We looked around for a place to eat, so we all headed to the Yodobashi-Umeda building . To think about it this is my first time in a Japanese mall/department store. We passed through Yodobashi Camera, a major electronic’s store, which was super busy and super noisy. There was a lady in one area of the store with a microphone promoting cameras. The place we ate at was an okonomiyaki franchise restaurant called Fugetsu. Okonomiyaki is sometimes called “Japanese pizza”, but I consider it more of a cabbage pancake, and you can add whatever you like (hence the 「好み」”konomi” in the name) I actually tried okonomiyaki once before at Mitsuwa, but I was so excited cause it’d be my first time trying okonomiyaki in Japan ^_^ A waitress turns on the grill to let it warm up, and brings over the ingredients in a bowl. She combines the cabbage, egg, mix in the bowl and pours over the grill and bunches it together. After letting it grill for a while, you flip it again and wait, then after the sides are pretty much browned, it’s ready to eat, by adding the okonomiyaki sauce, bonito fish flakes, aonori, and mayonnaise. It was really good ^^ good comfort food I think. After we hung out a while played Tetris DS, we had to go to the register to pay (most sit-down restaurants in Japan seem to be like this). Also, they don’t tip in Japan. We wanted to look around some more and Risa suggested we check out the Jump Shop, a store dedicated Shounen Jump merchandise. This is a very dangerous place for me to be in I thought ^^;;

We were gonna do karaoke, but we had to stop by the train station so that Fernando could buy his bus ticket. That was my first time being at a JR station. I took a pic of the “Mountainous Folklore” clothing shop name in hopes of starting my Engrish collection (Japan-ified strange English), when Fernando mentioned “the Engrish to end all Engrish”.

We all follow Risa to another building called “DD House” which had a lot of restaurants and entertainment. The karaoke place, called Karaoke Zacc had a bar/lounge near the entrance, and as I suspect the private rooms along the hallway. When you walk through the hallway, you can hear the loud midi accompaniment coming from the rooms. The room was pretty big. There were oshibori towels on the table with the microphones, tambourines, and a drink menu. You can choose a drink, with a lot of drinks to choose from. I expected to find a couple big binder song lists there, but they used a touch screen electronic search system! Yay for technology advanced Japan @_@ Just type in the artist, name, etc. I searched Utada Hikaru, and ended up with 13 pages worth (probably every song) which made me cry happy tears T__T Out of curiosity, I searched Caramell Dansen, and IT WAS THERE! (Caramell Dansen is a Swedish dance song used in a popular Japanese meme of two ero-game chibi characters doing a simple dance) It was the biggest WTF moment of the day for me.

Fernando and Ryan sang Green Day’s “American Idiot”,…I guess that would be the song to sing in Japan =X Risa sang the “Hare Hare Yukai” and “Motteke Sailor Fuku” theme songs and performed the dances for them, she got awesome skills =) I sang Gackt’s “Returner Yami no Shuuen”, and whatever other J-pop song not available at the Korean karaoke places in Convoy San Diego. It was kind of amusing when a waiter came in to refill drinks while Fernando and Ryan were rocking out to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Of course we recorded our performances but of course it’s not all for public viewing =P

It was already time to take off, and one thing to keep in mind in Japan is that the trains shutdown at night (usually around midnight on weekdays), so if you were to go out to a club or something you’d have to stay out all night. So the challenge is, can Ryan and I find our way back? We took the train back to Tennouji station and had to figure out which train. According to Christina, I had to make sure to take the train heading toward Kawachi-Nagano (since the line Y splits at one of the stations). Ryan and I tried to figure out how much to pay for the ticket and where to go, a girl passed by and tried to help us out in English. She was trying to hurry us through the ticket gates though, and found out later that it was because we were about to miss our train. We didn’t make that train on time though. And among the 5 or so platforms, one of the signs said Kawachi-Nagano, but changed into something else. That was probably the train that just took off =( I was hoping that was not the last train, and possibly we could take a different train? So we ask around and asked 2 young guys we were trying to get to Kishi station. Turned out they were heading to Tondabayashi station, the station just past Kishi (God is awesome!). We just had to wait another 15 minutes for that train. We had a small chat with them, and they were a couple international business students from another university in the area. Ryan and I got off Kishi station and walked back home. What an experience! which Ryan and I high five’d, excited to share the story with Hisano-san later.

We had a lot of first experiences that day. We were able to go and come back through working together and through the kindness of the people there.

Flickr Set - Umeda - Mexican Embassy Fiesta

So on Sunday, my friend Fernando, an SDSU grad and classmate from the film department, invited me out to Umeda since he was currently in Osaka (he lives in Kanto area). He’s already been in Japan for a couple months earlier than me since he’s part of JET, the famous English assistant teaching program. My only worry was how to get to Umeda T__T He sent me a site called Jorudan which gives directions by public transportation. So I copied the directions in kanji, hiragana, and romanji of all the train lines, stops, etc. Since this is Japan we could take the train there. But this would be the first time using the trains and venturing outside of the Kanan/Tondabayashi

I invited Ryan to come too and we met up and walked to the station. I have a paranoia for getting lost since I tend to even get lost in video games (even if I’m given a map), so Ryan can help me out and I also brought the useful map of Kanan/Tondabayashi that we received from the student office couple days ago. As expected, the air was warm and humid. –; Although, this time we got to slowly enjoy the scenery. Ryan was taking pictures of all the graffiti, saying his friend didn’t believe that there was graffiti in this area. There’s graffiti scattered across here, Japan’s no different, although I wondered why there was graffiti here possibly the reason may be different? I am so not used to walking down a narrow street with no sidewalks, my “OMG A CAR IS GONNA HIT ME” alarm is always going off, since I’m used to having more space around me walking down the street. Not all streets are like that though, thankfully some actually do have a sidewalk. We passed by a youth baseball game going on near the park, it was a large park that ran along the river that divides Kanan and Tondabayashi. But there were two games going on, not too far from each other, Ryan commented why they would have both games going on at once? After walking quite a bit, we finally reached the Kishi train station area (which nearby was the OUA bus stop) OUA school buses were passing by us quite a few times, we kept wondering how we’d be able to board the bus –; Maybe that would save us some trouble haha. Near the train station was a bus stop turnaround loop, I wonder where the buses go? There was a huge bike parking behind a fence and along the fence were maybe 8+ vending machines. Across from the station was a Mcdonalds and a crepe shop. Anyway I waited for Ryan to use the restroom at the Mcdonalds and then we headed to the train station entrance, which was a set of stairs going underground. There were gates that looked like the ones from the BART system and along the wall were the ticket machines. We asked a service man saying we wanted to go to Umeda if they could tell us how to get there, just to make sure we’re headed the right direction. According to directions we needed to buy a ticket for Abenobashi station. We had to look up at the route map above and find Abenobashi (often this would be in Kanji) and read the big number, which was the price of the fare. It was 390 yen, so we had to put money in the machine and press the number 390 that shows up and it prints the ticket. Then we insert the ticket into a slit into one of the gates with the LED green circle (means you can go from that side). The ticket machine will collect it and put it on the other side of the gate, while the flipper doors open allowing you to go through. Then we had to pick up our ticket at the other end, this time it had a hole in it as a marker that it was used at the departing location. Then there were two ways to go one that said towards Kawachi-Nagano, and the other to Abenobashi, which is where we needed to go. And to get back to the train platform level we had to go up a set of stairs.

I was kinda excited to board a Japan train for the first time. Ryan and I headed inside the waiting room to ease us from the heat. Other people who were waiting were hanging out there. There was a familiar sound in the distance (the same train alarm noise that I hear from dramas), and on the intercom was a voice saying that a train was arriving. Assumed it’s the right train (I questioned if semi-express will still get us there), but according to Ryan our stop should be at the very end. So we hopped on. It would take us about half an hour or so to reach our stop. The train station was just how I see it from the media. Seats arranged along the walls, with handles and advertisements hanging on the ceiling. There was a small amount of space where the car could seat a driver if it were in the front, but people were using that space’s counter to sit on. Sometimes a train going the opposite direction would suddenly zoom right by our train, and make this loud WOOOOOMPH noise. Freaks me out every time. It seems the natives are used to it =P We finally arrived at Abenobashi, also knowing that everyone left on the train was getting off at the same time, we got off followed the crowd. We walked along with the mass crowds going toward the gate to Abenobashi.

Wow it was really lively here in the city. A lot of people were coming from all sorts of directions walking in every direction, a drastic change from the quiet humble Kishi station we just came from. There were a few shops scattered around too, plus a shopping mall, makes sense that the widely used train stations would be the best place for stores and restaurants. That’s kinda like how the best location for a store/restaurant would be near the freeway exits in Cali. Anyway we had to take Kintetsu’s Midosuji line (which is a subway system) looked for the signs, which had red color code. So we had to buy another ticket, took a while for my noob self to understand that the subway and the train systems tickets had to be purchased separately. (instead of Kishi straight to Umeda combined in one ticket). The ticket was around 200-300 yen, and we headed through the gate, with another set of stairs going down. According to the train service man and the directions we should take Midousuji but which way? There were two options, one heading towards Senri-cho and another to Shin-Osaka. Assuming that they didn’t have express or anything like that so they would need to stop at every stop. We got on one of them and I asked a lady next to use to make sure that we were going to Umeda and if we could go by this train, and they said we could. She also said that it was their stop too. So all we had to do was get off when she and her friend did. We’re really relieved we were going the right way. The subway was way more busy and slightly more crowded than the regular train, this was definitely not our humble countryside. The lady told me we were here and we got up. Thanked them a lot again, and from there we had to meet with my friend. The problem was, as I suspected in the back of my mind was that I forgot his number. I really thought I wrote it down –; The bright side is we just need to find out where the Umeda Sky Buildling was since he and his friend should be there. So I asked a guy how to get there, and he pointed us in a direction out to an open area near construction. Ryan and I walked that way and in front of us in the distance was the building. I couldn’t really tell since we were looking at it from the side, but I think it had to be the building

When we arrived there, we were definitely in the right place. Because Fernando invited me out to the Mexican Embassy’s Fiesta in Osaka!

There was a pretty good turn out, plenty of people, but I couldn’t find my friend. I betted on the idea that since this is the city, and a major landmark, there should be an internet cafe somewhere nearby. At first, I tried to use the mac computers from the big Apple product promoters near the train station (they were promoting the new ipod nano models), but no connection and the lady politely told me it didn’t connect to the internet =X So Ryan and I walked around the area, we passed by several stores, a convenience store, and what looks like another event going on nearby. There was a long line of people waiting in front of a few tents and they had an outdoor grill, grilling some fish and a sign that said ” sanma” and some kanji I can’t read. I was guessing Sanma is a kind of fish? Well whatever it was it looked good enough that a lot of people were queuing up for it. Just around the back of the building a spotted a building that had a comic and internet cafe sign, so we walked up a narrow set of stairs and headed inside. Well it was my first time there so I had no idea what to do, and asked the people at the counter. We had to pay for ourselves by different rates by hour or whatnot. We took the cheapest one they had, they only had an hour rate, at least they say, and the guy escorted us to a little cubicle which had a computer and a tv. It was extremely quiet in there. I glanced over and there was a couple relaxing on a little couch in their cubicle silently reading manga. Anyway I hopped onto the computer and sent out a cellphone e-mail to Fernando (Japanese cellphones use e-mail rather than SMS in America). I had no idea how to change the keyboard to romanji or the english alphabet only (I saw a kana/romanji button on the bottom but it wasn’t doing anything for me) so I just had to type out the message in Japanese –;

Shortly I got reply back, but he mailed me back in Japanese this time hahah. He and his friend are sitting in the audience somewhere near the front of the stage either on a tall chair was what I got. Or he meant that he was tall. Ehh anyway, at least we let them know were here and an idea of where to find them. The internet cafe was pretty nice, it had a large library of manga you could read, plus free unlimited fountain drinks. Ryan picked out a drink that was green, I tried it and thought it was a pretty sweet soda. Passed by the fountain machine and found out it was melon soda… looks like I found a new favorite drink ^_^

So we left the silent comic/internet cafe and headed back to the lively Mexican atmosphere to look for my friend, supposedly on a tall chair. Ryan suggested we walk behind the stage and see if they’d either notice us or if we could find them better. There’s no tall chair! Then I guess he meant himself as tall. And then I spotted him about 4 rows from the front, looked like he was really enjoying the fiesta ^_^ Fernando introduced me to his friend Risa, whom he met through skype and lives in Osaka. Ryan and I were pretty hungry so we looked around the food booths, It was pretty amusing seeing the booths, like one booth had a couple of Mexican guys cooking while hospitality and customer service was left to a cute japanese lady in traditional Mexican clothing. Even though I just came from San Diego, where taco shops are as frequent as konbinis are in Japan, I decided to try the 400 yen chicken taco. I thought it was good, but Ryan asks “was it 400 yen good?” well…

Everyone was watching the traditional cultural dance and musical performances on stage. a group performed on a xylophone instrument, and people were encouraged to dance too and Fernando and his friend danced with the small group of people in front of the stage. Hey even a couple of obaachans took the spotlight, just took some encouragement from a gregarious fishnet-clad dude. They even had a traditional folklorico performance. Ryan and I still wanted to check out the Umeda building if we could get to the top, so we left the fiesta for a while.

According to Fernando, we’d have to pay to get to the top. I asked a receptionist where we should go to go to the top of the building and she sent us in direction of some elevators. There’s a different elevator set for those who would like to go to the observatory, no idea where to go T_T so we crossed the bridge to go to the other building (Umeda Sky Building is split into two buildings). There was a sign there at the end, but I couldn’t read the kanji so we kept going, hoping that I could find someone or some other direction as to where to go. I was expecting if we’re in the wrong place they’d tell us where to go, but a couple people passed by without saying anything O_o Ryan and I find another elevator at the end and we take it up to a place that had a lounge and a wedding reception. We could already see the a great view of Osaka city from there. Dang, this city is pretty big with so many skyscrapers huddled together. we kept going and stumbled upon the indoor lounge area that’s pretty close to the Sky Observatory on the top. Apparently, the place is pretty good for not only tourism but for lovers; you can have a wedding there and leave a mark with a “heart lock”. Kind of like how couples leave their names along La Jolla cove, except this one costs money. We head up a short set of stairs and reach the entrance to the Sky Observatory where a lady bowed to us. To my surprise, no ticket or method of payment? (Unless that was supposed to be done how many floors below us =X ). Back inside, we saw a little shrine that looked pretty touristy modernized. A lot of people were sitting around the windows watching the view. Around the floor we run into the obligatory souvenir shop. There was a a lot of Osaka merchandise with Osakan comedians (many comedians come from Osaka), “harisen” (paper fan used in comedy to hit with) with Osaka dialect phrases like “nande ya nen” (”you gotta be kidding”) , “aho kai na?” (same thing, lit. “are you stupid?”), “honma kai na?” (”really?”). It’s amazing to see a huge selection of 「お土産」”omiyage” the kind of edible souvenirs you’re expected to get for friends, family, and co-workers when you travel.

Ryan and I head back to the festival and find a bunch of kids crowded around the stage. Turned out they were playing piñata =) they werent blindfolded, but most of them were little kids anyway. We all head out after that and Fernando and I were amused to run into a Japanese couple in “San Diego” cholo/chola clothes.

to be continued…

Flickr Set - Umeda - Mexican Embassy Fiesta

So Nakamura-san picks me up from my apartment in the morning, and while we head over to Osaka Geidai, we chat for a bit in Japanese; basic things like where I’m from. Turns out he’s been studying english for 6 years! but he thinks he can’t speak it well. =( So we arrive at studio 3-F, and I was surprised that sensei wasn’t there yet. But I thought Japanese don’t arrive on “Filipino time?” I thought. Nakamura-san showed me a bit of the story board and screenplay (which they call “scenario” in japan) of what we were shooting today. Of course it was in Japanese, tho I was able to read most of the kanjis. Then George-sensei shows up 5-10 minutes later. It seems there was gonna be a problem with not having enough people for a crew, so they debated to either delay filming or try to work with the people we have. (typically it’s good to have a good amount of people so that things move along smoothly). We had about 7 people total, so they decided to work with that. George-sensei has me sit on a chair, “So ready be an alien? ahaha” well technically I am one, the foreigner kind –;

George-sensei had to run off to the studio to help with shooting there while two girl classmates who were gonna put make-up on me, first they wiped my face clean and put a net over my hair to place the prosthetic piece over my hair. One of the girls ran off to get a kind of glue. I talked with the girl there for a bit ( I should really write everybody’s names down –; ) about where i’m from, school, majors and stuff. There was a microwave on the ground that had preset buttons to certain japanese foods, but they use it for heating mixtures. We also talked about all the weird random stuff in the room, like the alien heads, body parts, ufo model, whatnot… It’s a pretty interesting mysterious room after all. when the other girl returned they started to apply the prosthetic glue bit by bit, and. The girls would be asking each other about the order of steps and where they should be gluing…judging from that, I wondered if I was their subject of learning by trial and error, well since they were students after all….ohh wells I thought. 「やばい」”yabai” okay…that’s not what i wanted to hear T___T Anyway they managed to get the whole mask on me…when George-sensei got back, it turns out the girls messed up and he had to redo parts of the mask T___T The prosthetics were finally glued properly and George-sensei spent a lot of time doing make up over the prosthetics. Another girl dressed in goth style clothing helped out and they painted black and green spots on my arms to match the prosthetics. Then I had to put on the dress, which is just as embarrassing… first i put on a foam frame which is a gives the appearance of a heavier looking body with big boobs, baahan styled i guess. and then i put on the black dress that drapes all the way to my feet. Anyway after 2-3 hours (I was falling asleep near the end!), I was ready to head to the studio.

Well I had to walk to the studio across campus, which means I had to walk out in public as obaahan So I tailed behind my classmate to minimize visibility. T__T As soon as I walk into the studio, everyone stares at me amazed saying 「すごい／すげー」”sugoi/sugee”. Yea I felt really embarrassed, I usually don’t like to be the center of attention especially in not in a way I would be made fun of (I know my friends back home are gonna poke fun of me for this and wont let it lay to rest)  … I now know what Cloud felt like when he was forced to cross dress to save his friend, cept I’m doing this for the sake of learning experience @_@ okay maybe the cross-dressing thing is a more extreme…

A girl with long curly hair was the main actress for the short video and acting solo scenes in front of the blue screen. I was introduced to her and she asked if I liked Sex and the City, i couldnt tell what she said at first since she said like a katakana abbreviated version. Told her I used to watch it with a Korean roommate back in America, since she bought the entire series boxset and we would watch mass episodes each day.

So George-sensei was directing the filming, so when it was time to do my scenes, he would guide me in English, while my classmate DP (Director of Photography, also operating the camera) would guide me in Japanese. They had me say my lines in English, since they were going to dub in sound effects in editing anyway and it would also help with the main actress since she doesn’t understand English. The scene required I step in and tell her “don’t worry I’m here to help you” or something to that effect. And I tell her to take a little pouch (which is actually a bento drink pouch) then tell her to look at the face mirror that I was also holding (apparently their props come from the 100 yen store). Then she would scream her friend’s name “SATOSHI!” and pretend to jump into the mirror. Yup into the mirror. We did a few takes of that, and at different camera angles. I had to adjust my timing and pacing with each thing that I needed to do to suit the video. It also took a quite a few for the scenes that involve her pretending to jump into the mirror, since she was laughing each time. Heh it is an awkward thing to do, since the mirror is also so tiny. We also did a few full frontal angle scenes, where I would be looking almost directly at the camera in the style of many Japanese film and television (particularly Yasujiro Ozu influence). George-sensei explained the story to me, something like the Uchuujin (alien) Obaahan’s (Osakan grandmother) son had gone to Earth and let loose zombies. The main female character is supposed to see zombies in the mirror along with her friend being attacked by them. Yup, but it does  sound fun to shoot and give alot of practice for special effects.

After filming George-sensei helped take off my make-up. They had to carefully remove everything with a prosthetic aid solution, and remove the glue and peel from each end little by little. Sensei told me about how the actors he’s worked with would be really excited to put on make-up “yay I get to be a monster!” but after many hours of filming they would be sick of it “ugh get this off of me already”. I’ll have to agree with them that having foam smelling material glued over your face is suffering you just have to endure for a day’s shoot. It’s not so bad once you have the stuff already on, but it was really uncomfortable having to breathe through my mouth, even though the girls poked a couple of holes through the nose area, it was still hard to breathe through there. Once the portion over my nose was lifted I screamed FREEDOM!~ It felt so good for my skin to feel the air. It’s something that you normally take for granted but really notice and appreciate the fact that your face is unconstrained =)  I had to keep my eyes closed shut the entire time when Sensei applied prosthetic aid around that area. He had to keep brushing on plenty of prosthetic aide since there was plenty of glue still on my face. Then after one of the girls let me use a bit of face wash, so I can wash my face at the sink. Looks like I still had to wash again at home to really get this stuff off. =X I had to say 「おつかれさまです！」”otsukaresama-desu!” (like “good work today”) which is what I’ll be saying everyday at school from now on. After a day’s filming, I got home around 7-8pm. Washed face again, and knocked out.

I woke up super early, 6am *shakes fist at jet lag* Since I was up this early, I decided to see who was online and talked with a few friends for a bit, Nate, my friend studying abroad in Singapore (1 hour time difference!) and I were showing off random things like his cell phone w/ a conversion calculator and my pokemon sausage.

Garbage was piling up and I decided to make an interpretation of the garbage throwing instructions according to the poster plastered on the door. Seems the Kanan town garbage throwing isn’t as elaborate as Tondabayashi’s; garbage rules vary from city to city.

Anyway, I needed to head to campus to figure out my class schedule with Hisano-san and my department counselor. Once I step out of my apartment, it hit me that I forgot I was not in America –; The streets, signs, buildings were all different and I definitely felt like I was walking through a different world. Storm drains were easily visible along sides of the narrow road near my place. Traffic lights are all horizontal instead of vertically arranged. Every other block there was a drink vending machine. I headed the path toward my school hoping I don’t get lost –; I had to pass through a temporary foot bridge near some construction and pass by a water quarry where cement trucks wait to pick up their water.

At the mouth of the hill I had to climb (ugh the hill), there was a mini office and a couple of traffic manager guards. I dread I will need to endure the hill everyday ; ; I really enjoy the harmonious scenery of concrete, trees and buildings. San Diego State has wide open spaces and palm trees, but Osaka Arts has buildings closer together and a mini bamboo forest =P The OUA buildings are close enough to have bridges between each other on certain floors, that’s something uncommon in America, well especially since buildings are more spread out. The campus was booming. I think I was walking around during lunchtime so everyone was out having lunch at once it seems “All 9,001 of them…” I thought, hanging out on the grass, sitting at the steps, practically everywhere on campus. everyone was in their groups, couples, or some people having a quiet lunch to themselves. I guess I’m used to seeing somewhat a variety of people back home though most of SDSU students are caucasian. Maybe just a bit intimidating since I was 1 of 2 American study abroad students in the school.
Ordered some food, a small melon bread and curry bread! The bread’s actually got curry inside! Japan’s got some awesome breads for a rice staple based country (they even have a whole anime dedicated to bread) which gets me excited to try them all out ^^ Met with Hisano-san at his office and he introduced me to Mamiya-san, the counselor for my film department. Figuring out what classes I could take was…a struggle. The typical Japan academic year starts in the spring (around March) and ends in January, whereas the American acadmic year begins in the fall from September and ends around June in the summer. To accommodate my academic schedule, my study abroad program lets me enter OUA in the fall, but I am basically entering half way through their year. Most of OUA’s classes are a year long (rather than just for one semester in the case of a semester system). And film classes are no exception =X Ryan was also there to figure out his classes with his counselor, although he had much better luck than I did. I felt bad watching Mamiya-san struggle to figure out what she could do for me, with all conditions considered, including my still weak Japanese and me barely entering into the film major. So we went around campus somewhat on a “class-hunt” to ask permission from teachers if I can enter their class halfway and if they’d be able to accommodate for me. First, we watched the grad students shoot on location for the campus’s own television drama. (It turned out to be the same group that was near the “Junk & Antiques Shop” in front of campus.) Lots of young students were there maybe a crew of 25 or more? Some of them with gaffer and grip equipment, rolls of tapes on their belt, clothespins, gloves…a couple of guys were setting up the camera on a different tripod, another girl was sound monitoring outside the antique shop since there wasn’t a lot of room inside.

Next Mamiya-san took me to the Film Department Office where she introduced me to some of the teachers and staff there. One of their rooms was a set smoking location with ash tray, but the air filter in there was not strong enough to offset the smell in there ahah… Next they took me to see the special effects teacher named Screaming Mad George (I saw his name prior and it seems he’s done quite a few make up and prosthetic work in hollywood productions). Studio 3-F, their special effects studio, is THE messiest yet intriguing room ever. The ground and tables were covered with cracked plaster, trash, shelves of plaster molds, prosthetic masks/body parts, and random materials lined the walls. George-sensei and two other young guys were working on their sculptures, one was making marks around a sculptured lizard looking neck, while sensei was making a mold for a dragon’s head sculpture. First Mamiya-san and George-sensei were talking in Japanese to introduce me, and then he said “Hi!” to begin speaking English, which he was fluent with an American accent. He told me about the class, which is actually split into two seminars, one in the first semester and one you take the second semester, you would take the first one which involves learning to make the make up prosthetic or animatronic/puppet works through each step, and then the second one where the class takes the things they made and use it for a short film. It’s a little bit difficult in my situation, since I came halfway through the year, but he offered I take both classes so I can learn a little. Also I don’t have any experience in sculpture, but I hoped I could at least learn the basics of the class. I asked if there’s anything I could help with, and one of the students wearing glasses mentioned something about “Obaahan” and George-sensei asks him to bring over something…everyone laughs to see him bring out a prosthetic mask for an alien’s face. He places it over my face and they’re impressed with how it fits. Next they bring out the “Obaahan’s” head, green with spotted black dots, and they place it over my head…”PI-TA-RI!” Oh god it was so embarrassing –; well least everyone’s getting a kick out of it I guess. I overheard Hisano-san mentioning in Japanese that it’s as if they were made to fit me. Sensei and the students nod in agreement and they ask my confirmation if I’d like to help play as an alien in the second seminar’s short film. Somehow this is amusing considering I’m the token foreigner/alien to be playing an alien, but I decided to do it, perhaps I could learn a lot from being part of the production and what wearing prosthetics would be like. Sensei introduces me to the two other students that were there, and that they are also taking English class so I could probably help them. Shooting for obaahan began the next day Saturday, and one of the students was gonna pick me up from my apartment to go to campus. I’m sure it would be interesting and worth it in the end, I’ll have to put up embarrassment dressed up as an alien Osaka style obaa-chan on camera. –;;;;;

Flickr Set - Osaka University of Arts

So my first morning in japan, is a very early morning ; ;

Woke up at around 6am which isn’t the usual for me in america, since i’m usually like a zombie in the mornings. Well it was early enough to watch “Mezamashi TV”, which is like Japan’s equivalent to “Good Morning America” in the US. On the show, I saw Kwon BoA promoting herself for an American debut CD @_@ In the commercials, I recognized some of the actors such as the main actor from the “Bara no Nai Hanaya” drama and the girl form the “Honey & Clover” live action. Commercials are definitely more sillier, random, or cute, atleast to my Western eyes. Or they involve some good close-ups of a celebrity enjoying a product rather than the actual product =P

Using the toilet and shower (well I used it as a shower) for the first time in this apartment made me realize that I need to create a new “workflow” in this new set up. There’s an unconscious routine that you go through when you live in a place for a while; its done so many times without thinking about it. I did know prior about the Leo Palace’s setup, but I felt weird actually thinking and being conscious on simple actions like washing my hands and drying them. The toilet has a mini faucet attached above it, and whenever you flush the water goes through the faucet first and then the toilet bowl. Seems I need to put hand soap here and a towel, but you can basically wash your hands right when you flush. First the toilet is in its in own separate room (since it’s a dirty entity to be separate from the home) and the “shower” (a holdable shower head), bath, and sink are in one mini room to accommodate the traditional Japanese bath routine of scrubbing outside the bath, rinsing, soaking in the bath, and scrubbing outside, rinse repeat. Since there was no countertop for the sink (it’s just a bowl by itself), I have to think of a place to put my toiletries (where in America, I normally leave the toiletries on the sink countertop). Opening the windows for the first time, I mainly saw the windows of the neighboring apartment building, some of them having hanging laundry. But gahh it was super humid outside so i closed the windows. by the way it took me a while to figure out how to open the window for a while –;

Hisano-san comes by to pick me up in order to apply for my foreigner’s registration card (gaijin card) and to do some grocery shopping. We talk for a little bit in Japanese, telling how I got a lack of sleep due to the mattress being too stiff and that I woke up early enough to watch Mezamashi TV. I definitely need to review my Japanese again since I’m ever so slowly coming up with the sentences. We also stop by another apartment to pick up Ryan, who is another exchange student from Los Angeles and goes to an art university in Oakland. He came to study glass art at OUA. When we parked near the city hall, periodic shouting and screaming came from a large building within the area. I joked it was some correctional facility for torture, while Hisano-san mentions that they’re having judo practice =P Hisano-san takes us to a picture booth, when i expected we’d take the picture at the hall. The booth was pretty convenient giving you several prints for the price of 700 yen. It turns out that these passport booths are scattered in many different places. Maybe there’s more demand for picture id’s and the like for other services in Japan?

At the city hall, Hisano-san tells me that I have to apply for mine at a different one, since the one we were in was for Tondabayashi where Ryan’s apartment is. I’m near OUA campus which makes me in the Kanan town. The two are separated by a river. Guess once we crossed that bridge to pick up Ryan, we went to a different town. When we walked into the office, it smelled like a Las Vegas casino. I knew prior that indoor smoking is still prevalent and not as restricted as California, which didn’t come as a huge shock but still unusual for me considering the business setting. While Ryan applies for his registration, I check out the pamphlets with its cute illustrations on earthquake emergency.

At the town hall for my registration, I was impressed by the receptionist’s thorough and careful attention to my application. On a separate piece of paper he asked me to write my address in America in unabbreviated form and to specify which was the city, state, etc. (since I realized that I wrote my address in the American format). The process for foreign registration is pretty much showing your passport (and they make a copy of the id and visa portions) and filling out a form. They said it would take two weeks to process so I had to wait til the 25th to receive my “gaijin card” and be able to get a cell phone. After we leave, Hisano-san mentions how he seems to usually take his time, although I’ll admit he was very nice and patient.

Hisano-san drove us to the OUA campus. The OUA or “Osaka Geidai” campus can be easily seen from a good distance since its placed atop a little hill and surrounding the buildings and slopes of the hill are a forest of trees. Kind of reminds me of how SDSU is placed atop a hill near the 8 freeway, except this panorama looked prettier. We drove to a intersection which had traffic control safety guards and then up a slope that cuts behind the trees. Besides the one way street we drove up the hill was a wide side walk, which made me realize that I would have to climb this hill everyday to get to campus =X Anyway we parked near a main building which has. Nearby there was a group of people rehearsing hip hop dancing at an outdoor dance floor with mirrors along the walls. Walking through the building hallway which had the “Osaka University of Arts” sign, I saw a security guard window at the front and a billboard with school information on the left, downstairs was a food court and in front of it was a small lounge area and a large flat screen playing “OUA TV” the campus’s online news broadcast show. Across from that were several stores, a classical music store, and an arts supplies store. And in front of that was a toy capsule machine O_o I definitely don’t see that at SDSU.

First we stop by the Student Office where we were introduced to some of the staff and applied for our student id cards. Then Hisano-san continued to give us a tour around campus. Past the building in through the main walkway we pass buy an auditorium like ground depression into a multi story building. Besides that was a mini forest of bamboo, with a concrete road by it. Mainly all around was buildings, concrete, tile, and trees, similar to any university campus. One thing I notice is that buildings are commonly and heavily multiple stories of 5 or more. Whereas in SDSU, buildings are maybe up to 4 stories, the tallest building is the library with around 6 floors I think. The buildings are all numbered, with each number usually representing a different art department. Not like how SDSU has buildings of fancy names after people or Aztec culture. Sometimes they’re mixed or departments cover more than one building. The buildings at Osaka Geidai are also relatively close together rather than spread apart by football field sized walkways at SDSU. Guess Cali’s got the space to work with while Japan has to expand upward. The campus is definitely beautiful and I feel motivation and excitement to start classes just walking around.

We first check out the glass department, where Ryan got excited from the size and equipment of the facility. Next Hisano-san introduced him to his department office (the ladies are students that work there as assistants). Next we pass through buildings 7,8,9 the area where “Eizou Gakka” (Visual Concept Planning) my department is. We stop by the department and hisano san introduces me to some of the staff there. Then we check out another food court in mid campus. Somewhere near somewhat end of campus is a large circular building with large glass windows. When we first went inside, i passed by a convenience mart, a bookstore, and a camera store (nearby is a glass case of OUA merchandising) not like SDSU and other universities which have a whole store section dedicated to merchandising with school logos on it. But definitely I will get a OUA shirt before I leave =P Passing through the glass window hallways, there was a Chinese restaraunt, a bakery, and next to that internet room. Down one hallway was a ramen restaurant. Upstairs was another cafeteria, one of the bigger ones.

Outside the circular glass building is a grassy area in the shape of the circle that the glass building sort of surrounds. Outside was another building with glass windows, which turned out to be where art exhibits are held. There was a long hallway, almost straight from The Matrix since the walls and tile were all white. totally a kewl place for a video or something, heck even some students were there filming at the time. Along the skinny hallway are entrances to the different art exhibits, some of them are free! so hisano-san let us check out some artwork done by students who studied abroad in italy, where they had to create something inspired by their experience there. It was pretty kewl. After that we passed by what seems to be the OUA broadcast center, for OUA TV, the school’s own news show which you can watch online. We pass by the nurses office and then a couple Gyms, one for cardio/weightlifting and another with a basketball court. The first gym, you have to take off your shoes before you enter. Last we walked outside and reached the end of the campus where they had tennis courts, which got me pretty excited. And they also had a track and football field. Ryan was impressed and glad that the school offered a place to exercise unlike his art university back in Cali.

So Hisano-san concluded the tour of all the food places and we decide to eat lunch at that cafeteria. Thus my first time ordering via a meal ticket. Instead of selecting and ordering your food at a register at the cafeteries in the schools in Cali, you put money into a machine and choose out of the vast selection of what you want, then it prints a ticket for you that you show to the cafeteria lady, then she’ll prepare and give you the food you wanted on the ticket. The prices of on campus food are pretty reasonable if not pretty cheap. Atleast compared to SDSU’s on campus food prices, which are mostly made up of commercial restaurants, and the expensive Aztec Market. At a corner they were selling drinks and snacks which you pay at a register like normal. I was super happy they had my favorite drink, Naachan Ringo ^_^ As for food, I ordered Nikudon, which is a beef/egg rice bowl. I forgot that they usually put a whole lot of rice in donburi dishes that I can’t finish it –; In addition to water you can get green tea for free in a drink dispenser. Afterwards we put all our dishes on a conveyor belt and hashi and utensils in separate bins.

Next, Hisano-san is to take us to do our first grocery shopping. On our way down the hill we saw the same group of students still shooting a film at the “Junk & Antiques” labeled shop. A lady in a traffic patrol outfit runs past the sidewalk and Hisano-san gets excited and points out that she’s a famous actress, named On our way to the groceries Hisano-san points out that there’s a pikachu behind us…and OMG its a FREAKIN PIKACHU BUS! so I kindly ask Ryan to take a picture for me =P The bus is actually for grade school and kindergarten students. If I rode a pikachu bus to school it would be good times..

We arrived at the supermarket called “Mandai” and inside I was suprised at the shopping carts. There were stacks of the carry sized baskets, but you place it on top of a cart frame to make a mini shopping cart @_@ The large shopping carts you usually find in America are no where to be found… Prices ranged from the cheap, the decent, and the pricey ; ; Meat generally costed more, while vegetables were decently priced. Fruit must be a privilege to have considering the price, unlike America, which sux cause its cheap healthy nature’s candy. Although the bananas I got were about 200 yen, they only came in three. I found the brand I use in America although, shampoo and conditioner were 700 yen per bottle T__T although you can buy disposable container refills by 400 yen each (which was the same price in America for the brand I use). To tell the truth, I was a bit overwhelmed and confused as to what to buy since the food selection is vastly different, and I feel stupid for relying too much on frozen foods, instant foods and canned ravioli T_T So I concluded I need to learn to cook some things beyond eggs. >_>;

I felt guilty when I was purchasing my massive amounts of food at the register (things like rice, eggs, tuna, bread, frozen hamburg steak, cup of noodles), since the register lady was announcing the price for each item she scanned and the obaachan behind me was only ordering 2 bottles of iced tea. I guess they didn’t have an express register like they do in America? After that, I was thrown of on how we had to bag the foods ourselves at a nearby counter…realized how much I rely on grocery baggers back in America.

Perhaps Japanese people do groceries more frequently, some factors including not being able to take as much home by bike. After that, since the groceries practically drained me and ryan’s wallets, we head to the post office to retrieve more cash.

I got back to my apartment and almost forgot about Hisano-san dropping off Christina’s futon (he came back a few minutes later). I stacked the futon on top of the stiff futon to hopefully somewhat make a tatami on futon effect O_o Internet finally worked and I was able to talk with a few of my friends ^_^ It was good being able to hear from them, I also bugged my brother on skype, apparently he’s up late. Then not too long around 7pm I knocked out.

Flickr Set - Landed in Osaka

I was automatically rebooked for the same flight time the next day, and received my ticket.

Thankfully my luggage is already set for the next day, and that I packed extra clothes and toiletries in my carry-on! I made a call to my friend first if he’d be able to do me the huge favor of letting me stay the night and I got the okay @_@ Thank you so much again Kenan!!! Since my mom lives further it was much better in terms of making the flight for the next day. Let my family know the situation as well as a facebook update =P Since Kenan was still at work, I had to wait at the airport for a while longer so I just got some lunch (might as well try a mediocre california roll since I’m going to a place where it doesn’t exist) and camped at a table at the food court on my laptop.

Although I started to feel early morning rise and lack of sleep kick in, and plopped my head on the keyboard of my laptop. Funny how a couple tables over another girl is doing the same thing sans laptop.

I get the message from Kenan on-line to meet him, and I take the bart a couple stations over so he’s able to pick me up. It sucked that I had to stay another day, but the bright side was I was able to hang out with Kenan since I haven’t seen him for a while. Kenan has already graduated from SDSU and is CSU study abroad alum who went to Japan for 1 year at Waseda University. Now he’s working for the game industry =P We first headed out to eat dinner in Daly city (known as a super Filipino town) and had very satisfying Vietnamese pho ^^ and after that had boba at tapex. (Kenan makes fun of how the SD peeps call Tapioca Express “tapex”)

At his house we mostly played PS3 games like Eden, Naruto and Siren: New Translation/Blood Curse (a horror game about Americans who end up in a zombie filled city in Japan, how fitting!) Kenan commented about the squat toilets in the game (low toilets placed on the ground) and how I’ll enjoy my first time using those =X After that was Africa which is a game only available in Japan (sadly there’s no announcement of it coming out in the states). It looks like a fun game about a photographer taking photos in Africa. The game also included a mini encyclopedia, Kenan would make me read the Japanese descriptions and translate it to English ; ;

It was kewl hanging out, and the next day we got up early to get to the airport in time for my second attempt to go to Japan.

Only to fail!? Nahh, just run into another problem: the original idea was to take the bart to the airport to avoid traffic but the bart was delayed T_T Kenan was originally going to work by bart as well. Another “can’t be helped” situation. So we go there by car and a lots of thankies again for going through the trouble ^^ Many thanks and wave bye to Kenan, I grab a sandwich and connect to airport wi-fi again to let everyone know i’m there and okay. And thankfully this time there was no delay.

My first experience with UA can’t help but make me think of it as the perfect anti-thesis to the reputation of Japanese customer service. Could this be a usual occurrence with UA or was I just “lucky” ? Although things ran much more smoothly and had better service on the day of actually heading to Japan. And I still think it was fun to see a friend before I left =P

Once on the plane, I had to look for my seat. The plane had a mix of Japanese people, Caucasians and other Asians. A few minutes after sitting down a Japanese dude taps me on the shoulder and shows his ticket. I was at the wrong seat =X and moved to the correct one which was one row forward. –; Grabbed all my goodies that I would need for a 13 hour flight while the nice Japanese guy next to me helped put my carry on up in the compartment ^^

At take off, my ears pop again ; ; but it wasn’t so bad once it was cruising. After praying for safe travel, I distracted myself with double sudoku and my DS. Argh you Trauma Center 2 final boss, after 10 or so tries still I can’t beat it ; ; so i switched over to Ouendan 2 and Rhythm Tengoku.

Ooh and it was my first time having airplane food! The first entry was pasta, salad, and a snack, (only asked for water since drinks were expensive) later on was a fried chicken sandwich. Food wans’t too bad and it kept me well fed. I didn’t finish all the foods so I kept some of the snacks and foods in a bag for later, my grandma would be proud =)

I managed to get some sleep, if not rest on the plane while listening to the Nodame Cantabile OST. The flight attendants passed around custom papers both in Japanese and English. After I filled it out I was confused on the question about the value of personal things, (since I have loads of electronics) though the guy sitting next to me told me not to worry about it.

On approach to Japan’s coastline, we passed by where Narita Airport would be, although it was difficult to see much of anything. At some point I was able to see a perfectly conic mountain poking way above the clouds, which was Mount Fuji ^^ I had the window seat, although I was located right at the wing, which blocked most of my view T_T But I managed to get a video recording of Fuji.

Once the plane landed, I grabbed my things and on my way out, the attendants bowed with a “arigatou gozaimasu”. Walking across the bridge felt like walking right into thick bath of warm air. Woosh!

My first impression of Japan in the summer: HOT AND HUMID.

It was as if warm air enveloped every pore of my body and took a hold of it. Or in Nate’s words “you have to swim your way” through the air.

Well words aren’t enough to describe it, but I bet Philippines is worse.

I boarded a transport train where everyone was going, and then it hit me that i was definitely in a different place. The transport was full of mostly Japanese people and it was crowded shoulder to shoulder.

Getting off the transport, from here, I had no idea where to go, but I figured follow where all the foreigner looking people were going… There were multiple lines of Japanese people, and one long zig zag line at the end of all foreigners. The wait was maybe 15 minutes, and I had my customs paper visa in passport and ticket ready to show. A new immigration policy was enacted not long ago in Japan and required that all foreigners have their picture taken and while their fingerprints recorded in a scanner. The process went smoothly and I my visa was marked as well as my custom paper portion attached with the passport for when I return to the US later.

After that I walked out to where the exits seem to be and saw my luggage show up on time from the conveyor belts. (easily spotted since they were polka dot). Then I dragged all of it to the desks near the exit… Ugh…. as thoughts of regret on maximizing the luggage allowance ; ; Showed my passport, visa, and ticket and got the okay.

I walked out into a big lobby area, where I saw a gathered group of familiar looking Japanese students who stayed over in LA, then I glanced over saw a Japanese guy in white collared shirt and tie holding a laminated sign that said my name and someone else’s name “Ryan” on it. I started walking towards him and new that he was Hisano-san, the counselor in charge of the international affairs department of Osaka University of Arts.

First Hisano-san got a cart to hold my heavy luggage and straight off we were talking in Japanese. Simple stuff like sorry about the delay, how the weather is, and how the flight was. Later on just talked in mixed Japanese and English. We headed to the parking a lot, in “honey-moon mode” glancing over to all the elaborate vending machines. Hisano-san was driving a big van that had “Osaka University of Arts” printed on it. Well, the first mistake I make is walk over to the driver’s side of the car, then Hisano-san pointed to go to the other side. DOH! force of habit ; ; I’m usually always the passenger back in America so I just go to the right side of the car, though the driver side in Japan is on the right side.

While riding Hisano-san and I talked about some of the differences in everything there. I was on total “honey-moon mode” being able to see the city skyline since we were way out on a long bridge in the bay (since Kansai International Airport is a man-made island) and listening to both J-pop and American songs on the radio. Must have been the longest bridge ever and crossed maybe 3 or more tolls (each costing 500 yen) feeling bad for Hisano-san going through the trouble.

Well, Hisano-san asks me if I want to go get the things i need like a futon and/or go to the bank, and strangely I don’t feel as tired. I think I actually get some sleep on the plane. I definitely like to get some shopping done to manage for the next few days. And I already had some Japanese cash on me since I made a world wallet order through my Citibank

So off to Nitori, which seems to be a Target or major bed and bath franchise in Japan. I followed Hisano-san to the back isles of standardized beige packagings of futons, blankets, and pillows. I decided to chose a pretty firm futon mattress thinking that most of the other futons I felt were way too soft. They also had a lot of wool and feather type pillows which I wasn’t a fan of, and got a memory foam type pillow. Then I saw a display of hanging banana shaped body pillows… made my day! I always had a body pillow in America so it was a definite buy. Then I had my first transaction in Japan… @_@ I put way more cash than I needed to on the tray, but yea definitely need to get used to calculating in yen.

By the time we reached the city streets, I saw how narrow they can be. My grandma’s comment on super narrow streets was definitely no exaggeration. A simple two lane street is maybe the size of one american lane and a half. Sometimes there’d be only one sidewalk, or no sidewalk at all. And sometimes if its a one lane street, the other oncoming car would just slow down and move out of the way to let another car through. That would probably be blasphemous in America…

The landscape of the Kanan and Tondabayashi Cities near OUA are scattered with neatly sectioned houses, factories, small business buildings, and blocks of rice paddies. Rice paddies were next to houses, and any extra space that wasn’t a building was usually a rice paddy. The street intersections sometimes had mirrors, the dome shaped ones you’d usually see at the corners of convenience marts in America. They are placed there to see oncoming traffic coming from an intersecting lane.

Somehow the collection of rice paddies, electric lines, buildings, and mountains in the background makes for a harmonious scene of countryside Osaka.

Crossing the bridge you can see a well vegetated park along the river and a group of people with someone was in a santa clause outfit O_o. Hisano-san’s guess is that they are filming something for Osaka Geidai which I would agree.

Next we hit the Family Mart, which is a convenience store or “konbini” nearest my apartment (less than a minute walk away!) I walked inside and “honey-moon mode” gets me excited about all the new foods I get to try. There are some things I’m familiar with before that I have seen at Japanese markets like Mitsuwa back in Cali. I decided to by the most randomest thing which was a croquette hotdog. Then I also bought an egg and ham sandwich, iced green tea, some rice balls “onigiri” and melon bread. ^^

Afterwards, Hisano-san took me on the super short drive to my apartment, a Leo Palace 21, I was on the second floor. Walking in the first thing that greets me is a red sign that says “SHOES OFF” and in spanish, chinese, korean, italian… I really hope I can keep the sign =P Hisano-san hooks up the internet through the leo net service box (by inputting a username and password from the paper provided), then I had to wait for a day for it to process…lame =/ but eh I can survive a day without the internet =P I think. He changed the channel showing a game with the Hanshin Tigers, a popular baseball team. Hisano-san also shows me the convenient electric stove, microwave, and fridge.

Changed the channel later and find that Bleach was on! But I didn’t really watch it to avoid spoilers since I haven’t been keeping up with the series. Argh lack of internet… so i guess ill unpack some stuff, i thought. Although my apartment in SD was three times this size, this apartment is definitely decently roomy for just myself. So I unpacked and set up the bed…

NOooOOoo… the mattress is way too stiff T_T So I guess that plan failed.

Flickr Set - Landed in Osaka

Back in Oxnard, I got the order from my grandmother to wake up and be ready by the horrendous hours of 4am to make a 9am flight. The flight was through United Airlines from Los Angeles to San Francisco, then a short 1 hour layover, and flight from San Francisco straight to Kansai International Airport. I have been packing mainly my clothes prior to leaving, which leaves one other luggage. Figuring out what to bring for a 1 year stay is like some hardcore game of tetris: I am allowed 2 checked baggages of certain dimensions, 50 lbs each, 1 carry on and 1 personal item (which wil be my laptop). I’ll just say that I’m some crazy girl who likes her electronics. So embarrassingly, I maxed out my allowed baggage limit =X I am definitely not the prime example of the “pack light” idea that they’ve been promoting at the study abroad orientation

The last couple days before, I was able to spend time with my good friends John Micheal and Amanda was able to come by later to say goodbye. Ate out at a red lobster. Sure they have seafood in Japan, but do they have the endless shrimp meal!? JM definitely picked a good choice though it resulted in a super food coma.

So the day (early hours) of departure, my grandparents drive me to the airport in LAX while I was talking to John, my bf, on my cell phone (I still haven’t canceled my phone yet) Yup crazy John and his all night studying for grad school =P Although it was nice being able to hear him before I get on the plane. With no traffic we arrived at LAX and I headed to the long zig zag line of people and suitcases at UA’s check-in.

Apparently we can now have the machine do the checking in for us by typing in our reservation number and scanning your passport. A total noobie like my self didnt know what the number was so i picked up the phone which connected a receptionist (who was somewhere else) and found out the number was on my itinerary the whole time with a different name –; as i type in the number and scan my passport, the machine freezes >.>; i try another machine nearby and turns out that one does not work as well. Well 2 broke down machines later, I try asking the lady there but she puts me on an extremely long hold. My grandma made a comment of being glad that we came 3 hours early, prospective study abroad peeps take note! =P They finally check my passport and itinerary and check in my luggage (luckily they were barely under the 50 lb limit each =X although i was prepared to unpack the things placed strategically in the outer pockets should it had been over. I receive my two tickets, with my grandma nagging me “Don’t lose that or that’s it!”

Definitely @_@ Next I had to gave big goodbye hugs to my grandparents and a goodbye to John on the phone. Eeeep, it’s only me from here on out. Yet I don’t feel any anxiety since the busy commotion of the airport has me ironically focused on the next task to handle, customs. First I showed my passport and tickets to security, and I can’t help but take note of the dude’s deadpan face, how careful and thorough his eyes were in scanning the entire passport @_@ Nowadays airport security is definitely tighter so I had to take off my shoes, jacket, belt, and the 1 liter bag of 3oz bottle liquid toiletries in addition to the carry-on stuff for the detector.

That’s done! Now to find my gate number. After finding where I need to be, I grabbed some Mcdonalds for breakfast and waited there til the call for boarding would be announced. At some point on the overhead lcd screens ticker reads “Flight Delayed”

…

WHHHAAAAT!!???

The delay is by one hour.

And the layover for SF to Osaka is one hour.

…this could be bad.

So i headed over to the lady at the info desk and asked her if the delay would make me miss my flight. She told me that she doesn’t know and that I would have to line up at a different desk in the long line of people probably asking the same exact question… Turns out they were!

So I wouldn’t make it. Great.

I was given the option to stay another night in LA or to take the flight from LA to SF and try to transfer to a different flight that connects to Seoul, Korea and then to Osaka, which would get me there by Tuesday 9pm evening instead of Tuesday 3:30pm afternoon. Hmmm… After calling my grandma about the situation I decided to try to make the Seoul connected flight rather than stay in LA (I rather not stay in LA overnight), plus I have an option to stay overnight in SF either through my friend or at my mother’s place in San Jose. Some people decided to stay in LA, like the group of Japanese high school students and their chaperones that made the decision, holding their big stack of Japanese passports. So I’m rebooked and I take off for a short 1.5 hour flight to SF.

It’s been a while since I’ve been on the plane. I have ridden the plane several times to go from LA to SF to visit my mom, although it’s sad I’ve never flown outside of the US. I’m not really afraid of flying (Although John was trying to freak me out with video clips of emergency landings on youtube) but my major gripe is that my ears pop like crazy –;

Once I made it to SF, a couple ladies were there to guide us hopeful travelers to the bus stop. Bus seat priority was given to us since our flights were delayed, but to the dismay of the people that have already been waiting there since, this may cause them to miss their flight. Disgruntled shouting UA lady demanded everybody to cooperate. First they called two other destinations, and then they called connection to Osaka last =( Boarded the bus and buy the time I got there, it already well took off =( Some japanese business men asked the lady receptionist what they should do and I overheard in Japanese that there’s no choice but to go tomorrow. I later asked (in english) to confirm and that’s how I ended up stuck in America for one more day.

to be continued….

Personal Statement, transcripts, letters of recommendation, interview, Counseling, Scholarship applications, financial budget, student visa, passport, airfare, health insurance and coverage, health physical, vaccinations, certificate of eligibility, acceptance letters, housing, course pre-preaproval….

I’m glad I was patient enough to endure the stressful process of preparing for study abroad. Now I can just focus on what’s to come. Thankfully I lucked out and was able to receive several scholarships, the Sanyo North American Scholarship, the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship, Freeman-Asia, Junko Koike (a great thanks to Mrs. Johnson) as well as SDSU financial aide. Had it not been for these scholarships, I would have had to take out more funds through a student loan. Yay student debt! ; ; Thank you very much again!

I have less than a week to enjoy being in California, and everything’s been going great. To spend these past few months with my family and friends is really a blessing, before i take off to live a different life in Japan for a whole year (from September 8 2008 to sometime August 2009). Been enjoying a few weeks in Oxnard (my hometown), a week in Oceanside (at my dad’s place), and a week in San Diego (hanging out at SDSU campus with no classes). Experiencing every inch (Yup an American form of measurement) of living in America, appreciating what’s always been there and what I may miss when I’m gone. Such as carne asada fries… the San Diego delicacy of guacamole, cheese, sour cream, carne beef, tomatoes and french fries smothered in a basket of delicious excellence.

More importantly besides saying goodbye to the food, I’ve been slowly saying goodbye to my family and friends. I don’t really feel any sadness, nor do I really feel too sad about saying goodbye to them. In a way, I think of it as “see you in a year!” knowing that I’ll be back later and see everybody again. I feel more of a thankfulness that they are there for me and that I was able to see them before I leave. I know that I’ll definitely feel a bit sad at some point in Japan and miss everybody. Praise God for living in the age of the internet, and for such things as skype, facebook, and instant messenger. I will definitely keep in touch through such means =P Everyone asks me “are you excited?” and to be honest I don’t really feel much of anything ; ; don’t get me wrong, cause I’m definitely looking forward to going to Japan. Well being in California my whole life (yup I haven’t been to Philippines yet, and yes I’m a disgrace) I definitely need to get out there and experience life outside my “own world” and outside my “safety bubble”. I keep on thinking that maybe that “OMG I’M GOING TO JAPAN” feeling of excitement and anxiety will hit me by the time I get on that plane. or maybe I think it’s cause I just don’t know what to expect or anticipate that will drive me to be excited. I’m just enjoying what’s going on at the moment one day at a time. 

And for now I just work on this website while I hangout at our usual spot, Monty, our little home on college campus ^^ I decided to come back to San Diego State for the first week of school just to see my friends before I take off. Yadira, my classmate and friend also going to Japan for a year studying at Aoyama University in Shibuya, thought likewise to come to SDSU to say goodbye too. We lounged around Monty, while friends come in and out wondering what we’re still doing here when we aren’t registered for classes =P I tagged along with Yadira for one class though; We sat in Kuratani-sensei’s class for 2nd year Japanese course for the sake of review. By coincidence, Jerome from my Japanese 311/312 classes just happens to be there for just review (without actually being registered for the class just like us). Kuratani-sensei was unusually late, but 20 minutes later she finally came. And no one left the class! especially since it was past the “15 minute rule”. Everyone wants to really learn Japanese it seems ^_^ Turns out sensei left her purse outside her car, but luckily it was still there. I sat in the back of the class with Yadira and Jerome and waited for  Kuratani-sensei to notice me. I think it was when I was talking to Jerome and heard a elongated “Eeeeehh!!??” and looked at Kuratani-sensei’s surprised face. Just before I took off from SD, John pulled a surprise attack and gathered everyone at In & Out as a going away dinner for me and Yadira (except she knew of it already so the surprise was on me). Funny how Nate’s going away dinner was also at Inn & Out, guess its the Cali thing to do before we leave for study abroad? I was really thankful for everybody to put their time aside for us, it defintely made me happy seeing everyone smiling and laughing and I’m thankful for the going away gift card as well ^^ Some stayed with us longer to shoot puri kura photos (yes they have machines in Convoy). Yadira boasted the idea and I think it was a good parting gift for us going to Japan. It was definitely a challenge to fit 9 people in that booth though. Here’s the result: Besides booth pics, I bought a new camera for Japan. A Canon sd1100is, also a Canon like my HV30 camcorder, and have been taking lots of pictures. Looking at these pictures, I feel truly thankful and blessed for what I have, and to see where I am now that I’ve been going to San Diego State for 4 years. Now’s a time to say goodbye for now.

And maybe by leaving for a while I might truly understand the value of my life in America. For now, I gotta go back to square one and establish myself in a new setting, new people, and new experiences.

The Jennice Meets Japan blog and online videocast will now be updated. The following several weeks of entries were written off line in the form of short notes, but has been fixed to be uploaded online. Please sit tight as I finally upload those entries for your reading pleasure =P

the “Jennice Meets Japan” project is an independent documentary on my experience studying abroad in Osaka, Japan and my reflections on American and Japanese culture. The videos range from 5-10 minutes and can be viewed on streaming websites Youtube and Vimeo. I hope I can practice and improve my editing and that you guys, the students, can learn about Japan and maybe consider traveling abroad. 

Episode 00 has been updated, click here to view the info page.

Jennice Meets Japan - 00 - Meet Jennice (Youtube, Low Quality)

Jennice Meets Japan - 00 - Meet Jennice (Vimeo, High Definition)

As you can see the website consists of a blog and photo stream in addition to the video series. More of the private aspects of my experience in Japan will be covered in more detail through the blog while the video footage and cultural reflections will be covered in video. Sometimes I will be doing cultural reflections in the blog as well.

There are a few glitches with the website that remain to be addressed. These include the appearance of the comments page, the sidebar which is missing some content, and the overall appearance of the website. Should there be any other glitches, problems, suggestions, please e-mail me at jang_jade [AT] yahoo.com.

Special thankies to Mylene for making me the awesome chibi illustration of me =P I will be working on a new layout which should hopefully integrate Mylene’s artwork into the layout much better than the current one. Look forward to it~!

(Originally published on October 7, 2008)