Oh, I'm back in the dorms now. and loving it.
So, just so you all know, I'm not dead. I'm very alive and kicking.
~Dereck
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Homestay
So, around 2:00 toady i was told that tomorrow by 3:30 I need to have my room clean and packed since I will be going to my host family's house tomorrow..... Nice to be informed!
So If I don't e-mail some of you that keep in touch (near)daily.... You know why. XD
I really was starting to enjoy the dorms, its fun here, but I'll be excited to start using Japanese everyday around the clock. That will be really fun.
~Dereck
So If I don't e-mail some of you that keep in touch (near)daily.... You know why. XD
I really was starting to enjoy the dorms, its fun here, but I'll be excited to start using Japanese everyday around the clock. That will be really fun.
~Dereck
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Awsome Arcade game in Hikone
I played this awesome gundam game at viva-city!! holy crap it was cool! In case you didn't know, Gundam is the name of a series of anime that features big robots in space and on earth that fight in a war between two waring idealist groups.
Well this game at Viva-city, I'll post pictures later, you get into one of four pods, and sit in this cockpit thing, it has foot peddles and 2 joysticks for movement, and a surround screen.... you get in pilot a mech and fight other players. Then there is this data card I got for 300en that saves my data on it, so I can keep upgrades, and get better mobile suits, and bigger weapons, it keeps my number of kills on it too. its just really really cool. I think I'm gonna spend a lot of money playing it.... its 500en for two plays.
i figure it's bout 80 plays for the cost of one DS game... so *shrugs* money pit......
I'v got to be careful around viva-city now @_@ i might get pulled in
Well this game at Viva-city, I'll post pictures later, you get into one of four pods, and sit in this cockpit thing, it has foot peddles and 2 joysticks for movement, and a surround screen.... you get in pilot a mech and fight other players. Then there is this data card I got for 300en that saves my data on it, so I can keep upgrades, and get better mobile suits, and bigger weapons, it keeps my number of kills on it too. its just really really cool. I think I'm gonna spend a lot of money playing it.... its 500en for two plays.
i figure it's bout 80 plays for the cost of one DS game... so *shrugs* money pit......
I'v got to be careful around viva-city now @_@ i might get pulled in
DS is umm... ITS EDUCATIONAL! yea thats it!
--- LAST WEEK ---
I found the coolest thing! I think I'm gonna buy a DS... Its a kanji/english dictionary for the DS. but its really awesome since you can draw the kanji and it will look it up for you. I can even write words and it will look them up and I can get a Japaneses dictionary entry or a english translation. but I have to buy a DS to use it... and well they are kind expensive I think...
--- LAST NIGHT ---
i did it.... i broke down and bought a DS and the Kanji dictionary.... ^_^
i found a DS lite for 120$ used. It is normally 170$. It works great it is only missing the strap, and i don't care about that one bit. The dictionary is so cool though!! OH! I found the next 2 volumes of Azumanga fro 300en each so now i have the first four in Japanese. and with my new 'toy' i can read all the kanji in them! wheeee~ I'm pretty excited....
yea, yesterday me and a new friend Josh went to Osaka and he showed me this one road that has a ton of video game stores. I mean every other store was a game store. there were at least 5 stores dedicated to old-school systems, he got a super famicom and a bunch of games for 50$ or so. He wants to get a Sega genesis next time we go.
Osaka... just awesome. One of the coolest stores was called 'Super Potato' and that is where i got my Kanji Dictionary. I forgot my camera last night, but I'll be back, for sure. I'll post pics of the DS though!
I found the coolest thing! I think I'm gonna buy a DS... Its a kanji/english dictionary for the DS. but its really awesome since you can draw the kanji and it will look it up for you. I can even write words and it will look them up and I can get a Japaneses dictionary entry or a english translation. but I have to buy a DS to use it... and well they are kind expensive I think...
--- LAST NIGHT ---
i did it.... i broke down and bought a DS and the Kanji dictionary.... ^_^
i found a DS lite for 120$ used. It is normally 170$. It works great it is only missing the strap, and i don't care about that one bit. The dictionary is so cool though!! OH! I found the next 2 volumes of Azumanga fro 300en each so now i have the first four in Japanese. and with my new 'toy' i can read all the kanji in them! wheeee~ I'm pretty excited....
yea, yesterday me and a new friend Josh went to Osaka and he showed me this one road that has a ton of video game stores. I mean every other store was a game store. there were at least 5 stores dedicated to old-school systems, he got a super famicom and a bunch of games for 50$ or so. He wants to get a Sega genesis next time we go.
Osaka... just awesome. One of the coolest stores was called 'Super Potato' and that is where i got my Kanji Dictionary. I forgot my camera last night, but I'll be back, for sure. I'll post pics of the DS though!
Thursday, September 20, 2007
funy story #1
I really should have wrote these down, since i will have no doubt forgotten some.
Night #2 in Japan: making food on our own...
Steve knows how to cook, this is good. he's also kinda a germ-phobe, also a good thing. We need dish soap to wash dishes before we can cook! *bum bum bum*(drums)
We walk over to Lawsons and look around and find two bottles that might be what we need, we take the bigger green bottle with a picture of dishes on it! of course, this should be it right? nuuuuu
We take it to the counter and the lady looks at us and ask us what we think it is, thankfully.
It's bleech.
So she shows us what really wanted to get and the day is saved.
That could have turned out very bad I think, yes, very bad indeed.
Night #2 in Japan: making food on our own...
Steve knows how to cook, this is good. he's also kinda a germ-phobe, also a good thing. We need dish soap to wash dishes before we can cook! *bum bum bum*(drums)
We walk over to Lawsons and look around and find two bottles that might be what we need, we take the bigger green bottle with a picture of dishes on it! of course, this should be it right? nuuuuu
We take it to the counter and the lady looks at us and ask us what we think it is, thankfully.
It's bleech.
So she shows us what really wanted to get and the day is saved.
That could have turned out very bad I think, yes, very bad indeed.
clocks
so, I wanted to wake up a bit earlier today to study a bit more, but not this early!
I woke up this morning, and looked at my clock, it read 9:30!!! and i was panicking, i grabbed some clothes and put them on and ran for the door, and saw my other clock... it read 6:45........ darn dyslexia...
*note* It's an old style clock, AKA not digital.... does it make any more sense now?
soooo I just decided to stay up and go check my e-mail and stuff, and when I got back to my room, the clock read 6:30... I had mis-read my clock twice that morning, I had accatully gotten up at 5:45.
GREAT START to the day....
The rest wasn't so bad, but wow what a tiring day. After class I was going with some friends to eat at Viva-City, a shopping mall type place, and when we got to the platform, they realized they didn't have time to get back for their next class, so it was just two of us going. We went, we ate, we looked around the place. Nothing too exciting, other than drooling over the new DoCoMo cellphones.
On the way back we got our bikes and decided to take a ride around to see if we could find anything interesting. Well, about an hour later, we were in Viva-City's parking lot..... Quite confused since we headed away from Viva-City and only took one very straight road. Apparently the train takes a curve someplace and we just didn't notice when we took it. It was just kinda funny how we accidentally found a shortcut to Viva-City; Everyone who bikes to Viva-City takes the road next to the train-tracks, whereas this is a straight shot all the way there, kinda cool.
Now, time to study for the test tomorrow!
I woke up this morning, and looked at my clock, it read 9:30!!! and i was panicking, i grabbed some clothes and put them on and ran for the door, and saw my other clock... it read 6:45........ darn dyslexia...
*note* It's an old style clock, AKA not digital.... does it make any more sense now?
soooo I just decided to stay up and go check my e-mail and stuff, and when I got back to my room, the clock read 6:30... I had mis-read my clock twice that morning, I had accatully gotten up at 5:45.
GREAT START to the day....
The rest wasn't so bad, but wow what a tiring day. After class I was going with some friends to eat at Viva-City, a shopping mall type place, and when we got to the platform, they realized they didn't have time to get back for their next class, so it was just two of us going. We went, we ate, we looked around the place. Nothing too exciting, other than drooling over the new DoCoMo cellphones.
On the way back we got our bikes and decided to take a ride around to see if we could find anything interesting. Well, about an hour later, we were in Viva-City's parking lot..... Quite confused since we headed away from Viva-City and only took one very straight road. Apparently the train takes a curve someplace and we just didn't notice when we took it. It was just kinda funny how we accidentally found a shortcut to Viva-City; Everyone who bikes to Viva-City takes the road next to the train-tracks, whereas this is a straight shot all the way there, kinda cool.
Now, time to study for the test tomorrow!
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Kyoto
Friday night me and Katie, I think is her name, decided we'd go to Kyoto in the morning. My roommate was gonna go but then he was meeting his host family that day and moving out. So it was just the two of us. She knows very little Japanese though.
So basically everything went just fine. We biked up to the station, got out tickets and hopped on a train. I asked someone before getting on the train if it was the right one, and I did choose the right one, luckily.
We got to Kyoto Station and explored a bit, and saw a live concert was going on in the station. That was interesting, and there were tons of people, so we just went up the escalators listening to the music. The escalators took us almost to the roof, where we could see out and over the whole city. its a pretty big place.
We just walked around aimlessly and found a temple, no admission fee that we could see, so we just walked in. It was mostly under renovation and restoration. it was cool though. They built a building around the larger of the temples so that as the worked on the roof nothing would be damaged by the weather. It was to be finished in 2011 i guess.
So we walked on down the road and randomly took a turn and just kept walking and found a small shrine hidden behind some buildings, we went in and looked around and there was a little old lady there that took care of the place. She said the shrine was 1500 years old and was dedicated to some local god. I forgot the name though.
Then we found the Otani memorial grounds. he was a buddist monk that was very influential in the area. It was a nice place for sure.
Then off up a random road, we found a graveyard that was just massive. I think i saw somewhere that it was 20 acres and 15,000 tombs. it was amazing really. It started to rain as we passed yet another small shrine. it was really cool though. it had a deck that over looked the city and there were murals on the ceiling that looked really really old.
We kept going up the hill and found that Kyomizudera was at the top of the hill. We sat and had some kakigori (shaved ice with fruit toping stuff) and then took a gander around the temple. Lasts tiem there was a really long line to drink the water, so I don't think we did it. So this time the line wasn't very long and we drank som of the spring watter that everyone wants to drink for some reason.
It tasted like water.
Since it was gettign dark we started home and found an Udon resterant. Udon is a Japanese noodle type dish like ramen, but udon is much better. :D it was delicious.
We started walking back and saw a line of people to get on a bus and thought, humm we should try using the bus. It was easier than i thought. You just get on and it is a flat rate in the city, 220 yen. and the bus had Kyoto Station written on the side. so we just go on and tried it. It was sooo packed! there wasn't room for another person to get on if they tried. it was amazingly fun.
I thought it would be much hard to find out train, but it was really easy in Kyoto station. everything has English everywhere, so no problem. We rode around randomly in downtown Hikone for a bit before going home for the night.
it was a good day. Pictures are posted on the photo site. http://picasaweb.google.com/dereck/Kyoto
Enjoy!
So basically everything went just fine. We biked up to the station, got out tickets and hopped on a train. I asked someone before getting on the train if it was the right one, and I did choose the right one, luckily.
We got to Kyoto Station and explored a bit, and saw a live concert was going on in the station. That was interesting, and there were tons of people, so we just went up the escalators listening to the music. The escalators took us almost to the roof, where we could see out and over the whole city. its a pretty big place.
We just walked around aimlessly and found a temple, no admission fee that we could see, so we just walked in. It was mostly under renovation and restoration. it was cool though. They built a building around the larger of the temples so that as the worked on the roof nothing would be damaged by the weather. It was to be finished in 2011 i guess.
So we walked on down the road and randomly took a turn and just kept walking and found a small shrine hidden behind some buildings, we went in and looked around and there was a little old lady there that took care of the place. She said the shrine was 1500 years old and was dedicated to some local god. I forgot the name though.
Then we found the Otani memorial grounds. he was a buddist monk that was very influential in the area. It was a nice place for sure.
Then off up a random road, we found a graveyard that was just massive. I think i saw somewhere that it was 20 acres and 15,000 tombs. it was amazing really. It started to rain as we passed yet another small shrine. it was really cool though. it had a deck that over looked the city and there were murals on the ceiling that looked really really old.
We kept going up the hill and found that Kyomizudera was at the top of the hill. We sat and had some kakigori (shaved ice with fruit toping stuff) and then took a gander around the temple. Lasts tiem there was a really long line to drink the water, so I don't think we did it. So this time the line wasn't very long and we drank som of the spring watter that everyone wants to drink for some reason.
It tasted like water.
Since it was gettign dark we started home and found an Udon resterant. Udon is a Japanese noodle type dish like ramen, but udon is much better. :D it was delicious.
We started walking back and saw a line of people to get on a bus and thought, humm we should try using the bus. It was easier than i thought. You just get on and it is a flat rate in the city, 220 yen. and the bus had Kyoto Station written on the side. so we just go on and tried it. It was sooo packed! there wasn't room for another person to get on if they tried. it was amazingly fun.
I thought it would be much hard to find out train, but it was really easy in Kyoto station. everything has English everywhere, so no problem. We rode around randomly in downtown Hikone for a bit before going home for the night.
it was a good day. Pictures are posted on the photo site. http://picasaweb.google.com/dereck/Kyoto
Enjoy!
Friday, September 14, 2007
test!
wow, what a week!
Let me go back a bit, to day 3; Everyone here takes an entry exam to determine the level of Japanese you know so you can be placed in the right classes. There are four levels here at JCMU.
I got into level 3, but because of my interview was asked if I would enter level 2 instead, so that I would be able to master the foundations that I lacked, specifically the polite forms.
I've never had a Japanese class before, and learned everything from my friends in Kumamoto, so I was actually lacking a lot more that expected. The past two weeks have been a challenge, and I was told that if I can't pass the weekly test today, that I should go to level 1 classes instead.
The past 3 days, I've studied 9-11 hours each day, every waking moment essentially. I feel good about how the test went today, and so I think I'll be staying in level 2 for the semester, but have a lot of work to do.
For starters, I have about 5 chapters of old patters to learn, and I should memorize all the level 1 vocabulary as well. *thats about 500 new words for me I think* oh, can't fall behind on the new stuff either!!!
I think that things will be better now though that I'm filling in the basics that I didn't know; and a lot of these things I do know already, but don't know about it, since it is just knowledge in my head, I don't nessisaraly have patterns for using these things. I just use them, but to master the language, I must memorize then know all the rules for these patterns. Just using them isn't enough.
I'm hoping for Kyoto tomarrow, we'll see based on the weather; Typhoon tomorrow I think.
Let me go back a bit, to day 3; Everyone here takes an entry exam to determine the level of Japanese you know so you can be placed in the right classes. There are four levels here at JCMU.
I got into level 3, but because of my interview was asked if I would enter level 2 instead, so that I would be able to master the foundations that I lacked, specifically the polite forms.
I've never had a Japanese class before, and learned everything from my friends in Kumamoto, so I was actually lacking a lot more that expected. The past two weeks have been a challenge, and I was told that if I can't pass the weekly test today, that I should go to level 1 classes instead.
The past 3 days, I've studied 9-11 hours each day, every waking moment essentially. I feel good about how the test went today, and so I think I'll be staying in level 2 for the semester, but have a lot of work to do.
For starters, I have about 5 chapters of old patters to learn, and I should memorize all the level 1 vocabulary as well. *thats about 500 new words for me I think* oh, can't fall behind on the new stuff either!!!
I think that things will be better now though that I'm filling in the basics that I didn't know; and a lot of these things I do know already, but don't know about it, since it is just knowledge in my head, I don't nessisaraly have patterns for using these things. I just use them, but to master the language, I must memorize then know all the rules for these patterns. Just using them isn't enough.
I'm hoping for Kyoto tomarrow, we'll see based on the weather; Typhoon tomorrow I think.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Arival
Wow, that was an awsome trip. I met another JCMU student at Kinross as I was bordinng the plane and so that made the time pass more quickly in Detroit for the 8 hours I was stuck there. His name is Steve, but his flight was to Osaka, not Nagoya with me. so he left an hour earlier than me. I sat and waited for my flight and found two other JCMU students and talked with them for a bit untill getting on the plane. I had a nice isle seat, with nobody in the seat next to me, so the fight was really nice. I fell asleep somewhere over Canada and woke up someplace over Japan, an hour away from Nagoya. I was very lucky there.
After getting into the airport, Nagoya is just awsome! I walked up right to the immigration desk, got in without any problems. The guy seemed impressed that I spoke Japanese, accually. I got m lugage easy in the next area, and walked through the inspection without them even opening my bags, that was a new experiance too. I met up with some other JCMU people there too, and we all traveled together in a pack form train to train and got to the JCMU center without too many issues really.
We took three trains, the last of which was a bullet train, AKA Shinkansen. There wasn't room for our bags so we packed them around the door and behind the last rows of seats in the car and stuff, and not toolong after we left, the fell out into the door blocking anyone from getting on or off...... so I rushed back and sorted everything out and kinda piled stuff up infront of the door that wasn't being used, untill I was informed that the patform for the next station was on that side next..... Luckily the next stop was ours and it wasn't a problem.
While standing with the luggage I talked to some random Japanese guy and stuff, He was interesting. He was learnign spanish for his job and went to Mexico often.
After getting off the train, we found out that this station has no elevator or escalator, since it is a small town, and so all of our heavy lugage would have to be carried about three stories up, then back down to get off the platform and to the street. That was the first time I was thankfull of the 50lbs limit on lugage.
We took taxis to the center, and I talked with the driver, another interesting guy for no reason at all.
The Japan Center for Michigan Universities is really nice, I'll take pictures later, but the dorms are awsome. Each dorm has two people assigned to them, with private bedrooms and a common area / kitchen. Each room has a shower as well, which is a huge plus and basicly everything we need to get by.
I met my roomate, Steve High from Penn state, and hes a really cool guy, we've quite simalar honestly.
Thats my story for now, I've got a lot of studing to do for my test tomarrow, so I'll post again soon!
After getting into the airport, Nagoya is just awsome! I walked up right to the immigration desk, got in without any problems. The guy seemed impressed that I spoke Japanese, accually. I got m lugage easy in the next area, and walked through the inspection without them even opening my bags, that was a new experiance too. I met up with some other JCMU people there too, and we all traveled together in a pack form train to train and got to the JCMU center without too many issues really.
We took three trains, the last of which was a bullet train, AKA Shinkansen. There wasn't room for our bags so we packed them around the door and behind the last rows of seats in the car and stuff, and not toolong after we left, the fell out into the door blocking anyone from getting on or off...... so I rushed back and sorted everything out and kinda piled stuff up infront of the door that wasn't being used, untill I was informed that the patform for the next station was on that side next..... Luckily the next stop was ours and it wasn't a problem.
While standing with the luggage I talked to some random Japanese guy and stuff, He was interesting. He was learnign spanish for his job and went to Mexico often.
After getting off the train, we found out that this station has no elevator or escalator, since it is a small town, and so all of our heavy lugage would have to be carried about three stories up, then back down to get off the platform and to the street. That was the first time I was thankfull of the 50lbs limit on lugage.
We took taxis to the center, and I talked with the driver, another interesting guy for no reason at all.
The Japan Center for Michigan Universities is really nice, I'll take pictures later, but the dorms are awsome. Each dorm has two people assigned to them, with private bedrooms and a common area / kitchen. Each room has a shower as well, which is a huge plus and basicly everything we need to get by.
I met my roomate, Steve High from Penn state, and hes a really cool guy, we've quite simalar honestly.
Thats my story for now, I've got a lot of studing to do for my test tomarrow, so I'll post again soon!
busy
I'm busy here.... mostly with homework and stuff.....
I've got some funny stories too, but those will have to wait, since Ive got a pile of homework on my desk.
~Dereck
I've got some funny stories too, but those will have to wait, since Ive got a pile of homework on my desk.
~Dereck
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Packing
One more day in the states left, and I should really start packing soon....
No, for real now, I got all my clothes thrown into my luggage now, and I've been going through all my stuff to see what I want to bring, but have only managed to sort through half of my room so far.
Anyways, I'll post again from Japan next time.
-----
Date: Friday, August 31
Flight: NW 3042
Departs: Sault Sainte Marie, MI (CIU) at 6:25AM
Arrives: Detroit-Wayne County Int'l, MI (DTW) at 8:04AM
Class of Service: Economy Class (L)
Seat: 07-C
Flight Duration: 1 hour 39 minutes
Approximate Miles: 284
Aircraft: SF3
Date: Friday, August 31
Flight: NW 71
Departs: Detroit-Wayne County Int'l, MI (DTW) at 3:55PM
Arrives: Nagoya, Japan (NGO) at 6:00PM on Saturday, September 1
Class of Service: Economy Class (L)
Seat: 39-C
Flight Duration: 13 hours 5 minutes
Approximate Miles: 6,510
Meal Service: Dinner
Aircraft: Boeing 747-400
* Times shown are local times at the departure/arrival cities.
No, for real now, I got all my clothes thrown into my luggage now, and I've been going through all my stuff to see what I want to bring, but have only managed to sort through half of my room so far.
Anyways, I'll post again from Japan next time.
-----
Date: Friday, August 31
Flight: NW 3042
Departs: Sault Sainte Marie, MI (CIU) at 6:25AM
Arrives: Detroit-Wayne County Int'l, MI (DTW) at 8:04AM
Class of Service: Economy Class (L)
Seat: 07-C
Flight Duration: 1 hour 39 minutes
Approximate Miles: 284
Aircraft: SF3
Date: Friday, August 31
Flight: NW 71
Departs: Detroit-Wayne County Int'l, MI (DTW) at 3:55PM
Arrives: Nagoya, Japan (NGO) at 6:00PM on Saturday, September 1
Class of Service: Economy Class (L)
Seat: 39-C
Flight Duration: 13 hours 5 minutes
Approximate Miles: 6,510
Meal Service: Dinner
Aircraft: Boeing 747-400
* Times shown are local times at the departure/arrival cities.
Friday, August 24, 2007
One week and counting
My e-ticket is in my hand and I'm ready to go with one week to wait untill I depart. My initial flight departs Aug 31 from CIU (Kinross, MI) at 6:25 AM, meaning that I'll have to get up quite early that morning. After the two and half hour filght, there's an eight hour lay-over in DWT (Detroit, MI) before I get on flight 71 to NGO (Nagoya, Japan). Once I get settled into that tin can, I'll be sitting there for the next 13 hours 5 minutes; I can't help but laugh at the "5 minutes" part of my estimated fight time, do they really have it timed so tightly? I doubt it.
I figured out how to choose my seats online, so I picked out an isle seat nearest to the door this morning, the only window seat was in the very back of the 747, and I really don't feel like waiting for the hoards of people leave the plane before I can even stand up.
Today is my last day of work at LSSU before I leave, I am taking the next week off to get ready and stuff. I gave up my key to the IEEE student office, that was kinda sad but I'll get it back later. My friend Josh might be able to make better use of it in the coming year than I would. Nope, haven't even really thought of packing or what to pack yet. *shrugs*
OK, so I have an introductory post complete now, I can sleep happy. For those that remember my previous trip to Japan, you might remember that I had a photo/video site too; I'll be setting that up after I get some photos to post, but I'll have something for sure.
I figured out how to choose my seats online, so I picked out an isle seat nearest to the door this morning, the only window seat was in the very back of the 747, and I really don't feel like waiting for the hoards of people leave the plane before I can even stand up.
Today is my last day of work at LSSU before I leave, I am taking the next week off to get ready and stuff. I gave up my key to the IEEE student office, that was kinda sad but I'll get it back later. My friend Josh might be able to make better use of it in the coming year than I would. Nope, haven't even really thought of packing or what to pack yet. *shrugs*
OK, so I have an introductory post complete now, I can sleep happy. For those that remember my previous trip to Japan, you might remember that I had a photo/video site too; I'll be setting that up after I get some photos to post, but I'll have something for sure.
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