Sayoonara, Kai-san, or, My Friends and Classmates After the First Month

Well, the cat is out of the bag, and some of my classmates now know about the blog, thanks to Mom. Therefore, this post needed to be removed. The video, however, shall remain.

That was fast

Although Grams claim that John Williams solved it ages ago, Mom was the first one to produce for me the correct answer of 2/3 to the question "If one and a half chickens lays one and a half eggs in one and a half days, how many eggs does one chicken lay in a day?" Congratulations, bragging rights are now yours.

Yesterday, my friends and I began what we hope to be a weekely ritual of "movie night." The idea was the brainchild of Christian, who had a similar weekly movie night with his friends while he was living in China for two years. It turns out that he and I are both avid film watchers (eiga o mimas: to watch a movie), and have decided that at least we two shall participate in this weekly event, which occurs at my apartment. Many people will be given open invitations, although not everyone will be able to make it. Such was the case last night, when we had 4 participants, although as many as 7 or 8 could have shown up.

I like this event very much, because it is entertaining, social, great for discussion, and actually educational. I say educational because we have decided that movie night will be a 3-part process. First, we will watch a movie of the groups choosing, the only provisions being that everyone wants to see it, and at least some people need to have not seen it. This will certainly almost always be an American movie, as all American films seem to see release in Nihon, and all of the DVDs have full English voice and subtitle support, with the option of subtitles and possibly dubbing in Nihongo. So we will all go to the store, pick out a movie, and chip in to buy it (or buy one for yourself and bring it to movie night). Step 2 is going out for dinner if we haven't already eaten too many snacks, and step 3, the educational step, will be to watch a Japanese movie. At first with subtitles, but the hope is that eventually we won't need them. If the movie is good, then not only are we thoroughly entertained, but throughout the movie we can listen and try to pick up words, and compare it to what is in the subtitles. This is especially helpful in teaching us the shorthand and slang of Nihongo, which most people use, as opposed to the formal speech we are learning in class right now.

Last night's movies of choice were the American "Jarhead" and the Japanese "Love Letter." The former, "Jarhead," I would strongly recommend, but only to males. It is not a movie for woman. The movie is the true account of a Marine sniper's experiences in the Gulf War, and is a very, very interesting and unique military movie. Nothing really happens out in the desert, and the movie does a great job of conveying the feel of long, hot boredom, and the minor insanity that accompanies it. Furthermore, it is full of memorable scenes, characters, and lines, none of which are appropriate to describe on this blog, but my favorite can be found at my facebook profile for those who have access. The second movie, "Love Letter," is simultaneously horribly and cleverly titled. "Love Letter" is a pretty cliche and obvious name for a love story, but then again, "Love Letter" is not exactly a love story in the traditional sense, and the title is quite clever in the context of the movie. While the movie is not without its flaws (one of which is the only-okay acting), it is beautifully directed, and the story is unique and sad. In fact, the one of the most unique aspects of the film is the reason for the sadness, which I don't think has been used in a love story before. For example (this isn't spoiling anything), the main male love interest has already died at the start of the movie, but his death is not the real tragedy of the story. I don't know if it has seen US release, but I will track it down and bring it home with me, since I strongly, strongly recommend it. It is considered a classic in Nihon, apparently.

Okay, I've rambled waaaay too far off course. The title of today's blog refers to my first month (4 weeks, rather) in Nihon, which finished today, but I swear it only started maybe like a week and a half ago. The first week and a half was really quite slow, as I felt lost and had a whole lot of adjusting to do. However, as I found my rhythm, things fell into place, and I really am in love with Nihon and Okazaki, as well as the Yamasa Institute. Yamasa is clearly a fantastic institution, and every student here who has studied at othere Japanese schools as well says that Yamasa is, far and ahead, the best language school in the country. The pace is fast. Very fast. Every night I have to study a new list of vocabulary for a quiz the following day. Every day we learn new grammar constructions that we apply the vocabulary to. In one brief month, I have learned hundreds of words and enough grammar knowledge to more than reasonably get by in Nihon.

Unfortunately, it's so fast paced that there is no way I have been able to retain everything in my long term memory. That's where review days come in. Tomorrow is the third review day we've had so far, and these days occur with increasing frequency. On these days, we have no homework or vocabulary due, but we reinforce everything we've learned so far, to help lock everything in without forcing anything else out (via new information). Obviously, I cherish these days, and I'm fairly certain they occur more and more often as we learn more and more, and need to retain the old while also making room for the new. On top of all this, each and every one of my teachers is absolutely excellent, and a few of them are even exceedingly good-looking. My first month's experience has me seriously considering returning to Yamasa instead of the Friends World program in January.

I have also greatly enjoyed my out-of-school experiences in Okazaki and Nihon. A glimpse into my daily life on the weekdays: I wake up at 8 (assuming I do not sleep through my alarm like I did yesterday, ruining my perfect attendance record), and do not eat anything unless I am really hungry or know that I won't be able to get lunch (the reasoning for which is, 100% of the time, exchanging traveler's cheques at the bank). If breakfast is at hand, then it almost certainly is Coco Krispies, which along with Frosties is the only good cereal at the supermarket. At 8:40-8:45 ish, I lock up my apartment and set off for Yamasa via bicycle. If I haul ass, I can make it in 5-7 minutes, otherwise it takes me a little over 10 minutes. At 9, I have 3 50 minute classes, and then we break for lunch at 11:50. Lunch was for the first two weeks at the coffee shop, whose praises I have sung in a previous entry. For the last two weeks, however, it has been at this amazing soup restaurant just down the street, where a bowl of Udon (delicious soup with thick noodles) is only ¥300, and adding veggie tempura, as I always do, is an additional ¥100. It's great food, extremely healthy, and dirt cheap. In other words, it's the best of all worlds.

After lunch, we have two more 50 minute classes, ending the day at 2:30. After this I either do my homework at Yamasa, which is a better study environment than my apartment, or perhaps run some errands or go on a mini-outing with one of my classmates. Generally, I finally return home between 3:30 and 5. Then I hop on the ole laptop and use one of my hapless neighbors' wi-fi signals to get online. Email is checked, news is read, business is tended to. Internet time can last between 20 minutes and 2 hours, depending on how distracted I get. Following this, there are 3 possible scenarios. If I haven't done my homework yet, I do it then. If I have already done my homework and I am not hungry, I usually play for an hour, plus or minus change depending on when I get to a natural stopping point, of Playstation 2. I shoot for an hour though. If I have already done my homework, or if my homework was just completed, and I am hungry, I go to dinner, which as at Yoshinoya 80% of the time. After dinner, I return home to either play Playstation 2 if I didn't already, or basically fart around and do whatever I feel like. This might be trying to listen to Nihongo on the TV, chatting online with those waking up early or going to bed really late in the US, or some other generally enjoyable activity. Several times a week, shopping is also fit into the schedule, as is laundry. After I have put off going to bed for a sufficient amount of time, I study tomorrow's vocab and then stare at my eyelids until 8 the next morning.

Weekends are obviously open. If I have nothing planned for the morning, I will sleep for 10+ hours. I was never able to regularly sleep this long at home, but unless there is an alarm to stop me, it happens every night, beginning with when I first arrived. Each weekend I have managed to go on some outing with Kai, Tiago, and possibly Verena and/or Christian, all of which I have already documented. Generally these are not heavily planned in advance, they just kind of happen, but they always make for an entertaining weekend.

Okay, if you've made it this far into this epic post without your monitor setting your eyeballs aflame, I commend you. Tomorrow is Kai's last night, so expect an update on those festivities, but aside from that, who knows what the future may bring?

Decieved!

So, for the past week or so, Yamasa has been heavily advertising a trip to Okazaki University, where we would meet new people, maybe speak some Nihongo, eat free lunch, etc. Well, it turns out we were decieved. The bus took us to Aichi Something-or-Another University, where we sat for an hour+ and watched a "Speech Contest." This is what happened in the Speech Contest: various foreign folk, some from Yamasa, some from not Yamasa, stood up and gave a speech. Evidently, they were under a time limit, as one Chinese girl was forced to end early at the sound of a bell. For the first few speeches, I tried very hard to listen for words I recognized, and see if I could make any sense of what was being said. Pretty soon though, I drifted off into the fantasy world inside of my head, which I'm sure my family is familiar with (I did, however, restrain any physical gesturing in the process). In this world, stuff happened, but I don't remember what.

Eventually, I returned to Nihon, as the speeches ended and some Armenian lady who was teaching at a university in Tokyo gave a lengthy speech in Nihongo, pointing at various points on a map of Armenia. After the fact, I would learn that the speech was about genocide in Armenia, which is a curious topic to discuss after a friendly speech contest. When she finished, they announced the contest winners, who were given fun gift bags, and we were excused to lunch, where we ate food that was pretty tasty, although if it was warm, it would have been even tastier. At this meal, Christian, Verena, and I deduced that we had been tricked into coming here so that the speech contest would have an audience.

After eating our fill, we moved on to explore the University, which was having a festival of sorts today. This actually made the day well worth the trip, as it was interesting simply to explore a small Nihon no Daigaku (Japanese University), see what the student life was like, etc. Over the course of the day, we were challenged to 3-on-3 basketball (which we politely declined), sampled some student-made food, witnessed a fabulous view, watched an excellent performance from an apparently famous musician playing intersting Chinese violin-type instrument, discussed how it is difficult for blacks to live in Asia, especially China, because there is still blatant racism against them, and then proceeded to watch a group of Asian students wearing clothes that might be described as "ghetto" and breakdancing to popular American Hip-hop (they weren't very good breakdancers, except for one guy who could do sweet one-legged backflips). At some point in time, one of the female students, whose english wasn't all that bad, called me "cute," for which I politely thanked her, and then we resumed an otherwise completely different coversation. Hmmm (for the record, she was okay-looking, but there were many prettier girls on campus). Christian also told me I was getting lots of good looks from many of the girls at the school, although I was not particularly looking out for "looks," I did not notice them so much.

After the event was over, the bus took us all back to the school. Christian and I headed to the bank, which was open, but not for money-changing, which is a shame because I had less than ¥1000 yen on me left. We then proceeded to a CD/Movie store in preparation for the massive Movie Night event we have planned for tomorrow night in my apartment. There will be a lot of people squeezed into this tiny apartment. Finally, we topped the day off with a delicious and inexpensive meal at Yoshinoya (an important place which is getting its own blog entry...soon). Magically, there is no homework or vocab due tomorrow, so I'm free to get lots of sleep tonight, or more likely stay up too late for no reason.

More Castles and Stuff

Because I have a full weekend planned, I've decided to update twice. Once for Saturday, once for Sunday. This is basically to keep post length under control as well as allow me to recall more while my memory is fresh.

The day began with surprisingly. Last night I purchased and viewed "The Godfather," which successfully passed both the test of living up to the hype (how had I not seen this before?), and confirming that all American DVDs in Japan are unchanged, save for the box art, and support of Japanese subbing and dubbing tracks. After going to sleep around 1 AM or so, I expected to wake up around 9 or 10 and beat Julian in some online backgammon. However, I somehow managed to wake up at 12 PM. I can't remember the last time I slept for 11 hours, but did it ever feel great.

At 1, I met up with Kai and Tiago (and theoretically Christian, but he was a no-show), and we headed to Okazaki Castle. Though substantially smaller than Nagoya Castle, I thought Okazaki Castle's design, especially it's landscaping, was far superior. The inside was a similar museum-style set-up as Nagoya, and there was much on display at Okazaki that was similar or the same as in Nagoya, so I took fewer pictures. After the castle, we went to a museum, which had very cheap admission and suitably an underwhelming display, but for some reason did not allow cameras. Sorry. Anyways, here's what I thought was worth preserving:


The Okazaki castle is substantially smaller than the Nagoya castle



The preceding 3 pictures are the view from the top of the Castle. As you can see, on one said of Okazaki, there are some beautiful hills, and on the other side is an unending sea of buildings exteding far out of the Okazaki city limits.

Some pretty awesome calligraphy on display at the Castle. I would love to hang one of these on my wall.


Alright, awesome Japanese moment of the day: The clock in the above picture opened up for some reason and this puppet started doing a weird dance to a super old-fashioned Japanese song, and everyone around me found this quite amusing. I managed to capture a small clip of this largely indescribable event:




The "moat" around the castle. The greenery here was very pretty and well kept. In other words, the normal for Nihon.

A cool monument-type dingle outside of the castle.


After the castle, we went across the river,


which was full of gigantic koi, and over to a stone fair, which was pretty cool. There were all sorts of artisans with their wares on display. This was by far the coolest thing I saw:

In the end, though, I took home a ¥4800 cat sculpture (duh). I like it very much, although its fate, as either my possession or someone else's christmas present, remains shrouded in mystery.

I found this whole outing quite enjoyable and worthy of my Saturday, especially since it (for the most part) exceeded my lowered-from-Nagoya expectations. Okazaki is an endearing little city, full of personality. It's definitely a great place to live. Finally, after a couple of hours off, we reconvened for dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet, where I had my least healthy meal by far on this Adventure Time Party. The Nihonjin love all things Western, including buffets in malls with pizza, burgers, french fries, chicken tenders, and other such all-American fare. I did manage to sneak in some Sukiyaki and rice, which helped make up for my other unhealthy indulgences. I enjoyed my meal very much, but I will make it a rare treat, since I have been eating so healthily, and it has always been delicious. Just this week, I discovered a ramen restaurant next to Yamasa that has AMAZING Udon (soup with thick noodles) for ¥300, and you can mix in shrimp and/or veggie tempura. It's all healthy, all cheap, and all delicious. Oops, I've gotten sidetracked.

Okay, that's basically all for today. Tomorrow I am going with other Yamasa students to Okazaki University, where we will meet new people, have conversation, and eat free lunch. Sounds like a solid outing to me. Check in tomorrow for details.

Ja, mata (see you later, basically).

Please use the word Japanese, not Nihonese

Nihonese is not a real word. Nihon is the real name of Japan, the word that the Japanese use. However, if you want to use the true term for "of Japan" you would use "Nihon no." However, if you used Nihon no in an English sentence, you would be mixing languages, which is improper. The English term for "Nihon no" is "Japanese," so just stick with that.

P.S. Well done, Dad. Also, if you go to the "Control Panel" from the Start menu of your computer, you should be able to navigate your way to an option to install more languages. This will require a Windows XP install or update CD, and there are several of those sitting in the second drawer from the top of the wooden desk in my room, feel free to use them.

An assortment of random thoughts

Before we begin, congratulations are in order for Dave Blankenbaker, for being not only the first to answer my racetrack question, but to get it correct as well. It would indeed take a speed slightly greater than that of light on the second in order to make a 2-lap average of 100 mph if one averaged 50 mph on the first lap. The question, for everybody but Dave and Jon Balfe, is why?

Okay, so I wanted to update for you all, and by you all I mostly mean Mom and Dad, who tend to wonder if everything is okay if I miss more a day of blog updating. Alas, there has been no major event over the past few days with which to base a focal point for this entry, so I will just start writing thoughts as they come to me, and hopefully they make sense and are maybe even interesting.

The last few nights I have gotten less sleep than usual, for the dual reason of going to bed too late for no reason, and waking up several times in the middle of the night. I felt this in a big way during the second section of lessons today, because by the gods I was tired. As I explained to my classmate Christian (which just made me realize, one of my updates soon will be about my classmates, I have lots of good thoughts to share with you all about them), it is for these extra-tired moments that I drink as little caffeine as possible during my standard daily routine. The reason being that even a small cup of coffee, as I had today, will wake me up in a hugely substantial way. It made the rest of the day much better.

Speaking of better, I am enjoying my time in Okazaki more and more with each day. I really am enjoying learning Japanese, and I just love all the little details that are different in Nihon than in America. For example, respect is very important in Asain culture, and especially among the Nihonjin. Because of this, the little day-to-day phrases, of which I have to memorize way too many a day, are really much more polite than their English correspondents. Furthermore, part of respect means staying true to the law of the land, so the crime rate is extraordinarily low. Even the pettiest of violations, such as jaywalking, are shunned, to the point where every time I jay walk when a lot of people are around, I actually get embarrased. But I am not complaining. There is so much that they do better here, it is no wonder that the Nihonjin have by far the highest life expectancy in the world. It's not genetic (nature), it's the very essence of their way of life (nurture) that is the cause. The concept of living well and healthily is so important in Nihon that, despite how incredibly horny everyone is (I'm not sure of the cause of this, but pornography, sex, and eroticism in general is far more prominent in the culture of Nihon), only 2 Nihonjin are known to have AIDS, total, out of the entire population.

While we're on the topic sex, eroticism, etc, I would like to note that we started a new two-week session of classes this week, complete with a couple of new students in the class, and one of our new primary teachers in only 20 years old and is SMOKING HOT. It is definitely a distraction in class.

On the nerdier side of news, in order to simultaneously fulfill my need to have a Region 2 (Nihon) compatible DVD player and play some Nihon-exclusive games, I bought a brand spanking new white PS2, which is dirt cheap in Nihon.

Roughly 5 of my readers are now jealous. 1 of them, John Noyes, needs to go play more Final Fantasy VII. Contact me over AIM, John, to discuss how to play it using my computer monitor in my room in the middle of the night, when Mom and Dad are asleep.

In the political realm, many of you are undoubtedly aware of the present North Korea fiasco. This has made me slightly worried for the past couple of weeks, today moreso than ever. I read as much news on the matter as I can. Unfortunately, North Korea's nuclear missles are only capable of reaching Nihon. Fortunately, North Korea seems much more focused on the US, so I seriously doubt I have anything serious to worry about for now.

Finally, you are all smelly and are apparently uninterested in the Nihongo equivalent of your names. Therefore, I shall now list the Nihongo names of everyone who I know reads this blog regularly. Take that!

Nick:　ニク　(prounounced "Neeku," the "u" is silent)
Susan:　スーサン (pronounced "soosan)
Pat:　パト (prounounced "pato," the "a" is soft and the "o" is barely pronounced)
Skatie:　スケーテイー (pronounced "sukeitii" and the "u" is basically silent)
John/Jon:　ジアーン (the ア is supposed to be small, pronounced "Jaan" and the "aa" is soft)
Emma:　エツマ (the ツ is supposed to be small, pronounced "e ma" there is a deliberate pause where the space is)
Elizabeth:　イリザベト (pronounced "erizabeto," the "r" is a actually a weird "LD" and the "o" is barely pronounced)
Betsy:ベツツイ (the first ツ is supposed to be small, pronounced "be tsui," there is a deliberate pause at the space, and the "u" is not pronounced)
Dave:　デーブ (pronounced "Deibu" and the "u" is silent)
Meg:　メグ (pronounced "megu" and the "u" is silent)
Shane:　シエーン (the エ is supposed to be small, pronounced "Shyein")
Virginia:　ベルジーニア (pronounced "berujiinia" and the "r" is a weird "LD" sound))
Diana:　ダイアナ (the イ is supposed to be small, pronounced "Daiana")
Anonymous:　アノネムス (why don't you tell me your name, mystery commenter [see Crazy Bank Non-Adventures comments]?)

I'm sure there are many of you I forgot/didn't know about. If you feel left out, please let me know by leaving a comment. I have set this blog so that ANYONE can comment, whether they are a Blogger.com member or not

Nagoya Pictures Explosion Bonanza

Yesterday, I went to Nagoya for the Samurai Festival, which was an excellent outing. I took undoubtedly far too many pictures, nearly all of which are posted here. Due to the combination of Blogger's poor picture uploading program and laziness, the order is largely random, and I won't comment each one. However, here is what to expect:

The first stop we made was at Nagoya Castle, which was very cool, and had leats of neato stuff on display, like a mini-museum. Notable items include bonzai trees, samurai outfits, swords, and big, big guns. The next stop was a shrine, where we saw some awesome traditional Japanese outfits, shinto prayers, ate delicious noodles for lunch, and most notably, saw a wedding. The wedding was very cool, and I now officially want to get married in a traditional Japanese male marriage outfit, because it rules. I took a small video of the ceremony, so you could hear the weird music that was played. When that is online, I will post a link to it. Finally, we saw the main event, a parade depicting each generation of Japanese culture, with an emphasis on the samurai. Be jealous about this, because it was quite a spectacle.

Another quick note: I made this trip with Tiago, Kai, and Verena. Occasionally, they will show up in the pictures. Tiago is a 22-year-old asian from Brazil, Kai is a 50-year-old (but looks 40 max) part asian part hawaiian, and Verena is a 19-year-old German.

Finally, the first two pictures are from a few nights ago, when a HUGELY HUGE bug was crawling up the main door of my apartment building.





















If I could wear this as my everday clothing, I TOTALLY would.






New Facebook profile picture














John Noyes, what are doing? Go play Final Fantasy VII

























































All in all, it was an excellent day, and when we returned to Okazaki, Kai and I went out for Sushi, where I tried a wide variety of dishes and spent about twice as much money as I intended. It was excellent, and I will definitely be returning to that restaraunt.