What Alice Found There

I have so much to write about! There have been lots of red tape and paper work going on with school, which I don't think I'll ever write about, but there was also a trip to Hirakata with some friends, which I don't have time to write about, even though it was tanoshii (fun)! Instead, I'm going to show you pictures of my walk between the school and the seminar house.

Here are some cute little tanuki (raccoon dogs) lining a wall. In Japanese folklore tanuki spirits are "mischievous and jolly, masters of disguise and shapeshifting, but somewhat gullible and absent-minded." (Thank you Wikipedia!)


Here's the front of a house that I thought was pretty.

And here's a park. I've seen kids playing in it before, but today it was vacant because of the rain. Although a children's park, the area is solemn and quiet. The air reminiscent of a shrine or some other holy place.

Look! A friendly gate guardian. What do you think her name is? No, I don't know what the kanji beneath her says. I'll do some investigating.

Well, that concludes my tour. I wanted to include some pictures of the narrow and winding streets, but there were always people walking on them, so I was somewhat reluctant.

Curiouser and Curiouser!

Wow, I love Japan! The people, the food, the transportation, everything! So much has happened I don't know where to start. And it's only been a couple days. I would like to start by describing my lodgings, but I want to use pictures for that. Right now the room is a little messy. I have a temporary roommate, Min, whose suitcase and clothes are lying about. Min will be moving to live with a home-stay family in a week or so. I will really miss her. Min is Korean and speaks Japanese almost fluently, but only a little English. We manage. She is very sweet. I have met soo many people while I've been here. People from Virginia, New York, Texas, Oregon, and Ohio. Meeting Dean from Ohio was confusing. He was talking to Min in Japanese and then he turned to me and said, "Ohio!" But I thought he was saying "Ohayoo!" which means "Good morning!" in Japanese, so I said, "Ohayoo!" right back to him, even though it was evening. He gave me a weird look. Anyway, I've also met people from Australia, Thailand, and Germany. I met a Mario from Mexico and a Mario from Austria. I had fun introducing them to each other.

Yesterday, I went with a group of students to downtown Hirakata. We had lunch and toured some of the shops. There was a 99 yen shop, which is the equivalent to the American dollar store. I got some onigiri (rice balls) for breakfast the next day. For lunch we went to a soba restaurant, where I had udon (hot noodle soup).

Today, we walked to campus (20-30 minutes). We were given a tour. Even though it's winter and nothing is green, the campus is gorgeous. I can't wait to see it in the spring. I'll take pictures then, so you can all see Kansai Gaidai looking its best. The only thing marring the beautiful Kansai campus was the Makudo (or MacDonalds). Yes, that's right, a MacDonalds, on campus. We had lunch on campus, but decided that the cafeteria would be best. And the food was dirt cheap. 210 yen (~ 2 dollars) for a good sized bowl of donbiri (mine had scrambled eggs and pork over rice). Yum! After lunch we had a banking session. Which was really complicated. We're required to set up an account at a Japanese bank, so that Kansai can directly deposit our food stipend and eventually our security deposit refunds. Unfortunately, this bank account won't be opened for another three weeks, so we have to pay for our own food until then. Three weeks makes up almost a quarter of my time here. *rolls eyes* Furthermore to open this account, we had to fill out FIVE different forms...And they were ALL in Japanese. Luckily, we had some help filling them out. After that it was time for Language Lab orientation and turning in my laptop registration form. Okay, enough of the boring stuff and back to talking about my blatantly favorite subject: FOOD.

This evening I went with some friends to Top World, the local grocery store, in order to buy dinner. Here is Min, Noto, and Dave picking out their dinner:

And here is what I got to eat. Itadakimas!

Haha! Just kidding! I'm not that brave. But they are rather pretty. Don't you think? Anyway, here was my real meal:

It's sashimi, sushi, and something else I don't know. On the top we have egg (yellow), eel (brown), and shrimp. I couldn't find anyone who could identify the grayish one, but it tasted like pickled herring to me. On the bottom is the sushi. On the bottom right is rice in fried dough pockets. Totemo oishii! (Very delicious!)

p.s. For those wondering why I haven't been on Skype, my laptop doesn't have Internet, yet. I'm using the dorm's computer lab because my laptop needs to go through registration procedures, and I still need to purchase an Ethernet cord. There isn't any wireless. :(

Through the Looking Glass

Ohayoo! Good morning! Welcome to my blog. This will be a very simple blog, nothing too fancy. It's merely a way to record events and let friends and family know what's happening to me over here.

My journey to Japan began at 5:00 a.m. on January 25 in Rochester, MN. I traveled over 6,230 miles to arrive at 9:00 p.m. January 26 in Hirakata, my new home. The journey was long, but it went smoothly. I've never flown by myself before. However, I felt more lonely than anxious during my trip. Luckily, I had the journal some of my friends had given me on my 20th birthday. In the journal are pictures of them and my family, inspirational quotes, and best of all written messages from them. (Thank you so much Mikka, Megan, Nate, and Chris. You guys are amazing!)

On the 13 hour flight from Chicago to Tokyo I was served two meals, listened to some Japanese music, tried to brush up on my Japanese, and watched two movies. First to talk about the food. It was airplane food, so I didn't expect much. Nonetheless, it was delicious. There was rice, chicken, noodles, and best of all Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Also the second meal was rather odd. It looked like typical spaghetti, noodles and sauce, but with a seafood twist. I identified the shrimp and crab, but there were also clusters of purple tentacles! The whole thing actually tasted pretty good. While "studying" I listened to a Japanese station called "Sound Shower" that supposedly played popular Japanese songs, my favorite was "Sweet Happy Birthday." :) The two movies I watched were The Jane Austen Book Club and Meet the Robinsons. The 2nd, a Disney movie, was a definite fave. The quote that appeared at the end was extremely encouraging: "Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious... And curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." ~Walt Disney. When I arrived at Osaka airport I met up with the Kansai Gaidai staff member, along with two other students, Alex and Mario from Mexico. We took an hour long shuttle ride to our the seminar house, where I was shown to my room.

Well, that about sums it up for my journey here. I'll write more later! Jaa mata!