Busy afternoon

Whew, long day today. Alisha and I got up at 7:00 for Beginner Japanese in the morning, which is three awesome hours long. (I'm not being facetious; it rocks). We know from doing speaking drills involving food vocabulary that Tabata-sensei is usually hungry before class is even over, so we invited her to go to lunch with us. Near school is a place called Jusco, which is like a shopping mall that is, it being Japan, really damn tall. I can't remember if I've mentioned it on here before, but for lunch we all had oomoraisu ("home rice" I think"Omu-rice" from the French word for omelet. Thanks, Haruka! はるかさんありがとう！), which is seasoned rice and corn with an omelet-like egg sheet draped over it, with the whole mess smothered in a tomato sauce, plus cheese for a little extra. Why, yes, it does taste amazing. We made what little conversation we could with sensei over food, which is to say not a lot but I take a huge amount of satisfaction from communicating anything at all.

As an aside, I realized yesterday that no matter how tired or cranky I am, speaking Japanese has yet to feel like a chore. Sometimes the written homework gets a little tedious, which is unavoidable, but I've been so pleased to realize that this language makes me feel good about myself and is a valuable skill to boot.


After lunch, we parted and Alisha and I went to go look for a 書道の筆 (shodounofude, calligraphy brush) for me. We ended up wandering through most of the store, just to get an idea of what all there is in the store. We bought some school supplies that we were lacking, but also stumbled across fitted sheets! This is a big deal, because when you're in a country where most people sleep on a futon but your International Student Center staff have kindly provided you with a western style mattress, finding a fitted sheet for it is no easy task. I also bought my first, and certainly not last, t-shirts with humorously misused English on the front. Alisha got one, too, and they're awesome. Photos aren't up quite yet, but will be in the future.

While Alisha was trying on her shirt, I was looking around at the clothing section we were in. I got a small chuckle over the jeans selections: loose cut, baggy cut, and boots cut. Also, I was treated to a J-Pop* rendition of "Walk This Way" by Aerosmith. I must admit that Steve Tyler has a little more punch than the unknown-to-me Japanese woman singing in the song, but that's just my own cultural bias showing through.

Overall a good day, and I was able to ask a clerk what floor I could find aforementioned brush on in Japanese. I realized after walking away that I phrased it poorly, but that's what mistakes or for.

*J-Pop is a contraction of Japanese Pop, referring to a very wide musical genre.