What a random day....

First day back after our Naka Yasumi fun! 

To be honest...was not looking forward to starting a new semester. Intimidating stuff. 

Oh well...at least I had breakfast to look forward to!

At school we got our new textbook. It makes me sad just looking at it. But actually. It's filled with Kanji. Kanji I can't read. Or write. Or understand the meaning. Or even understand the word that it represents in hiragana. Basically, it's my struggle fest, wrapped up into a textbook. 

BUT...we have yet to start learning from it for one more day! Meaning one more day of freedom before I become a prisoner to this devil of a textbook!

So...after school, Marina, Emmy, Aidan, and I took the bus to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary art to meet his host family and a couple of Ishikawa University students. 

The elevator is literally just a glass box attached on one side to a glass wall!

 I didn't believe it was an elevator...until it started moving. I couldn't really catch how cool it was on camera. But you get the idea. 

So after meeting at the museum, we realized that it's closed on Mondays. Fail. Oh well! That means spontaneous adventures ahead!

It was a hot day, so Aidan's host mom first drove us to Seika Honpo Matsunaga 松永製菓本舗, an old penny sweets store, well known for it's wagashi and shaved ice. We planned on having their shaved ice, but unfortunately, they don't start selling it until July 10th. But no worries because we got to have a steamed bun with red bean paste inside! 

The ojiisan who runs the shop came out and talked to us about his store. Unfortunately, I couldn't understand most of what he was saying. Oh, my constant problem here. 

 

I did catch that crowds of kids come to his shop after school since the candy and shaved ice is really cheap! He also showed us an article of the shop in a magazine! It's recognized as a sort of historic cultural landmark in Kanazawa. I saw a sticker. Therefore, it is true. 

Look at Aidan's face in the background. I don't even know what it is, but it's great. 

The inside of the store is so cool. No candy stores like this in America!

After our attempt at shaved ice, we jumped in the car once again. Where were we going? I had no idea...but his mom decided to drive us up to the mountain! 

Ok....YOLO?! It was starting to become quite a peculiar day.

 A quick 10 minute drive, and we arrived at Utatsu Yama!

"Now what?" I thought. But oh...his mom had plans. 

"Pick up five types of leaves." 

Wait a minute...did I hear his mom right? Are we going nature hunting now? Is this a joke to play on the gaijin? I was so confused....

But we all went with it! After playing a rock, paper, scissors type game with the leaves (because why not?), we then spread out our leaves to get a good look at the variety.  

 And then she turned all philosophical on us. It was a definite OA moment...but in Japanese. She talked about how all the leaves are so different, but beautiful, and yet in Japan, different is not really accepted. She said that in Japan, blending in and sticking to the status quo (what up, High School Musical?!) is the "good" and "correct" thing to do. However, in America, individuality is prized. For this reason, many Japanese people think that America is such a great country. I'd have to agree. Of course this is a blanket statement, but Japan has a very rule-driven culture. Stepping outside of the lines will gain you many passive-aggressive stares. 

It was a great moment. Random, but made me thankful to grow up in America. 

The views of Kanazawa were also great!  Though the museum would have been cool, I would have never come here, had it been open!

Ai is in the middle. She is a student at Ishikawa Prefectural University...and she's awesome. 

It felt so nice to be outside and away from Rifare! Even though we were close, it felt like we were somewhere completely different! It was a nice little escape.

Oh. I also forgot to mention that a random 15 year old home stay student with broken English and very limited Japanese language abilities from Brazil decided to jump in the car with us from the museum to the candy shop and the mountain? Yeah. They day couldn't have gotten weirder.

Except that it did!

We took another random turn in the day by hitting up a second hand store! We were literally in the car, when she was like, "Have you been to a recycle store yet?" Indeed we had, but it was such a bomb diggity time that we were definitely in for a second round of a second hand store!

Probably the best part of these stores is the amount of ridiculous Engrish shirts! They have the most bizarre, funny saying on them. We spent at least an hour reading them. 

The back of Ai's shirt say "Acroostic Grandma." My has numerous phrases, but one of them is "Competes Naturally: It doesn't give it up even if failing." and Emmy's is quite the winner, with a bold and succinct "PONK."

Fumi, the other Ishikawa University student, is on the very left. 

We all had a great time trying playing dress up. Especially Aidan. 

Then, after our shopping fun, we made a second attempt at shaved ice...only to be met with "Closed" sign. I think the world just didn't want us to have shaved ice that day...

Because we were destined to go to Baskin Robbins! 

Baskin Robbins was just about my favorite place to go as a kid (double scoop Mint Chocolate chip with Rainbow Sherbet anyone? maybe? Yeah...sounds gross. Tells you what kind of a weird kid I was. Oh wait. I'm still weird...hmmm....). 

Japanese Baskin Robbins is so much cooler. They have flavors like Ramune (the marble soda drink), adzuki bean and green tea, Almond Tofu, Melon, and...

...31 World Record, their special flavor of the month! It's Ramune and Kiwi sorbet swirled together to look like the world (green and blue) with pop rocks! I got a scoop of it. It kind of rocket my world. Get it? Pop rocks...World...ok. 

They also sold perfect, and I mean PERFECT, spheres of ice cream in little cupcake liners in packs of 6 to take home. If any country would sell perfectly spherical ice cream, it would be Japan. 

Wow. What a strange day. It was GREAT. I love having spontaneous, random adventures. Especially when they are in Japan with local students, a Brazilian rando, deep conversations about leaves, failed attempts at shaved ice, Engrish t-shirts, and pop rocks! Who knew that a closed museum could have opened so many doors for us....

When I got home, it was dinner time! My host mom is truly great. Not only is she amazingly kind and hip, but she presents me with beautiful and delicious meals everyday! So thankful. 

For dinner, we had:

- miso soup made with vegetables and thin pork slices

-steamed little clams with water spinach and mushrooms

-a Neba neba salad! (Neba neba is the Japanese phrase for sticky, slimey foods like okra, natto, and yamaimo). This salad had both okra and the moroheiya leaf (also known as Mulukhiyah and frequently used in African and Middle Eastern cuisine), making it have a mucilaginous texture, along with carrots and lettuce in a shiso dressing. I love it! My host mom says I have the culinary tastes of a Japanese grandma, since I love all traditional (and not so traditional) Japanese food!
-We also ate the shiso cucumber tsukemono (Shibazuke) that I bought as omiyage in Kyoto (Kyoto is well-known for its tsukemono)! The bright magenta color was so beautiful! and yumms. 

So maybe the week isn't off to such a bad start! Happy Monday!