Starting Point: Okinawa

Hello Everyone!

I am currently writing from a hostel in Okinawa! If you don't know where that is it is the southern most island of Japan. It is nice and warm here (as opposed to the snowy Tokyo that I am currently missing out on but lets not dwell on that shall we?) Me, Laura, Snezh, and Charlie came in last night and today we did a bit of exploring. Because we were able to use the bikes provided by the hostel for free we decided to go all around Naha city today (UP and DOWN the massive hills here). Charlie's bike kept breaking, i.e. the chain kept popping off so her hands were perpetually oil stained. Snezh and my bikes were wonderfully squeaky so much so that we did not need to use our bells. And Laura's brakes barely worked (neither did the rest of ours) so it was a fun free for all down the busy hill to get back to the city. That was a lot of fun. And scary. Definitely scary.

We biked up to Shurijo Castle Park which is a remake of the oldest palace in the Ryukyu Islands that housed the Kings and Queens before it was taken by mainland Japan as apart of its country. Odd though considering it was China that crowned the first king King of the Ryukyu Kingdom. Anyway this palace is set high up on the hill overlooking the entire of Naha port and is gorgeous. Since most of it was blasted to bits during the various wars leading up to WWII then completely decimated during it, most of the buildings that are seen today are restored based on historical documents.

I can't post any pictures yet as I forgot to bring an adapter piece for my SD card to fit in a USB but when I get home I'll upload some pictures. We spent the entire day there walking around the palace grounds looking at the local lake with a temple on it, going to the Kings and Queens tombs, and Charlie and I went inside the palace to look at the museum and see what it would have looked like during the periods it was used in. It was really incredible to go in and look around. We got to see where the king would entertain high profile guests, the throne room, and apparently there was a room so sacred only women could go into it. Also, it was women who led the religious observances in Okinawa. I was really excited to read about that. The lake that is off to the side of the palace was the area that had a small temple in the middle and a bridge leading to it. This temple housed religious doctrine from Korea but during the Restoration period when there was a lot of fighting, Satsuma warriors destroyed it and the documents. It was restored actually a few more times after that and was is there now was restored from WWII. It was a beautiful area. Except for these really ugly looking geese. Mean looking things and they were everywhere! Kinda ran away from them.

After that we went to the Masloeum that holds the remains of the Kings and Queens and their families. To the west are the Kings and Queens and to the East houses the rest of the families and nobles I guess loyal to the monarchy. Quite a site. I wanted to get a panorama pictures but a large tourist group came in and was there for quite some time. Did get some pictures though.

After that we decided to call it a day and rode (flew) down the hill back to Kokusai Dori (International Street). By the time we got back it was a bit dark but we decided to do more exploring. The "beach" here has a huge overpass over it but there was a nice park that we biked around in. And we also biked to another park that had loads of cats. Like huge amounts of them just wandering about. There were a couple of dogs too off leashes and I was dying to see one chase after it. After that we headed back to the Hostel.

And that is the end of day one in Okinawa. Tomorrow we are planning on going to an arts and crafts place and maybe blow glass or something and visit the aquarium. Hopefully before we leave we will be able to go more north on the island. After Okinawa is Nagasaki.

On a side note I still have to update about Sumo and Disney Land. I am working on a video from Disney Land to post. I will put those in another post later.

That's it for now!

The Great Plan!

So in Japan, between about mid January depending on finals and what not and about 2nd week of April there is no school. Yes, that's right...NO. SCHOOL. If it boggles your mind a bit I suggest thinking about the 2 month break (poor high school kids :-P) and the roughly 4 month break (I love college) between May and September that we have at home. So for these two months there has been much planning by me and others who want to explore more of Japan. Not to say there isn't a lot to do in Tokyo and I haven't nearly scratched the surface of visiting all the famous and not-so famous places yet but it is going to be just incredible to go outside the city.

Our tentative plan is for the first few weeks in Feb before some relatives come and others leave to go home to see family. For the start of those two weeks we will be traveling south...Okinawa south and then working our way back up north. Expect lots of pictures from all the different areas we see because I am going to have my camera back!! ...it broke before christmas.

Anyway, after that I have a week of pre-training for aikido and then the first week in March will be a one week training camp where I will eat and sleep aikido. Should be fun...I will either come back alive feeling good and back in shape, or dead and need to be carried in a box.

We shall see!!

Last few weeks in March we are planning another travel-extravaganza to go to Hokkaido area and explore. So we are definitely traveling the entire country of Japan.

It's gonna be great!

I am not dead

Just...bad at updating.

Actually got yelled at for not updating more often.

Back in Japan now after going home for the holidays. It was nice to see my family and have a bit a of a break from work and classes. I have a bit of an update to do to cover the last few trips I took which I'll do in another post. Just wanted to post that I am alive and still writing. January will be a bit of a hectic month with the end of a term, papers, and finals. At the end of the month Brian is planning on taking us all to see a sumo match so I am hoping my camera will arrive here before then so I can take video and pictures. That is going to be exciting! I am also planning on traveling in February to Osaka and Kyoto so expect some news about that.

That's about it for now. Will be posting all the fun stuff that happened shortly.

Update!

Yay Update!

So some events that I've forgotten to mention. These happened a few weeks ago bare but with me while I try to remember all the details.

These happened between Oct. 30 and Nov. 4

1. Halloween.

Happened quite a while ago but it was so much fun that I thought I'd mention it. Halloween here is definitely not celebrated like it is in the states. It really isn't all that big of a holiday. Not many people dressed up and when you do dress up EVERYONE stares. Sometimes you even get a HAPPY HALLOWEEN! but most of the time people look and go in the other direction. Made some families laugh though when I said Happy Halloween to them. From my dorm, Snezh dressed as a Marrionete/Ventriliquist puppet, Verena dressed as a corpse bride, Jon dressed as Spock(sp?) from Star Treck, and Phillip had a sweatshirt that zipped all the way to the head and had a skull on it and I dressed up as the Cheshire cat. Stephenie dressed up as Alice in Wonderland (totally did not coordinate that but I was really excited when I found out) Katrine and Iris dressed up as French maids, Charlotte dressed as a fallen agnel, and Laura dressed as Poison Ivy from Batman. Roy, Yasou and Tomoyo joined us and I think one of them said it was their first time dressing up for Halloween - There was a vampire (no - not Twilight vampire), Zorro, and Wolverine with out the yellow suit. We all met up in Shibuya where there were tons of other foreigners and local people dressed up or taking pictures. Lots of random people would come up and ask to take pictures. Those people to the left are some random people that asked to take a picture.

Anyway after taking lots of pictures we went to a club that had tons of costumes (I actually saw two head to toe chesire cat costumes and an entire group of Wonderland characters.) It was a great night. No trick-or-treating though :-P Although they do sell kids costumes I don't know whether or not they actually go trick-or-treating.

2. ASEAN-Youth Summit

I actually just found out what ASEAN stood for when I went to the summit - Association of South East Asian Nations which is made up of countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Brunei Darussalam (I had no idea about this country until the summit - learn something new everyday), Lao, Mynammar, Malaysia, etc. My friend Nanami invited me, Verena, and Kemi to go with her and we met up with another one of her friends. The Summit was a chance for the youth of all these countries to come together and promote their countries culture and traditions and make connections with other countries despite differences in culture, religion, and politics. I think many if not all the participants were on a cruise ship that traveled around the different countries holding seminars and it ended in Japan. In the beginning of the event there were speeches from representatives (Prime Ministers, and other leaders) from each country and one of the Princesses of Japan was there. After the speeches participants from each country performed traditional or contemporary dances from their countries. Couldn't take any pictures though - they took our cameras.

Afterwards the event moved to this huge hall where each country had there own booth and traditonal games, items, and touring info. I got to walk on coconut shells, play some drums, hop in an out of sticks, saw what a traditonal wedding would look like in a country that I unfortunately can't remember the name of, and a lot of other really cool things. There was so much to do and a lot of people there. Everyone was really enthusiastic about promoting their country that they would run up to you the moment you stepped by the booth and start explaining everything and anything about it. It was a lot of fun.


3. Musashi School Festival

The next day which was Nov. 4 I believe was the last day of Musashi Universities school festival. In Japan one of the biggest events I think in any school is a school festival where all the campus clubs come out and sell food and toys/items and more food. The campus mates which is the group that helps the international students were selling wanton soup. It was a pretty chilly day and the soup tasted awesome so I think they made out really well. Other groups (and this is from personal taste testing) sold Okonimiyaki, soba, crepes, fried tempura ice cream, more noodles which I can't remember the names of, dumplings, and more. The students who are in the intermediate Japanese class had to present projects that we worked on with our partners 3 times at this festival. My teacher laughed when I hoped on a bench and started to present. I was shaking like a leaf cause I was so nervous but it was so much fun. My project was on snowboarding (of course) and I wish I had equipment with me though to show in person. I was wearing my Burton jacket though. Because of our presentations we won 5000 yen (about $50) to the campus book store from the president of the school. The campus mates also won because of their poster. Oh! and there was a petting zoo there too! I got to pet a monkey (I've never got to pet a monkey) and there was an iguana and a pony ( I didn't get to ride it :( ) some dogs, bunnies, a goat, a very large snake, some mice and rats, and chicks I think. I loved the monkey and iguana.

After that was pretty much done we all went to the "American Bar" hosted by the English Club and our friend Tomoya (Who got accepted to study at Saint Mike's next year! Congrats to Tomoya and Koji!). It was a really nice set up and had some good food. It was a nice way to wind down the day.

The next weekend:

4. Mt. Takao

Now when I heard we were going hiking I was thinking were were going trekking though some woods and over a bit of streams and maybe up a few hills. When we actually started that's what it was. Then the hills started to get steeper and higher and we actually started climbing the mountain. We were all huffing and puffing by the time we got to the top. Wasn't just us though. There were so many people on these trails up because apparently it is a weekend thing to go climbing Mt. Takao and there is a few food shops at the top to rest at and a great view of the mountains and Mt. Fuji at the top. There is also this 1000 year old temple at the top that we saw and I was really excited to see it. It wasn't what I was expecting cause I was thinking if its that old it would be a bit decrepit looking but it was a in beautiful condition. There were so many statues around that represented different spirits or ones with red caps that represented the spirits of children. There were some really old slabs of rock with writing on them that couldn't be made out but otherwise the shrine looked like it was brand new. I talked to Brian about that and he said that there are people to maintain it really well and that the there are shrines and temples around the country that are very old but are renovated (word I'm looking for?) every so many years to keep it from being decrepit. As we walked down the mountain the particular trail we went on became more like tourist avenues but the statues and buildings were still a site to look at. I wonder if some of the statues were put there for the temple and mountain or as tourist attractions. Either way it was a great place to go to and I wouldn't mind doing walking it again...but maybe take the gondola down. The trek down was so steep that if you fell (which I did and nearly broke my ankle) or took of speed you wouldn't be able to stop. Nice work out on the legs but I did learn that going to the gym the day before a trek was a bad idea.

Now that I am all caught up on past events I'm going to mention the last thing I've recently done and be completely caught up.

Edo Museum

For my history class Brian took as us to the Edo Museum to look at the Tokugawa period as that is what we are currently studying. The way Japan was during this time was incredible. I can't even begin to think what it would have been like to have lived in Japan during this time. There were large small scale models of what the towns would have looked like and what the homes of wealthy Daimyo would have been like. There was also a life sized model of what a home would have looked like -this home which was split in half and shared by two families was basically the size of the common room in my suite last year. Maybe actually smaller and there would 5 people living in this small home. I got to sit in a palaquine too and those things I can picture being the most uncomfortable forms of transportation ever. My friend said it beat walking but I think I would have rather walked. There was a great section about the museum that explained Kabuki and the entertainment district. Apparently, Kabuki and the entertaining women of the district would actually set the fashion trends of the period. During a point in the Tokugawa period the shoguns went through a morality trip and once the section where the entertainment district was burned down it was moved to the outskirts of the town (behind temples - go figure) and suppressed as much as could be but it still thrived.
Here is a picture of one of the costumes at the Kabuki.

That's pretty much it. As for everyday thing I'm finally allowed to participate in the Aikido club which is very exciting as it took a while for the club to accept me. It is a very conservative club with a lot of rules but I am very excited to learn a martial art and be apart of the club community. They are a very tight nit group and speak pretty much only Japanese with a bit of English thrown in here and there so it is a great way for me to improve. My listening skills have definitely gotten better as I have to concentrate very hard to hear the words and understand. Hopefully other international students will particapte in it after me. If anyone at St. Mike's planning on studying at Musashi and would like to do it (and I say do not try) it is a full time commitment. This particual club meets every day except Sundays and does have strict rules concerning the Kohai-Senpai relationship and how the club is run. I don't think they've ever had an international student in their club so they were a little skeptical about allowing me to join but I was persistent and patient. I think most of the clubs are the same in that they have certain rules to follow (a lot stricter then the our clubs at home) but I've heard that the Aikido club is the strictest of the Budo clubs (probably Kendo tying it or coming in a very close second). It's an incredible opportunity and experience. It was one of the highlights of my week to be able to practice. I am a little intimidated by the rules and afraid of breaking them but the club members are helping me little by little in understanding and learning what is expected of me as a club member. It's going to be a very interesting rest of the year!

That about wraps up any updating up to this point! Hope I didn't ramble all that much. Enjoy the pictures! When I return to the states I'll upload some video. Connection here is very slow and even after leaving my machine on all night the video I wanted to upload didn't upload.

Till next time!

It's Been A While...

Sorry. My updating skills need improvement. But to make up for it I have some pretty awesome stories. And as people are telling me to update I really should >.<

Over the last couple of weeks there have been a lot of events and things that I've done with friends and the campus mates from Musashi. One of the fun things that the campus mates put on for us was a barbaque in a park near or in Chiba I think. Now this wasn't the type of barbaque where someone flips burgers and hot dogs and other usual bbq type foods. This one we actually grilled strips of frozen meat and then dipped them into this really tasty soy sauce when they were ready. And on one grill there was also noodles (Soba I think) and veggies. It was amazing food. Later we went down to the beach because it was right next where we were and bounced the ball between us all but with very little skill. Result: the ball constantly went into the water or hit near by innocent pedestrians. Jon nearly took out this little kid and family as he went for the ball (the family laughed and threw the ball back) and Stephanie went straight into the water fully clothed to get it. We were very impressed. After volleyball and the bbq ended me, Jon, Laura, Charlotte, and Snezh went on this huge ferris wheel that looked over so much of Tokyo:

Did I mention that we were right next to Tokyo Disney? Yea...we saw the castle. Pretty cool. I am definitely going there before the year is up.

Another weekend a few friends and I went to Asakusa. We didn't have classes on Friday so we decided to go run around for a bit. There we went to a drum museum that was basically one floor full of one family's drums. And these drums were from all over the world and from various time periods. We got to play them too! Think of hte headache that can instill. Most were playable but some were not and others you had to play very gently on. I only played the ones that had the blatant signs of CAN PLAY because I was too afraid of breaking something. After the drum museum we went to Asakusa and I have found where I am going to do a bit of shopping. Leading up to the temple are rows upon rows of stores with charms, swords, clothes, chop sticks, hair items, food, (gotta have the food) and everything else you can think of that would be in a small shop. I spent a bit of time looking at swords because a friend of mine at home asked me to look into some to bring him home one. Really awesome looking stuff. We spent quite a bit of time there and then went to a batting cage. Laura, Snezh, and Charlotte have never swung a baseball bat before if I can remember correctly and they were really excited about going. I haven't swung a bat since freshman year of highschool when I didn't make the Freshman team but after a few swings and lots of misses I was able to get my swing back and actually hit a few solid hits. I forgot how much I really loved baseball. So that was Friday. On Saturday me, Snezh, Charlie (Charlotte), Laura, and my friend Manami went to Ueno park. Ueno park is one of the most famous parks in Japan I think and being tourists we did the touristy thing and explored! My favorite thing there was to watch the performances. One of them were the street walkers two on tall stilts and one on wearing a very odd costume playing flutes and whistle tunes. He was calling to the two on stilts to follow him and it was just the greatest thing ever to watch. I loved it! I took so much video and lost of pictures (My battery died when later that day (;.;) )I didn't quite know who they were but I think according to the pamphlet they were from the Forest of Gagnes or something like that. Not quite sure. Later that day Me, Snezh and Manami decided to go to Tokyo Tower and see Tokyo from the highest point in Japan. It was such an incredible view, but unfortunately my camera died and I couldn't take pictures. I am planing on going back there again so stay tuned for those pictures!

On Sunday we all went to Kawagoe (known as little Edo I think) for the festival. It was so much fun! Kawagoe is a town a few stops from where I am living and it really has the beautiful feel and look of the old city. The architecture is amazing there. I was there at night so I couldn't get a good picture of the buildings but, again, I will be visiting there in the daytime soon. So at this festival there were rows upon rows of food stands! I ate so much (all I do here is eat!) as did others. And there were so many people! Just trying to get into the main area took us about 10 minutes as it was wall to wall people, Jon helped me take this.

So after we got in we split up with the campus mate students who came with us - Yuri lived really close to Kawagoe and he told us about the festival. When it was just about dark I thought we were going to head back but what I didn't realize was that the festival was not just about the copious amount of food you could eat or the fun games to play (they were raffling off ps3s!) but about these huge floats that came down all the ends of the streets. On them were performers playing drums and dancing. They were supposed to represent all the districts of Kawagoe (27 I think someone said). It was incredible! Simply mind blowing. Oh! and in Kawagoe there are all these old stores and beautiful kimono shops. I went in one store that had all these gorgeous dolls for one of the holidays. The dolls are set up on these steps that go up with a prince and princess ontop, then retainers, and her court and the rest of the way down with various other dolls all in the old time kimono type dress. They were so beautiful and I was afraid to touch anything because knowing me something would go CRACK! But they were incredible to look at.

I think I am going to cut it off here so as not to overload on awesomeness. I promise to update faster and with more pictures!

Classes, Clubs, and Sardines

It's awesome having to travel an hour one way to get to classes at 9 in the morning. - no, I was being sarcastic. I definitely miss the times when I would just role out of bed and walk less then a 5 minute walk to the classroom.

Anyway, my classes. I am taking 5 classes: 2 Japanese classes (one beginniner and one intermediate) Japanese Politics course, Japanese History, and International Political Economy. Nice heavy schedule but I'm used to it so its not so bad. Besides on Mon, Wed, and Fri Japanese are the only classes I have. I kinda wish I didn't have to be in the beginner class because 1. I've completed the text book before, and 2. the trains here are hellish at around 8am but I'll get to that later. But on the bright side being in the beginner class not only gives me 3 hours a day of formal Japanese teaching with the two classes but also gives me a review of all the basics. Which is always good. The intermediate class though is really tough. I have never been in a class where not one ounce of english is spoken. My teacher is very strict about speaking only Japanese in the intermediate class. Which is ok since I can understand a lot of what she says from context even if I don't understand the whole sentence. That's basically my strategy right now until I understand more...pick out a few key words and hope that they mean what I think they mean so that I can understand the sentence. So far its been working! If you are planning to be in a country where English is hardly spoken...definitely study a lot more then I did before I came. And definitely study over the summer. That is my advice.

On to other things. I have to say my favorite course in International Political Economy. So far we have been talking about things that I learned already in Prof. Letovsky's class in International Business but from a different perspective. And I just really like it. But now in stead of learning from a general perspective and only one aspect as I get a whole semester's worth. I really do love learning about this aspect of economics. Japanese Politics is interesting too. Though our teacher really likes to talk about international politics like the recent elections in Germany. It's a 3 hour course. 3 HOURS! I've never taken a course that long before. He breaks it up by changing topics...a lot...and then small breaks in between. The other day he took us all out to a Japanese restaurant as a beginning of the year type thing. It was such a fun night. And History taught by Brian who is also a big part of the EAS program. His class has been interesting. I never really got the chance to study Japanese history in detail. A little bit in highschool but since I'm lucky that I remember what happened in the morning I'd be hard pressed to remember what I learned in highschool. So far we watched 2 movies which were actually really good. One was a heavy propoganda movie during WW2 against Japan, and the other was a part of a series about the Japanese people and culture.

So that's it for Classes. On to Clubs!

There are a ton of Clubs at Musashi. And since I have always wanted to learn some kind of self-defense as well as learn something new I have decided to try my hand at Aikido. The way the club system here works, from what I can understand, is that for these martial arts types the potential member has a trial period in which you go to the practices and observe and participate. At the end of the trial period the captain of the team speaks with the president of the club and the president of the club then decides whether or not you can join. That is about what I understood from the conversation today. Which I might add was in Japanese. Very interesting. I hate this language barrier! So that is the club that I want to join. It looked amazing during the visitor session. The whole club as they practiced looked smooth and elegant as they performed their moves. It is something that I think I could definitely have some fun doing. If you are thinking about studying abroad (I am pointing at you Tomoya!) definitely join a club if you can. Especially if you are going to be apart of a completely different culture and language. I think that it will not only allow you to experience different aspects of a native student but it will help you so much more in developing your language skills as you are forced to use only the language you are studying when noone else speaks your native language. For me, not being able to communicate in English was another culture shock type of effect. I didn't realize how much I took speaking English and living in America for granted. Living in America you get used to people speaking tons of different languages but there is usually if not always the common ground of English. Here the only language is really Japanese with a bit of English thrown in here and there. So this is definitely going to be a fun and interesting experience.

Now onto Sardines. And I'm not talking about the physical sardines in the can. I'm talking about how riding Japan's trains during rush hour is what I can imagine a sardine in a can feels like. Having a 9:00am class sucks because of this. In Japan the rush hour from what I can tell is between 7 and 9am where everyone is trying to get to work and school. At Asaka station we are somewhere in between the first stop for the train and Ikebukuro which is the last stop. So it picks up people all those ways...lots of people. By the time the train hits Asaka it is so packed that people are actually crushed up against the window. So for us to get on a few people get off to let others off and we hop on in after and shove our way in and then get shoved in by more people in front. So you can't move arms or legs and when the train moves you have no fear of falling as you are so tightly packed that all the passengers moved together. I can't describe it adequately to give it justice but the train system is insane!! And this is EVERY. DAY. I don't think I'll ever stop laughing when I get on. Or ever get over the mental trauma I'm sure this will cause me in a few years being crushed by people in a tiny compartment of a train.

Claustraphobia anyone?

In Japan!

So I took the plane ride, had bags that were over 50lbs and just at 50lbs,have jetlag from being 13hrs ahead of the US and have been taking two trains to get to school and a two mile walk from my dorm to the first station - I am in Japan! The plane ride wasn't as bad as I thought especially since continental provides these little tvs in the back of the headrest in front of you and over 200 movies to watch along with video games, tv shows, and what not. Also which I didn't realize planes even had, were outlets near the bottom of the seats for laptops. How cool is that? I was stoked to find that I could use my laptop for more then the one hour battery life the thing is surviving on.

I have been here for about a week. And it is the strangest sensation to not hear your own language coming out of everyone's mouth. Culture shock? that's a definite Yes. The first night I arrived it was around 6 or 7pm here and I was exhausted but we had to learn the rules of the dorm. Since I ::cough:: barely studied over the summer ::cough:: it was a bit tough to understand but I was getting more then I thought I would. By the time I got to my room I set my bed up, freaked out a bit that I was in Japan, and passed out till the next morning.

The food here is amazing! Everything comes out as it looks in the pictures and looks so perfect that you don't want to touch it and just admire it. And its amazing that the small portions that you are given actually fill you to about lunch time. I never thought I would be full on small portioned meals. But I have to say my favorite place to go so far is Mr. Donuts. They have the best donuts ever! They are much lighter then American donuts and are so delicious and cheap!

Anyway so far the experience has been great and a bit overwhelming. I've been learning how to use the transit system and getting to and from school isn't as bad as I thought it would be. The other day I decided to try my hand at trying to find the school during lunch on my own starting at the train station. So to anyone who knows my sense of direction you can bet that I was lost within the first few minutes. I actually walked for about five minutes in the wrong direction and when I asked someone where the station was they said it was straight in the opposite direction >.< whoops. But I found it and then found my way back to the school! So that was interesting.


So about the train system here. Each city has a station and in between those stations are a bunch of other stations that the train stops at and to get to the station you need to get too you need to take the right line. So for me to get to my school in Ekoda I have to go to Asaka station and take the Tobu Tojo Line to Ikebukuro station (which apparently is the second busiest station in the world), and from there I take the Ikebukuro Seibu line to Ekoda station. It's a bit different from home as for me to take the train to get into New York City I just go up the road and wait by the tracks for the train to come by. Here, I think almost every city has an actual platform like station with a huge building with lots of little stores and what not in it. I don't know if this is the same in the city as I've never taken the subway just the train station so its a bit new for me. It actually isn't all that bad and if you get lost you can ask anyone and they will help you. I've done it so many times now to get where I need to go. My most favorite experience so far has been me asking someone what line to take to get home. A bunch of us were trying to find the right line to use on the second or third day in Japan and we were on our own to find our way back home. We couldn't find the right price number to buy the tickets so we went up to this guy who was also buying tickets to ask him which line to take. He actually stopped what he was doing and took us all to the right booth to buy the tickets. I've never had anyone actually stop what they were doing to help me get to the place I needed to be. It was really an incredible experience.

So today - Sep. 20th I went to Akihabara with Snezch and walked around a lot. Went into a few electronic stores (one that actually spoke english!) and found our way to a nice ramen restaurant. It was really cool going there but I really wanted to find out prices for an electronic dictionary compared to ones in Ikebukuro. The store that we went to had them and spoke english as it was catered to all foreigners (7 floors and the 7th being a tourist trap >.<) The guy there showed me a few but were not what I wanted and he said that the dictionaries would not have any english definitions nor katakana or hiragana translation for the kanji. BUT I went to a store in Ikebukuro and not only did the dictionary have all of that but I could even right in the kanji using a stylist and get the katakana and hiragana equivalents!! And I asked questions and bought it using my Japanese!...my very poor and broken Japanese but my Japanese skills nonetheless! Maybe it was a sign to stay away from english speaking stores and start using the language O.o. So I am very excited to own this dictionary and have been using it nonstop. If anyone ever wants to go to Japan I recommend buying an electronic dictionary in Japan. I tried buying one before I came here on amazon and 1. they were horribly expensive and 2. didn't have very good reviews. The Japanese ones here are in Japanese yes, but it doesn't take that long to learn which functions do what.

So basically to sum up the week - it has been a complete assault on the senses. Basically sensory overload between all the sights and sounds. Especially at night when Ikebukuro is lit up - its almost blinding because every building has some kind of light show thing going on and it literally is sensory overload. But very cool to look at. Here is a picture during the day:

So that's about it for now - flight, food, trains, and big cities with lots of people and very tall buildings.