Taylor in Tokyo†

Thursday, April 23, 2009

山のピクニック

A Mountain Picnic

Since I only have one class on thursdays, I was able to tag along with a few friends on a small picnic. Of course, the weather turned all clowdy and cold before we left, but we decided to go anyway.

The walk was pretty far and uphill, and I was beginning to regret going, but when we arrived at the park, I saw how beautiful it was! We looked at the map and decided to eat by a lake, so we followed the path that we thought was going to take us there. We walked through this forest up all these stone steps, and I thought that it was weird to be going so far up hill to get to this lake...there must be some big plateau. Once we got to the summit, we realized that we must have taken a wrong turn...but good thing we did!

The view of the mountain was outstanding! It is the kind of view you always want to see in Japan, but you think that it's only in anime or movies and that you have to go deep into the countryside to see it, but this was about a 30min walk from school!

After eating our food at the mountain, we walked around the park a little longer and found this cool looking fountain. But after chilling at a sitting area nearby, we needed to go back to campus. Right now, my little brother has a feaver and is not breathing too clearly. :( It's nothing serrious though; I think he's just a little sick.

(I've been trying to load pictures of the fountain...but it's not working right now...I'll put them on facebook and link it over!)

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

あの日

One Day

Today nothing too interesting happened. It rained, and I was stupid enought not to bring an umbrella to school, so I had to ride my bike down a super steep hill in the pouring rain! Japanese class is going well; I'm doing good on my quizes, but the stuff is really easy. We would be moving along a lot faster if it weren't for my classmate, who takes half a minute to conjugate a verb into plain form (something he learned last year...he's been in Japan for more than six months now). It's just a little frustrating to sit there and wait while he struggles and I have the itch to just blurt out the answer...but since there are only two of us in the class, I would very quickly look like a dousche. Today I had Modern Japanese Novels and Japanese Business as well.

In Modern Novels, we took a quiz on the first book we were supposed to read (I finished it two weeks ago). There are only four questions, so I'm thinking: great...if I miss one, that's a C. Then we find out that if you miss one, you get one point subtracted (not just not getting a point...like the SAT). So if you miss one and get three, that's three points won and one point lost for a total of two points: 50%. What should happen? I missed one...I was pissed. These quizes are only supposed to check if you read the material...which I did. ::sigh:: Oh well.

The teacher for Modern Novels is this old Japanese woman who lives in Sydney half the year; she's very nice and funny, but rather boring most of the times. She gives us a hand out and reads at us...but we haven't started discussing the literature yet, so maybe it'll liven up next week.

After novles was Business with Professor Collick. I love Collick Sensei! He's an Englishman who moved to Japan to escape the mundane jobe he had in England and married a Japanese woman. They raised their kids back in the UK, but the wife speaks no English, so she would only speak in Japanese to Collick (he said that in all their MANY years of marriage, they have spoken no English to one another). The result of this being that their kids are perfectly billingual in Japanese and English (arguably two of the hardest languages). Business is a great class, because Professor Collick is a great teacher. He's funny, dynamic, and pretty smart.

I have a Kanji (chinese character) test on Thursday, so it's back to studying for now.

Monday, April 20, 2009

カラオケ

Karaoke

So, this weekend me and twelve of my friends celebrated my birthday! There was me; the Pacific Crew (Jhermaine, Will, Ashley, Jessica, Chris, Kailyn, and Nila...saddly not Alan); Andrea, the German; Anna, the Canadian; Natalie, the Australian; Miwako, the best; and Akira, her friend! Akira I met that night; he was lots of fun to hang out with!

We all met up in Umeda in Osaka and were led to the restaraunt by Miwako and Akira; they had a map and I had little confidence in them. On the way, we saw some boxes and trash on the side of the street; in some bags are a few stuffed animals, so, Will, being Hispanic, immedeatly goes dumpster diving and grabes a bunch of things for people!

When we get to the restaraunt, it looks a little shady. This steep stairwell goes underground and the walls are painted blue and red. It has a very industrial S&M feel to it. As we go down and get into the place, it doesn't look much better. It's dark and there is loud music...but all you can eat and drink in Osaka for $25!? I thought...I'M IN!

It ends up being an awesome place! I told Miwako one number short of what we had, so I snuggled up between Chris and Natalie (the two skinniest) and sat on a stuffed star Will dug out of the trash for Kailyn! I didn't mind! We began to order drinks...over the course of those two hours I had 3 double shots of Nihon-Shuu (basically Voldka but smoother) two beer, but not beers, and three or four other random drinks. I definatly got pretty smashed. It was really fun just yelling drinks and food at the waiters without having to worry about how much the bill was going to come out to! I think that the bar must loose a lot of money whenever a big group of Westerners rolls around (especially the women...Japanese women don't drink their good share usually!).

After eating and drinking to our hearts content, we head for the all-night Karaoke! Half of the group leaves for home...:(

When we get there, we are told we need to wait about half-an-hour, so we go next door and do PuriKura (Print Club...those photo booths you always see Japanese people doing)! I dont't know if it was the alcohol, but it was actually a lot of fun! Four of us squeezed in and took four photos, then we went to the other side of the screen and wrote all over them and put pictures on them. Then they printed out and we cut them up! Ok, that doesn't sound like as much fun as it was...I guess you had to be there.

At the Karaoke place (Me, Natalie, Kailyn, Will, Akira, Ashley, Chris, and Jhermaine....Miwako had an interview the next day) we all piled into a tiny room and sung for seven hours straight. Japanese...Korean...English...whatever! Throw in many trips to the bathroom to pee and free water, tea, and soda and call it a party! Sure, I couldn't sing half of the songs, but that was not the point! Natalie fell asleep for a little bit, but other than her, every was up through the night! It was $15 for a place to crash per person!

Afterward, we left the building and it was light out! O_O We walked to the train station and four of us got on the same train...Akira, me, Kailyn, and Jhermaine....I think.... My arms were filled with presents and I needed to walk from the station to my apartment on the third floor! I thought about calling a taxi to avoid the 15-20min walk, but I decided to save the $10. As I came up to the apartment, my host mother's father is leaving (it's about 7am)! I saw him right before I left, so he knew what I had been up to. We exchanged a few words and laughed a bit, but my throat was so sore from singing. I went up to my room...saw that my family was still asleep...and slept though until lunch. I could hardly even speak.

(After eating lunch I went back to sleep and slept through until dinner!)

And so I had my 21st birthday party in Japan.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

日本の神社

Japanese Shrines

Since it is raining today, I'll post on something I did last week on Thursday.

I went to go visit a Shinto Shrine near the university. This shrine is small and modest, but it is still bursting with history and importance.

Before you can cross into the gates, you need to purify yourself:

You do this by taking a scoop of water and washing off both of your hands; then you take a sip of the water and swish it in your mouth. Then you spit it out--but not back into the water basin! Make sure you spit it out outside of it.

After that, you can cross the gate into the shrine.

At many shrines are these two statues of dog/lions (nobody is sure, and they are often cited as being one or the other). The one on the left is male and the one on the right is female. Those four, white barrels are filled with sake. People often donate them to the shrine. This particular shrine is for a god (kami) that would protect warriors in battle. So, while you can ask for anything, protection and good health wishes may be especially useful here.

So, before you pray, you throw in some yen into the alter (usually 5 or 10, which is about a dime or nickle). Japan places a little mystical significance on money, and it's not strage at all that giving money is part of the religious ritual. Then you announce your presence to the gods by making some noise, usually in the form of ringing a bell.

It's not a high pitched tone that one usually thinks of when they think of bells, but more of a clunky metal on metal sound. After that you bow twice, clap your hands twice, pray, and bow again. The clapping of the hands, if there is no bell, also serves to announce your presence. That's the basic ritual of individual worship. There are also a few other things that are common place at most shinto shrines. One of which is getting a fortune (usually determined by drawing a number) or leaving wishes on paper or blocks of wood. One then ties these to a fence to encourge the luck or wish to come true.

This particular shrine also has some other unique features. One is a memorial to a Kamakaze piolt from the area. They recovered his plane propeller and honor him here.

Here people pray for him; I think that the dead can actually become kami, but I am not entirely sure.

Also, this place was visited by the single most important kami in Shinto. If you go behind the shrine to the pilot, and climb up a forested hill:

You will find a circle of rocks

that markes where the goddess of the sun, Amaterasu-omikami, visited the area. Her great grandson is actually the first emperor of Japan, Emperor Jimmu. People debate whether or not Jimmu actually existed, but it is not unlikely that he actually lived. However, since people hated climbing the hill to see this holy site, they built the Hirota shrine in Nishinomiya (one of the 22 most holy sites in Shinto). This shrine is much larger and grander than this one!

And that is all there is really to see here! Thanks for coming!

Oh, and what ancient religion is without its fertility statues?

Sunday, April 12, 2009

誕生日のパーテｨー

Birthday Party

Tonight, my host family and my host mom's parents and brother threw me a birthday party! The food was fantastic; it was a "make your own sushi" dinner! They had raw fish, chicken, vegtables, mayonaise...and AVOCADO! I was SO happy!

It was a lot of fun! They have this huge dog was is so cute! The wine that I brought that I had thought had dissappeared showed up! After failing at corking it myself, they popped it and we drank it down pretty fast! After that, they pulled out this jug of Japanese sake! It tastes like voldka, but better. Grandpa and I mixed it with some bubbly water; it was delicious. After that, the two of us enjoyed some Asahi beer!

We chilled on teh couch and watched some TV: a game show of course! On one of the questions, I got it right first (only because I could read English)! Right when I thought the night was over, they started to turn out the lights, and a cake came out of the the next room. It was hilarous; the first thing I thought after I saw it was: damn, I need to shave! The likeness was chilling and a little scary!

After a great night, we returned home, and I wrote a 1 min. speech on "cool Japan" for class tomorrow. I ended up writing about Hanami from yesterday--leaving out the getting sick part. I can really feel my Japanese improveing, because I wrote the speech in no time. I'm a little dissapointed at how easy the Japanese class is, but they aren't offering the level directly above, so I'll have to make do. I'll find some other way to progress after studying abroad.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

花見

Flower Watching

(So, if I'm going to continue this blog, I need to move on from that disaterous 3-hour writing failure and just start fresh! If you want to know about my first week, ask my parents!)

Today I struck "have a picnic under the cherry blossoms" off my list of things to do. In Japan, around the spring, it is a traditional pastime to go do hanami (花見) which literally translates to "flower watching." What it entials is a bunch of frends and family sitting on a blanket under a cherry blossom, eating and getting drunk in the middle of the day. Needless to say, it was a blast! Me, Will, Jessica, Chris--who are all Pacific Students--plus some other exchange students, went out to Shukugawa today to do just that! I bout a six pack of beer and some Malibu, will bought some mixers and some voldka. We all packed up on lunch and snaks and chilled out!

The Malibu did not really go with anything, so it was left undrunk (if Leon were here, he would have drinken it straight probably ^.^), but the beer went pretty well. Asahi is great! We goofed around and KAMPAIed our hanami neighbours a few times. Overall it was a pretty successful adventure (though I did get food poisoning later today from something...:( )

Tomorrow I am going to my host mom's parent's hose for a birthday sushi dinner!

Enjoy the pictures!