As long as I'm awake, thought I would update. I realize I've been neglecting my blogging commitments. I've been extremely busy with finals and papers for school and really haven't done a lot worth informing the public about. Now the first semester is over. It went by quick, and it's still hard for me to take a step back and gauge where I am now. I know my Japanese has improved a great deal, but then that's not saying much since I was starting from square one. B...

Missed a chance to blog about my New Year last weekend mainly due to a stomach bug. Last weekend, the host family took us on an overnight trip to Nikkō, a city about 80 miles north of Tokyo. The city is situated in the mountains and brings in a lot of tourism for its many scenic waterfalls and trails. Day 1 involved visiting the shrines and temples of Nikkō, which there are a lot of. Not only that, but they're some of the prettiest looking buildings you can v...

Christmas or クリスマス or "kurisumasu" in Japan closely resembles Christmas in the US, but works very differently (shouldn't be surprised). It comes with all of the sensory trappings of an American Christmas that I'm used to, but the Christian aspect really isn't seen anywhere, and Santa leaves gifts differently, and it's actually about going on dates, but people still buy each other presents, and the 25th goes virtually unobserved and... So the...

Tourist blog today. Yesterday my host family took us on a day trip to Yugawara. It's located on the coast, south of Tokyo Bay in Kanagawa prefecture. We left around 9:30 Sunday morning and got on a train leaving from Tokyo station. It took a few hours to get there, and the kids were getting antsy during such a long trip, but the view was nice. Halfway there, I could see Mt. Fuji for the first time. After we got off the train, Tomomi-san took us to a sushi res...

Missed last week's opportunity to blog due to travel. I will try for two this week.Last weekend, I visited Hiroshima and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum with CIEE. As part of our program, we were given the opportunity to hear a firsthand account from Ms. Miyoko Matsubara, a hibakusha, or atomic bomb survivor.Lunch was wrapping up after our previous lecture with Prof. Robert Jacobs. Ms. Matsubara was led in to the front of the small conference room while we st...