TravelStream™ news feed for member smicc on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/smicc en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:34:39 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1204680780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1204680780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1204680780/tpod.html Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:34:39 -0500 Lauren's Adventures in Japan

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Hirakata, Japan

Hello everyone! I figured it was time to update my travel blog again.

I recently bought a cell phone. It's really pretty cool. I got the most basic of plans and the most basic of the phones, but it still comes with a bilingual option (which is rather essential), a navigation dot - this particular application stayed in Japanese so I have no idea how to use it -, An FM radio - which is really neat, but I keep forgetting my headphones that work with the phone so I don't get to listen to it often --, a kanji scanner/translating feature (this one hardly works at all, you have to have an incredibly steady hand, which I don't and the translation it gives is really just an explanation of the word in Japanese), there is also a Japanese -English dictionary which works about half the time. I'll type in the furigana and it'll show me the option of the kanji that I'm trying to look up, but when I click 'DEFINE' more times than not it'll say "no matching data". So in theory all the applications are awesome, but they never actually work . I got the AU A5527SA, shiny white model. It's still cool.
This past weekend was a bit of a disaster. Originally there was a plan to go on a trip to Asuka. We were going to take all day and rent bicycles and go around to sights up there, graves, shrines, temples, mythical rocks etc etc. We were going to have a picnic lunch by the river. It was going to be way awesome.
That was the plan. This is where it all goes wrong. So I got up at 5:50 in order to catch my bus to Hirakata Station at 6:43. Turns out, I looked at the Hejitsu (week day) schedule, on the weekends the first bust comes at 7:12. So I went running out to my bus only to get there at 6:40 and realize that it wasn't coming for another 30 minutes. So I went back home for a half hour. Then at 7:12 I took a bus to Hirakata Station, and had absolutely no trouble figuring out how to purchase a ticket to Tambabashi Station. I left myself extra time just in case I couldn't figure it out, I have a predisposition towards getting lost on mass transit. I walked up to the platform and my train was already there so I got on the express and got to Tambabashi at 7:50. When I look back on it now, my train prowess was actually quite of an accomplishment on that day.
My entire class was set to meet at the ticket machines at 8:30. Yeah, I was a little early, but better early than late right? Especially when we were transferring trains at Tambabashi from the Keihan line onto the Kintetsu line which we take us on the 1 and ½ long trip to Asuka (840 yen). I was starting to get worried when no one showed up, but at 8:15 two other foreign students from one of my professors' other classes showed up. One was from Finland and the other from Norway. 8:40 came around and no one else had showed up. We decided that somehow we were waiting at the wrong ticket machine so we bought the tickets and hurried down to the train, it was set to take off in 4 minutes. Just as we were about to get on the train our professor comes up. "Oh, the field trip has been canceled. Did you not get the email?" No actually. I'm a home stay. I don't have internet at home. If you didn't send out the message before five o' clock yesterday evening I didn't get it. Luckily I was able to get a refund for my Asuka ticket and just ended up wasting 420 yen on the train to and from Tambabashi.
I had told my host family that I was going to be gone all day and so they all made plans. If I had gone back home my Okasan would have cancelled her plans because she felt obligated to be at home with me. I didn't want to make her do that, so I went to school and abused the internet for a few hours. I also got a hold of some friends and met up with them at 2 to go to Kuzuha Mall. That turned out to be a lot of fun.
Then on Sunday I met up with a different group of friends to go to Kyoto. We spent an hour or so looking for what we then believed to be a nonexistent English book store, before giving up for a while and getting lunch at Mr. Young Man. Good food, far too many people smoking indoors.
Then we wandered around in the snow for a while before we found a different bookstore. It was in a department store-ish building so we attempted to use their bathrooms as well, but my bad luck continued. As it turned out the only working women's toilet in the entire store was one of the squatty potties that none of us could figure out how to use. I don't know if it was a good thing or not that no Japanese women were waiting to use the bathroom. On the one hand it would have been horrible embarrassing to have them look at us like we were nuts, but on the other hand they could have explained how to use the toilet. But that would have been an incredibly awkward conversation, probably using words and terms that I have no idea what their English equivalent would be, and no doubt this entire conversation would have involved way too much gesturing. I ended up buying the next book in my series from there.
At BAL - the department store - we ran into a British man who knew where the non-existent English book store was and gave us better directions to find it. So we eventually did. But all the books there were ridiculously expensive so we didn't stay long. We all took a moment to browse the manga, but the cheapest one was 25000 yen (about 25 USD), its kind of funny to thing that these books originated in Japan (where at the most expensive would have been about 3 dollars) and then were sent to the US where they were translated (and would have been about 10 dollars) before they were sent back to Japan (and then because of shipping and handling and supply and demand principals have now become 25 dollars).
We walked around in the snow for a while just looking at all the neat little shops in the arcade. At one point we passed a large KFC. The menu was mostly the same but they do funny things to the biscuits. They make them donut shaped but like three donuts tall and generally fill them with honey (I can't testify to the taste because I have simply seen the TV ad for it). But outside of the KFC - and this appears to be the standard for all the KFCs I've seen - There is a large Colonel standing out there with his cane. Most of the ones I've come across are dressed up in scarves and hats - not unlike the Ojizo-san that are littered about - I think it's only scarves and hats because its winter and keeps snowing, it will be interesting to see how they dress the Colonel statues up come summer.
Then we went to a Giant Book-off. Two floors of one dollar manga. It was beautiful. All the walls were covered with manga, reaching from literally floor to ceiling. The bookcases that made up rows were close together to try and fit even more manga in the store. We went at a decidedly non-peak hour, and the store was absolutely crowded - Mom would have hated it, she can't even stand how cramped Anime Kingdom was before the new management took over and this was ten times more crowed - People were standing in every available space just reading the manga. On the second floor there were games, CDs and DVDs for cheap as well. The six of us spent about two hours in the store and that still wasn't enough time. I ended up buying about 10 mangas for the price of one. They're all in Japanese but that's okay, practice right? No one talked on the train back home because we were all too engrossed in our mangas. I felt very Japanese. We all made quite a sight too because Zan was the only one that didn't have some form of dictionary in their hand as they translated and read. I meant to take a picture of it, but I got to engrossed and forgot.
That was it for the weekend before last. This past weekend was just as exciting and eventful. On Saturday me and Lauren participated in one of the Experience Japan programs. It was a Sports fest. I got all my hopes up that we were going to a nearby school to watch, I brought a camera and everything, but as it turned out we just made our own. Me, Lauren and one other foreign student showed up and then the 5 Japanese girls that were hosting the Sports fest were the only ones that came. We went to the field out back and played volleyball, dodgeball and kickball. I'd forgotten how much fun kickball was. I had also forgotten just how much I suck at sports. But it was still a lot of fun.
Afterwards I went back to the seminar house to hang out with Ashley and Jen. The rules at Sem 3 are ridiculously strict. Among a long list of other things guests are not allowed to eat in the building, which is really hard because Ashley is always baking things and they're all so delicious. But as it turns out guests are actually allowed to eat cookies and juice. Not that this revelation changed anything. I was still eating over there regardless of the cameras. In fact I have food in the fridge for the times I do come over, just so I'm not always just eating their food. I came over with the intention of studying. That didn't happen. We ended up eating way too much and then just watching the first four episodes of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei - well they actually probably continued watching it after I had to leave.
While waiting for the bus to take me to Hirakata Station I got a drink from one of the vending machines. It was manga pudding. It said to shake it five times so I did. I didn't realize how vigorously it actually wanted me to shake it. It turns out that it was literally manga pudding in a can. It was good though. I just wish I had had a spoon so I could have gotten all of it out of the can. It was just another vending machine adventure. I know it is considered socially unacceptable to eat in public (seated in a restaurant or lounge is okay but standing outside, on a bus, walking around, are all big no-nos) but I really want snack vending machines. They have drink vending machines, instant ramen vending machines, hot coffee vending machines, alcohol vending machines, cigarette vending machines (also they allegedly have used panties, bug, and pizza vending machines as well, but I haven't seen any yet. I'll definitely be looking for them when I go to Tokyo in two weeks) but there's no food snack machines.
When I finally did get to Hirakata I realized that yet again I misread the bus schedule. I don't think I will ever fully figure out the bus system, every time I think I have it I go and screw up again. So I recently discovered that one weekdays my bus to Koda actually runs until 9:30 which was great, but because I was thinking of that, I looked at the weekday schedule. On the weekends my bus to Koda stops running at 8:00. I got to Hirakata planning on taking the 9:30 bus only to realize that I had missed it by and hour and a half. Luckily in my first week I had made a contingency plan for just such and occasion. I caught the number 1 bus that takes me to Todana. Todana is about four stops before mine, but that bus runs until 11:00 at night, so I already knew that at least once (and probably more often than that) I would be forced to walk from Todana, so that's what I did. It actually wasn't that bad. It was the first time in a long time that it was actually relatively warm outside and it was only about a 15 minute walk to my house from there.
Then on Sunday a few of us went over to Lauren's host family's house to have a Girls Day Party. Girls Day is a Japanese holiday to honor girls. The whole day is seeping with rituals and traditions, that I didn't quite understand the explanation behind, but I get the feeling that a lot of it is simply untranslatable. What we did was eat a lot of food, eat a lot of sweets, drink a lot of alcohol (not me personally, I stuck to grape juice for the most part, although I did try the plum wine. I think it was the alcohol aspect of it that made it taste kind of funky, kinda like eating wasabi, it makes your whole mouth tingle) and set up the ceremonial doll set. The food was so delicious; we quite literally ate for three or four hours.
At a break between meals essentially, we all went upstairs to set up the doll set. At the top are the Prince and Princess, the step below them are the three ladies in waiting, below them are the five musicians, below that are the two warriors, below them are the three court officials. There is a specific order that you are supposed to place the dolls upon the dais. Once they are all up you give them all their accessories. It is a very complicated process. Luckily there were directions and pictures. But even having them it was still tricky. Supposedly there is also some superstition that if you don't put away the doll set by the time Boy's day comes around (a month later) its said that your daughter won't get married.
There were cookies, cake, omochi, really good homemade bread, a rice-egg and uzumaki dish that was decorative and delicious, and copious amounts of grape juice and alcohol. It was really funny to watch all the Japanese adult being so amazed at how much alcohol the foreigners could take. I was amazed too, at the end of the party there was a large stack of empty beer cans. It was a lot of fun.
That night I didn't want to even think about food, but I had already told my Okaasan that I was making spaghetti. Not that I didn't want to make spaghetti for my family, I did, but I was so full. The whole spaghetti thing came from various conversations about spaghetti.
Okaasan and I were talking about American foods and she asked me what my favorite American food was. I tried to explain that America doesn't really have a particular food - unless you count McDonalds - because America is just a mesh of so many cultures that each bring their own food, she didn't seem to understand. So I finally just gave up explaining and said that spaghetti was my favorite. The next night she made this dish that was pasta noodles topped with kind of a fruity curry sauce and various vegetables, mushrooms, onions, daikon etc. It was good. When Misa came home later that night she asked what we had had for dinner. Okaasan immediately replied with 'Spaghetti' I was shocked to say the least. It was good, but it certainly hadn't been spaghetti. When she asked me later that week if I would make some American food and I said spaghetti. I then told her how American spaghetti is very different from Japanese spaghetti.
Those of you who know me, know that I can't cook. You know I can basically set any kitchen appliance on fire by simply looking at it. You know 911 called me when I made cookies once. So I have to admit that I had an ulterior motive when I said that I would cook spaghetti. I could show Okaasan 'American Food' but it would also be exceedingly simple. Very few chances to screw up spaghetti. I had Mom send me Poppy's recipe and then I simple had to find spaghetti sauce - which is really rare in Japan - but I did find spaghetti sauce, not the one I'm used to but it was spaghetti sauce none the less.
So my spaghetti went off with out a hitch. I used Poppy's recipe and then I added the ground beef like Mom does. The noodles Okaasan took over after they almost boiled over, but that's okay, she's probably a noodle expert. I hadn't been able to find garlic butter to make my own garlic bread, so I chopped up some garlic and then I spread some butter on bread and threw on the garlic and stuck them in the broiler.
Everyone said that my garlic bread was good, I'm not sure whether it was just for the sake of manners of if it was truly good seeing as I don't eat garlic bread. The spaghetti was good. No where near as good as Poppy or Mom's but it was edible and everything got eaten so I took that as a good sign. In fact I was the only one that didn't go back for seconds (I wasn't sure if Maki's husband was coming over, he's usually over on Sunday so I made enough for six people just in case, he didn't end up coming, which is okay because I don't think I would have wanted him to taste my spaghetti because I'm 76% sure that he's a chef).
After that we made some Winney the Pooh brand chocolate cookies. It was a lot of fun and the cookies came out tasting okay (and extremely flour-y).
I've been very busy so I haven't been keeping my promise about updating once a week. Sorry. Feel free to pester me to keep me on schedule for updating.
Also I have just posted a bunch of pictures to facebook so go check them out. I haven't figured out how to effectively post pictures here yet, but I think that everyone on here that doesn't have access to facebook I have emailed a link too so it shouldn't be a problem, if you didn't get a link please tell me. Especially Uncle Tony et al. I don't believe I have your correct address and would like to remedy this.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1203479040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1203479040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1203479040/tpod.html Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:46:04 -0500 Lauren's Adventures in Japan

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Hirakata, Japan

Haha. So I'm done being lazy.

This weekend I didn't do to much. I caught a cold so I had a little adventure to my local - and by local I mean an hour busy ride over to territory that I know - kusuriya, or drug store. I spent about 20 minutes looking at all the cold medicine before choosing one of the children's medicines that had all the pictures of the sneezing and coughing anpan-man. I got peach flavored, it's pretty tasty and it works fairly well. I went over to the Kansai Gaidai area to hang out with my friends that are still in the Seminar house. We made cookies and takoyaki and went to the store.

Had a little bit of trouble with the buses, got on one that said it was headed to Kansai Gaidai, because where I wanted to go was only a few stops afterwards. As it turns out all buses stop at Kansai Gaidai but right after that stop they go off in all manner of different places. About five stops after the kyukyu (99cent store) I realized that hey, maybe this isn't the right bus. An hour later in the middle of nowhere in the hills surrounding the valley that I life in I realized that yep. I was definitely on the wrong bus. I eventually did get back to Hirakata stations and from there got on the correct bus and took it to the seminar house.

We spent the rest of the day shopping and avoiding the snow. It was fun.

Last night was surprising. I came home and my okasan was talking about how she felt funny and she was apologizing for getting sick because she doesn't get sick often. She asked me to bring her the phone and the next thing I knew she was calling an ambulance for herself. I had to call my host sister and the go flag down the ambulance which didn't come to the correct house. They then proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions in very fast Japanese, no doubt in some form of keigo-esque patterns. I didn't understand anything thing the asked me.

One of the more disturbing facets of the whole situations is that the ambulance waited around the corner until someone could provide the EMTs with Okasan's insurance information and medicine. I was able, after frantic searching, to find the medicine, and eventually I did find Okasan's insurance card but luckily Misa came home then and was able answer everything.

Okasan is okay, it was Hyperpena or frantic, uncontrollable breathing. It was scary for a little while but she came home later that night. Great birthday present, huh.

Okay, well I got to go to class now, so I shall update more later.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1202169240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1202169240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1202169240/tpod.html Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:54:56 -0500 Lauren's Adventures in Japan

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Hirakata, Japan

So my move in with my host family seems to have gone smoothly. They are friendly and it appears there was just a slight mistake with their application. The information I received said that they had one or more family members that smoked but no family members that drank. This appears to be wrong. There is an ashtray on the family room table, but it's holding shells and coins, I don't think it's ever been used for a cigarette. No one, and nothing smells like smoke. However, both Okasan and Otousan drank beer with dinner. So I'm assuming that they just mixed up the alcohol and smoking boxes.
We live about a 40 minute bus ride(s) from campus. I take one bus in the morning from the Koda stop to Hirakata City Station bus 9A, and there I change buses and get on one of multiple buses that have a stop at Kansai Gaidai. This morning Okasan rode with me to school before leaving to go visit her sister in Nara. The trip does not feel like 40 minutes, it feels much shorter.
I only had slight problems returning home. Where the bus drops you off is not where the bus picks you back up again. From Kansai Gaidai to Hirakata City Station was no problem, maybe because pretty much every bus goes to Hirakata City Station, or perhaps because I went rode with Ashley and we wandered around until we found the City Hall to turn in our Alien Registration forms. Well I say wandered around, but we were looking at signs, and it took us all of 2 seconds to realize that this was poor planning and neither of us actually knew the kanji for City Hall. Luckily we found someone who knew enough English to lead us to the alien registration application area. That's one thing I've noticed. If you walk up to someone here and ask them where is ___? They don't tell you. They nod and lead you to wherever it is you are trying to find. It's kind of nice, but I always feel bad that I'm making them basically lead me around. That method is coincidentally how I found my way to the pick-up bus stop that would take me from Hirakata City Station back to Koda.
Right now conversations are a little awkward. Misa, my host sister is about 5 years older and speaks enough English that paired with my little bit of Japanese we are able to have fairly flowing conversations. Realistically, every conversation I've had with Misa or Maki (the oldest daughter, who doesn't live at home but her and her husband and their four month old baby were over visiting yesterday evening) have been those conversations I've learned in Japanese 101-201. What sports do you like? What's your favorite food? What type of music do you like? No. We don't have much snow where I'm from etc. I don't know what we'll talk about tonight.
I'm supposed to be teaching Okasan English, so every time she talks to me she talks in English. I'm supposed to teach her through everyday life and arrange some kind of schedule during the week. I have absolutely no clue how to teach English. The only plan I've come up with so far is only speak in English to her for a couple of hours a week. That and answer any questions like what is ___ in English? I don't really know how to teach so if anyone has suggestions that would be great.
Otousan mumbles. And he mumbles in some kind of dialect or accent that I really can't understand. I understand most of what Misa and Maki say, I understand about every fourth sentence that Okasan says in Japanese, but I feel so bad that I have no clue what Otousan says. He'll say something and then pause looking at me like he expecting a response, but I have no clue what the question is. Generally I just nod and say 'hai', and when they start going 'Aa! Sugoi!' I know that whatever I said was NOT the right response.
I don't think Maki's husband was expecting to see me. He looked really surprised and confused when he walked in from the entry way and into the family room. We really didn't get a chance to talk because he came home at about 11 and I went to bed sometime around midnight.
Last night we had Nabe for dinner. For the most part it was really good. Nabe is a kind of hot pot dinner. There's a pan and hot plate set on the table. You stew meat, vegetables and tofu in a miso soup based broth. What actually goes inside is generally left up to the cook and as such boasts many variations. Okasan's had beef (I think), mushrooms (little brown ones all connected together, and yes, I did in fact eat them), roots, bamboos shoots, tofu, onion, daikon raddish, and this odd sort of vegetable which looked like the stems and leaves of a dandelion (which I managed to choke down a polite amount, man it was nasty though). After all the main stuff was gone Okasan put in udon noodles. Everytime that I put down my bowl they put more in it. I ate way to much but Okasan just kept trying to feed me more and more. 'Onaka ga ippai' seemed to have meaning to them (and yes dad, it does truly mean I'm full, I wasn't just saying a random phrase that actually means nothing).
The house is bordered on three sides by a major intersections and the front corner is completely blocked by billboards. Like all house in Japan it is skinny, tall and absolutely freezing. I literally feel every car and motorcycle that passes, and don't even get me started on the trucks. They're going to take a while to sleep through. The house itself is a little more run down that most that I have seen, but my room is pretty neat.
It is a traditional Japanese room, sliding shoji doors, low table, tatami mats, and a futon that I have to fold up and put away in the corner everyday (way more complicated and bothersome than making your bed each morning), then at bed time I have to pull it out and unfold everything.
There's a heater, but like all houses in Japan, I'm only allowed to have it on when I'm in the room and I have to turn it off when I go to bed at night. There is no insulation in Japanese houses, so if something catches on fire it burns fast. And because the houses are all so cramped the whole neighborhood can go down in a matter of minutes. Supposedly the families that cause the fires are ostracized to the point that they are driven out of the neighborhood, they don't even have the option of rebuilding on the same plot.
The bathroom situation is even more bizarre than the one in the seminar houses. The bath is self heating; I haven't gotten a chance to use the bath yet. I'm looking forward to it. The shower is just a little hose attached to the second faucet. There's a little stool that you pull out and sit on while you're taking a shower. And the shower is not over the bathtub. In fact the bathtub is not used as anything but a bathtub. That's all in a little room by itself. Outside that is a large sink and a laundry machine. That room has sliding doors that can close off the kitchen and the hallway. It's all just the back corner of the house. Next door to the bathtub room is the toilet room. It's very small and there is a pair of slippers left in the room specifically for using in the toilet room. The toilet itself is quite gross. Imagine a honey bucket toilet mixed with an RV toilet and it's kind of like that. After you finish doing your business you pull up half of the flusher, and that lets water into the bowl then you pull up the second half of the flusher and that opens the hole and everything goes down after a while. However this really nasty chemical (among others) smell comes up and the toilet room is small and has no window so the stench kind of clings to the room. For the most part I think I'm just going to use the toilets at school. Besides, the ones at school have self heating seats. Which is nice, because the rest of the school is cold, not quite as cold as outside or my house but fairly close.
My Japanese speaking class seems easy. I may try to take the jump test, which will allow me to move to the next level up, next week, but for now I think I will stay through the review just to make sure.
My first lecture class went smoothly as well. My teacher is awesome. He has a masters in Journalism and has worked all over the world as a foreign correspondent for TV Asahi. He's even going to let me sit in on his Making News in Japan class for a little while. If there is a field trip to anywhere I will definitely wrangle myself an invite.
This weekend my host family is going somewhere. I'm not sure where, but I'm not invited apparently, which is okay, as long as I figure out how to turn on the space heater in the family room and the microwave in the kitchen. Right now I'm planning to go visit my friends in the seminar houses. Saturday there is a tentative plan to go shopping in Shinsaibashi and Sunday possibly re-invading my suite to cook something dessert like or perhaps even chocolate in honor of Valentines Day.
Valentines day is an even bigger deal in Japan than it is in the US. Homemade chocolates are the key and women are supposed to give them to every important male in their life. If it is a romantic interest the women are supposed to put a lot more effort and a personal touch to the chocolate. But that isn't to say that all chocolate that is received on Valentines day indicates that the male is a romantic interest, there's also giri, or obligation, chocolate given to bosses and the like. It is only women who give chocolate on Valentines day. March 14th is White Day, which is when males give gifts to the women they like or return gifts for those who gave them giri-chocolate. There is no real stipulation on what type of gift it needs to be.
I don't have much access to internet. Unless I learn how to hack into locked signals I won't be on the internet much except for at school. I feel uncomfortable asking my host family if I can use their computer. I have my own but the absolute only LAN port in the house is the one that Misa's laptop is currently connected to. Once I have a better grasp on what my weekly schedule is like I'll figure out a time to skype people.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1201943520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1201943520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1201943520/tpod.html Sat, 02 Feb 2008 04:14:05 -0500 Lauren's Adventures in Japan

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Kyoto, Japan

So orientation week has been hectic but a lot of fun. They've kept us very busy, but I think I know my way around there area now. The only problem is that I'm only here for another day and then I go home with my host family that lives 35 minutes from the campus by bus.
Yesterday we went up into Kyoto. It was a lot of fun. We got paired up with a couple of awesome Japanese students and they shepparded us around a couple of places in Kyoto. We got to ride, and change, trains, about three of them before we got to the stop we needed. We went to the Heian-Jingu Temple　 (へいあんじんぐ ). It was a very pretty temple and there was even a ceremony going on it at the time.
We did all the normal temple tourtisty stuff. Purified hands in the water (which was poor planning. The water was freezing and the air was freezing. Only one of us had a hand towel). We also threw the 五円 coin (the rough equivalent of a nickel), into the collection box and clapped twice and prayed/made a wish.
We then went into the city and the arcade area. We looked at a bunch of the little shops and ended up at an arcade. We played the Taiko drum game and air hockey. Then in the basement we did some purikura. When you're doing purikura you go into a photo booth and take a series of about 10 photos. Then you go around the back of the machine and get to decorate the picture, sparkles, words, graphics etc. It was a lot of fun.
After that we went to get Okonomiyaki again. This time we got to make our own okonomiyaki. The waiters brought us bowls with the ingredients then we mixed the ingredients and the egg together before putting it on the stove top. Then we had to flip them over after the one side had been cooked enough. Mine was one of the only ones that survived the flip.
After that we took a series of trains and a bus back to Kansai Gaidai. We got back to the dorm around 9:30. It was a long, but extremely fun, day. Shinya and Itaru were awesome, they showed us all around, and honestly, kind of reminded me of a mansai duo. We all had a lot of fun.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1201612140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1201612140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1201612140/tpod.html Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:10:41 -0500 Lauren's Adventures in Japan

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Osaka, Japan

Wow! Has it been a crazy trip or what! I was originally supposed to leave from SeaTac at 7:40 and land in San Fran at 9:30 and take off again at 12:09 set for Osaka. That was the original plan, but San Fran apparently had severe weather issues so my flight was delayed for three hours, three hours which I obviously didn't have. So they put me on plane up through Vancouver. Eventually I did get to Osaka, and as a bonus my flight was practically empty. I had an entire row to myself, from window to window completely empty except for me.
The flight to Vancouver was on one of those fancy little propeller planes so it was pretty dang bouncy, but really neat to see a propeller plane that actually uses its propellers for flight rather than decoration. When I arrived at the airport it was pretty cool. It kind of looking like something you would see around home, lots of Native American - well, in this case I suppose they'd be Native Canadian - artwork, totem poles, whales, raven etc. There was this neat tropical fish tank in the center of the food court and it was on a bridge over a river. Not a real river mind you, a fake one, it even had fake, metal, salmon in it. I spent two hours there just waiting at the gate to talk to someone who could print me a boarding pass. The people that worked there were generally of no help, and the food court people spoke very little English. Fortunately their rudimentary English and my practically non-existent French was able to get me lunch.
The plane to Osaka, as stated before, was a nice flight. It was empty and there was plenty of in-flight entertainment. It was weird to hear so many announcements, they would say it in English and then repeat it in French and then repeat it in Japanese. It took about 7 minutes just to announced that we were ready for take-off.
The food on the plane was not very appetizing, and honestly quite small portions, I was glad that I grabbed some food in SeaTac. The entire flight was above a thick wall of clouds so I didn't get to see the ocean and wasn't able to see Japan until we were about 3 feet of the ground.
The trip through customs and the port of entry went ridiculously quick. They fingerprinted me and took my picture and then sent me on my way. Surprisingly my bags were there despite all the flight transfers, my bags made it to Osaka at the same time I did. The airport was small and muggy, but I was only in there for about a half and hour. I found the school's representatives right away and soon after that me and about 13 other people were whisked away onto a charter bus for a little under a two hour drive to the school's Seminar Houses. Well, to be more specific, to Seminar House 4, from there the rest of us had to walk about five minutes in the rain to the other seminar houses. Luckily the got a hold of a truck for all of our luggage.
For this week I'm staying in Seminar house 4. It's the nicest one in my opinion. It's a suite style. There's a kitchen, larger than mine at home even (but we're not allowed to use the dishes this week, they're all locked up), and a family room area, which is equipped with a TV and long couch. There's a bathroom with two toilets and two showers which I'm sharing with 9 other girls. The bathroom is very different to say the least. The shower has a mirror in it and the toilet has a sink on top of it. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to use it to wash my hands though because every time that is flushed the water on the top turns on automatically and there doesn't appear to be a way to turn it on other than to flush the toilet. The hand dryer is like that one in the commercials right now supposedly designed by that vacuum guy. It's neat and works really really well.
My two roommates aren't here yet by they should show up sometime tomorrow. The two girls in the room next door are really nice and they've been showing me how everything works. One is from North Carolina and the other is from New Zealand. By the time I finally got into my room I pretty much crashed. It was around 10 at night here, but it was somewhere around 5 or 6 in the morning back at home. It was a really hectic 24 hours.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1200600360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1200600360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/smicc/1/1200600360/tpod.html Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:11:08 -0500 Lauren's Adventures in Japan

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Sammamish, United States

So, I'm just now tying up loose ends, packing and repacking and just in general getting ready to embark on my journey. I don't leave for ten more days and it's absolutely killing me. I want to be in Japan now.

I plan to update this frequently, and not like the "frequently" I update LJ, but I am going to make myself update this at least once a week as soon as I get a steady internet connection. So feel free to make comments or leave replies and I will answer your questions to the best of my abilities.

I will also have Skype. But given the time difference you'll want to contact me sometime around 7 at night, Washington time, it'll be around 10 am the next day in Japan.

Okay, well. I'm off to pack again! Expect another update sometime in the first week of Febuary!
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