Long Weekend!!

This past Friday school classes were cancelled by Oita-U for what reason? Matsuri!!!

A three day school festival that is. To take part in it, we Americans decided to sell three things we thought may be unique to the American culture but simple and tasty enough for the everyone else to enjoy. We sold hot dogs, grilled cheese and of course PB&J sandwiches! Day one, Friday was fairly interesting with several booths selling popular food known to be from the Oita region. The main attraction *caugh* er event actuall was the Mr.レーヂィーコンテスト。(Mr. Ladycontest) Yes, thats right, it was something you would only find here in Japan. A bunch of guys on stage dressed up as girls preforming dance like girls in some sort of Jpop music video. A part of me was kinda freaked out, but entertained by the whole thing.

The next night, Saturday was a different story. For most of us ryugakusei, October 31 meant something else. Halloween Party! We went to a venue downtown that might as well have had every foreigner in Oita perfecture. The music was live and loud, the room was crowded, and it was all you can drink. The party was crazy, American style! It was cool to, meeting people in person whos blogs I had followed just a month before. Kinda like "I know you... but not really."

This was probably one of the most interesting Halloween parties ive ever been to. Theres nothing like getting together with so many people from different places all knowing you have the same challenges being in Japan. As fun as it was, we still had to get up and be at school by 8:30 am the next day to introduce the world (Oita Daigaku) to American food.

The majority of the day was bad weather. Rainy and windy, it was probably the worst conditions for the one day we had to work a booth. And of course I had a hole in both of my shoes which got soaked like never before. Soaked shoes and socks are not cool. It was a crazy day but we got through it and got the opportunity to see people try PB&J and grilled cheese sandwiches for the first time. Their experiences were definitely worth it. After breaking even with what we spent to buy the stuff, we started cooking some food for ourselves and in the midst of it all, we created a new monster. Viola, the grilled PB&J sandwich!! Which basically got everyone in the booths next to us coming over to try a bite.

After three days of events, and a fourth ending in kickboxing practice, im ready to enjoy tomorrows "Culture Day." For the first time ever I will go to an onsen! (hot spring)

ps. no matsuri can be complete without some sort of sumo wrestling!!

Spaghetti Night

Tonight is dine-in night!

For one thing, I do miss the pasta I used to make back in the US.

Though I love the food at restaurants here, its much cheaper to

dine-in. Well... getting ingredients for Italian food is a bit pricey,

but if you can improvise with using different things it can be

well worth it and tasty too. Alas, I can't exactly act like Mr. Gatsby...

I do have to save up and starve a little so I can travel too.

Viola! Simply pasta with olive oil, various italian herbs, cheese and gnocchi.

Fire Safety Day at the Kaikan

The staff that coordinates with the international students here at Oita-U is amazing. And simply hilarious! The teachers here are nice and more often than not, interact with the students outside of the classroom. Yes, even by coming all the way from the university to our dorms (located downtown) just to teach us fire safety.

I find it funny because the student teacher relationship brings me back to my grade school days. The teachers almost take us by the hand to teach us random things. Today, that random thing was fire safety.

So basically we had a meeting in which we were told to go back to our rooms. The fire drill came on and we walked back outside. Then we got to play with fire-extinguishers..And yes we did get to pull the pins and shoot them!! (there was only water inside)

The best part of the day was the "earthquake experience car" haha. this was actually a large truck that rolled up to the front of our dorms, had a built in kitchen that would shake simulating an authentic Japanese earthquake!!!

これはとても楽しかった。

大分のせいかつはよくおもしろいね。

Reliving Elementary School

Yesterday was the first all day field trip for the exchange students and their tutors. It was the first one i've been on since elementary school, maybe. We all got on a bus with our backpacks and of course brought $20 worth of candy. The three main things we did on the trip were as follows.

Zen Meditation experience:

The place we went to was beautiful. Traditional Japanese architecture both inside and outside confirmed everything I thought I might see and more. The room was covered in tatami mats and neatly spaced pillows for everyone to sit on. As for the meditation experience and people who have the discipline for it, respect. Haha, I thought my legs were going to lose their use after they fell asleep. Sitting cross legged with your back perfectly straight is much harder than I ever though. It was a great experience, but its not quite my thing. I was more concerned with when it was going to end rather than letting my mind relax.

Visit to Futagoji Temple:

This place was straight out of a movie. In fact, everyday ive been in Japan has been like living in a movie. Here the pictures can speak for themselves.

Mikan Grove:

At the mandarin grove, basically everything you could pick and eat on site was free! Anything else you kept you could take home for only 200yen a kilo!

During yesterdays trip i felt a little bit like a child again. Visiting places you only see in the movies, experiencing new things and having someone tell you that you can eat all the mandarins you want can make you feel younger. Not to mention the big bus and the teachers who came with us. Haha..

Oita!!

Today I woke up to a beautiful sunrise. Blue sky, no rain and a ray of sunlight beaming through the curtains. I'm starting to wonder if I could every be bored living here because theres so much I don’t understand when I go out. I can't read most of the signs yet so in a way being illiterate keeps me entertained. All of the exchange students are just as amused as I am whenever I find the meaning of some kanji I just looked up on my 電子辞書。I have eight classes I'm taking this year at 大分大学 and a whole ton of broken Japanese to use. Anyway, heres a picture of Oita in a nutshell. Minus the tall buildings and such.

Typhoon!!!

So apparently there is a typhoon headed towards Japan. Ive never experienced one before. Its been raining almost nonstop for the last few days and my last class was cancelled today. If the trains and buses don't work tomorrow, there will be no class! A bunch of us living at the Kaikan in downtown are just going to hang tight till tomorrow since we cant really go out in this craziness. My shoes were soaking wet all the way through the socks earlier so I'm fine with just staying indoors for the rest of the night.

izakaya

Today was one of the busiest days I could possibly imagine happening in a while. Let me break it down: Catching the first day of classes, It was important to catch that 9:52 train, let alone know which train was which given all the kanji I don't know. After classes were over I spoke as much Japanese as I could to some students who were trying to teach me some Oita-ben (Oita slang). There were two parties on campus, and in one I finally had my first 10min conversation in 95% Japanese! Im not quite there and I've got a long way to go, but Oita is a beautiful place. For the first time since ive been here all week, we finally got to experience a drop in the humidity and feel some fresh air with a cool breeze. This of course made an easy walk to our first izakaya experience! With a couple of the international students from the Kaikan, we walked downtown and found a nice place to karaoke with nomihodai(all you can drink). It was an amazing experience. Topped of with a bowl of gyuniku don from yoshinoya. Thats right. Nothing better than to top of a couple of shots with a bowl of beef and rice.