Retreat to Karuizawa

This weekend we had the Japan Study trip to Karuizawa. First and foremost, I am really tired so this will most likely be a fairly short post.

We all met in Takadanobaba to leave for Karuizawa. The program chartered a bus for all of us. There was just barely enough seats for everybody. The thing that surprised me the most was that some people had their backpack and a small suitcase. I could not believe that someone would need all that stuff for a single overnight trip. I brought a change of clothes and my gameboy, nuff said. The ride up was alright. It took about 3.5 hours to get there, but we also made a stop for lunch. My first impression was that this place was in the middle of nowhere. There were mountains and farms all over the place. When we arrived my first impression was that I wanted to go hiking in the woods. I am disappointed that we never did.

The facilities were really nice. I was assigned to a large room with 12 or so of the guys. As soon as we walked in, we started setting up the futons. Everyone asked us why we were doing it so early. Little did they know that the plan was to be able to walk in and sleep wherever one may fall. Outside there was a large baseball field, tennis courts, and basketball courts. There were also other buildings for housing as well as a nice cafeteria. Apparently this place is often used by Waseda for club outings.

First off about 10 of us went for a walk. Being around nature was a nice change of pace compared to the center of Tokyo. A few people explored some of the woods nearby, but I did not join in. It was a very rural area with not very many houses.

When we got back from our walk some of the guys and I went back to our room and turned on the heater. It was so cold outside. By some freak reason I felt the need to not bring a sweatshirt. Bad choice. I ended up wearing a t-shirt and two long sleeve shirts the entire time. I did not realize that it was going to be that cold such a short distance away from Tokyo. We had dinner, a meeting afterwards about how things were going, and then a party. We all drank, danced, played games, and generally made fools of ourselves. We had to be out of the building by 11pm, so the party ended up moving to my room. Everyone loved the fact that the futons were all set out. It was very homely. I ended up going to bed around 3 or so once the party faded and people returned to their own rooms.

Today I was so tired. Breakfast was at 7:30 in the morning. This announcement came on and woke everyone up. I saw many people sit up, look around in sleepily, and then roll over and fall back asleep. I for one, wanted some substance so I forced myself to get out of bed and head to the cafeteria. I was very glad I did because it made life so much better afterwards. We had another short meeting and then free time before departure. Many of us enjoyed the warmth of the sun by playing frisbee and badmiton. We had lunch and then departed.

As soon as I arrived home I took a nap. It felt so good.

Ma Na

So school is finally starting to set in. I have not taken many pictures at all recently. This is mostly due to the fact that I am not doing much besides attending classes and studying. The week has been pretty boring.

Yesterday I met up with Vaso and had lunch. Today I had lunch with Rienzo, then dinner with Shoko. Tomorrow I don't have class until late afternoon which means I get to sleep in.

On Saturday we are departing for Nagano for a weekend trip with the Japan Study students. It will be a good time, but I think it should be a little later during the year. We just started classes and are still talking to the other people in our program! All well, it gets us out of inner Tokyo for a little while.

More Studying

I woke up this morning and started studying kanji. Vaso e-mailed me around noon for lunch. We went to this really good Italian restarant in Shinjuku. We had some seafood pizza which consisted of shrimp and squid. Afterwards we went to the arcade and played a game of Gundam and Guilty Gear. I also ended up playing a game of Beatmania, which I realize that I really suck at. It is that turntable that always screws me up. It was raining all day today and I somehow managed to lose my umbrella at one of the arcades. Personally I think someone stole it. Vaso had some club meeting to attend at Waseda so we parted ways. I returned home and started reading Genji. 4 chapters per week means a lot of reading!

Last Train

So now I know when the last train is to my house because I just took it. It runs at 12:15 from Shinjuku station. I am so glad that I managed to catch it, otherwise I would have been screwed.

Anyways, today was a very unproductive day. The good news is that I got to see where my good friend Shoko lives. Her aunt owns a rather large plot of land in Nezu which is near Ueno. She built some apartments and is renting them out to Tokyo University students. The apartments are kind of small, but it is just like living in a dormitory with full amenities. Her aunt visited and gave us these sugar coated grapes. They were pretty gross. Anyway, Shoko was in awe that I had not seen the Miyazaki film となりのトトロ (Tonari no Totoro) so she made me watch it. It was a bit on the childish side, but still a really good movie. We also had breakfast for dinner (pancakes, eggs, sausage) with some dango for desert. There always has to be some sort of Japanese twist in there right? So I ended up staying a bit too late and barely caught the last train home. I will be sure not to do that again.

First Weekend

Saturday was a blast. First of all, I woke up really early to go to Ceatec. Vaso decided to be lazy and sleep in instead. I ended up going by myself. It cost me 900 yen to get to the convention center. That is fine and all, but it only cost me 500 yen to get back home via the same route. Talk about weird. The first thing I noticed as I stepped off the train was that everyone was going the same direction. I followed suit and they eventually led me to the convention center. That place was huge! There are three convention buildings each housing a different specialty: home entertainment, fancy new electronics, and the components that go into the fancy new electronics.

I went to the fancy new electronics first because it was closest. The first thing that struck me was the amount of different companies in this huge hall. There were the big ones like Panasonic and Microsoft, but there were also really tiny companies with some pretty cool electronics. The second thing that struck me were the booth babes. They were everywhere. The big companies had upwards of 15 while most of the smaller places had 1 or 2. I thought it was simply amazing that almost every single booth had at least 1.



So I walked around and enjoyed the geeky-ness that comes with every big conventions. I checked out the new TV's, mp3 players, phones, computers, and everything else that I could find. The bigger companies had a show about every half hour or so. They ranged from normal presentations to song and dance and even a magic show! It was very impressive.

After I had seen everything (or at least walked by it) I headed back home. I made a stop at Shinjuku to eat and meet Vaso and Miles. It took them a while to show up so in the meantime I went arcade hopping. There is a popular area in Shinjuku that has about 5 different arcades on the same block. If there is a game you want to play that is already taken, you can simply go on to the next arcade. I ran into Vaso and Miles while changing arcades. They apparently had plans to go to this bar / international party. I decided it would be a good chance to meet people.

I talked to a ton of different people at the party. Most of them were enamoured that I was attending Waseda University. The rest were just surprised at my Japanese ability (which I still do not think is very good.) The party ended around 10pm so we had to move elsewhere. We ended up just walking around until late.

Forgetfullness

I realized that I have been slacking in the blog department since classes started so here goes.

Two days ago I had planned to go to Ceatec with Vaso. However he sent me an e-mail in the morning saying that he was sick. It was probably something he ate, as he wanted to meet up and do something around 1 pm. Anyhow, I spent my morning being lazy around the house. While I have not picked up any video games yet, I did pick up my Japanese textbook and started studying; something I have not done in a long time. I ended up mostly reviewing my Kanji as that is the gateway for me to learn other words. For lunch I ran up to the local convinience store and picked up some onigiri and a plate of yakisoba. By the time I arrived home, Vaso was already wanting to do something. Naturally, I agreed.

We met up at Shinjuku at the usual spot, the bridge in front of Bic-Camera. From there we went on a journey through Shinjuku looking for the lone bank that was still open. We had already been to this bank once before, but neither one of us really paid attention to where it was. We walked past various landmarks including a row of vending machines and a few banks with only atm's in them. Finally we had a revelation, and realized that the bank we were looking for was right across the street. Well that was a fun adventure.

So now we were left with nothing to do. I suggested that we hit up the local Kinokuniya to pick up the books we needed for school. I needed the Tale of Genji and Vaso needed something called Japan and Korea. We needed to go to the other side of the Shinjuku train station. The plan was to walk straight through from the west exit to the east exit. We came out of the exit, walked around a corner, and there was the Bic-Camera again. Somehow we managed to walk in a circle. Back to the train station! This time we came out a lot closer to our destination, so I decided that it was best just to walk around the station until we hit Kinokuniya.

I ended up buying the Royall version of The Tale of Genji. It is the most recent and hopefully will be easier to read than the other versions. Vaso found his book as well. After that we headed home. I read the introduction of my book later that night. It looks like it will be an interesting story.

Yesterday I had lots of classes. Japanese class was awesome as we had a different teacher. This one is much more engaging compared to the other. I am really glad that we will have her every Thursday. The next class was really fun. It is my Translation Theory class. We started off by breaking into groups and trying to translate a short story from Japanese into English. Our group consisted of me, Vaso, Mariko, and another girl at our level. Mariko is a native Japanese speaker and helped translate all of the kanji. We found out that it is hard to agree on a translation when we are all working together. Everyone has their own idea of what they think would be the best way to describe any particular sentence. After this little project, our teacher started going over some of the basic theories of translation such as word-for-word and sense-for-sense. I really think I will enjoy that class. Finally, I attended the second lecture of Genji. We talked about the family tree of the old emperor Nobihiko. It did not interest me too much, but it is important to know where the tale of Genji came from and why. I just cannot wait to start reading it!

Study Time!

I have been to almost all of my classes thus far. Today I attended Japanese again in the morning, then The Tale of Genji and Japanese Popular Music in the afternoon. In the morning class everyone brought in a show and tell item. Mine was the chopsticks that my last host family gave me. I did not really prepare at all, but think I did a pretty good job explaining my item. Some other people had real trouble, and still others simply read from a speech they wrote the previous night. Now that in cheating in my opinion. The thing that makes Japanese class fun is the fact that you get to use your knowledge to make new sentences. That is also the best way to learn.

The Tale of Genji class looks really interesting. The teacher even remembered Brenden when I said that my majors were computer science and Japanese studies. I want to get my hands on a book pronto. The music class looks like it will be more of a "translating and understanding lyrics" type of course. We started the day with the Japan national anthem called Kimi ga yo. We went through the lyrics explaining what all the kanji was, then compared it to 3 different translations of the song. It is amazing how different the translations were. Thursday I have a class about the theory of translation. I am hoping that these two courses will go hand in hand together.

Tomorrow I want to check out the Ceatec which is somewhere in Tokyo. It is this big electronics expo which shows off the latest and greatest. Admission is free so there really is no reason not to go.