Late Update

I know that I missed last week, but a lot has been happening these past two weeks. Last weekend I went to Kobe with my host mom again in order to see her granddaughter's chorus performance. It was very long and very hot. Afterwards I had dinner with my host mom's daughter's family where we had some very interesting alcohol. I didn't get home until late and then Sunday I went with my host mother to a food festival kind of thing, not totally sure what to call it. There was a lot of unique food, especially from Okinawa.

Monday was a holiday and I had a date. It was very lovely and on Tuesday I entered a new relationship. He is not Japanese nor American, but German. Since I find romance to be very much personal and this is a public blog, I don't really want to put too many details here. Just know that I am having a wonderful time.

Wednesday was when a typhoon hit Japan, killing people in Tokyo. It missed Osaka for the most part, besides some rain and a bit of wind the night of. The rest of the week was preparing for Kishibe-sai, our university's festival. For that, we had Friday off which I spent catching up with my previous roommate from France. I have mentioned her in older blog posts when I was in Angers. Together we shared a host family and during New Year's we went to Paris, Ireland, and England. Yesterday we caught up, walked around, and went to a small temple in Ibaraki.

Today was the festival and I spent most of it working at one of our booths. It was busy and fun, and tomorrow may look a bit similar ... except that I get to sleep in tomorrow.

Since I was lame and didn't update last week, I will make it up by sharing some things I've noticed in Japan!

1. Stealing bikes must not be a problem as I have noticed that almost all bikes, if not all, in bike parking spaces are not locked to anything.

2. On the television, so far I've noticed that every time there is an American and they voice them over, the males are given really deep voices and girls are given these adorable ones.

3. The one time I went to the theatres here, I watched Miyazaki's last film (a cartoon). Pre-film, almost all the commercials were of American cartoons coming to theatres.

4. There are a lot of Halloween decorations, but mostly only cute ones. Lots of purple and orange too. I think that in the U.S. we use a lot more black and orange in our Halloween decorating (and fake blood).

5. I am surprised Halloween is even recognized here.

6. Americans from the Lower 48 and Americans from Alaska and Hawaii are kind of different. I actually noticed this a long time ago, but the more I meet Americans from the Lower 48 the more I come to realize just how different we are ... sure, we have some loud Alaskans but loud Alaskans seem to be different from loud Lower 48ians.

7. Mosquitoes here are evil. They give me huge bug bites that itch severely and leave marks afterwards even if I do manage not to scratch.

8. They have Kit-Kats in the flavor of green tea. I have yet to taste it.

9. Although I know it is normal here for people to push you while trying to get on/off the train, it still irritates me when it happens. The trains are frequently full of people.

10. They really do slurp their noodles here, and I have yet to get used to it. I am always surprised for a split moment when it happens.

Well, that is all for now! Thank you for reading!

Until next time~