Can't...blog...fast enough.

Ahh, I can't keep up! I'm so busy here that it's becoming difficult to maintain the blogness monster without forgetting what I've even done!

Tuesday:
Our lesson with Urakawa san was spent as a review day. So basically we talked about the Japanese food that we liked. I now have two new foods I've gotta try: mentaiko and unagi seiro mushi, both made famous in Fukuoka.

After lunch, Yano san and Hanaoka san (the director of the Fureai Centre at the Iizuka Hospital - they're in charge of having us to volunteer!) took us to the Toyota factory! I taught them a little bit of French on the drive there. They enjoyed it and hearing Hanaoka san say "Bonjour! Comment ca va?" was great!
The best part about this trip surprisingly didn't go to seeing the manufacturing process of Lexus vehicles (which, from start to finish takes 19 hours per vehicle and they make over 300 cars a DAY!) but to Yano san. They supplied Samantha and I earphones and a microphone to Yano san so that he could translate our tour from Japanese to English. He walked in front of us and kept saying "Can you hear me...? Hmm...can you? Haahahaha". It was golden! Seriously, the man has a contagious laugh and he is rarely seen not laughing. Then when I told him his microphone was karaoke he laughed and said "with an audience of two! hahahaha.........[pause] Mammaaaaaaa, just killled a mannnnnn". We DIED laughing!
We then went to the employee training building and took a shot at using the painting gun, played some hand coordination games and dipped our hands in wax (they do this to keep circulation in their fingers after repetitive motion throughout the day). Yano san kept the wax shape of his hand, lol.

Wednesday March 20th was a vacation day in Japan. It's called Shunbun no hi aka spring equinox! I gladly took the day off to catch up on some serious sleep. Then hit the books. I spent quite a bit of time looking through my Japanese text and making myself cue cards of verbs, nouns and short phrases. Later, Samantha and I decided to try our luck on the streets for dinner. We settled on a vending machine style ramen joint (took a long time to find, of course everything was closed). Despite totally guessing what we'd ordered and not being able to communicate at all with the chef, the meal was great! I enjoyed a spicy soup that you dip the ramen noodles into.


Also, this just in! I've decided to take up running to keep the calorie input/output in order. I've set a goal of 100 runs during my time here in Iizuka. Shouldn't be hard considering the beauty of the scenery around the Onga River! Current run count is at 3. :)



Today's Japanese lesson was INTENSE. We worked through three chapters before I could even think through the first one. Annnnnnd revision is in serious order. All the vocabulary today. After lunch we went for a stroll around Iizuka and I tried meron pan (melon bread - sweet bread in the shape of a melon) with a custard filling. Turns out the reason for all the confectioneries in Iizuka (more confectioneries than people, I swear) was to supply energy (in the form of massive amounts of sugary goodness) to the coal miners that used to work in the mountains here. Now that the coal miners are gone, it's up to me to keep these places in business (apparently).

Japanese words:
tanoshii = fun. My day was fun = Kyou wa tanoshikatta desu!
Atsui desu ne! = it's hot (temperature) eh? and it's opposite: Samui desu ne!