Kenia no saikin wa~

Since I haven't had time to upload these before, I'm uploading a miscellaneous group of pictures that I had on my camera. 'Kenia no saikin wa~' ['Kenia has recently been up to~']

Snow Snow Snow♪

It snowed in Tokyo last Friday and Monday night! Although I had experienced snow in Kyoto this winter season already, this was the first time experiencing Tokyo snow. Apparently, it's a pretty rare thing for snow not to mention for it to pile up. So, I was lucky to experience this! By now, it's pretty much gone, but even yesterday, I saw traces of snow still on the roofs of houses and some ice on the streets. On Monday night, I saw a group of people from the dorm playing out in the snow. It was so cute.

I thought that this was a funny picture and a rare sight--snow on palm trees.

Happy New Year!

I think Monday? was the beginning of the Chinese New Year. In Chinatown, they had a dragon parade, but because of exams, I wasn't able to go see it.

I've had this up on my room door since the beginning of the year, but I thought now was an appropriate time to show everyone. I like to change the picture on my room door constantly according to the season. So far, I've had a Halloween and Christmas picture up before. As I'm walking into the dorm, I can see the picture from the outside. It makes me smile to think 'That's my room!' hehe

I didn't make it for the regular New Year, but for Chinese New Year, I had traditional New Year Japanese sweets. I like the mochi filled with red bean paste, but apparently, you're supposed to eat the leaf with it. The leaf was really bitter, though. I suppose it balances the sweetness of the mochi, but I didn't really like it so I ended up taking it off...

Cooking Corner

I made a ginger carrot soup for myself♪ It's really nice for the cold weather. I just felt so proud of my cooking that I had to take a picture! (The funnest part was choof-choofing it!)

At Narita Airport

I am currently at Narita airport waiting for my flight.

I was planning to wake up at 6 and do some cleaning before I left the dorm, but I accidentally slept in until Kamelija knocked on my door at 8...typical me.

Luckily, all my bags were packed and I just had to move some stuff to the kitchen before and get changed super speedy before Sakurai-san came to do a room check before I left. The room check went without a hitch and then after a sad goodbye to Kamelija and Nick, Hinata and I boarded our taxi. After that, it was the airport limousine at Yokohama to Narita. Unfortunately, due to our different flights, Hinata and I were split at the terminals--I'm at terminal 2 and she's at terminal 1, so we parted ways a bit earlier than expected.

Now I'm alone waiting until 5pm so I can check in my luggage and move around a bit more freely.
Well, I've made it safely to my first destination, so it's a bit chill for the time being.

While I wait, I have time to reminisce the times I've had in Japan. It still feels surreal that I'm leaving. I remember when I took off last September to come here. I was so excited to finally be in Japan and it was nervous being alone for the first time on a flight and everything. Now, I feel so comfortable making my way around here, that it feels like a second home. I've made so many amazing friends here and have learned so much about Japanese language and culture that I could never have known if I had never come here. I'm so grateful to my scholarships that helped me live so comfortably, my family for continually giving me support through skype and simply by thinking of me all the time, and to all the people that I met here for accompanying me places, talking with me, and just being there as a social and mental support. Without them all, I don't know what I would do.

My Japanese friends that I made/met here: Tsubasa, Eriko, Michiko, Kumiko, Yuuko

The lovely grandmas and grandpas at my conversation club: Seki-san, Nakamura-san, Hiroko-san, Sato-san

My level 7 classmates from last semester: Lisa, Miharu, Albert, Laura, Chris, Hinata, Kamelija, In, Kathleen

The dear friends I made at my dorm: Eric, Margaret, Nick, Eilika, Juan, Mataeus, Soon-san, HyoJong, Stephanie

And especially, the amazing group of friends that I made through Hinata and probably became my strongest support, and who most of them I will hopefully meet again next summer when I work at the same camp: Makoto, Tamaki, Catie, Gou, Dai-san

I really do love them all.


There were good times here in Japan. There were things that I loved about this culture and its people. And there were also the bad times, the terrible times that made me want to cry and things I really came to dislike. But, overall, I do not regret coming to this country. It was always my dream to come here, and I'm happy that it finally came true. Now, I have to search for another dream to keep me going and keep me living this life.

By living here, Japan has become another home and I will definitely come back someday. At the same time, I have also made several other homes all across the world by all the different people that I have met here. In these times when communication is so much easier and faster than before, I think I will be able to keep in contact with all my friends at least for a very long time. And one day, I'm confident that we will meet again.

In the meantime, I'm off on a vacation to Australia where I will no doubt experience even more knew and interesting things.

Matta ne~

Kabuki

Of course, before I leave for Australia, I have a few posts to make.

This one is about my experience on Tuesday 7/17 with Kabuki, Hiroko-san, and the group from Whitman high school.

On Tuesday, I walked to the post office with Hinata, Kamelija, and Nick, dropped off my package to be sent home, and headed to Nakameguro.

There, I met with Hiroko-san and she treated me to lunch at a pasta place.

Hiroko-san told me she was kind of worried about me in the future because I'm so quiet. She said maybe in Japan there would be a place for quiet people like you, but in America, you need to force your way out there and boast about yourself. At the time, I felt kind of worried about this comment, but when I told this to Hinata, she just laughed and said cynically how she loved how Japanese people acted like they knew everything about American society sometimes. When it comes down to it, the ones who live within America, know how American society works the best. Plus, Hiroko-san has just seen one side of me--the side that speaks Japanese, which is a lot less confident in several ways than the side that speaks English. Yeah, I'm shy, but if I have to, I can talk to people. I can't be the only one of my kind in America. There are tons of Americans who are shy, as well. So, I'll be okay...I hope...

Afterward, we went to the national theater to watch a kabuki play with Yuki-san and the Whitman class. Kabuki is a type of theater where the actors are all male (males play female roles as well) and most character's have their faces painted stark white with exaggerated eye make up. (The actors do not wear masks--that is called Noh.) It was a special performance for people who don't know much about Kabuki, especially high school students, so before the actual performance, there was a guy who told us about how Kabuki works and then an actor who plays a female part (onnagata) put his makeup and costume on in front of us. It was really interesting. Especially, once the actor had his make up on, he started using the female 'I', 'watashi', demonstrating that once he had put on a different face, he was already taken on the persona of his female character. Kabuki is a really interesting field to explore the definitions of gender and sexuality.

The actual play was extremely difficult to understand, because it uses old fashioned Japanese. Even Japanese people have difficulty understanding it. I was lucky enough to have a head set that translated what was going on, although it wasn't word for word translation. It was just a whole picture explanation, but with that and listening for words I could understand, it wasn't too difficult to understand what was going on.

This is the outside of the theater:

After the play, I was placed in charge of a taxi with 4 Whitman kids in the back and I asked the driver to take us to the US embassy in Japanese. I think because of that, when I turned to the kids and asked them in English what year they were in and how many years they had studied Japanese, one of them said, 'Wow, your English is really good.' 'Um...I'm American, ya know...' It may have also been partially due to stupidity. The Whitman kids seemed really stupid and so high school that it made me feel really old. Plus, they were really badly behaved and treated Yuki-san really badly. It's no wonder Yuki-san has grown so tough...

Stepping into the American Embassy, I was attacked by culture shock. It was just so American, it was hard to believe I was in Japan anymore. I actually felt kind of sick and really wanted to go home. Home to my room in Yokohama with my exchange student friends. I did however get to get a peak into the US embassy and agenda, so that was interesting.

Afterward, we were invited to one of the embassy staff's house for dinner, since he's the father of one of Yuki-san's ex-students. (Whitman kids are full of rich connections...) It was a nice treat, though, so I'm not complaining.

During the party, I had a serious talk with Yuki-san and Hiroko-san about my future and Yuki-san pretty much said that the traditional translation jobs don't exist anymore, because of the internet and technology, which is terrifying to hear. People ask me what I want to do, but I don't know what I'm going to do in the future. Sure, I want to do translation and such, but I don't know what kind or how or when I'll start...Listening to Yuki-san's advice was helpful, but scary, as well.

Today, at dinner, I was talking to Makoto and he asked me what I want to do when I graduate. I answered that for the time being, I want to be a translator, but I don't know if I even will be able to. After that, I'm really considering being a preschool teacher haha...Makoto and Hinata have both worked in preschool as well, so I'm like HEY, then we should just all make a preschool together with lots of different languages. Like CommuniKids but create a Japan branch or something. Yes, so that might happen...

In the meantime, I'll keep going forward and face what comes along my path.

Lately, I've really begun to hate the word 'ganbaru', because I feel it contains the meaning 'you're too slack; you're not working hard enough; work harder'. However, today, my friend wrote on my facebook page to say good-bye and instead of 'ganbatte' (work hard), she wrote, 'jibun nari ni ganbatte'. In other words, 'work hard in the way that suits you best'. You don't have to work hard because you're not working hard enough, but rather because you want to work hard to reach your own individual goals. I like that a lot better.

Okay, jibun nari ni ganbaru yo! (I will work hard in the way that suits me best)

Final days with lovely friends

For the most part, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Thursday 7/12
Hinata and I had our level 9 exam part one.
Then, afterward, we went with Tamaki, Makoto, Dai, Catie, and these two other girls from camp Aki and Yoko to Shinjuku for some drinks and dinner. It was a lot of fun.

 

 

Saturday 7/14

Hinata and I had our last exams; except I had three and she had 2. I then rushed to Shibuya, bought a yukata, and rushed to go see fireworks by a river near Sugita. Fireworks bring with them the flavor of summer! Afterwards, we went to an 'ennichi', a small festival with lots of stalls selling food and stuff.

 

 Sunday 7/15
Catie and I went to the Pokemon Center in Hamamatsucho.

It's actually very small, but right in front of it, there were two lines of people with their Nintendo DSs battling each other using Wifi. That was kind of funny.

 Afterward, I went to hang out with Nick and Kameliya and Nick treated me to sushi! Aw...he's so sweet♥ This was my last unagi (eel) in Japan, so I saved it for last! So delicious...

 Monday 7/16
I went to visit Akiba (Akihabara) for the last time. I went by myself for the first time so I could take my time enjoying being a nerd haha...
Bye-bye Akiba!

In the evening, I went with Hinata, Kamelija, Nick, Laura, Miharu, Lisa, and Shawn to Shibuya for dinner and drinks. Aw I'm going to miss everyone...I really love all the exchange student friends I made here! We definitely have to meet someday in the future!

 These were daikon radish noodles. They were really long, as you can see.

 Miharu's everday upset face

 We played a game called 'Hello, governer' and this was the drink you had to drink if you messed up. It got more disgusting as the night when on as people started adding dipping sauce and beer to it...Plus, unfortunately, I was one of the ones who messed up the most...

 A last picture of Shibuya, which Miharu messed up by putting his hands in the way...(upset)

Nick and Miharu; Kamelija and Hinata on our ride home on the train.

Wednesday 7/18

Hinata, Eric, Margaret, and I went to a shabu-shabu (boiled meat) restaurant for dinner with Catie and her dad. We went to Baskin Robbins (aka 31) for dessert. 

Thursday 7/19

Hinata and I ran into Lisa on our way to do errands and we had our last ramen for lunch, as well as my first ramune soda in Japan!

Afterward, we said goodbye to Lisa (T-T), Hinata closed her cellphone account, I closed my bank account, and we came home. On our way home, we came across Kamelija and Nick and Eric and Margaret and we stopped for some ice cream at the convenience store. It was so hot today...

I'm going to really miss bumping into my friends in public all the time...
Tonight, I have a final dinner with some friends, which I'll probably talk about later, and tomorrow I'm off for Australia! This week went by especially fast.

Traditional Japanese Culture Class

One of the courses I took at Keio this past semester was called Traditional Japanese Culture. The first part, as I've already mentioned was tea ceremony.
The second part was about traditional Japanese instruments, and the class was taught about the history of the instruments and was given the opportunity to hear some actual performances and touch the actual instruments ourselves.

The first instrument we learned about was a string instrument called the Heike Biwa.
The biwa was played traditionally by blind monks to earn a living. The monk would play on the biwa for emphasis and tell a story through his song. Because these monks were blind, the music was passed on by ear, although the stories were written down. In this class, we also learned about traditional Japanese culture and how it was expressed through biwa music. Interestingly, to do this, the teacher showed us the end of the Hollywood movie 'The Last Samurai' where Watanabe Ken is dying and saying how all the cherry blossoms are perfect. And the teacher pretty much said yes, this dying warrior is what Japanese consider a hero; this is a perfect example of Japanese culture. An American movie being exemplified as an example of Japanese culture. Wow. Those were my thoughts.

One of the interesting things that I found about the biwa class was that the teacher wore a Japanese priest robe that had a transparent layer on top that looked very light and green. The teacher said that the robe the biwa player wore was very important. In consideration for his audience, the biwa player would wear something that looked cool and refreshing on a hot day in order to make his audience feel cool. Japanese really are considerate about the person they face.

I recorded a music sample from class, but I seem to have lost it, so I've found a clip from Youtube of a biwa player in order to get a feel of what the tune and song sound like.

The next instrument that we learned about was the shamisen.
Me and Hinata loved the teacher because he was kind of young and talked really casually with us, which was unusual for a teacher to do. The best part of the shamisen class was the performance on the second day. The teacher and this other guy who he plays with put on a whole show for us. They are actually a street performer band called Seshami Street, and they're so funny.

Again, I lost my audio clip of them, but I was able to find a video of them on Youtube from 3 years ago. This is pretty much how they performed for us, too. They apparently come to Washington D.C.'s Cherry blossom festival in the spring sometimes, so I hope to see them again sometime! 

The final instrument was koto. The teacher was such an airhead, but she was so cute.
I did a project on koto a few years ago, so I'm pretty familiar with this instrument, but it was cool seeing it performed in Japan. Apparently, there are even koto specialty colleges in Japan, which shows the importance that Japan puts on this traditional instrument even today.

I found the sound clip that I recorded for the koto, so here it is! (Press the small square play button to the direct left of the black MusicUploader banner below to play)



This class was very interesting and a nice break from graded work. There were no tests on the history or anything. There was just a short essay due at the end with the impressions of the class. It was more informative than anything. It was truly a privilege to have these musicians explain their backgrounds and perform in front of us, so this was definitely a class that I enjoyed!

6/26 My birthday

So, I've finally grasped some time to write about my birthday party which took place about 3 weeks ago!
This year's birthday was filled with lots of firsts, appropriate for a year full of firsts, I guess!

For the first time in my life, I had school on my birthday! After all, in America, school doesn't extend into late June. (I have had work on my birthday once, though.) Luckily, I only had one class and it was with my favorite Sugano-sensei! At the end of class, Hinata told him it was my birthday, and he's like "Oh, I'm sorry I don't have anything for you!" Haha, not like he need to get anything for me...why's he so awkwardly adorable? Anyways, hearing his lovely voice throughout the whole class was more than enough♥ Plus, he got up next to me during class so I got to hear his voice up close. Gwah inner explosion...

For the first time in my life, I spent my birthday away from my family. When I took the train in the morning to school, I thought 'Hey, it's my birthday, but none of these people around me know...' It felt a little incomplete to wake up in the morning to a solitary room and not get a birthday hug from my parents, but it's alright...I'm a big girl, so I can deal. haha...

I also organized my own birthday party, ordered a cake (although Hinata paid for it♥), and cooked my own food! I made a bunch of food...I don't think I've made so much since...February. It's not that I don't like to cook, I just don't especially like cooking for myself. I love to cook for other people, and when I do, I think I do a good job. Judging by the fact that it was all eaten by my 7 friends without any of my help, I can say it must not have been completely disgusting...
I took the recipes from a tapas book my mom sent me, thinking I might as well put it to good use while I have it. Here's what I cooked:

Eggplant and red pepper dip with bread

The french baguettes are definitely not what I'm used to though. They're so flimsy and soft that it makes it hard to cut. I think this was the most popular dish.

Potato salad 

The recipe called for an alioli sauce, but I accidentally used up all my eggs, so I couldn't make one. Instead, I just mixed mayonnaise with olive oil and a tablespoon of water to make it liquidy and everyone really liked it!

 Lemon chicken

The lighting makes it look kind of strange, but it was good!

 Deviled Eggs

I also improvised with this recipe, especially since it called for capers and I'm like no that's not happening. (I hate capers) But I made it look pretty and it was tasty!

 My birthday cake!

It was strawberry short cake and was tasty enough, although crazy expensive: around $50. In America, you can get a cake this size for $20 if not less. Plus, it has more substance. Japanese cakes are really light and fluffy with little flavor. But, I'm not complaining. It was delicious! And I love Hinata for buying it for me! My wish for this year? World peace, of course.

I told people they didn't need to bring birthday presents, but a few of them did. Kamelija got me a tiny glass turtle, a glue stick (because I had asked her the other day for glue haha), and a really cute card. The chocoholic Nick got me some English chocolate. Hinata got me the cake, of course. And Tamaki...omigod...he got me the cutest strawberry necklace and wrapped it up himself super cute. Gah, Tamaki's the cutest. I also bought myself a birthday present online which came a few days after my birthday:

It's a DVD of an event that was held for the date simulation game I play. It came with three trading cards, two of which I was like How did they know these were my favorite characters?! Inside the DVD was a pamphlet with all the voice actors that participated in the event. Ahhh the pamphlet is the best part.

Ah! I also got a portable scanner that came in a birthday package from home!♥

Anyways, it was kind of a different birthday than usual, but I still had fun and after everyone left, Kamelija and Nick came to my room and talked with me. They're so sweet. Everyone's so sweet. I have met some great people here. Most of them foreigners, which was a little unexpected, but they're the ones that I can attach to and relate to the easiest. In the end, I suppose it makes sense.

So, I have safely turned 22 years old. I like that number. It's kind of nice. Maybe this year will be a good one. Maybe I can grow up a little bit, have more experiences, meet more people, learn a little more, and become a little bit more. Maybe.

My first goodbyes

Hello, it's been a while.

There are several posts that I want to make, but I'm extremely busy at the moment...

This week is the last week of classes, and I have papers, speeches, and exams on my plate.
The typical college menu.

My friend posted on her facebook the other day that she did laundry, finished a bunch of homework, etc. and feels like an adult. But I thought, as long as we're students doing homework, we're not adults yet. This year I've gained on my life means nothing yet.

Next week is the official exam week, and I have an exam on Thursday and 3 exams on Saturday...
stress stress stress
This is not good for my face.
Not to mention my room.

Next week is also my last week of Donguri, my conversation club. Yesterday, my fairly new partner Seki-san gave me a bunch of presents--a beautiful Genji art folder, a traditional dish towel made of mosquito gauze from Nara, and some Japanese grammar documents that she made herself for my studies. The first part of the club, she had a serious conversation with me about how she's been planning her life lately, knowing that she probably doesn't have that much time left in the world. I mean, she's a very energetic lady, but we all have to die someday. She said that if she doesn't start planning now, she'll have regrets. Even if I come back to Japan one day, thinking that the lovely people I've met may not be here is very sad. But, hopefully I'll be back soon enough to see them again.

So, I have about 2 weeks left in Japan. During the last days I have, other than doing things I have to do like settling my bank account, etc., I want to eat as many kinds of Japanese foods I can, make presents and write letters to all the dear people that I will be leaving, go to final places I want to go, and meet up with people to say good bye.

I've already started saying good byes. Yesterday was my last class with my favorite Sugano sensei and my last Donguri club with my favorite Satou-san crycry... Overall, I did not come to like Japanese guys very much at all. The only Japanese guys I absolutely loved were both old and married haha. My two favorite Japanese men sayonara~~

Anyways, before I leave, I'll make sure to upload the last pictures and make the last blog posts that I want to make. Until then~