STUDY ABROAD: WEEK 14

DECEMBER 1

Dancing at the park today~ woot!

My bike still isn’t repaired yet, so rather than take the subway three stops from Nakamura Kuyakusho Station to Sakae I decided to walk. Each two minute stop is about a 10-15 minute walk, meaning my walk was about 45 minutes long. It was a good warm-up. I was the first to arrive by a long shot.

It was just past noon and it didn’t seem as though the other dancers would arrive until 2pm. I slowly got used to being there by myself and did some stretches. I had just started practicing some footwork that I learned this week when Furipo showed up. Though we practiced separately, I was able to move freely once he arrived. Two people practicing dance isn’t as strange as one strange girl from who knows where trying and failing to break dance.

We continued to practice for a couple more hours when it seemed like no one else would show up at the park to practice. That’s when we decided to take a break and go check out Osu, which was just down the street. Again, I wanted to look at the shoes. My favorite pair of shoes had two giant holes in their soles now, and I hoped to replace them with a similar pair. The Adidas I bought last time were still pretty good, but I was looking for street shoes.

Osu does not disappoint, as with most every shoe store we passed by there was a nice line-up of dance shoes. Usually they were brand names, selling at a discounted price, but even that discount was out of my budget. Furipo suggested we check out Parco, one of the department stores to see if their prices were better. Of course, they were more expensive, but I found a lot more styles that I liked. Maybe one day, if they’re ever on a super sale.

At about 5pm we decided to head back to the park. Somehow, we got flipped around when we left the department store and we walked nearly twenty minutes in the wrong direction before it hit us. By the time we actually got back at the park it was past 6pm. Some other members had started to gather to practice, but at that point I was done. My hole-y shoes did not have enough cushion to be walked around in for over six hours.

I came home, showered, and I am going to bed. If something is going on tonight with the international students, I’m going to miss out.

DECEMBER 2

Nobody went out last night. And, once again, there is no food in my fridge… 1574 yen on groceries.

Before I went home I helped another student who was applying for the study abroad. He had the interview coming up, so he wanted to practice speaking. He also wanted advice on how to answer the tough questions, like ‘Why do you want to study abroad?’ and ‘How will you deal with a problem during your time in another country?’ Basically, I helped him translate what he wanted to say into English. He wants to study at my university as well, so that makes at least two people I know who are trying for Toledo. If only two can go, let it be the ones I helped!

DECEMBER 3

It was a pretty easy school day for me. The second group had their presentations in the morning, so I was able to sit back and relax. During lunch I met with Rika, in part to talk about the upcoming interview. As we were talking, a friend of mine messaged me and asked if I could go to Tokyo that weekend to see the World Dance Competition Finals. I wanted to go, and I even went so far as to look up the bus times, but in the end, it was too short notice. It also would have cost about 3-500 dollars (between the shinkansen ticket, hotel, meals and event ticket). This time I had to pass.

After lunch, it was back to helping people with their English assignments in the library. A couple girls had to write an essay on racism and one of their main points was class separation, for example upper and lower class. I explained that it wasn’t racism, it was simple discrimination. They ended up changing their topic.

Then, it was back to dance! I’m starting to get the hang of these few moves they taught me; slowly, but surely, my balance is improving and I can almost do the ‘baby freeze’ and ‘six step’. Something is a little off with my rhythm, I think. I don’t know if it’s because I’m still slow or if I’m doing it wrong. The others can just whip around like nothing. My body is still too heavy for all that, but I’ll keep trying! One step at a time.

DECEMBER 4

Nothing special about today; we just had regular classes. We are watching a crime drama now called Aibou, Season 5. I could easily watch the episode, if not the whole series in one sitting! Watching chunks at a time is stressful, especially with a crime mystery. Our previous drama was called Legal High, and it was also a sort of mystery, but it had a comedic flavor to it also. This current series’ is much more serious. Not quite as hardcore as Law & order, but comparatively serious.

DECEMBER 5

Today was go, go, go! From class to English Cafe, where I found out my lunch spilled again! To dance practice from 2-5pm; Honami and I started to learn the choreography for a korean pop song called Growl. It’s going to take a while to learn if we only do it between break dance practices. Then I rushed home to take a shower, all the while being bombarded with messages from the other students asking ‘Where are we meeting? What time? Who’s going?’

(Maeda had made our reservations under my name.)

All I knew for the first plan of the night was that we were going to yakiniku with Maeda’s friend, and then maybe Kentaro and Yohei wanted to go out later. They ended up joining the yakiniku party instead, and our numbers somehow jumped from eight to thirteen. We filled up the biggest space they had available at the restaurant, and it was still a little crowded. The meat was great of course, but with the number of people, we had to make multiple orders, multiple times. The bill wasn’t that bad for those of us who weren’t drinking, only about 2000 yen.

The fun continued on to all-night karaoke! Maeda’s friend was actually Chinese, so when he requested some songs that I recognized, I was able to sing with him. Really, I was just backing him up at the parts I knew. I wish I didn’t forget so much Chinese and maybe that I had continued to study it. I still have all my notes back home, I wonder how hard it would be to refresh my memory…

DECEMBER 6

No class today!! Why? Because tomorrow we have our last cultural experience of the semester: Taiko drumming.

After karaoke a lot of us slept in this morning. Despite that, as soon as we woke up, we all ended up going to school to hang out in the library discussion room. It’s our home really; we just sleep and party in our apartments. Actually, the reason we went today was just to kill a few hours. We were invited to a Christmas Party at the Heart n’ Soul Cafe; the cafe was closer to school, so it made sense for us to meet there and walk together, since the other students did not know where it was.

As it happened, the five of us who were going to go initially withered down to two, me and Mark. However, we had a great time there! It was a part of their English Cafe Night series, so many foreigners who lived or worked in Nagoya were at the party. That also meant the food was as close to home as I could get: cookies, cider and my favorite peppermint bark!

Did I mention that the second floor of the cafe also served as a sanctuary for their church? They didn’t meet at the same location every Sunday apparently, but many of those English members also came for church services.

I also made another connection in this small world. One of the girls there was actually from Ohio. Not only that, but her family hosted Takahiro before he started his study abroad program at my university! I should have known she was connected to that circle of events when Rafael introduced her to me. She was one of the people who helped make the peppermint bark, and I was duly grateful for it. It turns out that tomorrow afternoon they are going to have a cake decorating party! How can I pass up that opportunity~

DECEMBER 7

Cake decorating party~~!!! Oh, wait, jumping ahead.

First! Our Saturday morning started early, as most school days would. We met in the arena before 9am to help set up chairs as the taiko group made their own preparations. Most of them were middle school students, but they had been doing taiko for some time. The group itself was also going to appear in a contest this coming Sunday. Given that, when they showed us their act they were flawless.

For two hours, they taught us various patterns in taiko, and different ways they hit the drum to make different sounds. My rhythm is average at best, but when there are other sounds going on at the same time I sometimes have the tendency to join them. Though we were all seriously practicing the routines, the others were able to goof around a bit as well. I did my best to stay focused on the rhythm and hitting the drum correctly. However, as the two hours wore on, the strength in our arms started to wane. By the time the experience was over, we could barely lift our arms.

Those of us who were going to decorate cakes afterward stayed together and at lunch at McDonald’s. It was only my second time while in Japan, so I think I’m doing pretty well at avoiding it. Only because it is something I could easily go to in America. Then, as the strength in our arms slowly returned we headed to the game center back by campus. Purikura, table hockey, and some crazy people like Rachael and Totoro actually played the taiko game. After the first song, they remembered how tired their arms were, so they score went from awesome to my level (aka, not-so-awesome). Jason also hit the jackpot on one of the machines and he won a huge bagful of Black Thunder chocolate. Lucky him~

It was soon time to head to the cafe, so our group split again. Totoro, Rachael, Chi, Margeaux, Marie, Aurianne and I all went to the cafe together. There we met up with Rafael, Haru and other students from AIDAI. I expected the cake decorating would all take place in a calm, organized manner. As you may have already guessed, that was not the case.

First, all the participants were split into teams. My team included myself and the three French girls. We had a 700 yen budget and one fruit (we chose apple from amongst the free options). Then the race began. One and a half hours to gather more ingredients (the cake rounds itself were already provided), rush back to the cafe, and decorate the cake. At first all the groups casually left the cafe, but this is a time trial after all. As if in unity, my group started to run. We sprinted to MaxValu ahead of the other groups, though some started to run as well.

We entered MaxValu with two themes: Christmas colors, and caramel. The apple we received would supply the red, but we needed something green. We were unable to find many green items, but there was a lot of green tea flavored treats. That’s when the idea hit me. I grabbed instant green tea packets and some whip cream, and then we also grabbed a jar of caramel and some cinnamon sugar. We were the first group back, but we still had a lot to do.

Cut and peel the apples (2), mix the green tea with the whip cream (without making a huge mess, our baking supplies were limited so we didn’t even have a bowl), spread the caramel on the first layer of cake, dice up apple pieces to place on top of the caramel, and proceed to the second cake level. As the French girls layered the whip cream and apples I was cutting out “Merry Christmas” from the apple skin. We were so focused on our own cake that we didn’t notice the creations around us until time was up.

All four teams lined up their cakes on the judges table first for a theme presentation. Glancing over the other cakes I saw a towering theme, quite literally, as they were built up with cookies and chocolates to look like Christmas trees. At last minute we made a tiny tree out of apple slices, but in contrast to the chocolates and strong colors of the other cakes ours was simple. At that moment, we wished we had seen what the others were doing, only because they made quite a display. Our focus was flavor. When it came time for us to present our cake the French girls left it in my hands. I tried my best to explain our fusion of Western and Eastern cultures with the use of caramel and green tea, and also the contrast in the sweet and bitter flavors.

Then, it was time for the taste test. Some cakes had troubles being cut because of the cookies or extra layers of candy. Ours too was a little difficult to cleanly cut through because of the apple slices on top. Regardless, each of the four judges sampled the cakes. The Christmas tree cookie cake won for its appearance, but when it came to flavor and the judge’s overall favorite cake, we were shocked to hear we won. I am still a little bit in shock, but I’m glad that we pulled it off. As the winners, we were able to take pieces of cake first. It was the first time I had tried our concoction. Everyone agreed that the green tea flavored whip cream was brilliant. It was delicious! I am ready to make it again!!

(Our winning cake!)

For the rest of the night, we all hung out at the cafe, chatting and playing various party games like Fruit Basket Turnover.