Travel Plans

Tomorrow I leave for my winter trip so here is my schedule for all of you!

December 19 - Leave for Hiroshima
December 20 - Hiroshima
December 21 - Leave Hiroshima for Tokyo
December 22 - Mt. Fuji
December 23 - Tokyo
December 24 - Tokyo
December 25 - Tokyo
December 26 - Leave Tokyo for Kyoto
December 27 - Kyoto
December 28 - Day trip to Nara
December 29 Kyoto
December 30 Kyoto to Himeji, Himeji to Yamaguchi

I will post lots of pictures and notes when I get back!

R.I.P. Mary Ann Fleckenstein. 1932-2008

Yesterday I found out that Grandma died. It just went bad suddenly when she choked on food her lung collapsed. They tried to code her but she didn't make it. Being in Japan has made it very strange because she had been dead for longer than 14 hours before anyone was able to reach me. I am feeling better now and my host family and my friends have been taking good care of me. People have gotten me so much food that I don't really know what to do with it. So don't worry about me, I am being taken care of.

The hardest part was knowing that I would not be able to bury her. I feel that I really need to do that. So, Schalkoff Sensei, who is in charge of the international students, contacted St. Xavier's church and the Priest said he would say a Mass for her. It is going to be tomorrow at 3:00. The teacher got me out of my classes so I can go to it. Then my friends went and talked to their teachers so that they could be able to go too.

My host family has been really good about it. They told me to call my family on their house phone and they even looked up the country codes for me. I said that it was too expensive but they insisted that I do it. Later they had to go get oil for the heater and, when they came back they had a box of pastries. Being very Japanese, Okaasan said that they bought them because Otousan was hungry for cakes. They split one between them and then said that the rest were for me because they need to go on diets. (Being Japanese, they don't need diets of course)

I am very glad that I can at least have the Mass tomorrow. I have one thing that I need to ask of my friends. Yuroshiku onegaishimasu. In Japan there is a very strong and very apparent belief that the family is a binding and inseparable single unit. The individual only has value as part of the whole. Please take care of me, please take care of my family. They are all very busy. They are busy even moreso now that they are planning the funeral. Also, I know that all of my aunts, cousings, grandpa, and my mom are very sad and probably stressed out. I don't know exactly what they need but they probably need someone to feed them, maybe to drive places, maybe to feed or take care of the dogs. If anyone can please help them I will be very thankful. I wish I could be there to do it but I cannot so right now I need you guys to be my hands and my heart for them. Please see what they need and try to help. I will be praying for you and I hope you will be praying as well.

本とにありがとおございます。
Thank you very much.

Beth

暫くでしたねえ！

Hi guys, sorry it has been so long! I have been taking an introduction to Japanese culture class that included trips every weekend. This made it very difficult to find time to blog but now I can tell you about all of the awesome trips we went on.

This post will be about Iwakuni (曰くに). We went to Iwakuni to teach for a few hours at a grade school. It was so much fun. The kids were soooo cute. There was this one little girl who was so tiny and had such a big uniform coat that it almost dragged on the ground. We talked with them about the US and then we played some Japanese games. After that the kids gave us origami gifts and we left. It was a really fun school visit.

The next thing that we did was to go to the Iwakuni Bridge. This is a really cool bridge made up of 5 arches. It has existed in the same location for hundreds of years but they keep having to rebuild it. The typhoons often knock it down. After we crossed the bridge we went up to Iwakuni-jo. This is the castle in Iwakuni. It is on the very top of the mountain and looks really impressive. We climbed up the mountain to the castle and, to our disappointment, discovered that this castle, like most others in Japan, is actually just a really bad concrete reconstruction of the original. Still, it was really cool looking and we went inside where there was a really nice museum of Japanese swords and armor. There was an entire suit of samurai armor and even short swords for seppuku (ritual Japanese suicide also known as hari kiri). Suicide has long been an established tradition in Japan. It is seen as the final way to redeem oneself and to preserve one's family honor. At one time, it was a penalty for several crimes. Today you still hear about it, although it is usually done in front of trains rather than by sword. Today it is viewed as something that is pitiful but could not be helped. The top of the castle featured a great view. We could see all the way out to the ocean, which was pretty cool.

After that we took the cable car back down the mountain. This was a rather difficult situation for poor Sam, who is terrified of heights. He had to sit onthe floor with his head between his knees and we all stood around him so that he could not see out of the windows. He managed to survive and we all drove him in the van with Miss Nakashima, our teacher from the international office. While we were up at the castle, the school had delivered a box of cakes to the van driver to thank us. We ate them on the way home and we made sure that the van driver and Miss Nakashima got cakes too. They were really good!

Abunai yo!

So I had a bike accident. This is how it happened. I was riding home and there is this part of the sidewalk where it is lined with trees on the right hand side. It was very dark because Japan gets dark around 5 and this was around 6:30 or so. So I see all of these Obaachan (grandmothers) out for their evening walk and it didn't look like they were getting off the sidewalk so I moved to go around them but, in the dark, I could not see that there was a tree. Well, I hit the tree head on and went flying off to the left, which was a blessing considering that the street was to the right.

The next thing that I did was lie on my back for a few seconds and try to figure out what happened. The obaachan all helped to pick me up off of the sidewalk, picked my bike up, dusted me off, knocked my bike basket back into shape, and picked up my bag. They all asked me if I was ok and I felt fine so I told them I was daizyoboo. I rode the rest of the way home but when I got home and walked into the family room my Mom freaked out! She was like "Kyaa! Besu chan!" and she told me that my blood was leaving me so I looked down and my knees, the left side of my face, and my ear. I had my earphones in so one of them scratched my left ear when I fell. They sat me down, cleaned me up, put disinfectant on me, some kind of neosporin type thing, and bandades. Then they made me lie down in the tatami room. The next day I got a headache which persisted for a few days and my Okaasan brought one of her friends over, Murata San, who is a nurse. Murata san fixed me up and made sure that none of my scrapes had gotten infected.

Everyone decided that it was probably a good idea if I go to the hospital just to make sure that there is no internal bleeding. So, this morning Nakashima San, who is one of the women in charge of the international program at YPU, took me to the byoin. They did X-rays and a CT scan. It went really well and quickly then they told me that I probably had a minor concussion but it was almost gone. They asked if I wanted medicine for the headache but it was already almost gone so I said that I was pretty sure I would be fine without it. It was all only 4,970 yen, which is a little less than 45 dollars. After that I came back to school and went to class. I am only worried about whether or not I caused any trouble to my host family. They were pretty worried about me and my Mom came up and tucked me in last night. She brought me a glass of water too with saran wrap over the top so that no dust would get in it, such a Japanese thing to do.

My dad said he was worried because I "Lost my genke (peppiness). But, he thought I would be ok."

Learning Japanese...kind of...maybe

Just a quick note to say hi and thank all of you for your comments! Please note that if you want to post a comment you must make an account and be signed in.

Learning Japanese is really difficult, to understate things. You go uphill for a while and you start being able to understand a lot of things then, all of a sudden, you plateau and you can't understand anything that anyone is saying to you. Finally you will start to go back uphill. However, plateauing is really really frustrating and each one gets harder and harder. Also, Japanese is like a video game. When you lose level three for example, you have to go all the way back to level one and start over. But, when you get back to level three you are a lot better. Still its really frustrating! I'm about to plateau for the second time. Hopefully, in a few days, my Japanese will get a lot better!

Hurui Densha and Tsuwano

This weekend we all went on a trip to Tsuwano. Everyone was going to meet at my house in the morning so my mom and I sat down and figured out where all the tickets were on the train so that the moms could all sit together and the students could all sit together. I was in charge of the student tickets.

Next we had to pack bento (Japanese boxed lunch) to take on the train. My mom and I ran down to 7/11 to pick up two lunches. She told me to get whatever I wanted so I just picked two onigiri. She thought that wasn't enough though so she got me a chicken salad and pocky (a Japanese candy that's really good). When we were checking out she happened to see that there was some kind of new Cappuchino machine by the register so she asked the boy if she could try it. Unfortunately it was not set up yet but the Japanese being as they are, the boy assured her he could set it up in a matter of seconds. So, he ran to the back of the store, grabbed the stuff, ran back, and set the machine up really quickly. Then he showed her how to work the machine but he was really flustered because he'd had to set it up so quick so he kept dropping things and he was obviously really nervous. He kept apologizing and using the really polite Japanese, gozaimasu, irashaimasu, etc. It was pretty funny but I didn't want to laugh because I felt bad for him. My mom tried the cappuchino and said it was really good so then she asked him to please make one for her daughter. So he made one for me too and after we left the store my mom started laughing and saying she felt bad for the poor boy.

After that we had to go to Yamaguchi Eki to cancel one of the train tickets. I stayed in the car with Ramukuhn, because we had brought him along with us. He doesn't like to be separated from my mom. He barked and whined the whole time she was gone. "Daizyobu Ramukuhn, won won nani?" (It's ok Ramu, why are you barking?) I said to him but he still wouldn't stop. When my mom got back I told her that Ramu had been looking for her and barking the whole time. "Hoontoo ni?"(really) She asked, laughing. "Hoontoo!" (really) I said. Then we ran home and packed our lunches up. By then everyone was showing up at the house and we all walked to the station together, where I handed out the tickets to the students and my mom handed out the other tickets to the moms.

The train was really cool. It was very old, a steam train. That morning my ojiichan (grandpa) had warned me to close the windows when you go through the tunnel because the smoke will come in if you don't. Well, I knew to close the windows but the people in the front of our car didn't so, when we went through the tunnel, all this thick black smoke came pouring in. The old train was only running because it was a national holiday so people had lined up along the track and the rice paddies to see it pass by because normally it doesn't run.

Tsuwano is an old castle town with a really cool Shinto shrine up on the mountain. When we got there our moms took us to the bike rental place. It was only 500 yen per bike, five dollars, so we each got a bike and decided to ride up the mountian to the shrine while our moms shopped and went to a cafe. It was really fun. We parked our bikes at the foot of the shrine and climbed hundreds of stairs up to the top through tunnels of orange tori, gates. At the top was a beautiful shrine. We wandered around it and took many pictures. From the top of the mountian we could see many more orange tori dotting the other hillsides and hidden in the forests. We climbed back down and next went to look at the carp. Tsuwano is famous for the extraordinary size that the carp there reach. There are little rivers throughout the city and alongside all the roads and sidewalks, like gutters but little streams instead. They are all full of carp. There are normal ones and there are koi, which look like giant goldfish. The carp in Tsuwano all reach 3 or 4 feet in length, they're huge! We fed them some fishfood we bought and Emily tried to get one to suck on her finger but it wouldn't.

We also went to explore a very old Catholic Church founded by Jesuits. It is really cool because it is very traditional Japanese but Catholic at the same time. It looks like a normal church but there are no pews, only tatami mats to kneel on, and you have to take off your shoes.

Ichikawa Sensei, our Japanese Professor, told us that in Tsuwano you can get hot ice. This is a toasted roll with vanilla ice cream inside. We all ate one and it was really surprisingly delicious. After that we went to the train station because our train was supposed to arrive soon. There was an old steam train that they had set up kind of like a museum display but it was an actual train and you were allowed to climb on it. Bridget, one of the Canadians, and I jumped up on top of the train and were pretending to have a karate battle. When we jumped up there our moms freaked out! My mom went "EHHH!! KOWAII!" (Ahh!, scary!) and Bridget's mom went "EHH!! BURI CHAN!" (Bridget what are you doing?") But then when they saw that we did not fall and die they started laughing and took lots of pictures of us.

The train ride back was fun too and some of us went up by the engine so we could see it. When we got back to Yamaguchi Sam's mom said that her family was going to make us dinner so we all went over to their house, there were about 20 of us so we kind of took over their house. All of the students sat out on the back deck and Sam's dad made dinner. It was Japanese curry chicken with rice and it was sooooo good! After that we sat and talked for a long time while the parents sat inside and talked. It was lots of fun.

My parents, Elliott's parents, and Elliot, one of hte Quebec students, and I walked back to my house. They had parked there so I thought they were going to leave but everyone came into our house. Then all of a sudden my dad says we should all go get sushi! So Elliott's parents get in their car and my parents and I get into my mom's car. Apparently Elliott was confused and no one noticed that he wasn't in any car. Everyone started pulling away and then all of a sudden Elliott jumps into the back of our car while my Mom is backing out. Everyone laughed a lot about that and then Elliott tried to explain why he was confused in Japanese, which didn't work too well.

My dad had gone fishing that day so the sushi chefs fixed all the fish he had caught. There was so much of it and we were all so full but we managed to eat it all! It was really fun. Then I watched TV with my mom for a while. Japanese TV is all subtitled and I am starting to be able to read the subtitles!

Ringo, Densha, and Mexshican Biyori

Wow has it been an eventful few days. On Friday we made Mexican food at my friend Kayo's apartment. It was pretty good considering that we had to improvise a lot and we couldn't get all of the ingredients in Japan. We had a lot of people over to eat it and it was delicious. That night, Kayo chan, Emy chan, and I walked to Seven to get a late night snack. After that I went home and told my Okaasan about the Mexican food adventure. She seemed to find it pretty amusing. I actually had a real conversation with her in Japanese, which was pretty awesome. It was the first time that I have actually been able to communicate everything I wanted to say and understood everything that was said to me. I actually spoke in real sentences too, not fragments.

Saturday morning I got up early to go on the apple picking tour with other exchange students from YPU and from Yamaguchi University. (There are two universities in the city, Yamaguchi Prefectural University, Yamaguchi Ken-Ritsu Dai Gaku in Japanese, and Yamaguchi University, Yamaguchi Daigaku in Japanese) The other university is public and ours is private so they had a lot more exchange students. It was pretty cool. We went there on two big tour busses and we passed through this really beautiful part of the prefecture. There were huge mountains, a light fog, and beautiful forests. We drove past a lot of really picturesque little hamlets too that were really cool. When we got to the orchard we were given apple bags which were kind of small. They each only held three apples. The orchard was beautiful. It was a huge maze of apple trees and they were all different colors, green, yellow, pink, red, purple, green with red, yellow with red. All of the trees were full of apples and all of the apples are huge! They are about two or three times the size of apples in the US and they taste so much better! I ate two of them and got a green, red, and yellow to put in the apple bag. Then we played bingo at the orchard, which was kind of really random, and I won three towels with soap.

When we got back from apple picking some of us decided to go to the house and garden party at Schakoff Sensei's house. We took the train as far as Ootoshi and then walked to his house. It was so beautiful! The gardens are really gorgeous with lots of big beautiful flowers and sculptures. The house was just as beautiful. It was a Meiji era Japanese house so it was really traditional. All of the floors were tatami and the rooms were full of beautiful antiques and scrolls. It was really fun and Whitney, Eric, and Aya were all there so we sat and talked with them for a while before leaving. Unfortunately, we had left our bikes at Miyano Eki, which is a pretty small train station, so a lot of trains don't go there, especially in the evening. I decided to just take the train to Yudaonsen Eki, which is a block from my house and only two stops away from Sensei's. I could catch the 8:44 the next morning to Miyano Eki and pick up my bike then ride to Mass from there since St. Xavier's is pretty close to Miyano. Taking the train to Yudaonsen allowed me to get home in time for dinner, which was important considering I hadn't asked my mom if I could eat out. Besides, I really wanted to eat dinner with my family.

Dinner was awesome because every Saturday we go to Wasabi, which is a sushi restaurant. Because my family eats there all the time the chefs know us and are really friendly. As the daughter, it is my duty to serve the tea, which I really like to do. This was the first night that I managed to order for myself! It was pretty exciting. I got Salmon with butter, onagi, tomago, azi, ebi, and squid. Onagi is the best, that's eel, and I love it. I have already learned all the kinds of eel so that I can order them and eat them. They're delicious. I really like Japanese food. In fact, just today I ate Western food and it made me ill. I think readjusting is going to be a problem.

Sunday morning I got up and got ready for the 8:44 train. Well, when I got out the schedule and checked it just to make sure I was right and, sure enough, it said that there was an 8:44 from Yudaonsen eki to Miyano eki. I walked down to the eki and, three minutes early, the train rolls in. Well, this is really strange because trains in Japan are dead on time. But, all of the Japanese people got on so I thought there must not be another train coming and I did not see another train on the track. It must be early, I thought. Well, as soon as the train started moving I knew I was wrong because it was going in the wrong direction towards Shin-Yamaguchi Eki. This is the Shinkansen, bullet train, station. It's ok, I thought, I'll just get off at Yabara, the next station, and take the next train back to Miyano. Well it didn't stop at Yabara, or even Ootoshi. That was when I realized I was on an express train. Well, finally after 20 minutes or so the train got to Shin Yamaguchi. I wasn't really worried because I knew I could figure it out but I was worried about whether I had enough money because they don't take credit cards here and I had only bought the 180 yen ticket to Miyano. A ticket to Shin Yamaguchi is about 1000 yen. However, as long as you stay on the same train and get off at a station within the price range of your ticket you will be ok. So, if my same train turned around and went back the same way when it reached Shin Yamaguchi I would be alright.

So, the train got to Shin Yamaguchi and I got off and ran down the platform, then I ran up the stairs, across the tracks, and down the other side. There I saw the arrival departure board. It was all in kanji but I was able to read it and to do so quickly because I was kind of worried. Well, I saw that there was a train leaving in a minute for Yamaguchi Eki on track 2. Yamaguchi Eki is the station next to Miyano Eki so I could get there just fine with my ticket. They only take them when you leave the station. Track 2? That was the train I just got off of! I ran down the platform, up the stairs, across the tracks, down the other side, and sprinted down the platform to jump on the train just as the bell was ringing. I know the conductor must have realized I was the same person who just got off the densha. After all, I was the only blonde in probably a 50 mile radius. He seemed to realize I was lost however and did not give me any problems. Kono densha ga Yamaguchi Eki ni ikimasu ka? I asked him. He just smiled and told me that I was just fine. The train took me to Yamaguchi Eki and I got off of it and ran inside to check the schedule. There was a train leaving for a minute for Miyano but I just missed it. The next one did not leave for an hour and a half. I decided to just walk but it took an hour. Unfortunatley, it started raining in the middle of the walk. But, I had my raincoat and the mountains which surround the city look so beautiful in the rain with the mist rising off of them. So I did not mind so much. I was kind of upset that I missed Mass because I really like it a lot but I really didn't have much of a choice. I'll have to write a post about St. Xavier's because it is pretty cool.

Finally when I got to school I was able to get on skype and talk to Mom, Dad, and Joey. I also found out that Joey got jumped, beat up, and had to get stitches the other day!

Another bad note is that my camera is broken. So, no more videos or pictures for a little while. I don't know what happened to it but when I took it out of my purse it was completely shattered. I was pretty upset. I guess maybe it was a pretty old camera and its time had come. But, Mom and Dad got one for me for Christmas and shipped it to me so that is something to be very thankful for.

Also, today I went to the Yubinkyoku (postoffice) and mailed by absentee ballot. The workers were very helpful and I'm glad I could manage to do that. I also bought geta today, the wooden shoes that go with kimono, because tonight I have to wear my kimono to a halloween party at Marc-Andre's host family's house. It should be pretty fun. I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh, also I gave the apples, towels, and soap to my Okaasan which made her pretty happy. I am always really happy when I have a gift for her because she is so kind and does so much for me. The apples are delicious and we've been eating them for breakfast.

Another thing is that I feel the language level has risen a bar. I finally had gotten to a point where I was comfotable and could communicate and then the level went up! Now I'm struggling again but it will be ok. I'm really excited to learn more.