2-week roundup, and a Merry Christmas!

I had a pleasant surprise this morning when I got a package from my mum with presents! I'm saving them for Christmas, as tempting as it is.

 

On Sunday, Dec. 9th, I went to an International Party with my friend, Yurika. It was a thing where you could meet Japanese people and vice versa. It was in Hakata and I walked there from my house. It took about 35 minutes but I love to walk to it was enjoyable!

 

The place was really rich, it was in Canal City which is like an outdoor mall with really expensive decorations.

 

This is Hakata Station. My camera drops the pictures in out of order, so I walked here after the party, actually.

This is from Thursday, December 6th, the Takoyaki party at Yuka's house! It was fun except that everyone spoke Japanese the entire time (6 hours) so I was very tired, since I could only understand a word or two of what they were saying per sentence and was struggling to understand their hand motions. It was really good food though, I just don't do well around a lot of people that I don't know, especially when I can't speak their language!

 

The makings of takoyaki (fried squid balls)

 

Yuka about to eat

 A strange takoyaki amalgam of corn, fish cake, cheese and other random stuff the guy felt like putting in there.

 

Yuka, her mom, and 2 of Yuka's friends

 

More takoyaki experiments. I think this one had the prank wasabi and horse radish sauce in two of them. Both happened to come to Yuka, unfortunately! They did this several times, but Yuka's strong and can handle spicy things really well!

 

Or not . .. 

 

Poor Yuka! :P

 

I was stuffed but everyone else kept eating! I tried oden for the first time, which is a really tasty, rich soup with things in it that I can't even describe because I don't know what they are. I think most of them were Japanese vegetables. This desert was ice cream with wine-soaked apples that Yuka made, along with kiwi on the side. It was delicious!

 

Masayo made this, it was a kind of mochi with red beans.

I will give more updates later, I've done a lot recently and I am seeing 2 friends today, so I'd better get ready! Thanks for reading!!!

How to tie an obi and the rest of my week

Last Thursday, my friend Masayo came over and showed me how to tie an obi! She showed me on the yukata (summer kimono) first because it's easier since the material is thinner and the obi is also thinner and smaller. In addition to the free lesson, she also brought cream puffs, because it's customary to bring a gift when you come to someone's house! Of course, I also bought her a (late) birthday present  which I'll give to her today when I go to Yuka's takoyaki party! Takoyaki are octopus balls, fried I think, so we are going to make them together! I think you have to have special equipment so I don't think this is something I could make at home, but it's still fun.

 

She did the more difficult bow but taught me the easier one. Hopefully next time she can show me the one that she has, I like it much better!

 

 Cream puffs!! ^_^

 

On Sunday, I was able to meet my friend Yurika again! I hadn't seen her for a very long time and have actually only met her twice! It was really fun and we had giant crepes! 

 

Mine had pear, chocolate, vanilla ice cream, whip cream, and I think almonds

 

Yurika's had chestnut cream, vanilla ice cream, and chestnut spread, I think. I can't remember exactly

 

This is Yurika! :P

 

yumm!! And we had some very fragrant tea, too! It was wonderful ^_^

The rest of my week was ok, besides my boss getting mad at things that weren't my fault. Now I know why the other teachers didn't like her. She wants me to teach a student TOEFL, but of course I know nothing about it. In America, you have to take a training course if you're going to teach the ACT or SAT, but obviously I've had no training so I don't know why she got frustrated at me for reading the book with my student. I thought that's what she told me to do, but her English isn't so good so apparently it was a misunderstanding. She wanted me to study the book, or at least the section I was going to teach, in less than a half hour then she expected me to be able to teach her about it . . . I can't study 40 pages in less than an hour and know how to teach it. I'm really frustrated right now and not sure what to do. I've looked up tips etc, but she doesn't let me take the book home to study it, so that makes it really difficult. If that's what she wants me to do, I hope she's allotted me hours every week to prepare for this one class amongst the other classes I have to prepare for, clippings, and proofreading, which is what we do on our "down time" or non-teaching time. I really don't see what she wants from me. I guess people were right, you really can't get on her good side. . . .

random updates from last week

Random pictures from last week. The ones of Fukuoka Castle were when I was filming on Sunday for my friend's video of everyone at the news station in Memphis. I trained her and because I was there for half of this year, she wanted to add me in the video, so I filmed in the closest, most Japanese-looking place I could find.

 

Being sick, Japanese-style! I think the lint on my mirror also adds a nice touch. These are gloves that Madoka gave to me. I wore them to one of the schools this past Tuesday, and the kids kept calling me Spiderman! 

I wasn't allowed to wear the mask to work because then it's difficult for my students to hear me and to see my pronunciation, but I wore it on my off-days. It got considerably colder here! Feels like it might snow . . .

 

Before

 

After! . . . breakfast for dinner, yeah (IHOP commercial. Tim knows what I'm talking about :P)

 

Mountain Dew in Japan!!!  Apparently one machine carries it here . . . now I'm on the lookout in every machine . . .

 

So much cooler when it's in Japanese!

 

Fall leaves. I'm not sure what kind of tree this is, but the leaves are very different, so I'm sure someone out there knows! Anyone?

 

There are crows everywhere

 

This is part of the remains of Fukuoka Castle

 

I wish the whole castle was still here, but this was still really cool

 

My new favorite tree

 

The back (or front) of my new favorite tree

 

trying to get the moon that's above the tree, but it didn't work out

 

A watchtower from the remains of Fukuoka Castle

 

Crows really are everywhere . .. 

Literally, everywhere . . .

 

A reflection in the small lake near the castle. It's funny how natural everything is, then across this river is a huge, busy street with tall buildings!

 

One of my students gave me a persimmon!! It was hard like an apple, but sweet, almost like a peach, but not really. I don't know if they have them in America, but I've certainly never tried one before!