Osaka Aquarium and a Day with Norihiro

Dear family and friends,
I've realized a really horrible truth: In the Land of Tomorrow time moves so fast!!! I don't know what I'll do when my time bomb blows. . . probably cry. Anyways! Not going to think about that until January 31st :)
Things here are great! Mostly I'm studying and improving my relationships with everyone. I really love my host family. My host mom and I are getting very close, she's so funny, and we often have good talks. My host dad, as usual, is just hilarious. Sarah and I talk all the time, I can't imagine Japan without her. And I'm making some really fun Japanese friends.
Last week Sarah and her host family invited me to dinner. When we came through the door her host sister, who is 8, came running to meet me. She said, in very adorable English, "Nice to meet you!" Her host sisters are so cute and just chatted my ear off in the fastest Japanese! I tried to understand them but their mom had to translate for Sarah, who then translated for me, many of the words lol. Her host mom was so sweet! Sarah has told them a lot about me, just like I tell my family about her, and so she was very attentive and asked me a lot of questions. I put pictures of them on Facebook :) That night Sarah and I did homework for our Japanese Science Fiction class; we watched the first Godzilla! It was so funny! That class is a lot of fun.
I didn't do so great on my last Japanese test. Sadly I've realized my most difficult thing in Japanese: Vocabulary! I can remember rules, grammar points, conjugation, etc. but give me a list of vocabulary words and I'm useless! If I could remember all the words I'd be talking circles around everyone. One of my teachers teased me that if I kept studying maybe I would remember them in a year. . . sadly it might be true. Anyone have good tips for when they were learning a language? Please let me know.
Last week honestly seems to be a bit of a blur . . . just school work . . . hanging out with friends. . . eating dinner. . . going to bed. . . repeat. . . As I said in my last email I made friends with a Japanese guy named Norihiro. He's one of the language tutors so he's part of the "group" now and everyone is always calling him or texting him to do something. He hangs out with the boys a lot, which results in them teaching him really bad things to do and say lol. Norihiro happens to have a motorcycle and I asked him for a ride one day. He drove me to the station, a drive which on the bus takes about 20 to 30 minutes, took about 10 to 15 minutes on the back of a bike. It was a little scary and very fun :) The next day Norihiro attended one of our late classes so on the way walking down to the bus I asked him for another ride. He immediately agreed which made me very happy. It was dark and cold so, instead of holding his shoulders like the first time I wrapped my arms around his waist and off we went. When I got home I told my host mom and she teased me horribly. She said it's bad for a girl and a guy to be holding onto each other like that, in Japan. She gave me such a hard time about it, all the while laughing at the fact that I more or less cuddled Norihiro in public, that I worried about it a lot. I text him and apologized if I made him uncomfortable (he's so shy I assumed he wouldn't tell me if it bothered him). He replied that there must be a misunderstanding because I did nothing wrong and he had been comfortable. This resulted in even more teasing, the next day, from Sarah, as she insisted that he liked it. Since then I haven't asked for a ride lol.
Friday came and I had the full intention of not going out on the weekend and only to do homework and study. And since the forecast called for rain I knew it wouldn't be a problem. I was talking on Skype with Norihiro, texting so I could send him pictures of Utah. He wants to do a study abroad in the US and since Otemon has a connection with Snow College I recommended there. He asked what my plans were for the weekend and I said just homework and he said we should do something. I agreed. He made plans, after I told him about the bad weather, and it resulted in him planning a day to the Osaka Aquarium. So, instead of homework, bright and early Saturday morning I met with Norihiro in Umeda. He, of course true to his character, took care of me by translating and guiding me where we should go. I realized, after spending many hours with him one on one, that my Japanese is crap and his English is very basic lol. Our conversations therefor were simple and often I was pulling out my book and he was pulling out his dictionary. But we managed and we both agreed that by the end of the Semester my Japanese and his English will be perfect! We had lunch before going to the aquarium at a little ramen shop that had a huge shelf full of Manga. A family, a dad with two daughters, were in there. The dad was foreign with blue eyes and his little girls, probably no more then 5 and 3, were so cute! Norihiro and I watched them as they giggled and played, speaking the cutest Japanese ever. When we reached the aquarium there was an entertainer outside on the courtyard that a large crowd had gathered around. Norihiro and I stopped to watch for a while and I'm glad we did. The guy was hilarious! I took a video and put it on Facebook but sadly the act I recorded was probably his least funny one. We watched him for at least half an hour before going to the aquarium. The aquarium, right on the bay of the sea, was really beautiful. They played the most calming music that it was so relaxing. As we looked at all the fish we would both say things like "Kirei" or "Kawaii" (Pretty, Cute) etc. Then, upon deciding to mix it up, at the next tank I said "Oishiso!" (looks tasty). This made Norihiro bust up laughing and he agreed by saying "Tabetai!" (I want to eat it). So, despite the language barriers, Norihiro and I were able to have conversation and have a lot of fun. After the aquarium we got icecream and I pulled out my ipod for us to listen to. Norihiro is a great lover of music, he plays the guitar, and was thrilled to see I had Spitz songs (thank you Trevor) as well as a small collection of Jazz music. I recommended Jack Johnson to him and he really enjoyed the sound. After icecream we found our entertainer was back, he had on a new shirt and looked freshly showered, so we watched him for another half hour or so. On the way back it started to rain like crazy. I pulled out my umbrella and, when Norihiro didn't pull his out, I offered to share. So he took it from me, since he's taller, and we shared my umbrella while Norihiro got us lost lol. It took a while to find the right subway to get back to Umeda but we did. Once there we walked around the station for a while and around the city. Eventually we got hungry and made our way to a small restaurant for dinner where, as usual, Norihiro payed for most of the bill and I ended up paying about 500 yen (about $6.25). While we had dinner Madison, one of the Aussie boys, text us so we met up with him for a while. He wanted to go out drinking and it seemed like Norihiro wanted to go. I figured I would go home when they went. Right as we met up with Sheng, who was going too, Norihiro said he didn't want to. I assumed he was tired so asked if he needed to go home. He said no and that he had time. So, just he and I, carried on our night. We went to a book store and looked at Japanese and English books, looked around an import foods store, went to a pachinko parlor and got pictures in a booth. I caught the last train home that night and, upon further introspection, I'm not sure what Norihiro and I did to pass 12 hours together but we did it lol. Our conversation, though difficult at times, was casual and fun. He's really kind and as eager to learn about English as I am about Japanese.
My hanging out with Norihiro one on one for 12 hours resulted in A LOT of teasing from my host parents and Sarah, it's Monday and it still hasn't died out lol. Ooki Chan insisted that a Japanese boy with an American girl walking around Umeda until the last train was a bad idea, all while laughing at me. When I showed her the pictures of use from the booth she had a lot to say about how good looking he was and has since told me, a few times, that she's jealous of the attention I'm getting. The umbrella situation, as it's now referred to, aparently is proof enough that Norihiro has good tactics, as Oniisan says. It's no use trying to tell them he just wants to practice English and that he's really interested in coming to Utah for school lol.
Today, in the cafeteria, I met the most American Japanese person ever. He saw Sarah and I sitting at a table talking, our class had been canceled, and asked, in English if he and his friends could join us. We agreed. He enthused, loudly, "Ok!" and sat down. He explained to us that he had done a year abroad in Los Angeles so his English was quiet good. He admitted though that he's not a student of Otemon but of Osaka University and was just there visiting some friends. He was so goofy and wild that he almost reminded me of Zac at times, including his style. Sarah and I have lovingly nicknamed Genki Boy (Lively or energetic boy) in secret lol. He took down our names and said he would add us on Facebook. I hope to see more of Genki Boy because he was so funny. On top of that he speaks Kansaiben, the dialect I want to learn :)
Not much else to report. Just studying. . . or actually right now procrastinating. . . Japanese. I hope you're all doing well. I love you guys and think about you all every day. Hugs and kisses! Until next week :)