An action-packed week! (This entry is mostly about cake, though.)

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! And an apartment update

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 :)

Orientation Day and Placement Test at Sophia University

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.

Madness Weekend(!!!) and looking forward to Orientation Day

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

Asakura Clan Ruins (we did this while Tatsuya took a government test for a job, he had to wear is his suit all day afterward, haha.)

Soba noodles for lunch (tororo soba is my new love! Or anything else with tororo in it, for that matter)

Eihei-ji Temple (this one was particularly excited about, since I did a project on Dogen in one of my Theology classes. I felt sorry for the priests who had to play tour guide all day though.)

Tojinbo
Dinner at a kaiten sushi restaurant (woo! first time doing this)

Visiting Grandma Yuriko in the hospital (this was just me, Tatsuya, and his parents. We didn’t stay long. She has Alzheimer’s so she didn’t recognize any of us :()

Monday

Wakasa Bay in Obama city

Ichijoudaki waterfall

Myotsu-ji Temple

Homemade okonomiyaki for dinner!

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.

Bike riding around the rice fields

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:

Here is Tatsuya and me at the Hashimoto Sanai museum in Fukui. They had a little area where you could get dressed up in traditional costume. It was fun!

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 ;)

The Igarashi rice field is actually the naked one in the background

Nice face, Tatsuya. Is the sun in your eyes? :)

Gosh darn, it was windy! Here is me in front of another naked Igarashi rice field across the street, and hey, there’s the local train passing by!

Here, the world is my oyster! All I need is my bike to get me around

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!