Another Blog

Brie's made a new blog she says she'll update.
From what I've read so far it's very cutsy and personal,
ironically she's posted this on the interwebs, excellent choice for privacy:
justbreathe-brii.blogspot.com

Plans

Just to keep you informed, I do have a lot of plans in the works
including a trip to 富山 tomorrow, but right now I'm a bit short on
resources, which will soon be rectified.
So, I'm going to actually try some work at school, pratice a few
maths, pick up on physics and learn 漢字(those types of characters) the
boring way. I might even succeed at one of those.
Terry, found one.
Gavin, yeah, I'm getting it.
Sue, karaoke (kah-lah-oh-kay), you'll see soon. I do low songs like Cohen.
Real material to come soon.

Fogot I Can Do It This Way

He's a song of theirs.

Lived Through Aonther Live

Live being Japanese for concert (makes sense). Anyways, another one with the same good band. I recorded a large part of their preformance in low quality, basically I'm trying to extract the audio into mp3s. I told the guitarist this after and he seemed interested in the video, so, next time I'm going to empty my card, fill my battery and record higher quaility. Anyways, back to the video I DO have, anyone up for extracting audio?
So, they opened, not as energetic as the first time we saw them, but still really good. Next was some hard rock band of emo Mari-woh-ever-in-hell Masomething. A bit to angry for this crowd. They might do well in their own genre, but it's hard to find fans when they keep slitting... oh, right, politically acceptamable... And the next band was a cool headbanging one of which Brie and I debated the genre (someone please define emo, heavy, punk and alternative rock from each other). As usual, curfew (did you know that the French word for curfew "couvre feu" literally means "cover fire?") got us out of there early. Brie bought a CD, asked for the name of a band and e-mail addresses of my friends' and we were told one of the bands has mixi (Japan's facebook).

Anyways, I'll see what I can upload quickly here.

Forgot To Add

I'm not opposed to having a girlfriend in l Japan. I'd like one but
getting one in Japan would be like find a cup of hot chocolate in the
freezer.

Comments on Comments

Alright, I'm going to take some time to straighten a few things out.
First, thank you for the comments. They're the only way I know anyone other than 肉, t3rry and my parents read this.
Also, you might notice that I react very directly to any issue that comes up including e-mails, questions, comments and events.
Now, to clear up a few things.

First, one comment I've gotten more than once is where I say I've typed a lot about something when really I didn't. Thanks for the reminders, this happens because not everything I plan for the blog gets written.

Next, who is still reading the blog? I've gotten quite a few one time "I'm in your internets, reading you blogs" (though not in LOLcats form). Do you guys continue to read? Expanding on that, feel free to comment on anything no matter how seemingly obvious or unimportant.

Next, just so you know, I've kept a [large object, especially a hollow one] load out of the blog. I've never honestly vented on this blog, it's all been dummed down. I do this for many reasons, for example, the minute change that someone from my host Rotary club or the 松本s read this.

Now, to Mike, too bad you can't come, but it's also a relief seeing as your plans made a nice guide to "How to get Kicked out of Japan."
To BWong, Brie is not my girlfriend, in fact I'm good friends with her boyfriend, a tall blond Aussie who, Brie reminds me and I pass on to the Japanese (even just talking to a girl in Japan makes you look like a couple), he's much bigger than me. I'll add that to their profiles.
Also, dying hair is considered disfigurement, against the rules of the exchange and my school (for school: as is the length of my hair) and would have me shipped back to Canada.
Laura, it sounds more like Japanese movies, none of Gavin or my games have characters with black blowing coats, 桜 (sakura) and only occasionally feature 刀 (katana, Japanese sword(s)), but nice image none-the-less.
Next, anyone else coming to Japan? Gavin? Ian? Laura?

I still have more pictures, but blogspot is not very picture friendly.

Live Fast, Run Faster part 3

It was getting late for curfew when we finished, so we got take-out
and headed "home." Living a five minute walk from Brie's I walked her
to the door. We had the sort of chat I always wish could last longer.
Those with whom I've had time and whom I trust have all heard it from
me. Despite the title I like the slow stuff.

Anyways, another amazing day, had fun, strengthened Japanese friendships.
Sorry, no photos today.

Live Fast, Run Faster part 2

The seven of us meet, go to our favourite karaoke place. I started it
off with Sum41's In Too Deep and it went from there; Green Day,
Blink182, Avril Lavigne, Linkin Park and a few others including some
Japanese. I got in the most, joining in on every other song, killing
my vocal chords. It was great.

Live Fast, Run Faster part 1

Today I was planning to take it easy, maybe play Patapon or get the
hair-cut I so desperately need. Instead I showed off to some otaku and
planned karaoke.
The band leader and I were talking about Tuesday or Thursday, then the
bass player says today. So, I boot it "home" to my internet access and
start e-mailing like Spartain madness. By chance Brie and 肉 are
already on the town. I organize for them, the band, more punk rockers
and I to meet giving myself just enough time to dash there.

Yes it is.

As you know, I really like the Calorie Mates here, which I found out about through MGS3, a video game where they replenish your stamina. A few days ago, my friend told me "this isn't MGS," to which I said, "yes it is." Life is like a video game in many respects mostly bacause many games are made to represent life in some way or another. Take GTA4 for example. Anyways, the point is, I like Calorie Mates.

Moving on, I'm sure some of you have at some time or other thought I've been ready to give up on Japan. My being a pessimist doesn't help this. Well, your wrong. Yes, there are times when I can't stand some things here, but even then, my thoughts refused to go down the course of returning until I'm done. I have instead thought of how I would deal with whatever it is here. Even when I've broken, there has still been no doubt in my mind that I wanted to finish my stay.
That said, Japan is, in my opinion, one of the hardest places to get used to. It's a country that has excelled at solitary for hundreds of years, shutting out the Chinese, Mongols, Spanish, Portegese and keeping only minimal contact with England (Anjin-sama) and the Dutch until Perry. Even today outsiders are coldly welcome and seen as different (even I find myself staring at Westerns, they stand out THAT much). It's fundamentally different from the West and there are many ideas and customs that you just have to get used to here.

Anyways, today I had a ten k race near 加賀. Thiswas mostly to check how I'm doing. Over an hour would be bad, under fifty minutes would be great, I got fifty-four minutes and twelve seconds. I still had energy at the end (but I forced myself to a hard pace) so, I'm doing fine I guess. While running I remembered (as I often do even in runs in Canada) about all the people cheering for or yelling at me, as well as those who have run beside me. Thank you to all those people for any past and or present support and I wish you well in all your runs. I hope to run with you in the Fiddler's. Anyways, had a race, did well.

Rotary Event

Yesterday I went to my Rotary club's 花見 (hanami, flower viewing), except it was inside. I had a few sips of sake and beer but my club is pretty strict on that kind of stuff (sake>asahi>sapporo). We saw geisha preform, ate, listened to some violin or fiddle music, and played darts, I helped win good food for my table. There was also a boy-band like preformance with a few girls joining in for YMCA.

桜

(sakura). By far the most beautiful flower I've ever seen. They vary from deep pink to pure white in colour. Pink is the best. The petals fall falling fom the trees is like a snowday in paradise. During this season people go outside to look at them and drink, take picutres or I've even heard (though no proof) that you're allowed to ...... ...Anyways, pictures are nice, but getting a good picture of anything beautiful is hard (drawing is worse). The best I've found is to take a picture of them with the deep blue sky behind them contrasting their deep pink. I hope these turned out well.

Group of poverty

is the name of my friends band. We, Brie, 肉 and I just went to see them at a concert. They were **cking, err... rocking AWESOME! All the bands that we saw play were good, but my friends' had so much energy and had the crowd going with their Western mid-to-late-nineties style punk. Now I know what they knew all my Canadian bands and the word fuck. There're three of them, guitar, bass and drums and all of them sang and all of them rocked and looked like they were having fun. It was great. The other bands were really good too and each had their own style, the fist-pumping hard-rockers, the Californian skaters etc. Here's twenty seconds of my friends playing:

New Place

Well, I'm back in 金沢. I'm living within a kilometre of my first home close to the 犀川 and the school. It's a nice Japanese mansion, which is what they call apartments, no joke. It's a decent size and everyone gets their own room. I'm glad I don't have to worry about packing up all that junk again, I'll be getting rid of a lot of stuff in my time left, books, manga, toys, games, candy, pins, one billion dollars [evil laughter], ha, no on that last one. The place also has wireless internet so I'll be albe to keep up with my e-mail (which is most of the reason I'm not getting a phone, though it's been REALLY hard without one) and Skype if need be. The father, mother and daughter seem nice. The father has a nice BMW and a race car. Anyways, moving on...

I'll skip school (the topic, not classes) for now.

I'm going to a sakura observing party on Wednesday with my Rotary club, I have no idea how that will go.

And my "In Too Deep" reference last week was mostly pointed at the fact that I'm going to a concert on Thursday, same as the first with, hopefully, Brie, 肉 and Riley (another Canadian exchange student). It should be good.

It was also pointed at the fact that I'm trying to un-, than re-, bury myself in club activities, school courses and other studies and hopefully a social life (large piles of money like I had before would also be nice, kidding... I never made a pile out of it *shifty look*). I'm not sure what I can get in three months, but it'll be better than not. As to the studies, 肉's hard work and a want to be able to understand without a dictionary at all times as well as trying to fill my empty school days (they got angry at me today for falling asleep (usually done by the rest of the class, and I wish I really had been fully asleep) in a class that I couldn't do anything in if I wanted to. So I've had a talk with my teach and he'll see what he can do to avoid any... further troubles *another shifty look*. Also, after an extended session with many painful hits to the head, hip and arm, I've quit kendo. It was fun but it was getting to be too much. I think I'll join the English club and try and get a real conversation going with a Japanese person (in ANY language).

And yes, it's sakura season here, pictures... will come when I get better internet. I'll be adding them retroactively from my Abstract entry onwards, sorry for the inconvenience, but this time I really do have them, and organized.

In Full Bloom

Well, I'm in (equivalent) grade twelve, a new "home," the sakura
season and too deep. I'll explain the reference and write about it
all with pictures soon.

Coming Soon

I know I haven't been posting as many pictures and such as I said I would. But, I did finally get audio of me speaking Japanese (you're not expected to know what I was saying, it's Japanese), and I have kept up posting my whole trip. So, here's how it works and why you get what you get:

I can post via e-mail, which I use when all I have is my PSP and there's an accessable, hackable wireless signal. Which I usually don't have or at least not legally.
I can post from the Rifare, but that's not all the time and sometimes I'm in a hurry to get "home" or all the computers are being used.
I can use computers of my host families, but I need to avoid abusing this from your, my and their perspectives.
I also use the computers for other things like e-mail and keeping up to date.

It takes a while to write a decent post and it only takes longer if I have to use or include something written beforehand (reading, correcting, editing and typing at once is HARD).

Pictures are taken arcoss two cameras and two cards and I don't always have a camera on me. Also, I want to keep the high resolution for later making storage a problem and I've taken well over a thousand pictures making uploading a long boring process (no matter their size, most sites won't upload folders and you need to select the files individually by title (DCS####)).
Only one of these (the camera I only carry on special occasion) has useable video.

Finally, finding something interesting that I haven't beaten to death to talk about is hard. You wouldn't imagine how many times I've wanted to just rant about the Japanese character.

Anyways, back to your regularly (not really) scheduled program (blog).

More...

Character:
ニコ(nee-koe) Nick
U.S.A, Male, 18?
Usually very quiet, but he does have a real personality with feelings and opinions. He's an all around good guy who, while still a bit passive, speaks up more.
He doesn't have a cellphone.

Places:
犀川 (saigawa) is the more southern of the main rivers passing through 金沢. It runs from the mountians with thick forests, through the city with wide open fields to more strict paved paths up to the sea. Well over ten kilometres of beautiful scenery. [panorama_link]

片町 (katamachi) is the main down town area of 金沢. Following a main road perpendicular to the 犀川 (川 means river, so saigawa river is just repeating yourself), it's covered in small shops and late night bars. For that it's best known for its night life. Also, the Labbro mall has a nice music shop on the forth floor.

竪町 (tatemachi) is a promenade breaking off from 片町 with music playing and good shops on either side. It has a place for karaoke, anime related stuff, clothing and more.

香林坊 (kohrinbo) is just north of 片町 along the same road. A connecting road leads to the city hall, art museum, castle and garden. It's 109 mall is overfilled with over-the-top Japanese clothing stores while the 大和 (Daiwa) mall across from it features a wide range of stores. [panorama_link]

武蔵 (musashi) is even further north along the same road, but attaches to the road leading to the station. Most notable are the M'za clothing store, 近江 bazaar-like area and the gold leaf decorations in winter.

Rifare is a building for international exchange between 武蔵 and the station. The first floor has a literature book store including manga, magazines and books in English and a mountain equipment store. The second floor continues the book store with non-fiction, movie-based novels and children's books. The third floor has help for internationals, a television set always set to CNN world and a library with computers (here). The forth floor is made up of classrooms for foreign language study.

金沢駅 (kanzawa eki (station)) is the larges station in 石川 with a large glass dome over it and wide basement complex below it. It has many stores from souvenir shops to restaurants to a book store.

Forus is the seven storey AEON mall right next to the 金沢駅. It has all the wild(not in a good way)-fashion, music, and food stores you'd expect as well as an arcade and movie theatre.

遊学館 (yugakkan) is my school. Its baton-twirling and baseball clubs are well known, other than that, it's nothing worth mentioning. It has no ALT, but two foreigner students.

Convenience stores are like save points here. They have everything you need to survive and can be found very conveniently anywhere. It's to the point where if you know the area (or have a map) you can even find your prefered of Family Mart, Lawsons' and Sunkus.

I'll add pictures to these posts later.

Abstract

So, while most of you who are reading this have probably kept up with all the insanity that is my writing, I'm going to try to sum sum of it up for you. By the way, abstract doesn't mean messed-up, crazy of anything like that, it means a summary (the back of a book often has an abstract on it, for example).

Story:
Through the Rotary Youth Exchange Program I am on a year long cultural exchange in Japan. I Live with Japanese families, go to school, visit occasional Rotary functions and try to learn about Japan.

Characters:

Geoffrey Robert Card:
Canadian, Male, 17/18
Came to Japan hoping to find new perspective from Eastern philosophy. Also interested in anime, manga, technology and video games. Strange.
Carries around an electric pocket dictionary and PSP (for music, podcasts, photos, and communication as he lacks a cellphone).

Brie:
Canadian, Female, 16/17, Protestant
Not very good with directions or numbers (or at least their real life uses) but happy-go-lucky and strongly religious. She's delightful and knows much about Japan.
Carries around her cellphone in her purse from which its ringing gets no attention.

Callan
Australian, Male, 18?
Japan was his second pick and he only learned simple conversational Japanese, but he seemed happy with his exchange. His nice personality and knowledge of gaming reminded me of my brother. Quite care-free and spoken very badly of by my first host father. He went home in January.
Passes his cellphone on to Brie.

肉(nee-koo, meat) Nick
Australian, Male, 18
Previously an anime fan, he's knowledgeable, well-read and social. He's read more Japanese literature than the Japanese give him credit as well as Western literature (he's asked me to read The Count of Monty Cristo so I can better translate the ending for him, which I am eager to do, but lacking a French copy). Also a fan of Japanese pop-culture and fashion with ideas of starting an foreigner Japanese boy-band.
He has a prepaid cellphone with a collection of things hanging from it on which he prides himself.

The Assistant Language Teachers
Basically Western college or university students who work to bring English to Japan, especially it's schools. There's about one in every school.

Location:

Japan (日本, nee-hon, nee-Ppon), the land of the rising sun. A group of islands off the coast of Asia well know for it's rich culture, comics and technology.

Ishikawa (石川, stone river) prefecture.

Kanazawa (金沢, gold stream/marsh) city, the capital of Ishikawa known mainly for its kenrokuen (兼六園) garden and gold-leaf production.
A city of four-hundred-thousand people. It has two rivers running through it from the mountains to the sea on either side of a long hill on which the castle (actually just a gate and some smaller structures) and garden are found. The city also prides itself on its ancient and modern night life districts.

The Exchange:

Rotary Youth Exchange Program:
A cultral exchange.
An exchange with high standards for entrants and a limited number of spots. For every spot there are twenty who apply. It requires an eighteen page application, two interviews and an orientation. The is minimal control over where entrants end up going. Run entirely by the goodwill of Rotary clubs and host families. It lasts one year starting in summer or winter.

Rules:
No:
Drugs (an obvious choice for anywhere but Amsterdam)
Dating (avoid serious relationships and related troubles)
Drinking (ahaha... just don't get drunk and you should be okay)
Driving (just to avoid accidents and cetera)
recent additions:
Disfigurement (no premenant hair dying, peircing, tattos and cetera)
Downloading (often using others' computers, don't get them viruses and cetera)

The Families:

松本
1st, 5.5 months, father, mother, older brother, younger brother
A very strict and hardworking family with whom I did not get along well. I could go on and on, but it was an impasse of character.

野上
2nd, 1 month, father, mother
A very laid-back working couple who reminded me of my house back home. It was a nice break.

橋谷
3rd, 1.5 months, grandfather, grandmother, daughter (yes, there's a generation missing, not dead)
A nice old couple living far from Kanazawa in a very Japanese style (house, life-style).

I might add more later.

Sorry about that...

Unless you're just catching up now, you'll have noticed that I haven't posted in a while. Even the Nagasaki report hasn't been posted. So, most of you probably think I'm done posting or something along the lines of dead. Well, actually I still want to keep up the blog, but here's the problem.

I've too much to post.

Seriously. The kyushu report, one for the Rotary trip, talking about hanging around with the other exchange students, going to concerts, just chillin', my upcoming run, sakura, I've got a lot to type. Not to mention I'm getting my pictures online into a google account, but two mb files take a while to upload (Terry, I have more panoramas, but they're not uploaded yet).

But, I only get about an hour a day on a computer, and with checking e-mail, keeping up with the news and a loud tv always on right beside me it's hard to type (though right now I'm at the Rifare). ...I guess I'll give it a shot now *takes out gun, points to head*... oops, I meant writing another entry *hides glock, hopes no one noticed*.

So, I'll skip the Kyushu report for right now and get into what I've been up to.

School ended late last month, I got about two weeks, which ended up being filled with the Rotary trip and kendo anyways. Yeah, when I tell my friends (as I want to call them, but haven't gotten confirmed) that clubs in the West are only a few hours a week rather than day it takes some convincing (granted we're expected to practice whatever we do outside of that in Canada, but I never ran as much as I was supposed to , and now with kendo I'm hardly getting a chance to go out for a nice ten k). 肉 (the australian) also had this with tennis.

Luckily, I spent yesterday with Middle of the Forest, who brought me to a live he preformed in (as a singer who needs to hold his head high and look at the audiance). It was good, but hot in a room only twice the size of my room in Canada (with a lower ceiling). After we went to a bookstore and looked around at the magazines and comics and an arcade. We had a good Japanese style meal of all kinds of foods that was a little overpriced but good. I tried to get a friendly conversation going but I couldn't find the depth I wanted. Appearently he wants to be a comedian, go to Osaka and maybe visit New York (Statue of Liberty) and England (The Beatles). The Japanese don't set their sights very high. And then I went "home."

Today I went to school for my health check. They checked my hearing (I was expecting a beep, it took me a few seconds to realize I was supposed to be listening for what I thought was interferance), my urine, height, weight, sight and blood pressure. Than I got my picture taken, got assinged to a class of forty-two (previously thirty-two, I know because outsider names go last and I've been assigned numbers 32 and 42). I had some nice chats about games, music, how to sound "cool" and such and spent a lot of time walking around looking for nice plces to relax as I did nothing until a shortened version of kendo in the afternoon. Also, having gone without it, I now know lunch is an important meal... and paper is no substitute.

Also, in language notes, one of the best ways to learn (as demonstrated in The Terminal) is to read kids' books. Of course when I suggested this to Japanese students (specifically, my favourite series, which I am looking for in Japanese, The Cat in the Hat) they seemed to think it under them and went back to failing to understand hyper-galactrix's user manual for the hydro fusionator 3000 (okay, their just reading stuff on NASA projects, psychology of advertising, etc, but my point stands). So, to prove my point, I've bought a bilingual version of Doraemon, a famous Japanese children's comic. It's funny and will make better conversation material than the technical term for a mosquito's stinger.

Anyways, that's enough for now.
Oh, but I'll say this, while some of you may have stopped reading (which makes mentioning you entirely useless) and some of you just pop in and out and I do get the occasional message, but I don't have any idea what to type about (obviously I'll mention what I'm up to and related stuff, but what do you want to know about Japan or me being here. Also, if you're coming, I'd like a heads up as the Japanese don't take well to disruptions in schedules (otherwise I'd specifically ask for you to come without the slightest hint)). (Also, I can't travel without Rotary's approval)

So, please ask about something.