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*
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
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!
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.
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!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
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
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
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
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. :)
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. :)
Monday, October 6, 2008
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 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.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
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. :(
But I still hate Japanese class. It is roasting me alive. :(
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