« April 2004 | Main | June 2004 »
May 31, 2004
Ishikawa Martial Art Gym
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May 30, 2004
Nata-Dera
My host parents took me out on the third weekend. It was a very large temple with beautiful, old architecture. Unfortunately it was pouring rain the whole time, but it was a lot of fun anyway.
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Posted by dminky at 09:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 28, 2004
Japan Email #4
Here's the fourth email I sent from Japan:
Konnichiwa minnasan!
Sorry to keep you all waiting for the next email, but I've had very little free time. Anyway, just so you know, Leo is a guy who works in the Maxis division at EA games. He actually recruits at Ringling. So I've become pretty good friends with him. He took a bunch of photos and has put them online here.
I can't remember what's happened since last time I wrote, so I'll do a fast email (I don't have much time)... did I write about the Okaeri festival? That was so much more lively than the Otabi festival... The first thing that happened when I got there was I was handed a headband and a beer. The rest of the night was eating in strangers' houses, drinking lots, wandering the streets, screaming WASHO WASHO WASHO over and over. It was really awesome.
We went bowling as well, to make up for the fact that we didn't get to do rice planting. Japanese bowling is funny -- nobody knows the rules, so they go sliding haflway down the lane when they throw the ball. We played Taiko Taiko Revolution, which is DDR but with Taiko drums.
Classes are really really fun. We all get along great and our class is particularly crazy. I don't know how many photos Leo took of Frances and me, but I know the other cameras all have some good weird shots, so when everyone else posts photos you'll see.
The teachers all come to karaoke with us and get drunk. Those nights are pretty nuts too. We went to the ninja temple, but I think I already wrote about that.
Today we had kimono-wearing day. That was really fun. Guy kimonos are nice and cool while the girls had to wear really heavy silk ones. It's really hot here so I don't envy them.
We also went to a tea ceremony and a many-centuries old private garden use by Lord Maeda. There is so much history in Kanazawa.
Oh yea, and we went on an excursion to the Noto peninsula last Sunday. That was really amazing. We saw a really old Shinto shrine, a Buddhist temple, some really amazing rock formations, and we even went to a ryokan (tradition Japanese hotel) and an onsen (hot spring baths). I don't have time to elaborate, but it was such a great trip.
Yesterday we went to an elementary school and spent the day in a 2nd grade class. Nothing is so quite a downer as having 2nd graders correct your grammar, and you still can't understand a word they say. But they were so much fun, so bright and cheerful and insane. I can't imagine how they get anything done because the classes are so large, but the kids are absolutely great. They even clean their own school by running on the floor with towels. It's a really hard way to clean, but it's learned early so the kids do it well.
This weekend I am viewing some temples with my host family and going to Kenrokuen, one of the most famous parks in Japan, with a friend.
Sorry for the really short email, but I really have to get off this computer. If you want to see more photos of Japan, go to www.Engrish.com
Ja matta!
Matto-san
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Kimono Clothing
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May 27, 2004
2nd Grade Class Experience
This was one of the most insane and interesting events, and unfortunately I did not bring a camera! Joy's photo page, luckily, has photos from Minami Kodatsuno elementary school (Minako, for short).
We were divided into small groups and assigned to classes full of 2nd graders. My group consisted of myself, Sandra, and Pierre. The kids were noisy, hyperactive, and life-threateningly cute! There were also extremely obedient and hurried to do everything the teacher said. I was told the hyperactivity was a result partially of them still being young, and partially because they were having strangers from other countries visit. (Apparantly as children get older in Asian school systems, their will is crushed and they become slaves to their schoolwork... scary!)
We talked to the kids about our hobbies, our countries, and whatever else we could manage in Japanese. Even though they were only second graders (they talked slowly and simply), we still had trouble communicating. But the kids were very patient and so cute... they didn't mind having trouble. I talked to a few kids about Miyazaki animations, and just about every kid insisted on being picked up into the air. At lunch time the children serve their own lunch (it was very orderly; I was impressed). After lunch we played outside for a little while. Some of us played dodgeball (the kids love dodgeball), while other kids played on gymnastic poles, or rode unicycles, or threw balls. After recess the kids cleaned the school. Literally... they got down on their hands and knees, and ran wet towels all over the floor, washed the windows... basically cleaned everything.
It was sad to leave the kids, but they certainly wore us out. It was such a fun day!
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May 23, 2004
Excursion to Noto Peninsula
During the second week we went on a day-long excursion up the Noto peninsula. We visited a lot of places, including the Chrihama beach driveway, Ganmon rock formation, a hot spring and ryokan, a Shinto shrine, a Buddhist temple, and a lacquerware shop. It was a busy day, but very very fun.
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Posted by dminky at 11:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 22, 2004
Okaeri Matsuri
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May 21, 2004
Lunch With the Teachers and Apre Again
Today's special event was having lunch at a nearby restaurant with the teachers of the school. It was a lot of fun, and I got to show my sketchbook to my classmates and teachers.
As for nighttime, how could we resist not returning to Apre as much as possible? Drinking and singing - it's the Japanese way. This time we managed to convince a few more of the faculty from Eurocentres to come with us, and they certainly made it a fun night. Unfortunately, since I took the train home, I could never stay past 11... but many of the students stayed out all night long. Click here for Leo's page of photos from Apre.
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Posted by dminky at 11:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Leo's Goodbye Speech
Whenever someone's last day comes up, they're required to give a short speech in Japanese. Leo was only able to stay for two weeks, so we had to say goodbye to him early. It was a very sad goodbye, since Leo was a great member of our group, but we managed to have a nice little goodbye party at Apre for him that night.
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May 20, 2004
Biz and Famille
Famille and Biz were the #1 spots to hang out at after class. We must have been the most business Famille had seen in a long time, since we were always the only ones in there. The waiter was nice, though, and it was in a good location, so we became regulars. Biz was our main link to the outside world, when the computers at Rifare were all taken.
Famille Family Bar (photos from Leo's last Friday night):
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Biz Internet Cafe:
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Click here for Leo's page on Famille and Biz.
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May 19, 2004
Bowling!
Since the Rice Planting event was cancelled, we went to a bowling alley and arcade to make up for the missing event.
Bowling in Japan is a lot like bowling in America except for one key difference: the Japanese ignore every rule that is solemnly respected in the U.S. For instance, in Japan the foul line exists, but nobody seems to understand what it is. We say Japanese people sliding down the waxed lane almost halfway to the pins before throwing their bowling ball a good height into the air. There also seems to be no concept of waiting your turn in relation to the lanes next to you; as soon as you get your ball, you run up and lauch it!
The arcade was also fun, although we only got to play a few games. David schooled Yasuko in a car racing game (dirving like an American), and Leo and I played what I could only call "Taiko Taiko Revolution." We also played DDR, which is pretty much the national sport for nerds everywhere.
Click here for Leo's page on the Rennais bowling trip.
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May 18, 2004
Sadou (Tea Ceremony)
Today we visited the Gyokusen-en garden and tea house. Gyokusen-en is a small park built in the 1500's by a Christian (and there are hidden crosses all over the park) to be the private garden and tea house of Lord Maeda, lord of Kanazawa. It's located right near the castle.
The garden was absolutely beautiful, and we got to look into the private tea room of Lord Maeda, see a Koi pond, view the "mailbox of the gods," a drop box where people can put haiku poems (once a year, a winner is selected from the poems). Before all of this, though, we participated in a Japanese tea ceremony.
The ceremony was absolutely amazing; there was so much art and knowledge involved. The Japanese take their tea very seriously.
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Posted by dminky at 05:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 17, 2004
Japan Email #3
This is the third email I sent to friends and to home:
It's been a while since I've had free time to type a long email, so here's what's new. Friday night we all went to a sushi-ya for dinner, which was some of the best sushi I've ever tasted. Still expensive, but cheap compared to American sushi. Then we all went to a Karaoke bar. Now that was some good times. Our teachers came too, and we played pool, sang, drank, for a long time. I actually left early cause I had to share a cab with a friend, but the others stayed out until the sun rose. Karaoke is pretty crazy here, especially when the words are coming out in hiragana and katakana so you have to really try hard to read it in time for the next line.
On Saturday a friend and I went to the Otabi Festival in Komatsu. I'm not sure exactly what the Otabi festival is, but it was a really cool 3-day festival. All the streets were decked out in pink paper lanterns, and the main street of Komatsu was filled with little tent-shops. It looked a lot like the Mayfair on Haddon Ave. What was really different was that they build these giant wooden floats that are actually shrines, and they drag these shrines on a path all through town. It takes them all day to get from one end of town to the other, becuase they visit every single store in the town, and each store presents the people dragging this giant multi-ton shrine with a bottle of sake, which they drink. I can only imagine how plastered they must have been at the end of the night.
There was a Shinto shrine in the city offerent blessings and fortunes all day long. I would have gotten one if I knew how to read it. The bad fortunes you leave at the shrine by tying them onto a tree. The park area with the shrine was absolutely gorgeous. I was sketching it until some Mormons came up and started bugging me and trying to convert me... oi... can't ever escape the Mormons. There was an amazing Taiko performance there. Incredible drum and flute playing, very noisy and very fun to watch.
The highlight of the Otabi festival is the Children's Kabuki. Since 1776, the children of Komatsu have been putting on a Kabuki show. The floats, which were pulled all around town, end up in the town square and become the stage for the Kabuki play. It's performed entirely by little girls, and their costumes and makeup are absolutely fantastic. They even say the lines perfectly, accompanied by a narrator and a sangen player. It was just like watching Kwaidan, or other Japanese movies with Kabuki-style theater. Completely amazing. I took lots of pictures, so I will share those at some point. At the end of the show, the kids all came out and threw candy into the audience.
Sunday we were supposed to plant rice in the town, but it was raining too hard (the rainy season has come early this year) so it was cancelled. Instead I walked around town and then at night one of my classmate's host family ate over my host family's house (our mothers are friends). We had a lot of fun, and my okaasan made some of the best food I've ever tasted. It was some kind of stir fry right at the table, very noisy and very delicious. Lots of beer and sake too. We all talked as best as we could; her parents know more English than mine, so they translated what they could, and they all had their pocket dictionaries out to help. Leslie's mother sings, and when she got drunk she really sang loud.
I wish I could show you how amazing that kabuki was... I hope I get the chance to see something like it again.
Classes are going pretty well, though they're getting harder and harder. There are too many different ways of counting. We have to learn different counters for people, things, small things, long thin things, numerical order, days of the week, time, years, mechanical things, flat things... it's insane. I still have to remember days of the week. That on top of words of relation such as on top of, inside, outside, near, under, behind, in front of... very very confusing. There are so many particals too... it is getting very difficult.
Anyway, I've had killer hiccups since this morning and I really need to find a cure. I feel like if I hiccup any longer my lungs may burst. So I'm going to go out and try to fix them...
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May 16, 2004
Dinner With Friends
My host parents were good friends with Leslie's host parents, the Okayamas, so we ate with them on two occassions at our house. The Okayamas also fed and took Leslie, Joy, and I to the Okaeri festival one weekend.
When Mr. Okayama saw my sketchbook progress, he was very impressed and gave me two tickets to a nearby art museum (which I took Frances to). They were a really lively and fun family; Mrs. Okayama loved to shout out random English phrases after a few drinks, and Mr. Okayama was very interested in the students. It was great to spend time with both families (and especially having Leslie around to speak English to).
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Posted by dminky at 10:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
No Rice Planting? Zannen!
On Sunday we were supposed to go to a rice-planting event to promote the tradition of rice planting... but it was raining so hard that when I heard the phone right I knew that it was going to be cancelled. Later on, however, the rain let up a bit, so Leslie and I went to Eurocentres and decided to explore the shopping district of Kanazawa a bit. It was really interesting to see the similarities and differences between the U.S. and Japan. We saw lots of trendy, expensive clothing stores sitting right next to 100 yen shops... not something I expected.
We met Urs in the same area downtown - apparantly we weren't the only ones with the idea to go exploring.
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May 15, 2004
Otabi Festival
My first Saturday was a real treat - there was a festival in the nearby city of Komatsu. Leslie, Joy, and I made plans to meet there (the other students were busy visiting other place). Unfortunately we got times mixed up with Joy so she ended up by herself, while Leslie and I toured the city together.
The Otabi Matsuri is the annual festival for children's kabuki. There are shops and stalls all over the place selling food, toys, antiques and crats... pretty much anything you can think of. There are various parades, performances, and theater events throughout the day, as well as blessings. During the day, shrines are paraded through the streets and prayers made, while various forms of entertainment are going on. At night time, all the shrines end up in the center of town and serve as the stage for a large kabuki performance done entirely by children. It was fantastic!
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Posted by dminky at 11:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 14, 2004
Omichou Kaitenzushi and Apre Karaoke
On our first Friday we all went to a neat little sushi bar (with a conveyor belt to deliver the food) and a karaoke bar afterwards. It took us forever to find a nice restaurant to go to - our groups met up after doing our various afternoon activities and began walking around one of the covered market streets in Kanazawa. Leo really wanted to eat "conveyor belt sushi" so we didn't rest till we found one. It was quite crowded, but we really enjoyed it! Click here to see Leo's photos from the sushi restaurant.
Apre became a favorite weekend activity for our group; it was the weekend bar we went to (teachers included) to get drunk, play pool or darts, and sing karaoke. We had planned with Yasuko to meet there, but after our sushi dinner we had a lot of trouble finding the place! We had Leo ask the locals for directions, since he was the best speaker among us, but had no luck. Finally we called Yasuko, and she told us how to get there. From then on, it was singing and drinking!
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Posted by dminky at 11:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 13, 2004
Japan Email #2
Here is the next email I wrote home:
Today is the first time I've been able to get some free time to write email. I'm in a little internet cafe in downtown Kanazawa. It's a lot like any downtown area in the States except that it is spotlessly clean, like everything here in Japan. No litter whatsoever. No dirt even.
It's been mostly rainy since coming here (ii tenki dewa arimasen!) but we had one beautiful sunny day yesterday. I have 4 classes a day, and we're gonna do an entire textbook this month, so it's the equivalent of a whole semester of Japanese in 1 month. We have afternoon activities after lunch (which is at 1 pm) which so far have consisted of a tour of the area around the school on Monday, a trip to Kanazawa castle and Museum of Traditional Crafts on Tuesday, cooking tempura, onigiri, and soup yesterday, and hiragana/katakana/kanji writing practice this afternoon. Tomorrow is day off, so I will try to sketch if the weather allows it.
Every day after classes and activities we go downtown to do whatever until we go home for dinner (that is where I am writing this now). Some folks are shopping, and a few of us came to Biz Cafe to write emails (E-meru o shimasu). At 5 each day we go to a little bar called Famille to spend some time before heading home. Japanese beer (biru) is very good.
My okaasan is an excellent cook. I don't know if I mentioned that before, but I am very very lucky. Her food is fresh every single day. Veggies (yasai) are picked from her garden while she makes dinner, fish (sakana) are caught in the local rivers every day for our dinner. I've been eating lots and lots of sakana. I like the sashimi best because it doesn't have head, bones, or eyes, all of which are very crunchy and unsettling to eat. On Tuesday we had fish fish fish; a big fish without a head that seemed to be cooked in salt, lots of smaller fish that were candied or something, but had crunchy eyes and heads (minnow-sized) and then the baby fish of the big one, complete with eyes and everything. They were so tiny... about the size of pencil shavings, and their heads popped as you chewed them by the spoonfull. My host parents are amazed at how quickly I am learning Japanese and we are having as much conversation as is possible with our limited language skills. After dinner, otoosan likes to watch French movies (Furansu no eiga) wth Japanese subtitles, and since I can really get nothing from watching that I go upstairs and do homework (shigudai o shimasu). I actually did a few sketches last night, the first ones I've done here, so that's at least some progress.
My classmates are great, we all get along wonderfully. I am one of two Americans in our group. There are 1 Canadian, 6 Swiss, 1 Filipino, and a Mexican in my group of friends, but there are a few other students (who have been here a bit longer) from America and Australia aside from us. The school is pretty small though.
Our teachers are all very sweet and friendly. Classes are really fun, we get to make jokes (as long as they're in Japanese) and we get a 10 minute break every hour.
I got lost on my way home from the train station on Monday night, when it was pouring rain and I wasn't familiar with the route. It was actually really fun to get lost, since I had my host family's address I didn't really worry. When I wandered for about an hour and couldn't make heads or tails of where I was, I went into a tabako-ya (small convenience store called a tobacco shop) and asked if they could point me in the right direction. They didn't know where the place was, and it took me a little while to figure out how to explain that I was a host family. The lady was so nice when she understood that I was lost on my first day in Japan, so she called my family to pick me up. I was a bit embarassed to have them have to drive out and get me, but they didn't mind... afterwards we had a long discussion in Japanese about how to get home from the eki. I didn't understand what they said and they couldn't understand what I said, so we wound up with nothing, but I found my way home fine the next day.
Last night I was stopped by some elementary school kids as I walked home. Little kids love to say "Hello!" to Gaijin (foreigners), and most Gaijin love to talk to little kids, so the three of us had a long discussion about nothing that none of us could understand.
This weekend the town is having a rice-planting activity, so I will do that, among studying and doing whatever else we decide to do as a group. Next weekend there is an excursion to the Noto peninsula, which has a beach that you can drive on, an onsen (hotspring!!!!), and many other nice spots to visit. Kanazawa is very little-known to visitors, so it's a perfect spot to see Japanese life with only a mild influence of Western living.
If you want to know where I am in Japan, look at a map of the country. There are four main islands. The biggest one is called Honshu. If you look right in the middle of Honshu along the Sea of Japan, you'll see a little weiner sticking out into the water. That is the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture. Move just inland of the penis shape, you'll find Kanazawa, capital of Ishikawa. That's where I am.
There's more to tell, but it's about time to head to Famille.
Ja matta!
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May 12, 2004
Cooking Class
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May 11, 2004
Kanazawa Castle & Art Museum
I wish I had remembered to take my camera! Kanazawa castle was such an interesting place; mostly intact, we were allowed to walk through its towers and halls in our socks. The place was beautiful inside and out. Very strategically designed as well, of course. Leo's website has a lot of photos so I suggest you visit there to see them.
One of the most amazing things about the castle is that it was created without any nails! All the joints were incredibly complex interlocking designs. I also learned the difference between the worse oshiro and oshiri. One means castle, the other means butt. :-)
On the way home from the castle, we visited a local crafts museum. Lots of amazing things are made in Ishikawa (including fireworks, instruments, and lacquerware). I did a few sketches which you can see in my sketchbook scans (since we couldn't take photos).
The walk home was also fun, as we finally began to overcome our shyness, and it was pretty much this afternoon that we formed the main group that we'd stick with for most of the trip: Leo, Frances, Joy, Leslie, Simon, Seul, and myself. We all talked and joked on that way home, and we really felt like a familiar group even though we had only known eachother's names for about 24 hours.
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May 10, 2004
The First Disaster
On my way home from school my first day, I realized that I hadn't paid that much attention when my host mother walked me to school! I was too spellbound by the neighborhood to remember that I had to get myself home.
To make a long and embarassing story short, I took a wrong turn and ended up walking 2 or 3 miles in the wrong direction. When I realized I had gone much farther than I walked in the morning, I began to suspect something, though I could not for the life of me remember where I made the mistake. I walked back a bit, but then realizing how far I walked, and that I wouldnt know the right way even when I backtracked (not to mention it was raining), I went into a nearby shop and tried desperately to ask the lady to call the number on my ID card I got from the scool. She was very confused and I couldnt understand what she was saying, but eventually she understood the word "homestay" and became very sweet and sympathetic. She called my host parents, who came in a car to get me and take me (very very emabarassed) home, but not before we drove the route from the train station to home again. I made sure to get it this time.
We spent dinner drawing maps of the area, and then the next day I made sure to watch very carefully as I went to school.
Posted by dminky at 07:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Japan Email #1
The following is the first email I sent to folks back home:
Hello everyone!
I am in Japan! (Please excuse any typos, this keyboard is kind of funny...) I got here alright, though it was a very tiring trip. The flight from Toronto to Tokyo was something like 13 hours, and from Tokyo I had to take many different trains to Echigo-Yuzawa and from there to Kanazawa. I was so worried that I would miss my stop because I kept involuntary falling unconscious from tiredness (23 or so more hours combined with the 23 hours of driving I was still sleeping off from the drive from Florida). Hardly anyone here knows any English, despite the huge amount of English in their ads and posters, so I was really lucky to know enough Japanese to comprehend their insane train system. It is really a fascinating system... the trains are accurate to the minute, and every minute has a scheduled train. It is (where the hell is the apostrophe on this keyboard?) like watching an old fashioned fast motion movie when people get on and off the trains. Tokyo was a huge difference from Toronto, because everything in Toronto was huge and open and completely empty, while everything in Japan is tiny and extremely crowded. But anyway, as I was saying, the trains are amazing. They are whisper quiet, 100% reliable, and operate on a track that is about 1\3 the size of our tracks. The trains are so quiet you can hear someone breathing in another car. They are ridiculously clean, too, and they have concession ladies who walk from car to car, very politely announcing their entrance and exit, then offering a variety of bizzarre snacks.The houses in Japan are about 3 inches apart from eachother. Running from rooftop to rooftop like they do in anime no longer seems like a feat. When I finally made it to Kanazawa after an exhausting and very nervous many-hour-long train ride (since I had to be able to translate where the train said it was stopping next) I took a taxi, but the driver did not know English either. So I had to try to translate the house address from English into Japanese, and only when we got there did we find out that the school here gave me an incorrect house number and phone number. We found it, though, it was just next door, and the Yamamiyas are a very friendly and sweet couple. They know about as much English as I know Japanese, so it will be a very fun experience trying to communicate. When I arrived okaasan ("mother" in Japanese) made me ramen and tea, both scalding hot, of course, so my tongue is still numb and blistered (hopefully the trip will scar my tongue up a bit so I will lose my super heat sensitivity). Their house is entirely traditional, so I sleep on a futon in a tatami room and have to duck to use the doorways (Westerners are much taller than Japanese). I am extra glad I have not watched any Japanese horror movies recently because the bad stuff usually happens in these tatami rooms. I was too tired to care though. I fell asleep to the sound of millions of frogs singing in the rice patties. I have to say it is weird sleeping with only a thin sheet of rice paper separating you from the outside of the world, not even a lock.
Today was really fun. I had a huge breakfast (another meal issue I have to deal with, since my stomach is so small and it is considered very rude not to eat every last grain of rice at a meal) consisting of eggs, salad, tea, and toast. Okaasan walked me to the station and to the school; its a nice walk through a beautiful medieval town. She tried to explain how to use the local train station but since she does not know English and I do not know Japanese, all I figured out was that I am in Kanazawa... It is not nearly as confusing as the big train stations in Tokyo though, so I will manage perfectly well. It gets dark here very early (before 6!) and there are few street lights, so we will see if I get home alright... :-B So we had our first class today. We are a small group, just over 10 people, and we have plenty of teachers. We took a placement test (which I bombed... I did not have enough time to refresh myself after school ended to get into a higher class) so I am in tori ("bird") group -- how serendipitous, eh? Yasuko-san, the Eurocenters administrator, is a very lively and friendly woman. She took us on a walk around town and went over all the activities we will be doing while here. It is going to be very exciting (and VERY expensive but that is breaks).
It is raining now, but okaasan was very kind and gave me an umbrella this morning, so I will be alright. I have to remember to take some pictures at some time. But my time on this computer is almost up, so I should type in the addresses and send this. I will write again when I have time.
Henji mattemasu!
Matto-san
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The Eurocentres School
On my first morning in Japan, my host mother helped me buy a month-long JR pass and showed me the way to school. It was a decent walk, but I enjoyed it every day. Riding the train you get to see a lot of people every day.
The first thing we did was take a Japanese placement test and have a short interview to judge our language skills. It was all in Japanese and I didn't do too well. ;-) There were 17 students at the school: Joy Baer (Canada), Chris Booth (Australia), Frances Chen (Canada), Urs Gort (Switzerland), Leo Hourvitz (USA), Simon Kammerman (Switzerland), James Kirby (USA), Seul Lee (USA), Sandra Leyva (Spain), David Lovett (USA), Leslie Luchayco (Philippines), Pierre Maeder (Switzerland), Matt Meyer (USA), Jose Saenz (Panama), Jacques Villettaz (Switzerland), Christian Waidacher (Switzerland), and Hans Wirz (Switzerland). Of course we only ever refered to eachother in our Japanese names. We spent that morning getting to know eachother talking a bit, and trying to ease out of any shyness.
The students were divided into different classes based on skill level. My class was named tori which means "bird." Probably because we were all bird brains. At 6 people, it was the largest class, and probably also the craziest. Everyone in there made class a whole lot of fun.
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Each class day was divided into four 50-minute lessons with a short break in between each one. The day last from 9 am until 1 pm. Afterwards we'd go to lunch, sometimes to the train station, other times to the Mietetsu M'za, a department store nearby which had a large cafeteria in the basement. The M'za became the favorite location for our group, as it had the most variety and allowed us to come back to the school to eat.
After lunch, usually around 2 pm, the school usually held some sort of cultural activity. The first day's activity was a tour of the neighborhood immediately around the school.
Posted by dminky at 04:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 09, 2004
My House
My house was located in Hoko, a suburb of West Kanazawa. It was a beautiful house in a nice neighborhood, and my host family (the Yamamiyas) was better than I could have asked for. They were very sweet and friendly, and did everything to make my stay comfortable.
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Posted by dminky at 11:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Arrival
I flew from Philadelphia to Toronto, and then from there to Tokyo. It didn't really hit me that I was going to Japan until somewhere on that flight, since the plane announcements were in Japanese as well as English. I suddenly realized that I was going to Narita airport with almost no knowledge of the language at all! How was I going to make the 4-hour trip from Tokyo to Kanazawa over 3 trains and a taxi?
Well, I managed to do it. I got off the plane and went through customs (the officials were incredibly polite) and went to a ticket booth for the JR train system. All I said was "Echigo-Yuzawa," as that's where I needed to go, and the lady printed out 3 tickets that I would need to get there, and proceeded to explain that some of the tickets were special in some way. I didn't have any idea what she meant, so I just nodded and decided I would figure it out. It turned out that she was telling me to insert all 3 tickets into each turnsyle at once (I still don't really understand this).
I took the subway from Narita to Shibuya, which seemed scary, but was really incredibly simple. The trip from Shibuya to Echigo-Yuzawa was terrifying, as I had to take a shinkansen during rush hour. The bullet train was a two-story luxury vehicle that went incredibly fast and quietly. I skipped a few trains as I was too terrified to navigate through the crowds of people (lucky I was tall enough to see over heads), and finally (after vainly asking a conductor for help) I just hopped on a train and hoped for the best.
By this time I had figured out that despite the facts that English is taught in all schools in Japan and that English is prominantly displayed on every sign and t-shirt, nobody knows English here. Once I had that in mind, things became a lot easier.
Echigo-Yuzawa was a tiny little town, and since it was late at night, I was the only person in the station. I was scared I'd miss the last train or something, so I rushed to the ticket booth and bought a ticket for Kanazawa. During the ride I was so sleepy from the flight that I kept nodding off. I was really scared that I would fall asleep and miss the stop to Kanazawa, but luckily it was the last stop, so I really didn't have to worry.
(Japanese trains are really neat -- they have extremely polite workers who travel from cart to cart selling all kinds of drinks and snacks. In America, you're lucky if your train car's seats aren't all torn up.)
I finally arrived in Kanazawa and headed to the taxi area. I only had my host family's address in English, so it took the driver and 2 other men about 5 minutes to figure out where I needed to go. I thought I was set, so I sat back and relaxed... when we got to the area, however, the next adventure began.
The address that the driver had was wrong! I was emailed the wrong address to the house! The driver knocked on the door it told him to go to, but nobody answered. He opened the door and called out, but nobody was home. Luckily I knew the word for "telephone number," which I had. Once again, relief settled in... until we discovered that the number wasn't valid either. This was pretty funny, but I felt bad for the driver who was losing fare money at this point, and was being so helpful. Finally, we drove to the only house on the street with lights on, and it was the right one. *Phew*
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May 07, 2004
Leaving On A Jet Plane
Tomorrow morning I leave for Japan. The flight is from 9:25 AM to Sunday afternoon... bleagh. I'm really excited though... and really nervous... I have to make my way from Tokyo to Kanazawa (all the way across the country) on my own, then from Kanazawa to my host family. Then in the morning I have to make my way from my host family to the school, which is 25 minutes away by train, and in the middle of a city. Well... I don't have good luck with finding things in cities, so this should be a real adventure since I could barely talk my way out of a paper bag in Japanese.
Well, I don't know what more to say other than I'm really really excited. I need to go finish getting ready now. I'll try to update this in Japan when I can, but we'll see how time permits me to get online.
Posted by dminky at 02:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 05, 2004
The Incredible Journey
So I'm back in NJ after a harrowing 23 hour drive. Really, it's an interesting story, so sit back and relax and enjoy a Coke.
It all began the night before I was to pack things into storage. I stayed up all night packing so that I could move out on time, and despite the complete lack of sleep I still screwed up the packing and forgot to move two boxes full of art supplies to storage. So after it was all said and done, I still had a lot of extra work to do before loading up the car to drive back.
That evening I threw out a lot of trash, trying to get rid of anything that wasn't precious to me in order to save packing space. I had to dispose of my super awesome Halloween costume that my friend made for me. Now, this isn't a total loss because that costume *stunk.* I mean it reeked like a month old onion. See, the last I wore it was on Halloween, when we played DDR pretty much nonstop throughout the whole night, and I must have sweat an entire human body's worth into that costume. Anyway, I was so tired after DDR that I threw it into the closet and forgot about it. It dried up into a funky clumpy ball that I only took out every now and then when I was out of caffeinated beverages in order to stay up all night and work. Seriously, one whiff of that shirt and you'd be afraid to sleep because you might just die. So that morning when it was lying on the floor, I managed to dump some extra stuff on it, since I was throwing it away anyway. I emptied an overflowing glue bottle into it, and when I managed to slice my finger open on an exacto knife, I bled it into that shirt. I looked out my window that evening and noticed that someone was dumpster diving. Wait let me rephrase that: dumpster diving in my pirate costume. I looked as the kid was pulling the last boot out of the trash and putting it on to complete the ensemble. (It's a good thing I had just finished pooping cause I would have lost my bowels right then and there.) This person must not have noticed the smell... NO! How could anyone not have noticed the smell! It was so bad! You could smell that thing upwind in a hurricane and still be nauseated.
But I digress... we left the next day at 2 pm (we being Pushpita, my future roommate, and I). I felt so bad because even after throwing out a ton of things -- including my giant stuff ALF :'-( -- I still managed to fill up 80% of the car with my stuff. Sigh... well I guess I can justify it by the fact that I was driving the entire trip since Pushpita does not have a license.
So the trip went well for the first... many hours. Very well, in fact, despite having to listen to the second most awful music of all time that Pushpita insisted on playing. The only real hitch for the beginning of the trip was that every state from Georgia northwards was covered in some ungodly cloud of piss rain. By piss rain I mean not real rain that hits you and gets you wet, I mean wimpy-ass rain that just piddles around in the air and sticks to your windshield so you can't wipe it off. We hit a snare in South Carolina because of the rain. See, I missed the exit that was not clearly marked... the ONE exit to get on I-77. When I finally realized this mistake, I decided to stay on this road instead of backtracking 30 minutes, because the road connected to I-95 and was still a direct route home.
If that was the end of the problems I'd have been elated. However around the middle of North Carolina, I was getting low on gas. I decided to pull into the next exit and get a refill to avoid my worst fear -- getting lost in the Boondocks (which inevitably happens every time I drive through that evil state). I was too late, though... the gas station was closed. Suddenly I knew that lightning had struck twice; my bad luck had hit again. As I took each and every exit that I saw, I began to realize the direness of the situation. It also reaffirmed my hatred for the American South.
We travelled down that road for 37 miles, hitting every single exit along the way. Not one exit had a gas station that was open. In fact, not one of them had streetlights either. I wonder to myself if even one of those towns had more than one last name to them. When we finally found gas, it was so far away that we were running below the red E... I don't know how we got there but, praise be to the gods, we did. When I filled up my tank, I bought 8.972 gallons of gas (and I didn't top it off). My tank only holds 9 gallons. I was running on less than 3/100 of a gallon of gas. A strong Russian could have drank the contents of my gas tank and not even have felt a mild buzz.
If there was one positive thing that came out of this trip, it's that Pushpita gained a healthy understanding of why the South is the worst place in the world. Keep on reading to hear the rest of my story.
you know the saying "It's always darkest before dawn"? Well that saying was quite literally true on this trip. I have never seen a phenomenon like this in my entire life, even in photos, but as we were nearing sunrise, I saw an object looming in front of us in the darkness. Now, it was nighttime, so to see anything looming would be a feat, but this was no ordinary thing... it was an anti-thing. It was darker than the night. It was like a cloud, only shaped like a giant sphere of pitch blackness. There has never been anything so black. I was seriously scared of driving into it. It was like some miles-wide cloud of magical darkness. Since I was the only car on the road, it was extra scary.
When I arrived at the foot of the cloud, I put on my high beams. They did nothing. I could only see about 30 feet. It wasn't foggy or anything... the light was just snuffed out. It was like the South didn't want me to leave. Like it didn't want me to see the light of day ever again, and for a while I really didn't believe I would. I was just so glad that by then I had a full tank of gas, and that Washington would arrive soon and not even the darkness of the Carolinas could hide that light pollution.
We finally got out of the Twilight Zone an hour after sunrise. I thought I was in the clear when I saw D.C., so I got excited. I was really hungry and tired, though, so I grabbed an exit to go find a McDonald's. However, the South had one last trick to play: the exit was an illusion! It was actually another highway that took me straight south for 30 miles before having a single exit. I went from D.C. to Richmond all for an Egg Mc-fucking-Muffin. I was so angry with the evil trick the South played on me, but what could I do but keep driving and hope to have better luck on I-95 than on whatever-the-hell cursed road I was on the night before.
In Washington the frustration was finally starting to get to me. I took the HOV-lane to avoid the morning traffic, but I was quite dismayed when I-95 split into 95 and 395, but the HOV-lane did not split. I was stuck on 395, which would've been OK if it didn't empty right into the middle of the city. Well, I gave Pushpita a nice little tour of our nation's capital, we saw the Great Phallus and that thing on the back of the penny, and then got lost somewhere in a very scary neighborhood.
We stopped to ask for directions 3 times, and each time we followed the directions to I-95. Of course, the moment we got on, we got a little sign that said "Congratulations, you're driving on 95 South, straight to Richmond!" "How could this be?!" I thought to myself. "Surely if you get on the road, you should have an option to go north or south." But I guess that's not how it works down there. Afterall, why would anyone from the South want to go north?! Finally, after 2 hours and on the verge of having a nervous breakdown, I found my way north on 495, which led to 95. That was the end of the insanity, because I was beginning to enter states where the roads make sense (although Maryland is definately the *least* logical of the logical states).
I killed a Red Bull and a KMX, but still found myself dreaming awake while driving. A couple times there were large fish swimming alongside my car, while other times I was having conversations with funny looking brides who were floating in front of my car. But for the most part, my eyes stayed open and didn't jiggle so much after the energy drinks. When my beloved New Jersey hit my eyes I woke up entirely. I could have cried it was so beautiful. Unfortunately the piss-rain was still going on, so I couldn't leap out of the car and kiss and grass, but I did have a hot shower and crash for many many hours.
I'm still crashing from that trip, in fact, and the trip the next day where I took Pushpita to NYC and saw Dave as well. But that, my friends, is another story...
Posted by dminky at 11:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack