Between the Clouds: Fujisan

We survived our climb of Fujisan on Saturday. As I was hiking I didn't think it was too bad but my legs are still tired and a little sore two days later so maybe my lungs are just stronger than my legs...it was shorter and less tiring than Mt. Whitney and Longs Peak but there weren't as many switch backs as those hikes. Portions of it seemed to be almost straight up. I had fun with that since I miss the frequent opportunities to rock climb in Colorado. The way down wasn't as exciting to me since I constantly felt like I was going to slip on the small volcanic rocks that cover the trail. It turns out though that it is much more pleasant hiking down a mountain without a 40 pound pack like my dad and I did when we went down the Mt. Whitney trail.

We could only see clouds from the summit but this was a pretty cool perspective. It seemed like we were between two layers of clouds. There was a blanket of white clouds below us and above us there was another layer...I never felt like I was actually in the clouds but I could always see them.


As always, the experience of reaching a mountaintop has inspired me to hike as many mountains as possible. This is a very convenient thing to want to do since I'll be living close to most of the tallest mountains in California (and the lower 48 states)!

"Foreign" Experiences in Japan

During the last week and a half or so I have gone to several restaurants that aren't Japanese in origin but come from foreign countries (mostly the United States). Last week, we had dinner at El Torito in Shinjuku. Unlike, Mexican food in America and Mexico none of the dishes came with beans.

A couple of days ago, Jillian and I went to Shibuya and ate a blooming onion at Outback Steakhouse because our friend Taro is a waiter there. I looked up Outback on Wikipedia when I got home and it turns out that it isn't from Australia at all but based out of Tampa, Florida. I realized later that this was the first restaurant I've been to that had everything in English but it was also my least favorite restaurant since I don't eat beef. The blooming onion was deliciously fattening as usual though!

Today I went to Tully's Coffee...they have a lot of them here (though not as many as Starbucks of course) and I had only been to one once in the United States when I went to its hometown of Seattle. I've never even seen one in California. In any case it's been kind of fun to try American chains in Japan because they are usually slightly different than at home.

Odaiba and Forth of July

I don't have any pictures of our Independence Day party yesterday because I forgot my camera but we had so much fun! Not surprisingly, Japanese students are just as excited about fireworks as we are in America. I think the craziness of the night may have topped anything my friends and I ever did in high school when those type of fireworks that usually sit on the ground send sparks out were tied to the end of empty boxes so that two people could hold them up to make an arch. This happened a couple of times but the climax was when a few of the Japanese guys choreographed a "fire dance" that involved yelling "crazy awesome" and "Independence Day" words they learned earlier in the day could be used to describe the 4th of July by Americans.

Earlier this week we went to Odaiba, a man made Island near downtown Tokyo. In the late 1800's it was used for defense but now it's used for industry and play time. We tried to see as much as possible taking pictures with Tokyo's tribute to the Statue of Liberty, the 59 foot life size replica of the Anime character Gundum, and at the top of the impressive Fuji Television building. We also when to Miraikan, the National Museum of Emerging Science and Technology. As always, the students took us to eat some delicious food...ramen for lunch and Mexican for dinner! Mexican food is not popular here but there is an El Torito near the Shinjuku train stop and when unlimited chips/salsa and tortillas are involved you can't go wrong. Speaking of food, yesterday in tribute of July 4th we had a traditional American meal at McDonalds and I had the Ebi (Shrimp) Filet-O. It was amazing, if they had that in American I might be more inclined to eat at McDonalds once in awhile.

Takahata Fudo Shrine

Monday is our day off and this week I decided to walk down to the Takahata Fudo Shrine (only 10 mins from my apartment) to work on my Bible study. This was a very neat experience since the shrine seems to be an important center of Buddhism in this area.

There were a lot of people visiting the temple and the gardens. It's such a large area with lots of Buddhist statues. Unfortunately, I can't read anything so I don't know the significance of any of the statues or shrines on the grounds.

I definitely was able to appreciate the sense of spirituality and the beauty of the grounds. I walked along some of the paths and was absolutely amazed by all of the colorful flowers. I did not have time to explore everything because I wanted to sit to reflect and work on our 1 Corinthians study before heading back to the apartment.

It's been a great experience going places by myself when I understand very little of what's written or being said around me. It seems that I have to rely on intuition much more as I interact with people when I explore the places around me.

When I am out in public I can't really communicate much other than hello, please and thank you with language but as relational beings we are still able to communicate...it's so interesting. At the temple, a woman had brought here dog and he was being silly. An older woman was sitting next to me and we were both laughing and she turned to smile at me. It was such a simple and obvious exchange but it was still a cool reminder that culture and language doesn't hinder our ability to enjoy each other (or a puppy hehe).

Harajuku

Yesterday I spent the day in Harajuku shopping with Jillian, Yumi, Natsuki, and Sakura. Harajuku is considered to be a fashion center of the world and on Sundays young people dress up in different styles (gothic lolita, cosplay, and visual kei) to hang out there. We saw some of these dressed up kids but it started raining kind of hard on us before we could make it to Jingu Bridge where they typically gather.

We did get to see lots of cute clothes and accessories though. Along the main shopping street, Takeshita, there are little street stores everywhere and many of them had really good deals. Not only were the stores wall-to-wall but so were the people! It was very crowded but that was part of the experience.

The most crowded place we went to was Forever 21, one of my favorite stores in America. We thought it would be cool to see the same store in Japan. It was pandamonium! There was a line of people trying to get into the store with police men directing the crowd traffic and since it was raining everyone had their umbrellas out so it was difficult to navigate.

Once inside the store, we basically had to follow the movement of traffic because any way you turned there was someone trying to walk towards you. There was no way I could shop like that but luckily the clothes seemed to be the same as the Forever 21s in America so I just was able to enjoy the chaos.


L: The line trying to get inside of Forever 21. Yes, even the people with their backs to the camera are in line.

















R: The crowd of people shopping (or attempting to) inside the store.

Dancing, Sexy Shabe, and English time

I just wanted to share a few highlights from the last few days. This is mostly so I can remember as much as possible when I get back home and want to reflect on the trip but hopefully anyone reading this will find my experiences in Japan interesting.

I'm so excited that I get to be here for approximately 6 weeks still! I have the opportunity to experience the Japanese culture not as a tourist but as someone who gets to interact with Japanese college students on a daily basis and enjoy the students that grew up in a place I know very little about. I think it's great that I will be learning from these students this summer probably even more than they will learn from me.

On Thursday night we went to watch one of the students from Shuto University in his summer dance recital. Here is a video from one of the dance groups that performed:



It was so cool to be able to watch a common university event in action. One of my favorite things about being in Japan so far is that even though I stick out like a sore thumb with my blond hair, blue eyes, and Californian flip flops I have had the opportunity to enjoy the same things that the students do on a regular basis. After the dance performance, a few of the freshman girls came back to our apartment to eat ice cream and look at pictures of our friends on facebook. Simple things like that are just so much fun to me! Even though I haven't seen a ton of sites in Japan yet I feel very blessed to have met some fun students to teach me about their culture and I hope we can continue to enjoy each other.


The next day we had Sexy Shabe...shabe means discuss in Japanese and we have shabe night every Friday. This week was called Sexy Shabe because the discussion was all about relationships between men and women...in other words love and sex. The guys and girls had discussion separately because it would obviously be a little awkward to discuss all together. So the ladies had an adorable little tea party and I made some interesting cheese and cucumber crackers for the event. I couldn't read the label on the crackers I bought and I thought they were plain crackers but they definitely had a strong flavor. The students ate them all, so either they were being nice to me or I've discovered that being illiterate can make you a creative cook.

We also started a workshop called Intensive English this week where we will help Japanese students prepare a speech in English to give in front of our group in a few weeks. Interestingly, I have found it kind of fun to have the students tried to explain a word that they can't think of the English equivalent for and then we try to guess it together. Usually it works out pretty well which is encouraging to me.

Excitement and Sickness

My first week in Japan has been a little hard since it has started with me being sick. My usually nature is to be out doing everything--hanging out with people and exploring. However, I initially found that I just didn't have the energy and then the cold I had been struggling to get over since finals week came back with a vengeance. So I found that even though I was in an exciting new place, I couldn't explore or enjoy meeting new people because my body just wouldn't let me.

I had to take a couple days of rest to recover from college and the trip to Japan. Even with the downtime I have already had some cool experience especially pertaining to food and culture.

Some highlights:

Eating at sushiro. Each plate is only 105 yen or less than $1!!

Trip to Kamkura, an ancient center of Zen Buddhism. Many of the students hadn't been there before so we got to share in their excitement as they saw a landmark of their culture, Daibutsu (a really gigantic Buddha)


After visiting the Daibutsu, we went to the onsen or public bath/hot spring. I thought this would be an embarrassing experience since bathing suits are not allowed in the onsen. However, it turned out to be incredibly relaxing and a chance to talk with some of the female students without any distractions. Unfortunately, travelling to Kamkura wore me out and I was feeling very tired and under the weather by the end of the day so I headed back to my apartment after the onsen. The students and our other SETters (Summer English Teachers) stayed to karaoke through the night and do more site seeing the next day. I spent the day in bed which was definitely a bummer but I know I just needed some extra rest. I am feeling much better today and it's very exciting that I still have six weeks to build relationships with the Japanese students and to see Tokyo and beyond!

Now that I've finally started this blog I will be better about updating so that they will be shorter with more excitement and depth : )