June...???

The week since my last post has flown by -- I can't believe it's June! When I last left you, I was about to venture into a Japanese kitchen for the first time -- it turned out to be pretty successful. With my homestay mother's assistance, i made "nikujaga" which is "a Japanese dish of meat, potatoes, and onion stewed in sweetened soy sauce." It was pretty delicious. Below are some pictures showing the steps of making it, and in all it took us about 90 minutes to make. I didn't realize until we were done, however, that it was dinner for the next night... so I had to wait another 24 hours to eat it :(.

The sliced vegetables!

Meat and vegetables in the pot

Hope you like onions...

Finished product!

Last Sunday was my last day with my homestay family and it was absolutely amazing. (There will be a quiz later on about how many times I've said 'absolutely amazing' in this blog.) We woke up early to more rain, but my homestay mother had special plans for us to go to a ceramics studio and throw our own pots! So, Hanae-san (the mother), Kohaku-chan (the four-year-old), and myself got out our umbrellas and trudged to the bus stop to ride over to the area where the studio was. It actually took us a while to find, but we finally got there and it was such a cute little shop. I'm pretty sure the owner lives in the back, and the store was half shelves with things he was selling, and half his studio where there were two potter's wheels, the table, and the kiln. We all squeezed inside and set about to "learning" how to throw -- it was a lot of Japanese so I basically just copied what the sensei did and they threw in a few English words like "faster," "slower," "thin," and "thick" -- which I know how to say in Japanese anyways... but, after a few good attempts and lots of corrections I finally made two little cups, and Hanae-san made two bowls. Kohaku-chan made two plates by hand (not on the wheel), and she was really cute while doing it. The ceramics studio was a lot of fun and was a great bonding experience. The clay was too wet to paint, so we selected our colors, and the sensei is going to paint and fire it, and then we pick it up later. I'm excited to see the finished product!

Making my cup!

Ready to be painted and fired!

The rest of Sunday was a great day with the family. We had lunch in the area and then walked to this shrine whose god is the protector of "car safety," so people can drive their cars up and park them in front of the main temple. It was pretty cool. The street outside the temple had lots of vendors giving out samples, so we got lots of little dessert treats for free! It was a great way to end the afternoon before heading home (and the rain had let up soon!). Sunday night we finally ate the meal we had prepared the night before, which turned out pretty well if I do say so myself, and then after dinner we did origami as a family at the table. It was amazing. I made a few simple things myself (a heart and a hat), but the parents pulled off some pretty amazing folds. They ended up giving all of the finished products to me as a present, which was really sweet. In all, I had an amazing weekend with my family, and everyone else I have talked to had a positive experience as well. We have enjoyed living in the dorm together, but it was really cool that we could still get a taste of what living with a Japanese family would be like. My family invited me back for dinner any time, and of course I am going to go see the baby when it is born! I can't wait!

Origami!

I was really sad to leave my homestay family, and unfortunately I had a week of midterm tests to look forward to... but overall, last week went pretty well. My Japanese midterm took up three days (the oral, writing, and reading/grammar), and my econ midterm on Thursday went pretty well. On Friday, my group for my anthropology class was in charge of leading the class discussions, so that was an adventure considering our professor can barely get people to participate for the full 90 minutes. But, we decided to go around the room and have everyone talk about their homework assignment, and with some discussion interspersed here and there it actually lasted the whole class!

So, last week was busy with school but I also managed to have some fun. On Monday, I actually had to go to the doctor because my finger was infected -- at first I tried going by myself but later went back with someone from the CIEE staff who is fluent in Japanese. They gave me antibiotics to take with food, so my finger is fine now, but it's pretty strange -- the last time I was in Japan, I got an infection around the same fingernail! It's never happened at home, so I'm not really sure what is going on... but thankfully the Japanese medical system is pretty efficient so it didn't take too long to see the doctor, get my prescription, go next door, and get the pills I needed. But, hopefully it won't happen again! 

Wednesday is when I have my long break between getting out of Japanese at 11am and having NGO management at 5pm, but this Wednesday we had a meeting about our upcoming Hiroshima trip! We are all really excited for it. Next weekend (June 10-12), we are going to Hiroshima and Miyajima (the island with the famous orangey shrine in the water). It's a CIEE-sponsored trip, so all of our costs are covered, and it should be a great experience. I've already been to both places so I know what to expect, but in our meeting we talked about what going to Hiroshima and Peace Memorial Museum there will be like -- it's a lot to think about.

Both Thursday and Friday I went out with some friends after classes -- on Thursday we went to an izekaya and did karaoke again (the same place as the previous week), and on Friday I went to Harajuku to eat at Eggs 'n Things (which I have talked about earlier in the blog). While we were waiting for dinner to start and walking around the Harajuku area, my friend and I actually stumbled upon something really cool -- a making candy demonstration in this store called "The Candy Artisans." We happened to be there right at the beginning when they were pouring the melted sugar, and watched all the way until the end when they produced tiny candies with bunny faces on them. It was pretty incredible -- they start out by mixing the colors, cutting up the slabs of different color and then making the bunny face in a big tube -- then they stretch it out so it gets tiny. It's kind of hard to explain, so pictures are definitely necessary!

Mixing the colors

Rolling out the candy

Making the shape

It starts out as a big cylinder like this...

Then gets pulled out!

So the finished product looks like this! Amazing!

Later on, dinner was a lot of fun  -- I had the special omelette with corn, pastrami, and spinach. It was DELICIOUS. After dinner, we walked around Harajuku and did some shopping, before wandering over to Shibuya and walking around some more. We went into this super high-end Ralph Lauren store that had $1000 jeans and $250 umbrellas, and were lounging around in there and playing a price-guessing game until we felt like our presence was no longer welcome... but by that point we were all pretty tired so we headed home to get some rest before Saturday. A bunch of us are planning on going to college night at a club tonight so it should be an adventure! Earlier today, I walked around Akabane, which we pass through every morning on our way to school, but I hadn't actually gotten out and walked around there yet. It was a pretty nice area -- I didn't walk too far away from the station but I did some shopping and found some super cute shoes on sale! Now I'm just in my room resting before tonight... it's going to be another longgg night! Mata!