By the Sea, By the Beautiful Sea

July 8
This is my last day at Numata for the week, thank the gods. We have some sort of opera performance we`re going to go see tomorrow instead of going to school, so we`ve got pretty  much a three-day weekend, which is much needed on my part (and probably Andrew and Will`s, too).
Anyway, rode my bike to school, sat through fifth grade classes in which we did the exact same thing (literally) as the first graders yesterday. After I was done with classes I rode over to a Japanese supermarket and bought an apple for a snack, then rode home, ate the apple, napped, had dinner, showered and went to bed.

July 9: The Forest Creatures Told Me to Do It
I met Andrew and Will at the Shinjo City Office at around 9 in the morning so the three of us could be driven by Kakizaki-sensei, Will`s home stay this week and also one of the guys who works with the Education section of the office, over to the cultural center to watch an opera. I`m not exactly sure what it was about, but there was this guy named Gouch and I think he was part of an orchestra or something and he wasn`t any good at playing his instrument (the cello I think), and then some animals from the forest around his home came in and helped him get better at playing so then at the end, after the whole orchestra performed, he got to do a solo encore. I think. Mind you, I couldn`t understand most of what they were saying since it was all in Japanese, and I pretty much napped through most of it anyway, so.
After the opera we walked back to the City Office and Kakizaki-sensei treated us to some ramen/soba for lunch. Then Andrew, Will and I went around the town on our bikes (Andrew got to borrow one from the city since his host family`s bike was broken and he couldn`t use it). We went to Zest so Andrew and Will could play pachinko again, and then to a game center because Will wanted to try to win a Dragonite out of a Pokemon plushie UFO catcher game. He got really close a lot of times, but those things are rigged so it`s pretty much impossible to win, so. Then we went to a park by the train station and released our inner children by playing on the playground for a good half an hour.
After that we split up to go home since there wasn`t really much else to do. When I got home I took a nap, then woke up and had dinner and watched Queen of the Damned before I went to bed.


July 10: Day Trip to Sakata
Obaa-san drove me to the station to pick up Will and Andrew at around 8 in the morning, and then she drove us over to ojii-san`s sister and brother-in-law`s place in Sakata, which is about an hour or so west of Shinjo, on the coast. I love Sakata; it reminds me of California, because of the way it smells and feels being so close to the ocean. Will, Andrew, obaa-san and I sat and talked with ojii-san`s sister and her husband for a little bit (they gave us some tea brewed from the same kind of buckwheat that`s used to make soba, which was delicious, and also an anko-flavored Japanese cake, which wasn`t really cake but more like anko filling in a mochi shell). Then obaa-san went back to Shinjo, and ojii-san`s brother in law (I can`t remember his name for the life of me, and I wish I could since he`s so awesome) drove me, Andrew and Will to Mount Haguro. Mount Haguro is like Yamadera in the sense that it`s got temples built on top of it, and you have to climb unbelievably steep stairs to get to the top. It took us about half an hour to reach the top;　luckily, ojii-san`s brother-in-law (I`m just gonna call him T-san, because I think his last name started with a Ta or To or something like that) met us at the top with his car, since you can drive up one way. We went to a shop on the summit to have some tea, which was a mushroom brew and tasted like vegetable stock and was delicious (I had three cups), and we also got some mochi for a quick snack to tide us over until lunch.
T-san drove us to Tsuruoka City to show us an old school from the Edo period, and then we went over to a kaitenzushi to have lunch but it was super busy, so we drove back to Sakata and had lunch at a kaitenzushi there. It was amazing--since Sakata is right on the coat, the fish is super fresh. Will doesn`t like fish hardly at all, so he just ate desserts, which was kind of amusing. Andrew and I were in heaven though, and ate a ton.
Then T-san drove us to see the places in Sakata where they filmed Okuribito, a Japanese film that won lots of awards back in 2009 (the English title is Departures, and if you haven`t seen it yet you should because it`s an awesome movie). Then we went to an old house from the Edo period and looked around at all the rooms; while we were there Yuka texted me, so I made plans to meet up with her after I got back to Shinjo.
T-san drove us back to Shinjo after we were done at the Edo house, and he and I ended up talking about like, all the world conflicts going on and UNESCO and travelling and stuff like that. I couldn`t really contribute much to the conversation of course, but I was surprised that I could understand most of what he was saying. It was pretty cool.
He dropped me off at my home stay first, since we got off the highway pretty much there, and then I rode my bike to the station to meet up with Yuka and two of her friends who wanted to meet me, a girl named Hotaru (I think?) and a guy named Hideki. Apparently Hideki had wanted to meet me, so that`s why Yuka had mailed me. Anyway, the four of us went to an izakaya and had a few drinks, and they ate because I wasn`t hungry since I`d had so much sushi earlier. I think Yuka was trying to set me up with Hideki, in fact I`m pretty sure of it, but he`s way too old for me (39--Yuka, what were you thinking?), and not really my type at all, even though he was nice enough.
Anyway, after we were done at the izakaya, Hotaru and Hideki left and Yuka and I went to a book store to browse around before I had to bike back home at around 8.
I got back, showered, and went right to bed. Tomorrow my next home stay family is picking me up at around 8:30 so they can take me to like some sort of festival or something, so I wanted to get a good night`s sleep so I could wake up and pack and be ready and still have energy to enjoy the festival.