Happy Independence from Something Or Other Day

Little host brother: Why are you dressed up today, Mom? Is today a special day?

Host mom: No, I just felt like dressing up.

Me: It's a special day in the United States today, though.

LHB: Really?

Me: Yep, it's a holiday.

HM: Memorial Day?

Me: No, Independence Day.

HM: Oh, really? Independence from where?

Me: ...England...?

HM: Huh. I didn't know that.

In other news, I have pictures! But first, apparently I completely lost some people by not explaining words. OOPS.

Noh is an ancient theatrical form, first started by two dudes named Kan'ami and Zeami, who were father and son. Basically, they combined a whole bunch of folk dances and created what we now know today as noh. (Also, Zeami was totally having an affair with the shogun, but that's a story for another time.) In any case, most noh plays involve musicians (three different kinds of drums and a flute), and noh actors, who are the ones who actually perform the songs. Although "song" might not be quite the right word. It's more of a warbling drone. Also, all the movements tend to be extremely slow and understated. So a movement of extreme grief might be someone taking 30 seconds to raise his hand to his forehead. Like I said, VERY SLOW. Something that differentiates noh from kabuki (probably the better known Japanese theatrical form) is that all the actors in noh wear masks.

An onsen is a hot spring. It is very hot. VERY. People have passed out from the heat and drowned in onsens before.

Okay, now that's done with, pictures!

Here, have some random pictures of Doshisha University.

We don't know who these people were, but they decided to start playing a rock concert in front of the cafeteria.

Also, whoever their lead singer was...well, let's just say that she would have been VERY good at making ghosts appear. Especially ghosts named Lee.

So here we are at the Noh theatre on Friday...

The Noh stage.

And now we're going to explain everything you never wanted to know about Noh.

So once upon a time there was this guy named Zeami, and he came up with an awesome way of getting funding from the shogun...

Apparently they thought it would be funny to make a bunch of gaijin attempt to sing a Noh song. The results were approximately as hilarious as could be expected.

The leading actress in the play.

It's extremely unusual for women to do Noh; it used to be forbidden, but now Noh actresses are becoming a little bit more common. Still, it's super hard.

One of the students being used to show off how the same costume can be worn in different ways to show different things about the character.

And here're some pictures from the actual Noh play. Sorry they're so blurry!

And now fast forward to Saturday!

Here's the hotel which the onsen and the lunch were at.

I would not read any farther on an empty stomach. Go get something to eat.

Fed now?

Okay.

Looooooooooooooooooooooong table.

The starting set up.

Time to eat!

First course! (Or, really, the course that we ate whenever we were waiting for the next course to come.)

Keep an eye on that crab. It'll come back.

Shabu shabu! Essentially you have a bunch of vegetables and meat which you swish around in a pot of boiling water. It makes a "shabu shabu" sound. Best name ever?

This was some kind of Thai soup. It was tasty.

Fish! The fish that I managed to successfully debone!

How to debone a fish:

1. Split it open along its belly with your chopsticks. Don't try to split it along its back or you might break the backbone.

2. Carefully peel the flesh back until you have cleared area around the backbone.

3. Pull the backbone out. You should be able to just slide it out in one piece.

4. Eat the fish. (Everything except the head should be edible. The fins are the best part.)

Remember how I said the crab would come back? Well, here it is. We asked the waitress how we were supposed to eat it, and she just stared blankly and said, "Put it in your mouth?"

"The whole thing?"

"Yes. The whole thing."

Some of us had no problems with eating it. (It was delicious.)

Other people...

"NOOOO, NOT THE CRAB! It is too cute to be eaten!"

Or

"IT HAS SO MANY LEGS! I don't feel comfortable eating something with that many legs."

Tempura!

(Also, that dark thing covered in yellow-ish goo in the upper left corner is one of the most vile things I have ever put in my mouth. I'm pretty sure it had some sort of relation to wasabi going on.)

"Should I eat the crab? I don't know. It just looks so sad and tiny..."

"EAT THE FRIGGIN' CRAB ALREADY!"

Okay, we'll do it on the count of three.

Attempting to ignore the crab's adorableness and eat it...

Mission completion!

At first everyone thought it was custard, but then it turned out to be some sort of egg thing with mochi and naruto (fish cakes) and black beans that take two days to make.

A Thai rice dish thing.

HOW MANY MORE COURSES ARE THERE?

I'm not entirely sure what this was, but it was tasty. It was some kind of soup.

Dessert! An orange and some mochi. YUM.

YAY, WE FINISHED!

So then we went to get towels from the front desk.

Time to get in the onsen!

And then we went in the onsen and it was like this.

What? You thought this was a blog about Japan? No, this is a blog seeing how many times I can reference the Gurren Lagann hot springs episode before people catch on.

In other other news, apparently all our host families are being invited to our final class presentations. NERVOUSNESS. Better start practicing now!

Okay, I'm going to run away and finish writing my essay now. Bye bye!

Oh, wait, I almost forgot! The answers to yesterday's random Japanglish slang:

何ザヘル (nan za heru)

What the hell?

これはサックス (kore ha sakkusu)

This sucks

エピック失敗 (epikku shippai)

Epic fail

ドラゴン失敗 (doragon shippai)

Dragon fail

(I have never heard this slang in English, but other people insist that it is real.)

WTFという感じ (WTF to iu kanji)

A feeling like WTF

(There's actually a kind of funny story behind this involving one of my classmates seeing our schedule for the next week, screaming, "WTF!" and then remembering that she wasn't allowed to speak English, so she hastily added, "という感じ.")

彼女もそう言った (kanojo mo sou itta)

That's what she said.

あなたの顔は＿＿＿ (anata no kao ha___)

Your face is___

エピック勝つ (epikku katsu)

Epic win

Points for people who actually figured most of them out. Negative points for people who thought they could run it through Google translator and it would make sense. I AM ASHAMED.

Okay, essay writing time! Bye byes.

The obligatory bathhouse episode

Even though we have a language pledge, many of the students in the program have certain English slang phrases that they have a special fondness for, and so we've been getting some pretty bizarre Japanglish slang phrases. Among them:

何ザヘル (nan za heru)

これはサックス (kore ha sakkusu)

エピック失敗 (epikku shippai)

ドラゴン失敗 (doragon shippai)

WTFという感じ (WTF to iu kanji)

彼女もそう言った (kanojo mo sou itta)

あなたの顔は＿＿＿ (anata no kao ha___)

エピック勝つ (epikku katsu)

Points to anyone who can guess what they're supposed to be. (I guess I'll put up answers tomorrow or something.)

Anyway, today we went to an onsen in Okayama, which was a 3 hour bus ride away.* 3 hours is pretty much too long to ride in a bus anywhere, for the record. I brought along homework to do, but I couldn't read kanji while the bus was moving without getting motion sick and for some reason being in moving vehicles makes me really tired, so I wound up sleeping through most of the ride.

Anyway, after spending friggin' forever in that friggin' bus, we arrived at the onsen, which it turned out was located in a hotel in Okayama. Lunch at the hotel was included in whatever package it was that the program had bought, so we had a HUUUUUGE multiple course lunch. Every time we thought we were nearing the end, THEY KEPT BRINGING MORE STUFF.** Most of the people weren't able to finish. But in any case, it was DELICIOUS. And the waitress was really shocked that I knew how to debone a fish properly. I guess I have my host mom to thank for that.

Anyway, after lunch (and after some of the other students started creating techno songs by beat boxing random words in Japanese) we went into the onsen, which was a lot like this:

Actually, that was a lie. It was pretty much nothing like Gurren Lagann***, aside from the fact that the boys' side and the girls' side was separated by a wall, and we could hear the guys on the other side. But anyway, we spent most of our time in the outdoor pool (there was both an indoor and an outdoor pool) 'cause it was raining and otherwise the water would have been too hot to stay in for an extended period of time. As it was, pretty much everyone gave up after about 30 minutes. But three of us stayed in for a reeeeeally long time. About two hours. Although we were all sitting on the edge of the pool and sticking our feet in, 'cause otherwise we would have died of heat stroke.

After that we got out and I attempted to comb my hair with the flimsy little combs they provided, which turned out to be pretty much impossible. And then we went back to the lobby of the hotel, and I found something in the little store in the lobby which will make a certain member of my family very happy. But this person won't get to know what it is until I get home, mwahahahaha.

And then we got on the bus and rode for three hours again (and I fell asleep AGAIN****) and then I came back home and now I am typing this.

In any case, I should go do homework or something slightly useful because I have basically spent all day doing nothing remotely useful. HRGG.

*Also, we got super excited because at the bus station there was a big sign saying, "大雨・洪水・雷・注意報" (Heavy Rain/Flood/Thunder Warning Information) and we could read all of it, 'cause "flood" was one of our vocabulary words this week. This is a fairly common occurrence, honestly. During our first or second week we ran into a sign about a woman who was wanted for attempted murder, and one of the students started squealing, "Oh, I'm so happy! It says 'attempted murder' (殺人未遂) and I could read it!"

**I will tell the story of the sad crab when I have pictures to show off, because it won't make a whole lot of sense without pictures.

***But I couldn't pass up a chance to reference the epicness which is Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

****I seriously don't get why I fall asleep in moving vehicles so much. I think part of it might have to do with my constant state of exhaustion. I've been getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night, which is pretty normal for me, except that usually I get 7-8 hours on school nights and then sleep in on the weekend, which I can't do here, 'cause breakfast is at the same time every morning. So I think I'm missing my catch-up-on-sleep time, and that's part of why I'm so tired all the time. HMM. It's a mystery.

P.S. In pretty much unrelated news, I have successfully converted two people to the epicness which is Ludo. HO HO HO HO. エピック勝つ！