fun times!

Ha, I finally found fish for sashimi use at the supermarket! I've been wanting to have a simple meal of sake don, as in uncooked salmon on a bed of rice, but for some reason, I haven't been able to find a pack of fish that says for sashimi use. I knew that in Japanese it should say 刺身用 (sashimi yo), but there just seemed to be no such option available anywhere. Everything was labeled as お造り用 (otsukuri yo), like the package in the below picture. But then, in the last supermarket I went to on my search for sashimi-safe fish, I realized that the ready-made sashimi portions next to the unprepared fish all said お造り, and after a brief dictionary search, it became apparent that sashimi in Kansai dialect is otsukuri. So I'm guessing that my inability to understand a lot of the stuff here is not only because I suck at Japanese, but a lot of it might actually be due to the fact that Kansai dialect is not the kind of Japanese that I've been learning before coming here. Another thing I've noticed now is how in stores, restaurants, and such, the staff always thank the customers by saying ooki ni, which is the Kansai equivalent to arigato. No wonder I've been so confused.

So that was probably the most enlightening moment this week. But what have we been up to, really? Well, on Thursday there was finally the Jidai Matsuri, which I wrote about a month ago when we mistakenly went to watch it a month ahead of time... But now it was for real, and our teachers took us all there to watch it, since the parade started at the Imperial Palace which is right next to the university.

Eagerly waiting to go; and Rachel absorbed in her favorite pastime: chucking pens at Dave.

Record-breaking ghosting.

A few hundred meters later Maija finally noticed.

There were so many people, though, that I hardly saw anything except for the flags that they were carrying, and the people that were riding horses. I also had to leave after a short while since I had one more class that day, so I didn't even get to follow the parade. It's quite a long walk that they do, I think it was 2 kilometers, from the palace all the way to the Heian Shrine.

So this is probably the best shot I got of the actual parade.

Yesterday, that was Saturday, my friend wanted to go skating as she had bought a skateboard a short while ago. She's also just a beginner, and I only remember one time before this that I've even stood on a skateboard - and even then I nearly tripped. HOWEVER, for some reason I was really good this time! I got the hang of it pretty quickly, and learned how to turn, even at a standstill, like when you have to lift the front side of the board to change direction... I'm bad at explaining this, probably there is more specific vocabulary for these things. In addition to Japanese, I'm gonna have to start learning skating vocab to gain some street cred. I wonder if I'd be able to do a frontside ollie at the end of the semester? (And oh my god, I was just gonna link the original song, but when I searched for it on YouTube, I got an automatic suggestion to search for 'frontside ollie in japanese', and that's what I found... I don't even.)

Here I come!

...and there I go.

In the evening, there was a friend's birthday party - well, a friend of a friend to me, actually, since I hadn't even met the guy before last night. First we went to have some okonomiyaki with Maija, and since we had some time in our hands before having to get ourselves transported downtown, bought pre-drinks at Fresco and listened to some good music at my place. The drinks were pretty interesting, to say the least. Sparkling sake was exactly as promised - a sparkling wine that tasted like sake. I still don't know if I really like it or not. Just plain sake is very good, once you get used to the taste, but I'm not sure whether or not it does it any good to sweeten and carbonate it... And umeshu was pretty nice, just very, very sweet. I wouldn't be able to drink a whole bottle of it. Kinda reminds me of Passoa or some other fruit liquor that has way too much sugar in it.

Sparkling sake & Umeshu

The party took place at a nice izakaya in Shijo, and we had a reservation in a private room downstairs, with nomihodai - drink as much as you can. A concept that would never, ever work in Finland. I think that there was actually an attempt to introduce a buffet kinda deal for drinks at some nightclub a while ago, but it goes without saying that the proposal got the red light. Nevertheless, in Japan, you get this offer everywhere, and the price of last night's nomihodai was 1200 yen for two hours, which is less than 10 euros.

Tried hot sake for the first time - and, quite surprisingly, liked it better than cold!

Pouring a beer for Jesus.

So that was a fun night, albeit detrimental... Nearly made it to karaoke afterwards, but as it was quite expensive, and I was about to die, anyway, we ended up going home quite early. Still had to take a taxi, though, since the last trains go before midnight. But fortunately it wasn't even expensive, only 700 yen! And there was three of us, so that made it like 230 yen per person. The train would've been only 20 yen cheaper (~10 cents), and a lot more troublesome. So there is something here that is cheap, after all! Anyways, had great time, thanks to everybody and congrats to Maiki, who's birthday it was. Next weekend: Halloween party and a chance to wear the Pikachu onesie! Yay! And tomorrow: Monday, lessons from 9 to 5, and a vocabulary quiz. Ugh.