what up world heritage

nikko is hella beautiful. since we had a school holiday (not that it mattered much, considering i don't have classes on thursdays anyway) i went with the ICC group for a one day trip up there, which is considered to be a necessary experience while in japan, and has been on my places to go list for a long time. plus, world heritage site! can't go wrong with that.

i got to the meet spot super early, which was silly considering we were already meeting SUPER EARLY. 7:45 early. drank some milk coffee, texted lucy (who had a far more adventurous time than me, haha) and then we bus-ed it up to nikko. and i made some friends along the way, and we commented on how many motion-sickness inducing turns the nikko mountains had.

arrival, gift shop, bathroom, and then we were on our way for the boat ride on Chuzenji. while it wasn't total fall colors yet, we did see the beginnings of some, and thus took millions of pictures! not that i don't do that anyway...




we were joined by about 200 elementary schoolers at one of the boast stops, who were all super cute, and within minutes were grabbing us foreigners to get in their class group pictures, and, with the encouragement of their teachers, greeting us in english, to which i replied with a "nice to meet you" and handshake. western style yo.



after that it was onto the main temple area. i have never seen such awesome forest/moss in my life. no joke.



i love old stuff, and nikko's temples were gorgeous. there was gold and red and pretty pictures everywhere. i goes slightly against my ideas of perishability and simplicity and all that stuff that i learned about Japanese art back in school, but it's still a fascinating sight. my favorite part of the temples was looking up at the ceiling in one larger one and seeing a giant ink painting of a dragon leering right down at me.







it was a little sad that some of the temples were under construction, but you gotta do what you gotta do, i suppose! also, nikko is REALLY NICE, and i REALLY WANNA GO BACK, but next time, hopefully without such serious time constraints and large groups of tourists.

we shall see~~~ i think winter wonderland nikko sounds nice :D

p.s. - sorry guys, i'm not good with words/expressing what i think about places. i just take pictures and let those speak for me haha

an update?

COULD IT BE??? nah. BUT. this is a promise to update. very soon. pinky swear promise yo :D

ADVENTURE

seeing as i didn't have any class today, i designated it "go do something adventure-y like lucy always does." it was 大成功: big success~

after picking up our gaijin cards (YAY WE'RE OFFICIAL ALIENS), my okaasan dropped us off at asakadai station, and broguen and i walked down towards the kuromegawa river. okaasan kept telling us it wasn't anything special/pretty, but it was definitely more fun than she let on.

first was a picture stop for a cute shrine:


then we grabbed picnic materials at a grocery store and nommed them by the riverside (i had crab cream korokke [i know, broguen was a little weirded out by the name too~ hahaha], veggies, and delish chocolate covered macadamia nuts; broguen had tsukemono and tempura):


then we took artsy pictures and waded in the river:








after a few hours of chilling we headed back to shiki, where we watched taiyaki being made, and chatted with an old lady who was highly amused by our love of anko, seeing as she hated it. "あなた達は変な外人、私は変な日本人ですよねー" "you are weird foreigners [because you like anko], but i am a weird japanese person [because i don't]."


and finally, after a fabulous day at the river looking for pottery, taking pictures, and being stared at by nihonjin, i headed home. BUT. on my way back, two women walking towards me suddenly freaked out: one had dropped a contact, so we all got on our hands and knees to look for it (the people on bikes trying to get by were not too pleased). we eventually found it (YAY), and コンタクトさん proceeded to thank me profusely (like, hand grabbing and bowing with tears in her eyes PROFUSELY. they were super sweet:D) while being very impressed by my japanese (more like amazed i could actually speak coherent sentences in such a TAIHEN DESU YO [difficult] situation~ haha).

and this has been my day of adventure~ next thursday i will hopefully (if i get all the forms in order) be off to nikko!

shaddup and press 1

i think being surrounded by american friends and taking classes in english has warped my mind a little. today i was rather surprised to look around in my level three japanese class and realize that i am the only american/person who's first language is english (we've got koreans, taiwanese, chinese, an italian, and a guy from switzerland [i know right? cool stuff yo]. not that i mind of course, but it was a little odd considering.

now i am the go-to-for-english-assistance person, despite the fact that everyone in that class speaks it too. need an american opinion, see kiah. want to know what american college to study abroad at, see kiah. best american food, see kiah. even the sensei-tachi (teachers) consistently make comments about how they wish they were as good at english as me.

i'm feeling a mix of awkwardness/shame/amusement from the whole situation: awkwardness stemming from that fact that i don't want to give a wrong impression of america when i give my opinions on issues (i'm just one!); shame because i can't believe i was so pompous to think that just because i know lots of people from other countries who speak english, doesn't necessarily mean that they feel comfortable speaking it (or even want to), and i shouldn't have assumed that just because america has a lot of influence in the world that everyone already knows all about it; amusement because i have no doubt that my classmates know far more about english grammar/sentence-y stuff than i do, despite it being my first language.

lesson that kiah was taught ages ago but actually learned today: america is not the greatest country. certain things about it are certainly nice, like really tasty mexican food right down the road from my house, but yeah, it's only one nation out of about two hundred.

ahhhhh i need to be careful to make sure i don't become that obnoxious gaijin. for now, i shall continue being super jealous of my chinese friends for knowing a billion kanji already~

a little more on the home life

my neighborhood, with the lovely blue preschool right next door (from which tiny children occasionally look out from the windows and wave at me, the curly-haired gaijin.)


my otousan (dad) with my host-nephew, on said host-nephew's first birthday! see the cake? THE CAKE OF DELICIOUSNESS AND STRAWBERRIES? yeah, so good. my okaasan (mom) always wonders if i'm okay eating japanese cakes, since they're "not as sweet as american cakes," which is true, but ya know, it's still damn tasty and not at all overly sugary. delish.


my host-niece cheesin' it up, with her new engrish tshirt.


broguen often comes over to play/party, since we're technically cousins now (what with her okaasan and my okaasan being sisters).


more tasty cakes. not that i'm complaining, but hey, i thoguht i'd be losing weight here with all the walking. gah. i literally had to tell my okaasan that i'm dieting now so she won't feed me ten tons of food every meal. it's like, i know americans are seen as the kind of people who can eat EVERYTHING on the table and more, but in japan its different, for some reason. wakarimaseeeeeeen (i don't get it).

anybody want a peanut?

i am a bad blogger. bad bad bad. but you guys love me anyway, despite my lack of updates, yeah? yeah~ ww

well, tokyo is pretty great. i wish i could bring back milk coffee to the states. there's far too much that's happened in the past month and too little space, so i'll just say that we've finished our japan study group orientation, moved in with host families, and have started classes at waseda university.

classes include: japanese level 3, comparative cultural studies (in which we watch godzilla movies), japanese diary: blogging about your life (ironic, i know, considering i'm such a terrible blogger here), and environmental politics and policies (which i am technically not in yet because the registration system here is RIDICULOUS). they lied when they said classes were easy here. that environmental class is gonna kick my ass, no joke, and i get the same amount of homework in it that i did back at earlham. most classes are an hour and a half long and meet twice a week, but japanese class is THREE HOURS LONG. and we have class on saturdays (though luckily that one is only an hour and a half) gah. i will never compain about earlham class length again. happily, i have thursdays completely off, and am thus using my free time to chill, actually update my blog, and write letters.

host family is great! both parents are principals of the preschool next door (from which i can currently hear kids singing), and my older sister miki (21) is a teacher there (as well as my older brother masaki (30) who lives with his wife maya and has two ADORABLE KIDS, yuuma and kouya, who are now my host niece and nephew).
my okaasan (mom) makes me delicious breakfasts (today was onigiri and melon) and drives me to the train station when i have 9 am class or when it's raining. my otousan (dad) is a cool guy, and he's always playing with our two dogs, bob marley and arare and helping me understand whatever is happening on tv.

on a normal day, my commute takes about an hour and a half. that's about 15 minutes of walking from house to station, then an hour of train rides/transfers, then another 15 minutes from station to school building. i prefer to take the slower local train so i dont have to deal with the ridiculous crush of commuters during rush hour. first time i saw it, i literally stopped in my tracks. it's kind of terrifying being pushed a million ways at once and squished beyond all comprehension. GAMBARU.

other than that, i love the trains. i can hop on any time and head anywhere between my house and school for free, which includes takadanobaba (the college hangout spot because it's close) and ikebukuro (great shopping yo), and hang out with friends. i hang out mainly with the normal earlham boos (maddie, broguen, and allie), and we've made some really awesome friends from the whole group, including lucy (my hotel roomie <3), karen, jessie, naomi, hannah, liz, rachael, cassie, etc. there are tons more and they're all really fun, but we haven't had many chances to chill together yet. since we were all so busy during orientation, our hanging out consists of shopping, purikura, and eating loads of tasty food (CREPES). next weekend we're having a girl's night out: drinking and dancing!

it's been really fun catching up with old TSA friends~ i've seen ayako and tomoki the most, and reunion dinner was nice. it's a little weird seeing some, like shiggy and oicchan after all this time -- i'm just not sure how to interact with them anymore, ya know? others i didn't know as well, but i really want to because they're just the sweetest (ACCHAN)~

aaaand boys are boys. there's a reason i decided not to date yo. but it sure is nice being surrounded by hot asians, let me tell you. mhmm.

i'm still feeling my way around this whole tokyo thing, and i think once i feel settled, i'll be able to get out more and explore all the places (without getting ridic lost like my lovely roomie, lucy~ hahaha) i've heard so much about: the parks and temples and flea markets, etc :D

japanese tv is crazy as always. rwj continues. postcards are being written/sent. my hair is even worse in this humidity. karuizawa trip in a few weeks. host nephew's first birthday is this weekend, and i'll be meeting an old student my parents hosted.

and that's all for now~ except for pictures, of course:


lucy, kamakura ocean, and me being all artsy



friends at the beach~



tasty noms :D



purikura with ayako <3



waseda's okuma auditorium