鎌倉ですよ

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

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

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

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!