Adventures with mother: Arrival-->Xmas

On December 23rd, my mom came to visit me! It was so much fun and I talked all the amount I hadn't been able to talk since I came here.

Day 1 (Dec 23): After 2 extra hours of waiting, I finally met up with mother from her flight and we took the Skyliner (a famous super fast train) from Narita Airport.

At Nippori station, they were decked out with cute Xmas stuff:

 And mother had fun taking stalker photos of the guys selling stuff in Santa suits:

 We arrived at our first hostel: Sakura Hotel in Ikebukuro. It was so nice and even had room service--well, it was the most expensive of the hostels that we stayed at. Mother and I went walking around the city and were able to see a bit of the mall Sunshine 60 before it closed for the night. Mother bought a fluffy keychain and earrings.

Day 2 (Dec 24): Mother and I had breakfast at the Sakura hotel and went to Tamachi to visit my university campus. She really liked it. Then, we walked to Tokyo Tower and checked out the souvenir shop--she was too scared to go up it. This is her tired face after climbing the steep slope to get to the tower:

 Then, we went to Shibuya. We walked around a little and it was loud and annoying as usual. Mother doesn't like it very much. Since the restaurant we wanted to go to was crowded, we went to Miami Garden for pasta where I had squid and clam pasta. We also found a spanish bar but the fee just to sit there was ridiculously expensive.

 Mother went to bed tired that night.

Day 3 (Dec 25): We checked out of Sakura Hotel and Mother came to visit my dorm. She really liked my neighborhood. We opened Xmas presents together and I got a bunch of care packages! aka food
After a rest, we went to Hiroko-san's house at 5pm for Xmas dinner. We had chocolate cake:

 and sukiyaki (thinly sliced beef, tofu, been sprouts, cabbage, noodles, onions etc):
It was made in the traditional Japanese way: on the table on a hot plate and everyone takes some out of the pan as they like.

 Mother and me with Hiroko-san's husband Yuji. This was the second time I was able to meet him. He's soo nice. Such a sweet and funny man.

 Me with my adopted Japanese parents: Hiroko-san and Yuji!

That night, we left Hiroko-san's house at 8ish so we could catch the night bus to Kyoto near Tokyo station. It was hard to find, but I found it! Riding the bus was such an interesting experience. It was pretty comfortable, and the bus constantly stopped at rest stops. Japanese rest stops are the cleanest places I've ever seen. They beat most American rest stops hands, arms, feet, and legs down. Really. Most of them don't have convenient stores--although some do--and these are replaced by vending machines. There are even vending machines that sell hot snacks like fried rice balls, squid balls, etc. Here's what a bathroom looks like:

 I thought this was amusing: the trashcan was called an "etiquette box":

 Little turtle plushie in the bathroom:

But my favorite part about this rest stop bathroom was that it had one of my favorite anime's music playing in the background. Just because of that, it gets my one hundred percent approval.

To be continued...

Parties and Fun things

Since I haven't updated in a while, I have lots of pictures. Today's entry will just be a big upload of pictures and a description of them. Yay pictures!, right?

Last Sunday, me, Stephanie, Azusa, and Sugako went to karaoke in Shibuya. First, since Sugako was running late, Azusa, Stephanie, and I stopped at a cafe for tea.

I had a chai latte and a red bean paste bun.
This was the karaoke room. It was the coolest karaoke place I've been to! It looked so high class and when you started singing, the lights would dim so it felt like a real live, or something. (Sorry for the bad quality)

Stephanie and Azusa:

Me and Sugako (ew I look horrible...):

I thought this was hilarious....in a terrible way. These posters are all over Shibuya right now. The guy is Nino from the popular boy band Arashi.

It says "Shopping will become Japan's strength." I was just like wow...I mean, I know that governments try to push shopping in order to improve economy, but I've never seen a slogan like this so blatantly everywhere. It was like a subliminal message to the people on the street...scary.

This is a picture of a music van. In Shibuya, vans drive by all the time playing clips of new CDs like moving advertisements. They're one of the origins of Shibuya's constant noise. This is a van for Kiss-My-Ft2's new single for winter. The music video has them all on roller skates...again. Johnny's Entertainment is just a constant repitition these days. Plus a bunch of underaged girly looking guys...why?? Lately, a boy band debuted from Johnny's called Sexy Zone and the youngest is 11 years old. All of them look like babies, so the name Sexy Zone just doesn't suit them at all. Instead it's a bit disturbing...Kiss-My-Ft2 is ok though. The guy inn the black vest is my favorite. Tamamori-kun!
Anyways, this is where Sugako, Azusa, Stephanie, and I had dinner. Sushi~Sushi~

It was a sushi rotary bar and every plate with two sushi was 150 or 250 yen. Super cheap~ I had eel, too! Yumm. There were a lot of foreigners there and Stephanie voiced what I had been thinking: "Why are all the foreigners you see in Japan strange foreigners?" The foreigners that you see in Japan are so strange looking. They're the kind of people that you wouldn't usually see on the street if you went to their country. And yet they are in Japan giving Japanese people the wrong impression of people from America, Australia, etc...

Wow wow! One week till Christmas! I have all my Christmas presents done for my friends~ I thought keychains would be the easiest way to go, like I gave the scholars.
Keychains for the manga club members:

Nakamura-san, Niinuma-san, Tomo-chan, Kikuchi-san, Kei-san. I gave them theirs at the manga club Christmas party and they were very happy! Kei-san was like "Omg this is the only one in the world!" Kikuchi-san put his on his bag right away, so it seemed he liked his, too. I was very happy.
Keychains for my dorm mates:

Stepanie, Hyo Jeung, Seung-san, Juan, Mateus. I can give them theirs on Christmas day.
Keychains for my Level 7 classmates:

Chris (from England), Lisa (from Germany), Alberto (from Barcelona), In (from Malaysia), Laura (from Germany), Hinata (from Minnesota), Miharu (from England), Kathleen (from San Diego), Camelia (from Croatia). I'll give them theirs next Wednesday, which is the last day of class before winter break!

The following pictures are from the manga club Xmas party:

Strawberry short cake is a must for Xmas in Japan.

The three manga club girls: Kei-san, me, and Tomo-chan

Not every member was able to come. Niinuma-san had his part time job so he couldn't come. In the picture is (left to right): Kei-san, Kikuchi-san, me, forgot his name..., Nakamura-san, forgot his name..., Tomo-chan. Hey, but I know more names than before, right!
And I conclude with my New Year's card for my composition class. In class, we picked a name at random of one of our classmates and had to write them a New Year's card. I got Catie who's from Washington state.
New Year's cards or 'Nengajou' are super popular in Japan. You can buy them already made almost everywhere--post offices, stationary stores, department stores, etc. Although writing letters has become uncommon, EVERYONE writes New Year's cards. Even if you aren't in contact with someone for the entire year, if they're still alive and know your address, they'll send you a New Year's card. That's how important they are in Japanese society. There are set phrases that are found on all of them. You can see mine for an example!

(I drew a pretty illustration just for fun~)

1. Ok, first is the New Year greeting which can be found in the red box. It reads as "Gashou" which literally means celebration of the new year.

2. Then a phrase of thanks: "Kyuunen chuu wa osewa ni narimashita" (literally "I relied on you a lot last year")

3. A phrase or two talking about your current status ie job, children, school: "Saikin Keio daigaku no benkyou de taihen desu ga, issho ni ganbarimashou ne." ("Lately Keio's homework has been tough, but let's do our best")

4. A personal goal for the new year: "Kotoshi wa motto tsuyoku natte, nihongo wo pera pera hanasu you ni naritai desu." ("This year, I want to get stronger and be able to speak Japanese fluently.")

5. A farewell, hoping the best for the new year: "Honnen mo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu" ("I hope we can get along this year, too.")

6. Date: Heisei 24. 1. 1

And that is how to write a Japanese New Year's card! Now all of you have to write one to me for homework! Just kidding.

Miscellaneous!!

First of all, the quality is not the best, but I finally got the picture with the manga club! Kei-san sent it to me :) She wrote to me saying that she's sad she didn't get a picture with me and that we definitely will get a picture together at the Xmas party. She's so nice~

Ahh I stand out so much...Anyways, up in front with the grey sweater is Nakamura-san. He's the guy who was sitting next to me while we drew portraits. He's really good at drawing! The guy 2 places to my left is really nice but...I don't know his name...The guy two places to my right is Niinuma-san. He helps me out a lot. The girl next to him is Kei-san. Other than that...I don't know anyone's name...It's really hard to remember Japanese names! I think it may be because they say their whole name or just their last name when they introduce themselves. I can only remember people's names if I draw connections with people I already know. For example, Nakamura Yuuichi is my favorite voice actor, so I remember Nakamura's name. Niinuma's name is written with the same character as my favorite date sim character and it rhymes with 'kuma' which means bear and his hair kinda reminds me of a teddy bear....ok, maybe that's a silly connection.

Second of all, the Donguri Xmas party! (I've decided that I'm probably only going to two of the Xmas parties...Donguri and the manga club one)

These were the Xmas presents I made my conversation club teachers: Nakamura-san, Sato-san, and the lady who always gives me books...They're peaches with cinnamon sticks.

 Food! Nakamura-san made the yummiest fried chicken. I told her it was delicious and she was like "Ah! I'm so glad! Then you must come to my house and I will make you yummy things!" She's such a cute tiny lady gah.

 This was the cake. Apparently, they got it from an American specialty store where everything is "American size" aka huge. When I first saw the cake and then tasted it, I was like "This tastes like American cake..." And one of the ladies told me all about this American specialty store. Apparently they have huge pizzas too. The size shocks Japanese people.

 This was the stupidest game ever...You had to shove the other person and the first to lose their balance and fall across the lines on the ground lost. I lost right away cuz I got this dorky guy who looked as if he was terrified to even touch me. If I hadn't made a move, the night would have never ended. So I pushed at him even though I knew it was going to make me lose.

 The English guy and Polish guy did a Judo demonstration.

Illumination in Nakameguro!

Lastly, today in my art class, I made wax tempura like the ones in the restaurant windows. It looks so real I want to eat it! Ebi fry~ and pumpkin tempura~

The end for now~

An Afternoon of "Momiji-Gari"

On Saturday afternoon, I went with Yuko and Stephanie to Yoyogi Park nearby Harajuku to do some "Momiji-gari". "Momiji-gari" literally means autumn leaf ("momiji") hunting ("gari"). In other words, you go walking around admiring autumn leaves. There's no real direct translation to English. Only a culture like Japan that has such a deep appreciation for nature and the four seasons would have such a term in their lexicon.

Even though it's already December, the leaves just turned colors a few weeks ago. It was like an overnight thing. After the Mita Festival, I looked out the window in class, and the huge ginko tree in the school court yard had turned completely a bright gold. It's really pretty.

Yoyogi Park was also very pretty with its mixture of yellow and red leaves and its active fountains. But, I took pictures! So you can see for yourself:

Afterwards, we went to visit Meiji Jingu, which is one of the main and high status Shinto shrines in Japan. Needless to say, it's a big tourist spot.
This is the main gate:

It was Yuko's first time to go to this shrine as well. She was marvelling at how once we passed through the main gate, the nature was so beautiful that it didn't seem like we were in Tokyo anymore.

Before you pass through this gate, you have to stop at a wooden fountain like thing where you purify your hands and mouth with the supposedly "sacred" water. And then you end up in a big square-like place:

 At the place up ahead, you pray to the "kami" for good fortune and health by throwing a 5yen coin into a wooden box, bowing twice, clapping twice, making a wish, and then bowing once.
Then, we went to see the wooden plaques called "ema" where people write their wishes to pass tests, for good health, etc.

 Since it's such a famous shrine, there were several plaques in different languages. A lot of different people from different countries have been to visit there.

This was one of my favorite plaques: "With a calm heart, forward, forward, I will go."

 While we were there, it seemed like there were two Shinto style weddings going on. I don't know if the people were famous or what, but there were camera men filming the wedding--who was in my way of taking a picture... Stephanie was surprised at how the couple was so serious. They didn't smile or anything. Yuko explained that this is because they believe that they are in front of god, so have the responsibility to remain solemn. The women all in white is the bride. The man next to her is the groom. The two women in front of them are Shinto priestesses (called "miko") and at the head of the party is a Shinto priest.

It was all a very interesting and fun experience and I love Yuko--she's so sweet.

Ahh it's the Xmas season~~~! Although this season can be kind of lonely especially when you walk down a street full of xmas lights all alone surrounded by what seems a billion couples.......I have at least 4 Xmas parties planned, one of them which is tomorrow. Ahh so exciting~