Vol 12

オバマーさん。
おめだとうございます。

In English:
GO BARACK

America just had their elections and the world is pretty much happy to get rid of Bush.
Even in Japan, Obama becoming president is a n exciting thing.
The Americans went out today to celebrate Obama winning.
We wanted to skip school, but we had a Kanji test today, so we went out after class.
Almost everyone American here at school voted for Obama with the exception of maybe 2.
But it’s okay, because voting for McCain is better than voting for no one.
Or is it??????

I feel that I should update you guys on what’s been going out lately.
Last week was rather busy.

Thursday was my friend Tone’s birthday so we went out to celebrate.
About 15 of us American and Koreans went to TGIF in Shibuya for dinner.
OH. MY. GOSH!
TGIF IS SO EXPENSIVE IN JAPAN.
TGIFはとてもたかいです。
Our waiter was dressed like a Cow.
And another guy was dressed as a frog.
They were nice, and the Cow guy spoke some English.
Apparently he is coming to America next year to study.
After dinner some of us went home, while the rest went to the bar.

Friday our school had an event,
We went to some park out in Shin-Kiba for a BBQ.
The down side to this whole BBQ was traveling.
I think I was the only person who found this as the downside, and I had a perfectly good reason too.
It took about 50 minutes to get from our school to Shin-kiba.
Shin-kiba is 10 minutes away from my house.
My school still made me come all the way up to the school first, just to ride back pass my house.
That was a completely waste of time.
Traveling from East to West just to come back to the East.
But since it was Halloween the Americans decided to dress up, and we even got one Korean guy to dress up as well.
On Ryun a.k.a GYUUNYUU
I went as a Hamster.
So we had Hamster, Bear, Panda, Pikachu, Police Officer, Silver Fox, Masked Guy, Crazy Colorful Hair Dude, and Cow.

The whole purpose of the BBQ was to get to know your classmates better, because we BBQ’ed as a class.
Team work.
Well, it was suppose to be team work but the Koreans pretty much took over.
Every time I tried to help the guys told me to go eat.
So I walked around with Bear or sat with Silver Fox and Police Officer.
What surprised me most was the amount of people who wanted to take a picture with me.
From Level 1 through 7 there were people who came to ask me for pictures.
They even asked the American in their class to come ask me.
If I would have charged $3 for every picture I would have easily made of $150.
There was a jump rope competition between classes as well.
My class sucks at jump rope.
They wouldn’t listen to me.
I was trying to tell them the right way to turn the rope.
They were making this drastic arm movements that were totally unnecessary.
Just spin the rope regularly.
It was do the rest on it’s on.
But they didn’t listen and they should have.
Jump rope is a ghetto thing.
Actually, Jump rope is an anyone thing, but jump rope and succeed is a ghetto thing.
I can double Dutch with a phone cord.
I’m still upset that they didn’t listen to me.

We left the park around 5pm.
Lena, Jo and I went to Harajuku to take Purikura.
Surprisingly, people didn’t stare at us there.
We blended in.
But the people on the train gave us the “WTF” look.

Jo and I went home after that, and Lena went to Roppongi to meet the other Americans.
I wanted to go but I had a concert the next day so I went home instead.

SATURDAY!!!!!!
BIG BANG!!!!

I went to me concert on Saturday.
If you don’t know who Big Bang is by now, then you need to scroll down to my music box and click on a Big Bang song if one isn’t already playing.
I met Lena around 2pm after class.
She came down to me side of town since I don’t like too far from the concert Arena.
Although it’s in a different area of Japan, just outside of Tokyo, it’s only 30 minutes by train from my house.
She says I live in the Rich neighborhood.
Whatever!

We decided to eat before we left Tokyo.
So, we got to Chiba, Japan around 4pm.
We were suppose to meet the girl Shannon around 5:30 at the station.
Too kill time we went to look for where the Arena was.
Apparently we arrived right after the first show had ended because we saw the sells people.
Lena bought a hoodie, and I got two bags and a mask.
As we walked back to the Arena was saw other stands that were selling Big Bang items.
They had pictures, calendars, water bottles…etc,
Both Lena and I bought a face towel.

The concert started at 7pm, but they let us in at 6pm.
We were in the stand arena section B seats 14 and 15.
The Arena was small so these were really good seats.
Although I’m not sure why it was called the Stand Arena when we had chairs.
The stand Arena should have been those girls who were on the floor by the stage.
Before the show started, they showed some of Big Bangs videos and maybe one Taebin video.
Taebin was the guest performer.
The concert started around 7:15-7:20pm.
Big Bang sings in Korean, Japanese, and English, and I knew every single song.
Since my Japanese is small and my Korean is none existent I could barely make out what they said during the MC.
But, I understand everything Daesung said.
Daesung is such a dork.
I will never understand Gdragon’s fashion sense, or why T.O.P was wearing a dinosaur hat.
IMO, Daesung had the best solo performance.
Again, he’s such a dork.
T.O.P could have had the best solo performance if he would have sung his other solo and not Big Boi.
There was only one song I didn’t like and that was How Gee, and I NEVER liked How Gee.
It has such a 1990 American Hip Hop beat, and not a good one.
For the Encore they performed the oh so famous “Baby Baby” and “Always”.
At the end of “Always” Taeyang pulled out a launcher gun thingy, and each member shot a shirt into the crowd.
I caught the shirt Taeyang shot out.
That’s how small the Arena was.
I was on the second floor, and still caught the shirt.
Actually, I made the security guard give it to me.
When Taeyang shot it up into the crowd no one saw it but me, but it landed on the steps.
My seat was at the wall next to the steps so I had to tell the security guard to throw it over to me.
LUCKY!!!!!
The concert ended around 10pm and we had to hurry up and get back into Tokyo before the trains stop.
Having to rush home was really disappointing.
EVERY SINGLE CONCERT I”VE BEEN TO I MET THE ARTIST.
But this is the first time I haven’t.
So depressing.
I’ll stop complaining about it, because at least I got to see Big Bang live.
A really good concert.

Sunday I went back to Harajuku to meet up with Roxana, Chloe, Jo, Lena, and one of Lena’s previous Korean classmates Adrian.
Chloe is also a Big Bang fan, although she didn’t go to the concert, so I had a good time picking on her about it.
But she’ll have a better chance to see them since she is Korean (American), and can probably go to Korea whenever she wants.
We met up with Tone as well, who happened to be in Harajuku shopping.
We didn’t stay there long so I got back home early.

Monday I stayed in the house pretty much all day.
It was my host sister Sachiko’s wedding Anniversary, so my host mom had to watch her grandson.
I went to dinner with Lena and Casey in Ikebukuro.
Japan had already decorated the city was Christmas lights, so I will take pictures of this soon.

I didn’t do anything but go to school on Tuesday, and I explained what I did on Wednesday already.
GO OBAMA!!!!!!

I’ll wrap this up now, because I should be studying.
I have a grammar test tomorrow and a conversation test.
Not to mention class on Saturday as well and mid terms next week.
My departure date is slowly arriving and there are still some things I want to do before I leave.
Like:
Disney Land
Ice Skating
Odaiba
Tokyo Amusement Park
GO Kart Riding
Stay out over night again
Pretty much things like that.

So…..I’ll try to post again soon.
Maybe.
My attention span isn’t long enough to sit here and type.
You Can’t even guess how many times I got up while typing this.
Just try to guess.

The picture above represents the real American Melting pot.

Vol 7

Okay….
Since I’m getting tons of emails with tons of questions, I think I better update this blog.
I’m going to skip some stuff, because I don’t feel like writing it and it’s not important.

Sunday I checked out of the hotel around 9am and made my way down to Shinjuku station.
I was suppose to meet my school there at 7:30pm so they can introduce me to my host family.
Since I got there early, I put my stuff inside of a coined locker, and Lena and I went to explore the city.
We ate a this Indian restaurant .
The food was okay.
I probably won’t go there again, but if I do I’ll try something else.
We pretty much walked the city after that, but we got bored so we went back to Harajuku.
Harajuku is very entertaining, if I haven’t mentioned that before.

So we walked around the shops in Harajuku, before we sat down and started taking pictures of any and everyone.
We also went to Yoyogi Park, which is about a block away from Harajuku.
That place is interesting.
Right at the entrance of Yoyogi Park was this group of men.
They were a few marbles short because they looked like they stepped right out of Grease….
Need I say more.
I love Grease, but that was just wrong on so many levels.
We met up with Casey around 5:30pm and at 6pm I left and went back to Shinjuku station.

I should mention that while on my way to Shinjuku station the first time, I got lost.
And not lost in the city.
I got lost in the station.
This station is HUGE!!!!
They weren’t lying when they said 2 million people walk through the station daily.
The entire Inner Harbor *including the Gallery* can fit inside this station.
TWICE~~!!!!!!
And still have room.
This station house about 6-8 different train lines.

Anyway, I met my host mom around 7:30pm.
Her name is Tomoko Sudo.
She is 52.
She likes to drink, study English, and play ping-pong with her English speaking friends.
Although she’s getting up there in age, she’s more lively than me.
She won’t even been home on the 12th and 13th because she’s going up north to the hot springs with her friends.

I also met my host dad, Ryoichi Sudo.
Ryo for short.
Ryo is 61 and more calm then Tomoko.
He’s retired so he’s home everyday, but he too likes to go out.
He goes to the library, shopping centers, and out to drink every once in a blue with his friends.
Ryo has traveled to over 20 different countries.
He and Tomoko also visited Baltimore one year….about 2-3 years ago.

They have 3 children who I haven’t met yet.
A 26 year old son, 28 year old daughter, and a 30 year old daughter.
They have 2 grandsons as well.
It’ll only be a matter of time before I meet these 5 as well.

On the first night with my host family we didn’t eat, because I already out when I was with Lena, and I ate at Shinjuku station as well.
The pretty much allow me to do as I please, and I also DO NOT have a curfew.
They just said that if I go out, at least try to make the last train home because taxi’s are expensive.
At first I was waking up around 6:30am for breakfast, but Tomoko said that I can get up whenever I please.

On the second night they cooked a lot.
I’m not sure if they cooked that much because I was there, or if the Japanese normally eat such large meals.
We ate meat loaf, fish, sushi, dumplings, fruit, veggies, pudding, yogurt, and something else.
Pretty much every meal has been large like that.
For breakfast we eat fruit, veggies, tomatoes, eggs, some times soup, and bread.
I should mention that Japanese bread is like twice the size of American bread.
Google it.
And the grapes are way better than American grapes.

This is too much food.
I would cry about getting fat, but as much walking as I do here, getting fat is not the problem.

School sort of kind of started on Monday.
I have to catch two trains to school, but I do more walking then sitting on the train.
We had a welcoming ceremony for all the new students. That included the Chinese, Korean, and American students.
That lasted for about 3 hours.
It was cool how they would translate what was said in Japanese to Korean, Chinese, and English.

After the ceremony had to take a placement test.
That didn’t go well at all.
Though I did fairly well on the listening part, when it came to the writing section, I got up and walked out.
It was all grammar, and if you haven’t realized yet from reading this blog…
I SUCK IN GRAMMAR!
English, Japanese, Spanish, Korean, etc….I suck in grammar.
So I am in level 1, which is okay because I lack basic conversation skills anyway.
My teachers in Baltimore never really taught conversation skills.
Just straight out of the textbook.

One Tuesday we had English orientation, which basically went over everything that us English speakers needed to know.
The school also gave us a luncheon, so we were able to mix and meet with the staff/teachers.
Our English advisor talked about the trains, and how there’s this thing called the priority seats.
He said these seats were to be offered to the elderly, pregnant, injured, and to people with implants………

The advisors and other teachers took us on a tour of Shinjuku.
So, we got to go the 百円 store. *Dollar store*
Japanese puts America to shame yet again.
This store has EVERYTHING.
And I mean EVERYTHING.
You name it, it has it.
Maybe not that store in particular, because it was only one floor, but I heard the one near me has 3-4 floors.
That reminds me of the 三百六十円 store. *$3.50 store*
That store had nothing but clothing and accessories on sell for $3.50
EVERYTHING was $3.50
Jeans, shirts, shoes, belts, bags, EVERYTHING!
But that store is so crowded you can barely move around.

Wednesday was the first day of actual class.
My class is class A112, which is located in the pink building *check my pictures*
There is only one other American in the class, but that’s not good because he’s a complete novice.
He never studied Japanese before, so he’s of no use to me.
Most of the time I have to tell him what’s going on.
There’s 6 Chinese studies as well, 2 of which fall into the same category as the other American, and 8 Koreans, of which one falls into that category.
I think one of the Korean guys speak English, because he was the only one who knew what Baltimore was, and can say English words without an accent, but I Don’t know since I haven’t talked to him yet.
I sit near 4 girls and one guy.
Although they all can speak Korean, they make an effort to talk to me.

I have 3 teachers. Keiko Kamisaka, Masami Saitou, and one other teacher who I will meet next week.
The 3 teachers rotate throughout the week.
It’s the schools way of exposing us to how Japanese can sound different depending on the speaker.

~~~~~~~~~~~

About the people:

Tokyo is a city with 12 million people, so it’s impossible to walk anywhere.
And these people love their bikes.
I can bet my life that I will get hit by a bike before I leave Japan.
I just know it.
And it’s not like America.
They can ride on the side walk.
And bikes are made for 3 people as well.
One person sits on the back, one on the seat, and in the front.
It’s me like that for parents with children.
I don’t understand how something that dangerous can be safe.

Japanese people are rather distant.
Some will come up to me and ask me about my hair.
My hair seems to be the topic of all conversation with Japanese people.
I even had 5 guys completely stop and stare at my hair.
But unless you ask them for help, the possibility of someone coming up to you at random can be slim to none, depending on what area you are in.
But when I talk to them, it’s rather interesting.

The Korean at my school are nice.
I was told before that Koreans are more open, and that’s true.
Although they can be distant as well, they will come up to you at random and just talk with their broken English.

The Americans….we’ll since we are the minority everywhere….
We only have ourselves. XD
I find some of them annoying at times, but I don’t talk to them much.
All in All the Americans are cool
We tend to hang out most of the time.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Where I live:

I live in Kouto-ku city. *Never heard of it*
It’s in between two other cities I never heard of.
The famous shopping district Ginza, is 3 train stations away.
I plan to go there with some of the Americans from school.
Odaiba is also close to me.
Disney land is located in Chiba Japan, which is outside of Tokyo, but its about 30 minutes away from me.
So in a way I live in a good area.
I’m the only one who can get to school in under 45 minutes, besides Lena, who arranged her own housing.

I live on the Tokyo Bay.
Yes. On!
My city is surrounded by water.
Not just my city, my apartment.
I have to cross two bridges to get to my train station.
I took a video of it, which I’ll upload later.

Well, it’s going on 11pm here, and I have a test in the morning, but I feel that I’ve caught you all up….
So~~!!!!!
Check out my photo album, which I will update daily, unlike this blog.

Vol 6.2

On Saturday I was suppose to meet up with Lena again, because she was going to show me how to get my cell phone.
I left out of my hotel around 10am, but when I called her she never answered.
So I walked around Ikebukuro a little more before I called her back.
Still no answer, so I pulled out my handy dandy trusty rusty train map to see what trains I need to catch to get to Harajuku.
Because I was a novice at that time, it took about 30 minutes to get to Harajuku.
Not because I got lost, which I didn’t, but because I took the long way.
I caught the M line down to the C line, and caught the C line to Harajuku.
Now if I knew more about the trains I could have just got the Yamanote line and got off 3 stops later, and I would have been in Harajuku in….10 minutes.

Harajuku is really really really crowded, and that’s saying something. It’s almost impossible to get anywhere because there are so many people.
I walked around looking at all the different just similar shops.
This place kind of reminds me of Chinatown in New York.
You can find anything.
After walking for about 10 minutes I saw this group of black guys.
Yep, black guys.
And not just one.
6 of them.
They own a show store there, and they stand outside trying to get people to come in.
When they saw me they called out “Hey Black girl!” -_-
That was funny, but they told me how to get the Softbank.

Softbank is a cell phone provided in Japan.
Like America has AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, Japan has Softbank, DoCoMo, and ADDI.
I got a prepaid phone and it cost about 10,000 yen, which is $100.
I get free incoming calls, but I have to pay for outgoing, and for 3 dollars a month I can get unlimited messaging.
It’s a cool phone but would be better if it was a flip phone.
I bought a Yoochun cell phone strap for it.
And I saw NEWS ride down the street on a truck.

The thing about Harajuku is, it’s a place for females.
They have shops strictly for men, but more shops for girls.
Not to mention those idol shops that all the Japanese girls go to waste their money on pictures of their favorite idols.

I walked from Harajuku to Meiji shrine which is about a block away.
Meiji shrine is not for the weak.
You have to walk miles.
You can walk for an hour and still only cover a small portion of it.
The temple was nice and there were about 3 weddings going on.
I decided to leave but I stopped at the café and ate first.
I had Chinese noodles.
Man, Yat Ga Mien, or however you spell it, was also put to shame.
I though Japanese eat small portions.
Well, that’s a lie.
I’m getting fat and I’ve only been here for a week.
So after eating I decided to leave, but I saw another path you could walk.
I walked up that path and it felt like forever before I came to an exit.
But that wasn’t the same exit I came in, and I REFUSED to walk back to the other exit.
That would take about an hour.
Since the train system in Japan is the best, or second best after Seoul, I knew I would come to a subway if I just walked straight, so I did.

Trains are not the only way to get around in Japan.
Bikes are popular here.
Too popular if you ask me.
They can ride bikes on the side walk, so I can’t even count how many times I almost got hit by a bike.
EVERYONE rides a bike.
Young, old, fat, skinny, tall, short, mothers with children on the back, mothers with children on the front, mothers with children on the back and front.
I don’t even know how that last one is allowed.
That’s not safe.

Anyway, I walked for about 30 minutes before I saw a sign that said “Shinjuku ward”.
That’s when I realized I was entering a different city.
A good city because it has the largest train station, which I will talk about later.
Lena cracked up when she heard that I walked from Shibuya ward to Shinjuku ward.
But it was okay with me, because now I could walk around Shinjuku, but I didn’t feel like it.
So I just walked around the area that I was in until I saw the train station.
I decided to go back to the hotel, but I wanted dinner.

Once I got back into Ikebukuro, I walked around trying to find what I wanted to eat.
Then saw this rotating Sushi bar across from the hotel, and I went there.
I didn’t sit down, but ordered out.
When I got back to the hotel I ate that, but I think something was in it that I shouldn’t have ate, because my head started itching like crazy.
Or I just needed to oil it.
Lena called the hotel and that’s how I got in contact with her, but it was 8pm by that time.
She wanted me to go with her somewhere, but I didn’t feel like it since I was walking for the last 12 hours.
So I sat back and watched the drama ROOKIES.
That’s the most boring Japanese drama I ever looked at
I would not recommend that to anyone.
I fell asleep watching it, but I woke up in time to watch The King of Room, which stars Mizushima Hiro and Anne Suzuki.
That was pretty much my Saturday.

Again, you can see pictures if you look at the link in the post below.

All of my pictures are not uploaded but i'll get there one day.