Not so Tidy

The name will make more sense later in the post, but in hindsight, this post in it's entirety might not seem so tidy, it's actually three would be posts in one: On with the show.

It's me again, well, who else would it be? Anyways (a word I abuse like (get a simile from my dad), anyw-...) here it is.

Today (technically yesterday when I wrote the original of this) was my older host brother's birthday (he's four months and one week older than me), so, as a gift, I made breakfast. We had Swedish/Sweetish pancakes (I remembered him complaining about regular pancakes and I must agree, what do you guys like about them? All they do is fill your mouth with fluff). I poured the first few, but after that everyone started pouring their own, which was fun because the pan wasn't flat so they always made strange shapes. I think I may have already said this; on a usual day breakfast is a little bit of salad, some meat, a bread product and yogurt.


After breakfast, my brothers went to their rooms to study? Lunch was a large bowl of ramen (which I like). After lunch I went to a famous temple with many trap doors and secret rooms. It's nickname is the Ninja-dera, despite the lack of ninjas. For more information on that go to a tourist site.


After we got home we ate some sweets like cookies and rice cakes (all store bought). I'll also mention that I don't eat as much here as I did back home because everything here seems expensive (i.e. they don't seem to carry that much/it's from far away) and meals are pretty much pre-portioned, and they don't snack as I do. In fact I've lost about eight pounds (I think, I can't get their scale to work right in kg or lbs) which is within an acceptable range, but I don't quit have the energy I did in Canada. My run, climbing the four stories to my classes and walking around take more out of me than usual, but that's also because of the climate. But getting back to my day,


I spent most of the afternoon reading Breaking Dawn online via PSP (I finally got a connection!). Now, before you criticize me for my choice in books, let me defend myself, but if you don't know the series, just know that it's a romance novel about vampires and skip most of this paragraph. I got addicted to the Twilight series in math class (where all my bad habits spawn) while listening to the infected girls around me talk non-stop about it. While the series is very luvy-duvy, it makes a nice light read, which considering that my other favourties are Shakespeare (I'm one of that single digit number of teens how understands and enjoys Shakespeare) and a theoretical sci-fi mind bender, is a nice balance. Though, this latest book stretches the believability to its limits even for me (the guy who explained how such things could exist), it made up for it with actual character development. And in case any girls out there are curious, I would do the same as Edward given the same situation, yes even do those things. But that's enough English.


Supper is usually several dishes; a small bowl of rice, fish, soup, a salad-like mixture of vegetables and something else. I've tried sushi and it's great. I love raw tuna (or any raw meat for that matter, I think it might be the blood, but I already mentioned Twilight so I'm not going to make any vampire references). After supper, showers and a few television shows we had peach cake to celebrate my host brother's latest trip around the sun. It was only about six inches in diameter and three high, but he told me that his family doesn't celebrate birthdays very extravagantly. I laughed when he cut it in half (there were five of us), but he evened it out by cutting ten pieces in stead of five.


Then I went to the room of the house where I get the best connection (a guest room) and waited for my parents who mentioned wanting to talk on Skype without mentioning a time. Rather than get angry directly, I explain that if any of you would like to talk on Skype, that's fine, but name a time more specific than the weekend. I check my email enough to get a message the day of, but I can't wait on Skype on my PSP for hours on end. It's best to email me with a date, time, AM/PM/24, time zone, DST/ST. I'll easily wait an hour or two, but seriously, specifics would be nice ("morning" is acceptable because I know when most of you wake up). That should be enough scowling, picture time.

As this entry's title suggests, I'm not as tidy as most of you think. Actually, the reason I seem so organized is because when my mom would clean my room she would misplace things. Since then, I've found that it's also a good way of clearing my head and dealing with bordom, so more recently I've begun rearranging my whole room, but I won't bother with that here (the rearranging part).

I've shown other pictures of this room. If you look at them all together you sould get a good idea of its size. This is the main room of the house.

In the Col. Mustard kitchen with the lead pipe. The kitchen is attached to the main room, but the computer blocks a little of the way. No nachoes. The oven is literally a microwave oven.

A little garden between "my" room and the main room.

Stairs in Japan are steep, like tea at Tim Hortons' (bad joke).

A shot of the rooftops of Tera-Machi from a window on the top floor of the house. I'm stealing internet from the house in front (don't worry, it's not actually stealing, they have an open network. It's more like shouting "hi" into the phone while your friend is talking on it).


My Japanese is coming slowly, but even without a fully functional vocabulary I can already figure many things out. I'll soon be taking lessons at school, a foreigners building and there' a book I want to read in a third language that I'll get as soon as I work up the courage to walk across the bookstore and buy it (ask oji-san why it takes courage to buy a book in Japan).

Anywa-...
Well, ja-ne!

Post Script: I've made the commenting process easier, apparently some of your comments never made it through, hopefully this will make it easier for you computer-illit-...technologically challenged readers (sorry, I realize that's a low blow to some of you).