Hey, I'm Alive! (October Pt. 1)

So I owe everyone a big apology. Time flies by so fast here, it's hard enough for me to keep up, so I forget that the people back home also want to know what's happening here too. So I apologize, and I promise I really will try to update more often (although they will probably be shorter less wordy posts). As a quick update to those I haven't talked to recently, next Wednesday will mark the end of my fourth month in Japan (Oh my god). I am now living with my second host family, which consists of a dad, grandma, brother, and dog, and I will write way more about them in a later post. Unfortunately, they live about an hour away from my school, and their internet sucks, which means a lot less time on the computer, making blogging difficult. But I will try my best!
Now moving on to October! Seeing as it's an entire month that I have to cover, I will probably break the post up. Also, since the events of this post happened more than a month ago, my memory of them is super fuzzy, so I apologize for the lack of details! But anyway...


The week after my school festival was pretty much a vacation week for me. Monday was a holiday, Tuesday was off because we get a day off after bunkasai and Monday was already taken, Wednesday was some kind of exams that I didn't have to take, and Thursday we didn't have school, but I have no idea why.
So, despite the ravaging typhoon Sunday night, Monday was an absolutely beautiful day! It was warm and there were clear skies- a complete turnaround from the previous week. My host mom decided to take advantage of the nice weather to bring me on a walk around the Emperor's Gardens: a big tourist attraction pretty close to the house.
Unfortunately the interior gardens were closed that day, but the outside was still really nice. We walked for about two hours (the gardens are huge!) and probably could have gone on longer, but neither of us remembered to bring water and, like I said before, it was hot and sunny that day. I was also really sad because I took a lot of good pictures, but something happened with my camera and only a few of them uploaded onto my computer, and I can't figure out how to get the rest...But please enjoy the few I have!

Make sure to watch out for those green-hooded dog men crossing the street...

Tuesday my friend Bianka (from Hungary) invited me to come with her and some of her school friends to do karaoke- my first time since coming to Japan despite already being there for two months. (I will also briefly mention that before going to karaoke we stopped at McDonald's for lunch and I never really ate much at McDonald's back in the States because of the horror stories I'd heard about the quality of the food, but I will admit that the Japanese McDonald's is considerably better in both taste and quality. But based on Japan's obsession with both of these elements in their food, I can't say I'm surprised.)

So for the people (like me) who have no idea what real Japanese karaoke is like, you basically lounge around in a small, dark room with one big TV (for the karaoke obviously) and sing your heart out along to a vast selection of both Japanese and English songs. The place we went to also had unlimited free drinks and provided us with tambourines. Not too shabby, eh?

You can also dance if you want

Yeah, Haruka reeeeeeally liked dancing...

Like I said, the drinks were unlimited (and these are just Bianka's and mine)

Now for some musings on the next week or two based on what I can remember and my pictures:

I think on Thursday of that same week, I met up with Maxim (from Belgium) and Kae, a Rotex who went to Belgium, where we decided to try purikura (Japanese photobooths) as neither me nor Maxim had tried it before. Now purikura ("puri" for short), is supposed to make you look very beautiful, but seeing as we are in Japan, it is the Japanese's version of beauty, which means big eyes and super white skin. And for Japanese people, it looks great! But for foreigners...well, we end up looking more like cartoon characters.

See what I mean?

But either way, it's still unbelievably fun, especially after you've taken the pictures and you get to edit and draw on them! In fact, it's such a big part of Japanese pop culture that my friends couldn't believe that we don't have it in America. My friend just gave me a surprised look and said "Then what do you do when you go out with friends?"

That weekend, I went with my host sister to a fancy lunch with some extended family, which honestly is not that significant of an event except that it made me realize just how much I went to fancy dinners with that family. I found it funny how quickly I'd gotten used to my host family's wealthier lifestyle. Anyway, the lunch was quite nice, as was to be expected, but there was just one thing that threw me (as a person rather inexperienced with fancy restaurants):

The utensils. Are four knives, three forks, two spoons, and three cups really necessary?

After the lunch, Yoko (host sister) and I went to a Noh-kyogen performance that Rotary had offered us tickets to. Noh-kyogen is a type of traditional Japanese theater, which is supposed to be more comical than regular Noh theater (it also doesn't use the masks). But the most interesting part of it is the language: the actors use a more archaic form of Japanese (like Shakespeare for English) and they deliver their lines in a loud, singsong voice, with a strange use of emphasis on some words when they speak. Obviously, I couldn't understand anything, but just the voices were entertainment enough. Unfortunately there was no filming or picture-taking allowed, but I think this video (courtesy of Youtube) should give you a pretty good idea of what it was like.

The next weekend, me and a friend from Kendo club (I can't remember if I mentioned joining kendo club yet or not...anyway, if not, or if people don't remember, it's a pretty awesome traditional Japanese sword-fighting sport that uses big bamboo sticks/swords) decided to go support our kouhai (underclassmen) at their tournament, which took place at Gakushuin, a prestigious private school in Tokyo, which I also may have mentioned before...sorry guys. Anyway, this probably all would have gone smoothly, except for the fact that there are TWO Gakushuins: a boys' school and a girls' school. My friend was convinced that the tournament was at the girls' school, which happens to be the lesser known of the two (location-wise anyway), so with the help of Apple maps on her iPhone, we set off on a nearly two-hour journey that ended in the realization that the tournament was, in fact, at the BOYS' school, which happened to be located right next to the train station where we met...Anyway, we made it to the tournament in time to watch our team fight. And we ended up getting second place, which I thought was amazing, but apparently we always get first, so everyone else was not quite as thrilled.
After the tournament, I met up with my friend from school who, after learning that I play cello, invited me to come listen to Bach concert that her dad, who is also a cellist, was playing in. It was honestly a beautiful concert (although the male alto singer surprised me a little bit), but my bored teenager instincts kicked in anyway, and I spent the whole time trying not to fall asleep. My friend had the same problem too, though, and her mom even moved to the back row just so she could take a nap!
But the best part was that, after the concert, we got to visit my friend's dad backstage and he let me play on his cello! Well, actually his friend let me play on his cello because the first one didn't have an endpin...Anyway, it was sooooooo nice to be able to play after so long. I could have stayed there for another hour, but the man had to go home. Someday I will manage to get a cello here (and then somehow find the time to play it...)
By the way, can someone let me know if there are kebabs in Boston? They are honestly one of my favorite foods here (although I'm pretty sure they're Turkish) and I had my first one that night. And when I say kebabs, I mean these:

Also had a cool international moment when I, an American in Japan, was eating a Turkish kebab sold to me by a foreigner (unfortunately I don't know from where) and heard a Brazilian song come on the radio. Go multiculturalism!

So in the interest of time, I shall end this post here, but I expect to have the rest of October up soon. I promise! This week and next week I don't have club activities so I should have plenty of time. And if I'm not up to date by the end of that time, feel free to assail me with emails and messages until I am. Also, expect way more pictures in the next post!

じゃあね！