Long time no blog!

Wow has it been a week since I've updated? Felt so recently. I can't believe I've been in Japan for about two weeks. The past week has been so busy with an activity everyday so I haven't been free unfortunately. And overview of my days in photos!

Sunday my host family took me, Cristina, and Almendarez to Gokayama, a very traditional Japanese village with roofs made out of the rice plant! In this photo, Elizabeth is playing this really fun, traditional percussion instrument.

I then went to the Back Horn concert, which was AWESOME. Photos weren't allowed unfortunately but man they were good. The singer especially has a really strong, talented voice. The mosh pit was as crazy as an American one. We were crammed so close and sweating so profusely (gross yeah I know) that the dye from the clothes of the person in front of me got on my pants! After that we went for do-it-yourself okonomiyaki and yakisoba. SO good (though tastes just like boxed okonomiyaki...).

On Tuesday I hung out with Michael Schmale after class. He did PII last year and this year he's working in Kanazawa. It sounds like the curriculum has changed completely since then! We grabbed DELICIOUS crepes in Kohrinbo. Here's us with a sculpture of kids looking at a map of Kanazawa. The kids don't really look Japanese...

Then on Wednesday a bunch of friends and I went to check out Omicho, the famous Kanazawa fish market. We became friends with this awesome gal who gave us all free nori in soggy form. YUM. Her english was surprisingly good and she was so spunky. Other highlights include hanging out at starbucks for hours together and Desmond buying an oyster and eating it right there on the spot.

Then yesterday, we took a pottery lesson. I hope buy the end of the three lessons I'll have an awesomely gaudy chawan (tea bowl) to supplement my current obsession with green tea.

Current thoughts on the trip: The best parts are my friends and host family. The worst part is I feel I'm learning a lot more outside of class than in (and geez the work is tough!). This weekend everyone's going to Noto while I go to Tokyo for my grandfather's memorial service. Hopefully I won't miss too much.

I feel like I know Kanazawa inside and out know. I don't even know my own neighborhood that well! I guess that's what happens when you use public transportation instead of have your parents drive you around. Last night I was thinking about the culture shock of staying inside a Japanese family's home. At first there were a lot of instances where I was like "they do what?" or "they don't have that?" but then I realized that the things that surprised me were just aspects different from the American suburban home. This is my first time not living with my family (well, aside from college) so that's more of a culture shock for me than being in Japan. I take for granted that everyone has a dishwasher or a backyard or central air conditioning when really I know so many people who don't. Those things aren't even normal in American cities!

One huge difference though between Japan and America is that Japanese people are always thinking about conservation. You hit a button to turn on the hot water and a lot of families have two cars - one energy-saver for short trips and then a normal (not minivanish) car for longer trips. Despite all the stuff we learned in elementary school, I feel like a lot of us don't pick up that mentality. I definitely have left an extraneous light on once or twice. I wonder if my habits will change once I come home?

Anyways that's my week! Now off to hang out with my friend at her house. Hope you're all having great summers too!

It's really hot in Kanazawa...

Yay I finally have time so I'm going to update my blog with an overview of my trip so far. It's already had its ups and downs but I'm really enjoying Japan! It seems so long ago but let's see if I can (sorta) start from the beginning.

Cristina and I stayed a night in a Narita hotel and it was pretty chill (and easy to get to). They had my favorite Japanese band (The Back Horn) on TV so that made me happy, yay. Then, my uncle helped Cristina and me get to Kanazawa. He was really nice and helpful. This was my first time practicing Japanese in Japan and it went pretty well!


When we got to Kanazawa, we stayed in a hotel overnight and then I got to meet my host family the next day. They're so sweet and awesome! Very chill and sorta Americanish. I can also understand them pretty well and they can understand me. My mom's a girl scout leader and does lots of fun things in her free time. Last night we went to a 100-yen shop and then got some cake. Let me tell you, 100-yen shops are like the underrated secret of Japan! You can get plates, jewelry, pencils, dolls, clothes, everything! And way less creepy than the graffitied-up Family Dollar at Yale... So here's a photo of my host parents and me at Kenrokuen. When we went, they had a festival going on and these students were playing jazz music and singing gospel. VERY weird seeing gospel coming from a bunch of Japanese students in the middle of Japan's most beautiful garden.


PII went to Kenrokuen again yesterday. We did a really casual tea ceremony (everyone was cracking up haha...) and oh my gosh. The green tea was amazing!! It reminded me so much of the green tea I ordered with Will at Ninja in New York. They pour hot water over powder and mix it with this cool wooden thing that makes a satisfying noise when you stir it. Good memories. I want to drink green tea every dayyyy. And the candy they gave us was sorta way better than Kitchoan's in New York (sorry mommy!). So yeah here's me chillin with Kenrokuen. Sorta looks like I was copied and pasted, doesn't it?
And here's all us Yalies in PII at Kenrokuen (hmm I wonder if a bunch of other students have this photo on their blog too!) I guess it's sorta hard to see, but you can tell we're having fun (hopefully!) It's only been less than a week but we've done so much!

My worst experience so far: I had been hanging in Kourinbou (hip shopping district) on my own and I was waiting for the bus to go home. When it finally came, it just rushed past me so I waited about an hour to finally get on a bus. It seemed like the right number... but I knew something was wrong when I found us up in the mountains and me looking down on Ishikawa. Luckily I can sorta speak Japanese so I talked to the bus driver and got instructions to the closest stop that would take me home. The whole experience scared me to death (I'm awful at travel) but I eventually made it home, an hour late for dinner. Luckily my host family didn't care.

After looking at the PII reports from the last couple of years, I thought Kanazawa would be a really traditional nature-y sorta hard to get around place. But it really has a totally different image from that. It's like an urban city interspersed with various awesome traditional things. See, they even have a Namco arcade at the departments store near all our classes. I think a bunch of us might be going pretty soon! From my host family's place I can walk to a large grocery store but I can also walk to a shrine. How cool is that?




Wow I really babbled on and on there didn't I? Hehe to tell the truth, this was really a post where I wanted to put some fun photos on my blog. So I've supplemented it with lots of text too. This last photo is all of PII at the Ishikawa prefectural governmental doohickey place (can you spot the Wilma?). Ja mata! (The next time you here from me I will have seen the Back Horn in concert!!)

Now in Kanazawa!

I don't have much time but I finally found a way to use a computer in Kanazawa. We have the library orientation in ten minutes! I just wanted to make sure I have a way to update. Everything's been wonderful so far. I just came back from eating ikura tororo don (yum radish) and soba with Cristina and Emi (a cool Princeton grad student).
Today can be the food post! I LOVE Japanese food. My mom's Japanese so I know Japanese food pretty well, though it's in America so it's obviously not the same. So being in Japan is like my mom's cooking times a million. Or like the food my mom eats that's too good to let me eat (sniff). I have yet to dislike a meal here. Luckily my host family's good at cooking too, though they're always surprised when I know what they're serving me. What especially surprised them was that I knew about nori, dried seaweed used with rice.
Here's the PII special breakfast we get served at the ANA hotel after we first arrive. Yummyyyy.

I guess you can't see it too well, but it has tarako (cod roe), one of my favorite types of sushi. Luckily it's inexpensive here (whereas it's very expensive in America so you won't usually find it at sushi restaurants). It surprised me to death when my host family gave me $20 worth of tarako for breakfast, when it was really only about $3 worth here.
They're setting up chairs around me right now so looks like I should finish up. Later I'll talk all about my trip to Kanazawa, my host family, and classes (today was the first day and I got into the 3rd level, yay!) Until next time!

Hello Nihon!

Geez I already forgot my login info for this blog!

Cristina and I stayed at a Narita hotel to recover from the flight before we take off for Kanazawa on the train later today. My uncle's gonna come pick us up, get us some food, and off we go on our 4 hour train ride. My flight wasn't too bad. I get sick on every form of transportation but surprisingly I survived the 14 hour flight (err but I didn't survive afterwards...). I rode ANA so we had pretty good food. Soy sauce pork on rice, osoba, yummy salad, and even Haagen Dazs ice cream! I watched various movies too. One was the Japanese film I Just Didn't Do It by the guy who did Shall We Dansu? Just gotta say, wasn't that good. So don't watch it when you fly to Japan! It's about an innocent guy who gets wrongly accused of groping a school girl and you see the whole court process.

Our hotel's really chill but really American. So many foreigners here since it's so close to Narita. There's also still English everywhere. We took a walk around at night and it was so cool how everything was so similar but different enough to be exciting.

Especially for my boyfriend, here's a photo of a diner so no worries, there is American breakfast in Japan (it looks so much like TGIFriday's or something).




Totally better photos coming later! I miss you all!!

My last day in America!

It feels so strange for me to be writing a blog. Ever since middle school I've been adamently against blogs because I always felt it was impersonal - people learn about your life through monologues instead of conversations. But the next two weeks will call for drastic measures! I'm not planning on bringing a laptop with me to Japan so I'll have to survive off of the Rifare computers. I hope I don't regret this decision!

Things have been sort of busy but I've been holding off on the most important thing - packing. I was able to bring home a whole year of Yale by myself in a suitcase (and a backpack, and a purse) so I figure packing for 2 months will be no big deal. I have a lot of exciting things planned for Japan so I'm psyched! My favorite Japanese band (The Back Horn) will be performing in Kanazawa while I'm there. My family will be visiting me in Kanazawa for about a week. And then at the end of it all, my boyfriend's coming up and we're going to Tokyo together for a week! (Hopefully with my friend Cristina too if she's free).

One weird anomaly though. My Japanese grandfather recently passed away and my family is holding a memorial service for him when PII goes to the Noto peninsula. Since I'm in Japan, I should really go (you know how important Japanese family obligation is), so I'll have to miss out on one of the coolest parts of PII. The memorial service is going to be really fancy and the Empress's sister is coming. I get to be in the meet-and-greet line so that'll be really interesting.

Now to get myself packing! I hope I don't pack anything too obscene for Japanese standards. A good guide for travel and culture that I use for everything : Wiki travel!