My year in Japan.

Yeah, it's been a while since I've updated. My excuse? 

Well, since Okinawa I have been pretty busy and haven't really had much time nor inclination to post an update. Sorry about that. 

After I got back from Okinawa, I was back in my dorm for a little while before my parents and sister came over from Norway for a two week visit. It was really nice! We traveled around Japan by train, saw lots of things and I think they really enjoyed it. We started in Osaka, went to Kobe, Kyoto, Narai, Matsumoto, Tokyo, Kamakura, Nagoya, Takayama, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Takamatsu and back again to Osaka. We were quite lucky with the sakura 桜 or cherry blossoms as well, which was great! They were so beautiful, and I can totally understand why they Japanese appreciate them so much. 

After my family headed back to Norway I basically started university again straight away, and therefore April was quite hectic for me. I had to choose my new classes for this semester, take a placement test, have meetings with professors etc etc. I still don't feel like everything is settled as I don't really have a routine yet., and I'm sure I'll  be able to establish one this semester... Hm, we'll see. 

I have however, chosen my subjects for the coming months. I'm doing two Japanese language classes, one class on Japanese visual culture, and three classes in my faculty with Japanese students. The reason I chose to do more normal classes is that I don't feel like my Japanese has improved as much as I would have liked, and so I'm taking a new approach to learning! Probably a wiser approach really, but it's hard and I'm not sure how much I'll get out of it. Two of the classes have reading materials in English, which makes it a bit better because if I prepare for class it's not that difficult to follow what is being said, but the third class I'm taking has reading materials in Japanese only, and that makes it much harder and more demanding. Luckily none of these classes have exams, only essays. 

One of the major advantages to taking normal classes with Japanese students rather than classes with just exchange students is obviously that I get to meet more Japanese people and in that way improve my language ability. On Tuesday for instance my class had arranged an after school food and drink party and it was really fun. We drank, ate this dish called nabe (basically a hot pot), and talked lots in Japanese. It was very cool! I am hoping that if it continuous like that I might see the improvement that I'm hoping for! hehe 

Other than university I haven't been up to that much lately. Jon and I went to a city called Wakayama the other weekend for Golden Week, which is a weekish period of public holidays in Japan where basically everyone inthe whole country travels. We were kind of late booking so we could only find (in all of the country!) that one room in Wakayama and two rooms in Kobe, so we decided Wakayama City would be better than staying in Kobe again.  

What can I say about Wakayama...? Well, there isn't much worth saying to be honest. I can't really recommend Wakayama City to anyone. It was an incredibly uneventful place. There were no shops, no restaurants, no people, no nothing. The only things I can recommend is the castle, which was pretty good and had a nice park (including a little zoo!) surrounding it, and the area down by the beach, which was actually pretty nice.  Like the city itself the people weren't the most welcoming either. I'm guessing they don't get many foreigners in Wakayama City because there was an unprecedented amount of staring! I have gotten used to staring people since being in Japan, and generally it's not that bad as people tend to look away pretty fast. In Wakayama they were just unashamedly starting, and starting, and starting. It was ridiculous. And uncomfortable. Also, when we were just walking around looking for a place to eat, this old man with nationalist pins on his chest came up to us and stopped us on the street to ask us where we were from, which is not as unusual here as one might think, but then all of a sudden he started insisting that we come with him for a drink. We declined but he wouldn't leave it. He started following us and pestering us to come with him, and when we still didn't want to he actually GRABBED Jon's arm and tried to pull him with him! I was just like "WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS CRAZY ASS MAN DOING!?" We managed to get rid of him in the end, thank god, but when we got back to the hotel in the evening, he was actually sat in the lobby! We just turned around in the door and went to get dinner praying that he wouldn't see us. Luckily he was gone, or had given up, by the time we got back. That man completely killed any appreciation I could possibly have for Wakayama City. Way to go old man, you're a great ambassador for your town. 

To top the whole anti-foreigner feel off we were stopped by the police the next day so they could check our papers to make sure we had the right to be in the country. I know they are allowed to do it, but it still felt....well kind of...racist, and unnecessary.  Oh well. I guess it was also kind of exciting in a way hehe. But I'm so glad I hadn't forgotten my residence card. 

So yeah... Wakayama City didn't give me a very good impression and I can't say I would ever go back. I think there are some pretty cool things to see otherwise in Wakayama Prefecture that you need a car to see and I would quite like to see those, but Wakayama City, no. 

Ah now I feel bad for being negative, but... it's hard to be positive when there really wasn't much to be positive about. Except the hotel! The hotel was really nice! 

The last week hasn't been very eventful. Had uni, gone to that after class party, went out one evening with some people, tried to prepare for the JLPT (yes, I signed up to take this test called the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, which is a test that officially tests your Japanese ability) and done other normal boring things. 

So I just came back after spending two weeks (22/2-8/3) in Okinawa with Jon! We had a wonderful time. The weather was mostly nice, it was much warmer than Honshu (main island of Japan), and it was just a really great trip. 

I think I will try to recap our trip mostly in pictures and add a little text in between, as I think it's much better to just show you what it was like rather than me trying to explain it. Also, since we got that new camera back in January, the photos are actually nice hehe. Having a good camera has resulted in us taking a massive amount of photos though, so choosing the nicest is a bit hard... 

We flew from Kansai International to Naha (the prefectural capital in Okinawa) on 22 February, and landed around midday. We flew Peach, which is a fairly new low cost carrier, and both in Kansai and in Naha they had been banished to these tiny terminals far from the normal domestic terminal. In Kansai that terminal was quite nice, and the fact that it was tiny was actually good as it made everything really easy. The one in Naha on the other hand was hilarious. It was basically just a hanger with some deck chairs and a check in counter. They didn't even have a proper baggage reclaim area, instead the staff just carried our luggage in and plonked it in front of us leaving everyone to search for their own bags. It was quite funny. I've never experienced anything like it hehe. 

The weather the first day wasn't that great. It basically started pissing it down as soon as we checked in, BUT it was still warmer than where we'd come from so we didn't mind. 

This is the view from the our hotel room. Not the best photo, but it shows the weather. Soon after this photo was taken it had gotten so grey we couldn't even see those houses behind the curved roof! 

The second day, however, the weather was great! We had booked a whale watching trip before coming to Naha, so we ended up spending the majority of the day on this! 

There were several boats out on the ocean with us looking for whales. This boat isn't our boat (obviously), but I thought I should post it as this is basically what our boat looked like. Lots of people were on top of the boat, some in front, and on our boat a fair amount of people (including me and Jon) were in the back. We all stayed like that even when the boat was moving, which was quite fun. 

On our boat though, a lot of people got sea sick, and so by the end of the two hour trip I swear half the people onboard were sat on the floor clutching brown bags. 

We didn't really get any good photos of the whales, but we did get to see some, we even saw a flying fish! It was great! I would most definitely recommend it. 

The next day we had planned to head to Shuri castle, which used to be the seat of the king in the old Ryukyu kingdom (before the establishment of the prefecture of Okinawa in 1879), but we got distracted by the park on the other side of the river from our hotel, so we headed there first. The photo above is from a shrine in the park. 

  After the park we headed to Shuri Castle (首里城). The castle was built in the 14th century, but was more or less completely destroyed in World War II, and not rebuilt until the early nineties. 

The day after our visit to Shuri Castle we decided to head to southern Okinawa to have a look at the various war memorials down there. Since we didn't have a rental car (which is a definite MUST in Okinawa), we took the local bus. We had to change at a bus terminal in a place called Itoman, and the photo below is taken there. 

There are several warm memorials in Okinawa, but we headed to a park, I think it might have been called the Peace Park, which was a really large park area filled with monuments and greenery. It was very beautiful.

We really enjoyed just wandering around looking at the various monuments. Plus the ocean looked amazing there! 

Like I said, the ocean looked amazing! 

The next day was pretty relaxed. We started off by going to this Shabu Shabu restaurant fairly close to our hotel. We'd been wanting to go for a while cause it's in a tree! 

It was such a good meal! Shabu Shabu consists of you get a pot of stock to boil in the middle of your own table, and vegetables and meat that you put in yourself when the water is ready. It is amazingly good! 

After lunch we headed to a street that was called pottery street by the guide we used for finding out what to do in Okinawa. It was basically just a street lined with shops selling pottery. 

Whilst walking down the street we met this cat that was really social and insisted on us taking a break to pet it. It also had the most amazing fur!

The pottery street wasn't very long so we soon started wandering into the residential areas around. It was a really pretty area. Whilst wandering we came across another cat, and it was SO cute!

Next day the weather turned bad again, but we still headed out as we had decided to visit the underground Navy headquarters in Naha. I don't have any photos from inside the headquarters as it felt kind of wrong to take photos. Basically the facility consisted of a little exhibit detailing the battle of Okinawa, and the tunnels that made up the headquarters. It was really interesting, and quite upsetting. Unfortunately we don't learn much about the Pacific War in Europe, so I don't have much knowledge regarding what happened in Okinawa, and therefore I found the headquarters very fascinating. 

On the way back to our hotel we walked through a really cool abandoned looking park, and we also stumbled across a wetland centre!

When we visited Shuri Castle earlier in the week we didn't go to the other sights in the area so we headed back there once more to have a look at a park and the mausoleum that houses the old kings and queens of the Ryukyu kingdom.. Unfortunately the park was closed but we got to see the mausoleum. 

On a little side note; they have these statues in Okinawa called Shisa, which are placed outside, or on, most houses and buildings. There's usually two; one with its mouth open and one with its mouth closed. They are supposed to chase away bad spirits and keep good spirits in. There is a great variety of these statues, some look quite scary and angry, some are really cute, and some are just funny like this one that I have posted a photo of below. 

At the beginning of our second week in Okinawa we headed further north to this resort hotel located about 90 min. by bus from Naha. The hotel was kind of in the middle of nowhere, but had its own beach, which is what we wanted hehe. It was also closer to the sights located in northern part of the island.

The photo above shows the view from our balcony. The sea was just so beautiful! Oh and the photo of the sunset at the beginning of this post is also taken on this beach. 

Unfortunately for us the weather wasn't that great the first few days we were at the resort. It wasn't bad, but I think the wind turned because it got a bit cold, and it was kind of grey. So the first few days we spent seeing the sights rather than on the beach. First of we headed to the aquarium. 

We got to see a dolphin show! ...as you can probably tell it was a very grey day!

The actual aquarium was pretty good too, but It was very crowded as it was a weekend and that kind of lessened the enjoyment a bit. They had a MASSIVE tank with two whale sharks though, and that was very cool!

As you can tell it was ridiculously crowded!

The next day we headed to Pineapple Park and Fruitsland, two theme parks completely devoted to pineapple and fruits. Fruitsland was definitely the better of the two, but for some reason Pineapple Park seemed a lot busier. We couldn't take any photos in Pineapple Park, so if you want to see what it looked like google it!  Fruitsland however allowed photos. 

On the way back we stopped by a place called Cape Manzamo, which is supposed to be quite a cool sight. To be honest I wasn't all that impressed, but it was a nice place.

The day after we decided to head to a place called America mura, or America village, which is basically a shopping complex made to look kind of American. It's across the road from one of the American bases on Okinawa, so there were quite a lot of American people around. Jon and I were incredibly fascinated with the whole American bases on Okinawa thing the whole trip. It was quite funny. 

Our last two days in Okinawa we spent at our hotel relaxing as the weather was really good and we could finally properly use the beach! So in order to get a bit of colour (we were incredibly pale!) we spent the days just lying on the beach or sitting on our balcony tanning. We even went in the water! In March! Apparently the water temperature was around 20, so not really cold at all, but the lifeguard seemed amazed that we wanted to swim. 

Yup, that's me in the water!

Last weekend Jon came down to Kansai again. We stayed in Osaka this time around. We were originally planning to stay in Nara, as I've never been and I wanted to see it, but here is a limit to how much you can do there, so we decided to stay in Osaka and instead take a day trip to Nara on the Sunday. 

On Friday evening we didn't do much besides checking in and accidentally going for a really long walk whilst attempting to find a Saizariya (restaurant). 

Saturday, we didn't really know what to do as we have both been to Osaka a reasonable amount of times now, but we decided to head to Osaka Castle and it's surrounding park. Unfortunately I forgot my phone on that day and Jon hasn't sent me the photos he took so I don't have any original photos to show. I can only offer you this one that I've found on wikipedia. This one includes the park as well as the castle which I thought was good as we went there mainly for the park. 

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Osaka_Castle_02bs3200.jpg)

The park was really nice, and we had a very good time, but it was the middle of January so there wasn't much greenery or life around unfortunately. I would really like to come back in spring when all the trees there will be in blossom though, I imagine it will be beautiful as there are loads of cherry blossom trees and plum trees. 

We also went and bought a new camera. It was expensive, but we are sharing it so that kind of made the price okay. 

On Sunday we left Osaka and headed for Nara. We got a bit confused with the trains and ended up in Nara but not at the station we wanted so had to take a bus as well, but we made it to touristy bit in the end. 

Nara 奈良 was the capital of Japan from 710 to 784 and so has several big and important temples and shrines. The city also has loads of deer that walk freely around. You can even buy biscuits to feed them. You have to be careful when you do though, because they start following you around desperately trying to get food from you. They even do this sometimes when you don't have food which can be a bit scary haha. 

Yup, sometimes the deer get a bit too excited about the prospect of food! This particular deer is eating a woman's magazine. Another one tried to eat my yaki imo 焼き芋 (stone roasted sweet potato) out of my hand, and so ended up eating the paper bag the potato came in. 

This is Todaiji 東大寺 a Buddhist temple in which the world biggest Buddha statue is located, this kind of statue is in Japanese called a daibutsu or 大仏. It's also a UNESCO world heritage site. 

The daibutsu. 

When you get a I'm not sure what you call it haha, blessing? prediction? at a shrine in Japan people often tie them to trees after. The blessing are called omikuji おみくじ

I really love these lanterns! There were so many of them everywhere, and I took loads of photos of them. 

I haven't written an update in while, so I figured it would be best to just skip the last few weeks and just go straight to the Christmas holiday. Nothing much happened before that anyways hehe.

Oh except, there is this light festival in Kobe in December every year called Luminarie ルミナリエ in memory of the 1995 earthquake, and when Jon came to see me the weekend before the end of term we headed to see the lights. It was really busy and raining, so it wasn't as enjoyable as it could have been. I'd actually been once before with two friends so I got some photos on a non-rainy day.

Classes finished December 21st, and I headed to Nagoya to see Jon on the 22nd. The plan was to stay in Nagoya until the 28th and then head to Tokyo to see two of our friends for New Years.

I took the bus to Nagoya again, which I really don't mind because it is significantly cheaper than the train and it's very easy and comfortable. For the first few days we most just relaxed and watched Downtown Abbey. Yes, we are middle aged. 

It felt kind of weird being away from home for Christmas. This was the first time ever I hadn’t been with my family, and it made me a bit sad. We tried to create some Christmas spirit and stuff, but it still wasn’t really the same. They do have a reasonable amount of Christmas stuff in Japan, lots of lights and decorations everywhere, but Japan isn’t a very cozy country and there wasn’t any snow or anything, and they don’t actually celebrate Christmas here, so it’s all very commercial and not traditional in any way. Jon had put up decorations in his room, and we put all our presents out  (on top of his mini fridge haha), so in the end it was quite Christmasy after all.

 On Christmas Eve we didn’t really have any special plans. We were going to go for a nice meal, and then open some of our presents in the evening, but then we realised that we didn't really have any idea where to go for dinner, so decided to go to this really nice American hamburger restaurant called Downey by Jon's dorm. We'd spent most of our time inside so far that holiday, so before dinner we decided to head to this big shrine in Nagoya. According to Jon, it's the third most holy in Japan. The difference between a shrine and a temple is that shrines are Shinto (the religion native to Japan), and temples are Buddhist. 

The entrance to the shrine.

The kind of sad thing about shrines is that they have to be rebuilt every 20 years, so they are never old. There aren't that many old building in Japan in general, but I feel like religious building should be old and full of history. I'm not sure why they have to be rebuilt, but according to Jon it has to do with the cleanliness ideals of Shintoism. I don't know, google it! 

After the shrine, we had dinner and then we headed home for presents! We decided that I would open my present from my sister, and we would open the presents from each other, then Jon (and I) would open the presents from his family on Christmas Day.

Our pile of presents! And our (kind of failed) attempt at mulled wine. And yes, we did eat Pringles on Christmas Eve...

I talked with the parents, grandparents and sister on FaceTime, and then we watched a Christmas film. I think it was called Nativity. It was really good! 

On Christmas Day, we had a good breakfast, which was quite a feat when you consider Jon's kitchen, and then opened the rest of the presents. Jon got a very cool Christmas sweater from his sister, and we had a lot of fun taking photos of him posing in it. And his long Johns. 

In the evening Jon wanted to take me somewhere as a surprise. It was quite exciting because he had been talking about it for a while. Unfortunately Christmas Day is THE date night of the year, and so everyone else in all of Nagoya also seemed to be out and about that evening. It turned out a bit problematic getting to our destination, but in the end we got there. It was this light festival outside Nagoya and it was really beautiful (and REALLY COLD!). 

This was the first of the two amazing light tunnels! The electricity bill must be so high! 

The second light tunnel was supposed to be a tunnel of Sakura 桜 (cherry blossom). It was pink, and pretty and just beautiful. Jon's parents called whilst we were in the Sakura tunnel, so he FaceTimed with them whilst in the tunnel. Some of the people walking past looked a bit confused haha. 

Since it was a festival there was an area of stalls where you could buy souvenirs and food, and so we ate some nikuman 肉まん (white buns withe meaty stuff inside) and yaki imo 焼きいも (stone cooked sweet potato). 

The yaki imo was incredibly good in the cold, but it was a lot of food. 

So in conclusion, our two days of Christmas were really good even though it was different from what we were used to :) 

On the 28th of December we headed to Tokyo. We took the bus from Nagoya, which was supposed to take six hours but ended up taking eight. I really didn't mind taking the bus though, it's cheap and easy. Plus we went over the mountains in Gifu (prefecture next to the prefecture Nagoya is in), and it snowed! It was so exciting because I hadn't seen any snow yet this year. I don't think Kobe is a snowy city. It was because of the snow that the journey ended up taking longer, but like I said I didn't mind.

At one of the many rest stops.

We ended up getting to Shinjuku 新宿 (area in Tokyo) quite late. Our friend came and met us and we headed to their flat. Because one of these two friends isn't a student, they couldn't live in student dorms and so had a flat. The flat was really nice, and big (I was surprised, as I had expected a Tokyo flat to be quite small), and I was quite jealous. 

We'd made a list of things we would like to do whilst in Tokyo, but it ended up getting a bit pushed to the side as we kept going to bed quite late and therefore getting up quite late the next day. Also, with four people and just one bathroom it takes a while to get ready in the morning. I didn't mind though, I've been to Tokyo before, so I was happy to have a more relaxed rather than touristy trip. 

We did do some cool things though. Our friends were invited to this guy that one of them works withs home for dinner and Jon and I came along. The flat was really nice (I wanted it!), and the food was delicious. We had nabe, which is a dish that is made on the table. You have a big pot of boiling stock, I think, in the middle of the table, then you put vegetables and meat in. Once it's ready you pick out what you want to eat, dip it in this tasty sauce and eat it. It's really delicious. After the meal we headed out to Roppongi 六本木 to a bar, where the boss of the guy whose house we were in was. It was really fun, and unlike anything I'd experienced. It was a networking event, and so everyone there was really interested in talking to us. The boss guy kept buying champagne for everyone, and so our glasses were never empty. I got lots of business cards, and although they all worked with things in no way related to anything I will ever do in the future, it was still very interesting and a good experience.

On New Years Eve during the day (what? ...31 December), we headed to SkyTree (the tallest building in Japan at 634m), the main thing that I wanted to do in Tokyo! We got there around 13:00, but had to take a tickety thing and come back at 19.30, to actually go up to the viewing platforms. So we wasted a few hours doing this and that, and then came back in the evening. 

The orange building is Tokyo Tower, previously the tallest building. 

After SkyTree we headed back for dinner and then to a temple in a park by Tokyo Tower. In Japan New Years is a much bigger holiday than Christmas, and it is traditional to go to temples and shrines around new year to pray, and so it was absolutely packed at the temple we went to. It was called Zoujouji 増上寺, and I think it is pretty famous. 

Right before midnight there was a countdown and then at twelve the lights on Tokyo Tower changed and said 2013. 

It was very, very cool. So many happy people! 

After this everyone started heading towards the main building (the one in the photo) to throw money in front of the Buddha statue and to do their prayer. We also wanted to do this. It took a while to get inside, but once we were it was quite the sight. I'm not sure you can get in that hall any other time of year. It was all golden and beautiful. It wasn't very serene or anything though because there were loads of people and loads of pushing. There was some excellent Japanese crowd control and light saber waving going on, but it was still pretty uncomfortable. 

 After the praying we had a look around the rest of the area, had some sake and generally enjoyed ourselves. 

1 January Jon and I left our friends flat and checked into a hotel. On the 2 January we headed to this professor I see every week at Kobe's house in Chiba (the neighbouring prefecture to Tokyo) for traditional new years lunch. The food was tasty, and different. There was a lot I'd never had, and probably will never have again. There were two other guys there as well, one was a speech therapist and the other one of her old students. We had a lot of interesting conversation, exchanged some gifts, and drank some sake 酒 (Japanese rice wine). It was a very good time. 

I think probably one of the best aspects of this trip to Tokyo was that I got to do a lot of things, and meet a lot of people that I didn't expect to. It was a very nice trip :)  We headed back to Nagoya on 3 January, again by bus. This bus went past Mount Fuji 富士山, which was quite exciting! 

I stayed in Nagoya with Jon until 5 January and then I headed back to Kobe. I started uni again on the 7th. 

A bit late, but happy new year!

I haven't really updated in a while, but there hasn't really been much happening either. 

A few weekends ago, November 23rd till 24th, I went to Nagoya because one of my friends from SOAS was going there to see Jon, and I wanted to see her too.  It was a nice weekend, and we had fun. We went to the zoo, did karaoke, took a taxi. It was pretty good. I'll post some photos soon :)

The last two weekends I've been in Kobe. Last weekend I saw the new James Bond film on Saturday and then on Sunday I had English roast with some people at the English pub in Sannomiya that I went to ages ago.

It was really good going to the cinema again. I love the cinema, Jon and I used to go all the time, but this James Bond film was my first cinema trip since coming to Japan. The film was okay and it made me kind of homesick as it was set in London. It was quite a big cinema, which was sort of surprising as it was on the 8th floor of a building, and the theatre we were in was supposedly full, though it didn't look it to me. The cinema itself was just like any other cinema really. And it wasn't even that expensive! The ticket was only 1000 yen. I was surprised! 

This weekend I haven't done much in terms of socialising or homework. I've turned down socialising to do work because I have my JLPT N2 midterm next week, but kind of just ended up procrastinating instead. 

I did go to a birthday party for a friend last night (Saturday). I don't really know many of her friends, since I don't have any classes with them and I've met most of them only once before, but they were really nice and I had a good time!

Today (Sunday) I was supposed to go to Nara, and I really wanted to go, but I decided to stay home and study instead. Meh. 

In terms of non-weekend time, uni is pretty much just uni. I go everyday, I do my homework, I'm bored. Yeah, it's pretty much just the same as the UK, just less interesting because I don't really do any real subjects here. But ah well Christmas holiday in two weeks!

Speaking of Christmas, I've decorated my room with cheap decorations from the 100 yen shop, and I've downloaded a Christmas album. It'll be weird being here for the holiday, but I'm sure I'll still enjoy it. 

Weatherwise it's not as cold as Norway, but it's still really really cold! It doesn't help that there is a constant freezing wind blowing through Kobe either. I'm sure it's great in the summer to have some wind, but in winter it is awful! It's so, so cold. Apparently it even snowed a bit here today (according to facebook), but I missed it...