Seminar House Stay

WTF is this! It's a dead cicada I found while walking back from the post office. HUEG. SCURRY. MEANNY. The animals are also evil. It's a dove... of DEATH, a crow...from HELL, a spider...that can EAT ME. The dove sounds like a normal morning dove for the first two notes, then a demon razes its soul and it suddenly needs to be exorsized. The crows... I don't really want to start on them, because they are just mechanical beasts, and the spiders are pretty much self-explanitory. It's too bad I didn't get a picture! But in reality, I'm over exaggerating the spider portion because I only saw big ones in one area, and other spiders are comparable to American ones and seem harmless.

Well, it's been a while since my last post. Orientation, classes, moving twice, lack of internet and time, and heat are all factors into my late post. Anyway, I will try to start from the bus.

As soon as I got off the bus, an old friend from Eastern was there greeting us: Yuzuru Kamei went to EMU last year as an exchange student, and now this year we are exchange students at HIS college. We left our bags under the bus and walked with him to the Seminar Houses. I stayed in Seminar House 3 (out of 4). "Seminar House" is just the name for say, Best Hall, or another dormitory. Before we got to our destination (a 3 minute walk) the bus driver had already delivered our bags...weird. So we signed in and the four of us Eagles were separated immediately with no warning...

The Seminar House stay was pretty rad. It was like the UN without any masters degrees. We had two people from the UK, three from the US, one from Finland, 1 from South Africa, 2 from Canada, 1 from France, 1 from Germany, 1 from Hong Kong, and 1 from Japan...I believe there were others but I can't recall. One guy that really stuck out, though, was the Canadian Jewish break-dancer--though I didn't really like him, I still say that is pretty sweet! The way the suites are set up in SH3 is pretty cool, but for starters, I'll describe the entrance to the building.

As soon as you walk in, there is a sign that says, "No Shoes Beyond This Point," so you have to take off your shoes and place them in your room's shoe slot. After that, you are required to wear indoor slippers. The floors are spotless, of course because there are no shoes allowed.

As you walk into your suite, it is surprising how much space there is. There are 4 bedrooms with 2 roommates each (3 for the week of orientation because of the homestay students.) In each room you have an entrance, a tatami (which you cannot wear your slippers on,) a computer/desk area, and an entrance to your balcony. Outside of your room, there is a large kitchen and dining room, living room with tables and a big couch equipped with a television, cable, DVD player and of course air conditioning. The bathrooms are semi private, too. There are two toilets, three showers, and four sinks. What's nice about living in these suites is that you don't have to worry about your roommate not taking out the trash or cleaning up because a cleaning lady comes two or three times a week to clean the floors, bathrooms, and take out the trash.

Japan is simply a whole 'nother world. I wish I could take pictures, but I would be doing a 360 panoramic on the highest detail setting and still be telling half the story. From the overall architecture of the housing, to the minute shifts in gate and fence structure and the color of the grass, the support beams for trees, the dogs, the bugs, the BUGS, the spiders, the SPIDERS, the bats, the birds, the roads, the cars, the people, the heat, the HEAT. I could really go on for a while. I did manage to take pictures of a cemetery near the seminar house (see the post below) and some other dorm stay related stuff.

The first night I joined a tour to a train station and ate Mexican food. It was yummy and nice that I didn't have to tip! The next few days were spent in fear of the placement test and in misery of the humidity. Hirakata-shi (the city I stayed in) was SOO much more hot and humid than the island at Kankuu. Everyday was spent hiking the 30 minute trek under the sun to the school for tours, briefings, meetings and sessions. I found a shortcut though that took 10 minutes off ^___^. Speaking of that face...

Japan is so godam cute. Even people's mailboxes have Hello Kitty or little cute things on them. Not saying that everything is かわいい (cute) but even serious signs like "DANGER! DO NOT ENTER!" are written in a squiggly font with doofy pictures. TV is especially strange, but I won't get into it...

The names of everyone you meet are soon forgotten upon meeting the person next to them. I have to call people by their kanji names in English. For example, Yasuda 安田, is "cheap field." A little rough and insulting at times, but it gets me by for at least a portion of the names.

On my first day staying at the dorms, I went for a run around town at 7 in the morning and got completely lost. I ended up asking an old crazy women who spoke with a heavy Osaka-ben accent (kinda like the deep south?) who kept mumbling and pointing and I thought was just insane. I kept asking for Kansai Gaidai which is way different from the Seminar House because as I've said they are a 20 minute walk apart. I ended up going to KGU's main campus and was redirected back to where I needed to be...whew.

Campus is nice but I will write about that in a few weeks once it starts to repopulate because the Japanese students aren't there yet.

I went to karaoke one night! It was my first time and definitely a lot of fun! I didn't know any songs in Japanese, but I did sing some Gunz'n'Roses with my raspy Axel Rose voice. The Japanese were very impressed to say the least (joking, unfortunately.) I'm going again tomorrow night with a few friends. I can actually drink here, too! The drinking age is 20, but they don't usually card foreigners, I hear--and well I got a drink from a restaurant and wasn't carded--perhaps my beard throws people off (Thank you mom and dad!)

Wearing my Nikon camera around my neck gets people to talk to me. I met a lot of people from them just saying, "Oh nice camera. Do you like Nikons?" and commencing conversation. It is pretty cool, though because in America I was definitely not as かっこいい (cool and cute) as I am here. Red hair? Bag? Camera? Clothes? I don't know...

I went to Kyoto! I met some cool people on the way that insisted I play baseball for them. We went by express train from Hirakata to Kyoto and went to see a temple. On the way, we saw a geisha being filmed for maybe a soap opera or for tv, and stopped at a mochi dessert restaurant. The Kyoto/temple pictures are below, and I apologize for the lack of captions but I didn't even know what half the crap was.

The coolest article of clothing was bought the other day. It consists of a beaver and a plastic garbage bag and knitted together to resemble an Old Navy TechVest. It's so rad, I don't know if I will be able to wear it when I return to America because I will be so popular. Here it is...

I've met some cool people in the dorms and keep seeing the same people over and over again. It's weird that even though we are all spread over Osaka and other prefecture and cities, we all end up seeing each other so many times a day.

Well, I guess I lied in the last post about not writing as much again, because this obviously trumps all...

Feelings of Japan Today:
I'm getting a hang of it.
Why is it so hot?
Why is it so humid?
What the hell am I eating?
Is it still alive?
It's definitely alive!
Well its not moving...
This Canadian Jewish break dancer is a douche.
Futons are surprisingly comfortable.
Why don't Americans take off their shoes?!--Everything is much cleaner.

Pictures...
Seminar House Stay: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51325&l=6253d&id=555152650
Kyoto 1: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51320&l=edf58&id=555152650