This one isn’t going to have a day associated with it because I haven’t been able to keep up with writing about everyday. The main reason for this (if you follow my Twitter then you know) is that my MacBook’s hard drive crapped out on me on Monday. However, everything is good and back up and running. So this will be a quick post to get everyone back up to speed on what’s been happening the last couple of days or so.
Like I said, on Monday night my hard drive crapped out on me so I’ll start with that day. The night before, I’d gone out and bought a bunch of food to make an “American breakfast” with. I’ll have to admit, I was hankering for some eggs and bacon. So I bought myself a frying pan, some eggs, half-slices of bacon, bread, butter and jam. That morning, I was ready for the feast.
It came out pretty well. I was on with my cooking game, I even managed to flip my fried eggs without the assistance of a spatula! You can see from my picture that what I was using for a spatula was not a spatula at all, but rather a hera, a utensil for stirring and scooping rice.
I went out the door and headed over to campus. At around 1:30pm there was going to be an orientation for student life for all the new ryugakusei on campus. Before I made it there, though, I ran into one of the students that I had been a conversation partner with at UMaine! We chatted for a little bit and then she invited me to a get-together with some of her friends. Since I was planning to meet with my tutor later, after the orientation, I said that I might be able to make it. I headed into the building.
The bulk of the orientation was about signing up for the National Health Care plan here and also about trash. The trash bit was pretty exciting, actually. Here in Japan, most places are crazy for trash and making sure things are put away in their right place. In Hirosaki, for example, there are no less than nine categories of trash, which include: cans, glass bottles, cartons, cardboard, miscellaneous paper, PET plastic bottles, burnable refuse, nonburnable refuse and bulky refuse. That may seem like a lot at first glance, but in actuality I’m finding myself only creating waste in a couple categories. They created a flow chart at the orientation and broke it down into two categories - Is it a container or is it not a container? If it is a container, then it most likely can be recycled and then you need to pay attention to the proper category for recycling. But non-recyclables are much easier. Basically, if it is paper or something else similar then it is probably burnable refuse. Right now, I’m keeping a trash can for burnable refuse and a trash can for everything else. I still have yet to sort through all of my cans, bottles and PET bottles.
After the orientation was done, around four in the afternoon, I made my way back to the international house. I waited there for a little bit for my tutor to come, who came right at five. She was going to help me with shopping for some more small items for my room. We headed over for some dinner around six at the school’s cafeteria. I tried there for the first time a fillet of fish in miso sauce. Here’s what dinner looked like:
The fish may not look it, but it was boneless and very, very tasty. I certainly intend to have it again sometime.
While we were eating, the same student who came by earlier happened to walk by on her way to the bar for the gathering! Very fortunate, because Nahoko was able to explain what we’d been up to and that we would be able to go to the gathering in a few minutes. We finished up dinner and made our way over to the bar.
It was my first time into a Japanese bar. You entered under low-hanging cloth flaps and through a sliding door. The whole interior was steamy and claustrophobic. That is, until, you get to the tables. At one of the low tables in its own sectioned off portion of the bar was about 10-15 students. I recognized many, many of them. I took my seat with Nahoko next to Yasu, who I remembered well from UMaine. He was a musician, studying music at Hirosaki. He is a guitarist in a student made band called the Light Music Company, who play punk and ska music. We talked a great deal, much of it about Maine. Many of the students there took off their sweaters and sweatshirts to reveal UMaine t-shirts underneath. I was amazed at the enthusiasm for my home school. After a round of beers were ordered up, one of the students took charge with the toast.
“Maine! Kanpai!”
I sampled for the first time many foods, including pig’s stomach (which isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds), pickled daikon radish and, especially, sake. In Japan, sake means alcohol, but the drink we westerners know as rice wine is in Japan known as nihonshu, meaning Japanese alcohol. It came in a small bottle and was poured for me by Yasu into a small cup, nearly thimble sized. It was tart, yet fruity. I was really impressed and ended up drinking another bottle with Yasu over the course of the gathering. At the end of the night, it was time for group shots:
After the get-together, I headed back home to sync the pictures I had just taken on my camera. While checking them out, I got the infamous Mac beach ball-o-doom and my hard drive started making repetitive clicky noises. I knew all too well what had happened. I was a little upset, because now I couldn’t easily write and keep up-to-date with my writings, but I was glad that I had my little back up drive using Time Machine. Now my computer is back up and running again like nothing happened, albeit this time with an even bigger hard drive. :)
The following day in the morning, on Tuesday, it was time to go to the orientation for enrollment. It was at this meeting we got introduced to all the faculty members who were associated with teaching foreign students. We got important papers that would be necessary for signing up for the courses that we would want. It is a little bit different from signing up for classes at my home university. Instead of signing up ahead of time, you have to actually go to the class in person and get a signature for the professor for the class that goes onto a sheet of paper you later submit, at which point you become registered for that class. Later today, I have to sit down and finish writing out my choices for classes.
After class, I met again with Nahoko. I had made it a mission for today to go out and buy not only a denshi jisho, or electronic dictionary, but also parts for my computer for that I could get back up and running again as soon as possible. In order to make it to the electronics store, though, we had to get to the other side of town. We parked our bikes in the middle of town near the Itoyokodo, the nearby department store, and made our way over to a bus terminal. I was introduced to the hyaku en basu, or 100 yen bus. For a mere 100 yen, you can take a bus that stops at a variety of places all over town. We were able to take the bus out to “Sakurano,” another large department store, the biggest in the city I believe. Nearby, there was the store called “Kojima,” the electronics store. Inside, it reminded me very much of Best Buy back in the U.S.. We asked if they had any laptop hard drives, to which they replied they hadn’t, but that there was a computer store nearby that most likely would. I also browsed for a denhsi jisho and found many promising models. I ended up purchasing a Sharp Papyrus, with a little touch pad on it for writing kanji directly onto the screen. I have found this feature to be invaluable many times already.
Afterwards, we made our way over to the “Power Depot,” the computer store we had heard about from the clerks at Kojima. Inside, I immediately felt at home. I’m a big geek for computers and this place would probably be my hang out if I’d been raised in Hirosaki. It looked very much like a Japanese Newegg, except in a brick-and-mortar store. We were able to buy my new Hitachi laptop hard drive, 160GB, and order up Mac OS X 10.5, which I would need to reinstall the operating system on my Mac. They had lots of computers all set up around the store, many with side-window cases and flashy lights. One computer set up near the check out counter even had Crysis running on a big 30-inch monitor, looking gorgeous as ever. I showed Nahoko how you played and she seemed really impressed. Later, she told me how she had “learned about American culture” from our time in the store, what with my gushing about computers, building them, and playing Crysis. I was in a hurry to get home, though, because later that night there was a nomihodai planned for the international students at the international house.
A nomihodai is basically an all-you-can-drink party out at a bar with a group of people. For about 2 hours, you can drink all the alcoholic beverages you care to. The price is usually around 2000 yen, but that is dependent on the amount of food ordered by people. We all left from the international house at around 9pm and made our way to the bar, the same bar actually that I had met the students who’d gone to Maine a month ago.
Lim and I sat across from each other near the middle of the table. I was sat next to by another Korean guy named Gan, who proved to a boisterous and outgoing person indeed. We both professed our love of beer and it seemed I had a drinking partner for the evening. As the night wore on, we downed beer after beer, shouting and yelling the whole time, making fun of our friends, chatting, mostly in Japanese, but I had the occasional English conversation with people from North America. It will be a night I won’t ever forget. Somehow, in all the craziness, I manged to take a few photos:
Afterwards, we headed over to the local karaoke bar. I didn’t sing myself (let’s just say that I was in no state to), but I did take some video of others taking their turns on the mic:
The night ended around two in the morning and I collapsed exhausted into my bed.
On Monday, I woke up late and still a bit groggy, but managed to hop into the shower and head outside to see about some breakfast. Lucky for me, many of the Koreans I had met were headed out. It was Yeong’s birthday, one of the girls. They were headed out for a tabehodai. If you can guess that nomi is drink-related, then you can probably guess that the tabe in tabehodai is related to food. Essentially, it was an all-you-can-eat affair for a couple hours. The difference here was that you cooked your own meat. There were piles of raw, marinated meat over with the other food, waiting to be grilled at the little gas grills they had built into each table.
A shot of the meat waiting to be prepared:
That is both chicken and beef. After we had a bunch to eat, we somehow got on the topic of music and I produced my iPod. Yeong went through my collection and we shared my headphones, listening to some Red Hot Chili Peppers and Radiohead. I certainly got my fill of food at the tabehodai, it was absolutely delicious, especially the meat. But I also had a bunch of fruits, due to the total lack of fruit recently in my diet. I took some video of the grill, so you can see the cooking in action:
That was the last big group gathering I’ve been to. It’s felt kind of boring lately because of the lack of stuff going on, but I suppose that can be partially attributed to classes coming right up. Yesterday, though, I had a good time going out with my tutor and some of her friends in their car. I had emailed Nahoko earlier to ask if she knew where a recycled goods shop was, which is where I heard that cheap rice cookers could be had. She responded that she could meet me at school and then we could head out. I ended up meeting two of Nahoko’s friends, Masaya and Ami. It was my first time out in a Japanese car, so I just had to get some video:
We went to this place across town and there were tons of cheap electronics, clothes, appliances, etc. It was like a Goodwill store except with a bit bigger selection. I ended up buying a small rice cooker and a set of speakers for my computer for about 6,500 yen. For comparison, a brand new rice cooker costs at least 10,000 yen. We also went out and bought some of the utensils and accessories for cooking rice. We said our goodbyes afterwards and I headed back home to experiment with my rice cooker. I also spent the evening talking to my mom and Zoe on Skype, for whom it was early morning. I guess in retrospect, it was a good day after all. :)
I’ll leave you all with one last picture. I took it while having lunch with Yasu and his band, Light Music Company (that’s Yasu making the face on the right). They have a gig on campus next Thursday, I look forward to it!
