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Making chrysanthemums
The last of the optional workshops I signed up for at school was making sweets! To the surprise of literally no one, I absolutely adored this workshop. It helped that it was the afternoon after our exam, so it was a magnificent way to relax after a stressful morning but I can't wait to try and make these back in Canada too.
When we arrived, there were two pastes wrapped in plastic waiting for us. One was a sweetened black bean paste and the other was white bean mixed with (I think) mochi rice flour and probably some sugar too. They both had a texture similar to playdough. First, we divided the black bean paste into 3 balls. Then, after setting aside a little bit of the white, we dyed the rest pink and wrapped the black bean with the pink paste. Next, we added a small disk of white to the top and used the tools to shape and indent the candies. The final step was dying and adding the little ball of yellow in the middle. We ate one candy at the workshop with tea, while the other two were packed up and taken home. I took pictures of my last one and they are all in the image carousel with captions to the right if you want more details. :)
Wednesday's Final Exam
It was a difficult test! There was a listening portion first thing in the morning which was about 15 minutes long, followed by a bit of time to review. Then, the Intro 0 class joined us (I learned I was in Intro 1) and we all began writing together, while one by one students left for the spoken portion of the test. The order was written on the board, so you knew how far along we were. We had an hour and a half for the written and spoken portion. I was third last for the spoken portion, and I had actually finished the written portion just as the person before me left to do his speaking portion so the back of my exam is covered in doodles and Japanese words as I tried to keep myself from stressing out too much. The conversation portion was not my finest hour, honestly I wanted so badly to skip it, but I did it!
We got our marks back on Friday, and I passed! Pretty sure I have the lowest pass of the class, but 2 others didn't pass, and regardless of my mark, I have learned a lot. I still feel like I can barely say anything, but there are small successful moments that I try and emphasize to drown out all the other times I mess up. I'm great at saying "7th floor please"!
So what's next?
Honestly, not sure! That's what we need to figure out. We have some friends from Canada visiting in a couple weeks. Jesse has the time off, and obviously I'm now free. We're looking forward to touring around with them, but after that we're hoping to move out of Tokyo and experience some other Japanese cities. There are so many possibilities, choosing seems really difficult.
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