Adventure to the "Other" (University)

Alert the authorities, Jessi is making a blog post.  But please, don't panic.  Mack is still alive, I swear.

Today I had one of my longest adventures "sans Mack".  While he was off doing who-knows-what with his host family (I don't know because he's not back yet), I travelled to Akita City for Akita University's school festival.

AU (not AIU) is the regular, Japanese university for Akita.  I don't even know if they have international students, but it would not surprise me if the number is few to none.  For those Ithacan readers out there, the comparison between AIU and Akita University is like that of Ithaca College and Cornell.  Bigger campus, developed campus, more crowded, better funding.

Anyways, I was to perform with my choir, as well as AIU's Yatose club.  So 10:00AM on this Sunday morning, I packed up my tambourine, saw Mack off to his own adventure, and hopped on the bus to the train station with my fellow choir members.

When we got to the station, we still had about 30 minutes until the train came.  I passed the time running through our songs in my head, while occasionally helping out some of the Japanese girls with reading English.  Apparently a group of them had a major test coming up based on a reading comprehension book, not unlike one we used in AP English classes.  As the single non-Japanese member of choir, I become the go-to person for English pronunciation and definitions.

One train ride to Akita city later, and the group splits up for lunch and shopping before we head to the festival.  After much deliberation (partially caused by my limited cash on hand), I am lead by a group into an alleyway and to an off-the-beaten-path restaurant.  I'm learning that in Japan, these are the best kinds...

In the resturaunt the six of us sit down (on the floor!) at a table and we get right down to ordering (by we, I of course mean them.  I merely supplied helpful phrases like "I don't eat fish." and "Yes, I like shrimp/cheese/etc" when asked).  

What we got was a bowl of stuff: cabbages, meats, veggies, and an egg.  Time to make okonomiyaki!!!  

Okonomiyaki is a food from Osaka (!!!!!) sometimes known as Japanese pizza.  But really it's nothing like pizza.  I'd actually say it's closer to a latke, but anyways...  I saw it on "No Reservations" once (Thank you Mom and Dad...), so I was really excited to try it!

As it was my first time, I was given the "honor" of mixing the ingredients, then dumping the resulting goop onto a hot iron grill built into the center of our table.  After a while, the other girls again gave me the honor of "flipping" the pizza, like a pancake.  They got a kick out of it when it preceded to fall apart on landing impact.

Anyways, what resulted was a horrifying looking, absolutely delicious fried mash-up of goodness, not unlike what you see below.  

We had a total of 4: regular(?), tofu, cheese, and shrimp, between the six of us.  I will definitely have to go to this place again, with someone who can read the menu...

Finally, the festival.

The choir performance went well.  The stage and the crowd were small.  We weren't on the main stage (if there was one, I'm not sure) like at the AIU festival.  But we got through all our songs and the crowd seemed to enjoy it.  I didn't screw up too bad on the tambourine, or my solo for that matter.  Yup, I had a solo.  (Apparently I had to leave the country to get one, but it was bound to happen if you sing long enough.)  I was very nervous, but it was short and I knew it well.  So all was well.

Sadly, I didn't realize the choir performance and Yatose performance overlapped in times until I got to the festival.  So I didn't get to perform with our Yatose group.  But there was a "free dance" period later on, where all the Yatose groups danced together.

This was likely the highlight of my day.  Over a hundred people of all ages, little girls to obaa-sans (grandmothers), men and women, a rainbow of colored costumes.  All dancing the same dance, for the pure joy and energy of dancing.  I was really excited when the first "free dance" was the same dance our group usually performs, so I was able to join right in.  The second dance, called "Power dance!" I didn't know, but I did my best to keep up.  Then, everyone was having so much fun, we did the first dance again!  I may have been the only foreigner in the dance, but I think I held my own. :)

All in all, an awesome day.  It was long, and terrifying being without Mack or someone to translate for me all the time.  But I think I will sleep well tonight and dream of dancing.  Dokai dokai dokaisho!

Japanese Game Language

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

A Brief Estimation on Spending

Souvenires 35%
Food 30%
Transportation 20%
School Supplies Maintenence 15%

This is a very rough graph but represents fairly solidly my expenses thusfar in Japan. A few things have been suprising.

Food
I've only eaten of campus about six times, but that adds up rather quickly. Additionally, trips the grocery store have pushed that pecentage up. If you know me, having my second highest expenditure being food shouldn't be that suprising.

Souvenirs
Souvenirs is a little higher that expected, but I did decide to buy a new external hardrive. Additional I've got most of the specific souvnirs that I wanted for myself, and a few for other people already. Otherwise I think souvenirs is set about right.

Transporation
Transportation was a lot higher than I expected. Granted that has the bus trip between airports included. But a round trip bus to the mall is three dollars, and a round trip to Akita City is 8 dollars. Additionally, on an early school trip to Managa Soko there was a mild fiasco with a taxi cab and a bus that turned out a lot higher than expected. Note: If you come to northern Japan, commuter travel is a lot more difficult.

Exchanging Money
It didn't make it onto the graph but exchanging money has been quite costly. Using the basis of 100 yen to a dollar, exchanging money has cost about $65. Granted the dollar is really weak right now, but I've been looking for a place to exchange money that charges a flat fee as opposed to a percentage of what you take out. I havn't found one yet, but it has still been a little frustrating to see that much money fly out the window for no real good reason.

Laundry
I don't know if it's a Japanese thing, or just an AIU thing, but laundry costs a dollar per machine. So a dollar to wash and a dollar to dry, per load of laundry. The machines aren't very big either, nor powerful. Jessi and I have been doing laundry cooperativly, but for our normal laundry load together it costs about 6 dollars. 3 dollars to wash three loads, 2 dollars to dry, 1 dollar to re dry one of the loads.

The dryers are actually pretty weak. We put the whites in one machine and the colors, jeans, and towels in the other machine, but it never gets dry. In fact after two cycles they're still a little damp. So for this month we've spent about 16 dollars. Two big loads, and one smaller one.

Juggling in Japan

Jyagalingu?

So one of my goals while in Japan is to spend a lot more time on Juggling. Being the president of ICircus last semmester was great and a lot of fun, but I spent a lot less time Juggling and a lot more time managing.

I have a lot of free time, and some idea's for new tricks and variations on old tricks. I'm working on doing under-the-leg and behind-the-back at the same time. It takes some finesse, but it's going quite well. Also a few new starting throws . . . I digress.

I have talked to a few people in Japan about juggling, and in highschool I remember asking Leech-sensei what the word for juggling was. Essentially the Japanese word for juggling is . . . juggling (or Jyagalingu). A borrowed word, for a borrowed concept apparently, because western style juggling was never developed in Japan, nor has it been popularized in Japan.

When I talk to people abot juggling they seem to understand the general concept that it is something Circus related, but they've only heard of it as a foreign concept and maybe seen someone on Television.

I found this interesting because there are a lot of Circus arts that are very popular in Japan, balancing, acrobatics, tumblings, flag-play, and even some poi are widely known throughout Japan, but not juggling. Especially perplexing because juggling is so popular in Russia and to a lesser extent China.

A Foreign Juggler in Tokyo recounts his time forming a club

This guy had a pretty interesting experiance.

Apparently there is a form of circus art that is like juggling, but it is a slightly obscure folk game called Otedama. Known specifically to be done by girls.



This makes it all the more important that I spend time Juggling while I'm in Japan and improve my skills. I remember seeing a juggler in middle school, and watching his antics really inspired me. It's a memory that is very muddled but I remember him saying that

"juggling is a great art, one moment you're a king" he loses control of one of the balls and it lands on his head, the kids watching him erupt with laughter, "the next your a fool, but no matter what your making people happy."

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.

Forms and Feet

I figured it was about time I post something on here.

So California in 6 days, Japan in 15.  I've submitted my Visa application, and all my paperwork has been sent to Akita!

My one word of advice to any future travelers.  If you have to take a lot of prescription medications, Japan might not be the first place on your world tour to go.  I currently take a few meds (about 7...different types).  Anyways, as it turned out, traveling with said meds to Japan is a lot more complex than the school made it seem.

After doing some research, my mom found a whole series of forms that have to be sent (snail mailed!) to the Japanese government, detailing my medical conditions, treatments, and medications.  This resulted in 70 pages of paperwork being sent from Germantown, MD to Tokyo, Japan, all about my pills. :)  Fun.

So now we wait for them to send back approval.  That way I won't get my meds taken away from me at customs, or worse, not be allowed to leave customs myself!

~~~~

On another note, Mack asked me today if I had "inside shoes".  In Japan, you do not generally enter a house in your shoes.  Instead you take them off by the door and put on house slippers.  I knew that much before, but apparently it extends to some public and commercial buildings as well.  

So I guess I'll be on the look out for some slip-on shoes to carry around with me to change into.  I'm also probably going to have to find them here, since the chances of finding shoes in a women's size 11 most likely decreases dramatically once I reach Japan.  (Boo big feet...)

They also have seperate shoes for the bathroom, by the way.  Random trivia. :)

- Jessi

Visa and Documentation

So two weeks before I begin my travel to Japan, I get the paperwork necessary to complete the Visa application. Good thing it only takes three days to get a Visa at the consulate in L.A. It takes four days in DC.

~What you need to get an Extended Stay Visa ~
-A valid passport
-A certificate of Eligibility
(completed by someone or an organization you know in Japan)
-A Completed Visa Form

The process was pretty easy for me. For more information check out the Japanese Consulate Website

In other news

I have a new camera.



Not just a camera, but the Kodak Zi6 Digital Video Camera. I sort of going away present from my dad. I'll upload some video soon, but it is a very slick piece of hardware.



4 settings. Photo, VGA, HD, and HD 60

It takes normal pictures, 3 megapixel, pretty good considering my previous camera was only four. Drawbacks, no flash, limited zoom. Then again, I'm not exactly producing art here, I just want to document my trip, so it exceeds my needs as a camera.

It has three video settings, VGA low res, HD high res, and HD60 high res high framerate. The quality of the video on this thing is excellent. The microphone isn't half bad either. The files are stored as .MOV files, and the camera interfaces with the computer via USB. Easy drag and drop transfer, and it even comes with software to upload the videos quickly and easily to youtube. Very convenient.

On my Gig SD card, I've reached about 15 minutes for the memory to fill up on HD60. That drained the batteries a bit, it runs off AA, and came with a couple rechargables and a charger. Pretty good for $160. A solid investment for my dad, who wants to see every step of my adventure in Japan.

I'll be posting the first video soon, with many more to come. I'm excited, two weeks to Japan.


-Mack

Cooking in Japan Part 1

The Land of the Rising Sun is on the horizon and I'll be honest, more than half of my thoughts are centered around food. Food runs in my family on the mother's side. A Kramer will discuss lunch with you while they are eating breakfast. I'm excited about Japanese food, don't get me wrong, sushi, squid, fish, etc, I'm ready for it all.

No, when I say that I'm pondering food, I'm thinking about my acess to it and the quality of it. I have heard nothing but good things about the dining hall in Akita, so I'm not worried about starving. However, I'm going to spend 4 months in Japan, with full access to the sort of ingrediants that I can only find in specialty stores here in America. Restaurants are great, I have a whole different plan for them, but nothing can beat the freshness or quality of a home cooked meal with good ingrediants.

So I plan on cooking. I have access to a hot plate, sink, and refrigerator. For the essentials of cooking, I'll need a knife, plates, cutting board, and some other utensiles. So what do I plan to cook in Japan? Well lets start with what I won't be able to cook in Japan.

Coming from a long line of food lovers, I actually have very few recipes. The recipes I know, I know very well though. Cake, Cookies, Pasta Sauce, Pizza Dough, are my fairly standard repitroire.
-First hurdle, is a lack of an oven. Baked goods are hard to make if you don't have anything to bake them with.
-Second, flour and milk, I don't know much about the specfic stores that I'll find near Akita, but flour and milk are not very popular in Japan. Rice flour is used in many dishes, but I don't think that'll work for Chocolate Chip cookies.
-Lastly, and possibly the biggest hurdle, is that I don't know how powerful the hotplate is going to be in the room. I'm going to assume that I can use it to boil water, but that may be touch and go. Can I make noodles with it? Will it heat quickly and efficiently? One can only hope.

In any case I came to a quick conclusion, I won't be cooking much in the way of Western Foods. Honestly, I kinda built that up a bunch, because it makes sense, if I'm in Japan, I should make Japanese food. If I get my hands on ingrediants for chocolate chip cookies, I'm sure they will go over wonderfully. In terms of Japanese food goes, what should I make? I've been working on a list of assets that I can use to my advantage while I'm in Japan. I've classifed the foods into the sorts of meals that a college cook should pay attention to.

~Snacks~
Dumplings- Dumplings are a great snack food. Whip up 10 of them, each a couple whenever you're looking for something to munch on. Dumplings can be easily fried or boiled, so I have the means to cook them. Also the big thing is that dumpling wrapping dough is something that's hard to find in America, I believe they should be easier to find in Japan. Also you can fill them with just about anything. +5 to yummy!

Wontons- Same thing as dumplings, though I think both are more chinese in origin. Wontons are crispy and fried. Wonton wrapper is another hard thing to find in America, and I hope that they'll be easier to find in Japan.

Sushi- I love Sushi, though Jessi is pretty wary of it. Which is fine. Seaweed wrapper is expensive in the states, but should be better in Japan, and more delicious. Raw fish wrapped in rice, wrapped in seaweed, and cut into little rounds, easy to trasnport. Fish is another thing that there will be a lot of in Japan. Japan is known for the insane quality and quantity of its fish markets, but I'll get into that later. For a filling and delicious snack, I'll be packing sushi.

Musubi and Rice Balls- Rice and Fish are big in Japan. If you havn't watch Anime I'll explain rice balls to you. Take something awesome, kinda mush it all up together, and form a rice ball around it. I don't know if theres a lot of recipe's for rice ball filling, but I know that tuna works pretty well, so does bean paste, chicken, and pretty much anything else. Travels well, two or three of them make a pretty substantial meal.

~Simple Staples~

Rice- I may be mistaken, but I have heard it said, that the country of Japan does not import any rice. The people of Japan simply refuse to settle for anything less than Japanese rice. If an entire country of people say that this is the best rice in the whole world, I think I'll spend a little time making it for myself.

Fish- My mom doesn't really cook two kinds of things: fish or fruit. I havn't been brought up with much of an inclination for either, but I try more and more to broaden my horizons. As such Japan being as much of a fish capital as it is, I think I'll try my hand at fish as often as I can. I'm actually looking forward to bringing a whole fish back to the dorm, head, scales, and everything. That's definately something that I'm going to have to run by my roommate though. If he detestes fish, than that will probably severely hamper my fishcapades.

Noodles- Ah to live life beyond the cup of noodle. Ow. I think I can feel Jessi hitting me already for that. Cup of noodle is a college staple, and certainly a major part of the Jessi diet, but both of us agree that noodles in Japan are going to rock. Soba, Somen, Ramen, Udon, and everything in between. For noodle soups though I'm going to be looking for mirrin, dashi, and other seasonings that are rare in American cuisine. Again +5 to yummy.

~Just Desserts~

Sweet stuff- Desserts are probably going to be the hardest thing for me in Japan. Another important tip for Americans learning about Japan, is that sweet really isn't something that the japanese do a lot of. When I visited Japan after highschool, I made the mistake of bringing a box of See's candy to my host family. When I presented it to them, and my host sister tried one, she called it "sweet", her mother chided her immediately afterwards as though calling it sweet was almost taboo. In the same sense if someone were to give you some coffee beans as a present, and you tried a glass, you'd probably try a different word than 'bitter'. In anycase this just provides for some small challenges for desserts, especilly since, Jessi loves sweet stuff. There are a bunch of japanese treats that are pretty good though, and I'm excited to try making them.

Mochi- Rice flour dough, Mochi is a sweet and almost savory sort of dough that is ver gummy and stretchy. Seems pretty easy to make, one of my favorite things at Trader Joes is Mochi Ice cream. Which is flavored mochi wrapped around a scoop of ice cream and then chilled. Jessi and I get it at a Japanese restaurant up in Ithaca, it's good stuff.

Red Bean- It's kinda hard to describe the flavor and texture of "red bean". It's often used as a desert paste, but can be used for any part of a meal. The flavor is mild but powerful in such a way that it fills your mouth with flavor. Very seldom have I seen red bean as a raw ingrediant even in specialty stores. I can't wait to cook with it.

Pocky- Ok I won't be actually making pocky, but I have to put it down here. There are so many snacks available in stores in Japan, that you never have to look far for a quick treat. Generally,snacks aren't chocolate and they aren't as sweet as american snacks, but they are most tasty in my opinion. Chocolate pocky will probably be the best thing to stave off chocolate cravings.


So these are merely the begginings of many meals in this epic culinary adventure I intend to have. Don't be suprised if several posts that show up on this website are plastered with pictures of food. It will be a feast!


-Mack