What a busy week it has been! Let's see the last time I updated was when Gelsey and I went to Sakae. Well the weekend after I didn't do much, saving the money. BUT! Something almost cool/terrifying is that a Typhoon passed over Japan! So, Yeah, no school on Thursday (もくようび　or mokuyoubi [the 'u' draws out the o sound in 'you']).

So now we're going to have this week's JAPANESE blurb. We're going to learn the DAYS OF THE WEEK!

Monday: げつようび　（月曜日）：the hiragana (getsuyoubi) is pronounced Ghe-tsu-yoo-bi. And the Kanji for this day is 'moon', 'day of week' and 'sun/day'.So you can this of Monday as 'the day of the moon'.

Tuesday: かようび　（火曜日）： the hiragana (kayoubi) is pronounced kah-yoo-bi. And the Kanji for this is 'fire'.

Wednesday: すいようび　（水曜日）：the hiragana (suiyoubi) is pronounced: sue-yoo-bi. And the Kanji for this is water.

Thursday: もくようび　（木曜日）：the hiragana (mokuyoubi) is pronounced: moe-ku-yoo-bi. And the Kanji for this is tree.

Friday:きんようび　（金曜日）: the hiragana (kinyoubi) is pronounced: keen-yoo-bi. And the Kanji for this is Gold. (That's right Friday is the golden day!)

Saturday: どようび　（土曜日）: the hiragana (doyoubi) is pronounced: doe-yoo-bi. And the Kanji for this is soil/ground.

Sunday: にちようび　（日曜日）: the hiragana (nichiyoubi) is pronounced: ni-chi-yoo-bi. And the Kanji for this is Sun. (sun day is still the day of Sun in Japanese.)

And that is your Japanese lesson for the week!

Now for the travels; this weekend was busy. I had Kabuki on Friday, Cultural exchange on Saturday and a class excursion on Sunday.

Kabuki was an interesting experience, and because this is a live performance, you aren't allowed to take pictures, however we were allowed to take pictures in the intermissions and before they started the performance, so I have a lovely shot of the curtain they had. And Hoshiko (aka Michael) took a quick snap shot of me sorry. I wish I knew an accurate way to describe Kabuki to you,but the kanji characters for Kabuki (歌舞伎) say a lot about the kind of performance it's going to be the first character is the character for song, the second character is dance and the third is art. They way the actors in a kabuki place talk can be thought of singing, simply because they over exacerbate everything they want to say. They use rising and falling intonation a lot making it sing-songy. Their motions are also very big, much like in normal theater, and to master the kabuki aspects it then becomes a very complicated art form.

The only problem I had was I was sitting in the BACK row of the SECOND floor, so I saw the figures but it was hard to see the details in costumes and makeup. I think if I ever went back to a Kabuki play I would definitely have to buy an expensive seat so I could REALLY get the full effect. However for a non native speaker it got REALLY boring at times, because some of the scenes got really drawn out to the point even the natives were falling asleep. But overall was a very enjoyable experience.

The cultural exchange party on Saturday was fun; we got to talk to men and women from the Nisshin area of which some of them were host families. This one lady gave me some calligraphy, the kanji characters for Lake and swan! I'm going to hang it up eventually so my room will continue to add up to being the colorful place it's supposed to be. I met a high schooler named Allison, she's actually Korean but she's lived in Japan for a good chunk so she speaks Japanese, and she also lived in America in North Carolina for a couple years so her English is also perfect. I'm hoping that I can continue to talk to her. She seemed like such a sweet young girl.

Then was the class excursion on Sunday. I had to go to Kakuzan which is like a 20 minute train ride from Hongo station (near where I live). We got to go into a Buddhist temple which actually houses some of the ashes from the real Buddha himself. The temple's name in English translates to be the Taiwanese-Japanese temple because it stands as a symbol of the good relations between Japan and Taiwan. It was beautiful and I think I might go back one day. Then we walked to Yokusoba villa which was the property of the man who first brought department stores to Japan. It was a very fine house and I will explain some of the details in the pictures.

We got to meet more Japanese people and also meet others from other nations, such as Hungary, China, Australia, Indonesia; I think one of the Middle Eastern countries… etc. It was pretty cool.

I had a slight throw back this weekend and attempted to cook fried okra for myself, it KIND OF worked... It didn't taste like mom made it, but that probably has to do with the lack of spices and corn meal. Oh well, for my first time I thought I did really good!

I'd also like to say that I want to murder all of the stairs in Japan; I have fallen TWICE within a MONTH on the SAME leg. So I think I might start taking the elevator more often…

But yeah, hopefully you all have been having a good week. Much love to everyone always.

Carolyn (ｷｬﾛﾘﾝ)