Be-rhinestoned and mathed.

IN PROCESS OF UPLOADING ALL PICTURES>>>

Do you remember that blog post right after my Kyoto trip where (if I recall correctly) I put off writing my blog for about 2 or 3 weeks--and swore never to do it again, since my news built up so much? Well, I have definitely beat my record--I have not written for about month...so sorry.

First, my family came to see me here in Tokyo. I moved in with them in the "weekly mansion" in which they werere staying (mansion = condominium in Japanese-adapted English.) It was the first time I had seen my whole family together for 6 months--since September of last year. When they first got here, my whole family was really really jet-lagged--especially my mom, who is still, after about a week, going to bed at about 8:00 every night and getting up at 4 ish...my dad brought ingredients to make food I have been missing out on in Japan, aka Mexican food and pancakes. Like I said, I moved in with them (and am staying together with them for the time they are here--about 2 and 1/2 weeks), but school still wasn't over for me yet.
In Japan, the school year ends in March and begins in April, so I went to school and had a "farewell party" with my homeroom class. Everyone brought snacks and the room was decorated. The dancers in my class did a dance, two girls did a skit, there was a teacher impersonation skit =D, a "before and after" show, and a contest for "Mr. and Mrs. 1A" (1A is the name of our homeroom class.) My friends nominated me for "Mrs." and although my school is a little boy-deficient (being a girls' school, you know,) we got 4 girls to dress as guys for the "Mr." part of the cont est. There is this gameshow in Japan where 6 men and women sit in a circle and say "I love you" and the like and a) try to make it believable and b) try to make each other laugh. If someone cracks up, then they lose...anyway, this is what we did. I didn't crack--even when a "Mr." contestant I know declared in Japanese, "Audrey, you are from a different country, but love transcends boundaries. I love you..." And I won the honorable title of *drumroll please!!!* "Mrs. 1A!" (pronunciation: "mee-sass ee-chee ay--y!") lol
I took my family to Harajuku and showed them around. I personally think they were overwhelmed by the crazy looking people there (for pictures of these crazy people, refer to prior post[s]).
I finally had my foreigners' Japanese speech contest last week. As my Japanese teacher predicted, it was mainly graduate students, foreign wives with Japanese husbands, and/or businessmen competing (besides yours truly, of course, who doesn't fit in the previous categories.) I was pretty sure I was not going to win at all, since they all were obviously more competent than me. I was pretty nervous, partially because of that, and then also because there was this panel of important/stern-looking judges, my family, Sakurai-sensei, and my host families watching me...but besides skipping about one sentence, I think my speech was fine...and after a deliberation I got 2nd place and an invitation back to compete in May! Yay! This is heinous, but my family posted the video on YouTube. I feel obliged to post it since it exists, but as a favor to me--don't watch it...or pretend like you didn't. Okay...here it is...(cringe) http://youtube.com/watch?v=nIu-LFIZz44
A really coincidental thing happened on the way home from the speech contest. I was walking back to the train with my family and host family when we were stopped by a news crew from NHK, a really big news station in Japan. This was very random--they asked us to try a burger and filmed our reactions. It was a burger with pancake-like buns and a chocolate inside...very interesting, even if it was too sweet...but anyways, this could be my big break to fame in Japan. What do you think? =P
My family had dinner with my first host family, which was very enjoyable. The next day, my little sister invited Natsu to come with us to DisneySea (the 3rd time to go there for me...) It was fun, regardless of the fact that my little sister and mom refused to go on anything scarier then Scuttle's Scooters...Natsu and I met a famous TV star, as well, which was pretty cool--though her name escapes me...
My family came to school with me to meet my teachers and friends. This wasn't nearly as chaotic as the first time my dad came to see my classmates--who all wanted to take a picture of and with my family =D
I was required to go to the senior 3rd grade students' graduation, which was frankly, long and tedious. I was really glad that 4 of my really good friends were there as well, but during graduation the announcer read Eeeevvverrry Siiiiinnngglllleeee Naaammmmmeeee (around 200 graduates!) and I was so glad afterwards to see natural light for the first time in about 3 hours on a wooden pew (I was sore for 3 days after that!) My friends and I decided to celebrate our survival of the graduation by going to Inokashira Kouen, which is a park very close to our school. We bought random food and had a picnic and rented rowboats!
When my parents were still here, we went to go see Kabuki, which is a Japanese sort of play. We followed by headset but as we bought tickets for one show only (generally, the plays can last 4-8 hours!) right before it started, we had pretty awful seats--errr, well, standing places (it was very packed!) I am always enthralled by Kabuki, especially female characters (since all the actors are male) because the voice is so nasal--and in comparison to the last time I went with my Japanese teacher last year, I understood the Japanese a lot better--even catching some of the puns.
We also went to the famous Tsukiji market, where early in the mornings, they have large auctions for fish--which we missed since we went there right before lunch. However, we stood in a 45 minute line for one of the many sushi restaurants in the huge market, and were definitely not disappointed--the sushi I ordered was soooooo goooood and really really fresh. Yummmm
We met my current host family for dinner to thank them for taking care of me. The food was very traditional Japanese, and it was so good.
At the hotel in which we stayed, the staff was all required to be bilingual, and I became friends with one of the receptionists, Aiko, who was an exchange student in Kentucky and speaks really good English, on top of being really nice. I am hoping to meet her sometime when I am still in Japan!
My family did have to eventually leave (though I was definitely getting used to my dad making me pancakes and Mexican food--but, all good things must come to an end.) It was hard to say goodbye again, but I really only have 2 and a half more months in Japan--which is so hard to realize. I still can recall the overwhelming awkwardness of my first day of school here, and the sports festival, the school festival, New Year's celebrations, hanging out with my friends like it was yesterday...excuse my moment of semi-nostalgia, but my time here is really limited...it's an inconceivable thought that in 75 days or so I will be back to "normal," if I can ever get back to life before I came to Japan...(no) But back to business... I didn't really have time to dwell on missing my family, because the moment I got back to my host family's house to unpack, I had to repack to go skiing with my school the next day. I went with the middle schoolers, who I don't know at all, making the experience awkward immediately--but I got to be friends with them, which I think was the best part of the trip. Unfortunately, the ski school itself was disappointing for me, since I love to ski and am, say, reasonably good. I was put in the highest ski group and was anxious beforehand--"The highest ski group? Can I keep up?" It was no problem at all; not because of my talent, but because the group was so easy. Even our advanced group was put on the most basic of runs, and the most frustrating part was the teacher. On the first day, the teacher asked me, "Can you speak Japanese?" Which I can, but I wanted to stay safe, so I said, "Yeah, so-so." After that--he didn't say a word to me. Barely at all. He would always ask the other people in my group, "How was the run?" and give them feedback on their skiing, but then he would look at me, stare for a second, and then keep talking with the other girls in my group. On the last day, my group took a level test, which, if you passed, gets you a certificate and a badge...and I couldn't do it. I hadn't learned anything, or at least not enough to pass. It was really disappointing. Like I said, though, I did make friends, which was definitely the positive part of my trip. I met Josh and his mother, who came up from Osaka to Tokyo for a few days. I got up at 4 in the morning to meet them at the above fish market in Tsukiji, so that we didn't miss the auctions. We got there, and it was crazy--there were packed super-fish-markets that were full of people slicing, dicing, examining (etc.) live and dead fish, sea cucumbers, gigantic mussels, and many other things I didn't believe were edible...it was so busy; full of fisherman's boots-wearing men wielding knives, icehooks (more on icehooks in a second) and driving fish-carrying cars (called "Mighty Cars") in such a ferocious manner, wandering tourists like ourselves had to take up Defensive Pedestrianism to not be taken out by Mighty Cars or huge frozen fish. Getting back to icehooks, though, we found our way into the auction warehouse, where a robust man was auctioning off HUGE frozen tuna in Japanese. If you think trying to understand English-speaking auctioneers is difficult, don't even attempt to guess what these auctioneers are saying. ("Yup-yup-yup! Namanamanamanama! Hai! Nama! Yup!"... repeat a zillion times, but faster) We were considering raising a far-flung hand to raise the bidding price on these huge tuna, but never got around to it. On the subject of icehooks, though, it was very scary to see these fishermen checking out the fish, deciding it was large and unwieldy enough to be delicious, and then (get this) SLAMMING it with an ice-pick-like tool and dragging it to a third location. We decided we had had enough of having our lives threatened by the above, and went to go eat. We were there much earlier than I had gone previously with my parents, so the wait wasn't as long--though the restaurant was much more strict rule-wise (check the picture of the rules list.) It, of course, was delicious. After Tsukiji, we went to OMG I forgot to say that it is sakura (cherry blossom) season!!! Ueno-kouen, which is very famous, especially this time, for having a long trail of cherry blossoms. We went with a kajillion other people (it was quite packed!) to do hanami, (literally, "flower-looking) and took pictures of the trees, which at this time only have white-pink flowers that last only a week in spring. (Trivia: On television in Japan, in the weeks leading up to cherry blossom season, there is an actual sakura forecast) One of the things that comes with this season is intoxication among picnicking blossom-viewers. We encountered (or were encountered by) a very small (and very drunk) older man who stopped us. In gruff English, he gave a short oratory of many random non-related subjects, starting with "I am teacher," and then going onto other subjects like Elvis, and oldies songs (which he sang for us.) He then took our picture for us, then, commenting that Josh's mom was, well, "mazaaa! Gone Wiss za Wind!," he had us take his picture with her. I hope it came out. We also went to Asakusa, to see the long string of shops and the large temple. This was the 4th time I have been there, so as always it was interesting, though not novel. We took a little break at their hotel (since our day started at about 6-ish!) and then went to another cherry blossom park, Kitanomaru-kouen. It, too, was packed, but still so beautiful. There were rowboats to be rented on the pond there--however, everyone else seemed to have had the same idea. The line was about hours long (or so it seemed--we didn't stand in it!) We were very close to the emperor's palace, and thus we decided to go see if we could have tea with him. Unfortunately, it was closing time...or at least roping-off time, and our impromptu meeting didn't go as planned. Maybe another time =P A few days ago, I met my host sister's cousin, and with her and my host mother and Keito (host sister), we went to Yokohama, which is right next to the ocean. There was a very large and famous Chinatown, where we didn't eat, though we did walk through it and try on ancient Chinese men's hats. Her cousin was about middle school age and really cute! Unfortunately, she lives in Hokkaido (very north/very far) so that was probably the only time I will meet her...But we all had a lot of fun =D Yesterday, I met my Natsu and our two guy friends (who she has known since kindergarten) and went to Harajuku and Shibuya. We went bowling, which was a little humiliating for me, since I am frankly awful...but it was still really fun. At the end, we took purikura. Check it out! My old homeroom class is going to have our last event together tomorrow--we are going to have a picnic at Inokashira-kouen, a park close to our school. We already scheduled to do it earlier, but it was cancelled due to a) rain, and b) no cherry blossoms yet! Hopefully tomorrow will be okay. The day after that, I am going with two friends to go to see Rihanna and Kanye West in concert in Japan! I am really really excited--I will report back! PS School starts on the 8th again...must do homework...rawr....