Making Friends

Ohayo.

Well I shall try and catch up on the past two days in this post, but so much has happened that I might have to come back and fill in the blanks. The day before yesterday was the Japanese Placement test. Steph and I were taking the level II test, which basically meant that we had some Japanese knowledge and could at least read and write in hiragana. The test was broken into three parts: kanji, sakubun (essay), and bunpo (grammar). Since my strength lies in speaking and hearing Japanese, this test was rather difficult for me.

Kanji kicked my butt, and I struggled through that section, and the essay was tough to write. I wasn't getting stressed about it or anything since its only a placement test and not a graded score, but it made me realize that I have some major studying to do this semester. At least I have some new motivation now.

After the test I hung out with some friends downstairs, where we played the only two activities in the dorms. There's the pool table, and the foosball table. Unfortunately the fun in those games only lasts for so long before they become boring to me. I had fun though, and it was a good way to meet people, I guess.

Yesterday was the Entrance Ceremony for new students, which included incoming freshmen, transfer students, and exchange students.

I think the biggest problem of the entire thing was probably the problem in my head. My attire felt completely inappropriate for the occasion. Mind you, I know that I'm not from the area, but EVERYONE wore nice suits and jackets, including the girls. It was approximately 50 degrees outside, rainy, cloudy, and ungodly windy, and there I was wearing a short black dress that went above my thighs, with a rather low cut v-neck collar. Oh, and sandals.

Luckily, I was able to save myself some embarrassment and kept my black jacket zipped up to a more comfortable level. Still, I think I almost flashed a couple unexpected people due to the obnoxious wind that was blowing by me every chance it got. On a good note, there were some people that dressed up in their native culture's traditional clothing and it was very interesting to see.

Here are some pictures of a group of girls from Thailand, and each wore something from the respective parts of the country they came from.




Here is me in front of the hall of the entrance ceremony.



After the welcome speeches and the formal addresses, there were some cultural performances from a few different parts of the world. The one I found to be the most interesting was an Indonesian dance that used fast hand movements and group rhythm. It was very interesting to watch, and I took a few videos of their various dances. Here's one that I thought was particularly cool.




Then after the performances, the Circles or club groups came in and did a small sketch about their activities. Some of them were funny, while others were very strange. One of them circle groups did a mock power rangers sketch which was kind of humorous.



Last night I hung out with some friends again and we got to know one another better. There's some strange rules in our dorms that I'm not sure how to make sense of. For example, non-residents must leave the dorms by 10 p.m., and some residents must be back inside their dorms by midnight. So we have curfews, and yet drinking is allowed inside the dorms, as long as it is in the rooms and not in public. Clearly there are not people of the legal drinking age here, and yet its perfectly okay to drink inside the rooms. I guess its just one of the things thats completely different than back at Grand Valley State.

Anyway, I think we are going out to the city tonight. I think there's a curry restaurant that some of us want to try, and then perhaps one of the few bars here. I learned a fun Korean drinking game last night, but don't worry, there wasn't much alcohol to drink, so it was mainly a practice round for us.

So, I shall let everyone know how that goes!

P.S.

Here's what I ate last night. Ten points to whoever can guess what it all is!

Orientation Day

Minna-san Ohayo Gozaimasu!

Good Morning Everyone!

I actually woke up much earlier than I expected after such a long day yesterday. It's nine o'clock and I'm already showered and eating and studying for today's Japanese Placement test. Japan's use of early productivity has influenced me already! Today's test is at two o'clock and I'm meeting some friends for lunch around noon.

Yesterday was Orientation Day and it was from 9:30 to 5:30 with a Welcome Ceremony and dinner that went until 9. It was a long day full of paperwork and talking and rules and introductions. We register for classes the eighth, so I still have plenty of time to panic.

I think the best part of the day was when Dr. Konda, the Dean of Students gave a speech about APU. He mentioned to us two specific topics that he wanted to stress importance on. The first was drinking alcohol and the expectations of overseas students to represent APU in a positive manner. He shared some funny stories about the misconduct of alcohol from students of previous years, and how the public community does not tolerate drunken behavior on an obnoxious level, mainly to the point of unconsciously stealing and falling asleep in parks.

The next topic was about natural disasters. Basically, he pointed out that we live next to an active volcano. A VOLCANO. He quickly reassured us that it wasn't about to blow up in flames anytime soon, but I think we were all pretty much taken by surprise when he starting talking about procedures for earthquakes and so on. He then eased us all by laughing and saying, "Welcome to Volcano Land, everyone. Please try not to be anywhere dangerous when an earthquake happens."

He then went on to say that since it is the spring and summer seasons, we could be expecting heavy rainfall and typhoons. If we were lucky.

Oh dear lord.

Some friends and I joked around that knowing our luck, there would be a typhoon coming in from the coast while hot, molten lava raced down the backyard volcano behind us, while we were on the bridge holding on for dear life in the middle of an earthquake.

Anyway.

We had a brief interview yesterday about which test each student should take to see which Japanese level class they can get into. All 85 exchange students were placed into four different groups based on a small background questionarre on our Japanese proficiency. Stephanie and I were placed into group B, while most students were placed in group A, and even less who were in C and D.

The lady who interviewed me spoke only in Japanese, but she was still very nice and only asked me a few questions. She basically asked me which college I studied Japanese at and how many kanji I thought I could read and write. I told her I could read only about fifty kanji and write even less. Then she asked me if I was Korean or Chinese or something else, and I replied that I was American. She laughed and rephrased her question as to which race I was. I laughed nervously and replied that I was Korean. She filled out some paperwork and told me to bring it to the test tomorrow.

We were introduced to all the RAs and some of the staff. They put on a few performances for us, some traditional dances and then some funny modern line dancing. They are all so cute.



Here is a picture of some of my fellow floor-mates. The one on the left is from Thailand and the one sitting next to her with the blond hair is one of my RAs. I think in the back they are Japanese, and I think a couple are Korean, and of course, I can't remember anybody's name.



This is actually a keychain that one of the Thailand girls brought for all of us. She didn't make them, but I thought it was so sweet of her to do that. I thought I could make good use out of it by connecting it with my room key, because it even has a little bell on the beads, so I won't lose my key! Everyone here is so kind!





Other than that, I've been really enjoying myself here. The people are so different and the behavior is so warm and friendly, its kind of hard to tell if they are being genuine or superficial. I have not met one person who I have not been able to converse with, whether its in broken english, or broken Japanese. Its very refreshing. Everyone greets each other, even if they are complete strangers. They nod their head and say Good Morning, or Good Evening, or Hello, even if they do not speak English.

I've got to remember to by a handkerchief because they don't use paper towel or air dryers in the bathrooms, everyone brings their own personal cloth with them. As far as cafeteria food goes, I enjoyed the tempura udon and the constant chunks of pineapple they serve. The pineapple here is so good. I don't particularly care for the chicken they serve, but its okay because I've tasted enough chicken back at home to know what it tastes like. They serve free hot tea and cold water which I get several servings of. Everything seems cheap here, although I know that it probably really isn't. I can get more than enough food for about 410 yen, and my wallet is constantly overflowing with coins.

Well, I should get back to studying since I'm not to proficient in my reading and writing. I shall let you know how the test goes.

P.S. My address is:

AP House 1 Room #E-533
1-2 Jumonjibaru, Beppu-shi
Oita 874-0011
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University

First Super Long Post of Chaos

First off, I apologize for not blogging sooner, but its been an extremely busy couple first days, and my internet is not working. I'm actually doing this from Stephanie's computer.

So, the first day/night was very overwhelming. I highly do not recommend taking a flight over to Japan unless its in first class. Don't get me wrong, the small LCD screens kept me occupied for about the first four hours, but after that, we still had another eight hours to go. I was sitting (quite closely) between two other men while Stephanie sat in the seat behind me. Luckily they spoke a little bit of broken english, but I only found this out because I looked completely stupid as I tried to play with the remote control for my tv for about twenty minutes. The guy to my left told me that it wouldn't start working until we actually took off. Duh. We ate two meals on the flight, one was a rice bowl called bimbimbop which was pretty good, except the stewardess kept talking to me in Korean, so I eventually just kept nodding until there was food/drink on my tray.



By the time we got to Korea, our brains were already fried. We had to go through security in chicago and korea, but by then we were pros at the whole thing. The flight to Fukuoka was a breeze compared to the 12 hour flight to Korea. Getting to the bus from the Fukuoka airport was also very easy, and we met our first friend named Lisa from France. On the bus, Steph and I passed out the entire two hour ride there, thank god, since we really were only able to get about a total of three hours sleep on the plane.

When we got to APU, it was very cold and windy. We were given our rooms and met our RAs and then were given a small tour of our building. I ended up getting a single room, and Steph got a shared room. I am actually very happy with the way my rooming turned out. My RAs name is Kaoru and she is Taiwanese. She is super cute and has the highest pitched voice I have ever heard in my life. She speaks pretty good english, but she was having some problems so i told her to just fill in the blanks with Japanese and I could still follow it. I will put up pictures later. Afterwards, I unpacked, running on adrenaline, and then passed out the moment my head hit my tiny, bean bag of a pillow.

Yesterday was the shopping tour and we went down to Beppu Station where they showed us the 100 yen shop (1$) and the grocery store. It was about a good twenty minute bus ride down a tremendously curvy road to the city, and yes, I immediately thought of DK's Mountain, Brian, from Tokyo Drift. That's how curvy and high up it was. By the way, our campus is BEAUTIFUL. We are way high up in the mountains, and the view is absolutely AMAZING.





Anyway, shopping was interesting and the city was very cool to walk through. We met a Korean girl named Angelina and we hit it off right away. She speaks exceptionally great english, so we were already able to joke around and stuff. We made more friends with a couple Korean girls and another Japanese girl. They were so impressed by the fact that we could drive and had our own cars. I told them we could drive when we were 16, and showed them my license picture. They were super impressed because the age in Korea for driving is 20, and they have to take hard classes.

Here are some scenes from the city.





The shopping tour took about 5 hours, and by the time we got back, we went to the cafeteria and ate. I have concluded that nobody in the Cafeteria speaks english, so it was very difficult to find what to eat. When in doubt, we are just pointing and nodding and then saying Arigato Gozaimasu.

Today was Alien Registration day, and it took a long time. We met a couple guys from L.A. and New Mexico and another guy from Mexico. So far we have met a handful of people from the States, but mostly from Korea and Thailand. We signed up for our inkan or stamps which are used as signatures instead of actually signing, and then headed out for lunch. I ended up with a rice bowl with runny eggs and onion and mushrooms, then I tried what looked like a squash side dish but was really bad and mushy. So far, the food isn't that bad, but I have not been super impressed with my choices. Hopefully dinner will be better luck. I did however, show off my super skills of Japanese and helped out a girl from sweden order her food. I explained to her what I was getting and told the chefs to give her a small bowl rather than a big bowl. She was so happy that I helped her out because she said she was standing there for a long time with no idea of what to do. Go me.

So far I've been treated like I'm a domestic student which has been very funny to me, but the trick is to greet people in English if I can, and they will most likely switch to english. However, I tend to greet in Japanese, and then they go off in it and I have to smile and quickly say, "Ah! Sumimasen, Amerika-jin desu!"

Tomorrow is Orientation and i get to sign up for classes. I'm not too worried, but I think once I get there I will start freaking out. oh well. I apologize if my next post isn't for a little while, only because my days are really busy getting everything ready. I'll post more pictures up too once my internet works. My internal clock is still all screwy, and I've been feeling kind of nauseous lately, hopefully it will all be okay though for tomorrow. I miss everybody at home already, but keeping busy has been helping out.

Until next time!

Pre-Departure Rant

Well, there is officially five more days of life here in glorious America. So far, the freak-out-melt-down-time has been at a rather low occurrence, but I'm guessing that come Thursday, I'll be riding the Loopy Bus to Crazy Town.

Anyway, packing has been slowly coming along and things are starting to finally feel like its actually happening. I've been having my high moments of absolute optimism and then my lower moments of uncertainty and doubt, but those are becoming less and less frequent. It helps that I can use my final week here as quality time with each of my family members individually. Saturday was reserved for Alex and his family, to which I enjoyed a splendid meal of steak and other delicious cooking. Sunday, Brian and Meagan treated me out to my favorite restaurant, Osaka's, and we were able to talk about my trip. Tuesday is reserved for a movie with Dad and a possible trip to the bookstore. Wednesday is Kayla Time where we plan on staying in and catching up on some intense bouts of Mario Kart and other video games. Afterwards, I'm heading on down to Detroit to visit Roni and say my goodbyes to some of the BFC. Thursday and Friday, I'm making final touches on the suitcase extravaganza, final quality time with the family before my early wake up call on Saturday morning.

My flight leaves at 10 am from Detroit to Chicago. From Chicago, its an approximate 13 hour flight to Seoul, South Korea. From the Korean airport its another 2 1/2 hour flight to Fukuoka, Japan. Oh, but that's not all. From the airport in Japan, Steph and I are taking a bus to the University which is about another 2 hours. In other words, I'm planning on looking gorgeous when I make my entrance into the University.

I've been taking in a lot of silly cultural things lately, such as reading billboard signs and feeling comfortable walking in the mall by myself. I'm going to miss driving, and my cell phone, and being able to just flush a toilet normally without having to adjust the pressure of a bidet. I'm going to miss meat, and chicken, and probably even forks. But its okay, I know that I'll probably forget about half of these things when I'm over there, because I'll be struggling to read market signs and swallowing octopus dumplings down my throat.

So for now, I am going to just take one day at a time and enjoy the last few days with my family and friends, and work on my ever-growing fight with understanding Kanji (Japanese writing system).

Until I'm half-way across the world,
Michelle