Please Get Off A Motorcycle

Okay. Let me go find one so I can get on it to get off of it.

Sorry for my lack of blogs. I've been too busy not blogging. To be honest I haven't really been doing a lot. So I haven't gone off on a lot of adventures that I really felt it necessary to share. I suppose that I can run you through a typical day of mine. Just in case you have any questions on what I do most of my days.

But first I'm going to show you some pictures of a place called Kamakura that I went to a little while ago. So here we go.

The pictures above are from Kamakura. So I met up with my friend from class and then together we met up with two Japanese girls in Kamakura to do some hiking and site seeing. We went hiking through the woods and was able to see the ocean from the top of the hill. We eventually arrived in a place that is the main exhibit, if you will. The statue you see there is known as a Daibutsu, or a Buddhist statue This particular one is very interesting because you can walk inside of it and see how it was made. It was pretty cool to see.

Anyways, about my everyday life...

I am currently staying in a city called Kashiwa which is about 30 miles north of Tokyo. Kashiwa is located in the Chiba prefecture which is known for the Disney Land they have there. Unfortunately it's on the opposite side of the prefecture so it's not particularly easy to get to.

Everyday my alarm goes off at about 6:30 and I immediately press the snooze button and go back to sleep. This process goes on til about 6:50 where I finally get out of bed. I take shower, get dressed and check the weather and my email via my iphone. When that is all said and done, I head out at about 7:30.

From my house to the station it takes me about 20 minutes by bike. Sometimes it take me a little bit longer if its raining and I'm trying to do a balanced act between holding an umbrella and trying to keep my bicycle straight on the road. Which is no easy task, by the way.

I arrive at the station and take the 7:51 local train about an hour to Otemachi where I transfer trains and go to Jimbocho. The Jimbocho station exits out into Kudanshita, which is were my school is.

School is fun, for the most part. It is all taught in Japanese so at times I have a hard time following, but some of the methods they use for teaching helps quite a bit. I have three different teachers. On Monday and Wednesday we have Okuyama Sensei. Okuyama is great because is animated and has the class do routines that help us practice our Japanese. He is quite a skilled artist, so when he is trying to explain something he draws pictures on the board to help illustrate his point.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have Arai Sensei. She is also very animated. In class we'll often talk about Maid Cafe's, Host Clubs, and other things you wouldn't traditionally talk about in a classroom setting. But I believe that what's kept me interested. It's always lots of fun and we're always laughing and joking around.

On Fridays we have Motegi Sensei. She certainly isn't the most fun of teachers. She's probably what I'd consider just the most traditional of teachers. She's a bit harder for me to follow in that she talks way to fast and I have trouble keeping up with her Japanese. Unfortunately I'm about the only who is that way in our class so I'm just playing catch up.

School is from 9 in the morning to about 1 in afternoon. Almost 4 hours. I have made a lot of friends in class from all parts of the world. After class we usually go and get lunch together. It's fun for me to hear the different customs of different cultures. We usually all go together and find different places in Tokyo and find different types of restaurants or food to eat.

After we get food to eat we usually break up into different groups. Then we go to different places and maybe walk around or find a coffee shop that we can go to and sit and talk or play cards for a few hours.

Soon enough 5:30 comes rolling around and I figure I have to start heading back. Once again I have to go through rush hour and swim throw a crowd of people on the trains. A little over an hour later I get back home just in time to help with setting up dinner. I set the table and get the rice.

During dinner my host family will ask me what I had for lunch that day and where I've gone. So I explain what I've done for the day in Japanese to the best of my ability. It's good practice. Then after dinner I wash the dishes and at about 9 o'clock I call it a night.

But that's mostly my day. So til next time.

-Blake
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Tommy Lee Jones Is Your Boss

They have a lot of vending machines here in Tokyo. You can't even walk a few blocks without seeing another one. You can find a variety of things in these vending machines. Water, soda, coffee, hot coffee, tea, a weird jello drink, cigarettes, etc.

One particular popular brand of coffee is called 'Boss Coffee'. I found it interesting because they have selected Tommy Lee Jones as their spokes person. Not only can you find this picture I have displayed on vending machines, you can also find it on buses, buildings, and billboards.

Every time I see one of these pictures I smile to myself because it reminds me all to much of the movie 'Lost in Translation'. If you haven't seen it, in this movie Bill Murray plays an famous movie star who has come to Japan to do a model shoot for a brand of alcohol. From that photo shoot, you see the pictures posted up on buses, buildings, and billboards. So I like to pretend that that movie actually happened. Except instead of Bill Murray we have Tommy Lee Jones.

In the movie, the leading female role is played by Scarlett Johansson. But since Bill Murray has been replace, she has to be replaced too. In my mind I have replaced her with Natalie Portman. Which I think is a good trade.

HIDDEN PLACES

This is a photo of Akasaka. Back in Salt Lake City there is a small sushi shop with the same name. I never knew that Akasaka was a place in Tokyo, so I thought I would check it out. I didn't walk around all of Akasaka so maybe there was something extremely cool I missed, but for the most part I was disappointed.

It seemed to be nothing but tall business buildings. Nothing I can really go around and look at cool stuff to buy. But this seems to happen in random places all over Tokyo, but if you were to turn around in the picture above you would see this place.

A shrine right in the middle of the city. They have lots of these shrines scattered all over Tokyo. The trick is you have to find them. This shrine was on top of a hill and surrounded by trees. It could almost make you forget that you're in the middle of a metropolis.

Here's another shrine in the middle of Shinjuku. Shinjuku reminds me a lot of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Except where Bourbon Street is just one street, Shinjuku is a large development in the city. Shinjuku is kind of sleezy with it's strip clubs, host bars, and scattered trash everywhere. But in the middle of all that you find this shrine and somehow all that city noise seems to disappear and you are transported into another place.

These are only two places but there are more. As I walk around I hope to discover them and take pictures to share.

Yoyogi-Koen

Yoyogi Park is much like Central Park in New York City. In that it's a giant park in the middle of the city. I've only been to Central Park once and I don't remember much of it. But I can tell you what I do remember involves me running around trying to hit a squirrel with an umbrella.

Yoyogi-Koen is huge. Dare I say bigger then Central Park. It's a great place to go on the weekends. People brings their dogs, bring frisbees, throw a baseball around. People even practice their dances there or practice Kendo or Karate. It was fun to walk around and see what people were doing. Not to mention that it's a very pretty place.


-Blake

桜山のちかく。 Near Sakura Mountain

I've actually forgotten the name of the place we went to, but it was close to a place called Sakura Mountain. Which was more of a hill then a mountain. Anyways, it happened to be a national holiday in Japan. It's something like Sports day, or something. But there was no school and it gave me an opportunity to go out with my host family and see a park that was very close by to the house that I'm staying in.





I believe these flowers are called Cosmo Flowers. A 10 minute walk from my house and you can come to this place and it's just a very large field with these flowers. It's very pretty.

After I took some picture and strolled around for bit, we went to an open area a put down a blanket and ate lunch. After which I played soccer with the kids. Then I did some "sumo" wrestling with Kanade. We really didn't wrestle, what she really wanted to do is stand on opposite sides of the sumo ring and then run at each other. :/

But after we ate and played around for a bit, we walked a little bit more to a pond.


This is a cool little place. It's nice, quiet and really pretty. The pond is filled with koi fish and it even had a turtle too. But my favorite part of this little excursion was a temple just next to the pond.


Inside the gate to this temple are four statues. Arata, the host mother, explained that these four statues were four gods of the heavens. North, south, east, and west. They watch over the temple and are the 'security' of the premises. As you go past the gate you get to the shrine.

If I remember correctly this shrine was built in 1701. Which is older then my country. Before I entered the shrine I had to wash my hands. And I don't know if you can see it in the picture but there are 3 ropes that hang from the ceiling. There are bells that you hit with the ropes. That way you can alert the gods that you're coming.

They didn't want me taking pictures inside so there aren't any pictures of that. But inside was another statue. This particular god was a woman, and she was the god of good fortune. So there is a place where you can make an offering and throw in a few yen. That way, I'm guessing, you will become very fortunate.

But overall it was a very cool experience. Soon I'm going back to the pond. There is a building there where they hold tea ceremonies. I don't drink tea myself, but I think it should be cool to watch.

-Blake

Shibuya and Akihabara

Tokyo is kind of like New York. There's a lot of building and a lot of people. And New York is divided into different places, like Manhattan or the Bronx. Tokyo does this too, except there seems to be a lot more places. I'll update you on the cool places I go, but right now I'm starting off with two rather popular ones. Shibuya and Akihabara.


This is Shibuya. You see this place in movies and games and what have you. In the pictures you are looking at a cross walk that goes in every direction. It doesn't just go across the street. It goes diagonal.

Shibuya is often related to Time Square in New York city. Which I can see in some ways. There's buildings with big TV screens on them that play advertisements. There's cars and a lot of people going every which way. And there's lots of shopping that you can do.

But one thing about Shibuya and most of Tokyo that isn't like New York is that the building aren't as tall. I was kind of disappointed. In pictures the buildings seem huge. To be honest, most of the building here aren't as tall as the tallest buildings in Salt Lake City. The only difference is that there are a lot of these buildings, that are somewhat tall, expanding for miles. Imagine if you're walking in downtown Salt Lake. Now imagine if those buildings expanded throughout Salt Lake valley. That would be what Tokyo is like.

I was really excited to go to Shibuya cause I heard that is was the like the Time Square of Tokyo, but that excitement quickly turned to disappointment. It's true there is a lot of shopping there. But there is a lot of shopping if you're a girl. Clothes shopping in Shibuya is off the hook.

There is a plus though. There are plenty of good places to eat. Some friends and I went to a Starbucks cafe. Which I didn't even know they had. But before you judge me and say that they have Starbucks in America and it's the same...it's not.

The food they had there was kinda like a blend of foreign foods and Japanese foods. For example, yesterday I had the Mexican Taco Rice. Which didn't actually include any tacos. But it was more of a salad on top of rice. And it was Surprisingly good.


Electrical Town Akihabara. This place is my favorite part of Tokyo so far. It is a place for techies, geeks, anime nerds, and gamers. Not only do they have the latest and greatest in anime/manga/and video games. They also have the oldest of anime/manga/ and video games.

There are girls there dressed up in cosplay. They're called maids. Unfortunately they don't like getting their pictures taken because they want you to come into their stores and spend money on getting an 'official picture' taken with them.

Anime stores have floors of different types of anime and movies. Loads of stores with figurines and models. There are stores where they still sell the original Nintendo and the Super NES. It's fantastic. Except here, the Super NES was actually called the Famicon (Family Console). You can buy it for like 1000 yen and the games are like 300 yen. It's very cheap and awesome.


If there is any electrical good you need, they have it there. There is a store, and it's name I can't remember right now, but it's huge. Imagine a store about as wide as Costco, but then another Costco has been stacked on top of it. And this store is filled with floors and floors of nothing but electronics.

One thing about Akihabara is that it may seem small, but you have to go inside. And this part is true about all of Tokyo. Like New York they build up. So one business may be on the 1st floor. But a different business is on the 2nd floor and another business is on the 3rd floor and so on.

Akihabara is the same way. Expect its the same store and on every different floor they sell different things. So the first floor might be video games, the second might be old school video games, the third might be dvd's. And every store has about 8 floors to it.

It's a very cool place and I'm excited to go back again.

Daily Travel and the Shinmatsudo Incident

So I am hoping that you are all well aware that Japan has trains. Not just any trains. Very efficient trains. In fact, I would go as far as to say that these trains are probably one of the biggest money makers in Japan. Sure, it may only be a few bucks to get a ticket. But that's just one way and it adds up very quickly.

They have some the most elaborate train system I've ever seen. (Not that I've seen a lot of train systems) It certainly puts the trains in Salt Lake City to shame. But at the train stations they have big maps with the station names on them. Then the price of the ticket next to the name. Then you use the kiosk to buy a ticket and you're on your way.

But there's a problem. There are like a billion different train lines with like a gajillion different stations (a slight exaggeration) and I don't know how to read the Japanese Kanji. Which, fortunate enough for me, it's all written it. Take a look at Tokyo Metro.

So yeah. I'm confused. When buying a ticket you must go to the correct kiosk that provides the correct train line. If you need to switch trains you have to buy a ticket that transfers you to the correct line. Although there is a English option on the kiosk, it only applies to one part of the screen. Once you press a different button it goes back into Japanese and there is no English option.

Awesome. (much sarcasm)

It's all a little bit confusing to me and I still don't fully understand it. It is at this point I'd like to introduce to you the coolest card in the world.

This is the Suica card. It's one of the two types of train passes you can use. Mine is a monthly pass that will get me from Kita-Kashiwa to Jinbocho free! At the stations there are gates that you have to pass through. If you have a ticket you have to put the ticket through said gate. But with this card, all I have to do it tap the top of the machine and it lets me in. And when you leave the station you go through another gate so it has a starting and finishing point.

You can also put money on this card so that if I go outside pre-agreed limits, it will automatically charge me the correct rate of which train I took. That way I don't have to know how much the ticket cost or which train line it goes on or which transfer ticket I need to buy. It figures out where I went automatically and charges me. It's quite a relief.

Another cool thing about the card is that there are vending machines in stations that will accept a Suica card. So if you're waiting for a train and you're thirsty, all you do is tap your card on the vending machine and select what drink you want and it will take away from the money you have added on to it.

I don't know if you've seen movies or anime where they travel on the trains in Japan. But if you have, it's just as crazy as they make it out to be. The trains are almost a block long and have maybe about 10 cars attached to them. Hundreds of thousands people need to use these trains each day. And if you miss a train, just wait three minutes and another will come.

But what amazes me is that despite how big the trains are, and many of them come every few minutes is that you still don't have a lot of room on the train. I will be standing in one car with maybe about 100 other people or so when I get to a certain station then all the sudden a rush of people flood the train. Leaving me squished up against the door. There was one day I wish I someone had a camera on the outside of the train so they could take a picture of me with my face pushed up against the glass as the train passes by.

However there is one thing that amuses me. There is apparently a bad groping problem on those trains. After riding those I can see how that can happen. So from about 7 to 9 in the morning they have women only cars. I'm glad my friend told me about these women only cars. As he told me the story about how he got onto a when it was time for women only and received a barrage of women staring daggers at him.

Lateness is not well accepted in Japan. A train is rarely late and if it is, the conductors at the station hand out what's known as 'chienshomu'. An excuse ticket. That way if you're late to school or to work because of you're train, you have a legitimate excuse. From this I'm going into the...

SHINMATSUDO INCIDENT

(Shinmatsudo)

You're probably not aware, but it's typhoon season in Japan right now. Although the worst has past, they've been showing footage on the news of some of the worst typhoons that have hit Japan. In the footage they had people being blown over and pushed around by the really strong wind. They wanted to take precautions to avoid any disasters that might occur. But they decided to wait until I was in Shinmatsudo. Which is miles away from anything for me.

So I wake up like normal. Take a shower, get dressed, ride my bike to the train station, and get on the train. For whatever reason it was particularly crowded that day and I wasn't certain why. But we head off with me being cramped in a corner, waiting to my station so I can be set free. However we arrive at Shinmatsudo and the train stops. An announcement goes on the overhead but I can't understand what it's saying.

People start waltzing around, making phone calls, and slowly start disappearing. I have no idea what's going on until my friend text me saying that he's a Shin-Funabashi and it's the same thing. They trains are stopped due to strong winds.

Well that's great. (more sarcasm)

Shinmatsudo is too far for me to walk home and it's too far for me to walk to my school in Jinbocho. I'm stuck for as long as the winds want to blow. Which is apparently 5 hours. The trains start moving again about 20 minutes after my class finished. With nothing better to do I go to the school and see if this will affect my attendance record since it was well beyond my power to get to school.

And it does. I was marked down as absent.
It was a frustrating day.

-Blake
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First Week

Hello kids.
Sorry, I would have written sooner but I wasn't able to use my computer until last night when I bought a converter in Akibahara. So lets pretend I can think of a good place to begin...
えと、えと、えと。。。。

So I arrived last Sunday, which would of been Saturday night for most of you, and met Arata and her daughter Kanade at the airport. After I exchanged some money we were on our way. One thing that surprised me was that it's not really cold here like I expected it be. Everything is still really green as opposed to back home which is on the dying end of the year.

After about an hour or so of traveling we arrive at the house where I get introduced to everybody else. Miyoko, the grandmother, Toshio, the father, and Uta, their youngest daughter. The house has two floors and Arata explained to me that this was a second generation Japanese house. Which apparently means the the grandparents get the entire basement to themselves and everybody else has to share the upstairs.



This is pretty much it. There aren't really any chairs. In the first picture, what you see is a raised level with a table in the middle. What that is is the dining room, I guess you could say. Arata has me set the table every night, where I learned to proper way of setting table here. Since there are no chairs we all sit crossed legged on top of those pads. Behind that is the kitchen and just to the left of the kitchen is the parents room.

If you were to walk to the dining table and turn around you would see what was in the second picture. I suppose this would be the living room. As you can see there is a nice television and just to the left of that is the kids' room.


This is the toilet. You might think its silly to take a picture of this cause it looks pretty much the same as back home, but let me tell you about this state of the art piece of equipment. Just to side of the toilet there are buttons.


These buttons give you the option, in case you don't want to wipe, to spray yourself with water. I'm not 100% sure what the dial is for, to be honest I'm afraid to touch it. There might be a self destruct button and I don't want to ruin it. Just behind the toilet is a small sink. The water automatically starts running once you flush the toilet so you can wash your hands. It even comes equipped with a pressure sensitive seat so that when you sit down the fan come on.


This is my room. Just enough room for a bed and a nightstand it would seem. It works pretty good for what I need it for. I try not to stay in it for too long cause it's not the most exciting place. I mostly use it for sleeping/changing/writing emails and such. Lately I've sit in the living room after dinner and watched some of the Japanese TV shows with the family. I don't really understand them and the way they're set up they don't have much of a comparison as the programs back home.

That's pretty much the home. Soon I'll will write a blog about daily commute and what I like to call, 'The Incident at Shinmatsudo'. But that will be another time cause I don't feel like writing anymore.

-Blake

Night Before Big Day; Disaster Strikes

For those of you who don't know, I am going to be in Japan for the next two months. SURPRISE! I am going there to study Japanese to hopefully get a better grasp on the language. So tomorrow, which will be in 20 minutes, I will be flying out to start my quest.

Today was suppose to be nice and easy. Most of my packing was already done so all I had to do was settle my nerves by relaxing and watching a movie.

I received a phone call from my aunt wondering if I could help out my cousin with a small computer project he has for school. So having some free time I gladly went over taking some of my techy stuff just in case I felt it necessary to use.

Well push came to shove and I ended up using my lappy to try figure out how to help my little cousin. Not only do I fail miserably at fixing his problem, I also manage to crash my laptop in the process sending it into a deep spiral of blue screen death.

Uh oh.

They say that samurai consider their sword as an expansion to their body. If you take away their sword, it's as if cutting off a limb. ( Don't quote me on that, I'm getting my sources from Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai) I believe it's almost the same way for me with my computer. I don't think I could last two months in a strange place without it.

I frantically drive home knowing that my options are limited. I can't take it to a computer store, they'd take too long. I only have until before tomorrow. My tech friends are a bit to far away and I couldn't go see them anyways, I have my sister's birthday bash to go to in about an hour. (Happy Birthday Britt!!!) I'm going to have to man up and fix this myself.

With my lacking skills of reading overly long windows errors, I wasn't sure I could simply just repair the computer as if nothing happened. I'm going to have start from scratch. I'm going to have to completely wipe my computer and reinstall everything I had put on there before tomorrow. But first, birthday party! WOOOOOOOO!!!!!(Haha! She almost looks like she's disappointed with what she got!)

Party's over now. Back to business. Now instead of having one last night out with my friends,
talking about old times while relaxing in the hot tub, my night turned into this...
Me slaving away installing lots of different programs, moving files, banging head against keyboard, etc. So, 4 hard drives, 20 program installs, 3,000,000 + files, and some 3 hours later, I am finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. I even took time to write this blog.

However, I see that it is now tomorrow and I have to be up in less then five hours. So hopefully tomorrow (today) will be a better day. I'll keep you posted.

-Blake
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