Sunday: Friends come to Nagahama

Sunday, the first day in a long time where I didn't have any plans until the afternoon, saw me sleeping in until ten o'clock. Once I woke up, i went downstairs where I had breakfast with my host mother. Then, I started my laundry and got ready for the day. When I was done with my shower and getting dressed, I hung my clothes out on the line. I then received a text message from my friend, Jackie, and I went over to Nagahama Station to meet them.

After I went to Nagahama station, I walked around a little bit and then I found them at the festival. There, we walked down the street, stopping at almost every store on the side of the road. We saw lots of pretty purses and hats. There was also a store that was dedicated completely to chopsticks, and for 600 yen, ($6) you could have your very own pair of chopsticks that were modeled after the Shinkansen trains. Then, we all pitched in a couple hundred yen and got a bunch of food, which we all shared. Afterwards, we walked the road that I take every morning to and from my house to the station. We looked around the Nagahama shrine that I pass every morning and also my house. My host parents were out at the current moment, so we just kept going to the small shopping center down the road.

At the shopping center, we looked around and shopped in a popular store on the third floor. Then, we all did Purikura, with two of our members doing it for the first time.It was a blast and afterwards we all headed back to my house in order to ask my host mom where the "kaiten sushi" restaurant was. She gave Jackie directions, (Jackie is in fourth year and the best at Japanese out of all of us) and then invited my friends in to see the art gallery and my room.

Of course, having done laundry that morning meant that all of my clothes were hanging up everywhere, so Jackie and I, (the only girls in the group) hurried to my room and put away all of my clothes before we let the boys come up.

In my room, which everyone thought was amazing because it is about the size of the whole apartment at JCMU. We sat and talked for a little bit before we headed out to kaiten sushi.

Kaiten sushi literally translates to “rotating sushi”, and I'm going to go totally nerd for a minute by pointing out that “kaiten” is the name of the move that the Hyuugas from the Naruto series do when they turn in a circle, creating a small tornado.

ANYWAY…

So we all sat down in a booth, Jackie and Pat on one side. Myself, Tisch and Ang San on the other side. The end of the booth where there is normally a wall there is a two story rotating engineered machine. Premade stuff comes out on the bottom story, and when you see something you like, you simply grab the plate and put it on your table and start eating. 

Now, let's say you want some MELON! But, for the past five minutes, you haven't seen any melon whatsoever. What you can do, is you can go to the screen that is mounted on the rotating machine, (but it doesn't rotate, there is one per table) and you go to the menu and order melon. Then, by a cute little Shinkansen train, on the second story of the machine, the train comes with your melon on a plate, just for you! Then, you press the red button, and the train goes back to the kitchen.

Of course, right after you order the melon, some new melons come out on the bottom rack, but it's okay, because everyone wants to use the Shinkansen train food-giver at least once. 

Now, how do you pay for this? By the number of plates that you take. Every time you grab a plate from the rack, you eat your sushi/dessert/melon then you stack the plates. Once your done, a server will come by, count the number of plates then give you your receipt. Some things like dessert and melon cost a little more than normal sushi, but just about everything is about a dollar per plate. So, for someone like me who isn't hungry, I only had to pay $6, yet Ang San, who had 17 plates of sushi was paying upwards of $20. 

Afterwards, my friends headed back to JCMU, and I returned home, where I finished my homework then went to bed.

Note: I'm really sorry about the lateness of these blogs. I'm stressing out a little about my big midterm at the end of the week, because a brand new grammar structure was just introduced on Thursday, and it's going to be a major part of the midterm. This new grammar structure is called "keigo" and it's honorific language. So, when talking to a friend, the verb "to eat" is "taberu". When talking to a teacher, the verb is "meshiagaru". That's right. The Japanese language has a brand new verb just when your talking to someone that is very important. It's like learning the whole language all over again, except everything is longer and sounds more confusing. (because it's longer).

Plus, I need to review all 200 kanji that I have learned, and the millions of verbs, adjectives and nouns that can just come out of nowhere. Oh, and the readings from the kanji review sections, (which could show up word by word on the test) which vary in topics from Hiroshima to Doraemon (an anime character) to Yoko Ono, (John Lennon's wife). 

So, to be honest, I'm going to combine my entire past weekend in Yokosuka into one blog that will probably come out on Friday after my test. Then, I will hopefully get back on track until my final in the first week of August. 

書くなくてすみませんでした！

(I'm sorry for not writing!)