ER (again), Golden Week, and text-based adventures

...and I'm bad at updating.  May the fourth be with you, and all that.*  I would like to say that I have been so insanely busy I haven't had time to update, but it's more that I haven't had stuff to write about.  It's been Golden Week, and as I found out on Monday, during Golden Week, everything is TOO CROWDED.  I went with some of the other girls from the dorm to Osu Kannon to find shoes and other necessary articles of clothing, and it was like everyone in Nagoya had suddenly decided that day that the BEST POSSIBLE THING to do was to go to Osu Kannon.  So, yeah, that wasn't fun.  So I've been avoiding going out, 'cause I don't really feel like fighting through crowds of people.  Also, since it's Golden Week, I only had class on Tuesday night, and all my regular activities (i.e. penmanship class and/or anything else related to shrines) are on hold because everyone else is off reveling in the yellow color of this week.  (I genuinely have no idea why it's called Golden Week.  If you know, please tell me.)  So I've spent a lot of time reading.  A LOT of time reading.  And it's not very interesting to write about me reading.

One of the few exciting things that has happened this week is that I got to take Louki to the ER because she sprained her foot and may or may not have additionally infected it.  It was basically very exciting, because I got to be a medical translator, a job which I have no qualifications for whatsoever! Also, I have no idea why Japanese doctors are incapable of using language normal human beings can understand.  They could just say, "You sprained your foot and it might be infected," but instead they have to use words longer than I am, that obviously I can't understand in Japanese and then I have to translate the Japanese words to English and then the English words to real English.  VERY FRUSTRATING.  It has given me great respect for the American doctors who just tell you what is wrong without using insanely complicated words.

The weather here has been alternating between gorgeous but so humid you feel gross again the minute you're out of the shower and rainy/miserable.  It's too bad that the actually decent weather at the beginning of April only lasted about two weeks...  Perhaps I am spoiled by California's weather (okay, I am spoiled, but that's beside the point), but I kind of like my seasons to be, you know, SEASONS.  In Japan it feels like fall lasted for about three or four weeks and spring-ish weather will last for maybe a month total, if you count the gross humidity as spring-ish.  That means you have TWO MONTHS of nice weather, and the rest of the time it's too cold or it's oh gods I wish I could strip my skin off hot.  (I am really not looking forward to summer.  At all.  AT ALL.)  UNACCEPTABLE.

On a final and completely unrelated note, I screamed at worked myself into a tizzy over played an aggravating weirdly fun badly coded interesting Doctor Who text-based adventure game that some demonic person someone made.  It's basically Ellie's fault, and she was far too gleeful about me trying multiple times to sonic the stupid hinges on the gate trying to convince the game that the floor existed trying to bribe the constable playing it.  But, in the end, I was able to kiss the villain play the entire game whilst** naked and apparently none of the other characters noticed or cared sonic ALL THE THINGS meet Sherlock Holmes*** finish the darned thing.  I now feel compelled to link to the game, simply because as far as I can tell, your enjoyment of the game exponentially increases with each person you watch suffer through it.****  Also, if you don't enjoy suffering, I wrote up a list of all the bugs in the game and how to get around them, so you can just pester me for those.

YAY, THIS IS SUCH AN EXCITING UPDATE.

*If for some reason you are unaware of the implications of May fourth, well...click here.

**Is "whilst" a word real people use anymore?  According to certain people, chunks of my vocabulary can only be found in 1960's sitcoms.  I don't think "whilst" is a 1960's sitcom word, though.

***I am not a fangirl.


****I'm currently at 2.  Shannon somehow managed to pick up the TARDIS and carry it around.  Don't ask me how she managed this.  I think she's secretly a Timelord.*****

*****What do you mean "Timelord" and "TARDIS" aren't words, spell check????

やばい一宮の探検

So today I decided to visit Ichinomiya, which is about an hour away from me.  Ichinomiya is a famous textiles and yarn town, and home of Noro yarn, which is basically why I was visiting.  Well, that and they have a shrine which hosts one of the most--if not the most--famous Tanabata celebrations in Japan.  Fieldwork!

Also, Ichinomiya has an obsession with the number 138.  This is because the number can be read "ichi mi ya" and if you insert the possessive particle "no," it becomes "ichi no mi ya."  PUNS.

Anyway, I went to Ichinomiya and walked to Masumida Shrine.

Here's the entrance to the shrine.

As you can probably tell, the weather was GREAT.  And by "great" I mean VERY COLD.

GUESS WHAT THIS IS.
10 points to anyone who knows the answer.

This is now the blog about cool dragon water spigots.

Oh hey, kids are the treasures of the country and the household!

...that's why you should shichigosan.

The shrine has a huuuuuuuuuge entrance gate like you would normally see at a temple.

Speaking of shichigosan, that was going on today.

OH LOOK, ANOTHER ONE.

If you can't read the sign next to the sacred horse statue, it says, "Warning: Please do not climb on top of the rock."
What I learned from Chinese history class: if it had to be written down, there was probably a reason for it.

There were some stalls selling stuff to the shichigosan goers.  Stuff like MASKS.

This is a really deep well which you peer into, and if you see your face reflected back at you, you and your family will be protected from illness.

And here's a mirror which will get rid of your impurities if you look into it.

And here's a supremely heavy rock which will grant you happiness in your family if you can lift it.

It was fun watching small children go through the three of them.  The rock was definitely the favorite and involved the most shrieking.

SO CROWDED.

SO MANY SMALL CHILDREN.

And some more stalls.

This is a good luck bridge.  I dunno why, BUT IT IS.

CHICKENS.

There was also a sign nearby saying to please stop abandoning cats on the shrine grounds.  Yikes.

So then I went to the shopping district by the shrine, where I had heard that there were a lot of yarn and textile shops.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten that today is a national holiday (Labour Thanksgiving) and normal people get national holidays off.* Which meant that 50% of the shops were closed.  UGH.

So I wandered around the very limited selection of shops.  There were a LOT of places selling clothing, some of it very cheap, some of it very cheap and hand-sewn/knitted.

There was also a shop selling clothes, baby strollers, and curry.  I dunno.

There was also this place:

...which was sort of like the Japanese equivalent of Michael's crossed with Joanne's Fabrics?

...and this place, which was a fabric store and sold POKEMON FABRIC and ONE PIECE FABRIC and GORGEOUS EMBROIDERED FABRIC.

I managed to find exactly one yarn store, which was full of little old ladies huddled around a space heater as they worked on their various knitting projects.  It did not, however, sell Noro, and also all the yarn was in little plastic bags so you couldn't touch it before you bought it.  I dunno about you, but I'm not going to buy any yarn unless I can rub my face on it first.  Seriously, this is how you wind up working with horrifying polyester stuff.  (Everything they sold was on the low end...either that or yarn in Japan is really cheap.  150 yen for a ball?  Yeah.)

...I don't even know.

So then I wandered around until I managed to find a restaurant that wasn't closed/full of smokers.

MY LUNCH.
Katsudon and udon.  Katsudon is lightly breaded, fried pork topped with egg-sauce stuff on rice.  Udon is a fat noodle, in this case in a miso broth.
SO DELICIOUS.

So after that I wandered around some more, and failed at finding open yarn shops.  Then it began to rain so I decided to head back to Nagoya, 'cause it was getting late anyway.  And then I wrote an essay about FRIENDSHIP.  It was...not that exciting, actually.

In completely different news, I don't understand やばい (yabai).  According to my dictionary it means "dangerous, risky, awful, terrible, crap, terrific, amazing, cool."  Wow.  I'm glad that's clear.  Things which I have heard people refer to as yabai include:
- earthquakes
- the weather when it's hot
- the weather when it's cold
- broken glass
- my mom's knitting skills (my classmates then started obsessively petting my sweater)
- Stuff Not to Microwave
- getting free chocolate from Monday sensei
- having homework
- not having homework
- my tolerance for cold
and many other things.  Basically, it seems to be a word you can use to refer to everything.


On a final note, as I was walking to class on Monday, I wound up walking right behind some of my classmates, who, as it turned out, were arguing over whether I would finally be wearing long sleeves to class or not.  They then turned around, realized that I was right behind them, and were immensely pleased that I was wearing long sleeves.  "If you didn't wear long sleeves today, I would worry about you," one of them told me.
I would worry about me too, if I were wearing short sleeves in 50 degree weather with a freezing wind blowing.  Not all of us can be part penguin.




WHY IS THAT HIGHLIGHTED.

*Nanzan doesn't believe in national holidays.  We have school EVERY DAY ALL THE DAYS.

I AM A BEAR...like..person

Yesterday was Gosha Shrine's Shinjousai (新嘗祭 WHY IS THIS HIGHLIGHTED), which is a harvest festival in which newly harvested rice is presented to the kami.  It normally takes place in November, although when exactly in November it's celebrated varies from place to place.

Before the ceremony, a group of ujiko representatives cleaned the shrine grounds, which mostly consisted of raking up leaves and sweeping gravel off the sidewalk.  The actual ceremony was very short again (only about ten minutes), and was just purification, norito, and then offerings of tamagushi, which I have found out is the correct name for the sakaki branches with shide attached.*  Nakano-san also talked a little bit afterwards about how the weather in Japan has been really strange this year and so the harvest hasn't been as good as usual, but that means that more people should worship the kami so that next year's harvest will be better. Plus, as she pointed out, everyone should be grateful for what they have, even if it isn't as impressive as usual.**

After that they took the offerings off of the altar and split them up among the ujiko representatives, and all the non-ujiko representatives got little bags of mixed white and red rice.

And then everyone went home.  So about 30 minutes total.

In other news, it FINALLY feels like fall.  I had to actually wear a jacket today.

In class today we were talking about fall, and what it being fall means to all of us.  I said that it meant I had to eat more, and the teacher gave me a weird look.  "But you're so skinny!"  I then explained that BECAUSE I'm skinny I need to eat a lot more when it gets cold.  She considered and then said, "So you're like a bear."  ...um...I think I'm missing part of this analogy...I don't hibernate...

It being fall also means squash is really cheap.  REALLY CHEAP.  Which means I have been eating a lot of squash.  Which means it's time for...

MORE FOOD YOU CAN COOK IN A SINGLE PAN ON A DODGY STOVE

Ingredients! (makes two servings)
1 onion, cut into rounds
3 cloves of garlic, cut into thin slices
some squash, cut into chunks
some meat (I used pork)
1 weird green onion thing on steroids, sliced
some renkon, sliced
some spinach
more ginger than you deem strictly necessary, cut into thin slices
some soy sauce
some sake
some hondashi

Step 1!  Drop the onions, meat, and squash in a frying pan with the hon dashi, soy sauce, sake, and some water.  Cook that for a couple of minutes with a lid on.

Step 2!  Add the renkon, garlic, and ginger.  Put the lid back on and cook for a few more minutes.

Step 3!  Add the green pepper and mutated green onion thing.  Cook for a few minutes with the lid off.

Step 4!  Add the spinach.

Step not really a step at all!  Marvel at the red rice.  You'll probably notice that there are only about five grains of red rice in there; apparently if you put more than that in, it gets really gross.

Step 5!  When everything has cooked down to a kind of goopy mess, turn your stove off.

Step 6!  Enjoy.  Om nom nom nom.

Some final notes:

1. I'm leaving for Kyoto tomorrow and will be there until Sunday.  I WILL NOT HAVE MY COMPUTER WITH ME.  IF YOU EMAIL ME AND I DON'T RESPOND, IT DOESN'T MEAN I AM DEAD.  It probably means that I'm hanging out with Steven/Michele/Mary Elaine/my host family.
Consequently, my next blog post will be on Sunday at the earliest or Monday at the latest, depending on how exhausted I am from my travels.
Also, apparently Nanzan requires me to file a form every time I go anywhere.  UGH.

2. A whole lot of my traffic is apparently coming through Alex's blog (if you're a small child, you should probably ask your parents before proceeding).  Therefore, you should go visit his blog, causing a reverse flow which will create a whirlpool and/or destroy the universe.  P.S. I am not an evil scientist.

3. Dear readers in Russia:
WHO ARE YOU?  There are more of you than there are readers in Japan, which is insane, because I actually know people in Japan and I don't (think I) know anyone in Russia.  WHO ARE YOU?  I MUST KNOW.

*I feel like I should make a vocabulary page so that I'm sometimes a little bit understandable.  Maybe I will...someday.

**This sort of logic has come up a lot in conversations I've had with people about the 3/11 earthquake.  Nakano-san said that she had an elementary schooler and his mother visit the shrine, and when the mother went to the pray to the kami, the boy told her not to, because "the kami didn't protect us from the earthquake and tsunami."  Keep in mind that Nagoya was pretty unaffected by 3/11!  It would be really interesting to hear what people think farther north...

Futons, plastic surgery, tacos, weather, and boyfriends

Time for a random thought dump!

First off, futons are the best.  Seriously.  I am planning on sleeping on a futon for the rest of forever if I can.  They're soft and warm and comfy and snuggly and just generally epic.  Yes.  Futons.

Second of all, the weather has really cooled off.  It was actually kind of chilly today, which was a nice change from the oppressively hot and humid weather we were having earlier in the week.  I can wear long pants without feeling like my legs are shriveling up and dying!

Third of all, I went to a "tacos party" in the dorm common room this evening (it was in celebration of one girl's birthday).  It was 300 yen for one...taco...like object.  It was supposed to be 300 yen for ALL THE TACOS, but apparently they did not expect 37 people to show up, so they made enough food for about 10.  But they were good, despite not really being taco-like.  They hand-made the tortillas, so they were more like flatbread than tortillas, and there was tuna (???) and some sort of...onion...like...substance...and the taco meat was a lot saucier than normal.  If someone had handed me one of their tacos and asked me to guess what it was, I would have said some kind of Mediterranean food.  But it was food, and I got to meet some more people, so I guess it was worth 300 yen?

Fourth of all, we had a discussion in Japanese class today about plastic surgery, and four of the six girls said they would like to do it.  My response was "NO NO NO NO NO NO" and the other girl's response was, "I like my face."  ...also, apparently our teacher didn't know what sabi meant.*  I need to stop using obscure tea ceremony terms in class.

Fifth of all, it seems that I am once again in danger of being paired off with someone.  I did not realize how completely obsessed pretty much everyone I have met is with dating.  When introducing themselves, girls will say whether they have a boyfriend or not and whether they're living with their boyfriend.  People have, multiple times, asked me if I am living alone (i.e. whether I'm living with a boyfriend/husband).  The girl whose birthday it was today said her goal for this year is to get a boyfriend.  Also, Hi-chan, the Japanese girl in my suite, shortly after we met asked me if I had met other people from the dorm yet.
Me: Um, not that many.
Hi-chan: Have you met any boys?
Me: Um...not that many.
Hi-chan: There are lots of boys in the dorm.  You should meet them.
...of course, it took me about half an hour to realize what she'd been implying there.
And then this evening, I was taking out the trash and, on my way back up to my room, I passed Hi-chan talking to a bunch of Japanese guys.  She thanked me for taking out the trash as I passed, and I said it wasn't a problem.  But then, about half a flight up, I heard her tell the boys I was from California.  There was, as usual, an immediate reaction of awe.  (I don't know.  Apparently being from California is really cool or something?)  And then some random guy asked, "Does she have a boyfriend?"
...I must admit that I nearly sprinted back down the stairs, but I decided to ignore it, because A. probably not cool to eavesdrop on conversations and B. if I had misheard him, that would have been really bad.  But I'm pretty sure I didn't mishear him and FRIGGIN' GEEZ.  I am a PERSON, not some random Californian object you can buy off a shelf.  You don't even KNOW me, so what the heck do you care if I have a boyfriend or not?
...of course, now I'm going to be paranoid that every guy who tries to talk to me is just trying to win the Californian prize.  I'm kind of horrifically dense when it comes to flirting, to be honest, and I probably wouldn't even notice if the guy was hitting on me unless he was being REALLY OBVIOUS.  On the other hand, I could be loudly obnoxious about having a boyfriend, but that's not really going to stop anyone (as I have heard from sitting in corners as other people are talking about their long-distance relationship-like entities).  It would also be obnoxious, and, honestly, it's none of their business.
But on the other other hand, I don't want a bunch of guys sizing me up like I'm a piece of meat.
AUGH, FRIGGIN' AUGH.
Maybe I should just tape a sign to my forehead: "SO NOT INTERESTED. LET'S BE FRIENDS INSTEAD."

*Sabi is a concept most common in medieval Japanese art, especially in tea ceremony.  It's the idea that asymmetry and imperfection is more beautiful than symmetry and perfection.  It's why a lot of very expensive tea ceremony bowls are warped or unevenly glazed.