Last week we had the entire week off because of the nyugakushiken (entrance exams for freshmen) and today was some random holiday, normally vacation time is nice but right now its just way too much. I'm really bored. Last week like I said in the last post I built the wing zero custom perfect grade gundam, and despite some set backs and having to heavy duty gluing some parts its done and taking up the last bit of space I have in this room. But besides two days thats all I did last week.
Last Thursday I wanted to find out how far it would take to walk from my house to my friends house who also lives in nagata (its a ward, like the one subdivision below a city). I had an idea of how to get there so I grabbed by camera and just headed off in the direction that seemed right. It was a really pretty day and the whole time I kept thinking "why haven't I done this sooner?". Japan's city scape just has this certain charm about it that I was really taking in. I posted all of the pictures I took that day in my picasa account under "kobe". I particularly like the way the power lines in here are just so crazy and all over the place, there were a lot of pictures of those. It turns out that it was a good 35 min walk and I sent her an email asking if she wanted to do anything but I ended up just seeing how far I could walk. By following the train tracks I got to downtown kobe and saw so much there I hadn't noticed before. I got to pretty much the spot where I bored the train going home and it takes about 40-45 mins to get home so I was pretty tired after several hours of walking.
Saturday I decided to do the same thing but this time in Osaka. I arrived in Umeda (again ward, this is one of the major ones) and looked at a map, figured out which direction was south and just started to walk. I ended up walking for about 5 hours but I wasn't worried about getting lost because all I had to do was find a train track of a subway entrance, which are everywhere in Japan, and I could easily get back to Umeda and thus home. I again took some really cool pictures and they are under the folder "osaka". The main street I followed was interesting because it was mostly buisness and government office type buildings but on the other side of the street going parallel was this incredibly long shopping hall. I say shopping hall because I don't know what else to call them. Its like a wide ally with a roof and shops of all sorts on both sides. These shopping halls go on for miles!, or kilometers!, and before I knew it I was in Nanba (a ward I go to a lot), so I instantly knew where I was. Even though I wanted to do some new exploring I thought this might be a good time to really take a lot of pictures of my beloved den den town (den means electricity and its like the osaka akihabara, maybe half the size). Stores usually don't like you taking pictures of their stores so I only took pictures from outside but I got most of the stores so maybe someone looks at it they can kind of get an idea of what its like.
I spent more time there then I had intended and then went south from den den town and there was a drastic change in Osaka from that point. Up until den den town it was very close and tall buildings everywhere but it quickly dropped off to smaller more home like places. Like if I had to compare it its like new york quickly becoming tucson. I don't know if I can really explain it but it was a really interesting feeling.
Sunday I went to church and ended up having lunch with the missionaries and an investigator. There was a fireside that night so I just killed some time until then and we had some dinner and got to socialize a little. I talked to these other missionaries for a while and one of them was really obsessed with smash brothers brawl but he was on his mission when it came out so he couldn't play it. He kept asking me all of the particular questions about how each character was. I hadn't played the game in 5 months and didn't pay too much attention to that stuff when I was playing it anyways. The fireside was about the history of the church in Kobe, of course in Japanese. My Japanese has defiantly improved a lot but I still suck at listening. What happens is I hit a little streak of parts I don't understand, loose my place then kind of space out, thus forgetting what little I did get and suddenly I have no idea whats going on.
Monday nothing amazing happened except I got a compliment from the mean Japanese teacher. In the thing we read it was a story about how this ryugakusei's host mom was upset because she didn't recieve a letter from the ryugakusei's real mom and the teacher asked me what I thought about it, and I said "its like Japanese people are thought of as kids even when they are college students but in America as soon as your 18 your thought of as an adult so the parents have nothing to do with the host family, also sending letters is a little annoying now a days". The teacher said I said it really well but she didn't like my opinion.
I know my reading skills have improved for sure, I've now read 16 volumes of manga. I don't get all of the plot points but I'm still pretty impressed with myself. I really wanted to watch gundam 0083 because I got the models from the series but all my friend could find was a Chinese subbed version so I just watched that. I was able to understand enough to enjoy the show but when it got towards the end the plot got way too hard to understand. 0083 was made in 1990 so its so different from current animation but it felt very nostalgic. There is just something about cel animation that I really like.
Today I did nothing at all. I wanted to go to Kyoto and walk around but left foot hurt for some reason. I worked on a gundam model for a bit played some final fantasy 6 on my psp but thats about it.
So as I read the Book of Mormon it really amazes me the faith the ancient people had in Christ. They had faith that he would come and all we have to have faith in is that he will come again. Jesus of Nazarath was 100% a real person that actually lived and actually did something to upset the Jewish leaders to get crucified. There is historical evidence of it. The apostles saw the resurrected Christ, testified of that fact, and dedicated their life to telling people about it. The catholic church started up 2000 years ago because of the apostles (Peter right?). Like that in itself ought to be enough for us as humans to believe in Christ but God gave us a second book that aligns perfectly and testifies to the same thing. Its like how much more evidence does God need to give us for stubborn people like us?
Well like always when I think I have nothing to say I end up writting tons so later yall
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
vacation week
Well we ryugakusei have this week off of school. Even though our semester just started the Japanese student's semester just ended so this week is actual the entrance exam for all of the freshman. So for some reason we aren't allowed on campus even, and we have this week off. I honestly I don't have any plans. Right now its Wednesday and I don't have anything to do besides work on this freaking crazy perfect grade gundam (more on that later) and I don't really have plans for the rest of the week either. I want to do something just so that my host mom doesn't make all these comments about me being a hermit or what not.
Starting off though Tuesday was awesome! Me, Julienne, Courtney, Lela, and Val went to the Setsubun festival in Nagata jinja. Setsubun, or season divide, is a festival that was originally meant to appease the oni so they wouldn't bring misfortune but at some point became a festival of chasing off the oni. I made a video and I'll try and upload it as soon as I can but with my really inconsitent internet connection I don't know when I'll be able to. In a nut shell some people from the community put on 400 year old oni (demon) costumes and perform ritual dances while holding a straw torch. There is also a part where beans are thrown at the oni but we may have missed it. It was raining that day so these poor men dancing without shoes in the cold rain for like an hour. The rain was a mixed blessing kind of because it meant that a lot of people had umbrellas making it harder to see (as you can tell in the video) but that meant that there were a lot less people this year.
The BEST part of the day was going back to Courtney's host family's house and having dinner. Courtney has a 4 year old host brother who is so adorable and all of use spent hours playing with him, we didn't want to leave at 10pm but Lela had to catch the last bus home. Kota (the kid) was just so cute and silly. He would randomly say random English words like out of the blue he just said "stomach!" and other times he says random math like he dad was wrestling with him and he just yells out 49 plus 2! And Courtney's host parents are so nice and sweet and easy to talk to. Its really funny actually Courtney speaks only in English (she knows Japanese she is in my class) and her mom only speaks Japanese (but understands English). A very interesting linguistic situation. I feel so jealous now. I wish I got that host family so badly! Coming home to this place afterwords just kind of felt kind of crappy.
So I started the wing zero custom perfect grade gundam model the other day and wow it really is a challenge. There are so many moving parts and it just takes so much time. And I had a huge problem with the shoulder gear. So the shoulder section sits inside the main body and with like 5 different parts allows the shoulder to move back and forth a little bit. Well they use this spring pins which are really hard to get in so I got it all put together but when I attached the shoulder bit to the core a spring was out too much and was causing it to push up and stress the plastic so I tried to push it in more and I snapped the plastic in half! So I tried to super glue the two halfs back but just a little bit wouldn't work so I used a lot more which caused another moving part to fuse together with something meaning that even if I could some how get the broken peieces back together it wouldn't be able to move anymore. So as I tried to move something into place so that I could have some sort of movement a few tiny bits from an arch piece just fell apart, and soon several pieces did. It was like the plastic was corroding in my hands. I somehow got the pieces back and when I thought I would have again a tiny bit of movement something else broke a tiny bit of the arch off. So as I held it in my hand contemplating what to do, I dropped it on my floor and lost it forever(because my desk is too low to really sit under it for some reason). So ultimately what I ended up doing was taking a bit from the plastic runners glued it over some bits, sanded it down so it all fit then finished up the core. So now one arm has normal movement and the other doesn't but I don't think its too big of a deal.
So Friday the teachers apparently got our evaluations for their class from last semester (before we got our grades back which doesn't seem right to me) and they didn't seem too happy. I've written many times about my opinions of these classes but I think if we really look at it from a "whole is greater then the some of the parts" kind of idea they really aren't that bad. Like my history class for example; I went in there hoping to learn a basic of overall Japanese history and more specifics about bushido, what I got was two field trips to two castles and a bunch of detailed random information about Japanese history. I think the same can be said of my complaints about the program at whole because yes its not perfect and has things that could easily be better the fact that I've seen and done so many things that most people back home will never even dream of really ought to outshine not having many Japanese friends. This semester I started out really dreading the Japanese religion class but its actually really cool because he tells us all of this information about the festivals that we have a chance to go to while in Japan.
Well I guess thats it, I feel like I should get out today but I really don't know what I would do or where I would go.
Starting off though Tuesday was awesome! Me, Julienne, Courtney, Lela, and Val went to the Setsubun festival in Nagata jinja. Setsubun, or season divide, is a festival that was originally meant to appease the oni so they wouldn't bring misfortune but at some point became a festival of chasing off the oni. I made a video and I'll try and upload it as soon as I can but with my really inconsitent internet connection I don't know when I'll be able to. In a nut shell some people from the community put on 400 year old oni (demon) costumes and perform ritual dances while holding a straw torch. There is also a part where beans are thrown at the oni but we may have missed it. It was raining that day so these poor men dancing without shoes in the cold rain for like an hour. The rain was a mixed blessing kind of because it meant that a lot of people had umbrellas making it harder to see (as you can tell in the video) but that meant that there were a lot less people this year.
The BEST part of the day was going back to Courtney's host family's house and having dinner. Courtney has a 4 year old host brother who is so adorable and all of use spent hours playing with him, we didn't want to leave at 10pm but Lela had to catch the last bus home. Kota (the kid) was just so cute and silly. He would randomly say random English words like out of the blue he just said "stomach!" and other times he says random math like he dad was wrestling with him and he just yells out 49 plus 2! And Courtney's host parents are so nice and sweet and easy to talk to. Its really funny actually Courtney speaks only in English (she knows Japanese she is in my class) and her mom only speaks Japanese (but understands English). A very interesting linguistic situation. I feel so jealous now. I wish I got that host family so badly! Coming home to this place afterwords just kind of felt kind of crappy.
So I started the wing zero custom perfect grade gundam model the other day and wow it really is a challenge. There are so many moving parts and it just takes so much time. And I had a huge problem with the shoulder gear. So the shoulder section sits inside the main body and with like 5 different parts allows the shoulder to move back and forth a little bit. Well they use this spring pins which are really hard to get in so I got it all put together but when I attached the shoulder bit to the core a spring was out too much and was causing it to push up and stress the plastic so I tried to push it in more and I snapped the plastic in half! So I tried to super glue the two halfs back but just a little bit wouldn't work so I used a lot more which caused another moving part to fuse together with something meaning that even if I could some how get the broken peieces back together it wouldn't be able to move anymore. So as I tried to move something into place so that I could have some sort of movement a few tiny bits from an arch piece just fell apart, and soon several pieces did. It was like the plastic was corroding in my hands. I somehow got the pieces back and when I thought I would have again a tiny bit of movement something else broke a tiny bit of the arch off. So as I held it in my hand contemplating what to do, I dropped it on my floor and lost it forever(because my desk is too low to really sit under it for some reason). So ultimately what I ended up doing was taking a bit from the plastic runners glued it over some bits, sanded it down so it all fit then finished up the core. So now one arm has normal movement and the other doesn't but I don't think its too big of a deal.
So Friday the teachers apparently got our evaluations for their class from last semester (before we got our grades back which doesn't seem right to me) and they didn't seem too happy. I've written many times about my opinions of these classes but I think if we really look at it from a "whole is greater then the some of the parts" kind of idea they really aren't that bad. Like my history class for example; I went in there hoping to learn a basic of overall Japanese history and more specifics about bushido, what I got was two field trips to two castles and a bunch of detailed random information about Japanese history. I think the same can be said of my complaints about the program at whole because yes its not perfect and has things that could easily be better the fact that I've seen and done so many things that most people back home will never even dream of really ought to outshine not having many Japanese friends. This semester I started out really dreading the Japanese religion class but its actually really cool because he tells us all of this information about the festivals that we have a chance to go to while in Japan.
Well I guess thats it, I feel like I should get out today but I really don't know what I would do or where I would go.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
ichi go ichi ei
Well its February now and nothing incredibly huge has happened. Classes are so so, the japanese religion class is actually getting pretty cool because its at a point where he tells us all about a matsuri that is going on in a few days so we are all prepared for it. In the Japanese language class we finished our first novel! Its called moonlight shadow and I personally didn't care for the story. I was all excited for starting a new book but apparently we are taking a detour in February to focus on grammar points used in the JLPT level 2 test so thats pretty good too.
My birthday wasn't too bad. On the 22nd, Thursday, I ate yakisoba with the missionaries, who are really cool people. On Friday me a few foreign exchange friends and one Japanese guy, kanada, went to nishiyoma gardens (new mall) and ate at a Hawaiian restaurant. I got a really good "american size" burger and Kanada ordered a birtday desert and they sung happy birthday and it said my name in chocolate. We then walked around the mall for a bit and Jay got a terabyte external hard drive for 12,000 yen ($120). In the states you can get them at about the same price but its so hard to even wrap my mind around a terabyte. Like it was a few years ago that a terabyte was an impossible number like you might as well say bajillion or something like that.
I have really enjoyed going to church here. Its a really small ward (we had a record today of 53 people) but that just means everyone is so much closer to each other. And the missionaries, especially elder Bohman, are a real inspiration to me and I actually, for the first time in my life I think, bore my testimony for fast Sunday today.
I decided that Its kind of unreasonable to try and spray paint all of the models I have left to build before I go home with the awkward way I have to do it that I'm just going to build them as quickly as possible and do all of the painting at home once I buy a airbrush. I really need to go this way because I ended up buying three more the other day. I bought one because I wanted to try and hand paint it and then I got the wing gundam one because I have wing zero and wing zero custom so I wanted a set and I bought the zeta gundam because it was only 1200 yen! Like Japan is an expensive country for sure but when it comes to manga and anime goods its really amazing.
I'm past the half way mark on this trip and before I know it I'll be home, its starting to become kind of mixed feelings. I keep having dreams of being home and seeing everyone and other dreams of coming home too early and missing out on everything back in Japan. I think I'm going to be really frustrated in my life for a few years. There are things I like and dislike about both countries so while I'm in America I think I'll miss Japan a lot and if I come back to Japan I'll want to go back to America. I hope I can find some happy middle ground somewhere.
My birthday wasn't too bad. On the 22nd, Thursday, I ate yakisoba with the missionaries, who are really cool people. On Friday me a few foreign exchange friends and one Japanese guy, kanada, went to nishiyoma gardens (new mall) and ate at a Hawaiian restaurant. I got a really good "american size" burger and Kanada ordered a birtday desert and they sung happy birthday and it said my name in chocolate. We then walked around the mall for a bit and Jay got a terabyte external hard drive for 12,000 yen ($120). In the states you can get them at about the same price but its so hard to even wrap my mind around a terabyte. Like it was a few years ago that a terabyte was an impossible number like you might as well say bajillion or something like that.
I have really enjoyed going to church here. Its a really small ward (we had a record today of 53 people) but that just means everyone is so much closer to each other. And the missionaries, especially elder Bohman, are a real inspiration to me and I actually, for the first time in my life I think, bore my testimony for fast Sunday today.
I decided that Its kind of unreasonable to try and spray paint all of the models I have left to build before I go home with the awkward way I have to do it that I'm just going to build them as quickly as possible and do all of the painting at home once I buy a airbrush. I really need to go this way because I ended up buying three more the other day. I bought one because I wanted to try and hand paint it and then I got the wing gundam one because I have wing zero and wing zero custom so I wanted a set and I bought the zeta gundam because it was only 1200 yen! Like Japan is an expensive country for sure but when it comes to manga and anime goods its really amazing.
I'm past the half way mark on this trip and before I know it I'll be home, its starting to become kind of mixed feelings. I keep having dreams of being home and seeing everyone and other dreams of coming home too early and missing out on everything back in Japan. I think I'm going to be really frustrated in my life for a few years. There are things I like and dislike about both countries so while I'm in America I think I'll miss Japan a lot and if I come back to Japan I'll want to go back to America. I hope I can find some happy middle ground somewhere.
Friday, January 23, 2009
matsuri and stuff
Well its been another good amount of time since my last blog so its time to write some more. Since last thing the first thing that was really big was I went to Ebisu Matsuri on Sunday. It was incredibly crowded something like 700,000 people went on the busiest day. I took some interesting pictures but I was more interested in the side booths then the actual temple. All sorts of different foods and carnival esq games. I kept thinking about trying one of the lottery type ones because they have a box for a wii and ps3 so its like you “could” win them but since its $3 a try and the boxes look REALLY old so its probably impossible to actually win them.
Monday I went to the 20 year old celebration with my friends. There were tons of really pretty kimonos, and everyone was so dressed up. My friends said its kind of like the Japanese prom, the way everyone gets all fancy. I wasn't planning on going in because it seemed like they were taking tickets but after my friends left I ran into the missionaries and they were going in and it seemed like it was all right. The ceremony was kind of boring but it was one of those once in a life time things you have to do just because.
The rest of the week went by pretty event less I think. It seems like I'm going to have a really easy semester despite having 3 non language classes. Cinema is taught by possibly the single most laid back (lazy) teacher in the history of the world so we just have to turn in 4 short papers about the movies we watched. Religion is a pretty boring class because we just fill in the blanks in class for the most part but last time he showed some pictures of stuff which made things more interesting. But for that class all we have is mid term final and one paper. Education might be the only class that is close to being a “real” class because we have a paper that requires 5 sources but the thing with this class is it just talks about the Japanese stereotypes. Not like how they are bad but talking about them as if they are true.
I have to take a little detour to rant about this for a bit. In Japanese studies there is a thing called nihonjin ron, or basicly an argument or debate about Japanese people. This is characterized by setting Japan up as a very unique culture and how it is infinitely different from the West. The problem is that this idea is maintained by both Westerners and Japanese people. For example many times I have heard, Japan has four seasons Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. But its like thats the same as everywhere in the entire world. And in the education class we watched a video about Japan and it talked about the Japanese way of eating and it showed people in kimonos sitting Japanese style on tatami mats eating off the floor, but the reality is that no one in Japan does that. And in the book for education class, which by the way quoted a source from 40 years ago, talks in such strong absolutes that all Japanese people think in this specific way, its all just really annoying. Another example is Akira Kurosawa was really thought to not make movies for Japanese audiences simply because his movies won awards internationally. Because if Westerners like something then its not Japanese.
On Saturday I took Emily and Julienne to Den Den Town because they wanted to find non pornographic dojinshin, let me tell that is no easy task. Hentai is so big here its really scarry, which I think I'll just leave it at that. I'm trying not to spend too much money or atleast refrain from buying anime goods because I've ran out of room here and if I really want to display everything back home, I'm out of room there too so its a no go. Also like I really need to get working on my Gundam models. I haven't been doing too much because I've been trying to read more manga in my free time (which I found a series I really like and I'm on book 5 now) and also I want to spray paint some of them but I need a day that is not too cold, not raining, not windy and I'm home during day light so its been a no go lately. I got a few that are metalic coating and I just started the last of them and I have really mixed reactions about them. One model had the model specifically built for the metalic coating (ie there is no regular version) so on the runners they are in a way that you can snap it off with out cutting into the coated part. The others however have regular models so no matter what you do you have a black spot where the frame was. And I tried painting it over with a color that wouldn't stand out too much and it instantly ate the coating so any mistake and its ruined. But the other hand is that the metallic looks so cool so its a trade off.
Ok so here I want to rant about the konan program a bit, so bear with me. I know I'm in Japan and its an incredibly opportunity and I'm doing all that I can to take advantage of it and experience as much as I can, but when I decided I wanted to study abroad I was looking forward to two things, the first is to make a lot of Japanese friends and the second is to become really good at Japanese. Pretty much exactly in the middle of the program, I feel both of those things are not going to happen. Starting off its just so hard to make Japanese friends. The start of which, and really the only part I can blame the program for, is that we are completely separated from the Japanese students. Apparently other programs, granted not all of them, have the ryugakusei take normal Japanese classes but offer a small prep class beforehand so the students know what to expect this would be really tough but you would actually be a student at that college not just someone doing a program that takes place inside that college. Add in the fact that the Japanese students will soon be gone for two months as their calendar is completely different and it just feels impossible. However it isn't impossible to “meet” people but rather making friends is a whole different story. Many times when I try to hang out with someone I always get some excuse, so much so that it makes me not want to even try. Even if they are legitimate I think a friend should be someone who hangs out atleast once every 3 weeks, espically for students. And the bout about becoming good at Japanese is really all dependent on making friends. Japan is a country that is very easy to get by without ever having to speak Japanese. All of the signs are in English, enough people study it that you could find a clerk that speaks it, and EVERYONE assumes you don't know Japanese at all so they try and avoid you. There is a guy at church who came here about a year ago with his wife as an English teacher and he wanted to get to the point where he could translate but he doesn't have any Japanese friends and ended up just speaking English with his wife and now feels his Japanese is worse then before. So point is Japan is a country that doesn't try to assimilate foreigners , like America is, so a good foreign exchange program should take that into consideration.
Oh yeah and I'm thinking about going with some of the ryugakusei to Korea sometime before I head home. I bet Melissa would be pretty jealous.
Monday I went to the 20 year old celebration with my friends. There were tons of really pretty kimonos, and everyone was so dressed up. My friends said its kind of like the Japanese prom, the way everyone gets all fancy. I wasn't planning on going in because it seemed like they were taking tickets but after my friends left I ran into the missionaries and they were going in and it seemed like it was all right. The ceremony was kind of boring but it was one of those once in a life time things you have to do just because.
The rest of the week went by pretty event less I think. It seems like I'm going to have a really easy semester despite having 3 non language classes. Cinema is taught by possibly the single most laid back (lazy) teacher in the history of the world so we just have to turn in 4 short papers about the movies we watched. Religion is a pretty boring class because we just fill in the blanks in class for the most part but last time he showed some pictures of stuff which made things more interesting. But for that class all we have is mid term final and one paper. Education might be the only class that is close to being a “real” class because we have a paper that requires 5 sources but the thing with this class is it just talks about the Japanese stereotypes. Not like how they are bad but talking about them as if they are true.
I have to take a little detour to rant about this for a bit. In Japanese studies there is a thing called nihonjin ron, or basicly an argument or debate about Japanese people. This is characterized by setting Japan up as a very unique culture and how it is infinitely different from the West. The problem is that this idea is maintained by both Westerners and Japanese people. For example many times I have heard, Japan has four seasons Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. But its like thats the same as everywhere in the entire world. And in the education class we watched a video about Japan and it talked about the Japanese way of eating and it showed people in kimonos sitting Japanese style on tatami mats eating off the floor, but the reality is that no one in Japan does that. And in the book for education class, which by the way quoted a source from 40 years ago, talks in such strong absolutes that all Japanese people think in this specific way, its all just really annoying. Another example is Akira Kurosawa was really thought to not make movies for Japanese audiences simply because his movies won awards internationally. Because if Westerners like something then its not Japanese.
On Saturday I took Emily and Julienne to Den Den Town because they wanted to find non pornographic dojinshin, let me tell that is no easy task. Hentai is so big here its really scarry, which I think I'll just leave it at that. I'm trying not to spend too much money or atleast refrain from buying anime goods because I've ran out of room here and if I really want to display everything back home, I'm out of room there too so its a no go. Also like I really need to get working on my Gundam models. I haven't been doing too much because I've been trying to read more manga in my free time (which I found a series I really like and I'm on book 5 now) and also I want to spray paint some of them but I need a day that is not too cold, not raining, not windy and I'm home during day light so its been a no go lately. I got a few that are metalic coating and I just started the last of them and I have really mixed reactions about them. One model had the model specifically built for the metalic coating (ie there is no regular version) so on the runners they are in a way that you can snap it off with out cutting into the coated part. The others however have regular models so no matter what you do you have a black spot where the frame was. And I tried painting it over with a color that wouldn't stand out too much and it instantly ate the coating so any mistake and its ruined. But the other hand is that the metallic looks so cool so its a trade off.
Ok so here I want to rant about the konan program a bit, so bear with me. I know I'm in Japan and its an incredibly opportunity and I'm doing all that I can to take advantage of it and experience as much as I can, but when I decided I wanted to study abroad I was looking forward to two things, the first is to make a lot of Japanese friends and the second is to become really good at Japanese. Pretty much exactly in the middle of the program, I feel both of those things are not going to happen. Starting off its just so hard to make Japanese friends. The start of which, and really the only part I can blame the program for, is that we are completely separated from the Japanese students. Apparently other programs, granted not all of them, have the ryugakusei take normal Japanese classes but offer a small prep class beforehand so the students know what to expect this would be really tough but you would actually be a student at that college not just someone doing a program that takes place inside that college. Add in the fact that the Japanese students will soon be gone for two months as their calendar is completely different and it just feels impossible. However it isn't impossible to “meet” people but rather making friends is a whole different story. Many times when I try to hang out with someone I always get some excuse, so much so that it makes me not want to even try. Even if they are legitimate I think a friend should be someone who hangs out atleast once every 3 weeks, espically for students. And the bout about becoming good at Japanese is really all dependent on making friends. Japan is a country that is very easy to get by without ever having to speak Japanese. All of the signs are in English, enough people study it that you could find a clerk that speaks it, and EVERYONE assumes you don't know Japanese at all so they try and avoid you. There is a guy at church who came here about a year ago with his wife as an English teacher and he wanted to get to the point where he could translate but he doesn't have any Japanese friends and ended up just speaking English with his wife and now feels his Japanese is worse then before. So point is Japan is a country that doesn't try to assimilate foreigners , like America is, so a good foreign exchange program should take that into consideration.
Oh yeah and I'm thinking about going with some of the ryugakusei to Korea sometime before I head home. I bet Melissa would be pretty jealous.
Friday, January 9, 2009
A trip to Den Den Town
I actually made this video a while ago but never linked it to this page, here is a video made out of little clips from my camera as I went to Den Den Town in Osaka. The camera is VERY shaky and you very likely will get sick a parts so just skip around.
Watch Just a normal day in Osaka in Video Blogs | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
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New years and stuff
Its been a while since I last wrote so let me see if I can remember what happened since last time. Well the big thing was new years. My host family's daughter and her family came. There was an adorable 3 or 4 year old girl named Mai. I really love little kids and was so happy to be able to play with her, and to have someone who I could understand. Over the holidays we had food that had a lot of effort put into it. Some of the stuff was really great like yakiniku and crab but other stuff was just so weird I couldn't eat too much of it. Like there was mochi in a bowl of miso like soup. That stuff is so hard to eat.
On new years day I went to Ikuta temple. It was really crowded and there were food stands and like carnival type game booths set up so it really was a sight to behold. As you waddle your way through the sea of people and get up to the actually jinja (temple) you see more booths but these are selling charms and what not. I went up to the main part and threw in a few yen saying a little prayer to Heavenly Father in my head and walked around some more. As you will often seen in anime you can buy fortunes and you tie that fortune around a tree or around a fence covering a tree so that it either comes true or doesn't come true, which ever you want (its kind of confusing there). After that I came home and just did the usual try and kill time thing.
Taking a little detour here, Japan is so weird here religiously. Like this place is translated as a temple but it didn't seem to really be anything at all what you would think of for that word. The fact that there were just all sorts of vendors leading up to the place made it all feel more like a state fair or something rather then anything spiritual. And the fact that they sell good luck charms just is something thats hard to get my head around. Its like the gods (there is a huge vagueness about if there is one god or multiple) will bless you because you spent 300 yen on a cell phone strap. And I started my religion class on Thursday and its like the Japanese “religions” don't seem that concerned about validity. Like its no secret that budhissim is an evolvement of all sorts of beliefs across Asia. Coming from a Western (or even Middle Eastern point of view) a religion should atleast claim to be a powerful being's real desire for mankind. But religion here just seems like philosophy mixed with traditions which my religion is so much more to me.
Its kind of a little silly but while I'm building my Gundams I've been listening to the book of mormon on mp3 and I started in heleman (because I always give up on reading it once I get to alma, I get so lost in the so and so reign of the judges this war happened part) and after I finished it I moved on to the doctrine and covenants. I can't believe that I went my entire life without ever actually looking at the contents of the doctrine and covenants. As I'm going through it it is blowing my mind that in relatively recent times God gave very direct distinct directions to the leaders of the young church. Its like I can feel the power and authority of Heavenly Father's words as I listen. I didn't expect to really have my testimony grow so much here but it really has. Many times I've very grudgingly went to church but now I find myself looking forward to it and I really honestly want to become a good Mormon now.
Aside from all of that um I sat around my room a lot. I hung out with Jay, Nohea, and Courtney a lot and we went back to the temple one time and I got a fortune. I didn't tie it on the tree because I wanted to know what it said and I wanted to keep it as a souvenir. School finally started and I'm really glad. Japanese class might be a little on the tough side this semester (but its my LAST Japanese class). We are reading books now and there are SOOOOO many words we have to look up because this author is being incredibly descriptive of everything. I am taking three other classes this semester; education in Japan which is taught by a seems to be really cool teacher and we are going to have a field trip to a Japanese high school, Japanese religion which is taught by a terrible teacher. This teacher just gave us a packet with key points not filled in and he just stands there and reads the piece of paper while we fill it in. Its like freaking crap that is NOT teaching, I know its slim pickings on teachers who can speak English but the teachers in this program seem like they have never been a student before. The last class is Japanese cinema, which after the first meeting I have high hopes for.
On Friday in Japanese class we did some really fun word games. We broke up into two teams and each team had a leader. The first game the teacher wrote a word on the board so the leader couldn't see it and three of us had to each write a part of a haiku to describe that word. My team had nintendo DS so it was , everyone holds it, has 2 screens, also wireless (doesn't fit the rules in English). The second game the captain would know the word and give tiny hints as to what it was and the three of us at the same time had to say the same answer. Each time we got it wrong we were docked points. I think this one would work in English too. The third one was really interesting, the teacher wrote a word in katakana (the alphabet for foreign words) and we had to make a 4 kanji word that would describe it. So we had bargin (ba-gen) and I wrote dai-an-kin-sho which was big-cheap-money-little and he guessed sale (se-ru) but it wasn't close enough.
On new years day I went to Ikuta temple. It was really crowded and there were food stands and like carnival type game booths set up so it really was a sight to behold. As you waddle your way through the sea of people and get up to the actually jinja (temple) you see more booths but these are selling charms and what not. I went up to the main part and threw in a few yen saying a little prayer to Heavenly Father in my head and walked around some more. As you will often seen in anime you can buy fortunes and you tie that fortune around a tree or around a fence covering a tree so that it either comes true or doesn't come true, which ever you want (its kind of confusing there). After that I came home and just did the usual try and kill time thing.
Taking a little detour here, Japan is so weird here religiously. Like this place is translated as a temple but it didn't seem to really be anything at all what you would think of for that word. The fact that there were just all sorts of vendors leading up to the place made it all feel more like a state fair or something rather then anything spiritual. And the fact that they sell good luck charms just is something thats hard to get my head around. Its like the gods (there is a huge vagueness about if there is one god or multiple) will bless you because you spent 300 yen on a cell phone strap. And I started my religion class on Thursday and its like the Japanese “religions” don't seem that concerned about validity. Like its no secret that budhissim is an evolvement of all sorts of beliefs across Asia. Coming from a Western (or even Middle Eastern point of view) a religion should atleast claim to be a powerful being's real desire for mankind. But religion here just seems like philosophy mixed with traditions which my religion is so much more to me.
Its kind of a little silly but while I'm building my Gundams I've been listening to the book of mormon on mp3 and I started in heleman (because I always give up on reading it once I get to alma, I get so lost in the so and so reign of the judges this war happened part) and after I finished it I moved on to the doctrine and covenants. I can't believe that I went my entire life without ever actually looking at the contents of the doctrine and covenants. As I'm going through it it is blowing my mind that in relatively recent times God gave very direct distinct directions to the leaders of the young church. Its like I can feel the power and authority of Heavenly Father's words as I listen. I didn't expect to really have my testimony grow so much here but it really has. Many times I've very grudgingly went to church but now I find myself looking forward to it and I really honestly want to become a good Mormon now.
Aside from all of that um I sat around my room a lot. I hung out with Jay, Nohea, and Courtney a lot and we went back to the temple one time and I got a fortune. I didn't tie it on the tree because I wanted to know what it said and I wanted to keep it as a souvenir. School finally started and I'm really glad. Japanese class might be a little on the tough side this semester (but its my LAST Japanese class). We are reading books now and there are SOOOOO many words we have to look up because this author is being incredibly descriptive of everything. I am taking three other classes this semester; education in Japan which is taught by a seems to be really cool teacher and we are going to have a field trip to a Japanese high school, Japanese religion which is taught by a terrible teacher. This teacher just gave us a packet with key points not filled in and he just stands there and reads the piece of paper while we fill it in. Its like freaking crap that is NOT teaching, I know its slim pickings on teachers who can speak English but the teachers in this program seem like they have never been a student before. The last class is Japanese cinema, which after the first meeting I have high hopes for.
On Friday in Japanese class we did some really fun word games. We broke up into two teams and each team had a leader. The first game the teacher wrote a word on the board so the leader couldn't see it and three of us had to each write a part of a haiku to describe that word. My team had nintendo DS so it was , everyone holds it, has 2 screens, also wireless (doesn't fit the rules in English). The second game the captain would know the word and give tiny hints as to what it was and the three of us at the same time had to say the same answer. Each time we got it wrong we were docked points. I think this one would work in English too. The third one was really interesting, the teacher wrote a word in katakana (the alphabet for foreign words) and we had to make a 4 kanji word that would describe it. So we had bargin (ba-gen) and I wrote dai-an-kin-sho which was big-cheap-money-little and he guessed sale (se-ru) but it wasn't close enough.
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