Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!
Today was really fun!!!
We made a nice breakfast for the girls this morning – they’re not used to American breakfasts but they ate up anyway. American breakfasts do tend to be a bit sweet and carb loaded, but they seemed to enjoy it anyway. I went for a run, Yuuko came along, she looks little but she’s pretty fit, Mariko volunteered to walk Marie, so Beth went with her to the park to let Marie run around a little, and Minami was still really tired so we let her laze around for a bit. Ai had been here before, so she just kind of made herself at home and read one of the manga she brought from home for a while while everyone else did their thing. There’s a bit of jockeying for the shower, but good news is, we have more than one, so it all worked out.
The girls came over around noon and we had a rehearsal. All the aidols (I’m going to keep calling them that because it’s the only word I have that describes Ai and her friends, and only Ai and her friends) watched us practice. Afterwards, they politely clapped, and Mariko said “you’re not very good, are you?”
All of us who saw K-On laughed our butts off, and everyone else just looked puzzled and a little offended until someone explained. And, well, they’re not wrong.
I explained (In my not perfect Japanese) that we just started the band and we’re all still learning our instruments and how to play together, and then they looked impressed, and told us to ganbarimasu (try our best). Turns out Yuuko plays guitar though! Not really well, but better than Crystal, and we let her have a go.
Yuki came over at some point in the afternoon and after a significant amount of fangirling (which consisted mostly of bowing and blushing) everything calmed down and they had fun chatting with each other in Japanese. I followed most of it, but they’re native speakers, and, well, shouganai. Yuki told them some stories about being an idol, and they told her in turn about some of their school experiences. Yuki was an idol from a young age so she didn’t get to go to school, she did home study. I mean, she got an education, but you could see in her eyes the envy when they were telling stories about just normal school life. It was a little sad, but I guess that’s why you have friends, right?
After that, we all piled into the car and went off to Wal-Mart.
Ai had been before, so she just held back and laughed as the other girls went wild. At one point, she looked at me and said “Was I that bad?” Well, she said “waruikatta?” but same difference. I just giggled. “un”. She laughed. “Gomen”, she said, and I waved her off. I told her it’s part of the fun to take people to places they haven’t been before and watch them go nuts. Yuki kind of put her head in her hands and mumbled something about “giving Japanese people a bad name”. I giggled.
Anyway, after about an hour, they had bags full of stuff, I got some fixins for dinner too, and we made our way back for dinner. Dave grilled. And… I think they want to stay here now. I’m not the only one who loves Dave’s grilling.
After that, we just had a quiet evening. They’re still jet-lagged, so they were out of it. We just stuffed them full of chocolate and when they hit their futons they were out like a light. I had to carefully step over to them to get to the computer to make this post! Yuki is staying over but no one else is, tonight. Kind of a crowd, but we’ll have plenty of time for that over the next couple of weeks. Everyone’s on winter vacation so no time to be bored!!!