Digital Storytelling Project

こんばんは！

This will be a short post. We had to do a digital storytelling project for our program, and I wanted to put mine out there.

Due to copyright restrictions, I couldn't put it up on YouTube. I managed to get in onto Vimeo though! So here's the link --

Digital Storytelling Project

6/27 - 6/28 Saying Goodbye

As of writing this, it's actually the first of July. A mixture of jet lag and a cold I must have gotten on the plane ride home drained my energy, which is the reason for this extremely late upload. Sorry about that!

So without further ado, here's how my last two days of Japan went!

The 27th started out with Courtney, Grace, and I walking out to some nearby grocery stores to buy food souvenirs (the best kind of souvenirs). I brought back some kit kat, mochi, dried fish, and several other things for my parents to try out. We also had our last DeliFrance breakfast and sweet crepe lunch. The three of us lamented over our meals.

We went back to the hotel to relax for a bit before getting together again to try and get our wifi disconnected. Again, we had a bunch of problems while trying to cancel it ourselves due to being illiterate in Japanese, so we headed back to Bic Camera. I was dreading it.

Canceling our wifi ended up not being that hard at all! Luckily I brought the right paperwork the workers needed to cancel it and we were out of there in 10 minutes! The workers were super nice too and asking questions about how our trip went and such. We walked out feeling significantly better and met with Justin and Riley to head off for Abiko for our final dinner.

Before going to the restaurant, we went back to the tea shop. Courtney, Grace, and I wanted some last red bean and mochi ice cream and Justin wanted to buy a small tea set for his parents back home. After getting what we came for we headed out and made it to dinner just in time!

We had shabu shabu for dinner. This is where the servers give you raw meat and a pot of boiling water with soy sauce so that you can cook your own meat. Best part? It was covered by NAU and it was an all-you-can-eat dinner. If we ran out of meat, all we had to do was call the servers and they'll bring out more. I ate until I was stuffed. It was great.

The next day we met up with the group to get our last Mister Donut. You have no idea how much I'm missing Mister Donut right now - American donuts don't come close. I got me a curry donut and a chocolate dipped creme filled donut, plus two donut balls and some iced coffee. The number one thing I'll probably miss about Japan is the food - I now have constant cravings for red bean pastries.

Our last breakfast at Mister Donut. Sad days. 

We said our goodbyes to our teacher and headed back to the hotel to get our stuff. Everyone but Sherman and Dominik were leaving that day and around the same time, so we said goodbye to the two who were staying and made our way to Narita airport.

We were crunched for time at the airport so we couldn't get any dinner together. Once us girls found the check in for Korean Air, we said goodbye to the guys and headed in. I still miss them.

As usual, Korean Air takes care of you. Courtney and I were talking about all the food we're going to miss and we got some red bean mochi for dessert for our first meal. Thanks Korean Air!

We killed some time in Seoul by shopping around, and did the same in Vegas. We got to Phoenix at around 9:00 p.m. where Courtney, Grace's, and my family all were together to welcome us home. My parents and I then got to our hotel were I proceeded to give them their souvenirs and tell them all the funny stories about my trip to Japan.

And so here I am laying in bed, missing Japan like crazy. I'm going to miss how structured the escalators are - Courtney and I were already complaining in Vegas when we saw that Americans don't stay on the left side if they're not going to walk up/down. The disorganization! That was my first bout of reverse culture shock. I have not experienced too much culture shock besides this, but I'm sure if I stayed in Japan for longer than a month then I definitely would. I'm going to miss how friendly and willing to help everyone is in Japan, the peaceful shrines, the crazy arcades. And of course, the food. I will admit, I do enjoy the freedom of being able to walk and eat snacks, which can be done with no societal judgement in America but not Japan. Both countries certainly have their pros and cons. I only wish that the trip was longer so that I could really get to know people and become more fluent in the language. The group I was with was a lot of fun to be around, and I can't wait until August so I can see them again!

One day I'll visit Japan again. So until that day comes, まったね！

6/25 - 6/26 Homestay Farewell Party, English Chats, and Visiting an Elementary School

Yesterday was pretty hectic, so by the time I got back to the hotel I crashed.

Yesterday morning was pretty relaxing. My host family didn't have anything planned, so after breakfast we talked for a bit and I got to chill out in my room for a while. We also made sure to take photos of each other before having to part ways.

Since there were only three of us, I broke out my selfie stick for this shot. 

We later ate some lunch and talked a little bit more before we had to drive off for the farewell party.

The farewell party was a lot of fun! Everyone's host families were there and we all sat in one huge circle. We then had to go one by one to talk about our time with each other and such. Riley's host family said that on his first day, his host mom said that he looked like Jesus. We call Riley Jesus now.

Everyone's host families were super nice in their talks. My host family basically said that since they only had 3 boys and no grandchildren, it was nice to have a girl in the house.

After our farewell party, our host families dropped us off in the building where we helped in some English conversation tables. Basically all of the English speakers had an assigned table and participants would rotate around every 10 minutes to talk to us. This was to help people practice their English. It was a lot of fun, but I was exhausted by the end of it! It was 2 hours of small talk to strangers. All of the people were really nice. The only people I had some trouble speaking to were a shy high school student and an elementary school student, which is understandable. The elementary school student had some content to work with though - he wore a Star Wars shirt and brought a huge Star Wars book with him to show off some of his favorite characters. I tried my best to talk to him with my limited Star Wars knowledge. He also brought some pictures of his cats to talk about. 

Thus concluded yesterday. Today we got the opportunity to visit an elementary school! It was so much fun! Riley, Justin, and I were with class 2-1, who had P.E. that day. Of course I wore the wrong kind of clothes and forgot a hair tie today. The class started off with some stretches and then we were instructed to run with the kids. At first I thought it would just be running a lap, but all of a sudden we were balancing on poles, climbing on monkey bars, and jumping over tires. I was winded after just the warm-up. We then did a relay race and afterwards a game of tag. My legs almost began to feel like jelly during the last few minutes of tag. I had two kids running after me and jumped behind Riley without knowing he was "it" also. Luckily that's when the class ended so I didn't have to be "it" a third time. 

After P.E. was lunch, which was ate inside the classroom. I managed to get the sweat dried off by the time the student's began serving the lunch. 

Yes, the students serve the lunch themselves. No, not in the cafeteria. 

I learned from an earlier meeting that there is a nutritionist who works for the school in creating the lunches everyday. This definitely shows in the food. We didn't have the plastic tasting pizza or the burnt burrito for lunch. We had fried rice with some shrimp in it, potato soup, a type of egg dish with ketchup on top, milk, and a slice of orange. It was pretty good, especially for school food.  

I had no idea how to work the milk carton. Instead of separating the top side corner like in America, there is a perforated section on the side where you tear the first layer off and poke your straw through the second layer. This girl could see that I didn't know what I was doing, so she grabbed my milk from me to stick the straw in through the side. She was a real friend. 

Some of the kids tried talking to me, but of course I didn't really understand anything. I managed to understand questions like "how old are you," "what year are you in school," and "what do your parents do?". Other than that, I would ask me a question and I'd have to respond with "wakarimasen" ("I don't understand") or "amari nihongo o wakarimasen" (I don't understand much Japanese"). 

I finally broke my camera out to take videos and pictures of the class, and that's when the students started getting really excited. I don't know what it is about cameras, but once one is out then everyone wants their picture taken. I was also taking videos, and when I would focus on one student 3 other students would look at my phone and laugh hysterically. I proceeded to do the natural thing and take selfies with the students. 

So Riley started this orange peel teeth trend. He just put an orange peel over his teeth and the whole class started scream-laughing. Here's a kid imitating him.

It got even better once I broke out Snapchat and started using the filters on there. The students really got a laugh out of the filters.

 

After lunch we headed to recess. I actually didn't know it was recess until Riley told me afterwards - I was so confused as to why we were going outside! The past few days I just kind of learned to roll with whatever is happening. 

Justin, Riley and I were following a group of kids outside, and that's when three girls and one boy started calling me over and telling me to follow them. So I started to follow them. Until now I really have no clue what we were doing, all I know is that we would run a bit then hide behind some bushes, and then repeat. I don't know who we were running and hiding from, but it was fun! The sensei saw us and told me to put my bag inside, so I did but 2 minutes later a kid goes back to get my bag so I can put it next to Riley's. 

Afterwards we went back to the classroom to clean up. The students have to clean the classroom instead of the janitor. The sensei handed the three of us college students tiny brooms to help sweep up. The kids were moving desks this way and that and us three were just awkwardly sweeping things into a pile for the kids to get later. 

After cleaning we all took a group photo. The photo's on Justin's phone and I still need to get that from him. I'll bug him about it in the morning. This is when I decided to get more selfies with the kids.

Again, when there's a camera present then everyone wants to be part of it. It started out with me and three other girls and quickly escalated to this huge circle around me trying to be in the picture.

The kids said I final thank you and we headed off to a quick after-school English lesson with the upperclassmen. This English lesson consisted of the students singing along to the Beatles' song "Hello Goodbye" and "Let it Be". Thomas and I were the two in the classroom, and when we walked in we just started to sing along. The students knew all the words to "Hello Goodbye," and the teacher had a lyric video playing on the projector to help. But then "Let it Be" started and all the kids knew was the title "Let It Be". I asked the teacher if he wanted Thomas and I to sing it. I'm not sure exactly what he said but it sounded like a yes, so Thomas and I sang to "Let It Be" to a silent classroom.

The teacher played it again, and the students sang along more the second time. I'm starting to think the first go was a test run. Justin, Riley, and Grace then came into the room to sing along. We all stood up and put our arms over each other's shoulders and began to sway side to side to the music, making a great kumbaya moment. The kids found this hilarious and joined in. 

This concluded our time at the elementary school. I was exhausted coming back so I chilled out for the rest of the afternoon. I mainly went back out for some CoCo Curry and FamilyMart mochi. 

That's all for today! 

6/24 Homestay Part 2

So today was pretty interesting :) It started off with a nice breakfast of eggs, ham, and toast. All of my meals have been presented so nicely so I've been taking a lot of pictures of food. We ate in Sachiko's (the wife) front yard garden, which is beautiful!

After breakfast we killed some time by showing each other pictures. I pulled up my parents' Facebook and Sachiko pulled up some of her framed photographs. We then started on the mochi. 

The mochi was absolutely delicious! I ate four in total - two were served with soy sauce and two were served with kinako (soy bean powder). Basically two were sweet and two were savory. The mochi with soy sauce were also wrapped in seaweed, which added a lot to the flavor. 

Last night, the husband and wife asked me if I've ever tried natto before. Natto is a traditional Japanese dish of fermented soy beans. A lot of Westerners are afraid to try it because of the look and smell. I told the two that I've never ate it before, but I wouldn't mind trying it. So today, they gave me some natto as a challenge. Sachiko even used my phone to film and photograph me eating it. It actually wasn't too bad. 

A beautiful photo of me eating natto.

After lunch, the husband went out to play tennis. Sachiko then had me ride bikes with her through the neighborhood. We first visited her husband and friends playing tennis. He's part of a group where retired people come together to play tennis to keep their health up. She introduced me to all of her friends, explained how she was my home stay mother, which university I go to, and complimenting me on my Japanese. Apparently I've been doing fairly well so far with speaking Japanese. 

A ride around the neighborhood :) The neighborhood is very pretty and calming.

After watching Sachiko's husband play tennis and having short conversations with her friends, we then rode off to an old estate. The estate belonged to the Yoshida family, who were the village heads. For transparency's sake, I am reading this off of a pamphlet I received as I'm writing this blog post. They took part in agriculture and had a pasture for military horses. Owning a pasture for military horses put you on the same level as samurai. 

Basically, the Yoshida family was a big deal. 

Sachiko was able to get a tour guide who spoke good English to show us around the estate. He explained where the cooking took place, where the samurai stayed versus regular guests, where the samurai enter the house versus normal guests, the importance of art inside the house, and many other things. The estate had a beautiful Japanese garden in the back, where many of the trees has it's own meaning. From what I remember, there were three trees and a bush that each represented a different animal and character trait. One tree was a dragon, which represented intellectual superiority. The second tree was a giraffe, which represented faith. The third tree was a phoenix...but I seem to have forgotten what the phoenix represented. I also completely forgot what the bush was. I should have brought my notebook with me. 

This is the tree that represents the dragon.

After our tour we ate some おいしいイスクリーム (yummy ice cream). The ice cream we had was vanilla topped with sweet soy sauce and more kinako. 

After our tour we biked to Sachiko's "kitchen garden". Here she grew peppers, cucumbers, soy beans, leeks, and a bunch of other vegetables. I told her that my mom would be impressed. We harvested some vegetables, watered them, and rode back to the Kimura house. 

Once we got back Sachiko and her husband let me take a bath and relax in my room for a bit. We then began a lesson on Japanese-style curry. I'm happy to report that curry (assuming the curry mix is available to you) is also fairly easy to make! You just cut potatoes, carrots, and onions, cook some pork, then put everything in a pressure cooker (or a regular pot) with water and curry powder until the vegetables are soft. Then add the curry powder, stir it a bit and voila! It's served with rice, and Sachiko added some tofu and cucumbers as side dishes. 

After dinner we all just started talking. We talked a bit about Hiroshima and American politics, good food in Japan, and the two started teaching me a bit of Japanese. I learned that the planets have the same kanji as the weekdays. Tuesday is pronounced as "ka-yoo-bi" and spelled 火曜日, while Mars is pronounced "ka-sei" but also uses 火. So basically Mars is the fire (火) planet, Mercury uses the kanji for "water" (水), Jupiter uses "tree" (木), Venus uses "gold" (金), and Saturn uses "base" (土). 

We also taught each other tongue twisters. The Japanese tongue twister Sachiko and her husband taught me goes like "niwa niwa, niwa tori ga, niwa imasu," which means "there are two chickens in the garden". I taught them "she sells sea shells by the sea shore" and "Peter Piper picked a pair of pickled peppers." We had a good time.

Tomorrow I will be waking up pretty early, so I'll be turning in now. おやすみなさい！

6/23 Homestay!

Hi guys!

Yesterday was more of a travel day. We traveled back to our home base of Kashiwa from Tokyo, and goofed around in Kashiwa until check-in. The group then relaxed before getting dinner at a place where there was not one word of English. 

It makes ordering kind of stressful.

Today was the start of our homestay! We first traveled to Abiko for an Ikebana class. Ikebana is the art of flower arrangement. The teachers had us use cattail leaves to symbolize the buddha's head and hands. The stems were cut so that the cattails were at three different heights. The tallest sticks upright and signifies the buddha's head. The second tallest is angled towards the right and signifies the Buddha's right hand. The shortest is angled towards the left to signify the Buddha's left hand that's laying down and palm up.

This is off Google Images. The Buddha's head and two hands are represented in Ikebana.

This isn't the best picture of my attempt in ikebana. The brown parts of the cattails are what symbolizes the head and two hands. 

Me with my ikebana arrangement. Our teacher's assessed our personality through our ikebana. Apparently I'm balanced and have a very "it's my way or the highway" attitude. 

A group shot :)

After our class some of us ate a quick meal and went back up to meet with our homestay families. So far, my gift-presenting has not been the best. I was a tad bit late because of being so hungry, so I ran over and they had me sit next to them. Riley gave me my ikebana from my original chair, and our ikebana arrangements were supposed to be gifts to the family. I didn't know where else to put it, so I just said "douzo" and gave it to them right there. They were super nice and accepted it, though. I will be living with only the husband and wife, as the kids have already grown up and moved away. 

We later hopped in the host family's car and drove to their house. After some conversation in the car, we finally arrived at the house and they helped me with my luggage. My omiyage (presents) from home were just laying there in the backseat because I had no where else to put them, and the husband grabbed them to help me carry things in. 

My original plan was to hide it until I was all settled in, then present it. But nope, I couldn't hide it. So I just told him right there that it was their present. He said thank you and we walked inside, where the wife began opening it. 

They both seemed like they really like the gifts! Apparently, they've lived in California for 5 years and visited Arizona in the past, so they actually knew a lot about Arizona. They even had this huge grey agate decorating their wall, so my small purple agate-sandstone candle holder actually complimented it a bit. We talked a bit about the Grand Canyon and Arizona in general. They already had a map of Arizona so I was able to point to where Round Valley is. 

I was then served some green tea and red bean pudding, which was great! We talked a little more about Japan and the U.S. Afterwards the wife -who's name is Sachiko Kimura - wanted to go out on a walk. We strolled through the neighborhood and into this really quiet, peaceful park. I told Kimura-san that my dad really liked flower pictures, and so she proceeded to stop at every new flower bed to tell me what the names were and let me take pictures of them. Because I wasn't expecting the walk, I only had my phone on me. Here's some of the pictures from our walk - 

Kimura-san :)

After our walk, we went back and I was taught how to make okonomiyaki! It's surprisingly easy. Basically, it's just flour, milk, cabbage, pork, fish, and ginger that you mix all together and fry it like a pancake. You then smother it in mayonnaise and okonomiyaki sauce, add some seaweed flakes and these fish flakes that curl when exposed to heat, and eat up! I had about 3 servings and was absolutely stuffed. 

My second serving.

After dinner, I was treated to a nice Japanese-style bath. You basically wash yourself thoroughly before relaxing in a nice, warm bath. The bathtub even had temperature control! I was wondering why the heat wasn't fading after a while. After my bath we watched some T.V. and now I'm laying in my nice Japanese-style room.  

You want to know what the best part is? I got presents too! It's all food that I can bring home. I can now force my parents to try Japanese curry.

That's all for today! Tomorrow we will be visiting Kimura-san's garden and make some homemade mochi!

6/20 - 6/21 Exploring Tokyo

Yesterday was another busy day! We three girls decided to go off on our own to explore. We decided on Akihabara, Meiji Shrine, and Harajuku before meeting up with the group at Tokyo Skytree

While in Akihabara, we spent most of our time in a 8 floored hobby shop. By "hobby shop" I mean a big anime store. I just bought myself a small tree spirit from Princess Mononoke and called it a day. I came to the conclusion that Akihabara is 50% arcades and 20% adult stuff. The rest are restaurants and more family friendly anime merch. 

After Akihabara we hopped on the train to Meiji Shrine. Meiji shrine is in Shibuya, and was built for Emperor Meiji and his wife. Going to see it was really interesting. First you're walking through urban Tokyo - with the huge buildings and narrow roads. When you finally find the park that holds Meiji shrine, all of a sudden you're in this completely different world with a huge dirt road, then the shrine, with trees surrounding it, blocking out the sky. It was gorgeous.

The shrine itself was impressive. Unfortunately part of it had some construction going on, so we couldn't really see those areas. They did have some good luck charm shops and this huge open area for people to roam around. They also had ema, which are small plaques of wood with designs on them. You can buy one and write your wish on it, then hang it out on a wall that surrounds this huge tree that's wrapped with a shimenawa (rope used for purification). I got my parents a good fortune charm as an apology for all the money I have spent on this trip. Grace got herself an ema and hung her own wish near the tree.

Grace's wish

Trees next to the wishes wall that's also wrapped in a shimenawa

After this we headed back to Harajuku! Once there, we treated ourselves to some crepes and went souvenir shopping. Here's where I say: mom, dad, I am sorry. I had a lot of people to shop for and it gets expensive. I got all my souvenir shopping done (except for one birthday present), so I promise the rest of my money will be spent towards food.

The street in Harajuku that we fell in love with. 

So after our shopping excursion, we headed off to the Tokyo Skytree to meet up with the rest of our group! 

When arriving to the station, we almost didn't want to leave. There are so many things to do inside! When first arriving, we walked by this huge titan head from the anime Attack on Titan. The skytree station highly advertised Attack on Titan and I couldn't have loved it more. I proceeded to get a selfie with the titan --

After this, we stumbled on a Pokemon center. There were huge figurines of some pokemon and I basically had to drag Courtney and Grace away since we had already told our teacher that we were heading her way.

I didn't drag them away before I got more selfies with pokemon, though --

So we finally met with our teacher, but we got to kill more time while waiting for the guys. Our teacher's children showed us some cool augmented reality games that were available, which essentially equated to us jumping around while staring at our reflection on this huge monitor. Grace went back to the pokemon center.

Finally the guys arrived, but Courtney and I had to go back and find Grace. We found her quickly enough, but we also got some free eevee headbands from one of the workers. Here's a cute picture of us.

We couldn't go up to the very top, as that was an extra $10. We did go to the first observation deck, which is 350 above the ground. Going up on the elevator popped everyone's ears.

Once up, we got to see Tokyo. You know how I said Tokyo is big? I wasn't lying. Tokyo is very big.

To top it all off, the skytree had a short viewing of Attack on Titan. Unique this viewing, they actually edited the Skytree into the anime so that it looked like the titans were attacking Tokyo Skytree. I was fangirling all over the place. 

A picture of us before the anime showing.

Adachi-sensei was nice enough to send me this picture she got of the viewing :) I was too busy jumping around and filming it with my video camera to take pictures. 

After the show was done, we ate at Mos Burger. Why did we eat at Mos Burger? This is the place that is mentioned in our Japanese book back at NAU, that's why. I can now tell my Japanese teacher that I ate an avocado burger at Mos Burger. It was very oishii.

So that was yesterday! Today was a complete work and rest day. I basically just left the hotel to get food, and I've been sleeping for the majority of the day. I know, I'm doing the exact opposite of what I said I'd do and stay at the hotel, but it was raining all day today and I was just plain sleepy. Also, there's some assignments due tonight. 

Tomorrow will be the end of our excursion. We will be heading back to Kashiwa to drop off our things and then to Abiko for an oral exam. Wish me luck!