Trump
So today was my first assesment on my independant study of games. My sensei was pretty impressed with my research thusfar. Because of the holiday last week, I've had two weeks to work on my independant study, I feel like I've used my time wisely.
At first I wasn't sure what I wanted to start with. Board Games or Card Games, and should I focus on a specific game, or just on the general terminology. At first I very half heartedly flipped through my rule books, and picked up terms out of the dictionary.
It wasn't until last thursday that it all started to really come together. I had a meeting with my Japanese Conversation partner, we talked a while, untill I broke out my Uno deck. We played Uno for a while, and had some back and forth over the rules. She played where if you play a draw 2 on a draw 2 then it passes to the person next to you. I think I've played that rule before, but I'd forgotten it. I tried to explain Killer Uno to here, that I learned from Dan, Jess, and Ben freshman year. She understood, but wanted to just play regular Uno.
While we played Uno I asked her a bunch of questions about how to say certain things. Hand, deck, play a card, draw a card. She said that there was no word for deck (I eventually found one). I also asked her what other card games she knew, not many was her reply, though she did know Trump. Which I've heard to be a very popular card game in Japan. So after Uno she taught me Trump, which is a very simple but fun game. So simple in fact that I figured I would be able to describe it using my limited Japanese. We really started having fun when Jessi and I taught Shoko Go Fish. We played probably 10 rounds of card games all told and I had ample motivation to work on my independant study.
I managed to come up with 20 vocab words, 5 grammar points, and I transcribed a set of rules for Trump in Japanese. It was great fun, I had to get a little creative, but when I showed Sensei he said most of it was spot on. There were a few points that he was able to help me on in terms of the conjugation of things, and explained to me two different grammar points.
I worked a lot with IF/THEN statements, but in Japanese there are two forms of IF/THEN, a stronger one and a weaker one. One means that the effect must follow the cause, where the other one is more like a suggestion.
If you throw a ball into the air, then it will fall down.
If you have a pair, then you can play it.
I'm actually very pleased with how it turned out. If you're at all interested I'll transcibe a post for it, but for now I'll just show some of the vocab I learned.
Card Terminology
Deck: やまふだ (yamafuda)
Hand: てふだ (tefuda)
Cards：カード (kaado)
Players：せんしゅ (senshu)
To shuffle cards: カードをきる (kaado o kiru)
To draw a card：カードをひきます (kaado o hiku)
To play a card: カードをだします (kaado o dasu)
To win：かちます (kachimasu)
To lose：まけます (makemasu)
Also
Killer Uno
Like regular Uno with 3 exceptions.
Zero Pass- When you play a zero everyone passes their hands in the dirrection of play.
Attrition -If you have a set of cards that are all the same color that add up to the number on the board you may play them together as though they were that card. They must be the same color as each other and the same color as the card on the board.
Stealing -If you have a card that matches the color and number of the card on the board (or you have cards that add up to the number on the board) you may play it even if it isn't your turn. After you do so the person next to you continues play.
Game Language across culture. Huzza!
-Mack
Showing posts with label akita. Show all posts
Showing posts with label akita. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Exertion
Physical Activity Yay
Yesterday I went back to the Hopping Runners club. I overdid it the last time I ran with them, because I was sore for a week afterward. This time, though, I decided to keep a steady pace within my own comfort zone. I met the runners outside of Komachi hall (the dorm) and we ran around the sports facillity across the street. I was a little disappointed to here we couldn't use any of the tracks there, because the sports complex is not actually part of the university. A club could pay to use the tracks, or any of the ammenities on the complex, but that'd have to be done well in advance. I can see why the hopping runners usually just run along the road. The run went well, I wasn't the fastest, but I'm not hurting nearly as bad as I was last time.
More physical activity
After the hopping runners, we had swing club, and I was already feeling sleepy. I needed chocolate, so I got a snickers.
Snickers
I'm usually pretty up for going anf trying new things while in Japan, but I've yet to find a candy bar as hardy as a Snickers bar, and the student store has them. They're a little smaller here in Japan. A bit more salty and significantly less caramel, but good nonetheless
Swing Dancing
With a Snickers devoured, I was ready for swing dancing. I've been really working on keeping my footwork on tempo. We worked on the basics and watched Matt and Ondene show off all over the dance floor. Watching them gives Jessi and I something to work towards. They're good, Matt is certainly a lot better than me, but not so good that Jessi and I couldn't be on par with them (or better) with some hard work.
All in all yesterday was a lot of fun, and I feel like I got some exercisise in.
-Mack
Yesterday I went back to the Hopping Runners club. I overdid it the last time I ran with them, because I was sore for a week afterward. This time, though, I decided to keep a steady pace within my own comfort zone. I met the runners outside of Komachi hall (the dorm) and we ran around the sports facillity across the street. I was a little disappointed to here we couldn't use any of the tracks there, because the sports complex is not actually part of the university. A club could pay to use the tracks, or any of the ammenities on the complex, but that'd have to be done well in advance. I can see why the hopping runners usually just run along the road. The run went well, I wasn't the fastest, but I'm not hurting nearly as bad as I was last time.
More physical activity
After the hopping runners, we had swing club, and I was already feeling sleepy. I needed chocolate, so I got a snickers.
Snickers
I'm usually pretty up for going anf trying new things while in Japan, but I've yet to find a candy bar as hardy as a Snickers bar, and the student store has them. They're a little smaller here in Japan. A bit more salty and significantly less caramel, but good nonetheless
Swing Dancing
With a Snickers devoured, I was ready for swing dancing. I've been really working on keeping my footwork on tempo. We worked on the basics and watched Matt and Ondene show off all over the dance floor. Watching them gives Jessi and I something to work towards. They're good, Matt is certainly a lot better than me, but not so good that Jessi and I couldn't be on par with them (or better) with some hard work.
All in all yesterday was a lot of fun, and I feel like I got some exercisise in.
-Mack
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Fearsome Namahage
The Namahage
Yesterday, Jessi and I visited the Namahage Museum in Northern Akita.
Namahage are forest spirits of old legend. Once a year they come stomping across the snow, making a ruckus and letting lose wild cries of anger. They are most often either red or blue and look something like this.
Well not quite, those are our classmates trying on the costume.
However, Namahage come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
The Namahage come once a year to every person's house to check to see if the children have been good. If the children have been bad, the Namahage take them away and eat them. As sort of an agreement to help appease the Namahage, the parents set out a meal of hospitality to the Namahage. If the Namahage find that you are inhospitable, they eat your children.
The Tradition
The Tradition of Namahage is that a member of a family, or more recently a local community of Namahage for hire, will stomp around the house once a year. Enter into the home, scare the jeepers out of the children. Do a Namahage stomp dance. Eat the food offered by the family. Scare the children some more and then stomp off into the wilderness.
We watch some video of this, which included a shot of a seven year old holding onto a post with three Namahage trying to pull him away by his legs. sometimes children would hide, and the namahage would go and find them. But after the video we were guided towards a small guest house in the woods. Where we sat and waited for a Namahage to appear.
Well after a while we did see some real Namahage.
They were pretty fierce, and they managed to find Jessi out of the crowd and get up real close to her. At which point she did her best to curl up in the fetal position inside of her camera.
Afterward they explained that they were just following the rules, and that if any children disobeyed the rules, they'd be back next year to eat them
Scary Sure, but they aren't always terrifying.
Hello Namahage
Stitchmahage
Overall it was a great trip, and I can't wait for the snow to fall and to hear the howls of the Namahage in the forest.
-Mack
Yesterday, Jessi and I visited the Namahage Museum in Northern Akita.
Namahage are forest spirits of old legend. Once a year they come stomping across the snow, making a ruckus and letting lose wild cries of anger. They are most often either red or blue and look something like this.
Well not quite, those are our classmates trying on the costume.
However, Namahage come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
The Namahage come once a year to every person's house to check to see if the children have been good. If the children have been bad, the Namahage take them away and eat them. As sort of an agreement to help appease the Namahage, the parents set out a meal of hospitality to the Namahage. If the Namahage find that you are inhospitable, they eat your children.
The Tradition
The Tradition of Namahage is that a member of a family, or more recently a local community of Namahage for hire, will stomp around the house once a year. Enter into the home, scare the jeepers out of the children. Do a Namahage stomp dance. Eat the food offered by the family. Scare the children some more and then stomp off into the wilderness.
We watch some video of this, which included a shot of a seven year old holding onto a post with three Namahage trying to pull him away by his legs. sometimes children would hide, and the namahage would go and find them. But after the video we were guided towards a small guest house in the woods. Where we sat and waited for a Namahage to appear.
Well after a while we did see some real Namahage.
They were pretty fierce, and they managed to find Jessi out of the crowd and get up real close to her. At which point she did her best to curl up in the fetal position inside of her camera.
Afterward they explained that they were just following the rules, and that if any children disobeyed the rules, they'd be back next year to eat them
Scary Sure, but they aren't always terrifying.
Hello Namahage
Stitchmahage
Overall it was a great trip, and I can't wait for the snow to fall and to hear the howls of the Namahage in the forest.
-Mack
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The Tale of the Missing Futons
After much prompting from my parents and Mack, and a lazy Sunday afternoon, I've finally sat down to make another entry. I can't promise the grandeur of Mack's posts, but I'll try to have a few less spelling errors :P
So now for my first story...The Tale of the Missing Futons!!!!!! Dun dun dun!!!!
Tuesday morning, Mack and I get checked in to the campus apartments, all paperwork squared away for the time being. I happily inspect my new home in Global Village I-104, complete with shower/bath, toilet, and kitchenette. And a lofted bed to call my own. A very naked bed at that... But thoughts of that are pushed aside as I put my luggage down for the thankfully final time that day, and wonder when my roommate will arrive.
An hour later or so, I see dear Mack being escorted to his own apartment with his luggage, and rush outside to meet/follow him. (Unfortunately I think I kind of scared away the Japanese student who was helping him.) Lucky for us, our apartments are on "blocks" next to each other, him in J-208, all of 50 feet away from mine.
We hike up the stairs to his second floor apartment and...wait a minute. There is a giant bundle of stuff on his bed. And his roommate's. According to the receipt laying on it, the pile includes his futon, blankets, pillow, and sheets. On top of that, there is a desk lamp on each of the desks! I didn't have one of those!
At this point, I'm a bit confused, but I decide my bedding must just not have been delivered yet. It's only about 11am. No worries.
Later that afternoon...I return to my room, and begin to unpack. Earlier I had found a binder in my desk drawer, full of manuals on using the different equipments of the kitchen and bathroom. Of course it's all in Japanese... Anyways, I had pushed it aside earlier, but now, upon opening it what do I find? Two receipt papers for bedding... dun dun dun!
That evening, my new (and awesome) roommate Lee (from Korea) and I still don't have sheets. Finally I set out to find out where we can get some. Mack and I started at the res hall maintenance window, then end up using two other students as translators when the employee doesn't understand us (or maybe he wasn't sure how to say the answer in English? Not sure. Either way, translation problems). The students then take us to the Kiosk (convenience store on campus), where apparently the bedding rentals come from. There we happen to meet up with Lee, only to discover that apparently neither of us paid for rental sheets! Neither of us are sure how this happened, certain that we paid all the fees Akita asked.
The lady at the Kiosk tells us we can come back in the morning and rent bedding for the semester...but what to do for tonight?! The mattresses are brick-hard, at least a pillow would be necessary to sleep on it. Mack offers to split up his bedding with us. Thankfully, it does not come to that. Because it's orientation week, the international student affairs office is open late, and one girl suggests we go there. So we go, and from there things get sorted out quickly. Lee and I had indeed paid the fee, which was included in the large payment to Akita. In fact, someone would bring us bedding that very night by car. I'm still not sure what happened, a lot of it was in Japanese at that point, but I recognize a chorus of "gomen nasai" ("very sorry") when I hear one.
So we come to the end of the tale. Someone brought both our bedding sets within the hour right to our door. And the answer to the mystery? Well, the man who brought our bedding in the end said that he was certain he had brought it here before. So option 1: It got delivered to the wrong place. Slight error, but in the end, no problem. Or option 2: Somebody stole them. Unfortunate for us, but someone lucky out there has a double, possibly triple-padded futon.
Lee also managed, by chance, to get us the desk lamps a day later. Who knows what happened there...
Also, we each have a safe that came with our room. Mine had a sock in it :/
I love Japan.
- Jessi
So now for my first story...The Tale of the Missing Futons!!!!!! Dun dun dun!!!!
Tuesday morning, Mack and I get checked in to the campus apartments, all paperwork squared away for the time being. I happily inspect my new home in Global Village I-104, complete with shower/bath, toilet, and kitchenette. And a lofted bed to call my own. A very naked bed at that... But thoughts of that are pushed aside as I put my luggage down for the thankfully final time that day, and wonder when my roommate will arrive.
An hour later or so, I see dear Mack being escorted to his own apartment with his luggage, and rush outside to meet/follow him. (Unfortunately I think I kind of scared away the Japanese student who was helping him.) Lucky for us, our apartments are on "blocks" next to each other, him in J-208, all of 50 feet away from mine.
We hike up the stairs to his second floor apartment and...wait a minute. There is a giant bundle of stuff on his bed. And his roommate's. According to the receipt laying on it, the pile includes his futon, blankets, pillow, and sheets. On top of that, there is a desk lamp on each of the desks! I didn't have one of those!
At this point, I'm a bit confused, but I decide my bedding must just not have been delivered yet. It's only about 11am. No worries.
Later that afternoon...I return to my room, and begin to unpack. Earlier I had found a binder in my desk drawer, full of manuals on using the different equipments of the kitchen and bathroom. Of course it's all in Japanese... Anyways, I had pushed it aside earlier, but now, upon opening it what do I find? Two receipt papers for bedding... dun dun dun!
That evening, my new (and awesome) roommate Lee (from Korea) and I still don't have sheets. Finally I set out to find out where we can get some. Mack and I started at the res hall maintenance window, then end up using two other students as translators when the employee doesn't understand us (or maybe he wasn't sure how to say the answer in English? Not sure. Either way, translation problems). The students then take us to the Kiosk (convenience store on campus), where apparently the bedding rentals come from. There we happen to meet up with Lee, only to discover that apparently neither of us paid for rental sheets! Neither of us are sure how this happened, certain that we paid all the fees Akita asked.
The lady at the Kiosk tells us we can come back in the morning and rent bedding for the semester...but what to do for tonight?! The mattresses are brick-hard, at least a pillow would be necessary to sleep on it. Mack offers to split up his bedding with us. Thankfully, it does not come to that. Because it's orientation week, the international student affairs office is open late, and one girl suggests we go there. So we go, and from there things get sorted out quickly. Lee and I had indeed paid the fee, which was included in the large payment to Akita. In fact, someone would bring us bedding that very night by car. I'm still not sure what happened, a lot of it was in Japanese at that point, but I recognize a chorus of "gomen nasai" ("very sorry") when I hear one.
So we come to the end of the tale. Someone brought both our bedding sets within the hour right to our door. And the answer to the mystery? Well, the man who brought our bedding in the end said that he was certain he had brought it here before. So option 1: It got delivered to the wrong place. Slight error, but in the end, no problem. Or option 2: Somebody stole them. Unfortunate for us, but someone lucky out there has a double, possibly triple-padded futon.
Lee also managed, by chance, to get us the desk lamps a day later. Who knows what happened there...
Also, we each have a safe that came with our room. Mine had a sock in it :/
I love Japan.
- Jessi
Friday, August 28, 2009
Aeon Mall Trip
Yesterday was our first trip to AEON Mall. For those who dont know, Akita is a very rural area of japan, rice paddies, mountains, and forests. Extremely pretty, but very much removed from the bustle of places like Tokyo. However, there is a large comercial district about 20 minutes away, centered on a place called AEON Mall.
The building is huge, and I need to spend a lot more time documenting it's interior. There's a movie theater, 2 food courts, a four level department store, tons of clothing stores, a dollar store (college students' salvation), and an arcade ( omg omg omg omg omg).
I will have to spend a day at that arcade, and after that day I will be able to better describe the glory that is Japanese video games. We explored for about four hours, shopped a bunch for the essentials and got food at a little udon shop.
I actually had a pleasant exchange with the people who worked there. I asked a couple questions in Japanese and the woman there happily answered them. I also asked a girl there what they call chives in Japanese (she was putting chives on my udon). I she said neji (which I pronounced correctly only after several tries), and she asked me what we call them in English. She had as hard a time saying chives as I did of neji. A good time was had by all.
The Goods
Now to describe our shoppscapade.
The majority of the stuff we got was from the dollar store. Chop sticks, I got a nice pair of cooking chopsticks, wastepaper basket, dish towel, clothes hangers, and I got myself a pretty nice looking knife. I picked a midrange priced one, because I wanted a nice knife, but I was still shopping at the dollar store, so their nicest knife would probably still be pretty dull.
We also stopped by a "novelty shop" which is a terrible way to describe it. It was more of a tiny one room version of Bed, Bath, and Beyond, it was called "Three Minute Happiness". I got pan here, it's a nice one with a wooden handle. The metal on it isn't terribly thick, but it's still a nice pan. I also got a couple wooden spoons, they're very smooth and well shaped. Jessi got a little steel teapot here, it's really cute.
Our next big area of shopping was the grocery store. I forgot to mention the grocery store. There's a grocery store, it's attached to the mall, it's pretty cool. We got a lot of the basic food stuffs here, noodles, soy sauce, sesame oil, orange juice, soap, and laundry detergent.
We also decided to buy a bottle of wine to celebrate. Since you know, we can, because the drinking age in Japan is 20. They had a very pleasant little alchohol selection. Actually a pretty decent selection, I had thought that liquor beyond sake would be a little harder to find, yet I stood before a pretty solid selection of wine from the Napa Valley. They also had vodka and rum in . . .20 liter bottles? From the floor they reached up higher than the knees and were wider around than Jessi. There were at least 100 of these sort of bottles. In anycase we'd already decided on a red wine, for cooking as well as drinking, so we went with a Sutter Hill Merlot from California. (No bottle opener as of yet though)
Finally we decided to get the rest of our stuff at the department store. I needed a wash cloth, and some bowls. What I found though really made me happy though, a "My Neighbor Totoro Bentou box. It's so cool, it's got two compartments and little dividers for a variety of foods. I also got a blue mug, cause I needed something to drink from. So far I had used cash for everyting, so when we went to the counter I wanted to give my debit card a shot.
I figured there'd be trouble, but it wasn't busy so I wanted to try my best to make this interaction work. He rang me up, I gave him my card, he slid it through the machine and asked me, "ikkai? nikai? sankai?" which translates to "one time, two times, three times?" This provided me with quite a quandry.
Is he asking me if I want it all together, or if I want each thing rung up seperately? That didn't make a whole lot of sense. He'd given me back my card, did he need to slide it through another time? I offered him the card again, but that didn't seem to be the right response. He got an associate to come over, who had a little book with english notes in it. I apologized for my bad japanese, but they remained gregarious. "Do you want to pay, one time? two times? three times?" He told me in english.
Something was off about that. Obviously that was what they were saying in Japanese, I knew that much, but why would I want to pay for something more than once? If you paid for something twice you would be out twice as much money.
A Japanese woman nearby offered her abilties in English, and asked the manager what was going on in Japanese. he explained to her in japanese, and I got, "how many times do you want to pay?"
At first this made about as much sense, and then it clicked. They were asking about payments! How many payments would I like to make. It's a department store, and Japanese department stores still offer customers the ability to pay in multiple instalments. "Do you want to pay multiple times" is a lot like "Do you want to make multiple payments?"
I'm suprised I didn't get it sooner, but I wasn't expecting a multiple payment plan. But now I am, and if I ever get into the circumstance again, I'll know how to react.
Just goes to show that sometimes you just gotta be patient and try you best to work things out without getting flustered.
The building is huge, and I need to spend a lot more time documenting it's interior. There's a movie theater, 2 food courts, a four level department store, tons of clothing stores, a dollar store (college students' salvation), and an arcade ( omg omg omg omg omg).
I will have to spend a day at that arcade, and after that day I will be able to better describe the glory that is Japanese video games. We explored for about four hours, shopped a bunch for the essentials and got food at a little udon shop.
I actually had a pleasant exchange with the people who worked there. I asked a couple questions in Japanese and the woman there happily answered them. I also asked a girl there what they call chives in Japanese (she was putting chives on my udon). I she said neji (which I pronounced correctly only after several tries), and she asked me what we call them in English. She had as hard a time saying chives as I did of neji. A good time was had by all.
The Goods
Now to describe our shoppscapade.
The majority of the stuff we got was from the dollar store. Chop sticks, I got a nice pair of cooking chopsticks, wastepaper basket, dish towel, clothes hangers, and I got myself a pretty nice looking knife. I picked a midrange priced one, because I wanted a nice knife, but I was still shopping at the dollar store, so their nicest knife would probably still be pretty dull.
We also stopped by a "novelty shop" which is a terrible way to describe it. It was more of a tiny one room version of Bed, Bath, and Beyond, it was called "Three Minute Happiness". I got pan here, it's a nice one with a wooden handle. The metal on it isn't terribly thick, but it's still a nice pan. I also got a couple wooden spoons, they're very smooth and well shaped. Jessi got a little steel teapot here, it's really cute.
Our next big area of shopping was the grocery store. I forgot to mention the grocery store. There's a grocery store, it's attached to the mall, it's pretty cool. We got a lot of the basic food stuffs here, noodles, soy sauce, sesame oil, orange juice, soap, and laundry detergent.
We also decided to buy a bottle of wine to celebrate. Since you know, we can, because the drinking age in Japan is 20. They had a very pleasant little alchohol selection. Actually a pretty decent selection, I had thought that liquor beyond sake would be a little harder to find, yet I stood before a pretty solid selection of wine from the Napa Valley. They also had vodka and rum in . . .20 liter bottles? From the floor they reached up higher than the knees and were wider around than Jessi. There were at least 100 of these sort of bottles. In anycase we'd already decided on a red wine, for cooking as well as drinking, so we went with a Sutter Hill Merlot from California. (No bottle opener as of yet though)
Finally we decided to get the rest of our stuff at the department store. I needed a wash cloth, and some bowls. What I found though really made me happy though, a "My Neighbor Totoro Bentou box. It's so cool, it's got two compartments and little dividers for a variety of foods. I also got a blue mug, cause I needed something to drink from. So far I had used cash for everyting, so when we went to the counter I wanted to give my debit card a shot.
I figured there'd be trouble, but it wasn't busy so I wanted to try my best to make this interaction work. He rang me up, I gave him my card, he slid it through the machine and asked me, "ikkai? nikai? sankai?" which translates to "one time, two times, three times?" This provided me with quite a quandry.
Is he asking me if I want it all together, or if I want each thing rung up seperately? That didn't make a whole lot of sense. He'd given me back my card, did he need to slide it through another time? I offered him the card again, but that didn't seem to be the right response. He got an associate to come over, who had a little book with english notes in it. I apologized for my bad japanese, but they remained gregarious. "Do you want to pay, one time? two times? three times?" He told me in english.
Something was off about that. Obviously that was what they were saying in Japanese, I knew that much, but why would I want to pay for something more than once? If you paid for something twice you would be out twice as much money.
A Japanese woman nearby offered her abilties in English, and asked the manager what was going on in Japanese. he explained to her in japanese, and I got, "how many times do you want to pay?"
At first this made about as much sense, and then it clicked. They were asking about payments! How many payments would I like to make. It's a department store, and Japanese department stores still offer customers the ability to pay in multiple instalments. "Do you want to pay multiple times" is a lot like "Do you want to make multiple payments?"
I'm suprised I didn't get it sooner, but I wasn't expecting a multiple payment plan. But now I am, and if I ever get into the circumstance again, I'll know how to react.
Just goes to show that sometimes you just gotta be patient and try you best to work things out without getting flustered.
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