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The Friday before last Jonathan and I celebrated Thanksgiving. I successfully made apple tarts in my toaster oven! I bought premade crusts so they were super easy to make. They were especially delicious with vanilla ice cream. :)

Turkey isn't eaten much here and the only place I knew to get turkey was at Subway, so that's what we did. We ate our sandwiches with Stovetop stuffing (my mom sent me that) and the apple tarts. Not quite the Thanksgiving feast I would have in the US, but it was still tasty!


The next day Jonathan and I went to Hattasan Soneiji, which is a temple in Fukuroi, the town to the east of Iwata. I haven't seen much fall color around here except for a few trees here and there (mainly because there just really aren't that many trees around me), but the colors were really beautiful at Hattasan.
















There was one area with a lot of ginko leaves which was popular with kids. Luckily it cleared out for a moment so that I could play, too! Haha!




There was a large wisteria trellis. I want to go back there next year when it's blooming!



It's fall here, but there are still some really pretty flowers blooming. I have no idea what this was, but it was a tree covered with these flowers!

The next day I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). It was in Hamamatsu, but Hamamatsu is a big city that covers some pretty rural areas. It took me about an hour and a half to get to Tokohadaigakumae (that means "in front of Tokoha University") Station. The test was at 12:30 and originally I figured I would grab something to eat from a konbini before the test. Luckily I looked the location up on Google maps beforehand and realized that there were no konbinis around there and took food with me. It was soooo out in the middle of nowhere! The train I took there only had one car and the station was just a platform. There wasn't a building. There wasn't even a ticket gate. There was just some guy with a small table set up who took our tickets. I wonder if someone is always there or if it is usually on the honor system.


It was easy to find the university because other than that it was mostly just fields so it stood out, even though it was really small. It's just a branch of a larger university in Shizuoka, I think.

I took the N4 level of the test. The highest level is N1 and the lowest is N5. I'm pretty sure I passed unless I really messed something up like filling in all the bubbles on the scantron sheet in the wrong places. You only need a 50% to pass. I think I did really well on the vocabulary section, well on the listening section, and not so well on the reading/grammar section. I don't find out my results until the beginning of February though!

The test lasted until about 4:30. I had bought a round trip ticket for the train because it saved some money, but I was really tired and just wanted to get out of there so I took the bus. I was going to have to wait an hour for the next train, but I was able to get on a bus right away. Plus, the bus only took 45 minutes to Hamamtsu Station. There, I met up with Jonathan. We ate dinner at Freshness Burger, did a little shopping, and then had dessert at Mister Donut. Yum!


I had decided to take a break from studying until January, but I'm already ready to study for the N3 exam next year!

Here are a bunch of random pictures from September and October. I've been meaning to do a random post for each month, but I'm kind of behind. I've been busy studying for the JLPT which I took today. Anyways... I will also soon have a post for November.

Mmmm! That's some omurice that I made. Well, it's not much of an omelet I guess because I scrambled up the egg and mixed it into the rice, but it was still delicious. Here's the recipe: Omurice



I made delicious cookies in my toaster oven. It worked really well! These cookies look burnt, but they were just very chocolatey. :) Here's the recipe: Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies



We didn't have school lunch one day so I had to take a bento. I made spicy korean tofu. It works really well in a bento because it is good both warm and cold. Here's the recipe: Spicy Korean Tofu


Sometimes I buy Ray, a Japanese fashion magazine. One month there was a small cookbook insert and it has some really good recipes. Well, I've only made one, but several of the others look good as well. This was gratin and it's very easy and I can change it a lot by adding various vegetables. Yum! It's great because I can make a lot of it and just heat it up in the toaster oven when I want. It tastes just as good leftover.


Yes, that is really chocolate flavored gum. I actually kind of liked this. Sometimes at first it had a weird taste, but sometimes I didn't notice it, so maybe it was just something else I ate before it. It reminded me a bit of the chocolate soda I had last time I was in Japan. I hope they bring that back sometime! I loved it!


Mmmm... Mister Donut. :)


I got this apple ring at some place in Ichino mall. Sooooo good! The outside of it kind of reminded me of baklava. The inside had pieces of apple. 


These maron (chestunt) chocolates were tasty. I think I ate these after the BSB concert.


Chocolate strawberry cake chocolates... :)


I didn't buy these. I wanted to try them, but I just didn't want to spend money on something I figured I would just eat a few of. They're Pepsi flavored Cheetos. Ewwwww.


The green apple Fanta was delicious.  And I love the old style packaging!



I saw this and thought it sounded weird. But at the same time it seemed like it had the potential to be good. It wasn't. I didn't completely hate it, but I got more and more tired of it as I drank it and ended up not finishing it. The vinegar taste wasn't that strong, but it was definitely there.


Jonathan bought this tea (he doesn't like tea, but he didn't realize it was tea when he bought it).  Pineapple is often shorted to just "pine" in Japan, which sounds a bit unappetizing. I tried some and it wasn't great. I really liked the pear tea that I got though. Plus, it had Rilakkuma packaging!


And yeah... my drink choice was influenced by the super kawaii packaing. It was delicious though!


I found some really cute stuff at Pickup!


I bought some pansy seeds and planted them in a pot on my balcony. They're growing now, but the flowers haven't bloomed yet. 


As Jonathan and I biked back from the festival we attended, we saw this creepy place. I have no idea what it used to be.


I received some omiyage from a teacher at school. They were peanuts from Disney Sea with cute packaging. 



This is the brand of fabric softener that I use (the Juliette scent smells sooo good!) but I didn't need any when I saw these. I am almost out now though so I hope that they still have the Disney packaging. I wish Marie was on the Juliette bottle though!


It is Maru!!!!!!!!!!!!!


SAILOR MOON MERCHANDISE!!!!!!!! I bought one and got Sailor Jupiter, my least favorite so I had to try again. I then got Luna and Artemis. I hadn't even noticed that the cats were one of the toys! I still wanted a Sailor that I liked so I got a third one and got Sailor Venus! Yay! I'm glad I got them then because the next time I went to Ito Yokado they were gone. Also, there was a sign for them at Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara, but there was a sign over it saying they were sold out. I guess they were popular!


I saw this bus in a parking lot and just had to take a picture! Shippei is cute! :) Town mascots are a big deal in Japan. Shippei even has a song. I learned the dance to the song when I went to one of my kindergartens. Haha. Then another day I heard the kindergarten near my apartment practicing the dance. They played this song over and over and over...