Akagawa Dam

The other day my students and I went to have a bbq at the Akagawa dam. The dam is apparently the oldest dam in Japan. Well, according to one of my students at least. The dam itself wasn't all that exciting to look at or anything, but the place itself was pretty cool. There's a park right next to the dam and in the park there is a flowing river. We set up our bbq stuff near the river and had our lunch there. Eating next to a flowing river and being surrounded by grass and trees was a really nice feeling. Then to get up to the dam, we had to take a little hike through a forest and ended up passing a small shrine on the way up there. The experience was a really nice one.

Batman the Cat

A few days ago somebody left an abandoned kitten on the stairs of our apartment. No one talked about it, but everyone just kind of got together to help take care of the cat. One guy put out a sofa for it, another guy gave it his shirt to keep him warm and a bunch of people kind of take turns buying him food and milk. However, I felt really bad having him sleep outside for multiple reasons. The biggest reason is that it's dangerous. The crows here are very big and we've seen them attack and kill full grown stray cats in a 1v1 fight. If a crow attacked the kitten, it would die for sure. Another reason is that on a cold day, some of the guys put the kitten in the hood of their car next to the battery to keep him warm. I thought that was fine, until I notice they would put him in there on really hot days as well and the kitten would just cry in there because it's so hot. That's why I bought a litter box yesterday and I'm keeping him in my room; at least at night. That was the crows won't get to him and hopefully the guys who like to put him in the hood of the car will already be at school by the time I let him out of the house in the morning.

We named him Batman cuz he has black ears that resemble the Batman mask.

JLPT n3 prep

The other two exchange students and I decided that we will take the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) in July. The test is offered twice a year, having 1 in July and the other in December. There are 5 levels with 1 being the most difficult and 5 being the easiest. We decided that with our level of Japanese skill it would be best for us to take the n3. All of us are pretty bad with kanji and that is a huge part of the test. Because of that we've been struggling lately. As I'm sure anyone who has studied Japanese or Chinese would understand, you frequently forget new kanji that you have learned. Anyway, we're studying and plan to do our best on the test!

Exchange student BBQ

Last week we had a bbq with the English speaking exchange student from the other university. It was really fun! Some of the guys took a trip to Misawa a bit prior to this and bought lots of American food in advanced and so we had burgers and hotdogs and steaks. There were also a couple of Japanese friends who came and so it was nice sharing American food with them. We ended up eating a lot and taking a lot of pictures so it was a really fun day with a nice balance of both English and Japanese speaking.