This morning I felt like the living dead; getting up was so difficult. I barely had much time to study for the vocab quiz I didn't plan for... It went okay though, after the trial that Reading / Writing was. A bunch of us were asked for the last time if level 4 is okay though, so it was good to see that others were where I am, and I think the others agreed to stay... I hope. Still I have a ridiculous amount of words and kanji to know by next week, plus there's a speaking test on Tuesday... I don't have the new grammar down too well from the last two chapters. I need to get that done on Sunday, since Saturday is for traveling, experiencing culture, and not school-work.
Lunch was good since Yukina invited me again! She had a friend too, a guy who goes to Kyoto University and is studying to teach middle schoolers electrical engineering. I think he said he wanted to do this because of an awesome teacher he had in school at some point... A lot was lost in trying to communicate. I tried to explain that not everyone in America has a gun, just the rural folk. That and explaining that I'm not rich because my Dad has a lot of old Mercedes, or bentsu. Also I explained how we have bears near us, and the time I hit a deer and the hunters behind me took the body and most likely ate it. This surprised them, and Yukina especially since she lives in Nara, where deer are kept in gardens / shrines and are fed and petted... Very small deer though. Haha.
It was a lot of fun communicating, but you have to keep yourself in high-spirits, since it can be frustrating not knowing how to get a point across, or a nuance, or just not knowing the words, or in actual practice your studied grammar patterns flutter away out of reach. You have to be mindful of it though. Trying to explain my opinions of American politics didn't quite work, neither did trying to explain why Americans keep the toilet and bath/shower in the same room, which seems odd keeping a dirty thing and a clean thing in the same room; how do I say Americans are afraid of nudity and would rather do all of the "naked things' in one room? "Moral cleanlines" is more important than actual cleanliness, and I am highly exxagerating the former...
Dinner was had at a restauraunt that I need to learn the name of... 600 yen for three huge peices of fried chiken with gravy, a slice of ham, two eggs, all of this on noodles and sprouts, and you get a mountain of rice, some miso, and pickled radishes. Man. Joe, Jesse, and Sean, a guy from the dorm who is also in my Negotiation class came with. The place is run by a nice couple, and maybe a son or daughter of theirs helps or some hired help... The husband came out and gave everyone in the place some odd candy to be nice, which was really cool. All of the locally run joints are really the best, the people there are so nice, generous, and try to be more intimate, which makes it more enjoyable for everyone and more profitable in the long run for them. Anyway, the treat was something like sweet bean-curd in cookie-dust that you pour a little bottle of syrup over. That's not at all what it actually was, but it's the best I can do to describe it.
The title of this entry is something along the lines of "I wonder what way to study is good...". At least I hope so. I say this because I'm having so much trouble lately motivating myself to memorize a new batch of words after barely commiting the old ones, and the new mess of kanji just looks painful.
However, I just dived into reading more of the detective manga, 名探偵コナン and I'm having so much fun reading it. Every sentence understood is a little victory and it fills me with excitement and joy understanding it, even more so when I come upon a new word, look it up, and see it later and understand it immediately... I read at a very slow rate though, although using this computer as a dictionary makes it quicker; a paper dictionary would take longer... But due to my reading speed, I spend more time thinking about what is being said, paying more attention to the character's emotions and thoughts, and the artistic style being used too. All of this makes me appreciate the manga more I think, and I doubt I would feel the same way if I was flying through this in English. I've tried it before and I could never get into a manga and it would be over so soon.
Maybe this will change my outlook on manga for good. I'm surprised that I was excited at the thought of picking it up and reading it tonight, and spent a good two hours or so when I maybe should've been working on vocab. It'll take me hours to get through just one book, or volume I suppose. So the 250 yen spent on one of these goes a long way... I'm conflicted between reading them through because I'm so into the story and characters or if I should try and master the words in it to read more smoothly... We'll see how long I last before moving on, haha.
Tomorrow I'm going to plan a bit for Osaka, but I'm considering just winging it and I might just plan only how to get there by train and do whatever once I'm there. I can ask people what direction to walk in, and maybe a bus with have some familiar kanji, we'll see. It'll be an adventure no matter what.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Osake Dojo
I thought I would update due to a unique experience.
For the past two weeks I've been hearing a few guys around the Seminar House talk constantly about this place called "Jackie John's". Always they would come back stuffed and raving about this little restaurant, saying how cheap and amazing it is, and also that it's quite small and a little dirty. They said it was just on the way to Makino Station. I've tried looking for it twice but I could never find it.
Well today before Negotiation I ran into Jesse and a bunch of other Seminar House I folks and he said he was planning on going there tonight, so I asked if I could join him and he said "Sure." So I met up with him at about 6:30 in the dorm and there was a whole mess of people going, about eight or ten from our dorm. One girl was upset over this and just ran into the kitchen all flustered... Apparently we might not all fit. Oh well. Half of us took bikes and the other half walked, in order to not overwhelm this place, which I then learned is run by only one guy.
I remember my first time walking back from Makino Station. There was this ridiculously tiny shop that was open serving some food and beer. It's a long counter with just sitting room on the other end of it. If you lean back you would hit the wall. It looked just a little dirty though... I entertained the thought of trying it but I thought the locals might be annoyed with a foreigner eating in such a place that clearly had... well, local color written all over it.
Never did I think this was the same place. Once I got inside it wasn't just a little dirty, but dirty as hell. Left to the stove the wall and windows were caked in black grease. Various cooking instruments piled the counter, wires hung all over the back wall, the ceiling, the walls, all was pretty grimy. A Buzz-Lightyear clock adorned one of the support beams and ticked away under the caked flourescent lights.
The real name of it is O-sake Dojo, not "Jackie John's", which some other guy must have come up with; why I don't know. The old guy was refered to as "Taisho-san" but I think that's a general term for at least sushi chefs, but I guess maybe it works for single male chefs as well. Anyway it was packed (and not just seemingly so due to the size,) so he could only do a few dishes at a time. The only two meals that I know he makes was yakisoba (grilled noodles) which he makes his own sauce for which is apparently the best ever, and "Take Five" which is something he must have made up, which was rice, onion, some meat, noodles, and spices all fried up. Ordering here was confusing, and I think he either assumed three of us wanted take-five or just had it waiting... The three of us who were planning on it just grabbed it and ate. It was delicious. For such a dirty place the food was great, and a huge plate of this was only 500 yen. It could serve two! I think I'm bringing tupperware next time.
Here's a picture I took with my phone.
For the past two weeks I've been hearing a few guys around the Seminar House talk constantly about this place called "Jackie John's". Always they would come back stuffed and raving about this little restaurant, saying how cheap and amazing it is, and also that it's quite small and a little dirty. They said it was just on the way to Makino Station. I've tried looking for it twice but I could never find it.
Well today before Negotiation I ran into Jesse and a bunch of other Seminar House I folks and he said he was planning on going there tonight, so I asked if I could join him and he said "Sure." So I met up with him at about 6:30 in the dorm and there was a whole mess of people going, about eight or ten from our dorm. One girl was upset over this and just ran into the kitchen all flustered... Apparently we might not all fit. Oh well. Half of us took bikes and the other half walked, in order to not overwhelm this place, which I then learned is run by only one guy.
I remember my first time walking back from Makino Station. There was this ridiculously tiny shop that was open serving some food and beer. It's a long counter with just sitting room on the other end of it. If you lean back you would hit the wall. It looked just a little dirty though... I entertained the thought of trying it but I thought the locals might be annoyed with a foreigner eating in such a place that clearly had... well, local color written all over it.
Never did I think this was the same place. Once I got inside it wasn't just a little dirty, but dirty as hell. Left to the stove the wall and windows were caked in black grease. Various cooking instruments piled the counter, wires hung all over the back wall, the ceiling, the walls, all was pretty grimy. A Buzz-Lightyear clock adorned one of the support beams and ticked away under the caked flourescent lights.
The real name of it is O-sake Dojo, not "Jackie John's", which some other guy must have come up with; why I don't know. The old guy was refered to as "Taisho-san" but I think that's a general term for at least sushi chefs, but I guess maybe it works for single male chefs as well. Anyway it was packed (and not just seemingly so due to the size,) so he could only do a few dishes at a time. The only two meals that I know he makes was yakisoba (grilled noodles) which he makes his own sauce for which is apparently the best ever, and "Take Five" which is something he must have made up, which was rice, onion, some meat, noodles, and spices all fried up. Ordering here was confusing, and I think he either assumed three of us wanted take-five or just had it waiting... The three of us who were planning on it just grabbed it and ate. It was delicious. For such a dirty place the food was great, and a huge plate of this was only 500 yen. It could serve two! I think I'm bringing tupperware next time.
Here's a picture I took with my phone.
My photo doesn't do much justice but maybe just to illustrate the counter and the wall across from it. Nor does it show the grime and dirt in this place. Justin, another guy who is crazy about this place brought two girls one time and they both just walked away disgusted. I really enjoyed watching this other girl look at the place for the first time, quite a look of surprise, but at least she stayed.
Aside from O-Sake Dojo (which foreigners have been going to for years, a google search proves,) Negotiation was interesting today. We are doing The Commons dilema or something along those lines. This counts as a test grade. You have Cooperators and Competitors. The total number of Cooperators divided by the number of participants multiplied by 89 is your score as a Cooperator. Competitors get that number +25. What you end up with finally after 8 of these rounds, one per week, is a test grade, about 10% of the total grade. See the dilema?
Now, everyone could Cooperate, but then we all get 89's. If everyone did, people would be tempted to Compete and get an extra 25 points, so if only one person did they would get 85+25 = 100, an A+.
Immediately people were upset, and trying to get everyone to Cooperate, and no one was thinking this through, even though calculators were being used in a frenzy. Why are we doing this in a Negotiation class? Isn't this more suited for statistics or economics? One guy took charge and said we should all Cooperate, I'll collect your actions at the door to hand in to the professor. Of course not everyone was asked about their opinions, which makes this action somewhat hostile and inconsiderate. So a few Competed, and even funnier, did so after watching everyone else write "Cooperate". Oops. Guess he never thought that out.
My idea, which I'll bring up next week after class if I can, is that we all Cooperate. However, this is a Negotiation class. And it is a class. We should all collectively negotiatiate with the professor about how unfair it is to consider this a test, as it's all about screwing people over to get a grade. Personally I think this is totally fair, and a great idea due to how fun this is, but it's the best argument. There are more of us, despite him being old-hand at this. I personally think he would love us wanting to negotiate with him (which is the point of this which people don't understand.) That would put him in a good mood, and would help us seal the deal while giving in some minor concessions like writing an essay or something.
We'll see how that goes.
Aside from O-Sake Dojo (which foreigners have been going to for years, a google search proves,) Negotiation was interesting today. We are doing The Commons dilema or something along those lines. This counts as a test grade. You have Cooperators and Competitors. The total number of Cooperators divided by the number of participants multiplied by 89 is your score as a Cooperator. Competitors get that number +25. What you end up with finally after 8 of these rounds, one per week, is a test grade, about 10% of the total grade. See the dilema?
Now, everyone could Cooperate, but then we all get 89's. If everyone did, people would be tempted to Compete and get an extra 25 points, so if only one person did they would get 85+25 = 100, an A+.
Immediately people were upset, and trying to get everyone to Cooperate, and no one was thinking this through, even though calculators were being used in a frenzy. Why are we doing this in a Negotiation class? Isn't this more suited for statistics or economics? One guy took charge and said we should all Cooperate, I'll collect your actions at the door to hand in to the professor. Of course not everyone was asked about their opinions, which makes this action somewhat hostile and inconsiderate. So a few Competed, and even funnier, did so after watching everyone else write "Cooperate". Oops. Guess he never thought that out.
My idea, which I'll bring up next week after class if I can, is that we all Cooperate. However, this is a Negotiation class. And it is a class. We should all collectively negotiatiate with the professor about how unfair it is to consider this a test, as it's all about screwing people over to get a grade. Personally I think this is totally fair, and a great idea due to how fun this is, but it's the best argument. There are more of us, despite him being old-hand at this. I personally think he would love us wanting to negotiate with him (which is the point of this which people don't understand.) That would put him in a good mood, and would help us seal the deal while giving in some minor concessions like writing an essay or something.
We'll see how that goes.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Routine Update
Since I'm not posting, you must know it means nothing interesting has been happening, which is pretty much true.
Sunday was just a day for studying. I've been reading more of 名探偵コナン(Great Detective Conan) and I'm surprised that I'm really enjoying a manga. I've learned a few useful words, phrases, and sorts of things from it. I'm surprised at how much I can understand with my dictionaries, which means my biggest hurdle now is just vocabulary acquisition. Not bad, eh?
I think I cooked for the first time on Sunday too. I attempted to make haluska, but with some kind of lettuce rather than cabbage. Why? I don't know. I probably was just rushed in buying things that I didn't look hard enough, or I got flustered and didn't want to spend forever in the store. This happens a lot when I have to find groceries.
It turned out just fine though, and I was very much so pleased.
Monday was a four-class day... I have decided to stick with Writing / Reading level 4 since I've been studying the new kanji pretty well, and in class I could beat most people to the readings of them. Also several of my classmates are having the same troubles as me, so I don't feel as bad.
Speaking was funny, since we ended up watching a video of a detective-game-show to see if we could understand! Odd how I start reading a manga of the same theme... It did give me a slight upper hand even though I didn't solve the murder, haha.
I checked my mail, and the convenience store's Softbank booth was advertising that the White Plan, the expensive plan I have will not be available after Sept. something-or-other, and Pre-paid will be available after that date! My only thought was "くそッ!" which roughly translates to "shit." Of course they told me that pre-paid would never come back to get me on the damn White Plan. Oh well, $100 down the drain.
On the plus side, a travel agency gave out flyers and they have really cheap rates. I might see if I can get a more reasonable flight to Elmira in December, but prices will shoot back up by then I bet. I'm not looking forward to flying to China, since they aren't known for quality lately. What with all the airport disasters going on in Spain, Russia, etc, I've been worried about it a little bit. Probably just silly of me.
I got to have lunch with Yukina though, which was nice. It was really enjoyable to talk with her, bouncing between Japanese and English. It worked out pretty well. She's awfully busy with Kansai Gaidai classes coming up, and she's doing a business course at a schooling-company, plus her job cooking at a bar and the fact she lives in Nara, which is a a good hour or so away.
After talking with her, I had Intercultural Communication, where we brainstormed ways to communicate safely and effectively with a culture in a first-contact setting. I stressed using pictures through drawing them or a picture-dictionary, and not just babbling in English, but my words weren't heeded. 4 people were selected to leave the room and the rest of us had to be this culture... Our only rules where to ignore people taller than us and say "yes yes yes" if the person smiled at us, and "no no no" if they did anything else. Body language was open, but no one used it for some reason, probably since we didn't want to break the rules. The 4 people failed at communicating, but they guessed our values and reactions to things after awhile. It was interesting...
Japan-China was alright. Scott usually doesn't mention our readings and just goes off on political discussions which are quite interesting. We did watch a horrible 1960's reel that Encyclopedia Britanica made about China, and were appalled by the lies, misunderstandings, and ignorance of it all. It was just a load of crap about anti-communism... I'm not well versed in Chinese history at all but I at least do know that the communists suceeded because Mao was the only one who could give stability to China. What do you think people wanted? Ugh. I don't remember to many of the other stupid examples in it, but it was ridiculous.
Another note on China, I just bought the album Monkey: Journey to the West which is a modern opera based off the Chinese myth of the Monkey King. It's pretty good if you like electric / symphony music with Chinese lyrics. Good studying music.
Today was a National Holiday, the Autumnal Equinox, established in 1948 as a day to remember your ancestors, kind of in response to O-bon. we had no classes due to this, but I was hesitant to travel anywhere since I didn't know if things were open for regular business. Turns out they were, which I learned when it was too late to do anything interesting. I ended up just doing a short bike ride around town and buying some beans to try and make chilli.
Chili was a disaster. I read somewhere that boiling them for 5 minutes then soaking them for an hour would be like soaking them for the 6 hours that I needed... Wrong. I didn't have time to wait for this anyway, since I couldn't wait. I found my beef had a hole poked in it due to some careless fridge-mate, so I defrosted it and cooked. The meat, an onion, 5 small green pepers, the kidney beans, a can of tomato paste, some ketchup, pepper, paprika, chili-powder... Brought it to a boil then let it sit on low heat for 15 minutes. I put it over rice and found it to taste... bad. Plus my stomach did not feel well after eating this. So I mostly ate breadrolls with butter. Yum. I have two plastic containers filled with all this chili that I was anticipating to feed me for a few nights and now how do I dispose of it... I may just chuck them out in the containers to not be rude to everyone else. Only 100 yen each. I had to lay down for a bit to recover from the food, haha, but I was full...
Maybe I should stick to easier things, research more, or just try restaraunt hopping... That's been cheap and effective so far. Haluska's been the only economic thing I've made since there's more in the fridge now.
But that's about it. After hearing about Matt's day in Osaka I'm a little dissapointed in myself for not going yet... Bailing on going anywhere after not getting contact from Joe about traveling or not wasn't a good idea. Man.
This weekend I'll definitely go somewhere, 90% sure it'll be Osaka. I want to do the Castle and the Sky Tower, then some stores. Maybe try America-Town too, haha.
Take care.
Sunday was just a day for studying. I've been reading more of 名探偵コナン(Great Detective Conan) and I'm surprised that I'm really enjoying a manga. I've learned a few useful words, phrases, and sorts of things from it. I'm surprised at how much I can understand with my dictionaries, which means my biggest hurdle now is just vocabulary acquisition. Not bad, eh?
I think I cooked for the first time on Sunday too. I attempted to make haluska, but with some kind of lettuce rather than cabbage. Why? I don't know. I probably was just rushed in buying things that I didn't look hard enough, or I got flustered and didn't want to spend forever in the store. This happens a lot when I have to find groceries.
It turned out just fine though, and I was very much so pleased.
Monday was a four-class day... I have decided to stick with Writing / Reading level 4 since I've been studying the new kanji pretty well, and in class I could beat most people to the readings of them. Also several of my classmates are having the same troubles as me, so I don't feel as bad.
Speaking was funny, since we ended up watching a video of a detective-game-show to see if we could understand! Odd how I start reading a manga of the same theme... It did give me a slight upper hand even though I didn't solve the murder, haha.
I checked my mail, and the convenience store's Softbank booth was advertising that the White Plan, the expensive plan I have will not be available after Sept. something-or-other, and Pre-paid will be available after that date! My only thought was "くそッ!" which roughly translates to "shit." Of course they told me that pre-paid would never come back to get me on the damn White Plan. Oh well, $100 down the drain.
On the plus side, a travel agency gave out flyers and they have really cheap rates. I might see if I can get a more reasonable flight to Elmira in December, but prices will shoot back up by then I bet. I'm not looking forward to flying to China, since they aren't known for quality lately. What with all the airport disasters going on in Spain, Russia, etc, I've been worried about it a little bit. Probably just silly of me.
I got to have lunch with Yukina though, which was nice. It was really enjoyable to talk with her, bouncing between Japanese and English. It worked out pretty well. She's awfully busy with Kansai Gaidai classes coming up, and she's doing a business course at a schooling-company, plus her job cooking at a bar and the fact she lives in Nara, which is a a good hour or so away.
After talking with her, I had Intercultural Communication, where we brainstormed ways to communicate safely and effectively with a culture in a first-contact setting. I stressed using pictures through drawing them or a picture-dictionary, and not just babbling in English, but my words weren't heeded. 4 people were selected to leave the room and the rest of us had to be this culture... Our only rules where to ignore people taller than us and say "yes yes yes" if the person smiled at us, and "no no no" if they did anything else. Body language was open, but no one used it for some reason, probably since we didn't want to break the rules. The 4 people failed at communicating, but they guessed our values and reactions to things after awhile. It was interesting...
Japan-China was alright. Scott usually doesn't mention our readings and just goes off on political discussions which are quite interesting. We did watch a horrible 1960's reel that Encyclopedia Britanica made about China, and were appalled by the lies, misunderstandings, and ignorance of it all. It was just a load of crap about anti-communism... I'm not well versed in Chinese history at all but I at least do know that the communists suceeded because Mao was the only one who could give stability to China. What do you think people wanted? Ugh. I don't remember to many of the other stupid examples in it, but it was ridiculous.
Another note on China, I just bought the album Monkey: Journey to the West which is a modern opera based off the Chinese myth of the Monkey King. It's pretty good if you like electric / symphony music with Chinese lyrics. Good studying music.
Today was a National Holiday, the Autumnal Equinox, established in 1948 as a day to remember your ancestors, kind of in response to O-bon. we had no classes due to this, but I was hesitant to travel anywhere since I didn't know if things were open for regular business. Turns out they were, which I learned when it was too late to do anything interesting. I ended up just doing a short bike ride around town and buying some beans to try and make chilli.
Chili was a disaster. I read somewhere that boiling them for 5 minutes then soaking them for an hour would be like soaking them for the 6 hours that I needed... Wrong. I didn't have time to wait for this anyway, since I couldn't wait. I found my beef had a hole poked in it due to some careless fridge-mate, so I defrosted it and cooked. The meat, an onion, 5 small green pepers, the kidney beans, a can of tomato paste, some ketchup, pepper, paprika, chili-powder... Brought it to a boil then let it sit on low heat for 15 minutes. I put it over rice and found it to taste... bad. Plus my stomach did not feel well after eating this. So I mostly ate breadrolls with butter. Yum. I have two plastic containers filled with all this chili that I was anticipating to feed me for a few nights and now how do I dispose of it... I may just chuck them out in the containers to not be rude to everyone else. Only 100 yen each. I had to lay down for a bit to recover from the food, haha, but I was full...
Maybe I should stick to easier things, research more, or just try restaraunt hopping... That's been cheap and effective so far. Haluska's been the only economic thing I've made since there's more in the fridge now.
But that's about it. After hearing about Matt's day in Osaka I'm a little dissapointed in myself for not going yet... Bailing on going anywhere after not getting contact from Joe about traveling or not wasn't a good idea. Man.
This weekend I'll definitely go somewhere, 90% sure it'll be Osaka. I want to do the Castle and the Sky Tower, then some stores. Maybe try America-Town too, haha.
Take care.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Typhoon #13 and Other Dissapointments
It seems I've been putting this off once again. Sorry... I just haven't been in the mood to sit down and write with classes and all of that.
Thursday was one of my four-class days so that is all that day pretty much consisted of. Nothing to speak of that I can think of.
Friday we were supposed to get hit by Typhoon #13! I got warning emails on my cellphone about what happens if classes are canceled and all of us foreigners were just getting excited. We all want to experience typhoons and earthquakes at least once, but not on a scale where there are casualties and extensive property damage... Just enough to say we've experienced it.
I don't know if I can say that about a typhoon. It basically just rained a good bit through the morning and then died off in the afternoon, and the rest of the day was nice and sunny. Kind of a disappointment.
I think I also went out with Joe to Zenya, a place up the road for dinner. I had a small meal of yakitori (grilled chicken) and yakionigiri (grilled rice cakes) and tried warm sake for the first time. It was under 500 yen so I wonder if being kind of cheap (for sake?) was why I hated it so much. I've had tastier Nyquil. Again I can say I've experienced it...
For Saturday (today) was planning to go to Osaka to try out Den-den Town and maybe try to see Osaka-jo, the Castle. I was going to go alone but then I got a text from Joe asking if I would like him to come... I sent him a "yes", but the dorm has spotty cellphone coverage (but this is Japan!) so he never got the message so I waited around for too long. There wasn't enough time to go, so I hung around here for the afternoon and then eventually we became bored and biked to Makino, took the train to Kuzuha, and went to the mall and a few other stores outside of it.
Earlier I looked up some manga (comics) to buy that might be good practice for reading and building vocabulary (plus understanding informal Japanese.) This is hard, as most manga deal with schoolgirls / boys with magical powers, giant flying-robots, or romance (or a combination of all three!) I want something that is a tad more serious and that doesn't have obnoxious ammounts of sex and violence. I'm really looking for just stories of people or views of everyday life in Japan.
One called 東京うばすて山 (Abandon the Old in Tokyo) sounded good, quote the website: "...working class male protagonists in gritty urban settings dealing with poverty, alienation, sexual dysfunction and a general disconnection from society." Sounds interesting. Another one, モンスター (Monster,) is about a doctor who saves a young boy in his clinic before the mayor, and the ramifications of it which drag him into a dangerous situation. That one sounded realistic and interesting. 夕凪の街 桜の国 (Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms,) deals with a family coming to terms with Hiroshima in 1955. よつばと！(Yotsuba&!) is about a weird little girl that knows nothing about everyday life, as in what things are for and how things work, so I think I can relate perfectly as a foreigner here. And last, 名探偵コナン (Detective Conan) which is about a highschooler who runs into crime much like Angela Lansbury but is somehow turned into a little kid and has to deal with that along with his hunger for crime-solving. It sounds silly but a number of respectable people have told me it's quite good, haha.
So of course there are some good ones out there, you just have to know where to look.
Anyway, I bought some donuts from Mr. Donut and they should be quite good. I need to get a card from there so I can rack up points to get a Pon De Lion toy (their donut-faced lion mascot) or a nice mug. I also got a pastry with a hotdog inside of it because I must explore this infatuation with hotdogs here. Why?!
I'm getting good at riding my bike as well! I can manuver through those little death-poles quite well, and I haven't gone into a death-ditch either (almost!).
But that's about it. Tomorrow I'm just going to study, go for another bike ride, and maybe go to a bookstore I know to try and find some of those other manga, Detective Conan was the only one I bought so far. Going to go work on that now!
Thursday was one of my four-class days so that is all that day pretty much consisted of. Nothing to speak of that I can think of.
Friday we were supposed to get hit by Typhoon #13! I got warning emails on my cellphone about what happens if classes are canceled and all of us foreigners were just getting excited. We all want to experience typhoons and earthquakes at least once, but not on a scale where there are casualties and extensive property damage... Just enough to say we've experienced it.
I don't know if I can say that about a typhoon. It basically just rained a good bit through the morning and then died off in the afternoon, and the rest of the day was nice and sunny. Kind of a disappointment.
I think I also went out with Joe to Zenya, a place up the road for dinner. I had a small meal of yakitori (grilled chicken) and yakionigiri (grilled rice cakes) and tried warm sake for the first time. It was under 500 yen so I wonder if being kind of cheap (for sake?) was why I hated it so much. I've had tastier Nyquil. Again I can say I've experienced it...
For Saturday (today) was planning to go to Osaka to try out Den-den Town and maybe try to see Osaka-jo, the Castle. I was going to go alone but then I got a text from Joe asking if I would like him to come... I sent him a "yes", but the dorm has spotty cellphone coverage (but this is Japan!) so he never got the message so I waited around for too long. There wasn't enough time to go, so I hung around here for the afternoon and then eventually we became bored and biked to Makino, took the train to Kuzuha, and went to the mall and a few other stores outside of it.
Earlier I looked up some manga (comics) to buy that might be good practice for reading and building vocabulary (plus understanding informal Japanese.) This is hard, as most manga deal with schoolgirls / boys with magical powers, giant flying-robots, or romance (or a combination of all three!) I want something that is a tad more serious and that doesn't have obnoxious ammounts of sex and violence. I'm really looking for just stories of people or views of everyday life in Japan.
One called 東京うばすて山 (Abandon the Old in Tokyo) sounded good, quote the website: "...working class male protagonists in gritty urban settings dealing with poverty, alienation, sexual dysfunction and a general disconnection from society." Sounds interesting. Another one, モンスター (Monster,) is about a doctor who saves a young boy in his clinic before the mayor, and the ramifications of it which drag him into a dangerous situation. That one sounded realistic and interesting. 夕凪の街 桜の国 (Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms,) deals with a family coming to terms with Hiroshima in 1955. よつばと！(Yotsuba&!) is about a weird little girl that knows nothing about everyday life, as in what things are for and how things work, so I think I can relate perfectly as a foreigner here. And last, 名探偵コナン (Detective Conan) which is about a highschooler who runs into crime much like Angela Lansbury but is somehow turned into a little kid and has to deal with that along with his hunger for crime-solving. It sounds silly but a number of respectable people have told me it's quite good, haha.
So of course there are some good ones out there, you just have to know where to look.
Anyway, I bought some donuts from Mr. Donut and they should be quite good. I need to get a card from there so I can rack up points to get a Pon De Lion toy (their donut-faced lion mascot) or a nice mug. I also got a pastry with a hotdog inside of it because I must explore this infatuation with hotdogs here. Why?!
I'm getting good at riding my bike as well! I can manuver through those little death-poles quite well, and I haven't gone into a death-ditch either (almost!).
But that's about it. Tomorrow I'm just going to study, go for another bike ride, and maybe go to a bookstore I know to try and find some of those other manga, Detective Conan was the only one I bought so far. Going to go work on that now!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
BICYCLE! BICYCLE!
Sorry I haven't posted yesterday.
Speaking went okay yesterday as it was the only class. We went over how to say things like "-ish." As in "childish, sexy-ish, gangster-ish, forgetful-ish" and so on. Then a little bit of a new form which is something like "with even [subject 1], [subject 2]." the context is confusing due to the tense of the verb in S1... But to detract from grammar specifics which I'm sure you love, everything else was good. I understood everything and it went great!
Yesterday was also busy due to little tasks piling up. One of them being finally getting a bike! I walked to the 7/11 outside the main campus gate (15-20 minutes from Seminar House I on foot,) and took some money out of the ATM there (which was right next to the pornography. I swear I averted my eyes.) The smallest bill you could get was 10,000 yen, or $100. I'll use the post office around the dorm from now on... Less porn there too.
At the bike shop I picked out a nice crimson bike, with good brakes, a bell, a light, and a black basket. 7,000 yen, so basically $70. It rides very well. So much better than the crappy bike I got in America at Walmart (well, duh) for $65. I like having a bike without gears to shift too. Right after I bought and registered the bike (with the country) two more foreigners came in and I had to help one of them by mediating between him and the shop-keep-lady (who was so nice) since he knew no Japanese at all. He was a rather large fellow too so it was hard finding a strong enough bike...
We then rode back to campus to register our bikes there for 100 yen. You had to go get a sticker out of a vending machine. This guy whom I was with was complaining about the bureaucracy of it all, since it's so difficult to walk to the next building over and buy a sticker. Then all you had to do was fill out another sheet to register your bike with the school, get it stamped, and you're good.
As far as riding went I was still a little shaky since I was never that great to begin with having just learned how to ride... last year? Not long ago at all. But here there are treacherous ditches about 4 inches wide and 6 deep. That and random metal poles on the sidewalk to prevent disenfranchised salary-men from driving on the sidewalk to take out pedestrians. It was an awkward ride back but I'm getting better now. Riding on the left isn't as weird as it sounds, but I'm always careful when turning or changing lanes; I just stop completely and wait... I don't want to take any chances, since even being on foot can be dangerous. I swear if I wasn't standing still on some occasions scooters and motorcycles would have clipped me by now. I'm just waiting for one to get my bag caught on it and that'll be a great time for everyone.
Laundry and other things took up time, and then I just studied vocabulary until 0:00. 48 new words...
The next morning (today) I studied in the lounge in the morning then had Writing / Reading. We had our review test, which is sort of like another placement test. I suppose there were things you could do to study for it, but you're supposed to already know the things in it, hence the "review". However, our school does not use Genki, so 90% of the student base knows slightly different things and can usually speak better / know more kanji. Needless to say the test went horribly. I don't beat around the bush with tests or worry about them like most people do in school (which annoys me.) If I say I did bad, I did; I didn't get a B+ or something like that, such as in the case with people obcessive about grades. Ugh.
Tirade aside I'll probably be bumped down to level 3 for writing but I'm okay with that, considering I didn't know the material on the test. I dislike this class very much so far.
I then went to Speaking an hour early and another guy from my class did too; we saw eachother and thought "Oh yeah, he's in my class... I guess we go in." We thought everyone was dropped or something when we got in with different people. We were then laughed at and left. I took this oppurtunity for a short nap in the lounge while meditating on new Japanese words.
Speaking was fun, we practiced new grammar and I understood everything! I then had from 12-14:30 off so I screwed around for a bit... And went to the Center for International Exchange to ask why everyone but me from Gettysburg already got their stipends (I ran into Caitlin at a restaraunt last night and ate with her an her friends and learned of this.) The office worker's English was better than my Japanese (but not enough,) so I didn't get a clear reason why, other than seeing a paper with all the 4 girl's names on it with signatures of confirmation, and no blank spot for me. Hopefully an email to Gettysburg will shed some light on this, since It hurts watching my own savings dwindle. I'd totally work a job here if I could, but I wouldn't be able to until next semester, when I won't be here. And I don't want to be deported now.
Intercultural Communication was good. We discussed what the class is, and all related to our own experiences here. It's unique in that we're all from different cultures experiencing one new culture, so the different opinions and norms are fascinating. I think the two Japanese students in the class must enjoy listening to us at times, but I wonder if they refrain from cringing other times...
Negotiation was good too, we looked at the mock negotiation we did over selling / buying pistons and learned some things. I did horribly by being nervous and rushing things, plus I couldn't work my cellphone calculator yet... Anyway I'll be thinking more next time. It should be and interesting class... We'll see if I utilize any of this later in life. It could be useful in business, but I honestly have no idea as to what I want to do or where I'll fit in after school... Speaking Japanese but not living in Japan... What else will I have going for me? What do I even like to do, that isn't irresponsible and earns money, but that I won't hate? Questions for another day.
The rest of the night was okay. I was going to go eat out with another guy I met, Jesse, but he doesn't have a phone so we never met, and I ended up going there alone, to find I should have just knocked on his door instead of waiting in the lobby... oops. When I got there, there were already other foreign students, 4 girls and two stupid guys. Having sat down I somehow found it subconsciously proper to immediately pour water on my pants, so I was off to a good start. The food was great though; you get a heaping pile of rice, miso soup, and two meats of your choice over noodles / sprouts. Only 550 yen! One of the dumb Americans left his watch behind and I chased him out of the store with it to give it to him... I really hope the lady waitressing didn't think I was dining and dashing (eat and escape in Japanese, although I forget how to say it.)
And now I'm here writing this up.
Other interesting things: I find that I am actually missing some things:
Speaking went okay yesterday as it was the only class. We went over how to say things like "-ish." As in "childish, sexy-ish, gangster-ish, forgetful-ish" and so on. Then a little bit of a new form which is something like "with even [subject 1], [subject 2]." the context is confusing due to the tense of the verb in S1... But to detract from grammar specifics which I'm sure you love, everything else was good. I understood everything and it went great!
Yesterday was also busy due to little tasks piling up. One of them being finally getting a bike! I walked to the 7/11 outside the main campus gate (15-20 minutes from Seminar House I on foot,) and took some money out of the ATM there (which was right next to the pornography. I swear I averted my eyes.) The smallest bill you could get was 10,000 yen, or $100. I'll use the post office around the dorm from now on... Less porn there too.
At the bike shop I picked out a nice crimson bike, with good brakes, a bell, a light, and a black basket. 7,000 yen, so basically $70. It rides very well. So much better than the crappy bike I got in America at Walmart (well, duh) for $65. I like having a bike without gears to shift too. Right after I bought and registered the bike (with the country) two more foreigners came in and I had to help one of them by mediating between him and the shop-keep-lady (who was so nice) since he knew no Japanese at all. He was a rather large fellow too so it was hard finding a strong enough bike...
We then rode back to campus to register our bikes there for 100 yen. You had to go get a sticker out of a vending machine. This guy whom I was with was complaining about the bureaucracy of it all, since it's so difficult to walk to the next building over and buy a sticker. Then all you had to do was fill out another sheet to register your bike with the school, get it stamped, and you're good.
As far as riding went I was still a little shaky since I was never that great to begin with having just learned how to ride... last year? Not long ago at all. But here there are treacherous ditches about 4 inches wide and 6 deep. That and random metal poles on the sidewalk to prevent disenfranchised salary-men from driving on the sidewalk to take out pedestrians. It was an awkward ride back but I'm getting better now. Riding on the left isn't as weird as it sounds, but I'm always careful when turning or changing lanes; I just stop completely and wait... I don't want to take any chances, since even being on foot can be dangerous. I swear if I wasn't standing still on some occasions scooters and motorcycles would have clipped me by now. I'm just waiting for one to get my bag caught on it and that'll be a great time for everyone.
Laundry and other things took up time, and then I just studied vocabulary until 0:00. 48 new words...
The next morning (today) I studied in the lounge in the morning then had Writing / Reading. We had our review test, which is sort of like another placement test. I suppose there were things you could do to study for it, but you're supposed to already know the things in it, hence the "review". However, our school does not use Genki, so 90% of the student base knows slightly different things and can usually speak better / know more kanji. Needless to say the test went horribly. I don't beat around the bush with tests or worry about them like most people do in school (which annoys me.) If I say I did bad, I did; I didn't get a B+ or something like that, such as in the case with people obcessive about grades. Ugh.
Tirade aside I'll probably be bumped down to level 3 for writing but I'm okay with that, considering I didn't know the material on the test. I dislike this class very much so far.
I then went to Speaking an hour early and another guy from my class did too; we saw eachother and thought "Oh yeah, he's in my class... I guess we go in." We thought everyone was dropped or something when we got in with different people. We were then laughed at and left. I took this oppurtunity for a short nap in the lounge while meditating on new Japanese words.
Speaking was fun, we practiced new grammar and I understood everything! I then had from 12-14:30 off so I screwed around for a bit... And went to the Center for International Exchange to ask why everyone but me from Gettysburg already got their stipends (I ran into Caitlin at a restaraunt last night and ate with her an her friends and learned of this.) The office worker's English was better than my Japanese (but not enough,) so I didn't get a clear reason why, other than seeing a paper with all the 4 girl's names on it with signatures of confirmation, and no blank spot for me. Hopefully an email to Gettysburg will shed some light on this, since It hurts watching my own savings dwindle. I'd totally work a job here if I could, but I wouldn't be able to until next semester, when I won't be here. And I don't want to be deported now.
Intercultural Communication was good. We discussed what the class is, and all related to our own experiences here. It's unique in that we're all from different cultures experiencing one new culture, so the different opinions and norms are fascinating. I think the two Japanese students in the class must enjoy listening to us at times, but I wonder if they refrain from cringing other times...
Negotiation was good too, we looked at the mock negotiation we did over selling / buying pistons and learned some things. I did horribly by being nervous and rushing things, plus I couldn't work my cellphone calculator yet... Anyway I'll be thinking more next time. It should be and interesting class... We'll see if I utilize any of this later in life. It could be useful in business, but I honestly have no idea as to what I want to do or where I'll fit in after school... Speaking Japanese but not living in Japan... What else will I have going for me? What do I even like to do, that isn't irresponsible and earns money, but that I won't hate? Questions for another day.
The rest of the night was okay. I was going to go eat out with another guy I met, Jesse, but he doesn't have a phone so we never met, and I ended up going there alone, to find I should have just knocked on his door instead of waiting in the lobby... oops. When I got there, there were already other foreign students, 4 girls and two stupid guys. Having sat down I somehow found it subconsciously proper to immediately pour water on my pants, so I was off to a good start. The food was great though; you get a heaping pile of rice, miso soup, and two meats of your choice over noodles / sprouts. Only 550 yen! One of the dumb Americans left his watch behind and I chased him out of the store with it to give it to him... I really hope the lady waitressing didn't think I was dining and dashing (eat and escape in Japanese, although I forget how to say it.)
And now I'm here writing this up.
Other interesting things: I find that I am actually missing some things:
- YouTube and other video capabilities
- Using Hulu.com for the Daily Show / Colbert Report (can't outside USA)
- Being able to torrent TV shows like Eureka, and soon Heroes...
- Being able to use Pandora online radio (copywright issues outside USA)
- Cheap coffee
- Cheap peanut butter
- People who scatter the damn bathroom slippers. Make it easy for the rest of us to get our feet into them! I find myself doing awkward yoga positions to get into slippers sometimes.
- Dumb foreigners (typically Americans) drinking beer in the park and looking creepy. People want to exercise or play there at night when it's cool. Go to a bar!
- Not having Japanese friends. My speaking partner is great practice for texting in Japanese. I really hope this obscene phone plan was worth the pain it
- The forklifts that play the "Mickey Mouse Club" song at random intervals.
- Cold coffee being cheap as water (but tasting more like chocolate milk.)
- Cheap, healthier food
- Being able to walk anywhere, bike anywhere, bus anywhere, take the train anywhere... Man does public transit make sense here. We're all slaves to our cars in America, and doesn't that make city/suburban planning just beautiful? Who doesn't love strip malls and identical chain-stores... Okay, enough ranting...
- People being polite and helpful.
- The people in my dorm. Mostly all nice! Only a few idiots, but they're dumb in the sense that they're wasting their time doing karaoke and the like all the time. No one mean. The two Koreans and the South African can cook like no one's business.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Studying...
Nothing exciting to report. I spent the majority of the day studying 6 new grammar... grammars? Can I say grammars? Anyway, learning 6 new things from a book in one day isn't easy, so I'm hoping we had to read about these for preparation so that we're familiar with it. The new things were:
～っぽい (-ish or like)
～ぐらいで (even with x, it's y!)
だけあって（さすがに）(because of x, no wonder it's y)
いくら／どんなに (No matter how x the y is, z)
ところを見ると (seeing x, it seems to be y)
だけで (Just given x, y)
And then on the last page of the reading it it made two of the above seem to be the exact same thing... All throughout studying this I came across so many words I didn't know, or some that I knew but not the kanji reading, or both... I've filled up a 150+ page flashcard booklet now with words I wonder if I'm already supposed to know for level 4... Man. I need to practice this grammar for it to work, but in class I'm always intimidated by, well, everyone else but one guy (who speaks in English whenever he can...)
Only Speaking tomorrow so we'll see how it goes. That and how the second placement test went. I'll be a little dissapointed if I have to drop to level 3 for easy material, even more so having to waste money on a Genki textbook. I feel I can handle the new material if we just formally start on something already.
～っぽい (-ish or like)
～ぐらいで (even with x, it's y!)
だけあって（さすがに）(because of x, no wonder it's y)
いくら／どんなに (No matter how x the y is, z)
ところを見ると (seeing x, it seems to be y)
だけで (Just given x, y)
And then on the last page of the reading it it made two of the above seem to be the exact same thing... All throughout studying this I came across so many words I didn't know, or some that I knew but not the kanji reading, or both... I've filled up a 150+ page flashcard booklet now with words I wonder if I'm already supposed to know for level 4... Man. I need to practice this grammar for it to work, but in class I'm always intimidated by, well, everyone else but one guy (who speaks in English whenever he can...)
Only Speaking tomorrow so we'll see how it goes. That and how the second placement test went. I'll be a little dissapointed if I have to drop to level 3 for easy material, even more so having to waste money on a Genki textbook. I feel I can handle the new material if we just formally start on something already.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The Philosopher's Walk and Temple Hopping
Well, my second foray into Kyoto went well enough, I think. I wanted to go alone this time so I could explore at my own pace and it would be okay if I get lost. Traveling in groups can be fun sometimes, but you miss out on a lot.
My destination was Ginkaku-ji (Temple of the Silver Pavilion,) since that's where the Philosopher's Walk starts, which is a pleasant walk along a crystal-clear stream that goes along a large number of temples. I left the dorm and walked for maybe 15 minutes to Makino Station and took the local train headed to Demachiguchiyanagi. I was pleased that I finally figured out how the train system works (the Keihan Line anyway,) and now I'm feeling confident. I made it to my stop without any trouble and as soon as I left the station I saw a bus headed for Ginkaku-ji! Quite lucky, that it was there and that I can read the kanji for Ginkaku-ji （銀閣寺）. I'm glad I happened upon the bus since it would have been a very long walk from the station to there.
I guessed where to go from the bus and found the long walk up to the temple. It was very much so the same set-up at Kiyomizu-dera in that it was a long path uphill with little giftshops and restraunts to eat at. I stopped in at one and had katsu raisu (a pork cutlet with curry rice) and then looked around at some of the shops. There were some funny parodies of Japanese products in a few, where they made fun of drinks like natchan, Qoo, and Boss Coffee. Qoo turned into Boo, a pork flavored beverage. I nearly bought a mug of it. They made the Boss Coffee logo, the "boss-like" person with his pipe into a yakuza. Oddly enough when watching TV on some day I saw a commercial for the new mountain blend that was being sold by Tommy Lee Jones? In the commercial he was in a Japanese mine with trapped miners, then an explosion saved them, they were all crying with delight, and drank a small can of coffee...
It cost 400 yen to get into Ginkaku-ji. Sadly though, the actual pavilion was under construction. Quite sad. However the moss gardens were beautiful, having over 30 different mosses. Koi ponds were also there, and there were many nice paths and you could see all of Kyoto from one hill. Near the entrance were some amazing sand sculptures by the monks.
The garden area where you first walk in.
Moss. 30 different kinds. Some signs said things like "Moss: The Interrupter."
"Very Important Moss: Like VIP"
Moss just coated the ground. It was amazing. So soft too.
Ginkaku-ji under construction...
I wandered back down from the temple and bought some gifts. Something for you, parents, when you get it, and a nice scroll of the main attractions of Kyoto for myself.
I then found the Philosopher's Walk and, well, walked. It's a great little path along a clear stream with streaming green plants beneath and the occasional fish or two. All along it were houses and little shops, and various temples were along it. Every once in awhile a sign would pop up with directions (it did help knowing Japanese for these.) It got this name from a Kyoto University Professor, Nishida Kitaro whom used the path for meditation. It starts at Ginkaku-ji and ends at Nyakuoji-jinja.
The Path. You walk along the left side, this was taken at the end of it.
From here on there aren't any more photos since I can't upload them for some reason; I'll include some in a link in a future update, sorry.
Anyway, after seeing all this I tried to figure out how to take the bus back to a station, but I couldn't figure it out. I walked for a bit, then took another bus and got off it too early. So I got a good amount of walking in. I just headed west, away from the eastern mountains since I knew I would hit the main strip with stations lined on it. Forunately I remembered the kanji name of the road the Demachiyanagi station was on so I found the same station! I took the express train back to Hirakata (express meaning it didn't stop at two or three of the local train's stops) and half-slept. I was exhausted.
Once in Hirakata I found Mos Burger (Mushroom Burger?) and had a pork-cutlet burger + a salad and an orange juice. I didn't understand much of anything the clerk said besides the price... Oh well. I learned the kanji for "change" while I ate though. I fiddled with my cell-phone to make it look like I'm a foreigner with lots of friends, haha. I do that a lot in restaraunts now. I then bought supplies at the grocery store such as pizza and croissants, and another sausage-bread-thingie. A picture of one in the future, I promise!
That's about it for Kyoto. Today I didn't do much but recooperate and write this up, with some kanji study. I went out to eat at a place I never tried, I think it was called Zanji? I'm not sure. It looked like a good place for friends to go out and eat, so I'll invite people some night to try it. I had pork kimchi and a beer. I don't know why I got the beer as it was 350, more than half of what I paid for the kimchi. It wasn't bad, but I don't think I can ever see myself drinking more than one glass of the stuff ever. Only with food...
Well, take care! Tomorrow not much will be going on. I'm going to plan a trip to Osaka, to Den-Den town which is the freaky-electronics district. Weird pictures and stories will come from there that you should look forward to, concerning the weirdness of modern Japan.
My destination was Ginkaku-ji (Temple of the Silver Pavilion,) since that's where the Philosopher's Walk starts, which is a pleasant walk along a crystal-clear stream that goes along a large number of temples. I left the dorm and walked for maybe 15 minutes to Makino Station and took the local train headed to Demachiguchiyanagi. I was pleased that I finally figured out how the train system works (the Keihan Line anyway,) and now I'm feeling confident. I made it to my stop without any trouble and as soon as I left the station I saw a bus headed for Ginkaku-ji! Quite lucky, that it was there and that I can read the kanji for Ginkaku-ji （銀閣寺）. I'm glad I happened upon the bus since it would have been a very long walk from the station to there.
I guessed where to go from the bus and found the long walk up to the temple. It was very much so the same set-up at Kiyomizu-dera in that it was a long path uphill with little giftshops and restraunts to eat at. I stopped in at one and had katsu raisu (a pork cutlet with curry rice) and then looked around at some of the shops. There were some funny parodies of Japanese products in a few, where they made fun of drinks like natchan, Qoo, and Boss Coffee. Qoo turned into Boo, a pork flavored beverage. I nearly bought a mug of it. They made the Boss Coffee logo, the "boss-like" person with his pipe into a yakuza. Oddly enough when watching TV on some day I saw a commercial for the new mountain blend that was being sold by Tommy Lee Jones? In the commercial he was in a Japanese mine with trapped miners, then an explosion saved them, they were all crying with delight, and drank a small can of coffee...
It cost 400 yen to get into Ginkaku-ji. Sadly though, the actual pavilion was under construction. Quite sad. However the moss gardens were beautiful, having over 30 different mosses. Koi ponds were also there, and there were many nice paths and you could see all of Kyoto from one hill. Near the entrance were some amazing sand sculptures by the monks.
The garden area where you first walk in.
Moss. 30 different kinds. Some signs said things like "Moss: The Interrupter."
"Very Important Moss: Like VIP"
Moss just coated the ground. It was amazing. So soft too.
Ginkaku-ji under construction...
I wandered back down from the temple and bought some gifts. Something for you, parents, when you get it, and a nice scroll of the main attractions of Kyoto for myself.
I then found the Philosopher's Walk and, well, walked. It's a great little path along a clear stream with streaming green plants beneath and the occasional fish or two. All along it were houses and little shops, and various temples were along it. Every once in awhile a sign would pop up with directions (it did help knowing Japanese for these.) It got this name from a Kyoto University Professor, Nishida Kitaro whom used the path for meditation. It starts at Ginkaku-ji and ends at Nyakuoji-jinja.
The Path. You walk along the left side, this was taken at the end of it.
I believe the next temple I came upon was Honenin, formally turned into a temple-area in 1680. Various Amida Buddha items are enshrined within, which were not to be seen today. To enter, there were large steps that led up to a long, serene forest path, where you then had to pass under a thatched gate covered in moss. Inside there was more moss, much like at Ginkaku-ji. Very beautiful, and yet again, serene. There were more sand-sculptures here as well, also in a rectangular shape.
The path to Honenin
Inside Honenin
More moss.
The path to Honenin
Inside Honenin
More moss.
I actually got a little lost looking for Honenin and came upon a cemetary that runs along side of it. I took a quick picture for those of you unfamiliar with Japanese cemeterties. Everyone in Japan is cremated, and typically families have their own grave, which costs quite a bit.
It was in a really secluded area with high trees. You could only hear the semi.
It was in a really secluded area with high trees. You could only hear the semi.
Anraku-ji was next but it was closed, unfortunately. I guess I came at a bad time.
A smaller shrine, O-toyo was open. It had a nice path leading up to it and was quite small, consisting of 4 buildings or so. On the way up I passed 8 Kyoto University students, 4 guys in baseball jerseys and 4 girls in kimono.
The path leading to O-toyo
The outside of O-toyo
A smaller shrine, O-toyo was open. It had a nice path leading up to it and was quite small, consisting of 4 buildings or so. On the way up I passed 8 Kyoto University students, 4 guys in baseball jerseys and 4 girls in kimono.
The path leading to O-toyo
The outside of O-toyo
After O-toyo I came upon another large temple that was also shut down and under construction, which I think was Nanzenji / Kouunji? Also there was a large grave/tomb outside of it which I cannot identify either, since there was no way to get to it and a google aerial view has done nothing either. While trying to enter the shrine I came upon a weak kitten, all bony and wary of humans. I wish I had some food for it. When I saw it I immediately though of how Buddhist priests usually drown puppies and kittens when they come into their care since no one else can care for them. I think this one won't have anything to do with priests or monks though, since it would be bad for tourism if anything were to happen to it. It will have to live on the streets.
Nanzenji (through the gate)
Anyone know whose this is?
Nanzenji (through the gate)
Anyone know whose this is?
Next I came upon the end of the walk, and I found a little shrine, Nyakuo-ji. It was over a nice little bridge but among a few other houses. It seemed to still be used for community services, there was a van outside and a father came to collect his son from inside. It was only a smaller shrine though. It had some benches with vending machines where I had a drink with someone else who had already drank quite a bit...
Nyakuo-ji
I guess he was tired from religious fervor that ensues from praying to Asahi-Buddha.
Nyakuo-ji
I guess he was tired from religious fervor that ensues from praying to Asahi-Buddha.
I then walked along some more and found Eikando which was more impressive than Ginkaku-ji, only because you could walk around its grounds while monks were meditating and chanting. It was very unique as it was my first time in an actual temple complex, so I could see what I've read about and I sat and wondered what it was like before tourism, when people worshiped here earnestly in isolation. Such a beautiful place, and ideal place for such esoteric thoughts to be born since you cannot even describe the physical beauty of this place; no wonder Buddhists tended to look down upon language for its inadequacies.
You had to take your shoes off to enter, and inside there was a open garden pool with koi, lily-pads, trees, and moss. Near that were rooms with hundreds of years old screen paintings. Further in was another sand sculpture, and in front of it the main meditation area where I was tempted to break the rules and secretly record three monks chanting to a hammer. All throughout the complex a bell would toll every so often making it even more... sacred, or eerie. A combination. Another building housed various Buddhist artifacts, and a shrine that was under construction. After seeing all of this I strolled through it's garden where there were many koi, ducks, and turtles. It was also very serene. Nothing like it in the US, Japan definitely works nature well into it's architecture, as opposed to our lovely strip-malls and lame parks.
You had to take your shoes off to enter, and inside there was a open garden pool with koi, lily-pads, trees, and moss. Near that were rooms with hundreds of years old screen paintings. Further in was another sand sculpture, and in front of it the main meditation area where I was tempted to break the rules and secretly record three monks chanting to a hammer. All throughout the complex a bell would toll every so often making it even more... sacred, or eerie. A combination. Another building housed various Buddhist artifacts, and a shrine that was under construction. After seeing all of this I strolled through it's garden where there were many koi, ducks, and turtles. It was also very serene. Nothing like it in the US, Japan definitely works nature well into it's architecture, as opposed to our lovely strip-malls and lame parks.
From here on there aren't any more photos since I can't upload them for some reason; I'll include some in a link in a future update, sorry.
Anyway, after seeing all this I tried to figure out how to take the bus back to a station, but I couldn't figure it out. I walked for a bit, then took another bus and got off it too early. So I got a good amount of walking in. I just headed west, away from the eastern mountains since I knew I would hit the main strip with stations lined on it. Forunately I remembered the kanji name of the road the Demachiyanagi station was on so I found the same station! I took the express train back to Hirakata (express meaning it didn't stop at two or three of the local train's stops) and half-slept. I was exhausted.
Once in Hirakata I found Mos Burger (Mushroom Burger?) and had a pork-cutlet burger + a salad and an orange juice. I didn't understand much of anything the clerk said besides the price... Oh well. I learned the kanji for "change" while I ate though. I fiddled with my cell-phone to make it look like I'm a foreigner with lots of friends, haha. I do that a lot in restaraunts now. I then bought supplies at the grocery store such as pizza and croissants, and another sausage-bread-thingie. A picture of one in the future, I promise!
That's about it for Kyoto. Today I didn't do much but recooperate and write this up, with some kanji study. I went out to eat at a place I never tried, I think it was called Zanji? I'm not sure. It looked like a good place for friends to go out and eat, so I'll invite people some night to try it. I had pork kimchi and a beer. I don't know why I got the beer as it was 350, more than half of what I paid for the kimchi. It wasn't bad, but I don't think I can ever see myself drinking more than one glass of the stuff ever. Only with food...
Well, take care! Tomorrow not much will be going on. I'm going to plan a trip to Osaka, to Den-Den town which is the freaky-electronics district. Weird pictures and stories will come from there that you should look forward to, concerning the weirdness of modern Japan.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Classes and the Like
This morning was our Japanese "most basic grammar test" which really wasn't at all basic. There was an odd part where we have to use the specific aizuchi or "filler speech" (Yeah, Uh-huh, um..., well,) before the response we had to write to an odd scenario / sentence. I didn't know some of the vocab that I would need to respond in some cases. Then we had two dialogues to listen to, and I think I understood most of the first one but nothing of the second one. I'm hoping my Professor will take me aside and help me figure out where I belong in these classes. I'm mystified though, since Ann is in level 3 and says it is way too easy, even though she is a year behind me? I wonder if there's middle-ground somewhere. I know I can handle the new material but how much don't I know?
In Negotiation, Prof. Tracy told us of good places to go for the three-day weekend, and then had people from different countries negotiate a scenario. I failed miserably and the Swedish guy I was working with gouged me, but due to my own faults. Relying on my cellphone calculator which I still can't use well, and just not thinking didn't help, and neither did his business background and strong business demeanor. In retrospect I think I know what Tracy means about how people need to illustrate what they need in a negotiation so that a good compromise, or a win-win can be made...
Anyway, Tracy recommended going to Uji which sounds like a good idea. I might try that Sunday. Tomorrow I'm going to Kyoto to do the Philosopher's Walk (which Pete Henty reccomended, ) and it looks like it will be quite interesting. After that I may try for a visit to Nijo Castle too, if I have time and if it is open. Most of the day will be spent navigating. I was invited to go out to Kyoto tomorrow with some Australians, but it's a group of 10... I wanted a solo trip anyway so I can see more at my own pace.
Dinner tonight was another gyoza failure... I need to fry them for longer, and put in less water. We're almost there! At least I can't screw up miso. I need to learn how to make healthy things out of easily recognizable ingredients. It's fun so far, this foraging thing.
Anyway, hopefully I have good pictures and maybe even video for you tomorrow.
In Negotiation, Prof. Tracy told us of good places to go for the three-day weekend, and then had people from different countries negotiate a scenario. I failed miserably and the Swedish guy I was working with gouged me, but due to my own faults. Relying on my cellphone calculator which I still can't use well, and just not thinking didn't help, and neither did his business background and strong business demeanor. In retrospect I think I know what Tracy means about how people need to illustrate what they need in a negotiation so that a good compromise, or a win-win can be made...
Anyway, Tracy recommended going to Uji which sounds like a good idea. I might try that Sunday. Tomorrow I'm going to Kyoto to do the Philosopher's Walk (which Pete Henty reccomended, ) and it looks like it will be quite interesting. After that I may try for a visit to Nijo Castle too, if I have time and if it is open. Most of the day will be spent navigating. I was invited to go out to Kyoto tomorrow with some Australians, but it's a group of 10... I wanted a solo trip anyway so I can see more at my own pace.
Dinner tonight was another gyoza failure... I need to fry them for longer, and put in less water. We're almost there! At least I can't screw up miso. I need to learn how to make healthy things out of easily recognizable ingredients. It's fun so far, this foraging thing.
Anyway, hopefully I have good pictures and maybe even video for you tomorrow.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
My Wallet Just Died a Little
So, today I had two morning classes which was Writing / Reading at 9:00 and Speaking at 10:00. Writing was difficult as Mori-sensei flew through all these difficult new words and the time spent reading the sentences they were in was wasted as before I could even figure out how to pronounce or even recognize the kanji, we were reading the sentence and on to the next one... A little frustrating. I have to learn about 23 kanji and 40~ something words by the next class... Not including the words I don't know and need to review since I'm behind everyone else.
Speaking went a little better even after I realized I didn't do the listening homework. I had no time for it the previous day due to 4 classes and the language lab opening late and closing early... It would have been a good assignment too. At any rate, I demolished the vocab quiz on these new words I learned; I got all but one written down and mispelled one. I got all the extra-credit. I hope I can keep up in both of these classes since everyone else is much better at speaking, vocab, and kanji. I wish I worked harder on the foundations that Yip-sensei and Yonezawa-sensei tried to get into us. I should already know formal speaking-styles (keigo) and intransitive and transitive forms...
Anyway, to detract from the thrilling world of grammar, I had nothing from 11:00-4:00. I went to go wait 20 minutes in line in the school convenience store to get a paper to take to City Hall to speed up the cellphone registration. So I took the bus there and back. I handed in the form, and found out they were out of the "pre-paid" plan, which was much cheaper than the other one... by a lot. About 9,200 for prepaid. 20,800 for the only other available plan, which is 6 months, free calls to other Softbank users (maybe from 1:00AM-9:00PM?) and free texting, and a 381 a month fee.
I went with this for numerous reasons:
Picture if you will the scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the astronauts came upon The Monolith. That's what meeting the new phone was like. It can browse the internet, use Yahoo! Chat, use several other chatting options, give me weather, I can read manga on it, I can pay for train-tickets with it, I can use bluetooth devices, I can calculate restaraunt bills, I can email anyone from anywhere and receive emails (bertmi01@softbank.ne.jp if you so desire,) I can keep track of several time zones, I can put in a MicroSD card with files and music and movies, I can play PlayStation quality video games on it, I can have a dictionary, I can use the 2.0 Megapixel camera, and I can do so many other superfluous things.
That's just from playing with it, I'm sure there's more in the manual. It came with about 6 different books (all in Japanese) so I'll never know all the features. You almost don't need a PC or a laptop if you own something like this, and this is the cheapest model. Ugh. I was probably gouged for being a foreigner, but what can you do? It's kind of motivation for learning the language. I definitely don't need a phone like this though.
The only other interesting bit of the day was walking over a mile for groceries. I bought $30 or so worth at Top World. I got the ingredients for a ham-toasted-cheese sandwich, some weird marble (maabaru) bread-spread that might be good, a liter of Blendy (ice coffee?), a carton of Cafe Au Latte which is basically iced mocha in a half-liter milk carton (cheap too!), some croissants, a pizza, four apples, and what I think are two bread pouches with peanut butter in them.
Generally I do not know what the hell most of the things in any given grocery store outside of what is a result of globalization and evolution. There are odd food combinations here, many of which you cannot get elsewhere. You cannot get a bread roll with a sausage on top covered in mayo in the US. They are good (if you're in the mood.) I don't know what this marble swirly-spread is either; I shall report on that later. You cannot get liters of ice coffee for less than $2 if at all in the US. Let me know if you can. Nor can you get mocha or lattes in milk cartons. Other oddities elude me now.
Anyway, that's about it. The rest of the night was kanji study, and tomorrow night I'm planning on what to do with my three-day weekend.
Speaking went a little better even after I realized I didn't do the listening homework. I had no time for it the previous day due to 4 classes and the language lab opening late and closing early... It would have been a good assignment too. At any rate, I demolished the vocab quiz on these new words I learned; I got all but one written down and mispelled one. I got all the extra-credit. I hope I can keep up in both of these classes since everyone else is much better at speaking, vocab, and kanji. I wish I worked harder on the foundations that Yip-sensei and Yonezawa-sensei tried to get into us. I should already know formal speaking-styles (keigo) and intransitive and transitive forms...
Anyway, to detract from the thrilling world of grammar, I had nothing from 11:00-4:00. I went to go wait 20 minutes in line in the school convenience store to get a paper to take to City Hall to speed up the cellphone registration. So I took the bus there and back. I handed in the form, and found out they were out of the "pre-paid" plan, which was much cheaper than the other one... by a lot. About 9,200 for prepaid. 20,800 for the only other available plan, which is 6 months, free calls to other Softbank users (maybe from 1:00AM-9:00PM?) and free texting, and a 381 a month fee.
I went with this for numerous reasons:
- It was the only thing left
- One of the two workers at the booth was British (could speak English)
- I would not have much luck communicating cell-phone topics with a Japanese
- I need a phone anyway should I want friends, especially those who are Japanese...
Picture if you will the scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the astronauts came upon The Monolith. That's what meeting the new phone was like. It can browse the internet, use Yahoo! Chat, use several other chatting options, give me weather, I can read manga on it, I can pay for train-tickets with it, I can use bluetooth devices, I can calculate restaraunt bills, I can email anyone from anywhere and receive emails (bertmi01@softbank.ne.jp if you so desire,) I can keep track of several time zones, I can put in a MicroSD card with files and music and movies, I can play PlayStation quality video games on it, I can have a dictionary, I can use the 2.0 Megapixel camera, and I can do so many other superfluous things.
That's just from playing with it, I'm sure there's more in the manual. It came with about 6 different books (all in Japanese) so I'll never know all the features. You almost don't need a PC or a laptop if you own something like this, and this is the cheapest model. Ugh. I was probably gouged for being a foreigner, but what can you do? It's kind of motivation for learning the language. I definitely don't need a phone like this though.
The only other interesting bit of the day was walking over a mile for groceries. I bought $30 or so worth at Top World. I got the ingredients for a ham-toasted-cheese sandwich, some weird marble (maabaru) bread-spread that might be good, a liter of Blendy (ice coffee?), a carton of Cafe Au Latte which is basically iced mocha in a half-liter milk carton (cheap too!), some croissants, a pizza, four apples, and what I think are two bread pouches with peanut butter in them.
Generally I do not know what the hell most of the things in any given grocery store outside of what is a result of globalization and evolution. There are odd food combinations here, many of which you cannot get elsewhere. You cannot get a bread roll with a sausage on top covered in mayo in the US. They are good (if you're in the mood.) I don't know what this marble swirly-spread is either; I shall report on that later. You cannot get liters of ice coffee for less than $2 if at all in the US. Let me know if you can. Nor can you get mocha or lattes in milk cartons. Other oddities elude me now.
Anyway, that's about it. The rest of the night was kanji study, and tomorrow night I'm planning on what to do with my three-day weekend.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Bleh.
Well, no free time for awhile. Writing and reading is Kanji study, and since everyone else used the Genki textbook I have a lot of reviewing to do. We'll see if i can keep up with level 4. This sensei, Mori, uses much harder Japanese than the speaking teacher, sadly. But oh well. I really don't understand what my homework is (other than learning all these new characters,) and for speaking I think I was supposed to do something in the lab. I will find out tonight and perhaps I will be visiting the lab at 8:00AM if it's open tomorrow. Ugh.
So yeah, not much free time. Negotiation was fun though, it should be a good class. The professor is very likeable. It'll be fun doing mock negotiations and all of that. Japan China tomorrow might not be fun, we'll see if the professor likes to talk or if he likes to check on our progress of the reading. I don't have time to read 147 pages of something over two days with 4 other classes, two of which being the reason why I'm here. Sorry. I may drop this class if things don't go well, but we'll see if I can get by. There's a while before the final drop period.
Tonight I went exploring with Joe and another guy from the dorm, Jessie, to find a new place to eat. The place next door is great, but three variations of noodles gets old. We found one that serves Japanese / Western hybrid food, such as fried chicken with an egg and ham, over noodles with bean sprouts, with a mountain of rice, some miso soup, and some pickled radish. That was only 600 yen (less than $6!) I don't have my counters down though, so I messed up ordering two of the meatloaf + omlette dishes for Joe and Jessie and we had to wait for another one to be made. I should study that.
Anyway, that's all the time I have. About four hours left to study, so I have to get cracking.
So yeah, not much free time. Negotiation was fun though, it should be a good class. The professor is very likeable. It'll be fun doing mock negotiations and all of that. Japan China tomorrow might not be fun, we'll see if the professor likes to talk or if he likes to check on our progress of the reading. I don't have time to read 147 pages of something over two days with 4 other classes, two of which being the reason why I'm here. Sorry. I may drop this class if things don't go well, but we'll see if I can get by. There's a while before the final drop period.
Tonight I went exploring with Joe and another guy from the dorm, Jessie, to find a new place to eat. The place next door is great, but three variations of noodles gets old. We found one that serves Japanese / Western hybrid food, such as fried chicken with an egg and ham, over noodles with bean sprouts, with a mountain of rice, some miso soup, and some pickled radish. That was only 600 yen (less than $6!) I don't have my counters down though, so I messed up ordering two of the meatloaf + omlette dishes for Joe and Jessie and we had to wait for another one to be made. I should study that.
Anyway, that's all the time I have. About four hours left to study, so I have to get cracking.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
First Language Class
The first language class was good. I'm in level 4 out of 7 ( 7 being practically fluent.) I understood 99.9% of everything that Shiomi-sensei said, which made me feel great even though she spoke a little slower and stuck to more basic words. The point of the class is building vocabulary and natural conversation. I think I'll do okay in it as long as I work really hard. She's very nice too.
After that I went to the bookstore and bought some textbooks, then found a bus stop and went to Hirakata Station to City Hall and got my foreigner registration stuff handed in. I forgot to get an extra form that cost 300 yen that would let me get my cellphone quicker... So I might be going back on Thursday or something. It's a must for Japanese friends, so...
I went to Kiddy Land and looked at the toys, gifts, and other things they had. I had my eye on a nice Totoro pen/pencil holder. Maybe some other time. I bought a few capsule toys, which are basically small keychains and other things in plastic balls that cost 100-200 yen. There are about 50 machines for these in this store, and they lined a few walls. I got a few Mario characters and a Doutor Coffee hotdog strap which is now on my Nintendo DS (It's meant to decorate a cellphone but I improvised.) I don't understand this thing with straps and keychains in Japan. I put a few of the Mario Kart ones on my rucksack, but being on a slim-cellphone would be kind of annoying. Esspecially with crap jingling about outside your pocket, unless you keep it in your purse / bag? Who knows.
The rest of the day was spent reading about China and Japan from about late 19th century to early 20th (up to the boxer rebellion.) I was struck by K'ang Youwei, who was a reformist whom issued a smattering of reforms when the impressionable nephew of the Dowager Empress was Emperor. He had a lot of interesting modern notions of humanism, freedom, and equality that was rare for the time, albeit it was soaked in a good bit of "new" Confucianism which he created by basically deifying Confucious. He led a very interesting life and was I think poisoned when he was in his 60's. How frustrated one such as him must have been in a time of turmoil between the country being split up and the problems of modernization while still mired in tradition and religion.
Anyway, that's the end of my musings. Four classes tomorrow. Should be a good time.
After that I went to the bookstore and bought some textbooks, then found a bus stop and went to Hirakata Station to City Hall and got my foreigner registration stuff handed in. I forgot to get an extra form that cost 300 yen that would let me get my cellphone quicker... So I might be going back on Thursday or something. It's a must for Japanese friends, so...
I went to Kiddy Land and looked at the toys, gifts, and other things they had. I had my eye on a nice Totoro pen/pencil holder. Maybe some other time. I bought a few capsule toys, which are basically small keychains and other things in plastic balls that cost 100-200 yen. There are about 50 machines for these in this store, and they lined a few walls. I got a few Mario characters and a Doutor Coffee hotdog strap which is now on my Nintendo DS (It's meant to decorate a cellphone but I improvised.) I don't understand this thing with straps and keychains in Japan. I put a few of the Mario Kart ones on my rucksack, but being on a slim-cellphone would be kind of annoying. Esspecially with crap jingling about outside your pocket, unless you keep it in your purse / bag? Who knows.
The rest of the day was spent reading about China and Japan from about late 19th century to early 20th (up to the boxer rebellion.) I was struck by K'ang Youwei, who was a reformist whom issued a smattering of reforms when the impressionable nephew of the Dowager Empress was Emperor. He had a lot of interesting modern notions of humanism, freedom, and equality that was rare for the time, albeit it was soaked in a good bit of "new" Confucianism which he created by basically deifying Confucious. He led a very interesting life and was I think poisoned when he was in his 60's. How frustrated one such as him must have been in a time of turmoil between the country being split up and the problems of modernization while still mired in tradition and religion.
Anyway, that's the end of my musings. Four classes tomorrow. Should be a good time.
Monday, September 8, 2008
First Day of Classes
This morning I woke up to find the laundry I had hung about the room was still wet. Last night I made the mistake of doing laundry. 200 yen to wash it all, and I spent 400 yen and close to 3 hours drying it in the dryer which did nothing. So it was hung about the room. Anyway, I took it up to the roof at about 9:00 and hung it all up and it was done in an hour. So from now on, laundry is a morning chore, not a nightly one anymore.
I only had two classes: Intercultural Communication and Japan / China Relations. Intercultural Communication is basically about fitting into a new culture and how cultures communicate, and it'll mostly be in the context of a group of foreigners from various other cultures coming together to adapt to Japanese life and what we can learn from that and where we can apply that knowledge in the future. The Professor is nice and there's a good bit of non-Americans so it should be fun. There's a French guy with Bertrand as his first name... Awkward.
Japan /China Relations is taught by an in-your-face Professor who claims (probably rightly so) that no one in Academia or Politics really knows the future of Asia and are just being ignorant when they do, but I wonder if he almost professes to know himself. At any rate he's a very interesting guy who has spent half his life in Asia and speaks Chinese as well as Japanese. He also seems quite biased towards his own ideals but he has an amazing wealth of knowledge of history, something which I do not know much of regrettably, albeit I'm trying to make it up now by reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. We will go on trips to Hiroshima to hear some of the last survivors whom are willing to speak (I will be recording it) and the Osaka Peace Museum, and at some point we will visit Meiji's Tomb, even though most Japanese have no clue where it is apparently.
That's about it though. Other interesting things include almost stepping on a weasel on my way to the grocery store tonight, and I had okonomiyaki for the first time at the place next door. I want to try to converse with the two ladies who own the place to practice Japanese and get to know them since I plan on eating there often. However, there was some Japanese local there who was all gruff and whom I didn't want to talk to since I could barely understand his accent and then 8 foreigners came in and started being noisy... Oh well. Next time.
Tomorrow is just one Language class then I plan on getting my Alien Registration done and I'll look into getting a cellphone.
I only had two classes: Intercultural Communication and Japan / China Relations. Intercultural Communication is basically about fitting into a new culture and how cultures communicate, and it'll mostly be in the context of a group of foreigners from various other cultures coming together to adapt to Japanese life and what we can learn from that and where we can apply that knowledge in the future. The Professor is nice and there's a good bit of non-Americans so it should be fun. There's a French guy with Bertrand as his first name... Awkward.
Japan /China Relations is taught by an in-your-face Professor who claims (probably rightly so) that no one in Academia or Politics really knows the future of Asia and are just being ignorant when they do, but I wonder if he almost professes to know himself. At any rate he's a very interesting guy who has spent half his life in Asia and speaks Chinese as well as Japanese. He also seems quite biased towards his own ideals but he has an amazing wealth of knowledge of history, something which I do not know much of regrettably, albeit I'm trying to make it up now by reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. We will go on trips to Hiroshima to hear some of the last survivors whom are willing to speak (I will be recording it) and the Osaka Peace Museum, and at some point we will visit Meiji's Tomb, even though most Japanese have no clue where it is apparently.
That's about it though. Other interesting things include almost stepping on a weasel on my way to the grocery store tonight, and I had okonomiyaki for the first time at the place next door. I want to try to converse with the two ladies who own the place to practice Japanese and get to know them since I plan on eating there often. However, there was some Japanese local there who was all gruff and whom I didn't want to talk to since I could barely understand his accent and then 8 foreigners came in and started being noisy... Oh well. Next time.
Tomorrow is just one Language class then I plan on getting my Alien Registration done and I'll look into getting a cellphone.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Speaking Partner!
Today the home-stayers finally moved out, so we are rid of our arrogant, early-to-bed third-wheel. It's nice to not have to jump over his suitcases to get to my desk. We had a meeting on house rules for the third time and then I went to CIE to meet with Yukina who contacted me via Facebook.
She's really nice, and energetic! She's from Nara and does Japanese Archery, and apparently at some point she participated in a National competition which is pretty impressive. She wanted to learn English so she can understand English song lyrics and I guess it took off from there. We mostly talked in Japanese so I missed a lot... She also knows Kansai-dialect so she'll teach me some! Hopefully we'll become friends, I'd really like to make some Japanese ones. This will be hard until I get my cell-phone, which takes forever for us foreigners. I might try to get that taken care of tomorrow morning, we'll see.
Other than that it was a boring day from 3:00 out. People were in the kitchen playing Mario Kart on their DS' and I wasn't too interested as I can do that in the USA... They're all really nice though. I tried cooking gyoza again and failed, but my miso was fine since you just add water... So now I'm just puttering around the dorm. Oh well.
Hopefully tomorrow will be interesting with Asian Studies classes starting. We'll see.
She's really nice, and energetic! She's from Nara and does Japanese Archery, and apparently at some point she participated in a National competition which is pretty impressive. She wanted to learn English so she can understand English song lyrics and I guess it took off from there. We mostly talked in Japanese so I missed a lot... She also knows Kansai-dialect so she'll teach me some! Hopefully we'll become friends, I'd really like to make some Japanese ones. This will be hard until I get my cell-phone, which takes forever for us foreigners. I might try to get that taken care of tomorrow morning, we'll see.
Other than that it was a boring day from 3:00 out. People were in the kitchen playing Mario Kart on their DS' and I wasn't too interested as I can do that in the USA... They're all really nice though. I tried cooking gyoza again and failed, but my miso was fine since you just add water... So now I'm just puttering around the dorm. Oh well.
Hopefully tomorrow will be interesting with Asian Studies classes starting. We'll see.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
An Easy day
Well, today wasn't too exciting. I found out that I'm placed in Level 4 for both Speaking and Reading /Writing. Hopefully I can keep up with speaking. I think I'm going to see how it goes having the 5th class too. I've done it in Gettysburg just fine, and the courses are remarkably easier here so I hear, so I think I'll do it for now. I have a while to drop a class yet.
I also heard from Yukina! I might get to meet her tomorrow, I'm excited. I hope I can become really good friends with her and or with some of her friends.
I took the bus to Hirakata Station to take care of my Gaijin card but someone forgot his two ID pictures, so that was fruitless. I bought some other things I needed plus a nice shirt for 500 yen. I still haven't found any good silly-english ones that I like. I will get some other clothes eventually because some of the stores have a really nice style that you can't find in the US. I still need to get an umbrella at some point. I want to find one that isn't plastic-see-through like at the school store. I bought some food too, a milk-tea drink that I enjoy and some mugi-cha which is buckwheat tea that is quite good, introduced to me by Hentys (Hi if you're reading this!) I got these nice rolls with a sausage in the middle with some kind of dressing on it. Good breakfast food.
The bus ride to the Station and back was kind of lonely though, with the whole "being a minority in a country where you can't understand much" thing. That and a few "ほら！外人だ！" (Hey! a foreigner) were getting to me. I wish I could understand what comes after just that though.
The odd thing is though, is that you can be put off by these feelings of cultural and lingual exclusion, yet when I decided to try the tiny restaraunt next door I was immediately pleased to be there. There was a small counter with maybe 8 seats and two 4-person tables behind that. The stove was on the counter too, so you couldn't outstretch your hands. I ordered some grilled noodles yakisoba and it was the first time I had the real deal. So good, and only for 580 yen. The atmosphere was nice. Two women cooking that were probably related and some local guy there for dinner. I think they were commenting on the cooking show on the TV or how I had difficulty breaking my egg with chopsticks, haha. The lady who ran it was so nice though. I conducted everything in Japanese until she wanted to try a little English she picked up. I told her I'd come back here often since I live next door and she seemed quite happy. I recieved a 50% off coupon for the next time too!
So I suppose what I mean to say is that even though you can feel left out and if not lost at times, there will always be experiences that will warm you up and will redeem any feelings of not belonging. Finding a nice little place like this is one of them.
I'm very happy to be here and consider myself lucky.
I also heard from Yukina! I might get to meet her tomorrow, I'm excited. I hope I can become really good friends with her and or with some of her friends.
I took the bus to Hirakata Station to take care of my Gaijin card but someone forgot his two ID pictures, so that was fruitless. I bought some other things I needed plus a nice shirt for 500 yen. I still haven't found any good silly-english ones that I like. I will get some other clothes eventually because some of the stores have a really nice style that you can't find in the US. I still need to get an umbrella at some point. I want to find one that isn't plastic-see-through like at the school store. I bought some food too, a milk-tea drink that I enjoy and some mugi-cha which is buckwheat tea that is quite good, introduced to me by Hentys (Hi if you're reading this!) I got these nice rolls with a sausage in the middle with some kind of dressing on it. Good breakfast food.
The bus ride to the Station and back was kind of lonely though, with the whole "being a minority in a country where you can't understand much" thing. That and a few "ほら！外人だ！" (Hey! a foreigner) were getting to me. I wish I could understand what comes after just that though.
The odd thing is though, is that you can be put off by these feelings of cultural and lingual exclusion, yet when I decided to try the tiny restaraunt next door I was immediately pleased to be there. There was a small counter with maybe 8 seats and two 4-person tables behind that. The stove was on the counter too, so you couldn't outstretch your hands. I ordered some grilled noodles yakisoba and it was the first time I had the real deal. So good, and only for 580 yen. The atmosphere was nice. Two women cooking that were probably related and some local guy there for dinner. I think they were commenting on the cooking show on the TV or how I had difficulty breaking my egg with chopsticks, haha. The lady who ran it was so nice though. I conducted everything in Japanese until she wanted to try a little English she picked up. I told her I'd come back here often since I live next door and she seemed quite happy. I recieved a 50% off coupon for the next time too!
So I suppose what I mean to say is that even though you can feel left out and if not lost at times, there will always be experiences that will warm you up and will redeem any feelings of not belonging. Finding a nice little place like this is one of them.
I'm very happy to be here and consider myself lucky.
Kyoto!
[Click here for video of Kyoto]
[Click here for more pictures]
Hi everyone! Today we had some more exciting meetings concerning safety and the like in the library again. I was finally scared out of getting a bike due to the numerous dangers about and the fact that I just learned how to ride one last year. Being a little wobbly and the like won't be too fun. Other topics included were Gaijin cards, earthquakes, and not drinking beer from the vending machines in the park and being noisy or looking like scary Gaijin all standing around and drinking... sadly that last one goes ignored. So many people here just don't know how to act. I'm definitely not saying I do, but I at least try to be more considerate and consious of my own actions.
At around 14:00 we lined up outside the CEI for the Kyoto tour, Gaijin on one side and Japanese on the other, and people met in the middle and took off. I ended up going with Joe, and this guy from Maryland named Justin who studied for about a year and a half and his speaking is better than mine, seemingly. I was impressed. We were paired up with two Japanese girls, Eriko and Sayuri. Eriko was only 18 and Sayuri 19, which was funny compared to our ages of 20, 21, and 24. We walked awhile to a station none of us have been to yet and took the train to some station in Kyoto, where we met one of their friends, Miho, who was also studying English, and French. She wants to move to Canada, haha. He english was great, and the other girls weren't bad at all for being second semester students. Justin and I mostly talked with them in Japanese, switching in and out so they can speak in English too, that's kind of how it works.
We took some bus to another part of the city, which I hope I can figure out again on my own, and walked for a bit. Our first stop was Kiyomizu-dera, one of the oldest Buddhist temples which belonged to the Tendai sect before the omiyage sect took over recently. Needless to say it was gorgeous. There were plenty of charms for sale, such as "lucky money" and "airplane safety" and "bike safety". There were intersting ones for lovers as well. Speaking of lovers there were two stones apart at one spot and if you walk from one to the other blind-folded, you'll be set for love, but if you mess up you are doomed! It could not be attempted due to the crowds though.
There were pools of water to drink form and to cleanse your hands with. The three main ones were for wisdom, health, and longevity. I think longevity cost 100 yen to drink from, so I stuck with wisdom and health.
We then walked back down the path lined with all kinds of interesting shops that I want to explore for gifts and the like when I return. Our next stop was Asakusa Shrine which was built in 1649 under Tokugawa. The story behind it goes something like: two fishermen caught a Buddhist statue and a rich man in town hears about it comes and lectures the fishermen on Kannon (the type of statue they found) and they impassionately convert and make a small temple to it and worshiped it daily.
We then found some park that we looked about, and then made our way to the main-drag, whatever the name of it was, and looked for somewhere to eat. We picked a noodle and ricebowl place with moderate prices. I got Kitsune Donburi which is Fox Ricebowl, and fox is some kind of style of noodle / ricebowl in what goes in it and so on. I think the main ingredient was fried tofu. It was only 800 yen and it was delicious. I think it's my favorite donburi now.
We then took the train back to Hirakata Station and Justin asked the girls where he could buy a pillow, detergent, and sheets, so they took him all around town until it was all found. They spent about 15 minutes in the bedding section in one department store, Justin felt so bad (and did Joe and I) that they had to stay out much later doing this for him. They were all really kind to us while they volunteered to show us around. They said they had fun though. I hope they did. They waited with us at the bus stop to Gaidai and I tried to tell them that they didn't have to wait for us and that they could go home since it's late, and it worked on the second attempt. They would have waited for us, but we felt bad keeping them up. I don't think we came across as rude, we thanked them quite a bit and told them how much fun we had.
Justin also got a number from Sayuri and flirted through texts, so we'll see where that goes, haha. He also is renting an old Japanese house, which is pretty cool, although old houses (especially here) can be rough. No internet either! But having your own floor brazer and Japanese style rooms must be pretty cool. And it's only 30,000 yen a month he said, surprisingly...
Anyway, I may have pictures up later. Check back for those. I hope the video works okay, but YouTube butchered the quality. I'll try to make more cohesive videos in the future, it might be a good idea.
[Click here for more pictures]
Hi everyone! Today we had some more exciting meetings concerning safety and the like in the library again. I was finally scared out of getting a bike due to the numerous dangers about and the fact that I just learned how to ride one last year. Being a little wobbly and the like won't be too fun. Other topics included were Gaijin cards, earthquakes, and not drinking beer from the vending machines in the park and being noisy or looking like scary Gaijin all standing around and drinking... sadly that last one goes ignored. So many people here just don't know how to act. I'm definitely not saying I do, but I at least try to be more considerate and consious of my own actions.
At around 14:00 we lined up outside the CEI for the Kyoto tour, Gaijin on one side and Japanese on the other, and people met in the middle and took off. I ended up going with Joe, and this guy from Maryland named Justin who studied for about a year and a half and his speaking is better than mine, seemingly. I was impressed. We were paired up with two Japanese girls, Eriko and Sayuri. Eriko was only 18 and Sayuri 19, which was funny compared to our ages of 20, 21, and 24. We walked awhile to a station none of us have been to yet and took the train to some station in Kyoto, where we met one of their friends, Miho, who was also studying English, and French. She wants to move to Canada, haha. He english was great, and the other girls weren't bad at all for being second semester students. Justin and I mostly talked with them in Japanese, switching in and out so they can speak in English too, that's kind of how it works.
We took some bus to another part of the city, which I hope I can figure out again on my own, and walked for a bit. Our first stop was Kiyomizu-dera, one of the oldest Buddhist temples which belonged to the Tendai sect before the omiyage sect took over recently. Needless to say it was gorgeous. There were plenty of charms for sale, such as "lucky money" and "airplane safety" and "bike safety". There were intersting ones for lovers as well. Speaking of lovers there were two stones apart at one spot and if you walk from one to the other blind-folded, you'll be set for love, but if you mess up you are doomed! It could not be attempted due to the crowds though.
There were pools of water to drink form and to cleanse your hands with. The three main ones were for wisdom, health, and longevity. I think longevity cost 100 yen to drink from, so I stuck with wisdom and health.
We then walked back down the path lined with all kinds of interesting shops that I want to explore for gifts and the like when I return. Our next stop was Asakusa Shrine which was built in 1649 under Tokugawa. The story behind it goes something like: two fishermen caught a Buddhist statue and a rich man in town hears about it comes and lectures the fishermen on Kannon (the type of statue they found) and they impassionately convert and make a small temple to it and worshiped it daily.
We then found some park that we looked about, and then made our way to the main-drag, whatever the name of it was, and looked for somewhere to eat. We picked a noodle and ricebowl place with moderate prices. I got Kitsune Donburi which is Fox Ricebowl, and fox is some kind of style of noodle / ricebowl in what goes in it and so on. I think the main ingredient was fried tofu. It was only 800 yen and it was delicious. I think it's my favorite donburi now.
We then took the train back to Hirakata Station and Justin asked the girls where he could buy a pillow, detergent, and sheets, so they took him all around town until it was all found. They spent about 15 minutes in the bedding section in one department store, Justin felt so bad (and did Joe and I) that they had to stay out much later doing this for him. They were all really kind to us while they volunteered to show us around. They said they had fun though. I hope they did. They waited with us at the bus stop to Gaidai and I tried to tell them that they didn't have to wait for us and that they could go home since it's late, and it worked on the second attempt. They would have waited for us, but we felt bad keeping them up. I don't think we came across as rude, we thanked them quite a bit and told them how much fun we had.
Justin also got a number from Sayuri and flirted through texts, so we'll see where that goes, haha. He also is renting an old Japanese house, which is pretty cool, although old houses (especially here) can be rough. No internet either! But having your own floor brazer and Japanese style rooms must be pretty cool. And it's only 30,000 yen a month he said, surprisingly...
Anyway, I may have pictures up later. Check back for those. I hope the video works okay, but YouTube butchered the quality. I'll try to make more cohesive videos in the future, it might be a good idea.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Welcome, Yet Distant
Today we registered for classes based on our lottery numbers. I drew 367 out of 400+ something, so I got to go at a later time, thus more sleep. When I got to the CIE building people were whining about their lottery numbers and worrying and just generally being annoying about it. When I got there, only a few classes were full. I got all of mine anyway: Negotiation, Intercultural Communication, Japan China Relations, Spoken Japanese, and Written / Reading Japanese. I don't know what levels of Japanese I'm in yet.
I had lunch in the McDonald's with Joe and two other guys from our dorm, Zack and Sam. It was the only option on campus for food. I tried the spicy chicken sandwich with fries and Qoo. The chicken had a slightly different consistency but everything else was the same. The way things were done was different though, maybe due to the limited space that it shares with Seattle's Best and the tables. You get a tray, go down the line, past where they give you the food, and there's a small menu where you can either point or just ask for what you want. The cashier takes your money and gives you your receipt and a number. Sometimes she would then go outside of the McDonalds, around you, and go behind you and hand the person at the food dispersal area your order, then walk back around. It seemed inconvenient and odd. I had to help Joe and someone else for when their numbers were called since neither knew Japanese.
On the way back to the dorm, Joe and I tried a new road that we thought might be a straight line to our dorm instead of the longer route we've taken, so we explored. We came upon beautiful Japanese houses and gorgeous rice fields which are in the link on my last post. It's a quicker route that put us literally at our dorm too. Back at the dorm I had free time until 3:00. Our Okaa-san told us that they changed Induction to 2:30 and that we needed to dress up and leave now. I figured out halfway there that it was most likely a ploy to get us there on time and it was a good thing she did that.
Induction was okay. The Prez gave a speech, then the US and Austrailian Consulate Generals, an American student, then a Japanese student, then my Japan China Relations Professor who is very intense and in your face. I think he'll be fun, interesting, challenging, and at times frustrating or annoying. I'm looking forward to his class.
The food afterwards was okay, but it was crowded in the cafeteria. I met the sole girl from Brazil when her high-heels got stuck in a rain-grate. She was nice and reprimanded me for staying in a dorm with the other Americans, and I'm kind of wondering if I should have homestayed, even though they asked everyone who was if they wanted to get out since it was getting hard to place people due to there being too many who wanted homestays... But anyway... I think her name was Laisha or something like that; I butchered it horribly but it sounded pretty. I was handed some tako-yaki, or grilled octopus in dough, which I find horrible but all of you would probably like it. I ate one and discreetly tossed the rest, feeling bad. However, the oolong-tea and the giant grapes which tasted like wine were excellent.
I say that she's the only Brazillian since 80% of the people here are American, which is unfortunate. It's so nice hanging out with people from different cultures, and it's so easy for Americans to group together, or have them go to you...
I walked back to the dorm alone without anything to really do. Joe was going to go hang out with his speaking partner and another guy and his and shoot off fireworks or something of the sort. It made me feel kind of down that mine won't email or contact me. If she was traveling I would hope she would say, but maybe she doesn't know English... I really want to make Japanese friends, but how? The really sociable ones who are in the dorm (maybe 2-3 of them) already have tons of friends due to being the tour-guides and whatnot. It'll be hard finding someone to befriend...
So I decided to wander out to Makino Station to see if I could stumble upon any sociable Japanese... It's over a mile on foot I would guess there. At some point I decided to cross the stream to see what was on the other side, and I came upon a beautiful Buddhist temple. A woman was there to pray and left, and I said konbanwa to her.
I went back across the bridge and then in passing the park I saw a lot of school kids playing games there, probably High School. One group was playing some kind of singing game that they did loudly and I could hear everything fine but not understand much; it looked like fun. On the way back, the cheerleaders or dance club were practicing some dance routine and it was really cute.
Once I made it to the main road I asked a traffic cop if there was a movie theater nearby since I was curious, but he told me I should try Hirakata. Oh well. I walked about and found nothing interesting so I did the arcade. Some other Gaijin were going in just as I was, unfortunately. Usually that's the case. I played some shooting game and a guy named Will joined me and we died and parted ways. Then a Japanese girl came up to talk to me! ... Only to say "Harro," giggle and go back to her friends. So it goes.
Not to be discouraged a I went to go play Taiko no Tetsujin which is a game based off of Japanese festival drums. I think it's in America by now. I accidentally put in two coins thinking the "how to play" section was the "insert more money" despite it only saying 100 yen. I don't know why I thought this. So I ended up grabbing player 2's drumstick and played both for three songs and made a good show of it.
I hobbled back towards the Seminar House and had to wait for a train to pass, and I was impressed by the speed it passed with. I've never seen a train move that fast in America, mostly since we don't use trains and the rails are so decrepit that they move too slow. Being hit by one of these would be pretty easy, but a mess to clean up...
I saw other Gaijin on the way back who were all heading to Karaoke to drink and be noisy, which I wouldn't have too much fun at. I'll try it if it's with some cool Japanese people, but not so much if they're just fellow Gaijin just trying to get drunk. Notice the theme of wanting to hang around Japanese people? I like hanging out with Joe a lot, but it would be nice if I could talk with him in Japanese. My Canadian roomie is keen on exploring too, but he doesn't know any Japanese, although I expect him to blow through it once it gets into class.
So I just hobbled back to the dorm with tired feet and that's about it. Tomorrow there's nothing to do besides a meeting at 9:30 so I might go to Hirakata to catch some random Japanese movie. I hope it's cheap, I'll be sure to bring my new Kansai ID. I'm looking forward to the Kyoto tour on Friday so I can learn the way there and more about the train system so I can explore on my own. Having 5 classes will hinder exploration time, but we'll see how it goes. I can always drop one. It's not like these count towards anything other than maybe a resume, and I figure I'll learn things either way.
Well, enough of that. Goodnight!
I had lunch in the McDonald's with Joe and two other guys from our dorm, Zack and Sam. It was the only option on campus for food. I tried the spicy chicken sandwich with fries and Qoo. The chicken had a slightly different consistency but everything else was the same. The way things were done was different though, maybe due to the limited space that it shares with Seattle's Best and the tables. You get a tray, go down the line, past where they give you the food, and there's a small menu where you can either point or just ask for what you want. The cashier takes your money and gives you your receipt and a number. Sometimes she would then go outside of the McDonalds, around you, and go behind you and hand the person at the food dispersal area your order, then walk back around. It seemed inconvenient and odd. I had to help Joe and someone else for when their numbers were called since neither knew Japanese.
On the way back to the dorm, Joe and I tried a new road that we thought might be a straight line to our dorm instead of the longer route we've taken, so we explored. We came upon beautiful Japanese houses and gorgeous rice fields which are in the link on my last post. It's a quicker route that put us literally at our dorm too. Back at the dorm I had free time until 3:00. Our Okaa-san told us that they changed Induction to 2:30 and that we needed to dress up and leave now. I figured out halfway there that it was most likely a ploy to get us there on time and it was a good thing she did that.
Induction was okay. The Prez gave a speech, then the US and Austrailian Consulate Generals, an American student, then a Japanese student, then my Japan China Relations Professor who is very intense and in your face. I think he'll be fun, interesting, challenging, and at times frustrating or annoying. I'm looking forward to his class.
The food afterwards was okay, but it was crowded in the cafeteria. I met the sole girl from Brazil when her high-heels got stuck in a rain-grate. She was nice and reprimanded me for staying in a dorm with the other Americans, and I'm kind of wondering if I should have homestayed, even though they asked everyone who was if they wanted to get out since it was getting hard to place people due to there being too many who wanted homestays... But anyway... I think her name was Laisha or something like that; I butchered it horribly but it sounded pretty. I was handed some tako-yaki, or grilled octopus in dough, which I find horrible but all of you would probably like it. I ate one and discreetly tossed the rest, feeling bad. However, the oolong-tea and the giant grapes which tasted like wine were excellent.
I say that she's the only Brazillian since 80% of the people here are American, which is unfortunate. It's so nice hanging out with people from different cultures, and it's so easy for Americans to group together, or have them go to you...
I walked back to the dorm alone without anything to really do. Joe was going to go hang out with his speaking partner and another guy and his and shoot off fireworks or something of the sort. It made me feel kind of down that mine won't email or contact me. If she was traveling I would hope she would say, but maybe she doesn't know English... I really want to make Japanese friends, but how? The really sociable ones who are in the dorm (maybe 2-3 of them) already have tons of friends due to being the tour-guides and whatnot. It'll be hard finding someone to befriend...
So I decided to wander out to Makino Station to see if I could stumble upon any sociable Japanese... It's over a mile on foot I would guess there. At some point I decided to cross the stream to see what was on the other side, and I came upon a beautiful Buddhist temple. A woman was there to pray and left, and I said konbanwa to her.
I went back across the bridge and then in passing the park I saw a lot of school kids playing games there, probably High School. One group was playing some kind of singing game that they did loudly and I could hear everything fine but not understand much; it looked like fun. On the way back, the cheerleaders or dance club were practicing some dance routine and it was really cute.Once I made it to the main road I asked a traffic cop if there was a movie theater nearby since I was curious, but he told me I should try Hirakata. Oh well. I walked about and found nothing interesting so I did the arcade. Some other Gaijin were going in just as I was, unfortunately. Usually that's the case. I played some shooting game and a guy named Will joined me and we died and parted ways. Then a Japanese girl came up to talk to me! ... Only to say "Harro," giggle and go back to her friends. So it goes.
Not to be discouraged a I went to go play Taiko no Tetsujin which is a game based off of Japanese festival drums. I think it's in America by now. I accidentally put in two coins thinking the "how to play" section was the "insert more money" despite it only saying 100 yen. I don't know why I thought this. So I ended up grabbing player 2's drumstick and played both for three songs and made a good show of it.
I hobbled back towards the Seminar House and had to wait for a train to pass, and I was impressed by the speed it passed with. I've never seen a train move that fast in America, mostly since we don't use trains and the rails are so decrepit that they move too slow. Being hit by one of these would be pretty easy, but a mess to clean up...
I saw other Gaijin on the way back who were all heading to Karaoke to drink and be noisy, which I wouldn't have too much fun at. I'll try it if it's with some cool Japanese people, but not so much if they're just fellow Gaijin just trying to get drunk. Notice the theme of wanting to hang around Japanese people? I like hanging out with Joe a lot, but it would be nice if I could talk with him in Japanese. My Canadian roomie is keen on exploring too, but he doesn't know any Japanese, although I expect him to blow through it once it gets into class.
So I just hobbled back to the dorm with tired feet and that's about it. Tomorrow there's nothing to do besides a meeting at 9:30 so I might go to Hirakata to catch some random Japanese movie. I hope it's cheap, I'll be sure to bring my new Kansai ID. I'm looking forward to the Kyoto tour on Friday so I can learn the way there and more about the train system so I can explore on my own. Having 5 classes will hinder exploration time, but we'll see how it goes. I can always drop one. It's not like these count towards anything other than maybe a resume, and I figure I'll learn things either way.
Well, enough of that. Goodnight!
Pictures!
Okay everyone, so here are the much anticipated pictures since my laptop is working here (mostly.)
Click Here
Enjoy!
Click Here
Enjoy!
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Getting Things Done.
Today I got up, showered, and headed for the general Kansai staff introduction meeting. Our Japanese liasons in the CIE were introduced to us along with the faculty that would be teaching our non-language courses, and they explained what they were teaching along with their backgrounds. Most of them were nice, but the sumi-e art teacher was nervous and the Anime / Film guy ironically had no social skills. I think in addition to Spoken and Written Japanese, I'll try to get into Intercultural Communication, Japan and China relations over time, and International Negotiations. I drew a high lottery number today though, 367 out of something a little over 400. So I'll need back-ups, such as Intercultural Business Communication and the Body and Communication (where I could learn Japanese Kansai-dialect sign-language!)
After that meeting I went and had a coffee (no hotdog.) You don't walk around with your coffee unless you're taking it to the library or something (if they allow drinks? I'm not sure.) It's rude to walk and drink. I ended up walking back to the dorm to get copies of my insurance for my lottery number, and I paid 26,000 yen in fees which kind of hurt. I thought Gettysburg would cover the security deposits but I guess not. So that was a good 40 minute morning walk.
After everything was registered and the like there was another meeting where we went over Seminar House rules. We met our RA's and one of the faculty members (American) explained the rules to us. The big topics were noise in the neighborhoods, and recycling.
Noise is a big problem as most Japanese houses here have no insulation at all. You can hear anything anywhere. If you are talking normally outside the dorm people can hear you just fine. People shouting goodbye at night wake the entire neighborhood, and is typical of inconsiderate foreigners, more so Americans. Drinking alcohol in the park late at night is also rude, and alcohol makes people noisy... A lot of time was spent concerning alcohol in the kitchen of Seminar House 4 where they have just allowed alcohol which will probably be shown as a mistake later. A lot of students don't want to live where that is going on, me included. But if they get noisy at all, it's done with; zero noise tolerance. I like that. The guy giving the lecture though lives next door to my dorm though, and says that Kansai students have made a glass of water shake in his room at night when the side gate is opened, and asked us to be quiet when we come home after 23:00.
Next was recycling! In our kitchen, there are six receptacles: two for burnable garabe, one for cans, one for plastic garbage, one for certain kinds of plastic drink bottles with a certain symbol, and another for glass. The plastic bottles must have the caps taken off and the plastic wrappers. This is why there is a preforation in the label to take it off, which finally made sense. The caps go in the plastic garbage along with the label, after you wash the bottle. Plastic garbage cannot have any bits of food that they might have held. If anything isn't right, the garbage is rejected and the seminar house staff (a family that lives here too and manages it for us) has to separate things on their own. The guy giving this detailed lecture lamented that he had three degrees and is teaching us how to recycle, which was pretty funny...
After this I ran into Joe at the CEI where we were getting our laptops and we went to go get some food at the cafeteria. They had the same thing as yesterday only the Kurabu Ranchi (Club Lunch) had chicken instead. Variety comes when the Japanese students get here on the 24th. I haven't used the other two cafeterias yet though, I don't even know if they are open. The Makudonarudo (McDonald's) is only open shortly for lunch, and we missed it having an early dinner. It was then starting to rain so we sat in the ampitheater between the cafeteria / store / bookstore / McDonald's and talked with Mikhael and Ean, an Aussie, while we watched the breakdancers practice on the wooden floor center. A half glass, half solar panel roof protected us from the rain.
Eventually Mikhael and Ean went on the Hirakata-shi tour, and Joe and I walked back in the light rain to drop off our computers and finally decided to take the bus from the Hirakata Central Library (across the park and dorm) to Hirakata-shi to explore on our own.
We found city hall again, where I'll go sometime to get my Gaijin Card. We looked at some arcade for a bit, then a department store which ended up only being womens clothing. We accidentally went to B1 instead of the first floor to get out and were confused, but then saw an old Japanese guy behind us who did the same and exclaimed "Ehh?!" when he got off the escalator. It made us feel better.
The then found a bigger department store to look at and looked at clothes with Engrish on them. I almost got one with zebras on it that said "strong bond." It was only 500 yen though... Anyway we then got lost in the toy section and the little kid in us that always wanted to be in Japan came out. We oogled at the video games that would never see US shores, and all kinds of neat novelties that you'd never see too, like a dancing desktop plant that didn't look tacky. And then we found stuff from the Miyazaki movies and at some point I may buy Zoe a stuffed catbus. I don't know why it reminded me of her. I hope you're reading this :P
We later found another arcade and found a Mario Kart game! It was a lot of fun and quite clever. Apparently you could use a card to insert into it to save your game and progress, so you could unlock new drivers and courses which was a good idea. We then found a bunch of capsule toy vending machines and I got a Goomba and a Pow-Block, and a chocolate donut-clip from the Misutaa Donatsu machine. I wanted the coffe and donut one though... There's always next time.
We then went into a media store, Book Off, and looked at video games and Manga. I didn't know any of the manga and I'm not a fan to begin with, but I found one that was done in a non-traditional style, in the form of one-panel comics which seemed to deal with homeless people, the elderly, and the dark situations surrounding some of them. Maybe it is some critique on society as well, I don't know. The cover material was different too, it really stood out. I hope it's good, it looks quite interesting. I may read some tonight but I'm getting tired again...
We then just went back to the bus stop and met other Gaijin and took the bus back to the library. Some of them got off on campus, where the bus announces the stop in English... They signed up for a nice 20+ minute walk, while Joe and I felt smug knowing we could ride for longer, haha. I came back to find the American, Russ in bed again but with the light on, and the Canadian, Matt shuffling around in the closet. Apparently Russ left it on. Matt told me that there is AN ONSEN nearby! And only 400 yen! I must find it. That would be so relaxing for stressful days, or before or after big tests and the like.
Anyway, I'm off for now. Tomorrow there is registration and we'll see how that goes. Then in the afternoon there is some induction ceremony and I'll dress up for that. I wonder if any other students brought nice clothes... I better make a good show for America's sake... We get a free buffet in the cafeteria afterwards though! Looking forward to free food... I don't get my food stipend for a few more weeks...
And before I forget, even though I have my laptop and it works on the network, I can't call anyone with my cranky roomie sleeping in there constantly. He's awfully abrasive. It will be nice when it's just Matt and I, he's so easy going, carefree, and just excited to be where-ever he is. Joe's roomie is a huge Korean guy that doesn't know much English or Japanese, and Joe knows no Japanese... I hope it works out for them. He's a nice guy though. He's huge but seems kind and is softspoken, haha.
Well, goodnight!
After that meeting I went and had a coffee (no hotdog.) You don't walk around with your coffee unless you're taking it to the library or something (if they allow drinks? I'm not sure.) It's rude to walk and drink. I ended up walking back to the dorm to get copies of my insurance for my lottery number, and I paid 26,000 yen in fees which kind of hurt. I thought Gettysburg would cover the security deposits but I guess not. So that was a good 40 minute morning walk.
After everything was registered and the like there was another meeting where we went over Seminar House rules. We met our RA's and one of the faculty members (American) explained the rules to us. The big topics were noise in the neighborhoods, and recycling.
Noise is a big problem as most Japanese houses here have no insulation at all. You can hear anything anywhere. If you are talking normally outside the dorm people can hear you just fine. People shouting goodbye at night wake the entire neighborhood, and is typical of inconsiderate foreigners, more so Americans. Drinking alcohol in the park late at night is also rude, and alcohol makes people noisy... A lot of time was spent concerning alcohol in the kitchen of Seminar House 4 where they have just allowed alcohol which will probably be shown as a mistake later. A lot of students don't want to live where that is going on, me included. But if they get noisy at all, it's done with; zero noise tolerance. I like that. The guy giving the lecture though lives next door to my dorm though, and says that Kansai students have made a glass of water shake in his room at night when the side gate is opened, and asked us to be quiet when we come home after 23:00.
Next was recycling! In our kitchen, there are six receptacles: two for burnable garabe, one for cans, one for plastic garbage, one for certain kinds of plastic drink bottles with a certain symbol, and another for glass. The plastic bottles must have the caps taken off and the plastic wrappers. This is why there is a preforation in the label to take it off, which finally made sense. The caps go in the plastic garbage along with the label, after you wash the bottle. Plastic garbage cannot have any bits of food that they might have held. If anything isn't right, the garbage is rejected and the seminar house staff (a family that lives here too and manages it for us) has to separate things on their own. The guy giving this detailed lecture lamented that he had three degrees and is teaching us how to recycle, which was pretty funny...
After this I ran into Joe at the CEI where we were getting our laptops and we went to go get some food at the cafeteria. They had the same thing as yesterday only the Kurabu Ranchi (Club Lunch) had chicken instead. Variety comes when the Japanese students get here on the 24th. I haven't used the other two cafeterias yet though, I don't even know if they are open. The Makudonarudo (McDonald's) is only open shortly for lunch, and we missed it having an early dinner. It was then starting to rain so we sat in the ampitheater between the cafeteria / store / bookstore / McDonald's and talked with Mikhael and Ean, an Aussie, while we watched the breakdancers practice on the wooden floor center. A half glass, half solar panel roof protected us from the rain.
Eventually Mikhael and Ean went on the Hirakata-shi tour, and Joe and I walked back in the light rain to drop off our computers and finally decided to take the bus from the Hirakata Central Library (across the park and dorm) to Hirakata-shi to explore on our own.
We found city hall again, where I'll go sometime to get my Gaijin Card. We looked at some arcade for a bit, then a department store which ended up only being womens clothing. We accidentally went to B1 instead of the first floor to get out and were confused, but then saw an old Japanese guy behind us who did the same and exclaimed "Ehh?!" when he got off the escalator. It made us feel better.
The then found a bigger department store to look at and looked at clothes with Engrish on them. I almost got one with zebras on it that said "strong bond." It was only 500 yen though... Anyway we then got lost in the toy section and the little kid in us that always wanted to be in Japan came out. We oogled at the video games that would never see US shores, and all kinds of neat novelties that you'd never see too, like a dancing desktop plant that didn't look tacky. And then we found stuff from the Miyazaki movies and at some point I may buy Zoe a stuffed catbus. I don't know why it reminded me of her. I hope you're reading this :P
We later found another arcade and found a Mario Kart game! It was a lot of fun and quite clever. Apparently you could use a card to insert into it to save your game and progress, so you could unlock new drivers and courses which was a good idea. We then found a bunch of capsule toy vending machines and I got a Goomba and a Pow-Block, and a chocolate donut-clip from the Misutaa Donatsu machine. I wanted the coffe and donut one though... There's always next time.
We then went into a media store, Book Off, and looked at video games and Manga. I didn't know any of the manga and I'm not a fan to begin with, but I found one that was done in a non-traditional style, in the form of one-panel comics which seemed to deal with homeless people, the elderly, and the dark situations surrounding some of them. Maybe it is some critique on society as well, I don't know. The cover material was different too, it really stood out. I hope it's good, it looks quite interesting. I may read some tonight but I'm getting tired again...
We then just went back to the bus stop and met other Gaijin and took the bus back to the library. Some of them got off on campus, where the bus announces the stop in English... They signed up for a nice 20+ minute walk, while Joe and I felt smug knowing we could ride for longer, haha. I came back to find the American, Russ in bed again but with the light on, and the Canadian, Matt shuffling around in the closet. Apparently Russ left it on. Matt told me that there is AN ONSEN nearby! And only 400 yen! I must find it. That would be so relaxing for stressful days, or before or after big tests and the like.
Anyway, I'm off for now. Tomorrow there is registration and we'll see how that goes. Then in the afternoon there is some induction ceremony and I'll dress up for that. I wonder if any other students brought nice clothes... I better make a good show for America's sake... We get a free buffet in the cafeteria afterwards though! Looking forward to free food... I don't get my food stipend for a few more weeks...
And before I forget, even though I have my laptop and it works on the network, I can't call anyone with my cranky roomie sleeping in there constantly. He's awfully abrasive. It will be nice when it's just Matt and I, he's so easy going, carefree, and just excited to be where-ever he is. Joe's roomie is a huge Korean guy that doesn't know much English or Japanese, and Joe knows no Japanese... I hope it works out for them. He's a nice guy though. He's huge but seems kind and is softspoken, haha.
Well, goodnight!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Smokey Dog and Coffee
Today was fun. I woke up before my roomies and showered early. I should have before bed since it keeps the bed clean and is relaxing, but my new roomie was sleeping so I didn't want to wake him when he needs his sleep. I got to the CIE building at about 8:00 and wandered about and gave them my laptop at 8:30. Hopefully I can get it tomorrow and not have to use this computer lab, although my room is cramped as it is with three people. I'll find somewhere on campus to park it.
I then met up with Joe who was also registering his tiny laptop and we met another guy, Sam, and went looking for breakfast. The cafeteria was closed so we tried Seattle's Best. Turns out Sam is an addict too but went for the cold vending-machine stuff, I had my first real coffee in days. 220 for a grande though. It was good. They had some breakfast item wrapped in paper, called a sumouki dougu so out of curiousity I had to get it. A hotdog. With coffee? Coffe companies go for an image of sophistication, I mean, why not a scone, or a tea-biscuit, but a hot-dog?
The hotdog wasn't bad.
The placement test was after our breakfast, so we headed over to the media center. Joe just got to take a questionaire that said "I don't know Japanese." Then he and the others who knew none left, which was surprising how many. I wouldn't come to Japan if I didn't know any, that would be too frustrating.
Next was the listening part and I didn't know what was going on until the 3rd question. Didn't do too well. Then the basic hiragana katakana part, followed by grammar. There were five sections, A B C D and upon request only (if you think you got 50% or more on D,) E. I made it about halfway through D so it might put me in D or a high C. The Kanji part was difficult too, but they got harder as they went on. Over all it seemed to be a good test, and it isn't the final determinator. I'm not worried at all about where I go.
And now I'm going to bed. The sleepy-bus has hit me. I don't have anything to do tomorrow so I'll do this. I was going to read Guns, Germs and Steel tonight but bed sound good now. Sorry everyone. There will be fun stories about Kizuhara Mall, bowling, and how nice it is being amongst people from all over the world.
G'night.
EDIT: Let's resume where I left off.
After the test I went shopping at Top World and bought some fruit, soba, two bottles of Qoo, and TWO BATH TOWELS!!!
Back at the dorm I signed up for the Makino Station / Kuzuhara Mall tour. I was dismayed to see these two American idiots and an equally dumb Australian going on the tour too, due to fearing having to have a meal with them, but they eventually broke off and did their own thing (presumably to get drunk.) Our group consisted of two other Americans, a Slav whom I befriended, and two Japanese girls, Kaori and Yuki.
We had two hours at the mall so I went and explored on my own.
Things I have learned:
-Crocs sell for over $30. In America they sell for about $1-5 if I'm correct.
-Hot Dogs seem to be popular in most coffee shops.
-Drip coffee is $2.80-$3. About as much as specialty drinks, unfortunately.
-Aside from architecture, all Malls are the same.
I bought a きのこ銀行 or a Mushroom Bank for $7. Finally somewhere for my coins to go. I also got two Mario Galaxy keychains from a vending machine but I lost the Black Boo one today while walking around campus :(.
When it gets colder I'm going to go back and buy some trendy Japanese clothes with silly English on them. I'm looking forward to that.
While sitting on a bench looking at my DS Dictionary, a Dad and his 5-6 year old daughter sat next to me and she exclaimed how I was reading Japanese and English, and the Dad told her to be quiet, hehe.
The guy from Slovakia, Mikhael was pretty cool. We both complained about American cities and not being able to walk in America, and how tacky consumerism is everywhere. That and how rude the other two Americans with us were. They were mostly interested in stupid Japanese You-Tube videos and TV culture, and narrow-mindedly made fun of the two girls for not being able to say "Bus."
I have to go somewhere now, so I'll write more later. Sorry!
EDIT:
Where did I leave off?
Right. After Chinese food we Mikhael went back to the dorm to sleep due to jet-lag. The five of us went to an entertainment place where we went bowling! Apparently our foriegn college ID's got us the student discout so it only cost 200 yen a person. I finished with a lame score of about 83 or so. We got in a... what I think they are called,purikura photobooth, and the pictures took 5 minutes and the girls spent about 20 putting hearts, bubbles, and stars on them... If you've seen these booths, you'd understand. The other two guys spent more time than I'd like playing video games though, but I met another Kansai-Japanese student there and talked to him for a bit.
This reminds me of something about the Mall I forgot to tell you about. There were some Japanese students from the University of Michigan? They (well, the one with the best English) asked me about what I expected the mall would be, why I go there, and so on. First we tried this in Japanese then quickly retreated to English. I told him it was cleaner than American malls, and the design was better, but it had pretty much the same things in it. Also I came there due to being on a tour, haha. Apparently they were doing a study on the International-Kansai students which was interesting. They were pretty nice.
Anyway, back to the entertainment place. The walk back to campus was a little long. The street was very narrow, apparently a lot of accidents happen on it. I keep fearing some drunk ramming into us, but the only one we encountered was a guy on a bike who swatted at one of the other Americans when he couldn't figure out that a bike was coming and that he should move.
I think I then came back to the room and slept.
I then met up with Joe who was also registering his tiny laptop and we met another guy, Sam, and went looking for breakfast. The cafeteria was closed so we tried Seattle's Best. Turns out Sam is an addict too but went for the cold vending-machine stuff, I had my first real coffee in days. 220 for a grande though. It was good. They had some breakfast item wrapped in paper, called a sumouki dougu so out of curiousity I had to get it. A hotdog. With coffee? Coffe companies go for an image of sophistication, I mean, why not a scone, or a tea-biscuit, but a hot-dog?
The hotdog wasn't bad.
The placement test was after our breakfast, so we headed over to the media center. Joe just got to take a questionaire that said "I don't know Japanese." Then he and the others who knew none left, which was surprising how many. I wouldn't come to Japan if I didn't know any, that would be too frustrating.
Next was the listening part and I didn't know what was going on until the 3rd question. Didn't do too well. Then the basic hiragana katakana part, followed by grammar. There were five sections, A B C D and upon request only (if you think you got 50% or more on D,) E. I made it about halfway through D so it might put me in D or a high C. The Kanji part was difficult too, but they got harder as they went on. Over all it seemed to be a good test, and it isn't the final determinator. I'm not worried at all about where I go.
And now I'm going to bed. The sleepy-bus has hit me. I don't have anything to do tomorrow so I'll do this. I was going to read Guns, Germs and Steel tonight but bed sound good now. Sorry everyone. There will be fun stories about Kizuhara Mall, bowling, and how nice it is being amongst people from all over the world.
G'night.
EDIT: Let's resume where I left off.
After the test I went shopping at Top World and bought some fruit, soba, two bottles of Qoo, and TWO BATH TOWELS!!!
Back at the dorm I signed up for the Makino Station / Kuzuhara Mall tour. I was dismayed to see these two American idiots and an equally dumb Australian going on the tour too, due to fearing having to have a meal with them, but they eventually broke off and did their own thing (presumably to get drunk.) Our group consisted of two other Americans, a Slav whom I befriended, and two Japanese girls, Kaori and Yuki.
We had two hours at the mall so I went and explored on my own.
Things I have learned:
-Crocs sell for over $30. In America they sell for about $1-5 if I'm correct.
-Hot Dogs seem to be popular in most coffee shops.
-Drip coffee is $2.80-$3. About as much as specialty drinks, unfortunately.
-Aside from architecture, all Malls are the same.
I bought a きのこ銀行 or a Mushroom Bank for $7. Finally somewhere for my coins to go. I also got two Mario Galaxy keychains from a vending machine but I lost the Black Boo one today while walking around campus :(.
When it gets colder I'm going to go back and buy some trendy Japanese clothes with silly English on them. I'm looking forward to that.
While sitting on a bench looking at my DS Dictionary, a Dad and his 5-6 year old daughter sat next to me and she exclaimed how I was reading Japanese and English, and the Dad told her to be quiet, hehe.
The guy from Slovakia, Mikhael was pretty cool. We both complained about American cities and not being able to walk in America, and how tacky consumerism is everywhere. That and how rude the other two Americans with us were. They were mostly interested in stupid Japanese You-Tube videos and TV culture, and narrow-mindedly made fun of the two girls for not being able to say "Bus."
I have to go somewhere now, so I'll write more later. Sorry!
EDIT:
Where did I leave off?
Right. After Chinese food we Mikhael went back to the dorm to sleep due to jet-lag. The five of us went to an entertainment place where we went bowling! Apparently our foriegn college ID's got us the student discout so it only cost 200 yen a person. I finished with a lame score of about 83 or so. We got in a... what I think they are called,purikura photobooth, and the pictures took 5 minutes and the girls spent about 20 putting hearts, bubbles, and stars on them... If you've seen these booths, you'd understand. The other two guys spent more time than I'd like playing video games though, but I met another Kansai-Japanese student there and talked to him for a bit.
This reminds me of something about the Mall I forgot to tell you about. There were some Japanese students from the University of Michigan? They (well, the one with the best English) asked me about what I expected the mall would be, why I go there, and so on. First we tried this in Japanese then quickly retreated to English. I told him it was cleaner than American malls, and the design was better, but it had pretty much the same things in it. Also I came there due to being on a tour, haha. Apparently they were doing a study on the International-Kansai students which was interesting. They were pretty nice.
Anyway, back to the entertainment place. The walk back to campus was a little long. The street was very narrow, apparently a lot of accidents happen on it. I keep fearing some drunk ramming into us, but the only one we encountered was a guy on a bike who swatted at one of the other Americans when he couldn't figure out that a bike was coming and that he should move.
I think I then came back to the room and slept.
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