Week 18 in Japan: The Cove Conversation and Preparing for finals

Week 18 in Japan didn't have any highlights like going to an Onsen for the first time but was enjoyable nonetheless. On Tuesday night at my part time job leading an English Conversation circle we talked about Japanese killing dolphins in "The Cove" in Taiji, Japan. We watched some clips from different news stations covering the killing of whales in Japan. Nobody there was against the killings of dolphins, I thought that was interesting to hear. The main thing for them was they didn't see it any different from killing cows, chicken or anything else for food. It's not like issues in America where the younger and older generation are a lot of times split. I watched the movie "The Cove" years ago when it came out but other than that a few news clips we watched I don't know much about the dolphin killings and neither did the Japanese people at the discussion. Also out of the roughly eight Japanese students there only one of them knew of a time where they actually ate dolphin. What I heard from a Japanese Professor is that a lot of times things lalbled as whale in the supermarket will actually be dolphin. Also I believe some of the dolphins are also captured for academic research. Anyways it was an interesting coversation time. On Friday I met with two friends Alina from Romania and Kano who is Japanese. We started planning our trip and looking for tickets to go to South Korea at the end of this coming summer. They want to buy things now so they are cheaper. I don't know anything about plane tickets but it seems like we should still have a little time before ticket prices start going up. Saturday I mainly did homework and some programming. It was actually well over 40 degrees too so I went outside and enjoyed the weather a little bit. Even if I don't have anything I really need to do I usually find a reason to get a little walk in everyday. Fresh air and a little movement are important I think. Sunday I was pretty busy mainly with an English thesis I'm correcting for my friend Keika. It's a final thesis for graduation and she asked me to find mistakes. I'm happy to help but it was about 30 pages long and was actually a lot of work. She was thanking me so much when I quickly and happily told her I would help and now I realize why. Anyways it feels good to work hard and also to do something important for somebody else. Not a lot to the blog this week but I hope you enjoyed it anyways. Thanks for reading!

 Heres the only picture I took this week. This is Palguem from Korea on the left, Karen from Tawain on the right, and Maru in the middle who is a dog we saw and were playing with for a little while.

Week 17 in Japan: Tazawako Onsen, Korean Drama, and Snowboarding

This week in Japan was really a blast! On Thursday me Yunseok, Palguem, and Teppei left for an Onsen in Tazawako, Japan. Onsen means hot spring but if you are speaking English in general you still use Onsen and not hot spring. Tazawako is about 2 hours by train from Akita City and thats how we traveled. The hot spring was natural which I think all the best Onsens are. Since it's natural you get a sulfer smell and some stuff in the water which I actually like. I think there are minerals and stuff in the water that are great for your skin and you get that from natural Onsens. Anyways I'll go a little more into detail on the trip. We had Thursday and Friday off of school because the campus was having exams for high school students wanting to go to college. This test is taken extremely seriously and spans multiple days for lots of kids to take it. Also to ensure there is no cheating nobody but high school students can even enter the university grounds. We met on Thursday around noon and took a train for about an hour before stopping in Daisen City. We got to explore Daisn City which had an incredible amount of snow. I have a few cool pictures from the couple of hours we spent in the city. We were in Daisen city waiting for our next train. The next train ride was again about an hour and it took us to Senboku City which is close to Lake Tazawako area where all the Onsens are. Most people call the area Tazawako but in 2003 Tazawako along with 2 other small towns were merged into one and the new city was named Senboku. When we arrived in Senboku somebody from the Onsen we were going to be staying at was waiting for us to drive us to the Onsen. When we got to the Onsen we brought our bags to our room and then we went outside to play in the snow. Although Tazawako area is further south than Akita City I think it gets more snow and is a little colder too. We took a walk and were just goofing around in the snow. Next we decided to go into the hot springs. Before you get into the natural hot spring water you shower off. The place we were at provided everything we needed in terms of bathing for free (well we were paying to stay). Towels, face wash, razor, aftershave, shampoo, conditioner etc. all available. They have some really cool face wash, which is interesting to say because it's the first time i've ever been excited about face wash (I don't even own any). They had one kind that was green tea flavored but it was really green tea not just flavoring. Then my favorite one was coal face wash. It was a grey color and had a little smell to it that isn't exactly fruity but I liked it. Not sure about the rest of the world but they use coal for a few more things than just a bbq in Japan. Anyways there were two tubs you could enter. One was inside and one was in a room that was similar to a garage. It was definitely colder and was not heated but not out in the open sky. I liked the one in the room with the cooler temperature. You get warm pretty quickly and can overheat in the one inside. I think the one that is completely inside had a hotter water temperature too. The one that had an outside feel also had windows so it was cool to be able to see the mountains. The indoor Onsen was nice too and had a giant rock/boulder in it that was maybe 15 feet tall. I think they just built the tub right around the mountain/ground. There was a smaller rock maybe 2 feet tall in the outdoorish tub. I think the water in the onsens are about 3 feet deep. After being in the onsens we had dinner. Dinner was awesome and was part of the fee we paid to stay at the hotel/onsen. We stayed up late playing cards and other games, didn't end up sleeping til I think after 4am. Breakfast was also great and was really something I loved because it was a buffet. One thing I enjoyed for the first time was raw egg, soy sauce, and rice mixed together or in Japanese Tamago Kake Gohan which translates to "egg over rice". It was surprising flavorful given the simple ingredients. I occasionally ate raw eggs before coming to Japan but it's interesting here that they see zero danger in eating raw eggs really quite the opposite from our view in America. I believe raw eggs may be one of the first foods a lot of babies eat here (not exaclty sure though). Anyways we went into the Onsen once more after eating and left the hotel with a free ride at 10am to the station. Everything that the Onsen provided was 50 dollars per person between the 4 of us. Defenitely a cheap price considering transportation 2 great meals, and a great room to sleep in too. You really need to go to an Onsen if you get a chance to visit Japan. We had a great time doing some sightseeing and hanging out on the way back so we didn't get back to Akita City until a little late. We had to either take a Shinkansen which is a little expensive or wait for the regular train. There were intersting places to visit and we were not in a hurry so we did various things to spend our time. One thing we did was visit a place that was all about the Korean Drama Iris. Iris is a famous drama in Korea and some of the drama takes place in Akita Prefecture. That brings a lot of Korean tourists to Akita Prefecture. The Tazawako area in particular is where some of it was shot so at the train station there was all kinds of Iris materials. Props from the series, pictures, signatures, free goodies, and more were available.
       On Saturday I went snowboarding at a mountain near Daisen City about 30 minutes outside of Akita City but about a 40 minute drive from where we departed. I hadn't snowboarded for about 5 years but I was still able to ride so that was a relief. Snowboarding is great but it can be hard to learn for a lot of people. There were a number of first time riders in our group and I know a few people who gave up quickly because it was too hard. My opinion is the two girls were too afraid to fall and get a little wet with snow to learn to ride. I think it's difficult to learn to snowboard without getting a few bruises and being a little daring. Anyways it was a great time and the conditions were great. Lots of powder to ride in and it snowed on an off all day but was not too windy so that was nice. On the lift up the biggest moutain when it wasn't too foggy/snowy you could see all the way to the Sea of Japan and Akita City. Really an amazing view. You could also look around and see different weather. Too the left maybe snowing and dark, to the right foggy/cloudy. I felt like delivering a weather forcast.
       I could really write so much more about the last week. So many fun things but I don't have the time or energy to write more right now and I feel like you guys have read enough too. Anyways I have TONS of pictures from the trip to the Onsen (most of them my friends took). I'll post some picutres and give you a few more details on the trip. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good week.

 From left to right it's me, Palguem, Teppei, and Yunseok. Palguem and Yunseok are from South Korea and Teppei is Japanese. This was in Daisen City where we spent an hour two on the way to the onsen. We had a city worker take this picture haha.

 I took a nap on the train on the way there. I slept a lot the night before but was still sleepy and figured it would be a late night (and it was). Sometimes the train is packed sometimes it's not depending on a couple factors. The train had lots of open space so I think this was alright. Teppei said it was alright because i'm a foreigner (he likes to joke about that).

 Playing in the snow. This was basically right outside of the Onsen hotel. You can't really see the mountains here because we were kind of in the mountains. Also tons of snow.

 The whole time we stayed there we wore Yukata which is like a traditional robe thing that Japanese people where at these types of places I guess. 

 Here is a picture before eating supper. I was so hungry but I didn't really get completely full. I ate an awesome amount of food for breakfast the next day though because it was help yourself to as much as you wanted style.

 They had a big touch screen tv that you could you use to check out information on the television series Iris. You could also take pictures and then send them to yourself for free. Everything was free. I was kind of going King Kong mode on the building.

 The second floor of the station was all full of stuff about the series called Iris. I've actually never watched it but I'm assuming it's pretty good. One of the main actors is at least a little famous even in the U.S.. Lee Byung‑hun is one of the main actors and has roles in movies like Red 2 and GI Joe too so I was familiar with him a little. 

 One thing we did while we waited for the train was check out this old house/building where samurai used to live. Samurai are cool. Also most of the group pictures we took together we did with auto-timed capture so we are not constantly asking people to take pictures for us.

 Especially the other three really like taking pictures. Always taking picutres. Then when we got back to Akita City after the trip they wanted to go do Purikura photo booth. Which is fine with me I have nothing against pictures haha \(*^-^*)/. I wasn't ready for this picture at all haha.

 I took this picture with my friend Ginwook on the mountain. Ginwook is also South Korean. I wanted to get the scenery in and we had already went a little ways down so we turned around on the slope. Because we were turned around down the hill I'm acutally basically laying down in this picutre.

Week 16 in Japan: End of winter break, my birthday, Butch Cassidy

School started again so I've been busy lately catching up with school work and so once again the blog is a little late, sorry. Anyways Monday the 6th I was with my friends Teppei, Yunseok, Palgeum, Karen, Ryouen, Sebi, and Temuleun. People from Japan, Korea, Taiwain, China, Romania, and Mongolia. It's interesting hanging out with people from all over the world. In the U.S. most my friends are from Minnesota definitely not different countries. It's great having the opportunity to have friends from across the world. We went to Round 1 a building with all kinds of sports and games that I have talked about in a previous blog. We went from 11pm - 6am plus we went in a group so it wasn't too expensive. It's interesting in Japan you will find that with some places are cheaper if you go in the middle of the night. So if you go super late at night/early morning you get cheaper prices plus there are very few people there so we never waited in line to use things even once. Rollerblading and the batting cage were my two favorite things to do. When we got done we had to walk back because there was no 6am bus in that area. It wasn't very far so that was alright, I love walks early in the morning but I'm usually just not up at that time. It was funny on the way back I found a knit white hat on the sidewalk and later a nice scarf. It was funny because I wasn't wearing a scarf or hat so after I found the scarf I was joking that I had previously simply found my jacket etc. for free too. The hat I found is for girls but none of the girls wanted it. The scarf is actually really nice so I wear that sometimes. The next day me, Ryouen, and Conina met up with somebody I occasionally teach English to at 1pm. Only got around 5 hours of sleep but it was alright. It was fun to visit Kazuko and her husband. Kazuko studied in St. Cloud, Minnesota maybe around 40 years ago for a year as an exchange student. Her and her husband like to visit with international students on occasion and they are very great hosts. Kazukos husband makes really great pizza. From Wednesday class started again. Thursday after class I had dinner with my friend Yunseok at a place called Oden. I've been there a couple times now and Yunseok has been there many times so it definitely has a special feel to it. The restaurant opens at 6pm and for a place like that I don't think thats too uncommon. Had some Oden which was nice because it was kind of a blizzard that night. Also had some curry soba.

       My birthday was on Saturday the 11th and I had plans to meet with friends at 6pm to have dinner. It wasn't a party related to my birthday, it just happened to be my birthday too and I was definitely arlight with that. I didn't want any extra attention. I ended up getting a message that the party would be at 7pm instead. My friends ended up ringing my room phone to get in the building. When I answered my Japanese friend Teppei said 'package' so I let him in. I was expecting a birthday gift from my parents that day so I didn't expect anything other than that. Turns out that Teppei, Yunseok, and Palguem came to surprise me. It was the first time I'd gotten a surprise party and I was completely surprised. They changed the dinner time to 7pm cause they didn't want me to leave my place before they got there. They all gave me gifts and they bought a cake too. Luckily my room wasn't in too bad of shape so I didn't have to be too embarresed. I got a scarf from Palguem, headphones from Yunseok, and chopsticks and a daffy duck cup from Teppei. We were not at my room for long before we left for the international dormitory where Teppei made a tuna spaghetti dish for dinner. Ended up hanging out there basically throught the next day until around 6:30. Three Chinese guys joined us to hangout too. Yo, Wang, Saicou, and later on Sunday Toka was there too. We played various games and talked. On Sunday we had a big lunch together. The eating is slow so we kind of ate over maybe an hour and a half. It was two big bowls of soup over a burner. You take some into your own bowl eat it, then get some more. Over and over again. You keep adding meat as time goes so it never runs out. I think we had 7kg of meat and we ate almost all of it between the eight of us. I remember we watched some of a marathon on tv. It was a womans relay race (though some were as young as 14) and it was between all the different prefectures in Japan which is 47 total. Akita didn't do too well. I think they placed around 38th. First place was Kyoto.
      Thats all I have for this week. This week I'm going to a Japanese hot spring "Onsen" hotel and also snowoarding so I should have a cool blog for you to read next week. Thanks for reading!

 Heres a picture I took at the sports/games building called Round 1 of almost everybody. This was an area where you could shoot foam balls at each other and other foam ball related activities. The circle below me shot out a bunch of foam balls so I wanted to get a cool picture of it happening. Unfortunately only the test picture before it exploded with little balls (this one) turned out ok.

 After the pizza at Kazukos house we got desert too. It was two different cakes. One I remember had a little bit of a molasses taste but way better than what you picture after hearing that. Also some delicious jam stuff was put on the ice cream. Strawberries were great to eat as they are so expensive here I never usually eat them (although my favorite fruit). We really just chatted for a couple hours and ate.

 Here is a poster I saw at the Oden Restaurant. The owner likes old American movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and casablanca for example. The owner's kid also works at Ghibli studio which is like a Japanese branch of Disney as far as I know. Super smart. I saw his name on the back of one of my little brother and mine's favorite animations called "Ponyo".

 Here is a picture of my friend from South Korea Yunseok. She drew up ideas of an Android Phone app she wants to make. Not sure if it will ever come to fruition but it was fun regardless.

Week 14 in Japan: Christmas!

      So this last week was fun because winter break started and it was Christmas. Believe it or not classes actually didn't get done until the 26th so there were still classes during Christmas. Christmas is a fairly big holiday here in Japan. Lots of decorations and Christmas music but it's not a holiday where you get school or work off here.
      On Christmas Eve I went to the biggest mall in Akita City called AEON. On Sundays and Tuesdays the bus ride is free throughout the day so it was nice it was a Tuesday. As far as Christmas festities go there were not any at the mall. This surprised me because the mall often does events, especially for kids. My guess is they either did one on the weekend or on Christmas day itself. There were however a lot of people mainly young girls wearing Santa Claus looking clothes. We enjoyed our time at the mall and eventually took the bus. On the bus I met up with some Chinese friends of mine and we decided to go to a bar and get "Nomihodai" or a buffet of drinks. We found a place that was offering a good deal of 3 hours of drinks for only about 12 dollars. We talked and ended up doing some Chinese drinking games too. I find that Chinese people are good at drinking. After that me and two others who live in the same apartment went to see the lights in the park on the way back. It was about 11pm when we were in the park with the Christmas lights and there were other people there but everybody besides us were couples. Christmas is a very romantic holiday in Japan. On Christmas day in the morning I got to Skype with my family so that was really nice. I had a great time with friends on Christmas Eve and Christmas day but it's not the same as being with family like I have been every previous year. On the 26th me and 3 other friends got together and exchanged gifts in a random fashion. Two of the friends I met with are from South Korea and they made some Korean food so that was really great.
      This weeks blog is kind of short beause in general I'm going to save you from the details of every party and time I hangout with friends and mainly write things that are a little more interesting like about new foods or culture. I still have a few pictures for you to view and I hope you enjoyed this short blog, as always thanks for reading.










Me and a couple friends enjoying the Christmas lights on the Eve before the big day. I asked them what a good Chinese pose would be for a picture. This is what they did haha.

 On the left is my friend from Cambodia Linda and on the right is my friend from South Korea Balguem. I don't think the ice cream needs much explanation other than it was awesome.

 My two Korean friends posing by the Chrismas tree at the mall. I thought it looked better with part of the dinosaur advertisement in it.

 Us at the mall by the tree. Friends from South Korea, Israel (the one with glasses), Romania, Cambodia, and me from America. Pretty diverse group.

 The previously mentioned Korean food and friends on the 26th. Kind of a Christmas thing cause we did give presents.

Week 15 in Japan: New Years!

Over the last week it became 2014 and in Japan thats kind of a big deal. Lets talk about that :). On New Years eve I met up with a friend from South Korea Palgeum and hung out. It was great weather and it is a national holdiay so the town was lively with people who get a couple days off for New Years. One building in Akita that is like a city art museum had a things going on. Lots of various attractions mainly all aimed at young kids and also almost all being Bullet Train related activities. They had lots of train tracks. Trains you could build yourself, various toy trains you could ride, a blow up train that kids could go inside of and jump around. I think Japan has somewhat of a fascination with trains. New Years Eve night the city had an event that maybe 300 people came to. There was some various entertainment, free hot chocolate, and also fireworks at midnight. After the fireworks they gave out free mochi which I talked about a while back. Mochi is basically just a rice snack. It is a tradition in Japan to each Mochi on New Years Day and there are certain soba noodles you are supposed to eat on New Years Eve. I ate mochi but forgot about the noodles. After the city New Years Event me and 11 others went to a bar and had nomihodai until very late. After that was done Alina(Romanian), Linda(Cambodian), and I went to two of the shrines in Akita City. It is tradition to go to the shrines on New Years Day so there were lots of people there when we went around 6:00am but I think there are more people who go right after midnight. We got fortunes for our specific birthdays so that was cool. I'm not sure what kind of fortune I got though because the kanji were too difficult for me and my friends. I'll have somebody help me translate it later. We ended up seeing the first sunrise of the year which from what I hear has some significance as well so although it was cloudy it was nice to see. On New Years Day I didn't do too much. Mainly I slept, but I also tryed to buy grocerices to find that most all stores are closed. Luckly Mcdonalds was open, although it was a very long walk.
      On Thursday the 2nd I got together with a couple of my Korean friends Palgeum and Yunseok and a Japanese friend Teppei to hangout before Palgeum left for a trip to Tokyo. We ate some Korean ramen that was nice and spicy so that was cool. Then Yunseok gave me a haircut. My hair was getting long so I asked her to cut my hair. She had never cut hair before but I figured you can't go wrong with a free haircut. I kept saying not to worry and that I wasn't worried but I was kind of saying those things to help her relax and hopefully do a better job. Also I gave her no guidelines as to what kind of cut I wanted, my instructions were mainly just that I wanted it shorter. I was a little surprised to find it turned our really well. Over the days since the haircut lots of people are very surprised when I say I didn't go to a barber/hair salon. Hair cuts are kind of expensive in Japan so it was nice to save a little money and it was fun to have a friend cut my hair. We ended up going to get nomihodai on this night too. It was funny because we were inviting people starting at 1am but we still ended up having 6 people go so it was perfect. It was three people from China; Toka, Choukin, and Setuhi. Also me, Teppei, and Yunseok. Palgeum had to leave at 8am so she had to sleep. On Sunday the 5th Teppei, Yunseok, and I went to the Aeon mall to shop. When we returned we went to a used books/movies/cds store. The movies and cds were about what they would be in the U.S. but the books were very cheap. A lot of times just around a dollar for mint condition recent books. I think it is because they buy more books here but I'm not really sure. Finally we went to a curry restaurant called "Coco" which is actually the most common chain curry restaurant in Japan. They had levels of spice with 10 being the hottest. Me and my Korean friend Yunseok got level 10 and my Japanese friend got the normal version which is no level, just regular curry. It was really delicious but as it went on it got really spicy. I of course managaed to eat it but it got difficult towards the end. My Korean friend seemed to eat it with ease! Aside from the burning I had a little bit of eye irritation and a runny nose. But that's what makes it fun!
      Well that was some highlights of my week summed up in this blog. I'll add some pictures and some details behind the pictures as well. Thanks for reading!

 Here was one of the trains you could ride in basicaly a building of train related activities. I'm guessing it was because of New Years Eve but there are events of this nature fairly often. Kids activities in Japan are not uncommon.

 Me and my friend Palgum made two snowmen on New Years Eve. The snowmen had no faces, we plan on making better ones in the future. It really warm so it made them easy to make but literally seconds after taking pictures of them they fell down. It was crazy timing.

 I asked my friend Korean friend Palgum if there was anything she still wanted to before 2013 was over, she said Purikura or a photo booth thing haha. Good times.

 My friend Palugum again at the New Years Eve event. Instead of posing with the mascot guy she stole his umbrella, I managed to get a picture but my camera is not so great with motion shots. I'm not sure what the guy is but I think he might be the city mascot or something.

 It is hard to tell but they are actually on a stage and they were doing some entertainment before the countdown. Behind them you can see the countdown timer. It was made with lasers that were shot from quite a ways off.

 Here a picture of most of the friends who were at the New Years Event and went to the Izakaya/bar afterwards. Hikaru took the picture. In my hand is the rice snack 'mochi' that I was eating for the New Year.

 Here is a picture of where you get a birthday fortune. This is only up at New Years so it's kind of a special thing. It was 100 yen or about a dollar. You just stick your money in yourself. Lots of the honor system in Japan, but then again who would steal a fortune? Seems like bad luck to me.