Skip to main content

Japanese Life (Just some Stuff you should know)

Hey everyone! Life is pretty quickly settling into a routine here. Summer vacation leaves us with a lot of free time, though since school starts September 8th that will quickly change. Be forewarned: this post is going to be pretty long since there's a lot of stuff I want to mention.
1. Walking around Sayama (my new home). Sayama is pretty nice with everything you could need within walking distance; and if you can't get there by walking the train at least is only two minutes away so catching one is no problem. ((Quick note on trains: they are ON TIME. Last night we checked a train time-8:28 am. Guess when it arrived: 8:28 am ON THE DOT.)) Here's a quick look at Sayama:
The view from my おばあさん’s room on floor 14.

That large building on the right is our apartmet complex. We're on floor 6.


A cute sign and the train.

2. Found a book store! Guess what I found inside of it??
MANGA. (My little piece of heaven.)

Also found a tennis magazine.

SIDE NOTE: Want to see what my current reading material is? Prepare to be amazed:
I am at the reading level of a three year old; and reading one page still took me about a half-hour since my vocabulary/ verb conjugation level is zero.

3. For those of you YaleGALE people who may be reading this, look who I met today:
NEMO! Good to see him again and catch up about stuff in Shinjuku with Asako and my host mom.

4. Finally, just some interesting facts:
A. Japanese egg yolks are orange. Not yellow, ORANGE. A nice orangey orange. But they taste about the same.
B. They rival us American's for TV watching.
C. IT IS H.O.T. I am sitting here writing this and sweating, and I just took a shower. I will just sweat off all the food I eat so I won't gain any weight.

That's about all I can think of to write about for now. I got to see my school today, and got my uniforms (one summer, one winter) but you guys won't get to see pictures yet. The principal asked both exchange students to get up and give a speech at the opening ceremony...GACK! Wish me luck writing it!

Comments

  1. Oh, gosh, it sounds like you're having a lot of fun so far. C:

    (I found your blog via the AFS website, I'm not some random creeper! xD)

    Can't wait for more updates~

    ReplyDelete
  2. Aah, your city looks so pretty! <3

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh god, not school uniforms. Perish the thought! I totally forgot that that's pretty much the norm for Japan.

    Speaking of manga, you know that right now you could TOTALLY be a character in a Shoujo manga. Just saying.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That looks so cool! Still, school uniforms... Enjoy :-D By the way, I am in favour of Ethan's comment.

    ReplyDelete
  5. KIAHAHAHA! sweat your food off well that's what i thought, i thought the same in China but you just can't!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ok, so how does the language thing work @ school? So curious.

    Also, can't wait to see the uniform!!!

    xo clare

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Homecoming

This is it. It's Friday, February 3rd and in less than 24 hours I will leave this house for Tokyo train station, which will take me to the airport, which will take me...home. Most of this week has been taken up with goodbyes: to schoolmates and teachers, and later, close friends. There were tears involved. I think the photos will do it a lot more justice than I could: Kohei, from tennis group. All the tennis people got together for dinner at an okonomiyaki (think cabbage pancake, with yummy stuff like shrimp in it) but first we went to a boardwalk which had nighttime light shows. Top: Anime Club. They threw a small party for me, where we ate lots of food and watched (what else) anime and talked. Bottom: one of my English classes. They asked me to teach them an American game for the last day, so I taught everyone how to play Heads-Up 7-Up. They were pretty good at it. The other exchange student, Nom, and my Japanese teacher. The last view of school: the walk leading u

Enoshima: The Heavenly Maiden and the Dragon

This past Monday was a national holiday -- Mountain Day -- so, of course, Troy and I headed to the beach instead. Well, to an island near a beach since (as some of you may know) I'm not exactly the beach-going type. Plus I'd just climbed Mount Fuji, which was more than enough mountain for me. Enoshima is a small island off the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture, fairly near Kamakura. It's connected to the mainland via a bridge, so you can just stroll on over from the train station. The entire island is dedicated to Benzaitan, the goddess of everything that flows -- time, water, speech, music, and knowledge. According to the "Enoshima Engi," (a history of the shrines and temples on Enoshima) there's also a legend associated with the creation of the island involving Benzaitan and a dragon. In brief, the area around Enoshima was once wracked by violent storms and earthquakes. Eventually the tumult ended and a heavenly maiden (Benzaitan) descended from the clouds.

In Praise of American Teachers

SPOILER ALERT: This post is going to be part rant, part commentary and part revelation, so be prepared for a lot of text and some opinions (which may be rather harsh). Since I've had about a week of school I think I'm just about qualified to make comments about the type of education in Japan, and a bit of confusion I have about world education rankings. Let me be rather blunt at first: a dull teacher at an American school is already more intersting than a teacher at a Japanese school. The best examples I have for this is comparing American math and science classes to Japanese math and science classes. Science and math classes that I've always had have been very teacher-student and student-student interactive, with discussions, questioning, and interactions with the material. Japanese math and science classes are completely lecture based, where the teacher either reads directly from the textbook or instructs the students to. Even when the teacher wrote on the chalkboard (y