More High School and Spending Time With the Kubo Family

Two of the nights that I spent at the Kubo house, Yuichi, Tasuku, and I went outside to a nearby parking lot to set off some small fireworks. Fireworks are huge in Japan. Kids buy them not just for holidays, but as an any day entertainment. The first night of fireworks were just nezumi hanabi, which are mouse fireworks. This particular type of fireworks had this name because the firework scurried around on the ground like a mouse. The next day after class, the whole family and I went to a kaiten sushi restaurant again! It was really good. I had lots of fun with Yuichi and his family. I am going to miss Japanese food when I get home. Many people told me that I will want a break from Japanese food, but I am still hungry for more! I want to make sure I try everything that represents the culture. After our sushi dinner we stopped at a super market to buy ice cream and bread. I was happily surprised that some of the bread I liked was purchased. I just thought it to be a coincidence. It wasn't until later that I realized that Mrs. Kubo must have contacted Ms. Mikami (my host mom) about what I like to eat, because all of my breakfasts contained my favorite bread, pudding, and so on. It made me smile...XD. It is really nice that they did that for me.

A while ago, my host mom asked me if I like cereal. I said yes. It is hard to communicate sometimes though, because when my host mom asks me if I like something, it pretty much means she will buy it for me. I always stress that I want to try new foods, but my host mom wants to ensure that I am happy, so she wants to buy stuff I like. It is very nice of her, but sometimes confusing. While I am here, I really want to eat Japanese food, because, well, it is just that I can eat American food when I get back home to the States...XD.

So back to the Kubo house. Wednesday morning, cereal was on the table. My favorite sports drink was in the refrigerator. Melonpan was in full supply. The chocolate filled cone bread was there too, and of course, the pudding I like...XD. Food was not the only thing that was probably put out for me I noticed. There was something that made me laugh really hard. When I arrived the first day at the Kubo house, I noticed something right away in my room. My futon cover was Keroro Gunso, LOL. The house had three cats and two dogs. The dogs barked around 6 in the morning so it was a good alarm clock. I woke up at 6 ever day for school...XD. All of the cats wanted to sleep on my Keroro sheets so I had to guard the threshold. Mrs. Kubo told me to just close the doors so the cats would not get in.

Day two of fireworks was really cool. I keep on getting off track, lol. When we were at the supermarket, Tasuku bought 2 bags full of fireworks. We enjoyed each of the fireworks one by one. I almost got my hair caught on fire, but let's keep that on the down-low. :D (Proof is in a picture Yuichi took of me, LOL.) The picture is quite funny because you can actually see what appears to be a spark on my head and me just about to rub it, lol. When I showed the picture to Yuichi, we laughed at how close that was...XD. We both had our close moments during the week, lol. On the last day while riding our bikes back to Ms. Mikami's house, Yuichi was talking to me and there was a series of like 4 poles inches apart from each other. He was looking at me and his left handlebar barely touched the poles. I noticed it as he was passing it, but I could not say anything because it happened so fast. Half way going by he noticed it and his reaction was priceless...XD. We laughed at that as well. If he was any closer he would have hit it...XD. We also stopped for soft cream on the way home. Of course, I eat a lot of soft cream because Hokkaido is known as "Milk Land". Being famous for milk, it is also famous for soft cream. The best soft cream. So I eat as much of it as I can while I am here :D.

At Kousen, I made a lot more friends. During an English session, all of the kids had to walk up in front of the class and introduce themselves to me in both Japanese and English so I could learn, too. All of the kids said nice things. Of course, I had to go up in front of the class many times. It was fun.

Since I am in Japan to learn about culture too, I will describe some of the things I observed. During class, the kids pay full attention. Well most of them. I will get to that in the next part. The teachers move from class to class and the kids stay in the room unless it is like gym or computers of course. So during the 5 minute break, all of the kids whip out their cell phones, and DSs, LOL. It was funny to watch many kids all play Pokemon with each other. My host mom made fun of me because I liked Pokemon because she said it was for kids. I told her in America that many high school students still buy the game. I knew it would be the same in Japan, and I was right :P So of course I had to pull mine out and trade Wi-Fi numbers so that we could play over the internet when I am back in the U.S.

Back to classes. This is a brief explanation of how it went. English was me following along with the class. Japanese was me observing. Chemistry I did not understand. Math I knew from the school year I just finished. Physics I knew from the school year as well. Art was fun, especially clay day. We had to make a "monster". I just put it in my head that Keroro was a monster, so I made Keroro. It turned out well, let's just say so, so. I got to take it home with me. Some of the monsters that kids made were really good ideas. In Gym we played baseball. I was 2nd batter and I got a few hits :D In HTML class, it was the day that kids learned the basics, so I finished my website in a few minutes...XD I actually did extra and made 5 pages instead of one! XD In Computer Programing, I never had done it before, but it was also an easy day for everyone. For me it was easy because all of the code were in English letters. I could type fast, so I actually finished very quickly and the kids were amazed, but I actually had no idea what I was doing...XD. At the end of the week the class presented me with two boards with signatures of every classmate and a short message. One of the kids in the classes drew the card pictures and it looks very nice. I will definitely picture frame it when I get home. I wish I could go to Kousen more, but I ran out of weeks. :(

I wish I would have gone earlier so I could have fit in more days, but everything so far has been perfect, so I actually don't regret anything. I met some of Yuichi's friends and a couple days we rode bikes home with some of them. One of the days Yuichi pulled out his guitar and bass (he had 2 of each). Of course he is super busy with school so he does not have much time to play. He was like me, he knew how to play a song or two, but that was about it. So he showed me a song he knew and I showed him a simple one I knew. He was very happy when he saw that I had some interests like him. He liked similar Manga, he liked HTML, some of the same bands that my dad and I listen to (Dad, I will learn to play a song by The Who just for you XD). So I showed him a site with guitar songs that people could use that did not know how to read music. He immediately pulled up a Red Hot Chili Peppers song and started learning how to play it. He knew Led Zepplin, so I showed him Stairway To Heaven XD. It was cool. Overall, the whole week was very fun. I got Yuichi's email and we are going to keep in touch that way. He said it would be good for practice too. He said he would type in English and he told me to type in Japanese. I am looking forward to it.