I Spy in Sakae

This was an assignment for one of my courses, and I thought it would fit nicely into this blog.

For my I Spy assignment I choose to visit Sakae. I choose this location because Sakae is located in the heart of Nagoya and as such is one of the main places where people go to shop. I feel that it best represents the overall feeling of Nagoya I’ve had thus far into my trip. It was around midday on Saturday when I came to sit on a lonesome stone bench outside a busy Japanese restaurant. This is what I observed
Undoubtedly the first thing I noticed not only about this location in particular, but about any time I was outside in Nagoya was the heat. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. On this day it was forecast to reach highs of around 44 degrees. And of course, along with this heat came the humidity. It was very interesting to see how people dealt with this. Throughout the hour that I was sitting by the restaurant I don’t recall seeing neither a single lady without an umbrella to block the sun nor a single gentleman without a towel to wipe the sweat from their faces. I even noticed some younger men with towels around their neckline to stop their sweat from ruining their clothing. Oddly enough even with this heat, most the men I observed were wearing suits and jackets.
The buildings around Sakae really caught me as very typical Japan. In every direction I looked, the buildings all seemed to look similar. They were all tall, impressive towers most of which had massive billboards on them. The largest building right above Sakae Station literally had a huge ferris wheel attached to the side of it. One the ground level of pretty much every building is some sort of store. Directly across from where I’m sitting is one of many electronic stores on the block. Along with these are a multitude of restaurants, convenient stores, and clothing stores. On the extremely narrow 8 lane city street in front of me is a seemingly endless flow of small cars and old fashion bicycles, all of who seem to be in an intense hurry to get where they need to be.
From where I’m sitting I can hear people’s conversations as they pass by, all in very casual Japanese. Every 5-10 minutes I can also hear the subway rumble by underneath me. I heard a lot of birds chirping which I thought was strange because I didn’t see any birds. I later found out that they play bird songs in the subway stations. Contrary to what you may think with the high amounts of traffic on the road, I not once heard someone honk their car horns or hear any pedestrian curse at a driver who cut them off.
The smells that I experienced varied extensively throughout the hour. When customers came in and out of the restaurant next to me, I could smell the delicious scent of tonkatsu and korokke. As the subway went by under me, a foul scent of garbage rushed up. And while neither of these were occurring, the constant smell of stale air was apparent.
Although I was meant to be observing everything I was experiencing through this hour, it was clear to me several times that I myself was being observed. Numerous times I would look around and see groups of Japanese girls looking at me and speaking to each other. What surprised me was that even when I noticed them looking at me, they wouldn’t stop starring.

Weekly Recap

Seems like it's been forever since last post. It's hard to find time to sit down and write these, but today I have off so I can do it now :)
This past week has been a bit uneventful as now I'm kind of settling down into a routine.

In my Japanese classes I've been busy writing a bunch of tests and reviewing a lot of old grammar of vocab. 2 of my other courses were cancelled this week. Japanese Foreign policy which I would have had on Tuesday and Japanese Business which is on Thursday afternoons. So from that respect it was actually a pretty easy week. On Monday I finally found the time to go to Sakae and buy a cell phone. It was actually surprisingly easy because the Softbank location there has salespeople who spoke pretty good English.

 Later in the week a few of us decided we wanted to go to Karaoke again. We found a location much closer to our dorms, but found out it was a bit more expensive. Regardless we still had a good time. Rocked out to some Linkin Park and Lady Gaga. Good Times :)

On Thursday it was the autumn equinox which Japan celebrates as a national holiday, so i didn't have any classes. We took this opportunity to do some more exploring. Osu Kannon Temple is a large tourist attraction in Nagoya. It doubles as an amazingly huge shopping center that never seems to end. We were there for pretty much the entire afternoon and still didn't come close to seeing all the shops. I'll have to go back at some point.

On Friday I had a pretty long day. Japanese class all morning and then Japanese Econ in the afternoon. After classes I went to a welcome party for the International Friendship Club. Yes I know it sounds very lame but I had a really fun time. Everyone was really out going and it was a great opportunity to practise my Japanese. I even won a prize from the BINGO game we played. It's a funny looking kite named Baby Bat. I decided I'd hang it in my room.

As for this weekend, I need to get caught up with a bunch of stuff. I've been neglecting my Carleton study abroad course this entire month, so that'll be fun to work on XD. I've also been putting off the readings that I need to do for my other courses. It sure feels like my work ethic decided not to come on this trip with me. Who wants to do homework when your in an awesome new country with so much to explore?!?!

Busy Wednesday

Today turned out to quite the busy day.

I started out my morning with a nice Skype conversation with Jessica. It’s always a treat when we actually catch each other online at the same time to chat.  After she went to dinner I crammed a bit for a Japanese test I had in an hour or so. It was simple stuff which didn’t require much studying.  Following my test I had a short lesson and then was finished for the day. Every Wednesday will be like this which is very nice.  The CJS (Center for Japanese Studies) had a coffee house today at 1:30 to welcome the new international students, so even though I was finished at around 10:50, I had to stick around.  No complaints though. Hanging out with my friends between classes is probably one of my favourite things to do. It’s wonderful to learn more about where they come from and how much it differs from my own experiences.  When 1:30 finally rolled around we were all excited to go meet some new friends. Once there we were split into 12 different groups, according to our birthdays. This made sure we’d meet new people. The first activity we played had us stand in a circle and have one person say their name and a favourite thing of theirs. Then the person next to them would have to repeat everyone’s information that went before them as well as say their own. I found myself at the end of the circle stuck with the challenge of remembering everyone’s name and favourite thing. I tried my best... The next activity was essentially a massive game of Japanese Jeopardy. It was ok, but I found it extremely difficult to understand the question let alone think of the answer. After all the games we done we had a chance to meet and mingle with everyone and some snacks were served.  I had a good time.

After the coffee house was over a group of about 15 of us decided we’d go to Karaoke. The place we went was in Sakae (Pretty much where everything fun to do is in Nagoya). Never having been to Karaoke before I was a bit reluctant to go, but after being there for a while everyone opened up and we had a really fun time. I found myself singing In The End by Linkin Park. Good times XD Unfortunately I forgot my camera, but I think my friends took some pictures which I’ll share soon.

We left around 5:30 to find a place to eat. My friends had been talking about an English Pub that they had been to a few nights earlier which was pretty close and I loved the idea, so we headed there. I’m sure to everyone’s surprise I ordered fish & chips. It was amazing. I didn’t feel like being out too late so I headed back the subway shortly after the meal. This was really the first time I’d been completely alone far away from my house and I had a good time trying to navigate myself to the right subway platform in a seemingly endless maze of subway lines at Sakae station. I made it home in about 30 minutes and promptly flopped down on my bed.

And well that pretty much sums up my Wednesday. Never would have thought it’d be that busy, eh?

Funky Dance =D

Showing everyone my amazing dancing abilities!

Weekend

So it's Sunday night of my second week here in Japan...It sure feels like it’s been way longer than that.
Seeing as I haven’t posted in a while I guess I’ll start with Friday.
I had my second day of intensive Japanese class. The class was 3 hours long and boy did it ever feel like it. We only got about a 5 minute break while the teachers were switching classrooms. Even though it felt long, I feel like these classes are going to be great for improving my Japanese.
Usually on Fridays I would have Japanese Economics from 3:30-5:15 but the class doesn't start until next week, so I was happy to start my weekend early :)
When I met with my roommates later that I day I learnt that they'd planned a birthday party at our house to celebrate August's 20th birthday. I won't go into much detail about it, but all in all we had a good time. My friend took a bunch of pictures which can be found in the new slideshow.
Saturday proved to be a pretty lazy day. My friend Rene decided that he'd like to play some sort of online game together with me. Who knew finding games that work both on macs and pcs was so hard. We literally spent all day trying to get them to work.
At night they wanted to go to a club named Metro.
This is their website. http://www.thenagoyametroclub.com
Safe to say I didn't go...
Sunday was another lazy day. I went to the store around noon to buy some food for the week and walked around for a while. It’s amazing how busy the malls are on the weekends! It's fun to just watch people :P
At night I made myself another stir fry. It was pretty tasty :)

And that’s about it for now. Hopefully I’ll have a bunch of new stories to share this week :)

My House

Field Trip

Yesterday we had the great opportunity to visit a couple historical sites in Nagoya. I was happy to see that my friend, Yukiko, who I'd met last year at Carleton while on exchange from Nanzan was on the trip as well. First we went to the Tokugawa Art Museum. It was very interesting to see all the maps, weapons and armour of the time period. Unfortunately we were running pretty late and only had about an hour to spend there, so we had to rush through.


After the art museum we made our way to Nagoya Castle. It was amazing to see just how huge the castle and surrounding walls were. Seeing as we were late getting to the castle from the art museum we also didn't have much time to spend there.


Today is our official first day of classes. I believe I'll have 3 hours of Japanese every week day from now on. Hopefully this'll dramatically improve my Japanese!

I also took the time to create a short video of what my house looks like and a tour of the inside. Take a minute to watch it if you'd like to see where I'm living. =D

Saturday Night Outing

As Saturday night rolled around, my roommates decided they wanted to go to a club they’d heard about from some of their friends and they insisted I join them. The club we went to was in downtown Nagoya called iD. I was amazed when I got there of how huge it was. It was 5 floors high with each floor having a different style of music. The cover was a bit high to get in at 3000 yen, but we weren’t going to turn around and head home... (The price was so high because it allowed you 4 free drinks...A lot of good that is to me...) When we first got in the club my friends planned to meet some of their friends on the 3^rd floor so we went there. I tried to follow but got lost in the crowd. I spent probably the next 30 minutes going through worst case scenarios in my mind if I couldn’t find my friends again. Luckily I found them eventually and we had a great time.

After the club closed at 1am one of my friends decided for some reason he wanted to see what a gay bar in Japan looked like. The rest of us weren’t particularly comfortable with this, but he was adamant so we followed. After asking numerous random people we were directed to a “bar” in an tall building. When we walked in we discovered we were actually in some sort of transsexual theatre thingy. Thankfully my friend was able to talk our way out of there and we hurried away. Surprisingly to us we were escorted out of the place by someone we later found to be named “小ママ” or “little mama”. (Find pictures in the slide show) He/She was nice to us and asked lots of questions but all we could think about was how awkward the situation was.  Safe to say we’ll never be following that friend again…

Challenges of dinner

If you think it’s tough finding something to make each night, consider not only not knowing what you want to eat, but also being unable to buy the things you finally decide to have.

I had this problem for tonight’s dinner. I must have wandered around the grocery store for almost an hour until I decided on what I wanted to eat. I decided on something Italian. Easiest thing that came to mind was spaghetti. Spent the next hour tracking down all the ingredients I’d need. By the time I finally got home I really had no desire anymore to eat, let alone cook something. But I’m glad I did because it ended up tasting great 

Now what to make for dinner on Sunday...

Saturday

Decided I’d go looking for a place to get internet in the mall close to my house so I left around 9 to see if it was open. The entire mall was except for the single place I needed to go which opened at 10. Very frustrating...

I returned to the mall at 10 and was able to get internet for about an hour at which point a security guard told me I couldn’t use my computer there. I wasn’t in a position to ask questions considering I barely understood him, so I up and left.

It was nice at least to speak with Jessica and Serena for the time while I was there. Hearing their voices made me feel a lot better 

Internet Troubles

Finally found a place close by that has internet so I’m finally able to update this thing :P


Guess I’ll start with my second day of orientation. ... Yet again woke up at 4am. This is getting very frustrating and boring as I really have nothing to do in the morning while everyone else is asleep. On the way to the university today I went with one of my fellow roommates named Rene. We’ve been hanging out quite a bit this past week as we have many things in common. After getting off the subway I guess there was some confusion of who actually knew the way we were supposed to go and ended up getting quite lost. We tried asking some police officers for some help, but they couldn’t be bothered to give us a hand. After wondering around for a while we stumbled on the road we needed to be on and got to the university only a few minutes late. The orientation today was centered on what courses we needed to take this semester. I’m thinking about taking Japanese business, econ, foreign policy and political and social issues of Japan.

Also today we applied for our Inkan which we’ll need for our bank accounts. They’re personalized stamps that Japanese people use as their signature.

For dinner tonight Rene and I bought some chicken and veggies and made ourselves a nice stir fry. It was quite tasty :)

Later that night some of my other roommates decided to have some students they’d met at Nanzan over for a party of sorts. It was nice to hang out with a new set of people. They left for a bar around 11 but I didn’t decide to join them. Too tired from my lack of sleep.

Shopping

Just went out shopping for the second time tonight. Hoping to get some fruit. Melons cost almost 40$... Gonna have to rethink my shopping lists...

To nanzan

Orientation is today. Had another early morning. Still adjusting to the time difference I guess.
First we have our placement test. Not too worried for it though as it doesn't really matter how we do.
We also have some sort of ceremony to attend so that should be fun

First night in Japan

Just got through the first night here in Japan. Everything has been a neat experience. Went to a huge mall that's a stones through away from my house with a student from The Czech Republic to get some food. Couldn't decide what to buy so I got cereal and milk. Big surprise...Milk wasn't as strange as I thought it would be so I was pleasently surprised by that.
I had a tough time sleeping last night surprisingly because I was freezing! My roomate turned on the AC for me but failed to tell me how to use it :S
Today we're planning on taking a trip to my University. Hopefully I won't get too lost