Wednesday, May 27, 2009

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...



Sunday, May 17, 2009

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!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

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~

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

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!