Detective Work
My main journal is now over at Newmiller@Blogspot.com. Please check it out!
9/2/08
Ishida House, Matsudo
Today was my first full day at Labo. I left early so as not to be late, so I got to hang around the Labo offices for a good 45 minutes. The four of us new interns met with Ariel to go over the program guidelines, thirteen pages of technicalities and common sense ("no stealing"). It took from 10:00 all the way to 1:00, but at least it's over with. Labo owns my soul for the next 12 months.
We had lunch together out on the courtyard. Coral has a college degree in Japanese, so she's in the nihongo institute classes, which start at 1:30. Emma, Katie and I are doing lessons with a teacher in our own beginner's class, it doesn't start until 2:00.
Our "class" is pretty much starting from the beginning, mostly for Katie's benefit. I spent most of the class trying to convince the teacher (Harioka-sensei, one of my teachers from two years ago) that I already know hiragana, and helping/distracting Emma and Katie. I did learn a few new words, (みかん=orange, ふね=boat, among others), and had a good time (Harioka-sensei is a fun teacher), but I hope I get to move on to kanji soon.
During a break, I went out to the hall to buy a drink. There was a man messing with the vending machine, trying to get a stuck drink out the dispenser. He asked me if I could give it a shot, so I got it out for him. He thanked me and asked for my name, so I introduced myself. He replied with his own introduction; he was the director of Labo, definitely someone I would want to have a good impression of me.
After class, Coral had something to take care of with Ariel, and the rest of the interns went to Nishi-shinjuku station. I stopped at i-Land and picked up a notebook and a nice pencil, then went to Bic Camera to try to buy a phone. I spent two hours with an AU-KDDI lady trying to figure everything out. At first it seemed like there wouldn't be any way to get a one-year plan, all the contracts were at least two years. However, they had a one-day deal where if you bought a certain phone, signed up for the contract, and were under 22 years old, they would give you 10000 cash back on the spot. Since the contract cancellation fee is 9975 yen, they figured everything worked out. The only catch is that the phone in the deal doesn't have an english option, so I'm going to be experiencing the Japanese Phone in all its original glory.
The forms (oh, always with the forms) were all in Japanese, but the lady walked me through it. There was some kind of rule dictating that I needed to be the one making the pen marks, so I had to put down my host family's address. I had the address, but it was in Japanese. The thing about Japanese proper nouns is that they are in Kanji. Creative kanji, sometimes so much so that literate Japanese adults can't read them. The thing about Japanese addresses is that they are long. So I had to copy down this dozen character address, each character being about a dozen strokes, from a twelve-point font printout. At first I stopped dead, thinking I would need to stop and come back with someone who knew what they were doing. After taking a longer look at the address, I found that I actually could identify the stroke order, and did a legible job of transferring the address to the form. They didn't actually have the phone in stock, so I'll have to come back tomorrow to pick it up.
It was dark by the time I got out of the store, so I figured I needed to call my host family to let them know where I was. I had a telephone card, but I couldn't find a telephone in the station. I ended up asking some policemen, and they showed me to a hidden bank of camouflaged phones, four feet tall, in a dank corner under some stairs.
Got kinda smooshed in trains today. I'll have to get used to that.
After I got home, the opportunity presented itself to use the net for a little while, so I launched my journal. Hope that goes well.
9/3/08
Ishida House, Matsudo
This is gonna be a short entry, it's really late and I'm really tired. My Suica card threw kind've a fit at Shinjuku, but the staff fixed it in a matter of seconds.
We did a "Japanese Culture Workshop" with Ariel today. We went over some basic Japanese values, customs, etc. The idea is that even though we don't have the cultural experience to fit in, we can at least have some context as to why we don't fit in.
As for class, it went ok. We went over to the nihongo institute to "interview" some innocent staff. I learned that if it goes in an office tool, it's called しん. Pencil lead, staples, even ink cartridges. Fun stuff.
On the way home, Emma, Katie, and I stopped at the Bic Camera. They bought some adaptors to remove their ground plugs, and I picked up a cell phone. It's green, and does everything you can imagine save for having english menus. There are a lot of options and menus to get through on a phone that has everything. The manual is bigger than some schoolbooks I've had, full of kanji. There are two pages of english that explain that to make a call I need to punch in the numbers and hit the button.
9/4/08
Ishida House, Matsudo
This morning we were to meet in Shinjuku station, and I arrived forty minutes early. I wandered around the station, looking at shops while I waited. I found a nifty little place selling umeboshi-onigiri, so I bought one and stuffed it in my backpack. I was looking for an umbrella, but most of the shops were food oriented, and the ones that did have umbrellas had the long sort that doesn't fit in my backpack.
After we all met, we went on a walking tour of Shinjuku. We saw Yodobashi Camera, a few restaurants, and the only Krispy Kreme in Japan. It's apparently a popular attraction, because they had a permanent line set up like an amusement park ride. When Ariel saw that it was only ten minutes long, she said she couldn't pass it up and sent us off to a bookstore with Kate and Simon. After she caught up with us, we went around Takashimiya times square and eastern shinjuku, and back to Labo through i-Land.
We had lunch with a bunch of folks from Labo, a pizza party. The president of Labo (I forgot his name) sat next to me, and I had a few conversations with him before we did formal introductions and I found out who he was. The pizza itself was pretty good, I wonder if Dominoes has ever considered selling eggplant, corn, and mayonnaise on pizzas in the US as well.
For class, we had Kurosaki-sensei, the head teacher at the Nihongo Institute. He was really good, I finally understand the difference between wa and ga now. We learned a bit about the US and Canada as well, as we explained things about our homes.
After the train, I stopped at the SATO in kita-kogane. They had a few lego sets, but it seems that lego didn't get a patent soon enough in Japan either, as there were several knockoffs. One of the knockoffs was really prominent, and featured the badge "made in Japan!" I almost bought I set of legos just to spite it. I should have.
There were banks upon banks of gashapon, but most of them weren't of any interest. They're getting pretty expensive, many were 200yen a pop, and a few were 300. There was a Lucky Star one I wanted, but I didn't want it 300yen bad. Of course, now that I don' t have it, I do sorta wish I'd gone for it. Oh well, maybe later.
I found a vending machine on the way home that was selling CC Lemon for 120yen. It normally goes for 150, so I bought it. I put in 150 yen (100 coin and 50 coin), and it spit out 70yen back at me, plus the drink. It's possible that I accidentally put in two 100 coins, but I'm pretty sure I didn't. I think what happened is that the machine ran out of 10yen coins after dispensing two, so it dropped a 50yen coin (the next highest denomination, the machine doesn't take 5yen coins and there is no japanese quarter). Lucky me!
9/5/08
Ishida House, Matsudo
I stopped by Yodobashi Camera this morning and bought a microSD card for my camera phone. Now I'll be able to take as many photos and movies as I want without having to worry about running out of space, I hope.
Hirano-san spent the morning explaining the Labo organization to us from a Japanese perspective. Most of it wasn't that exciting, but he did have an interesting way of describing the differences between western and Japanese socialization. He drew two sets of circles; one had a thick inner circle and a thin outer circle, the other vice versa. The circle with the thin outer "shell" represented a westerner: generally outgoing and easy to make friends with, but always maintaining a strong personal zone of privacy. Japanese people tend to be more shy, but because space restraints in Japan make personal space hard to come by, their culture has adapted. Once you really succeed in befriending a Japanese person, your bond is close and there is not as much privacy expected.
After class, all of us interns went out for the evening. We stopped by Shinjuku station and found the Shinjuku Eye, and neat sculpture thing. Then we went and found what is apparently one of the only Mexican restaurants in Japan. It wasn't quite Mexican how I know it, but it was more Mexican than the Italian restaurants are Italian. We played some games (I'm Tupac) and told scary stories, fun times. I didn't get home until almost 11.
My phone is pretty nifty. I've been playing with it and attempting to familiarize myself with it over the last few days, and I've figured out most of the basic stuff. I set it up so it'll work with my gmail (that is, I set gmail to forward to the phone). After sending a few messages, I've found that despite my native language, it's way easier to text in Japanese than it is in English. Part of it is how good the predictive text software is (it regularly correctly predicts words before you even enter one character, based on learned context), part of it is how much better the Japanese alphabet is suited to the keypad, and part of it is that words generally have less characters (even just four or five kana is a long word in Japanese). All that and it plays tennis!
9/2/08
Ishida House, Matsudo
Today was my first full day at Labo. I left early so as not to be late, so I got to hang around the Labo offices for a good 45 minutes. The four of us new interns met with Ariel to go over the program guidelines, thirteen pages of technicalities and common sense ("no stealing"). It took from 10:00 all the way to 1:00, but at least it's over with. Labo owns my soul for the next 12 months.
We had lunch together out on the courtyard. Coral has a college degree in Japanese, so she's in the nihongo institute classes, which start at 1:30. Emma, Katie and I are doing lessons with a teacher in our own beginner's class, it doesn't start until 2:00.
Our "class" is pretty much starting from the beginning, mostly for Katie's benefit. I spent most of the class trying to convince the teacher (Harioka-sensei, one of my teachers from two years ago) that I already know hiragana, and helping/distracting Emma and Katie. I did learn a few new words, (みかん=orange, ふね=boat, among others), and had a good time (Harioka-sensei is a fun teacher), but I hope I get to move on to kanji soon.
During a break, I went out to the hall to buy a drink. There was a man messing with the vending machine, trying to get a stuck drink out the dispenser. He asked me if I could give it a shot, so I got it out for him. He thanked me and asked for my name, so I introduced myself. He replied with his own introduction; he was the director of Labo, definitely someone I would want to have a good impression of me.
After class, Coral had something to take care of with Ariel, and the rest of the interns went to Nishi-shinjuku station. I stopped at i-Land and picked up a notebook and a nice pencil, then went to Bic Camera to try to buy a phone. I spent two hours with an AU-KDDI lady trying to figure everything out. At first it seemed like there wouldn't be any way to get a one-year plan, all the contracts were at least two years. However, they had a one-day deal where if you bought a certain phone, signed up for the contract, and were under 22 years old, they would give you 10000 cash back on the spot. Since the contract cancellation fee is 9975 yen, they figured everything worked out. The only catch is that the phone in the deal doesn't have an english option, so I'm going to be experiencing the Japanese Phone in all its original glory.
The forms (oh, always with the forms) were all in Japanese, but the lady walked me through it. There was some kind of rule dictating that I needed to be the one making the pen marks, so I had to put down my host family's address. I had the address, but it was in Japanese. The thing about Japanese proper nouns is that they are in Kanji. Creative kanji, sometimes so much so that literate Japanese adults can't read them. The thing about Japanese addresses is that they are long. So I had to copy down this dozen character address, each character being about a dozen strokes, from a twelve-point font printout. At first I stopped dead, thinking I would need to stop and come back with someone who knew what they were doing. After taking a longer look at the address, I found that I actually could identify the stroke order, and did a legible job of transferring the address to the form. They didn't actually have the phone in stock, so I'll have to come back tomorrow to pick it up.
It was dark by the time I got out of the store, so I figured I needed to call my host family to let them know where I was. I had a telephone card, but I couldn't find a telephone in the station. I ended up asking some policemen, and they showed me to a hidden bank of camouflaged phones, four feet tall, in a dank corner under some stairs.
Got kinda smooshed in trains today. I'll have to get used to that.
After I got home, the opportunity presented itself to use the net for a little while, so I launched my journal. Hope that goes well.
9/3/08
Ishida House, Matsudo
This is gonna be a short entry, it's really late and I'm really tired. My Suica card threw kind've a fit at Shinjuku, but the staff fixed it in a matter of seconds.
We did a "Japanese Culture Workshop" with Ariel today. We went over some basic Japanese values, customs, etc. The idea is that even though we don't have the cultural experience to fit in, we can at least have some context as to why we don't fit in.
As for class, it went ok. We went over to the nihongo institute to "interview" some innocent staff. I learned that if it goes in an office tool, it's called しん. Pencil lead, staples, even ink cartridges. Fun stuff.
On the way home, Emma, Katie, and I stopped at the Bic Camera. They bought some adaptors to remove their ground plugs, and I picked up a cell phone. It's green, and does everything you can imagine save for having english menus. There are a lot of options and menus to get through on a phone that has everything. The manual is bigger than some schoolbooks I've had, full of kanji. There are two pages of english that explain that to make a call I need to punch in the numbers and hit the button.
9/4/08
Ishida House, Matsudo
This morning we were to meet in Shinjuku station, and I arrived forty minutes early. I wandered around the station, looking at shops while I waited. I found a nifty little place selling umeboshi-onigiri, so I bought one and stuffed it in my backpack. I was looking for an umbrella, but most of the shops were food oriented, and the ones that did have umbrellas had the long sort that doesn't fit in my backpack.
After we all met, we went on a walking tour of Shinjuku. We saw Yodobashi Camera, a few restaurants, and the only Krispy Kreme in Japan. It's apparently a popular attraction, because they had a permanent line set up like an amusement park ride. When Ariel saw that it was only ten minutes long, she said she couldn't pass it up and sent us off to a bookstore with Kate and Simon. After she caught up with us, we went around Takashimiya times square and eastern shinjuku, and back to Labo through i-Land.
We had lunch with a bunch of folks from Labo, a pizza party. The president of Labo (I forgot his name) sat next to me, and I had a few conversations with him before we did formal introductions and I found out who he was. The pizza itself was pretty good, I wonder if Dominoes has ever considered selling eggplant, corn, and mayonnaise on pizzas in the US as well.
For class, we had Kurosaki-sensei, the head teacher at the Nihongo Institute. He was really good, I finally understand the difference between wa and ga now. We learned a bit about the US and Canada as well, as we explained things about our homes.
After the train, I stopped at the SATO in kita-kogane. They had a few lego sets, but it seems that lego didn't get a patent soon enough in Japan either, as there were several knockoffs. One of the knockoffs was really prominent, and featured the badge "made in Japan!" I almost bought I set of legos just to spite it. I should have.
There were banks upon banks of gashapon, but most of them weren't of any interest. They're getting pretty expensive, many were 200yen a pop, and a few were 300. There was a Lucky Star one I wanted, but I didn't want it 300yen bad. Of course, now that I don' t have it, I do sorta wish I'd gone for it. Oh well, maybe later.
I found a vending machine on the way home that was selling CC Lemon for 120yen. It normally goes for 150, so I bought it. I put in 150 yen (100 coin and 50 coin), and it spit out 70yen back at me, plus the drink. It's possible that I accidentally put in two 100 coins, but I'm pretty sure I didn't. I think what happened is that the machine ran out of 10yen coins after dispensing two, so it dropped a 50yen coin (the next highest denomination, the machine doesn't take 5yen coins and there is no japanese quarter). Lucky me!
9/5/08
Ishida House, Matsudo
I stopped by Yodobashi Camera this morning and bought a microSD card for my camera phone. Now I'll be able to take as many photos and movies as I want without having to worry about running out of space, I hope.
Hirano-san spent the morning explaining the Labo organization to us from a Japanese perspective. Most of it wasn't that exciting, but he did have an interesting way of describing the differences between western and Japanese socialization. He drew two sets of circles; one had a thick inner circle and a thin outer circle, the other vice versa. The circle with the thin outer "shell" represented a westerner: generally outgoing and easy to make friends with, but always maintaining a strong personal zone of privacy. Japanese people tend to be more shy, but because space restraints in Japan make personal space hard to come by, their culture has adapted. Once you really succeed in befriending a Japanese person, your bond is close and there is not as much privacy expected.
After class, all of us interns went out for the evening. We stopped by Shinjuku station and found the Shinjuku Eye, and neat sculpture thing. Then we went and found what is apparently one of the only Mexican restaurants in Japan. It wasn't quite Mexican how I know it, but it was more Mexican than the Italian restaurants are Italian. We played some games (I'm Tupac) and told scary stories, fun times. I didn't get home until almost 11.
My phone is pretty nifty. I've been playing with it and attempting to familiarize myself with it over the last few days, and I've figured out most of the basic stuff. I set it up so it'll work with my gmail (that is, I set gmail to forward to the phone). After sending a few messages, I've found that despite my native language, it's way easier to text in Japanese than it is in English. Part of it is how good the predictive text software is (it regularly correctly predicts words before you even enter one character, based on learned context), part of it is how much better the Japanese alphabet is suited to the keypad, and part of it is that words generally have less characters (even just four or five kana is a long word in Japanese). All that and it plays tennis!