Shake It Off

Last night I experienced my first earthquake! Well, actually I should amend that to the first earthquake that I was awake for~ I slept through the previous two. The only way I can think to describe it is as when one gets playfully pushed from behind by a friend. You know the feeling, right? You're walking down the street, probably listening to your iPod when bam! your friend sneak attacks you in front of ABP, stunning you awake. So imagine that- only that the friend was able to jolt not only you, but also the floor, the table, and what I assume was the whole house since my host mother (who was in the kitchen) gave a yell of surprise. It was wicked fun. My host mother laughed at me when I danced around going "初めて地震”　(that is, "first earthquake") but I think the event merited some sort of marker.

That's enough from me for now though, tomorrow is the midterm exam... the 3 hour midterm exam.... the 3 hour midterm exam that I have only studied for while watching Grey's Anatomy and The Mummy.... right. It shouldn't be anything I haven't already studied, but it's quite a bit of kanji- most of it pertaining to the likes of bathhouses and dragons and evil witches (we studied Spirited Away in depth), so I should make sure I have a good grasp of everything that will be covered. Peace.

We Are Young

So this week was a bit slower than the rest on account of the looming midterm exams and essays that we'll have to deal with next week. That said, this week PII had some cool activities scheduled for us. If I had to put a name on the general theme of this week, it would be "young people" ---- "young Japanese people."

Our first field trip of the week, we went to Kanazawa University. Everyone was partnered with a student, had lunch, chatted and all that. All in all, it was a nice afternoon though I could have done without the "musical session" that involved learning how to play ... uhm, leaves? Seriously. After our communal quiz on Kanazawa University (from which I found out Kanazawa Dai has the third largest campus in all of Japan), a group of elderly Japanese folk came out and played a rendition of "If you're happy and you know it" by blowing on leaves that they held in between their lips. I was too stunned to clap.... Now, I have to admit that it was kind of impressive.... but what on earth does playing leaves have to do with Japanese culture? I asked my Japanese partner, but alas he had no answer.

Some other interesting highlights of the visit were visiting the library where we were shown a machine that I can only think of to call a Robo-Librarian. In order to preserve delicate books, the university bought a machine that catalogues all the books behind locked doors and can be directed to pick up whatever book you might need without you having to wonder the stacks. Call me old fashioned, but I rather like wandering the stacks for books- makes finding the book you need or finding other books that you might not otherwise have found so much more satisfying.

Anyway, our second field trip of the week was to the Daitoku Elementary School. Ishikawa decided to hail the beginnings of its monsoon season upon us which was kind of a drag, but the mood immediately lightened when we got to meet all these cute little Japanese kids! We were first tagged, which made for a nice, criminal-like photo-op. (credit to Matthew Delgado for the pic) Then we were entertained with taiko (traditional Japanese drumming) and a song in English that went like "Hello. How are you? I like to meet you too." ~~Read: very cute. (*-*)V


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After that, it was off to individual classes. I was with the 一年生〜 All I have to say is, do not be fooled by cute faces--- the kids totally schooled me in rock, paper, scissors.



But this is not where the story ends. Scene: Friday, Kanazawa Station, 4:00pm-ish. What's an exchange student to do? Go to the mall of course. And play in the arcade. The games of choice: virtual taiko, Mario Cart, and some sort of shooting game. The virtual taiko game was a lot of fun, and though in no way a substitute for actual exercise, everyone agreed that it does work the arms quite a bit. I went for one of those crane games that look ridiculously easy, but in actuality are ridiculously hard. It was a bit tricky, but about 2000 yen later- I came out victorious and with a big stuffed Stitch to boot. I learned that the trick is to use the crane not to pick up the stuffed animal, but rather to push it off the ledge of the machine.


Next stop on our "what would a young Japanese college student do" hang out session was a trip to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. Sushi is well crazy delicious as is, but add to the fact that it comes right to your table on cleverly color-coded plates (which indicate price), well- I can think of no better way to improve an already superior dining experience.

To round off the night, a small group of us headed out to a bar and had some drinks. The conversation ranged from serial killers to the end of the world to one's taste in the opposite sex. All in all, a great night. Saturday night and Sunday were equally chill, but that's another story. Jya ne.

Noto Ryokou

This weekend was the Noto trip!!! It was soooo much fun, and more importantly- very informative. One of the first places we stopped by on the way to Noto was Chirihama Beach. Sure- nothing amazingly exotic about the beach, but it was quite an experience to be riding in one of those huge tour coach buses as it skims the coast line (this, after the bus driver earnestly promised to keep us safe, haha) so much so that I think the highest waves were able to reach the tires. Somehow we got the idea to take pictures of people jumping in the air- and like pokemon, it started a craze... I think half of the beach pictures taken were merely of people jumping up and down, with special jumps like side kicks reserved for the pros. (Apparently I'm a low jumper but one of my PII fellows was able to take an amazing pic~)


After that, we went to Ketataisha Shrine. As part of the weekend trip, all students had to give a presentation/skit on one of the sightseeing places that we visited. Wilma, Deborah, and I decided on a skit where Deborah is pretending to be on the phone with Wilma talking about Ketataisha Shrine. She makes some serious blunders on the history (well, at least presumably correct history) of Ketataisha Shrine, at which point I -forest god of Ketataisha- step in to set her straight. Ketataisha actually has quite an interesting history as one of the four most famous shrines in Japan. (It seems the Japanese really like to categorize things into the top 5 or whatever. This goes for everything from the "Top 3 Most Famous gardens in Japan" to the "Top 5 Best-selling Crepes at Kanazawa Eki's Crepe Shoppe --> banana chocolate by the way.)

But I digress... apparently Hakui, the town in which Ketataisha is located, is known as the "Asian Roswell" for its reported UFO sightings. Ketataisha itself is famous as being auspicious for prayers to find true love and pass school entrance exams. The good fortune the shrine brings is taken quite seriously---> the official web site of the shrine gives testimonials of all those who were smiled down upon warmly by UFOs or forest gods (jk). Most of us figured "hey, why not?" and bought some lucky charms or fortunes. Some of the more interesting fortunes ranged from the prediction that:

one guy's future wife would be really poor but exceptionally kind-hearted (his reaction: hmm, I guess I'll have to call my girlfriend and let her know she's going to be poor.)
to
a girl who was destined to have a forbidden love... which we all casually interpreted as her going after a married guy in the future (her reaction: that's probably not good...)

After the love shrine, we went to a Fisherman's Wharf, Ganmon (some cool caves by the sea where people hid out during rough times), and Sojiji Temple (a very Buddhist, very old temple). Then it was off to the hotel to get a nice バイキング-style dinner (note: "buffet" is known as "viking-style" in Japan). Part of the dinner included home (?) entertainment with people taking turns to rock out on the karaoke machines. Yes, even the sen-sei's know how to have a good time. A few of us ran out just in time to catch a beautiful sunset as well. Ahhh, いい気持ちね。

It's really strange to think it's only been two weeks. Though the days aren't terribly hectic, all the new stimuli and experiences sum together to make one feel like we've been here always. It's a great feeling and it's nice to know that we still have quite a bit of time here... That said, I definitely don't want to let myself get lazy into thinking I can push things off until laterーーー せっかくですからよ。----> which roughly translates into, "since one's taken the trouble to [come here]" Like the sun that set way to fast before everyone was able to run out and see it, so will our time run out in Japan- best make the most of it. Ciao.

Family Matters

So, I'll admit, I was just a bit worried about the host family thing. I found out not too long ago that the host family only consists of a host mom and dad who live alone out in the countryside. Turns out however, that they are really AWESOME!!! It was funny how all the PII students were introduced to the host families--> They lined all of us up in this cramped hallway with all our luggage, and then would have the host family come out of a reception room to "pick us up." I think we all felt just a little bit like lost puppies getting picked up at the pound, but when I saw my "mom," I was all but too happy to go.

The mother's name, from now on I'll call her okaasan, is Mikiyo Goto. Besides being really friendly (fairly normal for Japanese people), is a FABULOUS cook! But therein lies the danger.... without fail Japanese mothers like to feed people till their stuffed. I once heard that host mothers in particular like their students to leave their house with a few extra "kiro" since it shows that they are not only an awesome cook but that they were able to tame such wild beasts as Americans to like healthy Japanese food, haha- just kidding. But not about the being fed a lot of food... our first dinner together... hmmm took about 3 hours, かな.

The host father (ie otousan) is also quite cool. The first day I arrived, he spent the whole day building something in the backyard..... I'm not sure what it was, but it involved the use of a saw, drill, and several cigarette breaks. Okaasan told me he likes to take care of plants too, at which point she showed me their really pretty garden in back. In case you can't tell from the picture, yes- the house is a bit "inaka," but it's not too bad of a commute from the main part of the city by bus (about 40 minutes), and it really is quite beautiful out here amongst all the rice fields... oh, and mountains! (Being from Chicago which lies on flat land as far as the eye can see, I still find mountains somewhat of a curious natural phenomenon.)

But back to the host family... at dinner, otousan suggested I come up with a "theme" for my homestay here in Kanazawa so that it would be easier to think of what sort of things I want to do while I'm here. Since it quickly became apparent that I am quite interested in eating, he suggested I choose "food" as my theme.... My quick reply to keep myself from reading about Japanese food the whole summer was to say "でも太りたくない" (but I don't want to get fat), so he amended said theme and now apparently okaasan is going to 1) teach me how to cook some nice Japanese dishes 2) feed me a lot of delicious Japanese food 3) somehow(?) get me to lose 2 kilos.

Now, we were all drinking wine and beer (and in otousan's case also hard liquor), so I just took this all as a nice joke, but the next morning okaasan came up to me quite seriously and said that she had made my "food" theme her goal and would do her best to fulfill it.

Right.

Well I seem to be having no problems with #2 at the moment, but haven't gotten around to the other two parts. I see this entry is kinda long, so I'll leave it at that and talk about PII stuff next time, じゃね。

Kanazawa, inaka kana?

It's almost unbelievable that I've been here just a week, so much has happened! Wilma and I met her uncle in Narita so as to have someone to take us to the train station and make sure we didn't end up in Hokkaido. It was a great help having someone who's "in the know" (and not some random person) tell us how to ride the train (not to mention that he bought the tickets for us!!~ yatta!). It took 4-5 hours to get to Kanazawa during which time Wilma played her Nintendo DS and I scrambled to finish the review homework PII had sent us in May. We both were just a little bit--- uhm--- concerned when it got time to being 5 minutes before we would arrive in Kanazawa and still all we could see was rice fields and mountains (田舎かな？), but thankfully Kanazawa turned out to be the big, modern city hidden amidst all the rice fields and mountains.

Like Narita, the first night in Kanazawa went swimmingly. Seems like there are some pretty cool people in the program so this summer should be a lot of fun--- read: karaoke to the max. There are 6 of us from Yale (3 三年生　and 3 二年生) with the rest of the program being mostly from Ivies or East Coast schools. The first walk about Kanazawa was exciting to say the least! One of the nicest things about being back in Japan is being able to walk around late at night without much worry. Though crime has become more of a problem of late, Japan is still super safe compared to the US (including and especially Chicago) and so walking around for some late night eats was a nice way to get our first look at Kanazawa. Wilma and I ended up hitting up this ramen shop tucked into one of the side roads off the main street from the train station. The ramen wasn't so great, but for the equivalent of $3.90, I can't really complain, right? We also went to book*off, a used book/music store. Given how expensive Japanese CDs can be ($40 or so), I couldn't help myself when I saw the "best of" cd for 「JUDY AND MARY」- a group that I am familiar with from a previous homestay- selling for about $18! ( >_<)*V*

The next day we would all meet our host families .... dun dun dun... I'll let you know how it went in another post (ps happy ending), for now- bed time. おやすみ！

Yokoso~

Tsuita! Wilma and I arrived without a hitch and were able to meet up before heading to our hotel in Narita. We had planned on meeting at one of the "meeting points" in terminal 1, but ended up seeing each other as we were coming out of customs. The cash exchange place was right next to the meeting point so we ended up heading that way anyway to exchange currency. I found out that traveler's checks got better rates (2 yen per dollar more) than American dollars (which is unfortunate since I brought cash for now). I also noted that currency exchange place (and by association I'm assuming post offices) gave 118/dollar vs. 113/dollar that our hotel was offering, so it seems traveler's checks are best for exchanging money, with cash exchange at currency exchange places preferred over hotels. I'm not sure what kind of rates I'll get using an ATM card, but I'll be sure to note it in the future.

The first night we walked around a little bit, but not too much as we're not far from the airport and so most of the surrounding areas are "inaka." We did hit up the local mini-stop for some tasty onigiri (rice balls) and amai pan (sweet bread), but other than that and the local Royal Host, there wasn't anything terribly interesting to see on our walk. From our window, we can see a hotel that is Christmas-themed.... red and green Christmas lights, big Santa statue and all.... that was picture-worthy in our minds, so Wilma brought out the diji-cam.

Wilma's uncle is going to pick us up in a bit and take us to the train station so we can make our way to Ishikawa. We're hoping there will be a free meal in between the commute, but if not, we'll stop by one of the kiosks at the train station (read: I can't wait to get my hands on some more conbini onigiri). I came with two suitcases, so I used the takkyubin to send my smaller suitcase so I wouldn't have as much to carry. It came out to about $15, which is well worth the convenience of not having to drag it around the usually elevator-lacking train stations. Here's to getting to Ishikawa in one piece~ Ciao!