Emza is totally a name

Last week, on Wednesday, our dance teachers brought us out for dinner. One of them was incredibly rich, and we got to go into her traditional style Japanese apartment. It was my first time in a Japanese person's home, and I fell in love. It was traditional with stones and tatami mats and awesomeness, but there were also these adorable pink covers with the cutest stuffed pink elephants on the couch. I wanted to steal one!

Us with dance teacher ladies

They brought us to this buffet style restaurant in a super nice hotel with a beautiful view overlooking the Okazaki castle. I had a fabulous time, and I got to attempt to speak Japanese which was, well, to be honest, painful. It was hilarious trying to understand each other. And they got slightly drunk and kept saying the exact same thing at the same time and then looking at each other and screaming "neeee" which is a Japanese sort of confirmation at the end of a sentence. It was super funny. Japanese ladies are awesome!

I actually found food to eat, and I guess the waiter felt bad that there was next to nothing for me, as he delivered a fruit plate that he had made. It was very nice of him, even if it meant I had to eat some grapefruit. He also gave me a "special drink" which was Japanese tea ceremony style matcha green tea, and it was one of the most disgusting things I'd ever tasted. I felt obliged to drink it nonetheless. One of the teachers kept telling me I should just accidentally spill it. It was funny, as she kept miming a disgusted face and me throwing it out the window. I mean, it was basically that green powder stuff with a small amount of water. Talk about ick!

On Friday night, Alexis and I went over to Lyn's house with some people for dinner. Lyn made the most delicious vegetable lentil soup, and it made me want to go eat at Lyn's house all the time. I was falling asleep, so Alexis and I left early, but we ended up going to see Sex and the City 2 instead of going home.


That's Lyn (and Jenny-Lyn and Lauren and Alexis and Tom and Kevin (I think that was his name)!

It was THE WORST movie I had ever before in my entire life seen. Seriously. It was SO BAD! It was sexist and racist and horrifying, and to top it all off, it was BORING. I really don't know what they were thinking. I feel like the ruined Sex and the City for me, and I felt so guilty having made Alexis sit through it, as she hadn't really wanted to see it to begin with. No movie should have the right to be that horrible. I am pained thinking about it.

On Saturday, after teaching French, I met up with Martin on the beach by the river, and we studied kanji and took pictures of ourselves making faces. It's funny how fun it is to pass the time taking pictures of yourselves.


Don't know if I remember what this face was, but I look miserable, and Martin looks scared. Hmmmm. . .


Saturday night, Jenny-Lyn was going to make dinner for me and Jin Han, a sort of dance class dinner thing. Unfortunately, I had to leave early, so I didn't get to benefit from the free food thing. I did, however, watch three straight hours of the BBC's newest version of Emma. I can't believe I have never read the book, as the awesomeness of this 4 part show totally made up for the destruction that Sex and the City 2 caused on my desire to watch movies.

Sunday, Alexis, Martin, Uri, and I all decided to make lunch.


Martin brought chocolate mousse, and I hear it was delicious, but since it was not vegan, I did not try.

Make a vegan dessert next time, Martin!
I felt kind of bad, though, because Uri's English is not perfect, and we were totally NOT speaking in Japanese, so I feel like we kind of lost her quite a bit.
I felt even worse when she sent me her pictures from the class barbecue, and quite a few of them looked something like this:



Alexis, Martin, and I are totally anti-social and exclusive, even if we don't mean to be. It made me think that I should make an effort to be more friendly with other people. And as I love hanging out with Uri, hopefully we will hang out with her more often!



Yay!

Now, I have two weeks of a にっき to catch up on for my private lesson tomorrow.

I kind of love onions

Last weekend was, once again, kinda crazy.

Last Friday, our class had a Bar-B-Q on the beachish thing by the river (the same place Martin and I discovered while biking and then where Martin, Alexis, and I hung out last weekend).

back:Uri, Alexis, me, Martin, Chin, Yo
front: Andrea, Matan, Ken, John, Ii

It was, oddly enough, the first time I really actually talked to some of the people in my class (other than about class things).


Don't ask what Alexis and I are doing, because I do not know.

It was a lot of fun (even if I, not at all shockingly, didn't eat anything). Someone from the class had brought a ball, so we played at throwing it around while standing barefoot on the rocks in the river. And I determined that not a single person in our class (with the possible exceptions of Martin and Matan) is athletic.

Ken's birthday was Sunday, and the bar-b-q was sort of like a birthday party for him. They threw him in the river (from what I understood, it is a Taiwanese tradition to throw people celebrating birthdays into bodies of water - I don't know if this was made up or not), and, because he was so cold, he fell asleep afterward.


Ken being tortured while asleep.

me being too cool for Martin and looking like a blue-lipped man in the process

It was fun hanging out with all the people from our class. I'm glad I decided to go, as I was sort of hesitating in the beginning.

Then Saturday morning, Alexis and I went to the special farmer's market that was in town. Onions were so cheap that I might have bought at least 15 of them. I've still got some left over! Man, I love onions! And here, they are so huge that I only have to use one.

On Sunday, Alexis, Martin, and I headed over to Gamagori. It's this cute little town on the water about a 20 minute train ride from Okazaki. It was a LOVELY day, and we had a great time walking around and exploring.


Me and Alexis with Gamagori behind us!

There was this really cool island a bridge walk away. The trees puffed out of it in a funny way, making it completely adorable and making it resemble the turtle island (that was actually a turtle) in the Swamps of Sadness in the greatest movie of all time, the Neverending Story. It was love for me.


Us with the adorable turtley puffy island behind us!


We also saw this little statue thing on a rock that I thought looked like an oversized fat duck-billed platypus. Alexis and Martin thought I was crazy.


Do you see it? If you can find it, it's really cute!


Oh, and on the walk to attempt to find a grocery store, I came across the weirdest thing.



I don't know why they decided to hang their onions out, but it was kind of awesome. I want to do it now, too!

Fabulous times were had. Can you tell that I am absolutely ADORING my time here in Japan? This weekend has been great, and I will write about it soon. This week is looking to be pretty test crazy, though, so I'm off to read fiction and sleep to prepare for it (sounds like a great review plan, right?)