My First Time in a Capsule Hotel

Since coming to Japan, I have had the opportunity to live on my own and experience things I would not have experienced back at home. Besides my cooking problems, I have been able to live in various places such as a Japanese person's home, hostel, capsule hotel, business hotel, and I had to stay up all night at Shinjuku because I missed my night bus from Tokyo to Akita. In addition, recently I had to go the hospital because I got a Q-tip stuck in my ear and I was unable to remove it by myself. Experiencing some of these experiences has not been fun, but I feel that these experiences have allowed me to grow up as a person. I think that by studying abroad I have met so many different people, and I have seen so many things that I will be looking forward to traveling again.

I think my Spring Break was fun, but compared to one of my friends, I do not think that I did anything too extreme. After I got back to Akita International University (AIU), one of my friends told me that in order to save money, she hitchhiked a lot at Okinawa. In addition, she brought a tent with her so she was able to camp at Okinawa for about five days. I thought she was crazy, but I guess because Okinawa is supposed to be safer than Japan, hitchhiking at Okinawa may not be too dangerous.

Below are pictures from one of the business hotels I stayed at. Usually these hotels cost about 5000 yen per night, but the hotel fee includes a free breakfast. In addition, some of the business hotels I stayed at provided me a free set of pajamas, toiletries, and free Internet. Besides the free Internet, I was able to have my own room at the business hotel separate from my parents when I was traveling with them. At Tokyo, I had to share a room with my parents, and I was unable to use the Internet for free because the hotel bill was too expensive.

Breakfast from a Business Hotel

Spring Break Family Time

Since arriving at Japan, I have had the opportunity to live on my own again. I have been able to improve my cooking skills, pay for my own utilities, and travel by myself for two weeks. Living on my own is nice, but I admit that I miss having my own parents pay for me sometimes. Therefore I was looking forward to meeting my parents during Spring Break.

After I met with my friend at Okayama, I traveled to Hiroshima, Miyajima, Yokohama, and Tokyo with my parents.

At Hiroshima, I saw the Peace Memorial Museum, the A-Bomb Dome, and I ate Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki with my parents. The Peace Memorial Museum was very disturbing because there were a lot of pictures of people that suffered from the Atomic bomb during World War II.

The infamous A-Bomb Dome

Okayama: Sharing a moment in a Peach Town

When I was little, one of my favorite Japanese stories was about this peach boy called Momataro. This boy was born from a peach to an elderly couple that was unable to have children. When the boy grew up he traveled around Japan befriending a bird, pig, monkey, and dog while defeating evil ogres. My parents decided to meet at Okayama because the story of Momataro was believed to have originated from Okayama, and city is famous for its food chichi dango.

A statue of Momataro in front of the train station

I arrived at Okayama two days before my parents arrived. On the day that I arrived from Tokyo, I found out that I lost my cell phone on the night bus, so I had to ask one of my Japanese friends to help. Apparently the bus drivers found my phone, but because I was traveling at the time, I was unable to receive my phone until I returned to AIU.

The day after, I met with my friend from AIU that was from Okayama. My friend that I met at Okayama is my Japanese Conversation and Friends Partner.  She will be leaving to study abroad at Norway when I leave to return to Hawaii.

Chilling in Tokyo

The following week I stayed at Tokyo where I met with several of my friends from AIU and the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM). In addition, I also bought the Seishun 18 Pass because it would allow me to travel around Japan without having to worry about transferring when using the train for JR for five days.

I stayed around Asakusa area at a hostel nearby the Asakusa station. My hostel was located near the Tokyo Skytree. Compared to Okinawa, it was really easy to travel using the train so I avoided going to places like the Tokyo Skytree where I was required to pay.

At Tokyo, I went to Keio University to meet with my friend from the UHM, went to the Toei Musem and ate Monjayaki with my friend from AIU, went to Pokemon Center with two of my other friends from AIU, and hiked Mt.Takao by myself.

It was nice to see my friend at Keio because I rarely spoke to my friends from Hawaii after arriving at AIU, and my friend from Keio was one of my first friends I met as a Freshmen at UHM. My friend still looked the same, but he was still very passionate about learning Japanese.

Okinawan Fever

For Japanese students at Akita International University (AIU), the academic school year starts around April and ends around December. From December to April, students may decide to take classes during the Winter Semester from January to the beginning of March or take a break from January to April. I decided to take classes during the Winter semester, so I had a one-month break during March. 

After returning from Sendai to visit a friend from AIU, I spent about a week at AIU catching up with friends and making last minute arrangements for my trip. I was nervous because I decided to travel by myself for the first half of my trip, and had only reserved my hostels and my tickets for the night bus. Before leaving for my trip I thought about how to get to the sight seeing locations for the places I want to go to, but I was unsure about how easy the public transportation would be at Tokyo, Okinawa, and Okayama, so I thought it would be best to do this when I get to those locations.

On the day, I left AIU for my Winter break, it was really cold, and I had trouble finding my night bus from Akita to Tokyo. I downloaded the email from my night bus reservation to my iPod, but I was unsure of the location of the night bus despite knowing that it was located at the East entrance of the JR Akita Station.

It took me several minutes to find my night bus, but after finding the driver using my limited Japanese, I was able to find the correct bus. I was so happy to find my bus because there was a blizzard outside of the bus.

Tohoku Culture Paper 5: Oyu and Kosaka

 After visiting many locations this semester such as Hiraizumi, Denwa-Sanzan, Yokote, and Sakata-Kuromori, we have finally arrived at our last two locations for JAS 435 Exploring Tohoku Culture: Oyu and Kosaka. Oyu is an area that is famous for the Oyu Stone Circles from the Jōmon Period while Kosaka is famous for its Kosaka mines and the oldest Kabuki theatre in Japan known as the Korakukan Theatre. 

 The first location Oyu is known for the large Oyu Stones that come out of the ground which are remains from the Jōmon period. The Jōmon period is known for its hand-made pottery, food gathering, and pit-houses. The Jōmon period is divided into seven different periods: incipent Jōmon, initial Jōmon, early Jōmon, middle Jōmon, late Jōmon, and final Jōmon. During this time period, new technology was introduced such as rice farming and metallurgy. In addition, Shinto religion, marriage customs, and new architectural styles were also introduced.

 When I went with my class, I was unable to see the stones because we went during the winter so the snows were covered by the snow. The significance of these stones is unknown, but archeologist suspect that the stones may have been used for religious practices. Nearby the Oyu Stones there is also the Jōmon museum. This museum has miniature models of the Jōmon statues, Jōmon pottery, and other Jōmon artifacts.

Tohoku Culture Paper 4: Sakata-Kuromori

  Kabuki is a traditional Japanese style play where actors dress in Japanese style clothing called kimono’s and wear white makeup on their faces. Usually during Kabuki plays, actors exaggerate their words and try to speak in old fashion Japanese. The Kabuki plays have been around since the 1600s and they are often compared to another similar play style called Noh. Recently I was able to go a Kabuki performance for JAS 435 exploring Tohoku Culture at Sakata-Kuromori. At Sakata-Kuromori, a series of Kabuki plays are performed on this day, and numerous people come to this area to watch people perform Kabuki. This was not my first Kabuki play, but compared to the one I went to in America, the actors at this Kabuki play spoke in Japanese instead of English. In addition, the first performance that I saw featured child actors instead of adults.

 According to the website Japan-Guide, the Kabuki tradition first appeared during the Edo period. At first only female actors performed Kabuki but eventually women were banned from acting in Kabuki and replaced by men because a lot of the female kabuki actors were actually prostitutes. Due to the lack of females, men had to play female roles and men that played female characters had become known as “onnagata.” Before the Japanese government had begun trading with the west, Kabuki and other similar traditional Japanese art forms such as bunraku or noh were the main forms of entertainment in Japan. Noh is another type of Japanese play where actors also wear traditional Japanese clothing but wear masks instead of white makeup. Bunraku is a type of Japanese play where puppets are used instead of people.