Don't worry; I'm alive

I got home safely yesterday, but I was so jet-lagged and being smothered with my little brother's hugs that I didn't feel like writing anything even slightly coherent. So sorry about that. (Well, plus I kept switching back into Japanese accidentally, and on a blog that would have been pretty bad.)

Nothing particularly exciting happened on the way home, other than my watching all of Toy Story 2 on the plane (in Japanese) to keep myself amused. Oh, and reading more Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. And writing long emails. And pretending to sleep while the guy next to me invaded my personal space. And then I got home and gave omiyage to everyone in my family, so yay for that. And then I made my mum and my dad and my not-so-small brother watch the first episode of Durarara!! (which, by the way, all of you can watch online free (and legally!) here). Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. (The first episode made so much more sense the second time around, and now that I've been to Ikebukuro and KNOW what the heck they're talking about. Sunshine 60! I...didn't go there! But I know what it is now!)

Anyway, here's the last batch of pictures-that-are-not-my-pictures. I mentioned this a million years ago (back in June), but my camera doesn't connect to my computer, so the pictures I've been posting on here were not taken by me. They were taken by my classmate, Hu-san, who kindly agreed to let me post them.

(That's Hu-san in front. I'm just behind her making weird faces, like I always do.)

In any case, I think I'll get MY pictures sometime soon. Probably in the next few days. So you'll be spammed by lots of pictures of tiny shrines then.

Until then....here's some Yokohama-Kamakura-Tokyo trip.

Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunch.

I am 99.9% sure that the orange stuff sitting in the middle of the blue flower is uni (sea urchin). I had it at my host dad's restaurant, and it was SO GOOD, so I thought that it had to be something else, because I'd always heard that it was gagtastic. Then I had it at the restaurant in Kamakura and...I had trouble swallowing it, that's how gross it was. (I ate it anyway.) Conclusion? My host dad is a cooking wizard. Obviously.

Guide: Let me teach you something. You have to purify yourself when you visit a shrine or temple. Here, let me teach you the correct way to do it in an incredibly slow and condescending fashion.

Me: [attempts to look politely interested]

Pictures of the giant Buddha at Kamakura!

Guide: This is a shrine gate. You know what a shrine gate is, right? Do you know the difference between a temple and a shrine?

Me: [attempts to prevent herself from bashing her brains out against the guardian lion statues]

Here, have a shrine. It was actually a pretty cool shrine with an awesome story behind it. At least, I think it was awesome. I think it would bore other people to death. (If you are interested in aforementioned story, let me know and I will geek out at you. It has to do with the Genji and the Heike and BABIES.)

After this point, the photos get kind of random, so sorry about that.

Me looking worried while leaving a taxi!

Chinatown in Yokohama!

Maid cafe! (No, I didn't go.)

Pictures from our final party!

All the girls!

All the boys! (This is what they look like ALL THE TIME. Except sometimes I-san (all the way on the right) is singing enka* and B-san (all the way on the left) is pretending to be a Japanese girl.)

The men and our senseis (the last three people on the right). I only had two of them as senseis (the guy and the woman all the way on the right).

Giving omiyage to the teachers! (We all pooled money and bought gifts for them in Tokyo.)

When it came time for the teachers to leave, they bowed, and we bowed, and then all of them exited. All of them but our awesome male teacher (who apparently really likes gunpla**).

Teacher: [bows]

Students: [bow]

Teacher: [bows deeper]

Students: [bow deeper]

Teacher: [bows even deeper]

Students: [bow even deeper]

Teacher: [is reaching startling low bowing levels]

Students: [bow even deeper than he is bowing]

So then my host mom and little host brother came to visit.

Host mom: Handshake.

Little host brother: [quails]

HM: Come on, that's how you say "goodbye" in America.

Me: ....?

LHB: [sets jaw]

[HANDSHAKE OF +14 EPICNESS]

Whoo, everyone's gone! Time to be weird!

Time for random shows of strength!

This can only be solved one way: arm wrestling!

OH, THE PAIN! THE PAIN!

(Except I think I-san won the next round.)

Duel to the death...round two!

Well, that went...well...

So then all fifteen of us (fourteen program participants plus the residential director) crammed into the same elevator, just 'cause we could.

Our residential director shows her true colors!

(And she wasn't even voted Person in the Program Most Likely to Be the Antichrist. It was someone else.)

Guys, we need to do this more often!

*Enka = traditional Japanese style of music. Imagine country. Just in Japanese. And with less of a tune. Same general subject material though.

**Gunpla = a mishmash of "Gundam" and "plastic." They're robots...you can assemble. I bought two (Gurren Lagann and King Kittan). My bro and I will be putting them together. WHOO. I am a geek.

@Opal: No, the Atomic Dome isn't radioactive any more. The radioactivity in Hiroshima reached safe levels decades ago. (I think the exhibit at the museum said that it took a couple of months.)