Thanksgiving and a haircut!

As most of you are aware, Thanksgiving was last Thursday in the US. One of the hardest parts about living abroad is missing holidays you usually celebrate. The hardest for me is always the 4th of July. This year was the absolute worst since not only did I work that day, I also had literally no one to celebrate with. But now that's not an issue as there are tons of Americans at Kansai Gaidai! A group of my friends and I were planning on celebrating in the dorms and making a full on Thanksgiving dinner, but sadly dorm head was pretty set on saying no. A lot of people ended up staying in Hirakata and going to an all-you-can-eat restaurant. We stepped it up a level by going to Umeda in Osaka and going to Outback Steakhouse.

We got there without much hassle. 

Now let me tell you how weird it was walking into that place. It looks just like the standard American restaurant. Which is really weird after having not seen them in almost seven months. They had a little placard on the table that said "pay at the table" like we do in America, which is really strange here. We had silverware rolled in cloth napkins. They still brought us hand towels to wash our hands before the meal though. After all, this is Japan. 

I ordered a cheeseburger. And it was delicious. I miss meat. Just big slabs of meat. I have never cared for it before, but now all I want it meat all the time. So that cheeseburger was amazing. Also, I was reminded of American meal sizes. I couldn't finish it and I was so sad to waste the food. There are no doggie bags here. Drinks were good, even if horribly overpriced. I miss cheap Prague. 

The waitress was super nice. She was also really patient while we counted out a large portion of our meal in coins. We tried to tell jokes to lighten the mood. I think it was fun for all of us as we got to practice Japanese and she got to practice English. And no, we did not leave a tip. It's extremely rude here. 

On the way home we stumbled upon a Christmas lights display at the station. It was so pretty. We danced around like dorks and had a great time.

And the next day I cut my hair!! I was just going to wait until I got home, but after my friend Asa told me about how much fun it was. So this is how it went. I called to set up the appointment the night before. There are tons of salons all over, but this one was recommended by my host mom's friend. It's run by a young couple and one other person and located right next to the train station. I got there a little early. They had a cute little locker for my coat(s). Then they took the key for the locker and my earrings and put them in a little container. I went and sat down in one of the chairs and the wife brought me some magazines to flip through. I had planned on just telling them to do whatever with my hair, but while I was flipping through I saw a picture of the cute short bangs that a lot of the girls at school have. So we went for something like that. 

One big difference between salons in America and in Japan is that not all salons in Japan wash your hair. There are plenty that say "cut only" on the outside. Those are all the cheap ones. I wanted my hair washed because... well it would be weird for me. They had a little glass on the counter in front of my seat for my glasses. My hair was washed twice and the while the conditioner was in, I got a head massage. Massages are pretty standard. Asa said that when she went they gave her a shoulder and hand massage as well. Afterwards was pretty normal. I was really happy to speak Japanese with the man cutting my hair and the old woman next to me. I mean, I speak Japanese all the time with my host family and friends, but it's completely different when you speak with someone you don't know and when there is no one there to back you up if you can't say something. It was a really good experience! 

My hair is now probably the shortest it's ever been all over and I love it. 

Festivals and Some History

Now that my asthma has finally chilled out, I have time to write about my awesome festival experience on Tuesday.

After a hellish midterm, Claire and I skipped afternoon classes and went to Kyoto. The 22 happens to be a pretty big day in terms of festivals. In Kyoto, there is the Jidai Matsuri, or Festival of the Ages, and just up the mountain from Kyoto is the Kurama Hi Matsuri, or Kurama Fire Festival.

At about 1:40 Claire and I rushed out of Sanjo Station to the sounds of the procession passing by. The Jidai Matsuri, or what we saw of it, is a giant parade that goes from the Imperial Palace to Heian Shrine. The people in the parade dress as people from Japanese history between the eras that Kyoto was the capital. The festival started in the 1890s when the capital and palace of the emperor was moved to Tokyo. Let me be honest, even Claire and I, who love Japanese history, had no clue what the hell was going on for most of it. The ladies in front of us for awhile would discuss the different eras, but we couldn't quite place them chronologically. What we did know is that after an hour and a half, Heian Jidai popped up and we knew that that was practically at the very beginning, so we figured that this was a very long parade. Well, just tonight at dinner my host mom explained that it goes from recent history to ancient history. So we DID see the Meiji Restoration soldiers~!!! AND SAKAMOTO RYOUMA! And even better, I'm about 99% sure we saw TOMOE, my favourite character in the Heike Monogatari!!!! Her story in short: she was a samurai retainer under Minamoto Yoshinaka and before his death he told her to get lost because he didn't want to die with a girl. So she ran into battle, yanked off some guys head to honor Yoshinaka and then rode off into the hill where she shed her armor and disappeared. Seriously, how cool is she?

After thinking we still had hours of the parade left (when it was probably only a few more minutes), we left to go on a small adventure before heading to Kurama. Where did we go? MIBU DERA. What is Mibu Dera? The headquarters of the Shinsengumi. But who are the Shinsengumi? In short: one of, if not the, most dangerous police forces in Japanese history. It essentially started when a group of guys became friends of the owner of a dojo up in Edo (now Tokyo). The friends all eventually became the owners retainers (kinda, but not really since he's not an actual samurai). Then they all joined this army that marched to Kyoto (the capital at the time) to protect the Shogun. The army returned to Edo when the Shogun left, but a group stayed in Kyoto and became the Shinsengumi. Their job was to police the streets and keep the rogue samurai of other clans from causing trouble. They did a lot of great things and a lot of bad things. If this were any other country in the world, they would probably be villains since they lost the civil war of the Restoration, but they are actually pretty popular here, as is their enemy Sakamoto Ryouma. I love the Shinsengumi. I love reading about them. I'm currently watch a phenomenal drama about them. Seriously, they are just the coolest.

So we went to their headquarters. It was literally just a normal temple. And that probably made it even cooler. Not really a lot of touristy stuff. There was a guy there who I'm pretty sure was dressed as Okita Souji, my favourite member. He was with two friend in kimono and they were taking pictures. Claire and I thought it was hilarious. On the temple grounds they have a garden that costs the best 100￥ I've ever spent to get in. It is a very quite and peaceful place, even if you don't like/care about the Shinsengumi. They have a pond with turtle and koi, a stone with a song carved into it that my host mom just read and said it was quite sad, which, from listening to her mumble it, yeah, it's sad. I mean, seeing as how they pretty much all died horrible deaths during the Restoration.... Yeah.... There is also a bust of Kondo Isami, the founder and head of the Shinsengumi. He would be the guy that owned the dojo in Edo.
On our way back to the train station we passed a place that we realized was the museum. Sadly, things like that close early and it was already 4:30/5:00 at that time so we couldn't go in. But I am planning on doing a project on them, so I'll go back soon probably~

After that we met our friend Ali for dinner at an Indian restaurant. It was yummy but the guys who ran it couldn't hear the difference between 'check' and 'chai' and also couldn't understand us when we tried to explain it in English or Japanese, neither of which they seemed to speak very well. So we ended up with 400￥ chai. Oh well.

The Kurama Hi Matsuri is a huge festival held every year in Kurama. People parade through the streets with lots of fire. They start with small torches and the progressively get bigger until they take two or three people to carry on their backs. It really sucks for the person in back because the fire and ash is falling onto their bare backs. They would shout to the nearby helpers who would help douse them in water to keep from burning. Despite that, everyone seemed to having a great time! The only drawback was the ridiculous amount of police officers crowding people into certain areas. I understand that it's tough to deal with huge crowds flocking to a small village at night, but we were in that village for almost 4 hours and only walked a bit down one road before we had to go home to catch the last trains to Osaka.
Okay, actually there are two drawbacks, the second being I sometimes forget I have asthma? All the ash and smoke triggered it pretty bag and I had a couple fits in the village and quite a few more the next morning. I also lost my voice, which meant I didn't have to talk in class for a day~ Yay~!!

Claire and I had a bit before the train left so Ali, who lives in Kyoto, took us to the palace. We didn't have enough time to really see it, and it was dark and stuff. It was really fun walking around Kyoto at night though, and Ali is a great tour guide!

Shinsaibashi and Takarazuka

This is going to be an adventure post.

Let's start on Saturday, when I went with my good friends Claire, Jannine, and Tahire to Shinsaibashi, a district in Osaka. Holy shit is this place awesome. We come off the train to meet this giant, covered street lined with shops called Shinsaibashi Suji. It's pedestrian only and probably stretches for over a mile. One thing of note is that shops here typically occupy one floor of a building and most buildings are at least 3 stories tall. There were a lot of shops. They were also a bit expensive so I didn't buy a whole lot.
After a while we moved locations to another shopping district that seemed targeted at college kids, especially those who followed specific fashion trends. Suddenly there were visual kei and lolita shops next too hipster and hippie shops. Loads of CD stores and a few live music clubs. We hung around there for most of the afternoon. I bought a new bag in a second hand shop and we were all handed demo CDs on the street. I was really excited to get it, but I haven't put it in my computer yet, fearing it may not be a CD. ... hmmm
After shopping, we went to a SUIPA!!! Sweets Paradise to be specific. Meaning all you can eat sweets for 70 minutes. Oh yeah. It was awesome. We headed back to the Suji after dinner and played in some arcades and took sticker pictures. Also, as it turns out, the sticker picture area of the arcade we went to is also where all the yankee girls meet up to smoke and and take pictures. It was not fun. YOU ARE NOT COOL BECAUSE YOU SMOKE IN THE ARCADE YOU STUPID GIRLS!! One thing I miss about America is the smoking bans. But it was an awesome day. I really loved hanging out with people outside of Hirakata again. I feel like there is definitely a bubble that needs bursting out of.

Now Takarazuka.
On Monday we had a national holiday again (I swear I've had maybe 2 Monday classes all semester). About a week or two ago I mentioned to my host mom that I wanted to go to Takarazuka, so we bought tickets for Monday and made plans and such.
First, let me explain Takarazuka. Though Takarazuka is actually the name of the town, when most people talk about it, they mean the Revue. Started in the early twentieth century, the Takarazuka Revue was created as an attraction to the last stop on a train line leaving Osaka. Since it's beginning, the Revue has risen to international acclaim for it's performance. The unique aspect of it being that only women perform on the stage at the Takarazuka Grand Theatre. Composed of 5 troupes (Flower, Moon, Star, Snow, Cosmos) of female performers, the Revue has performed everything from West Side Story to War and Peace. They also do more traditional Japanese storied, though none are playing right now. I'm quite sure they have a rendition of the something involving the Shinsengumi, but I've only seen picture at this point.
So onto my experience at the theatre. It took about an hour to an hour and a half by train to get from Hirakata to Takarazuka. My most mom and I left at 8:30 that morning and made it with a bit of time to spare for the 10:30 show. Even though it was a Monday, the theatre was packed with people, mostly women. There were shops here and there selling Takarazuka themed food, gifts, and even a post office where you could send things with the official Takarazuka seal on it. Fan clubs for the performers were there, lining up to go in. Women of all ages were present, ranging from elementary schoolers to grannies, all dressed in a different manner of ways. There were women in the latest fashions, lolita, crossdressers, house wives and kimono. It was literally one big girl's fest. And it was awesome.
The show we saw was Gone With the Wind, which was never one of my particular favorites but the actresses did a fantastic job. I really felt for Scarlet, even though I only understood about half of what she was saying.They sets and the costumes were beautiful and extravagant in true Takarazuka style.
Afterwards I managed to survive the gift shop and come out with some things, including a photobook of one of the actresses. I sort of want a DVD but they are around 100$. So probably going to pass on that. At least until I have a job again.
All and all, it was an amazing three day weekend. I did a few other fun things but these were definitely the most note worthy. Now to studying for midterms!

Vending Machines and Karaoke

As requested, this post will contain information about a bunch of things including vending machines in Japan!

So let's start with vending machines! Firstly, let me say that I don't actually have that many fun vending machine stories. Or, at least ones I find interesting. Except maybe buying beer from one. That was fun. But in Japan, there are a lot of interesting things you can buy from vending machines. These vending machines are everywhere. For example, in the lunch area at school there is a collection of at least 10 vending machines in a row where you can get pretty much everything you need for lunch. They have good melon soda.

A list of all the things I've seen or heard of being in vending machines:

1. Drinks
• Bottled drinks
• Canned drinks
• Hot drinks in cups
• Cold drinks in cups
• Melon Soda
2. Food
• Including ice cream yo
3. Beer
4. Cigarettes 
5. Umbrellas
6. Socks
7. Magazines/books
8. Omamori

My favorite is definitely that last one. I've never seen a vending machine that sells them, but apparently outside some shrines, Shinto good-luck charms called omamori. Usually you buy them from the priestesses inside shrines, but, you know, sometimes you're in a hurry and need a blessing. 

There is a drinking and smoking age here, but with everything purchasable via vending machine I figure there isn't much respecting it......Not being able to smoke means nothing from the cigarette machines, but a friend of mine has used them and was happy to report that they even come with gum so that your breath smells better!

The beer ones are alright. You can also get sake if I remember correctly. 

The other thing I want to talk about is karaoke. Because karaoke is like one of the funnest things to do ever. I've never actually done Western style karaoke, but I've heard you pretty much do it in front of a bunch of strangers. Yeah, that's weird. In Japan (and Korea) you go with your friends. You rent out a small room for a few hours and sing your heart out. I went for the first time this trip some time last week. Me, my friend Claire, and her friend Yukari went to an AWESOME place with all you can eat ice cream. We stayed for about two hours and it barely cost us $5. Yeah. 

This weekend I went with some friends to an arcade where we also got some awesome karaoke. The nice thing is there is English songs for people who don't know Japanese music, so even some of my friends who don't like Japanese music can enjoy! There's also Korean and Chinese music. It's the best. I could spend hours in karaoke. 

So yeah, two pretty interesting things about Japan so far :)

If there's something else you want me to talk about please let me know in the comments!!

Suma

Today started out with Baby We Were Born to Run playing on the radio as we cruised down the highway. If that does not spell out the start of a good day to you, then you need to be rethinking your position in life.

This morning we left early heading for a city south of Kobe to go fishing. Suma is a city on a hill (or rather, a forest covered mountain) that looks down into the harbor. What more could you look for in terms of scenery? We arrived just before 10, and after much difficulty parking, we headed out onto the docks.

Fishing in Japan is very different from fishing in the US. Or, at least from fishing at the Lake. First, quite obviously, we are fishing in the ocean. There was a network of docks that stretch out into Osaka Harbor where families, couples, and middle-aged men were set up, all with varying levels of intensity. We were prepared for a whole day on the docks!

The fishing lines were different as well. Attached to the end of the line were little buckets, which the fishers filled with mini-shrimps. For about the next two feet of line, smaller (about an inch) strands of line hang off with little hooks tied to them. The idea is that the mini-shrimps float off in the water, summoning the fish to the area, where they then mistake the hook for the tasty-smelling shrimp. Then, you can catch a bunch of fish at once. Today we caught 11 fish by ourselves and received one as a gift from the middle-aged man next to us.

On our way back to the mainland, Okaasan and I witnessed two old guys dealing with a squid one of them had just caught. They laid the thing out on their icebox and then one of them gave it a chop in just the right place and suddenly the color drained out of it and I'm pretty sure it was dead. I really wish we could have caught a squid.

After fishing, we went up the mountain, because it's actually an amusement park. No, stop. Whatever you are imagining, it's not that. It was like taking a step back in time. We rode a cable car up part of the mountain and then another ride up the rest. At the top were more fun things, but we settled for the observation deck, where you could see Suma, Akashi, and Awaji Island. There was also an arcade of the first floor.

Side note about Awaji Island: In the Kojiki, which is somewhere between religious texts and historical documentation, Awaji is the first island created when Izanagi and Izanami created land in the world.

On the way home, Olivia Newton-John's cover of Country Roads was on the radio (yes, same station). This pretty much means nothing to anyone who knows nothing of Studio Ghibli movies or Japan's obsession with random American songs. Needless to say, it was a good way to finish the trip.

Okaasan fried up some of the fish after dinner. Oh yeah, and dinner was beef stew. No, not some Japanese beef stew. Regular beef stew with carrots and potatoes and onions.

Today was definitely a perfect day of East meets West.

I freaking love Osaka

I will now give you a chronicle of today with tiny anecdotes about Japan thrown in along the way!

Since I last left off, I've moved into a new house with a new family. I live in Osaka Prefecture, about 30 minutes from Osaka City. On this particular day, I met Chidinma in Osaka City for a day of adventure!

I had to get up early to get to Osaka by 9:30 (the scheduled meeting time) and as it turns out, I got up in time to listen to some AMPlitude with Lina and Carina. They even let me request a song like the awesome people they are!

After that I said good morning to Yuuto, my 7 year old host brother, who was the only one up. Okaasan woke up right before I left, and I told her I was probably eating out for lunch and dinner, so she didn't need to make either for me. Haha....

So I made it to Osaka like a pro. My transfers were swift and smooth. Like seriously, you would think I had experience in foreign forms of transportation. I even got to ride in the women only car!

At 9:30, Chidinma and I met up, as planned, and went to an Ikebana presentation that Gaidai gave me free tickets for. It was in a hotel right in front of Osaka Castle, meaning we had a gorgeous view of the castle beyond the flowers. The flowers themselves were beautiful and the ladies who were running the event were very kind and came and chatted with us in Japanese.

After that, which took a lot less time than I had assumed it would, we decided to meander around Osaka Castle since it was right there. We saw a bad ass kendo tournament and met one of my friends who works in the gift shop.


For lunch, we decided to go to Umeda, a section of Osaka City that some of Chidinma's friends recommended. They did a good job. We roamed around before finally finding what we were looking for: OKONOMIYAKI!!! OH MY GOD! Okonomiyaki is delicious. It's usually described as a Japanese pancake or Japanese pizza. It's pretty much dough filled with veggies and meat and topped with yumminess. We found this legit restaurant where nothing was in English. In fact, the owner who greeted us as we came in asked us quite bluntly, "Do you speak Japanese?" From there, we realized this was a no-nonsense kinda place. So much so that after they took our order....the didn't even let us cook our own okonomiyaki. All around us, everyone was making their okonomiyaki on their little grills, but we were apparently just not approved of. We pretty much laughed all through lunch. You know, I feel like it was much funnier as it was happening.

After that was PURIKURA!! I'm trying to get the photos to post them.

Then we walked around.....maybe going on a wild goose to find Nakatsu station because I wanted to see it.....because it's Nakatsu Station.

Pretty much the best day ever. Except I ended up having to eat at home which I felt kinda guilty about. But home cooked food is always better than pretty much everything else.

This post ended up much less exciting than it actually was. But seriously, the Okonomiyaka experience was probably the funniest and most awkward moment of my life here so far.

Also, I have no idea what people want me to write about, so please comment with things you want to know about Japan?

Hanging in Helsinki

It’s been a pretty crazy few days for me. I caught a nasty cold on Thursday and as a result spent my last few days in Prague trying to get better as soon as possible to avoid a miserable flight experience. I did, however, manage to spend a few hours out and about with friends and buy a few last minute gifts.

The really exciting part, however, is that I did this crazy side trip to Finland.

Before I start telling of my adventures, two little side notes about myself:

1.       I am a spontaneous traveler. I don’t like making lots of plans when I’m going somewhere. I am much more the kind of person who gets on a bus and figures things out as I go.

2.       I have wanted to come to Finland since I was pretty young. When I was in middle school, we went camping up in Michigan and on the way home found a university (one of seven in the US) that taught Finnish. I bought a sweatshirt and some textbooks to study with at home. Through most of high school, I planned on going to UC Berkeley because they not only had an Asian Studies program (a good one too!) but also were one of those 7 schools with Finnish.

So, I land in Finland. I have a booking at a hostel, somewhere. I have a bus number, a stop, and an address. I get mildly lost in the airport. Luckily, my luggage slept over at the airport and didn’t come with me! I am pretty sure I walked out the wrong gate and all the way to Terminal 1. For those of you who haven’t been to the EU before, they have this little agreement thing called the Shengen Agreement. Because of this, you can travel anywhere within the member countries without going through boarder control. I knew this. But it still freaked me out that I literally just walked right out of the airport without seeing ANYONE. It’s quite convenient though.

Finding the bus was pretty easy, finding my stop was not. At first, I asked a girl a year or two younger than me who had picked up two foreign exchange students from the airport. She didn’t know because she had just moved to Helsinki. Another passenger overheard and said he thought it was about at this one place. Then another guy (who sounded like an American expat) said he was sure it was there. But then when it came up, he wasn’t… And then a lady behind me piped up that it was this next stop and gave me directions as I hopped off, which I barely heard because guess what!? I’ve lost the hearing in my left ear again! Well, then someone else got off the bus. I’m pretty sure he shouted at me as well as I was getting off, but again, can’t be sure since I can barely hear. He was from Latvia and happened to be staying at the same hostel, so he helped me find it. Lovely lad.

The hostel was really nice. Everyone there was really nice. I felt awful for coming in so late (midnight) and waking up pretty much my whole dorm (20 people!). I had a top bunk and the guy below me woke up while I was stashing my stuff in my locker. I tried to be quite but I guess I wasn’t? He felt bad because his stuff took up the whole hallway where the bed was (tiny, tiny space). But was super nice about being woken up? He moved some of it for me. I had brought clothes to sleep in, but by the time I got settled in, I didn’t feel like changing, so I just slept in my street clothes. It was not the best sleep of my life, but it wasn’t horrible either. The place was clean and it wasn’t that loud.

I woke up at a decent time in the morning. Got my stuff together, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and then headed out into Helsinki! Like I said earlier, I went out with no plans. I found a bus, got on and rode until I thought I saw something that looked like a downtown. It wasn’t. But I did find a convenience store and got juice and bread for breakfast. This was when I realized that my backpack set off all the door alarms. But no one stopped me, so…..

I ate breakfast in a park. This part of town was pretty much just offices. I didn’t even take my camera out. One thing that struck me as sort of odd was that compared to London, York, Prague, Munich, and Nurnberg, Helsinki is the one that reminded me the most of Asian cities. Not because it was tall or crowded, but because of the way they managed space. The sides of the buildings were all labeled with the businesses that owned the space, just like in Seoul. Not that I could read any, but….

After breakfast, I got back on the bus and decided to take it all the way to the end, which I figured would lead me somewhere. It did. Right down to the Sea. Okay, not right to the Sea, but pretty close! But I’ll get back to that. I was trying to find a book store to get my Finnish copy of the Little Prince, which was actually pretty easy, since everyone speaks English and is super nice! The book was a bit expensive (more expensive than the copy of Harry Potter next to it!) but since I do collect them, I had to get one. It’s called Pikku Prinssi. After that, I did a little souvenir shopping. Set off all the alarms again. They had the cutest sweaters. I really wanted one, but Helsinki is painfully expensive.

After the shopping times, I went and sat in the park. There was an interesting statue surrounded by benches so I decided that I would just sit there for a bit and draw the statue. I don’t draw from life very often, especially things that aren’t people, so I ended up screwing up the proportions. As a result, I just drew the parts that were interesting all over the page. Still, it was a lot of fun. After I had had enough of messing up the Finns pretty statue, I decided to walk down to the other end of the park. That was when I saw the sea!! It was beautiful! And right there on the wharf was a artisans and farmers market. It was beautiful! I wanted to buy some more gifts there, but everything was outrageously expensive. I ended up just walking around and window shopping until I got to the other end. From there I could see a pretty church across the bridge. Since I was in Europe, I figured I might as well go see it up close. It was closed but the building was still nice to look at. It was also on a hill, offering a nice view of everything below it.

I also went to a café back over by the bookstore. That was where I discovered the magic of Helsinki City Free WLAN. It totally made up for the ridiculous amount of money I had spent on everything else. I got to read that day’s update of A Redtail’s Dream, a Finnish webcomic I’ve been reading about a man and his dog who have been thrust into the world of Finnish mythology and must save their village. It’s quite good and getting quite dramatic. I can’t think of anything more perfect than actually reading it in Finland.

Around 1:00 I decided to head for the airport. I was able to find the right bus and buy a ticket properly. I got in with plenty of time to spare and decided to start typing up this blog entry instead of exchanging my euros for yen. That was dumb for reason I will go into more when I talk about Japanese bureaucracy.

Normal Prague Life + A Couple Crazy Events

I haven't been updating much because the most exciting things to happen to me are usually me getting a new student. I'm up to 10 and possibly 13 if I accept another family. Not sure how I feel about that....

Anyways, my typical day in Prague as of now is getting up, making coffee and something to eat (food varies, coffee is forever!) and then heading out to the villages to tutor my students. One of the families I tutor (I tutor the mother and two of the three children) has half adopted me and lets me stay over for lunch occasionally. When I'm not teaching, we tend to slip into lots of Konglish. It's seriously the best. And I get food. And everyone gives me coffee. I am currently up to about 4-5 cups a day depending on how many students I have/how long I'm at home before 6:00PM (when I switch to black tea....)

I started working with a new family (and my only non-Korean family) last Thursday. I'm tutoring the son in writing, but he also happens to have an elder sister who is only a few years younger than me. So we are tentatively making plans to hang out. 

On days when I am not teaching, I try to get up at a decent time (9:00), fail and get up a bit later (about 12:00) and then attempt to use the rest of the day to explore things. I'm getting really good at moving around the city. For example, today I wanted to see the astronomical clock in Old Town, so I figured out how to get there, then went on a hunt for a coffee shop, failed to find one, then some how managed to get back to the tram stop at the bottom of the hill where I usually catch the tram to go home. Another time I really wanted a scarf (and more coffee). So following the guidance of a friend, I got off the tram near between a theatre and the Charles Bridge and then started randomly walking the side streets searching for a corner shop with cheap scarves. Scored one for 100Kc (about 5USD). Then made it back to the tram (even though I had no clue where I was) and on to the coffee shop. It's like you can't get lost here. 

I've met up with a Mac alumn, who is totally awesome. After hanging out with her, I was reminded of why I love Mac so much. We all just get along so well. Usually I'm really shy and awkward around people when I first meet them (and I still was haha) but she was so nice and even though we study two totally different things we found loads to talk about. She showed me an amazing coffee shop that is pretty easy to get to and very cheap with great customer service, as well as a bunch of other cool places in Prague and the surrounding area. 

My crazy events are.... well one is crazy, one is just a little not what I'm used to. We'll start with the not-used-to one. I went to my favourite Indian food restaurant this past week for dinner. The food there is so good that all I've thought about since I realized I would be coming back this summer is going to eat there again. Yeah. That good. But this particular time one of the waiters started chatting with me and by the end of the dinner I had been asked out for coffee. Can I tell you the number of times this has happened to me?Answer: 0. So, ummm yeah. Now I have a tentative coffee date with the waiter at the Indian restaurant. Maybe he knows how to roller skate..... 

And the crazy event is something that just happened and shook me up pretty bad, but also made me really appreciate the kindness of Czech people. As some of you may or may not know, I'm watching two cats in addition to tutoring and watching the house. One is the cat of the actual owner of the apartment, Jaye, and the other is a friend of hers from work. The friend's cat really likes to go outside, but he has no claws and the apartment is the third (and top) floor of the apartment complex. The cat has snuck out before, since I usually keep the windows open to help keep the apartment cool. I usually try to keep them closed enough that he can't get out, but sometimes I forget (usually with the bathroom window because I leave it open after a shower). and he gets out. So tonight he got out. And fell off the roof. From the third floor. Into my neighbors-whom-I'd-never-met's garden. Luckily, his owners were very smart and wrote my number on the collar. They called me, luckily spoke English, and then helped me get him to the vet. The man stayed with me and helped me translate at the vets office and then when I tried to give them money, they refused it (I did manage to give them cookies I baked for 4th of July though!). The cat is okay now. He has a small cut on his lip, but otherwise fine and running around the house and making noise as usual. I am now shutting all the doors and keeping windows closed in rooms the cats are in. Thank god cats always land on their feet or who knows what might have happened......

But yeah. That's almost all of what's happened since my last update. I will try to do more exciting things to talk about. Emma is coming next week, so more silly adventures will probably ensue! 

Getting into Prague Life

I'm writing this post while consuming a somewhat late breakfast of toast and beet/grapefruit/lime juice that I just made a few minutes ago. Despite the fact that it's almost 9:00 and I'm just now eating breakfast, I've actually been up since a bit after six. Around 7:00 I went for a run in the local park. Can I please be this motivated every day?

I've been pretty busy these last few days. I moved to Prague last Friday. Since then I've been roving around with Jaye, learning how to get around town through the transit system, where to shop for groceries and clothes. On Monday I met one of the families I will be tutoring for and then managed to navigate my way home. Yesterday I went to actually tutor the mother for an hour. By the time I got home it was about noon and so hot that I could hardly stand it. I made some lunch and tried to work up the courage to go back outside. I really can't tolerate heat. I don't like sweating and I prefer weather to be no higher than 75F. It was so hot that I debated with myself for quite awhile on whether or not I wanted to make my planned trip to the mall to buy tanktops to wear in the heat.

Finally I sucked it up and headed to the bus stop. Getting to the mall I went to is pretty easy as it's just one bus. Getting back is a little more tricky, however, because only every other bus actually goes all the way up the hill to where my bus stop is. Sadly, on this particular day, I forgot that. But it was fine. I just had to wait outside for another 10 minutes or so.

I actually had two missions at the mall yesterday. One was to buy tank tops, which I found at H&M on sale for 70C (less than 5USD!!). The other was to get price estimates on roller blades. You see, the park by my house has a really nice paved path for bikes and roller blades. And on the weekend there are so many people out having fun and roller blading that I really wanted to attempt it myself. I'm currently looking for a used pair, but I haven't had any luck and I would like to get a hold of them soon so I have time to put them to good use. I've managed to find a few pairs for about 60-70USD but most of them are more like 100-150USD. I'm not sure how I feel about dropping that much money after just having spent that on a phone....

Before I went on my actual shopping spree, however, I decided I was in dire need of caffeine. There was a Costa Coffee (England's number one coffee chain!) in the mall, so I stopped in there for a bit. I sat at a table and doodled some. It felt so good to just be able to draw without pressure. I didn't feel guilty like I should be doing something else, like studying, but I also didn't feel like I was just forcing myself to draw for the sake of drawing, which is how I've felt for about the past month. So yeah, that was really great! After I'd been sitting for a bit, one of the baristas came around with a tray giving out lemonade samples. It was awesome.

I had such a good time being out yesterday that I'm going to attempt the same this afternoon if the weather holds. Apparently it's supposed to rain a bit today or tomorrow. This is only a concern because the only way to cool down the apartment is to open the windows and pray for a breeze.

Now that I'm a bit more settled, I'm going to attempt to keep this more regularly!

Getting to York and the first two days

It’s been a crazy last two days. Three days? I still get my flying time mixed up. I last left off in JFK, where I was miserable being stuck in the arrivals section of the airport. It really wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be, I just don’t like JFK. Finally the time rolled around and I was able to head back to the baggage drop off. It took forever to make it through that line, and then I had to wait in the painfully long security line. I have never in my life had to wait to long, and I’ve been to a lot of airports. It was so crowded that this TSA woman came over and escorted a handful of us over to first class security so we could speed up getting people through. The first class lounge is sweeeeeet. Perfectly air conditioned, nice chairs, clean….. On the other side of security was an actually decent terminal. Apparently it was new. It was actually pretty nice.

My flight to Iceland, I was both amazing and awkward. Firstly, Iceland air is AMAZING. Best airlines I’ve ever flown. The first class seats were all named after Norse gods and the economy seats taught you Icelandic. You got complementary Icelandic spring water when you boarded, the blankets were actually warm and soft, and the pillows had little lullabys on them in English and Icelandic. This is the English:

Bye bye and hushabye

Can you see the swans fly?

Now half asleep in bed I lie

Awake with half an eye

Heyho and welladay

Over the hills and far away

That’s where the little children stray

To find the lambs at play.

I don’t know, I think it’s cute. I was stuck sitting in the middle seat in a row of three for the fiveish hours of the trip. The boys on either side of me were brothers and kept speaking Icelandic over me. Occasionally the one at the window seat would climb onto the seat and then step over me to go to the bathroom. It was weird. I tried to sleep most of the time.

My layover in Iceland was sadly pretty boring…. There not anything in the area of the airport. Outside is just barren land. . . I had a really good chicken tikka masala sandwich though.

Second flight was in better company. A young mother from Minnesota flying to meet her husband and his family in England. The baby was not just cute but also really well behaved!

After landing in England, it took FOREVER to get through customs. It was even more difficult than trying to get back into the US. After that I went to take the Picadilly Line to Kings Cross. Everything was going great. Then I found out the Picadilly Line was closed halfway through. So a guy came on, ushered us off the train and onto some busses. Then we drove through London. Which was actually pretty cool. Then we had to get back on the trains. By the time I made it to Kings Cross I was stressed and tired. I had planned to get my tickets for the 3:00 train as it was 2:20 and that would give me time to find Platform 9 ¾. However, when I bought my ticket the guy gave me one for the 2:30. At that time I had 5 minutes to run for the train. I had no idea where I was supposed to sit and I couldn’t read my ticket. I asked a woman in a station uniform for help and she was just like “look for an open seat.” Great. So the train was starting to make noise and I was running up and down the platform trying to figure out what to do. Finally she just told me to hurry and get on so I just got in the nearest car. Turns out my suitcase was too big to fit down the aisles so I needed to find a spot in one of the two cars on either side of where I got on. I finally did and sat down. Because of the rush, I hadn’t called Ellen. I used the 15 minutes of free wifi on the train to message her everywhere so I wouldn’t get stranded in York. After awhile, I was finally able to calm down again and enjoy my train ride. Across the aisle from me was a friendly Canadian couple who I talked with some.

I got to York in the end and got to see Ellen. We went back and had cottage pie for dinner. Then she gave me a tour of Heslington, which is the village her University is in.

On Monday we walked into York proper. We walked up and down nearly every street, went into the Minster, went to the train station and the museum, walked back to the city center, then to the supermarket, then home. I feel super fit. We got to see all the interesting places in York. The wall that surrounds the city was originally built by the Romans. The Minster ‘s stained glass is so old that all of it needs to be replaced.

We ate lunch at a local restaurant and got fish and chips. The place was packed with a group of German kids on a fieldtrip.

We did so much walking that both of us were terribly sore. Even today.

Today we went to Ripon, which is the town that the Crawley family of Downton Abbey are always visiting. Modern Ripon is, well, modern. And bigger. We got there pretty early and were freezing. While waiting for the bus to Fountains Abbey, a famous ruin, we looked around town. We got coffee from the nicest barista ever and ended up in the cathedral. Unlike the Minster, this one was actually still in use, though it was also a museum. We donated some pounds and walked around. There were a line of bishop statues or something that were in chronological order. It was interesting to see how their names represented the different groups in the area throughout the years.

After that we went to the Abbey ruins. They were beautiful. At first I thought it was just a tower and some other rooms, just like the Minster and other places we visited. Then we walked down the hill and into the valley, walking around what we could see to discover a vast collection of ruins. The ones we had see from the hill were just the most intact. Behind them were the remnants of what would have fit both of the other Cathedrals we had visited. It was really amazing. After having a picnic in sight of the ruins, we hiked the trails around them. Eventually we ended up at a deer park where we saw lots of awesome deer!!

Hello from JFK (AKA Hell)

Hello and welcome back to the Mina Diaries!

I am finally going on another adventure! And this time, adventure is actually a bit of an understatement. Today I left my house at 6:30AM to catch my first flight (of four today). Right now I am en route to visit a very good friend in York, England. I'll stay there for about 5 days before heading over to Prague, Czech Republic to house sit for another good friend. I'll be there for another 2 1/2 months or so before moving to Osaka Prefecture, Japan until December for a study abroad.

Today is my first day of traveling. It started off with a bang when the security stations at KCI were closed because the fire alarm went off. That was a fun experience. When I finally got on my plane, the captain came on to inform us that one of the air conditioner units on the plane was broken and someone was coming to look. They decided we would just fly without it (since everyone was on the plane already) and just fly lower because the cabin wouldn't be fully pressurized due to the air duct breaking. then there was another wait for a fuel truck to be brought out to insure that there was enough for the extra gas it would take to get to DC. We finally landed....and got to walk on the tarmac to the terminal because apparently there were no gates for us.

We land on time, amazingly, and I join a group of people from the flight running madly to catch our connector to NYC. We landed in terminal A and had to hop a terminal connector to terminal C, running to our gate at the far end of the terminal. On this flight there was a last minute maintenance check that left us all sitting on the tarmac an additional few minutes, making me regret having run all the way from the other side of the airport. Oh yeah, and we weren't at a gate again, so we boarded from the tarmac. I found out during this flight that United Airlines doesn't give free snacks like Southwest or Delta. I never thought I would hate an airline more than Delta, but I think United has claimed that spot. At least Delta has those yummy cookies.

When we landed at Hell JFK, we were escorted onto the tarmac again and into the terminal. Gates? What are those? At this point, I was officially done with my US airlines flights, so I had to go pull my bags out of baggage claim and go recheck them with Iceland Air. This is where things start to go wrong. For some reason, even thought I wrote down my flight time last night, both my mother and I got it in our heads that my flight was at 5:00 something. I tried to recheck my bags, but it turns out that my flight isn't until 8:00 something. This brings us to where I'm at now, sitting in JFK, my least favourite place in the entire world, for 8 hours. I can't even go through the gate to get decent food for another 4 hours or so. I would go out and see New York except I 1) have a ton of baggage, and 2) I hate NYC anyways.

After I finally get going, I'll have one more layover in Reykjavik, Iceland before landing in London, England. Not only will I get to see Heathrow but also King's Cross Station! I am super excited!