Best day, ever?

So ya, this probably was one of the coolest days I've had so far. Unfortunately it rained all day which was of course a downer. Steve and I rode our bikes to campus to meet with my tutor and my academic adviser at about 9:30 this morning. My tutor met us and told us that we couldn't meet with the adviser till about lunch time. We then decided to grab some breakfast (although I had an apple and OJ earlier in the morn) at the campus bookstore. I grabbed two small OJs and Pocky!

We kept going to Steve's academic adviser so I could meet him, but he was in a meeting with this students. After walking back between the international office and his adviser's about five times his meeting ended and we walked in. His name is Ueya-sensei and his English was pretty awesome, but he wanted me to speak in Japanese. Sadly, my speaking skills still have not leveled up, but my listening is still awesome and getting better. They served us coffee while we waited and I didn't think it'd be that hot and I burnt the living shit out of my tongue. After talking to Ueya-sensei we went to meet with my tutor, Gan-san.

We met Gan-san outside building J (buildings aren't named after ppl) and we walked up to meet my adviser. My adviser is very nice, Morita-sensei, and he's a French language teacher. They put me under him because I'm interested in cultures and they felt he has a broad understanding of them. We (Patrick, Steve, Gan, Morita, and I) all went to the cafeteria where I finally ate some Japanese-like food, CURRY! I actually liked it too, although I didn't completely mix in the curry with my rice. I gotta pace myself. Morita-sensei nominated me to be the US representative at an upcoming BBQ we're planning! My first committee!

Then the fun really started, Steve finally stopped being mother hen to Patty and I. There was only enough room in Morita-sensei's car for four people so there wasn't even enough room for Steve anyway. We jumped in the car and headed down to the courthouse to get my gaijin card (it's not actually called this but when you say it like that they know what you mean). Unlike Steve and Patrick I had my visa and I didn't have to pay for my gaijin card. Morita-sensei soon left us to go back to work on campus and Gan-san continued to help us out.

Patty and I went to the one place that has Iphones but I figured it wouldn't be worth it because most Japanese phones are ahead of the Iphone other than the majority aren't touch (and the Iphone her would not work over in the US). We hit up a couple of phone places to figure out plans and what have you. Finally we ended up at a store named AU where we both got our phones. Here's the skivvy on it, I paid NOTHING at the store, my phone was free, and my monthly bill is about 32 bucks! I signed a two year contract (why you ask?) because doing so actually cuts the bill in half. Meaning I would have to have paid about 60 a month for the plan I have, there is a cost for cutting the phone off before contract but even counting what I have to pay to cut off I'll end up saving about 150 on my bill for a year! The phone I have is made by sanyo and does the following: still photos, video (video conference as well), infared (nice for sekigaisen [transferring phone number and name to another phone instantly]), mp3s, email, internet, TV, and probably more shit I have no idea about.

Gan-san left us while we were still setting up our phones, but we left shortly after she departed. It was still raining when Patty and I left AU, and we walked backed to campus to get our bikes. Patty still doesn't have a tutor so we stopped by the international office. Patty still doesn't know his tutor, but the good news for me is that I already have a part time job! Two people would have been nice they said but although Patty was standing there they didn't even offer it to him, I guess because they know my listening skills are at a decent level. In the end Steve told Okamura-sensei that he'd like to try and do it, which means less money for me, but it's only one day a week for just a few hours for 50 bucks, so I figure that will pay for my rent, phone, health insurance, and internet each month!

Steve made hamburgers tonight and we've decided to make that a weekly thing seeing as they were very very tasty (and cheaper than McDonald's). Later we grabbed a few beers and tried to play Rock Band 2, but Steve had to help a Chinese student with their English. Emily (one of the Japanese RAs) ended up playing with me for a bit which was fun, but in the end I was too tired to play after Steve was finished. Now I'm off to bed, catch yuns on the flip side!

Onsen!!

Well I'm fully unpacked finally!!! Took me a few days but I've got everything where I want it and still have some empty cabinets above my bed. Steve and I went down to town today to go to the Hyaku-en (100 yen) shop. They are very similar to American dollar shops, they sell a lot of necessitates one would definitely need. For example for less that $20 I got a spoon, fork, spatula, trash can, two binders for school, marshmallows (yay), straws (I drink OJ out of the carton here), a glass, plate, bowl, sponge, chopsticks, and HOT CAKE MIX! An interesting note is that most places have you bag your own items, assuming you got more than just a few things.


After checking out and bagging my items we headed back to our backs where we were treated with a special surprise...that's right...another arcade! We played a gun game together, Time Crisis 4, but I only went in to check if they had Street Fighter 4. Mind you, the reasons I get excited about SF4 are that it's the first fighting game I ever played and got decent at and that it does NOT come out in the USA until February or later. After playing and quickly losing our game we made our way back to our bikes. We set off for Ogino's, the local super market, where I invest in some milk, cereal, bacon, and two more liters of OJ! Steve is going to allow me to use his rice cooker for my rice as well! If not for Steve I'd probably way behind in being able to do things myself here, so I told him once things settle down (financially and socially) that I would hopefully be able to treat him to a not so expensive dinner.

We headed back to the dorm where we finally got out the ole Xbox 360 I brought over to play Rock Band 2! I only have the guitar and microphone right now but it's still fun none the less. Steve hogged the guitar and I sang most the time. A few people walked by and gave us "wtf" faces. Eventually a two of the Aussie girls looked down from the second floor down into the lobby area we were playing laughing their asses off. Patty hollered at them to come down and a girl named Melissa came down and sang a Blondie song for us and she did great! RB2 is definitely going to be the American mainstay in the dorm and we're gonna get some alchy and have a party with it soon!

Anywho, after playing Rock Band 2 we decided to do one thing I've always wanted to do. Go to an onsen. Onsen means bathhouse but is used to refer to most hot springs. Here in lies the biggest culture shock I've gotten while here, having to strip down naked and bathe with other men. I actually had no problem with it, but I can see if someone weren't 100% confident in their sexuality and coming from a more closed bathing atmosphere (like America) one would find it very wierd. I also encountered what I believed to be a Yakuza (Japanese mafia) there. He had tattoos on his arm (tattoos here are a big sign of Yakuza) and had an eye patch. I had a towel in the floor and it he picked it up and gave it back to me, so pretty nice for a mafioso I guess. We first dipped into a more spa/jacuzzi type bath with bubbles and shortly after moved to the outside bath which I thought was much more relaxing. The unfortunate part to the bathing experience is that you seem to scare off most of the locals. This specific onsen we went to is only about a 5 min bike ride from the dorm and costs about $3.75. After having such a great experience we've decided to go to another onsen this coming week across town that actually overlooks the city. It as an interesting experience but a relaxing one that I wouldn't mind at all doing again, very soon. In the end we ended up weighing ourselves before leaving, I was curious as to if I'd lost any weight while here. Well, I have, and it's a shitlaod. I last weighed about 195 or so and now I weight in at 183! I've been eating shitty American food most of the time too, it's mainly not drinking soda and biking around everywhere!

Moving in...

Woke up sore from Steve's floor, but thankfully that's the end of that. The landlady rolled in later than we though and she said she wouldn't let me move in until she had the opportunity to clean up more, apparently the last guy who lived in this room was German and didn't clean the floor before leaving. So we went down to the nearest convenient store and I got some plain bread (no melon-pan today), some orange juice, and a kitkat bar for sugar intake.

We then walked over to campus (less than three blocks from the dorm) and I got to meet my tutor Gan-san who is a girl a few years younger than me. She didn't speak much English but I understood some of her Japanese and what I didn't Steve was there to translate. We didn't get to finish our goals of the day because the weather was bad and she did not have a vehicle. I still have to get my gaijin card at the courthouse, get my hanko (stamp/seal they use in place of signatures), get a bike, and look into getting a cell phone. We decided to meet on Monday to take care of all these things. So we left my tutor and hoofed it back to the dorm where we sat around Steve's room and debated ordering more pizza, which of course we ended up doing. I'm not going to lie, it's expensive but I don't eat it all at once and this time I spent extra to get a large by myself and I calculate it will last me a total of three meals. I will probably run out and get a bike tomorrow and grab a few groceries so I won't rely on ordering expensive ass pizza all the time.

Shortly after ordering the pizza the landlady (Yamamoto-san) knocked on Steve's door to tell me she finished cleaning. I quickly moved my bags in and am still unpacking into what little of a dresser I have. I live in a corner room, meaning as far as sound is concerned I need to worry about whomever is above me and then Steve who is right next door. Patrick is also on this floor just three doors down. Oddly enough the person in between Steve and Pat is nicknamed "Naked Lee".

I have to say that being here is quite intimidating as the people here are genius level and above. According to my IQ I'm at the lower end of that genius spectrum. According to one of the RA's in the dorm we are getting students from Germany, the UK, France, Cambodia, and Egypt. Currently on this floor we have a Chinese dood (Naked Lee) and a few Malaysians (which Steve refers to as the Malazys seeing as they don't keep our kitchen very clean). Getting moved in and getting my keys to my mailbox, room, and kitchen locker was quite liberating as I've not had any sort of personal space for nearly a week. As good of friends as Steve and me might be we agreed that getting out of each others' space was a good thing. So now the reality sets in that I have to bust my ass from here on out with my Japanese language. My listening skills are great, my speaking is crappy, and my writing is horrible. I have one week to study for my placement exam and while I'll probably end up in the advanced class (advanced here meaning intensive catch up) I don't want to look like a complete fool...

Great Tokyo Experience

First note, I now have a Flickr account where one can see all my pics instead of having to look at my slideshows or random single pics. I will put my flickr addy under "The Who" on my blog's side bar so in case someone doesn't use bookmarks it will always be there.

Unlike the previous days we did a complete day of walking around and doing things, meaning we didn't take a break back at the hostel or anything. We started by hopping a train to Roppongi which famous for it's night life. From there we walked about half a mile to the rather large Tokyo Tower. It's actually taller than the Eiffel Tower but weighs half as less. It's the largest self supporting steel structure in the world and serves as an antenna for about fourteen local radio and television stations. You can pay just to go halfway or you can pay about 6 bucks more and it allows you to go to the very top as well. We of course paid for the top, and when we got into the elevator for the top we were crammed like sardines with about 10 other people in a rather small elevator. Steve seemed like he was kinda freaked so I asked if he was scared in Japanese and he said ya, about the same time the Japanese people started saying they were scared. Then a message comes on in Japanese and English stating that you should not be alarmed by the weird sounds that might emanate from the elivator are merely safety devices activating which kind of seem odd to the both us.

When we reached the top we were treated with a spectacular view of the city. Seeing the city from that height really put into perspective why this is one of the largest cities in the world. I literally could not see the end of the city as you can tell in some of the pictures. Unfortunately I still could not see Fuji and haven't yet, but Steve says on a pretty day from certain spots in Kofu it can be seen.



After leaving the observation deck we somehow thought it would be a cool idea to walk back down the stairs from the midway point, I somehow feel now that was a mistake as my calves still hurt a day later. We grabbed some Baskin Robbins ice cream and headed on to find something else to do. Didn't have much direction so we jumped a train to Shinjuku (pretty much the main station point for trains and buses in Tokyo) and walked around. I found a Krispy Kreme and even in the middle of the day there was probably a 30+ minute wait for the sugary goodness so we immediately passed and tried to find other sources of sustenance. We walked around the station and stumbled upon something Steve hadn't seen yet in Japan, a Wendy's! This was my first beef experience in Japan and I have to say that it was lackluster, the beef seems to be of a lower grade and was only so-so. The fries and Pepsi at least were good!

By this time it was time for us to start the true purpose of the day, begin our trip to the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka which is on the outskirt of Tokyo. It finally had to happen after three days, we got on the wrong train! It wasn't too big of a problem because I noticed it before Steve and we got off really quick. Because of this it made us about 10 minutes passed when were supposed to be there. Luckily the museum is not a tour and we only hurt ourselves by being late, meaning we just had less time to look around at everything. The biggest downer to the museum is that we could not take pictures inside. Besides that, the Ghibli Museum is a must see for any tourist in Japan. Being I want to make movies one day, although probably not animated, I have huge respect for Miyazaki (creator of Studio Ghibli). It was like a kid in a candy store with some much to soak up. The best exhibit inside I wish I could have taken pictures of was a mock up of Miyazaki's studio which was incredible with all kinds of drawings and storyboards from a plethora of this films.




After hitting the outside exhibits and getting pictures we journeyed back to the first floor where every 20 minutes there is a fifteen minute short film (which is impossible to find outside of Japan) which we were treated to. There are a number of these short films and the museum rotates them around every so often. My reading is bad and Steve's isn't great but he said the title was something along the lines of "The Day I Received my Planet".

The following is a description of the short film and is kind of long, so if this kind of thing bores you then skip past to the next paragraph:
I could understand a vast amount of the dialogue save a few heavy parts. It's a story about a boy who seems to have lost his way or perhaps is a runaway and he begins to stay with an older lady helping out with tasks such as farming and selling huge daikon radishes at the market. On his way to the market his motorbike breaks down and he assisted by a mole and a from who take the radishes in return for helping and also give him a seed for a planet. After getting back home he rushes to plan it in a pot and then goes to sleep. When he awakens the next morning he finds that hovering above the pot is a small ball of dirt hovering just over where he planted it. It also had a few satellites (or moons) going around it. The child then notices a rolly polly bug on the new planet and leaves it be, always showing this great care for life. Another day seems to pass and the child goes to the market and makes it all the way there this time and sells his goods, we see the Frog and Mole again but they leave the child be. The whole while this is happening the woman the child lives with "Ninia" seems to be trying to find the child a home. The boy returns from the market with a perfume bottle of water and gentle sprays the ball of dirt and a cloud begins to form around it and electricity lightly shocks him and he laughs. After the clouds form around completely it begins to rain on the small planet. The next morning he find the planet looking like the real thing, and he finally shows what he's accomplished to Ninia. At that time a family comes to finally take the child away, and the child leaves the care of the small planet which is now inhabited by a small family of rolly pollies with Ninia. Shortly after while staying in his new home he is visted by the Frog and Mole yet again and they say he has to come quickly with them or he's going to miss something important. He tags along and is brought to a place in space where there's a river of stars and planets running through the universe as if this were the birthplace of all things. Ninia is seen waiting for him in a dress holding his planet. They tell him that he must releas the planet into the galaxy so that it can one day become a true planet and sustain more life than just the small bugs. The frog and mole tell him he can return in sixty years to see how his planet has progressed because the river flows back through. The child is happy for his planet and releases it, but tells Ninia that they will never meet again because it's so far into the future. Ninia then tells him she has been alive over 200 years because she's a magic user (witch might be too harsh). The boy departs with the Frog and Mole and the film ends.


The visuals and music alone were moving enough to make me cry. While the story isn't sad so much the message and the care for all life we must have really impacted me even in short fifteen minutes of time. Steve said he felt like that was also one of the most moving things for him as well. After the film we exited the museum and made our way back to the hostel.

We woke up this morning checked out of our hostel and headed back to Kofu. We made it safely back, and I finally had my first piece of actual Japanese food, Melon-pan (melon bread). It's basically sweet bread that is actually really awesome. I'm now hiding in Steve's room until he gets back from taking a placement test or whenever the landlady leaves for the day, whichever comes first. I think we're going to explore Kofu a little bit and grab some eats later, but I finally get to reveal to Yamanshi University that I'm in Japan (Only one staff member knows I hid out here for two days and wanted to keep it a secret) and move into my dorm room which I think will be next door to Steve. I've already made a new friend, albeit from America, named Patrick. He admits that I have a little more Japanese under my belt but I'm still glad to have someone around who also has minimal Japanese language because Steve's knowledge is somewhat intimidating to me as of now. I'm sure we're both going to do fine and catch up quickly! Hope everyone enjoyed this HUGE freaking entry but there was a lot to pack in!

Temple visit and more Akihabara exploration

Today Steve and I got up and ate at McDonald's yet again. Can't get enough of that homey goodness of hotcakes. Soon after we took the train at Akihabara a few stations down to Asakusa where I visited my first Buddhist temple. There were lots of foreigners around, myself included, but it was a hot spot for the Japanese people as well.

Steve and me wandered around the area of the temple for a while and then we hopped a train back to the hostel to rest our legs for a while and I took a nap. We went back to Akihabara and attempted to play Pachinko. Think Plinco from Price is Right but way smaller, and you insert a 1000 yen bill ($10) and you get about 150 pachinko balls and you can only control at the speed at which the balls fall down hitting pins and bouncing around and the goal is to get it in this very small hole. Once a ball makes it in the hole the machine turns into a slot machine and you end up getting more balls. Gambling is illegal in Japan so you have to trade in any balls you have left over for prizes, however there is an excepted loophole where you take a special voucher after trading in your balls and you take said voucher to an exchange station generally across the street or in the alley (I've yet to experience this) and you give them the voucher and they give you cash back. Of course being the first time Steve or me every played we lost 10 dollars in probably less than 2 min, so we decided to stop there. It Steve's first experience gambling and he wasn't happy, I've lost far more money than that gambling on slots, but I'm glad we stopped at 10 bucks.


After losing our money at pachinko we wandered around Akihabara even more and I found a cheap mic/headset to use with my PC because my mic doesn't seem to be working as well as it probably should. We then made our way back to the hostel, but stopping at yet another arcade on the way back where we saw some interesting games like Rambo, Aliens, and a Half Life 2 arcade game. I only played a Silent Hill gun shooting game as well as Aliens for a buck. We then got some pizza from dominoes, and we ended up getting 20% off since it was at night and take out. Meaning we ended up paying like 13 bucks for a pretty small pizza. So now we're just chilling out in the hostel room and I'm gonna log off for the night. I'm going to start using a slideshow app for big trips like this to get a lot of pics in one place, hope those of you tuning in enjoy!

Tokyo Journey

Woke up and ate at McDonald's. 450 yen for a hotcake breakfast, which got me three pancakes, a hasbrown, and a very very very small orange juice. It tasted a lot like the McDonald's in the USA.

One awesome thing I found today on the way to the station was something Steve hadn't found in the last six months, freaking Pepsi! It tasted slightly different and seemed a little bit sweeter. Coke seems to be the larger staple soft drink here. Which reminds me of the ads around Tokyo for "Boss Rainbow Coffee" with Tommy Lee Jone's old ass on them.

We then took a two hour bus ride to Tokyo after breakfast and we drove by Square Enix's character goods shop so we backtracked and tried to hit it up but they're only open a few days a week and tomorrow is a holiday so they were closed today.


On the way there I made Steve and the other US exchange student, Patrick, go into an arcade with me so I could play Street Fighter 4. Tekken 6 was there was well and looked great seeing as it was being played on a special HD arcade station, unlike the Street Fighter 4 machine.

We then took a short train ride and had to make one station change. I have to go ahead and say at this point is that being a gaijin (foreigner) you get an assload of stares even in Tokyo. The majority of which don't seem to be very nice looks, one guy even honked at me and Steve earlier to day as we were walking to the station. After the train we pretty much found the NINJA easily and they were very helpul at checkin. Steve and I paid 200 for the both of us in a private bunk bed room which isn't exactly spacious but it's secure and the AC is sweet. Mind you my half was only about 100 bucks (which actually I covered the 10% deposit a month ago and didn't ask Steve for anything in return) for three nights stay, it's very clean here and as I said before the staff is very nice and helpful.

I'M HERE!!!!!

So I've finally made it. The flight was pretty horrible, I didn't sleep at all during the journey. By the time I made it to Narita it was pretty hard to stay awake. I had no problems going through immigration or customs. Easily switched what USD I had into Yen and bought a bus ticket to Kofu and had to wait an hour for it to arrive.

While I was waiting two police officers came up to me and asked me if I spoke any of their language in Japanese. I knew what they were saying and I could have actually responded in Japanese, but I figured had they thought I spoke any at all they would start using vocab I haven't picked up at all so I told them I didn't know any. I had to show them my passport and tell them where I was staying and why I was here, but they were very nice and thanked me for my cooperation and went on their way to stop random foreigners elsewhere.

The bus arrived shortly thereafter and I finally started falling asleep during the bus ride, but I knew I had to try and stay awake so I wouldn't miss my station. In the end it didn't matter because I actually got off at the wrong station, it was only one station early and it wasn't that far off from my final destination but it did probably add about $10 to my taxi ride to the dorm.

Which leads me to my other piece of bad/weird luck, there's only one Japanese person affiliated with the university I'm attending that knows I was coming in a little sooner than when I'm supposed to move into the dorms (Sept 26th), so I crashed with my friend Steve who's been here for six months already before leaving for Tokyo today. However, you're not supposed to have guests stay with you in your dorm room, so I'm about to sneak out in a few to make it look like I'm just arriving in order to not get Steve in any kind of trouble. So here's the bad luck part, one of the main teachers I'll be dealing with ironically saw Steve as we were getting out of the Taxi at the dorm and now knows I'm here. Hopefully it won't be such a huge deal, especially considering I'm only having to do this twice, one of which will be the day before I move in but maybe they'll let me move in a day early.

That's it for this blog, I'll try to make things a little more truncated from here on out. Sorry there aren't any pics yet there was a Typhoon when I flew in and it gets dark here at 6 PM so there wasn't anything really cool I could do with my camera. I'm leaving for Tokyo in just a few hours so hopefully I'll be updating later tonight!

First steps

So here it is, a damn blog...I figure this page will hopefully be helpful to those wanting to see what crazy shenanigans I'm getting myself into over in Japan. I figure it will be nice for friends and family to check out, especially those who don't have Facebook or Myspace.


I fly out of Louisville airport in a mere 7 hours. That flight will last 2.5 hours, and then I have three hour layover in Houston (which I'm glad Ike didn't completely take off the Earth). After what will hopefully seem like a short layover I will be taking a 13 hour flight to Tokyo. Unfortunately, the journey doesn't end there. I then must take a bus ride which will last three hours to Kofu.

For those of you just joining me on this journey the majority of my stay will take place in a prefecture (kind of like mini-states) of Yamanashi in a town called Kofu. I'll be attending the University of Yamanshi with the main goal of attempting to learn the language back and forth, up and down (seriously top to bottom reading). School doesn't start until October 6th, so I'm going to have some time to acclamate myself as well as get back what little language I picked up at EKU.

So after getting to Kofu I'll be staying one night on a friend's floor then me and said friend will be leaving for Tokyo the next morning. Unfortunately, I won't be able to move into my room until the 26th of this month. So I'll be in Tokyo for a couple of days after that. I used an awesome site called hostelworld.com to book a couple nights in Tokyo. I highly reccommend this site to anyone who will be traveling outside of the country and have little luggage. Of course I'm sure anyone reading all of this so far is thinking, "Wow, that shits gots to be 'spensive." Fortunately, I found a clean hostel with good ratings for a massive $30 dollars a night! I won't lie though...I mainly picked this hostel because it was called "Khaosan Tokyo NINJA". Yes, a hostel by the name "NINJA" (gotta capitalize that for emphasis). http://www.khaosan-tokyo.com/en/ninja/




I hope that all friends (and friends to come) as well as family will keep up with this blog and stay in touch seeing as it will be six whole months until I return. So for all my friends that wanna blow it up when I get back mark down March 2nd on the calenders because that's my return flight during the semester break!!!

For all the people I didn't get to say goodbye to, GOODBYE!!! Stay safe and keep in contact!