One of the first things I thought of upon checking this old place and reminiscing about my posts was that I really should get around to changing the title. I definitely did indeed spend a month in Tokyo and I definitely did indeed spend most of it studying at Sophia University, better known in the native language as Jouchi Daigaku (上智大学). But really, as I'm wont to do on big trips like that one, I wasn't committed enough to actually dole out an entry a day like I had hoped. Hopefully the historians will be able to forgive me for that should my life story somehow become imperative to learn. I like to think I made up for the lack of text with 700-plus digital photos taken. That should equate to at least 700,000 words, if the colloquialism isn't wrong.
But I digress. Yet again.
Really, I've been digressing from a lot of things today. I still have another paper to write about a memoir that I actually really enjoy, but I'm ironically abandoning that project temporarily to pursue this one.
I don't understand how I think either.
That being said, I thought I would take the time to let my mind meander post-trip and do another quasi-stream of consciousness blog with no real structure, but plenty of contemplation a plenty. I suppose a reflection on the trip and also my current relationship with the Japanese language as a whole fits into the mission of the blog, whatever that might actually be.
Let's proceed, once more, into a blog entry with italicized headings a plenty.
Man am I glad to not be studying abroad for another year in a row.
I really loved my time at Sophia University. Adored it. I may very well reapply to go to that school again either under the auspices of study abroad again for a much longer term or just on my own time. Who's to say which way I'll go? But alas, I'm still glad to not be repeating the process for another summer. The reasons are mostly personal and circumstantial. While I am a student at heart, the workload at Sophia at a time that was otherwise still vacation for me wasn't something I enjoyed. I love to learn, but I love to just live even more and sometimes that means separating education from my life. My brain needs time to cool down after what are usually fairly intensive academic fall and spring semesters, even if I tend to go about them with a somewhat casual air while they're still in progress.
But really, it also doesn't hurt to not have to fill out so much damn paperwork. Form-filling, bureaucracy, and I haven't ever gotten along completely well, so suffice it to say that I found the application process last year to be tedious. It went for a very good cause, but I also didn't want to replicate the hassles of fetching gobs upon gobs of legal forms, writing frivolous essays in which I somehow justify my motivations for applying, and just putting up with the amount of time required to get every single last detail nailed out. I can very easily grind through them if I absolutely have to. This all ultimately ties into my next thought, which can be summed up as...
Man am I glad that I'm going there this summer just for vacation.
I like to think that I'm studious and work hard when situations call for it, but I also appreciate downtime. Peace, I've found, is a necessary counterbalance to impose upon one's own life in a world often filled with hectic anarchy. Going to Tokyo under a study abroad program is a move I'm glad I made; it gave me great primers on how to get around Japan, gave me first-hand interactions with natives, and really just gave me the opportunity to live in such a vibrant international capitol.
The main problem with all that is that the nature of the program had a knack for getting in the way of my free time. I deliberately made sure I had as much time as I could spare to just roam Tokyo and aimlessly explore the streets, but the reality was that I also had commitments to fulfill while I was there, which meant I had to unfortunately put some of my own personal goals aside. Chief among these was conversational Japanese practice; the fact that a good chunk of my time was spent in English-speaking environments coupled with (admittedly) my own shyness meant that I wasn't necessarily in the best environment to practice spoken Japanese, as well as the general issues attached to being a newbie to the language in general meant that my competence probably didn't perceivably go up at all. While that example had some personal issues mixed in as well, the overall point is that certain factors at the time both within and beyond my control inhibited certain goals and desires I had in mind.
Since I more or less decided as soon as I had returned to the US that I would be travelling again to Japan in the summer of 2010, I wanted to do the trip entirely on my own terms. Save for a vague travel itinerary that might dictate when I change cities, I want my next trip to be without any inhibitions whatsoever. I'll decide how my day goes entirely and take it from there. This should ideally give me opportunities a plenty to pursue longer-term goals that I was unable to really address the first time, especially linguistically. Hopefully operating entirely freely will allow me to really try my hand at conversational practice in non-academic settings, for example, which is ultimately a matter of admitting to them upfront that I'm still very new at the language and that if they could kindly reply to me slowly, it would be greatly appreciated. That one is bound to require repeat trips and continual immersion, but having friends along with me on the trip that I've been studying Japanese with since day one should make it significantly easier. Two or three of us can probably get through a Japanese conversation much better than just me as the only speaker in the group.
This mentality also spills over into more immediately attainable goals, though, like visiting areas I neglected on the first trip. This is especially true with places outside of Tokyo in general, which is why I'm going to try to go to great lengths to visit other places (and especially the countryside!) in much greater detail when I return this coming summer.
I'm getting tired. I'd better stop this now.
I was going to ramble on a bit about how Japanese classes have gotten more difficult over the new semester now that the credits actually count towards my major and not just general language requires for liberal arts students, but really that just boils down to me having a no shit Sherlock moment and remembering that the writing nerd in me loves the opportunity to expand his methods to express himself and is ultimately okay with it.
Dammit, that wasn't really a concise summary anyway. Urgh. You get the, er, gist, though. Probably.
Anyway. I'm sleepy. I need to shower. And I have the Persona 3 soundtrack I bought from the lovely Tower Records in Tokyo playing in my headphones right now. Now's probably as good a time as any to stop this. So I will. Here's hoping I just might remember to actually post more material in the future. Without every proofreading it, of course.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Day 3: 四ツ谷と秋葉原へ行こう (Let's go to Yotsuya and Akihabara)
The third day of the trip was definitely the best so far, although due to very sore feet that are that way directly because of all the walking done today, things will probably be condensed a bit. Although every time I say that, I end up ranting quite a bit anyway, so we'll see if irony strikes again. Considering I managed to have a hotel elevator door hit my arm as I tried to get in, I imagine karma may continue to be a jackass and force me to ramble some more, much like I am right now.
Yotsuya
Today's itinerary in Yotsuya had very little do with Sophia University, unlike previous days, as well as tomorrow. Instead, the focus was primarily on touring Chiyoda-ku, the ward in Tokyo which Yotsuya is a part of. I'm not afraid to take back what I said yesterday about the area being somewhat bland; after learning that the area actually has quite the fascinating political history behind it, as well as some very lovely parks I somehow managed to avoid before, I think the area is pretty nice now. The details given on the tour are too many to list, but I will mention that I really liked our tour guide, a Mr. Akira Yoshida, an older man who was a native to the area. He was very charismatic and seemed to enjoy showing us around at least as much as we did getting to know it. A few people in the group, myself included, took the opportunity to practice our Japanese. I know that native speakers are often prone to praising anybody who can speak even just a bit correctly, but receiving praise for using some of the more complex grammatical points for me personally was something that made me feel good. My main issue with Mexican Spanish was that I had a really solid theoretical understanding of it in writing, but when it came to speaking, I just had no real world practice. Hopefully, with any luck, I'll manage to avoid those same pitfalls with Japanese in the end, even if I won't be around so many native speakers for a year.
After concluding the tour with a subway ride back to the university, we all ate bentous, highly iconic boxed lunches that are common in Japan. The fact that I was able to eat one in its native country made a world of difference in terms of taste. Everything from the lotus roots to the rice to the marinated chicken just tasted a whole lot better than most anything I could get in Colorado. After all, living in a land-locked state like mine essentially means that I have to sacrifice freshness and at least some "soul" if I want Japanese food. But in its native land, I have to make no concessions when it comes to the food and I'm beyond glad I don't have to. It really was marvellous food.
Post-lunch primarily involved more orientation stuff, none of which was particularly fascinated and can be skipped. That said, let's move on to the second major part of today for me: Akihabara.
Akihabara
It's a bit difficult to explain the significance of visiting Akihabara for the first time to someone who doesn't have the right tastes from the get-go. In a nut shell, Akihabara is an electronics-heavy district in Tokyo. There are probably shops for most everything you could possibly need, from electronic dictionaries to refrigerators and everything else in-between. But that description doesn't really convey the charm of the area that well at all. Akihabara is special in that it unflinchingly flaunts its nerdiness with regards to how it presents itself. It's an area where a lot of anime, manga, and video game fans go if they want to satisfy whatever hungers they have pertaining to their hobby and Akihabara doesn't hold back at all in telling you that's what it's there for. Flashing lights, maids, and arcades are seemingly everywhere and it makes for a sight that, while potentially seizure inducing, is really unique when compared to the rest of Tokyo. So, knowing that I am indeed quite the coinosseur of video games, I knew I would end up in the area sooner or later and it turned out that the first time would be today.
This first run to Akihabara was spent visiting predominantly two places: Club Sega and Super Potato. Club Sega is essentially a multi-floor arcade run by the mega game company Sega, best known in the States for its Sega Genesis and Dreamcast consoles, as well as its mascot, the blue Sonic the Hedgehog. Different floors at Club Sega have different types of game machines. The very first floor, for example, consists mainly of anime-themed crane machines, whereas the upper floors are devoted to fighters, space shooters, and the like.
In the midst of exploring the facility, I ended up playing two somewhat familiar games, the first being Taiko no Tatsujin, or Taiko Drum Master in English. As a music game, the premise is pretty simple. On screen color prompts tell you which part of the replica Japanese taiko drum to hit in time to various popular songs. Beings as I own the only home version to officially come to States, the learning curve was basically nonexistent, although the fact that the noise coming from a billion Street Fighter IV machines and other things in the building meant it was very hard to listen to music and, by extension, maintain proper timing to hit the taiko drum. It's doable without that, but the experience is rougher all around.
The other game I played with was a single-player version of Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core, a two-dimensional fighting game with anime aesthetics and a wonderfully bizarre sense of humor. (There's a character named Faust! YES! THAT FAUST!) Like Taiko no Tatsujin, I own a home version, so the game wasn't completely foreign. That said, though, playing the game with an arcade stick proved to have quite the learning curve attached to it. I'm very used to playing the game with a standard controller at home. Arcade sticks, on the other hand, are pretty different beasts entirely. The joysticks have a different sensitivity and, since I happened to be playing on a generic arcade cabinet meant to house a number of different possible games, the buttons also had no labels to tell me which ones corresponding to what attack type. After a few matches, I managed to work out most of the kinks, but I'll probably have to visit again if I want to be super comfortable playing with an arcade.
The other main place I visited, Super Potato, is a lot easier to summarize in one paragraph. It's basically a hardcore used games store that specializes in retro consoles. Their claim to fame is the fact that their stock seems to have no bounds. Within that tiny space contained within three floors is an archive that puts most any American used game shop to shame. If you're looking for something specific like I was, then more likely than not they have it somewhere. Granted, it's almost all Japanese versions, but that's not much of a problem since I've long since learned how to work with those games for years. This trip resulted in me only buying a few items, but I guarantee I'll be back. Here's hoping I can restrain myself. If nothing else, though, it was one of the places I did practice Japanese with, asking the staff if they had a certain Che Guevara-themed game in stock. No joke.
Other Happenings
On the way back to the Akihabara train station, I stopped off with a couple of friends at a kebob stand to eat dinner. Having not had any since visiting Sydney in 2006, I had forgotten what they tasted like, but much like the bentou I had earlier, the kebob I ordered was really fantastic. You get a decent amount of food at the stand for only 600 yen, as well as your choice of one of seven different sauces. I, being the Denver native I am, naturally opted for what was called "hot," described on the sign in Japanese as being spicy, but sweet. It was indeed pretty much that; the sweetness came first and the spicyness came a few moments later. It actually tasted just fine, despite the seemingly oxymoronic nature. Will definitely get more from there when I return to Akihabara in the coming weeks.
Today was also the day I really got to know the train station well and felt confident about ticketing, switching routes, etc. Getting to Akihabara is a bit of an interesting proposition, since it entails paying for stops that aren't already covered in my pass. It turned out to be an easy enough matter; the system for adding money to the card is really intuitive after a bit of practice and checking how much you have left at each stop is an equally easy affair. That said, however, the day was also a lesson in making sure the lines you do get on stop at where you really want to go. Multiple trains might belong on the same line, but they can go in different directions or have slightly different routes, although it's all easy to verify through signage and maps. The latter proved to be slightly problematic for me and my friends; we got on an express train route familiar to us from going around Tokyo, but inadvertently picked one that skipped our normal stop by one. We all knew that we probably had to switch lines to the non-express variety in the opposite direction, which doesn't skip over any stops at all. Thankfully, we had a very cute and sweet Japanese girl confirm our suspicions on the train. After making one more mistake picking the right line, but the wrong direction, we finally ended up in the right area so that we could return to our hotel.
It looks like that trip to the Studio Ghibli museum is becoming more and more of a reality, though. We have to reserve tickets using a touch screen system with no English option, but thankfully there are online guides that cover that pretty well. Since we plan to go on Sunday, we may very well wrap the matter up on tomorrow. Stay tuned for more because, dammit, I'd really love to visit that place.
Yotsuya
Today's itinerary in Yotsuya had very little do with Sophia University, unlike previous days, as well as tomorrow. Instead, the focus was primarily on touring Chiyoda-ku, the ward in Tokyo which Yotsuya is a part of. I'm not afraid to take back what I said yesterday about the area being somewhat bland; after learning that the area actually has quite the fascinating political history behind it, as well as some very lovely parks I somehow managed to avoid before, I think the area is pretty nice now. The details given on the tour are too many to list, but I will mention that I really liked our tour guide, a Mr. Akira Yoshida, an older man who was a native to the area. He was very charismatic and seemed to enjoy showing us around at least as much as we did getting to know it. A few people in the group, myself included, took the opportunity to practice our Japanese. I know that native speakers are often prone to praising anybody who can speak even just a bit correctly, but receiving praise for using some of the more complex grammatical points for me personally was something that made me feel good. My main issue with Mexican Spanish was that I had a really solid theoretical understanding of it in writing, but when it came to speaking, I just had no real world practice. Hopefully, with any luck, I'll manage to avoid those same pitfalls with Japanese in the end, even if I won't be around so many native speakers for a year.
After concluding the tour with a subway ride back to the university, we all ate bentous, highly iconic boxed lunches that are common in Japan. The fact that I was able to eat one in its native country made a world of difference in terms of taste. Everything from the lotus roots to the rice to the marinated chicken just tasted a whole lot better than most anything I could get in Colorado. After all, living in a land-locked state like mine essentially means that I have to sacrifice freshness and at least some "soul" if I want Japanese food. But in its native land, I have to make no concessions when it comes to the food and I'm beyond glad I don't have to. It really was marvellous food.
Post-lunch primarily involved more orientation stuff, none of which was particularly fascinated and can be skipped. That said, let's move on to the second major part of today for me: Akihabara.
Akihabara
It's a bit difficult to explain the significance of visiting Akihabara for the first time to someone who doesn't have the right tastes from the get-go. In a nut shell, Akihabara is an electronics-heavy district in Tokyo. There are probably shops for most everything you could possibly need, from electronic dictionaries to refrigerators and everything else in-between. But that description doesn't really convey the charm of the area that well at all. Akihabara is special in that it unflinchingly flaunts its nerdiness with regards to how it presents itself. It's an area where a lot of anime, manga, and video game fans go if they want to satisfy whatever hungers they have pertaining to their hobby and Akihabara doesn't hold back at all in telling you that's what it's there for. Flashing lights, maids, and arcades are seemingly everywhere and it makes for a sight that, while potentially seizure inducing, is really unique when compared to the rest of Tokyo. So, knowing that I am indeed quite the coinosseur of video games, I knew I would end up in the area sooner or later and it turned out that the first time would be today.
This first run to Akihabara was spent visiting predominantly two places: Club Sega and Super Potato. Club Sega is essentially a multi-floor arcade run by the mega game company Sega, best known in the States for its Sega Genesis and Dreamcast consoles, as well as its mascot, the blue Sonic the Hedgehog. Different floors at Club Sega have different types of game machines. The very first floor, for example, consists mainly of anime-themed crane machines, whereas the upper floors are devoted to fighters, space shooters, and the like.
In the midst of exploring the facility, I ended up playing two somewhat familiar games, the first being Taiko no Tatsujin, or Taiko Drum Master in English. As a music game, the premise is pretty simple. On screen color prompts tell you which part of the replica Japanese taiko drum to hit in time to various popular songs. Beings as I own the only home version to officially come to States, the learning curve was basically nonexistent, although the fact that the noise coming from a billion Street Fighter IV machines and other things in the building meant it was very hard to listen to music and, by extension, maintain proper timing to hit the taiko drum. It's doable without that, but the experience is rougher all around.
The other game I played with was a single-player version of Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core, a two-dimensional fighting game with anime aesthetics and a wonderfully bizarre sense of humor. (There's a character named Faust! YES! THAT FAUST!) Like Taiko no Tatsujin, I own a home version, so the game wasn't completely foreign. That said, though, playing the game with an arcade stick proved to have quite the learning curve attached to it. I'm very used to playing the game with a standard controller at home. Arcade sticks, on the other hand, are pretty different beasts entirely. The joysticks have a different sensitivity and, since I happened to be playing on a generic arcade cabinet meant to house a number of different possible games, the buttons also had no labels to tell me which ones corresponding to what attack type. After a few matches, I managed to work out most of the kinks, but I'll probably have to visit again if I want to be super comfortable playing with an arcade.
The other main place I visited, Super Potato, is a lot easier to summarize in one paragraph. It's basically a hardcore used games store that specializes in retro consoles. Their claim to fame is the fact that their stock seems to have no bounds. Within that tiny space contained within three floors is an archive that puts most any American used game shop to shame. If you're looking for something specific like I was, then more likely than not they have it somewhere. Granted, it's almost all Japanese versions, but that's not much of a problem since I've long since learned how to work with those games for years. This trip resulted in me only buying a few items, but I guarantee I'll be back. Here's hoping I can restrain myself. If nothing else, though, it was one of the places I did practice Japanese with, asking the staff if they had a certain Che Guevara-themed game in stock. No joke.
Other Happenings
On the way back to the Akihabara train station, I stopped off with a couple of friends at a kebob stand to eat dinner. Having not had any since visiting Sydney in 2006, I had forgotten what they tasted like, but much like the bentou I had earlier, the kebob I ordered was really fantastic. You get a decent amount of food at the stand for only 600 yen, as well as your choice of one of seven different sauces. I, being the Denver native I am, naturally opted for what was called "hot," described on the sign in Japanese as being spicy, but sweet. It was indeed pretty much that; the sweetness came first and the spicyness came a few moments later. It actually tasted just fine, despite the seemingly oxymoronic nature. Will definitely get more from there when I return to Akihabara in the coming weeks.
Today was also the day I really got to know the train station well and felt confident about ticketing, switching routes, etc. Getting to Akihabara is a bit of an interesting proposition, since it entails paying for stops that aren't already covered in my pass. It turned out to be an easy enough matter; the system for adding money to the card is really intuitive after a bit of practice and checking how much you have left at each stop is an equally easy affair. That said, however, the day was also a lesson in making sure the lines you do get on stop at where you really want to go. Multiple trains might belong on the same line, but they can go in different directions or have slightly different routes, although it's all easy to verify through signage and maps. The latter proved to be slightly problematic for me and my friends; we got on an express train route familiar to us from going around Tokyo, but inadvertently picked one that skipped our normal stop by one. We all knew that we probably had to switch lines to the non-express variety in the opposite direction, which doesn't skip over any stops at all. Thankfully, we had a very cute and sweet Japanese girl confirm our suspicions on the train. After making one more mistake picking the right line, but the wrong direction, we finally ended up in the right area so that we could return to our hotel.
It looks like that trip to the Studio Ghibli museum is becoming more and more of a reality, though. We have to reserve tickets using a touch screen system with no English option, but thankfully there are online guides that cover that pretty well. Since we plan to go on Sunday, we may very well wrap the matter up on tomorrow. Stay tuned for more because, dammit, I'd really love to visit that place.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Day 2: Let's Visit Sophia University
As the title implies, one of today's main events consisted of visiting Sophia University, the school I'll be studying at as part of this trip. But before I get to that, I think I'd prefer talking about the surrounding area, which might be a tad more interesting than the school itself.
Yotsuya
Sophia University is located in Yotsuya, just a quick jaunt away from the train station used to get there. Aesthetically, the area itself is pretty modest. The area has some nice greenery that can dot the streets quite a bit at times, but overall it feels as though it mainly keeps to itself. Nothing is especially flashy or grand, which is fine, but that's probably also why the area is one of the more obscure parts of Tokyo in the western world. It's not a side of Japan that screams for attention, basically. Although that said, some of the shops are still charming nonetheless. I managed to find a camera store that was selling really old 35mm ones for under $5. The nostalgic lad in me is extremely tempted to go back soon and buy one. I really love the looks of those old cameras.
I ended up eating out with a couple of the other students on the program, mostly because we didn't want to wait in line at Sophia's cafeteria, what with all the other gaijin going with us taking their sweet time. We opted for a little hole in the wall instead. Nicely decorated, but pretty small, the place probably couldn't house more than 40 at a time, as evidenced by the fact that the staff also had complete strangers seated next to each other while they dined. I personally ordered a pork meal of some sort, although the complete named eluded me due to Kanji reading issues. It was a tasty meal for the 850 yen that it cost. Although I only took one blurry picture of it in the style of Danny Choo, it was a nice hodgepodge of pork and vegetables mixed in with a tasty sauce of some sort. Side dishes included the iconic bowl of rice and another bowl of various leafy vegetables. All of the food was fine, so no complaints.
The visit to the restuarant did, however, highlight a troublesome issue that I was afraid would crop up during the trip. It has nothing to do with the city itself; Tokyo is a damn fine place and you won't see me complaining about it. Instead, it has more to do with the people also on the program, or at least the American students going with me. It turns out that very, very few have any actual experience with Japanese. I guess it's actually not necessarily that per se, but rather a lot of people's attitudes in spite of that. Maybe it's an ego thing, but I wish there were more people on this trip who had at least studied some of the language so that I could have somebody to relate to on that level. I want my adventure to be one where my verbal skills get at least a bit better, but when I'm stuck in a group of people who basically improvise by pointing a lot and saying only the most basic of Japanese requests from a guide pamphlet, I feel constricted, as though my time during those instances is going to be defined according to how well I can swallow my embarassment, for lack of a better phrase. Again, somewhat expected, but not an ideal situation for someone like me who came to Japan to get practical fluency experience, which is precisely why I'm glad the schedule dramatically opens up in just a few days so that I can just operate on my own as often as I can. It's often when I'm alone that I get to know and experience the new place best. Everything is raw and it's then just up to you to go look for the awesome nooks and crannies. I did it for Boulder and I sure as hell intend to do it in Tokyo.
The whole thing has made me resolved to try my damndest to come back to Japan with people I know who really appreciate the language and already know me as a person. I think having a really good dynamic with other people is necessary for these sorts of trips and while I got lucky with Australia, I feel like it will be less so on this trip. Going back to Tokyo with a bunch of friends, even if it's their first time for many, should just allow for funner times since you can skip the phase of awkwardly getting to know each other and just dive straight into making a beeline for the hot spots in Akihabara, Shinjuku, and the like.
Sophia University
Okay, let's leave the quasi-existential ramblings from Yotsuya and move on to intial impressions of Sophia University, since today was also the first time I visited it. First thing first to note in terms of aesthetics is that much like the surrounding area, Sophia University's campus is a bit on the bland side. It's definitely designed to be practical first and everything else later, probably because space is limited in Tokyo. As such, the wide open quads that are common to US campuses is traded in for tallness in the buildings. There are at least 11 different buildings on campus and it seems to be that having 10-plus floors is the norm.
The interiors of the buildings aren't particularly special, either. They look largely like typical university insides, nothing more and nothing less. The doors naturally slide side-to-side instead of being pushed and pulled to open, but that's to be expected in Japan. Only remotely interesting quirk I've heard thus far is that girls' bathrooms are on even-numbered floors, whereas guys are on the odd-numbered ones. Not terribly thrilling, especially since I'm pretty certain some US schools have a similar setup, but ah well.
I'll provide impressions of the faculty and students when I've had more exposure to them, although now's as good a time as any to say I thoroughly enjoy being around native Japanese people. The one's I've met are all really nice and polite. The girls are cute and sweet and the guys have a good sense of humor. One of them even told me I looked like a famous Japanese wrestler just minutes after clearing customs at Narita. I'm satisfied knowing my hair has made an impact on the Japanese people.
Shinagawa
Aftering hanging around Yotsuya and getting into orientation mode, we all went out to Shinagawa to go eat out on a boat as celebration for our arrival. Probably one of my favorite moments during that phase of the day was actually just arriving at Shinagawa itself. Karma might have been working in my favor after finding Yotsuya to be anticlimatic, as Shinagawa's station was a pretty thrilling place. Looooots of people walking out and about every which way and the station is really huge. When a train arrives at that station, it feels as though everyone makes a mad dash for the nearby escalators. To say it was a real spectacle doesn't do it justice. But none of it felt overwhelming at all, as it was one of those moments where I got a much-cherished glimpse into ordinary Japanese life. To think that there are people who go through that place day in and day out is nothing short of amazing and, really, it makes me envious.
Dinner on the boat itself was a really fun experience. Ceiling height issues aside for a 6' 1" guy like myself, the food was all really good and new dishes kept streaming in continuously for a few hours. The boat went out on one of Tokyo's prominent rivers which goes by a number of landmarks. For an otaku like myself, the highlight was clearly passing the life size Gundam. I only got to see it from the back, but to know that it actually exists is seriously awesome. The sights all around were superb, though, and the photographs I took back that up.
Besides sight seeing, the main event for the boat ride was karaoke, which was extremely fun. There was a nice mixture of Japanese and English songs, with people singing everything from Utada Hikaru to Queen. My two favorite songs that came up, however, were the Evangelion theme and Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up," both of which humorously appeal to different aspects of my nerdy being. I'm not a huge fan of Evangelion itself at all, but I've always liked the theme song for it and know that it's extremely iconic, so seeing it be sung by someone I actually knew was extremely entertaining. "Never Gonna Give You Up" was equally enjoyable, especially since I actually took part in a duo for it. My singing voice is definitely not in its prime anymore, but the opportunity to play such a maligned song on the Internet was nothing short of bemusing.
Going back to my hotel in Asagaya was entertaining since that involved going through the Shinagawa station again, with it still being as busy as ever. Apparently the time we were going back corresponded to the time that most of the businessman actually go home, which surprised me. It wasn't that late that we went back, but I guess I had never thought they would drastically deviate from the standard 9-to-5 schedule, if only because I never really contemplated it. Naturally, the trains themselves were a bit packed, but not as much as they can notoriously be. I'm told that will be rather common once we start commuting to Sophia in the morning, though, so huzzah?
Other Happenings
Naturally other things went on, too, but for the sake of time and giving me some time to sleep, I'll only briefly cover them in passing. Maybe if I have another opportunity, I'll discuss them later. We'll see. But here are the other main events.
First off, since today involved liberal amounts of train useage, we also got our train passes for the duration of the trip. It's a pretty simplistic affair if you only go for the basics. Basically, you go up to whichever station you know you'll use as your starting point consistently. From there, you have a map which shows all of the other stops in Tokyo on the map and how much it costs to reach them from your current location. Using a touch screen terminal, you then buy the pass and pick your starting and ending point for the route you'll use the most. In this case, I got a pass which lets me use the trains from Asagaya to Yotsuya without any extra charge for leaving the stops in-between, if I'm inclined to do so. You therefore only have to pay a set fee depending on how long you intend to use that route. For me, it came out to 7300 yen, with 500 of that being a refundable deposit. Thankfully the program covers those costs. The card itself can naturally be used to go to other stops. You simply have to either add extra money to the card ahead of time so you can be debited at the stop or just get a separate ticket for the occasion. Using the tickets can be a bit cumbersome, since you actually have to use them twice. If you don't see the ticket come out of the check-in machine at the walkway, then things become funky since you can't leave until you consult staff. I got lucky and had one of the group leaders fetch my ticket for me after I didn't think twice about grabbing it back, but still, it definitely wouldn't have been fun to deal with that if things had turned out otherwise.
Okay, I need to seriously make things concise, so the next two items will be way less wordy so I can go sleep.
First off, one of the few group members I do get along with well invited me to go get tickets for the Studio Ghibli museum this weekend. I had totally forgotten about the place, but I was thoroughly pleased that some reminded me of its existence, as I am quite the fan of some of Miyazaki's movies and have heard secondhand that the museum is a great place to visit. Apparently tickets have to be bought in advance of when you actually want to go and in Tokyo, only one place, I'm told, actually sells them. However it turns out, it should make for a hell of an adventure.
Oh yeah, also ended up walking back to my hotel, Hotel Amisuta, on my own tonight in the rain. I knew the route well enough since it's really straightforward from the hotel and I also do a good job of keeping an eye out for specific landmarks, but there were a few times where I still felt I was almost lost since I still need to become familiar with the area. Thankfully, those worries were for naught; a familiar-looking Denny's, of all places (if sensei is reading this, she'll totally appreciate it), told me I was on the right track. Originally I planned on exploring the area a tad after dropping off my stuff, but the lateness made me decide I should save it for when I'm more awake. Thankfully the scheduled events for tomorrow actually end a lot earlier than before, so plenty of self-adventuring should be in my future.
Yotsuya
Sophia University is located in Yotsuya, just a quick jaunt away from the train station used to get there. Aesthetically, the area itself is pretty modest. The area has some nice greenery that can dot the streets quite a bit at times, but overall it feels as though it mainly keeps to itself. Nothing is especially flashy or grand, which is fine, but that's probably also why the area is one of the more obscure parts of Tokyo in the western world. It's not a side of Japan that screams for attention, basically. Although that said, some of the shops are still charming nonetheless. I managed to find a camera store that was selling really old 35mm ones for under $5. The nostalgic lad in me is extremely tempted to go back soon and buy one. I really love the looks of those old cameras.
I ended up eating out with a couple of the other students on the program, mostly because we didn't want to wait in line at Sophia's cafeteria, what with all the other gaijin going with us taking their sweet time. We opted for a little hole in the wall instead. Nicely decorated, but pretty small, the place probably couldn't house more than 40 at a time, as evidenced by the fact that the staff also had complete strangers seated next to each other while they dined. I personally ordered a pork meal of some sort, although the complete named eluded me due to Kanji reading issues. It was a tasty meal for the 850 yen that it cost. Although I only took one blurry picture of it in the style of Danny Choo, it was a nice hodgepodge of pork and vegetables mixed in with a tasty sauce of some sort. Side dishes included the iconic bowl of rice and another bowl of various leafy vegetables. All of the food was fine, so no complaints.
The visit to the restuarant did, however, highlight a troublesome issue that I was afraid would crop up during the trip. It has nothing to do with the city itself; Tokyo is a damn fine place and you won't see me complaining about it. Instead, it has more to do with the people also on the program, or at least the American students going with me. It turns out that very, very few have any actual experience with Japanese. I guess it's actually not necessarily that per se, but rather a lot of people's attitudes in spite of that. Maybe it's an ego thing, but I wish there were more people on this trip who had at least studied some of the language so that I could have somebody to relate to on that level. I want my adventure to be one where my verbal skills get at least a bit better, but when I'm stuck in a group of people who basically improvise by pointing a lot and saying only the most basic of Japanese requests from a guide pamphlet, I feel constricted, as though my time during those instances is going to be defined according to how well I can swallow my embarassment, for lack of a better phrase. Again, somewhat expected, but not an ideal situation for someone like me who came to Japan to get practical fluency experience, which is precisely why I'm glad the schedule dramatically opens up in just a few days so that I can just operate on my own as often as I can. It's often when I'm alone that I get to know and experience the new place best. Everything is raw and it's then just up to you to go look for the awesome nooks and crannies. I did it for Boulder and I sure as hell intend to do it in Tokyo.
The whole thing has made me resolved to try my damndest to come back to Japan with people I know who really appreciate the language and already know me as a person. I think having a really good dynamic with other people is necessary for these sorts of trips and while I got lucky with Australia, I feel like it will be less so on this trip. Going back to Tokyo with a bunch of friends, even if it's their first time for many, should just allow for funner times since you can skip the phase of awkwardly getting to know each other and just dive straight into making a beeline for the hot spots in Akihabara, Shinjuku, and the like.
Sophia University
Okay, let's leave the quasi-existential ramblings from Yotsuya and move on to intial impressions of Sophia University, since today was also the first time I visited it. First thing first to note in terms of aesthetics is that much like the surrounding area, Sophia University's campus is a bit on the bland side. It's definitely designed to be practical first and everything else later, probably because space is limited in Tokyo. As such, the wide open quads that are common to US campuses is traded in for tallness in the buildings. There are at least 11 different buildings on campus and it seems to be that having 10-plus floors is the norm.
The interiors of the buildings aren't particularly special, either. They look largely like typical university insides, nothing more and nothing less. The doors naturally slide side-to-side instead of being pushed and pulled to open, but that's to be expected in Japan. Only remotely interesting quirk I've heard thus far is that girls' bathrooms are on even-numbered floors, whereas guys are on the odd-numbered ones. Not terribly thrilling, especially since I'm pretty certain some US schools have a similar setup, but ah well.
I'll provide impressions of the faculty and students when I've had more exposure to them, although now's as good a time as any to say I thoroughly enjoy being around native Japanese people. The one's I've met are all really nice and polite. The girls are cute and sweet and the guys have a good sense of humor. One of them even told me I looked like a famous Japanese wrestler just minutes after clearing customs at Narita. I'm satisfied knowing my hair has made an impact on the Japanese people.
Shinagawa
Aftering hanging around Yotsuya and getting into orientation mode, we all went out to Shinagawa to go eat out on a boat as celebration for our arrival. Probably one of my favorite moments during that phase of the day was actually just arriving at Shinagawa itself. Karma might have been working in my favor after finding Yotsuya to be anticlimatic, as Shinagawa's station was a pretty thrilling place. Looooots of people walking out and about every which way and the station is really huge. When a train arrives at that station, it feels as though everyone makes a mad dash for the nearby escalators. To say it was a real spectacle doesn't do it justice. But none of it felt overwhelming at all, as it was one of those moments where I got a much-cherished glimpse into ordinary Japanese life. To think that there are people who go through that place day in and day out is nothing short of amazing and, really, it makes me envious.
Dinner on the boat itself was a really fun experience. Ceiling height issues aside for a 6' 1" guy like myself, the food was all really good and new dishes kept streaming in continuously for a few hours. The boat went out on one of Tokyo's prominent rivers which goes by a number of landmarks. For an otaku like myself, the highlight was clearly passing the life size Gundam. I only got to see it from the back, but to know that it actually exists is seriously awesome. The sights all around were superb, though, and the photographs I took back that up.
Besides sight seeing, the main event for the boat ride was karaoke, which was extremely fun. There was a nice mixture of Japanese and English songs, with people singing everything from Utada Hikaru to Queen. My two favorite songs that came up, however, were the Evangelion theme and Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up," both of which humorously appeal to different aspects of my nerdy being. I'm not a huge fan of Evangelion itself at all, but I've always liked the theme song for it and know that it's extremely iconic, so seeing it be sung by someone I actually knew was extremely entertaining. "Never Gonna Give You Up" was equally enjoyable, especially since I actually took part in a duo for it. My singing voice is definitely not in its prime anymore, but the opportunity to play such a maligned song on the Internet was nothing short of bemusing.
Going back to my hotel in Asagaya was entertaining since that involved going through the Shinagawa station again, with it still being as busy as ever. Apparently the time we were going back corresponded to the time that most of the businessman actually go home, which surprised me. It wasn't that late that we went back, but I guess I had never thought they would drastically deviate from the standard 9-to-5 schedule, if only because I never really contemplated it. Naturally, the trains themselves were a bit packed, but not as much as they can notoriously be. I'm told that will be rather common once we start commuting to Sophia in the morning, though, so huzzah?
Other Happenings
Naturally other things went on, too, but for the sake of time and giving me some time to sleep, I'll only briefly cover them in passing. Maybe if I have another opportunity, I'll discuss them later. We'll see. But here are the other main events.
First off, since today involved liberal amounts of train useage, we also got our train passes for the duration of the trip. It's a pretty simplistic affair if you only go for the basics. Basically, you go up to whichever station you know you'll use as your starting point consistently. From there, you have a map which shows all of the other stops in Tokyo on the map and how much it costs to reach them from your current location. Using a touch screen terminal, you then buy the pass and pick your starting and ending point for the route you'll use the most. In this case, I got a pass which lets me use the trains from Asagaya to Yotsuya without any extra charge for leaving the stops in-between, if I'm inclined to do so. You therefore only have to pay a set fee depending on how long you intend to use that route. For me, it came out to 7300 yen, with 500 of that being a refundable deposit. Thankfully the program covers those costs. The card itself can naturally be used to go to other stops. You simply have to either add extra money to the card ahead of time so you can be debited at the stop or just get a separate ticket for the occasion. Using the tickets can be a bit cumbersome, since you actually have to use them twice. If you don't see the ticket come out of the check-in machine at the walkway, then things become funky since you can't leave until you consult staff. I got lucky and had one of the group leaders fetch my ticket for me after I didn't think twice about grabbing it back, but still, it definitely wouldn't have been fun to deal with that if things had turned out otherwise.
Okay, I need to seriously make things concise, so the next two items will be way less wordy so I can go sleep.
First off, one of the few group members I do get along with well invited me to go get tickets for the Studio Ghibli museum this weekend. I had totally forgotten about the place, but I was thoroughly pleased that some reminded me of its existence, as I am quite the fan of some of Miyazaki's movies and have heard secondhand that the museum is a great place to visit. Apparently tickets have to be bought in advance of when you actually want to go and in Tokyo, only one place, I'm told, actually sells them. However it turns out, it should make for a hell of an adventure.
Oh yeah, also ended up walking back to my hotel, Hotel Amisuta, on my own tonight in the rain. I knew the route well enough since it's really straightforward from the hotel and I also do a good job of keeping an eye out for specific landmarks, but there were a few times where I still felt I was almost lost since I still need to become familiar with the area. Thankfully, those worries were for naught; a familiar-looking Denny's, of all places (if sensei is reading this, she'll totally appreciate it), told me I was on the right track. Originally I planned on exploring the area a tad after dropping off my stuff, but the lateness made me decide I should save it for when I'm more awake. Thankfully the scheduled events for tomorrow actually end a lot earlier than before, so plenty of self-adventuring should be in my future.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Day 1 in a Nutshell
I'm worn out as hell, so this will actually be brief for once. I can almost never sleep on airplanes, so that did a real number on me when I had to sit in one for eleven hours straight without having slept at home for nearly 24 hours when the flight started. Stupid mistake in retrospect, but ah well. I'm here in one piece and I thought I'd give you all quick impressions of the places I ended up going to today.
Denver International Airport
Same as always. Spiffy place, but the fact that the place actually lacks wi-fi, contrary to its advertisements, irked me, considering I got there early since airports are so bipolar about whether security and check-in will take an eternity. Maybe it was just my specific terminal that lacked it, I dunno. It did give me a chance to go play some Touhou and The Typing of the Dead, though. No good person can get enough of at least the latter.
Minneapolis
DUDE, WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THE TREES!? I come from Denver, a place that has trees a plenty on virtually every block, but in terms of sheer numbers, they don't remotely compare to Minneapolis. You look out the window in the airplane as it's touching down and I guarantee you that at least 75% of that view is just going to be trees for no arbitrary reason other than to have a lot of trees. The airport itself was nice, even if it did have a Fox News-themed store. No joke. Actually, that airport had a lot of weird stores. I didn't take a picture of it, but do you really need a Harley Davidson store at an airport? Sometimes human logic is odd, although I think in this case it was nonexistant.
Tokyo
Really long flight. Like, stupidly long. I didn't realize how long it would take to get to the Pacific from Minneapolis, but I learned my lesson. As much as I may loathe LAX, I'd rather get lost there for 20 minutes rather than sit in an airplane for four extra hours just to save a few extra dollars. On top of that, I can almost never sleep on an airplane thanks to all the engine noise. Does anybody know if the hardcore noise cancelling headphones can block out even that much sound? If so, I may look into buying a pair at Akihabara before I leave Tokyo.
Oh yeah, I should probably talk about Tokyo itself. It's pretty damn great. As a city boy, there are certain traits it has that automatically resonate with me and make it feel like home. At the same time, though, the landscape is very Japanese and I'm grateful I have such a contrast compared to what I'm accustomed to back in the States. Besides some of the obvious things, like Japanese signage, I liked seeing how Japan worked with its landscapes first hand. I saw those very square plots of land you'll often see in rural-themed movies like My Neighbor Totoro and it reminded me of just how deliberate the Japanese can be at taking care of the nature around them. If you understand why bonsai caretaking is a pretty hardcore thing to do, then you probably have a good idea of what I mean by this already; the soul is still there, but the manner in which the land and its nature is cared for is done in such a way that it can send out its own subtle commentary. It's a really great thing to behold, even if the sights themselves are pretty modest.
It's also pretty damn hot and humid at the moment. As someone who grew up in super arid air, it'll take a bit of time to get used to, but in the end, I suppose it'll be manageable. I was planning on exploring the neighborhood around my hotel a tad, but the laptop decided to pretend it didn't have a working ethernet port for the longest time, so that kind of took priority, what with needing to let the family know I didn't get kidnapped or anything. Definitely looking forward to being able to do so, though, since that will let me use my camera in much more optimal conditions than what was possible to muster tonight. Plus, we get our train passes tomorrow, so maybe even a jaunt to Akihabara will be in order soon.
Okay, this didn't turn out that concise. Yay irony.
Denver International Airport
Same as always. Spiffy place, but the fact that the place actually lacks wi-fi, contrary to its advertisements, irked me, considering I got there early since airports are so bipolar about whether security and check-in will take an eternity. Maybe it was just my specific terminal that lacked it, I dunno. It did give me a chance to go play some Touhou and The Typing of the Dead, though. No good person can get enough of at least the latter.
Minneapolis
DUDE, WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THE TREES!? I come from Denver, a place that has trees a plenty on virtually every block, but in terms of sheer numbers, they don't remotely compare to Minneapolis. You look out the window in the airplane as it's touching down and I guarantee you that at least 75% of that view is just going to be trees for no arbitrary reason other than to have a lot of trees. The airport itself was nice, even if it did have a Fox News-themed store. No joke. Actually, that airport had a lot of weird stores. I didn't take a picture of it, but do you really need a Harley Davidson store at an airport? Sometimes human logic is odd, although I think in this case it was nonexistant.
Tokyo
Really long flight. Like, stupidly long. I didn't realize how long it would take to get to the Pacific from Minneapolis, but I learned my lesson. As much as I may loathe LAX, I'd rather get lost there for 20 minutes rather than sit in an airplane for four extra hours just to save a few extra dollars. On top of that, I can almost never sleep on an airplane thanks to all the engine noise. Does anybody know if the hardcore noise cancelling headphones can block out even that much sound? If so, I may look into buying a pair at Akihabara before I leave Tokyo.
Oh yeah, I should probably talk about Tokyo itself. It's pretty damn great. As a city boy, there are certain traits it has that automatically resonate with me and make it feel like home. At the same time, though, the landscape is very Japanese and I'm grateful I have such a contrast compared to what I'm accustomed to back in the States. Besides some of the obvious things, like Japanese signage, I liked seeing how Japan worked with its landscapes first hand. I saw those very square plots of land you'll often see in rural-themed movies like My Neighbor Totoro and it reminded me of just how deliberate the Japanese can be at taking care of the nature around them. If you understand why bonsai caretaking is a pretty hardcore thing to do, then you probably have a good idea of what I mean by this already; the soul is still there, but the manner in which the land and its nature is cared for is done in such a way that it can send out its own subtle commentary. It's a really great thing to behold, even if the sights themselves are pretty modest.
It's also pretty damn hot and humid at the moment. As someone who grew up in super arid air, it'll take a bit of time to get used to, but in the end, I suppose it'll be manageable. I was planning on exploring the neighborhood around my hotel a tad, but the laptop decided to pretend it didn't have a working ethernet port for the longest time, so that kind of took priority, what with needing to let the family know I didn't get kidnapped or anything. Definitely looking forward to being able to do so, though, since that will let me use my camera in much more optimal conditions than what was possible to muster tonight. Plus, we get our train passes tomorrow, so maybe even a jaunt to Akihabara will be in order soon.
Okay, this didn't turn out that concise. Yay irony.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
T-Minus Two Days....
This is the third blog post I've attempted to write here, knowing full well that whichever one I get around to finishing would probably be the last one I'd publish before heading out. Nonetheless, I figure that I should get around to posting something on here since, after all, I managed to do so on my other blog over at Giant Bomb. But what to talk about? In the previous versions, I attempted to use my trademark rambling to once again be one-track and discuss specific topics. Maybe it was the time of night or something, but none of those ever really worked out. So let's go for something a bit more anarchic this time and just talk about what's going through my mind now that I have less than 48 hours before I leave this house and once again embark on an international journey. What purpose this will ultimately serve is beyond me, but, really, when has that ever been a concern of mine? With that said, let's go through each of the main thoughts one by one and take it from there.
I still have a long, long ways to go with Japanese, yet already I'm at a point where I can't turn it off.
I think one of the main signs that you're really embracing a foreign language is when your mind is able to automatically switch to it when even the slightest triggers provoke it. Most anything can make it happen. A store sign telling you that they've restocked. A passing conversation about trivial things from ordinary life. A book title you glance at on a shelf. You don't have to be anywhere near fluent to enter that mode of thinking in the other language; you just need to be eager and willing to learn new things from the world around you. In my case, I can't look at ordinary Japanese characters without assigning meaning to them, nor can I listen to native speakers and easily dismiss them when I'm unable to comprehend everything. I've already reached a point in my life where Japanese really is a part of my daily life, so in turn, it's natural for me to more or less have my faculties for it turned on 24/7. Sometimes I may skip more complex text if my mind is too tired and I don't wish to strain it further, but in the end, my modest Japanese comprehension is a specter that is bound to hang around my constantly. And just like when it happened with Mexican Spanish, I'm nothing short of glad it's there to stay.
Going over to Japan for the first time as a non-native speaker is a scary proposition.
I'll open admit that there are times when I get really nervous about the proposition of spending an extended period of time in a country whose language I can't speak as well as the natives. One of the main reasons why Australia was the first country I visited abroad was precisely because I didn't want to worry about language and potential cultural barriers at the same time. Now that I'm older, I'm willing to go more and more outside my comfort zone, and going to Japan and using my Japanese in a realistic, non-academic environment is bound to push what I find to be comfortable. After all, as much as I may malign my home for being dull and unchanging, like a lot of people, there are also times where I take comfort in knowing that some things are constant and familiar. The fact that I don't have that luxury in a place like Japan, at least for now, is a bit of a scary proposition. But I also know that environments where things are stagnant and don't change aren't conducive for personal growth. It's with that knowledge that I'm ultimately okay with and even thoroughly excited to spend a lot of time in Japan. I always learn the most about myself when I'm on adventures I choose to have myself and I have no doubt that this trip will be true to that once again.
I studied what I can, but in the end, the true studying comes from just using Japanese there everyday.
I got about halfway through my Japanese textbook review before I ultimately ended up calling it quits. Originally, I just wanted a brief break while I work on the latest Shin Megami Tensei installment for the DS, a game I liked quite a bit. But the more time I went by, the more and more I realized that I could only push myself so far before the regurgitated knowledge would be too redundant to be worth covering again. It's an issue I tend to run into quite a bit during finals season; by the end, the knowledge has typically been discussed and re-discussed so much that it does me no good to try going through it yet again. Such was the case again with Japanese, although to be honest, I'm not worried. In the end, I still have a lot to learn about the language anyway and, apparently, I've already covered a considerable amount of ground for an upcoming second-year student. Any deficiencies will probably be addressed quickly enough as I encounter them in the field and it's the only real way to do things anyway.
I hope my conversational skills go up a notch or two while I'm there.
The main stumbling block which prevented me from reaching practical fluency in Mexican Spanish was that I simply didn't have enough conversational practice, a huge necessity when learning any language since that's where the nuances genuinely come to life. I had a theoretical understanding of the majority of the grammar points, but in the end, just reading and writing fluency can only do so much good for you. That's why I was glad the way the Japanese curriculum was executed this past school year was significantly different compared to Spanish; conversational practice was a must virtually every day and as a result, I became a lot more confident in my Japanese verbal abilities in just a few months than I had ever been with half a decade of Spanish studies. Now with this upcoming trip to Tokyo, I hope some down-to-earth field testing of my verbal skills will push me to express myself in the language more naturally as time goes by. From my own experience, a month can suprisingly do a world of good for verbal fluency. When I went to Australia, I became very good friends with a Chinese student, the only member of the group who didn't speak English natively. He went from being able to barely string cohesive sentences slowly to confidently being able to carry on conversations with everybody by the end of the trip. Granted, the guy was a bit of an English prodigy in his homeland to begin with, but I still hope I get to experience something similar with Japanese over the course of this trip. I don't want to be limited to being able to express myself well with only words again and I intend to try my hardest to make sure my verbal skills match my written ones eventually.
Man, that exchange rate is a real jackass.
Tokyo is already considered a city with very high standards of living to begin with, something I don't necessarily have a problem with because I imagine my bargain-hunting skills will come in extremely handy. Rather, the more irksome issue is more of an economic one; even since the world economies entered a recession, the exchange rate between the yen and the US dollar has been a depressing sight to see. The fact that I ended up exchanging my money a few weeks ago to prevent further loss of money, rather than the usual idea of getting the most bang for your buck, is probably indicative of how poor the state of the exchange rate really is. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and hope for the best, although suffice it to say that it's not an easy thing to swallow at all. I exchanged a lot more money than I'll probably need in the end, so I'm not worried about coming up short and having to exchange more at the last minute. I just can't help but wish the economy was in a better condition; being able to get more yen per dollar would be more financial reassurance, if nothing else.
It needs to be Saturday already.
It's Thursday and summer break has been going on for well over two months. I'm typically an extremely patient fellow, but now that I'm getting really close to flying out, I'm wishing the day would arrive a lot more quickly than it seems to be. Irony is a real jerk sometimes.
And with that said, I think we're done for now. It's 7:43 in the morning, so after all this writing, I'm not particularly inclined to write a conclusion. You probably know how I write these things by now, so feel free to just make up the remainder of this blog for yourself.
I still have a long, long ways to go with Japanese, yet already I'm at a point where I can't turn it off.
I think one of the main signs that you're really embracing a foreign language is when your mind is able to automatically switch to it when even the slightest triggers provoke it. Most anything can make it happen. A store sign telling you that they've restocked. A passing conversation about trivial things from ordinary life. A book title you glance at on a shelf. You don't have to be anywhere near fluent to enter that mode of thinking in the other language; you just need to be eager and willing to learn new things from the world around you. In my case, I can't look at ordinary Japanese characters without assigning meaning to them, nor can I listen to native speakers and easily dismiss them when I'm unable to comprehend everything. I've already reached a point in my life where Japanese really is a part of my daily life, so in turn, it's natural for me to more or less have my faculties for it turned on 24/7. Sometimes I may skip more complex text if my mind is too tired and I don't wish to strain it further, but in the end, my modest Japanese comprehension is a specter that is bound to hang around my constantly. And just like when it happened with Mexican Spanish, I'm nothing short of glad it's there to stay.
Going over to Japan for the first time as a non-native speaker is a scary proposition.
I'll open admit that there are times when I get really nervous about the proposition of spending an extended period of time in a country whose language I can't speak as well as the natives. One of the main reasons why Australia was the first country I visited abroad was precisely because I didn't want to worry about language and potential cultural barriers at the same time. Now that I'm older, I'm willing to go more and more outside my comfort zone, and going to Japan and using my Japanese in a realistic, non-academic environment is bound to push what I find to be comfortable. After all, as much as I may malign my home for being dull and unchanging, like a lot of people, there are also times where I take comfort in knowing that some things are constant and familiar. The fact that I don't have that luxury in a place like Japan, at least for now, is a bit of a scary proposition. But I also know that environments where things are stagnant and don't change aren't conducive for personal growth. It's with that knowledge that I'm ultimately okay with and even thoroughly excited to spend a lot of time in Japan. I always learn the most about myself when I'm on adventures I choose to have myself and I have no doubt that this trip will be true to that once again.
I studied what I can, but in the end, the true studying comes from just using Japanese there everyday.
I got about halfway through my Japanese textbook review before I ultimately ended up calling it quits. Originally, I just wanted a brief break while I work on the latest Shin Megami Tensei installment for the DS, a game I liked quite a bit. But the more time I went by, the more and more I realized that I could only push myself so far before the regurgitated knowledge would be too redundant to be worth covering again. It's an issue I tend to run into quite a bit during finals season; by the end, the knowledge has typically been discussed and re-discussed so much that it does me no good to try going through it yet again. Such was the case again with Japanese, although to be honest, I'm not worried. In the end, I still have a lot to learn about the language anyway and, apparently, I've already covered a considerable amount of ground for an upcoming second-year student. Any deficiencies will probably be addressed quickly enough as I encounter them in the field and it's the only real way to do things anyway.
I hope my conversational skills go up a notch or two while I'm there.
The main stumbling block which prevented me from reaching practical fluency in Mexican Spanish was that I simply didn't have enough conversational practice, a huge necessity when learning any language since that's where the nuances genuinely come to life. I had a theoretical understanding of the majority of the grammar points, but in the end, just reading and writing fluency can only do so much good for you. That's why I was glad the way the Japanese curriculum was executed this past school year was significantly different compared to Spanish; conversational practice was a must virtually every day and as a result, I became a lot more confident in my Japanese verbal abilities in just a few months than I had ever been with half a decade of Spanish studies. Now with this upcoming trip to Tokyo, I hope some down-to-earth field testing of my verbal skills will push me to express myself in the language more naturally as time goes by. From my own experience, a month can suprisingly do a world of good for verbal fluency. When I went to Australia, I became very good friends with a Chinese student, the only member of the group who didn't speak English natively. He went from being able to barely string cohesive sentences slowly to confidently being able to carry on conversations with everybody by the end of the trip. Granted, the guy was a bit of an English prodigy in his homeland to begin with, but I still hope I get to experience something similar with Japanese over the course of this trip. I don't want to be limited to being able to express myself well with only words again and I intend to try my hardest to make sure my verbal skills match my written ones eventually.
Man, that exchange rate is a real jackass.
Tokyo is already considered a city with very high standards of living to begin with, something I don't necessarily have a problem with because I imagine my bargain-hunting skills will come in extremely handy. Rather, the more irksome issue is more of an economic one; even since the world economies entered a recession, the exchange rate between the yen and the US dollar has been a depressing sight to see. The fact that I ended up exchanging my money a few weeks ago to prevent further loss of money, rather than the usual idea of getting the most bang for your buck, is probably indicative of how poor the state of the exchange rate really is. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and hope for the best, although suffice it to say that it's not an easy thing to swallow at all. I exchanged a lot more money than I'll probably need in the end, so I'm not worried about coming up short and having to exchange more at the last minute. I just can't help but wish the economy was in a better condition; being able to get more yen per dollar would be more financial reassurance, if nothing else.
It needs to be Saturday already.
It's Thursday and summer break has been going on for well over two months. I'm typically an extremely patient fellow, but now that I'm getting really close to flying out, I'm wishing the day would arrive a lot more quickly than it seems to be. Irony is a real jerk sometimes.
And with that said, I think we're done for now. It's 7:43 in the morning, so after all this writing, I'm not particularly inclined to write a conclusion. You probably know how I write these things by now, so feel free to just make up the remainder of this blog for yourself.
Friday, June 5, 2009
The Japanese bucket list... minus Morgan Freeman, the demise, and all
As I'm listening to the Bombcast, I'm remembering that I still need to give this place a bit of textual love. Now that most everything is in order, there isn't much to really discuss in terms of preparation at all. So this time I thought I would discuss my internal to-do list of things I'd like to experience while in Tokyo. How much I get done is probably contingent on how much spare time I have after studying and forced group time, but nonetheless, come hell or high water, I want to get at least a few of them knocked off. Ranging from the nerdy to the (naturally) oddball, I hope that they'll help me not only have a good time, but also start to get a personal understanding of what the country of Japan really is. That said, let's dissect several of them.
1. Travel to Akihabara and witness the otaku shopping spectacle for myself.
Akihabara is an interesting shopping district within Tokyo. While this is probably the most touristy item on the list, it's an area that nonetheless fascinates me. The fact that the area liberally houses places like maid cafes makes me nothing short of intrigued as to how such a place should exist. While there are naturally other areas of Tokyo I want to take a peek at, Akihabara probably resonates with me the most because its sheer nerdy nature is blatantly out in the open. Sometimes it's borderline creepy, but there's something to be said for such a haven existing that makes it a spectacle I need to see. Plus, Akihabara is also home to Super Potato, a place which makes the gamer in me squeal in an excessive amount of joy. An oddly large percentage of souvenirs I'll probably get for myself will come solely from that place. Scary, yes.
2. Spend time in a Japanese arcade.
Remember when arcades were actually fun places to visit and not just bastions of depression that are to be visited only to satiate DDR cravings? Japanese arcades are pretty much like that: social establishments with souls that have lots and lots of coin-operated games. There's even a really great English language book covering damn near every aspect of today's iterations. Again, it's a nerdy item on the list, but as somebody who's been fascinated with the Japanese take on numerous forms of electronic entertainment, I really want to take it all in for myself. The States will sometimes get some of the arcade gems to trickle down, but there's just something to be said for experiencing an arcade game in its native environment. The social nature of the places just adds a whole dynamic that you still can't find at home.
3. Eat at an authentic, on-the-street ramen stand.
Sushi is the major culinary export of Japan today, but in its homeland, it's not the only iconic cuisine at the people's disposal. And let it be known that I'm not referring to the stuff you get in a styrofoam cup. I'm talking about fresh, restaurant-quality stuff where you can taste the liberties that the cook has taken in crafting their personal recipe. But why specifically a street stand? You can't get to know the people of another country by sticking to the tourist-friendly restaurants and their potentially tamed food wares. By eating something like ramen off the street, a more immersive and authentic experience is created. The intimate setting of just a few seats and the tightly-spaced kitchen forces personal interactions that are just a lot harder to find elsewhere. You can connect one-on-one with the other patrons and staff much easier that way and as someone who never goes abroad for just superficial reasons, I relish those sorts of opportunities.
4. Wander around the alleys of Tokyo.
Tokyo is a large city with an even larger population. Since space is therefore pretty limited, people end up getting creative when it comes to setting up their businesses. If you go to the street-level pictures of Tokyo streets on Google Maps or even just look at virtual locations inspired by the actual city (ie: Yakuza 2), you'll notice that alleyways aren't the empty backsides of businesses as they are in the United States; they're entrances to even more establishments. The fact that such shopes are deliberately off the beaten path and obscure really interests me and makes me want to go out of my way to not stick to just the streets exclusively. As with any good city (and I speak from my experience with places such as Sydney and Cairns), exploration is not only an extremely rewarding city, but it also often leads to the best revelations about the real character of such places. I want to just be aimless and stumble into oddball places that I can call home, knowing that not everyone in the world is aware of such gems. It makes an already personal experience even more so knowing that I'll have found the good spots the tourists and their guides simply would have never given a damn about.
5. Find a school girl outfit that can be smuggled back into the States.
You know my reasons for this. I want Halloween to be interesting this year. Enough said.
6. Chillax in a park with the local cherry blossoms.
Unfortunately, I recognize that I'll be a few months too late for when the actual festivities revolving around sakura blossoms are taking place. That said, when I was over in Sydney a few years ago, a couple of friends from the group and I wound up going to a botanical garden that was amazingly only a mile or so away from where we were staying. It was a really great experience. While I love Denver's park systems, the scenery is largely the same. Seeing Sydney's own take of nature within a city was really fun. That's probably supposed to be the purpose of a botanical garden in the first place, but I think I can at least partially replicate that experience by visiting some Tokyo parks. Thankfully, Tokyo is nowhere near Nara, so there's no chance of getting gang-raped by deer over some crackers, too.
7. Go take pictures of the damned life-size Gundam being erected.
I don't really like Gundams at all, but when considering how iconic they are in Japan and the fact that the thing will be finished just a few weeks before I fly over there, I feel more or less morally obligated to take lots of pictures. Enough said.
Monday, April 27, 2009
I'm wandering around without much of a plan. And that's okay.
The ironic thing about the university life is that despite the relatively low percentage of people who actually go on to have a job in which they can apply their major, you're supposed to have a definitive plan of some sort along the way, "ideally" just as you're starting your freshman year. Those who can't really decide on what to major in and, by supposed extension, what direction they want their life to take are able to be open option, usually until junior year, but the point is that by the time you put on that graduation cap, you're supposed to have had some revelation about how you want to lead your life and then work towards it accordingly. That's fine and dandy for the idealists who happen to believe that everything will work 100 percent of the time and that they won't run into major obstacles. I, on the hand, subscribe to a different school of thought, one which only has just enough of a plan so I have some sense of direction without feeling lost, but with enough flexibility so that the details themselves are all penciled in and not set in stone. There's just something to be said for merely abiding by the ebb and flow of life until you know when the right opportunities appear that need your own intervention.
With a major like Japanese, a lot of people have asked me what I exactly inted to use it for after I graduate from CU. Assuming that I don't tell them flat out that I have no set graduation date and that I am in fact okay with going over four years for my education, my answers vary. Sometimes I want to teach English over there. Sometimes I want to do work for a creative company, ideally writing manga or designing games. Sometimes I just want to be a TA for a while like good old (but very young) sensei. The point behind having such a varied stable of answers is simple: I picked Japanese as my major so that I could be extremely flexible, taking on occupations that both appeal to me and are attainable in times of economic downturns. Picking a foreign language as a major allows you to learn another manner in which to express yourself as a human being, an invaluable skill which has numerous applications. It may not train me to enter any one field, but being able to communicate with most anybody who speaks the language more than makes up for it. You learn how to connect with other people from a variety of backgrounds and, in turn, even if you enter a field you may not have the most knowledge about, an added language can still open those doors. If nothing else, an additional tongue on the resume has nothing but benefits, for its usefulness does not sway with political climates or economic conditions; people will always need to communicate with each other and to that end, an additional language will inevitably come in handy some how.
That isn't to say that there is anything wrong with specializing in something more specific; indeed, there are other skills besides knowing a language one can pick up which has universal applications as well. What I ultimately mean to convey is that a lack of specificity in your life's plan can also be highly beneficial as well. If you allow yourself to be open to more than one path, then the detours don't necessarily become so detrimental, if at all. They instead become tangents and should you choose to continue down them, whether it's for curiosity's sake or for any other reason, sometimes opens up wonderfully unexpected opportunities.
As a personal example, my school, the University of Colorado at Boulder, was not my first choice, but rather a backup. During the application season in the fall of 2007, I really longed to attend the University of Chicago. A quirky, but extremely respected school, it seemed to be the sort of place which would accent my sensibilities quite nicely. When I got rejected from there because of space issues, however, it turned out to be a really good thing; the subsequent acceptance to CU Boulder enabled me to actually join an educational community which could better foster my interests. Sure, there might be aspects of the populace I would come to have problems with, but when considering that I actually ended up in arguably the school for western/midwestern students longing to learn Japan, I don't bemoan the rejection from Chicago at all, for, in the end, it enabled me to connect to a bunch of like-minded people I came to adore and just realize how deep my passion for the Japanese language runs. And that was all because a denial letter forced me to go on a tangent of sorts.
After that point of getting into CU Boulder, however, I've been improvising what I want to do with my life as I go. I have to say it's worked out pretty well so far. Real independence like moving out to a new town without having the family in tow has done wonders for helping me understand myself even better than before. When you have no specific direction you want to go besides forward, you open yourself up to plenty of opportunities to grow as a person without putting up any real limitations whatsoever. The decision to study abroad earlier than expected this summer, for example, proved to myself that I really do have the dedication to devote multiple months of my life to making something happen if I genuinely want it. From late night essay-writing sessions to numerous budget-crunchings at every turn, it's shown me a side of myself which embraces dedication even amidst the uncertainty of the end result. All because I decided one afternoon to do something on a whim and see where it led me to in the end.
The power of compulsive human thinking really is a force to be reckoned with.
In the end, while it's good to have a plan, I think it can be best for one's own mental health if not everything has to definitively happen. Nothing that goes wrong ever really results in the end; it's life. It's always in the present and so you're always free to dictate and change its course when necessary. That's the beauty of just improvising life as you go; if you find something you really love you can keep on going that way contentedly, but if not, shifting towards a different horizon also does no harm either. I can't seriously answer those questions which ask where I think I'll be in five years from now. I don't want to know because half of the surprises in life come from the unexpected. I'll get to that point when I get to that point, but now, all I care about is whether I like where I'm going or not. And so far, that philosophy hasn't failed me once.
Friday, April 24, 2009
And now we enter the home stretch.
I've never really told anybody this except for the mother unit in passing before, but the decision to even apply to this summer's study abroad gig was actually a very spontaneous one. As in, within about the span of roughly 20 seconds, I decided to just up and do it. You see, the original plan was to just wait until junior year and then do the typical thing and apply for a year-long program somewhere in Japan. That's still my intention, definitely, but early into this school year, I had the realization while biking back from a class that I might benefit from doing a summer program beforehand. This was primarily because I believed that a summer program would enable me to culturally acquaint myself with Japan personally so that when I returned for a much longer stretch of time, the culture shock issues wouldn't be nearly as profound. I figured that the logistics of going to school over there for year were hard enough as it was; culture shock would just compound the issues. Thus I essentially decided on the spot that I would at least try to get into a summer program and see what happens. If nothing else, it would acclimate me to the application process so it wasn't foreign to me the next year.
Judging by the fact that just yesterday I bought my plane tickets to Tokyo, however, I think you can gauge how successful I've been in my endeavor thus far.
Getting to this point is surreal. There really is very little left to do now. Just buy a few supplies like a camera and laptop, withdraw money from the savings account to exchange over there. You know, the works. When I went to Australia when I was 16, I had help in the application process from the mother unit. I think it's to be expected at that age, really. International trips naturally involve a lot logistical issues and they're really too much to handle at that age if you don't already know the ropes. I don't think too many teenagers really know that early in their lives.
It's with that in mind that I think I'm prouder and more content with my efforts to set up my trip to Tokyo than I am with Australia. Mind you, Australia changed my life, but getting from point A to point B was a much simpler matter in retrospect than achieving the same thing for this upcoming study abroad program. Save for a recommendation or two and other miscellaneous things, you really are left on your own to make things happen. It's up to you to let the university know you want to do it in the first place. It's up to you to fill out the mobs of forms and occasional essay once you're committed to going. And, if you're like me at all, it's up to you to figure out how you're going to pay for it, too. In the end, as long as you don't let the inevitable obstacles bog you down too much, things do end up working out in your favor. But when you come to the realization that you managed to achieve this much, you can't help but be in awe at yourself that it's possible for one person to do all that in less than a year.
To put it into perspective, I believe I put far much more work and man hours into applying to study abroad in Japan than I did to attend the University of Colorado. Both are difficult, but if a mere program within a school requires more work than getting into the school itself, I think that's cause for a little bit of self-celebration. So don't mind me if I indulge myself a bit.
Perhaps this time is especially surreal for me personally just because the program, as well as the time of year itself, means a lot to me. I chose to apply for college and opted for the major I did because I wanted to prove to myself that I could take charge of my life and that my dreams didn't have to just be dreams if I worked towards making them a reality. My older sister may have stopped beating and yelling at me years and years ago, but it's been a long time coming for me to reach the point where I'm confident enough to not let the mental scarring deter me from doing whatever I truly want in my life. It's always a liberating thought for me to know that; my life had felt so anarchic and out of my control because of my youth for so long that I think it took me longer than a lot of people to realize I had the potential within myself to be an independent human being. Living the college life has thusly been an extremely important stepping stone for me. Despite the complaints I might have about certain aspects, overall it's proven my theory about self-realizing my own autonomy to be true. Applying for and getting accepted to study over in Tokyo come to Japan is therefore an expansion upon that point, providing more validation for it.
I probably couldn't be happier knowing that my idealistic theory about living life could actually be true. That's what the chance to go on this trip really means for me. More than anything, it shows me that I am empowered to bring about change for the better in my life, that if I work hard enough at it, I'll eventually get the ending I'm looking for. Maybe it won't be a perfect journey without problems, but just the fact that it's possible to really overcome them if I try hard enough is something I'll probably be forever amazed at. Nor do I want to lose that awe, as that's what drives me to keep going. My past isn't my present and this trip ensures that I'll work hard to keep making that true.
Such is what it feels like for me personally to enter the home stretch of this study abroad process. The applications are done. The arrangements have been made. All that's really left is to wait until it hits me full throttle.
Then the real charades begin.
And that excites me to no end.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Let's discuss the weather in Japan.
etc-chan went out of her way to suggest that I discuss a weather phenomenon that's very specific to Japan. It's a very tricky matter, since this affects daily life over there and I'm not sure at 3:11 in the morning that my faculties are up to the task of discussing it well. But alas, I find coherence to be highly overrated, so I shall nonetheless proceed to discuss the topic at hand.
Specifically, I want to talk about the raining Gundams which your average Japanese person has to contend with for much of the spring and summer.
But I suppose that I should take a step back and quickly discuss what a Gundam is, considering that there are people reading this who have enough trouble as it is dissecting my Japanese-infused Eigo. Such folks probably know what a Gundam is already conceptually without having a name for it. Nonetheless, Gundams are your archetypal giant Japanese robots, originating in 1970s era anime. They're designed to be humanoid in shape and are generally used to wage battle in any terrain; even outer space. There's a mythology associated with it, but I don't think there's anybody remotely sane who can actually understand it and dissect it for us laymen. So, let's just leave this explanation with a picture of one such Gundam and move on to how they affect Japanese weather patterns. Ironically enough, there'll be a life size version which will actually be standing up this summer. I think the Japanese are doing it on purpose just to remind myself of my apathy towards their giant robots.
But I digress. Gundams. They rain in Japan. It's a real god damned problem. Seriously.
Surprisingly enough, for its prevalence, the problem is almost never mentioned in tourist travel books. I myself once thought it was a joke and it in fact became a running punch-line amongst several comrades in the Japanese class. I'd adopt the nerdy American voice who pretentious pretends to know everything about Japan at random and I'd chime in about how it rained Gundams in Japan. It was awesome.
Except it turned out to be real. You can't tell from any of the tourist photos ever taken of Japan since these things immediately go invisible upon detecting flash photography, but the raining Gundams are a serious threat to property damage over there, since these things are pretty damn huge, with a height around 150-ish feet, I believe. I mean, you have one belly flop on some small town in the middle of nowhere and it's usually big enough to take out the entire shopping district.
Oh yeah, I suppose I should mention that belly flopping is the only method by which these Gundams rain down from the sky. Never head or feet first; their whole damn body has to hit the ground. Why that is, I'm not certain, but it's not because I find the imagery of a belly flopping Gundam to be humorous at this hour.
But anyway, these Gundams are pretty huge and gravity does a good job of making sure their impact causes quite a bit of devastation. Oh, and it's not like they rain one at a time when it's the season, either. No, it's a whole mob of them. It's not unusual for them to come in the thousands all at once, sometimes hitting many different Japanese cities simultaneously. Granted, given their sheer size, sometimes you have multiple Gundams land on top of each other. As you can imagine, that's an interesting sight to behold in and of itself. But they still have a general aversion to flash photography, so alas, there's no visual context to provide. Suffice it to say that they cause a lot of wreckage.
Oh, did I mention that it tends to happen daily?
Now, you might be thinking to yourselves, "Tom must be bullshitting us all because there's no way Japan could still be a thriving a country with that sort of consistent threat. I mean, it all sounds pretty plausible since the bible does a really great job at preparing people for unorthodox disasters, but even the Christian kami-sama let up on the acts every once and a while." In response, I say that I'm ashamed that you'd ever think of me that way. I thought we knew each other better than that.
Seriously.
What the hell?
I've done so much for you.
I even let my only kid marry you because I trusted you so much. I didn't object to the age issue at all; I thought my kid would be in good hands since it was you I handed them off to.
Yet this is the treatment I get.
God damn.
Bloody Americans. If this were Turkmenistan, this wouldn't be a problem at all.
Ugh.
I'll forgive you just this one time, but don't doubt me again dammit.
Still, to address your concerns, the reason why Japan is still such a successful country, especially economically, is that much of their prosperity comes from the clean-up efforts revolving around these raining Gundams. That's right; there's an entire industry devoted to removing them from the land after they miraculously, yet very consistently, fall from the sky. The Gundams themselves are never operational even while they're shooting down towards the earth, so there's no use in keeping them around. The clean-up process itself is simple. They just get those trucks that are normally used to move houses and then dump the Gundam corpses into the Pacific Ocean. It's worked out quite nicely. Naturally, there's no environmental damage and even if there was, the rest of the world is too busy still ragging on Japan's whaling practices to notice that there are shit tons of Gundams swimming with the fishes.
Wait, that's a mafia expression. I don't really know the yakuza equivalent. I imagine it's not that, though. They don't seem like the type that would take inspiration from The Godfather.
Oh, fun trivia: When the American government initially found out about these raining Gundams, they tried to send Transformers over to help out with the disposal efforts. Maybe they didn't know about the culture war that's always raged between Gundams and Transformers, but suffice it to say that their very short presence in Japan wasn't received especially well. It triggered a civil war and stuff.
You know, the things that usually happen when you try to send giant gaijin robots for diplomatic purposes. You've all read the history books, so you don't need any more examples.
But you're still cynical as all hell, aren't you? Now I know you're about to ask what causes these raining Gundams. Surely, you're thinking, there are pressure systems of some sort which indicate why this happens, much like any other weather pattern. You know what I say to that? Hell if I know. The Japanese people themselves don't even openly acknowledge that it happens at all.
Seriously.
Try asking them, 「昨日、ガンダム雨が降りましたか?」and they'll just be like, 「うそう!」while hopping on one leg and pointing a very damning finger at you. I should know since it's customary. I also know that people who haven't even had a day of formal education in the language can at least read and speak that much, so that isn't an issue. But still, you're bound to get a denial that it ever happens in the first place.
They're very delusional like that.
The ones that actually might talk will probably say how the Gundam gods, how are very, very real, are generally displeased with how many other giant robot shows have arrived to dwindle their prominence and as such use the Gundam rain to exact their vengeance upon the people. But really, I can't say for certain.
Wait, you still have one more question?
Why is it that I'm so presumptuous about your thoughts while writing this?
Oh, wait that wasn't it. It was about why I still want to go to Japan learning full well that I may be walking into a death trap, right?
Well, like all Americans, I'm a masochist. I figure that if I get into an accident involving a raining Gundam (ie: I get completely crushed by one) and I still survive to tell the tale, I can write my own inspirational book about how I survived the ordeal by asking for help in Korean, which is actually the language they speak in Japan. Not Japanese. Oh, and then I can sell the rights to have an even more inspirational movie created.
Starring Sean Connery of course.
That man is the only one worthy of depicting such harrowing ordeals and getting out of it all badass-like.
Yep.
I'm gonna end this entry on that note, too. Because it's just awesome to stop writing right after you get to the topic of Sean Connery. Really, after that point, it all just goes downhill very quickly.
So I'm going to pay my respects to him and leave it at that.
It rains Gundams in Japan. It sucks for you because you're not the ones going there in the hopes of having an accident happen and making a massive profit off of it.
Yayz.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
I dream of pudding in my sleep.
As I listen to a recording of Lady GaGa's recent live performace over at AOL, I've been reminded how I should probably get around to starting a travel blog of sorts for the upcoming trip to Tokyo. It's an idea that I had had in the back of my head since starting the application process itself, but Phil, a friend of mine from the Australia trip, made a fairly adamant point on my Facebook profile about how I really should get around to logging my overseas exploits. So here I am, rambling in the usual verbose style that makes my writing teacher cringe like all hell, prepared to tell you all about how Tom James is going to take Tokyo by storm and make its denizens marvel at his insanity.
Or something.
Except I'm a few months too early.
I don't actually start until July 26.
Dammit.
Well, then. Looks like I have a slight predicament on my hands. Clearly I'm not speaking nihongo in its native land yet, so I have no personal tales about getting arrested in parks yet. But I need filler of some sort of else this introductory post will be shameful to both myself and my family. I may speak some Japanese, but I don't want to prostrate myself on the ground in extreme apology until I absolutely have to. Hmm....
I suppose I can talk for a bit about the process of even getting to this point. I suppose it'll be handy for those who, like myself, will end up applying to study abroad there next year. Sure, why not?
But let's define what "this point" is really quickly for a bit of context. As of this writing, I've been accepted into a program for this summer where I'll study at the University of Sophia for a month. I take two classes, each being two hours long, for five days a week. With some luck, I'll actually be able to transfer some credits back to Boulder. Beyond that, the only things which need to be taken care of are some legal and financial matters. The government, for example, needs to not I'm not a communist defector intending to rile up the Japanese masses. Financially, it's mostly scholarship stuff at this point. And by scholarship stuff, I mean waiting very tentatively and hoping I get enough aid where I won't go broke because of this trip. That'd be dandy.
That wasn't really quick. Damn. On an unrelated note, I'm done listening to GaGa. In lieu of that, it's all about a Zetsubou-Sensei theme now. Shit's trippy, son.
So now on to the meat and bones of the blog itself. Applying to a study abroad program is an interestingly surreal process. Even if you start doing the work well ahead of the deadline, the list of things you need to get done makes it all seem like it'll never end. Really, once you start by telling your academic advisor, "Hey, I don't want to be on American soil this summer. Will that fuck with my credits somehow?" you open a Pandora's box of sorts. It's a rad Pandora's box, especially if you get in, but it's a Pandora's box nonetheless. How much so? Let's run down an abridged list of things I needed to get done before I could even be considered for admission into the program.
- Telling the study abroad office I'm interested in not being a tourist, but still want to travel.
- Telling the academic advisor the same thing.
- Returning to the study abroad office, saying how your academic advisor thinks it's an okay idea, so will they please open up the application and let me start filling stuff out thank you very much.
- Learning how you get to fill out two applications to get into one program; one to get CU's consent for going and one for consent from the actual organization running the program.
- Coming to the realization that, thankfully, those two applications are largely the same.
- Still complaining nonetheless because each application has at least twelve separate things you have to accomplish.
- Getting new passport photos for the umpteenth time at Walgreens because you didn't think all those other times you needed them taken this year that you'd ever have to use that service again.
- Realizing that you still actually have passport photo spares lying around in one of your desk drawers.
- Wondering why the hell the study abroad organization needs six separate copies of that photo while enlisting (read: forcing at gunpoint) your roommate to make copies of the photo because you're too cheap to get an actual photo printer for yourself.
- Writing various essays in which you try to prove that you aren't, in fact, a gaijin and that you won't spend all of your time at Akihabara upon arriving in Japan
- Contending with bouts of laziness thanks to filling out all sorts of other paperwork in addition to the schoolwork you already get to contend with.
- Feeling amazed at how you actually managed to turn everything on time, knowing full well that the battle is only half-over if you get accepted
- Cursing the sad irony that you didn't really know very well at all how much more paperwork you'd get to have once you got accepted
- ZETSUBOU SHITA!
I'm still listening to the Zetsubou theme. It's the one with the rumba. Just got to the part in the full version where they start softly singing "la la la" again. That song's awesome. It really is.
Oh, and yeah, I know I switched from first to second tense in there. I'm not editing that at almost two in the morning. I think you can live with that.
I guess what I want you to take out of that list is that while applying to a study abroad program is a very worthwhile and recommended process, it's a very gruelling one. It's to be expected with anything involving international travel, but it's hard to fully understand how long the process is until you go through it yourself. It's a great feeling once you get that acceptance letter which enables you to happily place yourself into a debt oblivion, but in the meantime, god damn is it a pain the ass.
And I plan on applying again next year. God damn I'm a fucking masochist.
I still need a bit more filler. This isn't a forum, thankfully, so I can write as much as I want without nearly as much risk of somebody replying "LOLWALLOFTEXTIAREILLITERATES." I guess I'll go over the reasoning as to why I went for a summer program to Japan instead of a semester or year-long gig.
Sure, why not.
I'm actually going for only a month precisely because I intend to go for a year-long program. Okay, not necessarily the most easily comprehensible language. I knew that even as I was thinking about how to write it. Notice the irony in how I decided to write it that way anyway. That said, I went for a summer program because I wanted at least some first-hand acclimation with the Japanese language and culture without it being in a super strenuous setting. Sure, I still have to study while I'm overseas, but I'm also not attending classes full-time like I will the next time I go over there, so I figure I should take the chance to get to know Japan in a relatively casual setting while I still can. Culture shock is bound to happen no matter when I go, but I'd rather have it happen sooner rather than later, simply because I'd rather not have my sanity cope with culture shock and studying obligations for the first time. This isn't a criticism of those planning to go for prolonged gigs over there; I know a lot of folks who are intending to do just that. Really, it's just that I don't want to put more stress on myself than I have to and I think having at least some familiarity with Japan after the trip will be helpful when I return in 2010.
There are a lot of other topics I could discuss, but really, at 2:07 at night, I think I don't want to be wordy for too much longer. So instead I'll ask anybody reading this just one question.
What sorts of topics would you like me to discuss between now and when I get on that plane to fly over the Pacific? It doesn't have to be exclusively about the study abroad application process itself. I think that would get boring as all hell if I actually discussed it for another entry, or at least for the entirety of another entry. Just throw whatever suggestions pop into your head at me and I'll try my damndest to spend some time writing about your whims.
After all, even if I'm the one doing the legwork, I want to make this trip a journey of sorts for everyone reading this. Obviously nothing beats actually being there, but I think there's something to be said for watching how things develop as I figure things out first hand.
After all, this is, in the end, the tale of a gaijin in Nihonland. I'd like to try and make it at least entertaining for you all.
Aaaaaand, I'm done. Still listening to the Zetsubou theme, though. I have a habit of putting songs on repeat for whatever reason. Fun trivia, that.
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