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Published: June 10th 2006
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seigo and his friends
me on left
third guy is Seigo
next is Kooji
bottom guy is Shoohe (showhay)
yasuo on the end
i've forgotten the guy beside yasuo, and i had just met the other guy that day
Sorry about the delay. It’s been a combo of being really busy and really lazy. Both of which I seem to good at.
Last weekend was my homestay weekend. The guys name is Seigo Matsubara and lives in Oomuta, which is somewhere between Fukuoka and Nagasaki. It’s probably about as close to the boonies as you can get in Japan, which is to say that there are gaps between buildings. For those who don’t know, Japan is mainly mountainous. I’m sure you noticed by now all of the mountains in the background to many of my pictures. They are all true and very steep. This leaves the Japanese to crowd in to the few plains and flat coastal areas, which is to say that Japan is really crowded in places and deserted up in the mountains. I met Seigo’s grandmother, who owns a stationary/office supply store, her two employees, many of Seigo’s friends, and his father. Everyone one of them was nice except for one of Seigo’s friends who apparently made a joke at my expense and apologized to me later about it. Honestly, I couldn’t even figure out what he had said, even when everyone tried to explain it
subway station
subway station
my friend david is on the left to me afterwards. Japanese is hard…
I don’t want to go into detail in to everything we did because it would take all night. I’ll just highlight the better parts. Friday night, we went to an Onsen(public bath). One of the baths they had there was a red wine bath. Crazy. Afterwards, we (Seigo, his friends, and me) went and played billiards. I was rusty, but I was able to hold my own against them. The next day, we went to a castle, I forget the name, and rented a movie. The movie was this crazy Japanese flick about these two samurai back in their feudal period, but the guy who wrote it must have been messed up on something. It was crazy, but pretty cool. Sunday morning, we went to an amusement park. When we first got there, there were all the kids there, and I got scared that Seigo had taken me to a kiddy park. It turned out I was half right and half wrong. It was in fact a kiddy part, but it also had some pretty cool roller coasters and other things. It was a little expensive but well worth it. I tried telling
a japanese enlgish class?
4 of us got dragged into this Japanese english class. we ended up talking the entire time to the class. Seigo about Six Flags in Atlanta, but I don’t think he believed me completely. I also invited him to come stay with me if he ever visited America. I hope he does. That night, we took the train back to Fukuoka, and we met his dad for supper. His dad even found this really good deal for a new digital camera. Oyeah… my old camera, which still worked despite me dropping it a while back, finally up and croaked. It appears that the focusing device has simply quit. Incidentally, I have only have really blurry pictures from my homestay weekend. This new camera I bought(thanks Googie for my new camera) is actually much better than the old one, although a bit bigger, and only cost $90. Pretty cool.
On Monday, it was back to the studying. This week actually picked up quite a bit, and we were kept really busy although I did find time to take breaks and see Fukuoka some more. I’ve also been eating lunch with Seigo and his friends almost every day. There is a really cool take out restaurant next to campus that we always go to. Last night, Seigo came and picked me
nissan skyline gt-r
we went to a nissan factory the other day. these were some of the display pieces. up from my dorm, and went to one of the coolest Ramen shops that I have ever been to. As we were leaving, one of the cooks there overheard me thanking the waiter, and asked if I spoke Japanese. I said yeah, and we talked for a few minutes before leaving. On the train the other day, the same thing happened with this random Japanese lady. We talked probably 5 minutes or so in Japanese. She was impressed with me learning Japanese and told me about her 12 year old son. My Japanese may not be that good, but my confidence about it is really getting better. Just being immersed in it as much as I am, especially over the homestay weekend, is really helping me with that.
Next week is another busy week. On Monday, we have 2 presentations that we have to make in Japanese and homework to turn in. We also have a 10 minute oral test on Tuesday, followed by a the final for Business Japanese on Wednesday. I’ve spent most of today studying. Studying on a Saturday is not fun.
On Thursday, we’re packing our bags and moving to Tokyo for 2 weeks.
Tokyo will be fun but really expensive. After the program ends, I have no intention of spending more than a day or two extra in Tokyo.
The second day of the world cup begins tonight. England is playing Paraguay at 10pm Japanese Time. Since I was too tired to stay up for the games last night, I got up today hoping to catch some reruns of last night’s games. No luck. Japans team this year is supposed to be decent although I don’t see them getting out of the first round since they are in the same group as Brazil. I’ll post some pictures of this past week that I’ve taken with my new camera.
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anonymous
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Thanks for the update John. I enjoyed seeing all the pictures! Goodluck on yourtests. Rachel