Silver Week

Even though school just started, we’ve already had a vacation of sorts: ‘Silver Week’. Silver Week is basically a string of holidays in a row, which means a five day weekend for Kansai Gaidai students. A lot of the international students went to Tokyo for the extended weekend, but I stayed here in Hirakata. I didn’t make any concrete plans for the weekend, but overall, it was one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time.



On Saturday I went to Hirakata station with two friends. I’d been there once before, but only briefly to fill out my alien registration paperwork. This time I was actually able to explore the area and walk around in all the shops. I was able to browse a bookstore for a little while – even though everything was in a foreign language, I still could have spent a good hour or two in there. (Bookstores, as a rule, are a major time suck for me. Apparently that rule applies no matter what country I’m in.) It was a used bookstore, so everything was really cheap, and I picked up a copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Reading it in Japanese will be a major undertaking. I’ve skimmed some of it and I’ve been able to get the gist of most of the sentences (or at least be able to place the scene), but it’ll take a long time to actually read it. I also bought a manga from a series I read way back in middle school. It’s a heck of a lot easier to read than Harry Potter – I can actually understand the majority of it without even having to paw through my dictionary. Besides shopping around, we also let ourselves wander into the nearby area around the station and came across a church. It was the first church I’ve seen in Japan – as far as I know, the Christian population in Japan is pretty slim. We checked it out and went inside – it was actually a Catholic church and there were a lot of texts in Portuguese and Spanish. Japan promoted bringing Brazilian peoples of Japanese descent over to Japan to work and then later promoted sending them back to Brazil. I think a decent number of them must still be here (and are Catholic), so they organized a church. (That’s the only reason I can come up with for all the Portuguese.) Saturday night I went out to a sushi place that’s right behind my house with a friend. I’d tried sushi earlier at my homestay, but this was my first time going out to eat it. This sushi place was one of those restaurants with the counters and conveyor belts, which I found I really liked. It was nice seeing *exactly* what you were getting. I still haven’t decided if I like sushi, so I’ll probably keep trying it. I know I don’t dislike it, but I’m not sure if I’m crazy about it either.



On Sunday I went to Osaka with the same two friends I went to Hirakata station with. I’ll go right ahead and admit, we wanted to go to Osaka because we wanted to visit the Pokemon Center there. I’m not into Pokemon anymore, but it was a childhood staple of mine, so I thought it’d be fun to check it out. Well, when we got to Osaka we realized… we have no idea where the Pokemon Center was! So we gave up on finding it and decided to play Left/Right, that is, just randomly choose a direction whenever we came to an intersection. We wound up walking through Namco City, which was what basically felt like a bunch of narrow streets but indoors. It was strange, but the streets were lined with tons of shops , restaurants, and arcades. We found some Purikura (which are elaborate photo booths) and took some photos, which was really fun. We wound our way outside of Namco City and pretty much stumbled into the Osaka mall. We didn’t stay in the mall long because it was jam-packed with people. So after stumbling into and out of the mall what do we find, but the Pokemon Center and across from it a Mos Burger which is a Japanese burger chain that makes *awesome* burgers. They’re McDonald’s biggest competitor here in Japan. So I ate my first (but hopefully not last) Mos Burger and then we walked across the plaza to the Pokemon Center. It was like trying to move around in a can of sardines and so, was a little overwhelming at first. They had the new Pokemon game there for sale and I thought of my brother, but decided not to buy it for him because a) it would have been in Japanese and b) I don’t have much money. (Sorry Nicholas!) I ended up buying a phone charm for my phone. In Japan, *everyone* has phone charms and I felt like my phone was naked without one. After the madness that was the Pokemon Center, we took the train back to Hirakata. On the bus from Hirakata station to our part of Hirakata City, an old guy sitting behind us gave us two huge bags of Japanese snacks. We’d previously given up our seats at the bus stop for the guy, so I think he was trying to figure out a way to thank us in some way. It was a really wonderful, random act of generosity. Whenever those things happen, I always feel a renewed sense of optimism towards humanity. When I got home that night I told my host mom about the old guy and she responded *exactly* the way my own mom would: she told me not to talk or go anywhere with strangers! I tried telling her we hardly talked to him, but I didn’t really mind the mini-lecture. It’s nice having a mom figure here. Then she made me fried chicken for dinner because she knows it’s a favorite of mine. (Have I mentioned I have the best host mom in all of Japan?)



On Monday night I went out to a karaoke bar with my friend’s, Kristin, entire flat and two random international guys we saw in the park on our walk there. I’ve never really done karaoke before, but it was a good introduction. Some of the international students go to karaoke every weekend – somehow I don’t think my wallet could handle that! While at karaoke, I couldn’t help thinking it was one of those situations that could only happen while studying abroad: two Brits, three Americans, a Polish gal, a Norwegian, and a Japanese girl all singing YMCA and Barbie Girl together. When I got home (around 11:30 or so), my host mom was still up (she’d been out at a concert – she’s hip like that) and as soon as I plopped down she asked me if I’d had anything to eat. I know I sound like a broken record by now, but I really can’t believe how lucky I got in the host family department. Anyway, I told her I hadn’t, so she immediately heated up some onigiri (rice balls) for me. Most of the international students who chose living in a dorm said they did so because they wanted to be independent, not have a curfew, etc. but honestly… I like having a host mom and dad to ask me about my day and to worry about whether or not I’ve eaten anything and what time I’m coming home. It’s a real comfort in this foreign place.

Tuesday my host sister, Mao, had a race at her school so I went to watch her do that. She wasn’t the fastest kid on the track, but it was still fun cheering her on and watching all the other little Japanese kids run around the track. (Something I definitely couldn’t do – and they were seven and eight!). After the race, my host mom took us out to eat okonomiyaki, which has become one of my new favorite foods. They’re basically a thick patty made out of egg, cabbage, and whatever else you might want (the okonomiyaki I ate that day had pork in it) and grilled on a stove top. (At okonomiyaki restaurants the stove tops are set right into the table to keep your food nice and hot.) The okonomiyaki is then topped with scallions, an egg, and mayo and okonomiyaki sauce (sort of tastes like Worcestershire sauce). If there’s one thing I bring back from Japan, it’s going to be how to make okonomiyaki.



Wednesday (yesterday) was a lot less exciting than the rest of Silver Week, but just as good. I went to Kristin’s flat and spent the day there watching Pushing Daisies and A Very Potter Musical. We also walked down the street to Sanko (a grocery store) where Kristin did some much needed grocery shopping and I found some Skippy peanut butter (450 yen for a small jar of it which is incredibly expensive for peanut butter but I couldn’t deny my peanut butter craving any longer). We went back to her apartment and made cinnamon French toast. Kristin didn’t have any maple syrup, so we substituted with honey (which we’d done the week previously when she made chocolate chip pancakes). I think I’m actually growing to prefer honey over maple syrup. After hanging out at Kristin’s I biked back home, had dinner with the fam, did some Japanese homework (which my host mom corrected for me – another plus for living with a host family), hopped in the ofuro (bath), and then fell asleep as soon as my head hit the futon.

Weekending in Japan

Hi guys. So it’s the end of my third week here in Japan and I think I’m finally starting to settle into the groove. My classes are starting to pick up, I know my way around the CIE (where the international kids spend all their time), I no longer second guess myself on my bike route from home to school and back again, and everyday I’m understanding more of what my host mom says in Japanese.



This past weekend I had a dinner party with some friends, went to Cost Co with my host family on Saturday (which was a vast sea of humanity), and spend Sunday in a nearby park with the host fam as well. The dinner party was probably the most fun I’ve had thus far. Everybody was just sort of cutting loose and goofing around. We swapped some slang with the Japanese students there (we taught them ‘hell to the no’ and ‘keep it on the DL’ and in return they taught us some swears), Kristin and I tried to teach everyone the cup game but failed, and everyone brought or made some delicious food to share though I somehow managed to get away with just picking up some C.C. Lemon and Cola at the local Sanko grocery store.

Cost Co… was not so fun. Though it was somehow strangely comforting to see American brands, I didn’t much care for the huge crowds. (Even though Cost Co was packed to the gills, their bathrooms were still better than the public bathrooms I’ve been in in the States.) I certainly didn’t go hungry there, though. There were free samples at every turn and my host mom was constantly handing free samples off to me to eat. (Not that I’m complaining!) I also had some American-style pizza there as well. (Japanese pizza is a little different than your standard pepperoni and cheese.) It was kind of nice and made me think of home, but, and maybe I’ve just been getting spoiled with really good food lately, but the pizza was pretty tasteless and less-than-satisfying. Oh well.

The park was a huge step up from the prev ious Cost Co-filled day. My host parents packed up some sporting equipment and some snacks and we walked to the park. On our way to the park, we stopped by my host grandma’s house (she lives very nearby) and picked up her dog, Biggie, to bring to the park with us. Biggie’s a Welsh corgie and an adorable one at that. On our walk, my host dad pointed out to me how pale and white I am. Thanks otosan. Haha. At the park we played baseball (or rather, the little kid version of baseball) and we played some badminton together. We snacked for a bit after and wandered the park. Both Mao (my host sis) and Rui (my host bro) ran around catching butterflies and my host mom and I chatted about Disney, Miyazaki, the zodiac, and compared animal noises in Japan and America (apparently in Japan, mice say ‘chuu chuu’). The park was really big and very nice. There were also easily thirty or so cats roaming around the place. My host mom said that they live in the park, but even though they’re wild, they let people pet them. (And they look surprisingly well groomed!). When we got back to the house, my host mom made some chocolate cake and it was totally awesome. (I have a feeling that I’m going to way a ton when I come home. I eat so much here!)

One other thing that happened over the weekend was that one of the international students went home due to homesickness. Firstly, I marvel that anyone has that kind of money. Her ticket cost her 1400 dollars. One way. And secondly… I kind of feel sorry for her. She’s going to miss out on all these great and exciting new experiences just because she couldn’t handle being away from home for a little while. Sure, there are going to be lonely and/or less than pleasant moments and experiences (I’ve already had a few myself), but the good moments and experiences like discovering a new favorite food or getting to meet and know new friends or seeing and going places no one you know has ever gone to before… All of those far, far outweigh all of the bad parts. And, to get a little faux-deep here, it’s all the good parts that make the bad stuff worth going through.

Anyway, I guess that's my two cents. I guess I'm still in awe that I actually made it to Japan (and that anyone would seriously consider leaving such a cool place after a mere three weeks or so). Another cool point for Japan: next week is "silver week" which boils down to three national holidays in a row which means a five day weekend for all the KG students. Some of the plans people are considering are spending the weekend in Tokyo or going to Universal Studios Japan. Even though I don't have any big, expensive plans, I'm still excited for the days off. Hopefully we'll be having another dinner party, and some friends and I might journey to Osaka to find the Pokemon Center (I'm not joking). I'll let you know how that one goes. Matta ne~

Meet the Fam

So I've since moved in to live with my host family and I still am marvelling over my luck because they're kind of super awesome.

My host dad sort of reminds me of my own dad because he's super goofy and always joking around. (I can see where my host brother, who's 4, takes after him because he's definitely a comedian in the making.) When he isn't staying late at work, he always makes the evenings fun. He also taught me how to play Wii bowling. Haha.

My host mom is really great. She's very caring and makes homemade bread a couple times a week so I get warm homemade bread for breakfast most mornings which is fantabulous. She's always bustling around and I marvel at how much stuff she can get done in the span of one day. She's also studying English and jokes that she and I can study together me teaching her English and her teaching me Japanese. She's also a huge Disney fan so the house is plastered with Disney stuff - I can get behind that!

My host sister is incredibly smart for a seven year old. Her English skills are very good and I think she gets frustrated with me sometimes when I can't keep up with her Japanese. There have been a couple of evenings where she's sat me down and given me a Japanese lesson. (Which is fine by me because I need all the help I can get!) She likes dancing so sometimes she'll randomly start doing hip hop moves around the living room. It's pretty great.

My host brother is super ridiculous. He's always making faces and acting silly. He makes dinners with the fam *very* entertaining. There will also be moments where he reminds me of my own little brother - especially last night when he was cramming hot rice into his mouth and having to spit it back out again because it was too hot! (Something my brother does way too often - shoving hot food in his mouth before testing how hot it is.)



And finally, Rina the cat. My host mom says she doesn't like people much - she's usually hiding. But when the sibs are having their bath or taking a nap she usually comes out and sleeps in my lap while I pet her. She also has a strangely crooked, Pikachu-like tail. My host mom says that's a common Japanese cat trait apparently? Rina also is the loudest cat I've ever met because she'll meow/yowl nonstop until she gets dinner.

There are only two things I wish I could change in regards to my host family: my Japanese skills because I want to communicate with them better but can't and their sub par internet. They get good internet on their home computer, but it's kind of super tricky getting it on my laptop. I've tried stealing some wireless from the neighbors, but I don't get very good reception.

Well, I could go on and on about my host family, but I think that'll do for now. Matta ne~!

Trip to Kyoto

Wow, I have to start coming up with catchier titles for these blog posts.
Well, yesterday I went to Kyoto with some other international students and some Japanese students. We were randomly paired together by the KG powers that be and set off on our Kyoto adventure. I took the train for the first time which was kind of exciting (but I was super glad we had some Japanese students to navigate). Kyoto was a surprisingly short train ride away. I don't think it took more than a half hour to get there. Some of our group didn't speak Japanese and some didn't speak too much English, but we all somehow managed to communicate with each other pretty well anyway. Charades and Spanish were sometimes involved and there were plenty of miscommunication jokes. My favorite miscommunication moment was when my friend Kristin was asking Yumie what was 'left' and 'right' in Japanese. Kana and Yoshimi were walking ahead of her on her left and right and for some reason Yumie thought Kristin was asking what their names were. So she answered that Kana is left and Yoshmi is right. We all quickly realized what was going on and pretty soon we were just kind of stumbling around the street because we were laughing so hard.
(That's another thing: jokes and moments that maybe aren't so funny in straight up English are hilarious when they're a weird Japanese/English hybrid so... apologies if this anecdote is unamusing!)

When we got to Kyoto we walked to Yasaka Shrine and Kiyomizu Temple. It was really beautiful, walking up into the hillside. And it was so different than anything else I'd ever seen before. There was so much to look at. I could try to describe it more, but I feel like my photos do a slightly better job.



There were also lots of little shops around (shrines have a lot of businesses surrounding them, surprise, surprise). We checked out a Studio Ghibli merchandise shop (Kiki's Delivery Service, Totoro, Spirited Away, etc.) which made me wish I had a bigger budget. There were about 20 different things I wanted to get there. I settled for the cheapest thing I could find! I took some pictures but it really doesn't do the place justice. We also saw some geisha there which was kind of surreal to see. (I was dying from how hot it was - I can't imagine how they felt in heavy kimono and make up!) I also tried some traditional Japanese sweets (free samples! haha) and just thinking about them again makes my mouth water.



The sun was starting to set and we were sweaty and tired, so we left and stopped to eat at a swanky restaurant. It was easily the nicest restaurant I've ever eaten in, but it didn't feel at all stuffy or like you had to use the right fork and speak softly. Our table had two little grills in the center, so our okonomiyaki (sort of like the Japanese version of an omelette/pancake hybrid) would sit on that and stay nice and hot. You would divvy up sections and take them off the grill and eat them out of a small bowl. It was my first time trying okonomiyaki, but I'm eager to eat it again because it was delicious! My okonomiyaki had cabbage, beef, pork and squid in it topped with hot sauce and mayo. Okay, I know that may not sound great to some of you, but believe me, it was phenomenal.



After that, we took the train back to Hirakata though we stopped to do some purikura in the train station first. (Purikura is a Japanese photo booth.) Once I was back to the dorm I pretty much collapsed onto my futon and went to sleep.

Japan Exploration and Host Family!

So I took my Japanese placement test yesterday and... let's just say it'll be interesting to see what level I get placed at. Oh well. No matter where I get put, I'll stick get credit at Beloit College as if I were taking third-year Japanese. I'm actually kind of hoping I'll get put back in second year Japanese. I could use the review. And if I get put in first year Japanese (which would really suck), they reevaluate our placements a week into it and I can ask my sensei if I can move up a level.

Finally got word on my Japanese host family yesterday. I received a little profile sheet about them in my mailbox and they pretty much sound perfect. The only way they could be better would be if they had a dog! (They have a cat which is cool and everything, but I love dogs just a little bit more.) I'm going to have a host mom, dad, little brother and little sister. The sibs are in elementary school, which is a good age and hopefully they'll want to play with me and teach me some Japanese! The host family expects me to help them out with their English (particularly my host mom, bro and sis - I think otousan already knows English pretty well), but I'm a-okay with that since they're going to help me with Japanese!
And, here's the best part: they're only 10 minutes by bicycle from campus! That means no hour long commute by train for me! And even if they prove to be awful (which I doubt), I'll at least be able to escape them. Ha ha.
I'll be meeting them this weekend and moving in to their house, so I'm really excited. Hopefully everything goes well!

Last night I went exploring the local neighborhood with another girl from my dorm. We just sort of took random turns whenever we felt like it. It was really fun to just come across stuff out of nowhere like a Japanese Buddhist shrine in a random back alley and a traditional-looking archery school. The students there were practicing in traditional Japanese garb, so that was really cool to see. Then we stopped by the grocery store where I bought some more instant noodles to last me until I get to my host family and start getting home-cooked meals (I can't wait!). I also bought some green tea ice cream, which I haven't tried just yet and some bananas, which I'm going to eat for breakfast today. I also had my first successful all-spoken-Japanese interaction with the store clerk, which was a good boost to the self-confidence. My Japanese speaking skills are really lacking, but I can feel myself slowly starting to get more comfortable with attempting to speak in Japanese.

It'll be interesting to see how good my Japanese gets after doing homestay and living in Japan for 4 months!

Destination: Japan

So after losing roughly a day (I think I spent 18 hours in total on an airplane, plus 3 hours layover time), and watching a bunch of movies (17 Again/Inkheart) and being lulled into a few hours of sleep by Zac Efron, I finally made it to Japan!

I stayed at Hotel Nikko Kansai (which is the hotel in the airport) overnight because the Kansai Gaidai pickup service wasn't until the next morning. That was fine though, because I really needed the sleep. And en route to Japan I met a fellow KG-er that I'd previously talked to through facebook (we'd decided to share the hotel room and split the cost), which was pretty awesome and made the entire thing a hundred times more fun and less intimidating.
The hotel was fancy, but there is no way I would have been able to sleep on those beds if I wasn't so exhausted. They were very much your typical, granite-like hotel beds.
The next morning, Kristin and I got picked up along with a bunch of other KGers in the airport and had an hour and a half long bus ride to campus.



It was so strange for me to look out over the horizon and see mountains rising up behind all the buildings. I was glad when we got off the highway though and into residental streets, because there was a lot more to look at besides semis. The houses are a lot closer together here, but you can definitely tell where one stops and the other begins because each house has a sort of enclosure around it. We also passed little neighborhood gardens and even what looked like rice fields stuck in the middle of a bunch of buildings. The streets here are also a lot narrower, but they have sidewalks everywhere for people walking and bicycling which I really like. (They don't make their bicyclists bike in the streets!) After taking the 20 minute walk to campus yesterday, I think renting a bike is going to be a must here.



I'm staying in seminar house 4 (one of the four Kansai Gaidai dorms). I almost wish I wasn't doing homestay because sem house 4 is that nice. They have a computer lab, a lounge, laundry room, vending machines and a big kitchen on the first floor. Then a girl's floor and a guy's floor. My room is in a more traditional Japanese style with a futon, low table and tatami mats. I wish I could drag my futon back with me to the US because it's incredibly comfy. And when you're done sleeping on it, you can just fold it up in half to save space.



The dorm bathrooms are also a thousand steps up from the bathrooms at Beloit. Their toilets are really teched out and the seats are even kept warm! The bathrooms are actually in a separate room from the showers. There are also specially designated slippers provided at the entrance to the bathroom that are only supposed to be worn there. (My dorm also has an entrance to the side of the main one for dorm residents to take off and store their shoes before stepping completely inside.) So everybody roams around the dorm in their socks or slippers.

Well, it's time for me to go take my Japanese placement test, so I'm cutting this short. Jaa ne~