Thursday, August 14, 2008

My Views on Cities in Japan...

Japan is obviously a wonderful country. I love the language and there's a lot about this country that I love...there's also things that I really don't like but we'll save that for another time and place...

I've currently been in Tokyo since the 9th. (It's now the 15th.) All my friends have gone, basically, and I'm navigating this city almost alone. I realized the other day that Tokyo is great and all, but it's not really THAT great. All big cities are the same kind of. I can handle Tokyo for a few days but not much more than that. It's expensive and crowded and fast and it just doesn't stop moving ever for anyone. When you've been in one big city in the world, I think you've been in them all. Chicago has moments like Tokyo, New York has moments like Chicago and LA has moments like New York and all of them kind of are the same. It's like a frat house of cities or something. They can be pushy, flashy, and have attitudes. And they tend to get really drunk on the weekends. I'm not saying all of this is bad. Sometimes I need a good kick from a city but other times returning to that quiet area back home is nice.

So, I quickly realized how much I love Hakodate and Hokkaido. When you're in Hakodate, you know that you're DEFINITELY in Hakodate. It's totally it's own thing. Sure it wasn't the most "fun" place in the world. But when I'm there with sixty other students who all want to have fun, it's hard to stop us from doing so. I think being in Tokyo for this week has made me appreciate that so much more. I remember I was hanging out with my friend in Hakodate one night and we could go back to the station and go home OR we could find something to do for a few hours and take the last train back. We decided to just walk around and talk for a while. You can't do that in Tokyo that well. We walked by the ocean, through some little streets, and then we just parked it on a bench near the station and chatted for a while...

Last night I was with one of my friends and we walked around Shibuya, a really busy area of Tokyo. It was tough because there were so many people but we kind of squeezed our way around. We were offered sex and massages from prostitutes three times in one block. All we wanted to do was go somewhere calm. We found a little bench by the station to crash but it was surrounded by homeless people who were smoking/sleeping/smoking and sleeping. The streets were also sprinkled with vomiting business men who were too drunk to make the last train home. This isn't the worst thing in world, but it wasn't like a nice quiet walk and chat with a friend. Also, I've never been offered anything from a prostitute before. If I have, I really wasn't aware of it because they must have been very subtle about it. These ones... not so subtle... but what can you do.

So, I love Tokyo, for sure. But not THAT much. There are so many other towns in Japan that are better. They may not be packed with stores and restaurants but that doesn't really matter.

I also realized that as fun as Japan is, the most fun I have on these trips is because of the people I'm with. I enjoyed spending time with the people on my trip so much. Japan just became a backdrop to what I had most fun doing, hanging out with people and making friends. Now that most of my friends have returned home, I realized that it's easy to make your way around a city but it's not easy to have as much fun without them around.

I'll be home soon and I can't wait. I'm not sick of Japan but I'm excited to see people I know.

-Mike

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Winding Down

So there's only one more day (today) left in this program. I'll be traveling afterwards and don't know my internet situation so I may or may not update this anymore. BUT here's the wrap up of the trip.

I had an excellent time learning Japanese even though I kind of fell off at the end. I didn't really get a break thanks to DePaul's super-late-calendar. We got out of DePaul June 14th and this program required me to be here on June 11th (leaving Chicago June 10th) so basically I just had to take all my finals early and come straight here. I could handle the work load just fine, but towards the end, I just didn't care anymore. I wanted a break. Good thing this grade doesn't transfer at all. Muah haha.

Yesterday as a special end-of-the-program-treat, my friends host mom invited me and a few people to make Soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles). It was at this awesome little house she has. Coincidentally when my High School Japanese teacher did this program this woman was HIS host mom so we chatted it up about him. Anyway I got there and they were cutting some soba. I don't know if you have ever seen a soba cutting knife...because I know I sure hadn't...but that thing is huge and SCARY. In fact the guy who was cutting the soba when I got there was missing two finger tips. I'm not sure if he lost it from cutting the soba or if he lost it some other way, but either way I was scared of the knife.


So we made some soba and ate it. Mine didn't taste very good.




Anyway, since I'm leaving I'm gonna make a list of things that I miss from home and things that I'm going to miss from here...

Miss From Home:
1) Friends n Family
2) Variety of Ethnic Foods
3) Trains that run late
4) My own bed
5) Normal toilets
6) Soap in bathrooms (No public bathrooms have soap in them and that's gross)
7) Being able to eat/drink and walk down the street at the same time
8) BBQ Sauce
9) Working
10)Being able to play a lot of music regularly

Miss From Japan
1) My friends and host family (especially Hikari and Nozomi, they are awesome)
2) REAL Japanese food
3) Trains that don't reek of excrements
4) Almost everywhere being photogenic
5) Mountains
6) Clean Air
7) No responsibilities other than getting home on time.
8) The weirdest ice cream flavors ever
9) Convenient stores everywhere
10) Vending machines everywhere