Hisashiburi! It's been a while.

The semester is coming to an end. We have 1 week (well... 4 days) left of class then finals start on Friday! Since a lot has happened between now and my last post in June (sorry..) I'll share the big highlights.

Hiroshima
We had a mandatory trip with CIEE to Hiroshima for a weekend. It was quite the experience cramming 60 foreigners into the Shinkansen in about 1-2 minutes flat (trains wait for nobody). I felt a little sorry for the Japanese people who were (un)fortunate enough to reserve seats in the same car as us. (60 Americans = loud!)

 Bunny and musubi dinner on the Shinkansen! Took about 4 hours.

The first day we went to the Peace Museum and got to hear from an atomic bomb survivor. Random note: the prime minister (?) of Afghanistan happened to be visiting on the same day. I tried to look for him but we were ushered inside before he came out. (But one of our staff got a picture of him!)

After the museum and park we had the option to look around some more or go to a castle. Out of the whole group, only 3 of us (me, Elizabeth, Shannon) decided to hang back. Elizabeth wanted to find eye drops so we went down a street full of shops and happened to discover that Taito (one of our frequent UFO catcher stops in Akihabara) followed us to Hiroshima.

The arcade and the spoils. Don't tell!

And purikura of the non-castle gang.

At night we ate okonomiyaki (savory Japanese pancake-like thing) and later watched Japan lose to the Netherlands during the World Cup. Apparently Japan doesn't do sports bars - we tried in vain to find a bar with a TV but ended up with conbini snacks back at the hotel.

 Hiroshima style okonomiyaki - yummy and filling!

 Snack for the game.

The following day we went to a little island called Miyajima for progressive snacking which is famous for its giant tori gate and deer.

 From left to right, top to botton: deep fried momiji manju (cheese in the middle!), the best oyster I've ever tasted, super soft sweet potato, grilled squid legs.

Hair Cut
With summer in full swing and the rainy season around the corner, I was ready for an overdue haircut. I looked up a place in Harajuku that had staff that spoke English so explaining what I wanted went very smoothly. My hairdresser even gave me a massage and offered me something to drink - nice Japan!

In honor of EDeng because I didn't make this one my facebook profile pic.

Origami Museum
The gallery was pretty small (like 1 small room small) but it was free. There were some crazy cranes and we even got a free demo. This lady whipped up a rose, fish, Christmas tree (complete with a star at the top and mini Santa), and... a dog (?). There was also a room where we saw people making origami paper, and we took home instructions for origami "kiss lips."

Photo from google but we managed to make them ourselves after much pain.

CIEE Farewell Party
I can't believe study abroad is coming to a close. There were some really nice videos and speeches, but what was really exciting was the food. And smuggling home a giant bottle of unopened oolong tea.

It's strange to think that this was the last time I would see a lot of CIEE people, but we have to go our own ways eventually.

Classes and Shopping

We are coming to the end of the second week of classes. My schedule is as follows:

9:15-10:45 Tu/F Chinese Civilization
11:00-12:30 M/Tu/Th/F Japanese III
1:30-3:00 M/Th Modern Japanese Literature
3:15-4:45 Tu/F Contemporary Japanese Societies

Quick breakdown of how they are going:

Chinese Civ: The professor did some research work at USC so he has a USC email address. Apparently he knows a lot of the EALC professors pretty well. Gets out early every day because he just breezes through a powerpoint. So far a lot about early Chinese writing, pottery, and the dynasties. Typical Chinese civilization material.

Japanese: We went from having 2 sections of jam packed classrooms to 3. I got moved to the new section which is nice because it's on the 1st floor (old section was on the 6th!) but we change between two classrooms every other day. The homework is waaay shorter and waaay easier than Japanese classes at USC.

Japanese Lit: So far we've read these seemingly wacked stories only to have the deeper meaning and significance unwrapped during class. It's like... "what the heck does this mean?" to "what the... why so deep?"

Japanese Societies: Another packed classroom - this time we keep migrating to a new room every day. The professor has labeled us as "homeless" so for now we never know which building or room to go to. The subject matter is really interesting though and it's neat to be able to see examples in everyday life here in Japan.

Now enough about classes. They are only a portion of the study abroad experience.

I went shopping at Harajuku yesterday to pick up some more shoes. I only packed 1 pair (plus a pair of rain boots) and they have quickly deteriorated due to everyday use (school and baseball practice). However, being in Harajuku and up until now not really buying anything except food and essentials, I had to splurge a little..

From left to right: plad backpack, shirt, 2 shoes (the teal ones were only 990 yen!! =$10ish), socks, Sophia sweats.

We are quickly approaching Golden Week here in Japan. Elizabeth, Anna, and I are planning on traveling down to Osaka for a couple of days. I'm looking forward to it!

Shibuya, Asakusa Hanami

Boy this weekend sure was packed. On Saturday Elizabeth, Anna, and I went to Shibuya to "eat lunch" and explore. Lunch turned out to be more of a progressive snacking adventure but it was all really yummy!

"German Potato" flavored Taiyaki. Mashed potato, bacon, cheese.

The scrumptious scent of fried food wafted into our noses so we stopped to eat some savory Taiyaki. Next we went to a cute cafe that Elizabeth and her sister had gone to before. We all shared a Kisetsu (Season) Parfait. It was composed of various fruits, pudding, cake, and refreshing frothy jelly.

Beautiful. We are definitely coming back!

After walking around for a while we decided to head over to Harajuku for some shopping. We walked over from Shibuya and good thing we did because the train station was super packed! Here we are trying to get home.

The sea of people at Harajuku Station. Elizabeth and Anna's faces say it all - the trains were not much better. Everyone suck it in!

Saturday night two former Masamura homestay students (Jon and Alex) came over to visit. They are both currently in the JET program and coincidentally picked the same day and time to stop by. The whole Masamura family came over so there were quite a lot of people and a fusion of English-Japanese conversation going on. I didn't realize how good the two brothers Tomo (36) and Tadahiro (27) were at English but I guess they both spent a good deal of time studying in America. Jon taught Eito, Tomo's 7-year-old son, how to balance a spoon on his nose. The kid got a kick out of this trick.

Eito balancing a spoon while simultaneously trying to munch on some chips.

Today (Sunday) I went with Elizabeth to hanami (flower viewing) in Asakusa with Tadahiro and his friends. Although it was chilly, the flowers were very pretty and there was lots of good food. When the sakura (cherry blossoms) are in full bloom it's called "mankai," and people follow a flower forecast so they can catch the flowers at their best. Today was not quite mankai, but I was reminded of last night when Alex kept on accidentally calling it "bankai." (lol for all you Bleach fans) Today also reminded me of the phrase "hana yori dango" which literally means dumplings (dango) over flowers. Basically people usually go to hanami for the food/alcohol/socialization rather than the actual flower viewing. Motives aside, everyone today was very friendly even though Elizabeth and I were on the young side. Some of them were really excited about trying to use English and talking about things in America.

Near our spot was a peculiar building that had a golden glob on top. I though it looked like a sweet potato, Elizabeth though it was poop. You be the judge.

I don't know why you would put that on your building...

Apparently the mystery blob is coupled with the building on the left, which is the Asahi beer company building. The left building is suppose to resemble a glass of beer - tall yellow sides = full glass of beer, glass panels on the top = foam. I can see the resemblance. The strange gold thing I guess is a beer splash? No one really knows but the Japanese also call it the poop building.