Monday, around 4:11 PM here, so just after midnight back home. I just got back from Machida. More on that soon.
With history class over, we had Japanese class extended. At the very end, we did some origami. We only had time to do it once, and we made a crane. I question the wisdom of starting off with so complicated a creation, but that could just be to make everything afterwards seem simple.
After Japanese class, we helped out with a local English class. I was surprised by how easy it was for us to communicate even when not using each other's language. During my time there, I helped out with a group of girls and a group of guys. The girls tried to get me to say which one of them I thought was cutest, but I know my Greek mythology, and I'm not going to pull a Paris. The guys and I spoke about anime and manga; they recommended some to me and I recommended some American stuff to them.
Some of the local students took us on a short tour of the residential area around campus. I saw a kitty! I was able to pet a kitty! That was nice, even if the walk was tiring. Oh and there were probably a few interesting observations about urban planning, but KITTY!
We went over to Machida to have some ramen after the tour. I thought that it was too expensive, but ordered some anyways. Turned out that the stuff I ordered had kimchi in it. That was a SPICY ramen! Still good, though. And it turned out to be filling enough that the price was justified.
Once the ramen was eaten, we split up. I went over to the technology shop (I think that it's called Yodobashi) to try and find some companions for my figurine. There weren't any of those machines in the local shop, and that was disappointing. Actually, now that I think about it, It could have been on the basement floor where the console games were. I just found that area by accident as I was leaving. I'll have to check that out next time I'm there.
The console games and the PC games are on different floors. Probably because the PC games have an adult section. I stayed out of that area. I found a copy of Clannad Full Voice there for around $54. Which brings me to the title of this post. HimeyaShop, the online store I used to by my copy of Kanon Standard Edition for All Ages, is charging $77 for a copy of Clannad Full Voice. That isn't counting shipping , which adds another nineteen dollars to it. Oh well, I got my copy.
On my way back, I had some difficulty finding out which train I should take once at the station. I remembered how I got there, but not how to get back. I had to ask for help from a nice, old security guard (that was how he was dressed anyways). He was very helpful, and didn't look irritated in the least to help me out.
And that brings me to now. Ja ne.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Catching up on things
I can finally post again. Here's what I've written since my last posting. I'm certain that there's something I've forgotten to mention in here, but I don't have the time to properly check.
6-24-08
About 9:45 PM here, so 5:45 AM back home. I think. I’m rather tired and my
6-25-08
5:48 AM on Wednesday local, 3:48 PM Tuesday back home. Sorry about the sudden break last night. That was where I realized that “If tired, then sleep” and followed those directions.
The weather yesterday was more pleasant than it had been. The sky was clear for a lot of the day, and I think that burned off a lot of the humidity. It may have just seemed more pleasant because I didn’t have to be out in it for very long.
Last night we went to a tea ceremony. It was one of those places where you sat in traditional, formal Japanese style and drank hot, bitter tea. It was not fun. I hate tea. I have hated every kind of tea that I have ever drank, despite being willing to try just about any kind of tea I have the chance to drink.
We received a new student last night as well. She couldn’t make the proper flight with us and had to wait until yesterday to catch one. She’s been assigned to group two, my group.
I suppose that it is time that I describe what life in the guest house is like. I’ve already said that there isn’t any wifi in the guest house, so we have to go to one of the school buildings to use the internet. I think that the school buildings with internet access are closed on the weekends, so I probably won’t be able to get in contact with the outside world then. Speaking of contact with the outside world, our primary method of getting news from abroad is our television. It receives disappointingly few channels, less than ten in all. How are we supposed to get an idea of Japanese popular culture without more channels?
Most of the things here are designed for people smaller than us. Even most of the spoons are oddly small. The showers can be a little cramped, but aren’t too bad. I don’t think we’re using the showers right. We’re supposed to wet ourselves down first, turn off the water, and then soap ourselves up, but I think we are missing what we’re supposed to do with the water container available. It doesn’t make sense that it would be enough to wash off all the soap, but I can’t think of any other use for it. At least the toilets are normal. In the school building we use, in the (male) bathroom we found, there is one normal toilet and one squat toilet set into the floor. Of course there are urinals there as well.
The guest house has three floors, although I think it is only two stories tall. There’s one spiral staircase that connects the floors, and the second floor (only one room) goes off in a different direction than the third floor. The third floor is the bedrooms. Originally the girls were going to have two rooms and the guys one, but we outnumbered them on the first night and got the two rooms for ourselves. They got the second floor room (with two beds) as a consolation. I sleep in the smaller of the two rooms we have, with room for four people.
Now for the people; I won’t describe all of them yet, but I will describe the ones more significant to my writing. First up is Angela, leader of group 1. She feeds us (sometimes) with stuff like miso soup and curry. It got to the point where I wondered if we should be paying her, but she declined the offer. Fujiko (not her real name, but used more than it) is obsessed with cleaning. The other night she had everyone gather up their dirty clothes so that she could wash them. She even folded them when she was done. Must thank her.
Teresa is the leader of Group 2, my group. I’m not sure what else there is to say about her, I think she’s taken Japanese for a significant amount of time. The other members of my group are Sam 2 (Saburo), Ashlegh, Meghan, and Ashlie. I think there is a strong resemblance between Saburo and myself. He is one of the students from Kazuko’s Japanese 103 class. Ashlegh, I’m not sure where she is from. Meghan has been rather unfortunate so far. First she was suffering from motion sickness on the trains, and then she got sick after the welcoming party. Ashlie is the girl who just arrived last night. I’ve had a class with her before, and she if completely new to Japanese.
My roommates come next, I suppose. There are four of us in the room, on two bunk beds. I’m on one of the bottom bunks, the other is taken by Derek, a new student to Japanese. Above me is Sam, who both looks older than me and has a knowledge base that it astonishingly large for a 19 year-old. Ryan sleeps above Derek. He’s funny at times, but like I told his girlfriend, he seems like the sort of person you should take out insurance one.
Yesterday there was finally time to sit down and think. The homesickness is beginning to set in now. I’d been too busy up until now to have any energy to spare on it. Because I cleared the memory card on the camera before coming here, I didn’t think that there would be any pictures on it for me to take comfort from Somehow, though, a picture of one of my cats survived. I don’t know how it is there, but a picture of little Toebi looking at me managed to find its way onto my laptop. I also have pictures of my family, but I prefer not to take them out with the rate at which things around me get damaged.
6-25-08, 7:40 PM local time
Yeah the homesickness has definitely sunk in now. No energy. Sleep.
6-27-08 6:26 AM Friday here, 2:26 PM Thursday back home
This is probably going to be the last time I get to post online until Monday (late Sunday back home), because I’m pretty sure that the buildings with internet access are closed on the weekends. On Wednesday, I and a few others headed over to Machida to shop. The digital camera here are more expensive than I thought they’d be. I think we’re supposed to head over to some shopping areas tomorrow (Saturday), and I’m hoping I can find a cheaper camera there. If not, then I’ll go back to Machida on Sunday and buy one of the cameras there.
This is as good a place as any for a funny aside. On Wednesday, Kazuko was teaching us the names of different foods, and then she got to cucumbers. She kept going on about how American cucumbers were “Too big, too filling” and Japanese cucumbers were “Small and thin.” There was so much laughter, and I don’t think she understood why.
I’m beginning to seriously dislike Kazuko (I already dislike her, but it‘s just starting to get serious). I’m not sure if I have ever met a more annoying or bossy person. She won’t even let Mary (the other teacher) do things her own way. I keep wanting to tell her that we are neither children nor puppets (in Japanese) but I’m not sure of the particles to use. She’s a good enough teacher (in my opinion; other students disagree), but she is an absolutely terrible tour guide. On Wednesday, she wanted to take us to a grocery store as our activity for the day; there were enough objections that it didn’t happen. Yesterday (Thursday), she had us watch some students performing kendo. That in itself wasn’t too bad, but she had us stay there for way too long. Then we went out to a Denny’s. The food was worth nowhere near as much as it cost. Today she wants to take us out to a coffee shop,. I have no intention of going. I have better things to do with my time.
We also had to attend a symposium yesterday. It was completely in Japanese. We thought that we weren’t going to have to attend, and none of us wanted to go, but the staff wanted to get pictures of the Americans at the symposium. We all had to waste two hours of our lives there. We spent three hours in class yesterday, two at the symposium, one hour free for lunch, three more hours in class, had to go to the kendo practice, and then Denny’s. We didn’t get back until past nine at night. As an example of why I dislike her, she tried to stop us from going back to the guest house to drop off our backpacks before going to kendo, The woman has no consideration for the needs or desires of others. Ironic, considering how much time she spends telling us about how we should be considerate since that is the culture here.
6-27-08 (Cont. 8:11 PM)
Today was actually an unexpectedly good day. I didn’t have much for breakfast; just two tiny bite-size tuna sandwiches that I’m pretty sure were leftovers from the party on Monday and some of my ice-water, but I didn’t get hungry. Kazuko arrived and told us that the café was optional, so that was a nice way to start the day.
Japanese class progressed as usual, nothing special happened either way.
We had our last history class today. Mary has to go back to the US on Sunday to deal with some family stuff, I think. We were able to compress over a hundred years of Japanese history into a single week of class.
After history, something that wasn’t so welcome occurred: Kazuko came back and told us that since the reservations had already been made (by a local student, not by her) that we had to go to the café anyways. Then she told us three things that were pleasant: The school would cover the costs at the café, she would be returning the money she had us spend to get into the Tokyo Tower and off the train system on Saturday, and that the café is in Machida.
I ate more than I thought I would at the cafe. Since neither Jennifer nor Ryan were in class on the day the orders were placed, we placed orders for them. We knew they liked tea better than coffee, which were the two drink options, but didn’t know if they would prefer apple cake or cheesecake so we ordered them one of each. Turns out that neither could stand cheesecake, so Jennifer offered theirs to anyone who wanted it. I was the first volunteer. I paid her back for it though; the people at the café gave me a tea that I didn’t want, so I gave it to her.
We didn’t use tickets to get to Machida, Kazuko gave us cards. Much more convenient, since the cards can be used whenever (she approves), but we’d have to get the tickets from her at the station. We were released after we left the café, to go back to campus on our own schedule. A group of us decided that we wanted to go shopping, and three of us needed new cameras. I know I said the cameras here are more expensive, but maybe it just felt that way to me because I got a deal on the one I broke. I bought a new one for 20,000 Yen, which translates to (as of the last time I checked) just under US $200. And then they gave me some sort of Gold Rewards Card that is word 4,600 Yen, or US $46. I’m not sure why, though. All three of us who went to get cameras bought them, and one of the others bought the same kind as me, but I was the only one to get the card.
My breakfast is taken care of for the next few days as well. I bought five 苺ジャムのパン (ichigo jammu no pan), or strawberry jam bread, so that should last me a while. I bought five because they were 98 Yen each, and I didn’t want anymore 1 Yen pieces. Also, I do like the stuff.
6-28-08 8:40 PM Saturday local, 4:40 AM back home
This Saturday was much better than the previous Saturday. I have now mostly adapted to the weather here, and I did not get lost today. The planned activities were far superior as well.
We started off by going to a shopping mall. Then we found out that it wouldn’t open for more than an hour, and most of us went to the Fuji TV station. I saw a statue of the new ship of the pirates from the anime One Piece, but the Fuji station was mostly unremarkable.
When the shopping mall opened, it was highly disappointing. For a Japanese shopping mall, there were surprisingly few technology stores; which is to say zero. There was a place to get crushed souvenir tokens, however. They were more expensive than the crushed penny places in America.
We went to a buffet in the mall after our shopping time. I really wanted to make them regret letting me in by eating them out of everything they had, but only managed a few plates. They have weird pizza in Japan.
After that, we took a couple of rides on boats. The boats themselves weren’t that great, but while waiting for the boats to arrive, we saw some interesting sea life. There was a big fish, and more importantly, what we think was a sting ray. It may have been a skate of some sort. Talking about the ray led us to a discussion of who would win in a fight between Steve Irwin (RIP) and Chuck Norris. Ryan thought that Chuck Norris would win, while Fujiko and I favored Irwin. We all agreed that Zombie Steve Irwin would definitely defeat Norris.
We went to a temple at Asakusa after the boat trip. The temple grounds were much closer to what I thought a festival would be like than the festival we went to last week. I was still unable to find taiyaki. I was, however, able to find a souvenir. After we left, it turned out that at the temple itself, there was some special incense smoke that we were supposed to be able to waft in and get some sort of reinvigoration, but I’m not upset that I forgot to do that.
We then went to something that I think was called “Ameyayako” but am probably wrong about. It was in Uedo. I don’t remember right now. The others went to explore the main shopping street, which was like a giant flea market without the chance of finding something valuable. It was also open air and quite hot. I went into a technology store (incidentally the same chain as I bought the new camera at). It had air conditioning. I consider myself to be the winner in that area. I checked out all seven of the floors in search of PC games (I used the map and found the console games on the top floor to start with, but not PC games). The top floor had some interesting takes on the machines that you put coins into and get random toys out of. They were selling tiny dolls out of them. I hoped to find one that had Kanon characters in it, but there weren’t any. The closest was one that had characters from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya in it. I got a Tsuruya-san figure out of it. Very cute. A lot more expensive than most of the machines in America, but the toys are of much higher quality. The doll is something of an irony; The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is distinctly Japanese, but I enjoyed it back in America, so the doll reminds me of home. Speaking of Haruhi Suzumiya, I miss my (peripheral) involvement in the Suzumiya Seitenkan project. I’ll have a lot of backlog to catch up on when I get back to the States. Not just with that, but with The Daily Show and Colbert report as well. A few other things, too.
The low point of the day was parting with Mary. This was the fifth class I took with her, and she is leaving tomorrow, without coming by to see us. It felt like the end of an era. It was fitting though, I began my first quarter at my college with two classes from her in the morning, and in my last quarter I took a two-class length class from her in the afternoon. As I was making the long trek back to the guest house, it began to rain, as though the sky itself was weeping for our separation from our professor. The rain was light, though, indicating that it wasn’t a very sad occasion.
Right now, people are going through their pictures on the television. The camera I bought should be able to do that as well, but I’ll want to look through my pictures and get rid of the ones that didn’t turn out well. Considering the amount of pictures I took today, there must be some that didn’t turn out well.
I’m doing better on the homesickness issue. I’d still like to see my family and my pets, but I think I’m beginning to get used to Japan. I saw an anime shop in Machida yesterday, even though I didn’t have time to go in, that made me feel better. A lot of my problems were from a sense of immense disappointment in what I thought Japan would be. Now that I’ve had a bit of immersion in what I thought proper Japanese weirdness would be (I’d explain, but I want to see my family’s reactions when the see what I saw), I’m feeling better,
I might as well mention that my allergies have been acting up since Friday. Sore throat and a very runny nose. Nothing I do seems to help, even eating chocolate. Just isn’t working. Not too bad, though.
6-28-08 (9:03 PM Sunday local, 5:03 AM home)
Today was our first day off. It was nice. I only went outside once today, to search for some needed supplies and some souvenirs. I wasn’t able to find any of the needed supplies (food that I judge worth the price), or most of the souvenirs I was looking for. All I got was a small fan to replace the one I got at the festival, which I’d put through too much abuse already.
I took care of some stuff I’d been meaning to do. I took care of my laundry; all of it fit in one washing machine but I had to use both dryers since they can’t handle large loads. I also found my flash drive again, which allowed me to look at the stuff I kept in it. Turned out that it was in my carrying pouch, which I HAD looked in.
Most of the others have gone out to do karaoke. My allergies have been acting up, so I have that as an excuse to not go. It’s allowed me to catch up on some writing (which I’ve been working on for a lot of the day), and get to know a few of my housemates better. Sam has an astonishing number of things of things on his computer, and Sandra is hilarious. If anybody asks, she peed her pants.
An movie in English is on right now. I think it’s Anaconda 2. Television in English really is refreshing. Kazuko mentioned yesterday that every time she returned to Japan up until two years ago it was like “I’m home!” The thing that changed two years ago was that she subscribed to Japanese TV, so she feels like she has that connection back home.
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I might as well take this opportunity to further explain living conditions over here. To start with, the cost of living is higher even than it is in Washington, which I understand has a relatively high standard of living. I liter container of milk costs about two-and-a-half dollars. I can’t find the material to make a decent sandwich either. Can’t find any sliced meat or sliced cheese. That just isn’t right.
The guest house has three floors in two stories. The middle floor is off to the side of the top floor, so that’s how it fits. The bedrooms are on the top floor (the middle floor’s room is a smaller bedroom, taken by the girls). The guys and the girls each have two rooms, although the girls’ second room (on the middle floor) is smaller than that of the guys. We needed more space first, since the late arrival was a girl and we had greater numbers until she got here.
There are two bathrooms and two shower rooms, one for each sex. The guys have the toilet and shower on the top floor and the girls the ones on the bottom floor. The girls’ toilet room has two toilets, while the guys’ has only one. The toilets here have heated seats. They just feel wrong. On Wednesday I sat on our toilet and it nearly burned me. Turned the blasted thing all the way off after that.
The laundry room is actually a covered and locked-off space attached to the house that is open to the air. There are two washing machines and two dryers. Both are easy to use for someone who can read katakana like I can. The dryers are quite weak, though.
When we go out onto campus, we have to wear identification cards that make it clear that it is okay for us to be on campus. The ID cards have little American flags on them. I understand that we’re at a private school, but we shouldn’t have to wear them the whole time. The security should recognize us by now. The normal students don’t have to wear ID cards, and we stick out enough that it should be easy to recognize us.
That’s another thing: we stick out. A lot. I’m not used to being so clearly in the minority. At least the people are friendly. Friendlier than I’m used to, actually.
It also takes some time to get most places. We’re relatively close to our class building and the cafeteria, and that at least is a blessing. It isn’t truly close, though, as I’m pretty sure that even the distance between the guest house and our usual building is at least as great as the width of my official campus. Considering that this is apparently the second-largest campus in all of Japan, that sort of thing is to be expected.
I can’t think of anything else to describe at this point.
_______
Toay we're heading over to Machida again, this time for ramen. I expect to have the chance to visit the tech store and the anime store. That should be nice. My opinion of Kazuko has gone up, but I can't really identify what did it.
Oh, and the reason Friday's entry was written like I would be posting that day is that I thought that I would. Turned out that I spent that time writing emails instead.
Ja ne.
6-24-08
About 9:45 PM here, so 5:45 AM back home. I think. I’m rather tired and my
6-25-08
5:48 AM on Wednesday local, 3:48 PM Tuesday back home. Sorry about the sudden break last night. That was where I realized that “If tired, then sleep” and followed those directions.
The weather yesterday was more pleasant than it had been. The sky was clear for a lot of the day, and I think that burned off a lot of the humidity. It may have just seemed more pleasant because I didn’t have to be out in it for very long.
Last night we went to a tea ceremony. It was one of those places where you sat in traditional, formal Japanese style and drank hot, bitter tea. It was not fun. I hate tea. I have hated every kind of tea that I have ever drank, despite being willing to try just about any kind of tea I have the chance to drink.
We received a new student last night as well. She couldn’t make the proper flight with us and had to wait until yesterday to catch one. She’s been assigned to group two, my group.
I suppose that it is time that I describe what life in the guest house is like. I’ve already said that there isn’t any wifi in the guest house, so we have to go to one of the school buildings to use the internet. I think that the school buildings with internet access are closed on the weekends, so I probably won’t be able to get in contact with the outside world then. Speaking of contact with the outside world, our primary method of getting news from abroad is our television. It receives disappointingly few channels, less than ten in all. How are we supposed to get an idea of Japanese popular culture without more channels?
Most of the things here are designed for people smaller than us. Even most of the spoons are oddly small. The showers can be a little cramped, but aren’t too bad. I don’t think we’re using the showers right. We’re supposed to wet ourselves down first, turn off the water, and then soap ourselves up, but I think we are missing what we’re supposed to do with the water container available. It doesn’t make sense that it would be enough to wash off all the soap, but I can’t think of any other use for it. At least the toilets are normal. In the school building we use, in the (male) bathroom we found, there is one normal toilet and one squat toilet set into the floor. Of course there are urinals there as well.
The guest house has three floors, although I think it is only two stories tall. There’s one spiral staircase that connects the floors, and the second floor (only one room) goes off in a different direction than the third floor. The third floor is the bedrooms. Originally the girls were going to have two rooms and the guys one, but we outnumbered them on the first night and got the two rooms for ourselves. They got the second floor room (with two beds) as a consolation. I sleep in the smaller of the two rooms we have, with room for four people.
Now for the people; I won’t describe all of them yet, but I will describe the ones more significant to my writing. First up is Angela, leader of group 1. She feeds us (sometimes) with stuff like miso soup and curry. It got to the point where I wondered if we should be paying her, but she declined the offer. Fujiko (not her real name, but used more than it) is obsessed with cleaning. The other night she had everyone gather up their dirty clothes so that she could wash them. She even folded them when she was done. Must thank her.
Teresa is the leader of Group 2, my group. I’m not sure what else there is to say about her, I think she’s taken Japanese for a significant amount of time. The other members of my group are Sam 2 (Saburo), Ashlegh, Meghan, and Ashlie. I think there is a strong resemblance between Saburo and myself. He is one of the students from Kazuko’s Japanese 103 class. Ashlegh, I’m not sure where she is from. Meghan has been rather unfortunate so far. First she was suffering from motion sickness on the trains, and then she got sick after the welcoming party. Ashlie is the girl who just arrived last night. I’ve had a class with her before, and she if completely new to Japanese.
My roommates come next, I suppose. There are four of us in the room, on two bunk beds. I’m on one of the bottom bunks, the other is taken by Derek, a new student to Japanese. Above me is Sam, who both looks older than me and has a knowledge base that it astonishingly large for a 19 year-old. Ryan sleeps above Derek. He’s funny at times, but like I told his girlfriend, he seems like the sort of person you should take out insurance one.
Yesterday there was finally time to sit down and think. The homesickness is beginning to set in now. I’d been too busy up until now to have any energy to spare on it. Because I cleared the memory card on the camera before coming here, I didn’t think that there would be any pictures on it for me to take comfort from Somehow, though, a picture of one of my cats survived. I don’t know how it is there, but a picture of little Toebi looking at me managed to find its way onto my laptop. I also have pictures of my family, but I prefer not to take them out with the rate at which things around me get damaged.
6-25-08, 7:40 PM local time
Yeah the homesickness has definitely sunk in now. No energy. Sleep.
6-27-08 6:26 AM Friday here, 2:26 PM Thursday back home
This is probably going to be the last time I get to post online until Monday (late Sunday back home), because I’m pretty sure that the buildings with internet access are closed on the weekends. On Wednesday, I and a few others headed over to Machida to shop. The digital camera here are more expensive than I thought they’d be. I think we’re supposed to head over to some shopping areas tomorrow (Saturday), and I’m hoping I can find a cheaper camera there. If not, then I’ll go back to Machida on Sunday and buy one of the cameras there.
This is as good a place as any for a funny aside. On Wednesday, Kazuko was teaching us the names of different foods, and then she got to cucumbers. She kept going on about how American cucumbers were “Too big, too filling” and Japanese cucumbers were “Small and thin.” There was so much laughter, and I don’t think she understood why.
I’m beginning to seriously dislike Kazuko (I already dislike her, but it‘s just starting to get serious). I’m not sure if I have ever met a more annoying or bossy person. She won’t even let Mary (the other teacher) do things her own way. I keep wanting to tell her that we are neither children nor puppets (in Japanese) but I’m not sure of the particles to use. She’s a good enough teacher (in my opinion; other students disagree), but she is an absolutely terrible tour guide. On Wednesday, she wanted to take us to a grocery store as our activity for the day; there were enough objections that it didn’t happen. Yesterday (Thursday), she had us watch some students performing kendo. That in itself wasn’t too bad, but she had us stay there for way too long. Then we went out to a Denny’s. The food was worth nowhere near as much as it cost. Today she wants to take us out to a coffee shop,. I have no intention of going. I have better things to do with my time.
We also had to attend a symposium yesterday. It was completely in Japanese. We thought that we weren’t going to have to attend, and none of us wanted to go, but the staff wanted to get pictures of the Americans at the symposium. We all had to waste two hours of our lives there. We spent three hours in class yesterday, two at the symposium, one hour free for lunch, three more hours in class, had to go to the kendo practice, and then Denny’s. We didn’t get back until past nine at night. As an example of why I dislike her, she tried to stop us from going back to the guest house to drop off our backpacks before going to kendo, The woman has no consideration for the needs or desires of others. Ironic, considering how much time she spends telling us about how we should be considerate since that is the culture here.
6-27-08 (Cont. 8:11 PM)
Today was actually an unexpectedly good day. I didn’t have much for breakfast; just two tiny bite-size tuna sandwiches that I’m pretty sure were leftovers from the party on Monday and some of my ice-water, but I didn’t get hungry. Kazuko arrived and told us that the café was optional, so that was a nice way to start the day.
Japanese class progressed as usual, nothing special happened either way.
We had our last history class today. Mary has to go back to the US on Sunday to deal with some family stuff, I think. We were able to compress over a hundred years of Japanese history into a single week of class.
After history, something that wasn’t so welcome occurred: Kazuko came back and told us that since the reservations had already been made (by a local student, not by her) that we had to go to the café anyways. Then she told us three things that were pleasant: The school would cover the costs at the café, she would be returning the money she had us spend to get into the Tokyo Tower and off the train system on Saturday, and that the café is in Machida.
I ate more than I thought I would at the cafe. Since neither Jennifer nor Ryan were in class on the day the orders were placed, we placed orders for them. We knew they liked tea better than coffee, which were the two drink options, but didn’t know if they would prefer apple cake or cheesecake so we ordered them one of each. Turns out that neither could stand cheesecake, so Jennifer offered theirs to anyone who wanted it. I was the first volunteer. I paid her back for it though; the people at the café gave me a tea that I didn’t want, so I gave it to her.
We didn’t use tickets to get to Machida, Kazuko gave us cards. Much more convenient, since the cards can be used whenever (she approves), but we’d have to get the tickets from her at the station. We were released after we left the café, to go back to campus on our own schedule. A group of us decided that we wanted to go shopping, and three of us needed new cameras. I know I said the cameras here are more expensive, but maybe it just felt that way to me because I got a deal on the one I broke. I bought a new one for 20,000 Yen, which translates to (as of the last time I checked) just under US $200. And then they gave me some sort of Gold Rewards Card that is word 4,600 Yen, or US $46. I’m not sure why, though. All three of us who went to get cameras bought them, and one of the others bought the same kind as me, but I was the only one to get the card.
My breakfast is taken care of for the next few days as well. I bought five 苺ジャムのパン (ichigo jammu no pan), or strawberry jam bread, so that should last me a while. I bought five because they were 98 Yen each, and I didn’t want anymore 1 Yen pieces. Also, I do like the stuff.
6-28-08 8:40 PM Saturday local, 4:40 AM back home
This Saturday was much better than the previous Saturday. I have now mostly adapted to the weather here, and I did not get lost today. The planned activities were far superior as well.
We started off by going to a shopping mall. Then we found out that it wouldn’t open for more than an hour, and most of us went to the Fuji TV station. I saw a statue of the new ship of the pirates from the anime One Piece, but the Fuji station was mostly unremarkable.
When the shopping mall opened, it was highly disappointing. For a Japanese shopping mall, there were surprisingly few technology stores; which is to say zero. There was a place to get crushed souvenir tokens, however. They were more expensive than the crushed penny places in America.
We went to a buffet in the mall after our shopping time. I really wanted to make them regret letting me in by eating them out of everything they had, but only managed a few plates. They have weird pizza in Japan.
After that, we took a couple of rides on boats. The boats themselves weren’t that great, but while waiting for the boats to arrive, we saw some interesting sea life. There was a big fish, and more importantly, what we think was a sting ray. It may have been a skate of some sort. Talking about the ray led us to a discussion of who would win in a fight between Steve Irwin (RIP) and Chuck Norris. Ryan thought that Chuck Norris would win, while Fujiko and I favored Irwin. We all agreed that Zombie Steve Irwin would definitely defeat Norris.
We went to a temple at Asakusa after the boat trip. The temple grounds were much closer to what I thought a festival would be like than the festival we went to last week. I was still unable to find taiyaki. I was, however, able to find a souvenir. After we left, it turned out that at the temple itself, there was some special incense smoke that we were supposed to be able to waft in and get some sort of reinvigoration, but I’m not upset that I forgot to do that.
We then went to something that I think was called “Ameyayako” but am probably wrong about. It was in Uedo. I don’t remember right now. The others went to explore the main shopping street, which was like a giant flea market without the chance of finding something valuable. It was also open air and quite hot. I went into a technology store (incidentally the same chain as I bought the new camera at). It had air conditioning. I consider myself to be the winner in that area. I checked out all seven of the floors in search of PC games (I used the map and found the console games on the top floor to start with, but not PC games). The top floor had some interesting takes on the machines that you put coins into and get random toys out of. They were selling tiny dolls out of them. I hoped to find one that had Kanon characters in it, but there weren’t any. The closest was one that had characters from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya in it. I got a Tsuruya-san figure out of it. Very cute. A lot more expensive than most of the machines in America, but the toys are of much higher quality. The doll is something of an irony; The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is distinctly Japanese, but I enjoyed it back in America, so the doll reminds me of home. Speaking of Haruhi Suzumiya, I miss my (peripheral) involvement in the Suzumiya Seitenkan project. I’ll have a lot of backlog to catch up on when I get back to the States. Not just with that, but with The Daily Show and Colbert report as well. A few other things, too.
The low point of the day was parting with Mary. This was the fifth class I took with her, and she is leaving tomorrow, without coming by to see us. It felt like the end of an era. It was fitting though, I began my first quarter at my college with two classes from her in the morning, and in my last quarter I took a two-class length class from her in the afternoon. As I was making the long trek back to the guest house, it began to rain, as though the sky itself was weeping for our separation from our professor. The rain was light, though, indicating that it wasn’t a very sad occasion.
Right now, people are going through their pictures on the television. The camera I bought should be able to do that as well, but I’ll want to look through my pictures and get rid of the ones that didn’t turn out well. Considering the amount of pictures I took today, there must be some that didn’t turn out well.
I’m doing better on the homesickness issue. I’d still like to see my family and my pets, but I think I’m beginning to get used to Japan. I saw an anime shop in Machida yesterday, even though I didn’t have time to go in, that made me feel better. A lot of my problems were from a sense of immense disappointment in what I thought Japan would be. Now that I’ve had a bit of immersion in what I thought proper Japanese weirdness would be (I’d explain, but I want to see my family’s reactions when the see what I saw), I’m feeling better,
I might as well mention that my allergies have been acting up since Friday. Sore throat and a very runny nose. Nothing I do seems to help, even eating chocolate. Just isn’t working. Not too bad, though.
6-28-08 (9:03 PM Sunday local, 5:03 AM home)
Today was our first day off. It was nice. I only went outside once today, to search for some needed supplies and some souvenirs. I wasn’t able to find any of the needed supplies (food that I judge worth the price), or most of the souvenirs I was looking for. All I got was a small fan to replace the one I got at the festival, which I’d put through too much abuse already.
I took care of some stuff I’d been meaning to do. I took care of my laundry; all of it fit in one washing machine but I had to use both dryers since they can’t handle large loads. I also found my flash drive again, which allowed me to look at the stuff I kept in it. Turned out that it was in my carrying pouch, which I HAD looked in.
Most of the others have gone out to do karaoke. My allergies have been acting up, so I have that as an excuse to not go. It’s allowed me to catch up on some writing (which I’ve been working on for a lot of the day), and get to know a few of my housemates better. Sam has an astonishing number of things of things on his computer, and Sandra is hilarious. If anybody asks, she peed her pants.
An movie in English is on right now. I think it’s Anaconda 2. Television in English really is refreshing. Kazuko mentioned yesterday that every time she returned to Japan up until two years ago it was like “I’m home!” The thing that changed two years ago was that she subscribed to Japanese TV, so she feels like she has that connection back home.
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I might as well take this opportunity to further explain living conditions over here. To start with, the cost of living is higher even than it is in Washington, which I understand has a relatively high standard of living. I liter container of milk costs about two-and-a-half dollars. I can’t find the material to make a decent sandwich either. Can’t find any sliced meat or sliced cheese. That just isn’t right.
The guest house has three floors in two stories. The middle floor is off to the side of the top floor, so that’s how it fits. The bedrooms are on the top floor (the middle floor’s room is a smaller bedroom, taken by the girls). The guys and the girls each have two rooms, although the girls’ second room (on the middle floor) is smaller than that of the guys. We needed more space first, since the late arrival was a girl and we had greater numbers until she got here.
There are two bathrooms and two shower rooms, one for each sex. The guys have the toilet and shower on the top floor and the girls the ones on the bottom floor. The girls’ toilet room has two toilets, while the guys’ has only one. The toilets here have heated seats. They just feel wrong. On Wednesday I sat on our toilet and it nearly burned me. Turned the blasted thing all the way off after that.
The laundry room is actually a covered and locked-off space attached to the house that is open to the air. There are two washing machines and two dryers. Both are easy to use for someone who can read katakana like I can. The dryers are quite weak, though.
When we go out onto campus, we have to wear identification cards that make it clear that it is okay for us to be on campus. The ID cards have little American flags on them. I understand that we’re at a private school, but we shouldn’t have to wear them the whole time. The security should recognize us by now. The normal students don’t have to wear ID cards, and we stick out enough that it should be easy to recognize us.
That’s another thing: we stick out. A lot. I’m not used to being so clearly in the minority. At least the people are friendly. Friendlier than I’m used to, actually.
It also takes some time to get most places. We’re relatively close to our class building and the cafeteria, and that at least is a blessing. It isn’t truly close, though, as I’m pretty sure that even the distance between the guest house and our usual building is at least as great as the width of my official campus. Considering that this is apparently the second-largest campus in all of Japan, that sort of thing is to be expected.
I can’t think of anything else to describe at this point.
_______
Toay we're heading over to Machida again, this time for ramen. I expect to have the chance to visit the tech store and the anime store. That should be nice. My opinion of Kazuko has gone up, but I can't really identify what did it.
Oh, and the reason Friday's entry was written like I would be posting that day is that I thought that I would. Turned out that I spent that time writing emails instead.
Ja ne.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Bad news on the imaging front
I managed to get a connection in the building we use for our classes, so I can post sooner than I thought I would have been able. I managed to eat a lot yesterday, although not much of it was what I would consider good. The party had free food, ranging from sushi (which I did not like) to strawberry cake (which I did, and was able to check off the third item from my list). Today we went to a bakery, and I found the first Japanese food that I genuinely like. Japanese bread is very good. Wish I had more good news to give.
Towards the end of the party, I wanted to take a picture with a couple of girls I spoke with (Yuhki and Yukie are the rough pronunciations, but I can't spell them in their original form), and dropped the camera I was using. The digital camera that I got my mother for Mother's Day and she entrusted me with. It broke. Fortunately, it has some functionality left, and I could get the pictures off of it.
Strangely, it partially fixed itself overnight. The lens will retract more than it would, and the corners are no longer covered in black, like they were last night. I still have to buy a new one. A photographer I made friends with last night said that there's a Circuit City near Machida Station, which is only one stop away. I'll have the chance to go take care of that on Sunday.
The camera doesn't seem to be able to decide how it is broken, as it has changed twice. The lens retracts fully now, but the zoom won't go out all the way, and if I try to make it zoom out further the lens will retract and the camera turn off. I've hypothesized that the reason the camera was no longer being made when I bought it was an attempt to keep self-repair technology out of the public's hands.
This post was typed up over several class breaks, spaced out over many hours. Now I'll try to figure out how to upload photos to this site.
Towards the end of the party, I wanted to take a picture with a couple of girls I spoke with (Yuhki and Yukie are the rough pronunciations, but I can't spell them in their original form), and dropped the camera I was using. The digital camera that I got my mother for Mother's Day and she entrusted me with. It broke. Fortunately, it has some functionality left, and I could get the pictures off of it.
Strangely, it partially fixed itself overnight. The lens will retract more than it would, and the corners are no longer covered in black, like they were last night. I still have to buy a new one. A photographer I made friends with last night said that there's a Circuit City near Machida Station, which is only one stop away. I'll have the chance to go take care of that on Sunday.
The camera doesn't seem to be able to decide how it is broken, as it has changed twice. The lens retracts fully now, but the zoom won't go out all the way, and if I try to make it zoom out further the lens will retract and the camera turn off. I've hypothesized that the reason the camera was no longer being made when I bought it was an attempt to keep self-repair technology out of the public's hands.
This post was typed up over several class breaks, spaced out over many hours. Now I'll try to figure out how to upload photos to this site.
I am has Internet!
I never imagined that in a country as technologically advanced as Japan that I would have trouble getting online. I sincerely apologize for taking so long to get back in contact. here's what I've written in the meantime.
6-21-08
At the time I’m writing this, it is 5:14 AM on Saturday in Tokyo. According the my laptop, it is 1:14 PM on Friday back on the Pacific coast of America. The flight was very long, but not too bad. It was cramped, but the food was pretty good and there were several movies to watch.
Travel even after we got to Narita took a long time. We waited for a bus for about half an hour, and were on it for over two hours. We then met up with some students from out host school and took a train most of the rest of the way. After stopping at a convenience store (more on that later), we walked the rest of the way to pour guest house, which was about twenty minutes away. We had orientation, and then tried to go to sleep.
The bus trip was actually reasonably fun. We saw graffiti mysteriously in English, lawns sculpted to have Kanji in them, and noticed little differences between American and Japanese cities. We started out in the more industrial area, and it seemed strange that there weren’t any food places, even just for workers to get snacks at. Of course, the moment after I pointed that out to Derek (who was sitting next to me), we saw a steakhouse. We knew it was a steakhouse because it had the kanji for cow, 牛 (gyuu) and fire, 火 (hi). I guessed it, and the Kazuko (the Japanese teacher) confirmed it.
Everybody was pretty hungry by the time we got off the train, so we went to a convenience store to buy some food. I bought a grape-flavored drink, since I figured grape was usually safe. I also bought what I thought was a peach drink with chunks in it, just to try something weird. Turned out the peach was mango (figured that out before I drank it, it wasn’t very good). When I tried the grape, I remembered “Oh yeah, grape soda burns. Still worth drinking, though, as it had been a very dehydrating day.
It is very hot here. It is also very muggy. All of us were sweating a great deal last night. In addition to being generally unpleasant, it made it very hard to sleep even after being awake for 24 hours, which is why I’ve already been up for over an hour.
I messed up when I was packing my bags. I’m pretty sure that I forgot my cell phone, and did forget the shirt I wanted to sleep in, as well as the case for my glasses. It is also possible that I don’t have my flash drive with my. I haven’t found my umbrella yet, but I haven’t looked very hard for it.
There are a few things they should have told us before we came. The first was that they should have mentioned the immigrations and customs forms we had to fill out on the flight, which at least a few of us had trouble figuring out. The second was that appliances that have three-pronged power cords don’t work here, as Japan uses two-pronged outlets. My laptop uses a three-prong connection, so I probably won’t be able to communicate as often as I’d like. I have to conserve power. Scratch that, Denise just found three-pronged outlets in the kitchen. Hooray! The guest house doesn’t have an internet connection, however. So even though I’m typing this now, I have to save it to send later.
It was too dark to take pictures of it by the time we got to the guest house. Currently, it feels like a sauna outside, and I don’t feel like going out into that quite yet.
6-21-08, Cont.
Its is now 8:42 PM here, 4:42 AM back home, and well over twelve hours since I last wrote. It feels like a lot longer than that to me. After I finished writing, we found an unedited episode of Yu-Gi-Oh, and were all laughing at how ridiculous it was. Zork grew a dragon’s head from down there, and used it to fight Kaiba’s dragons.
The orientation meeting was fine, and being held in our well-air conditioned sitting room made it all the easier.
Then I went out to look for wireless hotspots, even though I could have just waited for the student guides to tell us where they were. When I realized that, I turned back, and ran into a fellow student named Bill. He was looking for the library for the same reason I was looking for any place with internet access. I agreed to help him, and we found many places, but not the library. We gave up and headed back for the guest house. After we got there, we decided to find a place to get lunch. Instead of going the way we came in last night, Bill suggested that we take a back route.
Bad idea. Bill and I disagreed on the direction to head to find the convenience store, and went in the direction he suggested. He felt more strongly about it than I did (in retrospect, I think he had the right direction, but severely underestimated the distance involved). We eventually ran into a store called George’s that was having its reopening sale. They gave us helium-filled balloons, but were lacking in the something to eat department. We found a Top supermarket, and got food there. I managed to mark off an object on my “Must Eat While In Japan” list before I even had a chance to write it down. The list now stands at: ice cream, taiyaki, a meat bun, a beef bowl, and something with strawberries in it.
We had a very difficult time getting back, however. The back path we took led us through a maze of a residential area that we just had to follow down to reach town. We took the wrong entrance back up, and ran into dead end after dead end. I had been certain that we wouldn’t make it back in time for the tour, but just barely made it. There was no time to cool down beforehand.
Oh, I found my umbrella and my flash drive. I still don’t think I have my cell phone, and I know I don’t have my intended sleep shirt. Oh well.
The tour itself was anti-climactic, as I’d accidentally seen a lot of it what had already at that point felt like a long time ago. After the tour, some of us returned to the guest house to gather supplies for a festival we were going to later in the day. I saw a snake near the guest house. I don’t know enough about the snakes of Japan for me to have wanted to touch it. As we were heading to the train station to go to the festival, we stopped to get drinks from some vending machines. I saw a cat there, a Japanese bobtail, I believe. It wasn’t very friendly. Too bad.
Transit to the festival took about an hour. Standing almost the entire way. The festival was a disappointment, I had expected something along the lines of the O-Bon festival, which usually has lots of stalls to get snacks at or play games in. Instead, it consisted of a some drummers, a lot of people dancing (it was raining, and my hands were full, so I did not), and a square you could walk around as people tried to sell you stuff. I had four pieces of cheese too small to taste. The only upside was that I got a free hand-powered fan. That helped a lot.
Commuting back to the campus felt like it took forever. We switched from train to train to train… Standing so long. All of our feet hurt badly. After I finish writing, I plan on taking a very cold shower and going to bed early.
Oh, I found a drink I enjoy. Natchan Orange Juice tastes so good in comparison to what I have been having over here that I can’t even describe it.
Tomorrow, we have to go on even more tours, including a baseball game. Kazuko seems excited about it, but I don’t feel the least bit of excitement about it. Teresa (my group leader), is planning on bringing study materials. Not sure what I‘ll do. I should be enjoying this, I know, but it is incredibly hot and humid, and the travel itself is rather unpleasant. We’re also going to see the Diet building and the imperial palace, but from what Kazuko says we probably won’t have much access to them. The best part of tomorrow will probably be our visit to the Tokyo Tower. At the very least I should be able to take some good pictures there. Hopefully I’ll also be able to start on getting souvenirs. That’s something to look forward to.
Hopefully, by the time I can get this posted, I’ll be more optimistic. The earliest I expect that could be is Monday for me, very late Sunday back home. I look forward to when we’re just having classes. You’ll know the answers to these issues by the time I finally get a connection to the internet.
Nighty-night.
6-22-08
About 10:17 PM on Sunday Japan time. That makes it 6:17 AM back home. I couldn’t write earlier today, since I got up an hour later and e had to meet the professors an hour earlier than yesterday. Still saw part of an episode of Super Sentai Rangers (or something along those lines) before we had to leave.
Today we went to the Tokyo Tower, where my camera’s batteries began running out of power. Good thing that I typed that; I would have forgotten to recharge them. I still managed to take pictures of most of the important things that followed. The Tokyo Tower was probably one of the two high points of the day for me. There were some souvenir shops to browse (I was tempted, but wound up not buying anything). Took some good photographs, of the Tower, of myself with the tower’s mascot, and of myself standing on a spot with no visible floor.
Problem was, it started raining while we were inside, and I’d forgotten my umbrella at the guest house. I knew I might need it, and I realized that I didn’t have it with me as we were leaving it, but I practically challenged the irony gods to make me pay for that. During the walk back from the tower, one of our Japanese student guides shared her umbrella with me, I offered to carry her umbrella for her, but she declined. Later, as we were walking around the old imperial palace, Chian-ning (I’m not sure if that is the right way to spell her name) shared her umbrella with me. She accepted my offer to carry the umbrella. I got soaked anyways, mostly on my left side.
We were all too soaked to want to go to the Diet building, so we instead skipped to a popular shopping area that I forgot to mention yesterday. We did not actually skip there, we took a train. There were a lot of food stands and clothing stores, but to my shock, not a single gaming store. To make matters worse, it was a street lined with stores, not a proper mall. It had no roof in the central area. I couldn’t accept the idea of buying an umbrella when I had a perfectly good one already, so I decided that I needed a hat. I had hoped to get a really big, cool hat, but I couldn’t find big ones that had a weave small enough to stop the rain. The hat I got is regular-sized, but it serves the job well enough.
Strange thing was, that after I got my hat, some black guys (This is Japan, African-American is not politically correct here) who had been ignoring me started trying to get me to buy stuff from their shops. Teresa says that the hat makes me look richer, and everybody I told the price to thought it was surprisingly cheap. At 1,995 yen (about $20), it was the cheapest hat I could find. Irony.
The second high point of the day came when I walked into a store looking for batteries, since I wasn’t carrying my spares. I didn’t find any batteries there, but I did find out that they sold meat buns. Scratch the second object from my “Must Eat” list. It wasn’t bad, but nowhere near as good as I had expected. Still, finding one was a wonderful feeling, considering that I’d spent most of my time in the Tower looking for taiyaki. Have to log off now, my wrist is objecting to continued use. Finish explaining in the morning.
6-23-08
Upon getting out of bed, my first thought was ‘Ow! That hurts!’ My legs and shoulders are both in significant pain when moved thanks to the activities of the past two days. The time is 5:23 AM local, 1:23 Pacific. Now, continuing from yesterday…
I finished my shopping well before the two hours we were given were up. I walked to our meeting place at the station and back to the shopping street a few times out of boredom. Standing under an air conditioning vent in the station managed to both cool me off and dry me off a little. Eventually we all met back up and headed for a baseball game.
I did not think I would enjoy the baseball game, and I was mostly right. The game was between the Yomiura Giants (home team) and I honestly don’t know what the visitors were called. It started with an “H.” I brought my physical journal to write in, but it was too wet to be of use. My fellow classmates were far more entertaining than the game itself. Bonne and Ashlegh bought light robes in the Giants’ team colors, and acted very into the game with all of their cheering. Ashlegh even tried to introduce The Wave to Japan. Only two people who weren’t part of our class participated in it. I cheered a little bit for the visiting team, partly because when I started I thought they were the Giants and we should, and partlky because I enjoy cheering for the little guy. We had to leave an hour and a half into the game in order to get back before our campus closed its gates. At that point, the Giants were ahead.
The beer vendors at the game didn’t look old enough to drink the stuff, nor did they card anyone. I didn’t have any, but Bill got incredibly drunk. A lot of the others had fun at his expense after we got back to the guest house. I hear that he has a rather nasty hangover right now.
The position I was typing in last night was not a good position. I had gone to bed so that writing down my blog would be the last thing I did before sleeping, and so I wound up leaning on my left arm and typing with my right. That started to get uncomfortable pretty soon.
One more thing about yesterday: Some Taiwanese students moved into the guest house next to ours. I hear that they have been studying Japanese for some time and are quite fluent in it. We haven’t met any of them yet, though. They came in while we were away and were probably experiencing jet lag. A couple of people tried to convince drunken Bill to go over and hit on the new Taiwanese students (he had spent most of the day hitting on one of our guides), and it looked like he would for a moment. Then everyone who was there, including the ones who had been egging him on, stopped him.
Today, there are two things to which many of us have been looking forward: Likely access to the internet, and a day of class. After so much walking and standing in trains, simple class will be a huge relief. All the traveling has been hard on all of our feet. We’ll also probably meet the students from Taiwan today, but I have no strong feelings about that. Really, really hoping that I’ll be able to post this later on today.
6-23-08 Cont.
Still no internet connection at about 3:20 here. Still Sunday back home, I think. Teresa, Derek, and Chian-ning have been sent to the computer lab to find out how to properly connect our laptops to the wireless networks in the school buildings. I volunteered to go as well, but Kazuko only wanted to send three people, and they were the ones she picked. There’s a chance that I’ll be able to post this after they get back, but I don’t think that time is on my side here. We have to go to a welcoming party later, and it will last until after the school buildings close. I’m not optimistic about my chances, however.
Class was a refreshing change of pace, even though a lot of it was also tedious. My self-taught Japanese is more advanced in most areas than the introductory course we’re taking now, but Kazuko says that we can write in hiragana and katakana if we know how, which I do. So I think I’ll try that next time around. Mary (history teacher) was in her usual top shape (this is my fifth class with her), but I knew a lot of the material already.
Kazuko was upset that Bill got drunk. She talked about how we aren’t supposed to have alcohol on campus grounds and how anyone caught drinking on campus from here on would get sent back to the States immediately. I think there might have been a mention of that at the last orientation before we left, but that was more than a month ago. To be fair to Bill and the rest of us, he started getting drunk at the baseball game that Kazuko sent us to and then didn’t accompany us to. He kept drinking after we got back, though, so it isn’t entirely excused.
I finally got to eat lunch in the cafeteria today. I had a big bowl of ramen for lunch. The only things in it that I could recognize were noodles and seaweed (maybe a little bit of pork). It wasn’t all that good, but it did fill me up for the first time since I set foot in Japan. I’d like to eat there again tomorrow, but our schedules say that we’ll be having koto lessons (I think that is a kind of Japanese harp, sounds fun) during that time, and the going to a bakery. We probably won’t be back before the cafeteria closes. I might be able to find some taiyaki at the bakery, and that would be pleasant. If you want to understand my fixation on my “Must Eat” list, you’ll have to find out more about Kanon.
I’m about to try a type of green tea called “Blue People” that Jennifer offered to me. I have never found a tea that I like, but I’m here to have new experiences. Bottoms up. … Well, it isn’t the worst drink I have ever had, but it isn’t exactly my cup of tea, if you’ll forgive the phrase. And here comes my reused Natchan ice-water bottle to save the day!
On the topic of water, the water in Japan (as long as it is cold) is some of the best I have ever had. Here’s a shout-out to the water fountain at Hibiya Station! Go you! You were awesome! It is a bit hard to get cold water under normal circumstances here. That Hibiya Station water fountain was the only one I’ve been able to get to since I came here. I might have seen one at a different station, across the train tracks, but then again I wasn’t paying attention to that station, and it may have been the same one. Odd that in a country as hot and humid as Japan that there aren’t a lot more water fountains. There aren’t any on campus as far as I can find, though the cafeteria (when it can be accessed) has good water.
Another odd thing about Japan is that it I haven’t found as many weird things as I expected. I thought I’d see all sorts of weird vending machines, but the strangest ones I’ve found just have cigarette packages in them. What a disappointment! I want my pizza vending machines!
That basically catches you up to this point. I’ll write more later.
________________
And now I have to get ready for that party. Next contact will probably be on Wednesday for me, Tuesday back home. I'll upload pictures then.
6-21-08
At the time I’m writing this, it is 5:14 AM on Saturday in Tokyo. According the my laptop, it is 1:14 PM on Friday back on the Pacific coast of America. The flight was very long, but not too bad. It was cramped, but the food was pretty good and there were several movies to watch.
Travel even after we got to Narita took a long time. We waited for a bus for about half an hour, and were on it for over two hours. We then met up with some students from out host school and took a train most of the rest of the way. After stopping at a convenience store (more on that later), we walked the rest of the way to pour guest house, which was about twenty minutes away. We had orientation, and then tried to go to sleep.
The bus trip was actually reasonably fun. We saw graffiti mysteriously in English, lawns sculpted to have Kanji in them, and noticed little differences between American and Japanese cities. We started out in the more industrial area, and it seemed strange that there weren’t any food places, even just for workers to get snacks at. Of course, the moment after I pointed that out to Derek (who was sitting next to me), we saw a steakhouse. We knew it was a steakhouse because it had the kanji for cow, 牛 (gyuu) and fire, 火 (hi). I guessed it, and the Kazuko (the Japanese teacher) confirmed it.
Everybody was pretty hungry by the time we got off the train, so we went to a convenience store to buy some food. I bought a grape-flavored drink, since I figured grape was usually safe. I also bought what I thought was a peach drink with chunks in it, just to try something weird. Turned out the peach was mango (figured that out before I drank it, it wasn’t very good). When I tried the grape, I remembered “Oh yeah, grape soda burns. Still worth drinking, though, as it had been a very dehydrating day.
It is very hot here. It is also very muggy. All of us were sweating a great deal last night. In addition to being generally unpleasant, it made it very hard to sleep even after being awake for 24 hours, which is why I’ve already been up for over an hour.
I messed up when I was packing my bags. I’m pretty sure that I forgot my cell phone, and did forget the shirt I wanted to sleep in, as well as the case for my glasses. It is also possible that I don’t have my flash drive with my. I haven’t found my umbrella yet, but I haven’t looked very hard for it.
There are a few things they should have told us before we came. The first was that they should have mentioned the immigrations and customs forms we had to fill out on the flight, which at least a few of us had trouble figuring out. The second was that appliances that have three-pronged power cords don’t work here, as Japan uses two-pronged outlets. My laptop uses a three-prong connection, so I probably won’t be able to communicate as often as I’d like. I have to conserve power. Scratch that, Denise just found three-pronged outlets in the kitchen. Hooray! The guest house doesn’t have an internet connection, however. So even though I’m typing this now, I have to save it to send later.
It was too dark to take pictures of it by the time we got to the guest house. Currently, it feels like a sauna outside, and I don’t feel like going out into that quite yet.
6-21-08, Cont.
Its is now 8:42 PM here, 4:42 AM back home, and well over twelve hours since I last wrote. It feels like a lot longer than that to me. After I finished writing, we found an unedited episode of Yu-Gi-Oh, and were all laughing at how ridiculous it was. Zork grew a dragon’s head from down there, and used it to fight Kaiba’s dragons.
The orientation meeting was fine, and being held in our well-air conditioned sitting room made it all the easier.
Then I went out to look for wireless hotspots, even though I could have just waited for the student guides to tell us where they were. When I realized that, I turned back, and ran into a fellow student named Bill. He was looking for the library for the same reason I was looking for any place with internet access. I agreed to help him, and we found many places, but not the library. We gave up and headed back for the guest house. After we got there, we decided to find a place to get lunch. Instead of going the way we came in last night, Bill suggested that we take a back route.
Bad idea. Bill and I disagreed on the direction to head to find the convenience store, and went in the direction he suggested. He felt more strongly about it than I did (in retrospect, I think he had the right direction, but severely underestimated the distance involved). We eventually ran into a store called George’s that was having its reopening sale. They gave us helium-filled balloons, but were lacking in the something to eat department. We found a Top supermarket, and got food there. I managed to mark off an object on my “Must Eat While In Japan” list before I even had a chance to write it down. The list now stands at: ice cream, taiyaki, a meat bun, a beef bowl, and something with strawberries in it.
We had a very difficult time getting back, however. The back path we took led us through a maze of a residential area that we just had to follow down to reach town. We took the wrong entrance back up, and ran into dead end after dead end. I had been certain that we wouldn’t make it back in time for the tour, but just barely made it. There was no time to cool down beforehand.
Oh, I found my umbrella and my flash drive. I still don’t think I have my cell phone, and I know I don’t have my intended sleep shirt. Oh well.
The tour itself was anti-climactic, as I’d accidentally seen a lot of it what had already at that point felt like a long time ago. After the tour, some of us returned to the guest house to gather supplies for a festival we were going to later in the day. I saw a snake near the guest house. I don’t know enough about the snakes of Japan for me to have wanted to touch it. As we were heading to the train station to go to the festival, we stopped to get drinks from some vending machines. I saw a cat there, a Japanese bobtail, I believe. It wasn’t very friendly. Too bad.
Transit to the festival took about an hour. Standing almost the entire way. The festival was a disappointment, I had expected something along the lines of the O-Bon festival, which usually has lots of stalls to get snacks at or play games in. Instead, it consisted of a some drummers, a lot of people dancing (it was raining, and my hands were full, so I did not), and a square you could walk around as people tried to sell you stuff. I had four pieces of cheese too small to taste. The only upside was that I got a free hand-powered fan. That helped a lot.
Commuting back to the campus felt like it took forever. We switched from train to train to train… Standing so long. All of our feet hurt badly. After I finish writing, I plan on taking a very cold shower and going to bed early.
Oh, I found a drink I enjoy. Natchan Orange Juice tastes so good in comparison to what I have been having over here that I can’t even describe it.
Tomorrow, we have to go on even more tours, including a baseball game. Kazuko seems excited about it, but I don’t feel the least bit of excitement about it. Teresa (my group leader), is planning on bringing study materials. Not sure what I‘ll do. I should be enjoying this, I know, but it is incredibly hot and humid, and the travel itself is rather unpleasant. We’re also going to see the Diet building and the imperial palace, but from what Kazuko says we probably won’t have much access to them. The best part of tomorrow will probably be our visit to the Tokyo Tower. At the very least I should be able to take some good pictures there. Hopefully I’ll also be able to start on getting souvenirs. That’s something to look forward to.
Hopefully, by the time I can get this posted, I’ll be more optimistic. The earliest I expect that could be is Monday for me, very late Sunday back home. I look forward to when we’re just having classes. You’ll know the answers to these issues by the time I finally get a connection to the internet.
Nighty-night.
6-22-08
About 10:17 PM on Sunday Japan time. That makes it 6:17 AM back home. I couldn’t write earlier today, since I got up an hour later and e had to meet the professors an hour earlier than yesterday. Still saw part of an episode of Super Sentai Rangers (or something along those lines) before we had to leave.
Today we went to the Tokyo Tower, where my camera’s batteries began running out of power. Good thing that I typed that; I would have forgotten to recharge them. I still managed to take pictures of most of the important things that followed. The Tokyo Tower was probably one of the two high points of the day for me. There were some souvenir shops to browse (I was tempted, but wound up not buying anything). Took some good photographs, of the Tower, of myself with the tower’s mascot, and of myself standing on a spot with no visible floor.
Problem was, it started raining while we were inside, and I’d forgotten my umbrella at the guest house. I knew I might need it, and I realized that I didn’t have it with me as we were leaving it, but I practically challenged the irony gods to make me pay for that. During the walk back from the tower, one of our Japanese student guides shared her umbrella with me, I offered to carry her umbrella for her, but she declined. Later, as we were walking around the old imperial palace, Chian-ning (I’m not sure if that is the right way to spell her name) shared her umbrella with me. She accepted my offer to carry the umbrella. I got soaked anyways, mostly on my left side.
We were all too soaked to want to go to the Diet building, so we instead skipped to a popular shopping area that I forgot to mention yesterday. We did not actually skip there, we took a train. There were a lot of food stands and clothing stores, but to my shock, not a single gaming store. To make matters worse, it was a street lined with stores, not a proper mall. It had no roof in the central area. I couldn’t accept the idea of buying an umbrella when I had a perfectly good one already, so I decided that I needed a hat. I had hoped to get a really big, cool hat, but I couldn’t find big ones that had a weave small enough to stop the rain. The hat I got is regular-sized, but it serves the job well enough.
Strange thing was, that after I got my hat, some black guys (This is Japan, African-American is not politically correct here) who had been ignoring me started trying to get me to buy stuff from their shops. Teresa says that the hat makes me look richer, and everybody I told the price to thought it was surprisingly cheap. At 1,995 yen (about $20), it was the cheapest hat I could find. Irony.
The second high point of the day came when I walked into a store looking for batteries, since I wasn’t carrying my spares. I didn’t find any batteries there, but I did find out that they sold meat buns. Scratch the second object from my “Must Eat” list. It wasn’t bad, but nowhere near as good as I had expected. Still, finding one was a wonderful feeling, considering that I’d spent most of my time in the Tower looking for taiyaki. Have to log off now, my wrist is objecting to continued use. Finish explaining in the morning.
6-23-08
Upon getting out of bed, my first thought was ‘Ow! That hurts!’ My legs and shoulders are both in significant pain when moved thanks to the activities of the past two days. The time is 5:23 AM local, 1:23 Pacific. Now, continuing from yesterday…
I finished my shopping well before the two hours we were given were up. I walked to our meeting place at the station and back to the shopping street a few times out of boredom. Standing under an air conditioning vent in the station managed to both cool me off and dry me off a little. Eventually we all met back up and headed for a baseball game.
I did not think I would enjoy the baseball game, and I was mostly right. The game was between the Yomiura Giants (home team) and I honestly don’t know what the visitors were called. It started with an “H.” I brought my physical journal to write in, but it was too wet to be of use. My fellow classmates were far more entertaining than the game itself. Bonne and Ashlegh bought light robes in the Giants’ team colors, and acted very into the game with all of their cheering. Ashlegh even tried to introduce The Wave to Japan. Only two people who weren’t part of our class participated in it. I cheered a little bit for the visiting team, partly because when I started I thought they were the Giants and we should, and partlky because I enjoy cheering for the little guy. We had to leave an hour and a half into the game in order to get back before our campus closed its gates. At that point, the Giants were ahead.
The beer vendors at the game didn’t look old enough to drink the stuff, nor did they card anyone. I didn’t have any, but Bill got incredibly drunk. A lot of the others had fun at his expense after we got back to the guest house. I hear that he has a rather nasty hangover right now.
The position I was typing in last night was not a good position. I had gone to bed so that writing down my blog would be the last thing I did before sleeping, and so I wound up leaning on my left arm and typing with my right. That started to get uncomfortable pretty soon.
One more thing about yesterday: Some Taiwanese students moved into the guest house next to ours. I hear that they have been studying Japanese for some time and are quite fluent in it. We haven’t met any of them yet, though. They came in while we were away and were probably experiencing jet lag. A couple of people tried to convince drunken Bill to go over and hit on the new Taiwanese students (he had spent most of the day hitting on one of our guides), and it looked like he would for a moment. Then everyone who was there, including the ones who had been egging him on, stopped him.
Today, there are two things to which many of us have been looking forward: Likely access to the internet, and a day of class. After so much walking and standing in trains, simple class will be a huge relief. All the traveling has been hard on all of our feet. We’ll also probably meet the students from Taiwan today, but I have no strong feelings about that. Really, really hoping that I’ll be able to post this later on today.
6-23-08 Cont.
Still no internet connection at about 3:20 here. Still Sunday back home, I think. Teresa, Derek, and Chian-ning have been sent to the computer lab to find out how to properly connect our laptops to the wireless networks in the school buildings. I volunteered to go as well, but Kazuko only wanted to send three people, and they were the ones she picked. There’s a chance that I’ll be able to post this after they get back, but I don’t think that time is on my side here. We have to go to a welcoming party later, and it will last until after the school buildings close. I’m not optimistic about my chances, however.
Class was a refreshing change of pace, even though a lot of it was also tedious. My self-taught Japanese is more advanced in most areas than the introductory course we’re taking now, but Kazuko says that we can write in hiragana and katakana if we know how, which I do. So I think I’ll try that next time around. Mary (history teacher) was in her usual top shape (this is my fifth class with her), but I knew a lot of the material already.
Kazuko was upset that Bill got drunk. She talked about how we aren’t supposed to have alcohol on campus grounds and how anyone caught drinking on campus from here on would get sent back to the States immediately. I think there might have been a mention of that at the last orientation before we left, but that was more than a month ago. To be fair to Bill and the rest of us, he started getting drunk at the baseball game that Kazuko sent us to and then didn’t accompany us to. He kept drinking after we got back, though, so it isn’t entirely excused.
I finally got to eat lunch in the cafeteria today. I had a big bowl of ramen for lunch. The only things in it that I could recognize were noodles and seaweed (maybe a little bit of pork). It wasn’t all that good, but it did fill me up for the first time since I set foot in Japan. I’d like to eat there again tomorrow, but our schedules say that we’ll be having koto lessons (I think that is a kind of Japanese harp, sounds fun) during that time, and the going to a bakery. We probably won’t be back before the cafeteria closes. I might be able to find some taiyaki at the bakery, and that would be pleasant. If you want to understand my fixation on my “Must Eat” list, you’ll have to find out more about Kanon.
I’m about to try a type of green tea called “Blue People” that Jennifer offered to me. I have never found a tea that I like, but I’m here to have new experiences. Bottoms up. … Well, it isn’t the worst drink I have ever had, but it isn’t exactly my cup of tea, if you’ll forgive the phrase. And here comes my reused Natchan ice-water bottle to save the day!
On the topic of water, the water in Japan (as long as it is cold) is some of the best I have ever had. Here’s a shout-out to the water fountain at Hibiya Station! Go you! You were awesome! It is a bit hard to get cold water under normal circumstances here. That Hibiya Station water fountain was the only one I’ve been able to get to since I came here. I might have seen one at a different station, across the train tracks, but then again I wasn’t paying attention to that station, and it may have been the same one. Odd that in a country as hot and humid as Japan that there aren’t a lot more water fountains. There aren’t any on campus as far as I can find, though the cafeteria (when it can be accessed) has good water.
Another odd thing about Japan is that it I haven’t found as many weird things as I expected. I thought I’d see all sorts of weird vending machines, but the strangest ones I’ve found just have cigarette packages in them. What a disappointment! I want my pizza vending machines!
That basically catches you up to this point. I’ll write more later.
________________
And now I have to get ready for that party. Next contact will probably be on Wednesday for me, Tuesday back home. I'll upload pictures then.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Time to Begin
So, now even I have made a blog. Yippee. I didn't really want to make one, but I'm going to be out of my home country (USA) for a few weeks starting tomorrow, and my family wanted a better way to keep in touch than just email. So, here we go.
I've pretty much finished assembling what I need for my trip, all that is left is to pack it up. Where am I going? Japan, on what is technically a study-trip. Do I much care about the studying part? Well, I do want to improve my completely self-taught Japanese. But do I really care about grades at this point? Nope. I went through Commencement last week and the announcers didn't mention my honors (Magna Cum Laude). (On that note, it's rather irritating that in the previous parentheses, the only word not underlined as a spelling error is the middle one. What does it say about our society that honors are seen as errors?) The speakers messed up with most if my fellow graduates, as they didn't even start mentioning the honors until over half the class had gone up and received their diploma case.
The trip will last slightly under three weeks. Departure is on the 19th, arrival on the 20th. We arrive back in America on July 10th. I intend to take many, many pictures, and try to find something extraordinarily weird each day. I will then photograph the weird thing and treasure that picture to an unusual degree.
I have the distinct feeling that I'm going to regret the address I chose, as I will undoubtedly learn that it doesn't quite mean what I think it does: Such a lot of (various, really) things to do.
Seems like a waste to have a blog for only three weeks. I have a couple of other projects in the works, however, and if I make any significant progress on them I'll post that news here as well.
Ja ne.
I've pretty much finished assembling what I need for my trip, all that is left is to pack it up. Where am I going? Japan, on what is technically a study-trip. Do I much care about the studying part? Well, I do want to improve my completely self-taught Japanese. But do I really care about grades at this point? Nope. I went through Commencement last week and the announcers didn't mention my honors (Magna Cum Laude). (On that note, it's rather irritating that in the previous parentheses, the only word not underlined as a spelling error is the middle one. What does it say about our society that honors are seen as errors?) The speakers messed up with most if my fellow graduates, as they didn't even start mentioning the honors until over half the class had gone up and received their diploma case.
The trip will last slightly under three weeks. Departure is on the 19th, arrival on the 20th. We arrive back in America on July 10th. I intend to take many, many pictures, and try to find something extraordinarily weird each day. I will then photograph the weird thing and treasure that picture to an unusual degree.
I have the distinct feeling that I'm going to regret the address I chose, as I will undoubtedly learn that it doesn't quite mean what I think it does: Such a lot of (various, really) things to do.
Seems like a waste to have a blog for only three weeks. I have a couple of other projects in the works, however, and if I make any significant progress on them I'll post that news here as well.
Ja ne.
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