It's one fourth over. Crap.

So I've been in Japan for two weeks. I'm certain I'd have significant difficulty in trying to think of any two weeks of my life in which I've learned more and experienced more firsts. It's been absurd. How about I tell you some stories? Yes. That would be fun.

You know what's coming. Yeah, that's right. The bulleted list.

• Class has been going pretty well. It's moving painfully fast, but at the same time not fast enough. I'd say I learn just as much just talking to my host family and listening to the other native speakers on the trains and around town. I'm amazed at how quickly I'm progressing, but at the same time I constantly feel like I know nothing. What an awesome feeling.

• I bought sumo tickets for the last two days of the Nagoya basho at the end of July. Bogenschneider-san and I are going to take the weekend and hop a bus down to Nagoya to enjoy a couple days of Japan's national sport, as well as possibly checking out the World Expo that's being hosted in Nagoya this year. Also, during that time, a few of the other sumo people will be in Japan on vacation, and I should be able to meet up with them at some point and shoot the breeze. Should be a fun time. Wait, what am I saying? It's sumo. It will be a fun time.

• Kanazawa is home to this ridiculously huge garden park called the Kenrokuen. It used to be the backyard of the Kanazawa castle, which is still around and visitable. Both locations are supremely awesome, especially the Kenrokuen. I got some kick ass pictures, which, once again, I'll claim to be getting around to putting up online. At any rate, Bogenschneider-san and I have definitely seen so much more of Kanazawa than any of the other PII people have. When class ends at noon, they get lunch at the convenience store right next to the Rifare building (the building in which our class is held, which we have affectionatly renamed, the “refer building”) and head right back in to study, and they do that until around dinner time when they head home. And after they get home, they study some more. Waste of time, if you ask me. Which will help me get an understanding of Japan more: getting a 99% instead of a 92% in Japanese class, or getting off my ass and actually seeing the place? I mean, we have seen some really, really cool mashitas in Mashita Land, and we've had a blast doing so, and every time we do, we can't help but think about the poor tools locked up in Refer, who probably won't do much better than us on the quiz we're taking the next day. I feel sorry for them, really. Maybe they'll come to their senses before it's time to go home. Or maybe they really need to study that much to survive. Doubtful.

• My host parents, after finding out that I dig sumo, were encouraging me to check out some of Japan's other sort of traditional sports. So I opteded to check out Kyudo, or Japanese archery, and it is decidedly bad ass. One of the things I like about sumo is all the ritual, because not only is it cool to not know what the hell is going on, but to know that it's really important all the same, it's also cool that there is so much time between little bits of action. Kyudo has the same thing going on. A million little rules to follow, and a million little rituals to follow before it's your turn to shoot. Sumo, kyudo, kendo, and other martial arts, are just as much about your mental state as they are about your performance. With all the ritual, and consequently all the waiting you have to do before you actually perform, your ability to keep your head level, calm yourself down, and keep yourself focused on the task at hand, will make or break you when it comes time to throw that punch, fire that arrow, or withstand 159 slaps to the face from your opponent, then uwatenage his fat ass out of the dohyo. I'm really liking Japan, all of Japan. But if I could choose only one aspect of their culture to explore, it would certainly be its sports. Not even just sumo.

• So Bogenschneider-san and I decided to check out this mountainous area south of Kanazawa on Friday. It took about 45 minutes just to walk to the base of the hills, and then we spent hours hiking around the mountains. But it was so worth it. When we first started cutting up the hill, we were walking through this giant bamboo forest. These trees were like six inches apart. Then as we got higher, we started seeing a lot of really pretty views. Off one side, we could see the entire city of Kanazawa, and on the other, layers and layers of more mountains toward inland Japan. It was crazy beautiful. Then, as we got higher on the mountain and deeper in the woods, we started finding all kinds of little jinja shrines, old monuments, and other ancient paraphenalia. It was amazing how real it was, all this old stuff. It's like the kind of stuff that Disneyland spends a lot of money to fabricate, and here it was, lying around, going unnoticed and untouched. These were definitely the best shrines I've been to so far. Many of them I've visited have been really touristy, and while they were actually shrines, they seem to have shifted their focus away from the practice of Shinto and toward the attraction of tourists. These were completely isolated though, left silent and peaceful, the way I imagine they were all those hundreds of years ago. It was such an awesome afternoon.

• After that, Friday night, I got home and Ritsuko-san was tired since she had been working all day on trying to replace the tatami (the straw mats that make up the floors in traditional Japanese houses) in most of the rooms in the house, so instead of cooking, she took Hirokatsu-san and me to a yakitori restaurant. I was on a natural high at this place. The food was delicious, I had had an awesome afternoon, the company were a couple of the nicest people I've met, and I was doing fairly well at communicating with them in Japanese. It was like a party, at which I had many things to celebrate. I'm having an incredible time, as well as rapidly growing in my understanding of the culture and language of Japan. Taking this trip has been one of the better decisions I've made, as well as one of the better experiences I've...experienced.

End.

Damn.

I never thought I'd be doing so much report worthy crap that this blog would start to become oppressive. Demo, ganbarimasu ne.

So where did I leave off? Oh yeah. The host family. They kick ass, even for Japanese people. I actually don't see all that much of my otoosan (father), since he works early and late and forever and he's tired when he gets home and just sort of falls asleep in front of the soccer game or something. But he's been cool whenever I have talked to him. And he likes sumo, which is clutch. The host okaasan (mother), though, is totemo ii (highly dominant, to translate loosely). She's definitely the most hyperactive 60-year old I've ever met. High pitched voice. Speaks Japanese...quickly. Loves sweets, just like any good house wife. Amazing cook. (As an aside, the food here has been really amazing, though I never really know quite what I'm eating, since I've never seen it before and I certainly can't read any labels to find out what it is. It's been a fun adventure.) Understands a fair amount of English, which is clutch. Perpetually laughing, probably most of the time at me. Take five, and think about what a Japanese host okaasan would/should be like, and you've got her. She's fantastic.

The house is cool too, because it's nothing like a western house. First of all, when you enter, there are strict rules about where you can wear shoes and where you can't. In all Japanese houses, there is a step up when you first enter, which marks the boundary between where shoes must be worn and where they must not be worn. In Japan, there's a huge distinction between uchi—inside—and soto—outside. Just look at sumo. You lose when you step outside. Anyway, my bedroom is pretty awesome, too. In most Japanese houses, the guest room is the best one, and this house is no different. It's built in the middle of the garden, so I have awesome views of plant dealies from my windows. There's no bed, so each night I pull out the futon, which consists of a couple of mats that I throw on the floor, and each morning I fold it all back up and pack it in the closet. And this isn't weird here, you know? Everyone does this every day. Bathrooms are crazy here, too. The toilets all have a million buttons, and I have no idea what they do since I can't read. Plus, they aren't usually in the same room as the shower/bath, which is also crazy. The shower is typically just a hose, and it doesn't reach very high, which could be because Asians are short, but could also be because you aren't supposed to stand up in the shower. It's come up more than once among the exchange students, and none of us seem to know.

The homestay has really been awesome so far. It's a great feeling, being thrown into a situation so totally different from anything you're used to, even though it's of course difficult at times. Fortunately for me, I got the awesome host parents who have been hosting exchange students for a decade now, so every cultural and behavioral error one could possibly commit has been commited by one of those students, somewhere down the line. I've certainly made my share, but I'm learning at lightning speed.

KANAZAWA'd!!!

So Kanazawa, in a word, owns. Tokyo was awesome, and it's certainly the more interesting place to visit, but Kanazawa seems like it will be much better for living, working, and learning. One nice thing about it is that it's not as freakin' huge. Tokyo was a touch intimidating, as well as difficult to navigate without being able to read. Kanazawa, on the other hand, is smaller and a bit more friendly, making it a great place to hold a program like PII for multiple reasons.

For one thing, the culture to be found in Kanazawa is numerous. (Hey, if my Japanese isn't getting better, my English is definitely getting worse.) The evening I arrived at the hotel, I went to sleep at 5:00, intending to take a quick nap, but woke up at 10:00 pm and ended up just sleeping through until 5:00 am. Jet lag licks balls. But I digress. That morning, I decided to walk around the city for a bit since I didn't have to meet my host parents until 11:00. From the station, if you start walking south, you pass a crapload of really nice hotels and maybe some skyscraper-esque office buildings and such. Then you hit the shopping district, chock full of these awesome 6 or 7 story department stores full of fascinating and mysterious items, plenty of convenience stores and smoke shops, and your occasional restaurant for good measure. It's around this part of town, or perhaps a bit further south, that you start running into a bunch of Jinja shrines and Buddhist temples. It's so awesome. Right in the middle of modern, busy Kanazawa, you have these peaceful little havens, built hundreds of years ago.

I visited a couple of the Shinto shrines that morning. They're always open for anyone to come in, and there are no staff guarding anything. Apparently no one worries about vandalism and other tomfoolery (now there's a 50 yen word if ever there was one...and there probably wasn't). The gardens there were beautiful, as were the altars and idols. I saw several people come to the temples and pray, and I wondered if they were just tourists like me, or if there were Japanese people who still used the ancient temples in practice and how often they did so. At both shrines, at the entrance to the temple, there were lots of little papers tied to the bushes and trees. I thought perhaps they were a type of fortune, like the kind that come in cookies, only much longer and more complex. In the temple window they had a box full of them, so I took one and tied it with the others. The shrines were so serene. I thought, “I could spend every morning like this.”

I later did some research to find out what the fortune dealies were all about. It turns out they're called “omikushi,” and the idea is that you get the fortune, and if it's good, you keep it. But if it's bad, you tie it to the bush or the tree, which will prevent it from coming true. Since I can't read much of anything, I'll just give myself the benefit of the doubt and assume that my fortune was bad and that I was correct to tie it.

There's plenty more to tell, but I'm sick of writing and you're sick of reading. More later, then.

Irashaimase! (Welcome.)

I type this on a public computer in the lobby of the Hotel Kazusaya while I should be sleeping so I can get up and catch a train in the morning. Meh. I can just blame jet lag.

Anyway, the flight was long and uneventful. I slept, ate, slept, watched some movie, listened to some crazy J-pop, slept, probably ate again, then slept some more. Then I got to Japan. Awesome.

Let me see...where do I start? Narita Airport is sort of in the rural area east of Tokyo, so the first images I saw of Japan are not what one typically thinks of, or at least not what I typically think of. I saw nothing but green; none of the bright flashing lights and futuristic cityscapes you see on the postcards. It is mountainous here. It seems like there is not a flat piece of ground in the entire country. (Allow me to here point out that Japanese keyboards lack an obvious apostrophe key, and since I am tired and lazy, you will have to read every word spelled out.) Anyway, the train ride from Narita to Tokyo was lots of fun, as I got to see the green, rural Japan of my arrival slowly grow more and more developed. From bare mountains and trees, I started seeing farms and rice paddies. Then some small villages. The houses look a little crazy, since, as I said, it is very hilly, and the houses are built accordingly. They look as though they are growing out of the mountains. From there it just got more and more urban, until we finally reached Tokyo, a spectacle of urbanity and development. I took a bunch of pictures, most of them total crap, and hopefully I will be able to get them online sometime in the near future.

The people here are super friendly. Upon my arrival to Tokyo Station, I of course had no clue how to get to my hotel, so I payed a visit to the kooban (police box), and the cops helped me find my way. The hotel employees are nice too. One of them even speaks pretty decent English, so I got to talk to him for a little while as I checked in.

After that, it was still pretty early, so I decided to check out Tokyo before leaving in the morning. It would seem a waste to spend the night here and stay in the hotel the whole time. The city is amazing. I have never seen anything like it, which probably has to do with the fact that I have never been to Japan. First of all, everyone is wearing a suit. All the time. Men and women, old and young, they are all wearing suits and carrying a briefcase, umbrella, and cell phone, all of which were undoubtedly issued to them at birth. Every building around Tokyo station is a ginkoo (bank). So not only are they all wearing suits, they are all wearing suits because they all work for a bank. Once you get north of there, though, a little bit past my hotel, you reach one of the smaller entertainment districts, Nihonbashi. There the people (still donning suits) sing karaoke, play pachinko (a gambling game much like slots), hit the arcade, or for some good old fashioned fun, visit a gentlemans club (excuse the lack of apostrophe). The commercialism here is a thing to behold.

Well, I head west to Ishikawa in the morning, away from the crazy metropolis to where it is supposedly much more quiet and laid back. Hopefully I will get the chance to further explore Tokyo before I leave Japan.

Konbanwa. Jaa, mata.