Aerick's Exchange Stay In Miyazaki, Japan

Stag Beetle and DJ Club Poster

2010-07-01T23:11:00.000-07:00

Here's a little beetle I caught recently a couple days ago. It was slowly wandering around in front of Max Valu late at night in a spot that would be easy to be stepped upon. Hoping to get a better look at it at home, I scooped it up into my pen case (which I had emptied of writing implements) and then transferred it from there into a plastic bug cage.

I looked it up in my insect book and it seems to be an "amamishikakuwagata" (アマミシカクワガタ) which is a kind of stag beetle. Then again, I can't be sure if I have the exact variety right. There are a lot of stag beetles that look similar to this with some very slight differences. I think I can be sure that it is a female though, since the "tusks" up front are small instead of big and long.

Asides from this I had to put a fair amount of time into finishing up this poster for the DJ thing that I'm doing with my friend Hiroshi up in Shibuya, Tokyo. Like the photos on this blog, click on it to see the large version.

Now I just have to finish putting together the booklet and packaging for my cd. Nearly done but having only six days left to go makes me nervous. Hope nothing goes wrong along the way to getting it done.

Sushi Party and Second Package

2010-06-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

As the time for my departure nears, there was talk of having a kind of going away party lunch next Wednesday (on the day that I leave) in Professor Hirase's office. However, it seems as if some of the students that want to come are going to be leaving on a trip before then, so it has been moved up to today. There was talk of having it be a pizza party before, but instead the food was switched up to sushi along with some other things like yakisoba as well as yogurt for desert.

I'll kinda' let the photos speak for me here, however I should say it was fun seeing this room so full of people (both those who come regularly as well as folks who I rarely see in attendance at lunch here).

After we were finished I went back to my dorm and set to getting some things taken care of. One of the more pressing matters (apart from finishing my cd project and poster for my DJ thing in Shibuya) was the second package that I had put together of books to send home via the slow boat/ground mail. I was a bit worried about the rain that was falling outside, but I suddenly realized that the package was just the perfect size to fit inside of the smaller of the two bags in my rolling luggage set.

It wasn't entirely waterproof, but enough to get the box from my dorm to the post office (which is just located down on a nearby corner). Soon the box would be off on it's long slow journey (of about two or three months) for a price that was definitely cheaper than the last (30 kg) one, but still kinda' spendy.

Package Sent Off to the US

2010-06-29T23:11:00.000-07:00

My first big package was sent off to the US today. Over the course of the past several days I've been trying to get these damned books of mine to fit in a variety of boxes, many of them too big or too small. I had actually gone to the post office with a smaller box to send off quite some time ago but they told me that I would get a better deal if I fit everything in one large 30kg (66lb) box. Thus I set about trying to find the perfect box and the perfect way to pack it.

I don't know if this box was the best strength-wise. It wasn't weak cardboard but not super-strong either. I just hope it holds together alright to get to the US n' all. In the end, at the post office, I did have to take a few books out but I managed to fit 114 Books, 2 hanafuda decks, 1 DVD, 2 stuffed toys, and a pack of tarot cards with a book. Not too expensive really... in the end it cost somewhere around 13000 Yen. I'm likely to pack the rest of my books up in a smaller additional package, however, since I do have a fair amount of books left over that I'd like to come home to me.

A Few Things Viewed

2010-06-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

So the sky looked really beautiful out the back window today so I ran to grab my camera and snap a shot of it.

Then I started snapping a few other things out the window...

...and logically moved to some other nearby things I haven't documented via photos or video yet. In this case here is the cabinet in the kitchen area and a variety of things contained within them.

Mostly comics by Nobuyuki Fukumoto (福本伸行) like "Ten" (天) and "Kaiji" (カイジ). Two comics that have a lot of focus on gambling and such. Easy to see that they were most likely put there by one of the folks in the dorm here who regularly plays mahjong with the rest of the fellows all the time.

There are also these robot models on display.

Looking towards my room which is across from the kitchen. Here's the view obscured by the pattern of the window into the hallway.

Then we have the view facing my room to the middle and then facing left from my room down the hall to the left and right down the hall from my room to the right.

The electricity box above my room also holds the room number. You can see the meter merrily whirring away to account for the running laptop, xmas lights, and the rest.

Speaking of xmas lights. A few of them are veiled in little origami boxes that some elementary school kids made for me.

And finally the fan that is almost always either perched in my window and facing up towards my computer chair, or sitting on the chair (which I reposition near the window) and facing on me in bed).

It's been frustratingly hot as of late, it's really hard to describe how uncomfortable that aspect of life has been here. I've sunk into the habit of often having a sweat rag nearby and a handfan (which I bought at the 100 Yen shop) to cool myself with. Everyone here keeps saying it's only going to get hotter as well... great...

Eating Dragonflies

2010-06-23T23:11:00.000-07:00

Dragonflies or "tonbo" (蜻蛉) have been frequently darting through the skies around the area near to the gym lately. It is as if a rather large population of them had just hatched awhile ago. This brought back the fact that I've been interested in trying dragonflies for quite some time (as food). I sorta' explained a little bit about the insect eating thing in my recent post where I ate a mole cricket, so check that out if you're interested.

Anyways... after lunch with Professor Hirase, I went out and purchased myself a net for catching bugs. If you're wondering about the text on the package down there, it reads "konchuu oukoku" (昆虫王国) or "insect kingdom" and "mushi tori ami" (虫とり網) or "bug catching net".

It was cloudy but clear from rain. I set about gathering up the dragonflies with my net in a few different locations around the gym. I have to say that, while I missed a few swipes with my net, I actually grabbed them down more often than not. After awhile on the hill above the dorms I began to see a little sliver of a rainbow forming in the clouds. If you look closely in that lower right image (in the upper left corner) you can even see one of the dragonflies whizzing by.

So yeah, after awhile I was all stocked up with the bugs and ready to head into the house. I tried to catch them all without injuring or damaging them but it's hard to do at times when you're swiping wildly with a net. A couple were slightly stunned and twitching in the corner but most of 'em were in tact.

Back in the kitchen I let them chill out in the fridge like I've done with the bugs I've prepared before. I didn't want to get as elaborate as a stir fry this time, so instead I imagined that using the dragonflies to top a light salad might be a good pairing. I was dismayed, however, to find that someone had tossed out the old grill. Someone mentioned that it had stopped working suddenly... gah! Regardless, I had to cook them up someway so I decided to take the pan-fried approach.

So here we have the salad (ungarnished) below:

Now just add bugs:

And pick out the bugs (into your mouth) as desired:

I have to admit, I was disappointed... not by the taste of the bugs alone. I was more disappointed that I went with cooking them in olive oil. It totally overpowered the taste of the insects and made them super oily. The texture and consistency of the dragonflies themselves wasn't bad. The body was light enough and the wings nearly melted away in my mouth. It's just that damn oil! When I eat dragonflies again, whether it be here in Japan or at home in the US, I'll have to find a way to grill them instead of frying them. For preserving the flavor and such... I really think grilling lightly (like I did with the mole cricket) is best!

Trip to Nichinan

2010-06-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to get as much work done as I possibly can recently. Lots of progress on the cds and such so I figured I could sorta' take today off to go down and hang out with a fellow I met on the train awhile back. The guy's name is Masaki and he had studied in California previously, now he is living back with his parents in Nichinan and offered to pick me up today so we could hang out down there. I haven't really been to Nichinan proper yet (asides from Sun Messe, which is nearby there), so I figured it would be a good plan.

I have to say that the weather didn't seem too hot for a trip out and about. Of course, right now we're smack dab in the heart of the rainy season or "tsuyu" (梅雨) which is, curiously enough, written out with the kanji of "ume" (梅) or "plum" combined with "ame" (雨) for "rain". The rain this morning was coupled with a strong wind and totally blew a wet puddle of rain in through the rotating fan I had set up. Unlike rainy days in Washington State, it doesn't really get cold or cool while it rains. It's just the odd coupling of hot and sticky humid weather with the full on drenching flood of rain! I usually like rain in the context of Washington weather, but this can be kind of miserable really... the humid and sticky part of it all, at least.

Masaki was a little late due to some business of fixing a pair of jeans up in Miyazaki City and phoned me a few times to say he would be a little late. I just kept working on what I could until he eventually came down to pick me up. In the car was his two friends. I remember one of their names (or nickname rather) was "Taka-P" although the other fellow's name somewhat slips my mind. We had a good time talking about stuff on the way down, running through tunnels and skirting along the coastline till we found ourselves in Nichinan.

The first stop along the way was at a book store branch here, not Book Off but something similar to that. We spent quite awhile looking around and I eventually came out with a few horror manga titles that I was satisfied with. I think Masaki's other friend had work or something to do so after we were all through looking around Taka-P, Masaki, and I all drove down to a local restaurant to get something to eat.

After eating we headed on our way out towards a section of town with lots of older houses where the historic local Obi Castle (飫肥城) "Obi-Jou" is located. Masaki mentioned how this spot is a place where he used to come various times when he was younger so it was somewhat nostalgic to him.

Before going up towards the castle proper we did make a slight detour down a street where a little stream was filled with all kinds of koi (鯉) or "carp" of several different colors including a golden colored one. It was interesting to note that the duller shaded koi carp were often quite a bit larger than the ones with the brilliant coloring. Masaki mentioned something about how that is characteristic of the non-colorful variety.

Finally making our way up to the gates to the castle, from the neighborhood below, I noted how there were two torch stands on either side. I asked if Masaki had ever seen them lit up, and he answered that they did so during festivals and the like. Through the gates the walls had a very old and worn look to them and the detailed roofing atop the walls had a very ornate look to it.

Unfortunately, we found that we wouldn't be able to ascend up towards the Obi Castle properly because the monk in control of the grounds had declared that it should be shut due to the spread of the hoof and mouth disease. I've made cracks about the paranoid and overboard reactions that people are having to that disease up in Miyazaki, what with the giant disinfectant pads in the roads and mats in front of buildings. The idea of closing a castle that has nothing to do with livestock, however, seems totally nuts to me... but what can I say, eh? Perhaps it pertains to some weird notion of "purity" or something... not letting possibly diseased shoes step inside the grounds of the castle or the temple attached to it?

We were able to walk up to an elementary school that was positioned next-door to the castle. Couldn't really see the castle from there either, but I could see one of the buildings near the castle across the muddy dirt field.

There was a sign placed here by the PTA that was kind of interesting. The text on it reads "Toki ha Hito wo Matazu" (時は人を待たず) which basically translates to "Time Waits for No Man" (Note the negative "zu" form of the verb "wait" (待つ) there. I think I mentioned the "zu" form several blogs posts back).

So yeah, no entry into the castle grounds... bummer. Still there was a fair amount of pleasure in just seeing the wall and such. There was also the fairly enchanted looking stand of trees that were growing forth from a bed of moss. It seemed like something one might see in a fairy tale or the like.

From there we went to Masaki's folks place breifly where I met his grandfather, mother, and father. After a bit of waiting around there his mother gave us a ride down to an area of bars nearby the train that I needed to take back. Originally our plan was to go to a bar that a friend of Masaki's owned in town but because the last train to Kibana station left so damned early, that kinda' put a kink in that plan.

Wandering around it was hard to decide on a bar, and even harder since a lot of places weren't even open for the night yet. Eventually we were kinda' guided over to a kind of "all you can drink" hostess bar type of place. It was small but still kind of fancy. The main aspect of it being that you have women sitting with you who would talk with you and fill up your drinks. There was also karaoke which Taka-P and Masaki did a brief duet via.

I guess something like that would be pretty expensive in a big city, but here in little Nichinan it was only 2000 Yen. The alcohol itself was a kind of rice liquor and I had quite a few glasses of the stuff giving me a nice bit of a buzz. Time passed wayy too fast though and we eventually found it time for me to head on my way, unless I wanted to be stuck there for the night.

The train back was pretty good and I felt pretty good all in all. I opened the window a little and listened to the sound of the scenery rushing by me. Many times it seemed like the train was whizzing along high atop a cliff with roads or trees visible faintly below. I set out my recorder and got a got chunk of recorded sounds. It wasn't a short train ride, but soon enough I was departing at the familiar Kibana station and set about walking back from there.

It wasn't a straight forward walk back since I stopped a few times to listen to the concert of sounds coming from around me. For such a rainy day that it was earlier, it hadn't really rained much in the moments when I was down in Nichinan. Here on my walk back it was totally dry as well, although there were fascinating sounds of rushing water churning about beneath the surface through drains along the sidewalks. I stopped to record that for a bit and then carried onward.

The final landmark that lets me know I've made it home along this route is usually Gespa. It's where I truly feel I've arrived back to my "home turf" as it were... although it won't be my home after too much longer. I chuckled as I passed the sign for the Gespa Swimming School. There was a spider positioned somewhere in front of the two cartoon aligators in a way that made it look like the gators were smiling at the little bug, or perhaps yelling at it?

After a little bit of shopping, I settled back into my room and immediately started back in on my project work... albeit in a somewhat drunken and sloshy manner. It was nice to have a quick reprieve from things to visit the town south, but my time really is running out... I'm becoming more and more aware of that as each day passes. Thanks for getting my mind of things for awhile though, Masaki!

The Onion Grows, My Departure Approaches

2010-06-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

I have an onion growing outside on my veranda...

No really, It has grown into quite a magnificent plant.... a 50 Yen onion I bought from the Max Valu store next door. See...

Less than a month to go till I leave Japan behind now little onion... only a little over a couple weeks before I leave Miyazaki for my trip 'round abouts Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe. I'll miss you little onion... hope you've had a good time growing here on my veranda.

Snacks and Wind and Things

2010-06-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

So last night I went out with the portable audio recorder and captured a pretty fun variety of sounds, a few of which I'll be using for the final track of my cd, which is pretty much done now. I've also started on some of the basic art and design for the cover but I'll need to get moving on that if I want to get it done on time.

Today was lunch, yet again, at Professor Hirase's... yet again interesting snacks are served. I'm not sure but I think they were both from Taiwan this time. At least the "Chocoarts: Choconuts" were from there.... think the green tea snack was as well.

After class I noticed how windy it was and went over to record some of the sounds of a classroom who's windows had been left open. The wind was flailing the metal venetian blinds around as well as the big red and black fabric curtains. As I let my recorder capture what it could of the raucous noise, I laid back in one of the chairs and enjoyed the show. I suppose I could have just shut the windows then and there, but that wouldn't have been any fun.

I also got some recordings of the wind blowing through the bamboo, although I'm hoping I got more of the sound of wing blowing through it and less of the wind blowing on my mic (which usually doesn't sound too pleasant)! As I recorded, I noticed a little insect near to me that looked somewhat like a long green stick. At first I thought it might be a worm or a stick insect but it soon became apparent that it was a little spider. A little green spider that could fold itself into a stick-like shape... crazy nature!

Walking back down towards the dorm, it was really crazy hot. Even though the wind did a partially good job of cooling me down, I could tell the weather wasn't getting cooler around here and it was making me feel a little uncomfortable. Saw a pigeon sitting out on a metal pipe over the little drainage stream. Curious, with the sun beating down on the pipe like that, why the heat of the metal wasn't burning the bird's little feet. Guess he didn't mind if it was hot, because the pigeon just sat there staring forward, a little nervous head bob ever so often.

Also saw here the faucet that was making a weird noise last night as it dribbled water from a leak. I had recorded a bit of the sound last night when I passed by here and I was curious if it was still making the same sound. Wandering over and putting my ear to it, it seemed nothing had changed as far as that sound went. Although perhaps it had a slightly different character to it during the day, as opposed to the night. Interesting how sounds can be that way... sounding differently somewhat depending on the time of day they are heard at... or is it just my brain playing tricks on me?

Back at the dorm I read the sign that was printed up above our own disinfectant mat (which is less of a mat and more of a detached mop-head). Heaven forbid we forget to "disinfect the mat stepping"!

Biking to the Fujiya Confectionary

2010-06-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

While I'll have to be honest that a major reason for my bike ride back out towards this area near Kiyotake Town was to dig through the comics at A-Too Book Market again, I had kind of regretted not stopping into the Fujiya branch store that was also located up in the general area. One can't come to Japan without at least once or twice see the smiling little mascot Peko-chan with her tongue sticking out to the side. After all this time I was curious what a pastry from there might taste like. I'm not a big fan of sweets but it was worth at least one visit to this popular and famous chain store anyways.

Of course, on the way to the Fujiya shop was a really interesting sight that I hadn't been able to snap any good photos of before. The place was a kind of repair garage "shuuriya" (修理屋) and was decorated quite extravagantly with all kinds of photos (perhaps celebrities and politicians?) and statues, the most notable being a big Doraemon with a red top-hat.

Not long after this is where the Fujiya comes into sight. It's a rather small little branch shop with the signature large Peko-chan doll standing out front. Inside the store itself I was greeted by the two ladies working behind the counter who were kind enough to let me take some pictures of the colorful interior decor. Lots of spastic color and chipper looking decorations gave it the character I would expect of a sweets bakery like this.

I perused the items displayed in the case but I had already kinda' had an idea of what I would get before-hand. I had read from someone online that the Mont Blanc (モンブラン) was rather good. It was a kind of chestnut and cream type of dessert and I do like nuts, after all.

I was just going to eat the thing outside since I saw a table there as I passed by to come inside. Once I got outside, however, I noticed the little room inside they had where one could sit down and eat. The weather was a little hot outside for my tastes today so I quickly retreated back into the shop and went to sit down at the table there. Seeing me do this the women behind the counter quickly rushed over a plate for me to use (a year 2006 Peko-chan, Poko-chan, and their dog plate). Once I had everything set up to eat they brought over yet another addition... a free glass of delicious iced coffee!

Eating the snack, it was pretty good. I liked the fact that it wasn't too sweet. It was pretty much like a fancy cupcake really. The iced coffee that came with it was a nice compliment as well. I slowly enjoyed it as I watched the traffic pass by me outside the window. My only complaint was how small the chair was at the table here. Had to literally squeeze into the thing... suppose they don't expect folks of my size to come to a pastry shop like this, I guess.

After this, I thanked them and started on my way back home (hoping to get there before the sun went down). Noticed some interesting things along the way I hadn't noticed before, like this compound for a local cult. :p

...or this building off in the distance with the name "Little Wing" written on it's side.

Yeah... I'll just end this post like that. Nothing more to say, unless you want me to detail the mundanity of grocery shopping and project work in my dorm room that followed all this.

Towel Bar Replacement and Repairs

2010-06-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

So today, after lunch in Professor Hirase's office I came home to find my towel bar laying on the floor again. I had mentioned to Ms. Kawano downstairs that it needed to be repaired, but seeing I was home now and in the mood to get things done, I walked down to the first floor with the towel bar in hand and handed it to her.

As you see in these photos the towel bar didn't really have anything to be bolted into so it simply tore free from the wall from time to time, each time leaving bigger and bigger holes. Got a little bit of close-up detail of the holes in the two photos below.

But yeah, since I had mentioned it before, it looks like they had some towel bars ready and thus Ms. Kawano called the maintenance fellow up to my room and after a bit of work on it, it was finished and screwed in. My "Little My" towel was ready to be hung up in it's proper position once again.

Can't say that it looks too secure there so I won't try to hang too many heavy things on it or lean on the thing. The solution to the holes was... um... tape... yeah, no fancy spackling paste or anything here... just tape.... clear tape... so you can see the... um... oh whatever!!

More Pinhole Camera Fun, Cloudy Day Version

2010-06-08T23:11:00.000-07:00

It had been raining on and off today, grey and hazy but not a total downpour or anything. I took my umbrella along just in case and headed off for class with Professor Yuki. Along the way I stopped and noticed some pretty flowers that were in bloom there. These things are a Japanese variety of morning glory or "asagao" (朝顔) which means "morning face" in Japanese.

In class we gathered up our pinhole cameras to continue experimenting with them. Professor Yuki had hoped that it would be brighter weather outside but it looked like we would be able to experiment with taking some photos in lower light (which means longer counting time of leaving the shutter open). There was also a scanner and a laptop set up in the classroom today with which our previous photos would be scanned in and inverted (since the camera takes photos that are essentially like negatives).

Up in the dark room area of the art building the chemicals and such were prepared and then the lights were shut off to allow us to load small cuts of photo paper into our cardboard cameras.

Outside it seemed to be sprinkling rain again so I tried to take photos of things mainly under cover. A camera made out of cardboard really doesn't do to well out in the rain. At least, I would imagine it wouldn't fare too well in a storm or such, for sure. The camera was set up for one photo as you see below, propped on a nearby bucket. Before taking the pinhole camera I snapped a shot of the area with my regular digital camera to compare the two.

While doing so I also noticed a curious hole in the side of the short wall here. I imagine it would be used for drainage or something although it looked like a weird concrete mouse hole. It's the kind of thing I would have stared at as a little child, imagining it as a portal into another world or something... if only I was small enough to fit through, yeh.

Since we all had different times in finding subjects to shoot and then the waits of counting off exposure time, it would often land us back at the darkroom at scattered times. This meant quite a few moments of waiting for the darkroom to become unoccupied. Guess I'll take this moment to show you the sign above the darkroom lit-up and indicating that it is in use. The kanji on it are read "shiyouchuu" (使用中). The first kanji making the "shi" in it (使) is the same kanji in the word "tsukau" (使う) which means "to use". The second kanji making the "you" sound (用) also carries a similar meaning of "task, duty, business, use". Together it makes the word "shiyou" (使用) meaning "use, application, employment, utilization". Add to that the "chuu" (中) meaning "in the middle (of)" or such, then you have a word indicating "in use" or "busy". Perhaps too much explanation and breakdown for something so simple, but I wanted to make it as clear as possible here, yeh yeh...

The photos themselves were a little bit under-exposed this time, compared to last time when the sunny day over-exposed most of 'em. Even some moments where I left the thing open to suck in light for upwards of four minutes or so, the grey day just didn't give it enough light to look like much. Some other students had chosen some better lit and higher contrast subjects so their photos turned out alright, although some had the same troubles I was having.

Later in the classroom we got to see some of the inverted photos from before (taken on a sunny day). You can see three of mine in the upper right image there. Nothing too stunning and the lower-right of the three is pretty hard to distinguish... still, interesting and kinda' eerie looking in a nice way. While they were inverted from negative to positive whoever scanned them had forgotten to flip them horizontally so they still looked a little strange not that it mattered much (no text in the photos or anything like that to give it away).

Towards the end of class I snapped a few photos of the drawings that some of the girls in my class had drawn on their pinhole cameras. One girl had drawn a bunch of frog-characters from some popular Japanese cartoon show called "keroro gunsou" (ケロロ軍曹). The other was a cute little panda which read "Tomo's (camera)". I hadn't drawn anything on mine since the camera wasn't mine to keep but rather one that Professor Yuki had let me borrow.

A couple other photos above here before I set this blog entry to rest for the day. A view from the second story window that more than a few people took pinhole camera shots of. You can see the backside of the Education and Culture building in that shot. The other photo is of the interior of the art building. I think I had put a photo of that up way back in this blog, but I still thought it would be interesting to show an above view-from the stairs like this. All those strange and busted busts lined up behind the whiteboard like that. I wonder, still,... are they just there for decoration or is there some kind of use for them. Perhaps I should ask Professor Oizumi or Yuki sometime, but most likely it will just continue to slip my mind.

Grilled Mole Cricket, Delicious!

2010-06-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

So I'll back track a little bit to the day before in this post. I had been in the kitchen that night and a little (yet sizable) bug hopped on my leg. Trapping it and putting it in my bug case, I went to work looking into what kind of insect it might be. Turns out it was a kind of insect called "okera" (螻蛄) or rather a "mole cricket". While researching it online, as it tried to dig it's way through the plastic of the bug cage with it's little mole cricket paws, I also read that it is considered a delicacy by some.

This got me to thinking... asides from generally enjoying the sounds and sights of insects (which alone can be pretty damn cool), I also had explored into the TASTES of insects before leaving, as well. The term for consumption of insects is known and entomophagy and it is something done in many other parts of the world although there are a small number of adventurous westerners like myself who have become interested in the practice. Here in Japan it's totally uncommon and most people would be pretty freaked out by the idea of eating bugs. I have come across a blog by a fellow up in Tokyo who seems to be into the subject though.

So yeah, here's where today comes in. While eating a bug that looks so cool might seem like a shame, from what I read it doesn't seem like the mole crickets are exactly scarce or rare or anything. That in mind, I figured that it would be alright if I sampled this one as an experiment. Can't say the cricket was large enough to be totally filling so, of course, I prepared some other ingredients such as rice, eggs, vegetables, and the like to make a kind of stir-fry to place the bug as a topping on.

The bug case was set in the refrigerator to get the metabolism of the cricket down enough to put it into a kind of hibernation. During this time I made up the eggs, chopped them into smaller chunks in the pan and mixed in the rice and vegetables along with some goma dressing and a little squeeze lemon juice thing from the dollar store. Once that was prepared it was quickly time to take the cricket out of the fridge and put it on the grill. It maybe twitched a small bit when it was set down but the grill had been pre-heated so it quickly sizzled away. For something that size you don't really cook it very long. A little bit of time spent on one side then flipped over to the next.

Soon enough the cricket was done and placed atop the green garnish that I had sprinkled over my stir-fried mixture. Snapping open a ume (plum) flavored chu-hi, I eagerly whisked the little bug off the green topping as quickly as I had placed it there and put the mole cricket into my mouth. Not wanting to ruin the flavor I didn't garnish the bug itself with anything, just the straight up light grilling.

I have to say that the flavor of the insect alone was quite good. Similar to regular crickets it had a somewhat nut-like flavor, perhaps almond, yeh? Certainly it's own flavor though and not a bad one. As far as texture goes... it's easy to imagine, when you're taking close up photos of the thing, that those big digging paws or other exoskeleton lined bits might go rough in the mouth. Instead, even with the larger size of it, it was just as easy to eat as a regular cricket. The texture was very light with a small but soft crunch. I'd say that it was even less harsh compared to something like a bit of popcorn really.

Continuing along with the rest of my meal, which was also delicious and lemony flavored, along with my beverage... I felt a little disappointed that I didn't have any more of these small bugs to eat. I think they would make a good snack if you had a nice bag full of them. No flavoring necessary since the mole cricket seems to have an ample and delightful flavoring of it's own.

Trip By Train Into The City

2010-06-02T23:11:00.000-07:00

After lunch with Professor Hirase today I thought it would be a good idea, since the previous rain had subsided, to take a trip into town. I've been frantically working on getting my audio mixing cd finished all this time and would soon need the raw supplies to create the packaging. Fitting to the plans I'd drawn up on paper so far, I would need some kind of semi-thick and colored (perhaps even textured) paper to use for the outer cover. The store on campus didn't have this so the only place I thought of that would be somewhat accessible and carry paper like this was the Desaki Depot. store near the Miyazaki Station.

With this in mind I rode my bike down along the road leading past Gespa which eventually curves down and crosses the tracks near the Kibana station. Parking my bike there and coming up to investigate the train schedule I realized that I had just missed the train I needed awhile back. I had figured that the trains would be fairly regular around now since it was only a little ways after noon. Unfortunately the trains were totally infrequent and I finally discovered that I'd have to wait well over an hour for the next train!

Ambling around and snapping shots of things I guess it wasn't so bad, although time was passing slowly just waiting at this tiny station. There really wasn't much to keep me occupied so I went to grab my bike and ride around a bit with it.

Not far from the station, on a wall near a house, I found this really huge locust (バッタ) perched. Looking it up later in my bug book I'm still not really sure what the exact type is. Still, it was really immense (about the size of my hand) and really stunning!

This started my search for insects in general, especially when another little bug soon presented itself alternating between climbing and spinning on it's tread a little ways down on the same wall. It was a caterpillar (イモムシ) but I'm not sure what kind. There were quite a few of these things I saw hanging from trees and the like as I continued along on my bike.

This beetle was spotted on a sidewalk near a gas station, after I stopped and got air put into my tires. I tried to take some good photos of it, but soon enough the bug scurried into the cover of some bushes and foliage.

After picking up some tea from the Lawson's convenience mart, I returned to the Kibana station and found this little baby mantis (カマキリ) perched on a weathered old post there. I snapped a bunch of photos of it and suddenly realized I was receiving suspicious glances from an old woman who's yard was nearby.

Also near the station was a pile of decaying fruit and things under a tree. Upon inspection of the pile close-up I found that it was crawling with little pillbugs (ダンゴムシ).

This search continued onwards spotting more and more bugs everywhere I looked. There was a spider perched up under the eaves of the station, a tiny ant crawling on a nearby garden flower, there was also a snail that I spotted in a nearby parking lot!

After the excitement of the bug search wore off and the time for my train arrived, I headed up onto the platform to wait. I did have time to walk out on the platform a ways and notice some interesting things like how the grass poked up through the concrete here or a nearby metal box that bore rusty scratches all over it's surface in a beautiful and decayed looking scatter.

Soon enough, however, the train pulled in and I was off on my way towards the city. The train I was taking wasn't a direct one so I did have to make a transfer a couple stops up, but it wasn't really that big of a hassle.

I didn't take too long at Desaki Depot, after a bit of searching I decided upon a nice dark green paper that I would use for the project. There was a pack of 50 sheets available and a test run of an extra loose sheet through the copier in the store showed that it could handle being photocopied on pretty well (despite the light textured surface it had). Doing some quick math I realized that 50 sheets would allow me exactly 40 copies (as long as I didn't mess a copy up here or there). This made me decide that the final run of these would be 40. Kind of a small run, but since I'll be making them all by hand... I'm sure they'll take forever to finish!

After this I wandered around town trying to find a certain building I had located on Google maps. Even with researching it's position beforehand I still got a little lost. Noticed a cute sign for a buried cable, some graffiti on a wooden wall, and also a sign on the brick road that indicated a lane for pedestrians (the other sign in the other lane indicating for bicycles). It struck me a little odd how insanely large the man in the sign's image is compared to the woman... just saying.

The building I was looking for was eventually found, the target in that building being an Aflac branch. It's not that I wanted insurance or anything. My father had talked to me via Skype recently and mentioned that he was possibly considering a new job with that company. He had heard that it was really popular in Japan and I had mentioned the commercials and stuffed toys where they had a cat and a duck fused together into one "maneki-neko duck" (招き猫ダック). My dad had asked if I could try to find him one of those stuffed toys. Unfortunately, this branch seemed like it had just closed up a little while previously (all that waiting for the train had put me fairly late in the day). Instead, for the time being, I tried to snap some photos of the stuffed animals and things on display here but soon was accosted by a woman at another shop who was adamant that I couldn't take any photos in the shopping complex.

Putting away my camera and talking to her a little I found out that there was another Aflac branch shop down the street a ways, so I wandered off that way. Lucky for me, the shop there hadn't closed yet so I was able to go in to talk to the folks working there. At first they were pretty solid about saying none of the stuffed animals were on sale, but after a little coaxing and a donation to one of their charity causes, I wound up coming out with two small stuffed toys. One was the current campaign of a duck and cat fused thing... the other was a duck with a crown and a necklace saying #1. Silly stuff, but my father should be happy.

Outside from the shop and down Tachibana Avenue a little I stumbled across the poster pictured below. It was for the film festival that someone had told me about all that time back during the year-end party (忘年会). Unfortunately, as tempting as seeing what a film festival here would be like... It falls so close to my time of returning to the US... I doubt I would really be able to take the time to enjoy something like that. I can already see the specter of mounting frantic work on wrapping things up looming above my head.

From here on out I moved along the city noticing curious details here and there. Didn't really have too many set locations or plans in mind. I stopped at the Book Off briefly but didn't wind up buying too much (although there were a few gems found). I was more or less amused by minor details in the city like the bar pictured above turning the prefectural governor Higashikokubaru into a kind of grotesque looking maneki-neko, also amused by the over the top and triumphant looking cartoon image drawn in front of a fishing supply store.

There were also much more subtle details that caught my eye like the two images above. These looked to be some kind of sticker or hand bill pasted to a pole long ago but they've since been totally bleached of all discernible content or writing. The basic shape and the grimy texture left behind, however, is in and of itself a very curious thing.

Eventually I arrived back at the train station and found I would have a bit of time before my train was to depart. Taking this time and my hunger into account, I wandered down the road towards a nearby convenience mart. Along the way I spotted the fellows you see below, whatever they're supposed to be.

Not a huge amount of eventful happenings between that point and my eventual return to the Kibana station via train and my return to campus via bike. However I did meet a fellow who asked me whether I spoke Japanese while I was sitting there reading. I replied yes and we struck up a conversation. It seems he had been an exchange student in America (in the state of California) some time back himself. It was nice to find he was familiar with the term "liberal arts" when I was trying to describe to him my college in Olympia that I come from. We exchanged Facebook information so I figure I'll be keeping in touch with him after this point.

Signs Around The Elevator

2010-06-01T23:11:00.000-07:00

Alright, we end May with an educational post so we'll start May with a string of educational mumble as well. I took a trip up to Professor Hirase's office today to stop by for something or somewhat and noticed the signs around the elevator that I could run through with you all. We'll start off with a rather basic one here.

As you might notice it's all katakana and hiragana there. The sign reads "doa ni chuui" (ドアにちゅうい) which means "be careful with the door" implying that you should avoid getting your hands caught in the door, although most elevator doors do have an automatic pressure sensitivity that makes them spring back open when anything is caught in them. I guess it doesn't hurt to be cautious about it though, eh? With the "chuui" or "caution" part, while it is written in hiragana here, you may see that written in kanji from time to time. That kanji is = 注意.

And now something equally simple from the inside of the elevator:

Yup, kanji but simple and basic ones that you should take care to learn if you haven't already. As you may have already gathered the two basic functional buttons for the elevator doors are represented here with the top one there being the kanji　開 from "aku/akeru" (開く)/(開ける) or "open"/"to open". The second is the kanji 閉 from "shimaru/shimeru" (閉まる)/(閉める) or "close"/"to close". On an amusing side note, notice that the button to shut the door is far more worn down compared to the button to open the door. You rarely see anyone enter an elevator around here without someone impatiently hitting the close button as soon as possible. Then agian, the same can likely be said about most places where you have people and elevators, I'd guess.

The final one jumps up in complexity level due to all the kanji:

Lucky for you the image on the sign is likely to help clue you in on the meaning. The text itself reads "bouhan kamera sadou chuu" （防犯カメラ作動中). This can be broken down as follows... "bou" (防) carries the meaning of "warding off, protecting, resisting" and the "han" (犯) has the meaning of "crime", as it is the same kanji you'll see in the word "hannin" (犯人) or "criminal". So yeah "bouhan kamera" is "securtiy camera" or more literally "crime prevention camera". The "sadou" in the next part means "operation, functioning, running" and together with "chuu" (中) , carrying the meaning of not only "middle" but also "during" or "in the process of", would mean "is currently running". The other bit at the end in black is "rokuga" (録画) which indicates that the camera is not simply monitoring what it's recording but making a "video record" of what it sees. So no horseplay around the elevators yeh!

And how about these:

Right, can't have this post be all educational. Gotta' throw in some good viceral nonsense as well. Focusing past and onto a spot of lovely window grime in those photos above. Just look at the lovely green texture there! Simply splendid, I must say!!

A Lesson in No Parking Signs

2010-05-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

Another day heading off to class with Professor Oizumi and working on my card via Adobe Illustrator. Although the experience of working with the software in Japanese is a good one, I'm not sure if I really want to do anything with the card I'm making or show it here since it isn't really looking all that great (my own harsh-on-myself opinion, I know).

Anyways, I thought it would be good to devote this blog post to a lesson in another type of common sign you will see in Japan and that is the "No Parking" sign, since it's one that is posted repeatedly on the ways to class here this Monday. Of course I wanted to show you two variations in the photos above. The one to the right you'll notice that the kanji reads "chuushakinshi" (駐車禁止) with "chuusha" (駐車) meaning "parking of one's car" and "kinshi" (禁止) meaning "prohibited". The sign in the left photo reads "chuurinkinshi" (駐輪禁止) the "kinshi" part is the same but the "chuurin" (駐輪) means "parking of one's bicycle".

Of course those are the basics but the sign on the above right also has extra information there reading "shitei kuruma igai" (指定車以外) or "with the exception of designated vehicles". Breaking that down "shitei" (指定) means "designation, specification, assignment"... next up is a basic one "kuruma" (車) meaning "car, automobile, vehicle"... and finally "igai" (以外) meaning "with the exception of, excepting". So yeah, that sign isn't exactly "No Parking" for everyone, just no parking for those without the proper clearance. Now let's see if you can figure out what this sign below indicates, eh. At least one of the most defining kanji is left in tact there.

Now that I'm through with the educational bit I'll get to posting more cat photos. This cat is a little bit of a sickly looking meow. Hope it'll be alright... although it is an alley cat, after all. It was meowing up a storm at me however.

And with the posting of the dorm... I'll call it a night for this posting.

Hisashiburi Desu Ne, First Trip

2010-05-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

Started off my day by going to my Friday class. Along the way passing by and snapping a photograph of the large movable solar panels near the gym that continue to fascinate me so. Add to that the looming tower holding up power lines behind them. It always seemed interesting to me how large structures like this that might be considered as an eye-sore to folks back in the US are easily integrated into the landscape here in Japan. Sure, to some degree I can see how it's kinda' "ugly"... but at the same time it's really interesting and perhaps somewhat beautiful seeing these big messes of metal that hold and provide energy to us all here.

Arriving before class I noticed this bug on the desk. Tried looking it up later in my bug book and I'm not really sure what it is. Perhaps some kind of kamemushi (stinkbug) although it didn't release any stinky spray when I let it outside. Might also be some kind of small beetle. Hard to look it up based on these photos alone. If I had whisked it into a case and studied it later with my book, perhaps I'd have a more definite idea of what it was. Still interesting and cool, nonetheless.

Leaving class I snapped another shot of these mats they're setting out to prevent hoof and mouth disease. I know I put one in the last post, still... this photo might show how the white chemical in with the mats gets spread around. After people step in it, it seems that sloshes of the stuff and white footprints get tracked all over the place. The tell-tale traces are becoming a common sight along with the mats they're made from. Guess it's all for the public good of preventing the spread of this disease. Part of me wonders if all this is really so necessary though, since this stuff isn't supposed to be able to be spread to humans anyways.

Also noticed these weird broken pod like growths on the trees around here. Not sure if it's part of the tree or not. More likely I was thinking it might have something to do with eggs for insects or something. Nobody I asked seems to have a clear idea of what they are though.

Later on in the day, I decided I would run down and visit Maki and Takeshi at the First Trip antique store that I had blogged about long ago. Seeing how close it is from the dorms it's silly I hadn't returned here until now, several months later. They were both there and we got back into talking as I snapped some photos of interesting things around the store to share with you all in this blog here.

After awhile of looking through all the cool stuff, in search of a gift for Professor Hirase, I finally settled on a cup with mushrooms on it. Kinda' a small thing you could probably find in a US thrift store for a buck or the like. Still, this is like the kind of cup I enjoyed using the US and being somewhat rare around here, I thought it would be a nice gift for Hirase with his abundance of Japanese style teacups. A weird old western style coffee/tea cup from the 70s seemed like it would be a pretty cool gift.

Around the time when I paid for the cup and they were wrapping it up for me Maki and Takeshi mentioned that perhaps they could invite me to a barbecue or something before I left for the United States. I thanked them for the cup and then went back off on my way.

Only other major item of business for the day was the fairly minor and routine trip to the Max Valu store. As always I love getting there on time to snag up as much of the discount priced goods that I can. There were these two large citrus fruits on sale for 100 Yen. It said "mikan" on the bag but they were rather large for mikan. I'd had them before and they tasted more like grapefruits. I was curious about it so I asked the fellow on duty and he pointed me to the area where they were before they were put in the discount bag. The sign read "Juicy Fruits" (ジューシーフルーツ) which on Wikipeidia leads me for an entry on a J-Pop band, not a citrus fruit... so... yeah... whatever. They taste good and they're cheap. I'll leave it at that!

Dropping a Class and Reviving a Password

2010-05-26T23:11:00.000-07:00

Another Wednesday and another enjoyable lunch get together in Professor Hirase's office. As usual I got one of my favored bentou box combinations of rice with some cutlets and other sides.

As far as snacks go, today we ate some custard cake type thing that had images of Portuguese traders on it. Also had some snacks from Brazil that Katsuki had brought in with her.

With all these odd things in the roads and at the entrances to buildings that had showed up recently, it seems it's all related to a big emergency that has broken out over a spread of hoof and mouth disease amongst local cattle and the like. There are now all these things at points around the college that are supposed to disinfect shoes (or car tires in the case of the futon-like pads in the road).

Normally I would have class after lunch on Wednesdays after lunch. However, seeing how little time I have left before I leave Japan I figured I needed to trim off one class and this one was the one I chose (partially because of the amount of writing required outside of class, as if I don't have enough writing with piecing together these blogs and things). Luckily Ms. Etou seemed pretty understanding and then I left to take care of a few things that I needed to get to.

Going to the GSO I went to the counseling room where I got some help from the woman who works there in going to the communications building and figuring out what has been wrong with my password with using the computers. It seems that there is some kind of refresh of the passwords that they do after the new semester starts. My status being a little strange and not the typical "full time student" status, I guess my password and username got canceled. Luckily it didn't seem like too complex of a process to get it all reinstated, although I'd need to get a form to Professor Hirase and get his seal on it and such.

Later on in the evening, I happened to have a meeting not only with Professor Hirase but also with the group of administrators who were in charge of the scholarship that many of us have received while we were here at the University of Miyazaki. The meeting was interesting... lots of little snacks and tiny bottles of cold tea passed out to us. We wrote our names up on the board and gave introductions followed by a series of questions and answers.

After the events were over and people were moving chairs and desks around I noticed a little spider on the floor that nearly got squished several times by the frantic movement. I tried to get people to stop for a minute and moved in with a little piece of paper to scoop up the spider and drop it directly outside the window where it wouldn't be in danger of being stepped on.

On the way home I was really impressed by the look of the buildings and scenery as the sun set around us. In the sky above the gymnasium, a fairly round looking moon hung in the sky and the orange shade on the side of the buildings gave a fairly magical feel to the scenery around me.

Pinhole Camera Photography

2010-05-25T23:11:00.000-07:00

Headed off to class with Mr. Yuki today arriving at the Art Building.

Today's activities involved use of a pinhole camera which we were to take out and snap some photographs with. The weather today was pretty bright so it provided us with some intense light that would allow us to take pinhole shots in less time than it would take if we were doing this on a cloudy day. Then again, I think I recall taking pinhole camera photos back in high school in good old gray-weathered Washington state and the photos usually turned out more evenly lit with shades of gray. This time, with the bright sunlight, it seemed too long would leave the photos over-saturated and almost fully black and too short would leave them under-saturated and white.

I do think I got a few good shots although a number of them were also washed out or exposed a little too much one way or another. The last shot I took I remember mumbling to Professor Yuki that it would probably look like trash, but turned out to be one of the better looking of the bunch I had taken. Pinhole camera shots are so much less predictable than using my good old digital camera.

Walking back from class afterwards I noticed some interesting birds flitting about here. One of them perched on a sign (as you can see above) had a very distinct upper blue coloring mixed with a lower brownish red.

Odd Keyboards and Meowling Cats

2010-05-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

Went off to design class in the evening today and finally returned those comics by Masumura Hiroshi and the art magazine that Mr. Oizumi had let me borrow all those many months ago. I mentioned to him about enjoying the comics and also how they same really rare, indeed. In all this time of looking I've only been able to purchase two small books by the same artist... and still kicking myself for not buying some of the reprints of his work that I came across the first time I went through Book Off.

Continued working on the mid-summer card and made very minor progress. In the process my thoughts turned again towards these keyboards here. It seems different Japanese computers have different combinations of keys that are often mixed up enough to confound me in different ways. The keyboards here were very small and for some reason the control key was up in the space where a Caps Lock would normally be. This makes key combinations like ctrl+z and such quite confusing while trying to use Adobe Illustrator.

Later on, I wandered back over to Max Value (which is almost a daily trip when you have a refrigerator, room, and food storage area as small as mine). Two of the cats were here again. They were both perched very cutely upon the back walking ramp of the store... one of them staring at me with a sleepy look and the other meowling quite loudly. I keep thinking lately that it would be nice to help feed these cats... but then I realize most of the food I buy (vegetables and the like) wouldn't be very exciting for a cat.

Miyazaki Jinguu and Thrift Shopping

2010-05-22T23:11:00.000-07:00

Headed out this Saturday morning with the intentions of meeting with a fellow from Brazil named Carlos who had displayed some interest of going to the "Miyazaki Jinguu" (宮崎神宮) which is a shrine located near downtown Miyazaki. Walking up to the bus stop I was noticing that the strange mats set out in the road near our dorms were also up here near the stop as well. But shrugging that off I sat down along with a number of other people sitting here and got my one coin pass marked for the day.

After a ways of waiting, one of the folks waiting here with us (after we were all grumbling about how late one of the busses was) noticed a sign that noted that the busses wouldn't be running from this stop and noted a stop out on the main road where we were supposed to catch the bus instead. Sure enough, when we wandered over that way, there was a bus waiting at the stop and a driver sitting on a bench to the side smoking a cigarette. I gave a brief call to Carlos saying that I would likely be more than a little late due to all this bus nonsense.

Luckily Carlos didn't seem like he was in a huge hurry because he was still at Carino Miyazaki where his class had let out some time earlier, when I finally trundled off the bus to meet with him there. I bought a coffee and a sandwich at the Tully's here. I have to say that buying a sandwich in Japan is often a big rip-off. So far it seems that the ones I've come across take the sneaky route of pushing all the fillings in the bread up along the visible edge of the sandwich with pretty much unfilled bread towards the back. This makes the thing look good in the display case but takes most of the satisfaction out of eating it.

The day had seemed like it would be a perfectly overcast and cool day... but as we stepped out of Carino we suddenly realized that rain had started to pour down. Lucky for us there was a cheap shop where we both purchased some 200 Yen umbrellas and then continued on our way to the bus stop that would take us to Miyazaki Jinguu.

I was slightly reprimanded by the bus driver for leaving open one of the bus windows. This made me kinda angry and I wanted to go back and yell about how his bus is like an over-heated death trap (seriously... even on a rainy day I found it ridiculous how much like an oven those busses were)! But I held myself back and we wandered over to the shrine. It's interesting looking at a place like this. I really don't have much knowledge of the Shinto religion or much so I feel like I don't have a great background for appreciating places like this. Carlos' family is actually from Japan originally so he was able to note a few things to me like the symbol on the gate that is the sign of the emperor.

Overall I think I just relegate myself to enjoying sites like this in the best way that I can. Seeing the curious and interesting architecture and design quality of it all without really feeling any "spiritual connection". I suppose you can't ask much from a materialist atheist like myself.... but yeah, I can respect the outer visible aspects of the culture in some ways at least... even if I don't don't go through all the steps of offering up money and clapping or whatever.

I guess I'll mostly let the photos speak for themselves here because I'm not feeling like going into huge descriptions. There was some odd building off to the side, some fun "koma-inu" (狛犬) or "guardian dogs" that we had fun impersonating, there was also a building here that seemed to be set up for weddings or the like (with one looking like it was set to happen right at that moment).

There was another shrine near the wedding building that was kinda' interesting. Some kind of statue of a horse was here along with some plaque that looked like a letter written to a mother and father. From the main shrine off to the left and right were some smaller graves and such... or perhaps memorials. I get lost on the details of it all... and easily distracted by things like holes in trees where little black insects play about in the muck.

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From here we wandered onward and northward past the gate of the shrine and down the road. At this point I realized that this was pretty much the same location that I had come to quite some time ago when we visited the museum here. Of course my goal today wasn't to revisit the museum, but rather to visit the Book Off store located here that I was unaware of previously as well as the Geo store that was only a little ways down the road from the Book Off.

After having picked out a number of interesting and cheap comics from the Book Off here and also buying the World of Golden Eggs DS game from the Geo store, we wandered back towards the shrine where the bus stop back into town was located. The rain was pouring down pretty hard at this point. Seemed like it wasn't the best day to be wandering around shopping... but here we were... so we might as well make the best of it no?

The bus we took from here led us back to the stop near Carino Miyazaki (カリーノ宮崎) but we did have to walk a little ways to get to the Miyazaki train station, and the bus to Aeon Mall that waited for us there. Neither of us seemed particularly interested in looking through Aeon, although we stopped to pick up some free coffee samples from Kaldi on our way to Yamada Denki. Carlos had the idea similar to my own previous one of buying a new laptop here. After quite awhile of looking through the selections and such I think he realized that everything here was much too expensive to be justified... although it didn't seem like he's given up on buying a laptop here (unlike myself).

Walking from Yamada Denki we both joked around about the repetitive and cutesy theme song that the store had and how it must be slowly driving the people who work there insane. We stopped off at a restaurant along the way and got a little something to eat. After this we noted a bunch of yellow banners for a "Viking" restaurant. Since I'd already been through the confusion of sorting out what "viking" meant and where it came from I tried to explain it to Carlos. I noted how it's a term for "all you can eat" buffets and has something to do with an old film called "The Vikings" where they are shown partaking in a big feast. I noted more specific details of this in an earlier blog if you're really interested.

We walked over from here and stopped in again at Hard-Off and Off-House which is like the thrift-stores that one might find back in the US. Off-House is mostly overpriced household goods and clothing. The clothing doesn't fit me and I don't really have the money or the space in my dorm for the decorations and furniture. Upstairs in Hard-Off it was interesting looking through games and toys though. I did finally give in and buy a copy of Parappa the Rapper for Playstation that I had noticed there before. Also bought a Ge ge ge no Kitaro toy that looked like it was from a happy meal or something like that.

Taking buses back from the mall and then back towards the college, we had time to stop off at A-Too Book Market again to look through some things here. I wound up looking through some things and bought a variety of the old erotic comics they had for sale here although it felt a little rushed since we had to make a bus. Unfortunately we were a little off on the timing for the next bus and wound up having it pass us right as we were making our way to the stop. The next bus we went absurdly early for... and, of course, that bus wound up being late.

All in all... in the end we arrived back at campus safe and sound. Carlos did seem to laugh at me at points throughout this trip for taking so many random photos of silly and inconsequential things like the line of angry vehicles you see on the sign above. I guess it's like the distraction I feel when I see interesting insects in the middle of a historical shrine. Bugs, signs, and all those random bits of visual stimulus... I'm easily distracted by a number of silly things, for sure!

Stuttering Windows, Library Penalties, and Mysterious Insects

2010-05-21T23:11:00.000-07:00

Went to Japanese class today and then stopped by the GSO afterwards to do some English check work. It's interesting, I need to bring my audio recorder along one of these days, but the computer here makes an interesting loud stuttering noise whenever Windows XP starts up on it.

After finishing up my work there, I went downstairs and attempted to check some books out, after recently turning in some long-overdue books. At this point I found out what the penalty for checking in books late here was. They don't charge any fees or such... but rather they restrict you from checking out books for the same amount of time that you were late in turning them in.

Seeing that this was the case I went back with the books I had selected and took a variety of photographs of images and text from the pages. Most of it had to do with books on birds, frogs, and insects and the noises that they made.

After this was done I wandered out and began noting a variety of insects that I could find on my way home. At first the most notable thing was all the baby and full sized spiders that were around now. There were especially a large number of spiders that made tunnel like webs in the bushes along the way home.

At some point I noted one really strange bug that jumped straight into a spider web after I had started it a bit. Looking at it, it had a characteristically strange shape to it with some protrusions sticking up from it's back. A couple women stopped at one point when I pointed it out to them but they didn't seem to know what kind of bug it was either. Later on, looking in my insect guide... I'm still at a loss... what could this strange bug be. I did free it from the web before wandering away... snapping a little shot of it's stunned underbelly before it came back to and wandered off.

I stopped again, on the way to the dorms, by the sight of a strange and dark hole in a tree. Looking at it, I could make out some kind of shape inside. It somewhat blended with the wooden color of the tree but the big white shape clutched beneath it made it stand out somewhat. Looking close it was a huge spider clutching an egg sac underneath it! Scary looking... but still very interesting to find.

Can't say much about what I did when I got back home. I have a way of keeping myself busy these days, although the time working on thing often blurs into an undefinable shape of constant trodding and plodding through a variety of "tasks" I've set up for myself. Plus there is always the occasional distraction from YouTube videos or other shiny objects on the internet.

Did get to see one of the cats perched up in a new place tonight, while making my way to the Max Value store next door. I feel sad that I can never own a cat of my own without constantly taking allergy medications or the like. Seeing a cat or few in the alleyway is really a highlight of my evenings sometimes.

A Series Of Observations

2010-05-20T23:11:00.000-07:00

Fake bird in the sky... real bird on the ground.

The cat perches himself in one of it's favorite alleyway hideaways.

The orange and green plants continue to crawl upwards and outwards, as if beckoning for a jungle to come and join them in surrounding the air-filtering machines.

It's just a Thursday here... not too much to say for myself, although the heat is really getting to me... not even really summer yet... just great! At least I can enjoy the flowers, while I shake my fist at the hot-house weather that allows them to grow so damned tall!

Watered Snails and Wettened Wires

2010-05-19T23:11:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I had been somewhat worried about those little snails clinging to the back of the gym building like they had been after several warm days without any rain. Today was a nice and wet pouring day for them, however. They were all merrily crawling about the wall with their little antennae sticking out. I wondered what it was about that wall that they enjoyed. Perhaps some barely visible food source? I didn't see them hanging out on many of the other walls around here, so there must be something that draws them to it.

We had lunch with Professor Hirase once again at noon and then I proceeded to class from there. After class I had arranged with Hirase to come back to his office and fax some financial aid documents. Unfortunately I was all mixed up in the head and wound up walking all the way back to my dorm, receiving a call from him almost immediately after I realized what I had forgotten. Luckily he was nice enough to wait around till I came back to get it all taken care of.

Noticed this vehicle parked out front of the dorm. Once again the weathered look of something enchants my eye. I'm also intrigued by all the hanging colorful wires drenched in water droplets like a cat peering up at a sparkly and mystifying toy. I resisted the urge to paw at it, however.

In Professor Hirase's office we once again had a little bit of fun with the fax machine. It initially sucked both sheets I needed to send through at once, and then didn't seem like it wanted to take the second sheet when we put it back up into the feeder. Eventually it went through and gave the indication that it had sent 2 sheets (二枚) to the Evergreen Financial Aid office, so I'm glad that's through. Also thought I'd post here an photo of one of the gifts that Professor Hirase seems to have gotten from Olympia... a calendar by local Olympia artist Nikki McClure. It's nice to see familiar things like this here, even though I'm off in Japan like this.

Speaking of Evergreen... I hadn't mentioned it in the last blog... but Monday night I registered for classes around midnight (which coincided with the 8 am Monday registration time in the Pacific Time Zone). I'm still not sure how everything is going to work out in the end because I want to try to possibly arrange for a 4 credit individual contract in addition to my two classes. I'm also interested in possibly getting into the Hybrid Music course.... but I'll have to wait till I get back to the States for that. For now I'm currently registered for both of Ben Kamen's "Introduction to Electronic Music I" and "Numbers: Music and Tone". I'm really looking forward to continuing some media based study into sound. I was disappointed to see a class on Flash animation that had been added and then canceled since I looked last. That's the kind of thing I'd be totally into taking.

Anyways... the rest of the day... let's see... taking my time to stroll about when I'm not involved in classes or work on projects in my room. I'm noticing more and more of the flowers coming to bloom as the spring itches to push it's way into the Summer. Birds are everywhere and constantly making noises that make me regret not carrying my portable audio recorder on me at all times. And then there's the silly entertainment that I can snag from the internet to patch in moments of my time and keep me in touch with things back home. Had the next to last episode of Lost last night. Although I've been entertained by the show, I'm really looking forward to it coming to and end. Something I can put behind me for better or for worse.

Final note about another little bug that hitched a ride on my belly into the dorm. At the time it came in with me everyone seemed to think it was a "kanabun" (カナブン) or "drone beetle"... however, looking further into it in my insect guide, I think it's a kind of "Koganemushi" (コガネムシ) or "Scarabaeid Beetle" or more specifically the "Ookiirokogane" (オオキイロコガネ). After admiring his reddish gold appearance for a period of time, I finally took the elevator with him back down to the 1st floor where I found a bush to let him loose in. Hope the rest of his night was pleasant enough.

Shochuu Mimai Card Begginings

2010-05-17T07:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a very short and brief post for Monday the 17th of March. Went back to Mr. Oizumi's design class for the first time in awhile. For some reason my password for logging on to the campus didn't seem to be working (trying multiple variations of it). Eventually Oizumi let me log in with his own password and I started on one of two assignments. Between doing a multiple page children's book or a mid-summer greeting card, I chose the greeting card. The term used on cards like these is "Shochuu mimai" (暑中見舞い) or "checking on someone's health in the hot season".

Nothing much to show for the card for today, although I did get a good start on it. Instead I posted some photos here of the stop sign and such on the corner. The textures, the rust, and the general aging textures of it all are interesting to me.

An Alleyway of Cats and Flowers

2010-05-15T23:11:00.000-07:00

I feel better today, genuinely so... It's like the off-ramp exit from Hack-your-lungs-out Highway is steadily coming into view. I still feel bad confining myself to my room like this. If I was into repeating past mistakes I'd go out and take an epic bike ride somewhere today... but that would just be asking for a dip back into illness again... so I'll bide my time... get more rest... wait till next weekend perhaps.

In the meantime, I'll take my enjoyable strolls between the dorm and Max Value for what they are. There are some lovely flowers growing at spots along the alleyway these days, after all. And the cats are often a fun sight to pass by. I wonder if they have a deal with someone at the Max Value or something. They provide the sense of "cute" to those passing through on their way to and from the store, and maybe someone there feeds them? They must be getting fed somehow or another considering how regularly they hang out around here.

Antibiotic Thoughts, Edible Gifts, and Nextdoor Noisy

2010-05-14T23:11:00.000-07:00

Not too much to say about today. I still feel a bit "guh" and am trying to see about remedying that with more rest and sleep. I was reading a few things this morning that put my flummoxing about trying to get "proper dosages of antibiotics" into perspective. I guess that most cases of bronchitis don't even need antibiotics to cure it. So now are we moving from the Japanese medical system not prescribing me a proper regiment of antibiotics to the Japanese medical system improperly prescribing antibiotics?

This whole thing makes me feel frustrated because I know how harmful antibiotics can be if you use them all "willy nilly". I was given an impression by the doctors that antibiotics were needed in my case though. I suppose it would make me feel better if the Japanese medical system had more tests in place to determine whether a disease is bacterial or viral. I mean, couldn't they swab my throat or something like what they do in cases of strep throat? I guess I'm just getting two very agitating conclusions out of this:

A. The Japanese medical system likes to throw antibiotics at colds and all other assortments of viral based illnesses that don't benefit from antibiotics "just in case".

B. The dosage of antibiotics when administered is doled out in doses below the recommended regiment (of one to two weeks) and likely to contribute to greater immunity from antibiotics for future strains of bacterial infections in the body.

I'd like to not take a grim view like this, and I hope I don't piss anyone off by saying this... I'm certainly open to discuss this more with anyone who thinks I'm off base here. It's just the more I read about the situation and compare that to my own experience, the more I think there is something fundamentally broken in the way that health professionals here in Japan deal with antibiotics and their usage. Hmmn... mumble mumble.

That aside... I did have one pleasant surprise today from Ko. It seems like only recently she had brought me some fruit. Today she called and brought me over some "saba" (鯖) or "mackerel" (one of my favorite fish to eat) as well as a big slice of "suika" (西瓜) or "watermelon". In my sick daze I forget where she said she got them from, still... seems rather nice to bestow me with gifts of food like that.

Ending the day off back towards frustration and annoyance, however... It's like the dorm next door is set on making the noisy-noisy party thing an occasion for every bloody weekend! Today it looked like they had hordes of guests wandering over and let in the front of the dorm... and then the laughing, and hollering, and yelling, and singing, and screaming, and hooting, and bellowing, etc, etc, etc.... carried outward and dashed against the side of the dorm like some kind of hammer.

I'm alright with noise to some degree, I'd even say before I was a little amused by it, but lately they've been taking it to levels that rival the construction on obnoxiousness. Maybe it has something to do with being sick and irritable... but tonight the clapping was really getting to me especially. They have an obnoxious habit of clapping along while they noisily laugh and guffaw that makes me thirsty for blood! Gah gah gaaaaahh!!

Visiting A Japanese Hospital

2010-05-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

Today I went back up to the campus health center trying to deal with this chronic cough, throat, slight fever thing that's been plaguing me. The medications that the doctor gave me on my last visit worked a little but still didn't seem to be getting rid of the trouble. I worried that it might be some kind of infection in my throat, as did the doctor.

Walking to the doctor's was provided with clear and sunny weather to contrast somewhat heavily with the previously rainy or wet days that I had made this similar trek during. Along the way I noticed a multitude of thin webs coating the upper parts of the bushes. There were even a few small versions of those gargantuan webs and spiders that I saw so much of back in the fall. Little bugs are creeping back everywhere I guess.

I arrived at the health center and checked in at the front. After a short wait I met with the doctor and he told me that the medications that I'd likely need aren't available at this center and thus he recommended I get seen by a doctor at the college-related hospital located nearby.

After he called over to the hospital for another English speaking doctor and wrote me up a letter... sending me quickly on my way. I didn't have a car so I would have to bike it. This, of course, caused somewhat of a coughing fit in me... but since I needed to get over there in a hurry, the option of looking for a ride wasn't too favorable. At least the hospital was only about 15 minutes away.

Arriving inside was somewhat confusing. Today the place was quite busy and, not only that, but there were a volley of forms and processing that the nurses on duty wanted me to go through before I even got to speak with the doctor there. At least one of the nurses was kind enough to sit aside with me and explain some of the weird questionnaire type form things to me in a simplified spoken Japanese. They also got my weight, height, and temperature... ending off with a measurement of my blood pressure which had actually gone totally down to around 124 which is considered totally normal blood pressure range! Awesome news, especially since I was worried that my having rode my bike here and being stressed out from the rigmarole of this all would have driven it up. On an amusing tip about the blood pressure machine, it was a pretty fancy one and even played digitized classical music to you while it tightens itself around your arm... heh heh.

The doctor seemed like a nice enough guy, when I finally got in to see him. After doing some checking and talking to me he concluded that I had a case of acute bronchitis and sinobronchial syndrome. I expressed to him my worry over my impression of Japanese medicines so far. It seemed to me like a lot of the medication offered in Japan was given in fairly weak doses compared to what is prescribed in America and I was worried that, for someone like me who is over double the weight and size of most normal Japanese, it wouldn't be strong enough. The doctor seemed really hesitant to prescribe me anything too strong, but in the end prescribed me with a drug called "Kurarishiddo" (クラリシッド) which is a form of the antibiotic Clarithromycin (クラリスロマイシン).

I let my nervousness be known about the short period of time I was being prescribed the drug for (2 pills per day for 3 days). In my experience in America antibiotics are usually prescribed for a strech of a full week or more and the doctors have always gone on about how important it was to follow a full regiment of taking the drugs. Reading online later only makes me a little more nervous now since a page on Clarithromycin notes that the typical prescription period ranges from 7 to 14 days!

In the end I have to do the best with what I'm given I suppose. Part of me felt bad about this all, worrying that I was being annoying to the doctors by raising all these questions rather than just "going along with things". I know that people usually aren't expected to say anything contrary or argumentative to someone who is in a higher position than you in Japan. Still, this is matters of my own health so I really feel like it shouldn't be too out of line to raise at least a few questions in the process, no?

Checking out from the hospital and getting my drugs was interesting. They give you a kind of card (like a plastic credit card) that you put into a machine. The machine tells you how much you owe for the doctor's visit (in my case it was 1010 yen) and you insert cash in return for your card back along with a receipt. For the prescription portion you move over to another desk where the woman helps you fax your prescription over to the local pharmacy you want to pick it up from (luckily there was one within a block from here) and then they send you on your way.

Pedaling my bike from the hospital over to the pharmacy, I stopped on the corner breifly and noticed some man driving by with little white bandages stuck to various spots on his face. He was making odd noises and making flailing hand gestures at all the other cars around him (as if he was trying to smite them or chop them down) as he waited to turn at the intersection. Nearly avoiding locking gaze with the old crazy man, I headed down on my way to the pharmacy and had a very short wait in getting my meds. I forget what the final price was, but it was pretty cheap overall.

I was pretty hungry by this point, so I stopped off at a little ramen shop after being lured in by the cute drawings of tanuki everywhere. Inside was an old couple who worried at first that I would be able to read the menu and seemed relieved when I ordered from it in Japanese. I wound up getting something pretty basic... the "moyashi raamen" (もやしらあめん) or "beansprout ramen"... also ordered an onigiri (おにぎり) on the side.

The ramen wasn't too bad although nothing extraordinary. The onigiri seemed to have a little bit too much salt on it for my tastes as well. All this abstaining from salt for the sake of my blood pressure much be changing the tide of my palate towards being less able to handle as much of the stuff as I could before, eh? On the flip side, abstaining from salt as much as I have must be doing something if my blood pressure has been able to lower itself all the way from "Moderate Stage 2" high blood pressure down to "Normal" blood pressure in only a period of a few months.

Rode my bike home from here stopping off at the Matsuda Store for some vegetables. As I pulled up and surveyed the offerings out front I heard a very distinct meow and looked over to see a cat sitting in an empty box atop the display of goods as if surveying it's domain. Inside I stocked up on a variety of delicious green things like lettuce and cucumbers. Also picked up a pack of some really tasty looking tomatoes.

Lately I've been really into eating tomatoes, even if they are a little pricey... they seem to be a good way of making food more flavorful without having to use a bunch of salt-laden sauces and stuff. Simple and sweet, but not too sweet... I especially love the ones that have that weird "gardeny" flavor. That's not the best description, I know... but still... it's the only way to describe it that creeps into my mind.

Druggedly Watching Ants Scurry Along

2010-05-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

So I was still feeling ill and the medications I've been taking was making me feel sleepy, but waking up today I felt like I might as well try to go to lunch with everyone and my Japanese class today. I've been happy to see a lot of bugs starting to pop up everywhere around lately. This morning it was the sight of a little red ladybug or "tentoumushi" (天道虫). I wrote the kanji there for a specific purpose. Usually I've only seen it written in katakana (テントウムシ) which is how many animal or insect names get written (even though they have kanji equivalents). In this case, I'd never realized what the name Tentoumushi means. The kanji are "heaven", "road", and "insect". Although it looks like "tentou" or "amaji" (天道) alone is the name of a deity of heaven and earth associated with the sun. Interesting stuff...

Lunch went well enough and I felt in alright spirits, perhaps because I had yet to take my next dose of medication. The snacks that we ate were brought in by students, one from Fukuoka that was a little yellowish thing with some beanpaste in it. There was also another that was brought over from Okinawa and was a very rich dark chocolate flavor... something I imagine my mother would enjoy. Ko was the one who had been to Okinawa and brought that snack with her. I spoke up and said "You went to Okinawa, really?" (本当に沖縄に行ったか). She laughed because apparently she had mentioned this before and I had replied in almost the same way. Guess that's what happens with being sick and somewhat spaced out like this for so long.

Another fellow named Yuuji, pictured on the left of the first image above there, had come today because he was interested in eventually going to The Evergreen State College. Honestly, I can't remember us talking much about the college though. Still interesting to meet with someone interested in going over there.

I won't go into class too much, I had taken my next big round of pills right before going to class so I slowly but surely started to feel bogged down and sleepy as everything progressed. I do think I did read some interesting articles on the topic I was researching... but other than that I didn't really get too much accomplished.

As I walked back from class I kept stopping to appreciate the nature around me. I may have been spaced out a little, but being spaced out is perfect for activities such as starting at ants as they crawl across a gently sunlit and shady tree. I must have stood there for a good 10 minutes or so just watching them go back and forth, changing angles every now and again, and snapping photos when I could.

After this I went back past the gym where I had previously seen a network of anthills. I had a weird little jump in the pit of my stomach when I noticed a van parked precariously close to one of the main hills. Did it run over the hill? I was soon relieved when I saw the wheel was actually a good distance from the colony and they were busily scuttling about as usual.

The grass near to the dorms was all being systematically mown down and I noticed a bird hopping about in the grass here. I couldn't see too well at the time, but looking back at the photos here... it seems the little bird has something green caught in it's beak. I guess mowing down all that shelter for the bugs has given a bit of an exciting buffet for our feathered friends, no?

Eating My First Biwa (Loquat)

2010-05-11T23:11:00.000-07:00

I got quite a lot of rest throughout broken sessions of sleep both yesterday and today. Finally woke up a little ways before 1 PM on time to take my pills, eat something, take a shower and get ready to go to class at 3 PM. I was still feeling a little crummy but the sleep had got me up to going to at least one class today.

The class was with Professor Yuki in the Art building. When I got there, I noticed everyone's things were in the classroom but no one was there. I wandered back outside and milled around noticing both a little grey pillbug or "dangomushi" (ダンゴムシ) which translates to "dumpling bug" and a very tiny mantis or "kamakiri" (カマキリ). As I struggled to snap a photo of the small thing that wasn't blurry, the little dumpling bug scurried away... so I'm left with only the small mantis to show to you. Pillbugs are pretty common where I'm from as well, in Washington State, but still... I suppose it was somewhat special being the first of them that I had seen here in Japan now.

I talked a little to a faculty and student from the engineering department that enthusiastically introduced themselves to me in English. I noted the insects to them and they noted that there was going to be lots of insects coming out now that it's Spring and soon to be Summer. As I excitedly mused about the appearance of more bugs my tutor Tsuyoshi came outside and told me that the class was going to be spending most of the time upstairs in a photo developing room today.

The activity wasn't too complicated. We took turns stepping into a dark room where we were given photographic paper. A variety of trinkets and items were available to line up and arrange on the paper and then we shined a light onto it all for a brief second or so. From here we would turn around and develop the photo paper with the little baths of chemicals behind us. It was interesting the kind of patterns and plays with the light we were all able to get with this technique. I also have to mention that the smell of the chemicals were really nostalgic for me. Both from my photography class I took back in high school and the limited amount of developing that I did while I was a student in the pre-press, design, and printing program at Clover Park Technical College. It's funny how, after all this time away from a smell like that, memories instantly flood back to me when I experience it.

Later on, back in my dorm room, I finally pulled out and tried some "biwa" (枇杷) or "loquats" that I had bought on sale at the store. I was reading online that the things are usually pretty expensive but I got a pack of 11 of the things for only 150 Yen. They didn't look particularly super-fresh or pretty... but they weren't molding or anything. The woman in the store explained to me that I just have to peel the skin off by hand so I proceeded to do so. I found they peeled pretty easily with very little mess (perhaps a little juice on my hands). Supposedly these things are closely related to apples but they have more of a pear-like consistency. I worried a little when I read online that the seeds had a kind of poison in them, but looking at the size of the seeds.... I don't think they're something someone would accidentally swallow unless they're being really reckless with it.

To continue on the fruit theme, Ko (who I had talked to a little earlier) stopped by to give me a hyuga-natsu (日向夏) and an orange. She mentioned that they had come from the organic farm on campus. To reciprocate I went ahead and offered her a couple of the loquatｓ. Those things are pretty good, but I don't know if I can eat 11 before they go bad... so yeah!

Cough cough cough... Sleep sleep sleep... FIREFLY!!

2010-05-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

So I just barely got into the doctors before he was about to leave today, but he took me back and spoke to me despite that. I told him about the cough I had been having and was prescribed a new volley of medicines for this. They also took my temperature again and it looked like it was climbing up there. Although I had intended to go to design class with Mr. Oizumi today I got home and reached the sleepy feeling conclusion that resting up as much as possible to tryn' beat whatever was ailing me would likely be the better option in this case.

So that's mostly what I did... lots of sleep... lots of odd dreams swirling around. I can't remember the details of most of them, although one had something to do with working at a hotel in Japan that had some odd foreboding western styled interior. There was some confusion over the system of check in and check out that involved a complex swapping of cards and papers from a series of small metal boxes. At some point the dream also took place in a kind of maze where I had to wrestle with some kind of monstrous creature.

Between sleeping I did wake for awhile to work on some audio recordings and blog posting stuff. At first I thought it was raining outside, and I wanted to get some rain sounds recorded, so I rushed outside and was disappointed to find that (although there were puddles everywhere) the main noise I thought was "rain" was actually the sound of someone taking a shower in the boy's dorm. There were a few watery noises coming from the pipes here, however. Eventually I moved up towards the gym to try and get away from some of the noise from people around the dorm. As I was recording the trickling sounds of the pipes there I noticed something sparkling and spectral looking in the grass. It was all alone... just one little glowing shape... a firefly! We don't have them back where I come from in Washington State so this was my first time seeing the things. It was pretty exciting even though it was only one and wasn't flying or anything. Just to see the glowing little fellow climbing about through the grass was pretty magical. I'm going to look forward to seeing more of them once the summer comes along... might even make enduring the heat more tolerable.

Oh... and sorry I have no photographs for this one. It would have been nice to snap a shot of the bug but I didn't bring my camera out there with me at the time. You'll just have to use your imagination I suppose... or wait till the future when I do capture a firefly on camera (if I do... hope I do... yeah).

Longer Bike Trip to A-Too and Then Some

2010-05-05T23:11:00.000-07:00

So today was a nice day, one of the last of our holiday days for Golden Week here, known as "Kodomo no Hi" (子供の日) or "Children's Day". Since I still had that one book store out in Kiyotake still on my mind, I figured I'd be kinda' like a kid myself today and ride my bike expressly for the purpose of looking through books and video games. Then again, I figured the exercise and scenery I would take in on the way would also be good.

Along the way, and a little ways past where I'd normally turn for Book Off, I came across a Midori store where I stopped in order buy myself some new shaving razors (since Midori has a better price on the things than Max Value, I've found). As I was picking that up I also noticed something interesting here.

There was a huge rack of old VHS tapes on sale for 100 Yen apiece. Most of the videos were pretty bad.... schlocky American movies, dull looking animated titles, etc... I did spot this one gem amongst the mix titled "三顔魔王" which was given the title below the kanji as "Three-head monster" although from the Kanji I'd think the tile would be more aptly translated as "Three-headed Demon King". Dunno, couldn't really find any info on it online and I don't even have a VCR on hand... but I'm hoping I can find one somewhere to watch it on. I've totally been wanting to watch some old obscure Japanese monster movies (something the rental store nearby is sorely lacking in).

Outside the Midori store I walked over towards my bike and then noticed a little skittering shape on a pillar here. I wasn't exactly sure what kind of bug it was at the time but it seemed to have a pretty distinct look to it. Didn't really look like either a bee or a fly but something else. According to my insect guide, the closest thing I could find to it was something called a "rurichuurenji" (ルリチュウレンジ) which I guess is a kind of "sawfly" variation.

Leaving from here it wasn't too far to the little underpass spot followed by a turn to the right past the big concrete waffle hill. It took a little longer than I had suspected before but following the bus route eventually landed me at my destination of the A-Too Book Market.

At the book off I found some interesting old books. I also finally broke down and bought a copy of the Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten (漢字そのまま楽引辞典) which is basically a Kanji dictionary in the form of a "game" for your Nintendo DS. It seems this will be a much better alternative to shelling out a few hundred dollars for one of those pocket dictionaries. I think the ones that come with a stylus tend to be pretty spendy as well, so yeah. This thing was only around 2000 Yen... a total deal!

Eventually I finished up at the book store and rode down from here towards Handsman and Tsutaya. I didn't really see too many other stores or places I wanted to look around at. Did poke in briefly to one store near Tsutaya that I thought might be a bookstore but it was pretty much all video games. From there I finally started back on my way retracing my patch down along the bus route. I have to say the hill on the way back is a little more intense than coming to which is odd since I thought it would be the opposite.

Before we continue along, I'd like to interject another lesson in everyday Japanese writing here. I thought this would be a good example because it uses the "zu" form which I can't recall really going into in my studies of Japanese in college before now. The meaning of the sign can likely be understood by the little picture of the buckled-up person there. Reading the text, however... it reads "shiitoberuto wo wasurezu ni" (シートベルトを忘れずに). According to my Japanese teacher, this "zu" form of "wasureru" (忘れる) or "forget" is similar to the form "wasurenai" (忘れない) or "don't forget".

Apparently the "zu" form is taken from a literary form of Japanese, however it was insisted to me that saying "wasurezu ni" instead of "wasurenai de" for "don't forget it" is often times found in Japanese speech as well as writing. So, for now, I guess imprint this one on your brain (if you're learning Japanese as I am) and look for other instances of "zu" being used in the future. I know I will.

Coming back to where Book Off was located, I swung back over there, since I had felt kinda' rushed to look around the day I had come before. I'm glad I did because I found a few things that I wanted. One book in particular called "Pure Trance" by Junko Mizuno... I was hoping I would find some of her work while I was here in Japan. Interesting to see that her stuff, even in Japanese, is oriented from left to right (as an American comic would).

After Book Off, I needed to get back home but was starting to feel quite hungry. It was then I started noticing that most of the restaurants around here seemed to be closed for the holiday. Started getting nervous that I wouldn't find a place before having to bike the stretch home. However, soon enough, I saw a little ramen shop off the side of the road. Wound up going inside and ordering the katsu-donburi. I kept filling up glass after glass of water not only because I was really thirsty but because they provided tiny cups here. That's one thing about so many Japanese restaurants... tiny tiny cups! I don't get how someone would ever possibly be able to make it through a meal (let alone a few minutes) with cups that small. Maybe if I was two years old or something, yeesh.

The ride back home wasn't too bad. Overall the whole bike ride, albeit a little winding, put me in pretty good spirits. This is why it puzzled me when I started up with a really bad cough into the evening. I didn't quite feel totally ill but the cough didn't seem "normal" to me. I just hoped I wouldn't have a full relapse of that cold from before.

Bike To Forest Shrine and Cold Coffee Types Explained

2010-05-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

I didn't really plan on doing much of anything today other than working on projects and stuff in my room. I did need to go to get groceries sometime in the afternoon. When I got outside the weather was a little warm but not too hot in general. Instead of walking to the store I figured I'd hop on my bike and ride around the neighborhood to get some exercise first. Then one thing led to another and I was soon riding down the hill and along a road westward towards Kaeda canyon again. I suppose it makes sense since today is "Greenery Day" (みどりの日) which would be appropriately celebrated by getting out into nature.

With my bicycle tire fixed up and no new rupture to speak of (thankfully), the trip there and back was a lot quicker compared to before (when I was put in the position of walking my flat-tired bike). Because it was late in the afternoon it seemed like the noises of birds, insects, frogs, and other creatures were out in full force. I regretted not bringing my audio recorder with me, but I didn't plan on doing much more than walking to the store at first.

Instead of returning to the forest trail... this time I went up the flight of stairs to the small shrine housed here. After getting to the top of the stairs I noticed one of those purification water things with a cup to the right although looking at the water one wouldn't feel very purified by using that murky stuff... at least that's what I would think.

To the left there was a kind of swamp on a hill that was interesting. The frogs here made a really peculiar croaking noise that seemed different from frog noises I had experienced before. Once again, really wishing that I had my recorder to capture this stuff... pledging to myself to try and return on a similar warm afternoon day sooner or later here.

Before leaving here I did peek at the shrine a bit. Some interesting wooden carvings on the front side and a faded painting on the backside.

Riding back was just as nice as riding to and I was surprised that I didn't feel more tired or worn, considering that I had that big tiring day of walking around Miyazaki City only a couple days back. Still, I arrived back at Max Valu and set about my shopping. It was early enough that they still had some marked down citrus fruits on the sale rack. Picked up some hyuga natsu and some other kind of "mystery citrus fruit".

Before I go I wanted to post something educational here in this blog. I wanted to go into some details in this blog about writing, labels, signs, etc... in daily life here. Having bought a bottle of iced coffee from the store I figured I would point out the distinctions between lables on this product. It might come in handy for those who are shaky with reading kanji and don't want to get the wrong type. So here are the two variations in the photo below.

The one on the right is the one I personally try to avoid but many of you would likely prefer. The kanji reads as "bitou" (微糖) or "low sugar". I suppose they're just trying to emphasize that it has sugar but "not too much sugar"... for health sake or something. The one next to it on the left is read as "mutou" (無糖) or "sugarless" and in my opinion it's the proper way to consume one's coffee... but that's just me.

Honestly, I'd usually rather buy a hot cup of coffee if it weren't so expensive here. The fact of the matter is that you can pay over 300 Yen for a sizable cup of hot coffee from Tullys or Starbucks here in Japan... or you can buy these cheap iced coffee bottles for under 100 Yen.

Day Around Miyazaki By Bus And Foot

2010-05-02T23:11:00.000-07:00

So today was the end of the weekend before Golden Week. Over the next few days that I had off I was thinking about joining a fellow classmate down to visit Kagoshima since I hadn't seen that part of Japan yet. However I started feeling a little ill again and I got an email saying that the trip to Kagoshima was canceled since there would be too many people traveling over Golden Week making it not so worth while.

I did feel like doing something today, however. I had gotten a good amount of rest on Saturday so I wasn't feeling quite so ill today, and thus I decided that I would use my 500 Yen "One Coin Pass" and jaunt out to the city via the bus. As the bus approached the city I noticed that we were bypassing the main street of Tachibana as it was blocked off. We ambled around and eventually made our way to the station where I finally got off the bus.

Even though I had the bus pass, I spent quite a bit of time just wandering around town by foot. The blockade turned out to be related to some kind of street music festival going on. A variety of different bands were playing every block or so be it a woman singing the Tennessee Waltz, children in a high-school band, a woman playing music from Ghibli films on a synthesizer, or a variety of other scattered rock bands. It was interesting seeing this street so open like this and being able to walk down the middle of the street with no cars. Reminded me somewhat of Art's Walk back in Olympia where certain sections of the road would be blocked off as such... although the stretch of road blocked off here was a much more immense.

As I made my way down the street, in the direction I thought was north, and then found myself down at the Oyodo River... I finally got past a misconception I had about directions here for a long time that was tripping me up. I guess I always assumed the main entrance to the station would be facing towards the ocean, but it's not. Looking at a map you have from west to east Tachibana, Miyazaki Station, Aeon Mall, and the ocean. I guess I'm just slow with this stuff... but I'd always had some fundamental flawed impression that Tachibana was somewhere between the station and the mall. Well... at least I figured that out before I left this place, eh?

So most of this day was a combined activity of taking busses and walking crazy distances. From the station I walked down to the river, along the river for several blocks, then up and back to the station (stopping at the Book-Off store along the way).

Once again departed the station, via bus this time, to get to Aeon Mall and walked from the mall across the river to the Hard-Off store there. At the Hard-Off I found a copy of a DVD that I felt a little reluctant buying since it was nearly 2000 Yen but since that was less than half of it's original price (lots of DVDs are absurdly priced around 5000 Yen or so new in Japan) I went ahead and bought it. The DVD was of an old animation from the 60s called "Shonen Jack and the Witch" (少年ジャックと魔法使い) that I'd read a review of online before. Seemed like a rare opportunity to be able to see this thing, so I couldn't resist.

After Hard-Off, I went back to the mall and ate some food at the food court (since I had been ignoring my stomach long enough that it was starting to painfully protest to me). Then I hopped on a bus back to the station and, after a time of waiting, hopped on a bus headed back towards Kiyotake and Kibana. I tried paying more attention along the way to the stops as they came and noted that the Ikeda (池田) stop is positioned right next to the Book Market A-Too. In hindsight I should have probably gotten off and done some shopping here instead, but rather I waited and got off at the second stop after running through a little tunnel (forget the name because it was really long and quickly announced) and from here walked to the Book-Off in Kiyotake.

It was nice to peruse through this place again but new books that I'm interested in seem to be slow in coming. I did find some more Gegege no Kitarou volumes as well as some more of those disgustingly amusing comics by Manga Tarou. I'm going to definitely need to ship some of these back home with me before I leave Japan because I have way more than I can fit in my luggage now. Still, considering how much I would have to pay for all these if I was mail-ordering them at full cost from the states... no matter what the shipping comes out to, it will be a deal.

Didn't have too long to scour here. Since it was about a 10 minute walk from the bus stop to the Book-Off, I hurried off back to the stop leaving some time to make sure I caught my ride home. It was after 10 PM by now and the bus that was coming was the last one. Wouldn't want to get stranded with over an hour to walk back to campus... especially now that my legs were feeling so sore.

On the way home I was amused by the sound coming from the bus driver. Not only was the typical mumble announcement tactic in place, but also the driver seemed to be a pretty heavy breather so you could hear a continual drone of breath in the silent moments before he would announce stops. After this, not much else to say.... We pulled safely back into campus, I made my way back to the dorm, and then just laid down and took the rest of the night to rest.

No Holiday Today

2010-04-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

Although it's called "Golden Week" today wasn't a holiday or day off... kinda' a break in the string of holidays if you will. I suppose you could point out that the weekends aren't holidays either, but still... seeing those are usually days off and how they'll be following into the holidays on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday... I guess you can count them in that sense.

I got an early start ambling up the hill towards class. Noticed a little stitch doll with an astrology sign on it laying on some side-steps to the gym and amusingly, just as I turned up from taking a photo of it. I noticed a student walking by me with the exact same toy hanging along with some other stuffed animal trinkets on his bag. Other than that I generally admired some of the flowers and things blooming around me and changing the scenery. The bushes by the Faculty of Education and Culture (教育文化学部) building labeled as "Haku Chouge" (ハクチョウゲ)　or "Serissa" were flowering with little white flowers that I hadn't seen up until this point.

I had plenty of time before class started to snap some photos of the classroom here. It's Room 414 where pretty much all my Japanese language classes have taken place up to this point. There's a podium located up by a large series of blackboards and rows of rectangular desks.

On the walls are some signs including the one for campus wireless internet. That one has amused me since I arrived here because, to me, it looks like a bolt of lightning is coming from the heavens to smite someone's laptop or something. The other poster is instructing in good energy conservation habits. The first word there "Komamena" (こまめな) is a na-adjective for "taking care". The other part below that reading "Shou Ene" (省エネ) or "Energy Conservation" and "Shuukan" (習慣) meaning "custom, habit, or manners".

From the classroom outside you can see the front entryways to the building here stretching out to the round area where some palm trees stand. On the right side of the blackboard and on the same side in the back of the room are two exits to the long glass window lined hallway. From here you can see the back of the building where the music building, the engineering building, and the art building are located.

Eventually Katsuk, one of the new students from Brazil arrived and we discussed a bit more about possible plans of going down to Kagoshima (鹿児島) over the break. I was feeling better from my illness so I was hoping that would go well. If not this time, it would be nice to find some time to run down there before I leave. Seeing that the area is so close to me now, it would be a shame to never travel there. But, then again, there are lots of places that I haven't really been able to travel to or visit while I've been here. Guess that's just the way things go.

Surprise! It's Golden Week!

2010-04-29T23:11:00.000-07:00

I woke up early today and thought I would go try to see about visiting the dentist's office situated just down the street from the dorms. I got on my bike, which I had finally gotten patched up and fixed recently (after all this time), and rode over to the front of the offices. I noticed the door was locked and the inside dark and then it dawned on me... Golden Week!

So yeah, I had utterly spaced out the fact that today was the first day of Golden Week (ゴールデンウィーク) where a series of holidays are all stacked in close proximity to each other. Today was "Shouwa no Hi" (昭和の日) which is meant as a day to not only celebrate the birth of Emperor Hirohito (The Shouwa Emperor) but also to reflect upon the period he reigned over.

So I guess my teeth will have to wait till a more opportune moment in the future. After snapping some shots of flowers growing nearby the office, I hopped on my bike and rode back home. Until I can get an appointment, I suppose I'll just try to keep up on my brushing and flossing as per usual.

Puddles, Snails, and Construction Birds

2010-04-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

Not much to say for today, although I have some interesting photographs coming up. Today was, of course, another lunch meeting with Professor Hirase and everyone. Nothing too out of the ordinary to report so I'll leave that at that. We also had Intermediate Japanese I class where we were trying to figure out our theme to write about. In the end "Fashion" was decided... not sure exactly how I'm going to handle that or what I have that I can write, but we'll see...

After class I walked along past the gym to get back to the dorms. There were some puddles here that had a really beautiful look to them so I had to snap some shots. The way you could see the texture below the water was really nice and I especially was delighted by the way the small greenery poked it's way up to the surface here. It was like some tiny pond or lake. In fact, I remember often starting at little puddles and streams like this as a child and wondered what it would be like to be a tiny person taking a tiny canoe across it.

Behind the gym I found another delight. There were snails suctioned all over the textured white surface of the back wall here. The way they clung there silently without any motion was very mysterious. I wonder what they are thinking about inside those little shells as they cling there. Perhaps hoping for another refreshing rainfall, no?

It reminds me of a Japanese children's song about snails that I learned fairly early on. It's a fun and simple song so I'll sing it for you here along with some lyrics (and some backing drippy wet sounds that I think a snail might enjoy).

デンデン　ムシムシ　カタツムリ
Den Den Mushi Mushi Katatsumuri
(note: "Dendenmushi" and "Katatsumuri" are two ways of referring to snails)

お前　の　頭　は　どこ　に　ある
Omae no atama wa doko ni aru
(translation: "where is your head")

角　出せ　やり　出せ　頭　出せ
Tsuno dase yari dase atama dase
(translation: "Stick out your horns, stick out your antennae, stick out your head")

The second repeat interjects the word "medama" (目玉) or "eyeballs" instead of "atama".

Eventually I made my way across the little stream and down to the dorm. There was some kind of construction truck parked in front of the dorm with a funny sign in the back urging helmet safety. The illustration made me smile, as I often do with safety signs and things in Japan, I really would love to see more surprised cartoon birds on construction safety signs back in the US.

Missing Toothy Chunk... (again).

2010-04-26T23:11:00.000-07:00

If any of you followed my Live Journal blogs you may have read that I got a load of dental work done before coming to Japan. Tonight, as I was still in the midst of recovering from my cold, I suddenly realized that a sizable little chunk of tooth was missing from one of my lower teeth (on my left side in the back).

I'm not sure what the deal is. It's not like I eat a lot of really hard foods. The only thing I can think of is that tendency to grind and tap my teeth that I have. I've thought about getting one of those mouth-guard things that American football players wear. Yet, another part of me thinks that the sensation of having one of those in all the time would be pretty uncomfortable and somewhat ridiculous. If I keep chipping off parts of my teeth, however, I suppose I might have to sacrifice my dignity and comfort at least in that one respect.

At least the part of the tooth that chipped off is back in the very back of my lower left hand side tooth. If it were butted up against another tooth it might be harder to clean or prevent infection. With it being out in the open like that I'll have a better chance of reaching it and scrubbing the hell out of the thing when I brush.

(Note: I had not good photos or such for this blog post so I used the magic of the interwebs to find me the above image. It's taken and re-sized from this blog where you can see the full sized funny images of the cat and toothbrush... ニャン!)

Drunken Chorus of Hollering

2010-04-23T23:11:00.000-07:00

No fun for me, no fun at all! Curled up like some kind of hibernating sniffling animal. At least I was able to wrap a blanket around me and get some work done on my computer. At certain points throughout most of the night it was impossible to get any sleep.

Being the dawn of another weekend, the boys dorm was up to it's activity of hooting and hollering and carrying on again. Lots of drunken yelling, chanting, clapping, singing, etc... It blasted forth from different windows across the way creating some weird stereo effect.

Seeing this, I couldn't resist the opportunity to set out my audio recorder to document and, later, mix these sounds with. The finish mix is posted above here for your enjoyment. I suppose if something annoying is handed your way, it's often good to make something positive of it however you can, no? Eventually they did shut up but it wasn't till long after three in morning or something nuts like that.

Hit With The Sick, Musing Over Medications

2010-04-22T23:11:00.000-07:00

So like I said in yesterday's post... started feeling ill and feverish by the end of the night. By the morning time I was totally running a fever and feeling like a big sack of ick. Lucky for me the timing of this wasn't too bad. Thursday is a day that I don't have any classes scheduled and I also had a doctors appointment already scheduled for unrelated reasons.

Walking back up to the doctor's office was a little hard though. As I stumbled along my head felt like it was swimming and I just wanted to run back and curl up in my room. Luckily the doctor was able to check on my temperature (which confirmed my fever) and then prescribe me some medicine to help me get over the illness. Interestingly the stuff prescribed this time was different from the stuff the other doctor gave me for my cold then.

At the time I just took the medicines and didn't worry about it too much. I am a little concerned when looking up the info on some of these things online. One of the drugs I was given was called "Iruzaimu" (イルザイム) or "Irzaim" which is a type of "Serratiopeptidase". Looking that up on Wikipedia as well as some other sites online it seems that it has questionable efficacy as an anti-inflammatory agent. The other drug that worried me a little was called "Norufurokisashin" (ノルフロキサシン) or "Norfloxacin". According to the info on that it's a kind of chemo-therapeutic drug which seemed a little bit extreme for a common cold especially when reading some of the scary side-effects on that Wiki page.

I suppose I shouldn't be too worried since I was only for a small run, but next time I might want to talk to the doctor about possibly using some different (less questionable or risky) kinds of drugs. It's really hard to judge completely I suppose. Before this I never had much medical treatment due to my lack of insurance in the states. It does seem like the Japanese medical system and the US medical system has some different approaches or ways of thinking about treating illness or what kinds of drugs to use. I know some over the counter drugs in the US are actually banned over here.

Then again, there are good points to being here in Japan. At least I can see a doctor due to the fact that there is cheap national health insurance. Also, with the doctor on campus, I wasn't charged for any of these medications.

Welcome Party For New Foreign Students

2010-04-21T23:11:00.000-07:00

Today was the scheduled welcoming party for all the new international students. It was being held in the same collapsible wall separated section of the cafeteria but this time they had more of the cafeteria walled off for the event. Unlike the welcome party that I attended back in the fall, this one was very well attended and seemed to generally have more of an official and ceremonial aire about it .

There were some speeches given and everyone was instructed to fill up their cups with some kind of drink for a toast. After all the speeches were through we were all able to start digging in to the food spread out on a variety of tables throughout the room.

Asides from generally socializing and meeting some of the new people they also eventually called some of the new students up to give them all little prize bags. There was also an activity where people were blindfolded with some funny looking eye mask, spun around in circles, and then blindly try pin a pair of eyebrows, a nose, or a goatee on a drawing of a man's face.

I took a go of it myself and got fairly close with my placement of the nose, however there was someone else who got almost exact from another group so they wound up winning the prize.

Eventually the party's scheduled ending time came near (it always seems to come unnaturally quick at these kinds of events) and people started to leave. I went back to my dorm room to work on some things. As the night wore on I started to feel a little odd and, within a period of about five hours or so, I started to feel like I was coming down with a cold or something. Great, I imagine I must have caught something from someone... at least I have another doctor's appointment scheduled for tomorrow... so I guess that corresponds well enough.

Lots of Cats, Lack of Art Class

2010-04-20T23:11:00.000-07:00

Started out the day by going off to get some bills paid off. On the way I spotted these familiar characters lazing about in the back alleyway. I'm pretty sure the orange cat on the motor scooter was the sad looking fellow I saw drenched in the rain a few days ago. Nice to see him in a more comfortable spot today, for sure.

At the bank there was a variety of crafty items on display on one side of the counter. I snapped a photo of one of them and the clerk mentioned that they were made by customers at the bank.

After this I walked across the street from the bank and back up towards Max Valu. Suddenly I started hearing some meowing coming from the street. Confused I looked around and then realized it wasn't from the street itself but actually from a hole in the hedge near the street. Peering within I saw the cat crouching there and meowing. As I was snapping some photos two old ladies also happened along and mused at the cat hiding there.

Back through the alleyway I came to the bank from I once again saw the cats although they had changed positions. The orange cat had been kicked off the scooter as the scooter was no longer there. It seemed to take a position nearby where the scooter had been, however, as if sulking over the removal of it's comfortable seat. The other gray and white cat had moved over next to a nearby drain grate. Then I also noticed another cat that looked quite similar. I guess the way to tell them apart would be that this one had more gray covering it's back and gray covering part of it's left eye.

After returning to my dorm for a short while it was soon time for me to go to my art class, or so I thought. Around 2:40 PM I started to walk up to campus past the Education and Culture building and back to the Art building.

It turns out that we didn't have any class today although Tsuyoshi was here and urged me to stay for awhile. He brewed up some coffee and we talked for a little bit. I guess the room that the class is being held in is a kind of studio room that Tsuyoshi shares with some other students, thus why I've seen him in this room so often since last year. Eventually I finished up my coffee and headed on my way back to the dorms.

Rainy Day Doctor Visit, and Design Class

2010-04-19T23:11:00.000-07:00

So today it was a pretty rainy day overall and I hadn't really slept well at all for assorted reasons which I won't go into here. Still, I wandered up to the health clinic for a check up and visit with the doctor there feeling delirious amidst the pouring rain.

Like I said, don't want to dip too much into medical related things here although I can say that the tests that were done showed that I was in good health overall despite my concerns and it seems as if my blood pressure had lowered significantly compared to last time. I guess cutting all that salt out of my diet was a positive thing.

The other thing scheduled for today was my first design class with Mr. Oizumi (who I had that painting class with last semester). The building it was taking place in was the communications building. I hadn't had a class here before but it was familiar from the time back at the start of my stay when I had delivered some forms for getting access to the campus internet network.

The class was on the first floor down a hallway in a little pocket-like computer room. I was a little late due to some things I had to finish up with at the health center so I tried as best as I could to catch up on the day's activities. Luckily the program we were going over was Adobe Illustrator. I can't say I'm a pro with the program by any means, but I was familiar with many of the basics. Odd going through all this in Japanese though, and yet... even some of the kanji for the commands here were beginning to make sense to me.

We went through an exercise of creating the cartoon character Doraemon's face out of basic shapes and then learned how to lay down curved text and play with distorting the shape of the font. After this we went on to recreating the University of Miyazaki's logo from a poor quality jpeg file (once again using basic shapes). In the end I was able to finish both of the tasks and the class ended for the day although, being a late afternoon class, it was already creeping into evening by the time we left the building.

Biocha Can and Elevator Scar

2010-04-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

Tea can... why are you sitting atop the shoe lockers?

Elevator... why are you missing some of your surfacing?

Intermediate Japanese II, First Day

2010-04-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

Had my first Japanese class with the teacher Ms. Mitsuishi (満石) although since that name is often hard for some to pronounce she said that everyone should call her by her first name Kimiko (貴美子). All in all the teacher seemed to have a very bubbly and cutesy personality to her. She passed out class introduction papers decorated with a floral design up top and a little cartoon bunny holding a four leaf clover on the bottom. There were also little cute faces (made from periods and lines and such) worked in between each syllable of her email address.

As far as class activities went, she mentioned that she hadn't decided what book we would be going out of yet and wanted to get more of a feeling where we were level-wise. She did, however, have an exercise prepared for the class which she passed out. The top had the text "Deeto Shimashou" (デートしましょう！) or "Let's Go On a Date!". Next to this was another set of cutesy cartoon bunnies side by side and cheek to cheek.

The point of the exercise was first to go around and schedule dates with all the other students in the class. There were only six of us so that left a couple days open. Then she pretty much went through the dates day to day (dictated by a timer) and discussed topics from a list of four written on the chalkboard. The thought of the exercise seemed to make everyone blush and giggle at first, but in the end it was fun moving from person to person and getting to talk about different subjects. The time period was pretty short though so some of the date conversations inevitably wound up being one-sided either one way or the other.

After class I walked down to get Professor Hirase's signature for some Global Support Office related documents. Lucky for me, he happened to be in his office so I was able to get him to sign them. On the way out I noticed that the large illustrated English dictionary in his office was turned to the page on insects. There were colorful illustrations of insects on the pages.

Professor Hirase brought up Cockroaches (ゴキブリ) and mentioned and, hearkening back to our conversation about expressions on Wednesday, he mentioned an expression "Gokiburi Teishu" (ゴキブリ亭主) or "Cockroach Husband" which holds the meaning of husbands who make unwanted intrusions into the kitchen while the wife is trying to do her work there. Seems a little old-fashioned and sexist if you ask me (considering a women's place as being in the kitchen or a husband being an unwanted presence there)... then again, Hirase did punctuate the telling of this expression to me by noting that it's not an expression that's really in modern favor anymore.

Bowl In The Mail and "Depollution"

2010-04-15T23:11:00.000-07:00

Got a nice package in the mail today. The pottery (陶磁器) bowl that I had made on the wheel at Tori Kudo's folk's place as well as painted was now fully glazed and fired. It certainly did still have a glaringly crude and misshapen look to it compared to the ones Tori and his father made... but seeing it in a final form like this was really nice and I was happy that he was willing to send it on to me like this. I'll have to toss out that cracked plastic bowl from the 100 Yen shop of mine and start using this for my rice and such instead. Fun fun!

Either way, other that that... I didn't have any classes today but I did work on doing English checks for some material at the GSO. Nothing too much other than some basic grammar mistakes missing instances of "the" and other things like that. One curious thing was something that I suppose isn't exactly "wrong" but just "odd".

There was the use of the word "depollution". I don't know about other people, but in the context they were using it, I'd usually expect to see the word "decontamination" used. It's also interesting that a Google search of "depollution" pulls up non-English sites or sites from the UK. Perhaps it's just an American perspective here... I don't know any fellow Americans who have ever uttered the term "depollution" in favor of "decontamination"... this is probably the first time I've ever seen this word used... anyone else have anything to say on the matter?

After finishing up with the English check I stopped by the cafeteria and got some food there. It's funny how I almost always order the same thing here. I remember hearing a former exchange student to here complain about the lack of variety but here I am contented to order the same thing again and again.

Intermediate Japanese I, First Day

2010-04-14T23:11:00.000-07:00

Today was yet another group lunch together in Professor Hirase's office. It wasn't raining today like it was yesterday and as I walked up the steps behind the dorms I noticed how thickly caked with mud and dirt they were, having been covered by a flow of muddy water yesterday.

This time, when I arrived at the office, it seemed like not as many people came, however. Kyo and Aileen (both from Taiwan) came here for the first time in quite awhile. Rin (a new exchange student from ????) also came once again. There was also a Japanese girl who was studying English named Satou (that's actually her last name, didn't catch her first) who joined us and urged me to talk in English with her.

One point touched on was various expressions in both Japanese and English such as "killing two birds with one stone" and things like that. One that she hadn't heard of before was "the pot calling the kettle black" to illustrate I drew a little doodle of a pot and kettle explaining how they both used to be black in color and how it was an expression based around one person pointing out a flaw in another person that the accuser himself also holds.

Of course we also had curious snacks to eat for this lunch provided by Professor Hirase. These were Takoyaki Cookies... being round cookies made to resemble takoyaki in both taste and shape... er... well, normal takoyaki aren't flat... but they are round anyways.

Unlike lunches before, having decided on new classes last Friday, I had to leave before 1 PM to attend the first of my Intermediate Japanese I (中級日本語I) class. It seemed like there were quite a number more students in this class than there were in my basic-level classes that I took last semester.

Ms. Etou Rie (衛藤利絵) was the teacher for this class having taken over for Ms. Asaga who was now over in Korea. Despite this she insisted that we call her Etou-san instead of Etou-sensei since being called "sensei" (teacher) seemed awkward to her.

The activities of the class consisted of her first explaining to us about what we would be doing while there (mostly discussing topics and writing essays in Japanese). Then we moved into a kind of self-introduction exercise prefaced by first thinking of a series of questions to ask people in Japanese... then we went around and did mini interviews by asking each other these questions. After the fact we reported back the details of some of the answers we had received from them.

I found out that Ko and Kyo both liked Sakura flowers (when asked what the thing in Japan they liked the most was: 「日本で一番好きな物は何ですか」). Discovered that both Kaku and Ms. Etou would be a dog (when asked what they would be if they could be any living creature: 「あなたを生き物に例えると何ですか」). Also interesting that Ko was the only one to answer a non-animal response to the "living creature" question, stating she would be a "Yanagi no Ki" (柳の木) or "Willow Tree".

Someone else in class had asked questions about what everyone's "Seiza" (星座) or "Constellation" was. I had no idea what he was talking about at first but soon caught on that he was talking about western astrology signs. It's funny I haven't really looked into that at all while I've been studying Japanese... might have something to do with my considering astrology as unsubstantiated hogwash based on a flawed principle.... but that's besides the point.

I suppose as a cultural point, it would be interesting to learn the wording behind it all at least (just hadn't really thought of it before). Learned that we have a "Sasori-za" (蠍座) or "Scorpio" in class, also a "Ite-za" (射手座) or "Sagittarius" in class... and then there's me a "Otome-za" (乙女座) or "Virgo" in the class. I suppose Astrology was fun as a youth, seeing how you got your own special "Pokemon" assigned to you at birth... although, I see no value to it asides from that. Yeah yeah... I'm a grumbly stick in the mud... sorry kids.

After class was through, I trundled back home and prepared to watch Lost. Looks like today's episode was going to be a Hurley centered one, which is cool since I find Hurley one of the more relatable characters if not for the fact that he's a bit "heftier" of a fellow than the other cast members at least. I'm still wondering why, in all the series so far they can't have one cute young chubby female character on that show? Most all the Lost ladies are lanky as all get out no? Urg... but I digress... this blog is set up for me to talk about my stay in Japan not bitch about American Television.

Jumping back to one more point of Japanese culture for y'all before I wrap this one up for y'all. Today I checked the ol' beverages isle for some boozy drinks to accompany my Lost watching. I noticed they had a whole volley of three new Top Valu brand chu-hi drinks in stock! These three flavors were peach, melon, and pineapple. They all came in the smaller sized cans (no tall variations) and at the standard %5 alcohol variation.... 88 Yen per can. I have to say, they all tasted like their namesake... but all tasted like their namesake in the same way peach, melon, or pineapple candy might taste like their namesake. Rather sugary and soda-pop like. Still, enjoyable... although I think I prefer the plum chu-hi tall cans. Those have more of a sour kick rather than a straight up candy sweetness. The grapefruit flavor is good too... stronger alcohol content of 7% and also more bitter and sour than sweet.

New Art Class With Professor Yuki

2010-04-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

I received a call from Professor Hirase today right on time to tell me the location of Mr. Yuki's class as he had promised, although there was only 15 minutes between the time he called me and the time class started. Thus, I needed to get a move on pretty quick in order to get out there... a little late but still within a reasonable mark.

This class was to be held every Tuesday afternoon in the art-building classroom positioned across from Mr. Yuki's office. It's interesting because this is the first place I had met my new tutor Tsuyoshi (long before he became my tutor as such).

The class, titled "Bijutsuka Kyouiku Enshuu" (美術家教育演習) or "Artist Education Practice" was interesting and I think I had less of a hard time following the contents of this lesson than I did the class I had taken with Mr. Yuki previously. I'm certain I was missing some details and points here and there, however. It was still presented in somewhat of a lecture style with handouts given of both written and visual information.

There seemed to be some discussion about realism as presented in photography and how techniques can be used in photography to defy that sense of reality. Examples were given from photographers like Duane Michals and Man Ray. Mr. Yuki also showed us a pin-hole camera he had build and passed around some photographs taken with it. The end of the class was a little bit of a presentation by taping a round cup against a window and the curtains around it so you had a small opening into a dark room. A white sheet of reflective material was held up. As he used his hands to make the hole smaller we could suddenly see a clearer and clearer (although still somewhat hazy) upside down image projected of the light from outdoors. Seemed like a neat experiment and I'm curious what we'll touch on in future classes.

I mentioned to Mr. Yuki how I had built a pinhole camera and utilized it (along with some other high quality cameras) back when I took photography classes in high school. In general photography has been one of those things that, while I wouldn't consider myself a "pro" by any means, I've always loved since I was a child. I remember one of my first cameras I used to use all the time was one I had picked up from a thrift store. It utilized the round shaped "disc film" (the one where the film looks something slightly like a view-master wheel when it's developed into negatives).

I used to take so many photographs with that camera and always begged my mother to help me get them developed. Getting photos developed from my camera was often my "treat" that I would look forward to.... screw candy or other snackity things, when I went to the grocery store I wanted to get photos developed! If only digital photography existed back in those days. Kids of today are lucky in that respect I guess.

Orientation and Test

2010-04-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

An orientation was scheduled today during the late afternoon. I met my tutor Tsuyoshi there and we found a place to sit within the wooden walled audio/visual room. None of the information given to us here was really anything new to me. Earlier this week I had even asked about opting out of the orientation this time around but they said there was a test I would have to take if I wanted to attend the Japanese classes, so there I was. Sitting in this location as they poured over all those familiar documents reminded me of being here as a fresh new exchange student myself still a little nervous about settling in and getting my life here started and now it's getting closer to being through.

There was a couple things different this time through orientation. The MUFSA (Miyazaki University Foreign Student Association) lineup hadn't changed too much but I did notice that Aileen wasn't there this time around. I know she's still studying at Miyazaki since she moved into the dorm recently. Guess she must just be busy with studies.

Another difference was with the test this time around. Last time I took it I had done alright but fell really frantic and rushed and missed a lot of answers. This time, even thought the pace was fast (intentionally so I don't doubt), I was able to fill in most all of the blanks.

After the test was given and people were excused I wandered up to take a closer look at the old cassette deck that the test was given on (a listen and fill in the blank type of test). As I admired the machine one of the older men here wandered up to me and noted how the tape deck was somewhat nostalgic. I snapped a few photographs of the machine before moving along.

It was pretty soggy and rainy outside as I went from the dorm to the grocery store to stock up on things. I felt bad for an orange tabby cat who seemed to be sitting out amidst the wet grass and meowling. When I stopped to take a photo the cat came wandering over to me. I wish I had had something on hand to feed the cat with, but somehow I don't think the cat would appreciate me sharing my tomatoes or bean sprouts with it.

Spring Flowers and Meow

2010-04-08T23:11:00.000-07:00

First some spring flowers (春の花).

And then some meow (にゃん).

That's all I have to say for today.

Lunch With Professor Hirase and New Students

2010-04-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

Classes hadn't been decided on yet and it didn't look like I would have that totally sorted out till our orientation on Friday. In the meantime, today was another lunch with Professor Hirase on the new regular day of Wednesday. I woke up somewhat late and walked up the stairs past the club building and the gym. As I rounded the gym I noticed that they had a group of three bus-like vehicles for doing medical tests lined up.

I also noticed that the construction over in the nearby lot seems to actually have been for constructing another one of those large solar energy panels. At first I had thought they were going to be paving the lot, but here we are with a new school year and it's just as brown and filled with dirt as it was before.

I won't go into too many details for this post but it was a bit more of a lively time here today. A number of the new exchange students had arrived and were in attendance so I got to meet some new faces.

Of course there were some interesting snacks offered around again. I'm unsure what this one was called because my memory for this day is rather shot. Still, I recall it having a distinct nut-like flavor. The pair of kiwi birds above live in Hirase's office. They don't really have anything to do with anything... but I thought I'd end the post with the photo of something cute.

Fire Alarm Fun

2010-04-05T23:11:00.000-07:00

Not much to say for yesterday in general, although we did have an interesting occurrence of a fire breaking out on the 3rd floor. I was starting to settle in for the night when it had happened and then suddenly heard a knocking on my door. It wasn't actually till I got my clothes on and scrambled out my front door that I really heard the alarm.

It's odd, remembering last time a fire alarm went off I think it was also from the third floor... same deal tonight. Unlike that time, which was a fire from the hallway stove, this time I think it actually came from one of the girl's rooms there (as I had seen the majority of the pinkish extinguisher spray coating an area around one of the doors near the elevator and also noticed one of the room doors to the balcony opened and letting out a haze of smoke).

It seemed to take a ridiculous amount of time lingering outside before they finally let us back inside. I regretted not having put on some socks or a belt because my shoes were starting to feel kinda' gross without socks after the first 10 minutes or so and I was wearing the heavy pair of pants that never really want to stay up right. All in all it must have been a good 30 minutes outside before they let us back into the building... despite my suspicions that the fire had been put out before we ever got down those stairs.

Being roused like that of course meant that I couldn't get to sleep again for the next few hours. Eventually ended up getting to sleep sometime well past midnight.

Sketching Hands & Feet, Surround Holler

2010-04-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

Trying to balance with work on catching up on things... but also thought I'd spend some time working on sketches of hands and feet. In drawing it's one of the things I'm the worst at pulling from my head. Although practice rounds I've given myself... redrawing hands and feet from photos online or in my library... have always seemed to help.

The stuff I draw following practice has gotten better and better, although I still think there's something about those shapes that can be elusive to me. In a lot of other things, even in drawings of people's faces, you can be pretty bizarre and sloppy about it and have it still look somewhat interesting and convincing. With drawing hands and feet though, there's something about the gentle curves and composition of it all. Even when you're drawing ugly/ogreish looking hands, if the subtle shapes from palm to joints to the tips of the fingers isn't given in the correct way it can look pretty lame. So far that's the way most of my drawn hands and feet have looked like... either totally abstract or irritatingly lame. I'm hoping more practice will cure this ill of mine over time!

Tonight there was no group cleaning or anything like that. The first year students who had moved into the dorms here were having a party in the "party-room" or more properly (as marked on the sign) the "Danwa Shitsu" (談話室) or "conversation room" or "lounge" across the hall from my room. The hooting hollering and laughter was now placed a little closer to my room... although I have to admit they didn't get quite as bad as the folks over in the boy's dorm had been on Friday and Saturday. Then again, they didn't stay all too quiet either... so it was kinda' that super stereo surround experience.... whee!

Drawing Tablet Practice and Reminder to Scribble More

2010-04-03T23:11:00.000-07:00

Took most of the day trying to learn more about some digital art editing programs and working with my digital Wacom drawing tablet. Never really came up with anything the satisfied me... although, while watching some tutorial videos on the program Corel Painter 11, I did get a chance to sketch up a lot of fun little practice sketches.

Every now and again, I think I need to remind myself more to create art that doesn't have the purpose of being seen by anyone else. If I get stuck too much on actual drawings, it's like all my drawing activity become me "trying too hard" and self consciously crafting every line. I begin to miss the days when I would just scribble page after page of rough sloppy things that all would likely wind up in the trash sooner or later. Just the act of freely scribbling and drawing nonsense seems to put me in a good mood though, like stretching when one feels rusty after rolling out of bed.

Time ambled it's way into the late night hours soon enough and the chorus of yelling, hooting, and hollering voices (which Ko and I had heard last night while watching the movie) had returned once again. I guess I had no pressing need to get myself to sleep right away... although the continence of the hollering and raucous noises past 1 AM and then onwards past 2 AM with little sign of subsiding made me somewhat nervous.

Induction Heating Conundrum, and a Movie

2010-04-02T23:11:00.000-07:00

Today saw quite a bit of commotion and activity around here. As yesterday was the day when various students moved out of the International House here, today saw a number of new students moving in. I don't know who is replacing Komai (the student next door to me who moved out). However, another doorway down (in Iwakiri's old room) I introduced myself to a fellow named Fukunaga who was moving in.

At one point in the day, I realized I hadn't really eaten much of anything substantial so I when to the store next door and bought some ingredients to make my first official "meal" (asides from the grilled mackerel and stuff I haven't really cooked on the stove top yet) with the new ovens. It was at the most inconvenient point, when I had ingredients arranged and ready to go, that I realized my pot and frying pan wouldn't actually work with the new glass top stove.

Luckily Kim was around and able to explain to me that it was an "IH" stove (the IH which I later learned means "Induction Heating") and to use it you needed special IH friendly pots and pans. Kim let me borrow a pot, but the most important thing for the stir fry was the frying pan. After scrambling around trying to see if anyone had a pan I could borrow I finally gave up and called Ko to see if I could borrow hers (since I had seen her use one yesterday when making the Gyoza). However right as I was calling her one of the other students from the 5th floor here came in and told me I could use his.

The food I made was alright, but I'm finding it seems hard to make a stir fry properly flavorful without adding a bunch of salty stuff. I do need to watch out for my high blood pressure (高血圧症) though... so I'm trying my best to cut back. Maybe I should stick to foods like fish, fruits, and vegetables which don't really need lots of salt flavoring. I do like making weird stirfrys n' stuff though. This time I used octopus, which was yummy. It was my first time cutting up an octopus tentacle that was packaged in a whole form. The consistency and feel of it as I was cutting it up was really peculiar.

Eventually night rolled around and I watched the movie "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi" (千と千尋の神隠し) or "Spirited Away" as it's known in English with Ko. I had only seen this movie once back somewhere around 2002 or so when it played at the Capitol Theater in downtown Olympia. I had just been to the Dougo Onsen (道後温泉) up in Matsuyama that the architecture of the building in this film is supposedly based off of. It proved to be interesting to watch it again not only knowing more from experience about the topic of hot springs and bath houses but also a lot of other things in Japan like taking trains in the countryside or details like that.

There was an option for English subtitles provided in the Japanese release but since I generally find subtitles hinder me from really paying attention to the Japanese rather than helping me, I opted for using the set of Japanese subtitles. That way I could work on my reading skills along with language comprehension skills. I'm finding more and more of the meanings are making sense to me, and it was nice to find some words that I noticed myself recognizing that I had only just learned or dedicated to memory recently within the past several days.

Chewing Tiny Bones

2010-04-01T23:11:00.000-07:00

Ko called me up today and asked if I wanted to come down and have some lunch with her. She prepared a number of Gyoza both fried in a pan as well as served in a kind of soup. We also had some tea as well as apples and some custard snacks from Kagoshima (鹿児島) (where she had been staying around the same time I was off traveling to Beppu City and the island of Shikoku.

The gyoza were interesting because they contained little bits of bone in them which Ko told me was alright to eat. The bone wasn't all that hard but it was interesting chewing into something like that. A few pieces were just swallowed due to size but some of them I took time chewing up and it made a funny crunching noise as I did so. I enjoyed the curious experience of it all though, since in the states you wouldn't really find something like that served many places (a lot of people there would probably just be stupid and complain about the bones or something).

Ko had agreed to come over later tonight around 8 PM to watch a movie, but when it came close to the time she had to put it off till tomorrow since something else came up. There was another girl here from the dorms who wanted to ask me about something and she said she would come by around 10:30 PM to my room, but then she never showed up either. Oh well... I did have a lot to work on, so I kept myself busy with that well on into the night.