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foolish_m0rtalSo after Saturday, I woke up early on Sunday and made enough rice for the entire week. (I told some of my Japanese friends about this, and they laughed. But I think it's more of a 'oh man, I do that too' kind of laugh. At least...I hope so...)
Then Zhuo and I went to the kyu-kyu (99, aka the 99 yen store) and got some food for the week. And I found TAIYAKI. Another thing I've always wanted to eat checked off the list!
Om nom, kawaii deshita! This one had anko (red bean paste), but now I believe I'll start searching for the other flavours. And the green tea Kit-Kat, which is apparently rarer than you'd think. Strawberry is much more popular.
Speaking of which, my Japanese is getting better! Izumi-san and Keita-san came to Omiya today to deliver the same presentation as they did in Toyosu.
At lunch Izumi-san told people I knew perfect Japanese if it concerned food. ^_^ Hehee, Izumi-san. I'll miss her when she goes to Shanghai next month.
The guys around me were surprised I put the black sesame seeds (kurogoma) on my rice, and then were happy that I used to make tamagoyaki at home (my how-to, if you remember). And then one of the guys had bought something from the student konbini (convenience) store, and I asked what it was, ("kore wa nan des ka?") and he said it was ichigo mochi, but it was in a pretzel shape! And he said, you know ichigo, and I said, "of course- strawberry in the sweet rice dumpling!" (thanks, Bleach!).
From their expressions, I think they'd figured out that they should have listened to Izumi-san when she'd told them I'd freak them out about knowing Japanese food. What can I say? I like making Japanese food. I like eating it. I really like eating it...
I feel better about Omiya now. I guess I felt more at home in Toyosu because I went around and met all the people and hung out with the students for a day, whereas in Omiya I didn't really do that. And my lab colleagues and I probably can't hang out too much since:
A) I'm a girl, and therefore Zhuo can go out drinking with the guys whereas for me it's awkward. Very understandable. (P.S. there was definitely someone I looked at and thought, oh, it will be nice to have a girl in lab with me, and it turned out to be a guy. WHY bishies? WHY are you so common here?! And why do you cultivate this look and confuse me further?!)
B) I speak less Japanese than they speak English. So it's hard for us to communicate. It should get better once my Japanese improves. (I was able to ask today what time the lab opened and closed. "Rabu wa nan-ji kara nan-ji made des ka?") I'm already speaking in longer sentences and can understand more of what people are saying. So that's a start. Although this nice old woman (again with the old people!) tried to randomly talk to me while we were waiting for the crosswalk. Something about the construction or something. And I was like "...." And she asked me in Japanese if I understood, and I said sorry, I didn't. Which kind of...defeats my argument, I guess. Like when the speaker on Saturday said in Japanese, "Please raise your hand if you don't know Japanese." Uhhh...
If I didn't know any better, I'd say they were fucking with us :) I totally would too, but they probably wouldn't. Actually I think the definition of a bloody-minded Japanese person IS my family.
Lab is okay, I suppose. They've given me an assignment to do. I have to create an applet that lets the user draw rectangles in different colours, move them around, make them different sizes, delete them, and create new rectangles (with the appropriate colour. e.g. red over blue is purple) out of overlaps. I've got it working from a console standpoint (just typing in commands) but now need to transfer it to applet for that is mouse controlled. But I think I'm at a good point for just ten hours of work. I feel like it's a bit of a busy work thing, because it's a project they give to all second years, but really, I'm not old enough to have my own research, and everyone speaks Japanese. It's the best they can do.
I feel kind of bad that I'm coming in at 1PM and coming back home at 8-ishPM (gogo hachi-ji). But I hate staying longer, because I'm not sure when the buses stop running, and okay, Minamicho Warabi can get a little creepy after dark, especially after people stop walking around. Usually 6-7PM, everybody's outside walking their cute little dogs or power-walking (these people have saved me more than once, as you recall). But I don't know what the Japanese student is going to do when he/she comes to UVa, because here it's only about 8-10 hours of lab a week for a 3 credit class. (reasonable, you say, but these guys spend all day in the lab. They don't have any other classes)
Oh, so I finally got my passcard, which has enough money to get me from Nishi-Kawaguchi to Higashi Omiya and back for the designated time period on my form I filled out. Instead of looking at the map and figuring out how much money to put in for a ticket (which is easier now that I recognise characters for places, but still difficult) you just scan this in at the turnstyles. You have to scan in and scan out so they know where you've come from and where you're going so they can deduct appropriately.
At the top, the left-hand side says Nishi-Kawaguchi in kanji.
西 I know the first character is west, because Nishi means west.
川 And there's the symbol for river (kawa).
ロ After a bit of digging, I found that this symbol means gateway or entrance (guchi). This makes sense- I cross over a little finger of the river on my way to and from the station. Sometimes there are carp!
The right hand side says Higashi-Omiya.
東 The first character means east, which is Higashi.
大 Sugiyama-san told me Oo in Omiya means big, and he's exactly right- the second character means big.
宮 The third character (miya) means shrine or palace, I think. Sugiyama-san said there were a lot of government buildings there, so maybe this makes sense.
For more knowledge about kanji, check out this website called denshi jisho (Jp. electronic dictionary) - it's where I did most of the look-up for characters I didn't know.
For dinner, I had some more of the frozen vegetables I bought at the store (which apparently includes small pearl potatoes that taste like they want to be slightly overripe onions, lotus root, bamboo root, carrots, and green beans) rice with fried egg, and the rest of the krokke I bought at the kyu-kyu. It had carrots and peas inside it, not just mashed potatoes. ^_^ So happy! Sometime I'm going to track down the krokke I had in the Toyosu canteen, which was a slightly crispy krokke with sauce and a hot cheese filling. I'm not sure what kind of cheese it was (very mild pale cheese) but it was really delicious! And then I had more milk tea and some hot hibiscus tea with Nanako-san, one of the people Gustabo-senpai knows.
For the first time in six days, I ate something that didn't agree with me. I'm pretty impressed- usually it takes me a lot less time, especially with the cavalier way I've been eating (anything cheap/free/at the kyu-kyu). It was the Taiwanese iron eggs (quail eggs braised over and over till they're compressed and dense) that did me in, damn it. Or maybe it was the milk tea. Hmm...I kind of refuse to believe it was the milk tea, but stranger things have happened. The Lawson's brand has a pretty monopolistic hold on a lot of products like bread, types of carton drinks (milk based drinks, juices) etc.
Also, whoever said that people in the lab take tea at honourable 3 o'clock is so full of lies. Maybe this is how it was back then (all the gaijin resources to Japan that I happen to find are all back in the 90s. Like no one goes to Japan now?), but now it's just straight up working till dinner time at 8PM. Now I've got all sorts of well intended tea biscuits that I don't know what to do with. Maybe I'll just bring them to the international picnic the Gakusei Project has got planned.
On my way back, I met Izumi-san and Keita-san on the bus back to the station, and they actually walked me to my appropriate station at Omiya (the Keihin-Tohoku line back to Nishi-Kawaguchi) so they would be sure I made it back. Aww, so nice of them! And look what Izumi-san saved for me!
And she told me their enough money for me to send my friends in America a card or a letter. Haha, I'm sorry, guys, but I'm keeping these! I'm sorry to deprive you of the glory that is the 80 yen Naruto Shippuden specialty stamp.
Then Zhuo and I went to the kyu-kyu (99, aka the 99 yen store) and got some food for the week. And I found TAIYAKI. Another thing I've always wanted to eat checked off the list!
Om nom, kawaii deshita! This one had anko (red bean paste), but now I believe I'll start searching for the other flavours. And the green tea Kit-Kat, which is apparently rarer than you'd think. Strawberry is much more popular.
Speaking of which, my Japanese is getting better! Izumi-san and Keita-san came to Omiya today to deliver the same presentation as they did in Toyosu.
At lunch Izumi-san told people I knew perfect Japanese if it concerned food. ^_^ Hehee, Izumi-san. I'll miss her when she goes to Shanghai next month.
The guys around me were surprised I put the black sesame seeds (kurogoma) on my rice, and then were happy that I used to make tamagoyaki at home (my how-to, if you remember). And then one of the guys had bought something from the student konbini (convenience) store, and I asked what it was, ("kore wa nan des ka?") and he said it was ichigo mochi, but it was in a pretzel shape! And he said, you know ichigo, and I said, "of course- strawberry in the sweet rice dumpling!" (thanks, Bleach!).
From their expressions, I think they'd figured out that they should have listened to Izumi-san when she'd told them I'd freak them out about knowing Japanese food. What can I say? I like making Japanese food. I like eating it. I really like eating it...
I feel better about Omiya now. I guess I felt more at home in Toyosu because I went around and met all the people and hung out with the students for a day, whereas in Omiya I didn't really do that. And my lab colleagues and I probably can't hang out too much since:
A) I'm a girl, and therefore Zhuo can go out drinking with the guys whereas for me it's awkward. Very understandable. (P.S. there was definitely someone I looked at and thought, oh, it will be nice to have a girl in lab with me, and it turned out to be a guy. WHY bishies? WHY are you so common here?! And why do you cultivate this look and confuse me further?!)
B) I speak less Japanese than they speak English. So it's hard for us to communicate. It should get better once my Japanese improves. (I was able to ask today what time the lab opened and closed. "Rabu wa nan-ji kara nan-ji made des ka?") I'm already speaking in longer sentences and can understand more of what people are saying. So that's a start. Although this nice old woman (again with the old people!) tried to randomly talk to me while we were waiting for the crosswalk. Something about the construction or something. And I was like "...." And she asked me in Japanese if I understood, and I said sorry, I didn't. Which kind of...defeats my argument, I guess. Like when the speaker on Saturday said in Japanese, "Please raise your hand if you don't know Japanese." Uhhh...
If I didn't know any better, I'd say they were fucking with us :) I totally would too, but they probably wouldn't. Actually I think the definition of a bloody-minded Japanese person IS my family.
Lab is okay, I suppose. They've given me an assignment to do. I have to create an applet that lets the user draw rectangles in different colours, move them around, make them different sizes, delete them, and create new rectangles (with the appropriate colour. e.g. red over blue is purple) out of overlaps. I've got it working from a console standpoint (just typing in commands) but now need to transfer it to applet for that is mouse controlled. But I think I'm at a good point for just ten hours of work. I feel like it's a bit of a busy work thing, because it's a project they give to all second years, but really, I'm not old enough to have my own research, and everyone speaks Japanese. It's the best they can do.
I feel kind of bad that I'm coming in at 1PM and coming back home at 8-ishPM (gogo hachi-ji). But I hate staying longer, because I'm not sure when the buses stop running, and okay, Minamicho Warabi can get a little creepy after dark, especially after people stop walking around. Usually 6-7PM, everybody's outside walking their cute little dogs or power-walking (these people have saved me more than once, as you recall). But I don't know what the Japanese student is going to do when he/she comes to UVa, because here it's only about 8-10 hours of lab a week for a 3 credit class. (reasonable, you say, but these guys spend all day in the lab. They don't have any other classes)
Oh, so I finally got my passcard, which has enough money to get me from Nishi-Kawaguchi to Higashi Omiya and back for the designated time period on my form I filled out. Instead of looking at the map and figuring out how much money to put in for a ticket (which is easier now that I recognise characters for places, but still difficult) you just scan this in at the turnstyles. You have to scan in and scan out so they know where you've come from and where you're going so they can deduct appropriately.
At the top, the left-hand side says Nishi-Kawaguchi in kanji.
西 I know the first character is west, because Nishi means west.
川 And there's the symbol for river (kawa).
ロ After a bit of digging, I found that this symbol means gateway or entrance (guchi). This makes sense- I cross over a little finger of the river on my way to and from the station. Sometimes there are carp!
The right hand side says Higashi-Omiya.
東 The first character means east, which is Higashi.
大 Sugiyama-san told me Oo in Omiya means big, and he's exactly right- the second character means big.
宮 The third character (miya) means shrine or palace, I think. Sugiyama-san said there were a lot of government buildings there, so maybe this makes sense.
For more knowledge about kanji, check out this website called denshi jisho (Jp. electronic dictionary) - it's where I did most of the look-up for characters I didn't know.
For dinner, I had some more of the frozen vegetables I bought at the store (which apparently includes small pearl potatoes that taste like they want to be slightly overripe onions, lotus root, bamboo root, carrots, and green beans) rice with fried egg, and the rest of the krokke I bought at the kyu-kyu. It had carrots and peas inside it, not just mashed potatoes. ^_^ So happy! Sometime I'm going to track down the krokke I had in the Toyosu canteen, which was a slightly crispy krokke with sauce and a hot cheese filling. I'm not sure what kind of cheese it was (very mild pale cheese) but it was really delicious! And then I had more milk tea and some hot hibiscus tea with Nanako-san, one of the people Gustabo-senpai knows.
For the first time in six days, I ate something that didn't agree with me. I'm pretty impressed- usually it takes me a lot less time, especially with the cavalier way I've been eating (anything cheap/free/at the kyu-kyu). It was the Taiwanese iron eggs (quail eggs braised over and over till they're compressed and dense) that did me in, damn it. Or maybe it was the milk tea. Hmm...I kind of refuse to believe it was the milk tea, but stranger things have happened. The Lawson's brand has a pretty monopolistic hold on a lot of products like bread, types of carton drinks (milk based drinks, juices) etc.
Also, whoever said that people in the lab take tea at honourable 3 o'clock is so full of lies. Maybe this is how it was back then (all the gaijin resources to Japan that I happen to find are all back in the 90s. Like no one goes to Japan now?), but now it's just straight up working till dinner time at 8PM. Now I've got all sorts of well intended tea biscuits that I don't know what to do with. Maybe I'll just bring them to the international picnic the Gakusei Project has got planned.
On my way back, I met Izumi-san and Keita-san on the bus back to the station, and they actually walked me to my appropriate station at Omiya (the Keihin-Tohoku line back to Nishi-Kawaguchi) so they would be sure I made it back. Aww, so nice of them! And look what Izumi-san saved for me!
And she told me their enough money for me to send my friends in America a card or a letter. Haha, I'm sorry, guys, but I'm keeping these! I'm sorry to deprive you of the glory that is the 80 yen Naruto Shippuden specialty stamp.
