Two Dinners in One Day!

今日の日本語の言葉: don (丼) - rice bowl

This word has been brought to you by dinner number one today, and by what I also did part of a presentation on at CIEE today.

Today started at 5:30, instead of the usual 5:00. I had posted chapter 24 of my fic last night, and this morning was greeted by many emails about it. It's always a wonderful thing to hear from your readers first thing in the morning. It makes the rest of the day impossible to be bad.

Breakfast was some bread and yakisoba, which is an odd combination, I know, but it was actually pretty delicious. I had more of that odd peanut butter stuff on my bread, which I've sort of gotten addicted to in recent times. It's really good. I really will try to smuggle some back to the states (it really feels weird to be thinking about smuggling something sold at 7/11 back to the U.S.).

Ayuka went to school today dressed for Halloween. She was shy, and so I couldn't grab a picture of the front of her outfit, but below is a picture from the back. She's got this adorable black shirt with a smiling pumpkin at the front, and this orange tutu to match. And when she bounces and flounces around, frills go everywhere. :3

I left home at 9:30 this morning in order to get to CIEE HQ in Yotsuya for a meeting before school. On the train, I saw these three women who were so beautifully dressed in kimonos. I don't know why they were there, or to where they were going, but it was such a nice sight. Kimonos are so damn beautiful, and these ladies carried themselves with such grace and poise that it was like watching art.

At CIEE HQ, we had a meeting about our trip next weekend to Nagasaki. I'm so very excited for it, and I'm going to be missing school on Monday for it too. I've been looking into Nagasaki, both because I was assigned to research its food and because it's just so cool. There are so many museums, and ruins. There's an abandoned island, which, if you were to ever go into the houses there and stuff, still have old calendars and T.V.s and stuff inside. A bit eerie, but still very cool.

My presentation, as I mentioned before, was on food. Nagasaki food is very interesting, and they're most famous for castella, actually, which is a Portuguese thing. It's like a sponge cake, except more moise and sweeter. Over time, Nagasaki castella has developed its own unique taste removed from all other types. Nagasaki is also famous for chanpon, which is a Chinese noodle dish. The noodles are made from various ingredients, especially the same stuff that goes into making a wonton wrapper, which is why chanpon tastes so unique. I'm definitely going to be trying both while I'm there. :3
There's also this interesting dish called taichazuke which is a red sea-bream don (now you know what this word means), over which green tea is then poured. Apparently, it's very delicious, though I've yet to try it. Maybe I'll get a chance to try this too!

Below is a picture of my bento, which I had for lunch at CIEE HQ. Those little pandas peeking out always make me squeal in cuteness. Like, oh my god. That's also leftover yakisoba fro breakfast. There's also a little bit more pumpkin peeking out in the back, along with half a sliced banana and half an orange for fruit. I'd say it was a pretty rounded meal.

After CIEE, we headed directly to school, with five minutes to spare. Julien was eating on the go, and Ian and I ate at CIEE, while Julien was having a private meeting. I didn't think that we'd make it to school on time, and the guys thought that we'd make it there with plenty of time. The reality turned out to be in the middle. I suck at judging time, but so do they, just on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Today, we learned about asking what people ate last night, or what they drank last night, or what they read last night. And then if they read nothing, we also learned how to say that. It's all grammar I already know, and vocabulary I already know, so guess what I did? I spent my time writing and drawing! I felt compelled to draw Alexei and Mikhail again today, just because this morning, as I was writing with Anna, they somehow ended up pointing guns at each other, which is just too good not to draw. Of course, I suck at proportions, so their legs are too short and their bodies too small for their heads, but I was too lazy to fix it. At least I knew what was wrong, right? Plus, drawing Mikhail's (left) gun hand was tough as hell. That angle is not natural.

After school, I went to talk to my teachers about switching out of J1B to a J2 class, just because it seemed so easy, and I didn't want to be bored. My teachers told me that with grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension, I was definitely ready for J2. The problem was that I don't know J1's kanji. Darn that kanji. I could try to study 120 kanji, both how to write and how to read, and the other contexts they're commonly found in—all this weekend, or I could just stick with J1B. I don't know. My teachers gave me this weekend to think, and I think that since I'm so far into my class (it's been three weeks, I think), I've made some very nice friends and shared some good times. Learning 120 kanji is a challenge to do in one weekend, but I think it's possible. I just don't know if I'm ready to leave J1B, or even think about doing so, you know? The other class has had just the same amount of time to get closer to each other too. Maybe I won't take that test and draw more in class? An existence of drawing and writing isn't that bad. It just sort of makes me feel that I'm not learning as much Japanese as I should be.

Anyways, after I talked to my teachers, I went to have dinner with Saya-san. We went to Yoshinoya, which is that place I went to with Julien a bit back. I had some pork dish, which was delicious, and Saya-san had gyuudon, which is a beef rice bowl. It was delicious, and all for less that $5. So good!

After Yoshinoya, Saya-san and I made our way towards Book-Off, the same one that I was in before last Saturday. This time, we were specifically hunting for the BL section, which we found. Below is a picture of it (it's the right side shelf), and there are all these women standing there reading it, young and old. Totally unashamed. I love it! I would do that too if I could actually read this stuff. We'll get there some day, and then I'll be back.

Tohoshinki section! <3 (a.k.a. DBSK)

Book-Off has this many Yu-Gi-Oh cards? o.o 

After Book-Off, I went home to find myself faced with another dinner. I hadn't expected to eat dinner out, after all. I didn't have much of a stomach for it, but since Yoshiko-san had prepared all this food for me, I felt like I had to eat it (plus, there was tuna (maguro) sashimi, which I definitely could never resist). There was also this cucumber with kamaboko (fish cake) around it, and a thin oozing of... cheese... in the middle. It was weird for me too. There were bean sprouts, more fish, miso soup, rice, and a vegetable I've forgotten the name of. It was actually pretty delicious though—as is everything usually is in this house. I just didn't expect something that looked so weird (and that I've tasted and disliked before) to taste so good the second time around.

After dinner, I Skyped Anna and introduced her to Yoshiko-san and Masahiro-san, who both thought that she was adorable. So far, they've met dad, Aaron, and Anna. I'd still like them to meet as many people as they can, because they're always so interested in my friends and family. So the more the merrier, guys!

See you tomorrow,
Maggie