Very very very very very very cold. But nice...like ice.

Coming to you from an icebox far far away...

Several new exciting things have occured, and some more equally exciting things are coming up soon. Let's see....

Last time I checked, I was out of school with a flu for 2 days, postponing my moving for the next week. Now, I am much better and living with a new host family! (My Sweeny Todd plans were cancelled unfortunately, but no big deal.)

I moved this last weekend into the Iino family's home. I was mortified that the amount of stuff I brought to Japan pretty much doubled, in that I came with 2 large rolling duffel bags, a normal sized suit case, and my violin, and moved with those things, plus three small moving boxes. I blame this partially on my ski wear that my dad brought, but I seriously am wondering how I came with just the three bags in September...Anyway, I already like my new host family. I definitely am getting along with them very well already, and my life with this host family goes well! The house I am living in is also very very nice. It is very large, and I have my own room. The one downside is that it is the coldest month in Japan right now (more on this important subject later) and the walls are concrete, so it is very cold if the heater is not on...but I am optimistic, and January is almost over.

In regards to extreme cold, this week was probably the coldest of Japan's winter this year, which is torture when you are riding a bike with a skirt (when I saw you, I imply me. And trust me, it's freezing.) Two days ago, it was snowing all day, and the brave of heart and stout of spirit had snowball fights and made snowmen. Also, two days ago, I finally had the much-mentioned never quite-forgotten dance test...it wasn't as bad as I thought, but it was still really different for me, since generally schools in America don't include dance as homework. Also, regardless of the fact that everyone is shrieking and turning blue with cold, we still have to go outside during Friday's PE to run--which I would enjoy much more if the weather didn't have the same feeling as dry ice. Also this week, I am about to finish "general Japanese grammar" (aka graduate my series of 2 books I have been working out of since September) and move on to bigger, grander things, like...well, I don't know yet, but still!

Right now, in both math and chemistry, the teachers are teaching things that require a large amount of Chinese characters I don't know to explain, so I am very lost. I am working on catching up, but it's a tad tricky when you (I) don't have a clue how to decipher your (my) notes. And--Natsu, who is in my group for my "Ethics and Christianity" class, became conveniently sick on the day we were supposed to do our project on the Vatican that we knew about 2 months ago, but have yet to start working on it. So, we have to get it all finished and ready for Monday, which means I have to draw the Vatican flag and write a speech about Christianity in America. Fun fun. In regards to my other speech, I have a very very general idea of what it's about, but I my homework is to actually write it in full, make it 5 minutes' worth of essay, and then submit and memorize it.

I am super-excited because tomorrow, I am going with my host family to watch Japan versus Chili in soccer. It is guaranteed to be freezing teeth-chattering cold, but it is going to be so fun! I told my school friends, and they were all jealous that I am going--I am looking forward to it so much!

Oh dear, I forgot a very important detail...this is so awesome! Okay, get this--my new host sister, Keito, plays alto-sax! We tried to play together yesterday, aka violin and sax, and it didn't work because the violin tunes to A and sax tunes to Eb (whoever made that up...) but it is sooo cool! I am seriously looking forward to all the crazy possibilities a violin-sax mix has in the future! heh heh heh.

One last thing. Do you remember how my last host family owned and used a set of matching Peter Rabbit plates and cups? Well, as it turns out, it is some sort of secret host-family-sect--because my new host family has them too. I feel like there's some sort of metaphor for life's struggles in those Peter Rabbit plates--they just show up everywhere.

This blog hit counter I added is seriously intense.

I come to you with part 2 of my winter break (and a ways afterwards) here around and about Tokyo. Where did I leave off? Ah, yes, just before the biggest holiday in Japan. New Year's.

New Year's started a few days before the actual New Year, when my host mother started cracking the whip (so to speak) on Natsu and me because there was a lot of things to be done. We had to (for example) purchase a special New Year's wreath that had seaweed hanging off of it--to be hung on the door for an especially pungent way to remember the new year; we had to make osechi, aka the special New Year's meal eaten traditionally (surprisingly) on New Years; we had to cut konyaku, a rubbery substance allegedly made from fish into traditional braid shapes; my host family had to write and post about 5000000000000 bazillion nengajo (New Year's Cards) each to every person they had ever met (I cheated and elected to use what's called in the US the "Defensive X-mas Card Method," by which I mean I only sent nengajo to people who first sent one to me, and to people who REALLY REALLY deserved them--aka Kobayashi-sensei, Sakurai-sensei, and my violin teacher, for example...) Also we did about a million hundred other things to get ready, but I won't do a New Year's prep play by play. On New Year's, my host family and I went over to their grandparents' house and met them and their relatives and ate osechi and drank and played WiiFit (a very traditional tradition, I assure you) for 9 hours--for 2 days. Very itense. So intense, in fact, that while my dad leaving didn't send me over the edge for days on end, I will admit that I became a wee tad, a mite homesick...well, a little more than that. The 2 day family reunion got to be a little too much for me because, well--it wasn't my family. After a bout of the Homesick Willies, a term I invented just now (heh heh heh), I recovered quite quickly because I met Josh and his family in Tokyo!

Just to refresh your memory, Josh is the other person from my school in Austin who is in Japan (but in Osaka.) His parents and brother stayed in Tokyo for a few days, and I was really glad I was able to meet them. We went so many different places all over Tokyo:

We started in Shibuya, which is where we met, and we went into the International Safe Haven for Foreign Guests (more commonly known as Starbucks) and took a picture of the world's largest pedestrian crossing. From there we walked into Yoyogi Koen, which is famous for being the place where many "teen fashion victims" (research this yourself, please) collaborate on Sundays. We were not there on a Sunday, but we were treated to a series of skateboarders that were frankly awful, mainly because they were naive of this fact. After making a large winding circle around this park, we landed ourselves in Harajuku's SnoopyTown, which is a large assortment of Peanuts paraphernalia. It was here that Josh and I both discovered an astonishing fact--both of our host families own a set of Peter Rabbit plates and cups. As written on the edge of the plates, I quote: "Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; 'One tablespoonful to be taken at bed-time.'" (Copyright Frederick Warne & Co. Beatrix Otter Designs TM PETER RABBIT TM) It was so unlikely that both of our families would have anything like that, so we decided that it must be some sort of unwritten code or something...After
this (or perhaps before) we went to Meiji Jingou, which is a huge shrine...we happened to be there during the busiest time of the year, so we waited in line with maybe thousands of other people to walk through the shrine--something we found out we did right after the fact (aka, "Oh, wait--that was the shrine.") After this, we decided to go to Akihabara and find something that really defines Japanese culture and general tackiness--a "Maid Cafe." This is basically what it sounds like--young girls dressed up in maid attire serve and feed the paying customers there. These come in all levels of lewdness and general tackiness and attract only a certain sort of person in Japan, but our motto when we went was "Just act oblivious and ignorant, and it will be okay." Which it was. Mind you, we did have a mighty interesting time looking for a reasonably decent maid cafe--it was evening, we were in this sketchy alleyway, and there were a lot of places advertising maid cafes, but involving the slightly vague word, "reflexology," which Josh and Nick's parents immediately and wisely eliminated for further inspection. Like I was saying, we did eventually find a fully clothed maid cafe, where we found that it was not very different from a normal restaurant, besides the whole maid detail and some really crazy music box music they kept sinisterly tinkling throughout the restaurant. I summarize this maid experience with this slang word in Japanese: mou-e (I'm not sure how to spell this, because it's spoken slang)...this roughly translates to "too cute."
After our run-in with the maids (who wouldn't let us take pictures, by the way), we went to Roppongi, which is the richest district of Tokyo, I think...there, we went to this building that is very famous for being very artsy--um...kind of hard to explain...sorry...for example, there was this display of lights that was designed to look like water flowing, and there was a modern art-style playground. We walked around this for a bit, then set out for a different destination--the pet store. We walked around inside, "awwwww"-ed at random adorable and severely expensive baby animals, got sneezed on by a green monkey, and contracted some new sort of AIDS from it. Just kidding.
All in all, very very fun, and a really nice break for me to talk in English with people I knew and (gasp!) be a tourist.

I'm trying to remember what happened between then and now...um, well, I got sick for about 5 days with flu, so my moving was postponed, which postponed my party with my friends to see "Sweeny Todd" and canceled my violin performance with Natsu in the school talent show (no loss--too much pressure! =D ) though I am very very bummed about the movie...Also, I still have to figure out what to cook for the Mexican food class I am teaching, since I am now the arbitrary authority on Mexican cooking...
Oh! Also, I am going to be competing in a foreigner's speech contest! Big whoop, right? I am actually really looking forward to it, though it's in March, if I can ever think of anything to make a speech about. I will (hopefully one of these days) write a 5 minute speech in Japanese, and memorize it, and WIN! I hope...=) But I mention this not just for your information, but also because I need some ideas about what to write about (and memorize about.) Basically, it's supposed to be about a memory or experience you have had in Japan or an change you have felt from your home country...Any suggestions are more than gladly appreciated.

Anyway, life here is pretty normal and everyday. Like I said, I am going to try again to move this weekend, and besides that, the only thing new here is not very interesting...aka I forgot my shoes for PE and I borrowed a friends--however, I am "'Murken [American] sized," also referred to as "Texas-sized" when it comes to my feet (what can I say? Laugh now, but I will one day be taller than you) leaving me decapitated with a severely stubbed toe. Meh. And you?

Oh yes, as mentioned always in the recent past, next week is the dance test--wish me luck! PS I have 100% reached the halfway point in my Japan experience--aka, I have been here 4 and one half months...so, I guess I've made it this far. Right?