So... I'm not dead
Just wanted to let people know that I'm not dead.
I've just been really busy since I've gotten here. To sum up my trip so far. I got here in the evening, spent the night in a traditional japanese inn. We had four people to a room and the only way to bath was in the onsen, hot spring(they tend to be big on communal bathing), which is actually quite relaxing. The next morning we left for mobara, which is about an hour east of tokyo. There I stayed with my host family for a week. They were nice, but couldn't really spent much english. Although i did get better at trying to get something across to them in japanese. We had lots of field trips and tours that week. Last saturday was a free day with our host family. mine took me to several places, including an interesting shrine build on a really big rock. Then we went to this building that is basically a stop in the middle of tokyo bay, a bridge leads to it and then goes into a tunnel. They had lots of restaurants and shops there. When we park i guess that has lots of stone statues. We rode a cable car up and the walked around for a while. We saw lots of statues and one huge buddha statue. It's called the daibutsu of nihon-ji, just do a google search for it and you'll get some photo's. The next day we left for Nikko, which is about 2 hours north of tokyo. We stopped at an amusement park called Edo Wonderland. They had some interesting things there, but it really wasn't that exciting. Then we spent the night in a hotel and left for tokyo the following morning. It was kind of excited to be staying at the yoyogi olympic center, although i expected the rooms to be small, but damn are they extremely small. The room is as wide as the bed plus 2 feet and its not very long. I still pretty much keep all my clothes in my suitcase since there is no where else to put them. And one thing I've learned here is that air drying clothes is a pain in the ass. Class has been pretty easy. I did get into the highest level class, which i'm glad about. Although in my japanese class at penn state we covered 5 chapters over the semester, while here we're going over 8 chapters in 4 weeks. Thankfully its just a review for me. I've been going places in the area pretty much everyday since i've gotten here. We went to akihabara, which is a huge electronics district. I'm talking like six story arcades, lots of video games and movie stores. I was in a five story starbucks the other day, although they sell very little coffee, most of the place is games, movies, and music. Today I spent a while near the meiji shrine where a lot of people dress up as gothic lolitas. two of the people in the program dressed up so i went with them. It was funny that in the middle of this there was a christian group for a while singing songs to god and handing out pamphlets. Then we walked around harajuku for a while, which has lots of clothes shops mostly. I've gotten lots of pictures and video so far, but the internet connection here sucks. They're using a proxy server plus a really shitty web filter, but i thinkfully found a program that'll route all of my traffic through the proxy so i can access my computer at home. I'll try and get some pictures up in the next couple of days.
I've just been really busy since I've gotten here. To sum up my trip so far. I got here in the evening, spent the night in a traditional japanese inn. We had four people to a room and the only way to bath was in the onsen, hot spring(they tend to be big on communal bathing), which is actually quite relaxing. The next morning we left for mobara, which is about an hour east of tokyo. There I stayed with my host family for a week. They were nice, but couldn't really spent much english. Although i did get better at trying to get something across to them in japanese. We had lots of field trips and tours that week. Last saturday was a free day with our host family. mine took me to several places, including an interesting shrine build on a really big rock. Then we went to this building that is basically a stop in the middle of tokyo bay, a bridge leads to it and then goes into a tunnel. They had lots of restaurants and shops there. When we park i guess that has lots of stone statues. We rode a cable car up and the walked around for a while. We saw lots of statues and one huge buddha statue. It's called the daibutsu of nihon-ji, just do a google search for it and you'll get some photo's. The next day we left for Nikko, which is about 2 hours north of tokyo. We stopped at an amusement park called Edo Wonderland. They had some interesting things there, but it really wasn't that exciting. Then we spent the night in a hotel and left for tokyo the following morning. It was kind of excited to be staying at the yoyogi olympic center, although i expected the rooms to be small, but damn are they extremely small. The room is as wide as the bed plus 2 feet and its not very long. I still pretty much keep all my clothes in my suitcase since there is no where else to put them. And one thing I've learned here is that air drying clothes is a pain in the ass. Class has been pretty easy. I did get into the highest level class, which i'm glad about. Although in my japanese class at penn state we covered 5 chapters over the semester, while here we're going over 8 chapters in 4 weeks. Thankfully its just a review for me. I've been going places in the area pretty much everyday since i've gotten here. We went to akihabara, which is a huge electronics district. I'm talking like six story arcades, lots of video games and movie stores. I was in a five story starbucks the other day, although they sell very little coffee, most of the place is games, movies, and music. Today I spent a while near the meiji shrine where a lot of people dress up as gothic lolitas. two of the people in the program dressed up so i went with them. It was funny that in the middle of this there was a christian group for a while singing songs to god and handing out pamphlets. Then we walked around harajuku for a while, which has lots of clothes shops mostly. I've gotten lots of pictures and video so far, but the internet connection here sucks. They're using a proxy server plus a really shitty web filter, but i thinkfully found a program that'll route all of my traffic through the proxy so i can access my computer at home. I'll try and get some pictures up in the next couple of days.