3 Weeks of Update
Wow, long time, no update. A lot of interesting things have been going on around here lately. After the laptop incident, I decided to postpone my trip to Osaka for the Chinese visa application because I was too pissed off. Instead, I hung around for the campus festival which ran all week. It was basically just time off of school and a lot of food everywhere that wasn’t horribly priced. Think of it like a homecoming, just without a parade or football team. We had class on Friday, and then we all went to Kyoto. The next weekend we had homestays and a big international crosscultural thingy that they forced us to go to, but we got paid, so it was ok. Then it was more or less me just waiting for this laptop.
Kyoto:
We were supposed to meet at Nagoya station at 8:30 and catch the 9:00 shinkansen to Kyoto. I checked my email after breakfast, and managed to miss everyone leaving in that 5 minutes time. It was 7am, so there were no buses yet, and we had to walk. I took a “shortcut” and didn’t meet up with them at the station, so I got on the next possible train to Nagoya. It was 8:45 and I gave Satoshi a call to see where they were. I somehow managed to be at a shinkansen gate, but the wrong one. They left without me after looking for me for 10 minutes. I paid the $50 and got on the next train by myself. I managed to meet up with them for the sightseeing part of the trip at the temple just minutes after they all arrived there. No harm I guess. We did some standard sightseeing of the temples, then went to the hotel. It was too early to check in, so, they more or less told us to wander for 4 hours. This I did along with Ron and one of the IES Nanzan students who we met up with. It turns out that more or less all of the students in the Nanzan program are assholes, stuckup assholes. Actually worse than the Ohio students here who we see everyday. The guy we hung out with was possibly the only one who was tolerable. We got a room together with Ben (my roommate) and Weilik (a student in the Chubu program here who is cool). The hotel was a cross between western and Japanese style. We slept on futons on the tatami and ate really typical Japanese foods for our meals. Japanese food really sucks. It is bland. We all stayed in the room and chatted and got to know each other till dinner time. The dinner, well, save for the soup and the fruit and beer, sucked. We were also treated to a presentation by some Maikos (girls aged 16 and 18). It was some really traditional Japanese stuff that the hotel provides. We got to chat with them, and by “got to”, I mean that they came around to us one by one to have conversation. I managed to get one of them to drink with me and it shocked the other students because she was only 16. It was fun, and apparently there is an exception to the 20+ drinking law here for cultural reasons. We went to bed and in the morning we checked out and went to the train station. We now had nothing but free time till 5pm. Me and Ron spent our time around the station for the most part, enjoying the seductive stares from all the hotties. Made us NOT want to leave Kyoto. We also wandered around a bit in the area. We ran across one of the infamous black rightwing vans blaring nationalistic music. We danced in the street to it and got laughs from the normal people and hateful stares from the rightwingers in the van. Not much more to say about Kyoto really.
Homestay:
One week after Kyoto, we had a homestay planned. Mine was in Gifu. I ditched out of class early on Thursday to go to Hamamatsu to see a friend. She spoke no English and lives in a temple. It was incredibly fun. What was more fun was the way it affected my Friday meeting time with my Keiko, my hostmother. I was originally supposed to meet at Chubu at 4pm, but got that pushed back to 6pm. I was still going to be late, so I called her while on the shinkansen back to Nagoya. She seemed crazy, not the bad kind of crazy, the fun kind. This was the first time they were hosting a student, so I wanted to make a good impression and not end up ditching her after driving so far. We ended up meeting at Kozoji station and then driving back to Gifu. We made a brief stop to see one of her friends at the soft-tennis court before going home to meet the rest of the family. She and Kenji are both 31 and have known each other more or less all their lives. They have a 3 year old daughter who we all call Shi-chan. They didn’t really speak any English, so it was good that I ended up with them I guess. I never had any real problem communicating at all, and after 2 days already in a non-English environment, it wasn’t any real problem sticking to it. I had curry rice for dinner, then we chatted a bit, I went over a children’s atlas with Shi-chan and had her name the animals in it in English.
In the morning, we had to go to a school for the cultural thing. It started out pretty horrible, but got better. We got split up into groups of two with three Japanese students in each group. There were a few other IES Chubu students, some of the Ohio people, some Nanzaners, and a handful of poor unfortunate souls from JET. I was teamed up with a JET girl who ended up being pretty cool. The first activity of the morning was some horrible combination of rock scissors paper, gambling, and English conversation. I did my best to lose quickly so I didn’t have to prolong the agony. We managed to get our group to have the 2 winners from both rounds though, so it was all good. This was followed by us cooking lunch. Yep, curry rice outside on an open fire. I shocked them with my non-peeling of carrots and potatoes, as well as my fast method for skinning and dicing the onion. I made sure we had the first fire up and going as well. As a pyro/former scout, I could not settle for any less. End result was burned rice though, but whatever, we managed. We all ate lunch and I went off to chat with some of the Chinese who were there en mass. I met up with a few people from Nanjing, Beijing, and one student from Beiwai who I might end up seeing again next year.
Thus began the great can hunt. The next activity on the schedule was orienteering. Silly me thought we would get compasses and a map. We got a map. There is a 3km path around the school grounds that is full of hills and “nature”. We had 90 minutes to find as many white cans as we could, read the Japanese question on them, answer it, and white down the English answer on a sheet. We eventually found a playground in the hills, and just relaxed and forgot about cans while eating pistachios. We came in dead last, but last place got the best prize. We got mechanical pencils, while all the “winners” got useless crap that they didn’t want. We had cake and a drink, exchanged contact information, and then went off to meet up with our hostfamilies again to escape the madness. It was overall a pretty fun experience and I am glad that I did it. It was also the only English I got all weekend thanks to meeting up with friends who were English-native speakers.
By this time, it was already about 4pm, and by the time we got home, it was already time to start up dinner. I had mentioned takoyaki before, so, that ended up being what we made for dinner. This was also the first time while in Japan that I have had miso soup that didn’t suck.
Around the time that I was full, Kenji and Keiko’s friends started showing up to hang out and drink with us. It was actually really enjoyable. I found that my Japanese is a lot better than I thought it was and was able to discuss politics without much problem at all. The only hitch all night was when I started slamming a few beers because I am a stupid American and my poor head went to Chinese mode. I called up Effie because I needed to talk to someone . I sobered up a bit and went back to Japanese then. Eventually, everyone left and we watched the Japanese release of Enemy at the Gates. In the morning, I tagged along to Shi-chan’s kimono ceremony thing. Keiko’s mother came to dress her up before we went to the temple. They belong to something called SGI which is a spinoff on ultra-peaceful Buddhism with strong emphasis on chants and community. The service was run by kids, there was singing, some chanting, and games. Sure as hell beat church. We came back home after about an hour, and went off to Taishomura. The Taishomura in Gifu is basically a historical site full of old store fronts and museums of sorts that show how artifacts from Japanese life during the Taisho era. Taisho was between Meiji and Showa (Hirohito). It was interesting to see, but they didn’t have to spend the money on me, I felt. I know they just wanted to show me a good time, but it was fun just hanging out with them like normal people do. We went to lunch and then I bought them desert at my insistence (Keiko wanted to pay, Kenji seemed fine with me paying, hehe). After the Taishomura, we went driving a bit into the mountains to see the biggest dam in Japan and the tallest waterwheel. It all ended too soon, and before I knew it, I was back at Chubu, wishing that there was a way that I could not have to go back to dorm life again… it really sucks. I wish that we had homestays instead of these dorms. If Keiko or Kenji see this, I just want them to know that they were the best experience so far here in Japan for me and they are welcome to visit me wherever I happen to be or have contacts that can set them up with a place to stay.
Toyota:
We went to the Nagoya Toyota factory to watch them manufacture cars, then we went to the Toyota automobile history museum where we saw a bunch of old cars. It was pretty fun. We went with the Ohio group and the Chinese students here in the dorm with us. Apart from a few of the guys, I hate all the Ohio people. The Chinese were asked if they wanted Chinese or Japanese guidebooks, they chose Japanese. I went with Japanese as well and just hung out with them all day. The rest of the group went with English.
Waiting for Laptop:
That pretty much summed up the next week. I ordered from IBM directly, then they said they were out of stock, so I bought it from buy.com instead. It got to mom and dad and then dad found the best way to get it to me…. Something that I appreciate more than they will ever know.
Real Classes:
Well, the 15th came and went, and still the same old classes. It has gotten a lot better recently though. I have just been studying on my own during class and they have started copying chapters out of my textbook for the class to use. I also talked Ron into staying the full year, so it won’t be too bad.
Pictures:
They exist, but I don’t have them yet, so that will be another update if I remember to do it 