Leave your sword behind

The rule about a cruise

Onuma park 大沼公園 was fun! Um, well not exactly, but at least we got a chance to enter a Japanese tourist trap and marvel at the natural beauty of Onuma lake. And to try squid ink (ika sumi) soft serve:

Tastes like vanilla, slightly funky after taste

After a disasterous half hour in a swan peddle boat (we went under the wrong bridge and ended up in a lagoon full of dead ends), a group of us rented bikes and took the scenic route by the lake:

But just as I was getting reacquainted with nature, we were driven to Greenpia hotel, which functions as a ski resort in the winter and an all purpose getaway in the summer. People tried out the "baggy cars" (go karts), slid down a luge, played volleyball, soaked in the onsen (温泉spa), hiked, etc. I took a nap instead. Then came dinner (see picture below), the talent show, and a night of karaoke-ing and hanging out with other HIFers in the hotel. Not that we really had a choice - the front door was locked at 11pm. And we soon figured out that the only late night food options were cup noodles and ice cream from vending machines. Zannen ne!

The feast

I was originally going to write about the Oikawa family (I finally met my host father yesterday) but I have an essay to write (due today, oops) and vocabulary to memorize. This weekend of hiking and biking reminded me of how much I love the outdoors, so I think I'll make it a personal goal to climb Mt. Hakodate once a week.

Love love sand

Gotta love the love love sand, aka bread filled with melon flavored goo

It's been a busy week! Had my first long test yesterday - the grammar part was tricky, but I wrote a decent essay about the lack of public rubbish bins and how Japanese people don't eat and drink while walking.

I'm still trying to pick an extracurricular sport. On Tuesday a group of us traveled to a high school for a judo (柔道) orientation. Interestingly this high school doesn't have a school uniform - I had no idea that non-uniform high schools existed in Japan! Judo itself was intimidating - the warm ups alone included forward rolls, backward rolls, forward rolls that ended in splits, backward rolls that ended in handstands, etc.

Harder than it looks

On Thursday I tried kyudo (弓道), Japanese archery, at a private Catholic high school that resembled a Southern plantation. Kyudo was less physically draining than judo. However, it seems to not only emphasize physical technique, but also ritualistic movements and cultivating a certain state of mind.

This week I also took part in a tea ceremony (茶道, sadou) culture class at Nishi high school. We were shown an abridged version of the tea ceremony (usually 4 hours longer) and then had the chance to learn from some high school students how to prepare our own tea. Apparently the tea ceremony is not just about preparing tea - according to Wikipedia:

A tea practitioner should strive to be knowledgable if not expert in the wide range of disciplines and traditional arts that are integral to chanoyu -- for example, the production and types of tea, kimono, calligraphy, flower arranging, ceramics, and incense -- in addition to his or her school's tea practices. Because of this, the study of the tea ceremony is virtually endless.

With a Nishi high school tea ceremony club member

Tea ceremony is considered an extracurricular activity at most schools - students practice 2.5 hours a day, 5 times a week! I was surprised to learn that most extracurriculars here require a daily 2-3 hour commitment; as a result, students only participate in one club at a time. I also found out from my younger sister, Tai, that Japanese middle schools (and I think high schools) rarely assign homework. Which is why she had time to go to a cinema to watch 21 (unfortunately, in English) with me yesterday night!

Today I hiked up Hakodate-yama with two other friends. Though it was hot out when we went (around 3:30pm), the trail itself wasn't too steep. The 40 minutes it took us to get to the top was probably the longest I have gone on foot here without seeing a vending machine.

View from Hakodate-yama during the day

It's hard to gauge how much I'm improving, though talking to my host mom is definitely helping a lot. She's been teaching me a lot of useful words, such as "popular", "farm" and "school uniform". Us HIFers now have the habit of using Japanese words in our English conversation - could become a problem when we return to college and say "mochiron" instead of "of course", and "shingo" instead of "traffic light".

A vending machine island

Tomorrow I'm going on an overnight trip to Onuma park organized by HIF! It should be a lot of fun - my class is singing "Banzai" (click link for YouTube video) with the advanced class at the talent show, and it seems like there'll be lots to do during the day, such as go biking and play in a jungle gym.

カルチャーショック

A "moomoo taxi" as seen outside the Hakodate JR station

So for homework yesterday I had to write a sentence about experiencing culture shock (karuchyaashyokku) in Japan. I wrote about public garbage bins - the fact that they don't exist. Apparently Japanese people don't eat or drink while walking, and thus rarely find themselves with an empty can of soda in their hands and nowhere to dispose of it. My host mom told me to keep my garbage and recycle it when I get home.

That brings me to my second point - the ridiculously and amazingly complicated recycling program. Ridiculous, because of all the different categories people are required to sort their garbage into (food, plastic, cans, PET bottles, glass, paper, burnable, non burnable, etc.); amazing, because people actually are quite diligent about sorting their trash. My host mom has a poster which describes all the different recycling protocols - I will post it later.

Kneeling hurts

Yesterday I took part in a kimono wearing and etiquette class! We all tried on yukatas, a summer cotton kimono. The process of putting on a yukata was long and complicated, and unfortunately for the girls, the obi turned out to be quite a burden on our waists. Don't be deceived by our smiles - I wish someone was there to record the sighs of relief that rippled through the room as we took off our obis!

I don't have any homework today. I also don't feel like I'm learning much and we're definitely not moving at the pace I was expecting. Having done HBA last year, I was prepared to be worked to death this summer. Instead we seem to be wasting a lot of time reviewing grammar that we've all mastered the day before. Being the ii gakusei (good student) I am, I've been supplementing my daily homework with extra reading from another textbook. Hopefully when our actual textbook arrives (we're using photocopies now) I'll be able to work ahead and study at my own pace.

I'm off to a judo orientation class in a few minutes. To end the post, here are some pictures of the food I've been eating:

Clockwise from upper left: soba, green tea milky candy, inarizushi, sukiyaki

The Oikawa family

So the Saito family and the Oikawa (及川) family, my new host family, couldn't be any more different. My new host mom, a former kindergarten teacher, is an outgoing and talkative middle aged woman. She has a daughter my age studying English literature at a university in Sapporo, while her younger daughter, Tai, is a friendly 14 year old middle schooler who lives at home. Both my host mom and host sister are interested in English and thus have been able to translate most words that I don't understand. My host dad is a vice principal at a high school 2 hours away - as a result he lives elsewhere and only comes home on weekends. The house is decorated with various cute little figurines and scary looking masks (from Nepal, I think) and is overall very clean and kempt. I live on the second floor in an extra room that I think used to belong to the older sister. My host mom has hosted other HIF students before, so has a good idea of how to deal with foreign students like me.

And of course, there are no cats.

Not much else to report, other than we had the most delicious udon for lunch. I was experiencing separation anxiety as my other host mom drove me to my new abode, but so far everything has gone smoothly. Apparently I'll be biking to the train station everyday!

I'm moving up in the world - there are 5 vending machines at the end of the road, and a 7-11 a short bike ride away. Though my new neighborhood is more densely populated, I'll definitely miss taking the scenic route home through rice fields everyday.

And yes, I have internet here - it took me 30 minutes to figure out how to set it up on my laptop, and I can only use it in the living room, but it works, which is all that matters!

California baby

A restaurant that we pass by everyday on our way to HIF

So it's official - I'm switching to another host family tomorrow morning. I'll still be in Hokuto, just one train station closer to Hakodate. Am sad that I'm leaving - I just started having longer conversations with my host mom, with the aid of my newly purchased denshi jisho of course. Yesterday I learned that Wilson's 70+ year old host mom was her primary school teacher! And as annoying as Erika can be sometimes, I'll miss hanging out with her. We understand each other, on a superficial level that is.

Tried pottery making on Thursday, and failed, miserably. While everyone else in my group succeeded on their first try, I managed to screw up 3 times before turning out a simple bowl. Oh, and I think I was the only person with pottery making experience. 四回も使った、だめね!

Tougei (pottery) master at work

After class on Friday, we ventured into Goryokaku (supposedly the 'trendiest' part of Hakodate) to sing karaoke. In Japanese karaoke, katakana is displayed above all English words, so you are given the option of singing "a horu nua warudo" instead of "a whole new world".

We ended up having dinner at Lucky Pierrot*, and being the obnoxious gaijins in the room, we decided to all say "itadakimasu" and "gochisosama deshita" together in really loud voices. The emo high school students sitting at the next table all stared. For those don't know, itadakimasu (literally 'I will receive') is said before a meal, and gochisosama deshita (literally 'it was a feast') is said after all the food has been eaten and the meal is over.

A ginormous burger that some high schooler ordered at Lucky Pierrot

Someone found a "character reader" on our cell phones - you point the cell phone camera at any kanji character, the phone recognizes it, and then translates it to English! SO AWESOME.

Today my host mom took me and Maisha to a soba shop for lunch, and then dropped us off in Goryokaku. Besides karaoke and arcading and eating at Mister Donut, there really isn't much to do there, but we managed to pass the time in a 100 yen store and in the basement/food court of a department store. I found the following:

Crunky chocolate! Available in a combini near you.

Canned liquid pudding

I actually found a few more interesting and grosser items which will be showcased on this blog later next week.

For my suitemates - remember the corn caramels and potato caramels I brought back last time? Look forward to trying "Genghis Khan" caramels (I think it's meat flavored), Shio (salt) ramen caramels, and konbu (kelp) caramels:

(L-R) Genghis Khan, Konbu, and Shio Ramen caramels

I had kaiten sushi (conveyor belt sushi) for dinner today in Hakodate with a group of HIFers. I learned that 1. raw squid sushi is disgusting; 2. raw octopus sushi is chewy; 3. salmon sushi is safe but always delicious.

More food I've tried since the last post...

(L-R) Melon cream soda, hurushii goma goma shieeku, edemame pretz

- Melon cream soda - melon is a popular flavor here; I think Hokkaido is famous for its melons
- Edemame pretz - crispier than pretz I've had in the past, but totemo oishii!
- "Herushii goma goma shieeku", or "healthy sesame shake", from Lucky Pierrot*. It definitely wasn't healthy but oh so yummy.
- "Rakkii eggu baagaa", or "lucky egg burger", also from Lucky Pierrot*. It was unlike any burger I've had - very saucy (a sloppy joe type sauce) and extremely filling.

*For the uninitiated, Lucky Pierrot is a fast food chain that seems to be found exclusively in Hakodate. They serve icecream, milkshakes, burgers, and curry rice. And fries and onion rings and other iroiro mono (various things). Lucky for us, Lucky Pierrot's are hard to miss - one simply has to look for a store with a giant, scary looking clown painted above the door. The clown looks like a ghost you'd expect to find at an abandoned theme park. Lucky Pierrots are all uniquely themed - the one near HIF is playground themed, we think.

You are what you drink and bathe in

Photo credit: seriouseats.com

Serious Eats has a blog post on food themed spa 'theme parks' such as this one in Hakone. Themes include wine, coffee, green tea, and my favorite, ramen!

Unrelated, but also interesting: bacon flavored floss.

So much for yesterday's good weather - it poured today, or as they say here, "zaa zaa" hurimashita.

The very very beast

Sign outside a restaurant. Maybe BEAST stands for something.

Classes started on Monday. I was originally placed into the lowest level, 1A, and tried to beg my way into the next level, 1B, where most of the other JAPN 115 Yalies were placed. No such luck - the coordinator kept repeating "chotto muzukashii kedo" which translates into "the situation is a little difficult, but..." or quite simply, "no". But then yesterday morning he changed his mind. I was allowed to transfer into 1B on the condition that I maintain a B average. He also mentioned that Murata-sensei will be visiting Hakodate in July. Double hooray! Switching into 1B was definitely worth it - it's going to be a challenging but fun 8 weeks with the 1B class.

I bought an electronic dictionary! My dictionary, a Canon Wordtank V35, was around 19,000 yen , and includes a touch screen and a stylus. The dictionaries with a kanji input function were at least twice as expensive. Other students recommended that I buy a Nintendo DS and a Kanji dictionary "game", but since I can read most Kanji characters, the electronic dictionary has turned out to be quite handy.

We had a kendo orientation yesterday at the nearby high school - the whole experience was definitely worth all those stairs we climbed just to get to there! Try to imagine me wielding a wooden stick and yelling "men!!!!" as I lunge at a tiny Japanese woman and whack her on her head. Now imagine a whole room of stick wielding students doing the same thing.

Luke being whacked on the wrist by another HIF student

Cat allergy update: the HIF office asked me if I wanted to switch to a different host family. Apparently my host mom called them today expressing concern. Pros and cons about my current situation - pros: high speed internet, delicious food, reasonable commute, fairly laid back host mom, Maisha (a friend AND a translator); con: all those cats...!!! I haven't made a decision yet.

1 of 7 cats. I think its name is Jiro.

For those who dream of chomping off Mickey's ears

Interesting things that I have eaten:

• Lavender flavored soft serve ice cream - tasted pretty good, like lavender scented soap, but sweet and milky?
• Konbu (kelp) candy... except Diana and I didn't know that until after the fact. The flavor is at best, interesting.
• Black sugar candy. Sort of tastes like molasses/brown sugar, but not.
  
• Curry rice (Japanese curry, different from Indian/Thai curry) - had it three meals in a row, for lunch and dinner yesterday, and then for breakfast this morning!
  

Things I haven't tried: wasabi and curry flavored ramune (a type of soda):

In the countryside

My big suitcase arrived via takkyubin yesterday, before 12pm, as promised! Takkyubin is an extremely cheap and delivery service - it only cost me 1600 yen (~15 USD) to send my ginormous suitcase from Tokyo to Hokuto. I wonder if they deliver human beings; it'd be much cheaper than taking a train.

For lunch today we met up with 2 other host families and had gyoza (dumpling) making party. The dough was made from scratch, and us 5 students managed to turn out a few delectable plates of gyozas. Trying to keep up with the Japanese conversation was energy draining though I managed to understand more than I expected to.

After all those gyozas we went home, Maisha and I decided to do a test walk to the train station. There isn't much around, mostly fields, clusters of houses, and the occasional vending machine. I am doubting my ability to stay sane in such a serene environment but the slower pace of life will probably do me some good.

En route from my host mom's house to the train station

Hung out with young Erika yesterday - her boundless energy is astounding! We had a two person dance party on my bed while Maisha was showering - Erika liked Hanson's Mmmbop and Chumbawamba's Tubthumping, but not so much Bloodhound Gang's The Bad Touch. In any case, it probably wasn't age appropriate.

Erika!

Cat allergy update - we borrowed an air filter from another host family, but it has yet to prove effective in suppressing my coughing fits.

Classes start tomorrow! I just set my alarm for 6:55 am.

お母さんに会った

I met my host mom yesterday! I'm staying at her house with another HIF student, Maisha, a third year from Hawaii. Our host mom seemed distant and unfriendly when we first met her, but she warmed up to us eventually, though I still find her intimidating. It may be because her default expression is a worried frown. She lives alone (her daughter, a nurse, was nowhere to be seen), but her son's house is attached to my host mom's such that you can enter it via a door in the entrance lobby. In fact, I could hear her adorable three year old granddaughter squealing through the walls as I went to sleep last night.

Hakodate manhole

My host mom's house is around 50 minutes away from HIF - 10 minutes from her house to the JR station, 17 minutes by train, and 20+ minutes on foot. It's a surprisingly long walk from HIF to Hakodate Eki (the station). I know at least one person who lucked out and lives only 10 minutes away from HIF! I'm hoping my host mom will find us bikes, because I live amongst rice fields and it seems like a beautiful place to explore.

My greatest concern now is that my host mom owns six cats. I dislike the smell of cats, and with six the odor can be overpowering. I start coughing every time I enter her house, and my eyes water up a little - I hope these aren't signs of a cat allergy, because then we might have some problems. I live upstairs so my room doesn't reek of cat odor.

Omuraisu from the HIF cafeteria

Today some students from Hokkaido University led us on a tour of Motomachi (元町), the area in which HIF is located. I was surprised by the many European style buildings we saw- so many churches, former consulates and other interesting archicture concentrated in such a small area. I am suddenly reminded of a Core Conversation I memorized in JAPN 115:　海も山もみえて、とてもきれいなところですね　(With both the ocean and mountains in view, this a very beautiful place, isn't it):

Old public hall of the Hakodate ward

While Maisha is quite proficient in Japanese, I'm still struggling with even basic utterances. It didn't help that I ate lunch with the director of the HIF institute today! He taught me how to say neuroscience - 脳科学, noukagaku - though I'm afraid I may have offended him by not using honorific language in my sentences.

It started raining today.

函館にいます!

Konnichiwa, I'm blogging from Hakodate! I arrived in Tokyo-Narita Airport yesterday afternoon, spent the night in the Arts Hotel Omori, and then took an early flight to Hakodate. For future fellows, I highly recommend using the HIF plan - it's a great way to meet people in the program before the Nihongo Dake (Japanese only) rule . A group of us went out for dinner - we wandered around, eventually settling on a restaurant in a mall/building near the hotel. I had oyako donburi (親子丼), egg and chicken on rice. Oishii!

We flew into Hakodate on a beautiful day. It's cool (~15-20 degrees celsius), the sky is blue, and the air is crisp. The HIF building is located at the top of a steep hill, and overlooks the blue, grey and red rooftops of the city:

View from the HIF lounge

Looking at the list of students, it appears that all of us attend university in the US. There are a handful of grad students (including Phillip, who was with me at HBA last summer!) and quite a few more from that school in Cambridge, MA. I'm quite intimated by the proficiency of most of the students - there seems to be few first-years amongst us, but I could be wrong. I just had my oral proficiency test - it didn't go as well as I would have liked, I was nervous and stuttered a lot, especially when the interviewer asked me to describe how to make okonomiyaki The written test is in the afternoon - hopefully the little cramming I did on the plane will be sufficient.

Everything here is very bright and clean. I don't know if this is because I just got new contact lenses and thus lines are much crisper, but I asked Linton-san and she agreed.

20 kg isn't enough

I'm 95% packed and 0% ready - it's hard to believe that my summer is about to begin. Yesterday I received information about my host family, the Saito family! My host-mom and her 30 year old daughter will be hosting me and another HIF student; living next to us is her son, the son's wife, and their 3 year old daughter. My only concern is that they do not to live in Hakodate, but in the neighboring city Hokuto. I hope the commute will not be too strenuous.

I leave in roughly 4 hours - I'm currently sleep deprived and stressed from packing, and thinking ahead, am also worried about failing the placement test! I'll keep this post short because there are still last minute things that need to be taken care of, such as deciding how many pairs of jeans I should bring. Oh, and our digital scale broke, so I have no idea how heavy my luggage currently is. Advice for the future - keep an analog scale at home!

こんにちは - hello!

Welcome to this blog, in which I will attempt to chronicle my summer adventures in Japan. For the first 8 weeks I will be studying Japanese with the Hokkaido International Foundation (HIF) in Hakodate, the third largest city in Hokkaido, the northern-most island of Japan. Afterwards I will travel for a week, sightseeing and putting my language skills to the test in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka.

Studying in Japan has always been a dream of mine. To provide some background - my favorite childhood memories involve watching Doraemon and Chibi Maruko-chan on TV, playing Japanese video games in noisy arcades, and snacking on takoyaki and dorayaki from street food stands. For my birthday this year I asked for a sushi cake (wish not granted). I grew up not in Japan, but in Hong Kong, a city that has always been infatuated by all things Japanese. Both the “kawaii” (cute) and minimalist aesthetics prevail here, as do notions of Japanese politeness and docility, perceptions that are reinforced by courteous Japanese department store elevator girls.

Two weeks ago I went to Taiwan to visit my grandma, aunt, uncle, and cousins. Needless to say, as a former Japanese colony, remnants of Japanese imperialism could be found everywhere. Japanese food and restaurants are immensely popular (see left), as is Japanese music, movies, and TV dramas. Most impressive was the Japanese language section in bookstores - I couldn't resist and bought myself a Chinese-Japanese-English travel phrase book. So far I've learned to say, amongst other useful sentences, "I don't believe in fortune telling that much" (私はあまり占いを信じません).

Since coming back from Taiwan, I've been relaxing and enjoying my last two weeks in Hong Kong - shopping, reading, watching movies, and interestingly enough, eating a lot of Japanese food. Preparation for my summer in Japan has sort of begun. Two days ago I purchased my 7-day JR Rail Pass. Today I convinced my mom to change my return flight so that I'll have a full week to travel after the program.

I leave on June 11! Updates to come shortly - expect diary-like entries about my life in Hakodate, with the occasional short post containing links to interesting articles (e.g. an AP article on Japanese baby drop boxes) or examples of Japanese ridiculousness (e.g. ice cream ramen).

Thank you to the Richard U. Light Foundation for making this trip possible!