Is it morning?

So remember when I said that I wouldn't post until I got back? Well I lied. I have a little bit of free time now, so I'm going to post some more. I'm pretty much just going to post a list of things I did and/or found interesting.

Kobe Luminarie -- Went with some friends, saw some Christmas lights, had a lot of fun.

Spanish World / Ise Jingu -- Did I write this already? Went with my host mom's sister's family, saw the shrine, rode a roller coaster.

Hyogo Museum -- Went with my host family, we decided it was lame and went to a little kids' amusement park and an onsen instead.

Art Exhibits -- Two different ones with my host family; one with tricky pictures and another with normal pictures.

Onsen -- Have been like 6 or 7 times now. My host family really likes them so if I'm around on Saturday or Sunday nights, we normally go to one. So far I've been to Arima twice, Maple, Taiko twice, and two random ones that I don't know the name of and one that was in a hotel. I think I'm missing some, too. So more than 7 times. Sorry. I lied.

"Up" -- Saw the movie with my host family, in Japanese. Surprisingly, I understood most of it. But it doesn't have much dialogue anyways, so not that big of an accomplishment.

"This Is It" -- Went with my host dad, thought it was really cool. Not a huge MJ fan, but that would have been a really good concert. And the music, of course, was good.

Mister Children Concert -- Went with a friend using the tickets that my host dad's brother gave me. Absolutely awesome. Must have missed the choreography class that everyone else took before going to the concert or something, though.

Arashi Yama "Light-up ... Bamboo" -- Don't know the real name, but it was pretty cool. Really cold though. And we kind of got lost and did 500 laps around the city.

Kiyomizudera "Light-up" -- Went with a friend in the fall. Very pretty, good atmosphere.

Sang Karaoke with some friends, had a really good time.


I am inevitably missing some stuff, but oh well. I also have a couple things that I am still planning on doing / hoping to get done:

Trip to Disney Land, return trip to Nikko.
Trip to Kyushu. Trip to Tokyo.
Karaoke at least three or four more times.
Actually make it to my bus stop right before the bus leaves instead of after the bus leaves and then end up waiting half an hour for the next bus.
Would really really like to join a club or circle (maybe volleyball, but not sure).
Sounds weird, but I would like to take calligraphy lessons.
Possibly attempt to teach someone English (right now my host brother is a maybe).
Have a day where I speak only Japanese / hold all of my conversations in mainly Japanese.
Take at most one class taught in English next semester so I can really push hard on improving my Japanese speaking skills.

And now, things I find entertaining. Pretty much all of them are about my host kids. I still can't get over some of the things kids say.

Jion seems to have a problem understanding time. The other day we were driving to school in the car and it was still a little dark, so he asked my host mom, "Is it nighttime?" Another time, it was clearly the middle of the afternoon and he asked "Is it morning?" But he doesn't just have a problem with the times of day, either. On a mid-fall my host mom was talking about how it might snow in the winter where we live and Jion asked "Will we wake up tomorrow and it'll be winter?" Finally, my favorite is when my host mom was talking and she said "this year" and Jion asked "Is this year now?" (今年って、いま？）.

Another good story is that my host sister still thinks she's going to marry me. After she met one of my friends at our Christmas party, she decided that my friend was her competition. Aoi tried to convince me that she was better than my friend because she is taking Kumon (basically an accelerated pre-school/kindergarten) and my friend isn't. I agreed with her on that one. Perhaps she has a chance after all.

Hmmm... let's see. Yuta is doing pretty well. The other day he was hanging out in my room (it's become the new place to be in our house, I guess, but I don't really mind) and writing dirty words on my electronic dictionary. Well, as dirty as you can get for a fourth-grader. Feces, urine, fart, etc. He also wrote enema, which I have no idea why he knows/needs to know that word in Japanese. But in the end, he decided he would make me a kanji name (絵理九 -- pretty much the crappiest kanji name ever "picture reason nine") and then scribble on the screen. His scribbles made a nonsense sentence (絵理九ノリンゴ泣き門主) to which he laughed so hard he cried. He eventually had to leave my room cause he was laughing so hard. I don't really know why this nonsense sentence is so funny. I'm by no means a Japanese expert, but if I translate it I think it means... Eric's apple cry gate master. Yeah. I told you it was nonsensical. But I guess I'm glad he got such a kick out of it.

Today I started my first day where I made a conscious effort to interact more with each member of my family. Well, ironically, my host dad is staying at his parents' house out in the countryside (right next to the family hospital) tonight, so I didn't get to talk to him at all, but I did talk a lot with my host mom and the kids. I think it went pretty well. From here on out I'm going to try even harder!

Alright, I know that's a pretty lazy post. I'm not even going to edit it. That's how lazy I am right now. But you should be happy with what you get, right? No complaining.

Which reminds me, I don't know who's actually going to see this post, but I am flying home in exactly a week (!) so if there's anything you want from Japan / want as a Christmas present, tell me and I just might be able to make your wish come true ;) (Just nothing bigger than I can fit in my suitcase.)

I'm Still Alive!

Just wanted to take a second and post to say that I'm still alive :) I'm having a good time, but I'm very busy so I haven't had time to write a blog entry.

I'll be heading home for a week soon, so I hope to have time to talk to everyone when I get back!