Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Suiyoubi wa yasumi da! (Wednesday is my day off!)

Actually, I have a lot of days off my first week. Monday was Respect for the Aged Day and Friday is another holiday that seems to have something to do with visiting graves (seems like kind of inconsiderate timing, having it right after Respect for the Aged Day). And on Wednesdays I made sure not to schedule any classes.

So anyway, today I was able to sleep in, though I still woke up at 6 I didn't get up till 7. Breakfast was a lot like the other days, but since I didn't talk about it much before, I will now. I had some cereal, but my host mother also gave me a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon (which is thicker than American bacon), and fruit. Whoever said Japan had smaller portions was fibbing because every meal is big enough that I can't finish everything. I don't think it's just my host family giving me more either because my host dad seems to have just as much food but finishes it in no time at all.

After breakfast, I went with Nick and my host mom, who is free during the day on Wednesdays at least, to fill out and turn in our alien registration forms. This took longer than expected but wasn't difficult. Unfortunately for Nick, he had class to get to so he was worrying the whole time and we ended up driving him to the college and coming back to get my papers afterward. At the college, I signed up for some free events like trying on kimonos, a weekend trip to an onsen and other things, calligraphy, and flower arrangement.

On the way home, we stopped to get some ingredients for supper and I checked out a game and manga store which had aisles and aisles of manga and a wide variety of video games (though there were almost no 360 games). Random popular anime series also have video games, for example I saw a Wii game for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, though I can't think of what you'd possibly do in a game about that show. It could be a visual novel I suppose...

Anyway, from there we went to a rental shop which was pretty huge and reasonably priced and had tons of CDs, DVDs, games, and even manga books. There were around 4 aisles front and back of anime DVDs and there were plenty of American movies too. There was also a section of CDs for anime, game, and movie soundtracks. We ended up renting Karigurashi no Arrietty (The Borrower Arrietty in English), which is the latest Studio Ghibli movie and which has been out for almost a year in Japan but isn't due out till next year in America.

When we got home we watched the movie which thankfully had English subtitles. Pretty much everything about the movie was great and it's probably one of my favorite Studio Ghibli movies now. It's basically an anime version of The Borrowers and while it's family friendly like most of the other Studio Ghibli movies and the original Borrowers, it manages to not be cheesy. The story is good, the art is extremely detailed and pretty, and the soundtrack is fantastic. We might actually rent the soundtrack when we go back and perhaps I can copy it...

For supper, I helped make gyoza, a mix of meat, onions, and leeks (I think) folded up in a thin crust. It turned out pretty yummy, though as usual there was a bunch of other stuff to eat too and I was very full by the end. My host mother said that she thought Americans ate a lot but I don't eat very much and I told her that I thought Japanese people ate a little but everyone eats a lot.

edit: I forgot! We also went to my host mom's English teacher's restaurant. The English teacher is Brazilian and has a Brazilian restaurant too, but she seems to speak Japanese, English, and Portuguese fluently. I had some lasagna which was pretty good and we hung out for a little while afterwards just chatting.

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