The Shortest Week of my Life

Monday of this week started slowly, put things quickly picked up. I woke up, ate breakfast and ended up eating a forkful of Nutella straight from the jar, against my better judgment. It was worth it though. After riding the bus from my house, I waited fr the subway. Each station and platform has a different tune that plays when the train is close.


The song that plays in this station reminds me a lot of the opening song to Skins. There's another that sounds like a Disney song, and one that sounds like it belongs in a Zelda video game.

My schedule for the week was:
Monday: World History, English (understood this!), Contemporary Japanese, Gym (mostly understood this!), lunch, Math (understood it), and Biology (mostly understood it).

A summary of the classes I understood: In English we decorated a paper Tanabata decoration, even though it was a little late. While everyone else wrote their wishes in English, I had to write mine in Japanese. Everyone was impressed by my sloppy kanji without any recognizable stroke order, though.

A lot of girls wanted to make boyfriends. Some of the best wishes I read were 'Present happiness will be go into the future,' 'I want to have good brains,' and 'I want to be health.' I hope that's not what my wish sounded like in Japanese.

In gym, we went swimming. The school has it's own pool and sauna, no big deal. I was told we were going swimming so I came to school with my only swimsuit, which was a bikini, but I forgot a towel. Everyone filed into the boy's locker room (they assured me it was okay when I saw the sign) and changed into swimsuits. A friend brought me over and introduced me to the gym teacher who looked very strict, and who did not seem to approve of my choice of swimwear. Once all of the girls got lined up and sat down by the side of the pool in their one-piece, shorts-length athletic swimsuits, the gym teacher introduced me to everyone. She made me stand up, say hello, and then have everyone comment on my swimsuit. Were I Japanese I would have died of embarrassment as the entire room echoed with the words 'nice body' in a Japanese accent, but being the American that I am, the gym teachers snide remarks and underhanded tricks could had no effect on me. This was only the beginning of my battle with the gym teacher.
After gym everyone dried off and I used borrowed various towels from various people. Most of the girls had these plastic 'towels' that soaked up moisture like nothing I've ever seen before, and when they were done they just squeezed all the water out of the towel ad stuck it back in their bag. I need to to some research and find out what these are and where they come from.
Next was lunch, and my first day with an obento. I didn't know what to expect, but this week I probably had 5 of the best packed lunches that I've ever had.

Everything wrapped up and still chilly from two ice packs and an insulated bag. Also, you can see my portable Winnie the Pooh chopstick case.


My Minnie Mouse boxes and Pokemon furikake. Furikake is really flavorful and you put it on rice to, well, give it flavor. Each of the furikake packages I had had a different Pokemon, one of four flavors, and had a little Pokemon trivia on it.


The top Minnie Mouse tier always had some sort of fruit. I think these apple slices look like little rabbits!


Need I say anything except maybe that my mother should step up her game a little?

After learning about sine and cosine were 'サイタ/saita' and　'コスモス/cosumosu' and learning about Punnet squares again, I asked my homeroom teacher what sports clubs there were for girls. I'm pretty sure everyone is convinced that, since I'm a foreigner, I'm pretty much incapable of doing anything by myself. Be it riding the subway, playing basketball, or going to a club. My teacher listed off only the clubs that my classmates were in so that I could go with one of them, which made me a little irritated, but it ended up working out fine. A girl offered to take me to badminton club with her, and another girl offered to let me use her badminton gear.
We looked for the sponsor of the club to ask if I could join, but he was nowhere to be found. We also weren't sure if I would even be let into the gym to practice, since it was the Chukyo University gym and I didn't have an ID card. In the end we just didn't say anything and I walked into the gym without anyone noticing.
I always thought badminton was a difficult sport. Turns out it's not. Badminton is like tennis with lighter rackets, a very light shuttlecock instead of a tennis ball, and it is played on smaller, indoor courts. M strategy quickly turned into swinging my racket as hard as I could whenever the shuttlecock came on my part of the court. By the end of practice my partner, normally a member of the tea ceremony club, and I, who had never so much as thought about playing badminton before, hadn't lost a game by more than a couple of points, and we almost won a game!

Tuesday: English, Biology, Gym, Home Ec, lunch, Ancient Japanese or something that I didn't understand a word of, and double English classes at Chukyo University.

This time in English we went to the computer lab to practice listening, speaking, and writing for the TOEIC test that everyone took on Friday. From what I can tell, the TOEIC is like and AP test. I passed the practice test with flying colors.

After more genetics and heredity, it was time for gym and I was prepared to battle with the gym teacher. I could take her on in a mental fight, and probably a physical fight. She didn't scare me one bit.
The classes split up into softball and basketball and, not wanting to go outside in the soggy sand/mud mix on the field and not being able to hit a softball to save my life, I went upstairs to play basketball.
The first thing that I noticed in the gym was a huge net separating the boys from the girls, presumably so that no basketballs rolled over to where the boys were high jumping. Second, I noticed that the boys were high jumping. 'Hana Kimi' makes a lot more sense to me now.
After looking surprised and saying 'You're playing basketball?' in an amused tone, the gym teacher moved me from the back row to front and center. After talking for a minute or so about what we were going to do, everyone stood up. We did a little routine where we went from being at attention to 'resting,' and then the gym teacher pulled me up to the front. After some confusion, I figured out that I was supposed to raised my hand. When I raised my hand everyone spread out into less tight lines and started stretching.
After that we id partner stretches, one of which included standing back to back with your partner, locking elbows, and lifting your partner in the air as you bent over. I had not problem doing this, as my partner was small Japanese girl who was a full head shorter than me. On the other hand, everyone clapped when she picked me up. I probably outweigh every girl in my class except for one by at least twenty pounds.
The next stretch was leap frog. The height difference between my partner and I made things interesting.
After stretching, I thought we would play an actual game of basketball. Instead, we learned how to pass in several different ways for about 40 minutes. When everyone struggled and started to get tired, I was still going strong. The gym teacher used my partner and I, along with several other pairs, to demonstrate the correct passing technique. I was not picked on again by the teacher.

After gym was Home Ec, where I learned the kanji and names of 50 different types of seafood.

In Ancient Japanese I learned how to say 'give me a kiss,' or something along those lines, in Korean.

In English at the University, my teacher was hilarious. He was a short, stout, and loud man from California named Tim. We skipped several lessons because he just plain didn't like them and thought they were racist, and then played two truths and a lie, except there were three truths and two lies. It made me realize that I really miss being able to speak English whenever I like to whoever I like.

Wednesday: Biology, Contemporary Japanese, and then the whole school went to watch Rakugyo and Kyogen, traitional Japanese performing arts.

In Contemporary Japanese we went to the library to do research. Needless to say, I could not do research as everything was full of kanji and vocabulary that I don't know. My teacher still wanted me to do some work though, so I read Harry Potter and wrote about how it made me feel. I wrote something along the lines of "In England, I don't think the days that they say are hot are actually hot. If they came to Txas, they would have real complaints. I've really all of the Harry Potter series, but it's still interesting. It's making me a bit nostalgic. I think I'll read the whole series again." The teacher gave me a Totoro stamp that said I did well.

There is only one problem with Japanese performing arts. hey are completely in Japanese. I fell asleep for about half of it, and daydreamed for the other half.

After school I was informed that the Chukyo University gym wasn't going to let me play badminton, so I had to find another club. I decided on Japanese archery club. A girl from my class walked with me to their dojo in hakama and tabi (traditional Japanese two-toed socks), while I walked around in a pair of basketball shorts and some torn up Vans.
I wasn't allowed to actually use the bows because they were huge and dangerous, but I learned the basics of shooting one of the bows. I highly admire anyone who can do this well. There is not a single part of kyudo (Japanese archery), from walking up to the spot where you are going to shoot from or putting the arrow on the bow to how you let go of the bowstring to actually shoot the arrow. They even have their own style of seiza which is even more painful than original, if that's possible.

Thursday: Home Ec, World History, Japanese History, English, Lunch, Gym, Ancient Japanese, and Math.

On the way to school I stopped by a Circle K convenient store and bought a little snack after I tried some Wednesday afternoon. I bought a bag of little flavored mochi pieces coated in what I think was sugar and ate a few on the way to school. When I got to school, I wondered why everyone was leaving the classroom about five minutes before first period. I asked one girl and she said that today we were going to the Home Ec room to make warabimochi (fake mochi). While I like mochi, this was the second time I had eaten it in about an hour. It was good though, and I will most definitely be making it at home sometime.

In English we watched a video about the girl who was bitten by a shark, which was centered a lot on her Christian faith and how she believed that getting her arm bitten off by a shark when she was 13 was a sign from god to spread his word amongst surfers. I feel that these students might be getting a bit of a wrong impression of America and Americans.

In gym I played basketball again, because I still suck at softball. Today we finished with some extra time left, so the gym teacher decided to have us play dodge ball. This was not regular dodge ball though. There was only one ball, and there were no real teams. One person would throw the ball at someone as hard as they could, and it would just go back and forth, back and forth. Everyone sort of huddled in the centered of the gym, running from one side to the other, away from the person with the ball. It got even more confusing when a second ball was added in and you had to watch for a ball coming from both sides. Not really knowing the rules, I just dodged balls. I didn't try to catch or throw anything, but I stayed in the game until the end!

After school I went to kyudo club again but this time it was a much more sullen meeting. Instead of practicing shooting bows, the first year students were practicing the more ceremonial aspects of kyudo. This involved a lot of slow walking, moving around of bows and arrows, and lots of correction from the older club members. I felt very out of place.

Friday: English, TOEIC, lunch, term-end ceremony

In English we gave presentations on Japanese culture (In English, of course). Not only was my group a group of three, but we had a native English speaker (me) and we couldn't talk for more than two minutes on our topic. We chose karaoke from the list of topics and did our presentation, and then everyone else did their presentations.
When we were done, everyone took pictures with their projects.

The guy in the back on the left is Marshall, from Tennessee, and he's one of the two English teachers for my class. The tiny Japanese girl on the right who isn't in uniform is the other English teacher. She's just as sweet as it looks like she would be.
After English my class went to take the TOEIC, and I went to read some more Harry Potter in the Library. About half an hour in, I heard someone shouting, or so I thought. It was actually one of the librarians trying to get my attention. We talked for a little bit, and then I continued reading. After that, yet another librarian came to talk to me, but this one was much more awkward. In fact, he used to be a math teacher at Chukyo but he had a mental illness so he had to take a break and work in the library, but he hopes to be able to teach math again very soon. I don;t know hat to say to that in English, much less in Japanese.

After reading to the point where everyone was sitting down to have their first dinner with Harry in Number 12 Grimmauld Place or the first time, I had to put the book back on the shelf and go to lunch. When I get home, I'm reading the Harry Potter series again.

We all filed into the gym, hot and sweaty, and sat in lines according to classes. With every change in speakers I was terrified someone was going to make me go up and say something to the school, but I never had to. We finished, went to homeroom, and the kid going to India and I gave our little farewell speeches. From my class, I got a Chukyo High School bag that everyone signed. Some of my favorite notes:

Enough said.


He also loves our English teacher. This kid is hilarious. I wish we could be best friends.


I thought this whole are was cute.


The Chukyo High School logo.


I got a pretty little cloth that I think is meant for wrapping lunch boxes from one of the English teachers (who didn't even teach my class).





I got some candy from one of the most adorable people I've ever met. This girl, Yukino, wasn't in my class, but she came in during lunch and talked to me several times.

I was planning on doing something after school with friends, but instead I went to go say thanks to the principal and the teachers and everybody, and by the time I had finished most people had gone their separate ways. On Tuesday there's a going away party for the kid going to India, so I get to see everyone one last time before I go home. I have several email addresses and intend to use them to practice my Japanese and keep in touch with some people.

This was by far the most exhausting week so far.

Kyoto day 1

Thank you, General Douglas MacArthur and Secretary of War Henry Lewis Stimson. Were it not for them, Kyoto and its 1600 Buddhist temples, 400 Shinto shrines, and its 14 "Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto" that have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site would have been destroyed in a fashion similar to that of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Hiroshima before and after Little Boy was dropped on the city.

If I ever meet any relatives of those men, I will hug them. Kyoto is an amazing city. After arriving in Kyoto Station after about two hours on a regular train, our itinerary was as follows:
Day 1:
Sanjusangendo (三十三間堂/さんじゅうさんげんどう） 33 Gen Hall
Kiyomizu-dera (清水寺/きよみずでら） Kiyomizu Temple
Kinkakuji (金閣寺/きんかくじ) Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Instead of presenting things in chronological order, I'm going to save the best for last.
I, Adena (a fellow YFU student), Haruka (Adena's host sister who is out of college), and Haruka's friend Hiromi, had a busy day ahead of us.

By the time we got to Kinkakuji after about thirty minutes on a bus, we had only ten minutes until the temple closed and it was pouring down rain. Since the weather was so horrible and we were running so low on time there weren't many other visitors there to get in the way. Needless to say, the temple was very golden.

Compared to the other temples I have been to, in both Nagoya and Kyoto, it didn't really feel much like a temple. In fact, it was originally built as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu in the late 1300s and converted into a temple by his son, Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimochi.
Later, in 1950, the original temple was burned down when a monk named Hayashi Yoken attempted suicide. The temple was rebuilt in 195, and in 1984 the lacquer on the Temple was found to be decaying. In 1987 the new coats of thicker and more robust paint and gold leaf were completed.
On the top you can see the phoenix roof ornament. I don't think there's any significance, I think it's just a phoenix on the roof.
A few statues that I think are Jizo, the protectors of travelers and children.
The temple was beautiful, but it did not have the same feeling about it that the other temples possessed. Maybe it was because the latest renovation, a new roof, was completed in 2003, or maybe it was because you couldn't actually enter the temple, but it felt more like an artwork being displayed than a temple. It was an extremely beautiful piece of art though.

Before going to Kinkakuji, we spent most of our day at Kiyomizu-dera. Kiyomizu-dera is a Buddhist temple that dates back to 798, but the current structures were built in a reconstruction effort in 1633. Not one nail was used to build the temple complex, and the name kiyomizu, meaning clear or pure water, comes from the waterfall that runs off in the nearby hills. The three tiered pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera.
The waterfall runs out of the mountains into this little fountain, where people wait in line to drink from the spouts.
There are three spouts, and there are sanitized cups with which you can reach out and drink for health, longevity or wisdom. Traditionally, you should only drink from tw of the waterfalls because if you are greedy and drink from all three it will bring misfortune upon you. I only drank from one, and I think it was the health waterfall, but I'm not sure. I'm okay with longevity or wisdom, too.
Fun fact about Kiyomizu-dera: There is a phrase "to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu." This phrase refers to an Edo Period tradition of jumping the 13 meters off of the stage at Kiyomizu-dera, and if you survived the jump your wishes would be granted. Out of 235, 85.4% of the jumps were "successful," meaning the jumper didn't die. Injuries are another matter. Now, jumping off the stage at Kiyomizu is strictly forbidden.
On the right you can see just how big a fall it would be, and in the middle you can see Kyoto on the horizon and Kyoto Tower sticking up out of the city.

Behind the main hall of Kiyomizu are several other shrines, but the most popular and famous of them all is Jishu Shrine, dedicated to the god of love and 'good matches.' There were all sorts of love omamori for sale and omikuji for sale. Omikuji are little sheets of paper that usually cause one or two hundred yen. There are various fortunes you can get, ranging from the best, more good than bad, the worst, and everywhere in between. Inside the omikuji are various and more specific fortunes pertaining to love, money, lawsuits, lost items, etc., all based on the overall luck of the omikuji. When you get a bad fortune you can tie it to a post and the bad luck will leave you. Hiromi tying up her bad-luck omikuji.
Omikuji are at every shrine that I have been to, but these stones are unique to Jishu Shrine.

If you walk safely between them with your eyes closed, you will find your true love. You can have someone help you, but that means that you will have to have a go between to find your true love. Both Adena and I made the journey successfully! But... we both helped each other out. They need to include that part on the sign explaining the meaning of the stones.

Before going to Kiyomizu-dera, we visited Sanjusangendo, which translates literally to the Thirty Three Gen Hall*. This temple was built in 1164, but the main hall was rebuilt in 1266 after it was damaged in a fire.
Inside this approximately 65-meter-long hallway, there are one thousand golden, armed Kannon (similar to Buddha) statues**. 124 of these statues are from the original temple, and the other 876 statues were rebuilt at the same time the hall was rebuilt. It is said that each of the statues has a different face so that you can find the face of the person you are praying for, but I couldn't see more than about five different faces in amongst the thousand statues.
In the temple you weren't allowed to take any pictures of the sacred statues, but there still seem to be pictures floating around of the statues.

A picture can only convey so much. Inside this temple there is a spooky feeling hanging in the air. I can't describe it, except that it made the air feel really heavy. I felt like if I wasn't careful, I would wake up something powerful and terrifying that had been asleep for hundreds of years. With all of the statues in the hall, and even though they all had their eyes closed, it feel like something was watching you as you walked down the hall. It was extremely unsettling, but at the same time really really cool. In addition to the one thousand armed Kannon in the temple there is one large Kannon in the canter of it all. At one point it must have been golden, but now it is fading and dusty and worn, but that just makes it all the more enthralling.

In front of the ranks of Kannon are 28 guardian deities, the most famous and important being the statues of the thunder god Raijin and the wind god Fujin. Not only are the Kannon a National Treasure, but each of the 28 statues of the guardian deities is a National Treasure.
I could have stayed in that hall all day, but no on else seem as fascinated by it as I was, so we left for Kiyomizu-dera before I even had time to read all of the signs about the guardian deities. But I got an omamori that's supposed to make me have better luck, something I am greatly lacking.

After a day full of sightseeing and building up my good luck we went out to eat dinner at a Japanese-Italian fusion type restaurant. I decided to be adventurous, and I unknowingly ordered pasta with fish eggs on it. It turns out that fish eggs don't actually taste like much, and now I can say I've eaten fish eggs.

After dinner we checked into a ryokan, a Japanese inn. Two rooms were reserved, one Western-style room and one Japanese room. Adena, the other YFU student I was traveling with, and I were in the Western-style room. I wanted the Japanese room, but I figured that since Haruka and Hiromi has just taken us around Kyoto, I was going to do whatever they told me too because they had done so much for us. Luckily for me, Haruka decided that since they were in charge of us, we should split up with one adult to a room and one YFU kid. It appears that my good luck charm is working already.

The hotel room was adorable, complete with tatami mats, futons with amazingly fluffy bedding, yukata (way better that the Tokyo Disney Yukata), and a low-to-the-ground table with chairs that made your feet fall asleep.
Hiromi was adorable too. While watching the Wimbledon women's finals, she commented the Zvonareva was really pretty. After that I pointed out Zvonareva's coach, and for the next thirty minutes she waited for him to appear on screen again so that she could take a picture of him with her phone. There's a reason he modeled in Italy. After watching Zvonareva lose, we watched a Japanese girl lose too and decided it was time for bed.


*A ken is an ancient Japanese measurement. There is no specific length of a ken. Instead, it refers to the space between the columns of a temple.

**The statues are made of Japanese cypress and painted golden.

Inuyama Castle

Of the once 40,000 castles thought to have been built in Japan throughout history, there are about 50 that remain today, including castle ruins. Only twelve of these castles were not burned in and rebuilt after World War II (sorry Japan, for destroying your history). Four of those castles have been given the title of National Treasures since 1951 based on their "especially high historical or artistic value." Himeji Castle in Hyogo prefecture is the most visited castle in Japan and an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Other National Treasures are Matsumoto Castle in Nagano prefecture, Hikone Castle in Shiga prefecture, and Inuyama Castle in Aichi prefecture.

If Nagoya castle was pretty, I don't even know what adjective to use in describing Inuyama Castle.

It was a little walk from the subway station, but it was along a river and we could see the castle up on a hill and it was beautiful. All you can see in this picture is the main tenshu and the watchtower on top of it. The castle was built in 1440, making it the oldest castle in Japan, but it has undergone many renovations and changes, and the construction wasn't complete until 1620.

We got to the castle hot and sweaty after our walk up there, only to find that there was more to go. A huge rock saying 'Inuyama Castle' is very misleading when you haven't actually reached the castle yet.
Since all of the Japanese kids are taking finals for the next to weeks, it's just the foreigners who get to have fun. From left to right it's Mary and Adena, both YFU students in Nagoya this summer. The Japanese characters from left to right are 'inu' (dog), 'yama' (mountain), and 'jo' (castle). The kanji above The castle are the kanji for national treasure.
The next leg of our journey was not as long, and it was much more scenic. We were surrounded by trees, we could see and hear the river flowing past, and we passed this really cool Shinto shrine on our way up. In the building of the castle Harigane Shrine actually had to be moved, but I don't think it has anything to do with this shrine.
And since all of the Japanese castles kept getting burned, the city of Inuyama decided to put up signs that prohibit lighting fires when visiting Inuyama Castle.
The final and most treacherous leg of our journey. Japanese people in the 1500s and 1600s must have had amazing legs.
After conquering the hill we finally found some English guidebooks and entered the main castle courtyard. From the road we had only been able to see the top of the castle and, even though it wasn't a very big castle, it was really impressive.
The part on top of the castle is the watchtower. In fact, the architecture of the watchtower was such an old style that it lead historians to believe for many years that the Inuyama Castle donjon, or tenshu, was the oldest in Japan. Later, it was discovered that Maruoka Castle was built in 1576, whereas construction on the Inuyama donjon wasn't started until 1601 and was completed in 1620. On the bottom right you can also see one of the towers, which was completed in 1537.

A little description they had by the tiny model of the Inuyama Castle donjon.

There were probably close to a hundred of these little pieces of wood, each with different Japanese characters on them and I could not even come close to deciphering what they were. I asked my host sister, who had to ask someone else, and we finally found an answer. On each piece of wood was the name of a daimyo (the equivalent of a feudal lord in Japan) and a number. The number was the height of the area of the castle that each lord was commissioned to build, and the higher the number the more important the lord.

There was a room with all of the castles in Japan. This one is for Katie.

As we went up, the view from the windows got better and better. The view from the window that was meant for dropping stones on invaders was especially great because it was a huge window. The when we got to the top floor here the watchtower was, there was an entire balcony that you could walk around on, regardless of how short the railing was or how slippery the wood under our feet was from 400 years of use. The top of the watchtower is about 62 feet, so the balcony was probably 50 feet above the ground, maybe a little less. When you add that 50 feet to the height of the hill the castle was built on, the watchtower is very tall and the surrounding area is a very flat plain and the Kiso River. So, you can imagine the view. Inuyama City, and maybe Mt. Hongu somewhere in the background.
This is the Kiso River, and I think this is Kakamigahara City and that there is a Mt. Atago in the background. I could be wrong though.
Fun fact of the day: Every house in Japan that has this Japanese style roof has a design on the ends of the roof, and each design is different. Nagoya Castle had sakura blossoms on the tiles, Inuyama Castles has clovers (or at least that's what they look like), and I'll have to check the designs on the roof of my house. I'll report back soon though.
I don't know if it was worse coming down or going up, but the stairs in the castle were the steepest stairs I've ever seen. It was more like climbing a ladder than walking up stairs. This picture doesn't really do the stairs justice. TO put things in perspective though, one step went over halfway up my calf, and Mary's about to be perilously close to smacking her head on the beam above the stairs here. I was more than perilously close, and it hurt.
Once we got down from the castle it was already lunch time, since everyone had worked up an appetite climbing up and down stairs and mountains. We were visiting on a Monday morning so everything in Inuyama was sleepy and a little depressing, but we found a noodle shop to eat in.
There's my host sister going inside through the noren, the hanging banners used to tell if a shop is open or not.
There were a lot of us, so we got the long table that was about a foot and a half off of the ground, and it did not have any place to put your feet under the table. There was also no air conditioning, which isn't uncommon in Japan, so in addition to our legs being in pain and falling asleep, we were dripping with sweat. Sometimes a fan is just not enough.
I ordered tsukimi udon, which literally means moon-viewing udon. I knew it had egg in it, the big, round yolk is where the name moon-viewing comes from. I had forgotten that the egg was raw. Usually tsukimi udon is served hot and the egg slowly cooks, but since everything else was hot, I ordered cold soup. So, I ate raw egg yesterday and I won't forget tsukimi udon is in the future (even though raw egg doesn't taste like much).
After lunch we went to Little World, a sort of wooded park area where there are houses and foods from all around the world; Okinawa, Tanzania, Italy, the Great, Plains, Nepal, and about 16 other countries. My camera died in the first country, so no pictures. We stopped by a gelato place in Italy and I had 'kashisu' gelato (everyone else got mango), but no one could tell me what kashisu was, only that it was sour. When I got home and used Google translator, I found out that kashisu is black currant, and that black currant gelato is very good.
While we were waiting for a bus, everyone went into a department store in seek of air conditioning and an ATM. In the department store I came across this banner: So far this is the closest I've gotten to Matsujun, Feruza. I'm still on the lookout though, so don't be disappointed yet.
After Little World we napped on the bus back to Inuyama Station, took a train to Sakae, the downtown district of Nagoya, and wet to a really cool okonomiyaki restaurant. The restaurant had a place to put your feet, thank god. I also tried my first Japanese doughnut yesterday (green tea and azuki bean) and I'm addicted. I ate two more this morning. There will be an entire post about how wonderful Japanese doughnuts are a little ways down the road.

A Little Taste of Home

I may not still be considered Mexican food after I substituted so many things. I made fajitas with green peppers, onions, and chicken just fine. Tortillas and tortilla chip were a little difficult to find, but my host mom and I managed to find some. Tortilla soup calls for chicken broth. Easy, right? No. They do not have chicken broth at the store near my house. The have canned quail eggs, but no chicken broth. When I came home empty handed and broken hearted, my host mom said that they might have some chicken broth. In a cube.


I was a little skeptical at first, but it worked out just fine.


My host mom also said that we had Worcestershire Sauce (Ooster Sauce, as the Japanese call it), but instead, we had this.
Turns out Komi Sauce Deluxe is pretty close to Worcestershire Sauce.

It was when I reached the Pico de Gallo that things started to get interesting. I couldn't find Jalapenos (a bit of a shock), so I just some other spicy green peppers that looked like skinny and wrinkly jalapenos. The measuring spoons were marked a little differently (in ml; 小さじ was 5ml and　大さじ was 15ml), but I decided since the proportions were the same, it didn't matter. And so what if the garlic was vacuum packed?
It was still garlic, no matter how weird it looked.

Cumin was surprisingly easy to find. Cilantro slightly less so. I eventually just decided to substitute Italian parsley for cilantro, but I couldn't find any of that either! Instead, I found this:
Yes. That is for real.

In the end, my weird fajita experiment worked out pretty well! My host mom wasn't quite sure how to handle the fajita, so she ate her first one with a fork until she realized that everyone else was eating it like a fajita. My host family also said it was spicy, but I didn't really notice any spiciness (I thought the Japanese could handle spicy?).

Haru liked the tortillas (Haru's the dog, not my host sister. My host sister is Saeko)

Everyone liked their gifts (my host dad loves hats!)

And Haru enjoyed herself, too.