So Sorry, reminence, and first thoughts

Yeah, I kind of fell out of sync with the blog do to many reasons. Reasons are as followed, in no particular order:
1) School
2) Laziness
3) Not home
4) Traveling

My classes back at Ritsumeikan became ridiculously quick and I had to clamp down and study. Unfortunately, all good things come with a cost. Thanks to the week we had off for the swine flu scare a few months back, the teachers packed all the lessons together and everything came at the class and I at light speed. So I was pretty much studying most of the time. Although I studied a lot, that does not mean I wasn’t my usual lazy self.

I know myself better than anyone else. As work and studying increases, so does my level of laziness increase. That’s not to say that I drop everything and laze around all day, my study and work habits decrease and I begin to slow down. It got to the point where I just hung around with friends and talk with them instead of studying. Also I started taking more pictures and looked for more areas, or possible areas, to shoot photos. Also I noticed myself NOT cooking as much as I used to near the end of my stay in Japan. I started to just buy bento boxes from my local 7-11 or went to Matsumoto and gyomu for cheap foods/bentos.

Being away from my apartment means being away from my computer. Being away from my computer means being away from the internet, which means no where near wordpress. Anyways, As I mentioned above, my Japanese teachers were picking up the pace with the lessons, I was at the library most of the time, and I was out lazying around and taking pictures. Such is the life of living alone. I’ll tell you now, living alone gets lonely and kind of sad. =/ Well, now i’m back home so it’s okay

I was trying to get out of the house by traveling as much as I can to see Japan after school ended. However I had more chores than time to travel. sad. I did at least get to go to Tokyo, Oosaka, Nagoya, and Yokohama. That’s not bad I guess for my one semester trip. Yeah, so bottom line, I’ve been trying to keep myself busy instead of staying with my computer. Haha.

Yeah so now that I’m back in the states, I didn’t realize everything was so huge. I’ve been stuck in Japan for months, and to come back to realize i can turn around in my shower. That’s reverse culture shock for you. I mean I’ve never realized how wide everything is here in America. We just have so much space. Anyways, that’s the update on my blog for now. I’ll update more next time. I’m currently working at a summer camp dealing with bratty kids. Haha…=.=;;;

All in all, my mission is to return to Japan. No doubt about it.

Blog on my Ipod Part I

I wrote up a blog about a week ago while on the　夜間バス. I typed it up on my I-pod touch so that when I return to 京都市, I could upload the file. Here is part I:

Took the night bus from 京都駅 at 23:20PM and since then I’ve been trying to sleep, but that’s going to be impossible. It’s about 12:30AM, and I’m still wide awake. I’m going to predict that today is going to be a rough day, just like my first day arriving in 京都. I should be arriving at 新宿 (Shinjuku) at about 6:30AM, which is about 6 hours from now. From there I will meet with Maya and her mother Naomi in front of 新宿駅 or somewhere within that vicinity. Afterward, according to the itinerary we had set up, we will take the train, most likely the JR, to 横浜 (Yokohama). At least that is the plan for today from what I understand, but we’ll see how things go from there.

Right now I should be sleeping but, for some reason I can’t sleep. I should have drunk a little more at “The Hub,” but I missed Happy hour, and drinks were a little expensive. The dude to my right is knocked out and sound asleep. The chick to my left just has her eyes closed and trying to sleep, but she has been awake this whole time like me. This whole trip right now is kind of 大変 and uncomfortable, but it’s the cheapest method Japanese people use to get to Tokyo from the Kansai area. I really don’t know how the Japanese people “Konk” out. I should ask them for tips next time.

Night Life

It’s been a while since I have written a post in my blog. Today I will talk about the night life in Kyoto. I’m currently using the school computer, so I’ll post some pictures later when I get home. So yeah, night life. All I can say, everything closes early with the exception of a few chain stores. Everything begins to shut down at around 8PM and most stores, if not all, close their shop by 9PM sharp. I was down by Shijo Kawaramachi, and things were starting to close at 8:30PM, and when I finally got out, everyone was trying to catch the last bus back home. So much for night life here in Kyoto.

Furthermore, the last bus is around 9:30PM, and around 9:15PM everyone starts to crowd the bus stops to get back home. So basically if I miss the last bus while downtown, I’d have to walk home all the way back to the West side of Kyoto. That walk is about an hour and a half walk home. So basically, if you plan on staying out at night, make sure you have a bike and go with a group of people. Because if you guys end up going drinking, you can’t ride your bike drunk, that’s consider “drunk” driving here in Kyoto. So, how do we solve this problem? Well most people will stay out all night in the karaoke bar and try to sing till they sleep. The earliest bus I believe is around 6AM. If that doesn’t work, you can stay in a 24 hour internet cafe, or attempt to walk home while drunk and hopefully you’ll make it home alive haha. That or you and your group can pile into a taxi and split the fare so would not be expensive.

Yeah, night life is kind of weak here in Kyoto, I was kind of expecting 24 hour bus and train service, but that’s not likely. The last bus is around 9:30PM and the last train may be around 12AM, but I’m not sure, I don’t use the train service here in Kyoto because it’s so much better riding your bike everywhere. Although night life is weak, there are a few restaurants, bars, and karaoke bars that are open 24 hours. Although night life is weak, if you want to take a walk out in the middle of night, it’s perfectly safe compared to America. I went running at 10:30PM the other night and there were a few people out on the street, but Japanese people are generally non-confronational, unless you start something with them, and they start rolling their Rs…start running. The other night I went out at 3AM because I couldn’t sleep and it was perfectly safe. I feel so safe here in Kyoto, when I go back to America, things are going to be so different, man…reverse culture shock is going to hurt so much. Well I have class, so I better log off. I’ll update more later.

ごめん。。。

Hey, sorry for not updating for the past few weeks. Lately I’ve been, if not the whole class, in a slump and we’re all feeling down from the lack of morale. As some of you know, recently I’ve been dealing with Eczema. It’s a nasty bugger and I’m starting to lose patience and morale from trying to heal my skin. It’s a pain trying to stop the itch. Whenever I stop an eczema spot on one part of my skin, it appears somewhere else. I’m beginning to think it’s a food allergy and stress combined. Over golden week, which was a couple of weeks back, I started to break out after eating something, I can’t remember what. After we got back from Golden week we had an exam on Thursday, and then a huge exam on Friday. After Friday’s exam, my skin just broke out from the stress. Since golden week, I’ve been fighting the eczema. I was able to bring it under control on my arms, but it just keeps reappearing and it doesn’t want to go away. I’ve taken so many measures trying to stop spread.

Here are some of the methods I’ve taken:
1) Keeping a food diary
2) Went on a cleaning spree in my room to remove any dust particles
3) Trying to eat healthier
4) Drinking more water
5) Buying medication
6) SEARCHING for moisturizing lotion like Aveeno or cortizone, but it’s not hard to find hair products FOR MEN here in Japan…

It’s really difficult for me to go to the doctor’s because they don’t speak english, and sometimes I don’t know the medical terms needed. Things are just not going my way. I went to the medical office on campus, but they immediately referred me to another doctor off-campus. The doctors I can communicate with at school, because they know English, pretty much refused to take me as a patient. There goes my tuition money for Japan. I pay them to tell me to go to another doctor in town. ::SIGH::

So as you can see I’m feeling down from morale, getting more stressed because of my lack of knowledge with Japanese and not being able to communicate my issue clearly. On top of that, I’m beginning to feel homesick, but they say what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. Anyways, here are some pictures from Monkey park. I will update more probably soon. Sorry if this was more of a rant, but hey this is my experience here in Japan. Unfortunately, now it’s an unpleasant one.

Arashiyama, The Western Land of Kyoto City

On Sunday, I wanted to go to the Arashiyama Festival, but the people that i invited had something to do, sick, or never responded to my text. Finally, Christina and I met up and by the time we got there…the festival was over. However! All was not lost! We got to explore the area a little, and some of the food stalls were open, so it’s okay. The area was beautiful. Arashiyama is closer to the mountains out west that surround Kyoto City. I will definitely come back out to this area to take more pictures and to pet MONKEYS! There is a monkey park here in Arashiyama. Well not pet, maybe to just feed the monkeys and take pictures of them. Man, monkeys are so awesome.

Anyways, I was suppose to go to the Arashiyama Rankyo Festival. The festival displayed various music performances, such as the Japanese drum(taiko) jazz, and the Noh play, there were other performances, but as you all know, i was not able to attend the festival on time. All the performances were performed on special designed boats on the Oi River, surrounded by beautiful mountain views. Food stalls lined the river bank and traditional craftsmen showed and sold their works to those who attended the festival. Just thinking about it, makes me tear about something i missed and probably would not experience again.

If there’s anything i learned so far from this trip to Japan, it’s that I should strive to do things that I probably won’t get a chance at doing ever again. There’s so much out there to know and explore. Life outside of your comfort zone and bubble is so much more abundant. Live your life to the best of your ability with no regrets. If you forget everything else, just remember this one piece of advice: Live life.

To learn more about Arashiyama, go to this website: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3912.html
It explains it better than I could and I’ll be visiting these places and taking more pictures, obviously. Haha.

Here are some photos from the Arashiyama Area, no monkeys….yet. UNTIL I RETURN! 猿たち！俺を待てください！！！！

大阪 (Shinsaibashi area)

Currently I am in the middle of Golden week and it has not been very productive until yesterday. I told myself that even if people were not going to join me in going to 大阪（Osaka) I would go either way. In the end however, I met up with people to go to 大阪, even though it was kind of last minute. 大阪 is about 45 minutes by train away from 京都市. After the train ride, I could tell there was a huge difference between 京都市 and 大阪. Well at least the area I was visiting while in 大阪 was different from 京都市.

大阪 style and life is the complete opposite of 京都市. The people here dress louder and their fashion seems to just shout at you. Like I’m walking down the street and I see goths, random lolitas, lots and lots of ganguros, hip hop style, and rock. The only “normally” dressed people were tourists and families visiting the area. The people here in 大阪 also love to use kansai-ben a lot. Kansai-ben is another dialect in the Japanese language. Here are some examples of kansai-ben.

おおきにございます　＝　ありがとうございます
何や　＝　何だ
あほ　＝　ばか

That’s all I know haha.

Yesterday I took the Hankyu line from 京都市 to 大阪。　Then we took the train and I don’t know which line we took because it just all happened really fast. I just know that we took a train into Shinsaibashi which cost me 230 円. The train to 大阪 was relatively cheap: 390円 one way. So, round trip it was worth ７８０円. Oh, also it takes the same amount of time to get to 大阪 from 京都市 as it does to get to New York City from New Brunswick. So, making that comparison, I now realize I am getting ripped off by NJ Transit.

I was only able to go to Shinsaibashi to walk around. Shinsaibashi is a shopping arcade and the surrounding Shinsaibashi area is 大阪 premiere shopping center. This area is unique as it combines chain retail stores and trendy boutiques with expensive department stores and top designer fashion labels. I also went into アメリカ村, locally the area is known as アメ村 to see what it’s like. It was weird because I was pulled out of my culture and placed into the Japanese culture and I get to see how the Japanese view our culture. From what I saw, things were loud and hip hoppy. Other than that the stores were designed for teenage fashion and culture in Japan. It had a very lively atmosphere and it was heavily populated with cafes, clothing stores, and thrift shops with a younger feel.

Anyways, I should be studying. I have a test on Thursday, and then an　大きな試験 on Friday. Nancy, maybe this post was a little better than my last post? haha.

First Day of Work

Hey guys, yeah I’ll admit, I’ve been pretty busy with school work lately and I’ve just been extremely tired, and I don’t know why I’m tired. I think I need to get more fruits and vegetables into my diet, or I just need to exercise more besides biking. Anyways, so I thought Saturday would be my first day of work, but I was dead wrong. So here’s what happened, starting from Friday so you all can feel my pain that are in my Quads right now.

Friday:
I decided to scout the area I’m suppose to meet my student, so I went out at 9PM because there’s no traffic at that hour. Mind, you the meeting place is an hour from where I live, and I decided to bike to the area to scout. Knowing that Kyoto City is in the mountains, I decided to go biking anyways because biking is fun and the buses stop running in 30 minutes. I biked to the area, finally found the train station I will meet him at, but upon arrival I noticed there are 2 exits from the train station, I did not worry about it because, they were on the same side of the street and if I miss him at one entrance, I’ll just go to the other one, essentially 50% chance of getting it right. I then biked to a book store and scouted some English books, all these books have super proper English that is rarely used in everyday speech, so I just bought an English vocabulary book. Biked back home, over all the whole night excursion lasted 3 hours.

Saturday:
I woke up really excited and nervous to meet my student and to tutor English. I was still a little sore from Friday night’s excursion out into the meeting place, but it was not something i could not handle. So I leave early to scout out some cafe places, however, things did not go as I expected. When I arrived, I originally thought there were only two exits from the subway station, however, there were five. Yes, FIVE exit places from the subway. If any of you are familiar with Kyoto City, I had to meet my student at 神中丸田町駅　(Jinju-Marutamachi eki), So yeah, I had really had to investigate that matter. I later found out, that each exit brings you to the ticket booth underground, so I decided to wait for the student at the ticket booth. I stood there from 2:45 to 3:15PM. Throughout the 30 minute wait, I checked my email on my phone at least five times.  So come 3:15, I checked my phone again, and only then did I realize, after checking my phone 5 times, that I got the dates wrong. Saturday was May 2nd, 2009. I was suppose to meet the student on May 3rd, 2009. AKA: Sunday. After realizing I got my days mixed up, I left tired. On the way back, i decided to go into Kyoto Imperial Park. That park is really huge and wide. REALLY WIDE. When you guys check out the pictures, you’ll see what I mean. It’s really nice, wide, and quiet park. Inside the park there are three Imperial palaces inside. The Palaces are only open a certain time of the year. yes, YEAR, and I missed it because I didn’t know where the Imperial Palace was located. The three Palaces are as named: 京都御所(Kyot0 Imperial Palace), 大宮御所 (Omiya Imperial Palace), and 仙洞御所(Sento Imperial Palace).

Sunday:

Today finally was the day I get to meet my student and have a conversation class. First though, I went to my good friends’ Brian and Cynthia Adler house for their home warming party. Met at school at 11PM, went up this mountain to their house, there we hung around and it was the first time I was in a Japanese house. It was beautiful and really well furnished, heck I think I’ll spend a night or two at their place to experience a Japanese house. Unfortunately I had to leave early because I biked to Ritsumeikan because I prepared to bike back to 神中丸田町駅 . Finally got there after an hour, and decided to have our conversation outside because it was so nice and we were in front of a river. So I went to the nearest convenience store, which was Family Mart, bought some drinks and snacks and waited for my student. Finally met my student. It was kind of fun talking to my student, I found out he’s a doctor and he’s in his late 20s. We talked about “what to do in these situations” while in America. Taught him how we order at a restaurant, leave tip, and to pay a bill. Lastly I told him where to go when he comes to America. After the lesson he paid me 3,000 円. The rate is 2,400 円　per hour, but he told me to keep the change, I kept trying to give him change, but he just insisted, and eventually I gave in and kept the money. I felt so bad. Anyways, at least he wants to meet up again this coming Saturday for TWO hours. So looking forward to that. Went back to the Imperial park and saw so many dog owners. I just sat there for a good hour looking at all the dogs haha.

Here are some pictures of the Imperial Park:

Comparison

Time for me to compare my crappy American Verizon phone to my Samsung プリパイドけいたい(prepaid phone). I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but I’ve just been lazy. In Japan there are three companies that are prominent and some little ones that I don’t know about. The big three here in Japan are: Softbank, Docomo, and AU. Softbank, out of the big three, is the cellphone company that sells prepaid phones, but even so, I had to travel to 10 different stores before I got my hands on a プリパイドけいたい. The reason why it’s so hard is because people have been buying the prepaid phones to do illegal business, so Docomo and AU shut down their prepaid service.

Let us begin comparing. Here’s what my プリパイドけいたい can do:
1) Send FREE e-mails
2) Has it’s own media player which is free and easy to use
3) The camera is pretty powerful with more options to choose from

• I get video
• I can select size of my pictures: 1.3M (960×1280), VGA (480×640), and Standby(240×320)
• Single shot, Multi-shot, Frame shot, and Night shot
• I get timer with options of 3, 5, and 10 seconds
• I get Daylight, Incandescent, Fluorescent, and Cloudy mode
• I can choose between Sepia, Negative, Black and White, Aqua, and Green (what the mess?)
• And I get a help mode

4)Under tools I get the following

• Alarms
• Calculator
• Converter
• World Clock
• Notepad
• Tasks
• Voice Recorder
• Stop Watch

5) 1 week and 2 days of battery life

I pretty much get service everywhere also, except basements, but that’s a given.

Here are features of my Verizon Motorola slvr
1) Pay extra 15 dollars to get unlimited texting
2) I have my own media player, but it requires me to add a micro SD chip and i have to go through too many menus to listen to my music
3) Camera Feature

• Video
• Flash
• Zoom
• Single shot and  Multi-shot

4) tools

• Alarms
• Calculator
• Notepad
• Tasks
• and some other stuff i do not know how to use

5) Random options which do not do anything to benefit me

6) a 2 day battery life

My Prepaid phone has more options and works better than my Verizon home phone. Unfortunately I had to go through great trouble to get a プリペイドけいたい. Unfortunately for the プリパイドけいたい service, it’s ９円/6 seconds, international calls are pretty expensive, but receiving calls are free, and sending to email addresses are free too. So, it’s alright, as long asi don’t call for too long it should be fine. You really do need a phone though here in Japan, it’s really inconvenient not having a phone.

Item Shops

When you come to Kyoto, or Japan for that matter, I stock up on my potions and antidotes at the local convenience stores. I don’t remember if I made a post about this, but yeah convenience stores really are….convenient. If i need to stock up on cartons of drinks or just quick food replenishment, I just bike down to my local 7 11. However, there are other convenience stores around, you just have to travel a block or two down to see the next one. There are different types of convenience stores. Listed are the ones I’ve seen so far: 7-11, Lawsons, FAMILY MART, Daily Yamazaki, and AM/PM. There are more out there, but I have not discovered them yet.

Convenience stores are so convenient that, you can pay your gas/electric/any bill for that matter at the counter, to the store attendant. HOW CONVENIENT is that?! I mean, tomorrow, I have to use the 7-11 ATM to pay my rent. Convenient. And you know what? I Love it. Going to convenience stores are just awesome. I go in, find what I need, which 99% of the time I do find, pay and be on my merry way. Ahh the convenience of convenience stores. So 便利 (benri = convenient)

Another type of Item shop is where I buy my magic spells, for CHEAP. When you’re here in Kyoto, and I don’t know if they exist in different parts of Japan, there is a place called the 100 円 store. This store is your life saver. You can buy anything from 100 円 or less. It is equivalent to the American Dollar store, but the quality and the variety sold here is 100x better than the stuff you can buy in the American dollar store. This is the go to store ranging from Cooking to laundry to school work to the most random things ever. Pretty much I can live off some of the stuff sold at the 100 円　store. Sometimes you can buy your groceries here at the Lawson 100 円 store. So awesome.

So in the end, not only are vending machines convenient, but so are the convenience stores! Pretty much Japan is convenient. It’s a good place to live, but it’s also a good place to lose your money. Money is so easy to use. I mean you have the convenient vending machines, and now you have the convenient convenience stores! It may not seem so, but Japan really is an expensive place to live.

Same Battle Everyday

You know, vending machines here are so convenient. You have one, two, or even three vending machines here in Japan literally every block. So convenient. I mean, I can literally walk downstairs from my apartment right now, and walk 100ft to the left and grab a drink. However, it’s hard to NOT buy a drink. I have to keep reminding myself that these coins are NOT tokens. They’re 100 円 and 500 円 which is equivalent to 1 dollar and 5 dollars, respectively.

I find myself spending 100 – 150 円 on drinks so often, that its beginning to affect my budget. I mean sure the vending machine is like an extension to my refrigerator. Just run downstairs, go to the vending machine, put in my 100+円 , press a button, and out comes a cold or hot drink. So easy, so convenient, so dangerous. If you come to Japan and you plan on living here. Try not to spend all your money on a vending machine. Try to buy in bulk at your local convenient store or food shopping center. Or, just boil your water, let it cool or refrigerate the water, and drink haha. Save a lot of money like that.

Lately I’ve been trying to figure out ways to save 円　and live off my remaining budget. Unfortunately I think I will need to acquire a part time job. I guess I will find someone who wants to learn English and I can tutor them for 2000 yen an hour or something like that. Anyone want to help design a business card for me? I’ll mail home some メロンパン (melon pan). Unfortunately, I have to wait a month after applying for a part time job permit. Oh yes, before I forget, to those of you who want to study abroad in Japan. Let me tell you know, there is a crap load of paper work to do. If you really want to study abroad, be prepared to be immersed in the paper work culture of Japan. Anyways, I have to homework to do, I have to come up with an 面白い言葉 (interesting word) and present it to the class, and I have to write a 作文 (essay) for my language class tomorrow =.=. I will update this post with pictures later.　また。