little dog wearing shoes and a jumper. You get all sorts of people in england too, though. This was just too cute a pic to miss.

And the day before this, the Saturday, I got up at 8 to watch Tokishi's Undoukai, a sports day the likes of which we have never seen back in England! The music, the colours, the cute-ness levels were off the charts!

the soundtrack included oliver twist, jurassic park, some anime theme tunes and  battle drums



the dances were colourful and very entertaining



otousan and tokishi

this is my vegetarian bento for the lunch break.

the six year olds gave a great performance!

okaasan got up at 5AM to make this! %AM!

 And the weather was too hot for tights, but I'm sick of being bitten on my legs by mozzies so they were a neccessity.

Overall, it was pretty awesome.



tokishi and okaasan, peeling chestnuts

Also, you see that little cake in the bottom left hand corner of the pic? My host mum offered me some after dinner to which I replied of course, I love cake! She then told me she had to wait 3 months for it to become available because it's so popular, that she had to make an appointment, that the queue was so long she had to wait an hour to get her share! After driving an hour to Koyama to buy this cake (amoung other things) I decided to pay attension to  what I was eating, and I must admit it was a beautiful dessert. Not too sweet, perfect cream, really soft and fluffy.  I can see why it's famous - but 3 months?! The heck-?

Btw have I mentioned the Inushishi's that chill out at the little river I see on my way to uni everyday? Well, I finally took a picture of them:

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Inushishi (wild boars) sometimes wander down from the forests by Konan





And that was my weekend. The Monday I spent with Kei in Osaka was a national holiday called ' taiiku no hi (athletics day)'. Hardly any studying got done, but I think this was worth it!

Karaoke in Shinsaibashi, Japanese TV and Kanji

Dear family and friends IMPORTANT NOTICE:

If ever anyone wants to send me mail by post put SUZUKI Family on the bottom followed by my name, because the houses I live in don't have numbers, they have name plates. I learnt this the hard way when I was being told off in Japanese, apparently the post man was wandering around looking for the 'Charlotte Bailey' name plate for days. So, put Suzuki on there, please. And use this website for how to write the address I gave you (and english is fine btw) if you're confused : http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2224.html .

In terms of news, I have a japanese bank account now with Sumitomo Mitsui!

so I can just live off my job money earned in Japan and save my student loan for travel or whatever. Having travelled quite abit this year I'm getting a bit restless. 

Also I'm craving potatoes with bisto gravy. Or even just a fish and chips wrapped in paper from the mayflower in Sedgley, you know?

Halloween is close, the Americans on my course are making it seem like a big deal. And suddenley it feels like I haven't had Christmas in forever, too. My host family asked me whether I was staying for christmas and I said yes because okane ga nai yo! ~ and she said I was the first host student (out of very many host students) to stay over the holidays. Not sure what to make of that...and come to think of it I may just go travelling during the term break ~

so I'm taking a class in learning Korean now, in japanese, because I'm hard core I may go to Korea in feburary, but I'm not certain about that yet.

Also my spelling ability in English is fading fast. I keep spelling things as they are pronounced because that's how words are spelt in Japanese, so any mistakes you see, sumimasen!

Apparently my spoken japanese got better over night after Nomihoudai and Karaoke for Ryan's 20th birthday, though. It was truly a great night, even though I spent about 4000yen in total, which is the price of a typical night out in Shinsaibashi, apparently. (It's a subway ride from Umeda in Osaka, for those wanting to go to the place for a good night out ~).

nomihoudai is all you can drink for about 1500yen

japanese trains during rush hour - the JR line has nothing on Tokyo though

According to Suyun who moved to America from China aged 13, and who is now learning Japanese and Korean, partying is the way to practice and get fluent at languages, and I guess she was right! ^^

I've been trying to better my listening skills by actually paying attention to Japanese TV at dinner time and breakfast, but it's getting on my nerves.

BEWARE, A RANT FOLLOWS, PROCEED WITH CAUTION:
Aside from the writing constantly all over the screen, the celebrity in a little window in the corner of the show watching the program with you and the english speakers dubbed with badly acting japanese voice actors, the content is simply not what I'm used to, repeatitive and often just plain bad. Nothing serious or actually good is ever on, the slap stick comedy game shows are the only thing worth watching.  So called 'documentries' are actually badly acted dramas and never on anything serious and usually about Bad things abroad, like Kowai Onatachi (scary women). That, or mean spirited shows where they have to select the boy out of a line of 8 year old girls, making them cry if they get it wrong.

So the choice is between cartoons, food shows, housing shows or game shows. That's it. Even the news isn't really about anything serious, the weather is introduced with someone in a giant bunny suit swaying to cute music with a girl. All very cute. A bit irritating.

So even though I never watch much TV back home anyways, and I never thought I'd say this: I miss British TV -_-.

So, my speaking and listening I'm making an effort on, but I realised I'd been neglecting my Kanji. I have to know up to 1020 something by May next year o_0 that's...do-able, actually. Kanji is my favourate part of learning the japanese language and about the only thing I can actually make steady progress at.

For anyone wishing to study japanese, Kanji in Context is the way to go.







first week in Japan in Sannomiya - I just found this!

In responce to Laura's comment, my favourate foods in Japan so far (suitable for vergetarians) are Miso Soup, Melon Pan, Kitsune Udon, Yakisoba, Tempura, Okonomiyaki and Tamagodon.



tamagodon



Note: don't be fooled by the appearence of any japanese food! It make look questionable but it is always great! (All so much better than any English dish, but I crave some potatoes all the same!)

                                        

                                           Also beware HiChuu's, they are deliciously addictive.