Well lets see I've had a little over a week since my last blog entry and I'll try to remember what happened. Last Friday there was a welcome party for the ryugakusei, now 2 months after we get here is hardly a "welcome party" but it was pretty fun actually. It was a big event and probably 60 or 70 people went. They had name tags for the ryugakusei, food, and group games. Some of my friends didn't go because no one told us any details about it we just saw the fliers around school. I got to talk to quite a few people and got some phone numbers from some actual otakus!
It actually was nice that it was later because my Japanese has improved and I was able to carry out some pretty decent conversations. I'm still far from fluent and even far from where I want to be with my Japanese at this point, but I can definitely have a conversation in Japanese. So we are doing a sort of group conversation and I'm standing next to one of my classmates and he sees another classmate come in and he says "oh great now someone else who can speak Japanese is here" meaning he was the only one before not me and him. I'm going to take a little break and rant about this guy.
His name is Matt Groover and he is THE example as to why homeschooling is a bad idea. Matt never went to high school he just studied for his GED and he has watched so much anime over 8 years that he only took one Japanese language class and is in the highest level at Konan (with me). In all of his classes he is constantly correcting everyone and only slightly indirectly puts everyone else's Japanese ability down. During orientation we had a book with everyone's name and face and he went through and marked how good their Japanese is compared to his. And this "I'm better then everyone" attitude extends beyond Japanese ability as he was even watching over my shoulder and trying to coach me when we were playing tetris on the DS. And to top it all off he is so sterotypical american in the way he wont try new things, even though he flew half way across the world. He will pick out parts of the food when we eat, and he keeps telling us how he tries to get his host family to do things his way, I feel really bad for them. But I'm not being the jerk to him that I think in all right I should be because 1, regardless of what I think about him I have to spend a LOT of time with him in this program so best not burn any bridges and 2, he is a good guy inside, he is willing to help anyone out and he burned me a whole bunch of dvds. He just doesn't have the social skills you need in the real world.
Anyways back to the party. There was one Japanese guy who was like "Hi I'm so and so, I'm interested in Zero Tolerance" which is like a very weird topic starter I think. Something about that bowling for columbine movie, which I don't know why on earth Japaense people would care about documentaries like that. Then there was this other guy who is really an otaku but doesn't talk to much. And he was saying he knows the haruhi dance so he and his female friend start doing it, and it was the lamest thing I've ever seen. I dunno they were barely moving and so not into it. When we got into the main room we did this game where the projector posted a question like "which is the Japanese flag A or B"(in japanese of course) and you would walk to either the left or right side of the room, then before they gave the answer they roped off the sides and whoever was wrong was eliminated from the game. Then there was a not so interesting game of align the group by longest hair, or height or things like that. They also had this weird cardboard gundam thing but for the head it was like badly sculpted like a human and it had hair. The music was so loud though it was hard to have a good conversation.
After the party a lot of people went out to drink but me, one of the Japanese guys I had been talking to, and this ryugakusei from Egypt tried to find the station in this part of town no one really knew. Its really cool to think of people from three very different countries being able to communicate like that. I talked to the guy on the train ride home and he knows a lot of English but the way they teach Japanese students English puts no focus on actual spoken skills so he just needs more practice.
Saturday their was a field trip to Kyoto for the Art History class. I'm not taking Art History but if I paid my own way I could go, I felt like doing something more then just building gundam models that day so I decided to go. It was one of those things were it was hurry wake up rush out the door then wait around while everyone go there. And apparently there is a much faster and cheaper way to get to Kyoto then the last time I went. It was like around an hour for 500 yen, really not that bad. It was on and off raining all day and it was cold. The weather made me feel miserable all day. We first went to a museum that was all about the Portuguese who came to Japan, it was a some what interesting mixture of the two art styles and products. But the giant koi in the fountain outside was much more interesting. We also got hot chocolate from the vending machine, that was really good.
Then we went to a temple that was across the street. At first I was thinking "oh great ANOTHER temple" but this one was crazy. It had over 400 Buddha statues! And they were all around 800 years old. You would just look down that hall and it would last forever. There was one GIANT Buddha, 28 (I think) gods, and 400 of some praying one. The 28 gods were incredibly well sculpted the muscles looked so freakishly real. Its a shame photos are prohibited. We then ate at this mom and pop Japanese restaurant and some of the people were thinking about getting the bento but didnt really know what was in it and they saw that the table next to us was eating it and they lady brought the thing over and showed everyone what came with it, they were so friendly. Whats interesting about that place though was the music playing in the background, it was like 50s dinner music, like regular American music. American music is everywhere in Japan.
Next we went into this really big department store/train station and saw a ikebana(flower arangement) exhibit. There were something like 200 and it was crazy the stuff they did with these things. I thought ikebana was like just putting a rose over on this side of the pot and cutting away the ugly leafs but if that was ikebana then this was the extreme sports version because there were crazy colors and shapes, oh man it was incredible. I'm kicking myself that I didn't have my camera with me, I took some on my cell phone and lots of the other ryugakusei took pictures so maybe I can get some of the best ones uploaded.
After that we were free in Kyoto, we messed around for a bit trying to find a cafe for us to all sit down, then we went to an arcade. We played taiko drum masters, aparently in this version their is the go-onja theme song. I played an older version of some gundam game, I put it on easy and was surprised how long I lasted, usually arcades here are just how fast can you put money into it. Then I played this sega shooter game where you had a target onscreen so it was like a wii game and you had a pedal so you could move left or right and all the game was was one on one fights that lasted 30 seconds. It had a cool artistic edge to it but I would have liked a full game instead. At the arcade though Erin was hilarious she played the Rambo shooter game and she was just shooting like crazy and there was this part where Rambo has to shoot an helicopter down with a bow and arrow so it shows the cut scene then shows the game with the arrow and you had to wait for the helicopter to get in range but she just fired right away, missed, but the cut scene still showed it hitting it. Then she played that game where the alligators come out and you have to hit them with the foam mallet, but she was REALLY getting into it and letting out so much frustration on these poor alligators. Oh man great.
Then we walked around the shopping area, looked at souvenirs and found not only a batman and robin (the bad movie) wallet but also models from it. Really random. Max was with us and he wanted to get some cool shoes but they didn't have his size. Its so hard to find shoes in Japan. We ended up eating at some random place, I had tempura shrimp set. Then got home pretty late.
Sunday was cold. I woke up late and started working on my history paper, I have some stuff to say about my history class. This paper was the single worst paper I have written in college, I just retold the events, I didn't make any argument, I didn't quote anything, I didn't add any analysis, I just wrote until I got 1000 words and stopped. Normally I would be really ashamed with myself but with this class I know my teacher wont care. She wouldn't give us a straight answer when people would ask questions about the report and the class itself really is just a joke. In fact aside from the linguistics class, all of the classes are jokes here. The teachers don't know how to teach however they don't know how to grade harshly either. I've really become a bad student because the class doesn't really encourage learning. In the end a credit is a credit and it is better then the opposite of having insanely hard classes, but still I worry about going back to U of A and having to be a real student again.
So after my paper was done I pretty much stayed inside all day. At some points I would want to play my DS so I would have 2 sweaters, a jacket, and be under the blanket and not want to stick my fingers our enough to press the buttons. My host family gave me a heater now but I was just really cold.
Sunday I also worked on my 1/60 scale Exia gundam model. The brand name for gundam models is Gunpla and I've developed quite the obsession with them as of late. Currently I have 1/144 virtue gundam, 1/144 gundam throne drei, 1/144 dreadnought gundam, Unit 00, 1/144 00 gundam, Gurren Laggen, and 1/100 Musha Gundam. The Musha Gundam is really awesome. Its also a "master grade" so I put a lot of time into making it, probably 15 hours or something like that. I didn't even paint that much, just a few pieces to make it look like wood. When I'm making them I really wish I was home so that I could spray paint them because I want to get more serious about building them, it really drives me crazy to see all of the little mistakes I have made on them. I'm currently working on 1/60 Exia gundam model (from gundam 00, which is awesome by the way).
1/60 is pretty big like its the size of those power ranger robots I've got. I was a little disappointed with the model at first because its like just a big "high grade" model while since its priced the same as "master grade" I thought it would be something closer to that. But even still it's taken a lot of time to put together and I still have a lot to do. Right now it just has enough of its legs built so that it can stand and it looks kind of odd. Since there are so many big spots with out anything going on I was thinking about adding more panel lines myself (the dips in the model that you ink to highlight and make it look more anime machine like) but the guides recommend using an exacto knife which if you mess up its going to show up so much. I might try just making small marks with the pen by itself and letting it dry. I am going to have to hit it up with decals though, I actually bought an extra sheet of decals made just for 00 gundam. Also I bought the 1/100 "master grade" freedom gundam from gundam seed. This one comes with a stand so it should look pretty awesome whenever I get around to making it. Oh well I said bought but actually I just redeemed my yodobashi points from my laptop and got it for free.
Oh also let my explain the gunpla titles. "first grade" is the cheapy ones for kids that cost under 500 yen then there is "high grade" which what most of them are and the 1/144 size those usually cost 800 to 1400 yen then there is "master grade"which those can very from 1600 to 10000 yen, those are 1/100, the two master grades I got were 3000 yen. Then there is "perfect grade" and those are 1/60 and range from 10000 yen to 30000 yen. Then to make it even more confusing there are some models that are either 1/100 or 1/60 but not marked as a certain grade, that I don't understand.
Monday I went out to eat with this girl I met online from an English penpal site. Shes nice but really short and can't hold a conversation that well. Also I think she likes me but its not mutual. She sent me an email "ben ha watashi no koto dou omou no?" basically "what do you think of me?" This is the first a girl has made an interest in me here in Japan, I just wish she was more my type. She is taking an English class now but its so hard to get her to speak any English. I dont get it.
Oh yeah I forgot, Monday we started a manga translation club. Its like a book club but we help each other understand the Japanese being used line by line and keep each other motivated to keep reading it. Lets hope it works out.
Tuesday we saw Iron man in the theaters here. Eigakan's are pretty expensive here but it was girls day apparently so Erin and Emily got in for 1000 and apparently if you go as a couple its cheaper for the guy too so mine was only 1200 rather then then 1500 because they thought we were a couple. Also get this movie theaters in Japan have reserved seats, crazy huh. Also they have movie merchandise booths, so you can buy stuff like a cool iron man key chain or a walle plushie right after seeing the movie. Its a great idea, I am always really psyched about movies right after seeing them.
Wednesday Japanese class was pretty awesome, Tanaka sensei has let the class dissolve into just hang out and chat in Japanese hours, which its like its not that hard anymore. Its just knowing more words so you don't have to describe around everything. At 4 we also decided to start a movie watching club so we are using someone's laptop and we have this big old projection TV, so I thought I could grab an S video cable at 100 yen shop but all they have are composite so I took the train to sannomiya and tried a few diffrent places but they either didn't have it or wanted way too much. I ended up going to donkihodi and got an s video and a sound adapter for like 1200 yen but the whole thing took like under 2 hours. I forgot the name of the movie that we watched but it was done by miyazaki's son and was much more serious then most of miyazaki's movies but still had that mystical charm. I liked it. We had a pretty good turn out too, I was surprised.
This week my host mom has been in Tokyo so I've been eating out a lot and talking a tiny bit to my host dad, he is so hard to understand. She comes back tomorrow so finally I can have good food with out having to pay a lot for it.
Ok this is one monster of a post, wow I didn't realize I had this much to say. bikkurishita! This weekend we have a field trip to kanazawa so I'll have even more to write about then. Well ok bye
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