My Heart

I'M A SLACKER, I know... I'm sorry. I'm catching up now.

So. Let's start with classes because I never write about that stuff.  

Last Friday in Toda Sensei's class I was really bored so I drew something that Anthony prompted me with.  He said draw a personified taiko drum playing a human.  I drew it in the last 15 minute of class or so.  It was quite amusing.

Today I gave a presentation on Kansai-ben (関西弁) in my reading class today.  It was really fun.  My teacher seemed really pleased with the article I chose and the discussion it sparked.  I had a great time talking about different dialects across the world.  We've got 1 Israeli, 2 Germans, 1 Swede, 3 Chinese, 3 Korean, 1 Canadian, 1 Englishman, 2 Taiwanese, and myself (the only American) in that class. It's really entertaining to get cross-cultural discussions going.  

After that, I waited 4 hours for my Manga class, only to find out that it was being held at the Kyoto International Manga Museum today.  So I raced over.  The group had been waiting and they were just about to take off on the tour when I came.  It was really cool.  That museum is freaking HUGE.  There are tons of places to just lay down and read manga for as long as you want, too.  They have an astro-turf lawn that you can go outside and lay on while you read.  It's so awesome.  They've got something like 300,000 volumes there... I think that's right. Sensei said it was 30 man satsu (30万冊).  

Sorry there aren't any photos of it.  Cameras are prohibited on the grounds. 

It was a good day.

This last weekend was pretty fun too.  Friday night Noah, Kevin, Sam, Maki, Henry, Jen and I went out in search of this Pub Sam had heard of.  He was dying for some Guinness, only to find out that it was ¥800 per glass.  He decided he would die before pay that much so we just floated around that night.  It was fun. 

Saturday we all went to Arashiyama for the bamboo forest and a house party.  Let me preface with this, Japanese do not have house parties.  It's really rare.  I think it might have something to do with the cultural norm of kids living with their families through college and the fact that you can drink pretty much anywhere you want here.  If people want to have a party, they go to an Izakaya or the river.  

That said, I got to go to a house party! When we arrived, our hosts, Hori and his younger brother, took us to the bamboo forest.  It was quite beautiful.  We hiked around for a while and took some great photos.  It was a decent sized group- not too big, not too small.  

Hori told me as a kid he used to run around that forest at night when all the couples were out, and he would chuck rocks into the trees and they would clank around and scare the crap out of the lovers. He was a mischievous child. 

I want to go back in another couple of weeks to see the Momiji (fall leaves color change).  Apparently it's quite beautiful at that time. 

There was also a shrine at the entrance to the forest.  It was dedicated to luck in finding a partner and meeting kind people.  This is the longest line I've seen for praying at a shrine. Noah was chicken to go up with a dude (something about jinxing his love life to gay-dom... which is silly because he has his girl in Tokyo), so I went up with him.  We'll see if I get blessed in my love life. 

After the forest, we made our way back to Hori's house.  When we got there, we were greeted by his mom.  She was absolutely wonderful.  I just wanted to give her a giant hug she was so sweet! 

We sat down in the living room and all of us made single-serving okonomiyaki.  Then his mom brought out some soup.  It was good.  It was almost like chicken noodle, without the noodles.  As the night went on, his mom kept bringing out this food.  By the end of the night I'd had 2 bowls of soup (the second batch had noodles), some kind of Italian cabbage dish, okonomiyaki, rice, and some kind of rice flour ball things that were yaki-ed and sweet.  It was so unbelievably good.  I miss home-made meals that I don't have to make myself.

After we were all done eating, we kanpai-ed and broke out some chu-hi.  The German, English, and Polish kids taught me some cool games.  They're not really drinking games, but they could easily become batsu-games.  We just played them for fun.  

In one of them, everyone puts their hands in a circle, but your hands can't be right next to each other (i.e. someone else's hand has to be between your right and left hands).  Then you go in a circle, slapping the ground once.  If a person (and anyone can do it at anytime) slaps their hand twice, the direction changes.  If you mess up, you lose a hand.  It's incredibly confusing and really amusing. 

It was a great night, all in all.  

Sunday was homework and rest day.  

Good weekend.  This coming weekend is Jen's birthday.  I'm not sure what we're doing just yet. She hasn't really decided, but it's looking like tabehoudai nomihoudai (食べ放題ー飲み放題）at Shakey's in Teramachi.  

I'll try to be better about posting and I apologize for this huuuge gap in time.

I'll also try and put up some photos on facebook ASAP. 

Love until later,

Caitlin D.