Abunai yo!

So I had a bike accident. This is how it happened. I was riding home and there is this part of the sidewalk where it is lined with trees on the right hand side. It was very dark because Japan gets dark around 5 and this was around 6:30 or so. So I see all of these Obaachan (grandmothers) out for their evening walk and it didn't look like they were getting off the sidewalk so I moved to go around them but, in the dark, I could not see that there was a tree. Well, I hit the tree head on and went flying off to the left, which was a blessing considering that the street was to the right.

The next thing that I did was lie on my back for a few seconds and try to figure out what happened. The obaachan all helped to pick me up off of the sidewalk, picked my bike up, dusted me off, knocked my bike basket back into shape, and picked up my bag. They all asked me if I was ok and I felt fine so I told them I was daizyoboo. I rode the rest of the way home but when I got home and walked into the family room my Mom freaked out! She was like "Kyaa! Besu chan!" and she told me that my blood was leaving me so I looked down and my knees, the left side of my face, and my ear. I had my earphones in so one of them scratched my left ear when I fell. They sat me down, cleaned me up, put disinfectant on me, some kind of neosporin type thing, and bandades. Then they made me lie down in the tatami room. The next day I got a headache which persisted for a few days and my Okaasan brought one of her friends over, Murata San, who is a nurse. Murata san fixed me up and made sure that none of my scrapes had gotten infected.

Everyone decided that it was probably a good idea if I go to the hospital just to make sure that there is no internal bleeding. So, this morning Nakashima San, who is one of the women in charge of the international program at YPU, took me to the byoin. They did X-rays and a CT scan. It went really well and quickly then they told me that I probably had a minor concussion but it was almost gone. They asked if I wanted medicine for the headache but it was already almost gone so I said that I was pretty sure I would be fine without it. It was all only 4,970 yen, which is a little less than 45 dollars. After that I came back to school and went to class. I am only worried about whether or not I caused any trouble to my host family. They were pretty worried about me and my Mom came up and tucked me in last night. She brought me a glass of water too with saran wrap over the top so that no dust would get in it, such a Japanese thing to do.

My dad said he was worried because I "Lost my genke (peppiness). But, he thought I would be ok."

Learning Japanese...kind of...maybe

Just a quick note to say hi and thank all of you for your comments! Please note that if you want to post a comment you must make an account and be signed in.

Learning Japanese is really difficult, to understate things. You go uphill for a while and you start being able to understand a lot of things then, all of a sudden, you plateau and you can't understand anything that anyone is saying to you. Finally you will start to go back uphill. However, plateauing is really really frustrating and each one gets harder and harder. Also, Japanese is like a video game. When you lose level three for example, you have to go all the way back to level one and start over. But, when you get back to level three you are a lot better. Still its really frustrating! I'm about to plateau for the second time. Hopefully, in a few days, my Japanese will get a lot better!

Hurui Densha and Tsuwano

This weekend we all went on a trip to Tsuwano. Everyone was going to meet at my house in the morning so my mom and I sat down and figured out where all the tickets were on the train so that the moms could all sit together and the students could all sit together. I was in charge of the student tickets.

Next we had to pack bento (Japanese boxed lunch) to take on the train. My mom and I ran down to 7/11 to pick up two lunches. She told me to get whatever I wanted so I just picked two onigiri. She thought that wasn't enough though so she got me a chicken salad and pocky (a Japanese candy that's really good). When we were checking out she happened to see that there was some kind of new Cappuchino machine by the register so she asked the boy if she could try it. Unfortunately it was not set up yet but the Japanese being as they are, the boy assured her he could set it up in a matter of seconds. So, he ran to the back of the store, grabbed the stuff, ran back, and set the machine up really quickly. Then he showed her how to work the machine but he was really flustered because he'd had to set it up so quick so he kept dropping things and he was obviously really nervous. He kept apologizing and using the really polite Japanese, gozaimasu, irashaimasu, etc. It was pretty funny but I didn't want to laugh because I felt bad for him. My mom tried the cappuchino and said it was really good so then she asked him to please make one for her daughter. So he made one for me too and after we left the store my mom started laughing and saying she felt bad for the poor boy.

After that we had to go to Yamaguchi Eki to cancel one of the train tickets. I stayed in the car with Ramukuhn, because we had brought him along with us. He doesn't like to be separated from my mom. He barked and whined the whole time she was gone. "Daizyobu Ramukuhn, won won nani?" (It's ok Ramu, why are you barking?) I said to him but he still wouldn't stop. When my mom got back I told her that Ramu had been looking for her and barking the whole time. "Hoontoo ni?"(really) She asked, laughing. "Hoontoo!" (really) I said. Then we ran home and packed our lunches up. By then everyone was showing up at the house and we all walked to the station together, where I handed out the tickets to the students and my mom handed out the other tickets to the moms.

The train was really cool. It was very old, a steam train. That morning my ojiichan (grandpa) had warned me to close the windows when you go through the tunnel because the smoke will come in if you don't. Well, I knew to close the windows but the people in the front of our car didn't so, when we went through the tunnel, all this thick black smoke came pouring in. The old train was only running because it was a national holiday so people had lined up along the track and the rice paddies to see it pass by because normally it doesn't run.

Tsuwano is an old castle town with a really cool Shinto shrine up on the mountain. When we got there our moms took us to the bike rental place. It was only 500 yen per bike, five dollars, so we each got a bike and decided to ride up the mountian to the shrine while our moms shopped and went to a cafe. It was really fun. We parked our bikes at the foot of the shrine and climbed hundreds of stairs up to the top through tunnels of orange tori, gates. At the top was a beautiful shrine. We wandered around it and took many pictures. From the top of the mountian we could see many more orange tori dotting the other hillsides and hidden in the forests. We climbed back down and next went to look at the carp. Tsuwano is famous for the extraordinary size that the carp there reach. There are little rivers throughout the city and alongside all the roads and sidewalks, like gutters but little streams instead. They are all full of carp. There are normal ones and there are koi, which look like giant goldfish. The carp in Tsuwano all reach 3 or 4 feet in length, they're huge! We fed them some fishfood we bought and Emily tried to get one to suck on her finger but it wouldn't.

We also went to explore a very old Catholic Church founded by Jesuits. It is really cool because it is very traditional Japanese but Catholic at the same time. It looks like a normal church but there are no pews, only tatami mats to kneel on, and you have to take off your shoes.

Ichikawa Sensei, our Japanese Professor, told us that in Tsuwano you can get hot ice. This is a toasted roll with vanilla ice cream inside. We all ate one and it was really surprisingly delicious. After that we went to the train station because our train was supposed to arrive soon. There was an old steam train that they had set up kind of like a museum display but it was an actual train and you were allowed to climb on it. Bridget, one of the Canadians, and I jumped up on top of the train and were pretending to have a karate battle. When we jumped up there our moms freaked out! My mom went "EHHH!! KOWAII!" (Ahh!, scary!) and Bridget's mom went "EHH!! BURI CHAN!" (Bridget what are you doing?") But then when they saw that we did not fall and die they started laughing and took lots of pictures of us.

The train ride back was fun too and some of us went up by the engine so we could see it. When we got back to Yamaguchi Sam's mom said that her family was going to make us dinner so we all went over to their house, there were about 20 of us so we kind of took over their house. All of the students sat out on the back deck and Sam's dad made dinner. It was Japanese curry chicken with rice and it was sooooo good! After that we sat and talked for a long time while the parents sat inside and talked. It was lots of fun.

My parents, Elliott's parents, and Elliot, one of hte Quebec students, and I walked back to my house. They had parked there so I thought they were going to leave but everyone came into our house. Then all of a sudden my dad says we should all go get sushi! So Elliott's parents get in their car and my parents and I get into my mom's car. Apparently Elliott was confused and no one noticed that he wasn't in any car. Everyone started pulling away and then all of a sudden Elliott jumps into the back of our car while my Mom is backing out. Everyone laughed a lot about that and then Elliott tried to explain why he was confused in Japanese, which didn't work too well.

My dad had gone fishing that day so the sushi chefs fixed all the fish he had caught. There was so much of it and we were all so full but we managed to eat it all! It was really fun. Then I watched TV with my mom for a while. Japanese TV is all subtitled and I am starting to be able to read the subtitles!