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  • 2008
    • October
      • Maintenance
        10/08/08
        Not that anybody checks here anymore, since I've stopped updating, BUT... I've disabled comments because the amount of spam that was getting posted is ridiculous. The posts are still up for your general perusing pleasure though.

    • May
      • HOME!
        05/29/08
        Well, I'm home again. The flight was actually pleasant, if long (but only as long as they said it would be!).

        Now the question is, what do I do with this blog?

        I still have pictures I could post, like the previously mentioned ones. But it would feel a bit fake, I guess, po

      • Nearing the end...
        05/14/08
        I went yesterday to pick up my mom from the airport. It took a while to get there (not as long as I had expected though) and of course I had to sit around and wait for her flight to land and her to get through customs.

        But yes, so now I've got my mom in Japan too!

        But thi

      • Kaiten-zushi.
        05/04/08
        This is Kaiten-zushi (conveyor belt sushi):




        I wish they had it in the states. I will miss it when I go home.

        Each plate is only 105 yen! ... but it does add up if you eat a lot.

    • April
      • Monkey Park
        04/24/08
        I went to Arashiyama on Sunday. It's in Kyoto prefecture, and is extremely beautiful. The weather was also very nice, although slightly chilly. There were a lot of people there though, I guess just because the sun was shining.

        Arashiyama is also the home of the Monkey Park. It is, as

      • Sakura, sakura...
        04/13/08
        It's sakura season! Well, all right, Sakura season is mostly over -- the constant rain we've been having this past week hasn't helped.

        Anyway, last weekend, I went to Kyoto for some Hanami, sakura-viewing. People traditionally go out for some drinking/food under the cherry

      • Fukuoka write-up (finally)
        04/09/08
        One of the reasons I was so slow in updating recently, besides being lazy, is that I still hadn't written about Fukuoka, and I'd been there mid-march. I guess that's around three weeks ago.

        The problem with the Fukuoka trip is that it was raining, a lot. I thought I'd

      • Jello-- er, Jero.
        04/03/08
        Usually, if you see the katakana ジェロ you'd probably think it's supposed to be "jello." But no, it's just "jero" in this case.

        Because in this case, "Jero" refers to an enka singer. He's currently very big right now, and released a song

    • March
      • Maid Cafe
        03/30/08
        Blargh I know, I promised pictures. I swear they are coming when I am not bogged down by schoolwork.


        I went to Osaka today, intent on buying some more manga. My friend needed to pick up her laptop anyway (it seems her mac decided to just not start up anymore, and needed to be doctor

      • Osaka Holiday
        03/23/08
        Well, after Disneyland, I did go on another trip, but I haven't uploaded any pictures yet so you'll have to wait for that.

        Instead, I'll tell you about the concert I went to today. It was in Osaka, at the Osaka Holiday venue. We saw ten Visual-K bands. For the unfamiliar, &

      • Tokyo Disney
        03/17/08
        Last Friday, I hopped on the night bus from Kyoto to Tokyo for a trip to the Tokyo Disney Resort. I say "resort" because it includes DisneySea and the hotels along with Disneyland.

        The night bus itself wasn't... unpleasant. It wasn't pleasant either, but what can you

      • Weekend getaway
        03/09/08
        Back in January, my host mom asked me what I was doing in March. If I was free, would I like to go with her on the company trip? I agreed, since it sounded pretty cool.

        IT WAS THE BEST THING EVER.

        Okay, got up early, got picked up by one of my host-mom's coworkers, and th

      • Birthday Parties
        03/07/08
        Yesterday, one of the Japanese girls my group of friends occasionally hangs out with got upset because she asked one of the guys to host a party for her birthday and he refused. It seemed joking at first, but she got more and more insistent. I wasn't there for most of it, so I'm not sure i

      • Keeki Tabehoudai
        03/01/08
        食べ放題 (tabehoudai) means "all you can eat." As you might expect, tabehoudai is very popular. Japanese people seem to be able to eat a LOT more than I can -- most of the time, I'm full after just one dish, and Japan usually gives you four or five in one set meal (soup, rice, salad,

    • February
      • Ice skating
        02/29/08
        I went ice skating with some friends today. There's an amusement park close to where I live, Hirakata Park (=Hirapa for short), that had a skating rink opened for the winter season. Today was the last day to go, so we decided we might as well.

        It was around 10 degrees celcius. The su

      • Rain + Bikes
        02/26/08
        I mentioned in the previous entry that the weather was kind of bad?

        Well, it was raining this morning, so of course the first thing I did was NOT take my umbrella along. I figured, since I was gonna be riding my bike anyway, I didn't need it.

        Well, halfway to the nearest t

      • Things I miss?
        02/26/08
        I miss:

        Cookies. My mom sent me some for my birthday (THANK YOU) and they were the best cookies ever. They were soft and chewie and oh my god yummy. They don't really have cookies here. :(

        Bad American TV. Because I just can't channel flip here the way I do in the Sta

      • Enoki
        02/21/08
        Well, I was going to write up about my birthday, but, um. :X Let's just say I celebrated all week-end, had lots of fun, and got a bunch of presents. Hurray! There was also cake.

        But I do want to update, so I'll just say this:
        Enoki are the best mushroom ever. I usually don&

      • Happy Birthday to me! :D + Valentine's Day
        02/15/08
        YAY it's my birthday!

        So, today I dressed in a cute skirt I bought in Osaka (size: 72cm, which is the biggest thing they had in the store and the only one that even looked like it would fit me) and the shirt my family sent me for my birthday. I looked AWESOME. Anyway. At school, I go

      • Reservations
        02/13/08
        It's my birthday on Friday (the 15th) and my plan is to have a small "party" on Sunday. That means going out, because I can't exactly host a party at my homestay. Dinner and Karaoke down by the station.

        Since it's going to be a large group, I figured I should prob

      • News in Japan
        02/08/08
        So, what's been going on in Japan recently? Or, what did I pick up by watching TV the other day. :P

        A woman who killed her husband is now on trial. She killed him back in 2006, and yesterday or so they gave a run-down of her trial on TV. I'm not really sure what to think of the

      • Setsubun
        02/04/08
        NOTE: To conserve bandwidth, I've now LINKED all the images. That means if there's bold red text in the entry, you can click on it and it will take you to a picture.



        I moved back into my homestay on Sunday, which also happened to be a national holiday of sorts. Setsu

      • School schedule
        02/01/08
        Got my schedule today: I apparently have Mondays off.

        Apparently, in order for there to be actual discussions going on in level 6 Japanese, we need more than just a 50-minute class, so there are two of those in a row, for a 1 hour and 40 minute class. This is good, and hopefully means tha

    • January
      • School + Cafe Merci
        01/30/08
        School starts up again next monday, and things have been thrown a little bit into disarray this week. On Friday, my roommate moved out to go to a different Seminar House (there are four, and one of them was closed over the break), leaving me to my own devices. On Monday evening, both of my new roomm

      • Cafes and Movies
        01/23/08
        I know, it's been a while since I've posted. Nothing much has really been happening.

        There's a cafe down by where my host family lives called "Cafe Been." Don't ask me if that's supposed to be pronounced as "been" or "bean"; the katak

      • Bicycle safety
        01/17/08
        Hi, I know it's been a while. Nothing particularly interesting has been happening around here. Been mostly just hanging out with friends and going out to Karaoke.

        On Monday, on the way to one such Karaoke-adventure, I was somewhat forced to ride on the back of somebody's bike.

      • Bread
        01/09/08
        Did you know that the Japanese word for bread is "pan"? It was originally brought over by the Portuguese (not the Spaniards), and in typical Japanese fashion, the word was appropriated. (Other fun words: Miruku (milk), Toranpu (trump), karuta (carta), karute (Karte), pantsu (pants, in the

      • Bandwidth
        01/07/08
        So, I've exceeded the bandwidth limit on Photobucket, oh noes! That means most of the pictures will be replaced by place markers. I think the biggest problem was that I had two picture heavy entries load on the first page: Hiroshima and Mochi-making. In the future, I'll just link to the im

      • Scary Tales from Tohoku
        01/05/08
        It was a dark and stormy night, or possibly a gray and drizzly afternoon, when I arrived in Kitakami. The trip itself had gone well, and Matthew and Stefanie of Let's Sharing fame were there to meet me at the platform. It was cold, but not too cold, as we drove to their home. I got a small tour

      • Let's Recessing
        01/02/08


        Happy New Year! The management of Let's Sharing and Please Take Recess rang in 2008 together. Here we all are on New Year's Day, ready to eat the delicious specialty foods of New Year's.

  • 2007
    • December
      • Go North!
        12/28/07
        In about half an hour, I'll be setting out for the North! A little village in Iwate prefecture, in fact. This is all for a big cross-over adventure between "Please Take Recess" and "Let's Sharing."

        I only hope I do not freeze to death, but I've been told

      • Christmas
        12/26/07
        On the 22nd, my host family had a small Christmas celebration. We opened the day by making mochi. Mochi is pounded rice, shaped into little balls filled with stuff. Well, it doesn't necessarily need to be filled with anything. And it's not even always round -- if you buy it in the store, i

      • Happy Holidays!
        12/24/07
        It's the morning of the 25th, so I guess that's the evening of the 24th for most of you. I did my Christmas celebrations with my friends this year, instead of my family -- a first! Although, to be completely fair, my family usually celebrates with friends.

        In any case, we had a

      • Hiroshima
        12/18/07
        Okay, that spam thing is getting ridiculous. I got rid of the link that was in the comments for that entry, and I've been banning IPs (although it's never the same IP, so I can't do much). Anti-spam thing is on, and now I've banned some words so hopefully that'll stop it for

      • Toufuku-ji + Fushimi-Inari
        12/08/07
        Today I went to Kyoto with two friends. The weather wasn't that great, but we visited two temples. Or rather, one Buddhist temple and one Shinto shrine. I wanted to go out and see the fall leaves before they all, well, fell. I've been kind of putting it off both due to the cold and the fac

      • Cheese and Macaroni
        12/02/07
        Well, that was interesting. Despite there being anti-spam measurements in place, I got three spam comments. :/ Apparently I desperately want a loan, possibly to use at a casino. (Lol, is that just inviting more spam?)

        In any case! Yesterday, I had some friends over to make the Mac&Che

    • November
      • トイレ - Toilets
        11/27/07
        Okay, I do have some pictures to post when I'm not lazy, but I've been prodded to update. I've decided to write about something every Japanese person takes for granted, and nearly every foreigner will ooh and aaah about when they first come to Japan.

        Toilets are different h

      • 姫路城 - Himeji Castle
        11/17/07
        Because of a series of fortunate events (unfortunate for some other people, but fortunate for me, in any case), I ended up getting a free JR day pass yesterday. These passes were not valid all the way to Himeji, but to a point near it, and I (and my friends) would just have to pay the difference onc

      • Crying
        11/16/07
        I dreamt about the blog, so I guess that means it's high time to actually post something again.


        Something that I've noticed here in Japan, at least on the media, is that people cry a lot. Not just because their puppy just got run over or because they've discovered the

      • French Restaurant
        11/11/07
        This is seriously overdue.

        Last Saturday, it was Fuu-kun's second birthday, so we went out to a French Restaurant to celebrate.

        Well, I say French, but it was definitely modified a bit to suit Japanese tastes. The salad had raw squid in it, yick. (I don't mind squid w

      • 学際 - School Festival
        11/06/07
        Last Friday and Saturday were the Gakusai, the school festival. It's traditional in Japan to have these, and every club involved ends up setting up a stand of some sort. For the most part, food. Yeah.



        These guys took it really seriously. :O Hot Dog is their LIFE. Too bad

      • Halloween
        11/01/07
        It was Halloween two days ago (or yesterday, depending on where you are). A lot of people dressed up for Halloween. I wish I could have, but I didn't have a costume. Oh, but rest assured that I complained loudly about not having one. (I complain loudly about a lot of things though.)

    • October
      • Comic City
        10/28/07
        For some reason that I cannot fathom, three of the media classes at my school were going on a field trip to a doujinshi convention. Doujinshi, for those who don't know, are fan-made comics based on real published works. Thus, for those people who just couldn't get enough of Goku and Piccol

      • 難波 - Nanba
        10/27/07
        When my speaking partner asked me if I wanted to go to 難波 with her, I had absolutely no idea where she meant because I couldn't read the kanji. The first one, 難, is usually seen in 難しい (muzukashii) and means "difficult." The second one, 波, is read as nami and means "wave.&

      • 早口 - Tongue-twisters
        10/23/07
        Some tongue-twisters in Japanese:

        スモモも桃も桃のうち。
        Sumomo mo momo mo momo no uchi.
        "Plums and peaches are both of the peach family."


        隣の客はよく柿食う客だ。
        Tonari no kyaku ha yoku kaki kuu kyaku da.
        "That customer is a customer w

      • いい天気ですね。
        10/22/07
        The weather has been amazing here lately. So amazing, it makes one not want to go home and study or blog or anything. On top of that, last week was midterms (I did well on all of them, thank you) so that's my excuse for leaving everybody "in the dark" for a week.

        Aside from

      • USJ
        10/14/07
        I got up bright and early today to go to Universal Studios Japan with Laura, my speaking partner Yuri, and her friend Natsumi.


        HOMG it was so much fun. :D Although it only had one roller coaster (a baby one at that -- the scariest part was going up, because it was a pretty steep ang

      • おかえり！ - Welcome back!
        10/11/07
        Whenever you leave home here in Japan, you're supposed to say ittekimasu, and the appropriate response from the people still there would be itterasshai. When coming home, you say tadaima, and you'll be greeted with okaeri.

        I have, in my mind, always equated these sayings with &q

      • 運動会 - Sports Festival
        10/06/07
        Yesterday, my host brother's daughter (does that make her my host niece?) had an Undoukai, a sports festival, at her school. I woke up bright and early and biked up a slightly slanty hill (I failed at it. I ended up pushing the bike) to get to her preschool.

        So it was three hours of

      • Haircut!
        10/04/07
        I got my hair cut on a whim today. Abby was going to get her hair cut with a friend, who bailed on her, so I went along instead. I was just there to keep her company, but the stylists were so nice and friendly and it looked like so much fun and my hair was getting kind of long anyway so yeah.

    • September
      • Sentou - Public Bath
        09/30/07
        The hot water is broken here, and now that it's gotten colder (yes, it's actually gotten colder!) I don't much like the idea of a cold shower. My host mom didn't either, and so she suggested we go to a public bath house.

        OKAY.

        I decided to not be chicken abo

      • Japanese TV
        09/25/07
        For anybody who's seen Japanese TV, you know that it's not quite the same as in the States. They love variety shows and their weird as heck comedy stars.

        One such comedy star is Kojima Yoshio. He shows up in a speedo and does a hilarious little song/dance number. XD Even without

      • Lost
        09/24/07
        Not the TV show (although that apparently airs on one of the super special cable channels here). I actually got lost yesterday.

        I went down to Osaka with Laura to meet up with a friend who had done an exchange at Carleton (yes, a Nihonjin). We barely recognized each other, it's been

      • Crabby Houdini :(
        09/22/07
        My prediction came true. Crabby Houdini was found dead this morning. Old age? Malnutrition? Only an autopsy can tell.

        ........ actually, now I kind of do want to autopsy him. Hmmmmm.


        AND, so that you have something fun to think about! When I first got to Japan and was doi

      • Saturday! + RIP
        09/22/07
        Today was kind of... eventful and uneventful at the same time.

        My host mom invited me to a concert that she was going to with her friends. Before that, we stopped by a temple.

        What I've noticed about temples here is that they are outdoorsy? The Judeo-Christian religions ar

      • Bureaucracy
        09/18/07
        Much like in Germany, Japanese bureaucracy can get to be a pain. Yesterday I decided to invest in a bus pass (which only covers my school route and nothing else, dammit), and I was turned away. They told me that I needed a certain blue paper. Of some sort. Evidence of commute, as it were.

      • Weekend (shopping + museums)
        09/18/07
        It was a long weekend, which means I had monday off (day for respecting elders or some-such). Friday I had Laura come over and stay at my place, Okaasan made okonomiyaki~ Well, rather, everybody made okonomiyaki themselves, because that is the point of okonomiyaki. It literally means something like

      • Crabby Houdini + Ohayou Gozaimasu
        09/13/07
        When I went down to breakfast this morning, one of the crabs had somehow, miraculously, managed to climb to the top of the cage. Not to say he got out, there's a lid with airholes definitely not wide enough for a crabby of his size to escape, but he was clinging to the roof of the lid upside do

      • Waraji to kani
        09/12/07
        Last Sunday, my host mom had some of the neighborhood people over for a craft session. One of the women had apparently mastered the art of making Waraji, a style of traditional slippers, and was going to show the rest of us how to make them.

        It is, in fact, very, very hard to do.
      • Nara
        09/10/07
        DISCLAIMER: All of these photos are Laura's, because I'm too lazy to upload mine.

        I went to Nara on Saturday with Laura and two Japanese girls. Well, rather, Laura and I went to Nara, and we met my speaking partner and her friend there. Yuri was smart and brought a friend who sp

      • Takoyaki
        09/06/07
        Yesterday we had a little mini party! Yuujirou, the already-moved-out son, came with his family (wife and two kids). Apparently he quite suddenly claimed to have a craving for Takoyaki.

        The "tako" in Takoyaki means "octopus." "Yaki" means friend/grilled/baked

      • Cellphones
        09/06/07
        I headed down to city hall yesterday to apply for my alien registration card. My host sister and I biked there, avoiding the busy roads, and I feel a lot steadier on the bike now, although I still panic a bit when a car/other people are coming at us. I really should get a helmet if I plan to do this

      • School + Food
        09/04/07
        Had my first day of classes yesterday. Because it was a tuesday, it included all of my classes. Everyday I've got a different schedule, it's kind of annoying. Anyway, Japanese 5 seems to be okay for me. I think I can manage this, despite the sensei giving me the interview saying everybody

      • Japanese class + Homestay
        09/02/07
        I know I mentioned it before, but I'm sure people just skimmed over it ;)
        I got into Spoken Japanese Lv 5, although I was told this might be a bit tough for me. That's okay, these past couple of years have just been simple repetition for me, and I want to finally learn something new.

      • Shopping in Hirakata
        09/01/07
        I went shopping with Laura yesterday. We hopped down to the Hirakata station, quickly finding a Karaoke place. The attendants there were kind of laughing at us, I think, but it's okay. We had fun anyway although we really need to expand our repetoire of songs.

        After that, we wandered

      • Kyoto Photos
        09/01/07
        All right, I promised photos, and here are some (but not all.)



        This is the temple, Kiyomizu, from a little ways inside. It's really high up on the mountains. Getting there was a hassle, but I'm glad we did.



        Washing my hands in holy water! The d

    • August
      • Kyoto
        08/31/07
        After a fairly boring opening ceremony, those of us who signed up for the Kyoto trip gathered in front of the CIE (Center for International Education or somesuch) building.

        Now, when they told us it'd be a Kyoto trip, I expected an actual tour. Y'know, we'd get a bus that

      • Fireworks
        08/30/07
        I don't know why, but there was a fireworks trip offered today. I was pressured by some friends to come along, and I caved pretty quickly.

        We went out to a field maybe a ten minute walk from the Hirakata station, and everybody proceeded to have fun with the sparklers. It's kind

      • Japan!
        08/29/07
        All right! I am in JAPAN right now.

        Basically, what's been going on since I left:

        I arrived in Osaka (well, at the Kansai International Airport) and got shuttled to the Seminar Houses. I got lucky and didn't have any roommates until Tuesday. *_* But now I do, and they

      • How this works
        08/29/07
        So for anybody who's dropping by here after I sent them a spam-mail...

        Basically, I'm gonna post about what's been going on in Japan here. You can comment all you like, although please be nice and polite about it. Feel free to share the link with anybody you think might be