Turkish Ice Cream

Yeah, it's been awhile. So last Saturday, on the 10th, I went to the closing social for institute. Three different institutes around the Kansai area came, so there were a lot of people there. After a little devotional we played a game called 百人一首(hyakunin issyu). The kanji literally mean 100 people one neck, but it actually means 100 poems by 100 famous people. To play the game you have 100 cards all with the last half of a waka(a Japanese poem with a 5-7-5-7-7 meter) written on it. Then there is someone who reads a poem, at random from the 100, from the beginning and your goal is to find that card. If you have all the poems memorized, or even just a few, you will have an advantage because as soon as the first word of the poem is read you will already know which card to look for instead of having to wait for them to get to the last half of the poem.

Because there were a lot of people there we played an extreme version of this game. Usually you use normal sized cards, but at the social they wrote all the poems down on paper and pasted those to cardboard. I think they were 3 feet by 2 feet? I don't know. But it made it really fun because everyone was running around to try and find the right card.

After the social I went with Shingo, Naoko, Hoku, and Ken to Umeda and window shopped for a bit. There was a special summer sale going on at the mall we went to so it was super crowded. So crowded that there was someone who directed the line to the escalators at the entrance. Quick side thought, in Japan they call both elevators and escalators elevators. It was fun walking around just looking at the different shops. We stopped at a perfume store and smelled the different perfumes and colognes. It was interesting, sometimes the most expensive perfumes weren't the best smelling. We walked past a dessert shop and one of the desserts they had was a parfait about 26 cm tall. Sometime I want to get a group of people together and get it.

Ken and Hoku came home with me because we were throwing a goodbye party for Mari, Ken's sister. She left for Southern Virginia University this morning. But Megan made brownies that her mom sent her. While we were waiting for the brownies to cool we went to the fair that was being held around the castle. Mari and Ken played a game where you use paper paddle to scoop as many bouncy balls out of water before the paper breaks. Usually it's fish, though. Mari was able to get over 60! We went back for brownies and finished off the night with youtube videos. I will miss you Mari!

On Tuesday we went to the Danjiri Festival museum with Sister Sato and the Yukimotos. Kishiwada is the most famous in Japan for it's Danjiri Festival. I think the Danjiri Festival is thrown to celebrate the history of a town. A float carved with images from history is pulled around the streets. I think there are about 60 people pulling the float. Then there are people sitting on the float playing a flute and drums and then one person dancing on the roof of the float. It's hard to explain and it's a lot cooler if you actually see it. The festival is in September so we won't get to see the actual festival. But it was cool being able to go to the museum.

On Wednesday Megan and I got to try on kimonos! It was so fun. There are two main types of kimonos. Ones with short sleeves and ones with long sleeves. Before you get married you wear kimonos with long sleeves. After you're married you wear short sleeved kimonos. I got to try on Sister Sato's kimono that she wore before she got married. I think she bought it when she turned twenty. In Japan, your twentieth birthday is your most important birthday because that's when you become an adult. When you turn twenty you buy a really nice kimono and take pictures. Also, you wear it on Adult Day if you turn twenty that year, or if you have already turned twenty or something like that. It was raining, so we couldn't really go outside, but I still had fun just wearing it.

Today I made plans to go to either Umeda to get the really tall dessert or Namba to get Turkish ice cream. I invited Megan, Meg, Hoku, Shingo, and some of our students, but in the end only Megan, Shingo, Hiroharu, and I were able to go. So we decided to go to Namba to get Turkish ice cream and do Umeda another time. I had a lot of fun. The best part was trying to find where the stand was that sold the ice cream. The directions we got were: it's on a street perpendicular to a main street and has a bunch of banners with cats on them. We did eventually find it. It involved looking it up on HIroharu's cell phone and asking people if they knew where it was. After eating Turkish ice cream we took some purikura then went to a make-it-yourself takoyaki restaurant. It was really fun making them and they were so good! Shingo and I want to open up a takoyaki restaurant next to the crepe shop that Megan and Hoku are going to open.

Time to get back into the swing of things!

Today was my last day teaching the night class, at least for two weeks. It's so hard switching schedules! For over a month I was teaching the morning class. I would get up at 6am, go running, have breakfast, and then go and teach. After class would always vary depending on the day, but I would either study or go play. Then we were all informed that we were switching classes so that the students could experience different teaching styles. We hadn't known about this before we left, so it was a little of a shock. I am by no means complaining about having to teach different students;I love the night class! But changing schedules is super hard.

The morning class goes from 10am to 1pm while the night class goes from 7pm-10pm. So while I was teaching the night class I would get home around 11pm every night. The first week I only missed a few days of running, but this week was impossible for me. It's also been really hard just to get up, get ready, and get things done. The only thing I did today was plan today's lesson. Plus, since Sister Sato goes to the morning class I didn't really get to talk to her until dinner. So, I'm excited to go back to teaching the morning class. I am so much more productive that way.

Last Saturday Megan, Hoku, Sister Sato, Sister Sugimoto, and I went to Kyoto. Meg didn't go because she wanted to catch up on her sleep. We left a little late because Watabe Sensei wanted to have a meeting in the morning and Saturday was the only day that we could do it. He's in Provo right now so we had to do it over the computer. So we didn't arrive in Kyoto until noon. It was raining that day and I thought it would ruin our trip, but it made it even better. Kyoto is so pretty in the rain! I've been to Kyoto a lot so it was nice seeing it in a different light. Plus, since it was raining it was so much cooler.

At Kiyomizu Temple we got to go inside a Buddha. I'm not sure if we actually went inside one, but there is this story, I think, about a guy who get's swallowed by a Buddha and it's pitch black. But then he sees the light or receives enlightenment and is able to get out, or something. haha. Sister Sugimoto was explaining it to us in Japanese, but it's like Jonah and the whale. But we went down some stairs and went into this pitch black corridor, and we had to hold onto the railing the whole time because you can't see anything! Halfway through we saw a light shining on a stone that probably had some significance and then it's pitch black again until you reach the end. It was a pretty cool experience. It's really cool to see how the truth of the gospel can be seen around the world in different religions, but has just been interpreted differently.

Before going home we stopped by a yaki niku restaurant for dinner. Yaki niku is where you are given a plate of raw meat, like beef or pork that has been thinly sliced or sea food, and you sit at a table with a small grill in the middle and cook the meat yourself. That way you can eat the meat fresh off the grill. Then you have different sauces that you can dip your meat in. It was all you can eat and Sister Sugimoto did the ordering for us. I was so full after wards! But it is delicious!

Megan is in Hiroshima this weekend visiting friends, but tomorrow Sister Sugimoto and Sister Sato are taking Meg, Hoku, and I to an Onsen in Kobe. I'm really excited!