Bring on the Holidays!

Today I'm home from school sick, so I decided that it would be a good time to write my next blog entry! Here goes:

December started off with my first visit, along with Maxim and Veli, to Harajuku, Tokyo's famous center of outrageous fashion. And when I heard the fashion there was diverse, they weren't kidding. You can find pretty much any style that suits your tastes and/or your wildest fantasies, from punk rock to lolita. The only thing I have not been able to find is non-heeled shoes, although it's hard to find that in Japan, period.
The Harajuku girls/boys also attract alot of visitors to the spot. These are people, mostly teens and early 20s, I'd say, that call Harajuku home. Their outfits seem to have materialized straight out of their imaginations, and can make for some pretty stare-worthy results. I unfortunately don't have any pictures, for fear of looking like a creepy stalker, but try to imagine of mix of Amy Winehouse and Nicki Minaj (maybe throw in a little Lady Gaga for good measure) and that should give you a good start (and I'm not just talking about the girls).
And for me, even the crowd was an attraction- the sheer size of it on the way to the area was amazing! It was like an ocean- I'm pretty sure if I had stopped, I would have been carried away.

Can you see the people stretching all the way down the sidewalk? And this is just a fraction of it...

The entrance to Takeshita Street, probably the main street of Harajuku

Oh, just some mannequins we found in a store...and yes, the second one is wearing a Spiderman mask and reindeer antlers

Well, this brought back memories...

Just a sample a some of the clothing found while walking down Takeshita St.

I forgot to mention in my last blog post that I tried to make cornbread for Thanksgiving to, you know, share my culture with my host family, but it didn't work because...my host family doesn't have an oven. My host mom said they have no need for one, as the Japanese never used to bake (and she is of the age where she is still a very traditional person). It was possible for me to have used their microwave oven, but following the same logic as before, they also do not own any baking pans.
But I was determined to have my cornbread made, even if it was too late for Thanksgiving, so Bianka's host parents kindly let me borrow their kitchen (of course they got some cornbread in return).
The cornbread actually turned out rather well, albeit a little crumbly, but we just slathered on some nutella (courtesy of Bianka's host sister--how I missed it!), and I think it tasted just fine! And my host family liked it, so I think it was a success.

いただきます！

The next day, I had some free time after my Rotary meeting, so I met up with Bianka and we decided to go visit the Emperor's gardens, which happen to be pretty close to where my Rotary meets.
It was December, but since the Japanese winter doesn't really start until January (we just had our first snow two days ago!), all the trees were still in autumn colors, making the whole place very beautiful!

We still had some time after that, so we decided to stop by Ginza, one of the more high-end shopping districts in Tokyo. We did see a LOT of designer stores (although honestly, those are everywhere in Tokyo), as well as some of the more *ahem* interesting things that come from a designer's mind (and seem to appear more prevalently in Japan, as it is quite a hospitable environment for the more...unique).

Like this Christmas tree decorated with apples and bananas

Or this...um...well whatever this thing is

A few days later, my entire grade went on a field trip, organized by our gym teacher, so we could learn/practice a sport that we don't really get to do in school. In this case, either bowling or skating. It was so much fun! I was in the beginner class because I haven't really skated since I was like 5, and I'm pretty sure I just clung to the wall and/or,but-most-likely-and the milk crate the whole time, so it doesn't really count. But it was actually really easy to pick up! After about ten minutes my friend and I didn't even need the wall. By the end we were all racing with each other, and I didn't even fall once! (Ok, maybe almost once, but that was because my friend decided to "sprint" and ended up crashing into me from behind.)
The best thing about Japanese school trips is that they let you go home after the activity is done. No going back to school "so we can finish off the school day." So my friend and I went out for lunch and then decided to go hang out at her house. It was pretty funny- near her house there was this massive bridge that looked like those highway ones that go over big rivers, but it ended up just being a footbridge. When I asked her why they needed such a massive footbridge (in the middle of a park, by the way), she answered simply, "Because there's a river."

That following Thursday was my Rotary club's Christmas party. It was really nice: the president dressed up as Santa and acted as a sort of MC for the night, one of the members played guitar, and there was even a pretty good magician, who I ended up receiving a plastic rose from after he threw it and it got stuck in my hair...

And since it was pretty close to my birthday, I received both early birthday and Christmas presents from numerous Rotarians, some of whom I've maybe talked to like twice the entire time since I got here. I also ended up drawing the names for the huge raffle at the end, and was payed for my services with a giant bag of throwback Japanese snacks. It was pretty sweet (no pun intended).

The beginnings of my "loot." After my real birthday and Christmas, it has now tripled in size and takes up an entire corner of my bedroom.

Also, at the party, I got to meet my "oldie," I guess you could say: an exchange student from Malaysia who was hosted by my club 6 years ago and is now going to art school in Tokyo. We even shared a host family (my first one). It was really cool hearing about her experiences (she went to the same school as Bianka, and Eva, another exchange student from my district), and both her English and Japanese were amazing.

With the exchange student from Malaysia, my club's outbound from last year (she went to Argentina), and my third host mother, whose daughter is currently on exchange in New York.

Now that night, I found out that I had a district Rotary meeting on Saturday, which I was required to make a cake for. But like I mentioned earlier, baking a cake is virtually impossible in my current home, so after alot of panicking and miscommunications, I ended up making cookies with Bianka (Hungarian-style gingerbread- they were so good!). After awhile Maxim joined us as well, although he ended up buying his own cake later anyways. We made a ridiculously large number of cookies, in a number of shapes, like Christmas trees, gingerbread men, and dinosaurs, and we decorated them with dried fruits, nuts, and sprinkles.

And Bianka's host sister nicely packaged all of them for us!

It turned out the cakes were for an auction at the party/meeting to raise money for...I'm not really sure what. I think maybe future activities for us exchange students?
There were some really beautiful cakes, mainly made by the Japanese outbounds, that surprisingly didn't sell for very much. And then they got to our box of our totally in-elegant, homemade cookies, and they sold for...10,000 yen (about $110). I've got a REALLY nice counselor. And to top it all off, he immediately GAVE THE WHOLE THING TO ME for my birthday! Thankfully, Bianka had the smart idea to hand out all the little packages to everyone there. We ended up with one package each, which was all I needed, and everyone else seemed to enjoy them!

Our Rotex president acted as auctioneer. And I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the cake he's holding is shaped like a bear. It was sooo cute!

Also at that meeting, the future outbounds found out what country they will be going to next year. There are two girls going to the US and one's even coming to the east coast (although I'm not sure where yet). I was kind of jealous that their exchange experience is just beginning and mine is already about halfway over. Time is going too fast!

That Sunday was when my host family decided to celebrate my birthday, but I don't really want to go into detail about it here because it wasn't exactly a...highlight of my exchange. Let me just say it ended with my host father passed out drunk on the toilet...
However, that afternoon I went out a little bit with Veli to Shinjuku and Harajuku. And we did see something very interesting there:

**Right now, my internet doesn't seem to be able to handle uploading the video of these guys "dancing" (aka awkwardly moving their legs, in the spirit of Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks), so I will try again in about three weeks when I move to my next host family.**

Apparently these guys (all of them on the older side of life) are there all the time, dressed up as stereotypical 50s gangsters, with the leather jackets, slicked back hair and everything. I've hear someone say that they were more 50s gangster than the actual 50s gangsters. And all they do is "dance," although I'm fairly certain that's not how they danced in the 50s (correct me if I'm wrong though).
We also met a very interesting Scotsman who tried to convince us that the Devil is going to rise up soon out of Jerusalem because of something to do with our computers.

I will also present you with some Japanese English we found at the train station:

The Japanese like to keep their train rules dramatic

Oh, and I did get a nice cake that day too.

The day of my actual birthday wasn't as bad. Most of my friends remembered and some of them even gave me presents! Some of my favorites a Totoro picture frame (my friend gave it to me wrapped like a leaf-so cute!), and a Japanese version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which I happened to love when I was little.
After school, Bianka surprised me by meeting me at the train station. She treated me to ice cream, gave me my present (Disney-themed earrings!), and then we went back to her house to watch a movie. All of that made me feel good enough to get through my host family forgetting that it was my actual birthday that day...

But moving on! The following Saturday was our last day of school before the break! We only had two classes that day, and spent the rest of the time wiping down everything in the classroom, from our desks to the blackboard. Then, afterschool was my kendo club's Christmas party! We all brought snacks (I brought a huge bag of Nerds that my mom had sent me earlier), and the captain bought a piece of cake for everybody! Well, actually, everyone called it cake, but it was really more like mousse.We did a present swap, I got a grow-your-own-rice-kit from one of our coaches, and everyone performed in a little groups. Me and the other two first years sang "Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer"- me in English, one of the girls in Japanese, and the other played the melodica- what looked like one of those toy keyboard pianos with a tube attached.
Unfortunately, I had to leave early because I had to get to the Rotex's Christmas party. For this party, they invited the inbounds and outbounds, but I think it was really more for the Rotex- there were so many there, many of whom I had never seen before.

I don't think this was even all of them.

We didn't really do that much. There was a present swap there too (I got a hot pad shaped like a lamb), the outbounds sang Christmas carols (the inbounds were supposed to do something too, but we couldn't come up with anything in time), and we even got to see some of the Rotex do the "Party Rock" dance, which they were surprisingly good at.

Well that about wraps it up for this post! Next up: my trip up North!

じゃあね！

*Note: I actually wrote this post about a week ago, but Blogger refused to upload it. We're onto our second snow tomorrow!