Posters in the train and subway stations

So I've gotten way behind on posting and updating, but I have a feeling no one reads this anyway, lol. I finally figured out how to post to FB, so I think I'll start doing that. I'm planning on going back and posting the other pictures and things I've been doing and make the posts retroactive.

These are some random pictures of signs and posters in the train and subway stations that I thought were cute or interesting.

Here are some pictures from the Harajuku subway station I think? They were one after another another really cute.

This first one is a map of the different things to see in Tokyo. I thought it was really cute (everything is really cute). I'm not sure if you can see, but the images of the zoo in particular (top left) are the cutest! The little animals are so sweet. I want to go there (I did, haha. I'll post pics on it later).


















These little raccoons (?) are everywhere in the train station, telling people to watch out for their fingers in the doors and stuff like that. I like that the big one is showing the little one places to go.


















And this I thought was just a really pretty poster.


















This is a stained glass mural thing also in Harajuku station I think. I thought it was really pretty.














This is a sign that's above the stairs in the Yokohama station. I thought it was really cute, so I had to take a picture of it. The penguin I think is the little mascot for the Suica cards, which are like cash cards for transportation and some konbini (convenience stores). You would think the octopus would be scary, but instead it's like they're just friends that are saying "hi!" across the mountains. Love it.














And finally here are some pictures of signs telling people to watch out for themselves and others.

These two are just saying watch out for the door and don't try and jump on the train as the doors are closing. They're really cute!




























Oh and here are the raccoons together pointing at the door.














This one is showing all the different ways you disturb people on the train, whether it's texting on your phone with your elbow out, rolling along with your roly-poly bag, listening to loud music or reading the newspaper. It's amazing how many ways people can disturb each other and the care that Japanese people take to not do that to each other. It's well appreciated. Sometimes (oftentimes) hard to do, but better for peace of mind I think.

Walk to Family Mart

During the afternoon we took a walk down to the Family Mart to get a snack. It's beautiful up here. Here are some pictures from the walk:










































Here is a picture of what looked like mini-palm trees that I thought looked cute and I thought my West Coast peeps would appreciate.














Inside the Family Mart, I was impressed by their wide array of Starbucks products.














Including double-shot espressos! Aren't the cans prettier than in the States?














And finally, on our way back to the orientation center, I took a picture of the building so you can see where I've been spending the past week. My room was the first glass window on the top floor of the first part of the building.

Miscellaneous meals and poster

Here are pictures from the most recent meals. Looking at them in the pictures, they don't look as good as they did in real life. :(

This is lunch from yesterday. There were these tofu... what are they called? It wasn't really fake meat, but like these tofu something... ooooh soy protein things. They were SO GOOD.














And then this is dinner. It looks a little weird. I wish I had opened up the foil a little bit more to show what's inside. There is a tofu steak in there. Can you see the weird broccoli-cauliflower things? It looked so weird, a green spiky looking maybe broccoli because of the color but looks more like cauliflower thing.














I didn't take a picture of breakfast this morning because it looked a lot like yesterday's breakfast but less pretty.

And here is lunch from today. I realize with this one, I think it looks a little gross, ha. But it's a risotto. Not bad. A little bland and the mushrooms were a little chewy, but I really appreciate that the vegetarian food is actual food.














And then here is me in front of my poster during the poster session! I think my face looks too big. Probably been eating too much rice, bleugh.

Special Guest Lecture: Music Performances

The second lecture was a performance showcasing three traditional Japanese instruments: the koto, shakuhachi, and shamisen. This older man first explained how to play the koto and its history, as well as the different scales that they play on it. There are these bridges on the strings of the koto, and depending on what piece the player plays, the bridges are put in different places to create different intervals between the different strings. And sometimes (oftentimes), they adjust it during the actual performance. It was amazing to watch. Here are pictures of the professor explaining the koto and the woman who did a performance for us:




























After that they explained the shakuhachi, which is a flute. Here is the performer displaying it. There is this one technique where they blow into it and make a sudden burst of sound which is supposed to create tension and be reminiscent of a samurai sword. The guy then imitated being a samurai with the shakuhachi as a sword. It was cute and funny.














Then they explained the shamisen, which is a three-string guitar-like instrument. There are no flecs on the neck though and apparently players aren't allowed to look at their fingers when they play. Sounded impressive. My picture of it is blurry, but here is a picture of a piece in which they played all three instruments together:














It was really awesome. I'm going to try and see if I can upload a sound file that I secretly took of the performance. They also played a piece that was variations on Sakura. It was amazing and I loved it so much. That piece was played on two kotos and this 18-string instrument that is like a koto but called something else.

Special Guest Lecture: Space Guy

Hi friends,

It's been a busy past couple of days. We started language classes and then we've had lectures "lectures". They were actually pretty interesting! One of them was a talk by an space guy, and wow Japanese presentations are amazing! They have all these stories, anecdotes, and examples that really put you in their shoes. I also think the emphasis on seeing relationships and how things connect together really shows up in their presentations. They also have the cutest animations to illustrate their ideas. Here's an example:














This wasn't the cutest one, but I was too embarrassed to take out my camera during the one I wanted to take a picture of. :( Basically he talked about these space crafts they made to investigate the start of the solar system, but they lost contact with the craft and they were sad. Lol, he made this video of the space craft floating in space with this overlay of sad music and this sad Japanese female voice saying in Japanese, "We miss you. We are waiting for you." And then apparently they heard a faint signal from the craft a year later, and they had to teach it to recognize their system again, and he likened it to baby talk and had the cutest pictures of a mother and her baby. Awesome. Best space lecture ever.

Oh last story about this guy. So when they lost the spacecraft or some other thing that went wrong that he told us about, he put up a big box in the middle of the slide saying, "Don't think it's unlucky. It's our blame! This is due to our immaturity. We must analyze the issues and conjugate for next time." And he explained each line. It was awesome. I wish I had gotten a picture of that.

Orientation schedule

Hi,

Here is the schedule for the next several days:

Thursday, June 16, 2011
7 am - 8 am: Breakfast
9 am - 9:25 am: Orientation for Japanese language classes
9:30 am - 12:30 pm: Japanese classes
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm: Lunch
1:50 pm - 6:00 pm: Special lectures
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm: Dinner
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm: Japanese culture experience

Friday, June 17, 2011
7 am - 8 am: Breakfast
7 am - 9 am: Check out
9 am - 12:30 pm: Japanese classes
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm: Lunch
1:30 pm - 5:00 pm: Poster presentations (SERIOUSLY? For 3 hours and a half?? whaa...)
6 pm - 7 pm: Meet up with home stay families

Saturday, June 18, 2011 and Sunday, June 19, 2011
Home stay family time

Sunday, June 19, 2011
6 pm - 7 pm: Dinner

Monday, June 20, 2011
7 am - 8 am: Breakfast
9 am - 12:00 pm: Japanese classes
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm: Lunch
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm: Japanese classes
2:50 pm - 5:50 pm: Special lectures
5:50 pm - 6:00 pm: Orientation farewell address
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm: Dinner

Tuesday, June 21, 2011
7 am - 8 am: Breakfast
9 am - : Depart orientation center for host institute

And that's what my next several days will look like! Hopefully I'll be able to chat and say hi during off-times. It's been great being here. I'm looking forward to talking more in Japanese...

Hugs, love, byes

First day of orientation

Hi friends,

We made it through the first day of orientation. Jet lag was still hitting pretty strong. We sat through some talks and introductions of the various partners in the program, then we took a group photo. Here is us walking down to take our pictures:














This is the amazing view from the center and photo-taking area. Apparently Mount Fuji is in the background somewhere, but it was so cloudy that we couldn't see it.




























So our rooms are located above the orientation center rooms. The building curves around, and my room is all the way at the end of the curve. The last room. But it's spacious. We have roommates. So far it seems to be going okay. But yeah, here is the view from my room! And I liked the greenery under the window, so there's a picture of that too.




























I also took a picture of breakfast this morning. It's not too fancy. I think the main reason why I took a picture is because I wanted to show how small the glasses are here. They are super super tiny. Like kid cups. I'm not sure you can tell here because there isn't really anything around to judge the scale. But I love that portion sizes are so small here. The bread is wonderful and light. The rice is perfect and sticky. The eggs are so so good. I love the food here.














Today we are going to be doing language classes and then some "lectures" though I think some of those are performances by people. I really hope so. That part is planned to be 6 hours long with only a twenty minute break in between ouch.

I'm going to post my schedule for the next couple days so you can imagine what I'm doing if you want to know. Also times when I might be free to chat if you're around!

Hugs and love,
Alyssa