Hippari to sappari to to

Hipa! I hope everybody's doing well.

Have you ate pancakes recently?

I know I have.

As usual - kendo is still on going! Giving my best and stomping and screaming as much as I can. I think I've made some progress, but that's only logical I guess. I've also tried some kendo free fighting and I am a weasel. Slow, but still a weasel. Interpret it as you wish. Just give it a bit negative feeling.

On the other hand, the teacher told me that I might be able to enter a tournament for newcomers around the end of this year.

I AM SHOCKED.

But nonetheless overly happy! It's still a 'maybe' situation, but I'm doing my best to be ready when it should happen.

On a different note, on the 18th I went to eat kakikoori (shaved ice with syrup) with the 'Kendo Girls' (naming sense!). It's been quite some time since I last went out to do something relaxing after school and it really was fun! The place we went to was a through and through kakikoori restaurant (!) called Chawa, serving only ice and sugary liquids! I'm completely honest when saying that it serves the best shaved ice in Akita. I ordered one with a really fresh grapefruit jam on top and it was soooo good! :3 I also got to taste kiwi and mango from my friends too. Yummy yum yum omnomnom.

Also on that day I went to see Arrietty with my host mum and sister (just a day after the release! Yau!) which also was my first time going to a Japanese cinema. I must say that it is COMPLETELY different from the Estonian one. For instance we have no goods' shops there, which is somewhat a pity... but I got an Arrietty memo book and just for laughs I also bought a classic swirl lollipop. The big one. I still have most of it left. Ah, it's so nostalgic. I think I was 5 when I last ate one. :D Plus, there's no applauding in the hall after the end. Whu~?

(A heads up for those who don't know, Arrietty is the latest Ghibli Studio production. Be sure to go and see it. :)

Next time (if it actually comes) I want to see Toy Story too, one of my all time Disney favourites.

On Monday I had my YFU summer orientation (yippii!) in Hachimori Bunakkoland (almost the most upper part of Akita pref) which is famous for it's beech forests and seashore. It was a cloudy day, which was actually a blessing. Great for driving and for my poor, poor eyes, oh my.

I was happy to see my friends still alive and I was quite surprised to see so many short stay (American) students in Akita. I thought it was a quiet place concerning the matter of exchange study, but I guess I was wrong (which was good). After the introductions we went to trek the forest of Mononoke. Yep, it really looked exactly like the scenes from the movie, which is no wonder, because the backgrounds actually were inspired by the forests there. Unfathomable that I was lucky enough to go there. My heart almost stopped when I saw the first rapids of the river flowing under the tree branches, hitting the rocks by the riverside with high splashes and the sprinkles unexpectedly softly landing on my face. I almost could feel myself sinking into the forest.

After the breath taking experience, we had a huge barbeque, but it was quite tricky to eat without burning your fingers off. The grill was so damn glowing hot! But we all survived with minor casualties. Later with our tummies full, we all got to chat to our hearts content and relax. I also taught some Estonian to the exchange student going to Estonia in the beginning of next month, which was a novel feeling. Me? A teach? Naah! Unfortunately though we soon had to part ways again.

From that point 'quality family time' began. We jumped through the nearby Hatahata-kan onzen which had a wonderful view to the sea whilst you were soaking in a boat shaped bath on the veranda. Afterwards we went to eat garlic ramen nearby, which as my host dad said was quite famous around those parts. He was proven to be right quite soon. Late lunch anyone?Awesome garrrlic, delicious garrrlic, I'll sing to you about garrrlic. Reminded me of my mum's cooking a lot for some odd reason.

Anyway, no problems with vampires from now on.

Heh, like I've had any.

We arrived home quite late that night after a 2-hour drive, but on that night, over a long time, I slept soundly like I used to in my early ages. Sniff. The glory of children.

In the orientation I learned that I have a chance to go to a Junior Red Cross camp for 2 days during the last weekend of July. I decided that I'll go so I'm really giddy for it. What will happen there I wonder...

So for closure, I had a lot of fun time during the weekend past, but the best part was unquestionably the time when I felt like I actually got into the magnificent forest of Gods and Spirits of Ghibli Wonderland.

I'm planning to go there again sometime.

In person, in my dreams, by any means.

And speaking of Ghibli, Totoro is on so I'm flying.

(Sorry for the abruptness!)

Until next time and bye-bye! And thanks!

Sails hoy!

PS Photos will come later this week. Promise. Although there isn't much.

Simply put

Hello again!

I thought that because I had a happy week end, I wanted to share it with you. :)

First off, on Saturday I had my usual guitar class and after that my mum came to pick me up and we went to a nearby department store to see an exhibition of world famous animations' watercolour storyboards, which' poster mum had seen earlier that day. Of course it was only Japanese anime scenes, for example TOM SAWYER. O_O''

I didn't know that until that point. Shocked the air out of my lungs. Oh, foolish me...

Later that evening the two of us went to search for a bicycle route to my school due to my bus pass expiring and that I only have a couple of weeks of school left, so to buy a new pass is just a waste of money and also it's a good chance to really enjoy my life in Akita City. To really get in to it. Also it's good exercise. In the end we were successful. :) From next week I'm officially a cyclist.

Just kidding. But going to school by bike in Japan really seems and feels student like. Makes me proud to be part of the gang. ;)

During the ride I also met some of my classmates and friends along the way and got to talk to them. It really felt like I really belong here. Really. I repeat myself too much.

And today (Sunday) I got to go to kendo for the first time during week end, which means morning lessons. It was really refreshing! Up until now, everybody had tournaments, exams, out of school lessons etc, that robbed me the chance to train during Sats and Suns.

I got really good advice from my kendo classmate about various techniques so I feel quite fulfilled currently. Getting better, getting better!

Having got back from school, my mum yet again had found out about an exhibition in an old Japanese style shop in the city centre. It was a duo exhibition of Kusanagi Osamu (paper cut prints 切り絵) and Kyoko (rice paper dolls 和紙人形). They are an artist couple (How awesome is that? Perfect!) who are really famous in Akita and perhaps outside too. They have designed many product packages and also quite a few souvenirs. The old shop, where the works were displayed, was an art piece itself. It had an air of magnificent history and the walls and floors seemed to have their own stories hidden in them.

Tour finished, we went to a coffee shop right next to the building and drank really delicious ice coffee there. We also got to taste a pound cake called King's Pound. It too was really tasty and heartily sweet.

After that we went home.

In the end, it's a simple story and simple happiness.

But isn't that the best one?

Lots of hearty greetings from the East!

I'll yet again sail to bed.

Heipsus!

I woke up to a bloody earthquake today. AN EARTHQUAKE! As an alarm clock!

It was a mild one, but anyways an earthquake!

Flicker through

Hello one and all!

Sorry for my long absence, but I have a good reason for that which I'm going to explain right now.

Firstly I got to go to a concert on 26 June. And not just any concert, but Ikimono gakari's. Have you heard about them? If not then you should.

Anyway, it was an overly energizing experience with a lot of dancing and finger swirling involved (or towel swinging when bought) :) . Even the elderly and parents carrying their small children were dancing away light-footedly.

The band itself was so unbelievably sweet and lovely and they gave off an aura of immeasurable friendliness. When they made a break during the concert and talked with the audience (for over half an hour!) it really felt like as they were your closest friends that you haven't seen for a long time. They (we?) talked about Akita's specialties, what they did the day before the performance, how they got lost, how they were noticed by grannies with grandchildren and dogs, how they got scolded at the market when they tried to explain that they were Ikimono gakari and so on. They're really funny, I must admit.

So how did I get to their live in the first place? Truth be told, I actually first heard about the band during my first week in Akita (why not before, I don't know) from my host sister who is a really big fan of them. I grew to like the band too and some days later we got some mail.

Usual isn't it? Mail.

But then it turned out that inside the envelope were my mum's pre-ordered tickets for the concert.

I flipped. 'I'm serioulsy one hell of a lucky b******' I thought.

The concert lasted for a whole 3 hours (it was planned to be 1 and a half), 19 songs were sang (including encore) and they said that it was their first time performing in Akita and that they felt really nervous... Didn't seemed like that at all. They were fantastic!

And to everyone's happiness, they promised to come back once more... because babahera was really delicious.

Ahh! They really stole a piece of my heart (and money, due to my towel purchase) :)

And continuing with music, over the past month, I've been practising for our school choir contest, which culminated on 29 June.

For that cause, I went to school everyday about 30 minutes earlier than usual and sang 'Tashika na koto' by Oda Kazumasa (a really beautiful song) with my classmates, who like me couldn't really manage to squirt out a decent voice due to the early hours. I must admit it was painful :/ But we kept on going.

And going... Going... Did it again during lunch break... And after school. Everyday.

Our class might have been the most hard working out of all the classes.

Then the 29th came and everybody of Kita High went to Akita Hall with all of our little hearts thumping like that of a mouse's.

Final practices in front of the building, final check on our formation, 3 times 'Ganbare!' and squealing jumps and inside we went.

The contest itself was divided by grade - 1st years, 2nd years and 3rd years respectively and also there were prizes for the best pianist and conductor.

Anyway, our class was the last one to perform out of the 2nd years, after which were the 3rd years and our schools choir's performance and lastly the evaluation...

Our hearts were thumping even faster than before.

1st years - can't hear because of my heart racing. And finally 2nd years - third place, second and first...

WE GOT THE FIRST PLACE, PEOPLE!!! Wooooohooooo!!!

We all jumped out of our seats with joy, yelled our lungs out and some of the girls even started crying. Our hard work was paid even more than we hoped for.

And guess what. We got candy! Yeah, we're still children you know. :')

I still can't believe it that I was a part of the winning choir. Me, a girl who was repeatedly said to never be any good at singing or music of any kind. I'm quite proud of myself and really proud of my awesome class overall. I'm so happy that I was lucky enough to land in Akita out of all places. Truly a picture image of Japanese life.

(Because I'm so jumpy and happy, I'll throw in some lucky stars for all of you after this entry ;) )

But that is definitely not all of what has kept me busy.

After the contest the whole school started preparing for...

Pamparapapapapaa~~ (drumroll)

Akita Kita High School's Summer Culture Festival!!!

YESS! I finally got to participate in one! It was held on 2~3 July (Fri/Sat) and there were many awesome games, exhibitions, performances and of course the classic Obake yashiki (Monster rooms). I tried everything out and went to all the show rooms and enjoyed every bit of it. In addition, in the inner school yard were many food stands selling ice cream, various drinks, including floats (a drink with a floating ice cream scoop on top, hence the name), takoyaki (fried octopus in a pasty), churritos, taiyaki (sweet fish shaped cake with filling) and so on. I was completely blown away by the magnitude of the whole thing. It was so awesome! We had tons of guests to who also seemed mesmerized by the scene.

I can't (yet again) express my feeling through this pixelized system. A once in a lifetime chance and I got to experience it full on. Can't believe it...

But about our class, we prepared a human stamp rally game, which the goal was to find at least 5 cosplayers (me and my classmates) around the school grounds and inside the buildings and sweetly ask us a stamp. If not, we would run away. Man, it was fun!

But it wasn't all game and running, but also some bureaucracy was involved.

Our class was divided into 3 groups who all did differently themed cosplays (explained in a previous entry) and also different jobs depending on the time. Ones were handing out stamp papers (serious business), others were the prize givers (even more serious, because we were counting the amount of candy we handed out) and lastly the cosplayers. We were really popular actually, especially with small children. :) Of course I was the Mad Hatter, as promised, and I might say that I was especially popular with EVERYBODY. I can't really count up the times when people asked for a photograph with me, or even an autograph (whoa!). I gave quite a fright to some small kids however, who literally fell over when they saw me and ran away as fast as they could (Might be the fact that I'm a foreigner :/ who knows).

There was also a public cafeteria opened on the second floor which served really delicious dishes made by the school student's. For example, I ate miso ramen and curry bread on the first day and cooled udon on the second. Well... that's not all that I ate in total, but let's leave it at that or I'll get embarrassed, hohoho.

(I also put up quite a few photos of these events which have been collecting dust in my camera, so please go and see them in FB if interested. :)

Lastly, about my everyday life a tad.

Well, I've been going to kendo for about a month already (celebration!) and I'm progressing slowly but steadily and crashing into bed out of tiredness as soon as I get home every day. I've been on a Kumon break because of my lack of time but I'll start again tomorrow.

By the way, this Monday I have no school! Yeehaa! And Tuesday will only be the festival clean up.

Soon, my 4th month of home stay will also pass. The time is a magnificently fast little bugger.

Also, quite soon, I'll be on my summer holidays in Yamagata again (starting from the 22nd) for Obon (お盆) and I'll also get to see Kanto (竿燈祭り), quite a famous festival of Akita in August.

Oh, the anxiousness... there's so much to look forward to every day, starting from school and ending with all the traditional festivals of the Land of the Rising Sun.

As always, thanks for taking time to read my blog and commenting. Hugs to ye me hearties!

Good luck and good ----- (insert the proper word according to your situation)

I'll hoist sails for this time.