Back from the Beginning of July

The rainy season in Japan is finally over and heralding a new wave of extremely hot summer weather (not as hot or humid as Maryland though).

Recently I've been writing a lot of tightly formatted essays in Japanese, so maybe I'll try to write this blog entry in similar fashion (be prepared for elementary-school language).

Today, I would like to talk about events First, I think I would like to discuss things about the JLPT.  Next, I will talk about the bus trip to Mito on the 10th of July.  Then, I will talk about making pancakes with my friends.  Lastly, I will explain my first time to a Japanese festival at night.

Well then, let's go on from the JLPT.  I took the JLPT on July 4th.  By the way, July 4th is also Independence Day for America.  First, my friends and I got on the train to go to a far away college in Minami Kashiwa.  It took about an hour.  The college is not as pretty as Chiba University, but there were dorms on the campus.   The JLPT was quite long, and divided into two sections.  The first section was reading and writing practice.  That was the longest.  In it there were several questions about vocabulary, and many long passages to read.  The second part was a listening part.  It was about an hour long.  I think that the listening section was maybe not as hard as the writing section.  The test teachers were very strict and wore clean uniforms.  Whenever somebody did something illegal, they would hold up a yellow or red card.  Things that are illegal are using cell phones and leaving the test room during the test with the test information.  Luckily, no illegal happenings occurred.

Because we were tired after the test, I got ice cream together with my friends.  Then, we went to an izakaya, in other words, a formal bar.  At the izakaya, we sat in the same room with a group of Korean and Japanese people.  They were quite excited, and began to talk to some of us.  I was thinking that I might go home and make bibimbop and study, but I'm happy that I went with my friends.  But I was not happy when I discovered that I had to emcee a panel discussion that week, because I had forgotten about it.  Forgetting about the panel discussion was because I studied for the JLPT.  Yet, I'm thinking that studying for the JLPT was probably worthless.  If you ask why, it's because standardized tests are difficult to study for.  Doesn't everyone think so, too?

Next, I will talk about the bus trip to Mito.  Mito is a town in the prefecture above Chiba Prefecture called "Ibaraki Prefecture."  The town of Mito is rather small, but there were several historical sights to see.  Before the trip, everyone who signed up had to meet at school on Saturday morning at 7:50.  I think that going on the trip was like a field trip in elementary school.  The reason is that everyone had to stay close to their partner, and pay close attention to the itinerary in the guidebook.  This guidebook was made by students of the education faculty, which sponsored the trip.  My partner was a nice Japanese girl named Ikumi, who wants to teach geography.  First, we took a rest stop at a bus station called "eki no michi" which means "station road."  There were many products sold by farmers, and a store full of souvenirs.  Next, we visited a museum of an old school where samurai used to study.  Then, we went to a building called "Kairakuen" where many beautiful wall paintings were hanging in a traditional Japanese-style house in the middle of a plum orchard.  The smell of the plums were very fragrant.

 Japanese spaghetti is spicy and has fish eggs and seaweed in it.

After that, Ikumi and I were going to go have lunch.  First, we walked into the souvenir shop of a restaurant.  There, we were offered some pink, sparkly beverage.  We thought it would be nice and cold, but actually, it was a hot tea made from pickled plums!  It was maybe not something that can be called "tasty."  Incidentally, my friends also tried plum ice cream, but they said that it was salty.  The reason plums were so famous was because the person that built kairakuen loved the trees.  He said that unless you study, the plum blossoms will not bloom.  Let's  study so that we can bloom beautiful plum blossom!

After lunch, we visited an ancient school that looked like a European building.  Apparently, it was one of the first buildings in Japan to be built from a Western style.  The reason it looked like Western style is because there were rounded columns, stained glass windows, and the roof was wearing a "hat". 

Inside of the building was a very old piano, although I do not think it can be said that it is the oldest in Japan.  But certainly, it was old to the point that it had to be renovated in order for sound to come out.

After that, we visited a nearby building that had a museum about natural history inside of it.  It was very interesting to learn about the legend of a giant who lived in ancient Japan.  But I think that the reason people thought there was a giant living in Japan is because there were mysterious giant mounds of shells is certain parts of Japan.  Actually, this is because after eating the seafood inside of it, Japanese people used to throw shells away to these piles.  Therefore, maybe someone thought that a giant ate all of them at once!  The museum also had haniwa, which are ancient Japanese figurines made of of clay.  These were made to look like the deceased, in other words, people who passed away already.  These were put in the same graves.

Now, I would like to move to the next topic about pancakes.  The next day, I reserved the kitchen in the University dorm common room in order to make pancakes with my Russian and Chinese friend.  We all have different variations.  As for China, there is liaobing, which has very few ingredients like water, flour and salt among others.  In Russia, blini are eaten.  I bought some simple pancake mix from the grocery store.  After making the pancakes, we had to clean up the kitchen and put everything in order before the next group came in.  It was quite difficult to accomplish all of the tasks on the checklist regarding rental of the kitchen.  But the pancakes were delicious! o´ω`o

Finally, I will talk about the festival.  Every year, a festival is held at Inage Shrine.  This festival is two nights long.  My Japanese, Indonesian and American friend went with me to the festival.  There, it was very crowded, and there were many booths selling interesting food.   For instance, there was turkish ice cream, which is very stretchy and chewy.

It looks like fun to make.  A long rod is used to pull the stretchy cream out.  Sometimes, I feel like the famous man called "Anthony Bourdain" because I end up eating strange things.

There was also a booth selling Osaka-yaki.  This is like a fried, round cake, but instead of being a sweet thing, it has eggs and fish flakes and onion and other things in it.  I was so embarrassed when I first read the sign for Osaka-yaki as "Taihan-yaki."  This is because the kanji for Osaka is 大阪, and the kanji for 大 is read as oo, tai or dai, while the second kanji has a kanji read as han, which looks like this 反.
Then, later, I was surprised when I saw a sign that looked like this, 大判.  半 is usually read as "half."
I was very confused, so I asked my friend how the sign was read, and he said it was "taihan."  It was very funny.  Furthermore, Osaka-yaki also looks like taihan-yaki, so I think that it is the same idea.

While it was fun to go to the festival, it was also very crowded and hot.

I wish I could have worn a yukata, but I also think that it was too hot maybe. Fortunately, my friend let me try on the yukata she bought for my benefit.

From above, I have talked about events.  First, I talked about my impressions of the JLPT.  Next, I talked about the trip to Mito.  Finally, I talked about the Japanese festival.  Here, I will end my blog post.  If there are any questions, please ask.

(I think I will go back to native English for my future posts.)