Karaoke

I've been told by a very reliable source that I should never apologize for missing a day and not posting. The only notable thing I have done is karaoke (a few pictures have been posted). It was tons of fun and I'm probably going to be doing it a lot because my Japanese friends can't wait to take me. Not only that, but they want to take Purikura pictures with me, which are those tiny little photo booth stickers. To make this sound a bit less weird, all these friends are girls. My guy friends don't really want to go anywhere or do anything, I have no idea why.

Some of the exchange students are leaving next week, the two New Zealand exchange students and the Thai exchange student. I'm really going to miss Pai, the Thai student, we both became really good friends. I'm sure we'll be able to email each other though, so it's fine.

You're going to have to wait for an update tomorrow because my roommate is being freakin annoying right now and wants to go to sleep.

Ja ne.

Answers to some questions

I can only tell what classes I can remember because it's not on paper. I have computer classes, english, math, P.E., Japanese history, ancient Japanese literature, bible class, and biology. I am in Kendo Club. I am still drawing a lot, I drew an anime version of my friend sitting next to me in class today and he said "I want to look like that." I'll see if I can scan it and post it. The anime and manga that my classmates like are pretty much the same as the ones I like. My Japanese is getting a lot better, people actually understand what I'm saying most of the time. I usually don't understand what is being said in my classes, but the teachers and my friends are very helpful, not to mention my dictionary. I have not taken any pictures of me in my uniform, I will eventually, but I keep forgetting. I have pictures from my last trip as well, I'll post them when I have more time. I need sleep now.

Ja ne!

Himeji Castle and the Hot Spring Shrouded in Mystery

OK, the title may not exactly live up to the reality, but you have to admit it was kinda cool.

First stop on the weekend trip: Himeji Castle. After about 2 or 3 hours in a car with absolutely no suspension (I was sleeping while listening to music so I don't really remember exactly how long) we arrived. It was big. And made of rocks. Very big, not to mention tall. Every door was way too short for me. Yet the castle was incredibly beautiful and the surroundings were amazing. It was a typical Japanese style: the fusion of serene nature and pleasant/amazing architecture.

Next we went to a place where natural whirlpools occurred. It was cool initially, but after an hour it got a bit boring.

After that we drove to the hotel, which was the highlight of the trip. More specifically, it was the hot springs. As most of you know, you do have to go into them armed only with an teeny towel. Luckily, I don't really care. These were the best containers of hot water that you sit in/wade in that I've ever been in. First you wash yourself outside the hot spring, then into the inside pool. It's exactly the right temperature. Then into the outside hot spring, where steam is rising off the surface of the water into the cool night air. The pool is illuminated by a few small lights and, of course, the moon. There is also a small zen garden surrounding the hot spring, very beautiful. The cold air and the hot spring was an amazing experience. For dinner that night we had really good French food, but it was a tiny bit Japanese influenced (which, in my humble opinion, made it better).

The next day was pretty uneventful except for going to Kobe, walking all around looking at cool shops, eating ramen from a booth with an incredibly long line in Chinatown, and more long car rides.

Today was just another day of school. Although I had P.E. for the first time since the end of January, not very surprising that I couldn't run the mile faster than 8 minutes (not a full mile, 1.5 km, 1 mile = 1.6 km). Other than that, I've just been having fun doing the usual things. Sleep is now my number 1 priority.

Ja ne.

Too tired

Will post about weekend trip tomorrow when I get home from school.

On tomorrow's exciting episode: "Himeji Castle and the Hot Spring Shrouded in Mystery"

Ja ne.

Umm... Still in Japan

So not much new is occuring here, school is pretty much the same everyday. I'm making a ton of new friends though. They're all really cool; it's mostly the guys who sit around me in class. I eat lunch with them now too, I feel pretty honored to tell the truth. I always see this kind of stuff in anime or manga, where you invite people to have lunch with you, it's a priveledge and a cool one at that.

This weekend I'm going to Himeji Castle somewhere near Osaka I think. It'll be a two day, one night trip. A photo opportunity for sure.

By the way, if you haven't looked at the Flickr Badge on the bottom of the right sidebar you've missed the pictures of me in a Kendo uniform.

If you've started using Bloglines or some similar RSS reader you can subscribe to my Flickr account through the feed here and you'll be updated with every new picture I upload instantly! C'mon people, I wouldn't be repeating this stuff if I knew you were using it (glares at people not using it).

One more tiny piece of news, today was the first day I survived without coffee! Which reminds me, I've been having a can of coffee after 1st period for the past few days. I stand by my reasoning that a caffiene addiction is a weakness and a crutch. Plus it's expensive...

Ja ne.

This seems both logical AND useful

How to jumpstart your day:
Not a morning person? Weblogger Bert Webb lists 6 ways to kickstart yourself in the AM - from strategically positioning the alarm clock to getting some protein in your stomach first thing. All good suggestions for the sleepyheads out there.

Six Ways to Jump-Start Your Day [Open Loops via Slacker Manager]

(Via Lifehacker.)

I'm still not use to the whole waking-up-at-6 deal and I really don't want to keep resorting to caffeine.

This should make getting to Pali a lot faster

I'm not line waiter anymore!:

No, not that line.

For the five people who a)care or b)live/work in Malibu... PCH is open four lanes! Oh thank the Lord. It's been two or three lanes since the floods. I talked to one pizza place, who said their business was cut half the last two months, because no southbound deliveries from 5 - 8 pm.
I'm really tired of mud.

(Via Blogging.LA.)

Kendo club

Today was the first day of the Kendo club at school today. It was a lot of fun. The teacher wasn't attending, but all the other guys taught me how to wield a wooden stick. I got dressed up in the armor and everything. They said I looked like Tom Cruise with that stuff on.

Maybe it is jetlag catching up with me, but I can't seem to concentrate very long on anything because I'm so tired. Maybe this is how I always feel after school and I've just forgotten in school's absence.

Ja ne.

Inspiration and birthdays

I've been told that I've inspired people to consider creating their own blogs. All I can say is get started! There's always more room for another RSS feed. Hitting Blogger.com is the first step.

The birthday party was a ton of fun. The sushi exceeded my expectations, throwing my taste buds into another realm of satisfaction. It was good to say the least. There was also KFC and home-made pizza (not bad either, but again, different realm). Hitoshi's friends Chisato 1 and Chisato 2 (a.k.a. Chi and Chi, both female) were there as well, along with an exchange student from New Zealand. Allow me to explain. Chi 1 had the New Zealand exchange student, Victoria, staying at her house until yesterday when Victoria moved into Chi 2's house. Victoria and the New Zealand exchange student staying with me, Jin, know each other from school. I'm pretty sure that's why Chi and Chi and Victoria all came to the party. But who cares! It was fun. It was mostly everyone hanging out listening to my endless music (much of it Chi and Chi knew because I like so much Japanese music). Jin and I got to practice our Japanese as well, which we really need to start doing more of. It's hard because everyone wants to speak to us in English.

Tomorrow is a real, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm school day. 8 hours of endless incomprehension. What fun! I don't know why everyone says I'll just 'pick it up.' Brains, or rather, minds are pretty mysterious. I don't usually know what's going on most of the time, so maybe that's some kind of process that's subconciously learning what each word means and associating it with something. Pipe dream if I ever heard one.

Ja ne.

Cell phone

Another lazy Saturday for me, except that I went out breifly to buy a prepaid Japanese cell phone. I was kinda bummed because it didn't look nearly as cool as the other ones. It wasn't a flip phone, it was a bit big, no camera, no games, and the color was pretty basic. On the upside though, it has a color screen, HUNDREDS of different customization options, easy usability, and it actually doesn't look so bad after changing the face plate to be all blue.

Forget whatever I said about this city being rural or small. It turns out the city I live in, Omi-hachiman, has a huge city district with tall buildings and everything. It was quite a spectacle with all the cherry blossoms everywhere. I wish I had my camera, but who knew there would be a photo opportunity on the way to the Vodaphone store!

Tomorrow will be the birthday party celebrating both my host brother's births (sice they are really close to each other). And guess what? We're having REAL sushi. Not the cheap stuff (I'm told), but the expensive and therefore high quality sushi. My mouth is starting to water just thinking about it...

I'm getting pretty tired now, so I think I'm gonna get some rest. I'm much more tired here than in LA, even though I'm not really doing anything most of the time. Very interesting.

Ja ne.

View from my classroom window

Classroom window,
originally uploaded by shadowhound.

That's a cherry blossom in the background, believe it or not. I'll be sure to take a more sufficient picture of "sakura" as soom as I get the chance.

Let's see now...

The town I live in, Omi-hachiman, is very rural (as much as a Japanese city actually can be), but there are a lot of buildings and shops, not tall ones, but they're there. It's a pretty fair sized city; it's not gigantic, but it's not tiny either. There's a lot of farmland around, it's actually quite nice. The cherry blossoms are in full bloom! I haven't been able to get a good picture yet, but I will post it one as soon as I can.

The school looks like a pretty normal private school, except a lot better landscaping. My school seems to be K-12 (by american standards), although it really isn't that crowded. It's a huge school though, with more clubs than any other. We also seem to have the best girls volleyball team in Shiga (Shiga is HUGE). I get there by my host mother driving me, and I seem to be pretty lucky after hearing the kind of trips the other exchange students have to make.

Usually my host mother will make me a bento box for lunch (esentially a very compact, very delicious lunch box consisting of rice and a main dish, such as meat or shrimp cooked various ways). Other times I usually eat the leftovers of the previous night's dinner (which is not a complaint in the least).

The school seems to be very christian, but not many of the kids are christian. Most are shinto and buddhist (the typical combination in Japan). But people here aren't so uptight about different religions. Take, for example, the big thing with "under god" in the pledge of allegiance and the children being forced to say it every day in school. In Japan, lots of different religions coexist and thrive. I was given the example that in the normal Japanese life there is a shinto ceremony for birth, a christian wedding for marriage (they are becoming increasingly popular here), and a buddhist ceremony for death. So no one really minds, it's still an awesome school (although I don't know how kids accept the Bible Studying class, I assume they learn it but don't practice it).

I'm actually in a whole bunch of different classes, none of which I can seem to read. I got my host brother to read my schedule, but it was a while ago and I've forgotten.

I'm really tired now, even though it's Friday I think I'm about to collapse.

Ja ne.

Total recovery

I am no longer sick. Pottery was pretty fun, we also went to the bamboo factory as well as the rosary bead factory. They gave us cool little gifts at each place too. I'm really tired for some reason, I've been getting sleep too. Very strange.

Ja ne.

Not feeling so great today

I got a bit of a stomach virus this morning, it wasn't horrible, but it prevented me from going to school. Tomorrow I'll probably feel a lot better, but for now I ought to get some sleep. I'm doing Japanese pottery on Friday! (I honestly don't know why. All of the exchange students are supposed to do it.)

Ja ne.

My day and a useful email tip

Use Gmail as a spam filter:

The web developer and blogger at MBoffin.com posts about how he uses Gmail as a spam filter for his regular email address.

Using a neat forwarding trick between the Gmail and another email server, you can use Gmail to filter spam and forward only good email to your regular email address. (This requires the ability to set a filter on your regular email address to let through only email that's been forwarded from Gmail.) The added advantage to this system is full email backup and online search on Gmail. Nifty!

Using Gmail as a Spam Filter [MBoffin.com]

(Via Lifehacker.)

Not much happened today, just getting to know the other exchange students from around the world. I need to stop going to sleep so late, I'll start tonight. I'm on AIM here in case you didn't know, so sign on and say hi. I'm only on at night (for you) though, around 10 pm LA time.

Ja ne.

Still no real school

Although, my teacher didn't tell me to go to the international office with the other students yesterday so I ended up actually attending class. I didn't understand anything anyway. I got my super duper real school uniform yesterday and I am wearing it today (will post picture a.s.a.p., possibly when I get home). All this week is minimum days and the exchange students don't have to go to class because they get shown around the school and taught about the school. Next week it's all real though. 8 am to 4:30 pm, that's gonna be preeeetty boring. I'll survive though, and maybe even pick up some Japanese while I'm at it.

By the way, I'm pretty sure they don't marinate the beef in anything, but I can translate that. Gotta go to school.

Ja ne.

Quite possibly one of the best dinners ever

Yakiniku, or fried meat, is really really good. Basically it is a big frying pan on a table with various raw meat (beef and sausage for me) and vegetables (lettuce, sweet potatoes, and eggplant) which you stick on the pan yourself and cook. I don't know what they do to the beef here but it is HEAVENLY. I know that the kobe beef here comes from cows that are massaged and fed beer (I had some last year, I thought I could see Nirvana), but this was just ordinary stuff. I could get used to living here...

Another day of school tomorrow, what fun! As long as I don't have to stand in front of hundreds of students and introduce myself, I think I'll be fine. Wish me luck!

Ja ne.

Back from Universal Studios Japan

You'll see a few pictures from there on the Flickr Badge down on the bottom of the right sidebar. It was mostly the same as the one in Hollywood, but the food was a lot better. It was tiring though... I haven't walked around like that since Italy, I better start exercising more. Oh wait! I forgot that I'll have P.E. class now, that should be sufficient. At USJ (Universal Studios Japan) I also saw this thing called a "Tour Preview" of Hagane no Renkinjutsushi (a.k.a. Full Metal Alchemist, it took me all day to memorize the Japanese name) which, if you don't know, is one of the best anime/manga ever. This Tour Preview seemed to be an introduction to what has happened so far in the world of Hagane no Renkinjutsushi as well as a preview for an upcoming movie... or DVD... or festival... I'm not quite sure, everything was lost in translation. But it was cool! I'm gonna start sketching again, maybe even join the drawing club. I've been told by every single person in the lecture series about Pop Japan (maybe a year ago or something) that if you want to get better, you copy your favorite artists until you can adapt them all and make them your own style. This is what I will do. OK then!

Otherwise, I'm really tired like I said before. All of you be sure to email me every once in a while (you know who you are, those bad ones who've been neglecting me for weeks... for shame). Back to Japanese TV, then manga, then sleeping possibly all of Sunday.

Ja ne.

School, what's up tomorrow, and an easier way to read my blog

First of all, today was technically my first day of school, although it was only a half day and most of it was taken up by the entrance ceremony and sitting around waiting for my host brother. I had to introduce myself once to the teachers and then a second time to EVERY student in the gym. That unpleasantness is behind be now though, and everything else was really fun. The students were all cool and the teacher speaks really good English.

Second, try and guess where I'm going tomorrow. I'll give you a hint: it's the last place you could possibly think of. Give up? I thought so. Universal Studios Japan! It should be really fun. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures.

Third, so, if you're reading this it means that you want to be kept up to date with all the posts on my blog incredibly easily. It requires a little thing called RSS. You can easily subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog by going to an RSS client online (Bloglines) or downloading one (NetNewsWire for Mac or SharpReader for Windows) and subscribe to http://beninitalyandjapan.blogspot.com/ and that should be it! Now you'll be able to either check Bloglines or your desktop client for an update. It's actually incredibly useful for keeping up with friend's blogs, not to mention all of the "professional" ones such as Wired, Engadget, and my personal favorite, Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things. There are millions of blogs out there, Bloglines is the best for finding them. Many of them are incredibly interesting and informative. Have fun and welcome to the blogosphere!

Ja ne.

A sleepy end to a lazy day

Has anyone else noticed that doing nothing can be tiring? I also only noticed now that I have to duck to go through the doors in my house. It's the little things that you don't notice at first I guess. It doesn't bother me though. Man I'm tired... And I have to get up at 6 (?!) tomorrow for school. Impromptu Japanese lesson time! Here is my introduction for school tomorrow in Japanese, in English without correcting the order of the words, and an English translation:

Hajimemashite. Boku no namae wa Benjamin Clark des. Ben to yonde kudasai. Boku wa Los Angeles ni sundeimas. Terashima Hitoshi no ie ni sankagetsu home stay shiteimas. Dozo yoroshiku onegaishimas.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Benjamin Clark. Ben call me please. I Los Angeles come from. Terashima Hitoshi's house 3 months home stay I am. I am pleased to meet you all.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Benjamin Clark. Please call me Ben. I come from Los Angeles. I am staying at Terashima Hitoshi's house for 3 months. I am pleased to meet you all.

There you have it. I hope it was helpful for your Japanese skills (gotta have those skills). Now time to memorize, hopefully as I sleep. Goodnight blogosphere.

Ja ne.

Cool new thing!

I just created a new thing called a Flickr Badge which you will see on the sidebar on the bottom right. As you may or may not know, Flickr.com is a online photo publishing site which is completely free to use. They have an option to update the 5 latest photos in your blog, so thats what I did! You can click them and have all the fun you want with 'em. There are a lot more where that came from, so go ahead and look.

Ja ne.

School and food

I go to school Monday through Friday, I do not have to go on weekends. The amazing food I've been having is ramen (thin noodle from China), tempura (various deep fried vegetables and shrimp), udon (thick noodles), onigiri (hand rolls), and some more I can't remember. But I haven't had sushi yet! Some could argue that the tuna in the onigiri was sushi, but I am a purist, sushi is sushi, not onigiri. Although from what I read, it is a real delicacy to have sushi here because is it A) really really delicious and B) really really expensive (the delicious to expensive ratio is 1 to 1). I don't want to impose on my family so I better do my laundry now.

Ja ne.

Uniform

My uniform really is the stereotypical private school uniform... except asian-fied. Oh, my cold is completely better as well. I totally forgot about it.

(To parents: You'll have to show me that pizza place when I get back.)

Orientation

Orientation was today! They fitted my uniform (which I get to keep at a price) and I met some other exchange students there. I saw the coolest show on TV today which showed things you'd never think were that cool in slow motion, like seeing what happens when you shoot a pineapple or a knife or shoot two bullets at each other. I haven't mentioned the food yet, have I? Well, it's DELICIOUS. I can't emphasize that enough. Everything I've eaten has been sooooooo good. I just got a whole bunch of J rock from my host brother, mostly Orange Range and Asian Kung-fu Generation (my favorite anyway). Judging from the shows on TV, Japanese people find cross dressers hilarious. Just thought I'd point that out. It is pretty funny actually. I played go today with the exchange student from New Zealand (they call go "igo" because sometimes when you talk about go in Japanese you might think someone is saying 5 because go=5 in Japanese). By the way, people wear the coolest shirts here, they are beyond description. I also just finished watching Monday's Daily Show with Jon Stewart that I downloaded.

Answers to questions:
My family is awesome, everyone is really nice and very helpful. They are helping me learn Japanese MUCH more quickly, I'm talking in Japanese all the time now. I mostly speak Japanese at home and use my dictionary all the time, but I do help the family learn English as well, they learn incredibly quickly and it gets better everyday (as they say my Japanese does). I turn out to be the only one in the family who can use chopsticks correctly! My classes start on Friday (don't ask why school starts right before the weekend because I don't know).

I'll check back in later.

Ja ne. (By the way, that means "see ya.")

Thanks to all 2 of my readers!

Kyoto was really fun today, but tiring. I actually had to get up before 8! I haven't gotten up this early since January... I got some presents that I promised to mail, just try and guess what they are (the hint is that I went to Kyoto today, the most traditional japanese place in Japan). Cherry blossoms are blooming! Japanese TV is awesome!

Like I said before though, I'm tired. Until tomorrow...

Ja ne.

Kyoto Tomorrow

Me and the other foreign exchange student from New Zealand are being taken to Kyoto tomorrow to see the major sights like the Golden Pavillion and the Silver Pavillion. It kinda sucks that I have to wake up at 6 am, but whatever. I saw a really cool japanese movie called Bayside Shakedown 2 (with subtitles), if it`s in the US you should check it out. I went to the major shopping area and went to the arcade which was so cool. I got to play a whole bunch of different games that I`ve never even heard of. There was a manga store there too in which I saw all of my favorite titles as well as MANY I`ve never heard of. It`s already 11 30 here, so I oughta get some sleep.

Ja ne.

I`m in Japan

I still can`t believe it, but I`m actually typing on a Japanese keyboard from one of the most ancient parts of Japan near Kyoto, where my host family is. This house is so awesome, it`s taken RIGHT out of Rurouni Kenshin (by the way, my host brother has every Rurouni Kenshin manga, how awesome is that? Maybe I`ll eventually be able to read them all...). I can`t use the computer very long, sadly, but I miss you all very much! Tell everyone to check my blog because I don`t have enough time to email very much so I`ll be saying everything on here. I`ll still read emails all the time though. Be sure to leave comments!

Ja ne.

Feeling a bit better now

I have been in Bangkok, Thailand the past few days touring around, mostly it was to ease getting used to the time change to Japan. I actually rode an elephant, which was pretty cool. Not a little kiddie ride either, I was on this elephant for 30 minutes while going to see temples. Went on some canal and river rides as well. Its been hot and humid, but that's all going to change when I go to Japan. Wether reports are saying it's going to be pretty chilly.

I'm really excited about this November! Not only is my birthday in that month, but I managed to get 2 legit and well seated tickets to the U2 concert in the Staples Center on November 2 off eBay! It was my only alternative because that U2 concert was officially sold out, but thank goodness for scalpers on eBay. I'll be taking my absolutely wonderful girlfriend to this amazing event.

I have to go to Japan now, I'll post when I get there.

Ja ne