Wow before you know it 3 months have gone by since I got here in Japan. I am 1/3 of the way done with this program. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I really want to see my friends and family and as great as Japan is I kind of get sick of it some times. But any ways lets see what did I do this week.
Starting on Thursday there was a gakuensai(school festival). It was really weird to see actually the main walk ways up to school was just packed with food vendors from clubs. Now normally you could just walk past all of that stuff but these people get right up in your face and try to get you buy their stuff. It was actually really annoying. But I ate lunch from the vendors and they had a stage up with little student bands playing and one group did an amazing cover for high way star. But we had class still so after I think I just went home, honestly I don't remember if I did anything else.
Friday I went with Emily tomomi and tomoko (unrelated just similar names) to osaka for shopping. That day I decided to take a bunch of short videos with my camera so that people could see what its on just a normal day going to osaka. I apologize for the shakiness and the shots of my feet I was just doing it as kind of an after thought. We started out at Hep 5 in Umeda. Its a mall but as you would expect in Japan its very narrow and very tall. When you go in there is a giant whale suspended from the ceiling and on the top of the building there is a ferris wheel you can ride. We looked at a few things but ended up going to this haunted house in the arcade. This was really different from a normal haunted house because after a short little intro video you go into this little room with a wooden table, a giant doll attached to the wall and head phones. You put the head phones on and the lights go out and just listen. They some how did perfect surround sound with these head phones and it felt like this creepy old lady was whispering into your ear and was moving from shoulder to shoulder. It was all in Japanese but just the way everything was said was so freaky. Things like lights flashing or the seats dropping a few inches suddenly throw in extra shock but it was really all about the audio.
We then took the subway to nanba and looked at more shops but ultimately we got to Den Den town. I was on a quest to get a portable hard drive and ram for my laptop. I got those at a pretty decent price but I also picked up another gundam model. It was the 1/60 scale Strike Gundam from Gundam Seed. it looks a little plane but it was 2500 yen and I didn't even know they made more 1/60 non perfect grade models besides the exia I picked up.
I ended up staying later then everyone else then headed back home. The reason I got the computer parts was so that I could play world of warcraft at school. I got the game up and running on my tiny PC which in itself is a pretty amazing thing. Its really slow but totally playable. So that Saturday I went to school and used the internet there so I could download the 2 gigs of patches needed to get back up to speed. But after I got it all patched I found out that the internet connection there blocks the ports wow uses. So I was a little frustrated about that. I was feeling that I couldn't get anything I wanted to work the way I wanted it to do that. But I ultimately found a port I could use a lan cable to connect and get pass the blocked ports. that made me feel really good actually because its like something I always did at home. Recently I found out I can use the computer lab and just plug in my hard drive and play with really good graphics so I'll probably be doing that.
That night I got a text message from kentaro (some I met at the welcome party) and he invited me to a Nou performance that his club was doing. I said yes even though I didn't want to go. You really have to work with building a social life so I take any chance I can get. So I go and its really boring I can't understand anything and sometimes I think they are just making sounds. Onces its over I hung out with Kentaro and his friend for a few hours. We ate lunch and checked out the class rooms that were decorated for the clubs. When you enter they ask you sign this book then they give you a big pamplet about their club after a few rooms I had a big stack in my hand. I felt bad because I was just going to throw them away. I was actually going to use the bins at school by Kentaro said to do it at the station. The most interesting room I saw was the American studies club. In the center of the room was a badly made white house over a half black half white united states map and a life size lincoln being assasinated by john wilks booth. They also had a famous black people section and it was Michal Jordan, Obama and Michal Jackson. It was a real WTF moment.
Then we hung out the Nou club's house and it was pretty cool, Kentaro was like "oh hes a gundam otaku" "he's a baseball otaku" "he's a tokusatsu otaku" so definitely interesting people there. Me and Kentaro talked about pokemon actually. He has like 250 hours in his pearl game!
I was invited for all night karaoke so I went home, ate dinner, then took a little nap. That was a lot of fun and it was only like 1050 yen for the whole night because someone had a coupon.
Because of that I was really tired on Monday and just slept in. I then finished my Exia model. I put the final decals on it. These decals are so hard to use. You have to cut them out of the sheet you want, soak them in water for 3 seconds then slide them off of the paper onto the piece you want and some how dry it with out moving it. I messed up one of the major ones I wanted and had to use something else that didn't look as cool I think. I really wish I had somewhere I could spray paint, I really want to add a finishing coat to give it a more metalic look but I don't know where or how I could do that exactly. Hmm well I just thought of something as I wrote that. I could just go walk and find some where that is out in the open and no one goes to and spray there. But I have to be careful so it doesn't look like I'm there to graffiti or something. I'll let you know how that works next time.
Um Tues, Wed, and Thur nothing particular happened except I started getting really home sick. Once thanksgiving came I was really sad. Although I got my tuff guy persona I need to uphold I will admit I was getting pretty teary eye thinking about everyone back home and how much I miss them all. So me Emily, Christy and Zoe decided to go out for Kobe Beef because we all missed out on a great meal back home. So we get there and the restaurant has gates on the booths so you can kind of close yourself off from the rest of the place and there was a grill pit in the center of the table. There werent any pictures on the menu so we worked our way through in Japanese on ordering and we were all surprised how little raw meat our 1480 yen bought. It was like half a pound I think, I dunno it was like 8 grams I think maybe. But it was SOOOOO good. you grill it yourself then dip it in this sauce. Its one of those you just do it once for the experience. We were all still hungry so we went to the bakery bought some really nice rolls and such then went to karaoke for two hours while we ate. I sang cha la head cha la (DBZ japanese opening) and dekaranger theme song. Me and emily also sung rock lobster. It was great.
Saturday me and Emily were invited to walk around the old part of Kyoto by Shinichi. He really put a lot of effort in planning it out, he even printed out maps and plotted a course. I took a lot of pictures because the fall colors were just breath taking. The pictures really speak for themselves so I'll just upload those. But one really cool part was that there was a little bridge, normally nothing note worthy except that there was a little sign explaining that this bridge has been here for hundreds of years and there was a very old drawing of that very same bridge. Its so mind blowing for things to be the same as they have been for hundreds of years.
Well I've got more goofing off to to do and more gundams that need building so I'll write later
bye
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
kanazawa
I just got back from my field trip to kanazawa so I wanted to write this down before I forgot the details. Ok so the plan was to meet saturday morning. It was at 8:30 so I thought thats about the time I arrive at school normally I'll just leave a little bit earlier so while on the train I noticed that the paper said to meet at 8:15. I was really worried at this point but ridding a train you can't do anything about it. I started to run once I left the station (even though it was still like 8:07) and only stopped when I saw other ryugakusei. I worry so much about being late to things. So as always we waited around and didn't leave even close to our scheduled time, one ryugakusei pak (big afro guy in the pictures, really fun guy by the way) was really late so we waited for him.
The bus was one of those really tall buss where you can put luggage and what not in the bottom. There was a section in the back where like 8 people could sit around a table me, emily, and erin (I hang out with those two a lot) plus a few other people sat back there and we had so much fun. We tried to get 4 players going at final fantasy crystal chronicles but it would keep getting disconnected for some reason. We were playing the pirated rom version but still we were confused as to why we couldn't get there. I felt a little bad because that game can only do 4 players and emily wanted to play something wifi but just played phoenix wright instead. While on the trip we played a lot of mario kart and tetris (courtney is really freaking good at tetris and kicked our buts) and I started to read batman the dark knight returns on my mini laptop.
(forgot this part and added it later) We stopped for lunch in the same town as the temple and it was a traditional Japanese style restaurant. It had tatami floors, and we sat on the square pillows and had the square trays. It was various vegetables and cold tempura and some soba. My taste buds must just not have adjusted the same way other's have because the food was barely edible, some of it just wasn't. Some people really liked it, I dunno why. After we ate we had a few mins at the gift shop on the first floor. I saw something so bad their, it was a cross with Jesus on it but then it had skulls with red eyes around it and the key chain package said horror series. Its so crazy how few Christians there are here and even how little Japanese people know about it. At the scheduled time most of us gathered up but two people Healy and Patrick ran off on their own somewhere. Those two can really frustrate me sometimes. Healy is the stereotypical California bimbo and Patrick is the stereotypical gay guy. Separate they don't annoy me, Patrick is even in my Japanese class and not a bad guy, but together ugh its painful. Truth be told I don't know why they annoy me but the example of them just going off on their own when we are supposed to be a group and stuff is a good example. If you just think of those stereotypes you'll understand.
We first arrived after a few hours to eiheiji which means temple of eternal piece. It was a really cool temple but was really cool was the amazing fall colors (kouyo), I took a lot of pictures but was worried about my camera's battery running out when I needed it so I held back taking a crazy amount of them. The word temple might not be the best translation the more I think about it. It feels very much like a tourist trap in my opinion. You can buy little souvenirs from the temple and talismans things like that. It is a place where there are statues and pictures of gods and Buddhas but their isn't a very strong sense of reverence. I really want to learn more about Buddhism because I don't even know if you can really call it a religion in a Western sense, its like its just about discovering your own mind through meditation rather then your actions having any consequences.
Any ways after we were rushed out of that we headed towards this amazing sea shore and took a boat ride. The sight was breathtaking but because we were behind schedule they rushed us down to the boat for the boat tour. This shore has these very particular shape rocks that are only found in 3 places in the world. The boat ride was very cool, espically since I haven't really been out on the ocean since I was very little living in Washington. The pictures really speak for themselves at this part so I won't try and describe it in vain. After the boat ride we were once again rushed along back to the boat, even though we all tried to steal a few more pictures.
We rode for another hour or so until we arrived at our hotel in Kanazawa. This was the weirdest hotel I've ever seen. We all got individuals (because apparently its the cost per person regardless of amount of rooms) and it was very small but functional I suppose. The bathroom was really small and slightly off the ground so you had to step into it. The way the whole thing felt it was like being in an airplane bathroom. Also it was a regular key, not a card key, and they gave you toothbrush and toothpaste. When you enter the room you have to insert the stick attached to the key into this hole in the wall for the lights to work.
So every dropped their stuff off and we went off to get some food because we were starving. Kanazawa isn't as packed as even sannomiya is so it had just that normal city vibe which is kind of nice every once in a while. We wanted to go to the conveir belt sushi place but their was a big group of us and lots of people in front of us so me emily and erin ended up eating at a Chinese restaurant. After that lunch we wanted something with a lot of meat and it was pretty good despite the gunsa being too buttery for some reason. After that we walked around a bit and saw some really cool lights and some modern art statues but didn't go too far away from the hotel. We ended up turning in like around 9 and I layed in bed until 11 reading more of that batman comic. My little laptop works really well for it resolution wise. I couldn't sleep very well last night, the AC wasn't working right, the pillow was really bad and stuff like that.
We had breakfast at this buffet called the olive garden (no relation to the state one) and it was pretty lack luster, I just had some scrambled eggs and bread. After the usual lateness of everyone we turned in all of our keys and headed off, one group was going to the geisha district the other was going to this kimono painting place. It was raining of course and would continue until we went home. At the kimono place they gave us this handkerchief with a flower design on it and using stencils we painted in the color. None of us really understood the explanation apparently because if you swirl the brush around it works much better so everyone's first leaves looked terrible. We all wanted to use different colors and mix them but the lady was really against it. If we wanted to change the color we made sure she wasn't around. Mine turned out ok, I just wish I could have had a practice one first. So they had a cool shop with this fancy cloth paint on it, most of it crazy expensive though.
After some walking and getting distracted we ended up at the big park, and after waiting for the other group we finally got to see some of this park with a guide. The place is huge and so beautiful and I did my best with my camera to take decent pictures but I dunno, that camera kind of sucks and I kind of want to get a better one (but I doubt I will).
We then had free time from 11:30 to 1:45, Christy made reservations at this ninja temple but it was at 12:00, we would have had to take a taxi, and we couldn't find Christy so that didn't happen. After more waiting around for people we got some food and did a little shopping before it was time to head back. At starbucks I saw these two girls in their Lolita clothes and I asked to take a picture and they let me but they were really shy about it. I don't get, don't you put all of that time and money into the costume so that you will get attention from strangers?
From there it was time to go home and the bus ride was fun, we played SO much mario kart. And Les kept calling bullet bill, billy the bullet and every time someone got that item we would yell it out to freak out all of the other players. It was a lot of fun. All in all it was a really fun trip but now I only have a little bit of time to do some homework, geez chotto iya ne
The bus was one of those really tall buss where you can put luggage and what not in the bottom. There was a section in the back where like 8 people could sit around a table me, emily, and erin (I hang out with those two a lot) plus a few other people sat back there and we had so much fun. We tried to get 4 players going at final fantasy crystal chronicles but it would keep getting disconnected for some reason. We were playing the pirated rom version but still we were confused as to why we couldn't get there. I felt a little bad because that game can only do 4 players and emily wanted to play something wifi but just played phoenix wright instead. While on the trip we played a lot of mario kart and tetris (courtney is really freaking good at tetris and kicked our buts) and I started to read batman the dark knight returns on my mini laptop.
(forgot this part and added it later) We stopped for lunch in the same town as the temple and it was a traditional Japanese style restaurant. It had tatami floors, and we sat on the square pillows and had the square trays. It was various vegetables and cold tempura and some soba. My taste buds must just not have adjusted the same way other's have because the food was barely edible, some of it just wasn't. Some people really liked it, I dunno why. After we ate we had a few mins at the gift shop on the first floor. I saw something so bad their, it was a cross with Jesus on it but then it had skulls with red eyes around it and the key chain package said horror series. Its so crazy how few Christians there are here and even how little Japanese people know about it. At the scheduled time most of us gathered up but two people Healy and Patrick ran off on their own somewhere. Those two can really frustrate me sometimes. Healy is the stereotypical California bimbo and Patrick is the stereotypical gay guy. Separate they don't annoy me, Patrick is even in my Japanese class and not a bad guy, but together ugh its painful. Truth be told I don't know why they annoy me but the example of them just going off on their own when we are supposed to be a group and stuff is a good example. If you just think of those stereotypes you'll understand.
We first arrived after a few hours to eiheiji which means temple of eternal piece. It was a really cool temple but was really cool was the amazing fall colors (kouyo), I took a lot of pictures but was worried about my camera's battery running out when I needed it so I held back taking a crazy amount of them. The word temple might not be the best translation the more I think about it. It feels very much like a tourist trap in my opinion. You can buy little souvenirs from the temple and talismans things like that. It is a place where there are statues and pictures of gods and Buddhas but their isn't a very strong sense of reverence. I really want to learn more about Buddhism because I don't even know if you can really call it a religion in a Western sense, its like its just about discovering your own mind through meditation rather then your actions having any consequences.
Any ways after we were rushed out of that we headed towards this amazing sea shore and took a boat ride. The sight was breathtaking but because we were behind schedule they rushed us down to the boat for the boat tour. This shore has these very particular shape rocks that are only found in 3 places in the world. The boat ride was very cool, espically since I haven't really been out on the ocean since I was very little living in Washington. The pictures really speak for themselves at this part so I won't try and describe it in vain. After the boat ride we were once again rushed along back to the boat, even though we all tried to steal a few more pictures.
We rode for another hour or so until we arrived at our hotel in Kanazawa. This was the weirdest hotel I've ever seen. We all got individuals (because apparently its the cost per person regardless of amount of rooms) and it was very small but functional I suppose. The bathroom was really small and slightly off the ground so you had to step into it. The way the whole thing felt it was like being in an airplane bathroom. Also it was a regular key, not a card key, and they gave you toothbrush and toothpaste. When you enter the room you have to insert the stick attached to the key into this hole in the wall for the lights to work.
So every dropped their stuff off and we went off to get some food because we were starving. Kanazawa isn't as packed as even sannomiya is so it had just that normal city vibe which is kind of nice every once in a while. We wanted to go to the conveir belt sushi place but their was a big group of us and lots of people in front of us so me emily and erin ended up eating at a Chinese restaurant. After that lunch we wanted something with a lot of meat and it was pretty good despite the gunsa being too buttery for some reason. After that we walked around a bit and saw some really cool lights and some modern art statues but didn't go too far away from the hotel. We ended up turning in like around 9 and I layed in bed until 11 reading more of that batman comic. My little laptop works really well for it resolution wise. I couldn't sleep very well last night, the AC wasn't working right, the pillow was really bad and stuff like that.
We had breakfast at this buffet called the olive garden (no relation to the state one) and it was pretty lack luster, I just had some scrambled eggs and bread. After the usual lateness of everyone we turned in all of our keys and headed off, one group was going to the geisha district the other was going to this kimono painting place. It was raining of course and would continue until we went home. At the kimono place they gave us this handkerchief with a flower design on it and using stencils we painted in the color. None of us really understood the explanation apparently because if you swirl the brush around it works much better so everyone's first leaves looked terrible. We all wanted to use different colors and mix them but the lady was really against it. If we wanted to change the color we made sure she wasn't around. Mine turned out ok, I just wish I could have had a practice one first. So they had a cool shop with this fancy cloth paint on it, most of it crazy expensive though.
After some walking and getting distracted we ended up at the big park, and after waiting for the other group we finally got to see some of this park with a guide. The place is huge and so beautiful and I did my best with my camera to take decent pictures but I dunno, that camera kind of sucks and I kind of want to get a better one (but I doubt I will).
We then had free time from 11:30 to 1:45, Christy made reservations at this ninja temple but it was at 12:00, we would have had to take a taxi, and we couldn't find Christy so that didn't happen. After more waiting around for people we got some food and did a little shopping before it was time to head back. At starbucks I saw these two girls in their Lolita clothes and I asked to take a picture and they let me but they were really shy about it. I don't get, don't you put all of that time and money into the costume so that you will get attention from strangers?
From there it was time to go home and the bus ride was fun, we played SO much mario kart. And Les kept calling bullet bill, billy the bullet and every time someone got that item we would yell it out to freak out all of the other players. It was a lot of fun. All in all it was a really fun trip but now I only have a little bit of time to do some homework, geez chotto iya ne
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
mo ichi do
Well lets see I've had a little over a week since my last blog entry and I'll try to remember what happened. Last Friday there was a welcome party for the ryugakusei, now 2 months after we get here is hardly a "welcome party" but it was pretty fun actually. It was a big event and probably 60 or 70 people went. They had name tags for the ryugakusei, food, and group games. Some of my friends didn't go because no one told us any details about it we just saw the fliers around school. I got to talk to quite a few people and got some phone numbers from some actual otakus!
It actually was nice that it was later because my Japanese has improved and I was able to carry out some pretty decent conversations. I'm still far from fluent and even far from where I want to be with my Japanese at this point, but I can definitely have a conversation in Japanese. So we are doing a sort of group conversation and I'm standing next to one of my classmates and he sees another classmate come in and he says "oh great now someone else who can speak Japanese is here" meaning he was the only one before not me and him. I'm going to take a little break and rant about this guy.
His name is Matt Groover and he is THE example as to why homeschooling is a bad idea. Matt never went to high school he just studied for his GED and he has watched so much anime over 8 years that he only took one Japanese language class and is in the highest level at Konan (with me). In all of his classes he is constantly correcting everyone and only slightly indirectly puts everyone else's Japanese ability down. During orientation we had a book with everyone's name and face and he went through and marked how good their Japanese is compared to his. And this "I'm better then everyone" attitude extends beyond Japanese ability as he was even watching over my shoulder and trying to coach me when we were playing tetris on the DS. And to top it all off he is so sterotypical american in the way he wont try new things, even though he flew half way across the world. He will pick out parts of the food when we eat, and he keeps telling us how he tries to get his host family to do things his way, I feel really bad for them. But I'm not being the jerk to him that I think in all right I should be because 1, regardless of what I think about him I have to spend a LOT of time with him in this program so best not burn any bridges and 2, he is a good guy inside, he is willing to help anyone out and he burned me a whole bunch of dvds. He just doesn't have the social skills you need in the real world.
Anyways back to the party. There was one Japanese guy who was like "Hi I'm so and so, I'm interested in Zero Tolerance" which is like a very weird topic starter I think. Something about that bowling for columbine movie, which I don't know why on earth Japaense people would care about documentaries like that. Then there was this other guy who is really an otaku but doesn't talk to much. And he was saying he knows the haruhi dance so he and his female friend start doing it, and it was the lamest thing I've ever seen. I dunno they were barely moving and so not into it. When we got into the main room we did this game where the projector posted a question like "which is the Japanese flag A or B"(in japanese of course) and you would walk to either the left or right side of the room, then before they gave the answer they roped off the sides and whoever was wrong was eliminated from the game. Then there was a not so interesting game of align the group by longest hair, or height or things like that. They also had this weird cardboard gundam thing but for the head it was like badly sculpted like a human and it had hair. The music was so loud though it was hard to have a good conversation.
After the party a lot of people went out to drink but me, one of the Japanese guys I had been talking to, and this ryugakusei from Egypt tried to find the station in this part of town no one really knew. Its really cool to think of people from three very different countries being able to communicate like that. I talked to the guy on the train ride home and he knows a lot of English but the way they teach Japanese students English puts no focus on actual spoken skills so he just needs more practice.
Saturday their was a field trip to Kyoto for the Art History class. I'm not taking Art History but if I paid my own way I could go, I felt like doing something more then just building gundam models that day so I decided to go. It was one of those things were it was hurry wake up rush out the door then wait around while everyone go there. And apparently there is a much faster and cheaper way to get to Kyoto then the last time I went. It was like around an hour for 500 yen, really not that bad. It was on and off raining all day and it was cold. The weather made me feel miserable all day. We first went to a museum that was all about the Portuguese who came to Japan, it was a some what interesting mixture of the two art styles and products. But the giant koi in the fountain outside was much more interesting. We also got hot chocolate from the vending machine, that was really good.
Then we went to a temple that was across the street. At first I was thinking "oh great ANOTHER temple" but this one was crazy. It had over 400 Buddha statues! And they were all around 800 years old. You would just look down that hall and it would last forever. There was one GIANT Buddha, 28 (I think) gods, and 400 of some praying one. The 28 gods were incredibly well sculpted the muscles looked so freakishly real. Its a shame photos are prohibited. We then ate at this mom and pop Japanese restaurant and some of the people were thinking about getting the bento but didnt really know what was in it and they saw that the table next to us was eating it and they lady brought the thing over and showed everyone what came with it, they were so friendly. Whats interesting about that place though was the music playing in the background, it was like 50s dinner music, like regular American music. American music is everywhere in Japan.
Next we went into this really big department store/train station and saw a ikebana(flower arangement) exhibit. There were something like 200 and it was crazy the stuff they did with these things. I thought ikebana was like just putting a rose over on this side of the pot and cutting away the ugly leafs but if that was ikebana then this was the extreme sports version because there were crazy colors and shapes, oh man it was incredible. I'm kicking myself that I didn't have my camera with me, I took some on my cell phone and lots of the other ryugakusei took pictures so maybe I can get some of the best ones uploaded.
After that we were free in Kyoto, we messed around for a bit trying to find a cafe for us to all sit down, then we went to an arcade. We played taiko drum masters, aparently in this version their is the go-onja theme song. I played an older version of some gundam game, I put it on easy and was surprised how long I lasted, usually arcades here are just how fast can you put money into it. Then I played this sega shooter game where you had a target onscreen so it was like a wii game and you had a pedal so you could move left or right and all the game was was one on one fights that lasted 30 seconds. It had a cool artistic edge to it but I would have liked a full game instead. At the arcade though Erin was hilarious she played the Rambo shooter game and she was just shooting like crazy and there was this part where Rambo has to shoot an helicopter down with a bow and arrow so it shows the cut scene then shows the game with the arrow and you had to wait for the helicopter to get in range but she just fired right away, missed, but the cut scene still showed it hitting it. Then she played that game where the alligators come out and you have to hit them with the foam mallet, but she was REALLY getting into it and letting out so much frustration on these poor alligators. Oh man great.
Then we walked around the shopping area, looked at souvenirs and found not only a batman and robin (the bad movie) wallet but also models from it. Really random. Max was with us and he wanted to get some cool shoes but they didn't have his size. Its so hard to find shoes in Japan. We ended up eating at some random place, I had tempura shrimp set. Then got home pretty late.
Sunday was cold. I woke up late and started working on my history paper, I have some stuff to say about my history class. This paper was the single worst paper I have written in college, I just retold the events, I didn't make any argument, I didn't quote anything, I didn't add any analysis, I just wrote until I got 1000 words and stopped. Normally I would be really ashamed with myself but with this class I know my teacher wont care. She wouldn't give us a straight answer when people would ask questions about the report and the class itself really is just a joke. In fact aside from the linguistics class, all of the classes are jokes here. The teachers don't know how to teach however they don't know how to grade harshly either. I've really become a bad student because the class doesn't really encourage learning. In the end a credit is a credit and it is better then the opposite of having insanely hard classes, but still I worry about going back to U of A and having to be a real student again.
So after my paper was done I pretty much stayed inside all day. At some points I would want to play my DS so I would have 2 sweaters, a jacket, and be under the blanket and not want to stick my fingers our enough to press the buttons. My host family gave me a heater now but I was just really cold.
Sunday I also worked on my 1/60 scale Exia gundam model. The brand name for gundam models is Gunpla and I've developed quite the obsession with them as of late. Currently I have 1/144 virtue gundam, 1/144 gundam throne drei, 1/144 dreadnought gundam, Unit 00, 1/144 00 gundam, Gurren Laggen, and 1/100 Musha Gundam. The Musha Gundam is really awesome. Its also a "master grade" so I put a lot of time into making it, probably 15 hours or something like that. I didn't even paint that much, just a few pieces to make it look like wood. When I'm making them I really wish I was home so that I could spray paint them because I want to get more serious about building them, it really drives me crazy to see all of the little mistakes I have made on them. I'm currently working on 1/60 Exia gundam model (from gundam 00, which is awesome by the way).
1/60 is pretty big like its the size of those power ranger robots I've got. I was a little disappointed with the model at first because its like just a big "high grade" model while since its priced the same as "master grade" I thought it would be something closer to that. But even still it's taken a lot of time to put together and I still have a lot to do. Right now it just has enough of its legs built so that it can stand and it looks kind of odd. Since there are so many big spots with out anything going on I was thinking about adding more panel lines myself (the dips in the model that you ink to highlight and make it look more anime machine like) but the guides recommend using an exacto knife which if you mess up its going to show up so much. I might try just making small marks with the pen by itself and letting it dry. I am going to have to hit it up with decals though, I actually bought an extra sheet of decals made just for 00 gundam. Also I bought the 1/100 "master grade" freedom gundam from gundam seed. This one comes with a stand so it should look pretty awesome whenever I get around to making it. Oh well I said bought but actually I just redeemed my yodobashi points from my laptop and got it for free.
Oh also let my explain the gunpla titles. "first grade" is the cheapy ones for kids that cost under 500 yen then there is "high grade" which what most of them are and the 1/144 size those usually cost 800 to 1400 yen then there is "master grade"which those can very from 1600 to 10000 yen, those are 1/100, the two master grades I got were 3000 yen. Then there is "perfect grade" and those are 1/60 and range from 10000 yen to 30000 yen. Then to make it even more confusing there are some models that are either 1/100 or 1/60 but not marked as a certain grade, that I don't understand.
Monday I went out to eat with this girl I met online from an English penpal site. Shes nice but really short and can't hold a conversation that well. Also I think she likes me but its not mutual. She sent me an email "ben ha watashi no koto dou omou no?" basically "what do you think of me?" This is the first a girl has made an interest in me here in Japan, I just wish she was more my type. She is taking an English class now but its so hard to get her to speak any English. I dont get it.
Oh yeah I forgot, Monday we started a manga translation club. Its like a book club but we help each other understand the Japanese being used line by line and keep each other motivated to keep reading it. Lets hope it works out.
Tuesday we saw Iron man in the theaters here. Eigakan's are pretty expensive here but it was girls day apparently so Erin and Emily got in for 1000 and apparently if you go as a couple its cheaper for the guy too so mine was only 1200 rather then then 1500 because they thought we were a couple. Also get this movie theaters in Japan have reserved seats, crazy huh. Also they have movie merchandise booths, so you can buy stuff like a cool iron man key chain or a walle plushie right after seeing the movie. Its a great idea, I am always really psyched about movies right after seeing them.
Wednesday Japanese class was pretty awesome, Tanaka sensei has let the class dissolve into just hang out and chat in Japanese hours, which its like its not that hard anymore. Its just knowing more words so you don't have to describe around everything. At 4 we also decided to start a movie watching club so we are using someone's laptop and we have this big old projection TV, so I thought I could grab an S video cable at 100 yen shop but all they have are composite so I took the train to sannomiya and tried a few diffrent places but they either didn't have it or wanted way too much. I ended up going to donkihodi and got an s video and a sound adapter for like 1200 yen but the whole thing took like under 2 hours. I forgot the name of the movie that we watched but it was done by miyazaki's son and was much more serious then most of miyazaki's movies but still had that mystical charm. I liked it. We had a pretty good turn out too, I was surprised.
This week my host mom has been in Tokyo so I've been eating out a lot and talking a tiny bit to my host dad, he is so hard to understand. She comes back tomorrow so finally I can have good food with out having to pay a lot for it.
Ok this is one monster of a post, wow I didn't realize I had this much to say. bikkurishita! This weekend we have a field trip to kanazawa so I'll have even more to write about then. Well ok bye
It actually was nice that it was later because my Japanese has improved and I was able to carry out some pretty decent conversations. I'm still far from fluent and even far from where I want to be with my Japanese at this point, but I can definitely have a conversation in Japanese. So we are doing a sort of group conversation and I'm standing next to one of my classmates and he sees another classmate come in and he says "oh great now someone else who can speak Japanese is here" meaning he was the only one before not me and him. I'm going to take a little break and rant about this guy.
His name is Matt Groover and he is THE example as to why homeschooling is a bad idea. Matt never went to high school he just studied for his GED and he has watched so much anime over 8 years that he only took one Japanese language class and is in the highest level at Konan (with me). In all of his classes he is constantly correcting everyone and only slightly indirectly puts everyone else's Japanese ability down. During orientation we had a book with everyone's name and face and he went through and marked how good their Japanese is compared to his. And this "I'm better then everyone" attitude extends beyond Japanese ability as he was even watching over my shoulder and trying to coach me when we were playing tetris on the DS. And to top it all off he is so sterotypical american in the way he wont try new things, even though he flew half way across the world. He will pick out parts of the food when we eat, and he keeps telling us how he tries to get his host family to do things his way, I feel really bad for them. But I'm not being the jerk to him that I think in all right I should be because 1, regardless of what I think about him I have to spend a LOT of time with him in this program so best not burn any bridges and 2, he is a good guy inside, he is willing to help anyone out and he burned me a whole bunch of dvds. He just doesn't have the social skills you need in the real world.
Anyways back to the party. There was one Japanese guy who was like "Hi I'm so and so, I'm interested in Zero Tolerance" which is like a very weird topic starter I think. Something about that bowling for columbine movie, which I don't know why on earth Japaense people would care about documentaries like that. Then there was this other guy who is really an otaku but doesn't talk to much. And he was saying he knows the haruhi dance so he and his female friend start doing it, and it was the lamest thing I've ever seen. I dunno they were barely moving and so not into it. When we got into the main room we did this game where the projector posted a question like "which is the Japanese flag A or B"(in japanese of course) and you would walk to either the left or right side of the room, then before they gave the answer they roped off the sides and whoever was wrong was eliminated from the game. Then there was a not so interesting game of align the group by longest hair, or height or things like that. They also had this weird cardboard gundam thing but for the head it was like badly sculpted like a human and it had hair. The music was so loud though it was hard to have a good conversation.
After the party a lot of people went out to drink but me, one of the Japanese guys I had been talking to, and this ryugakusei from Egypt tried to find the station in this part of town no one really knew. Its really cool to think of people from three very different countries being able to communicate like that. I talked to the guy on the train ride home and he knows a lot of English but the way they teach Japanese students English puts no focus on actual spoken skills so he just needs more practice.
Saturday their was a field trip to Kyoto for the Art History class. I'm not taking Art History but if I paid my own way I could go, I felt like doing something more then just building gundam models that day so I decided to go. It was one of those things were it was hurry wake up rush out the door then wait around while everyone go there. And apparently there is a much faster and cheaper way to get to Kyoto then the last time I went. It was like around an hour for 500 yen, really not that bad. It was on and off raining all day and it was cold. The weather made me feel miserable all day. We first went to a museum that was all about the Portuguese who came to Japan, it was a some what interesting mixture of the two art styles and products. But the giant koi in the fountain outside was much more interesting. We also got hot chocolate from the vending machine, that was really good.
Then we went to a temple that was across the street. At first I was thinking "oh great ANOTHER temple" but this one was crazy. It had over 400 Buddha statues! And they were all around 800 years old. You would just look down that hall and it would last forever. There was one GIANT Buddha, 28 (I think) gods, and 400 of some praying one. The 28 gods were incredibly well sculpted the muscles looked so freakishly real. Its a shame photos are prohibited. We then ate at this mom and pop Japanese restaurant and some of the people were thinking about getting the bento but didnt really know what was in it and they saw that the table next to us was eating it and they lady brought the thing over and showed everyone what came with it, they were so friendly. Whats interesting about that place though was the music playing in the background, it was like 50s dinner music, like regular American music. American music is everywhere in Japan.
Next we went into this really big department store/train station and saw a ikebana(flower arangement) exhibit. There were something like 200 and it was crazy the stuff they did with these things. I thought ikebana was like just putting a rose over on this side of the pot and cutting away the ugly leafs but if that was ikebana then this was the extreme sports version because there were crazy colors and shapes, oh man it was incredible. I'm kicking myself that I didn't have my camera with me, I took some on my cell phone and lots of the other ryugakusei took pictures so maybe I can get some of the best ones uploaded.
After that we were free in Kyoto, we messed around for a bit trying to find a cafe for us to all sit down, then we went to an arcade. We played taiko drum masters, aparently in this version their is the go-onja theme song. I played an older version of some gundam game, I put it on easy and was surprised how long I lasted, usually arcades here are just how fast can you put money into it. Then I played this sega shooter game where you had a target onscreen so it was like a wii game and you had a pedal so you could move left or right and all the game was was one on one fights that lasted 30 seconds. It had a cool artistic edge to it but I would have liked a full game instead. At the arcade though Erin was hilarious she played the Rambo shooter game and she was just shooting like crazy and there was this part where Rambo has to shoot an helicopter down with a bow and arrow so it shows the cut scene then shows the game with the arrow and you had to wait for the helicopter to get in range but she just fired right away, missed, but the cut scene still showed it hitting it. Then she played that game where the alligators come out and you have to hit them with the foam mallet, but she was REALLY getting into it and letting out so much frustration on these poor alligators. Oh man great.
Then we walked around the shopping area, looked at souvenirs and found not only a batman and robin (the bad movie) wallet but also models from it. Really random. Max was with us and he wanted to get some cool shoes but they didn't have his size. Its so hard to find shoes in Japan. We ended up eating at some random place, I had tempura shrimp set. Then got home pretty late.
Sunday was cold. I woke up late and started working on my history paper, I have some stuff to say about my history class. This paper was the single worst paper I have written in college, I just retold the events, I didn't make any argument, I didn't quote anything, I didn't add any analysis, I just wrote until I got 1000 words and stopped. Normally I would be really ashamed with myself but with this class I know my teacher wont care. She wouldn't give us a straight answer when people would ask questions about the report and the class itself really is just a joke. In fact aside from the linguistics class, all of the classes are jokes here. The teachers don't know how to teach however they don't know how to grade harshly either. I've really become a bad student because the class doesn't really encourage learning. In the end a credit is a credit and it is better then the opposite of having insanely hard classes, but still I worry about going back to U of A and having to be a real student again.
So after my paper was done I pretty much stayed inside all day. At some points I would want to play my DS so I would have 2 sweaters, a jacket, and be under the blanket and not want to stick my fingers our enough to press the buttons. My host family gave me a heater now but I was just really cold.
Sunday I also worked on my 1/60 scale Exia gundam model. The brand name for gundam models is Gunpla and I've developed quite the obsession with them as of late. Currently I have 1/144 virtue gundam, 1/144 gundam throne drei, 1/144 dreadnought gundam, Unit 00, 1/144 00 gundam, Gurren Laggen, and 1/100 Musha Gundam. The Musha Gundam is really awesome. Its also a "master grade" so I put a lot of time into making it, probably 15 hours or something like that. I didn't even paint that much, just a few pieces to make it look like wood. When I'm making them I really wish I was home so that I could spray paint them because I want to get more serious about building them, it really drives me crazy to see all of the little mistakes I have made on them. I'm currently working on 1/60 Exia gundam model (from gundam 00, which is awesome by the way).
1/60 is pretty big like its the size of those power ranger robots I've got. I was a little disappointed with the model at first because its like just a big "high grade" model while since its priced the same as "master grade" I thought it would be something closer to that. But even still it's taken a lot of time to put together and I still have a lot to do. Right now it just has enough of its legs built so that it can stand and it looks kind of odd. Since there are so many big spots with out anything going on I was thinking about adding more panel lines myself (the dips in the model that you ink to highlight and make it look more anime machine like) but the guides recommend using an exacto knife which if you mess up its going to show up so much. I might try just making small marks with the pen by itself and letting it dry. I am going to have to hit it up with decals though, I actually bought an extra sheet of decals made just for 00 gundam. Also I bought the 1/100 "master grade" freedom gundam from gundam seed. This one comes with a stand so it should look pretty awesome whenever I get around to making it. Oh well I said bought but actually I just redeemed my yodobashi points from my laptop and got it for free.
Oh also let my explain the gunpla titles. "first grade" is the cheapy ones for kids that cost under 500 yen then there is "high grade" which what most of them are and the 1/144 size those usually cost 800 to 1400 yen then there is "master grade"which those can very from 1600 to 10000 yen, those are 1/100, the two master grades I got were 3000 yen. Then there is "perfect grade" and those are 1/60 and range from 10000 yen to 30000 yen. Then to make it even more confusing there are some models that are either 1/100 or 1/60 but not marked as a certain grade, that I don't understand.
Monday I went out to eat with this girl I met online from an English penpal site. Shes nice but really short and can't hold a conversation that well. Also I think she likes me but its not mutual. She sent me an email "ben ha watashi no koto dou omou no?" basically "what do you think of me?" This is the first a girl has made an interest in me here in Japan, I just wish she was more my type. She is taking an English class now but its so hard to get her to speak any English. I dont get it.
Oh yeah I forgot, Monday we started a manga translation club. Its like a book club but we help each other understand the Japanese being used line by line and keep each other motivated to keep reading it. Lets hope it works out.
Tuesday we saw Iron man in the theaters here. Eigakan's are pretty expensive here but it was girls day apparently so Erin and Emily got in for 1000 and apparently if you go as a couple its cheaper for the guy too so mine was only 1200 rather then then 1500 because they thought we were a couple. Also get this movie theaters in Japan have reserved seats, crazy huh. Also they have movie merchandise booths, so you can buy stuff like a cool iron man key chain or a walle plushie right after seeing the movie. Its a great idea, I am always really psyched about movies right after seeing them.
Wednesday Japanese class was pretty awesome, Tanaka sensei has let the class dissolve into just hang out and chat in Japanese hours, which its like its not that hard anymore. Its just knowing more words so you don't have to describe around everything. At 4 we also decided to start a movie watching club so we are using someone's laptop and we have this big old projection TV, so I thought I could grab an S video cable at 100 yen shop but all they have are composite so I took the train to sannomiya and tried a few diffrent places but they either didn't have it or wanted way too much. I ended up going to donkihodi and got an s video and a sound adapter for like 1200 yen but the whole thing took like under 2 hours. I forgot the name of the movie that we watched but it was done by miyazaki's son and was much more serious then most of miyazaki's movies but still had that mystical charm. I liked it. We had a pretty good turn out too, I was surprised.
This week my host mom has been in Tokyo so I've been eating out a lot and talking a tiny bit to my host dad, he is so hard to understand. She comes back tomorrow so finally I can have good food with out having to pay a lot for it.
Ok this is one monster of a post, wow I didn't realize I had this much to say. bikkurishita! This weekend we have a field trip to kanazawa so I'll have even more to write about then. Well ok bye
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Himeji Castle
Well today I had another field trip. It was with the history class this time so it wasn't the whole crew and we went to Himeji castle. Now Himeji isn't actually that far away, I heard that if you just fall asleep on the train you'll end up their on accident but I still hadn't gone. I have been to Osaka castle before so I had an idea of what to expect. You have the majestic castle towering over the vast tree line, the ancient architecture, and the sense of history but what makes the two castles different is that himeji is an actual castle. Osaka castle was destroyed in World War 2 and rebuilt several times before that, the one that is standing now is just a museum on the inside. Himeji managed to survive WW2 with the help of people covering it with black cloth so night raids would think it was a lake or something.
After seeing Himeji I understand just how hard it would have been to take a Japanese castle in ancient times. You have large gates with stone walls, followed by large areas where you could easily be ambushed by arrow fire, followed by more gates and more ambush points mixed in with dead ends and confusion as to how close you actually are to the castle door. The inside was fairly large and with the sliding doors you could easily change the amount and sizes of rooms on a whim. One interesting part is that their are four wooden pillars that run the entire height of the castle, and they are one solid piece.
After the castle we went to kokoen which was a special garden established in 1992 I believe. It was really beautiful, it didn't have the flowers like I was expecting from the word garden but when you think Japanese garden, it was it. Words don't do it justice so please look at the pictures. There also were giant koi fish, and tons of them. very cool
After all of that we split off into groups and me, emily, pac, erin, lela, and laura walked around Hemeji a little and ate dinner. We really had the giggles because we couldn't help ourselfs from the obnoxious laughter which I'm sure was bothering all of the japanese people even if they wouldn't say anything. At the okonomiyaki place we sat at the low table so we took our shoes off and when we were done I teased Emily about how long she takes to tie her shoes and she goes "ok fine teach me how to time my shoes correctly" so Erin crouches down and starts doing it for her and she goes "oh dear God don't do it for me" because here was this 20 year old woman getting her shoes tied for her. We laughed so hard. Then later Lela said that she needed to use the bathroom and I pointed to the train station bathroom and said "I used it, it wasnt terrible" and Emily goes "yeah but you didn't have to take a sh@t" and we all just were silent for a second and started laughing. She thought in her head "you didn't have to sit" but it crossed in her brain as "sh@t" and then added "take a". Oh man I'm laughing just thinking about it. I really do have some good friends here, I wish they were Japanese but they are really fun people.
After seeing Himeji I understand just how hard it would have been to take a Japanese castle in ancient times. You have large gates with stone walls, followed by large areas where you could easily be ambushed by arrow fire, followed by more gates and more ambush points mixed in with dead ends and confusion as to how close you actually are to the castle door. The inside was fairly large and with the sliding doors you could easily change the amount and sizes of rooms on a whim. One interesting part is that their are four wooden pillars that run the entire height of the castle, and they are one solid piece.
After the castle we went to kokoen which was a special garden established in 1992 I believe. It was really beautiful, it didn't have the flowers like I was expecting from the word garden but when you think Japanese garden, it was it. Words don't do it justice so please look at the pictures. There also were giant koi fish, and tons of them. very cool
After all of that we split off into groups and me, emily, pac, erin, lela, and laura walked around Hemeji a little and ate dinner. We really had the giggles because we couldn't help ourselfs from the obnoxious laughter which I'm sure was bothering all of the japanese people even if they wouldn't say anything. At the okonomiyaki place we sat at the low table so we took our shoes off and when we were done I teased Emily about how long she takes to tie her shoes and she goes "ok fine teach me how to time my shoes correctly" so Erin crouches down and starts doing it for her and she goes "oh dear God don't do it for me" because here was this 20 year old woman getting her shoes tied for her. We laughed so hard. Then later Lela said that she needed to use the bathroom and I pointed to the train station bathroom and said "I used it, it wasnt terrible" and Emily goes "yeah but you didn't have to take a sh@t" and we all just were silent for a second and started laughing. She thought in her head "you didn't have to sit" but it crossed in her brain as "sh@t" and then added "take a". Oh man I'm laughing just thinking about it. I really do have some good friends here, I wish they were Japanese but they are really fun people.
Halloween in Japan
Happy Halloween everyone, I just finished my Halloween and it was one of the best ones I've ever had. My costume was a generic red ranger (of course), I got a stretchy spiderman esq ranger mask then red sweats and a red sweater so when I took the mask off it was normal clothes. I didn't wear the mask to school but when I got there everyone put them on. Someone was in like this cute pikachu pajama thing someone had a big afro (he was going as one of the other ryugakusei) and someone else was going was a sexy devil, when the teacher came in she fell to the ground laughing. It was so funny to see her reaction. She took pictures of us later. During the break right next door was the other Japnaese class and they had some other costumes but the best was a monkey costume. Since our windows had a little balchony Les (monkey suit) went from his class and just came through the window that our sensei was at, oh man it was another fantastic expression.
Walking around school you could see the greatest reactions from Japanese people because like they really wanted to stare but would try and hold them selves back from doing it and everywhere you go you hear (ah bikurishta! Surprised) or (ah halloween ne). In the elevator I could tell just how uncomfortable the people felt with us in it. Then after class we all took the train to sannomiya. It was a big group like 25 some odd people in costume we even had a few pictures taken. At sannomiya we spent some time getting everyone together then we walked to this restaurant/bar it was an okay size for a Japanese place but with all of us crazy foreigners it was probably pretty freaky for the staff working there. We talked a lot, played some darts and waited forever for our food.
Then we set out for karaoke. We originally wanted to do a small group but everyone said they wanted to go but no one was ready when we wanted to go and people couldn't make up their mind on anything so we didn't get to the karaoke place until like 9 when we wanted 8. There was a person out side the karaoke place who talks to people on the street to pull them in and I asked how much it was and they said 200 yen, which would have been okay but when we were getting set up all of us got confused at how much it was so when we had to pay it was double what we were all expecting. We all were getting frustrated and angry about it but when I think back on it, the sign did clearly say it. It was just with the sales person pushing us and everyone fighting no one was able to think it out clearly apparently. Lesson learned the hard way I guess.
A few of us left sannomiya at 11:00, we have a filed trip to himeji castle today but also the trains stop running sometime around 12:30 which is really annoying if you want to have fun. In the states I would stay over at a friends house until like 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning then drive home, here you have to be very concerned about how late you stay out other wise you take an expensive taxi or crash at an internet cafe (they are actually private rooms with TV, computer and access to showers and a giant manga library, I have yet to go myself though)
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