Dock? Dog? Duck? Oh! Dark!!

Today I had my first test, and although it was hard I think I did just fine.  After school was over I went to go get ice cream and then watched a hilarious Japanese movie that HIF was showing.  I don't remember the title but it was very clever and funny.

Then I took a quick jaunt around Hakodate looking at the churches and temples.  Hakodate is famous for its churches, so I figured today was as good a day as any to see them.  They were pretty cool, but I found the temples much more interesting simply because they are so new to me.  Above is the Episcopalian church and below is outside of a Temple.

The door to the temple is a Japanese style small door which has a tatami mat, and so you take your shoes off before entering.  Inside the temple was huge and spacious, with a golden shrine in the front that was really cool.

Back at home, I took a hirune (hiru=afternoon, ne= sleep, ...aka a nap!) until dinner.  Dinner was a delicious food that was something along the lines of a cheeseburger in a bowl with soup on it.  I don't know what its called, but it was delicious!  The real surprise for dinner though were our guests!  At dinner there was not only my host family, but also Mamasan's sister and her adorable 9 year old nephew!  And the best part is I found out they eat dinner with us every monday, so I'll have plenty of opportunity to talk to them.

Selected conversations from dinner:

1- Mamasan said something about my shoes being different and everyone was shocked.  At first I thought that meant that Japanese shoes weren't right/left specific, but after running to the entry way where all of our shoes were I discovered that that is not the case.  Then I realized they were saying the word for socks.  Basically, it was hilarious to them that one of my socks was a pure white one and one had a grey toe and heel section.  Apparently you always match socks in Japan. Whodathunkit.

2-When we were talking about the solar eclipse that is going to happen in about a month, Mamasan used a word I didn't know, but luckily I didn't have to look it up (yet) because she knew the word in english. "Daahk.  Dockh."  I said questioning, "Dock?" and said in rough japanese- "wood inside water?"  Much laughter.  "Oh you mean dog? Woof Woof?"  more laughter.  "Oh Duck? Quack Quack?"  With each one of these suggestions we all laughed and they would tell me it was a different word.  I looked it up. Dark! Daarrrrk.

High-Dinner Conversations

Low- Failing to realize before I looked it up that "dark" was new vocab.

Hero- Kai, the 9 year old who knows a bit of english but was too shy to use it in front of me. Awww!