Building Newsprint Boats and Racing Sewer Mains

My apologies for the lack of updates this past week. A combination of school related busyness and waiting in hopes of pictures being posted has delayed me a bit. (As consolation I have included a picture from my cellphone of some cherry blossoms in full bloom). In any case, much has happened since I last wrote!

This past weekend was fairly eventful. On Friday night a large group of people from I-House I had planned to go to a karaoke place, and it sort of ballooned into this giant thing that included most of the SKP study abroad students. So in a giant herd of bicycles we headed downtown for a Friday night deal that included "free time" and "飲み放題" for only 2380円 (or around $24). As karaoke places in Japan work much differently than karaoke in America, groups are given rooms that fit anywhere from 10 to 20 people and all the songs are punched in electronically (with fancy touch-screen devices, of course, this is Japan after all). Our "deal" allowed us to stay as late as we liked (some karaoke places here are open 24hrs on weekends) and order as many drinks as we liked off a set menu (which fantastically enough also included ice cream).

Karaoke was quite a blast. I ended up in a room with lots of Americans, so the songs we sang were all familiar and everyone could sing along (which is the best kind of karaoke). From Everclear's "Santa Monica" and other nineties classics to the The Beatles' "Oh! Darling" and Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee", we sang our hearts out. Many hours later, when we felt our $24 had been sufficiently spent, we retired for home. However, as I was with the SKP buddy Junko, the only remaining I-House I resident at this point, we ventured off to retrieve a few stragglers at a bar called "Moon Walk". After gathering up the last few SKPers, we had some "kebabs" (which were not so much kebabs but pita sandwiches and prepared by a very Japanese man) and finally made the long journey back to I-House.


Saturday was mostly a recovery day. I spent it indoors watching movies and doing homework. On Sunday, as the weather was beautiful and the sun was shining, I went on a picnic with a small group of people to a park near Kyoto Station. We bought "弁当" or Japanese lunchboxes at a conbini and snacked on them in the grass (as you can see above), playing frisbee and soccer until we were generally exhausted and ready to make the 40 minute bike ride home, ha.

By Sunday it had also become clear that I was losing my voice. Mostly from karaoke, but I believe a cold was also partially suspect. As I woke up on Monday with a very sore throat and feeling generally unwell I decided to stay home from classes and rest my voice for a day. For the next few days my speaking abilities slowly recovered, and as of today I feel I'm mostly back to normal. I had my first test today, and I feel it went very well. I have no immediate plans for the weekend, though I'm sure I will be outside frolicking if the weather is nice. I hope all is well back home, I love hearing from all of you, so please keep me updated! I shall try and do the same for you. :)

When A Crumpled Up Pair of Trousers Lost a Brand New Dime

The sakura are almost over here in Kyoto, and with every wind another flurry of blossoms blows by. The rain lately has them sticking to everything. On Thursday I went to the ward office again to pick up more alien registration materials and observed lots of the little pink petals stuck to the windows of the train as we rode into the downtown. Classes are getting tougher, and time is getting tighter. I had a lot on my plate to do this week, and only just managed to get everything in under the wire. Sometimes I feel utterly incompetent and other times I sincerely doubt my ability to ever become remotely functional in this often absurdly complex language, but I will "がんばります" or "try my best", a phrase that is in fairly constant use here in Japan.

The week came to end without too much trauma, though. On Thursday night I went out with my friend Sara shopping and then to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. I bought some socks (at last!), a rain jacket (also incredibly necessary here), and some tennis shoes for less than $50 all together. :D My tennies are really cool, they're a Japan only brand called "Dragon Beard" and they are green and white. The store clerk (who spoke some english) told me I would be "the only one in Mississippi with those shoes". That's for sure, hehe.

Friday night was the I-House welcome party and the "traffic light" party for all SKP students. A "traffic light" party (which I had never heard of) is where people who are single wear green, people who are sort of in between or hesitant wear yellow, and people who are taken or not interested in dating wear red. It was just a sort of silly theme to encourage people to dress up and have fun. The I-House welcome party was a potluck, though, so we all got to make (and eat) some delicious food beforehand. I made "daigakuimo" which is a fairly simple Japanese treat consisting of fried sweet potatoes coated in a soy sauce and sugar mixture. I do not personally have any pictures, but I have stolen some from Facebook!

Here we are cooking beforehand, you can sort of see me in the background.

Food! There was much more food, but this is one table of it. The Chinese students are all super good cooks. (And you can see me on the left!)

Here's me and some various folks from I-House. The dorms are co-ed, but separate bathrooms and what not. As you can see, not everybody bowed to the "traffic light" dress code, as only one person is wearing a suitable color.

The second half of the party took place at a club called "The Bowl". It's fairly unpopular, as essentially every person who came was SKP or Ritsumeikan student. I don't think I'm in this photo anywhere, but it does show all the traffic light colors pretty well. :D

Anyway, after the party was over I definitely came home and slept pretty hard. Today I went out with SKP buddy Junko and some other people to get cell phones. Because they use USIM cards here instead of SIM I couldn't simply get an SIM card to put in my phone. Hmph. But I picked the cheapest cell phone they had available, and the most basic plan, so I think it will all even out. Text messages (or e-mail as they call it here) is free between Softbank phones and only costs 3円 (or about 2 cents) to others. So I am quite content. Now I think I shall spend the rest of the evening cleaning my room and being lazy. Until next time!

32 Flavors And Counting

Hello again. I'm going to try to update a little more regularly so family (and everyone else) can stay in tune, since we can't talk much. I had my first day of real classes today. I was placed in the "C1" level of Japanese, which is an upper-middle level (the highest level being A1, then A2, B1, B2, C1, and so forth until E). I feel confident I was correctly placed, if not in desperate need of learning some more kanji and improving my listening abilities. In any case, Japanese class in various forms meets at the very least once a day (although on several days we meet twice). I am also taking some courses in english, which include Public Health, International Organizations, and (hopefully) Japan-US Relations.

Today the weather was quite pleasant. Yesterday not so much. I haven't been that rain-sodden in recent memory and in the future will walk or take the train rather than biking to campus when it, as it so often does, pours in Kyoto. One thing definitely still on my "to get" list is a quality rain jacket. Otherwise, though, I've made pretty good progress in purchasing all of my basic needs. Today I went to a giant "hyaku-en" store (the Japanese equivalent of a dollar store) and got some great deals. Whoo, hyaku-en! I've also got some capsule toys to show off...

Here we have my new cell phone charm, a pikachu! :) I love my little green kitty muchly, but alas my abuse of my mobile became too much for it and the little ring that held it together broke. I shall repair it and put it on a less stress intensive charm duty, but for now it enjoys a place of honor on my desk. In any case, capsule toys, for those of you not familiar, are the Japanese equivalent of the little bubblegum machine toys that you see at supermarkets in the US. (Only about a thousand times cooler.)

As you can see the pikachu above is fairly tiny, but this Mobile Suit Gundam figurine, which came in a capsule in about a thousand tiny pieces, fits in the palm of my hand when fully assembled. (And even comes with his own display stand!)


All painstakingly detailed (there's just no other word for it), I'd say these capsule toys far rival the little trinkets one gets for a quarter at Walmart. The above toy is a Nintendo DS Lite and game case which is attached to my Nintendo DS Lite, which feels ironic or possibly redundant. (The game featured is a kanji dictionary for the DS, which I totally plan to purchase while I'm here.)


In any case, I leave you with my new door hanger and its accompanying engrishy message:

"KAIUN" ... Better fortune
It means you will lucky. And if you have a wish of
better tomorrow, it will guard your wish.
Hello Kitty wishes everyone's better fortune.
Will you have it in your room?

Let's hope so, Hello Kitty. Let's hope so.

You Are A China Shop, And I Am A Bull

Lots going on in Japan. It feels like it's been ages since I've gotten here, but really it's only been a week. Today is the final day of orientation when we find out our language level placement and sign up for any english courses that interest us. Then tomorrow classes start! How exciting?...

I've had a lot of genuinely Japanese experiences in the past few days. On Thursday I walked over to a nearby shrine with some friends and we did "hanami" which is essentially staring at the cherry trees and "contemplating the brevity of existence" or something in relation to life and its juxtaposition to the fragility of the cherry blossoms. For most Japanese, though, it's just an excuse to sit around and drink with friends. That evening we all went out to karaoke, which was very fun and involved a lot of terrible singing of equally terrible songs.

Afterwards as we were biking home I was following a group of people and sort of started lagging behind on this hill. (I'm not so efficient on inclines). And I ended up losing my group when they crested the hill. It was a little alarming. I fortunately ran into another group on the way back to their apartment, who gave me some directions and then was further assisted by a tiny Japanese woman who, in very fast Japanese that I was surprised I understood, explained to me the remainder of the way home. Yay for making it back to I-House. When I got home I definitely passed out.

On Friday, after orientating and sitting at the ward office waiting to register as "aliens", we all went out again in a large group to okonomoyaki which is sometimes referred to as "Japanese pizza" or "Japanese pancakes". It's not really either, honestly. It's these giant omelet type things that are served with fried noodles. It's very good and very huge. About one serving can feed three or four people more than sufficiently. After that we all went to a place called A Bar which is a "gaijin" (or "foreigner") friendly bar. We were supposed to go to a club after that called Sam & Dave's, but I couldn't hang, so I went home with one of the SKP buddies (or the Japanese Rits students that live at the I-Houses and help international students adjust) named Junko and some other I-House 1 residents.

On Saturday we all went to a place called Monkey Park, which is essentially a bunch of monkies that live at the top of a smaller part of the mountains. They aren't caged, but just running free, so you could get really close by. I have lots of pictures, but the second one here is definitely my favorite. The first image is the shrine that you pass on your way up.

Haha. That monkey makes me smile. In any case, the mountain was quite a hike. Afterwards we wandered back towards home, but not before stopping by a bamboo forest and getting some sakura and matcha flavored ice cream. Below are some images of the lake we ate lunch next to before climbing up to Monkey Park.


The cherry trees are at "mankai" or "full blossom" right now, so it's very beautiful here. Puffy pink-white trees dot the landscape everywhere you go, even downtown. Anyway, Saturday night I went out for kaitenzushi (or "conveyer belt sushi") and then walked around the downtown, going to Haagen Dazs and an arcade where I and some people won various super cute stuffed creatures. I've also been collecting capsule toys as promised. So far I have a kimono-wearing Hello Kitty keychain that doubles as a flashlight, a little fishy, and a tiny Mobile Suit Gundam model. After the arcade we briefly went to an English pub called "The Hub". At this point we were mostly exhausted, so we made the long trek home.

I spent basically the entirety of Sunday sleeping, studying Japanese, and watching a movie. Very lazy day. I could honestly still be asleep now, but alas, orientation reconvenes in about an hour so I must away. Farewell all.

My Feet Is My Only Carriage

I find it hard to believe I've only had two full days in Japan so far. I woke up early this morning, again, as my jetlag (and general exhaustion at the end of our very full days of orientation) has me going to bed at about 10 PM and getting up at about 6 AM. Sounds impressive, but mostly it just really distorts time for someone who is naturally a night owl.

I arrived at my dorm on Sunday night at 11:30 PM local time. After several hours of delays on both my flight out of Memphis and my flight out of Detroit, I ended up in Japan a lot later than I expected. The flight was very long. The last few hours of it were fairly miserable as everyone else was asleep, they were no longer showing movies, and I was trapped in the middle seat, unable to get up and move around. But it was good to get off and walk out into the chill night air of Osaka.

I went to my room and fell into a restless sleep after being greeted and shown around by my dorm managers (who stayed up late waiting for me and even had kocha, or milk tea, waiting for me when I arrived). I woke up at 4 AM that morning and watched the sun rising outside my window. (I even have a little video of it!)



It's very beautiful here. The mountains can be seen in the distance on all sides and the air is clear and cool. I spent the first morning organizing my room, which is very spacious and has two windows, as I was lucky enough to get a slightly-more-swanky-than-average corner room. I have already vowed to fill it with Hello Kitty trinkets and capsule toys. Here's a few more pictures:


As for the past few days, all I've done is orientate. On Monday we went to Osaka and the Osaka Dome (a huge indoor baseball field) and saw the Ritsumeikan opening ceremony for the semester (along with 18,000 Japanese Ritsumeikan undergrads and graduates). It was fairly boring for the first half, mostly dry speeches in drolling Japanese from old men, but the second half they brought out dancers and taiko drums and cheerleaders and their "American football team", which is apparently number one in it's league, but I tell you, every guy in it looks like they weigh about 150 lbs. Haha.

Yesterday was the placement test. I felt really nervous about it, and the listening section went terribly, but the rest was fairly simple. I feel like I'll be placed within my level, which is probably mid-range or lower. Today is the speaking test, so we'll see how that goes... After the placement test, yesterday, though we just had a long day of being guided around campus and various facilities at the college and afterwards a friend of mine and I went to the "Suupa" which is the Supermarket, and I bought food. Yay food. Now it is time for my shower (and I finally have towels!) so I bid you all adieu until next time.