Nara/Kyoto Trip

So I finally went on a mini sight seeing trip yesterday! We went to Nara first to check out the Heijo Palace which I was really excited for cause I LOVE stuff like palace's and castles and stuff like that! However when we got there, there was only one small building and a wide open area. It was still nice but I was quite disappointed =( Here's a picture of the Heijo Palace. You can see that there is nothing else there in the first picture!

Inside was just a couple of writings about the history of the building and such. There wasn't too much to see so we left quite soon after.

We went to lunch after at a hundred yen sushi shop! Yum yum! ^^

After lunch, we ended up going to a temple...I tried finding out the name of it but I couldn't...so right now it's just a random temple...=S

We went to an area full of deer next! They were very cute and we could feed them and everything! ^^ The deer in Nara are famous apparently and the streets around the area were full of deer merchandise and weird food with deer related themes...such as deer "droppings" which were chocolate candies or mochi balls! >_< I was actually considering buying some haha.

We headed off to Kyoto after for dinner and dessert! I was finally able to satisfy my ramen craving! =) We went to this awesome dessert shop where they had HUGE bowls of ice-cream and fruit that was for over 20 people. It cost around 10000-18000 yen! However, we each decided to get our own instead. =)

The funny thing is this place had some of the weirdest combinations. Like soy-sauce parfait, and black pepper and cheese....=S There were also interesting combinations I really want to try, mainly because you would never be able to find this in Calgary, like fried chicken with ice cream and ice cream with corn dogs!

 

Kyoto!

I finally went to Kyoto today with Ryoko and Chris! ^^ I took the train here for the first time and it was sooo confusing to me. =( Ryoko was trying to teach me how to get to Kyoto but it still seems a bit scary. =S But when we got there, it was so much fun going shopping! I spent too much today! =S

I've always pictured Kyoto as only having temples and being the cultural center of Japan, but the place we went to today was all shopping so it was awesome! I had deja vu when I went there today and I think I actually went to this same shopping area in Kyoto several years ago...I'm actually slightly regretting not choosing to go to Ryukoku now that I know how close the shopping centre is to that school...Hirakata city has virtually no shopping at all! >_< However, I don't think I've ever walked as much in one day as I did today! It took me 50 minutes to walk to the train station one way, and then I walked around all day in Kyoto, and then another hour walk back from the station to my dorm. The school gates were closed by the time I came home so I had to walk all the way around the school, while carrying a whole bunch of stuff I bought. >_<

After shopping for a bit we went to go eat some dessert! Well me and Ryoko did anyways...YUM YUM! ^^

One thing I must say I really don't like about Japan is how some places, smoking isn't segregated. Today we went to a restaurant afterwards and we were surrounded by smoking tables on both sides and I thought they would finish their cigarettes and then stop smoking! But no, one table finished smoking, and then the table on the other side started smoking, and then after that the table before started smoking again! Go spread your cancer elsewhere please! =S

But besides that, we managed to convince Chris to go to one of those Japanese photo booths, although I'm slightly insulted by the first one! Hehehe =D

Fun Day! ^^

Despite my day starting out with a writing and reading review test and then a vocab quiz right after that, overall I had great Monday! Thanks to Mariko and Aya for spending it with me! ^^

We had sushi for lunch today (Finally ate some Japanese food!) and then I took the bus for the first time today in Japan. (well first time THIS year, but I find Japanese buses sooo confusing!) Buses here are soooo expensive! I took a 5 minute bus ride and had to pay 220 yen and then when I switched buses, you don't get transfers here like you do in Calgary so I had to pay another 220 yen which I think is approximately $5 Canadian one way. You pay when you get off the bus and I made a total foreigner newb mistake when paying. There's an exchange machine on the bus at the front, where you are also supposed to pay, so when I stuck my bill and got the change, I dropped it into a slot thinking I was paying for the bus but in actual fact, I put it in the coin exchange slot by accident. So after I figured this out and finally got off the bus, I looked behind me and there was a huge lineup waiting to pay and get off the bus. =S After that, I thought to myself "Ahh...I just had an Erica moment!" =P haha jkjk Erica! =P (If she doesn't read this, then no harm done! =D)

So then we went to Spo-Cha, a sporting place where you can play various sports. It was really awesome cause it only cost around 1120 yen, approx $13-$14 CAD and we were able to play so many different things! There was mini golf, archery, badminton, basketball, rollerskating, bowling, arcade, shooting target practice, and even fishing! There was no extra cost to go play any of the arcade games or anything so it was sooo awesome! However, with limited time to try everything, we only spent like a couple minutes on each sport. Like when we went rollerskating, it took us like 10-15 minutes to put on all our roller-skates and to get all the elbow and knee pads on, (yes it was included for free!) but we only went around the rink TWICE and then left! Then we went on to try all the other things and I was really excited to try fishing which I've always wanted to...but we were too impatient and ended up just leaving without catching anything. I'm still not sure if there were REAL fish in there, though that was what I was told!

I really loved how we were able to play a whole variety of arcade games too with no extra cost! You could just go up to any game and start playing without having to pay. After when we were leaving, they gave us passes where we could trade them to try to win stuffed animals at those doll machines for free.

To end the day, we went to McDonalds! My first time (this year) in Japan! I tried to order in Japanese and failed miserably when the lady gave me a blank stare...*sigh* At least they didn't give me four hamburgers again!

Of course we also took pictures that all Japanese people like to take....

First Week

Ahhh! It's been a week already! It feels like I've been here for a long time already!

Today was the first day of classes and I got placed in level 3B in Japanese speaking and writing  (which is somewhat low) but quite suitable for me I suppose. For those of you who know, I will be studying from the Genki II textbook from chapter 17 on which is where they start the transitivity pairs and the honorific stuff. JPNS 303 was such a blur and Riley sensei did not help my Japanese learning at all so I suppose going back to the Genki textbooks will be helpful. I don't know how I feel about this though. Re-learning stuff I have already learned before seems like a bit of a waste. I have another placement test on friday again to make sure I'm in the correct placement but if I don't score high enough I'm gonna be pushed down to level 2 =S.....Speaking of placement tests...it was quite laughable that I could barely produce 205 level Kanji on the first placement test. Stuff like 千 and 百 are so basic, but I haven't written it in so long I wasn't positive I wrote them correctly.

I'm also taking 2 other classes in English called Japanese Popular Media and Culture and Cross-Cultural Psychology. They both seem somewhat difficult so I'm a bit nervous. =S

When I got back to my dorm today, our RA's threw a sushi party for us which was really nice! The food was really good and I tried Natto for the first time today, I didn't know what it was when I tried it. The RA told me after I spit it out that they were just sticky beans. From what I could tell, I thought it was just beans and cheese, and I really regretted it after haha. It was one of the most disgusting things I have ever tasted! >_< Luckily, most Japanese food I usually try, I like so this was an exception! I'll include an image of Natto that I found on the internet. There were too many people at the party I couldn't take a picture!