Today

Today was a national holiday (something to do with the emperor) so we didn't have school!  Huzzah! 

We took the subway all the way to Marine World, and then walked to the amusement park down the way.  It was a fun day.

We also got made fun of by a 7 year old.  Our exchange went something like this;

Punk:  "Gaikoukujin.  Gaikoukujin.  Gaikoukujin."

Shelly:  *points*  "Nihonjin."

Punk:  *is confused*  (he thought we said we were Japanese)  *figures it out* *disgust*

Rebecca and I laughed to ourselves and continued eating our breadsticks.

Shelly:  "Genki desu ka?"

Punk:  "Genki ja arimasen!"

He told Rebecca to find a Japanese teacher (we think, other words were mixed in with it.)

But I admire his bravery.  He attacked the gaijin menace with only his friends behind him.

Monday:

School was hard, we're learning pretty fast.  But our culture class was amazing!  We studied tea ceremony with a professional.  Our class was held in an beautiful tatami room with shogi (paper screen) walls.  When we arrived the teacher wasn't there yet so we waited, but it was really fun because Maki-san (our culture coordinator) tells funny stories.  When she arrived (in a gorgeous kimono) she dressed each of us in a yukata.  I really liked wearing it!  I'm hoping to buy one while I'm here so I can wear it to Hakata Dontaku (Fukuoka's big festival).

I really love the tea ceremony.  It was all very graceful and settling.  However, because I don't drink green tea I drank o-yu (hot water) instead.  I was happy with this though, because the water tasted really good!  It was because the kettle we used was traditional iron.  I really liked our sensei, she was very kind and liked that we were interested.  I had the chance to prepare some tea for her.

Later that night we met up with Atsuko at Starbucks.  It was raining a lot.  Oh.  We first met Atsuko at church, she speaks English perfectly and likes us.  We took an absolutely jam-packed bus, it was incredible.  Together, we went to the other church for YSA night.  It was really fun!  We played jenga and then ate the huge plates of food they prepared for us.  Everyone put ice cream on their bread . . . it was weird.  One of the leaders called it "ice hamburger". 

Tuesday:  

Ditto for school.  Our culture class today was also omoshiroii!  We learned how to prepare okonomiyaki.  It's super easy.  Basically, take whatever you have in the fridge and mix it with finely chopped cabbage, a little flour, and eggs.  Voila.

We also went to the church again!  They asked us to come help them with the weekly English class.  It's really hard to explain "I might as well"  and I had to stand in front of everyone and teach them what the phrase "march hare" meant and why.  It was pretty embarrassing.  Laugh!

Today:

I'll post more on today tomorrow.  But we found our bag of snacks!  We'd left it at the school.  Along with our almost identical bag of replacement snacks.  They thought we were pretty funny.

A big update

I've been sleeping instead of blogging.  Ha ha.

Sunday:  We found the church!  It was quite an adventure, especially as we hadn't used the subway very much previously.  You take the chikatesu (subway) all the way from Ohori Kouen station until you reach Fujisaki.  It costs 250 en one way, which is unfortunate.  After we got off the subway, fed the angry machine our tickets, climbed up many escalators, and figured out which door left the station we had to decide which direction to walk.  Google maps is useful, but our sense of direction disappeared with the Utah mountains.  Or at least mine did.  After we figured it out (go right) we walked until we hit the river.  After crossing and turning at the big bridge, we needed to follow the river down until we got to a smaller bridge and then continue on for two blocks before turning again.  On the internet map there was just the clearly marked small bridge.  In real life however, there are 5 small bridges, all about one or two blocks apart.  This meant that we had no idea which block was the right one.  Eventually we found the building that an lds website had told us was the church.  It was locked.  However, we had passed a steeple on the way there, so we went back and lo, it was the church (it had moved).  Huzzah!  Unfortunately, we had left early so we had an hour until church started.  First class was Relief Society, they were very nice.  We had just learned the word for foreign student (ryugakusei) so we were able to introduce ourselves sufficiently.  There was a baby in front of us who kept staring darkly at me.  It was slightly unnerving.  He evidently trusted us though because he shot us a heartwrenching "save me!" look when his sister started messing with him.  Next we had class.  They put us in with the the young single adult's.  It was hilarious the whole time.  The teacher was very funny, and knew very random English words.  Whenever he would use one everyone would laugh.  Luckily, a boy in our class spoke English very well so whenever we couldn't say something (which happened a lot, I don't know church words yet) and whenever we didn't understand (ditto) he would help us.  The only name I really remember is Masa-chan, because it was pretty funny when he told us to call him that.  Sacrament was impossible to understand, and I was really hungry by then.  However, the translator boy was sitting up on the stand and he kept falling asleep so his head would slowly fall down to his chest.  I've never seen someone sleep with their head at that angle before, but to top it all of his head didn't jerk up like any other church sleeper.  It just sort of gently and gracefully rose back up by itself, before beginning it decent once again.  This happened almost the whole time.  Rebecca and I almost laughed loudly. Basically, I loved going to church, and am very excited to go next week.

I lied about the big update . . . this is only half a day.  I'll update later.

Since I haven't posted any pictures in a while . . .

Today's picture category is:  

"Helpful Signs"

This sign is fairly obvious.  Clearly, poo has feelings. Housewives clearly have a problem with this.  You will be charged with abandonment without intent to claim responsibility and are liable to be punished to the full extent of the law (and as much guilt as you can possibly be caused by this piece of plastic. Which, depending the individual, may vary slightly.)

This offense is second only (in it's category) to forgetting your child at Daiei.  Unfortunately, there isn't yet a sign for that.

While this soccer-loving gorilla may not seem like a legitimate sign to you, he is in fact a very valuable and considerate gesture.  Most likely put on that high rise just for my benefit.  After getting off the subway at Ohori Kouen station you will see this friendly primate.  If you walk towards him it means you are going the WRONG WAY (and therefore an idiot).  He's been very useful and has most likely saved many poor people (or perhaps just me) from choosing a more transient object as their road marker (like a pink car, or potted plant, or even a strange "motorcycle warning" sign.)

I love this sign.  Instead of putting out one of those sanitized "no swimming in the pond" posts, the citizens of Fukuoka have opted for just the brutal truth.  Nursing and/or pregnant mothers, as well as older members of society may have trouble with this, however: there is a kappa in the pond.  And he will drown anyone stupid enough to swim there.  This sign is a horrific image of what will happen to you (yes you, little boy) if you dare break the rules.

Canal City

We went to Canal City on Saturday, it's really an amazing place.  We forgot to bring the camera, but never fear my dear legions of blog followers (by which I mean "Hi Dad!") the Studio Ghibli shop is calling, so I will return there.  I made it out alive without buying much this time (I rock!) but I did buy a bag (Hello Kitty, it had to be done) for my bento box.  Not that it really needs protecting, it just needed it's cuteness to be completely maxed out.  

While we were there we watched the end of a magic show and a boy band concert.  I really liked watching the people watching the show.  This one guy (23ish?) had huge apple cheeks when he smiled, and he was inordinately amused by the magician.  He was awesome.  The boy band sounded pretty good, and their crowd way 94% young females and 6% disgruntled boyfriends was highly amusing.

We also ate at our first restaurant (shabu shabu didn't count, we were completely on our own this time).  They liked us a lot, mostly because we said "domo arigato" everytime they did anything.  We both got the una-don (eel rice bowl, it was super good)

After we shopped for a while *reminder: post on the pokemon store later* we got some ice cream!  At the last second I forgot the word for the grape ice cream (kyohi) so I just tried "grape?" the lady nodded and said grape back . . . but they gave us grapefruit ice cream instead.  Laugh!  I don't like grapefruit, so now I won't ever forget a word like that again.

An adventure!

Turns out I can eat a lot of beef in one go.  I don't think I've ever eaten that much meat that quickly before.  I was also drinking the violently green Fanta Melon (another student, from France, said it was an alien drink from Mars).  So I had a sugar rush and then another slice of beef- whoa.  It's lucky that I have to bike everywhere.

As we left the party we got turned around in the outdoor mall corridors.  We ended up going the opposite direction.  Of all the places two teenage girls could end up . . . you guessed it,

     the red light district.

It was getting dark, and because the landmarks were completely changed (I don't think I've seen this love hotel before . . . ) we were thoroughly lost.  We went to a family mart to ask directions, and the shopkeeper there was very kind.  He was worried that we were lost and made sure we understood where to go- we bought some candy while we were there (mine was really gross- but that's another story).  We walked back through the district and across the big bridge with the scary performer, it was really tall, masked and in a golden yellow kimono- it pointed at us and held up two fingers.  It was like those statue people you can find in the U.S. only this guy was scary and was standing on a really tall box.  We asked for directions again, this time of a helpful subway attendant (who I thought was a man until she talked, sumimasen attendant-san) and eventually found our way back into the Tenjin we knew.  Luckily we're pro's once we hit the Meiji/Shokan street Tenjin area (all thanks to Daiei).

All in all, it's really painful to walk all over the place when you have just eaten 7 pounds of beef and 4 glasses of melon soda.  But I liked having an adventure (mostly after we were back home).

Shabu Shabu (part 1)

We're going out with our school for all you can eat shabu shabu tonight, lets see how much I can eat.

The bakery door

Yesterday Rebecca and I decided to go the Simon's bakery across the street because we ate all of our pan (bread).  Upon arriving however, we found it to be more than just a mere bakery.  It was gaijin-proofed.  I tried everything to get the door to open, pulling all directions, sliding, begging, "open sesame", jerking it- but nothing worked.  The shopkeepers inside, smiling at how sucessfully their door defeated us, finally let us in (most likely in the hope that we would entertain them further).  Turns out, you TAP the black box/button thing.  Oh.  They were still laughing when we left with our loaf of bread, custard pan, and acorn shaped melon pan.  What a heavy price to pay for a few carbs.  I hope to get a picture of the offending door tomorrow.

Daiei

Just FYI, Daiei is huge.  You could live there indefinitely.

So this blog upkeep thing is pretty hard.  Looking back, we've done a lot the last few days.  Our first two days we walked as far as our legs would carry us (I have the blisters to prove it) and now we've started at GenkiJACS.  I'm glad I can finally start to study, I'm tired of being ignorant.  I want to communicate and understand.  So far people have been pretty nice to us, some kids in the park shouted "herro" after us, an old man thought really hard and then said "have a nice day", and the food stall guy outside of gourmet city was very helpful when I tried to buy takoyaki the other day. He now nods and smiles whenever he sees me.  Some people are rude- like the high school kids who were filming us.  But overall I really, really like everyone.  Our dorm head lady puts up with our stupidity (although she never explained what we were actually supposed to do . . . she just tells us when we mess up).  Our teachers and the school receptionists are very kind and usually hilarious.  I also made friends with some of the girls in our dorm!  It was a challenge to communicate- but we did pretty well.  They are very nice, and it was a lot of fun to talk to them.  It'll be nice to see them tomorrow.

Well, oyasumi.

I got wet!

Today was rainy!

I fixed the time zone on blogger, now it's correct.

First impression of Fukuoka:

1.  It's gorgeous.

2.  I really like Ohori Park.

3.  There are crows everywhere, and as soon as you forget about them they caw. Really loud.

4.  The sparrows have afros.

5.  Not a single place accepts cards.

6.  Rebecca and I are in a zoo.  And we're the only 2 animals in it.

7.  I'm now on a mostly carb diet.

 

more later, probably.

Because I'm awake at 4 a.m.

I'll post a few pictures.  My body decided that since it's 1:00 p.m. at home I should be awake.  It's a lie, body.  Sleep more.

The monster of Fukuoka

You may think it's little, and therefore harmless, based on this picture.  But it's not.  This is the feared fiend of Fukuoka.

The terror of this city, so monstrously horrible that his mug shot is painted on half the vending machine/garbage disposal population.

  At about the same size as a 500 en coin, if it takes a dislike to you, you're done.  To top it off, they hang out in violent gangs and hover above defenseless gaijin on park benches.  Fortunately for us, they didn't have their spears with them.  As the picture indicates however, the majority are fully armed.  They also wear sneakers.

Fukuoka Day 1

After I woke up (at 8) Rebecca and I showered.  It was pretty difficult, but luckily we're very good at trial and error.  

After we got all ready we explored the city, it's very pretty.  Fukuoka has tons of trees.  We went to the Ohori Park, the peony garden, and downtown Tenjin.  It was a lot of walking, and we got stared at quite a bit.

We also went grocery shopping!  We got crackers, butter, grapefruit juice and POCARI SWEAT.  For lunch we had a salmon onigiri and some ham/cheese pan from Lawson's.  We also shared with pigeons.

Nihon

I leave for Japan tomorrow, its been a long time coming.