Sleeping Jellyfish

As a student, my main priority is to learn. Now many of the folks educated in or studying the “hard sciences” give us Liberal Arts folks some guff because we just read books and the newspaper and then sit around and talk over coffee about whats going on, who was involved, why did it happen, how did they do it, when did it occur. Class dismissed. Now I may not be a math wiz, or understand the intricacies of quantum physics, but I would say that my critical thinking and problem solving skills are top notch. So are my coffee drinking, newspaper and blog reading, and sitting on my duff talking nonsense skills.

I'm a pretty big deal in Japan. 新宿、東京

The one thing that all students should agree on is that we can only make educated decisions based on what we know. This generally falls into two categories: facts we’ve learned (knowledge) and useful experiences (wisdom). As I think back over my travels during the winter holiday I realize that I could have done a few things better, but I didn’t have the proper information at the time to make the right decisions. Two of those stick out quite blatantly at me, and so I’d like to give warning so maybe others won’t make the same mistakes.

1) Don’t use Facebook as an online photo storage site.

This might seem evident to seasoned photographers, but as I’m of the more casual type (in fact when I’m not traveling I never take photos) it didn’t occur to me that some photo hosting sites might change the size and file type of your photo. While I was traveling, I would have to make stops at a net café to upload my photos to the internet and make more space on my memory card. Between this blog (which allows me quite a bit of free upload space!) and Facebook, the later had a faster upload speed, and since I was often paying per 15 minutes I of course used it. Well, it crunched some of my pictures. Crunched them into smaller, lower quality versions of themselves.

Lantern and Light Exhibit near the Imperial Garden, 東京

I’ve talked before about setting up a flickr account as a photo sharing and photo storage page, and since I’ve returned I finally did, after I found out about the Facebook crunching. Check the link at left. So, as far as next time, I hope to be better prepared in two ways. One, use flickr to host photos online, not Facebook, so they don’t get smushed. Two, get a bigger memory card, probably the easiest way to solve the issue. I’m not sure what the price is at home, but 8GB SD cards are about 20$ here. It’s probably not what AJ/Peter/Jordan/Shelli/Word use but it would have solved my problem.

2) Check all transportation options before leaving your house.

Now I had a vague idea of what I was going to do, where I was going to go, and how I was going to get there, but about 10 minutes on the internet would have saved me a considerable amount of money.  I was frugal to be sure, I used strictly night buses all the way to Osaka, the cheapest public transportation in Japan, but I could have done better. I didn’t find out about the 青春十八切符 – seishun juhachi kippu – until I got to Osaka.  For about 23$ a day one can take as many local trains and some buses as they wish, even some night trains. With the two days I spent getting from Akita to Osaka, I could have done it cheaper, in about the same amount of time, and possibly even stopped at a few more places on the way.

I often like to do my traveling on a whim which often leads to exciting and unexpected adventures.  It also frustrates people a lot. Especially planners. Like AJ. But I really wouldn’t have it any other way, and I have absolutely no “regrets” about my winter break adventure, but I learned a few things too, which is good, right?  So, when spring break comes up, instead of going to Cancun, getting drunk, and sleeping with nameless strangers like all the other tools in the States, I think I’ll be going to Hokkaido, and hitch-hiking around the island. But this time I’ll be prepared, with a bigger memory card, my flickr account, and a seishun 18 kippu in my wallet, just in case.

Again, don’t use Facebook to store and share photos. These have been some of the salvaged ones.

Well, I’m back from my brief exodus to Korea and back. 23 days in the saddle, and I have returned with lots of pictures, memories, and friendships strewn across Japan and South Korea. The purpose of my journey specifically was to visit my girlfriend, AJ, in Gwangju, South Korea where she works as an English teacher at the elementary and middle school levels. More broadly I wanted to see whatever there is to be seen, meet interesting people, find hidden places, and eat delicious foods. I think I accomplished all of theses objectives and would consider this trip an outstanding success.

An hour till the next train in Nagiso

I took a few hundred pictures over the course of the trip. AJ took quite a few as well. I’m probably one of the worst people to keep on of these types of blogs because I just want to tell everything and show everything with no filter whatsoever. The mundane, the details, the normal things; these are what really interest me. The daily lives of people, how they get actually live in such a radical different place, what they eat, listen to, where the walk, what their hobbies are like, and on and on. I’m the worst tourist ever.

To fill in a bit on getting to Korea, I’ll say that I learned a lot about transportation in Japan. After taking the night bus from Tokyo, a bit dismayed that I payed a bit more than some of my other friends, I was again bummed out when I had issues getting to Osaka, and had to split the trip up into two stops; I took a night bus to Nagoya, arrived before sunlight, and had to sit around till the next bus to Osaka which was a few hours away, and more expensive than a single bus from Shinjuku to Osaka would have been. Then when I got to Osaka, feeling the utter dread and peril of having the ferry canceled for the weekend, I was blessed by the wonderful women at the Osaka East Exit Information Kiosk. They informed me that during the holiday seasons, about 3 or 4 times a year, there will often be a special ticket on sale, called the 青春十八切符, or “youthful 18 ticket”, though anyone can use it. It always the bearer to ride any local buses and trains and some special ones, but not the Shinkansen or Limited Express. They also gave me a time table and helped me plan out my route so that I would hopefully get there on time, before the ferry departed. I purchased one at a discount ticketing booth they had directed me too, and then had nothing but to wait until morning to begin jaunt. Welcome to Osaka.

The Famous Osaka Ferris Wheel

I have noticed that Japan, never ceasing to amaze and bewilder, has two quite distinct personalities. Like many of its faces, the difference between daytime japan and night time japan is quite an impressive one. For example, the cooperative, polite, obedient salaryman turns into a rowdy and belligerent drunkard.

Now to be fair, many cities, especially large ones, have the creatures come out at night, for better or for worse and that provides a lot of flavor to an area. A friend I made in Shinjuku, Keisuke, had told me about this place in Osaka, and I happened to have the address to it in the back of my Slingshot planner. So I looked up the address, and wandering like I do, found a wonderful little community space that welcomed me with open arms, and fresh plate of warm food. They gave me some very cool literature in both English and Japanese, and a few Japanese only publications, about what they do. They focus on the arts, on wholistic cooking and agriculture, and revisiting Japanese culture in both traditional and non-traditional ways. They reach out to the homeless and those with disabilities, and provide many and workshops and classes for both adults and kids in the area. This is where I also met my first Japanese vegetarian – going 13 years strong!

The place I described is called the CoCoRoom and operates as a café and meeting space for people from the area. I did not catch either of my two friends names, and they never asked for mine, but that didn’t stop the hours of conversation, and the late night Japanese and English lessons. They have a well stocked library where you can borrow what you’d like, and flexible menu where you can negotiate what you’d like to eat – something I’ve never experienced in Japan, you usually just pick something, and it is how it is.

I spent the night sleeping in an internet café, in Japan called a manga kissa, which often have a large library of manga along with free soft drinks, internet, television and even console video games. But honestly, I just went there to sleep, and it happens quite often, whether traveling, drunk, or bored, many people will check into a manga kissa and clock in for a few hours, often staying till morning. 6 hours and 20$ later, I felt rested and ready to take on the whole day of trains.

Well, tomorrow starts the first day of the 冬学期 (fuyu gakki), my winter semester here at Akita. I’m thinking I’m just going to take two classes because they are much more intensive than the fall and spring classes due to the shortened time period. Japanese Language of course and the second class I’m not sure about, but probably Japanese Foreign Policy.

How is this whole thing going? Is it fun to read? Is it too slow, too infrequent, are there enough pictures, too much text? Let me know what you want to see and I will do my best to meet your requests!

Oh! Super exciting development. Since this isn’t the most efficient way to post and view pictures by any means, myself and AJ have set up a Flickr page so we can both upload photos from our time in Asia. I will have my own page too, and I believe she plans on getting her own as well, but the joint on will be mostly pictures from when we are together, so then we can share the files among ourselves as well, and each own a set of the pictures. Anyways, yeah, thats cool. I will post the link at left soon, when we get some pictures up. Until then, here’s one of us. Shes pretty cute.

Happy Holidays From JPL 102!

So much has happened in the last two weeks, and net cafés aren’t the greatest places to be sorting through pictures and uploading tons of content to the net, since most of their bandwidth is taken up by addicts playing World of Warcraft or Starcraft. Detailing the trip in chronological order will be difficult, and that’s why I’ve been doing my best to keep a written journal for reference, but today I will try to provide the skeleton of what has happened, and flesh out the bones when I get back to school. Except for the first day, since I didn’t take any pictures so I’ll just get it out of the way now.

The first leg of my journey began Thursday, December 18th, two days after my last final exam on Tuesday. I had to get my re-entry permit for my visa at the regional immigration bureau in Akita City, so I took the bus and train into the city and walked (what I thought was 20 min but turned out to be almost an hour) to the office and got my permit in about 10 minutes. I then trekked back to the City, bought a new prepaid card for my phone, bought a night bus ticket from Akita to Tokyo and then began to sit on my duff till my bus left. Then I realized that I left the most important thing I could have forgot in my room (except for maybe my passport). I forgot a box with some Christmas gifts for AJ in my room.

I called a few people to see if anyone was coming in to the City tonight but most said “no” due to the poor weather. Fair enough. I finally decided to plead with my good friend Riyo to see if she would be willing to deliver the box to me at the station seeing as she was one of the only people I knew with a car. When I rang her she said a group of them were coming down for dinner and to see a few people off at the station as they departed for Tokyo and their flights back home. Score! The box was delivered, we went out to eat, me and Rachel (Australia) ended up on the same night bus, and had a jolly good old time sleeping away the Holiday Blues on the bus to  Tokyo.

When we arrived it was still dark out and bitterly cold. Rachel planned on crashing at a friend’s flat while I had no itinerary except to make it to Korea in the next few days. Her friends weren’t expecting her for a few hours, and another friend from AIU was headed to Beijing, so we thought we might try to meet up with him as he was arriving at the famous Shinjuku Station, not Tokyo Station, where we were at. We had a fine morning walking around the Shinjuku area, had some morning coffee and then Rachel and I said our goodbyes, as she headed back to her friend’s and I decided whether to try to find a place to charge my phone and meet up with Urnukh, or head out on my own and see what Shinjuku was made of. (Sorry Urnukh, but) I ended up picking the later.

おはよございます　新宿!

Over the course of Friday, December 19th to today, December 31st, New Year’s Eve, I went from Shinjuku to Nagoya, to Osaka, to Shimonoseki, to Pusan, South Korea, to Gwangju, to Seoul, to some mountain a few hours away from Seoul, back to Seoul, back to Gwangju. Although originally I had planned to meet up with friends in Osaka on New Year’s, having left Korea on the 29th, the weather, public transportation, and time constraints have been unfriendly. So, in two days, on December 2nd, I will head back to Pusan and back to Japan.

Anneyong-haseyo Pusan!

I have to be in Akita by the 8th to take a placement test for my Japanese courses, but I also want to spend a day on the 3rd visiting different temples which will still be celebrating the arrival of the New Year. Speaking of which…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! It is very hard to be away during the holidays and I’ve missed all of my friends and family at home terribly. I hope the weather has been kind, friends and food in good supply, and holiday cheer in everyone’s glass.

It has been snowing in Korea as well. I thought you might like to check it out.

Merry Christmas From Gwangju, South Korea!

…is what we say in Japanese when you haven’t seen someone in a while, just like “long time, no see” or “it’s been awhile” in English. We use it both literally and sarcastically, just like in English to. So, to everyone and anyone who might read this blog, ひさしぶりね〜

I haven’t taken many new pictures lately so for I felt less inclined to put up a new post, but more demanding has been the last few weeks of school. For anyone who is or was a college or university student, you know what the last two weeks of class and then finals week is like, quite possibly one of the most physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding and draining tasks one might experience. Even though most of the time your just sitting around.

One difference here though, being an international university, is that many of the new friends that we’ve made are leaving. It always surprises me how quickly people can become attached, and within a few weeks or months, craft relationships that may very well last for years or a lifetime. Of the ryugakusei (or international students – us) about 35 or so are returning home, some only studied here for this semester, others have been here since the spring. Of the nihongakusei (japanese students) who are either returning home or going abroad I would estimate that about 100-150 are leaving this January. So of our small student population of 103 international students and 600 Japanese students, almost 200 are leaving. Thus, people have been getting pretty emotional. It’s always sad knowing that a good friend, even a new one, is going to be leaving so shortly.

So, tonight I will be going to the city with some friends to see a few of them off that are going on the night bus to Tokyo and then back to the US/Sweden/Taiwan/Canada/etc. This is after I just took three exams back to back to back yesterday. This is something very distressful that I’ve never experienced before. Usually we just party after finals are done, and everyone is excited for the winter holiday, but here all of the post-exam parties are Going Away parties as well.

So enough of that. I have some neat pictures to show. My favorite time of day here is about 3-4pm when the sun is getting low but still pouring through the clouds and trees. The morning too, about 9-10 am would be its counterpart but sometimes I am not up yet.

The first door on the right is my door. There are actually about 4 more doors before it but this is just how the photo was taken. Room A-103. The Global Village is set up to be more like student apartments than a dormitory, but because we are for all practical purposes on campus it is hard to tell the difference sometimes. The rooms are double stacked, one on top of the other, so the doors that are right next to each other lead to a 100 level room and a 200 level room. I think the upstairs rooms are a little bigger, but I don’t know why. The map shows the layout of the Global Village. I like our little village.

If you were to walk out of my room and turn left and walk about 15 steps you get to a little landing area where to the right (first picture) is a wheel chair ramp and then a road leading towards the other block of apartments and then the convenience store on the corner, the Bonafi. If you turn left there are stairs leading down to the grass and road which heads toward the university buildings and the bus stop.  The buses generally go one of two places, either Wada train station or the AEON shopping center.

In the GV area there is the laundry room and the bike rack areas. The laundry room serves two purposes: 1) to wash and kind of dry your clothes and 2) to party. When the weather was warmer we used to party outside near the laundry room because it was a great way to meet and greet passerby and also there was shelter in the laundry room when it would rain (which was and is often). The dryers don’t really work that well so most people hang dry their clothes. I got sick of putting 2-3$ in the dryer for one load of clothes so I started line drying mine as well and actually, the dry fine hanging up in our room or the bathroom where the fan is always one (its mandatory). The bike rack also serves dual purpose as both a place to put bikes but also random other stuff like snow tires, old microwaves, and other stuff. There is one section that is just for stuff people don’t want to keep in their room or are giving/throwing away. Because people are constantly leaving the country there ends up being quite a consistent flow of good stuff in there.

Here is Komachi Hall which is the dormitory style residential hall. As you can see when the weather was nicer many people dry their clothes outside. I am also kind of jealous of their balconies but I don’t often see many people out there, even when it was warmer. I would fully utilize my balcony let me tell you. Mostly for reading books and innocent tomfoolery. The other picture is also Komachi but I thought it showed a little better its size. Also notice the trees. Our campus is very green and in fact I notice everywhere Japan’s love of nature but in a controlled and planned sort of way. Symmetrical forests in some areas even, but regardless it is very comforting to have so much greenery around.

The first picture is Genghis Khan. True to its name sake, it is a place of intensity, gluttony, and barbarians.  Really its just a wooden floor with a bar, and you can rent it out for all you can eat/drink get togethers. This is a popular thing in Japan, its called 飲み放題, or nomihoudai, and literally means all you can drink, but Japan, in its endless effort to be hospitable, includes food with it. I’ve been to Genghis Khan once and another nomihoudai once, and both times, you are provide with a hot plate or some sort of cooking device and then are brought giant plates of food, and you cook it yourself. Usually it only last two hours, so everyone chows down hardcore with a few drinks for the first hour and then the last hour is a series of drinking games from around the world.  Way better than American buffets. Unfortunately it is closed for the winter as we recently found out when planning a post finals party.

The other picture is a hotel/restaurant type place near school. To be honest I’ve never been there, but I here they have a public bath you can soak in and also pretty good food. It’s pretty though.

I’ll leave off with this picture. Grass doesn’t seem to exist here. In some areas there is a wild tall grass, but mostly it seems to be this moss. It’s actually quite nice, and feels great on the bare feet, but seems to hold in moisture even better than grass. A bit peculiar but I like it a lot actually. This lack of grass also explains why even many outdoor soccer pitches are not grassed, they are dirt or clay, another new experience for me.

Happy holidays to all, I am off to Korea to visit AJ for Christmas. We will travel around South Korea a bit and then she’ll come back with me to Japan for almost a week, where we will ring in the New Years in Osaka with some of my friends and visit some of the great places of southern Honshu. Cheers!

I mentioned awhile ago that went to see some mummified Buddhist monks, but I’ve yet to give them the attention they deserve. We weren’t able to actually take pictures in the room where they were held but we could take pictures around the other buildings at the temple. So, I will include them and give you what info I know about these monks, and Japanese Buddhism in general.

First off, I wasn’t actually supposed to go on this bus trip. It was for a class that I’m not in, but what often happens is that people sleep through it/are hung over/get sick/etc. and don’t go on the trip, so if you are one of the lucky ones who can wake up on time, and you wait until everyone who signed up is on the bus, then you can usually fill an extra seat. That is what I did. And it worked. And I got to see zombies monks.

This would be my friend Nick from New Mexico throwing up fake gang signs from his hometown in front of a little shrine thing. Sacrilegious? Maybe. Him and his friends called themselves “Los Hobos” which is Spanish for…guess what… The Hobos. I think the whole purpose was to make fun of the other kids in their high school who bragged about being in gangs or thought they were tough. Los Hobos represent!

These two pictures are a little fuzzy. Sorry about that. I think I’m getting a bit better though. First one is some neat ornate architecture thing. I don’t really know what it is actually. Probably a protective spirit of some sort. The next is an alter area. Look at the big drum! I love how big the drums are here,  I love playing the Taiko drums when they have practice!

We have a nice wall scroll of an obviously wise old monk. There is a positive correlation between the size of a monk’s eyebrows and how wise they are. In fact, I’m no expert, but I heard having large eyebrows is a main tenant of Buddhism in China and Japan. On the right is another alter area. Pretty intricate, yeah? I’m not really familiar with how it works but a worship session usually goes something like: light candles, pray, pray, incense, bang on a drum, pray, give money to the gods, pray, maybe bang the drum again, then leave and buy a charm on the way out.

It was close quarters so it was difficult to get a good picture, but I like this one a lot. So we have Buddha right? Big ears, big belly, and all that, but look at what a huge hammer he has! I don’t know why anyone would need/want a hammer that big, but why not ya know? There’s the usual candles and beautiful and ornate woodwork. On the table with the candles is another good sized hammer though its a bit difficult to make it out in the picture. I dont know how to read the Kanji (Chinese characters) on the box, or how to pronounce them rather, but I know they individually stand for, from left to right, “invitation”, “good fortune”, “box”. So yeah, thats where you put the money.

Here are some statues of different monks, with their names inscribed below them. Famous monks get a sort of “saint-hood” status I believe where people will pray to them and such instead of different gods or Buddha. On the right is one of the other Buddhist deities. Indian Buddhism borrows many aspects of Hinduism including the polytheistic focus, but as Buddhism traveled East into China, Korea, and Japan it lost much of that, pulling Buddha to the fore front as the main Deity. Also in Japan, like in Korea and China, many people still participate in the native folk religions, though it is often less spiritual and more ritual. In Japan it is called Shinto and it involves a deep relationship and lots of respect for the natural world and believes spirits called Kami inhabit everything. There are both good and bad spirits, but these days it is more relegated to the world of superstition than anything. My Japanese sensei at WSU said when he coached his son’s baseball team, they would go to the local Shinto shrine before every season and pray for good pitching.

What a lovely wall partition! Yeah, I think it is interesting that contrary to the typical white shoji style sliding doors, in this temple many of the rooms had beautifully decorated walls and doors. It was very interesting. This door, however, seems trouble some. The two guys in the picture look mischievous but I bet they just read a really funny line on some scroll they were reading.

That was my bus trip to the Zombie Monks. Quite a day!

I was slammed with school last week. Tests, tests, and more tests. The tension between the Eastern, Confucius inspired education system and the Western style is ever present. In the East, memorizing facts, tables, and acquiring knowledge is emphasized over the Western ideals of critical thinking, problem solving, and seeing the “bigger picture”. Sometimes its hard to deal with.

Tonight I am playing at the Campus Café for an open mic styled event. Its not really “open” per se, because as it seems the Japanese love organization, everything has been planned out to a T. I’ve run similar things before, set up larger concerts and such, and what we usually do with about 3 guys in an hour we had over a dozen people there. We were supposed to have rehearsal after setting up, so me and Sandy were there, but we kind of felt like we were just getting in the way. Maybe it was just our big gaijin feet. At least we could lift heavy things.

So tonight at 6:45pm I will be performing a couple of songs and sing/crooning/yelling along in the only way that I know how. I’m nervous, but I think a good meal and a beer will help that. And so I’m off. I’ll put up video/photos after.

You, my family and friends, may never have realized this, but I am incredibly fashionable. Though I very rarely buy new clothes, and most things that are “new to me” come from friends, dumpster diving, or salvaged clothing, I have been told I have a cool “style”. I think that is kind of funny because I’ve dressed the same for the most part since the middle of high school: T-shirts of various bands, long underwear, zip-up hoodie sweatshirts, no socks or wool socks, and tight fitting jeans.

BUT, I’ll have you know that a Japanese fashion agency thinks that I, Jonathan Roberts, have style. The evidence can be found here, at the Praço website. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t be too hard to find me. I’m the only gaijin. Pretty cool, huh?

A few weeks ago I went with my host family, the Ichimura’s, to a Japanese Garden, Ceylon Tower, and the Akita Prefectural Museum. It was a really great day and we had a lot of fun, and began to warm up to each other I think, after feeling out each other’s personalities (and language skills).

Ceylon Tower is a 100ft Glass Tower. I don’t really know what they use it for, though in the bottom there was an auction going on and a few shops that were selling food and Akita ware and what not. Here are a couple shots from the top of the tower, where you can see the harbor, some of the outlying rice fields and such.

A little bit of a dark day, but it was still great. Cameras really don’t do the expansiveness of Japan justice and the endless rows of mountains. Especially here in the North, on the spine of Japan there are always mountains in sight. After Ceylon Tower we went to the Akita Prefectural Museum. Apparently we weren’t supposed to take pictures up stairs, and I only got one before they told us to stop, but it is this set of cute little dolls. Downstairs, however, we were able to flash away at the great skeletons and preserved creatures that they keep down there. I would imagine at night it is pretty creepy.

The upstairs part was really great though, it had different exhibits and tons of artifacts and replicas from hunter/gatherer times until present. Original town property maps from Akita’s samurai days, displays of original tools, pottery, and clothing, which was very interesting of all the Asian influences and techniques to primitive northern living. The clothing they had was just ingenious in design, using different reed weaves mixed with cotton, wool, and animal hides.

Then we went to the Japanese garden which was really cool. Just a park that you go to and walk around and feel calm and feed the fish. There were a lot of families at the beginning of it feeding the fish, and Hideo brought some bread crusts to feed the fish and handed it out liberally to the children. I have a sneaking suspicion that little Takuto doesn’t like his bread crusts.

This was early in October and the leaves had been turning colors but as you can see there is still a lot of green left. Now, however, most of the trees around campus are starting to go bare, accept for the giant Akita Cedars. We’ve even turned on our heater once. I personally like it cold, particularly cold feet, because it saves energy and makes my bed seem so much warmer and more comfortable. But, apparently compared to Minnesota, I’ve been told by a few Japanese who have studied abroad at Winona, it snows more here but doesn’t get as cold. I think that is probably a win-win situation. Also, cars are required to have snow tires past a certain time of the year, and I think that is coming up soon. So near the bike racks, there is one little shelter and it has stacks of tires chained in sets of four and I never knew why, but now it all makes sense since I keep hearing about how much it snows here.

Next weekend me and Michal are going to try to get up to Hokkaido before it begins to snow too much. Also, I have my Japanese Midterm tomorrow. Both of these events require a super human effort in Japanese proficiency, so wish me luck. がんばる！うまく行くといいな〜！

I found a few pictures from a really nice day on campus I took about a month ago. Here they are. Our school is kind of out of the way from the city, but there are a couple small towns nearby, a giant sports complex, a big hotel, a shopping center and some preserved nature areas. I really like it actually, though some of the other students are having a hard time adjusting. I think moving from Milwaukee to Winona helped me transition into small town living better, and really nurtured my appreciation for simple things and the beauty of untouched nature. There is a magnificent forest just five minutes on foot East of campus and a nice river about thirty minutes on foot North. I hear a lot of “there’s nothing to do here” from other students. I think they are not using their imaginations enough.

There are three flags flying in front of the Administration Building. The first two should be obvious, the Akita International University flag and the flag of Japan. The third one, the brown/maroon colored one I don’t actually know what it is, but I think it might be for Akita Prefecture. I will ask.

A nice shaded area next to the two lecture halls, B and C, the trees are Akita Cedar trees which are quite famous I’ve been told, at least in Japan, and were much sought after in older times just as they are now. They also smell quite nice on warm days.

This is the same area but from farther back and a wider angle. Lecture Hall C is on your right, with Lecture Hall B straight ahead and the Student Center and Café through the trees on the left. Even among all the remodeling and construction going on it is quite beautiful around here.

Speaking of beauty, I was able to go on a bus trip with a class that I’m not taking because a few students didn’t show up. I have a post started devoted to it, but need just a bit more, so here are some wonderful pictures of the East Sea near this rest stop/shrine area. I will put them up as smaller pictures as there is not much to describe, but I hope you take the time to open up each one of them. When people think of Japan, they often think of sushi, samurai, and Tokyo, but I have to stress that those are such a small part of this wonderful archipelago of volcanic rock that is so lush in natural beauty, traditions, and culture. Wow, that sounded like a line from a tourist guide book. Picture time!

I hope this will inspire anyone and everyone to take the chance to travel. Though this might look similar to any coastal area about the same latitude it is definitely Japan. There are so many surprises everywhere: hidden shrines, gigantic vegetables, forests that are hundreds of years old and have never been disturbed, castle ruins, ancient battle grounds, samurai villages with the same roads, food that has been made the same way for hundreds of years, and on and on. Maybe I’m a bit starved for culture because as a native born American, I can’t trace my peoples’ history back more than a few hundred years, and even less for most of my ancestors. I find a living history that goes back thousands of years to be very fascinating.

Question: If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

Many of you may not know, but I think I at least told my mom. I lost my glasses, my spiffy new Swedish framed glasses that I got early this summer, on about the second week here in Japan. I was devastated. I would not stop complaining and moping about it for weeks. I was a wreck.

But guess what?

I found them! I had even looked myself several times all over campus, even by the sports complex but just could not find them. And today when I went to switch my laundry, I saw them sitting on the window sill, pretty weather stained, but they cleaned up excellently. So I have them back. Woo-Hoo!

In honor of finding my glasses I will post a random picture of my host brother. Well, it might be my host nephew. I’m not sure. My Akita Family, the Ichimura’s, are a bit older. Hideo is getting some white hairs and his darling wife Kieko also seems to be past the “I just had a child” kind of area of their lives. Also I heard him call them BaBa and JiJi, which is short for grandma and grandpa respectively, so he is either being a mean and rude child, or being a sweet, endearing grandchild. But, nonetheless, here is the kid that is always around. His name is Takuto. He is super cool but he makes me miss Kailee a lot.

What a cutie. And that peach, Kieko says, is one that grows in Southern Japan and are supposed to be the biggest peaches in the world, and I might just agree. Even the apples here are absolutely gigantic. Grapes too. When people joke about everything in Japan being small they over look the fruits and vegetables. On the subject of food…

…I know this is kind of lame, but I miss sandwiches from the Winona Sandwich Co. If you’re in the area, please have one in honor of me. If Brian Sanders is working, he might not make you pay if you mention my name.