The previous weekend :)

My apologies for the super-long break! I guess I was having too much fun. :D I'll do a brief summary of the past five days here, and then I'll be happy to answer any questions I left unaddressed in the comments or elsewhere.

On Friday I convinced Ethan to come swimming with me in a Japanese public pool. It was hilariously filled with faux-pas. For one, I was wearing a bikini while every other girl or woman was wearing a conservative one piece. I could hear all the little kids talking about me not-so-discreetly, but it was the only swimsuit I brought with me to Japan. Also, Ethan and I didn't have swimcaps even though we have short hair, so we had to borrow them. We also forgot goggles. Then we went in the walking lane with all the old people while there were tons of genki kids taking swim lessons from strict teachers all around us. It was pretty funny; at least Ethan could try to blend in with his half-Asianness.

On Saturday morning, I woke up really early (4:30am-ish) to go to the Tsukiji fish market. To any vegetarians or fish-lovers, you may want to just skip over this little bit if you don't like hearing about fish markets or seeing any such photos.

Tsukiji is a famous place that I read about in my Japan travelers' guide. Turns out there were a ton of fish! It was a neat place to see but after a few hours I got tired of 1) being accidentally in the way of people who actually needed to be there, 2) the sight of dead fish, and 3) people carrying fish accidentally touching me and getting me fishy. I was impressed with the huuuuuuge tuna fish (see photo), the number of people who were hard at work at 5 or 6am, the busy and cramped stalls, and the knives/machinery people were using to cut up fish. I was really not okay with seeing fish/seafood killed in inhumane ways; I couldn't watch and it made me want to leave. I also got tired of the wet floors and fishy smells.

Robert was thinking about meeting me there at some point, but since he came so late and it was getting really hot outside at like 8am, I decided to eat sushi by myself. It was overpriced right next to the market (because it was crawling with tourists) but I went for it anyway and just ordered three pieces (460 yen!). I sat next to some Spaniards and proceeded to humiliate myself with my now-terrible Spanish, haha. My sentences came out in Japanese more often than Spanish, even though I told them that I lived in Mexico for three weeks and I used to be pretty good at Spanish. They probably thought I was lying, haha. Anyway, it was fun to practice distinguishing two languages that sound sooooo similar and often use the same words (but with different definitions). Fun story: just now when I tried to type "different", I said "different" in my head but I typed "diferente." Anyway, kasa in Japanese is umbrella but the same pronunciation (casa) in Spanish is house. Kara in Japanese means many things, mostly "from", but in Spanish the same thing means face. Anyway. Cool. :D

I returned home after the fish market, jumped on the bed with Takumi instead of taking a nap like I wanted, and then we all left to visit my host mom's parents in western Tokyo. It took about 90 minutes or more to get there due to traffic, but we played fun car games in Japanese. :D

At the house, Namiko, her mom, and her sister Sachiko dressed me in a real kimono! Some Japanese women have never even worn one, and most don't know how to put one on, or can't do it by themselves.

The final product was awesome! Toasty warm, though. This kimono is about 1,000,000 yen, and the obi is the same price too, making the entire outfit $20,000! Earlier I thought it was just $2,000 (still hugely expensive) but my host mom corrected me; I forgot a zero. Can you believe it?? It's only for 20-year-olds, for the ceremony of becoming an adult at age 20.

After we took pictures, we all went to a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant (fourth time since being here). This picture is funny because no one is smiling but we were actually all really happy. The sushi was great! Namiko's mom treated everyone, and then we ate watermelon and cake for dessert at home.

I went to bed early because I was so tired from my early morning. Then the next day, we relaxed, played board games, and ate more watermelon. :) I lost Othello every time except once. For lunch we went out to a restaurant and I got soba made with green tea, so good.

My host mom surprised me with a really, really beautiful and high-quality yukata before we left for the trip! Her mom then gave me an obi to go with the yukata. So that my mom won't freak out, I can't write the price here. Here is a picture of me wearing the yukata and the obi, which is really difficult to tie. I wrote instructions for how to do it on Facebook, but I now know how to do it myself. :) The more times I do it, the better it will look and the softer my obi will become. I can't wait to show it off at UNC Japan Club and at my apartment sometime when I'm feeling fancy. :D

Then we all went to a huge outlet mall. I didn't buy much, but I saw this funny shirt.

We returned home late that night and I studied a little. Then the next day, I went to a nomihoudai party with the United Nations University interns in Shibuya. It was great fun! Here's a picture of me with some new friends. I was really happy at that time. :D

Apparently everyone in America thinks Inception is the greatest movie ever made, so here's a giant poster of it from Shibuya station that I saw last night. Included in this picture is another not-too-common sight: PDA! Although I think it's becoming more popular among young people to have PDA despite the older generation seeing it as a sign of weakness and disrespect.

Today was normal class with a test and impending doom about the final exams on Thursday and presentation on Friday. To kill the stress effectively for an hour or two (only to have it rebound spectacularly on my end later), some friends and I ate some ice cream. I got Pop-Rocks ice cream and it was delightful.

Tonight my host mom told me that her neighbors want me to teach their son some English next week. It'll be fun but I'm nervous! He's 12, likes sports, and has learned only a little English at school, or at least that's what he told me on the phone. I was really excited that I could understand his and his mom's Japanese over the phone tonight; that's usually the most difficult thing about learning another language. I know Spanish is nearly impossible over the phone. Maybe I'm getting better at Japanese than I thought! Although yesterday, I saw a young boy crying in the road, and I asked him if everything was okay. I couldn't understand his answer at ALLLLLLLL so I just stood there awkwardly until he told me things were okay. But at least he stopped crying because weird foreigners are interesting to look at.

After dinner, I explained American discrimination to my host mom, who had thought that in America, discrimination wasn't too common (neither based on race nor on sexual orientation). I told her that it's quite the opposite in many places! It was pretty difficult to explain American racism, because most racist things are now illegal but social racism is everywhere.  I also explained some of economic and cultural discrepancies between whites and blacks in America, and their origins in slavery and male-oriented black culture (regarding HIV and unplanned pregnancies which often keep young black women from meeting their goals). And as for gay issues, she thought that because in San Fran that gay people can get married, it must be a really open country. But I showed her some pictures from the hate crime in Wilmington last year and told her about Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the UNC LGBTQ trip. Then I tried to explain the effect of religion on gay discrimination... so hard to do in Japanese but I think I did it. :)

That's the end for now.