The weather's still all sunny and summery (after a couple of days of rain and intolerable humidity), and I just had to take a longer route along the riverside as I walked to the supermarket after school. The Kamogawa is such a neat river - I've posted a couple of pictures of it earlier, but I don't think that you can really see much of what makes it so great in them. It's really shallow, like ankle-deep at some spots, and the water is so clear. Really just makes you want to jump in on a hot, sunny day like this. And people do that, although, for some reason, it's always fathers with their sons that are walking in the river.
But although weatherwise it feels like the middle of the summer to me, apparently for Japanese standards it's getting cold. I'm starting to hear a lot more samui ne~ comments compared to the atsui ne's that people kept repeating a couple of weeks ago. I'm still sweating like a pig whenever I'm walking in direct sunlight, so no, not very samui to me! Admittedly, though, the leaves are also starting to turn red, and with the school having started and all I guess it's officially fall now.
So, about school. The first few classes I've had have been very easy. Well, except for one seminar which is actually for higher levels but we were allowed to take it if we felt a strong urge to do so. I'm pretty sure these were the words that they used in the course registration papers. Anyway, I had the aforementioned urge, and so I registered on the course, and it was on the schedule on my very first day. Before the class, I had just had two Japanese language classes, the really easy ones where we are for now just revising the basics before moving on to the serious stuff (I'm really hoping that'll happen... preferably in the near future!), and for the first few minutes in the more advanced class I had to put all my brain capacity into focusing on the teacher's speech. She instantly started to go through this multiple choice exercise, explaining the meanings of the different options so that we could understand why the correct answer is correct. But, as I said, it only took me a few minutes to get the hang of it, and from that point onwards, it was such an exhilarating experience to learn a foreign language in the said language. It's almost like... language acquisition. (Which, of course, is a vague term and is used a lot as a synonym for language learning, but here I'm talking about the distinction some researchers make between learning a language in a classroom situation as opposed to acquiring it from the environment.) But yeah, at the end it wasn't too hard, either, since she drew a lot of pictures and listed a bunch of synonyms whenever there was a concept people seemed unable to grasp.
Oh, and as if I wasn't enjoying this enough as it is, I got a surprise scholarship! I vaguely remember filling out an application as it was posted to me along with a bunch of other papers, so naturally I just filled out everything to the best of my ability, not even really knowing whether or not I was eligible for this scholarship. To who and on what basis it would be granted I never even bothered to look up, and until today I have no idea as to why I'm among the few people that received it. It's a lot of money, too, more than I'm receiving from the government in Finland. I just got an email a few days ago, saying that I should open an account at a Japanese bank for the payments. So I went to Shinsei Bank yesterday, and as I just had survived Japanese language seminar B, I thought I'd be able to make myself understood at the bank... Well, in the end, I think I did, at least I walked out with a debit card and a statement holder, but, boy, was it a struggle! Anyhow, now I've got no financial worries whatsoever. This is just too good to be true.
And as a cherry on top of this content-heavy post about my current state of happiness, a few words about Japanese sweets, one of which I enjoyed while typing this (see picture below). I'm in a constant state of wonder as to how foods that really don't make you think of sweets, such as beans, rice, tea, potatoes, and sesame seeds, are used here as ingredients for the best tasting sweets I've ever had. For example, we have the mochi, which are sweets made out of starchy rice so that the consistency is very gummy and kind of sticky. They come in dozens of different flavors. I've tried the basic ones with red bean paste (more about red beans later), and then ones flavored with fried potatoes and black sesame seeds. Oh, and the mochi can even be made out of potatoes entirely - this version was also delicious.
The aforementioned red beans are used in sweet stuff as jellied versions. I've seen them in bubble teas, ice creams, mochi, and in almost all kinds of traditional Japanese sweets, where they are usually in the form of a sticky paste. Anyway, the best bit about Japanese sweet stuff is that much of it is really not that sweet! So you're spared from the sugar rush and all the other unpleasant side-effects when you end up consuming too much candy. Because, with the overly sweet stuff, that's how it always goes - it's so addictive because it doesn't really fill your stomach and it's so full of sugar that you just want to keep eating. But the sweets here are actually filling as they're made out of food stuff, and not too sweet, so you usually just eat the right amount.
And just a quick clarification: They do have plenty of "normal" candy here as well, but as it's on the other side of the spectrum and tastes like soap and other things you're not even supposed to insert into your body, I've steered clear of it.
Now, though, I have to apologize for the huge amount of text which you probably won't be reading, and end this for today. I'm even too lazy to read it through myself before clicking on "Publish", since I have to focus on my homework now. YAY! (Without the least bit of irony in that exclamation!)
But although weatherwise it feels like the middle of the summer to me, apparently for Japanese standards it's getting cold. I'm starting to hear a lot more samui ne~ comments compared to the atsui ne's that people kept repeating a couple of weeks ago. I'm still sweating like a pig whenever I'm walking in direct sunlight, so no, not very samui to me! Admittedly, though, the leaves are also starting to turn red, and with the school having started and all I guess it's officially fall now.
So, about school. The first few classes I've had have been very easy. Well, except for one seminar which is actually for higher levels but we were allowed to take it if we felt a strong urge to do so. I'm pretty sure these were the words that they used in the course registration papers. Anyway, I had the aforementioned urge, and so I registered on the course, and it was on the schedule on my very first day. Before the class, I had just had two Japanese language classes, the really easy ones where we are for now just revising the basics before moving on to the serious stuff (I'm really hoping that'll happen... preferably in the near future!), and for the first few minutes in the more advanced class I had to put all my brain capacity into focusing on the teacher's speech. She instantly started to go through this multiple choice exercise, explaining the meanings of the different options so that we could understand why the correct answer is correct. But, as I said, it only took me a few minutes to get the hang of it, and from that point onwards, it was such an exhilarating experience to learn a foreign language in the said language. It's almost like... language acquisition. (Which, of course, is a vague term and is used a lot as a synonym for language learning, but here I'm talking about the distinction some researchers make between learning a language in a classroom situation as opposed to acquiring it from the environment.) But yeah, at the end it wasn't too hard, either, since she drew a lot of pictures and listed a bunch of synonyms whenever there was a concept people seemed unable to grasp.
Oh, and as if I wasn't enjoying this enough as it is, I got a surprise scholarship! I vaguely remember filling out an application as it was posted to me along with a bunch of other papers, so naturally I just filled out everything to the best of my ability, not even really knowing whether or not I was eligible for this scholarship. To who and on what basis it would be granted I never even bothered to look up, and until today I have no idea as to why I'm among the few people that received it. It's a lot of money, too, more than I'm receiving from the government in Finland. I just got an email a few days ago, saying that I should open an account at a Japanese bank for the payments. So I went to Shinsei Bank yesterday, and as I just had survived Japanese language seminar B, I thought I'd be able to make myself understood at the bank... Well, in the end, I think I did, at least I walked out with a debit card and a statement holder, but, boy, was it a struggle! Anyhow, now I've got no financial worries whatsoever. This is just too good to be true.
And as a cherry on top of this content-heavy post about my current state of happiness, a few words about Japanese sweets, one of which I enjoyed while typing this (see picture below). I'm in a constant state of wonder as to how foods that really don't make you think of sweets, such as beans, rice, tea, potatoes, and sesame seeds, are used here as ingredients for the best tasting sweets I've ever had. For example, we have the mochi, which are sweets made out of starchy rice so that the consistency is very gummy and kind of sticky. They come in dozens of different flavors. I've tried the basic ones with red bean paste (more about red beans later), and then ones flavored with fried potatoes and black sesame seeds. Oh, and the mochi can even be made out of potatoes entirely - this version was also delicious.
The aforementioned red beans are used in sweet stuff as jellied versions. I've seen them in bubble teas, ice creams, mochi, and in almost all kinds of traditional Japanese sweets, where they are usually in the form of a sticky paste. Anyway, the best bit about Japanese sweet stuff is that much of it is really not that sweet! So you're spared from the sugar rush and all the other unpleasant side-effects when you end up consuming too much candy. Because, with the overly sweet stuff, that's how it always goes - it's so addictive because it doesn't really fill your stomach and it's so full of sugar that you just want to keep eating. But the sweets here are actually filling as they're made out of food stuff, and not too sweet, so you usually just eat the right amount.
This is an ice-cream version of a traditional sweet called monaka, and the little dark bit peeking out is, surprise surprise, red bean! |
Perfect examples: On the left, black sesame seed flavored ice cream with red beans; on the right, matcha-flavored ice cream with rice balls. |
And just a quick clarification: They do have plenty of "normal" candy here as well, but as it's on the other side of the spectrum and tastes like soap and other things you're not even supposed to insert into your body, I've steered clear of it.
Now, though, I have to apologize for the huge amount of text which you probably won't be reading, and end this for today. I'm even too lazy to read it through myself before clicking on "Publish", since I have to focus on my homework now. YAY! (Without the least bit of irony in that exclamation!)
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