名古屋まつり

How do I add more pics to this thing....It only lets's me upload 5. Bleah. Anyhoo, these 5 are from the the Nagoya City Festival. The one above is of a group carving out chopsticks! Fun!
NHK is basically the main News broadcasting station of Japan and so of course they had their own float and mascot in the parade!
These are basically simplified and much cheaper versions of the golden whales that you will find on the top of Nagoya Castle. They are the symbol of Nagoya and the source of their pride.
I am not sure who the women were supposed to represent but the parade progressed as a sort of acted timeline of Japan with various wars reenacted during the progression of the ceremony. These women are most likely wearing typical clothing from one a certain distinct point in Japanese history. The performances that everyone put on were spectacular.
Now this last picture is of a group of taiko players. I just thought the drums looked awesome! I think I might post more pics.....facebook perhaps? さーなー

What do I write here? Hi! Welcome to my Blog!

For those of your just joining me, thank you. I am in Japan. I write stuff online for kicks and for later reference and maybe, just maybe, for someone to actually learn something. The big thing in today's news: TOYOTA: トヨタ factory!!!
Basically today that's all I did besides a little bit of class in the morning. We left 南山 at about 1pm heading towards the plant. We made it there in about 45 minutes. The tour was short but I was able to see the entire plant assembly process (or at least the most interesting parts). Thinking about it, it would be pretty strange to work in that factory knowing that at any moment some tourist might be watchin your every move...judging you! Actually there was this one worker that tried to look cool but just about got clothes-lined by a steel rod as she worked. Our tour guide was 親切 and her accent was impressively well worked out save for a few words. She alwasy asked some kind of obvious and almost insulting question like "At eye level there are doors. Can you see the doors?" Basically the doors were bright colors and about 10 feet in front of us so there was no way we COULDN'T see them. Now asking that kind of a question once is ok, twice is almost expected if she did it once, but sooooo many times our visual and mental capabilities were challenged with nearly insultingly かんたん easy questions like that. It was fun.
No pictures!!! (they said) You can clearly see how that worked out for me. The womens bathrooms were entirely pink-including the toilets (or so I heard). 95-97% of the work in Toyota is done by robots (which was basically my preconception of how i thought all of Japan would be run but really isn't). Only quality control and some parts attachment is done by manual labor. It was all very clean. There even was a short Q&A at the end where some...questions were...answered. Ok, after the walking tour was over I was ready to go back home because that was where the fun ended (except for this cool, instrument-playing robot in the showroom) I was tired after the tourからです。
But now I'm home and writing to you, Mr./Mrs. New. I hope you enjoyed this short entry and the couple pictures. Stay tuned for more. Weekend excursions come to mind.

Un dia de mi vida...

Antes de irnos de esta tierra tenemos que ver el horizon y el sol quando llegue para decir...hola mundo! Hola flor! No hay razon para irme pero cada vez voy...y no se! porque voy! Es me vida y ya no puedo cambiarla hoy. Sometimes I write random things.
Be sure not to tip the waitress in Japan. Not that I did that anywhere yet...it's just that I thought about that now. The weather is definitely cooling down here in Japan. The futon cover that was in the closet is the warmest thing that has ever blanketed me ever by the way. I must buy a futon cover when I get back to the states. They are absolutely essential for any amount of cold weather. Today I finally picked up my registered alien card at the ward office. I HAD to do that by today if I want to work a couple hours over the next few weeks to make somewhere around $50. It's not too much money but it's not too much work really. It's just going to be listening to a sensei-to-be for an hour and a half for 4 thursdays; I'm not worried....should i be????!?!?! oh...no...
I met up, this was random, with Mr. Mexico today while walking to the ward office in 一宮. I know! really random! First of all, there are dozens of cities in the Nagoya area, Ichinomiya is VERY far away from campus, and lastly there are VERY FEW foreign exchange student in 南山 let alone a minuscule amount of foreigners period in all of 一宮 so I was basically stunned. I couldn't believe i ran into him.
I got back home early (4ish) and my host fam was way surprised. We had sushi today 「手巻き寿司」　てまきずし or something like that. It was, as are ALL of Wakae-san's dishes, delicious! I played Kento in a couple games of Chinese Checkers, regular, checkers, dominoes, memory, and that box game that ya taught me dad. I beat him in checkers(both kinds), and the memory game; he beat me in everything else. It was a lot of fun. I think my Japanese was the worst today that it has been in some time.
Satsuki-chan had some friends over today and they wanted me to say hello like 100 times. Then they asked me to grab the piano book on the table...yeah...i thought they said that they wanted the book on the piano. SO I started walking over to the piano and they started laughing until i finally figured them out and brought the right book at which point her friend says 「頭がいいですね！」　which roughly translates to "oooh he's pretty smart isn't he" with sarcasm. Thank you..brat.
Also, I don't think I wrote about this yet, but yesterday at the station i was looking at brochures while waiting for my train right...and this guy, he must have been looking down at a paper or something, just COLLIDED! BAM! head first into a sliding glass door! The sound was so loud that it made a girl next to me jump. SMACK! The best part was that he tried to play it off like it was no big deal. It was hilarious! but no one laughed....until he walked away. I was so glad the people laughed tho. I was starting to believe that i was the only one that saw it happen or that the Japanese had seen EVERYTHING soo many times that this kind of occurrence was just old hat. I couldnt hold it in though, it was just to -BAM!-funny.
In other news: Train, Plane, or Ferry?
AND: Say hello to friendly old ladies who wish you a safe trip home.

I want to put captions on my pictures.

花火

This weekend has been a fun one to say the least. Friday as you may recall involved some opinionated sampling of various fine drinking establishments. Saturday however proved to be a much more enjoyable experience. Saturday really began sometime around 3ish when Regina came all the way over to 一宮 for the main event later that night. しかし、before going out to that, we headed over to the self-proclaimed "bread-momma's" house to enjoy a little manual labor. (odd sounding sentence) We met up with Brian who was, I feel, awkward as always, and who had only woken up about 10 minutes prior, and we 作るed some bread. We made some small dinner rolls, other spiraled pastries that were later filled with potato paste and custard (separate pastries mind you), and pizza crusts. We sat around and talked a bit while sampling some of her pumpkin pudding and freshly made apple juice--100%. All around her house she had a garden with many many plants both flowers and fruits...i suppose some veggies too, and we picked some of the figs and munched on those for a bit. As I reached for one especially ripe one in the tree it broke off and instead of landing softly splattered nearly flat into my palm! skaaaa-wish! それの後に花火に見に行ったよ！花火見っければバスに乗らなくちゃいけなくて、満員バスだったよ！みんな花火が見たかって、誰も車を使いたくないからと思う。出た時花火の所でも人々がいた。どうしようと思った！しかし、花火の所は広場だったから、大丈夫でした。It really was amazing. The kind of fireworks show that i saw was spectacular. It was timed with the music and we were REALLY close to the show! There was one part in particular that really moved me though. The act was done to an older, slower song about 日本 and, about 60% of the way through they lit up a center structure that was made up of several hundreds of smaller stationary fireworks that all lined up to form the silhouette of Mt.Fuji . 富士山。And as I watched this performance and the sky lit up...I looked around and found myself almost perfectly content. Really very happy. I saw all the family and friends that had come out to watch teh fireworks together, I saw my host family and host brother Kento and host sister Satsuki enjoying the show, and I saw Brian, and I saw Regina. And I was happiest because I saw her. Bittersweet happiness.
We went home after that and relaxed. It was a very good Saturday.

I did nothing on 日曜日 except eat WAY too much miso-soba or something like that. Did they actually think ANYWONE can eat all that? I ate that at 1:30 and I had to wait until 8pm before I had the slightest hint of hunger agian.

万歳！

三

Third entry this month. Today was the last official day of something. That's a little sad. All in all though a really great day. Class is getting a little repetitive so there are certain things that we do to keep ourselves entertained. Annoying the professor would be one of the many things that we do. Even though we have been here for about one month...it feels, at the same time, that we have only been here for a week and that one month is unreal, AND that we have all been here for much longer than one month and--again--that one month seems off because it feels like we have been here much longer. No matter how you twist it, we're messed up.
Tomorrow I am watching fireworks with my host family. They will be held near 一宮 and I should be going with a couple other friends too.
Lastly, tonight we went to a place called Soda Pop near campus that served really well done burgers and Mexican food and the atmosphere was phenomenally well put together: bull-horns, American flags, inflatable corona bottles, neon beer signs, the works. And they played Offspring....a lot. It was a real American feel...save for the fact that the waiter only spoke Japanese. There were even Tabasco bottles there that had labels in Japanese on them!
Still forgetting where I park my bike...

A little more

Encuentro que 今ジェトコスタをのっている。For the most part it is a fun ride. The last few days have been warm and sunny with a much lower humidity (thank god). The temperature I feel is between 70 in the morning and 80ish at the highest. It's a really nice temperature. Some leaves are starting to fall(a couple actually fell right on me and I kept them as book markers). In school the other day many of the　留学生 aka me gave little presentations on our schools. Naturally I was psyched to do it. I wore my ND hat and shirt and Marla had an ND movie to show and there were plenty of pamphlets to see too. Many of the students were discouraged from coming tho because they have to get a really high TOEFL score to be able to attend I think they said. Either way it was a lot of fun! Pictures! Regina seemed like the only one representing her school there, but she had a large crowd anyway. "On Wisconsin!"
Afterwards I came home to munch on some delicious dindin or 晩ご飯。その晩ご飯の写真は違う晩ご飯で、今日の晩ご飯です。It consisted of what i would classify as shrim n muchroom rolls (as opposed to egg-rolls), some sweet potatoes & green beans, the most delicious Tofu "steak" with eggs you would ever find, of course rice, and お茶(green tea) to drink. It was great and it left me full to the brim. Not to mention she served a frozen banana desert later.
I had forgotten that this was the month of Ramadan and because I have habitually followed it since going out with Janine you can imagine my shock to find that there were only about 9 days left of the month. Now it would be rude to tell my host family to cook me breakfast at like 6 am or so so I decided that after breakfast I would not eat or drink anything until 晩ご飯。 Call me crazy but it's for awareness not only of the Muslims in our world but also a personal awareness of my dependence on basic things like food and ESPECIALLY water. I'll be sure to stay hydrated by drinking plenty after dinner (don't worry mom&dad).
As for Japan, people on bikes are not aware that other people on bikes may be using the same sidewalk. That is all.

この世界へ

どこまで行っている？誰もわからないね。Dame un cancion y te doy una poema de mi vida en este instante.　　Dame tu amor y te doy mi corazon sin pensar.
Hay veces en mi vida que pienso que hizo algo malo. Pero no malo como un ladron pero malo como una respuesta incorrecto. Y todos me miran. はずかしい。何をしようか。
Today was uneventful and cold outside. There really is very little to report. Yesterday was more eventful really. I went to see Regina and we talked again. There are some things in this world that you cannot control I guess. One of those things happens to be who you fall for. As it so happens, I'm in Japan for four months....only. Sorry mom and dad for the sentiments but I know that you can understand me. It's funny the way someone who I have never known these 20 years can have such a strong current on the ocean of my life. I say it's for the better but it's the worst thing that I can imagine right now.
誕生日おめでとう！レヒナさん。　It was the first and only one that I'd have with you.
明日いっしょうにどこかへ歩きに行くつもりだぞ。この週はさい後のいっしょうにの週です。