Where to begin?
This first week has been a hectic whirlwind of activity. Classes started in full force, and it's been a bit tough catching up on all of the kanji and vocabulary that Yale didn't teach us while trying to keep up with learning all of the kanji for the vocabulary in the new chapters too. Luckily, us Yalies have already learned the new grammar structures that they've been teaching us, so we're not completely lost during class.
Class goes from 9-12 in the morning, with a teacher from Princeton teaching for the first two hours and a teacher from Ishikawa teaching for the last hour. The first two hours are all new grammar and vocabulary, while the last hour is review and practice. Personally, I feel like the first two hours go by so quickly, but once the third hour starts, everything slows down suddenly and the last hour is filled with confused looks and lots of umms.
After class we all go to invade the Family Mart to get lunch. I was amazed my first time in a convenience store here in Japan because of all the stuff they had. There's an entire aisle dedicated to snack food, and another to make-up and everyday items. And the food. The lunch food!! There's such a huge variety to choose from, from various types of bread to bento to the most delicious looking custard, pudding, and ice cream. Every day I try something new, and I've never been disappointed.
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| Bento and addictive matcha chocolate biscuit things |
But wait! There's more
This week, almost every day after school we've had extracurricular activities. Extracurricular activities much in the style of middle school field trips. Not that I'm complaining, because they were definitely the highlight of my week.
Ishikawa Prefectural Government Building
On Monday, we paid a visit to the Ishikawa Prefectural Government Building where everybody had to dress up and we met very important people. It was a bit hard to understand everything that was said but we felt very welcomed. After the meeting, we got some souvenirs and went to the top of the building where we could see the entire city.
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| View from the top! |
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| Our scholarship envelope and a adorable traditional doll representing perseverance and hard work that gets back up whenever you knock it down |
Kenrokuen Garden
On Tuesday, we went to Kenrokuen Garden, a huge park known as one of the 3 most beautiful gardens in Japan. I'll just let my pictures do the talking here.
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| Inside Kenrokuen there was a tea house that had the most beautiful garden out in the back where we sat and watched for a while |
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| The garden in the back of the tea house |
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| Main room of the tea house |
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| Tea and wagashi (traditional sweet meant to pair with the tea) |
Making wagashi
On Thursday, we made some traditional Japanese sweets called wagashi. It's eaten usually with matchya, a very bitter green tea served during the tea ceremony.
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| The tools |
It was quite difficult to follow the sensee's Japanese, but we made do with copying his movements. It was fun to form everything with our hands and smush, hit, shape, and squeeze with all of the various tools they gave us. Most of the time we first smushed the various colored balls into flat circles with our hands and used the tools (cloth, chopsticks, and weird triangular stick) to make the shape of the wagashi.
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| The colorful balls made out the outside of the wagashi, and the brown ball was the inside. Everything was very sweet! |
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| The top wagashi was definitely the hardest! We had to press the green and yellow stuff through a sieve and then attach the strings to the middle of the wagashi with chopsticks. The second one was a rose with a yellow, egg flavored inside. This one was really pretty and it was fun to press the lines of the rose with a triangular stick. The last one was made with a cloth that created all the lines on the top. |
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| All of the wagashi and the omiyage they included about to eaten! |
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Sorry for the stupidly long post today y'all. Stay tuned for a hopefully shorter and less ippai (full) post about the Hyakumangoku festival! Thanks for reading, and DFTBA.
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