Hello 日本

After school today, my homeroom teacher, Oka-Sensei took me and Sehee to a Korean old folks home in Izumi. It was just the three of us, because the other girl ended up bailing on us.
At first it was kind of awkward, just the three of us, especially when we went out to lunch. Oka-sensei is a sweetie, and treated us. I had tonkatsu and rice with orange juice.
After lunch, we drove to the home. There were were given slippers from an AUTOMATIC SLIPPER MACHINE!!!!! YES. I freaked out. Actually, I took a picture of it…Anyway, you press this button and it dispenses slippers for you.
So we went upstairs and the first thing we did was help drive (wheel?) the old people into the cafeteria. Actually, this was harder than it seems because the wheelchairs (kuruma in Japanese; funny because Kuruma can mean “car”) were rather difficult to navigate. Then we helped serve out small cakes and tea and then we had to help feed jello to the ones who couldn’t eat by themselves. That was hard. The first lady would’nt open her eyes, so I gave up and ended up feeding another lady instead.
After clearing away the dishes, they started radio taiso, which I’ve already covered a few times I think. So Sehee, Oka-sensei, and I did radio taiso with the old people. But there were also 2 new taiso songs that I didn’t know. Then Sehee was somehow convinced to go up and sing in Korean for the old people. She actually sang the national anthem because she didn’t know what else to do ahahahahaha.
Then we wheeled everyone back to gather around the TV area. I helped give out tea, while Sehee wetted hand towels. Next, we had to spoon-feed tea to two ladies, only they put this strange powder in the tea that turned it into a strange jello-syrup thing. It was gross. I wouldn’t have eaten it either.
After that was clean up again, and then Sehee got sent off to cut people’s fingernails. I sat down beside this ADORABLE old lady and chatted with her as best as I could. She was such a sweetie; kept telling me how pretty Canada was and actually spoke ENGLISH to me!!! I was so surprised that she could speak, especially because of her age. It turns out that she actually studied English in university. She asked me, “Do you go to church?”. I felt bad to say no. She was so cute though, kept saying thank you, and I promised to visit again.
In all, it was way better than I expected. I really liked talking to the old lady (I believe her name was Sato-san). Also, we met this one old lady who was ONE HUNDRED AND TWO YEARS OLD. Crazy stuff. Well, I think Japanese are the oldest living people alive anyway.
I’m not actually sure if they were all Korean or not; Sehee said that none of them really understood Korean and most of them had Japanese names.

So Mama picked me up from Komyoike today and we were driving home, stopped at a red light. In front of us was this guy on a moped, wearing a shirt that said, “GOTCHA” is big bold letters. Inevitably, Mama says,
“What does go-go-t-cha mean?”
I laugh, because her attempting to pronounce it is hilarious in itself.
“Gotcha. Hmm,” I say, thinking of the best way to explain it.
“Wakarimasu,” I understand, I finally answer.
“No, no, no wakarimasen!” Mama exclaims. I don’t understand!
“Mmm, wakarimsu,” I correct.
“Imi wakarimasen.”
“No! Gotcha wa wakarimasu!” I correct again.
“Imi wa nan desku? WAKARIMASEN!” Mama cries, what does it mean, I don’t understand!
I collapse into hysterics at this point, and take moment for myself to laugh it all out against the window.
“Noooooo. Gotcha to wakarimasu no imi was onagi,” I say, explaining it better this time that gotcha and wakarimsu have the same meaning.
“OOOOOOOOH.”

You know those arcade games where you have to pick things up with the giant claw; usually stuffed animals…?
Well on TV just now they showed a game called “Marine Catcher” where you pick up….LOBSTERS. YES. YOU PLAY FOR LOBSTERS.

Oh, Japan. What will we do with you?