Theresa Young
Well, I'm a student interested in the field of East Asian Studies. I love music and if I were an instrument, I'd be a cello. I'm more than willing to talk, and am usually found having nothing to do.kaederose
Travel Blog Posts
December 16th 2006
Now that there's only one day left here, I've finally got the time to do a last update before I get home and that "reverse culture shock" I've heard about happens. Maybe I'll ask my parents to keep track of it and see if I actually go through any of it. The last week of classes, I was a little bit of a bad person. I had my finals for classes, and after the oral Japanese final, I just skipped the last 2 classes (History of Tokyo and Japanese review). I was just ready to be done. But that worked out fine. Thursday was the oral for Japanese and after I finished, I went to IES. It only took 10 minutes and I was first, so I had a lot of time to kill. I feel ... read more
December 7th 2006
I never had enough to warrant a whole entry until now, so I'm covering the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th of December. On the 7th. Ha. On the 2nd, I went with Okasan to hear a shanson concert, which was enjoyable. They did all these weird Christmas songs in Japanese. Songs I've never heard of that were not traditional and sort of like a lounge act. My okasan's friend's daughter, Eri, was singing, so we had free tickets. It was a really small thing, like in a tiny restaurant that happened to have music equipment. The pianist was quite good and they're not bad. The headliner was some guy who's apparently a semi-celebrity who has a good voice. He does have a nice voice, but I was having a hard time not laughing at the gold ... read more
November 24th 2006
This doesn't get two entries since I feel it was more like a one day trip less bus time. I got to Makuhari on time, and actually caught up with Liz, Ian, Priscilla and Kirsten at an intersection so we finished the walk there as a group. I bought a snack at the conbini and got my seat. The bus was a little more crowded this time since we only took one due to about 30 people going. It was kind of unenjoyable but I took a seat on the aisle so I could stretch out a litle. Aside from stopping in a service area for lunch, which was kinoko udon (mushroom noodles) for me, we went straight to Toshogu, and Dr. Itani came along for that part to act as a tour guide. I don’t ... read more
November 19th 2006
This week I got to meet my Okasan's mother. She writes her name in katakana because it was apparently a really popular thing to do back in the day. I told a couple of the ladies at IES she did it, and they both thought it was really "omoshiroi!" which is kind of hard to translate in this sense, since it has more than one meaning. They thought it was interesting, fun, and cute. She's really nice and seems funny. I've never seen my host brother be as social as he was last night at dinner. But I got to have something of a surreal experience. Okasan's mom, Sano-san, found out next week is my birthday and I'm turning 21. We were discussing plans for next week and it came up. I don't even think Okasan's ... read more
November 15th 2006
Well, I've officially got a month left here. I've taken all the midterms too, since my last one was Monday. I'm not doing as poorly as I thought in Japanese, so I'm grateful for that. Extracurricular activities have been rather sparse - IES only had one activity, a calligraphy class, which I cannot do. But this coming week more than makes up for it. This weekend I'm making another trip to Yasukuni for History of Tokyo, which, if not enlightening, will be enjoyable. We've got class as usual on Monday, with Jissen and an area study. But I usually go to Art and Society of Japan, which I'm missing in order to go to the Diet for Japanese Society. I have absolutely no problem with this since, as nice as the Art teacher is, her class ... read more
October 30th 2006
Last day, woohoo!! We got up and went down to breakfast about 7:30 am, and the effects of the previous night's partying were pretty obvious on some people. One of my friends, Matt, came down looking like death and said "Oh my god guys, I've got allergies and I'm still drunk." That's right - people went to bed about 3 am and woke up still drunk. Good times. We all brought our luggage down and toted it to the parking lot where the buses were waiting and told the driver to which destination, Kaihin Makuhari or Makuharihongo, we were going. Then we got on microbuses, of which there were three, to go to Jigokudani Onsen. This is probably better known to most people as the onsen where the Japanese macaques (snow monkeys) go and bathe in ... read more
October 29th 2006
Ah, the third day. I was excited to be involved in this. But, first things first. We had breakfast, the main unusual thing being a hard-boiled egg that was boiled in the onsen. It's apparently quite common to do it, and we did see a place where people picked them out. But onsen eggs just sound odd. We piled onto the bus around 9 am and went to pick apples and make mochi. I was especially interested in apple picking. Family, we need to start that tradition. Nagano is famous for its fruit, especially Fuji apples, peaches, blueberries, grapes and chestnuts. We got to the apple orchard and listened to speeches from Shin-san, the apple workers and a city representative. Then we split into groups of about 10 people and went with a volunteer. We were ... read more
October 29th 2006
Breakfast was at 8:00 am and we wanted to go to an onsen before that, so we set an alarm for 6:30 and said we'd meet at 7 am in the lobby. We all wore yukata a lot on this vacation and the ryokan provided geta for us to wear around the town. We only went to one onsen but it was by far the largest. We got there and there were three Japanese women in it but there was more than enough room for us all to use it together. We got in and after about two minutes, all three of them got out and ran away. Ok, they didn't run but they dressed really quickly. We weren't even being rude, speaking loudly or anything blatantly obnoxious. We were deeply hurt. In the rotator cuff, ... read more
October 29th 2006
Prologue: Ok, the Nagano trip rocked but because so much happened and I'm lazy, it's getting written in day-by-day installments so it's easier to read and to write. Enjoy! October 25th, 2006 I had to leave my house earlier than usual so I could get to the meeting point at IES on time. We were supposed to meet at 8:30 and leave by 8:45 am. I went to Makuhari station, which made the walk to IES sort of wretched. I had packed my backpack and it weighed about 15 pounds; a 20 minute walk with that is not on my list of things to repeat for fun. About halfway to IES I met up with Ian and we walked together the rest of the way, discussing the gigantic spiders Japan has. When we got there, I ... read more
October 17th 2006
I did a lot of things, actually, and feel bad about not giving them their own headings. But two specifically were awesome so they're going to be what I write about. On the 10th of this month I got to go to a very special tea ceremony. According to Kudo-san, this is something not done often and many Japanese don't get the chance to participate in one. But luckily for us IES students, one of the host mothers is a tea ceremony practicioner, professionally. She goes to Kyoto frequently just to perform the tea ceremony, so she got high marks. I had class that day so I met Okasan and the rest of the group at Funabashi station, and from there we walked to Sato-san's house, where she would perform the ceremony. Her house is built ... read more
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