TravelStream™ news feed for member weeaboo on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/weeaboo en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 27 Jan 2009 02:07:01 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1232866800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1232866800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1232866800/tpod.html Tue, 27 Jan 2009 02:07:01 -0500 Adventures of a Weeaboo in the Land of the Rising Sun

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Okazaki, Chubu, Japan

Well today was a fun day. Even the test I took wasn't too bad, somehowI managed an 86% overall but that was the Level 4. Anyways after thetest we had this lunch at the Okazaki New Grand Hotel. Boy was Isurprised, it turned out to be one of the silliest parties I have everbeen to. It was a costume party, and although Roxy mentioned this, itdidn't really sink in for me. I just wore the cheongsam I had boughtwhich worked out well. The speech for the self-introduction turned outto be no big deal which was a huge relief. We had a mexican singerbefore we got served our lunch,first salad, then soup, then anappetizer and then the main course, oh and of course dessert. It wasone of the best lunches I have had in a while, and yes Eden I tookpictures of the food, just for you :P. There were various otherperformers, all in all it was really entertaining. We ended up dancingand forming a conga line to end off the party. I met up with Johnafterwards but on the way there ran into Mai(One of the Aichi three) soI may have a clubbing buddy for tomorrow *fingers crossed* turns outshe lives close to kamimaezu, so I might even have a shopping buddy!Anyways had a little bit of a celebration dinner at Saizeriya althoughonce again lost my appetite...I think it's John, I never can seem tofinish a meal in his presence. So I got home at around 9 and intend tofinish my last essay that is actually due tomorrow.Well I didn't even start the essay until Friday morning, but I finishedit by about 9 in the morning only to find out that class was cancelledfor second period. No big deal, just meant I had four hours of time tokill hahahaha. Interesting developments but I can't throwstones...hahaha. Had the last class with Nishio, and then went to ID ataround 11ish. To my surprise, Jay met me at the front as opposed toJohn, he got me my Zima and then for about half the time until John gotthere I was kind of lost on what to do. Satomi got there later and weliterally danced the night away. After ID we went to Cream and althoughJay and John went home at around 3:30am, Satomi and I stayed at Creamuntil around 4 am because then these creepy foreigners were trying topick us up. We went to the bar below Cream where Satomi treated me tobreakfast. We had celery, carrots, rice korokke, potato salad, pumpkinand I even got a hot chocolate. I was introduced to the bartendersthere Yoshi and gosh I can't remember the other guys name, everyonejust called him Tencho (as in manager) and then Satomi's friend Kancame later and he knew English because he had been in Australia. Hetold me I was young and cute hahaha, haven't gotten that complimentbefore. He was good looking but like everyone else I was hanging outwith, he smokes, so friends only. I tried to explain the symbolism ofthe pink elephant but it was very difficult to explain it in Japanese.Still very entertaining, I was able to use a lot of my Japanese withoutfeeling too awkward. Satomi mentioned how I could stay at her house ifI wanted to stay longer, but after talking to John I need to doublecheck because she might have just said that because she was drunk. Imentioned how I liked strawberries and then Tencho was like oh we havestrawberries so I had those as well and then a banana and evenchocolate (and yes this was at about 5:30 in the morning). Talk aboutgood hospitality. Tencho had this really really cool toy it wasliterally a pet dinosaur. But you pet it and it was like it was alive.It was so cute! it would even make the kissing sound if you touched itsmouth. I wanted it...but i found out that those types of toys cost$500. Anyways at around 7 am, Kan drove me to Kanayama so I got home atabout 8 am and went to sleep. I woke up at around 1 pm. Dinner wasfish, salad, daikon, broccoli and rice. I talked more with my hostfamily and for once all my host sisters were around so we hung outuntil around 9 where i started getting tired but even now can't reallysleep, too many things to think about...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1232607420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1232607420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1232607420/tpod.html Tue, 27 Jan 2009 02:00:00 -0500 Adventures of a Weeaboo in the Land of the Rising Sun

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Okazaki, Chubu, Japan

Monday had the killer test. The Japanese Language Placement Test Level3. Now I'd taken the Level 4 one when I first came to Japan, so I knewwhat to expect. Or rather I relatively thought I knew. Turns out therewere 3 parts. Two listening parts, one kanji practice and sentenceusage part and one particles and reading part. Talk about EPICFAIL...*sigh* no amount of studying could have saved me. There were somany questions I didn't even understand >_< not to mention a lotof the questions were tricky with two plausible answers. Anyways afterlunch we finished watching Grave of the Fireflies, what a sad, sadmovie. We started watching My Neighbor the Yamadas and that was veryentertaining. Still didn't really lighten up my mood. Dinner wasshochu(that cream soup with vegetables and meat) (i love it, I wish iknew how to make it...), shrimp in a spicy tomato type sauce, salad,seaweed, mushrooms and of course rice. Tuesday! Did I mention how much I love Tuesdays? Anyways had Aoyama'sclass first period, and went through review with the students. They hadlots of fun with the word "literature" not sure why, but hey theimportant thing is they had fun. Got a phone call in class, lol all thestudents wanted to know who called. Again the whole boyfriend thingcame up. Again I don't really have an answer. Anyways after that classYamaguchi sensei took us to Satsuki and Mei's house from the movieTotoro. It was so cool! The landscape was so pretty and the best partis that we could open all the cupboards and drawers inside the househehehe. The detail was amazing, although I have to watch the movieagain and see just exactly how detailed it was. After that I met upwith John at Yaba-Cho. It was so cool! I got to ride the Linimo train(the magnet train!!!) it was such a smooth ride, and it only took about15 minutes to get to Fujigaoka. From there I took the Higashiyamasubway to Sakae and then the Meijo line to Yaba-cho. We went toMcdonald's or rather John was already there, I was a bitlate...Anyways, I had a teriyaki burger again (one of things I willmiss when I go home). Then we took a ride on the bicycle and Iattempted karaoke again...and failed. For some reason I have been hitby a wave of shyness. Got home at around 6:15 and my host mom had Pockyfor snack for me. I was thrilled, because this is the Pocky that hadbeen sitting in the fridge for ages but I was afraid to touch hahaha.Anyways for dinner I had egg plant with this grilled chicken sauce,salad, miso soup, rice and of course fish! Oh funny thing about thefish, it totally looked like there was a baby fish within the fish, butyes I still ate it. Wednesday was fairly uneventful, went through the level three test, nowonder I didn't understand the test, half the concepts I wasn't taught.Picked up my t-shirt from tye-dying and finished three out of my fouressays.Dinner was carrots wrapped in beef, oden, spinach and egg soupand of course salad.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1226018340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1226018340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1226018340/tpod.html Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:07:27 -0500 Adventures of a Weeaboo in the Land of the Rising Sun

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Tokyo, Kanto, Japan

Tuesday we got off to a late start, went to this cute little cafe forbreakfast and funnily enough the tea was more expensive than the actualmeal. The meal was about $1.10 for me and then the tea was $6 for 3cups (since we got our own personal teapots). Then we went toAKIHABARA!!! I got what I was looking for *wink* *wink* *nudge* nudge*and it was crazy...all the stores we went into were 7 floors haha. Soyes we barely dented that city, I had KFC for dinner and then after abrief stop at Book-Off we headed to the subway and went to....TOKYOTOWER! We had someone help us find it since we had actually startedgoing in the completely opposite direction. It was so cool! We went atnight so we could see lots of pretty lights and Tokyo Tower was all litup. Oh and they even had Christmas decorations up near the tower. Roxyand I both burst into the song "It's beginning to look a lot likeChristmas". It was funny. I bought a few souvenirs, not too many thoughbecause of course they are expensive. So whoever wants a Tokyo towersouvenir, just shout :P. We also took sticker pictures and for once themachine didn't rip us off! Remember those times, Eden? Anyways, so wegot back to our station but I had this craving for a smoothie that justwouldn't go away. I wanted something creamy...and I have no idea why.*shrug* The craving was that strong, I became extremely irritable.(Sorry guys!) Made it back to the hotel at around 11:30 and am justabout to go to sleep now. Until next time!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1232263440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1232263440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1232263440/tpod.html Mon, 19 Jan 2009 04:52:50 -0500 Adventures of a Weeaboo in the Land of the Rising Sun

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Okazaki, Chubu, Japan

So on Friday we finished watching Ponpoko in Yamaguchi's class. It wassuch a sad ending, but I don't know what I was really expecting hahaha.We then started watching "Grave of the Fireflies", that is one sadmovie. We aren't finished it yet, but it's about the survivors, orrather the ghosts of the survivors of the air raids. Eerie, eerie stuffthere. Anyways then Nishio sensei drove us to Asuke , this old styletown. It was really cool to see how they made paper, and how theycooked fish, and what toys they played with. We went for lunch and ihad that famous mochi covered in miso (can't quite remember the name)as well as fish, soba, daikon, beans and green stuff that i still don'tknow the name of. Anyways it was good. In the old town there was also acow named Kaede(hahaha like in Inuyasha) and there were of coursechickens and roosters. Nishio also took us to this other temple on theway home where we saw koi and jizou. I got home and gave my souvenirfrom Asuke to my host mom and to my surprise we ate that, senbei andeven cheesecake for snack. I then set to work taking notes for myhistory paper, I have so much stuff to do! There's the four essays,studying for two tests I have next week and writing a less than aminute speech for the lunch on the 22nd. Saturday I worked on my history essay from 8 in the morning to around12:30 before having lunch and going out to Yaba-cho. I took my time, Iwalked from Kanayama and went to Osu before wandering down to Yaba-cho.I stumbled across a Chinese New Year celebration? in the park and Ifilmed the drummers before my camera ran out of space. Saw the Liondancers too so that was cool. My plans fell through so I wandered backdown to Osu and bought a cheongsam on a whim. It was super cheap!Anyways I got home and had an egg omelette, ham salad, miso soup,korokke and of course rice.Sunday was my blah day, I tried and tried to do work, but littledistractions just kept popping up. I ended up having dinner with justthe grandfather and boy was that confusing, he tried talking to me, buthe mumbles and so I understood very little. I had fish, korokke (ham and potato ones) and rice. I finally forced myself togo to sleep after midnight, I am stressing because of the test I haveon Monday. *sigh*
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1232349120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1232349120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1232349120/tpod.html Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:14:40 -0500 Adventures of a Weeaboo in the Land of the Rising Sun

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Okazaki, Chubu, Japan

So on Tuesday, I had Aoyama's class in the first period. It wasnot fulfilling, the students know the sounds...in any case there weresome very funny sayings such as "queer spears" and "Don't open thewindow - Okay, I don't". Talk about some very bad english. In any case,after Aoyama's class I hung out with Roxy and we were asked by Sasakisensei to help out with her nursery rhyme class. We got there and didone round of itsy-bitsy spider, and then class was over. Talk about awaste of time...so I went home and then went out to Nagoya. I met upwith John and we had onigiri for lunch and I tried this mango-applejuice. It was yummy! We were watching the tv and talking, when all of asudden I realized what drama was on. I actually understood it! hahaha.It was the one called "Attention, Please" oh the irony...Anyways wealso went for dinner, I wanted pasta but somehow we ended up going forChinese. I was extremely skeptical...but the food wasn't half bad. Nobbq pork though :(, only sweet and sour. I had this pork and egg chowfun (it wasn't mediocre!), some wontons (those were okay...oddly theywere served dry, with no sauce) and lettuce wraps (I laughed at thetypo because the menu said lettuce rice lap). The stuffing for thelettuce wraps was some chinese mushroom and beef mixture with ricekrispies on the outside? It was good, but so not Chinese hahahaha.Still a fun time. I got home at around 8:30 and just went to sleep.Wednesday, I had Sasaki's class first. We went through the secondchapter of homeless chuu gakusei and then Roxy and I had cloth dyingclass, where we actually did nothing because we are ahead of the wholeclass somehow...again waste of time. Why, oh why is school becomingsuch a waste of time? I got home and I had an okay dinner I suppose, nomeat, and only one dish that I liked. Oh, well.Thursday I went to school early and had Aoyama's class first. She wentthrough the concept of tameni which was good since I had never learnedthat before. At lunch there was a surprise graduation party incelebration of seijin shiki. There were so many people! There werespeeches and we were all given our own box of three donuts from MisterDonuts as well as a drink (I chose the strawberry milk). We also gotgraduation pens that say "Carpe Diem いいここに" so that was pretty cool.Nishio's class was after lunch and for once the reading was easilyunderstandable, so maybe my Japanese is improving?<img src="http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v1920/95/102/1638960027/a1638960027_91841_4823.jpg" alt="">The donuts we got!<img src="http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v1920/95/102/1638960027/a1638960027_91842_6044.jpg" alt="">and the strawberry milk<img src="http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v1920/95/102/1638960027/a1638960027_91844_6485.jpg" alt="">The fancy pen!Dinner was Oden with cognac(this gray jelly fiber thing), daikon, fishas well as cabbage and ginger chicken and of course rice. oh there wasalso this red thing that was good, don't know what it was, but you mixit with the rice and it's good. tasted pepperoni-like? had an Okinawaorange for dessert but then as I was leaving my host mom actuallyglared at me because I misunderstood that she wasn't coming upstairsand so I didn't close one of the doors fully. I'm a bit scared now, Ithink I may have upset her...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1231764120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1231764120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1231764120/tpod.html Mon, 12 Jan 2009 07:42:50 -0500 Adventures of a Weeaboo in the Land of the Rising Sun

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Okazaki, Chubu, Japan

Today was Seijin Shiki. For those of you who don't know, that's theComing of Age Ceremony in Japan. I was up really early to try to figureout what to do with my hair, and the final result turned out a lotbetter than I expected, so yay! My host mother was nice enough to driveme to Moeko's house and I got dressed up in my kimono while Moeko waseating breakfast. I can't believe how tight the kimono was! But I doknow the whole point of wearing the kimono is to look flat chested.Anyways, after Moeko got dressed up in her kimono, her mom drove us tothe ceremony. It was freezing! and it was actually snowing a little,but not sticking. Anyways we got inside and had to hand in ourinvitations to get our present from the city. We went into this bigauditorium and Moeko saw more of her friends so we sat with them. I wasamazed at how many people were there and of course all the girls werein furisode, so I'm glad I got that ^_^. The actual ceremony didn'tstart until 11 and it only ended up being half an hour of speeches.Then everyone filed into the gym and it was all reunion time for thosefrom the same elementary school . It was neat to see all the differenthairstyles that the girls had and even the boys. Lots and lots ofpictures were taken. We didn't leave the ceremony site until about1:30. I was mistaken, there was one girl in a dress. Just one.Apparently she's into fashion according to Moeko. Anyways, I saw noother foreigners, so I was really glad that I was able to go withMoeko. When Moeko's mom finally got through the traffic, we had friesand strawberry milkshakes from Lotteria and then I got home at around2:30. I made my host sister Tomomi and Naoko laugh because of thechopsticks I put in my hair, considering they aren't exactly hairchopsticks hahahaha. Anyways, I took a few pictures with them and hadlunch, this bean rice thing (a gift from Moeko's mother) and mochi. Iwanted to wear my kimono all day so I went up to my room and took morepictures, but at some point one of the parts came loose and so I justeventually took it off. Wow it was nice to be able to breathe again. Ididn't get to see who I wanted to see today though, the timing was offand I didn't expect to get home so late. I also went to an onsen withmy host mom. So much fun, there were so many different types of hotsprings to try! Eventually it got to hot though and we went to Aeon fordinner. It was a buffet! Yay! I had lots of sashimi, salmon, pasta, eggtofu, wontons, ebi fry, tempura, corn soup, curry rice, some othermixture of rice and was so full I was only able to have a mango fruitcocktail for dessert. What a treat ^_^!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1231588320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1231588320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1231588320/tpod.html Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:52:47 -0500 Adventures of a Weeaboo in the Land of the Rising Sun

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Okazaki, Chubu, Japan

So it has been an exhausting three days. On Thursday I found a studentthat is going to Seijin Shiki as well! So I won't be all by mylonesome. In any case, we only had Sasaki's class and read more ofHomeless Chuu Gakusei. Then I went searching at Aeon mall for morekimono parts. I didn't find anything, and I tried on this super cutewhite polar fleece trench coat which actually fit me...but wouldn'tbutton up :(, even at $30 it wasn't worth it to me if it couldn't bebuttoned up. *sigh* So looking at Aeon was useless, everything waseither super expensive or not there. Anyways, to feel like I hadn'ttotally wasted my time, I bought the Love Potion Tim Tams...yes theywere expensive but double chocolate and raspberry? I couldn't reallysay no...and yes they are as good as I though, too bad the package isso small. Friday it rained! or rather it poured! and it was FREEZING! Wheneverit's too warm here, the next day always rains. In any case I battledwith my umbrella and tried riding my bike but eventually just gave upand rode my bike and got soaked. I had Yamaguchi's class first. OMG itwas so much fun! We started watching this movie called Ponpoko (AStudio Ghibli movie) . It was about raccoons trying to save theirforest from the humans. Very cute and very funny! Nishio's class waswell, typical. I tried, I really did! Now I actually have to do readingbecause we have a 2-3 page essay to do for his class by the end of thismonth...which really is coming up fast! Saturday I woke up early and went to Osu street! I first went toKomehyo and found a naka juban that fit perfectly inside my furisode.What's more it was only $25 (as opposed to $100-$200)! I went into afew stores to search for zori but did not find anything. Just when Iwas giving up hope I found a store that had extra large sizes of thezori, but extremely expensive...At least I knew what size to ask for!At the next store I asked and they actually had a set with the matchingbag for only $60 (as opposed to $250-$500). So yes I was successful.Yay!!! I walked around and boy was it windy! I met up with John forlunch, yay for Teriyaki burgers at Mcdonald's!!! Mcdonald's is so muchhealthier here...I don't know how they do it. haha. Tomorrow I go toNara...it's going to be a long day. Hopefully my host mom will be ableto figure out how to get to Moeko's house, because even with theaddress I still have no idea. Until next time!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1231324140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1231324140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1231324140/tpod.html Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:34:30 -0500 Adventures of a Weeaboo in the Land of the Rising Sun

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Okazaki, Chubu, Japan

So it's been an exhausting three days, let's see what's new. On MondayI went to Apita to look at the prices of furisodes...let's just saythey weren't even close to being in my price range. I looked around atthe sale stuff but didn't really find anything. I went to Uni Qlo justto see if there was anything new, and nothing that I really wanted. Ialso went to Daiso and for once didn't buy anything. hahaha.Unfortunately on the way up the hill from Apita my bike got a flattire, so I walked/ rode it to the supermarket by the school. I tried ona few trench coats because they were cheap, but they were too small. Ithen walked my bike back up to the school and left it there. I got homeand was still no closer to finding a furisode that fit. Dinner wasyakisoba. Oh and got a phone call I wasn't expecting, perhaps I was abit too sarcastic...hahaha. Anyways that was Monday.Tuesday I was super, super lazy, I didn't leave the house, I meant to,but I just didn't get around to it. Not having a bike really is aninconvenience hahaha. I attempted to read history, tried and failed Idon't know how many times. It's so boring...I didn't even eat lunch Iwas trying that hard to do the reading. In any case, dinner was somereally good egg yolk thing, salad, miso soup and salmon.Wednesday! The successful day! So I left the house at around 11, andsaw an ad for recycled kimonos at the Meitetsu store, so instead ofgoing to Kanayama, I went to Nagoya. I got to the store and said I waslooking for a pink furisode. I tried it on and it fit perfectly!However I misunderstood the sales lady...I thought she said 18,900 yenwhen she really said 189,000 yen. Talk about way out of my pricerange...for those who don't know, that's close to $2000! Oh well, Ifound a rental place but it was only for hakama oddly enough. I wentinto JR Takashimaya and tried again. They were extremely helpful, Itried on this light pink one which was really cute! But even just thefurisode itself cost 34,700 yen. Too bad. Although the lady did take apicture of me in it. I took the subway to Sakae and then walked to Kamimaezu. I went back tothat place on Osu, and found a really bright pink furisode! I tried iton, got a decent priced obi, and a few of the accessories. Yes I boughtit, the whole set cost me 23,200 yen and I even got a discount on myfurisode! I still need the under kimono, zori, handbag and hairaccessories though, not to mention finding someone who know how to tiethe obi. Dinner was this concoction similar to jook (sp?), korokke fish, cabbage salad, kuromame and of course kyu!!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1230860340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1230860340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1230860340/tpod.html Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:52:31 -0500 Adventures of a Weeaboo in the Land of the Rising Sun

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Okazaki, Chubu, Japan

So on New Year's Eve I helped my host mom vacuum the hallways upstairsand downstairs, I also helped prepare some of the yummy food for NewYear's breakfast the following day. It was lots of fun. Tomomi tried toteach me how to cut a carrot into a flower shape but it was toodifficult for me, not to mention dangerous with the giant knife hahaha.It was really cool to see how the Japanese really are all about thepresentation and I watched how Tomomi made the food look pretty. Fordinner I had shabu shabu again and then at around 8:30 I headed for ID.It took me about an hour to get there and then I met up with Jay andJohn where John proceeded to start me off slow with my drinks. Thankgoodness! Jay always has my back, he talked to his friend Satomi whoapparently was there by herself and so I made a new friend ^_^. Wedanced the night away, literally. At midnight we let off the confettipoppers and John kept getting me drinks...So much for going slow. Buthe did get me the strawberry kiss drink although I was only able todrink one of those. Too bad. Satomi was a good person to have aroundsince what guys I couldn't scare off she was able to. So we stucktogether and only rested a couple of times. I danced with John for abit, actually he snuck up behind me and so I didn't realize it rightaway. Jay really scared me when I said no to another shot, turns out hewas joking, but that doesn't make it any less scary. Anyways, ID closedat around 5:10 am, we dropped Satomi off at Osu Kannon and then Jaydropped us off at Mcdonald's to grab some type of breakfast. I tried topay but John wouldn't let me, again. Not sure if that's a good thing?So I had to wait for a while to get my first train, and I fell asleepand just didn't miss my stop lol. Then I had to wait a bit for mysecond train and then biked home. So I left John and Jay at around 7ambut didn't get home until 8. I caught some much needed sleep and didn'twake up until 1 pm. I came downstairs and my host mom had saved NewYear's food for me. Too bad I didn't have a huge appetite, the food wasreally good. But I could only eat so much. After lunch I went to theYahagi shrine and then to Okazaki Park shrine. It was really reallycold. But I got to spend some more time with my host father which wasnice. He wants to take me to Okazaki Castle. Dinner was more of thesame that I had for lunch. Still good though! Unfortunately I have lostmy battle with my cold. I'm not sure if I can go to the sword ceremonytomorrow or not.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1231120200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1231120200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/weeaboo/1/1231120200/tpod.html Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:51:54 -0500 Adventures of a Weeaboo in the Land of the Rising Sun

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Okazaki, Chubu, Japan

So I was able to make it to the Sword Ceremony after all, it doesn'tmean I was feeling better but I figured I just couldn't miss it. Theceremony itself was alright, couldn't see too much but I don't knowwhat I was really expecting. After the sword ceremony we went andlooked at the special exhibitions they had, which was kind of cool Isuppose but swords really aren't my thing. We went to an art museumafterwards and the coolest part of that was being able to make our ownprints ^_^. No origami unfortunately, only kirigami. Oh well, still wasworthwhile I suppose? No pictures allowed though. We went to thesupermarket and it was there that I saw how mochi was made. Theyactually pound the rice with a hammer. So that was pretty cool, then Iwent to Osu with Roxy and Emily, didn't really find anything and didn'thave time to look at kimonos, and even though I left at 6 to get home,I was late for dinner. It was the big family dinner too! I still feelreally bad about that. One of my host sister's wasn't there yet though,so I guess it was okay? I apologized to the entire family. My host momsaid it was okay...but I don't know. In any case, I had nabe, salmon,roe, tai, buri, daikon, cognac(that's the name of this jelly fiberthing) and sashimi for dinner. It was good but didn't exactly fill meup, it seems I have my appetite back. One of the uncles gave me quitethe scare, I am going to assume that he was joking but still, he tookone of Raiki's toy butcher knives and grabbed me and tried to cut offmy neck, it actually hurt me...not sure if that was animosity or what.He also wanted to play rock-paper-scissors with me. I only agreed aftermy host dad said that if I won, he would give me 1000 yen. Thankgoodness I won! After this there was cake, yummy! For some reason myhost mom didn't want me to have another piece of cake though, so Isettled for half a piece. I'm not sure what that means...I played withRaiki for the rest of the night before I finally went to sleep.The next morning I was up at around 7:30ish, John called me at around 8but I didn't feel like talking to anyone that early so I just let thephone ring. I had my breakfast, shower and got ready to go to Osustreet again. I got to Osu at around 12:30ish and searched for akimono. I thought I'd finally found one but when I tried it on, thesales girl told me that it was too short in the sleeves and wouldn'tlet me buy it. Too bad. So I tried a couple more stores but all theones that I tried on were too short in the sleeves. I think I might bebetter off renting one. In any case I met up with John at around 3 andwe had lunch in the park, it was so windy! The leaves blew rightthrough me hahaha. At least I didn't open my mouth, otherwise I wouldhave had a mouthful of leaves. I tried to do karaoke but my voice wasshot :( oh well better luck next time. I didn't get home until 8unfortunately. Luckily my host mom set aside dinner for me, and boywhat a lot of yummy food, there was pork, tai, buri, kuromame, daikonand of course rice. She even saved me a piece of cake ^_^. Today was my lazy day, I actually slept in, well actually I woke up andthen went back to sleep for a couple hours, but still. I had buri andrice and toast for brunch and then worked on one of the essays I haveto write. For dinner I had sushi, korokke, mochi and daikon. Dessertconsisted of pear and mandarins ^_^.
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