Merry Christmas everyone! That comes a little belated in my neck of the woods, as it’s already 3:30am on the 26th (I’ve been adopting Tatsuya’s night owl schedule since my winter break started earlier this week), but I know back in America, things are just beginning to get into full swing, so I hope everyone has a wonderful day.

This is my first Christmas spent away from my parents and the rest of my family, and I have to admit it’s been a little unsettling. I never really had full-on homesickness until now, once the holidays began approaching, and I think it’s thrown me a bit for a loop. It’s harder than I ever thought it would be, especially when I think about the fact that Christmas as I know it may be different for quite a few years to come. On the bright side, Monday is when Tatsuya and I go back out to Fukui so we can spend New Years with his family. In Japan, New Years is the time to get together with friends and family to celebrate, so I think that trip will make up for what I’ve been missing about Christmas.

In any case, we had a good time today, just the two of us. Tatsuya needed a pair of gloves, so we decided to just spend the day at a shopping center– we ended up going to the Colton Plaza Mall in Ichikawa. We went there before to go see a movie, but never really took the time to explore it until today, so it was fun.

I have to say, if Japan really has a declining birth rate, you would have no idea at all, judging by today. Apparently, parents take all their children under 5 to the mall on Christmas! Little kids were everywhere!

In relation to that, here’s one cute anecdote from the day: we were eating lunch in the food court, sitting near the water dispensers, present in many Japanese shopping center food courts, where people can help themselves to free cups of water. At one point, a little, little boy (he couldn’t have been much older than 2 or 3) trots over to the setup next to us. His mother and older sister were apparently in line waiting to order food, and he had been entrusted with the very important, big-boy task of filling water cups (or maybe he came up with the idea on his own and wandered this way in an effort to be “helpful”!) In any case, he was taking this job very seriously as he deliberately and methodically picked out a cup, reached on his tip-toes toward a water dispenser, and…. didn’t quite have enough arm-length left to keep the level held down as the water came out. A couple more attempts, and he decided the job was too big for him, so he screeched out a big “MAMAAAAAAA!!!” across the room. At this point, since Tatsuya and I were watching him the whole time, I clucked my tongue sympathetically and said, “Aw, he needs help.” So, as if in response, Tatsuya gets up to fill a new cup for him. The boy was still holding the original, still empty cup, so he hands it to Tatsuya who dutifully fills that one as well. With two cups in his hands, the boy turned his back to Tatsuya. He looked a bit unsure what to do next… he seemed a bit stunned from receiving some unexpected assistance while watched his older sister making her way to the scene, no longer needed after all. It wasn’t anything too terribly special or interesting, but I suppose it’s always nice to see my fiance go be a knight in shining armor (particularly for small adorable children!) It could have been the spirit of Christmas kicking in, but he was probably just trying to impress me. Anyway, it worked ;)

After eating, we bought our Christmas cake (since eating cake on Christmas is the custom here) and headed home. Tatsuya took a picture before I tucked in. Unfortunately, however, it’s our only picture from the day. At least it was taken with his new camera, which he bought with birthday money from my parents (thanks, Mom and Dad!)

Sorry my hair is silly, I had just woken up from a nap at that point.

On a final note, I just wanted to give a shout-out and congratulations to my friend, Lulu, who gave birth to her baby Noah last weekend. He is absolutely adorable and I am so happy for her and her husband, Shunpei. Merry Christmas!

I said in my last entry that I wanted to buy a schedule book to keep myself organized. So last week, I went ahead and picked one up:

Ta daa! Isn’t it cute? And flipping through it, I see that it’s not just a monthly/weekly planner, oh no. This little guy has weight/diet charts, lists for shopping, financial tracker, and guides with heaps of useful information, particularly for me as a newcomer in Japan, I think. There’s lists of important phone numbers, postal rates, clothing size conversion charts, etiquette for exchanging gifts (I love this one so much! Although if even the Japanese in their crazy gift-giving culture need a guide in their planner, what hope do I have of getting it right??); proper letter salutations, manners for ceremonies such as weddings and funerals, maps of the Tokyo and Osaka train and subway routes, plus a lot more. This little book is amazing! And since they included calenders for October, November, and December 2009, it’s my early New Year’s Resolution. I want to try and keep up with everything in that book, beyond my day-to-day schedule planning.

While we’re on the topic of organization and self-improvement, what I also thank the heavens for existing is NON-NO MAGAZINE, which I also mentioned in the last entry.

Of course, like most magazines for young women, there’s endless articles about clothes (did you know you can put together a month’s worth of outfits with only 8 articles of clothing? The mix-and-match fashionista inside of me was highly impressed!), and how-to guides for hair and makeup. But beyond that, by some amazing coincidence, or act of God, or whatever, it seems like everything that’s been on my to-do list lately has had some article or feature in Non-no over the last few issues, and upon seeing them, all the cool tips and tricks end up getting me motivated enough to get it done.

The first example of this is cooking! Even though I’m going to school, I still like to cook something nice for Tatsuya and myself to eat for our dinner every evening. Non-no has awesome recipes that are really quick and easy to make, plus are simple enough for me to understand, even with my limited knowledge of cooking terminology in Japanese (or terminology in general, for that matter!) In any case it’s really good practice, and I can’t help but feel pretty gosh darn proud of myself when I can read and follow directions in my second language… and I know I did it correctly, because the end product is awesome, delicious food!

Every so often, Non-no will publish small recipe booklets that are included with an issue, but can be removed and are able to stand alone as a separate book. In October, they released one called “Become Beautiful: DIET*Veggie Recipes”. Ok, it says diet, but it’s all really delicious, vegetable-based dishes. The best part of it is that all the recipes are organized per type of vegetable, so all the spinach recipes are together on this page, eggplant recipes here on this page, potato recipes here, and so on. This has been really useful for Tatsuya and me, because very often we’ll buy a vegetable for a certain dish, like curry or mabo tofu, but then end up with leftovers that previously, would sit in our refrigerator until it went bad. But now it’s literally like, “oh we have an extra carrot sitting there… let’s flip to the carrot page and see our options! Look, one of them is carrot and spaghetti topped with cheese! I have all those ingredients already lying around…. INSTA-DINNER!” That carrot spaghetti was good, too… we ate it all up before I thought to take a picture, however :)

Here’s a couple more things I’ve made with this book.

With some extra moyashi (bean sprouts), onions, and eggplants we had lying around:

Chinese pork soup and sauteed eggplant with onion!

With extra Chinese cabbage and with somen noodles and tomatoes:

Rolled Chinese cabbage stuffed with salmon, and somen noodles topped with wakame seaweed, tomatoes, and avacado (that combination works amazingly, oddly enough!)

If anybody wants the recipes for this stuff, just let me know and I can post them (hopefully I’ll be able to manage to translate them, ahahaha.)

Now, here is a more telling example of how Non-no may in fact be reading my mind. One of the projects on my to-do list since we bought the closet from Ikea was to arrange all my clothes and get them all nice and organized and easy-to-find in our new space. As anyone who has seen my rooms in America knows, I used to like to shop for clothes in the morning by wading through a pile on the floor. But no more, I said! I love my clothes, so I might as well act like it! And then Non-no came to the rescue by challenging me to make good on my promises. Because the latest issue, which came out last week, has an entire article about CLOTHING AND CLOSET ORGANIZATION. HALLELUJAH! They profiled six different girls, who established their organizational philosophy, showed pictures of their closets, and made their own set of 5 “rules” to follow. There were tons and tons of good ideas, and it was enough to get me off my butt. So that’s what I did this weekend, and here is the result:

The “denim basket” and the “winter-bottoms basket”, using cheap baskets I bought at Daiso

More baskets! You can sort of make out Tatsuya’s jeans in a pile on the shelf above. I guess organizing Tatsuya’s clothes is next on the list!

A basket for t-shirts and camis, a basket for shorts!

My sock drawer. Intimates basket censored because this is the internet, and no one needs to see my panties, lol :)

This was the best idea yet. A cute, cheap way to display all my accessories! Can I just say, thank god for Daiso! 315 yen for the cork board, 105 yen for thumb tacks, another 105 yen each for two kinds of ribbon that I can clip my hair clips, pins, etc. onto. Total: 630 yen. Awesome!

As a finishing touch, yesterday I went to Loft to buy a cheap fragrance envelope to hang on the inside of the closet door, so now our clothes can be nice and sweet-smelling.

So in more ways than one, Non-no has been helpful for me to get settled into my new routine and my new home in Japan. Thanks, Non-no!

I’ve been seeing this meme pop up a lot on livejournal, and after finding a similar feature in one of my past issues of nonno (a Japanese girls’ magazine I like to read), I thought it might be fun to do here. Perhaps this way, I can also highlight some of the things that I am using every day, since they are important for my daily life in Japan!

Here we go!

So, this is my bag. It’s from Coach’s new Poppy collection, and I bought it for myself as a bit of a self-bon voyage treat right before I left for Japan (there’s no way I could afford it here, Coach is soooo expensive in Japan!) Turns out this guy is absolutely perfect for life in Tokyo– particularly because of the little pocket in the front which gives me quick access to my cell phone and card case, even if one hand is hanging on for dear life to a train strap while being smushed against my fellow commuters! Needless to say, it goes everywhere with me, even if we take a quick trip over to the konbini for some snacks.

And then, here’s what’s in it:

1. My wallet. Where my money is kept, obviously. The Japanese use cash for almost everything, so I always try to keep some in here, even if I die a little inside every time I withdraw money from the atm and find that I lose 10% of my American money due to current exchange rates, plus bank fees. Still, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to live on a tight budget, I am a senior in college, after all! My alien registration card is also in here, showing that I am a nice, legal resident foreigner. I might end up having to get a bigger wallet, or at least a separate coin case, though. Because all yen denominations under 1,000 are in coin form, I usually end up with more 100 yen coins than I know what to do with. I can’t help it, I’m used to the $1 bills in America! At least it means that I’m getting good at the exact change game!

2. My ipod. This little guy is also new… my nearly five year old ipod finally kicked the bucket soon after school started, so I decided to sacrifice the funds for a new one. Life isn’t worth living without an ipod, right? Haaa. Oh boy, I love him though. My old ipod was the really old kind, it was black and white and couldn’t handle anything like photos and video, like the newer ones can. So I feel a little bit behind the times… I mean, this one is in color! How novel! And it makes up original playlists for you?? Love it. His name is Albert, by the way :3

3. My apartment key… pretty self-explanatory, I hope. I use it to get in our front door. The charms attached are both presents from Tatsuya’s mother. The rainbow beaded one was hand-made by her friend, and the Hello Kitty is a regional one she bought for me during our trip to Kanazawa (ie, the day I played in the ocean looking for rocks and got reeeeally wet!)

4. My cell phone. Japanese cell phones are amazing, to the point where I don’t even understand what all mine is capable of. What I do know: a) email is a standard feature; b) I can watch tv on it! c) I can exchange contact info with my friends by simply holding our phones up to each other– they have little sensors which send the information automatically; d) it has a 5.0 mega pixel camera! That’s better than my (albeit old) regular camera! And besides make calls with it, set the alarm, and use the calculator, that’s all I know what to do with it. Seriously, that’s it. I’m sure there are probably a zillion other features, though, that would blow my mind. It’s an ongoing learning experience. Oh, and as for the Minnie Mouse charm… Tatsuya has a matching Mickey Mouse one on his phone, and when you put them together it looks like they are kissing. Aww, aren’t we adorable? :P

5. My card case, with my school ID, nanaco card, and suica card. The nanaco card was another gift, but as far as I can tell it’s a refillable point card which can be used at Seven & iHoldings company stores, such as 7Eleven and Ito Yokado (a department store which we usually use for its huuuge grocery section). Suica card is one of those magical all-purpose cards, made of awesome. I turned it into my Sophia commuter pass, so it’s all I need to take the train every day. I can load it with funds to buy train rides outside of my school commute (rather than a ticket), and there are many store chains which allow Suica as a form of payment: konbinis, kiosks, and drink machines in train stations most always accept Suica, but I’ve also seen retail stores, food courts, even Ikea takes Suica! It’s one of the most versatile and handy things I have, by far.

6. Lip gloss. Yep, lol.

7. Tissues: Another common sight in Japan are the people who hand out tissues to people walking by. These tissues usually have an advertisement for some sort of company or product on it. Of course, that stuff is boring and no one cares, so while it would be pointless to hand out flyers, why not hand out tissues, which everyone uses! Yay, everybody wins! I hear that technically these people aren’t allowed to hand tissues out to foreigners, but many of them do anyway. Thank goodness, because me and my big runny nose are big fans of free tissues! :D

8. Pen. It’s pink. It’s cute. It’s disney. It has 5 different colors!

9. Mirror. Although the back of my ipod often serves the same purpose, lol.

10. Drink Bottle. Almost every morning I buy a drink from the drink machine (often using my handy-dandy Suica card!) which I nurse throughout the day. On school days it’s usually my lunch drink. I do this only because Japanese drinks are all so new to me, so I try a new one everyday to see what I like best. On the day this picture was taken (yesterday), it was a small bottle of Mitsuya Cider. That was actually the second time trying it… it’s good!

11. Oil build-up sheets. My skin is more inclined to get dry, so I only used these on the hotter, humid days. Still, they’re a life saver when it seems like your pores are breathing in nothing but water! Now that winter is beginning to settle in, I don’t think I’ll be needing them for a while, though.

12. Towel. This particular towel was a gift from Tatsuya, featuring Jiji the cat (who, as you may or may not recall, also decorates our bathroom!) Anyway, towels are yet another important thing to carry around with you in Japan. Why? 99.9% of Japanese public restrooms will NOT stock paper towels. At all. It’s becoming more common to find air dryers in the nicer restrooms, but for those times when you’re walking down the street and must duck into the nearest konbini bathroom because nature calls, the towel in your purse becomes your best friend. Unless you’re the kind of person who likes to do the “eww look, I peed on my hands!!” joke to your accompanying fiance. Ahem, not me though. Certainly not.

13. Gum! Currently there are two kinds in my bag because I bought a few different kinds a couple weeks ago to sample and see which ones I liked best. The Sweets Strawberry Vanilla gum is a good one… tastes like a real strawberry! The other one is a minty muscat (grape) flavor, also good. Either way, I decided one of the best parts of starting life in a new country is the opportunity to sample all kinds of new and different candies! I’ll probably be stocking up again soon, as I’m almost out of these two, ohohoho.

And that’s what’s in my bag! The only thing I’d say is missing is a planner… I’ve been meaning to buy one for the 2010 year, along with the New Year’s Resolution of keeping up with it! I used to keep them obsessively a few years ago, but somewhere along the way I fell out of the habit. I think tomorrow I might check out Loft and see if there’s a cute one there for me.

It’s been a few weeks since my last entry! I’m really sorry for getting behind. I suppose my best excuse is that things seem to finally be settling down around here, and I’m falling into a predictable routine. Though admittedly, it isn’t really a very good excuse after all. It’s not like things are boring and un-blog worthy… I mean, who would get bored after living in a new country for only two months?! Actually, nowadays I keep wanting to write about things that aren’t necessarily all about “what I did today”. In the first few weeks, a lot of the most fascinating things have been the ones I see and do, which I probably noticed because I’m new here (not to mention I did do a lot in the first month!) Now I’ve been in Japan for exactly two months. I can already tell my outlook is changing. I’m noticing less now the sights, sounds, and experiences themselves, and more my thoughts, feelings, and reactions toward those things. So I guess you could consider the break a transition from “My Life in Japan: A Travel Log” to simply “My Life in Japan”.

A couple things I’ve been up to lately are still timely enough to note:

+ Earlier this month I set the wheels in motion to join the AFWJ, or the Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese. I seem to remember finding the website soon before I left and thought it was interesting, then I was recommended to join by my new friend, Lulu. I thought it would be a good way to make some connections with people in similar circumstances, and a good way to get support and advice from ladies much further along than me in this crazy life path, haha. After receiving an information packet in the mail from the Membership Secretary (who turned out to be “Kuri“, whose blog I also like to read!) I sent my membership fee over to them last week. Super exciting, though I’m not even technically a “wife” just yet! ;)

+ This weekend has been a blast! A combination of school holidays, national holidays, and my otherwise typical days off from school has made for me a glorious, five-day weekend of awesomeness. I haven’t been to school since last Friday, and I don’t have to go back until Thursday, which I will say is the day after tomorrow, since it is still technically Tuesday night as I write this entry :P

I suppose it’s a bit of a shame that I’m not using this extra long break as an excuse for a non-stop party, because the last day or two especially has been dedicated to catching up on boring domestic stuff, like laundry, tidying up messes, and scrubbing down the sinks, toilet, and shower. Still, I feel pretty awesome that it’s all done, and when I finish, I can take a nap in our warm, snuggly kotatsu, which we bought and I tried for the first time last week. I LOVE IT.

Although Halloween is celebrated in Japan, it’s never really been my holiday, except to receive trick or treaters. But since that particular tradition isn’t practiced here, there wasn’t much special I wanted to do. Plus, as part of his job search, Tatsuya went to Tokyo Big Sight that day for a job fair which had various company presentations.

So, what did I do? I decided to go by myself and explore Harajuku! Even though I was by myself, and even though it was Saturday/Halloween, which meant the streets were terribly crowded and I was pushed against people close enough that I could’ve probably peered into their souls, it was an absolute blast. Because I am such a fashion geek, I ended up loving Harajuku. Now, I know that may sound cliche at this point, with Gwen Stefani out there singing about how awesome Harajuku is, but it really is a fun place. And depending on where you look, it really isn’t that expensive to become a “Harajuku girl”, either. My first stop of the day was a big second-hand clothing shop called Kinji. I didn’t end up getting anything there, but they had a lot of really good stuff for under 1,000 yen. Then, I went across the street to Forever 21, which had just recently opened its Harajuku location. I love Forever 21, so I managed to brave the crowds and came out with something I needed, which was a winter coat for only 4,200 yen (I apparently bought it just in the knick of time too, because after fairly mild weather all last month, today was COLD.)

After that, I headed over to the famous Takeshita Street.

As you can see from the picture, a lot of people were dressed up in costumes that day! You can also see how crowded it is, yikes.

There’s a bunch of really cute shops along the road; I bought a bunch of necklaces that were 315 yen each, and also I fell in love with a new clothing brand called Wonder Rocket. If I were Gwen Stefani, I would be singing about how much I love Wonder Rocket!!! The shops are decorated so that they look like the secret garden, and the clothes are really earthy, feminine, and recall a little bit of turn-of-the-century fashion. So adorbs.

I bought clothes from one particular sub-brand, called Lilly, whose storefront is the picture above. I was able to talk with one of the sales girls there, who was really nice. I think it was a good experience to go shopping all by myself, because it definitely gave me an opportunity to practice Japanese and build up my confidence by doing things I like to do in my second language. And meeting nice people like her really left me with a good impression. Among other things, she asked me about studying Japanese and I told her about school and being engaged. She asked me where my fiance was, and when I told her, she said encouraging words about Tatsuya’s job search. She just seemed really to enjoy talking and genuinely interested in what I (tried) to say, and it all reminded me why it’s so fun to learn a new language. So thank you, nice sales girl from Lilly by Wonder Rocket, I’ll never forget you! :)

I came home with a pretty good haul, so I probably won’t be doing anymore clothes shopping for a while, haha! I’ve been trying to figure out how I can combine Japanese fashion with my American clothes so I don’t end up looking too much like a poser, lol. But, after observing dress styles here, I decided to give it a go and try a really Japanese-looking style, and go for a more fusion style later. So here it is, my “Harajuku girl” style:

What do you think? Too Japanesey? Haha, I’ll need to work on this.

The wedding yesterday was so much fun! Tatsuya’s friend who got married is named Keisuke (pronounced kay-skay… you’re welcome, Mom and Dad.) They met when Tatsuya was an exchange student at Eastern Washington University (also where he met me!) Keisuke became one of Tatsuya’s best friends, along with his other close friends, Yamato and Masa, who were also Japanese EWU students. However, halfway through the school year, Keisuke decided he didn’t like Eastern, so he transferred to a language school in Los Angeles. It was there he met his future wife, Yukie (Yoo-kee-eh), who was one of his classmates. And because Tatsuya and I started dating seriously around the time Keisuke left, the four guys previously made a promise to attend each of each others’ weddings. So, as it happened, Keisuke took the plunge first.

The morning started off a bit rocky though. We planned to wake up at 6am so we could get showered and dressed, then catch a train from Higashi-Funabashi to Tokyo station, where we would meet Yamato and Masa, and all together ride the Shinkansen down to Shizuoka. I set the alarm on my cell phone, and doubled checked that it was set. (Can you see where this is going?) Yes, for some reason that I still can’t figure out, the alarm shut itself off, so Tatsuya and I slept in an amazing two and a half hours late!

We got ready as fast as we could to try and catch a 10:03 shinkansen that would get us to the 11:30 kekkon-shiki just in time. However, I had misunderstood Tatsuya’s Japanese when he told me the time we had to catch the train (I thought he said 10:30 instead of 10:03) so I probably didn’t light the fire under my butt as soon as I should have. We left the house at 9:20… and seriously, it was like a movie. We just managed to reach the shinkansen ticket counter right at 10:03. If we had gotten there even five minutes earlier, we probably could have made it. Ouch. And the next train to Shizuoka was a slower one which would leave at 10:26, arriving around 12:00. The invitation said the reception started at 12:30, so at this point we had to resign ourselves to the fact that we would miss all of the shiki. Major bummer. I think we kept our cool pretty well, all things considered, but it was somehow decided that everything which had happened up to this point was my fault, so I pretty much spent the entire 90-minute train ride in tears. Though I think if anyone deserved to cry, it was Tatsuya. We were late for his best friend’s wedding!

ANYWAY, aside from the morning dramatics, we finally reached our destination, and had a great time. And it really was a gorgeous wedding. They had a Western-style wedding, held at a wedding hall which had the chapel, the reception hall, changing rooms for the bride and groom, an outdoor courtyard, etc. all in one place. The site is also employed with staff who wait on the bride, groom, and wedding guests. Pretty convenient, don’t you think? To be sure, I haven’t been to a lot of American weddings recently, so it’s a bit hard for me to compare the two, but there are a few particular structural differences. At a Japanese wedding reception, there is typically a shikaisha, which my dictionary translates as a moderator, or master of ceremonies. Basically, she stands at a podium and announces each new activity on the event program, while narrating everything along the way (…And now it’s time for the bride and groom to share a drink…! Now the bride will present a special surprise gift for the groom…! Now we will watch a slide show…! Now it’s time to get up and go to the courtyard where the bride and groom will cut the wedding cake…! and so on.) For me, I felt a bit like we were all being micromanaged, down to the last detail. We couldn’t exactly relax, because we always had to be on our toes, waiting for the next thing to happen.

The food was delicious though, and of course I got some good pictures out of it all.

My assigned seat– I sat with Tatsuya, Yamato, Masa, and then one of Keisuke’s childhood friends, along with his wife. Each of our places had a card with our name on it and a personalized, hand-written message from the bride and groom. They wrote mine in English! :)

Tatsuya and Yamato!

Yamato and Masa!

Presenting the bride and groom! (I should note here that is NOT Yukie’s wedding dress. That is her reception gown. In Japan, the bride and groom typically change clothes several times throughout the day… something different for each stage of the wedding day. I’d say Keisuke and Yukie each had about four different outfits in total. This is a good reason why Japanese weddings are so expensive!)

BEAUTIFUL, STUNNING, ETC.

All of us!

While the guests had a chance to take a breather and eat our food, the bride and groom went away to change clothes. Presenting the bride and groom again, now in traditional Japanese wedding clothes!

Tatsuya and his buddies!

Tatsuya and me!

Cutting the wedding cake! It’s decorated like the American flag because they met in America! Aww.

The parents of the bride and groom take a bite first…

…And then the bride and groom themselves!

When it was Yukie’s turn, she forked up the largest chunk of cake possible, and tried to shove the whole thing in Keisuke’s mouth. Note her feral expression, as well as the looks of horror and disbelief on her parents’ faces :)

Yukie grins victoriously after establishing dominance in the relationship in front of all the wedding guests… hahahaha. Keisuke looks priceless here. Homeboy got owned.

Of course, if any of us felt downhearted that the tight wedding reception schedule kept us from visiting with our friends, or with the bride and groom, or just kept us from general eating, drinking and merriment, we wouldn’t have to worry. Because in Japan, that’s what the nijikai, or afterparty is for!

After the wedding reception, we hopped on a shuttle bus over to downtown Shizuoka, where we partied at an American-style restaurant bar (staying true to the “American” themed wedding). The place had the look and feel of somewhere perhaps like Applebee’s or TGI Friday’s. The food was similar, if not a bit Japanified.

Some of the food we had… taco salad, chicken wings, egg rolls, and veggies with dip, and marinated tofu.

Keisuke and Yukie welcoming us to the Nijikai! Now the fun really starts!

Pouring a champagne tower, setting a tone for the rest of the evening

The whole gang again! LOL at Yamato’s gangsta pose

The three dudes again… our table was so swamped with food and drinks because the wait staff kept bringing us stuff. As you can probably imagine, by this time I had myself a third trimester food-baby

They kept the fun going with various other nijikai activities. The bartenders put on a bottle-juggling show while they made cocktails for the bride and groom (I have pictures of those too, but I don’t think they came out very well), and then we had a raffle game where the guests received free prizes! One of them was two passes to Tokyo Disneland, which Tatsuya and I really wanted, but it ended up going to the wife of Keisuke’s childhood friend, who sat with us! Oh well, I guess they were technically in our circle, at least. But I got a prize too, I won a little bath set with fragrant salts and fizzies and whatnot.

However, that wasn’t the only thing I received there, because Keisuke and Yukie had a surprise for Tatsuya and me. At the end of the party, our names were called. We got up, and were then presented with a special bouquet and boutonniere from the bride and groom! They congratulated us on our engagement, and told us that we are next! I guess the pressure’s on, now!

It was such a sweet gesture, coming from a couple I had only met that day! But Tatsuya told me that Keisuke has always been such a kind and thoughtful person… I guess we shouldn’t have been so surprised! (Boy, Tatsuya sure was though… the look on his face when they called his name was classic! The nijikai shikaisha was like, “Look at him, he’s so surprised! He can’t believe it!”)

Another Japanese wedding custom I forgot to mention before is the oshuugi-bukuro. This is a wedding gift of money that the guests give to the bride and groom. You can click on the link to see the specifics, but this gift ain’t cheap. It isn’t like America where it’s like, “here’s 50 bucks to buy yourselves a new toaster, or whatever.” No, depending on who we are and our relationship to the couple, we pay anywhere between 30,000-100,000 yen (which is the equivalent of $300-$1000, ignoring exchange values.) Tatsuya and I gave 50,000 yen, which is typical for a married couple to give… since, as an engaged couple, we are essentially married.

Now, you might be saying, “wow, the couple gets that much money from each guest?! Getting married in Japan is awesome!” On the other hand, remember all the stuff we did? All the places we went? All the food we ate? All the outfits they wore? The bride and groom would be lucky if they were able to recoup most of the costs for the wedding from the oshuugi-bukuro. But I guess for a new couple just starting out, every little bit helps, I guess!

Plus, as guests, we were definitely spoiled. We didn’t go empty handed, either. Everyone received wedding presents, and because Tatsuya and I got raffle prizes and also our special gift, we were carrying three bags of stuff on the train ride home! When I got home, I took a picture of our haul:

What we actually have is everything there times two, since Tatsuya and I each got our own bag of gifts. We also got to keep the centerpiece from our table at the reception:

Can you imagine the Japanese people at my table volleying back and forth, trying to defer ownership of the centerpiece to one another? Oh well, childhood-friend-and-wife got Disneyland passes in the end. I think I would’ve preferred that though. At least it gives the apartment a little bit of color and autumn cheer… don’t you think? :D

So all in all, it was a really good wedding. I really enjoyed meeting and spending time with Tatsuya’s buddies (funny though, except for Masa, I don’t really recall seeing them around the EWU campus much!) It was one of those moments where you stop and realize, “when did I become acquainted with such cool and interesting people?” When the four of us were taking the shinkansen back home, Yamato was telling us all about his training to become prosthesis specialist. Seriously, how awesome is that? While Masa on the other hand, is currently debating whether to go to graduate school for international relations (same as what I’m studying!) or get a job now. Even though I didn’t necessarily always understand the three boys’ conversations 100% of the time, I could just tell that their topics were so thoughtful and intelligent. Tatsuya’s friends are amazing… he is very lucky. And I feel lucky to be associated with them! I’m glad I can have fun with all of them again at Tatsuya’s and my own wedding. Whenever that will be. Hahaha.

What a crazy week it’s been, and it’s not even over yet!

The first full week of school seemed to go by like lightning. I think it’s because I have the day off every Wednesday, which is really nice because it cuts my week in half. Like cake (but more on that later.)

For the last couple Wednesdays in a row, I’ve been spending the day with Lulu from Cherry Blossom Adventures. I first talked to her during the summer, when I was looking for a little inspiration from other Japan blogs. Then we found out, entirely by coincidence, that we are both living in Funabashi! On the same street, in buildings a few blocks apart, no less. Amazing how things like that happen. She and her husband are expecting their first baby, a boy, in December. I’m expecting she’ll be busy with her newborn in the coming months, but spending time together has been nice nonetheless. I’m glad I could meet a nearby English-speaking gal around the same age as me, and who shares a similar life experience.

And then there was the typhoon. That was pretty exciting, because even though Chiba and the rest of the Tokyo Metropolitan area wasn’t hit directly, there was definitely a whole lot of rain all through Wednesday night, and then crazy wind Thursday morning. It was enough to shut down all the main train lines into Tokyo, including mine, which is the Chuo-Sobu Sen. As a result, Sophia canceled all our classes for the day. I was able to read that news on their website as I was doing my morning routine at home, and judging by what a mess it was for early commuters, I ought to be thanking my lucky stars that I don’t have a first period class (which would be at 9:15am), otherwise I am quite certain I would’ve been one of the stranded, as the trains shut down around 8:30am.

So, with no school and being safe and dry in my home, I celebrated by going back to bed and sleeping through the rest of the storm. Indeed, once I woke up (at 3pm, ahahahahaha!!!), the sun was shining. Actually, being able to play hooky from school couldn’t have happened on a better day, because Thursday was none other than Tatsuya’s 24th birthday!!! By the time we finished our nap, the trains were running again, so we went to Tsudanuma, which is one station over to the east, in Narashino city. We did a little window shopping, ate takoyaki, and bought groceries for Tatsuya’s homemade birthday dinner (which was what it always is… steak!!) , and of course birthday cake.

Now, I know this is talked about time and again, but things in America really are way too huge for our own good. And the following is why I think most Japanese people are in such good shape. When Tatsuya and I lived in Seattle, we could buy a giant, grocery store cake meant for 8 people for around $10 at the most. We would buy one of those cakes during a celebration, or any random time when we just felt like eating an entire DELICIOUS CAEK!!1 I mean, it was so gosh darn cheap! And it’s cake! However, in Japan, if we want to buy a tiny whole cake that’s probably about a third of the size of the American one, we would have to agree to give up our first-born child. These cakes are at least 2,500-3,000 yen!! And with exchange rates the way they are these days, as much as I love Tatsuya, I wasn’t exactly prepared to buy a tiny cake worth around $34 that still wouldn’t have fit in our refrigerator anyway. So instead, I opted for us to buy a SLICE of birthday cake for 300 yen each… although I let Tatsuya get two, because he was the birthday boy, after all. In the end, I think that ended up being for the best… it’s the same price we would have paid in America, and even though we were getting less for our money, less cake means waaaaaaayyyy fewer calories. And as Tatsuya wisely said the other day (while pondering the fact that he’ll be 24 years old), once he hit 22, food stopped metabolizing like it used to, and he gained 15 pounds while in America (although I’m sure us eating a giant freaking $10 cake whenever we felt like it had something to do with it as well.) We’re only in our twenties, but good habits should start early!

Mine was chocolate chiffon, his were fruit cake and strawberry mousse

Happy birthday, Tatsuya!

Anyway, I really have to go to bed now. Tomorrow we are waking up super early in the morning to catch a shinkansen train to Shizuoka, because we are invited to attend the wedding of one of Tatsuya’s very best friends! (And you know what that means, more cake! Haaaaaa.) I’m really excited, this is the first time I’ll get to see a Japanese wedding, I’m sure it’ll be a learning experience. I hope I won’t forget the camera!

The first day of school was today! I almost had no idea where I was going until I finally sat down and figured out my schedule last night, but I think it’s going to work out fine. I went to two classes this morning– my Japanese class and a Buddhism class I’m taking to fulfill a Theology core requirement back home in Seattle.

The way things work here is a little bit different from American Universities. Like a lot of other Japanese universities, Sophia has a system where you don’t actually sign up for your classes until the first couple days of the term. As an exchange student, my sign-up period is scheduled for 10am on October 2nd, which is the second day of class. So technically, I attended classes I’m not even enrolled in yet! This is meant to be intentional, however. It’s a way for us to check out courses that seem interesting to us without being committed to them just yet. If we like them, we sign up. If not, we don’t have to bother showing up beyond the first day. It’s kind of nice, even though reading the course descriptions online seems to be a good enough idea of what to expect, I think. Or maybe I just say so because that’s what I’m used to back in good ol’ Amurrrica.

Japanese is my first period of the day, which is actually a second-period class, starting at 11:00am This is really nice because it means I don’t have to wake up at early o’clock in the morning and catch the train in time to make it to a first-period morning class (which would start at 9:15…not so early, unless you consider that I have an hour’s commute every day!) Speaking of which, I’m still working on figuring out the right time to leave the house so that I can make it to school. Today, I left my apartment at exactly 10am, caught the 10:08 train, which reached Yotsuya station at 10:55. I pretty much made it to class right at 11 on the dot. That doesn’t really seem to cut it around here in Japan, so I think I’ll leave 10-15 minutes earlier tomorrow. Of course, there’s always my chuo express backup that I discovered as well! Haha.

My second class, which is Buddhist Traditions, was after lunch period. I’m just taking this class to fulfill a Theology core requirement at Seattle, but I’m actually getting really excited about it. Thank goodness I’m taking this class in an actual Buddhist country! The teacher is a Jesuit from France, but he really knows his stuff. He says he will be pointing out how various aspects of Japanese culture are infused with Buddhist traditions, whether we realize it or not. For example, did you know that the Japanese word for “thank you” (arigatou) is derived from the sanskrit word that is used when specifically thanking The Buddha? Since he knows that all of us in the class are studying Japanese, he gave us a lot of fun tidbits like that. He also gave us a copy of the Heart Sutra in classical Chinese, and not only do we have to memorize it and recite it at the beginning of class every day, we’re going to have an assignment where we translate the classical Chinese version into our own English version. How cool is that? This class is going to be awesome.

The third class I’m planning on taking, but haven’t attended yet (it’s a Tuesday/Friday class) is called “A Seminar in Modern Japanese History”. This is actually a bit misleading though, because based on the course description and syllabus, it’s actually a political science/history class about nationalism in Japan. This was the closest to anything I really wanted to take as a major elective that was offered during a free period, so I hope it’s as cool as it seems like it will be!

I only came out with three classes this semester… it ended up being a lot harder than I thought to find different classes I was interested in that weren’t offered all at the same time. But I’m thinking this might be a blessing in disguise, since I registered to take the level 2 JLPT in December, and I know I’ll have do some additional self-studying to supplement what I’m learning in my class if I want to pass (and I’d better, it cost 5,500 yen to register, gosh darn it!) Plus this way, I actually have something to do spring semester, since I need only four more classes this year (not counting Japanese) in order to graduate. I can take two now and two later, plus Japanese each semester.

Anyway, sorry if this is a bit boring… I know the real reason why anyone reads this blog, and it’s pictures, right? Haha, well either way, you’re in luck! Because this evening I took some shots of how our apartment looks now! There’s furniture in it!!

Last time I posted apartment pictures (excepting the construction bomb from the previous entry), it looked like this. A little empty. Well, add me and all my crap, plus everything we bought from our trips to Ikea and Nitori, and this is how it looks now!

This is as far back as I could get since this room is tiny, but as you can see there is a shelf! Now there’s room under the sink, my girly products were definitely in a pile on the floor previously :P

Welcome to our house!

The kitchen! Tatsuya says it’s apparently it’s not feng shui to put our microwave/oven on the refrigerator, but in the end, saving space trumps all

Our 食器棚 (shokkidana) for storing china and silverware, and food prep central

the dining table and a bookshelf-turned-pantry, well stocked with candy and snacky foods that are terrible for us

I posted this pic only to show off our three clocks! They are set to London, Tokyo, and West Coast US times and are way useful when I want to know what time it is back home. And now our LDK looks like an embassy office!

This is where I will likely be most of the time once the semester kicks it into high gear

The yoshitsu, lounge central (even the soccer ball is actually a pillow!)

I have too many books! Our new bookshelf is already almost full!

The washitsu, which is now the comfiest sleeping room in the world~~

A girl’s gotta have a full-length mirror!

Our little hidden area… that lamp was 700 yen at Ikea and I want to go back and buy 9813469181986340 more, I love it so much!!

Our massive wardrobe/storage closet, which needed earthquake guards so when the big one comes, it can’t fall over and squish us while we’re sleeping!

And that’s the last one!

Oh man, it’s almost 3:00am here now, and I still have to study for a Japanese vocabulary quiz we’re taking in the morning! Ah, it’s nice to know the life of the college student stays the same, no matter where we are :)

The new school year is finally underway! On Thursday, I headed over to Sophia for my orientation. It didn’t start until 2:30, but they asked us to arrive by 2:15, and I was running a little bit late that afternoon. I figured it would take me about 35-40 minutes to get from Higashi-Funabashi to Yotsuya, but I wasn’t entirely sure since I had only tried this commute one other time, and this was the first time doing it all by myself. Sure enough, as I was sitting on the train, stopping at each station one by one (I figure I have about 18 stops in between, yuck!) I started getting more and more nervous as 2:15 approached and I still had a way to go.

On the train, they usually have a route map above the door for reference. I started staring at it, at first counting how many stations there were to go. Then I noticed that Ocha-no-mizu, the station fourth before Yotsuya, branched out, showing a transfer to the Chuo express route, which skipped the last three stations and goes directly to Yotsuya. At first, I wasn’t sure if I understood it correctly, because it was all in Japanese. And if I was already running late, the last thing I wanted was to get lost on the Japanese train system! But, I decided to go for it. And I was right! I probably only bought myself an extra 5 minutes, but at least I knew it was worth it when I saw us on the express train pulling ahead and away from my normal train. I guess I’ll have to keep it in mind next time I want to buy a few extra minutes of time! I have Japanese train-fu skills! In the end, it actually didn’t really matter though, because once I got to the floor where our orientation was being held, there was a long, winding line of students waiting to get checked in. But at least I was there.

As expected, much of the orientation itself was just welcome speeches and giving us tons of paperwork, which I’ll have to continue to wade through over the next week. I was also able to reconnect with my Seattle U classmates, Luke, Julie, Chanae, and Aerica for a bit… it was definitely nice to see a few familiar faces among a sea of other international students.

Sophia University touts itself as a “truly international University”, and boy, they weren’t kidding! There’s around 200 or so international students in this group who have arrived just this semester alone. I believe the majority of them are from Europe, but of course there are also many from North America, Australia, and a few from Asia as well. I’m excited that I’ll potentially be able to make friends not just from Japan, but all over the world! I hope I can learn more about them and their cultures.

After the orientation, we were separated into groups and given a Japanese monitor student to show us around campus and answer our questions. I tried to take a few photos of the campus at that time, but honestly, they came out terribly since they were just quickie shots as I walked by. (And on Friday I forgot my camera, whoops!)

There were only a couple that came out somewhat decent:

   

I won’t be on campus again until Tuesday, but hopefully then I’ll have a chance to take some pictures that are a bit more impressive. I want to explore the chapel then too!

Then, Friday morning was the Japanese placement test. This time, I ensured that I would show up early. Either way, I was able to experience my first Tokyo morning commute! And yes, all the horror stories you hear about us being packed in train cars like sardines are true :) Luckily for me, everyone commuting to Funabashi and Nishi-Funabashi get off just after I get on, and then the train fills up again with Tokyo commuters as we continue onward. So that I means I get a seat for most of my train ride! Sometimes it’s good to live so far away :P

Anyway, I think the test went well. I really wanted to make sure I was ready for it, so I studied and reviewed everything I knew all throughout last week. The test was very clearly organized in sections for elementary, intermediate, and advanced Japanese, from easy to hard. It was a good time saver in that sense, since I knew I could do the easy and medium stuff, while just skipping the hard part altogether (indeed, just glancing at the advanced section, I’m not quite there yet!)

I say that I think the test went well, but I’m still not exactly sure what will happen. Since I finished the first two sections completely, my hope is that my basic Japanese was solid enough, and I showed enough understanding of intermediate Japanese that I won’t get placed in the elementary review/intermediate intro class. I was feeling pretty confident about the grammar section, and I was wondering if I could have even made it into Japanese 212, if only my knowledge of kanji was better. They say if your skills are unbalanced, they’ll place you in the lower class. But as I said before, Japanese 211 is my goal, and if I get that one, I will be a pretty happy camper nonetheless.

After the test, I went to the library, where I started to look through some of the paperwork we were given yesterday. I began to read through the course bulletin, so I could try to hash out a preliminary schedule. I looked up the classes I had pre-approved in Seattle, and my heart sank. EVERY SINGLE ONE of my social science electives had an asterisk next to them, which signified that they were courses only offered every other year. Oh my God, are they serious?? Ugh, I don’t even know why Seattle U even bothers to make us plan ahead with pre-approvals when we won’t have access to Sophia’s accurate, updated course list until right before the semester begins. And some of those classes I was really looking forward to taking. Most of the other classes I wanted aren’t going to be offered until spring, so I’ll have to email my Seattle U adviser to show him my options, and with him, make tough decisions about what I should take for autumn. We also get an advising session at Sophia on Tuesday, but I just fear my list of viable classes are pretty limited. Comparative Politics of Post-Communist States? Interesting, but no thanks. Definitely NOT the direction I want to take with my studies.

That sucked pretty bad, but I cheered up later in the afternoon when I ran into Luke. We hung out with some of the other international students until our Welcome Party that evening. I also met up with Kaoru, who is a Sophia student who studied abroad at Seattle two years ago. We’re the same age, same major, same interests, same everything, pretty much, so she was a sight for sore eyes as well. (Her ultimate dream is to become a UN diplomat. I hope she can do it! :D)

Meanwhile, back at home during these two days, the furniture from Ikea arrived, and Tatsuya dived into putting things together. I was a bit surprised to find out he started the project by himself, I figured he wanted to wait for me to help him. However, when I came home on Thursday night, this was the condition in which I discovered our apartment:

AHHHHHHH!!!!!

NNNOOOOO!!!!

OH GOD WHY

Hahaha, so I hope you’ll understand the reason why I didn’t blog about my first couple days of Sophia right away. We spent most of yesterday putting together the last piece of furniture (the big wardrobe that definitely needed two people to build it) and cleaning up! Now it is Sunday and the apartment is finally looking put-together for the first time. I’m so excited, it looks so nice! I did take a few pictures last night, but today we are going to DAISO, the dollar store, and there I would like to buy a few decorations and other homey touches, so I’m thinking I’ll hold off on apartment “after” pictures until you can get the full effect ;) If possible, I’ll do another post with those later tonight.

P.S., a quick note to my Dad, if he sees this. Thank you so much for your lovely, loooong emails! I’m sorry I haven’t replied to them yet, but getting in touch with you is another thing I want to try and accomplish this evening. And we can figure out the whole Skype issue too.

It’s been a busy past few days… very busy, in fact! Last Saturday, Takahiro, Akiyo, and Akiyo’s parents arrived. The next three days involved a nearly non-stop whirlwind of car rides, touring, and eating. I think Tatsuya and I were running on fumes by the last day (Monday), but somehow we made it through.

I couldn’t possibly recap everything we did in much detail, but here at least is our three-day itinerary:

Saturday
Going to a bridal shop to pick out a furisode for me to rent. Mrs. Igarashi came up with the idea of gifting me with a belated Seijin no Hi portrait in January. I was absolutely floored by her generosity. We’re starting to think of it as a commemoration toward my senior year of college. I’m going to miss my commencement, so perhaps this is the next best thing. The furisode we found is absolutely gorgeous, it is seafoam green with pink flowers. You’ll see! ;)

For the life of me, I cannot possibly remember what happened after that, beyond having to-die-for tonkatsu for lunch. It must not have been too exciting at least, since I don’t have any photographic documentation :P

Sunday

Monday

Needless to say, I took endless amounts of pictures, which I once again posted to a facebook album. It’s a public album, so you’re welcome to see it here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=315837&id=727435430&l=baf32a1a16

It’s all been such a whirlwind, and now that long weekend in Fukui seems like such a distant time in the past. Now it is Thursday, and Tatsuya and I have been back home in Funabashi for two days now!

Yesterday, we went to Ikea again to buy the rest of the furniture on our “for now” wishlist. We bought a wardrobe (yay for me and my 589329287522387 pieces of clothing), a full-length mirror, a bookshelf, an end-table, a kitchen wagon for extra preparation space, and a small dining set with four chairs. All of that cost just about what we paid for our couch, making a poor college student like me grateful for the wonders of Ikea. All of that stuff is arriving sometime today, but Tatsuya might just have to put together everything himself, because today is my Orientation Day at Sophia University! I’ll let you know how it goes. I cannot believe that school starts in exactly one week, but I’m looking forward to it anyway. This is going to be a great year.

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last couple of days! As Tatsuya might say, we have been busy bees. I think Otousan and Okaasan are doing everything they can to fatten me up for their Fukui winter feast, and make me thoroughly exhausted from outings which require large amounts of walking (or eating more food if we’re sitting) so that I can’t escape. Why didn’t I see the light until it was too late?! But other than that, we’re actually having lots of fun.

A couple days ago, I posted pictures from the past weekend on my facebook. However, instead of reposting all the pictures here (there are a lot since there were too many good ones!) go ahead and check ‘em out on there (don’t worry, it’s public, so even if you don’t have a facebook or don’t have me as a friend, you can still see it.) Here’s my favorite one, followed by the link:

Click here for the album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=310046&id=727435430&l=0606cb7acd

I think for the rest of this week, until the weekend, we’re just going to try and take it easy as much as possible. I brought my Japanese study materials along with me, and I bought a few more over the last few days. Today, Tatsuya will take me to the library to do a little bit of last-minute brushing up– the placement test for Japanese class at Sophia is next Friday! I just want to make sure I didn’t forget everything I’ve learned so far. I don’t want to end up in 101 by accident! :) Looking at the Japanese Course List, I’m hoping to be placed in Japanese 211, since that seems about right. But, I’m bad at determining my own abilities, so I guess that’s what the placement test is for, right? We shall see soon enough!

People have been saying they want to see more shots of Fukui… well, yesterday Tatsuya and I went on a small field trip with our bicycles over to the family’s rice fields. They had already been harvested for the year, so they actually weren’t too exciting. Still, we did get a few pictures, and Tatsuya captured some video of me riding a bicycle (something I haven’t done in years, but am now doing more in the past few weeks than I’ve done in my entire life! That’s Japan for you!) I hope my Dad, who taught me how, is proud of me ;)

Finally, here is a small Tatsuya-directed production for your viewing pleasure.

I also have another entry planned, so hopefully I’ll get it written out and published before the weekend comes around; surely we will be busy again by then. Takahiro, Akiyo, and Akiyo’s parents are coming to visit! I can’t wait!