You don't measure a year. You cannot measure a year. I just spent 10 months in Japan learning Japanese, hands down the hardest thing I have ever done and the biggest change I've gone through. I was a student and a mentor. I was a younger and older brother. Very much a child, yet somehow found an adulthood. I felt more isolated and more included than ever before. I was mute and deaf then fluent. This blog is a nice decoration, but it only scrapes the surface. For everyone who read this in the past 10 months, commented, and tried to [View Full Entry]

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I did my last improptu sightseeing of my time here in Japan today to one of the few places I knew I had to go see before I even got here, Yasukuni Jinja. It made the news a few times recently because of controversies over who is enshrined there and who made visits. The second "who" was former Prime Minister Koizumi, who made official visits to the shrine to give tribute to the war dead enshrined there. These are war dead from the 1860s onward to the end of WWII. The big stink was made by China and Korea, who still [View Full Entry]

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Going away parties are going to become pretty commonplace this next week, my last week at Japan, but I don't think that any of them will be as touching as the one with my circle and my best friends in this country. We met up for a larger Fair trade event in Tokyo, pretty big and participation was country-wide. Schools came from as far as Shikoku (not the main island of Japan) which was impressive. I would say around 70 people participated and 12 were from the Waseda circle. We have been getting big, really big, in the fair trade movement [View Full Entry]

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I'm just going to keep a running entry of my circle. It's easier that way. Please keep checking this time to time because I ultimately want to get all of my experiences down with this amazing group, but I will never be able to. I am in a Fair Trade advocacy group called Cafaire. We are a recognized circle by Waseda and try very hard to spread the word about Fair Trade and get the Japanese (who don't change easily) to wake up to the fact that fair trade is out there. For those of you who don't know, fair trade [View Full Entry]

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Host mom had some guests over last night, a man and woman from Okinawa and it made me remember how different Okinawa was from Tokyo. Everything they did contrasted with the proper Japanese conservative of this city. The guy, big, round faced, chubby, guy walks in with a bright hawaiian shirt and shorts. They don't wear those in this city. Shorts are pretty rare although its plenty hot. The woman has her hair cut short and spiky and just kind of crows this excited greeting to everyone, not afraid to call people by first names, and immediately starts going on about [View Full Entry]

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I've been negligent in posting. Lots of pictures to get up but I don't think I will get to them tonight. Things have been busy, really busy. As time is ticking down to my return home (less than 4 weeks), and my parents coming here (less than 1 week), I've been trying to get ahead of some things and do as much as possible in my short time left here. Seems like every night I'm coming home around 9 or 10pm. The circle continues to be wonderful. I have a whole bunch of pictures I took with them when we spent [View Full Entry]

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It's a song, its a fruit, its a Sakuranbo! Or Japanese cherry (not to be confused with the sakura trees, which are just cherry blossoms.) But, like the sakura trees, its a seasonal item, pretty unique to Japan, that the Japanese can't get enough of. We took a day trip to Katsunuma in Yamanashi-ken. It was foggy in the morning when we left but as we got to Katsunuma the fog lifted and we saw the most magnificent city/town built in this valley of green mountains and low hanging white clouds. I think it was the most beautiful scene I've seen [View Full Entry]

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There is a country wide organization in Japan called the "Ramen Kyoukai," or Ramen Co-operative that many well known Ramen shops belong to and that promotes Ramen across Japan (as if it needs it.) There is another word in Japanese "Kyoukai," it means church, which I think is more appropriate for the followers of Ramen in Japan. Although Ramen is my number 2, next to soba, I've gotten to like it more and more so when I saw that the Ramen Kyoukai was coming to a neighboring park in Setagaya, I invited some ramen-loving friends and we hit the park for [View Full Entry]

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Here it is, the Yanks vs. Sox, Laf vs. Lehigh, but Japanese style - the Spring meeting of the two most prestigious private universities in Japan, Waseda and Keio. After being shut out of tix for the fall matchup, I was pretty pumped to get my hands on these. I wrote before that Japanese baseball's cheering and fans were a little, ehem, different, then America. I said this from watching the Giants game safely in the infield seats while the Ouendan (cheering squad) did their madness in the bleachers. For this game, I was in the bleachers, where the students and [View Full Entry]

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I've written before about the Japanese and their fear of germs, but with the spread of Swine flu, known here as "Shingata Influ" (New Strain Flu). We are in the highest gear of quirky germaphobia. So why do we call it New Strain flu instead of swine flu? To not turn people away from pork. Now in analyzing the Japanese mentality, this was not a good move. First, NEW tends to invoke fear here. Change and new is a bad thing. Secondly, if it had stayed as swine or pig flu, it would have given the Japanese another reason to bash [View Full Entry]

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