Thailand, ผมรักคุณ

Let me preface. It was really thanks to Anthony Bourdain that my interest in visiting Thailand emerged. Reading his books, watching his Travel Channel show, and meeting him at GW all culminated in this desire to eat real Thai food. Certainly, my ritualistic Thai Place "lemongrass chicken" wouldn't satisfy my curious appetite. And after watching my friend's Thai-trip slideshow, I had all the more desire to visit the country. Thankfully, Thailand from Tokyo vacations are pretty cheap, and so it was very accessible/affordable.

Like my trips to Sapporo and the Yaeyama Islands, I organized the trip through Waseda's co-op. I selected a four day plan, but made the mistake of leaving early and arriving late, so really I only had two days in Bangkok (which were enough, but I'd have liked to visit other places in Thailand). My friend Dave from my Japanese class accompanied me on the trip.

Day 1
I am hesitant to even refer to "Day 1," because we basically spent it on the airplane. We left Tokyo in absolutely beautiful, sunny weather. The flight was a bit bumpy, but I just listened to music (new Joanna Newsom album) and watched "Where the Wild Things Are" as an in-flight movie. The airplane food was not so bad, and the flight attendants were very nice, and were impressed by Dave's and my Japanese skills.

We arrived in Bangkok around ten or eleven at night. We didn't realize JTB (the travelling service who organzied our trip) arranged an airport pick-up service for us, so we took a bus to the city's center and then cabbed to the hotel. When we were checking in, the lady from JTB who was supposed to pick us up called the hotel and complained to me in this hard to understand Thai-Japanese. She then came to the hotel and told us things like "Don't drink the water" and that the fruit (in the room) is not free. She was funny though. You wouldn't meet someone like her in Tokyo.

Day 2
Our big tourist day! Thanks to the "Travel Wiki" website, we found a good one-day plan to cover all of Bangkok's big attractions. We first took a cab to "The Golden Mount," which was a really lovely temple. We got there very early so hardly anyone was there, so we were surrounded by the chirping sounds of birds and in the "distance" the sounds of the city waking up. We then traveled to Mahakan Fort on foot and crossed the streets to Wat Rajanadda, another wonderful, but slightly unappreciated temple. Taking a cab (they were so cheap, and almost always less than two dollars per ride) to Wat Pho, to see the world's largest reclining Buddha. We then walked to the nearby palace (don't remember its name), which was opened to the public after the royal family relocated. The ornamentation and decoration of Thai architecture was magnificent.

When we were done, we walked towards the pier of Tha Tien, which was half-hidden past a market alley full of stalls selling dried squid. We then hopped aboard the angular little ferry and payed 3 baht for the trip to Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn) across the Chao Phraya River. This kind of concluded our list of major tourist attractions, so we then headed back to the hotel for lunch and to take a nap by the pool. In the early evening, Dave and I went separate ways, he to get a traditional Thai massage and I to Lumpini Park (the largest park in central Bangkok). We reconvened at night and had a late dinner (it was included in the trip) at the hotel. It was a kind of Thai-take on Dim Sum. The restaurant staff thought Dave and I were Japanese, which caught me by surprise.

Day 3
meh...will update later today.

End of Classes and Delicious Food

I don't like to mince words, but I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression. Somethings are still weird, but I'm ready to forgive. Let's see where that takes us.

Moving on, I promised a long update, but I am afraid I have instead neglected to write anything since final exams began and ended.

As for things regarding Waseda:
The allure of the university has worn off. The original ease of the classes amounted to nothing more than sheer boredom and a waste of time. I do not know what my grades will be, but I am under the impression they'll be good. Waseda's SILS program rounds everything above an 80 to an A, and everything above a 90 to an A+. We'll see what happens, but GW only requires me to pass the classes to achieve credit.

Japanese class certainly had its ups and downs. I'm glad that in the end I had several friends to share the time with. The three hour classes were difficult to pay attention in. While I wish I had learned more grammar, I did learn a lot of vocab and kanji. Still, there was a lot of busy work, which I wish I didn't have to have labored over.

Creating Values in Business turned out to be the most interesting class, while Media Economics turned out to be utterly useless. I did learn a lot in (postwar) Japanese Literature and American Advertising History, so I guess they weren't hopeless.

I sound a bit negative, but I am really fairly stolid in the matter, and I am actually looking forward to choosing classes next semester. Though I am slightly intimidated by the new online course selection process.

Moving on to more positive things, I had the best dinner the night before my final exam at the Prince Hotel in Shinigawa. It was the best buffet I have ever had, and rivals that of the New Orleans Yacht Club's various buffets (I am a sucker for Southern cookin'). My host family treated me.

I am afraid these photos don't do justice to the meal I had (I also only took pictures of 2 out of the 7 plates of food I gorged over), but just appreciate this little peak. I had fresh lobster, steak, tuna, various sashimi, sushi, and tempura (along with multiple flavors of salt: wine, deep-sea, green tea, etc). Of course, I had multiple preparations of salad and vegetables and breads. Finally, there were almost 50 different types of desserts covered in that gold and silver foil, which I had a good sampling of. It was amazing.

If anyone in Tokyo wants to go with me for lunch one day, it's 3000 yen for all you can eat. Dinner is a lot more expensive.

January

The semester is winding down! Can't believe it! It does not feel like I've been in Tokyo for long at all!


Tomorrow is my last quiz in Japanese class (um...yes!), and I have almost finished my Japanese Literature and Media Economics papers. After those are done, I think I can relax a little.

There are a bunch of castings this month, but I have missed a lot of class lately, so I am pretty hesitant to skip anymore so soon before exams start. 3 exams, 4 papers. I did have a delightful 2 hour haircut today, so at least I look my age again.

There was a birthday/goodbye party for one of my good friends this past week at Trump House (not Trump Room), and it was pretty interesting to be around what I would consider very GW-esque people. The kids who went to International high school all seem pretty awesome.

Anyway, enough procrastinating, now I am off to do my color-in Kanji homework...

Sick Days

Yes! Today is the first day I don't feel super tired! I think I've been sick the past few days. At first I thought I might have The Swine, so I did an online test for UK citizens to determine if I had it (I used the address of the BBC to pretend I was living there...), but the test determined me unlikely to be infected. Perhaps the horrible tasting Vitamin C drink I had last night cured me.

I still have a sore throat, so I bought some medicine, which was kind of expensive ($10, for some swallow-able capsules). They better cure me.

Friday night, I went to an izakaya (or Japanese-style bar) with some Japanese people from Sophia University, and I was able to keep up with the conversation to some extent (and it was all in Japanese).

The next day, I went to the Kodaira City Japanese Language Classes (they are offered weekly for people like housewives and businessmen who don't have time to learn Japanese at a college). I was the youngest person there. I was placed in to an intermediate level, but it was fairly easy, even though the teacher was really funny, so at the teacher's request, I moved to the next level which was kind of hard. I was having to define "keigo," which is like polite speech (conjugation and words become totally different) used in varying circumstances. It's like manners for your mouth. English has nothing like this because we are/were all barbarians. :)

Jokes aside, the class is only 300 yen (um a little more than 3 dollars now). The exchange rate is becoming so bad, compared to last semester. Thankfully, half of my stipend is in yen. Because it is so inexpensive, I'll probably attend the weekly classes (every Saturday morning, in my case). No grades too.

Following this class, I went with my host family to go camera shopping (they lost their camera in Australia). I was skeptical at first that wherever we were going wouldn't have the camera I wanted or the price would be the same as Yodobashi or Bikku Camera, but it turned out that my host father was able to negotiate the price of the camera I wanted to buy (Ricoh CX1 or CX2 if it was less than $400) down about 140 dollars. In addition, I got the case of my choice free as "sabisu" or service. Price negotiation doesn't happen in America unless you are buying shady goods.

In other Japanese news, I have two quizzes and an essay due tomorrow, so I need to get to studying.

Cats

There are cafes where you can go to play with cats (and other small animals), and I have just discovered one in the vicinity of Waseda's campus (this will have to be investigated in the future).

Unfortunately, even though today was a major holiday (Health & Sports Day?), it was not so for Waseda Students. Kind of a bummer, but at least we got last Thursday off because of the typhoon. (And so I missed my vocab quiz, mwahaha).

First Week of Classes

I've kind of put this off, and so now I am going to restructure it a bit.

I accidentally skipped my first class of the semester and my only class of Monday because I misread the time of my class (14:45 as 4:45). Not that it really mattered (during first week of classes attendance isn't taken).

On Tuesday, I had my first Japanese class! We had a really hard test, which was clearly designed to determine if we should be in a higher level, but judging by our textbook, I am in the right level. Also, being in a homestay really has already helped me with comprehension and speaking confidence. It also seems like the Japanese classes at Waseda are mostly vocab and kanji based, which is something that GWU didn't really focus on (it was mostly grammar). Still, I have the class 9 hours a week, which is kind of lame.

My Media Economics class also seems really interesting! The teacher is Japanese and sometimes forgets English, but he is very funny, and the course material seems interesting. I am doing a group project regarding television broadcasting, so it should be interesting (though I was I had the magazine industry or gaming industry).

My Topics in American Advertising class is a little mundane (it's a history class), but at least I'll get credit for it at GWU. The teacher wrote our textbook, and was referenced in a Discovery Channel documentary about advertising.

Surprisingly, my Creating Values in Business class will be totally awesome! The teacher is an incredibly interesting person, he's Japanese, but studied abroad in America and in France. Right now he is working on this record label (or sort of record label/agency) for bands, including Begin (we watched their videos in Japanese class)!

Classes Start Today!

Classes start today! I am taking "Topics in American Advertising," "Media Economics," "Creating Values in Business," "Japanese Literature After 1945," and Japanese (Level 3R).

Yesterdizzle, I was surprised to hear a Sylvie Vartan song used in a TV commercial, and yet even more surprised to find out my host family knew who she was, and then they were surprised I knew who she was. Go fig.

Locked Up

So here is a more legitimate update.

The past few days have been incredibly fun, and I've been meeting a lot of people. A few days ago, several friends and I joined the Waseda International Club (WIC) on a trip to Odaiba. It takes over an hour to get there by train, but the view from the monorail is great! There were maybe 20 kids in my group, and after having a picnic with food bought from a convenience store (Japanese convenience stores have many more choices of things to eat than American ones), we visited the Fuji Television Station (my host family's son also works there). We also saw a guy exhibiting his trained monkey. I don't like monkeys.

After returning to Takadanobaba Station, several of us joined a combined WIC and Niji-no-Kai (the name means Rainbow Club, but it's really an International Communications Club) for a Nomikai (which is like a drinking party). After the place closed, we all went to a park to mingle for a few hours, before being asked by the police to leave.

The next day, I went to Harajuku for the first time with my friend. It's a pretty cool place, and I think so far it's my favorite place in Tokyo. You have one street with most of the big brands: Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Armani, Bvlgari, etc. But then the side streets are filled with interesting little shops and boutiques like an entire store dedicated to Tintin. I thought I'd get my haircut in Harajuku, because this is the place to go for haircuts apparently, but I was too intimidated by all the hair salons.

The next day, I did get my haircut around Takadanobaba Station. I had no idea what the woman cutting my hair was saying, which was kind of awkward. But she gave me a good haircut (costing about 5000 yen - average price I think).

Later in the evening, I went with my two friends and two Japanese girls to an Izakaya (place where you can order drinks and order food) in Shibuya. It was a very interesting place...to say the least. It was monster prison themed, and the hostesses (as in Restaurant hostesses) wore "sexy Policemen bondage" outfits. We also were handcuffed and then led to our table, which was behind prison bars. Every so often the place turned off all the lights, and Japanese men dressed in Halloween masks would come around and try and frighten everyone.

After leaving this place (called Locked Up), we went to a club in Shibuya because we missed the last train. And so we "clubbed" for 5 hours before the next train came.

Opening Ceremony (and not the store)

Yesterday was the opening ceremony for the Waseda SILS Program. It was held in the Okuma Auditorium, which is 125 year-old building with a clock tower. The number 125 is apparently special because the founder of the school and twice prime minister Okuma Shigenobu believed people could live to be a potential age of 125. I also finally found out that there are 240 kids in my program, most are some sort of Chinese.

Before the program began, I visited the Theater Museum on Waseda's Campus with my host family. It was a recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theater or something, and contained a lot of translated plays and stage artifacts from the past 100 years.

It was free and very boring.

Less Than a Month to Japan!

Well, you know, everyone is doing it -- a blog for their travels, that is. And so well, I want to be popular, so here's mine!

Currently, I am a 20-year old nobody-who-wants-to-be-somebody eagerly anticipating my year abroad in Tokyo at 早稲田大学 (Waseda University). Passport CHECK! Visa CHECK! Sense of Adventure CHECK! I leave on the 13th of September to arrive on the 14th, from New Orleans to Chicago to the Narita Airport in Tokyo.

I'll be spending my year abroad with a host family aka. ホストファミリー.
From the information I've received, I've discerned that they live about 40 minutes to an hour away from Waseda's campus (depending on which combination of foot, bus, and metro I use). An hour's commute is fairly common for students staying with host families, I've heard. Anyways, I'll be living with a father (66) and a mother (61) and a pet dog (Maltese). They've hosted students for 14 years and have three married sons, so I don't anticipate any problems.

I am also fortunate because I will be receiving a stipend of roughly $1800 or about ¥169911 a month, which I received from both the George Washington University (my home uni.) and Waseda. Though I have been to both China and Taiwan, I have not yet been to Japan, and so I think the stipend certainly offers an immense opportunity to experience the Japanese culture uninhibited.

As Sept 13th draws nearer, I am slowly but surely reviewing my Japanese (which is quite terrible right now). I've also begun to put a mental pack list together; thus far it consist of 1) a towel, 2) neosporin, and 3) a raincoat and/or umbrella if I so choose.

All in all, I'll try and be fairly faithful to this blog, and I'll try to organize my posts in to some sort of coherent categories. So far I've tagged posts that relate to Waseda (Waseda), and posts that relate to my homestay (Homestay).

In the meantime, I need to open up a Citibank account (which I hear has branches in Japan), and buy some cheap, but decent suitcases.