Happy Holidays!

The semester is finally over, and as I say bye to a lot of students who will not be returning to AIU (either for their own study-abroad experiences, or they are returning to their home institutions) I'd like to take some time and reflect on all my experiences in the last 4 months, especially now during the holiday season.

It has been an interesting experience being away from home this long. It is the first time I will not be home for the holidays-- in my life.. Wow, I definitely had to take a step back and examine this past year. Right after my sophomore year's second semester I was in Japan for a month, then went to Chicago and spent an awesome summer working at Neuberger Berman, and hanging out with the Taylor family. Then I went back home for about a week and was soon off to Japan again, this time for a full year-- literally I'll be here until August. Six more days and it's 2014-- how the time has flown by.

Thanksgiving Dinner at AIU

Let's begin with Thanksgiving. This was my first reality check-- I thought to myself  "That's strange.. I'm not home..." I couldn't help but get a little emotional-- I mean this is huge! To me a birthday is not a big deal, but thanksgiving? How could it not be?? Being with family and friends feasting on amazing, home cooked meals for days and days. Yeah, that much food. It was surely a different scene spending Thanksgiving in Japan, but I was with Fabian and some other friends that I met here, making it a little better. We went around and said what we were thankful for-- just like I would if was at home. The dinner for that night was not bad-- I was actually pleasantly surprised, but it's just was not the same.

View of the campus from the main entrance

Soon after we got the first, heavy, snowfall of the year. It was amazing! I've never seen so much white snow, and apparently this was only the beginning! The snow is so different here; from the very first snowfall people were making snowmen and having snowball fights everywhere. One morning I woke up and decided that I would take a walk around campus and enjoy the breathtaking views. I was really surprised to see how beautiful and white the snow was. I know I'm wiring that over and over again, but maybe that can help you understand how shocked I was-- and it isn't even my first snowfall! Please enjoy the pictures!

My friend Yui joined me on my walk and we came across a somewhat hidden path right behind my apartment building. We crossed a bridge and ended up inside a forest!   We followed the path found a staircase and ended up in a park of some sort. When we got back we made snow angels, and I made my first   snowman-- it was dope! 

First Snowman...Ever

Mysterious bridge behind University Village 

Mysterious staircase leading into the woods

Panorama of the forest area behind the Sakura apartments

Tazawako Station

A couple of weeks ago Fabian, Skylar, Yu, and I all went to 乳頭 温泉(Nyuto Onsen), literally Nipple Hot Spring. It is famous in Akita for its milky bath water, located in the mountains. There are about 6 other onsen in the area, but we only went to that one. The trip was really long! It was about a 2- hour car ride to the Tazawako bus station where we got on two more buses to get to the onsen.

View from Tazawako Station 

At Tazawako station we ate lunch at a nice small ramen restaurant, enjoyed some of the views, and then we were soon on our way.  You can also look at what we looked at through this video! I regrettably forgot my video camera, so I was limited to my cell-phone to take videos and pictures, sorry for the low quality!

At Nyuto Onsen

Again, sorry for the low quality but you can watch a clip of the first bus ride. It was cool, but the second bus ride was much better! The views were amazing, the snow was unbelievable; I was in a winter wonderland. This video's a bit longer but check it out. It was freezing cold when we got to the onsen, but we had to take a bunch of pictures (and a short video that you can also watch). I was in awe the entire time, I was so happy we were able to enjoy it.

What made it even more amazing was that it began snowing while we were in the bath (for a brief moment). I wish I could have taken a picture or something, but you know, I'm not 100% positive a bunch of naked bros would have appreciated their photos on the internet. You can look at images of the actual bath on Google images, but here is the link to the website just in case you were interested.

Stream at Nyuto Onsen

These past couple of days I did a few more COS events, giving me the chance to dress up as Santa Claus for babies, pretty much. It was a fun and interesting experience, kids are really something. I got everything from really excited to absolutely miserable reactions from the kids. I mean, I don't blame them-- sometimes Santa can be a scary dude. (I'll put pictures up when I get 'em). It was the perfect way to spend Christmas eve.

From left to right: Lewis, Callum, Lizzie, Elena

Yesterday was Christmas and I can't believe I am not home to spend it with my family, but I know they will have a good time and enjoy the holiday season. I spent it with some new (and may I add incredibly chill) friends. First Elena and Lizzie made stuffing, custard, and an apple crumble. What's Christmas without some drinks, though? We had 熱燗(Atsukan) hot sake, and hot buttered apple juice with rum. I definitely recommend both these drinks. Later we went to an お好み焼き(Okonomiyaki) (which is like an omelette pancake of flour and various meats, cabbage, scallions and probably other stuff)  all you can eat, all you can drink (yea) restaurant. It was really cool because each table had its own grill, and we had to cook the Okonomiyaki ourselves. After a couple of hours, it got pretty hard to make the okonomiyaki, check out Callum's iron chef skills.

Our first Okonomiyaki creation

I'm looking forward to the new year and the winter semester, I hope it brings new adventures and friends. I don't have any New Year's plans, but I'll most likely be hanging with the crew and cooking some more.

I won't be traveling this vacation, but I did book a ticket to Sapporo, Hokkaido for the 雪祭 (Yuki Matsuri) Snow Festival in February. I'll be there for 4 days with two of my friends. It's gonna be an amazing time.

Have safe and happy holidays, everyone! Until 2014, じゃまたね！

I'm Still Alive!

I'm still alive! I know it has been some time since my last post (sorry!), I really don't have an excuse other than I've been caught up, and I've been straight up lazy. I think I'll start off where I last left off-- I was about to introduce to you all my room:

When I first got here I really was not expecting anything too fancy: I wanted a simple room-- one with a bed, a desk, a chair, and, if I was lucky, a lamp and a drawer. Maybe a closet. Well,  I got all of that plus a kitchen and a bathroom-- not that I use it at all...The kitchen I mean...
On top of all of this, I don't have anyone to share it with. Yay? Nay. I really wanted a roommate, especially one with whom I can practice Japanese with-- but it's okay, there are many other methods for practicing. So yes, I have this bad boy all to myself! Bad-ass, right ? Actually, it gets pretty lonely...

Front of Closet/next to my desk

Bunk Beds/ My desk

Kitchen Area

Front of bathroom/kitchen/exit

This semester I'm taking some interesting classes-- Intermediate Japanese, Kanji, Reading Comprehension (for Japanese), and calligraphy. These are all in Japanese. Then I added Economics of Globalization and Bank of Japan & Business Cycles. Luckily (or not) these are in English. It might have been way cooler to have these in Japanese, but hey, it's some complicated stuff, even in English.

In calligraphy we made our own "Hanko" Stamps, which is basically the legal way of signing documents in Japan is. This was obviously not as official, or as handy, but it was a lot more fun and a lot more abstract! Here are some pictures of what I chose to carve as my hanko: The first  one is a really old version of 天 "ten" the first part of 天使"tenshi" which is Angel in Japanese, and the second is a really old version of 使 "shi".

 Really old version of 天 "ten" 

Really old version of 使 "shi"

I'm liking the majority of my classes, especially my Japanese ones because I get earnestly excited to learn a new grammar patter, or random vocabulary words that I will either utilize right away, or probably wont use until next semester. Whatever the case may be, I am happy to have the tools necessary to  (or at least try to) have some solid, albeit probably at third grade level, conversations in Japanese. Progress!

Speaking of speaking (ha), when I first got here I found it extremely hard to get around with my current level of Japanese. I never knew how difficult it could be to express my thoughts, concerns, or even my words of approval in Japanese and not sound painfully incompetent. It has definitely been a roller coaster ride, but I've joined some clubs to help me overcome this language barrier!

The first one is Japanese Conversation Friends or JCF for short. This club is for International Students to come and enjoy having conversations in, yupp you guessed it, Japanese. I think it is one of the more successful clubs on campus, and incredibly effective. We meet once a week, but here's the fun part-- we get paired with a Japanese speaking partner. This is great because your partner is available to speak with you at any time, you practice your Japanese and make good friends. Haha, sounds a little corny, but it has helped me so much.

Volleyball Tourney Location

I also joined the volleyball club! This is where I've met most of my Japanese friends. Here I've been able to pick up some sweet phrases to use on the court like "Ni mae" (lit. two in front) and "Sei-no" (the equivalent of ready-set-go). We play 2-3 times a week, and mix between 6 person volleyball and 9 person. We recently-- well not recently, more like a month ago, we had a 4- team tournament. For lack of better words it was ridiculous! There were these huuuge Japanese guys that all had Udon (Japanese noodles) arms and were easily averaging 6'3'', 6'4'' in height, not to mention probably 30 or 35 in age. Needless to say, our 5'9''-5'11'', 20 year old team had our work cut-out for us, but it was a lot of fun! We had our moments of weakness, but we also had our moments of head-turning greatness. We came in last place.

One last group I decided to join was the Community Outreach Services, aka COS. This group facilitates community service events where international students (hey I'm one of those) teach English to Elementary school, Middle school, and High School students in Akita. This is pretty cool because we get to interact with younger students and use the bit of Japanese that we know to effectively communicate some English to them. I feel good about myself when I serve the elementary or Middle school students because I can understand what the teachers tell them, and I can understand little conversations they have with each other on the side (most of the time).I can also practice phrases like "Are there any questions?" or "Does everyone understand?", so on and so forth. We usually sit in small groups and I give them a small presentation on where I'm from, then they give me a small presentation that they have prepared, then we all play some kind of game to wrap up the session. Sometimes it's dodge ball, sometimes its the Japanese version of Rock, Paper,  scissors (which is Janken Pon), and sometimes it's Bingo.

Fun day with Japanese Middle School Children  

  One of my main goals from this experience in Japan is to think in Japanese. I think that after watching the entire Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z series in Japanese (with English subtitles), reading Doraemon (a cute Japanese Manga), joining those two clubs and doing the volunteer events have all contributed to my Japanese learning experiences and will help me achieve my goal over the next 8 months.

When it was a bit nicer outside we would jog into the town nearby and see what the country side of Japan had to offer! It really is a beautiful place-- there's nothing but forests, green, wide open spaces, mountain views, and more green wide open spaces. We also found this pretty cool temple with some nice, classical Japanese statues. There really wasn't much else in the area, but it was really nice!

I still have not been able to go to other places in Japan since I've been here in Akita (like Tokyo or Hokkaido), but I will once I have the opportunity to! I'm thinking of waiting for the spring time to visit Tokyo and it's surrounding areas like Kyoto and Nagoya, but I want to make a trip to Hokkaido during the winter months! That'll be really exciting!  But until then, please enjoy these pictures!

Mountain View 

Temple near AIU

Left side view of the Temple 

Right-side view of the Temple

That's Japan for ya'!

It has been a week (and some) since Fabian and I arrived at AIU. It has been fun getting to know the campus, taking wild videos here and there, and getting to know the people we would be spending the year with. Definitely have met rather interesting individuals and have seen some questionable actions, but that’s what makes this experience so fun—you never know what you’re going to get.

There are people from all over the world here—anybody who is geographically challenged (like me) would realize how bad you are when you have someone telling you they’re from Lithuania or Latvia. I’m sorry, but, what? Where? I really need to learn more about the world. Where's my atlas? 

Before I came to Japan everybody I spoke with was super worried about what I was going to eat, and even more anxious when I told them that I was allergic to shellfish. This would raise flags in their heads— wait so why are you going to go to Japan? When you think of Japan, it’s almost second nature to think of Sushi and other kinds of seafood. Don’t worry I can eat seafood; I love seafood. Shellfish, on the other hand, I can live without.

The cafeteria food is great! At least I think so. There’s ご飯 (gohan) rice and みそ (Miso) soup available with each dish, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I usually mix the rice with ｿｰｽ (soosu), a sauce that is usually put on とんかつ (Tonkatsu), pork cutlets, and mayo. Yupp, mayonnaise. Apparently it's not a very "Japanese thing to do"-- to put ridiculous toppings on your rice that is, but I enjoy it. I enjoy it a lot. 

  Taco rice (Octopus) with Mayo rice and Miso

Sorry about the awkwardly positioned photo... I should take more photos of the food here. 

Apart from the food and various on-campus shenanigans, we've gone into Akita City and explored some over the weekend before classes started. It was a good time!

The city is, how should I put this, very city-ish. There isn't anything too out of the ordinary, and, now that I think about it, nothing that would make someone think of Japan (but maybe I'm just biased since I've been here for a little while. It is distinctly Japanese, especially in the train station! So I take back what I said earlier)-- unless we start talking about the all you can drink buffets and the karaoke bars. But that's another story and not something that is as conspicuous as maid cafes in Tokyo.

Anyway, we stopped by a small ramen shop, and had the most incredible bowl of ramen. Wow. I'll say it again, WOW. It was soooo delicious! It was filled with beef and all sorts of other Japanese goodness. The chefs were so skilled, and everything had a specific way of being made. I wouldn't expect anything less from a local Japanese restaurant.

This week we also visited a pretty interesting festival! There was a lot of food, people dressed up in Kimonos, battle cries and giant carts (floats?) ramming into each other. I didn't know what was going on half of the time, but I was filled with adrenaline. That's Japan for ya'!Take a look here, maybe one of you can tell me what I am looking at exactly. Warning: you may want to lower your volumes.

Before the night festival we hit up some local shops, and museums that were filled with priceless relics. I always enjoy looking at antiques-- here we have some nice pottery and other kitchen-like utensils. Some of those small bottles are for "sake", a Japanese liquor.

Sake bottles & others on the bottom.

Kitchen ware, and other nice pottery. 

Hanging Scroll

Cool looking dolls

The festival food was also pretty good! I had "okonomiyaki" for the first time. It was, how should I put this, interesting. I enjoyed it, it was good at the festival, but I probably will not order it again. I would recommend that you eat it at least once when in Japan. If I had to describe it was like a mix of pancakes, eggs, cabbage, and different sauces, topped with some fishy flakes. In all honesty, I think that I am just not a huge fan of the fish flakes, which is probably why I wouldn't want to eat okonomiyaki again. Without the fish flakes I think I would like it more. After the okonomiyaki I enjoyed some classic "yakitori", fried chicken on a stick, some "tacoyaki", fried octopus balls, and some refreshing Asahi beer (I'm legal in Japan, watch out).

Okonomiyaki 

It's still night time? Hold up.

What I thought would be a restful and relatively low-key week after an arduous, but rewarding summer experience in Chicago, turned out to be, not surprisingly, just the opposite of that in a fun, funny and ‘of course that would happen to Angel’ series of events.

Upon touching down in NYC and walking through my front door, the fact of being home hadn't really hit me yet—I mean how could it with all the traveling? One of the realities of going away for college is realizing that you no longer live at home, you just visit once in a while— something I've gotten all too familiar with. Heck (keeping it PG), I don’t even have a room any more (which I am perfectly okay with).  What made it real for me was being able to enjoy the food that would instantaneously give me hiccups from how fast I ate it, and would subsequently send me to an abyss of laziness. Yep, I’m talking about my mother’s cooking (it's too real). The icing on the cake was being able to spend the evening of the 17^th celebrating significant achievements and acknowledging how sweet it is to not be an adult just yet.

If you knew me well you’d know I haven’t spent more than 3 days at home since, hmmm, spring break (and no more than 3 weeks since being at Dickinson)—which is both good and bad. Good because I am living in a whole new world; I am learning perspectives and continuously growing via new experiences and people. In that same light, it’s bad because I can’t take those who mean the world to me on these truly magical journeys— one of the main reasons I decided to start this blog. This is somewhat of a unique moment, too, as I won’t just be 4 hours away by bus, 3 hours away by train, or even 2 hours away by plane anymore. I’ll be half way around the world in a place where the sake flows like wine; where the sushi and sashimi instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano; where western toilets go to die. I’m talking about the land of the rising sun: JA…wait for it…PAN. JAPAN!

I had a relatively short week ahead of me because I would spend 2 days at home in NYC, then I would quickly head off to Boston to visit my dad before I flied out to Japan. It was nice seeing that side of my family again since I seldom visit NYC, let alone Boston. I have no doubt that I am my father’s son because, like me, he leaves everything for the last minute. Is that really what it feels like for other people? Before I knew it the end of the week was upon me and I still did not have many of the essentials for my trip. I initially planned to be home no later than 7 pm on Friday in order to give myself ample time to pack and relax some before my 14 hour flight. Long story short I got all I needed, I ran on a highway, I didn't get home until 3 am Saturday (morning?), and I didn't finish packing until about 8 am (by packing, of course, I mean all I did was roll clothes into tube-like shapes as my mother—against her will—showed off her packing prowess).  After a long night and some other important last minute details, I was finally on my way to JFK.

Going through check in was typical; I went to the wrong platform, I couldn't figure out how to scan my passport, and I had an overweight bag. Of course. At least I went through security with no problem—if we ignore the fact that I had a pair of obscenely large scissors in my carry-on. I have no idea when, where, or even how I got those scissors—it must have been last semester or something. After all this, I finally found my gate and was able to board the plane (with no other unexpected trials). Onward to Tokyo!

 

My window-seat view to Tokyo

14 hours later I made it to Tokyo, Haneda, safe and somewhat delusional. (It’s still night time? Hold up). I absolutely love long flights because I imagine myself to be a time traveler. While I am in the air, time is non-existent for me.  I have this indescribable and overwhelming feeling of displacement—almost like I don’t exist for a moment while everybody on the ground continues their day; almost like nothing has changed even though 14 hours have elapsed. I met up with Fabian and we laughed as we tried to figure what our next moves would be until the morning—oh I forgot to mention that we had a connecting flight at 6:30 am to Akita. We were really excited to be in Tokyo for the night (cue The Lonely Island’s Japan), but it was a long flight so realistically we would not make many moves and just proceeded to knock out!

Today Fabian and I will arrive on campus and our adventures in Japan will begin. Wow. Wish us luck!

[P.S. Quick shout out and special thanks to all my friends and family (I love you Mami and Ary!); to my incredible Posse trainers and mentors, Phil (and everyone I met through you)— this summer was great man, I can't wait for round 2— Amanda, Joel, and Nancy; to everyone at the Posse offices in Chicago and NYC; to Lauren, Jenna, Carlos, John, Obonne and everyone in the Neuberger Berman Chicago office that I worked with this summer. Thank you to my Professors and mentors at Dickinson who are reading this and to my teachers at Marble Hill High School. One last, very special, thank you goes to Mr. David and all my teachers at Bronx Studio School, where it all began.]