Crossroads of the Rising Sun

First, I must apologize for the large amount of neglect this poor little blog has received. *bows to the readers* From now on, I promise to everyone out there in the internet world that that little blog is going to be loved and nurtured.

As I start dusting off this poor neglected blog, I feel it is time for a little change, one that will make me more motivated to write and others more motivated to read. I am going to add some of my favorite topics of interest to this blog, and add more of a free range, as long as it deals with Japan, I am writing about it.

I started thinking this when I tried to motivate people to do things like go to anime club, or even just watch some of the things I have in stock. I love Japan, but making every entry talk about when I went there can get redundant. So as our good ol‘friend Emril says on his cooking show, “Time to kick it up a notch! BAM!”

So yes, bam. Some of my goals are going to include a weekly update of any anime or manga that I find interesting this week. There are so many things out there, I will be talking about the good, the bad, and the things you just have to see to experience how horrible it really is. But before I can start any weekly updates (I will try my best for the weekly part, if I am lagging behind please someone yell at me, punch me, kill me even, but leave my corpse around so I can still get the updates done!) I need to first define these words that I am using. When I use the word anime, I am referring to any Japanese Animation, it is the shortened word for anime that is typically used in Japan and by any Japanese Animation follower. Different from cartoon, which would be any animation at all from anywhere in the world, usually the things you see on Saturday morning trying to sneak in some lesson about how to be a good person. Now when I use the word manga, it is in reference to any comics drawn in Japan, and sometimes by Americans, but are comics that are very far different from anything people would find in Marvel or DC (yes even though I am obsessed with Japan I actually do know of things made in America). As time goes by, these definitions will become clearer. I hope to review these so that I can spark an interest in not only the people who also love Japan, but also people who are Japan curious and just want to flirt with the dark side. Don’t worry, we don’t bite… too hard. ^_~

Now, it would be silly to JUST write about anime and manga, but I have decided to write about other parts of, I guess you could say, Japanese art (Can someone give me a better term?) culture. I am going to share what I know about music, social issues including otaku and hikikomori (I will save explanations for a later post), and if the issue ever inspires me, politics. And why not even some Drama too?

Crossroads of the rising sun 2.0

Maybe we should rename it is Crozzroadz? No, we will save that for 3.0. Now, for a taste of things to come. *starts mortal combat music*

Anime, as I explained is short for Japanese Animation. I will admit, I am a very large anime fan. The hardest question for me to answer is what my favorite anime is. After going over in my brain all the different anime I have seen, I feel that there is only one that I can introduce to this blog and feel that anyone who watches it will enjoy it in some shape or form.

The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi
rating 10 out of 10

Yes, I did just give it a rating of 10 out of 10 (I will be giving ratings to any anime that I post on this blog). A quick summary without spoliers.

Kyon is a normal guy, he live a normal life, and he is happy with it. Normal, until he meets Haruhi. Haruhi is a girl who just entered high school. She knows she is special in some way, and will do everything she can to make sure she IS special. She finds “regular humans” to be boring and wishes for the company of time travelers, aliens, and espers. As the adventure unfolds, Haruhi’s main goal is not to be bored, so she drags Kyon along to create the infamous SOS Brigade!

I cannot say more. The series actually is shown NOT in order. For example, the third episode you watch is actually episode 7, and the 4th is actually episode 9, the 5th is actually episode 3… Confusing? yeah so am I and I have already watched the whole series. Although it sounds crazy, it makes the series an amazing thing to watch, it keeps you guessing until the very end. The animation is also the best I have ever seen, this is a show where computer graphics are amazing, and they do not take away from the actual animation. Also, unlike normal anime, this one has a human feel to it, people move like they would in real life. I guess you could say it is the most life-like anime I have ever seen.

But enough of my ranting, check it out for yourself. You can buy the DVDs on amazon.com starting May 2007, or if you can’t wait, buy the manga at the nearest book store!

Before I start, I must first explain what a “conbini” is. Japanese people tend to take a lot of English words and incorporate them into their language, but instead of using the full word, they like to shorten things, air conditioner becomes “air-con” and convieneince store is “conbini.”

One thing I learned about Japan when I was there, they love their conbinis. Take their conbinis away, and the Japanese won’t know how to function in their everyday lives. Now a conbini is no simple convenience store. It’s a giant mass of goods produced for ease and convenience, at an every day low price. They are so popular in Japan, you see them more often than you do coffee shops in Lansing. There were many different conbinis around Japan, usually one area was dominated by one or two companies. The most popular are Lawson, 7-11, Circle K, am/pm, and Family Mart. All open 24 hours, and they all look exactly the same. There are many others, but that is what I remember off hand.

The names may sound like something from around here, especially 7-11, but they are completely different from our own convenience store. From the moment an American walks into one of these conbinis they will spot the differences right away, aside from everything being in Japanese, of course. For one, there are less snack type foods and more lunch type foods. A 7-11 around here will have the generic pre-wrapped sandwiches that no one really knows how old they are and is usually bought by the truck driver named Buhbuh. But in Japan, lunch time is conbini time. Businessmen, school students, everyone you can think of goes to a conbini to get their bento (lunch box). And these are not cheap quality lunches mass produced and growing mold, these are made inside the store by the workers and delicious. They are fresh every day, and when the day is gone, any food that wasn’t bought is thrown away. No leftovers, no mold.

I think one of my favorite differences, and something that I miss a whole lot is that they will warm up your food for you. Sure in some places here you can throw your food in a microwave, but it just feels more special that you always know you can get a hot meal even from a conbini. When ever you buy your food the cashier asks “Shall I warm up your food for you?” and you walk away with a piping hot cheeseburger for 120yen (about $1).

Now there are some really nice things about conbinis as I mentioned, but I think Japan is going overboard on the conbinis. For one, as I said before, there are way too many. It feels like there needs to be at least one conbini every 3 blocks or else Japan can’t function as a society. Why? Because these conbinis provide almost everything that people need for their lives. People are able to not only buy the nice food, but they can also pay their bills from these places, buy cell phones, pay their cell phone bills, print photos, and use the atm to withdrawal or deposit money. If you are to busy to spend time going to the store to order something then you can just go online with your cell phone and order what you need, and have it delivered to the nearest conbini. Don’t know what to get for dinner? Just order it on your cell phone and they conbini will have it ready for you when you walk in the door. Realize that you are holding a party? Then the store will cook you up a party tray. The possibilities are endless.

But that is where the problem begins; I was reading a survey in my Japanese class asking people if it would be a problem of conbinis suddenly disappeared. Almost 70 percent said they would have lots of problems if they were gone. 70 PERCENT! Think about that for a second, if all of a sudden there was no more 7-11 to go to for slurpees how many people do you think would have a problem? I highly doubt anything near 70 percent. Think on an even closer scale for those at MSU, how many people would have a problem if Sparty’s was gone? Maybe a little more, but still not 70 percent. My point is, the Japanese people are depending on these conbinis way too much. They always say that they are so busy, so the conbinis always try to please the Japanese people in every way they can. What ever they want they get, but now they have more than they need and they have become too dependant on it.

Sorry to all, midterms ate my brain and every minute of spare time.

So, I don’t know how many of my readers here have heard of a recent show, Heroes but it has quickly become one of my favorite TV shows.

Now I know what some may think, “Oh there is nothing good on TV anymore, no good shows, just washed up game shows and dramas about doctors.” Well, Heroes is something completely different, which makes me love it even more. First of all, it is a show about super heroes, how can that not be cool? Second, it has a cute and loveable Japanese character who has the ability to control time. Now if you cannot call that awesome, well then I don’t know what is anymore. I think the main reason why I love this show much is that it not only pulls my interest with a driving plot and exciting cliff hangers, but I always get so excited to see the Japanese character, named Hiro, and his friend as they travel across the US trying to save New York.

Hiro is the comic relief of this series, but he is also the character that drives the plot to something more than just drama with people with strange powers. Hiro want to be a hero. He is a regular Japanese businessman who has an obsession with comic books and other awesomely nerdy things, but he is also the first character and only character so far who wants to actually BE a hero, who wants to save people and help people, even the bad guys. He really has the personality of a caring superhero, but also a very lost and confused Japanese man in America.

Short back-story so far. Hiro is at work, realizes that he can control time. From that, and with his knowledge of superheroes, he concludes that he can also teleport. He decides to give it a test, so where does he go? New York… 5 weeks into the future. As he travels through New York, he gets into a few incidents, and discovers that not only is there an artist in New York who can draw the future in comic book form (which Hiro is also in), but that New York will be bombed. Right before New York is incinerated, he travels back to his home, tells his friend about the future and somehow convinces his friend to travel to New York with him to, as any true hero would do, save the world. He gets to, I believe, California, then they drive the rest of the way to New York, right now, they are in Nevada.

I think the reason why I like this show so much is that it opens up Japan to the United States, it actually has JAPANESE in the show. An American TV show that actually has Japanese in it, people actually speaking the language on an often basis, not just once and then never again. It is realistic. Of course, not every random Japanese person is going to know and understand English, and Hiro has to bring his friend to America with him so that he can actually travel in the United States. It is not just BAM these people know English now. No, Hiro has to learn it. I think this gives a more realistic image of not only Japanese but also foreigners. As Americans we expect people to know English, we expect people to know everything we are saying, and to throw a poor guy from Japan into a plot that takes place in America, which makes many communication problems as well as issues dealing with culture. I have heard complaints about the fake Japanese accent. Honestly, after spending so much time in Japan, people who don’t know any English sound worse than that. What Hiro does is actually makes it slightly more Americanized because a true straight from Japan accent is so hard to figure out at times, it can be very very hard to understand. I think for the sake of flow of the show, and American listeners, they had to make it more organized just so that we could follow the guy better. Now I am not trying to say Japanese are horrible at English, but sometimes when I talked to people, it was just easier to listen to them in their native tongue than in my own. That’s another reason why I love the Japanese aspect, you get to hear the two men speak and bicker in Japanese. Sure, it is only helpful for a very small target audience, Japanese people and people learning Japanese, but it adds an element that they NEED to speak in their own language because they don’t understand what’s going on. On that level, it adds a realistic view on how foreigners must feel when being here, how I felt when I was in Japan.

So, I know this blog post included a lot of gush about the series and about the character Hiro, but even the villain of the series says that Hiro’s power is “pretty cool.” That has to tell you something!

Some other things to check out is this is the main website for Heroes, it has a blog from my hero, Hiro. It also has the graphic novel version of what is happening, stuff that you don’t see in the show.

Ever since I left Japan, I have wanted to go back. Even if it just for a week, I would be happy. Last week, I went to the Study Abroad Fair at the Union and the first place I walked to was the JCMU table where it had Japan and many other Asian countries. I talked to people about how amazing the experience was in Japan and how much fun the classes were. The more I talked about Japan, the more I missed being there. Eventually I decided to walk away and go to other booths.

I finally found myself at the Communications Arts and Sciences College booth and I was looking at all the different places I could go with my journalism major. I did not want to go on a long trip, but possibly one that was less than a month, preferably 2 week, I was asking around, and the only study aboard trip within the college that was two weeks was a trip to Japan.

This trip was a class on the Japanese technology and games and they try to teach the culture of Japan to the students as well. I felt like the gods of study abroad made this trip especially for me. To be able to spend a week in Tokyo, going to different companies, talking to them and learning all the different aspects of these companies is the same thing I want to be able to do when I graduate. Also, the trip spends a week in my favorite little town Hikone where they will be staying at JCMU! Oh how much I miss JCMU and all of the teachers and Lawsons, the 24-hour convenience store that was less than a 5 minute walk, and had sushi for extremely cheap. I think I will write my next entry about Lawsons…

Anyways, my only problem for this trip: Money. I was able to to go Japan this past summer because I recieved the Freeman-ASIA scholarship but now I have little to none left from my last study abroad trip, and this one would require $2500 just for the class alone. In addition, plane fair, which is about $1000 and the money to buy food and souvenirs, which can range from $500-$1000 because they are going to Tokyo. In total, the trip would cost me about $4500. That is something that no college student without a job has in his or her back pocket.

I pine for the day when I can return to Japan, and I would love more than anything to go on that trip. I know realistically, I cannot afford it. With my Journalism and Japanese background, this is what I want to do when I graduate. I want to work with these kind of companies in Japan, I don’t know exactly what I would want to do, but I know it would be a whole lot more fun than any newspaper. I would love to work with a magazine that writes about anime or video games. Heck, as long as it deals with Japan, I think I will be happy.

Last night as I was about to fall asleep from exhaustion, I was flipping through channels and then I found some random show that was actually a Japanese drama. I lost all interest in sleeping and proceeded to watch the show for the next hour. The entire show was in Japanese with no subtitles. It made me so happy to listen to Japanese once more, and realizing just how much I do understand now. Even though the drama was horribly acted, I sat through the entire thing just figuring out things the people were saying.
Times like this I really miss Japan a whole lot. The ability to learn a new language and slowly understand what everyone else is saying is exciting. To be able to speak in something that sounded so strange when I was younger just makes me quite happy. I find myself just trying to decipher as much Japanese as I can when I have free time. But I also find myself always so drained from my other classes that I don’t get to enjoy Japanese as much as I used to. By the time, I get to my Japanese class I am so exhausted it is hard for me to even participate, and every day we are learning about cool things.
I also miss seeing kanji (Chinese characters) everywhere I go. By the end of my trip in Japan, I would be able to read about half the signs I saw, if I went back right now, I feel that my ability to read would be much lower. Even though I am taking a Japanese class, it is not every day, so I do not force myself to study it every day.
My other thing is the fact I do not go to conversation hours for Japanese, every Thursday there are conversation hours at Owen Hall where Japanese people and Americans can just sit around and hang out and talk a whole lot. It is awesome practice, but by the time Thursday evening rolls around the last thing I want to do is leave my dorm, let alone speak Japanese. My own laziness is the problem, the need to actually reach out and have to find Japanese. I get apprehensive and when I start to talk to people, I feel like I am not going to make any sense. But the only way to improve that is practice and then more practice.
So overall, my biggest problem right now with being at home is I am lazy now. I work hard when it comes to school, but afterwards I just do not want to do anything else at all.

Interesting fact about Japan, there is a whole lot of porn. I saw more porn in Japan than I ever did in my life. I felt like everywhere I went there was something I could buy related to porn. Now this is not just magazines or videos, but also comic books (aimed at both guys and girls mind you) and video games. In an arcade you can play a porn video game, you can win porn just like you could a stuffed animal, they even had a place where you could win Zippo lighters with naked women on them.

Also, porn is not just for men in Japan. The females also have a very large collection to choose from as well, though not nearly as large as for the men. A very popular thing among teenage girls and up to their 20s is a line of comics that are all similar like a romance novel drawn out… only with more sex. These comics aimed towards girls would have things I would only expect to see in something aimed towards a guy. The biggest difference I found between attitudes of sex and porn when it comes to Japan and America is actually homosexuality. Every man’s fantasy in America is to have more than one woman, and of course, men love it when there a lots of girls around. Well Japan, it is the exact opposite. It seems that every Japanese girl’s fantasy is to have two men. Maybe it was just from my experience, but it seems to me that guy on guy is more popular than girl on girl. You could go into a used bookstore and buy a “dojinshi” which is a comic drawn by a fan of a certain comic drawn in the same style only telling a different story. Many times (but not all) these dojinshi would include the character of the story in a sexual relation with another character, a lot of the time of the same sex.

When I first came to Japan, I was amused to see a Japanese version of a Playboy in a store. I also thought that having Marilyn Monroe on the cover was a very awesome idea, so I decided to buy it. After I spent a while in Japan, the Playboy did not feel like porn at all. There is not very much nakedness in the magazine and well no sex at all. It has a very large contrast to the American playboy where there are scantly clad women on the front cover. Instead, the Japanese Playboy is presented more like a magazine, and it really is much more like one as well. All the other Japanese issues I found online also had very non-sexual thing on the cover, unless you find something sexy about Miles Davis… I find it very interesting that a big name like Playboy has a very different image in a different country.

Now with all this porn and such in Japan, it would make one believe that Japanese people are very open about sex, which actually seems to be the exact opposite. Even though porn is everywhere, it seems like it is there to look at, but not to buy. My friend made an experiment while she was there. She decided to go to a convenience store and but a set of condoms, to see if they would throw it in the generic clear plastic bag or if they did something else. Turns out they not only put the condoms in its own paper bag, but they also taped the bag, and then put it inside of a plastic bag. Once you buy your profane materials, you will be sure no one knows you are the pervert in Japan.

After scrapping my knee, ripping my jeans, breaking my gearshift, and having my chain fall off my gears today while riding my bike today, I want to go back to Japan.

Now this may seem silly, why would I want to go back to Japan after riding my bike on MSU campus? Because I miss the standard bike that almost everyone has in Japan. Steel frame, single speed, with a bell, light and basket. If a car hit you, the car would be more damaged than you or your bike. You did not need to worry about changing gears. And if anyone got in your way, you just ring that annoying little bell and people would move. And of course, the basket is the most useful invention on a bike because the whole purpose is to go places, and if you need to bring stuff, it makes it a whole lot easier! As soon as I got home, I decided I needed to keep up with riding bikes because it was such a convenient way to get around. However, Japan and America are two very different countries.

In Japan, everyone rides a bike, it’s rare to see someone who owns a car, and even more rare for them to have one of those fancy expensive SUVs. Gas is over $4 a gallon and no one can afford it. So, people are realistic, take a bike to the train station and then ride the train to where ever you need to go. The public transportation system in Japan was so good, that I never once needed to ride in a car to get to the places I wanted to go. Ever wonder why Japanese cars are so tiny? It is because the need something that can transport well while saving energy. The Japanese are realistic, they will set aside an entire parking area, not just a few racks, outside of a grocery store so that people can ride their bikes to buy food. Next to the mall, they will have a large area inside of a parking garage where only bikes are allowed to park. Imagine the way that wells hall is packed with bikes in the middle of the day. That’s what it is like in a ton of places.

Bike riding isn’t limited to people who are living on campus and need to get to class on time, it’s not limited to just students, it is for almost everyone who needs to get around. I would see mothers with two baby seats on her bike with her children strapped in as she went along. I would see people of every age riding their bike so they could get to work. In fact, in the city I lived in there was even a place right next to the train station where you could keep your bike locked up and safe and it only cost around $2 if you were going to be gone for more than a day. Japan is a good place to just ride bikes.

Now I am not saying MSU is bad at all, but there are a few things MSU could learn from Japan. First of all, especially on campus, traffic needs to be more aware of bike riders. That is one thing that seems to be a very large problem, causing a chain of other problems. A person riding on their bike cannot ride their bike on the side of the street because cars are not cautious of them. Then that person, who doesn’t want to risk being hit by a car, now must ride on the sidewalk. There are paths on the sidewalk for bikes, but pedestrians usually walk on them, and there are many people who walk while talking on their phone as well, so they are less aware of the bike riders that are on the sidewalk as well. Now I am not saying it is everyone else’s fault except for bike riders that bike riding around MSU is difficult. People on bikes are also not very courteous and instead of saying excuse me, they try to rush past the people on the sidewalk barely hitting them. I actually still have a scar on my arm from 2 years ago when a bike hit me because the guy decided to keep on rushing past people instead of slowing down. I think the biggest thing that everyone needs to learn is to be more respectful towards each other’s and aware of their own surroundings. That way less people will get hurt and inconvenienced.

Also, MSU isn’t the only place that students ride their bike, but it is the only place where the can safely ride their bike. Meijer really isn’t that far and would be only about an hour bike ride, but the problem is not the bike ride itself but the traffic going along Grand River. In Japan, you could ride down a busy street and not have to worry about crazy drivers, or drunk drivers, and there was always a sidewalk where you needed. However, there is no guarantee that there will be a sidewalk in all the places you need to go here. If there was a bike path going towards that way, I think it would be more helpful to many people, not just students who need an easy-mac fix. Maybe there is one, but I never heard of it or saw it.

I think that move over since gas is getting to be so high, and its only going to get higher, people need to find different ways of transportation. There is the bus system, we can ride our bikes, but Michigan does not have a very good train system, you can only go to certain places. And major cities don’t have things like subways… but Detroit does have that people mover… I think instead of worrying about making cars that use less gas, we should worry about other ways to transport ourselves. And hey, who ever said bike riding was bad for your health?

So I have been home for a few days and of course, I miss Japan already. It is sad to say, but it is actually harder to adjust to living back in America than it was to adjust living in Japan. The biggest difference between the two cultures, Americans are rude. Very rude. Of course, almost every person knows this, but you do not really see how extreme it is until you leave and compare it to something else.

My first experience trying to buy food in America after I came back compared to Japan is a good example. First, let’s give an example of going to a fast food restaurant in Japan:

Worker: “Welcome to our store! Have you decided yet?”
Me: “A cheeseburger and a large coke please”
Worker: “Your total is 555 yen please wait while I get your food… I am sorry to have made you wait. Thank you very much please enjoy your meal!”

Now let’s compare this to my first experience going to a pizza place in the Chicago Airport when I first got back:

Worker: “Yo, what chya want?”
Me: “Can I have a pepperoni pizza please?”
Worker: “$6.60… Here’s your food. Next!”

I was thrown off by the experience. I would have to say it was one of the many times I experienced reverse culture shock since I have been home. I got so used to the way things worked in Japan. When I came home, I forgot to leave those expectations behind. I have been itching to go to a Japanese market or a Japanese restaurant while at home, not because I want the food, but because I want the culture again. I want the respect that the people give each other, and the patience and efficiency that people seem to have. But everything in America is constantly moving no one cares if they are doing things the right way, as long as it is done.

Even though I complain, there are some things about America that makes me feel more at home and relaxed. I cannot have a random conversation with strangers in Japanese as I can in English. In addition, even though the workers may seem a little ruder here at times, you can also joke around with them a whole lot easier and there are not as many mental barriers. Americans may seem rude but they are a lot more willing to talk to strangers, and not just stare at them.

It is so hard to compare the two different cultures only because they are so different. There are good points and bad points of both America and Japan. I would assume it is the same way with every country. Once I got past the high of “Yay I am in Japan, I’m in another country”, I started to realize that like any other country it also had bad aspects. It also made me miss a few things about my own home.

The things I loved about Japan:
-The amazing public transportation system, never once did I need a car to go to a place I wanted to be.
-Cities like Kyoto, full of castles and temples, all open for public view
-The kindness of Japanese people, when I asked someone for help they often would go out of their way to help me out
-Anywhere you go to eat, you can get free tea
-No tipping!! If you give them a tip, they just give it back to you

The Things I didn’t like about Japan:
-The expectation that foreigners cannot speak Japanese, and then the surprise when they know we can.
-The confusing bus and train system. It takes forever to figure out.
-Because there is no tipping in restaurants, it is almost impossible to get your glass refilled with water
-Currency, it is so easy to spend money without realizing it because the smallest bill they have is worth $10, everything else is in coin
-Really big cities like Osaka, it was so big that it was almost impossible to find anything!

The couple of weeks following the weekend trip to Kyoto were full of projects, presentations, and exams. I ended up being so busy I did not get to go anywhere else. In the end, I never had the chance to go to Tokyo. It makes me sad to think I did not get to go, but going to Tokyo would have cost too much time and money for the trip to be worth it in the end.

The hardest part of the trip was actually saying goodbye to everyone. First, my conversation partner comes over to my apartment and we had one last dinner together and said goodbye. It made me so sad because I know I will not get to see her until I return to Japan. I can always e-mail but it is still sad. The hardest part was the graduation ceremony. It was the last time that everyone would be together before we all went home. I loved my teachers a whole lot, and as silly as it is to say I even cried a little saying goodbye to them. They were some of the best teachers I’ve ever had in my college career. They were always very strict and they always worked and pushed everyone to their fullest potential, and they always motivated us to do our best. They had a lot of faith in us and always pushed us to do our best no matter how impossible we thought it was. They made us learn a whole years worth of Japanese in 8 weeks, which in itself is insanely hard to do. More than anything, if I could go back to JCMU I would because of the teachers. However, I would never do the summer course again. Too much information in too little time. I would suggest the summer course for people who want to learn a lot of Japanese fast, but have at least a couple years of Japanese experience as well.

I went on a few more day trips before I left. After our final exam, I went to Osaka with my roommate, and we really did not like it at all. It was big, it was confusing, and we could not find any of the places we wanted to go. After we were in Osaka for a few hours, we decided just to go to Kyoto instead. Kyoto was on the way home, and the great thing about Japan is that you just walk up to the train station, pick your destination and go. You don’t have to make reservations or anything. You just buy your ticket and hop on the train. So we decided to go to Kyoto ate dinner and did some shopping, and then we returned for the night. Sadly though because we went to Kyoto, we missed the Hikone fireworks. I never got to see any fireworks while in Japan, but I heard from many people that they are a whole lot different from home. They make shapes and different things out of the fireworks. Even though I missed a few things, I had a lot of fun overall.

After the final exam, and graduation, we packed up our bags, cleaned up the apartment, and headed home. The plane ride was about 11 and a half hours long, plus we had a layover in Chicago. It was a very long day. However, I would deal with that plane ride any time to be able to go to Japan again.

On July 14th through July 16th my roommate, Laurel, and I spent the weekend in the city Kyoto. Kyoto was such a great city the first time I went I could not resist going back again and spending a whole weekend there. My main motivation for going to Kyoto was Gion Matsuri (Gion Festival). Gion Matsuri is one of the largest and most well known festivals in Japan. The festival lasts almost a whole month, but the biggest and most important day is July 17th, which was when they have all of the floats called Yamaboko filled with people and pulled by lots more people. Sadly, I was not able to stay for the biggest day, but I was still there for the three days before hand that are also really important. The three days before the main festival day this one street is closed down and decorated. It is PACKED with people.

So on Friday right after our midterm, we left for Kyoto. Our first goal when we got there was to find the ryokan (Japanese style inn) that we made reservations at. The ryokan was in an out of the way place and it required a lot of walking to get to, but it was also an amazing place. The room was beautiful. It had a very traditional Japanese feel to it, and it even had rice paper doors! Behind the doors in our room was a much smaller room with two chairs look looked out into a very tiny garden. The garden was very small and the view wasn’t the best, but for around $40 a night, it was a nice place to stay. The place also had a bath and a shower, which was also very nice for after walking around all day in the very hot sun.

After we got settled into the room, we decided to walk to where the Gion Matsuri was taking place. Bad idea. It was about a 45 minute walk to the area where the festival took place. We eventually walked to the Yasaka Shrine where the festival is based off of. The shrine was full of people, and there were lots of trinket stores inside the shrine area. Lots of places where you could buy hand made objects and lots of different types of food on a stick. The shrine was very big and it had lots of interesting things as a part of it. In the middle there was an area that had lots of lanterns and some gold things in the middle. We also walked around the area where the actual festival was taking place. There were a lot of people dressed in Yukata (cotton kimono) and it was just an amazing thing to see so many people dressed in such an old fashioned way. As we were walking around we saw a Maiko Geisha! I tried taking a picture but it is extremely burly. But you can still tell it is someone in some sort of very fancy Kimono. We also saw another Maiko Geisha who was wearing a purple Kimono. She was also very beautiful, but I had no time to whip out my camera to even try for a picture. They walk so fast they are ninjas when they are walking. It is like they know everyone is trying to take a picture of them so they go as fast as they can to escape them all. I would have loved to just stay on the side streets all evening looking for Geisha. They are my biggest interest in the Japanese culture. Maybe because they are so beautiful and talented, I am not quite sure, but they fascinate me quite a bit. Once I saw the Maiko I felt very happy and my trip to Japan was complete. Of course I still have a couple more weeks left, so I can’t quit just yet! After Laurel and I walked around the Gion Matsuri area for a while we decided we were very tired and returned to the ryokan. Of course walking still. It was only the first day and my legs were already exhausted!

The next day we woke up bright and early to start our day. Our plan was to go to two temples and a castle, and if we had time go to another place as well. Turns out we only had time to go to the first three places. The first place we went to was Nanzenji (Nanzen Temple). Nanzenji is a really old temple that is now known as a “Zen temple” which I don’t really understand the meaning of. But while I was there, there were many rock gardens and Zen gardens and it was an extremely peaceful area. You were not allowed to take pictures of the inside temple part, but you can hang out and enjoy the nice gardens for as long as you want. The inside parts had many rooms where there were doors painted with very old and historic paintings. It was a very peaceful and relaxing area to be at. We ended up spending way too much time at that temple. You can just be absorbed in just looking at the gardens for forever. We also went to the other garden Nanzen-In which was an area with its own waterfall and an area where you can walk around a pond. It was a very nice area just to walk around and such. It also had some great plants to take pictures of.

After Nanzenji we went to Nijojo (Nijo castle). This castle is quite different from all the other ones I have seen so far. For one, this one was all on one floor, so it wasn’t a giant castle shape like all the other castles. This was also a place where you weren’t allowed to take pictures of the inside, but you were able to buy pictures at the shop outside. nijo castle was an amazing place to walk around in. Literally. The castle is built so that when intruders some the floor creaks, but it sounds more like a bird singing than it does a floor making noise. These floors are called nightingale floors. The building was magnificent. Every room had an intricate design on the walls. The walls weren’t really walls but most of the walls were really doors, leading to more rooms. There were many secret rooms, and the only way to tell was because you had to guess which wall was really a wall and which one was a door. Plus they pointed out some of the secret rooms to us. One of the more interesting things I thought was the more important the person was, the more elaborate the design on the walls and ceiling were. The office and the room for the main guy of the place had huge rooms that had gold painted with designs like tigers, tress, and birds. Everything was just so beautiful. Also they had some rooms where there were wax figures so it helped the people imagine what certain rooms looked like when they were being used. I thought it was really interesting how a lot of rooms would have red tassels hanging off of the doors. Those rooms were where secret guards would hide incase things happened they would pop out of the doors. There was also another castle right next to Nijo castle but we weren’t allowed to go inside so we just decided to walk around and enjoy the beautiful area.

After Nijo castle we walked around the main street of Kyoto. It was so packed with people it took forever just to walk 100 feet. All of the floats for the festival were out for people to look at. There were also a lot of stands where you could buy charms and such to protect the buyer from certain misfortune. We eventually made it to or last destination for the day, Kiyomizudera. Kiyomizudera is a very famous area in Japan where it has a bunch of different temples all in one area. The most famous of which is the three waterfalls where the name comes from kiyomizu (pure water). People will try to catch from one of the waters falls, each containing their own believed therapeutic powers: longevity, health, or success in studies. Although I have heard conflicting ideas, some people say health while others say success in love. I think it is what ever you may truly believe. I choose the one for longevity. When we were at the temple, there was a group of girls who offered to give a free tour of the place. Laurel and I accepted so it was a lot of fun talking to new people and learning about the place we were at. There was also a place where you could go into a pitch black basement and then you find a rock that you turn. As you turn the rock you are supposed to make a wish, and as you exit the tunnel it is supposed to represent getting reborn into the world. Also there was an area where it had lots of shrines dealing with love and such. It was an interesting place to walk around. Out of the whole area I think I liked the area with the water the most. Plus the water was delicious! Afterwards we went to a place near by because it started to storm really badly, and we ate at a random noodle restaurant. We returned to our ryokan and then relaxed for the rest of the evening.

The next day we were exhausted from all the walking. But we still had more places we wanted to go! Our plan was to go to Sanjusangendo plus Fushimi Inari but we ended up only going to Sanjusangendo. Sanjusangendo translated means 33 spaces between columns. The building to so long, that when it was made it was named after its size and not its contents. Sanjusangendo is another place where you are not allowed to take pictures inside. That is because inside there are 1000 statues of the Thousand Armed Kannon, plus a very large version of the statue in the middle. Also there are 28 guardians surrounding all of the statues. These statues are considered to be very sacred, so it is forbidden to take pictures. Being in the hall was an experience I will never forget. They had a description for every guardian in English so I ended up reading the history of each guardian. I must have spent a very long time just standing there reading as much as I could. the statues were breath taking. I spent a lot of time looking at the many different Thousand Armed Kannon and just looking at how each of their faces are different from the other. I felt like each one was created with a different personality. They are called the “Thousand Armed” but really there are only 50 or so arms on each Kannon. But according to belief it is said that each arm can save many people, so even though they don’t have a thousand arms, they are believed to have the ability of a thousand arms. Sanjusangendo really felt like a strongly religious place. It was one of the few places I went to where it actually felt like everyone around me was praying with all of their heart. I think the actions of the people around me were just as influential as just being there looking at the statues. The entire area was beautiful. There was a pond next the entrance and it was just a really beautiful pond. We spent a lot of time just walking around looking at the area outside before we even went inside the building. After all of the walking around of Sanjusangendo, Laurel and I were really tired and just decided to go home instead of going to our last place on the list. I am glad we decided to go as well, as soon as we got onto the bus to get back to the train station it started to pour rain. We ended up being so tired from the trip that I fell asleep on the train on the way back! Luckily I woke up a stop before we had to get off the train. But after such a long weekend, I really needed some rest. Even though I was so exhausted afterwards, I am so glad I went on that trip. I got to see a whole lot of things in Kyoto I have always wanted to see. For that weekend we were trying to decide between Tokyo and Kyoto, but since the festival was going we went to Kyoto. I am really glad that we made that choice. It was a whole lot of fun and we did a lot of things I will never forget.

So I have a new sympathy for any foreigner coming to the US, because of dialects. I know how it feels when you try to go to a place, studied the language for a very long time, and then you can’t understand a word people are saying because of the dialect. In Japan, every area has it’s own dialect, and the bad part about it is that Japanese is all based off of changing the very into a certain way, but depending on the area the way they change the verb is different, so you have no clue at all what they are saying! It would be like barely knowing English and then going into the deep south and trying to hold a conversation while trying to understand the accent.

Well, so back on June 30th to July 1st, I went with a whole bunch of people to a large city called Nagoya. Now Nagoya is a very large city, within this city there is also the Nagoya castle. Sadly during this trip my batteries died so I only have pictures of the first day. The first day, we ended up going to a festival, it was my first festival in Japan so I really didn’t know what to expect or know too much about them. We got there around 6pm which is early for festivals so now very many people were dressed in a Yukata (kimono made for the summer made out of cotton) and there wasn’t too much of the festival going on at the time. Basically a festival in Japan is a long street filled with different types of shops and stands where you can buy many different kind of food and souvenirs that is all over priced. Usually near some part of the street full of shops is a temple or shrine. As we learned from a monk that was working at the place, he explained that this shrine was a place to warship the deity of agriculture, rice to be more specific. So people would take these pieces of food made of rice, and throw it on this alter area as an offering. After we left the festival we all went to a hostel, a place made for foreigners to stay at for cheap. This hostel was in the Ryokan (Japanese style inn) style. So we had a huge room where we fit 10 girls sleeping on the floor. Of course we had fluffy futons to sleep on, but there were no beds, just futons. The room was really big and air-conditioned! Air-conditioning is so expensive in Japan that to be able to stay in a room that was air-conditioned was like heaven.

The next day we traveled around downtown Nagoya. First we woke up early and set towards the Nagoya castle. The Nagoya castle is a very big castle; it has been around for hundreds of years. On the top of the castle are two golden dolphins that are very beautiful and shine in the sun light. The castle itself was destroyed in World War II during the air raids. And then was rebuilt as a museum and you can climb the many floors and see many different things of the castle’s history. It makes me sad though because I would love to know what the original castle looked like. After we walked around the castle for a while, we went to a place in Nagoya where it has the best Tonkatsu (fried pork) in Japan. It is a really nice place and the pork was delicious. One day, if I ever come back to Japan I will have to go back to the place one more time. Afterwards we have some free time and walked around the city of Nagoya for a while. It’s interesting just how many random shops you will find in Japan. My friends and I were looking for an anime store to find some anime type goods, toys, games, stuffed dolls, things of that sort. We found this one place that was 5 stories tall and it had a bunch of anime in the front, we walk in, there is a bunch of anime and manga you can buy. So we decide to see what was on the 2nd floor. It was anime goods… but the kind of that perverted old men buy. There were figurines of big breasted anime girls, or of space machine type things. It was very disappointing. All the other upper floors were just porn, so after being disappointed we left the dirty anime store. Afterwards there was a large party at this one Japanese style restaurant, very large room. Lots of Japanese people and American people just all talking and stuff it was lots of fun. And then in the middle of the party, our tour guide for the trip showed up, in complete drag. He sang and danced for us, it was the most random and amusing thing during the party. This normal middle aged Japanese business looking man turns out to be a night time drag queen. I will never look at a normal Japanese business man the same way again.

The following weekend July 7th through July 9th I did a weekend home stay with the Miyamoto family. I was so nervous the day before the home stay, I wasn’t sure how things would go or anything. But over all it turned out really good and I was really happy when I got home. On Friday their daughter Ai Miyamoto came to pick me up. She is really nice and an English teacher who helps people improve their English conversation skills. She took me to her house which was in a very rural area of Japan very close to the mountains. I loved it there a whole lot, everything was really quiet and the view was just beautiful. Their house is the standard old fashioned Japanese house. It was really interesting spending time there. The place was very comfortable and the house was very beautiful. Some may think Japanese style houses aren’t that beautiful, but it was all about the feeling of family that I had inside the home that made it so much better. The next day I got to help Ai with one of her classes. It was a whole lot of fun, but it was so weird having to use only English in a classroom environment. Also, it was hard to think of random things on the spot to talk about in English. Even though it was hard, it was a whole lot of fun and it really made me want to continue teaching English. Later in the evening the Miyamotos took me to a really nice restaurant place. It was the type of place where they give you raw meat and you cook it on the grill. It was a little hard for me to stomach seeing all of the raw meat, but it was very good food. The only problem with eating only meat is that I get full very fast, so sadly I got full before everyone else did. The following day we went to Nagohamajo (Nagohama castle) and I got to walk around the many floors. The Nagohama castle reminded me a whole lot of the Nagoya castle only a whole lot smaller. The floors had a museum that explained the history of the castle. Inside there was also the most beautiful kimono I had ever seen. It looked like a kimono that royalty would wear. It was a very nice place, and then at the top there was a very nice view and you could see many of the neighboring cities. There was also a map showing when you pointed yourself in a certain direction you would see certain areas. Afterwards the Miyamoto family took me to the Nagohama festival, and on the streets of the festival was a shop where they made many things out of glass. It was a very nice store and everything looked so lovely there. The mother of the family bought me a present there of some small animals and a little forest. It was the cutest thing I have seen in a very long time. Afterwards they took me to a Big Boy, yes they even have Big Boy in Japan and no Taco Bell…, but the Big Boy was a lot different. All of the hamburgers they serve do not have buns, they just give you a fork and a knife and you eat the meat. It is a lot different, but it was also really delicious. Afterwards they took me back home. The hole trip overall was really great, but the hardest part for me was communication. It felt like I just didn’t understand a lot of what the parents were saying. Maybe it was a different dialect, I am not sure. It really made me feel discouraged that I have been taking Japanese for so long and it is still insanely hard for me to hold a decent conversation. But even though conversation was difficult, it was still a very nice weekend and I really appreciate the Miyamoto family’s kindness. Doing the weekend home stay really made me realize just how much I miss out on when I live in the dorms, I would be able to practice lots more Japanese… of course by then as well my head my explode from Japanese overload. But I am glad that I got the chance to do what I did. I was a whole lot of fun and even though I was nervous before, now I feel like there was no need to be nervous.