On the 25th of December, Kat and I ventured out to 柳瀬川(Yanasegawa) which is part of Tokyo. The distance itself is not that great, but the train connection is slightly odd: 4 lines, 3 transfers and 3 different train companies. Roughly 1 hour and only 760 yen later, we arrived in Yanasegawa and were picked up by Mariya’s grandfather and taken to the nearby store called Summit, where Mariya, Jesse and Mariya’s mum and brother were shopping.
Once we got to Mariya’s grandparents house, we sat down, had a little talk and were suddenly surprised by a truckload of Christmas gifts from everyone. I was so surprised! They were gifts from the family and from Kat’s mum. We spent the rest of the day sitting at the table chatting away, a good part of which was in Japanese. The grandparents are so lovely, I was so amazed! They made a big effort to make us feel at home, comfortable and to involve us in conversations. Kat and I both truly appreciated their kindness and openheartedness that was so rare to find even in the past few days before and during Christmas.
That evening we went to bed before midnight, so Kat, Mariya, Jesse and me played a couple of games we found in the room: かるた, Fang den Hut, and Packesel. We had so much fun we lost track of time and went to bed around 2:30am.
The next day we sat together again, had our lunch and then headed out on our way back to Tama. It was so sad to say goodbye to everyone, and especially to the grandparents as they have been so great to us, giving us various home grown/made things to take home with us. Mariya and Jesse will be here until just after new year, so we will definitely get to see them again.
Before we headed to the trains, Kat and I succumbed to the cheap prices in Summit. Kat got a truck load of cheap clothing while I looted the 100 yen shop and bought 2 long sleeve shirts (290 yen each) and a huge sweatshirt (1199 yen). Bargains! I was especially happy that each one of those clothing items had weird English on it that made me laugh such as “PERFECT INANE – That fell on the way, later to wake from the trance. And let life’s pursuit put them in a twisted stance? – GRAND HONORABLE HIGH SOLDIER”. Super cool.
Just like expected, nothing happens on Christmas here in Japan. While Christmas paraphernalia sales boom, on the actual day(s) Christmas cannot be felt. The only feelable change is that apparently loads of restaurants were booked out, KFC being one of the most popular (don’t ask), because Christmas is a couples thing here.
Anyhow, after celebrating Tom’s and my birthday, the 22nd of December was a celebration of freedom from class for the coming 3 weeks. That evening, Tom hosted a burger party in his room and it ended up being packed with roughly 10 people. The day after that was supposed to be Kat, Tom and my day in with lots of cooking, eating and movies, but we all slept in too long and didn’t get shopping and other things out of the way until it got very late in the afternoon. I was a bit disappointed that it ended up in just cooking dinner together and watching a few movies with the others.
I spent the 24th of December, which is traditionally the most important day, well evening, in Germany, I spent with Kat waiting for it to pass.. slightly depressing. Then again the outlook of the following day kept me going. This shall be explained… in the following post!
It’s Christmas time even here in Japan, where I believe Christianity is not too common. (1-3% if I recall Ian’s lectures correctly?) In the end it’s just like in most countries in the World where it’s celebrated: commerce. I really dislike seeing Santa Claus & Co. everywhere I go, but no mention or depiction of Jesus anywhere to be found. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not particularly interested in religion in that way, it’s just that the reason for Christmas is, well, Jesus Christ’s birth and thus the name of the day. It just seems odd that because the religious explanation doesn’t sell well, Santa Claus was invented and now celebrated instead.
Anyway, enough complaining. I bought Christmas lights!
1500 yen at Donki!
They make for a great atmosphere, very soothing. I might get one or two more Christmas ornaments, but it would be a waste of money to get too many things, as they can be used only for a couple of days and will be thrown away once I leave Japan.
Tom, Kat and I were talking about making it all homely and Christmassy so that we can get together one of these days and spend a whole day in: watching movies, listening to Christmas songs, eating sweets and a nice meal. Personally, I would love to do this on the 24th as it’s tradition in Germany, but Tom already has plans, and Kat and I have plans for the 25th. I wonder if and what day we will turn our hope of a great, festive day into reality?
On Monday we had our mid-term exams in Integrated Japanese 401 and Kanji 902. I spent less days studying that originally planned, but in those two days of study I only stopped for food and bathroom. As a result, the exams went seemingly well. We received our results for 401 yesterday and I got 80%, which is 20% above passing and, obviously, 20% below aceing the exam. I’m not too sure whether this is considered a good result or not, but, relating it to the feeling I had when class first started and thought it was too difficult for me, I’m quite happy. The only depressing thing about the exam was that ONE page where I apparently failed hard: 1 out of 12 points, haha. OTL
902 results will be announced on Monday, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be around the same percentage.
So I suddenly got ill Tuesday midnight 2 weeks ago. I’m not sure to this day what exactly it was. I suddenly felt really weak and left a gathering to go to bed. That whole night I had a high fever and started to develop symptoms I later found out perfectly match the flu. Now, with all this swine flu hype going on at the moment, my first reaction was obviously: “Oh no.” The next day I was sent to a clinic to get checked. It was a tiny clinic close to the university; maybe 5 minutes walk away. After signing up for clinic membership (yay in English!) and waiting a short while, my temperature was taken. 6 times. The first couple of times it displayed 39°C so the nurse thought that can’t be right, as I was clearly looking half-well and not dead. With a different thermometer it showed 35°C. Hrm. Two more times later it displayed I think 38°C so she thought that was appropriate enough for her liking. After this adventure, I got taken to the doctor, who checked my heart beat at about 15 different points at a rate of 0.5 seconds per place. After that he said something Japanese I didn’t understand which according to the the nurse translates into “not flu, cold”. 2500 yen later I was free to go home and rest.
I informed the Foreign Affairs Office here at TUFS of what happened and they said to rest until I feel better, and that because it’s not swine flu, I’m not excused, so every day of rest is marked as absent. Great. Let’s see my attendance requirement to complete my Japanese language class is 80%, so 4 out of 5 days, I’ve been here almost 8 weeks, so I get to miss 8 days…… right, OK that’ll work out. Just can’t afford the luxury of being ill again.
In total I missed 5 days of class, so it wasn’t too bad. My tutor helped me during this time to think of ways to get those 5 days attendance loss back, including going to a different clinic, but that would have involved more time, effort, money and nerves lost. Sigh.
adventure | casmo | 
27.12.2009 06:50 | 
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