Danmark Dejligst

My cousin Sofie and I and another very famous young lady in Copenhagen on July 16th 2006.

To the Nicest Guys in East Asia... Thank You!

I realize that i have forgotten something very important so far: posting a shout out to the two "Nicest Guys in East Asia"*: Masaki from my house in Chiba and Makoto, an AMZN friend.

Masaki, thank you so much for making sure that not only I but also my, much too big & heavy, luggage made it back from Japan...

Makoto, thank you so much for making sure that I never felt entirely lost in translation, for giving me the chance to eat Fugu and for showing me the Shinto prayer ropes (I am now perfectly equipped for my future endeavors.)

You're both great people and friends, who helped make my time in Japan very special, thank you!!


*thank you Masaki, for kindly providing your own 'title'... :)

Hola California!

Posting a brief update to let you all know that I have arrived safe & sound in my temporary Orange County home. The weather here is gorgeous, 80 degrees and sunny, which has been adding quite a bit of joy to my otherwise chore filled week: I have been trying to get everything sorted for school start/my move to Berkeley and I am quite please with the progress, as you can see I am a real California resident now with both a CA license and new plates for the Super Focus (which of course from know on will be known as the Super Cali Focus...).

I already miss Japan terribly and I am having the strangest jet-lag/withdrawal symptoms such as craving Granola at exactly 3.30 in the afternoon (which is 7.30 AM in Japan, my standard breakfast time there...) and almost crying in the deli section of the local Vons at the sight of their take-out Sushi (unfortunately un-related to Japanese Sushi...) On a side note, I am sure that Mini Stop combini store chain management has called a special emergency conference to discuss why sales in the northern part of Chiba-ken are suddenly falling drastically.

Another fun little activity of mine here in the OC has been dogsitting my sister's dog Jackie (that's her right here). She's a fun and slightly crazy little dog. I have been keeping up on my running schedule and for anyone looking to spice up their work outs I can highly recommend adding a 2 year old Jack Russell and a wild life running trail...


Finally, I have of course been doing due diligence when it comes to following the Soccer Worldcup and I have on several occasions gotten quite the kick out of knowing that while I am watching the games here, my friends in Japan, Denmark, Germany, UK, Ireland, Seattle, Brazil are watching as well. For the Germany-Argentina quarter finals, I joined my sisters housemate Chris as he headed to Huntington Beach's German Village "Old World" for an 8AM soccer party that included plenty of beer, sausages and happy Germans. Alas, after today I guess we will no longer be going back there for the final, which means that I'll also be missing out on the Dachshund Race oh well... :)

Next up is brief trip to Berkeley to look for housing -- no idea how that is going to work out yet, but, I am out-of-control excited about being going to check out the place that will be my home for the next two years, so stay tuned, more news to come!

Counting Down & Moving On (almost!)

It is official, the count down has started, for real: I'll be leaving Japan in less than 60 hours and it is time to start packing and stop blogging... Mentally I am trying to get myself into gear for the dmv appointments, tax returns, insurance phone calls, apartment searches and other 'fun activities' that starting next week will take the place of my daily Japanese classes. What an amazingly strange thought at this point!

My plans for the next few weeks are: Sunday June 25th leaving Japan and heading to my temporary home at my sister's house in Orange County, CA (-- while there I'll hopefully get everything taken off of in prep for school starting in August), on July 11th heading to Denmark for some quality time with the extended family (-- this will be the first time since *1997* that I spent over 3 weeks in my country - unbelievable!), August 4th back to the US and August 7th, ta-da!, school starts in Berkeley with "Math & Communications Camp". So yes, there is much more fun to come. I am not sure at this point how much I'll be able to maintain the blog during this time, but I do hope to be able to post an update now and then, so don't forget to check in, ok?!

What will I miss about Japan?

The language classes - adding new little pieces to the puzzle everyday continues to be great fun and it makes me feel "grrr" to have to put the pause on for a while. Luckily my friends at Japanese Pod101 are bound to keep me entertained until I can take back up my studies (hopefully later this year).

The fun people I've met & the "Matsudo J&F Soccer lounge".

THE FOOD, THE FOOD, THE FOOD ($1 kaiten sushi never being out of reach for example)

*Big* city life, little dramas and great discoveries awaiting around every corner

24h 'Kombinis' on every other corner

Trains that go everywhere at any time, 20 times an hour.

Talking toilets (ok, just kidding).

The Love & Hate List (i.e. these things can be annoying, but I know I'll miss the anyway)

Jingles everywhere - the vegetable song in the produce section of my supermarket, the fun little tune announcing the arrival of a train, the fake bird noises indicating (to the blind) the location of the stairwell.

The cheerful army of "Irashaimase!" sayers greeting my upon entrance to any given store, not once, not twice, but up to at least 50 times (and probably longer, but I've always had to leave the store at this point).

Girls in Maid-Costumes, walking with their knees bend inwards, because they think it is cute

What I look forward to giving up...

Overcrowded trains, random people sleeping and snoring happily on my shoulder.

"Mushiatsui" = Hot & humid weather

Japanese style toilets

What I am looking forward to back home...

A few select, good foods: Red wine (ok, technically not food I guess...), Blue Cheese, Chocolate, a nice little steak from El Toro Meats & Danish hot dogs, of course!

Hanging out with the family, first in the OC & since in Denmark

Being re-united with my 2 boxes of shoes (although this will take another little while I fear)


With this, I'll leave you for a little while - Ja Mata & see you later...

More last minute fun...

Squeezed in 'just one more' little last minute activity today -- a photography exhibit at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography featuring a British photographer named Michael Kenna, presenting the black & white landscapes he has captured in Japan over the last 4 years or so. The show was *amazing* -- you can check out these images on display on his website. This one was my favorite shot: "Fierce Wind" quite dramatic...

サッカーワルドカップ - Soccer World Cup!

Today's honorable random mention goes to... The FIFA Soccer World Cup. As you may have noticed the soccer world cup slogan is something like "uniting people as friends" - I don't know if that is actually working out in Germany, but in Matsudo, Chiba-ken, Japan it has been a huge success: in my dorm there are a lot of soccer fans, from all over the world. From the landlord, who gladly puts up multiple projectors when Japan is playing, to the folks from Burma who have taught me that soccer in fact used to be quite popular there until the military junta decided to redirect all funds towards guns, to the Indian guy cheering for Iran due to the ethnic ties between India and the Middle East... It's a riot. Every night the soccer fans congregate in front of our shared big screen TV to watch the days highlights and games, with people dropping out as the night drags on (the last game of the day is on at 4AM Japan time...) in the hallways the Konbanwas have been replaced by "Which game are you watching tonight?" and "have you heard that Team X beat Team Y?", alliances change quickly and sympathies are with which ever resident's team is playing tonight.
Japan, much too everyone's dismay, has struggled so far, loosing to AU and playing a 0-0 tie with Croatia. Friday 4AM will be the deciding match for everyone's darling: Japan will be meeting Brazil in Dortmund and half of J&F House will be getting up very early to cheer them on. The odds are not looking too favorable, but even the Brazilian residents have agree that Japan should- and deserves to win this one: it will be much more fun for all of us if they stay in the game...

Nihon Minka-en

... And in the spirit of checking off "things-to-do" on my list, I also finally made it out to the Nihon Minka-en -- an "Open-Air Folk House Museum, [it] is an attempt to recreate 24 historical buildings from 15 different prefectures, dating from the late 17th to the early 20th century." I've been meaning to go for quite a while, but the recent start of rainy season has complicated matters a bit - whenever I've had time to go, it has been raining. Last Sunday was no different but I decided to bite the bullet since i really wanted to see this place and I was not disappointed (albeit somewhat wet).
It's quite impressive to see the detail of the craftmanship that went into these places, the regional differences in the building designs (steep roofs in regions with lots of snow for example) and it also helped me understand certain Japanese customs, such as the "always taking your shoes off when entering a home" for example: as you may be able to see in the second image, a lot of the houses were laid out in such a way that the first space/area you reach when entering was used for everything from horses, to storage and general dirty-work - whereas the living quarters were on a slightly elevated area off to one side -- with this layout in mind, it makes complete sense that one would shed the outdoor + dirty area shoes before stepping up onto the living area space, right?! At least this is now my personal theory, which may of course be completely off :)
While at the Minka-en, I also enjoyed a serving of Sansai Soba -- Soba noodles with "Mountain Vegetables". I think I described the mountain vegetables, aka young fern, before, but I've tried adding a picture as it really is quite a pretty, albeit unusual veggie.