Day 56

I'm halfway through my stay in Japan, and with 54 days left of this journey, I'm am excited. I want to go home, This is my homesick post. I'm not miserable or anything, i just miss seeing my friends in person, Seeing my Mommy, Talking to my best friends in which our schedules totally clash. Being in the same time zone or only an hour difference. Watching TV and tweeting with friends over what happened. Going to the movies. Going to my church. Just everything.

Japanese is still hard, OMG, but I'm trying to enjoy the experience. Leaving Japan means I'm graduating. And it will be oh so official since I already walked but getting approval and that diploma. Oh My My My, I'm going to have to spend time in ann arbor making sure my credits transfer swiftly.

I'm still waiting on my job offer, I just want some clarity on my future. But anyway. I'm healthy and safe, and that's what matters.

Until Next Time,

Day 54

Today I finally went to Hikone castle, It was wooden and tall, and empty surprisingly. It was on a hill, and they made the steps different sizes so that the enemy could not ambush it. I didn't go to the museum though, I'll save that for next time.

I thought some stores would be open, but unfortunately the little shops weren't so I have to save that for another Saturday.I went to a church too, And so excited I did because i found out that there is a mass in English at 11am on Sundays. The one I hear about was at 7pm. I went inside to pray cause it's something about being in the house of the Lord especially after visiting all those shrines. I going to go to Mass next weekend, I've been watching church on Streaming faith, and It will nice to get communion since it will be first Sunday.

Until Next time,

Day 48

Today I got a new room mate. Her name is Yo. She is very nice. I ate lunch with her and 6 other japanese students and it was more conversational than my entire homestay, most likely because we are similar ages. One girl's name is Akane and I called her Okane not hearing correctly, okane is money so that was a left. But everyone seems cool. They are only here for two weeks and most are from Osaka. It should be fun.

I got a free ticket to an Ikebana exhibit in Osaka so I will see If I can meet up with them when I go, it's next weekend, and that's when they are headed back home.

I also went to the grocery store today and was perusing and found some interesting shirts. I mentioned before that Japanese shirts are in english, well I really do believe they don't know what they say.

 Of course this is a Bible verse wonder how a Budhist would feel wearing this. I know sometime you use budhist sayings in philosophy and such, but this is saying your help cometh from the Lord. L was capitalized.

This is a children's t'shirt. I wouldn't want my child walking around with a shirt saying they were a bastard.

Reading is fundamental people, in every language.

But yeah, My room mate and I cooked tonight, she made this ginger pork, it was good, and I made my mommys Chicken Eggrolls. She loved them. ShoutOuts to my Mommy!

Until Next Time,

Days 45-47

Homestay Weekend.

This weekend I stayed with the Tsuchida family. It was a great time so lets take a step back

Day 45.

I was Picked up by Mrs. Tsuchida and her two daughters, Riho age 6 and Mizuki age 3. They were happy to see me. We drove about twenty minutes and arrived at their home. It was in a town just outside of Hikone. Their house was newly built only three years ago, and they lived on Mr. Tsuchida's Father's land. His father is a farmer and grows wheat and carrots among other things. Mrs. Tsuchida is a house wife and enjoys flower arranging, (Ikebana), I showed her the Ikebana I made and she enjoyed it. Mr. Tsuchida is I believe what we will call an electrician or electrical Techniction (sp). I didn't actually call them Mr.  and Mrs. proper japanaese is to just say Tsuchida san, i just stuck with sumimasen when i had questions. that's just excuse me.

The land in front of their house, carrot fields

my room, I was shocked to have my own room

My bed, a futon, not our futon, the cover underneath was soooooo warm.

more land and houses

For dinner we had what i call sushi bites. Oishi des. They were delicious. And we had japanese fried chicken and some type of soup and plenty of oocha(green tea). Mr. Tsuchida arrived home and we introduced ourselves. I played some card games with the children and taught them Itsy bitsy spider. One of the cards games actaully helped me with my listening, so I was greatful. They spoke some English which was great along with their Japanese to English dictionary. It was nice practicing my vocabulary, also reminded me how important it is. But Mrs. Tsuchida did a working holiday in Australia a while back, and the two little girls took a summer course in English so it was nice.

Day 46

Doyoobi ni (saturday), I was awoken by Mizuki and Riho saying "good morning goodmorning" repeatedly in English. It was cute. I changed and went down for breakfast which was this great rice bread and jam, along with some type of lettuce chicken and egg concoction. Mrs. Tsuchida had to take Mizuki to Preschool, so my afternoon was spent with Mr. Tsuchida and Riho. We went to look at some Japanese doll exhibits. From my research, because I could not read the things in Japanese, they are called Hina dolls. They are usually of the emperor and queen during the time the dolls were made. Not exactly them, but fashioned in what they would wear, and the accessories of plates, dressers, combs, ect. to be of that time period. So no captions just pics below:

 Mr. Tsuchida and Riho

Me and Mr. Tsuchida

Me in front of a Japanese garden, I want one of these in my backyard

look, this is what we just posed as, don't know what it is though unfortunately.

Kyusu, Tes pot, I want to by one of these before I leave, a nice size one

Mrs. Tsuchida, Mizuki, Riho and I in front of their Hina Dolls

 For lunch we ate at a hamburger place, but hamburger in Japan is more like a piece of meatloaf with just ground beef. interesting. For dinner we had goza I believe, it' a Chinese dish popular in japan. It was good. And we ended the night watching half of Avatar. So I've never seen Avatar, and seeing it in Japanese, I'm just like so now I know what happens, but I have no idea what anyone said.

Day 47

 Us on their front porch

My last day was good, we had toast and a omelette for breakfast. We went to a temple, that through me for a loop because i thought we were headed to this pottery place and not anywhere else. I felt kind where being at a Buddhist Temple on a Sunday when I'm supposed to be in the house of the lord. And then she gave me a coin to throw in a box and said you make a wish. I just said a prayer to my God and kept it moving. 

Me in front of the temple. and the box is where you make the wish. 

Then she asked if I liked horoscope, but I felt like to much was happening so I just said no

Mizuki and Riho shook a box and got a stick. They went and paid for their horoscope. Apparently it wasn't good

 Then you are supposed to tie it on here for good luck.

So after that we traveled two hours to this pottery place. We were supposed to make cups

foundation of cup

tada- cup

so I tried, The children painted

my foundation, starting off good

Not to bad, but it gets worse (sidebar, I look significantly smaller here than i do in that other picture. Cameras man, making my face look fat. But Oh well)

My disaster. I tried man, I decorated this side, and wrote the date in Kanji on the other

Mrs. Tsuchida's

Mr. Tsuchida's

This was my handle inspiration to turn my disaster into something

I won't get it back till March. i believe I saw an end product, and it's gonna look pretty snazzy. Will Post a pic then.

Posing with Tanuki which was everywhere in this town, they are supposed to be cheerful, it's a racoon dog, I looked it up, but if interested you might want to do the same, it was too much to type.

But that was my homestay.

Until Next Time

Day 44

This week has been a bummer, my computer is, not in commission. But Thank God that I have insurance, so I should be up an running again soon. But sad sad times for me. I'm happy that we have a computer lab. Today I went to MosBurger, it was interesting, I had a teriyaki burger. interesting. I will have an interesting weekend to come back from, so as always I'll keep you posted.

Until Next Time,

Day 39 & 40

Saturday I went to two temples one the Byodo-In in Uji and the other Todaiji Temple in Nara. 

The seemingly fancy bus we rode to Nara

This is the Phoenix Hall entrance of Byodo-In Temple. we got to go inside, but could not take pictures. 

Here's my ticket to get inside

Full view of the Byodo-In temple

A Bell, So I accidentally threw away my english translation to what everything was so yeah, the bell has to suffice for now.

This is inside the museum, we weren't supposed to taks pics so I had to put my camera away, the walls were cool though.

We stopped for lunch at 7-11, I'm not one for eating lunch at convenience stores, so I didn't partake, but here were some options.

So off to Nara we went from here. A popular part of Nara is their Deer, they are considered holy, so they rome freely. Now I'm not newbie to deer but touching and feeding I was. 

petting a deer

these were little babies

This is an entrance to get to closer to the temple. It's called Nandaimon gate and has two statues taking guard

one of the statues

I bought some deer crackers to feed the deer. I was trying to open the package when this little fella came along, he kept head butting me too, I only gave him half a cracker.

Petting a nicer dear, he's happy to have food

Apparently he thought I was hiding food

Ok now mr. deer, I have nothing else for you

Here is Todaiji Temple. It is the largest wooden building in the world, and it is only 2/3rds of it's original size

Incense outside the temple

water to drink and wash hands

This scary thing, you can read the caption below

This is the largest Buddha in Japan over 52 feet high.

another Buddha

So the first Buddha sits on a lotus flower, and here is one petal, a replica of it's original size

some other things

There were other temples here as well, here are some more pics

It was an interesting trip, I was also able to buy some souvenirs and for that I was grateful, it seems that I have to go to touristy spots to get Japanese gifts, well at least I know now. And it seems like a lot of the Japanese culture is surrounded by Buddhist practices. Everywhere you can go besides Hiroshima and Tokyo is always to see a temple. It's very interesting. But I am excited to go more places. I plan to got to Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Tokyo in March, there is this special discount pass that you can take advantage of. I'm going to see if I can tag along with some students or maybe just venture off myself, but I would have to get a cellphone first, which is an easy fix since now I have my alien registration card. 

Sunday/Today I cleaned, slept and did homework. My roommate moved out too. So when applying for this program I signed up for a Japanese roommate, when I got here and didn't have one, I thought that was it. However that was just because the Japanese students hadn't arrived yet, in the next month and a half 3 english programs will take place and I will have 3 different Japanese room mates. So let the fun times begin. My room mate will move back in in April for for the next week in a half I have a single and that is great. 

So yey to my exciting weekend. Visiting an elementary school on Friday and an Home stay this coming weekend so Lots to do. I wanted to leave you with one last picture.

Aren't they cute, doggies fully dressed.

Well Until Next Time,