Q & A time, Part 2

Well, I was going to start off by saying I left it alone for a half-week extra because no one asked anything, but, lo and behold, come the finishing of last weekend, there were more questions than I expected. So it turned out to be a good thing for me to leave the extra time.

So, here we go.

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Even though you have only been gone for about a month, what is the most you miss about Illinois and Iowa?

Are kids in Japan just as individual as here in the United States? Do they have funky hairdos too? :)

Do you spend a lot of time with your home family?

April 25, 2007 5:39 AM, Mom, Dad, & Grandpa

Well, as amazing as the food has been over here, pastas are done without much justice. I'd love to go sit at an Olive Garden and pull out a gorgeous Caesar Salad. Other than that, it gets kinda troublesome when I can only understand half of what's going on - especially with jokes. Humor completely escapes me, and it makes me feel stupid.

Everyone's an individual. Everyone has their own separate personality, and ways of acting. About hairstyles though: I used to believe anime hairstyles were exaggerated. They aren't. At all.

My host family and I spend a lot of time together. We went out on Thursday to a citywide celebration in another town, and spent the day there. It was a blast.

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What weird questions do you get asked from 'the natives'?

Will you get to see a tea ceremony?

Any fun fashion trends you've noticed?

Do you take showers or baths?

Do people ask to talk to you in English just so they can practice their English speaking? I've heard this happens.

What kinds of songs does your choir sing? How many people are in it? SATB?

Am I getting annoying yet?

April 30, 2007 8:10 PM, Kerrie

Well then. Starting from the beginning...
The questions that I'm asked by most people have revolved mostly around food. As in, "What do you think the best Japanese food is?" I've been asked that by just about everyone. Apparently, it's kind of a big deal.

I will get to see a tea ceremony. There's a class on campus featuring Traditional Japanese arts, which focuses on kimono wearing, tea ceremony, and flower arrangement.

Fashion trends: I'm currently working in them. I'm slowly but surely becoming more and more used to the fashion here (although it should be interesting when I come back home).

I take both showers and baths, depending on what I need. Most of the time, a quick shower in the morning (5 minutes maybe), and a nice, hot, long bath at night.

I've been asked to help with other's English. The most notable being when I was asked by a guitarist to check his pronunciation as he sang and played Simon and Garfunkel. So naturally, I sang along, throwing in harmonies when I could, which only added to the bemusement of the musician (and everyone else around).

The choir is singing around 4-5 songs, mostly in Japanese. There's one song that's a spiritual, so they all look to me for pronunciation. It's all SATB music.

Of course. Not. :)

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Since you have classes once a week like that, do you usually do your homework from that days class or do you wait until the night before or what? Doesn't it make it hard to remember what you learned the week before?

April 30, 2007 8:16 PM, Anonymous (anyone care to claim this?)

I'm a bit of a procrastinator by nature. That being said, most of our work has been large projects due by the end of the term, so the work load hasn't been bad. I'm an extensive note taker, so that helps in the remembering. Plus, I can use my laptop for notes in class, so that's nice.

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Are there any plans for concerts with your choir?

May 1, 2007 10:51 PM, Megan S

We've got a concert scheduled for the 10th of June. Anything past that, I don't know. We'll see.

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I don't know how much Japanese you are using. Do you speak it mostly or "American"? Let us know.

May 2, 2007 2:42 PM, Cassy

Well, it depends on the situation. Most of the time, I'll practice furthering my Japanese ability. However, if the person I'm talking to wants to speak English, if it's easier to communicate in English, or if I just want to frustrate someone :), I'll speak in English (or, in Japanese, 英語 (Eigo).

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Completely unrelated, but you got elected as secretary of Computer Club for next year. :)

May 2, 2007 4:57 PM, Brian

Sweet. A position of power. Me likey. :) Thanks of thinking about me, guys.

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j00|2 534|2(|-| - http://offtonippon.blogspot.com/ - c|1c| |\|07 |\/|4+(|-| 4|\|y c|0(V|\/|3|\|+5. 5|-|17!!!!

this is actually what it said when i searched in google with the hacker language on!!!!!!

May 3, 2007 4:05 PM, Calvin (my brother)

Hrm... maybe I should put some meta tags into the heading for the blog. I figured that it would be advertised better than that, since Blogger is owned by Google. Sad news indeed.

For those who can't read the l33t, it says:
"your search: http://offtonippon.blogspot.com/ - did not match any documents."

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What is the best thing you've eaten while over there?

How often do you actually eat rice?

Does the water swirl in the toilet clockwise or counterclockwise?

How is the climate? Get sunburned yet?

Meet any interesting ladies? ^.^

What is your favorite word that you've learned while over there?

Will you support my ban on pants between the hours of 1am and 6am in the apartment? This seems random, but trust me, it's crucial.

What time do you land in Chicago on the return trip, and on what day? (It may be the same day as me, in which case we'll have to set up a rendezvous).

Speaking of French, I have one final very important Question:
Do you hear the people sing? Singing the songs of angry men?

May 3, 2007 10:36 PM, Jesse

Ahh... Back on the food. :)

Actually, my favorite meal so far has been a big heaping bowl of udon, a thick-noodled pasta soup, with various other ingredients. Other concoctions have been quite tasty as well:

as you can plainly see. I ate this after you guys went out for DQ...pwn'd.

Rice is served with almost every meal. Breakfast is the one exception.

I'm still in the Northern hemisphere, so water still swirls...*goes to check*...counter-clockwise.

I've sunburned a couple times, but it hasn't been that bad. It's rainy a lot here, so that stops the sun a bit.

Onna, ne? Well, there are a couple that have me interested. Ai-chan and Natsu-chan. Here's a photo of both of them together:

Ai has to be the first person I've actually used the word kawaii "eng: cute" for: she does the whole "Squint your eyes while giggling" anime-thing, and it works flawlessly. However, of the two, I'll probably ask Natsuki out first, because I've talked to her more, and we seem to get along well.

Favorite word? Let's see... The most amusing one I've heard so far has got to be "tabenai-yo" (lit. "Don't eat that.") Heard most often around in the home stay, towards the triplets. Another good one is "sugoshi" (lit. "a bit"). Shiritori (a word game) comes in handy a lot, and I play with my host family. The most fun to say: "tsukareru" - "to become tired."

A ban on pants... I am an early riser, so I would say push it back to 5AM and it'll be all right. Feel free to be more lenient with the weekends though.

I land back in O'Hare at 1:50 on 4 August. I do have a connecting flight to the Quad Cities, though. I think that we should have a party somewhere (Davenport, maybe?) on the 5th or 6th, giving us enough time to get sleep and get rid of the jet lag. Scott, Mom, Cassy, Brian, and Sean: I leave the planning up to you guys. Jesse, grab some of your own people to plan out, too. :)

"It is the music of the people who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums, there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes!" God... that's gonna be in my head for days..... :)

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Well, thanks everyone for participating in Q & A time. I'll probably throw another one of these up towards the end of the trip (July, probably).

Until next time!

Q & A time, part 1

Ok, so since I can't really think of anything to write about recently (the unzen trip was fun, but also a bit boring. We sat in a tub. :P) I've decided to try to make this a little more interactive. I'll give you guys until this time next week to come up with some questions for me, and then next week, I will post some answers. It can be questions about pretty much anything: school life, class schedule, things to do for fun, etc.

That being said, the first questions have already been asked. Looking back on comments:

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Soo... uhm. run into any neko girls or goddesses yet?
March 29, 2007 12:36 PM - Scott Jacobs

Not as of yet. Sorry to disappoint. :)

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How would I be able to send pics to you?
April 7, 2007 4:44 PM - Dustin

All of my contact information is here now:
Email remains the same, christopher.kruse@clarke.edu or mystic.enigma@gmail.com
Phone number: 090.1362.5683 (is mobile, but I get free incoming.)
Address (for mailing purposes): Nagasaki-shi Hanaokamachi Mine's Bldg. Apt. 602
I haven't touched skype since I've been here, but I should be starting on that when I get internet in my room.

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So classes meet once a week? For how long and what classes are you taking bro?
April 10, 2007 8:20 AM - Cassy

My schedule is as follows:
Monday: 10:40-12:10 Japanese History, 1:10-2:40 Contemporary Japanese Literature
Tuesday: 9:00-10:30 Japanese Culture, 10:40-12:10 Intro to Japanese Language
Wednesday: 9:00-10:30 Intro to Japanese Language
Thursday: 10:40-12:10 Japanese Business, 1:10-2:40 Intro to Japanese Lang, 2:50-4:20 Seminar in Japanese Film Study
Friday: 1:10-2:40 Intro to Japanese Lang
Choir meets Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday at 6 PM. T/F 2 hours long, Th 1 hour long.

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Smidge wants to know if there are any vending machines that sell freshly cooked meat products, like burgers or chicken.
April 18, 2007 3:27 PM - Apparently, Smidge

Haven't seen too many out-of-the-ordinary vending machines. Weirdest I've seen so far has been Beer machines. I'm in a small city though. Nagasaki's considered the Boonies. :)

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Keep the questions firing, and I'll talk to you guys all next week, and give some answers! Also, new pics from Unzen are up at flickr. Check 'em out too. I'll be going on a drive with the choir on Saturday, so I'll probably have some pictures from that too. Until then!

Ah... Pics.

Because people have been complaining... More pictures are up at flickr. I hadn't had much time to upload everything, so I finally had some time today (around Friday, 11AM) to get everything I had up. Now there's pictures of people, too. We have our trip to Unzen, a traditional japanese onsen (hot spring resort) on Saturday, so hopefully I'll get some good stories to tell from that as well. Hope everyone's been having fun! Let me know what's going on with you guys.

Later.

opinions

Well. Another week goes by, and I'm posting again. Time moves a bit faster than you'd think, especially without an internet connection. I'm changing that though - because I live in my own apartment, I'm going to try to have DSL wired to that room. The rates are fairly cheap - around $40 a month for (pause for effect) 50 MBPS down/15MBPS up! That's possibly overkill. :) That being said - more photos are up at flickr. Check em out. Link's in the bar.

And now, as the title suggests, I have some opinions of Japan upon being here around 2 weeks. These are just some small things of note, little tidbits that I've picked up. YMMV.

First: if you need to find something that tastes really good, is pretty cheap, and looks somewhat like normal food, find a bread store. Bread stores do not just sell bread. Bread stores sell pretty much anything. For around 200 yen (~$2) you can pick up a nicely cooked ham-and-cheese sandwich, crust removed. Absolutely delicious. you can make a full meal there for about $6 (which, in this country, is pretty good... food is not cheap.).

Second: You are never more than 20 meters (65 feet-ish) away from a cat in this country. They roam the cities, the countryside, and probably even the mountains (I haven't checked yet...) like it's theirs. And it pretty much is. People will go out of their way to let a cat go by, and the cat's are like, "yeah... whatever. Stupid humans."

Apparently karaoke is performed in marathon sessions. I went out with a couple friends on Sunday to go karaoke. We arrived at this hotel-like building, very shiny and clean, and ordered a session. It cost around $10 apiece - but that was worth it for 5 hours of singing in a 5'x5' room. Fortunately, that included drink prices. So, even a few waters and orange juices later, I wasn't going be able to sing anymore - dry throat.

Finally, it doesn't matter what country you're in: if you're looking for a party with people, join a choir. Nagasaki Gaikoku go Daigaku (my school, aka NUFS) does not have a music program. So, I went over to Nagasaki Daigaku (affectionately known as cho-dai) and asked them if I could join their choir program. Apparently, choir is all student-organized, as a club setting. I'm the only gaijin there so far (one of my friends is coming with me tonight), but I've had more fun with that group in the past few days than in the time that I had spent here before that. Choir people know how to have fun.

Scott, Jesse, and Brian - Don't worry. I found a DDR partner. I'll be all practiced up for the club to start again next year. Hope you will be too. :)

Everyone, thanks for keeping an eye on me. I'll talk to you all later.

じゃ、　まった。 See you.

First day of classes

Hey everyone.

Well, the first day of classes has officially started. Unlike the US, there's a week of classes that meets before your register, so you can try them out and see what you think of them. I sat in on Japanese Culture at 9 this morning. The class seems like it'll be a lot of fun, but there wasn't really much structure to it (ie, for a compulsory note-taker like myself, wasted laptop battery life). Hopefully that's going to change once we get into a textbook or two. Next was Intro to Japanese. That was a bit boring; our homework for the next class with that teacher is to work on tracing and writing hiragana. I learned all that by myself, so it's quite a bit more review than I would like. It's a class taught by 4 different teachers, so hopefully we can get some of them to go a bit faster.

I'm done for the day here, so I've got some downtime on campus. Normally, I'll take that time to work on various homeworks that I don't have yet. With each class meeting once a week (excepting, of course, the language class), it doesn't seem like it'll be that bad. Thankfully though, I can take this time to post on here, and give you guys some feedback as to what's happening.

Take this for example: Yesterday we went on a small bus tour of Nagasaki. We stopped at the Peace Park (the park was built in the same general area that the atomic bomb was dropped). The statue (don't worry, guys - pictures will follow when my laptop can get put on the network) has one outstretched arm, and one arm pointing straight up. These signify a warning of future usage of atomic weapons (from the sky, pointing up) and the prosperity that peace can bring to the world(outstretched arm, showing the wide area of beauty of the park).

After the park, we traveled to Dejima Island. Dejima is no longer is an island, though - the land around it was filled in so that there could be more settlement area. It was originally a man-made island built by the Portuguese when they were pushed out of Nagasaki for trying to spread Christianity. After the Portuguese were forced off of Japan completely, the Dutch East India Company took over the island (they were originally stationed out of Hirado, an hour or so north), and for around 200 years, ran business from the island. They were not allowed off the island, however, and a ship only came once every six months, so these Dutch men were stuck on this piece of land less than a square mile for 6+ months. Not the best way to live.

Again, I'll have pictures of all this once my laptop has access to the network. For now, I bid all of thee, adieu.

すみません。 (I'm sorry)

So, apparently I wasn't able to keep my T/Th/weekend schedule. I currently have no internet connection at my homestay (pending, but I'd pay for it myself), and wireless @ school doesn't come up until the 16th. I'm currently typing this in one of the schools computer labs (on a qwerty keyboard - go fig...) and so I didn't have much time to get anything fired out.

The past weekend was good - an older student (sempai - although he told us not to EVER call him that) took us around the city on Sunday to see the sights of the town. Leigh (he's a British guy - awesome accent) has been a lot of help to us. Especially considering the fact that he took us though a tour of the school in a third of the time it took our program's head to, while covering the info in a way that was easily understood by students.

I took the Japanese language placement test today. It was a multiple choice test - although it was the most blank places I've ever left on a test. Not something you can really guess on - either you miss it and look like a dunce, or you get it by guessing and get put in a class that's way too high for you. Class schedules get formed on Friday, so I hope that I can let you all know about that when it comes, too.

Ah,　pics. I figured you guys might want some. I set up a flickr account to put all of my pictures up on. I've got more, but they'll come up when I can get more bandwidth. The link's here. [flickr.com]

じゃ、待って　ね。See you guys.

Made It!!

Ok everyone, I'm sure you've wanted to hear from me. I did a little writing along the way, and so now I present to you - Trip: a tale of my travels.

I love air travel. However...

Heh... interesting start to the morning. Made it to the airport on time, and had an emotional goodbye to my family. I met a nurse on her way to New Orleans as my first seat partner. We took off about 10 minutes later than expected, because of weather conditions up near Chicago. While in the air, we circled O'Hare Int'l for about 30 minutes, before we got clearance to land. I'm sure you can see where this is going...

Yep. Missed my connection to San Francisco. Made it into O'Hare at around 7:57, at gate B22. That left me 3 minutes to get to gate C22 about a quarter-mile away. Needless to say... Nope.

Oh well, I was worried that I wouldn't get any pictures from O'Hare anyway.

My flight path has now changed a bit, and hopefully I can get ahold of someone in the JASIN program to let them know about the issue. Half-panicked, I ran around the B concourse at O'Hare, trying to get a rebooked flight. Thanks to a magically wonderful group of people from both United Airlines and Air Nippon for All (ANA), I was able to get this flight path instead: From O'Hare, I have a _direct_ flight to Tokyo Narita. I have a 6 hour layover, but I also have to make it to Tokyo Haneda, for a flight to Fukuoka. I'll arrive about an hour later than what I thought, and about 3000 yen less rich due to a bus ride between the two airports (which, from what I was told, takes about two hours). We'll see how things progress.

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Currently sitting on my rescheduled flight from O'Hare to Narita. It's been a bit boring on here, and I've got just about 5 hours left. It's been a quiet trip; most of the time, I'll talk to the people around me, and see what their story is, and then just make conversation to pass the time. However, when there is no one around you that speaks any English... well, that makes it a bit harder now, doesn't it?

For some reason, I'm having an issue with my camera and Sabayon 3.3. I'll check to see if it's Sabayon specifically when I stop at Tokyo Haneda (after the bus ride between airports...). That way, I'll be able to at least get some pictures up onto the blog as well; I've taken a few, but haven't been able to upload them yet. I wish my card reader on the laptop would work - that would make this a lot simpler.

I watched a Japanese movie in-flight. It was called Nada Sou Sou (Tears For Each of Us). Such an emotional storyline! If you can find a copy off of amazon.com that's subbed, get it. It's about sticking together with your family, no matter what kind of family it may be: brother and sister, father and daughter, or guardian to child. Also, I've kept myself entertained with the provided games and music that comes in the seat panel in front of me. Unfortunately, cheap games and a limited selection of music don't last too long.

So, I've taken out my laptop, hoping to catch some eyes with Sabayon. I'll pitch my F/OSS sound byte when I can :)

Well, I've looked at a map, and it's officially tomorrow now - I've crossed the International Date Line. Tokyo Narita is about 4.5 hours away, and looking ever closer. I can't wait to finally land. I'll keep everyone informed of the situation as it continues.

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Well, I made it to Tokyo Narita at around 2:15 PM Thursday afternoon. Quite a trip that was. The entry to Tokyo, although a bit rough on a 777, was absolutely gorgeous. I think the guys next to me were bemused at my repetetive "sugoi...". However, although I made it to Narita, my luggage unfortunately didn't. As far as I can tell, it is being routed through to Nagoya to Fukuoka, as it should, albeit a plane or two late. Oh well, they have the info for where I'm going to be staying, and they have Mark Tiedemann's number - they'll be able to let me know if anything comes up.

Currently, I'm sitting on a bus headed towards Tokyo Haneda airport. Picture Tokyo like Chicago. You have the huge airport for all of the international flights (Narita == O'Hare), and then you have the smaller city airport that maintains most of the domestic flights (Haneda == Midway). It's about a two-hour bus ride, and amazingly, my airline paid for the transportation! I was shocked. Further proof that I will be taking United for all of my flights from now on. :)

Well, I better get off so I can get a couple snapshots of downtown Tokyo. How many times do you get to do that, anyway?

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Well, I've made it to Haneda. The bus ride was around an hour and a half - a bit better than the two hours that everyone was predicting. I went to check in (about 2 hours early... I'm finally somewhere at a time when I can feel comfortable) and they wanted to move me to an earlier flight. Unfortunately, I had already called Mark Tiedemann and told him about my time difference, and I didn't want to have to bother him again, so I left it be. Haneda is very, VERY sleek. Both airports are well designed, and look and feel both advanced, hi-tech, and functional. I was surprised by Narita, but Haneda just blew me away. I was not expecting an airport to have a 4-floor shopping district built into it. :)

There are a whole bunch of shops, from clothing to food, to computer accessories, to food, to bathroom items, to food... seeing a pattern here? It's worse than Chicago and a Starbucks on every block! Even now, I'm sitting next to an ANA Festa stand, which sells items from the ANA plane line, as well as a lot of different types of traditional Japanese airport food. I'd go and get something, but ordering food is harrowing. I know only a little bit of Japanese (enough to get me by - the most common word I've used so far: "Sumimasen."), so going through tasks like ordering food and drink are a bit shocking still. I guess the best way is to get comfortable by doing it and seeing how it goes... but I'm chicken. :)

Hopefully, there's a secure Wi-Fi spot in Fukuoka (or at the hotel) that I can hit to post all of this. There's one here at Haneda, but I'm not too sure if I can trust it, especially since the SSID is "BIGBIRD." So I'll wait. I've got plenty to post, and Thursday will certainly show more. Even with all of the changes, and exploring of Tokyo that wasn't really scheduled (hehe...), it's still been a blast. Like I said earlier... I love airport travel.

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So there you go. So far, the only thing that I've noticed that will cause me a problem, is that I can't charge my laptop. I need to find a 3-prong to 2-prong adapter, or I'm sunk. Oh well, it'l 11:15 here. Good night.