The Home Stay Week:
Because of the lack of time I've had to update the blog, I'm going to attempt to make a slightly longer but more interesting blog for the previous 5 days that I've missed.
Saturday was mostly travel, so there wasn't too much in the way of interesting events. Riding the shinkansen is always cool, though. Watching the outside whirl by in seconds. In the afternoon, we arrived at the Urasa Station, where are host students were eagerly waiting for us.
Souta is pretty quiet most of the time. That's not necessarily a bad thing; I'm a pretty quiet person too. Over the past few days, he's warmed up to me, and we talk a little more than we did at first. We share a good amount in common besides our inclination to silence, the most notable being our enjoyment of video games, manga, and anime. His family and I have talked a bit about anime (they all enjoy it, too), and his mother enjoys retro games from the NES and SNES era. They had no idea that anime was as popular in America as it is, and were pretty excited that I knew a lot of the shows they liked.
Sunday was spent out in the town and surrounding area with Souta and his family. We ate breakfast, and I found out that I can in fact stomach rice covered in raw egg. Never thought that would be something I'd try. After eating, we got bundled up to go out and enjoy the snow and outdoors. But first, a pit stop at a place I still don't know the name of, but what I took to be a sort of kids nature museum. Tanks of small lizards and fish are put on the floor next to tables with mini activities. Japanese science magazines sat neatly on a shelf against a wall, presumably for adults, although maybe kids can look at the pictures. I suppose it wasn't just a nature museum, though, because the main activity we participated in was the making of mochi (a rice ball with filling in it, and one of my all-time favorite foods). So delicious. Following the devouring of the delicious treats, we headed out to the Snow Park, which is a small area with a hill for sledding, and sleigh rides (pulled by a snowmobile, not a bunch of reindeer). Souta's little sister loved it, and it's been awhile since I've gone sledding. Then came lunch, and multiple hours spent at a mall. Malls are a thing in America, I guess, and there are a lot of similarities between the them in the two countries, but there's something distinctly different and more appealing about Japanese malls. They feel more open, more entertaining. It's not just a bunch of clothing stores stuffed into shoe-box-sized rooms. It wasn't just this one mall, either; I went to several more this week, and they're all like this. I didn't get much there besides some gifts for people back home, but it was still fun to walk around and look at food (free samples are a gift from the heavens). Time passed quickly, and it felt like only a few minutes before it was time to head home, eat dinner, and get ready for school in the morning.
School here is not like in America. I don't just mean that it's harder, or how instead of the students moving room to room, it's the teachers. I don't mean how "Art Class" is kanji calligraphy. I mean the idea of what school is in the day. I have three different ways of getting to school in Evanston. I can take the bus, ride the train most of the way, or walk. Sometimes I'm able to get a ride from my parents (no license yet). Here, you have one way to get to school, and you have to get up a good three to four hours before school starts in order to make it. Here comes the step by step of how Souta (and for this week by extension, I) got to school:
To get home from school:
You leave the house at 7 a.m, school ends at 4:30, and you get home sometime between 6-7:30 p.m. When you get home, you study, eat, have a little free time, and then go to bed. School is literally all day.
It is enjoyable though, albeit difficult in many ways. Instead of electives, the main outlet for student's non-core class interests is school clubs. There's around 400 students in the school, and over 40 clubs that all meet after school on different days of the week. Debate, baseball, archery, tea ceremony (one of my favorites), etc. It's all about clubs.
That was Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday, or yesterday, was visiting the Ueda High School students, our Global Classmates partners. We went out around the town with them, shopped (I bought a pencil and notebooks, yay!) ate delicious soba (cold noodles in warm soup stuff) and tempura (vegetables and fish fried in batter), and said goodbye. I wish I had more to say, and it was a good day, but I was tired and not quite as engaged as I should have been, which I regret now. I'll write about today (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday, if you didn't know the order of weekdays) tomorrow night. For now though, I'm going to attempt to get eight hours of sleep in 4 hours of available time. See ya 'round~
February 1st
Today was almost all about relaxation. Bath, socialize, eat, repeat. I'd talk more about the meals, but unfortunately I don't know exactly what I'm eating most of the time, so it's hard to write about "the little grey cube of something". I will say though, that the breakfast and dinners served here are amazing. There's a lot of things I never would have tried, or had the chance to try otherwise. The bathing was great, just like yesterday.
Though the day was almost all about relaxation, we did go see the 樹氷, or juhyo snow monsters up on the mountain. While incredibly cold, it was beautiful to see the snow covered trees, and the towns and planes below the clouds.
January 31st
Today was a lot of traveling, but nothing is without perks. For one, my feet can have a rest from constant movement. For second, I believe that the bullet train we rode on the way to Zao Onsen was one of the most beautiful and tranquil experiences on the planet. Looking out at the world buried under snow, I felt at peace. Upon arriving at Zao Onsen, we were showed to our rooms, and where the onsen were. Bathing was incredibly relaxing, even if everything in the town smelled of sulfur. We were then treated to a meal with an alarming number of courses, not all of which I finished. So far I love this place, and am looking forward to relaxing on the mountainside.
January 30th
I'll stop saying that each day was exhausting, as I've decided that's going to be pretty much a given from now until my return to America. The morning routine was pretty much the same as yesterday: Up at 6:30, breakfast at 7, leave pretty much right after. Our first activity was a tour of Waseda University, a prestigious private university in Tokyo. Our own Emma Estburg's brother Mitchel gave us a show of the place, and while it might not have been quite enough to make me dead set on going there, it was interesting.
The other portion of the morning was spent at a government building (or rather, in front of it while we tried for too many minutes to get the perfect photo). We rode to a floor number on the higher end, though I don't recall which one, and looked out the window to see the city spread before us, stretching to the horizon. I was awestruck. But the fun was only just beginning, because on the hunt for a place to eat lunch, we cam across the restaurant built by the gods. Yes, I could only be talking about one place: Denny's. I won't go into details (divine secrets must be kept), but just know that whatever notion you have about American Denny's, through it out, it was probably nothing like that. It was also probably a lot better.
The afternoon was spent at a lovely garden shrine, studying the old architecture and writing, and culture surrounding these places. And then, to add special contrast to the view from the building earlier, we went to Tokyo Sky Tree during the night. It was absolutely stunning. The city lights stretch on and on in every direction, like you've never seen. It really was beautiful.
Tomorrow we set out for Zao Onsen, our second major destination of our trip. I'm excited to see some snow monsters and lay in the mountain hot springs!
January 29th
Wow, I am exhausted; today was a long day (probably the first of many). We woke up at the early but reasonable time of 6:30 a.m, went up to breakfast at 7, and immediately took off around the city. My favorite part of the day was easily Meiji Shrine, it was beautiful and peaceful. I was incredibly thirsty at this time, however, and was tempted to drink water meant to cleanse oneself before entering the shrine. I won't name any names, but I know a few people actually did drink it (not realizing they were supposed to spit it back out).
There are more than a few streets in Tokyo that are end to end shops, and we went to two of them today. While I didn't grab anything huge or expensive, it was crazy looking at all the different stores on Takeshita Street, selling anything that can be bought (that isn't illegal, obviously). I was lost among all the clothes and food and vendors. Shibuya Crossing was less of a cluttered chaos, but there were still many shops all over (including a really good ramen place my group ate lunch at). Advertisements for everything were everywhere. We ended our day on a Ferris wheel, followed by a third shopping area, although this one was a mall and not an outdoor street. Day one in Tokyo was exciting, an adventure, and really exhausting!
January 28th
Unfortunately, the blog of the first day may be the most uninteresting for me, since most of it was spent on a large aluminum can, floating through the sky. However, at the end of those long 13 hours, our tired minds began to register that we were indeed 6 1/2 thousand miles away from where we started; that we had finally made it to Japan. After nervously making my way through customs and exchanging my dollars for yen, it was decided that we should have dinner. I grabbed something that looked delicious and consisted primarily of rice, a small mochi, and a lemon-flavored Coca-Cola from the shelves of the airport 7/11, and sat back down to enjoy it. Lemon flavored Coke, if you're wondering, tastes a lot like regular Coke, but it has a hint of lemon candy flavor. Pretty good, but nothing insanely different.
The next few hours were spent train-hopping, which is made more enjoyable because there's a lot of advertisements for strange things everywhere, and little jingles play at all the stations. Currently, I'm closeted away in my bunk with the curtains drawn, about to get as good a nights sleep as possible before a very busy, probably exciting day tomorrow. But yes! We're in Japan, and I am ecstatic about everything we're going to do.
Write more tomorrow,
Brendan