6/3 Chuogakuin University and a Tea Ceremony

So today was great. 

We took the bus over to Chuogakuin University to meet some students and our host families. There was a whole welcome party waiting for us, complete with games, great people and great food. We were put into 4 teams, each team having two people from NAU and two from CU. At first it was a little awkward because of the language barrier, but after the games started we all really loosened up. One of the games played a chopsticks game, where you had to grab as many beans as you could with a pair of chopsticks. We also played a short game of trivia, rock paper scissors, and a game where there are an even amount of large white and black cardboard circles and two teams go against each other to see who can flip over the most of their color. It was really fun! We then had some really good food and met our host families. The two hosting me were so nice! I'm still a bit nervous, but definitely not as much as I was. 

Here are some pictures from the university --

Afterwards we had a class on a traditional tea ceremony. Hands down, my favorite part of the ceremony was this here cake -

From what I understand, these cakes are seasonal. This particular one is modeled after a flower that blooms around this time of year. 

The ceremony was fascinating. A big part of a tea ceremony is meditation and appreciation for the bowls used and the tea itself. There's a certain way you must pick up the bowl and drink from it and a certain way to put it back down. I'm really glad I got to experience this. We were also then taught of how to make our own tea. 'Twas very good. 

Later, four of us decided to go to a really nice tea shop with our teacher, a 100 yen shop, and then to a nearby park. I took so many pictures of the park. It was a beautiful and peaceful place. We ended up staying there until sunset before finally heading back to our hotel.

I loved watching the sun set at the park. I took a ton of pictures, and many more to come! 

6/2 Language Barriers, Exploring Kashiwa, and A Tour of Abiko

So the past two days have been pretty interesting. Yesterday, my group and I decided to explore Kashiwa. We spent quite a bit of time at this awesome bookstore, and then later we saw a tech store and realized we should try and get us a wifi hotspot. 

So no one at this store could speak English, and our Japanese is very minimal so we had a bit of a problem. This really nice lady tried really hard to help us out in explaining how much things cost and how much data we can get, despite the language barrier. We finally decided on getting a hotspot and 6GB of data. It was a little pricier than some of the rentals in the airport, but we figured we should get one as soon as possible and if we had problems we could always walk back. 

Well, we had problems. 

The wifi would not work at all, and we spent maybe and 1 1/2 - 2 hours messing around with it to try and get it working. Finally we decided to go back to get some help. We spent another 1 1/2 hours with an attendant who was trying hard to get it working. Finally he realized that we never activated the sim card, and apparently we are supposed to do that. We also have to have a Japanese phone number, which we started low-key panicking about. Our teacher let us use her husband's, which was super nice of her. ありがとうあだち先生！

So yeah I felt super dumb after all of this, but at least now we have wifi. 

That was our first really stressful situation. Other than that, it's been super fun exploring around town. Here are some pictures I took of Kashiwa from yesterday and this afternoon -

 

No, this is not Tokyo. Our teacher said that Kashiwa/Abiko is pretty small. I can't even imagine what Tokyo is like. 

We also went to Mister Donut for a late breakfast yesterday. This is officially my favorite place to eat. The donut I had was so light and fluffy and I didn't feel gross after eating one, unlike American donuts. 

America, get on Japan's level. 

We also came across this really nice kimono/yukata shop. The kimonos that they had on display were gorgeous. I quickly snapped a picture of one. 

Today we rode the train to Abiko and met the mayor. He basically just told us all about the cool things to see and do in Abiko, and we got a picture with him afterwards. 

We then were given a small tour of Abiko. There were some really nice traditional houses that were here and there on the path that we took. We walked to the Sugimura Sokinkan Memorial House and Museum. The museum used to be the house of Sojinkan, a journalist and essayist. His house was also built in as a traditional Japanese house, however he had his own mini library of foreign books dedicated to journalism along with an impressive study room. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get many pictures of his house because pictures were not allowed for most of it. These are the ones I got from the walk to the museum to the museum itself - 

So that was my past two days! Tonight all 8 of us are going to go sing some karaoke. If I'm singing, then I hope people have health insurance. 

6/1 Arriving in Kashiwa

 Last night I finally arrived in Japan! Traveling here was hectic and I'm still exhausted (mainly due to jet lag and the fact that I'm operating on about 4 hours of sleep from the past 2 or 3 nights). Here's a series of events that happened on the way to Japan -

• Our flight from Phoenix to Seattle was delayed, so we ended up being in Seattle 2 hours later than expected.
• I ate a total of 5 full meals. I wasn't expecting Korean Air to feed us as well as they did so I ate twice before the 16 hour flight, then proceeded to gain a food baby through Korean Air. Hey, no complaints here. 

Yes, I took a picture of airplane food. My 5th meal of the day.

• I got burnt on the thigh by seaweed soup. It was great. The flight attendants were so worried that they checked up on me about 5-6 times throughout the flight, and asked if I needed to go to the hospital once we landed in Korea. (Don't worry it's not a bad burn, just a small blister).
• We were supposed to have 50 minutes in Korea to get from one airline to the next, but because of the delays from the Phoenix-Seattle and Seattle-Korea flights we only had 25 minutes to get through the entire Seoul-Incheon airport. Luckily, once we landed a nice crew worker from the next flight was waiting for people that were going to be on the Seoul to Narita flight, and we all got to follow him through the airport. And by follow I mean chase after. Grace and I were sweating and puffing once we got on the plane, the flight attendants immediately gave us a cup of water before we even found our seats. We were still 10 minutes late to that flight, but they were nice enough to not leave without the people coming from the Seattle-Korea flight prior. Props to that crew member who led us to the gate and gave us a good workout to burn off the bibimbap. 

A picture from the plane when first landing in Korea. I didn't get any good ones of landing in Japan since it was already dark out. 

Traveling is so much fun. 

Once we got to Narita, we were so tired and kept getting confused by the train system here. We eventually did figure out how to get to Kashiwa, and after going the exact opposite way of our hotel and realizing that we're a bit lost, I asked a guy for directions and he decided to walk us there himself. Props to that guy as well!

This is the first thing that the 3 of us took pictures of when landing in Narita. We looked like the ultimate tourists. 

So now I'm in my hotel, and I guess I got my own room for at least the first week of this program. Sweet! 

The view from my room. 

And that's the recent update. It's 8:00 a.m. right now, and I'm operating on about 4 hours of sleep from the past 3 days. My traveling companions and I decided to explore the surrounding area a bit, and I'll probably get some coffee while I'm at it.