Archive for 2013
Diary 4 - A funny night!
When my memory is still fresh, I felt like I wanted to do a fast update about this amazing evening I just had!
So, this Monday, everybody in our class decided that the upcoming Friday we wanted to do something together for the first time, and the plan came through! So today, after school, almost everybody met up outside school and went to eat (韓国の料理) South Korean food! And, for 2 hours you could eat as much as you wanted and also drink as much as you could.
Eating was not really a problem for anyone, except for me because some of the food was too spicy. The drinking part, seemed however to be a bit more difficult for the Asian people.
In Sweden, I suppose I'm kinda known as the person who can't stand alcohol, but here, in Japan, I'm not bragging if i'm saying that I was on top- after like 2 or 3 beer they all were red as tomatoes in their faces.
After we had eaten our Korean food, we went (of course) to Karaoke. And to my surprise, the guy that I have been sitting next to these 2 month in class, was incredibly good at singing opera. I NEVER imagine that he could even sing, it was very funny and surprising!
After our karaoke visit, some people dropped out. So the people who still could stand on their legs, continued our journey, and we went to another bar! At the bar, we continued eating, but this time, I suppose you can call it Japanese food. (日本の料理). But when you are at a bar and eating Japanese food, you basically only eat vegetables and drink. Cabbage seems to be one thing that Japanese people are really fond of, and I have to agree. Drinking beer and eating cabbage is a very good combination. By this time, I have to say that everybody dropped their national tongue, even English, and everybody tried to only speak Japanese. It was kind cool, that everybody, even though our lack of experience and education seemed to understand each other.
After the last bar, the time had started to run away, and I had to start thinking about my trip home. Because in Japan, even the trains in the weekend the trains stop going quite early. The last trains goes around 1 o'clock in the night. So I went to the station, and took the first train possible. When I came to my first stop on the way home, out of the blue, I met one of my housemates standing at the train stop. This was very surprising, both because we were on 2 totally different places this night and also because meeting someone you know in Tokyo, is kind of low odds.
After we met up, we jumped on a totally full train. In Japan, during night (and especially on weekends) the trains are so full, you kinda have a hard time to breath. We were squished in between everybody, and didn't even bother to continue talking about the subject we were talking about. When we got about half of the way to our next stop, the guy who where standing in front of me where starting to acting kind of weird, and suddenly, his head fell. Me and my housemate (Fredrik), realized that this guy needed help to wake up, so we used some force to lift and wake him up. When he finally woke up, we were at our last stop on this train. When I let him go, he was falling like a tree falls when you cut in half. On a super crowded tree, I've never seen so much space available during these type circumstances. People moved away from him, like he was a bomb about to explode. He really passed out. But I had the feeling that he also were supposed to leave at the station we arrived to, so me alone, lifted him up, and dragged him out of the crowded train, and when we finally got out he kinda woke up and said "Sumimasen" to me, which can be translated into "excuse me". I was laughing kind of a lot inside.
And after that incident, the nights' crazyness kinda ended. And now I'm here, writing, even though I should be asleep!
I suppose that's the end of this text.
See you next time!
じゃ、またね！
(ja, matane)
(see you next time)
Diary 3 - school life
Hello ppl! :)
I just felt like I wanted to do a fast update..
Another week has passed in the paradise, and December, Christmas has already come. Feels a bit weird because I'm so used to be wearing my winter coat during this time. I'm still walking around in my skin jacket and I can't say that I freezing at all!
Though... The biggest problem is the Japanese houses. Since they aren't isolated at all, it gets so freaking cold inside. Walking around in the mornings are the worst thing, because then you're not really wearing any clothes. Because of the temperature inside is around 15~ degrees it's get's a bit problematic.
This week has been a quite nice week to be honest. Even though it's a lot of studies and we are moving very quickly forward, I'm still having really fun in school. I really enjoy the atmosphere and the teachers are doing a very good job! In school, we have 3 different teachers, and they are also very dissimilar. One, that is kind of old, around her fifties, but she is really kind. She has a bit of weird accent though, and when she is pronouncing "が、ぎ、ぐ、げ、ご" (ga,gi,gu,ge,go), the whole class is like a big question mark, and have no idea what word she just said. A funny example is when she is saying "ごご" (gogo) which is the word for PM, she is pronouncing it "gong-o", our class never seems to understand what she is trying to say...
One of the remaining two, are quite young. I don't really dare to guess, but she should be around her thirties. She is the funniest one I suppose, and she is always in a great mood. She always talks about herself and paint ugly pictures trying to explain words, usually we get more confused when she has painted them, but everybody likes her! The last teacher, I think I like the most. She remind me somewhat of my mother. I don't really know how though, to be honest, but there is something to her personality that feels very familiar. She is also funny, and she inspires you to continue your study.
Speaking of school, I was suppose to have my first "real" kanji test this week, but the teachers' actually tricked us so we should study. I was kind mad, because I had done lot's of studies. But well, now i know the kanjis. Here comes some exemple of the ones i had: (there were 48 on the test)
学生校会社自時車年半友木火水金毎日月飲食読書。。
To night, me ryo, toyoko, takuma (maybe some more?) will go to Yokohama! It will be exiting! We are going to take photos of the harbor and i hope to get some nice picutres! :)
That's all for today, now i have to continue my studies! Cu next time!
Diary 2 - sick!
2013, November 22, Thursday.
Today, I'm home from school for the first time. I caught some Japanese virus that my body hasn't encountered yet. Even though it's just a cold, I'm feeling all worn out. But it's kind of nice to be home and not doing anything.
My illness began 2 days ago, and my throat started aching. Yesterday was worse though, but I had to go to school, because I had 2 tests to write. One test on Kanji, and one on chapter 7 to 10 in our book. The Kanji test went fine, but I kind of screwed up on one point, so I had one mistake (out of 10). The kanji's we had for test was (日本学生大人会社先) where we were both supposed to know the reading and also how to write them. They are, to be honest not that difficult compared to the difficult ones like: (麤、驫).
The other test was easy, compared to what I had suspected. Even though it was bigger than our first test, the questions were easy, and easily answered. Exemple : あなたの日本の生活はどうですか。Which means ”How is your life in Japan?”. Which is, on my current level, very easy to answer. I answered something like ”私の日本の生活はすばらしですが、日本語はむすかしです。”My life in japan is perfect, but japanese is difficult”. Which i think will cover most of the points at least!
Other than that, I’ve started watching a new anime which I think will be a really nice one, the anime is called “hunter x hunter” and I think it will be something quite common to the ”Naruto”-feeling. Looking forward to see how it turns out!
Now, it’s time to go to my favourite supermarket “ベルク”, “Belk”, and buy some groceries for the weekend. Wish me good luck!
See you soon!
またね！
Diary 1 - wannabe photographer!
Like i mentioned in my latest post, I'm going to start writing "Diary" posts on the blog too. It takes a lot of energy to make the posts that I've made so far, because they have been like too formal and too long. So these "diary-like posts will be really easy going, and I wont put so much effort in, to make these to be "interesting". I'm writing these most for myself than for others to read, so they might be in most cases boring to read. So, now you have been warned.
2013, November 20, Wednesday.
Just like any ordinary night, I'm sitting here in front of my computer even though the time is almost 01:30. 2 days left until my test on chapter 6-10 in the first book of Minna No Nihongo, I probably should do some more study, but I'm way to tired for anymore studying (Have already studied 2h today!)
This weekend I did my first "real shopping tour" to a mall close by, called Lala Garden. I upgraded my wardrobe (which was really needed for the winter). Bought 2 new sweaters, 1 cardigan and 1 hoodie, for only 4000円 (=250kr). And I also bought myself a bicycle for only 5000Y (300kr).
And we also went to a park that lies about 40 minutes away from where i'm living, where we took lots of photos, like HDR-photo that I'm using for banner to this post. Me and Ryo-san have gone really wild lately when it comes to photographing. We both bought our DSLR's at the same time and we both love taking photos. We are both learning how you are supposed to use the camera the correct way, and this last week we are over-hyped about HDR-photographing. And I think that these are the photos that I like the best to take. So I think at least from my part I have chosen the way I will take photos in the future! (So you can expect a lot of HDR photos in the future on the blog!)
Despite from photographing, I'm really happy because an inhabitant in the house has bought an acoustic guitar! So I have the possibility to have some music in my life even though I don't own any music instruments myself, but the person that owns the guitar is really kind and he's letting me play! よかった！！
My current Japanese level is still poor, obviously, but I'm hearing everyday that I'm improving, which is really encouraging to hear, it feels very nice! I suppose that I could have done more studying, to be honest. But somewhere I need to think about my real reason for being here which is to have fun. The greatest thing is that I'm learning Japanese by the same time as I'm having fun with my friends, 2 flies in one hit! とっしゃ！
I think that was all I had on my mind right now.
Until next time!
My Daily Life
After about 1 ½ month living in Japan, routines are starting to form. I could actually say that I really have the feeling of living here for real now. Even though my friends and I are doing different things, each weekend, my weekdays are looking kind of the same each day.
So today, I’m going to tell you about the typical day routine for me during the weekdays!
Monday 10:00 o’clock.Since I’m taking the evening classes my first lesson begins at 13:00. It’s really comfortable to begin by that time, because then I can sleep. やった！(= yay)
Well, since I’m really lazy, even though my alarm rings at 10:00 o’clock, I’m always snoozing to 10:30 (If I’m not taking a shower, to 11:00). In the house, all guys are sharing one shower, so you are kind of lucky if the shower is not occupied. (The girls share 3 showers…) But I found out that, if I’m up at 10:30, the shower is never occupied, so usually it’s free.
After my shower, it’s time for breakfast or rather lunch. To this date, I’m actually eating the same type of breakfast each day, 2 pieces of bread, 2 bowls of Choco pops with milk and 1 cup of express coffee which taste like crap, but I haven’t found any good Japanese good coffee yet, so the easiest way is just to take hot water from a water boiler, that always have hot water in it, and it’ll be finished in seconds. 笑.
At 12 o’clock,
Fredrik and I take our path to school. Fredrik is another Swedish guy who lives in the guest house and is also attending to ISI language school but not in the same class as me. We walk the road to the Nishi Kawaguchi station, which lies about a 10 minute walk from our house. At the station we are taking our first train that’s taking us towards our school.
Fredrik and I take our path to school. Fredrik is another Swedish guy who lives in the guest house and is also attending to ISI language school but not in the same class as me. We walk the road to the Nishi Kawaguchi station, which lies about a 10 minute walk from our house. At the station we are taking our first train that’s taking us towards our school.
As a little side note about Japanese trains, (I’m not going deeply in to this, but I will have a post later where I’m talking more about the Japanese train life) but during our way to school even though there aren’t many people that has things to do, the trains are always full and you are lucky if you can have seat.To get to the school we change trains 2 times, in a place called “Akabane (赤羽) and Ikebukuro (池袋)”, and after a trip of about 45 minutes from door to door, we finally arrive at our school!
13:00 rings the school bell,
and class begins. Each morning, our first class, begins with Kanji training. Kanji is the Chinese alphabet that Japanese people also use. It’s not 100 accurate with the Chinese syllabary but to be able to read a Japanese newspaper they say that you’ll need to learn about 1000, compared to the Chinese newspaper where you need around 3 000 signs.
and class begins. Each morning, our first class, begins with Kanji training. Kanji is the Chinese alphabet that Japanese people also use. It’s not 100 accurate with the Chinese syllabary but to be able to read a Japanese newspaper they say that you’ll need to learn about 1000, compared to the Chinese newspaper where you need around 3 000 signs.
The Chinese characters are really beautiful and I really like writing them, but I’m quite certain that I will change my mind about that in the soon future. We are going to learn about 500 kanji’s this year, and Fredrik have told me that he really hates kanji studies because they are really difficult to remember. Each kanji has different type of pronunciation, and they change their pronunciation depending on what’s coming up after them. (Ex: 人 can be pronounced hito, jin and nin)After the kanji training we are working in our Japanese education book, which is really outdated and the sentences are really boring. But hey, what to do! Usually we laugh about them in class, so they’ll become funny anyway. My favorite to date is “そのスプーンはすてきですね”, sono supu-n ha suteki desune, which roughly translates into: ”That spoon is wonderful, isn’t it?”.
Of course we are not only working in the text book, but we are also doing a lot of speaking exercises and different types of games. The teachers are really good, so it’s seldom boring! :)
My time in school finishes at 16:50
each day. I’m meeting up with Fredrik outside school, and we are walking towards the station. By this time, it’s not really super nice to be at the train station, it’s always plenty of people, and the trains are always full. You have to squeeze, to be able to fit. I really mean it. Squeezing is what you are doing.
each day. I’m meeting up with Fredrik outside school, and we are walking towards the station. By this time, it’s not really super nice to be at the train station, it’s always plenty of people, and the trains are always full. You have to squeeze, to be able to fit. I really mean it. Squeezing is what you are doing.
Arriving at Nishi Kawaguchi after the 2 train changes, we are always taking a drive by at 7-eleven to buy a snack. Since we are not eating any type of food in school, we are always really hungry by this time, so a karagebo (fried chicken) (からあげぼ) or a pizzaman (small calzone-likey thingy) (ピザまん) for 100Y ~ 6kr, 1$ or 0,75€ is a quite reasonable price! 18:00 かえります！
At ~18:00 we arrive home. After a day in a language school, I’m always so exhausted of all the thinking you need to do. So I’m usually sitting down in the living room complaining つかれった, ねむい or はなれった. (Tsukaretta, nemui or hanaretta), Meaning, exhausted, tired and hungry. Afterwards I’m preparing food, which almost every time consists of rice.
At ~18:00 we arrive home. After a day in a language school, I’m always so exhausted of all the thinking you need to do. So I’m usually sitting down in the living room complaining つかれった, ねむい or はなれった. (Tsukaretta, nemui or hanaretta), Meaning, exhausted, tired and hungry. Afterwards I’m preparing food, which almost every time consists of rice.
This is a typical Japanese easy-to-prepare dish called “カーレ” (Ka-re). You place the rice in the rice bowler, and then this vacuum folded bag in boiling water. It’s fast, easy and taste good! The rest of the time I have left, I’m usually studying, preparing for next day in school, so I will understand the lesson better. And after the studying I’m usually taking my time with my beloved computer, either watching Anime or a film, playing games. If my food stock is empty, my housemates and I, usually go to the supermarket. (The japanese supermarket is also something that is really funny about japan, that I will write about in the future)
午後二時, (= 02:00 am)
At 02:00 my day ends and I go to bed. Usually, I read a book but sometimes I’m too tired to do anything, so I just fall asleep.
Tuseday 10:00 my alarm clock rings.
Just a little note, in the future I think I'll be writing in a more like "Diary form", or at least have those posts. I will be naming them "Diary - x/x", then you know what you'll get.
Untill next time!
A tour around the house!
After a little earthquake this morning, I kinda realized that it's time to do a little update on my blog. And it came to my mind that I haven't shared with you how I'm living. So i think this is a great opportunity to give you a little tour around my house where i'm living at. I'm currently living in a town outside Tokyo called "Toda" that lies in a prefecture called "Saitama". To get in to central Tokyo from here, takes about an hour with train. To my school, that lies in a place called "Takadanobaba" it takes approximately 30 minutes depending on how many people that there are on the stations.
It's a nice and calm town and you can actually walk alone on the streets. The only down part about living here is all the Chinese hookers that walks around during night, thankfully t
hey haven't bothered me yet. From my house it's about a 3 minutes walk to the nearest 7 eleven. The bigger supermarket is about a 10 minutes walk from here, and a 10 minutes walk to the other direction lies the train station.J&F Plaza in Nishi Kawaguchi is a guest house where about 25 people live. Most of the people are able to speak English but some only speak Japanese. My staying here so far has been absolutely perfect!
Nishi Kawaguchi Guest House,
We'll start the round tour with the the house.
The first photo is taken from the roof of our house (even the header of this post is taken from the roof of the house). As you can tell, there are tons of houses in the area, even though I'm not living in the central parts of Tokyo. This is just something that you'll never get away with, if you not living on the real country side.The house itself is a quite big mansion with rooms for about 30 people, there are 3 floors and the balcony on the top.
When you enter the building, you will arrive in the hallway. But hallways in japan is kind of different from what i'm used to. As you can tell from the picture, the actual floor is on higher ground than the ceramic tiles. If you'd walk on the floor with your shoes on, the house keeper would be pissed off.This is actually the same in almost every place in Japan. So keep in mind that if you ever visit Japan, and you see a hallway like this. Don't step on the floor. Take off you first, and then you can walk on the floor. And don't forget to put on your slippers.
The living room is where the action happens, and this is basically where everybody hangs out all the time.Almost every night, we are playing board games, eating together, watching television or just hanging out, chatting.
The game that we right now play the most is a game called "Jinrou" the English name for the game is "Maffia"and the rules of the game is quite simple. You get a role that you are supposed to play, either a citizen, a wolf, a fortune teller or a necromancer. The purpose of the game is to find out who the wolfs are. The tricky parts is that the wolfs kills a person every night, and if you don't find out who the wolfs are in time the wolf('s) win. To find out who the wolf's are, you are discussing during day, and ask each other things like, "Are you the wolf..." etc. Since everything turns out differently every game it's actually really funny!
The living room is also the place where were you can study, and ask people about help etc.
Hanging out in the living room is always funny, because we are always having a good time. It's really like we are one big family.
And for the last part of this round-tour I will show you my cosy little room. At my mere 11 square meters I think that I have made it really homely.
With the bed taking up like 1/3 of the room, there is still enough room for the things I need. To be honest, I think it's even a bit to large. Because, I'm only in my room when I'm studying and when I'm sitting in front of my computer.
As you can see in the pictures, I have a huge closet, and also 3 shelves where I keep the rest of my clothes. Even, as you can see in the middle picture, I have my own refrigerator in my room, right next to my desk. It's really handy actually, so you don't have to walk a mile to get your coke... ehehe.So yea, that's basically it! I hope you enjoyed this little tour around my house.
The next post I will upload will be about the differences that have encountered so far in Japan, and I have to admit there have been plenty, so stay tuned for that!
In the meantime, take care, and I'll see you next time!
The first week in Japan
My first week in japan has passed, and I could never have imagined that all the things that happened during this time would be possible. Everything from playing board games to a trip to mount Fuji. The warm welcome I was given from the people who lives here was so far more than I expected. Arigatou Gozaimashita.
If you have read my previous posts on this blog, you might have gotten the idea that I was kinda nervous about.... well, kinda everything. But the thing that I was most afraid of, was the feeling of being alone. And I'm so happy to say that I haven't been feeling alone a single time since the time I got here. Yokatta!
Already from day one (which you can read about here) I felt like I was a part of a great community with friends who are all kind and caring. Every night we are hanging out together, talking, playing both video games and board games, eating weird Japanese snacks and just having a great time.
During this first week, kind of a lot of things have happened, I mean, when I'm bored my place to be would be in front of my computer, but basically I haven't even had the time of doing that because I've been too busy.
But I finally had the time to sit down and write this post about what has happened to me the latest time, so sit back, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!
On my second day in Japan, Monday the 7th of October, there was no time to spare. Even though I still was kinda jet lagged, everybody decided to go to Akihabara, which is a really good district in Tokyo for shopping. And even if I were tired, I really didn't want to miss it! So I took my money, and went down to follow everybody. After changing trains 2 times, and a travel time of 30 minutes we arrived.
Akihabara is a really cool place, with lots of skyscrapers, huge signs and lot's of neon..... and of course tons of people. We walked around for a couple of hours in the stores and searched for funny stuff. Maybe one of my favorite store was one of them, called "Yodobashi". Yodobashi call themselves "total multimedia store", and I think that explains it very accurately. 5 stories with so much space it would basically take you over a day to search through their entire collection. Everything from stoves to pianos could be found in this store. Luckily for me, I knew what I wanted to buy, a SLR camera. So the fellowship went to the 3rd floor to search for camera. I found the one I had been searching for online, and after taking some pictures with it inside the store, I decided to get it. (I bought i 2 days later).
To end that trip, we actually went to McDonald's.... *lol*
Tuesday was spent kinda the same. We went discovering in Tokyo. Shinjuku and Shibuya was the districts we visited this time. Disposable underwear for example....
We went to the more random places this time though, visited some typical Japanese stores that had stuff that I never could imagine would be invented.
On Wednesday I had my first time in school. And it was really scary to be honest. Everything stared of kind of that I would imagine. We had some information, and the teachers presented themselves. Nothing to fancy. But there was also a placement test where we had an interview in Japanese. I kinda imagine that there would be something like that, but the interview I was suspecting wasn't anything like this one. I thought that they might would ask "Who are you". But the questioning wasn't anything like that. While I was sitting on a table in the front of the classroom, the rest of the people was sitting behind me (listening to every word I said), the teacher asked questions like "Why do
you want to study Japanese" "For how long have you studied Japanese" and "What type of book did you use when studying Japanese". I was so confused and even though I had to answer in Japanese, I kinda answered in English.
After the interview was finished there was also a writing test. Pfft, impossible grammar and verbs. No, that test didn't go well at all. But I suppose it was a great experience.
The time passed by and Friday came. My first real day in school. It was kinda just as I expected it to be. I knew before that the teaching would be only in Japanese, but to my surprise I kinda understood everything. The only difficult part was to speak, when you were told to speak. Well, no, the most difficult part was to remember the classmates names.
A short little introduction to Japanese is that, the Japanese language have like 6~ ways to say the word "you" in. (ex; Anata, Anta, Kimi, Omae, Temae, Kisame) But even though these words exist, you are NOT allowed to say "you" to anybody, because it's rude. If you would like to say "Do you like sushi?" to someone in Japanese, you wouldn't use "You", instead you would say their name. For example if you are speaking with mr Takashi you would say : "Takashi-san ha sushi o suki desuka?". This is very difficult, because usually when I'm meeting someone for the first time and exchanging names, i kind of forgetting their name in one second. I think its time to change my personality....
The reason why I had so much problem with remembering my classmates names was because 70% of my class names were Chinese and Korean. Their name isn't like plain "Ben" or "Eric" or "Josh" or whatever, they tend to get quite long. We did a presentation of the person who sat closest to one another, my neighbor was a Chinese guy named "Ryou Shin Sen". So the actual Japanese was really no problem I suppose, but pronouncing the Chinese names was a bit of a pain in the ass. Or as you would say in Japanese... "Mendokusai"
The following weekend was awesome though. Me and Toyoko, a friend from the guesthouse went on an adventure to a place called "Hakone" to watch mt. Fuji.
We jumped on a train that we rode for 2 hours to get to a town called "Odawara". There we took a bus that took about 1 hour more and then we finally arrived at the mountain were they had build a gondola that could take us to a top of a mountain so we could watch and see mt. Fuji. I have some pictures from that in a slideshow that you can find here.
We had a really nice day and took tons of photos. (This was a great opportunity for me to learn my new camera).
Since Monday the 14 of October was a day off for everybody, (Health and Sports Day, 体育の日 Taiiku no Hi) we took our time to try out the Japanese drinking tradition, and we had tons of fun. On Sunday the 13 of October we went to a place they called "Yellow Sign" (which actually wasn't the real name, they changed it because the foreigners had problem pronouncing the real name, so because that they had a yellow sign, the people in the guest house chose "Yellow Sign" as the name for the pub) This place was a really a new experience for me. We ordered a lot of food, or more like "snack food" and ate and drank beer and other Japanese drinks. We had a really good time!
I have a slight feeling that this post is way to long, so I'm going to end it here. But these are like the biggest things that have happened so far. In later posts I will go more deeply into all the weird stuff that I've encountered, so hold on for that!
Until next time!
Matane,
Vi hörs,
/ Viktor Sandberg
 |
| A Purikura Picture. |
Already from day one (which you can read about here) I felt like I was a part of a great community with friends who are all kind and caring. Every night we are hanging out together, talking, playing both video games and board games, eating weird Japanese snacks and just having a great time.
During this first week, kind of a lot of things have happened, I mean, when I'm bored my place to be would be in front of my computer, but basically I haven't even had the time of doing that because I've been too busy.
But I finally had the time to sit down and write this post about what has happened to me the latest time, so sit back, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!
Shopping,
Akihabara is a really cool place, with lots of skyscrapers, huge signs and lot's of neon..... and of course tons of people. We walked around for a couple of hours in the stores and searched for funny stuff. Maybe one of my favorite store was one of them, called "Yodobashi". Yodobashi call themselves "total multimedia store", and I think that explains it very accurately. 5 stories with so much space it would basically take you over a day to search through their entire collection. Everything from stoves to pianos could be found in this store. Luckily for me, I knew what I wanted to buy, a SLR camera. So the fellowship went to the 3rd floor to search for camera. I found the one I had been searching for online, and after taking some pictures with it inside the store, I decided to get it. (I bought i 2 days later).To end that trip, we actually went to McDonald's.... *lol*
Tuesday was spent kinda the same. We went discovering in Tokyo. Shinjuku and Shibuya was the districts we visited this time. Disposable underwear for example....We went to the more random places this time though, visited some typical Japanese stores that had stuff that I never could imagine would be invented.
Time for School,
On Wednesday I had my first time in school. And it was really scary to be honest. Everything stared of kind of that I would imagine. We had some information, and the teachers presented themselves. Nothing to fancy. But there was also a placement test where we had an interview in Japanese. I kinda imagine that there would be something like that, but the interview I was suspecting wasn't anything like this one. I thought that they might would ask "Who are you". But the questioning wasn't anything like that. While I was sitting on a table in the front of the classroom, the rest of the people was sitting behind me (listening to every word I said), the teacher asked questions like "Why do you want to study Japanese" "For how long have you studied Japanese" and "What type of book did you use when studying Japanese". I was so confused and even though I had to answer in Japanese, I kinda answered in English.
After the interview was finished there was also a writing test. Pfft, impossible grammar and verbs. No, that test didn't go well at all. But I suppose it was a great experience.
The time passed by and Friday came. My first real day in school. It was kinda just as I expected it to be. I knew before that the teaching would be only in Japanese, but to my surprise I kinda understood everything. The only difficult part was to speak, when you were told to speak. Well, no, the most difficult part was to remember the classmates names.
A short little introduction to Japanese is that, the Japanese language have like 6~ ways to say the word "you" in. (ex; Anata, Anta, Kimi, Omae, Temae, Kisame) But even though these words exist, you are NOT allowed to say "you" to anybody, because it's rude. If you would like to say "Do you like sushi?" to someone in Japanese, you wouldn't use "You", instead you would say their name. For example if you are speaking with mr Takashi you would say : "Takashi-san ha sushi o suki desuka?". This is very difficult, because usually when I'm meeting someone for the first time and exchanging names, i kind of forgetting their name in one second. I think its time to change my personality....The reason why I had so much problem with remembering my classmates names was because 70% of my class names were Chinese and Korean. Their name isn't like plain "Ben" or "Eric" or "Josh" or whatever, they tend to get quite long. We did a presentation of the person who sat closest to one another, my neighbor was a Chinese guy named "Ryou Shin Sen". So the actual Japanese was really no problem I suppose, but pronouncing the Chinese names was a bit of a pain in the ass. Or as you would say in Japanese... "Mendokusai"
Adventure,
The following weekend was awesome though. Me and Toyoko, a friend from the guesthouse went on an adventure to a place called "Hakone" to watch mt. Fuji.We jumped on a train that we rode for 2 hours to get to a town called "Odawara". There we took a bus that took about 1 hour more and then we finally arrived at the mountain were they had build a gondola that could take us to a top of a mountain so we could watch and see mt. Fuji. I have some pictures from that in a slideshow that you can find here.
We had a really nice day and took tons of photos. (This was a great opportunity for me to learn my new camera).
Since Monday the 14 of October was a day off for everybody, (Health and Sports Day, 体育の日 Taiiku no Hi) we took our time to try out the Japanese drinking tradition, and we had tons of fun. On Sunday the 13 of October we went to a place they called "Yellow Sign" (which actually wasn't the real name, they changed it because the foreigners had problem pronouncing the real name, so because that they had a yellow sign, the people in the guest house chose "Yellow Sign" as the name for the pub) This place was a really a new experience for me. We ordered a lot of food, or more like "snack food" and ate and drank beer and other Japanese drinks. We had a really good time! I have a slight feeling that this post is way to long, so I'm going to end it here. But these are like the biggest things that have happened so far. In later posts I will go more deeply into all the weird stuff that I've encountered, so hold on for that!
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| Asuksa, the nr 1 tourist spot. |
Until next time!
Matane,
Vi hörs,
/ Viktor Sandberg
