Back to Kindergarten

Another slow start today, we stayed at Saiyu's far too long last night. We went to school a little early today just to hang out. We had a new class for Language again, and a new sensai, Onuma, a woman who looks twenty but claims she's 41 (we still don't believe her). She taught the class without speaking English, instead using pictures references when needed. It felt like a much better process for learning Japanese because of the way it worked our brains. Many of us remarked after class how we preferred this method of teaching.

Our culture class today was a sort of arts and crafts class where a local traditional lamp maker came in and showed us how to make lamps. We each made our own lamp, which will be sent home after they dry (it takes about 10 days for them to dry). The lamps are made from the bark of local trees that is soaked and made into a sort of paper mache-like paste that is applied over a balloon. I assume once the bark dries the balloon is popped and pulled out and then a lamp is placed inside. Between Onuma's style of teaching and the lamp making, we felt like we were back in kindergarten.

Making Traditional Lamps
From front to back on the left: Andrew, Toniya, Nate
Front to back on the right: Austin, Tyler, Seth-chan

After arts and crafts we had conversation partners. Today I worked with Alex, Andrew, Mariko, and our partner was Yuki. It was the usual today, but we invited several of the language partners to dinner with us. We ended up taking the entire study abroad group and about 6 Japanese students to a buffet at the mall. After dinner we wandered around the mall for a while before going back home in their cars. I don't think I'll be getting used to driving on the opposite side of the road anytime soon.

Once home I went back to my room and studied until Alex, Mariko, Yuki, and Austin came over to watch You Got Served (apparently its Yuki's favorite movie). Later Andrew and Nate stopped by and then Megumu brought a friend over. After the movie we hung out for a while before the American students headed to bed for our early wake-up for tomorrow's field trip. I'm going to have to finish this entry before the night is over because its late and the Japanese girls are still here. I'm honestly too tired right now to even properly close this out, so oyasumi (good night).