Over the Puddle

We all had a meeting to go to on Saturday that we were told was mandatory, and we all knew it. Some head guy from a California University was to be coming to Nagasaki to talk about `Globalization`, a speech you could have heard anywhere in the US. However, I had heard sometime ago that a Jpop band, EE Jump, was going to be coming to Nagasaki sometime soon, and when we further learned that it was going to be the same day as the meeting, the outcome was only too predictable ;p We asked one of the teachers and contact people of the JASIN program his opinion about our imminent skipping of the meeting. When we mentioned that there was going to be a concert the next day, and then suggested that we may oversleep, or maybe get stuck in traffic, the knowing grin was all we needed to see.

So, Matt, 5, and I met up at Nagasaki Station/Amu Plaza at noon, before the concert. Unfortunately, by the time we all met up, and headed out to the concert, which was in the rather large open area between the plaza and station, the good places were all taken, both on the ground, and on the balcony on the second floor. Now, luckily, I am taller than your average Japanese person, so I was about to see over most of the Japanese people while waiting, which gave me hopes for the concert. As the concert drew near though, and a man came out introducing the band, and also saying that taking pictures was not allowed, luck would have it that a group of exceptionally tall high schoolers wormed their way in front of me, and I couldn’t seem to shake them.

The concert itself had a meager stage, about 2 feet off the ground, with no band, and some smallish speakers that put out sound pretty well. When the two singers of EE Jump came out, I was almost blinded by the sheer volume of flashing cameras, and was nearly knocked over by all the people pushing to try and get a picture, and even saw some interesting gymnastics as people tried to see! I was actually a little disappointed that they didn’t use the huge video screen hanging on the wall to broadcast the concert so people in bad places could see… As such, I spent most of my time trying to look around on tall kid in particular who was seemingly always in front of me. I even made it as far up as about 4 lines back from the swath of little kids in the front, but the guy was still in front of me. Matt, on the other hand, I felt sorry for. He’s shorter than me, about average Japanese height, and thus could see next to nothing. Nathan was up on the balcony trying to take some pictures.

The concert itself was surprisingly short, only about 40 minutes or so. They played only a handful of songs too. The music wasn’t bad, a touch `pop`ish, but entertaining. Also, I noticed that the male singer generally sang in rap style, with English lyrics. This was quite different from any other concert I’ve been too, but considering the concert was free, and beat snoozing through a boring lecture, I couldn’t complain. After the concert, Nathan and Matt both bought a CD single from the little table of merchandise, which, we found out, also enabled them to go up and shake the hands of the performers. I didn’t really want to sink $10 on a CD single that I could get anywhere, and may not listen to again, so I couldn’t. That was ok, because I was then nominated to try and take pictures of when Nathan and Matt got up on the stage to shake the performers` hands.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t seem to get anywhere to get a decent picture. There were security guards walking around stopping people, so I kept the camera hidden. I tried the balcony, but there were too many people there, I tried the floor, but there were too many people…. Seemingly, none of the people had left after the concert had ended. I settled for a crappy position, but one that would at least let me get a picture, only to find that when I focused the camera, I had a security guard standing with crossed arms directly in my view, obstructing it, and had another security guard on either side of me too. I guess being a gaijin does make you stand out ^_^;;

Nathan and Matt did get their chance to shake the performers` hands, and apparently startled them too, being the only gaijin to shake their hands. I imagine the male singer was a little nervous, wondering how his English actually was! I bet they will be talking about meeting the gaijin for quite some time though.

After the handshaking, the performers quickly took off, attempting to escape the huge swath of Japanese people trying to take more pictures as they hurried off. Quite the spectacle I must say.

Now, there was also a Latin party to be held later that night, but it wasn’t for quite some time. The concert officially ended at like 2:15 I think, which left us with roughly six hours to entertain ourselves before meeting up with some other people before the party, Mark Tiedemann`s wife and relatives. We were to meet with them at 8pm, and the party was to start at 10pm. So, in the meantime, we visited the arcades, ran back to my house, then wandered the mall at Hanamo-machi.

When we met up with the group of people, we headed to a liquor store to pick up some cheap beers, then to Karaoke place near the Latin party. This was a little unexpected, because none of us had heard about this. It turned out to be a good time though, as they all were exceptionally good singers, which made us guys feel like total amateurs, though we may be ;p

After that, we went to the Latin party, which was near a little park. The party was fun, as there were a bunch of the JASIN students there, and also lots of other people. You got one free drink, which amounted to a small cup of beer, with the entrance fee of $20. The party ran from 10pm to 4am, and started with some pretty good music at the beginning which tapered off sharply at the end. There was plenty of dancing and socializing, and it was a good time. One of the female JASIN students got herself totally and utterly drunk, and was the life of the party
When 4am rolled around, Nathan, Matt, and myself started to head back to my apartment. By the time we got halfway up the hill to the apartment, it was about 5am, and Nathan decided to catch the street car back, which was to start in about an hour anyway. Matt and I headed back to my apartment and got some welcome sleep.

The next day passed rather uneventfully, which was fine by me, as I was still tired from the previous day. Matt and I walked around the Sumiyoshi area, and went to a Toys R Us, and caught a quick lunch at McDonalds. After that, he headed home, and I headed wandered around a bit before heading back myself.

Apparently, we lucked out. I was dreading the next day, when I would have to face Yamaguchi-sensei who would undoubtedly ask why we weren’t at the meeting, but for some reason, the question never came!

This weekend was pretty fun. Friday, all of us JASIN students head to Unzen together. There, Unzen is famous for the onsens, because of the volcanic vents. Unfortunatly, the entire area reeked of sulphur, as I found out when I stepped off of the bus and gagged, nearly being violently ill several times. When we arrived at Unzen, we headed first to the volcanic vents, from which many hotels in the area siphon off the water and or gas, I`m not entirely sure really O.o Anyway, as we headed to them, I nearly had to turn back, because the smell was so bad, and I was nearly violently ill several more times. It wasn`t until Yamaguchi-sensei gave me a towel to cover my nose with that I was able to walk into the area.

Once in, it wasn`t so bad, luck would have it that the strongest concentration of gas hovered around near the enterance, and in the area, most of the gas was blown away by the wind. It was actually pretty intersting, walking around. I have never been close to a volcano, let alone near any kind of volcanic activity, having lived in the American Midwest my whole life.

Afterwards, we continued on to our hotel. At the hotel, we were given some free time before dinner, during which most of the people went to the onsen. I had some homework to do, so I missed out on the first round (I had forgotten about a little speech we were supposed to give that night, so I hastily did it). Soon, we all headed to dinner, and I noticed that most of the people were wearing the Yukatas (light summer kimono type things), and reeked very badly of sulphur (or rotten eggs, about the same). Dinner was fairly traditional, consisting of duck sashimi (O.o), fish sashimi, a soup, tofu, salad, and rice.

When we were finished, we headed to the meeting room, there to give our little speeches we had written. The speech was about Information Technologies, and was to be written in Japanese. Consequently, a fairly complicated topic was rendered so hopeless as to be laughable. I mean, how do you explain something with a lot of technical jargon in a language you are learning? Perhaps not the best choice of topics… Anyway, when that was done, we played some group games. The first one was the two-person in one coat game (whatever the name of it was). It`s where teh person in the front puts theirs behind them, and another person behind that person has a coat put over them, and uses their hands to try and make the first person drink tea, or eat pocky or wahtever. I think I nearly suceeded in sticking a piece of Pocky up the guy`s nose ;p

The games were for the most part simple, and rather silly. But I noticed that I grew incresingly bored of them after about forty-five minutes or so. I think the other Americans were getting rather tired of them, and finally I convinced one of the senseis to stop the games so we could go to the onsen. What surprised me was that -everyone- decided to go to the onsen again!

I had been to an onsen before, so knew what to expect, and could relax and enjoy it, despite the sulphur smell. I think we stayed in the onsen for about an hour before heading back upstairs. When I got upstairs, I noticed that noone was in my room at all. Wondering where everyone had gone to, one of the Korean students walked into the room. She told me that everyone was in her room, apparently scraping money together to buy some rather expensive beer from the vending machine. Having nothing better to do, I headed over. We suceeded in getting enough money together to puchase about seven cans of Asahi beer, and Nathan proceeded to teach them a drinking game with cards. Pretty simple really, simple enough that the Koreans understood easily.

Once we managed to get the rules down, we proceeded to play for the better part of an hour. The long and short of it, whoever had the lowest card at the end would drink a glass of beer. It was rather fun, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. By the time I left, I had put down about two cans by myself I think. The girls then decided to head back down to the onsen, so us guys were thinking of heading down as well, and headed back to our rooms to get ready. When I stopped at my room, I walked smack into the middle of another group of Koreans, all guys this time, drinking some beer. So, happy enough to see me, they gave me another big can to drink. You know, one of those 40oz ones. So, we chatted for a while, and had a good time, and by the time we finally were ready to head back down to the onsen, I was feeling the beer I had a little.

Down in the onsen, we basically had the whole onsen to ourselves, which consisted of us three from Platteville. We were probably there for about an hour before heading back up to the rooms. Once I got back to my room, I was tired and fell promptly asleep.

The next morning, I was the first (and only) one up in my room. I got dressed and whatnot, and decided to head out to buy a Coke, where I ran into Yamaguchi-sensei and Chamberlain-sensei, and went with them down to breakfast. The breakfast consisted of pretty much what I was not in the mood for… Fish, natto, eggs, rice, etc… I ate a small salad, some toast, and some juice. Afterwards, we soon headed to Shimabara. There, we visited a Samurai`s house, which was intersting, and went to the top of the volcano. Actually, not quite -the- top, because we didn`t have enough time for me to go on the skycar to the top, but we were close. The volcano had erupted ten years ago, and looking down, you could see where some boulders had been tossed, and where the lava and mud had flown. A little scary.

Next, we went to a restaurant near Shimabara castle for lunch. It was a small lunch, consisting of a soup. When we finished, we headed into the castle. The castle was smaller than Kumamoto, and wasn`t quite as interesting, because it had very little explanations in English. They did have a little radio you could carry with you for explanations, which would have been a neat idea if they had something in Englsih, rather than just Japanese. Oh well.

When we had finished touring Shimabara castle, we headed back to the campus.

Whew, today was another marathon day! On top of that, I think the change in climate gave me a minor cold, so I’m feeling a bit sick.

Today, the JASIN students and several Japanese conversation partners met in the lounge to go sightseeing. I kind of lucked out and got a partner who spoke pretty decent English, because I didn’t really want to have to fight with Japanese today while sightseeing. On top of that, I was rather pleased to see that Krista’s conversation partner was there as well, as I had gotten to know her a little bit from the other day. Nathan’s conversation partner was there as well, who seemed rather interesting as well. Actually, with Nathan’s partner, there’s usually two other girls that follow her, which is alright as they are all pretty funny and interesting people.

So anyway, our first stop was some restaurant’s meeting room with the JASIN students and I think the first year students. One of the first difficulties was getting to know your table’s occupants ^^; They split the JASIN students up and had only one at a table. Now, did I mention this school has a rather high female to male ratio? So, things were a little uncomfortable and confusing. On top of that, this rather tall Japanese girl was at my table who I had seen before. It was the previous day when Matt, Nathan, and I were heading to the cafeteria for lunch. She gave us all long looks and muttered “gaijin da” to her friends when we walked by… So, I wasn’t too sure how to react when I saw her at my table. I think that she actually had a thing for foreigners, judging by how she reacted today. So, I was on edge during the whole time we were there. It would be one thing if she was attractive, but she just wasn’t my type. The other girls were nice enough, one of them speaking decent English the others in lesser degrees.

Next, they had all the JASIN students come up as a group, and had us introduce ourselves. I didn’t really have a problem with saying my introduction, though I was second and had no idea what to say. I found myself being conscious of my accent and wondering how bad it was. It’s something I’ve been thinking of more often now that I actually interact with Japanese people.

After that, we went back to our tables, and played a game. The game being the JASIN students write 2 questions in Japanese and the Japanese students in English, then ask them to other members of our table. After that I didn’t feel quite so bad about my accent! It was interesting to deal with someone who was learning a language too, rather than dealing with someone who was decently fluent in both.

Next , we all headed to another restaurant for lunch. The restaurant was right by Oura Catholic Church, more on that later. The lunch was OK, mainly rice, some meatball dish, a pasta dish, and eggrolls. We had a pretty good time, the JASIN students and our partners joking back and forth. I think I could see myself becoming decent friends with all the Japanese partners there today.

After lunch we headed to Oura Catholic Church. It was kind of a letdown, nothing really special. It was neat because it was so old, but…

We then proceeded to Glover Garden. The plants there were very well kept, and very picturesque. The actual house itself didn’t have much at all on Glover himself though, so I didn’t really learn anything about him. The view was beautiful though. On our way down, we came across a ‘play’, or ‘dance’ I guess be the best way to describe it. I believe it’s Chinese in origin. Essentially, it’s a dance depicting the dragon chasing the moon. The dragon was one of those large paper-ish kind with the fierce head. Hard to describe. It takes like 10 people to manage the dragon . Afterwards, they brought out a smaller version so visitors could try, so almost all of us gaijin were trying it out.

Our groups then split up. The Koreans wet off one way, and the rest of us another. There were four language partners with us Americans, and David. We decided to head to Peace Garden next.

Peace Garden has a definite atmosphere of peace and tranquility to it, with a grim reminder of what prompted it’s construction. It is all beautifully cared for, and has a large fountain spraying water in a dove formation, to signify peace, and also to serve as a offering of water to those who died after the Atomic Bombing for want of clean water, but who had drunk oil-slicked water and were thus poisoned in addition to everything else.

Beyond the fountain are various sculptures wishing for peace, part of the remains of a prison (which was the closest public facility to the blast), and finally the peace statue itself. It was a huge statue of a man sitting with one leg crossed for meditation, one leg ready to get up to help a human in need, one hand raised to the sky in prayer for peace, and the other hand pointing to the threat of nuclear weapons (America). Beautiful but haunting.

Next we went to the Atomic Bomb museum. I was rather surprised that the partners wanted to go with, but then again I wasn’t. I think we’re becoming friends with that group anyway, and I don’t think they minded staying late. I was a little uneasy being an American going to the museum, let alone with Japanese people our age. I had no idea what Japanese people my age thought about the Bombing, and didn’t really want to ask. The fact that they wanted to go with us was an indicator that weren’t holding us responsible anyway.

The museum was very haunting, shocking, depressing, thought provoking, and morbid, all rolled into one. If there was any thought in my mind that nuclear weapons were a necessary evil, they are gone now. The sheer destructive power of that first generation Atomic Bomb is shocking, as is the damage it caused, and the people it killed. I should also mention that at the Epicenter Park just outside the museum there is a sign that shows the ground height before the Bomb, which is four feet higher than it’s current level. The museum was an experience I won’t forget. The awful stares from the generation alive during the Atomic Bombing I also won’t forget, even if it isn’t my generation who dropped the Bomb. To try to describe what I saw wouldn’t do the horror justice. When I saw the Japanese students outside the exhibit, they were all quiet. One of them asked us what we thought of the exhibit. We replied that it was interesting, and horrible, to which Minno, replied “Good. People need to remember the need for peace, so this doesn’t happen again,” to which the other Japanese students nodded solemnly. It’s interesting to see that this generation is completely for peace, and the disarmament of nuclear weapons. It made me feel better with interacting with my generation of Japanese students. It was the question I always wanted answered, but didn’t know how to breech.

After that, everyone returned home, but I hung around the Epicenter for a while. There is a monument erected at the exact Epicenter where the bomb exploded 500 meters above. The grass didn’t seem to grow too well there, judging by the sandy dirt, and patches of laid sod. Just being there, and trying to image the explosion was probably one of the most somber moments of my life.

On my way home I stopped at a CD store I had seen before. I was pleasantly surprised to see it was a discount CD store. It had a lot of American music though… It did have an ok sized Jpop section and an anime section. I bought two Legend of Galactic Heroes CDs, though one seems to be a drama CD… Oh well, the price was good.

When I got back, I told my host family where I had been, and was surprised to find out that my host father had actually been in Nagasaki in the Bombing. He was 5 at the time, in a shelter 1km away, so he survived. And now he’s hosting American students, and has before! I wish all the people of his generation were that way, but that’s a lot to ask for.

It has been kind of a quiet day today, relatively speaking. I had my one Japanese course today. Man, it’s a heck of a switch going from having Japanese taught with a lot of English like in America, to no English here in Japan. If there’s one thing I learned today, it’s that my katakana needs help. I was having a bit of a time reading in class, but apparently not as bad as Krista (the Canadian). I think culture shock has claimed it’s first victim with her. She was in tears at the end of class and still so when she, her conversation partner, my conversation partner, and I went for the alien registration cards.

We tried cheering her up on the way to the city hall for our area, and she seemed to have rebounded a bit when we arrived. After a few moments’ confusion, we managed to figure out where to go, and what form to fill out. There was also some confusion in regards to insurance. In Japan, if you stay more than a year, you need to register for national health insurance. Krista’s student visa was good for 1 year, and mine for 2, so the lady thought we needed to get the insurance. We managed to sort it all out finally though.

Afterwards, I figured we’d all head back to the school, as I wanted to use the computers anyway. Krista lived that way, and our conversation partners apparently lived in the dorms. I was wrong. At first Krista was going to head off by herself and see the city, and the rest of us would head back. Then I suggested lunch, and she joined us. We went back to Amu Plaza, and ate at the food court. I was a little disturbed to see that my conversation partner and I had inadvertently gotten the same thing, but hey… We all talked for a while. I have also discovered that seemingly every Japanese girl over, say, 18 knows of Hana Yori Dango. It’s kind of frightening really….

Anyway, afterwards we headed upstairs to the bookstore so I could buy another Love Hina manga (they don’t last long!). Next we hit the harbor for a while, then China Town, then the mall. Sort of like yesterday, only in reverse. At the mall, we stopped at a large 100 yen shop, and the girls went shopping. I did the male thing and took the nearest bench and read some manga. I guess I kind of got into it and didn’t realize the girls had returned until I heard some giggling ^^;;

Finally, we all headed back. I admit, I was surprised that the conversation partners, Kanako (mine) and I for forgot the other’s name, stayed around. I asked them if they were having fun, and made sure they knew they didn’t have to hang around, but they said the didn’t mind. Hey, Was I going to complain about walking around downtown Nagasaki with 3 girls?

Upon returning to the school, I took over a computer, and finally downloaded some files I needed so I could start making a webpage. I also downloaded Mirc so I could talk to my online friends, and caught up on Megatokyo. Hey, I can now relate to Megatokyo. Actually, when I was reading Megatokyo, several people asked me if it was manga, heh.

On my way back, I stopped at the Namco Arcade, and got a reminder that even if I did good in KOF2k the other day, the Japanese here have had way more time to practice it ^^;; To say I got stomped would be an understatement. I also have the severe disadvantage that I don’t typically play fighting games oat the arcade, and the joystick is way different. Oh well, I played another game, and managed to get about 20 minutes out of it. So, half an hour’s entertainment for 100yen isn’t bad.

Today was another full day. My host father walked me to where my opening ceremony for college was going to be held, which was really close to where I live. I figured it was going to be held at one of two places, because they look big and official. It wasn’t the first one I was thinking of.

There ceremony itself was pretty dull, about what you would expect of an hour long opening ceremony, with a few people rambling on and on. As far as we could tell, the president of the college talked for like 40 mins about preserving Japanese culture, but while learning from other cultures, and accepting new things while remembering the old. At one point, he asked the JASIN students to stand up, but said it in a way we’d never heard before. Consequently he asked us again, in English this time, which made me feel like an idiot. Later, we also were supposed to stand up with another group of students , for what reason still eludes me. That’s on thing that needs to improve with the JASIN program. They need to tell us more! Classes started, and we were left dangling as to how to get our class books. In fact, we still don’t have them. sigh

Afterwards, Aaron (I think that’s how it’s spelled)-sensei showed us the downtown area, going to the mall, Chine Town, spectacle bridge, and finally Nagasaki Harbor. We had a little crowd walking around town: myself, Aaron-sensei,. Matt, Nathan, David, and Vanessa. We talked about various things along the way, but at one point Aaron mentioned that they were going to try and start a soccer club up at school and wondered if I’d be interested. I said maybe, wondering what I’d be getting myself into ^^;;

When we got to the harbor, we went to a big store structure, which seems to be common in Japan. It’s kind of like a mall, but just rather vertical rather than horizontal. The bottom floor had a grocery store, where we bought bentos and drinks. Bentos are quite handy, and pretty good too. They’re pretty fresh, and cheap. While buying our bentos, we met a Japanese man, who inquired where we were from, and where we were studying, in English! Funny the people you meet who can speak English. After buying our lunches, we headed up to a bookstore for a little bit, then to an arcade, across the floor. The place was ok, not as good as the Namco arcade we had found the other day, and it was rather expensive too. There was one game, Ridge Racer V, that cost 200 yen to play and 100 yen to continue. On the other hand, you get your money’s worth out of it, so I guess I can’t complain too much, except that it was about the only good game there. That’s one thing I generally noticed about the few arcades I’ve been to so far here, is that the arcades may be a little bit expensive at times, but it seems worth it, unlike American arcades where the games generally suck, and you pay way too much to play the things.

Next we went outside to eat our bentos. It was a nice sunny day. The ocean, or Sea of China I guess it really is called here in Nagasaki harbor, looked nice, and had an amazing amount of jellyfish in it! I’ve never seen a live jellyfish before, but there was plenty today. On top of that, as we were eating our bentos, the birds, kumama or something like that, started dive-bombing us, coming almost within arm-reach on occasion. We retreated after the third time or so, Matt leaving some food behind, which the birds instantly snatched up. Once we figured out what was going on, we entertained ourselves for a while feeding the birds by throwing bits of food in the air, watching the birds catch and eat it.

Shortly thereafter, Aaron-sensei and David left back to the college area, and Vanessa had taken off earlier. So Matt, Nathan, and I headed to the bus station to buy tickets. We actually got the tickets with relatively little difficulty. The bonus of buying the tickets at the station is that you get 3 free tickets instead of the 1 free ticket if you buy them on the bus. However, unless the station is relatively close to you, it really doesn’t pay to go to the station to get them.

As we headed to Amu Plaza, we soon bumped into the Korean students, who were delighted to hear we had found the bus station, and wanted to get tickets themselves. So we lead them back to the station. Funny who you meet in downtown Nagasaki O.o

Anyway, we finally made it to Amu Plaza, which isn’t too far from my place. I actually pass it everyday on the streetcar. I didn’t really realize it was there. The first stop was a little figurine shop that sells, among other things a Ken and Ryu pez dispenser, which I got a kick out of. It also sells sets of the figures sold in the those egg machines. I didn’t really realize this until I had popped another 200 yen into a Love Hina machine and got another Su figure. I decided to forgo the luck element, and just paid the 1800 yen to buy all of them at once. There was also a nice Lemmy figuring (To Heart) as well, but I wasn’t about to pay the 8000 yen price X_X it was a large figurine, of higher quality, so it deserved the price. Nice figure too sigh

Next we hit a bookstore. Lots of decent manga there. In fact, they had a bilingual Love Hina! Woo! Expensive though, like double the normal price…. I bought one volume, seeing that book 4 deterred from what I had seen in the anime. Then we hit an arcade that was mostly a flop. It was pretty expensive too, and didn’t have that many good games either. Actually, what it did have was games like Dance Dance Revolution, Drum Freaks, Guitar Freaks, and Piano Freak (that was neat to watch). There is no way I would try any of them in a crowded arcade ^^;; There was only one driving game that really interested me, and the King of Fighters 2000 game which was always crowded. Finally, we went to a CD store which sucked. They had some CD’s I liked, but had an overall crappy selection. The -did- have a Lupin III: Twilight Gemini Soundtrack I had been looking for for quite some time, but there is no way in hell I am paying 6000yen for one CD. Sorry, that’s ridiculous. In way of comparison, the Mononoke Hime double CD set was only 3000 yen. What the heck?

As the day started winding down, Matt and Nathan wanted me to show them the park with all the Sakura I had found before. On the way up, I could tell my legs were getting stronger, because the trip up didn’t suck as bad this time up. The park still had a lot of sakura, but a lot had fallen already. It was still a nice view. I also wound blowing 500yen on one bag of cotton candy (expensive ^^;;) and 400 on some strawberry parfait (worth it!). Actually, while standing in line, I noticed the parfait vendor was listening to Ayumi Hamasaki ^^ It’s actually kind of surprising how often I hear her. I actually heard her in the first arcade as well! I don’t even remember when I started following her anymore. I’ve been listening to her for a while now.

We decided to call it a day after that, and I directed Matt and Nathan on how to get home, seeing as how I ride the route everyday ;p When I got home, I decided to read a little of my manga. I decided to no say anything about having bought it, not really wanting to look like and otaku ^^;; My host father passed through however, and saw me reading it and laughed a bit. Both him and my host mother thought it was interesting I was reading manga! Obviously, they don’t know me very well ;p They were even more surprised to find out that I had seen Love Hina as an anime in America! These little suckers are dangerous. I could easily read through one of these between my ride to school and back. They are a little expensive, 800 yen for the bilingual as compared to the 400 yen for the Japanese only, but oh well. At least it’s something to read.