Japanese Whiskers

Contrary to what one may come to believe from the scarcity of recent posts, I am still alive and well over here in Japan. Of course, by now no one but the people I literally tell "go read my blog!" will be checking for new entries...

My only excuse is that very little of particular interest to my dear readers (both of you... ok, me and you... if you're still reading) has happened as of late. Of course, lots of things that are of interest to me have happened, but most of it wouldn't be interesting to read about, and the rest is, well, nothing I care to hold a public discourse on at this time. Maybe it'll show up in my memoirs.

One thing that is a bit interesting though is that last Sunday (I know, I'm terribly late) I went to Akita City with my host mother (for the short homestay I did during Golden Week) and attended a meeting with a local English conversation group called ACES. If you check their page, you can see some bad photos of me.

It turned out to be quite an interesting two and a half hours. And I also think I may have made some valuable contacts. Nine people attended the meeting, and I think that if I need help with something in their area of expertice, I know now where to turn. I exchanged email address and Skype username with one of them, who works with getting jobs for foreigners. Might be a big help later on. Of course, the actual topic we discussed was interesting too - physical culture, but also similarities and differences between Swedish and Japanese culture. There are some fascinating similarities, let me tell you that. But then of course, the differences are rather big as well. I spend the last hour mostly listening to their debate practice, which was kind of amusing. One or two of them seemed like they had had some practice using dirty tricks and such, which was fun to listen to. In general, they were pretty good at it, especially considering their level of English. Now I don't mean to be rude - they were very good for being Japanese.

Or whatever you wanna call it. I've not really been that busy, it's just that my mind has been preoccupied with quite a whole lot of things other than computers or this blog lately. It still is, but now that I've bought a PowerBook 15" I can finally start doing some photo editing, get my good old favorite programs and music running, and so on. Which means I'll be updating this blog with more pictures, and hopefully some "japanization" of the design. Not today, maybe not this week, but as soon as I can.

Apart from ordering the PB and recieving it faster than I don't know what (I ordered on Thirsday, it shipped on Saturday and arrived here Sunday morning) nothing that interesting has been happening. Interesting that I'd care to talk about here that is...

Something worthy of mention is the field trip we did today to a temple down in Akita city proper. Really old for being a Japanese building, let me tell you that. Must've been at least 50 years... I understood about half of what the friendly priest who guided us said, which I consider quite good! A month ago I wouldn't have understood half of that. Being here is very good for my Japanese, there's no mistaking that. I think I got an interesting shot of Amanda posing with an old Naginata (a Japanese spear/halberd variant.)

Another thing which some might find interesting or (more likely) amusing is my choices of clubs to join. At Japanese universities, almost everyone joins extracurricular activity clubs. At AIU, since freshmans have to live in the dormitry and there's really not much to do outside of classes, this seems pretty natural. So, I've joined two clubs so far and might join another one. The one's I've joined so far is Latin Culture - a club for learning a little spanish but most of all dancing latin dances like salsa - and Shorinji Kenpo. Which I'm guessing is not exactly what most of my dear readers would expect to be my first choice of club. True, that's not exactly what I thought before trying either. And I wouldn't have tried if it wasn't for this girl dragging me along... but anyway, I did and do enjoy it. My knees (which don't bend back very well) hurt like hell sometimes, but I'm hoping that can pass as I keep training. I don't have a problem with the other movements though, my balance is quite good, and most importantly - and this is quite interesting - I seem to be more or less immune to the debilitating attacks that aim at specific points of the body called something-something (I forgot). Where the other students in the club pretty much collapses in pain, I feel a slight sting, a bit more than what the same kind of treatment would yield on other parts of the body. Sensei was very puzzled. I'm not sure if it's really a good thing or not, but at least it let's me be a very good practice dummy. Except of course that they won't be able to tell if they did the move correctly.

The only vacation period during the spring sememster, is almost over. And boy have I had a blast! First I had three days of homestay, as I've already written. I really got along well with my host family, and we did lots of stuff. Hanami in Senshu Koen, the central park in Akita City. Sashimi with fish my host father caught the day before. And of course, on Monday a 350 km trip to the stone circles in northeastern Akita and the Oga peninsula, where the Japanese drained an entire lake to create what can most easily be described as a Netherland look-a-like. Pretty cool mountains too. With us on the trip, and at home baking a wedding cake, was Charles Tait, the father of a friend of my host mother who's lived in Akita for five years. Charles is here to attend his son's wedding, bake the cake, and make other arrangements, but had time to go off with me and my host father for the trip. Charles is a professional photographer, so I imagine his photos (made with a Nikon D2X) is a tad better than mine...

We also went to my host father's workplace, the Akarenga ("red brick") museum, and a museum for the Akita festival Kanto Matsuri where men compete in holding up huge lantern construction with their foreheads, shoulders, hips and hands. They weigh up to 50 kg. I tried the 15 kg one, with moderate success...

On Tuesday, almost everyone left at AIU went on the bus trip to Kakunodate. Guess what? We weren't the only ones. The biggest difference between a festival area in Japan and, well, almost everywhere else, is that there's absolutely no littering. None. I was quite baffled. Especially since we couldn't find any garbage cans at first. Needless to say, the place was absolutely incredibly beautiful. And yes, I need that exaggerating an expression. I had obviously heard the Sakura would be beautiful, but it was just breathtaking. I think I got a few good shots of it too, though they hardly compare to the actual experience.

Wednesday to Friday me and Lily went to Yoko's place in Aomori, at the northern tip of Honshu. The trip there was a four hour, painful, train ride (the damn seats face the wrong way, to allow more standing passangers), which wasn't as bad as it could've been thanks to the company. Yoko's family turned out to be very friendly and welcoming. On Thirsday we went to the haunted mountain Ozorezan, with it's (Buddhist) temple and graveyard. Quite a solemn place, the perfect weather not making it less of an experience. On the way back we visited another onsen, this time with a really good sauna. That had a TV showing baseball! We played some table tennis, and went back and had chinese, cooked by Lily and Yoko. Not as good as the Sashimi I had at my homestay, but still leaps and bounds ahead of the cafeteria food they serve at the school.

All in all, one great week ^_^

Finally, a new set of photos. I don't have access to photoshop yet, and I only have so much hosting space, but it's better than nothing. I think some of them turned out pretty good. I host them over at flickr.com, go have a look. Here's a preview:








More photos here!

Yay! This weekend I've been doing my first homestay with the very nice Kimura family. It was supposed to be one night only, but we just couldn't be separated that soon, so I stayed another night. I've really had a good time, I have quite a few pictures, and lots to talk about. But alas, it's getting late and I have to get up early tomorrow to go to Kakunodate for hanami (looking at Sakura). Then on Wednesday, I'll head for Aomori and the "haunted" mountain Ozorezan. I really hope to meet some ghosts, but I'm not exactly counting on it. So, busy busy busy this week.

I'll try to make a really good update once I get back on Friday evening or Saturday. Pictures-a-plenty.