School festivals are a big deal in Japan. Most schools (Elementary through college, I think) have them at least once a year, and there's usually tons of food, games, music, etc. At Kansai Gaidai's most student groups and clubs, plus groups and clubs from nearby high schools, had food booths, plus there was music going all the time and performances in various parts of the school. The festival went from Friday through Sunday. The Japanese students actually had class off on friday (though the foreign kids didn't), but we ended up eating both lunch and dinner at the festival Friday, plus dinner on Saturday, and lunch and dinner on Sunday. And we still hadn't tried everything by the end of the weekend.




They had really adorable signs advertising various food booths. Although advertising pork with a cute little pig seems a bit suspect to me...



( more pictures )

Showing just how backed up I am in pictures, here are (finally) a few from Halloween. Halloween here was pretty fun, actually. No trick or treating in Japan, but there were costume contests on campus, so a good number of people were at school that day in costume.

Apparently (among college guys, at least, not sure how this translates to other, perhaps less insane age groups) the popular costume for guys is maid. As in, the fairly innacurate, serve you tea and crumpets victorian maid outfit. I must have seen at least six (Japanese) guys in maid costumes, plus at least one non-japanese guy. (The second picture here, he happened to be in my Japanese class, as well, and won a prize in the costume contest.)

I don't have too many pictures, but here are a few of the ones that turned out well. I was a pirate that day. :)




( Halloween Pictures! )

Sorry I haven't posted in forever. I keep getting distracted by pretty things in Japan. (I am easily distracted.) But here are (finally) some pictures of the trip to Nara I took a while back. I went with my friend Laura, plus two of her friends, Kanako and Shoko.




( Todaiji and Nara )

My host family took me to Universal Studios Japan a few weeks ago, which was ridiculously fun. (Everybody thinks I have the good host family because they do thinks like take me to Universal.)

(My host brother is incapable of sitting still long enough for a good picture. It's adorable.)



( I have the cutest host family ever. More pictures under the cut. )

I'll try to post pictures of Laura and My trip to Nara soon!

More pictures! Sorry I'm so bad about posting these. Things have gotten incredibly busy recently. A while back we went to Osaka and Den Den Town for Casey's Birthday. Den Den Town, the actual Japanese name for it, is the "electronics" district of Osaka, which inevitably turned it into geek central. You can get really cheap electronics and computer stuff there (several of us bought 1 gig micro sd cards that were on sale for about five dollars American, which has basically turned my cell phone here into an ipod nano) and also have a lot of fun people watching dorky Japanese boys buy manga and pokemon figurines and the like. We also had a really great lunch with Casey's old TA, who lives near Kansai Gaidai now.

( Lunch and Den Den Town )

We also went to Fushimi Inari (the fox god) Shrine with my religion in Japan Class. Which was really beautiful, though basically situated on top of a mountain. After a while the climb started to seem a bit endless, especially since every time we thought we'd gotten to the top and were now heading back down we'd suddenly realize we were starting to go even farther up. I was supposed to meet up with Kelly, who's studying in Kyoto right now, before our tour of the shrine, but she got a bit lost so we met up afterwards and went out to dinner in Kyoto with her.

( Read more... )


I have to run home now, so there isn't a whole lot of explanation of the pictuers up there, but if you have any questions or comments or anything, feel free to comment here!

We went to Osaka Jou (castle) the saturday before last with a Japanese friend of Casey and Dave's. It was boiling outside that day (that whole week, actually) so we were sweating buckets, but it was a lot of fun too.



( more pictures under the cut )

Also, since we figured out how to use skype properly (and when Ohio isn't being hit by a hurricane) I get to talk to the family online! Which sometimes ends up with odd technological setups. Example, this picture I took of my computer screen where Betsy, Dad and I are on skype, and Mom and Gammy are both on speaker phone on two different cell phones. I think includes covers people in four different locations.

Kyoto and Karaoke

Sorry it’s been so long since I last posted pictures! There’s internet at my host family’s house, but it’s through their personal computer, so I can’t really upload pictures on it, so I have to wait until I have time at school.

Anyway, the first of these are back from Orientation weekend. We went on a trip to Kyoto with some Japanese Kansai Gaidai students as tour guides where we visited a Shinto shrine and went shopping in one of the largest… shopping things I’ve ever seen. (It was basically just a maze of long, very streets lined wall-to-wall with shops.)



( Kyoto and shopping. )

I have pictures from our trip to Osaka Castle last weekend that I was going to put up now, but this post is pretty long already. So those will be up soon, as well as a few more pictures from orientation.

The cafeteria at Kansai Gaidai is really nice. I bet we'll get sick of it soon enough (And I suspect the food is so great more because of novelty than because it's amazingly cooked) but they have ramen, udon, donburi, and curry rice every day, which we're all still pretty excited about.



( more pictures! )

Today was my first full day here, and we definitely were busy, even though orientation doesn't really start until tomorrow. We went out to lunch with Japanese student (and I could sort of hold a conversation in Japanese!) studied a bit, then went on a tour of the train station and a nearby mall, then dinner with the tour group.

Anne (the girl who sat next to me for my long flight) and I on the plane. I think this is at the end of the flight, right before we landed.



( more under the cut )

Putting this up before I leave. (Just about 36 hours and I am still not packed. Oh dear.) If any of you want letters from Japan (From me. Just to, you know, clarify that.) then leave your address here. Comments are, of course, screened. I can't make any promises I will actually manage to send any such letter. There's a very real chance I will get to a post office in Japan and realize I so don't speak enough Japanese for this, but I can promise to try my best!

わあ、ひさしぶりだよね！ごめんね。けど、たくさん日本語を勉強していた。ゲンキ２の１５しょうまで勉強した。たくさん日本のテレビを見たり、嵐の歌を聞いたりした。いい日本語のべんきょうだと思う。:P

らいがっき日本で大学に勉強して、ホストファミリと住んでいるから、日本語を勉強がんばるはほうがいいん、ね。

１０月には二宮の新しドラマがある！日本にいるから、日本のテレビに見たい。私はちょっと嵐バカ、ね？でもさあ、すごくニノの愛がある。

本当ごめんが、私の日本語はちょっと、ね。

ね、日本語を勉強している友だち、ここで日本語を書かない？この春休みはちょっとつまらないから、みんなと日本語を話したいよ。

日本語を書いてください！

わあ。とてもいそがしい。気ぶんがわるい、だからしゅくだいをするのがむずかしい。

今仕事ですわる。ねむいよね。コーヒーを飲まない、気ぶんがわるいから。D: whine whine whine. (<--日本語？）：P

３月５日〜


今日はエアナくんとグレグくんとあさごはんを食べた。あさごはんはおいしいが、友だちたちわちょっとねむい。私はねむくなかった。きのうのよる１２時にねるから。


(_ _)ヾ(‘ロ‘)　ペチペチ 起きろ～


今日の午後クラスがない。水曜日が好き。えっと。。。たくさんしゅくだいがある。でも、今べんきょしない。｢(ﾟﾍﾟ)　こんばんべんきょうする。

まったね！

☆エラ

3 月４日☆

今日はとてもさむい。オバリンの天気はおもしろいよね。きのうはあつかった、今日はさむい。*＿＿＿*　

さらいしゅうはRelay for Life、３月１４日。この木曜日はたのしい！でも、Relayはちょっとストレスのたま。ティームのぶちょうですから。今日はたくさんRelayのEメールを書かった。

またね！

☆エラ

So I apparently need to start writing a daily journal for my Japanese class, and Kurasawa sensei suggested using a real blog to do so. So tada! This journal is getting turned into that. It'll probably only be a few sentences every day, but feel free to yell at me if that's going to bug you.

ーーー
３月３日☆

今日は日本語のクラスでテストがあった。ちょっとむずかしかった。でも、よかったと思って、べんきょうしたから。こんばん、７時にCRWRクラスに行く。今日はとてもいそがしい。

☆まったね！

ーーー
Kelly-sempai. You should tell me if that third sentence is completely wrong or not. Not sure if you're, you know, actually allowed to do that....