A couple of weeks ago I went to a language exchange downtown. While there I met a woman named Ryoko. She seemed pretty shy, but also nice. We exchanged phone numbers, and made plans to meet up in this week. The exchange would be that I would help her with English, if she taught me how to cook something Japanese.

She chose the dish Nikujyaga which means meat and potatoes. She said it was a very Japanese dish, and I believe her, even though at first it doesn’t seem like meat, potatoes and carrots is that Japanese. I watched her cook it, and it was pretty delicious.

(She made miso soup from scratch which was also delicious.)

The next day I went out with some friends to a rice field. When I was originally told of this trip, I thought Yui had said to me, “Would you like to go and paint the rice fields with me?”. She’s an artist so this made sense to me. But she didn’t say paint, she said plant! And so we planted.

When we got there, we were told that we wouldn’t be wearing shoes, and they gave us special socks to wear in the water. They were very thick, but also quite breathable. The only really odd thing about them was that they were more like traditional Japanese socks in that the big toe was separated from the rest of the toes.

At first it was quite odd of a sensation, but I quickly got used to it. We waded out into the fields and started planting. There were three of us in a group. Yoyo pulled the old rice out, I planted the new rice in, and Yui handed me the rice to put in. At first we were slow, and our lines weren’t very straight. But by the end we were getting the hang of it.

(There were a lot of people out planting rice that day)

The water came up to almost the knee, and it was quite muddy. There were a lot of bugs, spiders and tadpoles in the water. We even saw a couple of leeches. Luckily we had those special socks. The irrigation ditch next to the fields were used to wash the mud off of feet, and it was quite soothing. The reason that there were so many people at the fields was for a couple of reasons I think. The first was that it was a program allowing students from many schools to come and partake in the culture of Japan. There were elementary school students (who were definitely surprised to see me there), high school students and a few other college students. The second reason was that we weren’t just planting rice, but we were making a picture out of three different colors of rice. I’m assuming it’s some kind of contest that happens every year, and the communities help make it happen. Our picture was of Himeji Castle. When we were done planting, they allowed us to ride in a cherry-picker to view the image from up-high. It was really scary, but looked pretty neat.

After that we headed to a fish and crab factory. Outside of the factory was as shrine and many pots of water lilies.

I got to eat a corndog-type thing that was cornmeal on the outside and cheese and fish on the inside. It was surprisingly good.

(If you can believe it, this was right next to the factory and the busy road.)

A couple of days later I decided to make Nikujyaga for myself. It’s the new quarter at Evergreen, and this quarter I’m learning how to cook. This would be my first lesson. I was doing everything from memory from when I watched Ryoko, and I think it turned out pretty okay. The power went out in the middle of cooking, but luckily my gas stove can’t be affected.

That was the final result. I think it was lacking a little flavor because I was a tiny bit scared of adding too much, so I didn’t enough. But! The secret as to why it’s Japanese is… it had a mixture of soy sauce and sugar in it. According to my Japanese friends, this is a very Japanese taste. It’s pretty easy too! I’m excited to learn how to cook more things.

A big reason that I hadn’t updated in these weeks was because not a lot happened! It was great to finally be able to relax. I was able to stay home, read, go online, cook… anything I wanted. The weeks go by so quickly here, that it really wasn’t very long before I was up to something again.

At my school, in addition to regular classes, everyone also takes a seminar. At Evergreen, there were also seminars but they were quite different. Seminar time was usually spent talking about books we were assigned to read in small groups, and then discussing our views as a whole class. Here in Japan… that hasn’t really been my experience. The teacher talks a lot… in fact, it feels very much like a regular class to me except the students also give presentations. It seems like everyday is just a presentation. I’m sure things would be different if I had a better understanding of the language, but as it is, I can’t follow it at all.

The point of all that, is that my seminar teacher, Hoshiyama, has two seminars. One for Freshmen, and one for Seniors. I’m in her senior class, but in the eighth week, she asked me if I would accompany her and her students to the Kobe museum. I of course accepted, as I do like art. The exhibit was art from the Louvre.

I had never been in a Japanese museum before and it was fairly different from what I was used to. The main lighting was all turned off, and the only way to see the items was by spotlight on each piece. I’ve never been in such a dark museum before. It was somewhat hard to see the items on display, which was disappointing. There also seemed to be a focus on items such as snuff boxes, dishes, urns, and things of that nature. I would have liked to have seen more paintings, tapestries and sculptures. Oh well, it was still fun to hang out with everyone. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures though, sorry!

The next night I went to dinner with one of the teachers here. His name is Moritani, and he’s extremely nice and always smiling. He met me at the school with his daughter who burst into tears upon seeing that I was going to be walking home with them. She was really cute and was finally able to calm down after about 10 minutes. Moritani says that she’s scared of beards and glasses.

The whole experience was lovely. His wife doesn’t speak very much English, so it was great to be able to practice! They’re such a nice family, I had a great time. And the food was delicious. They said they’d love to have me over again sometime, and I definitely hope to take them up on their offer.

In the tenth week, I went to an Ultimate tournament!

I’ve been trying to get out to practice Ultimate every couple of weeks or so, and it was a lot of fun to get out there at a tournament. It was a beach tournament which I’d never been to before. The field was… extremely small. It seemed maybe an eighth of a real field size. We were then of course limited to only five players.

One of the best parts was seeing this DVD

I was in high school with the girl on the right, and we used to be on the same Ultimate team. It was really amusing to see her picture halfway around the world after not seeing her for years.

We won one game and lost the other three… but it was so worth it! Incredibly fun.

I had actually visited Osaka once during Golden Week with a friend of mine, but it wasn’t very structured, and we were mainly walking around a lot. When going back with Yoyo, we had a lot of planned activities, and our day was pretty full.

The first thing we did was walk around some of the more landmark-y places in Osaka. Those photos were taken with Yoyo’s camera, so I don’t have copies unfortunately. It was raining, but there were still a very large number of people out walking around. I guess they were probably working there… but being surrounded by so many people constantly is a bit overwhelming. Walking into one of the largest shopping streets, and just seeing people in every direction, all moving is just so different from what I experienced in the states. We did found a pretty empty street next to the water.

(In the distance you can see a bridge, there are a bunch of people walking across it, you can see their umbrellas.)

And speaking of umbrellas. Everyone in Japan has one, and most women have two. I don’t think there’s been a day when I haven’t seen at least one umbrella being used by someone. It’s a bit interesting because all the while I was studying Japan in the States, my teachers would talk about the connection to nature that the Japanese have traditionally had. Still today they make events out of looking at the cherry blossoms and maple leaves. And yet, it seems as though they will die if they let any rain or sun touch their bodies. The women especially seem to feel this way, as they will open their umbrellas to merely cross the street. The women are also afraid of the sun because they want their skin to be as white as possible. When talking with my friends recently, they told me they would rather go to an indoor pool, in the summer, than go to the beach.

But anyways, later Yoyo and I went to a building where they try to recreate the atmosphere of 1920s Japan.

There was a shop that let you dress up in traditional Japanese clothes, or 20s Western clothes for cheap. I wore a hakama which is a type of traditional Japanese clothing. We posed with a mannequin.

Later on, we watched an interactive show, that had a lot of singing and dancing. The Japanese in the audience didn’t really seem to want to participate, which is too bad. The performers were really energetic, but perhaps they’re used the lack of audience energy.

We then met up with one of Yoyo’s friends, and we went to the Umeda Sky Building. Wikipedia states, “The Umeda Sky Building… is the seventh-tallest building in Osaka City, Japan, and one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks. It consists of two 40-story towers that connect at their two uppermost stories, with bridges and an escalator crossing the wide atrium-like space in the center.”
The escalators were really cool, and very futuristic.

The view was not very good while it was still light out because of the rain. Later on, when it got dark, everything changed.

(This was the observation deck)

We got a bit tired from walking around so much, and headed home soon after that. It was a lot of fun.

This weekend was the first time I met up with one of the previous exchange students. Justin and his band Hidari played at one of the parks in downtown Kobe.

It seems that there has been a pattern of the exchange students from Evergreen staying in Japan after the program is over. Justin and Evan stayed, and Charlie from last year has also talked about coming back here. Jack, who came with me, has been saying pretty much from day one that he wants to stay and teach English.

I have so many friends and family back in the states though. I think it would be way too hard for me to stay here more than one year. I want coming here to change my life, but I don’t really want it to become my life. If that makes sense.

This was also the week that students from Evergreen came to visit. They’re in a class program studying Japan, the culmination of which was to actually come here. They only stayed for a week, but it was really great to see them all.

(This was also taken that night though these aren’t Evergreen students. From left to right: Yoyo, Hiromi, me, Yui. My new friends are pretty great).

It must be a bit overwhelming for the students. I’ve been here for six weeks, mostly just going to school and doing routine things, and yet I still feel as though things are almost as new as when I first arrive. I can’t imagine only having two and a half months here and trying to travel to as many places as possible.

Maybe I’ll get more used to Japan once I can speak better Japanese. Many people said that I would pick it up a lot once I got here because I’d be using it so often, but the truth is, most people here speak at least some English. Many of my friends want (or need) to practice their English, and I’m a pretty good English partner for obvious reasons.

The other problem is that the Japanese class I would normally be taking at the community center was full. I’m still taking an English class, but it’s a bit advanced for me, and the extra help I get from my teachers just isn’t quite enough. I hate to sound ungrateful, but sometimes I miss my Evergreen Japanese class.

There are a lot of things I can do on my own though, such as studying kanji and vocabulary. It’s really too bad that Japanese grammar is so difficult. But then it wouldn’t be as much fun to figure out, right?

A couple more pictures I took the night of the party:

(This bridge was awesomely (in the original sense) large. Wow.)