Today, unlike last weekend which I spent watching the entire 4th Season of LOST, I went exploring. My destination today was none other than the Imperial Palace. For those of you that aren't in the know, the Imperial Palace is where the Emporer of Japan lives, and the royal family. Obviously, commoners are not allowed to walk inside (or even ont he Imperial Grounds), but the Imperial Palace East Gardens that are attached by some gates, are open to the public. So I went there today, they're about 45 minutes away from Baraki. I spent the day walking around the gardens and then walking around the entire perimeter (about a half hour walk at a decent pace) of the Imperial Grounds. The whole outer edge of the Grounds is surrounded by a moat and various Bridges and Gates leading in, and like stated before, you can't go in them, but they're pretty, haha. Additionally, it was nearly impossible to see anything from the outside as well, but the walk around the moats was still fun and definitely worth it. It was actually not raining, something that it is supposed to do for a good 20 out of the 30 days of June. How fun, haha.
Let's see, other than that, how have I been doing... I'd say I've been doing pretty swell. I have sort of traded tennis for Poi and other things, as the club has gotten too large to really enjoy the kind of tennis that I want to play. I still practice Poi, normally in the evening after classes or outside Kanda campus in the large field. People sometimes watch me but I guess that's part of the performance part. I feel bad that I can't actually do anything really cool but oh well, haha.
School is going great, I've had pretty much 100's on everything so far minus Japanese, where some of the quizzes I get ~37/40, which still is pretty good. Japanese is definitely the hardest, at least time consuming, but even as it is I think the class is pretty fun. I'm going to go out and say that I probably could have handled level 3 (or even level 4) if I knew more vocab and just had practice speaking. I say this because all the grammar that we're doing I've known because of grammar books and even the material in the people in the upper level classes I've looked at and also am familiar with it. I think I'm actually in a very good situation for me because once I start learning vocab I can apply so much more and really become more comfortable speaking. I didn't manage to get into Japanese next semester, at least the language, because of a large amount of Linguistics I have to catch up on, so this might be my last class at college of formal teaching. After this I think it's up to me to find Japanese people or something to talk to, haha.
So next week I'm going to Okinawa as part of an IES trip, nicknamed the "Hawaii of Japan". Google image Okinawa and find some pictures if you like, or wait until Sunday when they're uploaded of what I take if you're interested. Speaking of which, I took about 350 pictures today of the Imperial Palace area, so if you have the time check em' out. I won't be offended if you don't though, there are 350 pictures.
I've been playing some arcade games lately, well, not religiously, haha, but maybe spend $10 a week at the arcade. Besides Taiko, the drum game (which I now get blisters playing because the levels I'm at are very fast and clearly I don't know how to hold drumsticks =P), I've found some 2D Fighting games. I've always liked the genre and just recently got back into it. I downloaded some of the games for the PC and have played them a little, including Guilty Gear and Melty Blood, if anyone reading this is familiar with them, they're both anime style fighting games, and a both a lot of fun. I also played a game a couple days ago called BlazBlue, which isn't released on console yet, but it too is a lot of fun. Yep!
Let's see... I've heard that it is a concern around the world, but Swine Flu is slowly making it's way across Japan. While not nearly the problem it is in Mexico and the US, it is spreading Eastwards through Japan, and if it hits Tokyo there is a good chance that our Universities will close for a little bit. I guess as long as no one gets it, or if they do they don't let it get bad, it could be a nice break >_<
If anyone knew it before, I still watch Bleach, the anime, every week when it's released in Japan. Of course subtitled, I still don't know enough Japanese. Another anime I started watching is Utawarerumono. This particular anime is about this mysterious man who wakes up in a world of people with ferret ears and it's basically a fantasy / war / action anime, it's really quite good. I guess it started off as an Adult Graphic Novel, haha, but has since been adapted into a family-ish friendly Manga and Anime. In terms of American shows, I am on the 5th Season of LOST and am going to start Supernatural from the beginning. I think these are pretty good plans for rainy days or just nights I don't have homework in general.
Well, I'm going to get to uploading my 三百五十写真 (350 pictures), I'll post the links to them when I'm done!
Here!
First 200 Pictures : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079918&id=3708410&l=f2ad31f473
Remainder : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079924&id=3708410&l=49eafa4e64
My Japanese Experience
Saturday, May 23, 2009
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12 comments:
Wow, it sounds like you have been doing alot and I am very proud that you are doing so well in your classes. I am sure you will be a pro with the Poi before you head back to the states. I didn't understand what you meant by the tennis club becoming "too big" as that should make it even more fun and more people to chose from to play! It seems it would also let you become more familiar with their style of playing and you would have to speak in Japanese more to interact.
Yikes, sorry to hear it will rain so much for your upcoming month! I would hate that-although maybe this year you guys will get lucky!
The drum games sounds like so much fun-I have not seen that here in the states. Nor have I heard of the 2D games-although I probably wouldn't since you aren't home to talk about them! Ha!
Looking forward to seeing the pics-that sounds like an interesting day trip and I bet your upcoming trip will be great as well. Have fun!
I do hope the Swine Flu doesn't make it to your area-just keep washing your hands! (You know your anal mother-I would hate to see you get sick over there-esp. with that!)
Well thanks so much for the long post and I hope you continue to enjoy all the adventures in Japan. "Alexander enters Japan..."
Love,
Mom
Damian
Meganebashi? Where is that? Doesn't megane mean eyeglasses?
I very much remember my first trip to the Imperial Palace. We'd just started taking conversational Japanese and of course you learn all these silly phrases. We went with some girls we'd met and upon seeing the fish in the moat we were very excited that we could use our very limited Japanese. so I got to say "Sore-wa okii sakana desu" or "Kore-wa chisaii sakana desu". (For the gaijin this translates to "That is a big fish" and "This is a little fish") - that exhausted about 20% of what I knew how to say at the time but it was appropriate!!!
I only hopped on an airplane passing through Okinawa - understand there are some really nice beaches. I'll look forward to the pictures.
I evaluated a patient recently who is Nisei and he makes custom Taiko drums of all sizes - takes him weeks to make one drum but they are really beautiful.
Claude
@Claude : Yep, Megane does mean eye glasses. That is what I meant by Spectacles, perhaps it was unclear, I just find Spectacles to be a more elegant word with literary flair, haha. And at that Taiko Festival I went to they had huge drums, I could see where it would take a long time to make them. They're very nice sounding.
@Mom : You've seen 2D fighting games! They're the traditional kinds, like Clayfighters, all the Super Nintendo ones, Digimon, and Super Smash Brothers to an extent. 2D is just in opposition to 3D fighting games like Soul Calibur and Tekken and things like that.
And to the tennis club, we have 5 courts, at the beginning we had about 20 people, so it was possible to take turns and whatnot. But now there are more than 40ish, and playing time is cut to a point where we do other types of smaller games instead of actual matches. I want to play tennis, not do little minigame type things =P
OK, so my uber-fanboy nature is demanding that I speak up about some stuff in your post :P
So first off, Guilty Gear is awesome, yes, but Melty Blood! Which version are you playing? I've heard Act Cadenza is the best. Anywhat, Melty Blood was co-created by Type Moon and uses a lot of their characters from Tsukihime, which is an awesome Visual Novel that you should check out (never EVER touch that anime). While you're at it check out Fate/Stay Night, another VN made by Type Moon and possibly my most favoritest thing in the ever.
Which brings me to my next point, Utawarerumono. Uta was an amazing visual novel, and very different from standard ones because Leaf tends to add tactical RPG-type battles into their games. In all of my moderately-vast experience I have found that VN -> Anime adaptations are even worse than the most terrible Book -> Movie ones. 99.9% of VNs do have at least some H element to them, but studios like Type Moon, Leaf, and Nitro+ put in a minimal amount, almost seeming like they do it out of obligation. In the whole of Fate/Stay Night (which was about 100-ish hours long) there were 5 H-scenes, each at about 3 minutes long (assuming you don't just hold down ctrl and skip them in about 7 seconds). Utawarerumono took me around 40 hours to get through and I think it had about 6 H-scenes, each about 3 minutes as well. It really is an amazing story and if you want to get the full effect of it (which is sooooooooo much more powerful than the anime) you should try out the VN. The ISOs are only a couple gigs, so I could send them to you over aim if you want them, or you could just get them off bittorrent pretty easily.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that generally anime adaptations of visual novels are crap in comparison and if you really want a good story you should read those and not be afraid of a cumulative 15 minutes of H-scenes that you can easily see coming and even more easily skip very quickly by holding down ctrl for a few seconds.
My two cents (with a very strong exchange rate :P ).
I'm not worried about the H-Scenes at all, haha. I'll have to check it out, but I do want to finish the anime since I do actually enjoy it =P And I have Act Cadenza Ver. B for my computer, and I played Actress Again at the arcade. I've also seen the Fate/Stay Codes game being played there, wasn't all that impressed, it's a very strange 3Dish fighter, have you heard / played it before?
oh yea, Fate/Unlimited Codes I think it was called. Yea, people on the forum have been talking very highly of it. Even if it isn't that great in comparison to other fighters, its still much better than the older doujin fighting game Fatal/Fake. Besides, its probably a better game to those that are fans of Fate already :P
Oh, and I'm very glad to hear that you aren't afraid of a little H :P
It really bugs me when people say things like, "nuuuu its a porn game, it has H-scenes, therefore the whoel thing is porn, it can't has a good story because its all just pron!"
That does kind of make me wonder what a porn game with a battle system would be like though......
*thinks back to various pokemon references/attacks* XD
Hello, this was just gorgeous Damian. the old area, with the Imperial Gardens, with the big sky scrappers and then the highway and all the joggers ,. what a place, the flowers are just magnificent. the moat, the bamboo.,the firry trees and ferns, what a combination. you are right about the cameras they wouldn't have been there. the water falls , everything is very lush and outstanding... Your grades sound excellent. good for you.. sad to hear about the tennis though. the poi is nice but you do that alone. You are very skilled doing it too. do you do some of it outside on the roof top of your bldg? the gardens are something else. bet your mom is taking lots of notes. she has beautiful gardens. well, keep up the photos, I will see the other half of the Imperial Gardens later on. only 200 right now.. what kind of a camera do you have? it is something else. of course, we think you are a great photographer and lyric writer.. it is so interesting.. love, Gram and Papa... CJ gradutates tomorrow..
How many times have I seen it and I never knew that bridge was called Meganebashi....
Claude
Bummer about the tennis! Oh well, maybe you will meet someone sometime to play a friendly game on your own.
Ah, I do know what 2D is then-ha-we had a blast playing them! Wonder why they went back to 2D when technology is so advanced now to get the 3D?
I really enjoyed the Imperial gardens. Japan is such an unusual country. They've managed to hold on to the old while claiming the new. How they manage to find room to hold on to some of the things when they are so pressed for room is amazing.
I'm so glad that you are doing so well in your classes. I'm sorry that you weren't able to get into any Japanese language class this coming semester. It will be hard to practice speaking with no one to speak it with. Maybe you can adopt a Japanese person to come back with you?
Sorry to hear that the swine flu is now in that part of the world too. Hopefully it won't spread into the dorms. I notice that a lot of people there wear masks now. Maybe they'll all be wearing them if the flu gets bad.
You were smart to make your trip to the Gardens before the rainy season really sets in.
My youngest brother was stationed in Okinawa back in the 60's. Other than that & seeing it in movies I don't know much about it so will look forward to those pictures when you get them.
Stay well & enjoy.
Love,Gr.M
Hi, Damian, enjoyed the part of the photos from the Imperial Gardens and the meganebashi bridge. wow !! what a photo with the sun shining on the water. magnificent. !! those fountains were sure different. the white tubbed one especially. the flowers around there are so great. we have that one tree with the peach flower in it, it is a tulip tree, I recognized it. it was something to see it there in Japan. yes, the country of Japan sure has found a way to keep the old treasures and also continue on with the skyscrappers.. unbelievable.. that swan and her mate were so beautiful. the moat is sure large to help keep out folks too, we imagine. the photo of you , bridge and the imperial palace was so special.. I am printing out certain photos. are you keeping this whole blog with hard copy? we hope so.. this is really wonderful.. you do need a haircut , have you found out where you can get one? you look fabulous, happy, and enjoying life.. are you still juggling? love you. Gram & Papa
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