Host fam up to no good again. About a month ago host mom shows me a brochure, tells me to save May 18th. Its to a hotel in Kamogawa, Chiba Prefecture(2 hours from Tokyo) called Arabianart - an Egyptian themed hotel (but really turns out to be more of a large bed and breakfast. We spent the weekend there. I had no clue why host mom chose this place; its pretty out of step from the gigantic 4 star resorts they are members too. But its a good thing we did. Great palace. We traveled with a few extra people - [View Full Entry]

---

---

Let me preface this with fair trade red wine is delicious, and I just drank my fair share of it. Was out with my fair trade circle today with a bunch of other circles from tokyo. Had a great time, talked about how bribes from importcompanies to 3rd world country governments interfere with fair trade - in japanese - drunk. So I guess the languae is coming along well. I love my circle. Anyway, one things I realized today was the japanese don't enunciate...ever. Its like when they talk they hardly open their mouths. I was tutoring a guy today and [View Full Entry]

---

---

Just returned from Japan's nothernmost island - Hokkaido. It was a bit chilly, but beautiful, with one of the most charming towns I've seen, Otaru. Host fam planned this one so as usual, we did lots of running around, hitting 3 different cities in a span of four days. Plans included a beer factory, a crazy resort, a zoo, lavender farm, and then Otaru. Before getting into the details, the event was Golden Week, a long weekend, and in Waseda's case, a week long vacation created by some random national holidays thrown together. Maybe, at some point, the holidays had meaning, [View Full Entry]

---

---

I woke up today and thought to myself...why is my voice all scratchy? This isn't normal. Then I realized that wow...I think I just hit a milestone in my language study. Went out with the circle at 1:30 in the afternoon yesterday and came back at 10pm that night. No english was spoken. And I talked enough to burn my voice out a bit...now that is cool. Today was the big welcome for the new students that decided to join the circle. Stuff before was just to drum up interest so we had plans for going to a fair trade shop, [View Full Entry]

---

---

Host family has been up to no good recently. Like springing second row Blue Man Group tickets on me 20 minutes before the show starts in Roppongi and taking a weekend trip to a beautiful place in Nagano-ken called Karuizawa. Karuizawa to Tokyo is like Nantucket to New York and Boston; its the nature place the rich people go to get away from the heat. It isnt summer yet so Karuizawa the town was pretty empty, only about half the shops were open, but it was nice since it wasn't crowded. It's at a pretty high elevation so the air is [View Full Entry]

---

---

In the fall I put up a post about the momiji, japanese maples, changing colors and what a big deal it is. The spring equivalent are sakura trees, cherry blossoms. Around the first week of april all the trees in Tokyo pop at the same time and the Hanami (flower seeing) begins. I'm pretty sure its the drastic changes in these two trees that coordinate with the seasons that explains why Japanese people believe that Japan is the only country that has 4 seasons. That's not a joke. The only thing more surprising to them, (and frustrating to me) is when [View Full Entry]

---

---

The Tokyo metro area by most measures clocks in at around 12 million people who's main protein source is fish (although this has been changing as McDonalds etc. has been colonizing the world). It makes for the biggest fish market in the world, called the Tsukiji Wholesale Market, a 40 minute train ride from my house. This is the market responsible with providing ALL of Tokyo either directly or indirectly with its fish. From the top restaurants who go directly, to major supermarket chains who take deliveries from a middleman, to the little neighborhood fishmonger, if you eat fresh fish in [View Full Entry]

---

---

This entry is going on a month overdue. I've been occupied in the exotic land of New York for a few weeks and haven't gotten this up. But since I am going back to Japan tomorrow, I figured I get this long, colorful entry done when there really isn't much else to do. Once I get back to Japan I know there will be plenty of things to do and people to catch up with, not to mention re-immerse myself in the language. I don't know how a 4 week removal from Japan will be, but I may be a step [View Full Entry]

---

---

Today was clear, cold, and my food poisoning had all but gone away, so took a day trip to go see Mt. Fuji up close. Have some great pics of the mountain from far away in Tokyo, and had some semi-clear views from Hakone, but today was focused just on the mountain. In reality, we were still about 30 mins to an hour away from the mountain when I took the up close pics, but it's so big that distance didn't matter. It was magnificent to watch it for a chunk of time and get your pictures in fast as the [View Full Entry]

---

---

When you are japanese, or in Japan, going to Korea is the thing to do. Tokyo is closer to Korea than any other country, so close in fact that it takes longer by plane to get to Okinawa than it does to Seoul. Korea is cheap, dirt cheap. I've never been in a country before where the dollar bought anything. Japan's yen is very strong compared to the dollar, and the times I was in Europe the exchange rate was about 1.5 euro to a dollar. Not easy on the wallet. As for Korea, it took work to spend money. The [View Full Entry]

---

---