Yokohama Mama!

Well hello, faithful readers!

Quick word about Friday night. A few friends and I went to a local bar Friday night to hang out and it was quite nice because I actually met a few Japanese people with whom I was able to practice my Japanese. I met one woman who was supposedly a famous singer in Japan – the bar had a bunch of posters of her posted all around. We played darts, chatted, and generally had a good time. It was nice to meet some Japanese friends, since I do spend a lot of my time around Americans, something I hope to change soon.

Yesterday, I went on a TUJ-led trip to Yokohama, the 2^nd largest city in Japan. It was only about a 35 minute train ride south of my dorm, so it was sort of like where White Plains is in relation to NYC. On the way down, we actually passed by fields of trees and other nature-y stuff like that, sights that we don’t see very often in Tokyo. When we got there, it was like we were in a totally different country. The air was so clean (compared to here, though I didn’t really realize the quality, or lack thereof, of the air in Tokyo until I went to Yokohama) and there was so much more space. All in all, Yokohama really reminded me of a combination between the pier area in Baltimore and someplace like Boston.

So we got to Yokohama and went to the top of the Landmark Tower, the tallest building in Japan. It’s fairly small (69 floors) in comparison to the Sears Tower and what not, but the views were spectacular. What was also cool was the elevator that took us up 69 floors in a little under 40 seconds. It was good fun. After buying a 200 yen packet of mixed nuts (hey, I was hungry), we went back down and headed over to the pier for our taxi ride to Yamashita Park and Chinatown. The boat looked like some sort of compressed fish, but it was fun being on the water and seeing the quite picturesque skyline of Yokohama from a distance.

We arrived at Yamashita Park soon thereafter, which is supposedly really fun in March and April when it gets warmers, because a lot of street performers and jugglers come out and bands play and people just hang out. Yokohama is most famous for its Chinatown, however, and rightfully so. A friend of mine asked me how it compared to New York’s version, and all I could say was “It’s about 100x cleaner and a lot more spaced out”. I definitely didn’t feel that eerily unsafe feeling that I get sometimes walking around Mott St. in NYC. There were street vendors everywhere selling various touristy trinkets, like those cats with the waving arms and weird turtle things. It was a really neat place, because next to all the shops and stuff were a bunch of temples and shrines. The other really big difference I noticed was that there wasn't much "Chinese" around. Most of the signs were in Japanese. Whereas in New York, the second you walk into Chinatown, everyone is seemingly Chinese, here it was more like being in an Epcot Center version of Chinatown. Nonetheless, we ate at a fabulous Chinese restaurant, perhaps the best I’ve had in years, and then walked around for a while and watched a friend of mine eat a scorpion (“It tastes like exoskeleton”, he said afterward.)

Next we went to Motomachi, a shopping area, got a snack and just walked around for a bit. After that, the bigger group disbanded and a group of 11 of us went over to Cosmo World, Yokohama’s amusement park, to ride the Ferris Wheel (the "Cosmo Clock" or "Co-su-mo ku-ra-ku" in Japanese). The Ferris Wheel in Yokohama is the second largest in the world, right behind the London Eye (in London, duh). I think it’s about 430 feet high or so. At night, it’s brilliantly lit up and quite spectacular (see the picture below for a glimpse). After a 30-minute wait, we finally got on and got to see all of Yokohama at night. You haven’t really seen Japan until you see it at night from 25 stories high in a Ferris Wheel.

Afterwards, we went to dinner in this enormous mall and then headed home, exhausted. It was definitely a great trip and really gave me one of those “I’m in Japan” moments that I mentioned in my last entry. If given a choice, I’d probably live in Yokohama over Tokyo, just because of the atmosphere. It’s a very laid back place and has everything you need right there. Plus, its really nice to be right on the water.

Next weekend, we head off for an overnight stay in Hakone, the hot springs capital of Japan. Hopefully I will be able to get a glimpse of Mt. Fuji, since it has been a bit too hazy to see it whenever I’ve been anywhere where it is visible. I'm also going to DEFINITELY mess up the hot springs "rules" and "rituals", like washing yourself before, etc. etc. etc., so I'm sure I'll have some great stories to share.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention (lucky you I remembered!) that I used a Japanese-style toilet for the first time yesterday, which is basically like a submerged urinal in the ground. Basically, you just squat and pray. It was quite uncomfortable and left me wondering why that aspect of Japan isn’t as technically advanced as other parts. I mean COME ON, I rode a escalator yesterday in Yokohama that curved around a corner. Use some of that technology and convert all the old-style toilets please! Western-style toilets are numerous, and actually most of them have heated seats, perfume spray, etc. It was quite a shock to use the old style, though I guess I had to do it eventually!

Jaa mata ne!

Two experiences

What a day.

Today had two distinct experiences that affected me in completely different ways.

#1:

This afternoon I had my second session at the International School, this time helping my teacher with “Humanities”. Currently, the 6^th graders were talking about intelligence and the brain and stuff like that, but before the lesson we all sat around in a circle on the carpet and had show-and-tell. I can’t remember the last time I actually participated in show-and-tell! So all the kids brought in something that they thought was special to them and were supposed to explain why it was special and who gave it to them. Some of these kids had amazing stories. For instance, one boy brought in a “Flight Book” his parents bought for him when he was a little kid, where he recorded data about every airplane flight he had taken. He had pretty much filled the whole book in 12 years and had logged almost 700 hours of flight.

Another girl (half Japanese, half American) brought in footprints from when she was a baby and her umbilical cord. It was funny, because the teacher was having everyone pass things around and tried to explain to Marissa that passing an umbilical cord around may be a bit much. Another girl brought in a necklace from her first communion in Africa. Anna, from Sweden, brought in her favorite stuffed rabbit. Every one of these kids had something special. Even the troublemaker Kyle, brought in his stuffed pig and said, I quote “When I get lonely all I do is hug it”. It was really cool to see all of these kids with their special items and how important they were to their lives. I didn’t really come prepared, so I winged it with the hemp necklace I was wearing that Renee made for me a few years ago. They loved it. I felt like a kid again.

After show-and-tell, we started to talk about proper interviewing technique, since the kids have an assignment to interview people about intelligence. So, of course, I was their practice interview subject. They asked me all sorts of questions: What is your favorite ice cream? Why do you like Tokyo? What inspired you to come here? After that, I was supposed to critique each of them and offer some tips. I mentioned that I was trained in interviewing at Cornell and gave a few general tips on eye contact, etc. What really made me smile was that Fiona (the teacher; the kids call her by her first name) wrote them on the board and titled them “Dan’s Tips” and everyone took them down in the notebook.

Before the end of the day, during cleanup, the kids were just running up to me and talking to me like I had known them for years, even though I just met them this week. It’s truly refreshing to have an experience like this, especially when I’m stuck around college kids all day. Hopefully I’ll have more fun stories to share.

#2:

I can safely say that this experience was the best thing, hands down, that I’ve done over the past 3 weeks (oh my god, three weeks already!!) in Tokyo. I went to the Tokyo Tower (see pictures) and went to the observatory to get another good birds-eye view of Tokyo. I spent a little while up there and looked through the souvenir shops but still had an hour and a half to kill before meeting someone for dinner. I decided to head over to Zozoji Shrine, which was right near by. I can’t really explain how it looked, so just looked at the pictures I posted. It was pretty incredible.

There were three or four smaller shrines and then big, main one. I decided to poke my head in and see what it was like inside. It was enormous. They were burning a bunch of incense at the door and it was quite warm, so it was really like walking into some sort of dream.

Here’s what made the experience special. The minute I walked in, a group of 7 monks came out of nowhere and just started to pray on the main prayer mat in front of the huge statue of Buddha. It was mesmerizing. I felt like I wasn’t even supposed to be there, even though there were chairs set up. They were all meditating and chanting and singing and ringing huge bells. At one point, one of the monks was hitting a wooden drum faster and faster to the chanting until it was like listening to the sound of a train passing by. I literally sat there for 45 minutes just watching these guys pray. I know it sounds corny, but it was really one of the first times where I was like “Wow, I’m in Japan.” I mean living in Tokyo IS living in Japan, but the city itself is quite like ones at home. I had a similar moment my freshman year at Cornell, when I was walking back to my dorm when the chimes started to play. This experience today really made me feel like I was here and was so moving, it nearly brought me to tears. I'm not terribly spiritual, but I felt like it, even if it was for just an hour.

Anyways, sorry for the long entry and the sappy stuff, but I definitely wanted to get these experiences down in writing, though I doubt I’ll forget them anytime soon.

This Saturday, we’re going on a trip to nearby Yokohama, which supposed is really neat and has a great Chinatown.

Keep in touch, ya’ll!

Jaa mata nee!

Culture Explosion!

Hey ya’ll.

So an exciting weekend was had in several different ways. On Friday was the aforementioned “party” that was thrown by TUJ for all of the students. They held it at this super smoky club in Roppongi and had a whole bunch of “culture-y” events for our viewing pleasure. We saw koto and shamisen (traditional Japanese instruments) player s, calligraphy artists, these two guys that painted pictures of you based on your “aura” (no idea what my aura would look like, but I’d guess it’d probably look like some sort of pile of dirty towels or something…), and more. The Sakura Blossom Queen (pictured with me, below, on the right side) also made a showing. I’m not quite sure what is so special about being said “Queen” but she gets to travel to different Sakura Blossom festivals and wave with her tiara on. By far the best part was John Gauntner, “The Sake Guy”. I mean, this guy knew EVERYTHING about sake imaginable, it was quite unreal. He brought us through the history of sake, how to tell good from bad, what prices to pay, etc. I’ll pass on one piece of advice to you guys: remember the word “Ginjo”. If the sake has “Ginjo” anywhere in it’s name, its good quality, according to him. They then had samples of 7 types of sake that you could try, and you were SUPPOSED to cross out the ones you drank on a card to prevent overconsumption, but obviously, that didn’t happen with many a-people.

Saturday I ventured off to Ueno Park to see some museums. The Western Art Museum happened to be closed, so I went to the Tokyo National Museum and saw a bunch of cool historical relics and junk like that. By far the coolest part of the day is when I happened upon a huge crowd of people in the middle of the park that were there for an event thrown by the Japanese Baseball League. There were 5 or 6 pro Japanese players there playing catch with a bunch of kids. It was really cool – I hung out for a while and took some pictures, even though I really didn’t know who any of the players were. According to the Japanese I talked to, one said “I hate baseball but I like crowds” and another said “Oh that guy is super famous but I forgot why” and another said “Baseballs sort of look like flying onions”, though I think something might have been lost in translation (not the movie!!!) there.

On Sunday me and my friend Dave decided to go see an Asian (yes, Asian) Hockey League game between the Seibu Prince Rabbits and the Nikko Ice Bucks. It was QUITE the experience. Most of the rules and stuff were the same, but the atmosphere was totally different. It was kind of like a soccer crowd, in a way, because everyone had huge flags and bass drums and were screaming and were lighting bonfires (not really) and basically just having a great time. In between periods, there were these little 5 year old cheerleader girls that sang some song and danced around and looked really cute. It was certainly a lot of fun. I’m quite excited for baseball season to start here in March so I can go and see what that is like as well.

Today, I started my internship at the Tokyo International School as a 6^th grade volunteer. Nothing TOO exciting happened, but being there definitely puts some energy into you and it was nice meeting a bunch of the kids. I go back on Thursday for “Humanities” lessons. They are learning about the brain. And you KNOW that it is a super-liberal school when the teacher I work with came up to me and pointed out the bulletin board where the kids just post any philosophical questions or riddles that they have for other people to ponder.

Fun!

I was told, also, that my blog needed more pics, so I put in some more for your viewing pleasure.

A View From the Top

So life has been pretty routine for the past few days, which is why I haven't really posted much -- basically because nothing much has really happened, save going to classes and stuff. Also, supposedly on Tuesday morning around 3AM there was an earthquake around the Tokyo area. Now, I woke up and heard people talking about it but kind of thought it was a dream. Nevertheless, it did happen and kinda freaked me out a little bit. The funny thing was, the only news service that reported it was CNN; no Japanese newspaper had any word of it. I guess that shows their frequency here. Still, it's kind of scary the first time and will probably freak me out again if it happens in the future. But I guess that's life in Tokyo!

Classes seem to be going pretty well so far, though I really only like my Japanese and Asian Business classes. The Int'l Marketing class I'm taking is a bit of a disappointment, since the professor, while very nice, is extremely dull and doesn't really know much about the field. Other than that, all is well. I visited the Tokyo International School on Wednesday to figure out how my internship was going to go. Going there was really like a breath of fresh air. It was basically a huge, colorful mass of kids running and playing and screaming and all in all just made me want to be 8 again. So I met with the Vice-Principal and we decided I'd help out with 6th grade. Great -- the puberty years.

I met with the two teachers that I'm going to help and the first thing one of them said to me was "Are you good at dealing with naughty boys?" to which I was responded "Uhh..." to which she responded "Because I tried to get them to stop putting lead in the microwave today and I couldn't." Sounds fun, right? But I'm sure it'll be a good experience especially because I'll be dealing with a totally different group of people than a bunch of college kids. I'll be going in for around 3 or 4 hours a week and helping teach Japanese and Science. They wanted me to help with Arts and Crafts until I drew them my rendition of the Tokyo Tower, which kind of looked like a giant toothpick with hair and 3 legs. That idea was shot down quickly.

This afternoon I went on another excursion down to Shinjuku to go to the top of the TMG building, which supposedly has great views of Tokyo. Well, they didn't lie. I could pretty much see the entire city, save for the outskirts due to some fog. It's pretty unbelievable how sprawling Tokyo really is. I mean in New York, you have the five boroughs, which are kind of all spread out but in Tokyo it's just a huge, freakin' mass of STUFF. Quite worth it! After that, I went to the nearby Hilton to kill some time before meeting friends for dinner and saw what "high culture" in Tokyo is like. In case you were wondering, high culture is an $190 9-course dinner at a French restaurant. Totally chic! I also went to the Keio Dep't Store, which was more like a mass of food vendors giving free samples to everyone. Quick tip: if you want a free meal in Tokyo, this is about as close as you are going to get. The short list of what I sampled is: gyoza, dried fruit including: cranberries, kiwis, strawberries, kumquats, a little cookie thing, chocolate, chocolate-covered pecans, etc. Quite the treatment. I bought some pecans. I felt bad.

Tomorrow night, TUJ is running a program about Japanese Culture including a performance by this amazing Koto (Japanese guitar) player, an appearance by Miss Sakura Blossom (yeah, I know), and a lecture by this guy John Gauntner who is THE authority on sake. He's even bringing 6 of his favorites for us to try. Should be great! Saturday is supposed to be rainy, so I'm thinking of going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where I hear they have a great temporary exhibit on Van Gogh and stuff like that. Sweet. Plus its 75 Yen (around 85 cents) for students to get in.

Anyways, don't forget to comment and keep in touch! Hope everyone is enjoying my travels because YOU AREN'T IN JAPAN AND I AM.

Jaa mata nee.

Did somebody say Sumo?

So yesterday we went to go see Sumo wrestling. I had heard a bunch of conflicting opinions on Sumo, ranging from "totally exciting" to "boring fat men" to "what's Sumo?", but I was destined to find out for myself first hand what it was like.

Before going to Sumo, however, we needed to get into the Sumo mindset, which meant literally eating what the Sumo eat, which is, as pictured, a big pot o' stuff. The best part is that is about 1/3 of the size of the actual meals these guys get fed. So after that touristy culture experience, it was time to get down to the real thing.

First, of course, we had the nosebleed seats. Now you'd think that TUJ would get us all seats together, but alas, we were pretty much all spread around the arena in single seats. I sat next to this mother and son who just screamed out the names of varioud wrestlers all afternoon. The arena was probably about 1/2 the size of Madison Square Garden, with regular seats for the upper areas and, yes, tatami-style seats for the lower seats. I'd think it'd be the other way around, because I can't sit on those things for more than 20 minutes without throwing a fit.

So we got there when the amateurs were still going, so it wasn't all too crowded, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. Before each bout, some guy walks onto the stage and blesses the ring and the rikishi (wrestlers) and says something about no grabbing below the belt and stuff like that, and then the match begins.

BUT WAIT NOT YET. The rikishi get 3 or 4 minutes, depending on their rank, to basically crouch over, stare each other down, and then walk away while slapping their thighs. Doesn't sound too intimidating to me, but I guess it works. Finally, the actually bout begins and lasts, oh, about 10 seconds and that's it. Another 10 blessings, etc. etc. and we're done. Pretty boring, huh?
Well it really got cool when the good rikishi went to wrestle, because everyone was cheering out one name or the other and jeering and stuff and these guys were just totally massive and amazing. As the matches got higher in status, another peculiar thing happened -- a bunch of teenaged Japanese guys would actually walk around the ring before the match with 15 or so advertisements for various companies. Quite traditional, don't you think?

The coolest part of all was to see the Yokozuna fight. He's the #1 rikishi in all of Japan. This guy was the REAL DEAL. And he was facing one of the lower ranked rikishi. I'd be scared out of my MIND if I had to face this guy.

So all in all, it was quite cool, especially the atmosphere. I mean there were little kids, families, older men, older women, foreigners -- pretty much people from all walks of life came together to watch fat men bump bellies.

Today we ventured to the Electronics District and pretty much saw a bunch of nerds drooling over these Japanese women dressed as Anime characters. Weird stuff. They had these 10 floor arcades as well, which were unreal. Outside one of them, this guy was playing this Taigo drum game that is kind of like Dance Dance Revolution, but with this huge Taigo drum. There must have been a crowd of 50 people watching him go. He was amazing.

Also, I did laundry today and found out the dryers in the dorm are so bad, it's literally like if I held it up to my mouth and blew hot air on a shirt for 60 minutes. My room currently looks like a clothesline because I've basically just hung all of my stuff up all over. You'd think Japan would have super dryers, huh? I mean in a lot of the bathrooms they have these little compartments that you put your hands in and it dries them in literally 5 seconds. But such are the ironies of the Japanese people.

Jaa mata nee!

First Week of School

So, it's Friday night and the first week of classes has finished. I can already feel time moving along a fairly good clip, especially since I've started to follow a routine every day. The good news is that I switched into a more advanced Japanese class which meets later, and thus can avoid the morning rush (or at least the worst part of it) three days a week.

All of my classes seem decent so far. My Asian Business class is taught by the Dean of the entire University, which is a bit imposing, but he seems nice enough. He's having us read the Asian Wall Street Journal every few days or so, which is nice. Japanese Culture is also pretty cool -- it's a lot of reading, but all fairly interesting. We are taking a few field trips too, most notably to the Studio Ghibli Museum, which is the museum of Mayazaki (the guy who did Spirited Away, etc.) Int'l Marketing and Japanese both seem like decent classes as well.

So though it is a bit too early to tell, it seems that my workload will be fairly moderate, most composed of reading and some Japanese work.

So yesterday, I took a much needed afternoon for myself and headed over to the Imperial Palace to check it out. What a place. It's pretty much like Central Park, but with palace buildings all over dating back 500 years or more. What was also nice is that I was one of the only people there. I went over to the Ni-Mori Gardens, which was fairly empty, and just sort of sat around for a while and relaxed. I can imagine how incredibly crowded that garden will be in about two months, but it was nice to kind of have the whole place to myself. The best part was that you could really hear nothing from the city, which kind of gave it that "place to get away from it all" feel.

Looking forward to a few things this weekend, especially tonight's trip to Mosburger and the Sumo Match tomorrow. First, Mosburger is basically the Japanese answer to McDonalds, but totally weird and Japanese. There are shrimp burgers, rice burgers, hamburgers with tofu on top (kinda defeats the purpose, huh) and a whole lot more. I'll report back to you on the actual taste of the burgers, but going to Mosburger is just one of those things you gotta do if you come to Tokyo (besides getting your liver crushed on a train).

Tomorrow, we are going to a big Sumo match near Shibuya. I really don't know what to expect. I mean, I've seem Sumo on TV before, but I wonder what is like live. I hear it's sort of a whole drawn out process where they bless the ring 400 times and do all these dances, in which case it'll be incredibly silly, but I'm not sure. Looking forward to that for sure.

Anyways, that's a quick update on my life. Nothing too too exciting the past few days, but I'm sure I'll have a lot to report after this weekend.

It's been tough the past few days with the homesickness and all as well. After you kind of go through the initial "honeymoon" phase where all is exciting and new, you start to realize how far you are away from home and how different it is, especially here. So, I'm kinda dealing with all that now, and it's tough, but hey, it'll pass. I've had some great experiences the past week and hopefully there will be a TON more to come.

Okay, enough of the sappy stuff. TIME FOR ENGRISH!

ENGRISH CITING: I saw a guy with a patch on his jacket that said "Pick me up, Grandma". Interesting.

ALSO, I am currently friendly with the #3 Rock, Paper, Scissors Champion in the entire United States. He's actually won MONEY at tournaments with this stuff! Unreal.

Jaa mata nee!

A Genuine Tokyo Experience

Before I get to my experience, I just wanted to show a picture of a "Pachinko" parlor in Gotanda. Pachinko is an extremely popular form of gambling here in Japan that people of all ages take part in. It basically involves dropping small metal balls into a sort of slot machine and then just hoping for the best. I have NO clue how it works. A Pachinko Parlor is usually a massive, smoky hall that is so incredibly loud with electronic sounds, its impossible to even try to talk to one another. Now, gambling for money is illegal in Japan, so when you "cash in" you get silly prizes. However, you can ask for a gold coin and walk around the corner to a small alleyway where there is a hidden stand run by the Yakuza (Japanese mob) where you might be able to get some real cash. I plan to play Pachinko ASAP.

Now on to the fun stuff...

I've been here for just a week now, and sure, I've had a lot of fun seeing the sights of the city and getting used to Japanese food, etc., but it wasn't until today that I had an experience that was completely unique to Tokyo.

Today was the start of classes and I only had one class, since the other one had been canceled. Unfortunately for me, the class I had was at 9AM which meant taking an 8AM train from Ontakesan to Tamachi. 8AM is basically the #1 peak time for the train system, as everyone and their mother is trying to get to work. I had no idea what I was in for. I stood at the platform waiting for the train and one pulled up that seemed so full, it was unreal. I figured I'd wait it out until the next one, because there was no way I was getting even a foot onto this one. So I waited, and the next one arrived, just as full. Now I really needed to get on because otherwise I'd be late for my class. I walked tentatively up to the door and tried to weasel my way in. Picture trying to walk straight into a wall of people 10 people thick and 5 people wide. My tentativeness didn't hold up much longer, as I was shoved from behind, right into the wall of people, which somehow gave a little bit allowing me to go on.

So I was on. The scary thing was, we still had 9 stops until the next transfer, so more people would be getting on. Picture trying to fill up a cup full of marbles until it was completely topped off, and then trying to add more marbles to the top. It was kind of like that. This experience was NOT for the claustrophobic. I had literally ZERO space all around me. The man directly in front of me had has head resting on my shoulder and the girl behind me had her face directly in my back. It was unbelievable. The best part was, when the train started up, not everyone could hold onto a railing, so everyone would stumble backwards, causing people to fall over and knock into each other.

Now Japan is a pretty non-confrontational culture, but ALL bets are off on the train. I saw one man literally use his hands to shove people into the train. And when you think you can't be shoved in any farther, you are. People had their face pressed up to the glass. It was such a ridiculous experience, that I couldn't help but be amused to see grown men shoved up against other grown men and really just not care about it. So that was it. My first feel of the crazy life of Tokyo. I'll try to get a picture of it at some point so you can visualize the situation better, if I can actually get my camera out.

And the best part?

I get to do that EVERY...SINGLE...DAY.

Jaa mata ne.

Harajuku

So today we had a "Free Day" where we could do pretty much whatever we wanted. The past few days, we had been traveling around in chaperoned groups which was nice and all to get a feel for the city, but you really learn your way around when you're doing it on your own without any help. So, we decided to go to Harajuku, home of the famous Harajuku Girls who dress up in freakishly weird costumes and just kind of stand around and act cool. We had to take the Yamanote Line to get down there, which is the big circle loop subway line in Tokyo. Of course, we got lost and pretty much spent 30 minutes trying to figure out what type of ticket to buy to get to where we wanted to go. I kept on asking people what floor I needed to be on to buy the right ticket (in Japanese, of course) and I got directed to several different places including a clothing store, grocery shop, candy stand, and the women's bathroom. We FINALLY made it to Harajuku and were greeting by a typical Tokyo mobscene. It's funny. In the U.S., natives of a city, like NYC, try to avoid tourist traps but NOT SO in Tokyo. Everyone and their old Japanese grandmothers were out today shopping, sitting, drinking, and doing pretty much whatever.

We bummed around Harajuku for a while and ate lunch at this fantastic Turkish kebab restaurant/stand/thing which was pretty much the farthest thing away from Japanese cuisine ever, but it was honestly the first time I've felt full on this trip. Japanese portions are about 50% the size of American portions. The food has been tough to get used to because they really eliminate a lot of nutrients, such as fiber, that are pretty essential. The good news is that they really don't use any preservatives and stuff like that, so the food is a lot "purer", so to speak.

We then ventured over to the weirdo Harajuku girls and took a bunch of pictures with them, much to their excitement. There was also this guy that had a sign that said "Free Hugs", so I took him up on the offer -- great hug, by the way. The Meiji Shrine was right nearby, so we decided to go check it out and cancel the super authentic (not) Japanese lunch we had with some hardcore culture. The Meiji Shrine was unbelievably crowded, probably because it was so close to the new year. I really didn't even believe that we were still in Tokyo. The Meiji area was basically a HUGE forest with a bunch of winding paths and then a big freakin' shrine right in the middle. It was pretty unreal. There were a TON of souvenir stands all over selling all types of weird trinkety things, including the biggest chopsticks I have EVER seen.

The actual temple also had a bunch of cool things like this little pagoda where there was a fountain that people would scoop water out of with these special spoons and wash their hands for good luck. People were also writing their New Year's wishes on these special cards and then throwing them in a box and praying right before it. Pretty spiritual stuff, but it was really cool to see -- I had never seen anything like it.

Anyways, after that we headed over to Roppongi and grabbed some dinner. I happened to meet a really nice British guy in the restaurant we were in and we chatted about soccer for about an hour before he invited me down to this bar next Saturday to watch a Liverpool game with him. Sounds fun!

Overall, it was a fun day and now I'm just relaxing before more orientation tomorrow. It's a national holiday too, so classes start Tuesday.

New pictures are posted on both Flickr and Facebook so check 'em out!!

Jaa mata!

Well, I made it!

After one of the longest plane rides of my entire life, I arrived in Tokyo at 4:30 on Thursday, therefore skipping basically an entire day. Tough, huh? I was lucky, though, because I sat next to this very nice Japanese man who talked to me about Japanese politics, baseball, etc., or at least that's what I THINK he talked about, seeing as though it was all in Japanese and fast. But I knew I heard the word "yakyuu", which means baseball, and the rest is a bit fuzzy. His English was not very good, but I offered him my Sports Illustrated to read on the plane and he seemed to be "reading it", though it kind of worried me when he was moving his finger right to left across the page. We also started talking about the lack of snow in the States and I mentioned that the West actually had a ton of snow, especially in Colorado. My Japanese companion, perhaps as a way of saying "I KNOW ENGLISH STUFF" proceeded to name pretty much all of the other 49 states. I lost track after Idaho.

So then I arrived, and let me just say, Japan hits you right in the face with the futuristic nonsense right from the start. Narita Airport is beautiful. It's impeccably clean and has literally hundreds of shops, including, yes, a Hello Kitty store and a place that was called "American Sweat". I didn't venture in there.

I met up with a few Temple students and we hopped on a bus for the 90-minute to our dorm in Tokyo. The Japanese highway system is crazy. First, they have these signs that have a huge maze of roads all over them, some lit up and others not. No idea what that meant. There were also spinning neon lights all over the road, and two huge ferris wheels that were just -- there.

My first impression of Tokyo? NEON. What else? Everywhere you look there was neon. I even saw a sign for a pregnancy clinic with the lights in neon. Wouldn't that be fun to see in the States? The other first impression I got was HOLY CRAP VENDING MACHINES. They are literally everywhere. We drove by this huge rice patty and right next to this dilapidated old shack was a vending machine, which drove me to wonder that if I bought something from that particular machine, if I was the first, or perhaps second person ever to even touch that thing. And the vending machines don't just sell soda, no. They sell hot coffee, ice cream cones, every type of tea imaginable, and yes, iPods. Imagine sticking $300 into a vending machine. Fun, huh?

So we arrived at the dorm, I met a bunch of people, and literally just unpacked and (tried) to go to bed. The jet lag has been pretty bad so far.

Today we had some orientation stuff followed by some free time at Roppongi, this ultra-upscale, futuristic shopping mall. But before I get to that, let me just say that the most fascinating thing so far has certainly been the subway system. The subway is SO consistently on time that if the subway is late for some reason, there is a guy standing outside handing out "late notes" for businessmen to give to their bosses because they won't believe their excuse otherwise. They are also incredibly silent. No one talks. Which of course didn't matter when 70 stupid Americans boarded and shouted to each other like we were over exuberant parents yelling at our kids at one of their Rec soccer games.

All in all, the first day and a half here has been super exciting and super tiring. We have another day of sightseeing tomorrow and then a few free days before classes start on Tuesday. Check out my pictures on Flickr, I uploaded a few. And for you Facebook users, I uploaded a bunch more than Flickr because it's a lot faster to do so.

Jaa mata!

ENGRISH SIGHTING: A store in Roppongi Hills was named "White Trash Charms Japan"