Chinatown, Cup Noodles, and Culture Festival

Yesterday, after breakfast at the hotel, we moved to the Yokohama prefecture government office (essentially like a state government building).  There, we learned about the area more specifically, including a long but interesting and enthusiastic presentation from a tourism department representative.  It was kind of interesting to get to see inside, and the workers there were formal but not unapproachable, which was nice.

We were let out onto the roof again.  More places in America need to let you do that.

Everyone on the roof.

There are three towers in the city that foreigners nicknamed King, Queen, and Jack.  The government office has the King tower, and from that building we were able to see the other two:

The Queen tower, as seen from the roof of the King.

The Jack from a skybridge in King.

And the King itself from the front.

 On the way to lunch, we passed a cool monument with mirrored pillars.

The tourist official was a pretty fun guy, and he led us to Chinatown, where we ate.

One of the gates of Chinatown.

Cute hedgehog buns and other treats.

Our dinner at the restaurant was corn soup, rice, and, pictured above, mabodofu/maaboudoufuu.  I can't say I understand why Kanade (Angel Beats) likes it so much, but I can understand why everyone else thought it was super spicy.  I didn't particularly care for it, but I don't really like tofu.

After lunch, we were free to explore Chinatown.  I went around to a few shops with a large group, but when several of them decided to go to "Doctor Fish" and have them eat the dead skin off their feet, I decided to move on on my own.

Doctor Fish at work.

You don't usually see black ice cream.  This one is black sesame flavor, apparently.

 I was thinking about buying some little animal figurines that I found at one of the shops, because they looked really cool and I thought they could add to my family's collection, but they were way too expensive.  $30-40 for a 2-inch mouse carved of some sort of black stone.  They had jade and gold figures, too.

We walked past the other side of the monument that we saw on our way over, and I found out it was for the Japan-America Treaty of Amity and Friendship.

Bluegrass Bus - Traveling in Style.

Our next stop was the Cup Noodle museum.  At first, I was thinking this would be kind of a waste of time, especially when I walked in and the first room was literally empty except for a massive staircase and a giant inflatable Cup Noodle cup.  It ended up really being a museum to innovation, telling the story of how the noodles were invented and each of the major additions over the years, and relating that to how people can work to come up with all sorts of new things.  It also had some of the most creative displays I've seen in a museum, but the whole thing was pretty short overall.

This was my favorite room.  It used the miniature trees and various lights, some on tracks, some still, to show a whole short movie in shadows on the wall, with words scrolling by for narration and everything.  It was really impressive.

That's going to take a while to clean up.

They had one of those trick perspective rooms.  This is the first time I've seen one in person, I think.

Switching sides.

While my favorite exhibit was the shadow room, my favorite activity was definitely making our very own instant ramen from scratch.

The workroom.  We all put on bandanas and aprons and sat through instructions before getting to work.

We got to mix the dough, shape it, run it through the flattening machines, and cut it into strips.  It was pretty fun.  Then we watched them deep fry the noodles (which is how they dry them to be preserved and ready for instant rehydration) and they gave us the exact ones we worked on in bags that we drew on and labeled ourselves.

My finished product.

They also gave us a normal bag, I guess in case the ones we made didn't turn out well, or just to compare.

Then, on to dinner.

Dinner that night was at a karaoke place, but we didn't actually get to do karaoke.

This was definitely the weirdest dinner yet.  Since it was a karaoke place, they didn't actually have much real dinner stuff.  We got some sort of fish/daikon salad (with the little white eel-like fish that I can't stand), pizza, breadsticks, fried chicken bits, onion rings, and pudding topped with coffee (which I had one bite of before realizing what it was and giving it to someone else).  They were served in that order, with a good 5-10 minutes between each dish, and in rather small amounts.  Very strange meal.  For drinks, we had orange juice, some sort of brown soda (Coke or whatever), and... cold coffee.  I didn't know that was a thing, but no one willingly drank that that I saw.

For the rest of the night, several of us went to the mall, which was basically like any normal mall in the US.  This one wasn't geared towards tourists at all, which the others we've been to have been.  I still found something I liked though, and ended up buying a cheap K-On! Azusa figure.  Actually, it's in the same set as the Yui one I bought last time I was in Japan.

Today, we went to Nihon Minka-en, an outdoor museum of all the different old Japanese house styles for the past few hundred years.  They actually moved real houses to the museum area, and let you walk around inside most of them.  We also had a fairly fluent tour guide, an older man who obviously knew all about and loved the houses.  It was a pretty interesting tour.

Various tools used to make the houses.  Rather than nailing the pieces together, they would fit like an interlocking puzzle, so pieces could be replaced as necessary, and in this case transported more easily to the museum.

The roofs of several houses.  You can see thatched, ceramic tile, and stones on wood shingles.  The stones hold the wood in place.

This was outside the samurai's house.  Water runs into the bamboo stalk, and when it fills up, it tips, pours it all out into the pond, and falls back into place with a light clatter.  I've heard that it was supposed to keep away small animals and such.  Not sure if that's true.

This was probably the most interesting house.  Commoners weren't allowed to have houses over a certain size, and weren't allowed to use straight wood for their beams in the roofs (that was reserved for the samurai class).  Whoever built this house cheated the system as much as possible.

In order to have a larger house, he built two right next to each other and opened the wall in the middle.

A fire burning on the inside, with a pot hanging from the ceiling.  These were on adjustable-length poles so that the heat level could be controlled.

The second cool thing about the cheating house: those not-straight beams are awesome.  He had a real eye for it, and managed to turn what was supposed to be a disadvantage into a really impressive and elegant addition to his home.

Some of the thatched roof styles used plants - specifically Japanese irises - on the top to hold the thatching in place.  This swampy area is growing those irises, presumably for use on the houses in the museum.

After the Minka-en, we got to do something I never thought I'd actually be able to experience.  We went to a school culture festival.

We returned to Yokohama National University for their Seiryo Festival.  They don't have any school events even close to this in the U.S.  All sorts of clubs had stands set up selling food, and there were lots of events happening all day all over the place.

One of the first areas of the festival, lined with stalls on one side and packed with people on the other.  These things are a big deal.

One stall was using anime to advertise.  In particular, the poster on the right is the most popular current-season show, Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan), which I immediately recognized.  They're selling curry rice.

We went to see some a capella performances.  Apparently, it's a pretty big thing at this school, because there were a few dozen different groups scheduled to perform throughout the day.  We stayed for just a few of them.  The first one was doing some English songs that I was vaguely familiar with.

In another building, I found acoustic guitar performances and listened to a couple of those, including one of my favorite songs, "One More Time, One More Chance", which was used in 5 Centimeters Per Second.  He did a decent job, though clearly not as good as the original.  I still mouthed all the words along with him.

I found a guy dressed up as Hatsune Miku (no picture), and then later a girl dressed as... Kaito?  I think?  But if so, it was a weird version of him.  Anyway, I got a picture.

The next big event we saw was a martial arts demonstration.  They showed a few moves as normal for these things, punching and kicking at the air, but then they went into a short series of actual sparring matches, which were really fun to watch.

This picture was after those, when they were doing choreographed throws, demonstrating various defensive techniques.

Other than the real spars, I think my favorite part was when they were showing how to defend against knife attacks.  One person would use a wooden knife to stab at the other, who would dodge, grab some part of the attacker, and throw them down, sometimes also disarming them in the process.  At the end, they also had some two-on-one fights, which I'm not sure if they were choreographed or not.  The club leader took on one knife-wielder and another member at the same time, constantly knocking both of them down.  So I guess martial arts like that can be used in more than one-on-one fights, but you rarely see it for real.

They also had a live rock concert on stage after a while, but it was too loud for my tastes, so I didn't stay there long.

Eventually, it was time to go, and we went to dinner at the same karaoke place again.  This time, it was a bigger room, and we actually got to do a bit of singing towards the end.  I didn't, because time ran out, but others did.  The food was also better proportioned and made more sense this time, and was served mostly all together.  Slightly different dishes.

After dinner, most of the others went to a small amusement park by the lake and Cup Noodle museum, but I decided to head over to a Book Off I had located (by asking the person at the hotel desk) and buy some manga.  I'm not really into roller coasters, and while the ferris wheel is huge, I've ridden in them before, and already seen the city several times from high up.  And I think that's most of what the park had, so I wasn't really interested.

I ended up buying a few random manga again, along with a few old Playstation 1 and 2 games: To Heart 1 & 2 and Valkyrie Profile (only 500 yen!).  I figure owning a Japanese version of VP gives me at least a reasonable claim to be able to play a translated copy on my computer rather than having to buy it used from someone for over $100.  And maybe I'll eventually learn enough to actually play the one I bought, too.

This entry took way too long to write.  Gotta go to bed; it's already after 1 a.m. here.  Tomorrow's our last full day here, and therefore my last entry before I go home next Thursday.  Coming up in tomorrow's post: zen meditation.

Days 27 and 28: Family restaurant, finals and the farewell party

First to finish up yesterday's events.  For dinner, the family wanted to take me out to a restaurant as a sort of farewell gift.  I didn't have any particular preferences, and I don't know much about the restaurants around here anyway, so I let them suggest some, and we decided on a family restaurant.  I don't know the name, though.

When we got there, I looked through the menu and felt right at home.  A lot of the stuff would have been pretty normal to see on an American menu.  I ended up ordering a mixed plate with kind of a meatloaf, fried chicken similar to what I had at the izakaya, mixed vegetables, hashbrowns, corn soup, and french bread (sort of).  And I got the juice bar, which is just unlimited drinks of whatever was there.  The food was really good, and I ended up drinking three cups of Calpis water when I saw it was on the drink list.  That stuff is really good.  I've heard it's some sort of yogurt thing, but I don't think that's quite right.  According to their website, it's a "lactic-acid" drink, so it's milk based in some way, but I don't know.  Yukie thought it was really funny that I liked it so much.

Now on to today.

Despite the weather report saying 100% chance of rain through about 4pm today, it had already stopped before I woke up and it didn't rain at all today.  That was a nice, unexpected boon.

I was a little late to school again, but it didn't really matter.  They tell us to get there at 9, but class doesn't start until 9:20 or 9:30, and they usually don't give announcements until 5 or 10 minutes before that, so I didn't miss much.  Anyway, we all had to fill out surveys about our host families, the school experience, the trip in general, and so on.  We also returned the cell phones and ID cards the school gave us in the beginning, so I am now trapped in Japan without a cell phone.  To be precise, I have one, but it only works in America.

In class, we each did a practice run-through of our survey result presentations and got a little feedback from the teacher, then did the real things in front of both classes, both teachers plus the program head, Kanzaki-sensei, and a couple of our Japanese buddies.  I don't think there were any particular issues with the presentation.  It seemed to run pretty smoothly.

After that, we paid our phone bills (mine was 300-some yen, by far the lowest.  They charged 100 yen per minute), then went to lunch, which was the usual cheap kitsune udon for me.  Kitsune means fox, but it's actually just tofu stuff.  After lunch, I had my final kanji test.  I'm not too confident in this one.  I might have gotten 10/10, but I'm only really confident in 7 of them.  This was one of the harder tests, and I didn't study much at all for it with everything else that's been going on.  Oh well.  Even if it's just 7/10, it's not as bad as I did on some of the early tests.

I came home and played piano for what will probably be the last time in Japan, then started packing my suitcases.  At this point, everything's basically packed, minus what I'll be using tonight and tomorrow.  I did manage to fit those figures in, but there's not really any room for more, so the rest will have to be shipped home.  Well, maybe a couple small ones, but I don't know...

As I was packing, Yukie came in and told me that she had bought Taiyaki, which I vaguely remember telling her was one of the foods I wanted to try while I was in Japan.  Taiyaki are fish-shaped pastries, usually filled with an, a red bean paste, but really they come with all sorts of sweet things inside.  I of course had one, but I chose the custard-filled one instead of an, since I've had an before and didn't care much for it.  It tasted really good.

Yukie also bought two bottles of concentrated Calpis formula for me to take home.  Each bottle is supposed to be enough for 15 cups of the drink, so I'll be able to share it with everyone when I get back.  She got two different flavors, though, one original and one grape, I think, which I've never tried.  We'll have to see what it's like.

Around 6:00, I went to the farewell party at the school.  I was biking over by myself, because Ranmaru had tennis at 6, so they'd be late.  On the way over, I was going a little (a lot) too fast down the big hill right before the school, and came very close to being hit by a car when I went across a street on the hill.  Like, within a few inches.  Granted, he was already stopping anyway, so the car would have barely tapped me, but even still.  I'd say it was about 80% my fault, although he was also pulling a little too far forward before stopping.  Not like I'm likely to ever have the opportunity to again, but I don't plan to ride quite that fast when there are streets like that in the future.  I roughly stopped my bike about 5 feet past the car, turned back and signaled that I was alright, saying "daijoubu" (which I'm sure he didn't hear), and continued on.  I did get a slight scrape on the side of my knee from hitting the bike as I was trying to stop it, but it's nothing to worry about.

Ok, so anyway, the farewell ceremony closely resembled the opening ceremony, taking place in the chapel with much the same service.  The difference was that this time, they presented us with certificates saying that we participated in the course and so on and so forth.  I can only read about half of it.

Then we moved on to the party portion, and everyone toasted everyone (which I could actually participate in this time, since they had juice and not just tea) before moving on to dinner, which was all sorts of small foods.  I stuck to dishes where people didn't have to use their own chopsticks to serve themselves, at least after the first trip, since I don't trust people to not use the end they eat off of.  It was good, and enough to fill me up.  They had a slideshow running most of the time on a giant projector screen, showing a lot of pictures that they had taken throughout the trip.  It was fun to look at all those again.  They also gave all the students a farewell package which included a CD, presumably with those pictures on it; a towel with the school's name and logo; and a bottle of... glue.  I'm still scratching my head over that one, but whatever.

They also gave out prizes for the best presentations in the classes, one for the beginner class and one for the advanced class.  My team won the prize for the beginner class.  We each received an envelope containing... a cow keychain.  But not just any cow keychain, oh no.  This one has a button on its head, and when you press it, it moos and shoots blue lasers out of its nostrils.  Seriously.  Okay, maybe not lasers, but a really bright light.  I really don't understand these gifts.

Most of the other students went to an izakaya after the farewell party, but I decided to come straight home instead.  After all, I wasn't going to drink, and I was already pretty full from everything else, so I really didn't see the point in going to a buffet.  I said my goodbyes and headed out.  I rode my bike nice and slow on the way home.

So that's it for this house.  I think I'll quickly take a few pictures of the rest of the house, since I never did actually do all that like I said I would, and then I'll get ready for bed and go to sleep.  I have to get up pretty early tomorrow, so I should get as much sleep as I can.  Goodnight.

Days 25 and 26: Typhoon and flower arrangement

This post was written yesterday (Wednesday), but I didn't post it because I didn't have the pictures on my computer yet.

I spent yesterday after school holed up in my room.  In the afternoon, maybe around 5:00, Hiroto came in and pulled metal shutters over the outside of the window, so I couldn't really see anything that was happening outside.  All the windows in the house were blocked off, and I didn't really want to open the front door in case I'd get pelted with rain or something.  And at the time he closed everything, nothing was going on.  During dinner, though, around 8:00, we could hear the shutters rattling pretty hard.  Either that or something hitting them hard.  I'm not entirely clear on what it was, but I know there was at least a lot of rain, and I could hear the wind sometimes, too.  It really wasn't that exciting.  It seems like the people here are all used to it.  Aside from blocking off the windows, all that really happened was that I got a bit wet on my way home, and Ranmaru got sent home from school early.  In the morning, everything was a little damp still, but it wasn't raining, and it didn't seem particularly windy.  So that's about it for that.

Class today was spent working on our final project, including interviewing students and making a poster.  Tomorrow looks like it'll be largely finishing up the poster.

Today's cultural activity was flower arrangement.  We were given two roses with very long stems, two branches, and a basin of water with a thing with needles in it to hold the flowers up (by stabbing them on the needles).  There was a specific way we were supposed to arrange them all, selecting a larger branch, trimming the flowers to different heights, and adding in a few small branches (twigs) to help blend it.  The placement was also pretty specific.  Anyway, the teacher liked my arrangement.  After the activity was over (it only lasted about half an hour) they let us take the flowers and branches home, but not the water basins to hold them in.  So all the arranging was undone and they stuck them in newspaper bouquet wrappers to carry back.  I gave it to my family.

Everyone's flower arrangements.

A closer look at the one behind me.

My arrangement, from the front.

And from the side.

Days 23, 24, and 25: The final week of school

This week marks my last at Momoyama Gakuin Daigaku.  It's been fun.  Not as hard as I was fearing, but generally busier than I had expected.  This week, though, we don't have many of the cultural activities planned, so I've got more free time at home in the afternoons.

Sunday was church again.  I got rather lost during the second hour, but so did the native Japanese, so it wasn't entirely my fault.  I bid farewell to everyone at church and thanked them for their help.  There weren't any special activities in the afternoon, so I pretty much just stayed home.  Lunch was a few pieces of bread, including one of the ones I bought in Kyoto but didn't manage to eat there.  Japanese breads are really something.  Most of them are more pastries than bread, but they sometimes have things like hot dogs inside, or chocolate, or spices, or whatever.  It's pretty interesting.

On Monday, we worked on our final projects for class.  We have to make a survey and ask a bunch of Japanese people questions, then present the answers to everyone on Friday.  Our topic is home and school life, targeted towards the college students.  School ended at lunchtime, so I ate at the cafeteria and came home.  It was too hot to go back outside, so I stayed inside all day.  It was also too hot to stay inside, but at least that way I didn't have to move.

Today (Tuesday), we've got a typhoon on the way!  This morning was cloudy (as were yesterday and the day before), and it started raining shortly after I got to school.  It let up when I went to the cafeteria, but was raining again when I biked home, so my hands and legs got pretty wet.  I had a rain jacket that helped with my upper body, and my helmet mostly kept my head dry, so it wasn't too bad.  My shorts, socks, helmet, and jacket are all hanging up to dry now.

Japanese people have this amazing talent of riding bycicles in the rain with umbrellas held over their heads.  I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like it would be really hard to do.  Instead, I just opt to get a little wet and dry off when I get home.  Granted, I also bike about twice as fast as they do, so maybe it would be easier to do if I slowed down.

So yeah, typhoon (taifuu/台風).  It's supposed to really hit tonight, sometime between 6 and 9 pm.  I heard it's a super typhoon, roughly equivalent to a class 4 hurricane.  I haven't confirmed that myself.  No one really seems all that worried about it, but they did close the schools early today.  It's sort of like getting a snow day, except it's a typhoon day.  This seems to happen somewhat often.  It's a little odd, because it's out of season, but it's not a huge deal.

I don't have any new pictures today, but I've got some old ones from the first week that we've received from the school.  These have everyone who was there at the time, so not including the people from England.

Our arrival at the airport.  The really big Japanese guy on the left is the only Japanese person I've seen so far who was taller than me.  There have been a few who were pretty close, though.

One of the classes during the first week.  The teacher for this day was Kanzaki-sensei, who is in charge of the whole program.  He's a really cool, nice guy.  Everyone loves him.

Standing outside in the sun, blocking all the foot traffic next to St. Johns Hall.

I've gotten to know everyone pretty well by now, since we see each other every day.  There are a few people who I don't really talk to still, but overall we all get along.

Days 20 and 21: "Culture experiences" and shopping

Thursday we did some calligraphy after school.  It was pretty hard to do it right, as expected.  In the end, we each put one kanji of our choice on a paper/plastic fan.  Mine was 雪 (snow/yuki).  It was either that or 炎 (flame/honoo) for me.  Snow implying cold, because you use the fan to cool off, or flame implying heat because you use the fan when it's hot.  I decided I liked snow better.  Unfortunately, it looks kind of childish, because I'm just not that good at calligraphy, and I got the proportions all messed up.  Oh well.

Friday we got to try on yukata.  They had enough for the girls, but not the boys, so I only put it on for about 5 minutes or so, and didn't get any pictures on my camera.  A few other people got pictures of me, but I don't have them yet.  In the end, all the girls (and two guys) wore their yukata for this group picture, with the rest of the guys who didn't have one standing in the back.

Very colorful and flowery.

That night, I went out grocery shopping with Yukie.  First, we picked Ranmaru up from his school, so I got to see that (I didn't bring my camera) and he came along.

We ended up buying a couple small frozen pizzas, and all the ingredients for tacos and "eggs in the basket" which probably has some other more official name somewhere, but is basically just bread with a hole cut out and an egg put inside, fried together, with cheese put on top.

For dinner, I fixed (with Yukie's help, since I don't know my way around her kitchen) soft-shelled tacos.  They tasted almost exactly like they do back home, which made me very pleased.  Everyone liked them, so I guess Yukie has another recipe to add to her collection now.

And now, more random observations:

• The most common color of umbrella here seems to be transparent.  White and pale flowery colors are also common, as is black.
• I don't know if I said this before, but basically everyone uses cash and coins instead of cards.  Most places don't even accept cards.  Stores, and even vending machines, will often accept 10,000 yen bills (roughly $130), which seem to be pretty common.
• Most store and restaurant prices include tax.  Occasionally, it will list two prices, one before and one after tax.  It makes it a lot easier to see how much you'll have to pay in advance, which is especially useful considering the reliance on cash.
  
• Women in general wear their hair short far more often than they do in the US.  Probably at least 50% have neck-length or shorter hair.
• Longer hair is often tied in some way.  Ponytails are common, and among the middle school girls I've seen on all my trips, twintails seem particularly popular.  Twintails refers to two ponytails, one on either side of the head, like in the picture.  These can be anywhere from an inch and a half or so to about a foot long.  It seems like a good 25% of the girls in that age range wear their hair like that.  I also saw two today (Saturday) who each had one ponytail, but sticking out opposite sides in the back (one to the left, one right).
• Instead of napkins, people use small wet washcloths, or nothing at all.  Occasionally tissues serve the function of napkins if washcloths are unavailable and someone makes a mess.
• Japanese McDonald's is very similar to American McDonald's, with some added menu items such as McPork and Teriyaki Burger.  I had the McPork, which while not bad wasn't anything special.  I also had a plain hamburger so I could compare with the US, and it tasted identical as far as I could tell.  McDonald's was also the only place so far that I've seen a real napkin.  One.  They didn't give multiple with my order.  Not that I would have used more than one, but they always give way more in the US.
• I have confirmed that there is no "correct" side of the path to walk or bike on.  The very concept of there being one is foreign to them.  Instead, people and bikes just sort of weave in and out of each other's ways.
• Lots of people seem to be employed to stand there.  Supposedly they direct traffic, but they spend the vast majority of the time standing there nodding to pedestrians as they go by.  Their actual job seems to be mostly to stop cars from running into people passing by by instead standing in their way themselves until everyone else is out of the way.
• People give out lots of free flyers, free food samples, and tissue packets with ads stuck in them.  Stores also often have someone standing outside to call customers in, shouting "irasshaimase!" (welcome) whenever anyone comes close and yelling about their various goods or special deals.
• I will amend my previous statement about number of people into anime.  While I haven't met very many into anime myself, it must be more popular, as there are whole stores and stands dedicated to it.  Still, it doesn't seem to be a very universal interest (except One Piece, which, again, is absolutely everywhere).
• Gachapon machines are common.  I don't even know what they're called in the US, but they're those things in stores where you put in some coins, turn the handle, and get a random toy out the bottom.  Capsule machines.  The variety of goodies is much wider in Japan than the US, though.  Still haven't actually bought anything from one yet, as they generally cost 200 yen per try.
• Vending machines are all over the place, even along the middle of the street in my suburban neighborhood.  Most sell drinks, such as tea, coffee, fruit juice, sometimes soda, water, and milk.  Some sell cigarettes, and require a special card that proves you're over 20 before you can buy from them.  Others sell ice cream or similar snacks.  I don't think I've seen any for the more typical chips, cookies, crackers, pretzels, or what-have-you that they put in them in the US.
• Pachinko and slots are both apparently very popular.  There are tons of signs for them everywhere, especially when you go downtown to one of the shopping arcades, but even just around the city.  They're usually advertised with famous anime characters on the signs, so it always catches my eye before I realize what it is.

That ended up being a lot longer than I expected.  I think that's enough for now.

Days 13 and 14: Back to school

So after having the day off for the trip to Kyoto, we went right back to studying in school.  Our language classes are only 3 hours in the mornings now, with cultural classes after lunch.  So on Thursday, our cultural class was learning how to make stone stamps.  These were polished, smooth stone rectangles, about 3/4" square by 2" or so, and we made designs and carved them into the square end to use as stamps.  Mine has my name in katakana, and utau, or "to sing" next to it.  I mostly chose that because it was a cool kanji and it does represent something I do a lot of.  It was really hard to carve it, though, especially to make it so that the characters were the parts that would be colored instead of those being the white parts.

My seal and stamp.

A close-up of the stamp.  I had to carve it inverted and backwards in order to come out right.

Friday's cultural activity was learning all about wearing kimono and such.  It was almost all about the girls, but it was still kind of interesting.  I already knew a lot of it, though.  In the end of the class, one of the girls got to wear the full kimono, which took roughly 20-25 minutes to put on.  Then one of the guys wore the men's version, which took about 5 minutes.  The difference in fashion level is very apparent here.  Also, apparently women's kimonos can be sized to fit basically any height or girth, but men's kimonos have to be matched to your size.  The women tuck up the extra length under the obi (belt), and the men don't get to do that.  That makes it much less convenient.

The woman on the right was the teacher, and she wore a kimono the whole time.

In unrelated notes, here's a glimpse at my lunches this week:

Curry bread.  This time I decided to microwave it a little while before I ate it.

In case you weren't sure why it was called curry bread.  There's the answer.  It actually tasted pretty good.

"A lunch" again, but a different one.  Pork cutlet, I think.  The stuff in the bowl on the right was absolutely nasty, but I still ate it.  It was super sour/bitter.  And cold.  The main dish was pretty good, if a bit soggy, and the soup was normal.

And now a glance at the school.  These are all taken from the same seat.

Everyone studying the day's kanji to prepare for the test.  We do 10-12 new kanji per school day.

Looking around the main hall we meet in every day, St. John's Hall.

St. John's Hall 2

St. John's Hall 3

St. John's Hall 4

And now for another round of random notes and observations:

• Among all the different school groups when we went to Kyoto, I was surprised at how many of the girls were wearing the sailor-style uniforms.  I'd heard they were going out of style.  I'd estimate about 20-25% of the uniforms were that style, though.
• Girls' uniforms do NOT have super short skirts (I knew this already, but hey, some people might not).  They were actually a bit longer than I expected, usually a couple inches below the knee.  The highest I noticed was just above the knee.
• Boys' uniforms pretty much all looked the same.  White collared shirt, either long or short sleeves, and black or navy pants.  Usually had the school emblem somewhere.  Pretty boring.  Doesn't seem like it would help to distinguish you from the other schools much.
• Several days ago, I saw Ranmaru coloring a picture on a worksheet from school.  At first I didn't pay much attention, but then I realized that all the people in the picture had black hair, and the same medium-light brown skin color.  I guess it's to be expected, but I never really thought about it before.  In the U.S., kids' pictures always had people with brown, black, blonde, and red hair, and usually at least a couple different skin tones. [Edit (6/16/12): I just noticed I already mentioned this one... already repeating myself]
• Japanese TV has a whole lot of game shows.  It seems like that's just about the only thing people watch besides news or weather reports.  And an occasional baseball or soccer game.
• The popularity of anime and video games seems to be roughly on par with how it is in the U.S.  You're not going to find a ton more people into anime here than back home, although they may be into different ones.
• Exception: One Piece is everywhere, and everyone loves it.  [Having only seen about 2 episodes out of the middle, in English, I was unimpressed]
• There are a lot of foods that you would think when you look at them would be served hot, but are in fact refrigerator cold.  It's a bit unsettling when you bite into something you're expecting to be warm and it's cold instead.
• Instead of one big plate and everyone taking food and putting it on their plate to eat, meals in Japan use lots of small dishes, usually one per food item.  Occasionally a couple different things will be on one plate, but only if they're supposed to go together.
• I read before coming that it's considered rude to grab food off a communal plate with the same end of the chopsticks you've been eating off of.  You're supposed to flip them around and use the back.  I have yet to see anyone actually do this, and plenty of (Japanese) people break the rule regularly.
• No one drinks water.  Instead, they drink tea (ocha/お茶).  Even drinking fountains are rare.  I know of exactly one on campus so far.

Ok, that's it for now.