All the way back on June 13th, we received our Japanese Windows Vista laptops—immensely helpful. The lack of wi-fi kinda sucks, but it’s not such a huge deal. Wi-fi hasn’t hit here nearly as much, yet. It’s funny because Japan is so advanced in many other respects technology-wise. That day was also the day I was placed in class 3, the higher of the two here at KIT-IJST. (Kanazawa Institute of Technology-Intensive Program for Japanese in Science and Technology—I think.) They actually eliminated class 1 and sort of combined class 1 and 2—which is funny cuz the main complaint I heard was that class 3 was too hard. Anyway, most of that class has had 2 years of Japanese, so we’re definitely behind already. It’s been tougher because there’s stuff most of the class knows that only a small handful including me doesn’t.
Random awkward pic from this gyouza place. (dumplings, sort of)Right, so, June 14th was our field trip with the SGE kids. We went to Kenrokuen—one of the three famous gardens of Japan.
On the way there we got to try some azuki (sweet red bean) popsicles—weird but surprisingly not bad. It was really pretty, I recommend checking out the pictures on Facebook that I will post. Afterward, we went to the 21st Century Art Museum, which was small but interesting. 
Salt! The whole maze-room was made with salt!
After that, we went to Kanazawa-jo, or Kanazawa Castle. However, unfortunately we couldn’t go inside because it was closed. We looked around the grounds quite a bit though. It’s an impressive white castle, and the surrounding area is pretty. We saw three of the top sights in the Kanazawa area all in one day, which was pretty impressive too. That night, we went to TonTon Ramen, a place that specializes in spicy ramen. 
Gen (Not Jen), one of the SGE guys, got a 6 on the 10 scale and was sweating. Deven got a 10 and had Gen try it and the poor guy freaked out and gagged and had to down his water pretty quickly. A few other ryuugakusei tried it and said—yeah, it’s spicy, but not horrible. Totally opposite reaction, haha.
So jump to the 16th. We had the science and tech class, which is basically learning technical language through action—like folding origami. Words like reverse, fold, return, unfold, etc etc. Also this is our big project class. Then culture class with Scott Clark-sensei. He’s a Rose-Hulmann teacher who’s accumulated many years in Japan from his many off and on stays since several decades ago. I think he said the longest he lived here at once was 2 years? His class is pretty interesting. I’ll post more on some of those classes because in themselves they are really interesting and informative (sorry, boring word! Useful maybe?).
On the 18th, we met our host families—or part of them at least. I’m going to skim over that cuz I’ll talk about my actual home visit (which was today!) later on. Oh right, that night we also went to karaoke! It was really fun, I’m sure we’ll go soon again. Gen works there and was nice enough to get everybody a several hundred yen discount. It’s pretty much pay a flat rate, get unlimited drinks and songs (or at least till when they close if the do?). We stayed till midnight…
Gen (Not Jen), one of the SGE guys, got a 6 on the 10 scale and was sweating. Deven got a 10 and had Gen try it and the poor guy freaked out and gagged and had to down his water pretty quickly. A few other ryuugakusei tried it and said—yeah, it’s spicy, but not horrible. Totally opposite reaction, haha.So jump to the 16th. We had the science and tech class, which is basically learning technical language through action—like folding origami. Words like reverse, fold, return, unfold, etc etc. Also this is our big project class. Then culture class with Scott Clark-sensei. He’s a Rose-Hulmann teacher who’s accumulated many years in Japan from his many off and on stays since several decades ago. I think he said the longest he lived here at once was 2 years? His class is pretty interesting. I’ll post more on some of those classes because in themselves they are really interesting and informative (sorry, boring word! Useful maybe?).
On the 18th, we met our host families—or part of them at least. I’m going to skim over that cuz I’ll talk about my actual home visit (which was today!) later on. Oh right, that night we also went to karaoke! It was really fun, I’m sure we’ll go soon again. Gen works there and was nice enough to get everybody a several hundred yen discount. It’s pretty much pay a flat rate, get unlimited drinks and songs (or at least till when they close if the do?). We stayed till midnight…
Um... it was Ricky's birthday? ;PFriday, the 19th, we got up a little early in order to start our ‘journey’ to Anamizu, where KiT’s Anamizu Bay Seminary House is. I’m still not exactly clear on what the purpose of the place is…but they had a boat. That was cool. Oh right, on the way we stopped at the Karakuri…Kenkan? Er… I don’t know what the word is… Basically, Wikipedia can tell you what karakuri is—I’ll simplify a lot and say it was the precursor to modern robotics. Sort of. Nearby, we picked up some shouyu ice cream (soy sauce). Yes. And no, it actually tasted like salty caramel! Pretty weird. It was a specialty place, I’m pretty sure. Hm…Not much to say about Nanao Fisherman’s Wharf…we weren’t there very long. Then, Anamizu. Right, the boat.
Not bad but....
(The awkwardness level of several of these pics was pretty high haha.)
Ricky's puffing as usual, haha. That's Uotate-sensei on the right.
After the boat, we played some in the gym. Then after that, barbeque—I had something called saizai, which I am suspecting is actually snail and only Joy seemed to like it. But they had lots of other good meat and veggies. I’ll throw in a partial group photo from the next morning, but I think I’m going to leave last Saturday to this Saturday’s happenings to another post (trust me, there will be less cuz I was SICK, but that didn’t stop me from going on Tuesday’s field trip (yes another one) for our JST class). Of course, the next day I missed class, but that’s another matter… Daijoubu yo!
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