So its now been about a month since I’ve returned from Japan. I guess that means I’m now supposed to wrap up my 8 month long blog with one last post where I reflect on the good and bad, and ponder on the experiences I gained and such and such. But I figured that instead, I would go through the some 3500 pictures that I took during my time in Japan, pick out the ones that I consider to be my favorites or those that highlight a particularly special or important time or experience and write a few words about each of them. So first, lets look at those….

September 10, 2005: A picture of the store Mother Garden located inside the underground mall called Porta which is outside of Kyoto station. Many a trip to Kyoto had a mandatory detour to Mother Garden so that I could see if there were any new Sirotan items for sale. Within a few weeks of leaving Japan, Mother Garden was either under construction or closed because each time I went the store was closed and there we signs on the gates. Luckily there are many other Mother Garden stores across Japan that I have visited and I can get my Sirotan fix at on future visits to Japan.

September 10, 2005: Inside Kyoto station, on the side opposite from Kyoto Tower, there is a revolving sushi bar restaurant that I first went to in 2004. Over the course of my 8 months in Japan, I probably went to this restaurant another half dozen times, always with new groups of people that had never been to a revolving sushi bar before. The best feature of the place: taps of hot water places in front of you and green tea bags in small boxes so that you can have unlimited green tea while eating sushi. That and unagi for 137yen per plate.

September 17, 2005: The World Expo in Aichi. Probably the best one-day trip I took on my entire time in Japan. My only regret about it is that I wasn’t in Japan several months earlier so that I could come to the expo at a time where lines into the most popular pavilions weren’t 2-3 hours long. The weather was so incredibly hot and there were around 220,000 people there the day that I went (along with Cassidy, and 3 other people from JCMU). Best part of the day: being some of the only gaijins around, we were able to meet our soon-to-be classmates who were working as guides to the US pavilion, and telling them we were from JCMU and obviously being American, we were able to cut in line and get right into the pavilion. The same thing happened to us at the Canadian pavilion, probably because the poor guy dressed in full-up Mounty uniform on a 90 degree day didn’t get much chance to talk to English-speakers on a daily basis (during the entire expo, only 11% of attendees were foreign, most of which were from other Asian countries). The first picture shows the sign along with the expo’s mascots (Morrizo and Kiccoro) that welcomed us as we waited in line at the entrance to the expo. The second picture is that of Korea’s pavilion, one of the dozens of country’s pavilions that we passed.

September 23, 2005: In my first semester before having the experience of going through 5 different roommates, I had in my mind the thought that my first semester in Japan I would live in the dorms to meet new people and improve my Japanese speaking ability, and in my second semester I would apply for a homestay. To try out how a homestay would be like, I participated in a weekend homestay on the other side of Lake Biwa, in Shiga-cho. The homestay experience itself turned out to be very unfun and in the end convinced me to not do a homestay for my second semester, but before meeting up with my homestay family myself and the rest of the JCMUers got to stop at a Buddhist temple in Shiga-cho where we were treated to lunch, an ikebana (flower arranging) lesson, an attempt at tradition meditation (including sitting in seiza and being hit on the back with the traditional back-whacking stick that heat Buddhist monks get to carry around). Before all of this we were given a flute concert by the head monk and three other lay-persons, including one wearing a basket on his head which we were told was used because he had not shaved his head in the traditional manor and in hiding the hair on his head under the basket, he wasn’t being disrespectful to Buddha. In the second picture, I’m being taught how to do tea ceremony, while sitting in seiza on top of a rock wearing a black shirt on a really really really hot day while JCMUers Cassidy, Kyle and David look on.

September 25, 2005: A man standing at the end of a pier fishing on Lake Biwa in Shiga-cho.

September 25, 2005: While waiting for a party to mark the end of the weekend homestay, a rainbow appeared over Lake Biwa.

October 1, 2005: I think this is my favorite picture out of the 4000+ I took during my time in Japan. These are ema (prayer tablets) and paper cranes hanging on a wall in Fushimi Inari, a Shinto shine in Kyoto known for having the most torii gates of any shrine or temple in Japan.

October 1, 2005: A clock inside of Kyoto station modeled after Osamu Tezuka’s Hi no Tori (‘Phoenix’), that on the hour would play music and change colors. Kyoto station also had a museum for Osamu Tezkua, Japan’s “God of Manga”, and all around the station various characters created by Tezuka pointing the way towards various places in Kyoto and generally promoting the city of Kyoto.

October 30, 2005: In Nara, ancient capital of Japan, there are around 1100 tame deer that wander the city, the majority of which live in and around Deer Park (also the name of an area in India that the Buddha gave his firm sermon to, certainly not a coincidence seeing as the largest Buddha statue in Japan is also located here). This particular deer happened to be very tame and didn’t mind at all people taking his/her picture and petting him/her.

October 30, 2005: Todaiji Temple, the second largest wooden structure in the world, housing Japan’s largest Buddha statue, a 15 meter tall bronze cosmic Buddha. I’ve now been to Todaiji on three separate occasions and I think its one of the most impressive and truly awesome places in Japan that I’ve ever been to. If you ever find yourself in Japan, do not leave the country until you have been to Nara!

October 30, 2005: An excellent example of some nice moss at Kasuga Taisha in Nara.

October 30, 2005: After half a day in Nara, Cassidy and I decided to take a side trip to Osaka where we hit up the trendy Dotonburi area which is famous for its canals and neon!

November 5, 2005: Me standing in front of Nagoya castle, which inside has been completely redone and now even includes an elevator. If you’re looking for a castle in Japan that hasn’t been remodeled, renovated or retrofitted, they sadly don’t exist any longer.

November 5, 2005: While in Nagoya, we were walking through an underground mall, and coming to one exit we (Cassidy and I) found ourselves standing underneath an oval-shaped canopy with water on the top of it. It was called Oasis 21, and it was one of the most unique things that I’ve ever seen. You could walk on top of it and look through the pool on the top of it and see people walking around under it. At the time we came upon this, there was a children’s festival going on in the space under it, with booths set up where you could try different crafts and a stage to listening to people talk and bands play. The picture is taken from the nearly Nagoya TV tower.

November 5, 2005: Also in Nagoya, Cassidy and I stopped at Atsuta Shrine, one of the places in Japan where the three imperial regalia are stored. At this shrine, the sword Kusanagai (“grass cutter”) is stored, in some place where mere mortals aren’t able to see it. While visiting we happened to catch a wedding photograph being taken.

November 11, 2005: I signed up for an opportunity to visit the Kyoto Women’s College on the board in the academic building based solely on the fact that I would get a free train and cab ride to and from JCMU to get there, and it ended up being one of the best cultural exchange opportunities that I had in my 8 months there. When we showed up, we were ushered into this room with several tables worth of food were waiting for us. We were instructed to speak to the students in English, because they were all English students, but I was able to talk in Japanese to most of them and felt very accomplished doing so. When it was all over, they gave us each goodie bags with jewelry boxes, stationary and pens, Buddhist prayer beads, and a ton of other things along with a 3000yen gift certificate for a department store chain in Japan. A few of the students I maintained contact with via email and one of them I met again in Kyoto where we went to Kiyomizu, Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji together.

November 18, 2005: The Genbaku Dome (Atomic Bomb Dome) in Hiroshima. This picture speaks for itself.

November 19, 2005: Beautiful Japanese Maple trees changing colors on Miyajima.

November 19, 2005: Despite the warning signs, we never did see any monkeys on top of the mountain on Miyajima.

November 19, 2005: The famous floating torii gate of Japan, of Itsukushima Shine, Miyajima. Here you can see Cassidy and I standing in front of it, as well as a picture of it that I took from inside the shrine that is located on shore. We came to the island while it was high tide, so the torii appears to be floating, while it is actually sitting in the sand in about 6ft deep water. Just as we were leaving the water had started to recede from the shrine, and the water near the torii was only about 2ft deep. We would have liked to be able to stay to walk out to the torii but we had reserved tickets for the Shinkansen to take us to Fukuoka.

November 19, 2005: Despite where else Cassidy and I went in Fukuoka, the Hard Rock Café was the only reason I wanted to go there.

November 20, 2005: The Fukuoka Tower. One of many towers that Cassidy and I traveled to. I’m not really sure for what reason we were compelled to go to as many of them as we could. It probably had something to do with seeing a poster somewhere with photos of every tower in Japan. From then on we had sort of a ‘collect them all’ mentality for towers.

November 20, 2005: We couldn’t find anyone to take our picture, so after getting back to JCMU I put the photos of us each in the frame together, and this is how it turned out.

December 4, 2005: Fallen leaves on a bed of green moss at Ginkakuji in Kyoto.

December 10, 2005: With the semester almost over, Cassidy’s conversation partner took us out to this fabulous Italian restaurant for a good-bye dinner, and when we returned to JCMU we found 3 fire trucks with their lights on in front of the dorm building. Thinking the worst, we ran over to where all the students were standing around outside and we found out that one of the rooms downstairs had had their kitchens torched. Turns out, someone had been making tenpura and had walked away from the room, and a grease fire had started. It mostly made a lot of smoke and melted some shelves in the kitchen area, but what had done the most damage was when someone had tried to put out the fire with fire extinguishers which left pink powder EVERYWHERE.

December 20, 2005: This picture will only be interesting if you’ve ever seen the anime City Hunter.

December 21, 2005: A trip to Tokyo is not complete without a visit to the Ghibli Museum, museum for Studio Ghibli, the Japanese equivalent to Disney (though I personally hold Studio Ghibli in a much higher regard).

December 23, 2005: The Emperor’s birthday! Today and January 2 are the only two days of the entire year that the Imperial Palace in Tokyo are open to the public, and it was because of this day that I came to Tokyo the week that I did. If I did nothing but come here during my week, I would have been happy. Here you can see the Emperor and Empress, their two sons and daughter-in-law greeting the crowds below. Everyone was given Japanese flags to wave, which we all did enthusiastically when the Emperor first appeared. How many gaijins out there can say they saw the Emperor of Japan in person?? This one can. J

December 24, 2005: My first time in Japan, my mom and I stumbled upon Zojoji temple, which had a cemetery towards the back of it (not uncommon for Buddhist temples (in Japan its said you’re Buddhist at your birth and death, and Shinto the rest of the time)). This particular headstone features a game of Go in progress, which leads me to believe whoever is buried there was a pro Go player. What I’d really like to know is what the other spheres on the board represents and why there is a concave portion of the board. When it comes to cemeteries, Japan > USA.

December 24, 2005: The Tokyo Tower. A landmark of Tokyo and a must-visit place if you ever come to Tokyo. Just, don’t go there when the weather isn’t perfect; you’ll miss the amazing city views and Mt. Fuji!

December 26, 2005: Just before Nick is set to return to the US, here he is standing on a train on the Biwako line (we’re probably coming back to JCMU here) holding his Seishun 18 ticket.

February 5, 2006: A view of Sapporo from Mount Moiwa, which my traveling buddy Tim and I first took a ropeway to get up to, then rode a snow cat to reach the very top. Yeah, it was really really cold, but check out the city behind us!

February 5, 2005: And now a view of Odori Koen in Sapporo, Hokkaido, from the Sapporo TV tower during the 57th Sapporo Snow Festival.

February 6, 2006: The kanji for snow, made out of snow. Irony? Symbolism? I don’t know, but I think it’s awesome.

February 6, 2006: (As seen in the sign) YES! Totoro!

March 11 and 12, 2006: Akihabara, land of otaku.

March 11, 2006: The Daibutsu at Kamakura. The second largest statue of Buddha in Japan, it used to be housed inside of a temple, but because of a tsunami in the 15th century, it is now sitting out in the open. The most shocking thing about going to see this statue: there was absolutely no one else there!!

March 11, 2006: At Hase Kannon Dera, in Kamakura, there is a small building containing a spinning scripture library. Beneath this library is a small pool of stones, each with writing on them. In the main temple building you can pay a small fee and write a character or short message of your choosing on these black stones, and they will add them to the others.

March 11, 2006: Also at Hase Kannon, there was a grotto that you could walk into to view a small shrine. And, I finally broke down and wrote on an ema of my own to leave at a shrine. I wrote that I wished for my mother’s good health, while Brian outdid me by wishing for world peace.

March 31, 2006: Inside the gardens of Heian Jingu, I came about a week too early to see all the sakura in bloom. Luckily, there was one particular tree in full bloom…

March 31, 2006: A gorgeous shot of the main sakura tree of Maruyama Koen in Kyoto. Here is it in full bloom, just after dusk. Brian, Kim and I enjoyed a somewhat traditional couple hours of hanami: sitting around on a tarp (well ok, it was a bench) drinking sake (ok…champagne) while admiring the trees.

March 31, 2006: An awesome picture of a bridge inside of the gardens at Heian Jingu. I love the reflection on the water, its almost difficult to tell the top from the bottom.

April 5, 2006: Myself, Emily, Matt and Brian enjoying the traditional (well, the JCMU tradition) Wednesday visit to Sugimoto’s, a local bar in Hikone. I waited until the last month to finally visit Sugimoto’s, and I kinda regret that now. A lot of other gaijins in the area come there on Wednesday nights to talk to the JCMUers, as well as Japanese people from Hikone who want to come to talk to the gaijins (in Japanese or English). The owner (Sugimoto) has these three dogs that wander around the place while you walk to the cooler in the back room and get drinks for yourself and then pay on the honor system when you are ready to leave. He (Sugimoto) even made fries for us all for free once a good sized group of people showed up. If it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t ever want to go back to Hikone, I wouldn’t mind showing up there one Wednesday night to talk to the new JCMUers…..

April 10, 2006: Penguins at the Osaka Kaiyukan. Just because penguins are awesome.

April 13, 2006: Joe, Clint and Don celebrating the almost end of the semester.

An awesome picture, taken by Cassidy, of my favorite Shinto shrine in Japan: Heian Jingu.

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So did I enjoy my 8 months in Japan? Yes, immensely. Would I go back? The better question to ask is when will I be going back. Those seem to be the two questions that I am always asked after I tell someone that I’ve just returned from Japan. My time in Japan, even with its challenging moments, will be one of the best years of my life and I’ll always remember it. I was able to meet a lot of new people, several of whom I became close friends with; I was able to immerse myself in a completely different culture and learn that in fact, there are other countries in the world besides the US! (But really, I learned to have a completely open mind when learning about Japanese culture, even if Japanese people around me couldn’t do the same for me.) And did my Japanese language skills get better during my time there? They certainly did, though I think by the end of it the class was more about cramming and less about learning.

On the subject of JCMU and Hikone, would I go back to either of those now that I know what its like? No, I wouldn’t. However if you ask me what I would have done differently, I can’t really say. Would some other program in Fukuoka or Kyoto have been a better fit? What I now know of the Japanese educational system, I think the classes may have been structured similarly, even if they weren’t so intense. At JCMU I was able to live with other English speakers, and I was centrally located in the country so that traveling to most cities was very do-able (a year ago I also got into a program in Fukuoka, way down on the southern island, 3 hours away from Kyoto by Shinkansen or 6 hours away from Tokyo by Shinkansen, which would have made traveling almost everywhere very expensive and very difficult). Would I recommend JCMU to other students thinking about studying abroad in Japan? I’m really not sure, however I would certainly make it very clear to the student that 1) there is nothing to do at JCMU outside of class unless you travel to another city, 2) work loads at least in the 3rd year program, were so intense that traveling or leaving JCMU anytime during the week was impossible, and also difficult on the weekends, let alone the fact that we had to memorize nearly 75% of the book to regurgitate the info on the tests, 3) the tennis court advertised in the brochure is a weed-filled lot and the beautiful rock garden is off limits to students, 4) the nearest grocery store is a 15-minute bike ride away, as is the nearest train station, 5) there is no heat in the winter and YES it gets really cold, 6) the resident director becomes violent towards students when he drinks. I’m sure there are more that I’m not thinking of right now. Did I enjoy my time at JCMU? Um….no, I don’t think that I really did. I had 5 roommates in a span of 8 months, two of whom were fairly horrible (well ok one was downright ridiculous), one I was indifferent to, one who never actually lived in the room, and one who I was actually starting to like but left the country before I could get to know her. I had to contend with horrible living conditions when I first moved in (an apartment that was filthy, appliances with giant rotting holes in them, cracked toilet seats, etc). With the exception of one occasion the admins of the place were horrible to deal with. And did I mention there’s NOTHING to do there? Ok lets stop ranting about JCMU…

Traveling! Yes, I kept my sanity by traveling. I think Cassidy and I probably traveled to more places together than most of the JCMU students combined. I know of people that never left Hikone for the extent of their stay. Why did they even bother to come to Japan?? Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Ise, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Hakone, Yokohama, and those are just the major cities. Riding on trains in Japan is just SO fun! I didn’t even mind the multiple 8-hour trips to Tokyo. Even the time Cassidy and I had to hunt around downtown Fukuoka for a hotel at 10pm was crazy (and yeah, we laughed about it later). And the Hard Rock Cafes! Yes, they were so fun to visit. What was my favorite place to go to? Hmm…I think when people ask me that I will say Nara, because I love Todaiji and the Daibutsu. But Hokkaido was also wonderful, and I’d like to go back there in the summer sometime because it is the Japan that I wish still existed: less people and more nature. Yokohama I also liked because it was like Tokyo in the amount of urban sprawl, but people were very nice there, the weather was great and it didn’t take an hour to get to where you wanted to go.

The people I met: Cassidy and I were like joined at the hip during the first semester. We both had a mutual dislike of our roommates causing us to want to flee our rooms and JCMU whenever possible. When it came to traveling Cassidy was a great partner: I could say “Hey lets go there!” and she’d be like “Sure!”. We both loved photography, and seemed to become obsessed with visiting every tower in the country (thanks in part to these highly collectable coins….darn them). We are both big into scrapbooking and were obsessed with keeping every scrap of paper and ticket stub, and would squeal with glee when we found hiragana stickers… She put up with my Totoro and Sirotan obsessions (but how could you not, they’re both so freaking CUTE!). We became really close friends and I hope she doesn’t hate me right now for failing to call due to moving craziness….. :/ Second semester I had a harder time at making friends, probably since there weren’t too many people in my class and I ended up with a roommate who apparently hated me. But, eventually Brian became traveling partner #2 (that is, when we had the time to travel..). He was also able to put up with Totoro and Sirotan and especially my HRC pins (yeah, I’m a stuff person, sue me). At first he was just one of the ‘homeless’ that I somewhat inadvertently lent cupboard space to, and while his other homeless friend was slightly…strange (ok, so he walked into my room at least 3 times without ever knocking, yeah I think that’s a little creepy), during lunch times we would start talking about anime or how 3rd year was killing us or other topical issues. Eventually I convinced him that taking an 8 hour train ride to Tokyo was a good idea and that he did actually want to go to 3 HRC’s in a 2 day span. (Oh yeah, and that trip to the aquarium just to find Sirotan Town.) His homeless status a few times impacted social activity, and since his former roommate was somewhat of a retard, I lent him my spare room (when I had no roommate) and my floor (when I did) seeing as the trains stopped running at like 11pm. And we got to sing anime songs in karaoke! No one else wanted to do anime songs (oh noes, singing in Japanese!) so following a 6-hour karaoke session, we stayed for another 2 just for anime songs. I wish I had done more karaoke… Brian is going to CA for 3 months but I’m forcing him to come to my house when he gets back for my planned Snakes on a Plane party.

So what else do I have to say? I could go on and on I suppose. I love Japan and despite the discrimination against foreigners that still exists there, I can’t wait to go back again. Life in Michigan seems just a little bit more boring after living for 8 months in a place where I can hop on a train and go anywhere in the country without leaving a station. Or getting sushi from revolving sushi bars for 137yen a plate. Where Taiko Drum Master games can be found in every arcade and where people actually smile at you when you walk into a McDonalds. Just wait Japan, I’ll become fluent and return….sooner rather than later.