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 :)

Jan. 26th

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay in updating, I just keep procrastinating :P. Anyway, aren't our bear donuts cute!! Our friend Shuhei came over for dinner a couple weeks ago (I made curry) and he brought some donuts from Mr. Donuts (I LOVE Mr. Donuts!) and he gave us these adorable bear donuts that they were selling. I hadn't seen them before, maybe they were the week's special or something. Anywho, life's good. Nothing too wierd or exciting happening lately, but still having fun! Today Braden and I went to Aikido practice and learned some new moves. Aikido's fun but the gym is FREEZING. The last time I went I was so cold and miserable. This time was a little better though, cause I decided to wear clothes underneath my dogi. I usually just wear my dogi pants, a regular shirt, and my dogi top, but last week in the locker room when we were changing after practice, I noticed that the other girls were wearing pants and long sleeved shirts underneath their dogis, so I decided to do that too. It helped keep my body a little warmer, but my feet still felt like ice blocks by the end (we practice barefoot). Our Kyokushin dojo was also cold, but Kyokushin is really energetic, and we were always moving and punching and kicking, which helped keep us warm. Aikido is a little slower and more methodical. We stand still and watch the senpais (a senpai is a more experienced student) demonstrate a move a few times, then we repeat it slowly until we get it right. Once we get it right we can move faster, but then we eventually have to stop to learn a new move, and go slowly again, etc etc, so I never really warm up. But even though its not as energetic as kyokushin, its still challenging, and it still hurts sometimes. We never hit eachother, like we did in Kyokushin, but we grab onto and throw each other and fall alot, and that can hurt sometimes, especially if you fall incorrectly (in Kyokushin we did practice falling and rolling sometimes, which has been helpful). We practice rolling and falling a lot in Aikido too, its important to know how to fall correctly so you don't hurt yourself doing a move (or having a move done to you). So yeah. Aikido. Its fun. In other news, the end of Braden's first semester is coming up, and after that, Spring Break! And boy is it gonna be great. Its a month and a half long!!! I was really surprised when I found that out. I don't think I've EVER had a spring break that long. But I think that the summer break in Japan is shorter than in America, so I guess that makes up for it. Hiroko did tell us, though, that college students get a lot of breaks, and longer breaks, than the junior high and high school students. Like I mentioned before, college is a time for Japanese students to RELAX. lol. At least for some ;P. I'll also be finishing up one of my Japanese classes (I'll take another one when the other classes start up again). For our final project we made a video about our trip to the Adachi Art Museum. We gave the teacher our photos, she made them into a slide show, and then she recorded us narrating our trip in Japanese :). Its gonna be posted on the Shimane University website at some point, and when it is I'll be sure to include a link so you can all hear my slow and simple Japanese, lol.

Jan. 15th

Sorry I don't have a picture for you all today, maybe next time :P. These last couple weeks after New Years have been pretty quiet. It snowed a few times, and its supposed to snow again tonight, I think. On the Shimane Campus today they're holding college entrance exams for the high school students in the region. College entrance exams are a HUGE deal here. They cancelled a whole day of classes yesterday to prepare for it, and today the college students aren't even allowed to enter the campus for any reason, so as not to disturb the testing atmosphere. Japanese students study A LOT for these exams, and I've heard they're very difficult. I can only imagine its something like the ACTs or the SATs but with harder questions 0_o. From what I've heard though, from other Japanese people, high school in Japan is very hard and the students study a TON, but then once they get to college its a breeze. Braden admits that he gets very little homework and his classes aren't all that difficult, so it seems to be true. Braden said he got way more homework at CWU, and here he hasn't even had to take any tests. But I think those poor stressed out high school students deserve a break after studying every day and night for weeks for those college entrance exams :P. Hope everyone at home is doing well. Until next time :).

Jan 1st - Ringing in the New Year!

Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu! Honnen mo dozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu! (Congratulations on the dawning of a new year! This year, please continue to be kind to me!) Well, Braden and I hope all of you had a safe and happy New Year's weekend. We sure did!! We did so much stuff, I don't know how to write about it all without writing a whole novel! lol. I'll try to keep it concise but get in all the fun details ;). First off, we took a bus to Shiga Prefecture to visit Hiroko and her family (I mentioned her before. She's the one who picked us up at the airport in Kyoto when we first got to Japan). It was really nice to see her and her family again, they are all super nice, and her daughters are so cute and well behaved. Anju is the youngest, 7 years old, and she's so adorable, and she just LOVES Braden, lol. She always wanted to sit in his lap and hold his hand and play games with him, and Braden played with her a ton, it was so cute, he's gonna be a great dad :). The first few days we just hung out with the family and helped them clean their house for New Year's (its a Japanese tradition for people to clean their houses and businesses for the New Year, sorta like spring cleaning for Americans, except I don't know that many Americans who actually do it, but a lot of Japanese do!). We also helped Hiroko's parents clean their small travel agency, and then afterwards they took us to eat Korean Yaki Niku (Yaki niku just means fried meat, and since we were eating it Korean style there was also kimchee and lettuce to put the meat in, so it was a lot like eating Bulgogi. It was so yummy!). On New Year's Eve I helped Hiroko make the New Year's Day meal, which is pretty complicated, there's a LOT of different traditional Japanese New Year's food, and each one needs to be represented in the meal or it's not complete! I also went with Hiroko to do some last minute New Year's shopping, which felt a lot like last minute Christmas shopping, cause it was all snowy but it looked like EVERYONE was out and about buying last minute New Year's gifts and food. That night we ate Kimchee Nabe (So good! Another Japanese spin on Korean food, which is pretty popular here). Then, at midnight, we walked with Hiroko's family to the local Shinto Shrine to ring the bell. We literally "rang" in the New Year, it was really cool! The walk to the shrine was really atmospheric. It had snowed practically all day and there was a beautiful new layer of snow on the ground, and as we walked the dark streets up to the shrine we could hear the bell ringing in the distance. It was really neat. The bell had a deep sound and it resonated for several seconds after each ring, it sounded almost other-worldly. When we got to the shrine we lined up behind some of the locals and each of us took a turn ringing the bell. When it was Braden's turn, he rang it a little too hard, and after the hammer hit the bell it fell back hard and hit the roof of the building behind us, knocking off a roof tile! It was pretty funny, but Braden felt bad too, so the next morning we went back and made an offering in the Shrine's donation box ;P. New Year's morning everyone woke up early (despite staying up late to ring the bell) and we ate white miso soup and mochi (little gummy rice cakes) for breakfast. Then we went with Hiroko and her family as they visited their nearby relatives, wishing each a Happy New Year, giving them a gift, and paying their respects at the family's small shrines, which consisted of ringing a small bell and saying a short prayer while holding prayer beads in their hands. Braden and I politely watched and smelled the fragrant incense that filled the rooms with the shrines. At lunch time we ate what's called "Osechi Riouri". It consists of lots of traditional New Year's foods (many of which I hadn't eated before, EVER). I had octopus, black beans with flakes of real edible gold on them (gold doesn't taste good by the way :P), lotus roots, bamboo, shrimp, mochi, little jellied potato/seaweed thingies, sushi, marinated cod (Hiroko's cod was REALLY good!), fish cakes, teriyaki chicken, carrots, vinegared radish/persimmon/carrot, fish eggs, and probably some other things I'm forgetting. Even though New Year's food isn't my favorite Japanese food (Nabe is way tastier in my opinion) there were still some yummy things. There were also some things that I didn't like. The worst (for me) was the seaweed wrapped fish eggs. I put it in my mouth, then must've made a funy face cause all the kids started to giggle, and Hiroko told me I could spit it out but I didn't want to, so I stuffed some rice in my mouth and chewed and swallowed while nearly gagging! The little kids thought it was hilarious though lol. At least I made someone laugh, so it's all good ;). After lunch we visited Hiroko's Aunt and Uncle who live in Kyoto. On the way we stopped at a famous Buddhist Temple that has a beautiful pagoda-looking tower. At every large temple and shrine in Japan you can buy charms for your car and household, and one of the things they were selling were beautiful white arrows with blessings for the home written on them. I thought the arrows were really cool, so I bought one ;). I have it displayed currently in our entry way. After that we went to Hiroko's aunt and uncle's apartment and we ate more Osechi Riouri for dinner (I made sure to avoid anything resembling fish eggs wrapped in seaweed) and Hiroko's uncle was so funny, he kept bringing out more and more food, even after everyone was stuffed, and he kept asking Braden and I if we wanted more, and the food kept coming and the family had to keep telling him we were full! He was really nice and funny, and he and his wife had the cutest little pomeranian named Coco. While the kids stayed and played, Hiroko and her parents took us to a local New Year's Festival/Market near a Shinto Shrine dedicated to the Fox Spirit. It was a really pretty shrine with lots of Torii gates and bells, and the stores had lots of cute bunny and fox figurines, and they were selling lots of food too, but we were so stuffed we didn't try any ;). After buying a cute bunny figurine (the bunny figurines were being sold to celebrate the New Zodiac animal for this year, the Rabbit) we went back to Hiroko's aunt and uncle's apartment and said good bye and drove back to Shiga Ken. It was a busy but very fun New Year's :). But the trip wasn't over yet! The next day we took the train to Kyoto, and went to the bus stop where were planning to catch our bus back to Matsue (we had already bought tickets a couple weeks before). But the bus never came o_0. Finally a loudspeaker announced that heavy snowfall in the Matsue region was stopping the buses. There was another girl waiting for the bus too, and since the announcer was a little hard to understand Braden asked her what he said, and so she repeated it for us, and even helped us find the office where we could refund our bus tickets so we could buy train tickets to Matsue. She was super nice, and since she was going to Matsue too we ended up traveling with her the whole way, and she helped us get around the train station in Kyoto (which is very big) and Okayama (also pretty big). We took the Shinkansen to Okayama, and once there we found out that all the trains were running late since the trains hadn't been running that morning (due to bad weather). We had to wait a couple hours to catch a train (there was an earlier train that we tried to catch, but it got so packed with people they had to turn us and a few others away and we had to wait for the next one). We finally caught the train and got to Matsue, which was a snowy, slushy mess! We said goodbye to our kind escort, and tried to take a bus home, only to discover that the city buses weren't running at all, because the roads were so bad. There were quite a few cars out still, but traffic was terrible, because cars kept getting stuck in the intersections :P. We tried calling people for a ride, but everyone was snowed in. In the end, we walked back to our apartment, carrying our luggage since the snow was too deep to drag them on their wheels. It was about a two or three mile hike through snow and slush, and then when we got home we had to get up our staircase which was drowned in deep snow! We made it up though, and, exhausted, ate dinner and went to sleep. What was supposed to be a five hour trip turned into a ten hour one! But we got home safe, for which we're very grateful, and now we can relax for a few days before school starts again. It rained a lot today, and the roads are starting to clear a bit, hopefully they'll be completely clear soon. Well, this ended up being really long, sorry, but I hope you enjoyed it!!!