Getting out and doing stuff

So I've been doing a fair amount of hanging out with the other folks here at the Kaikan. And although it's not always Ideal from a language learning perspective to be hanging out with a bunch of non-Japanese, Pretty much everybody in the building has better Japanese then myself, so I can at least hear Japanese most of the time, even if it's not 100% grammatically correct.  

At any rate, recently I took a night trip to P.E.I. (It's a bar for foreigners apparently) for a rooftop party/picnic/hang out with some of the other people living here. We never actually went into the bar itself, we just took the back stairs to the roof and hung out for a while and ate snacks and talked.

(Party on the rooftops)

(The view from our rooftop picnic spot.)

(We also found that there was a perfect stage for shadow puppets. That kept us amused for quite a while.)

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to get dressed up in a Kimono. It was a really neat experience, but sadly, the standard bolt of cloth that Kimono are made out of just physically isn't big enough to fit somebody my height properly. The sleeves were about 4 inches too short. and the length down at my ankles wasn't quite right either. If I wanted to find one that fit, I'd have to find somewhere that specializes in Kimono's for Sumo Wrestlers.

(See those wrists? You're not supposed to....)

On Monday all of the IPOU (International Program Oita University, is what that stands for I think.) students went on a field trip out towards Yufuin. I wasn't able to enjoy this trip as much as I might have because I slept funny a couple nights before and messed up my back pretty good. As a result I had very little idea what was going on, or where exactly we were, but I did still get some good pictures.

The first place we went was a winery. Having grown up in Sonoma County, winery tours aren't exactly interesting experiences for me. And because I'm allergic to alcohol, the wine tasting wasn't anything I could look forward to. (I don't like alcohol in the first place, but having an allergy to it makes it a lot easier to explain in a society where drinking is expected at most social functions, and to not do so could be considered rude.) However, I was surprised to find that this particular winery has the rights and contract to produce Welch's grape juice in Japan. So I was able to at least drink some tasty juice. If it wasn't $5 a bottle I might have actually purchased some. Since I couldn't drink, one of my teachers offered to buy me ice cream, but it turned out to be brandy ice cream, so I couldn't eat it. On the plus side, They were playing episodes of Tom & Jerry on the TV screen in the tasting room. So I at least got to be entertained.

After the winery we went to lunch at a restaurant across the street. Due to a communication error the previous week, I didn't have a meal ordered for me (Which was fine, I brought lunch instead and saved some money), but the portions were so huge that I got a pretty decent sized helping of Katsudon (tonkatsu on a bowl of rice) from somebody who just couldn't eat that much.

After lunch we went to a waterfall. I don't know what the name was, or where it was located (I slept on the way there) but this place was beautiful. I think I almost liked the walkway to the waterfall more then I did the waterfall itself.

(The walkway to the waterfall)

(Beautiful women, and beautiful scenery. I consider this outing a success)

(For a sense of scale, look at the bottom right corner. You can see a person wearing a yellow backpack halfway in the shot.) 

After the waterfall we all went to the town of Yufuin. I don't know much about the town, but apparently it's quite the tourist attraction. Most of the other people went and did shopping and went to a nearby lake. Since my back was hurting me, I opted to go to an Onsen instead. Soaking for an hour helped me tremendously. The Onesen was pretty nice. It was my first time going in two years, so I was a bit rusty on the etiquette, but I figured it out with the help of a poorly translated instruction guide that the attendants handed me when I paid. It had an outdoor bath which I like, and it was raining lightly which I love. (If you haven't tried hot tubbing in the rain, I highly recommend it.) Since I spent most of my time at the Onsen, I didn't get to see much of the town. But I took kind of a back road to get to the Onsen, and got to see some interesting stuff.

(Elderly folks playing croquet in front of an ancient steam train? Sure, why not!)

(Based on my walk to the Onsen, I'm pretty sure I'd really like Yufuin if I were to spend more time there)

On Thursday we had a small birthday party for Cho (A Chinese exchange student who is also my next door neighbor here at the Kaikan)who just turned 24. They played an interesting card game that involved whoever drawing the king getting to order the people who held whichever two numbers he decided to do something strange. Dancing, massages, and Kissing happened. It was amusing (I didn't participate, I was taking pictures and went to bed before they ended).

(This is the largest apartments in the complex. Still pretty small for a party this size.)

Last night I tried my hand at some new cooking. Mary has been teaching me how to make some Japanese dishes, and since I have been eating pretty plain this last week, I decided to test one of them. (I actually wanted to try two different dishes, but I forgot I didn't have any vinegar, so I couldn't make the second one.) I made Nabe, which is a Japanese soup. Actually it's really simple (which is a bonus for me) and it turned out fairly good I think. It's one of those, "Throw in whatever vegetables and meat you have, and then eat it" kind of things. The only real difference is that there is some soy sauce in the broth, and once it's cooked you eat it with Ponzu. (which is some kind of vinegar subsidiary or something. It can be made from a variety of things. Mine is made from some kind of citrus, and it's delicious with pork.) Along with my Nabe I had white rice (essential to any proper Japanese meal), and some juice (not sure how Japanese that is). Since I was going full out Japanese for dinner, I decided to eat dinner while watching a Samurai anime to complete my experience.

(Japanese dinner done right.... As far as I'm concerned anyway.)

Also, if you're interested I took a video a few weeks back of myself cooking stirfry. If you have 9 more minutes to kill and are interested in watching me do stuff for that length of time, feel free to check it out.

Anyway, it's the weekend for me now, and I've got a bunch of studying to do for midterms and presentations that are coming up next week. Knowing this, I expect that for the next 7 days I will go back and forth between studying intently, and doing a variety of things that are expressly not studying, yet productive (It's the best reason to not be studying).

~Daniel