So it’s been another week, and from today I’ve got one week left in Japan. It’s really weird to start thinking about coming home, I’ve been on the road traveling or in Kanazawa for so long that it’s really become a lifestyle all of its own. Readjusting back to home and school is going to be tough, although with the amount of stuff I have to take care of between getting home and leaving for school things will probably be just as hectic.

Since last time we have visited Hiroshima and Kyoto (we’re still in Kyoto right now). Hiroshima was really interesting. It’s hard to describe exactly. The two big monuments to the atomic bomb in Hiroshima are the atomic bomb dome, a building preserved after the destruction of the city, and the museum. Both were really strange to see. They were in some way really amazing, and in another utterly horrifying. The museum especially had a large number of preserved artifacts chosen to convey the human toll associated with atomic bomb detonation. More than anything else though both the monument and the museum were designed to make a strong case for an end to nuclear proliferation. They really encouraged a brighter future much more than they highlighted the past.

In Hiroshima we were also able to visit the nearby Miyajima shrine. The shrine dates back to the 12th century, and is build on the shore. The main attraction of the shrine is a gate (torii) built in the water a little off shore. We spent the day looking around on the island, which had a lot besides the shrine. We got to eat a regional Hiroshima specialty there, Okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki made from noodles and cabbage cooked between a thing flour pancake and an egg. The result is kind of like a pancake, only it has egg on one side and vegetables inside. It’s really nothing like a pancake but there’s not really an easy way to describe it. The island also had the world’s largest rice paddle. It was really big. Many of the temples also had large paddles inside, since they are considered lucky. An interesting note, many of the paddles in the temples were donated by companies, and bore their names. We also so lanterns at numerous temples in Kyoto with company names on them. It actually is really common here to see pieces at shrines which companies have branded and donated. At the end of the day we walked back to the shrine, and got a chance to see the torii at low tide. At that point the water had receded and it was possible to walk out across the mud to the gate. The sun was setting and the whole thing was really beautiful.

After Hiroshima we headed to Kyoto. Kyoto was the ancient capitol of Japan and was not a major US target during the war, so it is full of old shrines and temples. Our first stop after getting to Kyoto was actually way out of the city. After stopping at the hotel to drop our bags off we headed up north to Hikone, near lake Biwa, for the national Tori-Ningen (bird-man) competition. The contest had colleges from all over Japan that had built human powered gliders to compete in both distance and time trials. They launched from a platform over the lake, and ended by crashing into the water. A lot of them were really good, we saw one that managed to cross the entire lake. There were also a couple that just took nose-dives off the platform. KIT was scheduled to compete, but they were going on a different day and hadn’t arrived yet. It was still awesome to see the gliders though, and Hikone was a pretty relaxing change from the large cities. It reminded me a lot of Kanazwa.

The same day we hopped a train back to Kyoto to visit one of the most popular shrines there, the Fushimi Inari-taisha. The shrine is really amazing because it has a series of several thousand gates (torii) that wind their way up the mountain. A series of smaller shrines appear on the way. The whole thing was really beautiful, weaving its way through the forest. The gates themselves were so dense that it was noticeably darker under them. In most places they formed an almost continuous tunnel. We arrived at about 4:30, so we managed to finish just as the sun was setting. We actually got to watch the sunset from a clearing part-way up. From where we were there was a really nice view of the city, it was an absolutely amazing sunset. Another thing that was again interesting to note was the greater involvement of commercial entities, a large portion of the torii lining the path were donated by Japanese companies to the shrine, and thus bore the company’s name on the reverse of the gate.


Nobu’s dad has a friend who is an administrator at a girls college in Kyoto, so he arranged for a group from the college’s international club to show us around Kyoto Monday. It was really fun to hang out with some different people, and it was awesome to have another chance to practice Japanese. It was another reminder of just how comfortable I’ve become with screwing up. On the bus I accidentally sad that that Colin was my love (rubu) partner instead of my lab (rabo) partner. Nobu had to help sort that one out. Thanks Nobu. We visited a few more places in Kyoto with them, including Kiyomizu-dera, Kinkaku-ji, and Ryoanji. All of them were really beautiful. Out of the three, Kiyomizu was probably the most interesting. The others were really busy and touristy (Kinkaku-ji especially), but Kiyomizu was a little less crowded. The temple was built into the hillside with a complex wood scaffold holding it up. It also had a spring from which drinking was said to grant wisdom, longevity or health. We ate dinner with the girls after. It was really confusing, but again a good opportunity to practice a little more. The next day we hung out with the girls a little more and did karaoke for a little. Unfortunately their school ( a Buddhist school) had a 10PM curfew both nights. We were told to make sure they made it back, since Nobu’s dad’s friend was the one who was going to get the call if they were late.
GJ and Ted left for the US Tuesday. It was tough to see them go, we had a lot of fun with them around. I’m looking forward to seeing them back at school.

Since then we’ve bummed around a little more, mostly visiting temples and gardens. Most notably we visited Nara today. Nara is home to a huge Buddhist temple, Todaiji. Todaji has a huge Buddha statue, a little less than 50 feet tall. It was absolutely astounding to see something that big. At that scale it really was almost impossible, even up close to wrap your mind around the size of it. You want to think it’s smaller until you find a decent object to compare its size to and realize just how huge it is.

Tomorrow morning we’re leaving Kyoto for Osaka. We’re going to stay a few days there before heading back to Tokyo. It’s really strange to think that I have only 5 days left here. I’ve been away from home so long that at this point that it almost seems normal. I can’t say I’m not looking forward to seeing everyone again though.

On the Road Again

So… It’s been a really wild two weeks finishing up the IJST program: Three finals, three speeches (all in Japanese, and one in front of the University president), two projects, and a lot of parties.

The finals and the conclusion of the regular class work were all fairly uneventful. I studied, they went alright. It was really strange to see how much I’d learned. On paper it definitely seemed like a lot, but I think that the really learning was more than that. Above anything else, I think I’ve learned how to bullshit in Japanese. How to nod my head the right way, grab the couple words I know out of every sentence, and generally look like I know what’s going on even though I’m totally out of it. When I first got here I couldn’t manage this at all. I would get hung up on what I didn’t know miss the rest of the sentence trying out in full detail the hard part of the sentence. So I suppose what I’ve really learned it how to roll with the conversation when it gets difficult. Of course there are still times when I have to stop the speaker, if I’ve missed every word in the sentence, or if I have no idea what’s going on in context. The amount of culture I’ve absorbed is pretty amazing too. Since I got here I think (hope) I’ve gotten better at picking up on things. The Japanese expression is “reading the air” and I think I can do it with more accuracy, although it’s still just as difficult as the name implies.

The weekend before the last week of classes we had a party with all of the SGE students and all of our host families. It was really cool to get a chance to see my host family again, and to thank them one more time. They’d put together a souvenir for me, a little book with some pictures, and a few pieces of origami that the kids made. It was really cool to see some of their picture from that weekend, it was a really great time, and I’m glad that it looks like they enjoyed it as much as I did. I really hope that I’ll be able to keep in touch with them.

After the formal party we hung out with the SGE students and partied a little longer. It was definitely tough to say goodbye to them. Even with as poor as my Japanese is I thought that I was really able to make connections with some of the students. Either way I know that we all had a great time with each other, and that I’m certainly going to miss them.

The last week of class was devoted almost exclusively to the final project. I know I haven’t really talked much about it up until now, but our final project was to build a Rube Goldberg machine. They’re pretty popular because of a public television show, Pythagorean Switch. If you look it up on Youtube you can see a lot of really cool stuff, they’re really good at them on the show. The kicker on the project was that everyone was paired up with a Japanese student, and we were expected to communicate only in Japanese. This resulted (even among the higher level students) in a lot of pointing, hand-waving, and picture drawing. Even that wasn’t unambiguous, I had a lot trouble working in the shop one day with my partner. In Japanese come to me is done by waving palm down and moving your fingers towards you. Go away is done by waving palm down moving your fingers away from you. Of course in America come is palm up, and go is palm down. So I saw the palm down thought he wanted me to go, when he actually wanted me to come. It was really confusing at the time, I could not figure out why he would want me to stay while he went to get parts. I ended up standing around looking dumb for about a minute before he finally walked close enough to hear him talking. At that point he asked whether or not I understood the hand signals, and we both realized what was going on.

A little more about my partner, his name was Kondo Hiroaki. He was a Junior mechanical engineer from a smaller town just north of Kanazawa. Like a lot of the SGE students he was really interested in coming to America to study. It’s a lot harder to do study abroad in Japan though. There are fewer programs set up for it, and it tends to be much more expensive.

Our part of the project was pretty unimpressive. The main part consisted of two pulleys. One had a magnet that was heavier than the counterweight; the other had a magnet lighter than the counterweight. When a block hit the switch at the beginning of our piece (we were working in groups of three pairs), it would release the heavier magnet so it could fall to the lower magnet. They would then stick together, turning both pulleys. The pulley with the lighter magnet had an arm that would hit a small car with a pin tied to it. This pushed the car down a ramp, where it would pop a balloon at the bottom, pushing over another block and raising the flag for the end of the project. I know it’s a lot of text on the page, but it was actually a really simple machine. Some of the other groups had some really complex setups using water. One built a shaft setup that would pop out marbles at regular intervals. Another popped balloons filled with sand so that the sand would fall onto pieces of paper with double-sided tape. The tape spelled out “Kanazawa”, and once all the balloons were popped it would life the pieces of paper into the air. Everyone presented their projects in front of the president on Wednesday. It was really tough to do in Japanese, but I think I’ve gotten much better at Japanese speeches since the beginning of the program.

On Thursday we had room-checkout and final conferences with our teachers before the closing ceremony at 4. Our plan was to leave directly after the closing ceremony, so we had our stuff all packed up and ready to go when we left for the ceremony. It ran a little long, so we had to hurry out as soon as it finished. We had to take a taxi from the station, and still missed the first train we had planned on. Colin barely made the second one, but GJ and I ended up taking a later on since he still had to do some paperwork to redeem his rail pass. We made it into Tokyo at 11:30, which ended up working out fine for us. Unfortunately it meant that Nobu had to go back and forth from the station 3 times that day, so he ended up spending something like 5 hours on trains. Sorry Nobu.

We stayed at Nobu’s for another two days after getting in, while we waited for some of the other Rose students to meet up with us. It was kind of strange to be back at Nobu’s and to see how differently I understood or thought about things compared to the beginning of the program. I guess it was another thing that made me realize how much I’ve really gained from the program. We hung out and went shopping a little bit, and Saturday night we went to dinner with his family. I also got to see Se-chan again, who we’d stayed with at the beginning of the program.

After meeting up with the other Rose students (we’re now GJ, Ted, Colin, Jamie, Loren, Nobu) we headed to Yokohama. Yokohama is a little south of Tokyo; it’s like a really large suburb. There was a festival the night we arrived, so the train ride was a mess. There were definitely a lot of people unhappy when we got on with our bags. We went to the festival that night to see the fireworks. It was really pretty insane. The streets were absolutely packed. Especially in the areas you could see the fireworks from, people were bunched in about as many as could fit. The fireworks were really beautiful though, it was a really amazing display, running for about an hour. There were some uniquely Japanese fireworks, like one of Doraemon, a Japanese cartoon character. It was surprisingly organized afterwards though. It really points out how much easier it is when no one is driving cars. Everyone just walked out in the streets without a problem.

Yesterday we more or less wandered around Yokohama. We made a stop at a small amusement park in the middle of the city and wandered around a shopping district for a while before taking the train down to the beach at Kamakura. The beaches here are really different, and it reminded me a lot of Wajima and Kanazawa. Rather than stretching off into the distance most of the beaches here are enclosed by cliffs or hills. We swam between 5 and 6 before getting out to head back. Before riding to the youth hostel in Yokohama we stopped at a Sento, a Japanese public bath. In Japan public baths are relatively common, and having been to one other back in Kanazawa, I have to say I like them a lot. Every bath has a set of showers, as well as a large common pool. Everyone showers before getting into the pool, which is usually kept hot (about 40 Celsius). The sento in Karakura was a smaller local one, with just the shower and bath, but some others have baths. The one in Kanazawa for example also had a cold bath, a sake bath, a sauna, and an electric bath (hot bath with low AC current through it). The sentos are usually fairly cheap, somewhere around 5 dollars, and are a really nice way to relax. They also use very little water, since the bath is just filtered and reused since it doesn’t really get dirty.

Today we’re on our way to Hiroshima. We’re going to be staying in another hostel there, and hope to see some of the famous temples, as well as the war memorial. Right now I’m on a Shinkansen (bullet train) between Osaka and Hiroshima. Having done a little more traveling I have to say I really love the trains here. They’re much quieter and more spacious than an airplane, plus they end up being faster since there’s no security or baggage check. The number of trains is also amazing because they’re used so much; when we missed our train leaving Kanazawa the next on left just 15 minutes later.

Overall, things are going really well here. Hopefully my internet will be more reliable, so I’ll be able to update a little more regularly. I’ve got two weeks left here, and I’m really looking forward to it.

Sorry there are no pictures. The internet in the Hiroshima hostel is sketchy in our room.

Winding Down

This week is the last week that I'll be here at KIT. We've finished up our finals, and all the class time is now devoted to the final project. For the project we're working on a Rube Goldberg machine, which are popular here in Japan because of a popular public television show, Pythagorean Switch. We're working on the project 6 person groups made up of pairs of two, one US student with one KIT student. My partner is really cool, and it has definately been an experience trying to get it built using only Japanese.
This weekend we had a couple field trips as a group. We visited another Shinto temple, a workshop, and a history museum. Out of the three, the workshop was probably the most interesting. The workshop was run by a friend of Solomon-sensei's who had taken over the shop from his fiance's father. The shop specializes in Polonia (sp?) wood and originally made large wooden pots to hold ashes and coals that were used to heat wood in the winter. However, as the demand has decreased they've gone to making vases, housewares, etc. A lot of the equipment in the shop is originial to the shop's construction in 1913, and many of the plates, etc. are still produced by hand. It seems to me that many more things in Japan are still produced by hand, and fairly cheaply at that. Many of the plates and vases at the shop were really reasonably priced considering it was all done by hand. We also got a chance to talk to Solomon-sensei's friend, which was really cool. As I mentioned he took over the job from his fiance's father. The really interesting part was that he'd quit a fairly good suit and tie job in Tokyo, and moved all the way out to Kanazawa to run the shop. His major innovation at the shop has been the "simple tray". It's a simple tray that can be produced very easily, they've sold a lot since they're practicial and inexpensive. The was really interesting to talk to, it was cool to get a firsthand perspective on the work at the shop.
After the shop we headed over to the museum. The museum was built in 1913 inside of a retired armory, and is dedicated to local history. The coolest thing at the museum was the old footage of Kanazawa that they had. The number of landmarks that were still recognizable was amazing. A lot of the temples, and natural landmarks especially have changed very little. Most of the footage was from the 20s, so it was also strange to see how different Japan was as a developing contry compared to today. Most of the markets and public areas seemed much dirtier, while the temples and gardens were still in the same pristine state they are today.
This weekend is the goodbye party for us, so I'm going to have a chance to see my host family again. I'm really looking forward to it, they were really great to stay with over the long weekend, and I'm really glad that I'll have another opportunity to hang out with them. All of the SGE students are going to be there too, so it's going to be a pretty big gathering.