Nikko and Okinawa!

And no pictures. hahaha

I can`t upload any pictures until Wednesday but I`m taking a break from writing my paper so...yeah.

First- Nikko.

Last Last weekend Katie and I went to Nikko and stayed with the very nice Tanya who showed us around. Saturday we went to an awesome pottery town with tons of big badger statues and- what else? Awesome pottery. After that, we visited a fabric store where I was finally able to start buying fabric for my mom. Sunday we went to the to...something shrine where the three wise monkeys and the sleeping cat are. We also saw a lake (I forgot the name) on a mountain which was VERY beautiful. There were were able to wander through a...I believe Italian or french diplomat home which had a nice view of said lake. After that we went to a waterfall which was AWESOME. I adjusted the colors and set it as my desktop on my laptop, and when I turned my laptop on the other day I thought `wow, I took that picture, I was there.` So look forward to when I upload that.

2 days after we got back from the Nikko trip, we went to Okinawa! It was about a 2 and a half hour plane ride from Tokyo (and about a 1 and a half hour bus ride to get to the airport...) and when we walked through the airport I could just feel the humidity.

I`ll get the days mixed up so things we did: walked around Shuri Castle, learned to play a song on Japanese traditional guitar, did glass blowing (we made cups), watched an Okinawan drum performance, and then learned a dance, walked through a cave (which wasn`t as cool as the caves in Delaware Ohio), went to one of the world`s largest aquariums, saw a dolphin show, went to a `tropical forest` which was more like a conservatory, went to the WW2 peace memorial museum and DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME AT ALL. Everyone wished we had more time there, we were like halfway through the exhibit and realized we needed to be on the bus in 5 minutes. We went shopping, and saw very old native Okinawa houses (from the days of the hut).

And ate a lot of ice cream.

Asakusa Festival

So this past weekend I went to a festival, Akihabara, and participated in a charity event. Pictures were taken at the charity event but not by me so I'll look around facebook for some.

The Makuchary (makuhari Charity) was a small event. I got a free T-shirt and I helped the CD booth sell CDs and DVDs. Sometimes it was really fun by it was also kind of boring. It would also have been better if it wasn't so cold. A bit too chilly. I bought 2 Globe CDs which is an artist I like one song by but wanted to look more into them and luckily I do like the CDs.

The festival at Akasuka is one of the biggest if not the biggest festival. There are 3 nikoshi (?) that are huge and heavy and have gods inside them and people carry them around town. Asakusa was more crowded that day than it was even during golden week! There were also Yakuza there. We saw a few black shiny cars and at least 2 bosses passed by me, easily noticeable by their entourage making way for them so they didn't have to deal with the crowd.

Then I went to Akihabara to get some more naruto books. there was a sale! So I got 105 yen books for only 90 yen.

Golden Week

Okay so Golden Week actually started on Thursday and went till Wednesday of the next week.

So day 1- Akihabara and Shibuya with Shelby and some people from her program. We went to an anime something that had anime things that I WANTED but were expensive. Then we went to animate which was basically more anime stuff but MORE of it. In Shibuya we went in this ridiculously expensive department store which had an awesome leggings store and was terribly crowded. Also we saw the statue of the dog that waited for its master and died. (Also I was able to withdraw money from the post office so all was well)

Day 2- Tokyo Tower and Yokohama. (with Katie) Yokohama isn't actually in Tokyo, it's another city. There we went to a french park (i think it was called like france mountain) We were going to go to the american one but found the france one and didn't really care that much. It was pretty and then there was this viewing spot where we could see the harbor. I got some cool boots in the shopping street. Also Yokohama has a huge China Town so we walked around there too.

Day 3- Asakusa and Akihabara with Katie. Asakusa has these two shines or temples or somethings and between them is a huge street of shops. There we rode a rickshaw which was really fun. Also from Asakusa we could see the Tokyo Sky-liner (sukaitsuri or something like that) that is being built. Then Katie and I went to Akihabara and had dinner. But we went into this building where you go in an elevator and have to know which floor you're going to, but we didn't know and so the Japanese girls were like which floor and we were like...*blank stare* but they got off before us and I chose the 10th floor in a rush but it was like japanese restaurant something so i was like, at least it's food. And we asked to see the menu first and the prices looked good. We both ordered pizza.

Day 4- Makuhari. I live in Makuhari and there were some places there that I wanted to explore so we went to a lot of shops and there was supposed to be a local market but the map lied and it's wasn't there. Also we wanted to go to a book-off and the people at the train station said there was a used book shop a station over but it was not there but we did find a new books store which had awesome art books.

Day 5- Iidabashi (or iidebashi...prob da) (there is a park/garden there) uhh the place with the sunshine building...um...Anyway in the Sunshine building there is an aquarium so we looked at that but it didn't take long so after, we went back to iidabashi because there was a book-off there. (cheap used books)

Day 6- Homework day

Day 7- Iruka (dolphin) watching with my host mom in some small town in Chiba. Chooshi, i believe. There i tried cafe o lait melon pan and it was disgusting.

Conservatory, Shinjuku

Okay so last week I went to a conservatory with my host mom and took 474 pictures.
And Tuesday I had a class trip to Shinjuku. The class is urban society of Tokyo and so we were looking at how in such a short distance you can go from a crowded place with a ton of high rise buildings like kabukicho to only low rise buildings and less people like the mini korea town that is just an alley way away. Well maybe it's not an alley way...all Japanese streets look like alley ways... :-\ Also we considered how there is like no zoning in Japan. You can have love hotels right near video game arcades and pachinko parlors (gambling) right near respectable office businesses.

I tried to withdraw money from my card today but it didn't work. This is especially annoying because my train card expires on the 30th and I need money to buy a new one (I want a 3 month one but it's close to 70$ a month). Not to mention I will be going places during golden week and then would want to buy things. I have about 100 dollars. I also have money on my train pass but since I can't get a new one, I'll take that money off for travel.

Oh, and the IES center is closed during golden week so I will have no internet access.

Oh yeah, so there are different train lines, and a lot of people (not me) have to take the musashino. And the train is awful, runs irregularly and well, frankly, it seems to be the train of choice to jump in front of. And so half of our class is late at least once a week.

The weather has gotten much better. I mean, it's getting humid and it's still raining, BUT AT LEAST IT ISN'T COLD.

Golden week is coming up and my plans are more or less- Explore Tokyo with Shelby 29th and 30th, Go to a beach with my host mom one of the days, visit a conservatory, visit a zoo, visit some parks, go to akihabara.

Stuff like that.

I didn't really do anything last week so there's not much to update on but I can add some more pictures that I was finally able to upload.

The food is eel and the taste was fine but I didn't like it because it was soft and mushy. Yuck.

To answer some questions

Sorry it's been forever. To answer some questions, the earth quake did wake me up. My first reaction was that it was a train, and the second was that someone was shaking the house (a totally legit thought, no?) before I realized what it really was. It lasted qute a long time, about 15-20 seconds so I was nervous and of course to me it felt like a big earthquake. We has a small presentation before we moved into our housing so I knew not to try to run outside or anything, also they said it was better to be upstairs and I was so I just stayed in bed and didn't worry too much about it. Later my host mother said it was a small earthquake. I wondered if she meant small on the scale or small as in they usually get larger ones, and a friend told me it was small as in they get larger ones.

My commute... okay so I wake up at 6:30, breakfast at 7, leave at 7:40, walk to the station, get to the station a little before 8:16, take the 8:16 train for like 15 minutes to the station for the city/area my school is in, then walk about 10 minutes to the actuall school. I do that every Monday Tuesday Thursday and Friday. Tuesday and Fridays I rush to the station after class to take the same train back to my home station to go to my afternoon classes that are held at another school. I don't have to transfer.

The other picture was chocolate chip melon pan. Melon pan is sweet bread lightly covered with cookie dough.

Classes are fun but there is too much reading.

Everyone in the program is super nice. I was really surprised, everyone seems to get along and if you want to go somewhere, you can always find someone to go with you.

My host mom's name is Nakayama but she says to call her obaachan which means grandmother. She's a good cook and cooks things that I like. Sometimes there are things that are okay so I eat them but sometimes, like last night there was fish that I didn't like so she actually went and made me beef to eat >.< I guess the fish wasn't that bad but I wasn't in the mood to eat it. ANd it was more fishy-ish. She makes tuna too so I eat that and another fish um..budou or budo but that's the japanese name. The meat is kind of chicken consistency and it's not fishy so I like it. The cakes here are AMAZING. I think they are lighter and the slices are much smaller but they taste so good! Another think I like is inari-zushi. It's like very thin fried tofu but it's soggy bucause it's been put in a sweet sauce. I like the tofu just like that but when you wrap it around sushi rice (i think there is vinegar in it) then it's called inari zushi (It's shaped like sushi i guess). There's some story about a fox so it's like food for the fox god or something.

Konnichiwa means good afternoon and that song has a foul alternate meaning i believe.

I'm glad you're enjoying the blog ^_^


pic one is a rock with turtles on it taken near a temple in Narita during the drum festival. The second picture is a bento box for when we went to view the sakura trees but I didn't like anything. Even the rice had egg in it... The third picture is a yummy dessert I had the same day and the last picture is of random dressed up people from the drum festival. I have better pictures and even video from that day but it's on my laptop. I'm having trouble connecting my laptop to the internet at the center so I can't upload much stuff.

oh and here is a castle I went to but the inside is very modern looking.Not cool at all.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30588346&l=c4e2edff3c&id=1434060117

Pictures!

So yesterday or two days before or something we had a "small" earth quake which shook the house and lasted for like 20 seconds. It was a 6:15 am.

Today there was such strong wind that we couldn't get to Meikai because it's too close to the sea where the winds were stronger and the train would have crashed so the trains were closed.


Of course I didn't know morning classes were canceled until I was on a crowded train and woke up early. *sigh*

But at least on the way back home I got to visit the shrine that has the gong that rings every morning.