Pic-post pic-spam!

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it. I did not do anything terribly exciting for Christmas (except make yummy pancakes with a friend) so I will gloss over that and use this as mostly a picpost. Christmas is more of a romantic holiday here than anything (and they have 2 Valentine's Days - Valentine's Day and White Day. They sure love commercialized romance), since very few Japanese are Christian.

I just got photos from the yukata fan dance and the Shirakawa trip taken by someone involved with the dorm (ie, has a much better camera than mine), and organized them into my Flickr account.

So! Here's the fandance set.


And the Shirakawa photo set.


And here are some pictures of Nekobukuro.


Poor funny-looking cat




Grumpy-looking kitties!


I leave on Sunday for Osaka, Shizuoka, and Nagoya to stay with my friend's family for New Years. Should be an interesting experience!

woo, 30th post. Seijinshiki, Nekobukuro, and purple-haired obaa-sans

Woo! I got an invitation to Seijinshiki (the coming-of-age ceremony in Japan on the second Monday in January for all those who turn 20. That's the important age here, not 21). Exciting! :) Except that girls usually wear furisode kimono (the fancy kimono with the very long sleeves reaching almost to the ground) - and to rent one costs about $1000. Yeah, kimono are incredibly expensive. So beautiful though. My friends and I are probably going to have to settle with yukata or just a fancy western dress. ... Probably the western dress, yukata are cheap and casual. And generally thin cotton, which will be very cold in January.

Oh! Speaking of which, I participated in traditional Japanese fan dances yesterday. I had one practice and then did a performance for the dorm Christmas party.......... (which they also used to trick us into going to a sermon. Christian dorm. I wasn't very happy about that - wouldn't have minded if they just told us we were going to a sermon instead of "we're moving the party to the next room! There will be more food there." Anyway.)

Here are a couple of pictures.




I also went to Nekobukuro this week. I've been missing my cats a lot, and Nekobukuro is a kind of cat petting zoo on the top floor of Sunshine City in Ikebukuro. You pay about $6 to go in and play with about 20 kitties for as long as you want. Unfortunately they weren't too friendly, mostly sleeping in high, out-of-the-way areas. I'm sure they have to deal with just too many people. Still nice though, I got some pictures I'll put up later. I still miss my kitties though... Honestly, I'm rather sad I'm not going to be home for the holidays. First time away from home for them. I don't have any plans for Christmas (which is a romantic holiday here, sigh.) I'm visiting my friend Mari's family around New Years - going down to Osaka the 27 or 28, then Shizuoka, Nagoya, and back to Tokyo probably around the 3rd or 4th of January, though that's not set yet. She told me I'm going to have to "get over" my dislike of seafood though when I'm visiting her family. :( I've tried, I have been trying seafood here, and I didn't have a lot of choice on the Shirakawa trip, but I hate it still. I'm worried I'm going to have to eat everything to be polite too, and I just... can't. Argh.

Need to think of omiyage (little gifts) for her family too. I'm terrible at thinking of ideas for presents.

Hmm. There are a LOT of older women in Japan with their hair dyed purple or violet. Apart from that, they appear to be a typical Japanese obaa-san (grandmother)... I actually saw an older man today too with a purple hint to his hair. I have no idea why this is. It's kind of awesome (I love older folks who dye their hair crazy colors :p There was one really nice lady with purple streaks who came into the jewelry store one day) but random! Japan is usually not so hot on dyeing hair, except for bleaching it or making it more auburn. So there's obaa-sans in kimono at the subway and obaa-sans with purple hair, heh.

Not a terribly coherent post. Midterm essay and constant Japanese studying frying my brains. Definitely need a break. Classes go until the beginning of February, yuck!

I went to Namja Town in Ikebukuro yesterday. Man... that place is trippy. It's really hard to describe. Awesome place for a date, though. There's lots of game arcades and so forth, and a lot we didn't see. We mostly went to Gyoza Stadium, which had an overwhelming amount of different types of gyoza (dumplings); Ice Cream Castle (lots of ice creams/crepes); and a dessert place that was especially romantic with lots of little booths tucked away in corners, and two-person tables under fake trees with lights and fountains and so forth. My friends took pictures, I'll probably put them up when I see them. :p

Then back to the never-ending round of cramming and forgetting kanji and vocabulary. Ugh. I absolutely detest the Japanese language classes here. They're not at all conducive to actually learning Japanese, just stressing you out... My Japanese has gone downhill since coming here. *sigh* It's incredibly depressing, and my teachers back home are not going to be happy. =/

Shirakawa Pt. 2

H'okay. Part deux!
Day two: Gorgeous gardens, tea ceremony, baby's first castle, dharma pantings, sleeping at a Buddhist temple. Day three: museum, carving a stone necklace, hooome

We leave the ryokan and head back into Shirakawa-shi to go to Nanko Park - the first park ever built in Japan, back in 1800. We attend a tea ceremony, sort of. It's not a proper ceremony - the tea master talked a lot in Japanese, which hardly any of us exchange students understood, and the Japanese organizers didn't translate. They gave us tea and just showed us how to turn the cup, but it wasn't actually a proper ceremony like I saw in high school. We mostly enjoyed the heated tatami mats and looked out the nice big windows at the garden. Once we finished at the tea house, we wandered around the garden for a while. So gorgeous...




Following the teahouse and garden, we went to visit Shirakawa Castle. Pretty beautiful and imposing from the outside, but tiny within... Just one room, with steep stairs going up another two or three levels. I started to call it "Baby's First Castle," since it didn't really seem to have much room for a family!



We left the castle and went on to paint our own dharma (or "daruma") dolls. Dharma was an Indian Buddhist saint. Daruma dolls are red paper-made dolls that have a weight added to the bottom, allowing it to always bob back up when its knocked over. It suggests invincible will power and is often used as a mascot for good luck. Painting is rather hard though.... You make a wish, and paint in the eyes once the wish comes true.
Before being painted

My daruma doll... Haha.


Finally we head to our last destination for the day: a Buddhist temple where we will spend the night. It's unheated (in the morning, we could see our breath in the air) and the room we slept in had some rather intimidating paintings...


We go to a hotel (heat!!) for dinner and a farewell party, then go back to the Buddhist temple to drink and chat some more. No one slept very well - up late talking, and the clock in the room played a song and counted off the hour every hour... I'm a light sleeper and it woke me up almost every time, sigh.

We wake up at 7 for meditation at 7:30. Whoever thought of trying to make sleep-deprived college students wake up abysmally early and sit with their eyes closed for 30 minutes... :p Then breakfast of picked radishes, pickled plums, salty strips of seaweed, and a rice porridge thing. I didn't eat a much for breakfast.
Meditation

Breakfast

All the statues at the temple were wearing little hats and jackets or bibs.


After leaving the temple, we head to the Shirakawa Field Museum. It's a small museum focusing mainly on the Jomon era or Japan, and other early history. We get to carve a necklace out of soapstone or some other soft stone, using sandpaper. I quite enjoyed it, and now have a nice worry necklace, although my hands cramped up like crazy from sanding so much (and I also sanded my fingernails and fingers, ouch). Ramen for lunch (apparently a Shirakawa style of ramen is quite famous. All I know is that it was hot and tasty! Mmm, hot food). We stop at a small baked goods/ice cream shop (150 yen/$1.50 ice cream! Yum) and head home... to SHOWERS and sleep!

So, yes. :) A very fun trip, quite an interesting experience, and it was nice to get out of Tokyo for the first time.

Shirakawa part 1

So! Back from Shirakawa. Overall pretty fun trip, think I made some new friends so whee. (One goes to Georgetown! One is from CT and I happened to show her a photo of a mural dad did - she stares at it for a minute, then goes, "Did he do a hair salon in Wilton like 13 years ago?" "Uh... As a matter of fact, yes he did." "My dad's girlfriend owned it! I remember thinking how beautiful the art was!" "HOLY SHIT SRSLY??" It's a small world.)

First off, I misunderstood - we weren't going to Shirakawa-go (village) but Shirakawa-shi (city, though it was in the inaka - countryside). Not really in the mountains, pretty sad-looking and dilapidated. Ah well.

Day 1: Making soba noodles (with ridiculously huge knives), high school visit (Can I touch your hair? Are you going to marry your boyfriend?), crazy ryokan/onsen

We meet up at the ungodly hour of 6:45 am, get into Shirakawa around 11 am. First item of the day: learning how to make soba noodles! In an unheated room, which will soon become a theme of the weekend. We make them using just buckwheat flour and water, and get to cut up the noodles with MASSIVE KNIVES OF DOOM. Seriously, move over butcher knives - soba noodle knives could be stars of horror movies.
Very blurry, but you get the idea.

The house we made soba in.

Beautiful view and misty mountains from the soba place.


I'm not a huge fan of soba - especially when they're served cold, as these were. You dip them in sauce, but there's not a whole lot of flavor. And cold fold in an unheated room, when it's pouring outside, isn't all that nice. But it was an interesting experience. Some friends took some more interesting photos of me with knives... I'll be posting more pictures up as they get posted to facebook. :p

Following soba + eating them for lunch, we went to a high school. We were split into small groups and given a topic to discuss - for my group, what we usually eat at Christmas and New Years. That quickly changed into more general talking with our combinations of bad Japanese and bad English. I kept having girls exclaim over how "kawaii" I was... They told me my hair was beautiful, and asked if they could touch it. Haha. They asked if I had a boyfriend, I said sort of, back in the US - they started squealing and asked if I was going to marry him. Uh... :p They were very nice, it was just pretty funny. They also took tons and tons of pictures of us with their cell phone cameras.

After the high school, we headed up into the the start of the mountains to go to a ryokan. It had been pouring all day, so the roads were quite slippery, and when we got to the ryokan (where it was also snowing a bit, since it was higher)... we had a 5 minute walk down the steep, slippery Driveway Of Doom. They expect this to be accessible in the winter??
This picture taken the following morning doesn't really give it justice. Part of it is to the right, too.


At first we thought the ryokan was pretty awesome. It looked very neat inside, traditional, with creaky wooden floors and quite a maze of a place. There would be onsen! Yaay! It had kitties! MORE YAY. I was put in a room with the three girls who I would become pretty good friends with - they were already friends, but I think we clicked pretty well, I had a loot of fun with them.
Right inside:

The room (with kotatsu for keeping our footses warm):

Onsen kitty and uh.... my chest. I do not remember who took this picture for me but I think I may fire them. =p


We went to dinner, where my roommates and I discovered we were probably put together because we were all Special Foods people: one girl was allergic to crustaceans, I still hate fish/seafood, and the other two don't eat red meat.

After dinner, we decided to try and find an onsen to soak in! I love onsen! Unfortunately, it wasn't looking so good. First, one of our Japanese chaperone-guide-type-people thought the only hot springs we could use were ones that were outside. We did mention it was snowing a bit, right? And inside the building was generally unheated. Plus it was dark and unlighted and we couldn't see anything...
Outside hot spring, some brave soul tried it in the morning:


No. We asked someone who worked there, they pointed us to one that was upstairs (he also mentioned a co-ed one, but we weren't exactly comfortable with that when the girls went in to take a look and sad and old man squatting next to the pool, facing them with his legs wide open......). Up we went, but we didn't find anyone else going to it... We soon discovered why. The room was unheated and freezing. The water was ridiculously hot even for an onsen - we tried for about half an hour to get into it, and we just couldn't. We sat on the side, splashing water on ourselves to stay warm and alternately boiling our hands and freezing in the cold air. We eventually managed to get in if we kept our cold hands and feet out of the water, for a couple of minutes. We also wanted to wash our hair, etc - there were no showers, and we were told there were also no showers at the Buddhist temple we would be spending the next night at. We did a rather half-arsed job of that in the onsen, rinsing onto the floor, which you aren't generally supposed to do but we were pretty desperate... Finally we gave up and looked for everyone else. They had more success - there were private pools just beyond the co-ed bath, but you had to go outside briefly to get to them.

Ugh. Frozen and annoyed, we gave up.

None of us slept very well - we went from exhausted all day to lack of sleep silliness and spent a long time chatting. The unheated rooms made us very reluctant to get out of bed early the next morning. Breakfast wasn't a draw either - various pickled vegetables, seaweed, some kind of jelly thing... Fortunately I brought some clementines and food of my own. Not a fan of traditional Japanese breakfasts. :(

We left the ryokan and headed to a Japanese garden and tea ceremony~

Ryokan



To be continued! Need to study for my 3 quizzes tomorrow, I haven't even looked at the material yet... And NEED TO SHOWER. I hate hate hate not being able to shower every day. Freezing cold water from sinks doesn't really do it. :p

As always, Here are all my photos from the trip. :)

Shirakawa

Going to Shirakawa-go this weekend! It's a small mountain village with traditional-style buildings and gets some of the highest levels of snowfall in Japan (possibly the world? Just a quick Wikipedia), apparently - which I only just found out, necessitating an emergency run to buy winter boots and a thicker sweater or two tomorrow.... Because of the heavy snow, the houses have very slanted roofs. The itinerary is in Japanese; all I know that we're doing for sure is learning how to make soba noodles, talking with a high school class, and going to an onsen.

It sounds gorgeous and fun, provided I don't freeze. :)

Mountains mountains mountains!

Unfortunately my blasted camera only takes lithium batteries, which I haven't been able to find in Japan despite a Japanese friend's help, so I can't get it to last long. Hopefully I'll be able to get pictures still.

Vending Machines.. and then rambling about Japanese sex culture

Vending machines are huge in Japan. They're everywhere in Tokyo, usually selling a variety of cold drinks (water, various vitamin lemon waters, teas, soda, etc) and hot drinks in cans (coffee, hot chocolate, even soup). There's also lots of tobacco vending machines (have I mentioned that I hate how much everyone smokes here? Especially in even restaurants?), some alcohol vending machines since although the drinking age is 20, no one really cares here. But there's also lots of odd vending machines...

Here's an interesting page on vending machines in Japan. Lingerie, porn, flowers, I saw one with quick meals, umbrellas... Not mentioned in this article are the used girls' underwear vending machines... Supposedly they were stopped in 1993, but they can still be found occasionally, selling very expensive underwear, as seen here.

Japan certainly is an odd country when it comes to sex. Love hotels, where you can rent a room for a couple of hours, often in some kind of a fantasy setting... Take a look at this gallery and this one. Apartments tend to be so small and crowded, and often have thin walls, that it's hard to get some privacy so they're frequently used. Wikipedia says about 2% of the Japanese population visits them daily.

And no, family members who have reading this, I haven't even seen one... :p Probably passed them in Kabuki-cho (a sketchy area of Shinjuku at night - people, Japan is a lot safer than the US, but you still want to be careful, especially in Kabuki-cho and Roppongi, where the gaijin-aimed bars are located) while out with friends during the day but didn't realize it.

I did get groped last weekend while at an izakaya by a Japanese guy who stumbled out of the bathroom and past me, turned and just... grabbed my chest before stumbling on again. I was too shocked to do anything about it. I was talking to two guys from his group (they were seated next to us, I was waiting for my friends before he left) and they just said, "Sorry, he's pretty drunk..." I also had a businessman reach out and touch my cheek on while walking with friends on Halloween (I was a cat and painted on whiskers) and ask if I would be in Japan long enough to have a drink with him. ..... The professor for one of my classes organized a nomikai, which I didn't go to but a friend did, and apparently he brought hentai (porn) manga and showed it around to everyone.....

But! Most of the Japanese guys I know are incredibly sweet, and just get very stumbley when drunk. And very touchy-feely with other Japanese guys. Haha, it's very common to see guys hugging each other and holding hands when they're wasted. I don't think anyone else I know has had anything too bad happen (even on the subway, which is notorious for being trouble), either.

Just such an odd contrast. People don't kiss in public in Japan, holding hands is very common but kissing definitely not. Japanese don't say I love you much - I like you is used to mean I love you and I think still not that common, and marriages are often not that happy, as the businessmen work long hours and are hardly home except to sleep. And yet love hotels, porn, and the like are far from hidden. I think it's not as obvious in daily life as people make it out to be, but it's still definitely there. Interesting to see how different it is from the US.

More on the Yasukuni

I'm working on the short essay for my postwar Japanese class on the Yasukuni Shrine and Akihabara. This is a little tricky when the professor is obviously quite firm in the belief that there is no reason the Yasukuni Shrine should be controversial - the only article for extra reading that he gave us about it is an article explaining why it is not a glorification of Japan's military past, and that Koizumi's visits to it do not constitute a denial of Japan's past war crimes. It says that there are no bodies (the WWII war criminals are not buried there), that the criminals paid for their crimes in life and it should not go on after death, and that the countries bringing up complaints are silly - it is no one else's business, and no one cares if a President goes to the Arlington Cemetery. Yes, but the Arlington Cemetery doesn't have a museum dedicated to the military history of the country, which includes glossing over Japan's war atrocities, and excusing Japan's involvement with wars as being purely in order to prevent Western expansion into Asia and for self-defense. There's a bronze statue glorifying kamikaze pilots - I think they should certainly be remembered, but glorified rather than mourned as a tragic loss of life of so many young men? I found a photo of a label from the museum - I didn't see it, but I stopped paying much attention to the labels since they were frequently just in Japanese - on Nanjing, with this text: "General Matsui Iwane distributed maps to his men with foreign settlements and safety zones marked in red ink. Matsui told them to observe military rules and anyone that committed unlawful acts would be severely punished.

"He also warned the Chinese troops to surrender but commander-in-chief Tang Shengzhi ignored the warning. Instead, he ordered his men to defend Nanking to the death and then abandoned them. The Chinese were soundly defeated, suffering heavy casualties. Inside the city, residents were once again able to live their lives in peace." Uhm.... http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/nanking.htm

If the shrine was simply a place to honor the war dead, even with the war criminals there, I don't think it would have as much reason to be controversial. It would be for Japan to decide. But the Yushukan, which we went to - we didn't see the shrine itself, just the entrance - is all about the military history. And it portrays it in a very grand way. The essay we have to write - he does a sample essay, and he talks about how the Yasukuni is an example of "great" Japan (he has catchwords for different times in Japan's history and "great" is one) - yet the articles he gives us claims the shrine is there to pray for forgiveness and rest for those who died. Yet the image of Japan at its height, the fighter planes, huge canons, magnificent samurai armor, and the museum itself, seem to stand a little in contrast to that.

I'm certainly not going to bring this up though, to a Japanese professor for a class I'm worried about my grades in to begin with...

Edit - another interesting article here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8714706/page/3/

Oops. Hisashiburi da ne...

So it's been a while since I last wrote... Japan's not a good country to have depression in, and apparently my immune system is pretty terrible and I've had a series of bugs, so I haven't really been out and about much.

Yesterday, for my intellectual and cultural history of postwar Japan class (which sounds so interesting but is so, so terrible... a 3-hour class Friday evening, where the professor has awful English and makes no sense. The Waseda SILS classes don't really live up to expectation for a school with such a good reputation...) we had a class field trip to the Yasukuni Shrine and Akihabara. The Yasukuni Shrine, of course, is the rather controversial Shinto shrine that former prime minister Koizumi visited and caused a great deal of uproar since it honors some class A war criminals from WWII (such as prime minister and general Tojo) as well as war heroes. It's seen a symbol of Japanese militarism and imperialism, and relations with China and Korea especially were quite tense while Koizumi was in office, as they suffered quite a bit under Japanese rule.

At the Yasukuni Shrine, we visited the Yushukan - a museum dedicated to Japan's wars and military history. The shrine wa build to commemorate those who died for their country, and for the foundation of a peaceful Japan (as Yasakuni means peaceful nation/country). So the Yasukuni shrine is dedicated to repect all of Japan's war dead, in the wars since 1853 (it was built in 1869, just after the Meiji Restoration), not just those of World War II. It does portray an image of Japan at the height of its power, and some of the controversy is also due to it glorifying its past and glossing over the atrocities it committed against other countries. Although I couldn't read much, because almost everything is written just in Japanese, some of the controversy with the Yushukan is that it venerates Japan's role in history and glosses over "incidents" such as the Rape of Nanjing, Manchukuo, and the occupation of Korea. It also tends to blame China and the US for dragging it into wars. The Times has an article about it.

Anyway. After that we went to Akihabara (or Akiba), the paradise for techies and otaku. It's where to go if you want to buy a camera, tv, anime and video game figurines, or go to a maid cafe. Quite different from the Yasukuni, it was fast-paced, neon lights, small spaces, crammed with what's popular now - Japan of today is a place obsessed with fads and what's trendy, even more than the US. We have to write an essay comparing the two. Following that there was a class nomikai (drinking party), although I skipped to drag my poor sniffling sick self home instead. Apparently at the drinking party, the professor pulled out hentai (porn) manga that he bought and passed it around to the student. .... uh. Oh, Japan. What would you be without pervy old men...

Today I went to the Studio Ghibli museum with a bunch of friends. Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki, the director, are fairly well-known in the US - animated movies such as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, and others. A lot of them are very cute or well done, although some get too preachy for my tastes... But very creative worlds. The museum was like that: brilliant, creative design with quirky inventions, traditional animated films, and lots to pull out your inner kid. Hard to describe (and they're very strict about no taking pictures), but it was fun. I love looking at concept art.

Off to find some dinner and collapse for the night. Earthquake simulation and earthquake/fire safety instead of my Japanese language class on Monday, um... should be interesting. (As though I'm not afraid enough of earthquakes!)

Halloween is on Friday. It's not really celebrated in Japan, although it seems somewhat more popular amongst high school/college kids as an excuse to throw a party (but of course). Most people don't dress up though. I'm not really sure what I'm doing yet. Hmm.

It's mostly just odd, because Tokyo is still quite warm so it doesn't feel like Halloween - almost November! Tonight was probably one of the coldest nights so far, and it just meant I was a little chilly in my light sweater. During the day, jeans and t-shirt or long-sleeved shirt is still fine. This, plus starting school so much later than I am used to, is really messing with my sense of time...

There's no glorious fall foliage either - the few trees are either still green, or just turning brown and dried up. There would probably be more color in the countryside, but not in Tokyo.

I need to get out and explore Tokyo more. I keep getting mired down with classes and studying, which are important but... I haven't been doing much apart from that and having dinner near the dorms. I'll have to work on fixing that. Speaking of which, back to studying. *sigh*

Haven't posted in a while - I actually managed to get pretty sick this week. I had a fever of over 102, a headache for 2 days, and wasn't able to eat solid food for almost 2 days because my stomach hated me. Not fun. I went to the student health services, where they took my temperature, blanched, and gave me one of those masks (yes I see people wearing them everywhere) and a bottle of water. The doctor didn't speak any English, I was with a friend who speaks quite good Japanese, although she was struggling with the medical terms. He was not very helpful... Said the stomach was probably due to allergies and the postnasal drip irritating it, but didn't really say anything about the fever and headache. Which was what I was more concerned with, since I have never had a fever that high... He prescribed me a bunch of medications, which at least got the fever down, thank goodness. My stomach is still an issue, although I'm able to eat - just not very happy afterwards.

Being sick in a far-away country is no fun.

Oh, this is fun. I just came across a mention of a Japanese giant hornet. It's the size of your thumb and has flesh-melting poison that can kill you if the wound goes untreated. About 40 people die from it each year. .... WHAT. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1025_021025_GiantHornets.html

*does a frantic flaily dance* Okay, I tend to overreact to wasps, bees, and the like in general. This is just... so not cool. At all. ... And of course it's Japan. In mountain villages, they are often eaten deep fried or as a kind of "hornet sashimi."

Australia and its giant spiders, now Japan and its giant hornets.

Onsen!

Oooh. Ooooooh. I have fallen in love. And it is a somewhat expensive love, but oh man. Onsen are amazing.

Today was a holiday (Sports Day?) and since we did not have classes, a few friends and I trotted off to Odaiba (a man-made island in Tokyo) to go to a hot spring there. Once I got over the whole "ahh naked around lots of other women! Who keep staring at the gaijin! Awkward!" thing, I quite happily boiled myself like a lobster for several hours.

So the set-up was like this: you change into a yukata, and go wander around inside the onsen's first area - there are souveneir shops, various food stalls, lots of gorgeous decoration. We took a short look around, then went into the actual hot springs. Gone are all the clothes and everything except for a tiny hand towel, which you can dampen with cold water to keep cool or pull your hair out of your face. Or shield a section of your body, which was what we did most of the time as we first minced nervously in. First we cleansed ourselves with warm water, which you have to do before using the springs, and sat in the largest tub of hot water. There's an outside section of hot springs, more resembling a (very hot) river, which we tried next. Then we dipped our toes and towels into the cold pool to cool down. Then the steam showers and sauna. The cold pool again, as the Canadian girl and I had a marked resemblance to cooked lobsters. Next we tried the silt-and-nanobubbles pool, which was milky white and contained lots of minerals. After spending an hour and a half to two hours in these pools, we washed ourselves and shampooed, soaped, etc and went to get changed back into our yukata. We wandered around inside again, and then found another outdoors section.

Oooh. This was fun. More warm little rivers/ponders, with rocks put into the bottom to stimulate pressure points on your feet. Sometimes they were quite painful. Here, we found a place where "Doctor Fish" were used - an extra $15 to have fish nibble the dead skin off your feet. I like fish, thought it was awesome, and dragged one of the other girls in with me. The rest were rather grossed out. SO TICKLISH. Also, the fish attendants were hitting on us SO MUCH. It was hilarious. And first time a Japanese guy has flirted with me this trip. :p It was a lot of fun though and my feet were smoooooth afterwards.

I really needed this. It's been a rough week or two, and this was so relaxing. All girls too, so just a nice girls' night out. :)

Pictures~

Inside the onsen








Outside the onsen




Doctor Fish!

I love how I see women in kimono on the streets practically every day. Yesterday, I went to Shinjuku to meet up with the guy who first started tutoring me in Japanese four years ago when I was in high school (he was a Japanese student going to a college near me), and I saw women in kimono on three separate occasions. I saw a taiko drums performance yesterday as well, amidst all the neon lights, McDonald's, and people rushing around in business suits. In many restaurants, especially around where I am living, there are sections where you slip off your shoes and kneel on tatami mats while you eat. There are shrines and houses with traditional style architecture squished into corners, and tomorrow I am planning to go to an onsen - hot spring - in Odaiba. One thing I really respect about Japan are these little reminders of the past, despite being in such a huge city.

Homesickness and culture shock are hitting everyone this past week, however. Since classes have started, friends have been split up and more on their own now that we have different schedules, and the sudden loneliness is getting to people. I've been running into teary-eyed friends in the dorm hallways or breaking down after something stressful in class. My emotions have been thrown every which way, and I miss some western foods, my family and cats, and my sort of boyfriend very much. It's tough being so far away, with a 13- or 15- hour time difference. I quite miss Colorado (where I spent the summer) and the friends I have there, as well as the weather - Tokyo is incredibly rainy, and humid when it's not rainy. Even now, although today was the first non-rainy day where the temperature dropped to needing a sweater during the day. I miss reading books (too heavy to bring, although I have discovered e-books, which are surprisingly expensive but hey, at least I can read when I'm feeling stressed) and I hate not being able to read anything around me. Dratted kanji, I wish the Japanese had not borrowed that from the Chinese.....

But life goes on, and soon enough this, too, shall pass.

People have also started pairing off - some with other exchange students, others developing crushes on Japanese students. Foreign girls have an especially tough time with Japanese guys, who lead them on quite a frustrating chase... Apparently the usual etiquette, as explained to me by one girl trying to navigate dating a Japanese boy, is to tell your good friend that you like the boy. The good friend then passes on this information to the boy's good friend, who then passes it on to the boy himself. If the boy likes you, you'll go on a date in a group of people - although he won't call it such, and he'll probably ignore you during the event. Eventually you progress to one-sentence conversations. Another girl, frustrated by all this, broke in. "So by the time July comes around, we might get a kiss on the cheek, huh?" Meanwhile, the foreign boys seem to have a much easier time with Japanese girls - and are often only interested in Asian girls to begin with...

I find dating stressful enough in the US, where things tend to be more straightforward. (Although not always. Sigh.) People keep asking me if I have my eye on any Japanese boys - nope! Listening to my friends stressing over whether a guy likes her or not, because he ignores her and doesn't really talk to her (but apparently is interested) is quite enough. :p

DOES TOKYO EVER STOP RAINING. AUGH.

Also, very minor earthquake today. Shook my desk and chair a little and made me feel dizzy. I do not approve of these earthquake things.

More photos!

And here for all photos I have taken so far: http://flickr.com/photos/bookwyrm1317/

Japanese fashion is most interesting.


Harajuku, the youth fashion area


HUGE BEER.


Kabuki theater



I saw a bus of kids go by, with a few waving to people on the street, trying to get them to wave back. I did, and got my friends to as well - and suddenly there was a wall of kids pressed up against the windows, waving frantically at the gaijin. :)

Hmm.

Japan does not follow Daylight Savings. It used to, after WWII, but was discontinued. This will make things confusing when I try to call people back home in a few weeks. I'm used to 13 and 15 hour difference! Now I'll have to do MORE math again.

I love the area I am living in. I'm in ... Shinjuku-ku? Japanese addresses are actually rather confusing to me. Anyway, it's a station or two, or a 30- to 40-minute walk, away from Shinjuku proper. (Tokyo is huge, people. Bloody hell. I just about had a heart attack the first time I saw a Tokyo metro map. I still don't feel comfortable taking it on my own. I miss the DC metro, it was so simple...) Shinjuku has the busiest train station in the world, Japan's largest skyscraper district, and largest number of foreigners. The chaos and nightlife is accessible, but where I live it's a lot quieter. The streets are lined with tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants. Pretty shrines and traditional houses are squished into corners or between modern concrete monstrosities. Japan, where did all your traditional architectural aesthetic tastes go? But anyway, I love all the little restaurants around the area. I just have to learn how to read the menus so I don't end up with sea food... Speaking of which, I have tried some! Still don't like it, unfortunately. I have tried shrimp, unagi (eel), and salmon sashimi when I was desperate at a nomikai (all-you-can-drink, this one with set food courses included - almost all seafood. TENTACLES. AH.) Oh well, I have been trying... I've found some food I really like, and if my menu is quite limited at the moment I am at least eating a lot - probably eating too many eclairs/crepes which are often in convenience stores that are on every block... Japan sweets/pastries are wonderful.

Takadanobaba, nicknamed Baba, is the area Waseda students usually go to for close-to-home fun. There are a lot of restaurants and izakayas - the traditional-style Japanese bars with all-you-can-drink. Oh man, I thought Americans drank a lot... At least they usually don't go back and drink more after losing everything they ate that day. They're awfully cheerful and less violent, though. (Similarly - unchained bikes EVERYWHERE. I'm used to DC, where bikes are always locked up and it's common to see some with their wheels jacked.) There is also an English pub, called The Hub, which my friends have become very fond of. Quite small though, as usual, and there tends to be a large group of us hanging out, so it's always difficult to find a restaurant to eat in or a bar to go to.

Speaking of toilets! Bathrooms rarely have paper towels, or even air dryers. Hmm. To protect the environment, but... wet hands!

I want to be out and exploring Tokyo more, but unfortunately I have a heavy load of classes (I'm taking the maximum suggested credits - long story - and Japanese class alone is enough to drive me insane). We've got some 3-day weekends coming up, perhaps then...

Also need to find more Japanese friends to hang out with and make them speak Japanese to me.

I may actually miss some food from Japan...

I love cheap food (big bowls of ramen/pork, egg, & rice with bowl of miso soup/noodles/curry rice/etc etc) that you can get for about $3.50-$8.50. I love 百円 shops (100 yen = $1 store) that are everywhere and have so much in them. Yes I do!

But I still hate Japanese class. It is roasting me alive. :(

Classes have started. Dun dun dun.

Whew okay so I haven't posted in a while...

Things have generally been going well, hanging out a lot with the international students (I know, I know, need to hang out with Japanese students so I actually practice Japanese...) and finding Japanese food I like. Mmm, katsukari and katsudon and ramen.

Classes started yesterday and Japanese class is incredibly incredibly hard. D= 3 hours 3 days a week, teacher speaks no English and the textbook has absolutely no English either. (Word definitions? Grammar explanations?) I'm not understanding the majority of what the teacher says and I am very stressed. But I need the immersion and pressure to focus, I guess? I'd just prefer if my grade wasn't hanging on it.

I'm taking language in society and culture, which is a lot less interesting than I hoped it would be - mostly because the teacher, although his English is pretty clear (not a given in SILS despite it being an English language school) he is incredibly disorganized in his lectures. He jumped back and forth on his power point, lost his train of thought, and generally made himself hard to follow. I'm also taking a media studies class, with a focus on Western views of Japan in the 19th century, which looks to be quite interesting, and the professor (a guy from Manchester who has been living in Japan for 28 years) is awesome. So yay for that! Also taking a religions of East Asia with a focus on Hinduism, but I don't have that until Friday. No classes on Wednesday.

Tokyo is a very rainy place... over 3/4 of the days have been rainy. Ick!

serious stuff, and harajuku

Here is my photo album, and I'll put some at the end of the post...

Dinner tonight with friends from GW who graduated and came back to Tokyo (since they're Japanese). Had a wonderful time, it was great to see them, although we didn't always have the most uplifting of conversations - apparently Tokyo is overdue for a huge earthquake, enough to do serious damage to the city, and my old dorm probably isn't exactly earthquake proof. Color me terrified. They were also talking about how common it is for the subway to be delayed due to men jumping in front of the train and committing suicide. They said certain lines are more popular than others, and sometimes the color of the line/train or the music played when the doors open or close can drive people to it if they're already stressed... The frequency and method of suicide is so odd. Apparently, there's about one suicide every 15 minutes - almost 100 a day. It has the same number of suicides as the US, but half the population. Internet suicide pacts started in Japan. In the US, I think suicides tend to be less public. There are jumping off buildings, or occasionally in front of cars/trains, but it's most common to use a firearm. And then, I think, to overdose on pills, hang themself, or something else more private. It's just odd, to see the differences... and very sad.

Anyway. Shibuya was a lot of fun, and we also went to Harajuku earlier in the day. Got some clothes.... Japanese fashion is very, very, very bizarre. Currently there's a lot of fur vests, plaid shirts, the Ugg-type boots, and basically looking like you're wearing sacks. I can't say I have been too impressed with a lot of Japanese fashion, not exactly up my alley... Though I do like the short skirts/knee length socks or leggings and boots. So I got the first two of three! I also realized that Japanese girls do not wear tank tops. And... spagetti stap tank tops make up the majority of my summer clothes. I got a lot of Japanese men leering at me. So now I have to find something to wear over/under them, which is a pain when it's as hot as it still is, despite being almost October. Boo.

Ah! Last week the Waseda International Club organized a nomihoudai and tabehoudai (all you can drink/eat) at an izakaya - type of Japanese bar. Hoo boy. The Waseda tennis club was there, and ... I have never seen people that drunk. Apparently the tennis club drinks more than it plays tennis. It was crazy. When Japanese people let loose, they REALLY let loose it seems. I thought American students were bad... The Japanese students who organized the trip to the izakaya were chugging big bottles of Asahi to cheers as fast as they could, taking sake shots, etc. They'd go puke, and then go back and drink some more. I tried sake and quite liked it, actually - now I just wish I knew what kind it was. Dratted kanji. It was quite the experience... I felt very bad for the people who worked there. Not a job I would ever want.

Anyway. Some photos!

Engrish


Asakusa


Izakaya

First Earthquake

Woke up to an earthquake this morning around 7:15. Sat up blearily, wondering why someone was shaking my bed and why the bookshelves were making weird noises. Realized it was an earthquake, and oh, I should be doing something.

4.8 earthquake. Not that strong, but ... definitely nothing I've felt before. The feeling of the ground just moving around underneath you is very darn unsettling.

Went to Asakusa yesterday, a beautiful old shrine, and then an izakaya in the evening. All you can eat and drink. Bloody hell. There was another group there what was completely, utterly trashed. I've never seen people that drunk. They were just staggering around everywhere and falling against each other. I tried sake, which I quite liked - the Japanese kids who gave it to me were surprised I liked it. =p Very, very noisy and crowded and crazy, but quite an experience!

Typhoon!

Woo, typhoon Sinlaku. All it means for us in Tokyo is lots and lots of rain. Ick.

Spent 5 hours applying for my alien registration card and national health insurance. Fun, fun. But after that we went to Shibuya, wandered around enjoying our first sight of Tokyo off-campus, took photos of us all in a photobooth at an arcade store, and then went to a bar. My first time ever at a bar! Whee! ... It is quite expensive and makes a lot more sense just to buy alcohol and mix your own drinks with friends, but hey. 

Tomorrow is a tour of Tokyo (sites such as Akihabara, Harajuku, Asakusa, etc) despite continued rain. Although I may not go if it's raining too heavily, I got soaked today and I'm already sick... 

Pictures!

Some photos of Japan are posted up here: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v282/bookwyrm1317/Japan/

I'll try to actually put some in a post when I can figure out how to do it, the post page keeps getting screwy when I try...

Orientations today. Many of them. Went from a dearth of information to them suddenly throwing an overwhelming amount of information (and pounds of papers) at us. We also had a tour of campus, which has some really gorgeous areas - like the Okubo Gardens, a beautiful park right on campus.

I am going to get so very, very lost however.

Tomorrow is the Japanese placement exam (ugh. I haven't studied all summer) and more orientations...

In Japan at last

All right, I have arrived in Japan at last. The 14-hour flight over was very, very long, but not as bad as I thought it would be - took some sleeping pills and passed out for 5 or 6 hours.

Arrived in Narita, and had to haul my two suitcases and two carry-ons through the airport, a train, a subway, and a bus. For future travelers to Japan: you can have your suitcases delivered to you in Tokyo, but it arrives the next day: if you're taking a similar route and have lots of baggage it's probably a good idea to just move what you need for the first day or two to your hand luggage or one suitcase, because maneuvering around people, especially in the subway and bus, is tricky. As you may have heard, Tokyo is rather crowded.

My room is a dingy little single with a fridge, sink, and very small closet. They provided linens, but the pillow is full of beans or something... I got a headache and stiff neck from sleeping on it. Showers and bathrooms are shared (two of each per gender on my floor) and there's a communal kitchen on my floor too. My AC apparently doesn't work, and the room is hot and sticky as hell. Need to find a fan today. There's no windows to slide open, just the entire back wall is glass, half of which is a sliding door leading out onto a huge patio thing connected to some other rooms. Not a very exciting view, sadly, but it is surrounded by trees.

Not sure how the curfew works yet, I think there's a gate that closes at 11 and after that you can't get in... not entirely sure yet though. Guest policies are very strict: I can't even have a family member stay with me in the room. We're not even supposed to let people come see the room. Damn, I miss American dorms... I think people are going to see how easy it is to sneak people in, heh. The dorm I'm in has the reception desk though, whereas the other Hoshien dorms don't have anyone at the bottom, I think. Boo.

Everyone is very friendly, though I was a little out of it yesterday due to sleep deprivation. Met several people at the airport, then there a welcome party for new students. After that, some of the Japanese students there showed us to a discount store and a little supermarket - got some food for breakfasts, mm. 

There is the most horrendous bug noise outside. It sounds like an electric saw or dental work, then a dying electric saw. Cicada perhaps?

Orientation and a campus tour this morning. Just have to find the building we have orientation in - it would probably have been helpful for them to give us a campus map...

And off I go

Leaving tomorrow to arrive in Japan Tuesday afternoon. (I have a slightly convoluted flight path - overnighting in Georgia with my aunt and uncle.) Not sure when I'll have Internet - I think it takes a while to get it. We shall see... Hopefully it won't be too long, as I am slightly addicted to the Internet.

Terrified! Suitcases are bursting at the seams and hoping the big one is not overweight! Lost important stuff (but it's not really a proper trip unless I lose something important, gah. I hate how easily I lose things)! Have I mentioned I'm a wee bit nervous?

Anyway. じゃあ、まっだ日本で！

Blank blank blank

Well... in just over a week, I will probably start actually having interesting things to post here.

In the meantime, I am just going to be panic about how terrible my Japanese is, why the hell I'm going across the world for a year to stay in a country that is notoriously xenophobic, how to stuff everything into my suitcases (oh airlines, how I love that you charge for more than one bag. Bastards.), and how long I'll survive before giving in to desperation and attempting seafood.

I am, however, looking forward to classes on subjects that actually interest me, which GW lacks. Well, supposedly - no idea what classes are being offered yet. But samples from previous years that interest me: Language, Society, and Culture; Languages of Europe and Asia; Sociolinguistics; History of Language Teaching in Japan; Law and Society in Japan; Tokyo: Anthropological Fieldwork and Documentary Filmmaking; Anthropology of Urban Japan. Yes, I am a dork. I love comparative language stuff.  Of course, from what I have heard Japanese classes are not very difficult, but still - more of what I am interested in. 

I am looking forward to learning Japanese outside of class - much more fun, if tiring/stressful and potentially embarrassing. But, I suppose that's part of the fun of learning languages - embarrassing yourself and getting to tell entertaining stories about it later...

Ah, I don't know. I'm not a particularly deep person or eloquent writer. Just going way out of my depth and panic and excitement are wearing me out with their little battles for dominance.

Pesky aspects of traveling abroad - very dependent on little pieces of paper

I believe that foreigners in Japan are supposed to carry their passport/Visa with them at all times. I generally carry a purse with me at all times, but for my passport I'd prefer something safer - anyone have tips/suggestions? I used an around the neck money pouch while visiting Italy before, but it was incredibly uncomfortable...

Edit: Nevermind! Smaller alien registration card thing, not passport. That be good news.

visa! hooray!

Got my Visa~ whew. So all set on that front. Just have to get the re-entry ... thingymawhatsit once I'm in Japan so I can travel around Asia and whatnot.

Also ordered my phone for Japan (through PicCell), which was offered through Waseda. No fees apart from calling rates, which is good, but unfortunately rates are rather expensive. Calls in *Japan* are about 65 cents a minute. Texting is just 5 cents for in Japan though, so good thing I do that more anyway... Not going to be doing any international calls with it though, 'cos ouch. Going to get the Skype package that allows me to call cell phones and land lines as well, because it's ridiculously cheap and sounds amazing. Skype is wonderful. $4 for 10,000 minutes to the US (... I think that's the rate for even if I'm not in Japan. Doesn't seem to have prices for if I'm in Japan, just general calling US/Canada, the UK/Europe, Japan/etc. But would be calling the US, not Japan... it's a bit confusing. Ah well. 

Still have to look into the bloody Japanese encephalitis vaccine. I hate shots. :(

Dorm information at last, and Visa application

I have a single room at the Waseda Hoshien International dorm, right in Shinjuku.

... Japanese dorms have a curfew. We have to be out of other residents' dorms by 11 pm, and out of the common areas by 1 am. Not sure whether we have to be back at the dorm by the curfew like I believe some dorms require. I hope not! It looks like guests aren't allowed into the dorm at all, especially not for overnight. It also mentions internet in the common room, but not in individual rooms. If we don't have internet in our rooms I will be most displeased. I'm planning to Skype a lot with people back home since calling is expensive, prefer not to do that in a common room. =p Happy to get a single though - a roommate would help a lot with socializing, and maybe not being as lonely, but I prefer not to risk getting someone I don't get along with. Wouldn't make things at all fun.

I e-mailed Waseda for confirmation on the pick-up service for when I get there, since my flight gets in 5 minutes before the cutoff time. They haven't gotten back to me. What is it with study abroad offices and being useless at e-mails? Going to e-mail them once more and then call if I don't hear back.

Also went to NYC to drop off my Visa application, which took about two minutes. Whew. We were expecting it to take longer than that! We have to go pick it up again on Thursday or Friday though, which is a bit of a pain - they won't mail it to us since Boston is the "resident consulate" for Connecticut, but NYC is an hour and a half from us, versus at least three hours to Boston, so it's worth it.

Nervous nervous nervous!

Edit: Talked with someone who went to Waseda a few years ago. We do have internet in the rooms, and they aren't too strict about curfew and guests can be snuck in. That's a relief...

Just about a month 'till Japan...

So here's my blog for recording my various escapades and travels in Japan. We'll see whether I grow to like fish and how I manage to embarrass myself in Japanese (hey, it's one of the fun aspects of learning a new language, always provides entertaining stories...)

Anyway. I leave a month from tomorrow to go to Atlanta, where I stay overnight with my aunt and uncle, before heading to Japan on the 15 of September to arrive on the 16. 

People keep asking whether I'm excited. So far, I've been mostly stressed - the study abroad office at GW, Waseda has not given me any information beyond the day I am supposed to get there... Oh, and the day I'm supposed to get there they have a pick-up service that takes you from Narita Airport to your dorm or homestay. However, your flight has to get in before 1:30 pm, and you can't check into your dorm after 5. ... I found one flight getting in at 1:25; most flights from America get in much later in the afternoon/evening. I sent Waseda an e-mail making sure this would still be okay, but I haven't heard back yet. Sigh. 

I go to get my Visa next week, right after getting home (as I'm in Colorado and they just sent the Certificate of Eligibility to my house a couple days ago). Eek.  I need to figure out what to pack when I get home, and seriously brush up on my Japanese. Apart from very basic stuff with the many Japanese tourists who have come into my work at Boulder, I haven't practiced at all this summer... Should be interesting!