I can has Japanese present?

Hey y'all~

So my time in Japan is running out and I'm having a difficult time thinking of good suveniours or gifts for everyone... so if you've been reading this blog, you have earned the right to request something (if there's anything), so comment away! or email or whatever.. just let me know, cuz otherwise you might get something crappy... well, hopefully not bad but maybe not what u want

Whew, it's 5:41am here... classes are all done, all that's left are finals. I just finished writing one final paper--have one more paper (take home essay final actually) due on Friday, an Oral Japanese class final on Thursday, a Psychology final on Friday, and my Intermediate I Japanese final next Monday, and then I'm DONE with Temple University.

For those of you interested in my non-school-related plans (of which there have been a lot lately..) this last weekend.. Thanksgiving weekend actually, although it didn't feel like it.. I've been to the Keio University Culture Festival, Yokohama and its Chinatown, the Ueno Zoo, a really tall tower in Shinjuku, Kichijoji, and Nishi-Ojima.

Probably one of the coolest parts for me was walking onto a bridge in Nishi-Ojima (where Dave used to live but I've never been) and thinking "this place looks kind of familiar..." and finding out later that it was actually where a scene from my favorite Japanese drama was filmed, probably about 2 years ago around this time. I was really excited when I found out, hahahaha, I'm a geek or something, huh.

Still trying to figure out exactly where I'll be when this Christmas break. I think I'm going to have lots of free time, and I think I'm going to need it, both to get over jet lag and to try to get used to living in the States again. I should try to make up a list of things I'll miss and things I'll look forward to. Everybody loves lists!

Hope everybody is doing really well~ I'll see you all sooner than you think.

Probably the most important thing for learning a language is immersion, and since I'm in Japan and learning Japanese, that's obviously not much of a problem. Still, there are various things you can still make sure to do to help yourself along, such as watching TV in the language you're trying to learn. I usually don't watch TV either in America or in Japan, but I have been known to download and watch Japanese TV dramas in my spare time...

There's a drama I'm watching now that just finished airing in Japan around two months ago, called 花ざかりの君たちへ　（Hanazakari no Kimitachi e, meaning "in full blossom for you all" or something) is a story about a girl who pretends to be a guy so she can go to an all-boys high school to try to meet one of the guys there. Here's a shot of all the students at the school (click on it for a bigger image):


One of them is a girl. Which one?

Fun with Dialects and Accents

Sorry Yuki, I'm gonna write about 大阪弁 a little bit.

For those of you who don't know (i.e. 99% of my readership), 大阪弁 (Osaka-ben) means the Osaka dialect, or what is probably more accurately the Kansai dialect of Japanese. Last week at the Bible study we do at Keio University every Thursday, I met a guy from Osaka who taught me some stuff in Osaka-ben, and I've been looking for places to use it ever since. In case you guys don't know or haven't noticed, I really enjoy learning languages (or I guess you could say I'm a nerd when it comes to learning languages), and so even though this isn't very "useful," as some people have pointed out, I'm learning it and having fun with it anyway. Some friends of mine said the same thing when I taught myself to read/write Korean. Actually, Korean has turned out to be almost completely non-useful, but like I said, I don't really care anyway.

So anyway, at church I'm learning that Japanese friends of mine are always eager to awkwardly introduce me to new people that I really don't have much in common with based on (in my opinion) little unimportant side-issues. For example, last week I told someone I could speak some Spanish from studying it in high school, and he immediately called over a couple at the church from Peru and told them I spoke Spanish, in spite of my protests that I hadn't spoken it much in more than a year. Our conversation ended up being them asking simple questions in Spanish, and me answering them in Japanese--I could understand what they were saying but if I had been forced to answer in Spanish it would have taken me forever.

This week, once I started saying a few things in the Osaka dialect, once again a friend of mine brought me over to two people who were already in a conversation together and (from my point of view) kind of interrupted their conversation to tell them about me. And the only reason was because they were both from the Kansai region--i.e. they spoke Osaka-ben. Actually though, even though it was a little awkward at first, they were pretty happy to teach me all kinds of new stuff, half of which has already fallen into that category of "I recognize it but can't use it" words (i.e. forgotten words). Still, it's fun learning all the different ways to say things I already know, like new ways to say "really?" and "is" and some region-specific phrases that everyone in Japan knows and associates only with that part of Japan. It was also funny to hear that one of the guys I was talking to was at a store in Tokyo when all the employees gathered around and told him to "say something!" just to hear his accent. It sounded so normal, or to me, so American, that it was funny to hear of that happening in Japan too.

As for America, I feel like while we do have different regional "dialects" of sorts, the major differences between areas are merely in pronunciation, and there aren't that many actual words that only people from a certain area use. "Y'all" comes to mind fairly quickly, but that's really the only one, so I guess I'd consider the regional differences to be more accents than real dialects. That's not to speak of ebonics or anything like that, which I think is technically much closer to a the definition of a dialect than regional differences are. But anyway, now I'm curious--has anybody else ever learned a dialect (or specific accent) in another language, or been used as an example of one for someone who didn't know?

Picture Update

So I have a few pictures from the past week or so that I decided to put up here, since they are all kind of random and hence give a little sample of general types of things going on over here. I also added all these pictures to my photo page in the "More General Life" album, just fyi.


This is actually my friend who I caught wearing this shirt. First I saw that it said Minneapolis, and I was like hey sweet! And then when I looked a little closer...

A general idea of how that part of my desk looks at any given time.

Japanese coins. There are 1 yen coins, 5 yen coins, 10 yen coins, 50 yen coins, 100 yen coins, and 500 yen coins. Waaaay easier to use than lots of bills, actually. It's also more useful though because things are more expensive here...


Ramen that I made. It's just instant ramen, but I added green onions, tofu, bean sprouts, an egg, and kimchi. It's pretty good but actually not like amazing.

There's a ridiculous store near us called Rodeo Drive--I'll elaborate on it more sometime later, but this is ac

Thanks, nature! Haha I love this bus.

This was on a shirt in Harajuku, which was kind of surprising.

A clothing store...??

More pictures and updates later, hope everyone is enjoying the end of the quad back at Wheaton!

Settling Down?

Whew, so it's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog. I suppose this is probably because it's been almost 2 months since I arrived in Japan and I'm starting to get used to it... maybe? Or maybe I'm just lazy hahaha. I guess since I'm talking about this though I'll try to give a quick run-through on about what I do every day.

Even though classes here are split into those on Mon/Wed/Fri and those on Tues/Thurs, I have a class at 9:00am every day, so I always have to wake up somewhere between 7 and 7:30. Usually I hit the alarm once before I get up. While I'm getting ready to leave, I'll eat once piece of toast if I have time, and if I'm REALLY on top of things, maybe a fried egg on top... yup.

I take a bus to school that I try to catch somewhere between 7:55 and 8:15 or so, whenever it gets there. MWF I have class until 12:30, TR I have one at 9 and one at 1:30. MWF I just go to class and then eat lunch afterwards, usually at this soba/udon（そば・うどん）place nearby, which is really good (if u don't know what soba or udon is just look it up). After that it totally varies... either meeting friends (usually they help with my Japanese hw too haha) or getting online in the lab or doing hw or studying Japanese on my own, or whatever. Actually now that I'm writing this I'm sort of realizing I don't really have a routine each day past class and food. Oh well.

Tuesdays and Thursdays I'll usually prepare for my oral Japanese class at 1:30 after my 9:00 Japanese Culture class. Dave also randomly ran into someone at a church he went to that turned out to be a prof at Keio University (慶応大学, which you can read about here) and who wanted Dave to start a Bible study. Dave told me about it and then told the prof that I was interested too and so apparently the plan is now that Dave has a Bible study on Thursdays and I think I have one next Wednesday with some doctorate student. I'm not totally sure about all the details right now but I think that's what's going on.

Weekends vary too... quite a bit... although I now go to New Hope International Fellowship in Ochanomizu (御茶ノ水, which means tea water I think), and I've been getting to know a few people there, which is really good. Last weekend actually Dave and I and our friend Julie who lives next door went on a trip (with other international students) to Kanazawa, Japan, which is known for having old Tokugawa-era buildings and stuff that are still intact, so that was a sweet trip. I'll put some pictures up soon. (Edit: This has been done. Photos)

So I guess this post didn't really do exactly what I planned, but maybe you have at least a bit more of an idea of what it's like living here... although I kind of think maybe not.


By the way, just for fun here's a random note about Japanese! Just like how we have Sunday, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, etc, (all with "something-day") Japanese days of the week are 日曜日(nichiyoubi)、月曜日(getsuyoubi)、火曜日(kayoubi)、水曜日(suiyoubi)、木曜日(mokuyoubi)、金曜日(kinyoubi)、and 土曜日(doyoubi) all with 曜日 at the end (日 is the kanji (character) for "day"). Plus if you're just talking about days of the week, you can shorten these to just the first kanji, for instance in writing today's date you could write １０月 １２日（金）meaning Friday October 10th, similar to how we shorten them to Mon. Tues. etc. Also, for those of you who know Chinese, you'll notice that the days of the week are named after stuff--日 means sun, 月 means moon, 火 means fire, 水 means water, 木 means wood, 金 means metal, and 土 means earth or soil, unlike in Chinese where they're just numbered (which turns out to mean basically first day, second day, etc--someone correct me if I'm wrong).

Incidentally, unlike days Japanese months are not named after anything, just numbered, so that they're written 一月 or １月、二月 or ２月 and so on, using either the kanji for the number or the roman numeral.

Pictures!

So now that I have a phone, I have pictures! It IS a camera phone with no auto-focus, but it's 3mp so it's not so bad. Anyway, I've taken quite a few so far, and posted most of them on www.andrewinnihon.myphotoalbum.com. I'll post a few on here too.

This is a shot of our apartment building from across the street. The parking lot in front is open to anybody, so those cars don't belong to anyone I know.

This is from the doorway of Azabu Hall, the one most of my classes are in, one of the buildings of Temple University in Japan.

This is a pretty common street picture in Japan, especially because of the bikes. Tokyo Tower, which is really close to our school, is in the background.

I took a little walking trip on my own over to Tokyo Tower one day and shot this picture from the base.


I always used to drink water almost exclusively and thought it was sort of dumb to pay for other drinks since they weren't as good for you and I never really liked a lot of them THAT much anyway. However, I am addicted to Milk Tea now, and since this one is half a liter for only 105￥, I can't stop drinking them.

It's pretty common here for American celebrities to advertise Japanese products. I read a really interesting article once analyzing the reasons it works the way it does etc, but the point is that it's pretty funny to see over here, since these same celebrities would hate for anyone to know about it, since this kind of thing doesn't reflect well on them in America. Tommy Lee Jones is currently being paid an exorbitant amount to advertise Boss canned coffee. He doesn't even hold a can, he just stands there looking tough.

This is a shot of Lake Chuzenji in Nikko with some mountains in the background. Very beautiful area.

Kegon Falls in Nikko. The stream is a run-off from Lake Chuzenji.

Ok, this picture... I was riding on the train on the way home one day when I happened to look down and see A HEAD in this lady's bag. For like one second I was really totally freaked out! Like wtf omgomg why is there a head in the bag... I mean I noticed it wasn't real right away but STILL. So I took a picture. The bad quality is due to the shaking of the train and the inconspicuous way I tried to take the picture, due to the fact that I felt really shady taking a picture of some random girl's bag.


I can't remember if I posted this on here yet, but I went surfing last weekend with some friends I know from church :) It was pretty awesome, but there are no pictures of me trying to surf, unfortunately.

I think I mentioned this, but we went to a Sumo Tournament for Dave's birthday a week or two ago. Most of my pictures aren't very good (I have no optical zoom) but this is what most of them look like. Sumo is actually pretty fun to watch, although it'd be better if more matches lasted longer than 5-6 seconds.

I have tons more pictures on my myphotoalbum site that I linked to above if anybody wants to see them.

Another Blog

Hey everyone, this is just a quick update post to let you all know that I've started a new blog in an effort to be more prolific. It's at www.andrewsthoughtsonstuff.blogspot.com. I'll be posting a few things there from time to time as I feel like it. Also, I've decided that for random things that I sometimes want to post will just get dumped into my xanga. Anyway, I'm just letting you all know. Also, I have pictures now that I have a phone, so they'll be coming in the next few days!

Vacation, Phones, Japanese, Church, and Korean Food

Well, I don't feel like anything amazing has been going on lately, but thinking about it, there's actually quite a bit to update you all on. Probably the coolest thing ever is that I just talked for 40 minutes on the phone IN JAPANESE. I actually really just hung up and found out how long it had been, and I must say, I'm quite happy about that ^_^ hahaha.

Let's see, ooooh I got a cell phone (けいたい - keitai) last week, which is awesome. I ended up getting the Softbank Toshiba 811T, but actually the entire story of getting this phone is kind of long--this explanation is kind of detailed so if you want to skip it it's fine :)

Anyway, I knew I wanted to get a phone when I got here, but I had some very specific criteria that my new phone would have to meet. It had to work as a phone, obviously, but it also had to be able to play music, have a headphone jack, have removable memory, write in Japanese as well as English, have at least a 2 megapixel camera with a flash and as many features as possible, work in America as well as Japan (meaning it had to work on gsm as well as 3g networks and have a slot for a sim card), and be easy enough to use that I would be able to make the most of these features. I also wanted it to be small and hopefully cheap, but those were secondary requirements. The idea behind these somewhat crazy-sounding requirements was that I had never personally bought a new phone, camera, or mp3 player for myself, and I wanted one device that would do everything. So, with all of that in mind, within the first couple days of being in Japan I was online searching for my future phone. Long story short, I eventually found the 811T and decided that it was probably my best shot. But then there were more problems, like the fact that I'm only staying in Japan for 4 months and Softbank plans are usually for two years, and that if I'm not staying in Japan for at least 6 months they wouldn't sell me anything but prepaid plans. Davy Millard to the rescue! Davy (a friend who grew up in Japan and graduated from Wheaton 2 years ahead of me and is now living in Tokyo with his wife and brother) took me through Ikebukuro, talked with all the Softbank reps, helped me figure out what sort of plan to get, and then eventually got the plan under his name so that I could use a non-prepaid plan even though I'm not in Japan very long. We also randomly found the 811T at one of 4 different stores, when everything that we heard made us think that it was out of production and sold out everywhere either because it was too popular or too unpopular. But we randomly found one, and they had either orange or red. I got the red one.

Anyway, enough of that cell phone stuff. This last weekend we had Monday off for the Japanese national holiday "Respect for the Aged Day" (敬老の日 - keirou no hi) so Dave, our friend Julie, and I all went to Nikko, Japan for about a day and a half. It was really sweet! There's a phrase in Japanese that I can't quote exactly, but it means something like "Don't say magnificent until you see Nikko," although I've heard it can also be interpreted "See Nikko and say 'enough.'" So, Dave planned out most of the trip and we headed out for Nikko on a train and spent a busy day touring a lot of famous shrines, including visiting the burial place of Tokugawa Ieyasu, for whom the Tokugawa period of Japanese history is named. I put some of my pictures (taken with my new phone!) up on facebook, and I think you should all be able to see them if you follow this link. Those pictures are also captioned, so you get a brief description of our trip at the same time. Some of them might not make sense, but if they don't you should just move on and not worry about it :)

In other news, my Intermediate Japanese I class is still easy, and my Oral Intensive Japanese class is still very hard, making me feel stupid after every class, and therefore very motivated to study. My new plan is to try to study Japanese outside of class for about 2 hours a day--I don't think it'll be too difficult regarding finding time, since there's definitely time when I could do it between/after classes at school. Finding the motivation might be the harder part, unless classes keep going like they have been. I really want to get good at Japanese, and I think if I keep on studying on my own now like I did during the summer, I will improve relatively quickly. I've found that it never feels like you're progressing quickly, even if you are, so with that in mind I think I can be a little more patient in my studies. I say that because I got through two semesters of Japanese in 2-3 months during the summer, but at the time it didn't feel like I was moving so quickly. Now, however, it really does feel like I accomplished something, (case in point: a 40 minute phone conversation in Japanese!), so I'm excited to really get back into some hardcore studying.

About that phone conversation though--of course it's not as though I spoke perfect Japanese for 40 minutes or understood everything my friend said, but since she has studied English in Japan (i.e. knows vocabulary and grammar but can't speak it), we were able to work our way around most problems and figure things out, although it was funny sometimes when it took 5 or more minutes to get a simple message like "I have church until 5 on Sunday" across. It seems sudden to me now, actually, but after that I'm really inspired/motivated to keep studying, since that's kind of an obvious sign of real progress. So with all that said, I have to get back to preparing to give a news presentation in class tomorrow! It's going to be really hard haha, but luckily I have some awesome friends who are willing to read over stuff like this before I turn it in.

Oh, I forgot to write about this but Dave and I also went to a Saturday night once-a-month youth service thing with New Hope International Fellowship, which is the church I've been going to and plan to stick with while I'm here. My pastor from my church back in Wheaton actually grew up in Japan and told me about the church, and Saturday night some of the people in charge of the youth stuff freaked out when they heard that my pastor was "Mitchi." Also, one of the guys in charge's wife is Korean, and since I told them all how much I like Korean food she offered to make Korean food for the service next month! So I am ridiculously excited, since now I get to go early and learn how to make real 비비면 (bibimyun), which I've only had in instant noodle form before, and even then it was amaaaazingly good.

So, that's what's going on right now. I hope everyone's doing great whether you're back home or abroad like me. Soooo until next time! じゃあ、また！

Food and Bubbles

Welcome everyone! Once again you've made the right choice to visit my blog, because I've updated! Woohoo!

It's Sunday morning here.. I'll be going to church in about 2 hours or so (it starts at 2pm), but in the meantime I thought I'd give a little update on what's going on/what I've been thinking about.

For one thing, it's been new for me to have to be in charge of all my meals myself. There's no meal plan here, so you either have to go out to eat or cook or not eat. Either way, I feel like I'm spending tons of money on food everyday. In Japan it's not necessarily a lot cheaper to eat at home than it is to eat out, since prices on things like fruit, meat, and sometimes vegetables can be ridiculous, while eating out can get you a nice meal that leaves you wondering how they can sell that much food for so cheap if they have to pay the same prices on produce and (especially) meat as you do. Obviously they do not.

The food here is good though, although I feel like I'm starting to get pretty familiar with all the cheap places around here (read: bored). This brings up another little cultural fact about Japan--the ever-presence of convenience stores, called "conbini" （コンビ二）. But don't be fooled by the name--these are not like gas station sort of convenience stores--at least not in the context of Japan. At any given conbini you can get most of the little things you might need at any given moment--get lunch, a snack, a drink, a magazine, an umbrella, a few cooking ingredients, some office supplies, ice cream, pay bills. Actually though I don't think this list is doing credit to them. Probably you should also know that the food the serve isn't horrible like it would be in America, and they have a LOT of variety. They'll also warm up your food for you if it needs it. Furthermore, buying food and drinks like that is so much more common in Japan than in America. If you're thirsty there really aren't a whole lot of options open to you besides buying a bottle of something from a vending machine (they are everywhere) or a conbini. Maybe you just have to live here for a bit to understand their significance. Moving on...

The other thing I've been thinking about and talking about with a few friends is the nature of our study abroad program here. What does it mean to be a study abroad student living in Japan, or any foreign country? Apparently it's not quite like what I thought.

I would imagine that the purpose for studying abroad is to experience a new culture, get out of your comfort zone, meet new people, learn about different ways of thinking/doing things, etc. We get that here to some extent, but not nearly as much as I thought we would. For example, with me as an exception (arriving early), as soon as you come to Japan and get out of the airport, students meet with someone from TUJ. Then you go to live where TUJ puts you, along with 20-50 other study abroad students (depending on where you live). Then you have orientation at an American school. Then some Japanese students from the school who speak English (or whoever I suppose, but ours were Japanese) take you on little tour type things through some popular places in Tokyo along with all the other study abroad students. Then you start classes at a school where everyone speaks English, and you spend most of your day there. If not, you probably go home to your apartment complex with other study abroad students. Going out with friends (usually) means going out with other foreigners almost by default at this point, and most of what the people do here for fun is exactly the same as in the states (go bar/club hopping) except that karaoke is also really popular here.

I'm not saying that any of this is bad per se, but it's just a much more controlled environment than I envisioned. In the end, it seems that in order to get that sort of exposure to Japan, you have to work for it. In a way, it's like you're placed in a bubble when you get here, and if you don't want to, you don't really have to leave.

Of course most of this stuff is really helpful for most people, since you don't have to speak Japanese to be in the program and without the help almost no new study abroad students would be able to function well. I guess what gets me is that if you only come over for once semester and don't try to break out of the bubble, you probably won't, and yet you can now say that you've studied abroad and experienced a foreign culture. Sort of, I would add. And I guess that's ok for most people.

But for myself at least, I'm trying to find other ways besides school to meet and get to know people, in a way more on their terms than on mine. I don't really know of any great ways to do this yet, but hopefully I'll figure something out in the coming weeks. I think it might be easier too, once I get my cell phone, since then I won't be so cut off at my apartment from everyone who doesn't live there. Until next time, then...


P.S. I'm realizing that maybe I should explain one more point. I'm not advocating shunning the study abroad community here. I feel, though, that unless you make it a point to get out of that community at times, you will, I think by default, never really get out of it for the whole time you're here. And that's just not really why I came to Japan. I hope I don't sound judgmental here--I hope what I'm saying makes sense.

Freshman Year All Over Again

Well, my first week of classes here in Japan has come and gone. Sometimes I feel like it's hard to believe I've only been here for a little more than 2 weeks, and other times it feels like I've been here for such a long time already. I'm sure come December when it's time to leave it'll feel like no time passed at all, but for now it's interesting to sort of be able to take it slowly.

My final schedule for classes this semester is (in order of class times, beginning with Monday morning):
MWF classes-
Psych 1061: Psychology as a Social Science
Japanese 2001: Intermediate Japanese I
Japanese 3000: Special Topics in Japanese I
TR classes-
Asian Studies 2373/Anthropology something: Japanese Culture
Japanese 2003: Intensive Oral Japanese

Whew! Five classes... it sounds like a lot, but classes really are easier here than at Wheaton. Unfortunately Psychology is the only non-Japanese study class of some kind, which means that I'm learning a lot about Japan in my other classes, but also that it's the only class that really has any Japanese students in it. As for the Japanese classes, 2001 is where I'm supposed to be after my intensive study this summer. Japanese 3000 is not really a Japanese class, but more like a class focusing on cultural differences between Japan and America by focusing on language. Finally, Japanese 2003 is one class AHEAD of where I'm supposed to be, but I had the opportunity to move up and decided to take it, even though right now the class is very hard haha (I'm planning to sign up for tutoring on Monday).

Like the title says, coming to Temple as a study abroad student is a lot like being a freshman again--I don't know any of the students, I don't know my way around the school, I don't know what the profs or classes will be like, I don't know my way around the area around the school--all that stuff. Honestly it's not very much fun to be put in that situation, especially when I realize that I only get 3 months to figure everything out and make any lasting friendships. And 3 months sounds so short! I feel like it took longer than that to get settled in at Wheaton, and now I have to do that again, plus I'm in a foreign country. And I'm still feeling the need to speak much better Japanese--English doesn't get you very far here at all, despite all the attempts to teach English to the Japanese.

Still, I am meeting a lot of people, and making some new friends. One thing that seems to be fast becoming a theme here is a need for patience. Language skill doesn't come overnight, and neither do real, deep friendships. Oh, but I wish they would...

I still feel like I can't figure out Japanese people either. I do know a bit more than the average person about Japan and its culture, but being a foreigner (外人ーgaijin) sort of tends to muddle the already hardly clear waters of Japanese culture. It really is sort of a big deal, I feel ... not only because I can't really speak Japanese but because so much is different about what is expected of the foreigner than of a Japanese person, and what the foreigner can expect in return. In the end it's probably a good thing, since obviously I couldn't really function if I had to know every Japanese spoken or unspoken rule, but at the same time it sometimes feels like you only get a watered-down version the culture that you're living in. As for now, I suppose it can't be helped--not unless I stay here for a much longer time than 3 months. There's that patience thing again.

One more thing--I am REALLY looking forward to finally getting a phone here. I'm probably going for this one--the Toshiba 811T which should work back in the states too. It'll serve as an mp3 player and camera (3mp) as well as my phone, which will be very nice. I think it's kind of ugly, and there are totally nicer phones here, but if I want one that will work in the states my options are severely limited. There are 6 colors to chose from, which you can see better if you click on the pictures here. Which one do you guys think I should get?

Taking the Plunge

Well, my update tonight (this morning if you're in the Midwest) isn't so much because anything happened, but because something is ABOUT to happen, so I thought I'd just fill you in on what's happened before what's going to happen so that what happened doesn't fill up space when I want to talk about what's going to happen.

Hahaha now that you're all confused, I'll continue (although I bet if you just try a little you could make sense of that sentence). I've officially moved out of Davy's house （家） in Houya (保谷) and into my apartment (アパート） in Jiyuugaoka （自由が丘）. What's the difference? Well instead of living with Davy and his family and his friends who came over (and who all converse in near-perfect or perfect Japanese and not English) to living in an apartment complex with all international students who of course always speak in English. I'm also living with Dave, of course. But maybe the biggest change is that we have to provide our own food here and also had to buy new soap, shampoo, paper towels, cooking stuff, etc----and it's expensive! Which is another difference between Houya and Jiyuugaoka: the location. Houya is sort of in the boonies--it's pretty much a suburb, although Davy said they've been developing it a lot more lately. This, however, means that there's basically one close grocery store and a few convenience stores within easy walking distance, as well as a bunch of houses. Jiyuugaoka, on the other hand, is much closer to downtown Tokyo (if you can categorize Tokyo that way), and is actually very much a "rich-person" type of place. This means that the closest convenience store is 2-3x as far as it was from Davy's, and the local grocery store has ridiculously stupid prices. Basically we have to walk much farther to get to cheap places, including restaurants (and fyi, it is not necessarily automatically cheaper to cook in Japan, although it is probably healthier than eating out at cheap places every day).

As for the apartment itself, ummm... honestly it's just OK. It's nice that it came furnished, so we don't have to buy furniture or most kitchen utensils, and we have our own kitchen and bathroom. It even has a TV. But even with all this, the apartment is extremely bare, with white walls and brown wooden floors. But probably the biggest problem I have with it is the bunk bed. The place is already really small, with only one real room to be in, and that comes with two chairs, one dresser, and a bunk bed. And there's not much room for more. No couch or extra chairs or real desks or anything. But the bunk bed!! Compared to the room size, it's HUGE! Plus the "linens" (I don't like that word) that they gave us are Japanese-style, meant for folding up when not in use. Which, given that we are in a typically small Japanese-style apartment, would be quite nice. But noooooooooo we have a stupid huge bunk bed that takes up all our space and that we can't get rid of. Grrrrrr....

In other news, classes start tomorrow and I took a test that and talked to the head of the Japanese Language Department, and got put into Japanese 201! So I skipped a whole year of Japanese with 2-3 months of my own Japanese studying! That was totally sweet. Also I've been doing a lot of people-watching here, and will have a few things to say/ponder about the Japanese I've run into here in my next entry.


New blog question: Should I put in a tiny "Today's Japanese Lesson" at the end of some of my posts?

Hey everyone! Welcome to my second post at this soon-to-be-great blog!

So it's about 3pm back in the good ole Midwest, which means it's 5am here. Which means I am 1) still jet lagged or 2) being stupid. Actually the correct answer is 3) both. In terms of jet lag, I was actually doing better the first two days than I am now. How is this possible? Well there were other people over at Davy's house then, which meant that everyone was up late and it was easier for me to stay up. Now for some reason everyone is going to bed at 10 or something, so when I get tired but want to stay up, I just end up falling asleep without having taken a shower or brushed my teeth or anything. And then, not because I am smart (in fact it is stupid), I wake up early and get online, like I am now, and don't go back to bed because I still have to take a shower and brush my teeth, and that's kind of a pain. So woopdeedoo, I've been online for like 2 or 3 hours now, so I'm guessing I'll get pretty tired today. Will I be able to beat the trend and stay up tonight? Or even sleep ALL NIGHT without waking up? Only time will tell.... but I sort of doubt it.

For the past 2 days or so I've spent tons of time online looking up information on phones and rate plans here. Surprisingly it looks like I found a loophole in the Japanese system with Softbank, meaning I can get a super good deal (for being in Japan for only 4 months) on rates. More details to follow, since it'd be lame if I told you all now how cool it is and then found out I can't do it. I'm hoping to get a nice phone too, which will act as my new camera as well, so until then I'm mostly camera-less :( sorry! Pictures will come eventually, rest assured.

One last thing before I finally go shower and go back to sleep: I'm sort of undecided on what the tone of this blog should be. Should I keep it to mostly serious, thoughtful commentary on cultural differences and the oddities of the human race... or whatever? Or should there be some fun, simple, short, random posts once in a while? Or maybe having those silly posts water down the whole experience. What do you guys think?

Heat and Japanese

Well, here it is, my first post on this blog about my time in Japan! This will be where I'll post what I'm doing over here in Japan, as well as any interesting things that go on (especially things demonstrating cultural differences or other stuff like that). I'll set it up to post these on facebook as well. I tend to write a lot, so be forewarned. Anyway, I guess we'll just get started..

I arrived at the airport yesterday after the 12 or 13 hour flight, and the first thing I noticed when I stepped off the plane was the heat. Or maybe it was the humidity... either way, it is very hot and very humid right now in Tokyo. Over at Davy's place, where I'm staying for about a week, everybody is wearing either a t-shirt, a wife beater, or nothing. Apparently it's going to stop in about a week, so that means it'll be hot the whole time I'm at Davy's. Oh, and we have air conditioning in some of the rooms but we're not really using it--probably to save electricity and because it's not as useful to have on all day when it's only in part of the house.

The other biggest difference about being here is, of course, Japanese. Actually at Davy's place almost everybody that comes by also speaks English, but Japanese is the language of choice (as it should be). Still, this makes it a little hard for me to get to know anybody very well, since I don't understand most of what's going on, and usually can't say anything of my own to add to the conversation. This makes me really want to learn more Japanese, but of course learning a language well is a process that takes a lot of time, and I'm not really feeling patient about it right now.

Surprisingly, it's actually easier to speak Japanese with someone who doesn't speak any English, partly because then it makes sense to use it than English (obviously), and partly because that means we can't resort to English when something is confusing or whatever. That happened when I was on the train to Tokyo from the airport--I ended up talking to the guy next to me in Japanese for almost the whole time (about 50 minutes), but it was really fun because I was trying to say things I'd never normally try to say in Japanese. This meant that it was really horrible Japanese most of the time, but at this point it's more important that I'm understood at all. Traveling from Narita to Davy's place was pretty interesting, since I was on my own, I had to take 3 different trains, and it took almost 3 hours. Apparently I did it pretty fast (for sure faster than James Cho!) It totally sucked to have all my baggage with me though.

Anyway now I'm at Davy's and have sort of nothing to do, or at least nothing planned. Actually tomorrow I'm going into Shibuya with Davy to go to a hiba party and to meet Emi there, and then sometime before Emi leaves I'm going to meet up with her again. So far for food I've had curry, instant noodles, and eggs and bacon. All of it was really good but it's nothing very exciting or worth talking about.
Oh, and for anyone wondering about jet lag, I slept a little on the plane yesterday and then stayed up til about midnight (10:00am) and slept for about 7 1/2 hours. I'm starting to get a little tired again but it's not bad (currently 5pm Japan time). I'll post again later but in the meantime I hope you're all doing well! Anyone is free to email me about how you all are doing at andrew.butz@gmail.com . Ja ne!