The Eye of Patrick

I am now in school… today i had my first class of my school year. It was a nice class, just a basic introduction to anthro in Japan. I will have a better idea of how the course is later on in the year. At the moment i think i will give it a try and see where it goes. The people in the class look like interesting people, we have a mix of cultures and countries, though the main group as with everything it seems at this school is Americans. I am cool with them and some of them have even become my friends i will keep you posted.

I am really enjoying my residences situation, my roommate is from Egypt, i have a canadian, 2 hk, 1 tawinese, and 2 americans i think. We get along really well, which is amazing as many people do not click so well… I have not laughed so much in a long time like this. Everything is very mellow… though the bad thing is to much english is spoken… but that will probably chance once classes get more serious.

Today i registered my bike so i can bike to school, if you don’t register your bike they can take it from you and you must pay to get it back. It was like only 100 yen to get it done, so i did. Which is great as i can not wait to give biking a spin… and see hirakata city, and snap some pictures…

The Campus for my school is literally amazing, it is so beautiful… i can not wait to get setttled down, at the moment i have not created a rythem for myself, so once i do it will be more comfortable… i think i will do some stuff that gets me out into the community… and gives me the chance to expand my japanese.

I think this weekend or the next i will make a trip to Osaka alone, to explore it and to get some alone time. It is crazy but i think it will give me the chance to find a relaxing state in the chaos of many…

Well, i will leave it there… tomorrow i will start my japanese class, i am so excited!

hopefully the typhoon does not get class canceled.

well i will ttyl.

pat

Hello…
i have been lacking in my updates for reasons unforseen haha… i am now in hirakata city, or kansai gaidai, my school of studies…

It is strange i must say firstly because i am at school so it does not fully feel like Japan, for example the people i see mosly are americans, it is like i am back to high school again where i am the token Canadian haha… though ironically i have met 3 canadians so far and have become fairly good friends with them. Though not sure of a friensdhip nature but still possibilties….

New places and new people make me want to run to a corner and hide and never come out, which in a new situation is remarkably not the best thing in a new situation hehe… you should be out socializing… but at the moment it is hard for me to find the effort to socialize as i have yet to meet any set group of people that really make me feel like i want to make the effort to know them, i seriously know that is not a good thing hehe… but i will continue the search…

But today was a good day, i put finding friends aside and went and registered for my classes and then in the evening or more closely the afternoon i went to Osaka with a tour group from my school… oh before that we had a presentation on basic stuff… for the school… like about groups and circles and the differences. I think i will try to join one club so i can meet and interact with people…. i will look in to it, plus i am joining a (i will upudate later, hehe i am tired)

Another post, and another day in japan!

So today is the 20th of august, and i have been in Japan for 5 days now…. it has been a wonderful ride so far… i do not know… i imagined what tokyo would be, and i do not know, i am not sure if it did not turn out as i had expected, but the good thing is that it has not turned out worst then i expected if that makes sense… like you know when you have a dream of a place that you want to visit, and you then visit it and it is good, but not equal to your dream you feel dispointed, that was my worry. But it has not turned out like that at all, it has matched my dream or exceeded it in many areas that i had not planned for it too hehe….

I spent the first 3 days of my trip in Narita with my friend, we did not do anything of an exciting nature that others would consider, but we spent time together, which was nice to hvae a chance to see her after such a long time . We went to the Airport to see off one of her roommates. There is a strange story here, it turns out they were both my penpals, but neither of them knew it until last week, so that was interesting to meet her, haha i called her Mean roommate hehe, but it turns out she is a nice person hehe… mean roommmate was only a joke though…

then the second day we walked around narita after going to the mall and ordering food, it was funny though… as the menu was all in japanese, but when she ordered for me, it was spaggetti meat sauce, hehe so i could have ordered it hhe…. i am learning to love the language katakana, for me it makes english words so cute hehe… i could never get bored of listening to it…. We walked around the mall and went to supermarket, i saw so many pocky flavours hehe… i love pocky!!! so i will buy some more next time, they are such a great sweet hehe…. We were suppose to go back to my hotel, but it turned out the shuttle bus that we were suppose to take, took a break between 2-4, so we had to wait hehe… which meant we walked around Narita, which was nice, as it was my first experience seeing real japan. The narrow streets, the small houses, and people darting in and out of buildings. The school girls, the business man, the diversity of Japanese culture, which is a break from the homogenous nature that is assumed of japanese culture from many people a far…

One of the things i enjoy greatly about Japan so far is the vending machines, i can’t say enough about them, they are simply amazing… they have so much stuff, and they are eveywhere. I think becuase they are everywhere i spend to much money on them, as it is too easy to get a drink, so far i hvae only seen vending machines for Smokes, beverages, alcohol, and camera’s, but i hear there are many many more of them….

Day before yesterday me and my friend (mariko) went to Tokyo as i was getting ready to make my trip down to my university in Hirakata, so we went to Narita Airport (tokyo airport) and it was a sight to be seen hehe… i have 2 suitcases, 2 bags, i am not the greatest packer. So it made having her a goodsen as i did not need to carry everything. One thing i am learning about Japan, or i knew but did not expect it to be this bad was that the banking system is not really that internationally tied, so we spent a good 30 minutes, searching Narita airport for a bank machine that would accept my bank card, this is a difficult thing to do, as we would find a bank machine, but then it would turn out that it was broken, so finally we found one.

Then we made it down to Keisei Line, where Mariko was putting her ticket away and i was like “oh we need our ticket ” and she was like yes… luckly the train was not coming for another 10 minutes, so she was able to go back to the top and ask for my ticket hehe… i felt so shameful haha…. but we got on the train and rode it to Ueno station. I discovered then and later on that people don’t normally talk on the train, there is sometimes a little talking, but the general rule is that you don’t talk on the train….

so we got to Ueno station and we had to search for my hotel, so many people were helpful i found, we asked a store, and she said sorry she did not know, but to ask the police officer and we did. He pointed us in the directions of the hotel, but both of us are not the best and finding places, so we nearly got lost. Then we asked a security guard at a bank and he guided us the way to the hotel, such a nice man….

The hotel was strange though…. we were tired from taking all our stuff to my hotel, so we just wanted to sleep, yes just sleep, but that was not allowed, unless she paid to stay there… so we had to pay another 3000 yen for 4 hours… hummm i think if we both were not very tired and tokyo was not exhausting then… we would not have paid that much. But this heat in Tokyo is just smoking hot, so it is very hard to keep going… so we took a break….

After our rest… we went to a korean resturant and had korean bbq!! (we were looking orginally for indian, but all we could find was Japanese curry) the korean bbq was amazing i thought… and the rice was so yummy….

After that it we walked around a bit, and talked, but she had to go home as it was getting late and her bus was about to leave. So we said our see you soons (we don’t say good bye) and i left ueno station, for the first time alone… and then went back to my hotel and chatted with my friends…. about my plans…

i see i posted a lot so far, so i will stop now and post tomorrow, may be after climbing mount fuji….

hope you enjoy my story =)

Japan.

That one word more or less sums up my life at the moment, it is the thing that motivates me and the thing that scares me the most in life. I feel like someone who is both nervous and excited at the same time. I have not felt this feeling in a long time, it tingles all over my body, a sense of being a live. So many times in the past week or so i just say Japan, Japan and Japan, hoping somehow that each time i say it that it will become ever much more real to me, but that has failed to materalize and i am still left with a sense that this is a dream of some sort, that i will wake up from my dream and realize i am in the comforts of my bed in my place of comfort Canada.

That concept there has been running through my head a lot lately, i mean there is a small part of me that says i should not go, that I much prefer a place of comfort, and for sure Japan is not comfort yet (though most likely will be) so why am i going. Then i realized there is two parts of me, there is the part me that i love and that is the person willing to take risks and go out on a limb and explore the world, it is the person who made me go to Ontario to study, rather back to the comforts of Canada, the person who 2nd year said i am not enjoying my economics major, i will just switch majors half way through my 4 year degree, even though i am going abroad, each decision at the time can perscieved to be an risky one, as they each provided a opportunity for failure or heart break, but they did not, they make me proud. Now i think Japan is my greatest risk, because it is so different then what my past would lead you to expect of me, it was always assumed i would go to England for exchange, i had planned that since i was a young one. I would study in London and after i visted it the feeling grew stronger and stronger, but then the strangest thing happen, i met some people from Asia, (yes you my friends) and you helped to reshape my opinon of the world, you open a new world to me, Asia was not just that place west of the dateline, but a lively and diverse region of many people, it was my friends who made me comfortable to think about going to Japan…

and as the seed as planted it surely began to grow, firstly through music. I know Ayumi Hamasaki is probably not the creme du crop of Japanese culture, but it is her that i credit for a bit of my interest in Japan, i mean from her i added more artists to my list of groups that i enjoy, such as Amuro Namie, Utada Hikaru, etc, and as a result i heard a new sound of music, that was different from the tradation music that i had been listening to, i have outgrown hamasaki in the span of my 2 year love affair with Japan, but i can look back fondly on her effect on my life. She is like a childhood show that as a kid you enjoy greatly, but as you grow up, you probably still enjoy it, but it is a different enjoyment…. it is one of fond rememberence for your past….

I do no tknow… what happened after that… i have a strong interest in Japanese poltiics and as result i supported Kozumi at the start of his rise to power, i thought he could come to be that person who could breath life into the decaying (sorry strong word) spirit of Japan… i am always sad to see Japan and how they don’t have the hope for the future that can be felt else were in the world like Canada or USA or even Brazil, because i truely think Japan is an amazing country, and that they are a great people (not any more great then any other) who should be proud of themselve, and have hope, it is this lack of hope that will only make things worse… so i hope for the strengh of the japanese spirit!

What else… i think that is more or less me at the moment, i should may be recap what i have done so that a year from today i can look back on it and remember how much i have changed or grown….

Oh i am getting ready to cross the date line!!!! hehe first time to do that…

I have been on a long long trip to get to Japan, i left friday at 1:55 pm from Rio de janeiro Airport, and i had to wait in Sao Paulo for like 4-5 hours, not sure… i spent 1 hour of that using the internet, vey expensive like 10 dollars a hour… then i went and watch the opening cermonies for the olympics, or atleast the two countries i care about at the moment, Japan and Canada ehhe… i was so happy to see them, as i started watching the cermonies late, was worried i had missed them. It was confusing as they were not going in order based on alphabit, but some other order i have no idea hehe…. So yah… i went and looked around, did not see much… bought the Finanical times, again expensive… but that was ok… then i got on the flight to Sao Paulo… and look with dread to the future…. hehe… 20 plus hours of flying is not something i truely look forward too, but that is the reality of it… and i thought to myself… imagine i had to take a ship or something…that would be horrible hehe… I sat beside a Brazil women who was returning to canada to see her husband, she was in Brazil waiting for the documents to clear… and now she was going back… i understand how she feels, and i told her about how i was looking forward to see Mariko… and we talked more and more… in english and portuguese, which was fun… hehe though my portuguese was much worst then her english, though both of us said we only spoke the others language in small amounts… that provided good enjoyment for a bit of the flight…

then… i went to sleep, but i was unable to seleep as i felt restless… and so i kept on waking up, i could not wait for that flight to end you know… (i think we crossed date line now) as the seats were not that great…. and the food was ok at best… but we landed in Toronto and we had to take a bus to switch terminals, as they are still building the new airport… i went to the business lounge and relaxed, and chatted too… which was great as it killed a lot of time, and i truely enjoyed my chat… (4h:51min to go) the i rushed to the bus, as i spent more time chatting then i should…

:Short update:

Hello everyone,

So i am finally in Japan! I got here about 8 hours ago, but just now had the strength to come and type a message… I am staying at the holiday inn in Narita as i am seeing my friend tomorrow and she is in chiba… but i can say i feel happy to be here.

The flight was long i think i flew 25-27 hours in total, plus add in stop over and it is a crazy number. But i was able to sleep on my flight to Tokyo, so hopefully the jetlag is not too bad.

Comments hehe…..

In my short stay in Japan… i think 8 hours, i have noticed many things… i am amazed at the amount of english on signs, it is astounding, i know this is because it is captial city, but many captial cities around the world, are not this english friendly… Though i hope to improve my japanese

I had my first experience with japanese politeness hehe… i was on plane and i wanted to get by the japanese stewardess, but she was in my way… so she realized a few minutes later that she was in my way… so she said sorry sorry sorry hehe… and bowed… even though i have many western friends, i have not had this experience before.

I have yet to speak my first japanese word yet, i am still waiting hehe… i do not Want it to be not special haha… i will say thank you though…..

I seem to be lucky supposely as Tokyo was in heat wave before i came, something like 30 days above 30, but it is nice and cool.

If you guys have any tips for jet jetlag that would be great….

Tomorrow my plans are to meet my friend, and we are going to the airport to see one of her friends off haha… then i think we are going to visit some temples in Narita area, and some other stuff…

At the moment i feel great to be in Japan, and hopefully i am able to post here and there from time to time to keep you up to date on my travels.

Any suggestions and such, please tell me, as they can only make my experience greater.

I will start uploading pictures.

Take care,

Patrick