Election Day

While I was working hard on making flash cards of different grammatical points (and getting distracted by various things), Japanese citizens went out to vote yesterday. It was a gray day with rains all day. I thought about how me the student and Japanese the voters were working hard on their own task. I expected a certain disappointing result, and the weather reflected the result.

wine jello

I enjoyed my first (red) wine jello with my homestay mother a few minutes ago. It was delightfully delicious, gently shook in the bowl and the spoon, and remained cool in my mouth and down my throat. If I can consume alcohol in the form of jello, I think I might have liked alcohol already.

Hot Spring to celebrate Fourth of July

What can be more patriotic than eating Japanese-style foods and entering into the hot spring? After 3 hours of bus ride, we arrived at a hot spring hotel. We first had the full-course Japanese meal, which included shabu shabu hot pot, soup, fried fish, steamed egg, rice, and other dishes.

Everyone was embarrassed about being all naked in front of others, and used the towel to cover their bodies. I followed the crowd in this case. I also followed the crowd (walked into the hot bathtub without covering my naked body). It rained while we were sitting in the outdoor hot spring. It rained fairly hard at one point, but the three of us (from a group of 7 women) enjoyed the drops of rain that flew down our bodies. I could not distinguish my sweat drops from the raindrops.

Lost children?

An elementary school boy (4th to 6th grade) had huge pearl-like tears flowing down his cheeks inside the train today. It looked like he got on the train the same time as I, and was sobbing non-stopped for a while. Everyone around him stared at him, but did not know what to do. Finally a middle-aged woman asked him what was wrong, etc. He stopped sobbing at times, but would start again. My listening skill did not enable me to understand what he said, and thus the cause of his emotion remained unknown. I hope that he made it back home safely.

Right after I got off the train, I saw a pre-kindergarten boy standing on the platform by himself. With his loud and clear voice, he asked, "Mom, where are you?" I heard a response, and located the mother after the second time. I pointed out to him, but he did not hear/see me until after I told him the second time. It might have been that he also heard his mother that time, as his mother walked toward us.