Wafukari

Random madness keeps you healthy

Josh — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:29:52 +0000

Ok, so it has been a really long time since my last post. From now on I will try to keep them more regular. Since I went to the sumo match I have done a lot of small things, nothing big. I would say the biggest thing I have done since then is stayed with my host family. Unfortunately the stay was only for 1 night, but my host family has invited me to come back again. My host mom is one of the nicest people I have met in a long time and my host father is really cool and laid back. Their son, though busy with studying for the entrance exams for college, is in a band and he plays the guitar. I will have pictures and stuff up on my FlickR so check them out there.

Oh, yeah, I went to the Kawagoe Matsuri (かわごえ祭り). Kawagoe is a city that is just a few stations from mine, and a matsuri is a festival. There is lots of festival type foods. Everything from grilled squid and takoyaki to cotton candy and chocolate covered bananas. Its really really crowded and they carry a moving shrine that has people dancing and playing instruments, and the different shrines will battle as they meet at intersections. It was a lot of fun and I can’t wait until the next festival. I want to go to Hokkaido for the winter festival, but we will just have to see how that goes.

There are a few more things that I have done which are just sightseeing and hanging out with friends. So, yeah check out the FlickR.

I sumo’d …

Josh — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:49:39 +0000

Yeah, so today my roommate and I went to see a sumo match. We got up really early because we wanted to make sure we could get tickets, because they wouldn’t let us reserve them. So, we woke up at 5:30 and headed to a place, I don’t remember, close to Akihabara. We got there and got our tickets thinking it started at 8:30. Well, it didn’t. We went in thinking it was going to be really really packed… we were the only ones there. So, we decided to sit and watch the ones who aren’t really in the big leagues yet. After an hour or so we decided to go find an ATM because my roommate didn’t have much money on him. Then we grabbed some coffee too. Spent some time in the coffee shop and then went back. We had about 45 min until the real matches started, at 2:30. We watched for a few hours, until about 4:30 and we headed to Akihabara to check out the crazy gadgets. Some awesome pictures in the photo stream of the matches and the arena.

My Flickr link isn’t working so they aren’t showing up on my site and I’m sleepy. I will try to fix it in the next couple of days. Here is a link to my Flickr so you can at least look at the new pictures.

Updated photostream

Josh — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 07:59:48 +0000

I finally got all the pictures from when I was in Osaka and Fukui uploaded to my photostream. Go take a look, I know some of you have been asking for them. I’ll be having another big post coming up soon.

Oh, so much has happened

Josh — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:35:04 +0000

So, I am now in Japan and I have been here since the 1st of Sept. Well, as soon as I get to Japan I am told that my luggage was elsewhere. Then after the I take the guy at the airport, who spoke little english, to talk to Taka we find out that my luggage is in Amsterdam. Yeah, how that happened I have no idea. So, I now have no clothes, no underwear, not much of anything. Well, we are supposed to go to a ryokan (Japanese style inn), so I had to buy some new clothes and underwear when we got there. That put a little hole in my spending money, which makes me a sad panda.

I just have to say that a ryokan is amazing. there were 12 of us total that went.

The ryokan that we stayed in was called, Jinya and it was really pretty place.

After getting there, we ate of course, but the first thing we did was go to where an old castle used to be. I can`t at the moment remember the name of the castle or find my little brochure thingy so we will just skip the name. the first 2 pictures are pictures from that place. Here is one more to give you an idea.

This place was huge. Then the next day we went for a drive and went to Tojinbo which is apparently famous for suicides and ghosts. So I was all up for checking it out. After getting there I don`t see how any ghosts could live here… its waaaay too pretty for ghosts.

We were hungry so we went to eat there at one of the restaurants at Tojinbo. It was sooo good, but it was a little expensive.

Then we went to this island…

Which was visible from Tojinbo and we hiked all the way around it… it was hot but it was dang sure a lot of fun. After all the hiking and eating we decided to go to the beach. Unfortunately I can only show one picture of the beach due to some skinny dipping because nobody brought swimming trunks.

That is the only usable photo I have HA HA.

This is definitely a condensed version of our trip, and I took over 230 pictures, that will be uploaded to my FlickR later, when I have more time and I am on my computer. I will talk to everyone later hope you enjoy the pictures. There are lots more to come. Tonight we will go to Kyoto and then tomorrow I will go to Nagoya. I think that is the plan at least HA HA.

The final hours

Josh — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 04:46:40 +0000

Ok, its 11:37pm and I only have 4 and a half hours until we have to leave for the airport. I am way too excited to sleep so I decided to make my last post from America. It seems like today has been one of the longest days of my life. Each hour that passes seems to go by slower. I have waited this long… what is a few more hours, eh?

I do want to say thank you to the International Department at UWF. They gave me a wonderful farewell and I will miss working there even if it was for free. ha ha. Thanks everyone.

As for the traveling part of tomorrow. I leave from Pensacola and have a layover in Memphis. Then I fly from Memphis to Detroit, where I have a 4hr 20min layover. Then from Detroit to Osaka, 13hrs of crying little kids, people getting sick, and not getting any sleep. You know you are jealous now. I am now going to go try to find something else to occupy my time with. The next time I talk to everyone will be from Japan.

Oh, good luck with the storm and stay safe! I’m leaving just in time.

Oh, it’s happening, and it’s happening soon.

Josh — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:24:33 +0000

Thats right. Very soon I will be on my voyage to Japan. It is now less than 2 weeks away. I am very prepared for the trip and have everything in order. This week I have a lot of students to pick up from various countries. They are coming to UWF for the semester, or year. It will be very very busy, but it will be fun. Willy and I will be getting the new Kansai Gaidai students on Thursday and doing orentations on Friday and Monday. This will be our last volunteer work before we leave. Willy leaves a little bit before I do, good luck on your class lottery, Willy, and hopefully I will see him during the few days I’m in Osaka. Well, I will see some of you soon and will say bye to the rest of you. lol.

A study tool for anyone wanting to study any language.

Josh — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:09:10 +0000

I have a few Blogs that I read regularly. My favorite being Tofugu. Through that Blog I came across Lang-8. I have only been a member Lang-8 for about 4 days now and have already found it very useful. It is a site where you can write in the language that you are studying and people who are native speakers of that language will correct your writing. You, too, can correct other peoples writing to help them out as well. Tofugu has a much better explanation of the site, and it is in video form. I really encourage anyone who is studying a foreign language to try it out. I will soon be using it to correct my Japanese for my upcoming posts in Japanese. Was that confusing? Good luck to everyone. Study hard!

Willy is also going to Japan! No, he isn’t a whale.

Josh — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:01:30 +0000

One of my friends, Willy, who I met while working with the international department, is also going to Japan on exchange. He leaves a little before I do. He is going to Kansai Gaidai, which is where most of my friends live, and where I will be visiting first when I go to Japan. Willy also has a blog that everyone should visit. Give him a shout out and see how he is doing. I will add a link to Willy’s blog on the side later.

I have been added to the UWF Study Abroad page.

Josh — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 04:19:32 +0000

The University of West Florida, who I am doing my exchange through, has added a link to my website on the Study Abroad page. Not only does this mean that I actually have to try and use proper grammar, but it also means that I will get a lot of visits from new people. For those new people visiting my Blog, I hope you get some enjoyment from it. This is, however, a personal Blog and completely under my control. All posts and comments are approved by me. So I guess let me tell you a little about my Blog and even a little about myself.

First off, I guess a personal introduction. My name is Josh and I’m going to Japan. I am still new to the whole Blogging thing, so hopefully I will eventually figure out what I’m doing. Some of this will be new news for old visitors. I recently just realized that I have never given any information about my school, where in Japan I’m going, or even what I’m going to study. So lets start with the school that I will be attending.
Daito Bunka University, and if you are Japanese and reading my page 大東文化大学. This university is the same university as one of my very good friends Akai Teruaki. Through him I heard about the exchange program they had, and decided to attend the same college. There are 2 campuses. One campus is in Tokyo and the other in Saitama. I will be going to the one in Saitama. The campus is beautiful, there are pictures on the site if you can find them, and I wanted to go somewhere that was different than the students that have studied abroad. Saitama isn’t too far from Tokyo so I will still be able to visit regularly. Now, what am I going to study? SURPRISE! I’m going to study Japanese, but that isn’t all. I am very interested in Japanese calligriphy and Daito Bunka has a fantastic calligraphy program. I have studied and completed all four of UWF’s Japanese courses, and I wanted to continue my training. So, I figrued where better to train than in Japan.
I am really looking forward to my trip. I have a lot of friends that I will get to visit and I get the opportunity of a lifetime to stay in Japan for one year. To all my friends in Japan: I will see you soon!!

The not so fun part

Josh — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:39:23 +0000

Ok, so I have been thinking about all the stuff I still have to do. I need to buy luggage, because I don’t have any, I need to pack all my stuff and move it to my mom’s house, and I need to get my visa. My roommate brought me some boxes from work today, so I started boxing up some stuff, mom get ready. I have only cleaned off the bookshelf and I am already tired of packing. I guess its a good thing I started so early. That part should be done fairly smoothly.

Buying luggage is posing to be a huge problem. I have never had to buy luggage before so I didn’t realize how expensive it is. I want to get something good that wont fall apart when I get to Japan, but I also want something that isn’t too expensive. Is there a happy medium? If anyone knows a place I can get good decently priced luggage please let me know. Just send me an e-mail or comment.

My visa on the other hand, I can do nothing about. I have to wait for my approval letter (if that is what its called) from Japan before I can send in for my visa. Back to waiting!

Those are the only things I have left to do. Besides try to find a job that will let me work for a 2 months. Well, I guess I don’t plan on telling them that I will be leaving in 2 months, but whatever.

Ok, going to try to do some studying. Going to a foreign country is starting to get kinda nerve racking. I mean geeze I need a lot of practice before I go. Time to study!