Let's talk Bunkasai

Okay, so what is bunkasai? Does anyone know? I thought not.

Let me tell you what bunkasai is.

For the majority of the year, students in my high school do the same thing every day. Classes, classes, classes, except for when there's a break. There are exactly three days when this changes: first, sports festival, which I already posted about. And second, bunkasai (which happens to be two days long). Bunkasai is when all the classes get to plan fun stuff for two days--making food, putting on plays, decorating their classrooms, putting on music.

In short, bunkasai is a pretty big deal.

Like, a really big deal.

My class made Hawaiian pancakes (apparently that's a pretty big obsession here?), which were pretty awesome. We sold them with either maple syrup, chocolate, or coconut spread. We built a wooden frame like a stall to sell the stuff with (and putting it together was a nightmare, let me tell you).

The brass band also put on a performance the first day in the morning--basically we were the first thing that happened for bunkasai. Then, we went and start chugging out some pancakes (the Japanese had me running around shouting 'COME ON' in English with another girl, who was shouting 'COME EAT HAWAIIAN PANCAKES' in Japanese. I recognize they were using me as a blatant advertisement, but I didn't really mind.), while the other people around us were making THEIR meals. There was some okonomiyaki across the way, dango next door, Italian pasta somewhere, ice cream thingies also somewhere, American hamburgers somewhere, Mexican churros, and more. We sold food until it ran out, then went to the gym to watch a few musical performances. And while not all of them were very good--there was a mostly boy band (with a girl bassist) that was kind of...bad--they knew how to work the crowd.

 Flower arrangements--very pretty stuff.

 The saxamababes just before our performance. I had to be quick--the concert was in a few minutes.

 Some classmates right before we started making those Hawaiian pancakes.

 Our pancake workstation.

 Mii-chan and I, the advertisers for Hawaiian pancakes. At this point I was mostly just confused.

 Some friends got ahold of the camera.

 Me, Machi, and Fuki-chan at Fuki-chan's classroom.

Bustling school day.

Second day was shorter than the first; there were just plays and food, which was just as good the second day. The plays were really cool, though--they were judged, and the best one was one called 'the cat who wanted to be human' (I think--Japanese translation was a little sketch). Apparently the play is American, though I've never heard of it.

So, besides bunkasai, I went to another barbeque. This time my host dad and I were the only foreigners there. There were about three two year olds, all of which were insanely adorable, by the way.  A biking trip or two (ugh--biking in the mountains is HARD. Christ.). Also, physics don't actually work in Japan, which explains why I don't understand it at all during class. See, physics says, what goes up must also come down. This is not true. In Wakayama, Japan, what goes down for five seconds on a gentle decline must come up at twice the incline and three times the length.. During biking, anyway.

At the second barbeque. As you can see, there were many more small children there than last time.

Anyway, I'll add that two days ago I went to a gathering at the Brit's house, where there was an exorbitant amount of beer, by the way. He makes a mean meal, though--very tasty. His wife is an adorable little Japanese woman who spoke English pretty well.

Solar powered lights.

And then yesterday I climbed a mountain.

Still vaguely regretting it, even if I got some nice pictures.

 In Japan you tend to forget how short you are--until you end up hiking with a New Zealander, a Brit, and a Canadian, none of which are shorter than six feet tall.

 Host dad has conquered the mountain.

 Here's me. The picture doesn't quite capture how exhausted I was at that moment.

We also went to a temple right afterwards, which was pretty awesome. Even though I spent about twenty minutes and ten pictures trying to get a perfect shot of the temple.

New Page--Photo gallery!

Added a photo gallery page. All of my pictures are there, plus a few more ones. Will be making an actual blog post soon.

Sports day

So, today was sports day at school! Which meant yay, no classes.

I left at 6:25 this morning rather than my usual 7:10 because brass band was meeting early, and it takes give or take an hour to get to school. We practiced until around 9:00, at which point we played the same March about five times as the rest of the kids marched around the baseball field. It was a little better than playing Pomp and Circumstance at graduation, simply because the part was more interesting.

The rest of the day was dedicated to sports events, like these. I did the giant jump rope with my class, and an event where you toss a bunch of balls into a basket high above your head. Its like basketball, only more literal.

Other than a truly epic sunburn, the day was really fun. Apparently it's one of the biggest events in the entire school, besides the school festival, which is next week. I'm going to ask a friend to record the brass band performance so I can post it here. Here's some pictures of me and some friends at the event!

(Side note--everyone wanted a picture with the American exchange student. It was pretty funny. I even had a few kohai run up to me for one.)

The hardest part

If you had asked me a few months ago what I would've thought the hardest thing about Japan would be, I would've said the language. I might've said the shoes, or possibly the trains.

I would not have said walking.

In America, I've come to realize, we all sort of bulldoze around each other, and if you get run over then you weren't really paying attention. Walking is sort of a push and shove manner, as in I push, you shove, and we sort of make our merry way around each other. Not the most polite, but it gets the job done.

In Japan, this is not so. Up to this point I've found that walking is the hardest thing in this culture to figure out.

In Japan, the people jump out of your way when you do your bulldozing. They may be doing something else, but the minute they see you--pop! The Japanese person has vanished into thin air. It makes you feel horribly rude and self conscious whenever it happens. And whenever I try to get out of someone's way, they get all surprised and try to wave me forward. At which point I try to wave them forward, but they've waited too long to go so I start going, and then they decide to go as well, and we just sort of awkwardly make threatening forward gestures at each other until someone, usually me, gives up and starts walking.

It's exhausting.

Okay, so....

Blog's been a little inactive lately, simply because I'm just not doing all that much.

My every waking moment is basically dedicated to school--I leave at 7:10 in the morning for the train, get home around 8:30, eat dinner, and crash like a Windows Vista. On one hand, I've never gotten such good sleep in my life. On the other, I can't stay up and do fun stuff in the evenings. Win some, lose some I guess.

But there were two events that happened recently that I guess are pretty cool.

So last weekend I went to a barbecue with the family (unfortunately the host mom was working) and all of the dad's friends. These friends included two other foreigners, because apparently when you live in Japan you gravitate to each other. One was an Australian--and very Australian was he--named Warren. He had big muscles and a somewhat gruff attitude. The other was a British guy named Dave, who came in bright purple skinny jeans and had a giant mug which he periodically filled with beer. The rest of the people there were all Japanese, and all very nice. They would sometimes come up to me and speak Japanese, which I smiled and nodded at, for lack of anything else to do. I did understand some, which was nice.

But the food was good and the location was gorgeous--my host father took some nice pictures, I'll be sure to post them as soon as I get them.

The second event was one that was so surreal I had to go back over it in my head several times.

So yesterday my host mom overslept, which was fine, but meant I wasn't getting a bento that day. I didn't mind--she deserves a break. Instead I got a 500 yen coin and an instruction to go to the cafeteria.

In America, the lunch lady's make the food and set it on trays, and when the food is gone, it's gone. Not so in Japan. In Japan, you go over to a little vending machine in a corner, and punch in what food you want. You get a ticket and give it to the lunch lady. I did not know this. I spent five minutes hovering around the food counter, and another five awkwardly miming what I wanted to the lunch lady. Eventually she understood that I was an idiot foreigner and came over and explained the machine to me. Oops. 

That wasn't so bad, though. Throughout all this, I felt the eyes of dozens of curious Japanese students staring at me. I was getting uncomfortable.

So here I am, eating my curry and rice (cafeteria food=yum in Japan) with chopsticks--note this fact, the chopsticks are important. I get down to the end of my bowl, and realize that it's getting more and more difficult to eat, and I think, maybe I should have used a spoon. Then lo and behold, a spoon drops onto the table next to me.

I think, what. 

I turn around. There are a group of three little Japanese girls I don't know, all gathered together and staring at me like they just threw a piece of meat at a dangerous animal and were now waiting to see what would happen. For one insane moment, I wondered if this was all an elaborate attempt to poison me.

Then I recovered, and thanked them. At which point, they all ran away.

I don't really think they understood how strange that is, just throwing a spoon at someone and running away. I like the cafeteria, I really do; the food is good. But I'm not sure it's worth all the staring.