Feb. 28th

Yeah, its March! And you know what that means? Winter in Matsue is almost over!!! It was actually quite nice a couple of days ago, but then it got a little cold again and today its all gloomy and rainy, but I can see spring on the horizon!



So I thought I'd post a couple pics from Valentine's Day for you all to enjoy ;). Braden bought me flowers and chocolates XD, and I bought him chocolates too :X. My sister Becca also sent us chocolates and a really pretty card, and a webcam that she got from a friend :D. In Japan on Valentine's Day its traditional for the girls to give chocolates to the guys that they like, and then on White Day (on March 14th) the guys give chocolates to the girls that they like, and of course every girl who gives chocolates to a guy on Valentine's Day hopes to get chocolates in return in March ;). Well Braden and I kind of mixed Japanese and American traditions since we bought eachother chocolates ;P. Not even a week after all the stores put away their Valentine's chocolates they put out all the White Day chocolates. The stores really go all out, with tons of cute and pretty boxes of chocolates on display for everyone to choose from. They go from cutesy and pink to black and elegant. I'm sure the candy companies make bank every year o_0. lol.

The other day we had some friends over for dinner and I made Chilean Cazuela. Yum :).



Our Japanese friends Shuhei and Towa brought the dessert, and they went all out! They brought donuts, pudding, and cake!! I'm glad that my friends like dessert as much as I do! XD.

Yesterday after church Braden and I went to our first official practice for the Warrior's Parade in April. I'm so excited! I get to wear a Kimono and carry a traditional Japanese parasol and swing it around in a little dance :). Braden is going to be dressed as a warrior, with helmet, armor, and even a sword at his side, but he gets to dance with a fan XD. LOL. Its a cool little dance though ;). At the practice we also got to watch the spearmen, riflemen, archers, and many others practice their parade dances. It was tons of fun. When we go to the parade I'll be sure to take lots of pictures for you all.

Feb. 19th

I'm afraid I don't have a picture for you all today, but I've been having a fun weekend, so I thought I'd write about it. Yesterday Braden and I visited another Kyokushin Dojo here in Matsue. They are part of a Kyokushin organization called KyokushinKaiKan. They aren't a member of any of the IKO's as far as I could tell, but they still do the same Kyokushin. It was a lot of fun to do some Kyokushin again. We only went to check it out and see if it was any cheaper than the other dojo we went to ( it was the same price, alas, so it won't fit in our current budget), but we still got to participate, even though we were just visiting. They did things a lot like the other Matsue dojo we went to. The warm up was slightly different, but the rules of courtesy were about the same and they, too, did a lot of energetic, basic drills. One thing that they did that was different from our other Japanese dojo, and what made them more like our Dojo back home in the US, was that everyone participated in kumite (sparring) not just the higher belts and those who were going to participate in tournaments. Unfortunately, since Braden and I weren't official members of the dojo, it also meant we weren't currently signed up with their injury insurance program, which meant we couldn't participate in the kumite portion of the class. But it was still fun to watch.

This morning was super fun. The elders told us about a free Japanese class that they had found, and I wanted to go so they took us there this morning. The people there were really nice and for my first lesson they taught me how to write my address in kanji. Usually when I send letters I just write my address in English letters, but sometimes I have to write my Japanese address on things and I usually need to ask Braden for help, or a write it myself but I write it wrong. Today I got to practice writing it a lot and now I'm getting kind of good at it, hehe.

Tonight we're having some friends over for dinner and I'm gonna make Chilean Cazuela :D. Cazuela is a chilean stew thats really yummy and great for cold winter days. It was one of my favorite foods to eat in Chile, and although I can't cook it exactly like a Chilean, its still edible, lol.

Feb. 8th

So recently Mcdonald's has been having a promotion where every month they have a different burger themed after a different state from the US. Last month was the Texas burger, and this month is the IDAHO burger!! Of course I just HAD to try one, lol. It was pretty good :). It was a large (by Japanese standards) hamburger patty with cheese, bacon, onions, bbq sauce, mustard, and of course, a hashbrown patty! Even way over here in Japan, Idaho is famous for its potatoes, lolol. Braden and I have been trying to be thrifty so we haven't been to McDonalds in a long time, it was a nice little treat to go there yesterday. After dinner we went to the birthday party of Miyara Kun, the Japanese student who lives with the exchange students and helps them out with stuff when they need Japanese help. He's super nice and helpful so everyone decided to throw a surprise party for him. We decorated the lounge and everyone brought snacks, and then one of the German girls called him while he was at the campus and told him she needed help translating something, and when he came we all yelled surprise and sang Happy Birthday. He seemed really surprised and happy, and we had a lot of fun talking and chatting and playing with Zabine's Kendama (a Japanese toy which has a ball on a rope attached to a wooden handle, and you try and catch the ball with the scoops and peg on the handle.) After that some of us, including Braden and I, went and sang Karaoke. It was tons of fun :D. Here's a pic of all of exchange students:

This photo was taken last sunday, and almost all the exchange students are in it. Braden and I almost missed it, cause we weren't told about it till just before everyone got together for it and we were just about to leave to accompany the missionaries on a visit. (Which was a fun visit. We visited a Japanese man who had lived in Argentina for a long time and he was fluent in Spanish, so I got a chance to meet him and talk to him in Spanish for a while :). ) Anywho, its been a fun week, and the weather has warmed up a bit, which is nice. Hopefully it'll stay that way for a little while at least ;P.

Feb. 5th

Last week I graduated from my first ever beginner's Japanese class. I even got a certificate, lol XD. Today to celebrate we had a tempura party. We all went to the Matsue International Community Center kitchen and fried up lots of tempura covered veggies and made some shishkabobs. It was all very yummy :). I love my classmates by the way. Since all of us speak different languages, and our Japanese skills are rudimentary at best, communication can be difficult, but for some reason we can always find a way to make everything completely hilarious with our simple Japanese :D. I don't know how we do it, and I don't think anyone but ourselves and our teachers would understand any of our inside jokes, but class was always good times, and I can't wait for next semester, I hope all my same classmates are in it :). Yesterday I went on a long walk to find the MICC (where we had our party) and right next to it I found a Japanese cemetary. I've never seen anything quite like a Japanese cemetary before. It's just sitting in the middle of the city, on a little hill, and the whole thing is made up of concrete and marble sidewalks and headstones, and pretty stone lanterns and incense holders, and you can smell the incense as you walk through it. It was really pretty and I took several pictures. Here's just a couple that I took:

There were some gravestones that looked really old. The cemetary itself doesn't seem that old, so I think maybe they were brought there from other older cemetaries. The plots themselves are shared by whole families, not by individual people, and some of them have the family name etched on the main headstone, and then on another stone you can seem the names of all the people who are represented there. Everyone in Japan is cremated, and the ashes aren't always kept in the cemetary, but the family grave is the place where people go to pay their respects to their dead ancestors. The cemetary is located in a quieter part of town and it was quite pleasant to walk through. On the way home from the Tempura party Braden and I stopped at Book Off, which is a chain of used-books stores in Japan. You can get awesome deals there. Today I bought a Tintin book (Cigars of the Pharoahs) in great condition for only a little over a dollar!!! XD. I also bought a manga for the same price. There are so many books in Japan (especially mangas and light novels) and you can always find them for really cheap at Book Off. I don't go there too often cause whenever I go I wanna buy a ton, but this time I decided I needed to make an exception (It was a Tintin book for only a dollar!!!). Lol.

Feb. 1st

Every Thursday Braden and I help the local Elders with their free english conversation class that they hold at the church. Its really fun :). The elders in our ward right now are Elder Nunez and Elder Nicoles (who, incidentally, is the cousin of Lydia`s trainer when she was on her mission in Chile!). Last week the elders had exchanges so Elder Nunez traded places with two elders from another area for a few days and they came to Eikaiwa (tjhe Japanese name for English conversation class). One of the elders was Australian and we had a fun time talking about the differences in pronunciation and spelling between American English and Australian English. For instance, Color is spelled Colour and favorite is favourite, etc etc. Tomato is pronounced tomahto, etc. And they have different nicknames for things. McDonalds is called `Maccas` and apparently Burger King has a different name altogether and is called `Hungry Jack`s`. He also drew a map of Australia on the board and taught us a little about Australia in general, like what the major cities are, a little about the wildlife, etc (although tame koalas are cute and cuddly, beware the wild ones, cause they`re vicious!!! ;P). It was really educational for the Japanese and Americans alike :D. During lessons we encourage the students to ask questions and practice words in english, and some days we play games that require them to speak or write certain english words or phrases. We usually have anywhere from 3 to 7 students, not a ton, but its still lotsa fun. A couple weeks ago I was asked to give a talk in Sacrament meeting :X, and although the bishop told me I could just speak English and have Braden translate for me if I wanted, I really wanted to speak in Japanese, so I carefully wrote my whole talk in Japanese (with lots of help from Braden of course XD) and just this last Sunday I went up to the pulpit and spoke Japanese for about 10 minutes straight! It was great, and afterwards everyone told me my Japanese was `pretty` and my pronunciation was really good, so that made me really happy ^_^. The topic of my talk was unity and harmony at home, church, in life, everywhere. Braden helped me out by reading the scriptures out loud for me. When I read Japanese I`m really slow, so I had Braden read the scriptures for me so I wouldn`t go overtime :P. Japanese is really hard to read because of the Chinese characters that they use so much (called Kanji). The Book of Mormon and Bible in Japanese thankfully have Hiragana characters next to the Kanji to make it easier to read, and I know how to read the Hirigana, but I`m still kinda slow. I can barely read Kanji. I know some basic characters, but many of them have more than one reading (way to say it) and oftentimes I know the meaning of a character but I don`t know how to say it. I`ve heard that even Japanese people have trouble with that sometimes. A Japanese lady in my ward here said that sometimes when Japanese people read a lot of kanji, they can understand it and even paraphrase it, but they can`t read it out loud because even they don`t know all the correct readings sometimes XD. Pretty tough stuff. But they still know TONS more than me, I have a long ways to go before I can really even read simple Japanese 0_o. But I`ll keep studying :)