this post is made of lists

Fun things I've done since my last post:
- went to a tiny club with friends and met some new Japanese people
- went to Nagoya Harbor and rode a giant Ferris wheel! It's probably my new favorite place in Nagoya (not that I really had a favorite place before...maybe it was Jusco, a department-store-ish place)
- started collecting stickers to trade in for a really cute Rirakkuma bowl! This means that for lunch I've been buying bread and hamburgers that have the stickers on them, which may be a bad thing, but I only need 30 stickers and I already have 6, so hopefully I can get the bowl soon! It's really really adorable. :D
- participated in a photoshoot for the admissions brochures at Nanzan! It was very staged and the pictures will probably all be very cheesy, but I enjoyed myself thoroughly and met some new people in the process, so that was fun. I'll probably be back in the US before I can see the results, though. :/
- handed out snacks to the tsukimi dorobou! This is a tradition that apparently only happens in my area (I asked some other Japanese students and they didn't know what it was), which is kind of like Halloween in America. Tonight is a full moon and tomorrow is the autumnal equinox (and a national holiday!), so this is the time where people go out for tsukimi, or moon-watching. Apparently on this day every year, little kids in the area run around to people's houses and get treats. 'Dorobou' means thief, so 'tsukimi dorobou' is something like 'moon-watching thieves'. I think before people would leave out plates of dango (round sweet dumpling-things on sticks) and the kids would take them, so that's where the thief part comes in, though nowadays they just get snacks (my mom handed out packets of mini Oreos).

Nagoya Harbor!

Cool things that have happened recently:
- my first real conversation (sort of) with my host dad! He goes out on business trips a lot and even when he's home he comes back from work really late, so I don't see him much. Also for some reason whenever he wanted to know something about me he would ask my host mom, even if I was there, so we had some sort of weird relay system going on. I think maybe he's just not used to having a girl in the house (both of their kids are boys), especially a foreigner, so maybe that's why? Anyway, yesterday we actually talked for the first time, so that was nice, considering I've been living here for almost a month now. :P
- realizing that in three days, I'll have been in Japan for a month! It really doesn't feel like it at all. I bet the next three months will fly by, too.
- getting bonus points on my first Japanese test! Or rather, half a bonus point, since it was +0.5, but still! It didn't really change my grade much, but I've never gotten bonus points on a test that didn't come from a bonus question before. Also, this was the test to make sure we really belong in IJ600, so I'm glad that I did well.

Really little things that are different in Japan:
- the paper size. They do have paper the same size as what we use in the US, but most of our handouts for class are printed out on giant sheets that we have to fold in half to carry around. In the end it's the same size as a packet of two double-sided sheets in the US, but it's still kind of weird
- the napkins. For some reason all the paper napkins I've used in restaurants feel kind of weird, like they have some really thin plastic layer above the paper. This is totally insignificant but I noticed it, so I felt like sharing. :)
- paper towels. Or lack thereof - most bathrooms don't have paper towels, and only some of them have dryers, so everybody carries around little towels of their own to use. It's actually very green, if you think about it, and also better than China, where toilet paper is not always guaranteed either. Plus I bought a very cute Totoro towel while in Tokyo and I get to use it all the time.
- vibrate mode on cell phones. It's called 'manner mode' instead of 'vibrate', which I think is very Japanese (in the sense that you're being polite to others by turning off the sound) and also amusing.