A Day In Baraki Nakayama

It's 6:45, my alarm clock that I brought from the States that is plugged into a Japanese outlet is starting to get louder. It's across the room so I have to get up fast before it gets loud, my dorm has real thin walls and I don't want to wake up others. Although admittedly they're probably already all awake or getting up soon anyway. I look out my window and see some little houses under the towel that's hanging from my curtain bar as it dries there because the sun rises outside my window. The last few days I've been leaving my window open (which I found out I had a screen on the side of the window as well) and my room smells so good from the outside smells that come in. For those of you who know me, my sense of smell is the one I hold most dearly, there isn't a thing in the world that puts me into such a euphoric feeling as quickly as a smell of nature.

Anyway, I turn on my computer to see what people have left comments on this blog or left picture comments on Facebook, then grab my razor and shave. Yeah, I just shave in my room, it doesn't go anywhere and it too works off the plug in the wall without any sort of plug converter. I use an electronic razor because I'm far too lazy to actually shave the correct way. I then grab my shampoo and soap that I keep in a plastic bag as well as my toothbrush and head downstairs in my sleep shorts and towel. We have a main shower room which has 4 shower stalls, completely private. Each stall has it's own walk-in room for undressing and putting stuff in a bin type thing, then there is a door to the actual shower. There are four switches outside the shower; one for the shower light, one for the shower fan, one for the outside light, and I have absolutely no idea what the fourth does. I'm thinking something to do with the mat outside the door because under it there is metal, but I couldn't guess what the switch does, is looks on all the time but doesn't feel warm or anything. Anyway, the shower is large and spatious, much unlike everything else in Japan which tends to be smaller in size. After a shower and brushing my teeth I head back up to my room and grab all the stuff I need for day. I slide my slippers back on (shoes are NOT allowed past the front door, or in our situation a shoe cubby room that you carry your shoes to). There are no exceptions to this, construction people, delivery people, everyone has to take their shoes off before stepping up into the first room. Partially because of custom and how they've done it forever is the reason, but I can't help but think that it's really just cleaner as well.

Breakfast is next on my schedule, at least Mondays through Saturday, and we have to tell the people a month ahead of time whether we want an A meal, which is a Western style based breakfast, or a B meal, which is Japanese based. I go for A every morning more or less just because I don't want fish and rice as my main dish for breakfast. The main part is the only thing that is different, there are still side dishes that are very Japanese for breakfast. Oh, and also, there is bread and jelly (which becomes toast of course) for A meals. When we get to the meal room we take a tag off the wall with our name on it and put it in the basket, I guess to prove that we ate that particular morning. After getting all the dishes, already all plated for us by the way, we sit down and eat. I say we because in the morning other IES students are normally in there so I eat with them. There is this kid that is from Brazil too that is studying to get his second Masters Degree, and he's sometimes there too. There are tables and chairs, we don't sit on the floor in my dorm to eat meals, although I will add it is common to do that in families or at certian restaurants. The eel place was structured like that. There is also a TV and we watch the news. I don't really understand most of it, but that's not always the case. After breakfast we bring over our dishes and rinse all of it into the sink. There is a bag with very fine meshing that catches all the food and allows the water to go through, a rather ingenious idea for pouring water and food into the same bag. We then spray off our dishes and drop them lightly in the sink full of water. Our equivalents of mama-sans clean them, or Manager-san himself. I actually don't know his name, so I refer to him as Manager-san with other IES students. While leaving the breakfast and heading to the door to leave I flip over my number tag on the board in the hall to signify that I'm not in the building anymore. We don't have a curfew or anything, but it serves as a way to tell who's in the building for whatever reason.

Oh, and just to clarify this, I'm not sure if people realize this: I don't live with other Americans other than IES students. There are about 75 residents here and the 6 of us and the 1 Brazilian are the only non-Asians in there. From what I've seen, there are a couple Koreans and as far as I know, no one that knows any real amount of English. I'm sure most Japanese people know enough to say hello and maybe some very basic comments, apologies, complements, etc, but that's about it. Manager-san knows a little bit but not enough to talk to you in English. I know enough Japanese to understand what he tells us thankfully, but I can't really communicate clearly with him.

Then I get to the front door room and exchange my slippers for my shoes and head out for the Baraki Nakayama station. It's about an 8 minute walk through a really rural in comparison town to the rest of Tokyo. There are cabbage plots in people's lawns, and really narrow roads that not a whole lot of people drive on. Kids are normally playing on days and times where there isn't school. It's really a pleasant place. If I don't take the back shortcut to the station (saving on a minute or so), there is a 99 Yen Store, a 100 Yen Store (which sells things about 90 --> 600 Yen Items), Cocos (my favorite restaurant in the world now actually, they sell Japanese Curry), and some Konbinis (shortened from the English word "convenient store"). Here are some pictures of aforementioned places and streets:



Cocos



I think you can click on them to get bigger ones, but I'm pretty sure they'll be unmanageably huge, but hey, up to you.

When I arrive at the station I head for the Tozai Line Subway towards Nishi-Funabashi. There is a lot of English, but if you know any Japanese, or even if you don't, the stations of Baraki Nakayama(原木中山)　and Nishi-Funabashi(西船橋) are both pretty easy to spot. From Nishi-Funabashi Station I go to Makuhari(幕張) on the JR Line, the Sobu Line. The ride lengths are about 5 minutes from 原木中山 to 西船橋, and about 18 minutes from 西船橋 to 幕張. From Makuhari it is about a 10 minute walk to the Kanda Campus where my Japanese class is always held in the morning. This blog isn't about Kanda, so I'm going to skip to the part where I go back home, haha.

As I arrive back at the Baraki Nakayama station I head for the 99 Yen store to get some sort of snack for the evening. It is typically some sort of baked bread good or chips or occasionally candy. On another side note, whenever I go to a Konbini or a department store I look to see if I can find Pocky, and if they have a flavor I haven't had I buy it. If I've had all the flavors they carry I normally buy my favorite amongst them. For those who aren't sure what Pocky is, it's basically a snack food that is made up of Biscuit-sticks dipped in chocolate or a fruit flavored cream of sorts. In the U.S. there is chocolate and strawberry, but they have dozens of flavors here. I'm going to list all of the kinds I've had at the end of this blog.

Then I head back to the dorm and put away my stuff in my room. Sometimes I head straight down to dinner, sometimes I go on my computer for a little. Dinner works the same way, but there aren't choices. There are however, many different side dishes that you are given so dinner is normally 4 small dishes. There is always rice and miso soup / sometimes other soup, and normally some sort of salad. My favorite is the curry we have although the seafood dishes are normally really good. There were these crab balls that were delicious. Balls of crabs, not balls from crabs...

Life in the dorm room is pretty good too. My room has a fantastic view in my opinion of outside and the road. There are some buildings all around us on most sides, and there is also the inside of the building as we are in a U shaped building, that some of the IES people have views of. Outside my window there is a store which I believe sells candy and ice cream and other food items although I plead guilty to not actually entering, so there may be more stuff. Kids go in there and get stuff though, so someday I'll probably head in to see what it is. See, I'm not afraid to go in stores but I have no desire in going into what could be a porn store of something like a Pink Salon, which, well, look it up. But since there are kids going in I would hope that I'd be right in assuming that this is just a store that sells food.

You have to be really quiet in the dorm rooms. Dorm rooms are NOT like they are in the States. They are much stricter in certain manners, and because of this it is not a popular choice of living in Japan. Most students live at home or rent apartments, which are a bit like the U.S. apartments. It's a little strange though in terms of Alcohol and Pornography though, once you're of age for them they are rather common things. You can get drunk in public malls. As for sex, Japan is so lenient and so much less of a Taboo thing. The age of consent here is 13, and it's not uncommon (or frowned upon) for a female of legal age, which I'm not sure which is what, to give service for money. We talked about it in Pop Culture one day, and I guess it's interesting that the country works that way. It is what it is.

Hmmm... well that's a bit for this entry. I guess I'll just talk about what I've done the last couple days.

Yesterday I went to the Ueno Zoo, which is Japan's oldest zoo and one of it's better ones. It has the most variety of animals including Tigers and Lions. The album on Facebook is here : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2077044&id=3708410&l=568c06509f

It was a good day overall, the animals are always so cute and I always feel bad for them. It's really a split thing, I don't like what zoos do to the animals, but there aren't guarentees they would live a good life outside one either, and since some are endangered for whatever reason as it is, the chances of them living at all is smaller. I can go to zoos without feeling too much hatred for zoos, although I'd be lying if I said I like supporting the idea. It is what it is.

Today I just did homework and reading assignments. Well I mean, I woke up at 12:00 so it's not like I've been busy all day, haha. I didn't eat lunch and instead snacked on Pocky all day, which was delicious. I asked people if they wanted to go to Coco's for dinner and they were interested so I went with some people from my dorm. I got the Fried Chicken Curry again, it's so delicious. Other people got Ebi (shrimp) Curry, Chicken Cutlet Curry, Egg Curry, and Ika (squid) Curry. I then noticed that there is a heat chart, you can get Curry of varying hotness. The standard one that I've got and a 3 one time apparently are rather mild, and go extremely hot to 10. Here's a chart from their international menu:

So basically to even try Level 6 you have to prove that you can handle Level 5, meaning that 10 must be unbelieveably spicy. A bunch of people I went with want to try Level 10, but it looks like you have to start with Level 5. I will be among the people who try Level 5 next time out of curiousity, but if you have to have a pre-requisite for trying anything hotter I'm not sure if I want to have anything that dangerous, haha. I've decided that's where I'm going every Sunday for dinner as we don't have dinner at our dorm on Sundays. I'll also probably eat there for lunch on Wednesdays if I'm in town as I don't have class or a Field Placement. Wednesdays are great.

All in all though, Japan is great. Classes are pretty good, some of the readings straight out are boring, but that's how that goes. Japanese class, 実践日本語２ is pretty good, I really like the teacher and we had a 自己紹介 assignment, which is a Self Introduction, we're going to be writing it to a Japanese student and become something of Pen Pals. I really pulled out the stops and spent 6ish hours on it and learned a lot of grammar and adverbs from books and dictionaries that I've never used before. I hope it's mostly correct, haha. Gotta make mistakes to learn from them though, so I'm ready!

Here is aforementioned Pocky list by the way! :

• Strawberry
• Chocolate
• Milk
• Strawberry (additional fruit)
• Kiwi (additional fruit)
• Orange (additional fruit)
• Choco Banana
• Chocolate w/ Crunched Almonds
• Chocolate w/ Crunched Coconut

I also found some new music groups that I like quite a bit, mostly Japanese, but some Korean and one Asian-American MC that raps in a Jazzy Rap. I think I'll share some songs with links for you all if you're interested:

[English Lyrics & HQ] Epik High - Map The Soul (Worldwide Ver.) (Tablo, MYK & Kero One) - English, although Tablo is Korean, can't tell by this song though, huh?

Sen no Yoru wo Koete - Aqua Timez - Japanese

Kero One - "When The Sunshine Comes" - English

[MV] One - Epik High - Korean

BUMP OF CHICKEN - 天体観測 (Tentai Kansoku) - Japanese

東方神起/TVXQ-Survivor[HQ] - Koreans singing Japanese

Ai Otsuka - Planetarium - Japanese

TVXQ 4th album《The Secret Code》-Stand Up!- (full ver .) - Koreans singing Japanese

Alrighty, hope you enjoy some of it, haha, most of it is boy bandy or very different kind of music, so I'm guessing that most people won't like them or even listen to them all, haha. I don't care, I accept that most American people won't want to listen to this kind of music, but I can't live without it I don't think.

And this is the end of this blog. Expect updates maybe weekly or twice a week, I'm really busy during the week. Please though, keep asking questions you want me to answer, I'll get to them, I promise.

Peace!