Today is my last day in Hikone. Tomorrow morning I have to leave JCMU. These past two weeks have been very busy with presentations, exams, and packing, but now it is all over. It’s a very weird feeling knowing that I won’t be living here anymore, but I know I will be back to Japan soon, so I’m not too worried. I’m so glad that I got come here and travel so much.

I’m also glad that before I left the weather finally got nice and it felt like a real spring! And in Japan, spring means cherry blossoms! The cherry blossom trees are a very important symbol for the Japanese people, and they are very popular. Every year many Japanese people participate in hanami or flower viewing. They have picnics under the cherry blossom trees and enjoy viewing them while spending time with friends and family. This year I got to do hanami twice, once with my friends from school and once with my conversation partner.

We went to Hikone Castle, and it was packed! Hanami is very popular, and Hikone Castle is well known for its cherry blossoms. The city even shut down a few roads surrounding the castle because there was so much pedestrian traffic! I had a fun time, the cherry blossoms are beautiful, and I got to eat lots of good Japanese food!

Last night I got to go out with some friends to karaoke as our last hurrah in Hikone. We ended up staying and singing until 3 in the morning when the karaoke place closed. It was a good way to end my time here with my friends. Just a few more days and I will be back in America visiting all the friends I have been missing over the past 4 months.

Japanese

This week for our Friday project we did an interview activity. Local people came in to talk with us so we could practice our Japanese and they could practice their English. The whole thing took about forty minutes, but we switched partners a few times, so I got to talk to four different people. It was very interesting getting to meet different Japanese people and learning about them.

One man told me he was grateful to America for their help after the disaster last March, and also told me he was glad that the U.S. had bases in Okinawa because they can protect the Japanese people if something bad happens. I found this very interesting because in my Japanese politics class we learned that many people do not like the bases in Okinawa because they are located right in the middle of some cities and are quite loud, among other things. This is just an example of one controversy in Japan right now.

We discussed other topics such as movies, food, and our families during this conversation activity. We had to use formal Japanese (called keigo) during this activity, which is somewhat difficult. Everyone was very understanding when I made mistakes though, so I was glad.

One thing I have learned here is to not be afraid of making mistakes. My Japanese is not perfect, and it is going to take a long time before it gets anywhere near there. However, if I want to stand any chance of communicating with someone here, and improving my Japanese, I have to be willing to just try my best to speak it. Miscommunications will happen, and I just have to try my best to correct them.

For example, tonight while eating at a restaurant one of my friends tried to tell the waitress that we would be ordering separate so we could get separate checks. She misunderstood and thought he was saying that he was the only one ordering, so after taking his order she left the table without my other friend and I getting a chance to order any food! We had to call her back to clear up the understanding, though I think she was more embarrassed about it than we were!