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So she sayeth...
Thursday, June 21, 2001 03:42 p.m.
ohoh! I had an interesting night last night. Amidst the mad studying for tomorrow's midterm, I worked a bit on my term project involving interviewing people about manga in today's Japan and their views of Americans reading manga. I interviewed my host mom. Interesting results. ^.^ Turns out that although she doesn't read manga and has never really read it throughout her life, she have me some good info on other people. But it turns out that she watches some anime (only two)--Inu Yasha and Detective Conan! She was then *incredibly* surprised when my response to that was "Really!? I know those anime! They're keen!" (Not that I've seen the anime Inu Yasha yet, but now hopefully I can--she has them taped off TV. ^.^) So then I tried to explain that I liked manga and anime, but my favorite one was Esca. She hadn't heard of that one though--she thought I meant Laputa. Then she showed me the opening of Inu Yasha, which is really keen. ^.^
Dinner was very tasty last night, except for...certain parts. I've decided eggplant is nasty. XP I had salmon which was kinda salty, rice of course, green beans, and an interesting taste treat--daikon tossed salad. The way my host mom makes it for me consists of shredded daikon, ham slices, egg slices, sliced carrot, and this brown and white stuff that I haven't identified and I'm too afraid to ask what it is. XD She bought me some 1000 Island dressing yesterday so now my salads are even tastier. God, I'm picky about food. ^^; Still, the salad tastes exactly like a regular iceberg lettuce salad as long as it has the dressing on it, so it's all good.
Tomorrow is our first midterm--we have two and then one final. People are madly scrambling and stuffing Japanese grammer and vocab in their heads. I feel good about the written part, but the oral is going to be very bad. I can feel it. ._. Still, I haven't gone over ch. 4 and 5 yet, and that's when the vocab difficulty went through the roof, so I haven't reached that crazy "Oh my god I will FAIL this test no matter what I do!!!! ;_________;" feeling yet. Instead of studying right after class however, I went riding around outside of Hikone. It's so pretty out there, filled with lots of hills, trees, and rice paddies. We got a bunch of strange looks out there, but hey. :P We can get them in town or out of town. Take your pick. We found this neat shrine set off a backroad just inside the woods. It was very cool. There was also a very rundown playground next to it. We're going to go back there tomorrow after we take the test and go to Hikone-jo in the afternoon. I stuidly forgot my camera back at campus, so we need to get back there. The sun finally came out today so hopefully it will be bright and happy tomorrow for those events. ^_^ It's much less humid today too. I love the weather here between periods of rain. Anyway, wish me luck. X_x;
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "So please gather at 9:50 a.m. on the porch in front of the doom. Have fun!" -- portion of a memo from our mailboxes this morning
Wednesday, June 20, 2001 02:18 p.m.
Karen! Here`s your KoF CD info. I`m pretty sure by reading the back of the jewel case this is the OST. Of course the only info I have about the game came from blogs o.o; so I can`t tell for sure, but I`m pretty sure despite. Anyway, there are 42 tracks on the CD including songs like 4th fire (Title), Order (Player Select), Esaka Forever (Kyo So-and-So -- I can`t read the kanji oo;), Japan (Nihon Stage), You`re the King of Fighters, etc. The S.E. collection is also on the CD. The booklet comes with stats of each character and what looks like a story summary. Also, you get a mini disc filled with 25 minutes of the voice collection of each character and other etc voices. Dou? :D
For some reason, I`m just extremely tired right now. I was really tired last night, and I even went to bed early, but I still don`t think the extra sleep helped. -.- Life around my host family`s house is pretty boring. I go home, do homework, eat, bathe, and go to bed. There isn`t really much talking to family...actually they don`t seem to talk that much to each other anyway, at least from what I observe when I`m there. TV is a big part of the night, which I guess is all right, but I`m not doing homestay for a meal at night and a bed to sleep in. I want to do stuff with them, go places, talk, anything. o_o But now, there`s just really nothing. It`s actually a lot like my own family situation when I`m home. Everyone goes off to do their own thing and there`s really not much interaction since everyone`s gone or busy. But still, I`m sure that even MY family would try to interact with an exchange student if my parents so chose to house one. -.-; I speak more in one class period here than I do in the four or five hours I`m at home every night. Sigh. Maybe I`ll go home early today and try for some interaction or something. I`m sure the fact that my host mother realizes that I have a lot of homework aids in the fact that she and the others leave me to do it by myself. But still. -.-;
Anyway, it rained cats and dogs yesterday. I almost had to bike to the train station and then home in it, but luckily about 2 minutes after I left JCMU, the rain stopped. ^^ Lucky. But I`m happy about it, mochiron. I was still soaked by the time I got home though because there was time that I did stand in the rain, sans umbrella, but with a raincoat. Ah, and I asked my sensei about the letter writing thing. Turns out according to sensei that in casual letters like those between friends the haikei/keigu isn`t used, but it is used if you`re sending a letter to someone of higher status than your own. o.o
Hum...I guess that`s it. I haven`t been going out on the town lately because of the host family situation and also the rain. No fun adventure stories. o.o And hopefully there will be less complaining tomorrow. -.- suman.
o.o Oh, there was one random and amusing thing from yesterday. Remember that Japanese game show sketch on SNL where Chris Farley is the vacationing American who knows no Japanese and ends up on the show? Well, I watched part of this Japanese game show yesterday and the host looked and acted amazing like Mike Myers as he played the host on that sketch. XD So amusing.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `Creamy Collon` -- name of a Japanese snack food
Tuesday, June 19, 2001 02:11 p.m.
NU! Karen, Katherine, and Priya, you should play FF9! It`s a great game! It also has that same sort of nostalgic feeling you got from playing Chrono Cross. Well, less so, in my opinion since I never played FF1, but there are keen little references scattered throughout, and of course some things are flat out pulled from FF1. Rat`s tail anyone? Come, see how much Freya kicks ass and Steiner needs to be smacked in the face! And would the fact that there`s an angsty bishounen in the game help to persuade you? XD
Well, yesterday was an adventure in travel. I made it to school yesterday morning via a bike, the train, and a bus. O.o; It took me a little less than an hour to get here. Thankfully from now on I don`t have to take the bus anymore, but that means instead I have to ride my bike to and from JCMU and the train station. But that`s ok, that means I`m getting my exercise for the day. The bike rides are fairly short. From my house to the station in Kawase is only 7 minutes and from Hikone station to JCMU it`s about 15 or 20, depending on how speedy you are and how many red lights you hit going through town.
After school I rode out to another used anime-related goods and CD store called Big Bang. (Yeah, being in Japan is great because English with connotation in America has no connotation here. XD) We looked around, but it was a lot less nice than Book Off. Most everything was for rental, and what is for sale ain`t that great. After that, the adventure really began. Going home on the train, I accidently got on the express train instead of the local. >.< So, I could have ended up anywhere from here to Kyoto, or even Kyoto itself. Thankfully, I found out from one of the very nice passengers that the train stopped four stops and 15 minutes later. So I high-tailed it back to Kawase station. Thankfully again there was another train going back that way 5 minutes after i got off the first train. Then once I got off at Kawase, I went out the wrong side of the building and ended up dazed and confused about where the bike parking was. Eventually I discovered what happened so I went around the block and found it. Then after finally getting home whilst trying to remember how to say `sorry I`m late, I got lost ;.;` in Japanese, I discovered that no one was home. X_x Then, I couldn`t help but think that my host mom was out looking for me because I was really late by that time and she hand`t left a note or anything, but it turns out that she had gone to the bookstore. o.o; Oh, and the moral of the story is: always check the type of train you`re getting on BEFORE you get on. Blah.
One thing that`s really interesting about living with a host family is that you find out how Japanese is REALLY spoken. We were doing letter writing yesterday and one of our tasks for that night was to write a letter to our home college sensei talking about what we`ve been doing. Turns out, according to my host mom, that the form we were using, no one really uses anymore. X.x Only the elderly, basically. So if you know all that haikei, keigu stuff, I guess it`s silly to use it. Still, I dunno if it`s used within corporations or any really formal things, but among the average folks, it`s not. Also, did anyone of my nihongo learning readers learn to say as you give a gift `kore tsumaranai mono desu ga, douzo.` ? Well, my classmate`s host parents told her not to do that. X.x They apparently said that if it`s a cool gift, tell the person! Don`t say it`s boring if it`s not. *shrug*
Today looks great for travel. Patchy spots of sheer downpour mixed with drizzle and short periods of nothing. It`s gonna be a great trip home. :P Ja.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `Sensei, sumimasen! Atama ga ippai. Ikitemo ii desu ka?` -- one of my classmates
Monday, June 18, 2001 03:48 p.m.
Mada ikiteru. o.o
Well, I went to my homestay this weekend, and it`s been quite an interesting venture so far. My host family is very nice. I actually rarely see and probably will rarely see my sister and father since they both work until 9 or 10 at night. My host mom told me that we`ll be eating dinner just the two of us on the weekdays. o.o Ah, the life of a Japanese salaryman (not that I know what either of them do, but...) Anyway, so the house is really nice. Small, but very very vertical. There is stuff everywhere, but it`s all neatly placed in proper containers and decorated very...well, neatly. ^^ The most interesting thing in the house is actually the toilet. I`m not kidding! Apparently there`s this big thing about fancy toilets here in Japan--well, when they`re not the hole in the ground kind. It`s fully automatic--I`m not kidding! It turns on and raises the lid all by itself when it senses someone standing near it, which is basically when you open the door to the room. (Toilet and bath are seperate rooms.) So, it has about 7 fuctions for your pleasure which includes automatically warming the seat, releasing cold water from the sink above after you flush, a bedee (if you push the button), and other things in kana that looked dangerous from the pictures, so I didn`t look further. oo;;;; My host mom is into crafts and painting wooden things. She`s really very good at it too. My mom had a similar hobby once when I was a kid, but she`s moved through many hobbies. Now I`m not sure what she`s on. Pretty box making I think. The family also has three dogs, two outside dogs which are pugs. I haven`t seen them yet, but as a rule, pugs are ugly things, in my opinion, so that`s all right. There`s an inside only dog named Rocky who is a VERY old and scrawny poodle.
Anyway, all day Saturday was fairly interesting. I got picked up and hauled off to their house. After I put all my stuff away in my room my host mom and I went shopping for food and my bike sticker for Kawase station. I don`t think food is going to be a problem for me. Then at the grocery I was told that they were having a sushi party with some of the neighbors that night. o.o So, I eventually got to meet their friends too. I did some homework and I also watched For the Love of the Game...with Kevin Costner. O.o; Yeah, my host mom likes Kevin Costner movies AND romantic movies. Sunday I got to watch Notting Hill and Anna and the King. The latter, actually being a very nice movie. Chow Yun-fat (sp?) is a keen actor. ^^ Oh, these were all on DVD in English with Japanese subtitles. I watched Anna and the King by myself so I got to switch to English with English subtitles since a good hunk of the movie is actually in Thai, so I couldn`t understand those scenes, since they were of course subbed in Japanese with complicated ideas running by really fast.
Sunday was BORING. I did my homework, watched those movies, rested in my room, ate dinner, watched TV with my host mom and dad (a cooking show), and then they went to bed at about 9:40. oo; Leaving me to watch TV alone in the kitchen until I so chose to go to bed, which ended up being a little after 10. Tonight will probably be similar. Go home, rest, eat, do homework, watch TV, take a bath, and go to bed. oo; Whee.
Speaking is interesting. My host mom speaks to me in really simple Japanese. For the most part I can understand what`s going on when they talk to me, but I`m so bad at returning speaking. o.o; I think they`re taking it as a sign that I actually don`t know what they`re saying because my host mom tends to use some English to try and explain things to me. Even simple words like `Monday` and `junior high school.` ._.;;; I have realized there are so many concepts that I want to talk about that I just can`t because I don`t have the vocabulary for it. Saturday night at the sushi party was really interesting because there were some times when I was following right along--they were talking about me and school and how the host family thing worked. But then they`d go off onto another topic and I had to sit there and guess because they were going way to fast with words I don`t think I know. The Kansai-ben doesn`t help either. O_o; (When talking directly to me, my host mom doesn`t use it though.) One neighbor lady at the sushi party asked me `Dochira hen?` And I it registered in my brain as Kansai-ben, but I couldn`t remember what ending that replaced, but I figured it out...with a little help from my sister ^^;;. And dammit all! >.< I realized along with my dictionary I left behind my Kansai-ben book that I bought at Mitsuwa over the New Year`s holiday. Also at the party was a junior high school social studies teacher who kept trying to ask me questions (while a little bit schockered, I think.) He kept asking me things like what`s so famous about Iowa, where is Iowa, who is the most famous person from Iowa, etc. I was just like O_O; I had to struggle to think of anything worthwhile, and in the meantime he was also trying to ask me these things in English, which was really hard for me to understand what he was trying to ask. He would ask for `the most....most...famous....` and I would just think `nani? ichiban yuumei na hito? tokoro? mono? NANYA?! OSHIETE!!!!! ;_;) He also told me that apparently among the Japanese, Iowa is not very famous. And I was just like, yeah, I know. It`s IOWA. We have corn. We have U of I. Yeah. I know it`s like me trying to explain Hikone (or anything less than Tokyo, actually) to your average American. Personally, I didn`t even know what a prefecture was until I started taking Japanese. o.o; If you`re wondering what I came up with, I tried to explain things about corn, Herbert Hoover, the U of I hospital, and the Iowa Writer`s Workshop. O.o; Darned if I know if actually got any of that across at all... I guess I should be thankful he didn`t ask about Knox and Galesburg. I`d hate to have to explain that tiny town. I`d have to explain about Abraham Lincoln and Carl Sandburg, for goodness sakes.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `Kanji! Falling from the book!` -- JCMU-type person XD
Friday, June 15, 2001 07:39 p.m.
Karen! Yes, I'll look for them. ^^ And I'll be back on August 7th, but I'm not planning on donig much until I readjust my body to CST. I hear westward travel really sucks that way. I'll be around thusly until the first Tuesday in September, whatever that date is...o.o
Michelle, ^^ hi. I hope you find my blog amusing and hopefully informative about Japan. We kinda met at ACen, but I don't think we ever went through introductions. I was the tall one with glasses at dinner who ran into you guys leaving for the restaurant.
Back from Kyoto! I didn't stay there for long enough. ;_; MOU! I want to go back. We did a lot, but far FAR from what I want to see there, which is like everything. ^^ Last night we did college student things at the lake which involved alcohol and fireworks. I had some interesting beverage called Chu-Hi which is basically fruity, carbonated alcohol along the line of a wine cooler. I think. Never had a wine cooler before. O_o; It was fairly tasty once you get past the carbonation--I don't drink pop in the first place because of the carbonation. ^^; Anyway, yeah, it was all right. People also tested the lake to see how cold it was. It was, but they didn't seem to care. I just stood there with the rest of the smart people (smart enough to know the temperature of the water is close to and probably exceeding "fucking cold"--drank my can of Chu-Hi, and chuckled.
I roused myself from bed and dreams containing strange Power Ranger type characters (that's the last time I read FOG Club before bedtime at least while the Neoranger movie storyline is still going on :P It was a really interesting dream too. I've only seen the Power Rangers show like once or twice--because I have a younger brother who at the time it was initially really popular, was just the right age for viewing it) about 7:30 this morning. Blah. Anyway, we bussed over to Kyoto and along the way I got to sample GIANT Pocky, which if you couldn't tell by the name is very very big. ^^ Tasted like normal strawberry Pocky, only bigger. Anyway, we got to see such sights along the way (through the bus windows) such as Heian-ji (I think that's the name) and the Imperial Palace. We went straight to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion. It was really fabulous, although a little smaller than I expected it to be, but it was sure shiny. ^^ not that the cloudy day helped with that. >.> But at least it didn't rain like the forcast claimed it would. So we toured through there, bought some stuff. I got a fortune from one of the machines and scored the second luckiest one you can get. ^^ That's always my luck. I'm always the next.
After Kinkakuji, a few of us ate with a few of our sensei at a nice Japanese-style noodle restaurant. By Japanese style, I mean tatami mat floor style. ^^ It was very fun, but we only had 20 minutes to order, get our food, eat and run before we had to be back to the bus. Unfortunatly we were a bit late, but there were people later than us, so it was all right. From there we drove over to Arashiyama and took the tram up to this town whose name I can't remember. There were all these cute things in the tram station I wanted, but I held off thinking if I really wanted them, I'd get them later, but alas, we didn't even go back that way. O_o; Oh, well. Anwyay, the tram ride was SO excellent. The country up there is so gorgeous! One of the most beautiful natural scenes I've ever seen myself. There were mountains, a big strem, huge forests! Very very awesome. After the tram stopped, we walked through a bamboo forest to get to the town. Again, sugoi! *_*
In the town we were free to roam about until it was time to return to Hikone. I wandered off with some people and shopped for a little bit. I bought some chopsticks with cute little owls on them, really nice postcards of Kyoto sights, and a little wall scroll and chopsticks for my grandparents. The chopsticks are simple, but they say ojiisan and obaasan on them. ^^ From there we ran into some of our sensei and decided to go see Tenryuji, a Zen temple. Unfortunatly, the thing was underconstruction so we couldn't see the huge dragon painting which is apparently on the ceiling of the temple. Instead we went through the garden, which was very beautiful. I took a ton of pictures. ^^ Then after that we had to come home. We watched Laputa on the bus on the way too. I could have stayed in Kyoto longer, but I have to be down in the lobby ready to leave at 9:00 to go to my homestay tomorrow. o.o; I'm getting nervous about that now... Mou. I hope my family is nice and can understand me through my horrid kaiwa skills. Despite what certain people say about my so-called SUUPA BRAIN, I just can't speak very well. XP Anyway, I'm off to pack. Have great weekends. :D See you on Monday.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Wakai sensei? O.o;"
Thursday, June 14, 2001 09:18 p.m.
A year or so back during my flowering fandom I heard a tale of a store in Japan that sold used manga and other related goods for cheap. I believed the tale to be true, and I dreamed one day of going there, but figured I`d never make it. Well, the rumor/story is true. I have seen the store. I have shopped there. And it was good. XD
Random scholastic related things went on this morning, and it was all right. I stupidly went to bed at one in the morning last night, so I was pretty tired when my alarm went off at 7:45 a.m. I was just excited for the weekend and wanting to be outta there during class. Tomorrow is the Kyoto trip. Unfortunatly it seems like it`s going to be raining all day tomorrow. -.- Darn rainy season. I found out this afternoon that my stop on the train going to my host family isn`t the stop at Viva City. It`s the stop after that. Mou... Anyway, this afternoon I kinda snapped during my little homework venture and decided to go to Viva City with some people. Viva City is an interesting place. It`s your basic mall, only it`s a Japanese mall. We ate dinner at McDonalds and had desert at Baskin Robbins. They also had a Subway and Dairy Queen in the mall. O_o; Also in the mall was a huge bookstore and huge CD/video store. We didn`t go into those because we were heading for the used manga/CD/video store. Also in the mall I saw an ad for FFIX running in the video game section. It looks so awesome! The graphics are exquisite and it just looks really pretty. Granted :p that doesn`t show how good the game play is, but based on pure graphics, YUM. From what I remember from the sign, it`s due out the 19th of July in Japan.
So, ok, I know you just wanna hear about the used manga shop so here we go. :p The store is called Book Off and it`s in Minami-Hikone, and they sell all sorts of used manga, games, JPOP and anime CDs, and books. Your average manga is sold for 100 yen a tankubon. Yes, that`s 100 yen per volume. :D! They have shelves and shelves of the stuff too! They also sell full sets too for higher prices, but still it`s a great deal whatever you buy in the store. Your average CD ranges from 750 yen to 1250 yen. I ened up spending 10,000 yen. ^_^;; But wait! I bought a ton of stuff with that. Among them, the four volumes of Wish, the first five volumes of Slayers (this cost me 400 yen! XD!), and seven CDs. These included Two Mix, Ogata Megumi, Chrono Trigger BOT, Weiss Kreuz (hush you. XP I luv me some Koyasu Takehito and Seki Tomokazu), FFVI Grand Finale, and something for Karen! Sorry I can`t remember the full name but it`s the KoF97 soundtrack of something. I think it had vocal sound files too. o.o If you want it let me know. I`ll get the full name of it later. They also have doujinshi, nice volume size looking ones. I found like 10 volumes of the same GW douj, but I didn`t buy it--even though it was exquisitly cute in places. I didn`t go through the stuff as much as I wanted, so I don`t know any other titles.
o.o Anyway, I have to run. We`re going down to Lake Biwa for some interesting times. ^^ ohoh. BTW, I`m willing to buy things for people if their money is involved, but Japan is largely a cash based place and I only have so much, so stuff will be limited unless I have more money. ^^ Gomen. Also, I`m probably going to be shipping the stuff via mail if I end up with enough of it since I have so little space and airplane baggage is limited by weight and size. Ack. This was such a shallow entry. More later, but I`m going to homestay on Saturday morning and Kyoto tomorrow morning, so updates may be few until Monday afternoon. Ja.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `CHU!`
Wednesday, June 13, 2001 02:33 p.m.
Mini-Update: Oh dear, I just realized that this computer`s date is off and thus the entry date for today and several other days. I switch computers daily since I`m in the comp. lab. Those enty dates have been fixed. O.o Sorry if anyone got confused.
Well, not really much to blog about in relation to what I`ve been doing these past hours. It was your basic go to class, do your homework, and go to bed day only broken up by doing down to AL Plaza for more food. I`ve been spending way too much on food. I say this because my home stay starts on Saturday and I already paid a good amount for boarding fee for that. So, when I add on the prices of what I`ve paid for my own food (that I originally thought I wouldn`t be paying since I was doing homestay) it gets to be quite an even larger amount.
So, I guess I`ll talk about food hear as I`ve experienced it in Hikone. Prices are high. For example, you can buy a bag of four large apples at the local farmer`s market for 400 yen, which at the current exchange rate is just under four bucks. (Current exchange rate we get here in Japan is around 118 yen per dollar.) Granted, they`re the best apples I`ve ever eaten before, still that`s an eye-boggling amount to see in the store. Yet, not everything is so expensive, it`s just less expensive than the expensive stuff. Take for example, yogurt. It`s about 90 yen for one can of it, and the cans are about the same size, but maybe a little smaller, than the cylindrical shaped Yoplait stuff. Bread here in Japan is awesome--this is coming from a lover of bread too. It`s expensive, again, about 170 yen for a bag of 5-8 pieces--same amount of bread but the slices get thinner as the number goes up.
Judging from the one grocery store I`ve been to, I think I can say that Japanese grocery stores are different. For a variety of reasons. The first thing you notice is the great number of store employees shouting `Irrashaimase!` over and over again, each in their own unique style. At least, that`s what was going on yesterday. I hadn`t actually noticed before, but I really think I hadn`t been in the store when they were doing it to that extent. All the checkout employees have their spiel that they need to say including `irrashaimase` and `arigatou gozaimashita` etc. They will greet each and every customer, unlike my local Hy-Vee which just rings you through without so much a word otherwise. Another is that mixed in with foods you would normally find in Japanese cooking like soy sauce, rice, various types of noodles, and sea food, you can find the Western style stuff. Yesterday I saw a ready-made frozen pizza sitting next to the ready-made nikuman and just down the freezer from the pre-packaged gyoza. ^^; Yes, don`t forget that Japan is a very modern country and you can find prepackaged food here just like in the U.S. ^^ I never even thought about that before I came here. Actually, I never thought much about the food in Japan before I got here and needed to eat. Anyway, there are also a variety of Western products in stores too--Pepsi, Coke, KitKat bars, Oreos, etc. The Coca Cola company seems to market a variety of drinks specifically in Japan. Like Qoo, this juice drink that`s very yummy. Yet despite the influx of Western stuffs, grocery stores are of course geared toward Japanese food. Often the fresh meats and fish are set out like a farmer`s market, but at the same time there are other meats like hamburger wrapped and packaged like you`d see in the states.
Espeically on the Western-style food products, you will likely find some English or maybe another language on the pacakge. I have a box of cookies called Petite Chocolat. If it`s not in English, it`ll be in katakana. Things like chiizu (cheese), yooguruto (yogurt), and minikurimu (mini cream). It`s amazing to the extent that you can find the Western stuff. Very helpful for the native English speaker living in Japan, but I gotta wonder why English and English words in Japanese are so plentiful here. Sure, it`s a popular thing and cool thing to have things with English on them, but, really, why? o.o I can only suppose it`s about the same thing as people in the U.S. have with kanji and the like. Just as you can see a Japanese person in Japan wearing a shirt that says `Flapper` (I did yesterday) you can see an American with some kanji on their shirt that they probably can`t read.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `Have a break. Have a KitKat bar.` -- my box of KitKat Sticks
Tuesday, June 12, 2001 02:43 p.m.
Nya! Oh, today was so much fun! ^^ Yesterday was just like a tiny hell. >.< After class after massive emails and blogging I returned to my room where I stayed until 10:00 p.m. studying and doing my homework. For some reason it got really hard this chapter. One reason could be that I spent too much, and yet not enough, time on working through our yomimono. We had a reading check today that required us to make 2 mistakes or less to get somesort of A. The yomimono contained very large words I'd never seen before and they were all in kanji I didn't know with no furigana. @_@; Granted by the end I could read through it pretty well, a lot of words I still screwed up on. On top of that we had a vocab quiz over said words, kanji quiz, and other worksheets today. Thankfully, all we have for tomorrow is some worksheets and one vocab quiz. BTW, I may or may not have mentioned this before, but we have a quiz over vocab, kanji, or both everyday. Two on somedays. Rarely, like today, we have three.
So at about 10 last night my brain couldn't hold anymore so I headed downstairs to socialize and blow off doing anything constructive for the rest of the night. I went to Lawson's (local convience store) for some goodies and beverages and got myself a Japanese brand chocolate bar and some juice. The juice had this really neat extendo straw. XD I was amused. Today after class we had a cultural experience thing on flower arranging. We got to arrange our own bunch of flowers. ^^ Oh, it was...just neat! Mine turned out really well and was touched up to be even better by the sensei. I was too symmetrical in my design and it needed to be off a little bit.
The rest of the week should be interesting. Tomorrow and Thursday aren't too special, but the Kyoto trip is Friday and on Saturday I head off to live with my host family. o.o While I'm not *worried* per se, I'm nervous about it. I hope my gifts are all right. I guess that's my number one concern. Following it are bed, food, and speaking Japanese all the time. ^^; Oh, I discovered though that the train stop I get off on is the same area of town that Viva City is in. The Viva City with the big bookstore. XD I know what I'm doing this weekend!
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Walking with purpose!" -- The Jar
Monday, June 11, 2001 02:35 p.m.
o_o whaaaaaaaa! So much to blog about, so little patience to do it in. I'm sore. I'm very VERY sore. Reason? I went to Osaka this weekend. XD The story below. However, I'll tell you about Friday too. Friday I went out with some people for dinner at a noodle shop and then back to campus to watch movies way into the wee hours of the morning. None were Japanese--we instead we watched Dragonheart and Charlie's Angels. Woo hoo.
Saturday morning I got invited to go to Osaka, of course I said yes. ^^ We took the train from Hikone to Kyoto and down to Osaka. Cost was very nice. Less than the equivilant of 19 bucks one way. It was cool watching Japan flow by while we were on the train. Along the way we concocted this huge list of places we wanted to go, unfortunatly we didn't quite make it to very many. Instead, we had other adventures. I now know how to navigate the train and subway system in Japan pretty well thanks to all of our trips too and from places. People get tickets from machines that they acquire based on their destination. Each destination has its own price and is listed on a board near the ticket machines. Then to get to the train you need to put your ticket in a slot at the gate. Once you get in, find your train and go. Basically you can make as many stops as you want and go anywhere in any station as long as you get out at your stop, but you can't leave the station because your ticket is taken when you leave through another gate. After arriving in Osaka we took the train out to see Tennoji, a temple, and the surrounding park area. Unfortunatly we didn't get in because it was so late and everything was closing. Instead we found another temple to go into. We took many many pictures. It was really neat finally being in a Japanese Buddhist temple after all that time we spent learning about them in art history class. ^^ There were several cats running around the temple too, and we took pictures of one who was sleeping on a rock.
From there we went to ShinSekai--New World--to find some food. Shinsekai is a large shopping district with many restaurants and shops. I kept seeing shops I wanted to go into, but by the time we got out from dinner, they were all closed. -.- I especially wanted to cruise the toy stores and the book stores. ^^; We ate at a nice restarant where I had katsu pilaf. It was very amusing for part of the trip because we had two ichinensei with us who couldn't read most anything. So while I could order from the menu without pointing at pictures and models, they needed to. I would have helped, but they kept ordering things that contained kanji I don't know. ^^; So, I was pretty useless in that sense. Anyway, after that we had ice cream at an ice cream shop. Expensive but yummy.
It was edging towards sundown when we decided that we needed to find our accomedations for the night. Before leaving we decided that we would spend the night there but if push came to shove we'd take the 2 a.m. train back to Hikone. Push didn't come to shove because we felt like we hadn't done enough to warrent leaving that night. We wandered around downtown Osaka looking for a hotel, unfortunatly all asked us if we had a reservation and then we were told they were booked solid. All three hotels we tried. During our search for the first hotel our map holder and navigator steered us into Skanktown, Japan (our name for it). We were trying to get to Hotel A, but the direction we should have been heading according to the map contained streets that weren't on the map. Hence we got somewhat lost in Osaka's Skanktown that contained among other things, dark alleys, clubs closely guarded by good-looking men (REALLY good looking, imo) in suits, bars, colorful flashing neon signs, strip clubs, peep shows, prostitues, love hotels, and other such things involving money and naked women. We got out of there eventually and headed for somewhere nicer.
Upon our polite booting from the third hotel we settled on finding the Osaka youth hostile, which we did after a long trek through a subway station and a park. On a sidenote, let me just say how impressed I am with Japanese trains and subways. They are usually on time to the minute. The cars were clean and the seats were even upolstered (sp?). And trains were coming and going all the time. I don't think we EVER had to wait more than five minutes for a train the entire weekend. Now, granted I haven't ridden very many local trains in large US cities, but from what I hear and have experienced, the Japanese kick US ass when it comes to public railway transport. The hostile was a very nice place. We actually got in just in time. Gates locked at 11, we got there about 10:30. The beds were extremely comfy. There's little nicer than a western style matress AND a futon. *_* We spent the night here and cleaned up as we really needed it. Here we got our first taste of Japanese style baths. Communal style baths. O_o; You know, the sit down, shower off, and then get into the tub type. Fortunatly we (I and the girl I was with--our main group was a group of four) waited around long enough for all the strangers to finish and leave before we went in. Also, there were shower stalls which we used, but we also tried the tub too. Soooo relaxing. After there we ate breakfast at, you'll never guess, a shop called Mr. Donut. Apparently which is a Boston-based company.
After a short subway ride we tried to look for a temple called Shitennoji. Much to my personal dismay, we wandered around back alleys and side streets looking for the thing (I wasn't navigating...). We didn't find it. By that time it was fairly late so we decided to just screw it and go to Osaka castle. :D It's a fabulous place! The inside is just a museum, which was pretty disappointing, but the view from the top was great. Surrounding the caslte is Osakajokoen, the Osaka castle park. Here we wandered (noticing a trend?) when we came upon a group of taiko players performing on the streets. They were really great and it was my first time seeing taiko players. Very cool. They even had a Caucasian college-aged girl in their troupe. I was very impressed. From there we went to the castle grounds and into the castle proper. We wandered around inside and looked at all the keen things. Much of the explanations were translated into English except for the videos that were shown in various places about the castle. That was way too beyond my listening capabilities. After the caslte our group split in half because it was very late and we still had all our homework to do. Half went to Denden-cho, a shopping district for electronics and then home, while the other half which included me, went directly back to Hikone via the train.
In all, it was an awesome trip even though we wandered way too much for my taste, but hey, it's not like we planned the trip at all. ^^ It's too be expected, of course then. Also, the reason I'm so sore is because of this fact too. I was carrying around my backback filled with everything I needed for the trip plus a smaller bag for my cameras and money. And it was hot those days. So, in all, I hurt, but I had fun. ^^
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Pigeons: the international bird!" -- me upon seeing the flocks and flocks of pigeons in Osaka
Friday, June 8, 2001 05:17 p.m.
Hmm...the computer next to me has Sayuki wallpaper. Oishisou. Well, last night and today were just, oh, hella fun. ^^ I didn't have much homework last night so I pushed most of it off until the last minute. I managed to survive the kanji and vocab quizzes too. Basically the whole night I sat around with a group of people "studying" and "doing our Japanese homework." XD Psh. Right. While I did get everything accomplished, it took a good long time to do it (ie: half a page of fill in the blank worksheet = 2 hours to complete), but that's only because 85% of the time we were just goofing off anyway. ^^ On a study break I also found some yummy cream bread at the local Quicki-mart type store that is basically on every block in Hikone. Before our "study session" I wandered in on another one and did some work, but also got a good education on Young Jump. O_o; Ok, I'd never actually seen one before yesterday, but I was only half-surprised by the content. Quite raunchy. One American female student was especially animated and shocked. The manga part was only a bit shocking, but the inclusion of the soft pron pictures surprised me. Especially when we were told that this was for junior high school students.
Today after class we had a mass cookout with all of the nihongo and eigo students. My group made curry. Among other things that were made were yakisoba, onigiri, yakimeshi, and some other things I've never heard of. It was very yummy! The sensei even joined us. ^^ They're all so much fun. This afternoon we watched Tampopo, which is always amusing. I love the scene with the grandma being chased in the grocery store. XD No plans yet for tonight although after watching that movie, I think I might be going back to the ramen shop. Hehe. At least the rain stopped today. Three days straight of the stuff, I was getting a bit depressed. I finally got a straight answer that June is the rainy season. Lucky. Also today we got our itineraries for the Kyoto trip next Friday. They only thing I recognized is that we're going to Kinkakuji--the Golden Pavilion.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Yes! They'd be good with horseradish sauce!" -- mangled quotation from Tampopo
Wednesday, June 6, 2001 07:52 p.m.
Well, I am procrastinating to blog. Now I can't find the apostrophe...I think this computer is back on Western standard. o.o That's really gonna screw me up. Grr. Ok, so my little Japan update for the day. Yesterday I rode around in the rain with just a slicker as far as rain gear. We got kinda drenched, but it was fun. I've been to AL Plaza so much since I got here it's like a second home. That's the shopping mall/grocery store we always go to. Also, we tried to find this place called Viva City which sells, among other things, used manga, but it's really far away, and we didn't know where we were going, so we didn't quite make it. Instead, we found the shopping district. Very cool, very expensive. We were quite amused when we walked into this electronics store, as we were looking for walkmans for our listening comp tapes that we needed to buy since they didn't warn us we'd need them. -.-; So we walked in and started looking around and from the back of the store we heard the store owners talking to each other, among the things we caught while they were watching us were, "Eigo wa dou desu ka?" ^^;
We managed to find cheap walkmans (unfortunatly mine is pink...) at AL Plaza for only 2300 yen--the cheapest one we could find. Last night I bummed around and did homework and went to bed at 10. Today after class we went back to the Plaza for food. It rained all morning, but by the afternoon it was pretty much over with, but then it started again this evening. Blah. I needed to buy more food because I had only purchased food through the end of this week, figuring my homestay would come about this weekend. Wrong. Instead, I found out today that I'll be going to homestay on June 16. The commute isn't so bad, but I do have to take a train, but I'm not sure how long the ride is. In all I'll be biking 25 minutes plus the train ride. My family looks interesting. On their personal level all I know are their ages, birthdates, and a couple of hobbies. They have three dogs O.o; but only one is an inside dog. I hope it's small. Dogs and I aren't very compatible. Basically because I don't like being licked or drooled on by them. Give me a cat any day. Anyway, my host family parents are roughly my parents age, but a few years younger. Golf, skiing, country dolls, and travelling are among their interests. I also will have an oneesan. ^^ She's 25. So, not only do I get the change of having an older sibling for the first time, but having a sister as well.
For dinner today I cooked myself some gyoza I bought at the store. XD I love gyoza. I love Japan. I tried to make my own rice in our rice cooker, but my cooking savy roommate pointed out I didn't use enough water AND I turned on the wrong button--warming instead of cooking. Not my fault. It's in kanji that I don't know. o.o; I'm such a horrible cook. I've just never done it before beyond a few certain dishes. If I have instructions or recipes, I have no problem, but I don't have any and all the instructions I have are in Japanese most of which I can't read yet. However, I did manage to figure out the gyoza cooking instructions. ^^; Dear lord they were good.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Look! Quotation marks! --> """""" ^^;"
Tuesday, June 5, 2001 01:06 p.m.
Hi hi. Well, we had our first day of class yesterday and may I say. O_o; and :D and ^_^ and -.- etc. I`m going to learn so much this summer but not without the ton of practice and homework that comes with taking the course. All of the classes are taught in Japanese, eigo wa kinjiru. Onishi-sensei, one of our professors is one of the professors who works here and at Nanzen. As I said, I`m in third year with five other people. We go at a fairly fast pace and already we had our first quiz today. We`re going to be having a quiz or two everyday. o.o; All the homework took me three hours last night, and tonight looks about the same. We have a sakubun due first thing tomorrow morning plus a vocab and kanji quiz. Class goes from 9:10 until 12:00 with an hour break for lunch and then there`s another class from 1:10 until 2:00. Fortunatly on Tuesdays and Fridays we don`t have class in the afternoon. Instead we have cultural activities. ^^ Today we didn`t have anything, but Friday we`re watching Tampopo and next Tuesday we`re doing flower arranging. ^^; Friday we`re going to Kyoto! Whoopie! Among other things, we also have a large project to do which entails interviewing native speakers, writing a paper about it, and giving a presentation. That will be quite a task. I have to decide on a topic by Monday morning.
Sunday afternoon and evening I got my first taste of Japanese TV. Oh, so amusing! XD! Apparently there`s a Japanese version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, only you win 10,000,000 yen instead. I watched that for awhile and tried to follow along, to little avail. I still haven`t watched any anime. Most of Japanese TV is like American TV in that there`s very little of value on. ^^ But I was watching on Sunday afternoon, so that probably had a lot to do with the quality of what I was watching.
Yesterday afternoon I rode around town for awhile and bought some more food. Japanese bread is SO yummy. It`s on the expensive side, but it`s really good. So are the apples. Apples are about 400 yen for four large apples, and that`s at the farmers market. Yup, there`s a farmers market hidden away in downtown Hikone. My bike that broke overnite on Sunday was fixed yesterday at no charge to me, okagesama de. So my friend and I rode around town and took pictures of the canal and one of Hikone-jo (the castle). Apparently there are ruins of another castle on the otherside of town, but I`m not sure where they are. We`ll have to visit there sometime though.
Today the weather finally turned cooler and it looks like it`s going to rain. Of course, on the day we get a little rest, it will rain. XP blah. Sometime this week or this weekend, I`ll find out where my homestay is. Hopefully it won`t be too far away because I don`t like commuting one bit. One thing that does bug me about this place is that they didn`t bother to tell us when our homestays would start. I had no idea when it was, so I was under the impression that they started soon after we arrived. Not true. So, after I specifically didn`t bring food with me, I have to buy all my food for the week. Not a horribly bad or inconvenient thing, but I wish they would have told us. Dunno what`s going on this afternoon, but it will probably look like me sitting in the language lab or at my desk writing. ^^
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `Nai.`
Sunday, June 3, 2001 04:37 p.m.
Yo. Well, it`s been a day here. Haven`t done much but rest. But I think we all need it. Classes start tomorrow at 9:10 sharp and last til two. Funners! Last night was fun. After I got my books (and homework for Monday O.o;) a group of us went out to dinner. We never found the restaurant we were looking for and instead settled for food at the local ramen shop. ^^ I had yakisoba. Very tasty. Then we checked out this Pahcinko game parlor. It was loud and very strange. o.o But now I know what pachinko is. There were all these huge bugs flying around outside which was not very amusing, but they mostly left us alone. After that we came back to campus and people familiarized themselves with the local sake and tabako while playing cards. I played cards. Rum ga mazui kara. Blech. I left early since I was getting sleepy. Of course I then woke up at 7:30 the next day. My sleep schedule is still wierd.
Today was just lounging about. I did homework, studied, talked with folks, etc. I got my tire pumped back up and it seems to be holding air. I`m going to check it after awhile here. I hope it isn`t broken. I`d be quite pissed off if I had to pay for something that I didn`t do to the bike. This afternoon I watched some Japanese television. I haven`t seen any anime on TV yet, but the shows I did watch were quite interesting. One was this show very much like Kodacha no Sana`s TV show. It was quite uncanny! From what I remember, the sensei even sounded like the Kodocha sensei. Even had similar teeth. ^^; Of course, it was a lot more sober than the one on Kodocha. I`ve also seen a plethora of Japanese commercials: a strange mix of coolness, cuteness, oddness, English, and wackiness. The other TV surprise I got today was that apparently there`s a Japanese version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire! ^^; It was a LOT more animated than the American version, that`s for sure, but it was very entertaining, even though I couldn`t understand most of what was said or the questions. They had the same set, music, and the host even looked like a Japanese Regis Philbin!
Well, one other great surprise I received today was that on the 15th of June there`s a class trip to Kyoto! :D! Yay! I can`t wait to tour the city and see temples and such. That`s why I brought all that film. ^^ The Japanese landscape is so photogenic. I want to bring it all back with me when I go home. Well, again, camera, film.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `A little carrot between your tooth and gum tastes mighty good.` -- Bugs Bunny
Saturday, June 2, 2001 03:39 p.m.
Well, it`s been a full day here, and it`s not over yet. Somehow thanks to the time change and the sunrise at 5 this morning, I got up at 6 a.m. without feeling a bit tired. I was quite surprised. After putzing around the dorm for awhile, I had to go take my placement exam, which was...--; well, it`s over now. It was three parts: written grammer, written reading and writing, and oral interview. Can you guess which one I looked like a complete idiot on? That`s right. The oral. I managed to understand most of what the interviewer said--probably 85-90%. I`ve noticed that here in Hikone people tend to use honorifics and very polite language a lot. When one of the faculty introduced himself he said `watakushi`. All of the airport personel and restaurant workers call all their customers `okyaku-sama` instead of using -san. Sometimes it screws me up when they use honorifics like go- or o- since I`ve never been spoken to like that before. For example, during my interview I was asked about my `oshigoto`. Looking at it now, I can see what it means, but having it run by my ear once just left me blank. o.o; I eventually understood after asking him to repeat. The written parts were relatively all right. I missed most of what would be considered yonensei stuff. I flubbed the last reading comp paragraph, but it was very hard: no furigana and unknown kanji. Results for our exams are going to be posted soon. I hope and pray I managed to get into third year. Watashi no atama ga warui na... >.< Ah! Also, before I forget, 2 of the professors here are actually teaching at Nanzen too. Just an interesting tidbit.
My apartment mate arrived last night while I was taking a nap. She`s very nice and enthusastic about cooking. ^^ Our fridge is stocked with goodies. After our test I went out with her to lunch at Coco`s. This time I had something called macaroni gratin. It was pasta with some odd cheese sauce covering it and then regular melted cheese on top. It was very tasty. Also, I don`t think I mentioned this yesterday, but an interesting little discovery I found at Coco`s. They put the calorie count and fat grams on the menu under each item! o.o It`s actually a very useful thing. I kinda wish that was done in the U.S. I think people would be much more conscious of what they were eating then. So after lunch I ran into some folks I know who were planning to bike out to Hikone Castle. Yes, there`s a castle just down the street. ^^ I joined but unfortunatly, my bike`s back tire was flat so I had to go borrow someone else`s...now I have to find someone in charge to tell them. No one`s around right now though... So, we went, but we didn`t make it to the castle because it was 500 yen to get in. Apparently there`s no charge for JCMU students as long as they have the pass located back at the Center. We didn`t have it. So, we did not go. Instead we went biking around the city. We found the commercial side of the city. It`s much more loud and packed with people. We found the train station and a couple of Shinto shrines, one with a graveyard. They were very cool! ^^
Not sure what`s on the schedule for tonight. sounds like the professors are coming down with the verdict. We have to pick up text books and such after we see the results. *Jeopardy music* XD! YES! I am a sannensei! Woo hoo! XD! Oh, I feel so much better now.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `Pocari Sweat.` -- brandname Japanese beverage
Friday, June 1, 2001 06:25 p.m.
Karen, -.- I`m really sorry about your dad. I wish I could be there. Feel free to email me if you want to.
Ok, the Japan report. I`m here! :D It`s been an interesting trip so far, let me tell you. First off, if there are many mechanical errors in this blog, forgive me. This keyboard is a Japanese one so all the punctuation is in a different spot. It`s really annoying, especially when I want to find an apostrophe. Also, as you know, the blog is dated local time. Japan is ten hours ahead, so it is 4:30 a.m. back home. Hope I did that math right, but I know the times are right. I kept my old watch on CST and my new watch on JST.
The plane ride and transportation was similar to hell like I assumed, but not in the places I had expected. I got up at four in the morning on Weds, went to the Quad Cities airport for my flight to Chicago at six. There in O`Hare I sat by myself until I found the JCMU folks and we took off for Japan at noon. Somehow I got seated next to JCMU folks too so we talked during the flight and played games and such. JAL airplanes are huge. And don`t let the seats in business class and first class fool you. If you ride economy class, it`s the equivilant seating of a bus--maybe a little less leg room. I got stuck in the middle of four center seats. There were two other aisles of seats with three each. The flight lasted 12 hours. However small your space, each seat comes with its own entertainment center! O.o; There`s a little tv on the seat in front of you. It came with a magic wand (majiku waando) that allows you to do the following: call the flight attendants, turn on the little light above your head, turn on the tv to one of 12 different movies (I watched Toy Story, this silly movie about models, and part of what I think was Chocolat), access 18 different radio channels, play 10 video games such as matching, tetris, chess, etc., access the flight data, and see the view from the bottom of the plane. That was awesome. I got to see Alaska, the Pacific Ocean, the plane taking off, Japan, etc. Oh, I should mention that our flight went up through Minn. and Wisconsin then through Canada and Alaska down to Japan. Once in Narita airport we sat and waited for the plane to Nagoya. Actually, a bunch of us wandered around the airport looking at things, exchanging our money for yen, buying water, etc. From there we went to Nagoya, went through customs, and took another hour and a half bus ride to Hikone and JCMU. I finally got here at 11:30 p.m. JST time yesterday.
Then after a blissful night`s sleep on my new bed I got up at 7:45 for a breakfast of a banana and a very tasty donut. The beds here are very different from US ones. My bed in the JCMU apartments are basically a Western style bed frame but instead of springs, it has a really thick tatami mat. O.o; For bedding there was a futon like thing, a sheet, a thick comforter, and an undersheet. I slept on top of the comforter and the futon tihng because the bed was far too hard without it. I think I made the bed wrong though. I was tired. Also, the pillow is just a small pillow-shaped bean bag. Fun. I miss my plethora of soft pillows. -.- I had to take a cold shower because I could not figure out how the hot water worked. Basically I had to switch on something by the stove and then control the hot water via a panel by the tub. O.o; Oh, and a side note, God bless the Western style toilet. Japanese style toilets as you probably know are just a hole in the ground. Very uncomfortable for women. -.-; Thankfully there were Western ones at the airport and in our apartments. After breakfast we had orientation and self introduction to the Japanese students who are learning English here. Then a group of us volunteered to help out in the English class by being examples. We acted out tiny scenes of American greetings complete with hugging, handshakes, the guy hug, and the word howdy. ^^
After that we went to eat at Coco`s, a really odd restaurant right next to JCMU. It serves an interesting variety of food and quite interesting takes on American favorites like hamburgers. They had French fries, Mexican stuff, pizza, and spaghetti along with Japanese food. Located just down the street is a ramen shop which I will be checking out later. After that we got our official JCMU bikes. Bikes are a vastly valuable tool in Japan. Cars are not an option and taxis are kinda expensive. A bunch of us rode our bikes downtown to buy food and other such things later. We have to do our own cooking in our rooms--no cafeteria. I bought some things including fruit, eggs, rice, and some really yummy bread. I was going to make scrambled eggs for dinner when I realized I did not buy milk. -.-;;;; Duh. Then we came back to JCMU after hauling our groceries across town on our bikes. It was pretty cumbersome. Also, they have dollar stores here in Japan! Only they`re 100 yen stores. ^^ The grocery store we went to was in a plaza with clothing stores and other shops. The 100 yen store was there. I found this neat thing there: a bag with the word bag on it. XD! Seriously! It was a tiny bag that had another, larger bag in it. The little bag says Bag in Bag XD So I bought it. It was only 100 yen.
I had dinner in my apartment. Nice Japanese food. A peanut butter sandwich, yogurt, and a chocolate cookie. ^^; Yeah... Well, I don`t know how to use the rice cooker yet--it`s without instructions and the only thing written on it is in kanji I don`t know. I do have rice too. :P But that`s about it for now. Tomorrow is our placement test. I`m praying and studying hard to get into 3rd year. I haven`t seriously studied since last year since Knox only has two years of Japanese. Curses. So I am going off to study and kill time until bedtime. ^^ I will try to update the blog as often as I can, but we will see how things go.
But before I go, random things I want to mention:
1. Japanese apple juice is not like American apple juice. It`s so much better. It actually tastes like the juice you would find in an apple rather than the bottle. It is soooo yummy.
2. There is English everywhere here! Street signs are in kanji and translated into romaji. Lots and lots of products have English names. I`m surprised and somewhat pleased (selfishly so, however), but it makes me wonder about the US where everything is in English and hardly ever translated.
3. JCMU is located right on Lake Biwa, and when I say right on, I mean right on. You can see the lake outside the windows of the class rooms. And the beach-type area is only a short walk. There is a small river that runs through the city where we saw people fishing and boating today. It was very pretty.
4. Hikone is GORGEOUS! There are neat Japanese houses everywhere and there are mountains and tree covered hills that look exactly like the ones in Mononoke Hime. Sorry for the anime reference there, but that is what it looks like. ^^; Lake Biwa is really big and makes the area look even better. I`m going to take plenty of pictures.
5. Every school girl I saw with a school uniform on had those slouch socks. O.o; They`re lie legwarmers pushed down to be socks. Very interesting. I think I`ll buy a pair before I go. heheh.
6. Engrish is great. I`ve seen much of it here. I saw a girl with a shirt on that said Dude Up or something like that. It had a picture of a zebra on it.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: `Stupidity is an international phenomenon.`
Monday, May 28, 2001 11:17 p.m.
Well, today's blog will probably be my last one until I'm in Japan. Today my mom and I went on a tremendous shopping spree for my supplies. I got some new shorts and one or two shirts, a new suitcase (nice and big!), lots of personal-type items, and the like. Tomorrow I'm getting the last of my things: some batteries, film, and traveler's checks. Then I'm off to Moline for the night until my bright and early 6 a.m. flight. X_x Then I get to sit for 5 hours at O'Hare, 3 or 4 of those are by myself, until noon. Then the loooong flight to Tokyo, more sitting in Narita airport, and then to Nagoya, and finally a bus to Hikone. Travel is fun. Blech. At least I'm some what experienced on long travel though. I took three long bus trips from Iowa to San Antonio, Atlanta, and Orlando in high school. Still...I can remember getting back from Orlando at four in the morning after the 30 hour trip due to bus breakdown, willing to chew any appendage off as long as it would get me off that bus and into my own soft bed. oo;
Hmm...I really am not sure how I'm feeling about going to Japan and all. It's a plethora of emotions. Excited, various degrees of happy, scared, nervous, relieved, etc. I'm also very accepting of it too. Basically: "Yeah, it's time to do the next thing. Next thing? Japan. Ok, let's go do that now." Instead of something more, er, happier. That's probably a result of the fact that I've been telling people I'm going to Japan so much for so long that it sounds so normal now. Sometimes I have to figuratively hit myself in the head and remind myself I'm going to fricking Japan! ^^; But now I'm off to Japan where I'll be doing I don't know what, but it'll be awesome I know. I've got this huge list of stuff I want to do and go to. Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo, the Tokyo Tower (what American anime fan in wouldn't? Although I wonder if I have to find myself a school girl uniform first ^^!) a hot springs inn (:P), just tour the countryside, visit temples and the like. I want to see everything, but I DO have that little thing called class. Among the rules of JCMU, skipping class is one of the most heinous things you can do. That and not wearing a bike helmet on school grounds. o.o
Well, I guess that wasn't much, but that's all folks. ^^ Unless you really want to hear about my exciting time packing my suitcases. How will Rachel manage to fit two months worth of stuff in two bags with a limit on cubic inches/weight and one carry-on bag? Stay tuned! XD! I'll try to blog my exploits on as much of a regular basis as I can. IM may or may not be an option too. We'll see! If anyone wants to contact me (who reads this thing anyway? O_o;), just use the address on the side bar or send a message to my school account if you happen to know that. I'll be checking both. ^^ Well, until the next blog where I'll expound upon the wonders of international travel and Hikone, bye bye! Itte kimasu!
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Eat concrete shakes!"
Sunday, May 27, 2001 07:55 p.m.
Busy day, busy day. I'm home now. Got home yesterday after surviving the insane drivers between here and Galesburg. Ye gods, everywhere we went there were these idiots trying to drive. We witnessed one near head-on collision--some guy tried to pass six or seven cars on a two lane highway when there was another car on the otherside of the road. O_o; Fortunatly they slowed down in time for the guy to swerve back in the other lane. Anyway, I crashed all last night and did some laundry. Didn't feel like much else since I only got 4 hours of sleep that night. Still, it takes me an hour of lying in bed before I can actually fall asleep. -.-; Did that two nights in a row this week.
Today was graduation for my brother. I went and sat through the whole spiel over again. Exactly like it was last time only different people and of course I was sitting in a different place. Somehow we got seated right up front on the floor so I got to wave at all the teachers who recognized me. ^^;;; Fortunatly for we audience the 20 (O_o;) valedictorians didn't speak--only five did in three speeches. Less talking, more walking! Thank you. My parents have been hitting all the graduation parties. Apparently my brother is popular or something. :P I also went to see the doctor today--I've got sinus infection and a throat infection. Thankfully I got to skip the strep throat test. >_< I hate those things. After the grad ceremony we went out to eat and now I'm at home once again. Now begins the mad rush to pack and prepare for Japan. o_o; My mom and I are going out shopping for personal supplies and the like tomorrow. Tonight I get to prepare lists and such. Tuesday night we're going out to Moline to spend the night so I can get a decent amount of sleep. My flight leaves at six a.m. *twitch* When they develop teleportation devices I will be all too grateful. :P
And what's this I see about the 1st Avenue Denny's closing? I'm shocked. o.o;
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "*random advice about going to Japan*"
Saturday, May 26, 2001 03:50 a.m.
All right. I'm almost officially done. Only thing left is to proof read my story one more time, print it out, and hand in my portfolio. Then I finish packing and hightail it out of this burg. Actually, I've been packing since about 2 a.m. I think most of what I can pack is stowed. My family, including me in all our brilliance, usually forgets to leave me suitcases for clothes, so I always get those when I'm picked up. You know, you never realize how much stuff you have until you have to pack it and take it somewhere. O_o; Thank god for recycling. You should see the pile of to-be-recycled stuff on my floor. Massive!
Tomorrow I'm doing as mentioned and then collapsing amongst my herd of cats to rest until I have to get up again to pack, shop, do laundry, and otherwise prepare for my trip on Tues/Weds. More about that later. However, note that I should be able to email and hopefully blog in Japan--there's somesort of computer lab, I believe. What would I do without reading blogs and online comics for two months? ;_; The horror...the horror... *smacks self* I still hate that book. Anyway, I'm going to take my overly cheery self bed now. I have to be up in...five hours... -_-; Taihen ya.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "'So there's a guy...' Ya lost me..." -- Kids in the Hall
Wednesday, May 23, 2001 12:29 p.m.
I'm still sick, and although I thought my cold ended after ACen, it's back and getting a bit worse. Blah. It doesn't help that I'm going into finals week and leaving the country a week from today, so I can't lay around and be pitiful. I've got work that needs to be done! Grr. Actually, at this very time next Wednesday I'll (if airlines allow) be sitting on the plane from Chicago to Tokyo. I'm just tired. Last night I was awake until 3:30 due to coughing until I finally realized exactly what time it was and the reason I wasn't asleep was the coughing. So I finally got up, took some cough syrup and propped myself up in bed. That actually helped. Although...I wonder if it's a bad thing that the cough syrup's expiration date has past...o.o;
Yesterday was the last Caxton Club of the year where Rachel Hall, a Knox alum, read a short story of hers. It was enjoyable. I also found this yummy candy--Baskin Robbin's Mint Chocolate Chip hard candy. O_O Oishii! It tastes like the real thing, only candy. Oh, I also heard TokyoPop is putting out, among others, the "as seen on Cartoon Network" [sic] Trigun soundtrack.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Sekai o kakumei suru tame ni!" -- the SKU's student council
Tuesday, May 22, 2001 12:27 a.m.
Ok, updated some stuff and I archived. Well, day whatever of the little website follies. I guess it's over and done. O_o Whatever it was. I finished my story that I blogged about the other day. I don't like the ending, but it's going to be fixed soon to one that I'm more fond of. I'm so glad my prof agreed with me about all the stuff I thought was awry with the ending. ^^ Not that I like producing shoddy work, but because at least I know when I'm off. I still don't like the title, but I can't come up with anything different right now. Titles are like that. Quite irksome.
Well, I got a shock on Saturday from my mom. She emailed me and said she got a bill from MSU for $2370. I freaked out, furiously wondering why I'd be getting this bill when JCMU has been paid already. But, I called today and everything got straightened out. Apparently since I'm going through MSU to get credit, they automatically bill me anyway even though I'm paid up. Still, I don't need those kinds stressors. o_O; My conclusion that all school registrars are out to get me remains true.
Well, this weekend's events: Matt and I skipped the J-Club showing of Grave of the Fireflies. We've both seen it before, me twice, and I didn't feel like crying that night. ^^; So instead we hung about and played video games and watched movies. And the like. Saturday I went to see the studio theater perform "Women in Mind"--a strange tale about a woman who has a fantasy family and life in her mind, supposedly to make up for her deficient real life. However, things get weird when the fantasy family starts affecting real life and suddenly everyone is all in the same "world" and the audience can't tell which is real anymore. It reminded me of Perfect Blue, but only in the sense that it was one of those mess with reality productions. ^^ Those are usually fun.
Sunday night was the season finale of the X-files. *_* It was good. Krychek finally got what was coming to him. Only took 6 years XP! And I must say, Mulder and Scully are probably two of the most awkward kissers I've ever seen. Yeesh. Today I met with a couple professors to talk about my story and then my TAing next year. In other news, I found out today I won a local (read: on campus) East Asian essay contest for my paper on Kabuki from last term's Modern Japan. Yay! I think money is involved in this, but I'm not sure how much. I was never told, but I never bothered to care--ok, I never thought I'd win, even though I was hoping. I'm just glad I won :D although extra cash is certainly not a bad thing! ^_~ I won't have a problem accepting any prize money.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Is it just me, or does that bunny have a gatling gun? Oh, crap."
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