Happy Merry Christmas

Just a quick Christmas update--had Shakey's pizza for dinner with the other gaijin, followed by an awesome round of American card games and the exchange of presents (which is really me giving all my guy friends presents because they are incapable of buying things in advance). Doesn't feel like Christmas I suppose, since there was nothing to open from home, but that's alright. It's good to have a gaijin family on the other side of the world.

J-Christmas

It just doesn't quite feel like Christmas time, here halfway around the world. Sure, stores are filled with holiday decorations and red and green signs announcing sales and whatnot, but it's not the same. For one thing, the Christmas season usually marks the end of finals, the end of the semester. I have a full two weeks off school, but the past few have been spent going to class, taking notes, and doing other normal academic tasks. No tests to prepare for or papers to write. I'm looking forward to the vacation to be sure, but not quite the same way as I would coming off of two weeks of and late nights in the library and cramming for everything.

Another thing is the fact that in the United States, Christmas is still largely a religious holiday. More people go to church on Christmas than any other day in the year, except maybe Easter. This is also exemplified by the fact that Christmas is largely a family holiday. People come together from all over to share presents, eat home-cooked food, and argue loudly (and often drunkenly) over stupid things. But in Japan, where the predominant religions are not Christian, this is a different story. Christmas Day is more for friends and significant others than families. My host parents, for example, are going to a friends house on that day to share in the traditional Christmas Cake--which is as far as I can tell the only real tradition the Japanese have for this day. Often boyfriends will take their girlfriends to Disneyland, or some other romantic spot. Families with children will sometimes have Santa Claus come give presents in the middle of the night, but all the children I've talked to seem to know that it's actually their parents leaving things out for them to find. Many business even stay open.

By contrast, New Years Eve is a predominantly family holiday in Japan. According to Japanese religious tradition (though I'm not sure if its Buddhist or Shintoist), the New Year is a time to reflect on family matters, go to the shrine together, and pray for health and happiness for your family. For a full seven days you do everything with your family, including eating all the traditional food and drinking sake together at night. I'm not entirely sure how this all works out, but I'm pretty excited to learn.

Anyway, I suppose between these two things, I don't really feel like I'm missing out on Christmas yet. I'm sure right now at my house, Debbie is screaming at everyone to keep the house clean, my Dad is unintentionally making a mess somewhere, and my brother is sitting up in his room trying to ignore everything. Whereas I'm sitting in my room (which is devoid of Christmas decorations by the way) thinking about the whole Christmas season and wondering when it's actually going to hit me that there will be no Christmas morning with my family, or delicious Christmas dinner, or Christmas fighting over the TV and wondering which Harry Potter movie we should watch. No Heidi hopping around through the wrapping paper, no badminton tournaments, and no watching Joie freak out over his new cat toys. Such a strange feeling....

The little things

It really is all about the little things in life. For instance, today for lunch Asako-san gave me a bagel and cream cheese. Real, honest to God Philadelphia cream cheese. I was so happy I nearly cried.

Updates anyone?

I could try to describe how busy I've been over the past month, but I don't think that describing anything could paint an accurate picture of my life right now. Things are getting better, to be sure, since the holidays are coming and I'll have more time to myself. Still trying to get things under control though, so just bear with me for a while longer!

Since Sophia University is on the strange Japanese academic year, my fall semester doesn't end until the beginning of February. So while my family in California (and Texas/Washington/Illinois) was enjoying Thanksgiving food, football, and quality family togetherness, I was cramming for my midterms, trying to remember half a semester of Japanese that I'm pretty sure I slept through. I didn't do so badly compared with some of my classmates. My Japanese course this year is repeating a lot of the things that I learned in my two years at GW, which makes for a good refresher course during the turbulence of getting settled in here. For the first time, my Japanese midterm included an interview section--me talking to my professor one-on-one for seven minutes. Sitting there waiting for my name to be called was nerve-wracking, but I managed to get through it okay. My biggest problem was that I kept speaking to him in plain form, when I should have been using my more formal verbs. You can read the last post I made for all about the verb forms.

My midterms for my other classes were just papers, so nothing too painful other than trying to find time to sit down and write them. I've started teaching English every week now on Saturdays from 11am-5pm. My classes are mostly kids, which makes for some interesting fun. They spend most of the lesson screaming at me (or each other) in Japanese, while I stand there with a smile plastered on my face telling them "Eigo de! eigo de!" ("In English! In English!"). My ability to understand Japanese has thankfully improved exponentially, so most of the time they can ask me questions in Japanese and I can understand what they're talking about. But answering them in Japanese? Not going to happen. Not only is my speaking ability not that great, but it's supposed to be an English class. They can learn English the same what I'm learning Japanese--by having the teacher talk to you so much that you just start to understand.

Like I said, things are settling down around here. There's only one week left until winter break (two weeks off!), so I'm trying to spend some weekends at home with my host family to make up for the fact that I won't be at home much over the break. Not that I think they mind particularly. Sunny (Taiwanese homestay sister) is leaving in about a week, so I think our family is going to have a big dinner tomorrow night to wish her well. I'm still not sure about my winter break plans (I really hope they include a trip somewhere, but you can never tell). I'm sorry about the lack of updates in both the blog and the photos, but as soon as something interesting happens, I'll be sure to let you know.

Speaking Manners

It never ceases to amaze me how strange a thing time is. It feels like I've been in Japan for years, but in reality it hasn't even been two months. I've only been in school for about half that time, and somehow I already feel like I need more weekends. I can't really tell if time is going by too fast, or too slow....

I've been plenty busy, as you may have noticed. I play futsal twice a week with a group at Sophia. It's coed, so I'm getting to meet a lot of really nice people of both genders. Last week they invited me and my friend Gene (who joined along with me) out drinking on a Wednesday night. Now before you go getting all riled up, it was a school holiday the next day and I was perfectly well behaved. It ended up being me, Gene, and a whole group of my male teammates. Only a few spoke English, and my Japanese is still a little stunted, but I had a great time trying to translate everything that they were saying and answer all the questions they directed at me. 'How do you like Japan?' 'Do you like Japanese food?' 'Have you ever had sake?' 'Do you like to read manga?' 'Do you have a boyfriend?' Some of these questions are hard enough to answer in English, but in Japanese there are different forms of verbs and some nouns that you use in different situations. In class when talking to a teacher, you use a polite form to defer to your superior. Among friends, you use a more casual, shortened form of speech. Most Japanese classes teach the formal forms first since it's always better to be polite than to offend someone. But when you're sitting with a group of your teammates and trying to answer questions posed in casual form, it can get a little confusing. Technically, it would be most polite to address your sempai (or upperclassmen) in formal forms, and the kouhai (underclassmen) in casual, but when you're an exchange student with very little Japanese ability, it's nearly impossible to tell who is kouhai and who is sempai. Despite the fact that I am a third-year student (which technically makes all second and first year students my kouhai and fourth year students my sempai), the fact that I don't speak Japanese as a native language means that I am kouhai to everyone. Which means that technically speaking, I should be answering everyone in polite form, right? Wrong! Answering in polite form in some situations (such as when you're out with a group of friends) can be considered extremely rude. Besides, I defy anyone who isn't a native speaker of the language to try speaking polite form when someone is talking to you in direct. You just get all confused.

I know that it's probably a difficult concept to understand, but its pretty difficult to explain too. Japanese has all these rules about politeness and deference that English just doesn't have, and for someone who is learning the language it can be hell to try to remember everything that you're supposed to. Most of the Japanese people that I've met have been very nice about it though, and they take into consideration that you probably have no idea that your speaking the wrong forms is offensive. I managed to make it through my night out with the team--I think I even got a date out of it--without any major complications. Plus I got to hear what Japanese is like spoken between friends, which comes in handy when you're trying to get into the culture. Best advice that I can give people who are coming here--speak in the polite if you know any Japanese, and just smile and shake your head when they start talking about things that you don't know.

Missing you....

--cheese (on pizza, on crackers, on bagels, etc)
--books I can understand
--TV shows (mostly Grey's Anatomy, House, Scrubs, and Numb3rs)
--being able to call up any random person I want and start a conversation
--American football
--my Kingdom Hearts Game (no really)
--Mexican food
--daylight savings
--Halloween
--coffee
--my money

I'm sure there are more, and rest assured that the list would be a whole lot longer if I were including people. I'm still not really homesick, but there is a definite longing for some of the comforts of home.

"Barefoot Gen"

Today was one of those days where I felt really bad for being from the U.S.

Nothing really serious, mind you. Just one of those, "oh right, we dropped an atomic bomb on these people and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children" moments. We watched a movie today in class called "Barefoot Gen" which is an animated movie about a fictional family that lived in Hiroshima during the time when the bomb was dropped. It was dubbed in English (rather poorly I might add), and would have been entirely comical if not for the very graphic and disturbing nature of the video. We watched the skin melt off of people as they were exposed to the radiation of the blast, eyes falling out of heads and screaming until they were only ashy mounds in the earth. We watched most of the eight-year-old protagonist's family burn to death under the remains of their house, including a four year old brother who couldn't understand what was happening and kept repeating "It's so hot Gen! Why won't you help me?!" Women with dead babies, maggots eating people's skin, people screaming... and all the while this little boy is just skipping around, watching his hair fall out of his head and his baby sister starve to death from malnutrition. I know that its just a movie, but by the end of class a few of the Japanese students (including our graduate level TA) were crying, and the rest of the Westerners were just feeling like crap. Historical justification aside, its very difficult to not feel like crap for being from the country that dropped the bomb on the first place. And I dare anyone to watch that movie and not feel even a little remorseful at the end.

The Happiest Place in Japan

It really feels like school is underway now. Japanese homework every night, quizzes everyday, and trying like mad to balance a new job with family time and club activities. It actually feels more like high school than college, since I'm definitely not used to having a family to come home to every night. Asako-san and Shige-san have been great though, and they always use dinner time to talk to Sunny-san and I and try to help our stuttering Japanese along. Since they're both junior high teachers, they're both really busy, and don't spend a lot of time at home. They're usually gone by the time I wake up in the morning, and dinner is usually very late. Which is why its nice that we can take some time on random weekday nights to do something family-esque. Like Wednesday.....















It takes about an hour to get to Disney sea from where we live in Suginami-ku. But the cheapest tickets are after 6pm, and when you add that to the fact that the park is significantly less crowded at night, its really worth the entrance fee to go at least once. Having only been to Disneyland in California, I have a vague set of expectations for all Disney-themed resorts that I figured would be upheld by the trip. After all, it's all one big Disney franchise, right?

Disney Sea, having only been built some six years ago, simply defied most of the things I have come to expect from such tourist attractions. There were no big goofy Disney characters walking around shaking hands and taking pictures. No crowds of people shouting at one another while their children cried or ran around like heathens. No trash sitting around on the streets waiting for someone to come and pick it up at the end of the night. It was clean; it was quiet, and it was HUGE. The park is divided into sections, such as Mediterranean Harbor, American Waterfront, Mermaid Lagoon, and the Arabian Coast. Each was designed to look like a different part of the world, with different themed rides in each section. In the middle of the park was Mount Prometheus, a huge volcano that occasionally erupts in fireworks. The mountain is surrounded by these huge lakes, which separate the park into the different themes. Shige-san and I are definitely the more adventurous type, and he made sure that we road all the best roller coasters in the park at least once. Asako-san refused to ride most of them though, since she says that she's afraid of the fast rides and the loops. We managed to get Sunny to come on most of the rides along with us, but she mostly clung to my arm the entire time. Very reminiscent of another family I've been to Disneyland with....

Enjoy the pictures, and make sure to take a look at the others that I've added from our CIEE Halloween party. There are some interesting cultural references I'm not entirely certain that everyone will understand, but the hilarity of the situation should transcend these boundaries.

P.S. Fireworks at Disneyland are far superior to those at Disney Sea. I think Americans just like the explosions.

School, Inc.

I've been trying to hold off writing something about school until things are actually underway and I know what exactly I'm doing every week. However, my desires are in constant conflict with the reality of time, and I still have no idea how I'm going to fit everything that I want to do into my waking hours. The only thing that I know for sure is my course schedule (which is slowly eating me alive) and the ever growing list of things that I want to do.

We can safely start with Japanese, which is a required course (duh). In a moment of weakness, I gave into my fear that merely living in a foreign country wouldn't give my language skills the boost that I was looking for, and I decided to enroll in the intensive Japanese program instead of the regular course. This mistake has cost me two of my four courses for the semester, as well as three hours of my life, every day, from now until the end of time. And most unfortunately, the intensive program has fewer levels than the regular program, so I placed lower than I would have otherwise, giving me at least a month and a half of grammar and vocabulary review. Don't get me wrong--I am learning something from my three hours everyday. I've picked up some new kanji (the Chinese characters, remember?) and I've definitely found my place as the leader of the class, since most of the kids ask me questions instead of whatever teacher we have depending on the day of the week. Despite some serious moments of doubt, I have decided to continue the course and pray that things get better, and that I won't shrivel up and die from the immense boredom to which I am currently subjecting myself.

Then, on Mondays and Thursdays, I head on over to my anthropology class: Approaches to Japanese Society. Its a class designed to give us some of the basic theories behind the characteristics of the Japanese people. The professor happens to also be my academic adviser at Sophia, and he has some very interesting insights on Japanese society. Not much has happened so far, mostly because of several issues affecting the physical location of the classroom (we haven't had class in the same room yet). I'm enjoying everything so far.

On Tuesdays and Fridays, I get to enjoy a political science seminar on the media and politics, taught by the most awesome bald Irishman I've ever met. He's pretty opinionated on the subject of Japan and the media, but he's also very interested in what we think, which gives the gaijin in the room plenty of time to talk (since the Japanese students are really quiet for some reason). The first week of class we spent discussing the issue of media censorship in Japan, which is unique in that the media reporters and news anchors practice a strict form of self-censorship. The government doesn't have to limit what people say because they will do it on their own. As an example to this, we have been discussing the issue of Imperial succession and the fact that the media is completely ignoring the women's rights activists in other parts of the world. The Japanese equivalent of tabloids will sometimes make comments--"the crown prince is almost certainly a test tube baby", "can the Imperial Family risk putting its entire line on one boy?", etc--but these are smaller papers that don't always attract a lot of attention. Very interesting things happening there.

Between these three classes, I'm also trying to balance a club (probably indoor soccer, though at this point in time I'm not sure which of the three I will be joining) and hopefully a tutoring job somewhere along the line. I'm also toying with the idea of volunteering at the elementary school we went to a couple weeks ago. We'll just have to see how everything works out.

Kugahara Elementary

I can't decide if I should call this the best day ever, or just the best day so far. I know that there will be other days to rival this one, but its going to be a pretty hard one to beat. I mean, you spend a day entertaining Japanese third graders and see if you can get away without having an incredible day.

Kugahara Elementary School was a pretty long trip from Sophia University, and so by the time we actually got there (after taking like three different train lines and then walking half an hour) our entire group was pretty tired and a little cranky. But even just taking a tour of the school, we started to get some energy off the chaotic (entirely chaotic) nature of the kids in the classrooms. It's not hard to see the differences in education between the Japanese and American systems. I say chaotic and I mean chaotic. The teachers don't really bother keeping the class quiet. The kids seemed like they could mostly control themselves--when they wanted to of course--but the fact that we were there seemed to give them less desire to. Kids screamed things at us as we passed, tried to grab us into their classrooms, and in general made the rest of us "gaijin" feel like pets. They had an assembly in which we were all introduced, complete with singing and formal introductions in both Japanese and English. I couldn't help it; I just had to take a video of them singing to us (see bottom of the page).

We had each been split into pairs and given to a particular classroom, one of six grades for which there were each four classes. I was given over to a third grade class of eight-year-olds who seemed to think that I was the most interesting thing they had ever seen. Even sitting there while they learned kanji they would randomly turn around and start talking to me as though I had some idea what they were saying. And if I didn't understand quick enough, they would just repeat it faster and try gesturing things at me until I tried to say something back to them. And the teacher didn't seem to care. She simply let them go on while she was writing things on the chalkboard and pretending she didn't hear them. Definitely not the way things worked at my Catholic school, I can tell you that. Finally, the teacher asked my partner and I to stand up and introduce ourselves to the class, in Japanese if we could.

Now I was facing a group of eight-year-olds, who had more kanji knowledge that I did, who spoke Japanese better than I did, and with a whole lot more energy than I had (or thought I had). Immediately one of the little boys starts yelling at me "Look at her; she's cute!" I started laughing and had a hard time getting out my name and where I was from, let me tell you. The same little boy would later run up to me and ask me to autograph his notebook. The girls immediately clung to me--especially Misato-chan--absolutely loved me. They all clapped when I told them I was twenty years old, and laughed when we found out that I'm shorter than their teacher Aki-sensei. Yuki-kun (the boy who asked me to sign his notebook) grabbed me and pulled me towards his group for lunch, where I spent a very awkward hour trying to understand their questions and play their games. They didn't seem at all put off that I didn't understand most of their language, but instead they worked doubly hard to find common signs and descriptions that we both understood. Lunch was an interesting experience, especially the way that it was served. Someone from the school administration brings a cart with all the food in big bowls, and then a predesignated group of kids serves the entire class wearing these adorable chef's hats and coats. They eat in their classrooms, and then when everyone is finished they scrape out all their food in the appropriate receptacles and push the cart back to the kitchen. This is all done without the supervision of the teacher, who instead spends the lunch hour grading kanji homework and doing the days attendance charts. After everything was put up (I scraped my own bowl) the girls grabbed both my hands and ran me down the stairs outside for after-lunch recess.

I spent then next hour playing tag with every little girl in my third grade class. I was it first, and spent a good twenty minutes just chasing them for fun, since I remember that its always more fun to be chased than to do the chasing. After about ten minutes I realized exactly how disgustingly hot it was outside and how much I sweat when I run around in jeans. So I spent the next twenty minutes trying to catch one of my third graders because I was so hot and tired I thought I was going to die on the playground. I definitely didn't remember that little kids were so quick.... So after about thirty minutes of this, we moved the game to the jungle gym and I awed them all with my ability to walk on the bars unsupported.

Needless to say (at least for all those who are familiar with my families genes), my face was about as red as a tomato by the time we finished running around. Which of course attracted quite a few stares as we walked back inside. I had to assure the teacher several times that I was sure that I wasn't going to faint or pass out, and that I was just a little tired. Afterwards, Oleg (my partner) and I played charades for the kids and taught them some English words like "elephant" and "fishing". They in turn taught us two games: Fruits Basket and something for which I don't know the English translation. Fruits Basket was fun: everyone divides into fruit groups, and then everyone but one person gets in a circle of chairs around the person who has been designated leader. The leader calls out a fruit (orange, strawberry, etc) and whoever is in that group must get up and change seats, including the leader standing in the middle. And then the leader can call out "Fruits Basket" and everyone has to get up and change chairs. Something like musical chairs, with fruits. The other game was a little like "Red Rover", with the class split into two teams and holding hands across the room from one another. There's some chanting, a lot of moving back and forth, and then two people from each side are selected to engage in the Japanese version of "rock paper scissors", with the loser being added to the winners team. Of course, since Oleg and I were such a big deal, we both moved back and forth several times.

At the end of the day, I was completely exhausted, but I have never had a more exciting day in Japan. The kids were amazing, and the teachers and administrators enjoyed us so much that they begged us to come back again. I'm pretty sure that none one really wanted to go home, but most of us have agreed that we are going to try to make it back for their sports day festival in a couple weeks. The kids were just amazing, and I think they had almost as much fun learning English as we did Japanese. Who better to teach Japanese to foreigners than kids who are in the process of learning it themselves?

As always, got a few pics posted here. Enjoy!


Also, please enjoy this video of the entire school singing to us. The song should sound familiar....

How Odd

Things in Japan that I Consider a Little Unusual
--people walk on the left side of the sidewalk, but bikes will run you down on either
--assigned seats at movie theatres
--people taking pictures of me when they think I'm not paying attention on the train
--phones that double as TVs, radios, and computers but cost just as much as the cheap crappy ones in the United States
--the "English Speaking Society" at Sophia University
--Japanese people with French accents
--school uniforms that include a character that looks like the playboy bunny
--more adults than children at toy stores
--Japanese parking garages (this is also on my list of really cool things about Japan, btw)

That's all I can think of for right now. I'm sure there will be many many more.

Nikko

Yes yes, I do realize that I haven't even written a post for Kamakura yet, but if I don't do Nikko, then it may turn in to Kamakura and no one will ever know what I'm doing. And you'd all hate that, wouldn't you?

So Thursday morning we took a road trip about two hours north of Tokyo to a place called Nikko, which in Japanese means "sun's light." Nikko was a drastic change from Tokyo--it has one main street with little shops and then the rest of it is all ryokan and famous shrines and temples. The first that we went to, of course, was the Toshogu Shrine.

Now, you can't go to Nikko and not see the Toshogu Shrine. It's the resting place for the soul of Ieyasu Tokugawa, the last Shogun of Japan. Nikko is mostly mountains, so besides the somewhat nauseating drive up the mountain we had the sweaty experience of hiking up the mountain side to visit the shrine in the first place. Nikko was only a little less hot than Tokyo, mind you, so it really was quite a sweaty experience. It was well worth it however, in my opinion. I think there were honestly more foreigners there than native Japanese. The guide pointed out a lot of things at the Toshogu Shrine, most of which I honestly can't remember. However, I do know that the Toshogu shrine is the original place for the three wise monkeys (sanbiki no saru) that "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" (or in Japanese mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru). One of the stables near the entrance had the monkeys carved there, said to ward off evil spirits that might seek to harm the Shogun's favorite horse. I definitely ended up with three or four souvenirs just of the monkeys. So cute!

All around the path up to the shrine where the Shogun's soul is supposed to rest is lined with gifts from friendly nations (which only included Korea, China, and the Netherlands, to be fair) so there were some interesting things of different styles all around the gate, including one large revolving lantern from the king of the Netherlands. We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the innermost shrine, since it was all original materials that hadn't been touched in nearly 250 years since they had been created, so after leaving and walking almost all the way back down the mountain again, a couple of us went over to the nearby Futarasan Shrine.

I think I liked this shrine a little better. There were far less people, and we could just walk around and take pictures and admire the scenery. The trees were huge--it reminded me a lot of being in Washington State with my grandparents as far as the size and sheer numbers of trees. But everywhere there were dragonflies, all different colors and buzzing overhead. The first one that flew into my face freaked me out quite a bit, but after that I was okay. The Futarasan Shrine was less ornate than the Toshogu Shrine, but it felt more natural than its neighbor, which I enjoyed. We all bought more mikuji (fortunes) there and then walked back to the group.

The ryokan where we stayed was just amazing. It's a traditional Japanese inn, with tatami mat floors and low tables that you have to kneel at to use. We fit around five people per room, so we were a little cramped, but its all a part of the experience. They left us tea with little cups and a real tea pot, and a set of yukata robes. Our ryokan was also an onsen, or hot springs, so a couple of the girls immediately went downstairs to go take a dip. The rest of us stayed upstairs and had some tea before dinner. We had some fun trying to get the yukata on, let me tell you. Those robes are a lot more difficult than they look, and it was good that someone remembered that there was a special method for tucking them in before you tie them. For all you future Japan goers--when wearing a yukata, remember to tuck the right side in first, and then the left side over that. Otherwise it signifies death and a funeral.

After dinner we were given free time, which of course meant that a large number of us decided that it was time to invade the town of Nikko and find the only karaoke bar in the entire town and scare the poor woman at the counter half to death when a good 20 gaijin come laughing in and asking to rent a room. There was alcohol consumed, of course, and several renditions of songs that I don't advise singing in a group. I think that Bohemian Rhapsody was by far my favorite, especially the part when the entire group broke in to a head banging session of the Wayne's World variety. So much awesomeness there.

The next day (after a strange breakfast of tofu and raw egg) we headed up 1,500 meters above sea level via the Iroha-zaka road. If I thought that the ride to Nikko made me a little carsick, then it was nothing compared to the Iroha-zaka. It was built with one tightly wound curve for each character in the Japanese syllabary, which at the time of its creation was 48 characters. 24 back and forth curves on the way up, and another 24 on the way back down, on a huge bus that swayed dangerously every time we turned. Not the most exciting thing, but having survived the experience, I can say that in a smaller car it would have been interesting. At the top of the mountain, we visited two different waterfalls: the Ryuzu and the Kegon. The Kegon Falls are the more famous of the two. In ancient Japan, when two lovers were unable to bring their love to fruition, they would jump together off the side of the falls and be together in the afterlife. It was a tragic way of proving your love to one another. And having seen the falls myself, I think it must have hurt quite a bit. You couldn't pay me enough to jump that, even in a barrel Niagara Falls style. It still makes for a beautiful picture though.

Finally we drove south a ways to where we visited the famous Coco Farm Winery, which is one of the most interesting places in Japan that I have seen so far. The farm doubles as an institution for mentally challenged people in Japan, who are normally shunned by their families and kept in complete reclusion from the world. At the farm, they learn to work, tending to the vineyards and growing shiitake mushrooms along the mountainside. Japan isn't really suited to grape growing, but the people at Coco have make it work. They have around 100 mentally challenged people, aged from 16 to 81, doing all the manual labor around the farm. We got to see and talk to several of them, and despite the fact that my Japanese was not very advanced and her English was non-existent, I managed to talk to one of the workers for several minutes as she told me all about how her work was so hard and she was tired from walking up and down the mountainside everyday. I managed to ask her if she liked living here, and she nodded very happily. It was so interesting to see a group of people taking such pride in their work when the rest of the country considers them to be a black streak on their population. And their wine was amazing, if I do say so myself. We got to taste both the red and white that they produced last season, as well as observe the process through which the wine is cooled and the "sparkling" added to sparkling wines. I bought a bottle for my host family (as well as the sparkling grape juice for myself) because I was so impressed with the quality of the wine and the people who created it.

We got back to Yotsuya yesterday night, but I needed a chance to sleep before I could get any of this out. Seeing the length of this, I don't know that I would have been coherent at all last night. More pictures are posted here.

Mata ne!

Kamakura (kinda)

There's just so much to write about... but I'm so freaking tired.....

Okay, so here's the deal. I'm going to post my pictures of Kamakura now, along with a promise to divulge about it at a later date. Good deal?

My near death experience

I just almost got run over by a mikoshi.... hilarious!

(p.s.--mikoshi is the portable shrines that are carried down streets during festivals)

Pics

Hahaha, and then there was the photo dump site....

Enjoy it as much as I do.

The beginning

Well, despite the fact that I can barely handle one blog, let alone the three I currently have (four if you include this one), I have decided that it is just going to be easiest to start yet another diary for the duration of my time in Tokyo. Otherwise, I may end up being inappropriate and uncoordinated and no one may ever hear from me again. So difficult....

We arrived in Tokyo about two days ago, which feels like a lot longer than it has been. It takes two hours to get from Narita Airport to downtown Tokyo, and given that my brat of a cat kept me up the entire night previous, I'm pretty sure that I slept the whole way there. Tokyo is a big bright city, and I woke up in time to see the city lights and several giant Ferris Wheels as we entered the city. After sitting in traffic for several hours, we finally got to the hotel.

Now depsite the things that I've heard about the hotels in Japan, ours were pretty nice. No capsule rooms; no big group showers. Everything was very Western. In fact, my hotel here was quite a bit nicer than some of the American hotels I've stayed in. I had my own room, with a bed, a desk and a flat screen TV, and my own kitchen and washing machine and dryer. Sugoi! Despite the fact that it was 9:00pm and we were all on random American timezones, the kids from GW immediately decided that we wanted to get lost in Tokyo and we set out on our own.

And so we arrive at a randomly chosen Japanese restaurant, picked because there was a man from the shop standing on the street corner passing out fliers. It was a cute little place that was off the street level. We got handed hot towels to wash off our hands before we ate. The waiter didn't speak much English, and since most of us were too tired to understand much Japanese, we communicated by pointing at things on the menu and watching the waiter draw the main contents on a napkin. After dinner we got sidetracked by a Pachinko arcade, which was easily the most hilarious thing I have ever seen. I have absolutely no idea how it is played, but I think that a disproportionate amount of my money is going to be going into these ridiculous machines.

The next day we traveled the five minutes to the Yotsuya campus of Sophia University( or in Japanese, Jochi Daigaku). Yotsuya is Sophia's main campus, but it was pretty small compared to GW. It definitely had more of a campus feel than GW. Everything is contained inside these gates--the North Gate, the East Gate, the West Gate, and (you guessed it) the South Gate. There's a chapel in the front corner of the University near the North Gate, and there is also both a subway station and a train station a block away. Very convenient, since we are all commuting in during the school year. We spent the entire day going over the rules and regulations of CIEE and Sophia University, as well as learning what kinds of special programs CIEE would be offering during the school year. So far I'm all excited about our trip to an elementary school in a couple weeks. There's also a discussion section with a couple of geisha, a trip to Komyouji Temple, and a field trip to one of the biggest confectioners in Japan. Sugoi!

We also learned about all the different clubs that welcome foreign students in to their group. I'm particularly excited about the Go Circle. In case you didn't know, Go is a Japanese board game played with black and white stones on a lined board. I have no idea how to play, but I think that it would be a lot of fun and very Japanese. I'm also considering a fustal circle (which I'm told is a lot like soccer) and a guitar ensemble. I'm going to have to see what works with my class schedule when I finally do registration two weeks from now.

After all the time inside, the group was taken on a bus tour of Tokyo. It was unfortunate that most of us were pretty hungry and pretty jet-lagged, because I think it would have been more entertaining if we had been awake. We got to eat kushiage, which is basically skewered meat and vegetables that are deep fried. The okra was particularly good. I also enjoyed the fried pumpkin and stuffed shiitake mushroom (yes, Debbie, I am aware that I just said that I enjoyed mushroom). Afterwards we were taken to Tokyo Tower, which is this huge Japanese replica of the Effile Tower. From the observation deck we could look out over all of Tokyo. I have never seen a city so huge. The view at night looked a little like that of the Sears Tower, but there were more skyscrapers that all of Chicago, and it stretched on for forever. I felt really, really small.

Today was host family day. Those of us doing homestays were taken into a lecture where we were given a crash course in basic Japanese manners. I'm pretty sure that it made most of us more nervous than we already were, but I remembered more of it than I thought I would, so I guess its okay. We practiced formal greetings and important phrases for our host family, including things like "onaka ga suki mashita" (I am hungry) and "tsukare mashita" (I am tired). My favorite is still "kyukyusha wo yonde kudasai" (Please call the ambulance), though I hope I'm not going to need to use it while I'm here. I was told ahead of time that my host family could not pick me up at the appointed time, so one of the girls would take me to their station later. In the meantime, while the other CIEE students were meeting their families, Nao-san and I went to Kagurazawa. There are a number of temples there and lots of little shops, so we walked around and enjoyed the sights. We stopped at one of her favorite shops to drink some Soymilk Green Tea, which wasn't at all bad when you added some honey. Finally, she took me to Minami Asagaya, where my family lives.

Miyaki Shigeaki and his wife Asoko live in an apartment near the Minami Asagaya Station in Tokyo. They're both junior high teachers and they love to travel. Shige loves sports and the Chicago Bulls. Asoko likes to travel and she enjoys watching "24" and "Prison Break". They're both really nice, and I had a great first dinner with them, despite fumbling through every Japanese sentence I tried to make and feeling slightly frustrated when I couldn't make my sentences do what I wanted them to do. All the more reason for me to study hard and learn to talk to my host family properly. Their apartment is small, but very nice. I have internet in my room, and I sleep on the floor on a futon mat. The family bath tub is optional, but I do have to shower sitting on a stool. And of course, when I enter the house, I have to take off my shoes and set them neatly to the side, and then put on my house slippers to wear around the house.

Everything is wonderful so far. Tomorrow I may end up in Akihabura (the electronics district) with some of my friends, but right now my immediate concern is getting to bed. Mata ne!