The Earthquake!

The kid next to me was antsy.

He had been pounding coffee the whole class period... and I was slightly distracted by his fidgeting hands and tapping foot.

So I thought it was his feet that were tapping the legs of my desk when I turn to look at him.

He looks at me.

5 seconds later about 7 Japanese students all turn look at each other and start rapid fire talking Japanese. Antsy Kid turns around and all of a sudden starts speaking rapid fire Japanese as well.

He turns back to me. "Did you feel that?"

"Yeah..."

"It was an earthquake!"

"Whaaaaat!" (That/shock was pretty much my response.)

I've never really "felt" and earthquake before but of course I've woken up some mornings with news stations covering some super tiny earthquake that happened at like 2 am in Wisconsin.

But this was an actual earthquake that I felt and remembered! It was kind of cool.

I know nothing about earthquakes and I'm not going to pretend I do, so here are some pictures to (hopefully) explain it instead. (Click them to enlarge)

Edit... I have no idea why the pictures don't work when you click them! I'm so sorry and I'll try to fix it as soon as I can!!

This picture shows a map of Asia and the arrow is pointing to the Kansai area of Japan where the earthquake took place. The square is actually kind of large compared to others on the map, so I'm guessing this one was a small to medium sized earthquake? All is I know that no one was hurt and that no damage was done. So maybe not.

And here are some stats on it. Once again, I have no idea what this means but I included it anyway. Note that this earthquake was measured at a magnitude of 5.0!

Apparently the Kansai area is way overdue for a good earthquake though, so let's all cross our fingers that it doesn't happen while I'm here. The last one in this area was in like the 1500s or something. (Don't quote me on that, I just overheard some girl talking about earthquakes in the kitchen.)

Anyway, the earthquake was the talk of the town, as some people felt it and others didn't. I just found the whole thing quite awesome.

This past weekend, we went to Kyoto and did some exploring, sightseeing, and Japanese food eating. Here are some pictures!

Our marvelous hosts at the entrance of Yasaka Shrine! Whenever you enter a shrine you must wash your hands.

A wedding at Yasaka Shrine! The bride is all in white and she didn't turn around once so we couldn't see her... but her outfit was awesome.

Us foreigners at the entrance to Kiyomizu Temple! Hanne from Finland, myself, Lindsay from Colorado, and Emili from Finland.

The temple overlooking the city.

Supposedly if you write down all your problems onto a piece of paper and throw it into the bucket of water, if the paper dissolves your problems will go away.

Paper dissolving! I thought this was awesome.

This man was drawing the temple....

And he was nice enough to let me take some pictures of him! His drawing was amazing!

More soon!

Happy Valentine's Day?

What an..... interesting Valentine's Day it's been. Crazy insane, that's for sure! But the moral of the story is: accept rides from strangers. That's the cliffhanger for you to keep reading. It's long but there's a happy ending, I promise!

The day started out as usual, with me scrambling around and trying not to be late for class. Of course I happen to have two tests and a presentation today, so I don't want to look like a bum that just crawled out of bed. No time to check the weather, so I throw on a skirt, leggings, and some boots. The past few days have been pretty nice so I'm sure I'll be fine. I head to school. Sky is clear, good music in my ears, and I'm happy.

First two classes: speaking and writing Japanese. Tests went fine. Review stuff mostly, so it was easy peasy lemon squeezy. I meet Hanne in the student lounge. We decide to trek to Hirakata station to get our alien registration cards, which are required for us. I got basic directions from a friend and figured I would be able to successfully get us to city hall.

20 minutes later.

"Uh... Hanne? I don't know if this is the right way."

"Should we ask for directions?"

"Probably."

We see 2 women walking.

"Sumimasen. City hall wa doko desu ka?" (Why couldn't I have learned the Japanese word for city hall???)

"Ceety hallu?" Women 1 asks me.

"Uh... you know... like government building?"

"Ahh so desu ka."

She manages to give us directions which take us down some side streets. Every building and every sign is in Japanese. No one speaks English and my Japanese isn't good enough to get by. It's starting to SNOW and rain (at the same time... why?) and we're both freezing, starving, and stressing. We can't find the city hall.

I'm in major freak out mode.

So, I do the one thing I know how to do best. Talk. Loudly. In this case though, it was more like a shout.

"Eigo o hanashimasu ka?"

Of course no one speaks English here. Go figure. I got a couple looks though. Probably for my obvious American-ness. Or shouting.

But still. You don't realize how frightening a new environment is until you're completely surrounded by people who have no idea what you're saying. Somedays it's really rough.

We stumble upon a building that looks like it could be city hall. And it WAS. Hallelujah! We take care of our alien registration, I befriend an adorable Japanese girl, and we and head back to campus.

It was REALLY snowing by the time we started walking back plus we were already a bit damp from the walk to city hall. By really snowing I mean Wisconsin snowing. Aka BAD. And it was sticking, too. 45 minutes later and we're back at the dorms. Freezing, soaking wet, and not in good moods. I change clothes. Blow dry my hair because it looks like I just got out of the shower. Start walking back to campus for class.... when I realize it.

My laundry.

It's hanging on the roof.

Are. You. Serious.

I freak out a little bit but can't turn back because I'd be late for class. How wonderful.

Class went by slowly and my presentation was fine. Done for the day. I put in my headphones and begin the 20 minute drudge back to the dorms. My tennies are soaking wet and probably wrecked, I have no warm clothes because I thought it was spring, and my laundry was supposed to be hang drying on the roof but is now enjoying the snow just as much as I am.

I almost slip in the slushy mess on the sidewalk. Thankfully, no one's there to witness my clumsiness except a car that will just drive by and forget about it.

But suddenly.

"Which seminar house are you heading to?"

I turn to see the car. It's stopped. And who else but MY HISTORY PROFESSOR is sticking his head out the driver's side. Guess he did see my clumsy slip...

I'm baffled. "Huh?"

"Hop in!"

My day just got a whole lot better.

Hallelujah.

Turns out my history professor drives past the seminar houses every day on his way home, so today with all the snow he wanted to help out!

HE DROVE ME BACK TO MY DORM.

What a guy!!! I thanked him again and again for helping me out. I still can't believe someone would do that out of the kindess of their heart!!

....I knew there was a reason I picked up his class! :)

After I got back to the dorms I headed to the roof. When I got there, I have to say that I actually laughed out loud. This is what I saw.

(I think you can click the pictures if they're too tiny.)

Crazy, right?

Yes, that is my snow covered sweatshirt on the ground.

So I spent a good amount of time dusting snow off my clothes and now they're all hanging in my room drying.

But here are a couple more pictures of the snow. Even though I'm sure you're all sick of seeing it by now.

It's apparently odd for the Kansai area to have this much snow so people are kind of freaking out. Guess I'm not crazy for thinking it wouldn't snow here...

But in Japan, Valentine's Day is a little different. The girls are the only ones giving. Then a month later, on White Day - March 14, guys give things to girls. It's interesting. Thankfully V-Day isn't as advertised and over the top here.

So even though I'll probably end up being single for the rest of my life (we'll save that sob story for another time), at least I have awesome family, friends, and history teachers to make my day!!! I got back to my room and found a WONDERFUL package from my family! :)

I love you ALL for reading this whole post and I hope you have a great Valentine's Day. :)

Dogs and first classes

In recent news from across the giant pond, I have discovered the most adorable breed of dog that exists. The dog that I see EVERYWHERE and at least once a day. The dog that my Japanese teacher spent a good amount of time talking about today (she has one that is six months old and named after some J-POP band). Aka the Cooper's twin dog. Kind of. Let me just show you these pictures and I'll bet anything that you'll have the same reaction I did the first time I saw one. Indescribably cute in real life...

Yes, these are all real animals. Adorable? I think so!

These are toy poodles and they are everywhere in Japan! This morning while I was walking to class, I saw two. The same color and everything so I'm betting they were siblings. Seriously... I just sat there for like 2 seconds gawking while the woman who was walking them was probably just thinking "gaijin, gaijin." 'Gaijin' means 'foreigner' and can be used in a negative and positive way. At this moment it was probably negative but I'm sorry... we just don't have dogs that cute in the States.

False. Who am I kidding! This little dude is the best!

Ok. Back to the real reason why you're reading this blog. My apologies. Well, not really. You just had adorable dogs on your computer screen and I know you loved it. :) But anyway.

Classes started yesterday, Monday. (It's Tuesday around 10pm while I'm writing this.) And they are going great so far! I can tell I'm really going to like (most) of them. Japanese classes are in the morning and I have spoken Japanese 5 times a week and reading/writing 3 times a week. Let me just say that Japanese is a difficult language, my friends. Whew. But every day my Japanese classes start at a different time, which is kind of confusing, but they're always in the morning.

Other classes are in the afternoon. I started off Monday with Pacific Rivalry, a class I was originally very interested in. It turns out that it's more political science based than history based, which I had thought. Though I like political science, I don't think it'll transfer back and be considered either of my minors, Japanese and history. (Yes, I added a history minor... a story for another time.) So I'm dropping that class and picking up Introduction to Japanese History, which starts tomorrow. I'll keep yall posted on that one.

I also had International Business Consulting on Monday afternoon. Now this class is super legit and I'm very excited for it. The professor is awesome and the class content sounds great and I already love it.

And finally, I had Visual Anthropology of Japan today. This class is super cool. Pretty much you get to galavant around Japan and take pictures and make a photo blog. (Well that's what I got out of it so far...) We also study the culture of Japan/other countries through film, readings, and photographs/photographers. I'm super stoked and I can't believe this class exists... and that it counts for my Japanese minor! To learn more about Visual Anthropology of Japan, check out this link... my new blog will be featured on there soon!: http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/

Other than that, not too much is taking place here in the Land of the Rising Sun. We visited Kyoto on Friday! SO cool. For those of you that don't know, Kyoto is the old capital of Japan (the current capital is Tokyo) and is also well-known for shrines, geisha, and other historic memorabilia. The book Memoirs of a Geisha is based in Gion, Kyoto, which is known for geisha. I'd highly recommend reading the book... the movie was good too, but the book was better, as they usually are. Anyway, it was super super cool and we saw lots of shrines and cool architecture (Japan has made me become more interested in architecture... hmm) and many geisha! I loved it and will hopefully get the chance to go back and see the rest soon! Kyoto has so much history all around it and it's really neat to be there, especially when you had awesome Japanese tour guides from school like we did! Hopefully I'll get a chance to get up another picture post like the other one.

We have a 3 day weekend this week because of some national holiday on Friday. I'm thinking of doing something exciting but I don't know what. Maybe Kyoto again? Or Osaka? Or maybe Nara? Or maybe just karaoke Friday night with my speaking partner Chika and a giant group of friends from all over the world! Still haven't been. And karaoke bars are giant and plentiful and apparently epic. Case in point with hearing the Backstreet Boys the other night. Maybe they'll have a little Christina that I can botch the lyrics too?

That was a bad joke, my friends... :)

But I have to admit that my first bout of homesickness came around after hearing about the big Packer win. The game was on here (very delayed) last night so I got to watch it, but I just wish I could've been home for it. Seeing the (lame) SNL skit didn't help either. But I am PROUD of the Packers and still love them from Japan. Especially Aaron Rodgers. Mmmm. Pretty sure that's all I have to say :)

A description of the photos I just added to Facebook.

Well I've always wanted to do one of these blog posts where there are little pictures and descriptions. So here are some pictures along with a brief captioning of the events that took place. They're all in random order too because I can't for the life of me figure out how to put them in order. Maybe I'll figure that out for future posts. Gotta love technology.

Fish! Japanese love fish. It's everywhere, all the time, and I somehow always smell it no matter where I am. This was just one part of the fish section of the grocery store. The fish and seafood sections are ALWAYS the largest and there are many options and things I've never seen before...

This is campus! I just discovered this awesome sign today and I like it.

Another shot of campus from far away. The large building to the left is the library and multimedia center. It's so gorgeous inside and all the steps are made of marble and there's glass everywhere. I'm hesitant to actually use it because I fear that my clumsiness will some how find a way (like it always does!) to wreck the perfection of the building! :) But I have no idea what the giant building in the middle is and I think the one to the right is some kind of memorial hall.

Sushi! This place was legit. Here's how it works. Pretty much any kind of sushi imaginable (and other foods) are displayed on the belt. The belt than moves past every table and if something strikes your fancy than you just pick it off the belt and eat it! It was so cool and we spent time thinking of some kind equivalent to this that we could have in the States. But we came up with nothing because everything is processed and gross and would just get more disgusting. Ha.

Cassie (from Australia), Hanne (from Finland), and myself at the sushi joint.

I went on a photography adventure and walked around the area by the seminar house. There are so many little food joints that make all sorts of Japanese food right in front of you and you can either eat inside (as shown) or take it to-go (I was standing at the to-go counter). She was making fried squid balls! I can't remember the Japanese name but she turns them in those heated pans with what looks like chopsticks until they get brown and fried. These guys were hilarious (and drunk) and found foreigners to be fascinating.

Everything in Japan can be found in a vending machine. Cold beverages (sodas, teas, juices), hot beverages (coffee and hot cocoa... there are also special hot vending machines that dispense hot cans of coffee and hot cocoa! To this day I am still fascinated), ice cream, food, and even beer! When I saw this milk one though, I almost burst out laughing. Probably the most random of all.

To the right you see the beautiful building of Sanko! This is where I had my first Japanese grocery store experience. Everyone spoke in Japanese, all the products were in Japanese, and there were no traces of English that I could find! It was the epitome of culture shock, but since then I have thankfully conquered Sanko and other grocery stores! It's super intimidating at first though, especially when you're a picky eater like me and don't know how you're supposed to survive for the next 5 months of life. But since then, I have tried many new and interesting foods. You all will be pleasantly surprised (Kelly, are you proud?!). :)

As run down and old as this picture looks, I find this view to be absolutely stunning. The mountains in the background are gorgeous and every time I walk this way I just love it! Today, Hanne and I went running (around the white fences there is a great path) and we had such a good time. There are little spots where it's blocked off for mini parks and Japanese gardens and we were in awe of how cute it was! It's surprising in Japan how many people walk, bike, and exercise all the time. Everyone is so healthy here with foods, exercising, and overall completely different lifestyles than in America. You see like 80 year old men and women (I kid you not) walking and riding bicycles all the time, so it makes sense that they live forever! America, take notice of this and plan your lives accordingly. Let's all get healthier. After seeing this for a couple of days now, it definitely makes me want to keep exercising!

And I will close my first ever picture blog attempt with a picture of this dog. This dog looks exactly like Cooper does when he just gets a haircut. And I've seen many other dogs that look like Cooper too which makes me happy because every time I see one it makes me feel like I'm close to home even though I may be 54982754 miles away.

:)

Chocolate.

In Japan, chocolate is plentiful. And delicious, I might add. Seriously... if I get fat here it will because of the chocolate. Not the rice, noodles and all other carbs (which are also plentiful, but also easier to get sick of. Chocolate on the other hand, is not). Today a bunch of us went to the 7-11 gas station across from campus and bought 100 yen ($1) packs of little chocolates. Cheap, delicious, and never ending. What more can a girl want?!

Today started out later than normal (thankfully!) with lunch with my speaking partner, Chika. It was the first time I met her and she is SO nice! We sat with her friend (Mariko, I think her name was?) and her speaking partner too. They are both so adorable and have great fashion! All of the fashion here in Japan is just so cool, especially the shoes. Mom if you're reading this, you'd love it.

After lunch, we had a couple more meetings where we met the faculty and learned about safety in Japan. Did you know that it's considered rude to drink in public in Japan? Not just alcohol, but anything! It's very looked down upon and apparently natives give you the evil eye when you're drinking in public.

After that, we bombed around outside the other gate out of campus looking at little shops, restaurants, and grocery stores. We came back, ate dinner, and cleaned up before heading out again. We were thinking about going out for a little sake, but decided to save that for the weekend and hit up a shopping mall instead. So we trekked 40 minutes to the shopping mall which was located by the Hirakata-shi train station.

The mall was kind of cool to see but was smaller than we thought and not really worth the 40 minute walk. So we meandered around the area and found a STARBUCKS! I've been craving a good cup of coffee, but just my luck of course it would be nighttime when we'd find a Starbucks. So instead of coffee I settled for a mango cream frappucino. I took one sip of the delicious goodness and was happily surprised to find that this drink was actually healthier than the American frappucinos. First of all, it didn't have any cream (that I could taste) and was a lot lighter and less sugary than a frappucino at home. This tasted more like a smoothie. But anyway, it was super delicious and a good pit stop... but then we were worried about drinking in public so we inhaled our beverages and ran (well, walked back to the seminar houses because it was 40 minutes back) and here I am.

Another highlight on the walk back was when we were walking past one of the many karaoke bars here in Japan. I almost burst out laughing because some Japanese man was singing loudly and out of key, "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys. Definitely one of the best moments tonight!

Today we've definitely walked the most. But maybe that's a good thing. Because then I can eat all the Japanese chocolate that I want and not feel as bad! :)

Oh hey Japan!

Well I've made it to halfway across the world. To Japan. Holy cow.

It's been a whirlwind of adventures so far, so I figured a blog would be a wonderful way to document these experiences.

The flight here was great. Well. Very long. 11 hours and 15 minutes to be exact. I didn't get a chance to sleep at all, thanks to 4 cups of coffee, but I did get to do lots of other things. Like trying to communicate with the two Japanese grandmas who sat next to me that barely spoke English and reading 2 books and 7 magazines and walking around the plane and watching 3 hours worth of The OC and eating tofu and watching ALL of the Japanese people sleep the WHOLE flight except when they'd magically wake up when meals were served and writing lyrics on plane napkins and watch the little moving plane on the little electronic map of the back of the seat in front of me slowly make its way across the ocean to Osaka. Yeah, you get the picture. It was a long flight.

The drive to the seminar houses (dorms) was another enjoyable (long) one. But we had a chance to drive across part of Osaka at night and it is gorgeous! It reminds me of a combination of Las Vegas (even though I've never been there), New York, and Los Angeles all combined into one.... if that's even possible. Pretty sweet. Finally got to the dorms and found my room which is so authentically Japanese and so cool.

The next day was a blur with trying to adjust to the time zone (though I thought the coffee/not sleeping on the flight would've helped....). Throw in a couple of crazy adventures at Japanese grocery stores where 0 English was spoken and I had no idea what any foods were, trips to and from the "uni" for orientation, and meeting awesome people in the program and I can already tell it's going to be a great 5 months!

I took a walk today throughout the neighborhood and took some amazing pictures of Hirakata-shi. It's such a beautiful little town with so many hidden gems. Pictures can't even do this place justice, it's so quaint and adorable. Hopefully I can get some up tomorrow. A bunch of us in my seminar house went to this awesome sushi joint that was sooo cool and unlike anything we have in the States! Japan is so awesome for stuff I've never seen before. Like heated toilets! That has definitely been one of my favorite things so far!!

Tomorrow brings another day of orientation and fun stuff like that. Kansai Gaidai has a program where they match you up with a Japanese student to practice speaking, so I get to meet my partner, Chika, tomorrow. She seems soo nice and we plan on getting lunch at one of like the 16 cafeterias at school. Not gonna lie, that cafeteria food here seems a little sketch.... even the McDonald's on campus serves like fried shrimp burgers and some other weird stuff. That should be an experience. Go big or go home, right?

Japan is definitely a culture shock but it's a good one. I can't wait for classes to start (next week) and to do more sightseeing and learning about the culture to fully enhance and appreciate my experience here. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity and I intend to make it the best! ....If the jet lag ever wears off :)