After living in a Japanese-style/sized apartment for a year (which is very small by US standards, for those of you don't know), I can totally appreciate this guy's work to transform his apartment the way he did... it's such a cool idea!
Snow in April?? Yep...
For some reason it snowed in late April here in Japan... a little annoying when you've gone thru several months of winter and are in need of some warm weather
Wow, it's been 2 months, but....
By taisho12 · February 4, 2010 · 2 Comments · 31 Views
IT SNOWED IN CHIBA AND TOKYO TWO DAYS AGO!! woooooot!
I know, I know, I didn't grow up around snow so I don't know how to make snow men well...
This was just as it started to come down harder, but before it actually started settling on the ground
Self-explanatory
Coping with Space Limitations
By taisho12 · November 25, 2009 · 2 Comments · 36 Views
Japanese apartments aren't exactly big, in case you didn't know. So what do I do when my laundry piles up, I have 4 loads to do in the same night, I don't have a dryer and I need space to hang dry everything I own?
I get creative.
That, my friends, would be my ethernet cable, which now serves as a clothes line as well. It spans the length of my room, conveniently right across from the heater/AC unit so everything dries quickly. Spark of genius, you say? I thought so, too.
Don't mind the fact that those are all my boxers, just marvel at my brilliance :D
Day trip to Hakone
Yesterday we took a trip over to Hakone. We started off our day by meeting in Shinjuku station at 7:30am (keep in mind that I had to wake up at 5:30 in order to take a shower and get there on time, which is quite an accomplishment for me). From there we got some breakfast at this small soba shop and caught the train out to Hakone, which is about a 2 hour train ride. Once we got there we took a bus up to the most common starting place for the hike and began our journey. Along the way we saw a lot of cool stuff including old shrines, and one road we walked up is a popular car drifting spot. and at one of the rest areas they were selling oden style mochi with this miso dipping sauce and 甘酒, or amazake - sweet sake, which, if I'm not mistaken, has no alcohol in it. Both the dish and the sake were amazing. They also had free tea there which was really good, but none of us could figure out what kind of tea it was. It had a flavor none of us had ever tasted before.
After that we continued along the trail, and that's when it started to become more rocky and then the stone path started (you'll see in the pictures) for the most part it was fine as long as you watched your step, but once we got to the top and started back down the other side, it got pretty steep and if you weren't careful you could slip on the moss and stuff growing on some of the stones. At the bottom of the 30 minute long stone path was Lake Ashi, which we crossed on a pirate ship-looking ferry boat. On the other side we ate a quick late lunch and got onto this gondola that took us further up the mountain and we got some great views of the lake and even Mt. Fuji. The gondola then took us down the other side of the mountain and then we had to take a trolley down these switchback roads to get back to the station.
From there we took a taxi to an onsen (Japanese style public bath house) and about half of us went in to do it. We took a few pictures outside near the parking lot as we were getting ready to go into the lobby to pay, but clearly we couldn't take pictures inside the bath house and I'm sure you all wouldn't want to see pictures of us naked anyways ;) It was definitely an interesting experience. It was one of the most relaxing things I've ever done and when you came out you just felt super refreshed. So the way it worked was right when you entered the lobby you took your shoes off and stored them in a small locker. Then you went to the front desk and paid to get in and bought a large towel for drying off and a small towel to bring with you into the actual bath area. Then we went past a resting area with tatami mats and down some stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, the women's bath area was to the left and the men's was to the right. Inside were more lockers to store any bags or clothes you had with you. So it was at this point that we all found our lockers and, well, got naked haha. We of course had our smaller towels to cover up "the area". The layout of the actual bath area was pretty cool. Everyone's required to shower off before going into any of the baths so we did that. All the baths were outside and varied in size from quite large, to about hot tub sized. Each bath was a different temperature, and they were all pretty hot except for one which was literally ice cold. The other cool thing is they had a sauna which was really nice. I know people's instinctual reaction to this kind of thing, especially if you're really, really Westernized, is to think "whoa, that would be really awkward." And I won't lie, it was a little uncomfortable in the beginning just because it was a completely new and different experience, but you honestly get over the fact that you're pretty much naked - other than having a small towel to hold - within minutes of walking in there. And once I just let myself relax, got comfortable and just started having normal conversations with my friends there, it was one of the most relaxing, stress-relieving, and rejuvenating experiences I've ever had. I know some people are going to be homophobic and be like "wow that's gay," but honestly, don't knock it till you try it.
Anyways, after the onsen we just took a taxi back to the station, got some dinner and headed home. It was seriously an awesome day!
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NjS Performance at DJ Bar Color - 10/27/2009
By taisho12 · October 28, 2009 · 2 Comments · 36 Views
Our second live performance since I've been here in Japan. Thanks to my friend Cameron for setting up his camera and filming this!
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The past few weeks
By taisho12 · September 29, 2009 · 2 Comments · 33 Views
Ugh, I'm really bad about updating this thing frequently... but I kind of have a legit excuse this time! I have a bunch of small stories to tell so if you have some time, read up!
First off, I need to get something out of my system really quick, so here it goes -->
So about 6 weeks ago when I had just arrived and settled into my apartment in Ichikawa, there was a huge fireworks festival going on in my town so I invited a bunch of my friends from my program over so we could all go watch it. After the show, we all headed back to my place to drink a little before everyone went home. Keep in mind it's a SATURDAY and it is a well known and accepted fact that some people get drunk, loud and rowdy during and after the fireworks festivals all the time. So i admit we were being pretty loud and the walls are pretty thin, but we were literally done by 11pm and we all left. Later that week i got a letter from the people running my apartment complex - which is mainly for college students - saying that the guy who lives next to me (I only have one neighbor, an old business man, because i have the end unit in the complex) couldn't sleep the night that we were drinking because we were too loud, and that if i did it again i might get evicted. Now today, several weeks later, I'm sitting in my room at 2:30am on a TUESDAY night and his TV is on blast so loud i pretty much know what he's watching. This guy is a grumpy old fart who needs to retire and drink some prune juice and mellow the hell out.
On a lighter note, I'm finally moved into my apartment for the year, haha. It's pretty nice not living out of my luggage anymore and being able to buy some nice pillows and comfortable blankets and having a slightly larger living space than I have had for the past 7 weeks or so. And I bought a really soft rug at the 100円 store (which wasn't 100 yen unfortunately). We just had orientation at sophia, which was pretty cool. At one point I was debating whether or not I wanted to do the intensive language courses, but at the orientation the guy talking about the japanese courses told us that if we wanted a life, to experience japanese culture, and to have fun while we're here, we shouldn't take the intensive classes because we would literally be studying ALL the time. So needless to say, I chose the regular classes haha. The following day we took the placement test and I placed into Japanese 2, which seems about right, considering I took japanese 1 at Irvine.
Oh, for those of you that don't know, about 3 weeks ago I randomly went deaf in my right ear over the course of 3 days. I went to go see the doctor, who told me it was a condition called "sudden deafness" and was so rare that they didn't know for sure what caused it or how to treat it. But I guess one of the most common ways to treat it is to take steroids as well as some other vitamins such as vitamin B12 and vitamin E, so for a week straight I had to go into the hospital, lay down on a bed, and have steroids and vitamins injected into my bloodstream thru an iv in my arm for 2 hours. Fun stuff. Then, the week after that I was on oral meds. The good news is my hearing actually, for the most part, came back. My first audiogram test at the onset of the sudden deafness showed that my left ear could hear at about 10 decibels, but my right ear could only hear at around 110 decibels. Keep in mind the average person hears at about 20 decibels according to the doctor. When i went in for my final audiogram, after the injections and the oral meds were done, my left ear was still at 10 decibels, but my right ear was at around 20 decibels. The doctor literally told me it was a miracle, and that regaining that much hearing after something like this happens is almost unheard of. He also said that hearing recovery can last up to a month or so after the treatment, so there's even still some possibility that i could regain all my hearing. So i'll keep you all posted on that.
Tokyo Edo Museum in Ryogoku (pt. 2)
By taisho12 · September 3, 2009 · 0 Comments · 141 Views
16 Photos: View as Gallery | View as Slideshow
Tokyo Edo Museum in Ryogoku
By taisho12 · September 3, 2009 · 0 Comments · 125 Views
20 Photos: View as Gallery | View as Slideshow
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