don't bother coming down ( Read more... )

Today I saw Marie Antoinette with Kate. I wasn't sure what I felt while I was watching it but I feel like a part of me has been impacted greatly. I just think of the tone of the movie and the emotions behind it and it has me greatly affected. I am also dealing with some personal demons in my own relationships at the moment that I don't really have ( Read more... )

Leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again ( Read more... )

Working my way down the line, this is my fifth journal entry for the Japanese 197 track....I have started rather late and thus exhausted current excursions/topics, so I shall have to think back on a previous trip....I apologize if this entry makes NO SENSE as my memory isn't quite up to par at this particular moment....moving on...

( Otaru, Quite Possibly the Creepiest Town On Earth )

Today we went to Noboribetsu Date Jidaimura, or as many of the shirts just said, Edo Wonderland. Noboribetsu Date Jidaimura is essentialliy a theme park, think Sturbridge Village, set in Edo Period Japan.

( Edo Wonderland )

Late last week my host mother told me we were going to Hakodate this weekend. It takes around 5 hours from Sapporo by car, so we would have to leave early and return very late. Thus, we planned a day trip to visit Hakodate on Sunday. Still recovering from the whirlwind trip, I had a wonderful time. Before leaving, I asked Professor Forrest if he ( Read more... )

So Friday was yukata themed. We had class as usual, followed by a class on Bon Odori. After our lunch we were all taken over to the building where we were ushed into two separate changing rooms based on sex and fitted for yukata. Because I am 190 cm, I got a lot of attention and everyone was like oooooh. My yukata was LL. For those out there who do ( Read more... )

This is the first of several entries actually containing intelligible insight about my stay here in Japan. As part of coursework for Japanese 197 I need to keep a journal about my experiences here, so, jumping right into things...

( Shiseikan Elementary School )

This past weekend I attended the David L. Howell lecture. David L. Howell is the author of one of our core readings, Geographies of Identity in Nineteenth-Century Japan. According to Amazon:

In this pioneering study, David L. Howell looks beneath the surface structures of the Japanese state to reveal the mechanism by which markers of polity, ( Read more... )

Earlier this evening I completed another of the core readings, Oku no Hosomichi, written by Matsuo Bashou. This particular travel diary, the last of five, was written in conjunction with a journey taken in spring of 1689. Bashou departed Edo towards Oku, the general term for those northern provinces on the island of Honshu. This term, meaning “ ( Read more... )