Today was pretty cool. I got up at eight, went to breakfast (American again, so no pictures,) and started to study for a while. Then a group of us decided to go into Kasugai and find some lunch. We decided of Marino's- a fairly authentic looking Italian restaurant. We ordered a margarita pizza and two pepperoni pizzas. The margarita pizza was interesting; the tomato sauce was very light and mild, the crust was very thin but not crispy, and the cheese tasted a little different. On the whole, the pizza was more mild-not bland, but just not the usual bursting-with-flavor pizza one is used to in the US. We had some time to kill after lunch, so we headed over to the hyaku en ya- the 100 yen store. It was called Daisoh; I'm not quite sure what that means. Despite being a "real" 100 yen store (everything was really only 100 yen,) it had some quality merch. I bought some interesting snacks, two mechanical pencils, and lead all for 630 yen- about $6.30. I wanted to get some ceramic bowls and stuff, but, of course, that would be too heavy to bring back on the plane. We went back to campus to the Center for International Programs for orienteishon. Translation: 3 hours of the handbook being explained to us and more Japanese fun! For this round of soul-sucking, bureaucratic red tape, we needed to know our birth year in terms of the reign of the emperor. Did you know I was born September 26, Showa 61? Now you do! We also had to write a lot of kanji (borrowed Chinese-type characters that give you no indication of how to read them or what they mean)-most of which I didn't understand, but that's fitting, as I didn't understand any of the kanji on the forms. They passed out enlarged copies of the forms with red circles where we needed to write our information and then told us what to write. To sum up the experience: nerve wracking. Why? Because if you make a mistake, you can't cross it out or white it out; you have to start over. A scratch out might be an attempt at fraud and doesn't look neat.
We then took a trip to the Circle K, the nearest konbini. I bought some more interesting snacks there, one of which was the nestle Aero. A candy bar, chocolate on the outside, what looked and felt like a piece of thick, stale bread on the inside. That is, until you chew it, at which point you realize it is a new form of chocolate. While the weather has been fairly hot and muggy, Kasugai is so gorgeous I really don't mind. There are some cars and the roads are awfully narrow and scary at times, but the houses with their handkerchief size garden are so pretty. Even the drainage ditches, which are about 8 inches deep and 5 inches wide (treacherous for the unwary) are beautiful with their mosses and random flowering weeds. Dinner was cool spaghetti with tomato sauce, cabbage salad, a banana, miso soup with leeks and tofu in it, and rice. Sorry, no picture today; it wasn't that interesting anyway. After dinner, I started studying for the placement test tomorrow, but Laura fell asleep in the lounge and wanted to go to bed, so I came back to my room and well...that's my life up to the minute. Now some random pictures taken yesterday!
Some house in Kasugai. Most of the trees on people's properties are cut like giant bonsai. It's pretty sweet.
Another view of someone's property.
Some cool ferns on campus.
A view of Kasugai from a hill on campus. Looks cramped, eh? This is considered rural Japan.
More Kasugai and the surrounding hills.
Rice patties!
This river used to be really wide, but the Japanese dug the river deeper, cemented it in with high banks, and developed the surrounding area. Now, tons of plants grow in it, despite the river being so disturbed.
A bamboo grove on campus. It's huge!
This is a fountain on campus. I just thought it was cool.
Hello "akachan"- akachan means red cutie or baby!
Risaikuru! Jen recycles. The categories are steel, aluminum, PET bottles, paper, burnable, and the rest (unburnable.)
Vending machines- conveniently placed...absolutely everywhere.
O shizuka ni! (Quietly, for chrissakes, or your mouth will be replaced with a red X!) Taken in the library.
Oh, funny story here. So we were taking a tour of the library when we stumbled upon the Chubu University folklore museum. It had some really cool artifacts from cultures around the world for all different time periods. We were looking around, admiring stuff, when this cute, elderly Japanese woman came up and started talking to us in English (btw, cute and elderly are redudant when talking about the Japanese.) She was showing us around when she saw Nick here admiring some Middle Eastern battle gear. I don't know what he said, but she told him he could try it on. First, she helped him put on the leather back armor. Then she helped him put on the parachute pants. She was working on getting him to put on the boots, but his feet were too big. Needless to say, it was pretty awesome.Well, until tomorrow,
Jonathan
1 comment:
if you take another crooked picture i will find a way to shoot you. stop it. ohhhhh, could you eat some of that kobe beef(神戸ビーフ) for me, i've heard it's really good.
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