There is a Wendy's Picture at the end of this post.

It rained today!

In other words it was about 20 degrees cooler and I was very much grateful.


I met up with a boy named Takuya the otherday. He had stayed at my house during the summer when I last came to Japan. So I had never met him before. (Most of these meetings involve free food for me, so I'm always up for it). We met up with his friend (his name is escaping me) and they handed me a comically small bike and off we rode to have some lunch. Riding a bike around Tokyo has been a frightful affair. The roads are much too small, the cars move too fast, and I always look the wrong direction for traffic. Nevertheless, I risked my life to take some of these pictures while on the move.


Lunch was ramen of the salty variety (as opposed to the Miso or bitter variety). I remembered to take a picture of my food this time before I ate it. Enjoy, I know I did.


After lunch we ran around for some shopping (I took this picture of a fake lacoste shirt - family turn away!), drank some coffee, and stopped by a bakery. All in all I felt like quite the metrosexual. Then I met Takuya's grandfather, who I must say is awesome. I unno, he'll be commented on another time (I was invited back for dinner on a later date!)


Pictured here is my cell phone. As far as useful features go, it has two clocks (one I set to east coast time), it has a handy little swivel camera, it can text in English, Japanese, and Korean, and lastly its nice and slim. Technically the phone is Korean (and not Japanese) but its still nice nonetheless. I probably use the conversion feature the most. (What are these metres, celsius, and kilograms that everyone is speaking of???)

Oh and the other day I went to a restaurant all by myself. I know. Big deal. It was for me, there is a 90% chance that I won't be able to read anything on the menu in most cases (which is why I've gone with friends before). But I pulled through and without an ounce of english. Go Daniel.


Around the house, I helped my homestay sister with her english pronounciation. I never realized how hard it is to determine the pronounciation of a word in english. There are far too many exceptions to our pronounciation rules to call it a real system in my opinion. I think she'll only get better with experience and from hearing the words pronounced. Also I spent alot of time explaining that fear, fire, fare, and far do not sound the same.

Last night, I stayed up til 1am building a bed for my homestay mom. This was no ordinary bed either. It is like a cabin bed with a secret compartment that you can hide in if there is a break-in or more importantly an earthquake (the bed supports 2,000 kg of weight!?!). Then it had a swivelling headboard so you'd still be able to access the closet in the room and some fancy captain's bed type drawers. I guess my main problem was that there really wasn't any manuevering room to do all this. But it was nice to feel useful, and I always did like playing with legos.

In terms of studying. I purchased these sweet children's books to learn Kanji (Chinese characters adopted by Japan). Though I feel ridiculous when I break them out in the library among all the other students who are using 'real' textbooks. But as a bonus I can now say things such as 'Today is opposite day' 'I arched my back and dodged the ball' 'and 'Yesterday I was digging and found a dinosaur fossil.'


Well I guess thats it for today. Tomorrow I'm tracking down some toothpaste, school supplies, and relaxing before I get back into the grind with classes (I'm 4.5 months rusty at this point).


Oh and here is a Wendy's.
Japan hasn't yet been graced by the Triple Stack or the Baconator yet.
But I'm sure it's coming and they'll be all the heavier for it.

OH thats how it works.

So apparently in Japan. If you want hot water to come out of the shower. You have to use an electrical panel to turn on the hot-water... and then you can adjust the hot-water nozzle. I find this out after nearly a week of cold showers...

First off, I forgot to take my camera with me on monday so I don't have any pictures from then. But no worries, I'll make it up with more pictures from the rest of the week. Monday I went to go meet up with my host family from when I came to Japan 2 years ago (this is where I regret bringing my camera). My old host-bro was actually in Canada and so I didn't get to meet up with him, but hopefully I'll see him tomorrow (Thursday).

Their house was actually just a 15 minutes train ride from where I am currently living and I didn't even have to switch trains on the way. I'll definintely have to visit more often (especially since I got a free Chinese restaurant dinner and lots of cake out of it). It was rewarding if only because, last time I was there I couldn't even communicate with my host father since he didn't speak any english and I couldn't speak any Japanese (not that I'd claim to be able to speak now either).

Tuesday I met up with Tomo (he homestayed with me back in 2005). He took me to the 'Japanese Times Square' in Shinjuku. Of all the things to be famous for, this place features the only Krispy Kreme in Japan. And it always has a full line. Its all pretty ridiculous considering that you can buy a box of donuts for 5$ back in the states. Starbucks on the otherhand can be found at every street corner in Japan. It might even have a stronger foothold in Japan than its has in the states.

I also received my Japanese placements score today. I ended up doing better than expected and making it into the intermediate class. (Good thing because I already got the book). So it looks like I'll be taking Japanese 3 hours a day... 5 days a week. Hopefully a fraction of the Japanese I'll be exposed to will manage to sink in. I even met one of my classmates today (Juan Pablo Ruiz Velasco Enriquez). He's from Mexico, and really I just wanted to share his name because its simply amazing (like every stereotypical name packed into one super-name).

As for today, I met up with my friend Shoko. (I also met her back in 2005) She goes to Tokyo University which is the equivalent of the Japanese Harvard. If I tell a Japanese person that I'm going to meet my friend from Tokyo University, they are instantly impressed with me. As if I somehow am just as smart by association.

We went to Shibuya, had some Udon, and then she showed me around. I also bought stationary (Japan has some really unique and colorful pieces of stationary), which some of you just may receive over the next few months. Lastly we stopped by this statue of a dog (his name is hachi) who was apparenlty really loyal... and therefore a statue was made for him (? I'm unclear about the details here). Then I piced up some Melon bread from the bakery. I'm quickly developing an addiction to it. Its like a sweet bread that kinda tastes like fruit too? Its hard to explain, but if I could ship a crate back with me, I definitely would.

As for school, I'm really enjoying all the nuns and f

athers that walk around campus (it was founded as a jesuit school). Its a weird mix seeing so many temples and shrines around the city and then the campus church all mixed into one. (I'm mentioning this because an priest with a heavy irish accent just came up to me and made sure I wasn't hurting my eyes typing on my laptop here in the dark).

-Dan

Do You Have A Vitality?

I'll try to answer everyone's comments in later entries. A mandatory Japanese cell phone, television, and toilet update will come on a slow news day. I'll try to introduce my homestay family as I get the chance too. I can't figure out how to respond to comment otherwise, because all my webpages are defaulting to japanese now that i'm in japan.



So I've had alot of free time lately and spent alot of my time thursday going on a walk. This graffiti and the cadillac were just amusing to see. The cadillac is probably 4x the size of any other japanese car that drives on these streets and must really be a pain to maneuver through these streets.

Anyway after my walk I decided to go on a train ride to test my mettle and went out to Yokohama (cost about 2$). I figured it would be good practice to do so. Picture below is my station (Midorigaoka) which has become one of the only japanese words that I can pronounce perfectly every time. Mostly by necessity.

So I really just kinda wandered around Yokohama (a port city) with no real plan. I sat down for some curry, hit up an arcade, and then headed home for the day. By 6 o clock I crashed until 8am. And now my homestay family calls me bear ('kuma') because of my sleeping habits. (I went on the next day to take another 3 hour nap, and then sleep another 11 hours). I'm not sure if it is jet lag or what , but by 9 o clock I'm as good as dead, and usually have to go to bed.

Previously I had let my homestay family know that I started running this summer and so my homestay father took me on a bikeride to Komazawa Olympic Stadium (maybe 3 kilometres from the house). Komazawa hosted most of the cycling events in the 1964 olympics. Today it has been converted into a nice running/cycling track and a cheap (2$ per hour) gym. We also stopped by a small shrine as well and he taught me the procedures for entering a shrine.






As for today, I found out that my homestay brother (Kenshiro) was having a high school festival and I decided to go along. It was really intense. The students worked really hard on their plays. I watched CATS in Japanese, some play about a french guy that can put his hands through walls(?), a swing musical, and lastly the high school hip-hop dance group. I was swamped by japanese high schoolers from the moment I entered the building though. Everyone threw out broken english (they didn't even know that i spoke english) to try and get me to come to see their plays. Once again, I seemed to be the only one that found it excrutiatingly hot. I sweat through two shirts and didn't see a drop on anyone else's body. I'm unusually excited for winter because of this. Picture on the right in the suit is Kenshiro, obviously you can't tell in the picture, but he sings quite well.



Later on I went to Shinjuku to try and find the 'largest bookstore in japan.' My first problem was that the subway map didn't feature 'readings' for the city names. Sorry if this doesn't make sense for my family members, but basically... I couldn't read the map because it had lots of difficult characters on it. Secondly, I was told to take the south exit from the subway, but the subway station only had an east and west exit. So... basically I just checked out the area until a friend from a few summers ago invited me to come hang out in harajuku (sort of a fashion center in japan). It was a nice change of pace because by this point, I had been speaking nothing but Japanese for the last 3 or so days. Anyway, below is a picture of harajuku (crowded) and Sam and Kyle. Both are actually from Virginia too.

Touchdown Daniel

DAY 1

Hello Everyone.
So I made it to Japan scratch free, but didn't have access to internet, hence the lack of an update (falling behind already!).

So, I'm studying at Sophia University in Tokyo and living with a host-family in setagaya-ku (approximately 40 minutes from campus by train). So this is my host-families house.
Its much smaller on the inside I must say, and I get to duck whenever I go into a room. I'm still adjusting to the sparce use of airconditioning too (do japanese people not sweat?). Anyway I'm with a happy little family of four. We've been speaking Japanese almost entirely with only a few stray english words tossed in the mix for clarification. Also they run a day-care out of their home and so I get to spend my breakfast time talking to 2-3 year-olds (I know more japanese than them!).

My second day was spent at orientation on campus. Basically my homestay family told me where the train station was and then sent me on my way. For your viewing pleasure I present to you the tokyo subway system map. My starting point isn't even featured on this guy. It was daunting (seeing as to how i'm neither proficient in japanese nor train-riding), but I pulled through and even got to experience some rush hour cramming (imagine 50 more people than you'd imagine would fit on a train coming through just one door, no joke).

I'll spare you from mentioning orientation. By the end of the night though, I managed to find myself in an english pub (note to family: drinking age is 20 in Japan) with some brits and russian students, which wasn't exactly my ideal way to experience Japan, but it was nice to see the multiculturalism present at the university.

DAY 2

Today I once again braved the trains and had to go find city hall to register myself as an alien residing in Japan. It was naturally time-consuming and quite taxing if only because I couldn't follow anything the officer workers were saying (Immigration related vocabulary should be added to japanese textbooks). Then I met up with my friends from High School Diplomats from the summer of 04 and they treated me to lunch!
(Left is Yoshiko and Right is Jo).

I spent the rest of my day with Yoshiko trying to get a cellphone. Something that is very difficult when A). You aren't Japanese B). You have no residence in Japan and C). You lack a Japanese Bank Account. Hours later I had visited half of the cell phone shops in Akihabara (famous for electrics) and Ikebukuro (shopping area), if only because its hard to find a good contract or prepaid phone for just a year.

My night ended with me quietly riding the train and staring at my cell phone. I felt I was pulling off the Japanese look quit nicely. Anyway with all my errands out of the way, I still have til Oct 1st to run around before its time to buckle down for a 15hour a week dose of Japanese classes.

The First Post

Looks as though I should have named this 'another Dan in Japan.' I was going for DanInJapan but it seems some fellow has already beaten me to the name. No harm done though.
Anyway the idea here is for me to keep a blog of my trip to Japan. Seeing as to how I'm there yet, I'm not sure how frequently I'll be updating. Biweekly sounds do-able. I'll try to make this mildly informative at points too and include some culturally relevant anecdotes.
Oh and lastly, if you do in fact read over this. Leave comments.