Robot Square

Konnbanwa! Good Evening!
Kyo wa totemo taihen deshita, aitsukatta!  Today was tough, it was sooo hot! 
Yesterday I went to the Fukuoka Musuem and Robot Square.  Robot square was very interesting.  They have shows in which you can watch the robots in action and lots of small robots for sale.   Here are some pictures:

This robot senses your mood somehow.   I didn't see it in action though.

This robot is for people that are elderly or disabled. 

In Japan, it is really common to be given a packet of tissues by shop staff and by people standing at busy pedestrian crossings.  They are a good way to advertise their business.  This robot does the all the handing out!

This is a music robot that dances and follows you around the house.  You put your CDs or I-Pod inside it, or listen to the radio. 



Here is a place you can race romote control moon buggys around a  race track.

Yep, the fish is a robot that can swim around a pond.  Its looks really real.



Here is a busy classroom next to the Robot Square where children can learn about robots and physics after school.  Looks like fun!

 Have a great week, miss you all,
Amelia Whiting

Neko Cafe

Konnichiwa,

Genki desu ka? (How are you?) It's a beautiful day here and I'm about to the beach before I have a conversation class.

Neko means cat in Japanese.  And in Fukuoka there are 4 or 5 Neko Cafes.  So I went to check one out.  It sure was an interesting experience!

The cats are street cats that the cafe owner looks after, and customers pay by the hour to come in, have a drink and pat the cats. It cost $10 a drink and to stay one hour in the cafe.

This cafe had 34 cats they look after!  Most were sleeping and there were lots of kittens.  It was abit smelly but very very clean.

Sometimes people adopt the cats like we do at a SPCA.  If you want to read more about it, this Neko Cafe has an English webpage that I just found for you:

http://asianbeat.com/en/feature/fukuokanow/number002-1.html

Here are some pics:

The waitress showed us to this table.  Hmmm there was a cat on each seat.  So we perched on the front of the seats!



The cafe is designed for the comfort of cats and includes a nice big climbing area.



The cats' descriptions are in the menu.  Including their names, age, sex, hobbies, and when they first came to Neko Cafe.

 The owners are giving this little kitten some medicine.

Here's me and Saran (a friend from the language school).  Poor cats!

 A cat's
meow in Japanese is nyan-nyan（ニャンニャン） or nyaa-nyaa （ニャーニャー）not meow!

That's all for now.  Mata rai shu (until next week).  O genki de ne (take care),

Amelia 

Umbrellas

Konbanwa! (good evening)
I hope you are all having a good week.  Sounds like you all did really well in the cross country, well done!
It's been pouring down with rain for the last few days.  All my shoes are soaked! 
So I thought a good topic today would be....umbrellas!
In Japan, it's really unusual to see someone in a raincoat.  But umbrellas are everywhere.  On beautiful sunny days, cloudy days, rainny days... the weather doesn't matter, you'll see them!  They are very fashionable here.  Girls and women use them to be sunsmart and keep the sun off.  Men use them to stay cooler and to keep dry.  There are lots of umbrella only shops, and at the moment pretty is in, so they are lacy, nice shapes with splashes of pastel colours.  In the shops they range from $5-$500!

In the doorway of all big shops/office buildings etc you'll find one of these.  You put your umbrella in the bag so you can carry it around without dropping water everywhere.  If you leave it in an umbrella stand, you risk it getting stolen. 

Japan is one of the safest countries in the world.  If you lose your wallet or leave a bag behind by accident, someone will hand it in for you.  Shop attendents never rip you off and will come chasing after you if you forget your change.
But...people steal umbrellas, and people steal bicycles!  This umbrella stand is so you can lock your umbrella up yourself and take the key with you! 

That's all for now, I'm going to bed early tonight because I went to a really good concert last night and I'm very tired.  It was a jazz concert featuring a really good marimba player.  She uses four beaters at once!  If you're interested you can see the band and listen to the music:  
http://www.mikarimbamadness.com/#!__photos

  Jaa mata (see you later),

Amelia

Food!

Ohayo gozaimasu (good morning),

Hope you all all well and that you are all enjoying doing your science fair projects, I'm looking forward to hearing about them.  It's the weekend, and I've just been relaxing and wandering around the city.  There are so many shopping arcades to explore!

I hope Will is better.  Sorry to hear about your lamb Talia. 

Niav, you asked about what I'm learning at school.  I do language classes from about 9 til about 3.  And I get heaps of homework!   In my first week I had 3 extra culture classes also (that's when I learnt about tea ceremonies, temples/shrines and Japanese pottery).  In a few weeks, I'll be doing  pop culture classes as well as language classes where I'll be learning about Japanese animations, manga (comic books) and music.  Sometimes I have conversation practice and Japanese writing classes too.

Here is some info about the food I eat:

Cold tofu, with ginger and soysauce.  Very popular.  Yum!

Bitter melon, that gets really gooey when cooked. 
It's in lots of meals here.

It's really popular to have 'onigiri 'for lunch or a snack.  They are trianglar rice balls wrapped in seaweed.  You can get them with fish, chicken, veges, beef inside, but my favourite are the ones with sour plum 'ume boshi' in the middle.





Indian Curry.  It comes with a side salad with tomato and

daikon (a giant Japanese white radish).  Japanese curry is very different.  I'll get a photo for you soon.

Here's some daikon at my local fruit and vege shop.

In the orange baskets are potatoes.



Noodles are popular for dinner.  There's lots of noodle stores, ramen, udon and soba.  In summer you can buy the meals hot or cold.  This is noodles (udon) and seafood and veges that comes cold.



 And of course, there is lots of sushi!  Prawn sushi is my favourite.  Near my school is a zuten sushi restaurant.  (conveyor belt sushi).  The plates are all $1.50 and you just take what you want off the revolving belt.  When your finished a waiter comes and counts up your plates.  Itadakimasu!  (Bon Appetit!)

Below the sushi is fried tofu in a bbq like sause with nori (seaweed) on top and on the bottom right is fried fish in a yummy ginger sauce.

Breakie.  Many Japanese people have salad for breakfast.  Traditionally Japanese people have fish and rice also for breakie.  You can buy cereal and bread in the supermarket and it's getting more popular.  Bread is really sweet here and there is only white in most supermarkets.  Most bags only have 4slices of bread in them.  There is no kitchen here, so I have breakfast out or buy something from the convience store (like pikelets with red bean jam in the middle).

This photo is a 'set meal' which came with a coffee, salad, warm croissant and yoghurt with jam in the middle.  A funny combination!  It cost about $5.00

I'll tell you all about snacks, drinks and confectionary in another blog.
Have a great day,
Jaa mata,
Amelia



Fireworks Show

Here are the fireworks from the other week.  When the camera zooms into a sign, the sign says 'gambatte Japan' which means 'be strong/don't give up/you can do it' (in reference to the recent tsunami/nuclear leaks).

Obon Festival

Hello everyone, Konnichiwa minnasan,

The ice and snow sounded very exciting!
Is it still cold?  It's humid and stormy here today.

It's the week of the Obon festival.  It's a buddhist tradition and since most Japanese people are Buddhist lots of the shops have been closed and the shrines have been busy places.  Obon goes for three days and is a time Japanese people gather with their families and friends to pay respect and graditude to those family members that have passed away.  Many families have a little shrine in their house, and so during this time of the year they invite a Monk to their home to pray with them for their ancestors.  (For a price!  It costs $100 and up).  It is believed that this is a time that their spirits come back to earth so we need to show them that we appreciate all that they have done for us.  It is a time of good food, dressing up in kimonos, dancing and music.

People often light lanteens and float them down rivers, but sorry Maddie, I didn't see that so I have no photos. I did go to a shrine, and it was beautifully decorated with 6,500 lanteens and children's artwork.  On the artwork there were a lot of messages like: be strong Japan.  So I'm guessing people were showing respect to those people that died in the tsunami earlier this year.

 

 There was lots of yummy food.  Fied octopus balls (tacoyaki), fried chicken (yakitori), icecream (i-su-ku-re-mu), smoothies and sweets.

It poured down with rain and everyone panicked and ran to take cover which was quite funny since most people had umbrellas.

Those big gates mark the entrance of all buddhist shrines.  They are called tori gates.                         

That's all for now, I've got to do my homework.  I have 8 pages to do!   Ogenki de ne (take care),\

Amelia 

Insects and turtles!

Ohayo gozaimasu!

I've been thinking about you all lots today, and I've been missing you.  How did the cross country go?  Any excapee geese?

No, I haven't tried the pinball machines yet, I will though and I'll let you know how easy/hard it is!  Welcome Ashley, I'm looking forward to meeting you.  That's sad that Claudia has left, but I know she'll make lots of friends in her new school.  Thanks for all the info MacKenzie, very interesting!

On my way to school each morning I walk along a lovely path next to a castle moat. Here some photos:

In and around this lovely old castle moat live all sorts of creatures; ducks, herons, crows, koi, turtles, dragonflys, beautiful blue butterflies and some funny looking insects.  Here's a challenge, what critters are these...

  

Sorry the bug is so small, I couldn't figure out how to crop my photo, I'll try to figure out how to attach a word document with it on so you can see it better.

Have a great weekend.  O genki de ne (take care),
Amelia

Japlish

Ohayo gozaimasu!
O genki desu ka? (how are you).  I've had a good day back at my school.  I had a delicious curry for lunch.  Japanese curries are usually quite sweet and not spicy at all.  Oishikatta! (yum!)

Before I left someone in Room 1 asked me to take photos of English I see in Fukuoka.  In Japan, you see a lot of 'Japlish', a mix of Japanese and English.  In other words funny spelling or strange looking sentences from incorrect translations.  Here's an example from outside the shrine I took the photo of the horse statue:

That's all for today,
Jaa nee (see you!)

A week in Fukuoka already!

Minnasan Konnichiwa,
I hope you all have had a great week.  My brain is feeling very full with all the new things I'm learning.
Here's some things I've discovered this week:

The horse is sacred in Japan (here's a photo from a shrine nearby)

But despite that there are alot of restaurants near my dormitory that sell food made of horse meat and it seems very popular.  A lot of Japanese people think eating horse meat makes you stronger.

There are wild horses down South of Japan and there are 8 native horse breeds, most of them are ponies and most are extremely rare.
Here's more info for those horse lovers:
http://nihongoup.com/blog/japanese-horse-breeds/

Yesterday I explored the Hawks Dome.  Hawks are the local baseball team and baseball is the most popular sport in Japan.  Joined to the Dome is a giant entertainment complex with floors and floors of  pinball machines, and games.  It is really popular with people of all ages.  There are some really cool virtual games.  Even horse riding, white water rafting and baseball.  Horse racing seems popular with old men!

Yes this is a real monkey!

Finally, I know this picture would interest a certain person in Room 5.  It's a shop that only sells brass instruments.  And it is huge... 3 stories!

That's all for now,

Jaa Mata

Amelia

First day of classes.

Konnichiwa!

I hope you all had a great first day back at school.

I've been busy trying not to get lost, and going to classes and meeting lots of people.  After my language classes today I had a culture class and learnt about tea ceremonies.  I learnt they are a very old tradition that started even before there were Samurai.  During a tea ceremony there are a lot of rules and it takes a long time.  The tea is bubbly on top, warm and slightly bitter.  I thought it was delicious.  Before you drink your tea, you eat a little Japanese sweet (it's like a pastry with sweet beans inside) so that your tea doesn't taste so bitter.  Here's a photo of me and my sensei:

After my classes finished, I went to a fireworks festival that was in a park only 10mins walk from my hostel. 

Benri nee (handy aye).  It was very cool.  Thousands of people and lots of people dressed in yukata (summer kimono),  The fireworks went for a whole hour!  The queues for the ice blocks were longer than the Rapaura School field!  This video was taken by a man who works for that cool website Genki Japan (see my web links).  He was right were I was, but I was there later than him, when it was dark.  Chotto mite: Have a look!

O genki de ne (take care),

Amelia (aka Miss Whiting)