やった！

Hey everyone! Good news for all of you, I have internets! I'm at my homestay family right now AND I have pictures ready to be uploaded, but just to be the teasing prick that I am, I will upload them slowly every few days. Man, I'm quite the riot. So now I'll finally begin recounting my journey from the airport up to now at irregular intervals cause, so pay close attention!

I actually started this post a few days ago but it kept getting longer and longer, so I will start to cut out interesting bits in future posts so that these things actually get online. Now, on to the story!

Day 0? 1? 0? 1?: International Dateline

Stoic was the word I'd use to describe the ride up from my home to the San Francisco Airport. At least, that's how I would describe it until I got to the security checkpoint, when I turned around and my parents said something along the lines of "Alright, we're going now", to which I responded to with (in my head), "Wait, what the fuck? I'm going alone?" Of course, I was going to do this by myself, but it didn't hit me until I reached the security point that I was doing this BY MYSELF. So I said my goodbyes and went through the security checkpoint to what I thought was my gate for my plane.

Quite the piece of art to mark the beginning of my journey, isn't it?


I'll be back for you, Snowball. I swear. I'll reach into my pocket and...wait a minute...

And of course, misfortune doesn't like to waste anytime in throwing me light punches. And it always seems to want to come in threes! Straight from my notebook:

Boarding pass was almost lost
I don't really want to talk about this one cause it was just silly, but at the first security checkpoint (where they make you take off your jacket, your shoes, and your dignity), the staff asked for my ticket. Of course, being the great American citizen I am, I tested negative for Bomb, so I went on my merry way until that picture up there, where I realized that I had lost my boarding pass. At this point, I went into Andrew Panic Mode and searched all my pockets and my pockets' pockets. I backtracked my way to stripper checkpoint, where I asked if they had seen a boarding pass. They responded with "Is your name Andrew?", and all was good again.

Sat at the wrong gate a few times
Well, the first wrong seat was actually that picture up there with the piece of art. The REAL gate had a piece of art called "Blank Wall" by Where'sMyBrush McLazyAss, as illustrated below.

It's a beautiful shade of boring.

After the whole boarding pass fiasco, I sat at another gate for about 10 minutes before I realized that the gate I was at was heading to New Mexico. It's not exactly Japan, is it? I took no pictures out of embarassment as I crawled back to the correct gate (95, for the record, I think), thinking about how I was going to put up these pictures and show everyone how funny I am when all of a suddenly [sic]...

No Camera USB Cable

This problem was solved eventually, as evident by my copious amount of uploaded pictures (take that, dial-up!), but this made me kind of sad face for a while, but I figured that there may be some kind japanese soul out there who hands out Type B to Type A USB cables for free in their spare time.

Enough about me, let's talk about me on a plane.

Me on a plane (MOAP starring Not-Samuel-Jackson Tae)
The plane ride was obviously long compared to, say, a Bollywood Film, but it was much more bearable in the emergency exit rows. When I first got on the plane, I had the intention of breaking the ice with the people I was going to sit next to for the next 150247 hours. However, when I got there, I kind of froze up when I realized that the guy sitting there was an Asian guy. First thing that popped into my mind was "Does he speak english?". Kind of racist for an Asian, but it's in my blood. So for the next 5 minutes, I just kinda sat there, shyly, trying to not make eye contact, when the flight attendants asked if the emergency seat passengers knew english. Lo and behold, Mr.Asian Man was a Japanese native, which is almost synonomous with No Speaky the English Very Good!

Thus, they switched out Mr. Japan with a cool guy named Bryan Somethingorsomewhat and Madame Ikindofforgothernamebutshewascool. This time, I took the chance and asked everyone what their names were (Which I obviously remembered perfectly). And thus the ice was broken.

If you guys are curious about their stories, ask away, but I realized that I'm talking alot about my journey and I haven't even reached Anchorage yet, so time jump to...

JAPAN: I THINK I SHOULD BE HERE

Forget the Holy Grail, this shit was hard to find.

Blah blah blah, airport stuff. So after the intensive blood testing and quarntining (Lance, I have the paper!), I got my luggage and began the search for the Meeting Service counter, where I get to pick up the ticket to end all tickets! However, the Japanese, being the intuitive bastards that they are, decided to make the airport symmetrical, which resulted in me, the compass-less soul, doing laps around the airport terminal. 2 years later, I found the tunnel at the end of the light, and I took a picture to commemorate the moment.

And the peasants rejoiced.

After checking my name off the list, I found a bunch of other people who happened to be in the same program as I! Their names will be withheld for now because I'm not even at the good part yet, but after hearing how long everyone else had been studying japanese, my heart started to sink.
Yeah, I only took 2 years of Japanese so far.

I took four years in high school!

You took Japanese for 2 years also?! Wow!

I took Japanese for about 1 year...

!!! , I said.

...in an accelerated program!

... , I replied.

Yeah, everyone was better at Japanese than I am. To top things off, at least half of the people here go to an Ivy League school! Of course, they're all dinky compared to UC Merced, but still, the atmostphere reeks of nobility. : ) After my small inferiority complex experience, we got on the long bus ride from Narita to Shinagawa, our hotel in Tokyo.

Please refrain from using your cellphones on this bus. Doing so is not Nihonjin-like.

After getting the key to my room, I found out that my roommate had actually gotten there before me.

You may notice that this picture looks like it was taken at night time. That's cause chronological order is for losers.

This is James. He is good at Japanese. He is a good person. He can translate whatever the heck they say on TV at lightspeeds. I'm wondering if they stuck me with someone who was good at Japanese on purpose so I know how much I suck at it. James here took Japanese for 4 years in high school plus more in college and is probably allowed to be an honorary Japanese Citizen by his language skills alone. Inferiority Complex part two out of the way, we made our introductions and sat around for a while until dinner time, when we decided to grab the people next door and make some friends for dinner.

We could have eated this, but it would not have been very Nihonjin-like.

This menu is in some foreign language...

Meet Steffen and Jamar. They too are good persons. We eated ramens together for the first time. Cool tidbits, now! Jamar (the one on the left with the glasses) is around the same age as I am and has actually studied Japanese only about a semester ahead of me! That means maybe a comrade!

Steffen (the one on the right with the accent) is a graduate student from Germany who speaks with an English accent and tongue in cheek. For a while, I didn't know what his name was, and when I asked him the first time, he just ignored me and I was like "Darn". Don't remember how long he studied Japanese, but he's pretty good too.

Place your bets! Which one of these guys do I still correspond with? Is it...
A. Jamar
B. Steffen
C. James
D. The Ramen Menu

Reply with your choice in the comments below! : )

Here comes the interlude tree!

Moving on. After having my delicious Chashiu Ramen, the four of us walked around Shinagawa and made the most of our only day in Tokyo by visiting the closest malls, which consisted of the following types of stores:

1. Ladies Fashion
2. 
   

Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel to prepare for the next day. The End for now.

Bye Shinagawa. You was a good guy.

Wasn't that great guys? Now you guys get to wait as I take another few years to write the next post! Leave all comments below! See you next post!

お久しぶり

So it turns out that Ive had a lot less time for this blog lately than I thought I would. :D Today is the day that I move in with my homestay family, so Ill eventually start updating on a regular basis! Quick update though, Ive gotten into Intermediate IA, which is the lowest class but its Basic Survival skills, which I recently discovered was something that Im lacking in Japanese. Thats right, UC Merced students of Japanese, the things we learned in class is not enough to survive here! Not for another year anywho. Also, I bought a USB cable, but my camera is too American for this computer, so I will find an internet cafe soon! No idea when the next post will be, but keep an eye on this blog everyone! Once I can get the pictures in and find the time, I have awesome pictures to show you all. : D See you next post!

着きまあした！

My god japanese keyboards are hard to use! I'm finally reporting live from inside HIF's school building! I have a lot of shit to say but I don't want to take up too much time right now and this keyboard sucks butt. There's a button on the keyboard that switches from english to japanese input where I usually put my thumb on the spacebar. Just want you all to know that I'm still alive, but I don't have a way to put up any pictures yet. >> I may end up doing all the detailed posts after I get back, but I WILL TRY TO FIND A WAY. :D Also, everyone is better at Japanese than I am. I know, I'm shocked too. Right now there is a 日本語だけ rule and I think I may be breaking that by typing in English right now. We just had a placement test and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be in the lowest class, which is fine cause that's Japanese 3. Hopefully I can move to an internet cafe where I might be able to type without putting my hand in awkward positions. Oral interview up next, where I get to crash and burn with 2 other people. SEE YOU NEXT POST.

いってきます

This is it guys! It's the last night before I leave America and go to Japanihongonesasialand . Pray to the internet gods for this will be a travel blog unlike any other unless good ol' Interbutt decides to avert his eyes from mine when we do it. And by do it I mean surf the web. Good night, and let's do good super happy journey time yes.

はじめての日記

Welcome to my Hakodate 2009 Homestay Blog !

I couldn't take the fact that this blog had no posts that matched my query, so I'm breaking the metaphorical ice and putting words here.

I am Andrew Tae, an incoming Sophmore from UC Merced (yeah, the one in the middle of nowhere), and I will be studying Japanese in Hakodate, Hokkaido from June 9th - August 10th. I'll be staying with a homestay family, and I can hear your cries of jealousy now. : ) I will be chronicling as much of my journey as I can when I feel like it so that everyone can see the rest of Japan that isn't Tokyo or on the TV (including anime, goddamn it). 

The mission of this blog is to break all illusions as to what the Japanese lifestyle is. As great a country as Japan is, I know people who are treating Japan as a mecca of sorts (not Gundams). I'm not trying to tarnish Japan's reputation or anything, but I want to prove my hypothesis that Japan is just as normal a country as any other country (i.e. America because we're at the center lol :B ) I'm mostly doing it for me, but the rest of the effort points go to you, the reader, so I'm going to do my best to not sound like some school essay or vacation pamphlet, cause we all know how exciting those are.

This is also another way for me to practice my creative writing and blog entry-ing for someone that isn't a professor or for a grade. So to whoever stumbles on this page, have fun reading, I'm pretty hilarious.  

Warning: Andrew likes to cuss a lot. He'll try his best not to cuss, but that's probably not going to happen. Hopefully it won't happen for a while, but it's only a matter of time before he starts cussing. Enjoy!

What the fuck is a Hakodate, you say? I'm not too sure myself, but according to Google, it's a city located in Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, right on the boot of the land (That's right Italy, you ain't THAT special).  No one I know has ever heard of this place (except my Japanese teacher, I hope), and the last picture I saw of it had cows, so as far as I know, Hakodate = Merced of Japan. Which means I'll feel right at home. : ) It's famous for its nightview, which is supposed to be amongst the top 3 in some arbitrary list of nightviews, but with my 'expert' camera skills, I'll do my best to post up pictures that make it look like someone shot the christmas tree with a flame thrower.

Hokkaido or Merced (Or even Davis)? Welcome to The Twilight Zone...

Why the hell am I going to such a great place, you say? In a manner similar to the horrible process known as UC Applications, I applied for this program here (http://hif.or.jp/en/program/index.html), which I will refer to as "The Program" from now on, and, after much toil and waiting, I gotted in hurrrr. I don't even remember where the heck I heard of this program, but I've been keeping my eye on it since the end of my senior year. 

Thanks to two of my great professors, Miki Ishikida and Bryon Webb (who I STILL haven't thanked properly and feel bad about. I will bring them gifts!), I was able to force them to produce recommendation letters for someone they knew for less than a semester. Anyways, after all this, I got waitlisted until the end of April, when I was told that I would, in fact, be receiving money promised by some Nigerian prince if I gave him my bank account. Also, my acceptance letter came in. Yay! 

Who are the poor souls who have to take in this cocky but sexy son of a bitch? Why, my homestay family of course! Along with one other person in the program (and quite possible a parole officer in the next few weeks), the Date family of Hakodate will be taking care of me! YES, DATE IS A JAPANESE LAST NAME STFU. No, it is not pronounced the same way as what I had with your mother last night. Dah-teh, not DAYT HUR. It's the same Date as in Hakodate, which is pretty cool. I'm not going to list their names yet because that would just make me (and the Date family maybe) an easy target, but I may put up pictures of them in the future. 

I WILL mention though, that on my homestay family sheet, under hobbies, every single family member put "Onsen", or hot springs, as their hobby. How hot springs can count as a hobby is something that I'll just never figure out, but whether they turn out to be a family of mermaids (cough瀬戸の花嫁cough) or I get to sleep in hot water every night, I will report back my findings soon enough. 

My biggest worry is how I'm going to introduce myself to everyone, which is silly because, in both the times that I took Japanese 1, it's the first thing we learn to do. I think that as long as I don't start off with "Wazzup biatches, I'm Andrizzle", we'll get a long just fine.  

That's all for this installment, folks! Right now, I should be packing and all, but I'm just here typing this blog post. This is my second to last night in San Jose for the next two months, and hopefully it won't be the last post, because that would be lame with a capital Z. Thanks for reading this far! This should be the longest entry in the blog, and, if the internet gods allow it, I will post again sometime this week. Watch for it!