My return to Disney was marked by many Japanese-speaking aliens.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
My Daily Commute (abridged)
As the semester drew to a close and I began to get prematurely nostalgic about daily life in Japan, I decided to film my commute to school. Since I'm sure no one wants to sit through a good 45 minutes of me sitting on a train or 20 minutes of me on a subway, I've abridged the video. Even so, this clip ended up quite long and rather uninteresting. Still, if you want a snapshot of life in Japan, this is pretty much it. Serious props if you can sit through the whole thing (I can't).
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Commercial Project
In my Japanese class we studied how effective commercials are produced and one of our final projects was to create a commercial about KCJS. It's pretty rough because the software we were using left much to be desired, but, here it is:
Koto Concert
Here is a video from waaay back when I was in Okayama. My friend's host sister played us a concert on her Koto, a traditional Japanese instrument.
Home again, home again
Hello,
It's Tuesday, December 27 (I'm now 20!) and I am posting from Phoenix.
While I'm not in Japan anymore, I'm not quite finished blogging about my experiences either. I actually completed a number of blogs before I left Japan that never got posted due to a series of events (catastrophic internet failure, finals, traveling, etc.) so I'm going to back-post a few video blogs shortly.
Michaela
It's Tuesday, December 27 (I'm now 20!) and I am posting from Phoenix.
While I'm not in Japan anymore, I'm not quite finished blogging about my experiences either. I actually completed a number of blogs before I left Japan that never got posted due to a series of events (catastrophic internet failure, finals, traveling, etc.) so I'm going to back-post a few video blogs shortly.
Michaela
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
So much to post, so little time...
So I've been seriously falling behind on my blog, but expect an epic video update sometime tomorrow, I think.
In the mean time, enjoy my latest photos:
In the mean time, enjoy my latest photos:
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| How I sleep at night. |
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| The beautiful restaurant where I ate with my Okayama host family. |
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| My meal there. Ate lots of new things! |
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| Cheapest jidohanbaiki you will find in Japan. |
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| Old lady meets...death punk? |
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Random Stuff
Not much of great interest has happened in the last week, but I'm posting anyway.
On Monday I saw my LAST EVER Noh play. Woooo. From here on out, we see one Bunraku (puppet play) performance and one Kabuki performance, both of which I'm actually quite excited about.
Thursday was (another) national holiday (文化の日!) and there was a stamp-collecting festival in Uji, so Trisha, Gabri and I went to participate in the festival and see Byoudoin, since we missed it the first time around. The idea with the stamp collecting festival is that you get a passbook and go around to all these booths set up around Uji stamping your book. Once you collect them all, you go to an island in the middle of the Uji river and retrieve a final stamp and a prize. We didn't start until late in the afternoon so we didn't have time to collect all the stamps (even though one extremely nice stamp booth volunteer went so far as to chase us down twice to stamp our books even though his booth was already closed) but we went to the island anyway and they gave us a nice commemorative pin. We also managed to see Byoudoin and eat a second round of cha soba, so it was a pretty solid day overall.
Friday my friends and I had a belated Halloween Party with some of the Japanese students in our class. We put on facepaint and ate pizza, gyoza, rice, and cup ramen. College students throw really classy parties, right?
On Saturday I had my first experience with the Hiking Club at Doshisha. Apparently they normally run for training practice, but since it was raining we climbed stairs instead. I was sore on Monday, but there is something about exercising with people that really brings everyone together. I was also long overdue for a good workout, so after I left practice I ran laps in the park close to my new host family's house. In the evening, I had a music-sharing party with my host dad and introduced him to grooveshark. He was honestly interested in all my music so it was actually a really fun evening.
Sunday is my host dad's only day off work so he spent the day with me and my host mom. First we went to Fushimi-Momoyama Castle. Afterwards we went to the old sake district of Kyoto, where there are still a number of sake factories and warehouses, and they sell everything from sake cake to sakeman. We explored the neighborhood, which has a very different feel from any other neighborhood I've seen in Kyoto and then ate really yummy yakitori at a local brewery/restaurant. It was raining on and off all day, but somehow we timed it spectacularly so that is rained only while we driving from place to place. In the afternoon, I watched a really awful American movie with Japanese subtitles with my host dad. I don't know what the movie was called in English but it was almost comically bad.
Other random things I've recently noticed:
If anyone is interested in Japanese fashion, the key is layers and layers and layers. I think a Japanese person will feel under-dressed in anything less than three shirts. I'm not kidding. I changed in the locker room with two girls in my hiking club, and even when were working out they were in a tank top under a t-shirt and under-armor under running shorts under sweat pants. When they changed back into street clothes, they wore a tank top under a button-down under a sweater under a jacket, as well as stocking under shorts. No wonder Japanese are scandalized by Americans wearing only tank tops in the blistering Kyoto summer. To them, it's just about like walking around wearing only lingerie.
I've been hearing this weird siren-like noise every Wednesday afternoon in my new host family's house. I finally asked about it today, and the answer was definitely blog-worthy. It's the sound of the tofu-truck, driving through the neighborhood. The driver plays this annoying sound and shouts "TOFU!" and people come out of their houses to buy it. さすが、日本。America has ice-cream trucks. Japan has tofu trucks. my life is japan.
Dinner time!
More soon,
Michaela
On Monday I saw my LAST EVER Noh play. Woooo. From here on out, we see one Bunraku (puppet play) performance and one Kabuki performance, both of which I'm actually quite excited about.
Thursday was (another) national holiday (文化の日!) and there was a stamp-collecting festival in Uji, so Trisha, Gabri and I went to participate in the festival and see Byoudoin, since we missed it the first time around. The idea with the stamp collecting festival is that you get a passbook and go around to all these booths set up around Uji stamping your book. Once you collect them all, you go to an island in the middle of the Uji river and retrieve a final stamp and a prize. We didn't start until late in the afternoon so we didn't have time to collect all the stamps (even though one extremely nice stamp booth volunteer went so far as to chase us down twice to stamp our books even though his booth was already closed) but we went to the island anyway and they gave us a nice commemorative pin. We also managed to see Byoudoin and eat a second round of cha soba, so it was a pretty solid day overall.
Friday my friends and I had a belated Halloween Party with some of the Japanese students in our class. We put on facepaint and ate pizza, gyoza, rice, and cup ramen. College students throw really classy parties, right?
On Saturday I had my first experience with the Hiking Club at Doshisha. Apparently they normally run for training practice, but since it was raining we climbed stairs instead. I was sore on Monday, but there is something about exercising with people that really brings everyone together. I was also long overdue for a good workout, so after I left practice I ran laps in the park close to my new host family's house. In the evening, I had a music-sharing party with my host dad and introduced him to grooveshark. He was honestly interested in all my music so it was actually a really fun evening.
Sunday is my host dad's only day off work so he spent the day with me and my host mom. First we went to Fushimi-Momoyama Castle. Afterwards we went to the old sake district of Kyoto, where there are still a number of sake factories and warehouses, and they sell everything from sake cake to sakeman. We explored the neighborhood, which has a very different feel from any other neighborhood I've seen in Kyoto and then ate really yummy yakitori at a local brewery/restaurant. It was raining on and off all day, but somehow we timed it spectacularly so that is rained only while we driving from place to place. In the afternoon, I watched a really awful American movie with Japanese subtitles with my host dad. I don't know what the movie was called in English but it was almost comically bad.
Other random things I've recently noticed:
If anyone is interested in Japanese fashion, the key is layers and layers and layers. I think a Japanese person will feel under-dressed in anything less than three shirts. I'm not kidding. I changed in the locker room with two girls in my hiking club, and even when were working out they were in a tank top under a t-shirt and under-armor under running shorts under sweat pants. When they changed back into street clothes, they wore a tank top under a button-down under a sweater under a jacket, as well as stocking under shorts. No wonder Japanese are scandalized by Americans wearing only tank tops in the blistering Kyoto summer. To them, it's just about like walking around wearing only lingerie.
I've been hearing this weird siren-like noise every Wednesday afternoon in my new host family's house. I finally asked about it today, and the answer was definitely blog-worthy. It's the sound of the tofu-truck, driving through the neighborhood. The driver plays this annoying sound and shouts "TOFU!" and people come out of their houses to buy it. さすが、日本。America has ice-cream trucks. Japan has tofu trucks. my life is japan.
Dinner time!
More soon,
Michaela
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
The joys of Engrish...
I continue to amass a collection of Engrish, which I will here share for your enjoyment, etc.
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| Even Japan signs are shocked by the presence of graffiti! |
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| I didn't know Broadway was in London! |
Fall Break
Hello there,
Wow, I am very long overdue for a blog entry! Tomorrow is a day off from school though, so I should have time to throw something together (I hope…)
For now, I’m just going to post some of the pictures that I took over break along with a brief summary of what I did, and hopefully I’ll be able to fill in more later.
Friday, Oct 21: After my midterm (eeh!) I killed time at school by finishing up all the homework that I was supposed to have over break (yes, I’m a nerd). Then, at 6:00 PM, I went to see演劇集団Q’s latest production—a play called 瞼の女 (The Eyelid’s Woman?). The title is a good indication of what kind of play it was. Basically, it was completely insane and I loved it. After the play ended, I headed over to Trisha’s apartment and then the two of us went to Kyoto Eki to take the night bus to Tokyo.
Saturday, Oct 22: (Or, Friday, cont.) Since I didn’t sleep very well on the bus, I arrived rather drowsy at Tokyo Eki at 7:30 AM on Saturday. Trisha and I quickly discovered that there isn’t much to do at Tokyo Station at 7:30 AM, so we headed off to Shibuya to get breakfast and go exploring. We met up with Trisha’s friend Sayaka, and shortly after, with my host sister from the last time I was in Japan, Nana. It was great to see her again and we ended up spending the entire day together. We spent most of the day wandering Harajuku (I got a churro!) and then in the evening walked from Tokyo Eki to Tokyo Tower (not recommended—it’s a long walk) and got dinner inside the Tower. Trisha and I then stayed in a capsule hotel for the night.
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| My capsule bed. |
Sunday, Oct 23: The remainder of our travel group arrived in waved on Sunday, beginning with Hillary and Calvin stumbling into Tokyo Eki at 6:30 AM after their night bus adventure. Trisha spent the day at Disneyland with Sayaka so I went to the station to meet Hillary and Calvin and we got Krispy Cream Donuts in Shibuya. We then spent most of the day shopping in Harajuku again. That evening, I dyed my hair purple. <-- truth
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| Scramble Crossing in Shibuya. |
Monday, Oct 24: We got up early to get to the Ghibli Museum for our 10 AM tickets. We met up with lots of other KCJS people there, and then I spent the afternoon shopping for shoes in Ikebukuro. That evening, we wanted to get a “nice” dinner but somehow ended up at Denny’s. Oh well.
Tuesday, Oct 25: Yokohama! Trisha and I left early and explored the Chinatown of Yokohama and a few of the old Western-style buildings before we met Meg and Calvin for a walk through a rose garden, a trip to the Yokohama Doll Museum, and a ride on the CosmoWorld ferris wheel. We also had a fantastic MEXICAN FOOD dinner. I’d been craving Mexican food like crazy so I was really, really excited.
Wednesday, Oct 26: OMG DISNEY SEA!!!! Arrived at the park 40 minutes before it opened and stayed until 40 minutes after it closed. Disney Sea may very well be my new favorite Disney park. This is a big deal. 16 rides in 13 hours. I’d say more, but words don’t do it justice. Also I will rant on my video blog whenever that happens.
Thursday, Oct 27: We were supposed to go to Nikko but Hillary and I were too tired after our Disney adventure so we stayed in Tokyo instead. We went to Ueno Park and saw a cool Western/Japanese style building whose name I forget. We also frolicked in the lawn. That afternoon we went to a maid café in Akihabara. I am scarred. In the evening, we did Karaoke and ended up staying out until 5:00 AM. Fun times in Tokyo.
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| Frolicking. |
Friday, Oct 28: Kamakura! It was a nice change of pace from Tokyo, but there are so many nice temples in Kyoto that I was less impressed by the city than I had been hoping to be. There was one lovely bamboo garden temple though which made the day worth it. We also got to walk around inside a Daibutsu and visit the beach at sunset. And we ate delicious curry. That night, we stayed in a fantastic hostel called the “Kamakura Guesthouse” which was a really nice traditional experience. We slept on futons in a tatami room and spent the evening chatting with the friendly family who owns and operates the house. It had a wonderfully home-y feeling to it.
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| Fish eye effect on bamboo. |
Saturday, Oct 29: Trisha got sick and had to go home early (:() so we spent the morning trying to figure out the best way to make that happen. I ended up negotiating with the Shinkansen ticket seller, and it went smoother than I ever could have hoped. It was empowering to know that I could hold the conversation with no misunderstandings or grammar slip-ups. From Kamakura we went to Odawara and then Hakone, where we stayed at the same hotel that I stayed at last time I went to Hakone, the Hotel Kowaki-en. It has a beautiful garden and a gorgeous indoor and outdoor onsen, which I visited three separate times in under 24 hours. We had a HUGE hotel room for the four of us, from which you could hear the stream running outside our window. It was the perfect place to unwind before heading back home to Kyoto. Dinner was gyoza at a delicious tiny restaurant on the roadside.
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| Central room of the Kamakura Guesthouse. |
Sunday, Oct 30: Last of break. We took a 2:00 Shinkansen from Odawara to Kyoto, so we had the morning to frolick (this vacation involved a lot of frolicking) in the hotel garden, doing a “photo shoot” with Hillary’s fancy camera.
Monday, Halloween: Didn’t do much by way of Halloween, other than eat the various free candies that I kept getting handed by people at school. I did, however, attend my last (YES!) Noh play, which involves costumes and masks, so I guess that’s close…?
Tuesday, Nov 1: Talked to my host family for three hours after dinner. They are so great.
Wednesday, Nov 2: After listening to me try to explain the concept of s’mores yesterday, my host dad went to the store and bought chocolate-coated cookies and marshmallows which we roasted on the stove. This place is amazing.
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| Nihon s'mores. |
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Halfway!
Hello all!
It's my last night with the Muneoka Family, and also just about the half-way point of my time in Japan. I can't believe how quickly time is passing, and I'm sure it's just going to get faster from here.
Next week is fall break, and I'm sure that once I get back I'll have all sorts of stories to tell. I'll try to write something up for each day so that I can remember what to talk about when I return :D Anyway, starting tomorrow my life gets a bit crazy, so I'm posting a text update since I don't have time for a video at the moment, and this is likely the last chance I'll get to make an update for the next week and a half.
Since my last update:
On Tuesday, the entire KCJS group went bowling instead of to Japanese class. It was supposed to foster group unity, I think, but since we played in groups of four and only played one game, I didn't feel like I really got to know anyone any better. It was pretty fun, but I bowled an AWFUL game. I think my final score was in the 40s (and yes, I actually was trying...) I ended up getting a prize for second-worst of the entire group. Wooo. Afterwards, Hilary, Derek, Trisha, Anthony and I went to our favorite Indian food restaurant for lunch (800 yen for two plates of food, chai tea, and ENORMOUS naan). It was delicious as usual.
Wednesday, I spent the day with Trisha to plan the details of our fall trip. It was fun, but exhausting. I now know that I never want to be a travel agent, as much as I like traveling. There are just so many options! And for someone chronically indecisive like me (and obsessed with making the "best" decision) planning a 9-day trip for 6 people is just draining. We ran into some trouble finding a reasonable hotel in Hakone (everything was inexplicably booked) but I'm happy with what we ending up choosing. Anyway, to celebrate our finished plans, Trisha and I (mostly Trisha-- actually, pretty much only Trisha) made peanut chicken rice with cucumber. Ahhhhhhh foooooood.
Thursday was crazy as usual, compounded by the stress of needing to inform my host family that I would be moving in week. The housing director sprang this on me about 5 minutes before I was supposed to leave school, giving me just under 2 hours to figure out exactly what I wanted to say in Japanese to explain why I was leaving. It would be an awkward conversation even in English, not to mention trying to figure it out in Japanese. Forget speaking tests. This was by far the most anxiety-inducing Japanese conversation I've ever had to memorize. Despite all my deliberation, however, the conversation actually went just about as well as it possibly could have. My host mom took the news very well and has generally been understanding and helpful through the whole moving process. I'm more thankful to her now than I ever have been, even though I'm about to leave.
Friday I went to Uji despite the rainy weather. I got there early to get my Gaijin Toroku (ingeniously forgetting that government offices are CLOSED on weekends...) and so had an extra hour to kill before everyone else arrived. I wandered around and got a fairly good sense of the layout of the Uji area. After everyone else arrived, we went to a traditional-looking restaurant for Uji's characteristic cha-flavored cuisine. I had cha-soba and cha-anko-mochi soup (both sooooo good!). Afterwards we walked to Byoudoin, the temple on the back of the 10 yen coin, but it was closed, so we made our way to the Culture Center for the Uji Dengaku Festival, an annual traditional-style festival celebrating Uji's culture and history. We didn't stay for the entire thing, but I got a few good videos. One amusing point was that the festival was opened by a Kyoto idol, who sang a few modern pop songs. One was a sad love song, but whatever emotional impact it might have had was utterly destroyed by the presence of Mayumaro (the... mascot? of Kyoto) who greatly resembles an egg with big black eyes. With Mayumaro dancing in the background while the girl sang, I couldn't stop cracking up. After the festival, my host mom invited Trisha, Michelle, and Angela over for yakinikku, which was also fun. We watched some bizarre Japanese drama while we ate which involved animal-people and some kid with huge ears. I don't get it either.
Sunday I went to a temaki-zushi party hosted by KIX, the international student group at Kyodai. The sushi was amazing (even though I ate too much) and I made some cool new Japanese friends.
I probably have more that I can say, but I'm going to sleep. Yesterday I was frantically packing and doing homework, and today I was running around going back to Uji to get my Gaijin Toroku (for real this time), going back to school for a conference, and getting coffee with one of my mom's friends from high school. It was really fun, but with midterms this week, fall break plans still underway, and my move to top it all off, I'll definitely going to be going crazy over the next few days.
More after break!
Michaela
It's my last night with the Muneoka Family, and also just about the half-way point of my time in Japan. I can't believe how quickly time is passing, and I'm sure it's just going to get faster from here.
Next week is fall break, and I'm sure that once I get back I'll have all sorts of stories to tell. I'll try to write something up for each day so that I can remember what to talk about when I return :D Anyway, starting tomorrow my life gets a bit crazy, so I'm posting a text update since I don't have time for a video at the moment, and this is likely the last chance I'll get to make an update for the next week and a half.
Since my last update:
On Tuesday, the entire KCJS group went bowling instead of to Japanese class. It was supposed to foster group unity, I think, but since we played in groups of four and only played one game, I didn't feel like I really got to know anyone any better. It was pretty fun, but I bowled an AWFUL game. I think my final score was in the 40s (and yes, I actually was trying...) I ended up getting a prize for second-worst of the entire group. Wooo. Afterwards, Hilary, Derek, Trisha, Anthony and I went to our favorite Indian food restaurant for lunch (800 yen for two plates of food, chai tea, and ENORMOUS naan). It was delicious as usual.
Wednesday, I spent the day with Trisha to plan the details of our fall trip. It was fun, but exhausting. I now know that I never want to be a travel agent, as much as I like traveling. There are just so many options! And for someone chronically indecisive like me (and obsessed with making the "best" decision) planning a 9-day trip for 6 people is just draining. We ran into some trouble finding a reasonable hotel in Hakone (everything was inexplicably booked) but I'm happy with what we ending up choosing. Anyway, to celebrate our finished plans, Trisha and I (mostly Trisha-- actually, pretty much only Trisha) made peanut chicken rice with cucumber. Ahhhhhhh foooooood.
Thursday was crazy as usual, compounded by the stress of needing to inform my host family that I would be moving in week. The housing director sprang this on me about 5 minutes before I was supposed to leave school, giving me just under 2 hours to figure out exactly what I wanted to say in Japanese to explain why I was leaving. It would be an awkward conversation even in English, not to mention trying to figure it out in Japanese. Forget speaking tests. This was by far the most anxiety-inducing Japanese conversation I've ever had to memorize. Despite all my deliberation, however, the conversation actually went just about as well as it possibly could have. My host mom took the news very well and has generally been understanding and helpful through the whole moving process. I'm more thankful to her now than I ever have been, even though I'm about to leave.
Friday I went to Uji despite the rainy weather. I got there early to get my Gaijin Toroku (ingeniously forgetting that government offices are CLOSED on weekends...) and so had an extra hour to kill before everyone else arrived. I wandered around and got a fairly good sense of the layout of the Uji area. After everyone else arrived, we went to a traditional-looking restaurant for Uji's characteristic cha-flavored cuisine. I had cha-soba and cha-anko-mochi soup (both sooooo good!). Afterwards we walked to Byoudoin, the temple on the back of the 10 yen coin, but it was closed, so we made our way to the Culture Center for the Uji Dengaku Festival, an annual traditional-style festival celebrating Uji's culture and history. We didn't stay for the entire thing, but I got a few good videos. One amusing point was that the festival was opened by a Kyoto idol, who sang a few modern pop songs. One was a sad love song, but whatever emotional impact it might have had was utterly destroyed by the presence of Mayumaro (the... mascot? of Kyoto) who greatly resembles an egg with big black eyes. With Mayumaro dancing in the background while the girl sang, I couldn't stop cracking up. After the festival, my host mom invited Trisha, Michelle, and Angela over for yakinikku, which was also fun. We watched some bizarre Japanese drama while we ate which involved animal-people and some kid with huge ears. I don't get it either.
Sunday I went to a temaki-zushi party hosted by KIX, the international student group at Kyodai. The sushi was amazing (even though I ate too much) and I made some cool new Japanese friends.
I probably have more that I can say, but I'm going to sleep. Yesterday I was frantically packing and doing homework, and today I was running around going back to Uji to get my Gaijin Toroku (for real this time), going back to school for a conference, and getting coffee with one of my mom's friends from high school. It was really fun, but with midterms this week, fall break plans still underway, and my move to top it all off, I'll definitely going to be going crazy over the next few days.
More after break!
Michaela
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Universal Studios XD
Sorry in advance about the mistaken title page and the clunky editing. My Flipshare software is driving me crazy! I also rant a bit longer than strictly necessary in my description/analysis of each ride...
Okayama pics :D
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| One of the 88 Buddha on the Prayer Path. |
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| Me with my Okayama host family. |
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| My host mother teaching me the proper ceremonial way to make tea. |
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| The picturesque countryside. |
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| Kimono party! |
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| Shamisen lessons. |
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| Yay kimono! |
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Random Funtimes in Japan
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| Do you see that thing that looks like a billboard in the center of the picture? Yeah, that's a house. It's about five feet wide. |
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| My new favorite restaurant. |
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| A *very* traditional Noh stage. Watching theater in the same place and manner as people four hundred years ago. |
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| Why I don't trust the weatherman: this is what 90% chance of precipitation looks like in Kyoto. |
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| KAKIGORI!!!!!!!!! |
Temples and Geisha and Dragons, oh my!
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| Note the downpour. |
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| The "love" boulder. |
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| Modern Geisha. Nbd. |
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| Dragon-shaped waterspout. I'm a fan. |
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