A Day of Adventures

Today, I had three things on my To Do list.

1. Sleep in.
2. Go running.
3. Clean my apartment.

All of that was accomplished by about 1 pm.  So I tried to force myself to sit down and study Japanese. I went as far as putting post-it notes on most every appliance in my house.  However, it proved to be less than exciting as the word for 'bed' is 'beddo' and the word for 'door' is 'to' and the word for shower is 'shawa', etc.

It was such a nice day out that I was feeling pretty restless so I made a plan to go visit DATE Masamune's grave and set off.

On my way there, I saw a baseball game going on.  So I stopped to watch.  Everyone stared at me as I walked up the bleachers and took a seat.  Once seated, I looked up and realized which team the people on my side were cheering for and followed suit.

I cheered for  the white team

The game was between kids who couldn't have been more than upper elementary school age but it was pitch baseball and everything.  At that age, I was just participating in softball where the coach still pitched to the kids.  It was a very serious game though with ball boys and bat boys and full uniforms.  Kids even tried to steal bases and pitchers would try to catch them in the act.

The ball boys were adorable and couldn't have been older than first grade

I had no idea who was winning or what inning we were on.  I just watched and cheered and got so into it that when my team loaded the bases, I eagerly hoped something would come of it.  And when the other team loaded the bases, I hoped desperately our pitcher would pull through.  (It turns out the outfielders were the heroes of the day)  At the end of a few innings, my team cheered really loudly and everyone packed up to go.  So....we won!  (I think).  In any case, I hope to catch more games like this in the future.


After that I went in search of the mausoleum and ended up running into a temple, a cemetery and a monastery before I found the right buildings.  And those buildings were closed.  So I wandered around on the paths that were open.  The entire area was absolutely beautiful and the woods around the gravesites of Masumune and other leaders of Sendai were aptly named the Resting Peaceful Forest.

The stairs to the mausoleums, named Zuihoden, Kansenden and Zenoden 

An old stone indicating DATE's gravesite

Children's cemetery - really a sad but beautiful place

The Resting Peaceful Forest

Then I wandered far over to the other end of town to find a memorial for a Sumo wrestler.  (It was on the map and it sounded intriguing)

In transit, I saw some soccer players.

I love the juxtaposition of the field and the trees with the skyscraper in the background

And a train

At the park where the memorial was located, a rock concert was happening.  I stopped to listen and watch.  The bands were pretty good but not professional by any means.  Their following seemed to be a lot of energetic college students who were determined to enjoy themselves no matter what.  It was a lot of fun.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this man wearing ahjumma pants. 

Energetic college kids. 

And finally, the sumo wrestler's memorial.

Sumo wrestler memorial.  Awesome, right?

One Week

Some thoughts.

Things that surprised me: 

1.  Virginia has nothing on Japan when it comes to humidity.  I thought after suffering through the Heat Wave of '12 that I was set and ready for Japan.  But I wasn't;  It's not hot here - just humid.  It took a few days to get used to it but I like it.  I really like the weather here.  

2.  Japan is not Taiwan.  This may seem obvious to everyone else but it continues to surprise me.  For one, I kept expecting people to stare at me because I was a white person and to make little comments about me behind my back about it.  Well, I don't know Japanese so they might be making comments about me behind my back, but, honestly, no one really looks too shocked to see a foreigner.  I also make the realization about the differences because I kept looking for street food and realized that there was none.  "This is not Taiwan," I have to remind myself.  

3.  I somehow stumbled onto a thriving and prestigious lab.  How did I manage that?  In any case, I'm counting my blessings for it.  

4.  Japan feels like a home to me.  The other day, I realized the time for my bus was coming so I scrambled to throw my stuff into my backpack and catch the bus.  It felt so normal to be running for a bus in Japan at 9:30 at night.  And the other day when I went up to the castle and saw Sendai shining out around me, I was just thrilled.  It was the same pride I felt over places I feel I belong to, in America.  

Things that I have realized: 

1.  I do NOT speak Japanese and one cannot just "pick up" the language.  It takes real work; real effort and lots of hours of studying.  

2.  I really genuinely enjoy research.  Being in Japan, working on a new project, makes me even think positively about my research in Virginia.  

3.  I don't actually know how to socially navigate Japanese culture.  I can't tell if I'm on my way to making friends or not.  

Some stories: 

There is one adorable man in my lab who has decided to take me under his wing.  Well, when he remembers.  The other day he came in to invite me to attend Asai Sensei's lecture.  So I packed up my stuff and got ready to go but I had no idea where it was so I ended up staying behind.  After class, he came back, "Why didn't you attend?"  I told him that he had told me when the class was but not where.  He laughed at his mistake.  

I went to dinner the other day with some of the kids in my lab.  During dinner, everyone kept a steady stream of Japanese going and occasionally one kid would speak up, "Oh, they all think that you can really use chopsticks."  I would reply and they'd move on to other conversation.  Then he'd jump in again, "They want you to know that Monday is a holiday.  Do you know what holiday is it?" I'd reply and then someone would say something and he'd translate again.  "It's the Day of Sea."  What does it mean?  His response? "I don't know.  I guess it's just another day to run experiments."  I had to laugh.  Grad students are grad students the world over.  

So it turns out the lab is actually getting a new graduate student who is from Taiwan and in September I'll get to meet him.  Asai Sensei told me about this new kid for my Chinese-speaking benefit: He is a student at Taiwan National University (TaiDa) which is the number one university in Taiwan and this student has personally been spearheading a collaboration between TaiDa and Brigham Young University.  My alma mater!  I started laughing and told Sensei this and we both laughed: It's a small world.   

Sooner or Later

Everyone has bad days.  By the time I showed up to work (1) late, because I had spilled bright pink nail polish on the rug (2) exhausted, because I'm still not on a normal schedule yet and (3) frustrated, because of some early emails regarding my research back in Virginia, I wryly wondered if this was going to be that day.

By lunch time, I was pretty sure of it.  This did not bode well for the interview I had after lunch with the Director of the Global Center of Education who was funding my internship.  Nervously, I reviewed my presentation over and over.

This is how the rest of my day went:

The other girl in the office came up to me and sat down next to me and tried to make conversation with me.  When she failed miserably and I kicked myself again for not speaking Japanese, she begged another student to join in so we could all understand each other.  Yay!

I ate lunch alone.  Not yay.

Koji in my lab gave me a ride to my interview.  It turns out one of his favorite musical groups is the Carpenters which had me laughing to no end.  He also said he likes accordion music which made me skeptical until I listened to it.  His favorite musical genre though is jazz.  Yay!

I had my interview.  It didn't go as bad as I expected.  It turns out the Director has spent considerable time in Newport News, Va.  Yay?

I went to go find Koji and stumbled over my words in asking for him.  Not yay.

When I left the lab today, Koji chased after me to tell me that there would be a lab party on Friday.  Yay?!  (Definitely a Yay!  until I realized I have no idea what Japanese parties consist of)

I went home but got on the wrong bus and so ended up far from home.  Not yay.

I got to walk through a new part of Sendai and through the Castle ruins for the third time in 24 hours.  Yay.

Because of my bus mix-up, I ran out of daylight before I could walk to Sendai station to pick up a map that someone told me about.  Not yay.

I got home, idly flipped on the TV and found that the U-23 Samurai Blue team is playing live against New Zealand.  Yay!

So, not a bad day.  Just a normal one, full of ups and downs.  I'll take it.

An amusement park near where the bus dropped me off

This image is of LuXun's monument.  Last year, while trying to study Radiative Heat Transfer, I picked up his book (in Chinese) and read his personal account of why he decided to become a writer.  Apparently he had been attending medical school in Japan when a war broke out and he decided that what he needed to do was to help the Chinese better understand what it means to be Chinese and so he became an author.  It turns out, the medical school he attended was in Sendai.  Out of all the Chinese books, I read his.  Out of all the places in Japan, we both ended up in Sendai.

There's No Escape

Dear Self,

It was one thing for the kid in the lab from California to have heard of the University of Virginia - and why not, it's a pretty famous school.  It's quite another though when you just happen to glance over at him and find him preparing a presentation on Jeffersonian architecture and looking up the Rotunda on Wikipedia.  Thought you could escape TJ in Japan?  Think again.

Love,
Me

A few anecdotes:

(1) Knowing Kanji while speaking no Japanese does have some amusing benefits.  For one, the word for ‘emergency exit' in Japanese is actually the Kanji for 'Extreme door'.  I was staring at the exit yesterday and those characters and trying to figure out what they could mean in the context of Japanese.

(2) Now that my luggage came in, I have clean clothes.  Yay!  So I went running yesterday.  Yay!  And ran/hiked up to the Aoba castle.  It was so beautiful that I wanted to cry.  I went back later and took pictures.

View of Sendai from the top of the Castle

A Gate to the Castle

Gate and the Castle walls (they were about 5 feet thick)

Castle walls

A random building but it looks 'Asian' so snapped a shot

(3) While taking pictures, I started to hear some brass instruments (trumpets mostly) warming up their instruments.  Very curious and very desperate for music, I followed the sounds until I found a marching? band practicing with a cheerleading squad some cheers and dances for what I would assume is an upcoming sporting event.  I pretended it was a free concert and sat down and listened.

(4) One of my lab mates asked me if I had experienced any earthquakes since coming to Japan.  Even though he asked the question in clear English, I was confused.  I'd only been in the country for three days!  Turns out, Sendai experiences earthquakes about three times a week.

(5) In all of my wandering, I still have yet to find a map or a grocery store.  It's a good thing 7-11 sells good food or I'd be starving by now.

Squished on a Bus

I was asked to post more pictures.  Funny thing is, I've posted as many pictures as I've taken.  I also realized that I don't really have a way to transfer my camera card pictures to my computer which leaves me with whatever pictures I can manage on my permanently-in-airplane-mode smartphone.  I will try to be more diligent though.

Yesterday, I made my way to my lab on a bus.  Despite what that may sound like, it was quite the accomplishment.  You get onto the bus, grab your ticket and then shove yourself into an already full bus and try not to overly press against anyone else around you.  When people want to get off, they have to push their way through literally thirty or forty people and saying "I'm sorry; Excuse me" as you do so.  Then you have to pay the driver.  This proved to be difficult the first time I rode the bus as I put the money into the change machine rather than the pay slot and ended up getting my money back in smaller coins while the bus driver just watched me and the twenty people who wanted to get off as well.  I managed much better on the way home.

The bus made me realize though how jealous I am of bikes.  Pretending I didn't have my backpack in some poor person's face and pretending that it didn't bother me that I couldn't move an inch, I watched those bike-riders as I rode on that crowded bus.  The biggest benefit, I think, of a bike though, is that I would be free to sing as I rode.  I realized today that I am pretty cut off from my usual musical outlets.  My apartment walls are too thin to really just sing and I have no access to a musical instrument.  When I got home yesterday, I remedied it as best I could by holding a quiet dance party in my apartment.

I will write more about my lab but here's something first: yesterday we all went to lunch in the cafeteria.  I looked around me and realized there were hundreds if not thousands of men all around me and only about 5 or 8 girls that I could see and about as many foreigners.  I started laughing - so much for pushing for equal numbers of men and women in engineering.  I was an anomaly and the other girl in Nagai's lab even more so.

Dawn Chorus

I tried really hard to sleep in today.  When the dawn chorus started in (I'm not entirely sure how Sendai even has a dawn chorus since there are only a few birds) I forced myself to keep my eyes closed and tried to fall back asleep.  I waited for as long as I could stand it before I allowed myself to get out of bed - at a staggering 4:45 am.

It's kind of nice to hear a city wake up.  When my body finally adjusts to the time zone, I think I'll miss these long mornings.

The view from my balcony.
Despite what it make look like, I kind of really love it.  

A Post

I'm here - in Japan.  I'm still getting used to the way the world works.  And I'm still very jet lagged so I'm not entirely sure what is up and what is down.

But a few anecdotes.

I got very very lost on my way to church today.  My body wouldn't let me sleep past 5 am so I got up and studied google maps for 3 hours trying to find a bus route or something to help me find the church. I finally decided upon walking and carefully noted the road names that I would need to turn on.  Then I got ready and left for church in plenty of time to get there (over an hour before the meeting started).  I was making good progress and was feeling pretty confident about where I was going.  But I reached a small one way street and noticed everyone was going the opposite way as I was.  I had just seen a lot of signs about certain directions people should walk so I was confused if I was doing something I wasn't supposed to.  At the next block, I moved over to another street.  It turns out at that point I was only about 1 block away from the church at the point but I didn't notice the church sign or the large church with its large cross across the street from it.  Instead, began the adventure where I wandered around for 2 hours before I finally stumbled upon the church, my feet blistered and bleeding.

So, what else did I find in those two hours?

The Bible Baptist church.  The sign read, "聖書バプテスト教会" was very easy to understand.   Somehow, it was also easy to find because I ran into it twice in my wanderings.

A stream.  I'm not sure I could ever find it again.  I walked down a street that stopped abruptly at a stream.  It was pretty and had a nice grassy bank on both sides.  I was tempted to stop and wander along the banks but thought better of it and moved on.

A park and was reminded that parks are not grassy places like in the US.  However, I want to find a park nearby because they are also great places (except apparently on Sunday mornings) to people watch.

An elementary school where lots of kids practiced soccer, baseball and swimming in full uniform.

JNT.  Well, I didn't really find them but their picture was on various vending machines throughout the area.  These vending machines can be found on practically every street so I got to see mein lieblingsspieler quite often although because I was lost, I could have been passing the same few vending machines repeatedly (but I don't think so)

Kirin Lemon.  Completely lost and thirsty and exhausted, I stopped to get a Kirin Lemon from one of these vending machines.  I debated getting the adult Kirin Lemon (which Hasebe advertised) but decided I would just get the family friendly one.  It was nothing more (or less) than Sprite, just like I had guessed.

At church, I met a really nice girl who is engaged to a man from Sendai, visiting for the weekend.  She served as my translator even though she herself was unfamiliar with anyone in the ward.  It turns out this girl served a mission with one of my good friends in Taiwan.  How I know this friend in Taiwan has always confused me.  When I went back to Taiwan, I ran into her at a Single Adult Conference and we greeted each other like old friends.  In fact, we threw our arms around each other.  We realized at a subsequent meeting that we actually didn't remember how we met or how we knew each other.  But know each other we did, enough so that this girl was impressed and embraced me as friend when she realized our connection.  She even invited me to her wedding reception next month.

Toy Story 3 in Japanese.  
Buzz gets rewired and starts speaking in Spanish
which is the part I understand.