EARTHQUAKE!!!!!111oneoneeleven!!!11

About 2 minutes ago I experienced my first earthquake or tremor or whatever it was. At first I thought someone slammed a door real hard, then I thought a truck crashed into our building. Someone described experiencing small earthquakes or tremors in Japan as akin to sitting on a washing machine. This is definitely true. I was sitting on my bed and after I realized what was happening, it intensified and it felt like my bed was being juked around clockwise. It was like a washing machine, a really powerful washing machine. It wasn't too bad though and lasted 10 - 15 seconds. I was kinda scared though because I really though a truck or car hit the dorm, lol. In reflection, it was pretty neat. It was different then the quarry blast tremors I experienced when I was a kid in grade school (and I sometimes feel them at home today); those just shook everything for about a split second or too. During this Tokyo tremor, I actually felt the earth moving back and forth, lol. So don't worry, this is normal. I glad I wasn't on a train or subway...the trains automatically stop when they feel movement within the earth.

In other news, we had a big dorm meeting last night. Some people were upset with the living conditions here. Apparently there are cockroaches everywhere. And apparently this is normal for Tokyo. They have a cockroach problem in this city, the semi-tropical climate being very helpful in promoting them. It's a problem in every major city I think, where the climate can support them and Tokyo's climate is well suited for cockroaches. Nevertheless, the students here demanded an exterminator, but for spiders I think. I haven't seen spiders. If I did, maybe 1. For me no big deal. I'm used to bugs, see them all the time at home, lol (country living). Also, people were upset with the state of trash in our building. Tokyo has made throwing out trash very complicated. I think a lot of things are recycled. I have a trash can in my room. When I have to empty it, I have to sort it in about 5 or 6 cans according to what it is. Everywhere in Tokyo is like this, trash cans are all labeled according to what must and mustn't be put in them. Us Americans aren't used to this and so people were angry that they had to go thru the bins and re-sort some trash; they proceeded to teach us to read the bins and sort accordingly. I believe Japan encourages recycling because they have realistically no natural resources.

In other news, I am on the never ending search for a (affordable) bicycle, rice cooker and good food. The food I have been eating is not good. All instant and microwavable. I did eat at a real Japanese restaurant Saturday, but that wasn't very good, for me at least. The Japanese have an obsession with soy. I am not that thrilled when I have to eat things with soy, although I do tolerate it and have it occasionally. I got chicken and it was bathing in a bowl of soy sauce and other things. I think a whole bottle of soy sauce was in that bowl. I eat rice at home in America a lot, but I don't put soy sauce on it...if you know me very well, you know what I put on my rice. The other day I had McDonalds; there is one 5 minutes walking from my dorm. It tasted so good. I hate McDonalds. I hate fast food. But the stuff I've been eating lately is just so bad, cheap and poorly made that even McDonalds taste amazing in comparison. I want my rice cooker now. I also need to find a good supermarket. Then I can start preparing my own food in the kitchen here and I can forget about 7-11 microwavable russian roulette meals. I never ever know what I'm picking up at those stores when I grab a meal. Whatever it is, I usually eat it though. Tomorrow is search for rice cooker/good supermarket day. I know where to find many things that I eat cheaply, like juice and fruit. But meat, I don't know where to get that in large quatities and at affordable prices. Japan is a seafood eating country. I do not eat seafood and once again you wonder why I am in Japan. *shrugh*

I am also searching still for a bike. Tokyo is a shoppers paradise. They have incredible stores full of things you thought people did not sell. But he prices are not cheap. People here are always shopping. Huge amounts of people, all the time, no matter what day or time. Tokyo is the ultimate consumer society. They can buy so much and the number of different things they can buy are amazing. Department stores are like high class Walmarts. There like a Macy's or Lord and Taylor, etc. except they have gourmet supermarkets, hardware, lumber, toilet showrooms, whatever. You can't miss them either because there all right outside of every major train station.

One last thing. Japanese fashion. To quote someone else, it's cutting edge. People in Tokyo are super fashion conscious. That might explain why they shop so much. They stores are full of really high class expensive stuff and every one is wearing it. A lot of people have here are just very fashionable, more so then the average American. Many westerners here stand out not just because of how they look racially, but how they dress. Western tourists and travellers look horrible in comparison to Tokyoites. That was one thing I was definitely not expecting when I got here. Their way of dressing is very western actually and they are very good at it. Lots of expensive European clothing. Another thing that caught be off guard are all these ghetto people. There are a good number of ghetto dressing people in this city...huge pants, big shirts, straight brim hats, ghetto facial hair, bling. I did not know hip hop culture had any effect on Japan. Apparently it has a big effect. I passed a number of hip hop stores today in Shibuya, a major shopping area. These stores blare rap stuff, sell gangsta clothing and have even imported Africans to promote, work and add "authenticity" to the stores.

Tokyo Intro

Click on the photo to see some pictures I took.

I'm sorry I haven't updated sooner, but oh well. Well, I've made it to Tokyo and everything is alright. I apologize for my writing; I wrote this how I talk and I talk rather strangely, so bare with me here. I'll do a better job next time ;-). Let's go over what I've been up to the last few days...

The plane ride was long. I flew on a 777, so there was a generous choice of entertainment, of which I watched it all, many times over. They replayed the movies about 5 times. It was fun watching the Disney Channel on my way to Japan. Our touch down in Narita Airport was the best I've experienced. You hardly felt the landing at all.

I got here at 3:30 p.m. local time Thursday, Aug. 24. The customs line was super long and slow, so I waited awhile there. By the time I got out, my luggage was one of the last pieces rolling around the carousel. Next I bought a bus ticket from the airport to a random hotel and had to wait an hour for that (5:30). The bus ride was over an hour long and the sun set in that time.

The whole bus ride I spent looking out the window. The airport is in the country (which I am fond of for obvious reasons). Getting into the Japanese cities was kind of shocking at first. They are large tangles of concrete, steel and glass, but mostly concrete. Not very nice looking things. Concrete everywhere; every building is concrete it seems. Architecture is bland and uninspired (think right angles). The only interesting building I saw was something that looked like a 3-D square you would draw in geometry class. It was just the outline of a few squares put together. It was rather an unusual building. Also it is worth mentioning that zoning rules are different in Japan. Random stuff is built in some places. And to that the fact that space is scarce, so most of the buildings are several stories, but that's it. I think the threat of earthquakes prevents them from building to high.

We got to the hotel and we waited around some more until we were ferried into taxi cabs to go to our dorm. Yay, spend more money (taxi's are not cheap here). I finally got to the dorm at 8:30 or there abouts and just went to sleep as fast as I could. I did not sleep on the plane.

The next day we got orientation, in which we were bombarded with information on the school and legal matters we had to take care of while in Tokyo. The school itself is in an office tower located in a very international part of the city (international for Tokyo that is). There are many embassies near our school. It's nice inside the school, but there's a lot of floors. I'm used to DeSales and 2 floors, maybe 3 max.

In the afternoon we were led around on a sight seeing tour of sorts. Our tour guides weren't very good (they were students), but I got to see the city at least.

By the way, the trains here are neat. I like trains and there are plenty in Japan. The bullet train (known as the Shinkansen) has tracks 2 blocks from the dorm. Other trains use these tracks as well. A 5 minute walk puts me at my main station I take into Tokyo, the Tokyu Ikegami Line. The dorm I live in is in a predominately quiet, residential district, but the trains still get very crowded, probably because everyone takes them. Everyone rides the train everywhere, so most of the time you have to stand. It's confusing trying to find your way around on the trains, with all the different lines and train companies; I'm glad I got my Tokyo street atlas with me.

Here's video on the train into central Tokyo:



I've been running the past few days. There is a large park a mile from here that I run to. It is huge for Japanese standards and runs along a river that forms the border between the cities of Tokyo and Kawasaki. By the way, I am really disappointed with the lack of open space in Japan. Parks are sparse and where they do exist they are small most of the time. It seems like every inch of this city is paved over. Houses have about a foot of space between them it seems and they are so close together that we are not allowed to talk outside or even loudly inside most of the day.

The second day was more sight seeing. I got to go to a Japanese restaurant where I had no clue what I was doing. Even the pictures weren't helpful because there was nothing familiar in them for me to recognize. And when they brought out the food, we didn't know who's was what because we all didn't know what we ordered. I got some kind of chicken smothered in soy (yum). It was ok with some rice. I got some miso soup and a Japanese salad also. The salad was rather lame. It's like eating the garnish off of your plate in America; it was just as tasty and filling too, lol.

Here's a video of Asakusa, a Buddhist shrine we visited. Why are there so many shops here?


As far as food goes, it's hard to eat in a country if you can't speak the language. Luckily there is alot of instant food around and ready to eat meals in convience stores. The bad thing about this is that you never know what your going to get. It might look good on the outside, but when you taste it, it could be a different story. In Asakusa, we visted a Buddhist shrine. I went to 7-11 for dinner and got what looked liked chicken and noodles. They stuck in the microwave for me in the store and when I ate it, the chicken turned out to be this soft goo stuff. It wasn't that good, but I ate all of it, lol. On Monday I had ready to eat spaghetti. By the way, it's worth noting that portions of meat in Japan are small. Really small. There was about one slim jim amount of sausage in my spaghetti or less. The sauce tasted like BBQ sauce instead of tomato.

Sunday I went to church at a Franciscan Monastery that caters to foreigners who speak English. They have 4 masses in English that day and mine was crowded. There were a good number of Americans, some Europeans and a whole bunch of Filipinos, lol. The Filipinos did the music as well (the guitar playing style was rather familiar...).

Classes started Monday. I had three. The first was Japanese Politics Today. It didn't seem too bad. It focuses on how World War II and thereafter have shaped Japanese political thinking, so I think I'll find it interesting. Next I had my Japanese language class. The teacher seemed nice at first. Then she mentioned she was the head of the language department at Temple University Japan and that she formerly taught at the University of Taiwan, where she gained a reputation for being very meticulous and strict. She wrote all this Japanese stuff on the board and made us say it over and over, and made us each get up and stand at attention and say all this stuff back to her in front of the class. If you didn't stand correctly you had to do it again. Lastly, I had the Politics of Northeast Asia. It sounds like an interesting class. It focuses on Japan, China and Taiwan. The teacher is new and quite interesting. He is from London and has formerly taught at the University of London's School of African and Oriental Studies. He has lived in China, Taiwan and Japan and speaks both Japanese and Chinese. The class emphasizes discussion and I know he is going to a really tricky guy when we have to express our opinions. Tuesday I had Macroeconomics with Max Maquito, a Filipino who studied at the University of Tokyo. He's pretty quirky. Finally I had Japanese Culture, a large class full of Americans (besides this class and my language class, my other classes are majority Japanese students). It will be interesting I suppose. The teacher went to Harvard and her main area of concetration is Art History, but she teaches this class as well. She says she wants to empasize more contemporary Japanese culture rather than stereotypical stuff like tea ceremonies, ikebana, etc. Surprisingly there are a few Japanese students in the class.

Finally I really like this place called Ginza. I can't afford anything they sell here, but it's a nice place to be on weekends and it's close to lots of other places to see in Tokyo. I'lll tell you more about it later.

I made it

I am in my dorm room in Tokyo as I speak and it is about 9:00 pm here on Thursday. It's been a long day and I've seen alot since my short stay so far, but I am dead tired as I have not slept in 30 hours. So I'm going to sleep and check back soon when I'm regenerated.

Welcome

Welp, welcome to my blog. If your reading this, you most likely know who I am and my story. For those of you not in the know, I am American studying in Tokyo, Japan at Temple University Japan. I'll use this blog keep in touch with those who are interested in my life in Japan, updating periodically on my progress. Of course, you can always contact me by e-mail, facebook or AIM, if that's your fancy.

I thought this was a good way to let people know how I'm doing. I can quick write something here for everyone to read every few days and put up pictures, etc. Feel free to leave comments, I'd like to know whats happening back home. Anyone can read my blog, so feel free to let other people know about it.

Btw, I can't edit raw html yet, so I'm stuck with this bland template. Sorry.

That's about it for now. I'll probably update one more time before I go. Then things will get interesting.