4/9/2011

(This post was written on 4/9/11)

Yesterday was pretty laid-back. All the exchange students had to meet at the Media Center or whatever building on the Toyonaka campus to receive orientation on how to use computers and the internet. It was actually the most informative session we've had so far, in my opinion, because we learned how to access our school e-mail accounts and how to register for classes and view our grades on-line. This is something I could likely figure out on my own (much like how to get around on campus, which classrooms are where, etc.), but for this particular instance, I feel there is a real benefit in just having someone show us where everything is at. After that one meeting they actually let us go for the remainder of the day. I wish they'd had that meeting the day before, when we had other reasons to be on-campus, but perhaps they thought it was too much for one day, or a bit overwhelming. It's all somewhat overwhelming anyway.

M signed up for a host family ("hosuto famiri," haha, just kidding) so she went to the Suita campus, so K and I parted ways with her. We spent about an hour on our laptops, basking in the warm glow of the internets, and then had lunch at Don Don which is a udon/ramen/rice bowl/noodle bowl place on-campus. Lunch was 300 Yen which is probably the cheapest lunch I've had so far. Tonkatsu udon, mmm! Then we took the trains back to Yamada station and checked out the mall there, including a Japanese Toys R Us and a bread shop. I cannot overstate how much they love bread here in Osaka. I don't know about the rest of the country, but there are bread shops (patisseries, paneria, whatever you want to call it) everywhere and they do all kinds of things with bread. You have your mochi (red bean paste) bread, your doughnuts which are innumerable in flavor, style, and variation (fried bread, unfried bread, soft fluffy bread, chewy bread, bread coated with stuff, dunked in chocolate, stuffed with things, etc.), there are lots of savory breads like bread with zucchini and cheese baked into the top, or one with salmon, cream cheese and garlic cloves baked into the top. There's so much more I can't even really describe it all, so I should just go snap some pictures of a bread shop. Everything looks so delicious.

After our time at the center we went back to our respective dorms. Minji invited me to meet her and some others from the Go Kai Group (what I'm referring to our bunch - we are all almost exclusively from the 5th floor and "go kai" means "fifth floor") for beer in the commons at 7pm. I went and had a couple of beers and it was fun to talk to the girls, but by 8:30, I was totally wiped. I slept until 9AM this morning. I had the foresight to cover the windows with one of the blankets, which is important because the damn sun comes up at 5:30 AM here. Yes, I know, "Land of the Rising Sun" and all of that. Your rising sun can stuff it, you guys need some Daylight Savings Time, for reals.

I had heard rumor of a grocery store that was closer to our dorms than the ones at Yamada or Mina-Senri stations, and so I asked around and the ever-kind Minji led me to the store. It's called Peacock ("Pikoku" - this time, I'm NOT kidding) and it's about three blocks from our dorms. Well, technically, it's closer, but we'll get to that in a moment. To get the Pikoku, you go left out of the dorms, down one block, swing a right. Swing your next immediate right and go down another couple blocks and you're there. Pretty quick and easy, especially compared to the 15+ minute walk to either Yamada or Mina-Senri, both of which are almost completely uphill the way back (Yamada being a much steeper incline). There was a couple of ladies selling produce outside the store so I picked up some things, and then we went inside. The beer at Pikoku is much cheaper than at the station grocery stores (by about 300 Yen for a particular brand I like, which is more than $3.00 USD difference for a SIX PACK). I bought some more veggies and stuff to cook, as well as some milk, cream cheese, Coke Zero (there is no "Diet Coke" here to be seen), laundry detergent, an onigiri (stuffed rice in the shape of a triangle that's wrapped with seaweed), Yakult (a yogurt drink, you can get it in the states at the Asian grocers and some regular stores), and some kind of veggie patties that you can drop in oil and fry up.

It's very hard to do LC here, also. Meat is really, really expensive. I did pick up some chicken that was on sale, I think it's creeping up on its expiry date, so I brought it home and immediately put it in the freezer. When I cook lately I've been making stir-fry with egg and then eating it with a side of kimchi, but I can see that getting old pretty quick. I have tried almost everything that I wanted to try here though, so that's not really an excuse anymore, but the meat dishes tend to be the most expensive (you can easily spend over $10 on a very "fast-food" like lunch, I'm not talking full-service restaurant but a quick sit-down-eat-get-out sort of place). For the stir-fry I try to augment it with inexpensive beef or pork and then egg, but it's difficult. That being said, I am walking what is likely several miles on most days, so perhaps that will help balance things out.

Today is Saturday, and I've reserved this for a day to decompress. I don't really plan to go out or socialize too much, but rather hole up in my room like the hermit I am and play some Dragon Age II. Sometimes it's important to get some alone time in, even if that time is spent slaying imaginary dragons and bandits. I hope everyone is doing well. I will do the Umeda Sky Tower update next, unless something really interesting/frustrating happens :D

Well, I quit writing this hours ago and I'll pick up now. I spent several hours in my dorm playing games and/or watching episodes of shows I'd downloaded onto my laptop. Then I was bored and felt like it would be nice to get out and explore the city a bit on my own. People here are far too nice to let me venture out alone (for example, Minji and the grocery store)... When I was downstairs I ran into Ildako, who is from Hungary, and she inquired about my plans. We ended up venturing out together and just picked a random station off the Hyanku (sp?) line and went that direction. We explored more suburban/tightly packed neighborhood areas and got to explore a Buddhist shrine.

The Buddhist monk/shrine caretaker allowed us to tour the grounds and even go into the temple. He explained that yesterday was the Buddha's birthday, and gave us a bag of puffed rice as a gift from the Buddha. He showed us how to pray to the Buddha and explained a lot of the figurines, paintings, calligraphy and the likes to us. I didn't catch most of it, but Ildako's Japanese is excellent, so she translated for me. It was a really neat experience, and I'm glad we did it. After, we had okonomiyaki at a restaurant and then headed back. Oh! We also poked our heads into a pachinko parlor. SO. INCREDIBLY. NOISY! And smoky, but mostly noisy! I couldn't imagine spending hours in a place that was so loud, you'd lose your hearing.

Came back to the dorms, got 9 free minutes of wi-fi and now debating whether I want to pay 200 Yen for an hour's worth of wi-fi. It might be worth it, but I don't think I'm going to. I'm starting to forget what the internet is for. I used those 9 minutes to check my Facebook, and it feels like things have really slowed down. Sometimes I can't check it for over 24 hours and it feels like there are still very few updates. I wonder what was so fascinating about it to begin with. If I had wi-fi, I could Skype, but the only place to tap into it is in the study lounge, and there are people here working on things, so I think it'd be very rude to try to hold a conversation over Skype.

So, I guess I will post this next time I'm on campus. Oh, there is one more thing I did want to tell you about, though. I think my little group got into some trouble. There is a "home room" thing every Monday on the Suita campus that was on the calendar where it showed us what classes we could register for. We weren't sure if it was required, so we asked. They said it was part of the program, but we were still confused. Why? Because we have no classes on Monday, and no classes at all on the Suita campus. All of our classes are on Toyonaka campus. Anyway, I suppose we sort of pressed the issue, but we were looking for clarification. To me, it doesn't make sense to make us pay $6 to take the stupid train to a campus we don't even have classes on, on a day where we don't even HAVE classes, to go to what will likely amount to a pointless class. The lady even told us, "Well, you can socialize with your friends." or "Maybe you could take classes on Monday just for fun." We had explained that none of the classes on Monday would count towards our major and frankly, I am going to be taking like 8 classes so I really don't think I should cram a 9th into my schedule. I'm not completely insane.

Anyway, in the end they told us they would ask whether we had to go or not. I figured that was a "no" because in Japan, pretty much anything other than "yes" means "no" (such as "maybe," "perhaps," "it's a little difficult," etc). They don't want to tell us "no" outright for some kind of cultural thing that I'm not 100% clear on (I think it involves saving face), but I figured that was a no so we all made plans to go on Monday. Then we got an e-mail today from one of the A&M program directors that said he was told we were skipping some of the required meetings. We have absolutely not skipped anything, despite how sorely we may have wanted to (and believe me, we have wanted to). We have gone to every single meeting, meet-up, orientation, symposium and/or whatever that we were told OR asked to go to. So now it's like, so frustrating because we of course look like we're making trouble for A&M and disregarding OU, but at the same time, we have done everything we've been told to do. Pffft.

It's Japan. There are rules.

4/8/2011

(This post was written on 4/8/2011)

The end of another exhausting day. Well, almost. In a few minutes I'll leave to head to JASSO International House 1 to talk with Meaghan and Kathryn about which classes we are going to take. Most, if not all of our classes will be the same, mostly because they all had to be approved through A&M to begin with. Today was so long it's difficult to describe in mere words. By 4pm, we were all absolutely exhausted.

This morning, I met M & K at their dorm and we walked to the station, rode the train and then switched to the metro. Or something. I'm not real clear on the different lines. We then walked from the station to the Toyonaka Campus, which is where all of our classes will likely be at. We sat through an informative session on the library, and then were taken on a library tour. After that, we were taken on a very thorough tour of the entire Toyonaka campus. I had thought I was supposed to go with one group, and started to follow them, but was gently grabbed by the elbow and guided back to the main group by a woman saying, "Jennifer! I want you to meet the BSP people!" I think she thought I was trying to "escape." Hell, I shouldn't even put "escape" in quotes because that'd be what I was doing, if I tried to get away. All of these meetings and seminars and informative sessions are suggested (which means required), and any attempt to deviate from the proscribed course is curbed.

It's Japan. There are rules.

I think I actually hurt our tour guide's feelings when I said I didn't want to eat lunch where everyone else wanted to. "Do we all have to eat at the same place?" She said no, but I could tell she sort of wanted to say yes. However, she's a student and therefore doesn't wield as much power as the administration. I ended up going with the group if for no other reason than M & K were going there anyway, but there is a restaurant on campus called Don Don that was pretty inexpensive (you could eat for <200 Yen if you were really careful) and that is an absolute steal. I've been eating out since I got here due to a lack of cookware/dishware, and it's expensive and I wanted to get a cheap meal in. At the restaurant I got some kind of egg... thing... They do this things with eggs where scramble them, then cook them out in one big strip, then fold the egg onto itself so it's one neat little pile of eggs, sort of like a folded sheet, if you can imagine. Then they put sauces or mayonnaise or whatever-the-hell on them. It's alright. Takoyaki's alright. I do like okonomiyaki, but I want to try it with some different toppings.

Anyway, after lunch we were invited to have takoyaki and okonomiyaki with the BSP (Brothers and Sisters Program - sort of a very loose association of students who work with the international kids and are international kids themselves, in many cases). But M, K and I still didn't have our alien registration cards, so we politely declined. We also wanted to hit up the Multimedia Center or whatever and use the internet to check our respective myfacespace or whatever accounts. We ended up having to move to the library for a reason I'm not entirely sure of (a guy came into the computer room, said some stuff in Japanese, and everyone else started packing up, so we followed suit). Then we went back to the station, back on the train, back to Mina Senri station where we finally got our Alien Registration temporary papers, which is a relief. We'll need them to get bank accounts.

We also hit up the 100 Yen store to buy some pots, pans, dishes and the likes, then the grocery store for some actual food to cook. By the time we were done there, I was positively exhausted and battling a stomach/headache. We sat for a few minutes to recoup, then trudged back to the dorms - a 15 minute walk with several bags of groceries, and a heavy backpack. At the dorms, I made my first meal in the kitchen. I sort of just made some kind of ghetto stir-fry. Meat is really expensive. Well, good meat is really expensive. I bought zucchini, cabbage, carrots, green onions, mushrooms and bean sprouts and tossed that in a pan with some oil, then augmented it with some shrimp bits and some sort of mystery meat that is likely very thinly sliced beef. I also dropped a raw egg on top for good measure once it was done (the egg cooked from the heat of the food) and added a side of kimchi. That's probably how I'm going to be eating most of the time, because anything too complex is impossible with my crappy dollar store cookware.

Now I'm in the dorm. I'm really tired, but at least not hungry anymore. My feet are sore. My head hurts. I am perpetually dehydrated, thanks to the climate. Soon I will be meeting M & K, but to be honest I just want to go to bed. It's 6:01 pm.

4/7/2011

(Note: this post was written on 4/7/11)

Yesterday was our tour of Osaka University's Suita Campus and our program orientation. We were on campus for most of the day (from about 10am-4pm). We got to meet other people in exchange programs (either ours or those similar to ours), and they went over course registration, credit hours and the likes. It was informative, but much of the information overlapped and was repetitive, so it was boring at times. The tour of the campus took about an hour, and most of us had not eaten breakfast so by that point people were a bit grouchy and hungry. The "tour guide" was a fellow OU student who was in a school organization that volunteered to help out. I feel sort of bad for her because people weren't really listening after a certain point, and then we passed a vendor selling pastries and pretty much everyone dropped off the tour and bought something to eat. Lunch was obentos at a cafeteria, and then it was back to more orientation meetings.

After, Meaghan, Kathryn and I went to one of the International Student organisations and were able to use their internet to access FACEBOOK. Oh happy day! I had about nine e-mails from real actual people in my gmail inbox, four messages in my Facebook inbox, and multiple post updates and responses. It was good to touch base with the world again, even though by that point it was about 1AM in the U.S. and most people were asleep. I got to shoot out some e-mails though, and post that I wasn't dead on FB. Then we headed back to our dorms, but on the way there we were intercepted by some fellow International Students - one of which is actually also from Texas A&M. They asked where we were going and then invited us to nomihodai, which is where you go to a restaurant, pay a set amount, and have 90 minutes to drink as much alcohol as you possibly can. I am not even kidding. They require you buy two food items as well (probably to offset the cost of nomihodai), but it still ended up being about 1700 Yen per person, which at about $21 USD is a pretty small amount for ALL YOU CAN DRINK. Plus, it would have been cheaper for me but we ended up all just splitting it up evenly (the food items I chose were pretty inexpensive, and some people ordered more than 2 items).

Apparently many people were either intimidated by the idea of nomihodai (some are under the legal drinking age of their respective country, be it 20 or 21 - in Japan, it's 20 but I have yet to see anyone carded), or some simply didn't want to partake. We were then a group of about 15 people, so the indecisiveness got old pretty fast. At nomihodai, if you don't want nomihodai but your table does, you can't stay. I think they are afraid that not everyone will pay for nomihodai but then the drinks will be shared. I was frustrated because I thought it was pretty apparent when we were invited that this would be nomihodai­, and so why would you come if you can't handle it? At one point, someone suggested we just not do nomihodai since 3-4 people didn't want to. I was like, screw that. The majority of us want to do it, so let's do it. After about 20 minutes of debate, the group who didn't want to do it decided to leave which in all honesty was probably for the best. We will have time to hang out with them later, I am sure.

So, we did nomihodai. I had kimchi and chicken for my meal and the vast majority of my drinks were Gin & Tonic, which seemed to be the favourite at the table. I did have some whiskey, sake, and umeshu (plum wine?) too. We won't talk about volume because frankly, it's none of your business, but I feel confident that I got my money's worth. After 90 minutes we were all feeling pretty good and much more at-ease than we had been when trying to organise the event. We had people from all over the world at our table and some were quite fun. There was Jasper, who is from Amsterdam and a pretty cool kid; there's Yuan who is from Korea and was surprised that I love Kimchi... He got really wasted and started sitting on Yuuki's lap (Yuuki is the other kid from A&M, and also? He's a he, heh). Yuuki's girlfriend was there so it was all in good fun, but man Yuan must've been wasted. There was a guy at the end of the table from Denmark and so I learned that to toast in Denmark you say "skoal!" Which is a pretty cool-sounding toast. There was also a girl from Canada who is really nice and I enjoyed talking to her, though she was wayyyy at the end of the table. She got us into the umeshu.

After our time was up (90 minutes), we paid the tab and someone mentioned karaoke, so we decided to go do that, too. It was my first time at a Japanese karaoke bar! We rented a room and sang for about two hours - with more drinks, of course. Afterwards, Meaghan and I raided a Mister Donuts because they are the embodiment of awesome, but Kathryn decided to go back to the dorms early. It was a nice walk back to the dorms. The evening was pretty quiet and the temperature was nice, and Meaghan and I took our time and just chatted along the way. The cherry blossoms are in bloom and are quite a site.

There were plans in the works to go to Kyoto for hanami (flower viewing festival), but the other girls and I decided that sounded like too much trouble, so we're going to do hanami on Sunday at a local park. It'll be fun!