Catching Up

I'm pretty late delivering this blog, so I'm sorry about that. I'll try not to make a habit out of it. A lot has happened, and I've been pretty wrapped up in it all. Over the past week or so I've attended the Tokyo Game Show, dined with the company of one of my old Sophia University friends and a bunch of owls at an owl cafe, had my first day at elementary school, went canyoning with a bunch of other ALTs from Gunma, and attended the sports festival at my middle school. I really need to keep these write-ups coming fast and furious because if I don't I get all backed up with cool events like this.

Let's start with the Tokyo Game Show. For the uninitiated, that's an annual video game expo held in Makuhari Messe near Tokyo where publishers and developers show off and let people play all the coolest unreleased games...as well a ton of shitty unreleased games. People come from all over the world to attend the event, and while it's open only for the press its first two days, the second two are open to the public. I went with some friends two years ago and had a blast. I was bummed I couldn't go last year because I departed Japan just a week or two before the event.

That show is massive. It's held across three enormous halls and all of them are packed to the brim with exhibits and fans--people fans, not electric fans unfortunately. It was hot in there.

To give you an idea of the cool stuff I saw, I either got to play or watch demos for Bloodborne, Resident Evil Revelations 2, The Evil Within, Halo Master Chief Collection, Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, Kingdom Hearts 2.5, Borderlands The Pre-sequel, Evolve, Sunset Overdrive, Mighty No. 9, Oculus Rift stuff, Monster Hunter 4 on the New 3DS, Hyrule Warriors, Little Big Planet 3, and I don't even know what else. There was an obscene amount of media on display, but those were some of the highlights for me.

There were of course a ton of people in costume for the event as well, which is always fun to see. In this post in particular, I don't have room to post all the photos I want to on this page, so be sure to check out the link to all of my photos on the right sidebar over there.

To move on to my next little adventure, I met up with a friend in Tokyo I hadn't seen since I left last time. We had our sappy little reunion and then went out to eat at an OWL CAFE! I had heard a lot about cat cafes here when I came before--which are pretty much just little cafes where you get to hang out with a bunch of cats while you eat your food. That seemed okay, I guess, but I see plenty of cats back home. It wasn't until after I went back to the States that I learned about owl cafes. Those are pretty much the same deal as the cat cafes, except they're way cooler because you get to chill with a bunch of AWESOME SUPER-ADORABLE OWLS! That was maybe the most fun experience I had since I came back to Japan.

I stayed with my friend that night and went out to Shibuya the next day with her sister who didn't speak a lick of English. It was a little tricky, but it gave me a great opportunity to blabber in Japanese and practice my speaking skills.

I definitely want to head back to Tokyo before too much longer to see more crazy stuff and meet up with some old friends. It's comforting for me to know some people in that huge and ridiculous city.

I finally made my way to the elementary school I'm teaching at last Friday. I switch off on Fridays between visiting an elementary school and visiting a preschool--so I only actually go to that school every two weeks. I was out sick last time I was supposed to be there, so almost two months in I finally got out there. Even so, I didn't teach any classes because the kids were all practicing for the upcoming sports festival. It wasn't a normal day of school. 

I did get to go meet the principal, vice-principal, and a whole bunch of the staff though. I poked my head in a bunch of the classrooms and said hey to the students as well. They're so young. A lot of them are like 6 or 7 and still learning how to write in Japanese, so I can't imagine English will be a very intensive class. I'm just intending to introduce some simple phrases and vocab to them and then play some games in English with them.

Okay, moving on once again, I went to the canyoning event put on by our little student council of JETs thing with a whole bunch of the other ALTs. Just to explain canyoning briefly--I didn't know what it was either--it's basically gearing up in a bunch of pads and swimwear and then floating/sliding/jumping/falling down a series of rapids and waterfalls in a river. It got off to a pretty slow start, but then next thing I knew we were jumping off a 6-meter waterfall, so yeah, that was pretty exciting.

There was more to the event too. There was a big BBQ that night where we all grilled our own food. One of the guys with me there was a super awesome cook who turned what would have already probably been a good meal into a crazy delicious meal. He grilled the steak, chicken, pork, and everything, and I did a lot of veggies and fried noodles. It was a lot of fun just hanging out, grilling, and eating with everyone. Less fun was the after-party where everyone got smashed and chose my room of all places to coalesce. It was fun for a bit, but less so when I'm wiped at 3am and there are 15-people just hanging out in our 4-person room.

Just to briefly cover the most recent event, my middle school is presently in the middle of its school sports festival. (I took a break to come in and write this :P) The entire school is participating in this day-long event involving relays, long jumps, races, timed sprints, vaulting, 30-person jump rope teams, and a bunch of other things. One more nice thing is I don't have to teach any classes today. I just get to watch the events and hang out with the students and staff. Not a bad way to start a work week.

Okay, this is almost certainly one of the longest posts I've written on this blog, so I'm gonna go ahead and wrap this up. Again though, I have a lot of great photos I didn't have room to include as a part of this post so please be sure to check out the link to my whole album over on the right so you can see all the cool goings on over here. Also, I always appreciate comments and feedback, so if you want to please leave me a comment here or on Facebook, like and share my posts, and all that. Some people have told me that they can't comment here because they don't have an account. You can sign in with your Google account--which you already have if you use Gmail, among a few other options. I can't do anything as far as I know to allow anonymous comments though, so I'm sorry about that.

Anyway, as always, thanks for keeping up with me, and please look forward to the next exciting update.

Until then!

I'm a Teacher?

This is the front entrance to the school. There's a lot of
construction happening right now though, so it's a bit messy.

Well I've successfully completed my first week as a teacher. People keep calling me "mister" or "sensei," and it's really frigging weird. I keep telling them to stop. I had nine classes between Monday and Friday that I either taught or helped teach. I went to a hoikuen on Friday, which is like some sort of preschool daycare thing. Those kids were so cute! My middle school has three grade levels that I think correspond to 7th, 8th, and 9th grades back home. Each grade level is divided into three classes, so there are 9 classes, plus a special needs class for 10 total here.

My 1st years are secretly my favorites. Don't tell the 2nd and 3rd years. The 1st years are way into English class and really seemed to enjoy my self introduction lesson. The 2nd years weren't there last week, so who knows, maybe they're awesome. My 3rd years just did not give a crap, though. I have a number of questions with prizes throughout my lesson to keep the kids awake, but it just did not work with the 3rd years. One of the 3rd year classes was actually pretty good, but the other two were either almost or actually asleep throughout most of my lesson. Oooohhhh weeeellll.

The bike ride to school is really pleasant.
I pass through a ton of rice fields.

I covered a few basic things about myself like my name, age, height, favorite food, and where I'm from. I talked about the redwood trees and beaches in Humboldt County, plus some local events like the Kinetic Sculpture Race. I broke it up with some American and Japanese media I like and tested the kids to see which they knew. If they answered my questions correctly they got a super-awesome American Pokemon card.

The school is pretty big. It's two buildings, each three floors. For whatever reason, 3rd years are on the first floor, 2nd years are on the second, and 1st years are on the third. I do a lot of stair climbing as I trek back and forth between the staff office and the classes. I also need to change shoes quite a bit, since you're supposed to have different shoes for indoors and outdoors. I come to school in one pair of shoes, change to a different pair when I go inside, then if I go to the gym, I have a third pair of shoes. I think you're actually supposed to have even more pairs for various other occasions but I don't have enough room in my bag for that.

Various awards displayed prominently at the entrance, of course.

The staff has been super great too. There are three JTEs here (Japanese Teachers of English), and they're preeetty much the only people here other than me who speak English. I'm getting by pretty okay with my so-so Japanese though. Everyone keeps telling me how good I am, but I still have a ton of trouble understanding people, so I don't feel like I'm that good. I want to take the Japanese Language Placement Test every year I'm here and move up by one level each time. We'll see if I can actually accomplish that. The test goes from level 5 up to level 1. I would guess I'm somewhere between 4 and 3 right now, but I don't really know.

In addition to my self-intro lessons I've helped the JTEs with a couple of standard English lessons. The kids are learning basic stuff like "I like," "I have," and "this is." It's really surreal seeing like the inverse of all the worksheets I was doing when I started learning Japanese. Now all the directions are in Japanese and the questions are in English. I've also taught the special needs class twice now. It's a really small group and they're pretty mellow so that class is a nice break from all the high-energy 30-student classes.

This is the hallway right outside
the staff room. You can kind of
see my desk.

On Friday I went to the preschool and played a ton of games with the kids there. I was just there for an hour, but in that time we played 4 Corners, Simon Says, Duck Duck Goose, Blob Tag, I gave a little intro, the kids asked me a ton of questions, and they introduced themselves. Everything happened really quickly. I didn't think I'd like being around little kids so much, but they're all so happy and curious. They asked me the most adorable stuff like what my favorite animal is and if I like strawberries. I think I said giraffes for whatever reason, and yes I like strawberries.

I'll be at that preschool every other Friday and at an elementary school on the other Fridays. I've already started in on my second week of work over here. This week the 3rd years are gone, and the 2nd years are here. I'll report in on all things 2nd year next week.

A quick note about photos of the school though. I'm not supposed to take pics of the kids, particularly if I'm going to put them online, so school pictures may be a bit barren. Sorry 'bout that.

As always, thanks for keeping up with me, and if you like these posts, please like them, share them, and/or comment on them. I love getting feedback. Let me know if there's anything you want to know and I'll try to cover it next time. Until then!

This Week's Post Co-Written by Food

And the cycle continues. Sun goes up, sun goes down. Tide comes in, tide goes out. And so it is, another week in the world's Fujioka-i-est city, another blog post. You can't explain that.

In the foil is yakispaghetti (grilled spaghetti), because Japan.

I'm usually one to scoff or roll my eyes when the start of a meal is impeded by someone with a camera, all too eager to take pictures of what I'd really rather be eating at that moment. But NO. Not this week. Lots of food pics for you. I've had too many amazing meals this past week to let them go...undigested.

This place was pretty much food heaven.
Be sure to check out all my pics via the link
over on the right sidebar. I have a lot of great
food pics from this place.

Tabehodai. Just take a minute to appreciate that word. Tabe...hodai. It means all you can eat. Last week I went to a sushi and yakiniku (grilled meat) tabehodai restaurant, accurately named STAMINA-Tarou. And it was magical. They had sushi and meat, yes, but they also had so much more: a fried foods bar, a full salad bar, a sweets and dessert bar, a full ice cream freezer, melon and orange Icee machines, a grill to make your own crepes, and even a freaking cotton candy machine. For the yakiniku, there was a whole refrigerated section complete with dozens of different thinly sliced cuts of meat. I loaded up on the essentials, headed back to my table, and cooked the uncooked items right there at a grill built into the table. That was probably the best meal I've had since returning to Japan. And it was just $20 a person! This place could prove to be my undoing.

This was, like, a shichishoku donburi
by the time they were done making it.

Let's move on to meal two. This one was at a local izakaya (what does that translate to--like pub?). It's kind of a place for drinks but they serve good food too. It was late and I was hungry, so I didn't put too much thought into my choice and ordered a sanshoku (three item) donburi, which is like a rice bowl with three kinds of fish in it. The person taking my order told me that they were out of one of the three kinds of fish. Whatever, I thought. Nishoku don, then (two items). What I did not expect was for the cook to go nuts with my food and make one of the most elaborate donburi I've seen, (I guess as an apology for not having one of the ingredients, or maybe because I'm just cool and foreign?) I felt really bad; it was delicious, but I ended up leaving about half uneaten just because it was so filling. Sorry, super nice izakaya lady.

It was so nostalgic being back in their house again.
I already miss them all again.

My host sister displaying the double
yolks of an egg she cracked open. 

Meal three I actually ate all the way over in Saitama with my old host family. I got in contact with them a while after coming back here to Japan and had been trying to find a time to meet up for a bit. We eventually settled on that weekend, and they actually let me stay back at their place again for a night, so I was there Saturday and Sunday. My host mom prepared a delicious sukiyaki meal for everyone (like meat, veggies, noodles, and all kinds of good stuff all cooked together in a broth). It was great to see everyone there again. I got to meet their newest host student as well, who's from France and just a few years younger than me. He's their 15th host student, I believe. I was number 10. Like I said, I stayed the night there and returned the next day after attending my host brother's soccer game, visiting the Tokyo Skytree landmark with my host dad and sister, and getting totally lost on the trains. I'm so happy I was able to stay in contact with them.

The 100% Full Power Final Form of my okonomiyaki.

Fourth and last notable meal for now was at an okonomiyaki restaurant. I...don't even know how to attempt to explain okonomiyaki, so just look at my pictures. It's like a disc-shaped grilled veggie/meat/egg/sauce/noodle thing. A lot of people call it a kind of pancake, but it's really really not. I ordered Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki because I had had that before when I was visiting Hiroshima and it was delicious. Just my luck, it also turned out to be the most difficult to make. So while most of the friends I was with just had to mix and egg in with a bowl of stuff, then throw it on a grill, I had to: 1. lay down a circular layer of batter on the grill, 2. start the noodles cooking as a separate disc, 3. throw the veggies and meat on the first one, 3. beat some eggs and start a third, eggy disc, 4. flip and cook all that stuff, and 5. assemble it all into a marvelous food stack. It took a few attempts and a while to make, but it actually turned out pretty great. I was surprised.

Work at my school has kind of started unofficially now, but I'll save that for next week's post when I can include some more details. For now, it's late and I should sleep. Thanks again for keeping up with me, and again, if you like my posts here, spread 'em around like okonomiyaki batter and like and share them online. I always love getting feedback in the form of comments too.

Until next time!

Week Two A-Go-Go!

Oh man, I've had so many adventures. How many? So many. Well, you know, a few, at least.

I'm starting to get settled in over here in my itty bitty li'l apartment. I've picked up a lot of the essentials like trash cans, garbage bags, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, plates, cups, silverware, and a few cooking utensils. Oh, and like a weird ground chair thing, because chair legs are for dorks.

A veritable banquet of deliciousness and nutritiousness.

I made my first trek out to the super market here, and now that I think about it, I probably should have taken some pictures of that. Huh. Well anyway, when I was here before I didn't really have to do too much of my own cooking because of host parents and such, but that's not the case anymore. I went with the intention of picking up enough stuff to get by for a few weeks, but here I am less than a week later and it's pretty much all gone.

Most of the stuff there I didn't recognize, and brands have a tendency to write all the relevant information on packaging in kanji because it looks cooler. Oh wow, you know that actually does look a lot cooler that way--EXCEPT NOW I CAN'T READ IT! I came away with some bread, non-distinct cheese, what I was pretty sure was cooked deli meat, some orange juice, a lot of probably yogurt, some salad mix that I couldn't find the expiration date for, and mysterious dressing. I didn't have any pots or pans at that point so my options were pretty limited. Anyway, so I had sammiches and salad there for a while. I want to figure out how to make some basic Japanese stuff like curry and miso soup so I'll be better prepared for next time.

Gunma-chan! He's a horse! I think!

I had another orientation a bit ago that took place in Maebashi, which is the capital city of Gunma. The info there was a lot more specific and relevant than last time. I got to meet Gunma-chan, which is ostensibly some sort of horse-thing. There seems to be a lot of debate surrounding that red dot on his face. Is it a nose or is it a mouth? No one can seem to agree.

Everyone stayed at a hotel in Maebashi that night, as it was a two-day orientation. I was surprised to find out that I had my own room. That was certainly a nice twist. I got a good sleep that night--but not before going out for a night of karaoke!

I really don't know why this is
Quarterback Karaoke. Do people
sing football songs? Do those exist?

I lived here for a year before, but never actually did karaoke. Well, no more! It was pretty fun. I sang along with a lot of songs, but didn't actually get up in front of everyone to do so. Maybe next time. There was a lot of love for '80s and '90s music, which I suppose isn't particularly surprising given the ages of most of the people here. What Does the Fox Say? of YouTube fame was probably the highlight. What are the odds a Japanese karaoke bar would have that in their roster? Good enough, I guess. It was an all-you-can-drink event over there as well, so I suppose that helped loosen everyone up a bit.

Good thing I played so much
Koto Hero in high school.

I attended a few cultural workshops the next day. I got to see a whole
bunch of nice old ladies playing the koto, which is a Japanese string instrument, before getting to try it myself. It was pretty cool. They put these weird fingernail-pick things on their fingers and then waggled them threateningly over the instruments to scare music out of them. There was like black magic going on there or something.

Who's that Pokemon?

I also got to attend a Japanese tea ceremony workshop where people served me food, called me lord, and bowed to me a lot. I could get used to that. What else...--oh, the calligraphy workshop! I think I was supposed to be practicing kanji there, but I kind of just wrote stuff in English and drew Pokemon. It's all good. They turned out pretty cool.

It was just a couple days ago that I got back. I haven't  been up to too much since then, just exploring the town and getting a few more things for my place. Two of the girls who are here in the program with me are out of town at the moment, so it's just two other guys and myself in our little foreigners circle. We've been playing some board/card/video games these past few days. Lots of Mario Kart, Munchkin, and Catan so far.

That's about it for me as of now. I go in to the Board of Education on the 25th to meet my JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English) and some more of my coworkers. School actually starts on the 29th, so that's when things are really gonna get rolling.

Again, if you like these posts, let me know. Leave me a comment, or share these on Facebook. It would be nice to hear back from you guys. A few people have asked about my apartment, so I'll be sure to include more about that in future updates. Until then!

Somehow managed to lose despite
my glorious and undefeatable army.

Back for Round Two

Back in Tokyo.
Do you know where this is?

Oh hey, hello there. Wow, it seems like only a few years ago that I was on here posting all kinds of cool and exciting adventures. How time flies...

Well, if you haven't been keeping up with me (or if you have no idea who I am), I should say that I'm back in Japan. And not as a student this time--no, no, no--I'm done with that chapter of my life, at least for now. I'm back over here as an assistant English language teacher through the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme.

It's taken so long to get to this point. I think I began applying for the position almost a year ago now, and it's been nothing but paperwork, essays, letters of recommendation, interviews, passport photos, and orientations since. I finally took off from the States about a week ago, so the wave of excitement is still washing over me.

After the 10 or so hour plane ride back to Japan, the program put the other JETs and me up at the all-too-ritzy Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo. I was rooming with two other guys, so I suppose it was a bit cramped, but hey, compare it to places like those capsule hotels and I'm not complaining.

The JETs start to trickle into the auditorium for orientation.

There was an absurd number of us staying there for those first few days--I would guess somewhere between 800 and 1,000. We were all there for two days of orientation and workshops before heading out to our placements on the third day. And oh man, those first few days were packed. In the first two days I had about 24 hours of orientation. Most of it was pretty general information, but there were a few panels with alumni who shared their advice and experiences. Those seemed much more worthwhile.

The thing I was struck most by was the sheer diversity of people who are part of this program. I met JETs from all over the US, from Canada, the UK, Spain, Portugal, and Italy just to name a few. Everyone was very friendly and outgoing, so it was easy to make friends and latch onto others' late-night dinner plans :P

I also got to meet up with a friend from the east coast I hadn't seen since I was last here in Japan. He's part of JET now too, so we had a lot to talk about.

Soup, salad, and pasta for lunch. Not very Japanese :/

I can't talk about my hotel stay without mentioning the food, because holy shnikies did they feed us. I was surprised after all the free meals they didn't slice us up and put us between a couple slices of rye. Just cultural differences, I guess.

After all of that was over, I headed out to Maebashi in Gunma prefecture for some more Super Fun Orientation Time happaneings, and from there I headed out to Fujioka (same prefecture) with my newly-acquainted supervisor. Taka...taka...something-sensei. I'm bad with names, particularly foreign ones. He took me to the board of education, introduced me, took care of some paperwork, and then showed me around town. He's a super nice guy, but he's definitely still new at this. He brought me to my apartment and gave me a couple bottles of wine as a housewarming gift.

On the bus to Gunma. Didn't take the train, unfortunately.

After speaking for months online with the other language teachers who are out here in Fujioka--in the same apartment building as me no less--I finally got to meet them in person. Everyone has been extremely warm and welcoming to me. I'm really happy that I've already got a little community of friends out here. There are six of us, including me. They took me out to dinner my first night here at a local izakaya (pub-kinda deal--I'm not exactly sure how that translates). We all got to know each other better that night, and I've hung out with pretty much all of them individually since then.

Went out with some buddies for parfaits.

Most of my time here in Fujioka has been spent unpacking and setting things up in my apartment. Usually a new JET will replace an old one, which means they get their old apartment with all the accessories and furnishings, but I'm not replacing anyone out here, so my place is pretty bare-bones. I'm slowly accumulating the necessities like dishware and furniture, but I've still got a ways to go. I figure I'll wait to do anything too drastic until I get my first paycheck on the 21st.

It's rather late and I'm fading over here, so I apologize if this post has been rather general. I know I'm missing a lot of the details, but a lot has happened. Now that I'm here all safe and sound things are starting to slow down, so next time I should be able to cover things a bit more in depth. School doesn't start until the 31st, so I've got until then to prepare myself for the kiddies. I'll be teaching junior high most days, by the way, so that's my demographic. Do junior high kids still like Pokemon cards? I brought some over from the States for them. Hmm.

The view from my apartment.

Well thanks for staying with me this long. I appreciate you taking an interest in my life over here. I'm going to make a request though. Last time I was blogging over here I turned out to have way, way more readers than I thought. I figured there were just a few people because I only ever heard from a couple. It turns out most of you are just the silent type, I guess. So if you like what I'm doing over here, let me know. Leave me a comment, like my post, or share it on Facebook or something. I'm curious what all you people back home think of this, so let me know what you're interested in hearing about or ask me some questions.

That's it for now. See ya laaateeer~

Wrapping Things Up

I'm back home now, and will remain so until I head back to Japan for my second semester at Jochi toward the end of March, but there's so much that happened since my last post; I feel I should at least attempt to cover it and provide some sense of closure to my first semester in Japan.

To recap the final day of the Hiroshima/Miyajima trip, I took a series of gondolas up to the top of the mountain on the island and got to see for miles around. It was pretty cool getting to see the Pacific Ocean from the other side. Looking back on it, I think this trip was my favorite thing I did in Japan. The lodging, food, activities, company, and of course the deer were all amazing. And to think, I almost didn't make the trip because of a nasty stomach bug.

Christmas is also worth writing about. This was the first Christmas I spent away from home. Even if it was because I was living in Japan, it was still kind of sad. However, a package arrived from home bearing all kinds of awesome gifts for my host family and myself. I guess traditionally kids are the only ones that get presents on Christmas in Japan, so my host parents were pretty taken aback when they received their own presents from both myself and my family. It was a pretty low-key Christmas overall. We opened a few presents in the morning and that was about it for holiday happenings. I ended up getting together with some of the dorm kids and eating KFC for dinner that night. For whatever reason, tons of people get KFC on Christmas in Japan. That's certainly one of the weirder traditions I discovered in my time there.

While Christmas is something of a passing "meh" in Japan, New Years is a cause of major celebration. On New Years Eve, my host family and I went to a local temple and watched the Buddhist monks perform some sort of ceremony I didn't fully understand and heard them ring the gong 108 times, as is custom. We also went to a Shinto shrine and waited in an absurdly long line to toss a coin into the prayer box and pray for happiness in the new year. The next day we ate traditional Japanese New Years food and my host siblings and I even received little red envelopes with a bit of cash--another New Years tradition.

Before winter break was up, I went skiing at Mt. Naeba with my host family. I hadn't been skiing in quite some time, so I was a bit nervous about the trip, but I ended up having an excellent time. Maybe it's just because I'm taller and stronger since I last went skiing, but I felt much more capable than I ever had before. I tackled some challenging runs and came out relatively unscathed.

School eventually started up again and classes started to wind down before suddenly ramping up for finals. Those were quite the pain, but I eventually got through them. I was reminded once again while preparing for my Japanese final just how much I had learned while there--and I still have a whole semester ahead of me. I'll likely be even better in the language by then. It's pretty exciting to be honest. I still don't actually know how I did in my classes, and I won't until sometime in March, but I feel confident in my work.

With finals done, school ended leaving just a few final days before everyone said their goodbyes and headed their separate ways. I somehow managed to pack all my things into just two suitcases and went out for one final trip to Akihabara with a friend to pick up some souvenirs for people back home and get dinner at the Gundam Cafe (which was obviously awesome). I eventually said my tearful goodbyes to Yoshimasa, Tomomi, Akimasa, Momo, and Takamasa, hoping that my next host family would be even half as good to me as they were. The trip back was over 20 hours in all, but I actually ended up back in the states a few hours before I left thanks to the magic of time zones.

It was wonderful to be back in my own bed after so much time, and to see my family and friends back home again, but I miss the sights and lights of Japan. I'll be heading back in around a month, so I'm presently just enjoying my time back at home, knowing I'll get another chance to see and do all the things I meant to during my first semester in Tokyo. I'll also try to be better about keeping my blog regularly updated next semester. Thanks for staying with me this long, dear reader. It's been a fun ride.

~ ネーサン

Hiroshima Trip, Day 2

The next day started out with a breakfast buffet at the hotel. These places usually get a lot of international guests, so their breakfast items skew a bit more western than is usual for places in Japan. I took advantage of the circumstance to have my first bowl of cereal since mid-September. It had been so long!

One of the many memorials for the bomb victims.

Most of the day was focused on highly depressing World War II A-bomb exhibitions. We went to a number of museums and peace memorials and talked with an A-bomb survivor who was just a little girl 2.4 kilometers away from the bomb when it went off. We also heard a talk from Dr. Robert Jacobs of the Hiroshima Peace Institute about the history and development of nuclear weapons.

I don't really want to spend too much time on this, because while Hiroshima is certainly a historic site and host to one of the most tragic losses of civilian life in modern history,  I could only take so much of it. Walking from exhibit to exhibit displaying videos of dying Japanese children with radiation burns and maggots in their wounds and wax models of mothers and babies with their skin melting off of them was just emotionally draining. Everyone in the group was just shambling along with these glum looks on their faces. I guess I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn about this event right where it happened, but planning all of that for the same day within the span of just a few hours probably wasn't the best way to go about educating us.

Moving on.

Where are all the buildings? I forgot land could be green...

Late in the day we headed to our final destination: the island of Miyajima. I have to say, the Miyajima visit has to be my favorite thing I've done since coming to Japan. I'll get more into it in a future post, as we spent all of our third day there. We took a train from our Hiroshima hotel and crossed the water on a ferryboat. When we finally arrived, we were met by a place completely different from anywhere we had gone before. The island was very rural and covered in lush greenery. The island is famous for its giant red tori gate sticking out of the water, and its enormous population of adorable sika deer. These deer were everywhere, and unlike the skittish deer from back in the States, these ones would come right up to you and let you pet them. They just walked the streets alongside the visitors. There were a lot of incredible things on this island, but for whatever reason, the deer stood out to me the most.

I still can't believe the view we had from our room.

We checked into our traditional tatami-matted rooms in groups of five. It was indeed a lot of people to a room, but the rooms were actually rather spacious, so it wasn't a problem. Of course students were divvied up by gender, and there are only five guys in our program, so we were all in the same room. We dropped off our stuff and used the remaining time before dinner to walk the streets and check out the shops. They had those katana-hilted umbrellas for the equivalent of like $10. I really wanted to pick one up, but I never got around to it. Ah, well.

We headed back to the hotel after a while, changed into our (provided) yukata, and had a traditional fixed-menu Kaiseki-style Japanese dinner. There were too many dishes to count. There was some pretty weird stuff on my plates, but I made a point of trying everything. I remember there was tuna, squid, salmon, oysters, miso, rice, fruit, custard, a fish's face, lots of veggies I didn't recognize, tempura, aaand . . . other things I can't remember. I tried a fish eye, and yep, that was pretty weird.

The deer! They were everywhere!

After dinner, pretty much everyone headed over to the hotel's public baths for a relaxing way to wind down after the long day. The public nudity thing is still a bit weird as a foreigner, but I'm getting used to it. Note that these were indeed divided by gender.

Everyone eventually headed up to their rooms and stayed up way too late before finally calling it a night.