Busy Timo

Well, it has been some time sinse my last post on here. This has not been because of any lack of events as in fact I have been very busy here lately between studying and a wide assortment of extra-curricular activities.

I have some goodies to share with everyone as even though I have not been using my camera a lot lately, Boris - my german room mate - has recently purchased a new Nikon camera that not only takes great pictures, but also has nice video (WITH AUDIO) features aswell.

First up, this past week on 2 different occassions some us GenkiJACS students signed up to go to the local university for language exchange with Japanese students there. To my surprise, the classes we visited were almost entirely made up of girls (no complaints though).. Most of them are about 19 years old and they are so curious about us strange gaijin. It is really an interesting experience!

Also, on Thursday a small group of us went to Fukuoka university to learn about and watch Naginata which is basically a Martial art where very long sticks (or in real battle a very long blade) which are curved at the end are used. This first video is of some of the Naginata students practicing form and technique (but without armor at this point as they do not make contact during this warm up phaze of their practice):

*NOTE: During this sport they yell out the name of the body part which they are striking.

Next is another clip from the same place, but this time a couple of the students (Ben - an American, and Uncle Phil) decided to participate:


*NOTE to the left is Phil, and to the right you can see some guys practicing Kendo. After this warm up phase, the girls put on Kendo style armor (see the pic above) and actually wack each other with these big sticks. It was all very interesting.


On friday night after school, we had a Takoyaki party at GenkiJACS. Takoyaki is basically Octapus Balls (not really, but really). Anyways, it is a type of seafood that was surprisingly very good. Alot of foreigners don`t like Takoyaki but I am getting used to everything tasting like the ocean here (it doesn`t all taste like the ocean, but alot of it does). I really liked Takoyaki, but we also cooked and ate Okonomiyaki- Oh-Koh-NO-MEE-Yah-Kee - basically a type of pancake/omelette thing that has veggies and sometimes seafood in it. Okonomiyaki is actually my favorite Japanese food right now.

Yuuji-sensei cooks Takoyaki







Phil and Me enjoy some grub...

Anyways, things have been very fun lately and I actually look forward to going to school tommorow! Well, until next time..
- Timo