#100Days
It has been a while since my last blog so here it goes!
Well we have made it to 100 days! Can you believe it?!
We were going to go to Matsumoto Castle to celebrate but it ended up having rain in the forecast so we decided to lay low and to go out Friday night and celebrate. We had lots of fun! We didn’t do much, otherwise, to celebrate that weekend.
On Tuesday, November 22nd, I thought I was having a dream that my bed was shaking uncontrollably only to find out that it most definitely wasn’t a dream but was the aftershock of an intense earthquake that had hit Japan. I only realized this when Tabatha called me asking if I was okay. Lol I just was like, “Oh...that was real?” Lol
On Wednesday, November 23rd, Japan recognizes Thanksgiving so we had the day off work so Madi and I decided to climb Mt. Takao. The hike was 90 minutes and we did it in 70 minutes so not too bad. Lol It was very beautiful. So many people were dressed in regular street clothes/shoes! :/ We took trail 6 up which was your typical hiking trail..not really maintained and was kind of difficult. We then took trail 1 down and this was maintained to be ‘easier’ for people to walk up/down. Trail 1 is literally a constant steady incline/decline. It took us about 40 minutes to decline..I’m glad we didn’t take that up. We were so exhausted when we got done that we just went home.
On Friday, November 25th, the girls and I had planned to have a Friendsgiving! It was nice. We actually were able to have/make lots of “Americanized” foods! It was yummy! I was in charge of desserts so the previous night I had bought a cake from a local bakery near my house. I didn’t realize it was a birthday cake until she had brought it out so I just rolled with it and had her put Madison’s name on it since her birthday is coming up… well then after dinner on Friday we opened up the box to find that I had bought an ice cream cake and since I had been refrigerating it instead of freezing it it had completely melted…#japanprobs #fail
On Saturday, November 26th, Natsuoko, Ashely’s mom, had invited us to a Soba making party! It was a lot of fun! I don’t know how to cook much in Japan that is considered Japanese so this was a good experience that I might be able to do at my apartment! Lol
After the Soba making party, Miho had invited me over for dinner and drinks. I always have so much fun there! We pretty much just sat around and talked. She taught me how to make various foods which was fun!
Then on Sunday, November 27th, we all went to Roberta’s for lunch. She took us to the golf course we went to the first time we had lunch. Lol They are such a great couple! Lol
On December 3rd, the girls and I went to Tokyo Comicon which was actually pretty fun! We learned that it was the first one held in Japan so that’s pretty neat! Lol Since I didn’t realize it was the first one and I knew how popular Comicon’s can be in the states I figured we should be there early to make sure we get in line at a reasonable time so that we can get in and enjoy the convention. Yeah… there were no lines. We mayyyybeeee waited 10 minutes to finally get in. Lol But it was good and well organized! We got done around 12:30pm. I can see the potential for it to grow if they keep hosting it every year. For it’s first year, though, I think it went pretty well!
We then left to go back to our Airbnb only to find that we were locked out as it appeared someone had put glue or some kind of adhesive in the lock not letting our key turn. Lol We eventually got in though! Lol
We spent our evening at a local bar called Mega Joint that let us pick the music and it was a lot of fun! Lol
The following weekend Madison and I went back to Tokyo to celebrate her birthday a few days early. On our way to our Airbnb this older Japanese guy, I kid you not, quite literally jumped out of nowhere and sparked up a conversation with us. It eventually led to him proposing to the both of us and kind of got creepy after that so we tried to wrap it up and say we had to leave. Lol We were impressed with his English though! I’ll give him that much. Lol
Then we went to dinner and came back and got ready. We left about 10pm. Our bar, Junk Cafe, is amazing! I love the people there! Then we went to Vision and paid $35 to get in but once we got in the music wasn’t that great and no one was dancing. There were just bobbing.. It was lame so we left. Then we went to the club we went to for my bday. It was awesome! We ended our night here. Hardly anyone was dancing when we got in but the music was good so we just started dancing and probably within the next 30 minutes or so we had started a party and there were maybe 50+ people dancing now! We even had a Japanese girl come up to us and tell us that we were cool for getting people to dance! Lol The DJ then shouted out if there was a birthday and I pointed to Madi and they played a birthday song! It was awesome! We decided to leave on that happy note and head back to our Airbnb. :)
On December 16th, Miho had invited me to a xmas party she was attending and said that I could invited the girls. Madi was sick but Ashley was able to come with me! It was a lot of fun! It seemed like a work party but I don’t know for sure because Miho doesn’t work.. Lol But yeah there was a buffet style entree with fried foods, pizza, pasta, (cold) meat (duck), and salad. These 3 guys sat next to us. Although, I don’t think they knew anybody at the party and just intended on eating at the restaurant but found it to be rented out by this party. Japanese people are so nice though and they let them join. They were shy at first and Miho did some greetings/introductions. They didn’t speak English very well so conversation were minimal.
These 4 little girls, about 8-10 years old, kept coming up to us asking questions about what we liked and where we were from and it was really cute.
The guys next to us would then feed off of the girls questions. For example, the girls asked us “What’s your favorite sport?” and when they left the guys would be like “I like soccer!” lol It was funny.
Miho was like my poparatzi! Lol I secretly loved it. :)
Then we went to lunch with Roberta again on December 17th.
I spent the rest of the weekend getting ready for THAILAND! So, that’s all for now my friends but get ready for the next blog because it will be jammed with great travel stories from Thailand and the visit of my beautiful mother and cousin!!
To finish off enjoy these stories. :)
School Stories:
-So the boy in my 2-3 classes (at Nansei) that has a serious crush on me, I mentioned him in the last post. Lol Every time we have class together he says, “I love English” and I reply with, “That’s good!” Then he goes on to say, “I am smart.” and I say, “Yes, you are.” then it usually ends with, “I love you” Lol It’s very cute. Lol It makes class enjoyable when the students appreciate my presence. Lol
-I mentioned in my last blog that my 2nd graders (at Nansei) had asked me to sing with them. Well they had asked me again to sing with them. After practicing they then informed me, “We perform after lunch together!” Well okay then...I guess that’s what I’m doing! Lol Last minute information is very common for my life in Japan. Lol
>>Right before we sang some girls came up to me and said “opaii” I didn’t know what it meant so after the performance I looked it up on my computer...yeah… it means “boobs” Lol My life.
-One of my 2nd graders (at Minami) came up to me and said, “Hello! Who are you?!” I figured that’s not what he meant to say as he knows me pretty well because I helped him with shot put earlier this year, so I said, “I’m Hillarie-Sensei!” He looked at me confused knowing that’s not the correct response. When he realized his mistake he busted out laughing saying, “Sorry! HOW are you?!” It was very cute. Lol
-Over lunch the students usually play Japanese music but one day I over heard the song “Wiggle”. It’s not a terrible song but it still might not be appropriate. I can’t help but wonder if the students know what the song is about and are trying to be sly by taking advantage that most (if not all) the teachers wouldn’t know or if they too don’t know and just like the beat. Lol
-In my 2nd (8th) grade classes we were working on writing poems in a 1, 2, 3, 4, 1 structure.
For example, I wrote:
Japan (1)
Very Welcoming (2)
I enjoy traveling (3)
Love to learn Japanese (4)
Home (1)
Well, in one of my classes one of the students decided to be funny and write about me. It was actually very cute. I can’t quite remember the exact words but it went something like:
Hillarie
My Teacher
She is funny
Oh, I like her
Beautiful
Lol. He’s gaining points for sure. :)
Side Stories:
-I was emailing dad and in the middle of my email I had a thought, “Oh, crap! Will he understand this?!” Lol #Japanprobs
-Miho, my host mom’s friend, was telling me about her conversation with her past host child and he had said the phrase “I’ll survive” but Miho was very concerned as Japan takes our language seriously and she thought that he was in serious trouble when really he just meant “It’ll be okay” Lol The English language if very tricky and I constantly find myself needing to analyze it so that I can explain and a lot of times I don’t know why we say certain things. I just grew up saying it without question. Lol