djb

2011-08-22T13:58:00.001+09:00

Joya, Palo Alto

レポート：日本語バーション

2010-08-02T16:12:00.000+09:00

よかったら、どうぞ。

日本に働くことを想像してみた時、社員がみなスーツで朝から夜まで事務所で一生懸命仕事をすることを想像した。会社で研修生の私は完璧な敬語で社長と話し、自分は何の服を着るか心配していた。しかし、私の「会社」は会社ではなく、さいたまコープという協同組合である。私も大学生の時生協に入っていたから、日本のコープはどういうことか興味があった。うちのオバリン大学のコープは、大学の食堂の代わりに、自分で食事を準備することが主である。全部は学生に支配されて、健康と環境問題が強調されている。さいたまコープは理念的に同じだが、食べ物だけではなくて様々なことをしている。保険や自宅配達やカルチャーセンターなどあり、元気な生活を応援している。

　この研修に対して個人的な目標が二つある。一つ目は色々な場合で仕事をうまくできることである。日本語の聞き取り力を試し、分からない時質問をしてみた。去年、大阪の関西外国語大学で一学期に留学し、大学の専攻の一つも日本語だった。しかし、日本語の勉強したいところがまだたくさんあり、これからも頑張らなくてはいけない。同僚と色々な話ができた。それは二つ目の目標である：日本人と一緒に日本とアメリカ、または日本語と英語についての話をすること。日本とアメリカの間の親善使節として大事な仕事である。この世界には様々なタイプの人があるので、それを強調しながらステレオタイプを消そうにしている。

　研修の最初の一週間は埼玉大学でコンビニと本屋でレジ打ちをしていた。レジスターの経験がその時までなかった。お客さんからもらったお金を速く数え、お釣りの量などを速く言わないと時間がかかてしまうので、慣れるまでは少し大変だった。しかし、すぐレジの流れに慣れた。何を学んだというと、「お願いします」の便利なところである。外国人の私にとって、店員さんに「日本語が分かりますよ」が伝えるので、便利な表現である。

　埼玉大学でお弁当発売もした。天気が非常に暑いのに、お弁当のおばさんと一緒に売るのはとても楽しかった。レジがなかったため、お釣りを頭で数えなくてはいけない。数字は私も苦手なので、難しかったが、分からない時いつも同僚が手伝ってくれた。本当にチームの一員として扱ってくれたので、さいたまコープの人達の親切さを感じた。

次の二週間は大宮センターの自宅配達をした。清水さんという女と人と一緒に回り、マンションなどで食品配達をした。よく食べ物について話した。私は和食が好きなので、食品の仕事をしていてよかったと思う。清水さんと清水さんの仲間と一緒に昼ご飯を食べるのが楽しかった。コープの皆さんは仕事が好きのようである。効率的なものが好きなので、箱の片付けはおもしろいと思った。邪魔にならないために速く仕事に慣れることにしていた。役に立ててよかった。

最後の二週間は狭山台の店舗で様々な仕事をすることだった。食品を店に出すことが多く、農産と惣菜の仕事もした。農産でキャベツやかぼちゃをビニールで詰め、少量パックも作った。お客さんから少量パックがあればいいという提案があったので、コープは少量パックを作ることになった。コープがそのようにお客さんの希望に速く反応ができることは素晴しいと思う。アメリカには、野菜と果物をパッケージにあまり入れないが、日本にはよく入れると気付いた。農産の後、惣菜で働いた。マネジャーの菊谷さんは私の面倒をみてくれた。惣菜の人はとてもおもしろく、寿司ロボで寿司を巻いた。おいしい食べ物をたくさんもらった。

仕事以外、一週間に一・二回色々な施設を見学した。さいたまコープの長島さんと土屋さんが大変お世話になった。さいたまコープが何のことをしているか勉強するのため、食品検査センターなど一緒に連れて行ってもらった。文化的な所も行き、その中から盆栽美術館がおすすめである。埼玉県の施設を見学する機会もあった。まるでＶＩＰ扱いで埼玉スタジアム２００２や青雲酒造などに行った。雲の中で山にある三峰神社の旅館に泊まることは一番美しかった。おいしい和食をごちそうになり、和紙とそばも作ってみた。

埼玉に来る前にもう日本についてたくさんのことを知ていたので、今回、何が驚いたか少し分からなくなってしまう。しかし、仕事環境の礼儀正しさには驚いた。皆さんはきちんと挨拶をしたり、名詞の前によく「お」を言う。「お疲れ様です」の表現が特に好きである。「今日も頑張ってくれてありがとう」という気持が素敵だと思い、それを毎日聞くと私がその仕事をしていてよかったと感じる。

埼玉に来る機会があってがとてもよかった。埼玉県に感謝をしている。色々な人と話ができたり、これからも日本語の勉強を頑張ろうと思っている。将来翻訳家や通訳者になりたいので、この経験はその夢に対して非常に重要である。自分以外の国の人と話すのはとても大事だと思う。埼玉人は皆やさしくて寛大である。出会った人が昔から知っているような気がした。回りに幼馴染がいる感じだった。

人種に構わず皆は人間である。基本的に違わない。埼玉に来る前に、オハイオ州立大学からもらったガイドでこのことが書いてあった：「外国の話をすると、強調されたことは同じところではなくて、違うところである。」文化の違いは確かにおもしろいが、類似は世界の人を繋げていると思う。

The Official Report: English Version

2010-08-02T16:11:00.001+09:00

For your consideration. Home on Wednesday.

When I first began to imagine what my six weeks in Saitama would be like, I thought about all of the stereotypical images of the Japanese business world: men dressed in suits exchanging business cards with a bow and rows of people working at computers in an office, working hard from morning until night. I thought I would need to have impeccable keigo (polite honorific speech) in order to not embarrass myself in front of the shachou (company president), and I worried about what I would wear every day. However, the company I was placed with is not actually a company at all, but a cooperative association (seikyou) named Saitama Co-op. While I was a little disappointed that I wouldn’t be pretending to be a powerful businesswoman, I was also pleasantly surprised, as I had been a member of Oberlin’s Student Cooperative Association (OSCA) and was curious to see what a Japanese co-op was like, especially one on such a large scale. Unlike Oberlin’s co-ops, which are limited mostly to providing alternative housing and dining to students, Saitama Co-op does everything from groceries to health insurance to cultural centers with an emphasis on affordable, healthy living.

I had two personal goals for this internship. The first was to be able to adapt quickly to new situations and jobs, and to be able to carry out those jobs with efficiency and accuracy. Obviously, a lot of that had to do with my Japanese skills and listening comprehension, and I always made sure to ask clarifying questions if I wasn’t completely sure what it was I was supposed to be doing. I am fairly confident with my Japanese, as it was one of my majors at Oberlin and I spent a semester studying abroad at Kansai Gaidai in Osaka last year. Everyone was very complimentary of my Japanese, but I know that there is still a lot more to learn, and I need to keep being diligent about my studies now that I have graduated. I did feel a little bad for the people I worked with at first, as they seemed to have been concerned that I would not understand Japanese, even though a minimum of three years or equivalent of study is required for this internship. However, they were soon put at ease, and we had many great conversations about Japan and America, and Japanese and English, which ties into my second goal: to talk to anyone who was interested about my experiences as an American, a native speaker of English, and a student of Japanese, in order to do my part as an ambassador. There are plenty of misconceptions held by both Americans and Japanese, and as someone who bridges those two worlds, I find it to be a sort of duty to stress that the world is full of all sorts of people, and thinking in absolutes is rarely useful (for example, is it true that all Americans can’t use chopsticks or eat raw fish, or, is it true that there still aren’t many Japanese women in the workforce. I was actually surprised to see that most of the people I worked with at Saitama Co-op are women).

I moved around a lot during my six weeks in Saitama, working at three different locations within Saitama Co-op. I spent the first week at Saitama University working the cash registers in two different convenience store-type locations and the book store. This took some adjusting, as transactions are unsurprisingly carried out entirely in Japanese, and I had to learn how to use the cash register, which I had no experience operating in any language. I was glad that my Japanese numbers were already strong, as I had to narrate what the total was, how much money the customer gave me, and how much their change came to within a short span of time. I also had to further familiarize myself with Japanese currency and be able to recognize how much money the customer had put down rather quickly. Perhaps the most practical thing I learned is that if you would like the person ringing you up to take whatever money you have set down and change it, it's useful to say onegaishimasu (please take care of this), so they don't keep waiting for you to put down exact change. It’s also a useful way for a customer to begin a transaction, and I now use it every time I buy something as an ulterior motive to let the cashier know that I speak Japanese.

One of my favorite parts of Japanese monetary transactions is that there is almost always a little tray where the customer puts the money, and there it sits while you finish with your business. You don’t have to hold their money somewhat awkwardly in your hand, and it doesn’t have to sit there on the counter looking like it could blow away at any second. Instead, like many things in Japan, it has its proper place, and there it stays until your business is done, when it goes into the register. They often have little rubber nubs that feel nice to touch, so that you’re not grasping something hard all day. It’s the small things that count.

I also sold bento (boxed lunches) during lunch time, which was fun even though it was ghastly hot outside (as it was the entire time) since the ladies I worked with were very sweet and entertaining. There was no cash register however, so I had to calculate change in my head, which I’m not very good at in English or Japanese. Still, like my regular gig at the cash register, any time I had an issue, there was somebody right there to help me out. From my first day, I felt like I was being treated as a member of a team, and that I had been accepted into the extensive co-op family.

The next two weeks, I went on grocery delivery runs with a woman named Shimizu, and we quickly became friends, passing the time in the truck talking about Japan, America, and food. I love all food anywhere, including Japanese food, which always seems to surprise people. We mostly went around apartment buildings making deliveries, and it was nice to constantly be in the company of another person, and also to move around on the job. Standing in one place working a cash register is extremely tiring, and my shoulders and feet hurt a lot after every day at Saitama University. Conversely, making deliveries included a lot of down time in the truck and in the office, and the boxes were rarely heavy. I loved eating lunch with Shimizu-san and her friends every day, and it seemed to me that the women I worked with are very happy with their jobs and Saitama Co-op. The fact that they accept interns like me is probably also testament to the co-op’s priorities.

The last two weeks I spent working at a grocery store in Sayama-dai, which is more in the countryside. Naturally, I spent some time stocking shelves, but I also got to do work behind the scenes, which I found to be more fun. The first two days, I worked in the produce department, doing a lot of packaging. I was surprised to find that Saitama Co-op does a lot of its own packaging of fruits and vegetables, catering to the whims of the co-op members who shop there. For example, I made a lot of half size packages, which we prepared in response to customer comments that they only needed half of a head of cabbage, or half a bag of spinach, at a time. As someone who has spoiled many a half a head of cabbage because I couldn’t use it quickly enough, I thought it was great that Saitama Co-op was able to give its customers what they wanted on such a local level. I have found also that Japan tends to package a lot more of its produce than the United States does.

After produce, I was taken under the wing of the manager of the souzai section, Kikutani-san. Souzai is where they actually prepare food, like bento, sushi, tempura, yakitori, and katsu (fried foods). It is perhaps akin to a delicatessen in that respect. As a side note, on most Saitama Co-op signage, it says “co-op deli,” which does not stand for delicatessen, but for “delivery” and “delicious.” Japanese English is its own beast. I had lots of fun working in souzai, as all the ladies were very nice and funny, and I got to use sushi-making robots. Personally, I am a little miffed by how stereotypically Japanese this seems: sushi and robots are some of Japan’s most famous products, and putting them together seems both natural and like a bad joke, like something you would see on a novelty T-shirt.

In addition to my regular work, I was also treated at least once but sometimes twice a week to touring various facilities, both those operated by Saitama Co-op and by Saitama Prefecture. I was placed in the care of two remarkable individuals from Saitama Co-op, Nagashima-san and Tsuchiya-san, who took me around to places like the food product inspection center, in order to learn more about all the aspects of dealing with food sales. They also took me to more cultural spots, like the Bonsai Museum in Toro, which I highly recommend. I could depend on them for anything, and they were so warm towards me that my fellow interns mistook them for my host family on the day we visited the governor. That’s right, we met the governor of Saitama Prefecture, part of our six-week-long VIP treatment. We were taken around to all sorts of places around the prefecture, like the 2002 World Cup soccer stadium, a saké brewery (complete with taste testing), and a breathtaking shrine and ryokan (inn) on top of a mountain amongst the clouds in Chichibu. We were not just interns, we were guests of the government. We enjoyed delicate meals of Japanese food and got to do a lot of hands-on projects, like make washi (Japanese paper) and soba noodles. If the experience was two parts work, it was one part playtime, getting shuttled around in an air conditioned van, which is not a bad gig considering the unbearable 98° F humid weather.

Since I already knew a lot about Japan, culturally and linguistically, before I came to Saitama, it is a little difficult for me to discern what would stand out as surprising about Japanese business. One of the things I did enjoy as a member of the work force, however, was the general air of politeness that permeates everyday conversation, such as adding the slightly honorific o- prefix to words like obento (bento) and okaimono (shopping), and also the various greetings (aisatsu). To start with, there is irasshaimase (Welcome!), which is cheerfully bleated by all shop workers any time a customer enters a store. Amongst co-workers, there is the wonderful phrase otsukaresama desu, which people throw around lightly, but is ultimately a way of acknowledging somebody’s continued hard work at their job. Being told this every day is very satisfying, and I love that somebody thanking you for doing your job is built into the work day.

I am incredibly grateful that I had the opportunity to come to Saitama this summer and experience what it is like to work in Japan, and to belong to a larger, incredibly supportive community in the form of Saitama Co-op. This experience has inspired me to keep striving in my language studies so that I can one day live my dream of being a professional translator and/or interpreter. It is so incredibly important to experience cultures other than one’s own in order to gain perspective on one’s native country and language so that we can make this world a more peaceful one. Everyone I met was extremely nice and generous, and a lot of the people I worked with gave me the impression that I had met them before, or reminded me strongly of someone I know back in the States. I felt like I was already surrounded by old friends, which is an incredibly comforting feeling. Even though we may be of different nationalities, I believe the common thread of humanity is enough to unite us, as well as some mutual language study. There was a quote in the orientation package prepared by Ohio State University that really stuck with me, which read, “When people talk about other cultures, they tend to describe the differences and not the similarities.” Surely, cultural differences are fun and interesting, but ultimately it is the similarities that tie us all together.

Is it okay if Mom comes?

2010-07-23T21:39:00.002+09:00

Here is a linguistic phenomenon that had me really confused the other day: sometimes, people will refer to their spouse in conversation as Mom or Dad (お母さん、パパ etc). Occasionally, this is very confusing, because I am not actually sure if whomever I'm talking to is referring to their wife or their mother. I'm sure you can see the Oedipal places this is going. Most of the time, people will backtrack and say, And by Papa I mean my husband, but the other day this was not the case, and I was introduced to a woman I thought was this man's mom, but was actually (probably) his wife. I did think she looked rather young for a mother of a man who is 40-50 years old. It was only later when she sent me an email in English referring to my acquaintance as her husband that I started to put the pieces back together. Normally I would have been more observant, but this guy (one of the people in charge of me from the co-op) I know does not wear a wedding ring and had talked about his mom before, who was actually his mom and not his wife. I'm pretty sure I have his relations sorted out, but it made for one heck of a head trip along the way.

He's what we call a くそがき

2010-07-19T17:53:00.003+09:00

These were the words spoken to me in Japanese by my new host family's grandfather about my new host brother, who is 3 (I think). くそがき kuso gaki literally means shitty brat, but is slightly more endearing than the English would have you think, but only slightly. There are two others, an older sister (6) who is pretty cute but too interested in me and what I am doing at any given second, and a baby who is 1 and doesn't do much except drool. I have also been transplanted to the 田舎 countryside which is less than ideal. I had a rough first day at work today due to these new circumstances and a general feeling of being overwhelmed. I am hoping to transcend these things. My commute is virtually nonexistent now, and I will get to ride a bike, so that is a plus. I miss my previous host family though, and my co-workers from the delivery center. Also, there is no Internet, but I am borrowing grandpa's iPad, which is certainly better than nothing. Don't buy one if you were thinking about it, a real computer is so much more useful.

On making deliveries and what I'm learning

2010-07-16T22:23:00.005+09:00

Howl's Moving Castle is on TV. I love this movie.

Anyway, gosh, I am already halfway done with my time here and I haven't been updating this blog as often as I planned. But, I am done with my delivery job, and I'm moving host families tomorrow, so it's time for another update.

Even though delivering groceries in the summer heat doesn't exactly sound like a good time, I had a lot of fun, mostly because I was shadowing a super nice employee, and we had many a laugh. She is Shimizu-san, and here we are together:

I am really glad that I was placed in her care, as our personalities fit well together and she would sing little songs on the fly, one of my favorites being ちょっとコンビニ, ちょっとお菓子 chotto konbini, chotto okashi (a little convenience store, a little snack) when we stopped to get a snack. She told me she would write me letters, and I hope she does.

Everyone else at the center was also very nice, which I was immediately clued into on my first day when I walked up the stairs and saw this:

Welcome to Omiya Center!
Let's do our best together!

Too cute, right? Everyone keeps giving me things with the Saitama Co-op logo on them. People tend to treat me like a little kid, which I don't mind, because that means they explain things to me slowly and simply, I don't have much responsibility, and they give me candy.

I think these trucks are so cute. Also, pro tip: the "deli" does not stand for "delicatessen," but actually "delivery" and "delicious," which no English speaker would think of first.

Part of the neighborhood I made deliveries in, from the 6th floor of an apartment building. Train tracks!

I'm finding myself in a strange position, since part of the point of this internship is to compare Japanese and American business. However, I have very little work experience in America, and I already knew a lot about Japan, Japanese culture, and Japanese business before I came here, so it's tough to say what I'm really learning in that respect. BUT, what is more important to me (cultural similarities are what tie us together, amirite?) is meeting a lot of different people and being able to communicate with them, and also being able to adapt quickly to different jobs and be of some use to my co-workers. I'm probably not allowed to say that I'm not learning anything about the Japanese business world though, haha. Saitama Co-op is pretty exceptional in a lot of ways also, it's not exactly a "traditional" Japanese company, but that's probably part of the lesson, too. I will continue to collect my thoughts on it, since I have to write a report at the end anyway. English and Japanese. I will be posting them here, so look forward to it!

川越 Kawagoe

2010-07-11T20:35:00.003+09:00

Last weekend, I went to the historic city of Kawagoe to the north. I was accompanied by my host mom and sister, Nagashima-san from the co-op, and the genkiest おじいちゃん old man tour guide ever, who speaks English and was only too happy to explain everything to me in the tiniest details. He was cute, but set far too high expectations for the day, as we tired out pretty quick and had to call it quits early. I took a lot of pretty photos though, have a look.

This is a special thing you walk through in a figure-8 for good luck.

The gardens of Kitain Temple.

533 Buddhist monk statues. These were awesome, every one is different. I took a lot of pictures of these which are on Facebook.

SWEET POTATO LUNCH. I WAS VERY PLEASED.

This was an eel うなぎ restaurant which had a lovely pond of koi and a little bridge. The tour guide said, "There's normally an eel in here... but I don't see it so maybe they ate it."

Anyway, we walked all over, went to the museum, ran into one of the other guys doing the same internship I am since he is living in Kawagoe, ate a lot of sweet potato-related goods (my favorite was dual sweet potato/taro soft serve, DELICIOUS). I was for real tired at the end of the day, but we saw a lot of cool things so overall it was a good experience, and I am always happy to make somebody who wants to speak English with me happy.

Me and the Bento Ladies

2010-07-11T20:26:00.003+09:00

Last week, as part of my co-op duties at Saitama University, I sold bento (boxed lunches) outside with cute bento ladies. We would call out to students passing by and sell them things like Pork with Kimchi 豚キムチ (and rice, of course) or chicken, you know, stuff like that. On the first day, they asked me to draw something cute on the signboard, and I did the best I could:

Sekiguchi-san (on the right) said, "Oh, I look like that guy, who's that guy, the fat one with the red hat" and her partner goes, "Mario?" and she's like, "Yeah, that one!"

They were very nice, I had a good time. Except, there was no cash register obviously, so I had to calculate change in my head, which I am not very good at in English let alone Japanese. They helped me out though and I got the hang of it. It was nice to do the same thing every day of that week, as otherwise I have been doing different things every day. Whenever I tell anyone that I'm 22, they always say 若いな you're so young, so, that's cool. I do really feel like it's これからだ, like my life is just getting started.

Themed Posts - Maybe Not

2010-07-11T20:17:00.003+09:00

So I wanted to do more themed posts in this blog this time around, but what that means is that I don't post because I don't feel like I have enough material for a theme. Here are some things I've been thinking about:

-what it means to be "fluent"
-why everyone asks me what I ate for lunch
-the power of the phrase おねがいします
-how everyone I meet is so nice, and often reminds me of someone I already know, it's a very familiar feeling
-why are Japanese towels so small
-why is English such a complicated language
-how much I like the phrase お疲れさま

Oh but I do have some pictures to put up, so maybe I will do that. Lots of stuff keeps happening, I should just write about it. Today marks the end of the 2nd full week, on Thursday it will have been 3 weeks and I will be halfway done. Time fliesね。

Found Engrish: Mister Donut

2010-07-01T18:10:00.003+09:00

From a take-home box of Mister Donut doughnuts, verbatim:

40th anniversary !!
What's up!! Enjoy donut !!
Every day every time. Donut make you happy !!
Enjoy your time with donut !!
mister donut cheer you up !!

Amen.

On working a cash register in Japan, and some other thoughts

2010-06-30T21:30:00.006+09:00

Hmm, so, I've been trying to figure out what exactly I should write about in this blog. For the past three days, I've been working at Saitama University working the cash register in two different convenience store-type shops on campus that are run by Saitama Co-op. I had absolutely no prior experience working with a cash register, but I soon got the swing of things. At first, it was a little scary, since I had to conduct business in Japanese where for once I was the one providing the service instead of the other way around. I suppose we do this in the States as well, but every part of a Japanese transaction is narrated. It begins with a greeting, いらっしゃいませ！Irasshaimase! WELCOME!

Then I use my fancy scanner to scan the bar codes (thank god for bar codes), tell the customer how much that will come to, push some buttons, and wait for them to give me some money. If it's exact change, I announce that I will now humbly accept their exact change (ちょうど頂きます) which always makes me feel like I'm saying I will now humbly eat their 100 yen coin (it's the same verb you use when you announce you will now begin eating your meal, it's all about humbly receiving). If they require change, I repeat the amount they put down and then say I will humbly take care of their change. Then I do so and tell them how much change it is. And finally, we end with a Thank you very much.

I already knew a lot about Japan, Japanese, and Japanese spending habits before I started this job, so it's difficult to say what really stands out. I already knew that hardly anyone uses a credit card, it's still mostly a cash-based economy, although lately cards like Suica are becoming popular. These are prepaid cards that you use mostly for the train or the bus (I have one, very handy) which you can scan at the register and recharge later at the train station. People also try to get change back in denominations of 10 or 5, even if that means giving some weird coins in the first place. Also, 一万 10,000 yen (a little over $100) bills are not that uncommon. Perhaps the most practical thing I have learned is that if you would like the person ringing you up to take whatever money you have set down and change it, it's useful to say おねがいします onegaishimasu (please take care of this), so they don't keep waiting for you to put down exact change.

One of my favorite parts of Japanese monetary transactions is that there is almost always a little tray where the customer puts the money, and there it sits while you finish with your business. You don't have to hold it somewhat awkwardly in your hand, and it doesn't have to sit there on the counter looking like it could blow away at any second. Instead, like many things in Japan, it has its proper place, and there it stays until your business is done, when it goes into the register. They often have little rubber nubs that feel really nice to touch, so that you're not grasping something hard all day. It's the small things that count.

In other news, everyone is super nice to me and says very nice things about my Japanese. For some reason, they are all surprised when I say I can read Japanese too. I do tell them that I majored in Japanese right off the bat, but for some reason this does not automatically mean that I can read Japanese to some people. I am not sure why. Maybe it's because speaking and reading/writing skills are very divorced when it comes to the average person's proficiency in English. A lot of people tell me they can read and/or write English a little bit, but speaking is absolutely impossible. So maybe because they can see I am proficient in speaking, I must be deficient somewhere else. It's probably actually because there seems to be this notion that Japanese is a super hard language. I have never found it to be that way. Everyone is quick to point out that the pronunciation of Japanese is actually really easy. It's super regular, and the vowel sounds are all very standard. If you put any amount of effort into listening to native speakers, you can speak Japanese like a pro. English is a completely different story, as I'm sure you can imagine.

As last time, I find that I am proud to be an American. This is a pretty special feeling. I am also extremely grateful that I happened to be born a native speaker of English.

I'll have to write about the good times I'm having with my host family another time, since this is already long enough, so we'll close with a picture of the tree-filled Saitama University campus.

Another trip to Japan, another アドベンチャースタート！ First day in Saitama

2010-06-26T09:23:00.002+09:00

OKAY, SO. JAPAN. Take 4. That's right. This is my fourth time to Japan. ４回。 Ridiculous. I'm not sure whose fault this is, but I feel like Japanese is such a straightforward language compared to English. I feel this way when I try to explain English grammar to interested parties. There are so many irregularities, so many turns of phrase that you could never hope to pick up just by studying. Being a native speaker of English is really a blessing, in its own way. Sure we're given a tough time about it, but really... hey, global language ftw (I never say that, what is wrong with me).

Um, but, right, Japan so far. So far, and I mean the past 30 hours or so (omg それだけ？), it's been really great. My flight was pretty awful though, got delayed like 2.5 hours and my seat was really cramped (UNITED, you kind of suck), nowhere near as fun as my previous flight to Japan. I finally passed out during the last leg, thank god. Landed at Narita and didn't see Matt (fellow intern who also goes to Oberlin) or anyone with a sign with my name on it, so I wandered a little, exchanged my money, then asked the nice lady at the info desk if she could make an announcement over the PA for me, to brush off my polite Japanese. And find this guy. Which I did. Hiyama-san. A very nice man. I met with the 3rd intern, also named Matthew, and then we drove to Saitama.

The drive to Saitama was actually 意外と really sweet. We drove right by Tokyo Disneyland and Odaiba, over the Rainbow Bridge, saw Tokyo Tower, and then through the heart of downtown Tokyo (Ikebukuro), all aglow at night. I thought I would be way too tired to pay as much attention as I did to the scenery, but my excitement temporarily erased my fatigue and I was entranced. I chattered excitedly with the other Matthew about Japan and Japanese and the lovely things outside the windows. I'm hoping that I leave Japan before the honeymoon phase ends this time.

When we got to the (super fancy) hotel, us 3 interns and Hiyama-san ate some dinner (yakitori and a huge plate of sushi with wasabi that made my nose hurt like something awful--why does it do that? It's not like normal spicy food which sets your mouth on fire, it just attacks your sinuses. I don't ever eat wasabi so it was an experience) and drank some 梅酒 UMESHU (plum/ume wine) which is so goddamn good, I had forgotten. Then I went to sleep.

TODAY, got up, had delicious hotel buffet breakfast, then took a walk over to a Saitama government office and got myself oriented. Met real Japanese people in a real Japanese office, working at their little computers. Actually used keigo and felt like it was merited. Everyone was very cute and friendly. Then we went back to the hotel for another fancy meal, and we were joined by members from everyone's host families (we all have at least 2 host families, so I met both of my new host moms) and some people from everyone's company. Everyone was super nice to me and complimented me profusely on my Japanese, which never gets old. I had a great time.

After our leisurely lunch, I went with some of the people from Saitama Co-op and we discussed what I will be doing during this internship, and also pondered at length what size uniform to order. Everything is measured in centimeters, which of course, I, being a dumb American, have little experience with. Luckily, Nagashima-san had a measuring tape, so she sent the guy out of the room and measured me. It was hilarious watching the two of them pour over the size chart trying to figure out what to do with my American T&A. I ended up with the largest pant size, which is, get this, 7L, or, XXXXXXXL. Hilarious, right? Well, I got some junk in my trunk, okay? I felt sort of bad, but not really. I'm pretty average sized in America. Or so I like to think.

Then I took a long journey with Nagashima-san to my first host family's apartment. It was very hot. She was extremely nice though, and explained lots of things about my commute to me.

When we finally arrived, I was surprised to find that my host mom had changed out of the lovely kimono she had been wearing at lunch. She had traded it for a T-shirt, jeans, and a rainbow curly clown wig. Boy, did I peg her personality wrong! She is a riot. Some neighbors came over who wanted to practice their English but as this usually goes in Japan, that means speaking in Japanese and occasionally discussing an English phrase that may come up. Then my high school aged host sister came home, and we talked about many things, like the finer points of what is considered too sexy of a school uniform, and how to pronounce SEA URCHIN like a pro. PS, it tastes totally bizarre, I did not approve.

Only downside is that there is no wireless and no router, so I either have to use their computer or plug mine into the modem, both of which I did. Unplugging the Internet from their computer causes it to go all funny when I plug it back in, but I troubleshooted IN JAPANESE and fixed it. The fix was the same as always--unplug the modem, wait 10 seconds, plug it back in. See, we're all the same, all over the world.

Okay, so, until next time.

これから宜しくお願い致します。

卒業 and 来日

2010-06-03T04:23:00.004+09:00

So it has been a little over a year since I left Japan and last wrote in this blog, and I figured I would start up again since I'm going to be going back in about 3 weeks. That's right, I'm going to give it another shot, this time for 6 weeks in 埼玉 Saitama as a business intern at Saitama Co-op (they have an adorable website), which sells groceries. I'm not entirely sure what I will be doing yet, but I know that it will entail stocking shelves and learning about the Japanese business world. The internship is courtesy of the Ohio-Saitama Company Internship Program, which I was eligible for due to being a student at Oberlin, where I am *newly graduated* from. So for now, I'm sitting at home in Los Angeles, brushing up on my 警護, trying to learn Korean (time to conquer the next language perhaps?), and composing my shopping list for things to stock up on while I'm in Japan. I really want to visit Osaka while I'm there, but I'm not sure how realistic that is, given money and time. I still don't know very many details about the program, so I guess we'll just have to see how things pan out. I think I'm ready to try Japan again, and I can't really get better at Japanese without being there. I'm also going to shoot for taking the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) in December... 2級. They made 1級 even harder this year so we'll see when I get there. Maybe after graduate school, if I ever get there, either. HA, the future.

帰国

2009-05-26T00:04:00.003+09:00

Okay, I really want to go to bed, but I wanted to bang out some quick thoughts on my overall experience on my last night here in 守口市。

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the whole thing. And I think that's to be expected. I'm definitely glad I came. I'm really determined to put my Japanese skills to use, and get better, and maybe even someday call myself fluent. It's good to know that I still have that resolve after spending 4 months here. I am not sure how I feel about living in Japan, though. I think that when this current 20s-ish generation grows up a little more, there are going to be a lot of social changes. So maybe I'll wait until then to live here again. But you know, this was a really important experience for me, as a young person, as an American, as a woman. It was really quite something to be in the minority. And you know that's another thing--Japan's homogeneity scares me to death. Sure, there are foreigners living here, but I think that if Japanese society would stop marginalizing non-Japanese so much, we might have an easier time. Part of this has to do with the language barrier. The general view is that Japanese is a ridiculously hard language, so no foreigner is going to know any of it. The truth is, Japanese is not a hard language to speak, not at all. You can convey entire sets of emotions and feelings with just one word, instead of having to construct an entire sentence. Compared to English, Japanese spoken sentences are extremely short. Reading and writing is a different beast however, but the more aggressive you are with your spoken Japanese, the more people will try and understand you.

I suppose next time I should try living in a smaller town. Andy has had some wonderful experiences in less-populated areas, and I've had other people tell me that the relationship you have with people in a smaller town is radically different from what you have living in a big city like Osaka, and I believe that 100%.

But you know, it was fun, I didn't work too hard, and I certainly learned a lot. And I'm really excited to go home and have my beautiful California summer and eat burritos and go to the beach and play video games and see all the people I missed so much while I was here. And I'm sure when I come back, I'll have an even better grip on things.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about blogging. I really liked having it as an outlet. If I do decide to continue though, I'm going to start a new one at a different address. So, thanks for reading, I really do appreciate it.

それじゃ、また。

Last weekend in Osaka

2009-05-25T22:16:00.008+09:00

On Saturday, Andy and I met up with Ryoko, Koppun, Kana, and Maho for our last rendezvous in Namba. We went to karaoke at Jankara, which was half off because high schoolers were banned from entering due to swine flu. I'm not sure if this was because they didn't want kids going out, or because they didn't want them to spread the flu, or both, or what. The downside is that we were limited to 2 hours (you must understand that the Japanese go to karaoke for absurdly long amounts of time, especially if your group is on the bigger side). So we went in, we sang and sang, and then when our 2 hours were up, what do you think we did? We went to a different Jankara, which you could see immediately upon exiting the Jankara we were in.

There was an hour wait however, so we took some purikura in the meantime.

It's kind of funny how the brightness/contrast in purikura does not deal well with white people's skin. Either you look really washed out or really tan, or in the case of this one, really red.

The video of the day once again came from Maho, and it is this one.

It's great going to karaoke with Japanese kids, because they pick new songs which have the music videos to go along with them.

After we had finally gotten our fill of singing (or did we?), we went to this Mexican restaurant that Andy had found in an English-language Osaka-area magazine. We had been dying to go to this place, because the photos and the review indicated that it would be incredible. And BOY, was it ever! It was super authentic, which surprised me a little bit, and absolutely delicious. We had tacos, a quesadilla, nachos, enchiladas, and some kind of egg and chorizo dish. It was so freaking good. We had really good times. My Japanese friends described me and Andy as ぺらぺら fluent, and that always feels great. We discussed kanji. I decided on the kanji for my entire name. My first name I knew from some language table at Oberlin where some people picked some out for me. They are...

詩絵奈

The first (shi) means poetry, the second (e) drawing, and the last (na) is in girl's names a lot, and also places like Nara. It's pretty cute.

薔薇

My middle name is Rose, so I can go for a direct translation. "Rose" in Japanese is bara and you don't see it in kanji very often because it's really complicated. Japanese don't have middle names though.

水私

And my last name, which in Spanish means "water" and "I," I picked the kanji for "water" and "I." Ahaha.

Anyway. It was really wonderful, and I will miss them. Koppun is studying abroad in America starting in this summer, so hopefully we can rendezvous at some point. The others have another year to go before they'll go abroad, but I have high hopes.

The next day, Andy and I went to Universal Studios Japan, which was pretty cool. The best ride was the roller coaster, entitled Hollywood Dreams: The Ride, which is pretty funny considering I'm from Hollywood, and the Universal Studios in Hollywood doesn't have this ride. But it was a great coaster. We also got to go on Back to the Future, which doesn't exist in America anymore, and I have to say it wasn't as good in Japanese. But still nostalgic. Jaws was terrifying, Jurassic Park was still cool, and the Spider-man ride was pretty sweet although it kind of gave me a headache. It was half ride half 3D movie... ask me about it sometime.

The weirdest thing though, is that USJ is really trying to be Tokyo Disneyland. There was an uncanny amount of similarly themed attractions, like Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Arabian Nights (aka Aladdin), Cinderella.. I'm not kidding. That was pretty much all their electrical parade (sound familiar?) consisted of. And I guess licensing rights are different around the world, since USJ also had Peanuts. And no Nickelodeon, which was sorely missed. They also had this 4D Sesame Street movie, which was pretty cute, very faithful and in simple enough Japanese for us to understand. We ate dinner at a casual Italian restaurant, which felt familiar, even if the pizza I ate was curry-sausage-and-potato flavored.

Universal Studios was never my favorite amusement park, and I wasn't really that keen on going until we ended up at Citywalk by chance that one time and I was looking at the roller coaster from the outside.

It was a really great last weekend. I don't believe that I'm really going home.

天橋立　Amanohashidate

2009-05-25T21:13:00.004+09:00

I am going back to the Motherland tomorrow!!! But before I talk about that I have to catch up a little bit.

Last Thursday, I took a bus from Osaka to Amanohashidate, which is one of the three famous sights of Japan (along with Miyajima).

The bus ride was a lot better than my previous experience busing to and from Tokyo on the night bus, and they even played a movie so I could practice my listening comprehension skills! I now confess I am mildly curious about what Madagascar (you know, the Dreamworks one about zoo animals) is like in English.

The walk to the youth hostel was through the little town, which was absolutely adorable, and then across the land bridge (which is what the town is famous for, because when viewed from a distance and upside down it looks like a bridge to heaven).

The hostel we stayed at was up a hill. Unlike all the other hostels I'd been to in Japan, which were international hostels, this one was a Japanese one, so that was different. The couple running the place were friendly and joked with me about Japanese people being too concerned about the swine flu.

I rented one of their bikes and we flew down the hill. We took a dip in the water, because I really wanted to. It wasn't as cold as it would have been if it were in Los Angeles.

The next day, before busing back to Osaka, we headed up the hill to get our view of the bridge to heaven.

You're supposed to look at it between your legs.

And then it looks like a bridge to heaven.

Like this.

There was a giant group of old Japanese tourists who went up with us. Andy said, "This happens to me all the time." I think old people sustain the Japanese tourist industry.

We took the chair lift down, which was awesome.

We didn't have that much time there, but I really needed the getaway. It was lovely to see all the greenery, and the water. I'm glad I got to get out of Osaka one more time before I leave.

On the road

2009-05-21T12:12:00.001+09:00

On a bus going through the countryside bound for 天橋立 Amanohashidate. Google it, it's beautiful. Watching Madagascar in Japanese. It's actually quite entertaining.

SWINE FLU PANIC

2009-05-18T23:08:00.003+09:00

So today, I woke up, and my host mom told me that my younger host bro was not going to school today. I was like "okay, cool" and then she said "swine flu" in English and I laughed because it's become a joke in our house, since they had never heard the word "swine" vs. "pig" before, and my host dad is a big joker. So I laughed, but then she looked at me seriously and I said 本当?! (Really?!) and she goes 本当 (Really.) and I went へええええええええ (whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat). She told me that all the public middle and high schools in Osaka have been declared closed for the week.

Thinking nothing of this, I went to school and took my reading/writing final, which I had studied diligently for this weekend. After the test, I was all set to start in on studying for my Spoken Japanese final, when I start hearing all these rumors that school has been canceled.

Sure enough, it turns out that Kansai Gaidai has decided to shut down the entire school until Sunday, meaning that we won't take our Spoken Japanese finals, and our graduation/completion ceremony on Saturday has been canceled (which my friend was going to give a speech at, and also a lot of people's parents were flying to Japan for). I still have to e-mail in my Sexuality paper so it's not a total victory, and I was kind of looking forward to dressing up for the graduation ceremony, but honestly what a strange, strange thing. I, for one, am not concerned about my health in the slightest and feel that everyone is overreacting. I haven't heard anything from anyone back in the States about swine flu. Are YOU concerned about catching swine flu?

Birthday Pt III: new friends

2009-05-16T18:20:00.003+09:00

The last part of my birthday celebration came somewhat unexpectedly yesterday at lunch at school. I met up with my new friend Yuki, and she and her friends gave me a bunch of Osaka-related presents, a strawberry cake that we all ate together, and a beautiful little book they made with pictures of us in it and letters written in English saying how much they appreciated spending time with me and practicing their English. Unlike my other Japanese friends, these girls are freshmen, so I'm pretty much their first exchange student friend. I was really moved by all the effort they put into everything. I jacked some pics from Yuki's facebook, I hope she doesn't mind (I don't have any pics of my bday lunch, these are from random times).

Birthday Pt II: Hirakata Park and Toriki

2009-05-16T18:03:00.003+09:00

The day of my actual birthday was really wonderful. I woke up late/early (late because class started at 11 instead of 9, early because I woke up before my alarm) and opened the tiny package my family had sent me. It contained a singing card with robots on it that sang Domo Arigatou Mr. Roboto which made me simultaneously crack up and want to cry at the same time. I can't wait to see them all so very soon. I was also relieved because the rain had stopped, and they don't run roller coasters in the rain.

After my one class that day, I met up with Andy and we went to Hirakata Park, which is a local theme park only one train stop away from Kansai Gaidai. You can see it from the train, and it always looks closed because nobody is ever there, so I thought it might be worth checking out. There were indeed very few people there, and we went on the good rides twice. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I only took pictures of the Ferris wheel, because it is giant and rainbow.

I like to interpret "circus" as a direct object here.

That night, we went to Toriki for dinner, which is where all the cool kids from Kansai Gaidai go to drink but for some reason I had never been there. It is a yakitori chain where everything costs 280 yen. Ai, Asami, and Mai came, and also fellow Californian Andrew, and we ate a lot of food and drank a little bit. I had invited a ton of people who ended up not being able to come, but in the end it was fine, since it would have been difficult to manage a big group of people. Afterward we had ice cream at 31 (which is what the Japanese call Baskin-Robbins/31 Flavors, and I am afraid I will never be able to switch back--actually they call it saati-wan). Throughout the day, I received many lovely e-mail and Facebook greetings, and felt very lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life. And now I am 21, at long last! What a strange feeling that is.

Birthday Pt I: Peruvian Food

2009-05-16T17:42:00.009+09:00

So I have finals on Monday and Tuesday, but I desperately need a break from studying, so it's blogging time!

So I really need to blog about all of my birthday celebrations, because there were a lot... so let's see...

The first one was last Monday night, when I went out with Ryoko, Koppun, Kana, and Mahoko to a Peruvian restaurant in Umeda that Koppun had found. None of us had any idea what Peruvian food would entail, but I guessed that it would probably be delicious, and it really was. We had a lot of good conversation and a LOT of good food... we photographed it all diligently (the Japanese girls I hang out with are pretty big on photographing food, and I can't really disagree with this habit). I'm not going to post all of them though, just the best ones. We ordered a course so there was a lot of food.

Delicious birthday Peru cake!

I think this was potato with black mint sauce, and some egg, served on top of sea shells.

God this soup was SO GOOD, I ate most of it even though it was for all 5 of us. It was chicken and spicy and MM DECLICIOUS

This was our little assorted dessert plate. That's wine jelly, and a kind of rice dessert cake, and the same cake I got in honor of my birthday.

Sweet stuff you put in your coffee.

Maybe my favorite part of the decor was the slide projector (NOT a digital one) projecting pictures of Peru on the wall by our table. It gave it a really rustic effect.

The whole evening was a blast, and my pictures are kind of dark because my flash makes everything look like crap, but you can have them anyway.

(Koppun,) Kana, Me, Mahoko

Ryoko, Koppun

And of course what is Peru without alpacas:

On my actual birthday, they decorated my mail box at school with green sparkly things and made me a bunch of green paper cranes (they know I like green). Ryoko and Koppun gave me some stickers and little things from Tokyu Hands, a fabulous department store that literally has everything. We spent a lot of time in the stationery department once. They also printed out some pics of our various adventures and put them in a nice, brown envelope. I was really surprised, and touched. It reminded me of high school when my friends used to decorate my locker on my birthday. I hope they have the chance to study abroad and make nice friends who will do nice things for them on their birthdays. ♥

Parfait Orgy

2009-05-15T10:30:00.004+09:00

Some of you more faithful followers of my blog may remember this post featuring photographs of giant parfaits that cost upwards of $100 USD. The parfait place, as it is known, was a favorite hangout of Jess and company, and I had the great fortune of being able to participate in the consumption of a jumbo parfait with Jess, Andy, Althea, and 5 of their AKP friends.

It was truly a sight to behold.

I tried my best to take some artistic photographs before we all dug in.

TAKE NOTE: Japanese marachino cherries taste absolutely nothing like the marachino cherries I am used to. In fact, they taste awful. The fruit in the ice cream was all frozen by the time we got to it (or maybe it was never unfrozen...) but the strangest to eat was the frozen dango. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Andy and I ate the most. I think we were probably a valuable addition to the team. By the time we got to the bottom, it was mostly yogurt, and it had all turned the same gross beige color, and I felt pretty sick to my stomach. I pressed on as long as I could. They served us black coffee in tiny cups at the end which made me feel a little better. Lord knows I didn't have to add any sugar to it.

Overall, it was fun, but perhaps not an experience I would be eager to repeat, though you could probably convince me. I would definitely go for one of the 2-person ones they serve in pitchers.

and then I found California

2009-05-15T10:15:00.004+09:00

Sometimes California shows up in strange places in Japan.

At Universal Studios Japan Citywalk (which is not as good as the one in LA btw)

I went to the local theme park on my birthday, and they have palm trees.

When I started going to school in Ohio, I realized how beautiful and wonderful California is. And then when I started going to school in Japan, I realized what a great country the United States is. And how California is still the best. It's somewhat comforting to know that I'm a California girl after all. At the same time though, I'm glad I left it, so that I could really understand that that is where I want to live.

Adventures in Osaka

2009-05-14T19:08:00.007+09:00

Andy and I had some crazy times in Osaka during Golden Week. It was interesting to suddenly turn into a tourist after living here since late January. But that did mean that I got to take Andy to my favorite spots, and discover some new ones.

On our most action-packed day, we went to check out the Osamu Tezuka Museum in Takarazuka (which I made a post about over here). Tezuka is the creator of Astro Boy, etc, aka one of the most influential manga-ka ever. The museum was really cute, and inspiring. It reminded me how when I was in 1st and 2nd grade, the thing I wanted the most in this world was to be a cartoonist.

That's Astro Boy's hand and footprints, btw. He's a small dude.

From Takarazuka, we went to Namba, which has the iconic neon sign Glico man view of Osaka.

We went to karaoke on a whim and had a grand ole time. Big Echo has a fabulous 飲み放題.

The next day, we had a picnic in 大阪城公園 Osaka Castle Park featuring food we bought at the supermarket and bakery by my station. Here I am with cheese.

Guess why I'm smiling.

One more for the road:

嵐山

2009-05-14T18:42:00.004+09:00

Okay, catching up on blogging time.

When Andy and I got back from Kobe in the middle of Golden Week, we headed up to Kyoto to hang out with Jess (who has since returned back to the glorious motherland of the United States). She took us to 嵐山 Arashiyama, which means STORM MOUNTAIN which is totally badass, and we took lots of pretty pictures because everything was so green.

Boats!

The temple to see at Arashiyama is 天竜寺 Tenryuuji or HEAVEN DRAGON TEMPLE. Apparently this part of Kyoto just has badass names. Jess had been here a bunch of times already but actually was not sick of it. I appreciated her willingness to go there again with us.

This picture came out blurry, but this was 4-flavored soft serve for the price of 1! How could I resist such a bargain. From top to bottom: sakura (which actually tasted like Cinnamon Toast Crunch for reasons beyond all of us), hojicha (roasted green tea), green tea, and vanilla.

And for a touch of modernity:

I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was

2009-05-07T20:52:00.003+09:00

I might write a more significant post later, but this picture is significant enough. Old pic from Spring Break.

スイーツみたいな毎日

2009-05-06T22:22:00.003+09:00

So Andy and I did a lot of cool things over Golden Week, as per usual. We started out in Kobe　and did the hip things, like hang out at Harborland hitting up some Golden Week sales, since Andy had to buy some new shoes because he lost one of his. Yeah, just one.

For some reason, Harborland has a ridiculous amount of gelato and boba.

One of me and Andy's favorite things to do has become going to bakeries. These are turtle melon pan I guess? Really fucking cute.

I've got a lot more pictures and stories, so stay tuned. I'm doing a pretty good job convincing myself there isn't that much more school left and I can just chill out. And my birthday is in one week when I will turn 21! And more adventures are just around the corner.

またな

2009-04-27T23:44:00.002+09:00

Starting tomorrow, I am on vacation, so don't look for me.

jk I'm never that far away from the Internet.

Expect pictures.

♥ s

quick update and handy tool

2009-04-24T20:47:00.003+09:00

I wanted to point you Japanese-learning types towards http://www.hiragana.jp/ which is a secret I learned a while ago but forgot about until just now. It takes all the kanji on a webpage and adds ふりがな。 Very useful in combination with lyrics in Japanese!

In other news, I had a rather awesome day. I bought 100 yen juggling bean bags at the 100 yen shop and while they are much too light, there are 4 of them (I need to learn how to do 4 ball, I can only do 2 and 3 ball), and I missed juggling. I also finally asked if I could play the guitar in my host brothers' room, which was ~the best~ idea I've had in a while. My fingers hurt because I haven't played since I've been here and I played a lot this afternoon. I've been busy learning more Neko Case songs and brushing up on my old repertoire of the pillows and Voxtrot. I wish I could play more but actually my fingers cannot handle it. The guitar was covered in dust so I'm just going to kidnap it unless someone wants it back. I don't know why it took me so long to ask. Just goes to show, you have to know how to keep yourself happy.

広島 Hiroshima pt. II

2009-04-19T18:09:00.006+09:00

So what else did we do in Hiroshima... we wandered around some department stores and ate bakery food, because that's what we do apparently. Of course we had some Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, which in contrast to Osaka-style, is layered instead of mixed together and also commonly features soba. NOW, I love Osaka, and will thus defend it, and its okonomiyaki. My host father insists that they are entirely different and thus do not merit comparison... but I think eating it all mixed together is easier, even if it makes for a less dramatic preparation, since they generally make it on a hot surface at your table.

Our second day was a little cloudy, but we went and checked out Hiroshima castle, which is a reconstruction so Andy wasn't as interested in going in as he was in taking MySpace pics outside (though of course I love the MySpace pics and will never turn down an opportunity).

After that, we checked out the Hiroshima Museum of Art, which had mostly modern European paintings (impressionists and the ilk) but also some Japanese paintings in a European style, which I thought was interesting.

For lunch, we had Italian バイキング baikingu which is not biking, it is in fact viking and it means all-you-can-eat. The people working there assumed we couldn't speak Japanese, which I suppose is the product of being in such a heavily touristy area, but we reassured them that our comprehension level was at least acceptable. I realized a while ago that the first time I came to Japan after having studied Japanese, I thought that everyone was so impressed by the fact that I had some knowledge of the language, but now I know that everyone is just relieved that they don't have to try and speak English.

It was a little tough to come back to school after having such a fun weekend, but I studied all of my vocab on the shinkansen, so I didn't fall behind in my work. I'm really glad I decided to go, even if I didn't get to see Andy's mom who ended up arriving after I went back home to Osaka due to confusion about the international date line. And now Golden Week is only just around the corner, woohoo!

宮島 Miyajima

2009-04-19T17:17:00.007+09:00

I've been feeling pretty down the past few days, but trying to keep myself entertained by keeping up with new anime (FMA, Bleach, Kuroshitsuji) and doing fun things, like going to Pokemon Center with Nella and eating various kinds of cuisine in Namba with Ryoko and friends; Jess and Althea, respectively. I still haven't caught up on the adventures Andy and I had last weekend in Hiroshima and Miyajima though, so it's time for a little catch-up.

Miyajima was overwhelmingly beautiful. It's an island off the coast of Hiroshima and one of the three famous "views of Japan" known for their beauty. On the ferry ride over, I stuck my face in the ocean wind and was exhilarated. The pictures I took from the ferry aren't too fabulous, but you can get an idea.

Luckily for us, we managed to catch the very tail-end of the sakura, as they are all gone now (at least where I live).

On the island, there are tons of wild deer just hanging out looking for some food from tourists. It was kind of hilarious to see them sauntering around, mostly minding their own business, completely accustomed to the whirlwind of human activity around them.

They even pose for pictures. We saw a tour guide of sorts persuading one to stand with a group of tourists as they were having their picture taken in front of the torii.

The torii is the quintessence of Miyajima, probably, so we took a lot of pictures. Supposedly, it is the most stunning at high tide where it looks like it's "floating," but we were there as the tide was almost all the way out. This did mean, though, that we could take off our shoes and wander into the water a little bit, which was a little cold but nothing years of practice in the Pacific ocean didn't prepare me for.

The rest of the day we spent climbing Mt. Misen, which we misjudged in terms of time commitment. We saw a sign warning about wild monkeys, which I did not believe until I saw some... much like the deer, they were just chillin'. There was something distinctly East Asian about climbing a mountain via millions of tiny stone steps surrounded by luscious foliage and wild monkeys.

Andy said, "Didn't you know, the days I don't bike 100 km I have to climb a mountain."

About halfway through I lost steam (when we started paying attention to how much more we had left to go, it was 2.2 km [1.37 miles]) but with a lot of encouragement, I made it. We were thoroughly rewarded with the view from the very top of the mountain and also the knowledge of our baddassery.

After that, we took the gondolas down (which we could have taken up, but after all that I'm glad we didn't) and gradually made our way back to our hostel in central Hiroshima and then had delicious, spicy, cold tsukemen for dinner at a restaurant called Bakudan, which means bomb, so I'm glad someone has a dark sense of humor somewhere. I am notoriously weak when it comes to spicy food, and on a scale of 0-20 I chose 3, although the gradation was pretty steep according to their chart... I think flames started coming out of your mouth at around 7 or so. After dinner, we did some very last-minute 花見 as the flowers were about halfway gone, and found a party organized by 外人 in the Peace Park and chatted with some New Zealanders about life in Japan.

痴漢

2009-04-16T20:59:00.002+09:00

A few days ago, the Center for International Education at Kansai Gaidai sent out an e-mail advising students to be careful around town, as lately there had been a couple of reported incidents of girls being groped around the area. Today while I was walking home around 6:30 PM, on a street almost directly in front of my host family’s house, some young guy rode by on his bike, grabbed my ass, and rode away. Flustered, I yelled at him, though couldn’t do anything else because he was faster than me, and the only other person on the street was a middle-aged woman at the opposite end. I wished I knew how to say what I really wanted to tell him in Japanese, but I was glad I did anything at all instead of remaining silent, like so many Japanese women do. When I got home, I told my host father, who was extremely sympathetic, and was glad that I wasn’t hurt or robbed, and told me to forget about it. And sure, I’m glad I wasn’t hurt or robbed either, but the incidence rate of this kind of sexual harassment is so high in Japan, and women are told to just forget about it because there’s nothing you can do. So much of it goes unreported, because women don’t think there’s anything the police can do for them, and they’re pretty much right. So for exactly that reason, I told my host family, and I e-mailed Kansai Gaidai about it, because at least it’s being reported somewhere, and I am not silenced. (To Kansai Gaidai’s credit, as I was writing this they e-mailed me and asked me to come in and provide more details so that they could report it to the police by my host family’s house.)

I am the most frustrated and angry because I already feel like as a woman and a foreigner, I can never be an integrated member of Japanese society. It’s hard for me to articulate how I feel oppressed as a woman here, but I definitely do. And it’s clear to me, and my host family, and Kansai Gaidai, that foreign women are a particular kind of easy target for chikan (perverts), probably not only because we’re exotic but because we have less agency. I understand that this kind of thing happens everywhere, and of course it happens in the United States, but because this kind of sexual harassment is so common in Japan, and because Japan is otherwise absurdly safe, and because women have significantly less agency here, etc., I am outraged.

広島 Hiroshima

2009-04-14T17:22:00.006+09:00

So I went to Hiroshima last month as part of my Peace, Development, and Democratization in Asia class, and did not blog about it, mostly because I needed more time to digest and organize my thoughts. I wrote a reaction paper about it which I planned on putting here. I think I will.

March 7, 2009

So today I went to Hiroshima.

I wasn’t even sure I was going to go, but ultimately decided I would be sorry if I didn’t. Especially after watching Peter Jennings’ Why the Bomb Was Dropped on Hiroshima in class, I felt I had to go.

My father, who was born 7 months after the end of World War II, once said to me at the beginning of my Japanese studies about how he was raised to fear and hate the Japanese, and that he thought it was interesting (to say the least) that both of his children had become engrossed in the culture and studied the language (we even took a family vacation to Japan in 2004). He probably doesn’t remember telling me this, since my fascination with Japan began long ago. His father immigrated to America from Ecuador and served in the Navy during the end of World War II, and he was also who I was thinking about prior to my trip today. I felt I owed it to both of them, my grandfather the veteran, and my father the historian, to go on this trip to Hiroshima.

I’ll admit I was nervous, but Hiroshima Station and the surrounding area looked like every other Japanese city I’d been in. I had been mentally preparing myself, but had let my guard down momentarily prior to getting off the tram at 原爆ドーム前　Genbaku Dome Mae (literally "in front of Genbaku Dome"). As soon as I stepped off, the ruins of the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall (now better known as the A-Bomb or Genbaku Dome) completely filled my field of vision. I thought, Ah. This is it. and drew a shuddering breath and stepped closer.

It is haunting to see this blown-out skeleton of a building in the midst of green trees by the riverbank, surrounded by your normal, everyday, modern Japanese buildings and busy streets. Later, in the Peace Memorial Museum, I saw replicas of the area surrounding the Genbaku Dome (which was almost the hypocenter of the explosion) after the bomb was dropped, and with the exception of a small handful of other structures, everything else was completely obliterated, absolutely flattened by the bomb. It is remarkable to me that anything could survive such a powerfully destructive force that could yield no mercy, yet those who survived and the Genbaku Dome stand in defiance of that logic.

Emotionally, I held myself together while walking through the museum and listening to 被爆者　hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) Ms. Mieko Matsubara’s speech, but the phrasing of why Hiroshima decided not to tear down the Genbaku Dome but rather preserve it brought tears to my eyes. I don’t have the exact sentence, but what really struck me was the last word: forever. Hiroshima as a city has decided to keep the Genbaku Dome as it is as a reminder of the horrors of warfare and to promote a message of peace forever. It is a word so lasting, so permanent, juxtaposed with the unrelenting cruelty of the purposeful destruction of human lives, that said to me, Even though we are mortal, even though we inevitably die and our buildings are reduced to rubble, our wish for peace can never be destroyed.

Although this might sound a little strange, I am glad that Hiroshima as a city has been able to take this horrible tragedy and use it in order to promote peace and call for the disarming and destruction of all nuclear weapons. It offers some faint glimmer of hope for the future, even in the face of mankind at its absolute worst.

To which I would like to add, I'm really glad I went back to Hiroshima for a second time. I was pretty traumatized by the Peace Museum, and did not have the emotional energy to really think of fun things I wanted to do in the area. So I was glad when Andy was stopping over there to rendezvous with his mom who has joined him on his biking journey, because I wanted to go back and try and deal with the city as a whole. Also, the city itself is beautiful.

Since the dome is in a central location and also is a stop in the middle of the major tram lines, it's difficult to miss, but I'm glad it's there. I even found myself looking out for it whenever we crossed a bridge in the area. I don't think Hiroshima's experience of being the first city to have the atomic bomb dropped on it should be covered up or ignored, least of all by Americans visiting the city. I won't say that I came to terms with it, because it's not mine to come to terms with, but after spending a few days there, I gradually came to recognize that it's something the city carries, and it does it well. It's intense, but I'm glad it's there. It made me ask myself what I am going to do for this world.

桜 Sakura

2009-04-14T17:19:00.003+09:00

Lots to catch up on, so I'll keep it brief. More on Facebook.

Spring

2009-04-07T20:35:00.005+09:00

So today the weather was beautiful, and I hear it's supposed to be nice all week, and thank god. Although strangely enough, warm weather made me miss Oberlin in the spring, because it's so lovely when everything is green and you can hang out on the grass and all that stuff. I register for classes next week. Oh, Oberlin.

But anyway, Japan. Here's a picture of the front of Kansai Gaidai:

The sign says, basically, "Congratulations, Freshmen!" or new students, or more literally, accepted students (the new school year starts in April in Japan). The big building in the middle is administration, the one on the left is the library, I'm not sure what the one on the right is, but behind it (you can't see it) is where the Center for International Education is, which is where I spend all my time. I just thought it made a nice shot.

Before our Takarazuka adventure, Jess and I ate tonkatsu at a restaurant on the 28th floor in Umeda. We had a lovely view of the Ferris wheel at the department store HEP, which I rode last week but did not publish pictures of in the blog, so we'll play a little catch-up.

Me and Ryoko

You board the Ferris wheel at the 8th floor or something, so you're really high up.

And here's the view from the tonkatsu restaurant.

Aside from the sun, the other thing that comes out in the springtime in Japan is sakura. Jess and I had our own version of 花見 (flower-viewing) in Takarazuka, which I will just commemorate with these photos.

Jess is alive, I promise!

First time I have ever used the macro setting on my camera.

Hopefully I can take some better shots before they all disappear, which I hear happens fast.

Takarazuka

2009-04-06T18:53:00.003+09:00

(I never take enough pictures!)

Yesterday, Jess and I made the pilgrimage up to the town of Takarazuka, which is coincidentally where Osamu Tezuka is from (probably the greatest mangaka of all time, he created Astro Boy), and that's where the Tezuka Museum is as well. But that's not why I was there (although chances that Andy drags me back there for the Tezuka Museum: very high). I was there to see a musical version of Zorro put on by one of the famous takarazuka troupes.

If you are not familiar with takarazuka, it is an all-female troupe that performs gaudy, sparkly musicals for the benefit of their legions of obsessed fans, who are mostly middle and high school aged girls and housewives. The subtext here is incredible, but I don't really feel like going into it right now.

Ever since I learned about takarazuka when doing my independent research project over Winter Term my freshman year on Japanese queer identities, I've been pretty fascinated by it. It's highly competitive, and of course like any other mode of entertainment, once you get too old, you're out, and it's time for the next wave to come in. We watched a documentary on it once in Wert's Modern Japanese History class, and that said that former otokoyaku (the women who specialize in the male roles) are supposed to make really good wives, because they understand a male perspective.

Before Zorro, we were treated to a dance performance centering around wind and woodblock prints, and Japanese things, which is kind of rare for takarazuka (although I did see some posters for some Japanese-looking plays coming up). Mostly they tend to stick to very Western themes. They're big on historical romances. But I was thoroughly impressed with the technical elements of this performance, they clearly have quite a LOT of money to spend. I think my favorite was when a giant circle in the middle of the enormous stage began to rotate, with dancers frozen in male-female couples wearing nice hats, while the main male-female couple (in their nice kimono) wove between them and the lanterns. It was like they were on a lake, it was very stunning.

Zorro was pretty fabulous but needed more sparkles. The costumes were very nice though, I liked those a lot. I can't say too much for the music--the chorus to one of the main songs was, Viva Zorro 今から, and in case you don't speak Spanish and Japanese, that means, "Long live Zorro, starting now!" which just doesn't sound that great, let me tell you. But it was still really enjoyable, and there was lots of dancing, and when there were sparkles, oh, there were sparkles. After the story had clearly ended, they segued into Jazz Zorro, where every main character got to do one last huge dance number in more modern-looking outfits with a more abstract feel.

So I mean, I would go again. I'm really sad that we missed the Phoenix Wright one, I don't think anything in the world will be able to make up for that loss. But I'm glad I got to go. And you know, it was all in Japanese, but I understood the most important parts (though I did get lost when the fancy Spaniards were talking). Hooray listening comprehension?

Sora Cafe

2009-04-03T12:16:00.005+09:00

Yesterday, I went with Ai and friends to the Sora Cafe in Hirakata for lunch. It was really cute. It's almost open-air (sora means sky), but not quite because Japan's weather isn't that nice. But they do a really nice job of incorporating the space with an outside feeling despite the fact that you're on the 6th floor. You get a set lunch with a kind of Japanese-Western fusion going on which comes with a ton of food and all the fruit juice and iced tea or coffee you can drink. They also have a 200 yen discount (about 1/3 off) on 2 desserts-of-the-day, so for all that food (and fruit juice!) it was really a pretty good deal. We had a good time talking about school and language and music. The Japanese students at Kansai Gaidai start classes in a week and a half, so they're all in a tizzy over the last traces of their spring break (which is like our summer break, so they're all about to become 2nd years after being off since the beginning of February). They're taking a trip to Korea beforehand though, so hopefully they won't get hit by that missle. Honestly, North Korea, what are you thinking?

I'm going to Takarazuka on Sunday (!!!) so look out for a post about that. And next weekend I'm going back to Hiroshima to meet up with Andy and his mom, who's joining him for part of his biking journey. Fun things!

P.S. Chris said it seems like all I talk about is food and Ferris wheels. This is probably true, isn't it?

karaoke and Kobe

2009-03-31T12:48:00.003+09:00

So, gosh, I have so much to catch up on... I had a pretty cool weekend after a pretty lame week, but today (I wrote this on Sunday) I'm glad that I finally have some time to myself because... it's been a while.

This weekend, one of my host family's former host students Mary came to visit with her boyfriend, Taka. She's been doing JET for the past 3 years in Nagano. It was really great to hang out with another native speaker of English, and she brought a lot of upbeat energy to the house. We went out for karaoke (my host dad, Aika, Ryoto my younger host bro, Mary, Taka and I) and sang our hearts out. I hadn't been with my host family yet, even though I know they all really like to sing (and they're all very good, as well). Hiro, my host dad, was taught how to sing by (are you ready for this) his host dad's ex-wife in New York City, where he then had a job as a lounge singer for a short while. His favorite singer is Billy Joel. It was really a pleasure to hear him sing finally (he sang in Japanese, English, and Korean). I hear my host sister Aika singing to herself all the time, and she belted out some JPop, sometimes teaming up for a duet with Ryoto, who surprised me the most. He's 16 (almost 17 I suppose, he's pretty much the exact same age as my brother) and he sang soulful JPop ballads that will surely make any girl swoon. His English pronunciation was also excellent (his "major," I guess specialty? concentration? in high school is English, but I don't ever hear him speak it). I busted out my usual fare and kicked off with the Evangelion opening, since it's by far the nerdist song I know in Japanese. My host family likes to make fun of me for being a nerd (otaku), and I figured it doesn't get much nerdier than Eva (probably the most influential giant robot anime of the past 15 years). They had never heard me sing before and said nice things about my Japanese pronunciation. I fully stand by karaoke as a great means of improving your language skills, since you have to read fast, and also you can hear what you're supposed to sound like and mimic that to your best ability. It's pretty effective.

Sadly, I don't have any really cool PVs to share (this karaoke place, or maybe it was our song selection, wasn't so big on the official PVs).

The next day, Aika, Mary, Taka and I went to Kobe, which is a really cool city. It's not all that far from where we live (maybe an hour and a half all together, including the 20 minute walk from our house) and I would really like to spend more time there. It's very international, which is maybe the most interesting thing. We went to this cute district with lots of European-style houses that you can walk through (you have to pay to get in, though), which isn't that exciting if you've been to Europe or New England, but I can see how native Japanese people (or someone living abroad here) would get a kick out of that kind of architecture. We took a lot of great pictures, although unfortunately my camera battery was dying so I had to conserve.

Uroko House, so named because the exterior walls look like uroko (fish scales).

We ate all-you-can-eat Chinese food in China Town, which was welcome at the time because I was starving (it was about 3 PM by the time we finally ate), but towards the end I definitely started to feel a little sick, probably because I ate too much.

I took this from my cell phone since my camera battery was dying. This is Kobe Port Tower, I think it's called.

Pirate ship, I'm not sure why.

Our next stop was Merikan Park/Harborland, which is definitely another futuristic date spot. I think if there's a Ferris wheel, it automatically counts as a futuristic date spot. We took some purikura and rode the Ferris wheel and walked through the malls, which were really cute. I wish I weren't so broke right now, because I would really love to go shopping... I desperately want another pair of Japanese shoes, but they're pretty expensive and they also don't carry my size a lot of the time. I'm an LL in Japanese sizes (that's large large) despite being an average 8 in the US, and most places don't carry that size (or at least, whenever I ask they're like, no way). Harborland also had a disproportionate amount of gelato and boba (which is called "tapioca" in Japanese, you may know it as bubble tea), but I am definitely okay with that.

The Lock-Up

2009-03-29T18:42:00.003+09:00

The night before Andy left for Shikoku, we went up to Kyoto to hang out with Jess. After hanging out in the fanciest McDonald's I've ever seen and doing purikura (which are golden, I wish I could show them to you), we met up with some of her friends and went to dinner at The Lock-Up, which is a prison/dungeon-themed restaurant. They put you in a cell where you sit on the floor around a low table (Japanese-style!) with one blaring light hanging above you. Every hour and a half, I suppose (you're there for 2), they turn off the overhead lights and turn on the blacklights, and paintings of scary faces and handprints appear on the walls and monsters come around and terrorize you. I'm a total wimp, so my screaming was greatly enjoyed by the rest of the party (and I was the closest one to the door), but it was all in good fun. We ate a lot of food and drank a lot of delicious drinks. I always love hanging out with Jess and Andy together, as they're some of my lulziest, closest friends, and we always have a good time. She told us all about her spring break in Australia, which sounded like a much-needed break from Japan for her. I was quite pleased with the whole excursion.

お台場 Odaiba

2009-03-29T18:24:00.005+09:00

We spent our last day in Tokyo (well, evening--the first part of the day was spent getting Andy a cell phone, which was no small feat, and doing karaoke) in Odaiba, which neither of us had heard of (shocking, I know), but hit up at the suggestion of Koizumi-sensei. Odaiba is a fancy shopping area on the coast, and also a futuristic date spot. Maybe my favorite part was that we found a cat store where they not only sold cat-related goods (both for humans and for cats), but had a kind of cat petting zoo where you could pay a ridiculous amount of money (it was somewhere between 800 and 1500 yen) to play with real live kitties. I can't bring myself to sink to that level though, no matter how much I love kitties.

We were pretty exhausted and dreading our night bus back to Kyoto and the subsequent train ride to my host family's house in Osaka, but we managed to take some pictures anyway. I hope to go back when I'm not so dead sometime.

The lights on the boats in the water were great, very pretty.

And for some reason, they have the Statue of Liberty there. You can also see Tokyo Tower in the distance in this picture... it's that orange thing to the left.

We ate dinner in a fancy Italian restaurant that had a great view of the city over the water.

横浜 Yokohama

2009-03-29T18:06:00.008+09:00

Andy and I have this joke about おしゃれデートスポット (oshare deito spotto) trendy date spots in Japan, mostly because of Detroit Metal City. But anyway. We went to a couple, including the futuristic Minato Mirai 21 in Yokohama before we had dinner with Koizumi-sensei, my former Japanese teacher who was at Oberlin for my first 2 years.

One of the clearest indicators of an オッシャレデートスポット is a Ferris wheel (観覧車 kanransha). The one at Minato Mirai is beautiful, and huge, but we couldn't ride it because it was the one day of the year that it wasn't open. So we took pictures instead.

It was windy.

Yokohama is totally cute. We also had an adventure trying to figure out where all these gothic kids were coming from... at first we thought they just like to hang out at Minato Mirai, but eventually we followed them and found out the cause: a Nightmare concert in the convention hall. They did the OP and ED to the first half of Death Note... unfortunately, those are their only good songs. I really love that fashion though, and want to try it out sometime. It's so fancy though, so it's expensive. But we had a great time checking out all these kids in their crazy outfits.

We had a great time eating delicious tonkatsu (fried pork cutlets) with Koizumi-sensei at a restaurant which overlooked the street by Yokohama Station, which was delightfully filled with taxis and pretty lights (I'm an absolute sucker for nice cityscapes). It was so great to see her, and she told us that she just signed a contract with Oberlin and is coming back in the fall! I told her everyone is going to be so excited to hear, and it's true. Man, I love Oberlin, and Oberlin's presence in Japan is also pretty fabulous. I'm glad I picked a school with a great East Asian Studies program by coincidence.

Tokyo Disneyland

2009-03-29T17:35:00.005+09:00

So I have approximately a million things to say about Tokyo Disneyland... I really wanted to write an academic comparison paper comparing it to the one I am familiar with in Anaheim (god, what has a liberal arts education done to me?). Andy kept mentioning an article he read about it in a book called Remade in Japan which I guess I'll have to check out now.

Anyway, in case you are not familiar with my relationship with Disneyland, I grew up in LA, and therefore have been to the original Disneyland quite a few times in my life. This summer, I went 3 times with different people, and had lots of fun! So naturally, I wanted to check out Tokyo Disneyland.

The first big difference was that TDL (as they call it) is really only about 30 minutes away by train from central Tokyo, which makes it a hell of a lot easier to access than the one in Anaheim, which in itself is a good distance away from LA (maybe an hour in good traffic) but you also have to brave the 5, a treacherous freeway, which when faced in rush hour can mean about 2-3 hours. But even with crowded trains, it was no problem to get to TDL, and they drop you off almost right in front of the park. I was proud of Tokyo for not renaming the stop to Tokyo Disneyland (it's 舞浜 Maihama).

They have Cinderella's castle at TDL, where we have Sleeping Beauty's, and I liked Cinderella's asymmetrical design a lot more.

Here's me being a snarky American in front of it. It's their 25th anniversary. We had our 50th a few years ago.

Probably our biggest mistake was that we were there during spring break, which is Japan's equivalent of summer vacation, so everyone in ~~the world~~ Japan was there. I generally avoid Disneyland at its busiest times, so perhaps it's that I'm not used to being there when it's crowded, but I've never experienced 2+ hour wait lines before. The longest we saw, as we were getting ready to go, were 210 minutes (that's 3 and a half hours, kids!) for Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, I think.

Another interesting thing was lines for snacks, which were absurdly long. I really wanted a churro but never got one because the lines were always too long. T__T Also, their flavors of popcorn ranged from very strange to delicious-sounding (soy sauce and butter, curry, honey, and caramel) and tons of people had purchased the fancy popcorn buckets shaped like characters.

We did eat something Mickey-shaped... it was this pizza, which did a really good job of tasting like American and not Japanese pizza.

I wish we had a picture of the Mickey-shaped manju (meat buns), because we decided that was the quintessence of Tokyo Disneyland.

While we were waiting to get on Pirates, a cast member dressed as a very convincing Jack Sparrow came through, and when he passed by us he patted me on the shoulder and said, "'Allo, mates." Future career options: cast member at Disneyland in Anaheim who speaks to Japanese tourists, or cast member at TDL who speaks to English-speaking tourists.

The crowd was mostly Japanese college students, I felt. Of course there were families, and high school/middle school aged kids, but I saw a lot of groups of girls and also couples (Disneyland is a popular date spot in any country, after all). There were only a handful of non-Japanese people, but I imagine it's the off-season for them... although what with cherry blossom-viewing season right around the corner, they'll probably show up soon.

Everyone was wearing their special Disney headgear, which changes pretty frequently from what I gather. The must-have item of the moment were little hats that are attached to hair clips, so they're comically small. Probably the weirdest one I saw was a girl who had a Stitch hood/cape thing that pretty much looked like you had skinned Stitch and made him into a cape... his head was a hat on your head, and it went down to his hands which were little mittens for you. Kind of weird?

One of the more strictly Japanese parts of TDL was the gift shop at the end. As we were leaving, the crowd in the gift shop for omiyage (presents you bring your friends and family after visiting someplace special) was enormous. The line for making your purchases was just as bad as for the rides. I was glad I bought mine ahead of time in Adventureland. The sheer variety of differently packaged boxes of chocolate, snacks, candy, etc., was also staggering... omiyage is such an important, crazy part of Japanese culture, one I have definitely not mastered. But I get cut a little slack since I'm a 外人... hopefully.

We had a lot of fun, despite it being mad crowded. I hope to go back someday when it's not so crazy.

Adventures in Tokyo

2009-03-29T15:32:00.007+09:00

Alright, so, adventures... Andy and I did a lot of cool stuff, where should I start?

While we were hanging out in 原宿 Harajuku, we stumbled upon a Mexican restaurant that claimed to have tacos, and since I miss Mexican food so much, we had to go check it out. What we ate wasn't really Mexican food though. I had taco rice, which is taco meat over white rice, and is the Japanese idea of Mexican food (I hear it originated in Okinawa).

Here's me showing off the decor. See, a Corona neon sign! Authentic!

We also had a pretty great time in 秋葉原 Akihabara (Akiba to those of you in the know), also known as nerd heaven, cuz that's where all the anime shit is, and fancy electronics, and maid cafes. Before you ask, yes we did go to a maid cafe. It was great because they have to tell you that you're so good at Japanese (it's part of the whole subservient, ingratiating shtick), and you can pay extra to take your picture with a maid or play a game with one. We have pictures, they're Polaroids, and hand-decorated at that. I did my best to photograph it.

The pink in the middle is the Japanese equivalent of "meow." At the bottom it says @home cafe (the name of the cafe, obviously) and Mistress Siena ♥ Master Andy ♥ Rinka (the maid). Uhhh... lol.

What else did we do in Tokyo... we hung out in 新宿　Shinjuku and 渋谷　Shibuya, and of course around our hotel in 上野 Ueno. We ate a lot of bakery stuff, cream puffs, and anything 抹茶 green tea-flavored that we could get our hands on. I think my favorite might have been the green tea cafe latte we had in Shibuya... green tea AND coffee? What could be better?

上野公園 Ueno Park

2009-03-29T12:00:00.002+09:00

I am terribly behind on my spring break adventures so here's the digest version.

The night bus to Tokyo was definitely an adventure, and not one I think I want to repeat in the near future. I got to to Tokyo Station at 5:30 in the morning (ACK) and had to kill a lot of time before I went to pick up Andy at Narita at 2, so I wandered around Ueno Park and took a million pictures and eventually went shopping when the stores opened up at 10. Here's some photo highlights, there's an entire album on Facebook.

Okay, so this isn't actually Ueno Park, it's Ueno Station, but I love this mosaic and remember it from the very first time I was in Japan with my family. We must have been here to take the train to Narita, because I remember being exhausted but thinking this was really cool.

You wash your hands here before approaching the shrine.

These are fortunes. You tie them up.

Some cherry blossoms.

I looooove five-story pagodas. I could only photograph this one from behind a fence and some trees, though.

More sakura.

dress, and hair clip collection

2009-03-24T21:15:00.006+09:00

Interesting turn of events this evening... but anyway...

I bought this dress in Tokyo and I'm in love with it.

Strap detail.

Also I think that my hair clip collection is suitably complete for the moment. I've been on a bit of a rampage. These are all the hair accessories I've purchased since I've been here. I think I'm done for a while.

サボった

2009-03-24T15:01:00.004+09:00

Funny linguistic note: the Japanese verb for "to skip class" is サボる (saboru) which comes from the word "sabotage," and is written with the alphabet for loan words, so you know it's true.

So now that Andy is on his way to Shikoku for organic farming adventures, I have to deal with the fact that my spring break is really over. It was so wonderful, though. I have lots of good stories that I'll hopefully be able to document later, but unfortunately, I have my midterms in Japanese this week (1 oral, 2 written, and a paper, but I had to turn in a draft of the paper already) and I should really get to studying oh, about... right now. I decided this morning to skip class today (!) so that I could go with Andy to Umeda where he got on his bus, and I think that that was a really excellent idea. We put his bike together and loaded it all up, and I borrowed a ママチャリ mama chari (housewife bike--I talked about them once in that post when I went to the public bath with Aika) from my host family and we rode to the subway station by my house. We considered riding all the way to Umeda, but didn't really know how to get there. Andy's bike is really cool. I feel bad that he hasn't really been able to ride it yet and has had to haul it around in a bag. I'm not one for lots of physical activity (although biking is fun) or camping, but I found myself really wanting to go with him on this great adventure he's about to have. I'm hoping we can hang out during Golden Week.

春休み！！！

2009-03-13T17:03:00.004+09:00

UUGGGGHHHHH IT'S FINALLY SPRING BREAAAAKKKKKKKKKK

Okay, so it's still Friday, and it's raining, but who cares? I don't have to go to class next week!!! And in fact, I am going somewhere completely different... Tokyo, that is. It is the beginning of Andy's epic bike journey (hey, look man, I'll even plug your blog for you to my devoted readership http://andybikesjapan.blogspot.com) which means we're going to go to Akiba and Tokyo Disneyland, and all those other biking-related places.

So, I'll spend this weekend resting, cleaning, packing, and prepping myself for my overnight bus ride to Tokyo (leaves at 10 PM, gets there at 6:30 AM! FUN). The thing I am the most concerned about is hauling my luggage to the station from my house, which takes like 17 minutes. I'm such a wimp. At least I'll get that part out of the way first, right?

I should probably be using this space to write something really profound about the first half of my semester (has it really been that long?). Maybe I should show you a graph of how I feel like my Japanese has improved.

Yeah, how do you like that? That's mostly in reading and speaking. Writing, whatever. As Mike Wert always said, you don't need to know how to write Japanese. But I definitely feel like my exposure to kanji I didn't know before has been really high and this has been tremendously beneficial. And, of course, chatting with my Japanese friends and trying to listen to their conversations... always challenging. My listening skills could definitely use improvement though. I will strive hard.

I probably won't update while I'm in Tokyo, but I'll try and take lots of pictures.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

This is what studying looks like

2009-03-11T23:42:00.007+09:00

I got up to go take my bath, and laughed at the state my bed was in. Just add me and my laptop and here's my evening! That's a political cartoon in the foreground, just for your information.

I have a midterm tomorrow, so that's why.

I ATE A コロッケバーガー　CROQUET BURGER FROM MOS BURGER TODAY, IT WAS SO GOOD. Croquet (I'm not sure if that's the right spelling in English) is like, deep fried potato mash. Sometimes there's meat, or pumpkin. THEY'RE SO GOOD. My burger also had shredded cabbage (or lettuce, I'm not sure, but Japan is all about the cabbage) and something that tasted like okonomiyaki sauce. DELICIOUS.

PVとプリクラ

2009-03-10T20:32:00.009+09:00

Ugh, I am so tired!! I had fun tonight though. I've been slacking a little on my documentation of fun things that I'm doing... so I'll take this moment to catch up a little.

I've been to karaoke 2 more times, once with Ryoko and her friends Kana and Mahoko, and also a fellow exchange student (and Californian) Andrew (he's Ryoko's other Speaking Partner as well, by coincidence). Andrew and I had a pretty good time doing various ridiculous duets, including but not limited to Britney Spears' Toxic, My Heart Will Go On, and A Whole New World. It was definitely fun to have another native English speaker around for the ride.

Here's the プリクラ to prove it happened:

This one cracks me up, although some weird digital glitch happened and Ryoko's face got all distorted, so she stuck a flower over it (I think she did this from her cell phone? Crazy).

This was the PV of the night, care of Mahoko. I really enjoy the SNES motif and the multiple costume changes.

Hey, did you know YouTube lets you choose your video control bar when embedding videos now? I chose blue to match my blog!

And then today, I went out with my other Japanese crew (Ai and her friends Asami and Misato) and switched off English and Japanese every other song. I rocked Pat Benetar's Heartbreaker, which I have been searching for. I also got to do Sublime's Same in the End, which came as a great surprise to me because they only had 2 Sublime songs (the other being What I Got, I was looking for Santeria) and that one is not that well known. Asami won the best song choice though when she pulled out Queen's Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy. I was in the middle of singing Say It Ain't So when she queued it up, I stopped and went I LOVE THAT SONG!!! We were happy because no one ever knows that one, Japanese or American, and it's one of my personal favorites. I also got to do the pillows' Century Creepers which I had been wanting to try out. I can't hit the very lowest lines but it was otherwise a success. I closed with Life Is Like A Boat, because nobody knows who I really am.

I seem to have started a tradition of always doing the pillows' The Third Eye for my first song. I really like that song.

Have your プリクラ:

I think the effects they do on the eyes make me look kind of like an alien. Not to mention the skin color thing.

Prompt: karaoke, obviously. I gave it my all. And Misato drew us some nice microphones.

PV of the night was this one, from Misato. Possibly the most female-empowering PV I've ever seen? It's also really weird, but enjoyable! I picked pink this time! ALSO, I can't seem to find the official PV anywhere on the Internets, so this isn't the original, it's some random person singing, but the important part is the video. This girl sounds cute though.

A note on Japanese PVs: It is of note that Japanese music videos are not called music videos, they are called promotional videos, or PVs for short. To the native English speaker and liberal arts student that I am, this would suggest to me that these videos are not about making art surrounding other art, they are about promoting a product to be consumed. And certainly, not all Western music videos are intended as works of art, and certainly a cool music video helps you sell a song, but I'd like to preserve artists' integrity a little bit, wouldn't you?

Okay, and I want to leave you with one more PV, because I love this song (fans of Bleach will recognize it), and I had never seen this PV before and it's so cute. (See Andy, I told you this was a happy song.)

Ugh this girl is adorable. And look at her play that piano!

Okay, I think that's enough from me for tonight, I do have some homework I should be doing. ALSO THIS IS THE LAST WEEK OF CLASSES BEFORE SPRING BREAK YES!!!!

Right of the Family Mart, Past the Filtering Plant

2009-03-08T12:15:00.005+09:00

~*~My Commute Part III: The Station to School~*~

I figured I should finish this up before I do posts about other things, so here is the last pic spam of my everyday route to school.

Here is outside the station.　That is a hill in the distance that I walk up. There will be a picture from the top of it looking down later.

Cute storefront featuring pigs.

The top of the hill. The point of this picture was to illustrate how vending machines materialize out of nowhere all the time.

Ah yes, the Family Mart. From here, I have to turn down this boring pathway which I probably didn't take any pictures of because it's boring.

Once the boring path ends, I turn down this residential street with lots of fancy-looking houses. They are pretty interesting, and I enjoy their landscaping.

The final stretch involves walking down this street past the filtering plant, and it's very plain and urban as you can see.

Here's the entrance to the filtering plant, which is conveniently right next to the west gate of Kansai Gaidai. They're not really separated, but if you try and walk through the plant gates, the security guy will tell you to go to next door.

And finally, we reach Kansai Gaidai. The gates say 関西外国語大学 which is the official name of the school (Kansai Gaikokugo Daigaku, meaning something like Kansai Foreign Language University). Inside the gates are always cute security guard who tell you good morning and help you cross the treacherous street (which is nowhere near treacherous but in Japan, no one crosses against the light). The people going through this intersection are on foot, on bike, on scooters (ugh, I want one) or motorcycles, in cars, or in big trucks making deliveries or something. But mostly when I'm there, it's just exchange students crossing the street.

Bonus Shot! From the top of the hill going back to the station at sunset.

And that concludes the thrilling journey of my commute. It takes about an hour 10 minutes from my room to my classroom. I'm starting to shave off a little on the walking parts, and I don't really notice how long it takes anymore, so I suppose you could say that I have adjusted to 通学 (tsuugaku, commuting to school). And it does provide a great excuse to play Phoenix Wright everyday... I finished the first game the other day, finally. Plus, it's good exercise which I don't normally get (ssh) so I can't really complain.

Get on the Train, Probably Transfer at Kayashima

2009-03-04T17:37:00.005+09:00

~*~My Commute Part II: The Train~*~

My original plan for this post was going to just be a picture of the train accompanied by the caption: And then I get on the train for 15-30 minutes. But then I started taking pictures of more shit. So here we go!

Here is the inside of my station! This was a particularly busy instant, as a train had just arrived. Normally it's not this crowded... my stop is pretty much local-only. It's got a mall, but from what I understand, not much else.

Train tracks. Cool. This is the direction I will be traveling in.

Most of the time, I have to transfer 2 stops after mine (some mysterious train scheduling business is going on) so it's normally pretty empty, although I guess I took this pic relatively late in the morning.

Here is my train, devoid of passengers, ready to go wherever it is that trains that aren't in service go...

And then, conveniently, a few minutes later another train arrives across the platform, and I continue on my merry way. I'm normally engrossed in my game of Phoenix Wright at this point, and generally play standing up until I can snag a seat. It's only about 15 minutes total if I don't have to transfer, but if I do, it takes about a half an hour. Which means more time to play Phoenix Wright!

Anyway, I really like the Keihan, you never have to wait long for a train, and they're pretty new and shiny-looking. And it will take me all the way to Shijo for when I play with Jess.

Don't miss the last installment of this thrilling trilogy, coming soon...

Past the Pizza Hut, Left at Pachinko

2009-03-01T12:31:00.002+09:00

~*~My Commute Part I: House to the Station~*~

So I took a bunch of pictures like 2 weeks ago when it was really sunny and beautiful out. I was bored so I walked to the station in a search for ice cream, and documented the first leg (out of three) of my commute. It takes a little less than 20 minutes for me to walk from my house to the station. Let's take a tour, shall we?

Outside of my house.

I've never seen this store open, but I guess they're a Fashion House? I just like the painting of Adam and Eve, lol.

One of the many beauty salons by my house. This one is called Bunny. The decor is pretty cute.

An important landmark on my journey. It means I'm almost home. I really, really dig those delivery scooters. Also, my host parents thought that it was Pizza Hat because "Hut" in Japanesified-English is ハット (hatto), and the sign does look like a hat. I find the idea of a pizza hat really amusing.

My local post office. I use the one by my school though, because this one's always closed when I'm around.

And here we have the shopping street that composes most of my walk home. There's a place with karaoke pretty much every 5 stores. I was thinking it might be cool to do a photo collage of every time I see the word "karaoke."

My host dad told me this is a really good Korean barbecue place. I would like to eat there sometime.

I really like the posters on this store... and the phrase Smile Papa.

Local comics, magazines, porn...

I dunno what this guy is (I guess an egg), but he's cool.

This is actually facing the other way, but you can see the store better. It's a little bakery and to-go food place that are pretty popular.

This pachinko place means I'm almost to the station, and I have to turn. When it's open, it's really loud, as most pachinko places are.

This is a little side arcade with lots of food stalls that I haven't been down. It looks cute though.

And here we have the area around my station (the actual station isn't that interesting looking). I really like the name of the used bookstore, 本の森 (Book Forest). It's a cute name, just look at the kanji...

This was my destination, the Lawsons, but I was not pleased with their ice cream selection so I moved on and stopped taking pictures, because that was the end of this part of my commute.

And here's a cell phone ad featuring the pop group Arashi right next to the Lawsons.

Stay tuned for Part II, the train!

My secrets of Japanese study

2009-02-21T16:59:00.013+09:00

For some reason, today this struck me as a good thing to write a blog post about, since I know a lot of you out there are fellow Japanese students and I might not tell you about every cool thing I find out about.

The beautiful thing about all of these, except for Kanji Sonomama, is that they are free.

So, without further ado, welcome to

~*~Siena's Secrets of Studying Japanese!~*~

Learning hiragana and katakana:
Slime Forest
Well, everyone has to start somewhere. And that somewhere is probably learning how to read hiragana and katakana. I did it with a free game called Slime Forest which is in the style of an oldschool NES RPG in which you fight slimes by typing in the correct kana above their head. It's effective, and fun! Of course, you still have to practice writing them on your own. After you learn hiragana and katakana, you start in on some basic kanji, and while this helped me a little bit, it's overall not a terribly effective way to learn kanji (unless you put in a lot of extra effort to learn the Japanese readings by yourself, which I did...). But for learning to recognize hiragana and katakana quickly, this is definitely the best.

Online dictionaries:
Denshi Jisho (jisho.org)
Jisho.org is definitely the best online Japanese-English-Japanese dictionary, perhaps for the ability to look up example sentences which lets you see how a word or grammar pattern is actually used. It's based off of Jim Breen's dictionary, like every other good Japanese online dictionary. You can also look up kanji by themselves, or search kanji by radical.

Jeffrey's Japanese⇔English Dictionary Server
I still stand by this dictionary even after I discovered jisho.org (it's also based on Jim Breen), because it has a couple extra dictionaries that come in handy, like common names for people and also place names. It's got a bunch of other ones, but those are the ones I use.

Memorizing vocabulary:
Anki
Anki has become a critical part of my everyday studying of Japanese this semester because I have to learn large amounts of new vocabulary every week. Basically you make flashcards on your computer, and they automatically fill in the reading based on your kanji input. You can also customize the cards, so sometimes I add definitions in Japanese, hide the English meaning by making it white, and put both the kanji and the reading on the same side of the card. So, it's very versatile. It's undergone a lot of growth since I first started using it, and now I think it's a pretty solid piece of software. The point is supposed to be long-term memorization using spaced repetition, but I actually use it mostly for short-term... but don't tell anybody.

Viewing and understanding Japanese websites:
Rikaichan
This is a weird category, but Rikaichan completely revolutionized the way I deal with websites in Japanese. It works like popjisho, except it's better because it's a Firefox extension. And it's based on Jim Breen, of course, so it's basically like looking up every word you don't understand on jisho.org just by hovering over it. It's not perfect but it nearly is. It's a little like a crutch, though, and I always make faces when I have to deal with Japanese websites in a browser that doesn't have Rikaichan installed, which of course can't be every browser I use.

Looking up kanji when you don't know the reading/electronic dictionaries:
Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten (漢字そのまま楽引辞典)
Kanji Sonomama is software for the Nintendo DS, but it completely justifies buying a DS if you don't already have one (and if you do, it's a total no-brainer). It's about 1/6th of the price of a normal electronic dictionary and in some ways, is better (but in one fundamental way is worse, which I'll get to). Kanji Sonomama is critical for looking up kanji you don't know the reading for, which is what you'll encounter when you're trying to read anything intended for Japanese-speakers (otherwise you have to look it up by radical and who wants to do that?). So you draw it into your DS and it looks it up and tells you some English meanings. It's that wonderful. It's sensitive to number of strokes, I've discovered, rather than how beautifully you draw your kanji.

The only problem is that if you want to do English -> Japanese lookup, it's rather slow, because you have to look up the word then look up any kanji you don't know, which is likely to be a large amount depending on your level. Of course, if you're talking to someone who speaks Japanese and trying to figure out how to say something, you can just show them your DS and they'll know how to read it, haha.

You can buy this on the Internet, or if you're in Japan you can find it in the real world (I saw it used once for around 2000 yen). Or if you're a bad person, you can ****** it using your *** ****.

Special thanks to anyone who told me about any of these things... Eric, Andy, whoever it was at Kent who was responsible for Rikaichan (I forget), Ricky... the Internet.

以上です。

so the saying says, an elephant never forgets

2009-02-19T22:49:00.008+09:00

Yesterday was another fun day where I shirked my duties and went on an adventure to Namba with Ai and Yoshiko and their friends Mai and Asami. After the train ride into Osaka, we went to this お好み焼き okonomiyaki place that had tanuki out front. They sat us on the third floor (I don't think I will ever get over this very Japanese way of running businesses out of multiple floors, with a relatively low count of square feet [meters], but it is really cool. Limited real estate means you build UP!) and the waitress cooked our okonomiyaki for us on the table.

If you don't know what okonomiyaki is... well, people often compare it to pancakes or pizza, but I find that it is like neither of these except that it is round. The base is a batter made out of flour, eggs, cabbage, etc. and then there's other stuff in it (whatever you want, pretty much), commonly meat and green onions (I love green onions). Mine had beef in it. We had a good giggle over some of the items on the menu which actually proved to be pretty popular amongst our group, namely モチーズ (mochiizu) and ポチーズ (pochiizu) which I had to have explained to me. モチーズ is mochi and cheese, and ポチーズ is potato and cheese. So they put either mochi or potato on the bottom of the okonomiyaki. It was interesting. I guess it was good though, lol.

Then we took プリクラ because that's what you do when you're an adolescent girl in Japan and you're out with your friends. And it's awesome.

Godiva explanation to come.

For the record, I didn't write that... lol.

I think this one is really cute.

This is my cellphone wallpaper right now.

So after that, we went to Godiva, where we drank expensive chocolate drinks called chocolixir. I tried to explain what an elixir is and ended up being like, "You know, in Final Fantasy? When you get healed?" The names of the drinks were also hilarious, like Dark Chocolate Decadence, and I had to explain why the use of the word "decadence" is hysterical... I settled on, "so fancy that it's a waste" (もったいない).

We sat around talking about studying abroad, and they asked me if I'm homesick. I thought about it for a second and said no, since I've been away from home for so long now. I do miss Oberlin, though, quite a bit. Last semester, I was really ready to leave, but now of course, I miss it a lot. I had to leave LA and my family to appreciate them, and now I have to leave Oberlin and America to appreciate those. At least I have a president I'm proud of now.

This deserves a mention just because it's the subject line: I am really obsessed with the new Neko Case single, People Got A Lotta Nerve. You can download it somewhere for free legally, maybe I'll link it later. It's good though, listen to it.

殺害せよ！

2009-02-17T19:03:00.004+09:00

So I promised myself I would buy this if I found it for as cheap as it's listed on Amazon.co.jp (￥1295... I got it for ￥1200. In America it'll run you around $25).

"I am a terrorist from Hell!
I don't have parents!
Because I killed them!"

He has 2 different heads and 5 (!) sets of hands, plus a removable cape (which is split into 3 parts so you can create extra drama) and guitar. I wasn't entirely sure at the time of purchase if I was doing the right thing, but when I got it out of the box today all of my doubts were erased by AWESOMENESS. Basically when I saw the review on ANN I knew I had to have it. It's my first figurine purchase (?). I'm such an otaku.

SPEED. METAL. HANDS.

２月１７日

2009-02-17T16:17:00.006+09:00

I have taken pictures that showcase about 1/3 of my daily commute (from my host family's house to the train station) but I don't feel like doing that entry today so you'll have to wait. They're up on Facebook though if you're curious.

This past weekend had some deceptively nice weather, but now it has taken a turn for the cold. Today it even snowed just a tiny bit, for some fleeting minutes and it didn't stay on the ground, of course. I was a little upset by this.

But more importantly, on Sunday I went to Kyoto to play with Jess! After a somewhat confusing time trying to meet up in the underground passageway, we ate yakisoba and takoyaki at Mr.Young Men in Shijo and did a lot of talking in English. We poked around Shijo, and I made some purchases ~~(which I should probably photograph when I get them all set up...)~~ and later in the evening went to "the parfait place" which had these incredible displays in the window:

I think Jess told me you have a time limit of an hour and a half and can have as many as 10 people working on it. Someday I wish to participate in the consumption of one of these. The ones we ate were more modestly sized, but still delicious.

On the train ride home, I was filled with love for Jess and our mutual friends from Oberlin. I came to the conclusion that adventures are meaningless if you can't share them with the people you love the most. I really missed her a lot last semester.

Oh yeah, and I took some pictures of the area surrounding Kansai Gaidai from the 4th story. You can see a little bit of the campus, and the beautiful clouds in the sky on this cold, cold day.

休みの日！

2009-02-11T20:39:00.006+09:00

So today was a holiday (National Foundation Day--I just looked it up) which means I went shopping with my host sister, Aika, in the trendy areas of Umeda and Namba. We had a lot of fun and bought a lot of cool things! We also took プリクラ of course. Now I'm going to show them all off! I also put a picture of my cell phone in a post a couple ones back.

It's winter sale time... やばい。

This was from this 300 yen store that sold jewelry that looks really fancy. I was entranced by the little crocheted balls.

Okay sorry this is MySpace-y, but showcased in this picture are the above necklace, this adorable heart-shaped tartan hair clip, and my wool dress I bought at Kyoto Station for 980 yen.

I also bought a pair of fancy tights that are a light blue/turquoise and do that fancy lace thing that I don't really know how to describe, but look super cool layered on top of solid tights. They were only 117 yen so I had to buy them.

プリクラ！ I swear I will never get tired of this.

Yeah we badass. The other ones are all really cute too, but I can't put them on the Internet until I have access to a scanner, which will probably be back at home.

Also, funny story: this afternoon, before Aika and I left, we were hanging around the kitchen and I hear her humming Aqua Timez' Velonica, which is the current Bleach opening. I slyly go, "Aqua Timez?" which resulted in a hilarious conversation between the two of us and Kazuma, who likes to make gentle fun of me for being a nerd since I know a lot of obscure references. (Pretty much everyone I meet is always going なぜ知ってる！ "Why do you know that!") I do a pretty good impression of the Aqua Timez lead singer, too.

Only two more days of classes and then it's the weekend! :D

行こう、この世の果てまで

2009-02-08T20:18:00.011+09:00

Today was extremely fulfilling. This week of school had me a little on edge, but a couple reminders and being able to sleep in allowed me to calm down. First, I just have to pass these classes as my grades don't transfer back (just the credit), so if I get an A or a B, it doesn't matter. (Although, I do have to get above a 3.0, and I do have my pride, after all.) But really, there is no reason for me to kill myself preparing for these classes when I know that I am capable enough to do what I need to get myself through and not completely stress out. That being said...

Tomorrow I have to give a speech in speaking class of around 3 minutes. I think I have to do this every week. Mine's about Drag Ball, which I'm not sure is an entirely appropriate topic, but I don't care, I'm from Oberlin. The topic is culture from your own country, lol. But so, I wrote it, I practiced it, and then I went out and played. And I'm going to practice it more tonight, but I'm not going to flip out about it, because I'm smart and goddammit, I'm worth it (that's an old SNL reference by the way, which maybe only my father will get...)

SO, today I went to karaoke with one of my speaking partners Ryoko. She's a big No Doubt fan, so naturally we sang a lot of songs from Tragic Kingdom, because that album is still good. I did my normal fare of the pillows, anime songs, and whatever English ones I could think of (notably, Snow by RHCP, and Reel Big Fish's cover of Take On Me, which was the only RBF song they had... hahaha). Their pillows selection was excellent (I did The Third Eye, この世の果てまで, and Tokyo Bambi). Either I've practiced more, or the speed of my reading comprehension really has improved since I last went with Andy and Kevin a few weeks ago in Sawtelle.

Afterwards, we took some requisite purikura. I was disappointed to discover that I can't get them on my phone because it doesn't have the Internet. But Ryoko sent me the one she had sent to her phone, here it is:

Then I headed on home, and was surprised to find that I was invited to go to the local sentou (public bath) with my host sister Aika and her friend who's staying the night. I had earlier declined their invitation since I was going out, but failed to understand that they were going later. So we went.

We rode these typical Japanese housewife bikes, which at first I had a tough time maneuvering because they're very different from my mountain bike-style bike that I ride around Oberlin on. But once I got the hang of it, it was much easier than my bike, and if it weren't for the crazy drivers on these streets that can barely squeeze a car down them, I would want to ride one of those bikes all the time (watch out, Andy!).

I'd like to take a moment to express my love for Japanese baths. They just do it right. They're super hot, and just feel awesome. There's a lot of etiquette that goes along with it, and in all the signs they have posted about what not to do, it's always a foreigner doin' it wrong. But I like the idea of a public bath on a social front. I think maybe, (maybe this is just gross stereotyping) that Americans are too self-conscious to jump at the idea of getting naked in front of their peers, and complete strangers of all ages. But you know, maybe that's not true. Anyway, I like sentou. Afterwards, Aika bought me some delicious cold milk coffee in a cute glass bottle and it tasted wonderful after that hot bath.

Then we came home and ate the fabulous dinner my host parents cooked (I'm going to do a post on food really soon) and we all talked about language. My host dad speaks very good English and so does Aika, although now she's studying Spanish. Her Spanish pronunciation is near perfect, as the sounds are almost exactly the same as Japanese, which I find fascinating. So we tried to encourage her friend to practice her English (she's enrolled in the same university of economics as my host bro Kazuma, unlike Aika who goes to Kansai Gaidai, thus is very good at English) and we spoke in Japanese, English and a little bit of Spanish. My father would be so proud.

The words of so many of my sempai echoed through my head today: studying abroad is not about studying, it's about experiencing as much of the culture as you can. And I think today I achieved that.

ひきこもり

2009-02-07T20:01:00.002+09:00

I was flipping through my lesson packets for my reading and writing class, and the title of the 2nd lesson is ひきこもり： Acute Social Withdrawal.

The first one is on blood types. Yay!

授業など

2009-02-06T12:16:00.003+09:00

So I'm nearing the end of my first week of classes, and let's just say that things have been a little hectic so far. My Japanese classes are difficult, but I feel like if I work hard (but hopefully not too hard), I can succeed (or at least not be the worst in the class). I guess I'll back up a little bit...

During the placement test, we were told that if we felt like we scored above a 50% on the last grammar section, we should ask to set up an interview time. Before the test I felt confident enough, but afterwards didn't think there was any way I could qualify (I barely even answered half of the questions). But nonetheless, I received a notice in my mailbox to come see the people in charge for an interview. During the interview, conducted entirely in Japanese except when I didn't understand a word, which was often, I was asked if I liked speaking more than reading/writing. I answered that I liked them both the same, but I guess it's true that I'm better at speaking. So, my speaking class is one level higher than my reading/writing.

I really like my speaking class, and I think I've figured out how to succeed. The real trick is that I have to be able to explain vocabulary definitions and general concepts in Japanese, not using their English equivalent. Obviously, that's very hard, and I definitely feel like I'm a little behind in that respect. But I think if I prepare for class every day, I'll be able to keep up, and I'll definitely get better.

My reading/writing class, however, is not as exciting. It only meets 3 times a week as opposed to speaking's 5, so maybe I just haven't had enough time to bond with the class yet. But so far, it feels like I'm back in 4th grade learning how to introduce a topic, use transitions, and write in an organized fashion. Doing this kind of thing in Japanese sort of terrifies me.

My other two classes are lectures conducted in English, and honestly by the time I get to them in the afternoon, I am beyond relieved to be in my native language again. They are Sexuality and Culture in Japan: Desire, Power, and Social Order and Peace, Development, and Democratization: The Asia Challenge. PDD, as I call it, is intense. Being at Oberlin has made me more aware of what I need to do to keep myself informed about the world, and I think that so far I've done a pretty poor job of that. So, this class will probably kick my butt. But hey, I need those social science credits...

Sexuality looks to be fun, yesterday we watched a scene from Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid To Ask (which, in typical fashion, emphasized men's fear of sexual incompetence). I'm hoping to learn some deep, meaningful things about Japan's sexuality. Ha.

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Today I'm going to meet Jess in 伏見稲荷 Fushimi Inari for a festival. What festival, I have no idea (my host mom seemed to know the song that goes with it; my host dad had no idea what it could be). I am now wielding the all-important 携帯 (keitai, cell phone), so that makes these kind of rendezvous feasable. So, that means, if you'd like you can send me mail at siena00@softbank.ne.jp and it will go right to my cell phone, like a text message. This is one of the many reasons why Japan is awesome. My cell phone isn't the most exciting Japanese cell phone ever (far from it), but I guess 外人 can't be choosers.

What is Japan without commercials...

2009-02-01T22:23:00.003+09:00

This is my favorite commercial so far, maybe just for Eiji Wentz (he is soooo cute). He's half Japanese, half German-American. He was in the live action Nodame Cantabile as the French student Franz, and he's also a singer, of course. This commercial is a little strange, but Eiji Wentz... three of him.

そうなんや

2009-02-01T17:04:00.000+09:00

I posted all of my pictures to facebook, just in case you didn't see and you do facebook.

I have moved in with my host family, the 森田 (Morita) family. I feel right at home sitting on my laptop in their common room, which has 2 laptops, a desktop, and a TV (as my mother would say, everyone is on their screens). Kansai Gaidai had warned us about the possibility of our host families not having the Internet, so I was relieved when it was so easy for me to get hooked up.

But first, some catching up...

The other day, I went out with my other speaking partner Ai and her friend Yoshiko. We went to a Japanese McDonald's, and the two of them searched on their cell phones for the daily coupons and then showed them to the cashier to get a couple yen off on whatever it was they ordered. We talked about movies, and they were impressed by my Japanese. I encouraged them to try out their English since I felt bad for speaking only in Japanese. But you know, it felt like a pretty good position to be in.

The next day was the tour to Kyoto, where a million Japanese Kansai Gaidai students showed up to take a million international students around Kyoto. It was entirely up to us where to go, which was unclear to the international students. I went with some guys I met on the bus ride from the airport and our Japanese counterparts, 3 girls named Haruka, Mami, and Nana. Haruka is from Kyoto so she knew her way around. We tried to go to some shrines but they were mostly closed. We ended up at this famous dessert shop that Haruka had always wanted to try but had never been able to get into because the line was always so long. It was the mecca of green tea-flavored sweets. This picture is a little blurry but you get the idea...

Afterwards we did some プリクラ which is always a favorite of mine. But then the best part of the day came because I was reunited with Jess.

We met up in a Shakey's, which was all you can eat, and actually pretty good. I won't even bother to go into detail about our meeting (I'm sure you can see the ecstasy written on my face), because surely almost anyone who knows me knows how much I love Jess. But if you don't, Jess is my BFF from Oberlin and we met in Japanese 101 our freshman year. She's studying in Kyoto this year and I hadn't seen her since I took her to the airport in late August (she came to visit me in LA) to fly away to Japan. I spent a lonely semester without her in Oberlin. But now we are reunited. Except she's going to Tokyo for her break, haha. But we'll be reunited for Valentine's Day, I'm sure. Last year, she gave me a pear and a note that said "We make a great PEAR" so I'm not sure how she's going to top that. Maybe by making me homemade chocolates like the rest of the girls in Japan. Maybe I'll do a post about Japanese Valentine's Day when the time comes. But I digress...

And then, on Saturday, I met my host family and moved in with them in 守口市 (Moriguchi City) about a half-hour train ride from the Kansai Gaidai stop (and then plus a little, for walking to and from each station). They're a big family; parents, 3 kids around my age, and a grandmother (おばあちゃん）. My host dad Hiro "studied" abroad in San Diego when he was in college (I say "studied" because he told me that he went to Mexico every weekend and got drunk) and it clearly impacted his life very much. He said they've hosted 30+ students for 15 or so years, since their oldest (Kazuma, who's 21 and works as a sushi chef at a popular local restaurant in addition to attending a university of economics [I can feel my grasp of English grammar slipping]) was very little. So, his English is very good and he's very eager to talk to me in English all the time. I try and pipe in with my Japanese, and while they tell me I'm very good, listening to their daily conversation and the television reminds me that I've still got a ways to go.

Today was very cold, and that was a little sad. I was video chatting with Andy today (!) and said that it wasn't quite long underwear weather, but then when I went outside I realized I was wrong. It's not cold enough to snow, and it won't snow, but it's close.

Tomorrow I start class, and we'll see if I can live up to where I placed and all this general praise. I placed into speaking level 6 and reading/writing level 5, both out of 7. I've been hesitant to brag about it too much since I might be completely out of my league. I have 2 or 3 weeks to prove myself. We'll see what happens. 頑張ります。

Beware of Kappa

2009-01-28T21:36:00.002+09:00

While walking along a riverfront of sorts, I came across this sign.

Apparently kappa are a real menace to society.

But um anyway, Day 2 in Japan was not as exhausting as Day 1, luckily for me. Yesterday was a lot of running around between where I'm staying in the Seminar Houses to Kansai Gaidai's campus which is about a 10 minute walk away, but the trick is that once you get inside the gates, it's another 15 minutes to get to anywhere you need to be, which is annoying. But I managed to make it just in time to the Hirakata City tour, which is the closest city (a small one at that) about a 10 minute bus ride away for 220 yen. We were shown about the city by some Japanese kids and then ate dinner at a place called Asian Days where we had all-you-can-eat dumplings. My favorite looking ones were the ones shaped like pigs, featured in the center of this lovely photograph. When I got back to my room around 8, I "took a nap"/crashed and then eventually went to bed properly... I'm mostly over the jetlag, but I still love sleep.

I met one of my Japanese speaking partners today, a girl named Ryoko. We had a lovely time chatting in English and Japanese about ourselves and languages and No Doubt. The Japanese students are almost done with their semester, so she's about to end her first year of college and then go on break until April. But I felt sufficiently satisfied with my ability to communicate with her in Japanese, and actually found myself reverting even when we were talking in English. I have a such a strong desire to get better and improve in all the ways that I can, and I'm really excited about all the Japanese I'm going to learn. Taking the placement test today, I was staring at the advanced section thinking about how badly I wanted to know how to read all of it. And while it may not be entirely clear to me what it is I'm doing with my degree in this foreign language at this point, I know that I have enough drive to make something of it.

Here are some perfectly packaged Japanese strawberries from the supermarket.

2009-01-27T07:28:00.001+09:00

So I have made it to my first destination, that of the Seminar Houses of Kansai Gaidai University where I'll be staying for the week until I get to move in with my as-yet unknown host family (I find out Thursday?). The flight over was actually pretty awesome, I flew EVA Air and had an entire row of 3 seats to myself. I watched the Hana yori Dango movie and the new Woody Allen one, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which wasn't that good, even though I like Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz. In the end, nobody learned anything, so what was the point? I also started on the book that Theora leant me called Confucius Lives Next Door, which was published in 1999 so that makes it 10 years old now. It's basically about the Japanese social miracle, like the low crime rate and strong family values and stuff like that. It's very engaging like she said it would be.

Right now I'm pretty overwhelmed by all the stuff I need to take care of this week, but wandering around the Kansai airport yesterday reassured me that I love Japan. The currency exchange guys joked with me a little bit when I said a few things to them in Japanese. One said to the other, 日本語、ぺらぺら ("she's fluent") and my first response was to say じゃね ("hell no") but it was under my breath, hahaha. I promise I'm not getting into trouble.

I spent my first 150 yen on a bottle of cold milk tea.

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I guess I should explain the name of this blog to those of you not familiar with nerdy jokes about Japanese. The name is 'djb' which is an abbreviation of the Japanese word 大丈夫 (daijoubu) which basically means "it's okay/I'm okay." I'm going to be sharing this link with friends and family alike, so everyone should leave me comments and stuff and it'll be a lot of fun.

それじゃ、また。

so what's up

2009-01-25T04:22:00.000+09:00

I guess I'm going to do this blog thing, I want to post a million pictures and stuff, so I dunno, 楽しみにしてください。

I will be taking off for Japan in about 24 hours and arriving at KIX 12.5 hours after that. Then the adventure really begins.

それじゃ、また。