No, I don't have a midterm exam on Thursday. There is absolutely no studying for me to do. At all.
Except that there is. A huge, monstrous, three hour exam on Thursday that is sure to be very reminiscent of the SAT. And this time I won't be able to read the questions. It's so overwhelming that I'm not even that sure where to start with the studying. Should I start with kanji? Or grammar? Or maybe write this speech on global warming that we're somehow supposed to give as part of the exam?
Anywho...Here I am procrastinating on this exam (that I am desperately trying to forget about), so let me catch ya'll up on what I've been doing with my life this past week.
Ninja Temple and Nagamachi (Samurai District)
Last weekend, my host family took me and Ko-san (from the same neighborhood) out to the Ninja temple and the samurai district. The ninja temple wasn't actually used by ninjas, but was named for all the traps and general badassery that made this temple the headquarters for soldiers guarding the area back in the good ole days. There are more than 20 staircases and 29 rooms in the temple (which looks like a normal 2 story temple from the outside), and there are actually 7 levels in the temple with different booby traps and clever devices to make the temple easy to defend and hell for any invaders.
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| I stole this picture from www.japan-guide.com since I forgot to take pictures |
Afterwards, we went to Nagamachi to look at the old samurai houses and to walk around. The entire area has been preserved very well, and walking down the streets felt like we were transported back in time. Very cool.
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| The walls of the houses are made out of mud, and according to my host father, the actual houses were much further back than the walls that we can see to make it harder for intruders to attack |
My one and only love - Food
Japanese food is delicious. The meat here is extremely tender and a lot more fatty than American meat, and the fish is oh so cheap. I haven't been taking as many pictures as I would like of all the food I've been eating here (because I've been to busy stuffing it into my face with utmost decorum), but here are some of my meals that I actually remembered to take pictures of.
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| We made makizushi in class after our first exam! It doesn't look very pretty but it was very delicious :) |
We went over to Nicole's (check out her blog!) house for a sleepover and some of the best food I've had in my life. This was sukiyaki that we had (mixed with raw egg) which I think has ruined meat for me forever. It was...incredible. There was also sushi that we made ourselves and various other yummy things
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| Melon pan with ice cream! It's advertised as the 2nd best in the world since 2013, which is a bit weird. Nonetheless, it was delicious. For those of you who doubt the perfection of メロンパンアイス, here is a second opinion. |
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| I helped my host mom make this! It's enoki (a type of thin mushroom) wrapped in strips of pork belly, and then pan fried with butter. Afterwards we grilled it some more on the yakiniku grill. |
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| Lucy invited us over to her house to learn how to make soba from buckwheat flour. It was very fun, and very difficult. Lucy's host dad was incredibly skilled, and cut the soba dough so uniformly and thinly that our poorly cut, different sized soba looked like udon compared to his. |
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| Tommy and his host family were kind enough to allow me to stay over since my buses didn't run early enough for me to get into the city for something I had to do. Tommy's host mom made kaisen don with tempura for us and if was amazing. |
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| I LOVE YAKINIKU. We've had it twice at my host family so far, and it exceeded my expectations both times. So yummy. |
Other foods that I will miss dearly back in America: good noodles (udon, somen, ramen, etc), cheap and delicious sushi/sashimi, roe on top on rice, takoyaki, curry rice, curry donuts, omurice, bento, cheap and delicious bread, Japanese ice cream, Japanese snacks/sweets, matcha everything....the list goes on.
Agh. Now I'm hungry again, and I just finished dinner.
Thanks for reading, and DFTBA!
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