送別の時間になってきた (Time for the farewells has come)

For the last weeks I have been just counting how many weeks it is left before I get back to Europe but now that I have actually said goodbye to some people for the last time, I start to feel also sad to leave Japan. A couple of weeks and many goodbyes left before taking a plane to Finland...

Last week Wednesday was the last time for me to participate the volunteer Japanese class with the Wednesday group. Because me and two of my friends are returning to Finland, Vietnam and Taiwan soon, the Japanese class went for 送別会, a farewell party, to an izakaya. We had many dishes (both very delicious and some strange ones) and lots of fun. I talked a lot with some Vietnamese students of the class who just came to Japan a couple of months ago. It was so different to having a dinner with Japanese people of my age. Vietnamese are more talkative and use a lot of humor (at least among these Vietnamese I met). I didn't feel like it was the last time I meet those friendly teachers even though I had to make a speech at the end of the dinner. Well, who knows if I will still meet them somewhere some day.

I also joined the Saturday volunteer class after a longer time. This week will be the last time for that too. On the way back from there me and my Taiwanese friend decided to have a lunch in a restaurant we once saw on TV. Some weeks ago we saw a TV program were a group of adults wanted to go for a lunch in a restaurant where they used to eat often on their student time. So the restaurant we went to was both delicious and cheap. All the dishes were 500 yens and even bigger than the ones at our university. The place was quite small and very typical Japanese restaurant where you even take your shoes of and sit around low tables. Very nice!

Last Saturday I went to a Latin party to the place where I went to on my first week in Fukuoka. There were very few people this time but we had great time also talking. I also saw one of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks players there. He is originally from Cuba but moved to Japan for the baseball a few months ago. I wanted to ask him some questions but talking ended up to be quite difficult because he could only speak Spanish. Luckily there is Google translate nowadays.

All my Japanese lessons are behind now and today is my last Vietnamese lesson too. On Wednesday start the last exams and then the studies are over!

Our grammar teacher brought sweets to the last lesson.

Walking around in the area where we live.

Walking around in the area where we live.

A dead cicada. Those noisy bugs are everywhere.
And not so small for a bug..

博多祇園山笠 (Hakata Gion Yamakasa)

久しぶりにブログを書く。最近は勉強のため本当に忙しかったから。一週間後授業が終わり、その後最後の試験だ。試験の前レポートを三つ書かなければならないので、自由な時間があまりない。それから、最近は新しいことは少なかったが、一つの面白い祭りが行われた。博多祇園山笠は私にとって前に見たイベントに比べて、ぜんぜん違い、ちょっとクレージーな祭りだった。なぜ男の人は朝五時ごろ重い「舁き山」を運びながら、走っているのだろうか？面白いね。 でも、この蒸し暑い天気はぜんぜん面白くない。今日私の部屋は今まで一番暑くなった。35度。今からどうなっていくかな…

It has been a while again since I wrote my blog. I have been very busy recently and there has not even been that many interesting new things in my life. After one week my lessons will be over and after that I will have the last exams. Before the exam week I have to finish 3 reports (essays), one half in English half in Japanese and the other two in Japanese. Can't wait to finish everything. Even though it is great to have this chance to study Japanese and amazing to realize how much I have learned during this year, I would already have some break and rest.

The weather is just getting hotter and hotter and the rainy season seems to come to an end because it has not rained in 3 days. I wish it was... I broke my record for the indoor temperature in my room today when I was studying in the kitchen using the free air conditioner: +35*C. And the hallway on my floor feels like a sauna that is getting heated. I decided to check yesterday what the thermometer says there and no wonder it feels unpleasant to walk there: +43*C... Why do they make houses with glass walls because it causes a green house effect inside the dormitory?

One interesting happening this week was Hakata Gion Yamakasa, the biggest festival in Fukuoka. It is hold every year for the first half of July and the main event there is watching men running and carrying big structures on their shoulders. We went to follow that on two days. We got the first glance on Wednesday because we received tickets from a teacher on our volunteer Japanese class. They had built a grandstand to the yard of a shrine and there all the teams had a sharp turn around a pillar as fast as they can since they were competing. We wanted to get good seats so we were there two hours beforehand but sitting those two hours in the sunlight was quite tough. Anyway, following the atmosphere when the full audience cheer for the running men was surely something I cannot experience anywhere outside Japan.

Ice with mango taste. The best thing to eat on this weather!

The first team stopped to sing a song with the audience.

We also saw the teams on the road after they all had taken the round at the shrine.

A Star Wars theme "mountain" was the tallest one they carried.

Since Wednesday was only a practice, we wanted to experience the main race that was hold at 5 am on Saturday morning. We went to the center already in the evening and spent the night out before heading to a good street to watch the festival. Our teacher from the university had told us a good place on a narrow street and it surely was much better than the big streets where there were so many people standing that the last row could see nothing. I just cannot understand who comes up with an idea to make men running many kilometers carrying heavy things in the early morning in the middle of the summer... Well, Japanese do.

They threw water on the runners and we got our share too..

NHK news reporter came to ask a few questions from me too
since I am a foreigner. I am getting famous!

The festival is having a history of over 700 years. The original meaning behind the floats and the men sitting there up and the water throwing becomes from a story of a monk. That monk lived in a temple in a village that had many sick people. Those sick people came to the temple where the monk threw water on them and as a consequence they got healthy. That is what the carried men and the men around are symbolizing.

One more event during the past week was a concert of an orchestra from New Cingular York. Exchange students were offered a free ticket so if course I went there. Two free tickets of 3000 yens (25€) each on the same day was quite something!

蒸し暑い (Hot and humid)

Last night was horrible. Yesterday I turned on my air conditioner for the second time during this summer because my room has become so hot that I would sweat even when only sitting on the floor. So my air conditioner was on for two-three hours before I went to bed and I turned it off just before sleeping. Well, I woke up after just two hours of sleeping because of the hotness. I needed to turn on the air conditioner (which is, by the way, set to 31 degrees and it still blows nicely cool air) again and set a timer to turn it off after 1 hour. I was able to fall asleep again but again after three hours I woke up for the same reason. And I set the air conditioner again for 1 hour and fell asleep and again woke up after some hours... Knowing that the temperature will get even higher after the rainy season makes me want to return to Finland right away. Luckily it seems that today and the becoming days it will rain more than yesterday and the temperature also lowers below 30.

The inside temperature a couple of days ago...

The midsummer was full of school, also on Saturday. So I didn't really celebrate it much. The school work keeps me busy during these last weeks at Fukuoka University. Homework, small tests of new grammar, vocabulary and kanjis, reports... Everything should be done within the next 2,5 weeks, after that the final exams and then some days time to enjoy my free time and pack everything ready to go back home!