人口密度は・・・

Hi guys!

I haven’t updated because nothing particularly spectacular has been happening… I feel a bit more settled in but that’s about it. I went to Osaka on Saturday with a group of people, however we had no idea where we were really going. In addition I was the one with the most understanding of Japanese (it seems), but time has already proven that I am no natural-born leader. So! We wandered around and eventually found a kind of shopping mall, but that was about it. I did get different decorations for my phone though:

I wanted it really gaudy, can’t you tell? And no, I did not stick all of those jewels on one by one. 😛

Osaka wasn’t much to look at really, but here are a few pictures from the train and of the city.

I also had a speech to give in Speaking Japanese about America which I pretty much bombed. I just can’t say long numbers like 9,372,615 km² without stumbling a bit (it’s kyuu-hyaku san-jyuu nana-man ni-sen roppyaku jyuu-go heihou kiromeetoru, btw). Otherwise things are good. 😛

やっと金曜日です!

It’s Friday! 😀

I only had one class today — Speaking Japanese — but it seems like everyone was being tested in some class or another. We had a listening test that was pretty difficult. My friend, who is probably the most advanced student in the class, even texted me afterward to say how hard it was and see if I did okay. After that I didn’t feel so bad, haha. Eek!

Though I didn’t have much class I still found some interesting things to do. This morning I was walking on campus, and I spotted a little green bird sitting on the sidewalk. I approached it, expecting it to fly away, but it didn’t move, just stared at me.

I wonder if it was sick? Or maybe Japanese birds just don’t care about humans. Either way, lil’ birdie, get off the sidewalk before you get smooshed!

At the grocery store, I found the frozen food aisle! Oh my gosh! Lol, finally I can have french fries and pizza like a good American! As I’ve been telling my friends, I’ve become somewhat of an involuntary vegetarian now, because I don’t like the look of their meat…. plus bread-things are so much cheaper here.

It would be me who goes to Japan and comes back as big as a house. At least I have to walk everywhere I guess. 😛

My friend and I are supposed to try to go to Osaka (er, somewhere in Osaka…) tomorrow, and I get to meet my speaking partner on Monday. Looking forward to next week!

In closing, here’s a picture I took on the way home from the grocery store:

Hope you all are having a good Friday yourselves. 🙂

鬼は外、福は内!

Good afternoon everyone! It’s Setsubun today in Japan. Anyone know what Setsubun is? Well, allow me to enlighten you (to the best of my knowledge)!

Ordinarily Setsubun signifies the coming of a new season, but usually refers to the February 3rd holiday to celebrate the coming of spring. That’s kind of ironic to me since we’ve had little flurries on and off today, but we go by the calendar, not the weather. When Japan used to go by the Lunar calendar (much like China), Setsubun was seen as a kind of new year celebration, of getting rid of the old, bad things of last year and welcoming the new. If you’ve ever seen those Japanese demon masks that look like this:

Those are for Setsubun. One thing that is very common to do is Mamemaki, or Bean-throwing. Beans are thrown out the door of a house or at someone wearing the above demon mask, shouting “Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi!” which means roughly, “Demons out, luck in!”

I don’t think there is a celebration around here unless you got to a temple, but Anna’s speaking partner and her friends decided it would be fun to do the mamemaki after school. Here is the result.

Me in a demon mask. No comments from the peanut gallery. 🙂

Our respective demons, Leo and Ryousuke.

Running after the demons to throw beans at them. Get ’em girls!

Our demons were eradicated… eventually. Bigger and more pictures up on Facebook. 🙂

授業の開始

Classes have begun, and I’ve already got loads of homework! Well, this is what I wanted, right? … Pretty much. It’s interesting, if nothing else.

Reading and Writing Japanese is more fun than Speaking Japanese, mostly because I’m a kanji nerd, but also because I hate speaking in front of classes. The Speaking class professor talks extremely fast too, but hopefully I will be able to keep up. Hope is the operative word here…

I also went to The Body and Communication in Japan and Intro to Japanese History this afternoon. In Body/Comm, we’re going to be learning Japanese sign language! Oh my gosh I’m so excited! The professor is an anthropologist who’s dealt largely with the deaf population in Japan — he even learned their sign language before he learned spoken Japanese. That is so cool to me. Of course we also get to look at things like fashion and dress, along with everyday gestures, and it sounds so interesting. I’m really excited. Yay.

I thought Japanese History was going to be a snore fest but actually I’m looking forward to it now. The professor has been teaching at Kansai Gaidai since 1973 (WOW) and basically, he’s awesome. He goes to weekend flea markets here and picks up Meiji period textbooks for 200 yen a piece. He’s going to take us on two field trip, one of which is a biking trip, to different historical places relatively nearby (it helps as to our location, what with Kyoto being the former capital and all). He also gave us a google-map overview of where we are (finally, I know where I am!) and all these amazing places just in our neighborhood that I for sure didn’t know existed. Did you know that this area was the place where Korean blood entered the Japanese royal line? There’s an article about this controversy here.

I’m really excited to finally learn some Japanese history and more about the geography and so on. And I’m closer to Kyoto than the city of Osaka, by the way. I find that really odd.

Well I’m almost finished with my homework, but the picture for today is my small lunch:

Green tea and chocolate chip muffin. It’s greener in real life. Yum. 🙂

雨雨、降れ降れ

Today feels like it was my first day in real Japan. That’s because it was so very rainy, and I was out by myself, walking and walking and walking.

My roommate Yan moved out to live with her host family, so Jessika and I were able to rearrange the room and put our things away. We also had to check out and check in again (lol), but we got keys to the kitchen utensils, as well as the gates.

I decided to go meet my friend Manami at the Hirakata train station, because I found out that she lives only 5 stops away. I decided to walk to save some money, but I had to get directions from like 3 people, because I seriously don’t understand Japanese roads. I couldn’t even tell when I was right outside the station because there’s a big building in front of it… anyway, eventually Manami found me, and we went to Starbucks! Yay America! But, I had a sweet potato muffin with my cappuccino… you wouldn’t find that in America. We went shopping around, and also did purikura, because who doesn’t love drawing all over way too bright pictures of yourselves? 😛 Here’s one of them:

This one I got the peace signs down. 😉

On the way back I took the bus, because it was getting dark and I was already soaked, but I messed up giving the driver money… I thought I could just put in 1000 yen and get my change back, but the machine just gave me complete change for the 1000 yen, then I had to put the 220 in a different slot. Sigh, I will know better for next time…

And I got off at the university because I didn’t know how close the bus would get to our houses, but for some reason the guard yelled at me when I entered the gate, but then let me go… whaa? Then I walked the rest of the way back in the rain, looking behind me every few minutes… yes, this is the Japan I remember: being creeped out walking home in the rainy dark. Good times. 🙂

Anyway, first class tomorrow at 9am! Ganbaru ne (I will do my best)!

Video of Fushimi-Inari shrine

My roommate made a great video of our visit to Fushimi-Inari shrine in Kyoto on Friday. Her blog is in Swedish, but if you scroll down a little you can see the video box in the latest entry. There are a few shots of me, but mostly of my backside, lol. The music’s really good! Hope you enjoy the fruits of her labour. 😉

http://jessilla88.blogspot.com/

More abbreviated than I had planned, but…

I’m sorry that I have not been properly updating here. By the time I get home every night, I am way too tired to remember everything! I guess I should pick up from my trip here, then…

I woke up early to get on the shuttle back to the airport, where I simply looked for the group of foreigners (aka non-Asian people) to figure out where we were supposed to meet. Everyone seemed pretty nice, and I particularly talked to one girl named Rose, from Thailand. Although she is learning English, her Japanese seemed to be better, so we chatted in Japanese on the bus to Kansai Gaidai, which was great practice!

When we finally arrived at the seminar houses, we got assigned to rooms and were able to take our things up: boys downstairs, girls upstairs. Just about everyone had two other roommates. I lucked out with two extremely sweet roommates: Jessika from Sweden, who will remain my roommate, and Yan from China, although she studies in Ohio, who will go on to do a homestay.

Since I can barely remember the details of this insane past week, I will tell you a few of the important things. The dorm is very nice, with Japanese style rooms complete with tatami mats and futons to sleep on (which are super comfortable, by the way). There is a kitchen, but we could only boil hot water on the gas stoves during orientation week; starting Monday we get to use the bowls and spoons and so on. The showers, you have to keep pushing the faucet for the water to come out, although it shoots out with a lot of pressure. It’s not that bad, but it definitely prevents you from taking long, indulgent showers.

There is a grocery store and the equivalent of The Dollar Store about 10 minutes walk from the houses, and we usually have to go everyday for food and other things we might need. I think once we figure out what food will last and a decent schedule, the grocery store trips will become fewer, lol. To get to school is a 20-30 minute walk with very busy traffic. There are also lots of bicycles on the sidewalks, so you have to always be on the look out not to get in anyone’s way, or to get hit.

Japanese roads are also one of life’s great mysteries. Street names? Nahhh. There aren’t such things as blocks either, really, just buildings that were lucky enough to not have a road running through them. I don’t feel like I’m exaggerating either… it really is quite confusing to walk these streets. Definitely a place where you have to watch your step.

My classes start on Monday, and I have 4 of them: Japanese Speaking, level 6B 5 days a week, Japanese Reading and Writing, level 6A 3 days a week (I don’t know if A is highest or D, but we’ll see), Intro to Japanese History 2 days a week, and The Body and Communication in Japan 2 days a week. I was struggling as to whether I should take another class to make it 17 hours, but I’m glad I decided not too. They told me 5 classes is really too much work when you should be getting out and experiencing the country, and that’s what I’m here for anyway. But I’m excited for some work. 🙂

My friend Manami, I found out, lives very close to this city, so tomorrow I think we will try to meet up. It will be so nice to see a familiar face! Until then, I will try to be a little more diligent about what is happening, now that things have settled down…

Oh, but before I go, here is a picture of my decked out phone:

Those are purikura stickers on the front of me and some friends. Prepaid calling, but unlimited free texts and email. One of the few free things in Japan. 😉

Hello people! I know I said I would update soon but I’ve been sooo incredibly busy. I promise to update when I get a spare hour. Everything is going great and I have exciting news as well! So stay tuned please. 🙂

I. Am. Here.

Holy wow it has been a long, long trip and I’m only just now able to relax. No pictures yet because I can’t use my laptop for a while, but they will get here, never you fear.

Let’s start at the beginning… My first flight, to Houston, took off at 6am Saturday morning, meaning I had to be at the airport by 4. Well, that’s what my mom thought at least. My wonderful family and boyfriend saw me off at the gate (I would also like to add the adjectives amazing and fantastic, because 4am is not fun…), and overall the flight was uneventful. First time to Texas though, woohoo! I want to go back for more than an hour someday.

There was a couple who were on my flight from Raleigh heading to Japan to see their daughter and new grandson stationed in Okinawa. As it turned out they had both lived in Japan when they were little, being in military families, but this was their first time returning. Though I didn’t get to see them on the flight, I saw them throughout the rest of the airport process and would like to thank them for their help and kind, smiling faces.

Being on a plane for 14 hours should be illegal, ya’ll. It does things to your mind. It also does things to other parts of you, but we won’t go into that. There were a few saving graces, though. 1. I had an aisle seat. 2. The monitors on the backs of the chairs offered A LOT of different movies, tv shows, and games. I watched a couple of episodes of The Tudors (and tried not to be embarrassed during the sex scenes — Lord knows someone must have been looking at me funny), a couple of Dexter, American Beauty, and played who knows how many games of Free Cell and Solitaire. 3. The food was actually decent as far as airline food goes. 4. Next to me were a Japanese man and his wife, and he definitely helped me get a headstart using my Japanese again. He is a professor at a university in Osaka, working with nanobiology it seems (forgive me, I don’t even understand scientific terms in English), and the sweetest man, who also ended up helping me once I got to Tokyo. I had to teach him how to play Solitaire though. Haha, it just seems ironic after his sciency spiel. 🙂

So, Continental Airlines gets a bravo from me. Probably the nicest long distance flight I’ve ever been on. Maybe the flight back will be bareable too?

Immigration went fine, Continental automatically put my luggage on the JAL flight so thank goodness for that, and getting to my flight to Osaka wasn’t too bad even though it took the woman a good 10 minutes to assign me a ticket. That flight was bad though, cuz I was ZONKED. I couldn’t really sleep on the long flight, and the fact that I had been up for God knows how long finally hit me like a ton of bricks. Getting off the flight, finding my luggage, and getting to my hotel seemed like the most impossible task in the world at that point. I wanted to be home, in bed, NOW. Why am I here? What have I done? was all I could think, and exhaustion was probably the only thing keeping me from crying. Luckily the bitter green tea the stewardess gave me was like a slap in the face to suck it up, and I did.

Fully awake again, I got my luggage with no problem, headed outside to be ambushed by a taxi service rushing me into their cab. I knew this was going to be expensive, but the cab driver got lucky, because I was so far from caring. He must have took pity on me though, because he told me there was a train station nearby as well as a free shuttle to the airport operated by the hotel as he handed me a receipt for 4020 yen ($50). Lol stupid gaijin.

More later? Yes, I think.

いい旅行を！

Konnichiwa! (That means hello)

My name is Becca, and in less than 24 hours I will be on a plane heading to Osaka, Japan, to spend the second semester of my Junior year. How exciting is that?! I plan on using this blog as a way to update my friends and family about my daily life over here, as well as offer insight to anyone else who may be interested in living in this wonderful country, short term or long term. You’ll probably be getting some Japanese lessons too, because I’m a linguaphile like that. 😉

Speaking of which, the title of this post says “ii ryokou wo,” which means “have a good trip.” I hope I do!

I have to be at the airport at 4am tomorrow morning for my 6am flight. The plan is this:
Raleigh, NC -> Houston, TX
Houston, TX -> Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo ->Osaka

That’s 23 hours in all. Yikes! But that should give me plenty of time to brush up on my Japanese…
The next time you hear from me, I hope to be safely in Japan.

Sono toki made (until then).