Halfway through my First Semester

Although studying at Akita International University (AIU) is fun, I am sad to know that despite meeting all of these great people I may not see them for while. This semester I got to go to a "Ninja Park" for my birthday, got lost in Japan, and I got the opportunity to live by myself without relying on my parents too much.

Recently I have been feeling culture shock because I miss certain things from Hawaii like food, family, dog, and friends, but I think I am slowly getting adjusted to life in Japan. As of right now, I still think I do not want to live in Hawaii because I want to experience some place different, but I am not sure if Japan is where I want to live yet.

According to my friend from Hawaii that has lived in Japan for five years due to the JET Program, it is difficult for foreigners to apply for citizenship in Japan because the Japanese people do a thorough search before approving foreigners as Japanese citizens. Some people that apply for citizenship in Japan find the process humiliating.

In addition, there is a lot of food and cultural traditions that can only be found in Hawaii, so I know may miss that. Therefore my current plan is to learn as much as I can about Hawaii so that regardless of where I live, I can still enjoy the things I like about Hawaii. I want to be able to make delicious Hawaii food like poke (raw fish cubes), lomi salmon, malasadas, and meat-jun.

Back with a new haircut

These past few weeks have been pretty busy. I have had a few exams, one presentation, got a haircut, signed up for Amazon Japan, and got to finally make some spam musubi's. Recently the leaves have started changing color and pretty soon it will start snowing at the beginning of next month. I am definitely looking forward to seeing snow however, I have not completely adjusted to the cold yet. Due to the cold wind, I have to wear two jackets outside, and I have started staying at the library more because my room is so cold.

Although I like living on my own in Japan, it does have some disadvantages. Some of the disadvantages are lack of money, unable to get a part-time job, making plans for the winter, cleaning myself, and my poor cooking skills. Despite the fact that Japanese food is very delicious, everything in Japan is so expensive so I need to budget my money carefully. Currently I spend a lot of money on food, utilities, cellphone, and rent.

My roommate and me go grocery shopping every weekend because certain food ingredients such as eggs, bread, and vegetables run out very quickly during the week. In addition in order to save money we both rarely eat breakfast in the morning, but eat at our apartment at night normally. Compared to him, I usually eat lunch at the cafeteria so I think I spend more money on food. Meals at the cafeteria cost around 200 to 400 yen. Occasionally we can get free food or money from school events, but they fill up pretty fast. About a week ago I was able to get free sweet potatoes from a school event so my roommate used them to make sweet potato french fries.

The girls are getting to pull sweet potatoes with the kids

Spreading some Aloha to the AIU Festival

After many weeks of preparing for the Akita International University (AIU) Festival, the AIU Festival is finally over. The festival lasted for two days and because of the festival, the students had a five day weekend.   I was apart of the Hawaii booth so I was busy preparing for the Festival on Friday and Saturday with seven other international students and spent Sunday and Monday managing the booth from 9am to 4:30pm. The Hawaii booth consisted of five people from Hawaii and three other students that were not from Hawaii but were interested in helping us manage our booth.

My friend with oil paints on his hands after preparing for the festival

For our booth we had hula lessons, an ukulele performance, origami workshop, an Okinawan dance performance, shamisen performance, Kikaida marathon, a video about Japanese Americans, Hawaiian trivia, sign painting, a lei making workshop, and a list of pidgin words with Japanese translations. Originally we wanted to sell spam musubi and poke (raw tuna fish cubes with seaweed), but decided against that because the food committee had a lot of regulations, and we realized that the cost to make the food would be too expensive.