The holiday season is over, which is always a little sad, but I'm happy and excited for what 2015 has in store for me! If it's half as good as 2014 was, I think I can consider myself a very lucky girl! ^^
I spent Christmas evening pretty low key, which is not at all usual for me, so it was a little odd. We exchanged secret santa gifts in the dorm though and that was really fun! I'm glad I was able to make someone happy!
I have to admit I felt a little sad I couldn't be in Belgium to celebrate with my own family that night and even though me and some friends helped each other through everyone's own longing for home, I went to bed feeling kind of bleh.
But the main celebration of Christmas came on Christmas day and I
have to say, that easily made up for the previous night! We got up and
started away in the first floor's big kitchen, preparing a feastly
Christmas brunch! I was in charge of pancakes (obviously haha) but there
was all sorts of food! We ate until we felt sick and then some!
After that we pretty much spent the entire day watching Christmas
movies in the common room. In pajamas of course! My wonderful Belgian buddy Marianne made a
true Belgian style Christmas dinner that evening (and I helped^^) for
about ten people in the dorm. It was really really lovely! I received
some more random gifts from friends, which I didn't expect but was super
thankful for! After dinner, more Christmas movies and an awesome Skype
call home to the family and that was about it for Christmas. ^^
After that wonderful holiday, I left almost at once for Okinawa, but more on that in a next post!! <3
A few weeks back, I went to Kobe for the very first time. I'm lucky enough to know a guy from Kobe who wanted to take us to see the famous Kobe Winter Illuminations. Every year they create these huge light up decorations and put them up in the city. It consists of one boulevard, leading up to a square where they have an even bigger illumination set up. It was the last day you could go see the illumination so the streets were packed and it was a really cold and windy day but it was totally worth it!
I just had a wonderful weekend and I thought I'd write about it. ^^
On Friday I traveled to Takatsuki-shi, where I had my first workday as a
host at an English Café. It’s quite a far trip (around 50min by train/monorail)
and the pay isn’t that great, but I figure it’s a good experience for me.
My job is to sit at the café and talk with the Japanese people that come
in for a drink, that’s pretty much it. It sounds really easy but I can assure
you it’s not. People who know me know that I can be quite shy and awkward
around people I don’t know very well and even though I feel like I’ve improved
considerably since coming to Japan, I’m still no conversational master.
Just picture this:
I’m sitting at a coffee table with about six Japanese people: two middle-aged
women, a young man who’s just become a dad, two really old men and an extremely
shy young guy. All of them have different backgrounds and interests and all of
them differ in English speaking level. Everyone is constantly focused on me because I'm supposed to lead the conversation,
making sure there’s no awkward pauses, making sure everyone gets to talk about
the same amount so no one feels left out,… and this for two hours straight!
Also, I’m not allowed to ask them personal questions so sometimes it’s
difficult to know what’s okay for me to talk about and what’s not. And I have
to make sure to remember everyone I talk to by name and face, so that if they
should return, I can thank them for coming again and pick up where we left off
last time.
It’s really tricky!!
I had some trouble at times this Friday but my boss told me I did good for
my first time. I think I’ll try to prepare more things to talk about for next
time (and hope I can remember everyone I talked to ><”)!
Even though it’s hard, I want to keep doing this job for at least a little
while longer because I feel like it’ll teach me some really useful skills, it’ll
look good on a resume and the whole thing makes me feel more independent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Saturday I had a great day trip with some friends. We visited the
Ramen Museum which, at frist glance, doesn’t sound all that exciting but
listen, listen okay!
Aside from learning about how ramen came to exist, you can
actually create you own cup of noodles! I’m not joking!
Look at all those happy faces!!
It was so fun! You get to draw your own cup the way you like it, then pick
out your choice of soup and ingredients and you can see the way they make it
all right in front of your eyes. I highly recommend this place for a trip with
friends. We all had a blast making our own ramen! And it only costs 300yen, that's ridiculously cheap!!
can you see the resemblance?
Afterwards what did we eat? Why ramen of course!!
After the Ramen Museum, we took the train to Minoh (箕面), which is famous because of its beautiful nature, its wild monkeys and its large waterfall. It was
already turning dark by the time we got there (it turns dark extremely
early in Japan.. I’d say it starts around 5pm).
Before getting to the mountain path, you walk through a little village and all along the road are small shops that sell various tourist goodies (I may have bought a lot of monkey related things). But the most remarkable thing they sell are deep fried leaves. Yes, deep fried leaves!
I've said before that the Japanese take their autumn leaves very seriously. They're so loved that they're made into little tempura snacks! They were pretty delicious. Not that the actual leaf has any taste but I mean, deep fried batter always tastes great doesn't it?
I bought myself a whole bag of these to eat at the dorm because, you know, gotta represent autumn whilst we still can!
The monkeys were probably already asleep
when we got there and by the time we finished the hike to the waterfall it was so dark that we could only know it by the clattering of the water against the rocks. It was still fun though
because we were about the only people in this otherwise crowded tourist
attraction.
This is the best picture I managed to take of the waterfall!
We were so cold after visiting the waterfall that there was only one thing
we could do:
Onsen!
Onsen(温泉), for those who might not know, is a traditional Japanese bathhouse. It’s
just sort of like a nude spa I suppose. I’ve been wanting to go to one ever
since I got here but every time people went my schedule prevented me from going
so as you can guess I was really excited to go!
It was so relaxing! They had one bath area where the water was mixed with
red wine and it felt so fancy, I loved it! Another thing I found really cool
was that, after getting out, there was this area where you could sit and do
your hair or apply your make up and they had so many beauty products that were
free to use! Cleansing water, moisturizing creams, BB creams,… loved it!
Finally we sat and ate way too much food!
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN FRIES THIS BIG??
I ate until I felt sick. It was awesome!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Finally, on Sunday (today), I went into the city with a bunch of friends. We went to
karaoke, went to play some pool, won some prizes at the arcade, went to see the movie Interstellar in the
theatre and had some kaiten zushi. It was, as the title says: wonderful!
I’m realizing how much I’m going to miss some of these people when I have to
go back to Belgium! I love my friends too much!!
It's finally starting to get colder in Japan now. I'm
guessing it's still not as chilly as it is in Belgium but I've worn my new winter coat
a handful of times now, so that must mean something! Winter is on its surely way and the once so richly colored
trees are shedding their leaves. It makes me sad to see the pretty scenery go but on the other hand I'm excited for Christmas! Can't wait to redecorate my room for Santa-celebration-day!
Now, I don’t know whether we have this in
Belgium. I think we have similar things but I’ve never seen them the way they’re
sold here and they are definitely a lot more common here (and by that I mean
they’re everywhere).
These are heat packs you can stick to your body during
winter and they’ll keep you warm all day. My Japanese friend leant one to me to use one day and I've been loving them eversince!
They have an adhesive side and they’re
specifically designed to stick to your skin, underneath your clothes (usually your back, your belly, or
for women with menstrual pain, your pelvic area). I can imagine they work great
against muscle pain as well. They really stay hot all day and they’re not
expensive at all.
Now
for something really random: I've been getting into rugby lately. Not playing
rugby myself (I don't want to die), but our school's team is pretty good and I
know a guy on the team. So I've been seeing their games and it's such a fun
sport to watch! I'm sad to say the season will end in a few weeks, but
hopefully by then I can say that the Kandai team managed to move up into the A-list
again!
The last thing I want to mention is
that I've been going to the gym lately (yes I'm one of those people now). A
good few people from the dorm go to the gym often and since I have naginata
class in the same building on Tuesdays, I figured why not stay a little longer
and do something that's good for me?
The guys I'm going with are the real
deal though! These are people that squat more than their own body weight and
one of the guys is the dude on the rugby team so that should say enough! My whole body aches as I'm typing this!
But no worries, they're going easy on me for now, they're nice teachers! ^^
But the main celebration of Christmas came on Christmas day and I
have to say, that easily made up for the previous night! We got up and
started away in the first floor's big kitchen, preparing a feastly
Christmas brunch! I was in charge of pancakes (obviously haha) but there
was all sorts of food! We ate until we felt sick and then some! 
After that we pretty much spent the entire day watching Christmas
movies in the common room. In pajamas of course! My wonderful Belgian buddy Marianne made a
true Belgian style Christmas dinner that evening (and I helped^^) for
about ten people in the dorm. It was really really lovely! I received
some more random gifts from friends, which I didn't expect but was super
thankful for! After dinner, more Christmas movies and an awesome Skype
call home to the family and that was about it for Christmas. ^^ 
