Happy Merry Christmas

Throughout high school in America I was able to meet a lot of exchange students.  It’s been interesting being put into that position and realizing that there is so much more that goes on than what one could find out from being in the same school, class or on the same sports team as an exchange student.  My life before I arrived here, the events that took place in order for me to get here and what I do outside of school are all things that are for the most part hidden from my classmates and teachers.  I’ve found that by being here, I’m almost always aware of the fact that I’m in a foreign setting.  My classmates and teachers obviously know I’m not from Japan but school is the only setting that they know me in and they're used to me being there by now.  It’s just strange to think about!

A New Home

Since my last blog post I've switched homes.  The family that I was supposed to move in with wasn’t ready yet for reasons I don’t know so I’m living with Shigetoshi Nakamura again and will be until February.  He doesn't have WiFi in his house so it's been more difficult finding time to work on this blog.

I've been enjoying living with Shige a lot but he knows English fairly well which can be both really good and bad. It's helpful but also tempts me to not speak in Japanese.  The first night in his home, he told me that he isn't the best cook and if he hadn't I could have guessed because while him and I were thinking about making the brownies that had been sent to me from home, he suggested using the microwave.  So, since I've been living with him, we usually go out to eat.

He is often gone for various business related things so his daughter, Shouko, has been coming to make and eat dinner with me on those nights.  She is really nice and I feel that I've been able to learn Japanese more efficiently while speaking with her. Shouko sometimes brings her two daughters, Miharu (9) and Chihiro (7) which is really fun. I never get to be around little kids so for some reason it was really strange hearing them speaking Japanese at first. Maybe it was my realization that kids younger than 10 are substantially better at Japanese than I am.  It's not their intention but they are probably some of the best Japanese teachers I've had.  They don't hesitate to correct me if I say something wrong and they don't make a huge deal out of every little thing I say like my classmates do. They also don't know English.

Currently, (December 6th) Shigetoshi is away in California to meet with some representatives from the tequila company that he's been marketing in Japan since I first arrived here (Yeah...strange, I know). So, I've been living alone except for the when Shouko has dinner with me.  On top of that, my high school had testing last week, which I don't take part in, and this week they are in Tokyo for a class trip (I didn't get to attend because it was too early in the year) so for the past two weeks I've been fending for myself.  As long as I can find something to do I have a fine time and the freedom has been a nice change from the school schedule.

Shouko took Miharu, Chihiro and me to see Gunkanjima (a small island that looks like a battle ship when viewed from far away) and also a botanical garden just outside of the city of Nagasaki.  I had never been to a place like this before and I had a lot of fun. 

Chihiro is on the left and Miharu on the right.  In the upper left hand corner is the Gunkanjima battle ship island.

This was one of the views at the botanical garden.  I felt like I was in Jurassic Park at times.

They had a hibiscus dedicated greenhouse filled with huge flowers like this one.

Karatsu Kunchi

On November 2nd through the 4th I went to another city called Karatsu to see their Kunchi festival along with a couple of other exchange students in my district.  This festival ended up being a lot different than Nagasaki's Kunchi festival.  Floats called hikiyama were paraded down the streets with large numbers of people carrying or pushing them.  The oldest of these floats was originally built in 1819 and throughout the next 60 years, twelve more were built.  We were able to see all thirteen.  These were some of my favorites:

This one was originally built in 1847.  I was given a t-shirt that has this float printed on the back.

This is the oldest float in the festival.

The festival itself was really cool too.  There were tons of people cheering and shouting as all of the floats were ran past us.  The brochure I have says that the floats each weigh 2 to 5 tons which makes it fun to watch as they are all pushed by hand.  

During our two nights in Karatsu, we stayed in two different hotels.  The first hotel was a very traditional one called a ryokan.  That night marked my first time sleeping on a Japanese futon which is a traditional Japanese bed.  It was really comfortable other than pillow which was filled with either plastic pellets or rocks.

This is Nathan from Belgium and our Rotray Youth Exchange counselor, Sako-San.

The next morning revealed that our hotel was located in a sleepy little fishing village.

With old women chopping the heads off of fish.

The next night we stayed in another ryokan but this one had more modern amenities:

The bath tub was located outside and really close to the ocean.

This was taken at the shrine and home of the Rotary member in Karatsu who was our guide for the weekend.

Karatsu Castle.  It was under constructing when we visited so it's probably not as photogenic as it usually is.

This was taken on top of the Karatsu Castle

Penguins

For some odd reason, Nagasaki has a museum/zoo dedicated entirely to penguins.  Before I moved in with Shigetoshi,  my host mom and I visited one day and I was not disappointed.

There was a little show they put on that they called the "penguin parade."

There were at least three kids who darted away from their parents in hopes of being able to walk across this thing with the penguins.  

This one posed for me.

たべもの  (Tabemono)

We celebrated my birthday along with Taichi's in early November because our latter part of October was really busy.  My host mom got an awesome cake for each of us.

Karatsu Kunchi had tons of food booths like this.  Fair food Japanese style.  These are candy coated apples.

Candy coated marshmallows

Rice wrapped in bacon 

We had several big meals throughout our weekend in Karatsu with a few of the families who own the floats.

It was common to see a huge fish like this sitting in the center of the table.

Yakiniku was my last meal with the Mizunos.  

After peeling the tail and exoskeleton thingy off of this shrimp, the legs and head are eaten along with the rest.

This was my first time eating tongue.  I think it was cow tongue but I'm not entirely sure.  It was a lot better than it sounds.

Octopus

Ramen with a hardboiled egg

There is a chain called Jolly Pasta here that is really good.

There was a party for British, American and Japanese students in Nagasaki that Shige invited my exchange district to go to.  I don't think anyone ate the gingerbread house for some reason.

Shrimp and miso soup

A Japanese hamburger

Yakitori

This is called sashimi.  It's a lot like sushi except without the rice.

Donuts shaped like Santa or Santa-San as they call him here

Janglish

Chihiro's shirts almost always say something like this.

So true.

The holiday season has actually been a lot more noticeable than I thought it would be.  The main hubs in the city almost all have some sort of decoration and I don't know how many signs I've seen that wish me a "Happy Merry Christmas!"

Have a good Christmas everyone!

My October in Nagasaki

An Update

The weeks have been going by so fast and it's strange thinking that I've been here for almost three months already.  Before I get into much detail, I'll share a few of the things that have been going on in my life that don't really fit in any of the sections below.

Although I do miss certain things about home, I wouldn't consider myself to be homesick at all yet. However, I often wish that my friends and family could be here encountering these things along with me. It's been nice being able to share some of what I've been doing through this blog but I feel like no amount of words or pictures could do this experience any justice.  Luckily there has been enough to do to keep me busy while I'm not at school.
Netflix doesn't work here but I suppose that might be a good thing in my case.

I found out that I'm going to be switching host family's sometime in the middle of November.  I haven't met them yet but the Rotary club is trying to find a family that lives closer to Minami high school so that I don't have to journey so far every morning.  I think it'd be cool to live in a more traditional Japanese home so hopefully that works out.

Minami Ko (みなみこ)

School hasn't changed much since my last post.  Most of my time is spent studying Japanese by myself but it's hard to want to do that 6 or 7 hours a day.  They won't let me go to the library by myself, I have no idea why, so I'm kind of limited as far as what recourses I can use to study.  Electronics are not allowed in school whatsoever.  

Classes haven't gotten any easier to understand and based on what I've heard from other exchange students, that won't change.  I do enjoy when I get to help out in English class though which seems to be quite often now.  Twice a week I have gym and I chose to play badminton. Our school has a badminton team and some of the members are in my gym class and they get pretty competitive.   

I get along well with everyone at school and they're all extremely nice.  That said, students and social situations in general are very different here than in the United States.  I won't get too detailed but to name a few things, girls and guys are almost always separated (by choice), girls are really giggly a large majority of the time and guys often act younger than they really are.   

Here are a couple pictures of my classroom and classmates taken during lunch one day:

Since before I got here, a new high school has been being built and I was told that it is supposed to be done in April so I'm excited to see that.  Classrooms are currently in temporary buildings.

I've been spending most of my time lately going to school and mountain climbing.  On top of those two things, I've started a class to help me learn more Japanese which I will be going to every Thursday. There are a few other foreigners in the class as well.  I enjoy going and I hope that it helps.  This Japanese thing is difficult.

On the Bay

Dejima Wharf is one of my favorite places to visit and it's only about a six minute bus ride from my house so I go often.  There are always cool looking sailboats and ships docked in the bay close to the wharf.  My host mom and I met some of her friends there one night for dinner.  They had set up a table next to one of their sailboats out on the dock.  At night, all the shops along the wharf are lit up with colorful lights and lanterns.  It doesn't seem like a place that I'd ever expect to find in Japan.  Here are some pictures:

Our view of the wharf from the dock.

One of the people we had dinner with owns this cool wooden sailboat.

Here are the restaurants along the wharf.

Later that night, one of the owners of one of the sailboats asked if my host mom and I would like to go sailing the next day.  We went, and it was a lot of fun but I didn't bring my camera unfortunately so I have no visuals for this part of the trip.  We sailed around a small island right outside of the bay.  Out on the water, the waves were really big and choppy which was interesting because looking out at the water from shore it's impossible to tell.  Now I can say that I've sailed the ocean blue.  

Mountaineering さんがくぶ

Since my last blog post I've gone on three hiking and camping excursions with the mountaineering team.  Like just about everything this year, I didn't know what to expect going into them.  I packed warm clothes, some food and water for the hike.  All of us carried big heavy packs with all of our camping and cooking equipment inside.

Hiking was a blast.  The route that we take is about seven or eight miles and brings us up and down two mountains.  The first two team outings were much the same but the third was an actual competition.  I'll add bits and pieces from the first two and then talk explain the competition part later on.

Here is the team minus the two girls who were too shy to get in the picture.

This is the view from the top of the first mountain that we climb.  The tall grass is called Susuki and almost shines when the sunlight hits it.

I mounted a camera on a stick.  You can see it in my shadow. 

This is the top of the second mountain we climb and where we stop to have lunch.  

After hiking we're all picked up by our coach in an old Toyota van.  He then brings us to an onsen (Japanese hot spring) in a nearby town.  Going to the onsen took some getting used to as no one wears any clothes while in the water but now it's fine.  The main area that people go is the onsen itself but there are also saunas and tubs with messaging jets.  All of the water used is naturally heated underground.

This is Yotaro and I in the cafeteria area at the onsen.

After the onsen our coach brings us to the campsite.  By this time it's usually dark out so we unpack the van and go to the area where we set up our tents.  Usually there are three; one for the 2 girls, and two for the 9 guys.  During the second outing, they gave me my own little tent though and it was referred to as "Logan's special place."

We cook our own food, (we boil water and pour it on cups of instant ramen) and eat together before going to bed.

Here are my hiking boots.  They're not quite as uncomfortable as they look.

I ventured off on my own at one point and found this bridge near the campsite.

Since everything we bring with us is carried while hiking, we try to pack light.  So, no one uses a pillow and the sleeping bags are sub-par at best.  My backpack has served as my pillow all three trips. That being said, one day I woke up and was able to eat a smashed and semi warm donut for breakfast as it had received all of my head's weight and at least some of my body heat throughout the night.
In the morning, we pack up and go on a shorter hike up only one of the mountains and then head back to the high school.

Competitions are very similar to our normal trips only everything is timed and there are certain places along the trail where teams have to jot things down in these little booklets.  I didn't get to participate in the actual competition because I wouldn't be able to write, or even know what to write into the booklets.  So, the competition was just like a normal hike for me.

Here is the tent being set up in competition.  

Our team's tent being reviewed.

That night, I found out that I'd be sleeping in a small log cabin with another team.  I was shown a place on the wooden floor that was going to be my bed.  For awhile I really didn't what to do.  I had a damp backpack from the rain that had fallen earlier that day, a fleece, a zip up jacket, and two pairs of shorts or, "half pants" as Kana had called them.  I knew that the night was going to be incredibly uncomfortable but I didn't want to be the one complaining and I especially didn't want to be the American complaining.  Although everyone had warmer clothes, they were sleeping on wood too. About five minutes after laying down and thinking that I wasn't going to be able to fall asleep even if it weren't cold, Kana and Hiruka barged in with a sleeping bag.  They had big smiles on their faces as if they couldn't have been happier to deliver such a nice gift to the ill prepared newcomer.

Later on, unzipping the sleeping bag revealed dried mold spores inside.  Wouldn't it be funny if that's why the girls were smiling when they gave it to me?  I decided to sleep on top of the sleeping bag using it as a cushion.  I didn't get much rest that night and it is now dubbed the second most uncomfortable night of my life; I had another bad camping trip in the boundary waters once.

This was the next morning's sunrise.

I will likely stick with mountaineering for the rest of the year.  Hopefully I have time to try out some of the other sports for a day or two at some point though.

Nutrition

This is called taiyaki.  It's basically a fried waffle with pudding-like cream inside and served hot.

More Sara Udon

This was my birthday meal made by my host mom and is called sukiyaki.  We picked out the things we wanted from this pot and dipped them into the raw egg pictured below.

It was surprisingly good.

Japanese curry rice made by my host mom.

I took part in the Japanese Halloween by buying this Hello Kitty Pumpkin donut.

Halloween was almost completely uneventful here.  Some stores sell Halloween themed goods but there is really no dressing up or candy handouts.  The most  Halloween-like thing that happened to me was one of my classmates leaning over at one point during the school day and quietly saying, "trick or treat."

Yakisoba noodles made by my host dad.

Nagasaki Kunchi Festival

A few weeks ago, Nagasaki had their Kunchi festival.  This festival was started in 1634 and is Nagasaki's oldest festival. It is largely influenced by Chinese and Dutch cultures.  Kunchi is the festival of the Suwa Shrine which is the most famous Shinto Shrine in Nagasaki prefecture.  The festival began as a celebration of autumn harvests and was a way to show the importance of the newly built Suwa Shrine in the city of Nagasaki.  I really enjoyed being able to see something that has been going on for so long.

This site contains more information on the festival if you are interested: http://www.at-nagasaki.jp/foreign/english/kunchi/

My rotary district invited some other exchange students from other districts to attend the festival. Altogether there were 14 students from all over the world including France, Sweden, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.  It was great being able to meet people I could actually have conversations with.  

Here are some pictures from the festival:

These big heavily decorated props are held up by a single person and then spun around in circles.

The outfits worn by the performers were amazing.

Large ships like this are pushed back and forth and spun around in circles by the men on either side of the ship.

This was the last performance of the night and people cheered like they never wanted it to end.

Some other activities that took place throughout the day included visiting the atomic bomb museum, ground zero, and eating.  I had already been to the places that we went but it was still a good time.  It was a lot of fun having all of these students in Nagasaki and by the end of the day, we all felt pretty close.  

Janglish

At school I've started reading books to keep myself busy.  When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris is one that I recently finished and in the last chapter, he shares some of his experiences from when he used to live in Japan.  Here, I'll include an excerpt from the book where he describes his reaction to a sandwich wrapper that read, "We have sandwiches which you can enjoy different tastes.  So you can find your favorite one from our sandwiches.  We hope you choose the best one for yourself."

"It's not too horribly off the mark but you'd think that someone, maybe someone in management, might say, "I've got a cousin who lives in America, What do you say I run it by him before we slap it on tens of millions of wrappers?" But no."

I often think similarly when I see things like what's picture below on a daily basis.

Smash is the way to go.

For those that want to make sure people know

I think this is my favorite one so far i think...

Two cups of drink.

How could anyone not want one?

This ramen joint lets students eat at a discounted price...and it's made by a craftsman of Japan.

My notebooks at school are luckily easy to use and simple.

The classmate that sits to my right prefers the comfortable and convenient kind.

Keep it in the family.

My winter uniform

A year ago at this time, going on exchange was just an idea.   It's crazy thinking about all the things that lead up to me actually being here.  This has been an amazing experience so far and I'm so glad I was able to do it. 

Thanks for reading! My next post will likely be near the beginning of December.  

Until then, さよなら!