a perfect sky

I'm Sheridan and my junior year is 0% at Wellesley and 100% at ICU in Tokyo. Also, I will eventually get around to translating my favorite lyrics. Eventually.

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Illumination festival!

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I decorated my dorm room for Christmas! Not entirely sure these decorations are permitted, but the next dorm inspection isn't until after Christmas, so it'll probably be OK~!

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From my trip to Kyoto. Kinkaku-ji/Golden Pavillion Temple.

It was completely gorgeous! Although there were tons of tourists there, so it was also pretty crowded. Kinkaku-ji also has a lot of interesting vending machines, on a not-as-pretty-but-still-fun note. I didn't try it out, but they had a ramen machine. Why don't these things exist when I'm on campus and would have greater need of them? :(

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Breakfast in the cafeteria a while back. I'm not saying the fish was staring at me, but it totally was.

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The view from Tokyo Station

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お金

My stipend is finally here! Now I can use the time I don't have to go and buy groceries and get my cell phone.

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川越市 Kawagoe

Yesterday was kind of long. I rode my bike down to Musashisakai Station (by myself!!). As I was riding away from the school a wasp hit me in my glasses, but then like...we parted ways and I guess it was cool? I had another run in with an insect though. Here's how it went.

Me: I have to go to do something about this hair on my chin. Wait. Isn't my hair up today? Wait. Don't I not have a beard? Big Green Spider: Hi, I'm on your face.

Can't say that part of the trip was fun.

Anyway, from the station we went to Kawagoe. We changed lines once and trains twice. Turns out the food on this field trip was provided. So I ended up walking into a dream that I didn't know I had. There were like, four tables, filled with matching sets of food. There was lots of food. Wasn't sure what the food was. But there was lots of it. Also: hungry.

Here, a photo of my happiness:

Not pictured: Rice, udon, seafood pudding.

After that, we went to Kitain Temple.

Later on, I will be able to read what this says. It probably says something about please don't be rude by taking photos.

I also learned a little something about this well. You put some of the water in your left hand, cleanse it, then do the same to your right. Put some more water in your left hand (make it cupped) and drink from it. Spit the water out in the water area around the well. Then you can go up to the temple.

There was also a cemetery there, but I did not take photos of it because nearly entirely sure that's pretty rude.

And then we went on to harvest rice. I am terrible at harvesting rice. There are no pictures of me harvesting rice, because I'm not entirely sure I want to save the memory of me trying to harvest rice. Or how horrible my Japanese became the second I stepped on to that field.

The older man helping us harvest rice claps me on the shoulder as I leave. "Ganbette," he says, looking at me as though he has never been more sure to say that to someone in his life before now. He is probably wondering how I wake up in the morning without falling on my head. My responding thanks if quiet and somber and generally defeated.

I have been defeated by rice.

On a brighter note, we also each received a yummy present. A free bag of rice~! Now I can begin the long journey to demystifying my dorm's communal rice cookers.

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病気 Sick in Japan

Ahhh, the worst part of not being home for a long period of time is that you know you're going to get sick eventually. And then you are going to have to leave the house and forage for medicine and food items and whatnot. And then, living in a foreign country and all, you've got to decode the medicine aisle while not being entirely literate. Or anywhere close to literate at all. Here are the words I know relating to illness: pain, cold, head, throat, cough, doctor, sick, hospital, dentist. And I don't think the last one counts in this case.

So I go out and buy a bottle of Papuron or something.

I have no idea what the active ingredient is or how it reacts to other medicines. So the fact that I have not yet died makes me very happy. You're supposed to take three pills with every meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. How do I know this? Because one of my Japanese professors is a lovely person and helped me to translate the instructions.

(She also gives me cough drops! Bless her.)

I think I made my condition worse (significantly worse) by going on a bike ride in the rain right at the peak of my symptoms. I bought chicken in Roppongi on Sunday, so I knew I had to use it within a couple of days or it was going to go bad. I've only got one class on Wednesday, in the afternoon, so I figured Wednesday was the best day to cook.

Repeat: Going bike riding in the rain will make you feel much worse than however you currently feel.

Lesson learned. I do, thankfully, have nice homemade chicken nuggets to show for it though.

Something interested I learned about Japan though is how you treat getting sick. You go to the hospital for everything. I'd heard this was true, but I didn't really understand it until I was talking to my roommate. Going to the hospital here isn't very serious, like it is in the US. There are hospitals everywhere, so it's sort of casual. You don't stick with the same doctor though; you might go to the same hospital your entire life, but your doctor will change every visit. Also, getting an ambulance isn't Japan doesn't mean that you are going to have to sell your firstborn child to pay for it. Ambulances, which are only taken when you're in a very serious condition, not dissimilar from the US, are free.

Huh. That sounds really nice actually.

Hmm. There is one more thing I was going to talk about. MASKS! I have one I have one I have one, and I have worn it. And then I took it off, and then I said to myself "Perhaps not yet..."

Masks in Japan are also pretty useful. You can wear them when you're sick to avoid infecting other people or when you're trying to avoid pollen or when you're a famous person and don't want anyone to know who you are or for...whatever reason you want (you're giving a dance tutorial in a YouTube video?), I guess. But those are the popular ones!

I had a theory where, if you put on one of these masks, you would instantly become twice as attractive because only half of your face is visible. Kind of like with big sunglasses. No. I was wrong.

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Not 100% sure how much money I spent today, but I'm pretty sure it was entirely too much.

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Roppongi

Went to Roppongi today and checked out the Harry Potter exhibit. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside the exhibit. I'd still say it was 2000円 well spent though. It made me so nostalgic. It was really weird that there were so many little kids there. They probably only started to learn about the magic after the whole franchise had already ended. It's weird to think about that way.

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Hornets and Crows

I posted a sign a little while back on our campus talking about beware hornets. Here, a refresher:

So, since I can read katakana, I decided to translate exactly what the sign was warning us for, otherwise known as suzumebachi.

And then I had my fears confirmed. It is not the normal hornet, which is already terrible enough, but is indeed the Asian Giant Hornet. Also, according to my school's website, several people have already been bitten/attacked/preyed upon by merciless stinging creatures. I keep seeing these signs everywhere, and I am starting to feel as though it is only a matter of time until I too fall victim to these monsters.

I kind of read a Cracked article about this situation, called lovingly The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World, although the article is technically talking about the Japanese Giant Hornet, a subspecies of the Asian Giant Hornet. You can find out more about how to let the Asian Giant Hornet invade your nightmares on Wikipedia. Thank me later. (Though I'm not entirely sure if suzumebachi refers only to Asian Giant Hornet or to both the Asian Giant Hornet and the Japanese Giant Hornet.)

Another thing terrifying about Japan are the crows. The crows in Japan are bigger, have deeper voices with which they can invade the darkest corners of your mind, and generally just look at you, unflinchingly, as though caring about your existence less would be simply impossible. According to a bit of Googling, crows do eat wasps' eggs, so I guess the large population of crows balances out the wasp population.

The crows in Japan remind me of two horrible things:

Remember that Hitchcock movie, The Birds. Let me remind you.

Image from this tumblr.

Also, there's this character in the anime YuYu Hakusho, named Karasu, 鴉 who was generally creepy to begin with. But also, his name literally means "crow." This makes everything so much worse now.

Image from this website

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Maybe there's been a redesign since I've left, but the last time I ate a stack of Ritz Crackers in the US, they came in a really boring brown translucent wrapper. This wrapper made me excited.

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The First Field Trip

So, this past Thursday, I trekked off to Kichijoji with some other students to observe people in the land of small shops. I'm not 100% sure what the assignment was still, but we went there and looked at stuff and occasionally asked questions. So I think we did OK.

I kind of ate a lot of food while I was there. Starting with a small from McDonald's because I hadn't eaten lunch. Progressing on to a chocolate covered doughnut from Mister Donut because...why not? Then I bought a miniature sized Fanta from Seiyu (Japanese WalMart). I plan on going back there sometime this weekend or next weekend, not entirely sure when as of yet. Probably next Friday, as of the current moment.

I made a reservation for a Prepaid Phone because apparently no one just has them in stock? Or the cheapest place doesn't just have them stock, at least. The big Softbank in Kichijoji sells prepaid phones for under 6000円/$60, which is a really good deal comparatively. It should come in sometime late this week. I'll pick it up the same day I go grocery shopping.

But even stuff at Seiyu is still crazy expensive compared to stuff at the US WalMart. For example...

Do you see the price of that melon? It's 1970円, otherwise known as about $20. I always thought those conversations we practiced in class, talking about 「高いメロン」 (expensive melon) were exaggerating. But they weren't. And this is Seiyu; when we tried asking why the melons were so expensive, they looked at us like we were insane and told us that they weren't expensive. Japan really likes melon from what I've seen so far. It kind of reminds me of bacon in the US except it won't lead to heart disease. I should make a post about that later... The melon craze, not the heart disease.

So what else is there to do in Kichijoji beside observe the small store culture in a huge metropolis, eat doughnuts, and reserve a phone?

There's still Mos Burger.

So I order a cheeseburger:

It's the sort of thing you can fit on to the palm of your hand (for emphasis, my hand, which is not particularly big). Luckily, I ordered some fries and onion rings to accompany my meal. I want to go back and try out one of their rice patty burgers next time; I've heard good things, and now it is time to take the leap.

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Big Things

So yesterday was a typhoon. Or something. School was closed because it looked like Tokyo was going to take a worse hit than it did, but...it didn't. There was a lot of rain, and there are now some stray branches on the ground from the weaker, wimpy trees, but I still went to the dining hall to enjoy a 50% discounted breakfast (there's a sale this week, 300円 to 150円 for breakfast). Which just says that the desire to reap the benefits of a sale trumps whatever potential catastrophes nature throws at me.

So, on to more important things. Like tomorrow. Tomorrow is the real dorm initiation, in which all of the new September students dance on top of a hill while our peers watch and judge us. This is most likely going to be on YouTube somewhere. We'll see tomorrow whether or not that will cause me to hide away somewhere in shame forever. Wish me luck~

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Cabbage. I'm not sure why, but cabbage is everywhere in my dining hall. Plain, shredded cabbage. I...don't like it. And yet I must pay for it.

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Each of the dorms at ICU have an initiation for the new students. Most new students come in April (at the start of the Japanese school year), but, as a September student, we still don't get to escape from it. There are just fewer of us being embarrassed...? My dorm is going with a kindergarten theme, as seen here with the Japanese kindergarten uniform (including little yellow hat!!) We decided to go all out with pig tails and knee high socks. This is going to be an interesting first week. I guess it's payback for managing to evade wearing a school uniform all of my life. :D

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Oh, look, a sign that no one wanted to see.