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.)

The last day before I face my doom, erm, tests

Well, today we had our last day of real classes. It was very sad. We had the last two student-taught classes today (one was about overly helpful bosses and the other was about transgender people) and then grammar (because we are all about grammar ALL THE TIME), and then I had my meeting with my sensei about my final presentation, which he said is looking good. WHOO. Now to just manage to recite 3 pages in front of a bazillion people! That'll be fun (not).

Also, today I had my second to last meeting with my conversation partner, and she taught me the Chinese Dynasties sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle." I'm not kidding; it was possibly the most epic thing ever. And then we wound up talking about Chinese schools of thought and I swooned a little. Have I mentioned my minor obsession with East Asian schools of thought/religions/popular beliefs? I have a minor obsession with them.

In any case, I am having my last meeting with my conversation partner on Wednesday (and it will be the saddest thing ever, because she is awesome, but she's leaving on Thursday morning to study abroad in Sweden). We are going to go out to lunch. It will be epic.

Our oral examination is tomorrow morning, Thursday is our final examination, and then Friday is our final presentation. And then we're done with classes!

Just a head's up: I'm going to be traveling with the rest of the group for the last week of the program. Monday and Tuesday I'll be in Miyajima/Hiroshima, Wednesday I'll be in Yokohama, and Thursday and Friday I'll be in Tokyo (read: Akihabara). I have no idea what my internet situation will be like, so there is a possibility that I will suddenly stop posting. (My guess is that I'll have internet in Tokyo, though. Even if the hotel doesn't have it, I will probably be able to easily find an internet cafe.) So if next week I suddenly go silent, it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm dead. It could also mean that I'm just off doing things that are too awesome for comprehension.

Oh, speaking of Akihabara, today's awkward conversation during lunch:

Male classmate: Where are you going to go when we go to Tokyo?

Me: AKIHABARA. (And also Ikebukuro. And maybe Shibuya.)

Male classmate: Oh, hey, want to come to a maid cafe with me?

Me: WHAT? NO THANK YOU.

Male classmate: What? Why not?

Me: I don't really have an interest in maids.

Male classmate: What? Everyone has an interest in maids! It will be a good experience for you!

Me: I'm a girl.

Male classmate: So?

Female classmate: Oh, are you going to a maid cafe? I want to go!

Male classmate: Awesome! Let's go together!

Female classmate: Alright! [to me] Why don't you want to go?

Me: They're kind of...gross. With mirrors on the floors and girls who aren't allowed to wear underwear.

[This is actually true. There was a maid cafe in Tokyo which put mirrors on their floors and wouldn't let any of their maids wear underwear. They wound up getting closed down, but still. EW.]

Male classmate: Yeah, but you won't be a maid so you'll be fine.

Female classmate: Speaking of which, are you allowed to touch them?

Me and male classmate: ...

Female classmate: I don't know if you're allowed to touch them or not.

Me: Do you...want to touch them?

Female classmate: No, no, I'm just curious! I wonder if you can touch them...

Male classmate: [scoots his chair away]

Also, today's hilarious random fact:

In Japanese, the word for "exercise" and the word for "protest" are EXACTLY THE SAME (運動). WHAT THE HECK, JAPAN?

(Also, in my extremely unbiased opinion, my class was the best of the student-taught classes. Jus' sayin'.)