A Long December

Once again, it's been a while - sorry everyone! Though to be honest, not much has been happening until the winter holidays these last few weeks.

 

I have one more week left of my second quarter here, so first some notes on classes and stuffs.

Japanese is... mixed. Although it's started to piece together better in my mind, I'm starting to find that not only are new things not going in, I'm also beginning to forget the things I already knew. So that's less helpful. I'm considering dropping it next semester, as I now know enough(ish) to get by, but I'm not too sure yet. It is cool being able to hold actual conversations now, and the class is still really nice. So we'll see.

Peoples and Religions is pretty much as easy as I anticipated. The lecturer is lovely, but in class he tends to just go over the chapter of the textbook we've been set to read for that week, so I find it quite hard to concentrate. Learning about Shintoism was pretty cool though, I want to know more!

Japanese Culture is... meh. I think what we'll be moving onto this month should be good (things about gender identity in Japan), but what we've done so far hasn't been particularly interesting. We did talk about a few films though - Memoirs of a Geisha and Tampopo - and that was a tad more fun. We have to do a group project for it, and I'm so glad ours is a written report rather than a presentation. It's a really boring topic, though, so I have no motivation to work on it at the moment. But hopefully I'll get round to it soon!

I managed to switch out of the East Asian Societies class, and instead I'm taking one called Globalisation and Law, but it's actually about utopian and dystopian societies in literature (I have no idea how the module title is related, but hey). It's really fun! The teacher's a nice Australian guy, and I think there are only about twelve of us in the class, which is cool. We've had to read some amazing books so far too - Gulliver's Travels, H.G. Wells, We by Zamyatin (which is amazing and everyone should read it!), and at the moment I'm reading Brave New World, and then some George Orwell. I'm really enjoying it!

  Apologies for the wall of text there, it's hard to put in pictures relating to classes. So yeah, for most of December I was pretty much just working. One fun thing I did was a flower arranging, or ikebana, class, which was really nice but I don't think I'm very good at it! It was intersting to see the philosophy behind it all, though. We also visited Beppu's infamous sex museum (??!!) but I won't include pictures of that. It was... an experience, though.

And then suddenly it was the holidays! It was good to have some time to relax. On December 23rd we saw a firework display in Beppu - it was incredible! Probably the best firework show I've ever seen. The the music was a tad questionable. It was a really lovely thing to do, though.

Christmas Day itself was a little bizarre, but nice! A small group of us made a meal together, and did Christmas crackers and other Christmassy things. It was a little surreal, but good to do something to stop us all from going too crazy! And after a few more days relaxing and doing nothing, Sarah, Dani and I went to Kyoto for New Year! It was so much fun ^^

Kyoto Tower, reflected in Kyoto station

 

 

 

Our room!

We left on the evening of the 30th, and got back on the ferry to Osaka, woooo! Again, we were in the weird sardine rooms, but I decided to actually attempt to sleep this time. It wasn't ideal, but I got a few hours kip. We arrived in Osaka in the morning, and from there we got the train to Kyoto - the journey took about an hour, and when we got there it was snowing! Unexpected, but very pretty. Our hotel was just round the corner from the hotel, so we left our bags and went to Kyoto Tower. Of course, we couldn't see much from the top because of the snow, but it was fun!


We headed back to our room and settled in, then in the evening met a few friends for food and a few drinks for New Year's Eve, then went to a Temple for just before midnight to join the locals! Again, it was very surreal, but pretty amazing. We did a countdown (and got some very strange looks), and rang a massive bell just after the stroke of midnight. It was a really lovely thing to do. But after that we were shattered, so we headed back and collapsed into bed - real beds, finally!

The next day, Sarah was feeling pretty ill so she decided to just stay at the hotel and recover. So Dani and I went out and explored - and ended up walking much further than we'd meant to, only realising when it came to walking home! But we found a fair few awesome temples along the way, and an amazing shrine where people hang these little fabric things that are meant to look like monkeys with their feet bound together, with wishes written on them. We also discovered a lovely little coffee shop run by the most adorable old Japanese couple, it was so sweet!



That evening we played Uno and just relaxed, and the next day we all figured out the bus system and visited some more temples. We actually ended up in the same area we'd been in the day before. My favourite temple of the day was Sanjusangendo Temple - not only were the grounds beautiful, inside the main hall are literally thousands of statues of deities. It's completely jaw-dropping. Unfortunately you can't take pictures, but look it up!



We also went to Kiyomizu Temple, which was busy but very pretty, and down from there is a fantastic street for buying souvenirs! So we spent a lot of time there, and I bought a (relatively cheap) kimono! ^^ I'm sure there'll be pictures of that at some point, it's lovely. We went back to our favourite little cafe, and I think that was about it for that day. On Monday (I think?) we went to the other side of Kyoto, and saw some amazing temples there - including the Grand Shrine to the god of alcohol:

And Daikakuji Temple, which was very beautiful: 

Among many others! We got the bus back again, and spend the evening playing yet more Uno in the yukatas (dressing gown type things) provided by the hotel. The day after we just relaxed (it had been pretty hectic so far, and it gave Sarah a chance to recover), so we just explored a little and did some shopping. In the evening we had an epic adventure to find Kyoto's Pizza Hut! It was a mission, way out in the backwaters of Kyoto, and took us forever to find. It was completely worth it for (almost) real pizza, though!

The day after, we did a fair few things - Kyoto Castle (which isn't very castle-like, but very pretty all the same), Ginkakuji Temple (which is meant to be the silver pavilion, but they never got as far as actually putting the silver on. The grounds are lovely all the same), and Kinkakuji (the gold pavilion), which is stunning!

 

The next day was our last day, so we checked out but left our bags at the hotel. Then we got the train down to Fushimi Inari Shrine, which is absolutely incredible - it's a long trail up the mountain, made up of hundreds/thousands of the red gates you see outside shrines (torii). It's amazing! Probably my favourite place of the things we'd managed to see. We managed to somehow get slightly lost and didn't get as far as the top, but it didn't really matter. We got some food, headed back to the hotel to pick up our stuff, then went on our way back to Osaka again.

The ferry ride was pretty uneventful, but when we made it back to Beppu (at about 6:45 in the morning, guh) we found out it had been snowing up at APU, so the buses weren't going up the mountain. So we had to wait in the freeeeezing cold for a taxi for probably about half an hour - not very pleasant! But a sweet Japanese girl called taxis for all of us, and we made it back eventually. Since then I've really not been doing much - avoiding work, mostly! But we start back in two days, so I'll hopefully have everything done by then.

Sorry for the massively long post today! And hope all is good with all of you. I'll leave you with another pretty leaf picture, taken at Daigakuji Temple. Take care!

November Rain

Argh, it's been so long - sorry everyone! To be honest, not a lot was happening until recently, so I didn't have a lot to talk about... and then when things started going on I was too busy to blog! Sad times. So now I've forgotten the majority of what's been going on, but I'll give you some vague details - it'll be a long one, sorry!

First quarter is over! Classes last quarter were mostly okay. My favourite was Intercultural Communication, the one where I was pretty much the only Westerner in the class. Everyone was so nice and the teacher was really friendly. The work was pretty easy (I got 100% for the midterm, not sure about the final yet) but was still really interesting.
Traditions and Societies of the Asia Pacific was pretty good - the classes were sometimes a little annoying (he'd spend a lot of time asking for people's opinions, rather than actually teaching us), but the lecturer was really fun and a little crazy, which made up for it!

Steam over Beppu

Virtual Worlds... Ugh. The lecturer was such an idiot, to be honest. One of those people who uses a lecturing position to broadcast his opinion as fact, and nothing else. Although I loved Neuromancer, everything else was a pain... especially the fact that he only told us details about the essay we had to write the week before it was due, and even when it was due in there wasn't actually anywhere to upload it. Needless to say, I left it til the last minute!
Japanese is tough. If I had the choice I probably wouldn't be carrying on with it; the reason I am is because when people visit I know I'll be relied on to talk and sort stuff out, so it'd be good to know how to do that. So that's keeping me going a little bit. The teacher is so lovely, though, and the class is pretty nice (even though two of the lessons are at 8:45 in the morning)!
A lot of people complain about the fact that you only take most modules (except Japanese) for just a quarter - or around 8 weeks - but I actually quite like it, it's a good way to sample lots of little bits. Yes, it's harder to take things in properly and remember them, but to be honest I struggle with that anyway so it doesn't bother me much anyway!

A few weeks ago, towards the end of last quarter, we took a day trip organised by AP House to the Hells of Beppu, followed by a bamboo light festival in a nearby town. It was lovely! The Hells are hot springs that are too hot to go in, and they're all funky colours because of different minerals. So very very pretty! We also made our own lunch by buying food and cooking it in the steam created by the underground springs. It was weird but fun!

The bamboo festival was so beautiful. They light these lamps made of bamboo, and the town is literally covered with them, it's amazing. Some of them are carved in different ways, or patterned, or have different colours. We had a few hours to just wander round there; there was also a procession, food and gift stalls, and some shows of people playing instruments and so on.

During quarter break, which was last weekend, my friends and I arranged to go to Osaka! I went with Sarah and Scott (the two from UH), Bill (from America), and Scott's Japanese girlfriend, Haruka. It was really fun! But incredibly tiring. We left on the Friday night, and took the overnight ferry from Beppu to Osaka, which takes 13 or so hours, I think. We spent the first part of the night hanging out, playing cards and eating expensive ferry food. Everyone except me and Scott went to sleep but I didn't even want to try - we paid for the most basic tickets, so the rooms were these corridor-like things, with allocated spaces with futons. But everyone was so crammed in together, like sardines, and it was so hot, that I decided I'd rather not bother. So I stayed up and attempted to watch the sunrise, except it was too cloudy! Sad times.

Osaka Castle

Then we arrived in Osaka at about 7am! We found our hostel (with some help from a local friend who was on the same ferry), left our stuff and headed straight back out again. We went to Osaka Castle first, it was absolutely incredible! Really stunning. The grounds are beautiful, then suddenly you spot this white, green and gold building above you. The outside is beautiful, and inside is an interesting museum - I was sleepy by this point so couldn't take in very much, but it was nice all the same.



After that we went to the Sky building - there was a German Christmas market going on at the bottom, it was nice! We ate sweets and drank mulled wine.
Then we went to the top of the Sky building - the views were amazing! Really beautiful. Afterwards we went back to the hostel so I could relax for a bit, while the others went and explored the area. The hostel was... cheap, to say the least! I was in the single room upstairs, which was small but fine - the only problem was it smelled really strongly of green tea! Not so nice. In the evening we went to Universal Studios City and ate at Hard Rock Cafe! It was amazing - expensive, but fun being tourists! And then went back and slept at last ^^

On Sunday, we got up pretty early, and went and visited some shrines! They're beautiful, and I love the way they're just randomly tucked between big buildings all over the city. After seeing the dragon shrine above, we found an Indian restaurant for lunch, it was sooooo good! Then did some more shrines, then went to the shopping district bit - it was very cool, busy but there were a lot of Western shops - H&M, Claire's, Zara... it was fun! In the evening we went back to Universal Studios - we wanted to go into the theme park itself, but decided we didn't have enough time for how much it cost to get in. So we just looked around the shops and things. Then headed back, and hung out and played cards for a bit before bed!

On the Monday, we had to check out by nine, so another early start! We looked at some more shrines, and went back to the shopping place and got pizza - REAL pizza - for lunch! Woo! Then we headed towards Osaka tower and had a look round there (we decided not to go up the tower, as it was pouring with rain by this point). Then found an amazingly huge Buddhist Temple complex, and looked round there for a bit, before heading back to pick up our stuff and make our way to the port.
The ferry ride on the way back was so much nicer! We were randomly given a free upgrade, so had a cabin room between us instead of the big open rooms. So we sat and played cards and warmed up, then actually slept! We arrived back in Beppu at around eight in the morning, got the bus up to campus, and crawled straight back into bed ^^


Yesterday, a few friends and I went on a day trip to a nearby town called Yufuin - it was so beautiful! It took about 50 minutes to get there from Beppu station, but was actually a really nice bus ride - we went up through the mountains then down into the valley. The town itself was a little touristy and busy, but so pretty! All the leaves were red and gold, and there's a really pretty lake. We mostly looked at shops and stalls (and I befriended many animals), and explored a little. Afterwards we came back to Beppu and ate sushi, very tasty!

A shrine in the lake at Yufuin

This week second quarter started, I'm still deciding on modules. I'm definitely taking Japanese and Japanese Culture, which seems fun (the teacher is Japanese but speaks perfect English, and a lot of my friends are in the same class), then I'm planning on swapping Visual Culture (which is with the same lecturer that took us for Virtual Worlds, and who I refuse to deal with again) for Peoples and Religions of the Asia Pacific which sounds really good! The teacher is friendly, and although I will have done a lot of the work before, some of it will be new and interesting - stuff on Shintoism and Taoism, for instance. Should be pretty easy, anyway! Then the last one I'm meant to be taking is Societies in East Asia, but I want to swap it to do Tea Ceremony instead but it depends on whether or not there are spaces left - there probably won't be, it's really popular. But the East Asia one doesn't really interest me - it's a little too historical and political, and not cultural enough for my tastes. But if all else fails I'm sure I'll live; I can always take Tea Ceremony next semester.

I guess that's all for now, I'm so sorry for the essay today! I hope you're all well and I'll be sure to update again soon ^^ Byeee!

Big In Japan

It's been a long time. How have you been? Sorry for the delay! It's been a little hectic over here. I'm not really gonna remember everything, so here are some vague bits...

I've started classes! They're pretty fun. I'm taking four modules this quarter: Japanese, Traditions and Societies of the Asia Pacific, and two special lectures - one on virtual worlds, and one on intercultural communication. I'm really enjoying them for the most part, though Japanese is pretty tough even though I've done a lot of it before (I'm in the beginner class). We get a fair amount of work for it though - it's on four times a week, and we get set homework every lesson.
The virtual worlds one is really interesting - we've only had two lectures so far because the professor was away, but it seems fun. The text book is incredibly irritating, but we also have to read Neuromancer by William Gibson and it's fantastic!
Traditions and societies is nice - kind of 'gentle' anthropology. The professor is fun - we had one lecture where he'd sing a song for each topic, it was brilliant. For some reason I often feel really ill in that class, which is a little annoying and really weird, but other than that I am enjoying it. We read some interesting articles for it.
Intercultural communication is my favourite. The lecturer is nice and sets the most awesome assignments - this week, for instance, we had to make a collage about ourselves, and the week before we had to write about how we (personally) use our senses. Again, it's fairly gentle, but the work is thought-provoking. I'm the only Westerner in the class, which is a little odd but fun!

So yeah, that's coming along. Apart from that we've had a couple of nice days out; yesterday Dani, Sarah and I had a girly day of shopping in Oita, which is the town across the bay - it was nice!

    (Beppu, with Oita across the sea)

On Sunday, we had a barbecue for the international students, organised by the university - it was great! I met some fun people, had really good food (barbecued pumpkin, toasted marshmallows), and went swimming! Fully clothed. Whoops. It was really fun!

What else? Oh, a few weeks ago we went out to a place called the HitParade Club - it was hilarious. It was like a 50s themed bar, with a band and people dancing and everything! And it was all you can eat/drink. Great fun!

That's actually about everything I can think of for now. Sorry for the wall of text in today's post - I'll try and update again soon. I'll leave you with a pretty beach picture!

It's Been One Week...

So I've been here around a week now, and at the moment I'm actually really enjoying myself! (Yes, this does come as somewhat of a surprise to me.) I can't actually remember what I've been doing. Let's see...

The first few days here, I didn't do very much. Got used to the campus and the like, and how things work in general, and met some awesome people but pretty much just stayed up on campus. From Wednesday, the 15th, we had orientation-things - it was actually nice to feel like we had things to do, just sitting around was getting a little tiresome.

Orientation itself was... long. There was some useful information, but it was mixed in with a lot of boring stuff. One good thing was getting to meet by buddy (older Japanese student who can help you out with whatever) - mine's a girl called Nana from Fukuoka, she's lovely. After all that, though, we had to do a (surprise) Japanese test - that was a bit horrible. After sitting staring blankly at the test papers, I got put into the Foundation group, which is good; although I've already done the basics I can't remember very much, and couldn't cope with anything harder anyway. And I did get to meet some other nice foreign students, they're all really nice.

After that, we had an evening playing cards and games, and that was really lovely. Met some more nice people. Later on, I took a look at my possible module choices, and they all look great! So I got pretty excited. Need to check how many I have to do, though.

The day after that, it was my friend Adrian's birthday! So after sorting out boring paperwork and registration stuff, we went for a really nice walk around campus, taking photos and just chilling. We had to do a practice emergency drill, which was annoying as it really broke up the day, but after that we all (me, Adrian, Sarah and Scott from UH, Tim, Nick, Bill and Taka) got the bus down into town to do some karaoke! It was actually so much fun. We went to one of the big shopping centres first for food and stuff, then went on to this karaoke place. You get your own private room, so it isn't as scary as it sounds. And it was great! I had such a good night. 

The day after that... I don't actually remember what we did. O.o We had this entrance ceremony in the morning, and people had to wear their national dress! I didn't really know what to wear so didn't really bother, but it was nice to see what everyone else was wearing. The first half was speeches from various people at APU, which was a tad boring (as I was very tired). But the second part was great! A few societies did performances, and they were so good. I want to try Yossha-Koi, a Japanese traditional dance that looks amazing. There was also an Indonesian one, a cheerleading one and... another one I seem to have forgotten right now. They were great! 

I don't remember what happened in the afternoon, but in the evening, some of the guys and I went to an onsen! Onsens are hot springs, and this area is famous for one. You go in naked, but guys and girls have separate bath-things. It was amazing - incredibly relaxing. Because I was the only girl that went, I pretty much had mine to myself! Coming back again we weren't sure where the bus stop was, so we walked pretty much halfway back. But we found it eventually.

On Saturday we had to go to a guidance thing about using the library - it was all pretty straightforward and fairly boring. So I couldn't be bothered to go to the other guidances in the afternoon, and went into town instead! It was nice, we explored a little bit and bought the new Pokemon game! Woo! Sadly mine doesn't work, but I'll get it sorted soon. We had to be back in the evening for another welcome ceremony - it was pretty similar to the first, but we had a buffet afterwards, and a performance by the RAs, which was fun. After that Sarah, Tim, Dani and I sat outside on the amphitheatre and talked for a fair few hours! It was really nice.

Yesterday was Sunday, and we finally had a free day. So we decided to go to the beach! Which would have been fun, except fifteen minutes after arriving, Scott managed to cut his foot horribly deep on a shell, climbing up onto the concrete breakwater-thing. So although he claimed he was okay, he was rushed to hospital to get stitches. The rest of us didn't fancy sticking around, so we went for a wander and found this amazing little place for lunch - a proper traditional little restaurant, and the food was amazing! Not too expensive, either. We also bought important supplies, and food and things. When we got back we found Scott (who was fine) and Nick, who'd gone with him, and we had dinner together - Bill, Nick and Adrian all cooked various things so we had a mixture, and it was so tasty. Then hung around a little and chatted.

Today is a national holiday so I'm just chilling again! Might go to another onsen tonight to make sure I'm even more relaxed - you can buy these passport things that you get stamped whenever you go to one, and if you get 88 different stamps you become an onsen master. This is my aim for while I'm here! (Also, I meant to say this in the last post but forgot - I have a film recommendation for y'all! I watched it on the plane, it's called Ondine and it's so beautiful. Stars Colin Farrell, who I usually hate but he's actually good in this, and it's directed by Neil Jordan who is wonderful. So you should all watch it. That is all.)

So yeah, everything's great so far, I'm really enjoying myself. Hope you're all good too! ^^

Autopilot

So it looks like I'm in Japan! It certainly doesn't look like home, at any rate. Everything's still very surreal, but I'm sure it'll sink in eventually.

The journey was fine - I travelled with a girl called Sarah who I'd met before, she's fun - though we weren't sitting together. The first flight took around nine hours, then we stopped in Seoul for a few hours, before doing the last leg to Fukuoka. Korean Air seems to be nice, though I made the mistake of trying the Korean food - seriously:

 

The goop is rice porridge with green tea - needless to say I didn't eat a whole lot. And can anyone identify the odd pale circular things? They were crunchy and kinda sweet. The other meal was good, though.

We arrived at Fukuoka Airport at around nine in the evening - and it was still incredibly humid. Met a couple of American guys also going to APU, they seem nice. We all got a bus up to the university, which took an hour and a half. From there we were shown around by the RAs, who are lovely (though it was dark, so I couldn't really take much in) and taken to our rooms. They're quite small, but definitely livable in. Only problem is the beds, which are kinda solid:

But other than that, it's all fine. That evening I (eventually) managed to get my internet working, so stayed up a lot longer than I should have! Then this morning, I met Sarah and Scott (one of the other guys I'd met before) and we walked around campus a little. Right now, I'm feeling a little fuzzy from travelling and lack of food, so I ended up staying on campus rather than going into Beppu with the others. But I'm sure I'll get plenty more chances.

My view is awesome, incidentally - I feel very lucky, of the people I know I seem to be the only one with a sea view. But lookee:

It's so pretty! So that's something, even if I'm still feeling a little iffy about the whole thing. I'm sure it'll get better, once I've remembered how to talk. In both Japanese and English. That's another thing, my Japanese is so rubbish and it makes me feel so bad! Really need to work on that, though it'll be a while before I can actually hold a conversation and stuff. There are a few orientation events organised for this week, then we start classes next week - I'm kinda looking forward to it, though I can't remember what modules I've chosen. Not looking forward to having to do a Japanese oral exam, though. Eeep.

First impression-wise, I really don't know what to make of it all. So far it mostly just feels bizarre, especially when I realise just how long I'm going to be out here for. But after I've been here a little longer, I'm sure it'll sink in properly. I'll keep you all updated.

Think that's all for now!
- Rackle (and a pretty picture)