Halloween: Korean style

Trip Start Sep 23, 2008
1
17
22
Trip End Dec 21, 2008


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of Japan  , Kanto,
Friday, October 31, 2008

Halloween isn't a real holiday in Japan. Or anywhere really other than America. From over here, it seems like a silly thing when I have to explain what it is to my classmates, especially with my limited Japanese vocabulary. Halloween is a great holiday when in America, or rather, Bellingham, so I'm bummed to be missing out on it this year. Today our whole school, teachers and students (30 Americans, 50 Chinese and 120 or so Koreans) went to a huge park outside the city and right on the ocean! It was a cloudy day but very fun as we had a huge barbeque with all sorts of meat and vegetables!! The planning process took weeks but prior to the event my class expecially didn't seem to excited so I was half expecting to arrive and it be a total disaster. Wakasu Kaihin Park is very far from Nishi Kawaguchi (where I live) so between the subway and train system I got really confused and was nearly an hour late to the event. When I finally made it (a miracle) everyone was cooking and eating from a huge spread of korean foods. The barbequed meat was dipped in a little salt, wrapped in cabbage leaf with Korean chili paste and ooh it sure was tasty. First time eating Korean food! I hadn't before today spent time with my classmates out of class and they were so much fun! We walked to the ocean and took pictures, though it was much dirtier than the Pacific Ocean I'm used to...The teachers organized a school competition where every class decided on 8 people to do a group jump rope and whichever class could do the most jumps WON! by the time our class went the highest number of jumps was 27! We got three tries and the most we could do was only 1. preparing for games to be played at bbq
preparing for games to be played at bbq
 haha. It was fun nonetheless :) afterwards, a few of us played soccer in a huge field. Teams were small but it was really fun playing around and everyone soon became exhausted and we headed for the subway station. A few of my classmates took me to Korean dinner in Shinjuku- near our school- in Korean Town (didn't know this exsisted before!) It was very delicious and it could be that I even ate too much, but very exciting. At dinner, one of my friends asked me what kind of food is famous for being American. I couldn't think of any that were not borrowed from other countries such as France, Germany, or Italy. I had to explain that because Americans came from all over the world, "american food" is really foreign countries cuisine slightly changed. I thought this to be a difficult question to answer. Also, I was asked about the placement of the subject and time in an English sentence. I must have not been paying attention in English class, or am simply an inexperienced teacher because I couldn't for the life of me describe why or how a sentence was formed. I have learned that foreigners have it hard when learning English, the words and grammer is strange, and the pronounciation is whack! I'm glad its my first langugage.
Seven of us altogether; two of them spoke a little English but 95% of the time we spoke Japanese. I'm proud to say that all of Friday I only spoke English for about 5 minutes to my teacher to explain why  I was late to the event, other than that I only used Japanese! Especially when I was hanging out with the Koreans from my class I noticed how my Japanese is changing-- I can't even imagine how good a year living here would be for my fluency. Enjoy the pictures and stay tuned for another entry coming soon! (I'm trying to catch up as the pics are piling up!)
*I forgot to mention Korean Karaoke! We only sang for a half an hour when we were waiting for a table to open up in the restaurant (very popular on a friday night). It was surprisingly much different than Japanese Karaoke that I've done. We went into the room and right away my friends started looking up songs (30 mins isn't much) and when their song came up they did solos! they really felt the music and were actually very skilled! The boys sang the most: korean love songs! haha it was entertaining to watch! On of the girls sang a really upbeat, korean techno song in which the singer yells in some parts. They all knew the songs very well and hit everynote right on. When it was my turn they wanted me to sing "Listen" by Beyonce, and "Hit me baby one more time" by you-know-who. HAHA They really wanted to hear songs in English and practically begged me so I felt I couldn't say no. All apart of the experience, and heck, it was Halloween after all! I guess I was a Korean for Halloween.
Slideshow Print this entry Tokyo hotels