The blogging gets harder as time goes on...

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.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

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

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!

My Month Away: Part 4

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.

A Temporary Farewell

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!

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

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.

Temple, Temple, Geisha; Temple, Temple, Monkey

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).