Blogs from Aichi, Japan, Asia - page 4

The train from Osaka to Nagoya only took a little over an hour, but this time I expected the short commute. Nagoya station, where I arrived, reminded me in many ways of Osaka station, and may have been even bigger. It took a few minutes to walk outside of the station where I was greeted by a pair of twin towers and a twist tower. My time was running out in Japan, but I still wanted to explore Nagoya at least a little to get a feel for the city. I had also been in contact with a friend of a friend, Ben, who lived in Yokohama, a city just outside of Tokyo. Ben graciously offered me a place to stay and to show me around Yokohama. That meant I could spend one full day in ... read more

( a blog entry from early January that I never posted) My 4 week long winter holidays are coming to a close this week, but here is a summary of how I’ve spent the time so that I can remember later on! Since moving into the dorm, my whole experience of being in Japan has changed completely, ive met new people, become far more relaxed, and been able to do many things that I couldn’t have had I been still with my host family. I’m sure that had I still been living there, the whole Christmas holidays/new year would have been a very different experience! Anyway I was determined to spend as much of time out of Nagoya as possible (I love it lots here but i needed a break) I went to Kobe on ... read more

We arrived in Nagoya and took the train to our hotel. I found out very quickly that many Japanese really did not speak much English. They were exceedingly polite and usually became very flustered when they could not help me with my request just because they do not understand me. I felt incredibly bad. Subway rides are expensive! About 230yen per one way ride. We found out too late that we could actually purchase one day subway passes for 760yen and felt like kicking ourselves after. We arrived at the hotel and was told that we were at the wrong one. Apparently there are two hotels with similar names and it was obviously a common occurrence for tourists to end up at the one we ended up because the receptionist very quickly whipped out a map ... read more

Last weekend I can absolutely say I think was one of the most exciting weekends of my life. And for that reason I think it deserves a blog entry to itself One of my chosen modules is called ‘Fieldwork Research Methods of Japan’ however we affectionately call it our ‘festival class’ since it is essentially festivals that we are researching so whenever there is one happening in the area, we will go as a class each with our various research questions in mind and attempt to find out as much as we can from participants and spectators of the festival whilst also having a really good time. Educational and fun, bingo. Last weekend was Asuke Festival. Asuke is a small town about 40 minutes drive (our Australian teacher took us all in the car) from Nagoya ... read more

ONE MONTH I absolutely cannot believe ive almost been here a month, its unreal. Whilst talking to Rochelle (my little American friend who rides all my buses and subways with me each day and generally takes care of me) at the weekend who’s only here til Christmas we realised she only has another 10 Saturdays left-which is horrendous, and it means I’ve spent 1/9th of the time with my host family already. Its nuts; I’ll be home in around 10/11months! Anyway that’s the negative thinking over, I just have to do loads of stuff and not waste my time here! This week was fabulous in many ways-much hilarity has been enjoyed. To kick off, the teacher of my festival class recommended we check out the annual festival of a nearby community-Imaike festival. So we toddled along ... read more