I hate the Japanese sign of summer!

It's gotten friggin hot here in Japan and I, like so many others, couldn't take it anymore and started sleeping with airconditioning on. I hope my bills wont rise an awful lot but we'll see... o.o

Good thing about sleeping with aircondition on is that I close the window before I turn it on. Which saves me the pain of waking up at six o clock just to close the window. I still wake up at six o clock though, maybe even earlier, because of the noise from outside!

I don't know if I should call them crickets or cicadas or something else but they are certainly in that spectrum - because they make noise! But not like crickets/cicadas I've ever heard. No, this is a lot louder and a lot more annoying.

Even with my window closed I wake up from that noise, and walking outside I put my hands over my ears because the sound is just too much. When we first heard it I couldn't determine if it was bugs or if the sound came from a strange machine (because they have been building/demolishing a lot of stuff on the road). But then it just kept coming every day and it just seemed to get worse.

I hate this sound! I don't want to hear it ever. I am very thankful that it's only during the morning. By lunchtime they will have stopped making noise and gone back to whatever they do apart from that.

So, what about the Japanese, do they also feel this hatred? No! Of course not! This is their sign of summer. Now summer has come to us, isn't it lovely?

... No.

JLPT!!

This Sunday I took the JLPT (N3). It was easier than I thought it would be but at the same time I know I made mistakes so I have no idea if I made it or not. Atleast before the test I was sure I wouldn't make it, now I'm not even that anymore..

The test went on smoothly until we got to the listening comprehension, where we had to wait for like an hour before we could continue the test, because one room had sound issues. Sigh. Boring.

In the end I didn't get back to the dorm until some time before 8 o clock in the evening. By that time everyone were really tired (and many soaked since it started to rain and they didn't bring umbrellas), and many felt that they might not have made it.

Glad to have it over though.

Festival in Japan

A few days ago there was a small festival close to where I live in Osaka so I went there with a few friends from school. We only planned to be there for about 2 hours (because we have a test soon) but as expected it got dragged out much longer.

The festival was a lot of fun, even though it has something to do with one of the shrines there it was mostly just foodstands and gamestands around. I got to buy both cotton candy and a candy apple, felt like a kid, but I really love sweet things.

I didn't do any games but my friends did and even though they didn't win anything good, they all walked home with some crap anyway because they always gave you a "Sorry that you didn't win" award.

Closer around the temple (or maybe it was a jinja), you could pay to have your kids be lift up one some sort of contraption but 2 people. Or pay some money to vote for which of 3 people looked the best by buying a flower from them. All to support the temple.

At the center of the festival they also had a big advertisement for the movie adaption of "Sukitte ii na yo".

After the festival we went to a park and fired off some small rockets, a few other people were there too doing the same thing. Eventually the police came but then we were already done with our rocket shooting and headed away quietly.

You know you're in Japan when...

...you see someone fully normally dressed, but in geta shoes:

...there is a mother and a child both in yukata on the subway train:

...every Japanese person you meet tells you "Teach me English!", instead of "Wanna be friends?"

...minors can get into bars (have yet to see a bar with someone outside/inside to check your age).

...they have festivals where you can win fish, eels, crabs and turtles if you manage to get them.

And so on and so forth =)