Visit to Keio University

This morning I woke up at my usual time not to commute to Waseda, but to instead visit their rival university Keio. The Keio campus is separated into different campuses based on what kind of things are studied. I went to the engineering campus and met up with my old host brother Toshi. Keio is about 30 minutes from Shibuya on the Tokyu-Toyoko line near the Hiyoshi station. I arrived about 10 minutes early which was perfectly fine with me, and waited by a giant silver ball for Toshi to show up. He came at exactly 10am (our proposed meeting time) with his bag and a stuffed rolling luggage suitcase. He told me he was traveling somewhere to give a presentation and take a test (graduation stuff). He pulled that thing all around campus and refused to let me help.

My first impression of Keio was that the scenery is much more pretty. The main walkway had trees on both sides (albeit without leaves) that would be gorgeous in the fall. There was also a serious lack of school based advertisements. I don't know if it is like that at our Engineering campus as well, but I saw slim to no boards with school events on them. This made it feel much more like my home campus. Next he showed me the library and a couple buildings. I was surprised that all the insides were furnished very nicely; some even had places to sit! From the Hiyoshi camups we walked to the Yamane campus where the older students have class. I was told that Hiyoshi campus mainly consists of first and second years, while Yamane is third, fourth, and graduate students. The trek was really short between the two, but there is a huge valley in between. I don't know how many steps we walked down, but then we had to climb this huge steep hill afterwards too! Good practice for sports I guess. When you get too far outside of Tokyo everything is not flat anymore. Next I got to see the research lab where Toshi does research, and meet a couple of other people there. Since it is still close to winter break, I was told that many people had not returned yet. We ate lunch at the local school cafeteria which was about the same as Waseda's. Finally we parted ways and Toshi caught the bus to the airport.

I stayed at Keio for another couple of hours and met up with a girl named Alisa Yamasaki. She has Japanese parents but has lived in America all her life. I met her at the bridging scholarship reception a couple months ago and we never had a chance to hang out again. I figured that since I was already at Keio it would be a good opportunity. We ended up exploring the campus a little, checking out a few department stores, and getting some coffee. A little before 4pm we parted ways and I headed back to Baba. I wanted to play a few games of cards before I went home for the night. Now I am regretting that decision as I have a paper to finish for my song class, a paper far Japanese class, and some Genji to read all by tomorrow. It is already midnight and I am almost finished with my song paper >_<

Back to Class

Today was the first day back to class after winter break. It feels really weird not starting off with a new semester. It is back to the same old boring classes. First of all it was pretty tough getting up at 7:30 again. I have gotten used to sleeping in until noon lately. The commute was packed as always and once again I got shoved off the train at Meidaimae. I knew that it was not going to be a good day.

At Shinjuku I had to walk a kilometer to get to my station. The train I caught went all the way to "New" Shinjuku station which only has 2 lines going to it, and not the one I want. I somehow managed to get to class on time, although I was sure I would be at least 5 minutes late. Japanese class was the same old stuff. I have begun to realize how much I miss Kishi Sensei back at my home University. After thinking it over a little bit I figured out why I do not learn anything in class. It is pretty simple really, and most of it is not the teachers fault. My class is for whatever reason split into 2 sections: beginner and intermediate. The beginner people fail every single test that our teacher gives them. It doesn't matter if it is kanji, grammar, vocab, or even oral, they just simply cannot do it. The intermediate people always get A's on all their tests, do their homework, and have no problem speaking in class. We are being held back! Next semester I will not take it if I have class with the same people. I will move one way or another.

For my Genji class I decided to try out the Sidensticker translation. As to why I did not sample all the translations at the beginning of the semester is beyond me. I quickly found out that this translation is much much easier to understand. All the characters have a constant name throughout the book (instead of being called by their rank) and the language is much simpler. I was tempted to go back and read Genji from the beginning again, but I don't think I have enough time between now and the end of the semester. Our teacher also was kind enough to push back our essay originally due Thursday to next week. Yes!

Finally, in my song class I learned that we had a paper due today. That's right, a paper due the day we return after our 2 week long winter vacation. He cannot possibly expect quality work from us. I knew there was a paper due "sometime in January" as according to his last lecture, but had no idea that it was the day we came back!!! Needless to say that just threw off the rest of my night. I am currently procrastinating on doing it as I am not sure how much (if any) credit he will give to papers being late. Teachers here seem to be really strict about that. Also, I think half the class was absent today as well. I wonder why?

3 Days of Relaxation

I finally got around to doing my laundry. It took all day Saturday, but it is finally done. Now everything is hanging all around my room. Every inch, or should I say centimeter, is covered in drying clothes. I hope they are all dry by the time I need to go back to school. I gotta say that I am really liking the TV right by my desk. It makes watching it so much easier. Now I just need to figure out when stuff is on. That night Vaso and I decided to go to Cold Stone for desert. The bad part was it was closed by the time we got there... We were only 10 minutes late! I guess places close at 10 so the workers can make it home by last train... But I could see them cleaning up!! We ended up having soft cones at a nearby Mac.

Sunday I started playing a few of my Super Famicom games, mainly Star Ocean. I have to look up the characters every couple of minutes so it takes a really long time to play. However, it is a lot of good practice. I already have a page long list of vocab words that I intend to remember!

Today was more of the same. I was planning on going out today, but there ended up being 2 things wrong with that. First of all I could not get anyone to have fun with me. Secondly I realized that I had homework to do. I spend half the day reading Genji, the other half studying Japanese, and the other half playing games. I managed to get everything done by 9pm. It is gonna be tough to get back into the swing of things again!

Of Woes and Worries

So I am a bit concerned about my laptop. It seems that for some reason the wireless card is acting up. Usually when I turn on my computer for the first time, the wireless card is not detected at all. It does not show up on network connections or even in the device manager. The weird part is that after I restart, the card is detected fine... Or so it seemed. This time it took 3 entire restarts before my card was detected. Something is not right. I need to go buy a small screwdriver so I can open it up and re-seat it.

In other news, I ventured to the Big Box to play at the game center. I mentioned the card game Aquarian Age yesterday and would like to go into more detail. It seems that the game consists of a couple of different modes. There is story, single battle, and online. You can actually play against people in real time from anywhere in Japan. The great part is that because it is electronic, it is impossible to cheat or "misunderstand" the meaning of an attack. I also found out that there are special "events" where for a period of a week you can play under special rules for prizes (promo cards, figures, etc.) I ended up playing for a couple of hours and it was pretty cheap all things considered. I received a couple rare cards which improved my deck a lot. I also am getting the hang of what my characters are doing on screen with respect to where the cards are placed on the table. It is really cool. I even met some other guys who were playing beside me. They tried to give me pointers, but it was really hard to understand all the technical card talk.

I also want to mention how clean that particular arcade is. More than once today I have seen the workers there go around and wipe the screens and controls on various machines. It is good to know that they like to keep their games in tip-top condition. I also made up my mind that someday I will have my own arcade. I will bring those card games to the states, have all those bemani games, get some of those interchangeable cabinets, and open up a huge arcade.

I proceeded to go to Nakano to search out more elusive Super Famicom games. A couple of rarities were Super Mario Kart and all 3 Go Go Ackman games. I also picked up Metroid 2 for the black and white Gameboy, and the original Super Mario Bros on the Famicom. I was also tempted to get a Famicom (5000 yen for the 2nd version!) and a N64 (2000 yen!) I decided to pass on the N64 because most of the games were released in America. Only Animal Crossing, Puyo Puyo, and Doshin the Giant are games that I would want for it, and those are all on different systems. The Famicom on the other had has a ton of Japan only releases. Moreso than the Super. The only problem is that the games seem to be more expensive... All the Rockman games for example are over 1000 yen each!!!

Am I Missing Out?

I have been spending the majority of the morning doing laundry and reading Brendan's blog. He went to Japan in 2002 - 2003 on the GLCA/ACM study abroad program (the same one that I am on.) At first I was really in awe at the sheer number of things that Brendan did at the beginning of his stay. I was feeling jealous and thinking about how to make my trip better when it finally struck me.

I have been to Japan before.

This simple fact completely nullifies the "new experience" factor that a lot of the kids had. I previously figured out the train systems, knew my way around Baba and Shinjuku, been to many of the tourist places, and even had much experience with the language. I was feeling that my level of knowledge was way behind Brendan's and even my good friend Vaso's, but in reality it is about the same. We all just experience different things. My big interest lies in video games, therefore I spend a ton of time searching for them and checking out game centers. Therefore, my Super Famicom collection consists of a spanking 49 games with many more to go. My manga collection is a bit lacking, but I still have around 50 volumes. Brenden's interests lied in literature so his manga and book collection was huge (probably twice the size of mine at this point.) I also realized that the biggest difference between our two experiences is the host family. My family doesn't take me anywhere whereas Brendan's did. It is a good and a bad thing. I get to go out with friends adventuring, getting lost, and learning more about Japan, but I don't get the full on explanation of things or places that my family would give me.

I finally realized what has been happening, and I feel much better about my experience so far.

A New Hobby

Today was a sad day. I had to wake up really early again (6:30 come on!) to get some grub and head on over to the hotel. I must say that I was dead tired. By the time I got there, mom was all packed and ready to head to the airport. I got to drag her small bag behind me so that made the day a little better. We made the 1 and a half hour trip to Narita Airport and got there around 9:30ish. I almost fell asleep a couple times along the way. Mom got all checked in and ready to go, but there was a slight problem. After taking a second look at the itinerary, we discovered her flight did not leave until 2 in the afternoon! We thought it left at noon... That is a whole 4 hours to kill! Since I had had a very small breakfast this morning (a piece of bread) we decided to eat lunch. Mom has been getting away from the whole "lets eat new and exciting foods" phase so I settled on the local Subway. I had the cream cheese roasted chicken and mom had the cajun chicken. We also ordered some potato wedges, something which would catch on in America if you ask me. I also found out that the subs are about the same as in American Subways. Everything is metric, so the normal sub is 15 centimeters long which translates to 5.90551181 inches. Very close to half a foot. I also admired the subs with hot dogs in them... Seriously >_<

Mom eventually decided to go through the final security checkpoint which queued my departure. I said my final goodbyes and headed back to Tokyo. Instead of going straight home I skipped the stop at Nippori and headed to Ueno Park. Once there I found that the place was insanely crowded. Today was the first day that shops were open after New Years, but a lot of the businesses are still closed so many people had the day off. I really wanted to visit the Robot Exhibit at the Science Museum, but the wait was over an hour just to get in! The other museums in the area were also packed, so I decided it was best just to leave. Since the day was still young, I headed over to Akihabara to do some game hunting.

Akihabara was also extremely crowded. What made it worse was the fact that the road was not blocked off to traffic so all the people crammed onto the sidewalks. There is also a tradition on New Years to sell "grab bags" of random stuff for cheap prices. Most of these are categorized by digital cameras, electronic dictionaries, laptops, etc. I was tempted to buy one, but I figured that it was probably just the crappy products that they couldn't sell. In any case, I managed to find a new retro game shop that is hidden down a back ally and on the third floor of a suspicious looking building. They had every single super famicom game I could ever want. They were also organized very nicely by the hiragana syllabary and even had the name on the side of each game so you didn't have to sift through all them! The only problem was that they were a bit more expensive than Mandrake over in Nakano. Most of the games were between 1000 - 2000 yen which is out of my price range. But in any case, I did manage to find some good deals and picked up some 500 yen games. Back on the streets I explored all the backroads and found a couple more tiny shops with a few retro games. I picked up around 10 total from a few different places. On my way back to the train station I spotted a vendor with tons of different wires and connectors. I remembered that I wanted to move the TV in my room by my desk so I can "study" and watch TV at the same time. The way it is set up now, the TV is on the other side of the room. I talked to the guy and got 7 meters of cable for 480 yen. Nice.

Back in Takadanobaba I climbed up the Big Box and went to the arcade. There was something that has been bothering my for a while, and I had to try it out. There are these card games at the arcade where you place different cards on a playing field, much like any other tabletop card game. The only difference is that the game registers where the cards are placed and correlates them to characters on screen. When you move the cards around, your characters on the screen move to correspond with them. There is one called Aquarian Age Alternative that is half the price of the other ones but still looks like a lot of fun. I ended up buying a starter pack and playing through the tutorial. It turns out that every time you finish playing a game, the machine spits out a new card for your collection. So not only do you get to have fun, but you get more cards for next time as well. I currently have a pretty crappy deck, but I plan on continuing to play for a period of time.

After about 6 games or so, I finally returned home. I got my TV hooked up on the other side of my room and cataloged my new games. It was a good day.

Ueno Park

On Sunday morning I got to sleep in (finally!) It had to be about 2 or so before I finally made it to Baba to pick up mom. It was New Years Eve so the shops and places were starting to close down. It was weird that everything shuts down for New Years instead of Christmas. It was also very weird seeing half of the city closed for the holiday. The trains and convenience stores were open, but that was about it.

Anyway, I dragged mom to Ueno Park to see whatever was there. I had also never been there so I thought it would be a good experience. My original intention was to visit the Robot Exibit which was going on at the Museum of Natural History. When we got there though, we found out that all the museums were closed. Even the Ueno Zoo was closed. The only thing open was a shrine and a children's amusement park. We tried these free samples of Yaki-panda (literally "fried panda") on the way to the shrine, then on the way back we stopped and bought some. It was basically Taiyaki but with panda shapes instead of fish.

Next I figured that at least some of the shops in the black market district should be open, so I dragged mom to the other side of the train station. The main street vendors were packed with people. I have never seen that many people that close together before except on the train! Everyone looked like they were trying to get a deal on some fish and lobster products. We ended up stumbling on a cheap clothes shop and mom bought a yukata among other things. I then dragged her around Ueno until we ended up back at the station.

I decided that ice cream would be good at that point so we ventured off to Harajuku to get some Crepe action. Takeshita-dori was packed with foreigners and locals alike looking for some sweet gothic clothing. I ignored all the stuff and made my way to the Crepe shop. The one I had was strawberry cheesecake with vanilla ice creme and sprinkles. The true path to my heart is with awesome food and that is exactly what I got. After that we then weaved our way through the crowd to the end of the street. At the very last store before we got out onto the main street, mom spotted a rack of belts. She ended up buying one that looked a little short, but could still be worn.

The path to Shibuya took us by all sorts of cool places. We skipped out on visiting Omotesando (which I got shot down the next few days by my host family) and arrived in Shibuya. Basically I wanted to show mom the biggest intersection in the world and the Hachiko. After seeing those two we ventured down a random street out of that part of the city. We passed a fugu (blowfish) place on the way there (which I want to return to at some point). Upon reaching a large intersection with no more Christmas lights, we decided to turn back towards Shibuya. On the way back I found a Cold Stone Creamery! I have yet to eat there, but will most definitely make a date of it in the near near future. We also got a good view of the intersection from that building.

Upon arriving at the train station we headed back towards Baba. I made a quick stop in Shinjuku to pick up some DVD-R's and while I was there showed mom around Kabuki-cho. I also made her play the 10 yen claw game which she managed to lose 4 times in a row. We finally returned home around 10ish. At that point I was hungry so I took mom to experience Japanese fast food (aka Yoshinoya aka cheap beef on rice).

It turned out to be a bad idea. Mom just had the green tea that they give you and apparently it made her sick. The next day I arrived in Baba around 2 again to find mom half asleep and looking horrible. Apparently she had gotten an upset stomach probably because of a combination of jet lag, weird food, and inconsistant meals. We chilled around her place. I ended up going to the arcade for a couple of hours to kill some time. I am getting pretty good at that gundam game!

Once mom was feeling better we headed off to Yokohama. We started off by walking outside from Yokohama station to Chinatown but quickly regretted that decision. You see, Yokohama is by the bay so the wind is very strong. That coupled with the fact that neither of us had a hat or gloves made it a very cold day. We got to see the amusement park and large hardware store, but that alone was not worth the coldness. As soon as we found a train station, we got on and headed for the actual station.

Yokohama was not as cool as I remembered it. Most of the stores were food places, and most of them were selling roasted nuts or some sort of Manjyuu out front. I bought an an-man which was plenty for me. There was not too much shopping left to do so we skipped most of the shops. We did manage to find a really cool temple and then a demonstration with the paper dragon thing. Feeling a little down, we headed home.

Back at the hotel we waited for New Years to roll around. Mom took a nap and I headed down to the bar for a couple of drinks and a chat with Kanjina, Adam, and Josh. Once 11 came everyone gathered outside for the Niji-no-kai New Years Bash. The meeting place was near the East exit of Shinjuku, but we all met in Baba first to go over together. I got to see some old friends that I never get a chance to talk to. It was basically a meeting of all the foreign students that don't have a family to spend New Years with.

The party ended up being really lame. New Years came and went with only a little cheering and stuff. As for the after party, Niji-no-kai wanted 3000 yen to attend the nomi-hodai. That wasn't gonna happen. Everyone parted ways and I ended up going home early.

On New Years Day I figured nothing would be open and I was right. The city was almost shut down. For breakfast I was woken up at the ungodly hour of 10 and ate a traditional New Years meal with my host family. I took it slow once again and eventually made it to Baba around 2. I wanted to take a walk to see what was open so I made the trip to Nakano on foot. Mom accompanied me (although she was not pleased by the distance we walked). On the way there I found a Super Famicom 4 player adapter for only 280 yen! Score! At Nakano, most of the things on Broadway were closed (most notably Mandrake). We had the creme filled pancake things and then hopped a train back home. We ended up watching tv the rest of the night.

Today most of the shops were still closed. However, this is the only day that the imperial palace interior is open. The emperor and royal family make an appearance in front of their citizens. I really wanted to go, so we did. Even though there were thousands of people there, I ran into non other than Eric McEver and his host mother. He was one of the few really tall people there. We talked while waiting in the hour long line to get into the palace grounds. Along the way there was a security checkpoint and tons of guards everywhere. Once inside, we squeezed our way to the front center and waited another 50 minutes for the royal family to make their appearance. It was pretty spectacular. The emperor made a little speech about how he was glad everyone showed up, wished everyone a happy new year, and stated that we should all work together to make the world a better place. Everyone waved and then the family disappeared. Sadly, because of this event the gardens were closed. Mom and I instead walked to Tokyo Tower, took a couple of pictures, then went to Hamamatsucho station and back to Baba.

Mom got changed, grabbed her stuff, then followed me home. I got to show her where I have been living for the past 3 months. We got to have dinner with my host family (which was excellent) and talked for quite some time. I got to be head translator for the night. It was a lot of fun trying to decypher what my host parents were trying to say and actually turn it into English. Once dinner was over I escorted mom back home and then returned home myself.