For Japanese class we have to give a 2-3 minute speech in front of everyone. Here is a rough translation of the speech I will give tomorrow morning.

Hello everyone! Most people have used their speech to talk about memories, but I think that is a little boring so I am going to do something different. I would like to read you a Sailor Moon Fanfiction I have written.

 “My date with Sailor Moon”

By Patrick Crumley

I think that Sailor Moon is the prettiest girl in the world. That is why I was so surprised when she called me last weekend.

“Patrick? This is Sailor Moon…　are you free saturday?” My heart was RACING!

” … uhhh…. for  you Sailor Moon, everytime is free time.” i replied.

“Well. How would you like to go to the amusement park with me?”

“I would like that very very much!”

I couldn’t believe that I was going on a date with Sailor MOON! I was so excited that I bought new clothes to wear and a pair of cool sunglasses. When the date came, I was ready. We met at the amusement park at 1 pm. When I saw Sailor Moon I could not believe my eyes. She was even more beautiful than in the anime and manga, which I have read several times. The first thing we did on our date was play darts. I won a giant bear and gave it to Sailor Moon. Later when we went on the roller coaster the bear became a problem and we had to leave it behind. When we came back someone had stolen it! Oh well. Before leaving the park we had dinner together. I had a hamburger and sailor moon had a hot dogs. We both agreed we had a great time and decided to go on another date.

The end!

I have been in Japan for 36 days now, and I am finally begining to feel like my surrounding are normal. This weekend I went all the way to odaiba, which is this man-made island on the tokyo bay. Everything about odaiba is absolutely ridiculous. All the buildings are very modern architecture, and I’m pretty sure the point of modern Japanese architecture is to look as gaudy as possible. The Fuji Television HQ is definitely the worst offender. However there are plenty of other bizarre buildings that give it a run for it’s money.

In Odaiba i went to a pet store, and let me tell you, it was adorable! There was probably about 50 dogs, and all of them were the tiniest of puppies. However it was kindof sad to see a baby monkey, and a meerkat there. Which I probably wouldn’t have cared as much about if I hadn’t seen Animal Planet’s Meerkat Manor. Which was a totally ridiculous show, basically the Real World but with meerkats. Also, I don’t know if this will catch on in America, but everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, dresses their dogs up here. The pet store had an area for clothes, and next door there was a dog costume/clothes store. You could even buy goggles for you dog! Also there is a store in my town that I walk by everyday where all they do is make custom tailored dog clothes. You can get it a soccer jersey for your team. At first I thought it was just a regular pet store, but I looked inside and they were like measuring a dog and they had tons of fabric you could choose from.

Secondly I went to the miraikan (literally looking ahead museum) and met asimo <\a>! I only mention that because before leaving for Japan I said that if I didn’t see one of these I would consider my trip to Japan a failure. I didn’t even know the little robot would be there, but it surprised me! It can do some pretty crazy stuff like run, walk up stairs, balance on one foot, carry stuff, hold your hand and walk with you, but one battery charge lasts about 40 minutes, and I think i missed part of it so I didn’t see it for very long.

I know this may be getting tendious for some people, me babbling on about life in Japan and whatnot, but I’m going to do it anyways! So here’s three things that happened today, which span the set of human emotions.

Today at breakfast my host mom told me she was sad that I had no friends. It’s true I have been spending a lot of time to myself lately and not going out, but that’s really because everyone else drinks everynight. Plus I don’t have anyones phone numbers and they don’t have mine, because I got my phone late. People in the group like me, and we hang out at campus. I tried to explain this to my host mom but it was lost in translation. She started saying how I came all the way to japan and I should enjoy myself and make as many japanese friends as I can, and that I should talk to the organizor of Japan studies. The truth is, I really like my downtime as it gives me a lot of time to work out and reflect on my Japanese experience. I would like to hang out more, but I really don’t have the money or the desire to get wasted every night. I think she said this because she feels like I am sad, and that they have to plan stuff to do with me because I don’t have other people to do it with. I tried to tell here that I really don’t mind exploring the city on my own, sometimes I enjoy it more because I get to do things at my own pace. Anyways, it was a really depressing way to start my day.

 Then, in class it got a whole lot better. Well sort of. There is this really really annoying girl named claire. Oh, but her nickname is hikaru! Which is literally sunshine in japanese. I guess claire meaning is sunshine. But anyways all the japanese people are weirded out by it. But she crosses the border between participating and interrupting. She always asks questions that cause like 10 minute explanations because she keeps on asking more clarifying questions. And she has no volume control. But anyways, after break we go into small groups with waseda students. I was this phyisics major from carleton who is a pretty funny guy, who absolutely hates claire. We were all so frustrated by the direction she causes the class to go into that we decided that we were going to at least have fun. We seriously degraded into a middle school class with a substitute. It was that bad. We were giggling and shouting, not paying attention at all. Then like with 20 minutes left in class, my waseda partner slid all his stuff  to the side, slammed his elbow against the table and said, “Okay, let’s go.” We had the most epic arm wrestle that ever existed it lasted like 2 minutes because I kept almost winning then laughing, then he would take advantage and almost win but I would come back. The lead switched places at least 4 times. The whole class was watching. We all got homework because of it, but omgz, good times were had.

Finally. I tried to cash travelers checques but the signitures looked too different so they freaked out and it took like an hour to cash them. I had to sign them a third time and give them my passport and they compared the 4 signitures and decided that they were similar enough to give me my money. ARGH! Japanese people, actually caring about signitures. They do the same for credit cards. I would explain more but I only have 3 more minutes of meganet left!

You should be. I pretty sure we are on the verge of world war 3/the apocalypse. Or was that when Israel or Lebanon were fighting? I can’t remember. It seems like every few months the media finds some news event that is legitimately terrifying and then fear mongers us into being so scared that the only thing we can do to prepare ourselves is stay informed. But staying informed makes us more scared! I wish i could say that I was better than all this, that I was able to maintain rationality admist the chaos, but when I see something like this, I get scared. Especially considering I go to school right next to the place that would probably be the number 1 target in tokyo. Well like maybe 3 kilometers away from it, but still effed from a 15 megaton blast, which actually is not that big considering what the US and Russia have. However they aren’t h-bombs, but most likely plutonium making the fallout probably a bigger problem than the actual explosion. So even if I survive the initial blast i will lose my ability to have childern and get 10 kinds of cancer that will all metacystize to my brain. It doesn’t help that  all they show on the news right now is North Korea, made worse by the fact that all I can understand is the scary music. All I know is, if Japan tries pre-emptive attacks (which would violate their constitution, but I think they are looking into ways to get around it) I am getting the eff out of Japan.

But it was really really easy. And I really only climbed half because I took a chairlift halfway. Irregardless the view was amazing from the top, there was not a cloud in the sky. You could see all of tokyo. It was really cool. Then on the way down we stopped at a little soba restaurant that had really famous soba. I guess they go there all the time in the tv dramas. It was delicious.

Yesterday I went for a really long bike ride in koganei kouen , which the park in my town. I had been there once before but I didn’t go very far inside it because I was afraid I would get lost. This time, I felt more confident so I went all over inside it, and got tremendously lost. They had maps, but I never really found my way to the exit, I took this shady side road. Anyways, it’s sooo huge! I probably biked around there for almost 2 hours and I think I saw a little over 1/2 of it. It’s also pretty famous, people come from all over tokyo to do hang out there. I would say it’s like central park, but it’s really not downtown, and I also have no idea what central park is like. However, this park has EVERYTHING! It even has a unicylcing area for crying out loud (unicycling is popular here for little girls, but no boys for some reason pre-1850s). It also has an open air museum that re-enacts the edo period (before japan was open to the west). Apparently the town in Princess Mononoke is based on this museum. Miyazaki really like it for some reason. I have yet to go, but plan on doing it before it gets too cold. I almost have the technology to upload pictures. I forgot to install a photo editor before I left for japan so I have no way to compress them for the web. I don’t even have iPhoto =(. However, when I get this technology you can expect me to start a flicker account and put the url here right away!

More from Japan!

Today was possibly the worst day yet on the trains. I told you earlier of the people pushers, well they were always there but didn’t have to be used until today. My hand was literally sandwiched between two salarymen’s asses. Somehow when everyone pushed in it got stuck there and I was unable to move it because it was also holding my bag. I got off my train early and took a much less crowded line (but had to wait like 15 minutes for that train). Consequently I was late to class. POOPLEBERRIES! Then later when I was coming home the train was not crowded at all and I was able to get a seat! However, the salaryman next to me fell asleep on my shoulder. That means I shared what would normally be considered an intimate moment with 3 random salarymen. Thus is the commuter’s life.

I have started my classes and it seems like Japanese here will actually be really hard. There are vocab quizzes everyday, which cover 40 words! There is a test like every two weeks. I dunno it’s strange. Also I don’t remember if I already wrote this but I have 3 classes tomorrow, but two of them are 2 periods long, and at 1.5 hours per period that equals 7 hours of class with 3.5 hours of them being lecture, and the profs here are really worried about their english so they usually just read their powerpoints! AGUH! sooooooooo booring. Most people email on their cell phone during class.

 In bad news, I learned that the film special topic class I registered to take next semester changed from Film Noir to Sci-Fi! It goes from B.A. to Nerd central! I am very sad. I might switch classes now. We’ll see.

Anyways, Let’s learn Japanese! Stuff I bought this week edition-

Ketaidenwa- Cell phone. It was free with the plan, bilingual, and yes it does have more features than my american phone. ￥０

Jitensha- Bicycle. I only paid for 1/4 of this, my host family paid the rest, because the dad wants to use it after I leave. It is bright red, has a light, a lock built in, and I LUVS it! ￥8000 (2000 to me!)

Kyokasho- Textbook. I only bought 1 textbook, but I think I have to buy another one, but I couldn’t find it in the book store. ￥2400

Hey-

It’s me again! But this time I have nothing interesting or funny to say. Except that if you check my facebook status you will see that this internet access is costing me 390￥ an hour (about $3.75). That’s because the only place here that has internet access also has a manga/magazine library that you can read while using the computers. And most of those things, are filled with boobies. Or at least their covers are, I’m scared to open them. Plus sketchy buisnessman are always here looking at naughty pictures. However, grandmas also come in to use the computers, so it’s not like it’s only for porn. Anyways.

I’m living in koganei-shi. Which is a commuter town about an hour from the outside of tokyo and probably like 2 hours to tokyo station. Because everyone only lives here there really isn’t that many exciting things to do, except there are a bunch of parks, and even like 2 mountains you can climb within walking distance of my house. It’s cool and I have been taking advantage of the parks and going jogging frequently. I also am probably walking an average of about 3-5 miles everyday. CRAZY! I’ve been so bored that I’ve started a rigourous regiment of working out twice-a-day, like push-ups and crunches etc. I’ve definitely lost a few pounds already, but before leaving for japan I went on a pre-japan binge. So I think I have equalized it right now. Plus the portions here are small so my stomach has shrunk. I do not think I could finish a typical american meal without feeling a little sick afterwards. It’s kindof stupid though, because in america I remember frequently eating until my stomach hurts. It seems so unneccessary now. Regardless, japan has a way of making you feel like a fatty.

My host family is like the freakin best thing ever! They are very nice and try their best to make me feel at home. It’s weird though because everything is so passive aggressive here. For instance, earlier today, I was sitting on my bed and my host mom came in and said, there are sheets in the closet. To which I replied, okay. Then she repeated it, this time pointing to the closet. I was like, okay cool.　Then she went and got sheets and handed them to me. And I realized she wanted me to change my sheets and clean my room. I did so, and then she came in and was like ooh it’s so pretty you have done a great job! Stuff like that happens all the time.

 jya mata

P.s.- For nerds (i.e. Joel) only. I can’t see the pictures either, on my account (i tried to post some) or katies. And I’m using internet explorer because that’s pretty much all they have on the computers I’ve been using. I dunno if this helps you at all.

Man, I don’t even know where to start. I don’t have internet access at home, but I finally got a waseda account so I can use the internet at school! Also with this new account I have a new email that I will pretty much exclusively use here. I don’t really want to type it here (spam bots!) but if you want it leave a comment and I will send it to you. Also lindsey, those things you are buying at robot love they have them here too. And they sell them like the hottest of cakes. However more exciting than that is the stationary. Japan has way cool stationary stores and i am totally planning on getting a lot of them and send people letters. In other news they keep warning us from joining any club that offers free food. I guess all of those clubs are ran by cults, including the cults responsible for the attack in the tokyo subway.

My host family is incredibly nice! My mom loves hiking and we are planning on going to climb some mountains around tokyo.

 This post is fizzling out, so I’ll end it with

Love advice from Japan (found in a girls magazine):

Think about your boyfriend on the lavatory, if you still love him, you should get married.

bai bai~

Right now I’m in a technical school for my japan study introduction, They overschedule us so there is little to no free time, and almost no computer access (there is 4 computers for the 31 of us, and about 1 hour of time where we can use them!) I left early today because of my cold and decided to do some blogging/emailing.

Today was my first experience of tokyo rush hour trains. Many people on the group could not handle the crowdedness and got really really irritable/nervous. I feel bad for them because everyone will have to commute at least 30 minutes a day, during prime usage hours. Also people got motion sickness. You would not believe how crowded the trains are. it was like being in the front of a concert or something. They pay people to shove other people into the trains so they don’t get behind schedule.

Today we toured the waseda campus! OMFGZ It is soooooooo big. I have pictures that i will show you later. 52,000 people go to waseda, but there are four campuses, there will be around 30,000 people on our campus. It is actually not that big of a space, like maybe 1.5 city blocks so every building is like 10-20 stories or more. Plus the town of waseda is also really crowded. The bad thing is because waseda is having it’s 125 anniversary, they are doing a lot of renovation on their buildings. Our guide said that waseda’s campus was as crowded as any place in tokyo durning breaks between classes, and that sometimes it is really hard to get to your building because there are so many people. The guide we had was really adorable, however it didn’t stop her from scaring the crap out of me. Also waseda is a really big deal here, like it is a really important university. Plus there is a really big baseball game coming up. Keiko vs. Waseda. It’s the biggest game of the year. I’m excited.

Also I have to join a club! There are over 15000 clubs to join! Right I am choosing between orchestra, video, and jogging clubs. I really want to join orchestra because they sounded really good! I guess they do tv apperances all over Japan. However, during the performance the viola section was out of tune for a bit so maybe i have a chance to be in the top group! I hope so! However you can join two groups, so i might join another one on top of orchestra. I don’t know.
Also there are tons of japanese little kids, and all of them are so adorable. Don’t be surprised if i steal one and bring it back to america with me.

I will get a permentant address tomorrow, and move in on sunday. i will let you guys know.

As the title implies I will be leaving for tokyo in exactly a week from today. Needless to say I am terrified. I am not ready whatsoever, and all of a sudden being in a place where I can’t understand 50-70% of what people are saying terrifies me. Plus I don’t know anyone who is going with me. It will be sort of strange to start all over in a new school, but not be able to communicate effectively with others. All I can say is, I hope deadpan hyperirony humor is a splash over there. Otherwise, I might get lynched.

Sam, Katie, Hannah, Emma (not SHAMBOT!’s emma), and I went to the ethiopian place in IC again. I ordered the same thing again, and it was delicious (again). I would highly recommend the restaurant, and get the Kay Wat, it’s pretty spicy though.

I’ll try to keep you guys posed with pictures and interesting stories when I’m there. However, right now nothing exciting is happening. So I will leave you with a quote from my main man, Justin Timberlake. I feel it sums up the extent of my existence.

“I’m bringing sexy back! YEAH!”