Fish eyes

Last Monday Aya, her mom and I went shopping for snowboarding gear, which I'm going to use and Aya's mom is going to use when I leave. We also went around town and Ayako's mom checked if it was okay for me to sit it on a 2nd grade class at the nearby elementary school. So we got the go-ahead, and we went to the school to go talk to the principal. He was really nice, and they gave us tea, and they talked a lot but of course I couldn't understand.


:)
This is Ayako threatening to end me.
You know. The usual.
The next day I went to school for the first time(which was crazy, I will do a blog on it soon) and when I got home Aya informed me that she got accepted by her target college!!! I was very excited, but exhausted, so I took a nap and when I woke up Aya's parents were home. It was a holiday, I'm not sure what it's called, but you're supposed to throw beans at people that are wearing monster masks, to symbolize warding off evil spirits.


This is Ayako, her mom and I doing a ritual, where you eat this big sushi roll and you face a certain direction (north? south? I can't remember), and you're not supposed to talk. I think it has something to do with the bean throwing holiday. I'm not sure why I'm making that face, maybe because I had just woken up from a nap and was a bit confused, or that we were supposed to eat this huge sushi roll silently while Aya's dad took pictures... I thought it was kind of funny/awkward.


So then we went out to dinner to celebrate Ayako's acceptance at her college, and Aya's parents took us to this small place that they go to all the time, and they know everybody who works there really well. It was a really nice place, the woman who owns it was there and her son was a cooking. They were so friendly and they talked alot, I think about me, because I hear the word "homestay." Anyway, here is Aya looking gorgeous and happy, and Aya's parents talking about something..



The woman and her son were so happy when they heard Aya got accepted that they baked a fish for us! It was really intimidating, but it was really delicious. It had beautiful orange spotted skin, and Aya's dad told me the name of it but I can't remember. In that picture there is a fish eyeball and cheek meat on my plate. The cheek was really good, and I think it's like a polite gesture to give somebody the cheek of the fish, because it's so good. But Aya and I each ate and eyeball, and it was not good. haha. It was weird and... chewy.
Everything else that we had for dinner was delicious, and for dessert we had this small cup of white almond flan-like deliciousness. Ayako says its chinese. It was amazing.
Ayako has one more big test before she can relax, and its on the nineteenth. She says that many of her other friends procrastinated, and that they're taking back to back tests and interviews for college admissions.