Dear Japan,
Long time fan, first time writer. It has always been my dream to meet you in person, and I must say, you are just as classy in real life! I encourage you to keep up the wonderful work. I do have one little complaint, however…
Your use of condiments is downright unpleasant. First of all, enough with the mayonnaise! When, I just want a bowl of rice and chicken, I prefer not to have it lathered in mayo from a tube immediately before delivery. I also don’t like it in my sushi, hot dogs, omelets, noodles, hamburgers, or salads. I’ll admit, it’s decent in tuna and… well, tuna. Let’s compromise: how about you provide those little packets of mayonnaise, and I’ll apply it at my own discretion.
Now, let’s address the issue with ketchup. I appreciate your determination, but ketchup will never ever make my eggs taste better. I’d really appreciate a truce on this little battle. But I do have a suggestion – how about you take all that ketchup and give it to McDonalds for their fries? That way they wouldn’t need to apply a barrel of salt for flavor. And speaking of McDonalds, they need to stop hoarding all their sauces. I just want some dipping sauce with my “shaku shaku” chicken. Yes, I understand that’s not the “point” of shaku shaku chicken, but I don’t understand the big fuss – I’ll pay extra, I just want some barbecue sauce! I know you have it – it’s available for the chicken nuggets, so you’re not fooling me, McDonalds.
And finally, I would like to discuss my [literal] distaste with your use of wasabi. Granted, I do realize I’m in Japan, so I should just “deal” with the green death paste. And that I can do – I have no serious opposition of scraping away the surplus of wasabi. It’s just, doing so can be rather difficult when you try to HIDE said wasabi from me. Yes, you have succeeded in making going to a sushi bar the most fiendish game of hide and seek I’ve ever seen. Oh! An innocent piece of salmon! Ha. Yeah right. SOMEWHERE on this lovely little piece of fish is a tablespoon of wasabi just waiting to wreak havoc on my nasal cavity. Thanks to you, Japan, I’m going to walk away with some strange and yet unknown post-traumatic stress disorder. I hope you’re happy.
My taste buds hope you will take these minor suggestions into account. KTHXBAI,
Leah
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Still not Dead
Well, I've managed to avoid blog entries for a record amount of time -- one month! I think this calls for a celebration! I will therefore dedicate this blog entry to Japan's three attractions that keep the tourists coming: vending machines, toilets, and cell phones.
So, vending machines. I'm fairly certain I buy at least one object from a vending machine every day. That's a lot of gaijin money going to a fairly basic piece of machinery, I'll have you know! But it's not nearly as gluttonous at it sounds. Japan just knows how to market their products, and get my business in three ways -- the sheer amount of vending machines, the price trickery of vending machines, and most importantly, the objects sold in vending machines.
First off, unless you have steel resolve, you simply cannot resist the army of vending machines you see every single day. there are three vending machines immediately outside my dorm. There are three vending machines IN my dorm. I pass over ten on my way to school. If I go to the train station, there are hundreds. There are also vending machines at the bus stops, parks, shrines, temples, restaurants, attractions, neighborhoods, schools, and anywhere else you could imagine. We have the highest number of vending machines per capita, for crying out loud! One vending machine for every 23 people. So, when one feels thirsty, for instance, one could just stop within 50 meters and get a drink, which brings me to my next problem.
The price. Vending machines are not particularly cheap. They aren't insanely expensive, but they are definitely not on the cheap side. But Japanese money is very tricky... You see, the American coin system only [practically] goes up to 25 cents, so popping a few quarters in doesn't really lighten your wallet. In Japan, however, the coins can reach 500 yen, which is about five dollars, which can definitely hurt your budget unless you're especially careful. And that can be extremely difficult living in a vending machine society -- yeah, the drink costs $1.50, but I only need one silly little coin to buy it! And suddenly it doesn't seem like a serious rip-off. You win again, Japan.
Finally, vending machines aren't just for cold drinks. They also have hot drinks. And cup noodles. And cigarettes. And beer -- yes, if you're over 20 (and even if you're not, because the vending machines don't judge), you can buy alcohol from vending machines that are conveniently located immediately outside my dorm (read section on "convenience", seen above). According to wikipedia, other commodities include underwear, iPods, porn magazines, sexual lubricants, live lobsters, fresh meat, eggs and potted plants. My favorite vending machine purchase, however, is the good ol' jello, because I like to live a humble life in Japan.
My next favorite thing in Japan has to be the toilets. Nearly all public toilets have one very special quality -- heated seats. This sounds small, but one simply can't imagine how beautiful your day becomes when you sit down on a warm toilet seat. And those are the "low quality" seats. These "washlet" toilets can be far more advanced. Some of these fancy qualities include water sprays to "save on toilet paper", music, the flushing noise (minus the flush, in some cases), automatic lids, and several levels of flushing. It can be overwhelming for a foreigner in general, but seeing the remote in Japanese is just crazy!
Finally, there are the cell phones. Japan is obsessed with its cell phones, and the technology certainly reflects that. I have a pay-as-you-go phone (which sucks in Japan about as much as it does in America...), but it definitely makes life easier! For example -- you go to a bar and have a few too many. Later, you meet someone and decide to exchange numbers. In America, the number will get saved as "Mike Something-that-might-start-with-a-T", or "Hot Guy Wearing Green Shirt". Japan, however, has already considered this problem, and created a beautiful thing called "infrared". Therefore, you just sync your phones, and you immediately have the correct name and number, along with a picture, birthday, blood type, and hobbies, instantly saved in your phonebook. Phones generally have the "normal" accessories, such as music, a camera, and Internet access, but they also have more practical accessories, like money. Yes, nowadays, many people have scannable cell phones that will have a paypal sort of system to use at vending machines (see above), airports, etc.
It is also very popular to "bling" one's cell phone. This doesn't necessarily contribute to the cell phone itself, but it's certainly cute (and definitely fitting of Japan)!
Well, hopefully this post sort of makes up for the fact that I have not posted in a while. I will really try hard to post more often!! Onegaishimasu!!
So, vending machines. I'm fairly certain I buy at least one object from a vending machine every day. That's a lot of gaijin money going to a fairly basic piece of machinery, I'll have you know! But it's not nearly as gluttonous at it sounds. Japan just knows how to market their products, and get my business in three ways -- the sheer amount of vending machines, the price trickery of vending machines, and most importantly, the objects sold in vending machines.
First off, unless you have steel resolve, you simply cannot resist the army of vending machines you see every single day. there are three vending machines immediately outside my dorm. There are three vending machines IN my dorm. I pass over ten on my way to school. If I go to the train station, there are hundreds. There are also vending machines at the bus stops, parks, shrines, temples, restaurants, attractions, neighborhoods, schools, and anywhere else you could imagine. We have the highest number of vending machines per capita, for crying out loud! One vending machine for every 23 people. So, when one feels thirsty, for instance, one could just stop within 50 meters and get a drink, which brings me to my next problem.
The price. Vending machines are not particularly cheap. They aren't insanely expensive, but they are definitely not on the cheap side. But Japanese money is very tricky... You see, the American coin system only [practically] goes up to 25 cents, so popping a few quarters in doesn't really lighten your wallet. In Japan, however, the coins can reach 500 yen, which is about five dollars, which can definitely hurt your budget unless you're especially careful. And that can be extremely difficult living in a vending machine society -- yeah, the drink costs $1.50, but I only need one silly little coin to buy it! And suddenly it doesn't seem like a serious rip-off. You win again, Japan.
Finally, vending machines aren't just for cold drinks. They also have hot drinks. And cup noodles. And cigarettes. And beer -- yes, if you're over 20 (and even if you're not, because the vending machines don't judge), you can buy alcohol from vending machines that are conveniently located immediately outside my dorm (read section on "convenience", seen above). According to wikipedia, other commodities include underwear, iPods, porn magazines, sexual lubricants, live lobsters, fresh meat, eggs and potted plants. My favorite vending machine purchase, however, is the good ol' jello, because I like to live a humble life in Japan.
My next favorite thing in Japan has to be the toilets. Nearly all public toilets have one very special quality -- heated seats. This sounds small, but one simply can't imagine how beautiful your day becomes when you sit down on a warm toilet seat. And those are the "low quality" seats. These "washlet" toilets can be far more advanced. Some of these fancy qualities include water sprays to "save on toilet paper", music, the flushing noise (minus the flush, in some cases), automatic lids, and several levels of flushing. It can be overwhelming for a foreigner in general, but seeing the remote in Japanese is just crazy!
Finally, there are the cell phones. Japan is obsessed with its cell phones, and the technology certainly reflects that. I have a pay-as-you-go phone (which sucks in Japan about as much as it does in America...), but it definitely makes life easier! For example -- you go to a bar and have a few too many. Later, you meet someone and decide to exchange numbers. In America, the number will get saved as "Mike Something-that-might-start-with-a-T", or "Hot Guy Wearing Green Shirt". Japan, however, has already considered this problem, and created a beautiful thing called "infrared". Therefore, you just sync your phones, and you immediately have the correct name and number, along with a picture, birthday, blood type, and hobbies, instantly saved in your phonebook. Phones generally have the "normal" accessories, such as music, a camera, and Internet access, but they also have more practical accessories, like money. Yes, nowadays, many people have scannable cell phones that will have a paypal sort of system to use at vending machines (see above), airports, etc.
It is also very popular to "bling" one's cell phone. This doesn't necessarily contribute to the cell phone itself, but it's certainly cute (and definitely fitting of Japan)!
Well, hopefully this post sort of makes up for the fact that I have not posted in a while. I will really try hard to post more often!! Onegaishimasu!!
Monday, January 25, 2010
"Konnichiwa" from Japan!
I haven't made a blog post for awhile, so I figured my arrival in Japan would be a decent reason (given this is the reason my blog exists). Therefore, I'll start this magical journey from the beginning: the plane. The first almost-issue came with checking my luggage. I had two suitcases, and both were just under fifty pounds. No big deal for now, but I have four months of figuring out how to not make my suitcases any heavier on the trip back...
The plans were pretty simple -- take a plane from Kansas City to San Francisco, and then have 50 minutes to make my connection to Osaka. Of course, this plan doesn't work so well when my plane out of KC is delayed over an hour. So here I am, stranded in San Francisco without my luggage or my plane to Japan. Or a place to stay, for that matter. The latter was easily remedied with a visit to the United Airlines customer service, where I received a free night at the Doubletree hotel. My luggage, on the other hand, was a much bigger issue, as it did not make it to baggage claim. Over an hour of complaining to any staff that would listen, I eventually got that, too. And then I was off to my hotel for a night of sheer boredom.
The first issue when I got settled was food. I ate at 6:00 AM, and it was now 6 PM, and I was starving. That, however, was not enough incentive to buy a $15 ham sandwich at the hotel, so I figured I'd be witty and order Chinese to be delivered to the hotel. I'd like to note here that those people at Chinese restaurants are tricky. In my attempt to save money by avoiding the hotel food, I paid $20 for some noodles and soup. Lesson learned.
So anyway, after a night of rest and Family Guy marathons, I was ready to attempt going to Japan again. Check-in went well. Security went well. Waiting for nearly four hours in the terminal went well (I wasn't going to be taking any chances this time)... All that was left was a thrilling and fun-filled twelve-hour plane ride, where I learned that I STILL cannot sleep on planes. Which left one option for entertainment -- watch "Finding Nemo" in English. Then again in Japanese. And once more in French. It was fantastic.
Once we finally arrive in Japan, I had to go through multiple security checkpoints which went primarily without any problems, though we did miss our bus by only a few minutes, which meant we had another hour to wait. During this wait, we ran into a girl who, like me, had been delayed from Kansas City and had to stay the night in San Francisco. I suppose she wasn't nearly as irate as I, since she was stuck paying for her night in the hotel. Anyway, after more waiting, we took a bus to Hirakata City, and then took a taxi to our seminar house. This little leg of our journey was a hefty $40. Finally, we arrived. Check-in didn't take too long, and we got a tour of where we would be living, and the schedule for a crazy week of orientation.
So, at this point, we had two options -- go exploring, or go to sleep. Since I had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours, I chose the latter, which means my adventures are at an end for this post.
The plans were pretty simple -- take a plane from Kansas City to San Francisco, and then have 50 minutes to make my connection to Osaka. Of course, this plan doesn't work so well when my plane out of KC is delayed over an hour. So here I am, stranded in San Francisco without my luggage or my plane to Japan. Or a place to stay, for that matter. The latter was easily remedied with a visit to the United Airlines customer service, where I received a free night at the Doubletree hotel. My luggage, on the other hand, was a much bigger issue, as it did not make it to baggage claim. Over an hour of complaining to any staff that would listen, I eventually got that, too. And then I was off to my hotel for a night of sheer boredom.
The first issue when I got settled was food. I ate at 6:00 AM, and it was now 6 PM, and I was starving. That, however, was not enough incentive to buy a $15 ham sandwich at the hotel, so I figured I'd be witty and order Chinese to be delivered to the hotel. I'd like to note here that those people at Chinese restaurants are tricky. In my attempt to save money by avoiding the hotel food, I paid $20 for some noodles and soup. Lesson learned.
So anyway, after a night of rest and Family Guy marathons, I was ready to attempt going to Japan again. Check-in went well. Security went well. Waiting for nearly four hours in the terminal went well (I wasn't going to be taking any chances this time)... All that was left was a thrilling and fun-filled twelve-hour plane ride, where I learned that I STILL cannot sleep on planes. Which left one option for entertainment -- watch "Finding Nemo" in English. Then again in Japanese. And once more in French. It was fantastic.
Once we finally arrive in Japan, I had to go through multiple security checkpoints which went primarily without any problems, though we did miss our bus by only a few minutes, which meant we had another hour to wait. During this wait, we ran into a girl who, like me, had been delayed from Kansas City and had to stay the night in San Francisco. I suppose she wasn't nearly as irate as I, since she was stuck paying for her night in the hotel. Anyway, after more waiting, we took a bus to Hirakata City, and then took a taxi to our seminar house. This little leg of our journey was a hefty $40. Finally, we arrived. Check-in didn't take too long, and we got a tour of where we would be living, and the schedule for a crazy week of orientation.
So, at this point, we had two options -- go exploring, or go to sleep. Since I had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours, I chose the latter, which means my adventures are at an end for this post.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The Joys of Blogging, and Other Hassles
I have had a blog for a total of one day now, and have dreaded composing my first post. If you have never had a blog before, I suggest you create one -- there's nothing better for exploring one's own self-confidence than writing an entirely public diary. Truthfully, I've never actually kept a diary (even those of a more private variety), and thought that perhaps having people holding me accountable would encourage posting. Unlikely. I've already faced so many unforeseen issues with this blog than I could ever have expected. A title, for instance. I wanted something witty, yet professional. Catchy, but meaningful. Fun, but serious. Easy, right? Absolutely not... After a bit of thinking, I decided on "From Kansas to Kansai". You know, because I'm from Kansas, but I'll be studying abroad in the Kansai region of Japan? Hey, I already said I wasn't too impressed with my mental prowess on this one...
Another issue I encountered was the formatting. I am pretty unfamiliar with blogging sites, but Blogger uses HTML (I'm not sure if this is unique or not...). At first I was pretty excited, since I was pretty good with HTML in my day. Then I remembered that "in my day" was about seven years ago, and that I can recall virtually nothing about how to actually use HTML and must therefore relearn everything. That fact forced me to add yet another bullet to my growing to-do list, an event that results in a not-so-happy Leah.
Privacy settings are also causing me problems. I really don’t want my personal information floating around everywhere, but I also want the blog to be somewhat personal. This blog will hopefully serve two purposes – it will essentially be my personal journal, but I hope that it can also be a reference to other people who want to study in Japan, or go to Japan, or like Japan, etc. Anyway, serving as a guide and trying to remain anonymous are two conflicting ideas, but I’ll be trying to find a better way of not seeming too abstract, while also reserving what needs to stay personal.
Finally, I have come to the conclusion that I flat-out do not like to write. I love to read, and assumed it would transcend fields. I was very, very wrong on this account. Here’s my problem: I am simply not witty enough to warrant a lot of writing. I also don’t have the vocabulary required to sound any sort of intelligent. It had never really bothered me before – I can write shopping lists and refrigerator notes like a maniac, but anything more intense than a greeting card, it seems, is out of the question. Hopefully my writing will improve (or I’ll learn to ignore dignity, I’m not too picky) over the next five months that I’ll be forced to blog.
Now, this blog was created to document my experience studying abroad in Japan. I leave in less than two weeks, a fact that I have yet to truly absorb. I got my Visa in the last few days, which was a long and drawn out procedure I would recommend to only the bravest of souls. First I needed to buy my plane tickets, which lightened my wallet by about $1,500. Okay, my parents paid, but that’s beside the point. Then I had to send my travel and personal information to the school I will be attending in Japan, and they, in turn, relayed the information to the Japanese Embassy who cleared me for entry into the country. They sent the information back to the school and the school sent this special little "Certificate of Eligibility" back to me. This process took over a month. Then I sent the certificate to the Japan Consulate in Chicago in order to get my Visa, and received it nearly two weeks later (due to a combination of shipping and the Consulate being closed through the holidays). Okay, it wasn’t too strenuous, but it was certainly frustrating. But now I have a cute little page in my Passport that says I’m a bona fide college student.
With official matters out of the way, the two important necessities left are finances and packing. I’m doing my best to ignore both until absolutely necessary, but those days are certainly approaching. The financial aspect should be pretty straightforward – get enough money to live off of for a semester and open an account at a Japanese bank. Goodbye, college savings… Packing will be the more taxing endeavor. How does one pack for living out of a suitcase for a semester? I have a suitcase packed to the brim when I go away for a weekend, so needless to say, I might have to learn how to be a little more reserved with my packing. Getting back will be the more difficult issue – after all, I will have everything I left with, plus what I expect to be an endless supply of souvenirs. But we’ll face that bridge later…
Well, there it is – my first blog entry. Not too shabby, hopefully… So, what is the proper way of ending a blog post? Sincerely? Love? Best regards? Yes, I realize it’s not a letter, but I don’t much care. This blogging thing is turning out to be far more trouble than I expected.
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