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~