A Thursday
Today's class was Youth and Schooling in Contemporary Japan. It was actually pretty interesting. The teacher I think is from America or Canada. So it's nice to hear a familiar voice. In this class we are basically going to study the lifeline of Japanese people from birth to adulthood. So I'm not sure exactly why it's called Youth and Schooling, but I suppose that has something to do with it. Today we had to get into groups of those with the same language and similiar background. So americans together, british together, german speakers together, japanese together etc. And we made a timeline of the typical person from our country in our native language. I wanted to make up slang terms for everything since we didn't really have an interesting language to translate but no one was with me. It was pretty interesting to see how different cultures view the life line. But it was all pretty similiar for the most part.
After class we had lunch and it took a while to find some seats in the crowded cafeteria but we eventually did. We were the lone white people in a sea of japanese people so it was pretty interesting. And one guy that we ate with had just gotten a cell phone so he was taking pictures of everything. In the cafeteria you are supposed to smoke but there is always a group of japanese guys that are smoking underneath the no smoking sign. I always think this is funny. They probably think they are the baddest guys around. Definately in America, you would just get a "hey retard, read the sign". But in Japan I don't think anyone was really going to tell them not to smoke, the sign was supposed to be ample authority. Oh to live in Japan.
Speaking of trust and authority, Japan is certainly different than Waco. Here you can pretty much walk around with money hanging out of your pockets and nothing would ever happen. The other day I was counting money in the post office to pay my rent with and I noticed that I was counting about 175 dollars in cash. Something that I would never ever do in America, not even in Johnson county. But here you can just trust everyone. At night when stores are closed they often leave their goods outside until morning. The other day I saw at 7/11 they had cases of beer stacked right outside the door, something that woudln't last 2 seconds in any city in America.
After lunch I went up to the computer lab with Rachel. The computer lab is on the 4th floor and right next to it, outside, is a little garden. Complete with a pond with koi fish. And you can look out and see the skyline of Shinjuku. It's definately a place I'll have to visit again.
That was pretty much my day, since after that I went back to here and just wondered more around the city here. Nothing too interesting.
To all those about to be visited by Rita, be safe! If you can't get out of harm's way , be careful. I hear they even closed Baylor for friday classes. Hopefully she makes a quick landfall and dies off early.
I think sometime this weekend or next week Tokyo is getting a typhoon. So I'll get to expirience some sympathy pains. But I guess Tokyo is well built for typhoons and we only get a bunch of rain. I'm not sure. The weather people aren't really saying much, and when they are saying anything it's in Japanese so I'm sure I'm not getting the full story. I'm just taking it as since the Japanese aren't worrried about it, I shouldn't be. I'll leave my worrying to earthquakes. Rachel said that she and her flatmates felt tremours yesterday. Let the good times roll.
After class we had lunch and it took a while to find some seats in the crowded cafeteria but we eventually did. We were the lone white people in a sea of japanese people so it was pretty interesting. And one guy that we ate with had just gotten a cell phone so he was taking pictures of everything. In the cafeteria you are supposed to smoke but there is always a group of japanese guys that are smoking underneath the no smoking sign. I always think this is funny. They probably think they are the baddest guys around. Definately in America, you would just get a "hey retard, read the sign". But in Japan I don't think anyone was really going to tell them not to smoke, the sign was supposed to be ample authority. Oh to live in Japan.
Speaking of trust and authority, Japan is certainly different than Waco. Here you can pretty much walk around with money hanging out of your pockets and nothing would ever happen. The other day I was counting money in the post office to pay my rent with and I noticed that I was counting about 175 dollars in cash. Something that I would never ever do in America, not even in Johnson county. But here you can just trust everyone. At night when stores are closed they often leave their goods outside until morning. The other day I saw at 7/11 they had cases of beer stacked right outside the door, something that woudln't last 2 seconds in any city in America.
After lunch I went up to the computer lab with Rachel. The computer lab is on the 4th floor and right next to it, outside, is a little garden. Complete with a pond with koi fish. And you can look out and see the skyline of Shinjuku. It's definately a place I'll have to visit again.
That was pretty much my day, since after that I went back to here and just wondered more around the city here. Nothing too interesting.
To all those about to be visited by Rita, be safe! If you can't get out of harm's way , be careful. I hear they even closed Baylor for friday classes. Hopefully she makes a quick landfall and dies off early.
I think sometime this weekend or next week Tokyo is getting a typhoon. So I'll get to expirience some sympathy pains. But I guess Tokyo is well built for typhoons and we only get a bunch of rain. I'm not sure. The weather people aren't really saying much, and when they are saying anything it's in Japanese so I'm sure I'm not getting the full story. I'm just taking it as since the Japanese aren't worrried about it, I shouldn't be. I'll leave my worrying to earthquakes. Rachel said that she and her flatmates felt tremours yesterday. Let the good times roll.
posted by Scot @ 21:42
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