So, I've been rather busy with being in Japan, and as such, I haven't posted in a couple weeks. I'm sorry for the delay. However, I realize I'm not contractually obligated to stick to a schedule or anything, so I'm not going to worry about it too much. If you see that I haven't posted in a while, just assume it's because I'm busy living.
At any rate, I've done quite a few things since my last post, and I was able to get pictures of a decent amount of it. I took a couple videos as well, but I won't have those uploaded for a while (High Definition Videos take a really long time to upload, and we're not supposed to do it on the internet here at the Kaikan anyway, so I'm going to wait until next time I visit Mary, or lug my laptop to school and steal their internet.)
The first big thing I did was go on a field trip with a bunch of the other new international students (plus some old ones who signed up anyway) and tutors. The first stop on the field trip was the town of Kitsuki. It had some kind of castle, but we didn't actually see the castle. We walked around a preserved part of town instead. It was pretty nice weather, and I was happy to be out with folks enjoying the day. My tutor Ayumi was on the field trip as well, so I finally got to spend a good chunk of time with her in a non official capacity (So far she'd helped me with getting me from the station to my apartment, student log in information, and course registration. Not terribly entertaining activities.) And of course no tour is complete without a slew of touristy pictures.
(Some of the nice Scenery in the town of Kitsuki)
(Here is Ayumi (left) and her friend Mana (right))
(And much fun was had)
After the tour guide walked us around the town a bit, we got to go into one of the buildings for a tea ceremony. It's possible that I was the only person in the group with experience with participating in a tea ceremony (that includes the Japanese tutors who had joined us). The practitioners were rather surprised by the fact that I knew what to do, and (roughly) how to do it.
(I don't think they normally have this many customers)
(This is actually the first male practitioner of tea ceremony I've seen)
After the tea ceremony everybody walked back to the bus and we went to lunch. Lunch was a big bento box full of food, and a medium sized juice box (Not quite enough juice for my taste, but still pretty big for Japan) The bento was rather tasty, and had a good variety of food. None of which I know the names for. Many of which I didn't even know what it was made out of. (That's part of the fun right?)
(Mysterious, but tasty)
After lunch everybody got back onto the buses (We had enough people to fill 2 of them.) and we headed to a sake brewery. The brewery equipment itself wasn't terribly interesting sadly, and I couldn't understand much of what the tour guide was saying either since it was all in Japanese (Probably the local dialect as well). Fortunately I was kept entertained by peoples various drinking stories (An inevitable topic of conversation at a brewery I suppose.) and the brewery's shrine to the god of sake. After the tour was over, the part that everybody was looking forward to was waiting for us at the exit. The free sake sampling. They had given the underage people little tags that identified them as non drinkers (Some did their best to hide these tags). I also had one of these tags, which drew some strange looks. I was given the Japanese equivalent of "There's no way you're only 19!" and had to explain that I had an alcohol allergy several times. However not drinking gave me a great opportunity to take pictures of everybody else drinking. Including the teachers. I was rather amused at this concept. I found it strange that even though we were getting samples, I didn't see a clear way to actually purchase alcohol from the brewery (I was thinking about buying some as a gift). However they did give everybody a little bag with some sake, a cup, and some other little things. The people with the "Can't Drink" tags got water and rice instead of alcohol. I thought it was pretty nifty.
(The sake god 's shrine. The followers love paying their respects)
(I wonder what would happen if students and teachers drank together more often?)
(And much fun was had)
Once we'd had our fill at the brewery the tour group went back to the area where we had lunch and we got to go into some green houses that were behind one of the buildings there. Lots of folks were looking forward to this part of the trip actually. You see, instead of flowers or decorative plants, these greenhouses contained strawberries. Lots of strawberries. Of the "All you can eat" variety. I took that task to heart and consumed 111 strawberries. Sadly I neglected to get a picture of my pile of stems to document my achievements. (Somebody else may have though, I'll have to ask around for that.)
(Improper climate is no excuse for the Japanese to not grow fruit it seems. Though this is part of why fruit in Japan is so much more expensive.)
(The Japanese make it so easy, you don't even have to get dirty while picking them.... Which isn't quite as fun in my opinion, but it does make eating them more efficient.)
Although the strawberry patch was the last stop for our field trip, it was far from the end of the fun that was had that weekend. The following day consisted of..... Actually, I don't really remember what I did during the day. (Probably homework and video games and socializing) But the evening was grounds for my new favorite Japanese word: 食べほうだい (Tabehoudai). It translates to "All you can Eat". There was also 飲みほうだい (Nomihoudai), or all you can drink. So really it's the "Houdai" that I'm most fond of I suppose. But yeah, a bunch of the exchange students, and some of the Japanese students who like to hang around so they can work on their English went to this place called Ranzu Cafe. This place does a pizza tabehoudai for ￥2,000, (which is about $24 based on the exchange rate when I landed in Japan.) and included in that is nomihoudai for both alcohol (Not that it mattered to me) and soda. For reference, pizza is generally at least twice as expensive in Japan as it is in America. Also the concept of any pizza over 10" in diameter is beyond Japanese comprehension it seems. With these two things in mind, Pizza is generally not a financially viable option for food. Because of this the ￥2,000 pizza tabehoudai is an amazing deal. With the nomihoudai added in, it's down right supreme. My general status as a poor college student did not deter me from this event because I deemed the social benefits to be far superior. I also convinced myself that I would just eat enough food to last me a few meals. I was pretty successful at that actually. I'm fairly certain that I consumed the greatest overall value of food and drink out of the other 20 people that attended. There was one person who ate more pizza then me, (He had about 20 slices, I could only confirm 14) but I consumed about 10 drinks as well. After the 4th drink they actually started watering them down I think. (I was switching between Gingerale, orange juice, and pineapple juice.) Regardless I had a good time and got to try a wide variety of Japanese pizzas. (None of which I can remember at the moment though. Guess this means I'll just have to go back some time) Our group also did two Russian Roulette pizzas. Allow me to explain. So once you've ordered a Russian Roulette pizza, they bring you a pizza with 6 slices and you get 6 people to each take a slice. Everybody takes a bite at the same time. The pizza is already spicy, but once slice is chocked so full of spices that the consumer is generally reduced to a whimpering pile of watery eyes and an overwhelming burning sensation in their mouth. (I didn't get the spicy slice). It was a lot of fun, but I think I've had my fill of spicy pizza for a good long while.
(An intimidating group of foreigners to Japanese eyes I'm sure.)
(I'd be interested to know how many pizzas we consumed)
(And much fun was had)
Overall, I'd rate that as a fantastic weekend. Sadly the week following wasn't as fantastic (Granted it's generally pretty hard for a week of school to match up to a weekend) Really only 2 bad things happened during the week, it was just compounded because they were on the same day. On Tuesday we had a birthday here at the Kaikan and we were having a potluck to celebrate. I was going to bring a bunch of rice since I have this big rice cooker and a rather large bag of rice. It started raining at the end of my school day. This didn't bother me because I had my Jacket and waterproof pants with me like I usually do. (I was actually rather pleased that I was able to use them. I walked happily to the train and talked with Jihee (A Korean girl who I have some classes with, and who also lives in the Kaikan) on the ride to Oita station. At this point I had about an hour and a half before the potluck was going to start. As soon as I got off the train I realized that I no longer had my shoes. (For those of you who don't know me that well, this happens more often then you might think) I had taken them off before leaving school because my flip flops have virtually no grip, and are rather dangerous when it's wet out. Also, I have no issues just walking around barefoot regardless, so when it's raining, I sometimes just go barefoot for convenience. When I go barefoot, I have a strap attached to my bag that I snap around my shoes to hold them in place. At some point between my classroom and the train station my shoes had fallen off of my bag. Unable to find my shoes on the train, I had to go back to school to search the station there. When I arrived at Oita University Station I happened to run into Abe (Abe is a Japanese guy with good English, who also happens to look like Hiro, from "Hero's", the TV show) who had seen my shoes back up on campus near "The big building close to the library" which was all the way back on campus (The station is a 7-10 minute walk from the main campus). So I started up the path barefoot and in the rain (At this point I was very thankful for my waterproof pants, my jacket, and my Chrome bag.) When I got up to campus I was able to find my shoes laying on the path not 50 feet from the door of the building I had left earlier. Shoes in hand I returned to Oita University Station and awaited my train back to Oita. When I finally made it back to the Kaikan, the potluck was just getting started. I was apparently quite a site walking into the lobby rain drenched, barefoot, and with blinking bike lights on my chest and back. (I should find out who has that picture....) I apologized for being late, and went to my room to get the rice started. Since I was already late, I was rushing the process and didn't really do any measuring. As a result I added too much rice, and not enough water to my cooker. Since I was so late with the rice, I decided to take what was left of my meat and vegetables and make a stir fry to share with people. Thankfully that turned out well. But an hour later when my rice cooker beeped I found a very full pot of partially cooked rice inside. Not only had I failed to deliver my promised course on time, but it was also inedible. I had wasted a rather large quantity of my rice in my haste, and was rather displeased with myself. Fortunately everything else at the potluck was tasty, and only a couple people were still actually hungry. I didn't get to eat much of the main course stuff, but I was able to share in the cake.
(Left: Mario aka the birthday boy. Right: Tano, Center: Somebody whose name I should really know by now. Center Low: A pile of delicious cake)
(And much fun was had)
The rest of the week is a blur of Classes, homework, studying, and failed attempts to rescue my partially cooked rice. Probably also some video games. Oh, right.... Akira (A Japanese guy who sometimes hangs out at the Kaikan to practice his English) and his friend brought over a Wii and Super Smash Brothers (It wasn't Brawl, but it was some Japanese only release that was very much like Brawl. Probably there was some balancing done or something, I dunno.) It turns out that even though I'm rather rusty, I was still better then either of these two guys. That picked up my spirits after my failed attempts at rice. Thinking back, I also sat down and watched the two Evangelion rebuilds I have on my computer with Yannik (A french guy that lives here in the Kaikan) Anyway, onward to the weekend.
And by weekend, I mean Golden Week (A week that encompasses three Japanese National Holidays). Sadly Oita University doesn't treat it like we do spring break in America, and we had school on the Tuesday and Wednesday that weren't national holidays. So instead of a week vacation we had a 3 day and a 4 day weekend back to back. (Lots of people skipped the two days of classes anyway so they could travel.) Mary came to visit me on Saturday, and stayed in Oita for a few days. On Sunday we went for a walk and I saw the river that's nearby for the first time. On that river there were a bunch of people practicing racing kayaks and canoes. After the walk (And a miss-communication about the time) we went to Oita station to meet up with My Tutor Ayumi, her friend Mana, Tano, and a couple other people who I don't actually remember. We went with them to a nearby mountain (I can't remember the name. It started with "Taka") that is a monkey sanctuary. The term sanctuary is kind of misleading though. When I think Sanctuary, I think a nature area that has been preserved for their benefit. This place is actually a full temple complex where the monkeys are protected. Despite the presence of man made stuff, the monkeys were quite at home, and rather abundant as well.
(So many monkeys!)
Sadly the tram ride to the top of the mountain, combined with the sickness she'd already been battling (Probably the same one I brought with me from America actually) was apparently enough to tip whatever scale her body had been balancing, and she got rather sick. We were still able to enjoy the monkeys, but Mary was pretty wiped out and developing a fever, so she and I had to skip the second half of our day trip which was going to be the Aquarium. Instead I took her back to my place and made her some chicken soup. (A first for me. She gave me instructions but I didn't have any salt so I used soy sauce instead. It turned out ok... ) I took care of Mary until she was feeling well enough to return home.
In the middle of the week, class happened. It wasn't anything interesting enough to write about so I'll just skip to Wednesday afternoon when I took the train out to Saga for the rest of Golden Week.
So Traveling in Japan by train is really convenient. The schedules are easy to understand, and provided you look up the kanji and pronunciation of the town you're going to, it's not hard to buy your ticket. Since it was Golden Week, lots of people were traveling. That being the case, I went ahead and reserved seats on my trains a week early. It was a little more expensive, but after seeing how crowded the non-reserved cars were, I'm really glad I did. When I arrived, Mary was still sick so I resumed taking care of her. Fortunately she started feeling better on Friday and we were able to go to Arita (One of the famous pottery towns) for their annual pottery festival. I'm sure the festival has some kind of significance to its residents, but for the people visiting it means lot of vendors have set up shop on the main street and are selling stuff at discounted prices. It's a pretty famous event in Japan it seems, and Mary had been looking forward to it for months. It was really cool seeing so many different varieties, but not that many of them suited my fancy. Three shops met my interests. Sadly the one I found most interesting was closed by the time we made our way back to where it was to check it out again. But the second most interesting shop was right across the street, and was still open (this place was also less expensive). Turned out that this place had something I had been looking for. A bigger cup. I was rather pleased. After I saw it I kept looking around the shop just to make sure, but it was one of those things where you see it and just go "Yup, that's it. That's exactly what I've been looking for". If left to my own devices I probably would have stayed out of the shop all together for fear of finding something I wanted to buy, but Mary insisted on buying me a gift. A housewarming present of sorts I suppose. I also managed to find a good sized (aka large enough to hold my desired daily amount of breakfast cereal) bowl at one of the other shops we had decided to check out again for only ￥700 (not a bad price for handmade ceramics. About $8.40) I was going to buy it myself, but because Mary wound up buying a lot from the same shop, the shop keeper threw it in with her purchase as a bonus. (I never took Japan to be a haggling society, but it totally is once you get out of the big stores)
(This is the place that closed before we got back to it. Expensive, but gorgeous.)
(The spoils of.... uh.... pottery festivals...)
On Saturday Mary's friend Tatara-san (A little old Japanese lady Mary does tea ceremony with) took us to a big second hand store to look at Kimono. While we were out I got myself a larger cooking pan so that I can make stir fry without having to worry about my food spilling over the edges while I stir. I didn't bring my camera with me, but there had some pretty nice Kimono (Japanese doesn't have plurals, so I probably won't be adding any s's to Japanese nouns. It just seems weird now that I'm learning the language). Sadly Kimono are generally not built for our larger western frames. Mary was able to find a summer Kimono that fit her though for only ￥3,000 (about $36) though. I was not so lucky. I'm pretty happy with my fry pan though.
On Sunday I was fortunate enough to go to the beach with two of Mary's ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) friends, Mo and Ben. This was my first time going to a Japanese beach actually. (I've seen them before of course, but this was the first "Hey, lets go to the beach and have a picnic" kind of thing.) The weather was great for beach going, and for whatever reason the beach only had like 4 other people on it. We snacked on deviled eggs (Which I made) Chinese coleslaw (That Mary made) Onigiri (Rice balls (That Ben made)) and sandwiches (That Mo made), as well as a variety of Japanese snacks. The was also a Japanese drink that roughly translated to "Because it's Green". It wasn't green.... We also played Frisbee and walked around. It was a pleasant afternoon and a good end to my vacation.
(There's a village on that island. We were wondering if they replace gym class with swimming to the mainland to get to school. If you're late to class, you'd fail gym class for the day.)
(And much fun was had)
(Sand writings are so much more interesting when you have no idea what they say)
Ok, I think that's all for now. As much as I don't want to leave the people who are way interested in what I'm doing out in the cold wasteland of not updating for weeks on end, I am busy with school and will make no promises on how often I update. That being said, I think I'm going to try for more bite sized updates that don't take hours to compose. (I go through a lot of pictures and am frequently distracted by people. It's a slow process.) At any rate, it's almost 1am, so I'm rather tired. Fortunately I don't have class until 1pm so I'll at least get a good nights sleep. Until next time, Take care!
~Daniel
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