Catching you up to speed...

Wow, there is so much to write! The last month of my life has been insane. Sometimes it will hit me randomly that I am living in Japan. So far, I haven't gotten too homesick, although Thanksgiving was a little rough. I anticipate the same with Christmas. This will be the first Christmas that neither of us will see our families. Hopefully e-mail will help out with this. E-mail is such a blessing to me right now. I enjoy reading something in English!!
I am going to attempt to account for the last month of my life. I don't think this will be easy. Here goes nothing...
The first week here (November 10th-17th) was very busy. I arrived at the airport, and Casey was nowhere to be found. After about 25 minutes of waiting, I started to rationalize what was going on. Okay, I freaked out. I had clothes and a pillow, so I started thinking about what my options were. I couldn't speak Japanese, so I didn't know how to ask for a hotel. Luckily, after almost 45 minutes, Casey showed up. His bus to the airport was extremely late. I cried mad and happy tears all at once- it was strange! :) We stayed in a hotel that night, and the next day we went to our apartment. I love it! My dad has seen pictures and thinks it looks like a hospital room. I disagree! The pictures don't do it justice. It is small, but for Japan it seems pretty big. The shower is the biggest I have seen in Japan yet! Japanese hotels tend to have really tiny bathrooms. Our shower and bathtub are separate from each other, which is nice.
We acquired a bunch of things for our house from various people. One woman in particular hooked us up with a washing machine, refrigerator, microwave, desk, chair, TV (and we bought rabbit ears so we can watch some quality Japanese TV... the commercials are hilarious!!)... anyway, she is very generous and made us feel at home. Sadly enough, I don't think I ever learned her name. There are quite a few women, like her, that volunteer in the International Student office in the same building that Casey is doing his research. Many of them donate their time (and obviously their household items) to help international students and families. They also teach Japanese, and one of the ladies is teaching me for one hour each week. Her name is Asako Yanagi, and she was also Gopal's teacher while he was here. She is very nice, and so far I have learned quite a bit from her. (She is with Gopal and I in the picture below at the International Student Year-End party last week.)
So the first week was basically spent moving into the apartment and getting settled. I went out a few times with Casey, Gopal, and Jeff. On Saturday evening, we went to Bar Orugan, which was a favorite bar of the Osaka boys last year. Casey introduced it to the Osaka boys this year, and the rest is history. We hung out there Saturday night. At midnight, it was officially my 24th birthday (although Gopal would tell you otherwise... he says I'm either 13 or 36). :P It was a fun night, with a lot of funny events that Gopal details in his blog. A few I will not mention, mainly because I am embarrassed. Long story short, I tend to say really idiotic things when I have had a bit to drink (because I am the size of a 13-year-old), and this night proved that point. When midnight hit, the guys started singing "Happy Birthday" to me. The bartender came over and asked to see my passport. All I heard him say was "13", so I, being slightly intoxicated, mistook him for thinking that I was 13. :) I got kind of mad... (sigh). Yeah. It's funny now, but at the time, I remember thinking, "I get this all of the time in America... how the heck am I getting it here?!" Yikes.
Another funny moment of the evening was when we were walking with Gopal and Jeff on the way home. They both had bikes with them. I was getting tired of walking, and for some reason I said, "You should put me in the basket of your bike, you know, like E.T.?" I was also wearing a white coat with the hood up, so it probably would have looked a lot like E.T. with the sheet over his head. Gopal laughed so hard he had to stop walking. :) Since that night, E.T. has been everywhere. Jacob, one of the REU students, even bought me a keychain with E.T. on it. Maybe I'm reading into this a bit, but it does seem like I see it quite a bit now. We even saw a painting in downtown Osaka with E.T.! I'm going to go crazy! :)
Moving on. Sunday (the 13th) we went to Kobe with Gopal and Jeff. We saw the Earthquake Memorial, and also got to go up a mountain and see fragrance gardens and some neat glass houses. Jeff had to leave early, but Gopal stayed with us and we ended up going to a crab restaurant for my birthday dinner. It was really expensive! But it was nice to sit down and relax after all of that walking.
Monday I went in to school with Casey and got the bike we were borrowing from the International Student office. I also got sick this week. Our apartment is really cold and I'm not used to that anymore (South Carolina is spoiling me!) so I think since we are on the 8th floor and we are up in the mountains, somehow I am catching cold easier here than before. It is frustrating. But we stocked up on medicine and vitamins, so hopefully it'll help when winter really sets in. (It is hard for me to think that it could somehow get colder than it has been here... ahhhh!!!) I can't remember much that happened the first week here. We basically shopped a lot and went out to eat every night. I have attempted to cook 3 times, and so far, only the first one was a disaster. Translating food in a Japanese grocery store is harder than you might think. Casey bought me a book about buying food in Japan, which helped a lot. I did fine until it came to buying the main ingredient; salmon. I bought ham instead, on accident. It was terrible. I can't believe Casey ate it. Oh, and to top it off- it was salted ham. YUCK! On a lighter note, the other two meals have taken a long time to cook, but they've gone well. :)
The next event I remember was Thanksgiving. We invited all of the REU students from Osaka to dinner at a restaurant that served some American-style food (but no turkey, of course). Everyone showed except Karen. We had a nice time and ate pizza, hamburgers, french fries, and topped it off with Coca-Cola. :) It was nice to have a small touch of home.
On Friday night, Casey, Gopal, Jeff, and I decided to go karaoking. Anyone that knows me probably knows that I am terrified of speaking- let alone singing- in public. However, it turned out to be a lot of fun! I even did some air-guitar to Aerosmith and Guns 'N Roses! I think I sang about 5 songs. I will never do this in America!! It is so much less competitive here. We also had our own room, so I didn't have a bunch of strangers staring at me. The guys were very supportive, and made me feel at ease. I have done karaoke 3 times now, and each time has been a blast!
Saturday, Casey, Jeff, Gopal, his friend Reiko-san, and I decided to go to a bar called Cafe Absinthe. Casey went there last year and really enjoyed the atmosphere. I think we all did as well. Gopal ended up getting 4 absinthe drinks! What a guy! :) I, on the other hand, did not care for the taste. It's much like black licorice, so I will pass on that the next time. I would love to go back to that bar again, though, just to hang out.
We also met a DJ there named Matt who is from Chicago. He has been living in Japan for quite a long time, and knew where some good clubs were. He directed us to a place called Club Pure. It was crazy! You basically pay $30 for the entire night, and get free drinks. It was definitely worth it! We stayed there until 5 a.m.. The thing about getting around in Japan is that the trains stop around midnight, so if you are out after that time and are not in walking distance from where you live, you can either find a hotel somewhere, or stay out until the first train starts in the morning. We chose the later. We met a bunch of Japanese girls who spoke English and ended up hanging out with them for awhile. The club was full of non-Asians, too, so we got to speak English pretty much the entire night. It's refreshing to get a dose of English every once in awhile!
Speaking of that, I had a random thing happen at our apartment that was a little awkward. The first week I was here, a lady rang the doorbell, and when I came to the door, she started saying something in Japanese that I of course didn't understand. Then she busts out a Bible and turns to the English section which explains how I should know Christ and have Him in my life, etc. (I thought this was mainly something that happened in America, but I was wrong!) So after scanning through the paper, I tried to assure her that I knew what it was talking about, and then I thanked her and gave it back to her, and she said something else to me in Japanese. She could have said "Have a nice day" or even "You are going to Hell" but I had no clue. I think we both just gave up and I waved at her and shut the door. It's so frustrating when I have no idea what they are saying, or how to respond!!
Moving on. We have taken a few other trips here including Nara (we got to feed wild deer) and Kyoto (my favorite place in Japan so far... it's beautiful!). Also, last week I got to travel with the REU students to Tokyo. There were 3 students studying there with our REU program, and there was a symposium to showcase all of the REU students' research over the last 12 weeks. I am pretty proud of what they have done, although I think a few of them were a little discouraged. It is tough to get high-quality results by doing research in such a short amount of time. If it weren't at least a little difficult, would it really be worth it? Not everyone can publish a paper during 12 weeks of research.
Anyway, enough about that. I got to see a ton of things in Tokyo, most of which I will not detail at the moment. Gopal and I went to Tsukiji, the huge fish market, which was crazy! We woke up at 4:45 a.m. to go there, but it was worth it. We had the best sashimi tuna I have ever had, and probably ever will have, in my life. (How much fresher can you get it, really?) It was fun taking pictures and seeing how serious the fish industry is here. Not that I ever questioned it!!
So much for the detailed version of the previous month... I don't have the patience right now. And in fact, if you are still reading this, you deserve some kind of reward. This is quite the novel! And it's not even half of what has happened so far. I guess I will try it again next time. It would have been much easier if I could have started this a month ago, then you would definitely be 'up to speed'. However, I hope this give you at least a little insight as to what has been going on. I will try to be a bit more organized next time. :)
-Ashley