ummm...I promised Anne to blog today, but I've forgotten my camera at my homestay family's house... So I'll give a quick rundown of what has happened since my last post.
1) I ended up going to Harajuku and Shibuya with Miki and Karn.
2) Went to Harajuku and Shibuya once again with Kate, Joe, Joe's friend Goran from Vassar on a similar Japanese program, Kate's friend Tomo, and Karn
3) Spent that weekend with Leftkowitz and Matt in their neighborhood which is near mine (there was a homestay family dinner party and then a study group on that Sunday)
4) Found two language exchange partners named Kaori and Yuko.
5) Went to Disney Sea that Wednesday.
6) Went to get my first Japanese encephalitis shot that Friday with my homestay father (apparently you need to at least get 2 for it to be effective) at a Dartmouth recommended hospital in Shinjuku.
7) Went on a class trip to Nikko last weekend and saw Buddhist temples, a waterfall, and got to try out the public bath, which was a little awkward.
8) Got dragged to Odaiba, went on the giant ferris wheel there and had some fun in Sega's Joyopolis (indoor theme park) yesterday.
Ummmm..... I will definitely fill in details in the near future... ;)....but for now I have to get some homework done, study for a test, and get started on a project....
Yeah... those pictures are coming....
Monday, July 9, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
hmmm.... today probably is a non-posting day
Last night I realized how much I have to do and how little time I have to do it in... on the first day, our Japanese classes pretty much crammed a whole lot of homework due in the very near future (today, tomorrow, asatte) and I haven`t done quite enough to feel like I`m in a comfortably safe zone yet... Compound the work with the fact that I`m going to Shibuya today to meet some friends and probably going to Shinjuku tomorrow to get a Japanese Encephalitis Vaccine (JEV), I might not be able to make another post until... Friday =/ Anyway I`m only running on 5 hours of sleep (dunno if I`m still jet-lagged) and have some more homework to do before I go to class, so I gotta get going ;p I will make sure on Friday to post pictures and lots of pictures.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
First Day of Classes and everything else since last post
So I finally have access to a computer in the English-only section of KUIS campus (I didn't really want to use my homestay family's computer too much). My homestay family is extremely nice. They're an old couple in their mid-sixties, already retired and pretty much spending their days doing what they want, so I spend a lot of time speaking with them. My homestay mother has a small, very full garden in the backyard that she takes care of(I live in one of those suburbs you see in anime in which all the houses are packed right smack next to eachother and if there is a yard then it's fenced with a stone wall.) My homestay father does volunteer work for the neighborhood as part of a neighborhood patrol and a watch for little elementary school kids walking to school. Actually I saw this morning a cute sparse line of tiny children (they're backpacks looked about as big as they were) making their way to school, guided by a bunch of adults waving construction worker-like flags. It was very very very cute. =) He also plays golf regularly.
Anyway, I was reeeeeallly nervous the first time I met my two families (I have to switch families after the halfway point of my term), but it all turned out well and I surprisingly remembered more Japanese than I thought I would. The first day, my homestay parents were extremely considerate and sat me down and explained absolutely everything to me with regard to living in the house (there were very few rules: a flexible curfew (call if I don't need dinner, they would be up until 11 PM so call if I am going to be late, and basically just call if I'm going to be back later (someone would wake up and open the door for me when I rang the doorbell)). That night, I had a huge welcome party at which my homestay parents' son's own family (he's 37 or 39, I forgot if he was the older or younger one) were present. My homestay parents' daughter-in-law actually works in the building I am currently blogging from. I got to know the family pretty well I think and believe (hopefully I'm correct) that I have a start on a good relationship ;p I expected my homestay parents to be super-conservative because of their age but they're surprisingly easygoing (no real religious convictions, they offered me beer at the welcome party and it seems like they are planning on offering it to me on weekends too). I thought it would be sort of awkward and boring to hang around old-timers but our conversation and the exchange of cultural differences has proved to be quite entertaining.
Back to the timeline. On Sunday, my homestay parents took me along to set me up with my bus, monorail, and train pass, and my prepaid cellphone. Then they took me to a yakiniku restaurant for lunch (Korean BBQ). Other than that, nothing really happened till today.
Here's a little description of my living situation. I live in a Japanese style room with tatami (woven bamboo mat) floors. I sleep on an American-style futon (it's not directly on the floor but on a frame) and luxuriously have an air conditioner situated directly above my bed. Ah, by the way, it is pretty humid and hot around here and taking multiple showers is a temptation I must avoid because water is quite expensive here. The bath consists of a bathtub and a floor with a drain. My homestay father jokingly says that I can shower with one foot in the tub and one foot on the floor if I wish.
Tomorrow I will be meeting up with Miki and maybe Mai (the one that lives near Ferrara) at Shibuya station to do some exploring after my classes. Ummm.... I'm getting picked up by Matt's homestay family in a little bit so I will have to end this post here but I will try to post again tomorrow filling in the blanks I left out and what will happen from now and post pictures....
Just a note before I go: It was quite a strange experience speaking only Japanese with my homestay family during the weekend. Wracked with anxiety, not really fully realizing that I am really in Japan in a Japanese house, then finding out it all works out was quite exhilarating, yet at the same time feels like I'm going to develop ulcers. Hopefully it'll all smooth out and I won't have the same rough ride when I switch homestay families.
Anyway, I was reeeeeallly nervous the first time I met my two families (I have to switch families after the halfway point of my term), but it all turned out well and I surprisingly remembered more Japanese than I thought I would. The first day, my homestay parents were extremely considerate and sat me down and explained absolutely everything to me with regard to living in the house (there were very few rules: a flexible curfew (call if I don't need dinner, they would be up until 11 PM so call if I am going to be late, and basically just call if I'm going to be back later (someone would wake up and open the door for me when I rang the doorbell)). That night, I had a huge welcome party at which my homestay parents' son's own family (he's 37 or 39, I forgot if he was the older or younger one) were present. My homestay parents' daughter-in-law actually works in the building I am currently blogging from. I got to know the family pretty well I think and believe (hopefully I'm correct) that I have a start on a good relationship ;p I expected my homestay parents to be super-conservative because of their age but they're surprisingly easygoing (no real religious convictions, they offered me beer at the welcome party and it seems like they are planning on offering it to me on weekends too). I thought it would be sort of awkward and boring to hang around old-timers but our conversation and the exchange of cultural differences has proved to be quite entertaining.
Back to the timeline. On Sunday, my homestay parents took me along to set me up with my bus, monorail, and train pass, and my prepaid cellphone. Then they took me to a yakiniku restaurant for lunch (Korean BBQ). Other than that, nothing really happened till today.
Here's a little description of my living situation. I live in a Japanese style room with tatami (woven bamboo mat) floors. I sleep on an American-style futon (it's not directly on the floor but on a frame) and luxuriously have an air conditioner situated directly above my bed. Ah, by the way, it is pretty humid and hot around here and taking multiple showers is a temptation I must avoid because water is quite expensive here. The bath consists of a bathtub and a floor with a drain. My homestay father jokingly says that I can shower with one foot in the tub and one foot on the floor if I wish.
Tomorrow I will be meeting up with Miki and maybe Mai (the one that lives near Ferrara) at Shibuya station to do some exploring after my classes. Ummm.... I'm getting picked up by Matt's homestay family in a little bit so I will have to end this post here but I will try to post again tomorrow filling in the blanks I left out and what will happen from now and post pictures....
Just a note before I go: It was quite a strange experience speaking only Japanese with my homestay family during the weekend. Wracked with anxiety, not really fully realizing that I am really in Japan in a Japanese house, then finding out it all works out was quite exhilarating, yet at the same time feels like I'm going to develop ulcers. Hopefully it'll all smooth out and I won't have the same rough ride when I switch homestay families.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
First night in Japan
So I finally finished packing around 2 AM on June 20th in New York, but decided to stay up till 4 AM reading up on tips about living with homestay families because I planned to sleep on the 16-17 hour plane ride. I got about 2 hours of sleep and then rushed over to JFK with all my bags. Why didn't anyone tell me the plane ride was sooooo horrible? Flying from New York to Los Angeles is bad enough with 6 hours, but I immediately went from that flight to the 11 hour connecting flight from LA to Narita. 11 long unbearable hours cramped in non-aisle, non-window seat. I felt my legs and especially my perpetually bent knees atrophying. Sleeping was barely possible even though I was so tired. I spent most of the time trying to sleep and maybe drifting and napping for 10-15 minutes at a time. Fortunately my friend Joe lent me his DS and I played the English Ouendan for a good 2-3 hours. Bad airplane movies + bad airplane food + super-cramped space + indeterminably long subjective duration = my formula for Hell on Earth. When I arrived at Narita, I was pretty dazed and just wanted to get a shower and brush my teeth (this was about 3 AM in Eastern Time on the 21st of June). My friend Karn is yelling that I'm a flying noob as I write this blog.
Anyway, we had a great little Dartmouth Japanese class reunion and then headed over to Hotel Springs in Makuhari where we would be staying for a couple of days before our homestay families picked us up. I took the time before dinner to shower and brush my teeth (which in itself was a strange exploration of the Japanese modern hotel room). First, I locked myself out of the room because although you are given a key to open the door, the door automatically locks itself when it closes.... Second, I did not realize until my friend Sam pointed it out that one had to hang one's key in a little slot near the door before any lights or other appliances work. Finally the bathroom is a strange world unto itself. The toilet has a bidet and shower option... which I've been reluctant to try out (Edit: Actually Karn says that he tried to shower button without sitting on the toilet and it sprayed over the bathroom floor. Sam and Karn have informed me that the toilet seats are heated too....and its really hot). Everything is pretty cramped together unlike the massive space I remember in American hotel bathrooms. Finally there's a nice little dispenser in the shower (like a hand soap dispenser) for shampoo, conditioner, etc.
After being thoroughly disoriented and lost, I sort of settled back into a normal groove when I went to dinner with the entire Language Study Abroad (LSA) group. After the buffet dinner at a variety South-Asian restaurant, some of our members and I went to the Sega Club in Makuhari Amuse Mall to try out the arcade. They had the card strategy games that my friend Kyle from Scarsdale mentioned. The game has a Yu-Gi-Oh like control board with different themes (Gundams, soccer, Medieval armies) and you have to actually buy packs of cards to play the game (amazing thing is that the board looks like it senses what card you put down and where)... I'm reluctant to try because I don't know how to play and it seems like a somewhat substantial financial commitment compared to other games that I could try to figure out for 100 yen a try. What surprised me a lot was the prominence of smoking and adults in the arcade room. There were even ash trays placed here and there for their sake. I played a couple of different games but only realized in shock afterward that a 100 yen a pop is like a dollar (more like 84 or so cents a pop)....which could be really bad if I get addicted to game centers. I think I'll save money for a lot of souvenirs/omiyage for you all (or you all who are not in Japan with me).
It only hit me after leaving the arcade and seeing a bunch of anime figurine dispenser machines lined up in the same mall that I was actually in Japan. This is craaaaaazzzzzzzyyyyyyyyyy....... :)
Sorry I haven't posted any pictures, I forgot to bring my camera with me when exploring today, but I will make sure to bring it tomorrow and start posting the pictures at least by Monday when classes start and I have access to Kanda University's computers. Ok gotta go to sleep for another exciting day.
Anyway, we had a great little Dartmouth Japanese class reunion and then headed over to Hotel Springs in Makuhari where we would be staying for a couple of days before our homestay families picked us up. I took the time before dinner to shower and brush my teeth (which in itself was a strange exploration of the Japanese modern hotel room). First, I locked myself out of the room because although you are given a key to open the door, the door automatically locks itself when it closes.... Second, I did not realize until my friend Sam pointed it out that one had to hang one's key in a little slot near the door before any lights or other appliances work. Finally the bathroom is a strange world unto itself. The toilet has a bidet and shower option... which I've been reluctant to try out (Edit: Actually Karn says that he tried to shower button without sitting on the toilet and it sprayed over the bathroom floor. Sam and Karn have informed me that the toilet seats are heated too....and its really hot). Everything is pretty cramped together unlike the massive space I remember in American hotel bathrooms. Finally there's a nice little dispenser in the shower (like a hand soap dispenser) for shampoo, conditioner, etc.
After being thoroughly disoriented and lost, I sort of settled back into a normal groove when I went to dinner with the entire Language Study Abroad (LSA) group. After the buffet dinner at a variety South-Asian restaurant, some of our members and I went to the Sega Club in Makuhari Amuse Mall to try out the arcade. They had the card strategy games that my friend Kyle from Scarsdale mentioned. The game has a Yu-Gi-Oh like control board with different themes (Gundams, soccer, Medieval armies) and you have to actually buy packs of cards to play the game (amazing thing is that the board looks like it senses what card you put down and where)... I'm reluctant to try because I don't know how to play and it seems like a somewhat substantial financial commitment compared to other games that I could try to figure out for 100 yen a try. What surprised me a lot was the prominence of smoking and adults in the arcade room. There were even ash trays placed here and there for their sake. I played a couple of different games but only realized in shock afterward that a 100 yen a pop is like a dollar (more like 84 or so cents a pop)....which could be really bad if I get addicted to game centers. I think I'll save money for a lot of souvenirs/omiyage for you all (or you all who are not in Japan with me).
It only hit me after leaving the arcade and seeing a bunch of anime figurine dispenser machines lined up in the same mall that I was actually in Japan. This is craaaaaazzzzzzzyyyyyyyyyy....... :)
Sorry I haven't posted any pictures, I forgot to bring my camera with me when exploring today, but I will make sure to bring it tomorrow and start posting the pictures at least by Monday when classes start and I have access to Kanda University's computers. Ok gotta go to sleep for another exciting day.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Welcome
Welcome to my new blog! I'll be in Japan on a language study program from June 21st to August 26th, and thought it would be a good idea to have a record of this long-awaited foray. I'll try to update you with photos and anecdotes as much as possible from my host university's campus computers, but I have decided not to bring my own laptop so that I would not detract from my time experiencing Japan!
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