Animecars ftw!

I (or rather my borther) spotted this one on the way to the electronic store today, pure awesomeness..(Sorry for the bad quality, took them with my cellphone)

#8 Hamburger is not use chopsticks

All my life, I've been thinking I'm someone that'd have a lot of problems adjusting to a different life style that I was used to. There were hundreds of things of which I thought "just how in the world could I get along without having this/doing this every day".
Which was one of the aspects I feared most before coming here to Japan.
Somehow this person seems very far to me now. I don't know why, but it really bothers me.
Where are all the problems? All the challenges? Is it a good thing that everything goes so smooth for me (at least from my point of view), or am I missing something really important?
Well, aside from that, things are pretty fun. I spend most of my time at school now, leaving the house at ~7:50 and returning around half past seven in the evening.
On thing that really blows are those damn strong winds this region is known for (hehe, what a stupid pun), especially when you're on your bike and they slow you down to granny-speed although your pushing with all your power. Somehow they always manage to go the exact opposite direction you do. On my way to school, after a bunch of fields, I always pass another high school called "kôkôkô" (国府高校), because the part of Toyokawa is named "Kô" and the word "High School" means "Kôkô"; it's the school my host mother (!) and older brother used to commute to. Some teachers prefer to write it as (ko)³. Whereas we (Mito High) have blue uniforms, theirs are black, so you usually recognize them at once. Also, I heard they're not on good terms with Mito. That aside, I really like Kou itself, because it really looks like a traditional Japanese village to me. Also, there's this bridge named 「南田橋」 (minami-hashi, "southern-field bridge") crossing the 「音羽川」 (otowa-gawa), which offers a really beautiful view of the rather thin river.
Maybe I should shoot a photo of it next time. Arriving at school, you're greeted by teachers standing by the gate who obviously have nothing better to do, just like in anime.
As for lessons, there are currently three types: The ones I like and mostly understand (Modern Japanese Literature, World History), the ones in which I don't understand too much, but still like(Japanese History, Classical Japanese Literature) , and the ones I can't stand(Home Economics). English doesn't count as a subject, the lessons are so simply it's rather like a 50 minutes long break. Apart from those subjects my class usually has, me, Ben and Ari-san (her real name is Allison but everyone calls her that) are having Japanese Language "Classes" with the English Teachers, which are really a waste of time in my opinion. Either we discuss the schedule of school events or other organizational stuff, or we read completely Kanji free children's book. Or the teacher has just no idea what to do with us, which happens quite often.
I'd rather sit in Japanese Classics and listen to Kaniko-sensei drifting off the lesson and telling yet another funny story than that.
Concerning the English classes, I take them as a great opportunity to analyze the Japanese Educational System and its methods to better understand just why students are having so much trouble with the language. One thing I had noticed before but never really thought about is that students are being made translate from Japanese to English and vise versa, which I think is a great way to teach them not thinking in English, one important factor of speaking fluently.
Rather than that, it's like they're learning to put on a "English mask" on their minds, always desperately translating everything they hear into Japanese and their own (Japanese) thoughts into English when responding, using all the complicated grammar they've studied for years.
No wonder it ended in a disaster once the "Current English"-Teacher made them compose a very own text about their opinion on the influence of American culture on Japan, despite the papers we were given to write on only held space for around 50 words. When working on so called "comprehension tasks", I often like to cross out the "please write the answer" and replace it with "please copy the text". What else would you do if all the questions consist of are sentences taken right out of the text with a question mark at the end. Reading out texts and vocabulary loudly is a method I've already doubted back in Germany in my Japanese classes. You just can't remember pronunciations, let alone meanings correctly using them once a week. Ever heard of short-term memory? But I guess I'm just writing stuff that hundreds have written before, so I'll leave it at that.
Walking through the corridors, I often get greeted randomly, and it's very hard for me to remember every face that did so to greet them back another time. But there're also people outside of my class I'm pretty familiar with, like Keisuke-kun and Akira-kun I'm doing the school cleaning with, or the bunch of 3rd grade girls that use to teach me the newest moves and gags from comedians. One really happy moment for me was when I got a Kôhai from my Badminton Club to actually call me "Ankurô-senpai". Also, I didn't expect my rather strict looking club president to be into Kei-on and Shangri-la. You just never know, hu. In my class, the only people I can talk with about Anime, J-Pop and games are girls. There's like Tomoko that always lends me the newest magazines, or Mai, who plays RPGs on the NDS all the time, and then there's that RPG and especially Zelda nerd Hina, from which I just recently borrowed three Zelda manga (Ocarina of Time and Kamigami no Triforce, I think the only ones that even exist).
One thing that's really neat about Japanese schools is that the desk you're using kinda belongs to you, meaning you can leave all your stuff there over night and nobody will say a thing. Also, classrooms are usually always open, so you can spend your free time there talking to friends, learning or doing other stuff. As my club usually finishes training at 7 pm, I often find myself going through almost pitch black hallways when bringing my stuff back to my shelf in front of the classroom, reminding me of all those scenes of students sneaking into school at night and scaring each other.
The other day I went to Toyohashi, a city about 15 min by train from here, to see a Buddhist procession, and I was really shocked by how different it was to my city (Toyokawa). Since I expected this region to be rather rural in general, I didn't really expect to see an accumulation of shopping malls, fashionable young people and cars, and it made me a little bit envious in a way, because all that stuff I believed to be far away seems to exist right around the corner. But I guess that's just one more aspect of the experience I'm going through this year.
Oh yeah, by the way, I finally bought myself a cellphone, and I must say this is something I just have to admit to be pretty complicated. Maybe that's because I'm used to simply buying a phone you like and a prepaid account you like, never having gone through the hassles of contracts. But, seriously, why the fuck do I have to pay 30 bucks a month for doing nothing with it? Where is that money going? Of course that amount isn't set, as it may rise depending on how much I send mails or call people, but they couldn't even tell me how much exactly a call or a message costs. How could something like that develop in a country known for it's high rate of convenience?
I finally got myself to buy it, making a deal with okâ-san that she'd get it after I leave, because hers is pretty old and she gets jealous seeing the ones her friends have, and we shared the cost of the phone itself 50/50. At least I'm one step closer to becoming an average high school student here now.
In about one month there'll be this thing called "English Camp", where, for three days, me, Ameben, Ari-san and the rest of 2-E (my class) will stay over at some youth hostel in Okazaki, and.. well yeah, do a bunch of activities like writing skits and performing them or having speeches and other things. Everyone had to prepare a 1-minute speech for this occasion, and we, the exchange students, are expected to prepare the only speeches in Japanese. The topic pretty much doesn't matter, as long as we have a message that we want to convey. Great... How about "Start doubting the Educational Sytem" or "If you really want to save the environment, stop bathing every evening". One thing that's cunning is that we'll be only allowed to communicate through English. ALL the time. Even if there's no elder around. Some optimistic teachers even romanticized it as to "being poured over by Japanese as if it was a totally strange language after having been isolated from it". Heck, who would believe this. I'd still be doubting it even if it was for a week. Just what are they trying to accomplish by that sort of thing... I mean, I'm not in a position to complain since it's probably gonna be a lot of fun for us; mabye I'm just too worried about the educational part of it. Luckily, since I am going to have the role of a "Language Assistant"-something, the school'll bear my costs of around ten thousand en, so I should just enjoy myself after all.

So.... here are some random pictures I took today on the way to and at school. Wanted to make some more of the school itself, but just when I had the chance to do so because of a free period, I was suddenly invited into Math class by Katô-sensei seeing me pass by the classroom. It wasn't too bad actually, since he talked 45 minutes about random stuff like his sons name, rugby and why penguins own dolphins at aquariums, and 5 minutes about the actual math problems the first graders were supposed to solve.

(I see this thing every day, but I have no idea what it's supposed to mean)
(A n underground passage due to the long time the traffic lights take)(The view from Minamidahashi that I kinda love)(What's actually written on that flag is 「交通安全」 [kôtsûanzen, "traffic safety"], almost like a catchphrase you'll see anywhere in safety-obsessed Japan)("yoi ko wa koko de asobanai"; only the good kids don't play here)(Some sort of pond)

(Hina playing Christal Chronicles x3)(When our teacher left the room to get something and came back finding that we weren't studying like she had told us to do, she got really pissed, wrote that, told us to copy it into our notebooks with a big pen and left the class; the last bit is my addition, just couldn't help it ^.^)(Kouta making some weird pose)(View from Nihonbashi, named it that for fun but now I say it all the time)(Nihonbashi.)(I think there was someone wanting to see me in that uniform; here you go~ >.>)

#7 First Impressions

When I look back to the past few (school) days, I absolutely cannot imagine how I would have mastered hundreds of situations without my basic Japanese skills. Thinking about that, I often wonder how the other YFU students are getting along at home and school, and if they have any difficulties. On the other side, there's Alynn (I think that's her correct name), the girl from Chile who sits behind me, doesn't know any Japanese (I think she first started learning it when she came here), and has a more or less communicative level of English. And she seems to be all fine. I kinda admire her for that, because I'd feel really lost if I were her.
Although I can more or less follow the teachers' lectures, there are times when the lessons are plainly boring, mostly because they were already boring back in Germany. But since I'm still a somewhat special student, I can't sleep like everyone else, because it'd catch the teacher's attention immediately.

Subjects in general are very different from what I am used from home. First, they don't simply have "English" class. There are three different English subjects, "General English", "English Expression" and "Current English", and I am yet to spot the difference except for different teachers. But it's still pretty much fun. Oh yeah, btw. I did get the highest score on that English test. lulz. Today in "Current English" I was the only one to laugh all the time, because the Japanese teacher always said "neighborfood" insead of "neighborhood", plus the topic was fast food. Most people know about the Japanese language not differing between the European consonants "r" and "l", but few are aware of the "fu" "hu" phenomenon, which works the same way. The first time you'll probably notice it when you look at the kana chart, where 「は-ひ-へ-ほ」 are transcribed as "ha-hi-he-ho", but 「ふ」 is as "fu". I've always wondered why that one sticked out, and eventually stumbled on older transcription systems which did put it as "hu", but the reason is simply that "fu" mirrors the sound a little bit better than "hu". The first time I was confronted with this was when I talked with my brother about an album I wanted to buy, and at some point he said "well let's look it up at yafû later". My brain immediately started to dash through my whole Japanese vocabulary, in vain. Well, I guess you already know what he meant. And today was the second time.
Err, sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, subjects. Well anyway, then there's the division of old and modern literature, general and Japanese history, and biology and "Health Education", in which we just started the topic "adolescence". I asked my brother about it, and this was actually the first time that topic has been discussed at school. Isn't it a bit irresponsible to leave all the early work to ecchi manga? Apart from all that there's the "Home Economics" class which most already know from anime I guess. It includes cooking, general knowledge of food, origami, sewing and other things. And I really hate the teacher, a pretty conservative one (yuck).
Today I also had P.E. for the first time. The class before had just ended, and all boys were leaving the room, except for me of course, since I had no idea what was going on. But something was wrong, I felt it. But it wasn't until I looked up (had been packing my notes) that I noticed the girls had started to change clothes, in a little bit hesitant way. Damn, I thought, why the hell does nobody tell me straight what's going on. Of course I immediately left the room, and on asking Shunta, found out the boys always changed in the room next (which is never used except for different lessons at the same time). Later then, meeting in the gym, one girl was (imo) heavily scolded for wearing a dark top under her sports clothing. The teacher talked about how we always come to school in our uniforms, and that just because it isn't the usual uniform this doesn't mean it isn't a uniform at all. He even went as far as saying "You know when you go to the doctor for a check-up, and nothing seems wrong with you, they write "normal" behind your name, but if there's something not all right, they put an "abnormal" there instead. Just like that, you would be stamped off as "abnormal" right now, you got that?". I really felt bad for her. I had never expected to get confronted with the "the nail that sticks out gets hammered back in" dogma so abruptly (didn't happen at all till today). The lesson itself was kinda weird. Well, at least to me it seemed like one of those TV aerobics; everyone else was used to it.
After school my first bukatsu (club) training began, and although a senpai told me badminton wasn't really popular in Japan, around 15 first graders signed up, so I guess they made us do push ups for 2 hours and are further going to continue this to see who's really willed to stay and who isn't. Even though I want to play real Badminton. That's not fair~

#6 School!

You know what I really really like about Japanese people? Their exactness concerning time. There's no slack off time that must be calculated in, so it's almost like programming. No wonder they're so good at organizing things.
That being said, well, today was my first "school day"! Why the quotation marks? 'Cause there weren't really any lessons. And although I thought I had mastered the way to school by far, I took wrong directions 2 times. 2 times for god's sake! That could've killed me (would I be late). Well, fortunately everything went fine. On about the second half of the way I met other students (mostly girls), some were from my school, and some were from Kou High (jap.: "kôkôkô"). Arriving at school I quickly changed my T-Shirt for the plain white shirt which belongs to the uniform, and then made a short self-introduction together with Ben (AFS student from L.A.) and Ari-san(also AFS, from Chile, dunno her real name lol) in front of the teachers. Then we got like, lots of information concerning our coming school year, I've forgotten most of it already. Then, 自己紹介 (jikoshôkai) in front of my new class (２年Ｅ組) for the 2nd time, and then we.. well we started cleaning the school o.o I was kinda surprised by that, because usually it's like, big cleaning before holidays, and that's it, but well, welcome to the country of opposition (ah, I could tell ya so many anecdotes about that). But it was fun anyway. Learned a tongue twister from one of the teachers (=
And then came the opening ceremony. Most fun thing was watching half of the boys falling asleep during the principals speech, and getting "woken up" again by, let's say, patrolling teachers. I don't even remember how many bows we did there. Anyway. Third and last self-introduction, in front of the whole school.
For lunch I bought myself a chocolate-bread-something and ichigo(strawberry)-milk. Yummy. After that some more time spent in my homeroom class doing nothing, and then we were off to go home. Actually, the guy from L.A. isn't in my class, because for some weird reason I dunno anymore he was put into first grade. That's a bit of a shame, because talking in English with him is so much easier than with the girl from Chile, who coincidentally was put into the same class as me. My class teacher.. man, I was really surprised. Like, when people tell you "dude, don't believe in Anime, the real Japan out there is more different than you might think", you don't need to believe them. Sometimes things are so similar to what you've seen on screen, you won't trust your senses. My teacher dresses like a teenager, speaks like one and even behaves a bit like one. Her English is really good, and so are her looks. Yeah, really, pretty teachers do exist after all.
One thing that REALLY got annoying after some time was everyone commenting on my height. You don't know what a burden it is to stick out in a Japanese society. I think I even met a girl that was half my height. Not kiddin'. But if I'm lucky, that'll settle down after a while.
Well then, tomorrows a test only day, meaning tests in almost 10 subjects. I volunteered for the English one(s). Wonder how it's gonna turn out.. hehe, it'd be too funny if I got more points than all those students spending their spring holidays with study. By the way, pictures of my uniform will follow soon (=

New single by -OZ-, 「DETOX」

OZ's new single I ordered at CDJapan 3 days ago (stupid Amazon, showing to limited editions as one and the same) finally arrived yesterday, and I'm totally hooked on the main track already; the other 2 songs are okay, but they've made better iMo. Here's the clip that came with the limited DVD edition (sorry for the bad quality, had to save on bandwith): [removed the video, don't want the whole blog to be taken down] Actually I think the last single 「VENOM」, in spite of the main track being quite average, had pretty awesome b-sides (not to mention the live ver. of -Butterfly-).

#5 Scary winds and shabu-shabu

I think what I'll have most problems with over the time is waking up for school. It's already hard to get myself out of the bed while I'm still on holidays, partly because of the cold. Since the walls of Japanese houses aren't really made for keeping warmth inside, it usually takes only half an hour till your room reaches the same temperature as the air outside. What I'm currently doing every morning is using the moment I open my eyes for the first time (usually far far away from me actually standing up), running to the oil-using heater, turning it on and going back to sleep.
Today I'm all alone at home because my parents are at work and my brother is at school, not for class but for preparing the 入学式 (nyûgakushiki), the opening ceremony held for all those new at the school (except the exchange students), which is on the 6th. So for me, school starts on the 7th.
The day before yesterday I went to a Shabu-shabu restaurant with my mother, my brother, 2 of his friends (Ren-kun and Kôta-kun) and their mums. What is Shabu-shabu? Well, I didn't know it either at first. Turned out it was pretty similar to Sukiyaki, but with different types of soups in which you cook the meat and vegetables. It was pretty fun and so OMG tasty!! Plus, it was a 放題 (hôdai) restaurant, which translates into "All you can eat". Kôta-kun made some weird puns, like 「大好嫌い」 (dai-sukirai) or 「いい加減にホワイト！」 (ii kagen ni white!), and also taught me a bit more of Mikawa's dialect.
Today morning a weird misunderstanding happened to me: The night before it was really windy, and I mean so windy that you were able to hear it through the walls. So I told my mum about it at breakfast, and then she suddenly asked me if I had a nightmare or something, almost laughing. Anyone got what happened? Well, I used the word 強風 (kyôfû), strong wind, apparently not giving the "u" at the end enough time, so what she had understood was 恐怖 (kyôfu) "fear". Such silly things kinda happen to me all the time.