Not Lazy: Class Round-up, Castles, and Engrish

Well, I don't have to worry about feeling lazy and aimless anymore, because now I'm super busy. The intensive Japanese course I enrolled in is, in fact, intense.  I have Japanese grammar, conversation, reading, and listening for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. Plus, the instructors speak almost entirely in Japanese. I can usually follow along okay, but my brain hurts when the class is over. I'm also in a kanji class and a business Japanese class, which are also taught in Japanese. Guh. My non-language classes are economics, pre-war Japanese cinema, and Japanese culture & communication (taught in English, thank the Baby Jesus). I have homework nearly every night. The homework isn't very difficult or time consuming; it's studying 18 new and really difficult kanji every week that seems to require the most study-time. When I'm not studying my little heart out, I've gone shopping on the weekends, played some ping-pong, tried some new tasty Japanese food, and saw a castle!

Here are some pictures of Nagoya Castle.  The castle itself is actually a reproduction because the original one was bombed in WWII, but the towers around the castle have survived since the 17th century. The inside of the castle is full of cool old stuff from the castle that made it through the destruction of the war.

 One of the towers from old timey times with the palace in the back.

Nagoya Castle front gate

 

Another view of Nagoya Castle

 A helmet from the Hōjō clan, who were apparently pretty powerful.

 It's probably because they had the Triforce.

 This weird fish-type animal is a "shachi" and they live on top of Nagoya Castle. 

You can kinda-sorta see them in the photos above.

The Japanese love foreign languages and are always trying to use foreign words to add flair to products, but they don't always make sense. When they don't quite use English correctly, I like to call this "Engrish". According to the French-speaking students here, they tend to misuse French a lot as well.  Lately, I find that my purchases are based largely on how awesome the Engrish is. Here are some of my choices:

 I really enjoy milk tea. This particular drink is "The Pungency". 

I did not find it to be very pungent.

 

The writing is tiny on this little memo pad I bought.

It says "If I were an angel, could I send my favor to everyone all the world?"

 My mug has a few inspirational phrases all around it such as

"Have a nice day! Gentle time is on my side"

 "under that sky..."

"Today's feeling is what color."

 "Dental Floss: Hippopotamus and small bird"

There isn't anything incorrect here, but I'm not sure what 

hippos and birds have to do with my dental hygiene...

*Edit!* Just learned some animal fun-facts from Megan:
"In the wild there are specific birds that actually clean the hippo's teeth for them"

The business is a tattoo shop named "Boobies"

I giggled about this much longer than a girl in her 20's should...

FOOD PHOTOS!!! I'm getting better at this whole being a tourist and taking pictures thing. Check out the yums:

 Grilled meat on a stick!

 

Takoyaki!

 

This is a new discovery for me. It's called "tsukemen" and it's awesome. Instead of noodles in soup, the noodles are separate and you dip them in the broth as you eat it. So good.

 

 To finish up, here's a cute little candy I received. The kanji are 名大 or "Mei Dai" which is the shortened version of 名古屋大学 or "Nagoya University".

School pride! Sweet! (see what I did there?)