Kelley in Japan

Shirakawago, part II

2008-04-17T15:15:00.000-07:00

100th post!

After leaving Guyo-Hachiman, our bus went along some very, very windy mountain roads along the sides of a manmade lake. I was very excited to see patches of snow on the ground.

An hour of fighting off windy-mountain-road-induced nausea, we arrived at Shirakawago. It was an outdoor museum where old-style mountain cottages were preserved. Although they were authentic traditional Japanese architecture, they didn't look "typically" Japanese. Made to withstand heavy snow, the cottages had very steep roofs. The roofs were thatched very thickly with reeds, at least two feet deep.

After exiting the stuffy bus, us wide-eyed exchange students were set free to roam among the woods, streams, meadows, and cottages. The autumn foliage on the hills was AMAZING, and there were huge snow-capped mountains in the distance. It reminded me of Switzerland. I took great pictures that day. No, I took freaking awesome pictures that day.

I skipped around remarking how everything looked like "a fairy tale" and how I never wanted to leave. Eventually the coordinators gathered us together in one of the cottages. Two people, a young man and an old woman in traditional Japanese dress, brought out a huge pestle and a steaming bowl of rice. As we gathered around, the old woman put the rice into the pestle and the young man pounded it with a giant wooden poundy thing.

A few exchange students also got to try pounding, and we quickly found out that it's not nearly as easy at it looks. That hammer is heavy. Eventually the rice was pounded into smooth, chewy mochi. We enjoyed it with kinoko topping and green tea while gathered around the fire pit in one of the cottages.

A tire swing and souvenir shops kept us entertained afterwards. Interestingly, in a separate area nearby was a little village where people still lived in very similar houses. I don't know how they can live so far away from any other towns, or why they choose to live in this semi-traditional manner. I heard from one person that the government gives them some sort of stipend to encourage this kind of lifestyle.

We had to leave as the evening began to get dark. Getting back to our university was a three-hour drive, so by the time I got back I was pretty tired, but very happy.

Shirakawago, part I

2008-04-10T15:01:00.000-07:00

I think I was more cut out to be a tourist than an exchange student. My favorite day while in Japan was when I went on a field trip to the mountains.

A bunch of exchange students piled into a bus and a tour guide kept us entertained during the long and sometimes carsickness-inducing ride into the mountains. First we went to a town called Guyo-Hachiman. It was kind of a touristy town clustered around a river and surrounded by mountains. Many of the streets, like in the picture below, were like any other town I had seen: narrow, shaded by masses of powerlines, with disorganized buildings squished together at all different angles. I wish I had taken more pictures, as the ones I took don't accurately represent all of my memories.

But there were also lovely little alleys were wooden shops lined cobblestone streets. The shops sold handmade souvenirs, mochi delicacies, teacups and dishes, and indigo-dyed linens. The whole town was quiet and (I know this is cliche) sleepy. The water in the river was extremely clear, and a castle overlooked the town from one of the mountains. (You can see it in the picture below.)

We were given an hour to eat lunch and explore. Two of my gaijin friends and found a restaurant by the river, advertised by the sign that said "Coffee and Rest."

The restaurant smelled like thick cigarette smoke. Inside were only four people; two elderly customers were chatting with another elderly couple who appeared to be the owners. As we gaijin walked in the door, all four of them stopped talking and turned to stare at us, as if to say, "You're not from around here, are you?"
We grinned uncomfortably.
Silence.
Finally the owner got up, brought out some menus and showed us to a table by the window overlooking the river. The three of us ordered curry rice, and the owner cooked it up while resuming his chat with the two customers. I think our presence made them nervous, like we had interrupted something. I guess it wasn't every day they got customers like us.

Condomania!

2008-04-02T21:18:00.001-07:00

Props to Colleen, who got a snapshot of something I saw in Harajuku but didn't have the time to take a picture of!

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it's Condomania! All condoms, all the time!
I love Japan, and I miss seeing crazy stuff like this. Crazy stuff in the U.S. just isn't as funny.

Losing contact

2008-03-29T01:14:00.000-07:00

Last night I was lying in bed and remembering my classmates at Nanzan. Some of them are still in Japan, finishing their second semester; others have returned to their homes in various places around the world. I am barely in contact with any of them. I miss Jeremy's hilarious stories of terribly bad luck. I miss capturing pictures of Engrish and shopping with Nicole. I miss walking up the steep hills to school with Manuel while talking about how Japan doesn't make any sense. I miss Roberto's witty comments during class and his funky outfits. It's kind of sad to think that I will probably never see them again. I wonder how the ones who are still in Japan are doing.

I don't miss the one classmate I secretly nicknamed "Dwight." He drove me crazy.

I remember eating lunch in the room for the exchange students. We had our own system of code-switching between languages.
Megan: Would you like some milk?
Forrest: No thanks. Gyuu-nyuu is warui for my onaka.
Megan: That's taihen!
I decided that if all of us Nanzan exchange students started a colony on a deserted island, our children would speak some crazy language that linguists would one day discover to be a hybrid of Japanese and English.

You know what else? I haven't heard from my host family since I left. I wrote them a letter and sent them some pictures, but otherwise I guess I haven't made much effort to contact them either. I really would like to hear from them though.

Mottainai

2008-03-23T19:59:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry my blogs don't make any sense anymore. I wish I could have written them in a more logical order. It's just that things that didn't seem noteworthy at the time are coming back to me in sporadic memories. I write about them mostly for my own satisfaction, because maybe it will make them more permanent. Nevertheless, comments are always appreciated.

On the last day of class, my university held a farewell party for all the students who were returning to their countries. Many of them were returning home that same weekend, but I was going to Tokyo for two weeks first. The professors and other school dignitaries were there to congratulate us on a successful semester, and many students' host families came as well. That included my host mom with Whiney and Origami Boy in tow, the two boys wide-eyed at seeing so many foreigners in one room.

Spazzy Sensei, Blazer Sensei, and the other sensei proved their lack of affection for us by disappearing pretty quickly. I'm sure they were just as tired of us as we were of them. Maybe they celebrated our departure by going out and getting wasted.
But my favorite teacher, the writing professor, stuck around to chat. She was my favorite because, unlike the others, she wasn't ridiculously strict. One day I completely forgot to go to her class. Just completely forgot. When I ran to her office later, spouting apologies, she winked, told me all the homework assignments and said I could make up the late ones next week. It was a very, very welcome drop of mercy.
"So you're going home for the winter break, Kelley?" She asked me.
"Oh no, I'm going home for good." I replied.
"What? You're not coming back next semester?" She said, astonished.
"No."
"Just one semester? Mottainai desu ne."
I heard my heart bounce along the floor somewhere near my feet. I was so stunned no words came from my mouth.
"...You know what mottainai means, right?" My teacher asked. I nodded mutely. She seemed uncomfortable, and sort of found an excuse to walk away. And that was the last time I saw my favorite teacher.

I sank into a nearby seat. I had always understood mottainai to mean "what a waste." Surely she couldn't have meant that, could she? What a terrible thing to say to someone who just completed the most challenging 5 months of their entire life! How could she sum up my experience with mottainai?

I spent the rest of the evening with all the energy and cheer of a deflated balloon. I decided to ask my friend's host mom for a little clarification.
"What does mottainai mean?" I said.
"Oh, well, it's something you say when something is wasteful. Like when my son tries to throw away leftover food, I say, 'Don't do that! That's mottainai!' You see? Japanese people don't like waste, so we say that a lot."
I nodded, then attempted to explain:
"When I was talking to my professor...I said I was going back to America, and she said 'mottainai.' I was...um...I had...bad feelings."
"Ohhhhh," my friend's host mom said contemplatively. "Well, in that case...hm...I think she probably meant 'that's too bad.' She was sorry that you're not coming back."
"I see."

I don't know if that's what my professor really meant or if my friend's host mom was just trying to make me feel better. In any case, I departed the campus of Nanzan University for the last time feeling sad and confused. I walked with my host family down the narrow streets in the evening dark, my winter coat and scarf wrapped around me. In the train, Whiney and Origami Boy scampered noisily around the car as my host mom talked with my friend's host mom. I sat quietly on the seat, knowing that this was the last time I was going to ride through the stations whose order I had come to memorize.
"Kawana. Kawana. Odeguchi ga hidari gawa desu. This is Kawana. Please exit on the left side."

Origami

2008-03-06T15:30:00.000-08:00

As you guys know, my host brothers usually didn't get along with each other too well. However, one evening they were quietly doing origami together on the family room floor. Origami Boy, true to his name, was quickly whipping out complex designs of peacocks, elephants and other animals. Whiney struggled to keep up with his big brother by folding simple designs like turtles and cups. I remembered that I had some origami paper left over from when I made paper Thanksgiving turkeys. I brought out the origami paper and offered it to them.
"Shall we give this?" I said. Yes, that's what I said. I don't know if it sounded any better in Japanese than it does in English. Anyway they knew what I meant. Origami Boy's eyes lit up.
"Thank you!" He said. I was happy to have finally scored points with the two boys.
But quickly I realized that I had made a fatal mistake. There were three packs of origami paper, and two boys.

(Three packs of paper) divided by (two boys) = chaos. This equation is universally true.

I braced myself for the violent argument that would surely ensue. To my surprise, Origami Boy actually chose one pack for himself and gave the other two to Whiney, satisfying them both. I breathed a sigh of relief. Disaster narrowly averted.

But the two tykes had another surprise in store for me. I went into the kitchen to get a drink when suddenly Origami Boy appeared at my side.
"Here's an English origami book," he said. "Please use it. If you don't understand it I can help you."
Awww. Since the two boys almost never spoke to me, I was quite touched. We sat down at the dining room table and folded origami together, Origami Boy with his "Advanced Origami" book, me with my English book, and Whiney with "Origami for Children." Host Mom walked in the room with a basket of laundry and exclaimed,
"Oh! Origami! How nice." I think she was surprised not only to see the boys tranquilly playing together, but also interacting with me.
"I think Kelley is better than me, Mom." Origami Boy said, displaying a rare moment of humility. I guess my origami t-rex impressed him. Looking back I kind of wish I had kept it, but unfortunately I threw it away in the purge that was necessary to get my suitcase to shut.

The eyelid crease of the beholder

2008-02-28T23:43:00.000-08:00

I've always been fascinated by cultural differences in ideals of female beauty. Did you ever stop to notice the eyelid crease above your eye? Some Asians are born with that and some aren't. While in Japan I learned that this crease is considered beautiful. The models in all the advertisements have them. In the cosmetic aisles at drugstores I saw tools for painting on this crease with a pencil. In magazines I also saw advertisements for eyelid crease surgery. It's funny that something so important to many Japanese girls, many American girls have never even thought about.

I am firmly convinced that no matter what a girl may look like, some culture somewhere in some time period would consider her drop-dead gorgeous. I have proof: for one day, I became Japan's Next Top Model.

While walking on campus at Nanzan one day, I got a call from a Japanese friend. She told me that a friend of a friend was majoring in fashion and needed a gaijin model for a school project, and if I would do her a favor by volunteering.
She wants me?? I thought to myself.

Me?

As in me?

Well, okay. Caucasian volunteers aren't exactly common here, so she must be desperate, I thought. My friend's friend took me to meet the girl studying fashion, Rei. During the train ride there she was on the phone with Rei, saying, "Oh yes, I'm bringing model-san right now." It was really weird hearing myself referred to that way, and I started to get really nervous, hoping my looks wouldn't disappoint. I was just in my jeans, t-shirt, converse, and heavy backpack.

Rei met us at the station with two of her fashion classmates. One was dressed like a bag lady, the other had unnaturally tan skin and long blonde curls. Rei wore jeans, a white blouse, and a vest. The three of them exchanged glances.
"SHE'S SO CUTE!!" They exclaimed.
"Isn't she?" My friend's friend said proudly. "Just like a real model!" They seriously went on like that for five minutes.

Meanwhile I stood there thinking "I love this country."

I got to see the inside of the Mode Gakuen design school, which by later this year will move into a shiny, brand-new, spiral-shaped skyscraper. Rei brought me into a classroom which was strewn with clothing, fashion magazines, and makeup kits. Other students there were applying the finishing touches to their own models. I saw one other caucasian model there, a tall French girl with bright red hair, who I thought looked much more like a model than I did.

Rei's project was to design a magazine cover. Her theme was "fall fashion: play with color." She dressed me up in this absolutely ridiculous outfit: black heels, purple tights, a red minidress, a purple turtleneck, a blue belt, a blue scarf, a green beret, and blue nail polish. I looked like an oompa-loompa princess. I had to stifle laughter when I saw myself in the mirror.

"Okay, let's go to the photoshoot location!" She announced.
"Great! Where is it?" I asked.
"In a park about 15 minutes away from here."

Outside????

I turned heads the moment, and I mean the moment I stepped out of the building. I was a living, walking blob of color-saturated gaijin, an oompa-loompa princess walking through the middle of downtown Nagoya. Moreover, Rei got us slightly lost on the way there, so probably a couple hundred people saw me and tried to pretend they weren't staring.

When we got to the park, a professional photographer was waiting with his assistant who had a large suitcase of equipment. Rei posed me by a tree, arranged my clothing, and told me to give a "cute little smile." As the photographer started snapping pictures, it wasn't hard at all to smile because we were starting to attract a crowd. People strolling around the park stopped to watch the "photoshoot" and many of them whipped out their cameras or cell phones and started to take pictures of the scene. I tried not to laugh as I imagined strangers with photos of a very silly-looking me on their cameras.

It was the most awkward, bizarre, and totally fun day I have ever had in my life- totally worth skipping two classes for. Now that I'm back in America, I'm sure I'll never have a day like that again.

About once a day someone asks me why I decided to major in Japanese. I'll rattle off my memorized response about how I love foreign languages, and Japanese people, and I've always had an interest in Asian cultures, blah blah blah. But that's not the real reason.

The real reason is because the Japanese think I'm a model.

Mwahaha.

For a faithful reader

2008-02-27T17:26:00.001-08:00

A terrible scan of the result of having nothing to do on a Saturday evening:

My date with an old Japanese guy

2008-02-25T10:54:00.000-08:00

Just to warn you, my blogs aren't going in my chronological order anymore, because I'm just writing about memories as they come to me.

When I first arrived in Tokyo, my friend Pearl was actually gone for a few days, and so her mom met me. I had met her mom once when Pearl and I were roommates in the U.S. Having a daughter my age, Pearl's mom treated me as her own daughter, and took it upon herself to take very good care of me, and made sure I was well-fed, well-rested, and well-entertained. She was eager to make sure I wasn't bored in their little apartment, and was always offering to take me anywhere I wanted. I think she was surprised when I said that actually, I was really tired and just wanted to sleep.
One day Pearl's mom had to spend the day at work, and so she arranged for a friend of their family, Mr. Sakamoto, to take me around Tokyo.
"Have you known Mr. Sakamoto for a long time?" I asked.
"Oh yes Kelley, he's a very good man. I wouldn't hand you over to anyone who wasn't completely trustworthy!" She said.
Mr. Sakamoto was fifty-nine years old, and about an inch shorter than I am. Although I soon found out that he spoke pretty good English, he seemed relieved that I could speak Japanese. He said that we were going to go to some museums and stuff. So I'm going to spend the day running around Tokyo with this old guy.

Okay. Sho ga nai.

I believe the first place we went to was called Asakusa. It was very very crowded. There was a very large temple, where a long street of market stalls sold touristy stuff, "Ichiban" t-shirts, cheap kimonos, daruma, paper fans, and the like. I wish I had had more time to look through them, but it wasn't long before it became apparent that Mr. Sakamoto had ADHD. He zipped around from place to place, briefly stopping to explain interesting points to me before rushing off to the next one. It reminded me of the way I have to run in order to keep up with my Dad while grocery shopping.

The guy had boundless energy. I was really glad that I had decided to drink coffee that morning. Mr. Sakamoto paid for our food and for our train tickets. I was relieved when we stopped to have chicken katsu. Over lunch Mr. Sakamoto told me that his hobby is mountain climbing. He has climbed Mt. Everest twice, once when he was twenty years old and once when he was forty, and he intends to do so again when he turns sixty. He was eager to practice his English with me, and constantly apologized for his supposedly poor pronunciation and grammar, explaining that he had only learned English from tapes. His English was quite understandable though, and he had a great sense of humor.

When we emerged from a subway exit, I saw this building and couldn't help but point and laugh:

Mr. Sakamoto laughed too and said in English, "Looks like sit!" (That's exactly what he said.) That made me laugh even more because it does indeed look like sit, doesn't it?

After a whirlwind tour of Akihabara, and electronics district, we went to the Edo Museum, which was extremely interesting. It covered the history of Tokyo from its beginnings to the modern age. There were many beautiful models of the way the city used to be arranged and the palaces that used to exist there. They even had a small model of a kabuki stage, with mechanical dolls moving around on it so you could see how trapdoors and revolving stages were used during kabuki performances.

If you're wondering what that balloon thing is, that is a replica of a fire balloon. During WWII, the Japanese designed these balloons with bombs hanging from them to float in an airstream from Japan to America. Yes, they were attempting to bomb America. According to Wikipedia:

"From late 1944 until early 1945, the Japanese launched over 9,000 of these fire balloons, of which 300 were found or observed in the U.S. Despite the high hopes of their designers, the balloons were relatively ineffective as weapons, causing only six deaths and a small amount of damage, and they survive in memory mostly as an ingenious and dangerous curiosity."

The WWII section of the museum was especially fascinating. Below were some pictures I took for my grandpa, a machine gun from a B29 plane.

After that he took me to another outdoor museum which isn't really interesting enough to write about. At a cafe afterwards I ordered another coffee.

At the end of the day, Mr. Sakamoto and I met his wife and Pearl's mom at a restaurant. "This restaurant is known for it's local specialties," Mr. Sakamoto said. Since we were near the bay, I knew what that meant: more mystery seafood. Hooray. At the restaurant we sat on the tatami-mat floor, putting our legs in a hole beneath the table. The table was more of a cooking surface, and the center heated up to cook okonamiyaki on. (They're kind of like pancakes.) The dynamics between Mr. Sakamoto and his wife were interesting. He teased her a lot about bullying him around, but she just rolled her eyes and laughed. As an appetizer they set before me a cup of umeboshi (pickled plum) sake and a small bowl of translucent, worm-like fish, their little black eyeballs staring up at me blankly.

My favorite.

Actually the sake was quite tasty. I knew this meal wasn't cheap, and that is was local delicacies, so as usual I struggled through the various slices of raw who-knows-what. Observing that I wasn't exactly scarfing down food, the Sakamotos felt sorry for me and surprised me by ordering a large ice cream sundae. It was delicious, and I felt bad that I hadn't managed to be more grateful for the food.

So that was my day, pretty much.

Home of the Brave

2008-02-19T11:50:00.001-08:00

During my time at Nanzan University, I made friends with a freshman named Hikari. Her level of English was about the same as my Japanese, so we managed to communicate by switching between the two languages as needed. Hikari enjoyed watching the O.C., and she would write down English phrases she heard on the show and ask me about them later. ("Kelley, is 'you can say that again' correct English? When do you use it?")

One day I suggested to Hikari that she should study abroad in the U.S. so she could practice her English.
"But America is so scary!" She exclaimed. I was surprised.
"Why do you say that?" I said.
"It looks really dangerous. With September 11th and all, you know." She said.

The longer I stayed in Japan, the more I realized that many people have the same opinion. America is thought of as a really dangerous place. People think that everyone here owns guns and that we carry them around in public places. America wasn't the only country that was traumatized and made paranoid by September 11th- it made a lasting impression on people around the world as well.

Although probably America isn't nearly as dangerous as it's stereotype, I can't really blame anyone for thinking our country is violence-ridden. One night my host father turned on the television and we watched a Japanese news report about a mall shooting in Nebraska. The Virginia Tech shooting made international headlines too. Seriously, it seems like lately there's been just one shooting after another, and every time it happens it reinforces the stereotype of America the Trigger-Happy.

Elementary School Reunion

2008-02-12T22:41:00.000-08:00

Lately my blog entries been sort of backtracking through my stay in Japan. So it may be confusing, but that's ok, because there's only like two or three readers out there to confuse.

I arrived in Tokyo feeling deeply, deeply tired.Although I had had so much fun that semester, it left me feeling completely and utterly drained, phsyically and emotionally. While in Tokyo I averaged ten hours of sleep every night. I just felt like every last inch of my body and mind was tired. All I could think about was how badly I wanted to return home. I guess I was Japaned-out. Stuff everywhere was starting to look the same. Have you ever tried to enjoy a movie while fighting off sleep? I kind of felt like that.

Although I was running on empty, I decided to enjoy these last two weeks of Japan as best as I could. One day Pearl and our friend Daisuke took me on a little tour around Tokyo. We went to a famous fish market and also to Harajuku, a section of the city that I had been hoping to visit for many years. By the time evening came around, I was exhausted and just wanted to go home and crash into bed. But Pearl had a reunion dinner with friends from elementary school, so I sucked it up and prepared myself for more socializing.

About five guys and one girl were at the reunion, all of them laughing and joking about the old days in elementary school, gossiping about who used to have a crush on who,do you remember the time you hit him on the head with your lunchbox, or do you remember that one teacher we had together? Those were good times, man.

At first they were kind of uncomfortable with me there, wanting to include me in the conversation but not knowing how much Japanese I spoke. And actually, because I was so tired my Japanese was worse than usual. Some doodles on a notepad aided me. Somehow I ended up drawing a hippo; I don't remember why. The one girl who was there besides Pearl was obviously in awe of me. I think I was the first foreigner she had ever met, and she was totally thrilled. We went to the restroom together (because that's what girls do) and as I was washing my hands, she complimented my oh-so-white skin. I laughed and said,
"In America tan skin is considered beautiful!"
"Really?" She said. "Maybe I should go to America."

The meal was more dreaded Unidentified Objects. The room was also thick with cigarette smoke. But Pearl's friends were so friendly and kind that I was enjoying myself. Then suddenly, all of the guys had their foreheads on the table, their eyes shut, and one hand extended towards me, as if for a handshake. I shot a flabbergasted look at Pearl.
"Oh," she said with sort of a drunken slur. "They want you to choose who is the most handsome. Just shake his hand; they aren't looking."
Oh geez,I thought. Why are they doing this? How am I ever going to get out of this situation tactfully?
"Wow, this sure is a hard decision!" I said loudly. The guys chuckled but unfortunately didn't move.
"Onegaishimasu!" They pleaded. It really was a hard decision- Pearl has good-looking friends. So after it became apparent that they weren't going to let me off the hook, I finally gave one of them a firm handshake.
"Ok, you can look!" Pearl announced, and the guys lifted their heads. The Chosen One kept a poker face while the others exchanged disappointed glances.
"One more time!" They decided, and once again slammed their foreheads onto the table and stuck out their hands. But the results were the same, and the unlucky boys finally decided to accept their fate, I guess. I hoped that things wouldn't be awkward between me and the guy whose hand I had shaken, but he was a gentleman just as before.

After dinner we went out to a section of the city that seemed dedicated to karaoke places. Since it was in the evening, the karaoke buildings were packed full of business people waiting to party together and sing their little hearts out. We were ushered into a dark little room with a disco ball in the ceiling and couches gathered around a TV and stereo system. By this time Pearl was quite drunk, and she belted out songs while standing on the couches. The girl with the tan skin sang a song called "Sakuranbo," the chorus of which has been stuck in my head ever since. The boys sang too. I only know "Grandfather's Clock" in Japanese, so I sang that, one song by Evanescence, and one by Avril Lavigne. (Shut up, she's big in Japan.)

Grand finale, part II

2008-02-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

Our multi-course meal lasted over the span of five hours. I was so stuffed. So very stuffed. And yet the food just. Kept. Coming.

In between courses everyone chatted merrily and the men in the household chain-smoked like there was no tomorrow for any of us. The next course was shabu-shabu, and as they placed paper-thin slices of beef into the boiling water, Pearl nudged me and whispered in English, "Kelley, that beef is just as expensive as the beef we saw on that TV show last night!" And indeed, it was amazingly delicious.

They brought out more food, delicate slices of sashimi, duck soup with cubes of fat floating in it, lotus root with horseradish filling, beef tongue, green noodles in soy sauce, an enormous crab, and other dishes that I can't remember.

It was a feast. And yet I felt sort of queasy. As gourmet as it was, the food was just too exotic for my American taste buds. I was putting things into my stomach that I wasn't used to and/or couldn't identify. Everything sat in my stomach with an uneasy feeling, not really sure what it was doing there.

While the next course was being prepared, and in between my frequent trips to the bathroom, Mr. Yamagawa explained his various collections of treasures to us. An extensive collection of antique china from around the world sparkled from inside glass cabinets. In other cases, mounds of jewelry were lovingly laid out on display: a necklace of real pearls, a Tiffany bracelet, a gold Rolex watch.

The little boy who earlier had called me beautiful crawled into his father's lap. I heard the man and his wife mention video games.
"Do you play video games?" I asked him.
"Yes, I play an online game called Everquest," he replied.
"Ah, Everquest," I said. "What level are you?"
"The highest one." He said, a little sheepishly.
"How much do you play every day?" I asked. He stuttered. Here his wife butted in,
"From when he wakes up until he goes to sleep!" She said.

The evening reached eight o'clock. We had been eating since three. As the next course was being brought out, I prepared my aching stomach for the next round of Fear Factor. Then Mrs. Yamagawa emerged from the kitchen with a platter of strawberries, cakes, and raspberry tea. The clouds broke and in that moment, the world was beautiful. I gulped down strawberries despite the protests of my full stomach, my taste buds in desperate need of relief.

After that night, I decided that I didn't want another bite of Japanese food. I was never more looking forward to the belated Thanksgiving dinner my family in the States had promised to cook for me. "They'd better not pull a joke on me and bring out sushi," I thought. I would not be amused.

My last dinner in Japan was a grand finale

2008-02-05T19:55:00.000-08:00

I never really wrote about my last day in Japan, which included potato sake, a gold rolex watch, Japanese woodblock prints worth thousands and thousands of dollars, and chain smoking Japanese men.

Where do I start?

Okay. So I was staying with my friend Pearl in Tokyo. Her parents had to make an emergency overseas trip for New Year's, so they asked their friends to entertain Pearl and I on the day after New Year's. So Pearl and I went to their house for dinner.

The previous night we watched a TV show were celebrities were blindfolded and then served two versions of the same food: a cheap, corner-store version and a high-end gourmet version. The celebrities had to guess which one was the expensive one. In one round they were given beef made by a professional chef, costing about $300. Then they tasted supermarket beef. Not all of them guessed correctly.

As we walked up the hills of the neighborhood, slightly lost, Pearl briefed me. "The Yamagawas have a beautiful home," she said. "Mr. Yamagawa is a professor at Waseda University, and Mrs. Yamagawa is an excellent cook." The neighborhood was obviously upper-crust. The houses were very big (well, big for Japan. They still had no front yards.) with Mercedes-Benz parked in the driveways. Later it was pointed out to us that the family Prime Minister Koi Zumi and the family of Empress Michiko also live in this neighborhood. I mean this was some serious, serious real estate. And I was going to have dinner here.
A plaque outside a home, with the family name of Koi Zumi.

We were warmly welcomed. We bowed and repeated "Happy New Year" many, many times. There were Mr. Yamagawa, his wife, their two sons, a son's wife, and a grandson who was about four years old and super cute. They sat us at the dining room table and promptly served us a very delicious and light soup with sort of a lemony flavor which Mrs. Yamagawa made herself. Little did I know this was just a foretaste of the culinary doom that was awaiting me.

With her sharp sense of humor my friend Pearl soon won over the hearts of the Yamagawas, and Mrs. Yamagawa called her "like my own daughter." I sort of sat there and tried my best to keep up with the conversations. The little grandson was sitting next to me. When Mr. Yamagawa tried to bump his grandson out of the seat, he was obviously unwilling.
"Oooh, it's probably because he wants to sit next to a beautiful girl." His grandmother giggled. "Do you think Kelley is a beautiful girl?" They all egged him. Shyly he said,
"Yes, she's a beautiful girl." Everyone laughed. It was too cute.

Next we were brought bento boxes of traditional New Year's snacks, everything drenched in a sort of sweet soy sauce. Gingerly I transferred Unknown Edible Objects onto my plate and into my mouth. They also brought us little bowls of shiny orange fish eggs, about the size of the pearls in milk tea. I had managed to avoid eating fish eggs during my entire stay in Japan but could not do so now. The juices burst out as the eggs popped between my teeth. I discreetly passed my bowl to Pearl's side of the table. Next the Yamagawa's busted out a large bottle of expensive sake, a rare brew made from fermented potatoes. They offered me a very, very small amount, which I couldn't even finish because it had probably the strongest alcoholic taste I've ever drank. I could only take a few sips before I knew it would make me feel sick.

In between courses Mr. Yamagawa seemed to take pleasure in showing Pearl and I the many treasures contained within their home. Actually their home wasn't all that fancy, and was actually kind of small. But they had many expensive things, including a gargantuan flatscreen TV. Mr. Yamagawa brought out a box of delicate Japanese woodblock prints.
"How beautiful!" I said. "These look really old."
"Yes, they're originals." He said, beaming.
"ORIGINALS???"
Any museum would accept these beautiful works of art, most of them at least two hundred years old. I couldn't believe I was holding them in my hands. Mr. Yamagawa pointed at certain ones and told us how he had paid ten thousand dollars for them.

I'll have to continue later. Must do homework now.

YAREN, SORAN, SORAN, SORAN, SORAN, SORAN, HAI HAI!!

2008-01-09T12:46:00.000-08:00

Well well, after the overwhelming response my last blog elicited (from both of my aunts), how could I not finish writing about my last days in Japan?

One reason that I decided to stay for two weeks in Tokyo after the semester was because people kept bugging me about staying in Japan "only" for a semester. So I tried to extend my stay a little. The other reason was to see friends, and the other reason was to see the New Year in Japan, which is the biggest holiday of the year for them.

Considering that, my New Year was kind of...not that exciting.

I lived in the International House at my campus in the US. I was staying in Tokyo with my friend Pearl, who is also from the I-house, and on New Year's Eve four other friends from the I-house joined us: two Japanese girls, one American guy, and one Thai girl. We made a hot pot, ate lots of snacks, and watched the special New Year's Concert on TV. According to one article, "Unlike in the U.S., where people go out to celebrate New Year's, in Japan nearly everyone stays home for what is the most important television night of the year, and the concert is their version of the Super Bowl, the show that everyone watches." For a sample of the craziness I watched, check out this gem. Also, Gackt dressed as a samurai. Also, Ayumi Hamazaki CAN'T SING. Just for the record.

The American guy and I watched the concert and had fun trying to guess the gender of certain performers. It wasn't always easy. At midnight we all went out to the balcony and irritated Pearl's quiet neighborhood by cheering our heads off WOO! I LOVE YOU TOKYO!!! I saw some fireworks go off in the direction of Tokyo Disneyland.

In the morning we got up early to head off to Meiji shrine. Judging from the crowds there, half of Tokyo had the same plans as we did.

Every good Japanese goes to a shrine to toss money into the box and make wishes for the upcoming year. Meiji shrine is one of the most popular places to go, and it was packed. Our American friend, at 6'2", towered over everyone else and took the above pictures for me. Two elderly Japanese standing in his shadow said to each other, "No wonder the Americans always beat us in soccer."
It took us about an hour to get to the front of the shrine and toss in our money, which is actually relatively fast. Afterwards we went to the huge food court that had been set up nearby, where booths were selling everything from ramen to hamburgers.

So what should we do now, guys? Let's go to Akihabara and eat at a maid cafe. Ok.

What is a maid cafe? It's just a normal cafe, except that the waitresses are young, cute girls dressed up in maid outfits who address their customers as "master." They talk in high, squeaky voices and will play games or chat with you. For an extra fee you can also take pictures with them. (That's why the above picture is blurry- it was taken when she wasn't looking.) When our maid brought us our little bunny and panda-shaped cakes, she said something about wanting everyone to make a wish over the food for its deliciousness. She demonstrated, making a heart shape with her hands and moving it from side to side while saying, "moe, moe, kyuuu!" Aww, how cute. Or something.

Japan is a bizarre place. I kind of miss it.

So long and thanks for all the fish

2008-01-02T17:14:00.000-08:00

I am going home TODAY!!

I am so ready to go home. So ready. Mom and Dad, I require that a box of brownie mix be on the premises upon my return.

My last few days in Tokyo have been interesting, including fish eggs, French maids and little Buddhas wearing red hats. But I don't have time to write about it right now. If you guys leave comments saying you're interested (and I mean someone besides my parents for once) I'll write more after I get home.

Sayonara Japan! I am sure that we will meet again.

It's New Year's Eve

2007-12-31T03:38:00.000-08:00

There are two times in my life when I have encountered something so gross that I literally gagged.

The first time was back in Jr. High while I was babysitting. I had to change the diaper of a little girl who was very sick. Let's not go into that any further. You don't want to know.

One of the most popular questions the Japanese ask me is, "have you ever eaten natto?", usually accompanied by a smirk. This evening I tried the infamous natto for the first time. Natto is fermented bean crap, the taste and smell of which has been compared to "battery acid." Tonight my Japanese friends insisted that I try it before I leave Japan. They stirred up a little bowl of beans in some sort of brownish-yellow slime. So I took a small cluster that looked like baked beans but smelled like rotten trash. No exaggeration. In a stunning act of courage I ate them, long strings of gooey stuff draping from my mouth to my chopsticks.

And that marks the second time in my life that I have gagged.

I shoved the bowl of natto and my chopsticks into the hands of my friends and ran blindly towards the sink, firstly for a gulp of water and secondly just in case I was about to see those beans again.
"Wow, is it really that bad?" My friends asked.
"It's terrible!!" I exclaimed, and after several glasses of water, soon I was curled up on the couch, clutching a little bowl of vanilla ice cream.

Shibuya scramble

2007-12-27T01:10:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last few days in Tokyo, and honestly, so far it's been kind of mediocre. The friend I am staying with and her family have been nothing but hospitable and kind, and I am very grateful. But I think I'm a little burned-out on Japan. Stuff is starting to look the same. And for some reason, the friends I came here to visit seem tired and quiet. Maybe it's because they're busy looking for jobs and writing thesis's. Or maybe they just don't like me?

Today I went to Shibuya, a hip and happening shopping district. After I came out of the train station, I noticed that the massive intersection in front of me looked familiar. Then I laughed as I remembered that this was, of course, the famous Shibuya Crossing, and I had seen it in one of my favorite movies, Lost in Translation. How could I forget?
I watched "the making of Lost in Translation" a while ago, and the director said they filmed some shots from a Starbucks above the intersection. I looked up, and there was the familiar green mermaid sign. That settles it. One chai latte, please. Extra foam.
It was really crowded but I managed to find a little space near the window. It was like lunch and a show. Every time the lights went green about two hundred people crossed the street from every direction.

I was trying to find Engrish shirts for one of the boys on my Christmas list, but no luck. I found this on the way home, but alas, it was on an ashtray, not a t-shirt. I'm not really sure what this is trying to communicate.

Images of Christmas

2007-12-24T16:57:00.001-08:00

No, I don't know what this is.

In Japanese they call snowmen "snow daruma."

The Japanese love elaborate Christmas light setups. Well, who doesn't, I guess?

Back when I was in Nagoya, my church had a Christmas concert. As Robert would say, it was "pretty much amazing."

Merry Christmas everyone!

I wanna go fast

2007-12-23T05:19:00.000-08:00

Woo! Shinkansen! So there I was flying across Japan at 186 mph on a train that badly smelled like cigarettes. I went 320 miles in just two hours.

I knew that, in good weather, you can see Mt. Fuji from the train window. For some reason, everyone on the opposite side of the train car had the curtains pulled down over the windows, and I was afraid that the mountain would pass by on that side and I wouldn't get to see it. I was also scrutinizing the green hills we were passing, worried that Mt. Fuji would go by and I wouldn't recognize it. Then we emerged from a tunnel and - oh yeah. That's definitely it.

No wonder Mt. Fuji is Japan's pride and joy. (Second only to the fact that they have four seasons.) The picture and video really don't do justice to how impressive this sight was. Surrounding it was just flat plains, and it seemed to float on a pillow of clouds, this huge, snow-capped, beautiful mountain. I've seen so many photos and drawings of Mt. Fuji, and then it was just suddenly there. It was awesome.
The photo below is kind of funny because of all the ugly industrial development in the foreground. But hey, it kind of makes a statement, don't you think?

A chapter ends

2007-12-22T05:31:00.000-08:00

Today was my last day with my host family. Tomorrow I am going to Tokyo to stay with a friend until the beginning of January. Hopefully I will still be able to keep blogging while I'm there.

In the morning we all went over to the host grandparents' house, where my host grandma and her cousin (?) dressed me up in a furisode, a type of kimono with very long sleeves. I think this is a ritual they've done with all four of their past exchange students. They said the last one was so fat they could barely wrap the kimono around her. In my case, I have such a little waist that the obi was giving them trouble and they were considering padding my middle with towels. Anyway they did a very thorough and professional job. Afterwards we went outside to take pictures together. The day before the grandfather had actually gone through the trouble of pruning one of the trees in the yard to give it a nice Japanese shape to make a good background for the photos. I won't post pictures of my host family online, but here's one where you can see Whiney in mid-air in the background. Also, you can see the pruned pine behind me and to the left.

After pictures, I changed back into my normal, boring clothes and we all went out to lunch at a nice restaurant, sitting on a traditional tatami mat floor. A huge tray loaded with fancy-looking food was brought for each of us. I'm sure all the food was delicious, but I didn't enjoy it much. When dealing with unknown objects that must be eaten, my strategy is to eat the least-appetizing first. So I promptly attacked the shrimp, which were fully intact, little black eyes and all. I also ate mushrooms, lotus root, ginger, and some sort of raw white slimy something, among other somethings.

Knowing that lunch was a bit of a challenge for me, afterwards my host mom graciously took me to the dessert store, also known to me as "The Happiest Place on Earth." We chose our Christmas cakes for the evening.

Even though it was two days early, we ate our Christmas cakes after dinner, which is pretty much all the Japanese do for Christmas. Even though they don't give presents on Christmas in Japan, I had gifts for my host family. To Origami Boy I gave a set for making a huge paper dinosaur, which to my gratification he immediately began working on. To Whiney I gave a book about airplanes. To my host mom I gave Jelly Bellies, which she had once told me she ate in America twenty years ago and especially liked the watermelon flavored ones. (She also said that the licorice-flavored jelly beans taste "like air-fresheners." I've never liked that one either.) To my host dad I gave Asahi Super Dry, wrapped in wrapping paper and placed lovingly in the fridge. My host family didn't give me anything, but I didn't mind, since of course they've taken care of me all semester, and I don't have any more room in my suitcase anyway.

I'm kind of surprised to realize that I'm going to miss my host family. Even though they really drove me crazy sometimes, I have grown to care about them and I want them to be happy. After hearing stories from other exchange students, I don't think I fully realize how lucky I was to have such an understanding and flexible host family. (A classmate was recently woken up at midnight by his host family and told, 'We hate you! Go back to America!')

Tomorrow, I ride by the famous shinkansen to Tokyo! If the weather is good, I should be able to see Mt. Fuji from the window!

It's not so bad here, I guess

2007-12-20T17:37:00.000-08:00

I am drinking a congratulary chai latte because I just finished my last final. Go me!

The other night my host mom told me that her grandparents are still alive and kicking, depite being in their mid-90's and having a fondness for sake and smoking.
"Wow, that's amazing. They must be pretty tough," I said.
My host mom went on to tell me that, in fact, her grandfather had survived a Siberian labor camp.

Say what?

I did a little research, and it turns out that after WWII, Russia took all the Japanese soldiers still in its country and forced them to work in labor camps. Now you know.
"My grandfather says that it was terribly cold, and that the food was pitiful and they worked all day. Nobody expected him to survive and come back to Japan."
"Wow. How long was he in Siberia?" I asked. My host mom thought for a minute, then said,
"I don't remember. He used to tell me about it when I was young, but since he would always start crying I would beg him to stop."

I was going to complain about how cold it is in my room at night but I think I won't now.

You can never have too many of these

2007-12-19T04:14:00.000-08:00

Every time my host grandmother goes on a trip she brings back little souvenirs for everyone. This evening she came by with a bag full of souvenir goodness, wherein I received this little marvel: a cellphone charm daruma.
But wait, there's more. When tilted forwards the daruma's eyes pop out. I think my host grandmother was saying something about this meaning your wish has been granted. Okay, but it still looks downright freaky. Furthermore, when you hold the daruma up to the light and look through the middle, you can see the image of a Buddha with the words "Good Fortune" and "Safety in Traffic."
Plus it comes with a tiny jingle bell.
Probably the most random, crazy gift I've ever been given.

A first

2007-12-18T17:22:00.000-08:00

I have been riding the train for two hours every weekday ever since I got to Japan 4 months ago. And today for the first time a random person on the train started talking to me. A businessman wearing a sick mask (people do that here when they have a cold) sat down next to me and noticed that I was practicing kanji.
"Wow, you're studying very hard, aren't you?" he said.
I was very surprised, and delighted too that someone was being friendly.
"It's because I have a test today," I said.
"Well, do your best! How long have you been studying?"
"Three years."
"Wow, that's amazing. Where are you from?"
So we had a short little conversation before he opened up his newspaper and left me to my studying. When he left the train he gave me a thumbs up sign. It pretty much made my day. While people-watching on the train I've often wished that I could chat with them, since I'm interested in everyone here. But it seems like the Japanese just don't start up conversations with strangers much- particularly with gaijin. Sometimes I've seen people sneak glances at my homework as I study on the train, but when I look at them they always shift their eyes quickly. One time a high school boy sitting next to me was working on English homework, and I really wanted to volunteer to help him out, but was afraid that I might come off too weird since no one else does it.
In fact, the train is often extremely quiet. And for some reason, the degree of quietness is directly proportional to the degree of crowdedness on the train. So we'll just be chugging along, squished together like sardines, in complete silence. It's like how no one talks in a crowded elevator.
Time to take that kanji final!

Engrish Strikes Back

2007-12-17T20:16:00.000-08:00

Images of Christmas from Japan

2007-12-16T22:35:00.000-08:00

Precious bodily fluids

2007-12-16T17:35:00.001-08:00

I have a cold for the third time in four months.

This is crazy. I never get sick this often.

Experiencing Japanese family life?

2007-12-14T19:56:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder why my host family isn't embarrassed to act the way they do around me. The children throw tantrums, my host mom emasculates and henpecks my host dad, the host dad blatantly ignores my host mom. And that's just a few examples. Meanwhile, I'll just be sitting there at the dinner table thinking, "aren't they ashamed of themselves?"

Perhaps they're trying to treat me as part of the family, not as a guest. So sometimes I feel bad that I don't spend more time with them. But seriously, if they wanted me to be part of their family, maybe they should have made their family life more appealing.

One thing that really frustrates me is the way Origami Boy is allowed to treat his little brother. Origami Boy has serious anger problems. I truly worry about him. I think he inherited them from his mom because the actions he takes and the voice he uses when he's angry is an obvious imitation of hers. When Origami Boy is angry with Whiney for whatever reason, he screams at him and hits him mercilessly. If Whiney is doing something Origami Boy doesn't like, Origami Boy will physically force him to stop. One day he was particularly angry and was torturing Whiney so relentlessly that Whiney locked himself in the bathroom just to escape.

And the weird thing is, my host parents don't do a thing about this! I don't know why. Today Origami Boy screamed at Whiney, hit him on the head and kicked him in the stomach. My host mom saw it all and didn't do a thing. I think this explains why Whiney cries so dramatically. He's trying to get someone to notice and stick up for him. I'd do the same if I was in his situation.

I'm only here for a semester. Of the exchange students who are studying for a whole year in Japan, a surprising amount of them have applied to move out of host families and live in dormitories instead. If I was here for another semester, I think I would do the same. Luckily I only have one more week with my host family.

Memiors of a Gaijin, cont.

2007-12-14T05:56:00.000-08:00

I promised that I would explain the photo of me dressed up as a geisha. I've been putting it off because I kind of doubt whether anyone besides my parents is interested.

It was probably one of the most awesome Saturdays of my life. My good friend Saki offered to show me around Kyoto in order to make the most of my ever-diminishing time left in the Land of the Rising Sun. Kyoto is about 2 and a half hours away by bus, so we left on a Friday evening and stayed in a hotel. We got up early the next morning and headed out towards Gion, an old district of the city and perhaps the only place in Japan where real geisha and maiko (a geisha-in-training) can still be seen.

We had made reservations at a shop where you can pay to dress up like a maiko, with the fancy kimono, makeup and hair. About eight other women and one man were doing it as well. It was quite a process. Saki described it as kind of "a maiko factory" because the employees' efficient system of transforming customers into maiko was much like an assembly line. Makeup. Next. Wig. Next. Kimono. Next. At the end we had professional pictures taken. For a higher price you could take a walk outside in your costume, but Saki and I chose not to. I think that was a good idea, as our kimonos were a little old and, well, I just looked...extremely unusual. Maybe a little scary. Saki was barely recognizable.

It was a super fun experience. I will never get tired of playing dress-ups. Never. Getting all that white makeup off wasn't easy though.
Saki and I did a lot of things that day, and I'm sure you probably don't want to hear every detail. But I'll tell you about Kiyomizu-dera because I've got some awesome pictures I want to show off, like this one of high schoolers on a field trip lining up for a picture. Little did they know of their impending doom.

Kiyomizu-dera, being one of Kyoto's biggest attractions, was very crowded! There was at least one high school field trip going on at the time. Kiyomizu-dera is a huge old temple constructed of wood on the side of a hill. Thus it commands a wonderful view of the city, and must be truly packed when the cherry blossoms or fall foilage is in full bloom. You can see in the picture below that the very large building has a roof made of thatched grasses.

Interestingly, behind the Buddhist temple lies a Shinto shrine. This shrine seemed to be particularly dedicated to the spirit of love and relationships, with amulets and fortunes to buy for luck in love, marriage, and conception. There were two special boulders set a couple yards away from each other. I saw a group of high school girls giggling as they lead their blindfolded friend through the crowds from one rock to the other. Apparently this is a ritual believed to bring luck in love or something. The whole area was packed with women of all ages, which just goes to show that girls are the same all over the world.

On our way home, we picked up some freshly-baked soymilk donuts, which were hot and fluffy and light and delicious. I wish we had them in the US.

Saki and I returned home that evening, and I was very tired but very happy too.

Thank you Saki!

Makes a good wallpaper:

Is the semester over yet?

2007-12-12T04:26:00.000-08:00

Next week is finals week, and thank goodness. I think everyone, students and teachers alike, are sick and tired of Japanese class. Eight hours a week together is just too many. Blazer Sensei's fuse was particularly short today- and it was first period! Usually it takes us at least two periods to wear her down.

This morning I walked into the classroom.

The bell rang.

Knowing that 2 out of 10 total homework points hung precariously in the balance, I positioned myself squarely in front of the Pink Box of Doom and set my backpack in front of it so the professor would understand that I was in the process of submitting my homework and would mercifully keep the box open five seconds longer.

And as I opened my backpack to get out my homework, Blazer Sensei closes the Box right in front of me.

Dirty little...

In a move of unabashed rebellion, I opened the Pink Box and slipped my homework inside. Blazer Sensei undoubtedly saw it, and will probably mark my homework as late nonetheless. Sayonara, 2 homework points.

I guess it serves me right for being late to class.

Oh wait.

I WASN'T.

Yes, I think everyone needs winter vacation badly.

Dragons, ganbatte!

2007-12-10T16:54:00.000-08:00

You really have to hand it to Nagoya.
They've solved one of the world's oldest questions: how do you get girls interested in baseball?
Nagoya's plan is so deceptively simple. Every time the local baseball team, the Chunichi Dragons, win a game, nearly every store holds a victory sale. So the Dragons have all the girls in town rooting for them, including me.

Brilliant.

Unfortunately the Dragons don't seem to win very often.

Memoirs of a Gaijin

2007-12-08T06:43:00.001-08:00

Too tired to write about this. I'll explain later.

And other American activities

2007-12-04T03:44:00.001-08:00

The other day my host mom offered me some gum.
Me: No thank you.
Host mom: Okay. You don't chew gum much, do you?
Me: Nope.
Host mom: It's funny, we Japanese think of chewing gum as a very American thing.
Me: Why's that?
Host mom: Well you always see American baseball players chewing gum.
Me: Uhh...I don't think that's gum...I think it's tobacco.
Host mom: REALLY??

It was funny. Maybe you just had to be there though.

Grey

2007-12-03T23:12:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been noticing how the area I'm in is pretty ugly. Both Nagoya, the town my host family lives in, and all the towns I commute through in between. They're just so...grey.

1. For one thing, they seem so haphazardly thrown together. I don't know if there's zoning laws here, but it kind of doesn't seem like it. Walking down the street, I'll pass a Mom and Pop hardware store, three houses, a bicycle parking lot, a Japanese-style house, a tiny community center, a Western-style house, a sparkly Pachinko parlor, two more houses, a barber shop, etc.

2. Where are the trees? I live in the countryside in a town with less than 40,000 in the population, and where are the freaking trees???

3. Where is the grass??? Why isn't there any grass here??

4. Next, people don't have much in the way of front yards; their front doors are often adjacent to the sidewalk. If they have any at all, a lot of people don't seem to take especially good care of them. Front yards often have bicycles and random junk strewn all over them. Like curb appeal just isn't a big deal here.

5. Japan doesn't bury power lines, as you can see in the photos above.

6. It seems like some people who live in traditional-style Japanese houses can't afford the upkeep. I see a lot of the old-fashioned wooden houses that must have been lovely forty years ago...but need a major overhaul now. There's tape over the windows and wires running along the outside of the walls and the rain gutters are falling off the roof. I don't think I live in a ghetto area...but I kind of see a lot of these houses...

I'm not saying that Japan is an ugly country. I've seen some of its beauty first-hand.

But basically, a lot of the Japan that I see every day...just seems like no attention was given to aesthetics whatsoever. There's no loveliness anywhere except for the occasional temple or shrine which retains its traditional style. Everything is grey, efficient concrete, slapped down wherever the closest open spot was and squished as close together as possible. I have yet to see an apartment building in Japan that doesn't look like it was made from grey legos. Far away is my suburban hometown where houses in spacious neighborhoods sit on neat front lawns and people play basketball in their driveways. Or *gasp* in their backyards!!

Osu Kannon

2007-12-01T16:31:00.000-08:00

Note: Right now Blogger is having technical issues and if you click on any of the pictures, a download box might open instead of the image becoming full-size. Just hang in there and hopefully they will fix it soon enough.

It's high time I introduced you to my favorite place in Nagoya, Osu Kannon.
Osu is an older section of the city, so it has a lot of character. When you first walk into the heart of it, you see this fantastic temple. Often a priest can be heard chanting inside.

The temple is surrounded by concrete apartment complexes, hotels, and other very grey ugly buildings.

This section of Osu Kannon is sort of an outdoor shopping mall with lots of funky little shops. Most of them are cheap, and a lot of them are consignment or thrift stores. There is a "per gram" store where the cost of the used clothing is determined by how much it weighs. One gram = 30 yen. Many of these thrift stores have kimonos in them, but they're pretty old and yucky, and the ones that are nice aren't very cheap. There are some goth/lolita stores here too.
Today two of my friends and I went to a cafe we had heard of. It's called "Dear Alice" and has an Alice in Wonderland theme. The front door was so short you had to bend over to get in. Inside was a cozy little cafe full of Victorian furniture, playing cards and checkerboard patterns. Waitresses dressed in Alice-esque maid outfits served us cakes and tea in fancy china dishes. Check out the Christmas tree drawn with caramel sauce on my plate. It was awesome.

Osu has a lot of surprises. Here the giant lucky cat is decorated in glorious gaudy Christmas "illumination," as they call it here.

My friends and I went to an arcade and spent money trying to win prizes from crane games.

The Barbie pink "woman ahead" sign was in front of a section of the arcade dedicated to purikura, or tiny photo sticker booths insanely popular with Japanese girls. So popular in fact, that only girls are allowed to use them, I guess. (If anyone can explain what the Japanese says on the sign, please let me know.) My friends and I decided to take a few.
Now, a good rule of thumb to remember in Japan is that anything the Japanese set their hand to, they take to the extreme. So these are not your ordinary photo booths. They're huge, they're well-lit, they talk and play music, they have a million different settings and options, and the stickers they print out are high-quality, full color and sometimes sparkly. After you take your pictures, you can use the touch-screen and stylus to draw hearts, stars, bunnies, text, or mustaches on your friends. Then the stickers are printed out with all your modifications. Girls put them on their cellphones, textbooks, cameras, pets, anywhere.

Outside the arcade we found a bunch of capsule toy machines. Right next to ones for children were a few that contained figurines that were most definitely pornographic. Yes, pornographic capsule toys. Right there on the street. 300 yen. As if breast pudding wasn't enough reason to worry about this country.

not again!

2007-11-26T16:51:00.001-08:00

I've caught a cold for the second time in two months! What's up with that?
I think it's a conspiracy by the Japanese governmnent. They're trying to get rid of me. I already know too much.

2007-11-25T23:49:00.000-08:00

I noticed this drawing lying around in the family room one day. Isn't it cute? The top says "I want to become a pilot."

Me: Did Whiney draw that?
Host Mom: Yes he did!
Origami Boy: MINE'S BETTER!!
Host Mom: Oh shush.

I've been making some mistakes in my Japanese lately.

Host Mom: Kelley, do you have any plans this week?
Me: Yes, I have plans on watermelon.
Host Mom: ...watermelon?
Me: Sorry, I meant Wednesday.

Guy: So you live in a dorm? (in America)
Me: That's right.
Guy: How long does it take you to get to your parents' house?
Me: About two years.

I meant hours. Two hours.

Plastic food

2007-11-24T22:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went on a field trip to Guyo-Hachiman with Japanese and exchange students. We did various things, including going to a plastic food factory! Japanese restaurants often display plastic replicas of their menu items in their store windows. These aren't your childhood plastic food toys. This is the real deal. You can see pictures and read about it a little here.

We were given a little demonstation and allowed to make some plastic food ourselves! One of the employees took a spoonful of melted something (probably wax) and slowly dripped it into a tub of hot water. The wax hardened slightly and took on a sort of crumbly shape, and the employee carefully wrapped it around a plastic shrimp. Voila. Tempura shrimp.

We made our own tempura shrimp, and also a head of lettuce and got to take home both!

My completed items, which greatly amused my host family.

There was sort of a display room of plastic food dishes, all looking delicious. I bought some presents too. It was a lot of fun.

A successful experiment

2007-11-23T01:17:00.000-08:00

Abstract
Two American exchange students in Japan attempt to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

Introduction
My friend and fellow American Nicole asked if I wanted to help her make Thanksgiving dinner for her host family. So on Thursday after class we made our way to the supermarket. Finding the ingredients was almost more challenging than cooking the food. In American grocery stores, the salt is usually located next to the pepper, right? But in Japan it is located next to the sugar, which is several ailes away from the pepper. We even had to resort to getting out the Japanese-English dictionary when trying to discern which one of the many bags of white powder contained flour.

Fig 1.1. Data analysis

Materials Used
Our menu, unfortunately, was restricted by the lack of available Thanksgiving goodies in Japan, including turkeys, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie mix. Neither of us felt up to the task of actually making pumpkin pie out of pumpkins, so we bought pumpkin-flavored pudding. I will really miss my Grandma's pumpkin pies, which were amazing last year. Seriously. They're like the only thing I remember about last year.

This was our modified Thanksgiving dinner menu:

Almond Chicken
Mashed potatoes
Gravy
String beans with almonds and browned butter
Stuffing
Bread rolls
Pumpkin pudding
Apple juice

The stuffing and gravy are thanks to Nicole's father, who sent the mixes from America. Ignore the Reese's Peices on the table. Nicole just wanted to set them out because they look American.

Fig. 1.2. Materials

Methods
Nicole's host family's kitchen was a little tight, and pots and pans were limited. Luckily, Nicole is an engineer and thus set out a very logical plan for cooking. For example, we had no measuring cups, so Nicole grabbed an empty soda can that was 120 milliliters and was able to calculate all the amounts of ingredients from that. Genius.
I made origami turkeys to compensate for the lack of real ones.

Fig. 1.3. Methods

Results
In the end, Nicole and I pulled off a pretty awesome dinner for her host mom and sister, who praised it to no end. Since they're Japanese, I wasn't sure if that meant they actually liked it, but the host sister ate quite a lot of stuffing and gravy. As for me, I haven't felt so happily stuffed since I left the US.

Fig. 1.5. Results

Summary and Recommendations
Please appreciate how amazing these turkeys are.

Fig 1.6. Turkey madness

And now for something completely different

2007-11-21T05:19:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow: an attempt at cooking Thanksgiving dinner in Japan, despite Japan's distinct lack of turkeys.

Check back later for further details.

A little random note...this reminds me of when my Japanese Culture professor in the US (who is Japanese), tried to explain to us why the Japanese were against the idea of allowing their country to import rice in the 90's. If I remember correctly, he was trying to tell us that rice has sort of a spiritual symbolism in Japanese culture. Rice grown in the Land of the Rising Sun is something the Japanese take pride in, and no other rice will do, at least according to him. The professor could tell we were having trouble understanding this.
"Imagine if the US was forced to import turkey from other countries," he said. Silence. Finally someone spoke up:
"...and?"
"Turkey!" The professor exclaimed. "Thanksgiving! American holiday! You don't want foreign turkeys on Thanksgiving, do you??"
"We don't really care that much, as long as they taste good."
"What?!"
I'll never forget the professor's look of astonishment. I think he was slightly disappointed in us too.

Differences in educational culture (or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb)

2007-11-19T02:04:00.001-08:00

Japanese high schools have a worldwide reputation for being extremely intense and demanding, but Japanese colleges unfortunately have a reputation for being...well, a joke. A lot of college students get part-time jobs just for spending money because they have so much time on their hands.
I have to admit I was kind of looking forward to this.
Alas, the Japanese language professors really don't mess around. For example, we are allowed two absences. Two. Three strikes and you fail the course. And if you're late too many times, that counts as a strike. I'm not in the habit of missing a whole lot of classes in the US, but this really sucks all the flexibility out of my schedule. And it just sucks, period.
Also, there is a Pink Box of Doom where you turn in your homework. The very second the school bell rings, (yes, there is a school bell that rings) the professors close the box. And I mean the very second. Before the school bell has even finished ringing the professor will have sprung up and slammed the pink box shut. Any homework that doesn't make it in the box before then is labeled "late" and points are deducted, even if you came to class well before then. Even if you hand in the homework in five seconds later. When the Pink Box of Doom is shut, it's shut and it's not opening again until tomorrow.
So although I don't have anything against the professors personally, I don't enjoy class very much. I feel like they treat us like little kids.

Hugs

2007-11-18T04:40:00.000-08:00

One of the old ladies at church has adopted me. It started one morning after church when she randomly came up to me and gave me a hug.
"Oh my gosh, that's the first hug I've had since I came here two months ago!" I said. And it's true. Hugging is sort of an American thing, I think. I've barely even seen anyone hug anyone since I got there. When girls meet each other, they don't hug, they sort of...touch hands. It's weird.
"Really? Oh you poor thing." She said, and gave me about three more hugs. Now every Sunday she makes sure I don't leave church without a hug. I feel bad that I can't remember her name.
A little boy, about three years old, saw her hugging me and ran up and gave me a hug too. That really surprised me. I said to the old lady,
"Usually Japanese children seem to be afraid of me."
"Oh really?" She said. "Not this one though."
"Yeah, I'm strong and powerful!!" The little boy said, and flexed his arms. It was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. Boy oh boy did I want to scoop him up and take him home with me.

It's my lucky day

2007-11-14T23:23:00.000-08:00

Today I was walking home from school when I passed by an elderly lady who was placing things into the back of her pickup truck. She said something to me, and although I'm not totally sure, I think she said "shall I give these to you?" So I stopped. The lady rustled through a bag of persimmons, pulled out three plump ones and gave them to me. I thanked her and bowed profusely.
So now I have three persimmons.

Adapting to the culture

2007-11-12T23:21:00.000-08:00

I'm trying hard to adapt to Japanese culture. Really I am. I even count with my fingers by tucking my thumb in first, like the Japanese do. I eat soy sauce mochi wrapped in seaweed for dessert. With chopsticks. I compliment everyone who can speak the least bit of English. I bow to people I pass by. Here are some last remains of gaijinness I refuse to give up:

1. I refuse to use Japanese-style toilets.
2. I refuse to eat takoyaki. (fried octopus tentacle)
3. I refuse to stop drinking while walking.

As for the last one, in Japanese culture class in America we were taught that it is rude to eat or drink while walking in Japan. I try to be sensitive to this, but sometimes I just don't care. I must satisfy the urge to grab a latte and sip it while on the way to somewhere. What do they expect me to do, sit down and enjoy my drink? Not going to happen. I'm an American, darnit. I don't have the time.
Maybe I'll tell them that in America, drinking while walking is a sign of prestige. And if they remind me that this isn't America, it's Japan, I'll look confused and say, "Oh no! When did that happen?"

Gelato and Guinea Pigs

2007-11-10T05:37:00.001-08:00

Today I took a wrong turn and ended up in Italy. Confused? Yeah, so was I. I was under the impression that Italy was kind of far from here.

Still, I decided to make the best of it and have some "Pumpkin Milk" gelato, which was DELICIOUS. Being alone, I also asked a random stranger to take a picture of me and the gelato, using my newly-learned extra-polite Japanese. Go me!

The place was pretty cool. All the signs were in Italian and there were many shops selling imported Italian goods and Venetian masks and things. A wedding was going on in an "old Italian chapel," and tables and chairs were set next to the canal for the reception. I thought that was a pretty fun place to have your wedding. Maybe a little cheesy, but still fun.

Actually I had gone to Nagoya Port to spend my afternoon and see the ocean, without knowing that "Italy Village" was there. At the pier about two hundred people were waiting in line to tour this big ship. Later I told my host parents about this and asked if the ship was old or famous or something, because the line must have been at least an hour long. "No, it's not famous. Japanese people just like standing in line," my host dad said.

There was a park at the port, shops, restaurants and a petting zoo. I wandered around taking pictures and exploring.

I spent a lot of time at the petting zoo, watching the rabbits and the guinea pigs run around together. Here's a picture of a little boy being attacked by a rabid guinea pig. Man I love this picture.

It was a good day. Maybe it wasn't as exciting as my friends who are going to Kyoto and various places this weekend, but still it was a good day.

It's cold

2007-11-06T23:28:00.000-08:00

How is it that only one month ago I was sleeping on top of my blankets with a fan on in the room and taking cold showers because of the heat? Was that really the same country? How did it get so cold so fast? Not only did it get cold, but it went from super humid to super dry, and everyone at school caught colds, including me. It's no wonder the Japanese are obsessed with the fact that their country has four seasons. If you don't watch out, the seasons will sneak up and attack you.
My bedroom is especially cold, probably around a balmy 60 degrees. I wear my warmest jacket all the time. I asked my host mom if they use a heater in the winter.
"Yes we do," she said, and I sighed with relief. Then she said, "I just haven't made the preparations yet."
I have no idea what she's talking about. Gather firewood from the mountainside, maybe? Put oil in the lamps? Hire workers for the boiler room? Set the hamster on it's wheel? Whatever these preparations are, I hope she does it soon!

Also, my host family is driving me crazy with their constant bickering. School has also loaded a whole lot of homework on us poor students at the same time, and I'm starting to fall asleep on the train regularly.

Good thing I have Engrish to cheer me up.

The Secret Policemen's Balls

2007-11-05T04:28:00.000-08:00

Yes, "The Secret Policemen's Balls"...today Spazzy Sensei was wearing a sweater that had that written on the front. I felt sorry for him, being completely ignorant of the fact that all his students were choking back laughter.

To anyone who doubted my report of the ridiculously high-tech Japanese toilets, I bring you rock-solid evidence!!

Our ONE break this semester, a five-day weekend, just finished. I went to Kyoto with people from Campus Crusade for Christ. We stayed in a hostel for missionaries, kind of an old dusty house. The first floor was full of interesting artifacts from the history of Christianity in Kyoto, including small bronze carvings of Jesus or Mary. Christianity was outlawed in Japan around 1600. Who was or wasn't a Christian was determined by commanding people to step on these little bronze pictures of Jesus. Anyone who refused to do it was crucified. The Japanese will carry to the extreme anything they put their mind to, and after martyring at least 15,000 men, women and children, Christianity was pretty much eradicated from Japan.
Seeing that only 0.8% of Japanese are Christian, it hasn't really recovered since. So there we were at a university in Kyoto, about twenty-five of us, off to start repairing the damage that was done four hundred years ago. We just broke up into partners, went up to various students and started talking to them, introducing the gospel. Everyone was very friendly. Many people here have not even heard of Jesus. Now one hundred more have.

The next day everyone went sightseeing in Kyoto and Arashiyama and had a picnic by the river. Despite being very crowded because it was the weekend, the scenery was very beautiful. What a relief after being in ugly, grey Nagoya these past two months.

It was a very touristy place, where you can pay to take a picture with a miko (like a geisha), buy cutesy souveniers and local treats, ride in rickshaws, and rent a rowboat. There were also a lot of women in beautiful kimonos walking around. Two friends and I rented a rowboat. I tried rowing for a while, and of course my two friends had to compliment my rowing skillz. The Japanese will compliment everything you do no matter what you're doing or how well you're doing it. Don't believe them. Lies, all lies.

A group of local elementary school children were also wandering around, approaching gaijin and asking questions. Their teacher asked me if the children could ask me questions in order to practice their English. So one by one these cute little kids, clutching notebooks in which they had written their questions, came up to me and shyly said hello. Though they spoke very carefully, their accents were pretty thick so I had trouble understanding them. The first question:
"Do you like Arashiyama Elementary School?"
"Uhhh....I don't know." I said. The little girl looked confused but wrote my answer in her book.
"Do you like cookies?" Another girl asked.
"I love cookies." I replied.
"What kind of sports do you like?" Asked a little boy.
"I like karate."
"Karate??" He exclaimed, then turning to his teacher said, "Is that a sport?"
"It's karate! Of course it's a sport!" She said. "And you call yourself Japanese." Afterwards everyone took a picture with me. Then they went on to find their next gaijin victim. Funnily enough the friend I was with at the time was from Singapore and English is her native language; but because she looked Asian she was not approached by the schoolchildren.

I was sad to leave Kyoto because I knew it signaled the return of classes and endless studying. I hope to visit Kyoto again, maybe buy a kimono.

I feel kind of dirty just by posting this, but it's just such a perfect example of how the Japanese need serious help. The box literally says "breast pudding."

"Abe suru"

2007-10-30T07:32:00.001-07:00

The prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, recently resigned after less than a year in office. His resignation came out of the blue, was ill-timed, badly announced and basically irritated the whole country. My host Dad told me that people are now using the verb "to pull an Abe," meaning to quit or give up something suddenly and without warning.

Only in Japan

2007-10-29T04:47:00.000-07:00

I witnessed all of this in a week, and it's only Tuesday! It finally hit me: I'm in Japan.

Only in Japan do people say things like, "San Jose? Hmm, isn't that near the Grand Canyon?"

Only in Japan do you see random people dancing in costumes and you don't know why.

Only in Japan do you hear this announcement at the train station: "Good afternoon customers. Because there was a suicide on the tracks today, the trains are extremely delayed. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Only in Japan do you walk into a room and hear someone exclaim, "Woah! She's not Japanese!"

Only in Japan do middle-aged men walk up to you and ask for your cell phone number so you can "teach them English." Riiiiight. English huh.

Only in Japan do you see a sign that says "Woody Happy" above a lumber yard.

And other Engrish:

Graduation hakamas

2007-10-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

At my university there is a big display for rental hakamas. When they graduate from college, Japanese girls wear beautiful hakamas, which are a type of kimono. I'm so jealous! That is SO much cooler than wearing a black bag and a square hat.

A class I look forward to

2007-10-25T04:58:00.000-07:00

The bright spot of my Mondays is shodo, calligraphy class. I love the way the ink smells and watching the teacher paint examples for us. When she writes the kanji, her brush glides over the paper like a dancer, applying more or less pressure where appropriate, lifting off smoothly, going around each curve perfectly. It's really something to see. After she finishes an example a groan of despair will rise up from all the students because it's just so darn perfect.
Trying to imitate the teacher's example can be frustrating, but I find that I can focus in calligraphy class like nowhere else. For an hour and a half my classmates and I write the same character over and over and over again and submit our best copy. Some people find it boring but the time flies by for me. The teacher doesn't even seem to mind if I listen to my iPod while writing. Since the teacher doesn't return the copies we submit, I take my second-best copies home and hang them on my bedroom wall. Even though they're not very good, my walls need some decorating. If you're interested...the earliest one is on the right and the latest one is on the left.

Because of calligraphy class, I actually prefer Mondays to Fridays. Pretty crazy, huh?

How Whiney Sees Things

2007-10-22T02:39:00.000-07:00

A conversation over dinner:

Host Mom: Today I drove to my friend's house.
Whiney: Why didn't you walk there?
Host Mom: I wasn't sure if it was safe to walk all that way. I was kind of scared.
Whiney: I'm not scared of anything.
Host Mom: Well, there are creepy people out there you know.
Whiney: You mean like grandma?

That's fascinating Kelley, no really, it is.

2007-10-20T03:21:00.000-07:00

Just to make my life a little more complicated, my university forced me to open a Japanese bank account. Today I walked to the nearest branch and attempted to withdraw money from it for the first time. I found to my despair that the ATM had no "English assistance" option, and I was staring at a touch screen with twelve buttons, each button with about six unknown kanji. I had no choice but to resort to pushing buttons at random. After about five minutes the machine finally spit out some money, although I suspect it was just trying to get me to leave.

On my way home I stopped by the 100-yen shop, the Japanese equivalent of a dollar store. Dollar stores in the US can be kind of ghetto, but the 100-yen shop is actually pretty interesting. You can buy washcloths, origami paper, toys, dishes, flower seeds, makeup and even food. I've been to the 100-yen shop several times because there's almost nothing else to do in my town, but today when I stepped through the door today I saw a brand-new display case of KNITTING SUPPLIES! Score!! I bought some yarn to make a scarf for my new Japanese friend. Then when I went home I realized that the yarn I bought was really ugly.

Yesterday my new Japanese friend Ayako and I were walking to a restaurant when we passed by a bridal shop. "Kelley, what color is your wedding dress going to be?" she asked.
"Um....white?" I said. I think I even said it in English because I was distracted by wondering how a purple wedding dress would look. I don't really remember. Ayako told me that sometimes in Japan women wear colorful wedding dresses, or sometimes a white wedding dress at the ceremony and a colorful one at the reception. That explains why I've seen bright yellow and orange dresses in the windows of bridal salons. I just thought they were prom dresses.

Do they have prom here?

Just Another Weekday

2007-10-15T21:16:00.000-07:00

Here`s what I do on a usual weekday.

I wake up around 6:45 am, re-set my alarm and sleep until 7, eat breakfast, get dressed, stuff my backpack with textbooks and homework and head out the door to catch an 8 oclock train.

Often the train is too crowded in the morning to do anything but stand and listen to my iPod. Or "human watch," as my host father calls it. But really, watching salarymen, office ladies, high school girls in short pleated skirts and old ladies in kimonos doze off in their seats gets old after a few weeks. And everybody dozes off, including me. I'm lucky I've never missed my station. Occasionally I also study and memorize kanji while riding the train. I have nearly an hour on it, after all.

After the long uphill walk to school I buy my lunch at the convenience store because it gets totally swarmed during the afternoon, and the line of students waiting to buy their lunches reaches out the door. Usually my lunch consists of two rice balls, tea, and a dessert. Then I go in the bathroom and try to make myself look presentable and less like I just walked up a hill to school wearing a heavy backpack and sweating like crazy.

Next I have a three or four 45-minute periods of Japanese language class/doodling session. This is very, very taxing on my attention span. By the time I get out of class I`m usually starving too. On most days I also have other classes after a lunch break. The professors who teach us Japanese have code names among the exchange students. Only one is known by her proper name, Yamada Sensei. The others are known as Blazer Sensei, Super Genki Sensei, and Spazzy Sensei.

Blazer Sensei got her name by wearing blazers and t-shirts about three sizes too big. Personally I also think of her as "The Claw" because her hands are often stretched into sort of a claw-like position. Yeah, we`re not too nice to poor Blazer Sensei. It`s `cause she`s so boring. But despite her mild-mannered appearance she can be truly scary if you stretch her patience too much. Anger not The Claw.

Super Genki Sensei got her name by being hyper and cheerful every. Single. Morning. I don't know how she does it. She is also the only professor with any sort of fashion sense.

Spazzy Sensei, less widely known as "Crack Sensei," is probably the least popular of the professors because he's so crazy. Seriously. He waves his arms around and wiggles his hands while he talks. Also, his face is like rubber and he is constantly constricting it into new and disturbing expressions. While you're attempting to speak a sentence in Japanese, he will mouth the words along with you while staring at you intensely and waving his arms. If you get a word wrong, his entire body spasms like you just twisted his arm behind his back. When class is over he bows so low that his forehead nearly touches the desk. He also has a habit of wiping the white chalk dust off his hands onto the back of his black pants. I just know he was a problem child once upon a time. Spazzy Sensei's craziness makes some classmates nervous, but I like him because you can't possibly fall asleep while he's teaching.

Yamada Sensei is spared a nickname because she's pretty normal. She also has the sweetest voice, and no matter what she's saying she sounds like she's reading a bedtime story. The only weird thing she does are these drawings she makes. In class we do drills this way: when the teacher holds up a drawing of, say, someone eating, we say taberu (to eat), changing the verb form to tabekatta, tabenakatta, tabetakunai, taberareru, taberarenai, whatever the lesson calls for. Yamada Sensei has a lot of drawings, but they look like she scribbled them out in five minutes before class. Sometimes she holds up a drawing and my classmates look at each other wondering what the heck is that supposed to be. It looks like an umbrella wearing a sock. There's one that looks like the guy from the "Scream" painting, and somehow we're supposed to figure out that this represents the noun "free time."

Sometimes after class I go exploring or shopping with friends or alone. I take my time returning home because there's pretty much nothing to do there. Once I do return home, I do homework, take a shower, eat dinner with my host family, play some video games, write blogs, and listen to the washer chime a happy little song when it's done with the laundry.

Autumn Festival

2007-10-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

Today my town had their Aki Matsuri, or Autumn Festival. My town in small and their festival is too, so it wasn't a really huge occasion, from what I could see. There were several groups of men, women and children wearing blue and red festival coats and pulling small shrines and floats on wheels around the town. They stopped at various spots around town chanting, beating wooden sticks, taiko drums, blowing whistles and waving banners. According to my host mom, at the end of the day everyone meets up at the local shrine and the children receive candy. Probably some small religious ceremony goes on as well but I don't know what. I took pictures while they were stopped, waiting to meet up with another group.
Here's one of the shrines:

I feel really white.

You cannot....resist.....the cuteness!!

I'm Famous

2007-10-10T15:59:00.000-07:00

Japanese fashion magazines have strange names. "With." "Vanilla." "Egg." "My Nail." (The last one is a magazine solely about doing your nails. Yes, it's truly scary.) But my favorite magazine name has to be this one:

...even though they spelled my name wrong. At least they got the L's right, though.

Why Dad Should Come to Japan

2007-10-09T04:58:00.000-07:00

That's why.
Makes a great desktop wallpaper.

Love Hotels and Ii Naosuke's Castle

2007-10-08T15:57:00.001-07:00

On Sunday a Japanese friend, Saki, took two other American exchange students and myself out to Hikone Castle. It was an hour and a half drive, but everyone had so much to talk about that it went by quickly. On the way there we passed some strange-looking buildings.
Me: What is that?
Saki: That's a hotel for...um...a very specific purpose...
Me: Oh my gosh, is that a love hotel??! I need pictures!!
"Love Hotels" are a Japanese phenomenon (at least as far as I know) where you rent rooms by the hour. One of my goals when going to Japan was to get a picture of at least one. Be sure to read the signs on the one with the palm trees.

You've probably seen enough pictures of castles from me, so I'll spare you any more. Hikone castle was beautiful, but since it was the castle's 400-year anniversary, it was super super crowded. I enjoyed the old garden much more. It was really beautiful and peaceful. If I could buy it and live there forever, I would.

Notice the castle in the background!

I'm happy with the way this picture came out:

There was a ferry on the castle moat, and this amazing leafy swamp was behind the castle garden.

It was a really fun day, mostly because the people I went with were totally awesome. I pretty much live for the weekend here.

Maybe I should have chosen the dormitory?

2007-10-06T04:02:00.000-07:00

This evening some fellow exchange students, who are with a different program than I am, got to see Aida in Nagoya. I am so jealous.

Another lovely family dinner.
I don't know why, but Host Mom was in a really bad mood. She was scolding her sons right and left in that growly voice she uses when she's really angry.
Whiney and Origami Boy, on the other hand, were in very high spirits and found everything hysterically funny. I don't know why. Even the head slaps they received couldn't stop the giggling.
Host Dad was trying his very hardest not to laugh at whatever the boys were laughing at.
When Host Mom is really upset, she seems to find things to scold her family for. And when she scolds people, she talks super fast so I have no idea what was said, although it's not hard to guess. This was the only part of the dinner conversation I understood:
Host Mom: Papa, why do you eat so quickly? Everyone else is eating slowly and you're finished before all of us.
Whiney: Yeah Dad, you eat like a shinkansen! (a bullet train)
As dinner progressed Origami Boy and Whiney's snickering was sending corn kernels across their plates and milk up their nose. And every time another potsticker fell to peices from their grinning mouths, to them it was so much the funnier. Host Dad, still trying not to laugh, cleaned off his plate and went outside to work on the car. I could tell that Host Mom was about to snap. Finally Whiney's hysterical laughing with his mouth full of half-eaten rice did the trick, and she grabbed him and dragged him literally kicking and screaming through the house, shoved him outside and locked the door. She turned to see me and Origami Boy watching with astonishment.
"Sorry about that Kelley," she said. "His manners were so rude."
I wonder if she wouldn't have reactly so harshly if I hadn't been there to make his bad manners more embarrassing.
Origami Boy was about to head towards the front door when his mom snapped,
"Don't even THINK about going outside!" She said it so fiercely that Origami Boy actually jumped and backed off. Later they had a hard time getting Whiney to come back in the house because he knew his Mom was going to slap him, which she did.

How was your evening?

Japanese is hard.

2007-10-02T04:53:00.000-07:00

I'm having a difficult time understanding ageru, kureru, and morau. I learned these two years ago, or at least I thought I did. Then I came here and all my classes have been messing with my brain.

Ageru means "to give." You can only use it when you are giving something to someone else, or when a third party is giving something to another third party who is not within your "inner circle." Also, you can't use this word in question sentences, except for when you can.

Kureru means "to receive." Kureru can also be used as a substitute for ageru if needed. According to a website: "kureru is restricted to sentences in which the subject is anyone except the speaker (I), and the receiver is the speaker (I) or a person of the speaker’s in-group (family members, colleagues)." From my textbook: "Kureru is possible only in limited contexts in which you think you yourself have benefited because somebody very close to you has received something." That clears things up doesn't it.

Morau also means "to receive" or "to be given." The textbook elaborates, "it is basically interchangable with kureru except that it 'implies that you identify yourself more closely with the recipient than with the giver. Thus it is wrong to use morau if you receive from me.'" It also cannot be used regarding presents received from Santa, while swimming, or if the speaker is a sock puppet and its in-group consists of other sock puppets.

I've spent way too much time on this blog. I should be studying.

Just another evening

2007-10-01T03:07:00.000-07:00

Host Mom: Origami boy, hurry up and get out of the bathroom. Whiney needs to go.
Origami boy: (from the bathroom) Ok, ok.

*30 seconds later*

Whiney: Need to gooooo!
Host Mom: Origami boy, hurry!
Origami Boy: I'm hurrying!
Host Mom: What's taking you so long? I told you not to read books in the bathroom!
Origami Boy: I don't have any books!
Whiney: Need to goooo!

At this point, for reasons unknown to myself, Whiney stripped off all his clothes and started dancing around the room naked.

Whiney: GAAHH!
Host Mom: ORIGAMI BOY! GET OUT OF THERE!
Origami Boy: I'm coming!!
Whiney: UHN! UHN!

Meanwhile I spotted a very large mosquito flying around the room. Using a technique I learned by observing my host brothers, I killed it by clapping it between my hands. Just then origami Boy finally emerged from the bathroom and Whiney was about to make a run for it.

Me: Wait! Whiney, look at this! I learned from you. Pretty big, isn't it?

I showed them the smeared remains on my palm, and for a moment everyone dropped what they were doing and peered into my hand. Host Mom stopped washing the dishes, Origami Boy stopped standing around looking bewildered, and Whiney stopped dancing while holding his crotch. I got a smile out of all of them. And yes, Whiney made it to the bathroom in time.

I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from this.

Bonus Footage

2007-09-29T17:25:00.000-07:00

I think it's time for some pictures and videos!
Colleen, here is the goth shop I mentioned:

This is a shop called "Baby the Stars Shine Bright." They sell "lolita" style clothing, which is basically dressing up like a porcelain doll, with a poofy dress, lacy stockings, a bonnet, the works. Everything with lots of lace and bows. I've wanted to see this shop for a long time, so I was really happy when I found it in Nagoya! I would totally buy one and use it as a Halloween costume, but they're too expensive. Unfortunately the employees (who were just so cute in their little dresses) told me I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside the shop, so this blurry photo will have to do!

Lunch at my favorite bakery:

Soft-serve ice cream cones you can buy at the store and keep in your freezer for later! Why doesn't America have these??

The Nagoya station on a weekend!

Crazy Questions

2007-09-29T02:56:00.001-07:00

American exchange students get a lot of funny questions from Japanese people. Examples friends and I have been asked:
"Do you eat vegetables in America?"
"Does everyone in America own guns?"
"Do you eat rice in America?"
"Do you have kaleidoscopes in America?"
Japan is pretty isolated, and although they're intelligent and well educated, Japanese people can be very ignorant about life in foreign countries. I told Origami Boy that we don't have snow in California (at least not in my town) and he asked if we have winter at all.
My host mom said, "I heard there's a Mexican exchange student at your university." I confirmed that there was, his name was Jose. "What are Mexicans like?" My host mom asked. "Are they interesting people? Is their skin kind of dark?" Not questions you ever hear in California.
The first day I had dinner with my host family, they saw me using chopsticks with my left hand. "Are most Americans left-handed?" They asked.
I'm starting to get used to this nativete, so these questions are amusing but no longer surprising. But the other day a Japanese really threw me for a loop.
On certain Sundays my church serves lunch after the service, so I was eating and chatting with people, once again using chopsticks with my left hand.
"Oh! You're left handed!" Said the pastor. A guy sitting next to me replied,
"Everyone in the southern hemisphere is left handed."

Say what?

I didn't even know where to begin with that one. Everyone? Southern Hemisphere??? Left handed? Unsfs90u3nf? Seriously, I mean seriously...America isn't even in the...everyone...illogical. Illogical. Norman coordinate. Does not compute.

Then the guy smiled at me and said, "Just kidding."

I think this country is actually trying to confuse me.

Culture Slap

2007-09-28T03:09:00.000-07:00

Whiney and Origami Boy are not very well behaved. And that's not just from my American point of view, their parents have readily admitted it, somewhat apologetically.
Whiney, as you might guess, is the biggest crybaby I've ever seen. I don't care if he's only six years old. He cries when he doesn't get what he wants, when he gets what he doesn't want, when he's tired or even when people disagree with him. He's the master of the fake "I'm trying my very hardest to put up a convincing cry" cry. Hence the name.
Origami Boy doesn't cry, but he's still not very well behaved or respectful to his parents. Occasionally he seems to enjoy making life miserable for Whiney, such as kicking him under the table or stealing his food, which of course Whiney uses as an excuse to cry.
For all their irritating behavior and their parents awareness of it, I haven't seen either my host mom or dad ever punish their sons or take away a privilege. They don't even threaten to do so; they just scold them. Stop it, you're making a mess. Stop it, you're being so noisy. But of course, the sons don't really care. They get scolded so much they're probably used to it. "So what if it makes Mom mad, as long as I get another 10 minutes of Saturday morning anime?" This causes my host Mom or Dad to repeat the command, using a louder and more threatening and ugly voice. So the routine goes, several times a day:
"Whiney, turn the TV off and get in the bathtub. Whiney, TV. Off. Get in the tub! Whiney, did you not hear me? I said get in the tub! Listen to your mother! BATHTUB! NOW! WHINEY. GET IN! GET IN THE TUB THIS VERY INSTANT!" And so on and so forth until Whiney decides that he's ready to turn off the TV and get in the bathtub in his own sweet time. Combined with Whiney's whining, it's a lovely sound to wake up to in the morning.
I said that I've never seen the children punished. That's not entirely true. When one of the boys is being particularly rebellious, the parents will actually slap them on the head remarkably hard. Unlike most Americans these days, I'm not against the idea of spanking. But this head slapping makes my jaw hit the floor every time. I have never seen anyone hit a child so hard before. It's not that my host parents are physically abusive; I think head smacking is actually normal in Japanese culture, although used as a last resort. A quick Google search revealed that I am not the only visitor to Japan to have seen or be astonished by this behavior.
They don't tell you about this kind of stuff in the study abroad brochures.

Everything is Illuminated

2007-09-26T03:41:00.000-07:00

Today I went on a school field trip to Nagoya Castle. It was really amazing, and I think that monotonous classes and long train rides help me appreciate doing fun stuff like this. If I was here as a tourist and was seeing the local sights all the time, I imagine they'd all start to look the same after a while.
The center keep in the picture below was actually burned down during the bombing in WWII. (Remember: wood and paper.) This is a reconstruction and the inside is like a museum, containing artifacts, photographs, models, and the like. The stone foundation, however, is the original. Notice the golden fish statues on the top of the roof. Those are very famous and are a symbol of Nagoya. In souvenier shops you can buy golden fish keychains, washcloths, air fresheners, purses, everything. I've even seen pastries made to look like these fish.

This was one of the exhibits inside the castle, showing how the huge stone foundations were built: by guys in loincloths.

During WWII the area around this castle was used as a district army headquarters. These small corner towers survived the bombing. Here's one of them with the old moat. If someone had visited the castle during WWII, I think this view might have been the same.

This evening my host mom said something really odd. Origami boy was whistling in the kitchen before dinner.
"Origami boy, stop that. It's evening." Host mom said.
"...what?" I said.
"Don't you know?" She replied. "Do you not have this saying in America too? Whistling at night attracts snakes."

...what?

Has anyone else heard this saying before?

Masagi

2007-09-25T00:25:00.000-07:00

Tonight my host family and I all went out to dinner, and I am happy to say that it was much, much more enjoyable than the last dinner I wrote about, partially due to some clever jokes made by yours truly. Yes, yes, I'm amazing, I know.
Everyone seemed to be in a good mood. Even Whiney (the name I have secretly given to my youngest host brother) was well-behaved. I got a good laugh out of my host family by telling them about the random guy who hit on me at the station. He used the classic Japanese pick up line, "How about some tea?" I brushed him off with something like, "sorry, I'm busy, excuse me..." My host Dad said I was far too polite and next time to just tell the guy to get the **** away from me.
Whiney's older brother, the 8-year-old, entertained himself by making animal-shaped chopstick rests out of the chopstick wrappers. Yes, you read that right. Animal-shaped chopstick rests. A-like so:

My host mom said that he made up these designs all by himself.
"No way!" I said. "Here's my wrapper, can you make me a rabbit?" That kept him busy for quite a while. In the end he came up with this little creation, which I dubbed a "Masagi," which is a combination of his name and "usagi," which means "rabbit.

Sure, it doesn't look much like a rabbit, but not too bad for an 8-year-old coming up with something on the spot, right? From here on he shall now be referred to as Origami Boy.

The joys of living in a foreign country

2007-09-24T02:37:00.001-07:00

Today there was a long line leading to the girls' bathroom at school. When I got to the front of the line, a stall became vacant, but to my despair it contained a Japanese-style toilet. And I don't mean a toilet with a lot of mysterious buttons, I mean this:

Why do they have these? From what I've heard, some Japanese regard sitting on the same toilet seat someone else has used as dirty and gross. In my opinion, kneeing on the bathroom floor is even grosser, so up to this point I have avoided these asian toilets successfully. But today a lot of girls were behind me waiting, so I decided that I didn't have time to wait for a stall with a Western-style toilet to open up. Thus was my first attempt at using a Japanese-style toilet. I knew that using it involved squatting but I wasn't sure exactly how, so...believe me you don't want any further details. Lets just say it was a pretty unpleasant experience, and I hope I never have to try it again.
They don't tell you about this kind of thing on the study abroad brochures.

Dinner, dishes, and Dads

2007-09-22T05:05:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had a very uncomfortable family dinner. My host mom had had a busy evening driving the boys to and from karate class, and they were being very troublesome about taking a bath. So she didn't have dinner ready until pretty late in the evening. My host Dad, who as far as I had seen had not lifted a finger to help, was not happy about this.
"Geez, it's already 8:30!" He whined. "It's so late, what have you been doing? Kelley, you must be starving, aren't you?"
Woah, mister. Don't bring me into this.
"She must be very busy," I tried to say tactfully.
"It's 8:30 already!" He continued.
"Shut up." My host mom said quietly.
"You said it would be ready by-"
"Shut up."
At dinner no one made any conversation. Just to be mean, the older host brother stole some food from the younger one, who started to cry, and I could see my host mom seething in her chair. When my host dad finished he left without a "gochisosama," ("thank you for the food") which is quite rude in Japanese culture. My host mom started snapping at her sons who were making a mess with their food. And of course, everyone left their dishes for her to clean up afterwards. As usual I offered to help with the washing, and as usual she insisted that it was not necessary. Tonight I felt really bad for her so I tried a little harder though.
"In America, the person who cooks and the person who washes the dishes are never the same person." I said.
"Really?" said my host mom. "Japanese men never do the washing. Since long, long ago, they have never done it."

I miss my daddy, who brings my mom flowers just because, cooks nice dinners when she's not feeling well, and never lets her do the dishes.

Can't blend in

2007-09-20T02:34:00.000-07:00

I had heard that foreigners often get stared at by Japanese people, so when I came to Japan I was prepared for that. At first I was almost disappointed that so few people seemed to notice me. In Nagoya, being the center of Japan's auto industry, I think there are relatively a lot of foreigners, especially in the area around my university. In my host family's town, which is in the country, (sorta) staring occurs more often though.
The majority of starers are little kids, so I don't mind. Besides, the great thing about little kids is that if you stare back at them, they don't get embarrassed and quickly look away. They just keep staring.
Old men also stare sometimes. One guy at the train station saw me, and his jaw dropped to the floor and his eyes got big and he stood frozen like that, quite unabashedly. About 30 seconds later I looked behind again and he was still in the exact same position. Godzilla could have just bought a ticket and boarded the train and his expression would have been the same. I imitated this for my host family at the dinner table and they said I looked like a Tom and Jerry cartoon.
Yesterday I was walking past a group of elementary schoolers who, like me, were on their way home from school. The boys were looking at me and giggling amongst each other when the bravest one shouted out to me, "haro!" which is the Japanese attempt at "hello." The funny thing was is that he rolled his "r" dramatically, as if speaking Italian, so it was more like "harrrrrro!"
This evening I went for a walk around my neighborhood. Two elderly ladies stopped me and started a little conversation, asking if I was from America and such. "You're very beautiful," they kept repeating. "Such white skin!" Yes, pale skin is preferred to tan skin here. Did I go to the right country or what?
Today I was talking to a fellow exchange student who is African-American and has a small mohawk. He says that when he boards the train here little kids freak out. He also said that he always tries to be really nice to the little kids so that when the next election comes around, they'll vote for him and he'll become the first foreign-born Japanese emperor.

Tips for Colleen

2007-09-18T23:32:00.000-07:00

My friend Colleen will be studying abroad in Tokyo soon. I thought I would give her some tips and let you guys read them too, to get an idea of the stuff I encounter during my life here:

1. Carry a small washcloth with you. The public bathrooms don't have paper towels or hand dryers; everyone carries their own personal washcloth.

2. It rains a lot here, so bring a foldable umbrella and practical pants.

3. At the train station, on the edge of the platform are markings where the train doors will open. People line up behind these markings while waiting for the train. It's rude to cut in front of the line, so be careful where you stand.

4. Convenience stores and supermarkets have inexpensive and tasty food, good for lunches. You will learn to love them.

5. 7-11 stores are everywhere, and they have international ATMs where you can use your American ATM card. (Probably. It doesn't work for everyone, but I use it.) It charges your card $5 per transaction.

6. Bring cash. Credit cards are not used as widely as they are in the US, so don't rely on being able to use yours at a store or restaurant.

7. People may refer to you as "gaijin-san," but this is not meant offensively.

8. In restaurants, sometimes a warm, moist towlette will be brought to you before your meal. This is to clean your hands with before you eat.

9. I haven't seen many 3-prong outlets here, so bring a converter if you need one.

10. When paying for something at a store or restaurant, usually there will be a small tray on the counter or fixed to the register. You put your cash in the tray, and the cashier will take it from the tray. I don't know why. That's just the way it is. Before I knew this, at a store I handed my cash directly to the cashier. She took it from me, placed it in the tray, and then took it from the tray. It's serious business.

Just stuff

2007-09-18T01:20:00.000-07:00

Japan is NOT living up to its reputation for being the world headquarters for the latest technology.
The computers for student use at my campus are like dinosaurs making their way up a river of caramel. Old and slow. Also, in order to obtain a school email address, we had to load a program onto a floppy disk. A floppy disk? Old school! Today we had an orientation for using the school network on our personal laptops. It took them nearly an hour to explain it to us, and we had to change a million settings on our computer as well as install a new program. Did I mention that it's not wireless? There is no wireless network on campus. Oh, and we're not allowed to use Skype at school. In fact, we're not supposed to use the school network for anything other than "education and research purposes." As if.
Good grief. Back at the good 'ol Silicon Valley we just signed up for a user name and password, then had wireless internet anywhere on campus.
Current score: America, 1. Japan, 0.

I did learn a new haiku in class though:

akaishinboo
minna de watareba
kowakunai.

Translation:

It's a red light
If we all walk together
We are not afraid.

K for Kimono

2007-09-15T05:27:00.001-07:00

Awww, look at me enjoying my green tea ice cream. I'm so cute.

My host mom was surprised when she heard that my plans for the day were to go shopping with friends in the neighboring town, which is not a particularly interesting or touristy place. What she doesn't realize is that to my fellow exchange students and I, everything is interesting. The local 100-yen shop will keep our attention just as long as a castle. So off to the little shopping center we went, and spent the day there examining the interesting products Japan has to offer, taking pictures of almost everything and pointing out funny Engrish to each other. Here's one of the streets we walked on.

I found my way into a kimono shop and was drooling over the gorgeous silk kimonos hanging up on display. One of the shop attendants, a very tall young man dressed in traditional Japanese clothing, started up a conversation with me. Another shop attendant, a middle-aged woman, came over and suggested/commanded that I try on a kimono.
"What color would look good on her?" She asked the young man.
"Pink." He decided.
They found a beautiful pink kimono and white obi and the woman dressed me up in it, tying an elaborate bow in the back with expert moves. A couple other customers were watching her do it and smiling with approval. Boy were my friends surprised when they wandered into the kimono shop and saw me there all dressed up.

I know exactly what you're thinking: "Kelley looks so amazing in that kimono, I want to buy it for her for Christmas." Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much the kimono was, (and didn't want to ask, lest the shop attendants think I intended to buy it), but it was probably about $500, and the obi about $300. Sigh. They had polyester kimonos for a good price, but they weren't quite as gorgeous as this one.

On the way home we spotted this oddity. If you didn't know, Japanese vending machines sell beer and cigarettes. This decrepit, rusty vending machine apparently sells kegs of beer. Yes, it's a beer keg vending machine. Do they not worry about underage drinking here?

It was a great day for Engrish hunting, too.

Mmm, I smell curry cooking for dinner!

Pictures and words

2007-09-12T05:45:00.000-07:00

Today I was sitting in the lobby of a campus building when two Japanese students walked up and started a conversation with me. At first I was suspicious: they must be trying to get me to sign up for something. And although I found out later that they were part of an international coffee night thing, they never tried to pitch it to me as I was expecting. They just wanted to meet foreign students. I enjoyed talking with them very much, as they spoke in short easy sentences but didn't baby-talk me like my host father tends to do. We went to the supermarket and got lunch together. If speech is kept simple and said at a fairly slow pace, I'm able to talk in Japanese fairly well. There was one time where a Japanese girl was asking me if I had ever taken the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) test. "TOEFL" is kind of a difficult word to pronounce for a Japanese speaker, so when the girl said it I thought she said "tofu." So we had this awkward conversation in Japanese:
Japanese girl: Have you ever taken the TOEFL?
Me: Oh yes, I ate it.
Japanese girl: ....you ate it?
Me: I...um...I have eaten it.
Japanese girl: You ate the TOEFL?
Me: Um...er...it was eaten by me?
It took a fellow exchange student to sort out the miscommunication. It was kind of embarrassing.

I have more pictures!!!
Here's one of the policemen on a pedestal I was talking about earlier. Sorry it's a bad picture- I was trying to take it without drawing attention.

My mom made okonamiyaki for dinner! It was delicious!

Safety Training Day

2007-09-10T02:22:00.000-07:00

My day was pretty dull, except for the part where a Japanese policeman was wrenching my arm behind my back and walking me around that way.

...maybe I should explain.

Whoever invented the idea of school orientations should be shot. The last week of orientations at my college have been wrenchingly slow, repetitive, and full of the obvious. In other words, a typical orientation. Today we registered for classes then had a three hour break until the next segment of orientation. I spent the break with two new friends of mine, fellow exchange students from America. Over lunch we discussed how much we miss macaroni and cheese, mexican food, Reese's Pieces, and how we might obtain a turkey for Thanksgiving. Nicole bought french fries and we drooled over them together. "It tastes like home," someone said.
I was pessimistic about the safety portion of our orientation. Japan has a lot of earthquakes. Okay, I got it. The fact that Japan has 10% of the world's earthquakes was repeated to us so much that I began to think that the Japanese were proud of it.
Somewhat mystifying was the way the orientation leaders seemed determined to dispel the very common myth that Japan is a safe place. "You may have heard that Japan is a very safe country," they would say. "It isn't. The number of crimes has been steadily increasing in recent years." This would be followed by plenty of helpful instructions such as don't walk down secluded alleyways alone, don't walk alone at night, and if you see a suspicious person, run away. Then this would be finished with "Welcome to Nanzan University." (How Japan's crime rate compares to the U.S., I don't know, but I really doubt that it's more dangerous than the US. So relax, Mom.)
Things got interesting when an earthquake simulator was brought out for all the study abroad students. You know, just in case you don't know what an earthquake feels like, they have this handy simulator so that if an earthquake does occur you won't be running around screaming "WHAT IS THIS? MY WORLD IS UPSIDE DOWN!!" It was basically a three-walled box on the bed of a special truck. Inside was a table and four chairs. You sit in the chairs and the box is shaken to the point of a 7 magnitude earthquake. It was funny when in one group of four a guy called out, "Oh my gosh- guys, it's an earthquake!! Get under the table! UNDER THE TABLE!!" and threw himself beneath it.
Next was the self-defense seminar. Some policemen came in and repeated all the don't-be-stupid warnings in Japanese, which were then translated into English by a somewhat inept interpreter who would say things like "we want you to move so or you feel pain." A larger policeman (who looked kinda like Uncle Paul) started demonstating some self-defense moves on a smaller policeman, often pinning him to the ground with painful-looking arm wrenches, hilarity ensuing. Then we each grabbed a partner and practiced some of the moves on each other. My partner, Nicole, was kind of a dainty girl who wasn't very enthusiastic about practicing the moves. The police officers were walking around the room helping everyone, and that's when the large one came over and showed Nicole how to properly twist my arm behind my back. "I-i-i-i-i-itai itai itai itai!" I'm sure he was careful to use only a tiny fraction of his power, but it was enough to walk me around the room with. My shoulder was sore for a little while afterwards too.
So that was my day.

Sunday

2007-09-09T15:48:00.000-07:00

"What are your plans for today, Kelley?" Host mom asked on Sunday.
"Actually I'm going to church this morning." I said.
"Oh really? YOu found a church? Are you sure it's not a wedding chapel?" She laughed.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure." I said. I was a little hesitant to go all by myself to an unknown church, but (with a little encouragement from Jasson) I went anyway. It was a short train ride from my home.
Needless to say, at the entrance the two greeters were pretty surprised to see me. I suppose it's not every day a girl with curly hair and a nose the size of Mt. Fuji arrives at the church door. "Is this your first time? Do you have friends here or did you come alone? Your Japanese is really good, where are you from? America?? TWO WEEKS AGO?? Sugoiiiiiii desu neee!"
I had arrived at the church a little late, and was seated in the middle of worship. Boy did I feel like a gaijin. There were about sixty or seventy people there, almost everyone Japanese. A cute little boy, about three years old, would stand in front of me and just stare at me with a smile.
The church was small but nice, with a cross at the front, a small stage, a pulpit and a little stained glass window above the cross. The worship band consisted of two singers, a guitarist, a pianist and a drummer. The lyrics were projected with PowerPoint, and since they were mostly in hiragana I was able to sing along even though I didn't understand what I was saying.
I was very happy to hear that the songs sounded very similar to the ones we sing at home. People sang surprisingly loudly (all that karaoke practice, I guess) and a few people raised their hands slightly. We also sang the Japanese version of this song:
Lord I give You my heart,
I give You my soul,
I live for You alone.
Every breath that I take,
Every moment I'm awake,
Lord have Your way in me.
Later we also sung some more traditional hymns. After worship people greeted each other (lots of "konnichiwa" all around), and then the pastor gave a message. Though it seemed very interesting, his sermon was a little too difficult for me to understand, so I occupied myself with trying to locate the Japanese Bible verses on the screen in my English Bible. If I remember my Shogun movies correctly, Christianity was first brought to Japan by the Portugese. Thus the Japanese word for "Jesus" is not, as you might guess, "Jiizasu" but "Iesu." The books of the Bible also have Portugese names, and I was pretty proud of myself for figuring out that the Japanese spelling of "Johannes" meant "John" and "Petros" meant "Peter." Go me!
After church quite a few people seemed eager to meet me, including the pastor, and I had to go through the "nihongo ga ojouzu desu ne/iie, mada mada desu" routine several times. Several people had been to the US before, and one had been a visiting professor at Chico State, of all places. One fellow gaijin walked up to me and said "hi!" in an Australian accent. He teaches English and runs Bible studies in Japan. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming. Next everyone had lunch together in the church. After watching me attempt to do as the Japanese do and eat my hamburger patty with chopsticks, someone brought me a fork. Not go me. I had a really good time and will probably go again, being sure to bring a dictionary next time.

Homemade mochi

2007-09-08T05:40:00.000-07:00

My host grandparents are pretty awesome. They live on the other side of town. They have a really big garden -or a really small farm, whichever you want to call it- where they grow vegetables. Because of that, my family gets to eat fresh watermelon, cucumbers, figs and melons every day. I believe they also sell some of the produce at a roadside stand. This evening we went to the grandparents' house for dinner. The grandmother was cooking up some fresh mochi in a mochi-making machine.
If you don't know what mochi is, or think it's a kind of ice cream, let me explain. Mochi is the gooey outer coating you find on mochi ice cream. It's basically white rice cooked until it's soft, then ground up and steamed into an elastic white dough. I've had it before from Japanese grocery stores, but it was soooo much better fresh. We ate it with azuki beans, soy sauce,peanut powder stuff, or ground daikon radish on top. As the grandmother was making mochi, I saw her chopping up a very, very, purple root.
Me: Wow, that is definitely purple.
Grandma: This is a sweet potato.
Me: Really?
Grandma: Yes! Do you have sweet potatoes in America?
Me: Yes, but not that color.
Grandma: Sou desu neeee. (can't be translated)
She kept asking me a lot of funny questions like that, whenever different topics came up. "Do you have cucumbers in America?" "Do you have convenience stores in America?" "Do you have Saran Wrap in America?" Anyway, she took the purple potato and mixed it into the next batch of mochi, so the mochi turned a beautiful shade of purple. And you know how much I love purple.
After dinner the grandma took me on a walk around the neighborhood and showed me the local buildings. The grandfather also taught me how to play some board games. And they kept trying to get me to eat more food, which is exactly what my American grandparents do. "Eat, eat, there's plenty of food! Are you sure you're full? There's more food you know." Maybe someday when I'm a grandparent I'll understand this.
Before I left the grandmother gave me some little hashi oke, chopstick rests, made of Italian glass. I would like to give them a present as well, but none of the souvenirs I brought from America are nice enough. I think I'll draw them a picture.
Today, as usual, was extremely hot. Our house has no air conditioning, so I'm getting used to feeling sweaty all the time. So I was sitting there, feeling sweaty and fanning myself with a paper fan when all of a sudden it started to rain outside. Within about a minute, BOOM, it was furiously pouring outside, with thunder to boot. It was crazy raining. Looking out my window I saw a few pitiful souls who had been caught walking or biking. About five minutes later all the rain went away, and left the evening cool and dry. So I am in a very good mood this evening.

Thanks everyone for reading my "bloggings of Japan" and leaving nice comments.

Engrish fest!

2007-09-05T04:13:00.000-07:00

Here's dinner, which my host mom made. We have egg tofu, miso soup, and an omlette over fried rice. The ketchup spells out "Ke," which are of course the first two letters of my name! How cute is my host mom??

Last night was sooo hot. In America I was used to the cool sea breeze coming in the evening. But here we're not so lucky. The days are hot, and the nights remain hot. Last night was particularly bad so it was difficult to sleep. Eventually I went into the bathroom, wiped cold water all over my body and went to bed without drying myself off. It helped. Right now it's raining, so if I need to cool off I guess I can just step outside for a bit. Thank goodness my host mom is letting me borrow the electric fan for my room tonight. I heard that we're going to have a typhoon tomorrow! As extreme as that sounds, nobody seems very concerned about it. How awesome to be able to say that I've been through a typhoon.

Boy do I have some great Engrish for you guys today. Really outstanding.

Inuyama Castle

2007-09-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my host mom was kind enough to take me to Inuyama castle. It was pretty small, but still beautiful. Of course we had to take off our shoes before we went inside. What surprised me were the very, very steep stair cases which were a little scary to walk up and down. My little host brother actually refused to walk up them. It would seem to me that having such steep stairs would make getting around the castle in a kimono or samurai suit very difficult. From the top level there was a great panoramic view.

While looking at the view, I saw this little chapel. You can see it in the picture below, to my right side. "Oh look!" I said to my host mom. "A Christian church!" "Huh? Where?" She said. Then she laughed, "Oh no, that's not a church. That's a wedding chapel. Most Japanese aren't Christians but they like the western church weddings. See, it's right next to that hotel. The ceremony is in the chapel and the reception in the hotel."

The castle was built on a very steep hill with the river at it's back- a very strategic position, no? But I still saw a very big flaw: the castle, like all old Japanese buildings, was made of wood and paper.
Wood.
And paper.
To me it seems like all you would need to defeat the mighty castle would be a ninja with a lighter. It's amazing it's survived as long as it has.
Later that day my host mom asked me to wait in the car while they picked up something at their grandparents' house really quick. I ended up waiting in the car for a good while. When they finally came back, my host mom said, "Sorry to keep you waiting, Kelley! There were a lot of mosquitoes!"
I sat there wondering how mosquitoes could have possibly hindered their return to the car. Maybe huge godzilla-size mosquitoes, or sudden swarms of mosquitoes sucked the blood out of their legs so they were unable to walk for several minutes. Most likely it was the innate Japanese impulse to drop everything in order to hunt down and kill every mosquito in sight. After looking at the puffy little mosquito bites on my legs, I guess it's not such a bad thing. Apparently it's pretty time-consuming, though.

Meeting the In-laws

2007-09-01T02:01:00.000-07:00

Today I met the in-laws...not mine, of course. Today we went to grandma and grandpa's house. They were, of course, very nice and asked me a lot of questions about California. They got out an atlas and asked me to show them where I live, etc. We also had this interesting conversation as we sat around a coffee table eating cake:
Aunt: Kelley, do you like sweets?
Me: I love them! (a huge understatement.)
G'ma: But you're slim!
Host Mom: We've had 5 other exchange students, girls, stay at our house.
Aunt: They were all fat.
Me: Were they Americans?
Host Mom: Yep.
Me: Of course they were.
I was watching the grandfather play with my little host brothers and remembered something my Dad said: that not too long ago this grandfather and my grandfather would have been pointing bayonets at each other. War sucks.
We went out for sushi for lunch. Raw squid was offered to me, and I couldn't turn it down without being rude. It tasted pretty much the way it looked: like eraser covered in fish slime. I've been learning to appreciate the taste of whatever is offered to me without thinking about what it might be made of. Sometimes it's better not to know. But on the other hand, we also went to a pastry shop, and I could have eagerly gobbled down everything in the store. They make the cutest little cakes here.
Around the corner from my house is an awesome little shrine. It's so quiet and peaceful, I think I'll go there whenever I need a breather.

In the back was an old cemetery. It was so crowded. A Japanese just can't get a break, I guess. Someone put a pink lace cap on one of the statues.

Walking around my neighborhood, I noticed how modernity and tradition co-exist in Japan:

That's it for now.

My Host Family

2007-08-31T16:13:00.000-07:00

Today I met my host family. There is a father, mother, and two little boys, aged 8 and 6. The parents speak to me in short, simple sentences so I'm able to understand almost everything they say. The grandmother, who I met later, said to me, "watashi wa grandma desu!" But she talks so fast that that was pretty much the only thing I understood from her.
In a way, there is nothing remarkable about my host family. They are very kind, pleasant and patient with me, of course. The little boys treat me much as you would expect from little boys: a mixture of shyness and indifference. But hearing them call me "Kelley-chan" is really cute. One of the boys was bugging his mother for more money for video games, much as my little brother would. His mom rolled her eyes and put her fingers in her ears, much as my mom would. The father fell asleep on the train with his head tilted back and his mouth drooping open, much as my father would.
My university is in Nagoya but my host family lives in a small agricultural suburb about 30 minutes away. Host Mom warned me that Japanese houses are very small, but their house is really not bad at all. It is two stories, and while it isn't a strictly traditional Japanese house, there are Japanese influences to be seen. Most of the floors and walls are wooden and some of the windows have sliding wood-and-paper screens. The tables and beds are low to the floor. But otherwise the house looks pretty normal. It's cluttered with baby photos, VHS tapes, house plants, legos, airplane models, and origami dinosaurs.
I was surprised at how large my room is. It's much larger than my bedroom at home. I have a bed, desk, little couch, coffee table, and a dresser.
Japan has a reputation for being high-tech, but I didn't expect this to extend to the bathroom. I'm surprised at how complex the toilet and bathtub are. They have buttons. Buttons on the bathtub, shower and toilet. In my primitive American mindset, I think, "Why would you need buttons? How many options can there possibly be?" Today I tried to take a shower, but for the life of me I couldn't get any hot water to come out. My host mom told me that I needed to push a button first.
Host Mom is especially helpful. She seems to know a lot of English but only uses it if I get stuck on a Japanese word. She asked a lot of questions about what I like to eat and you are all going to be jealous when you hear what's on the menu for dinner tonight: sushi!

Department stores and Pure Engrish

2007-08-30T18:51:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I visited a "Depaato," which is Japanese for "Department Store." Going to a department store doesn't sound like a very interesting or touristy thing to do, but this is not your average Macy's. Japanese depaatos are of titanic proportions. The one I visited was 12 floors high. It was like a Safeway, Wallgreen's, Nordstroms, and Staples all stacked on top of each other. I went around exploring the grocery store on the bottom, the cute Japanese stationary on the 6th floor, the kimonos on the 10th floor, and other areas. There are restaurants on the top floor, too. There are lots of western brands here, like Gucci, Louis Viutton, Occtane de Provence, and of course Starbucks. The whole store was very crowded.

I noticed that people often hang their umbrellas on the handles of their bikes, obviously not concerned about them being stolen. Japan has a lower crime rate than the US, and petty theft is rare. Yesterday the reason why became clear to me. The Japanese place their policemen on a pedestal. Literally. In the train station you can see the occasional police man standing on a small blue platform labeled "POLICE." They stand there perfectly still, looking serious and authoritative, and holding a very big stick. Would you steal bikes with that guy around? I sure wouldn't. I'll try to get a picture of one of these policemen for you guys, but they look so intimidating I'm a little hesitant to go up to one and say, "hey, can I take a picture really fast?"

The breakfast buffet at my hotel has all the food and condiments labeled in Japanese and English. But the English is so bad that I wonder why they went through the trouble if they couldn't even be bothered to use a dictionary. The knives are labeled "naahu," the forks are "hooku," the soy sauce is "source," and the orange juice is "orenge juice." These are simply attempts to English-ify the Japanese borrowed words; for example, the Japanese word for "knife" is "naifu," which they then tried to translate into English as "naahu." This isn't English, it's English's twice-removed cousin. Pure Engrish. So I wrote down the correct spellings on a napkin and gave it to one of the cooks. I wonder if they'll do anything about it. Maybe they don't really care- do the forks really need a label anyway?

Robots, cone pizza, and shopping

2007-08-29T23:17:00.002-07:00

Today I went shopping in Japan.

Do you know how long I have wanted to be able to say that?

A long time.

I found a huge underground mall full of fun stuff. I love the clothes here. They have the cutest stuff for girls, but a lot of it is pricey, so all I bought was a pair of tall socks. I also found a lingerie shop named "Triumph International." I guess they take lingerie very seriously. Some of the bras had tags on them that said "For girls only"...I don't really want to think about that too much. There was also a kimono store, which I was stoked about.

I also went to the Robot Museum today. On the first floor they had robot-related activities for children. I stood off to the side and watched, mostly in confusion, until one of the employees got me to join in the activity. So before I really knew how it happened, I was standing in a group of tiny Japanese children and their moms as we watched a girl on a screen do a robot dance and tried to imitate her, hilarity ensuing. It was pretty ridiculous. Escaping to the second floor, I looked at an exhibit about the history of robots, beginning with the amazing little mechanical dolls Japan made in the 1700's. At the end of the exhibit there were a few robots to interact with. I went up to one that looked like a small R2-D2 with an anime-style face. I leaned close to it and said, "Konnichiwa!" To my surprise, the robot actually looked up at me, smiled, and said "hi!" There were also some cute little robot dogs that would wag their tails when you pet them, and baby seals that looked like stuffed animals but could move their heads and tails and make cooing noises. I've heard that they're supposed to be "therapeutic robots."

For lunch I went to "Kono Pizza," which is basically a pizza slice rolled up into a cone. Brilliant.

This is Nagoya TV Tower, which had a lovely park around it:

And I have nothing to say about these shoes:

I'm not lost, I just don't know where I am

2007-08-28T23:47:00.000-07:00

This morning I decided to go exploring around my area. I told myself that I wasn't going to go far so I wouldn't get lost. Well, I didn't go far, but I got lost anyway. After an hour wandering around while sweating to death in the stifling humidity I decided to ask for directions. I went into a post office and one of the employees very kindly got out a map of the city, drew me a little map and went over the directions with me until I could repeat them back to her. So I found my way back, FINALLY. During my wanderings I located two McDonald's, a Denny's and a 7-11. I also went inside a 3-story electronics superstore and played the Beautiful Katamari demo on a huge flatscreen. That was awesome.
In the afternoon the cleaning lady knocked on my hotel door and asked if she could have ten minutes to clean my room. While I was putting on my shoes she said,
"Oh, your teddy bear is soooo cute!"
"His name is Jasson." I said proudly.
"Cuuuuute!"
I don't have much to do these days. I'm waiting for my host family to pick me up this weekend.
Engrish of the day. I found this at the breakfast buffet in the hotel:

2007-08-28T02:13:00.000-07:00

I was so excited when I could see Japan out of the airplane window. Finally! I've been studying this country for years, now I'm finally here. I giggled and bounced up and down in my seat, to the amusement of the guy sitting next to me, who had been to Japan one too many times. When I came to the center of the Nagoya airport, I looked around at all the Japanese signs and Japanese people and just stood there and soaked it up, grinning.
But I knew today wasn't going to be a walk in the park. No sir, this was the first episode of Survivor: Japan, the first challenge being to get to my hotel. A lot of things could have gone wrong today, but the kindness of strangers got me through. First there was the taxi driver who used his personal cell phone to call my university and find out why there wasn't a taxi waiting for me like there should have been.
"You're an exchange student?" He said in English.
"Yes."
"You're so young. Two years ago my daughter studied in America." He smiled. After getting off the phone he informed me that I was going to have to take the train.
Crap.
I approached the monster that is the Japanese transportation system. Its red eyes gleamed at me. The hundred timetables and maps and signs I couldn't read closed in around me. We circled around each other slowly.
It is not fear that grips her.
Only a hightened sense of things.
Having no idea where to go, once again I asked strangers for help and as I stuttered in Japanese, they stuttered in English and we both pointed at trains a lot. Somehow I got the information I needed, and after an hour arrived at the correct station. As I stood in the middle of the station, wondering how I was going to get to my hotel from here, a young man approached me.
"Do you need help?" he said. I guess I must have looked pretty out-of-place.
"Yeah, actually. I'm trying to get to this address." The man told me that it was nearby, but much too far for me to walk with my heavy luggage. I was going to need a taxi, and they were right up the stairs.
"Thanks a bunch! By the way, your English is really good." I said, sincerely.
"It ought to be, I studied in Missouri for five years!" He said.
So to the taxis I go. The driver didn't speak English but, like everyone else I had met so far, was very friendly. He pointed out to me the new Toyota building, which is an insanely tall skyscraper. Toyota is located in this city. I arrived at my hotel about five minutes later. I paid the driver and he gave me change, counting each coin carefully and telling me how much it was worth.
My hotel room is clean and simple and about the size of an index card. But hey, it has air conditioning (it is SO humid here), a bathtub, internet access, and a very comfy bed. After barely sleeping on the plane and having so many adventures today, I'm just happy to have a place to sleep.
To anyone who has been praying for me: thank you so much. A million things could have easily gone wrong today, but they didn't. I believe that your prayers are what made today go so smoothly. God is taking good care of me.

Here's my hotel room. Think this is small? You should see my bathroom.

A picture of the hallway, to give you an idea of how close together the rooms are:

Worries

2007-08-19T12:47:00.000-07:00

My host family is keeping me in suspense. I emailed them, introducing myself, and they promptly emailed me back, asking for the date of my arrival in Japan. I told them the date, but I haven't heard back from them since- and it's been about two weeks since! Yesterday I attempted to call them on the phone, and it told me that the number has been disconnected or changed.

...

I'm flying out in one week, and I would really, really like to know that someone will be waiting at the airport for me. Please host family, write me back!

Ka-ching!

2007-05-16T14:42:00.000-07:00

I bought my airplane ticket today, thus officially marking The Biggest Credit Card Purchase I've ever made: $925. That's actually a relatively low price, but still, it's gonna feel like a punch to my stomach when I see that on my credit card statement. Especially after I had to fork out nearly $200 just to get my US passport today.
Now I have an official departure date: August 27. It's scary and exciting all at the same time.

Check back later!

2007-04-07T22:42:00.000-07:00

You've come to the right place. This is where I, Kelley, will write about my adventures in Japan. I am going to be studying Japanese in Nagoya for 4 months. I will be leaving in August, so check back then!

first post!

2007-04-07T22:36:00.000-07:00

Testing, testing 1 2 3!