No Place Like Home

Japan was amazing.  As a tourist and a student I had a fabulous time, but as a person attempting to live there it was much harder than I imagined.  After four months of trains, narrow streets, and food I never got used to, I am home.  I love my family, I love my dogs, I love San Francisco, I love being able to look out my window and see the ocean, the horizon and trees!

I don't know when I will be able to go back to Japan next but until then I will miss it maybe only for the exotic sweet and snacks and for easily accessible cheap public transportation.

Good bye Japan!  Until we meet again...

Swine Influenza: The Zombie Pandemic!

I'll preface this by saying I am perfectly fine.

Today I had a final exam and a 8 page per due, pretty normal for finals. However, at around 11am this morning, something sounding like an air raid warning went off at school with the following message: (rough translation) Swine influenza has hit Osaka! School is shutting down for the rest of the week. Please leave campus immediately, all school institutions will be closed as of 3:30pm today.

As for right now, the decision is for exchange students to still finishing exams, but since the japanese students have no more class for the week, the international studies office has some serious considering to do about keeping the foreign students here.

People are acting like this is the next sequel to 28 Days Later (a fantastic zombie movie if you have time for a good movie to scare you out of your mind). I am half-expecting the school to start being over run with brain-eating half-dead japanese girls in their 6 inch neon pink high heels!

I think this is all great fun but, to top it off, my host father got extremely sick last night and is now currently in the hospital getting it checked out. Mind you, people go the hospital here for head colds and fevers (likewise they put band-aids on bruises as if they have some magical healing power) but my host mother seems really concerned that he might have gotten it since her works in downtown osaka.

I will keep everyone updated, I am perfectly fine and enjoying the crazed hysteria as an outsider who knows this is just Japan over reacting.

Be home in a week!

EDIT: CLASSES HAVE BEEN CANCELLED FOR EXCHANGE STUDENTS. I might still have to turn in my paper on wednesday but for now look forward to crazy adventures.

EDIT EDIT: My host Dad does not have swine flu! Yay!

SumiSumi: The Last Performance

    Last Saturday, in the scorching hot and humid 80° weather, I had my last performance with my taiko group here.  We performed at a "festa" of food and flowers outside.  My favorite part of this show was that out of the 8 songs we performed I was in 7 of them!  I had no clue I had learned so many pieces in a few short months but the greatest one of all was performing a song called "Boiling Point."  It's as awesome as it sounds, which also makes it one of the hardest things I have tried to commit to memory.  Basically, the last practice before the show (a wednesday) we decided we would do boiling point and that I would be in it, regardless of the fact I had not yet played the whole thing with out royally screwing up.  The next few days consisted of me religiously listening to my voice recorder trying to figure out the beats and tapping the song out every night as I lie in bed trying to go to sleep.  The result was I played the whole thing for the first time at the show!  It was a big accomplishment for me and I am sure most of you understand the epiphany moment where something you could not do or didn't understand clicks, and suddenly makes sense.

   Since it was my last show we all went out and partied afterwards, Japanese style: KARAOKE!  Enjoy the pictures~

The Stage and the traditional "rally flag" of our group.

The woman pointing and the man beside her are the leaders of Miyabi.

The always get into a squabble before a show (they're married) and

oddly enough it's kind of a fond memory I have of them now.

Kumiko (the leader) and I, after the show.

The big yellow thing in the back is the taiko van.

Nobody does karaoke better than the Japanese.  Here, instead

of showing off your talent, it's about participating as a group and

making sure everybody has fun.  Note the disco ball lights.

Matt, the other american, and the leader of the group 

who is hammered off of two beers in this picture.

This is the chaos that ensued when I sang Johnny B. Goode.

Apparently I hit the age group just right...?

Miyabi!   Half of us are missing but this is the closest

I will probably ever get to a group picture.

Finals have started and I am going to be on an state-bound airplane in 10 days.  As excited I am to come home, this group is going to be the hardest thing I have to leave behind in Japan.  But alas, I will return to my own taiko group and begin teaching everything I have learned here.  

Things I will try to do before I leave:  Strawberry picking, go see a natural whirlpool, hike to katsuoji shrine, stay out all night in either osaka or kyoto, pass my finals.  See everyone soon~

ShoukuHaku: Food Fest 2009

    ShoukuHaku is a grand event that happens once every four years in Japan.  It is a massive gathering of Japan's finest foods and most enthusiastic people, essentially the Olympics of eating.  It just so happens that I was here for that event, it was in Osaka, my taiko group was performing in it, and my host parents wanted to take me to it.  Obviously, it was destined to be.  

The cover of the guide pamphlet for ShoukuHaku.

I didn't get any pictures from my taiko performance but it was amazing, hundreds of people!  I was so ready to go back for the food the second time, I didn't in breakfast that day in preparation.

My host Parents and I eating our Hiroshima Okonomiyaki

(fried, veggies, noodles, meat, pancaked with egg batter)

Ice Cream Cones!  Flavors listed range from

green tea and vanilla to black sesame and squid.

Two old ladies nonchalantly making steamed buns

for the impatient line of customers.

Turkish ice cream, they pull out of buckets on long sticks.

It's so thick and much better than any other ice cream I have tasted.

Gargantuan burgers and the massive buns they come on.

Gyoza, essentially pot stickers with a thinner outer layer.

    The enormity of this festival was tremendous.  People were driving down from tokyo (about 9 hours) to make it to this event.  I was so lucky to be able to go to it much less perform in it!  Both times I went were incredible, with the taiko group, everybody just got drunk and make a laughing stock of themselves, you know, good natured humor.  With my host parents, we ate so much food from so many different places we skipped dinner that night.  Japan is big on local food specialties (kobe Beef, Hokkaido crab, Osaka octopus fritters, etc) and that is what this event was celebrating.  Yay Japan and food!  They do it like no one else could.

Note: Reflecting back, I realized for such a large event I saw about 3 other foreigners there, quite rare for a gathering of that size.  My conclusion: Japan's best-kept secret, no wonder!

Dog Cafe

    It is stereotyped that Japan is crowed and cramped and has no space.  Of course, that's pretty much true.  People don't have big homes in comparison to the US and they work a lot more due to the group mentality of the culture.  The lack of space and time in Japan means it's difficult for a lot of people to keep pets.  Thus: the Pet Cafe's were born.

    Claire informed me of their existence via cat cafe's but when discussing this phenomenon with my host mother she promptly told me she had been to a dog cafe and printed out directions for me.  No offense to cat-lovers, but why would I pay to be ignored by egotistical cats when I could go get some puppy love for 5$ an hour?

This guys is hanging out with the target dog.  I love his smile!

This dog was so freaky it didn't know what to do with me

and I had no clue what to do with it.

Doggies!

Some of the dogs were wearing diapers.

One of them crawled into Sara's lap.

It promptly went from kind of gross to adorable.

PIC OF THE DAY.

This little guy looks like he is ready to die from happiness.

Notice:  There were three doggies that all looked like this so

the cafe dyed their tails to tell them apart (blue, green, pink).

Basically the Pet Cafe's are a win-win-win situation.  Dogs and cats get love and a home, people get fill their pet-quota and the cafe makes a bit of money.

Maybe I AM in a movie....

     Well, this one weekend my friend Scott called me at some ungodly hour in the morning on Saturday and invited me to the Fushimi Inari Shrine.  This shinto shrine is most well-known for the scene in "Memoirs of a Geisha" that if you saw you will recognize this:

Fushimi Inari is always described as having hundreds of these red shinto gates but it was more like thousands!  There were so many including little paths through bamboo forests to weird gravyards such as this one.

In this particular graveyard there was this statue of an old Japanese God.  Now I don't know his name or really what he even stands for but I do know this guy must beat up on smaller weak little gods cause just LOOK at him!  Sword, rope, fire, angry-looking face to make you whimper in fear.

Awesome shinto god.  

This shrine was really not much but orange gates, I am sure there is some fantastic history to the place that Scott, currently taking Japanese art history should have been able to tell me, but alas, I was just there to take pictures.

After Fushimi Inari, Scott and I headed to a temple (a shrine means it is for the Shinto religion, a temple means it is for Buddhism) with a garden famous for it's Rakudan.  Rakudan are stone sculptures of people who have achieved enlightenment and followed Buddha's path.  I was expecting all happy, smiling little men but one of the first stone figures you see is this guy:

Mr. Grouchy fittingly has bird poop on his head.  Is he angry because a

bird pooped on him or did a bird poop on him because he was being grumpy?

     There were hundreds of creepy little stone guys in the garden, it was really something from another world.  Since women cannot achieve enlightenment according to the buddhist faith (don't get me started), the only female statue in the garden was of Buddha's mother.  At first Scott and I couldn't find her but thanks to Scott's art history class, he remembered that Buddha was born from his mother's armpit (no joke) and we promptly recognized her as the statue with one arm raised.  Other figures included a cow and his farmer, how the cow became enlightened I don't know.

Enlightened cow...

This dude was just enlightened and chilling before

Scott came up and started mocking him.

Other than the rakudan, the garden was really very pretty but totally not made for hot days, and tall, tired americans.

     Wish I could tell everybody more about the history of these two places, but unfortunately that's not quite my forte as some of you know.  Extra bonus post dedicated to Claire Little after this!

Later on, there will be no good and bad experiences...There will just be things that happened

     Well!  It sure has been a long time since I have updated!  A lot has been happening for me, most of it not good: getting sick (again), having more host family issues, etc.  The host family coordinator wanted to put me in another host family for the last 4 weeks because even she thinks my parents are crazy!  Everything is all worked out now though, I confronted my host parents about things and we worked everything out.

     I have exactly 4 weeks until I come home to the states and realized that means I only have 3 weekends left to go crazy in Japan!  I no longer have internet at home so I am sorry, but I won't be able to post pictures until thursday.  But look forward to it!  I went to the Fushimi inari Shrine aka the temple with thousands of red shinto gates as featured in one stunning scene of "Memoirs of a Geisha."  See everyone then ^_^

Hanami: The Perfect Picnic

"Hanami" is written with the characters 花見 literally meaning "flower" and "to see." So when all your friends say, "Do you want to go to Osaka Castle and go Hanami?" your only reply can be "yes!"

Enjoying the flowers around sunset.

The Sakura (cherry) trees in Japan are just beautiful, and the best part is they are not just on one street in the city, they are everywhere! Unfortunately, once they bloom, the blossoms have about 2 weeks before they are blown away by seasonal winds. That is why everybody and their Grandmothers go out and picnic in early April.

David snacking on his fried chicken Lunch.


The classic picturesque sakura blossoms.


I thought these blossoms looked like fireworks!


Sakura on one side of the river, skyscrapers on the other.

I cannot fully show you how gorgeous this was, the flowers just twinkle in the sun, the grass is green, the weather had just got warm...I literally have about 100 pictures from a mere 3 hours of this day and I cannot begin to explain how hard it was to choose pictures for the blog. I hope I picked a few good ones!

You just can't help but smile~

Finally, It's Spring! School and Other Activties

The weather is getting warmer, the sky is getting blue, the cherry blossoms are blooming and soon the official Japanese school year will start. That means the campus will be getting much more lively. One of the events to ring in the new school year is to have club festival!
Here you can see the Rock Band and the Karate Club showing off in hopes of new members.

The cheery active atmosphere on campus in addition to the beautiful day meant one thing to me: a huge sudden craving for cookies 'n cream ice cream, which they don't have here. But I got the next best thing.

I gave into my craving and my 4-year McDonalds abstinence
and got an Oreo McFlurry with my friend Ashley. Saying it was the best
ice cream of my life would be a severe understatement.

One of the good things about good weather is my half-hour bike ride to school is much more pleasant. Except for this part:

This hill so far as been a great way to warm up on the chilly mornings,
I am only now realizing that when it gets warm, this guy will be
the reason I show up sweaty and nasty to my morning classes.

Since the cherry blossoms are blooming the entirety of Japan will be going Hanami (literally meaning flower viewing) I will also partake in this tradition. Basically it is the quintessntial Japanese picnic under the cherry trees. I attempted to do this on saturday but we got rained out, but this coming tuesday I will be heading over to Osaka Castle to eat and drink and celebrate the blossoms. I will post on that soon! A teaser for you of the pictures to come:

Taiko: Sakura Concert

Here I am posting about the Taiko concert I performed in instead of studying for the 5 midterm exams I have this week (yay~). Have no fear, I've got it covered. Anyway, taiko. Awsome. First, there were about 50 kids from different groups there, adorable little kids banging away on the drums and some of them really kicking butt.
Basically it was a few different groups performing in one concert to bring in the spring. I am part of the Miyabi group thanks to my friend Matt from Kansai Gaidai. He showed me the group first and is absolutely fluent in Japanese so helps me a lot deciphering what the teacher is saying (she speaks with a super thick Kansai-ben accent).

This is Matt and I performing a peice we both learned
at our 2 separate dojos back in the States.

Another peice I performed in called Tenma.

Matt and I post-performance adrenaline!

After the performance much celebrating took place. David came down from Kyoto to watch the show and joined me and the group at a fantastic food and drink party. When we had all had our fill people started chanting for speeches and everybody got up individually to say a little word of thanks and congratulations. Of course, when they started chanting my name I got up and joined in. Even David and Matt's friends introduced themselves!

There were also many of the cute little adorable kids there, David and I made friends with them.

After the party the Americans headed out to the train station and hit up every convenience store on the way (in Japan, they are called konbini). I arrived home to a delicious dinner my host Dad made and went to sleep tired, full and happy. I was a great end to my spring break and the perfect combo-breaker before my tests.

I'll see everybody after midterms!