Ok so I got back from an incredibly awesome field trip last night and I was really tired. I took a lot of pictures on this trip; 1,844! That puts my total pictures taken to over 8,000! I have a goal of taking 10,000 pictures before coming home and now that seems very do-able.
So the meeting time was 9 am at the shin kobe station. I wasn't 100% sure how to get there so I left a little early. I ran into Darlo and Martin at Sannomiya station and followed them down to the subway line. It was 200 yen to go a pretty short distance so Darlo and Martin just decided to walk. When I got there I found Jay but no one else was there. We were all worrying about Pac not coming on time so we told him he should be here at 7, but he wasn't and didn't show up until right before we left.
Once we were all gathered up we headed up to the shinkansen boarding platform. This was the first time I had ever ridden on the shinkansen soI was really looking forward to it. The train is incredibly aerodynamic and really long. Very cool looking. Inside was very comfortable and nice. I sat with Jay, Nohea, and Les and we started up playing Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles on our DS, that came to be THE game we played on the trip.
Before we knew it we arrived at Hiroshima station and then boarded a tour bus. Hiroshima is more like Kyoto in the sense that the area is more spread out and not as busy as Osaka. We only rode for a little bit before we got to Okonomi-mura(village). It was a building that just sold okonomiyaki. This Okonomiyaki was very different from the stuff you get in Kansai. It had noodles in it but they were too crunchy for me. I thought it was a very good meal but everyone else was acting like it was the best thing in the world. If given a choice I would eat the kansai version instead. After eating we ended up spending some time at this little park nearby. It had the playing card symbols cut out of walls so it looked pretty cool, plenty of picture ops.
So after another short bus ride we got to the peace museum and met up with some Japanese students from a nearby college. They were really nice but like most Japanese people I met they weren't really talkative in either language. The park was really pretty. The sakura (cherry blossom) flowers were blooming so it was the perfect time to go. As you probably know there is a folk legend that if you fold 1000 paper cranes you get a wish, well as you can see in my pictures paper cranes are all over the park. There are monuments just covered with them. One of the major sights in the park is the building that was directly beneath the bomb's blast. The bomb actually didn't detonate when it struck the ground but rather in the air. In what I can only assume is an eye of the storm kind of thing this building wasn't completely vaporised like everything else was. This building is part of a set actually. If you stand from the museum there is a large stone arch with a record of the victims buried underneath (I think), then a pond and a torch so if you look through the arch you see the flame and the building.
One part of the museum has a room where when you enter it gives you a panoramic view of the destroyed Hiroshima. In another room is a computer screen that plays a loop of pictures of all of the people who died from the explosion. You can also look up on the computer the age they were when they died and what their profession was. Its staggering to see real faces of war victims. A debate topic our classes here like to use is “was it justified for the US to drop the bomb” and one argument is that more people died in this event or in that event. Like its only 200,000 people. But when you can see that those 200,000 people were real people, its enough to make anyone cry I think. They also had a section where eye witnesses talked about trying to help those who weren't killed right away. Apparently if you give a severally burned victim water, they will die from the shock. So there were so many stories of people having to say no to crowds of people's dieing wish and not being able to help them. Also people who gave them water but felt guilty for it. It was all really tough to hear.
The main part of the museum starts out with an explanation of the pacific war since the Meji restoration. I was surprised actually because it mentioned the rape of nanking. This is a source of conflict in Japanese/Chinese relations even today because the amount of people who were brutally killed by Japanese troops varies from a few thousand to a few hundred thousands. The museum said “the currently accepted number in China is 300,000”. They also showed documents from the US side talking about the construction of the bomb and why Hiroshima was chosen. Then there was two model cities, one before the bomb and one after. There was also a cement wall that was riddled with holes from tiny shards of glass. There were lots of little personal items that were destroyed in horrific ways and information about who owned them. We actually started to run out of time so we hurried through the end faster then we wanted.
We then walked to our hotel, dropped some stuff off, took a breather then headed into one of the rooms for a discussion about the atomic bomb with the Japanese students. When it came to our groups turn to talk I said that Its hard to say if we should have or shouldn't have done something because there are a million different ways the world could have turned out if a different decision was made. Since we can't know what those realties are we can't say if it was the wrong choice or not.
So after all of that we were ready to get some food. I went down to the lobby and waited for people to come down but some people were taking to long and no one could decided anything so we ended up waiting forever. Once we finally went out we were too big of a group so me, christy, emily, tom and two Japanese students secretly dropped off of the group and went to this little ramen shop. I had never had ramen like this. You get a plate full of the cooked noodles, vegetables, and meat then you dip it in this spicy sauce/soup and eat. It was really good. You could select how spicy you wanted it. It went up to 30 so tom got 20 erin got 15 me and emily got 9 and christy got 6. Tom was sweating bullets but was loving it. Erin was doing good, mine was just right but emily was having the hardest time in the world eating it. It wasn't that spicy but she was acting like she was going to die. After dinner we got some conbini snacks and went back to the hotel. Those four started watching fight club in their room but I went out for a bit to play with my new camera taking night shots. I got some good results I think. I have a tripod and an option for slow shutter speed so I was able to do that thing where the street is in focus but all you see is the head lights from the cars streaming by. You really have to take a lot of pictures that way because they more often then not don't come out right. After that I watched the end of the movie then went to bed.
So the next day, woke up had a buffet dinner checked out then we got on the bus towards Miyajima. We thought we had an hour so we started to play final fantasy again and tried to do a dungeon. For some reason you can't save in the middle of a dungeon in this game so unless we beat a boss we would loose everything. Well the bus stopped and we were far from the boss so we had to turn it off. We took a ferry across and the view was gorgeous. Miyajima is famous for its torii gate that stands out in the middle of the water, I took as many pictures of that as I could. We arrived on the island and met up with the Japanese students again. This island also has a lot of dear walking around like Nara but they aren't as annoying. So we got the groups and walked to this big temple that was built on stilts on the beach. When the tide is out its a very cool sight to be walking on a temple over water. From here I just walked around taking pictures of the scenery with the sakura flowers with Matt and a japanese student I think here name was Rena. We had a pretty good katsu don for lunch then headed back to the ship. Some of the guys had their pants half wet and apparently tried to go out to that torii. Once we got to the boat we said good bye to the Japanese students then rode back to the bus.
So again we rode the bus for a while until we got to kintaikyou. This is kind of a park like place. It starts out with a very large bridge that has a 3 or 4 large arcs in it so when you are crossing you go up and down. It goes over this shallow river and it was a really nice sight. Once on the other side we made our way through the are to the cable cart because on top of the mountain was a small castle. Once you get off the cable car there is a nice path that goes through the forest for about 5 minutes until you get to the castle. The view from the top of the mountain was gorgeous and of course there were plenty of sakura trees there. Inside the castle was a little museum that had a lot of swords. They had one sword that was huge. Like most samurai swords are shorter then you would expect them to be based off of anime and games but this sword was like something Ichigo from bleach might use. Very cool. I got to the top, took more pictures made my way back down and then just wandered the area for a bit. There were a few temples and this really neat fountain so I took a lot of pictures of that. I had some sakura flavored ice cream and it was really good. I don't know how to describe the flavor but it was really unique. Eventually time was up and we went back to the bus. There isn't too much to say about this place but there were tons of really nice photos.
From there we went towards the hotel. It was in a really tiny little city so there wasn't really going on but its nice to see those spots in Japan as well. The hotel room it self was ok, the last hotel I shared a room with Pac in this room I had to my own. One interesting thing about the hotel was on the remote there were two channel changing buttons one that said muryou (free) and one that said yuuryou (cost money). As you may have guessed the yuuryou was porn. But it was in a way that everyone accidentally pressed it. I quickly dropped my stuff off in my room and waited to catch someone and go out to dinner because I was hungry. I went out with a group of me, matt, emily, christy, erin and zoe. We had a hard time orienting ourselves with the map at first so we got a little lost. Emily and zoe gave up on us at one point and just went to a yakitori place. I wasn't paying any attention to the directions debate at all and just let matt and erin take control on that issue. We did end up finding the yakiniku place and it was worth the trouble. I have had yakiniku before with host family and the kobe beef I ate was given to use in a yakiniku style but this was the first time I had gone to a yakiniku restaurant. If you come to japan above almost anything else I recommend going to a yakiniku restaurant. Its kind of pricy and you need to go there with the idea to enjoy flavor rather then getting full but really worth it. You have a grill on your table and they give you the meat uncooked. You only get a few small pieces but the flavor is out of this world. The store owner seemed like he doesn't see giajin very often so he kept checking up on us making sure we were doing everything alright. After we ate Christy stood up and hit her head on the vent above the table and it made a very loud gong sound. All of us were just laughing at her but another customer came by and gave her a warm cloth. It made it look like gaijin don't care about their own. After the food we went back, got emily and then bought some snacks. I was going to go watch a movie in cole's room (just kind of inviting myself over) but then I ran into martin on his way to vals room because he got invited to watch anime. So I invited myself over their instead. On cable there are actually two anime channels, I was amazed. We saw cowboy bebop. We ended up playing a drinking came, I was drinking ginger ale, where you all count in a circle to 21 but the numbers you say are replaced with something else. So it starts out with 1 2 3 4 5 6 14 8 9 10 11 12 13 7 15 16...21 and who ever has 21 end on them gets to replace something else so it became 1 2 3 4 lela has 6 14 8.... and when you mess up you drink. It ended up getting pretty funny at the end. I ended up gong to bed at midnight.
The next day I had a japanese style breakfast which means that only half of the stuff was edible. We all packed up then checked out. Once again we boarded the bus and drove for another hour or so. We ended up at a place called ruikouji. This was a temple area with a 5 story pagoda an average size temple and a bunch of sakura trees. Not much to say here but the pictures are really nice. There is one place that if you clap or stomp infront of the stone steps it echoes in a weird squeaky sound. Its really cool. We then ate a japanese lunch somewhere and it wasn't very good and they only gave you a tiny bit of tea to drink, no water. So it was really tough to eat that stuff. We got a little time to walk around the place then boarded the bus again.
Our final destination was Akiyoshido. After a good amount of time on the bus we arrived at the cave entrance. It starts out with a man made tunnel with just a little bit of a downward slop and then you enter into the cave. It had a path so its not like we went cave diving or anything but it is always cool to see all of that stuff. I took pictures and they came out pretty cool, but not very accurate. In the pictures there is a lot of green lights but in reality there wasn't. I don't know why cameras do that but its cool none the less. As you exit the cave you get this really nice path through a bit of forest with a really nice stream running underneath. Just a tiny bit from that was the town with some houses and some tourist shops. We had some time there to look at everything and one guy was selling fake grasshoppers made out of grass. He started talking to us in really good English and I wanted to buy one from him but even with a little plastic box it would be impractical to store and display. We all met up at station for the bus, Pac was late of course and we went off again.
Not too longer after that we arrived at yamaguchi station. I don't know if that is the name of the city as well but we had about 30 mins before our train arrived. I wanted to find a conbini and take as many pictures as possible of this little area because I most likely will never come to this town again. The real reason we stopped here was because there was an old fashioned train that took us to the shinkansen station. It was really cool to see something like that moving and the inside totally felt like old timey turn of the century kind of image. Its apparently a special deal for this train to run because it only goes during some promotion or just weekends or something because as we went by there were lots of people waving to the train as it went by. Mostly little kids with their parents, it was really cool. It was over before we knew it and we then went to the shinkansen area. They gave us a sandwich set and a juice box for dinner and we waited for our train. We then boarded the shinkansen, played a lot of DS and got home around 7pm. Once I got to my house I was really tired but I copy my pictures to my PC before I went to sleep because I was getting an error with some of them. As it turns out some of my pictures and one video did get corrupted which totally sucks. 99% of the stuff came out perfectly so I can't complain too much I guess.
Well thats it, I wrote so much about this trip I can't believe it. If you want to see some of the 1,800 pictures I took go to picasaweb.google.com/benkpomeroy2
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
There and back again, a camera's tale
So friday we had off for some holiday so I thought Id take the chance to go visit the actual famous spots in Kyoto. I've been to Kyoto many times but Ive never actually gone to Kin/Gin kakujinja or the thousand something torii gates so I thought Id do that. Of course I wasn't smart enough to find out exactly how to get there I just kind of got a general idea of where the stuff was located and had at it.
I head off in a new direction then I normally go and start walking. It was raining just a little bit so I was a little uneasy about using my camera but the weather was stopping and starting all of the time so I thought it would clear up. It was just a little chilly too. I got some good shots on my way trying to get there because there are temples EVERYWHERE in Kyoto. Its like walking down the street, house, house, conbini, temple, conbini, temple, temple, temple, house. So at one point I found this really neat hall way that went to a residential area or something but it was really cool so I climbed to the top and tried to get a picture but my battery died. So pull some batteries out of my back pack put them in but as Im putting my arm through the strap on the back pack I somehow let my camera slip out of my hands and it hit the hard floor with the lens extended.
Of course it was broken. Pretty badly actually it wouldn't close right away, I played with it for a bit and got it to close almost all of the way but it made a loud clicking sound when changing zoom and of course, it couldn't focus at anything but 8x zoom. So I gave up on the trip at that point. I let my self feel a little sad for a bit but then I just told myself its only a problem to fix, and its going to cost money but money isn't anything to be sad about. Once I got home I looked up Canon's Japanese website and found out that they had a repair center in Osaka! Even though it costs $100 to fix a $260 camera, I think I was really lucky actually.
So Saturday I thought that I would just stay inside but the weather was so good I couldn't help myself but to go walking again. Taking along my old camera I headed off. I didn't have a goal at first so I just got off at Kousoku kobe and walked towards the port area. I've never really gone there but its a pretty nice area, very pretty. Lots of young families where there, I think I want my own baby really soon, there so cute.
Somewhere I got the idea to go to Port Island. There is a little island where, as you may guess, is a lot of ports but also a lot of international center and just a really nice area. I thought that it was the place that we were the first night we got to Japan so I wanted to go back. Now that I have my bearings for Kobe I wanted to put those memories from those first few exciting days in order in my head. But we actually went to Rokko Island for orientation. So anyway I walked across the bridge, there was a walking path, and saw some incredible ocean scenery. When I got to Port Island I was blown away with how beautiful everything was. I think either part or all of the island it self is man made so everything is really new and they had some really nice parks and I just took my time wandering around enjoying everything. I was actually pretty sure that Port Island was the place even when I got there because I thought the trees looked familiar. So I spent a good amount of time walking around trying to find this hotel building that wasn't there. I should have caught on because there weren't many tall buildings there to begin with. But its so nice and peaceful there it was a worth while mistake.
So once I figured out that it wasn't there I just took the train back, its actually a monorail so it also had a great view of the area. It stopped at Sannomiya and there I found out that there is Rokko Island. It was around 3 I think, I was tired but I really wanted to go and see the real place. So I took a JR train to a few stops east and was going to transfer but then I saw there was a Toys R Us in the station/department store. I wanted to see what a Japanese Toys R Us was like so I took another detour. Inside the first floor of the department store was a little performance by four japanese girls singing something in English I think. I'm pretty sure they were doing it with out music but they werent really that good. Toys R Us was what I expected actually smaller, more compact and carried Gundams, sentai, and Kamen Rider stuff. I actually found one of the girls in uniform random box toys for half off so I grabbed two of them and got Hurricane blue (I like this one because she is henshined except for her head) and Sakura from boukenger.
Anyways I got on the right monorail to Rokko and I got to sit in the front and its facing the front of the train so its kind of like your piloting it. I took some pictures actually. I felt a little embarrassed doing that but I thought no Japanese person would say anything so who cares, but randomly one of my ryugakusei friends was on the train too. She didn't care but there actually was someone who thought it was weird. Actually when I got there I didn't have much time before I needed to head home for dinner. I got a few pictures, enjoyed the scenery again, then went home.
Sunday, went to church, came home, then started to read some manga. I wanted to catch up with Naruto. Now of course after all of the effort I've put in to studying Japanese I want to read it in Japanese, but its really hard to find good raws of Naruto. Its really easy to find translated ones and people put a lot of effort into cleaning them and even coloring them, but I can't find Japanese versions that aren't someone just taking a picture of the page. Thats kind of my current frustration.
Monday, school was so so. I hurried home and finally mailed off my gundams, figures, and games. It cost $75 but it was a pretty big box and I put a LOT of stuff in there. I was thinking about doing a lot of small boxes but I figured thats just increasing my odds of damage or lost.
Tuesday, the second part of my camera quest. So earlier I had filled out an application form for repair and printed out maps. After a silly sakubun test/contest at school I hurried over to Umeda. Now there were two ways to get the place, I could transfer twice on two different train lines that I've never even heard of before or I could just walk. I decided to walk and once I got my bearings I was there in about 30 mins or so. Wasn't too hard to find. I got to the Canon place and talked to the lady at the counter and got everything set up and they said to come back in 3 hours. As I was heading back I started to feel pretty good about myself. Like it wasn't that long ago I was scared to use my Japanese at all but now I am doing every day earns in Japanese with out an major problems. Like there isn't anything special about me but if even I can accomplish a goal like that then anyone can do anything. Its all just a matter of choosing what you want, planning it out, and holding on to the determination for it.
So I go back to Yodobashi in Umeda and I find something I can't believe I didn't have before, a neck strap for my camera. Duh I use this and then I can't drop it at all. Lesson learned the hard way I suppose. I also pick up a tiny tripod(like pocket size) and a case. I waist some time around Yodobashi and then decided to head back around 3 (its supposed to be ready at 4). On the way to yodobashi I took a different way but I figured if the direction was right then I shouldn't have too much of a problem so I tried to just go back the way I just went. Somehow something when wrong. I got lost, I think I must have been going south west instead of south or something but I had no idea how I got there or where I made the wrong stop. I by luck found a JR station and figured I'd just go back to Umeda and start again this was taking too long. When I got on the train I saw the next stop was actually a place on my map so I got off there. It got to a tricky part here and I think this is the same spot I messed up before. I needed to go south but the station comes out at an angle so I wasn't sure if I turned right or went straight at the crucial intersection. I first went right then decided that was wrong and then went back up. While being lost I got a few phone calls from the service center and he said it wouldn't be ready when they thought it would and I said its ok if it takes an hour more or something as long as its done today. But I kind of felt my Japanese fail me because I was ultimately able to do the conversation but there were things he said where I didn't know I just said “hai” but I don't think they were yes or know questions. Some how I communicated, found the place, and got my camera back. Oh it was an adventure unlike anything else. Hurried home ate dinner, watched Tora Dora then wrote this.
Tomorrow is Sumo match I'm looking forward to it!
I head off in a new direction then I normally go and start walking. It was raining just a little bit so I was a little uneasy about using my camera but the weather was stopping and starting all of the time so I thought it would clear up. It was just a little chilly too. I got some good shots on my way trying to get there because there are temples EVERYWHERE in Kyoto. Its like walking down the street, house, house, conbini, temple, conbini, temple, temple, temple, house. So at one point I found this really neat hall way that went to a residential area or something but it was really cool so I climbed to the top and tried to get a picture but my battery died. So pull some batteries out of my back pack put them in but as Im putting my arm through the strap on the back pack I somehow let my camera slip out of my hands and it hit the hard floor with the lens extended.
Of course it was broken. Pretty badly actually it wouldn't close right away, I played with it for a bit and got it to close almost all of the way but it made a loud clicking sound when changing zoom and of course, it couldn't focus at anything but 8x zoom. So I gave up on the trip at that point. I let my self feel a little sad for a bit but then I just told myself its only a problem to fix, and its going to cost money but money isn't anything to be sad about. Once I got home I looked up Canon's Japanese website and found out that they had a repair center in Osaka! Even though it costs $100 to fix a $260 camera, I think I was really lucky actually.
So Saturday I thought that I would just stay inside but the weather was so good I couldn't help myself but to go walking again. Taking along my old camera I headed off. I didn't have a goal at first so I just got off at Kousoku kobe and walked towards the port area. I've never really gone there but its a pretty nice area, very pretty. Lots of young families where there, I think I want my own baby really soon, there so cute.
Somewhere I got the idea to go to Port Island. There is a little island where, as you may guess, is a lot of ports but also a lot of international center and just a really nice area. I thought that it was the place that we were the first night we got to Japan so I wanted to go back. Now that I have my bearings for Kobe I wanted to put those memories from those first few exciting days in order in my head. But we actually went to Rokko Island for orientation. So anyway I walked across the bridge, there was a walking path, and saw some incredible ocean scenery. When I got to Port Island I was blown away with how beautiful everything was. I think either part or all of the island it self is man made so everything is really new and they had some really nice parks and I just took my time wandering around enjoying everything. I was actually pretty sure that Port Island was the place even when I got there because I thought the trees looked familiar. So I spent a good amount of time walking around trying to find this hotel building that wasn't there. I should have caught on because there weren't many tall buildings there to begin with. But its so nice and peaceful there it was a worth while mistake.
So once I figured out that it wasn't there I just took the train back, its actually a monorail so it also had a great view of the area. It stopped at Sannomiya and there I found out that there is Rokko Island. It was around 3 I think, I was tired but I really wanted to go and see the real place. So I took a JR train to a few stops east and was going to transfer but then I saw there was a Toys R Us in the station/department store. I wanted to see what a Japanese Toys R Us was like so I took another detour. Inside the first floor of the department store was a little performance by four japanese girls singing something in English I think. I'm pretty sure they were doing it with out music but they werent really that good. Toys R Us was what I expected actually smaller, more compact and carried Gundams, sentai, and Kamen Rider stuff. I actually found one of the girls in uniform random box toys for half off so I grabbed two of them and got Hurricane blue (I like this one because she is henshined except for her head) and Sakura from boukenger.
Anyways I got on the right monorail to Rokko and I got to sit in the front and its facing the front of the train so its kind of like your piloting it. I took some pictures actually. I felt a little embarrassed doing that but I thought no Japanese person would say anything so who cares, but randomly one of my ryugakusei friends was on the train too. She didn't care but there actually was someone who thought it was weird. Actually when I got there I didn't have much time before I needed to head home for dinner. I got a few pictures, enjoyed the scenery again, then went home.
Sunday, went to church, came home, then started to read some manga. I wanted to catch up with Naruto. Now of course after all of the effort I've put in to studying Japanese I want to read it in Japanese, but its really hard to find good raws of Naruto. Its really easy to find translated ones and people put a lot of effort into cleaning them and even coloring them, but I can't find Japanese versions that aren't someone just taking a picture of the page. Thats kind of my current frustration.
Monday, school was so so. I hurried home and finally mailed off my gundams, figures, and games. It cost $75 but it was a pretty big box and I put a LOT of stuff in there. I was thinking about doing a lot of small boxes but I figured thats just increasing my odds of damage or lost.
Tuesday, the second part of my camera quest. So earlier I had filled out an application form for repair and printed out maps. After a silly sakubun test/contest at school I hurried over to Umeda. Now there were two ways to get the place, I could transfer twice on two different train lines that I've never even heard of before or I could just walk. I decided to walk and once I got my bearings I was there in about 30 mins or so. Wasn't too hard to find. I got to the Canon place and talked to the lady at the counter and got everything set up and they said to come back in 3 hours. As I was heading back I started to feel pretty good about myself. Like it wasn't that long ago I was scared to use my Japanese at all but now I am doing every day earns in Japanese with out an major problems. Like there isn't anything special about me but if even I can accomplish a goal like that then anyone can do anything. Its all just a matter of choosing what you want, planning it out, and holding on to the determination for it.
So I go back to Yodobashi in Umeda and I find something I can't believe I didn't have before, a neck strap for my camera. Duh I use this and then I can't drop it at all. Lesson learned the hard way I suppose. I also pick up a tiny tripod(like pocket size) and a case. I waist some time around Yodobashi and then decided to head back around 3 (its supposed to be ready at 4). On the way to yodobashi I took a different way but I figured if the direction was right then I shouldn't have too much of a problem so I tried to just go back the way I just went. Somehow something when wrong. I got lost, I think I must have been going south west instead of south or something but I had no idea how I got there or where I made the wrong stop. I by luck found a JR station and figured I'd just go back to Umeda and start again this was taking too long. When I got on the train I saw the next stop was actually a place on my map so I got off there. It got to a tricky part here and I think this is the same spot I messed up before. I needed to go south but the station comes out at an angle so I wasn't sure if I turned right or went straight at the crucial intersection. I first went right then decided that was wrong and then went back up. While being lost I got a few phone calls from the service center and he said it wouldn't be ready when they thought it would and I said its ok if it takes an hour more or something as long as its done today. But I kind of felt my Japanese fail me because I was ultimately able to do the conversation but there were things he said where I didn't know I just said “hai” but I don't think they were yes or know questions. Some how I communicated, found the place, and got my camera back. Oh it was an adventure unlike anything else. Hurried home ate dinner, watched Tora Dora then wrote this.
Tomorrow is Sumo match I'm looking forward to it!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
the journey to nishinomiya
Okay so bright and early I left to go take the Jtest, I got there early and waited. This test was a nightmare. It was so hard and so long and so confusing my brain was just jelly at the end. I've explained it before but its out of 1000 points, I was shooting for 500. Now this is in some ways a good way and others a not of testing a person ability in Japanese. There are questions in there that are at several different difficulty levels. So the idea is that D level people should be able to get ALL of the D level questions and anything they get right by luck on the higher levels will be bonus or make up for the ones they missed. Since its really unrealistic to get all of your level questions right, to get the appropriated certificate you need to just get lucky with the harder questions. While the JLPT has level 2 and level 1 tests and you only need like 70% to pass. So in a nut shell I think the JLPT level 2 would have been a much easier test for me and would have been a sure pass.
So after that I decided to do some more exploring/picture taking. Before I talk about that though I should explain my area. My city is Kobe, my ward or district (I forget which it is but its Ku in Japanese) is Nagata. Kobe is a port city so from my train station I can see the ocean, but Japan is also crazy mountainous so my house is on the edge of a mountain kind of. Since Kobe is in between mountain and ocean it is kind of a tunnel shape. This is really helpful for walking around because the two main train tracks run right through the middle of that.
Now Japan is actually very slanted when you look at a map so I'm not actually sure where north is but in my cognitive map north is where the mountains are and south is where the ocean is. I use Hankyu train line (the other is JR)and it runs from Shinkaichi (which is about 30-40 min walk from my house) until Umeda(most north western part of the concentrated Osaka). My school is in Okamoto, which is somewhere near the middle but closer to shinkaichi on the hankyu line. Two other places of interest on the hankyu line are sannomiya and nishinomiya. Both of these places have big shopping centers. Also Nishinomiya is has two stops between it and Okamoto. If your ride an express going from shinkaichi to umeda takes probably around 40-45 mins. My normal route for school is I walk to my station called maruyama (takes about 7 mins) then transfer at shinkaichi and get on the main hankyu line.
Okay so now that I got that part explained I arrived at Okamoto, bought a bunch of batteries, then headed out. Since Kobe is so close to the ocean I thought Okamoto would be too so I walked south for a bit but I saw no signs of it. This brought me into a very residential area with a lot of what the Japanese people call "mansions". Japanese uses incorrect English as part of official Japanese all of the time, its actually a very tall and big apartment complex. (another good example of bad english in Japanese is maikaa "my car" it doesn't mean any one particular's car just a personal car as compared to a bus or taxi or something like that.). I saw a bunch of parks and school yards with kids practicing baseball and what not. From there I really traveled around, I maintained my idea of where I was in comparison to the train station but not that long into it I was wondering where was I. I didn't really have a good grasp on how far away nishinomiya really was, and also that there are only two stations in between. I got really exhausted but just kept going.
The scenery really changes once you get away from the big shopping centers and this area has a real different atmosphere about it then other residential areas I've seen. Its like this giant road that just keeps going on and on, there is plenty of stuff to see for sure but in some sense it starts to all look the same. I did manage to some how make it back home in one piece but it was a real adventure. I thought I'd write more but I'm just tired now. I did upload the pictures already and put comments so if you watch them in order you can kind of get an idea of where I went.
Also since my picasa now filled up I created another one, I also uploaded the rest of the new camera pics on there as well.
So from here on out the new pics will be at
http://picasaweb.google.com/benkpomeroy2/
http://picasaweb.google.com/benkpomeroy2/JourneyToNishinomiya#
So after that I decided to do some more exploring/picture taking. Before I talk about that though I should explain my area. My city is Kobe, my ward or district (I forget which it is but its Ku in Japanese) is Nagata. Kobe is a port city so from my train station I can see the ocean, but Japan is also crazy mountainous so my house is on the edge of a mountain kind of. Since Kobe is in between mountain and ocean it is kind of a tunnel shape. This is really helpful for walking around because the two main train tracks run right through the middle of that.
Now Japan is actually very slanted when you look at a map so I'm not actually sure where north is but in my cognitive map north is where the mountains are and south is where the ocean is. I use Hankyu train line (the other is JR)and it runs from Shinkaichi (which is about 30-40 min walk from my house) until Umeda(most north western part of the concentrated Osaka). My school is in Okamoto, which is somewhere near the middle but closer to shinkaichi on the hankyu line. Two other places of interest on the hankyu line are sannomiya and nishinomiya. Both of these places have big shopping centers. Also Nishinomiya is has two stops between it and Okamoto. If your ride an express going from shinkaichi to umeda takes probably around 40-45 mins. My normal route for school is I walk to my station called maruyama (takes about 7 mins) then transfer at shinkaichi and get on the main hankyu line.
Okay so now that I got that part explained I arrived at Okamoto, bought a bunch of batteries, then headed out. Since Kobe is so close to the ocean I thought Okamoto would be too so I walked south for a bit but I saw no signs of it. This brought me into a very residential area with a lot of what the Japanese people call "mansions". Japanese uses incorrect English as part of official Japanese all of the time, its actually a very tall and big apartment complex. (another good example of bad english in Japanese is maikaa "my car" it doesn't mean any one particular's car just a personal car as compared to a bus or taxi or something like that.). I saw a bunch of parks and school yards with kids practicing baseball and what not. From there I really traveled around, I maintained my idea of where I was in comparison to the train station but not that long into it I was wondering where was I. I didn't really have a good grasp on how far away nishinomiya really was, and also that there are only two stations in between. I got really exhausted but just kept going.
The scenery really changes once you get away from the big shopping centers and this area has a real different atmosphere about it then other residential areas I've seen. Its like this giant road that just keeps going on and on, there is plenty of stuff to see for sure but in some sense it starts to all look the same. I did manage to some how make it back home in one piece but it was a real adventure. I thought I'd write more but I'm just tired now. I did upload the pictures already and put comments so if you watch them in order you can kind of get an idea of where I went.
Also since my picasa now filled up I created another one, I also uploaded the rest of the new camera pics on there as well.
So from here on out the new pics will be at
http://picasaweb.google.com/benkpomeroy2/
http://picasaweb.google.com/benkpomeroy2/JourneyToNishinomiya#
Saturday, March 14, 2009
new gadget!
Ok so the first thing I have to talk about is how much I love my new camera. So as I said in a previous post that I needed buy a new one. I went two a few stores and played around with some display models and was able to narrow it down to a few. I read some reviews and narrowed it down even more, and then when I saw that it got 20% point bonus on it, I ran out and bought the canon powershot 110IS. It was 26,000 yen but I got 5,400 yen back on the store point card so its not that expensive actually. It is 9 mega pixs, which is an upgrade from the 7.1 of my last camera, has a huge iso range with manual control on all of the settings, but the best is the 10x optical zoom.
I am blown away with how good the zoom is on this thing. I can get really solid nice pictures from things I could only vaguely make out with my glasses. I'm using the extra zoom power this thing has a lot on the pictures I took. With that and the all around better components of this camera I think my pictures look really different now. The camera is a good size bigger then most point and clicks but still small enough to fit in my jacket pocket and the lens goes all the way in so its not an awkward shape either.
this program is winding up, in a few weeks final projects will start being due, classes will wind up, and before you know it I'll be on that crazy long plane trip back to America. I've been thinking a lot on how soon it will be over, and how grateful I am that I kept this blog up and took pictures because its so easy to forget all of the castles and temples and sights and foods that I've experienced. But even though I've done all of that I didn't do what I really wanted to do that was to make some good Japanese friends. But like most things in life this wasn't exactly what I was expecting, and it wasn't exactly what I wanted but it was exactly what I needed. The people I met at church really revitalized my testimony and I am really grateful for that.
So tomorrow I have that big scary Jtest. Oh man oh man its like 3 hours long non stop, and so hard. But if I can just get half of the questions right I'll reach my goal. I don't think I'll know the results for a month so thats going to be stressful for a while. There is another chance to take the test before I go home but if I score at least 500 this time then it takes a huge burden off of taking it next time. But I guess I can also think that if I fail it this time I still have another time. I dont know all I can do is, ganbatte!
the weather is kind of hit and miss here lately. On a good day its warm enough that a good sweater will do but it has so many rainy days. It can be tough to live with Japan's weather. The summer is so hot and humid it just wears you out, thats why in anime characters are just laying on the floor next to the fan. The winters are really tough because the houses are not insulated, I think at all. So if you don't have a heater in your room running, inside is as cold as outside. And in America, usually when the weather is unpleasant you just have to make it form the building to your car, in Japan that walk from the train station to your destination can be just painful. Right before summer there is a big rainy season, where it apparently pours all day everyday. Its tough.
I went to a church dance today, but its not really what you think of normally. There aren't enough people to really have a dance so we all practiced this line dance over and over. I really hate dancing. LIke I know I need to loosen up more but I just don't see whats fun about doing a set movement over and over to music. Like I understand jumping all around going crazy for a concert but I dunno. Never liked them, never will. We ended up playing badmitten and ping pong after a while. I got some japanese practice but I'm just not an overly talkative guy and it doesn't seem most of the other people were either so no real deep conversations.
Well I should wrap this up so check out my new pictures http://picasaweb.google.com/Benkpomeroy/
I am blown away with how good the zoom is on this thing. I can get really solid nice pictures from things I could only vaguely make out with my glasses. I'm using the extra zoom power this thing has a lot on the pictures I took. With that and the all around better components of this camera I think my pictures look really different now. The camera is a good size bigger then most point and clicks but still small enough to fit in my jacket pocket and the lens goes all the way in so its not an awkward shape either.
this program is winding up, in a few weeks final projects will start being due, classes will wind up, and before you know it I'll be on that crazy long plane trip back to America. I've been thinking a lot on how soon it will be over, and how grateful I am that I kept this blog up and took pictures because its so easy to forget all of the castles and temples and sights and foods that I've experienced. But even though I've done all of that I didn't do what I really wanted to do that was to make some good Japanese friends. But like most things in life this wasn't exactly what I was expecting, and it wasn't exactly what I wanted but it was exactly what I needed. The people I met at church really revitalized my testimony and I am really grateful for that.
So tomorrow I have that big scary Jtest. Oh man oh man its like 3 hours long non stop, and so hard. But if I can just get half of the questions right I'll reach my goal. I don't think I'll know the results for a month so thats going to be stressful for a while. There is another chance to take the test before I go home but if I score at least 500 this time then it takes a huge burden off of taking it next time. But I guess I can also think that if I fail it this time I still have another time. I dont know all I can do is, ganbatte!
the weather is kind of hit and miss here lately. On a good day its warm enough that a good sweater will do but it has so many rainy days. It can be tough to live with Japan's weather. The summer is so hot and humid it just wears you out, thats why in anime characters are just laying on the floor next to the fan. The winters are really tough because the houses are not insulated, I think at all. So if you don't have a heater in your room running, inside is as cold as outside. And in America, usually when the weather is unpleasant you just have to make it form the building to your car, in Japan that walk from the train station to your destination can be just painful. Right before summer there is a big rainy season, where it apparently pours all day everyday. Its tough.
I went to a church dance today, but its not really what you think of normally. There aren't enough people to really have a dance so we all practiced this line dance over and over. I really hate dancing. LIke I know I need to loosen up more but I just don't see whats fun about doing a set movement over and over to music. Like I understand jumping all around going crazy for a concert but I dunno. Never liked them, never will. We ended up playing badmitten and ping pong after a while. I got some japanese practice but I'm just not an overly talkative guy and it doesn't seem most of the other people were either so no real deep conversations.
Well I should wrap this up so check out my new pictures http://picasaweb.google.com/Benkpomeroy/
Saturday, March 7, 2009
things breaking
Today is Saturday and this week was the mid terms for Japanese class. I think I did a little worse on these tests then I normally do. I studied a lot but definitely not all that I could have. I dunno my Japanese classes are doing some pretty hard stuff I think. I've done some more walking/picture taking in Kobe so there are plenty of pictures of my town uploaded now.
Wednesday me, Jay and Courtney went to Den Den town. It was the first time either of them had gone and they really liked it. Between that and a store I found while walking around I picked up some major parts of my final fantasy collection; I got final fantasy 1 2 3 on the famicom, 4 and 6 with the box on super famicom and x2 and x2 international version. It was all pretty cheap even though I really wanted to get FF7 international (Since I got Dissida I've been playing through all of the final fantasy games, I just beat FF6 then the FF7 prequel game. Also I want to get the Japanese version because I know the story well enough to still follow) but FF7 is still crazy popular and I passed up the chance to buy it for 2200 yen which was cheap compared to other places.
The main thing thats been on my mind though was the fact I dropped my MP3 player and it broke. I didn't use it too much before but not being able to listen to music if I want to makes me really want to get a new one. I've looked all online and I've decided I want a 16gb ipod touch. The problem is that I can get them cheaper in the US, especially if I can use a walmart discount. So I tried to find an alternative with using my DS as an MP3 player and got an 8gb micro sd card ($20) but the software kind of sucks. so I can do it, but its not ipod.
Today we went to Nara for a field trip! Nara is famous for its deer, and I took a bunch of pictures of them. These deer are EVERYWHERE! You walk towards the temple and there are deer mixed in with the crowd. The have stalls that sell deer food and the deer are really pushy and want everyone to keep feeding them. The deer also poop everywhere, which is pretty gross. We first had lunch and of course being a tourist trap was a little more pricey then usual but had a really good katsutamagodon. It was really sweat. We then saw a store making mochi. Mochi is like the sticky clay like ball of rice, they make it by pounding at it with hammers tons of times. I did manage to capture a short video of one of the parts, my camera messed up on the other.
We then walked someways and went to a museum that had an exhibit on o mizutori (the festival we were attending). Our teacher really puts a lot of effort into this class as he came earlier on his own (nara is pretty far from kobe) and made a printout explaining all of the parts. It blows me away to think of how old some of the stuff there is. Like scrolls from 700 ad that lists all of the emperors and not worthy people in history. We also so other exhibits which all looked cool but didn't really know what it was about. I did see some scrolls that were like depictions of hell with oni doing graphic things to people, I was kind of surprised.
After that we went to a giant buhdha temple and inside there was an enormous buhdha statue, its again in the pictures but like it could fight godzilla big. There were several other huge statues but as it got just a little dark my camera kind of crapped out. We waited around for a little bit trying to get our group all together for the other place. We got to the site where the public can view the omizutori ceremony and got pretty close. I brought a tiny folding stool and was really glad that I did. A few of us then left our stuff and tried to get some dinner. It was me leila, pak, courtney and leila's friend from leeds (who was a really cool person). We walked around for a bit but there was only two places to eat and it took a while for our food to come so we got back a little later then we should have as the crowd had goten huge. Somehow, I have no idea how, we got back up to the front with the others who were no longer sitting down as it was too cramped. We still had a good hour plus to wait however so I managed to sit on my stool and play pheonix wright.
By the time the ceremony began at around 7 it was a little cold. We stood down hill to this high building where a giant torch was brought up and shaken over the edge of the railing. It really looks like the temple is going to burn down with how big these torches are (it has happened before) but it looks like they are pretty well prepared for it. The bits of sparks that came showering down was really pretty and looked a lot like fireworks. Even though it probably wouldn't have worked I couldn't use my camera because the stupid thing gave me a memory card error. I took a few with my cell phone but I really can't do the sight justice in word or picture.
We had a little adventure getting back to the train station though because the last express train for either an hour or half an hour was leaving pretty soon so we all pretty much ran. Well Sensei ran, we just tried to keep up with him. We were really moving it and he even had us illegally cross the street to try and make it. I was so tired but we somehow made it with a little bit of time to spare.
I've had problems with my camera before, not remembering settings, not being able to take shots in any sort of low light, not being able to zoom. But with this memory error and the mess up with the mochi making video I wanted to take I'm fed up with it and have to buy a new camera ASAP. Like an MP3 player I can deal with out, I dont need it for Japan. A camera on the other hand is something that I use to make memories and for the last month in Japan all I plan on doing is exploring/taking pictures so I really need it. So I'm going to start doing research on cameras and see what I can find.
Wednesday me, Jay and Courtney went to Den Den town. It was the first time either of them had gone and they really liked it. Between that and a store I found while walking around I picked up some major parts of my final fantasy collection; I got final fantasy 1 2 3 on the famicom, 4 and 6 with the box on super famicom and x2 and x2 international version. It was all pretty cheap even though I really wanted to get FF7 international (Since I got Dissida I've been playing through all of the final fantasy games, I just beat FF6 then the FF7 prequel game. Also I want to get the Japanese version because I know the story well enough to still follow) but FF7 is still crazy popular and I passed up the chance to buy it for 2200 yen which was cheap compared to other places.
The main thing thats been on my mind though was the fact I dropped my MP3 player and it broke. I didn't use it too much before but not being able to listen to music if I want to makes me really want to get a new one. I've looked all online and I've decided I want a 16gb ipod touch. The problem is that I can get them cheaper in the US, especially if I can use a walmart discount. So I tried to find an alternative with using my DS as an MP3 player and got an 8gb micro sd card ($20) but the software kind of sucks. so I can do it, but its not ipod.
Today we went to Nara for a field trip! Nara is famous for its deer, and I took a bunch of pictures of them. These deer are EVERYWHERE! You walk towards the temple and there are deer mixed in with the crowd. The have stalls that sell deer food and the deer are really pushy and want everyone to keep feeding them. The deer also poop everywhere, which is pretty gross. We first had lunch and of course being a tourist trap was a little more pricey then usual but had a really good katsutamagodon. It was really sweat. We then saw a store making mochi. Mochi is like the sticky clay like ball of rice, they make it by pounding at it with hammers tons of times. I did manage to capture a short video of one of the parts, my camera messed up on the other.
We then walked someways and went to a museum that had an exhibit on o mizutori (the festival we were attending). Our teacher really puts a lot of effort into this class as he came earlier on his own (nara is pretty far from kobe) and made a printout explaining all of the parts. It blows me away to think of how old some of the stuff there is. Like scrolls from 700 ad that lists all of the emperors and not worthy people in history. We also so other exhibits which all looked cool but didn't really know what it was about. I did see some scrolls that were like depictions of hell with oni doing graphic things to people, I was kind of surprised.
After that we went to a giant buhdha temple and inside there was an enormous buhdha statue, its again in the pictures but like it could fight godzilla big. There were several other huge statues but as it got just a little dark my camera kind of crapped out. We waited around for a little bit trying to get our group all together for the other place. We got to the site where the public can view the omizutori ceremony and got pretty close. I brought a tiny folding stool and was really glad that I did. A few of us then left our stuff and tried to get some dinner. It was me leila, pak, courtney and leila's friend from leeds (who was a really cool person). We walked around for a bit but there was only two places to eat and it took a while for our food to come so we got back a little later then we should have as the crowd had goten huge. Somehow, I have no idea how, we got back up to the front with the others who were no longer sitting down as it was too cramped. We still had a good hour plus to wait however so I managed to sit on my stool and play pheonix wright.
By the time the ceremony began at around 7 it was a little cold. We stood down hill to this high building where a giant torch was brought up and shaken over the edge of the railing. It really looks like the temple is going to burn down with how big these torches are (it has happened before) but it looks like they are pretty well prepared for it. The bits of sparks that came showering down was really pretty and looked a lot like fireworks. Even though it probably wouldn't have worked I couldn't use my camera because the stupid thing gave me a memory card error. I took a few with my cell phone but I really can't do the sight justice in word or picture.
We had a little adventure getting back to the train station though because the last express train for either an hour or half an hour was leaving pretty soon so we all pretty much ran. Well Sensei ran, we just tried to keep up with him. We were really moving it and he even had us illegally cross the street to try and make it. I was so tired but we somehow made it with a little bit of time to spare.
I've had problems with my camera before, not remembering settings, not being able to take shots in any sort of low light, not being able to zoom. But with this memory error and the mess up with the mochi making video I wanted to take I'm fed up with it and have to buy a new camera ASAP. Like an MP3 player I can deal with out, I dont need it for Japan. A camera on the other hand is something that I use to make memories and for the last month in Japan all I plan on doing is exploring/taking pictures so I really need it. So I'm going to start doing research on cameras and see what I can find.
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