Stuff!

Captain's log,

Yesterday, we went to Kobe. Apparently my family is much larger than I thought. We went to visit my host brother's brother (other host brother?)'s family in Kobe. I never caught really any names aside from their daughter, Miku. She is about 5 or 6, and the single most adorable child I have ever encountered in my almost 22 years on this planet. She was kind of afraid of me at first, "who's this strange white devil whose head is on fire?" But she warmed up to me eventually. Her older brother was pretty awesome, but her oldest brother was kind of a jerk (though I think he's reached that age where it's cool to hate everyone). It was an interesting family gathering, we went out to a grape orchard and picked and ate a ton of grapes, which apparently is a popular past time, because there were a lot of people there. While Okaasan, and Other-Oniisan and his wife went shopping, Oniisan took the kids and me to McDonalds. McDonalds is similar and different here. Namely, they have this thing called the Ebi Burger, which is basically a shrimp burger. That thing is freaking amazing. 'nuff said.

We eventually get back to the apartment and try to kill time before dinner. Miku, Oniisan, and I started playing Mario Kart on their DSs and got pretty cutthroat. And by pretty I mean we were out for each other's blood (as usual with mario kart). Every time Miku won she got super excited, which was :3. I really wish she was actually related to me.

We eventually got bored and I ended up falling asleep on the couch, later to be woken up to kill another hour before dinner. Other-Oniisan and I watched best of Ichiro (star Japanese player of the Seattle Mariners) and drank. He gave me a beer, then some cocktails, gave me a bottle of liquor, and was disappointed when I was able to out drink him. Finally dinner came around and basically what it was was we put this frying pan in the middle of the table and cooked peppers, mushrooms, eggplant, this weird jelly stuff that's apparently made from potatoes, onions, pork, and KOBE FREAKING BEEF. And yes, it is just as good as it is made out to be. Japanese hospitality is amazing. Afterwards, despite being tired out, we cleaned up, hung around for a bit longer, and then left. On the way out, Other-Oniisan gave me his card and told me if I ever need anything, give him a call, so hooray connections!

On the way home, we stopped at the mega-suspension bridge again, and I tried to take some pictures, but none of them really did it justice. Tis a shame.

And as for today, classes started. I only had two, Japanese and Japanese Culture. Japanese Culture is taught in Japanese, and I fear I may be in over my head, but I'm going to tough it out and see how it goes. So far, not bad, we just watched a movie and the teacher speaks slowly, so I think I should be fine.

Tomorrow, I only have one class, and that's Japanese. So it should be pretty lax.

Overall, a great weekend.