Typhoon Adventures, Part 2

On Tuesday the typhoon came in in full force.
I knew it was supposed to rain all day and get worse in the afternoon, so I had my umbrella and everything, but I had no idea how much worse!
I was done with classes for the afternoon, but I stayed to eat lunch with some people.  As we were finishing up eating an announcement came over the loudspeaker.  I couldn`t understand all of it, but I got 二番目と三番目and 中止 Even if I hadn't known what that meant already, the meaning immediately became clear when a huge WOOO! sounded throughout the dining hall.  Second and third periods were cancelled because of the impending weather. 
After that my friends and I weren`t sure what was going on, if we needed to leave, or what.  We finally decided to as the Center for Japan Studies, our "home base" on campus here.  On our way we ran into some other international students who were also confused, but had heard that while the subways were running, the JR trains might not be, or perhaps fewer would be running.  Hearing that, I decided heading straight home was the best bet.
It was around 2:30 when I got to the subway station and took my normal subway route home to Ozone, where I transfer to the JR above ground train.
Sure enough, the JR trains weren't running. 
Luckily, on my platform I happened to run into three other people heading the same way as me: two other exhange students, and a Japanese Nanzan student who spoke excellent English.  She was able to call up her family and friends and try to figure out what was running.  The consensus? Nothing.  We might even have to stay at Ozone overnight!  Highways were even getting closed off!
There was one bus running, but only one bus was running per hour.  We decided not to even wait for that.  The line had become too ridiculous.  And the line for taxis was ridiculous too.  Our Japanese friend admitted that she hadn't had any lunch, so we braved the rain to dash over to a nearby supermarket and get her some food. 
We waited there for a couple hours until it seemed like the rain was stopping.  We decided to try to walk back to Ozone station. 
When we arrived there, there was a taxi waiting, and lo and behold, the person waiting with the taxi was our Japanese friend's dad!  He also worked in the area and was trying to get home so he wanted to pick her up.  He graciously allowed the three of us to squeeze into his cab, too.
Once we got into the cab we were able to start heading home, but that whole process took probably two hours in and of itself.  Traffic was slowed to a crawl because everyone else was trying to get home.
On the way we saw tons of flooding: the rivers all looked incredibly high. 
When we finally arrived at our destinations, which for me was Kozoji station, from which my host parents could come pick us up, we tried to figure how much to pay but the Japanese girl's dad said he would take care of it.  They were heading on even further, to Tajimi, a town a few more stops away.  We were incredibly grateful because if it'd been just us, there was no way we could have afforded that taxi: it was over ￥10,000 (more than $100 US)!

From there I thought I could just walk across the station to the exit where my host parents usually pick me up... but it was totally flooded!

Here you can see Mr. Donut and BellMart (a convenience store) by where I was waiting were totally flooded, too!

I couldn't get to where my host family was waiting, and because of a combination of the flooding and traffic, it took them about an hour to finally pull around and get me!
By the time I was home it was about 7:30, five hours from when I left.
Never have I been so thankful to be home.

Apparently that wasn`t even destined to be the worst of it.  On Wednesday the strong winds were supposed to come.  When I got home the house was in "typhoon mode", with shutters over all the windows and all the potted plants from our front porch brought inside. 
On Wednesday classes were cancelled.  I was so thankful just so that I didn`t have to risk getting caught out in the weather again! 

So Wednesday I just stayed inside all day, did reading for class, and got to knit and watch TV.  By 4:30 ish the weather cleared up, and my host parents started putting everything back outside and taking the shutters down and stuff.  I had been up in my room and was just about to come down and say "I can see the sun!" when my host mom said "Shannon! You can see the sun! Look!" It was exciting.

Turns out all of this adventure was a bit too much for me.
On Thursday I got sick.  I went to bed with my stomach feeling a little crummy, and then I was freezing! I thought it might be because it was a little cooler outside than it had been, and I went to bed with wet hair.  But I should have known it was worse than that.  I was so cold I put on a long sleeved shirt, and leggings under my long pajama pants! ;w;  i tried to find blankets in my room but I didn't know where to look and it was lllaaaate so I just wanted to go back to bed.
I threw up a couple times. D:
Turns out the flu is going around.  Or a cold? I figure it must be the flu but the Japanese use the word "kaze" for everything so I'm not sure what the heck I had.
Apparently my fever was over 38 degrees celsius, which is over 100 degrees fahrenheit.  I haven't had a fever that high in ages.  My host mom took me to a clinic to get me excused from school and they gave me an IV drip for fluids and a bunch of medicine: an antibiotic and something to help with digestion and some other fever reducer in case my fever got high again. D: 
It was all in Japanese so even with my host mom explaining everything to me it was still terrifying!  I'm still not sure what the deal with the IV drip was, because I don't think they do that in the US unless matters are seriously desperate, but hopefully they were just overreacting?
I did feel considerably better afterwards, though.  Able to at least attempt to eat something.
Let me tell you, health insurance in Japan is miraculous.  The whole thing only cost me ￥1340, about $15 US.That's with medicine and treatment and everything.
I asked for a slice of bread but apparently what you eat when you're sick in Japan is this special bread called Castera or something like that that apparently has a lot of nutrients in it. 
I slept the rest of the day, and at dinner my host mom tried to give me umeboshi (really sour pickled plum) and some kind of rice porridge, which I picked at, but with the exception of the umeboshi it was really flavorless so I couldn't finish it.  It was definitely easy to eat, though.  She gave me some more Castera instead.  The orders were eat a little and drink a little water, but do it slowly, and often. 
My host mom gave me an ice pack wrapped in a towel and some of these cool little cold sticker sheet things you can stick on your forehead, and I went back to sleep for most of the night.  By the time I woke up I felt much better!
I still feel mostly better, but I'm kind-of tired from classes.  I woke up early because I'd been sleeping the whole day.  I still have one more class to go, from 3:15 to 5:30.  Hopefully that'll be okay.  I think some of this medicine to help me digest might be making my stomach upset, or else I pushed a little too hard at lunch today trying to eat real food... It was only udon, but it was kitsune udon so maybe the abura age was a bad idea.  I'm cold right now but I think this computer lab might just be cold!! I think I'm right under a vent.

Well, we have a field trip to Kanazawa this weekend so I'm just glad I feel well enough that I can plan on going!  I'm definitely definitely going to sleep early tonight.

I'm worried this blog post will just make everyone worry about me, but don't, seriously! I'm fine now.

Typhoon Adventures, Part 1

My host mom bought me chocolate on chocolate cream Pocky! :D It’s so fluffy and delicious!  It’s funny because instead of saying チョコレート (chokoreto)  or チョコ(choko) like chocolate things normally do in Japan, it says ショコラ (shokora).  I guess it’s trying to be pseudo-classy, like chocolat  or something.

Is that even how you’d spell that?  “Chocolate” doesn’t look like a word anymore.

This is bad, now I’m just going to eat all this Pocky! Why are there only three sticks per package?!!

--

This has been quite an interesting week, and it’s only Wednesday!

On Monday, we had class as normal, but my research methods professor, who studies gender in festivals, wanted us to come, if we could, to a festival in Imaike, a few subway stops away from school, after class with him. 

Imaike is an interesting place because, if I’m remembering the history he told us right, it used to be outside the borders of Nagoya.  It was where a train line ended, so a lot of people got off there and it boomed as a result of that.  Lots of drinking establishments popped up, and the area is very multi-ethnic, with a lot of Chinese and Korean immigrants.  When the subways were put in people stopped getting off there and going into the neighborhood, so it fell into some decline.  In particular after World War II it became known as a big cabaret area, kind-of seedy.  Today there are still a ton of bars and pachinko parlors.  Anyway, this festival is actually run by the store owners’ association, to try to draw people there.  There are the traditional Japanese festival booths selling food and games for children and stuff, but there’s also like, the Lion’s Club doing a yard sale, and advertisements for the supermarket, and booths for info about community organizations. 

When I told my host mom, who is a woman in her early 60s, that I was going to Imaike, she had an interesting reaction.  She said it was full of bars and pachinko parlors, but if I was going with my teacher and my class it would be okay. “Just stick with your teacher!!” 

My professor laughed when I told him about this.  He’s an Australian guy in his 40s who’s been living in Japan since he was in his 20s who still acts quite a bit younger.  (He insists we call him by his first name, sometimes takes his shoes off when he’s teaching, and on this day he was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt with the communist sickle and hammer symbol on it.)  He said something to the extent of “That’s one of the things I like about this part of town!” 

Well, as you may remember, we’re on typhoon 15 of the season here, and as of Tuesday it started coming Nagoya-ward in earnest.  The rain started in the afternoon.  It let up for a bit when we left our class at 5:30, and was okay when we got to the festival around 6:30.  “If it rains too hard we can always go to an izakaya,” our professor told us.  (An izakaya is the Japanese version of a pub.  I’m coming to really love them.)   We decided we’d all split up and explore a bit and reconvene in an hour, at which point we’d decide if we wanted to do dinner together, or what. 

Well the rain didn’t hold off for very long.  I had just long enough to buy a stick of mitarashi dango (kind-of like dumplings, I guess? The sauce is kind-of sweet, like a soy sauce + sugar taste.  When they’re hot and fresh they’re delicious!) before it started pouring on us! Me and Michael, one of my classmates who’d wandered the same direction as me, ducked under a stand for cover, where I took the only pictures I was able to take on my camera.  Which is a real shame, because I couldn’t capture the size of the festival, or the colorful lights.  We got a phone call from our professor, and decided to all meet back and then make a run for somewhere to eat. 

We made a mad dash for an izakaya up the street that our professor knew, and ducked in for food and drinks. 

Izakaya are Japanese pubs.  You typically take off your shoes and step up onto a raised  platform.  Depending on the set up, you’re either sitting/kneeling on the floor on cushions, or the floor is sunk deeper under the table so you’re still sitting on cushions on the floor, but you can sit normally with your feet under the table.  There’s food (good traditional Japanese food!) and there’s drinks, and there’s often a 飲み放題 (nomihodai), or all-you-can-drink, option where you pay a set rate for unlimited drinks that usually also includes some kind of food dishes.  The table next to us was full of very drunk Japanese men. 

Anyway, the food is good, and unlike bars in the US or pubs in the UK, it’s not revolving around sports and like, going out with the boys, so the atmosphere is much better.  I’m sure it gets rowdy and smoky late (Japan doesn’t really restrict smoking in restaurants the same way as in the US.  Carolyn and I were in a restaurant last weekend and a woman came in as we were finishing up.  After she said something to the waitress, the waitress asked the other patron who was eating there if she was okay with smoking.  She said she was, and then the woman proceeded to smoke her cigarette as she was deciding what to order.).  Anyway, I’m sure the izakaya get rowdy and smoky as the night goes on, but it also seems like an excellent place to develop some camaraderie with local people.  If I were living in Japan, trying to learn Japanese, I would absolutely go to an izakaya and just try to start talking to people.  Societal rules are laxer in places like these.  When some of my friends and I went out one night, I had to leave early to catch the train home, but apparently later they started playing a drinking game with some Nanzan University athletes who were sitting a table over!  I myself got into a conversation with a woman while waiting in line for the bathroom.

So, anyway, we went to the izakaya and our professor started explaining the menu to us and asking us what we wanted to try.  He took our drink orders and ordered a salad and a handful of small plates: grilled things on skewers.  One was chicken and leek, one was grilled tomato wrapped in what I think was bacon.  There was something else I’m forgetting about, but the most interesting food item, which of course I forgot the name of, involved half-cooked chicken!  It was chicken on a skewer, but raw on the inside, with a line of tart but kind-of sweet plum sauce, and sliced shiso leaves on top.  Shiso is a Japanese leafy vegetable that seems to be in everything.  It’s green (though there’s also a purple variety -- not sure if this is an age thing or a different species), and I can’t really describe the taste, but I’m starting to really like it.  I have shiso salad dressing on my salads every night. The chicken-plum-shiso skewers were delicious!

After that we had ochatsuke, a bowl of rice with some kind of flavoring or topping, with ocha, or green tea, poured over the top.  Apparently it’s traditional to order and eat that last, after you’ve done all your eating and drinking.  It did seem very palate-calming.  I had ume (pickled plum - very sour!) flavored ochatsuke. 

Our professor treated us all to the izakaya meal!! 

After hanging out and chatting and eating and drinking, the rain seemed to have let up, so we went to try to check out the festival again.  There was still a bit of a concert going on, and we found someone spinning fire, but most everyone had packed up their stalls.  

(At this point my camera also ran out of battery.)

Our professor told us he wanted to show us some more stuff.  We walked by a big pachinko parlor, and he asked us if we’d done that yet.  We said no, so he said “Okay let’s just do a 10 minute look-see shall we?”  We went in the door from outside and then through a second automatic door.  As soon as that second automatic door opened, the noise was just INCREDIBLE.  The whole place was full of the clattering of pachinko balls and the whir of the game machines.  No one was saying anything.  They were all staring at the screens, pushing their buttons, and puffing away on their cigarettes.  Still, the sound was almost deafening!  Some people had huge stacks of baskets and baskets full of balls that they’d one! 

It’s gambling, but it’s officially a game for prizes.  Apparently if you take your balls out back to a shady counter behind the shop, though, they cash it out for you.  There’s no real secret about that, either. 

After pachinko, Alisha and I decided we’d better take the train home soon.  It was already approaching 9 and I had a quiz the next morning.  Our professor walked us to the nearest JR station, but first we stopped by another thing he wanted to show us: a gomen nasai jizo (I’m sorry statue).  It was a little statue in an alcove along one of the streets.  The sign explained that if you hurt someone's feelings you write it on a little card and apologize to the statue and then you’re forgiven.  There were tons of little cards hanging in the little alcove.  We also walked by a shrine where there was apparently a statue of a boar or a bull or something and if you rub it’s nose you’ll do well in school.  Maybe we all need to go back there.

At the train station, our professor dropped Alisha and I off and we got on what we expected to be the 8:38 train.  I texted my host mom as normal, telling her I was on my way home.

Except the train didn’t move.

And then it still didn’t move.

There were all these announcements in Japanese, but I couldn’t really understand them, and everyone just seemed to be sitting on the train waiting.

I got that there was something about heavy rain, and told my host mom this, and she just said to text back when it actually start moving again.

We ended up waiting on that train for almost two hours!  So my normal hour commute home took me 3 hours.

Oiii.

But that wasn’t to be the end of my typhoon adventures! Oh no.

 Stay tuned for Typhoon Advenutres: Part 2, coming soon to a blog near you!

My Home

So I’ve talked a bit about my commute before. 
It probably takes about an hour all told, but it doesn’t feel like an incredibly long period of time because that includes walking and changing trains.

First I walk from my house, which is way down a hill, to the station.  It’s so Japan-like that I feel almost like I’m in an anime or manga.  I know, it’s stupid to say Japan is Japan-like but it’s still hard to believe I’m actual here sometimes.

I cross this bridge by my house, usually passing at least one high school girl on her bike and occasionally someone on a moped.

I walk up one hill, past some houses and apartment complexes.  In the morning I’m following a herd of elementary school kids.  They’re all walking to a nearby elementary school, with their giant satchels that have to last them from 1st through 6th grade, wearing their bright yellow hats with their school emblem on them, usually being guided by an older kid holding the school flag. 

I’d take pictures but that would be really sketchy. 

I go back down the hill, and there’re some really nice views, but this is by far the most impressive.

At the bottom of that hill and across the street is my train station.

I take two trains, like I talked about before, and then I walk down the street a bit.  I go up this big hill.  It doesn’t look that steep in this picture, but trust me! It’s steep!    I’ll take another picture from the top looking down just to show you.

And here we are.  Nanzan Daigaku.  (Read the gate right to left.) 

At school the other day they were doing a little bit of tea ceremony as kind-of a welcome party!  It was pretty so I took some pictures.  It looks very meditative.  Every movement seems very precise and calculated.  And yukata and kimono are so pretty! I want to wear one sometime...!

Tuesday September 6

Man.  There’s gotta be at least one of these days in everyone’s study abroad experience I guess.  I just hope there aren’t too many more because I am so worn out right now I don’t even know what to do with myself.  It’s only 6:20 and I’m ready for sleep.  I think it’s the stress.

It’s not really “culture shock” per say that I’m experiencing right now so much as it’s “big city shock”  and “being in a place where I don’t really know anybody” shock.  I think I’d be having the same feelings if I were studying in, say, New York City, or somewhere like that. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not unhappy, really.  I really like my host family, particularly my host mom.  I’m just getting used to things.

Today was my second day commuting to class by myself.  I guess because I thought I knew what I was doing I got over confident? Not sure.
Well, it all started when I woke up, probably at some point in the middle of the night, and noticed that my phone only had two bars of battery left.  I didn’t think too much of it.  This morning when I was leaving the house, I checked to see if I had everything.  See, Okaasan and I were going to the city hall today to get my Alien Registration Card, the proof that I’m allowed to be in this country for 4 months.  So I needed to bring my passport, and I needed to be prepared to meet my host mom at a different JR train (Kasugai, for the Kasugai City city hall) station on the way home in the afternoon.
Anyway I had my passport and I had my phone and I had the packet I needed for school today to register for classes, so I was like “All right, I’m good.” 

But as soon as I got down the hill to the train station I got a text from one of my friends and was going to reply to it, but then my phone battery died.  I had a few extra minutes before my train so I thought about hurrying back up the hill and going to get --- what would I get? The phone charger? That wouldn’t really work.  Besides, it’s a really long, steep hill.  It takes about 10 minutes walking down, but up is an entirely different story.

So I decided what the heck, I’d just go to school.  I didn’t want to be late after all.  I ride the subway part of the way home with a friend from back home, Iris, anyway, I’d just borrow her phone and shoot off a quick text or call or something. 

So I get to the train station, and I get on, this time going all the way to the last car like my host mom first suggested.  She said if I did that it’d pull closer to the stairway I wanted to take so it was I good idea.  Or something like that.   But the last car was a handicap accessible one so it looked different! All the seats were in sets of 4 and 4 facing each other, instead of one line on each side of the car with handles in the middle! And, because this is Japan, the two rows of seats were all (for me) wayyyy to close to each other seeming.  Personal space norms are different in Japan.  People don’t really hug or touch or anything like that if they’re close, but strangers bump into each other and take up each other’s personal space all the time.  It’s a small country, I guess.

Anyway so I got in that car and because it looked different I immediately freaked out that I’d gotten on an express train or something by accident.  But it was okay.  Thank god for English signage EVERYWHERE in the Japanese transportation system.

I arrived successfully at Ozone, my train stop, and there were stairs right in front of the exit of the car, so I was like “Huh? This doesn’t quite look familiar, but maybe it’s right...” I went down them and arrived, not at the station, but at the street. O_O! I “Sumimasen ga-ed” (すみませんが。。。is a pretty standard “Sorry excuse me I have some kind of problem/request” greeting) the station attendant saying “...Is this the way to the subway?” And he was like “Yeah, just go straight.” 
So I did... and I saw no familiar signs or anything (I can actually read “subway” in kanji, unlike most other things -- in fact I even got confused later because I was looking for 地下鉄 and all I could see was SUBWAY in bigger font... fail.) I saw some business man looking guys waiting at the crosswalk so I was like “Sorry excuse me I think I’m a little lost...” and asked them if this was the way to the subway.  And they were like “Uh...” and told me I needed to go a different way.  Which actually made much more sense based on where I thought I might have messed up.  (I think I might have misunderstood the station attendant’s definition of “go straight.”)  They were really nice about it, one of them pulled out his smartphone an showed me the map and it looked like walking there was really far away.  They were like “Where did you come form?” and I said “The J.R. station...” “And then you went straight...” I was like “Would it be better to go back to the station?” And they thought that was probably the case.  So I told them I would and I thanked them and they told me to take care.  They were really nice.  As Masae said during our orientation (after someone gave us some free stuff out of nowhere) “Japanese hospitality, right?”
Thank goodness I have a ToiCa commuting pass swipe card thing, so I didn’t have to buy another ticket to get back through the gate so I could walk back up to the platform and then all the way down to the opposite end of it to the exit I was supposed to have taken.  北口、Shannon. 北口 (north exit).  If it’s not a loooong walk through the station, you’re doing it wrong. 

The silver lining at the end of all this is I was late, so I ran into Alisha, another girl from my study abroad program! Apparently she’s been taking the same train and subway route as me, but leaving later.  We’re going to take the same train together starting tomorrow, because she said she wanted to be a little early.  We don’t have anything for orientation until 9:30, and normal classes don’t start until 9:20, but if I take the route I’ve been taking I get to campus around 9:00 or 9:10 if I don’t stop anywhere.  There’re stores in the station, and a convenience store on the way to campus, though, so it’s nice to know I can slow down a bit if I need to.

So then we arrive and campus and that was all okay.  Did our orientation stuff, I was tired, it was boring, but that’s okay, it’s just orientation.

At lunch I asked for a nearby bank where I could change travelers checks to yen, and got directions to one by Yagoto station, one stop away from the one I get off for school.  I was like “All right this’ll be easy to find!” but I decided I’d better get something to eat first just in case I ran out of time.

So I went to lunch and sat with some people, one girl from Australia, one from Indiana, one from Germany, and one from Minnesota who’s from my program.  And we were talking about various things, and somehow we got onto the subject of sperm or egg donor ship and adoption, and, in one girl’s case, how she really wanted to adopt an Asian baby because they’re the cutest.  After a while of nodding and giggling along I was like “Man I’m such a fun sucker but the sociologist in me can’t help but think this is super problematic!!” and then rambled off about how adoption is so messy culturally especially adoption across races because caucasian and Asian babies are seen as so much more desirable, when there are many African American kids in the US who none of these affluent white couples want to adopt, and yet that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone should just go adopt African American kids because the fact of the matter is no matter how you raise somebody African American kids, particularly young men get perceived a certain way by society and white parents, having not experienced that, can’t prepare their kids for that experience so is that really better? Adoption is so messy...! Hahaha ... ha...

And everyone was kind of like “...” But they eventually shook it off a bit.
And went on to talk about making out with Asian boys again.

Man I’m so glad I have other people from my school here.  I think that would be the real culture shock, if there was nobody who’d had that same experience as me here with me. 

So anyway, at lunch time I didn’t make it to the bank, but I figured “okay I’ll just go later.” I didn’t have to leave for the city hall until 3:40 at the latest so it was probably fine.

Went to another orientation session, and then set off for the bank.

My plan was this:
-Iris had to buy her commuter pass at Yagoto Nisseki, so while she was doing that, me and the other people who needed to cash travelers checks would go to Yagoto, the next station over and find that bank.
-I’d buy my ticket for the one stop, come back to Yagoto Nisseki, get off the train, and get back on using my Manaca (subway commuter pass)
-Then together Iris and I would take the train back to Ozone and I could use her phone and call Okaasan and tell her what time train I was on.

Pretty could plan, right?
Well, you know what they say about best laid plans.

Let’s start with what *didn’t* go wrong.

We did actually end up getting money.
And I eventually got everywhere okay.

Okay so we went to the station and got off and went outside to find the bank.  Found it.  Nearly walked into automatic glass doors (you have to stand a lot closer to get them to open here than in the US... so I figured that was the problem, okay?!) because the bank was closed! Banks in Japan close at 3:00 PM apparently.  And they apparently open late, too! What’s up with that?  What’s a girl gonna do when she needs a 銀行？！ (ginkou = bank)
So we were like... “Well we’ll try a post office since we already bought tickets over here..?”  And walked up the way we thought the sign pointed us.  Found another bank instead, but it had ATMs so we tried that but it only took Japanese cards.  Some bank people were still there so we asked but they were like “We can’t do it now because it’s just after 3:00 so we’re closing...” 
Then we found the *real* way to the post office and asked if they could cash traveler’s checks.
They couldn’t, but there was an international ATM in the entranceway!  YAY CASH = GOT

I’m really glad I decided to open a bank account after all.  If this is what the finding cash process is like, it just seems unnecessarily difficult.  (Besides, to open a bank account you needed to order an inkan, or name seal, to stamp official documents, so I got to get my name put into kanji and a cool souvenir! Nifty, huh?) 

Anyway so from there I bought my ticket back to Yagoto Nisseki.  I got on the train, saw Iris still waiting for me but she just got on the train with me instead of letting me get out like I planned.  I was like “...okay whatever, I’ll just swipe out with my Manaca card on the way out or do fare adjustment or whatever... “  I didn’t really know how any of that worked but I figured I could try.

At this point I tried to call my host mom.  But I realized I didn’t have her number because it was in my phone... which was dead, which was the problem to begin with.  But I had this card she’d given me that had their address on it...!  ...but it only had the home phone.  My host dad picked up and was like “okay” but sounded very confused as to why I would be calling.  And it was on the train so it was loud and I probably wasn’t really supposed to be making a phone call anyway. 
I figured I’d call again when I got to Ozone, where I change to the JR train.  So Iris and I got off the train.  But then I realized I dropped my ticket somewhere! I couldn’t find it anywhere...!  I tried to swipe out with my commuter pass and it wouldn’t let me! ;_;
I talked to the station attendant and explained what happened and he was like “oh okay, go ahead.” He was very understanding, so that was good.

Then, as Iris and I were about to separate I tried to call my family again.  Luckily, I remembered that on the note where Okaasan had written the train directions the other day she’d also jotted down her cell phone number! I called it... And got a wrong number.  I asked if it was [name], and I thought the person (sounded like a man! Not like my host mom!) said yes, but then he was finally like “You have the wrong number.”  Damn Japanese politeness.  In America we would have been like “Nope. Bye.” from the word go!
Anyway I realized I dialed it wrong, called again, left a message saying where I was (because my host mom was driving and didn’t pick up the phone), and proceeded to get nervous until I got to Kasugai.  How would I know what exit to use?!!!! What if we wandered around each other in circles and never connected because my phone was dead?!!! 

Luckily from the train I saw my host mom standing right at the gate.  She saw me at the train door and waved.  I have never been so relieved to see that woman.  I was like “今日全部まちがえた。。。！けいたいも電車も！”　(Today I messed up everything! The cell phone and the train...!) She just told me “It’s an experience!” 
How motherly.

We went to the city hall and got my Japan National Health Insurance and Alien Registration Card taken care of.  OH SHOOT I FORGOT SOMETHING I NEED FOR THE BANK...!  Some kind of certificate I was supposed to ask for.  I was so relieved to just be there that I completely forgot everything else.  ...I wonder if I can get it when we come pick up the card.... I can’t really go by myself because it’s a really far drive away from the station. 

Blah.

It’s that kind of day.
I’m managing to stay pretty positive about it, though.  This kind of thing is inevitable.  At least right now I don’t have homework or anything.

My host mom is funny.  On the way home we started playing some kind of “マンション (mansion) orアパート (apaato)？” game.  It started because my host mom likes to point out funny differences between Japanese and English she thinks I might not know.  She said “Did you that in Japanese a building like that [a tall multi-story apartment building] is called a mansion?” I said yeah I’d heard that and chuckled.  She was like “Haha you laughed I knew you would! International students always laugh.  ‘A mansion, that?’” I was like, “Then, if that’s a mansion, what’s an apaato [the word I’d learned in class for ‘apartment’]?”  My host mom explained that in an apartment, everyone rents their room(s) but in a mansion people own their own room(s).  Then she went around saying “See that?  That’s a mansion! That? That’s an apartment building!” ...They looked the same to me.  It went on some more.  “Mansion!” “Apartment!” I was finally like “...How do you know which is which...?”
It wasn’t as mysterious as I thought it would be, haha.   My host mom admitted she knew because a lot of the apartments were controlled by different companies, and she’d seen a lot of the fliers! 
I think the mansions seem to be a bit taller and nicer looking, though.  The apartments look a bit dirtier.  At least around this area. 
We played the “Mansion/apartment” game a bit more, with Okaasan finally admitting there was one she didn’t know and she’d “have to go look at more fliers later.”

Oh Okaasan, you and your shumi (hobbies).

Wow, this blog post is way  too long.  Stopping now.

September 3

My host mom is basically the nicest person ever. 

I AM SO TIRED right now, though.  I totally understand what Samy was talking about now when she said her first days in Switzerland she just slept all the time.  Granted, I woke up at 6:30 after going to bed at 10:30, but I’m more tired than even that really accounts for. 
I’ve been speaking in pretty much only Japanese since about 1:00 and it’s 6:20 now.  Soon it’s dinner time. My host mom keeps coming up and asking if I’m okay with this and that and I’m like “Seriously, I’m okay.  I like Japanese food!”  I know she’s making something with miso and with rice because I saw her making rice and she asked me if miso paste was okay.  I’m getting really hungry~! I wonder what it’ll be. :)

Okay, back to the beginning.
This morning we checked out of our ryokan in Inuyama and got on a charter bus to Nagoya.  Because of the typhoon there was a strong wind warning in place, but we still were able to leave our ryokan at 9 like we’d planned.  The wind didn’t seem that strong... until we watched it blow a sign off of some building and across the highway!  It narrowly missed our bus.  After that the drive went without incident.  We arrived at Nanzan University, at the international studies building, and sat in a classroom to wait for people’s host families and for students living in the dorms to arrive and take us to our  homes.  Lots of people were delayed because of the strong wind warning.  It causes classes to be cancelled and public transport to be stopped or delayed.   So, we were in this classroom from about 10 to 1.  It was nice to get a chance to talk with everyone, and to get everyone’s cell phone numbers, since we’d all go our separate ways soon. 
Everyone’s host families arrived before mine -- my host mom couldn’t get there until 1.  So the people who were left were me, Satoshi and Masae (our program coordinators), and 5 students living in dorms that were far away.  After I got picked up, Satoshi and Masae would take them to their dorms by taxi, since the high wind warning prevented students from those dorms from coming and picking them up.
We walked down the street to a convenience store and grabbed some lunch, and then there was more sitting around and chatting about what clubs we’d join and stuff.
I might end up joining the fencing club! It only meets once a week, Sunday mornings, and you don’t have to go to all the meetings or have any equipment or anything.

Anyway at one my host mom arrived.  She’s basically the cutest thing ever.  She’s like in her fifties, almost sixty, but in the fashion of (it seems like) all Japanese people she looks really young.  So does my host dad, but he’s like 65! They’re both retired.  Apparently I’m the 10th international student their family has hosted.  Wow.  She walked me from Nanzan to the subway station, making sure to stop me to turn me around once we got there, point the direction we’d came from, and check to see if I remembered how to get back to Nanzan from there. 
We took the subway to the stop where we transfer to the JR train.  At that stop she set me up so I could buy a subway card, so that I wouldn’t have to pay fare each time and could just swipe my card.  She even set it up so that the card covered not only from Ozone (where I transfer from JR to subway) to Yagato Nisseki (the stations I’d take to school), but also from Yagato Nisseki to Sakae, the popular student district.  She said I’d be going there a lot if I went and hung out with friends, so this way it was cheaper. 
We took the JR train from Ozone to ... Kozonji was I think the name of my station.  I’ll figure it out soon...! 
On the train we talked about a bunch of stuff, like how many students she’d hosted, where they were from, places she’d been in America, how I was going to Tokyo to visit Shaun in December, and how right now my Japanese was very pretty since I’ve only met teachers, but once I start going to Nanzan classes and joining clubs and making friends with Japanese students it would get more slang.  She said that some of the guys at Nanzan like to tell exchange students, especially those who are in lower levels of Japanese, dirty slang and then say it means some other, everyday thing.  She said to be careful and research any slang someone teaches me! Hahahaha.

Once we got to the station by the house, she helped me buy a JR swipe card, too.
I almost wish we hadn’t talked so much because I paid no attention to how long the whole train commute takes.

Then we met my host dad at their car at the train station.  He didn’t really talk to me much, but I was also being really quiet because I was a little overwhelmed. 
Their car was super adorable.  Inside it had lacy seat covers, and Winnie the Pooh floor mats, and some Snoopy stuff too.  It must be my host mom’s car.  She seems to really like Snoopy.

We got home, I unpacked, gave them my gift, and then my host mom sat me down and started explaining stuff to me.  She’s so nice, seriously.  Their only rule is that I call them and let them know my schedule if I’m going to miss dinner or be home late or something, and that I make sure if I call them if I’m taking the train home when it’s dark, no matter how late it is, so that they can pick me up from the station.  It’s a 15 minute walk from the station to home, and they don’t want me doing it in the dark.
I don’t have a curfew or anything “because I’m an adult.”  She did say she’d worry if I don’t communicate, but that if I do miss the last train and tell her I’m not coming home until the morning just to be careful because there are some not safe places in Nagoya. 

Seriously, my host mom sat me down and said that while studying is important I’m in Japan to have all kinds of experiences, and that studying was one experience and one way of learning about Japan, but Japan is full of Japanese people (「日本人ばっかり」って）so just taking the train is studying, so is going on trips, meeting friends, going out for food, getting lost, and even going out drinking and drinking too much and throwing up.  She then told me a story about another student she’d hosted who called her, said she wasn’t able to get the last train because she was with a friend who was throwing up.  My host mom went to pick them up and it was actually the student who was throwing up and her friend had texted for her.  My host mom had figured this was what had actually happened, drove all the way to Nagoya to pick her up, and even brought a plastic bag for her to throw up.
Not that I’m planning on doing this, Mom, don’t worry!

She then talked about how I need to go to izakaya (Japanese bars, with food, kinda like the Japanese version of a pub) and talked about 飲み放題　(nomi houdai -- all-you-can-drink). 
(Okay, ‘My host mom’ is getting cumbersome.  I’m going to call her “Okaa-san” because that’s what I call her, mother, in Japanese.)

After warning me that Japanese hotels charge per person and not per room (so even in a twin room you get charged double the room price for two people), and I explained that since Shaun was staying with a host family in Tokyo so I found a cheap hostel to stay at, Okaasan said that if you come visit me here in Nagoya, Shaun, you are more than welcome to come stay with us.  There’s a tatami room, or there’s my room, and either one is okay.  早く来てね！(come soon!)

We talked a bit more, about Amanda and how she dated a guy here and it was cute. We ate some yummy eclairs! And then she said there was a Softbank (Japanese phone company) cell phone in the desk, the one Amanda used last year, that I could use.  I explained that I already had a rental Japanese cell phone and that I had researched the Softbank phones but I went with Piccell like the program recommended because I wasn’t sure whether I could get one without my alien registration card yet.  She said she would have done the same thing if she were me.  But we compared rates and the Softbank phone is much cheaper.  It’s seriously 9 yen a minute, and you can get unlimited messaging for 300 yen a month.  Whereas the Piccell phone is like 63 yen a minute with a 20 yen connection fee or something.  I also have noticed I have like half a bar of service on my Piccell phone here.  And that’s only in my room.  When I was in the kitchen I didn’t have any service at all.  I was like “Well this is a raw deal.” 
I just need to get a phone card for 3000 yen and then I can use it.  Right now it can receive calls but not make them, until I input another card.  Even if it wasn’t a cooler phone (which it totally is) I’d want to switch anyway just because I don’t get service here and I can’t not get service at my home. 

My family has provided me with so much! I have my own room, and it’s a pretty sizeable room.  And my own bathroom (just a toilet and sink up here -- we all share the shower/bath). They gave me slippers, and I have a whole drawer full of bath towels I can use.  Buying towels in Japan was good advice -- I now have these towels taking up space that I’m not using.  Same with the slippers.  But the ones I brought are warmer so I might want to use them in the winter. 

That reminds me.  No air conditioning in this house.  That’s the one thing.  I’ve got a very nice fan in this room, though! It’ll be better once I can open the window, too.  Okaasan said not to do it today because of the typhoon, but I think the strong winds have mostly stopped by now.  It sounds calm outside.
Still, hopefully the heat won’t last very long... Hopefully...

Guys Okaasan’s even doing my laundry for me.  I told her I could definitely do it, but she said that when school started up I’d have homework and be too busy.  “If I had a job, well then...” she said, kind-of winking at me. Then said that since she didn’t have a job she didn’t mind doing it. 

We had dinner and Okaasan made rice, miso katsu, some salad, eggplant with bonito flakes on top, and these kind of salty tomatoes with egg.  It was all very tasty... except for the tomatoes.  She told me to tell her if there was anything I couldn’t eat so she wouldn’t make it again, and I felt rude doing it, but I did.  I tried putting the tomatoes on the rice and it helped a bit, but they were just too salty and the flavor was too strong, the way canned tomatoes sometimes are (maybe they’d been marinated in something).  Maybe it’s because I’m tired and not relaxed into my surroundings yet, but my stomach just couldn’t really handle it. 
She offered me another eclair but I was so full...! Now I kinda wish I’d taken it, haha.

Tomorrow’s Sunday and I don’t have any orientation or anything until Monday (which is the placement test!) so I was assured that I can, and should, sleep as much as I want.

Okaa-san keeps making fun of me for saying “はい” (yes, but in Japan it gets used a lot more than just as ‘yes’ - gotcha, uh-huh, roger, I’m here!, I understand, etc.) to everything.  Like she’s explaining something, like where drinks are in the fridge or how to use the shower and I’m just like “はい。はい。はい。はい。”　Like “uh-huh.”  So she was like “はい〜” at me in a kind-of silly voice. Okay okay it’ll get better when my Japanese gets better all right stop teasing.

But I like the teasing, really.  If they were serious and strict I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.  This way it’s more comfortable.  I feel like they’re treating me like actually part of the family and not so much of this “うち／そと　inside the family/outside the family” boundary stuff.  That’s what I was really worried about -- people being really cold to me.

Otousan (father) and Okaasan had some kind of meeting with friends this evening so they’ve both stepped out for an hour or so.

In the meantime, now that it’s 8, it seems like a less ridiculous time to go to sleep.  I’m gonna shower and then see how I feel. 

おやすみ！(good night!)