A bit of catching up to do.  The last two weekends I went to see my friend from Chicago play at two separate locations with two different bands.  The first live was at the Organ Jazz Club and the players were:

Organ: Hal Tsuchida (土田晴信)

Guitar: Satoshi Yoshida(吉田サトシ)

Drums: Daisuke Kurata (倉田大輔)

This was a really fun night.  It was my friend’s (not the musician) birthday and the band played really well including one of the most beautiful renditions of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” that I’ve ever heard.  It was nice to see my friend from Chicago again too after such a long time.  And the drummer looked like what you would imagine the Japanese version of James Dean to look like.

The next week I saw Hal play at Giee. I was looking forward to this gig because the drummer has a reputation as being good whereas most of the time I’ve never heard of the musicians. He didn’t disappoint either. I’ll be sure to check him out more which won’t be hard seeing as though it seems he has a gig almost nightly. This live was:

Organ: Hal Tsuchida (土田晴信)

Guitar: Yuji Ota (太田雄二)

Drums: Kazuaki Yokoyama (和明横山)

—-

So that was my last two Fridays.  This Saturday was my preschool’s Christmas show.  It went off swimmingly.  Most of the toddlers didn’t cry which was nice.  One specific toddler would almost start to cry but then I would pick him up and he would stop… aw, i love two-year-olds.  They’re my favorite.  All the children did very good in the performances though.  I was a proud teacher.

Today I decided to take an impromptu trip out to Kawagoe.  I read about this little town in a New York Times article and have wanted to try and make it out there.  Today was such nice weather that I decided today was the day.  I didn’t really follow what the article recommended (no printer and mendokusai for writing it all down) so I just winged it.

This is what I found:

Old Buildings

BIG TIME clothing store- bought a nice, soft scarf (even though I have about a million) hence the title of this post.

Cafe Colorado – All I have to say is I was so happy!  Naturally I ate lunch there.  Talked with the owner, really nice. Traded names/business cards and will be back! His wife (or who I assume is his wife) also was really cute and smiley and spoke really close to my face… haha.

Cute Vending Machines

Yakitori Obaasan (old woman)

Bell Tower

Kawagoe was very cute.  Lots of cute shops, cheap clothing stores (got a sweater for approx. 7 dollars!), and quaint coffee shops.  I’ll definitely be going back in the future.  For just a few more photos, click this.

]]> http://lightplaystricks.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/shiny/ Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:01:03 +0000 Marc http://lightplaystricks.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/shiny/

Sunset in Kawagoe Station, shot with my Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim and Centuria 200 ISO film.

Went to a few photography galleries today after work, including:

Totem Pole Gallery: Hiroyuki Kishiyama – “Take Me Somewhere Nice”. He is a really nice guy and we chatted for ages in my broken Japanese and his excellent, kind Japanese.

Place M: Chicako Yamashita – “Shimmering” and Hitoshi Tsuda – “Ms Rosa Forty Years”

Another from Kawagoe.

I went to Kawagoe, Saitama today, which is where this was taken, using Lomography redscale film on my Smena 8M. Kawagoe is charming in its back streets and is nice for a wander around if you are in the area anyway, but I wouldn’t take a trip out there just for no reason.

Yesterday, my girlfriend and I went to a photography exhibition at Ｐｈｏｔｏ Ｋanon in Togoshi, which is the smallest gallery you have ever seen. They also sell film and cameras too. Some nice pictures, go if you’re near there anyway, but the gallery is tiny and it takes only about 10 minutes to see the photographs.

N橋氏と小江戸川越へ。

NHKドラマ”つばさ”の舞台だそうです。川越藩の城下町だったので小江戸と呼ばれているようです。

蔵づくりゾーンを散策しましたが、本当に築年数が古い建物が多い。

いい作りの家が沢山ありました。

このお店もカッコイイ。額縁やら竹久夢二の絵などを売っていたお店。

そしてこのような町並みだと食べ歩きが始まるわけですが、

ここは食べ物おいしかった。特に”いも恋”という饅頭が最高にうまい。

いきなり団子にかなり近いお菓子で、川越名産の芋がそのまま入ってます。

N橋氏によるところ、東海地方で食される”鬼饅頭”もこんなお菓子のようです。

食べてみたい。

ふ女子。川越ではこの超ロングふ菓子がおみやげとして大人気。

フランス人がバケットを持って歩く感覚でみんな歩いています。

オシャレ。

これを食べるのに何日かかるのか心配しつつ帰路につく。

Finally, after being here for about 2 months roughly, I went out clubbing in Tokyo! Better late than never, right? This evening, after napping for about 2 hours in the late afternoon, Kei and Vedette came by my house to get ready, and we headed out to meet Janelle and the boys (Monrique, Kai, Lance & Nick) at the Kawagoe station. The 8 of us then headed out to Shibuya, where we, after chucking down a quick drink from nearest conbini (convenient store – they’re everywhere here in Japan, and indeed convenient…), headed towards nearest club, which happened to be Gas Panic. The place was free of charge, but required the guests to have a drink in their hands at all times (apparently not required for the female guests though, since none of us bought anything…). It was tiny, narrow and packed, but the music was nice and we had a good time. However, we had to split up, since the boys were determined to go clubbing in Roppongi, a flashier and considered more dangerous area of Tokyo, while Kei and Vedette were equally determined to stay in Shibuya to go to Club Atom (which I for a long time thought was called Club Adam, due to Kei’s weird pronunciation…). I tag along with the girls, since I had gotten a message earlier on the day from a certain someone that he was in Shibuya and wondering if he could tag along… Obviously Janelle decided to hang out with us girls, and so 4 girls and 4 guys parted to different parts of the Tokyo nightlife.

All ready to make Tokyo rock!

The gang minus me.

Shibuya by night.

We eventually managed to find the club, which wasn’t hard at all actually. About 600 meters from Shibuya 109, one of Tokyo’s landmarks (a huge store filled with big brands…too expensive to even go inside and have a look…), on a side-street, next to an AM/PM conbini, and luckily not at all crowded when we got there. The cover was 1000 yen/person, although the ladies also got 2 drinks included (before 24h). Beware though, after midnight the price changes and turns to 2000 yen for the guys, and 1000 for the ladies, although with only one drink included (also, the drinks included can cost max. 500 yen…)! 5 floors up, we found ourselves in a somewhat big and dark room, filled with nice R&B playing (different music on different floors people! Something for most people!), and realized that:

A) We’re pretty much the only ladies in the room…

and

B) We’re pretty much the only gaijins in the room…

With Vedette dancing the way she dances (X-rated, that’s all I have to say!), and Kei’s dress ending before it began, no wonder that all the eyes in the room were on us all the time, and soon we found ourselves within a circle of more or less brave Japanese guys, some of who eventually dared to dance or talk with us. Meanwhile, I was more interested in my keitai (mobile-phone), that Janelle had in her pocket, and the messages from Mr. Certain Someone (oh yes, you all know that I’m talking about Masa, so I’ll just write his name from now on!), and when him and his friend finally managed to find the club (after searching for about one hour…), Janelle and I went downstairs to meet them, only to find out that they didn’t have their ID’s with them… After going back upstairs to tell the other girls, Jay and I decided to leave the club, which was getting too crowded (besides, we’re not much for only dancing all night long, we wanted to sit down and chill and actually talk too). When we finally managed to arrange things with lockers, keys etc (there’s lockers instead of coat-rooms in the Tokyo clubs!), we managed to escape, only to realize that Masa and Daichi were nowhere to be found! After a couple of phonecalls we found out that they were at some McDonalds, resting, which they left to go find us again. However, their phone died and so Jay and I walked around aimlessly, all alone, in Shibuya at about 3 am in the morning… We actually had a very good time while doing this, getting surprised at how many shops, beauty-salons and restaurants were still open, taking photos of funny posters and drunk guys peeing in public (see below) and getting sex-proposals from random Japanese guys… Oh yes, it’s apparently very common for gaijin-girls to get such proposals from Japanese guys, since they’re more likely to say yes…unfortunately… The guy that approached us, while we were standing in front of Shibuya 109 wondering what to do, spoke to us un English, all the while we kept answering in Japanese. The conversation went somewhat like this (shortened):

Japanese guy: Hey girls where are you from?

Us: Euuhm…Sueeden to amerika?

Japanese guy: What do you think about Japanese guys?

Us: Kakko ii? (good-looking)

Japanesse guy: Oh really? Me too? Thank you! So, what are you doing now? Are you free? Wanna go on a date?

Jay: Date? What, like ima? (now)

Japanese guy: Yes, now!

Jay: Euuhmm…deeto de, nani o shitai desu ka? (what do you wanna do on the date?)

Japanese guy: Fuck?!

Jay: ??? Mou ichi do??? (one more time)

Japanese guy: Fuck?!

Jay: ??? Mou ichi do????? (this is where we asked ourselves “did we just hear what we think we heard???)

Japanese guy: Fuck?!

Jay: Nihongo de?? (In Japanese??)

Japanese guy: Have sex?!!

Jay: Euuuhh….iieee…sonna kantanna onna ga janai yo! (we’re not such easy girls)

Japanese guy: Oh ok, well thank you, bye bye (bowing and leaving!).

Us:  Euuuhh….byye…?

I was very shocked to hear something like this from a Japanese guy, and had to pull back my urge to slap him, and instead pull Jay away…very weird and creepy! Next time, I’m definitely making sure that at least one of the guy is with us!

If anyone can please tell me what the heck men’s egg is, let me know!

Follow Jay’s pointing finger…

Jay and I continued our stroll around Shibuya at night, visiting every McDonald’s we saw, just to check if the boys (Masa and Daichi) might be there, but very soon giving up the hope to see them again. Then, suddenly, while walking around, there he was! Daichi! Sitting at some stairs, equally surprised! And moments later Masa showed up! Coincidence? Fate? Jay told me later on that she had thought to herself “if we actually end up meeting them, it’s definitely fate!”… Well, the boys were quite tired, especially Masa, who looked like he could fall asleep standing up. Rightly so, since they had been walking around in Tokyo all day long! We went to nearest – guess what? Yes! McDonald’s! Whyyy??? – and chilled there for about 2 hours, playing games and talking (well mostly Jay and Daichi, since Masa was too tired/shy and I just didn’t know what to say/was too shy), until the first trains started going at around 5-ish. Then we went to the station, parted, and headed back home.

What are the odds that you’ll meet the guys that you wanted to meet, 3 am in Shibuya?

Unfortunately for me, my body is used to getting up early each morning, so even though I got to bed at 7am, I still woke up about 2-3 hours later… I forced myself to the uni, to finish my paper for the presentation the next day, then went back home and slept for about 12 hours (and was still sleepy when I woke up!).

Well, that was the story about my first night out in Tokyo. More accidental meetings, creepy guys and sex-proposals, and getting stared at by all the guys in a packed club. Very interesting, fun, and sort of weird all at the same time, but I’ll do it again. Although, this time, I’d make sure to stick with the guys from the beginning, I do not recommend ladies to walk around alone at night, not anywhere in the world.

At the Kawagoe festival, or omatsuri, last weekend, there was a small street full of plant sellers, including this one focused on succulents and cactuses. Other featured plants included chrysanthemums, many of them sold without plastic pots. Many neighborhood festivals include a group of plant sellers, in addition to portable shrines, street food and other activities.

Well apparently I survived the weekend, though I’ve been too exhausted/busy/lazy to update my blog… I’ll take each thing, one at a time, each in its own blog-post, so it won’t become an entire novel here.

First things first: karaoke and Kawagoe matsuri! As I wrote last time, I made some new friends at the tomodachi event last week, and especially one was very interesting I might add… Obviously I took the opportunity of our weekly karaoke-tours to invite him and his friends, and we all had a very nice time although the communication wasn’t the easiest thing. Even so, I ended up having an accidental date with him the next day. But that’s for later (soon, promise! Or just skip the next paragraph if you want to fast forward). After the karaoke Masa and his friend Hiro walked me home, all the while Hiro was strongly promoting the poor, embarrassed Masa, pointing out that we’re both the same age, single and…well…

Filling our stomachs before the karaoke.

The day after I went to Kawagoe Matsuri together with my hostfamily and their friends from Nagano. The festival itself was huge and crowded, especially at the spots where you could find the dashi, the traditional floats pulling a local kami-sama (god). Even more crowded when two dashi met and “battled”… There was tons of food and trinkets for sale, and I have to add that the Japanese festivals definitely win over the Swedish ones! I could easily walk around there all day and still not see everything (and spend a minor fortune…).

 Dashi

After walking around for a while with my hostfamily, I met up with Masa at Crea Mall, and I think we were both equally surprised/awkward when we realized that none of us had brought friends, so we were alone – together! We walked around for a while, trying to find a not so crowded and noisy place so we could actually sit down and talk, and for the millionth time so far, I now again wished that I would become fluent in Japanese in the blink of an eye. Or at least faster… Awkward, yes. Embarrassing, yes. But very nice! Hopefully he’ll be less embarrassed and more relaxed next time we meet.

The day after it was time for us JSPs to join the parade and actually pull one of the dashi ourselves! Or, well, together with 40 or so other people. Still, it was fun. Hot, but fun, it’ was a very very sunny day after all. Everywhere we went, people were equally happy/surprised to see a gang of gaijins pulling one of the dashis, the oldest one of them all on top of that! We were all cheerful and waved back though, and I think that we’re now in hundreds of Japanese families’ photo-albums…

Matsuri-boys

If anyone wonders; it says “Kawagoe” on the back.

Our dashi: the Kawagoe Motomachi Dashi

Stopping to greet another local kami’s crib.

We pulled the dashi all over town for about 2.5 hours, and were then treated to lunch by the people who arranged the pulling-business. After that, we soon split up, and I ended up walking around with Kai and Jonathan for a while, searching for sweet-potato ice-cream, getting stuck between not two, not three, but four battling dashi, which meant that we were literally stuck on the spot for 45 minutes! We managed to escape eventually, and met up with Kozue and her friend, who guided us towards the ice-cream and local beer.

How to make a German happy: give him a beer…and an ice-cream.

After this, Kai and Jonathan left us, and the remaining three of us headed to a cafe with very special tea…(very expensive too I have to add, but an interesting experience!)

Jasmine-tea. Flower and all.

My tea-set. See the tiny white cup? That’s what I poured the tea in, over and over again. Like taking tea-shots. Tasty though!

Soon enough I had to head back home and study for the upcoming mid-term exams, but at least I had a yet another great weekend in Japan!

The second of my three new discoveries this morning is…

さつまいも味 (Satsumaimo-aji) (Sweet Potato Flavor) Kit Kats, Kawagoe Limited Edition

☆★☆

This one has a real sweet potato smell – and taste!  It’s quite nice actually!

The past weekend was quite busy, karaoke again on Friday, of course, it has become a weekly event  (for some of the other JSP’s, more than once a week even). Before the karaoke I bought some super strong minty chewing gums, that come in a plastic box, and – *drumroll* – paper squares to roll up your used chewing-gum in!!! Only in Japan people, only in Japan…

The super-strong-minty chewing-gum, it’s box & papers.

On Saturday I went to Ueno Kouen Doubutsuen (上野公園動物園 – Ueno Park Zoo) together with Sina and Alex (not the cat-freak) and looked at lions, tigers and bears (Oh my! – Sorry, couldn’t help it!), and tons of other cute animals.

Sina wanted to lick the tiger first, but later on…

Poser otter.

いっらしゃいませーーーー！ The penguins welcoming us…

I have one word for this animal: KAWAIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!! SOOO CUUUTEE!! I want one!!

The word for this animal is: WTF!?!?!?

On Sunday I met up with my neechan in Tokyo, to go to her work-areas matsuri (祭り – festival) in 港区 (Minatoku), and we also managed to get up on Tokyo Tower after waiting in line for about 1.5 hours… A good advice: if it’s lovely weather outside, it’s a holiday on the current day and a holiday the day after, and people can get in for free – don’t go there!!! Wait for another day…I’m just letting you know… The view was great though, but I got even better pics from the World Trade Center later on, and there was less people there!

Dancers.

Tokyo Tower – 333m high (higher than the Eiffel Tower!)

Tokyo I love you!

Sunset over Tokyo

When we got back home both my hostbrothers were waiting, Hiroaki with his whole family, since they live close, Yuuichiro alone,since he lives in Nagoya. We had a lovely sashimi-party and a fun talking. Yuuichi-niichan is a hilarious person, too bad he lives so far away! He’s crazy, I love it! Hiroaki-niichan is slowly but surely letting me to know him, which I’m happy about, he’s a fun person too, but Yuuichi-niichan wins that battle, sorry.

Sashimi!! Daaiiiisuuukiiii!!!

This week has been a bit stressful, with the mid-term exams coming up and all. Luckily the literature-exam got cancelled this week, since the teacher didn’t show up last week for the review, so we’ll have the review this week and the exam next. Still, there’s the Japanese-exam on Friday… Cross your fingers for me, will you?

Today my okaasan took me to a really, really, really good doctor in Kawagoe, so good that he’s on TV and all sometimes. No wonder we had to wait 3.5 hours to see him… I really hope that the damn medicine he gave me will get my annoying zit-problem to an end. Okaasan and I went to Starbucks for my new favourite drink macha frappuccino while waiting. There’s yet another reason to stay in Japan: macha frappuccino!

The maccha frappuccino’s that Oneesan and I drank on Sunday.

After the trip to the doctor and back, I rushed to the station to meet up with Andy, and together we slowly, but surely, found our way to the Dainii-campus (second campus. Yes, there’s several campuses…), and even managed to get lost inside the campus. It was huge. Yohei, our trustworthy PA saved us though, and guided us to the lounge, where most of the JSP’s and tons of new Japanese students were getting to know each other. Here’s where the confusion-part of the title comes in: try to understand Japanese in a noisy room full of gaijins and Japanese trying to hear/talk to each other over some very loud music… I made some new friends though, especially two really nice and fun guys that I invited for karaoke on Friday.

Me, Masataka and Chingun

There’s some more, personal confusion to all this too, but, I won’t tell you about that just yet. For now, I’m just looking forward to Friday: finishing the damn exam and then relaxing with karaoke, new friends and the Kawagoe Matsuri, where I will be pulling one of the huge, traditional floats together with my fellow JSP’s. More about that next week, if I survive the weekend, that is…

First week of uni is dooone, but more is to come, for sure. Only warming up now, right? Next week we’ll do some more “brush-up” at the Japanese language-class (I envy the other guys in my class who actually have studied the things we’re reviewing with a teacher, I had to do it by myself this summer…). I’m doing alright though, I think, but way too much English is being spoken outside the Japanese language class, and I feel that when I’ve been speaking English for a while, I tend to forget my Japanese, I’m not fluent in the language yet after all. Oh well, a few more weeks and the Japanese students will arrive, and with them my friend Kozue, so I’ll have some natives to hang out with instead of my American (and the German!) classmates. Not that I don’t like you guys, but I’d prefer to speak as much Japanese as possible (that’s why we’re here, right? At least I am…).

On Thursday we had the first literature class, seems interesting, but the teacher loves to talk it seems. On Friday it was time for history of modern Japan, and man am I happy that I read Shogun (by James Clavell) this summer! I should have read the others too…will I have time to do so in between classes? Since the politics and the history classes changed days only this week, it meant that we had loads to read for next history class, which is normally on Mondays… Luckily my body is now used to waking up around 7-7.30 in the morning, so I had loads of time to study on Saturday and Sunday morning, so all the shukudai (宿題 = homework) for tomorrow is done!

Ok, so back to the title-topic – exploring Tokyo! It’s not something that can be done in a day, a week, or even a month, so you have to divide it up to tiny parts and take one at a time. If you have all the time in the world, as I do, then you take it really easy and stroll around and really explore the areas. On Saturday my Oneesan and I went to Odaiba, a very new and modern part of Tokyo, which is literally built on  an island made out of garbage, believe it or not. There’s one way of disposing of garbage that isn’t bad for the environment, eh? (Unless you start talking about what the result of a new island in one of the world’s biggest cities might mean for the environment…) Aaanyhoo, Oneesan and I met up in Ikebukuro, which is the station closest to home, but still in Tokyo, and from there we changed train twice to end up on the opposite side. Odaiba consists of only new buildings, apartments as well as offices, huge malls, amusement-centers and everything else in between. To get there you have to cross the Rainbow Bridge, which means going in a circle over a bridge…or something…it looks quite funny on the  map, I’ll put one up as soon as I find a good one! Unfortunately I can’t take pictures from the sky, so I hope this one will do:

Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo – welcome to my new home!

Once we arrived we pretty much instantly went to フジテレビ (Fuji TV’s) big building, where we went high up in the ball (you’ll understand when you see the picture below), about 25 floors up, to look at the view (the picture above), go on a small tour and  collect stamps of the TV station’s mascot Tamakun (at least I think that’ was his name, if I’m wrong, please correct me!). Oneesan and I immediately started our search for the stamp-machines, which were placed on different floors.

Fuji TV’s office. Huge.

Stamp!

もう少し。。。 A few more…

After the Fuji TV-tour, we went to a mall-area (I’m not sure what to call it, I’ll give you the name once I remember to ask Oneesan!), and on the way there, we met loads of people with this:

Baby-car, as the Japanese call it. I prefer to call it an 犬車 – dog car!

Now this is apparently some new phenomenon here in Japan – people who push around their dogs in strollers! (I keep wondering how the heck the dogs do their needs…) As if that’s not enough, they also put them on designer-clothes… Oh well, if you have too much money and no kids…

Next stop however, was this area:

The “mall-area”. Name will come when I know it!

Over here tons of desiger-boutiques were located, as well as a huge showroom, where Toyota was showing off their latest products. Oneesan and I test-rode a self-going eco-car, very cool indeed, though Oneesan thought it was creepy with the steering-wheel moving around by itself (the car was inside the showroom, going round and round on a special track. Obviously the car isn’t normally self-going, it was just for the showcase).

Well, for dinner we went inside a mall, that Oneesan explained was built to look like an Italian street and wow! You have to go there!

How the heck did I end up in Italy?

If you can’t go to Italy, then make Italy go to you!

After eating waaay to much and too good (I ate way too much over here!), we headed over to the Toyoya-showcase where we played around for a while, and then back out to ride the Kittychan kadencha (Hello Kitty Ferris wheel) and look at the night-view of Tokyo. I fell in love even more with this city! Just look at it!

Tokyo by night – with a blue Tokyo Tower at the centre.

Don’t get me wrong, I love nature more than anything, and I would go nuts if I didn’t have at least a huge park to walk around in, if there isn’t a nearby forest (I’m from the middle of nowhere after all), but I really do love big cities! Must have something to do with my first memories coming from the big metropolitan area of Medellin in Colombia…

After this looooong, but very much enjoyable afternoon, Oneesan and I headed back home, changing train 3 times and spending in total about 1.5 hours on them to get home… Oh yes, living in small towns has it advantages too, getting home faster is one of them!

This Sunday morning I woke up to a hot and humid Japan, and spent the morning studying, again. I was exhausted from the day before, but I still went out in the afternoon again, for some more exploring. This time with Kozue, and the exploring took place in the old part of Kawagoe, only one station away.

As I’ve explained before, our city is famous for the drama Tsubasa that plays every weekday morning, so today there were loads of tourists strolling around, taking pictures of the places that they’ve seen on TV. These were however mixed up with a high school-class, who were apparently out taking photos for some photography-class, we encountered them everywhere!

The famous bell-tower, that everyone takes photos of. Including me.

And here’s the reason why they take the photos.

Kawagoe is however not only the location for a popular drama, it is also full of temples and shrines! I broke my personal record of amount of temples/shrines visited in one day (from zero to four, or maybe five?). I’ve now been blessed to have a safe childbirth (?!?!?! Not yet for a loooong time!!), get a good job, a promotion, more money and also to meet the love of my life. Not too shabby.

The first temple we visited.

Something that surprised me when I first got here, was that besides all the “normal” fortune-telling, the Japanese are also very interested in another quite unusual (at least for me) way of knowing your future. We’ve all heard about the Western and the Chinese zodiac, right? Well, how about fortune-telling by blood-type? Oh yes! They show it on TV, magazines and even in shrines you can pay a small sum to draw a fortune about yourself, written according to your blood-type! Kozue and I did so, and I know keep the tiny piece of paper in my wallet in order to make it come true (or at least that’s what Kozue told me to do). Actually one part of it said that I would find what I was searching for in a place located higher up, and in between something. Believe it or not, I was looking for the rest of my antibiotics, which I new I had forgotten somewhere in my bags, that I had placed on the “balcony” in my room (higher up!), and lo and behold – there it was, in my bag, in between two compartments of it! Well if that was true, then maybe the part about me finding the love of my life will do too? Apparently that person will come later on, but it will last forever…hmm…Interesting…now when exactly is later on? I’m not a very patient person…

Bedtime over here in Japan, so toodeloo for now! New week coming up tomorrow, more brush-up, more homework and more exploring. I’ll keep you updated…

My first whole day with my host-family went really well! Okaasan asked me to be up by 8 this morning, for breakfast together (toast with cheese, egg and some sort of meat on the side, salad with some sesame-oil and more), then we all relaxed for a bit until it was time for okaasan, oneesan and me to go to Crea Mall in Kawagoe. There I got to pick my own rice-bowl with a matching tea-cup, hashi (chopsticks) and a glass, that okaasan and otousan gave me – apparently something they do with all their exchange-students, really nice, ne? I picked a white bowl with pink flowers, very kawaii (cute/pretty) – pictures will come eventually.

After that was done, we went downstairs to the supermarket and shopped for food – I’ve never seen so much fresh fish in my life! And squids!!! Scary! I can’t believe that I’ve eaten them!!! Several times now already! They’re actually quite tasty. I had to take a picture of them, obviously:

Fresh squids – ika, in Japanese.

Otousan picked us up with the car (we went there by train), then we immediately went to the voting-place (it’s voting-time over here in Japan!). Finally all the annoying candidates that drive/walk around with megaphones announcing their awesomeness all around the city will stop annoying me! Yatto!! (means “finally” in Japanese by the way). I wonder who will win…I guess the results should come tomorrow or so.

Well, back at home we watched some TV, chilled and talked before Hiroaki, one of their sons, came for a visit with his family to welcome me/congratulate okaasan on her belated birthday. He seemed nice, didn’t talk much with me though, his wife, Takako spoke more with me, as well as their cuuuuteeeee daughter Shiori (Shichan), 8 years old. Their son, Ryuto (Ryukun) was overly shy in the beginning, but when I paid more attention to his sister he seemed to get more interested and soon came showing me his origami-skills. Cutie! I gave Hiroaki a tiny dalahäst as a gift from Sweden. Thank god I got two small ones too when I bought the big ones! Now I have one more small to give their other son. I had no idea they also had two sons before I got here, they never mentioned it before…

We all had a big dinner together (honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much sea-food in my life before! Soooo much fiiiish!!! But oishiiiii (delicious)! Hiroaki and his family had brought yummy dessert too, so, again, I ate way too much. I will definitely join a martial-arts club as soon as they open!

Hiroaki with family, oneesan, me and okaasan. And lots and lots of food…

Shichan invited me to her school’s sports-festival at the end of September, so obviously I will go and cheer on her! She’s soooo cuuuuteeee!! I have to learn more Japanese fast!

Oh, and talking about the Japanese language – it’s going better than I thought actually, although obviously I make tons of mistakes and my vocabulary equals that of an infant, sort of, but who cares, at least I’m trying, ne? I’m learning so much every day, and constantly walk around with my tiny blue note-book where a write down all my new words that I learn + my super-useful electronic dictionary! My awesome Nintendo DSi and it’s kanji-translation-program is with me when I don’t have any Japanese friends around me that can translate kanjis for me…

Well, time for me to go to bed soon, tomorrow is the first day of uni, and we’ll get the results of the placement-exam. I expect to be in the A-group (the lowest one), since I probably didn’t do so well on the exam (hadn’t studied for long, and my spoken Japanese is…eeeetto….chotto warui…(= eehhh…a bit bad) ), but whatever, I can get into a higher group eventually. Will be better for me to start from the bottom in the beginning, until I remember all I’ve learnt and can move on faster. But as I said to Kozue: give me a month, and I’ll be much,   much better! Ganbatte!

]]> http://samokan.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/kawagoe/ Sun, 09 Aug 2009 06:13:51 +0000 samokan http://samokan.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/kawagoe/

Nickname as the Little Edo .

an alley in kurazukuri

a store in kawagoe

the bell tower

Kawagoe, which is located 40 kilometers north-west from Tokyo (only less than a 30 minute train ride), has long been called Little Edo for its resemblance with Edo (the old name for Tokyo).  Although many of the old buildings that made this city famous have burned, there still are a couple of them that attract a large number of Japanese tourists during the weekends.

Certainly, Kawagoe is not as attractive as Nikko or Kamakura, but it still makes an worth while half-day or even day-trip from Tokyo, as all its interesting spots are within walking distance from the train station.  Pictures below were taken near the Kawagoe train station.

The famous Kurazukuri street hosts a large number of the 30 storehouses still present in Kawagoe. In the 19th century, more than 300 of similar houses were found in Kawagoe.  This typical architecture was chosen because it was supposed to be extremely resistant toward fire.  Kawagoe, like Edo, was prone to such disasters, and many of these tick clay-walled fire-resistant houses were built after the Great Fire that destroyed a large part of the town in 1894.

Nearby, the 16 meter Toki no Kane (Time Bell Tower) clock tower is a symbol of Kawagoe dating back to the beginning of the Edo Period.  First built about 400 years ago, the current clock tower is the 4th generation and was rebuilt in 1893 after the Kawagoe Great Fire.  As time passed, the method of ringing the bell has changed from manual to mechanical.  In 1996, the beautiful tone of the bell was recognized as one of the "100 Sound Sceneries of Japan" that should be preserved by the Ministry of the Environment.  The bell rings four times a day at 6 am, noon, 3 pm and 6 pm.

Kashiya Yokocho (Penny Candy Alley) is a stone-paved alley or street embedded with colorful glass, lined with 22 traditional style Japanese candy shops.

There are several temples in the area and Kitain Temple is the head of Tendai Sect (one of the two most important Buddhist sects) in the Kanto area.

You will find 538 stone statues arranged in one part of Kitian called Rakan, which translated literally means 500 disciples of Buddha.  The statues have a variety of postures and express several human emotions.

Finally, Kawagoe is famous for its eel and sweet potatoes, so we had lunch at a popular restaurant for unagi-don and bought some sweet potato chips at Kashiya Yokocho.

It has been over a week since I have written anything in this space. Even my Twitter account is getting updated less and less often. I, last weekend, finished my project for the phonetics class. There was, the next day, a bungled – but enjoyable – mountain climbing excursion. I am looking forward to doing some more climbing sometime soon. Perhaps Mount Tsukuba will be next… and I just created a Facebook event for a trip up Mount Fuji in late June.

This week was just as busy as usual. There was not a great deal of social interaction to be had, especially after becoming depressed on Thursday night. I am still recovering. I finished my autonomy paper last night, signifying the end of my first semester at Columbia. I, today, ate one whole meal – and slept entirely too much. I would like to say it is because I simply wanted to relax, but I planned nothing and so did nothing.

That isn’t entirely true. I tried a new (well, new to me) Japanese beer by COEDO Brewery, in Kawagoe. I have to say: their Beniaka premium lager is perhaps the best beer I have had. While I drank Tsingtao in the past because it doesn’t taste like beer, this actually tastes like good beer. I was pleasantly surprised… and I should be, considering a 333ml bottle cost ¥400 at the liquor store. I think I will try their other variants, but I am quite pleased thus far.

I also spent a good amount of the day looking for a new apartment. I still want to move to Jinnan, but it is getting harder to justify paying for such a place. My searches, today, have led me to discover that I can get a studio that is three times larger in Ikebukuro. For the same price, I could have a 7SLDK in Toshima ward. I don’t really know what I would do with all of that space, but I also don’t want to end up somewhere too small once again. Next month, I will need to actually visit some of the places I am considering.

I am also thinking about taking a year off from all modern technology – and writing a book about it (on a typewriter). I would choose a cut-off date, and not use anything created after that date. I am thinking 1959 or the end of WWII. Perhaps the date of the bombing of Hiroshima, to make it more significant. I would furnish my apartment with antique furniture. I would get my music via a phonograph. I would get an actual, house phone. This would be difficult while at work, so I may have to make an exception for those times. Maybe this is a stupid idea that I should put off until I have the money to do it right.

Time to get my four hours of sleep. おやすみなさい。

Days without fast food or soda: 11 (Fast food cravings and caffeine headaches are tough!)

Days without exercise: 7 (I need to exercise as soon as I wake up…)

He tomado esta idea del blog Leben in Japan ya que me pareció muy interesante. Simplemente se trata de resumir un poco los sitios que te gustaria visitar en Japón, bueno, allá voy

Tokyo:
Eso ni dudarlo, me pienso recorrer todo Tokyo, no dejare ni un rincón sin visitar Bueno, tampoco asi, pero bueno, si que es a lo que más tiempo le dedicaré.

Kawagoe:
Kawagoe es un pueblo edo que está situado en Saitama, y además está perfectamente conservado, y así al menos se siente un poco el ambiente de la era edo.

Imagen tomada de Danny Choo

Kyoto:
Me gustaria visitarlo sobre todo por sus increibles templos, me parece precioso.

Osaka:
Pues… en realidad no se por qué quiero visitarlo pero… si, quiero ir ^^

Monte Fuji:
Y por supuestisimo me gustaria subir al Fuji al menos una vez, además de que me encanta el senderismo, seria una experiencia inolvidable…

¿Qué sitios os gustaria visitar? ¿Habeis estado en alguno de estos que he mencionado?

¡Buen finde, y gracias por visitarnos!