Eating soba at the temple

So, there's this old artist who works with metal and lives down the street from us and last weekend he was all like, "Hey! Let's go eat soba out of Japanese pottery at a temple"....so off we went.
First, after driving up a mountain, we went into the main building where we met this family that live up there and make the pottery... They were selling things but I didn't buy anything :(

All of this stuff is called "Bizen-Yaki" and is a clay made out of a course dirt, apparently.


Suddenly, my 10 year old host brother called me over to see THIS:

........ Yeah, we had a pretty good laugh too.

Afterwards they served us all soba noodles and we sat and looked out at the town below, which pretty much just consisted of wheat fields and a few houses, but it was really beautiful all the same.

Next, we went to go look at the kilns that the temple owners make pottery in... There were two really large ovens and the two little kids who lived there just ran all over the place.

Wood

It was a pretty awesome day.

My new friends

....Today I had the weirdest day it my entire life. So anyways, there's this 30 something year old man working at the neighborhood super market (who told me to call him "Bun-chan"...pronounced Boon chan) and apparently my 20 year old host sister and him are friends so they were all like, "Hey! Let's bring Carolyn somewhere!" Sooo this guy, and his other friend who is also in his 30s came and picked us up at 12. We then all drove 30 minutes to a restaurant where we ate burgers and ice cream. Everyone kept looking at me creepily. When I finally tuned into the conversation they were comparing the age differences between me and the one of the guys and wondering if I would agree to marry a Japanese guy over an American guy....weirded out on my part. After the guy instead yelled out in English "MY DREAM.... BECOME YOUR OLDER BROTHER!!!!!" After, we went to 7-11 for like, 20 minutes, then we went to a huge mall called "you-me town" where we walked around for a while. It ends up that Bun-chan's friend is a teacher at a "juku" or cram school. Throughout the day he kept coming up with random names of my friends from school because he teaches them at juku. At the mall, Bun chan tried out the claw machine and got me this cute little bear. I replied by saying "Thank you, onii-chan (older brother) Everyone was like OH MY GOD SAY IT AGAIN IT'S SOOO CUTE! then we all got purikura (For those of you who don't know it's superrrrr poplar...I can't remember if I explained it but it's like a photo booth except the pictures are sticky on the back and the machine it has some wireless thing on it so that you can hold your phone up and it wirelessly transmits the photos onto your phone. Pretty much it's soooo popular that it's like an initiation ceremony when you are becoming friends or boyfriend and girlfriend and it's inevitably the first place you and your new acquaintance are going to go). It turned out sooo funny because the computer edits the pictures to make skin whiter, eyes bigger, and eyelashes longer. Bun-chan turned out looking like a transvestite. Anyways, the long and the short of it is that now I have pictures of me and some random, 30 year old men stuck all over my notebook, one of which is my friends' study school teacher....random much?

Annual Kashima Gatalympics

Ok, so this actually happened a few weeks ago but I have been sooo busy that I haven't posted anything. Every year my city, Kashima, holds a day full of mud sports. Since Kashima is right on the bay of the "Ariake Sea" there are huge stretches of mud flats all along the shore. We were too late to sign up, which sucked. Me and the 3 other exchange students from Kashima all went, but only stayed 10 minutes since it started raining like crazy almost immediately. There were a lot of foreigners there visiting and participating.

Instead, we all ended up hanging out at this super boring mall that was really nothing more than a grocery shop/target like store. However, as we were walking through the LITTLE KIDS' TOY SECTION...we found these :D Fireworks!
Yes, those are toddler toys at the bottom of the last picture..
...They sold a lot of strange things, now that I think back....

Then we all went to eat ramen....The end
I'll post more later...

Japanese culture for you

This is something I have had soooo much trouble with. In Japan, when you are offered food or anything else you are supposed to say no. If someone at school tries to give me something, it's fine, but with the older generation you have to say no!
I'm afraid to go places with people because depending on the situation you are supposed to respond no or yes. Here are a few experiences I have had and their outcomes:

Situation 1: Our neighbors invite me out. We go to a special grocery store. The neighbor asks me if I want ice cream I say no. She buys it for me anyways. After, she offers to buy me some fried things. I say no, she buys it anyways
Outcome: I get home, my host mother tells me nothing if for free in Japan and I have to go over there and try to pay them back. My host mother insists and they take the money.

Situation 2: I am walking down the street and all of a sudden this old woman runs out and tell me to come inside. I go into her shop and she asks me if I want tea. Me: no. She goes to get tea. I drink it and then leave.
Outcome: My host mom says that I shouldn't drink her tea or I'll become obligated to get my hair cut at her shop... For some reason this time it was ok to take something for free as long as I don't do it again.

Situation 3: A neighbor gives me a piece of candy
Outcome: My host mother tells me to tell her whenever that happens so that we can both thank her.

As strange as it seems to Americans my host mother told me it is Japanese culture that even if you receive something tiny like a piece of candy, and you are under age, you have to thank the person, your parent has to thank the person, and then next time your parent sees the person on a different day they have to thank the person again! For candy. It seems soooo strange to me but my host mother said that if the parent doesn't thank the giver twice they are considered rude by whoever hears about it. Because, she told me, Japanese people love to gossip. Huh.

My daily scenic bike ride

These are the scenes I see every single day coming to and from school on the 15 minute bike ride. For me, it's a big change from the traffic of Chicago.







I left out some pictures of things I pass on the way to school like small shrines and statues but maybe I'll take a few pictures of those later.

Partying in Ogi

Wow, I've already posted like, four things today but here it goes before this gets too old: Last week we had an AFS party in...uh, Ogi. There was so much good food and we all just stood around and talked and attempted to play the piano. There was supposed to be a talent show but somehow all three of us American and this French guy got out of it (we met up with the exchange students from Nagasaki too.) Knowing I had run out of money, I went of to the cookie table, looked around all shady-like and dumped about 20 cookies into my bag. It sounds bad but it ended up being a joke between my LP and me later (the party was at her house). In case I didn't mention it before an LP is the person who looks after the exchange students in your little area or 'chapter'. It was so fun that we ended up not leaving until 10:30 pm!
All of the host families came and a lot of volunteers.

Mothers' Day in Japan

In Japan, Mothers' day is indeed celebrated. It is called "haha no hi" (母の日).

Me, being an idiot, planned on buying flowers for my host mom until I realized the day before that I had utterly run out of money (I'm not even exaggerating, we went to a party and when no one was looking stuffed snacks into my bag). Therefore, I did pretty much nothing but at the last second tried writing her a letter in Japanese which she said was really good, which I doubt.

Pretty much it's the same thing here. All of a sudden this cheesily touching cards come out (though I admit some were cute) and there all ads for all manner of household items that have the words 'Mother's Day' seemingly tacked on at the top.

Personally, later in the day my family and I visited some lady who owned a magnificent rose garden at the back of a shrine. I took some pictures just for the heck of it!