Hello again, and I am again VERY sorry that I haven`t been keeping up to date! It has just been a hectic time of year, and the fact that I am still learning to wield the language means that it is getting increasingly difficult to find the time to write this! But hey, what can you do?
So! It has been a fairly routine test time since about a month ago, with tests and essay being handed to us left right and center, and it's fairly safe to say they have been quite difficult. However, that didn't stop me achieving straight A's on my report, and also improving my Japanese usage and such. The test week went like this: Rock up at school, have a period of self study, in which you revise for the test next period, do the test, then worry. And then do that for a whole week, in which you also have to finish two essays and write up a fifteen minute presentation on a piece of natural tourism in Japan. Now you understand test week. I am sure most people in Australia are now doing their exams, and I wish you luck, がんばって下さい．(Try hard, or do your best, pronounced gun-bah-tte-koo-dah-sigh)
As I have said, I travel to school everyday by train, and in total, including walking time, it takes about fourty minutes. This isn't too bad, considering how big Tokyo is. But the thing that will astound any people from Melbourne (and indeed most places) is that the trains are almost never late. And by not late I don't mean within a minute or two of the scheduled time, I mean, arriving at the station as the clock strikes the minute, leaving thirty seconds after, and the next one showing up in five minutes. There is none of this "train has been delayed by ten minutes. Why? Because reasons" kind of things. In Japan, there are two usual reasons trains are late. One, is fog, and this makes sense because of accidents etcetera. The other reason, is people using the trains to prematurely end their lives, or attempt to anyway. Japan has an incredibly high rate of suicide in young men, and because of this, Japanese Rails (JR) fines the persons family if they commit suicide with a train. Depressing no?
The other part about trains, which has become part of international folklore, is the sheer amount of people on the train at one time. It is quite impressive how many people can fit into a single car, and still everyone can play pokemon at the same time. There is a term for this in Japanese "すしずめ" which compares the space to a sushi box, in that everything is so tightly packed together. Idioms are cool :D
So one Saturday, my host family and I went noodle making, or more accurately, Soba making. Soba are a Japanese style of noodle, which originally came from China, and they are very delicious. The western equivalent would be fettucini noodles, as they look quite similiar. So we showed up to the Soba house, went in, put on little pink aprons and started the making. We smashed the two kinds of flour together, we added some water, smashed more flour and water, kneaded, smacked and punched our little ball of dough. Then we brought out a giant rolling pin and squashed the ball flat, spreading it to about 80 centimetres by 80 centimetres. We then rolled this up, and got out the giant cleaver (think from the butchers, or maybe a horror movie) and the chopping board, and spent the next ten minutes carefully slicing the noodles into thin strips. After all this effort of about an hour to make the damn things, it took a minute and a half to cook, and then 15 minutes to eat it. Of course, the journey is it's own destination, so it was a good time really.
After the soba making, we headed out to this gigantic foot bridge that crossed a valley with a river down the middle. Very scenic and beautiful, but I couldn't help but wonder why the heck they built a bridge leading to... bridge. That was all that was on the other side. The end of the bridge, a little pair of 100 yen binoculars and that was it. A most confusing place, but hey, it was very pretty. After that we decided it was high time we visited a giant slide, so we jumped back into the car and went to this enormous roller slide. Slides in Japan, as far as I can tell, are not at all like the ones in Australia. They are constructed more like the rollers at airport security, and as such, you go super fast down them, with my host brother almost breaking his arm. Poor little guy. But yes, not only was this slide a good fifty metres long, it was also curvy. And not gentle curves, the kind of curves where if you don't slow down before you reach them, you fall of the slide and die. Japaaaannnnnn!
That is all I have time for, I should be able to keep more up to date now (hopefully) and I will post more about my adventures sometime soon. Undoukai this weekend (sports day) so expect to hear all about that! So long, farewell, adiue!
-Jesse
