Asuwa River

Today, we set out to grab Sekki from the airport and have some free time in the morning. However, we both slept in today so the free time ended up being mostly sleep. In Japan, it's common to exchange business cards when meeting a new professional contact. At Japanese furry conventions specifically, this practice is adapted to be a way to show off your character and exchange contact information during the con! I commissioned an art piece to use and Atsu informed me that I could use his printer to bring my cards to life. Our free time essentially was "try to make Ritz's cards" time 😅

While making the cards, I was showing Atsu this cool pen I purchased from the store that allows you to erase pen similar to a pencil. Atsu then warned me not to leave it in the car or a hot place because what causes the ink to erase is actually heat! To test it, I held my note pad up to the heater and sure enough the ink started to fade away from the paper. I'm grateful Atsu imparted this information onto me because I now I know I probably shouldn't use the pen for anything I plan on storing a hotter room! I also would have definitely left the pen in my car sometime and wondered why all the ink is gone 🖋️☀️

We then drove about an hour to the airport to get Sekki. I really like the time where it's just myself and Atsu in the car because it's really good Japanese practice! It's harder to act things out or look things up when one of the people is actively driving. It also forces the one on one conversation. I was able to write these journal entries while I was traveling on the shinkansen but it has gotten harder to do that with how active all the events have been and also that travel is now filled with conversation. I wanted to make sure that I was utilizing my time to the fullest so I didn't want to sacrifice any time with friends for the sake of journaling. So, most of the journal entries from New Years to the end of the trip are written by future me! It's a hard choice between living in the moment and capturing the moment. The act of capturing the moment should not alter the moment's experience itself in an ideal world.

While driving back, we had a funny conversation about a statue in the Pittsburgh airport. Pittsburgh is known for its vast number of bridges, so there is a statue constructed out of many replicas of Pittsburgh bridges. However, in Japanese the word bridge(橋；はし；hashi) and the word for chopsticks (箸；はし；hashi) is pronounced the same. The only difference between them is the tone you use at the beginning and end of the word. Bridge starts from a low note and ends on a high note while chopsticks starts on a high note and ends on a low not. This made Sekki and Atsu question if I really meant to say " A statue made of bridges" or if I meant to say "A statue made of chopsticks". A statue made of chopsticks sounds more believable so they were asking many clarifying questions to confirm I meant what I was saying 😆 It felt rewarding tho that I did use the correct pronounciation/tone to get the meaning I intended accross tho! Japanese is filled with homonyms like this and sometimes the tone changes depending on the region! As a learner in a foreign country, I try to stick to the Tokyo accent. I'd like to learn a different accent but the lack of study materials related to other accents demotivates me to do so.

Once we got Sekki, he gave me a very Japanese attempt at a hug, or what we would call the side hug, and we set off back to Atsu's place. Tonight was the first of many nights spent at Atsu's place drinking with friends! We talked about many things, especially differences in language and about animal idioms. Atsu had a book about different english sayings and I attempted to explain what "curiousity killed the cat" and "like herding cats" idioms meant in English. Idioms is one of my favorite parts of learning languages! It's always so fun to talk about.

After drinking a sufficient amount of alcohol, Sekki and I set out our futons in the guest room and prepared for the day of sightseeing and friends on the day to follow!Read more