Life on the other side of the Pacific

The End

2008-12-14T21:54:00.000-08:00

On wednesday I fly home and that will conclude my time spent in Japan.

I am both excited and sad.

Thanks for reading - I will see you soon

2008-12-03T20:11:00.000-08:00

New from the home front

Last weekend marked the end of three months that I have been in Japan, which was the convenient week of Thanksgiving. And when I say that it was thanksgiving week I mean a lot of the JSP’s were sad about the first thanksgiving away from home and no one in Japan had any idea what we were talking about. Apparently my Japanese teacher when she went to America for her first year had no idea what Thanksgiving was, and since she didn’t understand English very well she was caught totally off guard by all the stores being closed. I know a lot of people in America complain about how right after thanksgiving the nation immediately begins to prepare for Christmas, but in Japan without that buffer of thanksgiving they start putting up decorations right after Halloween. I saw my first Christmas tree the first week in November- which seemed really early to me.

For me, I’ve been missing thanksgiving for a few years now and so this wasn’t that much of a shock for me. Especially since there weren’t constant reminders hanging around that I should be back home with my family. Instead of turkey our coordinator Matt arranged for us to eat at a local restaurant with a buffet of Japanese style fried things and our own very large bottles of beer. The meal was a total success and despite the non-traditional food I had a really good time. Afterwards as is the style in Japan we went to an Izakaya but the night ended early due to the fact that we all had class the next day. We had also had had class the day of Thanksgiving too. No holiday, no break but most of us didn’t do our homework anyway.

This weekend was kind of a me and Jen affair. I went with her to Harajuku, which most of you should know. And Ginza – which is the really ritzy shopping area in Tokyo. That is where the designer clothes are located and we went window-shopping and ate impressively good Italian food for Japan. In Harajuku we went to the H & M, which is a long standing department store in the US – but there are two new stores in Japan. The stores clothes are naturally tailored to Japanese crazy fashions and more expensive in the US and the Japanese love them. We had to stand in line in order to get in the store and the store was packed full of people buying cute clothes at moderate prices. Japan loves a bargain.
Sunday I went with Jen and our long absent friend Tomoki to Ikebukuro and ate in this weird amusement park that has food specialties. There was a whole section devoted to gyoza stands and then an ice cream land –where I ate edamame ice cream and Jen ate wasabi, and a chocolate fountain section. It was very Japanese. And very weird.
I will admit that I too have finals coming up and there could not be a more distracting place than Tokyo to keep me from being a good student. Next week is the last week of classes and then the week after that I come home. Its hard to think about –mostly because I have no idea how I am going to fit everything in my suitcase. But time will undoubtably fly.

Love you all

No pictures this time

2008-11-25T20:27:00.000-08:00

I have solved the case of the missing host father –and the results are both sad and anti-climatic. I still haven’t seen my host father since that first day – unless you count the three times I’ve seen him through a window. One of those times he casually popped his head into the living room to talk to my host mom and scared the crap out of me. So that’s about three times in at least fifty days. This has gotten around among my friends in JSP and Jen even told her host mom about my strangely absent host father. Theories have abounded –an apartment in Tokyo, he’s a ghost, he works at night. I really didn’t want to pry into my host family’s lives and just straight out ask where the hell my host dad is – but I’ve been getting a lot of peer pressure from my friends.
“Just ask if your host father is busy – very, very busy.” Jen keeps telling me. I couldn’t bring myself to ask my host mom but I did eventually ask my host sister. A few days before this I had asked what divorce was in Japanese because we were watching a Japanese drama that brought up the question, and my host sister casually told me that my host mom and dad might get a divorce. And then she laughed. I didn’t pursue that conversation thread but a few days later (yesterday) my host mom took me and my host sister out for unagi (delicious, delicious unagi) and after dinner when we had come back home my sister mentioned her dad again. I managed to get over my nerves and asked her what kind of job her dad had. She told me she didn’t remember and when I gave her a weird look she told me maybe my host mom wouldn’t know either. I asked her why and she told me my host mom and dad don’t talk to each other, and they don’t eat together, and she doesn’t really meet up with her dad either. Which is sad. But on the plus side my host dad doesn’t avoid only the study abroad students – but his whole family. I guess my host mom might be stuck in a loveless and sad marriage, which is forcing her to work two part time jobs. And maybe she host study abroad students because she gets lonely? Ah well, even if my host family is too busy to really do anything with me they are still really great people.
My host sister and I have started doing Pilates together and we are up to day three. She keeps telling me that she needs to go on a diet even though she’s tiny (and makes her seem pretty similar to my actual sister actually) so we are doing Pilates at night.
Last weekend I didn’t do a whole lot – besides getting drunk trying to catch up to Japanese girls, and then spending the next morning getting real comfortable with floor toilets. I also went to a library that consists solely of books on Japanese literature or Japanese literature itself. Which was interesting – and out of the random copies I made I must now come up with some kind of paper. After the library, in our most unproductive day in Tokyo, my friends and I tried to go to Asakusa but arrived too late. Ah well, better luck next time.
Time is starting to catch up to me and I’m sure the next three weeks are going to be packed with frantic stressful urgency as I try to spend as much time doing fun things with all the great people I’ve met, and also write two papers, do a debate, and write a speech in Japanese based on a survey I hand out. Good, scary times ahead.
Love you all – oh, and I almost forgot (since thanksgiving doesn’t exist in Japan) HAPPY THANKSGIVING. I hope everyone eats a lot of turkey for me. And rolls. And mashed potatoes. And brussel sprouts. And pumpkin pie!! I will be eating curry and drinking beer in the true holiday spirit. More love and holiday wishes. I can’t believe it’s almost December!

Mikans and washi

2008-11-19T20:44:00.000-08:00

So this will be a somewhat abreiviated blog entry due to the fact that I am writing it in my Japanese literature class. Which, if I haven't mentioned alread, is somewhat terrible. The poor teacher is trying - but I think this is his first literature class, which he was told about two weeks before classes started. So I guess it is understandably terrible.

Anyway- Mikans and Washi. That was the agenda this week for JSP's who elected to participated. Mikans are clementines - which Japanese people do not connect with any english words. Mikans are mikans. But they taste and look like clementines (maybe a little bigger) and on wednesday we got to visit an orchard out in the country and got to pick mikans. We also got to make traditional japanese paper (washi) which is the paper they use to make shoji screens. The two places we visited were out in the country and it took us about two hours to get there on a bus. But both places were surrounded by these hills that were full of koyo or fall colors - which are a big deal in Japan since they have tons of maple trees here so the colors are gorgeous.

First we made Washi which just means that the women that worked there prepared to ten pieces sections of pulp that we were allowed to decorate with maple leaves and flower petals. I was happy because I am always happy when I do crafts. And I impressed people with my asymetrical designs. After that we had lunch in the pretty garden next to the paper making...place.

Then another bus trip to the mikan orchard where we hiked up a hill and then got to eat as many oranges we wanted and also filled a bag to bring home with us. It was awesome. My friend Daniel loves picking his own fruit and his giddy energy made us all happy. It was a beutiful combination - making designs for paper and then wandering around an orchard eating delicious tangerines.

This week- costumes

2008-11-16T21:01:00.000-08:00

This week in Japan everyone buckled down and really spent most of the time memorizing our various skits or speeches that we had to speak/perform in Japanese. The three middle level Japanese classes all wrote and preformed skits, while the top class and the newbie class kids had to write ten-minute speeches. My upper class friends were none too thrilled with this prospect, especially since they were given so much liberty with the speech topics.

Saturday was the day of “Ha-pyo-ka-i”(presentations) so Friday I spent the day buying skit supplies and memorizing skit lines. My years of slacking in theater always come in handy when it comes to skits because I can learn skit lines fast. Also when we were rehearsing our skit my inner-director reared its head when I started yelling at people to rotate their bodies towards audience. My bizarrely controlling side comes out when I am stuck in groups that are leaderless and directionless. My class’s skit was about a Japanese ghost that kept haunting JSP students because the ghost used to be a teacher. We all wanted to write a ghost story and I picked the teacher theme, and it was admittedly cheesy but I figured drinking and being bad students was a fairly universal theme. Especially in Japan. And also that is what JSP students are renowned for. I played a narrator with my friend Eva and I think our skit went over pretty well. The “Hapyokai”’s last for about three hours so my host mom told me she was only going to show up for my skit, which I understood because three hours of bad Japanese is a lot for anyone.
The D-class speeches ranged in topics from food - To superstitions.

To topics that were too advanced for me to understand. But I think this one
Involved a strict teacher.

Also heavily featured in this years skits were people dressing up as pop culture references. We had an anime character from a kind of old anime “Dragon Ball Z.”
Dragon ball z

And then Ash from Pokemon.

And then there was a man as a woman gimmick.

And my favorite was Quin as Barack Obama.

Jen was pretty set on drinking after the whole event (She was one of the upper-class kids with a ten minute speech. She was very bitter until it was over.) So a large group of us proceeded to an izakaya and managed to get pretty drunk on sake and beer. And then we all wandered over to the closest karaoke place and proceeded to drink a few more cheap cocktails. Naturally both places were no-mi-ho-di. Four hours of all you can drink is a very dangerous combination. Especially if you throw in the fact that we were all giddy about finishing the giant Japanese project. It was a fun night followed by a fay of me lazing around my house watching movies. Next week I hope to make a trip to a club and hopefully spend a full night in Tokyo without worrying about catching a last train.

Japan is crazy, man

2008-11-12T21:23:00.001-08:00

Today the difference between studying in the west and studying in the east was really crystallized for me. Of course it’s been something I’ve pondered since I started looking into studying in Japan, but today was that day I really felt that difference. It started with our mini-tour of locations from the movie Lost in Translation. I watched it again this morning and I actually understood some of the Japanese in the scenes, which made the movie so much better. Lost in Translation really captures the lonely, outsider confusion that being a gaijin in this country can make you feel. Being in France was hard because I felt like I should look more like the skinny, perfectly manicured French women you see everywhere. Being in Japan is hard because I cannot become Asian and so I could never blend in a crowd or disguise the fact that I am obviously foreign. Which means all my interactions with Japanese people are based on my foreign-ness not at all based on me. The Japanese look at anyone who isn’t Asian and use that as an indicator of how to treat you. Which in a way is nice because people expect me not to understand how to order a cheeseburger. Japan’s difference is the confusing blend of ancient traditions with radically new technology and inventions. Japan is a country of convenience and everything here is constantly being updated to make things more convenient. Transportation is easier, school supplies are more convenient, convini and dollar stores are everywhere making everything more convenient. Of course there is also the ancient history of Japan underlying everything, with the odd physical landmark to point this out. Temples and shrines, monks, matsuri festivals all are remnants of a much older society which is based on radically different ideals and histories than my western society. Another thing which is interesting to consider is that Japan didn’t have cobblestone streets and there wasn’t really a lot built out of stone, so when we bombed Japan huge physical landmarks and remnants of old Japan disappeared. So while I might be living in a country that has a much longer and richer history than my own, the street that I’m walking down might have been built only fifty years ago. Which really makes living in Japan a totally different experience than Europe. Because that strange and off-putting combination of the old with new is completely foreign. And if you add to that the fact that, while many people in Japan study English, it’s very hard for them and most people don’t like using it. Topped off with a completely dense and indecipherable written language you have a country that is completely different.

This week I went to Akihabarah to buy an R4 card for my DS that allows me to download games for free. Which is amazing. I also went to a maid café with my friends- which are these places where you pay a lot of money to be served crappy food by cute girls dressed up in French maid (Japanese style) outfits. Lots of bows, ruffles, short skirts, and knee socks. I bought an essentially 11 dollar iced tea and I played a ‘maid’ version of rock, paper, scissors. Which here is called ‘du-run-ke-n-po.’ I then went shopping and bought clothes. Finding clothes that fit is always an adventure.
And, like I said, today I took a mini-tour of Lost in Translation. Which turns out to have been set in Shinjuku. A part of Tokyo that is very ritzy and also is where the yakuza reportedly hang out. Mostly we went to the hotel the movie is set in which is the Park Hyatt, one of the tallest buildings in Japan. Everyone who works there speaks the best English because of the movie hype. The famous bar that Bill Murray always drinks in is on the top floor of the hotel and after 8 there is a 20-dollar cover charge to hear the lounge singers. We went at seven, which was good because we were already spending about twenty dollars a drink anyway. But the view was amazing and the experience was excellent. It was an expensive and interesting week but I will not be sad about coming home and settling down into routines that are cheaper and more relaxing. Every day in Japan is an adventure – which can get pretty exhausting.
As always- lots of love and another Happy Birthday to my mom from across the ocean. I heart you all (^^)

Kansai

2008-11-05T20:25:00.000-08:00

First of all – I AM SO RIDICULOLOUSLY UNBELEIVABLY STOKED ABOUT BARACK OBAMA WINNING THE ELECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just got back from a trip around the Kansai region in Japan –and it was amazing. Worth every bit of extra money I had to throw down. The Kansai Trip, as it is known to the JSP program, is an extra trip that is optional for all us JSP students. A lot of us went, but there were a few who opted for cheaper trips or to just stay home.
For anyone with the slightest interest I will now go into way too much detail about what I did.

Day 1: Water Temples

We all got to take the Shinkansen which is the Japanese bullet train- a train that shortens an 8 hour trip into three. It was like a road trip only no one had to drive and there were bathrooms included. Most people slept. At this time we met our trip leader whose actual name I don’t remember because my friends and I all called him by the nick-name he gave himself “Masa-kun.” By the end of the trip he had gathered quite the cult following because of his sharp suits, ability to produce tickets magically, and his efficient manner. =P
The first day we landed just outside of Hiroshima really close to the sacred island ‘Miyajima.’ The Island is gorgeous and marked as one of the worlds cultural heritage places – which means they now put that on signs and made a giant rice scooper in commemoration. The draw to the island really comes from the Buddist shrine that has been maintained for hundreds of years, and part of that shrine is a giant gate (I don’t remember the proper term) that stands in the bay and at high tide is surrounded by water. Also on this island there are a lot of very friendly deer. So we wandered around and ate the classic food of the area which is maple leaf shaped breads filled with red bean, cream cheese, and chocolate. They were delicious. The Island was beautiful. I took a lot of pictures.
After the temple and our free time we met back up to take the ferry and a bus back to our hotel for the night. The first night we stayed a sort-of traditional hotel. The architecture was all glass and sparkly lights but we slept on futons and ate a group dinner in our yukatas that the hotel provided. Also my friends and I braved the women’s Onsen (which is huge group bath). The dinner we had was complicated, involving a lot of candles and tiny iron pots and strange foods. The Onsen was a weird experience because you have to be naked in the onsen a lot, and naked with a bunch of Japanese women who were not very happy about a huge group of gaijin girls giggling all over the place. But it was relaxing. We all went back and slept on our futons in a group room and woke up the next day happy – but with sore backs.

Day 2: History Lessons

Wednesday was the depressing day with a trip to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum where I held back tears and sort of wallowed in what it meant to be a citizen from a country that dropped the deadliest bomb on a country that I had fallen in love with. The message that comes out of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial isn’t one of blame, and it isn’t about warfare. The message is that atomic warfare is terrifying, that anyone who experienced even a little of the mass destructive of an atomic weapon naturally wants that weapon destroyed. Instead, of course, the museum charts the growth and development of nuclear warfare. We sort of wandered through the peace garden and saw the ‘ABOMB Dome’ a shell of one of the few buildings that withstood the atomic blast and has been preserved to remind people of the devastation. From there you pass the flame that won’t be put out till all the atomic weapons are destroyed and then to the children’s memorial where people from all over the world send huge strands of paper cranes. Varying in all sizes and some used to make signs that say things like ‘peace.’ At the end of the park you reach the museum and you pay 50 cents to go in. I bought the additional audio track because I like torturing myself. So for the next hour I listened to what happened and the Japanese ministers desperate pleas to get the world to destroy nuclear weapons. The final part of the exhibit is the gruesome parts – where they explain the effects of radiation and have a section where mannequins show what victims of the blast must have looked like, children with their skin hanging off and clothes torn into pieces. The worst was the man with a hand that was exposed to the blast and whose fingernails started to grow in black on his mangled hand and the nails had blood-veins inside of them so that they would bleed when they were cut. They had a picture and a sample of these nails.
The group had gotten split up in the museum and I had made the voyage in relative silence so when we finally got out I couldn’t really talk. I get choked up about things like huge bombs being dropped on a very crowded places and black fingernails, but I don’t really cry until I try and talk about it. The same thing happened a few weeks after the world trade center was hit – I didn’t really cry about that until I had to talk about it at camp.
Thankfully we planned on eating lunch afterwards and so we all headed in the direction of the local specialty – okonomiyaki. A pancake of sorts mixed with cabbage and vegetables and other things depending on the region. In Hiroshima they included eggs, noodles and, in my case, cheese. A friendly okonomiyaki restaurant and good food made me feel better about the horrors of mankind.
After that one shorter shinkansen trip and we were in Kyoto.

Day 3: The Best Lunch Of My Life

This was the day of the bus tour around Kyoto, where we got taken to two temples, then to lunch, and then on a boat ride down a river. The temples were packed full of school trips and kids in various uniforms. Actually the whole trip was filled with kids in various lines of uniforms and bright strange matching hats. The high schoolers do not suffer the hat humiliation but they are all dressed identically. So not only was I a gaijin girl with blonde hair but I was dressed in street clothes. Of course all the places we visited were huge tourist draws so there were a lot more gaijin there than usual.
Anyone the first temple was big and on a hill and surrounded by huge forests that were big and magical looking. At this temple they had a lot of love charms and things you did for luck. Temples are places you pace five cents and pray, or pay five dollars and buy charms, or pay a few dollars and drink some water for love. Or walk between two stones with your eyes closed to pray for love. I went all out- drank some water, walked through stones, and then bought a charm. Desperate? I call that security. And also the prevailing superstition about these things that makes me wonder what will happen if I do not make such wishes. I am a sucker for luck.
The next temple was a Buddhist temple and was filled with a thousand statues of Buddha. Which we were all frustratingly forbidden to take pictures of. I guess taking pictures of sacred things is kind of sacrilegious. I bought a book of pictures instead and also more tiny charms and fortunes. The fortune I got told me I would have a late but happy marriage and that I had dry skin that I should keep moisturized.
After that temple the bus dropped us off at a buffet of every American food I had missed, some I didn’t know I missed, in a delicious form. I had cheese and crackers – and I mean real blue cheese and some strong form of cheddar cheese, and I had really good roast beef and prawns and curry rice and tiny cakes and bread. Everyone had about four plates of the buffet and by the time we were done everyone was ready to pass out. So the hour bus ride to our boat ride was definitely a kind of relief.

The boat ride turnout out to be a boat that was mostly pushed through the shallow water by a giant pole that one of the boat guides stuck in the water gondola-style. Only what this guy did seemed like a lot more work than any gondola ride I’ve seen. We were on the boat for about an hour and for a long time it was pretty much just a slow scenic tour of the Kyoto mountains and not that different from an American touristy thing. Then our boat turned the corner and another boat sidled up to ours and it turned out to be a store off sorts ready to sell us octopus legs they grilled, beer, sake, and oranges. It was fantastic. Japan is ready to sell you food and beverages at any moment. Even in the middle of a river. We actually passed another boat ready to do the same thing.
That night in Kyoto I met up with a friend from high school who coincidently happens to work in a high school around Kyoto. We went to the Gion district (or the Geisha district) and tried to find a restaurant. Which we did but with a little difficulty. Then we went out for drinks at a bar that is notoriously friendly to Gaijin people. It was fun and expensive. And afterwards we joined the native Kyoto teenagers drinking by the river near our hotel. It’s weird running into people from high school halfway around the world.

Day Four: I Play Tour Guide

Thursday was our free day and as a group we were let loose to do whatever we wanted to in the Kansai area. We were told to research what we wanted to beforehand and I had magically found a Japan guide in my room the weekend before. Which had maps and guides and trainlines. So I made a plan. And about ten other people thought it was good enough that they just joined me in my trip. We all went to Nara and Osaka.
Nara is famous for it’s deer- which you can feed. And so we took a lot of pictures of deer and people feeding them. And I pet one. I pet a tiny deer. Which is kind of weird to think about.
The other thing Nara is really famous for is one of the biggest golden Buddah’s in the world. And when I say big I mean really really big. Probably the size of a house. I kept taking pictures of it but none of them really conveyed how huge the Buddah was. In the picture below the butterfly you see is really as big as my head, if that makes things easier. Around the back of the Buddah there was a piece of wood with a hole cut in it to show the size of nostril and if you could fit through the hole you are sure to reach enlightenment. A lot of tiny women and children were squirming through the hole and my tiny friend Emily tried but apparently any woman with hips is a no go for enlightenment. The same goes to men with shoulders. One of the tall skinny boys managed to do it do the great enjoyment of the tiny women and kids standing around. We all ate lunch in Nara and then took another train to Osaka and headed for the giant aquarium and one of the biggest Ferris wheels in the world.

The Aquarium was amazing. It was basically a huge tank that you walk around and slowly spiral down. The reason the tank is so huge is because it encloses two whale sharks. Which are, as the name probably signifies, huge sharks. Again – pictures couldn’t really capture it. There were also giant stingrays and giant crabs and jellyfish. I love Jellyfish. We ate in ‘a traditional Edo-styled cafeteria where we could sample all of Osaka’s food specialties.’ We had gyoza. We capped the night with the Ferris wheel ride at night and watched the lights in Osaka. Overall everyone seemed pretty pleased with the day. And me and my guidebook take a bit of credit for that.

Day five: Going Home

The least exciting day – in which we went home on the bullet train. And I bought presents for people.

And that was my exhausting review of my vacation in my trip.

A short blog update before my trip into the greater areas of Japan.

2008-10-26T23:43:00.000-07:00

This is the week where I venture out of the relative safety and comfort of Kawagoe and Tokyo for the area of Japan known as ‘Kansai.’ Hence the name of my school trip – the Kansai trip. I’ll be visiting Hiroshima, Kyoto, Nara from Tuesday to Saturday. And during my trip I get to visit the depressing Hiroshima peace memorial (which is about America and our decision to bomb the crap out of Japan), a giant golden Buddha, pet deer, and hopefully catch a glimpse of a real geisha. Which feels kind of weird to say – like I’m trying to see some kind of rare bird, but is exactly how the guidebooks in my room phrase the experience. I didn’t realize until today that past exchange students left guides in my room. One of them was a Lonely Planet guide to Japan and a total score. I love lonely planet. Using the guide I found out that my hotel will be located near downtown Kyoto and the geisha district – which is really exciting. I am totally psyched for my trip now and will of course post details and pictures upon my return. I don’t know who will want them outside of my parents but they will be here.
My last weekend was pretty uneventful since I am desperately trying to cut down and save money in preparation for my trip. I did go out to Ueno, which is increasingly becoming one of my favorite areas in Tokyo, and attempted to visit the Tokyo Metro Art museum. Unfortunately my friends weren’t particularly interested in Vermeer and he was the only distinguishable exhibit we saw. The Tokyo met was had a really confusing display and gallery arrangement which we couldn’t really figure out. Instead we mostly just wandered around watching the huge gathering of street performers that had gathered for no discernable reason we could figure out. But we saw a dancer/painter, a clown, a crazy mime, stilt people, rope performers and a Japanese person playing the bag pipes. We also saw what is called ‘the Ueno pond’ which you can’t really see since its overgrown with giant ferns. It was pretty if overcast and I came home for dinner. I brought my family some omiyage (presents) from Disneyland –just some nicely packaged cookies- which I think they enjoyed. My host-mom insisted on taking pictures of me and my host sister with the cookies. I spend a lot of time in Japan posing for pictures and that really only underlines my inability to pose attractively for photos. One of these days I will master the ability to tilt my head attractively! It may require a lot of practice, though, and it’s really hard to justify time spent practicing head tilting.
Anyway, I will post another obnoxiously long post next week.
Lots of love from tomorrow to everybody. I’m sure everyone is amp-ed up about the election, which for me is just easier not to think about. I love being in Japan but I am really sad that I miss out of my first election where I can actually vote. You all should enjoy it for me.

A crazy week

2008-10-23T21:26:00.000-07:00

This week was bomb. Expensive, exhausting emotionally and physically, but bomb. There’s a quote I kind of enjoy that may or may not come from a web comic and it goes something like ‘events are really shy- they only travel in packs.’ That is how I feel about this week and the coming week. My schedule for this week was on Tuesday I went to a elementary school with all of the JSP’s, on Wednesday I went to my hero Hiyao Miyazaki’s crazy museum, on Thursday I went to Disneyland, and on Friday I’m going out to dinner and then maybe to a Halloween party. Next week I am going on my school ‘Kansai’ trip – which means visiting Kyoto, Hiroshima, and maybe Nara. In five days. So while everything is fun and exciting, pretty much all of my gift shopping is happening in this week and next, plus all of my expensive traveling. Thank god for scholarships.
Now a breakdown of the week.
Tuesday
So all of the JSP Japanese classes went on a school field trip on Tuesday to visit a local elementary school. We did the usual file in and say our names and home-towns and such in Japanese. Which I inevitably screwed up- because my ability to speak understandable Japanese decreases rapidly as I get more flustered or nervous. Since I have always found kids kind of intimidating (I find a lot of people intimidating) I got pretty flustered. After the meet and greet the whole school sang us a song and then we were split up into groups of three and sent off to individual classes. I went to a fourth grade class with two JSP kids in much more advanced Japanese classes. My listening comprehension with strangers is kind of terrible so whenever the teacher would tell me to do something (because they had us participate in the kanji lesson) I felt myself go bright red and didn’t understand anything. I kind of tried to figure it out but who knows how I actually did. When Japanese people tell me I am speaking well I am sure they are lying out of kindness. Because I do the same thing when any Japanese person tries to speak English.

But the class was pretty adorable, all the kids made us signs with our names on them. After all the kids introduced themselves in English saying things like “My name is Ayako. I like soccer. Nice to meet you” they broke out the recorders and played us a song. And then all the kids took out these totally bizarre piano/flute instruments (which is really obscure in America) and played us another song. Then me and Emily (my friend who is really good at Japanese) played clapping games and thumb-wrestling with the kids for a bit. The whole thing was finished off with the rather humiliating Japanese lesson.
Wednesday

My love for Miyazaki at this point should be notorious, and so ever since I heard there was a Museum made by Miyazaki’s company I have wanted to go. Which was about four years ago. Getting in is actually kind of tricky because you have to buy tickets at a convini in advance and that is the only way, and then you have to go at your specified ticket time. All of us JSP’s got tickets for noon but the groups kind of split off upon arrival. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside the museum, which was sad, but I did get a picture of the giant cat bus room from My Neighbor Totoro. And you could take pictures of the outside building and the rooftop. The whole thing was exactly as I thought it would be –like walking into a weird overlap of all of Miyazaki’s movies combined. The outside is covered in grasses and plants because Miyazaki “looks forward to the time when grass covers the earth again.” Inside looks like the train station from spirited away. A lot of high ceilings , spiral staircases, wood, earth tones and stained glass. There were three floors but two staircases (one an enclosed iron spiral) and an elevator. The museum has a traveling exhibit and a new exclusive Studio Ghibli short you can watch, which makes returns to the museum understandable. A girl in our group had been three times already. The traveling exhibit this time was called ‘le petit Louvre’ which was a bunch of classic Louvre pieces much smaller than their originals. Since I love small things and art history I enjoyed the exhibit. The short was about a bunch of preschool kids whose block fishing boat they had made turns into a real boat, and they try and catch a whale but he ends up saving the kids and returning them to school. It was pretty adorable. I bought a lot of things and got to take a picture with the robot from Castle in the Sky, so the day was definitely a success. We headed home from that kind of early because we still had to go to Disneyland.
Thursday
Today’s adventure- and a total blast. I haven’t been to Disneyland since I was seven, but the last time I went to Disney world I was twelve. So it has been a while since my last Disney adventure and I have never been with a group of kids my age without parents. Unlike Euro-Disney Japanese people love Disney land. There were a lot of girls there decked out in full Disney regalia and a lot of them wore Disney specialty hats at least. There were a lot of tiny girls in princess outfits – which I took pictures of. Tokyo Disney had the same rides as Disney Land but a lot of them had been updated to new Disney creations. For example the Pirates of the Caribbean ride now features an animatronics Jack Sparrow and movie treasure, and the Haunted Mansion ride is now centered on Nightmare before Christmas. For Disney land October is Halloween month and Tokyo Disney does a lot with the Halloween theme – parades, pumpkins, specialty rides. I feel like there is kind of some overlap between the ideas behind Christmas and Halloween in Japan and Nightmare Before Christmas did not help things. Both of these holidays in Japan feature novelty lighting, Styrofoam decorations, and parties. Space and thunder mountain were still the same old rides and a lot of fun – despite the fact that it started to rain at three and didn’t stop for the rest of the night. I like Disney Land, and I like being able to take a train there and a train home and not have to mess with driving a car at all. I also loved the Japanese boy’s sparkly novelty hats that they wore unabashed.

On a side note – the line between masculine and feminine for the Japanese male is almost nonexistent. Outside of not wearing skirts (just long kimono) boys pretty much follow all the same trends as Japanese girls. Tight stylish pants, boots, man-purses, layered clothing, scarves. Also Japanese guys are much more touchy-feely with their male friends. I don’t really know why that is. But I enjoy it.
Also, I think the woman who placed us JSP kids with our host families is a genius. I just found out the other day that my host mom went to an arts high school and then she majored in Japanese art in college. She told me she might take me out to do some traditional art hopefully in November. Which would be awesome. But now I am worn out and must sleep.
Love you all, as usual.

Kawagoe Matsuri

2008-10-19T21:18:00.001-07:00

This weekend has been chock full of traditional Japanese experiences. And why, you might ask, is that? I have two words – Kowagoe Matsuri: a giant festival that Kowagoe (the prefecture I am living in) is famous for. And what it involves is every neighborhood making these huge floats, called Dashi, on which people play drums and traditional folk characters dance, and which are on wheels that everyone from the neighborhood pulls. What this sounds like is a sort of Fourth of July feeling, and the last parade with floats I went to was horribly boring and I kind of hated it. America needs to take lessons on how to make parades awesome. Turn them into festivals. Dashi are way more bad ass than any cheap American float because some of them were made a hundred years ago, out of wood and lacquer and silk. The youngest one was about two years old, made entirely out of wood and metal.
On Saturday I went with Jen pretty early to the festival, which took up most of the streets in Kawagoe and the streets were filled with food vendors and people selling various cheap plastic items. And around the various neighborhoods the Dashi are pulled and sometimes the floats meet up and they ‘fight’ which means they have a dance off between one floats character dancer vs. the other floats dancer. The dancers are put into costumes based on Japanese folk characters and the movements are the classic movements of the character. There was a drunk, a fox, the most beautiful lady, the stupid man, a pig and a bear. So on Sat Jen and I passed through the shops and then got some crepes on a side street. Where a random Japanese man took our picture and then had his daughter stand with us for a photo. Which was yet another weird Gaijin moment. And more specifically a weird blonde gaijin moment – which I generally have whenever I hang out alone with Jen. We happened upon some other JSP’s and some Dashi and I took pictures. Unfortunately on Saturday my camera ran out of batteries. But we had some beer and yakisoba and then spent an expensive couple hours singing karaoke. All in all a fun night.

But the true cultural experiences happened on Sunday because on Sunday I got to be part of the JSP group that actually helped pull a Dashi. We had to wear Jackets and we kind of helped pull for an hour and then everyone took a million pictures of us. I had a great time though – any excuse to dress up and take a million pictures of the awesomeness that is the Dashi is fine by me. The coordinator for the event was this adorable Japanese man who kept trying to explain what was going on and he wore a red coat and was very earnest.
After the float thing I got lunch consisting of okanomiake – which is a cabbage, egg, mayonnaise, soy sauce pancake. And delicious. As well as eating some fried chicken. The thing about the Kawagoe Matsuri was that there were booths for food everywhere. And not a lot of different kinds of food but a ton of booths selling pretty much five of the same things: chocolate covered bananas, okanomiake, octopus and squid, takoyaki(which is balls of okinomiake with octopus in then), and yakitori chicken. And a bizarre version of gyros. The thing to do was buy delicious food and wander around watching different Dashi get pulled around and catching the odd Dashi fight. And occasionally playing rigged Japanese fair games where you could win cheap plastic crap or goldfish. And the odd tiny turtle. I went home after lunch to do some homework but came back at night to get night photographs of the Dashi because at night they break out the lanterns. We sort of wandered around for a while and I ate a snow-cone, yakisoba, octopus legs, and eventually cotton candy. Because I love cotton candy and it at least came in a neat plastic bag. But the group kind of split apart due to one of the JSP’s gorgeous host sister – her presence enough to distract anyone with any testosterone. And because the Dashi were being somewhat elusive. At the very end of the night though I got to see a three way fight between three floats and it was awesome. I took videos and a thousand pictures because between the people in gorgeous traditional costumes, giant wood carts iced with gold and paintings and people, and the musicians and dancers the festival was a visual feast. So of course my flickr page will have a lot more pictures to check out.

A day in the gaming world

2008-10-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

I am embarking on a new adventure in my blog= in-blog photographs. I have known for a while that this will make my blog at once less boring and more understandable, but the project has so far seemed a little daunting. Still, for all of you that read this I shall make an effort.

My weekend was not as fun filled as usual since I am saving money for the next two weeks, during which I will be participating in a lot of expensive events. Also the money from my scholarship took two weeks longer for me to get than I expected. Which made me broke and sad. Today I got moneys, though, and so everything is bright and shiny again. Except for maybe that the absentee ballot remains a worrisome challenge. I spent Friday night with JSP kids and some Japanese students bowling. Which it turns out is pretty damn similar to bowling in the US except it was maybe dirtier and cheaper. I was also one of the worst bowlers – as per usual. One of the weirdest aspect in Japan is the ability to buy liquor at convenience stores and then take them to karaoke places or bowling alleys. I think that was my first bowling experience where I drank as well as player. Which did not make me suck at bowling any less.

On Saturday I just kind of chilled in my house with my o-ka-san (host mother) and did some homework, went on a short voyage looking for boots with my friend Jen, and then came home for dinner. I think Saturday was the first day I ate all my meals in at my house. I mean I’ve spent the whole day with my host sister and mother before, but we usually eat lunch somewhere else. So that was actually a fairly relaxing change.

Sunday was my big adventure for the week because I went to Tokyo Game-show 2008. Which is a huge game convention in which all the major game companies in Japan show their new games for the year. The Game-show goes from Saturday to Sunday maybe 8-5pm. Getting to the Game-show proved a challenge since my cell phone has decided it hates me and won’t let me send text messages. Which is the main form of communication in Japan. And like the idiot that I am, I turned my phone off the night before the show and missed all of the text messages telling me that everyone was meeting much earlier than I expected. I also chose Sunday to be the first time I am not ridiculously early for a scheduled meeting. Because that is how I roll.
So I showed up at the train-station exactly at 8:30 and turned my phone on in time to realize that everyone else had left earlier. And that I had to wait for a half hour for my train, and then make the two hour voyage by myself. Which pretty much made for a terribly planned and timed morning, but once I got to the game-show everything got a lot better.

I don’t actually like playing games all that much. They are long and tiring and I get bored of them really easily. Mostly I just think about all the time I could be spending watching movies, reading or drawing. But I do like to know what is happening in the gaming world because then I can participate in a lot more of my friends conversations, and the art in games is often pretty awesome. Video games, comics, anime – they all sort of fall into one general category, so gaming knowledge is kind of useful to have. And very very rarely I happen on a game I actually like playing.
I also really enjoy conventions and Tokyo Game-show is the equivilent of E3 in America. It’s a convention filled with exclusive insider knowledge and free things about future games. And thus awesome. I don’t know how many people went to the Show but it had to number somewhere in the plus ten thousands. I got to there around 11pm and stayed till closing and the crush of people rarely thinned.

There were three giant warehouses filled with major game-companies displays, stages, and areas that allowed you to play the new games. The lines to play the games had wait times around an hour for most places and for the really popular games sometimes two hours. Occasionally after playing a game you got neat free things –like canvas bags or promo items, but not always. But you could also pick up free catalogues of each companies new games from women working called ‘booth babes.’ I think that’s actually they’re official title, except for at the x-box booth where they are called ‘official booth attendants’ and all these girls dress up in company outfits of varying degrees of slutty-ness and hand out the companies promo items. And a lot of people take pictures of them, and by people I mean men or the random gaijin tourist (i.e. me and my friend Emily).

That must be the weirdest job to have, where your job description has you dress in provocative costumes and let strange and often creepy men take lots of strange and creepy photos of you. But maybe that is just me looking at things from a very American feminist perspective. It would be kind of awesome to be pretty enough to get paid for having people take picture of you making a peace sign. There were more gaijin tourists there than I have seen in one place so far. I didn’t play too many games (the wait was forever for most of them and final fantasy required elusive tickets) but I did play this game called Little Big Planet, which was adorable.

You are a tiny burlap character that you can decorate and you run around moving objects and solving puzzles in this 2-D/ 3-D world. A booth attendant guy played with us and spent a lot of time telling me to ‘jump jump jump’ because I am not a good gamer. It was fun though. I also played Street Fighter 4 which is apparently not released in the US and a big deal to people into gaming. Or so my JSP friend majoring in gaming seems to find it really interesting. As does the boy who worked at Game-stop for a long period of time. I got my ass handed to me in that game, but my cute friend Emily had her boy help her with her character and she kicked his ass.

But Emily majors in computer science and plays games a lot. I refuse to feel badly about this. Also, Cosplayers came out in force for this event and I saw more elaborate costumes than I ever had before. I’ve been to anime conventions – but I don’t remember seeing anything to the elaborate level of skill that the Game-show cosplayers were on.
All in all a thoroughly fun and exhausting day, and here is all the swag that I picked up.

And a picture of my awesome Pokemon plushie.

Sup

2008-10-08T22:45:00.000-07:00

Things that I have learned about my host mom and host sister (I still haven’t spoken with the father):
1. My host mother hates the ocean.
2. She used to have an aquarium but about a month before I came she got rid of it because it was a pain to clean.
3. In said aquarium she used to have water grass, shrimps, and angel fish
4. She doesn’t like Angel Fish because they are scary and would bite her when she cleaned the tank. Also they ate their children.
5. My host sister has never been swimming in the ocean.
6.
I had an interesting conversation with my host mom and she did a terrific impression of a crab. In a strange way it makes sense that someone living on an island would hate the ocean, and I love it. I never do get tired of spending the day on a beach – any beach. Rocky, cold, hot- I love the ocean.
Last weekend my literary teach dragged all of us out to Yokohama, which has a famous art museum and also a famous china town. Apparently Yokohama used to be a big port city and a lot of Chinese people settled there. My literature class read a little bit from ‘The tales of Genji’ for class and the art museum was doing a retrospective of all the art that has been influenced by that novel. Genji was one of the first fiction novels written ever, in the whole world. And it was written by a woman, a concubine, for the emperor who later became his wife. So a lot of paper screens and scrolls have been made depicting scenes from the book – and there were a lot of hand made copies of the novel throughout the years. The copies that survived are not the original surviving text. So in theory the story may have changed.
Regardless, I had to wake up ungodly early on Saturday to catch an early train to Tokyo, where me and about five other students met up with the teacher to continue on to Yokohama. It took about two hours- which isn’t too bad considering it’s on the southern side of Tokyo. The museum was full of more amazing Japanese woodblocks with really old Japanese clothes. The women had long free flowing hair and just tons of giant robes. I just wandered around drawing things and I had an old Japanese woman just start talking to me. She was very nice but was wearing a huge visor that completely blocked her face and so it was hard to understand her. Plus I am terrible at small talk. She asked me what I was interested in in particular with Japanese art, but I didn’t have a good answer. I am interested in all of Japanese art. My favorite thing she said was ‘I can understand your fascination.’ And then we both kind of wandered off.
I do love Japanese art…
A-to-de (which means after) we went out to lunch in the big china town. Which took a little work finding, so we were all kind of starving when we got there. I had some rice with shrimp served in a hot iron pot and some soup and rice pudding. Which was actually pretty delicious. And our lit teacher bought us a bottle of rice wine. Our teacher is one of those guys who is really nice but a terrible teacher. Our classes are three hours long and he fills that by having us read out-loud the assigned reading for the week. Which we are already supposed to have read. Plus, he doesn’t believe in literary theory which means analyzing the text is pretty much out. So he’ll read something like ‘the girl looked strange with her un-plucked eyebrows and non-blackened teeth’ and tell us ‘now in those times women would normally pluck their eyebrows and blacken their teeth.’
So that is infuriating. But he was pretty nice taking us to the art museum and buying us wine. He also wandered around china town with us and bought his wife some o-mi-ya-ge (which is presents). I didn’t buy much but I took a lot of pictures. Especially of the Confucian temple.
My friend Jen came on the trip with me and Jen and I look a lot alike, I might have mentioned already. We are both blonde and blue eyed, and unfortunately on that day we both decided to wear the same color blue shirt. I’m pretty sure to a Japanese person we look identical- since even our American friends say we look alike. So after Yokohama Jen and I split off to do some shopping and to wander through a Tokyo station. We got lost, inevitably, and while we were looking for ‘Sunshine mall’ a random Japanese guy came up to us and asked if we spoke Japanese. He looked fairly normal, actually, and was dressed in clothes from an American Eagle catalogue. So apart from the fact that he approached American girls, he seemed okay. Unfortunately he started the conversation by telling Jen she was pretty and I decided to use him for directions. He told me I had blonde hair and took us to the mall, and when I said thank you he just left. It was very weird. Clearly Jen and I cannot wander around Tokyo alone dressed alike. Although, if we only get approached by nice guys who show us around, it probably won’t be that bad.
I’ve had a pretty calm weekend since then, since I’m waiting for my scholarship money to come through. And I heard another depressing This American Life about the economy. Which I recommend although I felt sad a lot while I listened to it. I don’t want to go back to America where everything is falling apart. At least in Japan I don’t understand the problems they are having. Although I do know that Asia’s economy is having just as many problems. And I’ve been at least two trains that were delayed by an ‘accident,’ which is code for someone stepping in front of a train. It’s kind of freaky how everyone is so used to people jumping in front of trains.
That’s pretty much everything. Good nigh and good luck.
Lots of love from overseas.

more pictures at http://flickr.com/photos/30087712@N08/?saved=1

Hey all

2008-10-01T21:20:00.001-07:00

A short update –
I have had a nice few days and things are looking up on the meeting Japanese people front. I will supposedly meet with people from the school art club tomorrow and there was an (expensive) dance club event last Tuesday. Today I hung out with the host mom and sister. We went to a giant dollar store that had the coolest stuff. You seriously wouldn’t know it was 100 yen. So whatever gifts I give out I am absolutely not telling you the price of them.
My host sister took me on a bike ride to a buy/rent dvd/ cd/ manga/book store and we got an old but popular Japanese movie. It was about a Japanese otaku boy saving a girl on the train from a Ji-kan (drunk groping man) and how he makes an Internet forum where people give him advice about how to date the girl. And how everyone’s lives are changed in the process. It was adorable. And I’m sure there is a subtitled version in the US if anyone wants to see it. It’s call ‘Train man’ or something. I did have to watch it in Japanese only because there weren’t subtitles. The fact that I can halfway understand the dialogue was pretty cool. But the long sections of dialogue went totally over my head.
Oh, I also recommend this week’s ‘This American Life.’ It was a really good show this week.
As usual, lots of love from across the ocean!

Awesome weekend

2008-09-28T21:38:00.000-07:00

I have officially been in Japan for a month. But it actually feels like a lot longer. I can’t believe that one month ago I didn’t simultaneously think in broken Japanese or use the word ‘o-mo-shi-ryoi’ to describe almost everything. (‘Omoshiroi’ means interesting or amusing, by the way.)
The weekend was particularly awesome since I managed to squeeze in a lot of anime type fun, despite my sore throat and slight cold. On Friday I ‘met’ some Japanese kids at the school organized meet and greet on the second campus. Unfortunately the ratio of Japanese people to JSP students was pretty skewed in favor of the JSP kids. My favorite moment came at the end when, after speaking to a Japanese boy for a particularly long time, my two friends (Emily and Jen) asked the boy for his number. American style. And as he was giving it out his three male friends start ‘asking’ him who Suwa-chan was. Suwa-chan is apparently the Japanese boy’s girlfriend. I was sort of standing away from the action and witnessed this moment in cultural differences and enjoyed it immensely. Girls and boys in Japan do not really become ‘friends’ per se. And exchanging numbers with American girls apparently warrants a reminder that you already have a girlfriend.
Anyway after the strange meet-and-greet we went out for gyoza and then on to karaoke (which isn’t a lot of fun when it hurts to sing and when you can’t really drink). I damaged my throat anyway. Because I’m in Japan, damn-it. And there was a bit of confusion regarding rooms and people and boys wanting Japanese girls. A regular good time.
Saturday was the true day of exploring and anime themed adventures. My friend Emily was in search of the ‘pokemon center’ because she loves Pokemon. There are (surprising, I know) a lot of JSP kids who love Pokemon and have played all the games. I wasn’t really one of them but I watched the show and I can get into the spirit of things. We actually managed to get on all the right trains and not get lost and even found the actual Pokemon center. Which turned out to basically be a giant Pokemon store overrun with children asking to buy things and parents trying to say no. I bought things. I now have a pokemon ball replica that doubles as a coin bank and came with a copper deer like Pokemon. But my favorite thing I bought was this truly bizarre licking Pokemon plushy. It’s so weird and adorable! On the way into the station I looked out the window and saw Tokyo Tower, which I had no idea was in the same place. And I insisted that we go because as silly as the Tokyo tower is, you can’t deny visiting it once. I also had to explain how the Tokyo tower is featured rather prominently in a lot of animes, CLAMP in particular. I enjoyed my 11-year-old Pokemon adventure, and then my 15-year-old Magic Knights Rayearth themed adventure (which was the anime I loved and starred three girls sucked into another world in the Tokyo Tower.)
Two things really stand out about the time around the tower. And those were the monkey standing on stilts and the two giant pink dildo-like mascots of the Tokyo Tower. Trained monkeys and strange mascots make anything worthwhile. All that took up most of the day and then we took the train home, got sushi at the ki-ten sushi place, and then tried to hang out in a Japanese park. My favorite line from my history text was the one about how Japan never really came up with parks on their own; they just sort of made them because other countries had them. Which really explains the strange rectangle creation we hung out in. Which had a nice fountain but barely any grass and no trees. We did go to a nice park near the Tower though.
Today I spent with my okasan and I watched my host sister sing in her play and it was awesome. In Japan high schools have these things called school festivals where different clubs make exhibits or put on shows and classrooms become bazaars or cafes. And all the parents and siblings come and eat food and look at the displays and watch the shows. So my host sister is part of the musical club at her school – which is apparently an all girls club. And she played a boy in what I think was an American musical based on William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. In Japanese. And the acting was pretty typical of Japan, which is a lot of dramatic posing. It was cute though and my host sister was the best in it. She played her part the most convincingly. So that was cool. And then we went to the school bazaar and I bought a scarf and my host mom bought some towels. And then we ate some lunch and checked out the anime club. It’s nice to know that anime ‘artists’ in high school suck in Japan just as much as in the US. Although the coloring is infinitely better. My host mom told me that my drawings were ‘ichiban.’ Which was sweet.
And finally we went to a random tea-room in the school where the school tea ceremony club girls were all wearing ornate kimonos and serving traditional whipped green tea and dai… something. The rice jelly surrounding sweet bean paste. Which sounds weird but is actually delicious and really sweet. I have secretly always wanted to go to a school festival and now that goal has been realized.
After that my host mom took me to jin-ja, which I think is the word for a Shinto shrine. Apparently it is very famous. I really like Shinto shrines. I made more wishes with coins and took pictures of some fighter planes. I had decidedly limited the amount of money in my wallet, so when my host mom asked me if I wanted to do more shopping and I had to say no. She took me to a department store in my station anyways, because she needed some stockings. And I found a skirt miraculously in my size and miraculously on sale. Sometimes you can’t help these things. She then took me out to dinner and I ate more tempura, soba, and yakitori chicken. It was really fun just chilling with my host mom. I think on Wednesday Chi, my host mom and I are maybe going to do something. We shall see. Sometimes she explains things about future plans all in a rush and I feel too embarrassed to ask her to repeat.
Regardless, a really fun weekend. And I’m still in freaking Japan (>.<)!!
Love y’all lots and lots and lots. ^^

as usual the link to new photo's is http://flickr.com/photos/30087712@N08/

Lions and tigers and bears...

2008-09-24T21:23:00.001-07:00

A note on drinking in Japan (I’m 21 now so it’s legal for me to discuss drinking online.) Even if I was only 20 I could still discuss drinking in Japan –that’s the legal limit here. Drinking actually plays a large role in Japanese society, the extent of which I haven’t really figured out. But in Japan there is this thing called a “No-mi-ho-di” which means that you pay a stock amount per person (which can range from 5 –20+ dollars) and then you order as many drinks as you can in the next two hours. There is a karaoke place near campus where the JSP kids all love to go because no-mi-ho-di there is only $5 but the mixed drinks are basically orange juice. Most people order beer since that can’t be watered down. And if you are good at drinking beer and go in a large group you could potentially drink a lot more than $5 worth. In smaller groups the service tends to be slow in order to save the business money. Or drinks.
There are also restaurants with “I-zi-ka-ya” rooms where you can sit large parties and order a more expensive no-mi-ho-di and I guess you usually have to order food in those places. I went to one of those last night and had my first (cheap) sake experience. I had it hot and cold, hot being more alcoholic, and cold being easier to drink. Also had a gin and tonic, which is a weirdly common drink here. There is also this mixed drink called “bridal pink” the contents of which are still unclear. So drinking in Japan in restaurants is actually a much more reasonable proposition than in America. I think this also might be a space thing, since there aren’t house parties in Japan because everyone lives in tiny houses with their parents. So group-drinking outings are really the only way to drink. It’s pretty interesting.
I have had a lot of days off this September from school. I always have Wednesdays off, but Tuesday was the autumn equinox holiday or something. So my friends and I went off to the zoo and then in search of strange porn in “The electronic city of Akihabara.” We got to the zoo pretty late in the day so we only had an hour till it closed (lunch and travel took up a lot of time). The Ueno zoo is famous for panda’s. But I think all of the panda’s died so now they only have small ‘red panda’s.’ You can still buy panda pancakes and plastic masks; you just can’t see live Giant panda’s. Which was a little disappointing. I did see lions and tigers and bears…(I’m resisting the urge to sing Wizard of Oz) and gorillas. My camera is pretty bulky but the zoom power it has is pretty awesome. I could zoom up on the monkey’s faces from maybe 60ft away.
After the zoo we ventured on in search of porn and ended up in some strange places in Akihabara. I have now seen way too many naked Asian girls. The interesting thing is the porn stores really aren’t hidden. And a lot of them are five stories tall. And at one’s selling maid and cosplay costumes there were even couples. Also, in Japan they can’t show genitalia on screen so everything is weird censored blocks. My friends were unsuccessful in finding truly bizarre porn and I got my fill of porn stores for a loooong time.
I am excited about Sunday because my host sister is performing in a musical and I get to go. I get to watch high school kids sing and dance and I couldn’t be happier. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to for a while and because of language barriers it felt weird to ask. But I did and my host mom told me we were definitely going, but that I might not understand the story. Which is fine by me. I do know that my host sister plays a boy proposing to a girl who is in love with someone else.
And soon I hope to find my way to my ultimate goal. The Studio Ghibli Museum. Where money will be spent. Apparently you need to reserve tickets for the museum, which I don’t really understand. But I told my host mom that I wanted to go there and she said something along the lines of ‘let me think on it.’ So, cross my fingers.
That’s pretty much my news from Japan for the week.
As usual, lots of love.

2008-09-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

More pictures on my photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30087712@N08/sets/72157607425414015/

And then I ate more grapes

2008-09-21T22:51:00.000-07:00

Things that I miss about America –

Well naturally my family and friends – but that really is just a given.

1. Movies. I miss them more than sugar and more than American food. I miss television and movies. I am really a movie addict and that addiction is starting to grate. Hopefully my school can come up with an American movie night
2. For some reason, steak. I don’t know why that is since I don’t eat that much steak. Also mashed potatoes. I miss those a lot.
3. Being able to make food without worrying about offending someone.

That’s pretty much it. Japan is a really interesting place. And there are just enough American buffers to make my experience not completely terrifying. For instance, the other American students. Also, the exchanges we do with music. And the Internet in our classrooms. I can still download stuff from the Internet so I have some access to subtitled TV shows and movies. I found out though that my favorite manga (Tramps Like Us) has been turned into a Japanese live action drama. I just spent the last hour listening to the rain and watching the show on my computer. I was ridiculously content. Also, my bed is extremely comfortably and positioned right next to the window. And the blanket I used is a comforter covered in a sheet/duvet kind of thing and I don’t actually use any sheets. It’s an extremely comfortable set up.
Yesterday I went to Tokyo again- there was supposed to be a typhoon in the morning but instead the day was pretty much perfect. I went to the Meji shrine, which is in the middle of this huge park near Harajuku. The shrine is set up in a Japanese palace style and at the front they have a place to wash your hands and clean out your mouth to set your mind at ease. There was apparently a traditional wedding going on that day too and so there were women and men in traditional clothing. I took a lot of pictures of the shrine because I love Japanese architecture. I also put some money in and did the praying ritual. From there we wandered around the park and happened across two people from Denver (weird) and a huge archery competition that was free to watch. That was fricken sweet since I had heard a lot about traditional Japanese archery and seen it in movies but to see actual people was something else.
This really cliché line from The Last Samurai movie keeps running through my head, which goes something like “The Japanese try and do everything perfectly.” Or something along those lines, and more and more I see evidence of this being true. Even writing the language is very exact – my teacher keep correcting my hiragana script and my host mother noticed how my ‘su’ character was written incorrectly. Nobody would say that the way you write an ‘A’ in American is better or worse than a different a. Maybe, maybe someone would say your handwriting is sloppy. My host mom has been making this felt elephant out of pieces of wool that you stab with a bumpy needle and work into different shapes. Last night she held up this perfect elephant head and was like ‘this looks like a pig.’ It certainly didn’t and this was her first experience creating wool animals. I know my elephant would have looked a whole lot crappier and taken me more time. The archery contest felt like that – The way the movements were all structured and the slow and extremely deliberate nature in the archery. I thought it was fascinating, but my friends thought it was a tad tedious, which I can understand. Someone asked how on earth that kind of slow and silent activity could be fun – but I don’t think that Japanese archery is about ‘fun’ in the usual sports sense. More about a kind of deliberate mediation.
So that was cool to see. After that we joined the hordes in Harajuku and I bought hot pink tights and more leggings. I am so happy about these hot pink tights that miraculously fit. In some ways I think my style is definitely improving because of the style I see everyday – and in some ways I feel like I have the liberty to wear whatever I want since that kind of seems how the Japanese dress. The more crazy layers the better. And usually the layering turns out impressively artful. My goal is to master that kind of casual and awesome style. I did end up buying some sweats for dancing in – but I like to think they are the classic hip-hop sweats which artfully disheveled. We shall see.
After Harajuku we met up with out Japanese babysitter and went on to Akihabara to run various electronic errands. I needed headphones and Tomoki helped me pick out some of the cutest and best headphones I probably have ever owned. They had a whole section of headphones for girls that had rhinestones and were in pretty colors but the headphones I chose came in different colors with your choice of headphone tins with matching flowers in the lids – and three different sized silicone ear pieces. Normally, ear headphones hurt and after a while and end up being kind of painful to wear, but it turns out that my perfect headphone size is XS. So maybe all my other headphones were just too big. Apparently the company I bought is famous for headphones, and I have to admit the sound quality is pretty amazing. Also, they were only 20.00 bucks and I think that is a pretty awesome deal. So, Akihabara and then we found a Chinese restaurant in the electronics store (which was massive). We had such a big party (six people. Which is big in Japan) that one of the waiters actually had a smaller table move over in the middle of their meal to accommodate us. If you tipped in Japan I would have given a huge tip. After food we went back a few train stops and went into a fairly big bar chain called ‘Hub Pub’ which is a bar styled after English pubs. That pretty much finished off the night and I had a good time. It is so nice that my school is so close to Tokyo, and that the train system is fairly straightforward to use. I feel pretty lucky about everything that I get to do. I do miss people, but I am usually pretty distracted by everything that’s going on, and all the nice people I meet, that it doesn’t ever have time to sink in. Japan is a geek Mecca and I am really enjoying my month of being able to geek out all the time. (^_^)
Oh yeah, a while ago me and a few other JSP’s volunteered to have our pictures taken for a magazine and to share photographs that we had taken. I guess it was for a photography magazine. I was a little lazy about turning in my pictures so I might not end up in it – but this is a crazy aspect of Japan. By being a Gaijin you are almost treated as a bizarre celebrity. So I might be in a random Japanese magazine. That’s pretty much everything so far. Love you guys. Send me e-mails!!! <3 <3

News?

2008-09-17T21:16:00.002-07:00

I heard some troubling things about America from my other JSP’s, like how there is a hurricane tearing up the Midwest and Texas. And about the stock market crashing. And about United going bankrupt – which pretty much screws me over since I’m going home on a United flight. What is happening over there on the other side of the coast? I would love some news updates since they are hard to come by without Internet – which I don’t really have access to.

Japan and it's differences

2008-09-17T21:16:00.001-07:00

There are a few things that all the Japanese people seem to believe in

1.Drinks
2.Umbrellas
3. Cash

First –Drinks

The Japanese are definitely aware of how important a variety of delicious iced tea, juice, and coke are and also the need to access them at any point during the day. At least, it seems that way since there are drink vending machines on every corner. And all these vending machines offer iced coffee, tea, juice, coke, and carbonated juice drinks. Coke is really the only dark soda that they serve in Japan- and the rumor is that the Japanese hate root beer and dr. pepper. On my ride into school there are at least four places where I can stop and buy something to drink. Because of this my craving for soda has been considerably reduced. Coke seems to pale in interest when I can have “grape juice and aloe” (I have actually had that. The ‘aloe’ comes in jelly like cubes and the drink is made by minute maid).
Also, I don’t know what they do to the drinks in Japan but all of them are more flavorful and taste exactly like the label claims. A Kirin brand of apple juice tastes like eating an apple. And grapefruit soda tastes like grapefruit. And melon soda is bright green and tastes like melons. It’s awesome. And I love iced milk tea. Water seems pretty uncommon though, at least drinking straight water. Tea is really the hydrating fluid in Japan. At first it weirded me out and I was thirst all the time, but now I find a cold glass of iced tea really refreshing.

Umbrellas

They really do carry them everywhere, and not just the tiny collapsible ones – but mostly those old fashioned large ones. A huge range of stores sell them and in a huge variety of colors and materials. Also, outside of each building there is a place to stash your giant umbrellas. Which is a pretty trusting thing to do. Also, I see people biking with umbrellas all the time. Only in a really heavy downpour I see people wearing raincoats.

Cash

Japan is a cash society and almost no places take credit cards. Which means that I watch my money being burned through a lot more easily. Which is a good thing, but since I tend to send a lot of money in Japan it sort of freaks me out. If there weren’t such excellent sales and tons of cute clothes and things I fall in love with in a second…
I’m trying hard to stop myself from buying everything I see but it has been rough. At least none of the shoes or pants will ever fit me – which is kind of how I planned when I was packing. I left a lot of room for shirts and that was a brilliant move on my part. I am really thankful that I got the scholarship that I did because without it I would be in a panic about money. I still panic but the scholarship does a lot to ease my mind.

What I've done

2008-09-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

This week from Japan- more adventures in Tokyo. And a long weekend.

This Monday was a holiday in Japan that roughly translates to ‘Respect for your elders day’ and so I didn’t have school. The holiday is basically a day you give presents to your grandparents. Which is kind of nice. I spent the day with my host mom and it was pretty fun. I went to a hobby store and bought two kits to make necklaces for my host mom and sister and we had Ki-ten sushi (sushi on a conveyer belt), which was strange and delicious.
My weekend has actually been pretty busy. I went to Tokyo on Saturday with two girls from the JSP program and our Japanese baby-sitter Tomoki. (Who, after we called him that, refused jokingly refused to read the signs or tell us where we were going.) We went to a huge art/ artifact museum called the Tokyo National Review. There are four buildings in that museum but we only made into two of them. The museum is located in Ueno province, prefecture, I’m not really sure what you call these districts in Tokyo I visit. Regardless, Ueno is also the name of the station near this neighborhood. Which is apparently the zoo and museum neighborhood. There is a huge park and there are about twelve or so museums in this park along with the most popular zoo. Surprisingly this was an area in Tokyo that is relatively calm and free of the city bustle.
The museum was awesome and once I figured out you could take pictures without flash I took a ton. Look to my flickr photos for the museum art. The first building was an ‘Asian review’ and there was artwork from Egypt, Afghanistan, Iran, China, and Korea starting from 700B.C. It was a cool collection. I especially liked the Indonesian shadow puppets. The second building was the review of Japanese art.
I love Japanese art. A lot. More than all the other Asian countries, even China (which Japan looked to for inspiration and culture.) I don’t really know why, except that Japanese aesthetics are flawless.
After the museum we went out to dinner in Shibuya because we were going to try and find a club and go dancing there. We ended up wandering into a random tiny Shibuya festival. Which meant that people were dressed in traditional garb and chanting and there was this giant samurai dragon paper float thing that glowed. Finding a restaurant in Shibuya is an on-going challenge. We all sort of fell into the idea of getting pizza and after circling the same few blocks we finally found the restaurant “Shakeys” (mostly with the help of our trustee P.A.) Ironically this restaurant was on the second floor of the convini we went to before we started our long and winding search. Also, turns out that the pizza chain was American although I had never heard of it. We also saw an Outback Steakhouse. Which was weird. There were a lot of Gaijin in this particular restaurant but the pizza was decent and it was a fairly cheap meal. I sometimes miss cheese. There is cheese here but it’s really expensive and nobody really eats it. Except on the rare pizza.
After dinner we wove back through the streets of Shibuya to the strange back alleys where the clubs were located, and where the love motels were. Clubbing is a tricky adventure since we all wanted to catch our last train, which left sometime around midnight. It’s sort of a Cinderella dilemma with the Tokyo train system. We found the club but it looked super sketchy so we opted for a bar instead. Going turned into one of the two experiences I have had so far of being called a ‘gaijin.’ The first being on a train back from Ponyo when a group of High school boys got onto the train and immediately started whispering and laughing. And then the bravest of the boys sat down in one of the seats next to me and the boys all looked at me and then laughed. And since the only relatively strange thing in this corner of the train was me, drawing, I figured I was their source of amusement. The brave kid motioned for his friend to sit even closer to me and the other kid did, reluctantly. And then the group all laughed. I just sat there, pretending to draw, feeling more and more awkward. More whispering, more giggling and then the brave kid said with a very Japanese accent “Hello” and I said hello back and then everyone laughed. And then brave kid whispered in English “Nice to meet you” to his friend and everyone giggled and then he looked at me and said it again. So I said “Nice to meet you back.” “Yatta!” the kid exclaimed and the group broke up into laughter. I looked at the girl across from me doing her make-up and she gave me a bland smile. It was a weird experience.
In Shibuya, at the bar, we wanted cheaper drinks so we opted for the bar in the basement. As we edged into this tiny room a group of Japanese people eating dinner looked at us in surprise and started a chorus of “Gaijin” and “Nice to meet you” and then to our Japanese baby-sister “Nihon-jin?” It quickly became evident that this bar was not a bar, or at least was a closed bar. Which was embarrassing. Also, Japanese people should put up closed signs and lock doors. The bar upstairs was really nice though. Completely non- sketchy and pretty. After a couple of drinks we ran for our train and made our way home.

Sunday was TIU’s dance club dance expo in – Shibuya. I really dislike this part of Tokyo but I keep coming back. It’s kind of frustrating. This trip, though, we were absent a P.A. and had to make our way to a different tiny club in a much more locals only location using only a vague map written in Kanji. It was a mess. But we did eventually find it. Which I chalk up to our asking for directions and a quick visual memorization of the street kanji.
The dance expo was split into three parts, each group doing a different dance each set and in between a D.J would come out and play and people would dance. And by people I mean only the Japanese boy and a random girl. Maybe. Which was confusing for my friends and I. We assume there was some kind of social rule that we didn’t get. We danced anyway. Good times. I have some blurry pictures from that event as well. We got to the club at 2pm and left around 6pm. The guy that came with us opted for home but the two other girls (Keisha and Jessica this time) and I went on to do a little Karaoke before heading back.

So today I just chilled with my o-ka-san and bought some bead kits to make her and my host sister a necklace. It was relaxing after the crazy Tokyo activities that are fun but tiring.

I think on Thursday I will update more on the difference between Japan and America. Although I will say this – there has not been any point in this adventure when I have wondered if I have even left the states. Japan is like no place I’ve ever been and it’s constantly thrilling.

Love to you all <3

Hey hey - literature post

2008-09-10T21:16:00.000-07:00

A middle of the week entry – because I am in three hour lecture classes and they are hard to sit through without multi-tasking.
A note about my family – I still have yet to see the father, but I hear him. And now I know that he works in Tokyo, which isn’t that far away. That situation is still confusing.
I’ve eaten more at the McDonald’s in Japan than I ever do at home, mostly because it is cheap and accessible and my host family likes it =P. I don’t mind. I get good meals mostly. Today I tried to boil some hot water but the gas stove freaked me out because I couldn’t figure out how to light it. My host mother left really early to go to her friend’s house so that is why breakfast was left up to me.
On Tuesday I had my second karaoke adventure and it was once again awesome. Pretty much the entire JSP group showed up (around 18 kids) and some of our Japanese babysitters. We had 23+ people in a relatively small karaoke room. The place the JSP kids frequent has a weird deal where you pay five dollars an hour for all you can drink. But the mixed drinks are extremely watered down. The beer is pretty good though, and they let you bring in other drinks. Or at least they let Gaijin bring in other drinks. I sang I guess a moderate number of songs because I like singing. And singing with words around drunken people is the best. Drinking and singing is a genius combination.

All right, everyone knows how I love Miyazaki right? (Or you should). Well, in the weird timing of things a new Studio Ghibli movie came out this month. A. Brand. New. Un-translated. Miyazaki movie. On the big screen. I’ve pretty much wanted to see it since I found out it existed. The only problem being that Japanese movies are heinously expensive. Even more so than in America. One ticket costs 18 dollars normally. However today there was a special ladies night and my friend’s host mom took both of us. In Japan you actually choose your seats when you buy your tickets and the screen in the theater I went to was giant. My friend’s host mom bought my ticket which was nice and also intimidating. I know there is some kind of response that is appropriate but I have no idea what it is. I speak a whole different cultural language.

The movie is called ‘Pon-yo’ and it is in the vein of ‘My neighbor Totoro.’ It’s a kid’s movie involving an underwater sorcerer and a water goddess’s offspring that resembles a human fish. The underwater scenes were awesome and without words – which made the movie pretty easy to understand. The art was a strange but awesome combination of children’s book illustrations and Miyazaki’s characteristic and highly rendered images. So this fish-girl thing floats away from the sorcerer and happens upon a toddle aged boy, but in the process she gets stuck in a glass jar. The little boy frees her and he then carries the fish around in a bucket until the sorcerer successfully retrieves his creature. The little fish then grows hands and legs resembling a bird’s and then raids the sorcerer’s magic supply and turns into a real little girl. She then runs off to jump all over her little boy love. The movie is cute, and pretty, and weirdly long. I cannot wait to go to the studio ghibli museum. I am stoked and going to buy lots of cute things.

Also I have a ‘ka-I-ta-I’ which is Japanese for cell phone!!! And I have figured out how to call people in America. But it is extreamly costly. So if anyone wants to get a phone card and call me instead here is my Japanese number : 080-3250-2852. There is the possibility that you might have to dial 1 before that number. The time difference is so extreme that it’s going to a challenge to get a hold of anyone. But I would like to try.

That is pretty much it for me. Although on a side note I have been buying manga. Lots of manga. And they have huge used manga stores!! Which is awesome. I found my two favorite manga artists and their different series that haven’t been released in the US. It was cool. I was stoked.

About my host family and things that are different in Japan.

2008-09-07T21:21:00.000-07:00

New Pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/30087712@N08/sets/72157607174988033/

The first day I met my host family I had a ridiculously awkward lunch – where everyone ate in near silence broken up with fast and incomprehensible Japanese. My host sister played with her cell phone, and my host mother attempted conversation but at this point I was too nervous to understand. After spilling my orange Jell-O on myself I was totally freaked. Was there going to be three months worth of dinners in which I sat in silence and wished I had any conversational skill?
Thankfully things went up from there. I have only seen my host dad that first day of orientation. I don’t know where he goes, or what he does, but he could just spend all his time upstairs. Like I said – that is an area that I have never seen and probably won’t. I read online that that might be the case – and I can survive without a complete tour.
My host mother has two part-time jobs from what I understand. One is an afternoon cram school for elementary kids working on mathematics, and the other involves a maybe reality and her entire Sunday’s. So the parts of the house that I have seen are the entry room and the room that the children cram in. That leads to the kitchen and then my room and the living room – which is essentially Chi’s room. Chi is my host sister. Her full name is Chihiro (like in Spirited Away) and she likes to sing. I know this because she will randomly break into song at any given point. Much like my real host sister, actually. She is also otaku for this band ‘Kah-Tun’ pronounces ‘cartoon.’ Which is a Japanese boy band consisting of five attractive Japanese males. Her favorite is the lead singer and I had a strange moment watching TV with the family when her favorite singer came on and interviewed Jodie Foster in English. Jodie Foster is apparently in Japan right now promoting her movie Nim’s Island. Jodie foster is not very friendly.
My routine has during the week is basically that I get up in the morning and my host mother makes me a breakfast of milk tea and toast with either butter or a strange version of peanut butter that is very sweet and tastes exactly like the name (pieces of peanut mixed with butter). Then I scramble for my books, put my shoes on, and bike to my train station. My bike ride was a challenge the first five or six times I did it, and the first time I ventured out on the ride by myself my host mother drew me a map. She is all about giving me maps – which I could not be happier about. Also, Japan doesn’t really believe in sidewalks, and that makes my bike ride all the more terrifying.
After I bike to the station I leave my bike in an interesting parking garage exclusively for bikes. This turned out to be a little tricky – there are two levels to this parking garage and one level closes at 9pm and the other is open 24hrs. On the first night I stayed out later than 9pm I chose exactly the wrong story and had to walk home. The bike I ride is a version of a cruiser that my brother and sister long for – and it’s a pretty sweet bike. Old but very functional and it has baskets on the front and back. Actually I’m pretty sure every Japanese bike has baskets, and most of them are this version of a cruiser.
After the bike ride I take a train for five stops and then walk to school. My station is tiny and the local train conveniently stops one stop before the school so I have to change trains for one stop. But the trains really are always on time and they come every ten to fifteen minutes. I love this about Japan. I want to pack up the train system and take it home with me.
School consists of a three hour long Japanese class every mon, tues, thurs, fri. And on Mondays I have a three hour history class, and on Thursdays my three hour literature class. Three hours is an ungodly amount of time to spend in any class – expecially a lecture class in the afternoon. I’m going to have to make it through somehow but it might be difficult. Wednesdays there isn’t class – but there are JSP field trips. I am especially excited about the week long ‘kansai’ trip where we got to Kyoto, the Horoshima museum, and a really pretty temple. These are all the toursity things I really want to do outside of Tokyo.
Okay, after school I either go out with friends (rarely) mostly I go home and do some homework and then have dinner with my Host mom and Chi and then either sit and talk with my host mom or watch TV with chi. My host mom and I communicate a lot by drawing pictures and Chi and I communicate using her English-Japanese electronic dictionary. Chi also has a large collection of manga in Japanese which I have been attempting to read. The pictures help, but there are repeated phrases that I don’t understand and must clarify before I can really get what’s happening in them. Mostly I just look at the pictures and kind of make up the story using the few phrases I know.
Oh and at night I take a shower in the bathroom. And I mean in the bathroom. Japanese showers consist of a waterproof room and a sink and a bath. The toilet is kept in a totally separate room. But the showers here are amazing- I have yet to take a bath.
My host mother is much more western than a lot of my friend’s JSP family’s. She eats bread with me in the morning and doesn’t do the laundry as often and dinner often comes from instant or convienance store food. Regardless of her housekeeping skills I think she’s great. Both Chi and her mother laugh easily and they are always open to listening and trying to understand my bad Japanese.
Something interesting about these host families is that a lot of them host tons of students over the course of many years. My host mom has apparently had eight students here so far. Some good- some not so good. She told me about this one girl who would randomly burp and fart loudly during the meal and that totally freaked Chi out. Another guy staying with them would blow his nose and leave the tissues in my host sisters couch, and also eat grape seeds and leave those on the couch as well. You run quite a risk hosting an exchnge student – especially an American college student.

THINGS DIFFERENT ABOUT JAPAN

-Milk tea. Which is earl grey tea with really rich milk and sugar in it. My favorite form is Iced milk tea. It is delicious.
-Huge seedless grapes. Japan has two unique grapes one big and long, one round and big. I had some for dinner in Tokyo and they were the most flavorful and delicious grapes I have ever eaten. Also, the Japanese skin these grapes when they eat them. Which I guess makes sense given how large the grapes are and how thick the skins. It also explains the Manga I’ve read where people skin the grapes for each other. Which never really made sense till now. I also mentioned to my host mother that I loved these grapes and I have now eaten them at every meal since then. Which is nice and kind of intimidating.
-Convenience stores. Called ‘convini’s’ in Japanese. 7-11 is really strong chain in Japan and convenience stores are really convenient. You get money, pay bills, buy decent food, manga, underwear, snack items and apparently pre-paid cell phones there.
-I’ve already talked about how weird the toilets are.
-Tissues. The Japanese freaking’ love tissues. They use them as napkins and towels and for normal tissue like actions. When I was in Tokyo I saw a store clerk cleaning a front stoop with tissues. Also, people will hand you tissues everywhere with an advertisements for…something inside.
-Towels. The Japanese truly follow the hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy’s number 1 rule – always have a towel with you. Everyone carries either handkerchiefs or washcloth sized pretty towels with them everywhere. They are great for wiping the sweat off in the humidity, drying yours hands because there are never towels in the bathroom (presumably because everyone has a towel with them.)

2008-09-01T01:28:00.000-07:00

Hey all, this is me writing from the computer lab in TIU so I`m going to keep this pretty short. I`ve got to catch a train and then ride my bike home. My host family was a little quiet at first and my host sister didn`t talk to me at all ~ but I later figured out that that was because she hates english and slept through english study hall and so she is terrible at it. My host mother speaks even less Japanese than I do and I really never see my host father. So I pretty much only communicate through my limited japanese. It`s actually kind of nice to meet non-americans who can`t speak english. It also explains why the english here is so very bad and hilarious. Girls do walk around with shirts that say things like [the world is made of happy fun time].

So on sunday my host sister took me to Tokyo and we went to shibuya and ikebukara and harajuku. There were SO MANY people!!! And since I went to touristy places, there were some foreigners. I cannot wait to get better at speaking the language because there are so many things that are just incomunicatable. I sit and stare in confusion a lot. Here are some photos from tokyo (in tokyo you can write on the picture machine things and add images. It`s neat).

Orientation

2008-08-29T05:11:00.000-07:00

I have officially been in Japan for three days but it actually feels like a lot longer. Time has started to run together between feeling tired and feeling ridiculously excited and being crazy wet or crazy hot. Japan is really humid. It actually feels a lot like spring in Florida or Mexico. It's actually still the end of monsoon season here so my group got caught in a thunderstorm after dinner and I had no umbrella. Apparently umbrella's are actually used in Japan, and no one wears rain coats. I had mine but I still ended up getting soaked. All the JSP kids have big plans for going out at night to sing or something - but it hasn't happened due to the rain storms. Also the air is so moist we all look like we're drowning, whereas the Japanese barely look disturbed. The Japanese do all dress well, it's a lot like france where everyone has a really great outfit on all the time.

I had the best international flight of my life though, thanks to my dad upgrading me to economy plus. Since no one really knows what that is yet I had a full row all to myself. The movies were some I actually wanted to see and the only sucky part was the food- which is really expected. Thanks to that flight I got to sleep and adjust better to Japanese time. I'm still tired though, even though it's only nine thirty.

I got though customs alright and then I stood around the airport with the other kids in my program. We all bonded pretty quickly and I roomed with two girls at the Holiday Inn. I knew I was in Japan but everything still had an American twist. After we left that hotel and spent three hours on a bus it started to hit me a lot more. During random periods in orientation we would all just look at each other and say "I'm in Japan!" That's still the feeling. At our hotel in Kawagoe we all have our own rooms and so right now I'm watching someone sing on t.v. and listening to traffic in the city. And wearing the hotel robe, which every hotel has, all of which are pretty comfy.

Tomorrow I meet my family and take a Japanese placement exam. I am more nervous about meeting my family than the placement exam, even the oral. I don't actually know why.

I'm enjoying all the food and all the people but I do feel lost in the language. Thank god I know some, though, or I would be totally lost. Apparently one of the common effects of culture shock, which we are assured we will all experience it, is to get depressed or hate Japan after our 'honeymoon' stage. So, I guess that will happen at some point but right now I am in full force with the Honeymoon stage. Hopefully I will get through that state pretty quickly.

Some of the strangest things I have experienced is the very very very advanced toilets. There are a million buttons and a built in Bedai, The funniest thing is the sound button that projects a flushing noise while women go to the bathroom to cover up the noise.

So my posts will probably be pretty erratic since I think I will only have internet at the school and it's harder to make friends when I am online all the time. I will try and keep posting pictures and writing but we will see. I will say this - Japan has crazy t.v. Right now there is a girl who can make portraits by cutting out paper like snowflakes. That is insane.

Well, I'm going to go to bed now- and you all will be waking up in a few hours. Good luck and Good Night.

And here is the link to see the pictures I have taken so far
http://flickr.com/photos/30087712@N08/

This is my new travel blog

2008-08-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

I like to think that there are people who will want to be informed about my experiance overseas- and I probably won't get around to sending everybody detailed e-mails. Thus the travel blog. Hopefully I will be able to post interesting things, and write funny stories, but I'm still pretty unsure of what to expect.

I fly out on Tuesday!