Farewell Tokyo!

So I am writing this final post of the summer now in New Haven. It's been a week since I left Tokyo, and I miss it a lot.

The final week and half of Tokyo saw a lot of last minute group activities, including onsen, clubbing in Roppongi, meetings with buddies, and the farewell party.

In the weekend of the 7th week, everybody realized that was our last chance at Tokyo-style hardcore partying. I don't know whose idea it is, but as a group, we pre-gamed at the famous Oedo onsen. I believe this is the largest onsen in Tokyo, inconveniently located all the way in Odaiba, but we made the trek to get there. Ray-chan had the prescience to bring a group discount, so we only had to pay 1100 yen per pop instead of 2000 yen. We promptly obtained our yuukatas and sashes and changed in the locker room. So far so good, nothing was out of the ordinary... until, we stepped out of the changing room. The Oedo onsen shocked us with the enormity and selection of the entertainment section between the changing room and the bathing rooms. It was like a mini-city inside of the onsen. Unfortunately cameras were not allowed in the vicinity, so I can only relay this message in words. But the mini-city was filled with restaurants, games such as ninja darts..., hangout strips, and even video games. Groups gathered around in yuukatas, and the sight of it reminded me of Meiji-era Japan.

Onto the actual onsen, of course we had to shower prior to entering, but once we did, we were surprised with a wide selection of pools, baths, and saunas. There was the milk bath, hot bath, cold bath, and even a bath outdoor. There was a dry sauna, and if I remember correctly, the temperature inside was around 80 degrees Celsius, which is 176 degrees. The signage on the wall warned that males should not remain in the room longer than six minutes, but I found that I could not even last six minutes. Colby, on the other hand, was able to hold it out for around ten minutes. I don't know how he did it, but I don't envy him... haha. We relaxed well in the onsen for around 45 minutes before heading out to Roppongi.

Once at Roppongi, we headed straight for clubs. This summer had been unlike the one in 2008 because we partied mostly in Shibuya, and except for myself, the SANC group had not been in Roppongi much. With my enviable knowledge and experience of Roppongi, I decided to take the group to the famous hole-in-wall otherwise known as "Muse." It is a two-floor dance club a little removed from the crossing. Known for a decent music selection, drinks, and a "semi-attractive" crowd, Muse, in my humble opinion, is a must for any foreigner visiting Tokyo. We danced until 3AM, and "we" headed to a .... hotel.





Muse would conclude the adventures for me in the weekend of the 7th week. Drisana and I were both exhausted the next day, so we limited our excursions to a simple restaurant/bar in Mori tower. We reminisced about the previous night and our collective experiences of the summer. It was truly special, especially for me, because we had Tokyo and all of our times to ourselves. We really indulged in ourselves and each other, all at the generosity of the Light Fellowship. Thanks Richard!

The 8th week was the final week, and classes got a little bit tougher. I'll skip the boring lectures because no one really wants to read about that stuff. I took the final on Friday, and it was not too bad. I did a good job of reviewing the materials and covering all the sections that the senseis told me would be tested, and I think I performed ok. Saturday was the speech contest, so I headed home quickly to prepare for my speech after the final. I decided to talk about gay marriage in Japan and relate it to my personal experience conversing with homosexual couples and their issues with Japanese regulations. It was a good speech, and I even got an award! Below is a picture from the speech contest.




Immediately following the contest was the farewell party. All the buddies, homestay families, and senseis came. Nothing notable happened, but everybody was so sad at the end...




Drisana and I had to leave early after the farewell party because our plane was going to leave in the morning the next day. By the way, her mom was somehow able to change her ticket so that she flew with me, and we had a great time hanging out and bonding on the plane. It was a fantastic end to our journeys together and a great recap. Thanks Drisana's Mom!

So this summer was a brilliant success in terms of all the goals I wanted to achieve. I improved my listening skills and Keigo (honorific speech in Japanese). I visited all the places in Tokyo that I missed from my previous trips. And of course I met a great girl. It's true that we are still going very strong after the conclusion of the program, but we both realized and even discussed that our time in Tokyo was special. We had all of our time and energy at our disposal, and that is so rare. I have started work earlier this week, and I took a trip with my colleagues to New Hampshire and Maine. I learned on the trip that I would be very busy in the next three to four weeks, and I think I will reminisce even more about Tokyo then!

Week 7 update

A lot has taken place in the last couple of weeks. Namely, I moved into a new host family because the old one was having some problems. Thank you, Kajikawa sensei! for making it happen so quickly, efficiently, and painlessly.

I don't want to get into too much detail, but at the end of the day, I think I made mistakes; my host family also made mistakes; and what ultimately precipitated our split is the enormous language and cultural barrier between us. Japanese people especially are known to have a penchant for ambiguity and equivocality. I was not too skilled at reading between the lines of communication.

That doesn't stop this summer from being an amazing experience though! I do like my new host family. I've learned the streets around my new host house pretty quickly, and I've adapted to it. The new place is closer to Shibuya, which the SANCers frequently congregate at to begin our nightly adventures. Furthermore, the house is closer to the train station, and as a result, my daily commute to school is significantly shortened. I feel great.

Only a week left though! I will ganbatte next week to make the most out of my remaining time here. But before that, I want to elaborate on some activities that took place in the past 1.5 week.

Sun Academy organized a trip to visit Nihon TV station. We took a tour on the broadcasting floor and even saw news production live! The floor was pretty cool, but let me cut to the chase. The live news production was the sweet part. A famous Japanese soccer player, Matsuda, died that day, and so the news team was shooting a clip to cover this story. Ok, I'm not going to lie. I was almost thinking of rushing the stage with a couple of other students to get ourselves on TV, but that would ruin everything. Haha.

After the tour, we interviewed Masi Oka and Okuda-san. Masi Oka, if you did not know, is the Japanese guy on the popular TV series Hero. I really didn't know much about him, but the man has a 3-page Wikipedia entry all to himself. That's a pretty telling indicator of career success, haha. Wink! Okuda-san is the producer of Spirited Away, one of the best Japanese anime movies ever. It's what got me interested in Japanese beyond the superficial level during my first year of studying it. Needless to say, I was very very impressed. Below is a group picture.




Other than that, Seto Sensei came! He is the second year Japanese language instructor at Yale. The man is hilarious, and he was nice to invite us out to a delicious Taiwanese restaurant. I've been craving Chinese food for a while, and Seto Sensei came to the rescue and relieved me. Thank you Seto sensei! Below is another group picture.

5th Week

Barbeque Week!!

I think this week will be rather short post because not much happened in the 5th week beyond love hotels and the Saturday Barbeque that my host family took me to. Jesus, Im actually writing about love hotels. Thank God nobody actually reads this thing. Lol. The post about love hotel will be in detail either in the next post or the last post of the blog of this summer. Gotta keep it on the down low dawg! Wink. ..

About the BBQ, it was sooooo delicious!! I left promptly at 9AM. Gabe and Eunbi said they were coming as well but they went out the night before, so of course they canceled. The ride took about 90 minutes in total.

After I got there, I was welcomed with a tour of my host mom's friend from middle school probably like 60 years ago- Maeda-san. He's this hilarious fella who is supposedly a company president but spends most of his time baking cakes and cookies.
Maeda hollers me up and shows me the goods. Woooo, it was three boxes of sliced beef and lamb. Ridic!!

I should've taken pictures of the beef and the house, but as always, I forgot my camera at home. Ok, fast forward to the part where one would actually eat the beef instead of talk about it, which is what my host mom did for like half an hour. Dannnnng. It's the best sliced up beef that I had since arriving at this rather racquety ranch house. but of course its the best beef right? Cuz i ate nothing else at this place. wink aggaaainn..

I was force fed basically 80% of the beef because my host mom was nice enough to invite Gabe and found out that the dude is going to be eating machine. Maeda prepared accordingly with lots of beef to satisfy everybody's appetite, but cuz those two did not show up, I basically had to eat everything. Not saying that I am complaining, but I ate until I was about to puke. Hold that thought, I did puke, but I went back to eating. Wink 3rd time...

After eating the beef, I went inside to avoid the awkwardness of trying to continue conversation, get misunderstood, reply lukewarmly, and then my host mom ends with a huge remark exclamation point that has nothing to do with anything. Love ya Mom!

I took about a half hour nap and then told everybody that I would be heading back.



Haha, the post is obviously a joke. I really do like my host family and Maeda-san. He was nice enough to host me at his place, invite me to Tsukiji (which took place today! Tuesday July 26. I attached a few pictures below). My life in Tokyo so far has been great. It's just that I got bored giving a straightforward account of everything, and I want to spice things up a little. Wink.....

4th week

I visited the Japanese Sword Museum with Josh, Haruka, and Chiharu on July 8th. It took us a while to find the place, but the experience was worth the wait. Even though the museum was quite small, the collection included a mishmash of "Katanas", or "刀”。 There was a Katana specifically used for "seppuku", which means to commit suicide by disembowelment. I could swear that I saw tiny strings of blood on the sword. Maybe the sword's last job wasn't too long ago...



We then tried to visit the NTT museum and Tokyo Opera museum in the Hatsudai station building, but to our disappointment, those two museums were closed for reconstruction. This would be the first of my three experiences to find museums closed for visitors; I now somewhat regret my decision to buy the Grutt Passbook. The Passbook, for a price of 2000 yen, allows me to enter most museums in Tokyo for free or at a discount. I now have to visit more museums to make my purchase worthy, but I guess in the end that's a good thing.

It did end up being a good thing because I decided to visit more museums with Drisana the next week. We went to the Tokyo station area and perused antiques in the Tokyo Film Museum/Contemporary Arts museum. Most of the items in the film museum were esoteric to me, and so I did not linger in the exhibition hall too much. One thing of interest, however, is the remnants of the Rashomon movie. I actually downloaded the movie before but neglected to watch it. Drisana explained its plot to me, and I found it fascinating. It was about a Japanese woman who intentionally created a love triangle by prodding her husband, a samurai, and a philanderer, who was originally a ninja. The two men ended up dead and imprisoned, but in the process the woman was able to concoct a lengthy affair that made something out of nothing. The museum had the film's original promotional poster.

Here is a picture from the museum tour.



I never liked museums when I was a kid, but now I find them stimulating. I guess this is a paradigm of an "acquired taste." Fortunately, I still do not regret not being an Art Major in college.

Moving on to the past week. Nothing happened during the week, but fast forward to Friday, I did speed dating, clubbed a little bit, went to my good friend Jin Li's house in Komagome, and ended the 3-day weekend with a BBQ by the Tamagawa river. The content of my weekend activities was not as PG as the weekdays, but I had soooo much fun, especially at the BBQ (Monday afternoon). Drisana brought her good friend Meghan from Kyoto over to the BBQ. We ate some sumptuous chicken and Japanese Yakisoba. The group mingled very well I thought. I even met some students from Aoyama Gakuin Daigaku, a college located in Shibuya.

Update on the past couple of weeks on Tokyo.

Weekend: July 2-3
I went on a weekend trip with my family to the Nagano prefecture. So sad I didn't take my camera! Oh well, my host Mom took some pictures for me, and here they are.





We went on the trip with a group of friends that my host Mom knew from middle school. When my host mom explained it to me at first, I was perplexed. Apparently, they have kept in touch for over fifty years and go on trips as a group twice or three times per month. And they knew each other from a class in 6th grade, and they have never taken a class together in high school, college, etc... If anyone asked me how my middle school buddies are doing, where they are, I would have no idea.

We visited Zenkouji, Togakuji, and Obuse. The main course of the visit was Togakuji, a temple with over 1000 years of history. We stayed at a hotel attached to the temple, known as Gokui, a building also with around 1000 years of history. The entire weekend was luxurious. Dinner was served with 10 courses including fish (obviously), various types of sobas (Japanese style noodle), miso soup, shrimps, crabs, etc... Sumptuous meals throughout the trip.

The shrines were somewhat interesting. The reason I said that is I have visited many temples around Tokyo and Kyoto, and as for the ones I visited last weekend, they were not unique beyond the fact that they were very very old. The surroundings and courses of the shrines are also similar. Quite a little hike to the top, but not too difficult. One thing to mention though, is that the Cedars around the shrine were all as old as the temple. That made quite a sublime sight.




Skip to Wednesday this week. I visited the Yasukuni shrine with Drisana, Josh, and Ruth. This is the same controversial shrine in the center of Tokyo that draws the ire of Chinese and Korean politicians every year when the Prime Minister of Japan visits to honor dead Japanese soldiers, many of whom were the same war criminals tried by the WWII War Tribunal.

The names of the soldiers were engraved on light bulbs around the shrine. It was in all... interesting. But I can't help but say that I felt a twinge of nationalism. For the Americans reading this post, remember that this shrine is erected by the same ultra right-wing Japanese politicians who argue that Japan was actually forced by the US to attack Pearl Harbor because the US cut off Japan's power supplies... Yea, ok. Below are some more pictures from the shrine.

I'm back!

Hello! I made my way back to Tokyo for the summer of 2011, thanks to the generosity of Richard U. Light. This is my last chance to take a break from all the craziness in the school year and enjoy the summer since I will be starting my new job at the Yale Investment Office in August.

さて (well), let's get to it then. I have several goals this summer: visit all parts of Tokyo that I haven't been to or seen, watch Japanese movies, and incorporate Japanese in my everyday life.

So far, there hasn't been too much action. The Sun Academy program structure transformed this year with the new home stay system. Everybody is living with a host family instead of congregating in an apartment complex. Coordination becomes infinitely more difficult, and I have a premonition that weekends might be a little different.

That didn't stop me and some fellow students from exploring though. Monday, I walked around Ginza with Michael Ohta and Gabriel; unfortunately I forgot my camera on Monday. Yesterday, I explored Shinjuku and Tochomae. I can't say I am a stranger to these places, but I have never been to the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Tower. According to the Lonely Planet, access to the observatory tower is free, so I decided to make the most of my free time. Below are some pictures from the top.




And then, here is yours truly with the tower in the background.

Mt Fuji

The main point of this post shall be Mt. Fuji, or in Japanese- Fujisan.

Wow, what a trip! Hans almost died, and I, at one time, had charlie-horses in both of my quads, and Tetuya had a headache.

Fujisan, while beautiful from afar, will give you a good mixture of dizziness and sores that makes the experience of climbing it unforgettable.

I think Saturday (this trip) would make it on a list of 10-Most Tired Days in My Life.

I think I saw the trip guide Tetuya gave me, and it said that the route that we took would take 4 hours to reach the summit. What a lie! We took 7, and we were definitely one of the faster groups on the route. We met a group of girls an hour before we reached the top. We rested on the top for an hour and half, and 1 hour into our trip down, we saw them still busily making their way up. One of them looked like she was working in one of those gulag concentration camps in Stalinist Russia. I was going to ask them, "Doo site?", which means "Why" in Japanese, because they look like they were trying to torture themselves.



The trip started great, if I recall correctly. I don't want the dim memories of the latter part to affect my ability to recount objectively, so I will say that I enjoyed the first half hour. It was a beautiful weekend morning, with crisp air and friends. Because we were bitched by the security dude who told us that we had to park almost 3 miles from the 5th station, which is the start of our trip, we had to walk the first hour on concrete road. The route is divided into stations. 5 is the start, and 10 is the summit. For the moment, I thought that it was lame, who climbs a mountain on concrete? But on our way back, God did I love that concrete.



We made our way up to the 7th station rather quickly. With intuition, Hans and I concluded then that it wouldn't be so bad to get to the top. We were joking and laughing about how fit we were and that we would definitely get there quicker than what others told us. 7 hours? We probably get there in 4, like the guide said. Yeah, those idiotic thoughts evaporated rather quickly one hour later. Turns out, the 7th station was the "new" 7th, the real "7th" was an hour higher, and that was only 2/5 of hour trip. After 7th, I felt tired and little sick. After 8th, I had a cramp in my left quad, the weaker one. After 9th, I had cramps in both quads and a mild headache. When I got to the top, I slept for most part. I only took about 10 minutes to take pictures of the crater. I didn't even bother to visit the Shinto Temple that Tetuya was telling me about.

After the real 7th, my entire memory is a blur of frustration, soreness, and dizziness. I never thought about quitting, but "why" was as much of a question to me as to those girls. It was a Saturday. Most people in the academy are probably just getting up and starting to think about the night activities, while I am here laboring myself beyond exhaustion. It is true, when we were coming down, I was tired to the point that I didn't feel tired. My mind was blank, and I walked where there was road. I didn't think, I did. I truly felt "zen" for a moment.

I also had water and food problems. I brought 5000 yen. I felt that souvenir from Mt. Fuji would not be necessary since it's a mountain. Pictures would be enough. In the end, my only souvenir, and in my opinion, probably the most sentimental souvenir that I have would be the stick that I bought on 7th to facilitate climbing. It represents all the energy that I expended in propelling myself upward. After spending 1100 on the stick, I had only 2,000 left. I spent all of that buying water, because 1 bottle costed 500. It was truly a monopoly up there. Consumer demand was vertically inelastic, it was either life or money. And the store owners knew that, they could price water at 1,000, and I still would have bought it. Restroom also cost money. I thought that it was a so much BS, so I only put in 1,00 yen in the machine, when a woman came out, so I went in without paying the other 1,00 like I was supposed to do. I thought that I was righteous, I was defending humanity from corporate greed. What is this? People asking money for using the John. Pure nonsense.



We got to the summit around 3:30 PM. I fell down and slept on jagged rocks for about 50 minutes. I had a mild headache due to the altitude, about 4000 meters, and was tired beyond comprehension. I got up 10 minutes before going down to take pictures and sightsee the crater. Honestly, I thought the top was disappointing. There was a crater with no lava and a decrepit shrine that proclaimed "top of Japan." I thought that I deserved more for climbing 7 hours on slipper surface and inappropriate shoes. I was slipping here and there, and it was fortunate that I did not break my butt when I was coming down. Hans almost did though, several times. He didn't believe that walking sideways was helpful, so he toyed with his ass bone for 2 hours.

This would probably mark the most memorable day of my stay in Japan. We, as human, definitely remember best the days of hardship. I think the memories of nights in Roppongi or Kabukicho would be dimmed in relationship to the memory of Fujisan, especially because this is the 2nd to last weekend. In retrospect, I am fond of this memory, just as I am fond of the days before finals in the first semester this year. I did something special, and truly put myself through to the end. I am going to be proud of these pictures that I took on the mountain when I go back home. It speaks for a remarkable accomplishment.