Time

Not enough of it! So I will just try to catch up with a few things that have happened recently.

We met up with our friend Koichi for his birthday celebration. We went to Shakey’s pizza place, which isn’t highest quality, but the reason we chose it was an insider joke about something Koichi said one day. Anyway, all you can eat for.. sorry can’t remember the price but it was cheap.

Intersting pizza combos, among them banana chocolate.

A couple of days later Kat and I went to Tatsu’s house for Nabe (鍋). He picked us up and we were surprised to see Hiroshi was in the car, too! Hiroshi lives in Yokohama and, while it’s not too far out, we rarely see him. On the way we picked up Saki, who we met at the halloween party,  from the train station. The Nabe was delicious and I really enjoyed the evening with everyone.

Hiroshi, Saki, Tatsu, Kat, NABEEEE(, TV)

I am currently on the second day of my week off. We have no classes because during that time, the 外語際 (Gaigosai) takes place. 外語際 is this university’s festival where there’s loads of little to big stalls where foreign food and drinks are sold. On top of that, there’s a centre stage with performances ranging from Hawaiian dance to.. pop/hiphop dance. Basically, the cultural サークル (Saakuru), or in other words activity clubs, each do a performance. At least so it seems, I haven’t gotten hold of any sort of event calendar. The weather was bad today, so it wouldn’t have made this great festival justice to take pictures. I hope tomorrow or the weekend turn out better.

I had to leave the festival at 2pm because I met up with a group of students to go to a middle school in 立川 (Tachikawa). There we introduced ourselves to about 30 children, talked to them and played games together. It’s an international oriented school, so I’m guessing the aim for this whole project was to get the kids familiar with international culture and people in general.

Other than these things, lots of other.. stuff happened such as paying bills, making dinners, having drinks with friends. But that sort of thing is usually a waste of reading time, so I’ll spare you of them.

Matsuri in Fuchu

Last Tuesday was Body Cultivation Day in Japan and so we had a day off of uni. Kat and I decided to go see the Matsuri (祭り) in Fuchu. The festival occured in at least one other place (Asakusa), but we went to Fuchu because our friend Tatsu is active in the community there. It was the first Matsuri for me, so I was very excited.

Once we arrived by train (too cold to bike) it was easy finding the festival location, as it’s right in the centre of town. There were 20 something wagons being pulled by festival ‘teams’ by rope. Each area/community of Fuchu has their own wagon and even districts of town that don’t exist anymore have a wagon. On top of the wagon are usually two to three children wearing masks and dancing, while behind them several people play the drums and the flute. It’s really fun to watch, as the masks depicted either ridiculously funny faces or some sort of Chinese dragon.

While watching the parade through town, we went to meet Tatsu at the shrine. Along the entrance walk to the shrine, there were food stands to the left and right selling delicious food like Takoyaki (たこ焼き) and Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) at very reasonable prices. Note to self: Matsuris are worth going to if not just for cheap and delicious food.

So we met up with Tatsu and he took us back to his district’s wagon (新宿山谷 – しんしゅくさんや – Shinshuku Sanya). There, he introduced us to his friends pulling the wagon. It’s really nice to see every generation taking part in this happening and everyone seemed so happy I wished we had that sort of thing back in Germany. Kat and I were invited to join in pulling the wagon for a bit, that was a bit awkward as we weren’t dressed up in festival clothing like the others (see picture).

The Matsuri started much earlier than our arrival, but the whole wagon parade ceremony lasted about 2 hours. Kat and I headed back home via Uniqlo to buy some winter clothing. It was a great afternoon/evening and we owe Tatsu for showing us around and introducing us to everyone.

LOTSA PEOPLEZ

Couple of wagons

Two goofballs holding the wagon rope (at standstill).

Kat taking picture of 新宿山谷 wagon. Tatsu's dad on far left.

A wagon by night

新宿山谷's entertainment group, including Tatsu on the flute!

Halloween

We celebrated Halloween 2 days early in Kichijouji (吉祥寺) at a party our friend Rie organised. It took place in a rented restaurant/bar sort of place and the whole night cost 3,000 for all you can eat and drink. We were afraid we were the only ones turning up in a costume, but pretty much everyone was dressed up. We had a great time, here are some pictures.

The Grim Reaper brought a friend

Dan, Hiroshi, Me

Kat wearing her awesome mushroom costume

Dan got a mask on the way to the party

Jacko (Tom) and the Girls

Karaoke Gang

Pepsi Azuki and the Fanta Brigade

No replacement for Pepsi Ice Cucumber!!!

Japan loves its seasons and so do Japanese beverage companies. Autumn has arrived and Pepsi unleashed its new creation a couple of days ago: Pepsi Azuki. It’s name is derived from the Azuki bean. I had high expectations when Tatsu sent me a picture of it to my phone, because 2 years ago during my trip through Japan I enjoyed Pepsi Ice Cucumber (2007 Summer Release) a lot. Azuki’s taste is.. well.. alright. It’s fun to drink because of the unusual taste, but I doubt I’ll be drinking it too often.

Recently I’ve been trying to discover all the different flavours of Fanta. So far I have come across: Orange, Grape (my favourite!), Melon, Cassis, Cider, Peach and one that I forgot the name of, but is supposed to taste like.. Japan. Well, it tasted disgusting, sort of like washing up liquid. But all the other flavours are great and I wish they had them in Europe as well. Selection/variety of soft drinks in England and Germany are pathetic compared to Japan. I’m not sure if I mentioned drink vending machines yet, but they are on every corner in Japan and sell drinks slightly more expensive than supermarkets do, but cheaper than some konbinis do! (147 yen vs 130/110 yen vs 100 yen)

Farewell Formalities, Hello Daily Life

Thursday, two days ago, I finished all the formalities necessary to be legal in Japan and registered in TUFS. I registered for my language classes (Integrated Intermediate Japanese, Kanji) and ISEP classes (Speech and Communication I, Japanese Religions). On Wednesday, I finally got to pick up my alien registration card. My bills for water, electricity, health insurance and mobile phone all come in the mail. Here in Japan, you take those bills to your konbini of choice and hand over the money to them.

Now that all these formalities are done with, I finally have time to study without interruptions. This comes just at the right time, too, because preparation, homework and revision for Japanese language class turns out to be time consuming and quite intense. The textbook we work with is called ‘Tobira 5 – Pre-Advanced Japanese’ and so far features text about stress society and economical campaigns for poor areas in Japan and third world countries. This means goodbye to the Japan Times’ ‘Intermediate Japanese’ in which Jerry and Mr. Kumimoto talk about how many fish they caught that weekend and how nice the weather was.

We are expected to prepare for every lesson or we will slow the class down, and after every lesson we have to review what happened in class and make sure we know all the kanji and grammar for.. ever. Every new article/text we read brings with it a set of vocabulary that is supposed to cover ‘new words’, but basically covers about 25% of the new words, so 75% I have to look up myself and learn on my own. Additionally, we have the Tobira kanji book that accompanies our text book with 25 new kanji and their popular compounds each week, but as already mentioned, that only covers about 25% of the to me unknown kanji appearing in the text. However, grammar points are easy so far, meaning my study focus here in Japan will most likely be vocabulary/kanji, which is why I chose to have extra kanji class despite it not counting towards my credits.

The last two modules are ISEP classes, which basically seem to be pretty easy. In Speech and Communication I we have to do roughly 3 3-5 minute speeches in Japanese a semester. I weaseled my way out of the first one, because during the first lesson I was asked to do the model English speech for Japanese students in class. Japanese Religions seems easy, too, although we ‘wasted’ our first lesson introducing ourselves and watching a video about ancient Japanese art.

The Bike

I vaguely remember researching cheap bikes in Japan a month or two ago. Scratch whatever I wrote then. I found a local bike shop with many used bikes for sale, but the shop keeper is ill and hasn’t been in for over 3 weeks now. Two days ago on Saturday Kat, Tom, Tatsu and me went to Choufu. While Tatsu and Kat were figuring out places to withdraw money from foreign bank accounts, Tom and I went to the bike shop and found the bikes of our dreams. The price was I think 10,900 yen for the bike and 1,500 yen for police registration (in case it gets lost). It was a rather impulsive buy, but ended up being only 1,000 yen over what I intended to spend. Tom got it in silver, I got it in wine red and Kat, rushing to buy one after she had found out we did, got hers in purple. Observe my new bike (and its owner) in all its glory:

Strahlemann hinterm Rad

My plan at the moment is reselling it when next semester begins and new arrivals are in need of a bike. By then I will have registered to rent a bike from TUFS for my remaining stay for about 1,000 yen.

Japanese Class begins

I just came back from my first intermediate Japanese language class (401 group b). First thing I found out after entering the room is that about half the people in my class speak German because they’re from Switzerland or Germany, some others studying German on the side. Our class is a mix between Europeans and Asians, so pronounciation of Japanese varies greatly but all in all I think we understand each other well enough. What’s interesting is the difference of speech level compared to length of language study. Some people have studied Japanese for maybe 5 years but are at the same level as some that have studied it for 1 year only. Having studied Japanese for 2 years I don’t feel as bad anymore about not being able to do small talk at all.

With how class is structured and the topics we will cover, I think I will learn quite a lot right from the start. Another realization is that I need to brush up on grammatical topics such as passive form and.. that other one. See, can’t even remember the name of it or how to use it; though I guess at least I know it exists. Whatever it is.

What

Out my window

My academic advisor being a badass musician at a party.

Goofball being drunk and trying to ruin Tom's song.

Shibuya? Harajuku? ..uhm forgot.

Shibuya!

£2, no wonder I'm getting fat.

Some guy sitting in MOS Burger with a mask on as if it was normal.

Some good sushi that, £1 a piece.

Schnipp, Schnapp, Haare ab

We went out to explore Choufu (調布) for the first time yesterday. It’s a part of Tokyo very close to us that we usually change trains at going in to Tokyo Centre, so technically we’ve been there many times, but.. you know. It’s a surprisingly lively town with a big department store right next to the station, several restaurants and various other shops. What’s obvious is the amount of Pachinko halls, that harbour machines comparable to slot machines, so you can imagine what sort of crowd hangs around in there. Rumour has it Yakuza pretty much control pachinko parlours in Japan.. oooo.

We walked around a bit and came across a barber. Now I have been trying to find a decent priced one for ages, but the only price range I have come across so far was 4,200-6,800 yen for a simple cut, which translates at the moment into roughly $47/€32/£30. But this barber offered a cut for 3,500 so I decided to get my hair cut while Kat and Tom ventured out to do more exploring.

The cheapest item on the menu was cut and shampoo. Everywhere else I have had my hair cut so far washed my hair before cutting, but in Japan it seems to be the other way around. Throughout the whole process of cutting and washing my hair, she used about 5 towels for different stages, heated my face twice and gave little massages in between, whilest being incredibly careful cutting my hair or touching my head. I felt a bit creeped out at first, but it worked out to feel nice in the end.

Finally getting hair cut.

My Room

Here are a few photographs of my room. They are a bit dark but that’s the way I usually have my room.

Where my laptop lives

Where humans enter my room.

Where countless loose papers will get lost.

Where food lives and is sacrificed.

Where I go out to yell at people or hang out.

Not much has changed since I took these. I’m planning to get me some posters and shiz to make it a bit more friendly. That is all, bye.