Long time no see everyone. Or write, rather. Lots to tell over these past days so I'm just going to dive into it.
On Tuesday I arrived at work at 10am and waited until Morita-san, the reporter I was going to shadow for the day, arrived. Together we walked to the Ishikawa Cultural Center to report on a photography exhibit by the local photographer Gen Minamishima. He had a series of rose photographs on display, and he was very kind. (He even took a photo with me that went on his facebook page--surprisingly my host family's daughter is friends with him so she recognized me in the photo!) Then under Morita's guidance I took a few photos for the article--the important thing, she said, was that the photo should give a sense of what's going on and should also have some action in it. So I couldn't just take a photo of the empty exhibit, but should include some people viewing a photograph.
Some of you might have noticed that Tuesday-Thursday is three days, not 1.5, and you would be correct. Monday night, I had the beginnings of a nagging headache. I had hoped to sleep it off, but by Tuesday afternoon it had progressed to the point where I couldn't focus and felt nauseated, so I was allowed to go home early, where I just sort of lay on my bed in misery. When I still hadn't gotten better by the next day--got worse, in fact-- my host family took me to their local clinic where I saw a doctor and was given anti-nausea medication so I could eat, at least. So I took Wednesday off work as well.
Fortunately by Wednesday night I was recovered enough to function as a normal, pain-free human being and so today I went back into work.
In the morning I went with a different reporter, a young woman who sits on my right side to an exhibit of Shouwa-era photography and store signage that was held on the second floor of a restored house. To be perfectly honest I'm not entirely sure what it was about--caused me to have a minor internal crisis about what, exactly, my purpose was at this newspaper--but it was interesting to see a different reporter work.
The more interesting part of my day came after lunch. At Morita's suggestion, I went with two other young reports to a coffee shop called "curio". First we had a delicious lunch--pulled pork sandwich and a coffee--before I set down to work.
I got to interview one of the two owners, Sol Gallago, as well as several of the customers in the first steps to writing an article that (I think!) will be full-length and actually published. Their story is actually quite interesting. Sol met his wife, Yuko, in Seattle where she was working as a barista and he was a locksmith. They opened this shop about half a year ago, and renovated the inside entirely by themselves--basically they created THEIR ideal coffee shop. Everything is locally sourced, and their shop is really, really popular with foreign tourists. There's a map on the wall where customers can still a pin on where they're from, and in the three weeks its been there it's covered in pins over Europe and Australia and various other locations. I added my token Chicago pin. The customers inside today were all from Kanazawa--one is Japanese (but with wonderful English) and the other works as an English teacher here--and they had nothing but nice things to say about the atmosphere and the coffee culture and the owners.
When I returned to the office I wrote an article and showed it to Morita. What she said is that the newspaper and people would really like to know a lot about how the new bullet train has affected the shop, and since many new restaurants and cafes have sprung up to accomodate the new rush of tourism, what makes this particular coffee shop special. So sometime next week, I think, I'll return to ask some clarifying questions, see if there's any tourists I can interview, edit what I've written and then we'll see.
Tomorrow the morning is in flux but in the afternoon I'm going to see the annual ikebana (flower arrangement) exhibit at the 21st Century Museum.
On Tuesday I arrived at work at 10am and waited until Morita-san, the reporter I was going to shadow for the day, arrived. Together we walked to the Ishikawa Cultural Center to report on a photography exhibit by the local photographer Gen Minamishima. He had a series of rose photographs on display, and he was very kind. (He even took a photo with me that went on his facebook page--surprisingly my host family's daughter is friends with him so she recognized me in the photo!) Then under Morita's guidance I took a few photos for the article--the important thing, she said, was that the photo should give a sense of what's going on and should also have some action in it. So I couldn't just take a photo of the empty exhibit, but should include some people viewing a photograph.
Some of you might have noticed that Tuesday-Thursday is three days, not 1.5, and you would be correct. Monday night, I had the beginnings of a nagging headache. I had hoped to sleep it off, but by Tuesday afternoon it had progressed to the point where I couldn't focus and felt nauseated, so I was allowed to go home early, where I just sort of lay on my bed in misery. When I still hadn't gotten better by the next day--got worse, in fact-- my host family took me to their local clinic where I saw a doctor and was given anti-nausea medication so I could eat, at least. So I took Wednesday off work as well.
Fortunately by Wednesday night I was recovered enough to function as a normal, pain-free human being and so today I went back into work.
In the morning I went with a different reporter, a young woman who sits on my right side to an exhibit of Shouwa-era photography and store signage that was held on the second floor of a restored house. To be perfectly honest I'm not entirely sure what it was about--caused me to have a minor internal crisis about what, exactly, my purpose was at this newspaper--but it was interesting to see a different reporter work.
The more interesting part of my day came after lunch. At Morita's suggestion, I went with two other young reports to a coffee shop called "curio". First we had a delicious lunch--pulled pork sandwich and a coffee--before I set down to work.
I got to interview one of the two owners, Sol Gallago, as well as several of the customers in the first steps to writing an article that (I think!) will be full-length and actually published. Their story is actually quite interesting. Sol met his wife, Yuko, in Seattle where she was working as a barista and he was a locksmith. They opened this shop about half a year ago, and renovated the inside entirely by themselves--basically they created THEIR ideal coffee shop. Everything is locally sourced, and their shop is really, really popular with foreign tourists. There's a map on the wall where customers can still a pin on where they're from, and in the three weeks its been there it's covered in pins over Europe and Australia and various other locations. I added my token Chicago pin. The customers inside today were all from Kanazawa--one is Japanese (but with wonderful English) and the other works as an English teacher here--and they had nothing but nice things to say about the atmosphere and the coffee culture and the owners.
When I returned to the office I wrote an article and showed it to Morita. What she said is that the newspaper and people would really like to know a lot about how the new bullet train has affected the shop, and since many new restaurants and cafes have sprung up to accomodate the new rush of tourism, what makes this particular coffee shop special. So sometime next week, I think, I'll return to ask some clarifying questions, see if there's any tourists I can interview, edit what I've written and then we'll see.
Tomorrow the morning is in flux but in the afternoon I'm going to see the annual ikebana (flower arrangement) exhibit at the 21st Century Museum.
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