DJ Debut

Finally, pictures of my family. Then first photo is my host mother, whom I call mama, and my host sister Yoshiko. The next picture is Yoshiko, my other host sister Reiko, me, and my host brother's girlfriend. If you haven't noticed, men don't really participate in family domestic activities, such as cleaning up after dinner, which is what we were doing. We had a big fancy meal that night, at 10:30, because my family has a tendency to eat super late in the evening. We had expensive crab, and I got to have an authentic Japanese experience, drinking hot sake out of a crab shell. I will admit that hot sake with bits of crab floating around in it is not the most delicious thing I have ever had. In fact I will avoid that experience if possible from now on. The other night I went out to dinner with my sisters and a girl who was their host kid about 5 years ago. She still lives in Japan, but is from Miami, and was very sweet and told me I could think of her as a sister too. The picture at the bottom is us at a little bar/resturant where they have DJs and music. Reiko wants to learn to be a DJ, and was I suppose friends with the DJ that night, so we all go to listen to the music on the DJ headphones and watch him play with the records and knobs and buttons. Reiko called it my DJ debut... She is very silly. Well I have a test now, blog later this week hopefully about Fushimi Inari.

Cake

This is what a Starbucks looks like in Japan. However, since youth culture feels the need to shorten words, they call is "staba". My friend Caitlin (American) and I shared a Matcha Frappacino. Matcha is Japanese tea, otherwise known as Green tea. It is basically a green tea milkshake, and it is oishii (delicious). Also, it is a beautiful color. This is my keitai (cellphone) which it is impossible to have a social life in Japan without. I have a cheap prepaid plan, calling is expensive, but I can text as much as I want (as can everyone else here) so I look like any other Japanese youth now, texting at the speed of light where-ever I happen to be (I am still very bad at texting and walking). The thing to do here is to put kawaii (cute) little dangling things on your phone (mine is a funny little bird). Everyone has at least one thing on their phone, some people have tons. Also you put purikura (short for something like "pretty picture") photos on your phone, which are these insane photo boothes with all these personalization options that you do with your friends (I have a picture of Rebecca and myself). If you ever come to Japan you need to do it, but its all in Japanese, so be careful.

Here is video of the Kishiwada Festival. I am sorry about my bad camera skills, I forgot that the video will appear sideways if I hold the camera sideways... The festival itself was incredible. We ended up getting swept into the heart of it and parading along with the floats. There was a festive spirit to everything, and luckily the people in the parade were happy to have forigners to practice their English with, so they were very friendly and helped us be part of everything. We were given food, drinks, fans, and all for free. Despite being beautiful, this festival is very dangerous, and every year at least one person dies. If you could see the speed with which these giant floats (especially during the day) whiz down the road only being controlled by a group of humans... not to mention the guy that stands on top and literally jumps around like a monkey while the cart is going full speed around a corner. In general it is good to see Japanese people being festive and not in their normal silent business state.

Rebecca and I spent the day exploring around Kyobashi. She ordered pancakes (which first of all is hilarious to see in japan in general, it is so western) but she did not realize they would be American style, which she was unfamiliar with, she just stared at me and asked what she was supposed to do with the butter and the syrup. Speaking of Western food, there is a bit of an obsession with Western style gourmet cakes. We indulged in such at the end of the day, and as you all know, I can't resist a cute baked good. Sadly I am yet to find any cupcakes. The station where I live always has people outside it play live music, these two boys are some of the many musicians. They were, however, very good actually. They both had beautiful voices (They happened to set up in front of me). Also, a giant fish head! It was sooooo huge. Soon to come, family photos.

Festival

http://www.city.kishiwada.osaka.jp/danjiri/english/index.html

I will post a video later, but it takes to long to load and I need to go to my class now. Look forward to it! And sorry the photos are in reverse order (night to day).

Sushi and Kyobashi

So, pictures of where I live! There is a long street mall of sorts that is roofed in right next to the train station, so Wes (another homestay student in my area) and I went and walked around. They had a tank of blowfish, which as you may know are deadly is not prepared the correct way. There is a resturant that specializes in it with this big tank of them out front. We walked to Osaka Castle and took lots of pictures. There is a beautiful garden around the castle, all of which is open at night. For those interested in local Osaka culture, the Osaka Castle garden seems to be the place young couples go to be alone... we were unaware of this until we had the suprising experience of encountering a number of these couples. The view of the city from right outside my bedroom on the roof deck right when I get home at dusk is one of my favorite things about my house. I took pictures so you could all enjoy the view too. I regularly go otuside just to look around from the roof and enjoy the breeze. Another very important experience to have is conveyor belt sushi. You go the the resturant and sit down at a table, then eat as much as you want. It is about 100 yen a plate, sometimes a little more. You can also special order any type of sushi you want and it will come out to you on a special train or a special tray. I have gone twice, once with friends and once with my family. I do not like raw squid or nato. The little balls are takoyaki, octopus balls, which are very famous in Osaka, on top is dried and shredded fish skin. To be honest, they are really tasty. The sushi is also very pretty, so I had fun taking pictures. This weekend I went to a HUGE festival, so I will have to post about that tomorrow or the next day. I miss everyone so much!!!!

Kyoto

Here is a big photo dump from our trip to Kyoto. Kyoto is one of the most historically perserved cities in Japan. There are still Geisha and lots of people walking around in traditional dress. There are also lots of shrines and traditional theatres and traditional candy shops. Before you go into a shrine you are required to go through a very long hand washing ritual (left hand, right hand, left hand, then rinse mouth with water from the left hand, wash left hand again, then pour water down your arm to wash your right hand). The shrines were beautiful. People write their hopes and wishes on little wooden pieces and hang them up, or they write them on little pieces of paper and tie them to trees. Walking around the streets was lovely, a nice change to see lots of trees and plants (there are NO plants in Kyobashi where I live now). If you haev a specific question about a photo, feel free to ask.

Homestay

Wow. I am now living with my homesaty family and they are very unique. Sadly, I do not have internet at my house that I can use on my laptop, so you will have to bear with me until I bring my laptop to school and then there will be more photos of orientation week and karaoke. My host family is composed of Mama, Papa, Tomoichi (big brother), Reiko (big sister), and Yoshiko (big sister). They are rich, or so it seems, we all live in a four story house in downtown Osaka, in a part called Kyobashi, and the house has an elevator. Mama owns three designer clothing boutiques, and my sisters are about to open their own store. In fact they are all, minus Papa, going to France tomorrow to select clothing for their store.
I really like my sisters and mama, they speak enough English for me to converse with them. Papa, who I am going to be living alone with for the next 10 days speaks no English, so that will be an adventure. They are all very nice to me and smile a lot, but they are also all very busy so it is a little hard for me to feel at home yet. Mind you I have only been there for one night. Today I found my way to school all by myself! I have to walk to Kyobashi station, then take a train to Hirakata-shi, then walk to school. I have discovered that Japanese people do not like to walk if they don't have to, everyone was shocked that I would walk 20 minutes instead of pay a ton of money for a bus pass. I had to use one Japanese sentence today though, because the people at the train station did not speak English, Kansai Gaidai wa doko desu ka? Where is Kansai Gaidai?
My host family says I speak very beautiful English, they were surprised that I was from America, papa kept asking if I was from United Kingdom or South America, heehee. Also mama says I have good intonation and am an natural Japanese speaker. I hope that means I can learn quickly. I am only worried about feeling lonely at my homestay, it is really hard when you don't speak the same language, and they are so busy that I am afriad I will never get intigrated into the family fully. I am, however, going to model designer clothing for my sister's website. Woot.
I have class now, Sexuality and Culture in Japan. Sayonara!

Food

This is part of my campus!!! Pretty much all the buildings are big and brick... I guess they are appealing in their own way. I am not getting lost so far because all the international students pretty much stay in one building. As you may also have realized, my English is getting worse the more time I spend with all of my international friends. I have friends from all over the world, which is really awesome, but it also means that I spend a lot of time speaking slowly and in a simple broken way at times to get other people to understand me. Being an international student is odd, I finally understand how the kids at Wilson feel. We are kind isolated and our lounge is like a fishbowl, all glass and easy for people to stare at us in. We start class on Monday, but the Japanese students don't get here until the 21st, I guess that will change everything. My school is in a district of the country known as Kansai, kind of like the Triangle in NC, and specifically the school is right outside of Hirakata-shi (Hirakata city). Hirakata-shi station has a train that takes you to Kyoto, Nara, or Osaka in pretty much 30 minutes to any of those. The other day I went on a tour (organized by the school) to Hirakata-shi to learn how to get there and to have some fun walking around. Here is a picture of my tour group. To be honest, I can't remember all teh Japanese student's names because I meet so many. So from left to right, a very sweet Japanese girl, my friend Erin (from Huston, we get aong really well), me, an awesome Japanese guy, and Wes from Missouri. We went to a Ramen shop for dinner, which is competely different than the instant thing we call Ramen. Ramen comes in a huge bowl filled with your choice of type of broth and meat and egg if you want it. I got miso broth with meat and an egg, the egg soaks up the broth and turns a funny color and a funny taste, but it was yummy. As soon as I got home from being in Hirakata-shi I was dragged off to Karaoke with my roommate and some of my other friends. Supposedly the best way to get over jet lag is to go out and be social, or so people keep saying. Karaoke is a custom I am not sure how to explain. There are not karaoke bars like in America, but rather you get a room for you and your group of friends. In the room is a TV or two and you use a touch-screen controller to pick songs or artists that you want to sing. It is a huge socia thing here, it is the one time people are allowed to be loud and crazy, because in Japanese culture being quite is valued. The "proverb" I am going by is that fact that you should never be the loudest person on the bus, it is considered to be incredibley rude to speak loudly. However, at karaoke everyone lets loose. In the picture of the group from left to right is Fanny (France), Havi (Chile), Audrey (Spain), Jhorje (Mexico), and Claire (Belgium). In the front is Taka-kun, he is one of the Japanese students that lives in our Seminar house (he is a goof-ball, can you tell?). Yes, I sang karaoke. Claire and I sang Queen together (Fanny helped too). It is very fun. At the end of the night we got the two boys who were working there to take a group photo, they were kawaii (cute), and spoke no English, so it was pretty amusing trying to understand eachother.














Like any orientation to a college you have to have the opening ceremony and a big dinner afterwards. We, of course, had to get dressed up for it. In the picture from left to right is Sebastian (technically Finnish, but he lived on the border to Sweden and goes to school in Sweden, so he'd tell you that he is Swedish), Lin (Vietnam), Rebecca (Sweden), and Havi. I have been spending most of my time for the past several days with Sebastian and Rebecca. Unfortunately it is HOT and HUMID here. It is like the hottest part of the summer in Wilmington. So, getting dressed up and then having to walk is not fun. Luckily Mishka (Australia) gave me a ride on the back of his bicycle, he owed me because I helped him with al his registration stuff. Most people here have bikes and most bikes have racks on the back, perfect for sitting on. For those if us in homestay who don't have bikes it is a good walk in super hot weather, so it is always nice to find someone who will give you a ride. Anyway, continuing on, dinner was incredible. There was so much food it was impossible to take photos of. They really like custard here, and all the custard is very much like flan, so thats what the pretty little cups are. Also, before you can eat a big meal like this you pour the person to your left a drink, I'm not sure why, then you all say kampai (cheers) and clink glasses. The beverages here are so much more unique than the ones in America. Have I mentioned the vending machines on every block? I need to take pictures of that soon. More photots of my friends and I being ridiculous soon to come, as well as photos of Kyoto.

Orientation

Picture Time (click on them to see full size)



This was the first thing I saw as I rode over the bridge from the airport to Osaka, a huge absinthe green ferris-wheel. It was a good reminder of how colorful Japan is. Seeing that made me feel far more excited than I had been, because I was still a little dazed and nervous when I got off that plane and had to find a hotel all by myself.



The Japanese are very serious about saving energy. In the hotel room you had to put your key in this slot to turn on the power in the room. It took me a while to figure out, so I kept taking the key out after I slid it in, and the lights kept going off. It took me a while to figure out you had to leave the key in the slot. Silly me. My dorm room also has certain switches and buttons you have to push to get the lights and air conditioning to work and you must always turn off all the power in the room when you leave it. Also, you mustn't leave the air conditioning on at night, not only does it waste power but it is also bad for your internal organs to get cold... supposedly. They told us that you can never leave the heat or air conditioning on at our homestay houses.
















These are two of the boys I went to dinner with my first night at the Seminar House 4. My roommate is very social and has dragged me around with her, which is actually awesome. The boy on the left is Chris, he fixed my computer last night, thank goodness (because my language settings weren't on Japanese, etc.). They are both American but can speak Japanese well enough and can read katakana (one of the written alphabets) fairly well. Chris and I shared chicken katsu, which is like a breaded chicken, and then noodles, rice and miso. The next night I went to the bath house with some of the Japanese students and some of the other girls from my dorm. It is called sento, and it has many different hot tubs and a sauna and showers. You go and get naked, then shower and scrub for a good long time, then you can go in the baths. There is also a cold cold tub so you can pour cold water on yourself when you get too hot. Three of my new friends are in the next picture, this is right outside of the bath house after we were al nice and hot and clean. From left to right is Rebecca (from Sweden), my roommate Lizzie (from New Orleans), and Havi (from Chili).




















This is a picture of my room in the seminar house. It is 8 tatami mats large (floors are measured by tatami mats) which is a good sized room. As you can see, it is in a more traditional Japanese style, tatami mat floor and low table. At night we roll out our futons and sleep on the ground. The other picture is the view I get when walking back to the seminar house from school. The brick building on the left with the windows is my seminar house. To the right is a park and a library. It is about a 20 minute walk, but it is not bad at all, the sidewalks here are awesome, but you aren't allowed to cross against the stop lights, even if there aren't any cars coming. Well, I have to go meet my speaking partner now, I'll post about my experiences in Hirakata Station and at Karaoke later.

Love.

Arrival

JAPAN!

I had a smooth arrival (other than almost having a panic attack when the plane was about to land in Osaka). I got my bags, which weigh a ton, and managed to get them and myself to a hotel without any trouble. I also changed money and got a cheap phone card so my mother would know I was safe. I felt very independent, but mostly just in too much of a daze to think about it. I didn't fit under the shower. First experience with the being super tall thing. Also, watching Japanese TV is super fun. In the morning I went back to the airport to meet the Kansai Gaidai shuttle, and for the first time since I arrived I got to actually have a conversation. Mind you ti was with a thai girl named Jan (who was very nice), but at least it was in English. I think I will learn Japanese quickly, because it is that or suffer.

I am official in Hirakata (A district of Osaka) in a Seminar house (otherwise known as dorm) in the computer lab. It must be about 7:00am in North Carolina right now, its about 8:00pm here, and I just got back from a lovely dinner of chicken katsu. I went to dinner with my current roomate, Lizzie, and some of the other students by bicycle. I bet we were quite the sight, six non-Asian college kids on bikes, two of us on the backs of them. Luckily, the boys can read, so the menu was not totally a mystery. The unfortunate thing is that I know what Japanese food dishes are, I can use chopsticks nearly perfectly, but none of that does me a bit of good if I can't read what the food options are in the first place. Oh well. The dorm rooms are set up in a traditional Japanese fashion and are a little small, but very nice.

I have photos, which I will put up as soon as I have access to internet on my own computer.

Love you and Miss you!!