Tempura Bar and Fukuoka Reflection

Masa-san took his uncle to the airport and was left with his car for two days.  So what else would he do but go on a bunch of random roadtrips.  So the other night, he, Yuki-san and I go on just such a roadtrip.  We stop at a restraurant that specializes in tempura.  And you better believe they do a good job at making the same thing everyday a thousand times.  The restaurant was great and could be best described as a tempura diner/bar.  It felt and looked exactly like an american burger joint except it was tempura, awesome.  After dinner off we go to an island which i don't know the name of and still don't cause i don't know if it has an english name.  Actually it was more like a peninnsula cause it wrapped around the bay and we looked back onto Fukuoka from the otherside of the bay.  After playing around a lot of exposure levels and finally taking a few decent pictures out of 100 we take a small tour back towards Ijiri, I see a few more cool buildings and that's a wrap.

The rest are just random pictures.  Pansy cleaning and my own version of seafood chow mein (yes i dearly miss my canto food the most, even more than burgers, steaks and cheese).  It didn't taste the same, but it was a good try.  This weekend is Halloween and the Saga International Air Balloon Festival, should be interesting.  Stay tuned...

Fukuoka Now Party

This Tuesday was Adam's birthday, but he was busy preparing for an art display specifically exhibitiing foreigners' works.  Fukuoka Now is a great magazine that I enjoy that is completely free and geared towards foreigners and lists out all the events in Fukuoka for each month.  (It's how I found out about the Lantern Festival, etc)  So on Saturday night we went to see for ourselves as well as support Adam in his artistic endeavors.  The event was a little pricier than what we're used to, but the venue was also much classier than what we're used to so that was a nice change.  The hotel Palazzo II was a very strange building, the facade [upper left] is designed in a classical style but built like a modern building with fully exposed wide flanges as the belt courses with exposed fillet welds and rivets, marble columns dividing the bays and no windows.  So strange.  And there was one door, in the center of the facade, which led down a long narrow hallway which is the picture in the lower left hand corner.  The exterior was questionable but inside was much nicer.  The event was held in the basement level.  So first there was the lobby area with the ticket booth and the coat check.  Down another beautiful staircase [second picture from the lower right] lit up in lights and lined entirely with glass on 3 sides giving the illusion of infiinite lights, there was two lounge rooms where people could smoke (that was nice cause i'm sick of inhaling second hand smoke).  The main event room was just adjacent to the lounge rooms.  It was an expansive room [second pic from the lower left] filled with a much older, somewhat artsy fartsy crowd.  Most were well dressed and some were strangely dressed.  (I think it comes with the territory of being an artist).  The lights were really great because they would pulsate and change colors according to the music.  I did meet a lot of great people including the FIRST cantonese girl who came from hong kong.  I haven't been able to speak in canto with anyone here yet, so that was nice.


The Performances

All the performances were weird.  No exceptions.  Some weirder than others, but all pretty weird.  One duo featured an oil painter who painted while another shirtless guy danced wildly next to him with no discernable style or purpose.  The best performance however of the night hands down (and by best i mean, most entertaining on more than one level) was a Spanish guy who performed with his Japanese wife in Japanese to music from gameboys while dressed in an all bright neon green spandex bodysuit.  [i think you can spot him in the pictures]  The rest of the night was filled with good music and a slideshow of artwork from various foreigners.  Two of whom I actually know, Nikos from Greece whom I had just met that night but who is the boyfriend of my friend Brittany who came on the same study abroad trip last year and met him and Elena from Germany who lives in the same dorm as I do.  Great event in general though, i really enjoyed myself and i met a lot of wonderful people.

[i'm still trying to figure out how to post a video of the gameboy guy]


Yatai

I also ate my first Yatai stand which are small (night market style) stalls lining the riverside streets of Fukuoka at night.  It's a regional specialty specific only to Fukuoka and they have everything from yakitori (meat skewers) to ramen.  Of course I had to have my nightly bowl of Hakata ramen and it was of course delicious with my new friends Ai-chan from Tokyo, Alix from Paris and Jonny from Taipei.  Good times.

Hakata Temple Tour

I’m still not exactly sure of what this festival was exactly, but it was very fun.  Masa-san takes us into Hakata to see a traditional Japanese play and see some temples.  This is a rare chance to actually go into and tour many of Hakata’s oldest temples that mostly never open their doors to the public.  So with our ridiculously large group of 15 gaijin we swarm the streets of Hakata.  The best temple easily was the first one that we entered.  Inside the temple was an enormous rock garden illuminated in blue light.  The sand combed to look like waves, it represents the ocean between Japan and China.  It’s a very symbolic and honestly awe-inspiring garden.  I sit there with everyone shoulder to shoulder on the wooden deck and slip into a state of zen. 

We later visit other temples, watch a traditional Japanese play, watch the first 25 minutes not understanding a thing but simply appreciating the strange and foreign sights and sounds.  We get bored after the first half and just explore the rest of the temple instead.  We cleanse ourselves, buy a fortune, make a wish, see the famous Hakata wall built from the ruins of original Hakata buildings, see a giant festival symbol that is carried by men through the streets of Hakata every year (it is about 40 feet but they use a smaller one now due to power lines) and watch Baptiste (literally) take a drink from a peeing statue.  Good night.

Steve

One night out at the Irish Pub in Tenjin we meet a man named Steve.  He tells us that he’s from the UK but that he works in 5 countries every year and he has chosen to spend his 2 weeks of vacation in Fukuoka.  He’s lived 6 years in Fukuoka and many years in various places.  He works as a tour guide for a small private company in Japan, Spain, Italy and Cuba yearly.  He speaks all the languages fluently and tells us the best places to go in Japan (most of which were not written down and forgotten).  He complains to us that the worst part of his job is that he can never really have a serious relationship because he’s always adrift.  It’s strange that most people’s goal is to travel the world and for this guy it’s his job and he can actually have something to complain about.  There is never a perfect job or situation.  No matter what, you can always see greener grass.  Anyways, we have a good chat with him and he’s quite interested in Elena, Hilde and me.  After a bit, we move the group onto Fubar.  It’s a janky bar/club that is small dark and grimy.  He seems very out of place and suddenly very old.  Adam is attacked immediately upon entering the club by some Japanese girl that seems to be his good friend.  Most of us just dance into the night.  After a bit, I lose sight of Steve and assume he’s left.  Hilde tells me that he had come onto her and things got really weird.  That was the last I heard of Steve.

Hakata Lantern Festival

Hakata hosts a lantern/”light up” festival for two weekends every year.  Details were vague and directions were even worse, so we just rode our bikes to Hakata to see what we could find.  We were a little nervous at first to see just a few glowing colored paper bags on the side of the street and thought we might have wasted our time.  That was until we arrived at our first stop at a local park, it was also my favorite stop of the night actually.  The lantern festival is exactly what you thought it would be, a lot of lanterns.  No surprise there.  But I’m a pretty simple guy, put a bunch of shimmering lights in front of me and I can say I’m pretty content.  Now arrange them in giant patterns of flowers and things and I’m very happy.  

The second stop was at a local elementary school but it was a little disappointing.  The scale was much larger, but when we walked up to the top story of the school we saw that it was nothing more than a gigantic Hawks advertisement (Hawks is the mascot for the Fukuoka baseball team).  So that was kind of lame.   

We then met up with Adam, Ina, Hilda, and Elena at Hakata Temple just in time to see their lantern display.  It was so strange because we walked by one gigantic lantern display, looked back, and suddenly all of the candles had been put out, at once.  We marveled together for one second about how they had blown out all the candles at once and turned back around only to find the entire temple had been put out.  According to Adam, at 21:15 sharp (all time in Japan is told, set and written in military time) everyone just joined in to blow out all the lanterns like a giant Hakata birthday cake.  I was sorry that I blinked and missed it.  Next weekend I will join in.

Later that night we met up with Baptiste and the others in Tenjin and walked from Hakata.  It was a really great by the riverside and it reminded me of a sort of mix between 3^rd Street Promenade with street performers and the lights of Universal City Walk. 

Japan is Random, Bet You Never Guessed That

Here is just a small collection of some random things I’ve seen in Japan.  Upper Right are soda can cd holders.  The top middle is a large dead bug that somehow ended up in my friend Hilda’s bike basket (yes its bigger than a human thumb).  Directly middle is a super pimped out van with a spoiler that spanned half the length of the van itself.   Just to the left of the van is an awesome under-glow motorcycle.  Middle left is the Hakozaki train station, just a random building, excuse my random need to take pictures of buildings sometimes.  Bottom left is a huge container of storage with no conceivable way of getting to and fro your things.  The picture of me is during the Kyushu University massive exchange student welcome party held in Hakozaki Recent Hotel with probably more than a thousand foreign students.  I’m holding up two cards that spell pork with a “c” – porc. 

Momochi Beach Excursion

Momochi Beach

There are a number of organizations here dedicated to helping foreigners and exchange students.  So on Japan’s national holiday, Sports Day (yes, they all get a day off to play sports, want to move here yet?) we took a day excursion to Momochi Beach.  The area is a beautiful seaside area with a number of notable Fukuoka attractions including the Fukuoka City Library, The Fukuoka City Museum, Fukuoka Tower, a few radio and television broadcasting buildings and the beachfront.

The Trip and More Gaijin

We left Ijiri together and took the train into Tenjin (the main downtown center) and took a bus into Momochi Beach.  We all wore stupid looking blue name badges that immediately labeled us tourists although maybe the huge group of white people might have also given us away.  Led by a plump Japanese lady who held up a small white plastic ghost figurine on a stick, our first lesson of the day is that the bus systems are so confusing even our Japanese tour guides directed us onto the wrong bus.  Luckily they realized their mistake and we all boarded and got off before it took us to god-knows-where.  As we travelled, more blue name tagged foreigners got on at various stops and we found that there were about 2 or 3 other campus of foreigners joining us on this excursion.  I met many people but the one’s I remember the best are Moses from Nigeria, Karla from El Salvador, Chun Lei from China (sounds like Chung-li haha) and (a guy who’s name escapes me) from Iran.  I decided he might want to meet my friend Nima also from Iran and when I introduced them, they said one word to each other and suddenly hugged each other.  They were just ecstatic to find another Iranian in Japan (I guess that’s not an easy task).

Fukuoka City Museum

The Fukuoka City Museum (second from upper left) has some temporary exhibits but mostly serves as a permanent exhibition space for many of Fukuoka’s most historically significant artifacts.  We spent a total of 25 minutes in the museum because that’s all the tour allowed.  So at first we all ran through the exhibits thinking it was much too big to get through in 25 minutes.  We were wrong, it was more than enough time.  History is kind of boring.  At about 15 minutes, I had already briskly walked through all the exhibits and just took my time to go back to the ones I thought were interesting.

Next stop RKB/TNC Building

RKB and TNC are the radio and television broadcasting buildings for some of Fukuoka’s most popular programming.  The tour of RKB (radio something? building) was mainly confined to the lobby space.  There was not too much to see in the lobby save for the big pink pokemon they have for an official mascot.  It’s a mix of jigglypuff and clefairy? (Just below the picture of the Fukuoka City Museum or look for the big pink thing).  We got to see some celebrity DJ’s working in their studio and the sound managers in the back sitting at huge switch board tables.  It was a bit zoo like in that we swarmed in as a huge group, waved, took pictures and they just sat looking at us from behind a large pane of glass but it was alright.  I guess at least I got to see the Ryan Seacrest of Japan.

The TNC building was a bit more interesting.  There was no television studios on the tour which was what I kind of wanted to see but we got the next best thing… ROBOTS.  The TNC building is actually half shopping mall, exhibition space and television studio.  All the studios are located upstairs away from the public but downstairs there is a large robotics lab/store.  The picture that looks like a classroom where there are a bunch of kids is actually a robotics testing room where kids play and test out new robots.  Awesome right?  They just sit there and are all geniuses apparently because they assemble themselves robots and play with them, oh yeah, and they’re all probably 8-10 yrs old.  That’s Japan.

Fukuoka Tower

I’ve now seen two giant towers in the last month, Taipei 101 and Fukuoka Tower.  I can never compare the two but both were similar experiences.  A lot of upward-towards-the-sky pictures, cool looking design and a very sterile tourist feel at both places.  By the time we got to Fukuoka Tower we were tired from walking and spent the majority of our 45 minutes there just sitting and resting.  Ok, well, been there done that I guess.

Momochi Beach

Just a short walk from Fukuoka Tower, it is a beautiful beach.  I am from socal, so beautiful beaches aren’t all that impressive to me, but it was still nice to see the Pacific Ocean from the other side.  There are also strange pier buildings that are very western looking and came off looking very plastic and fake.  Apparently there are also some western cathedrals that look very out of place here in Japan that Batiste has seen but at least I know there’s a cathedral in Fukuoka if I ever need one.  We stood on the beach for about half an hour.  Mingled with the other folks from other campuses, took some group pictures and parted ways.

Tenjin and REAL Hakata Ramen

At first we all wanted to stay to explore but feelings the pangs of hunger, we were convinced by ourselves and our new Japanese friend Mio to go to Tenjin to eat ramen instead.  Mio lives in Hakata and frequently goes into Tenjin to eat and party and knows all the best places to eat.  So she takes us to the most popular ramen restaurant in Tenjin called roughly in Romanji, “Ippudo”.  For pictures and description of food, see “First Supper” post.  But in short, it was amazing and I just found out the other night that it is open past 2 AM.  I walked by the shop and there were still many people eating ramen at 2 in the morning.  I’m not sure when it closes, if at all, but I was seriously tempted to eat a bowl of ramen at 2 AM. 

A Face to the Name

So I've mentioned a lot of new friends, but haven't really put up any pictures of them.  So maybe this will help some of you imagine who and what I'm talking about when I mention a random name in a post.  This is not everybody, this is just a collection of a few photos I have of people and I'm leaving out a lot of people.  But this is a start.

The happy lookin kid in the lower left is Tibor from Munich Germany, the sultry French girl to his right is Laura (who I still can't say the "r" in her name in the correct French way), the guys above him are Axel on the left from Bordeaux France and Jacob from Cologne, Germany, the mad doggin fellow to their right is Baptiste Lobjoy from Paris, France, the handsome fellow above him is Nima from Iran and the convict picture above him is Jacob again, the two lovely ladies to his left is Margeaux from Bordeaux as well and Mio from Fukuoka.  I still lack pictures of Dion, Hilda, Florian, Gas, Masa and now loads of Japanese freinds.  I'm working on it.

First Supper

This is the first meal I've cooked in Japan.  Legit Japanese style yakisoba noodles with beef, green beans, a fried egg (I don't think that's actually supposed to be in traditional yakisoba, but sue me) and....

gyoza!  This meal was like 2-3 yen to make?  So I think I can actually live sort of cheaply here.  I'm glad cause I was really getting sick of paying like a buck fifty for 3 bites of rice.  Next step, rice cooker?  Well, we'll see, everything takes so long.  I spent like an hour decifering the laundry machine and even with the help of a Japanese speaker, I still screwed up a load of laundry somehow and one load was sitting in a puddle of water. -_-

Hakata Ramen

This is legitimate Hakata Ramen.  Shinsengumi and every other ramen place has nothing on this.  This is the most popular ramen restaurant in Tenjin.  Their specialty is Hakata Ramen, and they have two types.  This is the slightly more expensive bowl (800 yen ~ $8.00) and as far as I could understand, the difference between the 700 yen and 800 yen bowl is that, this "might be" slightly larger and is "deeper".  The exact word the waitress used to explain it was, "it's deeper" and that's all.  So I found out the difference is that red splat in the middle of the bowl.  It's what they call a "flavor ball" that you mix into the soup broth.  I have no idea what it is, it's likely it's just a giant ball of MSG but I don't care.  Other differences, they use some black mushrooms (right of the bowl) and really not much else.  No frills, just damn good ramen.

Trying Out New Colors, What Do You Think

Let me know what you think!  Leave a comment.  Like it or hate it.

One Crazy Night

Welcome Party

Friday night was the Ijiri International House welcome party. This consisted of a boring presentation, some soda and food, and a meet and greet afterwards. I enjoyed meeting everyone very much and found that everyone here brought something interesting to the table. For example, I met a doctorate student named Nima from Iran who's a Plasmic Physicist. He explained to me the four stages of matter and how if he can help figure out how to store the plasma energy then essentially he could possibly help provide a solution for cheap, clean alternative energy. I wished him luck on his endeavors to save the world and met another guy named Dion from Holland. He is a very pale, somewhat scrawny looking blonde haired boy. He was shy but friendly after some time. I found out that he prides himself on living a completely pure life and doesn't drink, smoke and is a vegetarian. This provides a unique challenge in Japan not knowing the language. He tells me how most of his meals is a guessing game to see what has meat and what doesn't. He is also apparently a very accomplished break dancer and locker. He's earned quite a reputation in the international house as "the dancer" and I'm excited to see and maybe learn a few things from him. I met like a dozen other people, Helena from Germany, Chen, Wang... and a lot of other Chinese students, just to name a few.

After Party in Tenjin

Still bustling with the excitement and energy of meeting so many new people, a group of us decide to go out to Tenjin and see what a Friday night on the town is like. Tenjin is the major downtown district of Fukuoka, so in short all the really good and the really bad stuff happens there. We are a ragtag group of foreigners, Batiste, Margaux and Axel from France, Jacob originally from Poland but who lives in Cologne, Germany, Tibor and Florian who are from Munich and other parts of Germany, Hilda from Holland, Olivia and Adam from Australia, Kim from China and me representing the USA. So 11 of us representing 6 completely different parts of the world wandering around Japan is pretty interesting. We get a lot of attention from everybody and most of the Japanese stare in disblief. Jacob or as it's pronounced in Poland "ya-coob" is a bald white guy, axel is about 6'4 with 3' of dreadlocked hair, Batiste is dressed in what I can best describe it as cowboy french clothes a very fair skinned totally natural bleach blonde hair, and Adam the Aussie who is an exact Jesus lookalike.

The Dark Room

So we go to an American bar known as the Dark Room. The owner named Moses is from San Diego and has now lived in Fukuoka for 18 years. He's a buff American looking guy who takes an immediate liking to us. He buys us all a shot of Kamikazi which is now my new favorite shot, it's quite delicious and goes down very smooth. Anyway, we tell him we should get going at 11:30 and apparently that is the time for the last train back home. So instead we stay awhile and decide to play the night by ear. Our choices is to call for a cab and split the price or wait till 5:30 AM for the first train back. I meet a friendly guy from the UK named James at the bar. He explains to me how safe and nice Fukuoka is and I'm a little more comforted to be living here for a year. He tells me how he's seen a guy piss drunk on the subway in Tokyo with his cell phone, wallet and money strewn across the floor and people just kick it back towards him. Most people here are very honest. The bar also played great music, it's nice to hear some English once in a while.

Rhythm

Bar 2 was another international bar called Rhythm owned by a guy named Harvey, a husky Canadian with long blonde hair. He likes us almost immediately as well and really warms up to all of us. He also decides to buy us all free shots again, and again it just happens to be another kamikaze, i'm not complaining. So after about 4-5 beer and 2 shots, i am sufficiently buzzed, everyone is feeling pretty loose and people are dancing, talking, eating and generally having a good time. We meet this 20 something looking Japanese lady who is a frequent customer of the bar named Rui. She seems very nice and friendly until out of nowhere she pulls out a length of rope, handcuffs and a leather (flogging) whip. YES, no joke, this really happened. She ties up Jacob and then Batiste and begins to bend them over a stool and whip them. She's definitely done this before because as she's tying them up, she was concentrating very hard and there was a definite form to her S&M. This was all done in good fun and the guys laughed the whole time and played along, but it was still one of the craziest things i've ever seen. Afterwards Rui let Batiste do a free body shot off of her chest as compensation. Salt on her boob, a shot of tequila and a mouth to mouth lime. This is a woman we had met only that night. JAPAN IS CRAZY!

We walk back to train station and wait 20 minutes for the gates to open. Some people get Mcdonalds breakfasts. Batiste is drunk and yelling in the restaurant, its entertaining for us, but i'm sure he shocked a decent amount of Japanese people eating their breakfasts. There's a great band playing downstairs and Axel joins in on the fun.

What's That Smell?

A frail old lady walks by us on the train. We are seated 5 and 5 on opposite seats. Nobody helps her as she hobbles slowly past us so i get up and take her hand and walk her to a seat. I sit down and out of nowhere, there is this overwhelming stench that fills the car. We all look at each other and realize the lady who just walked by is homeless and a truly foul odor is coming from her. We hold our breaths, hold scarves to our faces and try hard not to laugh. I can take a decent amount of punishment, but the smell was just one of the worst things I have ever smelled. Maybe a mix of being trapped in a tipped over portapotty and roadkill. Every stop, we were relieved to have the doors open. Eventually (it was honestly the longest 4 stops ever) we get home around 6 AM. Thus ends the first of many adventures here in Japan.

Feeling Fortunate

I think just as a short point of self contemplation, I really feel that I have been blessed. Talking to people from all over the world has definitely made me realized a some key things about them and about myself. I am a part of a group of people who are allowed to date openly, not forbidden by a culture and a family system that oppresses natural feelings, I am a part of a social class that can afford to get on a plane to see a place or to see a friend simply because I want to, I can afford to go out with new friends, I live in a society that does not have a constant overbearing pressure to perform, to succeed and to beat out everyone else, I live with the philosophy that love exists and that love and money are not interconnected, I am allowed to grow and think for myself, I am fortunate.

Differences

Japan is obviously different from America. Some differences are more apparent than others. In a way, many things seem completely opposite to how things are in the USA.

1) People drive on the opposite side of the ride on the opposite side of the car
2) Magazines and books flip the other way
3) The standard drink is tea, not water
4) Great care has been taken to make every morsel of food
5) There are no trashcans and yet no litter! (sorry coonie, still looking)
6) There's no trash anywhere because nobody wants to be the first douche bag in Japan to litter
7) The address here don't make any sense and house numbers are often based on when a building or an entire area was erected, street numbers are based on the history of the area and therefore have no logical order, the only way to get around is to simply know where things are, and streets don't really have names sometimes, you might find the name of an intersection sometimes, if you're lucky

Life in Japan: My School

This is the Ohashi Campus of Kyushu University.

Ohashi Campus is purely to design. The courses offered here are only design oriented courses such as architecture, graphic design, music design, industrial design, etc. Much of it is concrete, very Japanese. The campus is small and made up of a very close knit community of students. We had our first presentation in our class last Friday. Even though I was pretty nervous, it worked out and I think all the gaijin (or foreigners) here are doing pretty well actually. And the picture of my friend's back is Jose with the note: "Watashi wa baka desu." - "I am stupid" written in hiragana. Eddie was practicing in class. And considering class was 3 hours of Japanese lecture and 5 hours of Japanese presentations, it was one of the funniest things that happened in class.

A Peek at Japan

Here are just a few pictures of Japan for those of you who are wondering what it's like here.

There are a few pictures from the balcony of my room. Some pictures of the sky which I saw at opportune moments and just had to snap a picture of, a beautiful traditional Japanese house and a map/brochure of the major bars in Tenjin.

Life in Japan: My Stuff

This is a catalog of a few of my things.

My new alarm clock which I got for less than 20 yen and rings its two metal feet when it wakes me up (well i think it's cute), my first bowl of legit hakata ramen, my ticket stubs to Taiwan and Japan, my closet, some of my money (yes that's 10,00 yen, and yes i am a baller) and my new japanese cell phone from Softbank that comes with wait for it.... that's right, TV! The phones here all have this nifty feature where you can send and receive all your information via infrared sensor. So instead of trading numbers, names, email info, etc every time you meet a new friend or get a numba you just push a few buttons, give it a few seconds and vwah-lah. And keep in mind this was like the cheapest phone in the store. I didn't just go all out buying fun Japanese gadgetry. I don't even know what features the best ones have. I know one is solar powered.

Life In Japan: My Room

This is my room.

Starting from the lower left picture, I've come to the conclusion that Fukuoka has perhaps the most unfortunate acronym of any place in the world. The next picture to the right is the original set up of my desk. I have since rearranged my furniture to the second picture from the top right so that I have more room. What do you expect? I'm an architect. The picture on the lower right is my hall. (I'm the last door on the left) The room is fully furnished and comes with my own kitchen sink, mini-fridge and stove top. The last but definitely best of these sets of pictures is the bathroom. So you ask, are there really robots and transformers in Japan? I can honestly say yes, my bathroom is a transformer of sorts. The picture on the upper left is the "shower mode". The sink encases the toilet and the other half of the bathroom becomes the shower. When you're done, you can transform it back to regular "bathroom mode" and push the sink back over revealing the toilet. I think this is quite nifty and it feels a bit like using an airplane bathroom if somehow they fit a shower in it as well. I personally like the efficiency of it and I know that I could never think of a better way to fit a full sized bathroom into 8 sq ft. These pictures took a while to gather because 1, it is a pretty narrow space and even with my back pressed against the opposite wall, its not easy to fit things into pictures. But finally today I spent the day cleaning/organizing and photographing my room.

I am not really homesick. I do miss people, but I don't feel like I want to go home. I do however dream of home. Perhaps a piece of my mind is still at home. But I will dream of doing things at home and it is a pleasant dream. Maybe that is homesickness?

New Friends

I have some truly amazing new friends. They have helped me to see new things in a new world. They come from such different backgrounds but we've still bonded together through this experience of being in a foreign land. Specifically, there are four of us Americans and four French students who have come to study architecture. We share the same classes and I actually live directly across the hall from one of them.

Batiste and Laura from Paris, and Axel and Margaux from Bordeaux are easily some of my best friends here. They are full of life and have taught me that I can never properly speak French. After a week, I am still unable to say the "r" in Laura's name or the "gaux" in Margaux's name properly.

I've sat on a teeny tiny balcony with four of them drinking vodka and suntory whiskey overlooking the Japanese skyline. The significance of suntory whiskey is that Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation, promotes the brand, Suntory Whiskey. So since we're living in Japan, and since Batiste technically moved here to meet his Scarlette Johansson, we have no choice but to drink Suntory Whiskey. Together we've wandered the streets of Ijiri at 2 AM into a tiny Jazz bar and spoken for 3 hours with broken Japanese with the bartender's nearly nonexistent english.

They've cooked us dinner, and we (the American's) bought the beer. It was a good night of friendly exchange between 4 Americans, 4 French and 3 Japanese students. The Japanese students knew French because they have studied in France for a year, and the French and Americans are learning Japanese and it was such a strange meal with the constant simultaneous exchange of Japanese, French and English happening all at once.

Starting a New Life

The first week was both very noteworthy and not at all. By that I mean a lot happened, but much of it was figuring out the logistics of actually living in Japan for a year. In the first week I:

1) Lost maybe 5 lbs (ish) because the food is so low in fat, i walked so much, and portions are smaller than my american diet has allowed me to get used to
2) Bought a bike simply with the single phrase "kore wa ikura desuka?" - "how much is this?"
3) Been as close to a typhoon as I've ever been in my life; not very close
4) Had my name spelled incorrectly by my school/dorm, i am known as "Eric Levng" here
5) Learned how to write my name in Katakana for city papers
6) Received a scholarship for 88,000 Yen /month, which translates to about an extra $10-$11K for the year, pretty amazing considering I had forgotten even signing up for this in the first place and all i had to do to accept it was sign a paper and open a bank account
7) Opened a bank account
8) Spent 4 hours getting a cell phone, apparently it's a very complicated process
9) Tried pachinko... i still don't get it
10) Traversed the public transportation system of Fukuoka with only foreigners to get to our project site by train, bus and foot.

But the really good stories start after I've started my new life. So here goes...

New Toys and Typhoons

In the last week, I have registered at school, at the city office, gotten up to 14 bug bites at once, bought a second hand bike, opened a bank account and spend a total of 4 hours getting a cell phone. But as consolation, the phone comes with TV! FOR FREE! Nihon Daisuki! Japan FTW. I now also have a pair of speakers and an alarm clock that rings two little metal feet when the alarm goes off. Kawaii.

[Need to update with pictures]

Typhoon
In the next day or two, we have been warned that Japan will be hit directly by the most powerful typhoon Japan has experienced for a decade. The wind is howling outside the lobby door as I type this post. I have bought some food, got my umbrella ready and got extra toilet paper just to bunker down and brave this storm. I've been warned by my tutor not to go outside if possible. I probably still will, at least just outside the front door for a minute just to see what it's like to stand in the middle of a typhoon. But other than that, I think I'm ready to stay inside for a couple days. Too bad I have to go to school tomorrow and the day after that. I guess we'll see how this goes. It's typhoon time! >D

Chapter 2.1: My New Home

Upon arrival, we were greeted by two vans and a welcome group that made our first day very easy. We stepped out of the gate and were greeted warmly by our respective tutors. My tutor told me his name, or nickname in fact was "Guess". I learned later that it's actually Gas-san because he is notorious for his flatulence. But he pronounces it more like "guess" so I just call him Guess-san. Guess-san is in fact himself a very interesting guy. He traveled abroad last year for 1 year in France and learned French. He is very interested in interacting with international students and he probably speaks the most English of anybody I've met here in Japan since coming. I am lucky to have him as a tutor. He also is the first person who I can honestly say picks rice. I know we say it a lot as a joke in America, but Gas-san's family actually owns rice field and last weekend he went home to help his family harvest rice. I think that's really cool.

[I need to take a picture of Gas-san to post here.]

First Meal
So we were brought directly to Ijiri International Dormitory. They brought us to our rooms and Gas-san and the other tutors went out to buy us lunch. Wonder what my first meal in Japan was? Sushi? Terriyaki? Yakisoba? Nope. McDonalds. Haha, yep, so we ate McDonalds together in the lobby, introduced each other and talked to our new tutors and our lifelines for the next year.

First Day of School
The very next day after moving in was the first day of class. After having Gas-san show us how to get to our campus which is one train stop away, Jose, John, Eddie and I take the train by ourselves for the first time to school to meet for our architecture studio site field trip. No down time, we jump right in. We wait in the rain for about half an hour unsure if we were in the right place. Just as we were losing hope, we see Gas-san running up to us and apologizing. We go to class and sit together, 4 Americans and 4 French students among about 40 other Japanese students. The professor who speaks English explains that the class will be taught in Japanese and that our tutors can help translate for us the class. This is obviously not possible to translate an entire class, but we get the gist of it and we pile on a bus.

















Filled to the Brink

I think emergency exit strategies aren't as imporant to the Japanese because they have special fold out seats so that more students can pile in. After a rainy site visit, we return to campus and dispurse for the weekend. I meet my now close friends from France: Batiste and Laura from Paris, and Axel and Margaux from Bordeaux.

[More pictures of friends and my place to be updated. Please be patient.]

Chapter 2: Arrival

Screech! I jerk awake at the exact moment the wheels hit the tarmac. I'm still a little to groggy to understand teh gravity of this moment. As the plane pulls into the terminal, I pear outside to see a row of 7 people waiting patiently as if each was greeting a family member and not welcoming a plane full of strangers. In perfect unison, they bow, arms clapsed in front or behiind in polite submission and smile. I am amazed. Welcome to Japan.

The Rest

The rest of Taiwan was a bit of a blur. I do have a small confession to make, I wasn't exactly feeling myself for the first half of the trip. I think that I may have been sick. But the worst thing about being sick in Taiwan was that I couldn't tell anybody since everybody was paranoid about the current H1N1 epidemic. Anyone who is found in Taiwan with even the faintest symptoms of H1N1 are treated like a leper and cast into the shadows of society. Okay maybe not that bad, but surely nobody would believe me that I had gotten sick right before showing up in Taiwan and I didn't feel like explaining myself. But in my defense I tried to toughen up and by midweek through Taiwan, I was feeling right as rain again. And I took lots of pictures to make up for not "being all there" so hopefully that will suffice.

Playing Restaurant
On the night that the other group decided to go to the hot springs, the rest of us who decided we didn't want to go either because of the heat, the price or the fact that it was segregated guys/girls and was fully nude went out to a lounge for dinner/drinks. On Cindy's fantastic recommendations, we found our way into downtown Taipei to a hookah/middle eastern bar with Nicole, Marie, Lang, Kenny and Cindy. We somehow had coincidentally came on "foreigners night" and were entitled to buy one get one free drinks, lucky us! So after getting everyone loosened up a little and Nicole sufficiently buzzed, we played truth or truth. As promised, everything that we found out night will stay in that restaurant, but it was a very entertaining and enlightening night and I can honestly say I know everyone there better. As the evening neared the end, I decided to dare Lang to go talk to a couple of girls who were sitting at the table next to ours. He hesitated, took a step towards the table, hesitated again, and then went for it. He struck up a conversation and he never returned to our table. Good job Lang. A few minutes into his conversation, the two guys returned who were with the two ladies and we all were convinced Lang would either a) get into a fight or b) lose his nerve and come back to our table. We guessed wrong for both and he actually stayed talking to everyone. Lang left somewhat unwillingly but not without getting a covetted business card from one of the very pretty ladies.

Snake Alley / Long Shan Temple
Long Shan Temple was the first temple we visited at night. I have to say there isn't a phenomenal difference except that you couldn't see some things as well and that this tempe seemed to be very popular because there were a lot of people there praying even at night. At one point, we were all sitting on the steps on one side of the temple and Josh pointed out to me that Nicole was sitting on the far opposite side talking to an older looking Taiwanese man. We joked immaturely about the Nicole striking up a relationship and staying in Taiwan. The next thing we know, she comes over to us and tells us how this man randomly started speaking to her and asking her creepy questions like, "Do you have a boyfriend? Do you plan to stay in Taiwan for a long time? and the best one of the night, "I have two kids". We then established the rule that if she makes eye contact with us for more than 3 seconds, its our signal to cock block. For this occasion, we just saw her and smiled back as she tried to signal us to help her, woops. Sorry Nicole. Snake alley is a night market in Taipei famous for its selection of snake delicacies. Just nearby the Long Shan Temple NT subway Line, it is a few shady city blocks that has every part of the snake for sale. We passed by one shop with a man sitting outside with a headset and a speaker advertising delicious snake soup. He yelled as if he worked at the fair trying to vie for the attention of the passing crowd. He was unkempt and a little rude. He showed us the menu which was written on a large notecard and it had 4-5 items listed with a series of accompanying pictures. Whoever drew it was also very bad at estimating how much room to leave for the last drawings and the list of items grew smaller toward the end and skewed upwards as if the menu was drawn by a 5 year old. This did not make us feel more comfortable about the menu which was listed:

1) Snake Soup
2) Snake Penis Shot
3) Snake Venom
4) Snake Antidote
5) Special Taiwanese health potion

We did not eat it. The rest of snake alley was equally as ghetto and felt just as much like a strange sideshow carnival. We passed 3 porn/sex toy stalls, some small eateries, and a woman who tried to get us to pay to play with her bb guns. The night was cut short by a sudden downpour which soaked my shoes and kept them soggy for over a day.

Hot Pot
The last meal in Taiwan was an awesome hot pot dinner which included unlimited meat, seafood, vegetables, fruits, ice cream, asian coca-cola, and beer. Everyone got their fill of everything they wanted and it was a wonderful last dinner.

What I will miss most about Taiwan:
1) Milk Tea for less than dollar
2) Good times with good friends

What I won't miss:
1) The ubiquitous smell of scooter exhaust
2) The constant humidity that can make me sweat even though I'm doing absolutely nothing

Thank you to everyone who made our short trip to Taiwan possible, thank for the place to stay, the help and the tours. It was a great warmup for Japan and I appreciate everyone who made it happen.

Lessons Learned:
1) Don't wear new shoes when I go on long hikes. Wear old shoes, I won't mind if they get dirty and my feet wo't be throbbing by mid-day
2) Bring notebook everywhere I go because I will forget Lessons Learned (I know there were more)
3) Don't forget brand new umbrella in the cab (it was only $3, but still)
4) Cool bartenders mean trouble
5) A pair of pants that will fit around your neck buttoned up will fit around your waist

Differences Between Taiwan and America:
1) Cars have the right of way, not pedestrians
2) Seat belts are too much of a nuisance to even include in cars
3) Scooters can weave through opposing traffic as long as the rider is without fear of cars, busses or death
4) The shower is the bathroom

Bug Bite Count: 4

Chapter 1.4: Taiwan Day 2

Story of the Day:
This ironically has nothing to do with Taiwan but I think it was one of the funniest things that happened. So Tam spends 15 minutes discussing how we can keep our dirty laundry in one of the empty cabinets but not to lock it because we don't have the keys for the newly installed cabinets. She also goes into great detail about how she accidentally locked one and couldn't get it unlocked. John, Eddie and I nod and I put my clothes in an empty cabinet. Eddie then procesds to put his dirty laundry int he same cabinet, closes the pad lock and clicks the lock and says... "UH-OH". Uncontrollable laughter ensues. Good one Eddie, we eventually get our laundry out by prying open one of the doors a crack and pulling it out piece by piece. Simply hilarious.

Taipei 101:
We leave for Taipei 101 in late afternoon so that we can see the night view. The view is as you would expect. Personally I kind of like looking up it more than I like looking down from it, but that's just me. Either way, it was great to go inside, ride up one of the world's fastest elevators and see the humongous mass dampener. After we went to Taipei 101, we decided to walk towards a random builidng and try to get to the top. Why? Why not? That's how good adventures are made and I was right. We accidentally stumble into Eslite mall, which was actually mentioned in one of the guidebooks. Inside, I found my favorite store in Taiwan. I will try my best to describe why it is my favorite but I don't know if I can accurately describe its awesomeness. I'm still not entirely sure what this store specializes in or if it even has a theme, but it does not matter. It had everything from clothes to furniture. Looking at the storefront, the entire store seems to slope upwards. The floors, ceilings and walls are all covered with an eye-blurring pattern. Both sides ofthe store are lined with tilted glass display cases. The walls of the display casese follow the tile of the sloped ground and each horizontal glass piece is skewed so that the objects displayed remain level. Stand long enough in the store and it begins to feel as if the objects are all slanted and nausea soon follows. Such an awesome store.

At night we go back to a bar that Melissa, Jose, John and Eddie found on their first night in Taiwan. Somehow, they manage to find the one mexican/hot dog stand and bar in Taiwan and we actually go back like 3 times throughout our trip to Taiwan. The bar is bartended and owned by the cool bartender simply known to us as "Ben". He runs the shop with his girlfriend and mother and it's a very personal business. He takes a liking to us almost immediately and offers us a whole list of free drinks including a pitcher of sangria, beers and at the end when we tried to leave, he made us all take 2-3 shots of tequila with him. At this point I still had a headache and the alcohol didn't help all too much. Cool bartenders mean trouble. But Ben really was cool and he even called his friend in Fukuoka once he found out we were going to be living there for a year.

Chapter 1.3: Taiwan Day 1

Day 1:
First off, thanks to Connie Yu for the recommendation for Picasa. I think its a much better/easier way to organize photos on blogs. Her blog pwns mine, so all I can do it imitate it.

The first two nights were kind of confusing, John, Eddie and I stayed in Lang, Kenny and Josh's room. Thanks to the guys btw for letting us sleep in their beds. They were gone busy rebuilding typhoon struck houses in the southern part of Taiwan, respect. They all came back beaming and said it was both ridiculously hard work and one of the most rewarding trips they've ever done. So the school campus on the bottom is the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology - AKA NTUST. It's the sister school of NTU which I am told, is the most prestigious school in Taiwan. It took me a few days to figure out why everyone on campus looked so nerdy, and then I realized I was living on the science and technology portion and it suddenly all made sense.

So together with John, Eddie, Jose, Melissa, Cindy, Tam and Nicole, we set off our first day to go hiking in a national park. I don't think we ever found it, but we did stumble upon an awesome temple simply named, "The Old Temple". During the process of wandering the mean streets of Taiwan looking for the park, we found a nice little park with a little mini zip-line. The park made for some good pictures. See accompanying Taiwan album in my FB.

The Old Temple:
This temple was expansive. It had huge sweeping views of the Taiwan skyline and every square inch of it was ornately decorated. And when i say decorated, I mean intensely and painstakingly hand crafted. The walls illustrated stories through 3D carvings in wood. Each scene, wall and surface was unique and the whole thing was just breath taking. I really think that Asian temples are just as good if not better in a lot of ways than western style temples. They are just as grand and have more detail, as far as architecutre anyway. I found it to be fascinating. It was of course humbling thinking about how many hours went into the place where I was standing. Just to feel the sculptures and run my fingers in and through the 3 dimensional sculptures made me appreciate all the artisans. The pictures literally jumped off the walls. Just behind the temple we found a long staircase that must have travelled up about 40-50 ft. We almost missed it, but I'm glad we didn't because that was the beginning of the hike.

The Hike:
The top of the stairs can never be seen. From the very first flight of stairs, they just kept going up, winding around and climbing ever higher. At the top of the first staircase, we rested and bought 3 scoops of ice cream for 60 cents US out of the back of an old man's scooter. It melted quickly and got very sticky. It was not very sweet but it was refreshing. It was a welcomed snack. About an hour of climbing later we reached a spot that had two benches. Nicole, Tam and I sat down to rest. Nicole started writing in her journal and I wished so badly that I had brought mine. Instead I just consciously memorized everything that was going on so that I could later write it in my journal. I was semi-successful. I took a nap on the bench listening to the bugs hiss around us in the bushes in surround sound. There was a man we saw who sat alone at the crest of a hill. He was still there when we returned down the mountain. He deserves his own special category, I ran back to sneak a picture. He just looked so serene alone on that hill overlooking Taipei I could not help but think about what he was thinking...

The rest of the day was filled with walking around the Shopping District. It reminded me of LA Chinatown extended for many blocks on all sides. I was very tired and sat by myself just taking in the city for an hour or two while the others shopped. The pungent city smells of pollution with the occasional whiff of sewage seeping up through the vents. The city is grimy and noticably worn but it is still full of life everyday and every night. The pollution is heavy and stifling making it difficult to breath. I remember LA air fondly now amidst the huge intersections of dozens of scooters each tooting along making the city streets smell like breathing in go kart fumes.

I am exhausted today. A bed is very much welcomed and I am too tired to think of the days to come. But I know there is much more to do...

Chapter 1.2: The Flight

The flight was delayed an hour on the tarmac. What's one more hour on top of 13 1/2 hours? 14 1/2 hours. My parents insisted that the airlines would have Advil so last minute I decided not to bring painkillers and also to bring an inflatable neck donut (to assist with sleeping on the plane). Best and worst decisions ever, because I slept but I was burning up for much of the ride. And for some strange reason, this plane was the first plane that I had ever ridden on that did not have air conditioning or manual controllable wind-blowy things. I really should have just taken painkillers before my flight like someone suggested me to.

The Shinjuku Incident

One of the three movies I watched on the plane was called the Shinjuku Incident. It starred Jackie Chan and Daniel Wu and it was a rather strange movie. Not only because in this movie, Jackie not only didn't fight, but didn't know how to fight and the film actually only featured his acting, but also because of Daniel Wu's chilling transformation. The movie is ironically about a group of Chinese immigrants who ends up in Shinjuku, Japan and who are unwelcomed and eventually form a gang to gain power and respect. I hope this is not a omen for my trip. Just thought it was an ironic movie to see on the plane.

Chapter 1.1: Leaving

LAX Goodbyes






Off to See the World


The last night before I leave I packed furiously late into the night. My mother, being the amazing woman that she is acutally fits my years worth of summer/winter/workout/formal clothing into two suitcases weighing exactly 50 lbs (well one of them was 2 lbs over actually). So everything was finally packed but I think I caught a slight cold in the process of packing and subsequently suffered from cold and hot flashes all of my last night at home. This later comes back to haunt me for about half of my Taiwan trip, but I'm getting there. At the airport my mom was surprisingly composed but my Dad was the sniffly one. I suppose you can't win them all. He just kept saying over and over "I'm going to cry, I'm going to cry" and I just kept saying back, "No crying Dad, no crying."