So November as a whole has been pretty slow. I spent a lot of time, outside of my classes, inside my room, either to study or to read and nap. There are a few key thing that went on, so I’ll talk about those. I will add a couple small tidbits from days in between too though 🙂

November 8th & 12th

On the 8th Mary and I wanted dessert (and I think she prob wanted boba too, if I remember right) so we went to T-site (a mall/shopping area in Hirakata near our school). We got some cute strawberry cakes. I added the twelfth only to show my sad instant curry dinner to the world X3

November 16th: bento picnic

I signed up to do an experience Japan program picnic event being held by Mary’s speaking partner. Turned out that I had too much work to do that day so I had to opt out of going. Mary went and helped them make the bentos but came back to the dorms with it instead of going on the picnic. She was nice enough to bring me my portion even though I didn’t go 🙂 we had a mini picnic on the school grounds

November 17th: Kobe

Celine, Raven, Shelby, Max, Akea and I all decided this was the best day to go to Kobe. It was fun, we shopped around at a mall, walked through Chinatown (only briefly, but I got a snack), visited Ikuta Shrine, checked out a nice park, got Kobe beef at a small restaurant for lunch, went into a studio Ghibli store (there are a lot of those. I mean, they’re everywhere across Japan. Makes sense though, since they’re a big $ maker), went on a Ferris wheel that overlooked a bay, and we almost went into the observation tower by the bay but it was a long wait time and cost more money than we wanted to spend. At the end of the trip, probably about 8pm, Shelby and Akea went to check out the beach. We were tired and it was starting to get chilly so Celine, Raven and I headed to Chinatown to grab quick dinners before going home. That is, the stop at Chinatown was supposed to be brief, but the foooooood~ we tried almost everything on our path on our way out. Gotta say, I wish I could go back there even just for Chinatown :3

^ Shelby’s snack. Also very good (though I liked mine more ;3)

November 19th

Thanks for the package boss lady! It was full of Christmas stuff. It was super sweet and everyone likes the reindeer slippers X3 I’ve rationed the candy to last even to now haha.

November 21st

Thanks for the thanksgiving package momma b. Much appreciated ^_^! We plan on using it as a pre-Christmas/departure party dinner though, since most of us were going to be in Tokyo on thanksgiving day.

November 23rd: Arashiyama

For the most part, we did a lot of similar things to what I did on my trip to Arashiyama with mu speaking mc partner, Aoi on the day we toured without our phones on. This time, though, I went with Celine, Shelby and Raven and we visited the big bamboo forest, saw some nice fall foliage (since Arashiyama is in Kyoto which is known for being good for leaf-viewing), and hiked up to the wild monkey (Japanese Macaque) park/sanctuary ^_^ Akea and Max met is there later before we all headed back. Mary had work to do, unfortunately, so she couldn’t make it.

November 26th: Taco night

I got the taco kits from an international goods store that Mary and I came across in Umeda (in Osaka) about a month ago. Bought enough to make 24 tacos. We all worked together and took a part to either chop, cook, or toast and voila~ it made me happy to do a big buffet dinner with everyone. It’d been a while and I’ve missed big dinners back in NY.

That’s all for now until I get the Tokyo post up!

So I delayed doing this blog post since I had trouble getting the pictures downloaded from the drives that we got from the scuba diving and parasailing businesses. Anyway, fall break gave the perfect opportunity to go on a short trip, so I went to Okinawa with some friends. Mary, Alizée, Tasi, and I all went from October 31st- November 3rd. It was the right time to go because it still had temps in the 70s ^_^

October 31st

The flight that Mary, Alizée and I were on arrived at Naha airport on Okinawa at 5:35pm. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize it takes 3 hours by bus to get to Motobu-Cho (where our air b&b was) from the airport and the next bus wasn’t until about 6:40pm. So, needless to say we missed a lot of time that night. Also, when we arrived at our place, which was late, we found out just how many cockroaches like to hang out on sidewalks in the dead of night. Lots of jump-scares were had & flashlights were our only weapons 👀’ still it was a beautiful walk from the hustle and bustle of the more city hub-like areas to the secluded cottage we stayed at. Or at least we noticed that in the daylight that morning 🙂

November 1st: Churaumi Aquarium and beach day

So Friday morning we headed out bright and early to walk to the Okinawa Churaumi aquarium from our air b&b. Tasi stayed a few roads down so he met us along the way. It was about a half an hour walk, but the greenery was nice so we didn’t mind taking the scenic route! The aquarium itself was really interesting. We saw lots of cool fish and sea creatures. The only downside is they had two whale sharks in a tank that definitely shouldn’t house two whale sharks… I’m no expert but I think they need to be able to swim in more than a tight circle >_>’ that part was uncomfortable, but the rest of the time was pleasant. After that we went to a beach that was right outside of the aquarium and I collected some shells, made a sand village with Tasi, and took a nap face down in the shade in some sand for about 2 hours XD then we got lunch (Taco rice! It’s exactly what is sounds like and is super tasty) and then bought smoothies and went back to the beach to drink them before doing some window shopping at souvenir shops. This was definitely my favorite day as I love the relaxing days most of all.

So you’ll note the black spot in the corner. I didn’t notice until later, but it’s the bent corner of my phone case and it messed up a lot of good photos >_<

We had two appetizers, one was a type of pickle-tasting seaweed (they gave it to us, we didn’t order it). It was pretty good. The other was a purple sweet potato pancake. I liked it a lot 🙂

November 2nd Scuba Diving

So this was the day we went scuba diving. The place was halfway between the airport we arrived at and where we stayed, so it cost a pretty penny in transportation to get there. The experience itself was once in a lifetime. Alizée is an experienced diver (usually French Polynesia) and said it was the most beautiful she’d seen. The instructor didn’t know any English but luckily Mary is very skilled in Japanese and translated all instructions as best she could. I wasn’t nervous at first, but I do have to say that it was very beautiful. I ended up being pretty scared while actually in the water though. I couldn’t deal well with the pressure in my ears and ended up getting sea water in them lol. Also, there won’t be any scuba videos for now because my phone still won’t let me download the go-pro videos. Still, I’ll upload lots of photos👍🏼.

November 3rd Parasailing -> Back to Osaka

The parasailing place was very near the Naha airport, so Tasi had a room ready to g nearby it but Mary, Alizée and I had to get up at 4:30am to make the expensive bus journey to the location on time (since it was for 9am and our flight was around 1). It was probably my favorite between that and the scuba diving, though both were great to have experienced. It went without a hitch, and was a lot of fun. According to the guides, we all went about 150meters into the air. I went up with Tasi, and as soon as I looked down there was a HAMMERHEAD SHARK right below us. Cool and freaky at the same time. I’ve never seen a shark so clearly like that in the wild. Especially from the air. Sadly I don’t have pics of that because I didn’t bring the camera up there with me, but it was beautiful. Mary and Alizée had the camera and I didn’t think to take it, but they took pics and vids of us and the ones that they have from their turn in the air are very pretty too!

After that, we headed for the airport, and headed back to Osaka. The flight was uncomfortable rt the water in my ears from scuba diving, but the trip was super fun so it was worth the pain 🙂

that’s all folks! I know it’s late, but I hope you all like it. Loves!

Hey guys, so I know this is my only post for October (and it’s actually at the start of November) but nothing much happened in October besides midterm projects which took most of my time 😛 but I’m gonna compile any interesting bits from the whole month (and the last few days of September) into one post ^_^

My Bday weekend Sep.26-29

My birthday landed on a Thursday this year, so we couldn’t do a ton, but the girls in my dorm building are super great. My friends here decorated my door for me and got me a bag and some candy and then we went out to dinner for okonomiyaki which I had been wanting ^,^ I also went out that weekend to karaoke with John and some of his home stay friends.

October 6th- Small Festival in Kyoto

Mary invited me to go with her and her speaking partner (and her speaking partner’s friend and the friend’s speaking partner who is a french international student, so she let me practice my French with her a bit) to a festival on Sunday the 6th. We ordered yukata -the summertime kimono- and then we went around to some temples and shrines and did a photo booth (purikura) before the festival started. They helped us dress up in the yukata and wanted us to spend the day out in them 🙂 Mary’s is black with red and white and mine is green with white and a red Obi (the waist wrap).

I got a small ¥100 ($1) egg Okonomiyaki

October 11th

Celine invited me to go as her plus one to her class trip to Costco. It was a 20 min bus ride from the main campus. I bought a lot of grape juice, mozzarella, and a loooot of Kraft mac&cheese

October 13th

YUI cup~ nothing big, but it’s like the school sports festival. I ran in the relay bc they needed three more people on my team :3 we won that round 👹 my team was blue and the others were red, green and yellow. My team got second place altogether and green got first. At least my team beat the ones my other friends were in 🤣

October 19th

Celine was craving McDonalds (as most international students do at some point while we’re here it seems XD) so we went and got burgers, soda and the Japanese McDonalds limited edition choco pie. It was so good but so bad 😆

October 20th

Mary, Celine and I went out to a cafe to study for the day. We spent 3 hours there and then got dinner at an Italian-themed/style restaurant attached to the main campus.

October 22nd-24th

I learned how to make some more stuff XD I may yet survive lol. I can make omelette rice now. It’s actually easy if you can get comfortable with the idea of putting ketchup in rice with mushrooms. The end result tastes good!

October 25th

I went out with Mary to Umeda, an area in Osaka city, and it was fun. It is over an hour away by train, though, so it’s only a now and then outing. We got Thai food for dinner (which I’ve been missing so much :’3) and found a really awesome international foods store called Luqua Kitchen&Market.

October 26th

I went on a trip to Arashiyama, in Kyoto, that my speaking partner Aoi invited me to. Her friend set it up, and it was meant to bring international students and local students together to practice language and cultural exchange while also touring the area and completing tasks (Such as saying something about yourself or finding someone in a kimono and stuff like that). It turned out that most international students backed out, so I was the only one in our group, but Aoi was our group leader and translated for me which was super nice of her 🙂 Aoi took most of the pictures since she was the group leader and the rest of us had to have our phones off as part of the tour requirement.

The “kimono forest” of Arashiyama, as it’s called. It was cool. It’s sort of a path surrounded by tubes with kimono cloth inside and they light up 😋

October 27th mall and Halloween party

So Sunday (the 27th) I went out with a classmate named Joelynn and her speaking partner + her speaking partner’s friend. We went to Kuzuha mall, on the border of Kyoto, which is only about a 5-10 minute train ride away. We did some shopping, got some food, and then went back. That evening we had the Halloween party in my dorm unit! I didn’t buy a costume so I used my ice cream cone blanket and was a strawberry ice cream for Halloween 😂

Wednesday

This past Wednesday is the last day on this post. Nothing big, just went out for lunch with Mary and Celine because Mary and I didn’t have any classes since they were canceled, as fall break was coming up, and Celine only had one evening class. So, we spent the day in Hirakata city (only a few minutes by bike from the dorms and the three of us all have bikes).

So the past two weeks have not been especially interesting, since school officially started up. Mostly I’ve been just going to classes, eating, and staying up late studying Japanese with my international and local friends. We do go out some Saturday’s though, for food or to explore, so I will focus on a bit of school talk and weekend stuff~

School Update

So my classes are mostly really nice. I like my literature classes, albeit one more than the other. My East Asian Literature class is fun and is run similarly to my English classes back home. My Kodai to Gendai (other Literature class) is a bit more like a history class and the professor seems to have us teach each other through power point presentations, more than teaching herself. Basically, at the end of each week she has been handing out slips to each student with a name or word on it & with no other info and our job is to do research and present at the next class. Not too hard, but also she hasn’t done that much herself 👀 still, I like the professor as a person and she gives nice recommendations on places to visit in the area. My Ceramics class is neat, though the language barrier between the professor and the class (since all but one of us is in lvl 1 Japanese) is a bit challenging at times, and so he has to try to lead by example on stuff. Anyway, I want to get better at wedging clay since I botch it lol. I feel like I am getting quite the upper body workout from that class, though. Wedging/kneading clay is harder than it looks 💪🏼. Lastly is my Japanese class and skills. The class has been pretty simple so far, since we have been focusing on the alphabets and I knew those coming in. However, the vocab is new to me, so it has been really nice that my international friends and I, as well as some of local Japanese students from our dorm units, have been studying in the dorm lounge together almost nightly after we eat dinner in big groups in one of our kitchens. I feel like I’m improving fast! I will try to write the very simplified starting self-introduction in Japanese:

はじめまして! 私はヘイリーです。アメリカ人です。だいがくせいです、よねんせいです、せんこはえいごです。どぞよろしく！In Romanji= Hajimemashite! Watashi wa Hairi desu. America-Jin desu. Daigakusee desu, yo nensee desu, senko wa eego desu. Dozo yoroshiku! In English= Nice to meet you! My name is Haillie. I am an American. I am a college student, a fourth year, and an English major. Pleasure to meet you!

September in Order

So for stuff outside of classes, since this month has been mostly filled with just taking classes and doing hw, I am going to just put up pics and videos with descriptions and dates.

September 6th

Akea’s birthday was September 2nd, but it was the first day of classes so we waited until the 6th to celebrate. We got some food at a nearby restaurant (meat kebabs, potato salad, that sort of stuff) and then went for karaoke~

September 7th

We went back to Kyoto and visited Fushimi Inari shrine. Very awesome, but it was soooo hot and humid we couldn’t get very far before having to go home. It is a shrine where you hike up to the top of a mountain I think. It was about 104 degrees with humidity. I didn’t get any pics, though one crappy video. Please look up the shrine and look at pictures!

A cute pic on a bridge in Kyoto on the way to the shrine

September 9th

I got super freaking sick on Monday. I was fine and suddenly I felt nauseous in my Kodai to Gendai class and I ended up with my face over a toilet in the school building on the further campus from home. My friend Mary rode her bike over with an RA on the back and got me, after alerting the caretakers that I was sick. They wheeled me (just bc I was feeling kinda weak) to one of the school board members’ cars and he very kindly drove me to the dorm where one of the caretakers brought me to my room. My RA made me dinner but I couldn’t eat it. Food was not an option for over 24 hours 😭. It was a tough two days but by Wednesday I was all better. I really appreciate Mary, I think after that I’ve felt like I’m closest with her, though everyone is great and I don’t have real favorites. We figured out that it must have been food poisoning, since I was buying discount food, since nobody i was near caught it from me. Phew

September 10th

This was a class day so not much to say , though I stayed in as I was still not able to operate at full capacity. We had a snack party in my dorm unit (actually, in unit 54, my unit is 55, but a lot of us eat together in the 54 kitchen). I didn’t eat snacks, but I was there for the fun :3 ps I had to make up the 3 hour block of Ceramics I missed the 10th, on Friday. Friday was a packed mess.

September 11th

Not much happened besides classes, but Celine and I studied in a cafe that we discovered on the campus next to the dorms. I got a hotdog bread roll~

September 12th

After classes about 12 of us (I think 13 is about all of the main crew) went for yakiniku, or grilled meat, for dinner. It was good, I hadn’t had meat much since I got here & still only really have it maybe once or twice a week. I got Calbi beef.

September 13th

This was John’s birthday (the kid I flew out with from my school). He invited me to go with some of his friends to karaoke. He is now legal to drink alchohol in Japan but got melon soda and sang Hakuna Matata. I appreciate that 🤣 I like when ppl around me choose not to drink, so I don’t have to be the sober friend all the time 💪🏼. I sang Supercalifragilistic (from Mary poppins)

September 15th

The Nara trip~ so about 7-9 of us decided to make a trip to Nara Park to feed the deer. It was like catskill gamefarm, but the deer are wild and are protected creatures/animals of the shrines and temples nearby. They are a bit aggressive tho, one of my friends, Maxine, got bitten on the butt when she didn’t relinquish a cracker 👀 they are so used to the area that they know how to cross the street at crosswalks! Every store in the area sells deer souvenirs. Deer are so loved in Nara that they sell popular little chocolates that look like well…. 😂.

This past Sunday

I got into the Open Campus event as a staff member. 15 international students were hired (I didn’t know that we would be paid, but I got ¥5,170 (about $51). It was an event to show high schoolers and families interested in the university around the campus. We were the only 15 international students to be on campus for the event, and gave tours to those who wanted them. The りゆうがくせい tour!~ (international student tour). We were kind of a show-off tactic, but it was fun. The tours were in English, and we all had Japanese students giving translations too. They sent us pictures after the event, which they said they’ll use for PR which we were fine with 👍🏼 I look strange bc I’m wearing a skirt I bought here, but I didn’t do laundry so there we go lol

Tuesday

I had McDonalds for dinner After classes ended. I felt like I needed it. Like 6 of us did. Also, Celine and Maxine got their hair dyed (Shelby, Raven, and Akea did it for them).

Thursday

A few classmates invited me to go for some pizza near the college, so I got that for dinner after classes. I got finished early since I had a paper to work on, but it was tasty.

Friday

13 of us went into Korea Town in Osaka to get Korean food for dinner. It was super good and Mary translated the Korean for us and gave recommendations. I got sweet chili fried chicken with a veggie appetizer and rice. We also were given free Kimchi.

I am sorry that I haven’t posted much in the last few days. My school started Monday and everything has been very busy both before and after that. I at least want to give pictures and captions for now though ^_^ so here we go!

Osaka City (Dotonbori)

In the first few days some friends and I went into Osaka city a couple times, which was fun. It ended up draining both wallets and energy pretty fast, though, since, while it is pretty, it is also very busy. Dotonbori is the shopping and food hub of the city. I have to say I enjoyed the city, but I don’t really feel like I would like to go back to that one much 😅 we were all too exhausted after the last time, since we were trying to enjoy some days out shopping before having classes.

Kyoto trip 8/29

The Kyoto “trip” was organized by some of the local students, mostly the resident assistants of the dorms. I put quotes because it wasn’t really guided much, we were given freedom and mostly had to get there on our own. However, we did have groups, but mine got split up halfway through so myself, Shelby, and Celine (two of the friends I see most) were left to explore on our own as we have been the entire time anyway, which was fine. The rest of our group felt so sorry later, but we had a good time and explained that it was fine. I think the general consensus of my friends and I is that Kyoto is our favorite place that we’ve visited so far. It is less busy, and has more visible history (shrines, temples etc). It is also a bit more artsy than the gambling and shopping scene at Osaka city. Kyoto is also about 39 mins from the school, versus the hour it takes to get to dotonbori.

You’re not supposed to drink the water, just touch it to your mouth. I messed it up, but it was my first try so I’ll know never to do that again >_>’

Opening ceremony

The opening ceremony was held on Friday 8/30, and was not super long winded like a lot of the meetings before it were, but it was interesting. There was the formal stuff of speeches from board members and consulates, but there was also an interesting finale. First a choir from the school sang the school’s song to all of us incoming foreign students and then there was a surprise martial arts performance from the martial arts club. Myself and some of the others were cringing every time a student was tossed 😶 they all laughed at the end though, so it was fun for them but a bit scary for those of us who aren’t used to seeing people being rag dolled regularly 🤣

The matches/fights were cool. At first I thought they were staged, but then I was hearing the thuds when they hit the ground sometimes, and I realized I was wrong 😗 super cool, I haven’t seen that up close. All of the opening ceremony videos were from Armando, as he takes better quality videos and pictures 😂 I’ve only seen him a couple times but he became the group documenter when he’s around.

School/ Start of classes

So I don’t have pictures for this, except for my meals before and after classes that I’ve had to start making for myself :] but it’s been nice. Busy, but nice. The ceramics class is intense. It is a 3 hour block class on Tuesdays, and the professor had us learning to wedge (kind of like kneading) clay the whole time. My upper body strength should be crazy when I get back 😅😭 there’s also a requirement to spend another 3 hour block of self-practice on Thursdays (starting next week) in the ceramics room. I like all of my classes, though. The others are my japaneee language class- the professor is super sweet- and two literature classes called “East Asian Literature and Culture in Translation” and “Kodai to Gendai”. The literature and ceramics are the ones that are gonna be the most time consuming and take most time from my free time, but I can handle it 💪🏼

That’s all for now folks!~ but I hope this was enough of an update for now and that everyone can see it. Love you all ^,^

So the first two days have been a little confusing, maybe a little bit lonely (on the first day), but overall nice. Everyone is so eager to talk or hang out, whether because they are feeling the same being away from home or because they are locals wanting to know more about you. Without further ado, pics and summaries!

Arrival Day

On the day we- John(Siena peer) and I- took the flight out of JFK was actually pretty nice. The flight food wasn’t bad, I got meatballs and tater tots (the “western style meal”) and it was pretty good. Except I realized it was pork and gave the meatballs to him while I ate the tots and the cold soba noodle side dish. Also the later meal (since the first flight was 13 hours, which is still shorter than anticipated) was Chinese style beef with rice. The second flight out of Narita airport in Tokyo, headed for Osaka, was only an hour but I have discovered that I do not like airports in Tokyo. Unpleasant, hot, packed, and stinky. It might be due to us being in the domestic flights part of the airport, though, as I never saw the international area. The one in Osaka was nice tho. Once in the Osaka airport, we had to wait later than expected to leave. One person’s flight was delayed so we had to wait two hours past when we were supposed to leave (8pm, so we left about 10). We got to the school at 11 and the Resident Assistants (all local Japanese students) had stayed up waiting for us so that they could greet us! They are all so nice. My RA’s name is Nao, but I also talk to Mari and Moeko sometimes too. I went to bed soon after arriving.

Yesterday

Yesterday I woke up at 7, unpacked, took a shower, and got ready. I went to the small downtown area of Hirakata with a junior year student from Sweden, Jacob(Yakob), who I happened to run into and I didn’t have anyone to hang out with for the day before meeting with my speaking partner (at 4:30). We walked to the downtown hirakata area and got ramen. I haven’t talked with him since, but he was a nice kid. I’ve met a lot of people from the other dorms so far. My speaking partner is really nice and we are supposed to meet up tomorrow to study together. She liked the NYC hat I gave her as a meeting gift. She likes star wars too, so that’s cool. Her English is better than intermediate, a small leap better than my French, and my Japanese is still very little (I know the alphabets and Katakana words but getting by in daily life outside campus requires more).

Today

Today I went to the downtown Hirakata city again, but with two girls from my dorm area and there was a small local festival going on so I got some 300 yen (approx $3) fried chicken chunks (karage) with curry and it was really good. We went out again at 3:30 for stationary and supplies 🙂 I only bought two pens bc I have most things, but the store is like a small mall and they have an awesome food area downstairs with bakeries and everything. I didnt get anything there, but I got dinner at the festival with the girls. Shelby and I got Yakisoba (popular noodle dish for summer fests) for 300 yen and Akea and Celine got takoyaki (the octopus balls). Now I’m tired but Celine and I went to the drug store and I got some basic supplies for when classes start (some stuff to make eggs and rice on some days to avoid eating at the cafeteria all the time). So yeah, that was today. Tomorrow is a campus tour and I’m gonna go to it. I will need to know where my classes are. These first two days have been fun, but there’s also been a lot of class prep and registration stuff. Hopefully it all goes smoothly! Love you guys!

Bad pic of the campus next to my dorm at night.