Operation Japan

よし

2008-07-30T19:40:00.016+09:00

Okay, this is my LAST blog post. It's about Kyoto! And Nara!

My two-day-one-night trip up to this part of Japan started out in Nara, the neighboring city that was capital of Japan even before Kyoto was.

It looked like this!

This is me with a group of english-studing students who struck up a conversation with me at random!

Deer were pretty much everywhere. You could get food to feed them, and they had had all fear of humans de-evolved out of them.

But enough chitchat! This building is more or less the reason I came to Nara at all. Specifically, its contents:

BUDDHA!
Even bigger than the one at Kamakura! Unfortunately, my camera has been malfunctioning sometimes in low-light areas and it's basically impossible to convey how huge that thing is in photograph form, so I'm going to have to move on to KYOTO now.

This is the entrance to the Ginkakuji (銀閣寺), which I found to be far and above the most gorgeous place I went to in Kyoto, and thus in all of Japan.

It's so pretty!

PRETTY.

It's not going to stop being pretty, nor will the pictures stop coming.

As a side note, inside that pavilion is the actual Ginkakuji building itself. It was under repair at the time I saw it.

But who cares, when the gardens around it look like this?

Afdjkfweopeklgwe.
OKAY that's not nearly all of my Ginkakuji pictures but I'm moving on.

This is The Philosopher's Way (哲学の道), a road by a river that some famous dude or other liked to walk down. It's admittedly quite pleasant. I met a wandering artist there!

Aqueduct!

And now we have moved onto the KYOTO NIGHTLIFE, just in canse you forgot that Kyoto is an actual city, not just a collection of gorgeous temples and gardens. Like I tend to.

Here is... something! Temple related? I honestly don't know what it is!

Seriously, somebody who knwos Japanese culture better than me? What are these things?

So ends DAY ONE of my magical Kyoto adventure.
Day TWO begins with...

ENGRISH.
I swear this exact phrase appeared on Engrish.com at some point, but I'll be damned if I can find it.

Behold the most powerful ice cream sundae in the universe. The cost there - 10,000 yen - is roughly $95.

This is the quality courtyard surrounding Nijo Castle (二条城). Lots of gravel, and lots of quality.

And people used to just live here! It's crazy.

Some nice Rock Garden action going on here, yes.

Next is the Ginkakuji's sister temple: Kinkakuji (金閣寺). It is on a LAKE.
And unalike the Ginkakuji...

I could actually see this one!

Ain't it pretty?

And like all things in Kyoto, it was surrounded by amazing garden.

This thing was kind of interesting. Apparently you're supposed to try and toss spare change and get it into the bowl in the middle. I lost 3 yen trying, to no avail.

Next and last on the major Kyoto site list is Ryoanji (竜安寺). It has many nice sites.

But most famously...

The Zen Garden!
I do not comprehend the meaning behind these rocks, but I am told they are highly meaningful. Honestly, even not understanding it, it was interesting to ponder.

And here is me with my temporary traveling partner Bak, from Korea.

IN CONCLUSION Kyoto is awesome and I would go back in a heartbeat.

But that's not all I did since my last blog post!

I also went to Yokohama.
Pictures begin now!

See that boat? It's not actually a boat anymore. It's a maritime museum. Awesome.

Now entering!

While inside, I learned many things about life on a boat. However...

I did not learn the meaning of this sign by the anchor.

Seriously, what was up with that sign. It's not a cat.

But anyways, what Yokohama is really famous for is:

Chinatown!

Good heavens there were a lot of people here.

This poster... there is nothing I can say that would add to the inherent awesome of it.

China!

And finally, Yokohama Stadium and the adjacent park:

And that's it! I'm done posting pictures.

I am leaving Japan July 31st, 4:30 PM and arriving in America nine hours later, on July 31st, 9:30 AM. Airplanes are capable of time travel.

This has been a fantastic trip, but I don't think I'm going to write a big dramatic conclusion here. I may post again once I'm back in the states with some more sweeping general observations.

If not, thanks for reading!

子供たちはかわいい！

2008-07-12T22:01:00.002+09:00

Brief, photo-free post this time. Next one will make up for it, trust me.

My primary activity of note (aside from my 22nd birthday last weekend WOO) these last few weeks has been my Field Work class finally starting in earnest. I have gone to two elementary schools to talk to impressionable youths, and talked with a group of Junior High students once. My last school visit is next week.

The school visits have been really fun! The first was a group of 1st-3rd grade students, which me and maybe 12 other exchange students hung out with as a group. We told them our names and where we were from, and then we taught them how to play Rock Paper Scissors in English, Korean, Chinese, and Italian.

My favorite moment from that trip was a young boy who quietly sat down with the class, looking at us (who were all furiously foreign-looking and also holding flags of our home countries) kind of vaguely, and after the teacher had been explaining why we were here for a good minute, he suddenly shouted out 「ウオ、外国人！？」 ("WHOA, foreigners?").

The second trip was a bit more educationally intensive, as it was a 6th grade class and we were separated one exchange student per class. I taught them numbers zero through ten, along with plus, minus, times, divided by, and equals. I also told them a bit about Washington and answered some questions, most of them about either Baseball or Pokemon.

The Junior High students were somewhat less enthusiastic, especially the boys. It was pretty evident that they didn't want to be there, nor did they care about learning English. Ah, well, they're in Junior High. What can you expect?

I apologize for the lack of amazing photography in this post, but tomorrow morning I am setting out for the former capital city of KYOTO, and staying there for 2 days and 1 night. You'll get your pictures after that.

Cheers!

古池や・かわず飛び込む・水の音

2008-06-23T22:35:00.007+09:00

See, this is exactly why I don't keep a blog normally. I just start updating it less and less.

Partially because I'm not going to cool places as much, I guess? They're expensive! Really, the only major spot left on my list right now is Kyoto.

Destination for this weekend was Shibuya and Harajuku. I went to see crazy surreal Japanese fashionistas, but I think the rain scared them all away. Instead, I saw Meiji Shrine!

Photos time.

The path to the shrine was flanked by dangerous levels of NATURE.

Nature all over the place! Also, tourists.
I hear there are over 200 species of trees on and around the shrine complex.

Look! Some shrine, at last.

And here's the entrance to the shrine itself.

Inside the courtyard: a large tree!

And a wedding! There was totally a wedding going on in the shrine. I dunno, I wouldn't like to get married in front of gawking foreigner tourists like myself.

Here is some of the traditional shriney stuff.

Gorgeous architecture and pretty trees, the usual.

It depresses me a little that I'm almost starting to get jaded to this stuff. Same with earthquakes.

GROUP SHOT
In no particular order: Me, my friend Janna, and Janna's friends Stephanie and Aaron. With a bit of backtracking and some common sense, you should be able to figure out who is who. I interacted with a stranger in Japanese to get this photo taken!

Hey look, some more nature.

Janna is having a bright idea.

I would like this picture a lot more were it not for the traffic sign there. It's a lot brighter on film.

This is a museum!

Inside was portraits of every emperor in Japan, and a really awesome document chronicling the imperial family back into the age of myth, but I'll be damned if I could read it and they didn't allow photos inside.

That's enough Meiji. Time to head to Shibuya!

There was an Earth Day market! Was Earth Day last sunday? It's one of those holidays I can never keep track of.

This was my last adventure of the trip: The NHK Broadcasting Center! NHK, as I may or may not have mentioned before, is one of the huge megalithic TV broadcasting corporations in Japan, and they have a lot of cool stuff. I saw some of it!

In the front room there were loads of children waiting to get their picture taken with a MAGICAL ANIMAL MASCOT.

Unfortunately, the rest of the cool stuff was no-photo. I was a few feet away from some comedy variety show as it was airing LIVE on TV, which was pretty sweet.

Also, there was a 3D movie theater demonstration - with no glasses. You look at the screen, and it is 3D. Holy crap!

[Tech geek block BEGIN]
I have a pretty good idea of the trick they used here, even if I don't have the faintest idea how the underlying technology works. Basically, they took two camera recordings, spaced about as far apart as human eyes. Then, they had the screen projecting both at once, but you could only see one of the two images at a time, depending on what angle you were from the screen somehow. The trick: Which image you can see alternates every few inches. So, if you position your head right, a different image is hitting each eye. Hella cool.
[Tech geek block END]

Here is a picture of a statue.

OKAY that about wraps up that adventure. I am managing to survive my classes, spending more money than I'd like, and making a lot of friends. Today I learned how to make Japanese style Curry Rice!

Don't expect another post soon, I guess. I'll just keep going at this pace.

P.S. Regarding the title of this post: It is a bona fide Haiku that I was taught by my host father! It goes like this:

古池や
かわず飛び込む
水の音

Furu ikeya
Kawazu Tobikomu
Mizu no Oto

An old pond
A frog jumps in
The sound of water

It represents TRANQUILITY, see.

東京タワーがまだ倒れなかった

2008-06-04T22:14:00.010+09:00

A number of places were visited in this past week and a half!

First was the Akihabara district of downtown Tokyo. Some know Akiba as one of the best places in Japan to buy electronics, like cameras or computers. Others know it as the Mecca of the geek universe.

I can't really describe Akihabara very well in a blog. It's kind of a surreal place. One of the first things I saw upon entering was a man in a business suit, with a horse head mask. Nobody seemed to find this out of places. There were a LOT of girls dressed as maids. The ones that weren't serving tea to people in insanely overpriced cafes were handing out pamphlets and coupons. I don't have any pictures, since most of the interesting stuff was 1) probably more interesting to me than it would be to most of you, and 2) indoors, where you aren't allowed to take pictures of it.

Next on the list was the heart of downtown Tokyo, this last weekend. The first place I went was a park right on the edge of the Imperial Palace grounds - as close as I could legally get to the palace itself.

That wall marks the edge of where the castle ended back in the Edo period, I think. Now it encompasses the kosher-to-go-into park area!

There was some kind of event going on. Lots of kids on bicycles. Don't know the details on that one, it didn't seem to be a race.

There was an endless expanse of perfect picnic spots! I wish I had brought lunch.

Awesome tree!

I wasn't the only tourist here, naturally. There's one of the few visible buildings on the actual Palace grounds.

Here's another one! Nijubashi bridge, the main entrance the grounds. I hear it's open one day out of the year!

This guy is Kusunoki Masahige, famous samurai from the 14th century. Fought for Emperor Go-Daigo to wrest Japan away from the Kamakura shogunate, then died in a hopeless battle of drama and samurai glory. He got a statue for it, and is also something like the patron saint of kamikaze pilots!

And now we have moved on to my next destination of this outing: Hibiya Park. Ain't it pretty?

However, not all was simple pretty trees in Hibiya park today. Something much more unexpected was going on:

OKTOBERFEST.
In Tokyo. I'm just as surprised as you are! I thought Oktoberfest was in October!

Not wanting to miss out on this opportunity, I had the pure, traditional Oktoberfest lunch of a massive frankfurter and a healthy serving of yakisoba. Just like the Germans do, right? Right?

Here it is from a distance, behind the classy clock sculpture. Bye, Oktoberfest!

Next on the list: NHK Broadcasting Museum!
NHK is a bit broadcasting company in Japan. Kind of like their equivalent of NBC or something.

The route I took to get there was kind of interesting, though. Lots of meandering catwalks through dense forest.
There are a lot of trees in downtown Tokyo.

Seriously, I felt like I was playing Myst.

Here we go! Old-timey stuff!

Giant animal mascots!

A cool room where you could play with cameras and stuff!

Bush and Kerry!

And next to the Museum was... wait for it...

Another shrine!
These things are friggin' everywhere!

It had these scary guys in it. They are probably Gods or something, but all I know for sure is that they mean business.

BUSINESS. Jesus. Look at that guy.

And with that, we have come to the last and possibly most iconic site of this particular adventure:

Tokyo Tower!

It's tall! Taller than the Eiffel Tower, just barely.

There is a gorgeous park near the base!

And once again, I find myself taking a plethora of photos from a really tall building. There are a lot of graveyards in Tokyo!

And a lot of trees!

Aaand that's enough pictures from me for today. To round it off, here's a video I took to try and convey Tokyo Tower's tallness:

In the week between these two trips downtown, I had JAPANESE MIDTERMS. Good gravy the last one was hard, but I pulled about an 85% on it, so that's pretty good. Especially considering that when I get back to the States, it just comes in as Pass or Fail.

I'm not sure what my next trip will be. I might not go anywhere CraaAAaazy this weekend, I've been doing that a lot lately. Two weeks from Saturday is the first real meet of my Field Work class - I'll be visiting an elementary school class along with some other exchange students, to do such exciting things as teaching them the names of colors in English.

Off I go!

遅れてしまいましたごめんなさい

2008-05-24T11:21:00.011+09:00

Sorry for the delays! I have no excuse, really, I just keep forgetting.

Anyways, my last big Japan Event was going to Shinjuku last weekend. Shinjuku is deep in the heart of downtown Tokyo, filled with large buildings and things that look cool. Here are some of them!

Here's a planty thing that was outside the station!

The following pictures were all taken in one spot! I'd collage them together but I'm too lazy.

Now, my primary destination here is a building that acts as both City Hall and a Badass Observatory from which you can see all of Tokyo.

This is the building that I thought was it, but was totally wrong. I had lunch there.

This is a building that looks interesting but is clearly under construction. My host parents didn't know anything about it.

Aha! Here it is.

The plaza/park thing near it is awesome.

Japan has the best trees ever. Seriously. They're just so green.

Plaza under the building! It's pretty snazzy. Kind of italian.

It even has statues that are not at all Japanesey.

Anyone know who these two are? Can't be Adam and Eve because they have clothes. Something about the apple of Eris, maybe?

And then I went into the building, and I saw Tokyo!

And... it's really big.

Like, huge.

It just keeps going. In every direction.

Some sort of free market thing goin' on down there.

God, it's so big.

I'm just gonna start letting the pictures speak for themselves.

OKAY Back on the ground now.
Other things that exist in Shinjuku:

Astrological clock that I can't read!

Hilariously overblown sign for a karaoke joint!

Really busy shopping district!

Oh man. I saw this in a row of movie posters. I didn't know what it was, but I decided immediately that it didn't matter - I was going to assume for my own entertainment that it was a Japanese heavy-metal rock opera rendition of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

The best part? I was right.

Anyways, the next quality bit was Shinjuku Gyoen, a giant Japanese style garden. It took be a healthy amount of time, but I did manage to go all the way around it. Here are pictures:

OKAY I'm spent. More later; I'm going to Akihabara in about an hour.

北海道

2008-05-13T22:46:00.012+09:00

SO YES, I was supposed to post about this what, a week ago? Sorry for the delay.

Hokkaido was entertaining, in a strange sort of way. I apologize, but I didn't take a great deal of pictures - this trip was more for meeting with friends than for fantastic sightseeing. I spend the majority of the weekend in a very small town called Esashi. Here are some pictures of it:

A nice park right near where I was staying. We were planning to set off fireworks here, but various circumstances involving rain and illness led to that being impossible.

Esashi is a port town! Hence the anchorclock statue of quality. I do have some pictures of the sea, but it's not a particularly photogenic coastline.

I really like this sign. Its message is displayed succinctly and unmistakably - keep going and your car will forever plunge into the briny depths.
The only problem is that as of taking this picture, the sea is behind me...

There were some buddha statues here, which someone had put little pink cloaks on, for no discernible reason. Bizarre? Very yes!

And who doesn't like shrines and temples? I hope you're not getting tired of them, because I'm not gonna stop posting pictures of them!

I always, always want to ring the bell.

This last one is of particular note for being right next to a preschool.

Speaking of schools, this monstrosity is right outside the local elementary school:

Jesus Christ.

Anyways, more significantly of note in recent exciting activites was a Mikoshi parade that came to Machida last weekend. I went to check it out with my American friend, Janna. It was huge, it was loud, it was beautiful, and I have pictures!

That's it, the green and gold thing! Each one was being carried by about 20-50 people; I believe there were fourteen in all.
This picture in particular strikes me as very Japan, with the traditional shinto shrine in the foreground and the perky anime mascot on the sign in the background. Collision of the old and the new.

Demons! Good heavens. They're not very easy to see in this video, but there were definitely some demons in the parade.
In the background is my shoutout to Seattle.

There! A better shot of a scheming demon in action. There's no knowing what mischief they were up to.

Good heavens, I took a lot of pictures. This isn't even half of them!

Here's one that wasn't being carried around. And hey, it's Janna!

INTERMISSION

Here's me and Janna getting our picture taken with an inexplicable giant bunny outside a local arcade. I think it was somehow affiliated with the arcade? I don't really know. I'm pretty sure that costume has no eyeholes, and the person in it is either very small or very uncomfortable.

Anyways, back to the mikoshi!

More demons!

This was near the end of the event, when they stopped and did some dancing and whatnot. This kind of thing is kind of hard to capture in still photos... so I won't try to!

Holy crap! I can post videos. My camera does not seem to have captured sound, for which I apologize.
Here's another one, of the procession in general:

And now back to your regularly scheduled photos!

Here's a small one being carried by young people!

Here's one being violently shaken from side to side! I understand this is traditional, and also dangerous.
I tried, I TRIED to catch this on video, but they were always done by the time I could get my camera into video mode.

Here's the biggest one!

Here's one being carried only by women!

Aaaand done. I'm exhausted, and I have class tomorrow, so I'm ending this post!

鎌倉ですよ

2008-04-28T19:26:00.010+09:00

Long time no post! You have my apologies.

There is a row of dogwood trees in Machida that are from Washington state! Apparently we traded them for some Sakura a while back.
They are blooming! Here's some pictures:

But that's not the important part of today's post. No, the important part is this past weekend, when I went to Kamakura, the former de facto capital of Japan, as it held the Shogunate during the aptly named Kamakura Period.

More importantly, I took pictures of it!
I know at least one of you wanted more pictures of temples, so I'll give you that and more.
First stop: Enoshima!
Here are some pictures of the Koyurugi Shrine, which isn't particularly big or famous but I found it so I'm gonna show you it:

Across the street was a beautiful Japanese graveyard.

And that's enough of Enoshima! The next destination was Kamakura itself, where BUDDHA LIVES.

Okay, so he doesn't LIVE there, but he's still really tall.

This tree is important because apparently it was planted by the Crown Prince of Thailand, Vajiralongkorn, in 1987. I just put it here as an excuse to type out that name.

Anyways, Buddha!

HE'S TALL

Seriously, check out how tall he is! Look at the guy in the corner there!

I also got to go inside the buddha, but that didn't come out on pictures very well, so you'll have to take my word for it that it was awesome.

Next stop is Tsuruoka Hachimanguu, a very famous temple.
One the way was an awesome path/garden/lane divider thing, going down the middle of the street:

And here's the temple itself:

Tragically, this is about where my camera ran out of batteries, so no pictures of Kenchouji temple for you.

Anyways, I may be a bit prolonged on my next post, as I am going to HOKKAIDO.
I leave on Friday, and come back the following Tuesday. It's Golden Week, so I can do that!

I will post many pictures and talk about many adventures when I return.

書いたことがたくさんあるね

2008-04-20T19:36:00.004+09:00

Several individual bits today.

Minor random observation: Japanese prices come in different increments than American prices, and I know why.

All right, to explain what I mean, if something costs less than a dollar in America, it's probably going to be priced at one of three values: $0.25, $0.50, or $0.75. American prices go by 25-cent increments, generally.
Japanese prices, though, don't. They go by 10 yen increments. You're more likely to see prices like 70, 90, 230 yen.

The reason for this? The quarter. There is no 25-yen coin; it goes 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500. Thus, there's no reason to arrange prices by 25s.

Okay, now that I'm done incoherently rambling, let's move on...

Yesterday: Was awesome.
The brunt of yesterday's activities was going to lunch and Karaoke with two of my new Japanese friends, Shizuka and Kanna.

...okay, I'm going to take a moment to ancitipate a line of questioning that I know for a fact is on at least a few minds in the audience (hi mom). I believe it goes something like this:
"But Alan, you unstoppable force of raw charisma, every friend you've mentioned in this blog is a girl! Are you some kind of ultimate ladies' man or something?"

The short answer: No.

The long answer: There's a number of factors that lead to this gender discrepancy. First and foremost is that I just tend to get along better with girls than I do with other guys.
Beyond that, I've noticed that there seems to be a HUGE gender gap at Oberlin. Just looking around, something like 70% of the student body is female. The same ratio holds up among the exchange students, and the Japanese students who signed up to help the exchange students are, as far as I can tell, all female. So, even if I made friends completely indiscriminately, I'd have mostly female friends.

I do have a couple male friends; they haven't made it into the blog. For the record, I have no intention of getting involved with any local Japanese girls, so rest easy.

*cough* where was I?

Oh right! Lunch and Karaoke.
Lunch was Okonomiyaki, which I had never had before. It was all very Japanese-style, with sitting on the floor at low tables and cooking the food ourselves on the table, which had a stovetop in the middle. It was also quite delicious. If I can get in touch with Kanna, I'll post the pictures she took.

After lunch was Karaoke. In the past, I've not really been big on singing, but it's possible that something has loosened me up tot he notion, and I actually had a blast. I mostly stuck to English songs with them sticking to Japanese songs, but I did manage to pull of one Japanese song with a decent level of competency.

A fun time was had by all, and we intend to get together again at some future time for more antics.

Photos: I went on a walk today! I have some pictures of Machida.

Machida is a vertical city. In the rare event when an establishment isn't multi-floored, the space is filled with five or six different businesses stacked on top of each other. Space is a commodity, and they make the best use of it they can.

I don't really have anything insightful to say here, I just like the name "Book Off" for a bookstore chain. Makes it sound like some kind of fierce competition.

How grand! Japan really loves its Pachinko.
I'll pass, personally.

At first galnce, this looked like an awesome little park, but upon entering it immediately became apparent that every single person in the park was smoking. I beat a hasty retreat.

Japanese advertisers really go overboard sometimes. This (fully 3D!) elaborate monster sculpture marks the entrance to an arcade. Not even a particularly awesome-looking arcade, aside from this sign.

Now this was interesting. These two guys were out on the street, performing something not entirely unlike traditional Native American music. To be fair, I don't have the slightest idea how close or far they were from the real deal, but it was at least interesting to see it in Japan.

Just as a random note to close on, this is the view down from right outside the Muramatsu residence. We're on the 14th floor! It's kind of scary!

町田が大好き

2008-04-15T21:40:00.002+09:00

Classes have started! So far, they are roughly equal quantities awesome and brutal. Instruction is about 99% in Japanese, so it's very easy to get lost if you don't keep on top of things with all your strength.

My primary Japanese class is taught by two teachers, who alternate days, so I've only met one of them so far. She seemed like a good teacher, as did the teacher for my Speaking class.

Also, I have now officially moved in with my homestay family. Their names are Shinji and Kazue Muramatsu, and they are very nice and are pampering the hell out of me, as expected. Shinji-san speaks pretty good English, which it is hard to keep him from using, because if I try to stick to Japanese then he explains everything ten times. I'm sure we'll work something out eventually.

Anyways, pictures! The Muramatsu apartment is on the 14th floor of the Sophia apartment building, smack in the middle of downtown Machida. The view off the balcony is phenomenal, but nearly impossible to capture with my crappy camera.

I love being able to look straight down from the balcony and see all the people walking by underneath. It's very cool.

And here they are! This is after dinner (no Japanese cuisine tonight; we had Paella), while the three of us are enjoying some Japanese tea.

I am definitely looking forward to the next few months!

日本のアパートへようこそ

2008-04-11T15:18:00.011+09:00

Status report:
Still alive!
I've signed up for classes now. I'm in Japanese IIIa. The highest is VI, which is all chinese students. Not bad, if I do say so myself. Also taking some cultural stuff and one class that will be getting me out of the classroom and into the community, which should be exciting.

Got a tour of Machida city and campus. I did purikura, which I would describe as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. That is to say, it's something that I'm only ever going to do once in my lifetime. And never again.

Next order of business: Observations.

1. I am an illiterate bumpkin.
Not that this is bad, really! It is exactly as expected. But still, it's a little humbling. Not knowing what's going on for four hours straight can be exhausting.
At least I knokw a little Japanese, so I can kind of fumble my way through more basic interactions. Just barely.

2. Japanese people hang out in cars for unknown reasons.
I seriously don't know what the deal is with this. I'll see a guy sitting in a parking lot, in his car, by himself, with the engine running. Just sitting there. Saw a guy watchign TV in his car once, and another guy sleeping in his. With the engine running!
Anyone know what the deal is here? It seems kinda wasteful.

3. Japanese restaurants have insanely fast service.
I've been to a number of restaurants here, including one italian food place. The food comes ridiculously fast! The kind of time that you spend chatting while waiting for food to come in a restaurant back home, is instead spent after you finish eating. It takes some getting used to.

And now: Photos!
Welcome to my tiny Japanese apartment.

This is the view as you come in. There's a tiny kitchen on the right and a tiny bathroomy area on the left, but that room back there is well over half of the total space.

The bed is not uncomfortable at all! Even with that tiny pillow. It's basically a western style bed, though.

The little box on the right is the washing machine, which I haven't had to muck with much yet (that's tonight). On the left is the mysterious, cryptic Japanese shower setup. There's no curtain! It talks to me! It talks to me!

Overall, the place really doesn't feel that small. It's about the same size as the dorm rooms back in Ridgeway, and I have it all to myself.

Next: I went to a local shrine today to do some photo-taking. This place is within walking distance of my house!

Here's the entrance. On your way out, there's a pair of messages written on the two poles, but I can't read them.

After entering, this is immediately to your right.

Here it is closer up!

This thing is to the right of that red building. I don't know what it is, aside from the fact that it's a list of names. Monks, maybe? I don't know!

All right, going in!

This fellow is inside the red building, on the right as you go through it. There's a similar dude on the left. He has a bow.

Near as I can figure out, the kanji on the pedestal means observance.

I think this is where you're supposed to drop money into it and make a prayer for good luck.

Someone gave one of them a mitten!

I dunno what this is. Some kind of things with writing on them have been hung up here. Prayers?
Well, there's a whole lot of these pictures, so I'm just gonna dump the rest of them here in pseudo-random order:

See you next time!

今写真があります！

2008-04-06T21:20:00.002+09:00

Life is progressing smoothly. I just figured out how to get picutres off of my SD Card, so there will be a bunch of pictures after my general text block.

I went to a 花見 (cherry blossom viewing) today, which was not remotely as boring as it sounds. There were about twenty of us there, some exchange students and some Japan natives. The primary event was talking and snacking underneath the admittedly gorgeous cherry trees. Conversation was about equal parts Japanese and English, and I made a variety of new friends. Once everyone had had at least one drink, someone busted out Twister, and much more zany fun was had. A good day overall.

Tomorrow morning is my interview to finish determining which level of Japanese they're going to place me in.

Anyways, pictures!

Tokyo Tower!

Awesome and extremely commonplace gardens in front of every house!

According to the school cafeteria, Noodles are not Food!

This is the second most righteous restaurant I've managed to find yet. It is a place to get 焼肉丼, which is basically a bigass bowl of beef and rice and is amazingly delicious and surprisingly affordable.

The first most righteous restaurant I do not have a picture of, but it's a similar place, only more expensive, bigger servings, and it's run out of the house of an old lady who makes you clean up your table after you eat and gets mad at you if you don't finish your food.

Sakura! They are pretty!

Emphasizing the previous point!

This is me (left) and my two awesome new friends, Kanako (middle) and Haruka (right). After the event, the three of us went out for italian food and discussed the various incomprehensibly horrifying things that Americans do, like refusing to put mayonnaise on pizza.

Twister is a great game for loosening up Japanese inhibitions. We were getting pretty intense about it, elimitating rows when the game went on too long without anyone falling over.

I'm playing this time! Pictured on the far left is Aki, the most badass Japanese girl ever.

I'll be taking more pictures now that I know how my camera works right. I'll have to drop by the buddhist temple I found within walking distance of my apartment and take a bunch of pictures of it.

日本がよく分かりません。

2008-04-03T23:29:00.003+09:00

Finally have a functioning, sane internet connection. I might've posted sooner, but the Garden Hotel charges for internet by the minute.

I'm actually at the University now! The exchange program felt like it began in earnest once I got on the bus to the hotel, because I started running into the other students there. After sharing a hotel room for the night with our only German student, we had a quick breakfast and hit the road.

This last day has felt about as long as the first day did, and I didn't even cross any time zones today. It was just so dense. I met dozens of people, was introduced to the University for the first time, found my temporary apartment, went shopping twice with slightly different groups of people, and got my internet set up.

Observations of note:

The atmosphere is a lot less formal than I was expecting, particularly with the volunteer students. I don't mind, though, informal Japanese is easier on my brain.
Machida's shopping center is awesome. I intend to go back again soon, armed with a camera. Japanese stores tend to be smaller horizontally than American ones, but larger vertically. I got my LAN cable at a store called Don Quixote (technically Donki Houte, with Donki being the name of some sort of penguin or something) that spanned six floors, each about the size of a large Starbucks, and each focusing on a different theme. It was a hell of a store.
I have essentially no cooking implements. The apartment came equipped with a fridge, a microwave, and a gas stove, but no plates, silverware, pots, pans, or anything else of the sort. I've picked up some chopsticks and a bowl for the moment; stocking up considerably on kitchen supplies seems ill-advised when you consider that I'm leaving the apartments in a week or two.
Japanese public transit can be intimidating during the denser hours. I've seen a Japanese person look at a train that is packed to the brim with people to the point that there is no room on the train for anyone else, then get on anyway. I'm sure I haven't seen the half of it, either. When you're in a throng in motion, stopping is intensely dangerous.
Having a train card is the most convenient thing ever. My friend who I stayed with the first night gave me his spare backup card, so instead of having to ponder over which line I'm taking and how far I can buy one ticket for, I just need to swipe my wallet over a scanner at each stop and occasionally recharge the card. It's awesome.

I'm sure I have but, but I'm insanely tired right now, so I'm going to go to bed. Next post will have photos, I promise.

キターーーーーー

2008-04-01T23:27:00.001+09:00

So I guess I'm alive. Also, in Japan. An admirable combination.

It took a while to click in my head that I was actually here. I think it happened while I was in the bathroom at Narita airport. Can't really explain why.

Anyways, here's a non-comprehensive list of things I saw today:
-Enter the Dragon, Enchanted, and Robots, all dubbed into Japanese. That made the 10.5-hour flight a bit more manageable.
-High school girls in uniform reading manga on the train.
-Full grown men in business suits reading manga on the train.
-A shirt that said:
NYC
International Something
The Positive Medical Zone
-Three young guys, wearing business suits and ties, holding identical Winnie the Pooh handbags.

In short, Japan is more or less exactly what I expected it to be.

The Crisis-o-Meter has been reading moderately low so far. I'm currently writing this in a Starbucks in Hanno while I wait for my friend to get off work. I only nearly got lost twice on the way here, once in a train station that I didn't understand the machinations of and once on the dense, confusing streets of Hanno. I only got here an hour later than I was expecting!

A noticeable, though hardly surprising, phenomenon I've noticed is that the amount of English I see is directly proportional to proximity to the airport. Now that I'm way the hell out 3 train routes away from it, I'm pushing my Japanese and not-panicking skills to their limits. I've been culture shocking a bit, I think.

No pictures today. I've been awake and traveling for nearly 24 hours straight, and I don't have the energy to take photos and then figure out how to use my SD Card Reader. So, expect some of that hopefully next time I post, which should be about 2 days from now.

明日は、出発。

2008-03-31T05:47:00.003+09:00

This time tomorrow, I will be on a plane heading to my destination faraway lands. I've got my camera, so I'll be able to make this blog colorful and exciting when I'm there. So that's good.

I gather there may be some difficulty people are having with commenting on my blog. What you need to do this, is a google account. You can get one by going here. You don't need to use gmail or anything, you can keep using your old email account, but you need to have a google account. Then, you sign into it, and you should be able to leave comments, no problem.

Anyways, I may not see this for a while, because I have a bit of an adventure in store already. See, my plane arrives on April 1, but Oberlin can't accomodate anyone until April 2. So, I've arranged to stay with a friend of mine who's living near Tokyo for the first night. What this means for me, is that I get to wrestle with the Japanese train system immediately after getting out of customs, while still jetlagged.

I'll make another post as soon as I'm back and situated in Japan. Until then, さようなら (goodbye).

ホームステイの家族がいますよ！

2008-03-15T14:42:00.002+09:00

Oberlin finally got around to doing the various things I need them to do before I arrive. I now have a shiny new Certificate of Eligibility which will allow me to get my VISA, and I know the name, address, and email for my homestay family. No kids, no pets, no smoking. I've sent an olive-branch-extending email to them in something resembling grammatical Japanese. Hopefully my intent will get across.

I asked my friend who lives in Hokkaido to interpret the address I'll be living at. Apparently I'm pretty far out there, 45 minutes by train from downtown Tokyo. What I'm near, though, is the Oberlin campus. Also, Costco (yeah, they have it in Japan. Who knew?).

17 days until departure.

私は、日本へまだ行きませんでした。

2008-03-03T14:39:00.002+09:00

So this is my blog for my study abroad trip. I'll start posting interesting stuff at it when I actually leave.

The general info:

I leave on March 31st, and come back in early August.
I will be attending Oberlin University. It's just outside Tokyo.
I will be primarily studying Japanese during my stay, but I might be taking other classes. I don't know yet.
I have requested to do a homestay with a family in Japan. I haven't heard back from them about this.

I think that's it for now. If I missed anything, I'll add it later.

Now, here's the important part:
If you want to recieve postcards from me while I am in Japan, please comment on this post with your name and address. I need the whole list in one place so that I don't forget anyone.

As a side note, I apologize if I use Japanese and don't explain it at any point in the blog. I'll always be doing it for the post titles; interpreting them is largely unnecessary, but has been left as an exercise for the reader.

お休みなさい。(Good night.)