Traveling Plans - Aquarium - Tribute Album

My dreams of traveling around Japan are about to come true. I'll be traveling to Tokyo, Osaka, Nara, Kobe and Kyoto with my friends Elaine and Coralie. I leave tomorrow morning and will be gone for 10 days. We managed to find a really inexpensive, albeit somewhat slow, way to travel by train and bus so the trip is going to be barely affordable for me...maybe. I won't be able to splurge on souvenirs or food while I'm away but being in these amazing cities with good friends will be enough.

I won't go into any great detail about our plans right now, but expect a complete update on how the trip went when I get back. I'll take a tone of pictures of course :)

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Marine World
I went with two of my English conversation students to the Marine World aquarium yesterday. They treated me and Jack to lunch at a really fancy restaurant at the hotel there, and also payed our entrance fees to the aquarium. That was so nice of them to do. I'm tempted to give them their next English lesson for free...then again, we'll see if I still feel that way after I've returned from my vacation with no money.

Here are a few photos from Marine World:





Hiroyuki Iwatsuki Tribute Album

A few weeks before leaving for Japan I was contacted by someone from the site Game Music 4 All about contributing an arrangement to a tribute album they were organizing for the 20 year video game music legend Hiroyuki Iwatsuki (I had contributed an arrangement to the Super Mario RPG Tribute Album a while back). I told him that I would love to help but I had very little time since I was so busy getting ready for Japan. He insisted and gave me a few options for short tracks that I could arrange. I gave them a listen and decided on the track "Victory" from the old game Mitsume ga Tooru.

Anyway, I completed the arrangement (completely acoustic) and sent the file to him. The other day I was thinking about that track and realized that I hadn't heard any word on the album. I emailed the director and he informed me that it is scheduled to be released online on March 24th! I've been busy the past couple of days sending him images to use for the slide show that will play as the track is streaming on the page; I wrote liner notes for the track as well. He also decided to use my arrangement and photos for a pre-release promotional video for the album.

I'll leave you a link to the site here today. Remember, the album will be streaming on the website for free starting March 24th so be sure to go there and look for mine.

http://www.iwadon.com/

Here is a link to where the promotional video will be once it's done. There is one up already, mine will be a subsequent video. Keep checking for it.

http://vimeo.com/album/196567

And finally, here is a link to the blog that contains the official announcement for the album. New info will be most likely be added here in the days leading up to and after the album's release.

http://gamemusic4all.com/wordpress/

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That's it for now. I'll get back in touch when I return :)

Oh, and the following picture has no explanation. Enjoy...

Quick Update

Not a whole lot has been going on in the past few weeks. I've been on vacation with, unfortunately, very little money to go around so I haven't been able to afford to do anything too interesting.

The film translation I was helping with is done and they are holding a free screening in a couple of weeks. I was invited to attend so I'll let you know how that goes afterward.

I received my work permit a few days ago. I had my first task of translating the instructions to a Japanese placement exam. I was able to work on that from my dorm which was convenient. Working from home is pretty much the best position you could ask for. I have orientation for the rest of the job tomorrow. Hopefully some of it will also be able to be done from my dorm as well; at least the translation work. The recording of the narration for the orientation video will obviously have to be done elsewhere.

I've been studying Japanese everyday. I was doing nothing but kanji practice, but that can get a little dry so I've moved on to making tons of example sentence flashcards. I've filled them with lots of structures that I'm familiar with, but maybe a little rusty at, and I'm using lots of vocabulary that I don't know. That way I'm learning grammatical structures, vocabulary, and kanji all at once. It's going really well so far and is really fun since I'm using Anki (the digital flashcard program). I just put my i-Tunes (or i-Pod, if I'm out and about) on random and study for an hour or two at a time. I'm learning a lot this way.

Takafumi asked me the other day if I knew anyone in Michigan that was studying Japanese that may want a Japanese pen pal. I sent a message to one of my friends and Japanese classmates from last year. As a thank you, Takafumi set me up with one of his Japanese friends as a language partner for me. Like I said above, I'm getting tons of Japanese studying in, but still very little speaking and listening practice. This will help me out a lot. Hopefully it works out so that we can meet up semi-frequently.

Between studying Japanese, I've been watching a really interesting 8-part documentary on the origins and evolution of the English language which is fascinating. I'm on part 6 now.

I had an interesting experience the other night. I kind of liked this Japanese girl. I kind of thought she liked me to. We went on what most would consider a date. Dinner. Movie. Etc...twice! Well, I worked up the courage and I decided to let her know that I liked her only to find out that she has a boyfriend!

?

So, yeah. I mean, she said she liked me too but that she had a boyfriend so...anyway. I was a little disappointed, of course, but more surprised. Why was she going out to dinner and stuff with me. I mean, I obviously liked her. We would text each other everyday. If I had known she had a boyfriend I wouldn't have said anything. We get along great and I would have been perfectly content just remaining close friends. Hopefully we still can. She's out of the country for the next few weeks. We still have plans to watch Ponyo when she returns. We'll see if that still happens.

I told myself that I've enjoyed Japan thus far without a girlfriend, so it's not as if this ruins my whole time here. In fact, life will just be that much less complicated without a girlfriend. Besides, I've gone through much harder things in terms of relationships. It took me all of a day or so to forget about that small crush and move on.

I guess Japanese language is my lady...

Yeah. I'm a nerd.

Well, that's all for now. I wish I could tell you that I've been traveling all over Japan during this break but, unless you guys want to send me some money, that's probably not going to happen. If I make enough from this part-time work I'm going to still try to make it to at least Hiroshima during Spring break. If not, there are still a few more JTW study trips planned for next semester. I really want to make it to Kyoto before leaving Japan, if not Tokyo as well. I'll try to save enough to do that.

I miss you all!

寝られない．．．

…
帰国するのは後６ヶ月ぐらいから、仲がよくなることについてちょっと心配してるけど．．．本当に好きだなぁ～。日本に行くように付き合っていた人を別れたことある。ひどい経験だった。もし、彼女と付き合って始めれば、七月末離れるのは必要だ。ミシガンに帰らなければならない。とりあえず、多分こんなことについて考えなかったほうがいい。僕たちの関係はまだよく分からないからね。俺のことが好きかどうかも知らない。でも、友達によると彼女は好きな人がいるそうだ。友達はその質問を聞いて、「うん、いる」と答えた。知っている限り、最近僕以外の人と遊んだことない。だから、彼女の好きな人は俺だと思う。だから、今寝られない。昨日の夜、俺はメッセージを送ったけど、まだ返事を貰っていない。「すぐ一緒に遊びたいなぁ～」というメッセージだった。明日、俺に連絡すると思う。本当にまた彼女と遊びたい！

Sayonara Party - Anmitsu Hime

JTW Half-Year Farewell Party

Not everyone in the JTW program planned on staying for the full 10 months. Last night we said farewell to some of the students who were leaving. The party was held at Grand China restaurant in the ACROS building, same location as our Welcome Party back at the beginning of the program. There's not a lot to tell...just a lot of good friends eating good food and having good conversations.

Obata-san also announced that she was going to be leaving JTW next month for an internship in Tokyo, after which she'd be going to America to teach at a school there. We're all very happy for her but we'll be sad to see her go.









After-party Bowling

After the party Coralie, Takafumi, Yoshito and I decided to ride to Don Quixote for some bowling. We played three games and, as usual, I progressively got worse as I went, each game scoring lower than the previous one. Bowling is always a lot of fun though, albeit a bit expensive for me these days.




あんみつ姫(Anmitsu Hime)

Twenty-five of us gathered in front of the post office in Tenjin and walked a short distance to the gay musical I mentioned in a previous blog. I was surprised to find out that the name of the show is not Gay Musical as everyone though, but Anmitsu Hime, which translates roughly to sugar princess, or syrup-covered bean jam princess...yeah, just call it Anmitsu Hime. I think the tutors were just trying to describe what it was to us. I suppose that was the best way to do it though. Haha!

Basically it was a full-scale production featuring a cast entirely of guys dressed in drag. There was music, dancing, sketch comedy, audience interaction, singing, and stand-up comedy. We got there an hour early and were able to talk to 4 or 5 members of the cast who came to each of the tables individually. They were happy to see so many foreigners at the show and made a point to mention us often! One of them asked me if I was a TV star because he...um, she...had sworn I was in a movie. I told him I was in a commercial filmed at Huis Ten Bosch but that I was never in any movies. I forgot to mention that I was on Mentai Wide twice, so maybe that's where (s)he'd seen me.

The show was so fun! Great music and performances! Despite only understanding roughly 40% of the dialogue there was enough visual stuff going on to make the experience really great. The fact that it was a fully drag cast wasn't really as strange as it may sound. The costumes and sets were so extravagant you almost forgot about the fact that they were men dressed as women.

We weren't allowed to take any photos during the show, but I did get a partial group photo with two of the cast members as well as a few from outside the theater.


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Last Thursday I had dinner with Hiromi at a restaurant in Aeon. Since she's a Korean studies major I recommended we get some good bibimbap at 石焼. She was all for it~! We spoke in Japanese all through dinner since she doesn't speak English short of a few key expressions. It was a really nice meal and a great chance for us to get to know each other (and practice Japanese).

Afterward we went to my apartment and I showed her a couple of my musical compositions. Then we finally watched 「リリー・チュチュのすべて」 (All About Lily Chou-Chou...don't ask me why シュシュ is romanized as "Chou-Chou"), which I'd been recommending to her for months. She really enjoyed it and we're planning on getting together again soon :)

- - - -

Finally, I was able to Skype with my dad! He's the first family member I've spoken to since coming to Japan 4 1/2 months ago and it was really great to see him and hear his voice. I'm hoping to be able to Skype with my two little sisters next week when they go to his house for dinner.

That's all for now. I only got 4 hours of sleep last night so I'm going to try to get to bed earlier tonight. As always, leave comments if you feel like it. I miss you all!

:)

Exploding Oysters!

Saturday I met with my homestay family for the first time in about a month. I've been so busy with school that I hadn't had an opportunity to see them. Now that the semester is over for the most part (just one last paper to write), I have tons of free time.

I met Sachiko-san (お母さん) and her friend Kaku-san in front of the Tenjin Post Office at noon. We ducked into the Chikagai and boarded the subway, took it a few stations up where we met Takaji-san (お父さん) who was waiting for us in the car. We drove to Kurume City (the same city where the Christmas party was) to a little seaside oyster joint. It was a beautiful area and you could see the water from the seats. The restaurant itself was very interesting: it looked almost like a run-down greenhouse that had some table strewn about and some aquariums that were filled with oysters, and fish of various kinds.

We sat down at a table that had a grill set on the middle of it. We ordered some foil-wrapped fish to be grilled, some sashimi and a ton of oysters. Before you eat them, the oysters have to grill for a while so that the shell loosens up enough to be pried open. Sometimes, though, there is too much water inside and the steam that builds up inside causes the shell to burst open. This happened to us and water shot out in all directions, getting our jackets rather wet. Luckily the water wasn't too hot so there were no injuries. There were two guys sitting at the table next to us who laughed when this happened. A few minutes later one of their oysters exploded. One of them let out a stifled 「アッツイ」 "Hot!"

Sachiko-san also brought along three containers from home: 1. Rice balls, 2. Fresh vegetables and potato salad, 3. Fresh fruit. She also brought thermoses of tea and coffee. The whole meal was delicious! It was my first time eating oysters and it's definitely something I'd be willing to try again.

On the way back to Fukuoka we stopped by a diner and had dessert. I ordered a vanilla and green tea ice cream parfait atop fresh fruit and gelatin. So delicious!

お好み焼き（Okonomiyaki)と酒蔵（Sakagura)

Today Marc, Coralie and I met up with Yoshito (Jack's tutor) and his friend Megumi for some delicious okonomiyaki in Tenjin's Chikagai. I ordered エビ玉子（shrimp and egg). It was way too big, but really delicious. I like hanging out with Yoshito because we speak in Japanese about 95% of the time which is such good practice for me.

After lunch we went to a special once-per-year event called Sakagura. It's basically a huge gathering of tons of different 日本酒 (Nihonshu, a type of Japanese alcohol) vendors from around the prefecture (maybe the country...I'm not sure). So, on this day only you pay 100 yen (about $1) and get to drink as much as you want. 飲み放題 to the extreme! There were all sorts of interesting and, well, drunk characters there. But I ran into my Japanese teacher, Fuse-sensei, there and she talked with us a few times over the course of the day. I ended up drinking quite a bit, but didn't get drunk. The nihonshu has fairly low alcohol content so it was really just a fun tasting experience. Takafumi ended up joining us a bit later in the day and it was fun hanging out with him as always.

The best surprise came at the end when we returned the shot glass we had payed for in the beginning. When we handed back to them they returned our 100 yen! The whole thing was free!

The Ingenious Heisig Method of Remembering Kanji Made Even Simpler Via a Jailbroken i-Pod Touch and the Electronic Flashcard Program Called "Anki"

I recently started going through the books entitled "Remembering the Kanji" by James Heisig. It's a method of remembering all of the kanji seperate from their on-reading and kun-reading. It basically gives you a keyword to associate with the character and then creates imaginative stories for you to use to help remember how to write it. I'm 234 characters in as I write this. I know well over 1,000 kanji but this method is a whole new way of thinking about the characters so you have to relearn any that you know so that you can associate the stories with them. The system builds on itself so it would be counterproductive to skip over any kanji you may already know. I'm having really good luck with it so far and it's really a fun way to learn.

I was going to wait until next month to purchase the i-Pod Touch I mentioned in the previous blog...I just didn't have the money this month. But, today I jokingly asked my friend if they had 30,000 yen I could borrow until the next scholarship came and they said yes! So, I got it! In order to fully utilize the hardware you have to "break" it, in a sense. There is software that you can download that allows certain types of applications to run on it that wouldn't work otherwise. "Jailbreaking" the i-Pod is what they call it. So, I did that and was able then to use an electronic flashcard program called "Anki" on it. I downloaded a complete flashcard set for the "Remembering the Kanji" books for it. Just as your music on your i-Tunes can sync with your i-Pod, so too can the flashcards you've made on your computer's Anki program sync with the Anki on the i-Pod. The program remembers what you've studied already, what you've gotten wrong/right, and adds new vocabulary and/or kanji steadily as you go. Having the program on my i-Pod means that I can study kanji anywhere I go!

I also downloaded a Japanese --> English dictionary application so I have a 電子辞書 (electronic dictionary) right at my fingertips. Not to mention 3,843 songs! That's compared to the 800 or so my other 4 GB i-Pod could hold...and my new one is only half full so I'll be able to fit another 3,000 to 4,000 more songs on it if I don't put any space consuming videos and such on it.

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I forgot to bring my camera with me today so I didn't get any pictures from the Sakagura, but some of my friends took a few. I'll upload those at a later date.

This week I'm meeting with both my English language partners so I'll be making a little money. I've been saving every bit of what I make from these jobs as well as putting away all of the 500 yen coins I get. This will go toward paying off the i-Pod next month.

I'm planning on starting the research and reading I need to do for my final paper in Representations of Crime and Justice in Japan. It's a fairly lengthy paper, but I'll get it done on time. I'm planning on studying a ton of Japanese over the break and having this new toy to help me do it will make it that much more fun and effective.

I got my grade back for my Japanese 4 class: I got an A!! I was actually really nervous about it...for some reason I was thinking might actually get a C so I was really happy to see that grade. If you get an A or B in the class you don't have to take a placement exam next semester to get into the next highest level. But, since I'm planning on studying so much over the break I may just take the placement exam anyway to see if I can perhaps pass out of level 5 and go right into level 6.

I haven't got my Speaking 5 grade yet, but hopefully I got a least a B in that one (hoping for an A though, of course). I'll let you guys know once it's posted.

:)

Study! Work! Bowl! Break!

*Rember you can click on images for a larger picture

School is Almost Out!

I've been super busy lately with final exams, final papers, part-time jobs, and (let's not forget) enjoying Japan. I only have Adjusting to Japan tomorrow and then classes are officially done for the semester. I still have a final paper to write for my Gender Studies, Representations of Crime and Justice, and Japanese Life Through Tea Ceremony classes, which have due dates ranging from this coming Friday to the 19th. My 2-month long spring break is coming though! I can almost taste the free time.

I finished all of my Japanese exams! I'm so relieved to have those over with. I've been studying so much lately it's nice to not have to worry about those anymore. I feel like they went well for the most part. The speaking class's interview exam was today. Like pretty much all students, I get extremely nervous when having to speak to a Japanese instructor one-on-one, especially knowing it's for a final grade in the class. As expected I fumbled around with practically every sentence, but I made it through it. It wasn't horrible, and the other portion of the exam, my oral presentation, went extremely well, so I'm not too worried about my grade.

The general Japanese course's exam wasn't too much trouble. There were a few questions on there that I was a bit unsure of, but I studied like crazy for it and feel fairly confident I did well. As long as I get a B for the class I can pass onto the next level without having to take a placement exam before the next semester starts.

(My life...)

Toyota and Fish Ov...well, you'll see.

Last weekend I visited a Toyota assembly plant. Unfortunately picture taking was prohibited inside the plant so I don't have any to post. It was an interesting experience though, and it was really cool seeing the vehicles being built.

Afterward we visited a Mentaiko plant. Mentaiko （明太子） is, brace yourself, the fully ripe internal ovaries of the Pollock fish. It is a popular food invented and made famous here in Fukuoka, often eaten with rice or just plain with sake. There are lots of different kinds of Mentaiko tastes ranging from plain to spicy （辛子明太子）. I tried some and it wasn't bad. Not good, really. I'm sure, like many things peculiar to Japan (or any culture for that matter), it is an acquired taste.

英会話

In the last post I mentioned that I had put up an ad making myself available for English conversation practice. Well, I've met with 5 different people already. The first two that I met with haven't rescheduled for a second meeting yet, unfortunately. Last Friday I met with two women at the same time and so made 2,000 yen for the same amount of work (if you can call it that...it's just conversation). I gave them a discount since it wasn't actually more work, but I still made out the better for it. They've rescheduled for this Friday as well.

One man I meet with regularly: every Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. He's a 60 year old, Toyota retiree. He was born and raised in Fukuoka but lived and worked in Nagoya for decades. He studied in Ohio ages ago and has been steadily studying and keeping up on English ever since. He's a very interesting person and, because his English is so good, we have really great conversations, usually about American politics or my experience in Japan. He also reads English newspapers and highlights any sentence he's struggling with or expressions he can't quite grasp so I can look them over. Sometimes the sentences are apparently mistypes and others are English idioms that have no direct translation and so are naturally difficult to understand to non-native speakers. It's fun trying to explain them though and really gets me thinking about how complicated English must be for learners.

Job!

I'm in the process of applying for a work permit. Not for the English conversation "job", but for an actual legitimate part-time job I'll be doing here at Kyushu University. The school is in the process of rewriting the script for the JTW orientation video. It's being written by the staff so it's in Japanese. They needed someone to handle three tasks,

1. Translate the script into English,
2. Record the narration for the video, and
3. Reformat the content for use on the website

Professor Pollack recommended me to Kaku-sensei for the job. I interviewed today and it looks like I'll be making a little extra cash over spring break! Originally they were planning on having two students work on the project, but the other person is going to be in France during break. So, I asked Kaku-sensei if I should let any of the other students know about the job and contact him if they were interested. He said, "We're okay with you for now. We need someone with a beautiful voice." Haha! Maybe I'll become a narrator full-time! :)

I'll be making the equivalent of around $10/hour. I was told the hours are extremely flexible so I doubt this little bit of extra work is going to ruin my vacation by any means.

Plans for Vacation

Speaking of vacation: we have unconfirmed plans to take a road trip to Hiroshima! Takafumi, my tutor, just got his driver's license and offered to drive a few of us. I'm really looking forward to getting out of Fukuoka, since I haven't had much chance to since the beginning of the program when we went to Kumamoto and Mt. Aso. The commercial was in Nagasaki, but I felt like I was in Holland so it doesn't really count as another Japanese locale!! ;)

I've been saving as much money as I can from the work I've been doing. I've been desperately needing an electronic dictionary （電子辞書） since I came here and was planning on getting one soon. But, I think a better purchase would be an i-Pod Touch. The smallest size is the same price as a dictionary and it has an application that does everything a good electronic dictionary can do, plus a flashcard program so I can study on-the-go. And...it's an i-Pod Touch! Right?

Right.

So, as long as I can afford it without starving I'm going to pick one up soon. It will help my Japanese studies immensely and will be indispensable for this translation job.

My goal during this almost 2-month long vacation is to study Japanese like crazy. I'm not going to allow myself a single day that I'm not working on something Japanese. I'm especially going to focus on vocabulary and kanji. I'm planning on getting through the JLPT 2級 test prep book I purchased a few weeks ago. I'm also going to start going through the Remembering the Kanji books. In another month JTW will be half over and it just hit me how much I want to have gotten really good at Japanese by the time I return home. これから頑張ります！

A WHAT Musical?

My friend Saki got tickets to see "Gay Musical", showing on the 17th of this month. I literally know nothing about it, but c'mon, how could I pass up a show with a title like that. If we can get 25 people in our group the tickets go from 4,500 yen to 1,800 yen. She thinks we'll be able to so I'm excited. It's supposed to be an extremely funny show. I'll write a review once I've seen it.

Birthday Bowling Bash!

My buddy Marc just turned 21 and a bunch of us gathered for bowling at a local alley. It was a blast! My first roll of the night was a strike. I didn't stay too consistent though. I played a couple decent games. Marc managed to get a single-pin spare after the ball went into the gutter. I was actually filming the roll and, after I saw that the ball was "in now way" going to knock over the remaining pin, I turned the camera away only to see Marc's ecstatic reaction as the ball somehow hits the pin anyway. I'd upload the video but...it takes too long for how poor the video quality is on Blogger. It's on my Facebook page if you have an account. If not, you'll just have to wait until July when I come back. Instead, here are a few pics from that night.

(The birthday boy)

(Me, Elaine, and Jack)

(Marc again)

(Goofing around with Elaine; Marc and Rong Yi pointing at something)

(The whole gang)

Well, that's about it for now. Oh, I decided to let my beard grow out again. Sorry to disappoint all of you who prefer a baby-faced Chris. C'mon now, I lasted a couple of weeks! I'm basically doing the opposite now: I'm not shaving at all. Well, slight trimming when necessary but we'll see how long this bad boy can get. As soon as it starts making Japanese kids cry and yell ビッグフット at me, I'll shave...or whenever I feel like it. It's my face.

Meh.

Here's the progress so far. I look angry because the light is in my eyes. I'm happy so no worries.

:)

Leave me some comments if you feel so inclined. I love hearing from you guys :)

I miss you!!!

Beard-Be-Gone!

I shaved my beard!

We'll see how long I can last before growing it back again.

Below are a couple of pictures for proof.