Revealed: Japan's Inner Musical

I’ve been known to make far-out connections and parallels, but hear me out on this one.  Over the past week, I have concluded that Japan has incorporated key aspects of “The Sound of Music” into its peoples’ everyday lives.

Case A: Doe, a deer, a female deer

Because one of the many Japanese holidays gloriously set us free from the bondage that is classes, I was able to venture to Nara two Thursdays ago.  The only way that I can really describe Nara with the utmost accuracy possible is to say that it is a magical fairy tale land. 

Not exaggerating. 

One of Nara’s main icons/attractions is its great abundance of adorable, people-friendly deer.    These deer roam freely all around the park and, essentially, the town.  Visitors can go right up to them and feed them/pet them/take pictures with them/all-around obsess about them...and the little buddies won’t—for the most part—even flinch.  Japanese legend says the deer arrived with some mythological creature or something.  Whatever the truth about the past, the truth about the present is that these deer are incredibly cute and tame and fun and entertaining...and cute (Did I mention that already?).

Aside from the deer though, Nara is also home to the Tadaiji Temple, as well as some other substantial temples, shrines and whatnot.  The Tadaiji Temple houses a famous giant Buddha statue.  Maybe “giant Buddha statue” doesn’t sound so exciting, but don’t take “giant” lightly, as it was all much more grand than I could anticipate.  My camera really couldn’t capture the essence (too big to even get a person next to it to have some type of scale), but try and imagine this picture approximately a billion times larger:

The only kind of non-fairy tale-ish aspect of the whole experience was the fact that it started to downpour before our day was even half finished.   Yeah, it was kind of a glaring setback actually.  Alas, we will definitely be making a trip back to Nara—not only because everything will be (even) prettier and more enjoyable in the cherry blossom season, but more so because I am now on a quest to bring a deer home.

Well helloooo there!

Case B: Music.  Plain and simple. 

“The Sound of Music” emphasizes a love of, well, music, and the popularity of karaoke in Japan is right in line with this passion.  Karaoke is an extremely common social activity in Japan; it’s a key staple of weekend night activity.  Last weekend, I had my first Japanese karaoke experience, and you know what?  It’s not overrated in the least.  Actually, it’s pretty much one of the most fun things ever.

The kind of karaoke to which I’m referring is very different from the American idea of karaoke, where one person stands in front of a roomful of judgmental eyes and painfully sings through a “unique” version of some cheesy, well-known song.  In Japan, karaoke is both more private yet more group-orientated at the same time.  I know that makes no sense, but it’s true.  I'll elaborate.

The karaoke places here (Yes, karaoke places. There are a lot of them, too.)  consist of many small rooms.  Each group of people gets one of these little, private rooms, which are complete with a television screen, two microphones and a touch screen song-selector remote control.   Oh, and there are menus for food and drinks.  Can’t forget that tidbit.

Anyway, inside these little karaoke havens, group members can choose their desired song choices and sing until all their hearts are content...well, for a certain fee per hour, of course.  When group members choose from the endless library of songs (filled with both old and new selections), the chosen song appears on the screen—lyrics, music video, surround-sound and all.  People can pass around the touch screen device to add their individual requests onto the queue.  I guess it’s like a mixture of a jukebox and a sing-along.

Seriously, it was so amazing how much fun this simple activity of essentially just singing together turned out to be.  For some reason, it’s really addicting; in short, we stayed way too late and missed the last bus so had to take a cab home.  Side note: That was the first time I’ve been in a car here.  Driving on the other (not wrong; that would be oh-so-ethnocentric of me) side of the road and having a car-full of foreign exchange students giving directions to a strictly Japanese-speaking driver in the wee hours of the morning was...er, a really smart move.  We did make it in the end though, and the fare turned out to be only a little more than the bus, once we split it among all of us.  Loving the door-to-door service possibilities this opens up.

I would say the only (ONLY) flaw I have been able to find with karaoke so far is the multitude of Lady Gaga songs it has led me to currently have playing on repeat inside my head.   Ra-ra-ah-ah-ah, Roma Roma-ma, GaGa ooh la la...So incredibly catchy, but they really do work well for the activity.  Now we are seriously here on guard all week long for good karaoke songs.  I’ll admit that I, myself, have jotted down a few tunez that have popped into my head during classes.  There’s nothing worse than finally getting your hands on that song-selector remote control only to realize you forgot the song you were itching all week to enjoy.  You think I’m kidding.

Case C:  The more plates on the table, the better. 

The von Trapp family is a big family.  All the way from Captain von Trapp (the father) down to the youngest child (can’t remember/probably never knew his/her name), there are eight von Trapps in total.  Naturally, this means that when the von Trapps all manage to eat dinner together, the table is full—of people and therefore of plates.  The following is a bit of a stretch; I know.   But I feel like I would be jipping all of you if I didn’t get the sushi on the conveyor belts in here somewhere.  

It’s a well-known fact that sushi is very prevalent in Japan.  What is not so well-known, however, is how exactly this now-global dish is often presented in its country of origin.  The other night, I got to dine at one of the sushi restaurants where the sushi comes around the restaurant on a little conveyor belt, and diners simply grab whatever appeals to them.  At the end of the meal, the bill is formulated from the number of little plates in front of each person.  This particular conveyor-belt-sushi restaurant was called Kappa Sushi.

At Kappa Sushi, there are booths as well as regular counter (single) seats.  We sat in a spacious booth, helped ourselves to some water and—wait for it—green tea, and watched intently as the little dishes of assorted sushi, sashimi and other delights (including juice and desserts) whizzed by.

I’ve learned the hard way that if I take too much time contemplating if I want a certain plate or, more often, what a certain plate is, that plate will pass by me and I will miss out, anxiously awaiting a similar dish to come our table’s way.  I guess these kind of places can be interpreted as a great metaphor for life; you have to seize things as they come.  But I digress once again.

Luckily at Kappa Sushi, there is a saving grace if you do happen to naively let that certain plate pass.  Just like the beloved karaoke here, the beloved sushi place has touch screens, only their purposes are very different, of course.  Special requests can be entered at your table’s touch screen…

...and then the order arrives on the UPPER conveyor belt track via a mini shinkansen (the Japanese bullet train).  Once again, <3 Japan.

Anyway, to rehash the relation to the plates (which connects the big von Trapp family, for the record...in case I lost you there), the memorable image from these places is the stacks of plates piled high on each table at the completion of each party’s meal.  It’s great to look around as people are leaving; there are some Japanese families who really can fit a lot of sushi in them.  This never fails to leave me baffled on how they manage.

the table of two across from us (after the people left, of course)

So, in summary: von Trappsà big familyà lots of plates at dinnerà stacks of plates at Kappa Sushi.  It’s only logic.

Case D: These are a few of my favorite things.

I may not be constantly zeroing in on “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens” in Japanland, but I am continually encountering my own favorite things here.  Last weekend when we journeyed to Kobe’s Chinatown to ring in the Chinese New Year, I found a pair of shoes that had so many perfect elements it was almost intimidating.  Lightish-mauvish pink, a hint of sparkles, a krinkly material with pearls and a ribbon-made bow...Very Japanese, in short.  And they were only 1,000 yen!  That sounds like a lot, but a yen is almosttt (but not quite) equivalent to one U.S. penny...which means the shoes were almosttt (but not quite) 10 U.S. dollars.  Score!

Then, when we went to Gion, Kyoto (the geisha district) this past weekend, we somehow ended up at some park full of temples, shrines, ponds and shops.  You know, the norm.  On our quest to find where in this park Kiyomizu Temple existed (this we knew was true), we enjoyed an uphill stroll through narrow, winding streets of traditional shops and restaurants.  We eventually did find Kiyomizu Temple perched atop the hill, and it did turn out to be very nice and majestic and all, but the real heart of the matter right now came out of the traditional Kyoto sweet shops we passed along the way.  Shopworkers stood outside of these shops distributing cups of hot tea and thereafter inviting pedestrians in to sample all of the candy.  I don’t know how this actually evened out on the shopowners’ side since I think I saw, like, two people purchasing a box of candy yet well over a bazillion enjoying the generous free items, but I guess that’s not my problem, now is it?  Tea, candy and free...In my eyes, nothing can be better.

Case E: The hills are aliiiiive!

Last Monday morning started like any other morning; I woke up, stayed lying on my futon for a bit regretting how late I stayed up the night before, swore to myself I would go to sleep earlier that night (I feel like it’s ok to break promises when they’re to myself), hastily got up and folded my futon, and proceeded to throw myself into the shower.  But upon my return to my room, things started to get shaky.

Like, literally.  Shaky.  As I opened my amoire and pondered what outfit to dress myself in that day,  I started to feel a rumble.  At first, I subconsciously dismissed the obvious movement as a figment of my imagination...or perhaps a lawnmower.  But then my roommate (from Mexico) looked up and nonchalantly said…

“Ooh,  we’re in an earthquake.” 

And after facing her statement with denial—or skepticism, depending on how one sees it—I proceeded to get dressed.  All of the earthquake safety instructions the faculty dictated to us during orientation here may have slipped my mind, but I did know that I didn’t want to be found in the rubble in my robe.
 

But just as quick as all of the action began, it stopped.  And gosh, you can quit worrying now because I am happy to report that I am a survivor!  After some research a la internet,  my roommates and I were assured that we were indeed not crazy/imagining things; there was indeed an earthquake.  Sure, the epicenter was only 3.8 on the Richter Scale, and our area was even less than that (approximately 2, I think), but we were still excited/nervous/weirded out that we just felt and survived an earthquake.  Go us.

Then, of course, the little shakeup we had became everyone’s favorite conversation starter for pretty much the rest of the week.  “Hey, did you feel that earthquake?”

You may be surprised (maybe even downright shocked!) to hear that I haven’t actually seen “The Sound of Music” since it was playing on ABC Family in middle school (great day), but for some reason this all just clicked.  I don’t know if the real question is why Japan’s mind is on this classic musical, or why mine is.  Either way, there you have it: the comparison you probably never thought was possible.  Take it or leave it; just don’t say that you didn’t hear it from me first.  

Reading is Cool

It’s true, trusty blog readers; reading is cool.  Take it from someone who has seen the other side.

The Japanese writing system is different from most languages in the sense that one can be familiar with a range of words, know the basic alphabet and understand how to put the two together, yet still not be able to read something as basic as a street sign.   You see, the language has not one, not two, but three writing systems that are all utilized simultaneously in everyday life—hiragana, katakana and kanji.  While it is certainly possible to write out any Japanese word using hiragana’s 46 syllabic-sound characters, things are not actually done so simply.  Katakana—a system consisting of another 46 characters—is used exclusively to spell out words with foreign roots (ex: the word for “ice cream” is spelled in katakana and sounds like “aisukurimu”... Sound it out and say it out loud, and then you’ll understand).  And then there’s kanji.  This system—the real troublemaker of it all—is used to “abbreviate” things, per se. 

But while I obvs find abbrevs a totes legit form of communication, kanji just does not have the same desired effect.  You know those intricate pictures you see in Asian languages? ...the ones that have lots of lines and/or dots and somehow are known to mean a range of things—like “rain” or “happiness,” for instance?  Well, that is (unfortunately for foreigners like me) kanji.  As if the intricacy of these characters isn’t enough to cause confusion and/or cluelessness, there are just SO MANY of them.  The exact number of kanji is up for debate, but it’s something like 50,000 I think. And how they are combined with one another changes the reading as well as the meaning.  For example, each kanji has a kunyomi (Japanese reading)  and an onyomi (Chinese reading); it’s the combination of other characters with which each is grouped that determines which reading is appropriate, and finally the overall meaning of the word.

Anyway, I’m getting a tad bit too in-depth here (point proven: kanji are extensive and complex), but now I believe you all have a good foundation to understand (and sympathize...not that I’m looking for sympathy, of course.  But it’s always nice) that my lack of reading ability is really not a lack of effort and/or interest in learning.  I do know hiragana and katakana, and I do read material written in these forms with hopes of stumbling upon familiar words and sentence structures, but the reality is that kanji replaces these writing systems in 99 percent of instances.  And while I certainly can read, write and group some kanji, I do not know many at all in the big picture of things (aka the picture of the 50,000 kanji characters), which means it’s hard to get any idea about most of the messages written materials around here are trying to convey.  When I don’t know the kanji, I don’t even have the option of “sounding out” the word and seeing if it rings some bell, somewhere.

But being the optimist I am (naturally), I recognize that some good has indeed come out of this situation.  That is, from essentially not being able to read, I have noticed just how AWESOME the whole system really is.  It’s not like I was ever against reading; it’s just I never had the opportunity to radically take it out of my life and therefore truly experience just how much I use—and depend on—it.  I mean, everywhere I’ve been, I’ve always been able to somewhat read ...except when I was, like, really, really little I guess, but everything was done for me then anyway.  These days, when I’m in a foreign country and there’s nobody to pick up the slack for me when I can’t differentiate a carton of skim milk from a carton of whole milk, things are a lot harder. 

I wish I was kidding when I say I haven’t bought milk since I’ve been here because I don’t know which one to buy.  But sadly I’m not.   I really don’t know which is skim, and I would hate to waste calories accidentally drinking whole milk when I could be enjoying a box of these cute little koala crème- filled cookies we’ve come to worship here.  (Just FYI, currently there’s a limited edition maple milk, aka “mepuru miruku,” flavor on the market, and it is utterly diviiiiine.)  And the complications are beyond the dairy aisle.  Really, the whole supermarket is a free-for-all.  Here’s a fun game: Take a bunch of people who don’t really know how to cook, add a store of ingredients they deem odd-looking/unknown, and slap on labels that they can barely understand (save the generous pictures).  Then, see what those foreigners stir up for dinner.

Even past food shopping and preparing, there are tons of other reading-dependent tasks and activities as well.  I put off my laundry for an embarrassing length of time merely because I did not know which substance was a laundry detergent, let alone one that wouldn’t bleach and/or shrink my clothes (Don’t worry, my clothes have since been washed and have survived unscathed), and each form I fill out requires a level of assistance on which I'm not used to relying (Fortunately the university at which I’m studying purposely helps with these things, but it’s still weird/annoying to not be able to do it myself).  Then there was the ultimate low at the train station, when two boys no older than nine helped us figure out our train route and accompanying fare.  Such wise little ones.

The bottom line?  I have gained a new perspective on how the illiterate must feel, and simultaneously how important literacy is.  Everything is a million times harder without the ability to read ...I’ve realized I’ve taken for granted how much I automatically read and comprehend.  As three friends here and I crowd around a pack of gum, slowly sounding out any hint of katakana and trying to pool together our varied kanji knowledge to merely figure out the flavor, it gets frustrating.  Honestly, oftentimes we find ourselves just looking at the picture, even though this nine times out of ten results in an unsatisfactory purchase (No, although it may have sounded cool, even Japan does not have grape yogurt...That purple fruit on the container was a prune).  Patience is a virtue that we do not always have.

Fortunately though, I’m of course still not really illiterate (obviously).  I mean luckily for me, my ability to read and write English can help me get around my home country’s society or whatever, and luckily for you, my English literacy allows me to produce quality blog content that you can all comprehend...and enjoy at your leisure slash when I finally get around to updating (self fault noted).  But even more entertaining at the moment is the fact that I am ironically able to appreciate a form of literacy in Japan in a way that most Japanese themselves do not—the very-prevalent attempts by the Japanese to use English on signs, clothes, notebooks, etc, which is widely referred to as “Engrish.”  Yep, you may not know kanji (or hiragana and katakana, for that matter), but as English speakers, readers and writers, you’ll be able to chuckle at my favorite recent Engrish spottings, too.

The picture's a little blurry, but the cover of this notebook reads:

"This is the most comfortable notebook you have ever run into.  You will feel like writing with it all the time."

Also a little blurry, unfortunately.  Found this in the midst of meticulously searching for the perfect notebook.  If this wasn't a binder and very overpriced, I definitely would have bought it because it pretty much voiced my thoughts verbatim.

"To begin with, let's be particular about our stationery so we can enjoy our campus life.  I'm sure studying will be fun.  But I feel happiest after school and on holiday."

 "In case of fire in a train...   the train basically joins the next station"

Romantic?

Interesting choice in name for a children's clothing store...

Arrival and Orientation Whirlwind

In a good way, it has taken me a while to actually sit down and get to this blog.  I have successfully arrived in Japan, and this past week and a half has been a true whirlwind of new and interesting things.  I’m glad I expected so much culture shock because literally everything I do or everywhere I go is at least a little bit different from home.  But let me start from the beginning.

The Flight

I’m not going to lie and say I wasn’t nervous sitting at a gate at the San Francisco airport with “Osaka, Japan” illuminated on that little board above the service desk.  It was daunting, to be honest.  As I sat there as a minority, I felt as if I would be the only one in the country who was, well, clueless.  However, soon another girl who appeared to be a college student sat down by me, and shortly after that a group of three more student-looking people came our way.  Looking back, it was kind of amusing, as each of us was nervously smiling/observing, innerly debating if it was ok to ask if we were going to the same place.  Eventually, someone did break the ice.  After a timid, “Are you by any chance going to Kansai Gaidai?”  we all realized we were indeed in the same boat (or plane HAHA) and started to talk, which magically quelled many nerves. 

Then it was time to board.  Walking on the jetway before getting on the plane that would take me across the world for four months felt incredibly dramatic.  But nonetheless, I stepped foot on the aircraft at last and worked my way to the rear of the plane (compromise for a self-deemed necessary aisle seat) to find the tiny area I would be confined in for the next twelve and a half hours.  Upon spotting that lovely aisle seat dubbed 35B, I found that a relatively young non-Asian guy was sitting next to me.  This piqued my interest because I wondered what his story for going to Osaka was.  There was bound to be a story.  Turned, out, this guy worked in California for the research division of Kawasaki (motorcycles) and the company regularly sends him to the factory...in Osaka, Japan.  This was his ninth time going, and he wasn’t that old.  Kind of felt bad because I was incredibly excited for the arrival and he was incredibly not.

After some good movies (“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” lived up to my high expectations, and “Paper Heart”  pleasantly surprised me as extremely enjoyable) and not-so-good airline meals (save the green tea that the flight attendants consistently distributed with the beverage cart AND after meals), it was time to land.

So the plane landed on the little manmade island that is Kansai International Airport (How cool/freaky for landing/Japanese is that?!), and I de-boarded.  Due to time zones, it was suddenly 5pm the day after I left.  The other Kansai Gaidai-bound people and I met, claimed our luggage and breathed a sigh of relief that everything made it there safely with us, and went through the ultra-quiet immigration and customs, at which we were thoroughly fingerprinted and photographed.  Fact: That picture is getting prime real estate on my "awkward photos" tab.  Then I was finally able to go to the bathroom; and there I encountered my first heated toilet seat/toilet with many options in general.  Welcome to Japan.

The Seminar House

It was still daylight when we landed but by the time the bus to the university left, the sun was set.  This was a little bit of a bummer to not be able to see anything on the one and a half hour drive to campus because the whole flight was weirdly in daylight, even though it was over twelve hours and we left from Cali in like the middle of the day.  We just kept flying through those time zones.  But nonetheless, I did at last reach my seminar house (the housing for the international students in this program).  I embarrassingly lugged my overpacked suitcases into the lobby of Seminar House 3, was reminded I needed to take my shoes off and place them in my assigned shelf-thing in the entranceway ( <3 Japan), and was whisked away for a brief tour of my new home. 

When I reached my unit, I met my suitemates...and was happy to discover the wonderful accommodations, both with the people and actual place.  The people are so diverse!   There are four rooms of two, with only one other girl from the U.S. (Georgia).  The others hail from Brazil, Denmark, Argentina, Poland, Mexico (my roommate!!) and Canada.  Everyone’s really nice/a lot of fun.  Plus, for the first week we had some additional people in the unit because homestay students didn’t move in with their families until the end of orientation.  Just adds to the excitement!

The actual suite consists of a comfortable living room area,

a spacious kitchen (complete with not one but TWO rice cookers, believe it or not),

an ultra clean bathroom (sorry, didn't take a picture) and the eight-square tatami mat rooms in which we sleep and have our desk, closet,  FUTON, etc.  Yes, the futon is comfortable.  Actually really comfortable! I’ll post pictures of this sometime soon I suppose.

It also should goes without saying that EACH of these areas is incredibly clean and new-looking, not just the bathroom.  It’s a major constant in Japan: spic and span.  For instance, note how garbage is separated here.  We had in-depth orientation instruction and discussions about this complicated matter...like in even greater detail.  It’s kind of a big deal?

Orientation Week Activities

Orientation activities started the immediate morning after the night I arrived.  Amazingly, I adapted to the 14 hour time difference with incredible ease, since I was simply able to go to sleep when I got in that night and therefore get a regular night’s sleep.  Couldn’t have asked for better timing.  Orientation consisted of multiple meetings, ranging from welcoming ceremonies to banking sessions to faculty introductions to a “Living in Japan” seminar. 

The “Living in Japan” seminar covered topics such as “how to ride a bike in Japan” as well as “how to survive an earthquake.”  Fortunately I haven’t experienced the value of the earthquake safety info, but I certainly have found the biking session extremely useful.  You see, bikes here are a big deal.  Basically everyone rides one, so walkers like me are constantly dodging them.  Because so many people ride bikes, there are strict rules concerning them.  I learned in the orientation session that every bike must be registered and have a certain kind of lock.  If a police officer catches a bike rider without proper registration, the rider can be arrested.  But that’s not even the whole story.  Furthermore, it is against the law for a bike rider to carry an umbrella, use a phone, not have a light, ride someone else's bike, ride drunk...the list goes on.  Plus, matters are even more complicated for people like me because of the whole driving-on-the-other-side-of-the-road business.  Long story short: I'm not getting a bike here.

Of course the orientation activities haven’t been taking up all of our time.  We’ve also been exploring the neighborhood...and beyond.  After the first day we went to the local 99 yen store (kind of like a dollar store, but an even better variety of items/food).  Yes, entertaining.  We also discovered a little (keyword: little.  The place consists of two tables) okinomuyaki restaurant right down the street from that beloved store.  Okinomuyaki is a pancake/omelet-type Japanese dish that’s especially popular in the Kansai area.  Each table has a grill in the center...kind of like Benihana, but, well, definitely not Benihana.  The random restaurant we walked into turned out to be REALLY good.  I will admit that I’ve been looking forward to the night when enough time has passed that it would be acceptable to go again.  I can still taste those little onion flake toppings that sizzled when the waiter set the pancake-like object on the table's grill.

Another night we walked down to Hirakata station, which is the “downtown” area of the university’s town.  This was the first time we were in a real Japanese shopping area, so everything there was pretty intriguing, even though it isn’t really a major place.  “Kiddyland” has everything Hello Kitty, plus every other Japanese cartoon line.  There was even Hello Kitty bottled water.  When we found our first Japanese mutli-level supermarket/department store combination, we were kept busy and happy for pretty much the rest of the night.

Then last Friday, when most of the orientation obligations were over, we had our first chance to go to Kyoto!  Small groups of international students were matched with Japanese students who volunteered to take us around.  Our group was matched with a few Japanese girls who were--to put it simply--awesome.  The girls took us on a train to Kyoto and then we got on a bus.  None of the international kids really knew the itinerary, so this bus ride kind of felt extremely long.  Therefore, we naturally started to make conversation with the people around us.  It turned out the three guys next to us were Korean med students who were fluent in English and spending a few days traveling in Japan.  And they were heading to the same temple—the Golden Pavilion/Rokuon-Ji Temple.  So they stuck around our group, and even posed for some pictures.

After the temple, we caught the bus again.  We clueless international students assumed we were returning to the train to return to campus, but suddenly the Japanese girls told us to get off at some random stop.  Like a herd of sheep, we obeyed.  We filed into an arcade, and it was just like a movie—like a fantasy world of colorful, flashing machines beeping and singing and filled with random but oddly desirable prizes.  Evidently though (and to our brief dismay) this was still not our destination; the Japanese girls quickly ushered us down an escalator, and waiting for us at the bottom was this:

Yup, there was a whole floor—rows and rows—of purikura, the photobooth sticker machines that you can draw/add an incredible range of designs and features.  Now this felt like another world.  Even though we couldn’t really all fit in one purikura camera lense, our whole group did a bazillion takes.  And then each of us had to take a spin at decorating, of course.  I have proudly added one of the printed photo stickers to my Japanese cell phone.  My goal is to go all out with the cell phone stickers and charms here.  Word.

After exiting the entrancing world of purikura, we learned that the final stop of the day was dinner.  Dinner in Kyoto?  Who knew!  At first, the Japanese girls wanted to bring us to one of the sushi places where various plates come around on a conveyor belt and diners simply grab what they want, but sadly the small place did not have enough space to accommodate us.  Thus, we decided to split up.  Some people went to an udon restaurant, but I chose to stick with the ramen crew.  We found a small, traditional ramen shop, and even this was an experience.  To put it simply, we ordered from a machine and then sat in a classroom-like format—tables of two that were more like desks, as the tables were in rows and each chair faced the kitchen.  I got some chicken ramen thing.  Like so many other things this week, it was far from what I expected and/or pictured.  But it was good.  In fact, it kind of tasted like chicken noodle soup.  Almost.    

The next day, I ventured to Osaka with some of the people from the Kyoto group.   To be honest, most of the day was spent figuring out which trains to take, when to get off, where to transfer, etc.  In other words, most of the day consisted of us asking an embarrassing number of passerbys (in severely broken Japanese) how to get from Point A to Point B. Ultimately though, we did make it to our destination of the Umeda area of Osaka, and right by the station there was another one of the humungous Japanese multi-level department stores, which was perfect because someone needed a camera and other various items.  So yes, we pretty much ended up shopping all day.  But no worries because we'll be back soon.  Eventually we discovered some alleyways that had numerous small restaurants, pachinko/slot sites, more decked-out arcades and clubs.   It sounds sketchy but it really wasn’t.

Now classes started this week.  Ultimate slap of reality, but so far they're pretty interesting at least.  Japanese five days a week is just going to be a killer.  More on that as the semester unfolds though; I am aware this is an obnoxiously long blog post, but there is simply just a lot that happened in a little amount of time.  From here on out blog posts should be more like, well, blog posts and less like novellas.  Sorry, but I started to write this play-by-play out of a desire for proper documentation and then just felt like I might as well get it all out.  But thanks for reading if you made it this far!