The Adventures of Mary VoPo

日本, さよなら

2009-07-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

This is not going to be a full blog post. While I could describe my last few days here in Japan and post some pictures, that will have to wait until I'm back in America.

I am just here to say goodbye. Goodbye to this wonderful, confusing, busy, cultured, ancient, kind nation that has been my home for over ten months now. Tokyo has become home to me just as much as Los Alamos or Galesburg. And my host family has become real family to me.

I have cried and will cry again before leaving, but as my program's resident director Watt-sensei said "I hope you too shed a tear or two before you leave. That's one kind of evidence that real contact was made".

Blogging as a form of procrastination.

2009-07-14T06:34:00.000-07:00

It is finally that time. That horrible time when schools decide that they actually have to make sure we learned something. That's right: finals. It may be mid-July, but I'm in the midst of finals. Monday I had my final sociolinguistics paper due, today was my final group presentation in Japanese, tomorrow is my media studies exam, and Thursday is Ainu. Basically, yuck.

What does this mean for you? I'm blogging because I'm tired of looking at old powerpoints from the media studies lectures.

I will go back to Wednesday of last week. Despite a very bad morning, I decided to go to class and go through with plans I had previously made. It was a good means of distraction. Besides I didn't want to hurt the feelings of Mami's parents. They had reserved a really nice restaurant for dinner. This place had these little private parlors with a traditional set up (tatami, table with a pit under it so you sat at floor level) and a view of the garden. You can sort of see our view in the above picture. This dinner was meant as a farewell for myself and Jeremy (he leaves Japan at the end of the month).

The only way to get Su-chan to be quiet and to sit still at this fancy restaurant was to bring the PSP loaded with Anpanman episodes with us. Looks pretty cool in those headphones doesn't he?

Here is my main dish (there were several other courses, but this was the only one I remembered to get a picture of). This is the BEST STEAK I have EVER had. Seriously. Interestingly, they gave us forks and steak knives (even though the steak was already cut). I actually didn't notice until after I'd finished eating. I've gotten too used to eating everything with chopsticks I guess :P

Here is a picture of Jeremy and Mami's father (Jeremy is Mami's parents' host student if you don't remember). I was going to get a photo of the whole group, but my camera's batteries crapped out on me.

The best part of the evening came after dinner when the restaurant turned off all the lights so we could see the fireflies. It was so wonderful just to sit in the dark and watch them. Very peaceful. Except for the loud laughter of some rather inebriated men in a room nearby. Sadly, that was probably the last time I'll see Mami's parents before I leave. They are wonderful people.

So this picture gets lots of explanation. Last Saturday I went to Hakone, a place about an hour outside of Tokyo that is well known for it's onsen (hot springs). I went to what I like to call a hot spring amusement park with some friends (many of the same people that were are the Fourth of July beach party).

No pictures from inside as I didn't bring my camera and even if I had, would not have much to show for it since water + camera = dame desu (if you don't know what that means, I'm sure you can guess). There were a LOT of weird baths (chocolate, coffee, wine, sake, green tea, etc.). The weirdest of all was this bath with fish in it that would eat the dead skin off your feet. It tickled SO BAD! But it worked rather well. There were also water slides and some more normal baths.

Now the picture is of a plushie I bought of the place's mascot. It's called a spakoneko (spa kitten) and I thought it was adorable so I bought one for myself.

Other than that, life has been rather boring and more than a little stressful. I've started to feel that I have too much to do and too little time. Seriously. On top of finals, I have to cancel my health insurance, cancel my cell phone, close my bank account, pack, go to little farewell get togethers so I can say goodbye to friends and family (host family that is).

Just as a warning: this may or may not be my last blog post from Japan. I can't guarantee I'll have time in the next six days to update again. However, I will be doing at least one wrap up post when I get home so it's not like I'm just going to end it here. Thought I'd warn you though.

Just a few pictures.

2009-07-10T06:05:00.000-07:00

So I decided that I'd stick a few of the Fourth of July photos that Cat took on here just for those of you who aren't on Facebook. I'll post about my recent exploits (which include a wonderful dinner with Mami and her parents) sometime later when I'm feeling less down. As a few of you know, I recently had a tragedy occur in my life so my heart just isn't in the blogging at the moment.

First picture is me, Paula, Peter, and Rachel (Tackett--not the Rachel I usually talk about here, that Rachel is Rachel Leppert--strangely enough I know FOUR different Rachels here in Japan). Not sure what we were going for in this picture, but Peter decided we looked like a band of super heroes. I think Cat's going to be drawing a comic about us now...

Me looking perhaps a little too eager with the sparklers. I believe these are the ones we put on the USA birthday cake we made out of sand.

And nighttime. Here I am lighting some fireworks. The wind was crazy so lightinng stuff with a lighter was super difficult. What we'd do was light a sparkler and then use that (because it wouldn't blow out in the wind) to light the bigger fireworks. I feel some of our pyrotechnics were a bit abunai (a Japanese word meaning something like "dangerous") but we all came away safely.

Hope you enjoyed this small selection of photos...

Two weeks and counting.

2009-07-06T05:10:00.000-07:00

I've been putting off blogging for two reasons this time:
1. I've actually been busy so I haven't had the time.
2. I've been lazy with my camera so don't have much in the way of photos to show you so I was waiting for other people to post some up on Facebook I could steal, but they are being too slow.

So here goes.

A week and a half ago on Friday, my host family left to go on vacation in Hawaii. I found it ironic that they went to America while I stayed in Japan especially with my homecoming so close. Because of their absence, I tried to fill up my time with stuff that got me out of the apartment which meant I was super social.

The day after they left, I went to Kate's house for a birthday party. We ate really yummy food, played with kittens, cats, and one dog, then lit a bunch of sparklers out in the street. Super fun.

Here's the group gathered for cake. Me, Kerry, Megan, Rachel, and Kate. Kerry and Megan left before we broke out the sparklers sadly.

This is the birthday cake! It says "otanjoubi omedetou Kate" That first part just means Happy Birthday. Japanese people seem to favor strawberry cakes for birthdays. Interesting.

This is one of the kittens investigating a bag of dried mango I'd bought earlier that day. I would have more kitten pictures, but once again I have two reasons that I don't: 1. kittens don't stop moving when you're playing with them so they're hard to get good pictures of and 2. I was far more interested in actually playing with them than snapping photos. This particular kitten is my favorite. They're rescue kittens and are all up for adoption so they don't actually have names. Kate calls him Marumaru and I called him puff ball though. It's sort of the same thing in the end ("marumaru" gives sort of a round image).

No more pictures from here on. Sorry. If I get my hands (digitally speaking) on some, I will do a picture post later on.

The day after Kate's party, my program had a farewell lunch gathering that included host families. Tomo and Hiro came (with Ryo-chan, of course) since my family was in Hawaii. If you don't remember, Tomo is Mami's younger sister, Hiro is Tomo's husband, and Ryo-chan is their baby (he's six months old now! He wasn't even born when I first got here!). That was nice though not terribly exciting. It's our last official gathering as a group, however. In reality, that was probably the last time I will have every seen some of them. I'm not exactly best buddies with everyone in the group.

Then the week of classes started. It could have been worse, but I'm really tired of class already. Thursday was cool though because my Japanese class went on a field trip. This time we went to a disaster training place (not sure what else to call it). We were taught how to correctly use a fire extinguisher, what to do in an earthquake, and how to escape a smoke filled building. All of these came with us actually doing these things (seriously they have an earth quake room that they make shake while you hide under the table). It was pretty cool.

After the field trip, Rachel and I had plans to go to Harajuku, but it was raining that day and so neither of us were actually terribly enthused. Rain sucks.

Friday I was incredibly productive in a boring way. I got a lot of pre-leaving Japan stuff done (my winter clothes have been safely shipped to Knox on a slow boat). Not much to tell really though I was excited to get all that stuff done. That evening I babysat and then the family I work for fed me dinner since they knew I was alone for the week. It was okonomiyaki which is a favorite of mine.

Saturday was the 4th of July. I missed Thanksgiving, Christmas was pretty lame, I was NOT going to miss out on having some fun on the 4th. A bunch of us went to Enoshima for a day at the beach. We were super lucky as the weather was warm and surprisingly clear. I swam, ate hamburgers, then when it got dark we lit sparklers and set off some fireworks! It was so much fun! I hope I can get some pictures from that day at least to show you.

Yesterday (Sunday) I went shopping in Shibuya with Cat and....Connie! Los Alamos Connie! Connie that I hadn't seen since graduation! She's in Japan for an internship so we met up to hang in Shibuya. Cat knew a little shop with really cute (and really cheap) dresses that were nice enough for us to wear to the SILS closing ceremony. We ate at Mos Burger and just had a good time hanging out.

And that's about it. My host family got home around 7PM last night so I'm no longer home alone. Only two more weeks here in Japan.

There's always something missing...

2009-06-25T04:34:00.000-07:00

So my friend Rachel posted something similar in her blog, and I thought it would be kind of interesting for me to do the same since I have very little news of my doings to put up here (I do have a little news, that will come later).

Things in America I miss the most (in no particular order):
1. my cat actually pets in general but especially Quillo
2. anything involving green chile
3. being able to read signs, magazines, newspapers, books, etc. Believe me, there is something very frustrating about being pretty much illiterate
4. being able to invite people over. While it happens sometimes, it is a much bigger deal here. I could never invite a friend over without permission from the host family and advance warning.
5. my books, oh how I miss them
6. dry air (currently this is at the top of my list--I miss people yes, but sorry, right now you rate after dry weather, this damn humidity is making me melt)
7. not feeling like an idiot every time I open my mouth. No matter how much my Japanese improves, I still manage to feel stupid most of the time when I converse.
8. real classes. I never thought I would miss all the homework and papers and tests but seriously SILS classes are such a joke that showing up is painful (especially when it's so hot and humid! What is with class in the summer?)
9. The ability to hang with friends and have fun without spending lots and lots of money.
10. Hugs. Su-chan will hug me but he squirms.
11. Being inconspicuous. Being an obvious racial minority is very interesting but it gets old fast when people stare at you all day long.
12. Small school. I definitely know that I made the right choice in choosing a small school.
13. Not having to go to a doctor every time I have a cold.
14. Understanding what garbage goes where. Obviously I've gotten the usual moeru/moenai/pet bottles/cans set-up down, but you should see the garbage room at my apartment building. They separate out EVERYTHING and all the signs are in kanji. Mostly I make an educated guess and hope for the best.
15. The ability to call people. Not just people that I'm away from, but people in the same area as me. I miss being able to call and hash out plans because that take two minutes whereas by text it takes half an hour.
16. A room I can spend time in. My room here is tiny. There is a bed and now a desk and the world's smallest closet. All crammed together. I can't spend much time in there comfortably.
17. Big sky. There's too much in the way here.
18. Stars.
19. Quiet. There's an izakaya across the street so even late at night we get to here drunken business men.
20. Sleeping in. Having a 2-year-old in the house means that if I sleep past 8, it's a miracle.
21. No curfew. I'm not much a one for staying out all night but it's very annoying to be out having fun with your friends and realize that it's 11:30 so you have to go so you don't miss you last train. It's either be home by midnight or be out all night. Not very flexible.
22. American washers and dryers. My host family's washer is puny as in five days of clothes is a good sized load. Yet it takes five hours to do one load of wash.
23. A five minute commute. Sure my commute is comparatively short (about 30min where as many people have times that are an hour or more), but still, that's much longer than five minutes.
24. People. Obviously I miss my parents and friends and everyone back home. You guys are sort of a given.

Things I will miss about Japan (in no particular order):
1. My host family (this one is rightfully at the top). Mami is wonderful, Su-chan has stolen my heart, and even Goro has grown on me (especially after we had a conversation about Gyakuten Saiban which is the Japanese name for Phoenix Wright).
2. vending machines. Yes, they exist in America, but unless you've been to Japan, you just don't understand.
3. Sasodango. Mmmmmmm...delicious. The first thing I ever ate at my host family's and an eternal favorite of mine.
4. Public transportation. Ah Tokyo and its wonderful subways and trains. I have become so spoiled.
5. Interesting places to go. Harajuku, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Baba, Ueno, etc. Los Alamos and Galesburg just can't compare.
6. Potato stick thingies. Addictive. They're like a hybrid between french fries and potato chips.
7. Steam cakes. Amazing. Seriously yummy.
8. Onigiri. Oh no, I'm on a food kick... I guess I could make my own onigiri but they won't be the same.
9. Japanese curry. I am going on a curry quest when I get back to find Japanese curry tablet thingies.
10. Tea. Okay, let me explain since it's not like I never drink tea in the States. The varieties of tea you can buy from a bottle here are staggering. Jasmine is my favorite.
11. Weird fashion. I love that people actually go out in public dressed like total goths or lolitas. I always get a kick out of it.
12. Male fashion. The guys back in America are going to look soooo slobby to me! Seriously, what's wrong with wearing clothes that fit and look attractive. Nothing. Japanese guys, in general, understand this.
13. Hyakuen shops. You know how in American dollar stores, very few things are actually a dollar and most of the stuff is total crap? Well, hyakuen stores are not like that at all. I have gotten some very useful things at them including stationary, decals for my phone, a mirror, and a cute fan that I can use when I'm in one of the crappily air-conditioned classrooms at Waseda.
14. Politeness. People here are so polite. They will apologize to complete strangers for accidently stepping on their toes. They will ask if you need help if you wind up staring confusedly at a train route map that is entirely in kanji. Very nice.
15. Crepes. This country has an obsession with that particular french food. Also, kebabs. I put them in the same place because every time I go to Harajuku I think "crepe or kebab?" and wind up getting one of each. I'm such a pig.
16. Purikura! Must do it again before I leave...
17. Engrish. To quote Rachel's panda shirt "Laughing got tired" There's more but I don't remember...
18. Learning a language. It's been awesome to see my progress especially because Japanese is kind of ridiculously hard.
19. My keitai. Despite the fact that I can't understand how to use about 95% of my phone's features, I still love it. And I love texting in Japanese even though it takes me forever. And texting in general. I am an addict.
20. Being able to throw Japanese words into my sentences and be understood. There are few people to whom I can say things like "You are super genki today."
21. Onsen. So relaxing. And the one Mami and I go to near her parents is only about 700 yen. Try finding a hot spring that cheap in the US.

There is more, much more, for both lists, but those are the ones that were jumping in my brain today.
---
News! It's been a while. Not much to report though. Last Saturday was nice weather so my host mom rented a car and drove us all (herself, Su, Goro, and me) to a beach where we played and I swam (YES!). Below we have Su-chan and Goro intent upon their sand tunneling project.

Sunday I was babysitting Su-chan because Mami had a wedding to go to. Not much to report there. We watched Cars twice. That kid loves that movie even though it's in English so I'm not sure he cares about the story he just likes the akai bubu (red car in kid's speak).

Yesterday was pretty awesome. Rachel and I had a lady date. We did dinner and a movie. Dinner was Saizeriya (cheap and they had a drink bar so I had like three glasses of melon soda. Melon soda should be on that list of things I'll miss about Japan...) the movie was Star Trek. Which was AWESOME! Completely worth the exorbitant amount of money we had to pay to see it (1500 yen--about $15--and that's with a 300 yen discount because we're university students). Yeah, American movie ticket prices don't seem quite so bad anymore do they?

Tomorrow my host family leave for their Hawaii vacation which is a bit sad. I plan to use their time away to do some serious preparation for going home. Maybe get the non-necessaries packed up, etc. That way I won't be making a mess while they're around.

That's about all there is to report at the current moment though...

The blogging gets harder as time goes on...

2009-06-18T05:43:00.000-07:00

I have become a terrible blogger. I totally apologize. In my defense, very little of interest is going on, however, that doesn't excuse me from taking so long to blog about the retreat. There's not a lot to tell, but it's something.

Anyway, last weekend was the ACM/GLCA retreat which took place at the same place where we had our last one back in November. There were less people this time though since a few people left after the first semester and several people just didn't come on the retreat. It was a lot of fun though. The weather was better this time so I actually ventured outside and went to the lake with a bunch of people.

While at the lake, we saw a swan that swam really close to shore where we were wandering about. Lydia chased some minnows and a bunch of us went wading. Cory, who is a photography junkie, brought his camera and kept taking photos of us. At one point we decided to take advantage of this and did a picture of us all jumping. We forgot that we were backlit by the lake though but it was really okay since the silhouettes look pretty cool too.

Eventually some other people from our program made it to the lake. Ian and Yuchen decided to take a dip so they stripped down to their boxers and got in leaving their clothes on shore. This was too tempting for us. Rachel, Lydia, Briana, Kate, and myself stole their shirts and Yuchen's hat. Really that was way nice of us since we could have taken their pants and shoes. That would have been awkward for them. Yeah, we're pretty tame pranksters.

In order to show off our spoils, we draped Rachel in the shirts and stuck Yuchen's hat on her. We decided that she looks like Ashton Kutcher in that hat. It's the hair...

The evening was time for a group meeting. We had five Japanese students that will be going to American colleges in the fall with us so some of us did some skits illustrating the challenges of small liberal arts colleges to them. We covered stuff like room mates and drunk frat boys. Many Waseda students live in rooms to themselves and partying here is much different than in the States. Plus, classes will be hugely different. Waseda is a big university and they're all going to small colleges.

After the group meeting we had a party during which we taught the Japanese students an American drinking game called king's cup. After that was done we played a Japanese drinking game and another whose origin I don't remember... That's all I'm saying about that.

The next day started way too early. I don't think any of us got more than a few hours of sleep (except for maybe Laura and Sarah who didn't drink and went to bed around 10 or 11). We had to get up in time for breakfast at 8am (in my case, I had to be ready 15 min earlier since I was helping with breakfast set up).

After breakfast we just hung out really. Played some cards, etc. until lunch and then after lunch we headed back to Tokyo. And that's it.

In other news, there isn't much. Classes continue which is beyond annoying. I don't like this class in summer thing especially since Tokyo is incredibly humid. Sometimes I wonder whether I really homesick or if I just want dry air.

I also had a really bad cold last week so I went to a doctor for the second time. I'm so glad Mami knew of one that speaks English. Being sick really impairs my Japanese. I couldn't even remember the word in Japanese for fever when I was trying to explain to my Tuesday Japanese sensei why I missed class.

Yesterday was kind of cool. I went to a cake buffet with some friends. The idea is that you pay 1500yen for 90 minutes of cake free for all. They had ice cream, jello, chocolate mousse cake, cakes with fruit, cakes with nuts, mochi with fudge on top, cream puffs, and more. So awesome.

And that's about all I have to say about recent times.

Normal Stuff

2009-05-26T17:09:00.000-07:00

There's nothing super interesting to report at the moment, but I will report nonetheless!

A few days ago, a package came in the mail with the pottery that my host family made oer Golden Week while we were in Atami. If you recall, I also made a piece of pottery while I was in Minakami. I got that one sort of recently too so I thought to put up pictures of the finished products.

The one one the left is the one I made in Minakami, and the one on the right is the one I made in Atami.

Event-wise, things have been pretty quiet. This is partly because of some trouble with my cell phone over the weekend. Seeing as my friends live scattered about Tokyo, a cell phone is an absolute necessity if you want to have a social life. But mine wasn't working (I got it all worked out yesterday though so yay to that). Unfortunately, my weekend was rather boring because of that.

Yesterday was the one kind of cool thing. My Japanese class had another field trip (you may remember that last semester we went to a traditional Japanese sweet shop). This time we went to Shibuya to visit NHK Studio Park. NHK is the big public owned broadcasting company here in Japan (when I say public, think more like BBC and less like PBS). It was pretty fun though not super amazing. However, the tickets were paid for by our tuition so we didn't have to worry about money (except for transportation as I actually have to pay to go to Shibuya since it isn't on my commuter pass).

This is Bobby from my Japanese class pretending to be a newscaster on NHK's Ohayoo Nippon (morning news program, the title tranlates as "Good Morning Japan").

And just for fun, last night Mami and I were teaching Su-chan how to do the peace sign for photos.

He is one cool kid isn't he?

I can't seem to catch up with this blogging thing anymore...

2009-05-18T04:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, sumo.

My program emailed us a couple weeks before the tournament saying they would buy us tickets to see sumo if we wanted to pitch in 1000yen. Since the tickets were 4900yen this was a super good deal. I decided to go since, hey, I'm in Japan and sumo is a very Japanese sort of experience.

It's a rather interesting sport though like baseball you get a few moments of motion and excitement followed by waiting for something to happen for a while. This is because they do their sumo stomp thing, look at each other, walk to the side of the ring so they can throw salt on it, look at each other, throw more salt, stomp, throw salt, stare at each other, then finally they actually wrestle. It's a very slow process. So I actually left a bit early since I got bored... I have some pictures for you though.

These are the top-ranking wrestlers I think. Sorry it's a bad picture. I was at the top of the stadium...

Here's an actual match. If you step outside that ring you can kind of see, you lose. You also lose if you fall down.

Following sumo was a week of school, normal hanging out, and babysitting. Nothing to report there. Then the weekend happened and it was pretty busy. Saturday I hung out with my friend Caitlin in the Baba area (the are near Takadanobaba station for those who don't know my Tokyo slang). And guess what? We got haircuts! Not a great picture I know, but I'm not very good at taking pictures of myself. Caitlin and I tried to get one of us together but it was so windy that day that you couldn't actually see what our hair looked like.

Sunday is the really exciting bit though. We went to DISNEYLAND! By "we" I mean Lydia, Rachel, Sacchan (he did karaoke with me, see the Golden Week post if you don't remember), and Hide (don't worry, I haven't mentioned him before since I didn't know him).

Sadly, the weather was not ideal, but it managed to not rain (probably because we all brought our umbrellas) so that was good. We went on the Star Wars ride, drove little cars and little space shuttles, went on Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Snow White ride, the Buzz Lightyear ride (where I totally sucked at shooting stuff), and probably a couple other things that aren't surfacing at the moment. We wanted to do Space Mountain, but it was closed! For renovations or something like that. Sad.

Here we have a photo of our group in front of the Mickey statue. From left to right is Sacchan (his actual name is Satoru), Hide, Rachel, and Lydia. Look like we're having fun, don't we?

Here we have Belle and her prince on one of the parade floats. Now let me tell you how Japan and America are way different. This picture was taken from a sitting position. Seriously. About three meters deep was apparently the "sitting section" to watch the parade. People just sat on the ground (or more commonly on sheets of newspaper so they could take their shoes off...go with it). Then behind this "sitting section" was the "standing section". Lydia, Rachel, and I discussed how in America everyone would be standing and trying to get the best vantage point, but everyone at this parade was super polite. I love that about this country.

Also, Belle appears to be a foreigner. I wonder if it's a fun job? Because I would do it. That or drive one of the giraffes that were in the Lion King section of the parade.

And here we have Sully waving at us. I like it when I get good pictures like this. A lot of my photos from the parade are a tad blurry due to the whole moving thing. I took several videos too since that was easier, but they take forever to upload so they aren't all going in here. Sorry, I'm an impatient person.

And finally we have a lovely picture taken at night. It actually came out a lot better than I thought it would. I was worried the castle wouldn't show up. As it is, it looks rather pretty and fairytale-esque I think.

Sadly the wind was super crazy and it got rather cold. We were going to watch the light parade, but with the wind like it was, we figured it would be canceled (they almost canceled the other one earlier and things had only gotten worse). Instead we left a bit earlier than we had planned. However, lot of fun was still had.

My favorite ride was Splash Mountain. I really like the steep drops so even though it was a bit cold to be splashed, it was still super fun. I actually didn't get very wet though Hide, who was sitting next to me got splashed pretty good.

So, there. I am now caught up with my blogging! No more! Until something else interesting happens I guess.

I am going to give you one video that I took during the parade. The floats and stuff were so cool!

Ja ne!

Golden Week

2009-05-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

First I'll apologize that this took me so long to write since Golden Week was May 2-6 (though for me it was April 30-May 6). I've found that when I have a lot to blog about, I don't want to actually sit down and blog because it takes too long.

Golden Week is a series of national holidays in Japan resulting in almost a week of vacation. For me it was an entire week since I got the Thursday and Friday previous off as well (yay for Waseda).

My vacation began Wednesday night (April 29) with all night karaoke. Karaoke places are generally open 24hours and from 11pm-5am you can get really cheap prices (less than 1000yen per person for the whole six hours and that was including the mandatory drink). There were six of us: Lydia, Cory, Chinami, Erika, Sacchan, and myself. We had a really good time though by the end we were all pretty wiped (especially Cory who actually spent the last couple of hours sleeping). This threw my sleep schedule temporarily out of whack but I managed to get back to normal pretty quickly since I had no class Thursday or Friday. Here we have a video of Chinami and Cory singing some High School Musical. They were good, especially Chinami.

Friday, I was up and out of the house early since I was meeting some friends in Yokohama before heading out to Enoshima for some beach time. Sadly I could not spend long at the beach since I had to be back by four in order to babysit. I did get a good couple of hours in the sun wading in the water and flying a kite. It was lots of fun.

Saturday was all about relaxing for me. The only real thing I did was pack for my trip with my host family to Atami.

We left on Sunday morning and met up with Tomo and Ryo-chan at Omote-Sando station where we boarded the Romance Car (name of the train, I am not kidding). Jeremy joined us on the Romance Car at Machida. After another transfer, we got to Atami Station where Hiromi's (Mami and Tomo's older sister) husband picked us up. This visit we stayed with some friends of Hiromi's because her house is not quite big enough for that many guests though Tomo and Ryo-chan stayed with her. Hiromi's friend Izumi and her husband Kei have a wonderful house and an adorable daughter named Lilia (four years old). We had a great time.

That first day, we had a barbecue for lunch and tempura for dinner. After the children went to bed, the adults stayed up and did some home karaoke in the basement. It was a bit hard because the only English songs were older ones that I didn't really know.

The rest of the time we spent going to parks and other cool place and generally playing a lot. Since we had four small children, there were a lot of parks and other fun stuff like that. We also made pottery, visited a castle (Odawara-jo), and ate at a kaiten sushi place (conveyor belt sushi). When at Kei-san and Izumi-san's house, we amused ourselves by playing with their dog, and jamming with the various instruments available (my favorite was the drum set, I kinda want to learn to play drums now...) then after the children were in bed, the adults would stay up until way too late playing cards so that even though I was on vacation, I didn't get enough sleep (because no matter how much you want to sleep in, two-year-olds will wake you up at 8 if not before).

Here we all are getting ready to make some pottery (Back row: Kei-san, Izumi-san, Hiromi-san holding Ko-chan, my host dad, Bottom row: Mi-kun, me, Lilia-chan, Jeremy, Su-chan). Mami must have been taking this photo.

One of the parks we went to. Here we have Mi-kun and Su-chan on a bridge. Su-chan really loves his cousin and Mi-kun was very good about playing with Su-chan.

This was during our little jam session. Mami was singing, Kei-san on the guitar, and my host dad (or I guess I should call him Goro, which I believe is his nickname) with the rain stick.

So there is a bit of a story behind this photo. Jeremy has tattooed lines on his fingers that when he puts them to his face looks like a mustache. Mami, Hiromi-san, and Izumi-san all thought this was hilarious so they took a sharpie and drew on their own fingers. Here is the result (you can tell Mami and Hiromi-san are sisters can't you?)

Updates and Reflections

2009-04-28T06:17:00.000-07:00

So where was I last time I blogged? I talked about Ueno, yes? Well, I hate to ruin everyone's image of my glamorous and busy life here, but really there are times where I just do normal stuff. However, there have been a couple of interesting happenings.

Sunday was a busy day with the Inagaki family (my host family). Mami, Su-chan, and I made pumpkin pie (thanks Dad!) finally. We had some trouble locating pie crust and neither Mami nor I wanted to go through the trouble of trying to make it ourselves in the cramped little kitchen. It was my host family's first experience with pumpkin pie and it wasn't a bad one though not nearly as good as grandmom's of course.

After pie, Mami, Su-chan, and I went over to Sam-chan's house (Sam being a half-Japanese boy that goes to the same daycare as Su-chan). Why did we go? Because Sam's mother wanted to offer me a job as a babysitter for her two children Sam (2) and Elena (4). I agreed since a. I need money and b. I like kids. Plus, it's just three times per week for just an hour or two each time. Not that bad really. I had my first day on Monday (which actually included Su-chan) and had a lot of fun though it was quite exhausting keeping all three of them entertained.

But back to Sunday! An amusing thing happened around 10:30 when I was about to head to bed (I know, kind of early, but I had Japanese the next morning!) My host dad suddenly wished Mami a happy birthday! I turned to her and said, "Eh?". And she told me she had forgotten it was her birthday! How could she? Her younger sister Tomo was even over that day (to partake of pumpkin pie) and didn't say anything! So anyway, Mami is now 31 years old. And now I know the birthdays of everyone in my host family ^_^

In things to look forward to: As soon as my media studies class is over tomorrow, I am done with class until after Golden Week (Japanese holiday period). Tomorrow night, I am spending the night doing karaoke (and I mean spending the night--fun starts at 11pm and ends when the trains start running again at 5am). Then, this weekend, I'm going on a trip with my host family. We're visiting Mami's older sister again. This time, there's a big group of us going including Jeremy (Mami's parents' host student). This time I promise to remember my camera so I can get pictures.

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Now for some thoughts on culture inspired by the torturous three hour lesson on keigo we had in Japanese class yesterday (Monday).

Those of you who have studied some Japanese probably recognize the term keigo even if you can neither use nor understand it. Keigo is Japanese honorary/humble speech. Unlike English, they have almost an entirely different vocabulary for use in situations where extra politeness is needed. Mostly keigo changes up the verbs you use in a sentence. For example, if you want to say "My teacher went to the airport." you would need to use the keigo verb for "went" which is "irashaimashita" instead of the normal form "ikimashita". Annoying yes? But wait! There's more! The above example relates only to talking about superiors like a teacher or boss. But what do you use when you talk about yourself to a superior? Why, different verbs once again! Not only that, but when you want to be polite there are often nouns and other parts of speech you change as well. The word "ie" which means house becomes "otaku", the word "doko" which means where becomes "dochira" (which also means "which" ugh).

As of now, I have had several lessons try to drill keigo into my brain very unsuccessfully. Partially this is because I never use it. I don't have a formal job where I need to speak to a boss, my Japanese professors require nothing more polite from us than "masu/desu" for except those times when we actually study keigo, and I talk to my other professors in English. However, I have come to believe this is not the only reason I find keigo difficult. I think there is a deeper social wall that makes it hard for me to actually see the merit of such a linguistic structure.

The idea behind keigo is that you are either raising another person above yourself or lowering yourself below them. This sort of offends my sense of self in a way. Just because someone is my boss, doesn't mean they are better than me. As human beings, we are equals. That doesn't mean politeness has no place, but such elaborate forms of politeness seem unnecessary and a bit degrading to me.

Interestingly enough, that same day in my sociolinguistics class, we briefly discussed the fact that in most languages, women are more polite than men. Rachel and I decided that this was not really sexist. It's more that women are more passive aggressive so we can be mean and polite simultaneously.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

2009-04-21T20:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday was Rachel's birthday. To celebrate, a group of us got together and went to Ueno Zoo. Rachel loves animals thus why she picked the zoo. Many of you probably know that Ueno Zoo is famous for being one of the few zoos to house a giant panda. Sadly this is no longer true as the panda died sometime last year before my arrival in Japan. So no panda pictures. Sorry. I would have been more disappointed, but I've already seen a panda since I went to the zoo in DC.

This was in the park outside of the zoo. We were passing by and saw this comic performance. They weren't saying anything so we could actually sort of understand what was going on. We had to meet another friend of Rachel's though so we couldn't stay to watch for long.

First animals we went to see at the zoo! Elephants! In Japanese, elephant is zou (pronounced with a long "o" sound).

This is a kapibara (I think it has a different spelling in English...) Like a giant guinea pig really ^_^

And here's the polar bear. There were a lot of people at his enclosure so it was hard to get good pictures.

This is an Asian wild dog. Cute right? There were three of them all napping.

This is a crane.

This is a reall cool looking bird. I've forgotten what type it is though. My memory is not perfect. Sorry.

I hope I don't need to tell anyone what this is a picture of...

In Japanese, tiger is "tora" (remember that the "r" sounds kind of like and "l" if you try to pronounce that out loud).

A peacock in a tree. I believe there were also monkeys in this cage.

I love gorillas. I think they're cool.

Here is an emu. He was very friendly.

Lydia and Rachel. Rachel has a very entertaining face there :-P

Little baby chick! Sitting in an incubator. This was in the children's area. The also just had chickens that were allowed to wander around. I stayed away from them because I don't get along with roosters.

Kangaroos! Little ones actually.

This guy is probably my favorite animal from the zoo. Doesn't he just look cool? Lydia said he looked like a dinosaur which is totally true.

Another one where I really hope I don't have to actually tell you what this is...

Cory and Rachel. This picture was generated when I said, "Cory, quick, do something creepy to Rachel!" and voila!

It was a pretty fun day all around.

花見

2009-04-14T04:25:00.000-07:00

I have been a busy bee the past week and a half. Finally I have some time to relax a little bit.

Spring has finally come and with it some wonderfully gorgeous weather. The Japanese love spring since that's the time one can see the cherry blossoms. They have what are called "hanami". That's actually the title of this post. Separately, the two kanji mean flower (hana) and look/view/see (mi); translated, hanami is usually called a blossom viewing party. People flock outside to picnic under the cherry blossoms. I myself did this several times with my host family.This photo is from my first hanami. Mami, Su-chan, my host dad (I still feel weird calling him Yosuke...) went to an area near Yasukuni shrine which is famous for its blossoms on a Friday evening. This meant there were a bunch of people there picnicing and wandering around. Because of that, my host dad eventually took Su-chan home so that Mami and I could walk around unencumbered by a two-year-old. Taking pictures was hard since it was night, but I got a few good ones like the one above.

The next morning was more blossom viewing. This time we all went to a park in Shinjuku which was more open so that Su-chan could run around. Now you can see some blossoms in daylight!

And here we have Su-chan in a tree. See? This park was great for him. Lots of opportunities for him to do silly things. I was impressed that he actually looked at me when I took this picture. Usually he does something weird when you try to get a photo of him so that most of the time you get a blur...

...Or a photo like this. This was taken that night at Mami's parents house. We stayed that night in order to help welcome Jeremy, Mami's parents' new host student. We I told Su-chan I was taking a picture, he started running at me like the crazy child he is so this is the result.

This photo is of me at a park near where Mami's parents live. I went there with Mami's dad and Jeremy. We had been intending to go to another Hanami that a friend of Mami's was hosting, but Su-chan was not his usually genki self (genki being a Japanese word that means healthy and energetic) so we didn't go. The park was really pretty though and you can see a whole regiment of turtles on that thing in the water behind me.

After that weekend, I had to start classes which was not really any fun. No one wants to go from two months of break to three hours of Japanese in the morning. Luckily, however, my classes this semester seem like a lot of fun. Besides Japanese, I'm taking sociolinguistics, Ainu in a typological perspective, and media studies (this is maybe my favorite but that might just be because the professor is a Doctor Who fan).

Last week was also exciting because I got a visit from KENDRA! Her Semester at Sea ship came to Japan so I got to hang with her for a few days (when I wasn't in class anyway...I'm a good girl!) which was super awesome! Though a bit sad since that's the last visit from anyone back in the States that I'm getting while I'm here.

That pretty much brings us up to date. By the way, as a bit of trivia, today is my seven month anniversary here in Japan.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

Break is almost over...

2009-03-31T03:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've turned into such a bad blogger...

Anyway, this post begins with Vammy's visit. We had lots of fun though she was here too short a time, especially since one of the days she was here I got sick and had to go see a doctor. I sure know how to show my friends a good time. Thankfully the next day I was feeling better, probably due to the drugs I got from the doctor.

We went to Kamakura, Asakusa, the Imperial Gardens, Meiji-jingu, and Harajuku (Vammy also went to Ueno with Rachel while I was sick). Even though these are all places I've been before, I've got a few pictures for you...

This fountain is in the Imperial Gardens.

More at the imperial gardens.

Blossoms! Not many trees were blooming yet at the time.

Vammy in Kamakura. This bridge is at Hachimangu.

So as soon as Vammy left I had to turn around and pack for my trip to Korea with Rachel. That was an interesting feeling. Here I am living in a foreign country and I went on vacation to a different foreign country. Pretty cool right?

Anyway, the day we left started out kind of bad since it was super windy so there were lots of train delays and even some cancellations (I had an issue because of this). However, we made it to Narita just fine and luckily our plane was leaving from terminal 1 not 2 because there was a plane crash that caused several plane cancellations over at terminal 2 (the plane crashed because of wind in the early morning while trying to land). But Rachel and I made it out of Japan just fine (did you know Japanese security doesn't make you take off your shoes? It was awesome!)

So when we got to Korea, one of the first things we did was change some money. We decided that Korean money (won) looks a bit like Monopoly money and has far too many zeros (that blue 1000won bill is worth less than a dollar).

One of the first tourist spots we went to was a palace (there aren't going to be many place names in here by the way. Me and Korean words don't get along. Sorry). This palace was apparently partially destroyed at some point so much of the time we only saw pieces of it, but here's a picture of an intact bit. Korean architecture and Japanese have many similarities since they have a lot of shared history.

After looking at this palace, we decided to go check out a Buddhist temple that Watt-sensei (our resident director and expert on Asian religion especially Buddhism) suggested when I told him about our trip to Korea. You can get a free tour in English. However, the tour guides for foreigners were out to lunch so Rachel and I decided to eat then we went back. That temple was AWESOME in my opinion.

So here's a picture of me at the temple in front of what I decided is a super adorable Buddha. Behind me and to the left of the picture is the temple's great hall. Around the walls of the great hall are painted panels depicting the life of the Buddha. I took a bunch of pictures of these panels and was thinking of putting them up in order with a bit of narrative.

Also, behind me, hanging up are lots of very colorful lanterns. These were being hung all around the temple. The Buddha's birthday is coming up in a few weeks or something like that so those lanterns are being hung for that. It was awesome with all of the color everywhere.

As you can see in this picture, they even had them in the trees. Mostly I'm putting this picture up because I like it...

After visiting the temple we decided to try and find a park that was nearby though we had a little trouble and got a bit lost, but the park was worth it since it was really pretty and we got to go pretty high up so that we had some great views of the city.

This guy was not in the park. This was at some random street near the temple I think. I thought he was cute so I made Rachel stop so I could take a picture. I like that it looks like he's pouncing on the world, and he's got that smile on his face...

So here's one of the views from that park. I really love parks in big cities. You get such a wonderful feeling of escape.

This place had a tram that went up and down, but we didn't know that until we were already halfway up and I don't think you can just take it from the top down. I think it's only a round trip thing since we couldn't find a path leading to the station at the top.

I'm sure this place is even now starting to look really spectacular since there were a few trees blooming while we were there. Both Rachel and I really loved these flowers. I kept trying to get close ups of the blossoms, but my camera would just focus on the branch instead so the flowers were all blurry. It was quite annoying.

The next day we did a shopping expedition since stuff in Korea is pretty cheap. I had to buy a new bag anyway since the strap on mine broke in Narita airport (made it very annoying to carry).

The day after shopping we visited another palace. This one was not partially destroyed so there was a lot more to see. There were lots of pretty little paths and very ornate buildings.

Here is a pretty little path. And a very ornate building.

After going to the palace, we found a cute little restaurant that had great food for really cheap (seriously for 7000won you got soup, bread, a drink, and a huge entree. That's about $5.50 folks). Then we went to go see Nanta. This was the absolute best part of the trip, no contest. They do world tours so if you ever get a chance to go see Nanta (I believe the English title is Cookin' or Cookin' Nanta) DO IT. Basically, they use kitchen utensils as instruments and they have very good non-verbal humor so that everyone was laughing whether you were Korean, American, or Japanese. Since photos and videos were not allowed during the show, I've instead included a video from youtube.

The best part of Nanta for me was that it included audience participation. At one point, they make a soup (seriously, on stage while banging pots and stuff, they actually make a real soup) then they get a man and a woman from the audience to go up on stage and eat it. The "sexy guy" (that's the name of the role...and, in my opinion, the truth) picked me out of the audience. So I got to be led up on stage by a very good looking, very fit Korean guy then given yummy soup to eat. It was awesome. And the picture there is to prove it. This picture is actually up on their website (which is good because while I got a couple of photos from the Nanta people of me onstage, I don't have a scanner so I couldn't put them up here so I yoinked the one from the website).

As I said, best part of the whole Korea trip.

After the show, we still had time on our hands so we visited a Korean history museum (free admission!) which was pretty cool. Since I knew nothing of Korean history (except vague bits that I learned when I learned about Japanese history) it was pretty interesting.

This picture is of some cool looking totem type things that they had around the museum building. I think the plaque said they were to protect villages from demons or something like that.

Our last day in Korea was a bit more wandering around and buying souvenirs. We didn't have any real specific places we had to go, but we wound up entertaining ourselves at a shopping district then going to a university area (the university is apparently well know for its art programs so the area was pretty quirky). There I saw this cute mascot thing though I'm not sure what it was for. It saw me taking a picture though thus why it's facing me and posing.

We also went to a coffee shop in that same area called Coffee Prince. The shop is also the set for a very popular Korean drama called (in English) "First Shop of Coffee Prince". Rachel had seen a few episodes so when she saw that there was a bit about it in our guidebook, we decided to go. We got turned around a few times and had to ask directions (we did this in English since we don't speak Korean. Such tourists.), but we made it. Each of us got a coffee of some kind and a piece of cake. It was a kind of expensive place (though being the site of a tv show, I suppose that's understandable since they can get away with it), but it was also tasty so I didn't mind so much.

So here's my cake (rasberry cheesecake) and latte.

The next day, we packed up, left the hotel, and headed back to the airport and Japan. Once again, security and immigration and stuff were not that bad (I dread going back to the States to deal with all that airport crap especially since I'll have soooo much luggage).

And that's about it. Classes start on Monday and Kendra's coming to Tokyo Tuesday (actually Yokohama, but it's close). This weekend I'm going to a welcome dinner for Mami's parents host student who arrives this week, and we're also going to two different hanami (blossom viewing parties) I believe so you can expect lots of pictures of cherry blossoms soon.

So I may be a bit slow about the blogging, but I hope the sheer length of this post makes up for that.

My Month Away: Part 4

2009-03-14T05:46:00.000-07:00

So I realized that I really need to finish off my blogging about Minakami since Vammy's coming on Monday then right after she leaves, I go to Seoul with Rachel. If I don't get it all down now, it's never happening which I'm sure would disappoint everyone who reads this.

So here goes! With pictures!

This is a view of the lake that was right by my house. There were lots of beautiful shots, but the one time I remembered to bring my camera, the batteries died right after taking this photo. Every other time, my decisions to walk around the lake were spur of the moment so I'd forget to grab my camera.

The water was the most impressive thing to me. It was such a beautiful teal color.

This lake is actually there because of a dam. The river that they dammed to make this lake is the second largest in Japan and provides much of the water used in Tokyo. So when I turn on the tap in the kitchen, it's likely that water came from Minakami :D I thought that was a pretty cool tidbit of trivia.

This next picture is of me trying to climb a rock wall though I was not very successful (this was the harder climbing wall by the way). Lydia, Ian, and myself were given several cool activities where we mingled with Minakami people doing fun things. The wall climbing was one of them that we did with a children's sports club.

After wall climbing, we got to participate in another super cool activity. We helped make mochi! Mochi is a Japanese food that is pretty much flavorless so you can put it in anything and is very chewy and sticky. It's a traditional food to eat at New Years (though you can eat it at other times). As you can see, the process of making mochi is rather labor intensive when done by hand.

After making the stuff, we got to eat it. There was sugar and soy sauce and other flavoring to mix it with (obviously the sugar and soy sauce were not together).

The last picture I put here from that day is of Ian (from my program) and Takkun (from Garuni--the inn I worked at). Ayami-chan and I kept trying to convince Takkun to cut his hair because we both liked it better that way (he had short hair at their wedding--Ayami-chan showed me the wedding album).

The next activity Lydia, Ian, and I did was visit a high school in the area. We went an talked to an international econ class. In the picture is me, talking about New Mexico (in Japanese!). When Lydia and I walked in the classroom, several of the students said "Kakkoii!" which means "cool!" and that made us happy. They all really liked Ian too maybe because he's super tall...

They got to ask us questions and were told to try to do so in English so we got a lot of "what sports do you do?" and, of course, "do you have a boyfriend?" We also got several questions in Japanese because they were mostly pretty shy about their English. Actually shy in general since the teacher had to pick someone at random to ask the first question (that person then picked the next, etc.)

Except for the uniforms and the fact that everyone was Japanese, it was really a lot like high school at LAHS. Well, the class size was bigger too I guess... But the students acted pretty similar. Like teenagers.

After going to the school, we were taken to Takumi no Satou which is a village place where there's these shops that let you make crafts. Some are traditional Japanese crafts like making Japanese paper and some could be less traditional, like glass blowing. We decided to go traditional and paint omen (masks). Though I picked a cat to paint which isn't exactly a traditional one, but I like cats. Everyone else went scary.

The lady on the left is from the Minakami city office. Then there's me, Lydia, and Ian. Kobayashi-san (also from the city office) is taking the photo.

But wait there's more! Lydia and I got invited by Ian's host family to do a snowshoe tour! Ian led the tour though his host father also came with us. It was SO MUCH FUN!!! We went up to a really cool cave called Ooyu (Big Demon/Death or something like that, hard to translate the second kanji, but the big part is easy).

The first picture is of the Totoro tree that was near the path. We fit Ian, Lydia, and myself in there (anyone who's seen Tonari no Totoro will understand the reason for the name). We were trying to make a snow bunny but decided it looked more like a totoro so we put it at the tree's entrance. Cute yes?

The next photo shows Ian snoeshowing, Lydia biffing, and me snowshoeing. I also fell at the exact spot Lydia did. That slope was steep! Next to Ian is our destination. This cave was super cool!

We had lunch at the cave (mmm... udon and really good tea) before heading back down. Ian and Nori-san (his host-father) had brought little sleds so the down was super fun (and way faster than the up).

So behind us in the picture you can see what makes the cave so awesome. Those things grow like stalagmites except they aren't pointy. I thought they looked kind of like jelly-fish-scicles.

Next we have the last group outing. Lydia and I went to Takumi no Sato this time without Ian and made pottery. That was really fun though I was not very good at it. Here is me pictured with my pot.

After that, we met up with Ian at an onsen which was relaxing and very nice of course. And after the onsen we went to an izakaya (Japanese style bar) for a nomihoudai with some people from the city office. A very fun night though I won't go into details ~_^ All you get is this picture. I think Ian is trying to look cool, Lydia is imitating a guy that you see often on Japanese television, and I'm trying to be creative with my use of the peace sign...

I hope this helps to satisfy you guys and show you that I got to do many things during my time in Minakami. Certainly a month well spent. It was a really great experience. So much so that all three of us want to go back when it gets warmer and go river rafting!

I also hope there's enough pictures for you (we are visual creatures, I know). However, if not, let me add this video of me sledding down part of the mountain we snowshoed up:

I will have you know that everyone was super impressed by that 360 I did.

And here's a video of us running in our snowshoes (Minakami Baywatch Style!):

Wow, we look like idiots. It was super fun though.

My Month Away: Part 3

2009-03-12T04:09:00.002-07:00

Sorry this is taking me so ridiculously long. I've been surprisingly busy. Tuesday I went to lunch with Watt-sensei (our resident director) then went shopping with friends. Yesterday I was again hanging with friends (a shabushabu tabehoudai and karaoke in Shinjuku). Today I had to go to Shinagawa with Rachel so we could get our reentry permits for Korea. Because it would suck if we couldn't get back to Japan. After that we decided to wander around Shibuya, but apparently for us all roads lead to Harajuku so that's where we ended up (so of course we ate crepes). Anyway, I am now back at home having eaten a giant meal of Indian curry from the delicious restaurant from accross the street. And I've decided to sit down and blog.

So, Minakami:

The first evening I just unpacked and relaxed. The next day though I started to work. Now when I was working my schedule was something like this: wake up, work, eat, work, sleep, eat, sleep, work, eat, work, sleep (this time for the night). Seriously, I did a LOT of napping. However, sometimes instead of sleeping after lunch I would go for a walk. That first day, Ayami-chan and Takkun took me to see the lake right by the house and Ayami-chan and I bonded over her cat (the actual cat is very shy but Ayami-chan has a digital camera full of adorable pictures of her). I was also shown around the ryokan and introduced to everybody (though remembering names was super hard...) Since I first arrived on the weekend, my working schedule continued for a few days.

Hideko-san's husband (my host dad) returned from his business trip after a few days. They both love movies so the first day back, we all watched Hancock (mmmm....Will Smith). After that I would probably watch a movie every few days at night with Hideko-san and sometimes her husband (if he was around).

Another activity I got to enjoy on one of my free days was horseback riding. Once a week, Hideko-san gets a horse riding lesson and she took me with my first week there. It was lots of fun but also really cold. I thought my fingers would never be warm again. There also two very large, very lovable dogs there that I had lots of fun playing with and loving. I would also go shopping with Hideko-san, Ayami-chan, and Kyoko-san (Hideko-san's daughter-in-law/Takkun's older sister) when they went to get a change of scenery. Minakami has several similarities to Los Alamos including mountains, pine trees, and a lack of public transportation. Tokyo has completely spoiled me so not being able to go where I wanted whenever I wanted was hard.

Other things I did with my host family and coworkers included making Valentine's Day chocolate (which I then gave to my host parents since I had no boy to admire in Minakami), going strawberry picking (the strawberries were GIGANTIC and so sweet you'd think they were dipped in sugar except you know you just picked it off the plant), and I taught them to make guacamole. The guac was for a welcome party held for me and Kaori-chan and Kine-chan (two new members of ryokan staff). We all had to introduce ourselves (in Japanese...even me) which ended up being kind of funny because Kine-chan was way more nervous than me even though Japanese is his native language.

I did lots of other activities that were organized by Kobayashi-san (one of the city office members that helped get us Japan Study people to Minakami), but I think I'll save those for another post. As well as pictures. Sorry, but I ate so much today that I'm kind of sleepy and lazy.

Also, does anyone know if there's an actual word in English specifically for "gunk in your eye"? Mami and I were talking about it and she gave me the Japanese word (mekani?) and asked what it was in English. All I could come up with was "gunk in your eye". Mami really enjoyed the word "gunk" though.

My Month Away: Part 2

2009-03-08T00:03:00.000-08:00

So I was totally going to blog all about Minakami this weekend, but Mami, Su-chan, and I all went to Mami's parents house to hang. Sorry. Starting in April her parents will also a have an American student living with them so Mami promises we will all go there often to asobu (asobu is the Japanese verb "play" but is often used in a more "hang out"-like context).

Anyway, about Minakami.

Rachel and I took the shinkansen (bullet train) from Osaka to Tokyo where I had an hour and a half to buy a bento (boxed lunch) and omiyage for my Minakami host family before catching my shinkansen to Minakami. This seems like a lot of time, but it was really just enough as Tokyo station is gargantuan and I had all of my luggage to drag around.

I went to Minakami with two other ACM/GLCA Japan Study students: Lydia and Ian. I was very happy that Lydia was going since we're buddies. Anyway Lydia and I wandered Tokyo station together and got confused and finally found our platform.

At left is Lydia with our combined pile of stuff. And this is not everything I have here in Japan by any means. I often wonder how I'm going to get everything home.....

I believe our group was actually the closest to Tokyo (with the exception of Jazz who stayed in Tokyo) as our shinkansen ride was just over an hour.

We arrived and were met by a welcome committee of people from the town office (or whatever you call it, I hate translating that kind of stuff) and Watt-sensei and Michiyo. There was a little welcome gathering where we met what member(s) of our host family came to pick us up (for me it was just Hideko-san as her husband was away on business). From there Hideko-san took me to her house where she assured me that I would have no duties that night but would get to work the next day.

I will start by describing the kinds of things I did. Hideko-san and her husband own three ryokan (Japanese-style inn) all near each other. Hideko-san manages and works in one (called Garuni), her son and his wife manage the biggest one (Maruichi), and a long-time emplyee manages the third (Maiyote<--not sure of the spelling on this one...) So I worked in Garuni. The cleaning is done by a company that comes in once a day so I didn't have to deal with making beds or vacuuming or anything. I worked in the kitchen. At Garuni there's a couple that work there and take care of things probably at least as much as Hideko-san does: Ayami-chan and Takkun (his name is actually Takuhiko, but people rarely call him that since it's so long). They are absolutely wonderful people with whom I had a lot of fun. I especially loved Ayami. She's only a few years older than me (she's 25) and really sweet. Random fact: she and Tony have the same birthday.

Really everyone there was really nice. The best part was they were all willing to talk to me (with the exception of Kine-chan, who despite the feminine nickname is a guy, because he's super shy) despite my limited Japanese. It was also funny to see what English they knew. One of the high school girls who did her baito (part-time job) at Garuni knew the word "coordination" even though her English was super basic. So I had lots of conversations involving mostly Japanese with lots of gestures, sound effects, and the occasional English word thrown in.

Anyway, I wanted to explain what I actually did. Winter is the slow season for these three ryokan as they aren't really near any of the Minakami ski slopes (like Lydia's pension) so we only really had customers on weekends. This meant that I usually worked Friday morning cutting vegetables and preparing food and things we would need for the weekend that we could do ahead of time. Then Friday night, Saturday morning and evening, and Sunday morning (and sometimes Sunday evening and Monday morning) I would help put together plates for the guests (other people cooked, I just put things on the plates so they looked pretty then took them to the tables). After the guests were done, I was general on dish drying/putting away duty. This involved me standing next to the giant dish washer and drying each batch of plates, bowls, etc. as they came out then putting them away. Since the meals were pretty complex, this was actually quite the job (each place setting probably had at least ten dishes, multiply that by about 20 guests, sometimes more).

So during the week, I had a lot of free time, but you'll have to wait to hear how I spent that because I'm tired of blogging for now. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I didn't take any of me working, sorry :P I really think this might take at least two more entries. Sheesh. So much...

My Month Away: Part 1

2009-03-05T17:40:00.000-08:00

Hello again! Since I've been gone such an incredibly long time, I've decided that one blog post is just not going to cut it so I'll probably split up the last month into three or four parts depending on what happens. So today I will begin.

Osaka.

Osaka is actually very near Kyoto so when Rachel and I took the night bus there we actually passed through Kyoto. Since we were only going to Osaka for a concert (Fall Out Boy, one of Rachel's favorite bands) and had to sandwich it between our religions final and my departure for Minakami, we were only there for two days.

The first day we got there started out kind of lame. We arrived sometime after 7am but couldn't check into our hotel until 2pm which left us with our luggage (especially me since I also had everything I needed for Minakami) and no idea what to do (we were sleep deprived). We wandered the area we were in a little (near Shin-Osaka station I believe), got a bit lost, and then finally decided to find someplace closer to our hotel to explore. So we ended up going on a giant ferris wheel ride which was extremely cool.

As we entered the ferris wheel, Rachel and I had our picture taken and as it was near Valentines Day, the background and props were hearts and flowers and lots of pink and red. Very coupley :P We both bought copies of the photo as it was just too funny. Unfortunately, I don't have an electronic copy to post.

The view from the ferris wheel was absolutely incredible. Osaka is a port city and the ferris wheel was right near the water so we got an amazing view of ocean and cool bridges and some really cool buildings too. Sadly I do not really remember a lot of the names of places I took photos of from the ferris wheel. It was a month ago after all. This picture is of a bridge I particularly liked so I thought I might as well stick it up here. I believe the land to the left is actually the island where our hotel was.

After the ferris wheel ride was over, we headed to Kaiyukan which is a huge aquarium that was right next to the ferris wheel. It's a really cool aquarium with one of its main attractions being a whale shark which was super impressive.

Since the aquarium was so close to the ferris wheel, it was actually one of the buildings that we got a really good view of. I thought the building was really interesting especially when you can see the whole thing from a distance. I'm pretty sure it actually goes underground a ways too. You start at the top and spiral your way down through around all sorts of tanks. There were dolphins and penguins and sea lions and octopus and really huge crabs.

Mostly it was really hard to get any kind of photos especially with my camera which has an incredibly slow shutter speed (for a digital camera, it's pretty ancient). However, I took a couple of videos and the one with the crabs turned out okay so here it is. These guys are really huge. They probably would have made it almost to my waste were they standing next to me. There were also fish in the tank that seemed very content to just sit still and get almost stepped on by these crabs all the time. It was really weird and kind of creepy really.

After we checked in to the hotel, we napped, showered, the went in search of dinner and entertainment. Osaka, however, is dirtier and sketchier than Tokyo so after dinner (okonomiyaki) and some wandering to go back to the hotel and sleep.

The next day we mostly spent hanging out by the concert venue so we could get a good spot in line. Photos inside were not allowed so I've got nothing for you there sadly. I had a lot of fun though and met a really nice Japanese girl named Yoko who was also from Tokyo and in fact lives somewhere on the Hanzomon line (the same line I live on). I got her phone info so we can make plans to hang out now that I'm back in Tokyo.

The next day I again got to haul my luggage accross Osaka so we could catch our shinkansen back to Tokyo where I then went on to Minakami. However, that will have to wait for later since I feel this post is long enough and I'm tired of typing for now anyway.

A Temporary Farewell

2009-02-03T02:28:00.000-08:00

My semester is well and truly over. I took my last final today (Self and Society in Asian Religions). I'm sure I did well though considering how I did on the first two tests it doesn't really matter as I could get a 50% and still get a A in the class.

The real point of this post is to say goodbye. I'm leaving in a few hours to catch my night bus to Osaka. Then on Friday morning I take the shinkansen (bullet train) back to Tokyo where I will have about an hour and a half before getting on another shinkansen going to Minakami this time. I'll be in Minakami for 4 weeks so this blog will be inactive until I return on March 5th (maybe a little longer since I might not feel like blogging right when I get back).

So, goodbye for now!

SURPRISE!

2009-01-28T16:13:00.000-08:00

So first I'm going to apologize that I haven't been giving you all the super interesting stuff that's been happening as it happens. I wanted to surprise you guys. I recently got an amazing opportunity. As you know I was taking a Japanese politics class this semester. My professor (Morikawa Tomonori) is a very well-connected person, and in Japan the idea that connections are everything is completely true.

Professor Morikawa is friends with Koike Yuriko's top secretary (Koike Yuriko is a well-know female politician here in Japan. If Japan were to have a female prime minister in the near future, it would be her.) and he know Koide Yuriko as well. The secretary has a friend who's a make-up and hair artist that was working a fashion show. This fashion show wanted a couple of foreigners to model. I volunteered. Here's my adventure.

First, on Friday we went to meet with Koike Yuriko's secretary and Obara-san (the make-up/hair artist). And where was this meeting? The Diet Building (that's the Japanese capital building and has nothing to do with losing weight). Anyway, we had lunch and got to wander around the Diet Building and the offices of the House of Representative members. So here I am standing in the press box above where the House of Representatives meet. That box with the curtains you see behind me is where the Emperor sits. All the seats you can see in this photo are for the younger members of the House. The ones for the older members are hidden from camera view presumably so they can nap without getting caught. While we were there, there was also a bunch of school tours going on. The kids would talk to me in English which was cute. I asked one where he was from, hoping to get a school name. He said "Tokyo". I'm really glad I brought a suit jacket.

The fashion show was Tuesday in a really swanky hotel in Shinagawa. I got my hair and make-up all done for me then went to the dressing room. Now I didn't mention this before, but the fashion show was for kimono so that's what I wore. Getting dressed in one was an experience in and of itself. I felt like a doll mostly. These three women (two were assisstants as they kept calling the third "sensei") wrapped me in several layers of cloth casually moving my arms if they were in the way. And that obi? Sooooo tight! The West had the corset, Japan has the obi. I could barely breathe. And the shoes are very hard to walk in. However, the end result was pretty stunning.

Now, a few trade secrets. That obi (the orange cloth belt) has carboard under it (one of the layers anyway) to keep the cloth smooth I think. Also, I believe I counted over thirty pins in my hair when I took them out that night.

After the show (during which I did not trip or otherwise embarrass myself thankfully) there were a lot of photos taken. Everyone wanted a photo of the gaijin in a kimono (and the other models got photos of them too, but they were professionals unlike me so knew what they were doing). Then I got changed out of the kimono for lunch. I was told that I could wear the kimono to lunch if I wanted, but I declined. After all, that's thousands of dollars worth of silk I'm wearing. And I figured, if I could barely breathe, how would I have room for food?

The lunch was incredibly lavish with many courses. Seriously I had at least five forks. The wine was excellent and the food was yummy. Plus, I was sitting at the table of honor apparently (my table mates included a CEO and a television producer among others) as we were front center and everyone at the table got introduced to the assembly at large (there was a total of about 150 people there).

After lunch, I had to go to Waseda because I had a class at 4:20. My hair was still all done up. I got quite a few stares for that.

And now I have a cold :(

I also have a couple of announcements. I'm leaving next Tuesday (Feb. 3) to go to Osaka. I'm visiting there for a couple of days during which time I will go to a Fall Out Boy concert. Directly from Osaka, I'm going to my cultural practicum. I very much doubt I will have internet access during the practicum so do NOT be alarmed if I fall off the face of the Earth. If I do have net access, it won't be at all regular. I return from my practicum on March 5th at which time I will have many pictures and things to show.

Mary the Party Animal

2009-01-19T20:20:00.000-08:00

The semester is nearly over! Today I have a final in my Japanese politics class then Monday I have my last class for both Japanese and Social and International Relations of Japan. That just leaves my Asian Religions class. So basically, I'm almost done! That means...party time!

I started a little early though. Last Wednesday was Asuka's birthday so we had a tabehoudai/nomihoudai (all you can eat/all you can drink). Sadly I couldn't stay too long because I have class Thursday morning and felt that staying out late would have a negative effect on my grammar quiz grade. I have a picture from then though. In it are Kathleen, me, Asuka (the birthday girl), and Rachel. Sorry, I'm not naming the people in the background since you can only see their backs anyway. It was lots of fun and we got to grill our own food (see that stove thing behind us?). I love do it yourself restaurants though they can get pretty toasty.

Friday I went to Harajuku with Lydia and Briana and Rachel joined us after her class. I got three new pairs of pants! Yay! I now have jeans that aren't falling apart. I also bought a really cute coat for only 3000yen. We also explored a wonderful poster shop, got hit on by a half hispanic half Japanese guy, did purikura (instant photo booth), and ate kabobs and crepes. All in all, a wonderfully fun evening.

Saturday, I was a bum. Nothing more to say about that.

Sunday I again went out (bad Mary!) and met up with Lydia, Briana, and a friend of Lydia's. The friend (his name's Juusong--not sure of the spelling here, he's Korean) invited a Japanese friend of his named Etsuya, and we had lots of fun. I stayed out a little to late and thus did worse than usual on my Monday morning kanji quiz (probably a B instead of an A is all). The picture is Etsuya, Lydia, and myself. This is one of the more normal pictures taken that night. We got a bit silly... There were supposed to be more people, but Rachel had a paper to write and Juusong's other friends apparently got into a fight with some yakuza (Japanese gangsters) the night before. Not sure I would want to meet them anyway. They don't seem that smart if the pick fights with yakuza.

Just a couple of tidbits

2009-01-13T21:08:00.000-08:00

Sorry about how long it's been since my last post. Nothing much is happening right now. I'm getting back into the swing of classes for a few weeks before heading off to Osaka then my cultural practicum.

I guess the only bit of news I have is for those of you that are at Knox. Keep an eye out for a column I will be writing for TKS concerning study abroad. I'm not sure when the first one will be published...

Other than that, all I have to say is that I bought a shirt in Harajuku that says "Give a Whoop of Joy" on the front and "Up With You" on the back. I'll try to remember to get a picture of it at some point.

I also will have to try and find some pants that fit me here very soon as two of my pairs of jeans have now begun to seriously self-destruct. Wish me luck.

Kyoto Videos

2009-01-02T03:16:00.000-08:00

These are just a couple of videos I wanted to put in the earlier post but didn't because Blogger and iPhoto were conspiring against me. iPhoto still hates me, but I've discovered ways around that now that Blogger is cooperating again (at least mostly) ^_^

This is one of the girls feeding the pigeons and getting mobbed in the process.

This is a video I took at the monkey park of a baby monkey trying to cling to a tree. Totally adorable really.

This is me feeding a very eager monkey.

This is Rachel feeding a very lazy monkey who is secure in the knowledge that the humans will keep feeding him whether he snatches the food or not.

And this is a cool fountain thing at Kyoto Station. For those who don't know, one of Kyoto's many names was Miyako (though I think only Westerners ever called it that...)

Temple, Temple, Geisha; Temple, Temple, Monkey

2008-12-30T18:11:00.000-08:00

I have returned from Kyoto! I'm totally exhausted! However, I'm blogging now anyway! Why? Because otherwise I will procrastinate and it'll get done in late January or something.

As the title of this post suggests, Kyoto has a LOT of temples. Seriously, I saw so many that I feel I never need to see a temple or shrine again....

Anyway, our trip began at Tokyo Station where Rachel and I managed to get on our night bus with only minor hiccups. We got to Kyoto Saturday morning at about 7am but couldn't check in to the hostel until 3:30 so we dumped our luggage in a coin locker and headed for Kinkakuji (The Golden Pavilion).

Beautiful isn't it? That's real gold decorating it. At this point the sun was peeking out, so actually looking directly at the Kinkakuji was actually kind of hard it was so shiny. The area is really pretty too. Anyway, Rachel and I bought "dreams come true" charms and got our fortunes out of a vending machine before moving on. In this area we went to Ryoan-ji, home of a famous zen rock garden and Ninna-ji another beautiful temple. As we walked we also saw some other points of interest...

This was a closed storefront that Rachel and I loved. The words in the top corner say "Hobby Adviser". Japan and English can be incredibly entertaining.

Anyway, after this temple excursion we made our way back to Kyoto Station to pick up our things so we could go check into our hostel and meet up with my friends Rachel and Brian Pitt who are in Japan because Rachel's in the JET program. (I apologize that there are two Rachels. You'll just have to deal with that.) We briefly explored the area that evening before having an early dinner because Rachel Leppert and I were completely exhausted from the not sleeping much on the bus and all of our walking (seriously, we crashed around 7:30pm).

Sunday we all four headed up a path with a bajillion temples and shrines and all the shops that cater to the tourists that visit. We visited Daikoku-ji which is home to a HUGE statue of Kannon.

Kannon is an important figure in Pure Land Buddhism. He's the Boddhisatva that is sort of like Amida Buddha's right hand man and helps lead the faithful to the Pure Land. Another stop we made on this huge temple pilgrimage was Kiyomizu-dera (pure water temple). It has a wonderful view of the city and a large swath of mountains as well as water that is believed to have healing properties (I didn't drink any because it cost money and there was a big line, but Rachel Pitt and her husband did...unfortunately, the next day Rachel caught a cold).

This is the healing water viewed from higher up in the temple. By the time we got there, the line was much longer. Withing Kiyomizu-dera was a shrine whose name is eluding me at the moment (I'll look it up and stick it in later). It's the home of the famous love stones.

You rub the first stone while thinking of the one you love, then close your eyes and try to walk in a straight line to the second stone. If you hit the second stone, you're destined to be together. Help is allowed as it means you'll have assisstance on the road to love. We also saw something really awesome in the are that was NOT a temple or shrine: a geisha!

Sorry the photo isn't rotated correctly. Blogger's being annoying. We ended up seeing three geisha on our trip. This one saw us looking at her and getting cameras out so she stopped so we could get photos.

After all of this temple hopping, we were very tired (temples in the area lined a road going up the mountain so there was much uphill walking that was very tiring. However, we couldn't go back to the hostel yet so we ate some ramen and tried to go to the zoo but found it was closed until after New Years (we actually had several cases of bad luck with this kind of thing). So we found a place to sit and sat because we were super tired. That night we tried to go get gyoza at a famous gyoza place only to find it's closed on Sundays. We ate elsewhere.

On Monday we split up as Rachel and Brian (the Pitts) wanted to see Kinkakuji which Rachel Leppert and I had already done. We were really exhausted so we took it kind of easy and got some shopping done while taking frequent breaks for snacks (like a matcha cream puff--excellent by the way). We also stopped at a park where a bunch of children were feeding pigeons (what do you get? Fat pigeons!) and getting mobbed by said birds for their trouble, which was pretty funny. However, the cool thing was this guy:

I don't know if you can quite see, but he's got a cool beard thing. Anyway, he stood there and posed for pictures for a while before flying off. Though we came back later in the evening and he was in the park again in a different spot. He must like it there. That night we finally got our gyoza which was definitely worth it.

And then our last day in Kyoto rolled around. Rachel and Brian left by Shinkansen in the morning, but Rachel Leppert and I had to amuse ourselves from 9am (the hostel's check out time) until 11pm when we could board our bus home. A daunting task, but we managed to do quite well. First we wandered around the Kyoto station area and found another temple (not sure what it was though).

This is the fountain where you purify your hands and mouth. I liked the dragon a lot. After lunch we headed over to the area of Kyoto called Arashiyama which was my favorite part of the day if not the entire trip. In Arashiyama is a monkey park. Now at this monkey park you don't just get to see monkey's from a distance no. You hang with the monkeys and feed them and stuff. They were everywhere! And very cute! Of course at first it's a bit freaky because you are warned not to look them in the eye or they might attack, but you get used to them very quickly.

Sorry once again for the lack of correct rotation on the photo. iPhoto and Blogger are conspiring against me.

After the monkeys we explored the other areas of Arashiyama. We skipped going to Tenryu-ji as we were thoroughly templed out by this point. We did go to the huge bamboo grove right next to Tenryu-ji though. Apparently it's where they filmed that part of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon where they fight in the tops of the bamboo... We kind of got lost on our way there though so we actually only discovered it by accident. On the part of the excursion where we didn't know where we were going we met a really sweet cat that didn't want to get off of my lap. Seriously I pushed her off and she just turned around and crawled back on before I had time to get up.

As it got dark we eventually got cold and headed back to the station where we treated ourselves to ridiculously gorgeous cake. I've included the picture of mine.

We then visited the Skyway of the station before finally getting our stuff out of the coin lockers so we could get on the night bus. And now here I am, back in Tokyo. Sleep deprived but mostly happy (though my iPhoto is flipping out so I can't put any videos in...sorry).

ﾒﾘーｸﾘｽﾏｽ!

2008-12-25T04:05:00.000-08:00

Thought I ought to make a Christmas post here. Merry Christmas everyone! If you're curious as to what the title says, it's really easy. It says merii kurisumasu, which is Merry Christmas Japanized.

So Monday was my last day of classes before my winter break. It's not the end of the semester yet. I've still got January and the tiniest bit of February to go. Anyway, I made it through the too many tests I had, did a little Christmas shopping in Shinjuku, then went home.

Tuesday was a national holiday (the emperor's birthday actually) so I stayed home and hung out with the host family as a kind of pseudo Christmas. We all made gyoza which is a stuffed pasta thing rather like raviolis so that was actually really nice. We ate so much of them that when dinner rolled around we weren't actually that hungry. Except for cake. We all walked to a nearby hotel where there's both a cake shop and a giant Christmas tree with lots of lights. Then we brought the cake home to eat (there was strawberry shortcake--my favorite, a very large cream puff, and mont blanc which is a cake made with chestnuts). Then there was a movie on tv that we all decided to watch (except Su-chan who was by this time asleep), but it turned out to be a French movie with Japanese subtitles so while I have some grasp of both those languages, the combination of the two was a bit two much for my English speaking brain to handle and I gave up and went to bed.

Christmas Eve I headed over to Rachel's neighborhood because we wanted to get our hair cut. Yup, I now have a Japanese haircut. And it's short--for me anyway. None of my hair actually manages to make it to my shoulders anymore, close, but not quite. I managed to make it through getting my hair cut without too many language hiccups which made me feel very good about myself.

Christmas day. Not my best as I was a bit lonely (though I did Skype my dad and Melissa for a good couple of hours). Both my host parents went to work today. It was okay though since I got some time to just relax and do nothing without feeling guilty about it. I opened my presents from Dad as he sent them wrapped so I got presents.

Tomorrow's the exciting bit though. I'm off to Kyoto on the night bus for a little bit with Rachel (and I'm meeting up with my friend Rachel--a different one--when we get there). So look forward to some pictures from the former imperial capital. We come back on New Years Eve which should be interesting as well.

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone! I miss you all now more than ever as Christmas really is a time of friends and family. However, I am making friends and even a kind of family here for myself so while I'm a little sad, I'm very happy as well. Merry Christmas and God bless.

Sooooooo tired today...

2008-12-16T05:23:00.000-08:00

This is another picture free post. My life can't be all glamour!

Last week wasn't very exciting. The one momentous thing that happened was we found out about which practicum we're doing during spring break. Unlike American spring breaks, ours falls between the semesters so it's actually about 2 months long. During a month of that time, the Japan Study program sends us off to various parts of rural Japan to do some kind of internship. There's a daycare, an herbal medicine company, a Buddhist temple, a ski resort, and more. I'm going to a place called Minakami where I'll be staying in what we might call in English a lodge (the word doesn't translate well...) and helping the family that runs it. So I'll be helping do cleaning and cooking (*cue my mother jumping for joy*) and other odd jobs like that. So far, sounds kind of meh I know. The exciting part is the area I'll be in. Minakami is mountainous and has a lot of natural hot springs so there are a lot of onsen around. There's also a craft village where I'll be able to learn how to do some traditional Japanese crafts like making noodles. I'm very excited about this even though during that time I'll be cut off from my friends. Only two other Japan Study people are going to Minakami and we'll all be busy so I doubt we'll see much of each other. I see this as an opportunity to greatly improve my Japanese.

Anyway, I thought you all might be interested in that development. I'm pretty excited though it's still a month and a half away.

Really, my life other than that has been studying (with the exception of last night). I had a debate in my Japanese politics class today (against my professor--and I won--not that anyone's really that surprised). Thursday, I have both a presentation and an exam (Social and International Relations of Japan and Asian Religions respectively) while I have a huge verb test and a Japanese politics exam on next Monday. You'd think it was finals, but it's not. Those don't start until the end of January.

Anyway, it's kind of late (not really) and I was up doing karaoke last night and had class all today so I'm going to bed. Good night!

Ok, now you can have pictures

2008-12-06T19:52:00.000-08:00

I really should be working on my research for my panel presentation, but whatever. I've got a pretty good start so I'll post some pictures for you guys.

This is a picture of a model at the Edo-Tokyo Museum where I met up with the Japan Term students. There were lots of cool things to look at there though to be honest, I was paying more attention to my friends who I had not seen in six months. Also, a lot of places you weren't allowed to take pictures. After the museum, I tagged along with Ashley's group to Roppongi where they had to find certain landmarks and take pictures. They were happy to have my Japanese experience though you really don't need to speak Japanese in Roppongi (it's where all the foreigners hang out).

This is a picture of our table at the Waseda-Japan Term faculty free dinner. Sooooo much food! They just kept bringing it out! This was obviously taken before we started eating. That was a really fun night though it also kind of sucked because it was on Wednesday night and I had to get up the next morning to go to class and take a kanji quiz.......

Friday, I once again met up with some of the Japan Term group and accompanied them to Yokohama. Here they are in front of some roses at a garden around a preserved diplomats house. For those of you who don't know, Yokohama is a port so many Westerners lived there after Japan was opened to the world by Commodor Perry. There are still a lot of Westerners there (as can be seen by the many international schools and the more European feel to many of the businesses).

This was also taken in Yokohama. It says that children are not allowed to enter, but I thought it was an entertaining picture.

And look! Food! After returning to Tokyo, I took Ashley and Jessa with me to Shinjuku to meet up with my friend Lydia and a couple people she knows at Waseda. We decided on okonomiyaki for dinner. It's like a pancake with veggies and meat and stuff in it. As you can see, you generally cook it yourself at the table. They just give you a bowl of the ingredients which you stir then pour on the griddle. It's super delicious.

Oh right, I have a blog.

2008-12-05T23:58:00.001-08:00

It's been a while. Sorry about that. I'm a very bad blogger apparently. No pictures today. Not because I don't have any, but because I don't feel like messing with it at the moment. Instead, you get to read.

Last week was not that special. I had class, taught English, and went to a party (though it was more of a "gathering" really except there was no brie--5 points to the first one to get that reference). I can't actually remember doing anything over the weekend which probably means I was pretty much a total bum.

This week I also had class. On Tuesday, I had a really awesome Japanese class, in fact, where we took a field trip to Toraya, a traditional Japanese confectioners. A very tasty experience. The only downside was the commute. In order to get to school, I go to Hanzomon station where I get on the Hanzomon line for one stop to Kudanshita. There I transfer to the Tozai line and get off three stops later at Waseda. I met my class at Waseda then we returned to the Waseda station and took the Tozai line to Kudanshita and transferred to the Hanzomon line for two stops to Nagatacho--that's ONE STOP away from where I live. It was pretty annoying really. It's a good thing I got sweets out of it.

The most exciting thing about this week though is that the Japan Term students arrived. They got here Monday, but I didn't meet up with them until Wednesday because of that little thing called class. I did get to spend all of Wednesday and Friday with them though. Unfortunately, they've now moved on to Kyoto so I won't see them again until next weekend. I'll talk more about what we did when I get my pictures up.

Anyway, that's pretty much it right now. Later!

The Claw Machine Saga

2008-11-22T00:54:00.000-08:00

Look what I got! A bunny! Today I went to Akihabara (home of the famous Electronic Town for those who don't know) because I desperately needed an external hardrive (I had about 1GB left on my computer's HD). Anyway, I was successful in that (I also bought a DS game and a 4GB thumb drive). Rachel, Laura, Kate, and Jeff also came so that we were just hanging out once I had finished my errand. We went into a store that had a couple of claw machines with these bunnies. I had seen them before and wanted one (soooo cute!) so I was looking at them longingly through the glass knowing I'd never get one as I am terrible at claw machines. Well, a store employee saw me and came over, unlocked the machine and moved the bunny you see above so that it was literally teetering on the edge of chute thing. It still took three tries to get the silly thing XD and I had Laura help me because I'm still lame, but I got a bunny! And a girl that worked at the store came over to congratulate me (I think that was her job actually...) and I found the guy that had set it up for me and thanked him. Yup.

Please give me ideas for a name for the bunny. Preferably Japanese (so this request is aimed at YOU Jessa--or anyone else with some nihongo knowledge). Sorry, Usagi-chan is not creative enough.

I should also mention that today is Jeff's birthday (Happy birthday Jeff, not that you read my blog...) though we're celebrating it on Monday with karaoke. Maybe I'll get another karaoke video :P

Yesterday, I had another day with the American business class. It's so much fun! Too bad it's only three sessions :( However, next week we have a party after the class. Hopefully I'll manage to get some phone numbers off the people in my group... Hey, a couple of them are really cute.

And I also realized I lied about having basically no photos from my trip last weekend. I have a video I took while on the bus as I really wanted to be able to show you guys the lake and the fall colors. It kinda worked so I'll put it up. Enjoy!

Sorry...

2008-11-20T17:49:00.000-08:00

I must apologize for how long it has taken me to post anything. In my defense, I've been pretty busy with school lately. I had midterms (though now I'm done with those) and stuff. I also have to apologize because I'm pretty sure I promised some awesome pictures from my weekend trip to Mt. Fuji. Unfortunately, the weather was not so good. It was too cloudy to even see Fuji-san except for a brief couple of moments in the morning when I was still refusing to get out of bed. That just means no pictures. I did have a pretty good time.

The drive was gorgeous. Sadly taking pictures from a moving bus is very hard. But fall here is definitely colorful. Lots of reds and oranges. It was cold though. Not in Tokyo, but the place we were staying was quite chilly. The place was pretty cool. We stayed in traditional type rooms with tatami mats and futons. With the futons filling up the floor at night it felt like a great big sleepover. As for activities, I didn't end up going to the onsen because I didn't want to walk the 15 minutes in the cold with a threat of rain to get there. Instead I played basketball with Rachel, Hue, and some of the guys. Never do that. The guys were jerks (in the best sense). It was fun though and it kept me nice and toasty.

After basketball, I took a bath (I know it doesn't sound noteworthy, but Japanese baths are an experience). Then there was dinner and after dinner we had a party. Very laid back but lots of fun. Plus it was cheap as snacks were provided and we only had to pay 500yen a piece if we wanted alcohol.

Then we went to bed and didn't get enough sleep since we were up again at 7:30AM so we could have breakfast and get ready to check out. I just hung out at the place we were staying until lunch and then after lunch we left. I know, it doesn't sound exciting, but I had a good time just hanging out with the group. We have some pretty cool people.

So that's the weekend... Not much for other news. Today I'm going to Waseda to help with the American business class (I did this last Friday too but I'm not sure if I mentioned anything about it before). We watch the Apprentice and I help the students discuss what's going on in English and make predictions about who will be fired. It's pretty fun, and I get paid.

Anyway, can't think of anything else to put in here... I'll try to get some pictures in my next post. This weekend is my friend Jeff's birthday and Rachel and I are planning to go to Akihabara (I desperately need an external hard drive) so hopefully some fun shots will come out of that.

Pictures for "A week in the life of Me"

2008-11-11T03:54:00.001-08:00

I got the photos working so here they are!

First up is the Torii at Meiji-Jingu Shrine in Harajuku. It's beautiful. I'm not sure if you can quite see at the top, but there are three golden chrysanthemums.

These people are complete strangers, but they were standing there letting people take pictures of their absolutely adorable daughters all dressed up in traditional clothes. I'm not sure why, but there were actually several little girls dressed in kimono and a few women as well. In a different area there was also a Shinto wedding going on. Cool, yeah?

And here I am at the shrine next to a bunch of chysan- themums. There were all shapes and sizes of them. So amazing. This area had smaller ones but there were som where the blossom was as big as my head.

And here's Tokyo Tower! It's so pretty all lit up. Too bad. I really like the perspective on this photo by the way (good job Suzanne!). Random fact: Tokyo Tower is based (obviously) on the Eiffel Tower. However, Tokyo Tower is a few meters taller.

For those who are curious: I saw no magical girls or people with wings. There were a lot of noisy school groups though.

This is from the evening that Suzanne and John came over for dinner. Mami's younger sister was there (and kindly took this photo). Both Suzanne and John got their egos stroked when Mami and Tomo tried to guess their ages and were very wrong in the correct direction. The food we're about to eat in the picture is called sukiyaki. In that pot is sauce that you put meat and veggies and noodles and whatever into to cook. In our bowls is a raw egg that you put the cooked food into before you eat it. Absolutely delicious!

As I said, Rachel and I went to an ikebana exhibition (Japanese art of flower arranging). I probably took a hundred pictures before my camera battery died, but you get two. Sorry, but uploading takes a while. And then arranging them is tedious and annoying because I'm a perfectionist. Anyway, this one is really pretty. There were a bunch that were cool, lots were beautiful, and some were just strange.

This is one of the ones that I thought was just cool. The color is awesome and the shape is so fun. I really enjoyed going since it's such a unique experience to Japan. I don't think any other country has such a heightened art of flower arranging.

A week in the life of Me

2008-11-10T01:04:00.000-08:00

Sorry I'm so slow. I haven't been able to get Suzanne's pictures to work here so I was waiting to post until I could, but I've given up for the moment... Sorry, but at least you get to hear about what's happening.

Monday, Suzanne and her coworker John arrived and as it was Culture Day (a Japanese national holiday) there was a festival at Waseda that we went to. It was pretty fun, but we didn't stay too long because Suzanne and John were understandably tired from traveling.

Tuesday I had class, but then I spent the evening with Suzanne and John. We ate curry for dinner and then went to a bar for a bit.

Wednesday we spent the morning watching the election. We couldn't tear ourselves away until Obama was declared winner. After that we went to Harajuku. We went to the shrine there wich is gorgeous. They have all these chrysanthemum flowers growing in pots there. We saw a lot of little girls wearing kimono too which was adorable. After that we wandered around the shops a bit before getting back on the subway to go see Tokyo Tower. That was really cool. It's so pretty when it's all lit up at night.

Thursday I had class again, but after that Suzanne and John came over to my host family's house for dinner (we had sukiyaki). My host dad wasn't there, but Tomo (my host mom's younger sister) came over. We had a really good time.

Friday was Suzanne and John's last day so we were going to stay close to the hotel so they could get to the airport on time. We wanted to go to the Imperial Gardens, but apparently they're closed on Fridays :( So we went to the Museum of Modern Art instead. That was cool since I got to see several pieces that I remember studying in the Japanese art history class I took at Knox.

Saturday Rachel and I went to an ikebana exhibition which was really cool though my camer's batteries died halfway through (I still got about 90 shots though). I think I'll put a couple of those pictures up later. I'm being lazy about photos right now.

And now you're pretty much caught up. Well, today I had my first midterm, but that's not interesting really since it was very midtermy and I'm sure you all know what that's like.

Suguru's birthday

2008-11-02T03:20:00.000-08:00

This was just too cute to wait so you get another post so soon! Today is Su-chan's 2nd birthday so we had a nice dinner though I doubt Su-chan really understood the concept. Anyway, in the picture is Su-chan blowing out candles. Sorry he's cropped funny, but it's impossible to get him to stay still long enough for a good photo usually. You do get to see the cake though. Let me tell you, the Japanese really know how to make a good cake. It was delicious. And my host family really spoils me as I got two slices (which is two fifths) of the cake. Yummmmmm.... I guess it's maybe too bad that my birthday is after I leave. Though I'd have to share it with my host dad. Though that could be pretty fun...

While at the Studio Ghibli Museum, I bought a Totoro plushie for Su-chan as he LOVES that movie (I'm sure by the time I leave Japan the number of times I will have seen that movie will be in the hundreds and I'm not kidding in the slightest). So here's a video of him playing with it right after he opened it. If you couldn't guess, the other two people in the video are my host parents. Enjoy!

The Beginning of a Busy Weekend

2008-11-01T04:30:00.000-07:00

As it's been about a week since my last post, I'll start there with my updates.

Class as usual on Monday and Tuesday (though Tuesday Kate and I got to give a presentation on how the US election will affect Japan in our Japanese politics class). Wednesday was an errand day. Kate, Laura, and I all headed off to the Immigration Bureau to apply for work permits. Living in Tokyo is very expensive so I've started searching for possible students (might have found one already!). Then there was class again Thursday.

Since I don't have class on Fridays, this will be a four day weekend for me. Monday is a National Holiday (Culture Day). Waseda will be holding a festival starting tomorrow though some activities started as early as yesterday.

This is a video of some cheerleaders that were performing during lunchtime on Friday. They gave us candy :D They are somehow affiliated with Waseda though I'm not sure how as Waseda's colors are red and gold (no blue) and we're not the Falcons, our mascot is a bear. (Also, please ignore Rachel and my conversation bits in the background, it's not that interesting.)

Today I went to the first of the Waseda-Keio baseball games (SouKeiSe, where Sou is Waseda--don't ask it's a kanji thing, Kei is Keio, and Se is fight). And Waseda WON!!! 3-1! Now, I don't particularly like to watch baseball as I think it's incredibly boring to watch. However, this was different as I barely paid any attention to the game. The Japanese are very into their cheering. We sat down in the stadium about an hour before the game started so we could learn cheers. So much fun.

Here's some cheerleader video from the game. These are Waseda cheerleaders. There are guys too but I didn't get any good shots of them though they are INCREDIBLE! Being a male cheerleader here does not carry the same stigma as it does in the States.

Now for some boring old photos:

Here we have the sign behind the Waseda section of the stands. There's our bear mascot ready for baseball!

This is the Waseda flag. These guys would stand there and hold the furled flag horizontally for about half an hour before unfurling. Those things looked way heavy, but they just stood there with these serious expressions on their faces. Also, that silver tip looked like it was designed to harpoon whales.

And the winning scoreboard! By the way, once we won instead of leaving the stadium, everyone stayed for over half an hour to complete the formalities. Waseda sang our alma mater then basically saluted the Keio students then Keio did the same back. The players all bowed to each other probably more than once, and the flag guys on both sides bowed more than once to each other too (with the flags). Japanese people have some peculiar habits...

I might post again after the activities of Monday for this is a busy weekend so there'll be lots to tell about hopefully. Tomorrow is Su-chan's birthday (and Kathy's!) and Monday my Aunt Suzanne arrives. So look forward to more later!

Skit Videos

2008-10-27T03:20:00.000-07:00

These are videos taken of skits meant to teach some useful lessons about living with a host family. Performers are our Waseda helpers. Momoko, Asuka, Shouhei, and Yutaka (the lovely "girl"). Anyway, they're in Japanese, but still it's fairly obvious what's going on.

First skit: Sorry it starts in the middle, but I didn't think to take a video at first. What you missed: Yutaka was given natto (Japanese food that smells bad and looks like snot... most foreigners hate it and some Japanese people too) and said "she" liked it even though "she" really didn't... What will happen the next day?

Second skit.

Third skit.

Fourth skit.

Fifth skit. Probably my favorite.

Studio Ghibli Museum

2008-10-25T23:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry, photos inside the museum are forbidden. Thought I'd get that out there before I get shot or something. I do have a couple of photos from outside though...

Anyway, I'll actually start before the museum with Friday. Friday it rained. Really really rained. As in I had an umbrella and still managed to get my legs and arms soaking wet. Not pleasant. However, it stopped raining in the evening which was good. That night Jeff, Rachel, and I went to a nomikai which is (adults close your eyes) a drinking party basically. There was food too. Delicious food. I had a lot of fun and met a bunch of really nice people including two Japanese boys that sat accross from us. One was Take (who was about my height and actually knew what area of the US New Mexico is in) and Shogu (who was adorably short as in about 5'2" and one ore two of those inches was his hair). In the picture is myself and Rachel. In Rachel's glass is this really yummy creamy stuff. There was also a delicious green apple drink and lots of beer. And soda and water if you wanted... Sorry we're all sweaty. It was really hot since we had little stoves going on the tables to cook our food. (Basically we dumped meat and veggies in sauces to cook then fished them out piece by piece with our chopsticks.)

So then yesterday was Studio Ghilbli museum day. As I said, no photos from the inside so I'll just have to tell you about it. They have several rooms that you go through and explore with stuff from different movies and there's always fun tunnels or tiny doors or spiral staircases to get places. There was also a big stuffed cat bus, but it was only for little kids so I could not play in it :( Anyway, there was lots of cool stuff so if anyone ever comes to Japan, try to get tickets (they have to be purchased in advance but they're only 1,000en). The only downside to the experience was getting the Ponyo song stuck in my head (Ponyo, Ponyo...those are the only words I know!)And in the above picture is Laura posing on the roof of the museum with the robot from one of the Ghibli movies I actually have not seen. Sorry.

Melissa, you can thank Kate for this photo as she is better at remembering food pictures than me. This was my lunch from the day at the museum. It's a "fish set" with fish, spinach, sweet potatoes and rice. They also served tea. Rachel was more successful eating her fish than me (or at least hers was prettier at the end). Stupid bones.

Also, in random news, birthdays in general are following my usual pattern (as in I always know people who share birthdays). Sarah (who was in the karaoke photos) has the same birthday as Mom, Su-chan's birthday is the same as Kathy's (which means it's also the day before Vammy's), and to top it all off, my host dad's birthday IS THE SAME AS MINE! Finally I've met another August 8th birthday! Though mine's still cooler being 8/8/88 and all (though it's less cool in Japan year as it's 8/8/Showa 63...silly emperors).

And that's what I've got for you today!

Japanese Festival!

2008-10-20T18:44:00.000-07:00

Hon-Kawagoe festival! I went with Kate and her host mom on Saturday. It's a ways a way (it took me an hour and a half to get there), but it was lots of fun. Plus, it was a true cultural experience.

In the video you'll see a dashi (Jessa knows the kanji, mountain + car). They're really cool. The festival had at least 10 of them moving around, each with different stuff going on. The only downside of the festival was how crowded it could be, but you could put up with a lot because it was so fun.

This is a picture of sweet potato swirled with vanilla flavored soft cream (we know it as frozen custard). It's really really good. Seriously, very awesome. There was food everywhere at the festival. Chocolate covered bananas, lots of stuff on kabobs (including really yummy cucumbers), cotton candy, dumplings, and so much that I don't even know.

Next is a picture of a little stage that they had every block or so with musicians and the dancer. Very cool. When a dashi would come by, the dancers on each would often react to each other which was fun to watch.

This is for Mom. This sign was at a yakisoba booth (yakisoba is one of the tastiest things in the world by the way). Soba is buckwheat noodles.

Finally, this is a picture from a haunted house at the festival. I didn't go in (it was kind of expensive and that's no really my thing), but I thought it was interesting. The woman in the well rises up and down from it.

Anyway, today I'm off to Jimbocho to check out the used book store area there. Later!

Finally, what you've all been waiting for........

2008-10-17T05:14:00.001-07:00

Su-chan! It's kind of obvious which person he is in this picture. On the left is Tomo-san, Mami's younger sister. And the man is Tomo's husband Hiroshi (called Hiro). Mami as you've probably figured out, is behind the camera. I tried to get a picture with her in it, but when I picked up my camera, it told me the battery was dead. And we all wanted to eat that delicious looking food on the table too much for me to run get new batteries. Notice that this is also a picture of food! On Tomo and my plates is pizza which sounds very American, but on portion of the pizza I was eating was tuna and corn. They have the weirdest topping here, but it's sooo good! The dish in the middle closest to the camera is salad on top of katsu (meat cutlets). The other dish is a cheese tomato thing, not really traditionally Japanese but very yummy. In my glass is plum wine (tastes kind of like Port though a bit less sweet). Tomo-san is drinking ocha (at least I think it's green tea). She's very pregnant so no alcohol for her. Hiro-san is drinking beer, if you couldn't tell.

Here's the karaoke video. I hope it decides to work this time... In this video: Jeff, Sarah, Rachel, Kate, and Laura.

Wednesday, I went to Harajuku with a bunch of people. I love that place. It's so unlike a lot of the rest of Tokyo. It's way more laid back (until you get into the posh area where all the designer stores are). I could easily shop there a lot. Kathy will be interested to know taht there were multiple little shops devoted entirely to socks and stockings. Actually, knee high and thigh high socks are very much the fashion here (though often paired with incredibly short skirts) as are leggings and tights (again usually worn under really short skirts or shorts). I bought two dresses while there.

Also in Harajuku, we went to a character store where I bought a new wallet and a day planner. Mom will like this. They had half of an entire floor of the shop devoted to Hello Kitty. The other half of that floor was Studio Ghibli. Totoro and Hello Kitty: two things that I've now been overexposed too...

Anyway, that's it for now!

Of Karaoke and Mt. Fuji

2008-10-14T04:15:00.000-07:00

Nice blog title, yes? Very Japan-esque.

So it's been a week since I updated this thing! Wow! A lot has happened really. Last Wednesday we had our karaoke outing for Evil's birthday (and Mos Burger for lunch). Lots of fun. I had a video I wanted to stick up here, but Blogger hates my videos :( That's really not nice to all the people that read this blog! Oh well. I have some normal pictures. The first picture is Jeff, our token guy. This is actually the least creepy picture of him I think anyone has managed to take...usually he makes strange faces... And with Jeff is the star of the day, Laura. Next is Sarah grooving to the music in our underwater themed karaoke room. And the last picture is Rachel singing very dramatically. She was really actually very good at playing everything up. Incredibly entertaining.

Thursday was class. Apparently nothing else that day as I can't remember anything happening then. Friday, we had a program meeting at which we signed cards. One of our number had an abscess in her spine that had to be operated on: she's fine now. So there was that get well card. And more seriously even than that, Michiyo, our go to person who basically runs the Japan Study show here on the Tokyo side had a huge tragedy befall her. Her husband, a famous mountain climber here in Japan, died in a accident while climbing Mt. Everest. So there was a card for that. Not a happy meeting really.

Later Friday, I went to Shibuya with Laura, Jeff, Rachel, another Rachel, and another Laura (the other Rachel and Laura are not from our program, we met them in various classes at Waseda). There we bought cds, ate burgers and crepes, and tried to find someplace to play DDR.

And then there was the weekend. Yesterday was a national holiday here (Health-Sports day) so there was no class. Mami took me to her older sister's house in a town whose name I do not remember (something Atami, maybe?), but it was not Tokyo :P We took the Shinkansen which was pretty awesome (yes, they are insanely fast). And from the balcony at Mami's sister's one can see Mt. Fuji on a clear day (not well, but it's definitely there!). We did lots of going to playgrounds with the kids (Su-chan, Michi, and Ko-chan, all boys). Ko-chan was super adorable (Mom would love him, big, fat cheeks), but he cried if I looked at him too much. Must be my weird green eyes :P

We also ate TONS of sushi at this place with the conveyor belts. It was really cheap too (so we went twice). Seriously, us three adults and the three kids all ate for under 3,000en each time (3,000en is about $30). Here in Tokyo, sushi is really expensive so it was awesome to be able to eat like a pig.

And now you are all wondering where the pictures are. Sorry, I overslept Saturday morning and had to rush to get ready, so what did I forget? My camera. Mami took some pictures though so I'm going to see if she'll email them to me when she gets them on her computer. It might take a while though. Sorry guys.

The last big news is that I finally met my host dad last night. He was here when Mami, Su-chan, and I got back from Mami's sister's. We all went to curry together for dinner (Mami still doesn't quite believe me when I tell her that spicy foods are just fine with me, really). Anyway, my host dad is actually really tall, a few inches taller than me (about your height Dad). So I suppose I should qualify that with "for a Japanese man". Seriously, I feel tall almost constantly here.

Anyway, that's the news. There's probably more, but this post is incredibly long already so I'll leave it there.

Boggled...

2008-10-07T05:01:00.000-07:00

Wow a lot has happened. In one of those life happens sort of ways.

Friday, I did just as I promised myself. Nothing. This did wonders for my cold which is now long gone. Yay! This weekend was really fun. Saturday morning Su-chan's nursery school had an undokai. Sorry, there is no real English translation; roughly it means "exercise party". Basically there's dancing and running and stretching and obstacle courses. Mostly it was just the kids that did these things but sometimes the audience got to join in. I had a pretty good time. And Su-chan is totally the fastest two-year-old of the bunch. He's going to be a jock when he gets older. After, we went to a park so that Su-chan could play. There we met a French family (French father, Japanese mother, two little boys). They all spoke English so I actually got to use three different languages which was pretty cool.

Saturday afternoon I just hung out in Shinjuku with Kate, Jeff, and Rachel. There was much wandering and an experience with severely overpriced cheesecake. We also had a long discussion about Japanese gestures that we thought was hilarious though I'm sure passers-by just thought we were nuts. Silly gaijin.

Yesterday was class and Laura's birthday. Rachel, Kate, and I had dinner at her host families which was super delicious. We had a good time just hanging out there and chatting. Her family must be rich though as their house is HUGE (by Japanese standards) plus they have a gigantic tv.

In the picture from left to right is Kate, Laura, me, and Rachel since this picture doesn't have a bajillion people in it, I can actually name them for you! All it needs are Sarah and Jeff, and you'd have my main friend group here all together. Sadly, Jeff had practice and Sarah had a prior engagement so they couldn't come. I promise to take pictures at karaoke and stuff tomorrow though, and they'll be there.

It was last night when I got home though, that things got...too exciting. Mami hurt her shoulder really bad somehow yesterday (she hasn't told me how...) so I got to call an ambulance and take care of Su-chan while she got brought in. Do you know what? It was the first time I'd ever actually ridden in an ambulance. I've been in one before, but it didn't actually go anywhere while I was in it. So I didn't get much sleep last night. Mom will sympathize as Mami now has a sling apparatus that she has to keep on for four weeks.

Today was not so fun at school due to the lack of sleep and the fact that I got told that there is no way I am allowed to move up a Japanese level despite the fact that everything is sooooo easy. The reason? The class above mine is full. Argh! So I just have to sit through a class that's frustrating for me because it's too simple. I'm here to learn Japanese, not review! I feel like this is middle school math all over again. Stupid placement tests seem to be out to get me. I did my best to move up though. I went all the way to the Japanese language coordinator for Waseda before I resigned myself to my fate. So annoying. At least I know there's a couple other people in my class that feel the same way I do. We've sort of created ouselves a little "this is too easy" support group for each other so we have people to complain to.

So anyway, that's what's happening. Last night and today were a bit hard, but I'm sure everything will be okay if not superb. At least I have karaoke tomorrow to look forward to...

Hisashiburi!

2008-10-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! It's been a few days! Life has gotten busier since classes started Monday. So far everything is mostly okay, but I really need to move up a level in Japanese. Way too easy! So hopefully soon though I'm starting to get frustrated as I keep getting a "wait one more class and see". I don't want to wait! I KNOW this class is too easy!

I also dropped linguistics and picked up an Asian religions class instead. The linguistics professor was rather boring. Plus, Watt-sensei (our resident director) teaches the religions class so that's cool. I really like him.

Also, ketai picture! I know my mom wants to see this... See? Bright pink! I actually think this is the best color that was offered because it's interesting. Plus, it seems like all Japanese girls have pink phones to the point that any other color seems incredibly masculine. The phone charm has a little bell in it so it rings :D

Also, this phone is way smarter than me. I haven't figured everything out yet (as everything's in Japanese), but this phone can do some amazing things.

Also, some of you may know that I went to Studio Ghibli (or rather, I walked by it since you can't go inside) because of Facebook. But for those of you that didn't know, here's proof! Cool, eh? This plaque isn't really very big (maybe two feet across) and it's the only sign saying what the building is. And since the studio is in this suburbian, residential setting, it's very quiet and out of the way. It's over by where my friend Kate lives with her host family. I'm actually a little jealous of where she lives because there's more space. She has three parks within walking distance. I live among office buildings right near the center of Tokyo. Not that I'm complaining since I really like my host family, but it's a bit of an adjustment for this small town girl to suddenly be in the big city.

So, on a downside, I have a cold. Luckily not a bad one, but it's still annoying because I'm all sniffly. Thankfully, I have no class Fridays so I can just laze around and feel better. Unless Mami and I go to Tokyo Tower (Mami is my host mom, cute yes?)

So one more picture because I want to make sure you can see the entire Japan Study group. There's a bunch of us so I won't be naming everyone, sorry. However, here we are in front of the Daibutsu in Kamakura. We ended up getting some random Japanese tourists to take this picture so we could all be in it. We actually got quite a crowd to gather to see the giant group of gaijin. Actually, I think it might just have been that we were blocking the stairs...

So that's all. I'm sorry I have yet to put up any pictures of food. I always forget as I'm usually way more interested in eating the food than pausing to take a picture. Someday I will remember though. I promise! Eventually the novelty of being able to find udon everywhere will wear off so I'll be able to snap a picture first, slurp up the noodles later. For now though, I just dig in. I might actually have to learn to cook here or I'll come back with no way to eat all the delicious things I'll have gotten used to here. I'm sure Mami will help me with that...

Well, then. Ja ne!

Errands.

2008-09-27T05:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and today have been mostly errand running. Yesterday I had to get a pretty thorough health check in order to exercise in Waseda facilities. I can't use the pool yet though since I still need an ekg.... So thorough! We also had our last orientation session yesterday! Yay! We're all fully orientated! Plus, we got to fill our our cell phone paperwork.

Today, I got my teiki (commuter pass) so I can go to and from Waseda for free (the program reimburses the cost of the teiki). Then a bunch of us went to pick up our cell phones. Of course, they're in Japanese so we then spent the next hour trying to figure out how to use them. They're pretty high tech. And our phones our very basic. I'm sure everyone will be surprised to know that my phone is bright pink. Color choice was limited, and I didn't want something boring like black. Then Laura and I went to open bank accounts. I was the only one that actually did. She has to wait until she's 20. So soon I'll have a bank account here! Woot!

Laura and I explored Ikebukuro (where the bank we chose is) and the area around Waseda while waiting for the party we wanted to go to to start. We didn't actually go to the party as we decided socializing was not worth the 2,000en required especially since we weren't really hungry.

I also checked on my classes. I got all the ones I wanted so I will be taking Comparative historical linguistics, Public choice theory and Japanese politics, and Social and international relations of Japan along with my nine hours of Japanese per week. Cool.

I told you guys that things would start getting less interesting the longe I was here...

Finally some pictuers

2008-09-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

Hello Kitty poster. Just for mom.

The Thunder Gate in Asakusa.

The right side of the Thunder Gate. The images would be better except there was mesh in front of the statues.

The left side.

This is Senso-ji in Asakusa.

This is Shouhei, one of our Waseda students that was helping us out. Right here he's hanging on to Jazz's bag. We thought he looked cute...

This is the torii leading to the Hachimon shrine in Kamakura. The girl on the right facing us is Asuka, another of the Waseda students.

This is the Hachimon shrine.

And here it is! The daibutsu! Big Buddha! For 20en you can go inside (which I did). The Buddha is Amida Buddha in case you wanted to know...

Doing better now.

2008-09-25T04:46:00.000-07:00

So, I'm actually feeling a lot better than I was yesterday though I'm sure I'll have some other points where I feel a bit down.

Right now I'm watching a Japanese talk show of some kind. There doing a segment on "super kids". Basically really talented kids in one way or another from all over the world.

Today was mostly fun. My stomach was feeling a bit off so I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. Our group went to Kamakura. Quiz for Kathy: what's important about Kamakura? Daibutsu desu yo! I totally climbed inside the Buddha! Okay, more explanation... the daibutsu is a huge Buddha statue that's hollow so you can climb inside for 20en. Another interesting place in Kamakura is the Hachimon-dera. It's a shrine that was built when the cpaital was moved from Heian-kyou to Kamakura in 1185. There's a tree there that has been there since before the shrine was built. Obviously the tree is a kami (sacred). By the end I was feeling a little better so I had some blueberry ice cream. Why can't the US do ice cream as well as other countries? Seriously...

That was today. Yesterday, I became a registered resident alien as well as signing up for Japanese National Health Insurance. Then I went to the Imperial Gardens.

Tomorrow is a day full of stuff like buying a teki (commuter pass), getting a health check so I can use the pool at Waseda, getting a cell phone (finally!!!), and hopefully getting a bank account so I can pay for things like my cell phone plan and my health insurance easily. Nothing fun planned, but it's stuff that needs to get done.

Saturday there's a SILS welcome party at Waseda. Then Sunday Kate's host family is having a barbeque for the Japan Study group. Then classes start on Monday!

Entering Stage 2

2008-09-23T19:02:00.001-07:00

As part of our orientation, we got to learn about culture shock. There are apparently four different phases:
1. Euphoria--everything is awesome! There's nothing bad about the place you're visiting.
2. Low point--everything is strange and different. Nothing is familiar. Really you just want to lock yourself in your room or fly home.
3. Adaptation--you still have some bad spots, but things are starting to come together. You're adapting to a new culture and language even if you haven't become a part of it yet.
4. Acceptance--now you really can appreciate the culture. You feel comfortable in your new environment, and you start to see the world from your host culture's point of view.

Right now, I've hit stage two.

Yesterday, we met our host families and moved in so we're all separated from each other until a group trip tomorrow. I hate it. Don't get me wrong. My host family is very nice, and my host mom even speaks English (I'll get to that later). However, I'm suddenly without my cushion of Americans to fall back on when I need something familiar. I don't have a phone yet so they're all cut off from me. Really, I'm not so much unhappy as lost, confused, and uncomfortable. Plus, I feel like my Japanese is totally inadequate.

More on my host family though. My host father is a businessman and therefore absent. I doubt I will see him much at all. I won't even meet him until sometime in October. He's 32. My host mom is 29. She wanted to host a student because she studied in England and stayed with a family there (thus the English). She's very nice and seems to be a bit less traditional than I was prepared for. She still won't let me help with the dishes though. Not yet anyway. However, in some ways I wish she didn't speak English. I would learn faster though these first days would definitely be harder. Whenever, I pause to think about what she's saying in Japanese she immediately translates to English. I am trying to speak mostly Japanese though. Then I have a little brother who is not quite 2 and very adorable. He already speaks better Japanese than me. Actually I feel most comfortable around him as there's less pressure to be anything but a playmate.

Today, I'm going to get my alien registration and then a bit of sightseeing with my host mom's cousin. I can't wait for tomorrow when I get to rejoing the Japan study group for a day.

Sorry this post is a bit of a downer, but I'm a bit lonely right now. The plus is I seem to have found a wireless network that I can use without a password. Don't expect me to be on a lot though since I'll mostly be out during reasonable times for you guys. As I get into a more settled routine, perhaps I will set up individual times where I'll make sure to be online.......

Ja ne.

More from Nihon

2008-09-20T16:40:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy couple of days!

Kathy will be interested in this: On Friday we went to Asakusa which is home to a very famous Buddhist temple called Senso-ji. That's where the Thunder gate is. Of course, I will eventually have pictures to show you all, but right now, I'm still on a public computer. Between the gate and the temple is a line of little shops where I bought the cutest coin purse. Coin purses are incredibly useful here.

After Asakusa, we went to Shinjuku because a bunch of us wanted to buy electronic dictionaries. Also, just to look around. So I now have a fancy dictionary that I don't know how to use yet as I have not had any time to figure it out.

Yesterday we went to a museum of architecture that was basically like a little town of different styles of Japanese architecture. It was actually rather miserable as it was super hot and humid and the mosquitos were out it force. However, there was this giant group of kids and parents having a gigantic water war that looked so fun.

After the museum a bunch of us went to an onsen which felt wonderful especially after walking so much every single day since we got here.

Today is exciting because we get to find out about our host families! And there's the Waseda SILS opening ceremony and a party with the Rainbow club (all you can eat sushi, all you can drink, and all you can sing).

Update, or whatever...

2008-09-18T01:13:00.000-07:00

So I've been here a few days now so I thought I would give a bit of an update as to what I've been up to. Anyway, here goes...

Tuesday, we went to a different town (Higashi-Murayama) where we went to a Buddhist temple. I don' remember the temple's name right now though, sorry. Then Tuesday night we started our language lessons that were to help prepare us for everyday use and talking with our host families. After that a bunch of us went to karaoke. I sang so much I got really hoarse. I even wound up singing one song entirely by myself (Don't Stop Me Now by Queen). The language lessons continued yesterday (Wednesday) and we also continued to explore the area we are in right now. We discovered a wonderful sweet shop (mmm... ichigo no keiki) right next to a wonderful little udon and soba shop. Yummy yummy food.

Today we got our first look at Waseda University as we had to take a Japanese placement test (very hard by the way...I did terrible though we don't get the scores until Monday). We also got a tour from the Rainbow Club who were AWESOME. I talked with a girl named Yuri in a sort of English-Japanese hybrid and we already have plans to go to karaoke and a bar together.

Anyway, I'm going to go now as I have a piece of cake waiting to be eaten...

Here I am! Yipee!

2008-09-15T00:38:00.000-07:00

I am at the orientation site here in Japan. We are at a dorm building until we go our separate ways next week. Today we had an orientation meeting and housing interviews along with exploring the area we are staying in. Sorry about no contractions...I cannot find the apostrophe key.

Not all of the students are here yet because one of the incoming flights got cancelled so I get to meet the rest of the program participants this evening. So far they are a really great group though.

Well, off I go to go get ice cream!

Once Upon a Time...

2008-09-08T16:47:00.000-07:00

...there was a young woman named Mary preparing to set off on a grand adventure.

And that's what's happening now: preparing. I'm in full on packing mode. This blog is actually part of my preparations; I want to make sure everything is up and running before I go or I'll probably put it off for five months. And you guys don't want me starting my blog halfway through the trip, do you?

Well, move-in day at Knox is tomorrow, and I won't be there. I will really miss it too. I remember last year all the excitement of seeing people that I hadn't seen in several months while I settled back in. Next fall then...