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Another weekend passed! Back to the grind. I have lots of quizzes and tests and homework, but I think that living (really living) in Japan is worth not studying sometimes. Also, it's a nice rationalization to go out and get lost rather than study for another fucking vocab quiz.

This weekend was really low key. I went out on Friday night with Sakura and Misaki and Risto (two Japanese girls and an Estonian from the seminar house) to an izakaya where my friend Tomoki (the DJ)  was working. It was a fun night, Tomoki gave me some extra-topped off drinks, we had a good time and took some pictures and talked a lot. It was a small izakaya and not a lot of people were there, so Tomoki could kind of hang out around our table. It was super funny to see him in waiter mode. I've determined that my Japanese gets better with a drink or two in me - maybe it's because I lose my inhibitions regarding using the wrong grammar? Only the kami know.

Saturday I didn't do much, mostly homework and rehearsing for my show on October 5th. WUT WUT. But on Sunday my friend Kelsey came downstairs at about noon (I was just eating breakfast) and said we should go on a spontaneous trip to Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavilion). I'm all for spontaneity,  and so I was totally psyched. Plus, I hadn't been there since I last came to Japan. It's maybe one of the most beautiful places on earth, and I couldn't wait to go back. Funny story - we were outside the train station in Kyoto waiting for the bus to take us to Kinkakuji, and we saw Risto walking around - he's pretty hard to miss with his schock of bleached hair. Anyways, we called him and asked him if he wanted to go with us, but he said no because he was with his home visit family. OK, that's fine, whatever, do your thing and we'll do ours. So we get to Kinkakuji, and there he is, home visit family and all! We flagged him down and after a good laugh all went through the temple complex together. It was wonderful! There are a bunch of metal bowls at various places in the complex that you throw coins at from the path - those that make their shot are rewarded with good luck. Risto and I totally made it. Woot woot.

In front of Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion

On Monday my friend texted me and convinced me to go out on a walk and get lost in Hirakata (my city) instead of studying. It was totally worth it. I made a closer friend and found a whole new section on the city! Who needs vocab anyways...

I think I had the best Tuesday of my life yesterday. I went to a spa complex in the evening with a bunch of Japanese girls and several international boys (all from the seminar house). I was not expecting it to be as badass as it was. There was a lazy river (kind of; I'm not sure if it had a current) with a tunnel with rain coming down and rainbow lights. There was a giant water slide. There was a huge hot tub. There were restaurants and massages and complimentary spa wear and foot-skin eating fishies (I didn't take advantage of many of the opportunites because they were so expensive, though...). We got home at like 12:30 and I hadn't studied and I probably should have but I don't care at all.

And today I practiced with Minori for the Istanbul show! He's rockin' and lays out a solo like no other. He's gonna play the second half of my second set (about 5 songs). I'm totally psyched! Pictures to come, I promise.

Stay well, you crazy America-jin.

I guess it's been a while since I posted on here. It's amazing how living (really living) in a place will prevent you from the tasks you wanted to do. I guess there's a whole week and a half to catch y'all up on (y'all = my parents, I think. No one else seems to read this). Well, here goes.

The weeks proceed as many weeks at college do - I am definitely a college student in Japan, surrounded by twenty-somethings at almost all times, taking classes, studying, playing guitar, doing homework, pretending to do homework and really fucking around on the computer. But my weeks are also filled with things that I didn't normally do at school before. I go out exploring a lot, trying to read the signs and figure out what's going on. I try to be really respectful to all the Japanese people I meet because I am a representative of all foreigners, and especially all Americans. I don't want to perpetuate negative stereotypes that it seems that Japanese people already have about foreigners. I gave ten yen (about 12 cents) to an elderly woman on the bus the other day because she was short and needed the money to get off the bus. She was so surprised I thought she might have a heart attack. She didn't. That was good. I really would have been the asshole foreigner then.

I have shit tons of tests and things (that's what happens when you take 5 classes, I guess), but all the classes are FAR easier than the classes at Wesleyan so that's a relief. I mean, I have between 5 and 15 pages of reading for each class. I am used to more like 60 in textbooks/real book that are much harder to read. Is this what other colleges in the states are like? I'm a little worried that I'll be off my game when I get back. Meh. Whatever.

I can't believe I've been here for three weeks. It seems like no time at all and an eternity. I'm getting used to living with my roommate (who still only lays WarCraft all day) and the rules of Japanese houses - the different shoes for outside, inside, bathroom, laundry room, and the roof where we hang out clothes to dry, and the call and response that everyone goes through every time they enter or exit the house. I actually really like the second part. I feel like everyone acknowledges you and recognizes that you are coming or going. It marks a passage/transition through a liminal space, and it makes you feel like everyone loves you.

My seminar house is great. I was talking with someone who lives in a different seminar house today and she said that, unlike her house, Seminar House 1 was 家族みたいです - like a family. And it's true. Everyone knows everyone (except my roommate) and gets along. There's a few aloof girls who seem like bitches and a few obnoxious people but everyone is really good-intentioned, just perhaps misunderstood. There are not a lot of the typical "artsy" types here, which one might think would lead to my feeling alienated, but I don't. I get along really well with jocks, even though we don't enjoy the exact same things. We're all just trying to do each other right, and that's really good to see/experience. Plus, they're not going to start hating on me.  We're living together all semester. Creating bad vibes now would be a pain in the ass for everyone.

Some of the international boys have begun calling me "Tennessee John." I guess the whole "my name is a state is my name" thing was a little too much for them, so they needed to tag something onto it. Plus, they tell me I sound like a cowboy and because I'm from America obviously that's what I am.

This weekend was super fun. I got some super cool pants (picture below) in a shopping district in Osaka called Shinsaibashi, and then went to a beautiful building called the Osaka Sky Building that has a "Sky Garden" at the top with an incredible view of the entire city. Damn, it was gorgeous. It was all for lovers and couples and other mushy stuff like that so I had my friends take a picture of me in the big heart with a sadface on because I was all alone. All the Japanese people watching thought that was super funny. Afterwards we went out to dinner (probably at about 11:30) and ended up sleeping in a hotel. Thank God for three day weekends.

I've spent a good amount of time in the last few days playing music with Japanese people. Damn, they are good. Yesterday I played with a girl named Kaoru and was kind of expecting her to "play the guitar" but not really play the guitar. She could play. I mean, she was taking ripping solos and adding tasty lines and just being really great. I was uber surprised. And then today after class I jammed with a guy named Minori who was ALSO really good. Again, ripping solos and tasty parts when I was taking more leads. I hope that they will each come and sit in with me for a few songs at Cafe Istanbul next next Friday.

"What? Cafe Istanbul? Tennessee, what are you talking about? Aren't you in Japan???" Yes, I am in Japan, thank you very much. That in no way precludes me from playing at Cafe Istanbul. It's a little bar near the school that caters primarily to Kansai students. The owner is a really nice woman named Masako and I went down there on Monday night and played for her for a few hours in an audition of sorts and when I was done she just said, "So, when can you play a show here?" やった！Anyways, its on October 5th and I have to play for an hour and a half (wowza!). I'm totally psyched. Also, the week afterwards, on Friday the 12th, I'm playing another show at the International Communication Center, which is a new building that is affiliated with Kansai and is all about building (you guessed it) intercultural communication. I'm sharing the bill with the school choir and the school jazz band; it seems like its going to be a pretty serious event. Guess who's headlining? Moi. Nbd.

I also started writing songs in Japanese. Just finished my most recent one - it switches between Japanese and English line by line. It rhymes, too, which is something Japanese songs generally don't do. Maybe I'll post it here! Maybe not.

これは長めになったね。This post is getting a bit long, it seems. I guess I'll leave you with two little factoids: I learned only pick up lines in my spoken Japanese class on Tuesday, and my spoken teacher opens every class with a favorite video of his. It makes the mornings great.

SUPER COOL PANTS!!!!

Well, here I am, sitting in the CIE (Center for International Education) Lounge on the second Monday of classes, just beginning week three of the Japan experience. I think I'm going to spend a lot of time in the CIE Lounge. I have class every morning and class every day from 4:40-6 (sometimes with some classes in between), so I have a lot of free time every afternoon. My Seminar House is only a few minutes away by bike, but sitting in the lounge sort of gives Japanese students an OK to talk to you (whereas otherwise they might not - culturally not wanting to disturb/inconvenience you with a conversation you dont want). I like talking in Japanese. I relish the opportunity to do so.

I had the best weekend last weekend. If you want, you should check out the pictures on my Facebook. If you're not my friend on Facebook, then I might not want you looking at my pictures... In any case, I began the weekend (after getting out of class Friday at 6:15) with a lovely dinner at the okonomiyaki place right next to the seminar house and a few beers from the vending machine outside (yeah, that's right, there are BEER vending machines). I went with several gaijin friends to karaoke and we all sang the songs of our childhood, etc., etc. They do a thing called nomihodai which is all you can drink for a certain amount of time for a flat fee. I didn't partake (damn you mom and your low alcohol tolerance! Damn you genetics!), but several of my friends did. Also, though I had only "gone to karaoke" with four or five people, apparently all the Kansai Gaidai international students decided that Friday was the day for karaoke. The makeup of the place was probably 75% foreigners and 25% Japanese people. It was super fun to be able to walk into any room I wanted and know some people and sit and sing for a sec. Also, they had a tambourine and no one else could really shake it in time so I was tambo-ing all night. I actually cut my knuckle because I was shakin' it too hard for too long (heh). However, I did come to Japan to hang out with Japanese people, so I was a little annoyed.

Thank God for Saturday night, then. The school put on a "fireworks show" for us early in the evening. By "fireworks show", I mean they bought a shit-ton of sparklers and other handheld firework-y things and gave all two hundred students who showed up like ten fireworks. It was SUPER fun. After that, though, the night became one of the best of my life. My friend Tomoki was DJing (and absolutely killing it) at a tiny club near the train station by my seminar house. It's owned by a Kansai graduate and attracts a lot of Kansai students/recent graduates but almost no international students. In fact, my friend Emma (a 28 year-old Aussie) and I were the only two white people in the place. I was speaking only in Japanese all night. The people there loved that I was conversational and kept buying me tequila shots so that we could drink together. Damn, I hate the morning after tequila. But I do think I have found my new "watering hole," so to speak. It’s great to get out of the international student bubble, and this club/bar/whatever seems like the perfect place to do it.

On Sunday I also had a fantastic day. I met up with my speaking partner Kyoko and went to Fushimi-Inari, which is an old old temple in Kyoto with thousands upon thousand of torii gates (those orange gates you think of when you think of Shinto). The make a path up a mountain - it's probably four kilometers to the top (also, I've been thinking in meters and kilometers since I've been here - fuck the 'Murrican system base ten makes so much more sense). I had gone there when I came to Japan previously but only gotten about half an hour up. Kyoko and I walked up for almost two hours and reached the top. It was AWESOME. And after that I met up with some Wesleyan friends who are all studying in Kyoto this year! Im lookin' at you Biko/Alex/Niko. You the homies. I was hardly at home all weekend, but it was the best way to be in Japan. I can't wait for next weekend - I hope it lives up to this one.

An update

Yesterday was the first day of classes - last night was the first night I had done homework in months. Nice! I had my first kanji class today. My professor has two dogs named Cookie and Cream and two cats named 3PO and R2. I'm in the right place.

Last weekend was super fun; some other gaijin (外人) and I met up with the Kansai student I met on the plane and went to an izakaya - sort of a restauran/bar thing they have in Japan. Izakayas also have an all you can drink option. You pay a flat fee and can order anything you want for a set amount of time, usually a few hours. The drinks are not very alcoholic (they must be used to Japanese tolerance) but they flow quickly and freely. そして、私は今二十歳から日本で酒を飲んでもいいよ。It's not even illegal. Megachill.

I have been taking pictures, I swear. I just am too lazy to upload them/the internet in the Kansai dorms is really slow and I don't want to have to deal with uploading them to the cloud.

I'm slowly getting used to things here. People drive on the left side of the road and everyone is polite to the point of tedium. It's good, though. Part of the reason I came here was to get that respect ingrained in me. You can be too disrespectful, but in my opinion you can never be too respectful.

I have a bike now (you drive it on the left side of the road and the back brake is on the left side - crazy!) and a phone and guitar that I bought for about $110. My music addiction is chasing me even to the other side of the globe. I got all three on the same day; it was a bad day for my wallet and a good day for my soul. I've even started writing my first song here!

Yesterday I met with my speaking partner for lunch and we talked in Japanese for about two hours. She's named Kyoko and she'd awesome. I hardly even noticed that I was speaking in Japanese; my mind made the switch at about fifteen minutes in. When I was walking home right afterwards with my Norwegian friend Mathias we were conversing in English and it felt really weird.

I do have a roommate but we don't hang out much. He spends a lot of time inside the room playing video games on the computer, a quite solitary activity. I would think that he would try to make the most of his time in Japan by doing things outside. To each their own, I guess.

More to come!