I <3 Japan

Not that that really needs to be said at this point, but it's true. It seems like everyday I grow to love it even more.

Generally speaking, I love the geography (both 田舎 and 都会), the history, the culture, the tradition, the language, and, of course, the people! I can break it down to even simpler, daily things, too. Things like traditional style houses and the smell of tatami floors, untranslatable phrases like 懐かしい and 'KY', melon flavored soda, jingly keitai straps, the old ladies selling ice cream, heated toilet seats (and clean public restrooms!), the yellow hats pre-schoolers wear, Japanese-accented English, and a thousand more.

Of course, there are times living here when cultural differences are frustrating, or when I don't enjoy my lifestyle. There are plenty of things that annoy me (smoking in restaurants or inefficient bureaucracies, for example)...
But that's true of anywhere.

Even though my Japanese will never be good enough, and I may never learn to love natto, and no matter how annoyed, frustrated, or homesick I get, it doesn't change the simple fact - I love Japan.
It's true.


With only two months left here, the excitement of being home with my family and friends is growing exponentially, but, at the same time, so is my love and appreciation for all things "Japanese". As divisive and stressful as that is for me, I'm trying to just relax and enjoy it all.

I do take comfort in reassuring myself that when I go home in August I certainly won't be saying "good-bye".
I'll be back. Soon...
because it's love!

Thank you for teaching us gently

Today is my LAST day at Hachiryu JHS, and even though I've visited this school the least of the three junior highs (started here mid-Nov), saying goodbye is SAD!! Since I'm going to be in town until August, it came as a surprise to everyone that I would finish at this school so early. The English teachers told the vice principal it was my last day and they quickly arranged to have a whole school assembly after lunch.

I just got back from it. The principal gave a speech about how great it was to have me, and how I'm going off to do good things, it was really cute. Then two 3rd graders (9th grade) gave a little speech in English where one boy would talk and the other would repeat key phrases, saying things like "We are very sad to say goodbye. Thanks for teaching us English. Your classes were always interesting (interesting!) and fun (fun!) and comfortable (comfortable!) and exciting (exciting!). Thank you for teaching us gently." and then with double thumbs up, "Good luck!" SO CUTE! and funny!

Then a girl came up and gave me a BEAUTIFUL bouquet of roses and pretty pink flowers. I gave my little speech in English (it was really simple so I think they understood most, if not all, of it). Then one of the funny boys from before did a "translation" which basically consisted of him putting on a funny girly voice and translating a couple of the main things I said. Everyone laughed. :D He's cute!

And then they clapped, and I waved, and the end!


Oh, and in the 2nd grade English class this morning, the teacher told them it was my last day at the end of class. So a bunch of kids came up to say thank you or shake my hand, etc. Two boys came up separately to tell me, "You are very beautiful." One boy (who's a big character in class) said, "I love you!" and then pulled the other teacher over, asked her something, and then came back and said "Will you marry me??" hahahaha I told him, "Sorry, I have to go to America." He said, "OK! See you again!" and went off with his laughing friends.

Cute, cute, cute. I'm going to miss these kids!!!! :(

Okinawa Pics

The pictures are up! I sorted through them this time, so there's only a little under 300 from a week vacation... I think that's pretty good!

Enjoy! (click the pic below to get to the album)

Okinawan Magic

vacation

I'm having SUCH a good time!! So far I've visited Shuri Castle and war memorials, went snorkling in a coral reef, done karaoke, seen a trad Okinawan music show, explored an aquarium and an old-time village, rode in a pineapple car at the pineapple park, did a little shopping, and today I went to two karate training sessions! You'll see all the pics later.

This has just been so amazing thus far. Training with all these 9th degree black belts and the grandmaster is just cool!! and I'm really glad I'm here now (rather than when I was in high school) because my Japanese and knowledge of J culture is at a point now where I can really appreciate this experience. I'm kinda proud of how well I've done, too. Apparently, karate is like riding a bike. :)

I'm looking forward to filling you all in!! <3

Okinawa!

the trip is just getting started, but here's an update so far!

i got here at 1130, went to bed, got up to go the fish market at 330 and then went on an inpromptue tour of naha on the back of my karate instructor's (rented) motocycle. fun, but i didnt get back to bed til 6, slept till 830 and then felt funky because odd sleep patterns don't agree with me... but it's okay. the group made plans to meet in the lobby at 12:30 so i decided to spend my morning exploring International St. I ended up spending too much money on souvenirs - i like too many people! oh well. we all went to some gardens, took lots of pics and then went out to lunch at Charlie's Tacos - yuuum!

now im off to see the famous shuri castle!

Welcome Back!

Thanks! I do, in fact, officially have a steady, working, wonderful DSL connection at home again! That means after three months (exactly! no joke!), I have the ability to call people whenever I want, email, blog, post photos, read/listen to news in ENGLISH, watch American TV, etc!! It's a good thing!!! :D I will say, after living three months without it, I don't really find the internet as entertaining as I once did, but that's probably a good thing.

Anywho, I've posted and captioned photos from cherry blossom season and from my recent road trip. Yesterday, I went to the Sport Day at one of my elementary school, but I haven't transferred the pictures to my computer yet, so I'll get those up soon. In the meantime, enjoy these:

Cherry Blossoms

Aomori Road Trip

Now that I'm back in the realm of communication, call me! Oh, but I'm leaving for Okinawa for a week on Thursday, so I'll talk to you when I get back! :D

Village Grounds

Seriously, this hot chocolate is amazingly magic! Even 5 months after Sarah packed me a ziplock full to take here, it stills has its miraculous healing properties. I love it!!

If you're in Berkeley, go get some!

Driving in the Dark

so... I magically had internet for about an hour yesterday, and then it mysteriously disappeared again! I don't know what's wrong, don't ask. There's a technician coming to my house Friday afternoon. Cross your fingers or something.

For a fun change of pace, let's talk about how my headlights mysteriously died driving home from the city tonight. There was a burning plasticy smell, then they flickered a bit and went out. I think the wiring burned or something because the parking lights and high beams work just fine (thankfully, so I made it home okay despite blinding all the other drivers with my brights). It's not the battery, alternator, or bulb, either, hence the wiring guess. My old supervisor's husband has a body shop so I'm going to contact them tomorrow. Hopefully I can get it fixed quickly (and cheaply).

I think I have bad luck, or disaster-inducing hands.

Oh well, I'm going to Okinawa next Thurs! warm weather, beach, and karate... can't wait! and June will contain lots of excitement as well.

It'll all work out. :)

PS. Congratulations to all my graduating friends!!

Panda :(

I forgot I saw on the news Saturday that the Giant Panda at the Ueno Zoo died. Remember the post from early April and how excited about the panda I was? I think this panda made a lot of people like me happy. We'll miss him!

Save Cal's East Asian Languages & Cultures Program Petition

Please take a few min to review and sign this petition:

http://petition.berkeley.edu

Due to the state education budget cuts, UC Berkeley is planning to cut the East Asian Languages and Cultures department in half! This will drastically downsize the Chinese and Japanese classes, and effectively decimate the Korean program. We cannot allow this! As one of the finest university East Asian departments in the world, these cuts will have a HUGE affect on scholarship, international relations, and business!

You can read more details at the website above. PLEASE please please sign the petition - you dont have to be a student or an alumni, anyone can sign!!

None of these silly adventures I write about would be possible without the education and experience I gained from Cal's East Asian Lang and Cult Dept. If you enjoy these, sign the petition.

It's really really important to me.

Thanks!

Road Trip: Day 2 (cont)

Hirosaki... after an adventure finding our hostel that included getting the car stuck in a narrow alley-ish street and having to do some tricky backing up manuevering, we checked in and the headed to Hirosaki Park. Former castle grounds, this park has over a thousand sakura trees and so it's hugely popular for flower-viewing. Thankfully (or unfortunately), most of the blossoms were finished so the crowds weren't that bad. The castle gaurd tower (the only remaining ruin - and i think it was rebuit) was pretty anticlimactic, especially since my last castle visit was Himeji, but the items on display inside were cool. Walking through the park we ran into Rob and Sherwin, two Akita JETs who also happened to be in town. They were looking for a place to stay so we directed them to our hostel. Then we all went out in search of dinner. We wandered ALL over town looking for this mythical Mexican restaurant for a good hour+. I was starting to doubt its existance, but then! At last! We
found Jalepen~o! It's a tiiiiny place with one cook, one server, and from the speed of the food, probably one burner. It took almost TWO HOURS to make tacos, nachos, and fajitas for 7 people!! And each person's order came out at a waaay different times! As a restaurant it basically failed. The food was good though! So, I was happy. I think I've lowered my standards. haha Anyway, we made it back to the hostel and I went to sleep!

Today it's off to Mt. Iwaki and the Aomori coast (Sea of Japan side)!

Road Trip: Day 2

After a nice breakfast of toasted English muffins at Nick's, we headed of to our last Akita destination - Lake Towada! It was only a half hour drive so we arrived before all the tour buses and were able to the view for about 10min - then a tour bus from Sendai pulled up! haha, but even with people around the lake and surrounding mountains are gorgeous! We drove partway around, stopping for coffee (water for me!) at a marina cafe, and at the statue of the maidens of the lake. The statue was not very pretty and really not that exciting. What really got me was the shrine for them. It was up a hill, and then you can take an even higher mountain path (which was really stairs) for a good view and another shrine. At the top of this area, there are two sections of iron ladders down the other side to the edge of the lake. You wont understand until you see pictures how high and steep and scary it is. Since it's all that defying death for just a nice view, none of the other girls want
edto go. I went. Going down was freeeeaky! one slip and you'd be splat on the ground below - i held on and didnt slip. :) At the bottom I was all happy to be there, but the climb back up was looooong and tiring. All in all the view wasn't that cool but the scary ladder experience was a blast on its own! :)

Next we continued to Oirase Gorge (I think I'm spelling that wrong), which is a not that amazing river canyon near the lake. The cool thing was how beautiful and full the river was thanks to all the runoff! We went for a walk along the river with hundreds of tourists and took lots of pictures of the pretty waterfalls. We also ran into some older americans - teaches at an American school on the base in Iwate - and they wanted to talk to us forever. weird.

Next we had a long, windy drive over the mountains to Aomori Prefecture. I got a little carsick so I had to close my eyes and miss out on a lot of scenery. :(

We made it to Hirosaki...

Im going to bed, so the rest will have to wait!

Road Trip - Day 1

I left my humble abode at 7:07 this morning, picked up Christy, then Paula and Ann in the city, and we were on our way! We drove east to Kakunodate and arrive just before 10. We met Maggie (and her visiting friend, Leslie, who we explored Sado Island with on our road trip in Sept) and decided to go to a cafe. We had a lovely little brunch and chatted over cafe au laits (except I drank water). Back on the road, we headed toward Lake Tazawa (see my trips there in Sept and Jan with my sis). Oh we stopped on the way at this honey shop. They have a bazillion kinds of honey and honey products (from jam to lotion!). I decided to try out the popular treat - fresh fruit of your choice blended into ice cream and topped with honey. I got strawberry, banana, and orange ice cream blend with a little lemon honey on top! Crazy good!

At the lake, we decided to rent a paddleboat and toodle around. Oh yeah, it was waaay hot today- 30deg midday in the mountains! so we paddleboated for a half hour in a rocketship-shaped boat.

Then we continued our drive north in the mountains along the Akita-Iwate border taking dozens of photos because it was SO beautiful! Ridiculously beautiful. Our next stop was Hachimantai (it's a volcano!), where we went for a short hike around the sulfur pits and mudpots at the top. They were pretty cool (hot, actually) and smelly. It was fun because there's still patches of snow in that area, but the day was so warm we were hot walking around in T-shirts! The volcanic wonders were neat, but not as expansive as the stuff at Mt Lassen and it kind of made me miss CA in a nice way. The girls were really stoked about it though, because apparently Chicago, Dublin, and Johannesburg don't have volcanoes nearby and had never seen the sulfur/mud before. They kept asking me all kinds of questions that made me wish I'd paid more attention on those Lassen fieldtrips! :P

After mooore driving, we got to Kazuno, our destination for the night. We picked up some groceries, rented a movie and made ourselves at home at Nick's (Christy's bf, but he's out of town) apartment. We cooked a nice dinner and relaxed - now it's time for bed!