Big shout out "thanks!" to the jimoto kansha shitemasu maido arigatou

[shikamachu]

Saturday, July 4

Oh hey look, it’s the fourth of July. Happy birthday America.
How will this patriot spend her Independence Day?
By buying nerdy Japanese things in Akihabara, that’s how.

It involved getting out of the house really early. Like before eight. Ouch. Alex, Atsushi, Yohei and I all met up in at the Electric Town Exit at um…Ten (it took me longer than it really should have to get there. I’m not so good with the Tokyo trains yet) and we got our day started.
Atsushi took us to a bunch of resell shops where we had fun looking at all sorts of things. Everything from old Showa era stuff like the Fujiya mascot to Gundam models, which Yohei is apparently SUPER into. Don’t let his Matsu-Jun esque face and rock star threads fool you, dude is a GIANT GUNDAM NERD.
That’s kind of funny.
Because none of us really had the chance to eat before we got there, Atsushi suggested we go to a Café.
A Maid Café.
Okay then. Away we go captain.
So the maid café we go to is apparently the most famous, although I already can’t remember the name. It’s ‘moe’ to the max (scary cute to a frightening extent). SO moe in fact, before they let us drink our drinks, they had us sing a chant to make them more delicious which went like; ‘Moe! Moe! Kyuuu~uun!’.
I pretty much died laughing. It was hard to chock down my now apparently more delicious drink. Atsushi’s had a bunny face drawn in his with the foam, which is why I suspect he got it (dude didn’t need the menu.) I couldn’t even look at the waitresses for fear of exploding in laughter. Too much man, too much. Far too many single 30 year old overweight men in there to be of reputable sorts.
Afterwards we kind of poked around at random stuff in stores, every once and a while poking our heads into shops when Yohei found something giant-robot like or Atsushi wanted some speakers or something.
Not too long after, we go to a hole in the wall udon place for a rather anti-climactic lunch. Nothing seems special after you’ve had a pumped-up-in-deliciousness maid-café breakfast y’know? There was wasabi mayo, which earned points.
I had Sukiyaki Udon, because I REALLY wanted to get that song stuck in my head.
Masochist, y’know. Darn you Kyuu Sakamoto!

We passed by a McDonald’s and it looks like they’re going to be bringing back the MEGATAMAGO because Japan hates the rest of the world.
I’m not really sure how, but now the four of us now have an inside joke consisting of ‘Tamagoeggtamago’ because there is too much tamago in the mega tamago. So much that it needs a full two languages to express it’s eggy glory.

So, One thing I’ve noticed, especially this year In Japanese fashion, is that fake glasses have become increasingly popular. Its gotten to the point that if you see Japanese people on the street with glasses, you can assure yourself with utmost confidence that they’re probably fake. People that actually NEED glasses will wear contacts.
Well, just so happens that both Atsushi AND Yohei are part of this fake glasses fashion movement.
I don’t get it
I was made fun of for years for being a ‘four eyes’. But now it’s COOL?
Thank you school-boy look! Thank you Takanori and Abingdon Boys School! Now I can wear my tiny purple glasses with confidence.
After walking around for a while aimlessly, it was decided that another Maid Café was in order, because one isn’t anywhere near enough for people as nerdy and gross as us.
The Second one we went to was called Schatz-kiste, which is incredibly hard to spell, I’ll have you know. I’m not doing it again.
This one left a really great impression on me. It was incredibly Victorian themed. No vaguely creepy cat-girl themed maids or delicious inducing ‘moe moe kyun’, no, these were floor length black dresses, lace up black ankle boots, silver brooches and long while aprons.
They baked their own specialty European artisan bread (and crumpets) and brewed their own blend of tea. The only slightly strange thing was that they adhered very strictly to a set of characters models after their original concept that were identifiable by their brooches, and what was creepier was that ATSUSHI ALREADY KNEW THAT 0_0
Um, we found that out because he asked one of the cuter girls (there were only three people working in the entire store) who she was. (The other three of us we like….”Huh? Who…? She’s our um…Waitress…..What the….”) and he was like “You’re not one of this particular location’s waitresses? What happened. Did Alice (or whatever her name was) get sick?”
The waitress was like “oh yes, I’m just filling in today, Are you a regular? (To which we were like 0_____0 What do you think?!)
Anyway, she was apparently filling in from the flagship store.
One of the books they placed on our table with the fancy bread was their store history and intricate totally fabricated back-story that takes place in Victorian England.
It was something else. I think I really like that one despite the distorted reality issues and uneeded doilies. It was incredibly detail oriented, and it was quiet and pleasant. Bread was tasty.
Atsushi might be weirder than we thought though.
Yohei had something to do for the Bunkasai committee he’s apparently part of (Goat division?) so he had to go.
Atsushi invited us to meet an animator friend of his for dinner and karaoke.
We met up with him outside the visitor area in the new building not far from Yodobashi and headed over to an Izakaya for dinner (anticlimax meal strikes again.)
The old lady that worked there decided to comment of Atsushi’s Eyelashes the second she saw them. “WOW! What long lashes you have there son!”
Ooooh Awkward. Glad I didn’t do that now. He was kind of like “uh…Yeah, they um…yeah they’re long. Yup. I had, in fact, noticed this about them. Considering they’re on my FACE…”

We then decide to round off the day nerdrifically with Anime themed karaoke at a karaoke/café place in which drangonquest meat on a bone is available upon request.
That’s happy.
We were led into the ‘Gegege no Kitaro’ room, which was pretty freakin’ fantastic. We were there for two hours and it was really fun, despite Atsushi’s friend chain smoking without asking if it was cool with the rest of us.

Atsushi keeps trying to get me to want to become a voice actress over a singer (I’d be MORE THAN HAPPY with either, but I think singer is more feasible. I don't need kanji supreme skills for that. I mean, I‘m planning on being able to read more kanji in the future. I’m studying really hard, but I don’t think reading out loud in a foreign language for a living is the best career option for me. Singing is just fine though. That’s totally different.)
We left a little before ten (I had honestly hoped to get home by ten, but my host parents never called me, and I wasn’t able to tell them when I’d actually get home. Akiba is about as far away from the Odakyu line as you can get while still being in Tokyo. So it took a while to get home. I still managed it before the last train, which was right about midnight. For a 20 year old that’s lived in Japan extensively, plus being with friends, I don't’ consider that too bad.
Host parents kind of did. D:
Oops.
They’d never given me a time that I needed to come home (like, curfew) and I told them I’d be late, but apparently Midnight is TOO late.
Oh.

Well. Glad that was made clear. If there was a curfew, They really should have told me, I would have been home by then. Also, they were aware I was going to be an hour and a half to two hours away from Tamagawa. Getting home at midnight means I was on my way home from the Yamanote sen right at ten, which constitutes as pretty darn good for a twenty year old out with friends from dinner and karaoke after shoppin’.
Apparently they thought I just wasn’t going to come home.

What kind of person do you think I am? Of COURSE I’m coming home. I’d make sure, if all else failed, I’d get a cab. Not coming back is never an option for me.
Americans have bad reputations I guess?
Again guys, its midnight Not four in the morning. I wasn’t given a curfew, and if you were THAT worried, so much that you stayed up waiting (until midnight isn’t really staying up. That’s when normal people start thinking about bed maybe) they could have ALWAYS called. I have a phone, they have my number, and it’s MUCH cheaper for them to call me than to murder my now dwindling overpriced pre-pay minutes calling them.
Well. Okay. Midnight is kind of late. Upon asking for what time is a good time to draw the line of ‘okay’ and ‘too late’, I wasn’t given a clear answer so I still don’t have any idea what’s good. I’ve resolved just to call every hour and a half after four to cover all bases.

Also, because it was late, I was asked to walk the half hour from the station at midnight.
Ouch.
That’s a diss.
Also not safe. But they decided apparently that I disregarded my safety by coming home at an unreasonable hour. (….Midnight?)

I assume this is because they have two pre-teen daughters.

Okay, despite the fact I never had a curfew ever, Yes, I agree, kids 14 and under should not be out with friends past nine or ten.
I’m twenty.
These kids may already be taller than me (They’re seriously tall) but I’m twice their ages. I also LIVE IN JAPAN. I’m good at stuff. I’m more than happy to comply with family rules if they’re given. You just have to give them. Bring ‘em on! Hard to do the right thing when it’s not specified.
I’m still going for the psychic option.

Sunday, July 5

So, because the father had already fallen asleep when I’d gotten back last night, I formally apologized in the morning after strong suggestions from the host mother to do so.
So apology (it was in Japanese, BTW, all my conversations are):
“I apologize for coming home late last night, the train took about two hours, and next time I will call more often as to not worry you. I’m Sorry.”
Okay! Good apology! Right?

…..DENIED! I’d forgotten that Japanese people love giving apologies, but fail miserably at taking them! Wow! Not adequate response there guys:

“Sou, ammari,…yoku nai ne’ (Yeah, not so good.)
…..

Well THAT'S not the correct response to an apology. Gee. No really. That doesn’t accomplish anything other than hurting someone, which is an improper use of language
And your FACE.
Ugh.

(Later I asked Mr. Go About it and he told me it was the Japanese acknowledgement of being apologized to, but that I wasn’t going to be forgiven out loud because they considered what happened bad enough. Or some shit.)

I tried really hard not to cry in front of the daughter while attempting to concentrate on her homework after that happened.
I failed.
So I ate whatever the crap it was that was for breakfast that morning and hid in my room until I didn’t feel like being pissed anymore. I also called dad, which helped.

So, today I kind of had a karaoke contest today in Isehara that my former host parents told me about (They forever win at awesome). I went off around two and met Alex at the station who had agreed to come with me so that I wasn’t literally the only white person in all of Isehara that day.
The Shrine Festival this thing was at was called ‘Nodojiman’, and it was having its annual flower festival.

While I was waiting for Alex in the station, we talked to one of the girls visiting Tamgawa from Peirce Community College who just so happened to look like she was dying on the bench next to us.
We asked if she was all right. No really, she looked dead. Super red and hyperventilating. 0_0
She was apparently really bothered by the humidity paired with the just about eighty-degree weather going on. I will acknowledge Japan is humid, but I really didn’t think today was particularly bad, a least not at Ten thirty in the morning.
It was a little more humid than the average bear, but only 70-75% or so. That’s not smotheringly bad or anything, and it hadn’t gotten that hot yet.
In any case, she seemed like she might pull through, so we went on our way.
I’d forgotten exactly how far Isehara really was from Tamagawa. Like forty minutes if you take the right trains, and longer than that if you don’t. Guess which trains we took? It’s like a logic problem.
We kind of transferred at the wrong spot, but only because I don’t know the Sunday train schedule at all.
Apparently today Isehara is a popular destination for white peoples. There were some Canadians on the train that got off there too.
It looked like they were probably meeting friends or something, as they had bags with them and I know for a fact that Isehara has negative amounts of hotels.
Yayoi picked us up at the station and drove us to Hiroko’s house where we put me in the blue sakura covered yukata I wore for last year’s Tanabata. We then decided it would be fun to have Alex wear one too, but there wasn’t another easy-on Obi so we ran off to the restaurant where Obi-master grandma lives above the store waiting for wayward foreingers to run by to smush them into a kimono.
Grandma got Alex in a yukata with amazing speed and…. Force….. commenting on her giant American boobs and messing with her hair the entire time. It was hilarious.. She got the obi tied in a really pretty butterfly-bow and off we were after some photos in from of the store and again in front of the festival gate.
After registering, I’ve ended up as number 38 out of forty-five.

I then proceed to be neeeeeeervous.

I ended up sounding better than I thought (according to the ghetto video Alex took with her camera)
There were some really interesting people too, some of them dressed up in funny or otherwise pimpin’ or sparkly outfits singing enka. There were a few really good ones, Especially the supermarket ballad guy a couple places after me. He was amazing
The first song I sang was enka, because everyone else was doing it. I’m more confident in Ishikawa Sayuri’s ‘Tsugaru Kaikyo ‘than I am in Tendou Yoshimi’s ‘Tonbori Ninjo’ so I went with that. For safety’s sake. (Also, the latter needs serious warm-up time, One day It'll happen. One day.)
The first round only had half the song (up until the end of the first chorus) and then the judges deliberated.
While they were doing that, Alex and I grabbed dubious Hot dog on a stick and listened to the sequenced Chinese-dress pro singer (Akane-something) they invited as a special guest sing a bought of six songs. She was pretty, if only slightly creepy (Too much make-up. And sparkles. It was like Drag-queen fabulous. I think it would have worked better if she were one.)
We also grabbed shaved ice (Adzuki and condensed milk kakigori) and Alex and Yayoi got Cotton candy (I stole bites here and there) and found Mr. Go and his mother after a while and talked with them.
Mr. Go had just gotten back from Ghana was slightly jet lagged, but somehow still super chipper. It was great to catch up with him and find out how his various soap and basket related business enterprises were going.
Apparently the basket free trade thing is going surprisingly well.

They stayed as long as my appearance in the second round, and then went home to do some work.
The second round I sung a pop-song (Everyone else just sang the same song though 0_0. Oh. Well then. I’m different) Kanashimi wo Yasashisani (4th Naruto opening. The really really high one.)
After that, It was getting towards six and they still hadn’t finished deliberating, so I called my host parents for the fourth time to let them know what all was happening.
They were kind of like ‘Oh, that must be fun’ but honestly didn’t think I was serious about being a singer, so they’re not all that um…supportive.
I guess I understand though. If some 20 year old told me her life plan was to be a singer in a foreign country, I’d think she was slightly off her rocker too.
They just don't’ know me all that well, or haven’t heard me sing.
That’s okay.
During the Second deliberation a second guest singer did a short performance. I can’t remember her name, but she had a super genki fan club, and sounded like Tendo Yoshimi.
….Whose song she covered and I was able to recognize it even while on the phone. 0_0!!!
My Isehara family was like: Hahaha, sasuga Dai-chan. The walking Jukebox….

Hiroko handed us some raffle tickets to play with while we were waiting so that we didn’t start fires by burning holes in the judges tent waiting for them to decide already. The local businesses are given raffle tickets based on some arbitrary number that somehow determines how many spins they get. The prize money amounts are determined by what color balls pop out of the raffle rolly and we were then given a little envelope with the corresponding amount of money inside.
I call it Raffle 635. We won 635 yen for Komiya.
YEAH!
They can get a cabbage with that! A Fancy one!
Considering this was out of like, 33 tickets, I feel really lame.

Oh so.
By the way.

I WON!

I won the grand prize of a big trophy and a morning glory (WOO! Flowers! Hiroko suggested I give them to my Host parents as a way to remember me by. Hiroko still has that turtle from last year anyway… ) I was pretty stoked. I mean, I’ve been in three other karaoke competitions in Japan. I keep placing pretty well, (Second and um…third? I think. Can’t remember) but this is the first time (In Japan) I’ve gotten first.
YAY.
After flying out of the yukata, I take the express home, in hopes of getting there before it even gets totally dark so that no one can say anything about the time, despite having called literally every hour since four. (You tell me to call. I CALL. No more misunderstandings.)
Although eight thirty, I still have to walk home. I hadn’t told them I’d won, because I kind of wanted it to be a surprise, but the plant and the giant metal trophy got kind of heavy about a mile in when I was going up the GIANT ASS HILL.
Yeah, can’t say I’m happy with this new ’You were late once, so you’re walking home from now on’ arrangement.

Well whatever. I Brought back a trophy now what bitches? Yeah!

I pop in like “I’m home!” and they’re like “So you are.”

Not even a ‘how was the contest?’ -_-;;;;
So I was like:
“uh…where should I put the plant?”

“The pla….WHUT?”

“Oh I uh…Got a plant…. As a prize.

…

“oh…..That’n….

ALSO THIS GIANT YUUSHO TROPHY!”

Them: 0___________0

“Oh shit! That’s actually really cool! So you WERE that good at singing. Kids! Com’mere! Stop studying! She won stuff! ”

YEAH. NOW WHAT?! NOW WHACCHU GOT TO SAY MAH BIYACHES?

HA!

I’m okay. I just needed to get that out of my system.

Monday, July 6

Early morning is early. All that was planned today was a chat session, which we all decided to boycott in favor of getting various projects done. We’d talked this over with the Tamagawa people before, and they thought it was a good idea to (in fact they’d planned it that way. Crafty)
I got downstairs a little before eight and it was deserted.
Whoa.
It looks like Host mom had a pretty epic Migraine, so she was resting. So, I had failure for breakfast (plain rice and furikake (seasoning) on top. -_-. That’s usually a joke in gag manga or something for poor homeless people. Like a ‘wish sandwich’. The kind of a sandwich where you have two slices of bread and you wish you had some meat.)
I met Alex in Shijuku around eleven, or at least I was supposed to. The plan was to meet in front of the ‘Chanel’ at the West exit.
Little did I realize the Chanel was square and there were TWO west exits. OMG mind break. Shinuku station is CRAZY. I guess it would be. It’s something like the second or third heaviest trafficked station in the world.
Apparently we managed to wait at the opposite West exit Chanel stores from each other for forty-five minutes until she was like “ok, something’s wrong here, Diana is usually early if anything.” And went around the Chanel doughnut to find me.
So we got started a little later then we planned.
Neither of us had ever really been out and around Shinjuku yet, so it was the blind leading the blind. We pretty much went in whatever direction shiny pretty lights were blinking.
Every other place was seriously a frackin’ karaoke place. The temptation was too great. I had to give in. I’m only human.
We also went to a gothic and lolita (but not ‘gothic lolita’ oddly enough) used clothing store, which was fun. I got a really cool punk skirt.
Alex was fixated on cake. We need cake. I can go with that.
We had McDonalds for lunch because we’re AMERICAN! I was puzzled by, and ended up getting a um…I think it was a ‘bacon potato…uh..pie’? Yeah, I was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. I also managed to finagle a plain cheeseburger by specifying absolutely everything that I DIDN’T want on it, because that’s how Japan rolls.
Just saying ‘plain cheeseburger’ is so much more efficient.

It was after that we went to karaoke as a combined karaoke-cake and / or parfait effort.

When we were leaving we heard the strangest tuba-tacular sound I’d ever heard, along with bad mixed synth music wafting out of a room near the elevator.
Yes, you guessed it, some kid, now dubbed ‘the awesomist middle school kid ever’ was totally playing the tuba in a karaoke room.
Congratulations, you’re AWESOME.

I really wanted to hang around in Shunjuku for a little longer, but I more wanted to get home really early today, especially since I’m apparently having dinner with Yohei, Atsushi, and Alex again tomorrow.
SURPRISE!
I don’t think I’d had anything else planned, but I really don’t remember. I really feel like something was wrong about Tuesday, but I can’ put my finger on it.
In any case, they want to meet at like. Six, for dinner and karaoke which means there’s no way I’m getting home before nine tomorrow. My guess is somewhere right before ten.
I really hope that’s okay.
So early it is for today!

On the way home I noticed that there was a stupid amount of military planes flying every which way with intervals of like, five seconds in between them. There’s a military base right around Machida but hot damn, I was like ‘Where’s the sky-fire?, What up?...I mean…Other than the planes…”

The mom still wasn’t feeling well so there’s conbini bento for dinner. That’s cool with me; secretly I’ve missed conbini bento a little. I’m absurdly fond of them. I usually have one or two a week in Kobe (Lazy 0_0. Also, they’re yummy and I don’t have the tools to make a lot of that stuff anyway, so I dont’ feel that guilty. I think it’s better than Fast food for me too since it’s actually like…food. With veggies. Japan’s much more awesome answer to TV dinners.)

Yuu was at Juku today, so I ate with Aya. I had delicious Tonkatsu bento. Yum. It was huge though, so I couldn’t’ finish it.

Tuesday, July 7

Nice late start to the day, my favorite days are, in fact, the ones I don’t have to be in school until eleven.

First we had Rowland’s Presentation Skills class, where students introduced various websites to us, and practiced how to stand in front of a crowd and clearly state stuff.
We then presented a rather in-depth thing on Evergreen. We were all given our own little parts. I was talking about the differences in student life between Japan and America, like that Japanese kids actually bothered to dress nice (and comb their hair) for class, and things like that.
We also answered random questions towards the end that they had about Evergreen, we’re hoping that people will have an interest in doing an exchange or a short internship with Evergreen, so we’re pimping it as hard as possible, avoiding subject involving militant vegans and turning over police cars.

….So, We did have something else to do in Tuesday. My bad. I’d forgotten that Rory’s host parents had initially invited us to his house on Tuesday, because they’d heard a lot about all of us, and the program is suddenly drawing to an end. Its cool, Rory said that Wednesday would work just as well, so Alex and I continued with the plan to meet up with Atsushi and Yohei again.

Because the school day ended pretty early, we got started an hour and a half earlier than originally planned. This caught Atsushi and Yohei by surprise, so in a panic due to uncharted changes of the master schedule, they totally imploded and decided to take up time by silently leading us to all these strange bohemian places.
For guys that dress so well, they sure have bad taste in stores -_-????
Atsushi also went to the food section in the department store to trade....words?…. and possibly mafia secrets with undercover spies posing as fish mongers and cake sellers.
WHAT?
Is he part of the Kyoto Branch food mafia?
He also somehow had a direct info-grip and in-depth intimacy with the okonomiyaki shop we went to as well.. WTF is going on here? Seriously? What’s going on with these two? It’s like they were plotting something, being weird and talking to fish mongers.
Anyway, although the okonomiyaki shop was kind of hard to find, it was this really cool little shack sitting in the middle of a bunch of Office buildings. The owner of the Shop is originally from Kyoto, and this is a fairly new restaurant for him. He likes to make up his own original flavors, including …..Curry-okonomiyaki? No way!
YES WAY.

So much delicious. The Chef dude was a funny guy.

Burning bunnies? (just something funny we misunderstood Yohei saying)

We went to karaoke afterwards, hoping for an encore of Atsushi’s Tomato song (From Hetalia. The entire song consists of TOMATOTOMATOPIZZASAUCETOMATO!. It’s pretty freakin’ epic. But alas, a non-dork-specializing establishment wouldn’t have something that awesome) Yohei and Atsushi did sing ‘Youkoso Nihon e’ by SMAP, which was just about perfect ^_^

Also: Happy Tanabata 7/7!
Hurray Ancient Chinese holidays about being in love SO much you have to be separated, making it romantically tragic and depressing.
Just like all Chinese stories. Even their current dramas. D:

Wednesday, July 8

Today I woke up bright in early in order to visit the Elementary school! (for my project, and also because they’re so CUUUUUTE)
Yay Shougakou! Small children are small, and therefore more than a little adorable, especially when belting out in the most incomprehensible, cute songs about mountains and hot springs ever created. They completely and totally disregarded pitch entirely in favor of high pitched adolescent squeaking. It was amazing. They were encouraged to sing with gusto rather than accuracy. OK then. As per Shonen Manga, trying hard and believing in your SOUL with absolute conviction and unity is better than it actually being right.

Tamagawa is a prestigious private school that even requires testing to get into the elementary and pre-school divisions. Because of this, they get to mess with the curriculum and start doing intensive, native-taught, English from super early on. The prestigious status also requires the poor little boys to wear shorty short shorts, even in winter, and the girls to wear dresses that look vaguely uniform-esque.
One of the things we noticed about the elementary through high school divisions of Tamagawa is that the girls don't’ ever have a set uniform. They pretty much just buy whatever is available in ‘East Boy’, a uniform-like shop for schools that don’t have uniforms, of which there is an increasing number of these days. Mostly fancy private schools.
The boys do have set uniforms though, in order to prepare them for having to wear suits forever and ever until they die.
That’s depressing.
No style for YOU!

We visited Two English classes for third graders.
The first class was taught by a native speaker who’d been living in Japan for a while.
She didn't’ have an assistant for the class because her Japanese worked well enough that it was unnecessary. Her class involved a lot of physical activity as a way of learning English. It was almost entirely taught as a game, and the kids really enjoyed learning it, and it wasn’t just seen as a means for passing a test.
The second class we visited was taught by a Japanese Native and was compartitively silent. Here English was taught in the form of a quiz game where she had us read the English word out and they then picked the corresponding Japanese word.
Both means seemed to get the point across, and both classes looked like they enjoyed it overall. The stereotype conformity hurt though. Way to love testing Japan. Way for the American’s class to be loud as hell. Hmm.

After a little interview with the teachers we headed back to the college to grab some ice cream (The Agricultural department at Tamagawa makes their own brand of ice cream. Right now they’re doing a honey vanilla thing as a way to raise money to help the honey bees.)

Then it was the plan to finally meet up with Rory’s Host parents.
We’d decided through Facebook the night before that we were going to meet at Shinyurigaoka station at five thirty and then have dinner. Both Alec and Rory had other things to do during the day and didn’t otherwise come to school plus they weren’t all that interested in visiting the Elementary division in the first place and there wasn’t anything else officially planned.

OR SO WE THOUGHT

Right before we were about to go off to meet Rory, Riley lets us know that the informal Meet-up with prospective students to go to Evergreen was All-Systems-Go after all.
Because the whole session wasn’t pimped or anything, and it was planned for when a lot of kids would need to get home, no one was excepting a big turn out. Also, it was supposed to be informal. There was a high probability of it not happening in the first place.
When it came around to the day of and we hadn’t heard anything yet, we, and everyone else (including our supervisor), made the mistaken conclusion that it wasn’t going to happen and made other plans.
We talked it over with Riley, as we explained that Rory doesn’t have a phone, so it’s not like I can call him to push back the meeting time at the station and he’s kind of unpredictable and therefore we couldn’t guarantee he would wait for more than twenty minutes for us before he decided we were flakes and go (Since we already pushed the whole thing back from the day before) Riley understood and agreed. It’s not like we’d heard anything about it happening yet anyway.

Right before we left, Riley got an e-mail from the coorsinator of the Info session (who we hadn’t met) being all like ‘We plan on taking some seminar classes to the Evergreen info session! We’re looking forward to your speeches and presentations on Evergreen life! “
We were like “…uh….”

So because of this optimistic e-mail, and the fact that they said they couldn’t wait to hear our ‘presentations’ (WHA????? That wasn’t mentioned anywhere.) we went, because after all, we are PR Mascots first and foremost.
We just don’t have to be happy about it.
Riley had stuff to do at Shinyurigaoka anyway, where Rory was going to wait, so she went ahead and told him we were going to be forty-minutes late.

So this big turnout was epic. So epic in fact that it was comprised entirely of ONE PERSON.

Fgjkjhgvj ffJ:g!!!%@#%#@

And our amazing audience didn't even ask about Evergreen really. No, she was interested in teaching Japanese abroad and wanted to learn about our personal experiences with the language. All she wanted to know was about Evergreen’s facilities (Language lab, ect).
Well, I couldn’t really help. I’ve taken like, a quarter or two of Tomoko’s class, but my skills are all over the place and very little of it is book learnin’. I’m totally atypical. Almost entirely Spartan Lion’s Den Japanese from experience. Well then.
Yeah.
Not helpful.
Alex was able to tell her a little, but she’s also learned a lot from Music. Really, she’d probably have better luck on Evergreen’s website. She had no questions about actually attending school there or student life, or anything we could answer with any kind of confidence. Not being teachers, we really don’t know what your life would be like. How ‘bout you ask about the Cafeteria? We can answer that. We both had to survive on that for our first year. I lost like, ten pounds. The M&M and Peanut Butter pizza…..Ugh.

So, further belated after some guy took a few pictures of us with forced smiles trying to bolt out the door of the deserted classroom, we met up with Rory and his Ugg wearin’ camo-shorts sportin’ Host brother.
So we went to Rory’s house.
Rory’s GIANT mansion with African masks and swords house.
Dude is a stock market millionaire. It’s crazy. The house itself is a nice old house with a koi pond and hilariously contradicting motorcycles parked out front.
Yeah, that was motorcycles with an ‘s’. There were several.

I like that his host father asked if it was okay to smoke. See, in Japan, before you smoke, it’s generally considered polite to ask, even if you’re totally going to do it anyway. Like, no one’s going to say ‘Actually, no I rather that you didn’t smoke’ I mean, they might think it, but of COURSE they’re going to say ‘yes, please go right ahead’
I thought he was funny in particular, because he was like ‘Well good, it’s my house, so I was going to smoke anyway’
Awesome.
That’s one of the reasons we didn’t like Atsushi’s base toting duechey animator friend by the way, because he didn’t even ask, or hardly acknowledged we (or Atsushi for that matter) were there at all.

Apparently Rory’s Host brother is keeping it a secret that he smokes plant matter and has tattoos (Host Dad even made a big deal out of Alex’s piercings. The whole ‘your body your parents gave you should be taken care of’ thing.)
But…I mean, Even if the son thinks it’s under wraps, the father must know,t he dude destroyed all of the pot plants hiding in his son’s closet the other year. He apparently never mentioned having destroyed them or confronted his son or anything, but he must know that only deviated the number of total transactions it takes for him to get it now.
I wonder about Rory’s Host brother’s income, thinking of that. Is he a freeter? What’s going on with that? He’s got to have income from somewhere, and he seems pretty smart,. Japan’s economy right now is in the same sort of state as ours, so it’s possible he’s been having issues finding a job. I guess I wouldn’t mind freeters if they TRIED to have a part time job or something. That’s fine, but just freeters because their parents let them is weird. My parents let me know that if I dropped out of college and had to move back in with them, I’d have to pay rent.
Once Americans turn 18, there’s no fudging it.

For dinner we had Chinese food, it was delicious. Mmmm Gyoza and yummy Chinese sweet and sour dishes. The Chinese place we went to was near a currently not entirely operational theme park (Wrong season, it’s only open for august, which seems like a giant waste of the small amount of land Still available in Japan.
We did enjoying staring at the frozen Ferris wheel.
Apparently the cast from ‘Rookies’ shot an episode there, because the Chinese restaurant had a picture of it, and was otherwise promoting ‘Rookies’ all over the place.
I approve of baseball pushing.

Thursday, July 9

In order to visit the Middle school’s IB division, we met at the station like, a little before nine (which was very early, but I was able to get a fantastically delicious cocoa so it’s okay.) When we all arrived, Riley tells us that she’ll have to leave after guiding us here, and to have tons of fun. Which we will.
Then, with a shy, possibly guilty expression, she asks a HUGE favor of us

“Can I ask you guys a Huge favor? If it’s not too much? It’d be a great favor.”

“….yes?” 0_0?

I thought she was going to ask that we take a hit out on someone or something….Destroy stuff with my origami shuriken?! OKAY.

“Can you sing at the farewell party?”

“….”

“Ooooh.”

Sure, I suppose. Sorta outta nowhere but whatever. I’m available to rent for a performance anytime. It’s part of my master international pop star sensation plan, so yes. Singing. Yes.
Of course I will sing for you at the farewell party tonight.
That’s not a big favor. I was expecting something unpleasant, not like, my favorite activity ever.
Luckily I carry karaoke tracks around with me on my iPod for this very reason.

Okay, so with that we were on our way to the Middle School Division. We kinda ended getting lost in the strange Tamagawa forest that protects the middle schoolers from the train tracks and college buildings on what happened to be one of the most humid days that ever happened in the history of the world. In fact, it was SO humid that the laundry couldn’t dry properly.
That’s a bad sign
That’s the freakin’ humidopolypse there.

After finding some vaguely European looking buildings complete with a four-part choir singing under a pavilion (WHY???????????) we decided this must be it (Wait huh? In What way? Why was the the cincer?) And went inside to find out how we were to go about stalking middle schoolers.
I’m happy to report that Middle school boy in Tamagawa have graduated to pants.
The IB program is a ‘naturalization of English’ program, which is pretty much taught like an ESL class. Every single subject is taught in English allowing for the kids to be completely immersed. All the time.

As the IB program really just started last year, there are still some kinks to work out. It’s required that you’re tested into it, but the levels were crazy different, I mean, there was a half kid who was entirely fluent, along with a girl that had been raised in America for most of her life (Indiana of all places 0_0) but then there were also some kids who really didn’t have an everyday working grip on the language. I mean, they were all better than your average bear, and the overall level in that classroom was higher than even in the college English classes, because it was taught like ESL.

Currently, the students are working on two simultaneous English projects. One is ‘marketing’ where they’ve come up with a product or service like ‘Mafia Coffee’ (D: ???) or ‘Mood Roses’ and were asked to create a poster for it in order advertise it.
The other project was a skit between a customer and a shopkeeper using particular vocabulary words. Again the activities are physical or art based, which I think is better in order to get the kids genuinely interested.

We then started to interview the Teachers.
Just a random thought but… Are New Zealander’s the Canadians of the Pacific South? Like America VS Canadia? They poke at each other like that...Fun and friendly, but still have a seemingly ridiculous nonsensical rivalry over nothing. Like that? XD
Seemed that way.

After the super long interview about how these teachers came to Tamagawa, the effectiveness of IB, and what the student’s interests and reasons might be for joining, where they made Rory their new poster boy because he’s a former IB kid, we were able to sneak our way off to Machida to somehow amuse ourselves, preferably with food at the center of this, for the next like…six hours until the Farewell party started.
Whoo.

So, first thing we do is head off to Gusto to get some giant hamburgers in our bellies, followed by the arcade so that Alec could win me some claw machine stuff like whoa.
I also played the new game by the Guilty Gear people, BlazBlue and (predictably) I picked the strange, possibly zombie-tacular cat-girl and kicked ass while taking names. I managed to make it five rounds although it was my first time playing on an arcade fighting machine. Some dude toting an ice-sword with a ridiculous attack range kept getting his emo little bowl-cut face in the way of my ultimate victory.
Alex was next to me and also managed to make it five rounds until some soggy muffin ass-hat picked the same character as her and crushed her.
Alec was playing Street Fighter and is hella good, we were watching him school practically everyone in the arcade.
Every time a new dude challenged him, I did a ‘walk about’ to see what kind of opponent was on the other side.
There was some high shooler ditching class next to him who was also really good but he was like WHOA at Alec. Kid was looking at the guy like he was some kind of Foreign Street Fighter Shinagami type deal. Alex always speaks to people in English, even if there’s NO WAY they even kind of understand it, especially if they’re a truant 15 year old stil in their school uniform in a loud smoky arcade, but whatever. He smiled and nodded.
We then tried to take purikura (sticky pics) but apparently there’s no boys allowed (The hellz? isn’t the point of purikura to take pictures of you and your boyfriend. WTF???)
We then headed off to cake and green cream filled melon bread at the Odakyu department store in order to finally satiate Alex’s constant need for Cake. We proceeded to be attacked by like, ten million pigeons as the world’s most inconsiderate pigeon vigilante crusader feeder stationed himself as close as possible to us and almost literally threw the seed AT us.
Nice.
I liked the brown bird. Crazy lookin’

We started heading back to the school around three because we go a little bored of the monotonously shiny lame stuff Machida has to offer, and I didn’t think karaoke was quite appropriate. I totally forgot that I wanted to get a birthday present for my host sister today while we were in Machida. Snap. I hope I can do that tomorrow.
We ended up sitting in a little grassy bench in the mini Ice cream-eating-park where we went between falling asleep and just talking about random stuff. Japanese friends would also drop by from time to time as well and talk to us. Around five, we all tried to go over to the party except that Ayumi called us to tell us to wait a while since no one had shown up yet
On noes, is this going to be anything like the ONE person who showed up to the thing yesterday 0_0?
Oh noes.
But alas, just a half hour later all was good and, although slightly belated, we got the party started.
At about 6:40, I was like…Well, we’ve been here about an hour just mingling, and Alex and I are going to have to leave soon (me for home, her for train) so….What’s the projector for?
Then we found out. There was even a really cute video of Yoko and momoko who couldn’t be there, and then SCRAPBOOKS! Yay, I love that. Mine has Oda Nobunaga, mameshiba, and Matsu-Jun plastered all over it. Awesome.
After a quick de-pantsing of Rory (stripping for the sake of his tattoo…..maybe) and Frank Sinatra interlude (yours trutly) Alex and I split.
I just made it home in time for dinner (there was a little running along the way, especially up the hills. I hope that exercise makes up for the fact I had two dinners. Oh my tummy. I tried my best.

The party was fun, and my host parents were happy to have me home for dinner. It’s my plan to be home for all the dinners until I leave. Apparently the daughters ask everyday if I’m going to be home for dinner so they can play with me. (Oh god that SO CUTE *sniffle *)

You know what? I forgot to give my evaluation thing to Riley. Whups.
Yeah that was cool.

Also: What is with Japan and hurricane level winds right now?

Friday, July 10

Managed to wake up on time without my alarm clock because I have awesome internal clock powah like that.
I was kinda still full from last night, but I managed to finish my suspiciously giant breakfast anyway. I mean, after the amount I was fed last year with the restaurant host family, I think I can probably handle too much food every once and a while with a little grace

I still feel fat though. That’s not pleasant.

I swear I’m going on the starvation diet when I get back to Kobe -_-;;;;;;;

I don’t like, weigh anymore than I did. I just feel bloaty. Some of that’s the humidity, some of that’s the bloaty, some of that’s in my head because I FEEL like I’m eating more than usual.

Anywho, so we ended up never hearing from Rory after the party (we were hoping to plan a trip to Hello Kitty Land, but he never showed up on Facebook Chat to plan) so Alex and I decided that at least WE would enjoy Hello Kitty Land, even if it meant we had to go by ourselves. We were determined to buy ridiculous Hello Kitty goods even if it cost us our beauty sleep.

We met at Shinyurigaoka at like, eleven, and had some wake-up cocoa/bagel and were on our way to what we were seriously hoping was the right station.
We weren’t quite sure because there just so happened to be TWO tama centers, annoyingly nowhere near each other. My host mom had told me the night before that it was possible to get to Hello Kitty land station from a Shinyurigaoka transfer, so I decided to bet that the tama center that was on one of the connecting lines was the right one

We were able to confirm the correctness of the previous statement as soon as we got close to Odakyu Tama-Center because of the GIANT KITTY PALACE visible from the train.

The whole thing was pink. Like A giant Pillow Mint.

We kinda wondered why they put Puroland so far away from actual Tokyo. Like, it’s far enough out of the way that for anyone actually staying off of the Odakyu line it would be a major pain in the ass to get to and also, given that you have to train jump fairly frequently because there’s no direct train unless you miraculously manage to get one of the two tama-express trains a day, you’re screwed.

I guess that’s why we only saw two or three other foreign families there, although I swear that like, everyone else in there was Chinese (You can tell because they talk and yell at each other REALLY LOUD, they always sound angry, but no, that’s just what they sound like 0_0)
Also, they spoke Chinese, so it was easy to tell.

Anyway, when we get off the train, we were greeted with this almost tiny-toon-like world of brightly colored mini-buildings (But inside they were the usual McDonals, Mr. Donuts, Saizeria, Subway, WB cinemas….)

It was pretty easy to find the Giant pink castle from there

…Or from anywhere in that area really.

And so, after the surprisingly steep 30 dollar entrance fee, we skipped on in.

Once inside, we realized how many mushrooms the designers must have been on. From the ticket gates you go straight down an escalator to the abyss (Hello Kitty Hell?) that proceeds to dump you in the most horrifying psychedelic forest crawling with sanrio characters in existence.
The walls were half 3D molding and half expertly painted, vertigo inducing, reminiscently OZ like scenes with nooks and crannies for themed corners and live performance stages.
Not long after arriving, and after carefully exploring every candy themed room with faces molded onto dubious looking sweets, a show started signifying the start of my best experience yet.

Suddenly, a man in rib-cage high white pants and a curly blonde wig complete with a halo and angel wings came prancing and hand-flourishing towards us flanked by similarly adorned sailor-moon lookalikes.
OUT COMES COSTUMED KITTY PEOPLE (to be exact, ‘Hello Kitty’, her apparently foreign, but they’re all white so it’s hard to tell boyfriend; ‘Daniel’, and ‘My-Melody’ singing something about an angel musical.
Apparently this was a play about a play (OH GOD FOURTH WALL), because then their dance sensei comes out and proceeds to guide them in the ways of true-love-heart-sparkle-cake-dance.

Uh…wow I’m glad I speak Japanese. I think I would have totally died at this point had I not. Sensory overload like whoa.
Kuromi then proceeds to come out and turn the teacher into a rock music diva which then apparently ruins their angel musical (Because Hello Kitty is apparently someone’s rock-hating 60’s grandma?)
Melody then calls out the gayest pop musician ever to musically battle Kuromi and her two super loilta dancer girls. After a harrowing battle, they’re finally defeated and Kuromi is invited to also ‘become an angel’ and she then proceeds to try and steal Daniel who seems totally okay with that arrangement.
Yeah so like…Whoa
Then comes the return of the curly haired white pants guy, fluttering in all of his amazing glory.

After the show they invite a whole bunch of kids up to the stage where the costumed characters march them off into the abyss, (the parents were all like ‘AUGH! Where are they spiriting my children away to?’, turns out they were just circling the tree of wisdom, so all was good. For various definitions of the word.)

Speaking of the tree of wisdom, there’s some seriously bizarre stuff up there; a heat-activated ‘love sensor’ and then a Shinto-meets-Christian-weeding chapel bell thing, where you can both get married under AND pray for your wish to come true.
There’ was also a restaurant and an arcade complete with purikura, a million UFO machines and TAIKO!

After we’d been in there for about an hour (we had to take a break because our depth perception was shattered to pieces in the dimly lit psychedelic dungeon of cuteness) Ayumi called toting Alec, Nou-chan, and Rory
YAY! We do get to hang after all.
They made it after all, so we all hung out for the rest of the day drowning ourselves in Sanrio.
There was a massive parade as well, complete with man-butterflies, girls in Chipmunk and deer costumes White lolita’s, and bouncing sanrio characters. We all got to clap along to a coordinated short dance thing as well.
There was this old dude that totally freaked Alec out too. It was a part in the song where they went ‘HA!’ And they bent down, and he totally did it as loud as possible in Alec’s face. Like ‘HUUUUUUAH!’ 0_0!!!!
IT WAS AWESOME.
Not sure why he did that though other than he could and it has to be simultaneously awesome and frustrating to be the old village munchkin-woodcutter man in hello-kitty land.
There was also a trapeze, much synchronized dancing, and a very small, maybe ten year old girl, catapulted into the air and flipped around on someone’s feet for five minutes. Amazing.
Japan doesn’t use midgets for their short costumes either. Nay, why would you when there are children ready and available? Child labor is apparently A-OK here, as long as they’re just being exploited for being cute. Idols like whoa.

After that we did some much needed shopping in the world’s most awesome sanrio store ever. I have a serious thing for cinnamoroll even though he’s a dog.
Not a bunny.

NO HE IS, CHECK IT ON WIKIPEDIA.

But that’s okay, I’d like to believe he’s a bunny. I’m not a dog person.
They need more bunnies. My-Melody and Kuromi are cool and all but, more bunnies are needed.

Oh yeah, speaking of which, I also found out that Jewel Pet is a sanrio title. EVIL. They’ve managed yet again to completely infect my brain with their cuteness.
I like Garnet, because she sounds like my last name and she’s a red pretty kitty. I also like Ruby because she’s a pain in the ass bunny. Red is a theme with me.

Anyway, the song will be stuck in my head forever.

It looks like Sanrio has a few new evil characters added to the mix (they were only available in the Cinnamoroll store) They have horns and bat wings and stuff. I like them 0_0

Anyway I can’t wait until someone visits me because I HAVE to take them here.

We exhausted ourselves and our wallets at Sanrio land so we headed, like the poor white people we are, to McDonald’s where, famished, we all ordered the same quarter pounder set.
YUM.
Forgot how delicious hamburgers were.
Or at least, melty American cheese on meat was.
mmmmm.
Diet coke too, so nostalgic.

It was the last time we’d all hang out together, so we had fairly teary goodbye’s, it was a good group.
It’s pretty interesting how people that you’d probably never meet and almost definitely never become friends with back in the states can be brought fairly close to you on isolated abroad trips.
I mean, I’m probably never going to see Alec and Rory again as I’ll be graduated by the time I get back, but they’ll always be a part of my memories here.

I had to go to Machida to pick up a present for my host sister.
It occurs to me I have NO IDEA what her interests are. I mean, she doesn’t really do anything other than go to cram school and neither of the girls seem to watch TV or have any particular character goods they like.
This makes things difficult.
I knew she liked dogs, and black dogs that looked like their dog at home in particular, so I managed to find a black dog stuffed animal (from whatever the hell that French blue-scarved dog is…) and got that all wrapped up (Along with a Tokyu club card, which is much needed, because this is where I get my copics.)

Saturday, July 11

Woke up at the regular early-school time. Went to Ohyu’s open school, its a combined middle and high school (all with the same uniforms, which is kind of a let-down) that is Yuuka’s first choice for the conclusion of her compulsory edcation.
They have a softball team, which is apparently very rare, as well as baton. Because it’s a private school, the classroom facilities are great and it’s all air conditioned.

The first thing we did was watch the tennis and softball practice. That was super fun (it seems that this particular school is pretty athletic.) Then we went off to the art classroom, where there was a flower pressing demonstration project thing. Each class was about an hour and a half long. The second class we visited was a Japanese History class. The teacher for that class was very energetic and passionate about her subject. She took a ’fun facts’ approach to her teaching. Every couple of power point slides there was a fun mini quiz question like ’in what era was Christmas introduced to Japan’ (Sengoku) or comparing Jomon and Asuka dogu and haniwa (I did super well on the questions because I’m a giant history nerd.)
The kids were at a really high level too, it was kind of surprising, considering that a lot of normal college students don’t really know much about this kind of thing.
I do have to have to say though, only about thirty percent knew the difference between kabuki and Noh just by looking, nor did they know which went where.
The arts are never loved.
The open house only went until about noon. We ended up going to McDonald’s for lunch (Again! Woo! Being an American I can eat burgers EVERYDAY! No Problem.) and went a new route back home passing a school soccer game and a whole bunch of super-rich people-Mihashi-houses.

My go-away party was today as well, because it was my last night here. We had temaki sushi-my favorite!) and sat in the living room at a fold out table. We took lots of pictures, and I finally sang for them (Video camera 0_0).
All together we watched the Last episode of Mr.Brain.

END!

I go home tomorrow.