AKB 48

For those of you not familiar with Japanese pop culture, so a vast majority of you, probably have no idea what that title means. No, it's not some high tech gun, or a complicated piece of machinery, but a Japanese pop group. Unlike American pop groups that usually have 5-6 people in them, as the number in the title would indicate, there are 48 girls in this group. Now you are probably about as confused and/or shocked as I was when I heard about this. BUT WAIT, there's more! I came downstairs the other day and looked at the TV and saw one of the members on TV crying. I was thinking something terrible had happened, so I asked my host mom what was up. She explained to me that it was the AKB 48 election time. Come again? Elections for a pop group. She went on to explain that the girls in the group had elections every year to determine their position in the band. The closer you were to 1, the more up front and center you would be during performances, music videos and such. At this point I was like, are you serious? This is ridiculous! But since seeing this a few days ago I have been analyzing it trying to think in terms of Japanese culture. This group of girls usually around 18-20 years old had 48 members that I guess would just get swapped out when they get too old or want out or something, the election is the process for this to happen. The votes for the election come from a ballot received when purchasing a CD (by the way, genius marketing ploy). That all made sense but then I started thinking, why 48. I still don't have a good answer but I have a hunch that it ties back to the Japanese sense of homogeneity (aka uniformity). That there were 48 girls, all pretty similar so nobody really stands out. Uniform. Now I could be completely wrong with this, and feel free to call me out on anything if you disagree but I have noticed that there are few solo groups. The majority of J-pop music is all groups. Just some food for thought.

Also, here is a video of them performing one of their songs. I'm pretty sure this is their most popular song because it's the one that plays almost always when their name is mentioned. Forewarning: This may be nauseatingly cute for some.

Japanese Swimming Pools

So just a quick update on things so far. Our class portion of the trip ended last Friday. I went to Kyoto again last Friday with Stephanie and Hannah for some last minute souvenir shopping and to hang out. Saturday, I just kind of hung around Otsu for the day and made my host family Mac and Cheese because they had never had it.  Crazy right? Today was an interesting day, and also where the title of this post comes from. So first off, my host dad, brother and I went to a ramen house. It was my first time to a ramen shop so I didn't really know what to expect. We get to this small restaurant and my host dad goes inside and gets us a number. We then waited outside for about 10 minutes until we ordered and got called in. We waited on a bench inside while they set up 3 seats at a bar for us. We sat down and after another couple minutes our food came. It was so good! I have only ever had instant ramen and I was always just kind of lukewarm about it but this ramen was delicious! After finishing lunch, I went to SUMS to meet up with the other international students to play some sports which was fun, except one of the other teams players got hurt while playing basketball. Luckily enough, like my friend Miriam pointed out, everyone here is pretty much a doctor so he got him all taken care of and played badminton for a bit until I had to go home for dinner. My host dad was teaching me how to make Okonomiyaki. I was very excited because I had been itching to learn how to cook Japanese food for people when I got home. I figured it would be a good way to help share my experiences more. Its hard to describe what Okonomiyaki is but I will try. It is kind of like a Japanese cross between a pancake and an omelet topped with a special sauce and mayo. It sounds weird but its delicious. I'll post a picture too so you guys can see what it looks like. 

After letting dinner digest, my host dad, brother and I went to the community pool. Now the differences weren't HUGE, but after swimming competitively for almost 8 years of my life and life guarding for 4 years, I notice these things.  So first we walked into this large sports complex and went to this ticket machine next to the front desk and bought 3 tickets to swim and took them to the front desk where we exchanged them for plastic chips with rubber bands on them. We went to the locker room, which was pretty small compared to most locker rooms you find in the US, and changed into our swim suits. Now all I brought with me was one of my old work suits, but everyone else was wearing jammers or one piece suits, depending on gender of course.  I thought this was a little strange because even thought this was a lap pool only, in the US unless you swim competitively, you probably don't even know what a jammer is. Now in America, its suggested that you shower before entering the pool, but nobody does. In Japan, they found a way to enforce this quite effectively. The entryway to the pool had motion activated showers in the ceiling that formed a barrier of hot water that you had to pass through before you could even get into the pool area. I thought this was interesting, I mean there had to have been a way around it for staff and people who for some reason or another came to a lap pool and couldn't get wet but still it was effective. I was just glad that the water was a pleasant temperature and not like freezing cold like I was expecting. The next difference was that each lane was specifically assigned for a purpose. 3 lanes were lap swim only, 1 lane for walking and 1 lane for kicking, with a side area for kids that was shallower than the rest of the pool. I thought this was nice so that way if you were trying to swim you wouldn't get caught behind some chatty Kathys with kick boards, moving at a leisurely pace. The last big thing I noticed were what I thought were sinks. On the wall by the entryway was what I thought to be a bank of sinks, which I thought was weird anyway but after getting out of the pool, my host dad walks over to them and puts his face over one of them and pushes the handle. They turned out to be eye washes to get the chlorine (I think they use chlorine in their pools) out of your eyes. I thought this was a great idea because I feel like a lot of the people at the pool I work at would love this. Okay, now to mention a few things about the locker room that I forget to mention above. All of the lockers were coin operated. You put in a 10 yen coin and the key (which was on a watch like wristband) came out when you shut and locked the door. Now I figured that this was like any other coin operated locker and that once your coin was in, it was gone. This was not the case. Before we got in the pool, I realized that I needed that plastic chip with the rubber band to get in. "Crap" I thought "There goes 10 yen down the drain," but when I put my key back in, out popped my coin. I guess the coin just acts as collateral for use of the locker, which doesn't make a whole lot on sense considering that 10 yen is approximately $0.12. Also, they had a hair dryer. Not one of those hand dryers they just put a few feet higher up so you could stand under it and get your hair half dry, but a real hair dryer that was just plugged into the outlet there. I thought this was strange and awfully trusting of people, but as demonstrated by a previous post, Japanese really don't steal anything (except bicycles  and umbrellas apparently). 

Well now you are pretty much caught up on my adventures. I still haven't finished the kanpo post I have mentioned a few times now but it's almost done so hopefully in the next few days I can finish it. I start my internship/ hospital observation tomorrow so that should be interesting, but for now it's off to bed so I can get enough sleep for the long days ahead. 

Updates

I feel like I say this too often here but I have fallen behind again on my blogging. So just to catch up with my trip I will write some short blurbs about what I have done recently and hopefully go back later and go into more detail (I have a Kanpo piece in the works but I dont have my laptop here to work on it). Thursday and Friday last week were our last days with Denise before she flew back to America. Thursday was mainly about Kanpo and Friday was about minorities in Japan, and like I said I will probably go back once I have more time because both were really fascinating. I should also mention that on Friday at SUMS (Shiga University of Medical Sciences) a part was thrown for us so we could meet students here. This was very nice of SUMS to do for us and it was really fun. There was loads of good food and we met a bunch of new people!

Saturday I spent most of it looking at temples and shrines with my otoosan. The first one we went to was one of my favorites because you had to walk like 2km through the mountains, away from civilization, to get there. It was almost as though it was place where it was long ago so that you had to almost walk through the woods and kind of forget everything behind you and focus on where you were going before you could get there. I really like this concept of almost purification before getting there, but that might just be the Shinto sinking in. Next we went to Mt. Hiei, which was this HUGE mountain overlooking both Otsu and Kyoto. Otoosan was telling me that pretty much the whole mountain was considered a temple. I could see what he meant when we got to the top. There had to have been at least 12 shrines and temples to visit. I think the one that was my favorite was a Buddhist temple that was at the top of the flight of steep stairs. The set up of the temple was some steps up to a small outside vestibule where you would remove your shoes. After you did that there was a small enclosed garden that had a wood path leading you into the main building. You entered into this semi lit room where you would go kneel before a small fence facing another room that was not too visible when you walked in, but once you got up to the fence and knelt the view was amazing. I was just telling my friend that I wish I could have gotten a picture but it would not have done it any justice. I will try and describe it as best as I can. The air was heavy with incense. Even though it was only 2pm outside, the sun was mostly blocked and replaced with many candles. As I knelt down I was astounded at what was on the other side. Many candles lit up the the large space beyond the fence. In the center was a large statue of a Buddha. Not the stereotypical fat jolly Buddha but a more sober serene Buddha, sitting with his right hand raised. Around him were statues of what I believe were other smaller deities. The walls were covered in this round black and gold globe like decorations. It was breathtaking! It is amazing that after all of these years this shrine has been here it still maintains its original beauty.

After seeing a few more temples we started our decent. This mountain was so high that going up and down caused your ears to pop like on an airplane even though I was in a car. I found this amazing because I am from Michigan where it is flat. After making a few quick stops places on the way home, we had dinner with the rest of the family.

Nothing too exceptional happened Sunday except going back to Hikone for the afternoon to do Karaoke with my friends back there. It was really fun and I got in some quality songs because this was the first karaoke place I had been that had Panic! at the Disco (my favorite band). I will admit however, I am no Brendon Urie.

Post Op Picture.

Monday was probably one of the best class days so far because we got to learn about MRI image guided surgery AND THEN PREFORM IT! I mean it was only on a block of agar gel with a hypotheitcal tumor but we still did a pretty legitimate procedure with the Double Donut MRI and the Microwave probes to coagulate the hypothetical tumors. This was very interesting and a wonderful opportunity to try this type of procedure first hand. The rest of that day and today were lectures from various professors at SUMS that were interesting but I will be honest did not top the surgery. The only bad part about the surgery was that I forgot to take my bus pass out of my pocket and the MRI deactivated it because to the magnets but it was an easy fix. Just had to go to the Keihan Bus Office and ask them to remake it.

Well there are some quick updates. Hopefully I can find sometime this week to finish my piece on Kanpo and maybe a few others about other topics covered.

The Sunglasses Story

This experience will probably become one of my most told stories of the trip. It shows how kind and helpful the Japanese people are. Our story begins on one of the buses on my morning commute. I foolishly stuck my sunglasses in my sweatshirt pocket even though about 75% of the time everything always falls out but you know I was in a rush to get to school and had to get out my bus pass. Anyway, I get off the bus with Hannah at our stop and after the bus pulls out I realized that it is incredibly bright out now. I reach for my sunglasses and wait they aren't in that pocket, or that pocket, or that pocket (I was wearing cargo shorts at the time so I could go on but I'll stop there). They weren't in my back pack either. I came to the realization that they must have fallen out of my pocket on the bus. I was devastated! These were my absolute favorite sunglasses because they had once belonged to one of my cousins that I am close with. He had bought them when he was my age and had given them to me after I graduated because they were coming back in style. I was so upset with myself for leaving them on the bus. I was going to ask someone if there was a lost and found for the bus company but I mean they were Ray-Bans I figured they were going to be long gone. I waited until the day after and decided there was no harm in asking Nao-sensei if there was a lost and found. She told me that there was one and took me to another professor to explain the situation to her so she could call the bus company and ask them for me. She proceeded to call the bus company and translate my description of the sunglasses to the bus company. By some miracle, the bus company had them! I was so happy my sunglasses hadn't disappeared into the abyss, but the kindness didn't end there. The professor had then written down for me the schedule and route I would have to take to get to the bus station and explained it to me so I would not get lost. So me an Hannah (I do have to give props to Hannah for accompanying me because it was quite the adventure) went to the bus stop and waited for the bus, got on and asked the driver if this was the right bus to our stop and showed him the kanji characters of the bus stop we needed. He told us that it was and he would make sure we got off at the right place. After about 20 minutes on the bus, we arrive at the terminal station where the bus company's lost and found is. We pay our fare and thank the driver for helping us. After exchanging thanks and bows, we enter the office and ask about the sunglasses. They were expecting us because our professor had told them that we were coming and I mean two gaijin in suburban Japan don't exactly blend too well. The woman behind the desk pulls out the glasses and hands them to me and has a book for me to sign to claim them. I thank them graciously for helping me find my glasses and they show us to the bus we need to get back to the train station. We get on the bus and have to wait a few minutes because the driver was taking a break between routes, but not until after he let us on the bus to sit.  You would think that it would be the end of the story here but in one last gracious act of kindness, the woman from the office comes on and tells us not to worry about paying the fare home that they would cover it. How amazing is that! All I had asked was if there even was such a thing as a bus lost and found and I not only got my glasses back but help with every step along the way. This is why the Japanese are amazing people! I am so grateful to have been able to be a guest in their country.

Second and Third Days of Class

Just finished up with the third day of class. Both days were very interesting but to keep in chronological order I will start with Tuesdays class.
Tuesday was all about Japanese interpersonal relations, or how Japanese people interact with each other in different situations. There are basically 3 classifications of interactions: intimate, ritual and anomic. All of these come from the cross overs between omote and ura (front and back) and uchi and soto (inside and outside). Front and back can be thought of as from the perspective of the person and whether or not the behavior is front (more public) or back (more private). Inside and outside can kind of be looked at like if its more of a private/ relaxed almost setting (inside) and outside being more like a public and more formal setting. I do not know if that makes much sense but once I explain them with the behavior types maybe that will clear things up.
Let`s start with ritual behaviors because I think its the easiest to understand (and explain). Ritual behavior is seen as soto omote or outside front. You can think of it kind of like talking to a boss or superior. You know the person, they could have a great effect in your life; so you act very formal and habitually.  Some signs of ritual behavior are things like very formal speech, stiff, formal posture, physical distance, and little to no expression on the face. It has been described as the social mask. Before we go any further with ritual behavior I have to quickly explain the concept of `face`. Face can be thought of as honor or place in society. Ritual behavior can be considered a good thing because there are many strategies to maintain or even gain face. It is at least about prevention of loss of face of yourself　or the other parties face. Using the example of talking with your boss, you greet them formally and ask polite questions like you do in the us (Good Morning, How are you? Nice weather right?)
Next up is intimate behaviors. Now get your minds out of the gutters because it is not like that. Intimate behaviors are thought to to be uchi ura (inside back). You can think of it as kind of a private scenario with people you are close with, like a small party with your close friends. Behavior is very relaxed. The social mask mentioned above is removed and people are in a state of social nudity. An example of this in a Japanese context is that people will  often go out after work to the bar and drink together. This demonstrates one of the big requirements of intimate behavior; it must be away from ones setting of everyday work. There also must be equality or at least the illusion of equality among participants. This allows for the state of social nudity I talked about. People are allowed to be much more relaxed and let go a little bit.

Last, and kind of least, is anomic behavior. Anomic behavior is classified as soto ura (outside back). This is a bit strange because its more of a private type of behavior but its more in public. Lebra (author) described it as interaction with someone considered an outsider but not in the public eye. This one is kind of hard to wrap your mind around. I myself am still struggling with it so I wont go into much detail. Basically it`s how you treat a stranger (quick side note: sorry about the weird ` apostrophes I`m on a Japanese keyboard and they are a bit different than US keyboards and im struggling a bit). Like you don`t really have to be super polite to them but you do not necessarily treat them like a friend.

Moving onto day 3! Day three was all about Japanese health care and society. Today we started by looking at the system overall and comparing it to the concepts about culture we have learned so far and then analyzing that and making connections back to US culture. Japanese health care cannot be looked at as just biomedicine (things like hospitals and such as used in Western medicine) or just the more traditional types of medicine like kampoo or herbal remedies, because in Japan they sometimes use a combination of the both. It depends on peoples age and beliefs among other factors, but for the most part it can be looked at as more of an integrative approach. Now today we just scratched the surface so I will go into more detail tomorrow but I will throw out a few things I found interesting. The first thing I found fascinating was that because of relationship behaviors doctors are viewed as higher than patients. This puts their interactions at a ritualistic type of level so the patients feel as though they cannot really express verbally what is ailing them so doctors and nurses have to use physical and other signals to try and figure out what is wrong with them. Also, the Japanese consider telling patients about terminal conditions to be unethical, whereas in America that is an ethical duty of doctors to tell their patients. Can you imagine that being the standard?!?! It blows my mind! I could go on but I fear this post is becoming too long so I will save it for tomorrow.

As I mentioned last post, if you have any questions, comments, concerns with any of my posts; PLEASE leave a comment or email me! I would love to discuss or explain things in more detail. I also realized that I did not put my email address last time so here you go: suriano.alex@gmail.com

Host Family and First Days of Class

Alright, here is the lengthier post that I promised you last time. So last Saturday me and Hannah scrambled to get ready to leave Hikone and move in with our host families in Otsu. We had just finished sorting her trash when the taxi that was taking us to the train station pulled up. We loaded in our stuff and sped off towards Hikone Station where we would meet Kitamura-sensei who was escorting us to Otsu to help us meet our families. We arrived at the station and found our families and went our separate ways. My host dad Otoosan picked me up in the family car and took me to a cafe where we got coffee and had a conversation in broken languages. We then went to Ishiyama Station to get me a bus pass and to show me where to get on the bus. After I understood how to commute to school every day. Then it was time to head back home to see where I would be living the next three weeks.

I arrive and he helps me bring in my luggage. We enter and of course the first things that happens in the shoes come off. We learned a bit about this on the first day of class but I will talk about that later in this post. I come in and meet my host mother (Okaasan) (note: Otoosan and Okaasan are father and mother in Japanese not their actual names). We talk for a bit about house rules and getting to know each other. My host dad is a traditional business man who commutes 2 hours by train everyday to Kobe. It's kind of intense because I think he leaves the house around 6 and isn't back till around 9 or 10 but I guess that is normal in Japan. Okaasan is a stay at home mom but she also teaches English among other things to kids after school. I have an older sister who is a year older than I am named Ayako who is a college student at Shiga Univ. who is studying to be a teacher as well as having two part time jobs at the grocery store and teaching at a cram school. My younger brother is 14 and his name is Wataru. He is in junior high and plays soccer and swims. They are all very nice and welcoming!

After a few days to settle in with the family it was off to school! I had practiced my commute the day before so luckily I didn't have a problem finding anything. The only problem was that my bus ran late making me late for my train but I just caught the next train and was able to get on the next bus right away. I made it to class with 15 minutes to spare. We walk in and meet our professor for the course Denise Saint Arnault We started off the class with introductions and Denise explained to us that she started off as a Pysch nurse and did that for a while but decided to go back and get her Ph.D and is now an associate professor at U of M. She is a medical anthropologist and has done some very interesting research concerning Japan. We also have a professor from Shiga Univeristy of Medical Science (SUMS) named Aiura. Her and Denise have been colleges now for 5 years.

After introductions we drove right into the first topic; Religion. I won't go into too much detail (mainly because I have a limited battery life right now) but there are two main religions in Japan: Shinto and Buddhism. The two are not mutually exclusive. Most people are both in fact or have parts of both. Shinto is considered the "indigenous" religion of Japan. Based a lot on maintaining relationships with the Kami. Kami are the spirits or dieties of the land, but can also be the spirits of heroes and even things that were just awesome to early man. The kami reside in things such as the rivers, mountains and even in things like trees. Kami are neutral in nature but can do good or bad depending on your relationship with them. If you are respectful and treat them with respect they will bring you good, but if your are neglectful and disrespectful they can bring misfortune. Shinto is also about purity. This is where the whole taking shoes off when you enter a house. Inside, whether it be a house or just a metaphorical sense, is pure while everything outside is impure or polluted. The shoes are taken off because they are from the out side and considered impure. Shinto places of worship are shrines. Shrines, unlike churches, are not usually visited regularly. They are visited when you are born, age 3,5,7 and on New Years, but they can also be visited whenever when you are looking for purification or just for favorable things. The other main religion is Buddhism. Now I know I had thought I had a pretty good grasp on what Buddhism was but it was a lot more complicated than I thought. Buddhism is based on 4 truths. 1) Suffering is inevitable in life 2) This suffering is caused by desires 3) You can release yourself of these desires and therefore release yourself from suffering 4) The Noble Eight-fold Path that can lead you to the peace of Nirvana. There are also 3 Treasures or Refuges of Buddhism: 1) Buddha 2) Dharma (teachings) 3) Shangha (or community). The goal of Buddhism is to reach enlightenment to release yourself of suffering caused by desire. There are a lot more to these religions that the nutshell I put them in, so I recommend taking the 5 minutes it would take to pop over to Wikipedia and read about them really quick because both are FASCINATING! I would go on myself but my laptop is litterally dying as I am typing this so I hope that my brief summary of those two religions were interesting and that you learned something new or even just cleared up a misconception you had on the topic.

Note: we also talked about Confuciusism but like I said laptop about to die. Maybe next time I will add a quick note about it but again take the few minutes to punch it into Google or you can always ask me about any of this in the comments, email or if you can wait until my return I would be open to discussion of this or any topic covered in my blog!  

Quick Post

Just taking this brief opportunity to write a post. I moved into my host family last weekend and had my first day of class today. It was fantastic! My teacher is great and the class is fascinating! I can't wait to learn more but first I have to get through these readings for tomorrow. I will hopefully be able to connect to the internet at school tomorrow and write a lengthier post but for now this is it. I will however say that my host family is great as well! They have been very welcoming and helpful in my transition to Otsu and SUMS.

Tokyo Adventures

Hey followers. Sorry for the delay in posts, finals are coming up this week so I had to find some space in my schedule to write this. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I went to Tokyo this weekend with some friends. Let me just start off by saying the city was amazing! It is the biggest and by far my favorite city.

Now, let me start from the beginning. We got up on Saturday morning and I waited while my friends checked out of their rooms at JCMU because they were in a different program and were done here at JCMU. We then pretty much ran over next door to the hotel to catch their shuttle to Maibara Station where we would board the Shinkansen to Tokyo. We bought our tickets and waited for our train. The shinkansen platform was like any other except at random point you would here an alarm and then all of the sudden there was a train rocketing past you. Those trains go SO fast! 11:29 hit and, like clockwork, our train arrived. We all got on but our group was semi separated. We were all on the same car but 3 of us were in the front of the car and 3 in the back. I ended up in the front in the row behind Holly and Val so we were able to swing the seats around and make a nice little area for us all to sit together. Before we knew it the train was speeding off towards Tokyo. A trip that would take a normal train about 8 hours was done in about 2 and a half. We even got to see Mt. Fuji from the train. Even though our glimpse was brief, it was an amazing site to see. The beautiful mountain seemed to just rise up over the fog over the cities and towns around it. It was breath taking! 

We got off the Shinkansen at the Shinagawa Station and took the Tokyo Metro to the Shinjuku Station because it was supposed to be a 60 second walk to our hotel from there. Unfortunately we had read the instructions wrong and we were supposed to get off at Nishi-shinjuku. Luckily, two Tokyo natives not only helped us find where we were supposed to be, but personally walked us there, which was amazingly kind of them. One of the reasons I love Tokyo and just Japan in general, almost everybody you meet is very polite and kind. We checked into our hotel and grabbed a quick lunch at McDonald's, which in case anyone was curious has things like the Big Mac but also things like a shrimp burger and McPork. After lunch it was time to hit the town. Holly, Val and I wandered around Shinjuku for a bit before returning to the hotel and meeting up with the rest of the group plus Tsubasa, one of Robyn's friends who lives in Tokyo. He showed us around a bit more and then we went to an Izakaya with delicious food for dinner. After that we just wandered at bit more and hung out a the hotel for a bit before going to bed. 

The next day we woke up, grabbed a quick meal and decided to head over to Akihabara. I was really excited because Akihabara was supposed to be an otaku (nerd) mecca with tons of electronics, video games, anime, manga and more. We went to the closest station and routed our way there. I'm not sure how other cities are, but in Tokyo there is almost as much underground as there is above ground. We went in this entrance in somewhere in Shinjuku and walked at least half a mile in an underground shopping area. It was weird to think that this was probably built after the above ground part. No space in Tokyo is wasted. 

We arrived to Akihabara no problem. That was another thing that surprised me. Despite none of us there at the time didn't speak a whole lot of Japanese yet the underground was very organized and efficient that us gaijin (Japanese word for foreigner) were able to find our way around Tokyo with really no issues. I really loved going to Akihabara. We went to a few shops, my favorite being the Book Off. Book Off is a chain store in Japan that sells a lot of secondhand books, mangas, anime, CDs and video games, which was great for me because it was nice to be able to get some mangas and video games so I can kind of practice and keep learning Japanese without having to pay full price. I ended up walking out of there with 6 mangas (5 Fullmetal Alchemist and 1 Death Note) and a video game and a CD. After about 2 hours the girls in the group were getting a little tired of nerd shopping and wanted to go real shopping so we decided to hit up Ginza, one of the most upscale shopping districts in the world. After about 2 more hours of shopping we decided to head back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We went to another one of Tsubasa's recommendations for dinner and it was great. We wandered around for a bit more after dinner and then headed back to the hotel. I woke up early the next morning to catch the shinkansen back to Maibara. 

Tokyo has been the best part of the trip so far! It was so amazing to be one of the biggest cities in the world and explore. I definitely hope that I can go back someday to get to see more of it! 

Thoughts on Language and Trip Updates

With the addition of Japanese, I will know three (four if you count my feeble attempts to learn Italian last summer). Not saying that I am fluent in any of them besides English (and only sometimes), but I was just thinking about the process of learning a language other than the one native to you. The one you first learn automatically becomes your base language. Like when you learn a phrase in a new language you always think about what that phrase means in your base language. This got me thinking about how difficult it must be to learn your base language. I mean children barely start talking semi proficiently until they are like 2-3 (not sure about how good of a ballpark that was but you get the idea). Just a thought that hit me the other day while studying.

As for some trip updates, this past Tuesday we had a traditional tea ceremony put on for us by two women in kimonos. It was amazing to see them preform this. The ceremony itself had so many different steps and they made each move very precise and deliberate. After they did the whole ceremony once they invited us to join in. I really enjoyed this cultural activity.
Today my class is finally going to see Hikone Castle. I've had my eyes set on it ever since I got here. Everyday I've just see it on top of one of the mountains, almost as if it were watching over the city around it. I can't wait to go inside and check it out!
On the agenda for tomorrow is Tokyo! A few friends and I are going to travel to Tokyo and stay and night. I cannot wait to explore one of the worlds biggest and nicest cities and take loads of pictures!

Picture note: Castle from a distance

Kyoto!

We went on a field trip to Kyoto this weekend. It was amazing! For those not so familiar with Japanese history, Kyoto is the old capitol of Japan. It was the capital from around 800 A.D until the late 1800s when the capital was moved to Tokyo. The city was a fascinating mixture of old and new because of this. While in the city went to Kiyomizu Temple, which was this huge old temple. This large wooden structure was originally built with all wood, no nails. I thought this was amazing considering how large the building was! In the temple there was a water fall that people would stick out long poles with cups on the end and drink the water from the waterfall because it was supposed to give you good health and luck. On the way out of the temple, we actually got to drink from the waterfall which I thought was very cool.
Next up was the Heian Shrine. Like the Atsuta Shrine I visited in Nagoya, it was a place of Shinto worship. This time our guide from JCMU, Kitamura-san, showed us the proper way to worship at these shrines. I don't know too much about Shintoism but I would like to know more about it and compare it to Christianity. Also, Buddhism is big here so it would be nice to learn more about that too. After praying at the shrine, we went to the shrines gardens. Kitamura-san was telling us that these gardens took over 20 years to make and they were pretty much the hang out for the noblemen of Kyoto. They would come to the gardens and listen to music and float around on their boats in the ponds. It was a very humbling experience to sit in the same place as the noblemen and to see the very scenic gardens.
After we found our way out of the garden we were going to try to go to Gion and try to see Geisha, which I was very excited for after reading the ethnography about them in the Cultural Anthropology class. Unfortunately , we did not see any Geisha or even a Maiko. We did how ever find our way to one of the shopping districts. We found some pretty interesting stuff while exploring the shopping district, including Purikura machines. Purikura machines are kind of like the photobooth machines you see in malls and stuff but they do way more stuff than ours. These machines could make your skin clearer, magnify your eyes and even add makeup if you so desired. One of the girls in our group was very excited about Purikura so we decided to stop and try it. Hopefully I can find some way to scan and upload the pictures because they were pretty amusing.
After we shopped as much as we could we met up with some people in our groups Japanese friends and went out to dinner in a large group! It was very neat that we got to meet some Japanese students our age and interact with them. I even ended up adding some of them on Facebook so we could keep in touch. I can remember where exactly we went for dinner but it was a restaurant that served these almost omelette like dishes. They had eggs, cabbage, shrimp and some other veggies and some kind of dark sauce. I can't remember what they were called but they were pretty good. Although the highlight of dinner was when Hannah (the other health care student) had to jump into action because some woman at the bar was having what Hannah and I deduced was a Grand Mal seizure. Hannah got her turned on her side before she vomited and when she came to Hannah and I had Ayaka translate questions for her to answer. EMS arrived not too long after and took over for us. It was just a crazy coincidence because right before it happened Hannah was talking about working for her school EMS squad and I was showing Erika and Takuma my DS surgery game (Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2). After the excitement settled down we went back out on the town and found this amazing crepe store called Ninja Crepes. I haven't had too many crepes in my life but this was by far one of the best things I have eaten. It was a black crepe with some kind of creme, ice cream, berry sauce, chocolate covered bananas, and an edible shuriken (throwing star) on top. It was fantasic!
All in all, Kyoto was an amazing city and I figured out that where my internship is, is only like 3 train stops away from Kyoto. Needless to say I will probably find my way back there at least once or twice more before I head back to America.  

Quick Lists

Things I Ate Yesterday:
Raw octopus
Raw salmon
Raw tuna
A little fried fish from head to tail
Fish meat balls

Celebrities I've been told I look like:
Dimitri martin
Swizzbeats white cousin

Songs sang at karaoke last night:
Pop- Nsync
Bad romance - Lady Gaga
Don't stop believing - Journey
Last Friday night - Katy Perry

Just some fun lists before I go to Kyoto for the day!

The Little Things

Just thought I would make a quick post of some of the little things that are different. First of all, the showers/ hot water in general. To get hot water in your shower, there is a little electrical panel in the back of the shower that you have to turn on and set a temperature to get hot water. I did not learn this soon enough and ended up not showering one day because I couldn't get hot water. Another thing is their malls/ plazas. They are these huge buildings with a ton of store, but they also have like grocery stores, bowling allies, movie theaters and just so much more stuff than American malls. Also, a lot of the doors are just sliding doors, like the door to my room and the door to the classroom. Lastly, you don't tip in restaurants here, or at least I have been thinking you aren't supposed to and haven't and just offending all of the places I have eaten at.

That's just a few things that kind of jumped out at me so far, but I'm sure there are more to come. I am very excited for our field trip tomorrow to Kyoto!

New Beginnings at JCMU

Now that I am more awake, I can write more. Like I said, I moved in on Monday and had orientation on Tuesday. Today was just a normal class day, which means 3 hours of Japanese Language in the morning and then I have the rest of the day to study and wander Hikone and what not. Yesterday I went to some stores around the area. The first area was A.L. Plaza, which is like a huge department store with a grocery store in the basement. The best part of A.L. Plaza is the Hyaku Yen store (100 yen store). It's pretty much the Japanese version of a dollar store, expect is has pretty much everything you could think of, and its not like shoddy quality like American dollar stores. I ended up getting a bunch of cool stuff for school and such. Then we went to the biggest grocery store I have ever seen. It was like the size of two of our Meijers! It was a little overwhelming because of course all of the labels were in Japanese. Luckily I was with a lot of the students who have been taking Japanese for at least 4 years and knew it well, although there were times I would go down an aisle and just grab a few random things to try. I think the best thing I have found via this method is green tea chocolate chip cookies. They are so good! I hope I can find a recipe so I can make them in the States. On the way back to JCMU, we stopped at a McDonalds. I was mildly surprised that they had them here but the menu is different. For example, my friend got a shrimp burger. I wasn't hungry at the time, so I didn't get anything but my friend offered me a bite of hers and it was weird but really good. On a side note, some other stores I found in Japan that surprised me: KFC, Pizza Hut, 7-11 and Big Boy. Once we got back from our adventures around Hikone, it was time to hit the books and study for the quiz I had today. I just finished up with classes today and I made fried rice for lunch. I think I will try and go on another adventure with some of my classmates.

Photo Note: If you check my Facebook today, I am going to post some pictures of my room and around JCMU. If time permits, I might try and go around Hikone and take some more pictures. Also, for those of you following without a Facebook, I am going to open up a Photobucket account and post all of my pictures there as well.

Move In and Orientation

I apologize in advanced because this post is going to be cut short. Today was my first day at JCMU and it was a very busy one. We arrived here late last night and went straight to bed and had to wake up for breakfast at 8:30 AM, which wasnt so bad because I woke up at 5 today anyway. Then we had 2 hours of class, orientation and bike assignment. After this we had a break for lunch so me and my roommate went to CoCo's (little family restaurant attached to the academic building). Luckily he is pretty much fluent in Japanese so he did most of the talking. We then went for a quick run into town and got some groceries and then came back for more orientation. When orientation was done, another student who has been here for a few months already offered us a tour around Hikone on bike. I accepted the offer due to my curiosity to explore Hikone some more! I would go into it more but I am falling asleep writing this and I have to finish up some homework.

Progress!!

Ok, I know I said I would stop posting so many pictures of food BUT I am making a exception because I managed to order this ice cream entirely in Japanese! I am finally getting the hang of things...kind of.

A day at Centrair

A day at Centrair.
Today is my last day in the Nagoya area before I leave for Hikone where the Center is at. I checked out of my hotel (which was a very nice hotel might I add) and headed to the airport (Centrair international airport). Now it was only 10am and Ayako-San wasn't supposed to be here to meet with me and the other students until around 6:30-7pm. So I went to the designated meeting spot and managed to finish the book I was reading (The Screwtape Letters if anyone was interested, I enjoyed it but I can appreciate that not everyone would) when the volunteer worker who spoke English approached me asking if I was waiting for someone and how long. I told him I was and that she should be here around 7pm. He told me that I should go up stairs to where the stores were. I was hesitant at first because it meant having to lug my luggage around while I tried to shop in what I though would be a few tiny shops. I decided in the end I would give it a try and because the guy kept looking at me. So I went up stairs and I was completely surprised by what I found.
It wasn't the 3 small shops I was expecting but pretty much an entire mall with a massive restaurant selection! I was very excited until I remembered that I had a suitcase and a duffle bag to lug around and that I probably wouldn't get far with them. Luckily while walking around I found an area with those lockers where you insert some coins to get the key. I managed to fit the two larger bags in the locker but I decided it was wise to keep my backpack on me. At last, I could wander the shops freely! I decided to start with the upstairs level first and work my way down. Upstairs I found a few clothing stores, a few souvenir shops, and a ton of restaurants. I browsed a few of the souvenir shops looking at the little trinkets the had to offer (I think the pikachu mask was my favorite) but then I came across a book store. It was pretty much like a book store you would find in an American airport, besides the fact that almost everything was in Japanese. I browsed a bit and saw a few familiar magazines in Japanese and I even saw a Lady Gaga book translated to Japanese. I then found myself in the manga section of the store. Call me an otaku if you must, but I actually enjoy manga. I decided to browse the shelf and see if anything looked familiar to what I usually read back home. The only one that I really recognized was Bleach, but I had never read it so I wasn't too excited. I decided to take a gamble and find a manga that looked interesting, preferably the first one of the series, and just buy it. After about 10 minutes of searching I found one that looked good. I'm not sure of the title but I think it is DRRR! and I know for sure that it's published by Square-Enix. I haven't started it yet but it looks awesome and I can't wait! I decided to head down stairs to the more low key shops and bought a Meiji Black chocolate bar, which was delicious.
After wandering a bit more, I found the sky deck, which is basically this large rooftop platform where you can watch the planes takeoff while enjoying the sun. This is where I am right now, writing this post. I still have like 4 hours to kill before Ayako-San gets here. I think I'll start that new manga and maybe play some DS since my other books are locked in the locker with my bags.

Dinner!

I can't really remember what it was called but it was really good! Yes the meat is raw. I couldn't get the picture of the pot of boiling water in, but basically you put the meat and veggies into the water and let them cook, then dip them in the sauce. Also I promise I will stop posting pictures of every meal I eat, just the cool ones.

Adventure to Atsuta Shrine

After that last post, I decided to try to go into Nagoya and go to the Atsuta Shrine. So I googled directions by train  on how to get there. After staring at the train schedule for about 5 minutes I had figured out which stop I needed. I went over to the automated ticket machine to buy my tickets. The machine (once set to English) was pretty self explanatory and I was able to get my tickets. Now came the hard part, figuring out which train was the one I was supposed to get on. I used my 'stare at a sign until it makes sense' method again and was able to figure out the right train. The only problem was the train I got on was a reserved ticket only train, which wasn't too big of a deal except I had to pay an extra ¥350 on the train. The train itself was an experience. At some points the train was literally inches from the buildings that were on either side of the train. I couldn't help but notice how close all ofthe buildings were to each other either. From what I could tell, they were mainly houses with like a few feet in between any of the houses around it. I tried to snap a picture on the train but they didn't turn out. After about 25 minutes I had reached my stop (Jingumae). I got off the train and luckily there were signs every few feet pointing me in the right direction towards the shrine.
The shrine ended up being right across from the station so there were no problems there. I wasn't sure what to expect from the shrine but what I found was much bigger than I would have thought. The shrine was placed in a large wooded area that had city pretty much surrounding it on all sides. I walked in one of the entrances and found a few paths and a large building that looked like some kind of like banquet center I want to say but I did not venture over that way because I didn't feel I was dressed appropriately compared to the people walking in and out of it. I walked towards the paths and just chose one and walked. I kept seeing these almost lantern like structures throughout the woods and tall wooden archways (I'm pretty sure these are one of the main symbols of Shinto). After seeing this for a while I stumbled across some stands that sold toys, masks and candy but they were closed because it was still pretty early on in the day. Beyond that there was a raised stone trough of cool water with wooden ladles laid upside down on a rack over the water. There were people using the water and ladles so I decided to observe before I tried doing anything to avoid looking foolish. People would walk up to the fountain, take a ladle and pour water over their hands, one at a time, some would rinse out their mouths as well, then they would replace the ladle to it's rack and dry their hands. Once I had observed a few times I decided to try myself. I had remembered reading in one of the books from the library that this was some kind of purification ritual before going to the shrine. After doing this I decided to go deeper into the shrine. I found another building that people were going into and entered myself. This was the building that this sword was kept. I remembered reading somewhere about this sword, and it turns out that it was the Kusanagi no Tsurugi, this was one of the three sacred treasures of Japan. This sword was HUGE. the blade had to have been like 8 feet long without the handle. I admired the sword for a few minutes then continued on. Next I found this large structure that had a fence in front of it. People would stand in front of the fence, bow, throw a coin into a box on the other side of the fence and then clapped twice followed with more bowing. I decided not to try to do this because I felt that this was something that might offend people if I messed up, but I kept observing and came to the realization that this must be the main shrine. I found this fascinating and wished I knew more about their religion.

I walked around the shrine more but kept coming back to places I had already seen, so I decided to leave the shrine and go wander Nagoya more to see if I could find anything cool. I walked back toward the station and found a map of the area. After some more intense sign-staring, I went off in the direction of what I thought to be the center of the city. I must have walked about 2 miles down the street I was one with little to no luck of finding much open. I was a little surprised by the lack of activity but I remembered that it was a Sunday morning. Also, there must have been some sort of vending machine every like 15 feet. It was crazy. I started to notice that the sky was getting darker. I wanted to keep venturing because I really had accomplished nothing since leaving the shrine, but I had this sinking feeling that if I went much further I would get caught in a storm. My compromise was that I would turn and take a different route back towards the direction of the station. This direction seemed to have a bit more liveliness to it. I found a large park with a baseball field and a large dirt plot that had some older people playing a game with what looked like large golf clubs and some kind of ball, I still have no idea what they were doing but they appeared to be enjoying themselves. When I was walking, across the street was a game center, but of course it was one of those streets that could only be crossed with an elevated walk way. I wanted to try and get over there but the sky was still making me nervous so I continued to move on. A little further down I saw a van with speakers on it. There were a few people inside and one was talking over the speakers. I couldn't understand really what she was saying but they waved which was nice. At this point I was getting a little paranoid that somehow I had overestimated my sense of direction and was not heading back towards the station, but after about 10 more minutes of walking I found myself back at the shrine. The sky had lightened up a bit so I decided to wander off in the opposite direction I had just came from but I didn't get too far when the wind started to pick up so I started walking back and just made it into the station when it started sprinkling. 


I caught the train that I thought was going back to the airport, and I probably would have been okay except I decided to start writing this on the train and didn't notice until I was already like 6 stops past the point where the rail line I was on split off, one direction going towards the airport, where I needed to go, and one going off into the suburbs. Luckily I figured this out and was able to get off and take a train back to the station where the rail splits and get on the train to the airport.
By the time I got back, I was pretty tired. I decided to try to take a short nap so I wouldn't get too off on Japan time, but I ended up sleeping from like 3pm to 8:30pm. Whoops. Tomorrow is the big day: Move in to JCMU! Cannot wait to get there and meet my roommate and classmates! 

First Meal in Japan!

The hotel I'm staying at offers a free breakfast in the morning, so I decided to go check it out. I had two rice balls and a bowl of Miso soup. It was really good! I also brewed a cup of mystery tea (because I couldn't decipher the label) which was not so good. Anyway, thinking of venturing into Nagoya for the day to go see the Atsuta shrine. If I go, expect tons of pictures tonight (or morning if you are following me in America).

I Made It!

My flight got in about an hour and a half ago. It was a nice flight for the most part. I got upgraded to a Business Elite seat in the upper deck of the plane, which was amazing. The flight ended up only being 12 hours and 11 minutes rather than the 13 hours they said it might be. Even though the flight was quicker than expected, the flight departure delay still put us an hour over when we should have arrived.  I got through immigration and customs (barely) and got my luggage from baggage claim. I then had to find my way to the hotel I am staying at. Although it wasn't as bad as I was expecting but it definitely was no easy task. I was able to ask for instructions at a desk in the airport and found my way out of the airport and I saw my hotel off in the distance so I start walking towards it. I get pretty much there when I realize that the street I have to cross to get there has to be done via the elevated walkway back where I came out of the airport, so I had to walk all of the way back and cross.
    I'm not sure if it's just because I'm at the airport, but so far pretty much everyone I have interacted with has spoken English well enough to communicate with me, which is awesome. I feel bad that I cannot communicate in Japanese back to them but in due time I should be able to. This just makes me think about how we expect everyone who comes to America to speak English. I now see how ridiculous this is. It's a lot to expect of someone, especially in a situation like mine where you are traveling by yourself to a foreign country. You may know some of the language but it just makes things so much easier if after being stressed and jet lagged to be able to speak in a language you are comfortable with.

That's about it for today. I think I'm going to go bathe and get ready for bed because it has been one long day!
Keep an eye out for pictures to come either to here or Facebook soon!

Waiting for Departure!

I've been at DTW for about two hours now. I got my boarding pass, my luggage checked, got through security with no problems and got to see my sister off to Washington D.C. It's about an hour before my flight is supposed to board and I'm starting to get a tad anxious. The gate keeper (receptionist at the gate, not sure the official name but this works) told me it's looking good for me to get on this flight. They just made an announcement that the flight from Tokyo is in and that they are releasing them and cleaning the plane and it should be ready for boarding around 4 but for now I'm just going to sit at the gate and pour over my notes and small Japanese language book to prepare myself as much as possible for arrival.

Departure Tomorrow!

It's the morning before my scheduled departure and it's going to be a busy day.If all goes according to plans, I will be flying out of DTW at 4:00pm tomorrow. I have a lot of errands to run, packing that needs to be done, and some follow ups at both jobs. Hopefully everything goes smoothly today so tomorrow isn't any more chaotic than it needs to be.