SNOW!

Though you probably already gathered this from the title, there was snow this weekend! This resulted in me cancelling my trip to Kobe, among other things. But I’m fine with that.

Friday, February 8th
On Friday, I got up really early and went to campus to chat with the family for two solid hours. It was a very nice feeling to hear their voices! I was very pleased! But, all good things must come to an end, and so I got off the phone with them an hour before class because the computer lab was getting horrendously noisy and they could hardly understand me.

I then went and got some hot chocolate (though I have sworn off sodas, I do not include in their number hot chocolate, even though it technically IS a caffeinated drink… Reason being it IS winter here and I am not giving up a hot drink) with Reggie, who invited me to join him and a few others to a trip to Kobe on Saturday. They were going to go see the Chinese New Year going on in Kobe’s Chinatown, and naturally I wanted to go. After our walk to get his coffee and my hot chocolate, we went back to the lounge where I sat and talked until time to go take the test. Yes, I had a test on my first week of school. This was actually my SECOND test…

The test was alright. I feel like I did good on it because she didn’t employ very much vocabulary that I didn’t know. I also feel like I was more free for interpretation of the answer (when I have to write just one word, then that forces me to say things only one way. When I’m given entire sentences to translate, it’s much easier on me). So, I finished that and then went to my Peace, Development, and Democratization class. It was interesting. I then went home and immediately fell asleep. Without lunch.

Later that night I woke up and had dinner (which was smaller than I would have liked, but good). I spent the rest of the evening sleeping because for some reason I was REALLY tired.

Saturday, February 9th
I woke up, took a shower, blow dried my hair, and got dressed all in the expectations that I would be going to Kobe. I also ate, brushed my teeth, grabbed my purse, put on my shoes and gloves, all in the expectation that I would be going to Kobe. But when I opened the door to begin my trek to Kobe, I found that it was snowing. Soooo, I turned around and got my camera, took about twenty pictures, cancelled my trip to Kobe, and went outside to dance in the snow. After being near frozen even in my heavy coat, I opened the window to my room from the outside so that I could see out. I then spent most of the day sitting on my computer, facing the huge window so that I could watch the snow. I don’t have much a view of the street because there’s a row of about four bushes directly in front of my window, but I can see the car parked under the cover, the gate that Aki-chan left open in her rush to get indoors, and the persimmons that are orange as ever, giving this snow in Japan a very strange look indeed. Where I sat was at the much lower table so that I was seated on the electric mat, and I turned the little awesome heater so that it blew on my back. I was quite toasty in my room (a pleasant change) and enjoyed my snow. It was being downright serious about the snow. Snow was coming down in big clumps, about the size and shape of white Coco-feathers (one real Coco-feather of this nature somehow managed to stick to a shirt so I have it sitting here on my table like a prize). I’d say we had four or five cm by the time lunch came around.

It snowed on through the rest of the day, leaving what I later found out to be the largest snow in ten years. But unlike Arkansas snow (where it’s 6 inches of ice and a light dusting on top and has a tendency to shut the world down for a few days), this snow was perfect packing snow. I would have had a snowball fight too if I had had someone who knew how to play (Yoshi-chan said it was too cold to go out in the snow and I have no idea where Aki-chan was). Ruth and I met at the station but instead of playing, we took our laptops to Makudo and sat on the internet for a few hours watching the snow. We didn’t leave until after dark, when the snow finally stopped. I’m sure the people at Makudo hate us.

Sunday, February 10th
On Sunday, I set my alarm for church and it did indeed go off, but I overslept and missed the bus. By overslept, I mean I remember hearing the alarm, and I remember turning it off, and I even remember thinking “I need to get out of bed” but that’s the last thing I remember. This means I must change my alarm to some other tone so that I don’t do that again. I don’t want to be able to shut my cell phone alarm off in my sleep!

I slept until 1:15 without realizing it. Then I got dressed and was trying to leave before the Yuasa family had a visitor (my host father’s sister) because my host mother had done that typical Japanese thing of “I don’t want you interrupting but I don’t want to tell you not to interrupt.” I missed my chance by just minutes and therefore had to spend the rest of Sunday (which wasn’t much) in my room which is fine; I have many things in my room to entertain myself with so I was not in any way deprived of anything.

Monday, February 11th
Monday was one of those infamous Japanese holidays. If the holiday occurs during the week, then they move it to either the Monday of that week or the Friday of that week so that we all get a three-day weekend. Sometimes I wish the US did that so that all that crazy “random day off next Wednesday” stuff doesn’t happen. Of course, the US also doesn’t have NEAR as many holidays where this is a problem. I swear, Japan has at least one for every month. NOT that I’m complaining, mind you.

So, on my day off, I got up, got dressed, and went with Krissy and Ruth to Kyobashi. We ate at the pasta/pizza place there, and then walked through a few of the shopping places. We also stopped at this little “italian” café where they had “honey toast and chocolate.” This toast, I kid you not, was approximately a 4 inch cube with a scoop of ice cream in the middle and honey and chocolate just drizzled on top of it. And we’re talking real honey too (which is impressive for Japan). Ruth, most unfortunately, had given up sweets for Lent, so it was up to me and Krissy to finish it. It took both of us to finish the thing and I could not have eaten a whole one by myself. Oh but it was absolutely FANTASTIC! And pretty cheap when you consider the ingredients (bread, honey, and chocolate are all twice as expensive here as in the US). I’m pretty sure we’ll be going back…

Then, we went to Osaka Castle where the plum trees are blooming. Unfortunately, there is only a very few subtle differences between plum trees and sakura tree that all three of us poor Americans didn’t know until AFTER Ruth and I bought a tree to give to our host families (fortunately, both families love gardening and were glad to have the tree anyway). Difference 1: Sakura are usually taller than plum. We can’t help it if we thought they were baby Sakura, because not all trees start off tall. Difference 2: Sakura blooms later. Well, we thought it was awful early for the blooms too and that should have been our first clue, but we heard all the Japanese visitors there saying “Haiyai, Haiyai!” which means early by the way, so we were mislead. Difference 3: Plum flowers bloom on the actual branches. Sakura flowers have a stem that the bloom hangs from. While our two little trees only cost 1000 yen (10$), there were trees that were smaller but had more of an interesting shape and were potted in a special pot and were 50,000 (500$)! So, of course, when we brought the tree home, our host families freaked out thinking we’d spent so much on them and we had to calm them down and tell them that it was very yasui (cheap) because we found a bargain and as best we could figure it was because it wasn’t in a special pot and didn’t have any special shape. The really good thing that came out of the trip is that while we were shopping there, one of the guys at the stalls starts talking to us and I was able to understand the whole thing. Here’s a rough translation.
Shop keeper: this is (English) blooming. (starts waving us to some that haven’t bloomed yet)
Me: Oh wow, they’re so small! (to krissy) It’s bonsai!
Krissy: Wow!
Shopkeeper: (English) You like bonsai?
Krissy: (Japanese) It’s a gift for our host families.
Shopkeeper: Oh, is it okay if I speak Japanese (this was in Japanese)
Ruth: Yes, it is.
Shopkeeper: You live in japan?
Me: yes
Krissy: we’re living with homestay families right now. We go to Kansai Gaidai University.
Shopkeeper: Oh, you study Japanese?
Ruth: Yes, but we also study asian studies.
Shopkeeper: Do they teach you Kansai-ben? (this is Japanese with an Osaka “accent.” It’s actually a word that’s conjugated differently or an entirely different word to begin with.)
Ruth: A little. But at our home universities, they teach us Kanto-ben (standard dialect), and they don’t let us use Kansai-ben. But because of our host families, we have to learn Kansai-ben. You know, things like wakara-hen, ohaiyo-san, etc
Shopkeeper laughs. Ruth points to a very small bonsai tree.
Ruth: How much does this cost?
Shopkeeper: 3000 yen. The prices are written on the back of the tag.
Me: Huh? 3000 yen?
Ruth: But it’s so small!
Shopkeeper: Yes but see, it’s leaning over and it’s got this trait (I forget what he called it, but it’s where the tree trunk folds in on itself). That one over there is 50000 yen.
All three of us: WHAT? Really?
Shopkeeper: Yes, see it’s much older than the rest and not only does it have that folding trait but it’s trunk also does this curling thing (he had much more technical terms than that).
Ruth: Oh that’s so expensive! We’re just college students…
This went on for a good thirty minutes before we finally left the little stall disheartened because they were all so expensive. However, just around the corner was a stall that sold boring, unwanted plum trees (because they didn’t have the curl or the folding trunk etc), and that’s where we bought ours. But it was still nice to know that I could listen to a 30 minute conversation and understand all of it. I suppose you might be wondering why Krissy and I spoke so little, even though out of the three of us, Krissy is the highest level. Well, Ruth was the one with the quickest response, so we just stood there most of the time nodding and agreeing with her. She also has a host family that speaks absolutely no English, so she gets the most day to day practice.

So I went home, discovered my tactical error, but was pleased that the host family still liked the plant. My host mother loves gardening, so I knew she would like it anyway. Now for the weird part. As some of you remember, we eat tempura (fried foods) “for our health.” Well, Monday night we had tempura, but instead of the dipping sause made of soy sause, my host mother gave me a small pile of salt. For my health. And I sat there thinking just thinking to myself “for my health? But it’s salt. For my health. …okay….” But I ate it to be polite. Didn’t taste too bad, but I was really glad she didn’t give me a whole lot. I would have cried, I’m sure.

Tuesday, February 12th
Tuesday was much less fun than my weekend, partially because it meant I had to go to class. I was almost late to my Japanese class (because I almost overslept again; hey, I walked a whole lot on Monday). I then had lunch (curry rice) and went with Ruth to talk to Dr. Scott before class started. He gave us a whole bunch of books on Burma (our project for that class). I’ve already read one of them and I think I’ll be done with the other two fairly soon. It’s interesting but sad at the same time.

I then spent the rest of the evening doing the ever-so-thrilling activity of studying for a vocab quiz and a kanji test. Ha ha, whee…