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davidinosaka-blog · 8 years

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March 15

Hi again! I’m taking a bit more time between posts now, so I’ll try my best to keep the quality up. I’m going back about a month ago, starting bright and early at morning track practice. This was my first one because no one told me there were morning practices before then, but everyone came on that first day to say goodbye to the students leaving for foreign exchange. Every year, one sophomore age homeroom goes on a year long exchange to Canada. That’s the same program that my current host brother, Ryosuke, came home from in January. In track club, there was only one person going: a really outgoing girl named Ami. After morning practice, we took a last team photo with her, then went on to our normal day. The whole program is amazing to me; each homeroom has about 40 students in it, and for the most part each student goes to a different school in Canada, which is so many! The teacher in charge of making sure all of the students get to their school alright is Mr. Okada, who normally translates for our Japanese history class. Since he was gone on Wednesday, Mr. Mizou showed us some old Japanese artwork. It was strange at first, because he showed us paintings of hell and diseases, but it kind of fit with our topic that religion was very important? I’m not quite sure how it was related, but he also showed us the first Japanese manga, which depicted samurai as rabbits and commoners as frogs, and had them doing sumo, riding horses, and wearing kimonos. Again, not sure how it was related to class, but it was funny. The next day in our home economics class, we made hamburgers and apple pie, which felt pretty American, but then in our next class our teacher made my classmates and I clean our room by hand, which felt veeery foreign, cuz I don’t like cleaning so much. It wasn’t actually that bad, and we messed around a lot as we were working. My teacher also explained to me that it’s a sort of good luck thing, to clean your room yourself towards the end of the school year. My last class that day was PE, which we used to have with the class that went to Canada, but since they left, my host brother and his homeroom joined us. It was especially fun because they all speak almost fluent English, so they would yell and curse at each other as loud as they wanted and no one else understood. The next day my host mom packed me a pretty awesome lunchbox, but in particular she packed green beans. I have those a lot in the US, but I hadn’t had them since coming to Japan, so I kind of felt a bit homesick. Who would’ve thought I would miss something as small as that? After lunch we had volleyball, which I really like, but that day in particular was awesome. All we did were matches, and in our second one I served the first 15 points straight! My team was really hype about it, and eventually the coach came over and joined the other team to help them out. In general it was an awesome day, and a huge confidence booster for the class. After dinner at home, we celebrated a festival called Setsubun, which is supposed to keep out the bad spirits from your home. The way to celebrate it, though, is to have someone wear a mask and try to come inside while being pelted with soybeans. We all took turns, and it was really fun! The next night, Saturday, we had a welcome home party for Ryosuke and his classmates at home, and it was great! Like I said earlier, everyone knew English, and they knew a lot about American and Canadian culture, like twerking and rap songs. A few people brought cameras and took candids the whole night, which was really funny. The next week I went to monday morning, and I realized that the first time with Ami was exceptionally well attended, because at this practice I was one of only three people to show up. We did our thing, though, and it was easier to talk when there were less people around. On Tuesday and Wednesday both, I spent a lot of time after practice hanging around and talking to people. Once it was with the sprinters, and they were all super excited about speaking English to me and singing American songs. The other day I talked with the distance team about the summer trip to Okinawa, and they told me a bunch of different foods to try while I’m there. They’re going to England and Canada instead for a month to work on their English, so we also talked about the differences between American and British English. But the next day, Thursday, was my favorite day since coming to Japan. We had a half day, and after school one of my friends from math invited me to go and grab lunch with him and two girls. My host mom gave me the thumbs up, so we went and ate in Tennoji, the big station near the school, then saw Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. It was really fun, and it was really easy to talk about this and that. After the movie I went straight to my violin lesson, where we worked on vibrato for the first time. Then after the lesson, I went out to dinner with my teacher, his wife, and my host sister at a grilled beef place. I took more time to eat than everyone else since I ate more, so everyone else just drank for the last bit of the meal. Then we went on to another restaurant, this time Italian, for salads. Everyone else said they were too full to eat very much, though, so again, I ate while everyone else drank. My teacher and my host sister both got pretty tipsy. My teacher, Mr. Matsuda, alternated between roasting Korea and complimenting Azumi and me on our instruments. My host sister didn’t do anything as dramatic as that, but she nodded off on the train and was hiccupping a little. It was a really fun way to end an awesome day. The next day was a holiday, so Ryosuke and I played each other in Super Smash Bros on the Wii, then he went to his soccer practice and I went to check out Kyuhoji park. I wanted to find a track, or at least some kind of lockers to put things in while I run, but there weren’t any. It was still a fun trip out to the park. I had only been once before, with my first host brother Kenta, so I got to explore more this time. The next day I went back to the Terakawa family to stay the night. I went on Saturday morning, and was picked up at Yao station by my host dad, Yu and Rina. The car ride back was fun, seeing the same neighborhood where I used to live, and talking with Yu and my host dad was nice. I realized how much my language skills had improved compared to the last time we had seen each other, so we were able to talk more than when we lived together. Once we got home, I met my host mom again, and we talked about how the Tsuchida family is to me. I sort of knew that we would talk about it, since it was a big change for both of us, but I hadn’t really thought of how it would feel to talk with my first host mom about how well I was doing with my second host family. While my host mom worked on lunch, (quesadillas!) Yu, Rina, and I kicked and threw some balloons around the living room, just like when I lived with them. Kenta’s friend came over again, as well as a family friend of the Terakawa’s, who I met on my first weekend. We met up together at Tennoji, ate lunch together, and went to get my commuter pass. His English is very good, and we talked about how I’d been doing since I arrived. The last time we had seen each other, I hadn’t been able to make a complete sentence in Japanese, so he was really interested in how much I had learned. We had a good time together until the late afternoon, then everyone who came for lunch went on home. We had some down time after that, and it really didn’t feel any different from when I lived there. We just sat around in the living room, watching Rina’s cartoons and talking during commercials. My host mom needed something from the convenience store for dinner, so Yu and I walked a few blocks over to buy it. When we walked out the front door, though, Rina started crying and throwing a fit that we could here through the open window. Yu just looked at me and gave me one of those “She’s three and I have to put up with this 24/7” looks, and we went and did our thing. When we came back home, though, my host mom told me that Rina had been crying because she thought I wasn’t coming back. I hadn’t thought of that, and I went through a lot of feelings and thoughts, like did she cry that much when I moved? It was a strange feeling, but she was fine when I came home, so we all put it out of our minds. Dinner was okonomiyaki, the cabbage and bacon pancake-ish dish. After that, we all took our baths and showers, then it was time for bed for Rina. She and my host mom went back to their room, but a few minutes later they were back, and my host mom said Rina wanted to stay up until I went to bed. It was pretty early, but I didn’t want to argue, so we went back and had an early night. The next morning nothing special happened. I had the same breakfast as I used to on normal school days, then the Terakawa’s drove me back to the Tsuchida’s house. The goodbye wasn’t bad at all, in terms of emotions, so I think that was a little bit of closure after the whole email thing. Then school on Monday was back to normal. After classes, my host family took me to go see a saxophone concert. The group was half Japanese college students and half Taiwanese college students, and Shinji, my host sister’s boyfriend, was one of the principal players. It was a great performance, and once it finished I found out that was the first time they had played together. Before they had been practicing separately, in Taiwan and Japan, but from the performance I never would have thought it. The next day was Valentine’s Day, which is very different from in the USA. In Japan on Valentine’s Day, only girls give chocolates. There’s a separate holiday called White Day that happens a month later when guys give gifts back to the girls they received chocolate from. I actually didn’t get very many from my homeroom, but when I went to my math class, almost everyone had something small to give to me. I was a little worried about White Day and remembering who I needed to give gifts to, but White Day falls during Spring Break, so I don’t think there’ll be much pressure to get chocolates to everyone. After school I checked Instagram, and I saw that track was starting up in Austin! Time really is flying by. I’ve realized now that once school starts up after break, I’ll only be in Japan for three more months. It seems crazy to me that I’m already that close to heading home, and even crazier to think that I’ve been in Japan for almost 7 months already. Anyway. Back to the story of my life. I had a really good day on the day after Valentine’s Day. First, as a disclaimer, I 100% meant to go to track practice. Was not planning on skipping. But, you know, life happens. We had an assignment in homeroom to create a poster about a college you want to go to, then choose which poster we thought was the best put-together. It was due Thursday morning, and the posters were in the classroom, so I had planned on scanning through them and filling out my ballot before going down to practice. It took me a while to read the posters, though, but my homeroom talked me through what the tougher ones said, and gradually our conversation kind of drifted away from school. I ended up completely missing practice, and talking with my homeroom until 6:30 when the building starts closing for the night. It was awesome to spend time outside of class with my friends, and I met a bunch of new people, too. The next morning, Bain and I were supposed to join a Skype call with Bain’s school back home and all the students interested in coming to Japan next year, but when we joined, there were no students. No one had applied to come. We talked with the head of the program at Bain’s school, and with a Japanese teacher about keeping up Japanese once we come home. In PE, we were wrapping up the school year, so we ran the 1500. My host brother, Ryosuke, and one of my friends from math, Takeo, had been talking trash to me and saying they were going to beat me, so we had a pretty serious race. I want to give a shoutout to Coach Carrozza, because I whooped ‘em. It was actually pretty slow, and I actually didn’t win by that much, but still. I just wanted to give a shoutout to Coach. The next day, Friday, we had our last volleyball and guitar classes, so we played matches and had a playing test, respectively. Both were really fun, and it was a little sad, because I don’t know if I’ll have the classes again next year, or if I’ll see my classmates again. On Saturday, Shinji and Goro both came over, and we played a giant game of UNO and another playing card game. We had a lot of fun, even though I got completely run over in both games. I also went and got my haircut again, which normally wouldn’t be big news, but again, I’m in Japan, so everything is big news. In particular, I went to the same barbershop as last time, which hasn’t happened until now. I even had the same barber! The next week at school was the last one before finals started, so classes were for the most part laid back. In music we watched these home video type movies, and our teacher played different soundtracks over it to show how music changed the feeling of a movie. Then he showed a different movie, that he explained as his recreation of the Terminator movies. It was very funny, in particular to see his personality outside of class. Our last judo class was as lit as always. I had to finish up the required number of matches, so I had to do 5 in the class period. The guys that I had talked with last time about nicknames cheered me on during my matches, and chanted USA pretty loudly whenever I did something good. It was a great way to go out, if a little embarrassing. I went running on my own after school that day, and the area at Nagai park in front of the stadium was packed with college aged guys doing skateboard and BMX bike tricks. They were blasting American rap music over speakers while they were at it, and it was really cool to watch while I warmed up. I’ve seen some small groups of friends messing around before, but it looked like a coordinated event this time. The next few days were pretty slow and relaxed before exams, but on Thursday when I was at Nagai, I ran into some guys throwing a frisbee while I was cooling down, and they let me join and throw with them for a little while. It was pretty cool; we met on the street, did our thing for 10 minutes or so, then said goodbye and went our separate ways. Friday and Saturday’s exams went well; I have my Saturday math exam back and I aced it! Once my exam finished on Saturday, my host mom, Goro, my host grandmother, and I went to the plum gardens at Osaka Castle. I was kind of dazed after my exam, so I wasn’t listening to the conversation in the car as we were driving, but at a stoplight, my host grandmother tapped me on the soldier and asked me how people in America are buried after they die. I was really confused and it showed, and Goro explained that they had been talking about if a zombie apocalypse could happen in Japan. He told me that in Japan most people are cremated after they die, so there aren’t any bodies to become zombies, and my host grandmother had been wondering if it was more likely to happen in America. I told them what I could, and we kept talking about it until we got to the castle. The plum blossoms were beautiful, and I got to take lots of pictures. The garden was very spacious, and lots of people were walking around just enjoying the view. The rest of exam week went by pretty uneventfully. I also got back my Japanese and Physics exams, 97% and 95%, and on Sunday Bain, Takeo, and I went to Nagai to throw a frisbee around and avoid studying. It was really fun, and it was a really cool place right in front of the stadium. We accidentally got the frisbee caught in a tree twice, and once threw it over a security fence, but we got it back every time. On Friday I went to Namba, the big downtown area, with Takeo and Isoyama, who are both in my math and home economics classes, and with Bain. We went sort of window shopping in the morning and walked down the big streets, then went to the best restaurant ever. It was a pizza, pasta, and curry all-you-can-eat for $7, with no time limit. Best. Deal. Ever. All four of us went back for thirds, and we might have had more if we hadn’t been planning on going to Round One. It’s an entertainment place, with games like an arcade, and three floors of indoor sport courts. We played tennis, volleyball, badminton, basketball, and even went rollerblading. There was also archery, segway lessons, and ping-pong, but we ran out of time before we could try it all out. It was awesome, but the closest one to the school is four subway stops away, so it’s a little inconvenient to get to, but I’m definitely going to try to go back again with friends. Now it’s getting into spring break, so the days are kind of disconnected. One day, we went to see another one of Shinji’s concerts. This one was special too, because all of the pieces were written by one British conductor named Philip Sparke, who came to Japan to conduct the concert. It was very interesting to hear so many pieces from one man’s mind, because you could kind of see how he viewed the world through it. For example, the last piece was called Symphony of Colors, or something along those lines. There were five pieces named after five different colors, and each one had its own personality attached to it. There were also several non-traditional instruments throughout the whole performance. I also noticed some of the cultural differences between Mr. Sparke’s conducting and what the performers were expecting. After each movement, the conductor pointed out the people who had a strong presence in the movement and had them bow, alone. At first, none of the Japanese performers were expecting it, and there was a bit of confusion about what was going on. By the end of the night everything was flawless, but the way Mr. Sparke left the stage was really surprising. He made a big show of saying thank you and bowing, then left the stage with everyone standing. He came back out a few seconds later, holding up the number one and mouthing “One more?” Then, in the middle of the last piece, he stopped conducting, walked around looking over the principal player’s shoulder at his music, then sitting in an empty chair in the percussion section. The song ended and the audience started applauding, and he just stood up, waved once, and stepped off stage to let the performers take the attention. I had a really fun time watching it. The next day, my host family woke up early to go spend the day driving around. Our first stop was an all-you-can-eat strawberry farm. It was amazing. We could walk around the greenhouses, pick whichever strawberries we wanted, and take as much time as we wanted. After that we went to this river in the next prefecture. It’s pretty famous because the riverbanks are over a hot spring, so if you dig out a hole, it’ll fill with clean, hot water. We tried to dig our own, but the process was taking a long time, so we used one that was already made. It was really cool, and we messed around skipping rocks and crossing the river to get to other springs. A few days later as I was about to head home from Nagai, I met these three guys who were finishing up their own workout. One of them, Kaoru, speaks really good English, and he and I talked for a little about this and that. We followed each other on Instagram, and since then we’ve met up once to workout, and Kaoru wants to go to a Gold’s Gym with me, then go get Mexican food. Honestly sounds pretty fun, but I’ve only met him twice, so I’m not sure if it’ll happen. On Wednesday, we had our last half-day of classes, and now we’re in a month long spring break! To sort of kick off the break, Ryosuke took me to a bathhouse in our neighborhood that has a “denki-furo,” which literally means “electric bath.” I was very skeptical about it, mostly because it has “electric” in the name, but Ryosuke sort of peer-pressured me into it. It was weeeeiiird. Like, it didn’t really hurt, but I could definitely feel the charge in my muscles. We both chickened out after, like, 2 minutes, then went back to the normal baths, but hey! I tried it. The next day I had track practice at Nagai Track for the third time ever, and it went really well! This was the first time I had on spikes all year, and it felt pretty good. My first time ever at Nagai was really bad; I came dead last in an 800 meter time trial and was almost in tears most of the way home. This time, though, was the exact opposite: I was either second or third for every interval, and coming home I had that one line from Bounce Back stuck in my head. The next day I went with Azumi to go see Moana in Umeda. It was opening day in Japan, and I had been seeing ads for it all over, and it was really good! After the movie we had dinner, then Azumi showed me some places where she thought I could get good pictures. On the 13th, I went to Universal Studios Japan! I had made plans with Misaki and Hana, who both went to Canada a few years ago and helped me get adjusted to Japan, and with Harada, one of my friends in my homeroom class. We met up before the gates opened and stayed all day, almost until the gates closed. We rode some of the big rides, but the lines were so long we couldn’t really do them all. While we walked and waited, though, we talked a lot! Communication wasn’t that hard, either, but by the end of the day I was pretty fried. It was an incredible experience! And finally, yesterday we went to hear Azumi’s graduation piece. She had been practicing the same piece since I moved here in December, and yesterday she finally performed it! It went really well, and tomorrow she’ll leave to go to New Caledonia as a graduation trip. One of my host mom’s piano students came with us to Azumi’s recital. I don’t know his actual name, but he told me to call him Boss. My host mom told me that when he was in his 20’s he was really cool and hot, but now he’s in his early forties, and even though he’s not what he once was, he still is called Boss by his friends. He was really cool, funny, and very easy to talk to. Aaaand that’s a wrap! I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written, and I’ll try to stay on top of it from now on. Love y’all!

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davidinosaka-blog · 8 years

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Hi everyone! I’m sorry it’s been so long since I last posted, but I’ve been really busy with the semester wrapping up. Once exam week is over, I’ll sit down and write out a post!

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davidinosaka-blog · 8 years

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January 28

Hi everyone! I haven't written in a while, so this will be a pretty long post. I haven't written since Christmas Day, when my family was here and we were traveling around together. So much happened during that trip, there's no way I could cover it all. So I want to go ahead and focus on what's happened since my family left, because there's so much to tell! I'm going way back to January 29, when I took the 8:00am Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka. I was in a bit of a rush getting packed and ready to leave that morning, but we made it to the station at around 7:40, which we thought would give me plenty of time to get on my train. It would have been, except that the days leading up to the New Year are the busiest traveling days all year. I was starting to freak out a little, because I didn't know what platform I needed to go to, and every station attendant I saw was already surrounded by other travelers. I checked the time when I had 8 minutes until the train pulled out, freaked out a little, and started pushing my way towards a station employee. It all turned out fine, but I hadn't even been on the train a full minute when the doors closed and we started moving. After I got home, I got to take it slow and relax, and I met two of my host mom's former piano students when they came over with their newborns to catch up with my host mom. I had no idea that my host mom kept in touch with her former students, but when I asked her about them she said she still communicates with lots of them, and that in some families, she's taught two or three generations over the years. After we all finished visiting, my host sister, Azumi, took me to get my haircut. This was my third haircut since leaving Austin, and just like the first two I was terrified that my hair would get massacred. It went very well, though, because this time I was able to talk with my barber as he worked and tell him what I wanted. He asked lots of questions about barbershops in America, and asked me what each tool was in English as he used it. As we were wrapping up, he asked me which college I was studying at in Osaka, and I had to explain to him that I was only a sophomore in high school. He had been under the impression that I was much older than I am, which I'm still not used to, but he laughed about it and had me guess how old he was. Hopefully I'll be able to go back to the same place next time, but you never know. The next day, my host mom prepared a sort of yogurt, but it was very different from what I had been expecting. She added in every fruit she could find at the store: apple, strawberry, mango, banana, papaya, coconut, kiwi, and aloe, which I had no idea you could eat. Since then, there's always been some in the refrigerator to snack on. The next day, New Year's Eve, my host family (minus my host brother, who was still in Canada) and I all went to a traditional Japanese hotel in Mie, a prefecture close to Osaka. The hotel was built on top of several hot springs, which I had never used before, and it was where I got my feet wet (PUNPUNPUNPUN). It was actually a lot less uncomfortable than I had thought it would be, and my host mom's boyfriend, Goro, and I were able to relax in the baths for half an hour or so without feeling too strange. After we got out and dried off, we had a little down time and then went to dinner, which was a traditional Japanese feast. There were courses on courses on courses, with lots of food that I never knew existed. In particular there was a very expensive shellfish that was sort of hard when raw, but when it was cooked it was some of the best food I've eaten in Japan. Throughout the meal there was entertainment provided by a man performing traditional Japanese dances and a sushi chef who prepared an entire fish in less than a minute. The chef was very impressive, but the fish's tail was still twitching in the middle of the dish, which sort of threw me off of sushi for the rest of the night. The dances were very well performed, and I later found out that the dancer was actually just my age;he just looked much older. Once I learned that, I was even more impressed by his performance. The next morning, New Year's Day, we all soaked in the baths one more time, then stopped at a temple to pray for good luck on the way home. The temple seemed very different from when my family and I were touring because instead of a tourist site, it was the center of the community and the celebration for the coming year. There were families having picnics inside the walls, there were barbecues going on all over, and people were pouring in to wish each other a happy new year and to pray. The next day, January 2nd, my grandmother came to visit! We met up explored Tokyo, then I went back to school for a few days while she saw the sights in Kyoto. On the 8th, Azumi had a piano performance in a hotel lobby with an all-you-can-eat cake buffet, so my host mom and I decided to go check it out. All in all, it was a very fun experience, and I got to hear Azumi perform for the first time. She was very good, and her personality was much more professional while playing than while rehearsing and relaxing at home. On the way home in Goro's minivan, we jammed out to some American pop songs, which transitioned into Michael Jackson, which transitioned into Elvis Presley. I thought it was hilarious, because everyone was singing “You Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog” as we were driving through neon signs and traffic. Maybe I was just in a happy mood, but I thought it was really fun. The next night, Goro took me and my host mom to see a performance at Osaka Castle, and it wasn't like anything I'd been to before. The actors were all on a stage in front of us, and images were projected onto the walls of the castle behind them as the story progressed. I didn't understand what the actors said, but the story was easy to follow, and the setup was incredible! When my grandmother came back to Osaka after Kyoto, we went to see it again, and it was just as good as the first time. On the 10th, I went to school from the Tsuchida's home for the first time, and it was surprisingly easy. There's only one turn, and it's at a dead end, so I don't think there's a way I could get lost on my way. School itself was pretty fun, and we jumped straight into some new grammar and vocab in Japanese class. On Thursday, Bain and I went to the middle school attached to Momoyama, our high school, and made calligraphy and mochi with the middle school students. It was interesting being around younger students, because they spoke to us the same way they spoke to the teachers, as opposed to other students. The next day I went on a field trip with Bain, Mr. Shuto, who's my homeroom teacher, and with three other students to go look at ancient pottery. The trip was incredible from the start, because instead of going to a museum, we went to the government office where newly uncovered pieces are sent to for cleaning and categorization. We got a behind the scenes tour of how the entire process works, and were allowed to touch and hold pieces of pottery more than a thousand years old. We ended with a project similar to a rubbing; we used little sacks of ink to copy the patterns from small pieces onto paper. It was awe inspiring to recognize just how much history Japan has, and how lucky I am to experience it. After we came back to school, Bain and I had to watch a biking safety video since we both commute by bike now. I had been expecting a video like Red Asphalt from driver's ed, but instead it was set up like a drama, with flashbacks and cliffhangers. After that we went to our homeroom classes to present about our field trip experience. Because I'm the last student in my class by alphabet, I was the last one to present, but this time I was much more comfortable leading up to my turn speaking than before. I think that taking a break from foreign exchange and taking time to be a tourist recharged me, and since my family left, I've been much more outgoing than before they came. The next day, my grandmother came over to my host family's house, and we made a huge sushi lunch before dropping her off at the airport. Even though all of the food was just from a normal supermarket down the road, my grandmother thought the taste was better than at Uchi, one of the only sushi restaurants in Austin. The next week, in my Tuesday math class, I started making friends with some of the guys in my Japanese math class, especially a guy named Takeo. He's only spoken with me in English, which is very impressive for a student here who hasn't gone to study abroad. He's applying to come to either St. Stephen's or St. Andrew's in Mississippi next year, and I think it'd be really cool if he came. I think that the school is actually nearing a decision now, because I heard the pool of prospective students is down to 5 or 6. I'm very excited to find out, too, because they'll be the student I host in Austin next year. In our Thursday home economics class, we all presented a children's book we had written. We split into small groups of 5, and out of each group chose one person to present. I was chosen for our group, so I had to read my (very basic) Japanese to my class, but everyone thought it was a good book topic, so we all had a good time. At the end of the period everyone voted for which book they thought was the best out of the ones that were presented, and I came in second! After lunch we did school photos for our student ID cards, which was very fun. Everybody was joking around in line. It was really fun, and when I joked about being a model part time in the US, my homeroom believed me, and I had to explain that no, I'm not actually a model, which I never thought I would have to clarify. After school I went straight to my first violin lesson with my host sister and her teacher. It was something. The teaching method was very different from in the US; my teacher, Mr. Matsuda, physically corrected my form as I was playing, and had me work on all of the very basic aspects of playing. Overall, the lesson went very well, and my teacher wants me to pay him by helping him improve his English during our lessons. I'm really looking forward to working with him again, and I think that I'll be able to improve quite a lot here. On Sunday night, Ryosuke came home from Canada! Before going out to the airport, I met one of his best friends, and we went out to the airport with him. It was a very festive atmosphere, because 40 students were coming home from their year abroad, and everyone's family had come out to meet them. I was given a Japanese flag and a “Welcome Home” banner to hold, which I thought was pretty cool, until I saw another group of students throwing their friend in the air for celebration. When Ryosuke came out and saw his family, he ran up his mom, ducked past her, and hugged Azumi first, then eventually went back to his mom. It was a really lighthearted way of greeting his family. After he and I met, he had to go and take a big welcome home photo, and as he was taking it he joked to me about his double chin, since he had gained 10 kilograms, or about 20 pounds, while he was gone. During the car ride home he and I talked a lot, and in general joked around about Canada and his family's English skills. Everyone was poking fun at him too, for gaining so much weight while he was gone. When his grandmother saw him, the first thing she said was “You got fat, didn't you?” Poor Ryosuke. Roasted by his own grandmother. On Monday we threw his big welcome home party with his soccer teammates, which was crazy fun. Everyone came up to me and introduced themselves, then told me bad jokes in English about each other. It was really cool, and since then I've seen lots of the soccer team around school, and they call out and wave to me when they see me. The next day we went to go eat blowfish, which Ryosuke said he missed a lot, and then to go to Spa World, a huge hot spring type place in Tennoji. It was really cool, and it seems like a sick place to hang out. On a weekday, a full day pass is only about $10. The baths themselves were really cool. There were two that stood out in particular: one that was filled with carbonated water that bubbled on your skin, and one that was just filled with sake, Japanese wine. It was pretty awesome. On Thursday in track and field, we said goodbye to the students on the team that would go to study abroad next year, and I felt really at home with the team for the first time. I'm still not sure if I want to stay in the club, though. I really do like the people, but the workouts don't appeal to me, to the point where I consider skipping more often than not. My feeling is that since I don't love it, I might as well try something new for the second half of my time here, but if I do that, I won't be able to compete, which I think would be very fun to do here. That's a problem for me to figure out myself, though. That's all for now! I love you all!

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davidinosaka-blog · 8 years

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Christmas Day!

Happy Holidays to everyone from Japan! My family arrived 10 days ago, and we’ve been travelling all over the country. It’s been a whole lot of fun, but before I get to the fun stuff I have some things from the end of the school semester. In our last Judo class of the term, we did sparring matches for the entire class period. At first all I did was watch, since everyone else was a lot more enthusiastic about trying to beat their friends. Eventually I was paired up with my normal partner, who’s the class clown. He got me down first, which sort of threw me for a loop since he’d never done it before. We kept going, and I ended up flipping him, so we ended with a draw. I was very happy with it because I didn’t think I was able to come back from behind. The class kept going, and next I was paired with one of the sprinters from the track and field club, who I’d never met or worked with. I had a spectacularly bad match; he flipped and pinned me three times in a row, and I wasn’t able to touch him. When we sat back down, I almost started crying because the entire class had been watching, and I had embarrassed myself. I sort of drew back into myself for the rest of the class, because I was worried I would hear someone talking about the match I lost. Instead, after the class finished, a bunch of people came up to me and congratulated me for flipping my normal partner in my first match. It was an incredibly touching moment for me. I had been worried, without any reasonable cause, that my class was only going to remember the match that I lost, but instead they completely focused on my highlights, and actively tried to cheer me up when they saw I was down. Next, I want to talk about moving host families. Everyone in my house had known it was coming since I had moved in, but it was still fraught with emotions. My host mom in particular was having a tough time coping with it as the day drew closer. She had at first offered to host me for the entire year instead of moving to the next family, but when it turned out I couldn’t, she started pushing very hard for me to move back in with them for my third term. She had really taken me in as one of her own children, buying me clothes and gifts that I hadn’t asked for but that she thought I needed, and point blank refusing for me to pay for anything when they were around. On moving day itself, we didn’t have any plans until 2 in the afternoon, when we needed to be at school for me to meet up with my next host family. That morning, I picked up all of my clothes from where they were drying and finished up my packing. Then, with hours of free time and no homework, I just played with Rina all the way until lunch, and then some more after I finished eating. I don’t think she really understood that I was leaving, or if she did, she was talking it very well. Looking back on it, I don’t think she knew. Since I’ve moved, my first host mom, Momo, has sent me an email or two every day, and she’s mentioned that the house is quieter with me gone, that Rina is crying and trying to play our games by herself, that Yu hasn’t been as outgoing as when I was there, that before going to sleep every night, Rina listens to a voicemail I left when I missed my train. It’s been very difficult for me to move on with those sort of daily reminders that my leaving hurt some people. I’ve talked about it with my family and with Bain, and they’ve been very supportive and understanding of the situation I’m in. Recently, the emails have stopped, and at dinner on Christmas Eve with Bain’s family, his homestay families, my homestay families, and my own family, I sort of got some closure with the Terakawa family. My family had brought personalized gifts for everyone to show their gratitude for taking wonderful care of me, and with fairly light conversation throughout the evening, I think that we left each other on a good note last night. I have plans to stay with them in February on Rina’s birthday, which for everyone’s sake I hope goes well. On a much happier topic, my new host family is amazing!! My host brother, Ryosuke, is doing his own foreign exchange program in Canada, but we skyped with him once and he looks like he will be an awesome guy to live with! He’s very outgoing, and his english is perfect, so hopefully we’ll be close! Azumi, my host sister, is an amazing pianist and really friendly. She helps my host mom, Keiko, teach piano from their home. Keiko is one of the most energetic and outgoing people I’ve ever met, which has already helped me to feel comfortable in their home, and use more and more Japanese with them. She’s not married, but she has been dating a guy named Goro for the past 17 years. She hasn’t explained why they haven’t married yet, but she told me that once Ryosuke graduates, they will. I’ve only met him once, but he too was very friendly, and from the pictures of him that Keiko showed me, he’s going to be a really cool guy. My host grandmother lives two houses down and spends the evenings at our house, so we’ve been able to talk a lot. Her voice is kind of hard to understand, but she has a really funny sense of humor, and in three days she taught me how to make two Japanese dishes, so I think we’ll get along very well. After my second dinner with everyone, Azumi and Keiko gave a sort of impromptu concert for me, and Azumi sight-read the American national anthem perfectly. They are a very musically talented family, and we’re going to try to do a concert together some day where I’ll play the violin, Azumi will play the drums, Keiko will play the piano, and Ryosuke will play the guitar. The next day I went on a trip with Bain and two teachers to the Ise shrine, which is one of the most important Shinto shrines in Japan. The thing that struck me the most about the complex was the unshakable faith that the god enshrined at Ise held a physical form behind the locked doors of the sanctuary. No one, not even the highest priest, is allowed in except for once every twenty years. They transport the god in a portable shrine while the main complex undergoes restoration. It really struck me that everyone was so confident in their faith that they were never tempted to try and look beyond the gate. When I came back home from the shrine, I met lots of Keiko and Azumi’s piano students. Most of them are studying a little bit of English, so Keiko joked about assigning them extra homework so they can talk to me before or after their lessons. That’s how my last little bit of school before my family came went! Since I’ve been busy travelling and catching up with my family here, I haven’t been very diligent about making notes for another journal entry about our trip here, but I will try to get some pictures up of the highlights once we finish! Love and miss you all! Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

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davidinosaka-blog · 8 years

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This is the Terakawa family, who have been so kind to me and have supported me while I am getting used to Japan and being away from my own family! My host grandfather and my oldest host brother, Kenta, aren’t in this picture, but they’ve been wonderful as well!

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davidinosaka-blog · 8 years

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November 27

Happy (late) Thanksgiving! Time is flying by right now. There’s just one week left until our next round of exams and two until I change host families! I’m getting a little apprehensive about the move since I’ve become so used to the Terakawa family and it’s bound to be a big adjustment. Right now I have a 3 year old host sister who I play with whenever I don’t have homework, and my host brother is in my grade and one of my classes. In my next host family, my host brother is going to be 17, and my host sister will be 22, so it’ll be quite the move! To get into my journalling, I want to talk about my club, track and field. I love the sport itself, and I’m making friends with a lot of the other students in it, but I’m not loving the way that the club is run (get it? Run? Cuz it’s track? Man, I never thought I would miss terrible puns, but here I am). To start, the coaches don’t make up the workouts, the juniors do. Because of that, the junior in charge of the middle and long distance runners tends to have everyone train for his event, which is the 10,000 meters. So when I run with them, I don’t get any speed training. Because of that, I’m starting to switch back and forth between the sprinting and distance groups so I can get speed training as well as endurance training. I’m pretty sure that nobody else switches between the groups, so I stand out a bit more than normal now, which is saying something, but I don’t mind that much anymore. This way I train smarter, and I get to meet the sprinters, who are all pretty chill. Aight. Now, actually journalling. The Thursday before last was a really fun day because we did our skill test in PE for handball, which means that for the rest of the term we can just play games. Bain and I also picked up an extra music class so that we can learn our instruments better. It’s really fun; a different teacher leads that class, and he only talks to us in Japanese. It’s good practice, and it kind of boosts my mood because we can understand most of what he says to us and we can reply pretty easily. The next day we started our skill tests in volleyball, which is a lot harder for me than handball, but also really fun! We get to play matches while certain groups do their tests, so I’m getting a lot of practice, and I can interact with my teammates. It’s interesting to see the sportsmanship here. In handball, we bow to each other before and after the game, and it’s the same in judo. In volleyball we don’t, but people cheer on their own teammates a lot. They also cheer for the other team if they make a mistake, which seems unusual to me given how polite other sports are. And in track, we encourage each other as we run, but after we finish a hard effort, nobody high fives or butt taps or even really congratulates each other until the very end of the workout, when we bow and say what translates to “Good effort, we’re finished.” That same day I hit a milestone in music when I played through our piece without missing a note. Saturday was really exciting! We had an earthquake during our physics class. First off, I am 100% okay and I wasn’t ever in danger, so don’t worry. The epicenter was in Wakayama, the prefecture to the south of Osaka, so we only felt a fraction of it. Since we were on the fifth floor when it happened, we did feel some swaying and shaking, but we could see people walking in the street that didn’t even break stride, so they didn’t even notice. That was the first earthquake that Bain and I had ever felt, so we sort of took that class as a break and talked with our teacher about the natural disasters in Japan as opposed to the southern US. After school, I got my second haircut, which was definitely as scary as the first because this time the barber asked me to tell them how short to cut it in Japanese. It ended up better than the first time in my opinion, which I am incredibly grateful for. Then before dinner that night, my host mom taught me how to make tamagoyaki, which is just a Japanese way of cooking an egg. It wasn’t all that hard, and she taught me how to do it with chopsticks, which I am very proud of. On Sunday we went on a family trip to Kyoto to see the red maple leaves and a few temples. It was very cool, and I got to take lots of pictures! The first place we went to was a huge temple made entirely out of wood, and the second was the oldest Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto. It was amazing! We saw lots of original artwork, and I saw a stone garden for the first time. It was really fun, and for dinner that night, we went to an all-you-can-eat meat restaurant. We ate all we could, and I had two salads with it, so I felt justified in eating so much. It felt like a very American restaurant, and I was reminded of the Melting Pot in Austin, if all it served was red meat. On Monday we watched the beginning of Terminal, the Tom Hanks movie about him being stuck in an airport and learning English, and we started doing sparring in judo class. I’m not doing terribly, which is as much as I could ask for, and the feeling of my group is almost festive when it’s our turn to rest and watch the other groups. Tuesday had some of the funniest moments so far in Japan, because we started to learn about what different parts of kanji mean. For instance, the kanji for teaching and religion is the same. The left part means children, which makes sense, and the right part means to beat/whip. You might think, “Wait… Is that legal?” We asked Miki sensei if it was, and she said that it definitely used to be, and if we didn’t watch out she might bring it back. It was really fun to joke around with her, and that wasn’t even the funniest meaning we learned. The kanji for pharmacy and pharmaceutical drugs are the same, and the parts literally mean “happy grass.” Bain and I started laughing, and Miki sensei kind of sighed and blamed it on the Chinese. That day in track was the most gruelling workout we’ve done yet. We did a 12 kilometer, or 7.5 mile, run around Nagai Park, and we were supposed to keep it to a 4:00 per kilometer pace, which is under a 6:40 mile. It was by far the farthest hard effort I’ve ever done, but I kept up with the first guy all the way up until about the last quarter mile, so I was proud of myself. There was a bit that really irked me. You know how I said the guy that runs our group gives us the workouts? He didn’t even do that one with us. He just walked with his girlfriend around the same path we were running. I really like the guys in track, but they demand a lot from me, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep it up for the whole year. The next day was a holiday, and it was also the opening day for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in Japan, so my host brother took me to go see it. Even though it was opening day, it was completely empty when we got there, which was a first for me, but it filled up pretty fast after we sat down. Thursday after school Rina wanted to set up our Christmas tree, so we got it all out and started working on it. I realized, though, that Rina wasn’t saying “Christmas.” The Japanese pronunciation is “Kurisumasu,” which sounds pretty close to English if a Japanese person says it, but Rina thought that it was “Kurikumasu.” no matter what we told her, she wouldn’t change it. My host mom told me that even last year she hadn’t said it right, and instead had said “Kurimausu.” That kind of cracked me up, so I was in a really good mood as we set it up and started decorating it. Rina put on most of the ornaments, but she always put them on the side of the tree facing her, so we had to rotate the tree when she wasn’t looking so she would get the ornaments on all sides. On Friday, there was a Christmas tree lighting ceremony at school, so Bain and I stayed late to go to it. When we got there not many people had shown up yet, but they gave us our handout (with only Japanese on it) and we went and found a place to stand next to some of Bain’s classmates and his host brother. People started pouring in as it got closer to the starting time, and we didn’t want to try to hold our ground since we didn’t really know how to be polite about it in Japanese, and we ended up on the far side of the courtyard from the tree. It didn’t really have that big of an effect on us though, because the ceremony was so amazing. The school’s chaplain led us in a prayer that we could mostly read, and then we sang Silent Night in Japanese, which made me a little homesick, but was also really cool. Then everyone counted down from ten, which I nailed, and they turned on the tree. It wasn’t really that special of a tree, but because of the mood it seemed absolutely incredible! After that, the next half hour or so was a constant stream of people coming up to Bain and me and asking for a picture with us. It was a little funny. Bain kept trying to drop hints that he needed to go, which I totally understood, but nobody else got it, so he had to stick it out and sort of ride out the storm. It was pretty funny, because one by one people from a certain group would come over to us, ask for the picture, then run back to their friends, and it would repeat. A lot of the time they weren’t happy with the picture and they would come back to us and ask for another. We also met the parents of the Japanese girl that’s in Mississippi right now. Her father spoke perfect English and told us that she had become really good friends with Bain’s sister, Bailey, which I thought was a pretty cool way for things to turn out. Eventually I made it out and started walking to the subway station, but I got caught in a mob of middle schoolers and had to take even more pictures. It was a little harrowing. I never, ever want to be famous enough for that kind of paparazzi. That brings y’all just about up to speed with what’s going on here. Hope everyone’s doing well back home!

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davidinosaka-blog · 8 years

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November 15

Heyo everyone! Things are great going over here! I’m coming up on some pretty big milestones soon over here. In less than a month I’ll be switching to my second host family, which scares me and excites me at the same time. The Terakawa family has been incredibly kind to me; our only issue was when they found out I had to change families and they didn’t want me to. Getting straight into this, I think I’m going back to two or three weeks ago. On Sunday, Yu took me to Tennoji, the big station that we pass through each morning. It was awesome spending time with him because we actually got to talk a little, and we both wanted to look around. We walked over a few blocks and got to a big open field filled with people having picnics. I was crazy happy to find it because I haven’t actually gotten to walk on grass since I came to Japan. We walked around and saw the zoo, but didn’t go in. Instead, Yu took me to a place called Shinsekai, which means New World. We walked around looking at the different shops and restaurants, and Yu bought me some takoyaki, which is a ball of fried dough with octopus inside. I had heard a lot about them from Bain, who loves them. He had made them with his host family several times, so I had really high expectations. It was as delicious as I could have wanted it to be, but the experience was slightly marred because we had to eat it in the alley behind the restaurant with a drunk guy throwing up next to us. We laughed about it on the way back, and Yu told me that he had never been to Shinsekai before, which makes me think his parents don’t want him to go there and he took me there so that he could see it. I don’t know if that’s right, but it’s funny, so I want to believe it is. The next day was Monday, and Ms. Todd came to the school with a couple of her friends and colleagues. We talked for a long time about my time here, how the Japanese students were doing at St. Stephen’s, and then about how to improve the program. It was so nice to see her and to talk face to face with other Americans. On Tuesday we had a free day in track, which means you can do whatever workout you want. A couple of guys took me on just a short recovery run and told me about a type of relay race called an ekiden. The concept is that 7 people team together to run a full marathon in total. Not everyone runs the same distance, though; they range from a 10k, or about 6.25 miles, down to a 3k, which is just under 2 miles. Then they invited me to go with them to one on Thursday, which was a national holiday. I was crazy excited for it because of how fun track meets in the US are, and because it meant I would spend the whole day with other students in a part of the city I had never been to before. The actual ekiden wasn’t all that exciting to watch since it was a marathon run on a 3 kilometer long course, but I had an awesome time. We had to wake up really early to get to it, but I met up with some of my teammates at Tennoji, and we went the rest of the way together. Juso, the neighborhood where the race took place, was beautiful. It was right on the Yodo river and was crisscrossed with bridges leading to Umeda, the metropolitan heart of Osaka. I took my camera and walked up and down the course, and it was so cool to see so many people gather for the race. There were 87 high school teams total, each with at least 14 people, and most schools had a uniform warm up suit straight out of the 80’s, so it was a colorful scene to start the day. Like I said, the race wasn’t all that exciting, but I talked with my teammates for most of it and made some new friends. When the race was over we had a short meeting with the coaches, and I’m pretty sure one of them absolutely roasted the team (more on this later). After the ekiden, I went to get some ramen for a snack with a few of my friends, then headed home. That night Bain slept over, so we got to learn a lot about each other. He loved my host family, and my host sister absolutely adored him, so we all got along really well. The next morning we had as a holiday since most students were taking the Japanese version of the PSAT, so after we woke up, the two of us went out to eat at a tendon (tempura over rice) restaurant, then went to the big shopping mall in Yao. We got to talking about the differences between our host families. He said he really liked the freedom that my host family gave me to go where I want and do what I want. He loves his host family, but he said that they just don’t live near a city area, and that his host mom is really protective of him. The next day we went to our math and physics classes as normal, except another American student joined us. Her name is Marika, and she is enrolled as a normal student. She’s part Japanese and is fluent in the language, so she didn’t have to do the EP program and classes. It was really fun having class with her because normally our Saturdays are four straight hours of our teacher, Bain, and me, which gets a little old. On Sunday I went out to school again to help out with a school function. Lots of middle school students from around Osaka and their parents came to hear about Momoyama and decide if they wanted to apply. My role was to give a short interview on stage in Japanese. It was both a lot better and a lot worse than it sounds. They prepared me for it very well, telling me my questions about an hour before we started so I had time to make my answers, but they also couldn’t really prepare me to act natural in front of more than a thousand people. I think I did fine, but it kind of shook my confidence when everyone laughed after i said konnichiwa. Several people reassured me that I said everything right, but the fact they had to reassure me isn’t very reassuring. I was in a great mood after it though, because I was proud of what I had done, and I was free to do what I wanted for the rest of the day. The next few days passed with relatively little news except for THE news about the elections. Most people I’ve spoken with about it have been against Trump, but one of my classmates likes him because of his views about China, and my history translator supports him because Trump wants Japan to defend itself. I haven’t gotten into any deep political talks here, and frankly I don’t think I could through my Japanese and most people’s English. Wednesday after school we had track and field, and it was really fun for me. You know how I said that Shuto sensei, our track coach, roasted us after the ekiden? He came to practice, and I learned that he just didn’t like our warm up; from what I understood, he thought it took too long to do too little. He gave us all papers with a new warm up on them, but it’s all Japanese and mostly kanji, so I might as well have been handed it in Russian. My teammates understood that I needed help learning them, so Yuchi, a really funny junior, showed me how to do them. After we finished learning the warm up it was too late to do an actual work out, so we just played soccer for a while and then Japanese dodgeball, which is slightly different from the American version. The games were really fun because of the teamwork involved that track doesn’t really incorporate, but it was also interesting to see how they set them up. The first years, who are sophomore aged, have no say in teams or anything like that. There’s basically an alpha second year, or junior, who dictates the teams splitting up. Without really considering it, he separated juniors from sophomores and boys from girls. I’ve definitely seen several examples of lowkey patriarchy. Like in cooking, guys aren’t supposed to clean the dishes; that’s the girls’ job. Then again on Wednesday, the girls had to play their own game of soccer on a separate, smaller court. It bothers both Bain and me, but it’s just an accepted part of Japanese culture. On Thursday, Bain and I had Mr. Smith’s International Understanding class, and right now they’re learning about the ring of poverty. It’s incredible how much they understand, because I know for a fact that Bain and I combined couldn’t do the same exercises in Japanese. Later that day we had PE, and we started to learn how to play handball. It’s really fun, and it’s something Bain and I can understand without having to translate. The next day, Friday, was one of my best days in Japan so far. My classes were really fun, and in math Honda sensei used a british expression and asked me what it meant, so I kind of had to guess for the class. Then I told him that it wasn’t commonly used in America, so he let one of my classmates look it up on their phone. We all laughed about it, because the saying was, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” After school, track practice was at Nagai’s track, which I was apprehensive about going into. The first and only time I had been before had ended with a really disappointing performance in the 800 and me breaking down and crying as I walked to the station, so I was really hoping for a better time. I shouldn’t have worried at all. There were only five of us and the coach, so it felt much tighter knit than normal and I was confident enough to joke around with them. The workout itself was hard but rewarding, and at the end of the day we all had a good time. When I got home I had a fairly long and, for me, complex conversation in Japanese, and I could use some of the new sentence structures that we learned recently. Then for dinner I had a bowl of takoraisu, which is actually the Japanese way of spelling taco rice. It was just a mound of rice topped with lettuce, ground beef, tomatoes, and salsa. It tasted amazing, filled me up, tasted as close to home as you can get, and generally was a solid meal. On Saturday I was on my own for lunch, so I got some food from the cafeteria at school, then bought a pear to eat on my way home. I ate it in this really cool seating area right by the station in Yao. It’s got lots of trees and flowers and a small stream running through it, with the train tracks on one side and a sidewalk on the other, so I could see quite a bit. I really loved it, and I hope that I’ll be able to go again to relax some day. On Sunday, Yu and I went to go see the new Jack Reacher movie in theaters. It was funny leading up to it, because we wanted to see Tom Hanks in Inferno, but we missed the last showing time of the day by two minutes, and had to change at the last minute. It was really fun to see a movie in English, especially one that I had never seen before. Then after dinner, I started reading a children’s story to Rina, and my host mom and brother came to listen, too, so I ended up reading Snow White, Goldilocks, and Jack and the Beanstalk to most of my host family. It was strange in a good way. Yesterday, Monday, we learned the Japanese grammar for giving directions, which is what our homerooms were learning when we came, so we’ve caught up to them in terms of grammar. After school my homeroom told me they wanted to do the mannequin challenge, so we all did it together, which was really fun. One of my classmates sent me the video, so I have it as a keepsake, too. That’s about all! Sorry for the long post, but it felt nice to just sit down and write. It’s pretty cool. Today marks one month out from my family coming, so that’s big news! I’m happy knowing that it’s so soon, but I’m nervous about saying goodbye to the Terakawa family. That’s a topic for another day though. For now I should go. Love and miss you guys!

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davidinosaka-blog · 8 years

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October 27

Hi all! Sorry it’s been so long since I last posted, but I’ve had a lot going on. On the 14th, we started our first round of exams. Most students here take tests in 10 different subjects, which is incredible to me. They basically take two of every type of class; they take two maths, two sciences, two Japanese classes, and two English classes. Fortunately, I only had exams in 4 classes. On the first day, everyone else had their English exams, so I could help some people study. The funniest way I heard them use to remember an English word was for Switzerland. One person couldn’t get the pronunciation down, and kept saying Swisserland. So someone told them no, you actually say it like Pizzaland. After that, my first exams were in Algebra 2 and Physics. I was pretty worried for the physics exam since I had a hard time understanding it in class, but they both went pretty well, especially since the physics test was only 10 questions long. After exams, I went home. Exam days are half days without clubs, so we could go home as soon as we finished at 11:35. I ended up eating out for lunch and dinner because my host mom was sick all day. I think a bug went around, because first my host grandfather got sick, then my host mom, then I got a cough, then Bain got sick. It was a rough week, and Bain had to miss one of the exam days because his fever was too high. On Sunday, my host father took me to see the military airport in Yao, which is my neighborhood here. It turns out there was a festival, kind of like a Muster Day at Camp Mabry in Austin. There were weapons and military vehicles on display, and they had a pretty impressive show of 11 helicopters taking off at once. There was some pretty cool stuff to watch, although I felt a bit awkward watching it as a foreigner. They demonstrated an anti aircraft gun, and lots of hand to hand combat situations. These were really funny to me, because they played the Mission Impossible theme song over the camp’s speakers throughout the whole scenario. We also went to the on-base World War 2 museum, which was really awkward for me again, because the only thing my host father translated for me was the last letter a kamikaze pilot wrote to his parents. I got pretty sunburned there because no one told me how long it would be, and it sounded to me like it was just going to be a flyover, so I didn’t wear a hat or sunscreen. On Monday, all I had was the Japanese history exam, which was objectively easy. There were just four short answer paragraph questions and a few fill in the blanks, so I didn’t have much trouble with it. When I got home, I wanted to see the city, so Yu took me to the Kintetsu Yao Station, which is the biggest station within biking distance. We just sort of wandered around the neighborhood for a while, and he pointed out lots of different types of shops to me. On Tuesday, I had my Japanese exam, and I took it alone since Bain was sick. It wasn’t that bad, and my interview portion went really well in my opinion. When I came home, my host mom took me and Rina, my host sister, to go biking. She showed me how to use a machine that breaks down big bills, and then she took me to go pick up some medicinal honey. I think it was a spa or salon from the look of it, and my host mom gossiped with the store’s owner for a little. I was really proud that I could follow it, though. They just talked about me and Bain, so I could understand most of it, which I was really happy about. Then for dinner, we combined cultures and had quesadillas and sashimi. On Wednesday, Mr. Inada took Bain and me to the Osaka International School to take the PSAT. It was definitely the most I’ve ever enjoyed a standardized test, because I was surrounded by other native English speakers after 2 months in Japan. We met three other foreign exchange students from San Antonio. It was really cool talking to them and hearing their stories, since they’ve already been here for about 4 months. Then that night, at home, my host family and I watched a Japanese TV crew go to Texas and hunt for, and eat, alligator gar and rattlesnake. It was hilarious for all of us! On Thursday, we had a lockdown drill and watched a video about what the teachers and students should do if there is an intruder. Basically, the students should barricade themselves inside their room, and the teachers get these long poles with semi circles on the end to trap the intruder. It was really funny watching the video about it because it was like watching an infomercial; people would do mess up really bad, then would be corrected. In PE on Friday, we played volleyball! It was really fun, and I was one of the best on my team at serving so I got a lot of play time. In track that day, my legs were really sore, so my teammates tried to help me by giving me a massage. It was kind of (really) awkward, but they meant well and I could get over the stranger bits. On Saturday, Bain and I went to Kyoto with my homeroom teacher, Mr. Shuto, and a translator, Mr. Okada. We went to see the Jidai Matsuri, which celebrates the different periods in Japanese history. We went to a conveyor belt sushi place for lunch, and we could see the parade from the window, so we sat there for a while to watch. Bain and I tried a lot of different types of sushi, and our chaperones had a bottle of wine and a beer each, so I think everyone had fun. Bain and I came home alone, so we walked around Tennoji station together for a bit to see a little bit of Osaka on our own. Then on Sunday, I went back to Kyoto, this time with my host family, to go visit my other host grandparents, and it turns out my host great-grandmother as well. It was incredible; they lived in a farm style house, and they maintain a farm next door by hand, even though they’re getting on in years. They taught me a bunch of small games to play using shogi (a game like chess) pieces, and were very kind to me overall. This past week, Bain and I took a big step towards independence here: we agreed to eat lunch with our homerooms instead of together, like we had in the past. I’m really enjoying it, and there’s so much to talk about! I realized that we should have been eating with other Japanese students from the start, but we leaned on each other a lot at first, and neither of us really wanted to change that until recently. And today, I had a pretty good time with my homeroom. There were student government elections, so we all went to the big lecture hall. I couldn’t understand most of the speeches, but I could catch a little bit. After that, Mr. Inada surprised Bain and me by showing everyone videos and pictures of St. Stephen’s and St. Andrew’s, the school in Mississippi. The videos were made by the Japanese foreign exchange students in the US right now, so it was cool to get a glimpse of their personality since we might not meet at all. To wrap this all up, I got my exam grades back! I did really well in Japanese and History, and I got a 98% in both of them. Our math and physics teacher, Ms. Kamimura, didn’t grade ours per say, but just marked the write and wrong. I didn’t do as well as I would have liked, but I understood it when she explained the corrections, so I think in the future I can do better. It’s getting late here, so I’ve got to go! Two months down!

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davidinosaka-blog · 8 years

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This is the paper my homeroom gave me, and my breakfast this morning!

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October 13

Hi all! Today is Thursday, and our last day of classes before exams. I’m feeling pretty confident, so to relax I thought I’d write about my weekend and the week so far. This past weekend my host family and I went to Costco to just look around, and I pointed out which snacks and foods we have in the USA. It was pretty cool, and we ended up getting a big bag of chips, some salsa, bagels, and a lot of peanut butter. My host mom and I also went shopping for ingredients for quesadillas and guacamole. We were able to find everything we needed for both, even tortillas and cilantro. Then on Monday, which was a national holiday, we started cooking at 11. I started by making the guacamole alone, which was really difficult but totally worth it. It was the first time I’ve ever used avocadoes while cooking, and it was pretty interesting to try to cut them up based purely on what I’ve seen people do. After that, my host mom and I started working on the quesadillas. First, we put the chicken on to cook, and seasoned it with salt and pepper, since we didn’t really know what we were doing. While that cooked, I thought we would move on to the mushrooms and onions, but my host mom wanted to try to make our own tortillas. I was surprised, since we had bought some at the store, but she said she had seen how to make them on TV and wanted to try it. So I looked up a recipe to use, just in case, but my host mom just went for it started throwing flour, olive oil, and water together. We just sort of went with it, and made the dough for them alright. Then we needed to find a way to flatten them into individual tortillas. On the TV program she had seen, my host mom said they had used a press to make them, and that a different person had put the dough between two cutting boards and stood on them. We couldn’t really do either of those, so I asked for a rolling pin. It turns out we didn’t have that either, so we used a small wooden cylinder she found in a drawer as our rolling pin. After that, it went really smoothly. We cooked the tortillas, then sauteed the onions and mushrooms together. We diced some tomatoes and shredded some lettuce, and then it was time to make the quesadillas. The recipe I had looked up for my host mom wanted us to make them by putting all the ingredients on one tortilla, then folding it in half. That might have worked, except our homemade tortillas were only about 4 inches in diameter, so they sort of turned into sideways tacos, but with more cheese and less meat. It was only on the last two that we decided to give in and try to make them like a sandwich, which worked wonderfully, so if there’s a next time, we’ve got our plan. I hadn’t even really realized it, but it was 3 o’clock when we finished cooking and eating. It was really fun, though, and it was a nice way to spend time with my host mom. After we finished, my host dad took Rina and me with him to get their winter blankets washed at a laundromat. Rina is scared of the big laundry machines, though. She would edge closer and closer to one, then if it did anything like beep or shake, she would shriek, grab my hand, and run to the sitting area by the door, so it was a little funny when I tried to show her they were harmless. I stuck my head into an open one, but she pulled me back out and said something very calmly in Japanese. My host dad translated that she had said I would die if I kept doing that. After we had all the blankets in machines, we left and went to the park right next door to our house. Rina wanted me to watch as she went down the slide, so I stood by the playscape with her as she did her thing. Then she wanted me to go down the slide next to hers while holding her hand, so we did that for a while. Then my host father came up to us and said that he needed to go and pick up the blankets, but that we could stay and play at the park if we wanted to. Rina did, and I had to stay with her, so I ended up watching her for 15 minutes or so while my host dad ran his errand. It was a pretty cool realization that my host family trusts me that much. That was the holiday! In Tuesday’s geography class that’s translated by Mr. Smith, we just discussed the presidential election for the entire time. It was really interesting because it was the first time Bain and I had talked to each other about it, and we heard Mr. Smith’s opinion, as well as our geography teacher’s perspective. Then on Wednesday, I had an amazing afternoon. During the first two sessions of Japanese, we just checked our last assignment and did some review, but then in the third session, Miki-sensei taught Bain and I how to write Japanese using a brush. Really it was a type of pen called a “fudepen”, but the tip was meant to be like a paintbrush. We spent the entire last class practicing our kanji with the pens, which was a really good way to study because it made us think a lot about how they were formed and what they mean. Maybe it was coincidence, but after that in my homeroom closing ceremony, my classmates showed me how my name would be written phonetically using kanji. It was really cool and actually pretty touching, and I’m determined to learn how to write it well. The last thing I want to mention is pretty funny. I think I journalled a while ago about my host mom putting salsa on my toast because she knew I liked it, and wanted me to have it as much as possible. Well, we had an extra avocado after making the guacamole, so my host mom asked me what else to do it. I’ve heard of avocado toast before, so I told her that it was ok to put on toast. The next morning, she put some on my bagel, and it was really good. No complaints. But then this morning, she put guacamole on one half of the bagel, and a cucumber/tuna? mix on the other one. It was alright, but I think the idea of it on a bagel was foreign to both of us. Anyways, that’s what’s been going on here. Bye for now!

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davidinosaka-blog · 8 years

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October 7

Hi all! Doesn’t it seem spooky that it’s already October? Japan is already decking itself out for it, and it has been for a while. Lots of shops like 7-11 and Mister Donut have already had their decorations up for a few weeks. I’ve already seen a Christmas ad, though, for Tokyo Disneyland. Even the USA, which is basically the party headquarters of the world, doesn’t celebrate that early. Let’s go ahead and dive into my experiences since last time. A week ago, on Friday, I had an awesome day. In music class, we finished up our stuff with “The Sister Act” and moved on to reading rhythms in sheet music. The beat was pretty simple, but the words were hilarious. It was just different foods, so we had the entire class singing about bananas, peanuts, shiitake mushrooms, and cabbage. It was hilarious, because we kept doing it faster and faster, so it was really funny to see everyone rush through the pronunciation. Then in history, we talked a lot about the Daibutsu in Nara, which was really interesting to me since I went that weekend. In math, while everyone else took a Japanese math test, my teacher gave me a personalized test on Japanese language, which was very kind, but also funny and interesting. He used sentence structures that seemed easy even to me, but he used the informal conjugation of verbs, which we haven’t learned yet, so it was still difficult understanding the question. In track and field that day, we did a really good workout, which put me into an even better mood, and maybe because of that I was able to participate in a joke with the rest of the team. Someone had found a case of old eggs, and they were going around asking people to smell them. Eventually I got the courage up to mime the action for juggling, and with a lot of pointing involved, they found it pretty funny. They could have been laughing at me and my poor gestures and Japanese, but I like to think otherwise. After that, I ran into the Japanese home economics teacher, and we had an entire conversation, in Japanese, about what subjects I liked, and when I told her I like languages like Japanese and Spanish, she told me she had gone to Spain for 3 months when she was in college. It was really cool to have an actual meaningful conversation with someone, and it was the real-life situation made me realize that the response to getting homesick is to put myself out there and try to talk to people. I always knew that, but it made me realize/remember how much better talking to people and making friends makes me feel. Over the weekend, I got a haircut with my host-father, and it was really cool and very foreign. I showed the barber some pictures from Texas to show how short I liked my hair cut, and then he went to it. It was much faster than back home, and then he washed my hair and dried it. This part was weird, because he used a blow drier to make my hair go the opposite way that I’ve always had it, so it looked really weird at first. Now it’s good, thankfully, but I prefer the Sportman’s back home. I’ve always got to talk about food in these, so here goes. McDonald’s here has a Texas burger for a limited time, and it came out a few days ago. I haven’t had it yet, but it looks good for McDonald’s, although it’s not quite Texas-sized. This past week, Tuesday was pretty cool. In Japanese class, Miki-sensei gave Bain and me some Hi-Chew, which is a really popular candy here, and I think in the US, too. The flavor she gave us though, mango, is apparently only available in Taiwan, so it’s pretty cool to see it. I haven’t had any yet, though. I’m saving it for something, but I don’t know what yet. After school on Tuesday, we went back to Nagai for track. We didn’t use the facility; we ran on this road that goes around the park, and it was really cool. The workout was a hard 6,000 meters, which is around 3.75 miles. It was awesome, because I felt really good during it, and I finished 3rd overall with a time right under 6 minute mile pace. It was interesting, though, because for most of it I was running alone, since the 2 guys ahead of me were too far to pace off of, and the people behind me had fallen back a lot. It was basically just me and my thoughts, which happens a lot here so far. It was pretty late when we finished the workout, and when we got back to Momoyama, there was a teacher meeting people at the gate. She told us that the subway line had shut down momentarily, so we needed to find another way home. I didn’t really know what to do, since I’ve always taken the subway for that part of going home, but eventually my homeroom teacher came down to meet me, and he took me to Tennoji through a different train line, which was kind of cool, but also a little awkward since we couldn’t communicate well. He’s also the track coach, so he complimented my running form, but that was basically all we could talk about. It was very nice of him to take me, though, since the alternative was waiting for the subway to re-open, and that could have taken a while. Yesterday, we talked with a senior who went to Canada, so he spoke very good English, and he told me that I looked older than I am. Bain laughed at that and joked that it was either my jawline or my chin, which is classified as a “buttchin,” he told me. Kenri, the senior, asked if that’s what it was in English, and he told us the Japanese translation is exactly the same. So, yay me! I have a buttchin in two languages! Then we talked about our teachers, and he told us that our history teacher was really funny with his Japanese classes, and that he sometimes rants about his personal life to the class. I kind of laughed at that, because for all I know, he could be doing the same thing to us, and our translator just isn’t telling us. But something that I’m looking forward to in the near future is cooking with my host mom! She wanted to cook something American using tortillas, and the closest option is quesadillas. So on Monday, which is a national holiday, we’re going to make quesadillas, guacamole, and hopefully cookies for lunch. I don’t know how it’s going to go, but I’m looking forward to it a lot! That’s about it for now. Thanks for keeping up with this. Or not. It’s nice getting to journal about my life here, whether or not people read it. Adios!

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September 29

Hi all! Today was Thursday and I had an awesome day. But before I get to that, some pretty funny stuff has happened since last time I journaled. First things first, last Sunday was the best weekend I’ve had so far. After a pretty slow morning, my host parents and Rina took me to Nara. We stopped for lunch along the way at a Kaitenzushi place, which means conveyor belt sushi. The idea is the tables are situated along a conveyor belt with a constant stream of sushi on it. As it passes by your table, you take what you want. It’s also surprisingly cheap; two pieces of sushi cost the equivalent of one dollar. You can also order off a special menu and the chefs will send out a plate that stops at your table on a different belt. It’s really efficient, and you can start eating as soon as you sit down because you don’t have to order anything. I had lots of different foods because my host family wanted me to try everything, but I managed to stay mostly within my comfort zone. Once we finished, we went on to the park in Nara. It’s enormous, and it’s really famous for the deer that wander around through the people. They’re very docile, and are used to people feeding them from their hands, so I got to do it as well. It was really cool, and a little strange to see deer wander up to me instead of bolt away. The more famous place in Nara Park is the Daibutsuden. It’s the largest wooden structure in the world, and it houses an enormous Buddha statue. Fast forward to Tuesday, when Bain and I have Geography. It’s taught in Japanese, and Mr. Smith, a New Yorker who’s lived in Osaka for 20 years, translates for us. We were talking about the climate of Okinawa and how it made it an ideal place to grow sugar cane. To give us a comparison, Mr. Smith used pecans and the South. Pretty safe bet, right? Except he pronounces pecans like PEE-cans, which is understandable since he’s from New York, but he thought it was hilarious how Bain and I both told him off for saying it “the wrong way.” After the class, Mr. Smith looked at the posters that we made for the school festivals, which had some pictures from home on them. One of mine was of the guys track team after winning the St. John’s meet. I pointed out my brother, and then Andrew, who Mr. Smith said hadn’t changed a bit. He looked at some of the other guys, and when he saw Jamal he basically yelled “Hold up, this dude’s got a fade! Man, I thought those were gone 30 years ago. You gotta tell your homeboy that.” Good times. Moving on, I’ve already noticed and commented that my host family is absolutely terrified of bugs. I didn’t really understand how bad it was though, until I asked my host mom what the Japanese word for cockroach is, since I had seen one. She started freaking out a little and spraying the floor with a bug killer, and refused to say the Japanese name for cockroach. She ended up having to ask my host brother Kenta to say it for her. I guess she sorta thinks it’s taboo to say the name? Anyway, now we’re up to today, and it rocked. First period I had International Understanding, which is taught by the same Mr. Smith. Today we started watching Zootopia, in English with Japanese subtitles. He explained that as we get farther into the movie, he’ll change the subtitles to English, and then maybe even get rid of them if people understand it. It was pretty funny to watch and catch some of the jokes when no one else could, and then to hear the Shakira song “Try Everything” that plays during the trip to Zootopia. My mom told me that the song reminded her of this trip a lot, so it was kind of cool to listen to the words and see how it applied. After lunch, there was a presentation about a school trip that happens in July. We’ll get to choose whether we go to Okinawa or Hokkaido. From what I saw, Okinawa seems kind of like Hawaii, and Hokkaido is like Colorado? I really have no idea, so I don’t know what I want to choose. It’s pretty cool though, that the school does a trip like that. Track and field was awesome, because it was just a sort of rest day and I got to run with these two really friendly guys that told me a little about the city, and we talked a little about sports, and English versus Japanese language. When we got back to the school, I heard people practicing instruments. It was really cool to hear the sound of trumpets and trombones playing over the sports areas, and it made me think of what St. Stephen’s would be like if everyone practiced on the Hill. And I was in such a good mood that it didn’t even really make me homesick, which I’m taking as a good sign. My first round of tests, the first midterm, is coming up, and I take the PSAT after that. Today I was told that Bain would be spending the night at my host family’s house the night before the test so that we can go to it together. Sounds kind of lit, but then again, tests, so maybe not. Regardless of that, this will be the first sleepover I’ve had in a long time, and it’s kind of funny that these are the circumstances. Anyway, that’s all for now!

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