Well, I am somewhat surprised, but the matriculation ceremony is actually worth mentioning. First we were given all the statistics, 117 international students have arrived in the fall semester with 13 continuing from the last semester. They come from USA, Canada, Mexico, U.K., Germany, Hungary, France, Switzerland, Czech republic, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Russia, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, ailandThe phillipines, Mongolia, Australia, and New Zealend. US has by far the most Students at 49, 2nd place countries only have 9 students and include the UK and Korea. There were 22 new freshman entering AIU, because in Japan you usually start a new grade in the Spring there were relatively few new freshman.
The Matriculation ceremony had busienss leaders, and some renowned community members. One other thing of note are the student speeches, one by a new freshman and one by a new graduate student. Both speeches were extremely personal and both students talked about their personnal goals and their views of the future. They were a lot better then the speeches you generally hear in the US talking about the future in general terms such as "Challenging". The first student, Airi, (She is the piano player, not "Iri" as I initially thought) in her speech she talked about the hope that the Japanese citizens become more politically active and less indifferent to the rest of the world. She did mention the fact that she spent a few years living in Australia.( I also learned that Arisa, who I mentioned before as well spent about 3 years living in Shanghai).
The 2nd speech was from a graduate student, he talked about how he hopes to become an English teachrer and that he hopes to change the way English is taught in Japanese school. He talked about his childhood, and how he liked English and did not like English class. He said that he hopes now to create anymore students like that. Anyway, off to trying to register my computer!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Trip & rice
So you live for a little bit in Japan and you become an expert in rice, sort of happens when you have it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You start noticing the taste difference, the grain size, how sticky it is...
Anyway, about today's trip...well I think yesterday's agriculture trip was more fun. We went on a long bus ride before arriving to some sulfur springs. I took a lot of pictures, the water itself was 98 C(~208 F), very close to boiling, there was a strong smell of sulfur and a lot of steam. As the day went on the weather seemed to agree less with us and it started raining (as forecasted).
After hanging out there for a little bit we went to "Akita land" (not what its called, I just don't have any of the maps on me to correctly remember the name). It included some attractions like a 'Planitarium', a 'modern art museum'. Two things about this, first I wouldn't call this location very cultural, and 2nd since we did go there we really did not spend enough time there. I did buy a nice pair of chopsticks as a souvenir. I went to the so-called planitarium, it ended up being a Dome theater that played a children's show. I think they are called the "mumitrolls" in Russian, I remember reading a book about them years and years ago. Afterwards we went to a place there called the "Wonder castle" which is kind of hard to explain, I took a few pictures, I think it will make sence visually.
Tomorrow is a "matriculation ceremony" follwed by a reception. Hopefully I'll get my laptop taken care of and have Skype.
Anyway, about today's trip...well I think yesterday's agriculture trip was more fun. We went on a long bus ride before arriving to some sulfur springs. I took a lot of pictures, the water itself was 98 C(~208 F), very close to boiling, there was a strong smell of sulfur and a lot of steam. As the day went on the weather seemed to agree less with us and it started raining (as forecasted).
After hanging out there for a little bit we went to "Akita land" (not what its called, I just don't have any of the maps on me to correctly remember the name). It included some attractions like a 'Planitarium', a 'modern art museum'. Two things about this, first I wouldn't call this location very cultural, and 2nd since we did go there we really did not spend enough time there. I did buy a nice pair of chopsticks as a souvenir. I went to the so-called planitarium, it ended up being a Dome theater that played a children's show. I think they are called the "mumitrolls" in Russian, I remember reading a book about them years and years ago. Afterwards we went to a place there called the "Wonder castle" which is kind of hard to explain, I took a few pictures, I think it will make sence visually.
Tomorrow is a "matriculation ceremony" follwed by a reception. Hopefully I'll get my laptop taken care of and have Skype.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Some Random thoughts
Just a random thought, while I don't think I've learned any new Japanese words since I got to Japan I did learn some new Kanji (Chinese characters), for example the Kanji for "Big" and "Small" are everywhere, I know the Kanji spelling for "Exit" and "Entrance" since they are everywhere. I also tried listening to a Japanese Animation that I've watched before, while I don't feel that I understand more then before it does seem that I can pick up words more easily and recognize what I already do now.
By the way, one annoying thing (that I think exists in the states as well) is that the loundry machines only accept 100 yen coins. As a result before I have to do laundry I find myself counting my 100 yen coins wondering if I'll have enough. Somebody did come up with the genius idea of putting the drink selling machines in the laundry room, so the only way to exchange money is to buy a drink from the machine.
On another note today is the Japanese election, its been mentioned here and there but it doesn't seem like most people are keeping track of it, at least among the English Speakers. Supposedly a major political party that was remained more or less in power since WWII is predicted to lose its majority. I am no expert in Japanese politics so probably a visit to a news website will be more informative. Anyway, the bus trip is tomorrow, supposedly we are going to a volcano but I am not quite sure (The Canadian who was telling me this then went on to say how we are going to sacifice a virgin to the volcacno, so I'm not quite sure if the first part was serious or not).
By the way, one annoying thing (that I think exists in the states as well) is that the loundry machines only accept 100 yen coins. As a result before I have to do laundry I find myself counting my 100 yen coins wondering if I'll have enough. Somebody did come up with the genius idea of putting the drink selling machines in the laundry room, so the only way to exchange money is to buy a drink from the machine.
On another note today is the Japanese election, its been mentioned here and there but it doesn't seem like most people are keeping track of it, at least among the English Speakers. Supposedly a major political party that was remained more or less in power since WWII is predicted to lose its majority. I am no expert in Japanese politics so probably a visit to a news website will be more informative. Anyway, the bus trip is tomorrow, supposedly we are going to a volcano but I am not quite sure (The Canadian who was telling me this then went on to say how we are going to sacifice a virgin to the volcacno, so I'm not quite sure if the first part was serious or not).
Agriculture Festival, more people
So, before I forgot I made sure to learn some names and faces. I met Louis from Canada, Evelyn from Singapore, Tracy from Malaysia, and Sophia from Taiwan, Iri from Japan. Things I learned: Malaysia and Singapore have one season: summer. Malaysians are generally pretty fluent in English as well as Mandrin, Cantonese, and Malaysian. Iri was playing piano during lunch today, she is probably one of the most talented piano players I've ever heard and considering the amount of pinao players I've been around, I think its saying something.
This morning I went to the Akita "Agriculture Festival" with about 25 other international students, actually all of the people I mentioned above except for Iri went there. we had fun playing some children's games such as Goldfish scooping . I will post some pictures as soon as I can. We got to ride this mini golf cart thing that was powered on Solar Power and watched some live action show that I will call the "Akita power rangers". After the show the performers came out in their costumes and allowed to take pictures with them, they were dressed as bugs and zebras and other strange things, yes pictures to come. It was a lot of fun and a good opprotunity to meet some of the other students, and we came back in time for Lunch :)
This morning I went to the Akita "Agriculture Festival" with about 25 other international students, actually all of the people I mentioned above except for Iri went there. we had fun playing some children's games such as Goldfish scooping . I will post some pictures as soon as I can. We got to ride this mini golf cart thing that was powered on Solar Power and watched some live action show that I will call the "Akita power rangers". After the show the performers came out in their costumes and allowed to take pictures with them, they were dressed as bugs and zebras and other strange things, yes pictures to come. It was a lot of fun and a good opprotunity to meet some of the other students, and we came back in time for Lunch :)
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Campus, Aeon, etc
I'll talk about AIU Campus a little bit. By population it's smaller then my High School (only 700 students or so). About 130 students are foreign exchange students, interestingly enough the exchange is 1-to-1, meaning for every student at AIU there is one student studying at my home instituion (which would be SUNY oswego because of how I applied into the program).
The school has 3 dorms, first there is Komachi Hall which is a freshman Dorm but some international students stay here as well. It has the strictest rules of the dorms when it comes to vistitors. Floors are seperated by gender, and people of the opposite gender are not allowed to stay on the floors at night. If a visitor is staying overnight, they have to complete paperwork, so its stract. The 2nd dorm is Global Village which is where I am staying and a lot of other international students, its a pretty nice apartment with a bedroom, a bathroom, bath, and a small kitchen. My roommate still has not arrived, and I assume once he does things will get a little more crowded. The 3rd dorm is University Apartments, don't know much about them since they are closed to international students and there is no information about them in English. The only thing I know about them is that they are the only dorms on campus that you can smoke inside of.
The campus cafeteria serves meals 3 times a day to students on the meal plan. It also has a restaurant Menu from which things can be purchased, I have yet to try that. There is also the "University Cafe" which sells food during the day, and works as the campus bar at night (Very similar to the "University Cafe" at Stony Brook). Its closed on the weekends, so I haven't tried anything there either. There is also the University convencie store known as the "Kiosk" (Its not actually a Kiosk, just called that way). It sells a wide vareity of sweets, snacks, pens, pencils, notebooks, Soap, Shampoo, and other convenice things. I've been going there trying the different things that they sell.
Two buses run from campus every few hours, one goes to "Aeon", a large Mall 15 minutes away. I went there once, its not too exsiding, it has McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks, and a bunch of other places to eat as well as a Supermarket, shoe stories, clothes stores. I went there looking for a few things, and one thing I realized is make sure you know how to say what you're looking for in the local language. I did not find what I was looking for only to discover that it was sold at the "Kiosk" later. The 2nd bus goes to "Wada Station", from there it is possible to take a train to Akita City. I was going to do that today before discovering that I lost my bus schedule. This is somewhat of a problem since the buses run rather rarely and their destiantions are not written in English (Not in Tokyo anymore), the only way I can identify that this is the right bus is based on the time that it arrived. I will definitely visit Akita city during the week, unfortunately neither local trains nor buses run on Sundays so I can't do it tomorrow. On the other hand I did sign up for an optional trip tomorrow with "Community outrach services" to an Agricultural Festival, no idea what to expect, but that is part of the experience.
The school has 3 dorms, first there is Komachi Hall which is a freshman Dorm but some international students stay here as well. It has the strictest rules of the dorms when it comes to vistitors. Floors are seperated by gender, and people of the opposite gender are not allowed to stay on the floors at night. If a visitor is staying overnight, they have to complete paperwork, so its stract. The 2nd dorm is Global Village which is where I am staying and a lot of other international students, its a pretty nice apartment with a bedroom, a bathroom, bath, and a small kitchen. My roommate still has not arrived, and I assume once he does things will get a little more crowded. The 3rd dorm is University Apartments, don't know much about them since they are closed to international students and there is no information about them in English. The only thing I know about them is that they are the only dorms on campus that you can smoke inside of.
The campus cafeteria serves meals 3 times a day to students on the meal plan. It also has a restaurant Menu from which things can be purchased, I have yet to try that. There is also the "University Cafe" which sells food during the day, and works as the campus bar at night (Very similar to the "University Cafe" at Stony Brook). Its closed on the weekends, so I haven't tried anything there either. There is also the University convencie store known as the "Kiosk" (Its not actually a Kiosk, just called that way). It sells a wide vareity of sweets, snacks, pens, pencils, notebooks, Soap, Shampoo, and other convenice things. I've been going there trying the different things that they sell.
Two buses run from campus every few hours, one goes to "Aeon", a large Mall 15 minutes away. I went there once, its not too exsiding, it has McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks, and a bunch of other places to eat as well as a Supermarket, shoe stories, clothes stores. I went there looking for a few things, and one thing I realized is make sure you know how to say what you're looking for in the local language. I did not find what I was looking for only to discover that it was sold at the "Kiosk" later. The 2nd bus goes to "Wada Station", from there it is possible to take a train to Akita City. I was going to do that today before discovering that I lost my bus schedule. This is somewhat of a problem since the buses run rather rarely and their destiantions are not written in English (Not in Tokyo anymore), the only way I can identify that this is the right bus is based on the time that it arrived. I will definitely visit Akita city during the week, unfortunately neither local trains nor buses run on Sundays so I can't do it tomorrow. On the other hand I did sign up for an optional trip tomorrow with "Community outrach services" to an Agricultural Festival, no idea what to expect, but that is part of the experience.
Classes
So, I will try to write different entires to seperate my thoughts. Class registration is finally complete, I am currently registered for "World Economics( 3 credits)", "Introduction to Japanese Society(3 credits)", "Introductory Japanese II(6 credits)", "Japanese Self-Study(1 credit)", and "World Debate(3 credits)". I might drop one of 3 credit classes during the add/drop period. "Intro to Japanese Society" wasn't really class I initially planned on taking, but the British professor teaching the class made a presentation did a very inspiring presentation during orientation, I am pretty sure there are quite a few people that wanted to take his class after his presentation.
The school only has two majors, Global Studies and Global Business. "World Economics" is an introductory class that Global Business majors are expected to take. There are several reasons why I want to take this class. (In no order of importance)
1. I always wanted to take an economics and never quite got a round it at Stony.
2. It is taught by Dr.Lacktorin who I previously mentioned in some of my entries, he was strongly recommend to me by students that went to Akita before.
3. Relatively few international students take this class, as a matter of fact there was only 1 last semester, so I am hoping this will allow me to meet more Japanese Students.
Just a note on the registration system, it is a lot less sophisticted then the Solar system at Stony Brook. Yes, it works online, but it does not tell you when a class is full so you might be registering for class that is already full. Also, the add/drop system will be processed in person. Now the office of Student Records which is in charge of registration stated that they will send out an E-mail annoucing classes that are full. Of course registration opened on Friday evening, and the office of Student Records is closed on the weekend, something here tells me that next week will be quite a mess because of this.
Finally, I apologize for the lack of pictures, I need to get my laptop online so I can use Picasa to upload to Google Images. I still do not have internet access from my laptop, and I might not get that until the middle of maybe even end of next week.
The school only has two majors, Global Studies and Global Business. "World Economics" is an introductory class that Global Business majors are expected to take. There are several reasons why I want to take this class. (In no order of importance)
1. I always wanted to take an economics and never quite got a round it at Stony.
2. It is taught by Dr.Lacktorin who I previously mentioned in some of my entries, he was strongly recommend to me by students that went to Akita before.
3. Relatively few international students take this class, as a matter of fact there was only 1 last semester, so I am hoping this will allow me to meet more Japanese Students.
Just a note on the registration system, it is a lot less sophisticted then the Solar system at Stony Brook. Yes, it works online, but it does not tell you when a class is full so you might be registering for class that is already full. Also, the add/drop system will be processed in person. Now the office of Student Records which is in charge of registration stated that they will send out an E-mail annoucing classes that are full. Of course registration opened on Friday evening, and the office of Student Records is closed on the weekend, something here tells me that next week will be quite a mess because of this.
Finally, I apologize for the lack of pictures, I need to get my laptop online so I can use Picasa to upload to Google Images. I still do not have internet access from my laptop, and I might not get that until the middle of maybe even end of next week.
People
Hey, so I added a hit counter to my blog and I got about 20 hits yesterday which is pretty awesome! So some of you have been asking about the people I met here, I've met a looot of people to the point of it being overwhelming, most of international students are from the United States, but I also met people from German, Switzerland, Canada, Mongolia, Russia, the UK. I'm sure there are more.
I'll try to mention a few people I met, first there are Terica and Adam, They both go to SUNY and I got in touch with both of them before arriving in Japan. Adam has been in Tokyo several and was tested to go into a Japanese class one level above me. Terica has never been outside of the country and flew for the first time to Japan, she is taking introductory Japanese. Over the last 2 days I also hanged out with 2 guys from Mongolia, they can actually speak Russian a little bit and were testing it out with me....I should really ask for their names again.
As I mentioned a lot of faces and names, recently however, I figured out a good way to remember people I spoke to, make a mental note about something about them, like something they wear. As a result of this system, there is currently one (just one for now) Japanese person that I know by name.
I'll try to mention a few people I met, first there are Terica and Adam, They both go to SUNY and I got in touch with both of them before arriving in Japan. Adam has been in Tokyo several and was tested to go into a Japanese class one level above me. Terica has never been outside of the country and flew for the first time to Japan, she is taking introductory Japanese. Over the last 2 days I also hanged out with 2 guys from Mongolia, they can actually speak Russian a little bit and were testing it out with me....I should really ask for their names again.
As I mentioned a lot of faces and names, recently however, I figured out a good way to remember people I spoke to, make a mental note about something about them, like something they wear. As a result of this system, there is currently one (just one for now) Japanese person that I know by name.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
1 week in Japan
Well, its officially been 1 week since I arrived in Japan, feels like a much longer time. First, the good news, I was accepted into the 2nd semester Japanese class, of course I know have to buy volume 1 and 2 of the texbook, none of the other classes have that. Otherwise I had a pretty nice day, this morning I talked with some international as well as Japanese students at breakfast. I will try to take care of some administatrative matters over the next few hours before I have to go into Yuwa city and finalize my immigration registration..
On a more technical side, blogspot is quite hard to use when it comes to comments. They tried to create this crazy system so that anyone with any account can post, and as a result nobody can do it. If you're leaving comment please make sure it was actually posted! Also, you're welcome to just make an anonymous post and just tell me who you are. Blogspot is part of the google network, so posting with a Gmail account is probably best.
On a more technical side, blogspot is quite hard to use when it comes to comments. They tried to create this crazy system so that anyone with any account can post, and as a result nobody can do it. If you're leaving comment please make sure it was actually posted! Also, you're welcome to just make an anonymous post and just tell me who you are. Blogspot is part of the google network, so posting with a Gmail account is probably best.
Culture Clash Note
I don't know if anyone read my last entry already, probably not, but I want to mention this experience briefly in a seperate entry in case someone did and won't reread it I edit it. I read on other blogs that sometimes the Japanese people become very curious of westerners because they don't see a lot of them. This wasn't the case in Tokyo, it was full of tourists and none of the locals would give me a second glance. Akita however, being one of the most rural areas is another story. At one point at the orientation we've been told to be very respectful of the locals since they will know exactly where to complain.
Anyway, today, sometime after I took the exam I bumped into a high school class that was visiting campus. As they were passing by, every single one of them turned around and looked at me, the teacher then actually stopped the class and had one of the students ask me where I am from in English. I should have probably given them a simple answer...I started explaining in detail about my travels, I don't think any of them understood me, oh well. I will note that while the students might have not correctly understood me, the girl that asked me the question, her English was very"clean", she had absolutely no accent. Anyway, this was rather interesting, I really want to go out now and meet some locals.
Anyway, today, sometime after I took the exam I bumped into a high school class that was visiting campus. As they were passing by, every single one of them turned around and looked at me, the teacher then actually stopped the class and had one of the students ask me where I am from in English. I should have probably given them a simple answer...I started explaining in detail about my travels, I don't think any of them understood me, oh well. I will note that while the students might have not correctly understood me, the girl that asked me the question, her English was very"clean", she had absolutely no accent. Anyway, this was rather interesting, I really want to go out now and meet some locals.
Orientation, Orientation, Orientation
Well, as the title says that's pretty much all that's been happening so far, the least exsiting part of anything. I am currently listening to music on YouTube, something I haven't done since leaving the states and it feels surprisingly relaxing.
Yesterday, we had an "ice breaking" dinner. The food was all you can eat, and it seems the fact that I ate a lot less since I arrived in Japan caught up to me and I ate quite a bit. The actual "ice breaking" was pretty fun, we played a game called "Human bingo" where we had a bingo card that instead of numbers had things like "Like movies" and "Speaks more then 3 languages". Most of them were pretty general, you pretty much had to go around the room and fill in a person's name if they match the category. I do like the 2nd category I mentioned since with 1 semester of Japanese I was one of the few people in the room that qualified :) The first 10 people that completed the card got T-shrits and mugs but I don't think anyone cared too much about that. We then played a 2nd game where you had to play "Rock, paper scissors" and the person that lost would have to put their hands on the winner's shoulders and follow them around. The point was to eventually form a single long snake with a single winner. So fun night.
Today was not so fun, it started out with the super brutal "Japanese Placment exam." I doubt studying for it would do any good, all of it was rough and there weren't any questions that I felt were "beginner level". All I want is to get in to the 2nd semester class, the results will be posted tomorrow during "Academic orientation". We had a "Library oreintation" in the afternoon that I ended up sleeping through (A combination of the exam and still not being used to being here). Well, I can't wait for the weekend, I will try to take some pictures soon, I will also try to get off campus and have a look around, see if I can find an
Onsen, I am sure there is one around here somewhere . As I mentioned in my last entry there is a field trip organized by "Student Services" on Monday. The Community Outreach office also has a short trip to the "Agricultural Experimental Center Festival". I'll tell you how it goes.
PS: I updated the "Time stamp" on the blogs to US eastern time, for some reason it was set to Pacific (California) time, I am little curious at what time in New York I post these at.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Akita, first 2 days
Hey everyone, sorry for the slight delay, I arrived to Akita yesterday but I did not have internet access until today. I still need to get my laptop registered so I can use Skype (my family is pretty anxious for me to get on that). Anyway, the adjustment is almost as major as arriving to Tokyo, Akita is very different from Tokyo.
Yesterday morning I took the Shinkansen (Japanese bullet train, top speed about 175mph) to Akita. If I had to describe the ride simply it would be "very cool". The ride was really smooth, and the announcements, which were made in both Japanese and English were super polite. The announcement would begin with this short really pleasant music, an announcement in Japanese and then in English which went something like this "Ladies and gentlemen, we will soon be making a brief stop at SENDAI, the next station will be MORIOKA". Oh, I just realized what I liked so much about the announcement, it was with a British Accent. The train that I rode goes the furthest North from Tokyo and as such it only stopped at the major stations. An interesting fact about the Shinkansen is that it does not have railroad crossings and instead travels on either bridges or tunnels. As such, when we traveled on bridges I got a very scenic view. As we traveled North the area got noticably more rural, the last 1 hour of the trip when the train slowed down noticably we traveled through a lot of green hills and rivers.
Upon my arrival I was met by some AIU staff members and boarded the school shuttle. The weather was very comfortable here, not as humid as Tokyo. We did wait another 40 minute at the station until one other guy who rode the train with me got his 10 bags together, I have no idea how he fit them on the train. Upon arrival to AIU we were immediately covered in paperwork. I had to fill out a Hanko Application, a Hanko is pretty much a personal seal that counts as part of my signature, and I am required to have it for most official papers such as opening a bank account and getting a cell phone. I had to confirm the Katakana spelling of my name, nothing new here, my former Japanese TA at Stony Brook came up with the spelling a while ago and I stuck to that (Thanks Kei-San). Next I was supposed to fill out some immigration forms, have my ID card picture taken, and finally given my room key.
If I had to describe AIU I would say that its a "picture perfect campus" a lot of grass with very modern buildings. My room is fairly nice, I will try to take some pictures and post them later. I believe that my roommate is a Japanese upper-classmen who has yet to arrive on campus. I am not sure when the move in date for them is. So far the only people on campus are international students and freshmen, as well as upper division students helping out with the orientation procedures.
We had a few short speeches from a Vice-President and Dr. Lacktorin, the Dean of International Affairs. I have heard about Dr. Lacktorin, he is a professor of economics and I was strongly recommended to take a class with him. He talked a little bit about how he came to Japan (he is an American). Turns out he was a Medical Student who went to Japan after a girl he liked. He took a year off from Medical school and going for Japan for what was supposed to be 3 month, and I guess he ended up staying for 30 years. Not only that, rather then finishing medical school he ended up getting a Ph.D in economics. Anyway, after this I had dinner, unpacked a little and went to sleep relatively early. I ended up sleeping for 10 hours, I don't think I've done that since I was on the Crew (rowing) team.
Until Tuesday we will be kept fairly busy with orientation procedures. This morning after packing a little more I went to get breakfast. The food by the way was so far pretty good, for lunch and dinner so far we got a choice of 3 main dishes, 2-3 side dishes, rice, miso soup, water, and tea. There don't seem to be any choices for breakfast. Overall, I think its a nice balanced meal that fills you up without going over.
After breakfast, orientation began. The first 3 hours were mostly speeches about different rules and laws that we may not be aware of. Luckily the staff member from Student Services who lead this was an American guy with a pretty good sense of humor and some funny stories. He gave everyone a few laughs during a presentation that had the potential to be dreadfully boring. We also had some speeches from other people such as the school nurse. The only part of that presentation that interested me was from the "Community Outreach Center." They seem to have some interesting opportunities for us to participate in the community and maybe even find some part time work.
After a break for lunch I had "computer orientation" during which I was given my AIU ID Card. We were given a relatively boring presentation, all the information I needed I found in the power point slides that were handed out. One interesting fact, AIU provides lifetime E-mail addresses, something Stony Brook does not do. On the other hand, the addresses is quite ugly using my ID number rather then my name. I am somewhat concerned that E-mails sent from it will go into people's Spam folders.
Following Computer Orientation we had two more presentations. The first was "Student Advice" given by members of the International Affairs Committee. The committee's purpose is to pretty much try to smooth out issues between Japanese students and international students since apparently there have been some issues with this. The presentation was funny, but of all the things today it was probably the most impressionable. It addressed some things that I already knew such as the fact that Japanese consider saying "No" as rude and will occasionally try to avoid it. Either way, I really feel now that I have to clean up my luggage by the time my roommate arrives.
The 2nd presentation was from an international organization in Akita. While the international students at my school live in dorms, this organization allows us to be put in touch with a Japanese family so that we can try visiting them and maybe staying over, I did sign up for that.
Well, I think that's it, dinner with "ice breakers" is in half an hour. Tomorrow morning we have the "Japanese placement exam", I am hoping to get into the 2nd semester class, I will try to review a little bit tonight. Also on Monday we have out first bus trip that are regularly organized by Student Affairs and are free to international students. I don't remember where we are going, it was briefly mentioned in the presentation and its not anywhere that sounded familiar.
Besides that, well, I think I've been pretty good at keeping this blog up, unlike most people that make 1 entry, then another one a week later and we never hear from them again. It seems that every entry is longer then the previous one (Every time I think that it will be shorter, it took me 40 minutes to write this entry), I think its safe to assume that once things settle down I'll write a little bit less or less often. Well, I am looking forward to your comments, Ja mata (see you later).
Yesterday morning I took the Shinkansen (Japanese bullet train, top speed about 175mph) to Akita. If I had to describe the ride simply it would be "very cool". The ride was really smooth, and the announcements, which were made in both Japanese and English were super polite. The announcement would begin with this short really pleasant music, an announcement in Japanese and then in English which went something like this "Ladies and gentlemen, we will soon be making a brief stop at SENDAI, the next station will be MORIOKA". Oh, I just realized what I liked so much about the announcement, it was with a British Accent. The train that I rode goes the furthest North from Tokyo and as such it only stopped at the major stations. An interesting fact about the Shinkansen is that it does not have railroad crossings and instead travels on either bridges or tunnels. As such, when we traveled on bridges I got a very scenic view. As we traveled North the area got noticably more rural, the last 1 hour of the trip when the train slowed down noticably we traveled through a lot of green hills and rivers.
Upon my arrival I was met by some AIU staff members and boarded the school shuttle. The weather was very comfortable here, not as humid as Tokyo. We did wait another 40 minute at the station until one other guy who rode the train with me got his 10 bags together, I have no idea how he fit them on the train. Upon arrival to AIU we were immediately covered in paperwork. I had to fill out a Hanko Application, a Hanko is pretty much a personal seal that counts as part of my signature, and I am required to have it for most official papers such as opening a bank account and getting a cell phone. I had to confirm the Katakana spelling of my name, nothing new here, my former Japanese TA at Stony Brook came up with the spelling a while ago and I stuck to that (Thanks Kei-San). Next I was supposed to fill out some immigration forms, have my ID card picture taken, and finally given my room key.
If I had to describe AIU I would say that its a "picture perfect campus" a lot of grass with very modern buildings. My room is fairly nice, I will try to take some pictures and post them later. I believe that my roommate is a Japanese upper-classmen who has yet to arrive on campus. I am not sure when the move in date for them is. So far the only people on campus are international students and freshmen, as well as upper division students helping out with the orientation procedures.
We had a few short speeches from a Vice-President and Dr. Lacktorin, the Dean of International Affairs. I have heard about Dr. Lacktorin, he is a professor of economics and I was strongly recommended to take a class with him. He talked a little bit about how he came to Japan (he is an American). Turns out he was a Medical Student who went to Japan after a girl he liked. He took a year off from Medical school and going for Japan for what was supposed to be 3 month, and I guess he ended up staying for 30 years. Not only that, rather then finishing medical school he ended up getting a Ph.D in economics. Anyway, after this I had dinner, unpacked a little and went to sleep relatively early. I ended up sleeping for 10 hours, I don't think I've done that since I was on the Crew (rowing) team.
Until Tuesday we will be kept fairly busy with orientation procedures. This morning after packing a little more I went to get breakfast. The food by the way was so far pretty good, for lunch and dinner so far we got a choice of 3 main dishes, 2-3 side dishes, rice, miso soup, water, and tea. There don't seem to be any choices for breakfast. Overall, I think its a nice balanced meal that fills you up without going over.
After breakfast, orientation began. The first 3 hours were mostly speeches about different rules and laws that we may not be aware of. Luckily the staff member from Student Services who lead this was an American guy with a pretty good sense of humor and some funny stories. He gave everyone a few laughs during a presentation that had the potential to be dreadfully boring. We also had some speeches from other people such as the school nurse. The only part of that presentation that interested me was from the "Community Outreach Center." They seem to have some interesting opportunities for us to participate in the community and maybe even find some part time work.
After a break for lunch I had "computer orientation" during which I was given my AIU ID Card. We were given a relatively boring presentation, all the information I needed I found in the power point slides that were handed out. One interesting fact, AIU provides lifetime E-mail addresses, something Stony Brook does not do. On the other hand, the addresses is quite ugly using my ID number rather then my name. I am somewhat concerned that E-mails sent from it will go into people's Spam folders.
Following Computer Orientation we had two more presentations. The first was "Student Advice" given by members of the International Affairs Committee. The committee's purpose is to pretty much try to smooth out issues between Japanese students and international students since apparently there have been some issues with this. The presentation was funny, but of all the things today it was probably the most impressionable. It addressed some things that I already knew such as the fact that Japanese consider saying "No" as rude and will occasionally try to avoid it. Either way, I really feel now that I have to clean up my luggage by the time my roommate arrives.
The 2nd presentation was from an international organization in Akita. While the international students at my school live in dorms, this organization allows us to be put in touch with a Japanese family so that we can try visiting them and maybe staying over, I did sign up for that.
Well, I think that's it, dinner with "ice breakers" is in half an hour. Tomorrow morning we have the "Japanese placement exam", I am hoping to get into the 2nd semester class, I will try to review a little bit tonight. Also on Monday we have out first bus trip that are regularly organized by Student Affairs and are free to international students. I don't remember where we are going, it was briefly mentioned in the presentation and its not anywhere that sounded familiar.
Besides that, well, I think I've been pretty good at keeping this blog up, unlike most people that make 1 entry, then another one a week later and we never hear from them again. It seems that every entry is longer then the previous one (Every time I think that it will be shorter, it took me 40 minutes to write this entry), I think its safe to assume that once things settle down I'll write a little bit less or less often. Well, I am looking forward to your comments, Ja mata (see you later).
Monday, August 24, 2009
Tokyo, last day
Pictures have been updated. Well today was the first time I slept the entire night without waking up. The first 2 nights I ended up waking up and staying awake for about 2 hours. This time however I slept without any trouble and because of this I had more energy.
My first action today was to try and take one of my bags to Ueno Station in an attempt Today is also my first weekday in Tokyo which means one thing: Rush Hour. My experience of this was short, but I will talk about it. First let me explain, the train that I take to Ueno, is the Ginza Line. (As I mentioned before in Tokyo, metro lines have names rather then numbers or letters). I've ridden the Ginza line more then any other subway line here because it seems to go right through the middle of the city hitting many famous parts. Asakusa where my Hostel is located is its terminal station and Ueno is 2 stations away. As I discovered, lucky for me the Ginza line is relatively empty until Ueno station where I had to get up, However, at Ueno Station is where things got crazy. As I got off the train tons of people rushed in. I soon realized that there were markings on the ground shwoing where the doors of the train would stop, and people lining up on them. When the train arrives, the people started coming in until the car looks relatively full, at this point the people stop going in and wait for the next train. WIthin the 20 seconeds that it took me to get to the station exit, the station was full of people again, it was extremely crowded and nearly impossible to move. So, that's Tokyo Rush hour for you.
Anyway, on to my search for the coin operated lockers at Ueno. Ueno Station is Tokyo's 2nd major train station after Tokyo Station. Most trains terminate at Tokyo Station, all trains heading North stop at Ueno Station. My search for a paid locker did not go well at all. First I found a set of electric lockers but they were too small to fit my bag. The lockers were of 2 sizes, I noticed that the machine described the smaller locker as "small locker" and the larger locker as "Medium locker", as such I felt it was safe to assume that elsewhere at the station there was a "Large locker." I spent a good half an hour wondering around the station I realized that the sign on the map that I thought was a locker was actually a sign for "baby changing station." I could not find an English map, luckily my limited Japanese skills helped me out here. Probably the most useful thing to me in Japanese over the last 2 days here was my ability to read Katakana, a 46 letter phonetic alphabet. Katakana is commonly used to spell foriegn words, mostly from English, words such as "Kafuteria" and "Doru"(Dollar). I was eventually able to identify "Koin Raka" on the map and headed towards it. While, there were larger lockers here, there were two problems. First, it seems like they were "day lockers" only, and they only accept 100 yen coins, for a total of 500 yen to use it. After some thought I came up with a Plan "B". Tomorrow morning I will arrive here and lock one of my bags, then come back to the Hostel for my 2nd bag. Considering the proximity of the Hostel and the Station this shouldn't be too difficult, I just hope nothing else will go wrong. One thing to note is that only my duffle bag will fit into these lockers, my suitcase wouldn't. Which brings to my point, suitcases suck, they have a terrible shape that makes them difficult to carry and store, I really don't see why people use them. Then again, I really didn't see many people with suitcases since my trip started.
After returning my bag to the Hostel, I headed back out, Rush hour was now over and I headed towards my next destination: Tokyo University. Tokyo University is the most prestigious school in Japan, and arguably all of Asia, if you want to get in you better be a walking Encyclopedia, I heard that the test has questions on things like French History and Swedish Geography. Apparently if you really want to go in, you have to go to the right high school, to get into the right High school you have to go to the right Junior high school, to get into the right Junior High School you have to go to the right Elementary school, and in order to go to the right Elementary school you have to go to the right Pre-school....Anyway this seems like hell to put a child through. Either way, my interest in Japan can probably be traced back to a Manga I randomly picked up at the public libarary called "Love hina," it is about 2 students that are trying to get into Tokyo University, as such I really wanted to check it out. I once again wondered for a bit before finding it. During my wondering I went into a "FamilyMart" which looks like a major chain of convenience stores. There I brought myself a nikuman, it was quite tasty. Once I found the University, a lady that noticed me studying the map, gave me a campus map nad explained where everything is. You can see in my album some of the pictures I took there.
I had lunch at the Tokyo University Cafeteria. The System here is quite interesting, the way it works is like this:
1. You go to the menu, its pretty much a set of Wax models of the food on Display. You decide what you want, and make a note of which counter you should go to later (I think there were 4 of them).
2. You go to the Meal ticket vending machine, and buy a meal ticket for what you want.
3. You go to the counter that you noted earlier and give the ticket to receive your food.
The food was quite tasty and cheap. Unfortunately I forgot to double check the name of the dish I had, its pretty much 3 Panckake like pieces of fried chicken. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, please tell me, if I find them again I'll make sure to say what they were. The food was relatively cheap, for 480 yen I got the chicken that I mentioned along with salad, rice, Miso Soup, and Tea with refills. In comparisent, yesterday my meal at McDonalds cost 580 yen.
Afterwards, I returned to Ueno for a walk at Ueno Park and one more look at the station. It seems that I misunderstood the rates at the JR Yamanote line. Its actually cheaper then the subway, this is a disspointment since that menas i could've taken it yesterday, to see a good portion of the city. Unlike the subway the JR Yamamote line does not go underground.
Well, I am back at the Hostel now, my alarm clock is set for 6:50AM, however, consdering how exhausted I feel now I probably won't need it. I'd rather not use it, since I will wake up everyone else in the room, something I'd rather avoid. I will try to have everything packed tonight. Finally, since there are no comments here, I received some positive comments about the blog on facebook, and by E-mail. Its nice to know that people are reading, but I think it would be nice to have all the comments in one place.
My first action today was to try and take one of my bags to Ueno Station in an attempt Today is also my first weekday in Tokyo which means one thing: Rush Hour. My experience of this was short, but I will talk about it. First let me explain, the train that I take to Ueno, is the Ginza Line. (As I mentioned before in Tokyo, metro lines have names rather then numbers or letters). I've ridden the Ginza line more then any other subway line here because it seems to go right through the middle of the city hitting many famous parts. Asakusa where my Hostel is located is its terminal station and Ueno is 2 stations away. As I discovered, lucky for me the Ginza line is relatively empty until Ueno station where I had to get up, However, at Ueno Station is where things got crazy. As I got off the train tons of people rushed in. I soon realized that there were markings on the ground shwoing where the doors of the train would stop, and people lining up on them. When the train arrives, the people started coming in until the car looks relatively full, at this point the people stop going in and wait for the next train. WIthin the 20 seconeds that it took me to get to the station exit, the station was full of people again, it was extremely crowded and nearly impossible to move. So, that's Tokyo Rush hour for you.
Anyway, on to my search for the coin operated lockers at Ueno. Ueno Station is Tokyo's 2nd major train station after Tokyo Station. Most trains terminate at Tokyo Station, all trains heading North stop at Ueno Station. My search for a paid locker did not go well at all. First I found a set of electric lockers but they were too small to fit my bag. The lockers were of 2 sizes, I noticed that the machine described the smaller locker as "small locker" and the larger locker as "Medium locker", as such I felt it was safe to assume that elsewhere at the station there was a "Large locker." I spent a good half an hour wondering around the station I realized that the sign on the map that I thought was a locker was actually a sign for "baby changing station." I could not find an English map, luckily my limited Japanese skills helped me out here. Probably the most useful thing to me in Japanese over the last 2 days here was my ability to read Katakana, a 46 letter phonetic alphabet. Katakana is commonly used to spell foriegn words, mostly from English, words such as "Kafuteria" and "Doru"(Dollar). I was eventually able to identify "Koin Raka" on the map and headed towards it. While, there were larger lockers here, there were two problems. First, it seems like they were "day lockers" only, and they only accept 100 yen coins, for a total of 500 yen to use it. After some thought I came up with a Plan "B". Tomorrow morning I will arrive here and lock one of my bags, then come back to the Hostel for my 2nd bag. Considering the proximity of the Hostel and the Station this shouldn't be too difficult, I just hope nothing else will go wrong. One thing to note is that only my duffle bag will fit into these lockers, my suitcase wouldn't. Which brings to my point, suitcases suck, they have a terrible shape that makes them difficult to carry and store, I really don't see why people use them. Then again, I really didn't see many people with suitcases since my trip started.
After returning my bag to the Hostel, I headed back out, Rush hour was now over and I headed towards my next destination: Tokyo University. Tokyo University is the most prestigious school in Japan, and arguably all of Asia, if you want to get in you better be a walking Encyclopedia, I heard that the test has questions on things like French History and Swedish Geography. Apparently if you really want to go in, you have to go to the right high school, to get into the right High school you have to go to the right Junior high school, to get into the right Junior High School you have to go to the right Elementary school, and in order to go to the right Elementary school you have to go to the right Pre-school....Anyway this seems like hell to put a child through. Either way, my interest in Japan can probably be traced back to a Manga I randomly picked up at the public libarary called "Love hina," it is about 2 students that are trying to get into Tokyo University, as such I really wanted to check it out. I once again wondered for a bit before finding it. During my wondering I went into a "FamilyMart" which looks like a major chain of convenience stores. There I brought myself a nikuman, it was quite tasty. Once I found the University, a lady that noticed me studying the map, gave me a campus map nad explained where everything is. You can see in my album some of the pictures I took there.
I had lunch at the Tokyo University Cafeteria. The System here is quite interesting, the way it works is like this:
1. You go to the menu, its pretty much a set of Wax models of the food on Display. You decide what you want, and make a note of which counter you should go to later (I think there were 4 of them).
2. You go to the Meal ticket vending machine, and buy a meal ticket for what you want.
3. You go to the counter that you noted earlier and give the ticket to receive your food.
The food was quite tasty and cheap. Unfortunately I forgot to double check the name of the dish I had, its pretty much 3 Panckake like pieces of fried chicken. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, please tell me, if I find them again I'll make sure to say what they were. The food was relatively cheap, for 480 yen I got the chicken that I mentioned along with salad, rice, Miso Soup, and Tea with refills. In comparisent, yesterday my meal at McDonalds cost 580 yen.
Afterwards, I returned to Ueno for a walk at Ueno Park and one more look at the station. It seems that I misunderstood the rates at the JR Yamanote line. Its actually cheaper then the subway, this is a disspointment since that menas i could've taken it yesterday, to see a good portion of the city. Unlike the subway the JR Yamamote line does not go underground.
Well, I am back at the Hostel now, my alarm clock is set for 6:50AM, however, consdering how exhausted I feel now I probably won't need it. I'd rather not use it, since I will wake up everyone else in the room, something I'd rather avoid. I will try to have everything packed tonight. Finally, since there are no comments here, I received some positive comments about the blog on facebook, and by E-mail. Its nice to know that people are reading, but I think it would be nice to have all the comments in one place.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Tokyo Wonderer
Ok, so after some struggles with Picasa (Why can't it be easy to use like facebook pictures?), I've finally uploaded here. Please don't waste your time criticizing my picture taking skills, I think my writing is better anyway.
I guess I'll start with where I left off in my last entry. After recovering some of my energy I went for a walk in Asakusa. Of all the things that I've done here so far this was probably the most enjoyable. There are temples here, and the Nakamise-dori street, a large market street with tons of souvenir-type things on sale. Yes, I may be somewhat lazy here and not posting any direct links in my blog, I will do so later. Interestingly enough most shops around here close at 5PM and the place becomes practically empty. The only thing I don't like here is that the historical area is dissapoingly small. After talking to some people here I will definitely make it a priority to check out Japan's old capital of Kyoto, It may not happen until right before I return home, but I will definitely do so.
The next day I pretty much went around half of Tokyo by using the Metro. I will say this about the metro system, it works very nicely with all the stations written in English and Hiragana(The basic Japanese phonetic alphabet, this is usually the first thing people study when they start learning Japanese). The way things work is that at the entrance to the station there is a board that gives you the coast to get to each station. The prices range from 160-300 yen (Around $1.70-3.20). You then approach the ticket machine, that you can use in English and tell which ticket you wish to buy (how much it costs). Then when you arrive to your destination, if you traveled farther then initially intended, you will be expected to pay before leaving. What makes the metro system complicated is that unlike most cities where the Metro is controlled by the local government, here it is a private comapany so there are 2 metro companies. This complicates things since if you're staying in the same company you can buy a ticket directly to your destination, if not you have to exit one line and get on the other. Its not obious which lines belong to which company. In addition you have the Tsukuba express which associates it itself with neither compnay. The Keisei electric line that goes to the airport, and JR Yamanote line, which goes around the city. All of these are more expensive then the regular metro, especially the JR Yamanote line, however, it is possible for tourists(locals can't buy it) to purchase the JR Rail passes which gives unlimited rides on local trains and discounts on limited express and some Shinkansen trains. I did not feel that this pass was necessary for me.
My day started out at Akihabara electric city. I've read on Wikitravel that supposedly, the main street, the Chuo-dori is closed on Sundays to traffic and that its full of cosplayers. Neither were true, it took me a while to find Chuo-dori, it was open to traffic, and the only cosplayers I found were "Maids" from Maid cafes promoting their cafes. As a result I did not stay long and ended up taking the train across the city to the city to Yoyogi park. Yoyogi park was much nicer, there was some interesting fashion there and it was a nice place to just walk around. I might've spent more time there if it wasn't for the heat. I read the mid-spring and mid-autmn are the best places to visit Japan, I have to strongly agree with this analysis. This is also where I tried the McTeriyaki burger at a Japanese McDonalds, it was very good and I strongly recommend it.
After spending most of my day out I returned to the Hostel. Overall, my feeling is Tokyo is a nice place to visit with friends or family. As a whole however, it feels like another large city. As a result I am looking forward to Akita which is pretty rural and its also why I want to go to Kyoto.
I spoke a little bit previously about the Narita Airport Hostel, Now I wish to talk about the Hostel I'm staying in Tokyo, Sakura Asakusa Hostel. If you ever need a cheap place to stay in Tokyo I would definitely recommend this place. The staff speakes English, there are vending machines, you can buy all you can eat breakfast for 315 yen (Around $3.25) which is toast with Jam and Tea which was fine with me. And instant noodles are on sale 24 hours a day (for 200 yen, around $2.05). The hostel is air conditioned, the front desk is always open, it has laundry services. Wireless internet is free.
Anyway, my plans for tomorrow is to check out the main campus of Tokyo University and the Ueno area. I will take advantage of this to take one of my bags to Ueno station from where I'll be taking the bullet train to Akita. I will lock the bag in a coin operated locker so that I don't have to carry both bags at the same time. Well, that's it for now, comments are welcome.
I guess I'll start with where I left off in my last entry. After recovering some of my energy I went for a walk in Asakusa. Of all the things that I've done here so far this was probably the most enjoyable. There are temples here, and the Nakamise-dori street, a large market street with tons of souvenir-type things on sale. Yes, I may be somewhat lazy here and not posting any direct links in my blog, I will do so later. Interestingly enough most shops around here close at 5PM and the place becomes practically empty. The only thing I don't like here is that the historical area is dissapoingly small. After talking to some people here I will definitely make it a priority to check out Japan's old capital of Kyoto, It may not happen until right before I return home, but I will definitely do so.
The next day I pretty much went around half of Tokyo by using the Metro. I will say this about the metro system, it works very nicely with all the stations written in English and Hiragana(The basic Japanese phonetic alphabet, this is usually the first thing people study when they start learning Japanese). The way things work is that at the entrance to the station there is a board that gives you the coast to get to each station. The prices range from 160-300 yen (Around $1.70-3.20). You then approach the ticket machine, that you can use in English and tell which ticket you wish to buy (how much it costs). Then when you arrive to your destination, if you traveled farther then initially intended, you will be expected to pay before leaving. What makes the metro system complicated is that unlike most cities where the Metro is controlled by the local government, here it is a private comapany so there are 2 metro companies. This complicates things since if you're staying in the same company you can buy a ticket directly to your destination, if not you have to exit one line and get on the other. Its not obious which lines belong to which company. In addition you have the Tsukuba express which associates it itself with neither compnay. The Keisei electric line that goes to the airport, and JR Yamanote line, which goes around the city. All of these are more expensive then the regular metro, especially the JR Yamanote line, however, it is possible for tourists(locals can't buy it) to purchase the JR Rail passes which gives unlimited rides on local trains and discounts on limited express and some Shinkansen trains. I did not feel that this pass was necessary for me.
My day started out at Akihabara electric city. I've read on Wikitravel that supposedly, the main street, the Chuo-dori is closed on Sundays to traffic and that its full of cosplayers. Neither were true, it took me a while to find Chuo-dori, it was open to traffic, and the only cosplayers I found were "Maids" from Maid cafes promoting their cafes. As a result I did not stay long and ended up taking the train across the city to the city to Yoyogi park. Yoyogi park was much nicer, there was some interesting fashion there and it was a nice place to just walk around. I might've spent more time there if it wasn't for the heat. I read the mid-spring and mid-autmn are the best places to visit Japan, I have to strongly agree with this analysis. This is also where I tried the McTeriyaki burger at a Japanese McDonalds, it was very good and I strongly recommend it.
After spending most of my day out I returned to the Hostel. Overall, my feeling is Tokyo is a nice place to visit with friends or family. As a whole however, it feels like another large city. As a result I am looking forward to Akita which is pretty rural and its also why I want to go to Kyoto.
I spoke a little bit previously about the Narita Airport Hostel, Now I wish to talk about the Hostel I'm staying in Tokyo, Sakura Asakusa Hostel. If you ever need a cheap place to stay in Tokyo I would definitely recommend this place. The staff speakes English, there are vending machines, you can buy all you can eat breakfast for 315 yen (Around $3.25) which is toast with Jam and Tea which was fine with me. And instant noodles are on sale 24 hours a day (for 200 yen, around $2.05). The hostel is air conditioned, the front desk is always open, it has laundry services. Wireless internet is free.
Anyway, my plans for tomorrow is to check out the main campus of Tokyo University and the Ueno area. I will take advantage of this to take one of my bags to Ueno station from where I'll be taking the bullet train to Akita. I will lock the bag in a coin operated locker so that I don't have to carry both bags at the same time. Well, that's it for now, comments are welcome.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Tokyo -1
Hey, everyone, sorry for the delay, here is my first official entry from Japan. I have now been in Japan for almost 24 hours and I will try to talk about what happened so far. Just keep in mind that as I am writing this I am still jet lagged and the only food I had in the last 12 hours is a little bit of toast (I am currently waiting on my food that should be delivered to the Hostel I am at). I apologize that there are no pictures yet, but I promise THEY ARE COMING!
Flight: My Flight on All Nippon airways was OK, as good as a 13 hours and 40 minute flight can be. The service was good, the plane did take off 1 hour behind schedule, but I sort of expect that from JFK. The food did have an interesting Japanese side to it, there was a lot of fish, noodles with seaweed. There were some "rice snacks", that are similar to "chex mix", but apparently contained shrimp and crab oil. Definitely had a fishy taste.
Arrival:When I finally arrived, things did not go as smooth as I hoped (perhaps it was naive of me to believe that they would). Having only gotten 3 hours worth of sleep the night before my flight, and only about 1 hour during the flight I was pretty exhausted. My first action upon arrival was to call my parents. In order to do this I took out my "survival packet" which contained phone numbers, how to call the states, directions. After I called my parents, I lost my packet. I don't know what I did with it, all that I know is that it disapeared between somewhere between the plane and passport control. I don't know where it went. I ended up calling my parents and asking them to look up the phone number, ouf, So thumbs up for them to look it up for me.
Narita Airport Hostel: This was where I stayed the first, the owner picked me up after I called him and took me to the Hostel. Its a relatively small place that only costs about $20 a night with the pick up. The ride to the hostel was my first taste of Japan, driving on the right definitely felt like being in another dimension. The hostel had some interesting people form Italy, US, Indonesia. People in Hostels have a taste for travel so it was interesting to talk to them. The bed was on a traditional Japanese Futon. One note about the owner, thumbs up to him as he runs this Hostel completely alone. This makes a 365 day 24/7 job, no idea how he does it.
To Tokyo: Ok, advice to anyone travling DO NOT DO NOT take more then 1 50 lb bag with you. It will be very difficult to carry 2. I had no trouble buying the tickets for both my train to Tokyo and my Bullet train that I am taking to Akita on Tuesday. One interesting thing on the train station is that as soon as I showed any sign of being confused an attendant would run to me and help. I then had an exsiding 1.5 hour ride in a "subway" type train to Tokyo with 2 50lb bags. My hands were pretty tired during the trip. It was interesting to watch some Japanese people sleeping on the train, some of them had very "intense" expressions. Upon my arrival to Tokyo I had the difficult task of dragging my bags to the Hostel. First, the train station in Tokyo unlike the one in the airport had no elevators. After some struggling with the bags some Japanese men were nice enough of to help with them. ONe thing, the weathere here is humid, according to the Hostel directions that I had, the walk from the station should take 10 minutes. With the bags it took about 1 hour, I had to stop and rest several times, good thing that beverage machines were at every corner, otherwise I was really concerned that I would dehydrated. It was hot. O the positive side, during this walk I did walk through a cool market street, saw some tempeles as well as people wearing traditional Kimonos, "Sweet loli" style and the famous "Sailor school uniform".
Sakura Hostel Asakusa: I am now at Sakura Hostel Asakusa, the place looks pretty nice, as much as I want to go out and look around I am completely exhausted from carrying my bags around and I will probably just rest for a little bit. The fact that I am sitll jet lagged and that I only ate toast probably aren't helping the matter. So I will probably just rest here for another few hours. Ok, To be continued...
Flight: My Flight on All Nippon airways was OK, as good as a 13 hours and 40 minute flight can be. The service was good, the plane did take off 1 hour behind schedule, but I sort of expect that from JFK. The food did have an interesting Japanese side to it, there was a lot of fish, noodles with seaweed. There were some "rice snacks", that are similar to "chex mix", but apparently contained shrimp and crab oil. Definitely had a fishy taste.
Arrival:When I finally arrived, things did not go as smooth as I hoped (perhaps it was naive of me to believe that they would). Having only gotten 3 hours worth of sleep the night before my flight, and only about 1 hour during the flight I was pretty exhausted. My first action upon arrival was to call my parents. In order to do this I took out my "survival packet" which contained phone numbers, how to call the states, directions. After I called my parents, I lost my packet. I don't know what I did with it, all that I know is that it disapeared between somewhere between the plane and passport control. I don't know where it went. I ended up calling my parents and asking them to look up the phone number, ouf, So thumbs up for them to look it up for me.
Narita Airport Hostel: This was where I stayed the first, the owner picked me up after I called him and took me to the Hostel. Its a relatively small place that only costs about $20 a night with the pick up. The ride to the hostel was my first taste of Japan, driving on the right definitely felt like being in another dimension. The hostel had some interesting people form Italy, US, Indonesia. People in Hostels have a taste for travel so it was interesting to talk to them. The bed was on a traditional Japanese Futon. One note about the owner, thumbs up to him as he runs this Hostel completely alone. This makes a 365 day 24/7 job, no idea how he does it.
To Tokyo: Ok, advice to anyone travling DO NOT DO NOT take more then 1 50 lb bag with you. It will be very difficult to carry 2. I had no trouble buying the tickets for both my train to Tokyo and my Bullet train that I am taking to Akita on Tuesday. One interesting thing on the train station is that as soon as I showed any sign of being confused an attendant would run to me and help. I then had an exsiding 1.5 hour ride in a "subway" type train to Tokyo with 2 50lb bags. My hands were pretty tired during the trip. It was interesting to watch some Japanese people sleeping on the train, some of them had very "intense" expressions. Upon my arrival to Tokyo I had the difficult task of dragging my bags to the Hostel. First, the train station in Tokyo unlike the one in the airport had no elevators. After some struggling with the bags some Japanese men were nice enough of to help with them. ONe thing, the weathere here is humid, according to the Hostel directions that I had, the walk from the station should take 10 minutes. With the bags it took about 1 hour, I had to stop and rest several times, good thing that beverage machines were at every corner, otherwise I was really concerned that I would dehydrated. It was hot. O the positive side, during this walk I did walk through a cool market street, saw some tempeles as well as people wearing traditional Kimonos, "Sweet loli" style and the famous "Sailor school uniform".
Sakura Hostel Asakusa: I am now at Sakura Hostel Asakusa, the place looks pretty nice, as much as I want to go out and look around I am completely exhausted from carrying my bags around and I will probably just rest for a little bit. The fact that I am sitll jet lagged and that I only ate toast probably aren't helping the matter. So I will probably just rest here for another few hours. Ok, To be continued...
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
1 week to go
Packing is in full gear, I am making final itinerary changes, deciding on how and how much to pack, ocassionally I glance into my Japanese textbook as there is nothing more annoying then me realizing that I don't remember what the Katakana "WA" looks like. Currently the weather forecast for both JFK and Narita is Thunderstorms on the times that I travel, of course in my experience weather.com predictions almost feel like guesses sometimes. On the other hand I made some changes to this blog's layout, this way its no longer ugly, the text is no longer stretched out, and there are no more of those weird orange colors.
Monday, August 10, 2009
10 Days to Go
So I've been trying to make some final plans. The subway map seems to make more sense to me now and is actually quite useful since most when I read about some place I want to visit, it always says which train station is near by. Using the map I have a pretty good idea how far away everything is. This link gave me a more realistic idea about how much I can expect to spend a day. 7300 Yen is a little over $73, so it seems rather expensive without accommodation. Luckily it seems like this cost is on the higher side, I have no intention of spending 1500 yen on Dinner every night or 2500 yen on admission every day either. I like the fact that whoever wrote this made sure to include water in their cost, since I'll be arriving in August it might very humid in Tokyo and I will definitely carry around some water with me. My current list of places to visit in the 2.5 days in Tokyo includes Asakusa, Tokyo Tower, Bunkyo (to check out the main campus of Tokyo University), Akihbara, Ueno, and the Imperial Palace. Hopefully this will keep me occupied during the 2.5 days that I spend in Tokyo. I will be arriving to Narita on the 21st, heading to Tokyo on the 22nd, and going to Akita on the morning of the 25th. I guess this could've been more fun if I had someone else to check out Tokyo with me, oh well, I would still feel like its a waste to go through Tokyo without stopping.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
2 weeks to go
So with 2 weeks to go it seems that everything's been taken care of, the plane tickets, the visas, the doctor's visits, dentist visits. I am leaving for Tokyo on August 20th and arriving on August 21st. I am going into Tokyo on August 22nd. I've been trying to put together sort of a survival guide for the first coupe of days including maps, directions to hostels, directions to points of interest and all those kinds of things. I will note that whoever came up with the idea of numbering streets and avenues in NYC is pretty smart, NYC is very easy to navigate. This doesn't seem to be the case with Tokyo, check out the subway map . There are 2 companies, according to a website I found you can buy a ticket for unlimited subway rides for 1 or 2 days, but it only works on one company so I have no idea if its worth it. Packing....
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