New Year, Fun Times?

Well, the new year started pretty well I guess with a trip to some local Kanazawa shrines courtesy of our friend Ishikawa-san who does karate :) It snowed most of the day but was pretty nice wandering around Kenroku-en & taking part in what's considered to be something traditional to do at New Year's in Japan. We went to 3 shinres in total, but I can't exactly remember the names off the top of my head :P
Dan's mum also visited around that time so she came with us which was nice, and a few days later we all went out for curry as a goodbye dinner.
Speaking of goodbyes, something sad did happen a little bit later which was the return of my friend Yoonjin to Korea, as she'd finished her year abroad. But lots of us went out for tasty "American-style" food which was effectively American, but in Japanese form. It was kinda weird to be completely honest. But anyway, Yoonjin left a little while later which was sad :( Though she did leave lots of Korean sweets, noodles & seaweed for people which was nice of her! I haven't actually written to her yet but I intend to soon cos I do want to try & keep in contact with people I meet out here.
On a more positive note we spent some time over January & February going on trips for our final Japanese cultural experience, in other words, the making of Ohi pottery. We were all able to make 4 pieces, 2 of which had to be tea bowls. I ended up making an extra little bowl & a pig for my optionals, not entirely sure why to be honest XD The fun thing about doing the pottery Ohi-style was that everything was done by hand, unlike normal pottery where they use one of those wheels. We shaped the clay and moulded it with our fingers which made each piece very personal, though the following week we did carve it better with a little tool thing, so they didn't exactly have finger marks on them or anything... In the end all my pieces turned out ok, not exactly amazing but hey art is not my forté... My pig looked pretty cool though with its greenish-silvery colouring, and one of my teabowls had a nice red effect in the centre :) Apparently getting red colour is lucky, good times.
Other than that, the snow fell, exams were taken & essays were written, which took up a lot of the start of February. Exams weren't too bad I guess, though I did find the reading class one quite hard. Essays were ok in general, just time-consuming! However I did have fun writing my Japanese Ways of Thinking essay in which I basically started my research on looking at hentai portrayals in manga, which was really helpful as I needed that for my Sheffield project proposal! Anthropology wasn't as great but at least we got a little extension for going to a symposium our teacher was speaking at, which was actually pretty cool as there were 2 really good taiko performances going on too :) Even the jodo exam went pretty well which was good, guess all the practice hitting Wolfgang paid off :P

Holidays began, karaoke was once again visited, we had a nice dinner out for karate & in general it was nice to relax for a bit! Then about a week after term ended I headed off on my trip home! Will write about that next post I guess, gonna head off & make some dinner for now. It's got warmer recently & I need to drink & eat more I think as I felt really faint earlier today XD At least the sleep pattern's improving a little. Peace & love etc ;) Kou x