Yesterday I met my host family for the first time! (Also in the morning I had curry bread from a bakery and it actually had curry inside it!) My host family is a mom, a dad, and a son, though they have two other sons who are away from home. They're very nice and we've been able to communicate pretty well. The dad teaches politics in high school and the mom tutors at a cram school. They also have three cats and live near Nick's host family's house and a completely green church.
I probably shouldn't post too many personal details on a public blog about my host family's life, but I can share some interesting tidbits about Japanese life in general. Though if you already know a little about Japan, it might be nothing new.
First thing is, you take your shoes off at the door and there is a section of the floor that is different or lowered to accommodate this. Also, there are slippers to wear around the house, but socks or barefoot is ok too. Houses often have slippers to use in the bathroom too. Also, bathrooms are probably the most different thing between Japanese and American houses. The toilet and shower are in separate rooms, with the laundry room usually connected to the shower room, and the shower is outside the bath tub. Traditionally, you clean yourself completely outside the bath and then soak in the bath tub afterward. Since you're already clean, the family often takes turns and keeps the same bath water for each person. Optionally, you can bath the even more traditional way, by sitting on a stool and pouring buckets of water over yourself. After using the toilet, you are supposed to close the door behind you to keep the dirtiness in the bathroom. To see if someone is inside, just knock.
Also, sliding doors; there are a lot of them. There is also a small shinto (or maybe Buddhist) shrine in a section of the house that has tatami floor and a picture of, I believe, a deceased relative.
Anyway, that's about all I can think of at the moment. I'll update when I think I can without being too antisocial and rude. xP
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Friday 9/10 - School clubs and Karaoke!
Woke up at 5:30 again, but I guess that makes it easy to get to class on time. If you recall that Nagashima-san requested that we not be served processed fish-egg-cheese sticks/sausages with breakfast, you'll be interested to know that we were not; we had processed fish-only sausages instead. We had our Japanese placement test at 9:00 which lasted until around 11:00 and consisted of a listening section, a long grammar section that gradually increased in difficulty, and a 10 minute oral interview. I think it went pretty well; the questions were worded in such a way that it was always obvious what they were looking for. There were a few things that I should've known but forgot but overall I think it went well. The oral interview went well until the teacher asked me if I had seen any movies and I said that I saw Source Code on the plane and she asked me to explain the story, which was rather complicated and involved pseudo time travel and terrorist plots. During this time, Nagashima-san brought the few of our phones that didn't get minutes and added minutes.
After that, I had time to take a shower and eat before we had a meeting with the college president. However, when I got back from my shower, everyone was gone so I just went to eat by myself and was quickly invited to sit with a couple girls who were majoring in English. We ate and hung out until my meeting with the president, though I was a little more awkward than usual because I was tired from my test and was failing at eating my slippery udon noodles with chopsticks.
The meeting with the president was uneventful, but I got a couple more papers to add to my overwhelming bag-full. I also signed up for classes yesterday and added one more today since I think I need 18 credits this semester to stay on schedule for graduation. I'll be taking 12 credits worth of Japanese, a 3 credit class that seems to be mostly watching Japanese films (including Totoro and Death Note), and a 3 credit course on Japanese economics since I wanted something else but didn't want to take Japanese culture for a third time. Disappointingly, there were no religion classes as I was hoping.
From there we headed over to the club building to visit clubs that we were interested in. While the sports clubs seemed to do activities and had their uniforms and equipment hung up in the small rooms, almost all the other clubs seemed to be mostly people with common interests who hang out in the club room to talk, do homework, and play video games. I think that about half the club rooms or more had a Gamecube, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo 64 and even the art club was just playing Super Smash Bros. while other clubs opted for Mario Kart 64. I was considering visiting one of the two Bible clubs but chickened out at the last minute. I also hung out at the HI-C club room again for a little bit. I asked them what they did when they weren't playing video games and, confirming my suspicions, they said "We play cards and Uno." At some point, Maggie (the only other ETown student) came in, bitter as always, this time about the fact that the clubs only seemed to hang out and play video games instead of what their names suggested.
In the evening, we went out to eat a restaurant that had good Japanese food but otherwise looked a lot like a normal American sit-in restaurant except for a few areas that had low tables that you could kneel at. This was also the first time taking the subway, although it was only one stop away. Taking the subway in Japan is quite easy: you look at the map above the ticket machines, check the price of the stop you want, and put that much money into the machine. If you go too far, you can always add more to your ticket. Supper was very good, though it took a while for everyone to finish up and as usual everyone was very loud on the way there and at the restaurant. Nagashima-san seems to really want to make a good impression, perhaps at the of expense of not telling people to quiet down when in a public place and so annoying the rest of the pedestrians. He's also dipped into the BCA money a bit to pay for Rachel who is not here through BCA (which is understandable) and for an extended karaoke session later in the night (which went a little overboard).
So anyway, next was karaoke (that's pronounced using the rules I gave in the first post if you want to practice). We decided to walk back instead of taking the subway since karaoke was in between stops and it would save us 200 yen. The karaoke spot had an arcade on the first floor, with lots of crane games which had much nicer stuff (for the most part) than American ones, but they also cost 100 yen and I'm not sure how difficult they were. There were also a bunch of fighting games, racing games, and rhythm games. Our karaoke room was upstairs and was surprisingly large enough to accommodate our group. Nagashima-san also hooked us up with unlimited drinks (although he isn't supposed to buy us any alcohol; hopefully no one at BCA is reading this) and we continued for about two and half hours. It was very fun and started out doing less serious songs from Ke$ha or Brittney Spears, but eventually ended up with quite a variety, including Japanese, English, Romanian, and Spanish. I was thrilled to attempt singing Linda Linda by The Blue Hearts with Nagashima-san in Japanese and later, Dragonstea din Tei by O-Zone with a couple other guys. I also joined in from the sidelines on several other songs. By the end though, I was getting a bit worried about how much money his was going to cost Nagashima-san and kept not adding another song to the queue because I thought that we'd be leaving soon. He wouldn't accept any money afterwards either. Needless to say when we got back around 1 (likely after waking up neighbors with some of our louder members), I fell asleep quickly and slept in to almost 7:00!
After that, I had time to take a shower and eat before we had a meeting with the college president. However, when I got back from my shower, everyone was gone so I just went to eat by myself and was quickly invited to sit with a couple girls who were majoring in English. We ate and hung out until my meeting with the president, though I was a little more awkward than usual because I was tired from my test and was failing at eating my slippery udon noodles with chopsticks.
The meeting with the president was uneventful, but I got a couple more papers to add to my overwhelming bag-full. I also signed up for classes yesterday and added one more today since I think I need 18 credits this semester to stay on schedule for graduation. I'll be taking 12 credits worth of Japanese, a 3 credit class that seems to be mostly watching Japanese films (including Totoro and Death Note), and a 3 credit course on Japanese economics since I wanted something else but didn't want to take Japanese culture for a third time. Disappointingly, there were no religion classes as I was hoping.
From there we headed over to the club building to visit clubs that we were interested in. While the sports clubs seemed to do activities and had their uniforms and equipment hung up in the small rooms, almost all the other clubs seemed to be mostly people with common interests who hang out in the club room to talk, do homework, and play video games. I think that about half the club rooms or more had a Gamecube, Super Nintendo, and Nintendo 64 and even the art club was just playing Super Smash Bros. while other clubs opted for Mario Kart 64. I was considering visiting one of the two Bible clubs but chickened out at the last minute. I also hung out at the HI-C club room again for a little bit. I asked them what they did when they weren't playing video games and, confirming my suspicions, they said "We play cards and Uno." At some point, Maggie (the only other ETown student) came in, bitter as always, this time about the fact that the clubs only seemed to hang out and play video games instead of what their names suggested.
In the evening, we went out to eat a restaurant that had good Japanese food but otherwise looked a lot like a normal American sit-in restaurant except for a few areas that had low tables that you could kneel at. This was also the first time taking the subway, although it was only one stop away. Taking the subway in Japan is quite easy: you look at the map above the ticket machines, check the price of the stop you want, and put that much money into the machine. If you go too far, you can always add more to your ticket. Supper was very good, though it took a while for everyone to finish up and as usual everyone was very loud on the way there and at the restaurant. Nagashima-san seems to really want to make a good impression, perhaps at the of expense of not telling people to quiet down when in a public place and so annoying the rest of the pedestrians. He's also dipped into the BCA money a bit to pay for Rachel who is not here through BCA (which is understandable) and for an extended karaoke session later in the night (which went a little overboard).
So anyway, next was karaoke (that's pronounced using the rules I gave in the first post if you want to practice). We decided to walk back instead of taking the subway since karaoke was in between stops and it would save us 200 yen. The karaoke spot had an arcade on the first floor, with lots of crane games which had much nicer stuff (for the most part) than American ones, but they also cost 100 yen and I'm not sure how difficult they were. There were also a bunch of fighting games, racing games, and rhythm games. Our karaoke room was upstairs and was surprisingly large enough to accommodate our group. Nagashima-san also hooked us up with unlimited drinks (although he isn't supposed to buy us any alcohol; hopefully no one at BCA is reading this) and we continued for about two and half hours. It was very fun and started out doing less serious songs from Ke$ha or Brittney Spears, but eventually ended up with quite a variety, including Japanese, English, Romanian, and Spanish. I was thrilled to attempt singing Linda Linda by The Blue Hearts with Nagashima-san in Japanese and later, Dragonstea din Tei by O-Zone with a couple other guys. I also joined in from the sidelines on several other songs. By the end though, I was getting a bit worried about how much money his was going to cost Nagashima-san and kept not adding another song to the queue because I thought that we'd be leaving soon. He wouldn't accept any money afterwards either. Needless to say when we got back around 1 (likely after waking up neighbors with some of our louder members), I fell asleep quickly and slept in to almost 7:00!
Friday, September 16, 2011
Thursday 9/15 - Welcome party!
(Note that this is the second post today, catching up from a few days of no internet access)
I woke up around 5:30 again this morning so I didn't have any problem picking up breakfast before 9:00. Breakfast consisted of four or five halves of sandwiches of different varieties, all without crust. These sandwiches are pretty common and cheap at convenience stores and weren't bad... but not exactly good either. Maybe I just have a hard time trusting prepackaged sandwiches with egg salad, potato salad, tuna, and some meat I can't identify. There were also these tubes of a mixture of cheese, egg, and fish which had the consistency of a raw hotdog and while they weren't vomit inducing, I didn't go back for a second bite and Nagashima-san (the resident director) informed us that he'd request that they give us something else tomorrow.
In the morning we had an orientation lecture which was informative and to the point, unlike other orientations I've had in America. Somehow I doubt that most Japanese meetings are as time efficient. Unfortunately, while the lecture was over in good time, the rest of the students stood around talking about nothing instead of going to lunch. But eventually we did go and then went to another orientation meeting. Before the meeting started, we all played shiritori, a Japanese game where you take turns saying words which start with the last syllable of the previous word without repeating any words and without saying a word that ends in "n". It was pretty fun and I realized that I couldn't think of many Japanese words that start with "ru" or "zu". The actual orientation was given by an American guy who has been living in Sapporo for 30 years and he talked about how to be polite and get along with our host families, a good thing considering I doubt that half of the group would have the common sense for the manners he talked about. And in one of our information packets there were things that host families and students said in the past and there were some pretty embarrassing things that happened. It made me a bit more nervous about being with my host family, but still I think I'll be alright.
Then we walked over to get prepaid phone cards which took forever and I didn't even get one because I left my phone in the dorm thinking I could just activate the card later. Overall, the city seems quite a lot less crowded than Tokyo, but I also haven't been downtown yet. In the evening we had a welcome party which lasted for several hours during which I talked in Japanese and English with a bunch of different people. I also talked to Iwao again and some other people about video games and anime. At one point, some people were playing this kid's game that had a plastic pirate figure in a big barrel and you took turns inserting swords into slots on the side of the barrel until someone got unlucky and "stabbed" the pirate, making him launch into the air and causing everyone to scream in surprise. They also played Uno and later, BS. I met a lot of people, but I still forget most of the Japanese students' names. At last I came up to my room to write this summary in the guise of studying for the placement test tomorrow.
I'm hoping that in the future I'll be able to write more random interesting things about Japan instead of simple summaries of my day. I think once classes start I'll be able to focus my posts on more interesting things.
I woke up around 5:30 again this morning so I didn't have any problem picking up breakfast before 9:00. Breakfast consisted of four or five halves of sandwiches of different varieties, all without crust. These sandwiches are pretty common and cheap at convenience stores and weren't bad... but not exactly good either. Maybe I just have a hard time trusting prepackaged sandwiches with egg salad, potato salad, tuna, and some meat I can't identify. There were also these tubes of a mixture of cheese, egg, and fish which had the consistency of a raw hotdog and while they weren't vomit inducing, I didn't go back for a second bite and Nagashima-san (the resident director) informed us that he'd request that they give us something else tomorrow.
In the morning we had an orientation lecture which was informative and to the point, unlike other orientations I've had in America. Somehow I doubt that most Japanese meetings are as time efficient. Unfortunately, while the lecture was over in good time, the rest of the students stood around talking about nothing instead of going to lunch. But eventually we did go and then went to another orientation meeting. Before the meeting started, we all played shiritori, a Japanese game where you take turns saying words which start with the last syllable of the previous word without repeating any words and without saying a word that ends in "n". It was pretty fun and I realized that I couldn't think of many Japanese words that start with "ru" or "zu". The actual orientation was given by an American guy who has been living in Sapporo for 30 years and he talked about how to be polite and get along with our host families, a good thing considering I doubt that half of the group would have the common sense for the manners he talked about. And in one of our information packets there were things that host families and students said in the past and there were some pretty embarrassing things that happened. It made me a bit more nervous about being with my host family, but still I think I'll be alright.
Then we walked over to get prepaid phone cards which took forever and I didn't even get one because I left my phone in the dorm thinking I could just activate the card later. Overall, the city seems quite a lot less crowded than Tokyo, but I also haven't been downtown yet. In the evening we had a welcome party which lasted for several hours during which I talked in Japanese and English with a bunch of different people. I also talked to Iwao again and some other people about video games and anime. At one point, some people were playing this kid's game that had a plastic pirate figure in a big barrel and you took turns inserting swords into slots on the side of the barrel until someone got unlucky and "stabbed" the pirate, making him launch into the air and causing everyone to scream in surprise. They also played Uno and later, BS. I met a lot of people, but I still forget most of the Japanese students' names. At last I came up to my room to write this summary in the guise of studying for the placement test tomorrow.
I'm hoping that in the future I'll be able to write more random interesting things about Japan instead of simple summaries of my day. I think once classes start I'll be able to focus my posts on more interesting things.
Wednesday 9/14 - First day at Hokusei Gakuen!
We woke up around 5:30 and went to breakfast when it opened at 6:30. There were options for both Japanese and Western style breakfasts, but I didn't notice this until after I had gotten Western style food. At 11 we left for Hokusei Gakuen on a small bus and took a toll road. The toll roads seemed pretty expensive but I'm not sure if there were any reasonable alternatives. Surprisingly, this drive looked very much like a drive down the highway on Pennsylvania does and there were plenty of trees, hills, and wide open spaces on the side.
We arrived at the university and moved into the Kirari retreat house, taking our shoes off at the door and putting them in cubby holes on the way. It's a really nice place, with rooms upstairs and a lounge and eating area downstairs. The rooms have bunk beds with Japanese style futon as mattresses, and as usual the bathrooms have slippers at the door and showers in a separate room from the toilets. Speaking of toilets, they seem to be the most technologically advanced thing in Japan; they have heated seats, adjust the water level when you sit down, have optional deodorizer, some have a fake flushing sound you can use to cover up your bodily noises, and all of them have a built in bidet. And while the toilets are top of the line, Japan seems to not place as high a priority on things like wifi and air conditioning. Luckily the weather is very nice and it only gets particularly hot in some of the buildings.
At noon we met members from HI-C, a club that helps with international students, and went to lunch at the cafeteria where you could choose from a selection of different things, ranging from ramen to curry and vegetable tempura. When ordering something that needs to be prepared, as with ramen, you put a plastic tile marker down next to what you want to order. Once at the table, we chatted with whoever was around, a couple girls from HI-C in my case. It seems that of the other BCA students, there are only one or two others who are at my level of Japanese and a two people have no Japanese experience at all.
After lunch, we split up into smaller groups and took a tour of the campus. I sort of forgot to pay attention and so was lost as soon as we left the door, but I went back out later in the day and figured out the layout a bit more. We went to a computer lab to set up our college email accounts first, then to the school library, peeked into the chapel, which had a cool wooden door that stood out from the other rooms, then to the gymnasium, which had basketball courts upstairs, a weight room, and martial arts in the basement. At the gym, I asked one of our guides, Kentaro, if the college had an ouendan (a sort of male cheerleading group). He wasn't sure but was surprised that I even knew what an ouendan was. I told him I knew it from a DS game and from seeing one at a university in Tokyo. From there we went to the club room building and checked out the HI-C club room on the fourth floor. It was hard to tell what they actually used the room for, but I assume it was for planning things. The club room was pretty small and also had video games (Super Famicon, PS2, N64, Gamecube) and manga for people who just wanted to hang out. We also ventured off campus a short bit to see where the convenience store, grocery store, and subway station was. At that point we had rejoined the rest of the group and I was having a conversation with a Japanese student named Iwao about various video games.
When we got back, I was going to go back to the club room with Iwao to play Super Smash Bros., but then remembered that we were going to go downtown with the resident director. I got his email, but unfortunately discovered that back at the dorm, you can't get online with your own laptop. Also, we met with the resident director and got our cell phones (without any minutes so far) and decided that we weren't going to go downtown after all, but instead would have supper at the Kirari house which we and some Japanese students would make. This gave me about an hour of free time, so I walked back over to the club building with Kaad to see if Iwao was there. He wasn't, but someone else nicknamed Basho was there so we played Smash Bros. (Melee) with him instead. We were pretty evenly matched too.
Back at Kirari, we picked numbers from a box to determine our seating for supper and Kaad, Julia (a Chinese-Canadian BCA student), and I ended up at the end of a table with four or so Japanese students, and one of four Korean students who was also studying abroad here. I was able to talk passably well in Japanese while we had our dinner of... some fried... thing. I believe they said it was a famous food from Osaka but I don't remember what it was. There was also yakisoba, fried noodles and bean sprouts, and a dessert of a cream puff. We all had name tags on but the people I was talking to had theirs either too low or too far to the side so that I couldn't actually read them except for a girl named Alisu who was sitting across and to the left from me. After supper all the students studying abroad introduced themselves in Japanese (the Koreans sounded way better than the rest of us) and then everybody pitched in to help clean up.
After that, a bunch of people were planning on finding a place to go out drinking, since that's what people do in Japan (and since most of the other BCA students are rowdy, obnoxious, and overly outgoing). I wavered between going and not going but eventually decided that I had too much time left in the evening to kill and I'd have to see what the fuss was all about eventually. We walked down to meet a few of the HI-C members from the campus tour at the subway station and made our way to a very Japanese-looking bar. Our group was quite large and we were brought into a back room with a low table and mats to kneel on. Unfortunately, most of us didn't realize that it cost a rather expensive price for all-you-can drink and if you just wanted one drink you had to get some sort of food with it. Since we had just eaten, I'm cheap, and didn't really care that much about going in the first place, I left with a few others after some frustrated discussion (others were frustrated, I was just feeling awkward about leaving without buying anything). In my smaller group was Anna, Dai (Vietnamese-American), Julia, and Allen (half-Japanese). I much preferred being in a smaller group and we opted to go to the convenience store for much more affordable cans of beer. Then we walked down toward the college and found a place to sit and talk. Dai let us know earlier that he's actually very allergic to alcohol and some other things, but is now on medicine so that he at least won't have reactions from being around it. Julia also didn't have any because it makes her sick as well. Anna and I had one can of Asahi beer, though I only managed to finish half of it before deciding once again that I'd rather just drink soda. Anyway, I was glad we split off from the group, since most of the other group was the annoying people and I became better friends with the four I was with. We got back to the dorm around 10 and met another American student named Rachel who was studying here but not through BCA, so we hung out with her for a while and laughed at Allen's tipsy antics.
We arrived at the university and moved into the Kirari retreat house, taking our shoes off at the door and putting them in cubby holes on the way. It's a really nice place, with rooms upstairs and a lounge and eating area downstairs. The rooms have bunk beds with Japanese style futon as mattresses, and as usual the bathrooms have slippers at the door and showers in a separate room from the toilets. Speaking of toilets, they seem to be the most technologically advanced thing in Japan; they have heated seats, adjust the water level when you sit down, have optional deodorizer, some have a fake flushing sound you can use to cover up your bodily noises, and all of them have a built in bidet. And while the toilets are top of the line, Japan seems to not place as high a priority on things like wifi and air conditioning. Luckily the weather is very nice and it only gets particularly hot in some of the buildings.
At noon we met members from HI-C, a club that helps with international students, and went to lunch at the cafeteria where you could choose from a selection of different things, ranging from ramen to curry and vegetable tempura. When ordering something that needs to be prepared, as with ramen, you put a plastic tile marker down next to what you want to order. Once at the table, we chatted with whoever was around, a couple girls from HI-C in my case. It seems that of the other BCA students, there are only one or two others who are at my level of Japanese and a two people have no Japanese experience at all.
After lunch, we split up into smaller groups and took a tour of the campus. I sort of forgot to pay attention and so was lost as soon as we left the door, but I went back out later in the day and figured out the layout a bit more. We went to a computer lab to set up our college email accounts first, then to the school library, peeked into the chapel, which had a cool wooden door that stood out from the other rooms, then to the gymnasium, which had basketball courts upstairs, a weight room, and martial arts in the basement. At the gym, I asked one of our guides, Kentaro, if the college had an ouendan (a sort of male cheerleading group). He wasn't sure but was surprised that I even knew what an ouendan was. I told him I knew it from a DS game and from seeing one at a university in Tokyo. From there we went to the club room building and checked out the HI-C club room on the fourth floor. It was hard to tell what they actually used the room for, but I assume it was for planning things. The club room was pretty small and also had video games (Super Famicon, PS2, N64, Gamecube) and manga for people who just wanted to hang out. We also ventured off campus a short bit to see where the convenience store, grocery store, and subway station was. At that point we had rejoined the rest of the group and I was having a conversation with a Japanese student named Iwao about various video games.
When we got back, I was going to go back to the club room with Iwao to play Super Smash Bros., but then remembered that we were going to go downtown with the resident director. I got his email, but unfortunately discovered that back at the dorm, you can't get online with your own laptop. Also, we met with the resident director and got our cell phones (without any minutes so far) and decided that we weren't going to go downtown after all, but instead would have supper at the Kirari house which we and some Japanese students would make. This gave me about an hour of free time, so I walked back over to the club building with Kaad to see if Iwao was there. He wasn't, but someone else nicknamed Basho was there so we played Smash Bros. (Melee) with him instead. We were pretty evenly matched too.
Back at Kirari, we picked numbers from a box to determine our seating for supper and Kaad, Julia (a Chinese-Canadian BCA student), and I ended up at the end of a table with four or so Japanese students, and one of four Korean students who was also studying abroad here. I was able to talk passably well in Japanese while we had our dinner of... some fried... thing. I believe they said it was a famous food from Osaka but I don't remember what it was. There was also yakisoba, fried noodles and bean sprouts, and a dessert of a cream puff. We all had name tags on but the people I was talking to had theirs either too low or too far to the side so that I couldn't actually read them except for a girl named Alisu who was sitting across and to the left from me. After supper all the students studying abroad introduced themselves in Japanese (the Koreans sounded way better than the rest of us) and then everybody pitched in to help clean up.
After that, a bunch of people were planning on finding a place to go out drinking, since that's what people do in Japan (and since most of the other BCA students are rowdy, obnoxious, and overly outgoing). I wavered between going and not going but eventually decided that I had too much time left in the evening to kill and I'd have to see what the fuss was all about eventually. We walked down to meet a few of the HI-C members from the campus tour at the subway station and made our way to a very Japanese-looking bar. Our group was quite large and we were brought into a back room with a low table and mats to kneel on. Unfortunately, most of us didn't realize that it cost a rather expensive price for all-you-can drink and if you just wanted one drink you had to get some sort of food with it. Since we had just eaten, I'm cheap, and didn't really care that much about going in the first place, I left with a few others after some frustrated discussion (others were frustrated, I was just feeling awkward about leaving without buying anything). In my smaller group was Anna, Dai (Vietnamese-American), Julia, and Allen (half-Japanese). I much preferred being in a smaller group and we opted to go to the convenience store for much more affordable cans of beer. Then we walked down toward the college and found a place to sit and talk. Dai let us know earlier that he's actually very allergic to alcohol and some other things, but is now on medicine so that he at least won't have reactions from being around it. Julia also didn't have any because it makes her sick as well. Anna and I had one can of Asahi beer, though I only managed to finish half of it before deciding once again that I'd rather just drink soda. Anyway, I was glad we split off from the group, since most of the other group was the annoying people and I became better friends with the four I was with. We got back to the dorm around 10 and met another American student named Rachel who was studying here but not through BCA, so we hung out with her for a while and laughed at Allen's tipsy antics.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Quick update
I have about two pages typed out detailing the events of yesterday (Wednesday), but we cant connect our computers to the internet at the dorm here and can only use these really slow laptops in the lobby which dont have an open USB port to transfer the file either. There is a computer lab though in another building so I may be able to update from there. Hopefully my host family will have better internet access.
But to summarize yesterday: we moved into the dorm, had lunch and dinner with some other students, went on a campus tour, and got settled in. Besides the crappy internet, the dorm is quite nice and we are sleeping on Japanese futon on bunk beds. Talking to people in Japanese was fun and I was able to play Super Smash Bros. with someone in HI-C (Hokusei International club). It was pretty busy so hopefully my two pages of details arent too long for a blog and dont pile up with another post from today.
But to summarize yesterday: we moved into the dorm, had lunch and dinner with some other students, went on a campus tour, and got settled in. Besides the crappy internet, the dorm is quite nice and we are sleeping on Japanese futon on bunk beds. Talking to people in Japanese was fun and I was able to play Super Smash Bros. with someone in HI-C (Hokusei International club). It was pretty busy so hopefully my two pages of details arent too long for a blog and dont pile up with another post from today.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Mostly boring stuff
So here's a quick rundown of the trip.
We left the house at 1 a.m. on Monday, drove about two hours to the airport in D.C.. We got to the airport FOUR hours early and had to sit around for a while. The plane left at 7 and I met Nick. After about 45 minutes of flying, we landed in Kennedy airport in NYC where we had to go to a different building to get to Korean Air and go through security again. After waiting around there for about 6 hours (with no free wifi!) and meeting two more BCA students, we left on the 14-15 hour flight to Seoul. That flight had a 50 minute delay before takeoff for refueling, as if they got in the plane and were like "oh yeah, we need to put gas in, lol."
It took forever. I spent most of the time trying and failing to sleep, occasionally listening to some of the many Korean and Japanese music options they had, including some I knew. And I watched movies: Source Code (I'd been wanting to see that and it was pretty awesome), X-Men: First Class (Danielle said she liked it, and it was pretty good too), and Kung Fu Panda 2 (I didn't want to think any more).
I got a little sleep in the middle, probably less than an hour, and closer to the end of the flight I slept a couple hours I think.
Anyway, that delay at take off caused us to be late for the next flight, but to our surprise they held the plane for us, sparing us from needing to spend the night in Seoul, and we ran to the plane, once again going through security. This final flight was about 2 1/2 hours long and also seemed to drag on, but filling out the customs forms killed some time, along with a good Chrono Trigger playing session.
When we arrived in Sapporo, our luggage did not make it on the flight as it was unable to run as quickly as its human counterparts. This only applied to the four BCA students who were on the flight from NYC to Seoul, but on the flight and at baggage claim there were airport employees there to meet us and take care of having our luggage delivered to the college the next day.
After that, we met the BCA Resident Director who is refreshingly hilarious. When we told him that we had them deliver our luggage to the college tomorrow, he promptly informed us that this was unacceptable. And then we realized he was joking. Now we're staying in a hotel that is attached to the airport, we didn't even have to go outside, and will be leaving tomorrow morning to stay at the college for a few nights before meeting our host families. The room is significantly nicer than the Olympics center where I stayed on the May trip in 2010, so I don't have the sense of utter despair that I had last time (though I did have some of that on the endless flight).
All the other BCA students are talking in a room down the hall, but it's pretty loud and hard to get a word in so I was perfectly happy to retreat to my room and check out the internet. And of course, the TV has lots of weird Japanese commercials and game show sort of things. And the toilet has a built in bidet which I have yet to try, but my roommate, one of the guys I met at the Kennedy airport, says it's the best thing ever.
Ok, that's everything.
Except for the picasa web album where I'll be putting pictures which is here: Japan 2011 Photos
We left the house at 1 a.m. on Monday, drove about two hours to the airport in D.C.. We got to the airport FOUR hours early and had to sit around for a while. The plane left at 7 and I met Nick. After about 45 minutes of flying, we landed in Kennedy airport in NYC where we had to go to a different building to get to Korean Air and go through security again. After waiting around there for about 6 hours (with no free wifi!) and meeting two more BCA students, we left on the 14-15 hour flight to Seoul. That flight had a 50 minute delay before takeoff for refueling, as if they got in the plane and were like "oh yeah, we need to put gas in, lol."
It took forever. I spent most of the time trying and failing to sleep, occasionally listening to some of the many Korean and Japanese music options they had, including some I knew. And I watched movies: Source Code (I'd been wanting to see that and it was pretty awesome), X-Men: First Class (Danielle said she liked it, and it was pretty good too), and Kung Fu Panda 2 (I didn't want to think any more).
I got a little sleep in the middle, probably less than an hour, and closer to the end of the flight I slept a couple hours I think.
Anyway, that delay at take off caused us to be late for the next flight, but to our surprise they held the plane for us, sparing us from needing to spend the night in Seoul, and we ran to the plane, once again going through security. This final flight was about 2 1/2 hours long and also seemed to drag on, but filling out the customs forms killed some time, along with a good Chrono Trigger playing session.
When we arrived in Sapporo, our luggage did not make it on the flight as it was unable to run as quickly as its human counterparts. This only applied to the four BCA students who were on the flight from NYC to Seoul, but on the flight and at baggage claim there were airport employees there to meet us and take care of having our luggage delivered to the college the next day.
After that, we met the BCA Resident Director who is refreshingly hilarious. When we told him that we had them deliver our luggage to the college tomorrow, he promptly informed us that this was unacceptable. And then we realized he was joking. Now we're staying in a hotel that is attached to the airport, we didn't even have to go outside, and will be leaving tomorrow morning to stay at the college for a few nights before meeting our host families. The room is significantly nicer than the Olympics center where I stayed on the May trip in 2010, so I don't have the sense of utter despair that I had last time (though I did have some of that on the endless flight).
All the other BCA students are talking in a room down the hall, but it's pretty loud and hard to get a word in so I was perfectly happy to retreat to my room and check out the internet. And of course, the TV has lots of weird Japanese commercials and game show sort of things. And the toilet has a built in bidet which I have yet to try, but my roommate, one of the guys I met at the Kennedy airport, says it's the best thing ever.
Ok, that's everything.
Except for the picasa web album where I'll be putting pictures which is here: Japan 2011 Photos
Sunday, September 11, 2011
How to pronounce Japanese
If you're going to be reading this blog (or even just living in a world where Japan exists), it will be helpful to know how to pronounce Japanese words. Lucky for you, it's extremely easy. Just sound out everything you see.
Consonants all behave as you would expect in English and "y" always acts as a consonant. This means that "Tokyo" is two syllables and is pronounced "Toh-kyoh" not "Toh-ki-oh". There are similar consonant combinations with "y" and all of them act as combined consonants, "y" will never sound like a vowel.
"Tsu" as in "Tsunami" is pronounced as it looks, like the "ts" in "cats" (with an additional "u" sound of course), except it can come at the beginning, middle, or end of a word. Japanese "r"s and "l"s are all the same letter and sound like something that is the combination of "r" and "l". Pronouncing it as one or the other usually is not a problem.
Vowels are few in number and are always pronounced the same way:
a = ah (father)
e = eh (pet)
i = ee (ski)
o = oh (bone)
u = oo (flume)
When vowels come in succession, simply sound them out together and you'll end up with the correct pronunciation. ("Pai" sounds like "pie".) When two of the same vowel come in a row (sometimes written as a long vowel with a bar over it), hold the vowel sound for a little longer.
Sometimes, there will be double consonants, as in "Nippon". These are pronounced as a small pause before the consonant. It would be easier to understand if you heard an example on youtube, but if you're in a hurry, pronouncing both consonants tends to force you to break up the syllables and make a small pause anyway. So you can say "Neep-pohn".
That's it! Now you can go impress your friends with your ability to pronounce Japanese words. Nah, but seriously, don't be so proud of yourself, it's really easy and you should have learned this ages ago.
BONUS:
When speaking, some vowels end up being devoiced (because honestly, who has the time for vowels these days). This mostly happens in common places like "-masu" at the end of verbs, where the "u" is devoiced making it sound like "moss". Same thing in "desu". "-shite" and "-shita", more common endings of verbs, tend to have the "i" devoiced so they sound like "shte" and "shta". Also sometimes where "suki" or "suke" or "tsuki" or "tsuke" occur in words, the "u" is devoiced. There are probably other instances of this, but these are the most common.
Consonants all behave as you would expect in English and "y" always acts as a consonant. This means that "Tokyo" is two syllables and is pronounced "Toh-kyoh" not "Toh-ki-oh". There are similar consonant combinations with "y" and all of them act as combined consonants, "y" will never sound like a vowel.
"Tsu" as in "Tsunami" is pronounced as it looks, like the "ts" in "cats" (with an additional "u" sound of course), except it can come at the beginning, middle, or end of a word. Japanese "r"s and "l"s are all the same letter and sound like something that is the combination of "r" and "l". Pronouncing it as one or the other usually is not a problem.
Vowels are few in number and are always pronounced the same way:
a = ah (father)
e = eh (pet)
i = ee (ski)
o = oh (bone)
u = oo (flume)
When vowels come in succession, simply sound them out together and you'll end up with the correct pronunciation. ("Pai" sounds like "pie".) When two of the same vowel come in a row (sometimes written as a long vowel with a bar over it), hold the vowel sound for a little longer.
Sometimes, there will be double consonants, as in "Nippon". These are pronounced as a small pause before the consonant. It would be easier to understand if you heard an example on youtube, but if you're in a hurry, pronouncing both consonants tends to force you to break up the syllables and make a small pause anyway. So you can say "Neep-pohn".
That's it! Now you can go impress your friends with your ability to pronounce Japanese words. Nah, but seriously, don't be so proud of yourself, it's really easy and you should have learned this ages ago.
BONUS:
When speaking, some vowels end up being devoiced (because honestly, who has the time for vowels these days). This mostly happens in common places like "-masu" at the end of verbs, where the "u" is devoiced making it sound like "moss". Same thing in "desu". "-shite" and "-shita", more common endings of verbs, tend to have the "i" devoiced so they sound like "shte" and "shta". Also sometimes where "suki" or "suke" or "tsuki" or "tsuke" occur in words, the "u" is devoiced. There are probably other instances of this, but these are the most common.
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