Thanksgiving Dinner

Yesterday we had a fairly big Thanksgiving dinner planned for which almost everyone was going to make something and then serve to our host families. Since my cooking skills are limited to sandwiches and pop-tarts and since I'm always busy and/or tired I managed to avoid making anything and just helped out with other people's stuff occasionally.



Things seemed to be going passably well for some of the afternoon, but you could tell the state of things was declining by counting the number of "does this smell burnt to you?"'s per minute. And indeed, almost everything got burnt at least once. But in spite of that we had a pretty wide selection of not bad tasting things: deviled eggs, chicken and beans, beef stew, stuffing, broccoli and cheese casserole, banana banana bread (double banana intentional), and some other desserts. Everyone who made something introduced their dish in Japanese, most interestingly being the deviled eggs introduced literally as "the devil's eggs". In addition to the devil's eggs, there was hot chocolate from the heavens and that casserole that seemed to have gotten singed in a war between the two.

Afterwards we cleaned up for quite a long time and had quite a lot of leftovers. Seriously, those clean up and set up times totally weren't worth it in my opinion. Even if I was capable of making delicious food I think I'd rather just get something cheap and easy. Guess I'm not really a food person; I still just eat because I have to.



In other news, I finally got to hang out more with the neighbor kid from my host mom's cram school on Wednesday. As expected, we played a buttload of video games including Smash Bros. Melee, New Super Mario Bros. Wii (totally forgot that had a super fun coin battle mode), Pokemon, and Call of Duty: Black Ops. All the gaming tired me out pretty quickly though (and I was feeling a little unwell) so I ended up going home early instead of going with them to a sushi place for supper. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures there though. Sorry.

Maruyama

I went with my host mom to Maruyama today which is known for a ski jump used in the 1972 Olympics, Hokkaido Jingu (Shrine), and a zoo. First we went to the ski jump and rode the lift up to check out the view from the top.

I'm pretty sure if I went off that I'd die.

While I was there I got a taste of America in the form of an ice cream float, though unfortunately there's no Root Beer here. There is, however, Melon Soda, which tastes a lot like Cream Soda, which I don't like.

It was sunny when we left the house but by the time we were heading back down the lift it was raining so we hurried into the sports museum that was there. They had typical winter sports stuff on display and more interestingly, interactive games/simulations for ski jumps, ice hockey, speed skating, and bobsled.

After that we went to a pretty fancy French restaurant and had some pretty fancy and very delicious food.



After that it had finally stopped raining for the most part so we walked over to Hokkaido Jingu and took some pictures of the pretty trees and shrine interior. It was a pretty standard shrine which had a place to wash your hands and mouth with purifying water before entering (which we didn't do), a place to buy charms for various good luck (in work, health, love, childbirth, exams, +1 resistance against fire, increases special attack vs skeletons, etc.), a place to insert 100 yen to get a fortune on a piece of paper and a corresponding place to tie up your bad fortunes. Also a place for writing your wishes/prayers on a piece of wood and hanging those up and a place for tossing a coin, clapping, and saying a prayer as well. There were quite a lot of things that cost more money that you would think but I guess they probably help pay for the upkeep of the place.



And yeah, that was about it. Here's the album.
Edit: No, I didn't go to the zoo. It was too rainy or something.

Host family

Yesterday I met my host family for the first time! (Also in the morning I had curry bread from a bakery and it actually had curry inside it!) My host family is a mom, a dad, and a son, though they have two other sons who are away from home. They're very nice and we've been able to communicate pretty well. The dad teaches politics in high school and the mom tutors at a cram school. They also have three cats and live near Nick's host family's house and a completely green church.

I probably shouldn't post too many personal details on a public blog about my host family's life, but I can share some interesting tidbits about Japanese life in general. Though if you already know a little about Japan, it might be nothing new.

First thing is, you take your shoes off at the door and there is a section of the floor that is different or lowered to accommodate this. Also, there are slippers to wear around the house, but socks or barefoot is ok too. Houses often have slippers to use in the bathroom too. Also, bathrooms are probably the most different thing between Japanese and American houses. The toilet and shower are in separate rooms, with the laundry room usually connected to the shower room, and the shower is outside the bath tub. Traditionally, you clean yourself completely outside the bath and then soak in the bath tub afterward. Since you're already clean, the family often takes turns and keeps the same bath water for each person. Optionally, you can bath the even more traditional way, by sitting on a stool and pouring buckets of water over yourself. After using the toilet, you are supposed to close the door behind you to keep the dirtiness in the bathroom. To see if someone is inside, just knock.

Also, sliding doors; there are a lot of them. There is also a small shinto (or maybe Buddhist) shrine in a section of the house that has tatami floor and a picture of, I believe, a deceased relative.

Anyway, that's about all I can think of at the moment. I'll update when I think I can without being too antisocial and rude. xP

Mostly boring stuff

So here's a quick rundown of the trip.
We left the house at 1 a.m. on Monday, drove about two hours to the airport in D.C.. We got to the airport FOUR hours early and had to sit around for a while. The plane left at 7 and I met Nick. After about 45 minutes of flying, we landed in Kennedy airport in NYC where we had to go to a different building to get to Korean Air and go through security again. After waiting around there for about 6 hours (with no free wifi!) and meeting two more BCA students, we left on the 14-15 hour flight to Seoul. That flight had a 50 minute delay before takeoff for refueling, as if they got in the plane and were like "oh yeah, we need to put gas in, lol."

It took forever. I spent most of the time trying and failing to sleep, occasionally listening to some of the many Korean and Japanese music options they had, including some I knew. And I watched movies: Source Code (I'd been wanting to see that and it was pretty awesome), X-Men: First Class (Danielle said she liked it, and it was pretty good too), and Kung Fu Panda 2 (I didn't want to think any more).

I got a little sleep in the middle, probably less than an hour, and closer to the end of the flight I slept a couple hours I think.

Anyway, that delay at take off caused us to be late for the next flight, but to our surprise they held the plane for us, sparing us from needing to spend the night in Seoul, and we ran to the plane, once again going through security. This final flight was about 2 1/2 hours long and also seemed to drag on, but filling out the customs forms killed some time, along with a good Chrono Trigger playing session.

When we arrived in Sapporo, our luggage did not make it on the flight as it was unable to run as quickly as its human counterparts. This only applied to the four BCA students who were on the flight from NYC to Seoul, but on the flight and at baggage claim there were airport employees there to meet us and take care of having our luggage delivered to the college the next day.

After that, we met the BCA Resident Director who is refreshingly hilarious. When we told him that we had them deliver our luggage to the college tomorrow, he promptly informed us that this was unacceptable. And then we realized he was joking. Now we're staying in a hotel that is attached to the airport, we didn't even have to go outside, and will be leaving tomorrow morning to stay at the college for a few nights before meeting our host families. The room is significantly nicer than the Olympics center where I stayed on the May trip in 2010, so I don't have the sense of utter despair that I had last time (though I did have some of that on the endless flight).

All the other BCA students are talking in a room down the hall, but it's pretty loud and hard to get a word in so I was perfectly happy to retreat to my room and check out the internet. And of course, the TV has lots of weird Japanese commercials and game show sort of things. And the toilet has a built in bidet which I have yet to try, but my roommate, one of the guys I met at the Kennedy airport, says it's the best thing ever.


Ok, that's everything.
Except for the picasa web album where I'll be putting pictures which is here: Japan 2011 Photos