Reminding everyone that again, pictures I'll be posting on facebook, since it's a LOT easier for me.
Today is going to be lists. Of observations. Or whatever I think of. It's kind of how my thoughts have been running lately.
Things I've noticed:
* music/jingles. EVERYTHING has music. Like the washing machine. It makes a little song when you turn it off. A little song when you turn it ON.
I ride past this factory everyday and the machines play an instrumental version of the Mickey Mouse Theme. It's very cute sounding, but I can only imagine that it's very annoying now to the workers.
* cute things. Cute = a reason to jack up prices. But really, everything is adorable. Whether it be a design, or the minisize-version. It's just CUTE. Good luck finding much that is manly in the way America sees it.
* nothing is free. NOTHING. If we want to go out? You have to pay to eat, pay to PARK YOUR BIKE (but granted, there are a LOT of bikes. I wish I had a scooter, because those look amazingly fun to drive). Pay to ride the train. It's not a LOT, but it definitely stacks up. I've probably spent at least $70 on just transportation.
* everyone dresses better. I feel like a bum. Seriously. Even the guys are dressing better. I actually bought my first Japanese clothes the other day, and it makes me feel a LITTLE better. I think it'll also be better once the weather gets cooler, because then I can actually layer like everyone else is and not be sweating like mad.
* bikes- are amazing. If you don't have any other mode of transportation, and walking takes too long? Bikes are incredible. Beloit also wasn't very big, and I lived ON campus, while I'm probably biking 40-45 minutes every day (both ways total) to school. More walking/biking on the weekends for exploring or getting to wherever we/I want to go.
Biking on the roads is slightly terrifying however. Because they are much narrower (but so are the cars), it feels like you are right in the middle of the road. It's scarier at night, so I try to bike home before it gets dark. Which is about 6pm. Which means right after my 4 o'clock class. (Runs until 5:20) if I don't want to bike in the dark. My bike *does* have a light in the front that is powered by my wheels, BUT, it isn't a lot. Still scary.
* bridges. I really like the bridge on the way to Makino-eki (Makino train station). Love it love it. It makes me think of Shadow of the Colossus, with all of the stone and greenery everywhere. Stone steps for the river, stone steps for people to walk down to the river, stone formations, etc. It's a very lush area.
* holidays. Japan has a LOT of holidays. And I don't think it matters if you're "private" or "public". EVERYONE gets these days off. (Well okay, if you work a crappy 7/11 job or something, maybe not, but everyone else.) We've already had THREE holidays. We haven't had a full week of school yet! In fact, we have tomorrow (a Tuesday?!) off. But that's it. We have school today, Monday, but not Tuesday. *shrugs*
* typhoons. We had a system go through Osaka this weekend. It meant for us, a lot of rain and thunder. We only got the edge of it. But if I were further south and west, I believe, it would have been a lot worse. Still kind of exciting to know that I'm experiencing a TYPHOON even though it's just a bad storm. The fact that it's a typhoon is cool. Now I just wait for the earthquakes... erp. (Though I hear that they are hardly ever that bad.)
Foods that the Japanese appear to like.... a lot.
* eggs - including raw. AGH. I've avoided any lunch dishes with raw eggs thus far.
* ham/pork. In any form. EXCEPT, it seems, bacon. They'll say something has "bacon" in it but it isn't really. It's a little sausage-y looking thing. Definitely not bacon.
* melon. DELICIOUS. Melon soda, especially. (No, I'm not saying melon pop because they literally spell it as melon soda in katakana.) Or melon pan (bread). Sooooo good.
Other food observations:
* pan. It means bread, but, it belongs in a different category of bread, I think, because it's just so different for me here. The pan I have for breakfast is most certainly white bread (which is dominant. I saw maybe one kind of wheat-ish loaf bread in the store) but it is THICK. Like, two inches thick. But it is SO GOOD if you toast it and put butter and jam on. Yum yum.
* fruit. Is much much much juicier here. And thus, extremely good.
* peeling/cutting off crusts. They do this to almost all fruits. Like grapes. Peeling the skin off. It's... weird. My host mother gave me some apples (I couldn't tell that's what they were!) with the skin CUT OFF. What am I, 5? But no, when I told her I always eat apples with the skin on, she responding with "honma?" [really? in Kansai-ben]. So now she doesn't peel it. Which I'm glad of. But she still peels the Asian pears. But those are so good, I don't care.
Also, if you buy some pre-made sandwiches from a pan-ya [bakery], the CRUSTS will be cut off. Completely, or only one side left. Uh. What? That I actually dislike a lot, so I've avoided buying them. (Not that I need to buy much food on my own because I'm doing homestay.)
Phew! Those are the biggest ones I can think of- more later!!
Monday, September 22, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
写真！
Pictures!! Yaaaay~ (these are the same as the ones on facebook-- I put more on facebook)
The adorable trucks! :D
Our group to Kyoto, to the Kinkakuji.
L -> R [Cat, me, Ken, Tomohiro, Skye]
The awesome Italian Street ice cream vending machine. With dancing people!
Yay, I won the jumbo waffle!
The adorable trucks! :D
Our group to Kyoto, to the Kinkakuji.
L -> R [Cat, me, Ken, Tomohiro, Skye]
The awesome Italian Street ice cream vending machine. With dancing people!
Yay, I won the jumbo waffle!
Kyoto and other things
Hello hello!
Yesterday was Kyoto and it was greaaat. I went with Cat and Skye and we got a tour with two guys, Tomohiro and Ken (or Kent? we think that was his nickname, since it was on his business card he gave us). I took a ton of pictures, but I still can't upload them because the CIE has my computer for virus and windows update stuff.
We visited two shrines, the second I forget the name of. The first was kinkakuji, which was a GOLDEN palace that was some 1000 years old. It had a really cool golden phoenix (ho-ou) on the top of the palace.
We took some purikura (stands for printo club, I think? So, purinto kurabu = purikura) which are those tiny little photo stickers that are crazy gaudy and fun. The purikura was in a game center with Namco-brand games. The ground level was a bunch of crane-games for 100 yen (100 yen = approximately 95 cents), but we went straight to the purikura down a level.
Purikura is INCREDIBLY popular-- they're not just these little photo booths. They have two sections to them. One section has the photo-taking, which has a green screen behind you, and you can choose all sorts of backgrounds and layouts for the pictures. It costs ￥400 to do, but you can also fit a TON of people in there. We had six people, but if you really wanted, you could fit probably 10.
Anyway, you take about 12-15 photos overall after picking 3 different backgrounds. (So, pick 3 bgs, take 3 pics, choose 3 more, take them, etc). It's a REALLY hectic rate, as you only get about 10 seconds to pick your backgrounds and then about 5 seconds to arrange yourselves for the pictures. (You can see what it will look like on the screen.) So there was a lot of "mae! mae!" yelling. ("front! front!")
When you're done taking the pictures, you go to the side, where there's another screen and two pens- this is where it gets weird- but fun. You can draw and write and put sparkles and hearts and other odd stamps onto your photos. (You pick about 6-8 of the best photos that will be printed out).
Then you can print them, and you can get up to 32 on a page- so they're really small, but they are so damn cute. You can also have them emailed to your phone, but Cat and I don't have phones yet (we have to do alien registration first, and THEN use the receipt from that to get a phone).
So. Purikura is so so so much fun.
We also ate at a more traditional Japanese restaurant, and at a traditional table (where you have to sit on little cushions). It was actually not that uncomfortable. The food was delicioooous.
Combustion mackerel, imposing noodle, and fish eyes asunder were some of the things on our menu at the restaurant-- your guess is as good as ours for what they meant. (They were printed under the Japanese in the menu.)
Tomohiro and Ken actually PAID for our meal, even after us insisting they don't. They just said "we can come visit America someday!" Awwww.
I have pictures, but again, I need to get my computer back and have internet before I can upload them.) I've been using the computer labs to post everything thus far.
Time for sweeeeeeets.
Yesterday was Kyoto and it was greaaat. I went with Cat and Skye and we got a tour with two guys, Tomohiro and Ken (or Kent? we think that was his nickname, since it was on his business card he gave us). I took a ton of pictures, but I still can't upload them because the CIE has my computer for virus and windows update stuff.
We visited two shrines, the second I forget the name of. The first was kinkakuji, which was a GOLDEN palace that was some 1000 years old. It had a really cool golden phoenix (ho-ou) on the top of the palace.
We took some purikura (stands for printo club, I think? So, purinto kurabu = purikura) which are those tiny little photo stickers that are crazy gaudy and fun. The purikura was in a game center with Namco-brand games. The ground level was a bunch of crane-games for 100 yen (100 yen = approximately 95 cents), but we went straight to the purikura down a level.
Purikura is INCREDIBLY popular-- they're not just these little photo booths. They have two sections to them. One section has the photo-taking, which has a green screen behind you, and you can choose all sorts of backgrounds and layouts for the pictures. It costs ￥400 to do, but you can also fit a TON of people in there. We had six people, but if you really wanted, you could fit probably 10.
Anyway, you take about 12-15 photos overall after picking 3 different backgrounds. (So, pick 3 bgs, take 3 pics, choose 3 more, take them, etc). It's a REALLY hectic rate, as you only get about 10 seconds to pick your backgrounds and then about 5 seconds to arrange yourselves for the pictures. (You can see what it will look like on the screen.) So there was a lot of "mae! mae!" yelling. ("front! front!")
When you're done taking the pictures, you go to the side, where there's another screen and two pens- this is where it gets weird- but fun. You can draw and write and put sparkles and hearts and other odd stamps onto your photos. (You pick about 6-8 of the best photos that will be printed out).
Then you can print them, and you can get up to 32 on a page- so they're really small, but they are so damn cute. You can also have them emailed to your phone, but Cat and I don't have phones yet (we have to do alien registration first, and THEN use the receipt from that to get a phone).
So. Purikura is so so so much fun.
We also ate at a more traditional Japanese restaurant, and at a traditional table (where you have to sit on little cushions). It was actually not that uncomfortable. The food was delicioooous.
Combustion mackerel, imposing noodle, and fish eyes asunder were some of the things on our menu at the restaurant-- your guess is as good as ours for what they meant. (They were printed under the Japanese in the menu.)
Tomohiro and Ken actually PAID for our meal, even after us insisting they don't. They just said "we can come visit America someday!" Awwww.
I have pictures, but again, I need to get my computer back and have internet before I can upload them.) I've been using the computer labs to post everything thus far.
Time for sweeeeeeets.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Arrival!
I have a small period of time right now to make a little post--
First thing. It is UNGODLY hot and humid here. I don't even WANT to know what the temperature is because it would just depress me. Suffice to say, the weather here is like the worst summer days back home.
And of course, only gaijin [foreigners] are sweating. The Japanese are wearing LAYERS of clothing, and they're not sweating. I wish I could get away with that. Everyone I know is dripping in sweat.
Side note: Eventually I'll make this blog more personalized, but as I can only go to the computer labs to get online, that won't happen anytime soon. (Gotta get my computer registered and stuff first)
Everything is shrunk here. It makes everything seem really really adorable. I also seem to be at about the max height for females, so I don't feel too tall or anything. But at least I don't feel short. Which is cool.
Vending machines are LITERALLY every 20 feet. Not even one every block. No, TWO per block. It's usually canned coffee, water, juice, and Japanese drinks. I've only come across one beer vending machine so far. But those exist too.
I'll eventually be with a host family, but for now I am in a room that is supposed to be a double. It is, naturally, very small. The three futons take up half the room, and our suitcases take the other half. There's a sliding door that seperates two desks on either side of the room, and then another sliding door that leads to the balcony. Again, a very small balcony. Maybe a foot and a half of space.
I will note that the "bitesize" appearance of everything does not bother me in the least.
And now I better take the 20 minute walk to campus (for the third time today).
I can already tell that I'm going to lose weight, what with the food I've eaten so far and how much walking I've already done. I've walked EASILY double (triple?) the amount I would at Beloit or anywhere else.
But I really hope I can get a bike soon-- I'm waiting on my host family to see if they have one I can borrow instead of having to buy one. Which means a wait of one week, approximately. I'll meet them either on Sat or Sun.
First thing. It is UNGODLY hot and humid here. I don't even WANT to know what the temperature is because it would just depress me. Suffice to say, the weather here is like the worst summer days back home.
And of course, only gaijin [foreigners] are sweating. The Japanese are wearing LAYERS of clothing, and they're not sweating. I wish I could get away with that. Everyone I know is dripping in sweat.
Side note: Eventually I'll make this blog more personalized, but as I can only go to the computer labs to get online, that won't happen anytime soon. (Gotta get my computer registered and stuff first)
Everything is shrunk here. It makes everything seem really really adorable. I also seem to be at about the max height for females, so I don't feel too tall or anything. But at least I don't feel short. Which is cool.
Vending machines are LITERALLY every 20 feet. Not even one every block. No, TWO per block. It's usually canned coffee, water, juice, and Japanese drinks. I've only come across one beer vending machine so far. But those exist too.
I'll eventually be with a host family, but for now I am in a room that is supposed to be a double. It is, naturally, very small. The three futons take up half the room, and our suitcases take the other half. There's a sliding door that seperates two desks on either side of the room, and then another sliding door that leads to the balcony. Again, a very small balcony. Maybe a foot and a half of space.
I will note that the "bitesize" appearance of everything does not bother me in the least.
And now I better take the 20 minute walk to campus (for the third time today).
I can already tell that I'm going to lose weight, what with the food I've eaten so far and how much walking I've already done. I've walked EASILY double (triple?) the amount I would at Beloit or anywhere else.
But I really hope I can get a bike soon-- I'm waiting on my host family to see if they have one I can borrow instead of having to buy one. Which means a wait of one week, approximately. I'll meet them either on Sat or Sun.
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