My family, school, and parties!!

Ok, so overall I'm LOVING my host family! Okasan and otoosan are really nice. Otosan is a cool guy; he's a bit taller than me and he's in really good shape, actually, he's very handsome for his age. He likes soccer (used to play when he was younger) and he always drinks alcohol for dinner, beer or sake. I think it's really cute and it makes it feel more home-y for some reason, I like it. Okasan is really nice too. She makes me (well, I do it willingly and with pleasure) help her cook and wash dishes, I love it. I'm like the 16th student they've had which is great because they're not being so traditional and let me help around the house. The other day she let me try to cook with chop sticks. It was really hard because they were very long and I was frying rice noodles with vegetables and meat, I forgot the name of it maybe I'll start writing the names of the food we eat. So far everything they make is really good! Both of them cook which is really awesome because it makes me think highly of my otosan. He's a full-time office worker; he works like 10hr days 6 days a week--Japanese work so hard. Okasan is a part-timer; she works at an office at day and at a pachinko(kind of like a Japanese casino) at night, I admire her for that.

Life here is really good. Both of my parents make and effort to speak to me in Japanese and I'm going to start studying really hard because I really want to talk to them but right now it's really hard. I kind of wish that Naoki (he's taller than otosan and he's cute too) and Manami would talk to me though. I don't know I guess they're just used to having foreigners or something because they are very uninterested in getting to know me; the girl who stayed with them last semester said that they both have gf/bf so they have their ownt thing going on. I really want to talk to them but since my Japanese is limited I'm going to wait a couple of weeks and then I'll ask them to speak to me because I really want to know more about them. Anyway, the best part about my family is that I have no curfew (just get on the last train or call if I miss it or tell them before hand if I won't get home), I have a house key, okasan does my laundry (I wouldn't mind doing it but they have to wash everything together because they only have a limited area, parents' bedroom balcony, to dry clothes, dryers aren't used here), my room turned out to be bigger than the one at home, and I can take a shower whenever I want. The shower thing is a big deal because Japanese people usually take showers at night and they have a certain time and order of who showers because they also have ohuros (Japanese baths, u wash off in shower and then go in the hot bath, everyone uses the same water so that's why it's important to know the order), so being able to shower whenever I want is really good. I haven't taken a bath but I don't think they do either; the bathtub is really small so it freaks me out a little bit, but I'm sure I'll take a bath at some point. Oh yeah, and they have wireless internet, woohoo!!

So that's that about my family. School is not so bad. Well, my Japanese classes are actually pretty hard and since they use a different book here there are some vocab words and kanji (Japanese characters) that I have to learn. I like the classes though because we're not allowed to speak English and the senseis speak only in Japanese. Surprisingly I understand most of the things they say! I'm glad I ended up at Lewis and Clark because the Japanese program there is AWESOME. I ended up dropping cross-cultural psychology because they professor wasn't that interesting and I really need the time to study Japanese, it's what I came here for. I kept sociology, one, because I need to, and two, because I love the professor. He's a visiting prof from South (or North?) Carolina so he'll only be here for a semester. He's really nice and funny and the readings and class are very interesting. There's only 11 of us in class so it's great, and it's his first time in Japan so I'm sure he'll go easy on us. I'm loving ceramics as well. It's really hard and I'm not used to using my hands for art so it's something new to me, but it's really interesting and definitely worth $100. The sensei is really cool too. He's a short Japanese guy and he mixes English and Japanese (mostly particles or things like ne, desukara, and phrases like that) so it's really adorable. So yeah, school is good.

Last night I went to Osaka for the first time, it was fun. A bunch of Kansai Gaidai foreign students (about 150) got together and decided to go clubbing to Pure, a club in Osaka. So around 10:30PM we all took the train to Osaka and it was great. We filled a whole cart (is that how you call those train compartments?) and I felt really bad because we were being really loud and obnoxious and talking in a train is really bad in Japan. But anyhow we got to Pure and two of the Japanese that came with us (my gang was Christel, Marcela, Majo, Diana, Andrea, really cool Italian guy, and the two Japanese girls) had never been clubbing and they didn't know that you needed to be 20 (legal age, I know I'm not 20 but I used Marce's Mexican ID) to get in so we were pretty much fucked. We tried to get in but it didn't work, since they're Japanese they're REALLY bad liars, which is a good thing just no in this situation. Christel and I got pretty angry because we really wanted to go. Andrea was like whatever because he was going to hang out with us for a few hours and then ditch us to go to the club. So we wanted to go to karaoke but the ones we found served no alcohol (they don't check ID in karaokes or restaurants which makes no sense to me but whatever) so we ended up going to a restaurant/bar. We drank a bit and when Andrea said he was leaving Christel, Diana, and I decided to ditch Majos, Marce and the girls (they came w Majo anyway so I didn't feel bad) and went with Andrea. When I gave the security guard Marce's ID he stared at it for a while, front and back a couple of times, looked at the picture and let me in. It's the good thing about being a foreigner, they can't really tell who's who and I guess that Marce and I do look a little bit alike, or at least enough. All in all I loved the club. The music is alright but it's was just nice to have fun with my friend AND it's an all-you-can-drink so WOOOHOOO!!! They also had a Japanese chick dancing on a pole so it was very entertaining. I got a little bit drunk (not so much because I remember everything) but, of course, I didn't get a hang over because I'm awesome and I never do yay! Later, Andrea introduced us to his friend Yuji. I think he liked me because we talked for a while and he asked me for my e-mail and all (since I don't have a phone yet). He's actually pretty nice. He goes to Kansai Gaidai and he's a Spanish major, plus he was in England for a short time so he speaks Spanish, English (with a cute accent), and Japanese, pretty awesome if you ask me. Moreover, he's a little bit taller than me so that's definitely a plus. I think I'll end up hanging out with him again, hehehe.

We finally left the club around 5:20AM. I got really thirsty so Yuji bought me some water and stuck around since I was a bit drunk and he was all worried haha, that was nothing he should see when I really do get drunk, but that's another story. When we got to the train station he paid for my ticket : ) I was really tired and I kept complaining. It took me a few times to remember his name so he really thinks that I'm going to forget him, but I won't. Then he left because he had to catch a different train. But yeah, I ended up arriving at my house at 7AM so I took a shower because I reeked of booze and cigarettes. Unfortunately, my hair still stinks so I'm hoping it goes away soon. I slept until 12:00PM : ( I wanted to sleep longer. Overall I had a lot of fun and I'm probably going back in a few months because I can go clubbing anywhere so now I just want to experience Japan.

I didn't take a camera to Pure but some of my friends did so I'll hopefully get the pics from them and i'll post them later. I need to start taking more pictures because I haven't. I'm gonna try to post pics of Kansai Gaidai, the house, and my family. So yeah, this is it for now. It seems like my posts will usually be long so thanks for reading ^_^

Mucho amor,
Azu