MatthewMeyer.net Blog

It's been mostly rainy since coming here (ii tenki dewa arimasen!) but we had one beautiful sunny day yesterday. I have 4 classes a day, and we're gonna do an entire textbook this month, so it's the equivalent of a whole semester of Japanese in 1 month. We have afternoon activities after lunch (which is at 1 pm) which so far have consisted of a tour of the area around the school on Monday, a trip to Kanazawa castle and Museum of Traditional Crafts on Tuesday, cooking tempura, onigiri, and soup yesterday, and hiragana/katakana/kanji writing practice this afternoon. Tomorrow is day off, so I will try to sketch if the weather allows it.

Every day after classes and activities we go downtown to do whatever until we go home for dinner (that is where I am writing this now). Some folks are shopping, and a few of us came to Biz Cafe to write emails (E-meru o shimasu). At 5 each day we go to a little bar called Famille to spend some time before heading home. Japanese beer (biru) is very good.

My okaasan is an excellent cook. I don't know if I mentioned that before, but I am very very lucky. Her food is fresh every single day. Veggies (yasai) are picked from her garden while she makes dinner, fish (sakana) are caught in the local rivers every day for our dinner. I've been eating lots and lots of sakana. I like the sashimi best because it doesn't have head, bones, or eyes, all of which are very crunchy and unsettling to eat. On Tuesday we had fish fish fish; a big fish without a head that seemed to be cooked in salt, lots of smaller fish that were candied or something, but had crunchy eyes and heads (minnow-sized) and then the baby fish of the big one, complete with eyes and everything. They were so tiny... about the size of pencil shavings, and their heads popped as you chewed them by the spoonfull. My host parents are amazed at how quickly I am learning Japanese and we are having as much conversation as is possible with our limited language skills. After dinner, otoosan likes to watch French movies (Furansu no eiga) wth Japanese subtitles, and since I can really get nothing from watching that I go upstairs and do homework (shigudai o shimasu). I actually did a few sketches last night, the first ones I've done here, so that's at least some progress.

My classmates are great, we all get along wonderfully. I am one of two Americans in our group. There are 1 Canadian, 6 Swiss, 1 Filipino, and a Mexican in my group of friends, but there are a few other students (who have been here a bit longer) from America and Australia aside from us. The school is pretty small though.

Our teachers are all very sweet and friendly. Classes are really fun, we get to make jokes (as long as they're in Japanese) and we get a 10 minute break every hour.

I got lost on my way home from the train station on Monday night, when it was pouring rain and I wasn't familiar with the route. It was actually really fun to get lost, since I had my host family's address I didn't really worry. When I wandered for about an hour and couldn't make heads or tails of where I was, I went into a tabako-ya (small convenience store called a tobacco shop) and asked if they could point me in the right direction. They didn't know where the place was, and it took me a little while to figure out how to explain that I was a host family. The lady was so nice when she understood that I was lost on my first day in Japan, so she called my family to pick me up. I was a bit embarassed to have them have to drive out and get me, but they didn't mind... afterwards we had a long discussion in Japanese about how to get home from the eki. I didn't understand what they said and they couldn't understand what I said, so we wound up with nothing, but I found my way home fine the next day.

Last night I was stopped by some elementary school kids as I walked home. Little kids love to say "Hello!" to Gaijin (foreigners), and most Gaijin love to talk to little kids, so the three of us had a long discussion about nothing that none of us could understand.

This weekend the town is having a rice-planting activity, so I will do that, among studying and doing whatever else we decide to do as a group. Next weekend there is an excursion to the Noto peninsula, which has a beach that you can drive on, an onsen (hotspring!!!!), and many other nice spots to visit. Kanazawa is very little-known to visitors, so it's a perfect spot to see Japanese life with only a mild influence of Western living.

If you want to know where I am in Japan, look at a map of the country. There are four main islands. The biggest one is called Honshu. If you look right in the middle of Honshu along the Sea of Japan, you'll see a little weiner sticking out into the water. That is the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture. Move just inland of the penis shape, you'll find Kanazawa, capital of Ishikawa. That's where I am.

There's more to tell, but it's about time to head to Famille.