Foreigner on Display!

Alright, so Wednesday we went to a high school in Osaka to visit with the kids and such. It was totally insane but kind of fun. It took us forever to get there - and both of the cute boys i sort of know from school were there, woot. They divided us into groups of three, and sent each group into a class, where we were each assigned like ten high schoolers. Now imagine, if you will, having ten insane japanese highschool kids asking you questions. In japanese. It was odd, but they were really funny/sweet kids. The worst part about the questions was that i would understand everything except for the crucial verb. "yes, ok, after i came to japan what was the first....what? thing i ate? thing i thought?" So it was embarrassing. After conferring with everyone though, i think my kids were best. Alex`s asked him if his eye color was real, and Scott had 15 yr old girls telling him that they loved him, and Julie`s were loud and crazy. Everyone got asked if they had a boyfriend/girlfriend. Other than that, they asked me a lot of things about Japan, what food i liked, what music i liked, etc. They made a lot of noise when i said i liked Kishidan. I hope that isnt some social faux pas.. like coming to Canada and saying i love the Backstreet Boys or something? The teacher asked how i studied japanese, and i said i used flashcards - in english, because i dont know the word in japanese. Then he started explaining to his kids how i wrote postcards to my friends in japanese for the practice. I didnt have the heart to correct the poor guy. After questions we made origami, which was so adorable. Theyre showing me how to make a crane, which i sort of know how to do, so theyre all marvelling at how quick i am at picking it up. Then his crazy boy and i start trying to make a fish - which i eventually did. He drew a crazy face on it for me. Its so cute. At the end of the day they gave me a poster, and on it, later i saw crazy boy`s fish - although it was totally deranged. He even wrote "fish" on it so i would know. All in all, totally great. After that there was some clubs performing for us. Taiko, and such. Then we took pictures with the club kids. Oh! and we played the Taiko too, which was SO cool!! After the picture, the main taiko girl kept saying "kirei! beauuuutiful!!" to me. Which was a nice compliment, but strange after the third or so time. She put her hands out to me, but i wasnt really sure what she wanted. A hug? a handshake? I took her hands, anyway, and she lit up. it was sweet. The whole thing was lots of fun、but seriously exhausting. I was beat at the end of the day, and we still had to train home for an hour holding these posters. But fun. This is the poster they gave me.

Close up on the weird fish that funny boy made and glued to the poster. Note how he wrote "fish" on it so i would know. I love that kid!

This is my fish. It kicks ass. Except the tail is a little gimped. I folded it and was all proud, and crazy kid drew a face on it, and scales, and then decided it was too scary, and gave it the litte cheek swirl thing to make it cute.