Pictures

Its been a while...

Sorry I havnt updated since Feb 27th. Its hard to do so sometimes because I have limited access to the computers. Anyway, where should I start. How about Spring Break. I went on a 3 day trip with students from IES(the program that got me here).

We went to Hiroshima, Miya-Jima, and Himeji. It was an amazing trip. We stayed at ryokans(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryokan_(inn)) for two nights. Hiroshima was a good town. We were staying right by the Genbaku Dome. That is the site where the Atomic Bomb was detonated. There was a museum as well that really explained in detail how horrible it was. It was devestating to see, but a very good experience.

After Hiroshima we went to Miya-Jima, which is a small island to the south of Hiroshima. It was very beautiful. There are tame deer that just wander about looking for foor, like squirrels. The mountains are amazing. We walked to the large shrine and witnessed a traditional Japanese wedding. We also were able to walk under the famous red "floating" gate. It was so amazing. We took a cable car up a mountain and then hiked to the top to get a fantastic view of the surrounding islands. There was even a random monkey that ran past us.

Finally, we went to Himeji. We took a tour of the Himeji castle, which is said to be Japan's most beautiful castle. It was very beautiful.

We also got to ride on the shinkansen (bullet train). It was unbelievably fast. Later in the week I went to Kyoto with a few friends for a day. It takes about 4 hours to get there by a normal train, but it only took a 30 mins. by the shinkansen. There, we went to a monkey park. It was amazing. There were monkies running around all over the place, right by our feet. We went to Gion(the historic Geisha district) and to a Fushimi Inari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fushimi_Inari-taisha) That was amazing.

By the end of the week, My host mom took me to a small buddhist shop by their house to look form presents. The man that works there was actually her junior high classmate, and his son and my host brother are in the same class. The man was very nice and gave me many great items for free. He said he couldnt sell them because they were old, but he couldnt through them away because they were sacred. So, he was greatful that someone had an interest in the items, so he just gave them to me.

On my birthday, my host mom gave me a sweet rice cake with sweet red beans in the middle and a godzilla candle. They all sang happy birthday and she gave me a cool book with sketches and really cool information about things in japan. It was a lot of fun.

The next week we I had to prepare a short speech about DePaul for my class. All of the 400 level students had to present to our class and we selected our favorite 3 speeches. The ones selected had to give their speech in front of about 150 or so new Japanese students possibly interested in studying abroad. My speech was selected, and I was very nervous. I have never given a speech in front of that many people before, let alone in Japanese. I did an ok job, it wasnt perfect, but everyone understood everything and they liked it. They also asked me a bunch of questions about school and Chicago so it was kinda fun. I came to Japan to try things I normally wouldnt and this was a very good experience.

The next week (this week) was the official beggining of the school year for the japanse college students. The school is completely crowded now. Its scary. When I got here, their year was just about over, so I came during their equivelent to our summer break. Theres never really room to eat in the cafeterias but the weather has been great, so we usually eat outside on the grassy hill area. There are still some cherry blossoms left, so its really pretty. Yesterday, a friend made me and my friends go to this event called coffee hour with him. Ive been before, but this was interesting. There were about 75 or so Japanese people and only about 7 foreign students. It was a way for Japanese students interested in studying abroad to talk with the foreign studetns, and for us to practice our Japanese. So there were small groups of about 3 Japanese people that came and talked to me about whatever, and then out of nowhere, the people hosting it decided to interview me in front of everyone. It was sort of scary, but ended up being another good experience. So I ended up makeing some Japanese friends.

Today, after lunch, we went to the same grassy area to hang out with Kelly and her conversation partner Emiko. We met 2 of Emiko's friends (both of their names I already forgot) and they were cool. One of them is going to California next august to study abroad, so we all told him he needs to start practicing speaking English. It was really fun.

Im getting excited to come back home, but I really dont want to. I feel like I am now just getting used to everything here, including speaking and understanding Japanese. I dont want to leave after all of this work, it just seems like it would be a waste. My host family doesnt want me to go either. But, they are coming to Chicago in July for about 4 days! So it will be great to see them again.

I have to go now, but Ill try and upload more pictures when I have some time.

I had to go pick up my Foreigner Registration Card at city hall last week, and went with my host mom. It went really well, but I look like a terrorist. My host mom was showing me the Hina Matsuri dolls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hina_Matsuri). There was a guy from a cable station video taping it and asked if he could get us looking at them like we were interested. So that's the second time I'm on tv in Japan.

We had Temaki zushi My host mom prepared everything. It looks similar to this (this is not their house):

Its a big thing of sushi rice and various ingredients, like different fish, duck roast, octopus, etc. You pick your favorite ones, get a sheet of nori and some rice, and make your own sushi. Its really good. I ate so much.

Its strange being here. I'm so easy to pick out of a crowd. Whenever I see other foreigners, there is always this sort of unspoken rule where we should acknowledge each other with a nod or maybe even a hey.

I checked out this school called HAL institute of Technology in Nagoya a couple days ago. It was really cool. Here's the commercial for it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep3uLEEjUgg The school offers CG animation, video game development, computer programming, IT stuff, and music. It was so cool. I definitely want to have a career in video games in the future so when I get back home, Im gonna take more courses in animation at DePaul.

I went to Toganji temple and saw Nagoya's Daibutsu. Its a huge buddha statue. I took some pictures that Ill upload soon. It was amazing.

Everything is going well here but there are some things about America that I miss. You'd think its fattening food, but Japan actually has alot of it. Especially bread. There are bakeries and bread stores all over the place! Its so good too. But I really miss things like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiHaqCFQLxA .

Ok, until next time.

National Japanese Television!

Hey, so in my previous post I had a picture of me being interviewed. I have a link to the actual broadcast! Its really crappy cause my friend recorded it on his digital camera from the tv, but its still cool. He only kept the parts with my friends on. Its also pretty hilarious. They were just asking what sorts of things we like about Japan and what not. We also get Japanese subtitles! They use them just to make it funnier from what I hear. You can also see in the corner some Picture in Picture of famous japanese people watching us and laughing! Cool! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqkbOOpsvZM

PICTURES and other stuff!

If you can, please send me some emails. I like reading about what's happening at home!

Here are some of my pictures from Tokyo! Theres more from Nagoya too.

Here is the menu for Japanese Wendy's. Note the shrimp sandwich. I ate the Curry Tonkatsu(Pork cutlet) sandwich.

We went to Ueda Park for a day and saw some Chinese acrobats performing. They were all really talented. This guy had a giant ceramic pot on his head.


I think they were a family. This might be the younger sister. Those are her feet by her shoulders. She kept looking right at me, it was kinda creepy, but made for a good picture.


Heres the guy again. He balanced on top of chairs stacked at least 25 feet in the air.


We went to a few museums in the park to look at art and history. Along the way I saw an old lady with pink-purple hair. I didnt think people would believe that old lady's dye their hair crazy colors, but heres proof.


This is near our hostel in Asakusa.


Japanese people like their socks. Also taken at Asakusa.


This is just an average night in Shinjuku. Look at how insanely crowded it is.


The rest of these are from Nagoya. Theres a store in Sakae that sells nothing but robots. This guy was standing outside of it:


This is an example of what your average Japanese guy wears, especially in Nagoya. Its pretty scary.


There was a Chinese festival in the park in Sakae. This is a dancer, you can see her face in the center.


There were also Lion Dancers. The came out into the crowd. It was probably the coolest thing ever.


And finally, this little guy was just standing in the center of the pigeons, screaming. Haha, I had to take a picture.

Tokyo!

I went to Tokyo for 4 days and just got back! I stayed at a youth hostel called Sakura Hostel In Asakusa Tokyo. (These aren't my pictures, just found them online. Mine aren't transferred yet.)

Asakusa was great. There were tons of people everywhere. Most were tourists, from all over too, even from other parts of Japan. The hostel was really clean and the staff was very friendly. They liked us a lot because we spoke to them in Japanese (they all spoke English as well). We tried to do as much traveling around Tokyo as possible. The city is massive. There are various districts that each offer something different. We met my friend Masako in Harajuku. We went on Sunday and that is when all the high school kids go out and dress up in the most insane fashion ever.

We then went to a Kaiten Sushi place, conveyor belt sushi, and ate so much food. It was really great though. Afterwords we walked around Shinjuku. I have never seen so many people in my life. I used to think that Chicago during the Taste was crowded, but its nothing in comparison to Shinjuku. The next day we went to Akihabara, which is a district that has electronics. It has electronics everywhere. There are stores for anything you could want. The coolest part is that are used electronic stores so you can get everything really cheap. I was with a group of almost 16 people, so i couldn't look around at my leisure. The even better part of Akihabara was while we were randomly walking in the street, we got stopped by some Japanese people with a video camera. They were from a tv show and interviewed my friends and I in Japanese. They just asked us why were were there, and what the best parts of Tokyo were. It was so insane!

All of the food I have eaten so far as been the greatest ever. Although at the Kaiten Sushi place, Mike (the guy standing next to me in that picture) wanted to try a new sushi that looked like a brain. We asked Masako what it was and she didn't know. She thought it was uterus or something. Mike ate it and almost vomited at first. But he said it was ok. We later found out that it was fish sperm. Its apparently a rare delicacy... gross. We also ate at Wendy's. I had a Tonkatsu curry sandwich! It was a fried porkcutlet sandwich with curry, and it was amazing. After that we went to the bakery where i bought a giant Hokaido Milk bread. it was the best thing ive ever eaten.

There was alot of fun times. We were only there for 4 days, so we missed alot of stuff. On the last day we ate in Odaibo, it was great. That area is right on the ocean and very pretty.

Yes, thats a small verison of the statue of Liberty in the Background. It was pretty funny. We took the bus home at around 11:30 pm and got to Nagoya at around 6:30 the next day. The bus sucked, but it was the first time I ever saw Yamanba fashion. Heres an example:Yamanba comes from the words Yama Uba, which means mountain hag. In Japanese folklore there she is a crazy old woman that lives in mountains and forests that preys on travelers. When she gains the travelers trust, she eats them. There were 3 girls dressed just like the one in the left of this picture on the bus. Apparently its an everyday thing. They were pretty interesting.

So I will have pictures that I took up as soon as I can. Ill write again when i have more interesting things to say. Bye! Also, its lie 50 degrees here. Stay safe and warm in the blizzardy weather!

Some photos

Some photos from the Nagoya area. This is Nagoya Jou (castle):

This is a close up of the Golden Dolphins on the top of the castle.

Some Flag things:

Taken at Osu Kannon Temple. There were pigeons everywhere!! :

This is a cleansing ritual taken at Nittaiji temple. There was a festival too:

This food is Okonomiyaki, its amazing. Nittaiji festival:

Buddha statue at a cemetary in Yagoto Kashoji Temple:

This is a buddha figure at Yagoto Koshiji Temple:

Same statue from a different angle:

Cranes:

Some Oji-chan with pigeons:

Another type of cleansing ritual. They are putting their hands in the insense and smke and pat themselves with it. Taken at Osu Kannon temple during the antique market:

This random dog kept following this little old lady (Osu antique market) :

Creepy "Antique" Dolls:

One more creey doll just because: