Japan Style

Thanks to my speaking partner's connections at a local radio station, I have been invited to join FM Hirakata on their weekly radio program, Suzana's Corner. Today, I met the owner of the radio station and had a wonderful time with him and the radio host, Suzana.

I met Hirai in front of Kintetsu after classes. He's a very nice, gregarious older Japanese man. He took me up to the second floor of Sunplaza to his radio station. He kept mentioning how small the station was, but it's just Japanese modesty to say such things. The station was cozy and well layed out. I was nervous at first, but my Japanese flowed well, and before long we were hitting it off just fine.

He took me into the studio for a bit and then Suzana came and introduced herself. She's a very nice 20-something woman from the Czech Republic. She speaks fluent Japanese and English, and is so very nice and beautiful! We talked about what the show would contain, and then we "changed places," as Hirai-san said, and went to a small restaurant across the street. We went there via the skyway, which I'd never been on. It was cool. The whole way, I was talking to him and Suzana about how long I'd been studying abroad, why I like Japan, etc.

The restaurant was great. They ordered some food, and after some confusion on my part as to what alcohol was appropriate to drink (I don't know much!), we settled on some nice plum wine. It was very sweet and pleasant. Suzana and I continued to discuss the show. She asked me questions about Oklahoma: what was famous there? What special foods are there? I wasn't sure how to reply. I said we have lots of countryside, are famous for oil, we have buffalo, and my town is surrounded by 6 tribes of Native Americans and is named after a tribe, the Ponca. I hope I did my state justice by my words!

Afterwards, Hirai took us to a sushi bar he and Suzana frequent, Yuuna. It was a lovely, quaint sushi bar and reminded me of my first time in Japan going to one of these. It was so nice and comforting, and I got a little nostalgic.

Hirai san ordered a bottle of sake, and Suzana and him took care of the pouring for the most part to be polite to me. I was on my best behavior and had been throughout the night - using desu/masu (polite) Japanese and making sure to avoid any cultural faux pas that I've made in the past. We had great sashimi. The best: toro (expensive, fatty tuna), uni (sea urchin, one of the most expensive sashimi), and some rice and wheat dough dishes called dango that tasted much like whole wheat bread. The sushi was absolutely delicious. Hirai paid for everything.

while there, I also tried...natto...for the first time. It wasn't that delicious. I passed it on to Hirai-san as they made jokes about where the bathroom was, in case I should need it. It really wasn't that bad, but they didn't expect me to like it, so it's okay. The master of the sushi bar was from Okinawa, and I told him I had a friend/friend's mother who was from there, back in the States. Suzana and him discussed the military base in Okinawa that's currently in the news for being moved. They were wonderful people to hang out with, everyone!

From there, we parted ways in front of the radio station. I have 3 meetings with Suzana next month, and I will be featured in 6 episodes of her show, Suzana's Corner! I can't wait. I'm so excited. The show will be featured online, too, so I'll be sure and post a link for you when I get a chance.


Tyler

My apologies for lack of posting. I hope that you've been following my photos and status updates on facebook if you've wanted to keep up with me and my adventure in Japan.

Tonight I read a story of two lovers, a soldier and his wife, who took their lives one night in the name of the Imperial Forces in the 1930s. The story was very detailed, full of love, and had rich, vivid descriptions of the man committing seppuku with his wife as witness. She, too, ended her life that night.

After reading this story, I wanted to leave the brightness of the dorm and head outside. The air was cool and crisp, its air sweet with the scent of cut grass. Today was the first day that I heard the cicadas in Japan since coming here just 3 months ago.

My friends and I walked to the cemetery, and then off into the small forest that lay beyond the field there. We saw a figure with a flashlight, walking carefully, his light tracing frenetic circles on the earth around him. We weren't sure what to make of him, but we pressed on nevertheless.

Oh, the scent. It was intoxicating. Walking toward the hill in the forest, you never would have known you weren't back home, exploring some abandoned place with your friends a few blocks from your house. We climb the steps and reach the summit, whereupon we reach a paved circular platform, its center empty and full of earth. We were confused for awhile, not sure what it meant.

But I didn't care. We came without lights, and it was difficult to see clearly. I rested my hand on a tree, and it came back sticky with sap. The sap smelled like cloves and carrots - it reminded me also of the white spice drops you find back home. It was so refreshing. I loved the scent of this pine tree, and even more wished that I was home, at least for one day. But I decided I was content with just the scent of being home - I only have a few more weeks here, anyway.

We made our way back and avoided the man, who we know see is a night watchman, and got home safely. It was a wonderful detour from the daily life here that I've become so accustomed to.


Tyler

Today I spent a few hours at a local arcade in hirakata city. It's called DINO, and the games here are really cheap.

There's a section of rhythm games by Bemani in the corner, and they have a unique feature called e-AMUSEMENT PASS. For 400 yen you can buy a card that will save your progress in each of these games. This is useful, as there are unlockables for each game, including new songs, play modes, and new themes/skins/etc.



The games in this arcade are GuitarFreaks V6, DrumMania V6, and my favorite, jubeat ripples.
This arcade is really loud. They had a "Bemani sound separator" between the guitar freaks and jubeat machines, but the sound bleed is still terrible. The right jubeat Machine has really good volume, so I switched to that one once I figured that out.
Jubeat (pronounced YOU-Beat) is a rythym game where you tap colored blocks in time to the music. Cool thing is, the blocks are a 4 x 4 grid separation of one LCD screen, so you select your songs and do everything from there. I didn't get a photo of it, but I have a video of the screen in action.





The songs I like are honeypot by aika, Mr. Scat man, and kiss edge. Great songs! I went from Level D to level C4 in the achievements grading system they use, and I hope to be a B before too long.

GuitarFreaks only has three buttons, and it plays nothing like Guitar Hero. I don't care for it much.

DrumMania is fun, albeit complicated.

I look forward to more jubeat! Hopefully my fingers will callous up a little - they're tender from playing so many times today.

Highlight of the day:  Meeting a very nice Japanese attendant at the grocery store and making a friend.

Low point of the day: Feeling completely unwanted, worthless, then crying.


Tyler

A lot has happened this week, and it's only Thursday.

I arrived at my dorm via bus on Monday morning. On the way there, I sat next to an Australian guy and we talked about the differences between America and Australia. He was the first Australian I'd really ever spoken to, and I was his first real American to speak to.

We arrived at Seminar House 4 sooner than I'd anticipated. It was just so sudden. It wasn't quite like I'd imagined it to be. Somehow pictures add a certain dreamlike quality to a place. The reality is wonderful, but different and somehow more...mundane, or worldly. I moved into my room, 4309, and my roommates were already here, sleeping on their futon, or Japanese bed made of a thin padded mattress and some blankets on the floor. They're really comfy.

Chris is from Puerto Rico and Florida, and Doug is from Massachusetts. Chris is doing homestay this semester, and was here last semester. They're nice guys, although for the first couple days I was a little anxious around them, especially Chris. His intonation is very strange, and I could never tell if he was being sarcastic or not. I annoyed him once, when I asked if he was mocking me. Those days are long over, though - my self-esteem is back, and I have relaxed around everyone. It's a very good thing I did, because making friends would be hard otherwise.

I took a tour of the area with some Japanese students that afternoon. We went to the closest shops - shimamura and Avail, two clothing stores. Miho and I got to know each other pretty well. She's a Spanish major, and very easy to talk to. We went to several other shops, and a really, really awesome 3 story mall with a HUGE electronics store. I will be buying a DSi LL soon, I'm sure.

Deodorant is hard to find in Japan, and anti-perspirant is all but impossible to locate. I settled on some unscented stuff called "Bodycore" or something like that, made by Gatsby. It's okay.

Tuesday was jam-packed full of things. On Tuesday, I opened a bank account, signed up for a cell phone, and more. It was a very tiring day. I walked a really long way. More later!

I arrived in Osaka on Saturday evening. It was quite a trip!

My family went to Tulsa with me Thursday to Tulsa, and we went out to dinner for my parent's anniversary which was the same day. I have terrible timing, eh?

Friday Morning, they took me to the airport. We had a somewhat tearful goodbye, especially for my Dad.

Through lots of flying and waiting...I finally arrived at Tokyo! It was there that I met some fellow Kansai Gaidai-ers: Chris, Priscilla, Brittany, and George(?). They were a lot of fun, and I got to know Priscilla pretty well on the plane ride to Osaka.


I had no idea how to get to the Dotonbori hotel once I was in Osaka, but luckily my new friends were getting a friend to go take them to the dorms. I followed them up until my stop, and then a very nice woman helped me to my next subway train.


She was super nice, and wasn't even getting on the same train as myself! Upon surfacing, a different hotel gave me directions to the Dotonbori, and then a homeless man guided me to the correct crosswalk. It was all very interesting, but at that point I was so exhausted I just wanted a shower and some sleep.

The next morning I went to go pick up Megan and Blaine, but they had spent the night in Guam at an Internet Café and didn't get any sleep. They hadn't really slept in 40 hours...poor guys. They had booked a hotel (without me knowing) at the airport and they went straight to bed. We didn't hang out at all Sunday. At first I was upset because I had spent $9 and an hour of my time to come get them, but I can understand how tired they were, and they probably wouldn't have been much fun in their state anyway.

So I spent the day in Osaka by myself. I went to Melissa's favorite ramen shop in the whole wide world. It was really delicious! Then I hit up an arcade at this place called "Nanba HIPS" and played some Taiko Drum Master with a little boy who was better than me. The escalator up to the arcade was really cool.



After that, I just started wandering around. There were lots of people walking around. After a few minutes of sightseeing, I was approached by these two young Japanese men. They were comedians and took a great interest in me! I was really excited. They were really cool. There names were Kattchan and Mattchan, and they (along with Chiakk) showed me their comedy club. I watched their performance for only 500円! It's a comedy style called "Manzai," and it was a lot of speaking and word humor. However, I got enough of it to have a really wonderful time. It was in a very traditional looking room with seat mats - you even had to take off your shoes to get in. Most of the audience were girls. There were about 25 of us watching the show. It was really neat. Afterwards, I walked with the guys back to the bridge and we chatted the whole way. Every so often I'd see them again in the street and they'd come up and hug me or shake my hand. It was great to feel so welcome here.


I also heard a street band called "524" and they were really good. I liked their vocal harmony. They noticed me and were very friendly. They all came up to me after their song and greeted me. We all took pictures together, and I signed up for their fan club. It was really neat.



After some shopping (Melissa, I found an omamori toosan!), my backpack started killing my shoulders, so I went back to the hotel for a brief nap. That was 4pm. I briefly woke up 3 hours later, then went back to sleep until midnight. Not good for my sleep schedule.

I decided to get some tonkatsu at this restaurant called "New Host," and head to bed after that.

It's now 2:30am. I should probably get to bed. This morning I take the pick-up service to Kansai Gaidai!


Tyler

I've been at OSU since Wednesday afternoon, just hanging out with Markus and saying goodbye (and hello) to some friends. I've done very little studying on renshuu.org over the week, but that's okay. I'm probably about 15% packed - my Pelican case is ready to go, but not much else. So much packing to do.

I have to be in Stillwater Monday afternoon, so I'll get started on Tuesday. That'll give me two solid days to pack.

It's coming up so soon. Yesterday I got really sad about it. But I don't have it as bad as Blaine does. Poor guy, his passport and certificate were lost in the mail so he has nothing right now to get him over there. I do hope they retrieved it, otherwise it will be several thousand dollars and a few weeks until he can get here.


Tyler