So, if being a college student in Japan for a year isn't cool enough, I'm also gonna be doing a homestay next weekend. It's Toyo's bunkasai (school festival) so we have a long weekend, most of the exchange students from various countries signed up to join the homestay! We're going to be in Itakura in Gunma prefecture, and stay with families who volunteered to host us for 3 days! Sounds fun right?
My host family is a young couple with a 4 year old and a baby. Sadly, no pets. I miss my kitty from home... Also no smoking, but I requested that (the only thing I requested) when I filled out my paperwork. The ryugakusei (exchange students) are also going to go to Seijoin Temple and participate in a tea ceremony, and have a lecture on Buddhism. Which may sound boring, but considering that I'm doing the NaNoWriMo this year, it very well might make it into my story!
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Stress Less
In the last year or so of college I've started getting more and more interested in knitting, and as I've become interested I've found that the more stressed I feel the more I want to knit. It is relaxing as nothing else I enjoy is. My current project is for a friend who saw a hat I made the first week I was in Japan. She said she wanted one just like it and offered to buy it. (Paying customer Woohoo!) I told her 1,000 yen (about $10) plus the price of the yarn, so she bought the yarn and gave it to me on Monday.
I suppose without realizing it I've been de-stressing all week by working on this hat for her. My class has had an awful week of vocabulary tests and grammar lessons. We did lessons 5-7 this week, plus the vocab test for lesson 4 on Monday. Tomorrow is, thankfully the last day of the week, and this week there's no Saturday class (Yay!). Hopefully next week isn't so bad, but thanks to my knitting I'm not feeling as bad as I could be.
I'm currently about halfway done with Emily's hat, and since the yarn is a bit fluffier, same weight but different brand, so it is turning out a little different, but I'm happy with the results. I found a little shop with some superwash wool/cotton yarn that I think I'm gonna buy to work on a shawl for when autumn starts cooling down as well.
I suppose without realizing it I've been de-stressing all week by working on this hat for her. My class has had an awful week of vocabulary tests and grammar lessons. We did lessons 5-7 this week, plus the vocab test for lesson 4 on Monday. Tomorrow is, thankfully the last day of the week, and this week there's no Saturday class (Yay!). Hopefully next week isn't so bad, but thanks to my knitting I'm not feeling as bad as I could be.
I'm currently about halfway done with Emily's hat, and since the yarn is a bit fluffier, same weight but different brand, so it is turning out a little different, but I'm happy with the results. I found a little shop with some superwash wool/cotton yarn that I think I'm gonna buy to work on a shawl for when autumn starts cooling down as well.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Nekobukuro
Nekobukuro, Cat City... The name really speaks for itself, I think. It's located on the 8th floor of a department store in Ikebukuro called Tokyu Hands. The store has some crafty things, and a whole floor dedicated to stationary and another to bags and travel supplies, but noting too interesting to report short of the pet shop on the top.
Sorry about the lack of photos of the actual building, but my camera was not cooperating with me and did not want to focus on anything out of arms reach.
Basically the whole place is two rooms that have ramps, stairs, and walkways all over the walls and ceilings for the 15 or so cats that live there. You pay 600 yen and go in for an unlimited amount of time. I got there just at the end of nap time, I think because the cats all started to wake up a few minutes after we got there.
Keep in mind this is a busy shopping district in Tokyo, so if you want to come visit the cats, try to go during school hours. That seriously decreases the chance that the place will be filled with 5-10 year olds chasing the cats with strings tied to sticks; or all the benches being full of high schoolers trying to keep the hair off their uniforms. All in all it was a fun place to go, and the cats were great, though they do make me lonely for my cat back home.
Sorry about the lack of photos of the actual building, but my camera was not cooperating with me and did not want to focus on anything out of arms reach.
Basically the whole place is two rooms that have ramps, stairs, and walkways all over the walls and ceilings for the 15 or so cats that live there. You pay 600 yen and go in for an unlimited amount of time. I got there just at the end of nap time, I think because the cats all started to wake up a few minutes after we got there.
Keep in mind this is a busy shopping district in Tokyo, so if you want to come visit the cats, try to go during school hours. That seriously decreases the chance that the place will be filled with 5-10 year olds chasing the cats with strings tied to sticks; or all the benches being full of high schoolers trying to keep the hair off their uniforms. All in all it was a fun place to go, and the cats were great, though they do make me lonely for my cat back home.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Japanese Food
When I was getting ready to come to Japan, one of the tings I looked forward to most was the food. I'm not a fan of sashimi, and haven't been brave enough yet to try natto, but pretty much everything I've eaten here has been, if not delicious, then at least not bad. One thing I didn't think about enough was cooking for myself. Sure I knew I'd be doing it, but I just kinda assumed that it wouldn't be any different than back home. Well I come from a small town in the backwoods that has not very many options for ingredients, and to me that wasn't strange, then I got here and had so much more at my disposal, so I didn't even know where to start! Not to mention everything is written in Japanese on the food packages themselves. (When I'm lucky it's katakana which I can sort of read and sort of sounds like English when said out loud, with guesswork... Ugh)
So on to my food adventures, I'm a poor college student so I started with a bag of rice. 2 kilos 500 grams (I'm American I have no clue the equivalence for that in pounds it feels like about 4-5) for 1900 yen. Easy enough. Here's a fun fact almost nobody in Japan knows how to cook rice on a stove! So I've one-uped them in that way at least (when you don't think that I really can't use a Japanese rice cooker cause all the buttons are written with kanji).
Japanese (Short Grained) Rice - Recipe
It doesn't matter if the cup you're using is American or Japanese because the amounts in the two measures are different, just make sure you don't measure part of the recipe with one and part with the other.
1cup rice, rinsed so the water is mostly clear (Japanese people say this is important, I don't know why)
1 cup water
Saucepan with lid that fits (to keep steam in)
Bring water to boil, pour in rinsed and drained rice, give it a stir.
Turn heat down to low, set timer for 20 min, put on lid.
Do not remove lid until timer is up unless you want al-dente rice.
Want more rice? 2 cups rice = 2 cups water etc.
Using long grained rice? 1 cup rice = 2 cups water
And that's it. Simple enough.
So on to my food adventures, I'm a poor college student so I started with a bag of rice. 2 kilos 500 grams (I'm American I have no clue the equivalence for that in pounds it feels like about 4-5) for 1900 yen. Easy enough. Here's a fun fact almost nobody in Japan knows how to cook rice on a stove! So I've one-uped them in that way at least (when you don't think that I really can't use a Japanese rice cooker cause all the buttons are written with kanji).
Japanese (Short Grained) Rice - Recipe
It doesn't matter if the cup you're using is American or Japanese because the amounts in the two measures are different, just make sure you don't measure part of the recipe with one and part with the other.
1cup rice, rinsed so the water is mostly clear (Japanese people say this is important, I don't know why)
1 cup water
Saucepan with lid that fits (to keep steam in)
Bring water to boil, pour in rinsed and drained rice, give it a stir.
Turn heat down to low, set timer for 20 min, put on lid.
Do not remove lid until timer is up unless you want al-dente rice.
Want more rice? 2 cups rice = 2 cups water etc.
Using long grained rice? 1 cup rice = 2 cups water
And that's it. Simple enough.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Ok, So Knitting...
I've only been in Tokyo for a few days, but have already learned my way around the area a bit. Yesterday I was surprised to find a yarn shop sitting, as plain as can be, somewhere I think I've walked past 4 or 5 times and never noticed yet. Of course now that I have noticed it, I can no longer find it.
Since that lovely little find, it was a tiny shop, I have been searching the internet for yarn shops in Tokyo. I've had some interesting finds that I will direct you to, though they are not too helpful to me. I really don't want to go to a lot of big name places, but find fun hole in the wall shops like the place selling green tea down the street from here that gives you a free sample when you go in...
This just looks fun, nothing to do with yarn: Nekobukoro (Cat House)
Yarn shopping: Pinku's Yarn Store List & Travelknitter's Guide to Tokyo
Since that lovely little find, it was a tiny shop, I have been searching the internet for yarn shops in Tokyo. I've had some interesting finds that I will direct you to, though they are not too helpful to me. I really don't want to go to a lot of big name places, but find fun hole in the wall shops like the place selling green tea down the street from here that gives you a free sample when you go in...
This just looks fun, nothing to do with yarn: Nekobukoro (Cat House)
Yarn shopping: Pinku's Yarn Store List & Travelknitter's Guide to Tokyo
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Ah, Japan
So, I'm finally here, and have been for a few days actually. Classes start on the 21st. Yes I know that's a Saturday, but its really not that uncommon to have Saturday classes or practices in America either. Until then I have orientations and placement tests and free time. My roommate and I went to Asakusa the other day after some school scheduled event or other that I don't even really remember now... Funny how that works. first we went to Sensouji, which is a beautiful Buddhist temple in an older district, which is set apart form other temples (I think anyway) by the fact that they let you go into the main temple area where the Buddhas and the statue of Kannon, the river goddess the temple was built for, are enshrined.
Then we wandered around for about an hour trying to get to Tokyo Sky Tree. This thing is incredible. You can see it from where I'm living now actually, but really it's the second highest building in the world, and when we finally... and I do mean finally, it was hot outside and we'd been walking for almost three hours by the time we made it there, it was awe inspiring to just look up at it from the base. Don't expect to go up inside it for free. There are two observation decks, and the lower one costs 2,000 yen to go to, the upper one 3,000. One nice thing is that there is no need for reservations. You can just show up and get a ticket as long as they are open. Also there is an aquarium and a mall on the bottom five floors, and the basement includes a train station, so if, like us, you are tired at the end of a long day sightseeing, you can get on the train to go back to your hotel, or apartment or dorm or wherever it is that you're staying.
Then we wandered around for about an hour trying to get to Tokyo Sky Tree. This thing is incredible. You can see it from where I'm living now actually, but really it's the second highest building in the world, and when we finally... and I do mean finally, it was hot outside and we'd been walking for almost three hours by the time we made it there, it was awe inspiring to just look up at it from the base. Don't expect to go up inside it for free. There are two observation decks, and the lower one costs 2,000 yen to go to, the upper one 3,000. One nice thing is that there is no need for reservations. You can just show up and get a ticket as long as they are open. Also there is an aquarium and a mall on the bottom five floors, and the basement includes a train station, so if, like us, you are tired at the end of a long day sightseeing, you can get on the train to go back to your hotel, or apartment or dorm or wherever it is that you're staying.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Leaving Soon!
So today is the first of September and I leave for Tokyo (by way of Dallas) in the early morning of the ninth. I have just over a week to go and then school will officially start for the year on Wednesday. Of course that means a week of placement tests, hastily buying books when I figure out which classes I'm taking and trying to settle in in a country whose language I really don't speak.
I'm sooooo excited right now!
And look, I even have Japanese enabled on my computer so I can type in it! Yay! 日本語(Japanese Language) 氷の火(my blogger name it means Icy fire) みんなさん、ブラグで読んだ ありがとう！Everyone Thanks for reading my blog!
I'm sooooo excited right now!
And look, I even have Japanese enabled on my computer so I can type in it! Yay! 日本語(Japanese Language) 氷の火(my blogger name it means Icy fire) みんなさん、ブラグで読んだ ありがとう！Everyone Thanks for reading my blog!
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