Onuma

Just got back from Onuma, which was a lot of fun. First there was the Onuma Park, which unfortunately the group of people that I was with was not able to explore, since our lunch took so long to get.
But afterwards at the hotel we had a lot of fun. There was karaoke, sport slide, and onsen. Although it was quite embarrassing in the beginning, the hot water made it worthwhile. Definitely thinking of going to one again.

Update

On Wednesday, I went to kudou lesson, Japanese archery. It was a lot of fun, but at the same time very hard since it required the use of muscles that I don’t normally use. I would love to go more practices, if the practice place wasn’t so very far away. Today, family celebrated father’s birthday, which I found compared to US a very small occasion. I got the family some nice sweets.
I also tried out sumie painting with the person Ill be interviewing in the future. It was quite hard, but hopefully the next meeting will be better.

Update

I just got my cell phone, which is not very expensive.
The weekends were great. My host dad took me to see mountains and an Onuma park.
After that grandmother came, and I helped mother make some Japanese food. I tried the nato, but didnt really taste a lot. As far as the other dishes went, they were quite delicious.
I definetely got lucky with the host family, since they are all quite open and preparing meal with them was fun.

Host Family

Yesterday I met my host family. There were nice people and very talkative. The only problem was the information sheet, which stated that I was supposed to have a sister (6 years old) but ended up with a sister (1) and a brother (6).
Their house is slightly far away though.
As far as classes go, I got into the level I was supposed to, but there is a lot of unfamiliar kanjim which is making my life hard. Plus, added to that there are people who already took two years of Japanese in our class.

Climbed the mountain/Soba

Today, climbed the Hakodate Mountain. It was too foggy to see the main view. However, walking in the clouds was surreal and interesting.
Also tried some soba noodles, but didn't like them very much.

First Day/ Placement Tests

Today we arrived at Hakodate, which is pretty chilly. The funniest was arriving to the airport and seeing all the Russian, which made me realize that out of 3 labguages (Eng., Jap., Rus.) in the airport, I could freely read only two and the second was not Japanese.
The Hakodate International Foundation, furthermore, shares a building with the Russian university, whose cafeteria smells exactly like that in my Moscow school and kindergarden, which is also bizarre.
The weather here is chillier than in Tokyo.
And I guess the good news are that the placement is over, which is great.

Shiodome and Roppongi

Today my feet are tired yet again. I was able to visit Shiodome and Roppongi areas.
In the Shiodome area, there was a pretty interesting garden (Hama detached palace garden), sitting on water. The rest of the areas were pretty straight forward: big skyscrapers, etc.

The garden, by the way, smelled fishy (much more than Fish market, which actually didn't smell like fish at all. Fishermen cigarette were much more dominating there.) Also the pond water had a large amount of tadpoles, which you can hear here:::