Classes and Ginza
Date: Dec 21st, 2007 1:51:55 am - Subscribe
Mood: Creamy dreamy
Hello!
Well Im feeling much better now. Don’t get me wrong, Im still tired all the time, but so is everyone else. I think we’re all still adjusting to the amount of walking/standing on the train for hours/climbing stairs that living in Japan requires. I haven’t even gone running since I got here since Im too exhausted by the end of the day from the above activities. Plus, I have THREE HOURS of Japanese class Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 9 in the morning. Followed of course by my other two classes leaves me feeling like an emphysematous. However, the pace of the classes here is weird. It’s a semester system, and compared to a term routine, where by the second class you’re already discussing the midterm, its kinda snail like. For example, at the end of my last War and Peace class he informed us of this weeks homework, at which point I realized I was two readings ahead already. Bikuri shita (I was surprised).
So, while the elongated pace is more tango than my strictly tap is used to, my friends and I have been filling in the gaps. Most weekends we visit places that are on our list like Ginza, Shibuya, Shinkjuku, Harajuku, Odaiba, and so on. Additionally, we’ve been exploring the wonderful night life of Tokyo college students, namely bars. The Hub is right next to the station everyone uses to get to campus (Takadanobaba Eki), and if you’re smart like my friends and I you preempt the exorbitantly pricey drinks at the bar and visit one of the many liquor stores on the way. This last Friday I experienced Ume (Plum) Liquor for the first time and damn. A bunch of us, including my new Midwestern friends went to Hub and had an AMAZING time…Ill tell you about it when your older.
Speaking of new friends, I didn’t realize that international student really meant INTERNATIONAL. In my Post-Colonialism class there are people from Malaya, Pakistan, Nigeria, China, Korea, Missouri, the list goes on. It’s amazing talking to these people; Im learning so much, changing my perceptions of the world every time we interact.
I’ve also made friends with the majority of the Midwestern group from the U.S. including people from Missouri, Tennessee, D.C., and so on. One of my new best friends is Michael, the gay Kenyon student who recently loaned me a game for my DS. We like to hold little squeal sessions whenever we see a buff Japanese construction worker wearing hakama (those airy pants seen in samurai movies)
So this last weekend, after a quick recovery on Saturday from Friday night, Maddy, David, Ken, and I went to Ginza for some exploration. First we went to the Sony building where Maddy’s tourist book said we could try out some free virtual reality games. Well, we walked up and down all 7 floors experiencing some amazing technology in high definition, but no virtual reality. There were a line of cameras with TV screens recording us behind them, which suddenly started flashing lights in our eyes, taking our pictures rapid fire and posting them on the TV screens. Scared the crap out of us.
Then we walked all the way to the Godzilla statue, and turning the corner onto his plaza, we discovered that he looks much bigger on TV. Ill send pictures later, but lets just say that Maddy and I played patty cake with him.
We then spent about half an hour walking in circles looking for this purportedly beautiful Jinja (shrine) in the middle of Ginza. Much like virtual reality, it seems we need to be Asian for them to appear on our radars.
After walking to the biggest fish market in the world, which as our luck would have it was closed, we went to this massive park that some Shogun had set up years and years ago. Now that was fun. It was beautiful and HUGE even though it was right in the middle of Ginza. Ill send pictures of it later. As we were leaving we stopped to watch this really neat performance of two women in kimonos doing various balancing tricks involving those paper umbrellas, twine balls, cups, and wooden blocks; all accompanied by a man playing a samisen. I built up the courage, with a little boost of confidence from Maddy, to ask them if we could take a picture with them and they were nice enough to not only take a picture with us but to pose us with their umbrellas and such. The two women were so cute!
Ill end this post with a reminder that while I am far away I am still the same person subconsciously. I had a couple dreams recently:
The first was one were I was walking around in public with a couple people and Tim wouldn’t stop “revealing” himself to the world. I was also in possession of luggage labeled “Freed Slavery” on it. Even outside of reality Tim is a weirdo : p
The second dream involved one of my friends trying to avoid doing something they deemed lame. So, when they tried to run away on a motorcycle I performed a flying movie-style kick, launching them off the bike.
And on that rather personal reassurance of my, er, continuing Lynette-ness, Ill bid you adieu.
Ja ne!
-Spork
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