Okay, lightning speed update! I'm sorry in advance for typos. I meant to update yesterday while waiting for my host family, but I forgot the lab was closed on Sundays.

Some random notes first:
1. I've turned back into a minor. (Contractual capacity here is at age 20, not 18). I therefore cannot buy a cell phone without my parents signing a permission form, and it has to be signed by my parents... in Amercia.

2. My ankle looks like an ankle again!

3. While I was grabbing lunch just off campus yesterday, a nice man on a bike asked me to go to the park with me. Ha ha, noooo. (Don't worry, it wasn't an unsafe situation at all. There were lots of other people around including the guard at the school gate within earshot.)

4. Speaking of police, I don't know if the security gaurds are full fledged police here, but it wasn't unusual to see eight of them on the way to school from seminar house 4 (I counted). They're pretty nice and a lot of them will greet you when you walk by, and I've had a couple more polite exchanges with a couple of them about the weather and such.

5. The 'Kuzu' in 'Kuzuha' has two different kanji with different uses. Way to throw me off on my applications, Kuzuha.

Saturday night was a whole lot of fun. Kazuki took me, my roommate Kate, another American name Trey and me to go hang out near Hirakata station. We went to get okonomiyaki first, and then to a place called 'Ring'. I'm glad I have a host family, because if I had the freedom of living in a dorm I would be at that place way, way too much. It was tempting just to move in.

( Pictures under the cut! )

Okay, next lightning speed topic:

( Host family! )

Okay... what else? There was something else...

Oh yeah. Out of seven levels, I placed in the sixth level for both speaking and writing!!! This is pretty darn cool. I was aiming for fifth level speaking, and surprised myself. As for writing though, I'm pretty sure I'm more at a fifth level, because or sixth level they already expect you to know 900 kanji. Ha! I sure don't! I'm sure I could recognize the 600 for 5th level, but even that might be stretching it.

I hate mosquitoes.
But apparently, they love me. I have a few more new bites, but I also had one on my ankle this morning which was barely noticeable. It has now swollen to the size of a tangerine. x__x;; That's probably due to all the walking I did today, but fortunately one of the people in my group, Jenna, had some ice cubes made so I now have them tied to my ankle, and the swelling should go down. At least they aren't quite as burning and painful as last year.

In other news, I still don't know what level of Japanese I placed into, because they were late posting them so I was already in Kyoto by the time anyone knew. I'll check tomorrow. Anyway, what I did get in my mailbox of a certificate of proficiency stating that I'm eligible to take they two classes they are offering which are taught in Japanese!

I was excited, of course, and had an interest in one of them, so I started thinking maybe I should take this chance since I have it right now, and just hope to get one of these requirements later. If I want to learn more Japanese and take myself to another level, shouldn't I challenge myself by trying to keep up with a class in Japanese, like so many foreign students do in English when they come to America?

Then I reread the class description, which was also entirely in Japanese. Yeah, I didn't know a bunch of those words... I'm thinking I'll be challenged plenty enough without this class. Still, it's exciting to know that I tested well enough and my interview went well enough to have had the chance! I hope they still get a decent number of students in those classes, though. Had I have expected anything like this before I would have decided a long time ago to put off one of my requirements. At this point, though, I don't have any of my papers on which I have the rest of my Valpo plan, so.

Also, today, there was a trip to Kyoto. They split up the foreign students into groups with Japanese guides, and fortunately my group only had six people (other had more like forty). I had met Sarah (America) and Jenna (Canada) briefly before and we wound up in a group together, which was fine, and our guides were Saori, Kieko, and Kiyotaka. Every so often I got to play translator, so it was fun. We went to see Kinkakuji, which I've seen before but was okay with seeing again (and funny, things were as cloudy as the last time I went despite the bright sunshine this afternoon), and we got some food there. Did a little shopping afterward, Jenna really lucked out with a kimono she found and then some, and I finally caved and bought a kanzashi (I think that's what the fancy single hair sticks with dangles are called?). I always, always admire and pine for the fancy hair things at Japanese malls and gift shops, but they're always so expensive that I've never allowed myself to buy one. But this one was a little better priced that others, and it matches the yukata Naomi gave me. So, yay, I finally got one. I hope it doesn't break.

Some random stuff about bicyclists: I've noticed a lot of the ladies on bikes wear long, wool gloves while riding their bikes, and many of them will also have umbrellas to keep the sun off. That concerned about getting burned or their skin getting tanned, I guess, although I think the gloves look a little tacky. There was a woman today, though, who had big flaps/handles made of wool and leather or something over the handle bars for her to hide her hands under. I don't recall the rest of her arms showing at all, either. I suppose white skin is still a beauty standard here, especially considering how many I've heard compliment some foreigners on their white skin.

I also got a couple pictures of other unusual things today (no people, I resist taking pictures of people I find interesting because that's rude). I shall save them for another time, maybe with a collection of other 'that's what's weird about Japan' pictures I'll take.

What I did yesterday:

1. Talked with family on Skype.

2. Went out with Ojiisan to meet one of his sons, meet up with his girlfriend and go to a fancy lunch at the Gifu Miyako Hotel (I felt guilty that when they asked if I ate meat, I answered that I did because they might have thought I was a vegetarian. Turns out there were actually asking if I wanted a very expensive steak, which they ordered for me and I couldn't finish. So guilty!)

Aterwards we went to Gifu castle where Oda Nobunaga once lived. We had to go up a rope lift first to get towards the top, and then had to take a bunch of stairs to get to the very tip top where the castle/museum was. It made my inner samurai/history fan very happy. I took some pictures, his girlfriend bought me a couple cell phones dangles I liked from the gift shop, and even though it was early afternoon, I got a bunch of mosquito bites. I think- I hope!- this is just a Gifu thing. I get a bad enough reaction as it is in the United States, but here the moment I would get bit I would start to puff up and get red at the bite site. Not cool. On a positive note about bugs, there are lots of dragonflies and some very big black butterflies where are very pretty.

3. Went to see the high school I went to last year a bit. How nostalgic. There something very comforting in a place being exactly the way you picture it in your head, all the details not having changed. Even the guest room, with it's decorative screens, tatami mats, and papered window screens take me back to my ealiest mental images of Japan.

4. Spent the evening with the Chikaoka family, and they made a ton of okonomiyaki. Fortunately, I wasn't the only guest, as Ryoji was visiting home and brought over a bunch of his friends he's known since elementary school. Ryo-kun was my rock-star body guard last year while walking to school, and was very popular with the girls and very talented at music, I told him he should get famous. This year, it turns out he's studying music in Tokyo. Ha ha, yes! You can do it, Ryo-kun! Although I was a little surprised how good he was at making girly crafts.

Also hung out with Miki-chan, his younger sister, who is one of my cousin's good friends in Japan. Even though it's summer vacation, she still had to spend five hours practicing at baton club at her middle school. Seriously, the dedication people have to their clubs here is pretty impressive. I plan to join a club at KGU, but which one... hmm. And what kind of time commitment am I looking at??

Also talked a bunch with their mom, who was telling me about the exchange student from Denmark they had stay at their house but had recently switched to a second host family. They know the people at Seki Shoko very well, so they invited over a few of the girls I knew last year: Asami (there were two Asami's), Maiko, Saki, and Mari. It was nice to see them again, but by that time I was glazing over with sleepiness and my Japanese skills abandoned me a little.

---

Today I head out to Kansai Gaidai. Hopefully there will be no mosquitoes there.