So I'm bad at the blog-thing

I realized that I'm terrible at this blog but I'm going to try and get better.... (don't count on it)
Last semester was a bit hard on my health, however I learned some good basics about life and about the culture too. I'm now living in homestay in Neyagawashi, out by Kayashima station. I have about an hour commute one way but I actually like it more (even though I officially pointlessly bought, and last minute, learned how to ride a bike).
Last semester I was in dormitories, dorm 4 to be exact. (The triply cursed dorm- number 4, and by both a graveyard and a crematorium.) I spoke far too little Japanese for my liking, the general populace was English-speaking or just wanting to practice English. I'm not speaking much more in homestay though as my host mother, Machiko, has hosted students for years and speaks very good English. However, the wonderful experiences I have already had make up for my lack of language use. I'm also finally learning more Japanese as I'm not in a level repeating the exact same materials that I had spent a prior semester learning.
Homestay is a bit lonely, it's only my host mother and I and she often has work or meetings to attend (she's a preschool teacher) and I rarely get to see my friends from last semester but I'm a lot less stressed I think. There was a guy last semester who I was having, as a friend, help tutor me, however he had other motives that we disagreed on causing a lot of stress and unwanted mental turmoil. I do miss my roommate though, we had similar interests and got along really easily.
Over the winter break I did go home for 3 weeks as it ended up being cheaper to, as I had already booked my flight back to Canada on a roundtrip ticket. I was happy to be home, but I didn't spend enough time with people I really wanted to.  Before I did go home though my parents came to Japan and we travelled around for about two weeks. Living in the dormitory then spending the time with my parents clearly showed me that I'm ready to move out, and that if I stay more than one semester still living at home, it won't work out for me, so as soon as I get home I will be exchanging books at the used store and getting a job (or two) and saving up to get out.
I was in Toyko until the night of the 2nd and bought my very first brand lolita both new- in the form of a Lucky Pack from Alice and the Pirates, and used from Closet Child. Lucky packs are either special limited sets, or grab bags of merchandise marked down at a very high rate- often 50% or above. One of the clothing stores in Laforet, for example, was selling a designer jacket regularly priced around 600000Y for 95000Y. Japan doesn't have boxing day sales- this is what the new years Fukurobukuro (lucky packs) are for, and you can find them everywhere even the grocery store.When I went to LaForet (A&P) I arrived early and ended up going into a seperate lineup on the very cold roof where I got let in 15 minutes early to beat the rush. I first accidentally followed a girl into the staff check in though, oops! They still use papercards for check in there and have to deal with the security guards for check in. Very 1950s feel I think. Anyways, I waited up on the roof for about an hour and had a short chat with some Japanese girls in line. It was a really interesting experience in and of it's self, especially for the large variety of fashion that people wore while waiting.
Before I left to go home I spent some time with friends mostly in Osaka and Kyoto. Kimiko and I spent the 3rd in Kyoto renting kimono and visiting the temples for some late New Years celebrations. The New Year lasts several days in Japan and actually the celebrations begin on the 30th and last until around the 7th. There are a variety of regional specific traditional foods, or the special new years mochi for family, and people often visit shrines to get their new year-long fortunes. I got two which seemed good, but they did contrast on the point of travel- one said it was lucky to travel east while the west unlucky, but my other fortune said the opposite. Fortunes are sold based on your birthday, and there's also a game where you shake a tube and get a stick out of it and then take that stick to the temple miiko to get your fortune. The ladies who owned the kimono shop actually had a hard time fitting me as I was so tiny, and they were worried about the obi being too tight. I love the feel of a tight obi or corset though, and think it's like a friendly constant hug. Obi also give nice support for the back. It snowed that day, and of course snow and rain are bad for kimono fabrics so we spent a lot of time inside, and we had tea both at a cafe and at a traditional tea room.
It's been so long since I actually published anything that I don't really know what to say ^^"
I'll try to update more often, there should be another one coming up this week I hope

久しぶり！

Well it's certainly been a while. It seems I'm not really good at this whole blog thing as I'm far too dedicated a student to really take the half hour to write a blogpost. (yes, excuses. darn right!) I haven't even uploaded my photos from September.

Major things that have happened/ that I have learned so far:
1) I have been to Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka. Kyoto is about 45 minutes away, and only about 400Y to get there, Osaka is about half an hour but costs about the same. Nara was about an hour and twenty minutes but cost more to get there as it's a much longer distance. Some of my trips have been for classes and some have been for myself.
2) I have seen Noh, Kyogen, and Bunraku preformed live so far. This Wednesday I am going to Kabuki. All of these courses were actually for one of my classes which I highly recommend Love, Sex, and Death in Noh, Kabuki, and Bunraku although the title is misleading as there is not much content for any of the three keywords I find. Also, if you do not enjoy writing reports I would unfortunately suggest avoiding this course as well, after every play there is a 3-4 page report expected, and the term project is a group project or a 20 page essay.

3) I have learned the most important verb. 道を迷う-みちをまよう-michi o mayou. Which means I am lost. It cconjugates in the U-verb form.    My second most important phrase would probably be おなかがすいて which means I'm hungry.

4) I have joined the tea ceremony club. We practice for 6-8 hours a week on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, the teacher visits on Wednesdays. At first this club was very dull as it moved at a zen-like pace, and due to the upcoming school festival the other girls in the club were only using me to practice on. Now I have started to learn things, however I do forget them between meetings. The women are wonderful though and very patient even with a strong language barrier. 

Tea ceremony along with koto playing, and ikebana flower arranging compose the basic tennants of a "proper" lady by traditional standards.

5) I bought a bike, which I still have to learn how to ride. That will be happening over winter break, and hopefully next term I'll be able to ride it to go places. At time it feels like I am probably the only person in this country who can not ride a bicycle.

6) Kansai Gaidai sets up visits with schools sometimes so that us foreign students may interact with Japanese students who are trying to learn a foreign language. Wednesday December 1st, I participated in a visit to Niwakubo Elementary School in Osaka (not anywhere near Shinsaibashi though, this was real residential Osaka) and talked about my country with two sixth-grade classes. It was an amazing opportunity to understand how they learn English, and see a school as well. The students varied in their willingness to talk, however at least one member (usually a girl) of the small 3-4 person groups I dealt with appeared to attend a juku (cram school) as their English was much better that the others.

7) I have also made a selection of amazing friends, and have a great roommate. As I'm staying here a year, I am going to miss most of my friends who are not staying. If my room mate was staying I would honestly be considering staying in dorms moreso next term, but I would really enjoy the opportunity to interact with a family sharing culture and language. I know that homestay can be difficult but I want to be able to put in the extra effort, and I am also willing to balance my school, friends, and family expectations.

8) Spiders are huge. I am learning to ignore them now but if one comes into my room whatsoever... I may develop suction-cup hands and end up on the ceiling.

Of course there are many other things that I could mention but over break I will for sure be posting pictures with captions explaining the days. Look forward to it. :-)

- Lost in Hirakata

Getting Here

I've been living in Hirakata, Japan for going on 3 weeks now so excuse the fact that this entry is very long, and only will cover the first few days. I'll post another entry in a few days with more about my trip so far.

My flight was moved ahead a day which was stressful but manageable. On August 29th I flew to Japan via Vancouver-LA with a stop overnight, then LA-Tokyo from where I proceeded to fly from Tokyo to Osaka. I was proud to say I had never been plane-sick before that trip and I've done a fair amount of international travelling. However, due to circumstances such as little sleep, recovering from a summer cold, and fairly turbulent flights- it was not really surprising. The last 5 hours of the journey (while in the air) was spent passed out or throwing up. I don't remember the majority of the flight between Tokyo and Osaka, other than the flight attendants being rather concerned, and waking up to having spilled my water after I blacked out on the tray in front of me. Positively the Japanese people around me were thinking I should have been deported or, at the very least, quarantined because of my evil gaijin germs. My first thought I had when I arrived was that I had made it and that hopefully I would survive to reach my dorm and sleep, which likely would have been that even at night it was disgustingly hot and humid had I actually been healthy.
At Narita I had had a fortunate moment of intellegence and managed to get my luggage shipped seperately to Hirakata, so I didn't have to lug them around which would have likely killed me. JAL provides a lovely service shipping bags domestically, and even people not flying on JAL can take advantage of it. It takes a day to arrive, and is very reasonable at 1790Y per suitcase. Even healthy it would be worth the money, unless you plan on taking only shuttles and taxis, which by themselves cost a lot more than the subway and bus systems.
I decided to take the trains into Hirakata (by myself!!) as I missed the pick-up time by Kansai Gaidai for the new ryuugakusei at KIX, and google mapped the train route before I left. It is far cheaper than taking a taxi (which operate on a base fee for the first 2 km, and then add about 100-200Y more per extra 0.5km travelled) as the distance to the dorm from the airport is about 83km. The first few trains were fine, no problems other than trying to stay conscious, but as soon as I reached Namba station in Osaka, I went the wrong way and ended up outside staring at the taxis. I could not remember the way in which taxis are signified as empty (red for empty,) and I was exhausted. After about 5 minutes contemplating how I would ask, a young Japanese guy about the same age as me, walked up and looked at the fact that I had a map and asked if I needed help. 
Between the two of us we managed to work out the fact that I was trying to get to Yodobashi station, and eventually to Hirakatashi. Yodobashi was easily within walking distance from where I was, and he showed me the way for an additional 2 trains, helping me manage to get to the train going to Hirakata-shi. This took about half an hour, and I feel extremely grateful for the help, however I unfortunately never even got his name. {So thank you random stranger, I hope that wherever you are out there that you realize how grateful I really am.} From Hirakata-shi I took a taxi, and in total the trip only cost me about 2000Y for the trains and 1400Y for the taxi. It was about par with what the shuttle from KIX would have been, and far more of a learning experience. However- pro-tip: Try not to travel extremely sick though if you have no idea where you are really going, especially if your body just wants to sleep.
The next morning my room-mate was happy to see I had not in fact died overnight like she suspected I might have. After hearing how sick I looked, I have a feeling that Japanese guy not only helped me out because he was kind but because he may have been worried that if he left me alone I may have collapsed in the street right then and there, which really would have created a great kerfuffle but more adventures. Of course, I woke up at 4:30am, which worked out to being around 12:30pm back in Victoria, and this continued for the first week as I slowly adjusted. I however do keep strange sleep patterns even normally, and even now I am sometimes still waking up at 4:30am but I am managing to fall asleep again afterwords.
The same day I had the excellent "fun" of going to the campus and writing my placement exam as well as doing a tonne of paperwork. I still was not feeling 100% after my travels, and the exam which should have been easy had I actually reviewed everything I had learned during the summer ended up in me not placing as well as I had wished for. However, I have dealt with this fact and the level I am in now I find suitable as I am very aware that I can not speak as well as I can write in Japanese. So even though grammatically it's review, it is useful in it's own way. A personal suggestion though is to review during the summer more than I did, because that avoids a lot of disappointment.
Also- buy a bike. I secretly cannot ride a bike and it takes about half an hour to walk from the dormitory to the campus, and even longer to the grocery store. It's excellent for fitness, however it gets really hot when the average temperature so far has been 35*c or more, and feeling your eyelids sweat is not sexy. I have been strongly considering buying a bike with training wheels and learning to ride just to make life much more convenient. However, there is a massive hill immediately outside the dormitory and people in Japan do not wear helmets. Plus it's embarrassing to not have biking knowledge when apparently it's an inherent global skill which is expected of everyone.
I could honestly go on forever with this entry as I have been here for going on 3 weeks now, but I'm going to sign off.  If you have any questions please leave them in the comments, or email them to me at hclanigan@hotmail.com

16 Days

In 16 days, I will be moving to Hirakata, Osaka, Japan to attend Kansai Gaidai University for at least one semester. To be honest, it doesn't even seem possible, and I keep thinking I'm going to be waking up to continue on with life in good old Victoria, BC, Canada. My plane tickets are booked, my student visa is in, most of my shopping is done, my hotel room is booked for pre-departure night, so I'd think with all of this it would at least hit me that I am returning to Japan. I even know what dormitory ("seminar house") I have been assigned to!
In 2004 I traveled to Japan for three weeks, on a high school trip, visiting most of the major tourist cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Hiroshima. At that point I had already been in love with the country for several years, and was still going through my major "anime phase." Even before leaving Japan I decided to return, and instead of a "Hi Mom!" my mother had the lovely greeting of "I want to go back!" the moment that I walked out the airport's arrival doors.
With all this, I keep wondering when it will sink in and why it hasn't yet but it probably will sink in the moment I get to the airport if I'm not completely exhausted. (I have to be at YVR around 4am- far too early to be considered human unless you happen to have chosen that as a side-effect of your job.) If  it doesn't then, I expect it to when I'm struggling to get from KIX airport to the dormitory. Which shall be interesting to say the least. Fortunately, I have a bit of Japanese linguistic knowledge after taking it for two years at college. However, that doesn't change the fact that with my expected jetlag I will be losing making my way, alone, from the airport to a dormitory that google maps doesn't even know exists due to arriving later than the pick-up time.