Japan summer to fall transistion= 1 day

Kendra:

Sorry for Aaron's long absence...he can't use the internet here at school because he doesn't have a nifty little card that let's you get in and use it and all...seeing as how he isn't a student. But, he sends his hello's and all that.

Today we are both on campus because my zemi (think university research group/graduate program group but only much more closer knit, like they go skiing and stuff together) is throwing a welcome party for us today. I've met most of them and they are soooo nice! The vast majortiy speak some English so even Aaron can talk to them. What nice people. I'm going to have a super sweet time researching stuff with them. That `stuff` will hopefully be figured out soon.

I can not get a quotation mark sign to show up for the life of me. It's going to take me a year to figure this damn keyboard out!

It is cooling down here, rapidly. It went from sunny summertime to fall in, I swear, one day. We picked that day to go to the beach, Suma beach. They do not value their beaches here like we Michiganders do so it was kind of a let down really. Trash all over and just a general look of being neglected. But, there were TONS of pretty sea shells and the Pacific ocean was really warm and pretty. We didn't go swimming due to the fact that it was a grey and sunless day, but we went to a fishing harbor and saw Japanese style fishing. Very odd indeed. They use like 11ft long poles and do this weird bobbing thing with them and maggically pull out tons of fish. Weird fish. Really weird fish. And octopus. And eels. And whatever else comes out of the ocean. We climbed up an observation tower and ate tacoyaki which are little fried balls of batter and veggies with a nice piece of octopus in the center, taco=octopus. They were good. Really!

I opened a bank account which took about an hour. Way more difficult here than it is in the States. But, somehow I managed it. I also found a place that is selling cheap bicyles for about 9,000 yen, that is like $90 about. Cheapest ones I have found. Hopefully Aaron and I can both get one and we can cruise aroudn town with our cute little mama-chari (that is a bike that a mom uses, you know with a bell and a basket, but everyone here uses one. How else are you going to get all your grocieries home?)

Well, I am going to go find Aaron. He is wandering around my campus somewhere...

Yatta!

Kendra:

Good lord the Japanese keyboard is hard to master. I type like a little kid here.
A brief update:

Aaron and I found a way to play our DVD's on the TV without having to try and find a sleezy store to buy a semi-illegal region-free DVD player! We got an S-video cable going from my computer to the TV, then we bought some mini speakers to hook up to my laptop and BAM! instant mini-theater. It works pretty good.

We've been walking around our neighborhood more and found lots of cool stuff:a new train station, a 99 Yen grocery mart (yes, like a dollar store but only food!) a Makudonado...sound it out...McDonalds! (yes, I despire it in the states but it's way better here...no joke!) and all sorts of little food shops. The 99 Yen store is the best thing ever though. I still can not believe it exist. Japan is so awesome sometimes.

Then...sometimes...

Well, we tried to get cell phones yesterday...or rather I sat there while my friend Kanako-san did all the talking. Basically, we can not get out phones until we have our Proof of Alien Registration Card, which was can not get until Oct. 15th. Poop. So, we have to wait. Plus, the phones here are expensive, and you have to pay to talk by the minute. But, since Aaron and I have a fmaily plan, we can talk to eachother for free. That's pretty cool.

Still looking to get a bike but you have to get it new and it will be like $100 at least. Grr...someone invent a shrinking ray and send me my bike! Oh and magnets...I need fridge magnets. I can not seem to find them ANYWHERE!

Brief update

Aaron here. Kendra and I are checking out an internet cafe. Basically, it's a place where you can pay X amount of money to sit in a little booth and use the internet or read Manga, which are Japanese graphic novels\comic books. Anyway, time is money. We're moved into our new place, and we:ve spent the past couple days Ｗａｌｋｉｎｇ around the town to get a feel for it. It:s nice having so many shops walking distance. There is a grocery store on our road called Gourmet City. The food is more expensive here, but the seafood is actually cheaper, so we:ve been eating a lot of fish and crab and such. There is lot to say about when we got to Kobe, and our brief stay with a host family, but I'll get to that in a later episode. God, this keyboard is annoying, to make an apostrophe I have to hold shift annoying, to make an apostrophe I have to hold shift and hit the 7 button. to hold shift and hit the 7 button. So if there is a colon, assume it is supposed to be an apostrophe. Except for the next one.
More about Kobe: Kobe is a rather large city, as most are here, but rather large city, as most are here, but is only a medium sized city are here, but is only a medium sized city by Japanese standards. It:s in the southern part of Japan, right on the coast, where the country seams to bend a little. It:s tucked nicely between a large Mountain range called the Rokko mountains and the sea, on the Southern coast. We haven:t seen much of the mountains or the coast close up, but it:s nice being able to orient where you are based on coast close up, but it:s nice being able to orient where you are based on the ｍｏｕｎｔａｉｎｓ　ａｌｗａｙｓ　ｂｅｉｎｇ　ｄｕｅ　ｎｏｒｔｈ．Kobe is also known for it:s food, specifically these little buns that are filled with meat, and this cabbage pancakes with meat and seafood mixed in. We:ve had both more than once and they are excellent. They are referred to as Kansai food. Kansai being are referred to as Kansai food. Kansai being the southern region of Japan mostly composed of the three cities Kobe, Kyoto, and Osaka. Most people have heard of Kyoto, because it is the only place where authentic Geisha come from these days. If you don authentic Geisha come from these days. If you don:t know what a Geisha is, that:s another episode. We hope to visit Kyoto soon. You can get everywhere by train here. It:s kind of nice, so long as you know where your train is going and when to get off. We took ａ trip a few stations down yesterday to check out some more of Kobe. yesterday to ｃｈｅｃｋ out some more ｏｆ Kobe.　 We went to the hugest mallI:ve ever seen. Think of it this way. There were entire roads running through this mall. Sure, cars weren:t allowed to drive mall. Sure, cars weren:t allowed to drive through, but they were roads nonetheless. We spent several hours just walking through the mall area, which was made up of several blocks, and many stories. I finally found a couple nerdy stores where I can buy magic cards. In stores where I can buy magic cards. In English no less! The language barrier has been a little rough on me. I pretty much just stay at home when Kendra is at school. stay at home when Kendra is at school. That:s alright though. Anyway, good food, nice town, lots more to see, and lots more to fill you in on. Once we get internet, which is proving difficult, I:ll give you the whole story in episode installments. I apologize　for any typos, no time to proofread. Bye.

In a hurry

Kendra:

Using a Japanese keyboard so odd! Everybutton is in a different place. Ah! I cant say much but, Aaron and I are in our house. It has hot water and gas a tiny little air conditioners. My school is so beautiful. We dont have internet at our place yet (im at school) but soon we should have it...like a month maybe?!?

Miss everybody. Ill write more later.

Something is fishy here....

Kendra:

Lots of really interesting stuff has been happening guys. It's pretty neat-o being over here, not going to lie. Yesterday we had the great fortune of going to visit this company called Pasamo O2, they are kind of like a job finding organization here in Japan but they do sooooo much more for the person. They also raise a lot interest in agricultural issues by having the underground farm! We got to tour the underground farm and visit their new headquarters which was in the most expensive office buildings in Tokyo. It just opened and the price to have offices there was mind- boggling. Here is a look at the artificial rice patty and hydroponically grown lettuce:

They also fed us some of their food and it was so oishii! (delicious)

After that some of us Fulbrighters walked to a new park in downtown Tokyo and romped around there for a while, very cool. It had lots of neat art work that Aaron loves, here's a shot of some:

Then, this morning we got up at 4:45 am so we could visit the amazing Tsukiji fish market. It's one of the biggest in the world and it was intense. There are men on motor carts whizzing by everywhere (we almost got hit about 600 times) and they are all carrying big blocks or boxes of all kinds of seafood. The coolest thing was the tuna auction. They haul these HUGE- I mean really big fish here- frozen tuna onto the floor and this guy auctions them in some odd form of Japanese numbers and...well...none of us could make out what he was saying. Retail fish buyers then come by and poke at the tuna with metal sticks and check out the goods before placing bids on them. Some of these fish are just gigantic, easily way bigger than I am. Plus, there are lots of stalls selling any kind of seafood you could think of; clams, shrimp, eels, squid, abalone, shark, some kind of fish with big, ugly eyes, and we even saw fugu (blowfish) the kind that can kill you if you eat a poorly prepared fish. Here's some of what we saw:

The rest of today is mainly just relaxing before we hop on the shinkansen (bullet train) and head to Kobe tomorrow. So, internet may not be around for a while, who knows. Hopefully we will have internet shortly at our new place but who knows! So, you might not hear from us for a while. Till then, ja ne!

A Year in the Life...Day 1:

Aaron:

Hey. I guess this makes it official. I can't even read the instructions for making this post. We're definitely in Japan. The trip was a little rough, I'm not going to lie. We left Kalamazoo at 8:00 a.m. Everything went smoothly until we got onto our plane (Big shout out to Andy for the excellent driving to Chicago). The plane was warm. Very warm. The A/C didn't work on it, so we actually had to get off and wait for a different plane because they couldn't fix the electrical problems. Our original departure time was 12:50 p.m. We actually took off at 5:00 p.m. Little bit of a late start. The flight was pretty good, except I can't get comfortable on a plane to save my life, and therefore didn't sleep a wink. We had a pretty awesome view as we passed over the Alaskan peninsula. I've got one of the pictures as my wallpaper for my desktop. Here's a look:

So even though we left at 5:00, it was only 7:00 p.m. when we got to Tokyo. Somehow, 2 hours and a day went by over the course of 13 hours. We actually skipped 9/11, It happened somewhere over the Pacific.

Narita airport is very big, and very very Japanese. It was tough trying to get through customs, exchange our money, and mail our bags, but Kendra did great, and we somehow made it. Then we had to get a bus ticket. Somehow it took 3 hours to get from one side of Tokyo to the other by bus. We were nodding off like mad, but still, I couldn't fall asleep. By the way, Tokyo is gigantic! Huge buildings as far as the eye could see in every direction. This entire part of the country is populated, so it was quite intimidating. It makes the Chicago sky-line look weak. Oh, also, Japan has this weather thing called, oh yeah, monsoon season. It never stops raining. Luckily, we could buy umbrellas at the hotel desk. It also gets dark here at like 6:30 p.m.

The Hotel is quite nice. The room is smaller than American rooms, but the bathroom is of far superior technology. The toilet looks like a robot. There is actually a button with a picture of a water spout spraying a butt. I'm a little scared to push that one. Also, none of the electricity in the room works unless the keychain to the room is resting nicely in a slot on the wall by the door. I guess the idea is you can't leave without your keys, so you can't leave the lights on. Plus, when you come in the room, you put the keychain in the slot, and everything you had turned on before automatically turns on. It took us about 5 minutes to figure out how to turn on the lights.

That seems to be the way of things. This place makes me feel really stupid. It takes me forever to figure simple things out. In the bathroom at the meeting building, I had trouble flushing the toilet, turning on the faucet, getting soap out of the dispensor and even opening the door. I still haven't figured out how to fasten a safety belt here either. I've seen 2 different kinds, both are beyond me. The first one looked exactly like our seatbelts, except there was a little piece of metal jutting out from the clip, blocking me from pushing it into the slot. I don't get it. I should probably figure that one out soon, because the drivers scare me here. They whip around curves on the highways, and the lanes are so thin. Plus, they drive in the left lane, so everytime we make a left turn, I feel like we're going to get sideswiped. This is a true learning experience.

Kendra's first meeting went well. It was a lot of introductions, but I think we made good impressions. I've dubbed myself the cheerleader for the fulbrights. They even insisted on putting me in the group picture.

The food has been awesome. Fish everywhere. I've tried some new things, and have been pleasantly surprised for the most part. Anyway, Have to go. More to come soon.

The final countdown

Well, it's the day before we leave. WHAT!!??!!

After a year of preparing, I can hardly believe that we fly out tomorrow. We've seen so many people in the past month and now we won't see them for a year! I suppose in the long run it's not that long, but it just feels so final...I guess because we'll be across a flippin' ocean! It's not like we can drive a few hours and see you guys.

Of course, you could always fly over and visit us!!

Okay, so, not sure when we'll get internet so you may not hear from us for a while. Or, we could find a cafe that is near our house and be up and running in no time. So many things are up in the air at the moment.

Thanks to everyone for their well-wishes and gifts along the way. Thanks Laura for the awesome book about places to eat and stay in Japan, we really needed one of those badly. Wish us luck! Bye bye for now.

This must be a sitcom somewhere.

So, interesting house news. Got an email today explaining lots of goodies:

• we get to send our luggage to our pseudo-host family, which is awesome.

• our pseudo-host mom is picking us up from the train station, yay! I love not getting lost!
• We are riding the train to the Kobe area with another Fulbrgiter! Yay, strength in numbers.

• Our house rent is lowered to ¥ 80,000 a month. This is because we are now sharing the lower half and kitchen area with the landlord's son.

WHaa?!

Okay, actually, when you think about it; not so bad. I'm sure he's a nice guy of course, it's not that I don't think he'll be a cool dude. Just that admittedly, Aaron and I are an odd pair of people, and Aaron looks like a viking and he listens to scary metal music from Scandinavia. I just don't want to freak the hell out of this guy.

We get to go and look at the house on the 15th with the landlord and everything so I'm sure that everything will work out okay. Who knows, he could be a super awesome dude who helps us out buying stuff and Aaron to learn Japanese customs. Or he could be a normal salaryman who slips in at 3 am very inebriated only to slink back to the old grindstone at 7 am the next. Either way, it should be fun, ne?

The Ring...scary Japanese story or noise I hear 24/7?

Do you ever get some news that just totally sucks and there is just nothing you can do about it. Well, I got some. For about 3 weeks now I have been having ear problems in my left ear. Namely...I can't hear a damn thing. It's all because of this loud buzzing and ringing that goes on 24/7. Well, the E.N.T. doctor put me on some steroids but yesterday when I went back for another hearing test my hearing actually got worse!

So...now what huh. Well, turns out nothing really.

I need an MRI he says. I say, no insurance, no money, leaving the country, bye bye. The MRI will rule out an acoustic necroma- a tiny tumor somewhere in my inner ear. But hopefully, the chances of me having one are about 1-2%. I could also have (notice this guessing trend) this thing called Meniere's Disease. A nasty little something that kills your balanace and gives you extreme vertigo. Nice. As long as the ringing stops I don't care what I have to do.

But, in good news, the house in Kobe is lowered down to 100,000 a month. We are meeting with the landlord on the 15th to talk stuff over. So, you can all come fly to Japan because we will have such a big place for you to stay!!