hairfish

Riding the Narita Express

An excerpt actual letter I wrote to a friend while we were flying somewhere over Canada

It’s still Saturday. That’s weird because it’s totally Sunday in Japan. I cried, of course. I honestly thought I wouldn’t until I got on the plane but saying goodbye was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Megumi, my host mom, got me a cute belt her friend made for me. She wrote me a nice letter in her best English. She signed it: “We love you. See you again.” My heart just about broke in two complete halves. I realized being here has given me my emotions back, or rather, the rich complexity of my emotions. I’m usually a very hyper sensitive person which is really annoying and a pain in the ass but somewhere along this trip, I learned to be in control of my emotions and not have them control me but I also re-learned how things feels: happiness, elation, fustration, confusion, excitment. A lot of it still doesn’t make sense but after spending much of last Winter completely numb, thie idea of feeling, of being aware of it, is so awesome.

–

Now, I’m actually back in the States. And it feels weird. Sleeping is an interesting thing because I do it in weird intervals, at weird times. I’ve been out at around 8pm, eastern time, only to wake up between three-thirty and four, stay up, crash around three in the afternoon and do it all over again. I’m going to try to reset my brain by not going to bed at eight and hopefully I will sleep solidly through the night but this remains to be seen. I really, really miss my host family. And my Japanese routine but I am very happy to be home. I have a feeling I’ll be very natsukashii for Japan within the next few weeks.

I’ve got a handful of more photographs to share and some questions about Study Abroad I’ve been meaning to answer, so please, stay tuned! Until then, have a happy holidays

It was so refreshing to see the ocean again. I've missed it...

Small pond on the grounds of Hase-dera, a temple dedicated to the Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva Kannon (from which the Canon brand derives it's name), who is actually neither male nor female contrary to the widely held notion that Kannon is a Goddess, but does in fact represent compassion, love, and mercy.

Japanese maple leaves are gorgeous in the fall.

Figurines inside of benten-kutsu cave at Hase-dera.

Reading the wishes and prayers of visitors.

Happy smiles after seeing Kannon in Kannon-do hall.

A smaller representation of Kannon at Hase-dera.

A little friend at the site of the Great Buddha, or Daibatsu.

Daibatsu of Kamakura. This buddha used to be enclosed in a temple but it was destroyed by either very strong winds or a tsunami, and only the Daibutsu was left standing. It is MASSIVE.

Shopping on Komachi-dori. It started to rain by the time we got to the Kamakura stop on the Enoden line.

Rain and pokadots.

We took the Romance Car into Fujisawa and got on the local back to Shinjuku where we departed. We got the Enoshima-Kamakura Free Pass but the rain made it very difficult to explore Enoshima. It’s actually a much shorter trip than I had anticpated and much cheaper too. I’d like to go to Enoshima and see a beach before I leave but I may have to wait for my next journey here. I’ve got exactly seventeen days to go and it just doesn’t feel like enough time for anything.

Senso-ji is Tokyo’s oldest Buddhist temple, located in Taito-ku’s Asakusa District. The temple is dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy. Kaminarimon, or Thunder Gate, and Nakamise-dori (pretty good for omiyage shopping) are also part of Senso-ji’s ground, and all are equally as infamous. Asakusa, to me, feels like Japan. Many of the buildings, however, are not that only, most being from the 50s and 60s due to the firebombing of Japan during WWII, nothing older survived; despite that, it still has that “old” feeling.

Nakamise-dori around 10am on a Saturday

Adventuring with crew in tow

Looking up at the huge lantern which has an impressive wooden carving at the bottom

Maneki-neko (good luck cats) with SOLAR POWER!

Purification ritual in Senso-ji. You have to wash your hands and your mouth before entering to pray at Buddhist temples.

All dressed up for her shichi-go-san

Bad fortunes are tied up in hopes of them not coming true. I had to tie mine up :3 lol

Incense used for good luck and for intelligence. There is a huge thing of incense buring and you walk up to it and use your hands to waft the incense over your head. This is said to make you smart. I was standing in front of that thing for a good five minutes

I don't know the significance of this particular ritual but its a pole with different colors, each one representing different Buddhist virtues I think. There was a very, very long line for this.

Inside Senso-ji, people praying, lighting cameras, tourists touristing

Kimono shop on another popular shopping dori

Clothing hanging to dry. My absolutely favorite small Tokyo detail.

Oba-chan and her dog near the Sumida River

Side street near Nakamise-dori

Creeepy...

Asking for donations, I think. Yeah, I know he looks like Rayden from Mortal Kombat.

If you go to Asakusa, shopping is best done on the side streets, away from Nakamise-dori. Food is also cheap and DELICIOUS, if you just look around a bit. I had the best curry rice for 500YEN I’ve had in Tokyo since arriving. I also managed to buy loads of omiyage for friends and family for a little under 10,000YEN ($100USD) — and I’m talking about over twelve people. Up next in sightseeing: Nikko (in a Day!), Kamakura and Enoshima (in a Day!), Tokyo DisneySea, and maybe some schoolwork in between

From 11pm to 5am, I karaoked with a group of friends in Shibuya. I highly, highly recommend trying this if you ever come to Japan. It’s a really fun experience. I usually karaoke for about two hours but it’s a nice challenge to try and do it for six whole hours. I took the challenge — and I conquered it!

Step 1: Hydrate yourself! Nomihodai karaoke, or all you can drink, during the weeknight cost us 980 yen. That's about ten dollars for six hours of karaoke plus all the Melon soda you can handle. For alcohol nomihodi, it's 1980 yen, or twenty bucks per person. -- this however is only offered during the weekend at the particular karaoke place we went to

Step 2: Everyone should participate in someway, preferably by joining in with the tambourine and sporadic yelling of song lyrics, as seen here.

Step 3: Cameras must be ready at all times to capture and record mayhem with in the karaoke room. (hide doll optional.)

Step 4: Lubricate those vocal chords!

Step 5: Sing your HEART out!

Like this.

Perhaps a more mellow approach...

Duets are always fun and encouraged

Solo air guitar to unleash the rocker within

Please feel free to bust a move

And finally, group participation is the key to a successful night of karaoke

Today, my younger host sister, Mayuko celebrated her shichi-go-san. Shichi-go-san, which literally means, seven, five, three is a holiday of sorts for children whose ages are seven, five, and three. Girls dress up in their first grown-up kimono and boys dress up in their hakuma. The festival itself is meant to bring longevity and good luck to the children celebrating it.

Mayuko looked like a tiny Christmas tree ^__^

Three generations

Mayuko-chan getting fixed up a bit

My host mom, Mayu-chan, great-grandmother, and Mii-chan

Little girl posing for pictures

Everyone was a photog today

More pictures, more posing

Detail of Mayu-chan's kimono. It was gorgeous!

Piggy back ride!

Mayuko reads her fortune

So, I’m in bed dreaming and all of a sudden, I’m feel my futon moving, as if someone were pushing it across the wood floor. In my half awake-half asleep haze, I look up to see the curtains swaying a bit, along with the girls’ desks, and my table covered in books and homework. When I awake fully, I notice the entire room is swaying and I pop up from under my covers, thinking, “WTF?!”. All of this, I am certain, happened in the span of maybe three seconds — if that. But I think just experienced my first Earthquake/tremor. It wasn’t as cool  as the ride at Universal. And now, it’s 7:30am and I can’t sleep.

On top of that, I noticed two nights ago when the typhoon was coming through, that I felt very swirly. Everything was sort of dizzy; my head, the way I walked, the house. Just thought I’d mention that.

My lovely room in the glorious morning sunshine

I’m so tired I can barely see straight. You’ll be hearing a lot about my tiredness in the coming days, so you’ve been warned. Yesterday was a good day as I got home for the first time by myself without help and didn’t get lost. Well, to be fair, I walked about a block and a half away from my house but once I realized what I had done, I found my way back, so I got a little lost but not really. My walk home is about fifteen minutes (or less) from the bus stop, and within the span of fifteen minutes, all the mostquitos in Koshigaya had their way with my legs.

My legs are covered in huge, bright vermillion welts. They look like really nasty hickeys. This will make for very interesting lunch room talk, for example: ‘What happened to you?’ Answer: “I was molested by mostquitos.” As you all know or may not know, classes have started on this side of the world and I must admit, I’m sort of underwhelmed. However, I can assure you it’s just shock and the anxiety of feeling like a freshman even though I’m not. I forgot what it feels like to be the new kid in school and I was quickly reminded Monday morning. I hide out in the library, catching up on emails and being generally shy and mousy.

I only have one class on Monday (and Wednesday and Friday), thank Goodness since I have three Tuesday and Thursday, and it was history and I was reminded of high school. I don’t like to be reminded of high school, at all. The professor has written two books on Japanese history and is a very knowledgable, insightful person so that makes the class much more palatable for me. It’s dealing specifically with Japanese history after World War II to present day, and that is just my cup of tea. Prior to school, I had a run in with an ATM that was completely in Japanese. I couldn’t understand why it refused to give me my money until my host mother explained I was trying to take out 80,000 Yen (that’s a little less than 800 USD) and you can only take out 10,000 Yen. As if I needed 80,000 Yen…

Got my alien registration card so I don’t get scruffled up by the police and whatnot, but mainly so I could aquire the new love of my life, my softbank prepaid keitai (cell phone)

Cutest little phone ever. I still need to decorate it though!

Lucky me, one of Hayleigh’s friends who is a native of Tokyo took us to Roppongi to get our keitais. This is when I learned how evil Roppongi is. Think of New York’s Time Square with a dash of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile thrown in the middle of Tokyo. That is Roppongi. There is a reason it is called the gaijin ghetto…because it is. Every comfort from home (ie the States) you are missing, is right in Ropponigi. It’s overwhelming and loud in a way that other parts of the city aren’t. Especially living in a small suburb in Saitama, I’m just not used to that madness. Neither are my pockets. Anyways, SoftBank somehow had puureepaido’s out of stock so we were directed to the wonderous store that is Donkey Hotei Don Quixote.

If you are familar with Brandsmart USA, that is exactly what Donkey Hotei Don Quixote is, but thoroughly Japanese. We had to wait about an hour, but we left with our phones. All in all, it cost me about 76 USD for a 3G phone and 30,000 YEN worth of talk time (which I’ve since discovered is about 30 minutes of talk time. Oy). Oh, I also get free calls and messaging to other SoftBank users and unlimited mail to everyone else for 300 YEN a month. Japan is FULL of win.

Today, however, was frustrating. Someone got hit by the train on the Chiyoda line which is the line I take to get home. I left school at 3:30, got to the metro at 3:45 and got home to Koshigaya, around ten minutes to seven. I also got lost once, had to pay for another ticket after my first ticket was voided from the train accident. And I really do hope that person is okay. I tried checking the news but I couldn’t find very much on what exactly happened. My frustration didn’t stem from the accident but I was more upset about getting lost than anything. I hate getting lost. When I get lost, I feel as though I’m not grasping life here well enough and it makes just want to pack my things and go home.

But then my host mom and sisters show up and we go to a tutoring session together and I meet the funniest Japanese man ever, who cracks some jokes with me and makes me feel welcomed even though I stumble and fumble over my Japanese. And we have conveyor belt sushi and I eat until I burst and the girls beg to go to the conbini for some aisu, which I decline as usual, but opt for some chocolate and marvel at how expensive it is here. I walk in my room and my laundry is washed and folded to perfection as if my clothing were origami. I toss my futon out and read over my first few assignments with heavy eyelids.

And in the midst of my fustrations, I remember everyday I am here is an adventure, a challenge I’m trying to take on fearlessly, and I am comforted by the fact that even when I feel like I didn’t pass a test or if I’m being to hard on myself, I have a home to come to and people who are happy to see me and they’ve only known me for less than a week. That’s what makes this worth it.

Oh, Tokyo!

Koyuuki the Akita Inu, taken by Mii-chan

My host parents

My host sister, Mii-chan

Koyuuki, our puppy Akita

A little doggy rabu rabu

Today, I went to Dog Park Satte with my host family and their puppy, Koyuuki. Before hand, my host mother taught me how to take the bus to the Kita-Koshigaya eki (you pay after you arrive at your destination!), then she brought to my attention a clothing shop called Marche, the 100 YEN shop where I bought a laptop case for 525 yen or approximately 4.83 USD, a bento box for my lunches, some girly stuff, and a pencil case for 1,050 yen total. I’m in rabu (love).

Also at Marche, I found these very nifty diy ear piercing kits that cost about 1000 yen each but then I found a magentic earring converter for non pierced ears for 100 yen.

I met another homestay student in my area and we marveled over the immense amount of kawaii all over the place. Then our respective host sisters coaxed us into doing purikura which is stupid amounts of fun as it is an interactive photobooth that you can decorate with all sorts of art and what not.The girls went wild, and I had a lot of fun too.

Tomorrow is my first day of classes. Oy.

And so it begins…

Bikes in Azabu; August 2008 (c) Oriana K. Riley

Rackii (that’s Lucky, for you non Japanese speakers) me, Chicago has an pretty great public transportation system that just so happens to be color coded. When I need to get home, I take the Red Line southbound train to, let’s say, the Harrison stop and bam! I’m at my dorm. It’s sort of the same idea in Tokyo, but entirely more sophisticated and when I say sophisticated, I mean confusing (if you’ve never had to use a metro system before). My wonderful host mother drew out a totally kawaii map for me with perfect directions on how to get to Azubu (where Temple University Japan is located) from Koshigaya and back.

My host mother drove me to Kita-Koshigaya station to meet another home stay student, Hayley, who I’d spoken to for sometime thanks to the genius of Facebook networking. At any rate, we were very surprised at how easily we got from point A to point B. I hear it’s super easy to get lost on a train and end up in the middle of nowhere, but we actually had the pleasure of ending up in the City so my train riding confidence has gone up through the roof. However, I’m still not used to the idea of being so packed in a train I can barely breath. The second train we hopped onto was just that packed. Riding the trains here takes a certain amount of mental fortitude I had absolutely no idea I even had.

Also, everyone is ridiculously helpful even when they know (or assume) you cannot speak a lick of Japanese. The attendants at the metro station were so helpful! It was the first time in my life I’d asked someone for help, and they seemed excited to be doing their job! Things like this rarely ever happen in the States. At the most, I’d get some side eye or a very annoyed tone. This time, however, I got a big smile. Hayley and I were supremely impressed. Orientation was actually fun, but I was amazingly tired the entire time. I failed to mention, I arrived at the train station at 7:20am because my commute is a hour long and in order to get to Temple 10am Japanese time, I had to wake up SUPAA EARLY. Of course, none of my (three) alarms go off and I wake up at 6:56am, hence, the barely being awake during orientation.

They scared us with all sorts of horrible things that could happen to a gaijin in the city, as told by TUJ’s (hilarious) legal dude of legality, Matt Wilson:

1. Go out for a night of drinking in Roppongi, meet two hot Eastern European girls, wake up hours later after having been drugged and a bank account $2500 bucks lighter. Happened to a TUJ student a few years ago.
2. If you get caught smoking pot or with any related paraphernalia, expect about 5 years in jail with labor; and that’s getting off easy. Matt recommends all TUJ students leave their “gardening” hobby on hold for the next five months. I think that’s a good idea.
3. Earthquakes happen a lot here and bad things can happen because of them, such as Tokyo burning down to the ground, again. In event of such an event, it’s a good idea to have an Earthquake Kit. It’s also a good idea to contact the US Embassy and let them know you’re an American national in Japan for however long you’ll be in Japan, just in case something goes down.
4. You can be arrested for looking “different”, i.e. not Japanese. If you’re found without identification (passport or your alien registration card), you can be held for 23 days for something as minor as riding a bike at night with your light off, or just looking different. Keep identification on you and don’t bring any unnecessary attention your way.
5. Don’t sexually harass anyone. Keep your hands to yourself on the train so no one can falsely accuse you for feeling them up while your packed in a train car. If you feel something crawling up your leg, you have the right to scream obnoxiously and act a fool to embarrass the pervert who is attempting to molest you. Incidentally, there are women-only cars during late night hours to avoid such things from happening.

So while all of this is going on, I’m also supposed to be studying and doing well in class. That’s the easy part. So far, I am deeply in love with Suntory Vitamin Water and 100 YEN stores (like the dollar store in America but infinitely cooler with much more useful stuff). Vending machines are my kryptonite, though. I mean how can you pass up a 1 dollar drink around here?! The machines glow a pretty color and make a cute noise after you choose your drink. And they are EVERYWHERE. You never have to be thirsty in the city, or without beer, or cigarettes, or energy drinks, or your daily dose of fiber, or panties, if for whatever reason you forgot to put someone before leaving the house.