Kyoto's Snowflake Kisses

お久しぶりですね！ It has been a while!

I apologize for my lack of updates. Life became kind of crazy during the month of December and January. I was having test after test after presentation and I didn't have to update my blog.

So, a summary of the past two months:

In December I spent time in Sendai and experienced a traditional Japanese New Year with my dearest, his co-worker, and a friend who is currently studying in Kobe. I was so happy to be able to spend New Years in a different country. My lovely's co-worker, who's nickname is Shoe, gave us Osechi which is a traditional assortment of food that the Japanese eat on New Year's day. The food was in three different plates stacked on top of each other and each piece of food had a meaning in it. For example, the shrimp represented longevity and the fish eggs fertility.

On New Years Eve we all went to a a shrine called Shiogamajinja to pray for good luck and fortune in 2011. There, I bought a 'Omamori'; an item that will protect me for the New Year. Technically you are suppose to burn this Omamori after a certain point but I wanted to keep it in memory of experiencing New Year's in Japan.

In January I finished my first semester!! It was stressful having so much work in the two weeks before the end of the term but such is life. I still can't believe my stay here in Japan is half over! Where did the time go? Now that I am on break, I plan on studying Japanese, traveling, going to concerts, and see more of Kyoto and the Kansai area.

I know I mentioned back in October that I did a fashion show. Here is a picture from that event. Sorry I didn't post anything!


It was really awesome to walk the runway. The feeling of strutting my stuff, smelling hair spray in the dressing room, and slapping on tons of make up reminded me of my days doing color guard. It was such a wonderful and nostalgic feeling. I loved feeling that performance 'high' again.

In more reccent events, two days ago, my friend and I went to what is known in Japan as a Cat Cafe. What is a Cat Cafe you might ask? Well, it is a place were you can go pet cats for a half hour to an hour while drinking juice and/or eating a small snack. Seems strange right? In Japan, however, often times aparments are too small or don't allow pets. So as a away for want-to-be pet owners to enjoy the company of animals is to go to one of these cafes. There also exist ones for dogs, too, but I have yet to find one.

The room where you pet the cats was really clean and comfortable. It also had a sink where you could wash your hands afterward and comfortable places to sit. Being in this place made me wonder: How would a business like this do in the states? I think that if you did it right, creating a place like this for cats and dogs where people can come in and pet them would be a great thing to do for rescued animals. It could give them that human interaction that they need and if the people who visit are so inclined to, they can adopt the animals from the cafe. I wonder what would come of it if something like that did exist.

On Saturday, I will be going to Hokkaido to see my host family and Sapporo for the first time in 4 years. I am so ecstatic to see how the city has change and to see the Yuki Matsuri. My second home is waiting.

オリビア
2/2/2011

PS. In December, I sumbited a picture from my experience here in Japan to Pitt's Abroad Office and they used it on their website! It is one of the first images too! Check it out!-> http://www.abroad.pitt.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Abroad.Home

The Gakuensai, Changing Leaves, and Being Sick

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the lack of update again. I had numerous midtderms recently and then I also became pretty ill and am still trying to recover. Speaking of being sick, that is a true first for me here in Japan. Granted though in 2006 when I was living with my host parents I suffered from a huge migraine but I blame that one on the lack of sleep and left over jet lag. Anyway, last week I visited the health clinic on campus to see if they could tell me what illness I had. The first day I went they were apparently closed, despite the fact that there were doctors in the office, and told me to visit this throat clinic (the day I went my throat was in pain and I thought I may have had Strep.) There was no way I was going to do that! I felt waaaay to weak to venture to some place I had never been to before. And on top of that all they needed to do was take a giant ear cleaner, swab my throat, and see whats there. I know at the clinic at Pitt they would do that all in the same day.

That is something that I have realized bothers me about Japan. In the language and culture, everything is very round about and answers tend to not be direct. For example, a friend of mine asked me something like this the other day:"I am trying to study English and I want to get better and I know that we will be meeting often but... (will you be my language partner?)" I was frustrated that the facilities at school didn't have the resources to do a simple throat swab and that they had to send me to some other location to have that done. I could understand if they did a test on me, obtained positive results for some illness, and then sent me to a specialist clinic. I knew that this 'beating around the bush' way of speaking and acting existed in Japanese culture prior to arriving here. However, there is a difference between learning about it and seeing it in full-blown action.

Regardless, the next day I returned to the campus clinic when it was apparently open and I was finally able to receive treatment and medicine. That day, my throat no longer hurt and I was more concerned with my fever, coughing, body pains, and runny nose. The medicine I received, interestingly enough, isn't sold in the United States. It is apparently more naturally based and comes from a plant of some sort. I found that very interesting.

It is now been about week or so later since and I am feeling better. I still have a runny nose and a cough but my fever hasn't really flared up again. Also some love and help from my dearest who visited me that weekend helped the healing process.

Speaking of which, on a day that I was feeling somewhat better, I visited a place called Arashiyama to view the changing leaves in Kyoto. It was truly splendid but extremely crowded. I didn't see a much of Arashiyama simply because it was flooded with tourists and as a result I felt slightly claustrophobic. Seeing the changing leaves in Kyoto is a big deal for the Japanese. As a result all of the trains and buses have been unbelievably crowded recently. All of the temples, like Kiyomizudera, Kinkakuji, and others are having light up nights and extended hours to accommodate all of the visitors. I can't imagine what spring will be like when the Cherry Blossoms start blooming.

Though it was crowded, the leaves were still beautiful and I found one other lovely surprise along the way.

One weekend prior to visiting Arashiyama, I was able to experience Ritsumeikan's Gakuensai or school festival. At the school festival, all of the clubs in a school open up different booths and make food, perform, or sell other things. I don't believe anything like the gakuensai exists in American schools. The Buddies (the students that help us adjust to life in Kyoto) made Corn Soup and gave out free hugs. After my friend, Maki, went on break from the booth, we walked around together and saw the entire campus and the various activities going on. I enjoyed our conversations and she has become one of my good friends here.

Next month I will be trekking up to Sendi to visit my dearest for Christmas and maybe go up to Hokkaido for New Years depending on what my host father says. After that I only have a few weeks until the end of the fall semester. Time truly flies! Speaking of holidays, this is the first time I have spent Thanksgiving without my family. I do miss them and I also miss Thanksgiving dinner. For the record, turkey meat isn't sold in Japan though my sources say that you can buy a small Turkey in Kobe. For my Thanksgiving dinner I did not eat anything special. Nothing like what is in the US around this time. On top of that I had to be in school on Thanksgiving day. Not fun. Oh well, at least I lucked out because Christmas is on a Saturday this year.

Next Tuesday I am going to be in a fashion show. More on that next week :D


オリビア
11/27/2010

Long time no update: Seeing My Host Father, Jidai Matsuri, and Fushimi Inari

Hello everyone!


Sorry for the lack of up date. I just finished taking numerous tests so I have been studying a lot recently.

Tonight is the SKP Halloween party! I am attending however, my costume that I wanted to wear, has, well, not arrived from the states. So, I am just going to have to do a makeshift version of my Star Trek costume. Maybe I can borrow leggings from someone.

Anyway, so, many things have happened since I last posted. Tons of really awesome things. Where should I start...

Two weekends ago, a friend of mine from Pitt came from Kobe to Kyoto for a school trip. She stayed in my apartment and we went out and saw Kinkakuji and did Nomihoudai (all you can drink) together. It was so much fun. So many funny conversations.

That same weekend, I saw my host father for the first time in 3 years. It was just awesome to spend the day with him. He is currently on a business trip in Kobe, which is close to Kyoto, and had time so he came out to visit me. We had lunch together and talked for hours! So much to catch up on!! We then went to Kiyomizu Temple which I have officially decided is my second favorite place in Kyoto. This temple is literally built on the mountain side and you can see all of Kyoto. I need to go back there again when the leaves change color and in the spring. There is a whole hillside of Cherry Blossoms there. I bet they are stunning in full bloom.

Last weekend, my lovely traveled all the way from Sendai to watch the Jidai Matsuri with me. The Jidai Matsuri is one of the three big festivals in Japan (Gion Matsuri and the Aoi Matsuri are the other two). We watched people dressed in traditional Meiji costumes parade to the Heian shrine. All of this is a re-enactment of when the Shogun handed the central government power back to the Emperor of Japan.


After that, the two of us traveled to the lovely area of Inari, home of the Fushimi Inari shrine. This place is by far my favorite place in Kyoto. I had been there with my sister and my Dad three years ago on my first trek to Kyoto. I remember seening the endless lines of Toorii gates (red gates) all with inscribed with the names of different compaines who purchased the gates as a way to try and please the mercantile god, Inari. This place is also shown in the film Memoires of a Geisha, which is one of my favorite moves.

Inari uses foxes as messengers so naturally the shrine is filled with statues of foxes (though oddly enough I never saw any real foxes. However, there were countless numbers of cats.) When I was there three years ago, I knew that this would be somewhere I would want to come back to and walk the entire trail of Toorii gates.

Last weekend, with someone near and dear to me, I finally lived out my dream and walked the ENTIRE trial which took about 3 HOURS. It was AWESOME and at some points, a bit scary. It was dark and there were no people (we would maybe see one person every half our or so). While the trail was lit with electric lanterns, the dark wood surrounded us on all sides and it felt like all that was protecting us was the red gates lining the path. Along the way we saw the homes of the caretakers of the shrines. Seeing the houses and hearing the boom and clack from within the house made us feel unwelcome at that hour of the night.

We reached the top of Inari Yama (Inari Mountain) and couldn't help but feel some sort of presence. The wind was blowing gently through the trees and I sensed that something was near by. Perhaps it was Inari!

Also, if you walk the trail to a certain point in Fushimi Inari, you can see a splendid and breathtaking view of the western part of Kyoto.

Wow so much has happened and already I am more than a month into my Journey. I wonder what lies in November for me.

オリビア
10/30/2010

The First Week of School and Gion

Hello everyone!

So, I lied when I said I would be writing about the first day of school. Instead, I am going to write about the first week of school! Sorry for the delay.

Yes, I have finally started classes. I am enrolled in 5 classes: Japanese Economy, Japanese Comprehension, Japanese Listening and Speaking, Japanese Research, and Calligraphy. Not a whole lot but enough to fulfill my requirements at Pitt.

Japanese Economy is taught in English. It is as the title says. I think this will be a great way to add to my business education.

Japanese Comprehension, Listening and Speaking, and Research all kind of go hand in hand. They are all taught in Japanese and while a lot of the material now is quite simple and I have had exposure to, there are still a few things here and there that I have not learned. In Japanese Research, we learn about history, culture, and well, a little bit of everything. Next week I have to do a 発表 or a presentation in Japanese about a famous person. I was thinking about doing Mineko Iwasaki, the Geisha that Saiyuri was based off of for Aurthur Golden's book "Memoirs of a Geisha."

Based off of my placement tests, I was put into the C2 language class, which is about the mid range (Ritsumeikan has class levels of E to A, with A being the highest.) According to a friend of mine who went to Rits, she said that after completing Japanese at Pitt, C is a pretty typical level to be placed in.

Aside from all of this, I am also taking a Calligraphy class. I enjoy it and find it really relaxing but I found out that my professor is really strict. That makes me a bit nervous but I will still try to enjoy it anyway. I thought that by taking Calligraphy I could some how apply use it and its techniques in my art. While we were learning how to make the ink, (there are two different ways to 'create' ink. One is to pour it from the bottle, and the other is to take this thin, tiny, slab and rub it in water), our teacher told us that while using the small slate our hearts must be 'quite' or 'at peace.' I found this to be a very interesting way of thinking.

On a different note from school, I was able to go to Gion this weekend with few friends. Gion is the place in Kyoto where there are many of okiya or Geisha houses. I was lucky enough to see two Maiko (apprentice Geisha!)


They were running to their appointments!

It is really cool because my one friend who I was with knows a great deal about traditional Japanese culture. She does traditional dances, plays Japanese instruments, and is even friends with a real Geisha! It was really great to get her perspective on Japan's traditional culture and we even discussed how interest in Japan's tradition arts is fading among the youth.

That is pretty much it for now. I am not sure what the next blog post will be about but I am sure something will happen that is interesting, soon!

オリビア
10/6/2010

Formailites and the End of Orientation

Hi again everyone!

So this past week I was super busy with attending orientation at Ritsumeikan. Orientation consisted of taking a placement test, touring Ritsumeikan's campus, a welcome party, opening a bank account, and various other things. The study abroad students even had the opportunity to experience a 7.0 earthquake in an earthquake simulator that was brought to campus. Very amusing and helpful. Seeing and participating in it reminded me of when my dad, sister, and I were in Japan together and that earthquake in Niigata occurred, the one that my dad claimed to feel the tremors from.

To celebrate the end of orientation and the beginning of the new semester we had a party on Sunday. There was so much food! Everyone was required to make something and bring it to the party. I ended up making mac-and-cheese from scratch which actually didn't turn out so bad. I was quite pleased with myself.

Though it turned out ok, I had a really hard time thinking what to make. One of my friends suggested to me to make something that was from Pittsburgh. Obviously, I wasn't able to do that because most of Pittsburgh's famous dishes use lunch meat and that is few and far in between here in Japan. However realizing all of this made me see how much of a Pittsburgher I really am. For example, I realize how much things like lunch meat are a staple to my diet, almost like how rice is to a Japanese person. It is really interesting how food can say endless things about a culture.

Moving away from food and my own cultural realizations, I wanted to bring up something I have noticed about the way Japanese is spoken here at the I-House. Now, I don't know if this is because formality in Japanese has been beaten into my head by my sensei at Pitt, but I have come to realize that when people don't speak formally at first it bothers me. For example, there are people in this dorm who I have just met and already they start using informal speech. For example saying sentences like "Kore taberu?" rather than "Kore tabemasu ka?" Which both mean "will you eat this?" but the latter is more polite. Even the SKP buddies, who are Japanese, speak to me this way. Because I am not yet close with many of the people here, I expect them to speak politely to me and then I doing so in return. Until I become closer with them, this is how it should be.

Perhaps I am being too serious. But what can I say? This is how people at Pitt are trained when it comes to Japanese; you have to be polite and use polite speech often. Also, many Japanese people I have talked with told me that they like the formal language used by Pitt's Japanese students (as compared to students at CMU or another university that teaches Japanese) and how culturally appropriate it is.

Anyways, that is the end of my rant about formalities in Japanese. Next entry will be about the first day of school!!

オリビア
9/27/2010

"WELCOME ようこそ日本へ"

"WELCOME ようこそ日本へ
君が今ここにいること
とびきりの運命に
心からありがとう"

--Dear WOMAN- SMAP

So I am finally back in Japan! It is good to be here again. On my first full day here I was able to call my host father and he happily welcomed me back to Japan. It made me feel at home.

Speaking of which, I have noticed that Japan has lost its intional shock factor, if you will. For example, the fact that I can't read the signs doesn't suprise me like it did in the past. Regardless, I am still pretty illiterate. Hopefully that will change this year.


I am all moved into my dorm and I am slowly in the process of making it feel like home. I want to decorate it a bit more and hang some posters here and there.



I saw Ritsumeikan University for the first time in three years. It was pretty crazy. The exteior of the buildings seems diffrent from what I remembered. I am so happy to finally be here. I received my ID card which makes me an official student! Speaking of which, today was the first day of orientation and I took my placement test. Hopefully I did well. Also, we had a welcome party with all of the Buddies (the Japanese students who will help us through out our experience at Rits) and I had the oppertunity to speak lots of Japanese and become friends with them. Maybe we will all go out to Karaoke on Friday.



Changing topics, this past weekend was wonderful. I did a bit of sight seeing with my lovely. We visited Ryoanji, which is famous for its peaceful and ascetically pleasing stone garden. I would love to see it in the winter, too.



We also stopped by Kinkakuji. I still can't believe this was my second time there. Who would've thought I would be back there again. Kinkakuji is a hot spot for tourists and it was overwhelming seeing so many foreigners there. The outside of the pagoda is laced with a gold foil material (I believe so at least).



So that is really all the updates I have for now. Classes begin next week. I am looking forward to studying Japanese intensely again. :D

オリビア
9/21/2010

"Let me show you the way to the New World"

"Let me show you the way to the way
to the new world
Now feel the winds blow
to your heart
I will take you right now
where the scene grows
Hold on to your seats
to the new world"

--Intercode- w-inds.

Hello everyone,

Tomorrow morning I will depart for Japan. It is kind of mind blowing. As I reflect back on the path I have walked, I can't belive that I have finally reached my grandest dream.

I think back to the time when I was sixteen, the first time I was in Japan. I was young, excited, and even a little naive. There were things I admit I didn't understand, simply because I didn't have the maturity to wrap my mind around it: What Japan was to me, Japan's history, what it meant to me to be there, how pathetic my language skills truly were, and how much this experience would shape me.

Now, at the age of twenty, I will have the fortune of returning to Japan for the third time in my life. Looking at how much I have changed since I was sixteen, both mentally and physically, I really want to look at Japan as "twenty year old Olivia" and see it as a new world all over again; to look for the things I may have missed as a sixteen year old or just couldn't comprehend.

Taking what I have learned about myself and Japan from my first experience will allow me to appreciate this year abroad even more. Living this dream that I have wanted for so long and the opportunity to make my language skills better are all goals I retained from that time.

Changing subjects, I know that my leave will be super hard on my family. I am trying to stay strong as the three of them seem to show signs of melancholy. However, I need to go to Japan. I need to do this for myself and for my language skills. I am thankful that they understand that and that the support me. They have really helped me achieve my dreams.

I am ready to go. Finally, everything that I have dreamed of is coming to be, and I can't be more thankful. Thank you to my family and all of the people who have watched, aided, and grown with me on this journey. I will make the most of this experience, I can promise you that. You will not be disappointed.

See you from the other side,
オリビア
9/13/2010