What I've been up to....

Not that anyone actively reads this little blog 'o mine, but I figured I might as well update to say why I didn't continue with my trend of w-inds.m posts. (Even though I wish I could have!)

I arrived in Japan on the 28th of January. I had left from Rochester, New York and transfered in Detroit to a big plane for my 14 hour flight. We went up across Canada, through Alaska, and down over Japan. Every time the flight progress map came up on the screen and showed the little image of the plane moving forward maybe 3 centimeters, I wanted to hang myself with the headphones they gave us to watch the crappy movies they showed during the flight. Did I mention it was my first time flying? The act of flying was pretty cool, I love the rocket-like feeling of take-off and being above the clouds, but I do not enjoy sitting next to oh-so-important business men who have to keep their lights on, keep opening the windows, or STEAL YOUR COMPLIMENTARY PILLOW. He will rue the day. Did I also mention that I got maybe 30 minutes of sleep during this 14 hour flight? It was an adventure, especially when I was going to the bathroom and the plane decided to take a turn. Thank god there is no water in airplane toilets!

But, yeah, once I got to Japan it wasn't so bad. It took me awhile to adjust to the way they do things here, but basically it's okay. My favorite thing, honestly, was sitting on the toilet after that flight when I got to my Seminar House. You have no idea how miraculous heated toilet seats are. No idea.

There are a few things here that I'll probably never be able to get used to, though.

1. The first thing is traffic. Japan has a bunch of narrow-streets with no sidewalks. Walking on these streets routinely leads to a near-death experience or a string of them within a matter of seconds. The Japanese have things to do, so they enjoy flying down any street at 90 miles per hour, not caring about pedestrians or if they are on the right side of the street, or what have you. Your job is to get the heck out of the way, even if you have to hug a telephone pole (yes, I have) to give them enough room. And you think, "well, when they have sidewalks, it'd be no big deal!" WRONG. Sidewalks are a different animal all together. Why? Because the Japanese depend heavily on that oh-so-wonderful invention called the "bicycle". So, even if you're walking on the correct side of the sidewalk, a bunch of agitated bicyclists will come out of nowhere, ring their bells at you in agitation and make you get out of the way. These are the courteous ones, there are others that will just follow you silently and scare the crap out of you when they almost ride up your ass for no apparent reason. And GOD FORBID that there is another bicyclist coming from the opposite direction, now THAT is what you call a situation.
   
2. No drinking in public. You think "Well, yeah, that's the same in the US, if you drink in public, you get in trouble." WRONG. No drinking in public. No drinking ANYTHING in public. If you buy a drink at the vending machine and walk down the street, you are being a rude, uncultured beast. You either have to take your beverage home with you, or if it's in a cup, you have to stand at the vending machine, drink it, and dispose of the cup there. Really, I'm serious.
   
3. No wiping your nose in public. It doesn't matter if you have a river of snot hanging out of your nose, if you wipe your nose in public, it's rude. I guess you're just expected to snort it back up there or something. I really don't understand this one.
   
4. Garbage Sorting. There are various categories of garbage sorting here in Hirakata.
   Cans, Plastic PET bottles, Plastic Garbage, and Burnable garbage (food, paper, clothing, etc). You have to wash your garbage, read the label to follow sorting directions, and dissect your garbage accordingly. The lid might be paper, but the body might be plastic. Certain things require you to take them back to the store where they came from, etc. I understand the purpose of it, but it's so strange to me.
   

But, yeah, those are my only qualms with Japan, really. Everything else is pretty great. A few days after I came to the University here, I went on a tour to Kiyomizu Dera in Kyoto, Japan. It's probably the prettiest place in the world since you can see Japan for miles and miles once you're finally up there. I went with some other international students and two Japanese girls who were really nice.

That was a really fun trip. A week or so later, a group of us went to Osaka-jo Castle with a friend of mine. It was great, the castle is really beautiful. We were able to go inside of it and look at the museum of sorts they have up there. We were also able to see the view of Osaka City through the top of it.

One of my favorite things about Japan is the food, since I'm a fatty. I don't know why, but Japanese food is just ridiculously good. My favorite is donburi, which is basically a pound of rice topped with whatever you could imagine.

This is okonomiyaki, which I believe is a regional specialty. It's prettymuch a strange egg pancake with whatever ingredient you could want in it, topped with mayonnaise and some kind of weird sauce. I don't know, I can't it too much of it, it's not really my favorite, but it's a good standby.

This is takoyaki, fried octopus. It's actually really good despite what one might think. Kind of soft and...saucy. I don't know, try it sometime.

I wish I had more pictures of food, but unfortunately I don't! Eat everything!

Something else that's funny is that you get treated special here because you're a foreigner here. This can either be a good thing or a bad thing. One thing is that you get stared at a pretty good amount. Trains especially are interesting experiences. Buses as well, especially when bitter old Japanese men complain to their friends about there being too many foreigners on the bus, despite your being able to understand him. However, being gaijin (foreigner) does get you free stuff and some crazy experiences. Especially when you, uh, accidentally go into the senior citizens karaoke place. Heyyy, at least we got free drinks and free Karaoke out of it.

But, that's where I've been, more or less. I have managed to catch w-inds.m on TV, which is great because apparently they cut some stuff out online that they have on TV, like commenting on random music videos and stuff that play between their talks, and Keita calling some guy "sexy....I mean, the melody is sexy...."

Very interesting. I did manage to score almost all of w-inds.'s discography for $15, so w00t!

And now it's time to end this.