The two main differences between a Japanese cinema and an American one are that the seats vibrate and that everyone is completely silent, even through the final credits. No one got up to leave until the lights were back on.
Yesterday was surprisingly fun. I thought that an outing to watch "Bridge to Terabithia" (someone must someday help me with the spelling) with my host mom and sister would be kind of boring, but we had a lot of fun, and I appreciated the movie more than I expected. It was about kids, yes, but it was not childish. It was about what it's like to be a kid, at least somewhere outside of New York City. Jess' house reminded me of Vermont, but it could have been rural Pennsylvania or something. And I appreciated the emphasis on drawing and writing. My host mom and sister were completely shocked when Leslie died. I had of course read the book in elementary school or whenever, so I knew that the story wasn't just play and it was a bit 悲しい, but I didn't want to give away the ending so I didn't tell them anything besides that. But I honestly liked it. I thought Leslie's character was unrealistic for that age - she looked and thought like a small teenager, not a middle-schooler - but Jess was very much like a small boy, and the school dynamics were only on the edge of being overdone instead of drowning in it. Also, Leslie was such a pixie that it made up for anything else to be able to watch her.
My host mother said she liked it a lot. I know Reiko was crying, but I hope she liked it too. I think Kaori liked it for that; I think - though mistranslations are rampant - that she was surprised by how moved she was. For me, it was that weird nostalgia again, for places I have no memories of. Maybe the Japanese have a better word for that. But probably I will have to take up another language.
After the movie we went down to an arcade that was in the movie theater (!!) and took プリクラ! Reiko says that her friends just call them "プリ". I believe I have explained how they work already. Anyways, I had trouble smiling, but we still got a couple cute ones. And they're sparkly!!
Anyways.
Today I think I'm going to Osu (surprise surprise) with Ksenia and Kate to look for electronic dictionaries and get a flash drive so I don't have to cart my hard drive around with me and worry about it. Should be useful. If I had an electronic dictionary it would be a lot easier to be on my own. Things like going off to visit Miki by myself...if I got lost it would get pretty difficult if there were signs I couldn't read. Contrary to popular belief, this country is not that English-friendly, at least this section of it. Most extremely important signs (like "airport") are in English, but if you're not going to the airport, you'll be pretty confused by which way you're supposed to go from the train station or what the toilet is telling you to do. And I haven't encountered a single Japanese person wanting to speak to me in English yet, although that's said to be common. At this point, I had more experiences with that in rural China.
Postscript:
悲しい (kanashii) - sad
プリクラ (purikura) - purikura, short for "print club", photo stickers.
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