cecisinjapan

[cecisinjapan]

Whoops. I’ve been even worse about posting since my last post. Here goes a round-up of the highlights from June 26 through August 7th… Over a month.

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June 29, 2022

A group of friends and I went to Tokyo Disneyland. Honestly, it was amazing. But I have also been assured that my experience is not typical of visits to Disney parks. Since June is typically rainy season, crowds are lighter throughout the month. Plus, it was a Wednesday and most people had school or work and couldn’t go to Disney.

A probably incomplete list of the rides that we went on/experiences we had:

Pirates of the Caribbean

Jungle Cruise

Enchanted Tiki Room (Stitch themed)

Peter Pan’s Flight

Haunted Mansion

Splash Mountain

It’s a Small World

Pooh’s Hunny Hunt

Space Mountain

Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters

Star Tours

Dreaming Up Parade

Electrical Parade: Dreamlights

I think the longest wait we had was for the Pooh ride, but that was probably only about 15-20 minutes. The others were generally less than five, and once or twice we walked straight onto the ride.

I’m so glad I went into this entirely blind as to what some of these rides entailed. I don’t think I would have been as enchanted with my first Disney park experience if I knew everything that was coming. Like, holy crap Space Mountain is so good, especially when you don’t know what to expect (also, I am told the American Space Mountain is no longer like this—I had the old-school Space Mountain experience, not whatever the new one is). And again, because the lines were so quick, we went on Space Mountain twice just because. That was amazing.

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July 1, 2022

On this day, I went to SkyTree with some friends and we decided to actually go up to the observation deck—both the lower and upper ones (though, tbh, unless you are really invested in whatever special partnership they have at any given time, the lower deck is the better option). I expected to be scared, because it’s so high, but it ended up being so high up that it didn’t even feel real. Unfortunately, we picked a hazy day to visit, so we couldn’t see Fuji from the observation deck, but it was still fun. I even went and stood on the glass floor section they have!

Afterwards, I met up with a friend and wandered around Sunshine City (basically a mall, which happens to be where one of the Pokemon Centers is—yes, I visited two Pokemon Center locations in one day, since SkyTree also has one). While we were wandering around the mall, we realized that there were signs indicating a free live concert was happening that evening. We decided to stick around and see what that would be like. Turns out a small boy group was releasing their first album and was holding a free concert there to promote it! The acoustics of a mall are not ideal for a concert, but it was still great fun!

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July 8, 2022

Start of the Summer term! This class level has 4-5 items of homework almost daily, so I’ve ended up not doing as much—plus, friends have been focusing more on studying, not just doing homework, so there’s a definite decrease in amount of things done since this day…

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July 23, 2022

A group of us went to get lunch at the TEXMEX FACTORY in Shibuya before heading over to Ikebukuro to visit an owl cafe (it’s honestly too rare to get anybody to do stuff outside of Shinjuku, so this was a huge day). While I do wonder about the welfare of the owls in this situation, it was just too cool to actually get to see and interact with owls!

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July 30, 2022

Got confirmation that a friend from high school is here in Tokyo at the same time I am. Trying to arrange something there, but we will see if that actually happens. This year would be our 10 year high school reunion, so it would be beautiful if we could actually meet up halfway across the world like that!

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August 6, 2022

I went out to Nakano in the morning to check out their Bon Odori festival, but got freaked out and left before going in—I should have brought some friends with me for moral support.

By the evening, I built up my courage enough that I made my way over to the Bon Odori festival happening at Sunshine City. I still didn’t join in the dancing, but I did join in the spectators. It’s a really neat tradition.

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I really haven’t done anywhere near as much stuff as I planned to—partly due to the homework, partly due to the heat, partly because friends keep coming down sick. Hopefully I can do more soon. This Thursday is a holiday, Friday is midterms, then the week after that is our “summer break.” Currently there’s talk of actually doing things on Friday and during the break. Hopefully I have more to report then!

[cecisinjapan]

Once again playing catch-up with my posts… June 7 - June 26. I think I will only write the highlights. Part of why I keep forgetting to update is because enough days are just “went to class, did my homework, and did little else,” making it pretty boring to write up as a blog. I think I’ll try to mix things up a little more this upcoming term. I don’t want my life to be just school and homework during the week.

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Thursday, June 9, 2022

I finally gave in and decided to ask Google which clothing stores were most likely to carry clothes in my size. I ended up landing on a store called Punyus, which was created by a famous comedian. Their sizing is Large through 3XL, so I was able to find something. Plus, the style of the clothes is up on current trends, so I can at least pretend to be styling. I only bought one skirt, though, to test the waters. In the future, I might go back and get more.

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Saturday, June 11, 2022

The final culture class of the term. In the morning, we learned about the history of anime and manga. Then in the afternoon, we went and wandered around Akihabara. I had seen a lot of the bigger sights already, but the teacher in charge of showing us around also made sure we saw a couple things I hadn’t seen before: Kotobukiya (it took walking inside and seeing the Star Wars figurines for me to realize I had seen their booths at Comic Con and that’s why the name sounded familiar) and the Akihabara shrine. I got my fortune from a little machine with a dancing robot (big fortune!) then picked up a protection amulet from a vending machine (felt like a must since Akihabara is Electric Town).

In the evening, my friends and I went to a restaurant then did some karaoke, which is always fun.

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Tuesday, June 14, 2022

With finals a week away, the school forced us into mandatory review sessions. I honestly can’t say whether it actually was beneficial for me, but having an extra hour-and-a-half of class after three hours of class had my brain absolutely fried.

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Thursday, June 16, 2022

This day had two parts of my final exam: the conversation test and the oral exam (the oral exam is exclusive to the US program, which seems a little unfair). As someone with social anxiety, putting both of these on the same day was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I could get them both over with and not have to worry anymore; a curse because I only have the mental bandwidth to stress about one of these things at a time, but I had to worry about both at once.

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Saturday and Sunday, June 18 and 19, 2022

I buckled down and forced myself to try to study on the weekend leading up to the final exam. I’m still not really sure I know how to study, but I spent multiple hours each day doing my best.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Final exam day. I think I did reasonably well on the test.

Afterwards, I went back to my dorm and gave myself a haircut. My hair had gotten too long to manage well, especially in the humidity here.

To celebrate the end of the term, a group of friends went out for dinner and karaoke. We went to the same all-you-can-eat place we went really early in the term. Since I was prepared for it this time, I got to enjoy it a whole lot more than before.

We ended up staying at the karaoke place for five hours, only finally leaving a little after 1:30 in the morning. Most of the others got taxis, but I was not really feeling like dealing with people, so I ended up walking back to the dorm. It was only 4km, so it wasn’t too bad. And there were basically no people on the street, so it felt really safe. I will repeat what I say pretty much every time: it’s ridiculous that a city this big stops its trains at midnight. But, hey, I got to see streets I don’t normally get to see and got to enjoy some fresh air along the way. Totally worth it.

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Saturday, June 25, 2022

Pikmin Bloom had its first in-person community day event. I managed to convince someone to come with me—which turned out to be very important because I got in line around 9:20am and only got into the event area at 11:50am or so. I had not planned to stand in line that long, especially with the weather being so hot and humid (it was 94 or so, but Apple Weather estimated that with humidity, it felt like 104). In fact, when we were only minutes from the front of the line, the app started sending out messages that they were ending distribution of the t-shirts and swag early out of concern of heat stroke (nobody else in line bailed, so we didn’t either—from what I can tell that was mostly directed at people who hadn’t gotten in line yet, telling them not to come). Disappointingly, there was basically nothing to do once you got into the actual park. Just grab a shirt and go. But I’m happy with that. The shirt is a truly unique souvenir from my time here.

In exchange for accompanying me to the Pikmin event, I went with my friend over to Meiji Jingu shrine in Harajuku. The grounds there were amazing. The trees were so tall and relaxing to look at. We then wandered around Harajuku for a bit before taking a turn I hadn’t taken before, which ended up leading us to Shibuya. I got to point out the Hachiko statue and took my friend through the Shibuya Scramble. But by that point, we had been outside in the heat for quite some time, so we called it quits there.

It’s still supposed to be rainy season, but it’s been brutally sunny and hot lately. I wonder if rainy season has ended early this year or if it will return with a vengeance. Honestly, I could do with some cooling rain for a day or two.

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Sunday, June 26, 2022

Nothing too exciting today, but I did get to see a cat, so I wanted to share how angry he looked.

[cecisinjapan]

Big Catch-Up Post… Gonna try to get back to consistent posting soon.

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Tuesday, May 31, 2022

During class, I got called on more than usual. That was fun. Then, in order to have us practice asking questions in a specific way, the teacher randomly selected someone to come to front of the class to be asked questions, and that random person was me. The girl who memorized my birthday decided to make her question what my plans for my birthday were.

Then we had our special conversation class. For some reason, the focus was on learning about onomatopoeias. And we were teaching the teacher more about English onomatopoeias than he was teaching us about Japanese onomatopoeias.

After class, a couple of us went to get lunch together. It was nice because they were people I hadn’t spent a bunch of time with so far.

But then it was homework time and more homework time.

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Wednesday, June 1, 2022

My birthday, yay?

A pretty normal day of class. There was one point where the teacher asked if anybody had a birthday soon (in order to demonstrate a grammar point), and I tentatively raised my hand. Thankfully nobody made a big deal about it. I would have died of embarrassment.

The Korean girl in my class, who has become a good friend to me, understood that I didn’t want to broadcast that it was my birthday, so she suggested that we go get lunch together after class to celebrate. That was so nice. Then she suggested we head over to Starbucks where she treated me to a coffee and a slice of cake. I was honestly so touched. It was simple, but she clearly thought about what would work best for my comfort. We ended up hanging out from when class let out at 12:45 to around 6pm!

When I got back to my dorm, I treated myself to some purin as a bonus birthday treat. It still amazes me that プリン is legit just flan. I remember seeing purin in anime as a kid and really wanting to try it, but now when I eat it, it’s just a nostalgic taste of flan. What a weird combo. But I can affirm that it really does jiggle just as much as the anime shows it jiggling.

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Thursday, June 2, 2022

A fairly nothing day. We had special sessions again, and this time we had to give recommendations and warnings for someone who wanted to visit our hometowns. That was interesting. The guy from San Diego didn’t say anything about Comic Con, though, boo.

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Friday, June 3, 2022

After class, I hung out with the same guys I got lunch with earlier in the week. We chatted and gossiped for a bit, then my Korean friend joined us and we went out to lunch. It was nice to be able to bridge the gap a little between my American group and my Korean friend. I like hanging out with both, but it’s so frustrating to have to sacrifice time with one to talk with the other. Thankfully, the guys enjoyed hanging out with her, so I made significant progress there.

On the way home, I got caught in a serious downpour (as in, my whole body and backpack were soaked through despite my umbrella). I changed into dry clothes and spent the rest of the day indoors.

I ended up putting on Whisper of the Heart on my iPad in the evening. It was weird to watch it for the first time since coming here. For one thing, the test scene shows them taking a test over a grammar point that we covered this week, so I got to pause and get excited over that. Plus I got it in my head that I should try to see the real-life locations that inspired the movie. Thankfully, the break between terms is coming up, so maybe I’ll do that then.

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Saturday, June 4, 2022

Unfortunately, in the morning, it turned out that nothing I tried to dry out overnight actually dried out. And apparently the boots I had bought specifically for coming here were the perfect breeding ground for mold. The faux leather sprouted mold both inside and out to a level that I’m pretty sure they were completely irredeemable. Anyway, mold is one of my big allergy triggers, so I couldn’t keep them around even if there’s a way to rescue them.

Thankfully, I had a day to myself (I declined going to this week’s culture class since a good portion of the day was supposed to be dedicated to making and eating fish paste?). So I went out and about to shop. I found the perfect replacement shoes, but the shop I went to only carried up to a 25cm while I need a 26 (the shoes are considered unisex, but this shop only carried the women’s sizes… yet another instance of Japan’s sizing being inconsiderate). I did end up buying a couple spare tops at the H&M, but put off checking another shoe store for another day.

I dropped my purchases at my dorm and rested my feet for just a few moments before a friend asked me if I wanted to go shopping with him. Considering we were going to meet up for karaoke later and I needed to head back that direction anyway, I went. That was an interesting choice.

Then it was time for karaoke. This time it wasn’t just the same group as usual. This time my Korean fried joined us! That was exciting. However, the guy who makes karaoke the most fun didn’t join us, so things were a bit more subdued than usual. And then I definitely drank too much.

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Sunday, June 5, 2022

I woke up with a severe hangover, so I went back to sleep. I repeated that several times until I finally felt well enough to get up in the afternoon. That was a waste of a day, so I need to remember to keep my drinking to reasonable levels in the future. Losing a whole day like this is not ideal when I’m only here for a limited time.

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Monday, June 6, 2022

Apparently, they have declared this the official start of rainy season in the Tokyo area. It rained literally all day and the forecast for the next week is pretty much solid rain.

Rainy season means that I do need to actually replace my shoes. My backup shoes are really not meant for anything serious. So, after class, I made my way to a different shoe store from before, found the shoes I wanted before in my size and bought them. I’m not certain whether they’re only sold in Japan, but I can’t find any English language information about them. They’re Converse All-Star Freelace Hi-Tops. Aka Converse Hi-Tops that are SLIP ON??? And they have a water-repellent top. Perfection. If these are Japan-only, I seriously think they need to be sold elsewhere. If they’re not, I’m mad that I just now found out about them. They’re so good.

I took my new shoes out on a trial walk. They’re super comfortable and they are definitely water-resistant. I think I seriously found the perfect shoes for rainy season here.

[cecisinjapan]

Monday, May 30, 2022

I resolved to push myself to participate more in class because I’m tired of always being anxious. And what’s silly is that I’m anxious about standing out by doing better than the people in the class (of the three level three classes, I was placed in the lowest performing one). But I kinda feel like an asshole when I’m the only one answering questions. There’s no winning except by passing this class and moving on to the next level (I have a sneaking suspicion that a large portion of the class will be repeating level 3).

Anyway, today after class, I had to remain behind for an “interview.” They didn’t tell me anything about what it would involve, so I worked myself up into feeling anxious. But it was nothing. The teacher sat down and chatted with me about how Japan was treating me and how I felt about the class. We looked at my midterm test, and she was basically like, “Yeah, you’re right, you’re doing fine.” Passing the class only takes like a 60%, so my currently overall grade hovering over a 90% gives me an A+.

But because I had to stay behind for the interview, I missed out on pushing myself to socialize after class instead of just going back to my room and taking a nap.

In the evening, I went to the grocery store and picked up a few things I hadn’t gotten before. I’m honestly addicted to the random health drinks that Japan produces. Everything is fortified with so many vitamins that it’s kinda ridiculous.

[cecisinjapan]

Sunday, May 29, 2022

I woke up at 4:20-something this morning. Considering sunrise is at 4, that doesn’t surprise me in the least. Most mornings, I wake up at 4-something then again at 5-something. Honestly, I kinda like that the sun rises so early. But it’s also disconcerting to look out your window just before 4:30am and see the sky looking day-bright.

Thankfully, I did end up going back to sleep after this, but it was still wild.

Overall, this was a fairly laid-back day. I did laundry and homework and caught the latest episode of SpyxFamily. Then I did some reading and capped off my day with a run.

Instead of the basic out-and-back run I’ve done before, I decided to mix things up a little and took a random left turn. Then a second left turn. I wasn’t sure that I would end up where I intended, but I pushed on. Thankfully, it all worked out and I ended up somewhere I could get back from and I only added 0.4 miles to my out-and-back run.

[cecisinjapan]

Saturday, May 28, 2022

Culture Class Day! This one is one that, on paper, sound super boring, but was actually quite interesting.

In the morning, the lecture was about the history of firefighting in Tokyo. There have been a surprising number of times that basically the entire city burned down—including one instance where a fire got so bad that it spawned a fire tornado?? Apparently, in the olden days, if your neighbor’s house caught fire, you could expect your house to be torn down because they practiced destructive firefighting. What a wild and terrifying thought.

The afternoon excursion was to the Life Safety Learning Center (Japanese name is 防災館—Disaster Preparedness Center). They offer quite a few “experiences” to learn about reacting to disasters, and we got to see six of the nine they offer.

We started in the Urban Flood Section, where we got to test our strength against a normal door and a car door with hydraulic-simulated water build-up behind it. I failed to open the regular door, but I did push the car door open.

Then we moved over to the Earthquake Section. They gave us the basic spiel of what to do in case of an earthquake: if you’re indoors, get under a table/desk, and if you’re outdoors, drop and cover your head as best you can. Then they put us in pairs to experience the simulation. Apparently, the simulations replicate the movements of actual earthquakes that Japan has experienced in the past. And they loaded up Shindo 7 quakes for every group. Thankfully, for our safety, they started us all in a seated position. One girl in a different pair went flying around anyway, but we mostly were able to get down into the safety curl. Apparently, an emergency alert goes out to phones in the case they detect a Shindo 5 or above, so my key takeaway is if I hear that, I need to drop to the ground even if there’s no shaking yet (I’ve double-checked and I do have emergency alert notifications active, so that’s good).

After that, we went up to the Firefighting Section, where they instructed us in the use of fire extinguishers. Then they let us use practice fire extinguishers that were filled with water for learning purposes. That was cool. I feel like usually with fire extinguishers, you don’t get that. Plus, it was gamified and my team won by getting the extinguishers running the fastest!

From there, we went to the Smoke Section. I think in elementary school, the local fire department came to school with a pretend smoke-filled room like this. At least, the smell of the fake smoke was incredibly familiar to me.

Apparently at this point, we skipped a normal part of the experiences by going to the VR Disaster Section instead of the Disaster Education Theater. The VR experience was INTENSE. Not only did we have the VR goggles on, but we were put on seat that shook violently to help simulate the earthquake we were witnessing. And I’m not joking when I say it was intense. They put us in the POV of a woman who experiences a major earthquake and can’t escape her house before a second one hits and she gets buried under her furniture. Thankfully, they do end the sequence with rescuers finding her, but holy crap. If getting thrown around in the earlier earthquake simulation hadn’t given me a healthy respect/fear for earthquakes, this one certainly did. I’m glad I’ve only experienced a max of a Shindo 3 so far, and I hope that’s about as high as they go while I’m here.

But that was not the final stop on our experience. Right now, the Rainstorm Section is closed to the general public, but they allowed us to experience it. They wrap you up in full body rain gear (rain boots, gaiters, and a giant rain coat) and throw you into a simulation of the rain and wind that comes with a typhoon. It was honestly not that bad in my opinion, but the others were shocked by the wind.

Part of the reason we got this special treatment was because the Life Safety Learning Center and the people who run it (I think the Tokyo Fire Department is officially in charge of the place) wanted to include a piece in their quarterly publication about the efforts they’re making to teach foreigners about disaster preparedness. Throughout all the experience, they had photographers clicking away and afterwards they asked us about what had impacted us most and did some group photos. Supposedly, the article will come out in September or October, so we’ll see if I get to see it.

The Life Safety Learning Center is in Sumida City, aka the place where SkyTree is, so we all went over to SkyTree afterwards to enjoy the evening a little bit. We went to the Pokemon Center there (the one that we couldn’t enter during Golden Week), so I can now say I’ve been to two Pokemon Centers in Tokyo! I bought a cute little Gengar sticker that says 近くにいるよ。 (basically “I’m nearby.”) and I think it’s intended to be somewhat ominous, but I like to imagine that it’s a friendly, supportive Gengar reminding me that he’s nearby.

After the long day, we all needed something to eat. The other girl and I went to a coffee shop that actually serves full meals while some of the guys went to an anime-themed cafe. I think we got the better deal.

When we were finally ready to head out, it was already dark enough to appreciate SkyTree at night. It’s already impressive during the day, but when they light it up at night, it’s even cooler.

[cecisinjapan]

Time for yet another catch-up post.

I’ve been somewhat unsuccessfully staving off a depressive episode, so I haven’t been doing anywhere near as much as I would like to be doing lately, so a lot of these days are rather boring.

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Sunday, May 22, 2022

I spent my morning working on homework and catching up on my blogging from the week before.

Then, I decided to head out to Shinjuku to do some shopping. I could really use one or two more articles of clothing to round out my wardrobe. Unfortunately, what I could really use are bottoms (skirt, shorts, pants—I’m not too picky right now), and this is Japan where they are absolutely absurd in their women’s clothing sizes. I thought I had seen some XLs in the Shinjuku UNIQLO before, but I didn’t see any this time. Maybe it was in Harajuku? I’ll have to check there next time. Unfortunately, every time I’m reminded that by coming here, I went from a medium to an extra large, I get pissed off. So, even though I then went to H&M, which carries Western sizes, I didn’t buy anything because I didn’t feel super great about myself.

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Monday, May 23, 2022

Class itself was a fairly normal day, but this was the start of the school’s Art Week event. I signed up to participate in a few events.

Monday’s event was an event where you got to make your own keychain charm. Basically, they were doing Shrinky Dinks and tossing them on a little strap for us. They offered up some pre-set designs you could copy or you could make your own. I opted to make my own and drew a cute little frog friend. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of my frog, and they still haven’t returned the straps (they were displayed for the remainder of Art Week—I felt a little like an elementary school kid having my arts and crafts displayed like that). A weird number of people made surprised comments about the fact that I could actually draw? It was a little embarrassing to have people look over my shoulder and tell me how good they think I am… Again with a bit of elementary school vibes…

I did nothing exciting with the rest of the day, but I did finally get my midterm results emailed to me: Grammar 95, Reading 94, Kanji 100, Listening 82, Essay 90, Conversation 82, Overall 92.2. At the very least, I’ve got the kanji under control.

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Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Honestly, a pretty nothing day. It was around this point that I realized that I was heading towards a depressive episode. Functioning just long enough to complete obligations (school and homework) then laying around doing nothing for the rest of the day is a pretty clear sign…

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Wednesday, May 25, 2022

One week to my birthday—likely at least part of the reason the current depressive episode is coming on. I did about the bare minimum of functioning for the day.

But because I’d rather not go full depression right now, I decided to read Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope. If I start incorporating the lessons from this book, maybe I can turn this around.

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Thursday, May 26, 2022

Thursday had my second Art Week event. This one was about getting to make a traditional Japanese style sweet. This one was also one that I decided to sign up for with the Korean girl from my class, so that was extra nice. However, they also included random Japanese people as guests, so there was pressure to actually have conversation. Thankfully, we were all pretty focused on following directions correctly, so it wasn’t too bad. And I think that my sweet turned out looking alright.

It’s amazing how people always think I’m skillful at things when I’m just good at following directions.

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Friday, May 27, 2022

Since this was the last day of Art Week, I had to make sure to visit the gallery of art. Students had submitted art and photos to put on display. It was very cool to see. One of the girls in my class had even drawn a group portrait of our class, and she’s insanely skilled so it turned out amazing. It was neat to go look at art and see me. (She sent me a digital copy of the piece, but I’m not going to post it here because I feel weird about posting somebody else’s art like that?)

After that, the Korean girl and I attended the Art Week performances. For lower level classes that meet in the afternoon, it was something they attended as part of class, but for morning classes, it was optional. There were only three performances, but they were pretty cool. The first was an American guy singing a Japanese song. I was expecting to cringe when I heard he was doing that, but he did pretty alright, so it was all good. Then there was a Chinese student who did some impressive work on a guitar. I was impressed. And finally, the dramatic reading club put on a reading of their version of Aladdin. It was cute and the guy who read for the Genie was dang impressive—like professional voice actor level skill. But definitely while watching, I found myself trying to remember if I’ve actually seen Disney’s Aladdin or if I’ve just absorbed it through pop cultural knowledge. I’m honestly not sure. But it was fun either way.

[cecisinjapan]

May 21, 2022

Culture class day-trip to Kamakura!

Going out the night before was probably not the best plan, but I was good enough when I woke up that I powered through and made my way to school for the 8:30 meeting time.

Getting to Kamakura via train is an hour to and hour-and-a-half trip. I managed to close my eyes for a bit on the way, which definitely helped out.

First thing we did upon reaching Kamakura station was hop on a local train line that uses incredibly old train cars (the one we caught had wooden floors!) but still functions as a train for normal, everyday use. That train took us over to Hasedera, a Buddhist temple known for its 11-faced Buddha statue. Pictures of that Buddha were not allowed, but the area around the temple was beautiful enough that I’m not too disappointed.

The temple grounds include a pathway that climbs up the hillside to provide a great view of the ocean. During the true rainy season, the pathway is lined with hydrangeas, but they were still buds for the most part during this trip. There were one or two plants coming out early, so of course I snapped a pic of that.

After Hasedera, we made our way over to the Daibutsu (Great Buddha Statue). Seeing pictures of the thing does not allow you to fully understand how big it really is. In the area behind the Daibutsu, there’s a stone monument with a poem inscribed that describes the beauty of this Buddha statue’s face. A neat little detail I definitely would have missed if I hadn’t gone with the teachers.

We took our lunch break near Kamakura station and the group split in three groups: the teachers, the people who wanted to find a place that serves shirasu (baby sardines, apparently a local specialty), and a group that wanted to keep things a bit more basic. I definitely was NOT in the baby sardine group. Not my speed. Instead, I was in the more basic group. We ended up at a Chinese restaurant. It was good, but pretty greasy.

After lunch, it was time to check out Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, the big Shinto shrine in the center of Kamakura. It’s a beautiful place. While we were there, we saw parts of two separate wedding ceremonies that were held at the main stage. I wonder what the couples thought of their wedding being a tourist spectacle. It seemed to be a common thing for weddings there to be gawked at, and people were happily photographing and videoing the whole thing. I’ll admit it was very cool to see, but I felt weird about taking photos of a stranger’s wedding so I didn’t.

Before leaving the temple, most of the group drew fortunes. That’s always fun. I got good luck, which was nice.

After the temple, we were given a little bit of time to wander the shopping street. There was not enough time to take a proper look at everything, so I’m sad to report I didn’t get any local specialties. I did stop at the Ghibli store, though, and got a cute little stone Totoro.

We took a different train line back to Tokyo than we had taken to get to Kamakura, and it had more seating than most trains I’ve seen. I got to sit and nap the whole time. The school was also nice enough to provide tickets that were good all the way through to Ikebukuro, too, so there was minimal thinking involved. Which was important. I was so exhausted from the late night and full day that I wasn’t feeling like doing anything too complicated.

I got back to the dorm a little after 6pm and was ready for bed by 8 before passing out around 9. I’m glad I went on the trip despite feeling gross in the morning, but I definitely needed to ensure a good night’s sleep after all that.

[cecisinjapan]

Multi-Day Catch-up (AGAIN)

—

May 17, 2022

Midterm day. The three hours of test were broken into four sections: 50 minutes for the essay, 70 minutes for the reading and grammar sections combined, 30 minutes of listening, and 20 minutes for kanji. Thankfully they gave us a ten minute break between each section, which made it slightly less overwhelming. I think it did well on every section but the essay. I think that one was a mess. It’s so frustrating to try to write an essay in Japanese because I can’t write as smoothly as I want.

I had been planning to do something fun after the test, but I ended up going back to the dorm and just resting for the afternoon, not doing much of anything. Eventually, I did leave my room, but that was to hit up the drugstore for some eye drops since my allergies decided to act up. I ended up getting some of the eye drops that, from my understanding, are pretty unique to Japan: they include menthol as an ingredient. Menthol in your eye is a weird feeling, but I can see why they’re popular. And they did help with the allergic itching, so that’s a victory.

—

May 18, 2022

After the midterm, classes continued as normal. There’s always more to learn, after all. However, they forgot to publish the prep work on the website in advance, so everyone was a bit more frustrated with the day than we needed to be.

After class, those of us heading to Kamakura on Saturday had a mandatory pre-travel meeting. We were given a rundown of the history of the area and why it was so important in the past and were left with instructions to show up at school at 8:30am on Saturday to head that way.

This was the first nice and sunny day in a little while, so when I got back to the dorm, I had to do my laundry while I did my homework. I really needed that sunlight though. When it’s gray day after gray day, I have so little energy. We’ve been having so many overcast and rainy days that it’s hard to believe this isn’t actually the rainy season yet. That comes here in a few weeks. Not super thrilled for that.

—

May 19, 2022

Getting to school this morning was a trial. When we got to the station, we discovered that our usual train wasn’t letting anyone through the gates, so we went further into the station to check the other lines. There were huge crowds around every gate as more and more people were arriving. We couldn’t find information about why our usual Tokyo Metro line wasn’t running, but we did find information that the JR Yamanote line was expecting to resume service around 9:10 (our usual train is around 8:40), so we decided to try to catch that one, since there was at least some sort of projected time for it. For reference, class starts at 9:30, so we all had to send emails to teachers to alert them that we were likely to be late. One super packed Yamanote train ride later and a transfer back to Tokyo Metro, we managed to get into the classroom at 9:31.

I don’t handle the feeling of being late well, so I spent the entirety of class feeling off, which was not fun.

Then of course this was a day with multiple meetings after class. There was one related to our dorm, since I live in the school-owned dorm building and we just got a new dorm manager. Thankfully it didn’t really require any mental power on my part, so the fact I was still feeling off wasn’t a problem. The other meeting was the conversation class. I said maybe one or two things, but that worked out fine. Two people tend to dominate the conversations every time and the teacher seems mostly fine with that, so I took the day to sit back and just listen for the most part.

After all that, though, I needed to take the afternoon to just rest and reset so I could do better the next day. So I rested for the afternoon and evening.

—

May 20, 2022

The reset worked. I was able to bring myself back to normal for class. Which was good because we were treated a surprise: a chance to have a conversation with young Japanese people (I know our teachers are Japanese, but it’s different talking to someone who’s used to teaching foreigners versus an average young person). That was fun, but since it was a surprise, it was a bit intimidating.

I also got a chance to talk with one of the Chinese girls who was surprised to find out I was 27 the other day. She told me that they had all though I was approximately high school aged??? I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted that they thought I could pass for ten years younger than I really am.

After class, I ended up going for lunch with the Korean girl from my class. She really likes burgers, so we ended up at a burger place. It was funny because the place was trying very hard to be American themed (American flag and everything) but everything was just ever so slightly not-American. The burger was good though. It was my first time having avocado in a while. It was also my first time having uncooked onion in a while, and that seemed to set off an allergic reaction in my throat. Thankfully it wasn’t bad, but I had forgotten about being wary of raw onion since it’s not as common to have in meals here.

Since it’s a Friday, the usual crew was planning to head out for the evening. I had been on the fence about going since finding out going to Kamakura would require being at school at 8:30 on Saturday, but I ended up going anyway. It was fun. We started at a place that billed itself as a “beer pong bar.” There was only one beer pong table, but it was digitized so that it kept track of cups for you. Really neat stuff. We did two rounds on it (I was on the losing team both times, unfortunately). But since there was only one table, you had to take turns with other groups. The rest of the time, we played some darts on the high-tech darts board. I honestly think this was my first time actually playing darts. When I started, I couldn’t reliably hit the board, but by the third game, I somehow dominated. The others thought I was messing with them, but part of me wonders if they let me win. The board only allowed for four players, so when another friend showed up, I swapped out to let them play. They definitely should have won against me, I think. But it was fun either way.

We left the beer pong place shortly after nine and ended up at karaoke for a couple hours. I really love karaoke. It’s so fun.

It was approaching 11:30 when we left, which is an iffy time when the trains stop around midnight. Thankfully, we managed to get on a train (I think it was the second-to-last), so that wasn’t a problem. But it did mean I got back to the dorm past midnight when I needed to be back at school at 8:30. Not ideal, but I think it was worth it (probably should have had less to drink, though).

[cecisinjapan]

May 16, 2022

Last day of class before the midterm. So of course, we were still learning the last grammar point that will be on the test along with the last few kanji for the test. Great stuff. Not leaving me super stressed at all…

After class, I hung around school to attempt some studying. I’m still not certain that I really understand how to study, but I made a solid attempt for about two hours before heading back to the dorm. There, I did a few minutes of studying before taking a short nap. I’m really not used to studying, so my brain likes to protest by making me sleep. After a quick dinner, I ended up doing about two more hours of studying.

And that was my whole day. I can’t wait for tomorrow to be over, but also I’m realizing I need to figure out a way to study like a normal person ahead of the final. But I have another month before then, so we’ll see if I actually do that.

[cecisinjapan]

Another Multi-Day Catch-Up

May 12, 2022

Honestly, not much of a day. I had my usual three hours of class (got back the kanji test—got the 100 I was feeling), plus the weekly bonus conversation class. The teacher for the conversation class is funny. One of the questions we discussed was what animals we can’t stand (he seemed to believe people fall into two camps: can’t stand snakes or spiders—unfortunately, I didn’t get to share my opinion this time). Eventually, he drew on the whiteboard to explain to us that he thinks snails are acceptable, but that slugs aren’t. I’m still confused about that one.

But because it was a rainy day, I went back to the dorm after class and passed out. I know rain always made me sleepy before coming here, but I feel like it’s gotten more extreme here. I wonder if the barometric pressure or something has greater variation than I’m used to or something. I keep getting completely knocked out when the weather changes.

Since that ate up the rest of the afternoon, I had to spend the evening taking care of homework. Exciting stuff.

—

Friday, May 13, 2022

I’m so mad that I didn’t realize there was going to be a Friday the Thirteenth while I was here. But also it’s Japan, so it was already a long-shot for me to find a tattoo event like I usually attend in the States. Darn.

During class, we were blasting through the last chapter before the midterm. I’m so glad that most of the grammar points so far are ones I already have some exposure to. This would be overwhelming if it was new. But I definitely get the feeling that had I come here straight after my college Japanese classes, I probably could have tested one level higher than I managed.

After class, I ended up having lunch with one of the teachers I don’t actually have (she helps out with the US Program stuff, since she’s one of the English-speaking teachers). It’s funny to hear her talk with the students who are so eager to move out of the dorms because by Japanese standards, we have a very easy commute. But it also reaffirmed the fact that I would not want to teach here. Twelve hour work days are normal to her???? Sure when I taught in the States, 9-10 hour days were my usual, but when you combine that with the fact that here they usually also work on Saturdays plus have a 1.5 hour commute (each way!), my old job seems very reasonable! Never thought I’d ever say that.

After that, I hit up the stationery store. Such an easy place to spend too much money. There was some gorgeous washi tape going for 700円 a roll. I managed to stop myself this time, but I was sorely tempted.

Since it was Friday, the others decided to go out. Feeling restless after being denied my usual Friday the Thirteenth fun, I of course tagged along. We got drinks and food first. I ordered nori tempura (fried seaweed, basically) and that would probably have been more than enough for my stomach, but the guys over-ordered to share, so I had a little bit of quite a few things. Including smoked quail eggs. Those are surprisingly good. Mostly just a smoky flavor.

But then we ended up at a game center. One of the guys really wanted to do DDR, and I got really excited about that. There were four of us there—me and the three guys—and I got to handily defeat two of them, but the third left before I could kick his butt, too. (Of course, I was a little bit of an asshole about it—I found where the machine let you choose songs from specific previous releases and went straight to the songs I knew… but they were hopeless anyway, so it probably didn’t matter). I miss DDR. It’s so fun. I should play it more while I’m here and have access to game centers.

—

May 14, 2022

Some mix of the weather and having two drinks last night knocked me on my butt for the day. I woke up at my usual time, had some breakfast, tried to start homework, then went back to sleep for about three hours.

When I woke up again, I decided to take it a little easy. Clearly my body needed it. I still did my homework, but I didn’t push the studying angle. I did hit up the 100円 store for a few things (I even found something that works as a cute little gift for my dad I think!).

But otherwise, it really was a nothing day. Not ideal with the midterm on Tuesday, but if I needed the rest, I needed the rest.

—

May 15, 2022

This was the study day that I had intended for Saturday. I woke up and got to it. I ended up doing somewhere around 6 hours of studying.

I took a couple breaks in the middle, of course. Otherwise my brain would have actually turned to mush. But yeah, there’s the midterm on Tuesday to prepare for PLUS there’s a regular grammar test on Monday. You know, why not?

But I’m definitely a little worried for the midterm. I know that I’m not in danger of having to repeat the level currently, but if I bomb the midterm, that could change. I’d rather not have to pay to repeat the level if I can avoid it.

This has been a fairly boring update, I know, so here’s a picture of a flower.

[cecisinjapan]

Multi-Day Catch-Up Post!

May 9, 2022

Honestly, a pretty boring day of class. I do really like the teacher we have on Mondays, but since we’re buckling down ahead of next week’s midterm, everything is a bit of a slog. We finished grammar section 42 finally but the plan is to finish 43 and 44 ahead of the midterm next Tuesday. That’s a lot to cover.

After class, a group of us went out to grab lunch. Unfortunately, we had a hard time deciding, so the Korean girl in the group made the decision. She loves McDonalds, so we went to grab McDonalds. I wanted to get the burger with the rice bun, but that’s apparently dinner only, so I went with some sort of chicken burger. It had a very Japanese flavor to it, so I’m glad that’s what I chose. It would have been boring to just get a standard BigMac or something. But it was fun to finally hang out with the Korean girl outside of class. She usually goes straight home after we finish, missing out on the random bonding experiences we have wandering around and getting food.

But then it was time to go home and do my homework. Riveting stuff. When I finished, I treated myself to a little bit of anime time. I had zero energy. For some reason, the weather was super chilly today (as in a high of around 60 Fahrenheit) and I’m ready for the weather to get warm and stay warm.

—

May 10, 2022

Finally not just another boring day of class—both for good and bad reasons.

First off, one of the Chinese students who has been online for the entire time so far finally joined us in-person. She’s like actually a model or something? But for some reason, she attached herself to me and kept complimenting me? It was a little overwhelming. Plus she was super touchy—something I think is partially a culture difference. I’m not used to people grabbing my arm while talking to me. Honestly, though, I was just glad to finally have another tall woman in the class. It’s awkward to be a full head taller than every other woman around me. And, of course, it’s even better to be making yet another friend here!

Unfortunately, class was not all good though. A lot of people spend too much of class messing around on their phones and just not being present or putting in effort (I don’t get it… this isn’t cheap, and there are better language schools to pick if your goal is to come here to mess around). Today, the teacher got fed up with those people and gave a lecture about it. I understand his frustration fully. From a teacher’s perspective, it’s hard to teach to a class that isn’t mentally present. But also, from a student’s perspective, listening to a lecture like that is just uncomfortable. Really makes me think about the times when I got frustrated at similar behavior (though at least my students weren’t paying for the privilege to be there). If I do ever go back to teaching, I want to keep that feeling in my mind. Honestly, I now think that every teacher should go back and take classes in a true classroom setting like this (preferably with a teacher similar to themselves) to really understand what it’s like.

After class, the Chinese model invited me to go with her to lunch, and I agreed. I’m really awkward in one-on-one set-ups, but I did my best. I still don’t really understand, but she kept complimenting me throughout lunch as well. I don’t know if I’ve been called beautiful this many times before. It’s a little embarrassing.

But then I went home and did four hours of homework/studying (two tests Wednesday!) with a short nap break in the middle. I’m really not used to studying this much.

—

May 11, 2022

Double test day. At the start of class, there was a kanji test. I’m feeling a 100 this time (I got a 95 last time because one of my kanji was slightly misshapen—oh well). We’ll see though. Then, at the end of class, we had our conversation test. Thankfully, I was paired with a good partner and we were given a relatively simple scenario to talk through. It was super stressful, though. But it’s over now, and I can be thankful for that.

After class, I signed up for some events coming up in the next few weeks (one involves making traditional Japanese sweets, so I’m hoping that’s fun), then tagged along with some people going to lunch.

After lunch, the others had plans to go watch a movie. I walked with them to the theater, not really intending to actually go in with them, but I changed my mind and joined anyway. So I ended up watching the new Doctor Strange movie with Japanese subtitles (that I could read a surprising amount of) at the movie theater with Godzilla peaking out the top. Kinda cool.

By the time we got out of the movie, it was already 6pm. By the time I got back to the dorm it was practically 7. So I went to pick up food at the supermarket before taking care of homework again. The joys of being a student.

But on a fun note, I did get to see a toad tonight! It’s always a good day when I see a toad!

[cecisinjapan]

May 8, 2022

As I mentioned before, the midterm exam is coming up, so I need to get serious about studying. Honestly, though, I’m still not sure how to go about studying effectively. Thankfully, the grammar so far is 90% stuff I already know, but I’m struggling with vocab. How that’s become my weak point, I’m not sure, but I spent around six hours today working on my vocab.

Then I took a nap. Sleep is when the brain solidifies connections between information, so I say that was a key step to my studying for the day.

But unfortunately that means that was literally my entire day. It was dinner and relax time after that.

I decided to treat myself to an anime that has been recommended to me a couple times: SpyxFamily. And I have to say, there’s a good reason it’s been recommended to me. It’s so cute. TOO CUTE. Although I do feel a little attacked that they chose 27 to be the age where it was suspicious for a woman to still be unmarried. I’m 27 for only a few more weeks… Is it really that weird? But now that I’ve binged all the currently available episodes (it’s a current release), it’s now past 9pm, so it’s time to really start winding down for the night.

According to Google, the barley tea I’ve gotten addicted to might be beneficial for good sleep, so I’m gonna chug some of that and head off to bed. Today is my first day in Japan where I didn’t do much walking, but I’m still exhausted. Lately, I’ve been hitting 14-18k steps daily. Today, I barely surpassed 1k. But my body probably needed the break, so I’ll take it. Nobody can be on all the time.

[cecisinjapan]

May 7, 2022

Culture class day!

In the morning, we learned about tea ceremony. That was super interesting, but we didn’t get to truly participate in tea ceremony because of COVID restrictions. We sat around and went through the motions, but didn’t get to eat or drink. Thankfully, we were sent away with snacks.

Then we spent the afternoon at the Edo-Tokyo Open-Air Architectural Museum. Apparently this is a place that heavily inspired some of the locations in Spirited Away, and the mascot for the place was even created by Hayao Miyazaki. It was super neat.

It was so cool be allowed to enter all these historical buildings and see what they were really like. Unfortunately, I was tired and dehydrated, so I didn’t enjoy it to the fullest I could. Still so cool, though.

Afterwards, the school staff got us back to the station, but as a group, we students decided not to go back right away. Instead, we were curious about the Mega Don Quijote by the station. It really was big. And it even sold bicycles. And one of the guys found where they were also selling slot machines? It was wild and a little overstimulating.

I’m definitely glad I signed up for these culture classes. I would never have gone that far out on my own, so it’s super helpful that someone else is calling the shots. I’m super excited for the next class. That one is the day-trip to Kamakura, but it’s in two weeks. Before that, we have our midterm exam, so I’ll have to focus a bit more intensely on studying for the next little while.

[cecisinjapan]

May 6, 2022

Awkward single day of class between three days of holidays and the weekend. Why? Who knows.

We also had a test. I think I did alright, but I think I forgot some words, so it will be interesting to see what my grade turns out to be.

Following class, I went home and did laundry—you know, the boring life stuff that just has to happen.

Since the people organizing karaoke are in the afternoon class, once my laundry was clean, I headed back towards Shinjuku so I could be in the area whenever they finished up with class and finalized where we were going.

Of course, while wandering Shinjuku, I went into a few stores. I started in IKEA since it always amazes me that there’s just an IKEA in the middle of the city like that. I’m used to them being off on their own, where they can have space. Obviously, the IKEAs here are smaller than they are in the US, but there’s still so much to see. There’s even IKEA sweatshirts and stuff. I’m tempted to buy some IKEA merch just because I find it funny. This time I didn’t get anything, though.

Then I went to Muji. I went to the same one I visited before. I think there’s another one around the corner or something, but I forgot to check that one out.

Then I realized I needed some things from the 100円 store. I should branch out and find a different one one of these days, but today I went back to one I visited before. While there, I got the text update one what our plan was.

So I made my way over to karaoke. And of course it was just inside Kabukicho. I honestly don’t know how I keep ending up there. But the karaoke place was nice. I honestly really like doing karaoke. I’m no good, but I really like singing.

[cecisinjapan]

May 5, 2022

Last day off for Golden Week (yes, we have class tomorrow, just like Monday—lovely bookends for a string of holidays, right?). Tomorrow, Golden Week homework is due, plus we have a grammar test.

So, for the morning, I stayed in and took care of homework. I told myself that if I finished before noon, I could reward myself by doing some exploring.

Thankfully, I finished up around 11, so I figured I could treat myself to a visit to Yoyogi Park, since I missed out on it before.

From where I live, Harajuku Station is the best way to get there, but instead I opted to get of at Shibuya instead. Mostly to grab a photo of Hachiko before I wandered over to the park. What a good dog.

Along the way to the park, I picked up a snack to sit and enjoy there. I was not the only person with the idea to picnic in the park today. The place was crazy busy. Almost every open space in the grass and under the trees was filled with people out enjoying themselves. But there was still a sense of quietness and moments where things weren’t so busy. One of those moments was on the walkway between the walkway from Shibuya to the park.

Near where I found a place to sit an eat for a moment, there was a huge group of Japanese crows being silly. Some of them were bathing in the pond, but others were chasing each other around all over the place. Even they were enjoying the nice weather, I think.

I strolled through the park for a bit before I made my way to the Harajuku exit. I let myself wander Harajuku for a bit, but got a bit overwhelmed by the crowds, so I ended up heading back to the dorm. I had more studying to do, anyway.

After a bit of studying, I ended up wandering over to Muji for some study supplies. Let me tell you, I am addicted to that place. And this time, I checked out their food section. I ended up getting a 40 pack of barley tea bags because I’m weird and like barley tea. And for the price of two 1.5 liter bottles of the pre-made stuff, I can make 40 liters myself. Score.

With my new study supplies, I returned to the dorm for even more studying. I’m really not good at this whole studying thing, but I’m really trying.

Eventually, I did get bored of studying and paused.

I heard we might be going out for karaoke tomorrow, and I have a reputation for knowing the lyrics to Japanese songs to uphold, so I spent some time this evening memorizing some lyrics (honestly I knew most of the lyrics to this particular song, but I was missing just enough that I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying I know it). Hopefully, I get to actually use it tomorrow. Plus, to a certain extent, studying Japanese lyrics is still me studying the language, so maybe it’s helping me overall? Who knows.

Hopefully I can report a successful evening of karaoke tomorrow!

[cecisinjapan]

May 4, 2022

The friends who I visited Akihabara with made plans to visit Asakusa today. Since I didn’t feel like I got enough time there during the culture class visit, I decided to tag along.

Unfortunately, they decided they wanted to start in the afternoon, instead of the morning, so I was left with a lot of undefined time on my hands.

I ended up walking to the local drugstore to see if they had anything to prevent corns on my feet. All this walking is doing a number on me. But unfortunately, they only had corn removal junk, and not any prevention… That’s not super helpful.

But I’m still glad I wandered over there. On the walk, I got to snap a picture of a butterfly mid-flight. That was cool.

I finally got fed up waiting for the guys around noon (they settled on a 3pm start time???) so I went over to Asakusa early to wander along the Sumida River a bit. It really is a lovely area. I wish I lived close enough to run along the river. It would almost feel like home.

From the river, I got a view that made me realize I honestly cannot comprehend just how tall SkyTree is.

I honestly don’t know how long I just wandered around, enjoying the peace of strolling alone, but eventually I did meet up with the others.

Unfortunately, the first hour or so of our adventure was less enjoyable than it should have been. Of the five people who were supposed to show up, only three of us did. And we heard absolutely nothing from the others. Eventually we got ahold of one of them, who told us that the other one was supposed to pass along the message that he wasn’t coming. The message had not been received. Oh well.

I got to see Sensouji temple again. This time, I was there with enough time to actually buy an お守り (one of the protective charm things they sell at temples). Unfortunately, I will have to carry it inside my bag most of the time since the back has the Buddhist swastika on it and I don’t want any misunderstandings. But it does make me reflect on just how messed up it is that a symbol of peace got co-opted by such horrible people.

After I bought that and the guys got a snack of takoyaki, we were a bit lost for what to do. The one with all the plans was one of the no-shows. So we shrugged our shoulders a bit and tried to come up with something.

The most obvious choice was to wander over towards SkyTree to see what SkyTree Town has to offer. Honestly, I was a little scared looking up at SkyTree from so close.

It’s Golden Week, so of course the place was packed. We tried to visit the Pokemon Center there, but the crowds were so intense that we would have needed to make an appointment to come back in two hours, and the guys didn’t want to wait.

That seemed to be the pattern throughout SkyTree Town. I got to see a cafe dedicated to one of my favorite manga artists, Tanemura Arina, but since the guys didn’t know anything about her, I didn’t want to force them to go in. I totally was not expecting to see that, so it was super exciting.

But, again we didn’t have the person with all the plans, so we were at a loss. So we hopped on the train to head back. While I did have fun, I also wonder what else we would’ve done had we had a plan.

I think I would like to actually go up SkyTree sometime, but I’ll need to figure out a time when there shouldn’t be too many crowds to compete with, just like I’ll need to do for Tokyo Tower.