6/4 Kendou

Today after exploring the nearby mall in Kashiwa, we went to a middle school in Kohoku to  learn a little bit about Kendou. We rode the train to Kohoku and took a taxi to the middle school. We had to take off our shoes before entering the school, bow before entering the dojo (at least, I think it's a dojo) , and take off our socks before walking on the hard wood floor. We then watched the kids practice kendou. From what I understood, the class was split between first-year and third-year students. The first-year students did some basic practice moves on each other and the third-years actually sparred.

I was a bit terrified that these 12-14 year-olds were going to beat me to a pulp.

Here are some pictures of the dojo and kids' fighting -

I drew black circles over the kids' faces to hide their identity. :)

After watching the kids fight, we had to try some of the moves ourselves. It was a workout! We learned different ways of how to hit someone, and each way came with a word you had to yell out with volition. My yells usually came out really soft and awkward, though. Towards the end we had to do a combination of moves. One combination was to hit them on the head while yelling "meh", and run to the side of them and across the room. I probably made a huge idiot out of myself but the students' were really friendly and were willing to help us out. During our break, some came up to us to try and talk. The older ones were a lot shyer, but some younger girls seemed really excited to talk to us and we attempted to communicate in broken Japanese. Because the break was only 5 minutes, we couldn't talk too long before getting back to it. 

I didn't get too many pictures beyond this, as I was too busy trying to hit a fourteen year old with a big stick in a proper manner. But here's a video of the upperclassmen really going at it. We were all a bit terrified. 

After the kendou class, we went to go have some ramen and explore a shopping center in Abiko before going back to Kashiwa and playing some uno. Tomorrow will be a yukata class along with our first day of travel Japanese. Hopefully it goes over as great as all the other cultural activities we've done so far! 

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. 

5/27 Pre-Departure Thoughts and Expectations

こんにちは！(Hello!)

This is officially my first blog post before heading off to Japan. Luckily I was able to afford this trip by combining my earnings from a part-time job last summer with scholarships (ASNAU GO, No Excuses, and the Karl Doerry scholarship) and parental contributions. Thank you so much! I still have 3 days until my parents drive me down to the Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, but the days feel like they're dragging on. The more excited I get, the slower the days seem to go. 

I first started wanting to go to Japan in middle school. I admit, I originally wanted to go so I could nerd out on anime to my heart's content. However, it wasn't until I hit college that I really started considering a trip to Japan. Like many people my age, I have a huge urge (I can't find a better word for this) to travel and see the world. When first hearing about all the different opportunities NAU offered for study abroad programs, I realized that I had a chance in finally seeing Japan. My roommate was actually the one who introduced me to this program - "NAU in Japan". I took a while to decide on whether to go or not, which mainly consisted of my parents insisting I go and me trying my best not to chicken out. I finally decided to go for it. I had saved up some money from a summer job, managed to receive some financial aid, and the trip to Japan is a go! 

The past month I've been watching all kinds of YouTube videos and reading articles/blog posts on the people, places, and things to do in Japan. My excitement levels are incredibly high right now. All of the study abroad students were told to come into the country without any expectations, however I think I ruined that part for me with all of these videos and articles. Of course, I'm pumped for some of the places in our itinerary - the Studio Ghibli museum, Nara (mainly 'cause of the deer), Osaka, and Miyajima island to name a few. Of course now, I have developed some new fears with this trip. 

The first and most obvious thing I'm scared about is the language barrier. I've taken Japanese 101 & 102, and while that's enough to ask where the bathroom is (very important), that's not enough to really interact with people. We will be staying with a host family for 2 days and although that's not a lot of time, I still want to make a good impression. And also, there's the thought of getting lost in Japan that's a little scary. I'm born and raised in a small town with a total of 2 stoplights. The biggest city I've ever been in for an extended amount of time is Flagstaff, and I've been lost several times just wandering around campus. Imagine me getting lost in Tokyo. 

There's also some cultural things that I'm a bit nervous about. From what I heard, America and Japan are incredibly different. A big part of it comes from America focusing on the individual over the group while Japan is the opposite. From the orientations that I've been to with my group for the upcoming trip, I can see that Japan has a lot more unspoken rules than America. From clothes to public appearance to the concept of omiyage (required gifts), I really want to make a good impression but I'm a bit afraid that I won't. 

My excitement is still greatly outweighing these hang-ups. I can't wait until I get to Abiko! I'll try to update this blog as much as I can while I'm abroad.  

Well, that's all for today! See you in Japan! :)