So far, it’s been a summer of isolation in a lot of ways. As my title suggests, it’s almost as if I am the only 21 year old amidst a bunch of high-schoolers and “adults”. While I refuse to consider myself a full-fledged “adult”, I hate being thought of as a child after being in college three years, during which I’ve gone twice to study abroad.

Sorry that I had to start off this way. But recently I’ve been conflicted and tugged between my mom’s comments of “what are you going to do with your future?” and strangers exclamations of, “you’re 21?!?!”. I guess I should take the latter less seriously, since I obviously know my own age, but it almost makes me second-doubt my maturity. It almost makes me want to ask, “Does it look like I’m acting like a 15 year old to you?”

People tell me it’s a good thing to look younger than your age, but not right now. That’s the last thing I want. Now that I am working in an internship where I am surrounded by a group of high school-age volunteers and 30-50 year olds with spouses and children, I feel like I’ve had to act like either one or the other.It’s almost as if I’m lacking a support group of same-aged peers.

But, to tell you the truth, this isn’t completely new to me. Having lived with my mom, who is going to turn 57, my almost 80-year old grandmother, and a 27 year-old brother who is absent and acts nothing like his age, it’s not like I haven’t become accustomed to the “slow and conservative” lifestyle of the old.

As for the young, I admit that other than babysitting, I haven’t had much of a chance in the past several years to spend significant time around high school kids. But after spending nearly all my hours at work with a 14 year old girl to develop a curriculum together (and, now that she’s gone, spending my lunchtime with 3-5 other high school students with whom I have less in common), I’ve learned how to develop a form of communication with them that doesn’t consist of mentally scoffing at their inexperience or childish sense of humor.

I wouldn’t mind having to once in a while alter my perspective to that of a 15 year old or a 50+ year old, except that I have very little opportunity to share my perspective as a 21 year old except with myself, communicating with you guys online/phone, or with my friends the 3-4 times I’ve seen them during the summer. Has anyone else ever had an experience like this before? Perhaps it happens sometimes when you’re involved in a summer internship/work where there are no other peers your age? Perhaps it’s from having gotten used to being on campus with people your age??

So, my main purpose in writing this post was to update peeps on another aspect of (what was) my life in Japan, as well as a small update on my ongoing summer. In the picture above, I was at a prison-themed restaurant called “The Lock-up” for a goodbye dinner party for the graduating Kyodai seniors. It was a two hour tabe-nomihoudai (eat and drink all you want, but on a limited menu) and, I guess, sort of my first big group social hangout with Japanese people my age.

Admittedly, I don’t know every member in the club personally, and many of them have been in the club together throughout their college careers. That mixed with the fact that I couldn’t go out with them to the salsa bar (not being allowed to go out late) made it difficult to become the best of friends. There’s also the language barrier, but at least we could communicate together through dance!

When I first decided to join the Kyodai’s salsa club, I had all these expectations of club rules and member hierarchies because it was what I was taught by my Japanese teachers. However, I must say that very little of this existed, or maybe I wasn’t as sensitive to it as I should have…(oops!) People came 30 min-1 hour late and not everyone came consistently each week. When I got the chance to go to a “club meeting” (where they discuss stuff about the club over coffee at a nearby cafe), it wasn’t all that much different from a meeting I would have at Swarthmore, except that I could understand very little of what was going (background noise + Japanese youth slang + kansai ben dialect + club management terminology = 全然分からへん。。。）.

And yet, despite the little time I spent with them and my only being able to manage a superficial level of conversation in Japanese, it was a memorable experience. It wasn’t just the “Cool! I’m hanging out with Japanese people my age!” (though I shamefully admit I went through that stage in the beginning). It wasn’t just that I was able to observe Japanese people dancing salsa, and even joining in. It was being able to realize (not for the first time, but perhaps with Japanese youth) that we are not all that different.

College students decide to go study abroad to learn about “another culture” and to immerse themselves into a day-to-day lifestyle with customs completely different to their own. I understand that curiosity because I had similar intentions during my first visit to Japan. However, I find that this time around, I wanted to experience being ordinary in Japan. Just as I sought to reach that point in my interactions with Japanese people in which I wouldn’t consistently attribute something they said or did to their Japanese identity, I also hoped for Japanese people to find that same level of comfort with my American/Latina identity. In other words, I was in over my head and wanted to transcend nationality/ethnicity.

I obviously didn’t accomplish something like that, but it’s not like I moved backwards in this endeavor neither. A lot of it is personal and perhaps my friends in the club were not as uncomfortable with the presence of a foreigner in their club as I thought they were. A lot of it may just be my need to find a niche for my transnational, transcultural, translingual identity…But as things go on improving (hopefully???) in the country (with the exception of the economy), I am beginning to find that I have found my resting spot.

And now for a smooth transition into talking about my internship (that’s right. I sort of found a tie between my studies in Japanese and my studies in Education/Political Science). It was my (masochistic?) wish to experience and reflect on the awkward difficulties of being a foreigner in another country. It doesn’t make any sense because you’d think if anything I would have felt this tension even more the first time I visited Japan. But as I mentioned before, people always have different intentions when studying abroad and, at the time, I was oblivious of the opportunity to contemplate on the experience of being a language minority until the end of the summer (I ended up writing my final essay on this, actually, but I wasn’t as articulate as I wanted to be, seeing as I didn’t fully understand what I was experiencing until now).

Although I am aware that I am considered a “minority” in the U.S. and have gone through many experiences which have shaped my Latina, Spanish-speaking immigrant identity, I was never able to directly experience what it was like to feel nearly incapable of fully articulating my thoughts and feelings in English (though I’m going through a bit of that now at Swat and its academic-language environment). I mean, to the point where you are doubting how coherent you sound at the store, at the train station, in everyday life’s menial tasks. My willingness to become conscious to these difficulties while I was in Japan the second time not only allowed me to personally relate to my mom and her eternal struggle with English but will also hopefully allow me to personally relate to any future language minority students I may encounter in the future.

Since beginning to take education classes, I have always been a proponent of Bilingual Education classes, but my empathy for bilingual education has grown even greater with these experiences and my increased understanding of my mom’s immigration struggle. But how do I negotiate this with my advisor’s belief that the students in the citizenship classes of the NPO I’m working for will learn better if materials were in advanced English and if teachers were to speak to them in English? How did I fall into this “English-only” trap almost two months into this thing?

There I was, a Swattie arguing for the benefits of a bilingual education, building upon the skills students already had, and not allowing students to “sink or swim” in an unrealistic immersion model (By the way, I respect immersion models, since both my study abroad programs would probably be considered learning based on immersion, but it really depends on the context and should be realistic of the students’ abilities). But I was fighting against my own “boss” and a smart, but stubborn 14 year old girl. 2 against 1.

I understand their belief that because students will need to know English for their interviews, they better learn it now, but surely we can do something better than that; why not a classroom that scaffolds student’s developing proficiencies and utilizes their Spanish fluency to create richer discussions on themes of citizenship. For now, I have written a curriculum that is in English, but am consistently struggling with how to make it bilingual without scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch. I am proud of it, if it weren’t for the fact it is written in English, which pretty much equals no pride. Perhaps the journey of it all is more benefiting to me than the final result of the curriculum I produce. But where does that leave the students?

I promise I could argue better for this, but I am almost at zombie level in terms of tiredness and refused to let another night go without a promised entry.

Mostly, I want to continue because it was my intention from the start to cover my experiences in Japan in blog form and the only reason this got discontinued was because of the technical problems that occurred. Although my memories may not be as vivid as if I had written this months earlier, there are still a lot of experiences that I would like to reflect on, if only for my older self to read later on. In addition, I would also like to continue to update people on what’s going on with me now (not much, really).

This was a picture taken on my last day in Japan (if you don’t include the day I traveled home) at a kaiten sushi restaurant (or, “conveyor-belt” sushi restaurant) called “Kappa Sushi”. Here I am with some of the friends I made in the program. After arriving back at home and talking to friends and family about my semester in Japan, there were more than a few moments where I was asked about how much sushi I ate, how I must have had sushi everyday.

I won’t be the first to deny how delicious sushi is (even Kappa Sushi, though my host mom, and I guess other Japanese people, would argue that it is low-quality), but people can’t really believe that this is what I eat everyday, can they? Even within the Kappa Sushi restaurant, they have other options, such as soup (and other things I can’t remember), that you can order from your table’s own personal touch-screen (they also offer beer). Although fish and rice are staple ingredients in any Japanese meal, sushi is not necessarily the best Japanese cuisine has to offer.

This assumption that if one is indulging in Japanese cuisine one must be having sushi on a regular basis did not confound me as much the first time I went to Japan. It might have been because my host mom’s favorite dish was sushi. She even organized a small get-together with her friends to teach me how to make it. However, I think it was mostly due to the fact that I lived in a smaller city and did not yet develop the awareness that I have now of the breadth of Japanese cuisine, or what Japanese people eat.

That’s right. Most days I didn’t even eat at “washoku” (traditional Japanese cuisine) restaurants, but at an amazing place called Raju (an Indian restaurant), or American-influenced fast-food venues, such as Mos Burger. It all depended on how much time I had for lunch before class and what I was in the mood for.

But if sushi is not all there is to eat, what Japanese dishes do I eat on a regular basis, you ask? Although I am unable to recall the name of every dish that I ate (since I was only reminded of its name any time we happened to eat it), I still continue to have a good memory of what my staple diet was in Japan.

At home, my host mom would cook for all of us, and although it was almost always too much for me to consume (I would go to my room overstuffed nearly everyday and it would take me more than an hour sometimes just to attempt to eat everything on my plate), it was always delicious and usually healthy (if I had consumed the same amount of food in a typical American or Peruvian diet, I would have come home many pounds fatter). The typical dishes that I have come to crave:

- Udon soup: udon is a thick noodle and the broth contains dashi, soy sauce and mirin (I’ve been trying to learn how to make it). It is usually topped with scallions, and sometimes with tempura (this would be Tempura Udon). But on the weekends for lunch, my host mom would make Kake Udon (the simplest form of this soup) for us. To my younger host brother, this was unfortunate. “Udon again? Always udon…” Haha.

- Dried fish: I almost always would prefer to have fish raw (like in ceviche) rather than have it cooked, so for me, this preference came to me as a surprise. It’s annoying to eat because you have to make sure you extract most of the bones (though the little ones can be swallowed) and I am usually not a fan of food you have to work for (like, why do people like sunflower seeds? Or do you just swallow them whole?). But the taste of dried fish, after having soaked it in salt water for around 20-30 minutes and then leaving it to dry in a blue net container outside overnight  produces a strong but tasty flavor. I learned how to make it from my host mom on one occasion, and it was fun to eat the fish that I myself cut and dried.

- Omuraisu (Omelette rice): I’ve never officially learned how to make it, but it’s a pretty simple concept. It’s a big omelette with rice inside of it that is usually topped with ketchup. Sounds strange and gross? I am not a fan of ketchup, but the flavor somehow comes together nicely. I like it because it reminds me of comfort food, though I don’t know if Japanese would consider this a comfort food, or there is a word in Japanese for “comfort food”. Moms will sometimes draw a smiley face with the ketchup (my host mom would do this for me and my host brother).

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Japanese food that I love that I cannot always gush about with other people unless they have been to Japan or are Japanese themselves. This is because most U.S. Japanese restaurants do not offer all of these foods. Udon is certainly a common option in many Japanese restaurants within the U.S. but I wonder how many people come just for the sushi, sake and chicken teriyaki rather than the soups or domburi.

I could cover Japanese food forever, so please let me know if there is anything in particular about Japanese food you would like me to talk about, such as Japanese curry, fast food, sweets, etc. (though I don’t claim to be an expert, I’ll try to write based on my own experiences).

Because I am now writing nearly a month and a half after I left Japan, instead of writing about my experiences in Japan chronologically, I would like to cover my semester abroad in themes. So, today, for example, I covered, food…A little bit…

Next time I would like to talk in detail about the salsa club that I joined while I was there. Above is a picture with me and some of the other members (many who graduated left, and some people come only one day a week and not both days, so the picture isn’t very inclusive of everyone I met).

Although they may have already forgotten about me, I truly will not forget the experiences I had in learning how to make friends among Japanese people my age in a social setting, how these moments have been responsible for making my love of salsa dance and music grow. Even now, these memories continue to follow me whenever I hear salsa music.

As for now, I am currently involved in an unpaid internship at an NPO called Hispanic Unity. The organization recently applied for a grant to expand the services of their Citizenship Program, an effort that reaches out to immigrant communities in South Florida and aids them in the process of attaining citizenship. I am working with two high school volunteers in order to develop a curriculum for the Citizenship classes, which will hopefully be implemented at the beginning of the Fall, when we learn whether we are guaranteed the grant (though my advisor tells me we will definitely get it, and even if we happen not to, which won’t happen, we’ll press on with the new stuff).

This is part of an effort to improve their currently existing program, which takes in potential clients and assesses them on an individual basis in order to evaluate whether they will need additional services (legal, financial, language-related) prior to heading directly to taking Citizenship classes. Because I was gone nearly a week, I am behind and the volunteers will only be around until the beginning of July, so I am truly on a crunch. We had our second meeting yesterday and I was reminded of the size of the task ahead, but my advisor reminded us of what we needed to get done and helped us to develop a scedule that I think will be realistic enough to follow.

Although I am having issues resolving the discrepancy between the pedagogy of the organization and my own beliefs, I have reason to believe that I am sometimes to stubborn for my own good and that this will be a good opportunity to listen to more experienced people’s views on the topic of Civics Education. It has also motivated me further to read more on language minority education, though I realize it is one thing to read something that seems to make sense and another to see it implemented and producing results in an actual classroom.

So, I remember in one of my last entries I said something like: “Not too many things surprise me here since I’ve been to Japan before”. This is partly true and partly false. It was easy for me to find the similarities between my time in Kanazawa in the last year’s program and here in Kyoto in this year’s program: public transportation, daily classes, not having Internet in my house, being with a family that has at least one dog.

But I’ve been sort of denying the major differences: having a strict father, a younger sibling, a bigger city, a bigger program, and, obviously, different friends. Being in one program before the other one makes it easier to idealize one over the other (in this case, last year over this year) and to criticize one more over the other (vice-versa).

I realized since I am not done with this program yet that it is unfair to criticize the program, comparing it to last year, when I haven’t yet finished getting to know my host family and peers. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be allowed to express my feelings and opinions about what I experience here, since that is kind of the point of this whole blog. But I hope to be better and fairer about the way in which I criticize our program, especially when I tend to compare it to last year.

I also should realize that despite my previous experiences in Japan, I shouldn’t be shocked by my need to become accustomed to a new way of living for the second time. These past couple weeks have been very normal and I would say very representative of my process of acclimating to living in the country. I don’t mind eating a bentou lunch on my own, am learning to recognize more Kansai-ben, and feel much more comfortable about traveling on my own around the city.

Unfortunately, I do not remember specifically what I did each day since the last time I posted on the blog, except for the weekends. So, I am mainly going to talk about the main differences I outlined above, as well as a couple special outings throughout the last two weeks.

Getting to know my host family has been an interesting experience. I think this is what has been the most interesting thing for me because of the type of family I come from. I know it is wrong to think that there is one “traditional” type of family, but the view that I come from a “non-traditional” family and that my host family exemplifies a “traditional” family, despite simplistic, is what has been defining most of my experiences here thus far.

Truthfully, I think that every family has bits about it that are traditional and non-traditional in nature, and I have only been choosing to see the traditional parts of my host family and compare them to the nontraditional parts of my family. But my host family does has elements that make it what might be considered “non-traditional”: they have lived for a time in the U.S. (before Kiyotaka was born), so the host father knows more English than the average Japanese man (they have a systemized English curriculum here, or at least in the cities, so essentially every Japanese person knows some English words), they have two huge dogs (most people have small dogs, and only one, because of space limitations), and the host father and son are greater fans of American food than Japanese food. These are just to name a few.

The traditional parts of my host family that have stood out to me is overall general family structure (working father, stay-at-home mother, and son who goes to school and takes piano lessons). After hearing my mom talk about how her husband never laughs or cries, and how he doesn’t let her watch J-dramas or read manga, I’ve only been able to construct an image of my host father’s personality by what is said of him, and sometimes when I manage to catch what he is saying at the dinner table (he kind of mumbles a.k.a speaks real Japanese vs. Nakama Japanese).

I know that this is particularly dangerous because I don’t have a good view of fathers in the first place. This is part of what I mean by saying that I do not come from a “traditional” family, though maybe I shouldn’t use the words “traditional” and “non-traditional” but should just say that these are the similarities and differences between by real family and my host family. Growing up, I’ve never seen my mother date another guy nor want to date another guy after separating from my father after we left Peru. Consequently, I’ve always grown up with the perspective that women don’t need men, and that men can be overbearing, controlling, unreliable, untrustworthy, weak, selfish, etc. It hasn’t helped that my older brother’s attitude and personality aren’t far off from matching some of these characteristics.

Anyway, these views that I have grown up with can become particularly inflamed in Japan, where gender norms are notorious, where women are like Christmas presents (no longer good after 25; I heard this saying from another student), where many women, despite getting educated, are expected to get married or else there is something wrong with them, and when married, are still obligated to follow certain manners and conduct (perhaps more easily enforced by their husbands because they can argue that they are the breadwinners of the family).

This goes against everything that I have personally experienced within my own family, where the women are equal or better than the men in terms of fulfilling both their financial and emotional duties to the family, and where single women or mothers are still respected and not questioned.

Two weekends ago, I got to meet my host mother’s younger sister. Noriko is in her mid-thirties and unmarried. She studied in the U.S. during college, and returned after some time back to Japan. She was apparently dating an Italian man in the U.S. and it seemed like they were about to get married, but since he didn’t have his papers (he was an immigrant), Noriko’s mother forbid it. She works now in a graphic design company. She talked a lot about the differences between work relations in U.S. companies and Japanese companies according to her experiences. She also talked a lot about the comments she receives from other women in her company about how hard it must be for her to not be married yet and whether she was going to be okay.

Noriko is a friendly, attractive person. She’s funny and expressive, can speak English pretty well, and is good at punishing Kiyotaka when needed. I cannot understand why, if she really wanted to, she couldn’t be married within the next year. But this is sort of the reality for women in Japan, though of course this is a generalization and may be different depending on which area you live in and what generation you’re from (in other words, older women may be more critical of Noriko, but younger women may relate to her and have different opinions about marrying before your late 20’s). Men are just looking for younger women (you can see this clearly on the street, couples of very young Japanese women with older men), and do not see older women as desirable.

For this reason, it is hard for me to open myself to a society that does not match my expectations. Not being allowed to go out late not necessarily because it’s late and my parents are worried, but because I am a girl and they are worried, is frustrating and clearly unfair. But I’ve been learning to deal with it and to take it as some sort of learning experience.

I think part of what makes me experience with my host family more light-hearted has been Kiyotaka. If he didn’t exist, I might never hear my host father speak happily (except to the dogs). As a young child, Kiyotaka will open the door to my room without knocking and will spend up to an hour or two at a time in my room without worry that he is interrupting my study time or anything that an adult might think. Lately, he has discovered playing on my denshi jisho (electronic dictionary) and the SNES emulator on my computer.

Although he will selfishly push my hand away whenever I try to help him use these two things, sometimes I greatly appreciate how he doesn’t hide how he feels like adults do. I find it easier to ask him random questions in Japanese, because I feel like he won’t judge me as easily as my host parents. He has also never made fun of my Japanese. In fact, one time when I was watching J-Drama on my computer (for my individual project, I chose to watch J-Drama and write a blog on it; other people are reading novels, manga, watching variety shows, translating song lyrics, reading classical Japanese, etc.), I told him about my project and how I needed to watch it without subtitles and use my dictionary if I didn’t understand anything. After I said that, an actor said his line, and Kiyotaka asked me to input one of the words that I didn’t understand.

Another time, it was Setsubon. That is, a festival for the coming of spring. There were food shops for two days, during which I ate amazing matsuri food (takoyaki or fried octopus, okonomiyaki, taiyaki, ikayaki or fried squid, fried beef and fried chicken; some of these foods are hard to translate without a long description, but they are famous and you can look them up) for lunch. On the second day, I forget the exact name of it, but there is a tradition in which you throw beans outside your house so that the demons stay away and the good luck stays in (“Oni wa sotto, fuku waa uchi.,” I believe…). Kiyotaka gave me some of the cotton candy he got from the festival, and told me to look up the word for it in the dictionary. After eating this special sushi roll for these traditions in a particular direction (this year was east I believe) for good luck, as well as fish (like, big sardines, still with the spines, and Japanese peppers in them), then the number of beans equaling our age plus 1 (which I guess is unfortunate for old people, unless they like beans), we threw the remaining beans outside the windows, but sometimes also inside the rooms, even if they landed everywhere (Rocky and Tony would eat them). I woke up the next day and found a bean in my bed.

Although my host dad will still open the door for me and walk away without saying okaeri (welcome home) and Kiyotaka will still be naughty and push all his dirty napkins next to my plate during dinner, the quarantine period is over and I at least get to see them. Occasionally, I will also get to see them enjoying themselves. Last evening at dinner, my host mom and host dad were messing around with Tony, the crazier one of the dogs, by interchangeably saying “Tony wa baka,” (Tony is dumb) “Tony wa kashikoi” (Tony is wise).

As far as my life outside of my host family, it has also been a process. As mentioned earlier, it is very easy to compare my friends here to my niche of friends from last year’s program in Kanazawa. I was very close to some of my friends in last year’s program, hanging out at the bar at least weekly, sometimes right after classes (in the afternoon!) and spending 3-4 days with some of them in Tokyo, and another time at a sleepover at one of our host family’s house. Some of us would play cards for hours after class or hung out over the various cultural activities.

In this program, there are more people, including the people from last semester who have already spent a lot of time with one another. We also haven’t yet had Spring break, and the cultural activities are spread out much more. Because most of the people I made friends with at the beginning of the year are in other Japanese classes, and a lot of the people in my Japanese class are from last semester and already know each other, it has been hard to make friends. That it, I feel like a lot of people are my acquaintances, and I know almost everyone’s name now and have hung out or had a conversation with most people (particularly from the Spring semester group people), it has been hard to find a group of people within the whole program.

Perhaps that is better? The same thing sort of happened to me last year in Japan, where on the last day I was torn between hanging out with one group of friends over another. I tend to be like that a lot – put myself into different groups of people, in attempts to not be cliquey with any one group of people but get to know as many people as possible. I just truthfully find it impossible to find a real group of friends in such a short amount of time, particularly when we aren’t living in a dorm or anything and many of us have curfews or long commute times.

Nonetheless, I like the people in the program, particularly as I get to know them more and more. Unfortunately, there is a lot of drama, and the old Fall semester people let us know about the stories and incidents from last semester, some of which is continuing to creep into this semester. As a Swattie, I find it hard not to join in the gossiping, and though the group of students is large, we all kind of know each other, and I once even did the Swat swivel. I won’t talk about any of that here, since anyone can read this and I don’t want to compromise anyone.

Last weekend, I went to kaiten sushi with some people (actually, twice in two days). After kaiten sushi one night, we went to a nomihoudai (all you can drink), though reluctantly. I knew I wouldn’t allow myself to drink that much considering I had to go home to a strict host father, but I also wanted to make sure I wouldn’t go home late, and I would have much rather have gone to a bar, where I could have just ordered a shot of tequila for 500-600 yen than go to a nomihoudai where I can’t drink to my heart’s content but pay the price. It was fun though. After several months of not doing any social drinking, I very much appreciated it.

This weekend, we went to another tabehoudai yakiniku (all you can eat – grill your own meat kind of thing). Other than meat, you can also order rice, vegetables, soup, and a final dessert at the end. If you REALLY want, you can also do a tabenomihoudai (BOTH all you can eat and all you can drink). This was fun, tasty, and everything a tabehoudai should be.

Yesterday, I went to Fushimi Inari. It’s a very famous shrine with lots of torii (gates). When climbing the mountain, the torii look normal, but on the way back you can names of companies and years written on the bath of the torii. It creates a cool effect. It takes maybe an hour to climb? I forget. It seems like an endless path, but then you finally reach the top. I have pictures, but I forgot to bring my camera with me again…☹ I’ll post the pictures tomorrow, including pictures of other things. I promise!

Again, sorry for not updating in a while. Let me know if there is anything that I should add – besides pictures! I tried my best to add pictures, though yesterday, truthfully, was the first day I used my camera to take more than 2-3 pictures…

Before I go into my sabishisa (loneliness), I should tell you guys about my classes, profs, and classmates. As a few of you mentioned, I forget to tell you what section I was placed in. I think I already explained the different levels (A-F, with F being the highest). I was placed into C, though after the first class, the teacher of D class was telling me that I was difficult to place because I, apparently, was in between C and D. This all came as a surprise to me, because just after one C class, I felt like I should be in B (this was because most people in C class were continuing students, some of them so good that I think they should easily be in D or E).

Although I told her about my interesting situation (yes, I’ve taken a third year Japanese summer program, but there was a two month gap in which I’ve declined, and the classes I took last semester were not advanced enough to place me into the equivalent of a fourth-year class), I was approached again later throughout the week by both her and my C teacher. I explained to them that I didn’t feel confident in my speaking ability as others in the class, and that the weakness alone was enough to constitute my reason for staying in C class.

I do get jealous of the crazy topics that D class is supposed to discuss, like cloning, abortion, etc., but I realize that I am not yet good enough to follow a back-and-forth discussion on these topics. Nonetheless, I am glad I stayed in C class because the level is still kept high by really amazing people in the class from last semester. Although I was initially intimidated, now I am just seeing it as an opportunity to actively improve my Japanese. Let’s not even mention the ridiculous amount of kanji I’ve learned in the last couple weeks (it’s really all starting to come together, and I no longer feel completely clueless when looking at kanji).

What do I actually do in class? Well, class is split up into two-hour sections, sometimes one after another and sometimes with an hour break in between. The first section is usually about going over our general opinions on the readings and answering questions. Some days we will just focus on grammar. The second section is about doing youyaku, or summarizing the main points of the readings. I think the second section is harder because it forces you to be concrete and actively use the most important vocabulary words (usually hard because they are words we’ve never seen), as well as fully understand the message of the writer.

So far we’ve been reading news articles and columns on U.S. politics, environmental issues, and the historical changes occurring in the Japanese language (the effects of globalization on younger peoples understanding of kanji and preference for foreign, katakanized words). It’s definitely similar to the curriculum in PII during the last half of the summer semester when we were reading several types of readings, and I enjoy no longer having to study from a textbook, but use real materials in Japanese.

Our teachers are Fukai-sensei (a woman) and Yamaoka-sensei (a man). They’re both good, so I have no complaints! Fukai-sensei is apparently into heavy metal and has several tattoos, so she can’t go into onsens. But you shouldn’t just judge her on that. She conducts class very well and is very flexible to adding in readings that any of us have particular interests in. Yamaoka-sensei is also very nice and easy to understand. I’m not the biggest fan of doing youyaku, but he certainly makes it more enjoyable and helps us focus on how to approach each reading.

What about my afternoon classes? After doing a little “shopping”, I decided to stick to the classes I pre-registered for, just in case. I figured that I might have trouble getting credit for a class I didn’t pre-register, though I was also worried that I was going to get any credit at all (let’s just say that the workload isn’t Swarthmore level…). Both the professors are Japanese, one who thought he was going to teach the course in Japanese. I am taking a course called “Political Economy: Continuity and Changes” and “Japanese Religion in Context: Religion and Modernity in Japan”, on Monday and Friday afternoons respectively (neither time slot very appealing).

They are three hour-long classes, and since the style of most Japanese teachers is lecture, despite having studied in the U.S., the classes can feel very long. It also takes longer for the professors (both men) to teach their subjects because they cannot teach it in Japanese. The most fun I’ve had so far was in Religion class when during the last third of the class (not all of the time is lecture), we got into three groups, each with at least one Kyodai student, to translate a reading on some Japanese religion-related topic.

The weekend was fun, as we went out karaokeing on Friday night and I finally got to meet up with Becca from PII last summer. At karaoke, I didn’t do much singing since other people had mostly changed songs, though I did sing “My Humps” as a joke. You have to order one drink at this particular Karaoke place, and it was pretty expensive in total, so I don’t think I will be doing much of this (or at least will try to find a less expensive place).

On Saturday I ate kaiten sushi (“conveyor belt” sushi) and parfaits with Becca. We reminisced over PII and were discussing the possibility of trying to get people from each of our programs to meet each other, as if it were a social experiment. Mostly our reasoning was just that it is always good to meet new people. Later that night I went with her and her friends to a Pakistani restaurant. We had hummus and I think I ordered something with lamb. It was all very good. Afterward, we purikura-ed.

Sunday was a lazy day in which I attempted to do “errands”. The biggest task of the day was getting a denshi jisho. I had already gone with Becca and her friend last night walking past a place where they sold denshi jishos, but I wanted to compare prices. I went to Bic Camera, a huge electronic goods store near the main Kyoto train station. I was there for nearly two hours. No joke. I kept on hovering around the more expensive dictionaries, and tried to weigh the positives and negatives in my head of buying either a less expensive or more expensive dictionary.

If you know me well, I tend to like to buy the most luxurious models of electronic things. I was the same way when I bought my camera (even though it’s old now), my iPod, and my computer. Basically, for things that I know I will be using in the long run, I don’t like to buy cheap brands, because I figure since these things are expensive anyway, I might as well buy something that is good because then I’ll feel like I spent 200 or whatever dollars for nothing. So I ended up buying a jisho that you can write in as well as was in color. The write in part is easier to explain. The color makes it easier to see what is written, but mostly it just looks nice. Although I was about to buy the least expensive ones, because I figured I wouldn’t come back to Japan after this semester, I always find that the more time I spend here, the more I want to come back (same with Peru), even though I end up experiencing the same hardships each time (not having family here, homogenous society, gender inequality, etc.).

What about food? Food at home wasn’t very special. I guess I should explain the loneliness bit now. My host mom and little brother were sick from last last Saturday to last Saturday, and I, literally, saw nothing of them in that interval. I only saw my host dad randomly with one of those masks on. I think it is a Japanese thing that they tend to take sicknesses, even just colds, seriously. But I wonder if quarantining themselves was mostly because I wasn’t one of the family and they wanted to make sure I didn’t get sick?

Because of this, I would only get text messages from my mom about when dinner was on the table, so that I wouldn’t go to eat while she was still there. It was the most awkward week of my life. Should I say tadaima, even though we haven’t literally talked in a week? Should I yell out itadakimasu even though they may be busy and feeling like shit because they’re sick? Is itadakimasu something that should be heard by them, or is it mostly something just personal that you should say, even if to yourself?

I was really lonely this week and it didn’t help with my birthday along the way. Another thing that happened on my birthday was that I found out through another student that my mom had talked to his mom about how my host dad was worried because I had come home late one day. I searched my memory to remember a time in which I came home late. The latest I came back was 11:30 the night I went karaoking. It seemed that it was mostly the host dad, not the host mom, who was upset over me coming home late, even though he never talks to me, and the person who I do talk to, my host mom, said she stays up until 12-1 am so I should just enjoy myself, and to take a taxi if I miss the last bus (which is around 11:30).

It left me in a bad mood since a couple days ago. This really shook me after having lived a free schedule in college for two and a half years, as well as coming from a country where these rules are not as gender-based (many host families will tell their students: “If you were a girl, you wouldn’t be able to go out, but since you’re a boy, we don’t care.”). I don’t feel like myself, not that I am a party girl, and have to continuously think about how my actions may be perceived by my family, though mostly my host dad. What makes it even more difficult is that my host dad doesn’t seem to even be interested in me. Did I tell you that he said nothing and walked away when my host mom introduced me to him?

It’s made me think a lot about the hierarchy within people in married relationships, particularly for my host mom because she is a housewife who doesn’t work and mostly stays at home. She studied music, but it didn’t develop into a career. In the meantime, my host dad is a surgeon with overnight shifts and years of study. I also find it hard to assume things like this because of the language. Even though I may think that my dad is a strict traditional Japanese father, maybe it seems more so because I cannot always understand what he says, nor does he (as well as most Japanese) speak what they think and feel.

I’m trying to adapt to this new expectations while still making the most out of my stay in Japan. On Friday night, I went to eat shabu shabu with nearly 30 people from the program, but I much rather would have preferred to eat shitty sandwiches at Tarble with Alysha and watch Tokyo Sonata or something and celebrate our birthdays that way. This is not to say things aren’t improving. I am finally seeing my family on a regular daily basis, and, unsurprisingly, it has done wonders for our relationship.

On Saturday I finally saw my host mom and brother and we went to the Japanese cuisine class set up by the program. It was a lot of fun, though I was still very hesitant around my host mom and brother since I hadn’t seen them for the longest time. I learned to make a very delicious tempura that I hope to make in the States if I can get my hands on the ingredients…

We went to the bookstore afterward. As usual, I find 15 books that I want to buy, especially from the Japanese literature section (since there’s not dedicate section in Border’s to Japanese literature). I want to read some of the classics, like Souseki’s Kokoro, and something that isn’t so classic, but about a gay interracial relationship (particularly because I never thought I would find a book on this sort of topic written by a Japanese person, though I can’t claim to have very much knowledge about a wide range of Japanese books, at least not without knowing about the author and title of the book first) called Forbidden Colors. I forget the name of the author, but I was able to find it in the library so I’ve taken it out, though I hope to finish three other books before I start on that one.

I spent the rest of the day reading The Time Traveler’s Wife. I shouldn’t talk about it just in case anyone is thinking of reading it, but it is definitely one of those guilty pleasure books. I waited until dinner to stop reading. We had shouyuu (soy sauce) ramen. SOOOO GOOD!!!

On Sunday, my host mom and I went to the mochitsuki thing. Not as interactive as I thought it would be, but we did get two pieces of free mochi and got to watch people make real mochi with the hammer and all. Afterward, my host mom and I went to the library in the international center and browsed around. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at the NYT in print and I get to see various copies around the time of Obama’s inaguration so I am very happy. I also look to see if there is a book on Peru to show to my host mom. There is the very same book that I found in the Rifare library last summer in PII that I showed my host parents. It doesn’t give you recipes, and god knows my host mom is looking for books in Japanese about Peruvian cuisine (not very common), but the book has good colorful pictures of Peruvian cuisine, cities, people, and sites, so it’s fun to look at.

Afterward, in the car we talk about the presidential election. This reminds me that repetition sometimes works wonders. We learned about useful election/politics-related vocabulary in Japanese class but I had previously learned about these words in second-year Japanese when I did a speech on the nature of presidential elections (the content was more simple than it sounds). Encountering these same words once again allowed these words to better stick in my active vocabulary, so that words like taitouryou (president, though what’s more amazing is that I can write the kanji), kouho (candidate), minshutou (Democratic party), kyowatou (Republican party), shijisha (supporters) and even tenjou (“glass ceiling”) are not as hard to remember as before.

What did I do the rest of the day? Read “The Time Traveler’s Wife” (I’m pretty much addicted and read half the book in two days). I didn’t end up doing homework until after dinner, during which I realized that I couldn’t study because I didn’t have the reading! It was too late at that point to go print it out at the kaikan, so I knew I would just have to face the shame of Fukai-sensei tomorrow. I planned on doing as much as I could before class when I got in in the morning, but I knew I would most likely not be able to finish…

On Monday I went to class, a disaster because I didn’t complete my homework. For lunch I went to an Israeli falafel place (pricey and small portions, but I’ve never had falafels before, so I wanted to try) – avocado falafel with fries and a coke (first coke since I’ve been here, and probably way longer because I almost never have coke now!)

Class in the afternoon was pretty boring. There was an interesting discussion on the fairness of different taxing systems but the rest of the lecture was filled with explanations of concepts through strange anecdotes that also took a long time to tell because of the professor’s difficulty with the language.

I went to a conbini afterward to stock up with a couple onigiri snacks for the night after dinner (though I am usually not hungry physically, but I savor after random snacks just because I know they are good).

This entry isn’t very chronological but hopefully from now on I can focus chronologically on things that I found interesting throughout the week. I’m going to try to make time to write these things on weekends, when I most have time, I guess. For now, I’m just categorizing different things that I should mention. This technically only goes up to Monday, and it’s Wednesday today, but I’m planning on writing these on the weekends, so I can fill in the gap later. I still want to talk about a couple things that I’ve skipped over in the entries, such as long conversations that I’ve had with my host mom, as well as the food that I’ve had during lunches here. I realize I have not offered any pictures yet, but I’m planning on taking my camera with me wherever I go (isn’t that how I was freshman year??)…

There’s not much to say about Saturday. We had our written exams, which weren’t as bad as I thought. They test levels A-E (E being the highest, and I think they’ve even had to add an F level, but I’m sure there’s not that many people in it), the first three being variations of third-year, D being fourth-year, and E being fifth-year. So, it was natural that I wouldn’t understand some things on the exam. Most of the stuff on the exam was, I would say, first and second-year material, so I wonder how little the difference was that separated the highest third-level from fourth-year and fourth-year from fifth-year.

Anyway, these are all my ponderings that don’t really need to be discussed here. Overall, I thought the exam was accurate enough to measure what level we should be in and that, if the written exam didn’t establish the difference, the oral exam surely would. I actually found out today after dinner what placement I am going to be in starting tomorrow (Thursday), but I guess I should talk about it chronologically?

After the written exam, we ate sushi and onigiri. Afterwards, I think this was the day that I went out to eat crepes with a couple people who aren’t necessarily my friends (I just wanted to eat crepes, truthfully). But, the potential for them to become my friends was still there, so it’s not like I used them to get to know the city or anything.

I’m starting to orient myself around the city much better (like a little less than a week later). It’s easier to do since there is a main river that runs north-south and so we can use that as a landmark. In going to Teramachi/Shinkyogoku (I still don’t really know what the difference between these places are), we had to cross over to the left side of the river. Before that we actually took a subway just one stop further south from our main building, but you can also walk along the river (though it would take around 15 more minutes).
Teramachi.Shinkyogoku is basically one of those covered streets where no cars can run through with several small shops and stands. I’ve been there twice already, but I still haven’t freely explored it yet (one of the downsides of traveling with a group, but there will be time for that later). We immediately went for the crepes, of which there were nearly 100 choices. I went for one of the pricier ones (number 96 or something). It was better than the crepe I had in Harajuku in Tokyo, because it not only had ice cream, strawberries, and chocolate sauce. It also had DAIFUKU (my favorite) and some other stuff I can’t remember at the moment. We also had bubble tea!

We walked around some more, but we basically parted ways after eating. I was really scared because I still hadn’t traveled on my own at that point (even my host mom and brother had helped me take the bus on the way to my exam that morning). Train/subway stations are particularly scary: so many entrances and exits, so much kanji, so many hurried travelers all make me nervous. But now that I’ve done it several times (and my trial and error on first attempt was ok), I’m no longer worried (about that area at least). Back home, I guess I must have ate something delicious, but I’m having a hard time remembering…Gomen (sorry)…

The next day was pretty boring. I tried to go to the building our program is based in to use the Internet but it wasn’t working. I thought the signal was turned off on the weekend or was too weak or something, but it turns out each time I want to use the Internet there I have to re-type the name of the network. I don’t know if that is just me, or everyone, or everyone with a Mac. I was also typing it wrong. I came back and basically stayed in my room and read all day. I would hang in the living room, where one of the TVs is, or in the small tatami mat room, where another small TV is (plus one of those heating table things, the name of which I have forgotten in Japanese), but I didn’t want to intrude until maybe I’ve spent a week in the house. It’s kind of where the mom always is, so it’s almost like her space, but she’s really nice. I think it will be easier to go there once I have homework and can just hang. I also really want to watch TV, but Kiyotaka watches it most of the time (I guess I could ask to watch on the other one?). By the way, I’m currently reading the Junot Diaz book that I haven’t finished reading. I forget how much fun it is to read books for fun (Swarthmore kills that, at least for me).

The next day, okaasan (mother) decided we should do something, since Kiyotaka didn’t have school either, and otousan (father) didn’t have to work until later that night (the night shift – I think he’s a surgeon of kidneys?). We ended up going to Kinkakuji, a temple covered in gold. There is also a Phoenix on the top, so we can think of it as dedicated to Swarthmore (vaguely…). You can’t go in, and most of these temple places is all just about looking and walking around and, particularly in a language you don’t completely understand, being confused by the history and purpose of this particular landmark. There are so many temples, so what makes this one different? Maybe I just can’t appreciate certain things…I should try to make a better effort to learn more about the historical/religious places I visit.

Afterward, we went to a big bookstore near the same area where I ate the crepes (though not close enough for me to remember where it was). I asked my mom where I could buy novels in English, since I was so bored the day before and foresaw myself finishing Diaz’s book pretty soon. I didn’t think she’d take me there though! I bought The Time Traveler’s Wife and Love in the Time of Cholera (there weren’t that many options, though I guess these are those kind of books that I’ve heard of but haven’t read?). I also bought a book on Kansai-ben, since I am determined to understand what my family is saying when they are speaking to each other (for my fellow Japanese-studying friends, here are some things I’ve picked up so far, without yet having read the book: dame = akan, wakaranai = wakarahen, in general the negative nai endings change to hen, though I don’t know if I have the exact conjugation down right).

We ate lunch together in the same place where they had the multi-level bookstore. It was one of those places where it’s mostly American/European style food with music in English playing in the background. Remember I said my host dad likes American food? I also forgot to mention that while we were looking for books, my host mom was trying to look for Peru ryouri (cuisine) book, but there were none (though there was a Netherland book?). She really wants to try it. It’s not just one of those things, like “Oh, you’re Peruvian, so I guess I should make an effort to try your food”. I can tell she is interested in getting to know other cultures. She even tried to remember the name of a restaurant in Kyoto which was apparently Peruvian, though she doesn’t know if it exists anymore. She wanted me to try to find out where it is through the Internet one of these days and wrote down the name for me the next day on a piece of paper. I hope I find it!

Afterwards, we went shopping for food for that night’s dinner and pastries for tomorrow’s breakfast. So, the deal with breakfast is that I have basically three donuts, an apple, a glass of cold tea, a mug of hot tea (btw, I’m getting better at liking tea without sugar/drinking extremely hot things), and sometimes yogurt. I’m hoping tomorrow I wake up and there are not three donuts/variations of pastries. At this rate, I will definitely gain weight, but, I’m not going to lie, they are tasty (I am a big fan of pastries in Japan).

I can’t remember much from dinner except that we spent part of the time teaching Kiyotaka how there are certain katakana words that can’t simply be said with English pronunciations, since they are short-hand words. He’s pretty good at English pronunciation. For example, I actually forgot to tell you of this random story but it happened several days ago, like the day after I arrived in my homestay. I was talking with my okaasan about something in the tatami mat room and, all of a sudden, Kiyotaka walks by the door without his pants and shows us his butt while saying “Batman” (it’s supposed to be a play on words). He was trying to teach his father that it’s not “batsu” but “bat”, emphasizing the lack of “tsu”. When he tried to pronounce depaato, and suupaa in English (“depart” and “super”), he obviously pronounced that part of the word correctly, but what he said weren’t the correct English equivalents of the katakana words.

Anyways, the next day I had “class”. Lately, instead of our usual schedule of Japanese classes in the morning and content classes in the afternoon, we have been practicing for our Community Involvement Project. We got into groups of mixed proficiency levels and had to roleplay different situations that might occur when we attempt our initial contact (be it in person, through e-mail, or on the phone) with the sensei, tutor, or group leader of the apprenticeship, club, or other type of organized activity we want to do for this portion of the program. Since before I came to Kyoto, I was thinking of joining the Salsa club, since the program staff want us to join something that we have at least a little experience in, plus I wanted to see what the differences were between salsa here and back in the States. But it turns out a lot of the Kyoto University clubs end during the middle of February, though some of them do meet informally. So I need to make sure my group continues going to salsa clubs or something, or else I won’t have anything to write for my final paper. It’s sort of an annoying thing, but if I make friends, I can see it being fun.

There are other things you can do, such as teach English at an Elementary/Middle school, learn Koto from a tutor, join the Tennis club, etc. etc. They’re kind of making a big deal of making sure we make a good first impression when we contact our respective groups/teachers, but maybe it’ll serve some use to prepare us. Plus, I learned a lot of new useless, repetitive keigo/teinei stock phrases (yay…).

That afternoon, I wasted time with a group of people going to different places so that I could learn my way around the city. First, some people wanted to go exchange some dollars. Then, me and this other guy tried to go get our bus passes at the station, but you need a shomensho (proof of alien registraion?), which I still haven’t gotten (yes, despite my visa and passport, I have to still ensure the Japanese govt. that I’m here legally through another form of identification)…Then some people went to buy their keitais (cellular phones). I didn’t have my passport on me (bad idea) so I couldn’t buy one. The good thing about this particular place was that you didn’t need a shomensho to buy a keitai (which you need at most places where you would want to buy one). It’s sort of like on a prepaid program, so I don’t have to stick to a full year plan or anything. And it’s pretty much going to rock, because I’ve always wanted a Japanese phone, and since I don’t have Internet, I need a way to connect with friends and my host family as well. I also think I’m getting that unlimited worldwide Skype thing, as well as my mom, so that she can call me on my keitai through Skype (or at least that’s how my friend explained to me).

The next day was more community internship program stuff and a random “scavenger hunt” that the program staff set up for us. Unfortunately, it’s a misnomer-ish. We basically got split into groups of five (again, of mixed proficiency levels) and had designated locations we had to go to. Our group got Daitokuji (another temple). It was pretty boring, because a lot of the sub-temples were closed and, again, I just seem to lack an appreciation for temples, though hopefully that will change after this religion class I’m planning on taking. We just had to answer easy questions about the place and make our way back to this restaurant, where we would all eat while a representative from each group made a short presentation about our destination. Since I was probably the lowest level in my own group (they didn’t mix up the levels too much in our group, I guess), I definitely did not do the presentation.

The food itself was amazing. It was one of those traditional Japanese multi-course dinners that, though made up of small portions, leave you feeling very full. Although the day was filled with a pretty useless activity, I did get to know the Fall semester students (which are harder to get to know since they have already formed their own circles of friends), many of which are very chill. One of them even went to PII the summer before me (maybe you know her Arthur? Her name is Wilma and she has red hair and is from Yale, I think).

I’m pretty tired now but I felt bad about not updating since the first entry and I wanted to make sure that you guys would know that I wasn’t going to give up on the blog. I figured I should just finish it tonight since classes start tomorrow. By the way, I officially don’t have Internet in my house, so I’ll just be writing this in Word each time and pasting it on the next day, so I’ll always be a little behind, unfortunately…

I tried to cover interesting details, but I’m really tired so I probably wasn’t successful and this is very boring to read. Next time, I guess I should talk more about the friends I am making, since I haven’t really mentioned many of their names yet (partly because I am still learning them, partly because I don’t think I should name them, even though no one but five people know about this blog?). Is there anything else I’m leaving out? Or is there some questions about Japanese culture or lifestyle that you would like me to ponder??? Shiraseru yo (Let me know!)!

On Tuesday, my first connection from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta left an hour late, causing me to miss my IMPORTANT connecting flight to Tokyo by 5 MINUTES. I wasn’t the only one, though I was probably the most visibly upset (why am I so easily emotional?). And why shouldn’t I be? I knew when I was told that the plane already left that there was most likely no hopes of finding another flight to Japan on the same day.

I talked to the Delta agents, as well as the agents from the STA travel agency (through which I booked my flight) and none could help me. Meanwhile, my mom, too, was talking on the phone with them. It wasn’t until she reached an agent, who happened to be Japanese, that she was told that if she had called a day earlier, she would have been able to book me on a flight to Tokyo through Korean Air later that day. She said that she sympathized with me and didn’t understand why the other agents didn’t try harder to help me find a flight. My mom thinks I was discriminated against because I was a mere student, but who really knows?

Anyway, so I stayed at a Red Roof Inn (which I got a coupon for, but it still cost me 60 bucks), and ate vending machine food for dinner and just watched CNN and Law & Order most of the time. I wanted to write about this at that time, since I had Internet in my room, but I was so tired and upset (I also didn’t sleep at all last night since my flight was at 7:00).

The next day I woke up early (just in case) for my 9:45 flight. I was happy to notice that at least I had been placed in a business class seat! Maybe this was my compensation (though my mom is also making a claim)? Other than the time I went to Kagaya Hotel in Japan, this was probably the most luxurious time I’ve ever had. There was more room than I knew what to do with, and they actually gave us silverware? The seat reclined so comfortably, and they even wanted to take my coat for me (though I didn’t let them since it was cold).

It was all a little weird, knowing that behind me were so many people without all these things, but I tried to enjoy the moment since I knew I probably was never going to fly business or first class in my life again. It still didn’t make up for the fact that I knew all the while that I was in the plane, my soon-to-be friends were all getting to know each other and Kyoto.

(Oh, this is a random note to Alysha if she’s reading this – just my luck, but they had the HYD movie on the plane! I should have just watched it then, since I forced myself to stay awake until 3 to watch it in the hotel, though I knew I had to wake up early for my flight. BUT I did watch this movie called Tokyo Sonata. I highly recommend it. It’s all about typical Japanese family issues – the salary man father, the lonely mother, the pressured kids – and I think you’d enjoy it. Try to find it online and then we’ll have a ディスカション…)

Then there was the journey within Japan. Once I landed, I had to wait like an hour for luggage, which would have been fine except I was so worried that maybe my luggage was not even in Japan because of the whole mess with my flight plans. I made my way through customs, and despite my worry that Narita airport would be crazy, it was surprisingly easy to navigate.

I got some yen (1 dollar = 89 yen ☹), sent my big luggage through takuhaibin (like a delivery service) for convenience, and made my way to the N’EX, or Narita Express. It takes you to Tokyo, among other stops, which takes about an hour. Tokyo station is a bit hectic. I was there around 4-5 pm so it was a bit traffic-heavy.

I then took the Nozomi Shinkansen to Kyoto. Unfortunately, the seats don’t recline, which is bad for me because I can’t fall asleep sitting up, so I kept on nodding off. I tried to rest my head against the window but even that wouldn’t work. And there was someone in the seat next to me, so I couldn’t just lie across the seats or anything. Anyway, the ride seemed endless, but I finally got to Kyoto at around 7 pm.

I found my way outside to the taxis and was nearing my final destination – Hotel Fujita. Upon arrival, I had to catch up on a whole load of information, so at the front desk I found a packet for me that one of the program coordinators had left. I also (finally) called my mom. When I got to my room, my roommate wasn’t there, so I basically just went to sleep. I was also exhausted. This was around 9 pm.

The next day, I woke up at 6:30 am. It’s always weird to first meet someone after you both had just slept in the same room together (this happened to me in my program last summer too, when one of my roommates came late too). She turned out to be half Japanese on her mom’s side and was actually going to live with her aunt, as opposed to a host family. We ate breakfast together and I tried my best to meet all the other students.

Fun for me, who was so disoriented after just getting in to Kyoto, but that same morning we had our HANASU SHIKEN (oral exam)!!! It wasn’t that bad, but they’re still terrifying…I think this was where I most bonded with the other students. We were all talking about how it went, and our frustrations with Japanese grammar and word order and such. There were some JOUZU (skilled) people too. For example, there was this one girl who had done a FULL YEAR of the program last year, then came back for this Spring semester, as well as had studied Japanese in high school!

Afterward, we all went to eat lunch. Me and two other students, including the girl who was my roommate in the hotel, kind of strayed from the pack and started walking around, only to (kind of) get lost. We ended up walking into the campus of Kyoto University, only to circle back around and buy from one of the cheap bentou vendors on the street (380 yen). There was also something interesting near the campus – this huge poster saying something like “Stop the Israelis’ attacks on Gaza!” I don’t know why I was so surprised by it. We were on a college campus after all…

We made our way back to the Kyodai Kaikan, our main building where we have classes, our mailboxes, lockers, and library. I’m not sure if it’s technically an international student center since I haven’t seen other international students there yet… Before we went in, we got some taroyaki (fried octopus) from a vendor very very close to the Kaikan. So gooood!

There was something really good in the bentou. I think it was picked radish. I was so surprised that I would like it when I first tasted it since I usually don’t like the picked vegetables in Japan, but I guess since I also love radish/turnip stuff at home, it’s only natural I would like it here, too! I also bought an attakai drink from the jidouhanbaiki (one of the things I love about Japan – hot drinks from a vending machine), since I’m not really into certain brands of the tsumetai (cool) green tea or coffee…

Later, we learned about setting up our computers to the Internet in the main building we use (very very important, since I’m sort of Internet-deprived and I have yet to find out about whether I have Internet in my house…). I also mostly used this time to figure out my life for the next four months, since I had missed the first critical orientation day. So far, I’ve figured a lot of things out (ID card, library card, CPI), but there were some things that I was worried about (Alien registration card [that’s what it’s called, though I’m sure you know I hate that word], bus pass, keitai [cell phone], and, oh yeah, my host family!).

After waiting in anticipation, the families started arriving at around 3:30. It was cute because we got to see each other’s host families! When I saw a little kid walk in, I was pretty sure that it was my new otouto (little brother), but I didn’t want to assume…I actually didn’t write about this before, but I had received a card from my host mom, as well as a picture of the family, including their two dogs, so I had an idea of what they looked like. It was so different meeting them in person and I was only starting to find that out.

In her letter, my host mom described the family a little. The dad was a surgeon of kidneys, as well as dealt with breast cancer. She described him as quiet, and always coming home late because of his job. She described Kiyotaka, her son, as a very spirited, talkative person. And she described herself as also a talkative person, who doesn’t work, but stays at home to take care of her son and two lassies.

Although I haven’t met my host dad yet, so far this was all true! In the picture, everyone seemed serious, but the mom was very nice, open, and easy to talk to! I also didn’t realize how genki (energetic) Kiyotaka would be, almost to the point of too much! He messed around a lot, and doesn’t listen very well to his mother. In the car he started playing with my hair, and, when we got home, he even kicked me in the butt several times…I wasn’t sure what to do, since I knew he was only playing around, but I knew I couldn’t scold him since I wasn’t exactly his family (I always feel like this when I babysit too). They also never taught us about these situations in Nakama…

At home, my host mom showed me around the house. There were two TVs, a small outside yard where the dogs were, and my room was right next to the main door (very convenient!). I still don’t know about a couple things, like Internet, or whether I can invite people over, or curfew, but I was so overwhelmed at this point that I figured I could ask her in the following days.

I told her about how I am from Peru, and she was so surprised! She even asked me whether I spoke Spanish or Japanese better (they do not compare at all). She also asked me about food that I liked or disliked, which is a hard question for me to answer, since I mostly like everything (with the obvious exception of nato…). I was so surprised, but she told me that her husband mostly liked AMERICAN FOOD, and disliked sushi a lot. IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!?!

We went out to a sushi place for dinner. Her husband wasn’t coming home until even later than usual because he had a shinnenkai, which are like New Year’s parties. Apparently, in Japan, they still continue to celebrate the New Year throughout the month of January. In fact, my host dad has a shinnenkai lined up each night for the next 4-5 days! Why can’t we have something like this at Swarthmore?

At the sushi place, Kiyotaka was louder than ever! But I couldn’t help but find it amusing. I actually found it harder to understand him than the mother, but he also talks a lot, so there are bound to be some things I don’t understand. I was so glad I finally made my return to real sushi. It was long missed…I forget how bad sushi is in the U.S. Even a pretty decent place like Margaret Cho’s cannot even compare.

The chef prepares it in such a way that there is already an amazing flavor to it without soy sauce. For some of the sushi, I didn’t even know how it tasted like wasabi, since I couldn’t see any green. But it’s different from wasabi. It tasted evenly distributed, and was an initially strong flavor, but faded nicely. Like, you get the amazing strong feeling of tasting wasabi, but not the after effects. I couldn’t understand! There was also another sushi, whose name I must remember, that had like a particular seasoning of lime and other stuff (well, I call it lime, but my host mom says it isn’t; it pretty much looks like a lime, except very small, even smaller than the ones in Peru, and with an amazing flavor. This eating experience probably made my love for washoku [Japanese cuisine] increase ten-fold, since, if you didn’t know, I am a huuuuuuuuuuge fan of lime flavor. It’s in a lot of Peruvian food. Even if it wasn’t lime, it was so good!  The chef even gave me a little piece of lime to taste! Ok, tangent over.).

We also had this weird soup-like thing, except it actually can’t even be described as soup. I’ve had similar things before, but I guess I forget the name. It’s really good though, but at that point I was full. I tried to explain to my host mom my surprisingly small appetite…

This was about it for today. Now I’m just hanging out in my room. Kiyotaka came in to play (his dad has a mac too, and he said he wanted to play so that we were both using our computers at the same time), but his mom tried to explain to him that I had an exam tomorrow (written…dun dun dun…kanji!!!!), and that there would be other opportunities to play.

After literally prying him out of the room, even though I said it was okay, we eventually said good night. Though I really wanted to hang out with them, I was very very tired. And I also wanted to actually finish writing this so that I keep my promise to myself to do the blog. It took a long time to write this. There were a lot of things to cover, but from now on it’ll hopefully get shorter and more interesting. Let me know what you think (what I should add, what I shouldn’t talk about since it’s too boring, etc. etc.).

I actually wrote this on Word since I don’t have Internet yet, so I’ll be posting this up Saturday, I guess? But I actually wrote this Friday evening. Whatever, we’re ahead in time anyway…

Since I don’t yet know exactly what my situation in Japan will be like (whether I will have internet in my host family’s household, or how strenous the workload of the program is), I hope you will all be flexible with me (though I know you all have your own things to do at Swat, so I’m not worried about getting hassled too much for not writing every once in a while).

Just make sure you don’t add this to your already long list of procrastination methods! I’m leaving early on Tuesday morning, first to Atlanta, then Tokyo. I will get to Japan on Wednesday (over there in the afternoon, over here in the very late evening a.k.a 3 a.m). After a few trains, luggage lugging, and a taxi ride, I will have, hopefully, arrived at a hotel, where I will stay until Friday/Saturday.

I hope I have some internet access in the hotel, but who knows? I hope you all enjoy the rest of your breaks. Let me know about your lives as well through e-mail/blog comments. Happy new year 2009 with our new president-elect! I will try to celebrate in my own way over in Japan!