Things here have been great. My language class is 15 hours a week in the mornings so that is keeping me sufficiently busy. So far I have learned how to say my name, where i'm from, my hobbies, and a few other things. Its a lot to take in at once, but I always make sure to tell every japanese person I meet what my hobbies are and luckily the japanese are polite, so long as you don't hug them. My days are seriously long though because I have night class everynight.
Prior to Nikko, which was this past weekend (and amazing... stay tuned i'll probably get around to "blogging" about it before I go home) I hadn't left tokyo. However, rest assured I've been creating trouble in this part of the country. A couple saturdays ago we went to a Sake tasting held by the school. It was kind of lame but I suppose an interesting experience...
Alexis and Monique:
The K and D Show:
At a certain point the Sake tasting turned into a bizzare fashion show. I was less than impressed or amused.
The "Model":
Making my own fun:
Another regular occurrence whilst in Tokyo has been the Jenni and Lace go out and try to make friends show. As I have probably "covered" before the Japanese generally keep to themselves on the streets, metro, etc. No one looks at each other much, often people don't smile back when you smile at their babies... and do not under any circumstances stop to pet their dogs! A lesson that jenni-san learned the hard way, although not quite mic jagger style. So we've decided to laugh in the face of conservatism and force the japanese locals to be friends with us.
An Example of J-San being Ignored:
Attempt number one came when we asked our japanese waiters how to say "will you be my friend", and then repeated it in Nihon-go until they complied. Meet "Malaysian Silly Sweater Friend" and "Malaysian Silly Sweater Friend's Friend Who Doesnt Speak English". They took us to a traditional japanese resturant called an Isakaya (*sp). It was pretty cool we had to take off our shoes and put them in lockers, other than that it was sort of like the other places we had been to on our own. Our friends taught us japanese words and a little bit more about the culture. It was cool to get an insider's perspective on what to do.
Apparently my bare feet were picture worthy:
New Pals:
Apparently my bare feet were picture worthy:
Jenni-San and I:
Hey Budda Have You Seen My Piggy Bank:
Hey Budda Have You Seen My Piggy Bank:
Another attempt to force the locals to be our friends started off at the Hobgoblin, an Austrailian bar which had american food and Carlsburg (Flat C whaaaaaaaaaat). And on the way out we passed ..... PICADILLY CIRCUS, for those of you who didn't stalk brenna(yes i know she was much better at this blog stuff than i...) Picadilly is a tube station in london. Although the nights in American Sports Cafe, while memorable, are nothign I would like to repeat it was still great to find a bit of London/Home :)
After Picadilly Jenni-san and I decided to find another traditional japanese bar/resturant to try to force our culture on Japan. We followed a pack of people into this tiny traditional returant and when we came in the waiter told us in a not so friendly way that they had no english menus. While this was pretty much an indication we weren't all that welcome we told him it was okay because we were only having beer, and have mastered the term for such "Biru"! We befriended the people sitting next to us. One was a Japanese local who was very nice ("Nice Japanese Friend") and told us all about living there. The other was some snotty Italian kid ("Kid We Hate"). Kid We Hate was trying to get Nice Japanese Friend to help him write a speech for his japanese language class and apparently we were distracting Nice Japanese Friend from helping him cheat. At a certain point Kid We Hate told me that " I ate too much beer" and also told me while he knew it was rude I reminded him of bette midler in Hocus Pocus. We hate Kid We Hate.
Acting like the Japanese:
New Pals:
Lacie is brilliant.
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