EBay is Good, But Sadou is Expensive

Spent part of today looking up the cost of sadou equipment (in the interest of possibly buying some of my own when I get back to the states). It looks like it'll take 3-6 hundred dollars depending on luck. The bulk of that is the kama (kettle for boiling water) and the furo on which it rests to be heated up. :P Gar. About what I expected, but... gar.

Day before yesterday, I had shodou class. We're quickly moving through strokes for kanji. I think the teacher plans to start on hiragana soon. I have heard from various co-students that hiragana and katakana are harder than kanji. That doesn't surprise me, but since shodou is harder than it looks, I think it'll prove to be interesting.

Yesterday I had Japanese Language class. The teacher is rapidly throwing more and more kanji at us. I care more about how my kanji look than the other exchange students, so I write slower, which is making class interesting. It also means that the time I spend outside of class on kanji is longer, as well. I need to find more stuff I can do outside of class while simultaneously working on kanji. Traditionally, I've done some video watching, but since the school library's DVD players are really in need of a lens cleaning and my laptop is set up for USA encoding... dunno. *sigh* I'll figure something out.

Yesterday was also sadoubu. Normally sadoubu runs until about 8 PM (including general club stuff after Ikajima-sensei has left), but since today was the entrance exams for potential new students to the school, the school building became off-limits at 6PM yesterday. Sadoubu started at 3 instead of 4, but only me, two other students, and Ikajima-sensei showed that early. On the plus side, I got to learn to do a new sadou setup, using a shelf. It's called Tana no Ousu. Tana = shelf; I dunno about ousu. There was also a new sweet.

Taste-O-Meter!

Nagoya no Uiro: 4
It was okay, but I've been spoiled by youkan and mochi, which are much better. It was yellowish in color, with a texture similar to mochi, though it came apart from itself much more easily.

In other news, my friend Nekram is trying to get into the JET Programme this summer. His only roadblock is that although he'll have met all the graduation requirements by that time, he won't have made them in time for graduation. He's trying to see if they'll take a letter from the school saying he's golden in lieu of their requirement of a degree. If it works, then he'll be in Japan before I leave. It'd be awesome to meet up with him in Japan, in addition to Conrad and his group. :D

Mormons

OK, so like a week after I got here some mormon missionaries showed up at my door looking for someone else. They were guys, and one of 'em was an American who's been in Japan for almost a year now. They were interesting to talk to, but the mormon missionaries have a rule agains two guy missionaries entering a house containing a lone female, so they sent some female missionaries my way.

I like the guy missionaries better, so I decided to see how many times I could set up appointments with these girl missionaries and miss them on purpose before they stopped trying. Today was the second time, but they waited for over an hour out in the cold for my return. They're determined! Agh! Now I am trying to think of good ways to offend them without seemingly trying. Any ideas?

Realizations of the Period

1) I'm perfectly fine subsisting on somen with tuna for now. Until I get more money, this allows me to save a lot on food.
2) Shipping is expensive. By expensive, I mean really friggin' expensive.