Week 13 in Japan: Raw Horse, Mochitsuki, Girls High School, Church

       Hello, sorry I'm a little late with this post but with it being the Christmas time of year (I'm actually writing this on Chrismtas morning) you are probably too busy to read it now anyways. Anytime is alright :). Now after reading the title I'm sure your excited about this blog. Who wouldn't be, I think there is something for everybody.
      First off on Tuesday I went to the same restraunt I went to last week called Oden with some of the same friends and some new ones. My two Korean friends know the owner some how (maybe just frequent there) and it seems we get things for a discount but I'm not sure. Anyways we ate a variety of things including raw ocotopus, whale, and horse. I was surprised when they said it was horse and I had to confirm a few times, partially because the word horse I don't use often and thought I must be mistaken with its meaning. I didn't hesitate to eat it and it turns out raw horse is delicious. I told a vegetarian girl from Israel and some others about it the next day in class and joked that next I need to eat a dog and cat next.
      Friday my class got done an hour early because there was an event called Mochitsuki going on in the cafeteria on campus and international students in particular were encouraged to go. Mochitsuki is a traditional Japanese event where you make a food called Mochi. Mochi is basically rice that is pounded into a paste. It takes on a different taste than regular rice and it's more of a treat than just rice. People who came got to help with making the mochi which included smashing rice with a big wooden hammer. I got to eat mochi with bean paste in it, some mochi with some seasonings, and then some mochi that was put in soup. It was a fun event that was completely free too.
      On Saturday I went to a Girls High School here in Akita for my Japanese Culture class. At the school there were 6 girls who were part of a traditional Japanese dance and singing club and they performed for our class. After they were finished we were able to try the instruments and some people learned a dance too. Then they had a time where we all sat and we could ask them questions and they also asked us some questions so it was fun to hear things from Japanese students.
      Sunday I went to church for the first time here in Japan. There was a candlelight Christmas service that somebody invited me to go to so I did. The church is about a 10 or 15 minute train ride away but still in Akita City. The church was actually much bigger than I had expected and I would guess there were about 300 people at the service. Since it was a Christmas service there were a lot of various performances mainly all being singing, dancing, or playing an instrument. One thing I liked was that they had people of all ages perform so from around 4 years old to senior citizens everybody in the church seems like they have a chance to do a performance if they want to. The service was as expected all in Japanese so most of it I did not understand. It was hard to understand because the type of Japanese the pastor was using more polite and I haven't studied that too much yet. Also because he was talking about Bible stuff which can be hard to understand even in English.
      Like you guys I got busy during this Christmas season so I'm posting this blog late, maybe I'll be on track next week. Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures!

 Here is a picture from the Oden restraunt. In the picture is a friend of mine Linda from Cambodia adding the finishing touches on some of the food. She has a super happy and kind personality.

 After the mochi is nice and pasty you can eat it. But usually you add something to it so the taste isn't quite so bland. 

 A friend sent me this picture of the Mochi creating event that they saw in newspaper because I'm in the background. This picture is the stage of smashing it with a wooden hammer.

 I took a picture with a few of the girls who performed at the High School. The girls in blue were dancing and did a little singing. The girl in pink mainly just sang I think.

 Here's a picture during one of the songs. The singing is a lot of times really high picthed and really pretty. The guitar is called a Shamisen and is a traditional Japanese instruement. In the last decade or so the Shamisen has been used in contemporary music too. If you want to hear the Shamisen in action I recommend the Yoshida Brothers. Really cool music.

 There was a Hawaiin style dance that was performed too. The final queen of Hawaii was a Christian and I think they were dancing to a song she wrote before she died. Lots of the songs sang were in English because there were a lot of Christmas songs sang. Also there was the Disney song "When You Wish Upon a Star" played by a group playing the bells. I don't think it is really a Christmas song but I enjoyed it.

Week 12 in Japan: Snow, Sitting on the floor, Work dinner

Week 12 finally brought real winter to Akita but I don't mind :). It snows everyday but the weather is still hovering around 0 degrees so lots of it melts too. This makes it really icy and slushy but there it snows so much that even though some melts it won't be going away now. On Tuesday I went to an Oden restraunt with some friends for a birthday party, lots of fun. Oden is a Japanese dish that is known best to be eaten in the winter but I think is eaten all year round. There is basically a big warm plate/stew and you pick different things from it and make your own dish. Things like eggs, tofu, eggs, radishes, fish cakes and much more to choose from. One thing I've learned since I've been in Japan is that if Tofu is made right it is actually not so bad. Besides the Oden we had kimuchi and sashimi. Some Korean foods because it was a birthday party for two Korean friends who have a birthday on the same day. After a couple hours eating and chatting there we went to the International dormitory where some of my friends live and hung out. The style of the lounge rooms in Japan are maybe different from what you would expect. It is a tatami mat style floor. Tatami is like a soft wood flooring kind of hard to explain but you can google it. So you have to take your shoes off and you sit of the floor and there is a table that is low to the ground. If you come to Japan it is best to be good at sitting on the ground for long periods of time. My back gets sore or my feet but the asian people I know can sit cross-legged with a straight back for looong periods of time. Really good posture. Because I was out so late I skipped class Wednesday morning :/. My Wednesday morning class is at 8:50 so it was just too early for me to want to go. Plus it was a Kanji class so it can be really boring. Thursday I went to a place called Murasaki as a work party. In Japan employees are usually good friends with their bosses and often see eachother outside of or after work. My boss is really young and cool and speaks the best English of any Japanese person I know. He's an Englsih professor at the University and is in charge of the English learning center where I work. Again Thursday night the dinner was from 8pm to almost midnight and we sat on the floor the whole time. When I say dinner I mean Nomihodai which as I said previously is a drink buffet. We ate some food but because of the time it was at you were not supposed to come super hungry. Sunday there was an event at the University where international students made posters and Japanese could come and learn about differnent countries and talk to people from those countries. So some people came and checked it out and I talked to them about the USA (in Japanese). I've been really busy so I've been falling behind on my homework and studying a lot less. The flip side to this is that I'm not studying because I'm going out with friends and during that time I'm speaking Japanese so it is kind like studying. The problem is that even if my conversation and listening gets better, I still need to sit down and learn certain grammar and study vocab. I find it hard to believe that people can learn gramatically complex language by simply being "immersed in the language" unfortunately I think you still need to study. Now for the pictures. Thanks for reading!

 Here is a picture I found on Facebook from the museum we went to in class last week. I'm actually in the picture too. The thing with the samurais is a float for a massive parade. Pretty awesome.

 This is a picture from Thursday night when we went to Murasaki. person in the middle is Alina from Romania. She said she wanted a picture of the food we were cooking so I said I'd take a picture, guess she didn't want to be in it. The one on the left is Hikaru (Japanese) who is kind of like my tutor and helps me out (especially when I first got to Japan when I was getting my bank account etc setup). On the right is Kana (Japanese) who I work with on Tuesday night for the English conversation night.

 Several different students from different countries made posters with things about their country on them. We then introduced our county to people who visited. Here Hakusetuhi from China and I.

 We went out to lunch on Sunday during the international event I mentioned. We did a "selfie" style picture that the guy in the back left took. His name is Ginwook and he is from Korea. We had him take it because apparently Koreans are masters at selfies. There was a ledge on the wall so I said we should do a timed-capture picture too. It's pretty good but I don't think 10 seconds was quite enough. Also I'll mention that we sat on the floor here too. Real seats are too mainstream.

Week 11 in Japan: Shrine, Shopping, Karaoke

This last week was pretty great. I'm going to give a brief overview of what I did and then post pictures and have more of the content relating to the pictures I post. Monday I went to a mall called Donkihote for the first time with my Romanian friend Alina. One thing I bought was a cool "My Neigbor Totoro" towel. Totoro is a Studio Ghibli movie which has all kinds of very famous animated movies (even fairly famous in the United States) like Spirited Away and Ponyo. I actually haven't seen My Neighbor Totoro yet but it was cute so I bought it. Tuesday Richenmin, Ryouen, and I had a little party and played cards. More people were supposed to come but they didn't so it was just us 3. It was fun and I learned a Chinese card game.. well I have no idea if it is really Chinese in origin but Chinese people taught me it so it is Chinese to me. Wednesday was really great weather (I think it was in the 50s and sunny.. in December) so after class Teppei who is from Hokaido, Japan (Hokaido is the northern island of Japan), Yunseok from Korea, Karen from Taiwan, and I went to a shrine that was only about a beautiful 15 minute walk from the University. of course people go to shrines for religious reasons but from what I can tell they are also kind of like parks (a lot of times I think shrines are in parks too). Very pretty and a great place for a little walk. We all did Omikuji which is like a really detailed fortune cookie. The ones we chose were 200 yen or like 2 dollars. You get a detailed fortune that can vary from bad to good and also cause of the ones we chose we got a little cat too. I ended up getting "daikichi" or the best luck possible. I was very happy about that. Wednesday night I fixed Richenmin's computer. It was getting the blue screen of death if she went on the web. It took me a little while but I ended up getting it fixed. It was actually a nice nostalgic feeling fixing somebodies computer. Thursday I went to a Museum in Akita City that was all about the different festivals in Akita Prefecture. Friday I went and had Ramen with Kaori and Sasha followed by karaoke with some other people as well. Saturday I went to Donkihote again and ended up seeing a couple of my friends Balgeum and Yunseok there. They are from Korea and are pretty awesome. We were already planning on hanging out that night but since we met then we just hungout from then on. We eventually met some other people as was planned and then went and did Purikura which is like a photo booth and I think I already explained previously. After that we went to an "Izakaya" or bar to have dinner. It was really fun because we had a private room rented out for the night. The main dish was "Nabemono" or usually just called "Nabe". Nabemono means pot with things in it which is basically what it is. It is like a soup. They give you a pot and there is already a gas cooker on your table so you just turn on the gas cooker and put the pot on. To put it very simply there was beef and vegetables in the pot. It was delicious. During the dinner we had Nomihodai (a buffet for drinking) for 1 and a half hours. One thing that makes Nomihodais fun is that you can try drinks that you might not otherwise be willing to. Since you are just paying once and get unlimited drinks you can try different things. I liked the Umeshu, which is a Japanese wine. After eating we went and sang karaoke. We ended up singing karaoke from midnight to 5 in the morning! Renting the karaoke room for the night (until 5am) with free drinks was only 700 yen (about 7 dollars) each with a total of 5 people. That was a basic outline of my week. Now I'll have some pictures and maybe elaborate a little bit.

 The entrance to the Shrine area. 

 Here is the shrine itself. What is common for people to do is throw some change into an area right behind those ropes and then they ring a bell by shaking one of those ropes. Then they clap twice and pray for a few seconds. I've been to two shrines in Japan (well I guess ever) and they really don't seem too popular. Like I said it was very nice on the day we went and yet almost nobody came while we were there.

 Here is a picture of my Omikuji. I hope it's not bad luck to show you haha. There are a bunch of different colors of cats and they have different meaning based on their color and what paw is up and other things too I think. I got green but the other three got white. I think even though they all got white based on the details of the cat I think their fortunes were slightly different. I was able to decipher a little bit of what my fortune says but I had Teppei translate it the best he could. Later in the week I showed it to another Japanese friend Marina who speaks good English and she read me the fortune too.

 Here a picture fromt the Purikura. It was a little tricky with 6 people but 6 is not too uncommon or bad to do. A friend of mine said that he once did Purikura with 20 people and they got everybodies faces in the picture. This time the Purikura was 400 yen so we played Junkenpo which is a game similar to rock paper scissors to see who out of the 6 of us had to pay 100 yen. A 100 yen coin is similar to a dollar bill in America accept it is more popular, therefore that was the easiest way to split up the cost. I won so I didn't have to pay. Also we each got a little strip of the pictures. There were six of us so we all got a really narrow strip with all six pictures on but very tiny. I took two pictures and then cropped them together.

 Here is a picture of us at dinner. It was actually Balgeum's Birthday and that was why we were hanging out together. Balgeum is from Korea and she is the one on the far left. Behind her is Teppei, he's from Hokaido Japan (Hokaido is the northern island of Japan). The guy behind Teppei is Sebastian from Romania. Next is Karen from Tawain. Next to me is Yunseok, she is from Korea.

 Here is another picture of us all. We asked our waitress take the pictures. Karen has a new Polaroid camera and I took a picture of the picture it printed for this and the previous picture. It was so nostalgic and fun getting the pictures right away. Shake it like a polaroid! We actually at first just took one picture which is the other one above where I listed everybodies names. Everbody loved it so much that Karen generously offered to give us each one. I say generously because the polaroid film is not cheap. Although it is a new polaroid camera there is no digital copy so it was going to have to be another 5 different pictures. We asked the waitress to take 5 more pictures. We did a little bit different poses in each one (people moved spots too because there is a little time while the picture is printing) so we played Junkenpo to see what order we could choose the pictures in. Junkenpo is a super common in Japan for these situations.

Week 10 in Japan: New foods and parties.

        This was another fun week in Japan. On Thursday I spontaneously decided to have a Thanksgiving party in my room. I saw a friend on my way to class and invited and said "Happy Thanksgiving" and I then decided it would be fun to have some people over and celebrate a holiday that almost nobody I've talked to here has even heard of. I only had a few hours before the party so I only invited a few people and of course even less were actually able to come. It ended up being a friend named Ouki, Richenmin, Hakusetsuhi, and Ryouen who came. All four of my friends who came are actually from China and can all cook better than me but I did my best. I made Yakisoba which in this case was noodles (soba noodles), vegetables, and pork all fried together (yaki means fried). We also had snacks and other stuff too. I like making plans with people on the spot, it kinda throws people off.

        The weekend was pretty busy for me (in a good way). On Friday I went to karaoke which was a really great time. As I mentioned in a previous blog at this particular karaoke place you get free drinks other than alcoholic ones. I tried a drink that I now have been told is fairly common/popular in Japan. It was essentially corn soup, but you drink it like you would a coffee. I was really surprised by this. To me it is strange to have an option between things like variuos sodas like coke and fantia, and various warm or cold teas and coffees, and then you have an option of choosing corn soup. I can't say it was bad because it tasted fine (as far as corn soup goes) but when I'm in the mood for a beverage to drink I wouldn't choose it again... because it is soup. I now see that this drink is in vending machines fairly often too. On Saturday I went to a chain pawn shop called Hard-off. It is a pawn shop but it had more of a thrift store feeling to it because they are not trying to rob you at least as far as the prices go for buying and I can tell they don't research and try to get every penny (or yen) out of everything they put out which for me makes it way more fun to look around. I ended up meeting my friend Fancy there who was in a previous blog so I stayed for longer than planned because we looked at stuff together. In the end I bought a Super Nintendo and 3 games for it. The Super Nintendo was about 3 dollars. 315 yen. Can't really say much other than my mind was blown. Also the games I bought were Dragon Quest 5 & 6 and also Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Time. The games were cheap too. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was about 1 dollar. Saturday night I went to a "house party". My friend Kaori's parents who I had met and had dinner with once already invited us to come and have a party there with them. The people there was me and other friends of Kaori's and then her parents and a few of there friends. One guy who came owns a ramen/sushi restraunt. He made some really great sushi and we watched him make it too. He was a pro. There was a lot of other great food too including Kiritanpo. It was funny when they first brought out the dish with kiritampo they asked us what we thought it was and I guessed it right. The stars aligned for me at that time and I think I made a good first impression to a few people at that time. I actually had never had Kiritanpo before but I knew about it because I like food a lot haha. Kiritanpo is actually a dish that Akita Prefecture is known for. If you look into Japanese food you will notice that each Prefecture and also individual cities are known for certain foods. For example I've heard that yakiniku is best in Aomori Prefecture, Okonomiyaki is from Osaka, Yokote is known for their unique Yakisoba etc etc etc. Kiritanpo description "Freshly cooked rice is pounded until somewhat mashed, then formed into cylinders around Japanese cedar skewers, and toasted over an open hearth." -Wikipedia. It was really great! The party was really fun! In particular I liked talking to the adults. Sometimes I feel like I'm sapping all their knowledge and wisdom. We also played Uno later that night when the parents' friends had left so it wasn't so many people. I think still 8 people though. Anyways we only played one game cause it took a while but I actually won. I won pretty fast and then the rest finished over about 20 more mins. I'm only putting the uno thing in the blog cause I won. :) . We stayed over night at the house too. It is a kind of traiditional house so we slept on futons on a tatami mat floor. Actually very comfortable. The next day we went to AEON, went to the park and also ate Okonomiyaki. I actually met some friends by chance on Saturday on my way back from buying the Super Nintendo. At that time I was hungry and they were litterally just 30 seconds away from a shop they were going to. So at that time I had Okinomiyaki for the first time and the next day I had it for the second time ever. It is one of my favorite Japanese foods so far! I'm not going to go into the details of the food but it is prettty amazing.

       Well I'm done writing for this week. I almost never proofread or correct what I write here and I hope there are not too many mistakes in general when you are reading. I'm saying that now because I'm still not going to generally re read or correct my blogs before posting them but tonight I'm really tired and I know there are probably a number of mistakes. Oh well. Now for the best part; pictures.

 I don't know if I said this earlier in the blog but I just want to mention that I ate an insane amount of food. It was so good. Anyways heres the guy making sushi. At the moment I think he is actually making a seaweed wrap with natto inside. I wish his face was in the picture. But for most of the pictures you can assume I didn't take them.

 I wish we would have taken a picture with everybody together but this is still pretty good and displays the young people of the party. On the far left is Kaori's older brother who is handicapped. Then there is Kaoris older sister Sachiko, Timuleen from Mongolia, Sasha from Russia, Kaori, Me, and Kano.

 Here is a picture of me, Kano, and Kaori's dad. He's a cool guy.

 Later on that night we played SNES (not mine, they had one at their house that they had just found they still had). Timuleen from Mongolia was kind of just posing for the picture (trolling). Me and Sachiko were actually the ones dominating Super Mario World. We really were not very good but better than everybody else (or at least the will to keep trying) so everyone was saying we were game "Otakus" or game nerds. Apparently even in Japan nobody likes those people. At first I tried to resist the title of Otaku but then I decided to wear it like a badge. Ended up getting to know better because of our gamer status so that was really fun. Played til 4am (but didn't start til late).

 Here is the only picture I have fromt he park. My phone died basically immediately after this. It was a really pretty park. The people in the picture are my friends. duh

 Okonomiyaki on Sunday night. Really delicious. Google is your friend on this one. Protip: Google is always your friend.

Bonus Picture 

 I found a car on Wednesday night with anime characters all over it. I laughed and then said I needed a picture with it. I've been in Japan for a little while now so my poses are getting better. There is actually a specific word for this type of car. I said that would be awesome/hilarious to have/dive. Friends think I be crazy.

Week 9 in Japan: Class trip to Iwate Prefecture

       Week 9 has was here and now gone in Japan. It's hard to believe it is already almost December but at the same time when I look at what I've done in the last two months I can see that it has been full of a lot of great experiences. This week I went on a class trip to Iwate prefecture for "Multicultural Communication Training". Just over 30 students from Akita University went. I left for this class trip on Saturday at 7am and got back Sunday night. The drive took about 3 hours each way but it included some really great scenery, I had friends to talk to and also the bus was nice so it wasn't so bad. We stayed at the "National Iwatesan Youth Friendship Center" along with students from Hirosaki University and Iwate University. Over the two days there were various events that we did all together but usually we split into small groups. One of the things that was a big deal for me was that Marina(from last weeks blog) and I gave a presentation on Akita University to everybody at the camp (over 100 students). We had prepared a power point presentation over the previous weeks with information about Akita Unversity. We basically both would say the same thing but I would say it in English for people at the camp who didn't understand Japanese. Just a couple minutes before we went up to do the presentation I talked to Marina and told her we should do something to make the crowd happy and laugh right from the start of the presentation. Making your audience laugh will make them more comfortable and interested, plus it will make you more relaxed which will make the whole thing turn out better. I told her we could start with me saying my name and hello in Japanese (Konnichiwa) and her saying hello in English. After saying "hello" I had the idea for us to simutaniously wink and put one arm out with the peace sign. I was surpised and happy that she decided to go along with my idea. To my relief and surprise the crowd clapped, cheered, and laughed! From there everything was smooth sailing. The food at the camp was good Japanese style food and it was also a buffet too so I enjoyed that a lot. The camp was located in a great location so my only real complaint for the trip is that there were no activities outside. I would have loved to go for a hike or spend more time enjoying the view of the mountain while I was there.

       I'm going to keep this weeks blog short and sweet. As always thanks for reading! Please come back next week for my next blog and feel free to leave me a comment below.

 I might look kinda tired because Friday night I slept about an hour and Saturday night I got about 4 hours. All things considered though I still felt pretty great. This was Sunday.

 Here is a picture I found on a friends Facebook. This was on Sunday just before we left. Look carefully and you will see that I'm in the picture.

 Here is a picutre of just the group of students from Akita University. I actually notice now when looking at it that it is not everybody from our class though. Also we took a picture with everybody from the camp together but I don't know how I'm supposed to find it. I'll probably have it for next weeks blog though.

 On Friday I went again to teach in Yurihonjo to a class of pre-schoolers. They surprised me with some pictures they had taken of me from the first time I taught there. It actually really was a surprise because I didn't even know they took pictures of me to begin with. Again I don't have access to a scanner at the moment so you are left with photos of photos. Inception.

 Playing a game to learn Englsih. These kids are all so unique and smart. I haven't been around them much but I could already tell you a little about each kid.

Week 8 in Japan: Jazz club and Purikura プリクラ

        My eighth week in Japan, coming your way now. As you may or may not have noticed my last blog was like three days late so I'll start off telling you about Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and why they I was too busy to blog.
        First off this past week was very busy with homework and studying. We had a day off a week ago because a professor took a day off so to make up for it and to get ready for midterms there has been a lot to do. Other than that on Monday I went to jazz club for the first time. I used to play bass a decent amount especially through high school but stopped playing competely in college and the summer after. The club went from 7-9 but it's pretty laid back so people come and go as they want and need to. We had a drummer, piano player, trombone, saxaphone, guitar, and me on bass. The first song was pretty rough because I had kind of forgotten how to read sheet music so I got lost a lot while we played. The next couple songs were better though. One song you might know that we played was "Georgia On My Mind".
        Tuesday I met with Ryouen (featured in previous blogs) to do an interview for a good friend of hers in China. It was some project that needed an outsiders opinion on a couple questions. The questions were first off: "How do you find success?" second: "What kind of success will you pursue?" then a few others like "What's are the advantages of the U.S. education system" and "What's the shortcomings of the American education system?" the shortcomings were easier to name. I made up answers on the spot so I can't remember what I said now but just think of the smartest thing possible and that's probably not what I said at all.
     Wednesday my friend Kaori and I met to help her with her English. We went to a "burger" place thats name translates to "Surprised Donkey". I put burger in quotations because in Japan it is called a burger place but to my surprise there are no actual hamburgers being sold. Just burger itself with rice, curry, or cheese or something. It was tasty but much different from American style burgers. Don't get me wrong though they have McDonalds here in Japan so you can still get your burger fix if need be.
     Next I'm going to skip all the way to Sunday which was the best day of the week for me. At noon I met with my friend Marina who I know from my part time job and a class we have together. First we had lunch at a really good Italian restaurant called Nove. It was really delicious, very tasty, and yummy. Next we went to a the biggest mall in Akita called AEON to do some shopping. The main thing we were looking for was a winter jacket for me. The thing is having talked to Marina in the past I knew she liked to shop and she has cool style so I asked her to help me pick out a new jacket. At first we were not finding much because I didn't really know where to start or what I wanted other than something warm that covered the top half of my body. However since I truly wanted her help and advice I told her we could pretend like I was a rich or famous person (both is good too) and she was my fashion coach who needed to buy clothes for me or at least help guide me because I have no real fashion sense (the last part is true). From there things went better at least in my eyes. We looked at lots of different jackets. I ended up getting one I really liked I'll probably be wearing it in future pictures so keep your eyes open, not shut.
      While at the mall we also decided to do Purikura. I had never done it before but I had heard about it. Basically it's like a photo booth that we have in the United States accept better in every way. Purikura is taken with a really nice camera so the pictures turn out really nice and then afterwards you can edit them. The biggest difference about Purikura is that it will automatically make some changes that are supposed to make you look better. The two things that are most noticable to me are that your eyes are bigger and your skin is more pale. It was 200 yen (total, not per person) to do one session and I guess it's normally 400 yen but it was a special deal for some reason on that particular day. So you go in take six pictures and then edit them afterwards. The editing process is a little annoying because there are tons of options but you have to make decisions really fast because there is a countdown timer. I made the mistake of choosing a bunch of small pictures with the same pics on the photo slab twice each. Oh well. Lastly It's worth mentioning that at the end you have an option that I think is very popular and that is to send the pictures digitially to a phone address. It doesn't cost anything extra and you still get the physical copy. The problem was neither of us had a phone address that they allowed so we just got the physical copies. Somehow only having the physical copy feels less real to me in some ways. I'll maybe scan the picture later to get better quality but for now I have pictures that I took with my Nexus 4 of the picture. If you go to Japan I highly reccommend trying Purikura, I was kind of reluctant at first to do it but somehow it ended up being extremely fun for me haha. The experience alone really was worth the money.
      This was a long blog post so if you made it this far thanks for reading and please check back again next week. Here are some pictures that I took:

 I went running on Thursday and Sunday at 6:30am. Crazyness for me to wake up that early but it's pretty great to see the sunrise. My friend Richenmin and I run from the apartment to the park. I feel like sunrises are special and worth waking up for... on occasion.

 A grocery store that I normally don't shop at has a giant bean stock leading to a castle in the sky. I'm a fan of Jack and the Bean Stock.

 Here are the pictures. The whole thing from taking photos to having them in your hands I think takes around 10 minutes. The dollar is for scale and cuz merica'.

 Part of what makes this fun is that it happens pretty fast so you kind of improvise as you go. The one on the left here is my favorite. I asked what a good pose was and that's what she came up with. Gonna use it all the time now o(≧▽≦)o

Week 7 in Japan:NoTimeoSay'Hello','Goodbye'. Also billards, nomihodai, and shopping.

      Hello everybody and welcome to week 7 of my blog. I'm late this week and for that I am sorry. This week has been really busy and some unexpected events have popped up (all good ones I assure you). I just got back from a morning run with my friend. We went out and ran at 6:30am, as you can probably guess I didn't schedule it for that time as I'm not usually a super early riser. We ran to the nearby park and got a great view of the sunrise so it was pretty awesome.
      One thing that happened during the week was after class on Thursday the 7th me and a couple friend went and played billards. It was me, two Romanians, a Russian, and an Indian. I had not played in a very long time but it was fun. It was about 525 yen or about 5 dollars to rent a table for an hour so it was pretty reasonable. The problem is that we stayed for I think 4 hours and were renting 2 tables so it was a little expensive. We played 8 ball, 9 ball, and cutthroat. I was definitely best at cutthroat.
      On Friday me and a couple Chinese friends of mine Ryouen (previously featured on my blog) and Fancy. Fancy is apparently her English name and I'm the only one who calls her that but I think it's a good name and It's an alternative to her Chinese name which I can't pronounce. We had a delicious sushi dinner where we had all the raw fish, veggies, rice, etc on the table and then we would take our own seaweed wrap or "nori" and make our sushi however we wanted. This was actually my first time having sushi in Japan. I've eaten a lot of raw fish but it has all been sashimi which is fish alone rather than with seaweed/veggies/rice. It was really delicious and I would post a picture but I don't have one. I think everyone took a picture of the meal prior to consuming except for me. Maybe somebody can send me their copy and I'll post it in the next blog. After the dinner Friday we went late to a late Halloween party.
      On Saturday I helped a friend write a report. We have the same class and the mid term report had to be in English so I helped out. In return she made me lunch so it was a pretty good trade off in my eyes. After that I had a different friend who wanted to go for a walk in the park. You should know by now I never turn down a walk in the park. Following that I went out with some friends to a bar in town. My friend is basically a pro snowboarder so we went to a bar where the owner was her snowboarding coach so we got some free food. Besides the food we got Nomihodai which is where you pay a set amount and you get free drinks for the next 2 or 3 hours or whatever is decided. It was 3,000 yen for 3 hours so at about 10 dollars an hour for drinks it really is cost effective if you plan on getting more than like 4 drinks.. cuz math and stuff. Nomihodai is very popular in Japan and is basically a buffet of drinking. I haven't really heard about this in the U.S. (but then again why would have I?) but I think maybe it would be a bad a idea for most bars in America. From the little experience I've had with it and from what I've heard Japanese people are responsible with how much they drink, even when everything is free.
      Sunday November 10th I went out with some friends and went shopping in Akita. Although we went shopping only one of us actually bought clothes. I haven't went shopping with friends many times but I don't think it is the best for me. Although I definitely enjoy it I don't think I will usually buy anything. I think I take after my dad a little bit in the sense that I take a long to make decisions sometimes. I'll have to see every option and weigh the pros and cons before making a decision. Also I don't like trying on clothes but since I'm in Japan I kind of have to since I don't know the sizing here yet so shopping would take even longer. I did buy ice cream though.. mmhhmm it was yummy. After shopping we went to my friend Kaori's house (who was also shopping with us) and had dinner with her parents. Her mom made some delicious curry so I'd called it a successful night.
      This was my week up til Sunday night. I was late on the blog because some things came up Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night but you'll have to tune in next week to hear about them. So rather than posting a week from now I'll try and post again on time at the end of the week, so maybe in like 4 days.

 The house we ate in was really cool. Really classic Japanese style.

 The pool place was really cool. It was called Big Shot and the best player in Akita plays at this place. I actually saw the guy briefly that night too. So I'm basically best friends with the best pool player in the world.. or something.

 Saw Ronald and had to get a picture. The kid in the picture was in the gaming zone. I wanted to take the picture with him in it too so I was trying to get his attention to look at the camera but he had the concentration of a brain surgeon. I then looked over his shoulder and saw he was playing Monster Hunter 4 and understood why. I think it turned out better this way anyways.

 At the ice cream place in Aeon with my snowboarding friend Kaori. Probably going to be able to start snowboarding in December.

Week 6 in Japan: Karaoke, Fall Colors

This last week has been another great one. The first thing that I did that comes to mind is a Halloween party on Thursday night, which was the actual day of Halloween. It was a party put on by my work mainly for employees but basically anybody was welcome. The style of the party was you bring a dish, I was asked to bring a desert so I actually just brought a couple bags of Kit-Kats because they are basically the only candy bar I am familiar with here. I said I wanted to bring candy because candy is important to have at a Halloween party. Around half the people who went dressed up and I went as a Pokemon Trainer. It was a very simple costume (i'll include a picture) but people liked it. Though a lot of people thought I was Ash from the Pokemon anime but I was just trying to be a generic trainer. Oh and it was confusing at first be cause in Japanese his name is Satoshi instead of Ash.

       On Saturday I went and had lunch with somebody I teach English to every other week. She wanted me to meet some people like her mom and sister. She said it was alright for me to bring a friend or two so my Chinese friend Yuan came also. It was very delicious and also free because her sister owned the restraunt or something... can't really remember.. but I do remember it was free! Also the service was great and they were truly kind. After I had finished my meal they asked me what my favorite and second favorite things were from the meal, I replied and thought they must have just wanted the opinion of a foreigner (they didn't ask anybody else) a couple minutes later they brought me a new bowl of rice and the two dishes I said I liked the most.. I was surprised and happy and ended up being really full too. I have a picture that Yuan sent me of the meal, i'll post it below. After the food and talking we went back to the apartment. Then me and my friend decided to go for a walk in the park because the weather was so nice. Here in Akita it is still around 60 everyday, but it also rains fairly often. The park was really great and we walked til it was dark so the sunset was pretty great too. Later that night I went to karaoke with some international students. People from Mongolia, Romania, Israel, Russia, and one Japanese. Karaoke was fun, everybody sang at least a little bit and the two girls from Mongolia were acutally very good. You pay a set amount of money regardless of how many people show up in your group because you just rent out a room. Also you get free non-alcoholic drinks (or I guess they are included in the rent fee) and alcoholic beverages are extra.
      Sunday I went and had lunch with my friend Chenmin, also went shopping but the guys clothes are very expensive. The lowest price I saw for a button up shirt, nothing too fancy, was over 90 dollars. Meanwhile girls fashion takes up the other four floors of the mall and they have nice looking womens clothes for like 5 dollars. They have some chain stores like Gap that I might go to. That way the prices are lower. Me and my friend also ended up going to Senshu park on the way home. It was raining on and off that day and I think that actually made the fall colors even better than they were the day before. Oh, one more thing we did was explore a high school that we found I think Japanese high schoolers are very interesting... I said we could just pretend we were international high school students but looking back on it I believe it was an all boys school, and my friend I was with was a girl... hmm. Later that night I met some Japanese friends of mine for dinner and then we went and hung out at one of their apartments. Two of the guys are the same ones that I was with last week. I think the picture I post will be mostly sufficient for showing what we did. Oh and that reminds me Sunday was the holiday Culture Day, it is a holiday that is anually on Novemeber 3rd and its for promoting culture, the arts, and academic endeavour. The holiday was on Sunday but most businesses and my college treat it like it was on Monday. For example buses are free to ride on holidays, and so Monday, although not November 3rd, had free bus rides.  
          Well thats it for this week, hope you enjoyed reading and I have a lot of pictures for you today.. yaay

 Yuki, Yuki, Me, and Marina. Yuki is a fairly common girls and sometimes boys name here. All First year students at college here. The things is their semester starts in the spring so they are all almost sophmores while I just started my sophmore year.

 The meal had a really good soup (my favorite) and various other things. This was my first Japanese style meal that didn't have a whole bunch of raw fish included.

 Me and Yuan. Shes from china and a really good cook. Her major is Japanese.

 Castle in the park (note that I didn't take this picture either, Yuan took it. Shes a good photographer).

 Shuto (left) and Yuta (right) are the ones in front that I was with last week. The ones in back are Ryouta to the left and Diachi to the right. All chemistry majors.. but a business degree is science too right?... right?. Fun night, and because they don't know English only Japanese was spoken, so that was good practice too.

Week 5 in Japan: Halloween, Earthquake, Working out

Another fun week has passed by for me here in Japan, how about for you? Time still passing?

        This week there was a 7.3 magnitude earthquake just a little ways off the east coast of Japan. This caused a one foot tsunami. Nobody was really hurt, and Fukushima's nuclear stuff is the same as it has been as far as I know. It's kind of interesting because I think this earthquake/tsunami got more news coverage in America than it did in Japan. I was sleeping when the earthquake happened because it happened at like 2 in the morning but I have friends here in Akita who felt it. So i've still yet to feel an earthquake here or in America(yay).
     Saturday night I met up with some friends and we went to a Yakiniku restraunt. It's one of those restraunts where there is a grill in the middle and they bring you plates of bite size meat that has been seasoned and you cook it right there in front of you all by yourself. Well I think a lot of times one person at the table will be in charge of most of the cooking, like a banker in monopoly (O.o). It was delicious and a fun experience. The meal ended up being pretty expensive for my taste but it was a great experience regardless. I can't remember the exact bill but we all just pooled our money without calculating it exactly, I know it was over 100 hundred dollars. The thing that made it really expensive was drinks. I had a few drinks and it doesn't seem like much because Yakiniku takes a long time to eat, because you are there cooking it like 8 pieces at a time. We ended up being there for about 2 hours, you could probably eat at one in less time but the set up is more for eating and talking and not being in a hurry. After the food we had planned on going to a big Halloween party that was going on in town but it was 1am by the time we got to it, the party ended at 4am and the entrance fee was 2000 yen (20 dollars) and that was with a student discount. So instead we walked to a place called Round 1. Round 1 is a building of games/sports/karaoke and more. Basically it has like every sport activity like archery/batting cage/indoor fishing/bowling/soccer field/rollerskating rink/karaoke rooms/basketball courts/tennis/ping pong/ a huge arcade / etc etc etc. Its a massive building that is I believe like 7 stories and has various games on each floor. You pay a cover fee (like 17 dollars for 4 hours) and you get to use everything as much as you want. Pretty fun time, only enough time to do a fraction of what they had but it was cool. The biggest downside was we were all pretty tired because we got there at 2am and left at 6am so at points it was exhausting, especially doing sports related stuff. Oh also for halloween I was actually a Pokemon trainer! I had bike gloves and a pokeball and stuff and things. I didn't wear the stuff all night though because Round 1 was not really halloween related(but I did wear a cape and mask rollerblading way too fast ^-^). There is a Halloween party actually on Halloween and i'll try and get a picture of me as a trainer... you might be dissapoint. Well thanks for reading again, I have 3 mediocre pictures rather than 1 good one, sorry none of the Yakiniku, my friend got a picture of it so maybe if I find it i'll post it on next weeks blog. Oh and talk to me in the comments pleaze.

   

 I fllagged down a random person to take our picture. Heres us walking back, the sun started to rise so for me it was actually great being up for the sunrise. I love the feel of early morining sun.

 Indoor fishing. We didn't spend too much time on it so we didn't catch anything. I don't know why it was so dark in there, maybe the fish need sleep too? I ended up mainly running around with the net trying to catch a fish... to no avail.

 This was a hard picture to take but I think my friend in front is actually in focus.. maybe. They had electric motorcycles that we drove around the roller rink area.

Week 4 in Japan: Teaching English and the Akita University Festival

 This last week has really been a blast, got to start teaching English as a part time job at various locations, and my colleges annual festival was both on Saturday and Sunday. First off on Monday I met with Kazuko a nice lady who contacted me about teaching English to her and a few of her friends on an every other week basis. It was fun to chat with her and three others, drink tea, and have some snacks. I also officially started teaching English as an employee of ALL Rooms (Autonomous Language Learning). Students can come in for help with English and I help them however I can. Many students go to the group to study for English exams or if they are going to be making a trip to an English speaking country. For example this last week I helped a graduate student who is now in France making a speech in English, she came to ALL Rooms to prepare. A third place I teach now is in a city about an hour south of Akita City called Yurihonjo. It is a beautiful small town of about 85,000 people right on the west coast of Japan. On Fridays i'll be teaching a class of 33 kindergarteners English. The kids are so cute and have so much energy. Its a great job and my favorite place to teach English, the kids love to learn. I teach some vocab, one letter of the alphabet, and we sang the itsy-bitsy-spider :). They were amused when I told them that I sang that song in school in America. I got the opportunity to teach there through knowing Kazuko who I mentioned earlier. Kazukos friend teaches at the school and liked the idea of me coming to teach. I wasn't really planning on working a part time job when I got to Japan, but I enjoy teaching so it's cool.
        The Akita University festival was this last weekend and that was a great time. Various clubs around campus set up tents and sell food and her stuff like clothes or whatever. There was Korean, Mongolian, Vietnamese, Chinese, American Burgers? or I guess German.. idk, and of course Japanese food. There were also live bands playing throughout the day. Lots of people from the City came and it was a lot of fun. There were things like dance and singing and something similar to a beauty pagent going on throughout the two days. They are very into the arts here in Akita City. Lots of different dance teams performed ranging from traditional Japanese dancing to hip hop. One of my favorite things going on was the Jazz Cafe. There was a large room where coffee was sold and a great jazz band played all day. The jazz band had various members who would fill in so nobody was playing for 7 straight hours (the festival went from 10-5 both Sat. and Sun.). A friend of mine is actually a member of the club and because of that I ended up playing bass for a song. It had been a long time since I had played and even longer since I had to read music so it was rough but it was a lot of fun. I'm considering joining the jazz club because they could use another bass player. As I said earlier I'm part of ALL Rooms a language teaching club/group. We sold hamburgurs so I helped setting up the tent, cooking, advertising for that. A lot of work but it was fun. We sold out of hamburgers by three in the afternoon, our good reputation from selling hamburgers the year before helped us a lot. Sunday night I also went to a work party for ALL Rooms at a cool traditional Japanese restraunt. We got our own private room and sat on the floor, lots of good raw fish and had octopus for the first time too. It was a great week. Thanks for reading! Here are some pictures I got over the weekend. Also if you like my pictures you can follow me on instagram @goodspeedluke I post about once a week on there as well :)

 I took a picture with somebody cosplaying Attack on Titan a new anime that just finished its 1st (and very successful) season. 

 It's hard to tell but there are a ton of people dancing. They had so much energy it was fun to watch. Also the second day of the festival was rainy but nobody minded too much and it actually added a cool effect to this dance.

 Lastly heres a picture of the jazz band. This was the last song they played so all the members went up and played together. Fantastic musicians. (also you can't really see it but theres an upright bass player, a guitarist, and a piano player.

Ramen shop in Japan; craziness ensues

So I mentioned I would share an interesting story about a trip to a ramen shop I took and here it is. When I first got to Japan I was going out to eat quite a bit. I had yet to buy cooking supplies you need for daily life (most importantly I had no rice cooker). I ended up buying all the cooking stuff I needed at an AEON mall, this is a chain mall across Japan, they usually have everything you need in multi-story goodness. Anyways one night I went to a ramen shop I had spotted the day before. This was my first stop at a Japanese restraunt so a couple things threw me off guard. I started my visit by trying to figure out how to get into the building. There were a double set of sliding doors and of course I just stood there, the handles were small and I was expecting them to be automatic. I stood there feeling stupid for a few seconds (felt longer) and somebody else went in and I saw my mistake. Just a sliding door, nothing to extreme haha, I think this was my fault entirely and probably never would happen to 99 percent of people. Also i've since seen this style of door multiple times. Anyways I'll rattle off a little random ramen shop related info before I get to the main idea here; when you get in the shop there is usually a water station, you should help yourself. Second when you eat your ramen feel free to slurp it, its not rude, on the same note when the ramen noodles are gone you can pick up your bowl and drink from it like drinking the milk from your cereal bowl as a kid (or as an adult). Someone pointed out to me that I could drink it like that while I was drinking it by the spoonful. Finally the main plot (its not really that crazy.. sorry). When I was leaving an older man in his 60s or 70s finished up too. I was out the door before him and I was heading across the parking lot when he called out for me to come over and talk to him. My Japanese, especially at this point was not very good. Most of what he was saying was very confusing. To be honest I was clueless as to what the guy was trying to tell me. He was talking to me for a while and he even had us crouch down to talk, still right in front of the shop. He then started calling over every customer he saw trying to walk into or out of the shop and was asking them if they knew English. None of them did. I think some people thought I had a problem or needed help but from peoples reactions I think a lot of them knew this guy was kinda crazy. A couple people tried to help, I got the idea they felt a little bad/embarrased that the guy was bothering me (although I didn't mind). He was talking about my muscles, drinking alchohol, the olympics, random stuff seemingly. I was talking to this guy and random people passing by for probably 20 minutes. Nobody was able to speak any English. One young guy in his early 20s stopped to help. He had a phone he used to help translate that the guy I was talking to was according to the phone translator "uncle drunkard". This guy was at least a little drunk (I'm not very good at being able to tell and he didn't smell like it). The next message the guy helping said was saying not to worry about it. In retrospect I realize the old guy wanted to go drinking with me. Right away he was asking how old I was and when I told him I'm 19 I think he had a hard time believing it, but a lot of Japanese people think i'm older than I am. Understanding Japanese is already hard enough so when you add a drunk old guy into it it gets even more difficult. I didn't mind this happening at all, it was actually kind of a fun experience and I got to practice Japanese ;). In general stuff like this won't happen to you, drinking of course changes people and so this guy came and talked to me. It might happen a decent amount if you go to bars, but I haven't gone to one so I don't know. The main point is... ramen is delicious, go eat some!
On a side note I want to try and have pictures for every post from now on. As for todays post... Sadly I don't actually have one of ramen. I'm not the type to take pictures of my food. I planned on taking one for this blog but when the food is in front of me all I can think about is eating it... and maybe I remember when the food is complete. So today you get a picture of some food a Chinese friend made for me. Not ramen but still very delicious.

Third week in Japan: Lets get dinner and hangout.

The third week in Japan and the second week of classes; this has been a fun and busy week! Tuesday I went to an English conversation circle that I help out at as a part time job/internship. I just got hired on and that was my first time really doing anything. I officially start next week on the 14th and I will be an English tutor for any students who need help. All of the staff seem really nice and I look forward to working there. The conversation circle that went on was interesting. It seems to me that most Japanese people can speak a very small amount of English but the people at the conversation circle were all interested in getting better at it for certain reasons. Planning on traveling to English speaking countries in the future was a common reason people mentioned. Wednesday night I got to have dinner with a couple friends. My friend Ling wanted to show me what chinese food was like and it was great. Of course it was not like the food at American Chinese restraunts. It was a three dish meal and I think the soup was the most interesting. I don't really know what was in it though. It was a failry simple yet delicious soup; chicken and something that resembled a potato and a few pieces of a plant that is in there only for flavor and not for eating. Although I didn't find that out til I had eaten a few.. they were strong tasting and not too bad. They told me people never really eat them but they are actually healthy for you. I could not get the details on the food because of the language barrier and also I just would not know the foods even if they told me. After dinner we chatted and I made an origami bird for the first time out of a notepad haha. I have it here so I'll post a picture. Thursday was another great dinner party and this one was much bigger. Two professors from the university, and a handful of students all had dinner. I tried so many new foods; squid, raw fish that I can't remember the name of, figs with this italian cream cheese stuff. I think trying/eating all kinds of food is like my favorite thing. There were two vegetarians students eating with us (probably the only two vegetarians in the Akita Prefecture) and they could not eat soo many things, also a hindu I think and she could not have certain foods.. I happily ate it all, even tofu! Also I tried Yeni Raki, its Turkey's national alcoholic beverage. Its about 40-45% alc but you add some cold water usually. I think I was the only one who liked it.... surprised me but really unique (I haven't tried much but it seemed like it was) really taste if you like aniseed flavor. Ahh this week was so busy but i'll keep going. Friday there was a "Borderless" club party. Lots of international students but still mostly Japanese. We drank and ate and tried to learn eachother's names. It was good to meet more people. Saturday I bought Pokemon X/Y :) I'm playing it in Japanese so it helps me learn the language, and its awesome. Sunday I met a group of people who I'm going to be teaching English to. We chatted and had tea and some snacks. Really an awesome and busy week. I'm going to maybe post twice a week when I have so much stuff. Also i'm going to try and take more pictures for the blog :) anyways thats it for now. Right now I gotta study some Kanji!

watch for scale ^-^

Second week in Japan: Classes, Ramen, out of order blogging.

The second week here in Japan has been great; first week of classes, buying cooking supplies, and eating ramen. The first week of classes were fun. I'm taking 7 classes and 4 of them are studying the Japanese language, and two of them are spoken completely in Japanese. This can be a challenge but the Prof speaks simple Japanese that we generally understand... or at least pretend to. The other classes are Japanese society and Japanese Culture. These ones are in English so I have a huge advantage over the vast majority of the students in them. Its fun helping out my foreign friends at something i'm good at: English! The classes are intersting and easy so far. Good classes for getting to know people. I biked to an Aeon mall to buy some cooking supplies. I really had to shop around and kind of bought the cheepest things I could find. I bought a rice cooker (around 60 dollars), a 26 cm fry pan (only like 4.50), a spatula, a wood stir spoon, some chopsticks for 3 dollars, a measuring cup, and I think thats it. I spent like 75 dollars. Now I can cook real food. I'm definitely not a chef yet but even rice with some salt and pepper tastes good right now. Before I got the cooking stuff I was going out to eat quite a bit. Although this is delicious and a fun experience its also expensive and sometimes inconvenient. Ramen is around 7 dollars per bowl depending on what you get and where you go but it seems like its worth the wait to me. Tonight I made the best dish I've made so far. It was rice, chicken, red peppers, onions, and green beans all fried together with some various seasonings i've bought. It was a lot of work because I'm only a beginner but it was satisfying. I'm looking forward to this next week. I mainly just studied this past weekend but I've got more things going on this weekend so i'm looking forward to that. Also looking forward to more great weather. Its in the 70s everyday but its been a little cloudy lately. Oh and this morning it was raining so on my way to class there were these cool clouds on the mountains. The mountains are so pretty. Well thats it for now. I'll make a post sometime this week about something crazy that happened to me. Cooool beans.

First week in Japan; airport, meeting people, yup

So i'm starting a blog to do in my free time just to get some of my thoughts and adventures down into writing. Not going to really cater my posts to anything in particular, this will sorta be like a diary haha. So my first week in Japan... I flew from Minneapolis MN, to Chicago IL, to Narita airport Japan, and finally to Akita Japan. Travel through the airports was kinda tricky for a couple reasons. One is that i've never flown on a plane before so I didn't know the process well at all. And the second is that as you go people speak less and less English. The flight was actually kinda torturous because it was over 12 hours long. You got good service from the flight attendents and two full meals... but I had a terrible seat. I was in the back row (58 i think) and I was in the middle and my legs were pretty cramped. I could not sleep much at all so I watched four different movies; Iron Man 3, The internship, Monsters univsersity, and one other I can't think of. The first full day in Japan (I think the 24th) I set up a bank account, got my residency taken care of, and other semi boring orientation stuff. Just being in Japan plus getting to know the tutor made it fun though. The next day we had an orientation. There are kids from all over internationally. Probably about 50 new international students. Chinese, Korean, Mongul, Romanian, Russian, Tawainese, Kenyan. Pretty diverse. Got to have a good supper on friday after another orientation thing. Met more people. Went and hung out that night. Saturday I met Yukiko and her daughters and picked up a bike and other misc that a former international student at the university left for me. Sunday was interesting because I stumbled upon an American football game. It was Akita University vs another school (I was unfamiliar with one the kanji so I could not pronounce the name) Akita won 30-0 :). Monday I had my first day of classes and met quite a few people. Getting more used to things on campus is nice. As I get more familiar with things like the city and where things are things seem less overwhelming and big. Getting more used to things here and I'm looking forward to the second week and improving my Japanese as much as possible. I also am tyring to eliminate a lot of English reading on the computer and stuff, but not completely yet because that would drive me mad. I like getting my thoughts down like this and hope to continue.