Feet Fall Soundly

Can you guess who almost destroyed his foot?
No?

Well, I'll give you a hint... Oh-mah-gosh it's me.
Yea, I wanted to take a photo of a river right? But I couldn't get to get due to a fence. Fences are silly, silly things to hopped right on over it and took the photo anyway (I don't have it at the moment, but you can expect it to be updated to my flickr account sometime soon.)

For all intents and purposes the photo turned out rather poopy. Depressed, I ran back to fence to hop over. I cleared the barrier, no problem, but what I failed to notice on the initial trip was the gutter running directly in front of it.

Needless to say, I missed my toe up pretty bad. I don't know if I've seen quite so much blood come out from underneath my toenail. It was fairly disgusting, for all intents and purposes.

Anyway, I did that about a week ago, and it still hurts a bit. Whatever.
I took some time off from running club, but I intend to come back with a vengeance. There is a race coming up that goes through Hirakata, and I want to run in it, gosh darn it. I think it's a 10 K, which just makes me happy, as I've been running those here like it's nothing.

Also a jolly running note. Passing people on bikes going up hill? FUN.

I've a couple trips planned for October. This Saturday, I'll be going to Asuka (weather willing) to take a boat load of photos. There be temples in them thar hills, and I'mma get some pictures. It's being paid for by Kansai Gaidai, so no worries there.

On the 11th, some of my new homies and I will be going to Shikoku. Why, I'm not to sure, but apparently we get to wear silly hats. More on that as I figure it out myself. I guess it's 40 dollars round trip, but lunch will be free.

Another trip I would love to make is a trip to Kyoto to see the William Kentridge exhibit. My art professor back home would be so proud that I actually give a care about anything art related, so I imagine some brownie points are in order. Also brownies... I want brownies.

I've had lot of things bearing down on me lately (both school work and emotional stress) so I apologise for the scantity of updates. I'll try to post something next Monday, and I will definitely keep you posted on these coming trips.

~Cheers
PS: Apologises for bad English hither and thither. I write these things in a rush, and don't always have time to fix it.

How Things Are

I've been here for three weeks now haven't I?
Can't say that it feels like it. I've been so busy and have had so many different things to take care of that I've not really had time to sit for second and truly think about what's going on, much less tell everyone.

Have I mentioned what classes I'm taking yet?
If not here comes the list, woooo.

Japanese Speaking

- A basic Japanese class. Go in, sit down, spew forth Japanese language by the teacher's command, hunt desperately for homework, finish it, turn it in, cry in fear of the coming grade, etc., etc. I'm fast finding that learning Japanese from a Japanese Sensei is much more brutal than doing so by some silly American professor.

Look at that smug little man...

Japanese Reading and Writing

- More of a supplement to the previously mentioned class, this one focuses more on the grammatical aspects associated with (here it comes) reading and writing Japanese. It's fun and the professor is an excited little lady, and the course is completely taught in the native language. Needless to say, I pay attention.

Ceramics Basic

- As a core requirement for my Bachelor of Fine Arts major, I am bound by blood to do a full year of a medium that only fills my with rage and sadness. I suck at ceramics, but I have to it anyway. Stupid.... anyway. Inomata Sensei is really cool dude. He reeks of talent and wisdom... also cigarettes. Okay, mostly cigarettes, but he is very good at what he does.

Survey of Japanese Art

- Another course taken with the desire to achieve the ever elusive art major. This class is taught by some white bloke who has been living in Japan for the last 30 years. While he lectures are a miraculous mix of both boring and amazing, the historical artwork is made fascinating by the sheer fact that 90% of it was all discovered in the Kansai area. Heck, there's an ancient burial mound behind one of the dorms! Groovy class, but I struggle for consciousness.

Not necessarily a class but...
Running Club

-That's right. Even though I have to ride my bike uphill for half an hour to get to school in the morning, and even though the relationship between myself and my legs has been fairly rocky as of late, I've found it necessary to punish myself physically during my stay here. I'll let you know if I break something.

On the subject of all the exercise I get just trying to get from place to place, I have lost a reasonably amount of weight. I've gone down two notches on my belt, so whatever that means...
This weekend starts sliver week, which is basically a five day holiday. I'll be putt-putt golfing with my host Otoosan (dad) and it'll likely be difficult not to think of putt-putt at Cedar Point with the Franks (I miss you guys!).

Much love and I'll post sometime late next week

.

Cheers

Fun Facts from Japan

Hey there, you silly people, out in your silly countries far beyond this island of great ideas and greater innovations. Japan is a place where almost anything is possible. Beer, panties, and candy can all be dispensed from vending machines (oftentimes, the same machine), public transportation can actually work, phones can read phone numbers off of signs, and giant mechs (robots for the older crowd) are crafted and placed to intimidate the masses into solemn obedience.

Work 6 hours overtime without pay, or I will crush your family!!

For what it's worth however, every good turn deserves a bad one. All ideas can't be haphazardly applied to anything with the fleeting belief that it all will just turn out okay. In fact, there are some things that are just plain unnecessary, and you wonder how people can possible live with it, much less

accept the fact that it must have been constructed by human hands and not that of uncaring god. I am of course talking about...

...heated toilets. These accursed things have plagued my time here each and every time nature has called on me for duty. (get it?) How I long for the

days when I knew that my toilet would be cold and unfeeling toward my rear end. Now I feel the warm embrace of the seat with increasing discomfort. Is it happy to see me? Is it (unlike our cold, unfeeling American toilets) happy about its lot in life? If so, does that mean that the darn thing is hugging my cheeks with each passing? (do you get it?)

I can't shake the feeling that these things are sentient. Heavens, they have enough electrical cords coming out of them, you'd think they could power a rock concert.

Looks like somebody just flushed...

While I do suppose it could be worse, I often worry about short-circuits... oh boy.

Catch Up

Alright, here's the deal.

I have a lot I want to talk about, and just not enough time to do.
While I would love to back-track and cover every minuet detail of this crazy adventure, there is just too much in the past now to cover it all with the clarity that the instances deserve. However, I do have separate (fragmented) diary, so if I ever do have the time, I will be able to wrap you around some past events and save you all from a boring present. For the moment, let's just live for the present. As such, there is some important information needed to catch you up with the moment.

I now am living with a host family (Muraguchi Kimiyuki and Miyoko).


I have attended classes at Kansai Gaidai for nearly a week.


And I've been living in Japan for the last few weeks.


... oh yea, and I've been wicked lost trying to get home each day.

Well this doesn't seem right...

That last point brings me to the main point of this blog post; wanton confusion. Taking the recap further, I am from a small town, my home American college is in a small town, and Japan is one of the most jam-packed places on the planet. Even after led to school three times in a row, I still manage to get completely and obliviously lost every day since class began.

On Monday, I left school at 3:30 and didn't find my homestay house until 6 (after of course asking some locals for help, calling my college, and realizing that where I wanted to be was a street over.


Tuesday, was similar. I left at 4:00 and didn't make it home until I again asked for help. You may be giggling to yourself thinking that Eddie is absent-minded silly face, and you'd be right. But the matter of the fact is that I am in a large city. Not only is it a large city, but when you try to get to any of the homes, you'll find that housing is as packed as possible streets and inky-dinky, and there are bikes and scooters and cars and buses and people EVERYWHERE. You know the phrase 'more (insert thing here) than you can shake a stick at'? Here, you wouldn't even be able to get the bloody thing off your person without being smoked by a motorcycle.

More on this later. If the past is to be any sort of notice, I will lost again today. I will try to update this post with an extended entry and pictures tomorrow. Wish me luck, I have placement tests!

Holy Crap

What a week!
I've arrived in Japan seven days ago today, and the chain of events that finally led to me sitting here at Kansai Gaidai could not have been more stressful and fantastic if I had attempted to distort it with a heavy pudding binge. As I am on a bit of a tight schedule, I'll give you the short version of the journey, and then follow it up some time this week with more details and photos.

1. Arrive at Detroit Metro Airport
2. Wait three hours longer for flight due to typhoon in Tokyo
3. Get on plane, wait another hour due to unwell passenger
4. Fly to Japan. 13 hours
5. Arrive in Narita Airport, discover that the flight to Osaka is cancelled
6. Panic
7. Go through customs, find luggage
8. Ask follow NW 25 passenger what to do. Says take a train.
9. Find Info Desk. Learn that trains are closed.
10. Panic
11. Wait in Narita for four hours while trying to contact air service with other 400 passengers.
12. Learn that the connection with North West does not provide English.
13. Super cool phone booth prints reimbursement ticket, regardless of our shortcomings with the language.
14. Read ticket, discover that we are now flying to Seoul, Korea then to Osaka.
15. Panic
16. Notice the diminishing numbers of passengers, wonder where they are going; Realize that Narita has called a hotel to house us for the night.
17. Catch last bus to hotel. Sleep for two hours. Catch bus back for morning flight.
18. Find luggage check in Narita. Wait in line. Turn in bags.
18a. Luggage attendant seems troubled, calls for backup.
19. New attendant runs us through customs and security, tells us we need reentry visas to come back from Seoul.
19a. We don't have reentry visas, we were meant to go to Osaka
20. Panic
21. Panic
22. Attendant breaks out his mighty bureaucracy shattering power, gets us through waiting lines and gives us reentry visas.
23. Thank super sexy attendant twelve times, barely catch flight to Seoul.
24. Arrive in Seoul. Do happy dance because what else could go wrong?
25. Buy trinkets, make way toward terminal
26. Ask terminal attendant about luggage.
26a. Learn that no one knows where our luggage is.
27. (what do you think goes here?)
28. Catch flight anyway, not missing flight to Osaka
29. Arrive at Kansai International. Find luggage, get through customs.
30. Find Kansai Gaidai staff waiting for us at entrance.
31. Happy Dance
32. Arrive at Seminar House. Find room. Shower. Sleep like baby who'd been awake for 56 hours.

And this is just the first two days. Admittedly, most of the panic came just from the flight, but now we can move on to cheerier things. I'll update this post throughout the week with more details, so check every now and again.

Cheers.