of foxes and other animals

On Sunday, I went to the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha, a shrine dedicated to Inari, the god of rice (and business). Scattered throughout Japan are a bunch of temples dedicated to this god, but the one in Fushimi is the largest and most famous. It's beautiful. I met with Adam and Cecelia in the late morning, had lunch at a takoyaki stand right next to the train station, and then we made our way to the shrine.

The actual shrine part is fairly accessible, but the really famous part is the hike up the mountain, the trail of which is lined by torii, which are the red/orange gate-looking things in the picture above. Walking through torii after torii was pretty trippy. I don't have all that much else to say about the hike; words--aka my really out-of-practice English abilities--would not be able to properly describe the experience. I think anyone who visits Japan should go to Fushimi Inari to check it out personally.

There was this really cool, random flower growing in solitude in a space along a trail by the shrine (wow, that was too many prepositional phrases right there). Adam and I took probably far too long taking various photos at various angles. It was really neat though. Only after I returned from the shrine did I realize that the same flowers are actually growing all over the place. My observational abilities are clearly far from keen.

I was really shocked by the various animals that just pop up. As Adam said, I can see how the concept of Pokemon is fairly feasible in Japan. Rather than the normal pigeon or spider, we were greeted by a large caterpillar, some feral cats, and two MONKEYS! Yes, that's right. Wild monkeys. They came really close to us too. I was standing probably less than two feet away from a wild monkey. I think we did something to piss off one of them though; the one closest to Cecilia started freaking out and attempted to attack her. With her mad ninja skills, she managed to avoid the attack. (I'm totally playing this up because it really wasn't that dramatic. But I swear, she did almost get attacked). The monkeys were blocking our path, so we couldn't really leave. Luckily, Adam randomly had a banana in his bag, so he threw it into the forest to distract the monkeys, and then we took our leave. It was definitely an unforgettable experience.

Today I went to the calligraphy club, again. At first it was mad awkward because the person I had been in contact with was not there, and apparently never goes there (there are two campuses and, thus, two calligraphy club locations), so I had to get acquainted with a new set of people. I think Japanese students in the shodo club are far less outgoing than the ones I've been associating with up until this point, so it was a little hard to make conversation. But since everyone was pretty focused on their activities, and I eventually was too, I didn't mind too much.

I arrived there at around 4:45 pm, and at 6 pm, much to my surprise, an actual teacher came by. I was under the impression that the club was just students doing their thing, but they actually have an expert come in and teach them stuff, as well as correct their writing. He taught me a bit about basic stuff, and I proceeded to sit there, until 8 pm, practicing. I got totally absorbed in writing, and the time just flew out the window. Calligraphy is so interesting. And really, really calming. It's nice to have some time to clear my thoughts.

Because I was at the club so late, I missed my potential second BlazBlue tournament in Japan. But I hadn't practiced much, and the calligraphy club only meets once a week, so it sat at a much higher priority than the arcade. Actually, I went to the arcade on Tuesday anyway... I played a couple different fighting games to check it out, but BlazBlue definitely still remains my favorite. Nate heard/read/somehow obtained the information that Melty Blood is also a really good game, so I tried it out, and it's pretty fun. It's very beginner-friendly. Fighting games are the best!

I'm off to Okayama for a school trip tomorrow, and the bus ride there is five hours, which is why I'm awake writing rather than sleeping. I'll be able to catch up on sleep during the ride there. Okayama's in Japan's countryside, so it's supposed to be extremely beautiful. I'm excited!!

a storm of the best kind

Typhoons are my friends. I woke up at seven this morning, as always, and went downstairs to find out that my classes had been canceled for the day because of a typhoon alert. I had the option of either going back to bed and sleeping to my heart's content or waking up and doing something that a functioning member of society would do. If I were in America, option one would have been the way to go, but since I need to make the most of my time in Japan, I opted for option two. It was a good choice indeed. I'm amazed at how much one can accomplish by waking up at seven in the morning and doing nothing but productive things.

After taking my time with breakfast, I headed to school, despite the rain, to meet up with Nate and learn some programming. Yes, I am learning programming. Yes, it is extremely fun and rewarding. Yes, I feel like I owe Nate something huge because he's patiently teaching me stuff. So far, I made some colorful circles and stuff. It's amazing how something that looks so simple can give one such a sense of accomplishment. I know I was just doing some super basic stuff, but still! It felt awesome. I can't wait until my brain can actually get a full grasp on the basic concepts so that I can cram more programming-related stuff in there.

Since I had free time today, of course I went to the arcade as well. For the first time, I did not play BlazBlue, but I decided to try out another game instead. I settled down with Arcana Heart, which is another fighting game with nice aesthetics. It was fun, but I had no idea what I was doing. I still have no idea what I was doing. I'm going to look up the basic gameplay right after writing this entry, and maybe my arcade experience will make a bit more sense. I know the game involved some characters and some elemental monsters. That's about all I could glean from playing.

Both my host mom and host brother, Miwa and Hiro, respectively, do tea ceremony (sado), one of Japan's well-known tradition arts. They have lessons every Wednesday, but since their schedules are different, they usually go at different times. Usually Miwa goes in the early afternoon, and Hiro goes in the evening, after school. Lesson times are open anytime between 10am-5pm, I think. However, because of the typhoon, Hiro's school got canceled as well, and he and Miwa were able to go at the same time. Since my classes had been canceled and I had a pretty free afternoon, they invited me to go along with them and watch their sado lesson.

I was with Nate at the time, so we both went to watch. I was nervous about inadvertently being extremely rude, so I was glad someone else was there to be nervous as well. Hiro went through his lesson first, and it was interesting to watch someone who's usually so energetic and bubbly perform a quiet and deliberate ritual. He's been taking lessons for three years now, and he seemed very comfortable with the whole process. I was amazed, however, because even after three years, he still got corrected plenty by the teacher. I never thought that where you place your feet on the floor or hands on the water pot could be such a crucial thing.

Speaking of the teacher, he is ninety-five years old and extremely healthy. I think such a meditative ritual as tea ceremony must do worlds for one's mental clarity. Unfortunately, I could barely understand him when he talked to me because he spoke with a pretty extreme Kyoto dialect. I'm also not particularly skilled with Japanese, so that might have been it too... Anyway, Nate and I had to leave after Hiro's lesson because we had plans, and I felt bad that I was missing Miwa's turn. However, she said it worked out fine because she gets nervous easily while Hiro doesn't. It was better that we watched Hiro go through his lesson smoothly, and since we were leaving, Miwa said she could relax a bit. I think she was just being polite, but I really did feel a little less bad about leaving. I was definitely glad I went to witness the lesson though. All in all, the tea was delicious, the sweets that accompanied the tea were delicious, and the experience was quite enjoyable.

Afterwards, we met up with Adam, who had been doing nothing at home all day, and we just walked around the city for a while. We returned to the arcade for a short bit, and I watched Nate and Adam partner through a fun-looking taiko (Japanese drum) game. We returned to our respective houses after that. I ate dinner. Now I'm here. Yay! Typhoons are awesome.

the sun never sets for new adventures

I am so busy. I don't think I've ever been so busy in my life. Or been so happy with being busy either. Every day is so much fun! I truly feel like I'm using every minute of my day to its fullest extent, and it feels great going to bed every night knowing that there wasn't a single thing more that I could have squeezed into my day. Japan is wonderful.

Clearly, the blog updates in proportion to busy-ness rule still holds true. It's been far too long since the last time I posted up my life happenings for the world--aka the friends and family that care about me enough to read this blog--to see. Honestly, every day more exciting and fun experiences get added on to my list of things write about, and I keep putting off updating this thing for fear of being stuck writing forever. But I think that sort of defeats the purpose of having a travel/study abroad blog, so I'll just write a tad bit about everything, rather than exhausting myself going into depth about one thing and then stressing out about having neither the time nor energy to continue on in the same vein.

Starting from the most recent outing, I went to the Tokyo Game Show yesterday. Tokyo is not particularly close to Kyoto. Going was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I was hanging out at the zoo on Saturday afternoon with some friends, who I guess I should actually introduce because I will soon get really tired of writing "this friend" and "that friend." I was hanging out at the Kyoto Zoo on Saturday with Cecilia, Adam, and Andres. Just as we were buying tickets for the zoo, I got a phone call from Miao, asking if I wanted to go to Tokyo that night with Erica, Nate, and him. Since they were soon going to buy their tickets, I had about ten minutes to decide if I wanted to shell out about a hundred dollars for a round trip there, plus whatever amount I'd end up paying for the show itself, as well as for other diversions in Tokyo. Why the hell not? So my ticket was bought.

I returned home from my middle-of-a-typhoon trip to the zoo, shocked my host family by telling them I was taking an overnight bus to Tokyo that night and would be gone until Monday, and then did some homework before heading to Kyoto Station in time to catch the 12:10 am bus. Since I was a little late in responding, we couldn't all get tickets for the same bus, so we split into two groups of two. Nate and I arrived at Shinjuku at 6:30 am. We got to the convention center at 9 am. We waited in the blistering sun for an hour, and then entered the convention at roughly 10 am. I think we were both sleepy and hungry, so we spent the first hour in a slight daze, but after we finally located some food and regained our energy, we were able to wander excitedly around.

THEY HAD BLAZBLUE CONTINUUM SHIFT EXTEND. I mean, it's one of Japan's largest gaming conventions, so it's expected that they'd have a to-be-released-soon-ish, rather popular game, but still. I was very excited. Except not excited enough to wait in an hour plus line, so I watched, rather than played. I didn't mind too much; I was probably too sleep-deprived to gloss anything useful from playing anyway. Nate and I met up with Miao and Erica later, and since we were all way too exhausted to stay and deal with the crowds, we headed toward Akihabara for dinner, and then after that, to our bus stop so that we could catch yet another overnight bus. I actually still haven't gotten any real sleep since Friday night, which is probably why my writing is all over the place. Anyway, that was my Tokyo day.

I didn't ditch class; we had a three day weekend. We have another one coming up, so this day will be a three-day school week.

On Friday, I went to a no play, which is a traditional Japanese performing art. It was part of my class. Speaking of classes, I actually ended up in the C Japanese class, which is exactly the middle level, so I'm rather satisfied. I'm also taking a class on pragmatics--language use in context--which focuses on Miyazaki films, such as My Neighbor Totoro, and a class on no and kyogen, which explains why I went to the play. Honestly, it was kind of boring. Oh well. I've got quite a few more to go to throughout the semester, so there's no point in whining. I'm sure I'll eventually understand enough about no to enjoy the performances more.

Right before the play, I went to check out Doshisha University's calligraphy club. I was all stressed out earlier in the week from having to contact the club representative via email and use formal Japanese, which I have pretty much completely forgotten. But, everything ended up fine, so I went Friday to check it out. The atmosphere was really nice. The entire room had tatami floors, and there were books, brushes, and various other calligraphy-related items scattered all over the room. Since I really want to learn proper calligraphy, I asked the club representative to help me learn the very basics, so I spent my hour there practicing how to write the kanji for "one." Surprisingly, I had a lot of fun. Cliched as it may be, there was something extremely peaceful about concentrating super hard on simply making the correct brush movements. All the clutter in my head just kind of faded out for a while. I'm definitely joining the calligraphy club. I, awkwardly, didn't introduce myself properly to the members, but I'll deal with that the next time I go.

The day before that, Thursday, there was a BlazBlue tournament at the arcade near-ish my school. I entered and lost promptly. I was aware that was going to happen, however, so I didn't mind too much. My goal is to enter every BB tournament at that arcade, which take place every other Thursday, and to hopefully, by December, at least make it to the next round of eliminations. I'm trying to be as efficient as possible with my time so that I can semi-frequently drop by the arcade to practice. Actually, I'm trying to be as efficient as possible with my time so that I can just enjoy my time in Japan to its fullest. Homework is important, but I'm here to experience Japan, and spending all my time doing homework is not a good way to do so.

I kind of don't remember what happened before Thursday. I'm sure it was fun though. My commute to school is really not nearly as bad as I originally had thought. I just walk 30 minutes to the train station from my house, or skate 15 on my longboard, ride the train for 30 minutes, no transfers necessary, and then walk/skate some more from the station to school. It's quite simple, and I get a decent amount of exercise every day.

I could keep writing forever, but the sleep deprivation from two consecutive nights of bus sleeping is finally getting to me. Who knows when the next time I can update this is, but I'll make an effort to write at least sometime. I haven't even been taking many pictures, which is really terrible. I am forgetting the essential rules of always carry camera and always take a picture when the slightest urge to capture the scene arises. I just made the wording up on the fly, but the rough concept has been in mind. Well, except for recently. Blabber aside, the point is that my camera is lonely. I just got a new screen protector for my camera; protecting the screen from scratches is about the best I can do since I don't really want to keep my camera in a camera bag. I feel like if I keep a camera bag, I'll be too lazy to whip out my camera to take pictures. Since my screen is now safe, I guess I can feel a tad bit more at-ease toting my camera round my neck/shoulder, or when that gets tiring, shoving it into my backpack.

I'm totally rambling now. On a final note for this post: my host family is really awesome.

the firebird alights

I met my host family yesterday. The family consists of the mother, Miwa, the father, Eno, and the son, Hiro. Actually the dad's real name is also Hiro, but since it could get confusing, he's using the first two syllables of their family name as his nickname. They've also got two dogs, Miru and Karu (short for Milky and Calcifier). The dogs are SUPER SOFT!! They're long hair miniature dachshunds. I've only known the family for two days, but I have a feeling that we'll get along really well. They're really relaxed people, and they really value cultural exchanges.

When they came to get me from the hotel, I was super taken aback because I was expecting just the dad to come, but all three of them showed up. Since they sent me a photo beforehand, I immediately knew who they were, but I was really just expecting one, so I suddenly got all panicked and nearly forgot all the proper introduction words. But, as soon as they started talking, I immediately felt at-ease, and I knew everything would be okay. They've hosted seven families in the past, so they knew what they were dealing with, and they asked me questions and started talking to me at just the right moments, so things never got awkward. After they got me from the hotel, they asked what I wanted to eat and I responded with ramen. Eno and Miwa both laughed, but since Hiro was like YEAH!! (in Japanese), I felt that my decision was okay. We had some deliciously delicious ramen, and since we were nearby, we then went to Byodo-in, which is one of Japan's national heritages.

Miwa and Eno said that Byodo-in is usually packed, but since there's a typhoon going on right now, there were very few people. The wind was pretty strong, but since there was no rain, I thought we were pretty lucky. The temple is featured on the back of the ten yen coin, so you know it's gotta be important! There are two phoenix sculptures on the roof, and you can even see them on the coin. It's kinda like seeing Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial on the pack of the penny. Being at the temple reminded me that Japan's got a ton of famous and historical places, so I can't waste time! I wanna see as much as I possibly can in these next few months.

Today Miwa and Eno walked me through how to get from the house to campus, and it's seriously so easy. Although it's a bit far, it's really convenient. I just walk straight for about twenty minutes to the train station, take the express train for half an hour, no line changes necessary, and then walk straight another fifteen minutes to get to campus. I've got my longboard, so the walking parts should go by even faster. I bought my three-month train pass, and that's all I need. I can pocket the extra money given to me for the bus pass and subway pass, which I probably won't buy. YES!! I start school tomorrow, so I better sleep early. I really am not looking forward to seeing how low I placed on the Japanese placement.

On the one hand, I don't wanna have to go to school and study, but on the other hand, when I'm in school, I'll be learning more Japanese, so I'll be able to say and understand more things with more ease, so I'm looking forward to that.

good shall always prevail

I took a placement test for Japanese this morning. It was terrible. I know I haven't formally studied Japanese in over a year, but still. The first part of the test was kanji writing and recognition, which left me with a feeling of doom. I think I left more than half of the sheet blank. I know the tests were supposed to get progressively harder, but I forgot even the most basic characters, such as the ones for "to study." The rest of the test was not much better. I felt even worse afterwards when I heard others saying, "oh my god, I can't believe I almost forgot *insert word here*," when I had absolutely no idea what the word even meant. The most frustrating part, however, was definitely seeing something that I'd learned in the past but had completely forgot. About a quarter of the blank ones were like that.

I guess the point of the placement test is to put one in their most comfortable Japanese setting, however, so at least I'll be learning at the level I really should be. And even though the higher classes will be learning more advanced stuff, that doesn't mean I can't study things like kanji on my own. Also, since I'm living in Japan, I'll get a ton more speaking practice than I'd ever get in any kind of class in America. That was a comforting thought, which made me freak out a tad less.

After the exam was a five-minute interview, which showed off my extremely shabby Japanese speaking ability. That's all I'll say about that.

Once the torture was over, however, a bunch of the students went to Nishiki Market, which is this famous street where there are a ton of little shops, mostly dedicated to food. At first I was a little shy about taking pictures, but after I realized that most of the shop owners didn't mind, I started using my camera more. I passed a couple fruit stands and then finally bought a fig for 200 yen, which, after taking the exchange rate into account, is very roughly $2.50. Fruits are EXPENSIVE!! But it was totally delicious and worth the money since I was craving fruit intensely. After walking around for a few hours, we returned to the hotel and then went to a dinner with the KCJS staff.

We had to stand through the entire dinner. It was one of those purpose-is-mingling dinners, and a lot of mingling did go on. Since everyone was talking though, it got super loud, and towards the end, I mostly stopped talking because I got tired of shouting. The food was delicious.

Yesterday I had a ton of fun! After sitting in the classroom listening to some extreme introductions and announcements, everyone split up into groups and were assigned two Japanese students who were going to take classes with us. My group of four American students got a girl and a boy, Maki and Masa, respectively, and they were really awesome. They took us on a tour of the campus and conversed with us in Japanese. I was really excited that I could understand what they were saying most of the time. Well, usually. Since Maki and Masa were both really understanding and explained stuff we didn't understand, I've gotten more used to actually trying to use my Japanese instead of being reserved and embarrassed about potential errors. I've spoken more Japanese in the past two days than probably my entire time studying Japanese in the States. I'm super pumped to how much my speaking (and listening and reading) will get better just by studying in Japan.

After we got back from our tours and did more school orientation stuff, we headed back to our hotel and then met up for dinner. All the students were assigned randomly to one of five groups, led by two or three Japanese students. I lucked out because I got the group with Maki and Masa again! We then ate at an okonomiyaki restaurant. Okonomiyaki translates roughly into "fried thing that you like," and it was basically a pancake made out of cabbage, eggs, pork, and some other stuff. But of course since it's a thing that you like, you can ask the to put stuff in or take stuff out to suit your tastes. The whole thing is covered in some sweet sauce stuff and mayonnaise. Honestly, I can't say I'm a huge fan of it. Although I can definitely eat it without a problem--it's not bad by a long shot--I wouldn't go hunting for it if I wanted to eat something. I'm usually a fan of either crispy or chewy things(with the exception of tofu, which is good in any form), so the texture wasn't really to my liking. It's kind of soft and squishy.

After dinner, I requested that we find an arcade, so my entire group schlepped to the arcade to satisfy my request. But the arcade didn't have BlazBlue!!!! I was really shocked since the arcade had four or five floors of games, but none of them were BlazBlue. I felt really bad for making everyone walk there on a fruitless search. On the bright side, my homestay is in Osaka, which apparently has a ton of arcades, so I'll probably be able to find it there. Or at another arcade in Kyoto since I only checked one so far.

Speaking of homestay in Osaka, I found out that I have the farthest homestay from campus. I thought everyone had about an hour commute, but I found out that some of my peers can bike to school in less than twenty minutes. Even though my house is far, I really don't mind. I may have to wake up earlier than everyone else, but I get to see a lot more places on my way to school. And I'll get to experience Kyoto and Osaka, which have very different cultures. Also, since the school subsidizes transportation costs and pays us in cash (I found out that I live the farthest because I receive the most money...), if I can find some way to shorten my trip, such as skating instead of taking the bus to the train station, I can pocket the difference for my personal spending--such as arcade visits! I'm quite happy about that.

Yesterday I got a sheet explaining how to get from my house to school, which involves walking to the bus station, taking the bus to the train station, taking the train, transferring trains, transferring to the subway, and then walking to campus. Although it seemed like a lot of work, I just though, oh well, no point complaining because there's nothing I can do about it. The only frustrating thing is that since I have to keep changing, I can't just plop down and do some homework or something on the way to school. HOWEVER. Today I visited the housing director, and she said, "There are two ways to get from your house. The first is the way written on your sheet, and the second way is faster, easier, and cheaper." Those are all things I like. She then explained to me that I can actually just take one train all the way from my city to a station near the school and then walk ten minutes to school. AWESOME!! I can now do work on the train and have even more pocket money to go to the arcade with.

I currently believe that Japan is the best place on Earth.