Last weekend in Osaka

On Saturday, Andy and I met up with Ryoko, Koppun, Kana, and Maho for our last rendezvous in Namba. We went to karaoke at Jankara, which was half off because high schoolers were banned from entering due to swine flu. I'm not sure if this was because they didn't want kids going out, or because they didn't want them to spread the flu, or both, or what. The downside is that we were limited to 2 hours (you must understand that the Japanese go to karaoke for absurdly long amounts of time, especially if your group is on the bigger side). So we went in, we sang and sang, and then when our 2 hours were up, what do you think we did? We went to a different Jankara, which you could see immediately upon exiting the Jankara we were in.

There was an hour wait however, so we took some purikura in the meantime.

It's kind of funny how the brightness/contrast in purikura does not deal well with white people's skin. Either you look really washed out or really tan, or in the case of this one, really red.

The video of the day once again came from Maho, and it is this one.

It's great going to karaoke with Japanese kids, because they pick new songs which have the music videos to go along with them.

After we had finally gotten our fill of singing (or did we?), we went to this Mexican restaurant that Andy had found in an English-language Osaka-area magazine. We had been dying to go to this place, because the photos and the review indicated that it would be incredible. And BOY, was it ever! It was super authentic, which surprised me a little bit, and absolutely delicious. We had tacos, a quesadilla, nachos, enchiladas, and some kind of egg and chorizo dish. It was so freaking good. We had really good times. My Japanese friends described me and Andy as ぺらぺら fluent, and that always feels great. We discussed kanji. I decided on the kanji for my entire name. My first name I knew from some language table at Oberlin where some people picked some out for me. They are...

詩絵奈

The first (shi) means poetry, the second (e) drawing, and the last (na) is in girl's names a lot, and also places like Nara. It's pretty cute.

薔薇

My middle name is Rose, so I can go for a direct translation. "Rose" in Japanese is bara and you don't see it in kanji very often because it's really complicated. Japanese don't have middle names though.

水私

And my last name, which in Spanish means "water" and "I," I picked the kanji for "water" and "I." Ahaha.

Anyway. It was really wonderful, and I will miss them. Koppun is studying abroad in America starting in this summer, so hopefully we can rendezvous at some point. The others have another year to go before they'll go abroad, but I have high hopes.

The next day, Andy and I went to Universal Studios Japan, which was pretty cool. The best ride was the roller coaster, entitled Hollywood Dreams: The Ride, which is pretty funny considering I'm from Hollywood, and the Universal Studios in Hollywood doesn't have this ride. But it was a great coaster. We also got to go on Back to the Future, which doesn't exist in America anymore, and I have to say it wasn't as good in Japanese. But still nostalgic. Jaws was terrifying, Jurassic Park was still cool, and the Spider-man ride was pretty sweet although it kind of gave me a headache. It was half ride half 3D movie... ask me about it sometime.

The weirdest thing though, is that USJ is really trying to be Tokyo Disneyland. There was an uncanny amount of similarly themed attractions, like Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Arabian Nights (aka Aladdin), Cinderella.. I'm not kidding. That was pretty much all their electrical parade (sound familiar?) consisted of. And I guess licensing rights are different around the world, since USJ also had Peanuts. And no Nickelodeon, which was sorely missed. They also had this 4D Sesame Street movie, which was pretty cute, very faithful and in simple enough Japanese for us to understand. We ate dinner at a casual Italian restaurant, which felt familiar, even if the pizza I ate was curry-sausage-and-potato flavored.

Universal Studios was never my favorite amusement park, and I wasn't really that keen on going until we ended up at Citywalk by chance that one time and I was looking at the roller coaster from the outside.

It was a really great last weekend. I don't believe that I'm really going home.

Birthday Pt I: Peruvian Food

So I have finals on Monday and Tuesday, but I desperately need a break from studying, so it's blogging time!

So I really need to blog about all of my birthday celebrations, because there were a lot... so let's see...

The first one was last Monday night, when I went out with Ryoko, Koppun, Kana, and Mahoko to a Peruvian restaurant in Umeda that Koppun had found. None of us had any idea what Peruvian food would entail, but I guessed that it would probably be delicious, and it really was. We had a lot of good conversation and a LOT of good food... we photographed it all diligently (the Japanese girls I hang out with are pretty big on photographing food, and I can't really disagree with this habit). I'm not going to post all of them though, just the best ones. We ordered a course so there was a lot of food.


Delicious birthday Peru cake!


I think this was potato with black mint sauce, and some egg, served on top of sea shells.


God this soup was SO GOOD, I ate most of it even though it was for all 5 of us. It was chicken and spicy and MM DECLICIOUS


This was our little assorted dessert plate. That's wine jelly, and a kind of rice dessert cake, and the same cake I got in honor of my birthday.


Sweet stuff you put in your coffee.

Maybe my favorite part of the decor was the slide projector (NOT a digital one) projecting pictures of Peru on the wall by our table. It gave it a really rustic effect.



The whole evening was a blast, and my pictures are kind of dark because my flash makes everything look like crap, but you can have them anyway.


(Koppun,) Kana, Me, Mahoko


Ryoko, Koppun

And of course what is Peru without alpacas:




On my actual birthday, they decorated my mail box at school with green sparkly things and made me a bunch of green paper cranes (they know I like green). Ryoko and Koppun gave me some stickers and little things from Tokyu Hands, a fabulous department store that literally has everything. We spent a lot of time in the stationery department once. They also printed out some pics of our various adventures and put them in a nice, brown envelope. I was really surprised, and touched. It reminded me of high school when my friends used to decorate my locker on my birthday. I hope they have the chance to study abroad and make nice friends who will do nice things for them on their birthdays. ♥

Spring

So today the weather was beautiful, and I hear it's supposed to be nice all week, and thank god. Although strangely enough, warm weather made me miss Oberlin in the spring, because it's so lovely when everything is green and you can hang out on the grass and all that stuff. I register for classes next week. Oh, Oberlin.

But anyway, Japan. Here's a picture of the front of Kansai Gaidai:


The sign says, basically, "Congratulations, Freshmen!" or new students, or more literally, accepted students (the new school year starts in April in Japan). The big building in the middle is administration, the one on the left is the library, I'm not sure what the one on the right is, but behind it (you can't see it) is where the Center for International Education is, which is where I spend all my time. I just thought it made a nice shot.

Before our Takarazuka adventure, Jess and I ate tonkatsu at a restaurant on the 28th floor in Umeda. We had a lovely view of the Ferris wheel at the department store HEP, which I rode last week but did not publish pictures of in the blog, so we'll play a little catch-up.


Me and Ryoko




You board the Ferris wheel at the 8th floor or something, so you're really high up.




And here's the view from the tonkatsu restaurant.

Aside from the sun, the other thing that comes out in the springtime in Japan is sakura. Jess and I had our own version of 花見 (flower-viewing) in Takarazuka, which I will just commemorate with these photos.


Jess is alive, I promise!






First time I have ever used the macro setting on my camera.



Hopefully I can take some better shots before they all disappear, which I hear happens fast.

PVとプリクラ

Ugh, I am so tired!! I had fun tonight though. I've been slacking a little on my documentation of fun things that I'm doing... so I'll take this moment to catch up a little.

I've been to karaoke 2 more times, once with Ryoko and her friends Kana and Mahoko, and also a fellow exchange student (and Californian) Andrew (he's Ryoko's other Speaking Partner as well, by coincidence). Andrew and I had a pretty good time doing various ridiculous duets, including but not limited to Britney Spears' Toxic, My Heart Will Go On, and A Whole New World. It was definitely fun to have another native English speaker around for the ride.

Here's the プリクラ to prove it happened:

This one cracks me up, although some weird digital glitch happened and Ryoko's face got all distorted, so she stuck a flower over it (I think she did this from her cell phone? Crazy).

This was the PV of the night, care of Mahoko. I really enjoy the SNES motif and the multiple costume changes.



Hey, did you know YouTube lets you choose your video control bar when embedding videos now? I chose blue to match my blog!

And then today, I went out with my other Japanese crew (Ai and her friends Asami and Misato) and switched off English and Japanese every other song. I rocked Pat Benetar's Heartbreaker, which I have been searching for. I also got to do Sublime's Same in the End, which came as a great surprise to me because they only had 2 Sublime songs (the other being What I Got, I was looking for Santeria) and that one is not that well known. Asami won the best song choice though when she pulled out Queen's Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy. I was in the middle of singing Say It Ain't So when she queued it up, I stopped and went I LOVE THAT SONG!!! We were happy because no one ever knows that one, Japanese or American, and it's one of my personal favorites. I also got to do the pillows' Century Creepers which I had been wanting to try out. I can't hit the very lowest lines but it was otherwise a success. I closed with Life Is Like A Boat, because nobody knows who I really am.

I seem to have started a tradition of always doing the pillows' The Third Eye for my first song. I really like that song.

Have your プリクラ:

I think the effects they do on the eyes make me look kind of like an alien. Not to mention the skin color thing.

Prompt: karaoke, obviously. I gave it my all. And Misato drew us some nice microphones.

PV of the night was this one, from Misato. Possibly the most female-empowering PV I've ever seen? It's also really weird, but enjoyable! I picked pink this time! ALSO, I can't seem to find the official PV anywhere on the Internets, so this isn't the original, it's some random person singing, but the important part is the video. This girl sounds cute though.



A note on Japanese PVs: It is of note that Japanese music videos are not called music videos, they are called promotional videos, or PVs for short. To the native English speaker and liberal arts student that I am, this would suggest to me that these videos are not about making art surrounding other art, they are about promoting a product to be consumed. And certainly, not all Western music videos are intended as works of art, and certainly a cool music video helps you sell a song, but I'd like to preserve artists' integrity a little bit, wouldn't you?

Okay, and I want to leave you with one more PV, because I love this song (fans of Bleach will recognize it), and I had never seen this PV before and it's so cute. (See Andy, I told you this was a happy song.)



Ugh this girl is adorable. And look at her play that piano!

Okay, I think that's enough from me for tonight, I do have some homework I should be doing. ALSO THIS IS THE LAST WEEK OF CLASSES BEFORE SPRING BREAK YES!!!!

行こう、この世の果てまで

Today was extremely fulfilling. This week of school had me a little on edge, but a couple reminders and being able to sleep in allowed me to calm down. First, I just have to pass these classes as my grades don't transfer back (just the credit), so if I get an A or a B, it doesn't matter. (Although, I do have to get above a 3.0, and I do have my pride, after all.) But really, there is no reason for me to kill myself preparing for these classes when I know that I am capable enough to do what I need to get myself through and not completely stress out. That being said...

Tomorrow I have to give a speech in speaking class of around 3 minutes. I think I have to do this every week. Mine's about Drag Ball, which I'm not sure is an entirely appropriate topic, but I don't care, I'm from Oberlin. The topic is culture from your own country, lol. But so, I wrote it, I practiced it, and then I went out and played. And I'm going to practice it more tonight, but I'm not going to flip out about it, because I'm smart and goddammit, I'm worth it (that's an old SNL reference by the way, which maybe only my father will get...)

SO, today I went to karaoke with one of my speaking partners Ryoko. She's a big No Doubt fan, so naturally we sang a lot of songs from Tragic Kingdom, because that album is still good. I did my normal fare of the pillows, anime songs, and whatever English ones I could think of (notably, Snow by RHCP, and Reel Big Fish's cover of Take On Me, which was the only RBF song they had... hahaha). Their pillows selection was excellent (I did The Third Eye, この世の果てまで, and Tokyo Bambi). Either I've practiced more, or the speed of my reading comprehension really has improved since I last went with Andy and Kevin a few weeks ago in Sawtelle.

Afterwards, we took some requisite purikura. I was disappointed to discover that I can't get them on my phone because it doesn't have the Internet. But Ryoko sent me the one she had sent to her phone, here it is:

Then I headed on home, and was surprised to find that I was invited to go to the local sentou (public bath) with my host sister Aika and her friend who's staying the night. I had earlier declined their invitation since I was going out, but failed to understand that they were going later. So we went.

We rode these typical Japanese housewife bikes, which at first I had a tough time maneuvering because they're very different from my mountain bike-style bike that I ride around Oberlin on. But once I got the hang of it, it was much easier than my bike, and if it weren't for the crazy drivers on these streets that can barely squeeze a car down them, I would want to ride one of those bikes all the time (watch out, Andy!).

I'd like to take a moment to express my love for Japanese baths. They just do it right. They're super hot, and just feel awesome. There's a lot of etiquette that goes along with it, and in all the signs they have posted about what not to do, it's always a foreigner doin' it wrong. But I like the idea of a public bath on a social front. I think maybe, (maybe this is just gross stereotyping) that Americans are too self-conscious to jump at the idea of getting naked in front of their peers, and complete strangers of all ages. But you know, maybe that's not true. Anyway, I like sentou. Afterwards, Aika bought me some delicious cold milk coffee in a cute glass bottle and it tasted wonderful after that hot bath.

Then we came home and ate the fabulous dinner my host parents cooked (I'm going to do a post on food really soon) and we all talked about language. My host dad speaks very good English and so does Aika, although now she's studying Spanish. Her Spanish pronunciation is near perfect, as the sounds are almost exactly the same as Japanese, which I find fascinating. So we tried to encourage her friend to practice her English (she's enrolled in the same university of economics as my host bro Kazuma, unlike Aika who goes to Kansai Gaidai, thus is very good at English) and we spoke in Japanese, English and a little bit of Spanish. My father would be so proud.

The words of so many of my sempai echoed through my head today: studying abroad is not about studying, it's about experiencing as much of the culture as you can. And I think today I achieved that.