The Rainy Season is...

Well, not happening yet. We had the first day of the rainy season as a crazy day of rain, but so far haven't gotten anything since. It's actually been pretty nice these past two days, but I don't expect that to last for long. At least the school will finally turn on the air conditioning this Monday. I lovez the air conditioning. Less than a week to go for Osaka and Kyoto, I can't wait. Oh yeah...I actually haven't shown you any pictures from this Wednesday, the start of the rainy season.



Other than that, I haven't been up to much, it's mostly because I'm not going anywhere as I'm saving my money for my trip. I think I'll have more pictures than I know what to do with when I come back from my trip. Let's see, these past two days have been real nice out, not too humid, more on the cool side. Some flowers that have taken several weeks to bloom have started to open up, I walk past these everyday when I'm walking towards my bus stop, and I could always tell when they were going to open up.



I believe this was yesterday, I was in a bit of a rush to get to my bus, as I was a bit behind schedule, but i had to stop and take a picture because I'd never seen it in my favorite bread shop before, the bread shop's name is "Nagayo no Sato" by the way. I wasn't expecting to see this either because I go to this bread shop every single morning before school, but here's what I found.



Yesterday we had another traditional arts class on kimono wearing, and we even learned a traditional dance, it was kind of repetitive, but nevertheless...interesting. The picture below is not the dance we did, but it was just another demonstration. One of my friends actually took video when we did the dance, so maybe someday I'll have that available for your viewing.



Other than that, I'm waiting for the "real" rainy season to kick in. I've already took some video with my camcorder, so maybe someday I'll get that uploaded, if not, I'll do it when I come home. I purchased a license for Quicktime Pro for my windows machine, but it's lacking some capabilities my Mac has, and so this saddens me. Anyways, until next time, おやすみなさい。

Rainy season is starting soon...

It's starting to get humid...on Saturday it was a torrential downpour all day, I went and bought my bus tickets for Osaka and Kyoto, ended up costing only 17,600 yen. Roughly equivalent to 180 bucks round trip. Only another week and a half to go.



On Thursday, we had Traditional arts again. This time the teacher showed us the various kimonos that women wore. The tomosode and the furisode looked beautiful. A tomosode is a formal kimono for married women, and the furisode is the kimono for young women over the age of 20 and are unmarried. After she helped put the kimonos on, she performed a traditional Japanese dance, it was quite elegant.



On Friday, I got to take part in a welcoming party for 23 students from UW-Oshkosh who are visiting Japan for three weeks. It was a very fun party, the food was good and I got to talk to many people. I also wore my yukata and I had a great time. I got to take home a ton of leftover sashimi and several bottles of fanta, and aquarius. Free food and drink = happiness.



On Sunday yesterday, I helped guide that same group of people around on a tour of Nagasaki, we went to Glover Gardens, and they had some huge koi there. There was an escalator you could take to the entrance or a ton of steps, Jeremiah(siebold university student) and I took the steps and beat the rest of them up there. There was a gorgeous view of the city from up top, so I was glad I went.



They were a fun bunch of people, after we got done touring the gardens, I took 5 of them to the Hamanomachi shopping arcade. I took them to a reputable used and new kimono shop, and one of the girls bought a komon(common kimono). I helped them by telling what accessories they needed as well, especially since there are many ties you need for a woman's kimono. After that store, we split up for an hour to wander around, Jeniffer followed me and I took her to the really expensive kimono store to show her what some real money buys. I asked the store clerks if it would be alright to dress her up in one of the furisodes, and they gladly said yes. Jennifer didn't want to be a burden on anyone, but I insisted it was alright. The clerk dressed her up in the furisode of her choice, and then she tied an obi as well. Her digital camera had stopped working and so she was stuck using a disposable. I took some pictures with my camera so that I could send them to her by email.



After that, we met back up in Hamanomachi, and I took them back to the tram, the others had bought McDonalds, so Jennifer and I went and ate some ramen. After that we went to see Chinatown at night, and it's so much cooler than during the day. They got the LED-lit pictures and they were very cool. My favorite was the dragon and tiger.



After that, we hopped on the right tram, wrong direction and went to the end of the tram line without realizing it, so then we had to wait for the next one and hop on the tram running the other direction. I got back home around 9:30 PM, uploaded some pictures, and hit the hay after my shower. Less than two weeks to Kyoto and Osaka, I can't wait!

And so the week goes on...

Well, it's been kind of an uneventful week. I haven't been doing all that much, wrote up a paper for my society class yesterday, did some flower arrangement on tuesday for traditional Japanese arts. We have arts again today, but today we're covering women's kimono. All of us are going to dress up in kimono and take pictures, so it should be a lot of fun. I still haven't found my Nintendo DS, which saddens me, but these things always kinda work themselves out. I may never find it again, but I'll gain something in return, what that is, I don't know. Yesterday Japanese class was actually quite enjoyable, the three stooges were all absent, and so we finally had a productive, quieter class. I'm all for a few laughs the three stooges sometimes provide, but I'd rather focus on learning Japanese since it's of great interest to me. When I see the nice teachers putting up with all their crap, makes me a little sad because they are remarkable teachers and I think they deserve more respect than what they're given. Here are some pictures from flower arranging, as well as some of the rain clouds from a torrential downpour we had on Monday.





That's all for pictures I've taken this week so far, I'll have a few more after tonight's Japanese arts class. Hmmm....other than that, it's just another 2 weeks till I go to Osaka and Kyoto. I can't wait, I'll finally be able to look for the big fish of the sea of Kimonos, the XXL sized kimono! On a side note, being here in Japan, there are many different landscapes and structures that make me have the urge to take up parkour/free running. Parkour is the martial art of getting from point A to point B in the fastest and most efficient manner possible, the focus is the destination. Free running is similar to parkour, except it focuses on the journey of getting to a place, and tends to focus on personal style. For more information, please refer to http://www.americanparkour.com . Both focus on total body fitness and efficiency, and like I said, being in Japan, I feel the urge to take this up in addition to the conditioning it provides. Here are a few youtube videos for reference in case you're still wondering what I'm talking about, but until then, じゃね。

Eating like a King!

So, this weekend was well worth not going out anywhere with friends. On Friday, I was invited to go hang out at a club in downtown Nagasaki with some friends. However, knowing what day of the week and how long it's been since my host father came home, I knew he'd probably be home that night and that he'd bring tons of sashimi. So I went home, and sure enough, he brought tons of Sashimi for me to consume. On Saturday, we visited Kiyoko's mother in the hospital with Nozomi. After that we walked down to Nagayo and stopped in an Udon Restaurant, I had a big bowl of Udon for lunch.



After that we went back to the house, grabbed Moko(the family dog) and started walking to a vantage point on top of this mountain. By the time we got to the mountain and partially up it, it had taken to long to get there. So we got picked up by Setsuko, dropped Moco back off at the house. Oh ya... I also found this gorgeous butterfly, took plenty of pictures, shown below.



After we dropped Moko off at the house, we went shopping to replace the motor for Kiyoko's fish tank. I went into a Hard-Off which was right next to the store they went to, and it's basically a huge resell store of computer, music, dvd's, cd's, and a bunch of music equipment. After looking around and resisting the urge to buy anything, I went to the store Kiyoko and the others had gone into and carried Nozomi around. After that, we went to the big restaurant and had Yakiniku, all I could eat, it was buffet style! I ate well over 5 plates of meat, it was sooooo good. Yakiniku is basically Japanese grill, except you get plates of thinly cut meat which you then cook yourself in the center of the table. I didn't get any of my own pictures, but Kiyoko has some, I'll have her send them to me. Well, it's time to eat lunch now,talk to you all later, Aikido tomorrow, yay, time to get flipped!