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.