And now that I can actually get the gist of what they're saying, some of them are actually pretty downright creepy. It's not that I like the songs any less, they're just... Not quite what I thought they were. It's pretty funny.
Well, I have just been downright busy as of late!
Let's get down to business and let me tell you all about it, shall we? I may need to be a little brief; I've got some things to do still before I can go to sleep, and gosh only knows how much I want to go to sleep right now.
Thursday, after class, I was approached by a friend of mine to see about surprising my friend from Thailand for her birthday. Karaoke, cake, and rice balls made up that delightful evening. It was a good time, although it was so abrupt that I didn't manage any photos. They would likely have people in them, at any rate, so you probably wouldn't see them. I managed to sing my first two songs in Japanese completely without the crutch of the actual singer singing the song, and that's where I began to realise that some of these songs that I listen to are actually kind of creepy.
But they're still delightful.
We all left the karaoke bar at about midnight and I came home, did some homework, and promptly fell asleep.
Friday, for my Folklore class, for whatever reason, we all took a trip to a local elementary school. I'm not one much for kids, but I must admit that I did really, genuinely enjoy myself. We hung out with kids from about grades 3~6, and we all had automatic celebrity status for being foreign. We arrived early, so while we were initially only going to hang out with the sixth graders, we had recess with the 3~5th graders, and it made me realise just how much I miss recess.
Can we start having recess in college?
Anyway, some girls started talking to me when they realised that I spoke some Japanese, and we introduced ourselves and talked for a little bit before their turn to play came up.
Once recess was over and the teachers were trying to round the kids back up to go back to class, three boys came up to me, and I noticed that the two on the outside were practically dragging the one in the middle up to me.
Suddenly, with a thick Japanese accent, I heard the boy in the middle say "You... You are very beautiful!" before wriggling out of his friends'grip and bolting away into the safety of the school building, his friends not too far behind him. He was the winner of adorable for the week, if not month. I wish I had gotten time to thank him for the compliment, haha.
After recess, we went up to the sixth graders' rooms, played games, did origami, and made general small talk. I've had a bit of an aversion to origami since fifth grade, when I had to make 100 paper cranes or so for some project one of the teachers wanted to do, so as a result, I've forgotten how to do that. A really shy girl overcame her fear to help me out, so, in the end, we traded paper cranes.
Didn't get to spend too much time with the kids, though, as we had to head back pretty quickly.
After the field trip, I ran into some friends of mine back at the university, and we made plans to hang out in the evening. Stopping at the convenience store, I chanced upon some tortilla chips, plain tortilla chips, for the first time since I've been here.
So I bought two bags and planned some guacamole and chips in our evening together.
But first, I had to head back to the university and exercise. While I was on the bus and waiting to leave, the 7.2 earthquake hit the northeast part of Japan. It was still really strong by the time it got to Tokyo, and, I must admit, it had me a little nervous. But, the shocks on the bus likely just exacerbated the shaking, so it probably wasn't quite as bad as I felt it, although people were talking about how it was a lot stronger than the usual ones.
At any rate, everything is fine and life went on as usual. I met up with another friend of mine and we put in our exercise for the evening, before I returned home, showered, and got chips and dip ready for my evening with friends.
And we spent it watching Whose Line is it Anyway. Eleven episodes of it in one solid marathon, and it was so much fun.
Saturday, like I told you all I might be doing, I went back up to Aikawa/Miyagase.
It was a little late for the full effect of the changing leaves, but there was still some lingering things.
Let me upload some pictures... I'll write in-between some of them to explain where we were and what we were doing.
The first set are right off of the bus near the river.
First picture off of the bus.
Flowers still blooming! Wow!
Find the bird! I was so pleased with this.
If it were warm, I would have loved to play in it.
But it wasn't warm, so we couldn't play.
We left the are and began our walk to... Wherever it was we were going. We had left early, so it was still only almost noon by this time. The days here have gotten really short, so my friend and I had decided it would be best to leave early, which was a good decision. Along the way, we'd stop at the convenient store and get lunch, but that wasn't going to be for a while yet.
We found trees that were still changing colours.
And we really.
Really.
Liked this one.
For obvious reasons.
I wanted over in that bamboo thicket, but I couldn't make it.
My friend joked about me being a "crazy bamboo princess from a bamboo forest" and warned me that if I were doing anything strange like knocking on the bamboo, he was going to say that he didn't know me.
I can't help I like the sound it makes, haha. It's a hollow echo of some sort, and it's very lovely.
I'm a bamboo maiden, guys!
Peeking at a shrine.
This was one of two situations that I managed.
I may need to go to China for some bamboo forests.
We had our lunch by the river and headed off again. Initially, we weren't intending to go to Miyagase Dam again, but we decided to head that way since there's a lot more over that way that we hadn't seen. After eating, I had some soba noodles with tempura vegetables on top of it in a nice broth, and he and I split a piece of sweet bread, we headed back out.
Ran into this pretty lady.
Who either is very fond of the Green Bay Packers, Australia, or Brazil.
Not sure yet, but since Japan has a lot of Brazilian/Brazilian-Japanese people in it, perhaps Brazil.
This was the other bamboo area that I could find, although I still couldn't go stand in them.
Oh, Miyagase. It has been a while.
This was off on another bridge that lead off somewhere. I couldn't go in, though.
Because this little fellow was blocking me.
"It's dangerous! You can't go in here."
He's the friend to the crocodile/godzilla sign from last time.
It looked like wavy waffles to me and it was amusing.
Speaking of our dinosaur/godzilla/dragon thing.
It says the same thing.
My friend and I weren't sure if this little fellow was dead or not, really, but he was lovely.
The silvery parts were actually a little reflective.
It was really neat.
From the top of the dam.
You can still see a little bit of colour from the fall.
We were going to explore some of the dam area again, but we looked off and there was a highway that the dam connected to which we hadn't gone to yet, so we decided that it was time that we head that way.
... What?
It was about this point that he and I came across a hiking trail which we expected to be aimed at older people to look at trees or such. So, with me grabbing a hiking stick [my legs were tired from exercising the day before and I found a really nice one], we set off on the trail.
The entry.
Sure enough.
But, deciding that we may as well, he and I climbed that mountain, and several times in my poor shoes and with my legs in their weakened state, I had my life flash before my eyes.
But it was well worth it.
Although the path was obscenely narrow in some places.
View from the top.
... Bear bridge.
That's nice. Thank you.
On the way to the mountain that we climbed, we had come across what was going to be a light show by the time evening rolled around, so we headed back to where that was.
Fair treats, Japanese style.
A campfire for freezing people while we were waiting for the lights to start.
And voila!
I managed to take a couple of photos, but since my camera isn't very good with light shows, I kind of gave up after a while.
Christmas is a time for lovers around here, usually.
"Love love bridge."
Yeah, made me feel gross, too.
We had been out for nearly 12 hours, and it was all quite fun, although I was positively exhausted by the time all was said and done.
Sunday wasn't much, except for Mexican food with a friend.
Monday I cleaned, and then went to an izakaya, the Japanese traditional style food/bar places, with some friends of mine that I hadn't seen since last semester. It was a good time, but there aren't any pictures from that, either.
Yesterday I went to class, I went to work, and then I got busy with homework.
Today I went to class, and went to the gym.
I made dinner when I got home.
Took a shower.
And we're here now.
So, with all of that, I must bid you all a fond farewell.
I've got a vocabulary quiz tomorrow that I have only barely studied for.
Will catch you all later!
-RD
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