An explanation

So I just wanted to explain why my posting is so erratic/seems somewhat anachronistic. I don't have internet access at my host household, so I can't update the blog regularly. If something exciting happens, I usually write it in a word document and post it to the blog the next time I'm free at HIF. Which also explains the varied fonts and stuff. Yeah.

An awesome two days

Ok so I have to post about the last two days, because they were pretty darn amazing. Let’s start with Thursday (yesterday) – after class let out, I went to my first KENDO LESSON! AHHH! Kendo is so freaking cool! Plus, I’ve missed having some kind of martial art in my life. Anyway, the lesson was at a nearby high school, so as the 40-something group of strange looking “外人” (foreigners) walked in, most of the kids stopped to stare. I mean, it was kinda cool, feeling like a celebrity. Plus, they were all super friendly once they got over the shyness (for instance, a group of girls hung around us for a few minutes before actually working up the courage to say “Hi” – they were pretty surprised/amused when they realized that we could speak Japanese). But yeah, the kids were really cool. It’s kind of a cool experience to see high school life in another country, especially one as different as Japan. I mean, (and this is at least how I feel), it was tough to envision other people’s high school lives as being radically different from my own, I guess. It was cool to see how similar/different their high school life was from mine. Anyway, we got to the fourth floor gym, where we met this really old lady, who introduced herself as our instructor for the day. This woman is probably all of 5 feet tall, looks to be about.. 100 pounds? Really short (like, maybe about my length) white hair, and wearing sweatpants and a white polo shirt. She talked for a little bit about the tradition of kendo before having us do some stretches (pretty much a lot like track stretching?) and then arming us with the wooden swords. She taught us the three basic strokes: First is Mein (transliteration?), which is a powerful blow to the top of the head. You advance quickly, leading with the same foot the whole time (i.e. if I start the motion with my right foot, my left foot’s steps should only bring it to meet the right – the right should be ahead at all times) before bringing the sword above your head (so it’s almost parallel to the ground behind you) and attacking the top of the opponent’s head. Second, comes Ku-Toh (again, transliteration?), which is a sharp hit to the opponent’s wrists, the point of which is to disarm them. You advance in the same fashion, but the blow itself is much quicker. Instead of having the same sort of power as you get with Men, you go for a really quick attack. Finally, came Do – a sort of surprise blow to the midriff. Same advance, and you lift the sword as if ready to strike with Men, but you quickly bring the sword down in an arc that attacks the opponent’s torso. Then came the really fun part – she grouped us into four lines, two of which struck mannequins, which the other two attacked actual people (one was the instructor, the other was one of her students – they were wearing gear, don’t worry). I was in the line attacking the instructor, so I was feeling a little bad. I mean, come on, could I really hit an old lady in her 80s? But then I saw her demonstrate the attack formation on one of her students – damn, can that old lady MOVE! I was actually pretty blown away by how much of a beast she was. Plus, she’s incredibly loud when she attacks – it’s pretty frightening. Anyway, we did the attacks in sequence, starting with Men. The instructor was so intimidating! She yelled even as we hit her. It psyched me out the first time because I totally wasn’t expecting it. I advanced, and just as I lifted my sword to strike, she yelled insanely loudly – it threw me off, and I ended up missing. But after that, I got in the zone and did ok. She soon switched it up, though – she chose two students (Koh Kazama and Brian Ho) to be the strike dummies. Not going to lie, this was insanely fun. I can’t exactly tell you why, but hitting Brian was significantly more fun than attacking either the old lady or the mannequin. Oh well. But yeah, Kendo was AWESOME. And I fully intend to go back next week. It’s every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Tomorrow I can’t make it because of the Onuma park trip (which I’m also pretty excited for, but I’ll get to that later), but I think I’m going to do it next week. But I’m also wary of committing to too many things – I figure I’d rather just devote a lot of time to one martial art than doing all three (the program offers Judo and Kyudo, Japanese archery, as well as Kendo). So I’m signed up for Kyudo trials this coming week, and probably want to stop by Judo too, so I can make a good decision about which to do. Anyway, on to today (Friday) – after classes, I intended to go to Judo trial sessions, but then found out I was signed up for a culture class today: Kimono Culture and Etiquette. This and Kendo might be tied for my favorite experience of the trip so far. It started out with the instructor, Kosaka san, explaining the different levels of formality that can be conveyed by a kimono. For men, the most formal kimono would be black with a grey bottom. For women, it depended on marital state – married women could wear black, but with a little bit of color at the bottom, while unmarried women wore multicolored kimono. Any sort of formal kimono has to have the family crest on it – the most formal ones have 5, while semiformal ones have between 1 and 3. She also talked about the importance of kimono coloring and design – a fully black kimono can only be worn for a funeral, but black must be the dominant color in any formal kimono. You also should make sure that the flowers/animals on the kimono you wear are appropriate for the season.

Jan/Feb - Your kimono can have pine, bamboo, Japanese plum, etc

March/April - Japanese cherry, butterfly, Japanese wisteria, Seven Herbs of Spring, etc

May/June – Iris, willow, birds

July/Aug – Birds, rocky beach, fish, shells, water

Sept/Oct – Japanese silver grass, autumn leaves, geese, chrysanthemum, the seven autumnal flowers

Nov/Dec – Dry garden, snow

Afterwards, she demonstrated the different ways men and women put on yukata (very casual cotton summer kimono) and let us try some on!!! My yukata was pretty darn cool – it was a dark blue with lighter blue patterning and a large yellow emblem (not a crest – yukata are rarely printed with family crests). Anyway, we all got on the struggle bus as we tried to put the kimono on (I felt kind of bad for the girls – their method was so much more complicated than ours). I’m pretty sure we offended all the older people there by violating every rule of kimono etiquette. Luckily, afterwards, we had a crash course in kimono etiquette – namely, sitting, standing, entering a room, and bowing properly. A lot of these things are pretty important to Japanese culture, especially during tea ceremonies. I’ll confess something kind of sad – don’t judge me. I knew how to open the door to a tea ceremony because I remembered it was on an episode of America’s Next Top Model. I was a little sad for my life in that moment. But anyway, it was a very cool tutorial. I’m definitely looking forward to buying a yukata before heading back to America, but I need to find some cheap ones. =(. Yeah. But anyway, I loved the class – the whole atmosphere just made me feel like I was traveling back in time to Meiji Japan, when this stuff was like... the rule of social survival. But yeah. I’ll put up pictures later. I forgot to bring my camera to the actual event, so I’m probably just going to steal a bunch of other people’s. Yayyy.

So finally, tomorrow (Saturday) is our trip to Onuma Park. I went last week with Ryuko-san, and it’s breathtaking. There was a little bit of fog that made it look incredible. I’m really excited to go again – I’ll remember to take my camera this time, I swear! But I’ve got to get to practicing – our class is singing in the talent show tomorrow. We’re performing a song called “Banzai” by Ulfuls, a Japanese pop rock band. For those of you in Intro Japanese, it’s the same group that did “Ashita ga aru.” It’s pretty catchy, so it’s been stuck in my head. On the plus side, this does mean that I am no longer listening to Rock Star. Yeah. So I’m going to go prepare now. Yeah. Bye!

Randomness

So this is a random post, but I figured I’d talk a little bit about the daily HIF schedule/my schedule. I guess that’s kind of important. But first, a random insertion – I can’t get the song “Rock Star” by Prima J out of my head. For the last week, I’ve been singing it to myself and doing part of the dance. Yes, yes, I know, it’s the Bratz song. But come on, it’s catchy. Seriously, stop mocking me. I mean it. So the problem is: usually, if I want to get a song out of my head, I listen to it and then quickly follow with a better, fun-to-sing song – however, I do not have Rock Star on my iTunes, so the only way to listen to it is online. The only place I can get internet is the school building, in the public computer room. Should I just bite the bullet and listen to it in the computer room (without headphones), killing any reputation I might have, or should I suffer silently and try to get it out of my head gradually? Please, share thoughts. Side note number two – I’ve demolished about a full pack of “Uzumaki Karintoh,” these little cookie thingers. They’re slightly sweet pinwheels, sort of? But like… the dough itself isn’t sweet - it’s glazed over with some kind of light sugar. I was picking up some sweets for Ryuko-san (I figured I’d do something to honor the first week together) and the big pack was only 100 yen, so I figured I’d give it a go. And now I’m like… halfway through the family sized bag. I think I have a problem.

So anyway, schedule! I get up at 6:30 (well, my alarm goes off at 6:30 – I usually crawl out of bed by 6:45), pack up my bed, brush my teeth till 7, when I eat breakfast with Ryuko-san. Breakfast is usually brown rice, vegetables, and sometimes fish. Sometimes, she makes eggs. But yeah, it’s usually a quick breakfast (15 minutes), because at 7:15ish I change clothes, pack up my books, etc., until leaving the house at 7:20. It’s about a 10-15 minute bike ride (4 if I gun it, as I found out this morning when I was running late), depending on traffic/sidewalk problems. On the plus side, I am remembering how to ride a bike! I’m considering trying some tricks, but let’s not jump the gun. For now, I’m happy to be stable enough to use one hand to scratch my face while biking. Anyway, I usually get to Kunebetsu station (久根別駅, for those of you who were curious) around 7:30ish, park my bike in front of Yoshida-san’s barbershop, and wait at my track. It’s pretty unimpressive, but it’s a good time to do some quick review – between that, the train, and the half hour before class, I can usually do some good kanji studying. Elliot and Amanda, two HIFers (way above my level) also take the train from Kunebetsu, so we usually see each other in the morning. Plus, plenty of other HIF students get on the same train at different stops. There are also plenty of Japanese high school students on the train – it’s pretty cool to see how teenagers are the same/different in different countries. For instance, the girls always sit in group of no less than 3, phones or makeup out. The boys, on the other hand, sit there and look bored while (maybe) listening to music. Anyway, the train ride is about 15-20 minutes, so we arrive at Hakodate station at around 8. From there, it’s about a half hour walk to the HIF building. On the way, we pass by the morning market (朝市), where they sell fresh fish and seafood. For some reason, it’s harder to say no when a vendor holds up a crab and its legs move slowly as it tries to get free. Anyway, we get to HIF around 8:30, at which point I attempt to study more, but usually get distracted by the internet. 9:00, classes start. Oh, the joy. 9:00-9:10/15ish is nicchoku time, during which a preselected member of the class will give the weather forecast for the day, any announcements there might be, talk a little bit about something they did over the past week (you only go about once every 8-9 days), and field questions. After nicchoku is the daily test – the length and subject changes every day. Some days it will be a short 15-minute quiz covering just the kanji or vocabulary for the chapter, while others will see full out unit tests that take a little over an hour. So far I’ve been doing alright. So anyway, on short quiz days, we have three instruction periods of 50 minutes each (on test days, we only have two), broken up by 10-15 minute breaks. Afterwards, we have any cultural courses that we sign up for. Annd that’s pretty much it for this pointless post.

I made my bed. Now I've got to sleep in it.

So as much as this post sounded like it would be insightful and deep, the title should be interpreted fairly literally – in my host family house, I actually do sleep in a bed that I make every night and pack up every morning. But lemme start with the beginning of the week and the beginning of classes! I’ve been really busy, so I haven’t had the chance to update. So. Sunday. Thanh, Yiwen, and I went to Goryokaku Park, a former rebel hideout fortress. It’s one of the first Japanese pentagonal forts, built by the Tokugawa rulers who were fleeing and resisting the newly instated Meiji government. The Tokugawa hid out and fought against what technically constitutes today’s government for close to a year, if I remember correctly. I have a souvenir pamphlet with the information, but I can’t read any of the kanji. Owe. It’s kind of weird/cool/interesting to think about, though – Goryokaku is technically the site of treason against the current Japanese government, but it’s considered such a huge icon of Japanese history and culture. I don’t know, I think it’s an interesting tension. Anyway, the museum area was filled with different artifacts from the Tokugawa period onward, which was super cool – The relics ranged from cannons and rifles to tea sets and bowls – it was a pretty awesome look into how Tokugawa Japan lived as it was on the verge of collapse. Anyway, the park was also really pretty – I have pictures that I’m going to upload after this post. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed inside the museum area, so I don’t have any of the actual relics. But ask me for the information brochure sometime; I’ll be happy to show it off.

So after Goryokaku, we walked around for a while looking for a place called “Bookoff,” where apparently books can be exchanged for ones of similar value. It seemed like a super cool concept, so we were all excited to go. But alas, our navigation skills were somewhat compromised by the fact that we 1) had no directions and 2) could not read most of the street signs (well, Yiwen could, but that’s beside the point). We returned to the hotel, fruitless in our efforts. Ah well. As the Japanese would say, “Syoo ga nai, ne?”

Okie doke. Classes started Monday! There are six classes offered (Intermediate 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, Advanced, and High Advanced) for the different levels of proficiency – I ended up getting placed into 1B (which I’m still convinced has to be a mistake – my oral exam was really actually kind of a disaster. Don’t they see? I can’t speak this language!!) with Asaoka sensei. He’s very nice, but very intense and a little bit intimidating. I always feel really bad when I mess up in front of him. But he dresses so wonderfully! He reminds me of a cartoon character, with his bushy mustache, big glasses, and high waisted shorts. Oh well. The first two days of class were super intense, because we were supposed to be the “advanced” 2^nd year students. We covered 6 chapters of grammar and vocabulary and 12 chapters of kanji (equates to roughly… 360 characters or so?) in the first two days for our test on Wednesday. Which, by the way, was a disaster. Rusty/just plain bad Japanese + 360 kanji = a barely passing grade. Oh boy. Anyway, most of the grammar and vocab is ok, because I already learned it in first year. But the kanji is ridiculous. I had a hard time memorizing the 2-3/night we had in first year, and all of a sudden he’s asking us to do 180? What? And on top of that, the second day was my “nicchoku,” as my name came first in the alphabet. The “nicchoku” is a brief presentation in front of the class about the weather, the day’s announcements, and something about your day/life. Yeah. So all in all, the first few days could be aptly summed up as a definite struggle bus.

But on to some more awesome things! Homestay! I like my host (grand?)mother so much! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! That’s how much I like her. Ok, it wasn’t all awesome. There was the brief period of butterflies just before meeting her. HIF had all 60 of us line up in this hallway outside the little conference room where all our host families were waiting. Then they called us, one by one, and we walked in to the room full of Japanese families waving and smiling and waited for one to come claim each of us. Right before they called my name, I started kind of freaking out – what if she didn’t like me? Or expected me to be good at Japanese? Or was very strict? Or didn’t talk? But all was well! Ryuko-san (she insists that I don’t use to formality of her family name, Takasaka) is awesome! I was dreading some horrible awkwardness, especially during the car ride to her house, after reading some of the light fellowship blogs from last year, but she was really easygoing and talked to me about everything and anything (she was really into my Indian-ness, so we talked a good amount about that). She lives somewhat far away from the HIF center, so the ride was kinda long, but it wasn’t awkward at all! Yay! Anyway, she took me to Kunebetsu station, from which I take a train to Hakodate every morning, to buy a month-long unlimited pass. Not only did she basically fill out the form for me, she spotted me (I was short 2000 yen)! Anyway, when we got home that night, she made me one of the greatest meals ever – it was shrimp tempura with onion, egg, rice, and a whole bunch of other delicious stuff. HIF did an AMAZING job of setting me up with a host that suited me – we have the same exact dietary restrictions, she doesn’t smoke, and we get along really well. Over dinner, we talked a little bit about the program and the people in it. She told me a bit about other homestay kids she’s had (I think she’s been doing this for a really long time), all of whom sound really cool. I think it’s really great that she cares so much about all of them (she still stays in touch with most of them). Anyway, after dinner, she showed me the titular bed making process – my room is in traditional Japanese style (tatami floors, no bed), so I used two pads for a mattress and some sheets for cover. It’s pretty fantastic. I actually sleep much better on it than I do in my bed at school. Ah well. We were both pretty worn out from the day, so we called it an early night. Next morning, she gave me a bike that I could use to get to Kunebetsu every morning (for which I’m realllly glad – it’d be about a 40 minute walk every morning otherwise) and drove to the station slow enough for me to follow her. This was a poor idea for two main reasons: firstly, she had to drive like… just under 20 km/hr so I could keep up with her, angering other drivers behind her. Secondly, I hadn’t ridden a bike in years. You know the analogy “It’s like riding a bike! Once you learn, you never forget!”? False. I almost took down a group of 10 elementary school kids walking on the sidewalk. In my defense, it was a narrow sidewalk and the kids didn’t move aside. In their defense, there was plenty of room for me to make it by. Oh well. Somehow, I made it to the station without losing a limb (or robbing a small child of one) in time for my 7:45 train. Elliot is actually in the same town as I am, so we met on the tracks, which was a cool surprise. Anyway, it turns out that a lot of HIF students take the same train as I do. Fun times. So. Later that day was perhaps one of the single coolest experience of my life – Ryuko-san picked me up after classes that day and took me to a SHINTO SHRINE!!!! Not only did we go in, it happened to be in the middle of a ceremony by an important figure in Shintoism!!! He apparently knows Ryuko-san really well, seeing as he stopped the ceremony to find out who I was and have me introduce myself to the people who had assembled there. He then let me actually take part in the ceremony, which was pretty amazing. I don’t think there’s anything that can really compare. Like, I’ve sat in on non-Hindu religious events before (church sermons and the like), but this was completely different. I don’t know, something kept me awestruck at what I was actually taking part in. Anyway, after the ceremony was over, I helped clean the shrine a little bit, putting away some fruit, etc. But I’ve decided that Japanese people are the nicest people ever. Whenever anyone talked me and I like... responded with anything as simple as a “Wakarimasita” (I understand), they got so excited and repeatedly complimented how good my Japanese was (clearly, they’re lying. But it still is a confidence booster). Then, they made me a special meal of soba, fish tempura, and a whole bunch of delicious stuff. This only led to more wonder and amazement, as they were blown away by my ability to use chopsticks “Nihonjin-mitai” (like a Japanese person). This is… also false. But I’ll give you guys the secret – During Japanese meals, there are several dishes of food set on the table, and everyone just takes what they want. The secret to wowing them as a foreigner is: when you take food from one of the communal plates, use the other end of your chopsticks. It’s done so that you don’t touch the food other people will end up eating with the side that’s been in your mouth. When I did this, everyone gasped and started complimenting me again. But yeah, it was a good experience. It swayed me so much that I decided to switch my independent study project (I was going to do Goryokaku’s history and significance) to Shinto tradition and its survival in the modern Japan. Ok… so not much else happened on Thursday, but Friday was another great day. Ryuko-san took me to a legit Japanese sushi restaurant. This is something I had been waiting for the entirety of my stay. She refused to let me pay for my portion and ordered so much sushi for me. For those of you who love sushi (I’m basically thinking of Erin right now), YOU MUST COME HERE. The restaurant is set up in a super cool way – there is no paper menu. The sushi chefs stand in the center of a large, circular conveyor belt, which bears close to 50 plates of different kinds of sushi that they offer. The price is denoted by the color of the plate it’s on – at the restaurant we went to, striped plates were 125 yen, green-rimmed plates 130, blue-rimmed 150, purple-rimmed 200, red-rimmed 420, and full blue 500. Granted, each plate has only two pieces of sushi, but it’s still amazing. Ryuko-san ordered us an obscene amount of sushi (I ended up with 9 plates or something) and refused to let me pay for my part. But let me focus of the quality of the sushi. The salmon! Oh, the salmon. Probably the softest fish I have ever had in my life. It had this amazing natural flavor and was sooo fresh. Gah! And then we had octopus and squid, which I enjoyed a whole heck of a lot more than I thought I would (the squid was a little tough to chew, but still delicious). Shrimp, clams, tuna, and several other plates later, we left, stuffed. Oh my goodness. I love sushi. There is simply nothing that compares. You guys can have your Miyas fusion rolls and stuff, but I will take legit sushi over it any day of the week. Aksdjfkasjdhfksdj SUSHI! JAPAN! RYUKO-SAN! JAPAN! AHHH!!!

First Week!

So I don’ｔ　have a whole lot of time (it:s the 10 minute break between classes), and I apologize for the typos - Japanese keyboards are set up very differently from American ones. This first week has been crazy! Class is very intense, but should be very helpful. We covered 12 chapters in 2 days.. I would not recommend this. But I think it will be very helpful. Ah! Gotta run - but a more detailed post will follow.

Pictures! In no real order, sorry

While I was waiting for my oral interview and the kids in the other rooms were freaking out, trying to cram, I liked the pretty view. This was a temple I saw.
Again, the same view
Thanh on the bus to Haneda, where we flew out of to get to Hakodate
On the way to Haneda.. it was raining.
I just had to be a creeper and take a picture of this guy and the huge pink box he had on the back of his tough guy motorcycle.
This was our hotel room the one night we stayed in Tokyo. On the bed is the yukata pajamas they provided us with (for free). In case you're wondering, of course I stole it.
My roommate from that one night, James - he's really intense. He's taken like... 4 years of Japanese or something like that.

The view from our room. Yay Tokyo!
This was the hotel we stayed at. Yay!

Day 2

Today was a pretty relaxing day, which was really nice. Well, it started off really insane because of the SPOT test we had to take in the morning. The format of this test is pretty interesting: there are 45(ish) sentences, each missing a single hiragana (the Japanese phonetic writing system). The teachers then played audio clips of native speed readings of each sentence. Listening comprehension in Japan is NOTHING like it is in the U.S. – we heard each sentence one time, full speed, and had to fill in the missing hiragana. I think it went alright, but I ended up relying more on a sort of cheat system I developed – I read only the word before the missing hiragana and just listened intently for that word and the following sound. It worked pretty well for the most part, but there were a few kanji I couldn’t read, but what can you do? Anyway, after the really intense 15 minutes, we had a brief orientation with the different teachers, where they told us about the different parts of the program that we could participate in. Once again, they spoke completely in Japanese, so I only understood a small part of what they said, but it (in conjunction with what some of my friends understood) was enough to get the general gist. So after that, we were done for the day – we walked to this gelato place by our school to try out some Japanese gelato. On the way, these little Japanese schoolkids said hello (in English) to us, so we started a conversation with them. It felt really cool being able to talk to regular Japanese people (even just 10 year olds) and actually use the language in a non-academic setting. It made me feel pretty damn accomplished. Of course, this was quickly crushed. As we were eating our gelato (amazing, by the way – tried mango, which actually tasted like mango, and had tiramisu, which had actual tiramisu rolled into the ice cream, Cold Stone style), a man came up to us to ask us a favor. It took us a few minutes to get what he was saying, but he was doing a really interesting project to see about people’s dreams in different parts of Japan. He asked us to write our dream on a pad of paper, then took a picture of us with it. His friend was doing the same thing in Kyushu so that they could compare. So anyway, after we took the picture, we tried talking to him for a little bit (still on the high of being able to talk to 10 year olds), but we made virtually no sense whatsoever. We attempted to ask him about what he thought the results of his experiment would show, but it definitely got lost in translation. Oh well. Can’t win them all. After finishing our gelatos, we decided to go to one of the famous hot water baths in Hokkaido, called おんせん (onsen). We started out talking to the lady at the reception desk (again, making me feel awesome about being able to communicate) for the best way of getting to the one we had looked up, finding out prices, etc., eventually deciding on taking the bus. The bus is pretty cool, and very different from those in the U.S. When you get on, you take a ticket that lists your stop number (our bus had 24 stops, ours being stop 1). At the front of the bus, there’s a giant electronic board that has each number, as well as the fare people who got on at the corresponding stop would have to pay (if they got off at the next stop). As you travel to more and more stops, your fare increases. You pay when you get off. It’s pretty crazy. Anyway, the actual onsen was really nice too. It was set up like kind of a hot tub, but definitely much bigger and without jets. The way it works: Before getting in, you have to take off all your clothing and wash yourself off in one of the small showers there. Then you just simmer, naked, in the onsen. I didn’t actually go in, because I didn’t want to take my clothes off (and it’s considered very disrespectful, one of the kids told me, to be in the onsen with clothes on), but it was still a really cool thing to see. Plus, while we were all hanging out, an old Japanese man came to talk to us. Granted, I didn’t understand much of what he said (he spoke really quickly, my Japanese is terrible, and he didn’t have any teeth so his accent was sort of weird), but it was still cool getting to interact with more native Japanese people. He also told usa bout a cheap ramen place close to the onsen, which was nice. For about 750 yen, we got really filling bowls full of ramen noodles (which isn’t as… college student-y as it is in America). But yeah, after that we just took the bus back. I don’t know what’s planned for the rest of the night, but I think I’m going to upload some pictures from the first half week. I don’t have many of Hokkaido yet, but I’ll work on it.

Placement Exam... Ohhh boy

So today was the first actual day of work, I guess - it was EXTREMELY rough. For starters, we had to catch an obscenely early flight (6:30), which required us to get up around 4:30 and meet in the lobby by 5:15. Of course, we ended up getting delayed, so we cut it pretty close with the flight. Anyway, I started cramming on the plane, realizing how little Japanese I actually know. Plus, it seems like most of the kids here have done about 2 years of study, so I'm feeling pretty inferior already. So after we arrived in Hakodate, dropped our stuff off at the hotel (which, by the way, is totally sweet), and got to the HIF center, we had to go straight into the placement exam, which was a total nightmare. I had the oral section first, where the lady (who was really nice, but intimidating at the same time) asked me to introduce myself. Of course, I got off to a great start by not knowing the word she used for "introduction." I think it kinda set the tone for the whole interview - me not knowing words to explain myself. She asked me about my hobbies, to which I replied "本 をよく 読みます" (I frequently read books). Good start. Now, she moves on to the followup questions: What are some of your favorite books? I mention Michael Crichton and the book Next. So she asks me to describe the plot. Soo... I don't know if this was just a day of class I missed or something, but I don't know how to say anything about genetic research in Japanese. I started making up some stuff, trying to explain genetic engineering, which just kinda made it sound like a virus. So anyway, after she got the idea of "virus," she asked me about swine flu protection procedures in America vs. Japan, for which I was completely at a loss. Gah. Anyway, the written part was prett bad too.. didn't know a lot of kanji, didn't get a whole lot of voacb, etc.
But afterwards, we had our brief little orientation thinger (with the program director, who is perhaps the most adorable old man ever), where they talked to us about swine flu before giving us our money and taking us back to the hotel. Me, my roommate, and two of our friends went out for dinner at this really cool Japanese hamburger place. I got a shrimp burger for $4 - it was sooo delicious. Plus, the restaurant itself was just awesome - they had swings for seats, and the whole atmosphere was just very 50s (they were playing Elvis, it was like a really old school burger joint with milkshakes and stuff). It was a great time. After that, we just walked around Hakodate for a while (such a beautiful city - it's unbelievable how peaceful and quiet everything is) and talked, getting to know each other a little bit better. And now comes the weekend! Yay! I'm excited to have full days without plans, being able to just go places for fun and such. More to follow!