Ch Ch Ch Changes

So its pretty late right now but I had the urge to blog. yes, the urge to blog. Currently eating dried banana chips and I find it amusing that the moister chips are in fact more delicious. Wouldn't you think that the drier the dried banana chips the better? Well you are wrong. again. It makes me think that if the moister banana chips are in fact the tastier ones, then why the crap am I not simply eating a extremely moist, not dried banana right this second?!? The answer is I should be. But I'm not. Damn the "I get brown in less than two days time" Japanese bananas.
Well, now that I'm done talking about banana chips, I can move on to more important and mind blowing topics. Just kidding!! we all know my conversations are pretty superficial afterall!!!
The weekend was great. Amazingly fun times occurred (which at some point in the future I might describe, but for now thats going to be a no-go). The most important part about this weekend was gaining a sense of belonging. This weekend was the first time I felt at home completely here. I didn't feel like a foreigner, I didn't feel like a tourist, I didn't feel lost or like there was a language barrier (even though there still was), and I felt at ease completely. Between hanging out with some awesome friends, spending the weekend at an art show (I had my own art in), seeing an Iranian film at a small hole-in-the-wall movie theatre, and experiencing enlightening conversations with native-Japanese speakers in English at coffee hour, I felt extremely alive and for once in a long time, a lot like myself (who I truly am back in the states, not the "will have to settle for the best" Japan Kim). I met some very motivating people this weekend that have changed my whole outlook on perhaps why I am in Japan currently (as I was questioning this a lot this past week). Additionally, I'm slowly starting to get those "oh crap I'm leaving soon" moments during the day. Weird how when everything clicks into place, it is then that I must leave.

Yay-ness!

Happy birthday Emily!! Rockin'. Hope your day is filled with clowns and other creepy-ass stuff. JUST KIDDING! tehehe.

Naked Michigan

So the title might be misleading, but basically those are the best words to describe my weekend. Since I am extremely lazy right now, and am seriously writing this post just because it is on my list of things to do (is that sad? yea, you're right), this is going to be a really short blog. oh and by the way traveling alone is the way to go. Its not that I hate people...ok, it is. A summary:
leave nagoya. arrive in hikone. walk down main street. enter awesome jazz cafe. eat curry pizza (yes. really. and it rocked). speak broken japanese. find out there is nothing to do at night in the town. oh well. find random hotel to spend night. walk to beach. walk along beach. realize i've been walking a long time when i hit next town over. turn around. come upon university (japanese university of michigan studies...or something like that). enter. meet crap-loads of americans. get asked to stay for barbeque. chat. eat various cooked meats. play cock-rock (don't ask...or maybe you should...hint hint). leave well after dark. walk back to town along scary path. buy ice cream. eat ice cream. wish i would have bought a different kind of ice cream...errr cough. yea. arrive at hotel. go to room. spend 5 minutes trying to figure out how to turn lights on in room. sleep. wake up early. check out. walk around still asleep town. realize i dont have money and atms don't open for another 2 hours. walk around. walk. walk. admire some swans and an artist drawing. pick up a quality convini-breakfast. go to atm. get money. tour castle. eat elderly couple's lunch (they insisted, i swear). walk across train tracks to try to find sento (public bath). eat mcdonalds. feel funny being american and eating mcdonalds. realize its ok when i look at the portions. find sento (meaning realizing it is right behind the mcdonalds...after i asked). enter sento. get naked. enter baths. feel the need to giggle because everyone is naked slowly fade after 2 minutes. leave baths feeling extremely relaxed and happy. leave hikone. arrive back at nagoya.

so that wasnt a short post, but yea. The highlights of the weekend were hanging with really fun Michigan-ers and exposing my naked body to the world (or at least 10 random Japanese women...good enough). yay! thats it.

and by sweets you mean...

Enough of this racism crap...seriously its weighing me down. Luckily for me (and the country which is currently housing me), my faith in the japanese race was once again revived today. Igirisu-jin Chris and I were "lost" (not so lost, more like stuck in Groundhog's Day. seriously, deja vu all over the frickin' place...but not the kind of deja vu which makes you feel psychic and new-age and shit...the kind of deja vu where you know you are stupid and have been there before...like 5 minutes ago. yea.) when we came upon a woman who said, in Japanese of course, "would you like to come to my old house to drink tea and eat sweets." Hell yea. sign me up!
And we did. Now I know what some of you might be thinking...that if this happened in America, this might be seen as quite creepy. very creepy. But here, it's seen as an act of kindness and not a way to propose a sexual endeavor. I mean, when she said tea, she actually meant tea! And the sweets, why they were quite sweet! Crazy huh? The "old house" she spoke of was a calligraphy school and had examples of the student's works hanging on the walls. Chris and I spoke to a few of the students for about 30 minutes in a mix of horrible japanese and horrible english. It was fun. Tanoshikata desu! Great day.
Thanks not-so-crappy (actually quite the awesome) Japanese people!

OCDed Japanese (kinda rhymes, eh?)

Note: this is not a racist post, it is simply targeting two girls who suck. hardcore. They just happen to be Japanese. Again, not racist, just full of hate (err, strong dislike). As strom would say: frustration nation. the story:
As I was leaving the communication plaza today after my kanji quiz, I decided to take a detour on my way home and stop by the ATM. The campus atm is very close to the spot where Jac and I did our street painting this weekend. As I turned the corner, I saw the two festival girls on their hands and knees with a hose, brushes and soap scrubbing the road to try to "clean" the art. Now seriously, I never would have thought that anywhere in the world art would be considered dirty, unless perhaps we are in the movie "Equilibrium" or George Orwell's world has come true. Seriously, these girls might perhaps be more obsessive compulsive about cleaning than me...and there is something wrong with that.