On Tsukiji and Moving In

On the Thursday before I moved out (a continuation of the night out with Class D), Michael, Anjee, and I decided to go to Tsukiji fish market. I almost didn't wake up in time and had to run to the train. I barely made it. After getting to Tsukiji we went to where they were selling all the fish. It was crazy. I've never seen so much seafood in my life. There are people pulling carts of huge fish, people selling hundreds of types of seafood, and people on these motorized things pulling goods all over the place. We saw a little bit of the auction from far away, but we were getting in the way so it was hard to take pictures. It kind of ruined my appetite for fish, so I didn't try the katsugyou (alive) sashimi. It was done pretty quickly, but it was cool to see. I'm glad Anjee got me up so early to go. =) When my family comes to visit, I'm definitely going to try to take my dad there.


On Friday, I checked out of Weekly Mansion Kameido. I had actually stayed up all night with Vinodh since neither of us wanted to go to sleep. I went up to the roof for the first time and took pictures from there of Kameido. Too bad the sunrise didn't turn out too great. Had to say goodbye to everyone, then made my way over to Heiwadai, where Azalea House is. (Below is the view of Kameido from the roof.)


So far, I haven't really been able to move in correctly since I haven't purchased a lot of the things I need. That's the plan for today. I'll take pictures once I'm more settled. Everyone here seems pretty cool. I'm just so far away from everything. Wish me luck! I'm making a flickr page so you guys can see more photos!

Mobile: Azalea House

引っ越した！いいかな？ (I moved! Is it good?)

D組は最高！！

Yesterday was the last day of JLI. Jae gave some of us toys from the crane game at the arcade, since he won a whole bunch in the morning because he forgot class started late. Mine is this pink bird with a helmet on...I don't really know what it is. We had our last speeches in class, which went really well. Michael gave the absolute best speech in the history of all Japanese classes I've ever taken. He basically took as many of the grammar points we learned and talked about why our class is so great. (And included all the class jokes we have.) I'd reproduce it, but it's really not funny unless 1) you were in our class, 2) you speak Japanese, 3) you know our textbook. We were all laughing so hard...he had me very, very close to tears. After class, there was a farewell party for everyone in JLI. So-ky and Seth did a manzai (Japanese humor skit). So-ky doing, "そんなの関係ねぇー！" was hilarious. (It's a line from a Japanese comedian.)


After the party, everyone went back to Kameido, including Jae, who's never been there before. We didn't do very well on the final, and Jae burned his test in order to forget, which was fun to watch. We helped Hank move all his boxes to the convenience store to send them to his permanent housing, which looked really funny. There was a long line of foreigners carrying boxes...very interesting. We got our entire class together to go to Ueno to drink and eat with one of our teachers. I tried basashi for the first time at that restaurant. Guess what basashi is? Horse sashimi. Horse! It tasted weird. I don't think I particularly like it, but it wasn't nasty either.


Following that, we went to Karaoke Kan to sing. (Which included Hank singing K and Naotaro Moriyama again. =D) It was pretty funny to watch our teacher sing his heart out. After a couple of hours at karaoke, we parted ways with our sensei and almost decided to stay out and go to Tsukiji, but not enough people were up for it. So we took our train back and said bye to Jae, who's the only one who doesn't live in the same place as us. We spent a few more hours walking around and eating ice cream, which was basically just because none of us wanted to go home and we all wanted to hang out longer. Tomorrow, Hank leaves for Taiwan and after that everyone will start going their separate ways. I initially didn't like that I'd have to be around so many EAP kids at the beginning of the program, but now I think just the way Michael does, D class is the best! I'm really gonna miss these people. But as Venodh says, and Hank translated: 生きるために生きなさい. Live for the sake of living. It's time to move on. JLI is finally over.


D class is the best! D組は最高！

so close!

I had my final today. I think the fill in the blank section with all the small words owned me in the face. （やっぱり、かつて、まるで、かりに、それにしても、とくに...they're like 'actually', 'after all', and 'especially' in English.) Fifteen of those little words. Even the ones I knew I didn't know where to place in the sentences since I could see some of them working in several sentences. Argh. Anyway, tomorrow is the last day of JLI. We're going to school late and doing speeches and a kanji quiz. Then we're having a party at a restaurant. I wish I didn't have to do a speech. Taking the final made me feel like I don't need to do anything anymore. So close...yet so far.

I'm finally moving out of the Weekly Mansion. I'll be moving out on the 14th. Woo hoo. The only bummer is that I'm actually moving further away from my school and taiko classes. It will be nice to actually have an area to cook in and things like that though.

I miss having long, important conversations in English. I'm not even having short, meaningless conversations in Japanese. I'm just having fun, which is great, but you know...that isn't everything.

My First Practice

Today was my first wadaiko practice at the Miyamoto Studio! After filling out an information sheet and getting our membership card things, we went up to the classroom. There were only about 6 people. I'll be honest, it was scary and intimidating. Tosha sensei goes through everyone individually and critiques. There are a lot of bad habits I have that I need to fix if I want to play properly. I use my wrist too much and not enough of the rest of my arm, my elbow sticks out, I need to lock my wrist then relax it, ect. Hopefully I'm not so slow that he thinks I'm a lost cause. (Everyone else besides me and Tom must have been coming to practices for a long time since they played through a piece at the end.) I don't feel very confident about the way I play now, but I since I have a lot of problems to fix, I think I'll improve a lot as long as I stick with it and try hard. I think it's more frustrating because it's in Japanese. So first I have to understand what he's saying, which sometimes I don't, but I don't want to say, "I don't understand you" because I don't want to make him more angry. (I'm making him sound really scary, and he kind of is, but he's not a mean person, he's just a strict teacher.) Anyway, we'll see how this goes. I should be able to handle once a week for an hour and a half. Even though it's short, it's intense.

新大久保！

First, I just found out my scholarship status changed for the Freeman-ASIA scholarship! I hope all my paperwork works out and I get it. =D I also decided that I'm going to take classes at the Miyamoto Studio. I start tomorrow! I'm so excited!!!!

Last night, Venod, Gerrick, Hank, and I went over to Jae's apartment for dinner. He made us kalbi, pork, mini hot dogs, and rice. (Way to make me feel like a horrible girl for not being able to actually cook.) And of course we had soju, since that goes with Korean food. Venod and Gerrick went for beer eventually though. We also had a bottle of champagne that Jae wanted to open and drink, which I actually didn't like that much. Anyway, after we ate, we had this crazy idea to go to Shinokubo, get spicy Korean food, then karaoke. After a big talk about how Jae is our senpai because he's at least 3 years everyone's senior we took one of the last trains to Shinokubo. (It was all or nothing. Everyone or no one. So once we got there, there was no going home until morning.)


There's a picture of me and senpai Jae. Hahaha. (I promise we were not drunk, the food was just spicy..and delicious!) Our very international crew (Hank's Taiwanese, Jerich's Filipino, Venod is Indian, Jae's Korean, and I'm Japanese) definitely got looked down on and commented about on the train, but oh well... We walked around the Korean section of the streets and ended up having kimbap, ddukbokgi, and 'army soup' with soju. It was so good. Ahh, I haven't had that kind of soup in a really long time. Venod and Gerrick were falling asleep at the table, which was hilarious, but it was a good time. Around 1:30 we decided to go karaoke. Hank, who is normally very quiet, is a great singer. (He sang 'Only Human' with me, then sang 'Sakura' by Naotaro Moriyama, impressive right?) So we spent our time singing, eating dried squid, and drinking beer until 5am. What a night/day. Jae covered most of the night, which made me feel a little bad, but we already had that whole talk on senpai/kouhai (senior/junior), so I couldn't really bring it up again. We took the first train back and got home around 6am. Here's a picture of my favorite karaoke singer, Hank. I love that kind of stuff. It's just awesome. =)

宮本 Studio: 宮本邦楽教室

I just got back from the Miyamoto Studio. Tom went to meet someone he knew at the store, and we ended up going to the studio to find out about wadaiko (taiko) classes at the Miyamoto Hougaku Kyoushitsu (Miyamoto Traditional Music Classroom) We walked in on a class of two people, but Kiyonari Tosha watched how we hit, then fixed us. (Soooo intimidating. I felt kind of stupid.) It turns out he's really nice, and the way he explains things makes a lot of sense (except since it was in Japanese I don't know how much I actually understood, but I think I got most of it). My hit was realy weak, then he helped me adjust where I stand and how I hit and POOF I was louder, without using any extra energy. I really, really want to take classes there, but they'll run me 10,000 yen per month for 3 practices... But I have to do it. I think I'll regret it if I don't, which of course means that I need to look into finding a job as soon as school starts. I'm all motivated now. I think even just being around such great drums makes me want to play better. I hope I can keep the motivation up.

In other news: TYPHOOOONNNN!!!