Meet Okaasan

For those of you who didn't: Okaasan and Hannah

So, some of you may have noticed that I finally put a picture of Okaasan up on the blog.

To commemorate this momentous occasion, here is a list—yes, a 10 things list—about Okaasan.


10 Things You Didn't Know About Okaasan:
 

1. She takes my "eat anything" policy and changes it into a "food challenge" - in the end, she cooks and I get delicious cooking. We both win. :D

2. She is very enthusiastic about teaching and correcting my Japanese. She’s trying to remove my Midwestern twanging accent, and I wish her the best of luck with that. :D

3. She has a slight pixie haircut that looks adorable and stylish on her.

4. When working in the house, she wears an apron over her clothing.

5. She works out at the local gym several times a week.

6. I have not yet seen her get mad with my bumbling attempts at living Japanese-style.

7. She gets ridiculously pleased when I leave her thank you notes in the laundry basket (I mean, she does my laundry. And I’m 20. How does that not merit a thank you note?).

8. Her cooking is divine, even if she gives me very large portions.

9. She lets me help “make” dinner by cutting usagi ringo (rabbit apples) under her guidance. One time she even let me serve myself my own rice.

9. She has two sisters who love travel and Thai cooking with kale in them.

10. She’s a great host mother to me. I just hope I’m a great host student back to her. :D

Weird English

Japan is not an English-speaking country. However, they think that random English is pretty darn cool, so here is my homage to them: Welcome to Weird English.



Here are some of the weirder things I've spotted since I've entered Japan...

The life-supporting handkerchief - From Hirakata

The supermarket that helps you get a good life - From Hirakata

Okaasan's water pitcher - From the house in which I am currently residing

...I don't even... I think it's for ice cream? - From Hirakata

(the left side is cut out, but it says "coco de cook") A supermarket - From Hirakata

I don't get it, because it was sweetened.... - From Hirakata

My favorite store ever. I've never even entered it, but look at the awesome name! - From Kyoto

Step right up, step right up, buy a car for ~$80! ...wait, that's not a car... - From Osaka

If you're tired of ceramic dining, please try our break-away store, Mosaic Dining.... - From Kyoto

If your socks style is not enjoyed, you cannot enjoy life. So how are your socks? - From Kyoto

The glare is over the title, but it's called "snob en vamp" and it's a hair salon... - From Kyoto

Slow Day, Short Entry

Rain today, with a chill. It made the day pretty gloomy, but I was with friends, so it was all okay. For my Reading and Writing class, I have a test on Friday (also one today, but the less said about that, the better…) that consists of free writing an essay about my dreams and how I will accomplish them. Fortunately, we can have a sheet of vocab and boy, oh, boy am I glad of that! I’m writing about my dream to be a museum curator. Perhaps I’ll post it up in both English and Japanese once I get it down…maybe…

Today on the bus, an old lady commented on my takenoko (bamboo sprout) keychain. She said it was cute. What is with me and old ladies on buses? It was nice, though.

Robots and Plum Blossoms

In exchange for a little piece of my soul, the Japanese postal service managed to deliver a (very, very small) package I sent on Friday to my family at home. So that took only 3-4 days (depending on where you are), and my little sister got her earrings in time for homecoming (they’re little robots and she’s going to look awesome with them).

In sumi-e we’ve started the plum blossom (ume). I have to say, they remind me more of apple blossoms than plum, but perhaps that is because I’ve lived with an apple orchard in my backyard for a long time. It’s also possibly because I’ve never seen a real plum blossom before. I seem to load up my brush with too much ink while painting, so my blossoms always turn out like ink drops on snow—big, blotchy, and watery; not like plum blossoms at all…

The weather is steadily growing (somewhat) colder. Instead of being in the humid 90s, it’s staying in the 50s, 60s, and 70s which, while very nice for my Wisconsian sensibilities, is a dramatic shock from the previous temperature. My body is not pleased with this, although I love the weather (it’s totally like late autumn perfect weather) my body does not, and it frequents me with chills, headaches and other various annoyances. But I’m having the time of my life! Today, I walked to the bus station from Kansai Gaidai, instead of riding the bus. It was magnificent.

Quiet Day

The most interesting part of my day today was having a conversation with Okaasan about how I preferred older songs and showtunes, as compared to popular culture (yes, I’m a fan of the oldies, yes I will defend them to the death, yes I do randomly burst into song and dance numbers in the middle of anywhere if the fancy strikes me. I haven’t done it yet in Japan because I feel that adding to the negative (or just plain weird) stereotype of foreigners is unfair to the rest that follow. At least in America, I’m sure that it usually reflects on me and me alone).

I also chatted with some friends and (finally) received the birthday card my family sent. It had some stickers and other important matters also within, but mostly ~*STICKERS*~! Yes, in case you were wondering, I do have the mind and priorities of a five year old on sugar. I also got a book I ordered from the Japanese Amazon website. It’s in English, and is by one of my favored authors (and is the second in a trilogy!). Let me just say that that book is enthralling. I used it as a reward system. Every question I filled out on my homework was rewarded with a chapter…or two…or fifteen (what can I say? I love Kate Elliot!).

...I may have stayed up past midnight to finish it, but I'm not telling.

Kyoto and Moe~!

Today was quite possibly the most epic day of my life. With Moe as my guide, we visited the Genji Monogatari Museum, Kiyomizudera, went to yet another (and bigger) Studio Ghibli shop, and lost one of my favorite hats (but it’s somewhat okay—I managed to impress the police with my Japanese [of course, this didn’t stop me from using Moe as a translator]).

So, the Genji Museum is full of awesome. There’s a special exhibit going on now where there are little dolls of Genji and various other characters at various points through the Tale of Genji. This museum is located in Uji (where the final 10 chapters of Tale of Genji take place) and there’s a special part of the museum devoted to showcasing it. My absolute favorite part was the part of the museum where you got to smell the various scents used in incense for robes. I learned many new kanji and words~!

 There was also a movie theater with a movie about the Uji chapters. It was awesome. You crossed a bridge to get into the theater and they had dry ice fog drifting under the bridge. Then the movie started and, at first, it was kinda like a scary movie; this was because the river goddess of Uji was narrating it. Basically, the Uji chapters boiled down are: men are fickle creatures and you should just give them up for good. It was pretty dang awesome. I also had the benefit of listening to the translations through the use of a helpful guide-radio-thingy. It could have been better, but it also could have been worse.

The Uji River

The entrance gates

After the museum, we went to Kiyomizudera. It’s like a whole bunch of shrines and shops crammed together on the side of a mountain and is named after the biggest one on top. It was pretty darn awesome. There was a long trek up the mountain, peppered with shopping and checking out cute shops, concluding with going through Kiyomizudera itself (which is pretty darn big). It was gorgeous and what I would call quintessential Japan (for the foreign values of “quintessential Japan”). I had a great time and hope to go back again when the leaves are in color (yep, that’s right. It’s considered the middle of autumn over here, but the leaves are not changing color yet…).

Moe and I at Kiyomizudera

The quintessential view of Kiyomizudera

It was after Kiyomizudera, on the train, that I discovered that my hat had fallen out of my bag somewhere. I was pretty distraught (my hats are pretty much equivalent to my children (also my electronics, my scarves, and my button collection), but Moe helped me get to a police station where I filed a missing item report. I’m almost tempted to go back sometime this week and just search around. Both Okaasan and Moe told me that it’s close to impossible (my interpretation, not their’s) for someone to bring a hat to the lost and found at a police station, so I’m really anxious. It’s one of my favorite hats. I don’t know why I thought to bring it when I knew I was going to be taking pictures, and I would be putting it in my bag so the brim didn’t knock against the flash…

I feel like such a fool…

Yet Another Culinary Adventure

Today I had another culinary adventure—I tried a traditional Japanese breakfast food consisting of raw egg, soy sauce and rice. It was…interesting, but (as I told Okaasan), years of cultural conditioning not to eat raw eggs keeps me wary. Then, we had tea time and Okaasan showed me the ways of the tea ceremony (called sado) and how to properly mix tea. It was interesting and fun, and then we started talking about traditional Japanese sweets and wagashi (another type of sweets). I’ve done reports on this, so I know my stuff, and Okaasan was surprised.

Hannah also came over for a visit. We had tea and cakes and then we played around with monster stickers we had bought yesterday for a little bit. It was pretty fun. I also learned some new grammar to use so that I can jump up to the next level next semester.

They're a little blurry, but so cute~! Also, they're heat sensitive, so if you press them, they change color!

Okaasan and Hannah

TEA AND CAKES (also frozen pudding)