Stories from Japanese Class Part Two

Because sitting in a classroom full of young adults will always be entertaining, I have more stories.

As a quick reminder, here is where my classmates sit and what I call them:

So for some reason or another during break Bulbasaur-san was showing Squirtle-san how to balance a pen on his finger. Charmander-san and I joined in for a bit before I decided that I should balance stuff on my head instead since I'm quite good at it. I took my textbook, workbook, and notebook and put them on my head. Charmander-san did the same. I then proceeded to put a worksheet then a piece of paper and possibly something else on my head before sitting there to show off my skill. Charmander-san had a similar amount of stuff on his head so we just sat there with books and stuff on our heads. Bulbasaur-san thought this was hilarious so he took a picture. While we were still sitting there with all the random stuff on our heads, the break ended and the teacher started talking again. We started rushing to get the random stuff off our heads but not before the teacher noticed and stopped talking for a second confused as to what we were doing. Shortly after we got the books off our heads and I hid my face in embarrassment but was also laughing because of how ridiculous it was.

In class we were learning how to say what we do and don't like doing. The workbook assignment gave us a variety of activities to put in and one of them was doing laundry. We were discussing what we thought of doing laundry and whether or not we liked it. The general consensus was we didn't care either way but Squirtle-san apparently really likes doing laundry and started describing what doing the laundry is like. Now mind you this is an international student explaining it so while his English is really good it's not perfect all the time. While explaining doing laundry, he said "and you put in the sauce" which made the rest of the table bust up laughing. He didn't exactly seem to notice that he used the wrong word (sauce instead of laundry detergent). However, that was probably one of the funniest word switches I have ever heard. I'll probably do this a lot trying to speak Japanese. I already mix up the words for dictionary and ceiling.

Small Thing Number Twenty: Make a List of Things You Want to Get in Japan!

This applies to things you don't want to lug across the ocean, souvenirs for yourself, and souvenirs for others.

For things I don't want to lug across the ocean, there isn't really a lot right now besides things that just sound fun to get in Japan such as hand towels, reuseable grocery bags, and notebooks. Basically just things I would want to get anyway. If I were actually moving to Japan for a decent amount of time there are a lot of things that I would get there but since I'm only going for two months it makes sense for everything I'm bringing and getting to be able to fit in my suitcase/bags.

As for gifts for others, I have been asking family and friends if they have any specific requests for things they want me to bring back. I have gotten a couple requests so far, such as something from a gashapon machine, something Japanesey, an umbrella, and some clothes.

All of these things will be written down on a piece of paper or in a file on my computer because I am sure to forget them in the packing process or when I get to Japan. Make plans and lists whenever traveling, especially lists. You would be amazed how much falls out of your head during the packing and traveling process.

Let's Cook: Azuki Ice Cream!

Given the name of the blog and the fact that I know how to make ice cream, this just had to happen. Making ice cream is a lot simpler than you would think. This is quite useful when you want ice cream in the middle of the night and can't get to the store (the closest store to my house that sells ice cream is 20 minutes away so it's not exactly easy to get ice cream in the middle of the night). In case you are wondering, yes I have made ice cream at midnight before.

Step One: Gather Ingredients!

First of all you need to make the ice cream. The recipe I use is just a can of coconut milk, 1/4-1/2 cup of maple syrup, and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. You can use whatever recipe you like but I use this one because it is simple and is something my sister who has allergies to both eggs and dairy, common ice cream ingredients, can have.

Step Two: Mix Ingredients Together!

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and whisk together. Whisking is useful because it gets more air into the ice cream mixture, and believe it or not air is a key ingredient to ice cream. Learned that from the Ben and Jerry's ice cream recipe book we have.

Step Three: Put the Mixture in the Ice Cream Maker!

Or not if you don't have an ice cream maker. Ice cream makers aren't exactly common devices but we have one and a really nice one at that because I literally live on a dairy farm so there is tons of ice cream to be made. If you have an ice cream maker, just put in the mixture and follow the instructions. If you don't have one, this wikihow article has some options for you to try. I have another method I heard about which I guess I could make a tutorial on at some point if that interests people.

Putting the mixture into the bowl of the ice cream maker (the mixy bit is in there too).

And the noisy behemoth of an ice cream maker on the floor in my room. Normally we shut it in the laundry room or something because the thing is super noisy but this time I just put it on the floor of my room and wore headphones.

Step Four: Finish Ice Cream!

The ice cream should look something like this when finished. Or, ya know, ice creamy.

Next put it into bowls and get out a can of sweetened azuki beans. It actually took us quite a while to find the sweet azuki beans in the store and now I don't remember what section they were in so I can't give you advice on where to find them 😆. Unless of course we happen to be going to the same store in which case hit me up and let's take a field trip.

Step Five: Mix in Azuki Beans!

You can either leave them as a topping or mix them in. Both ways are good.

Enjoy your homemade azuki ice cream! 😁

Small Things Number Nineteen: Make A List of Places You Want to Go!

"I want to go to Japan" is a fairly common phrase for netizens, especially depending on where you go on the internet. Well, maybe it's not common and I just spend way too much time on the weeby side of the internet. If you don't know what weeby means, congratulations on being a functional human being 😁.

Aaaaaaaaaanyway, back to the point. If you are here you probably want to go to Japan (or just find my style of writing entertaining). Japan is a 145,932 square mile/377,962 square kilometer country, so you are probably going to want to get more specific with where you want to go. Also unless you are moving there you are going to have fairly limited time to go places, so you are going to have to plan and prioritize.

Something else I could see being a problem is getting so overwhelmed just trying to exist in a foreign country that you may forget the places you want to go. This seems pretty impossible sitting at your computer at home, but you would be amazed how much the human brain forgets. So do some research before things as simple as buying an apple at the supermarket will be a challenge.

This is my list of places that sound interesting to go. It's outgrowing its sticky note so I will probably transfer it to a file on my computer or a proper piece of paper soon.

Most of these places I found by watching Japan travel youtubers, but there are plenty of other ways to find places to visit. Youtube videos are just nice because you can see the place and have a narrator of choice who is either entertaining to watch or has similar interests as you. My favorites are Abroad in Japan, Rachel and Jun, Texan in Tokyo, and Sharla in Japan. This group just happens to share some similar interests with me and be entertaining to watch. You may find other people or websites more helpful. If you can, ask someone who has been to or lives in Japan about what places they think are cool to visit. There are many places that are really cool but not easy to find on the internet.

Travel Tips From A Barely Adult

So you want to go to Japan. What are you going to bring?

I would like to consider myself at least somewhat good at knowing what to bring while traveling for someone barely 18. My family loves going to national parks and while that is only about once a year with the recent additions of college visit trips my sister took and a couple family gatherings, I've traveled quite a bit. I've flown across the country three times, two of those times by myself. My trips were not particularly long but I did learn a lot about airports and transferring planes. By the way, Detroit Airport is not small despite what my dad told me. There is literally a train on the ceiling that takes you down the concourse of 128 gates.

In addition to my travel experiences, last fall I spent over a month living out of a duffle bag and large reusable shopping bag. If that doesn't teach you what you do and don't need I don't know what does. Some differences are that I was camping so hygiene wasn't as important and it was also completely off grid. It's pretty easy to compensate for that, though.

This is what I brought with me for those 5 weeks. Some of it was useful and some of it wasn't and I did acquire a few more things by the end of the trip, like a manga book that my crewmates loved.

Here are my general packing tips:

1. You do not need as many clothes as you think you need!

I cannot tell you how many trips I have taken where I come home never having worn half the clothes I packed. If your trip is longer you are going to have to do laundry anyway so there is no need to bring a set of clothes for every single day. Also, let's be real, you are going to wear some pieces of clothing more than once before washing them. This fact alone makes packing much easier. Bring clothes that can be worn multiple times and with multiple things.

2. Bring clothes for all weather!

Yes you can check the weather reports but weather is weather and therefore completely unpredictable. For example, my family took a trip to Utah and it snowed on our drive in but by the time we left five days later it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit/27 degrees Celsius. No matter what bring at least one coat and at least one t-shirt/shorts set.

3. Roll your clothes!

Little trick from camping: roll your clothes so they take up less space. The physics of this makes no sense because a shirt is a shirt but it works. It's also just a smaller packing unit to work with.

4. Wear your biggest shoes!

When I travel, I usually bring two pairs of shoes. Either hiking boots and normal shoes or nice shoes and light shoes. Hiking boots are huge so I almost always wear those to the airport/train station/whatever because it leaves more space in your suitcase. While this does go against the easy to remove shoes recommendation for airports, that extra space can be invaluable (coming from the person that wore her giant work boots to the airport so we could bring a box of avocados back for my mother).

5. Bring three or so forms of travel entertainment!

If you are traveling with someone you don't need to bring as many because of that thing called talking (I've had awesome conversations while stuck next to friends and family in cars), but if you are traveling alone most likely you will be silent and bored. My standard options for entertainment while traveling are knitting, music (bring headphones), dumb games on my phone, books, writing letters, and playing cards. You will get bored of an activity after about 30 minutes so keep in mind how many cycles you are going to go through while in transit and bring a variety of activities according to that.

6. Bring snacks, especially the chocolate kind!

Depending on how and where you are traveling, you may or may not be able to sit down to eat a proper meal. Snacks are important to have in case you get hungry in the middle of transit. I particularly recommend any snack that has chocolate in it because travel is tiring and you have to be awake enough to get to the next step of your journey. Also a sweet treat can make sitting in a cramped seat that much better.

7. Pack your carry on so you can get to what you need easily!

This is mainly for getting to your stuff during transit. Don't be an idiot like me and put your books under your laptop when you know you are going to want to read on the plane. Put things like phone, headphones, books, and other activities at the top of your bag or in a smaller pocket so you can actually get to it without awkwardly digging through your bag while sitting in the middle seat of an airplane.

8. Make your baggage unique!

This is a bit more important for checked baggage but it's important for all baggage really. Basically make your baggage something that you can spot easily and know it's yours. For example, do you really want to be standing there trying to figure out which black suitcase in the overhead is yours while half the plane is standing behind you wanting to get out? Heck no! Last trip I took I used my old completion bag from gymnastics which is a small duffle bag with my name on it in pink letters so when it was my turn to get off the plane I just grabbed the strap and was on my way. As for checked bags, my family has a plethora of black suitcases as well (with the exception of the one orange suitcase and my red suitcase) but my mom ties a piece red fabric with white polka dots on it to all of our suitcases so it is easy to spot them on the carousel. This can also be achieved with luggage tags (Etsy has a good selection).

I'm probably going to make a part two but this is all I have for now! Hope you found it helpful! 😁

IT'S OFFICIAL!!!

I received my official acceptance letter from Ojiya Study Abroad a week and a half ago and after looking at a bunch of flight options we picked flights and bought the tickets this morning! My flights are a little weird but the timings should work fairly well. The reason I say my flights are a little weird is because I will be flying through four different airports and on three different airlines. My flights will be from my local airport to LA for a day or two and then a flight to Haneda Airport and then on the way back I will fly out of Narita Airport to my local airport. Probably sounds pretty convoluted but it should work pretty well.

So here's a little story: as my dad and I were buying the tickets to and from Japan we were able to select a seat. My dad recommended a window seat for the long flight so we ended up picking the seat 37A. I like this seat because it is both a window seat and the row number is a prime number (scientists love prime numbers for some reason). As we were booking the second flight we saw we could select a seat again. More were available this time so my dad was asking me what part of the plane I wanted to be in. However, I happened to notice something: seat 37A was available on this flight too. We selected that seat and I am very happy about the fact that I'm in seat 37A on both my 12 hour flights. I am a simple person 😁

Stories from Japanese Class

Kids will get up to all sorts of shenanigans in the classroom. I don't mean disruptive dancing on the tables type shenanigans like you might expect in middle school but the college kind of shenanigans. The table I sit at happens to be on the side of the room that was all boys before I came into the picture at the beginning of this term. I'm not saying girls can't be goofy and crazy but it's me and seven guys between the ages of 16 and 23 so some pretty funny stuff goes down.

My side of the classroom is set up about like this:

There are 9 tables in the classroom but nobody sits at the table behind my table so these two tables are the right side of the classroom. All the people at these tables are from last term and I simply took the seat of someone who didn't continue with this class.

So the other day we were learning about how to say commands and each table was assigned a different sentence to translate from the workbook. My table ended up doing two because the kids at my table are good about studying. The second one we translated was "please bring me the book." It was easy enough and the kid who has the best Japanese out of all of us, Squirtle-san, got up to go write the sentence on the board. As he got up, he mumbled "本や” which means "bookstore." The rest of my table noticed but we knew Squirtle-san was great at Japanese so we weren't that concerned. However, what he writes on the board is "本やをもってきてください。”　which translates to "please bring me the bookstore." My table is cracking up as he walks back and the teacher is giggling. When Squirtle-san sits back down, Bulbasaur-san turns to him and says, "dude, 本や is bookstore" and everyone starts laughing and the teacher makes the comment of "that would be hard to carry." To save Squirtle-san's dignity I quickly went up there to fix the sentence.

A different day we were doing a similar assignment and while working on our sentence Charmander-san noticed one of the sentences on a different page and tried to translate it because he noticed a verb that interested him. Apparently the verb translated to "to take a shower," but I don't know if that was the correct translation because in that case the full sentence translated to "don't take pictures of me in the shower." While they were talking about that I translated the actual sentence and went up to the board to write it. Apparently they were concerned I was going to write the weird sentence they had translated but luckily for them I do know what I'm doing sometimes.

We often get handouts (like seriously often I'm afraid my folder is going to break) and Bulbasaur-san has taken to writing stuff on other people's handouts. The previous day it was changing the romanization of a verb ending to say something funny and that day it was writing something weird on Squirtle-san's worksheet (I'm next...). While we do know about the weird stuff he writes, apparently Squirtle-san forgot that Bulbasaur-san had written on his worksheet when he went to turn it in. Bulbasaur-san asked him as soon as he turned it in if he had erased the writing and apparently he hadn't so Squirtle-san had to go back up to the teacher to erase whatever it was Bulbasaur-san had written. I'm not sure what was written but it was definitely something stupid.

As stated before, we get a lot of handouts. The teacher was walking around the room giving people handouts and because over two hours of Japanese class gets to be draining a lot of times it is not exactly a pleasant sight to see you have yet another worksheet to do or handout to memorize. Squirtle-san is usually the most frustrated and tends to swear a lot, often in Japanese. Frustrated about the new assignment, Squirtle-san said "くそう、” which while I'm not entirely sure what the translation is, Bulbasaur-san said it means something along the lines of "dammit." Now, cursing about an assignment is fine and expected, but the teacher was literally right behind him when he said this. Squirtle-san realizes his mistake when the teacher puts the handouts down on our table and she and the rest of the table start laughing. Oh, Squirtle-san...

In class we often do this question relay where the teacher asks someone in the room a question and then after they answer it they have to ask someone else a similar question and so on and so forth. We do this enough that we pretty much know the flow of things. The flow in my corner of the room goes something like this:

So the question string gets passed to Bulbasaur-san and continues through my table and I ask Taekwondo-san a question and he answers it and turns to Tennis-san to continue the chain of questions. However, as I look over to watch the question chain continue, I notice Tennis-san is asleep! We are across the room from the teacher so she probably couldn't tell that he was asleep while sitting there but his friend definitely noticed. Now, whenever we start these questions, we start by saying the name of the person we are asking. Taekwondo-san does some quick thinking and says "TENNIS-SAN うちは。。。” and at his name Tennis-san's eyes fly open and he looks at his paper to try to figure out what exactly we were doing. Good job, Taekwondo-san.

Let's Cook: Indonesian Coconut and Spice Rice!

And I'm back with another cooking tutorial! Decided to make this the other day in honor of my future roommate in university. She's from Indonesia 😁.

This recipe is Indonesian Coconut and Spice Rice from The Essential Rice Cookbook. Definitely recommend this cookbook because it has so many interesting ways to cook rice. I often have to go to the store because my American kitchen doesn't always stock everything needed for these recipes. For some strange reason I *LOVE* grocery shopping so this isn't really a problem as long as I plan a little.

Step One: Cut Stuff Up!

First things first you have to cut up a couple ingredients. One of these ingredients is lemongrass. Take a 10cm (4 inch) section (and if you want cut it into two or three pieces) and lay your knife sideways along it. Put your hand on top of the big flat area and press down until the lemongrass squishes a bit.

The other thing you will want to cut up is 2-3 spring onions/green onions/long tiny onion things. Just cut them into 2.5mm (1/8 inch) slices. Put lemongrass and onion things in the same place so you can add them easily a little later.

Step Two: Saute Almonds and Coconut!

Put 1 tablespoonish of oil in a pan and heat it up a little bit on medium before putting 1/2 cup of nuts in. The recipe calls for peanuts but my sister is deathly allergic to peanuts so I used almonds instead. Shove them around in the pan for 1-2 minutes before adding 1 tablespoon of shredded coconut. The first time I cooked the almonds for too long so it was a burned mess the birds got to enjoy.

Step Three: Add Liquids and Spices!

To the almond and coconut mixture, add 2 cups of water and 1ish cups of coconut milk. Then add the lemon grass, onion things, and 8 curry leaves and return to boil (which takes maybe a minute). Turn the heat to the lowest setting and let simmer for two minutes (simmer means little bubbles in the liquid). After those two minutes, add 1 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 teaspoon cardamom, and 1/2 teaspoon turmeric (be careful, this stuff stains). Mix everything together.

Let everything simmer together for a bit (I told you what simmer means above). After a couple minutes, fish out the lemongrass bits.

Step Four: Add the Rice!

Add 2.5 cups long grain rice and mix it together with the broth you have made.

Cover with a lid and let cook on the lowest heat for 10 minutes. Don't peak unless you think it is burning. Mine was starting to stick to the bottom at the end of ten minutes but some aggressive stirring fixed that. Fish out the curry leaves so nobody gets a mouthful of leaf. When it is done, it should look something like this.

Step Five: Enjoy!

Put into bowls, grab your chopsticks, and dig in!

Hope you enjoyed that tutorial! Thank you to Thunder Bay Press for publishing this lovely cookbook and to my lovely roommate, I can't wait to meet you! 😄

Phone Stuff!

In this day and age, phones are a pretty large part of everyday life for everyone over the age of 14. While I'm not addicted to my phone or the internet in general (last fall I went completely off grid for five weeks and could only contact my friends and family by letter and one short weekly phone call), it is useful for contacting people, making friends, music, and browsing the interwebs. Phones can be very useful for travel because they are small and can do a lot. They can give you directions, translate things, and allow you to contact others. If I was going to Japan with family or for a shorter period of time I probably would just not use my phone for much besides music, but I'm going for two months by myself so having my phone be usable will be helpful.

So my phone is an iPhone 5C from AT&T in America. I got it summer of 2014 so I've had it for a while at this point. After doing some research, apparently there are two kinds of waves cell phones can accept depending on where you are in the world. There were three versions of the iPhone 5 made to accommodate the different waves (if I am using wrong terminology I'm sorry but I'm just trying my best to explain). My phone is from America, which happens to use the same waves as Japan. This means my phone is capable of picking up cell tower waves in Japan. I found information about the iPhone 5 on this website and it's well explained over there. You can probably look up similar information for your phone but for now I'm sticking to what my phone does.

Once you have established if your phone will or will not pick up cell tower waves in Japan, now you have to see how you want to get your cell phone use. Different carriers have different options and I looked into AT&T, my provider; Sprint, a provider mentioned on the Ojiya Study Abroad website; and pocket wifi rental.

Sprint: Apparently Sprint is owned by the Japanese company Softbank so you can use your phone there for either no extra charge or only $5, I've seen both.

AT&T: So AT&T offers something called AT&T Passport which is a basic data and talk plan with unlimited texting for a monthly charge of $40-$120 depending on the plan you pick.

Pocket Wifi: Basically you rent this little wifi router from a Japanese company that can pick up cell tower waves and convert them to wifi you can use for your phone, laptop, etc wherever you are.

There are also other options from other providers, prepaid phones, SIM cards, and just using roaming, but those are the three I looked into.

To be honest pocket wifi is sounding best to me because most of what I use my phone for requires wifi anyway. I still need to get more information (like if where I'm staying has internet), but for now these are my options.

Phone Apps for Japan

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh it's been a while since I posted...

As you may or may not know I was accepted to a university last month so there is a ton of paperwork stuff to do and that has been taking up a lot of my free time. Now I have most of the immediate stuff out of the way and have met a lovely roommate who I am excited to meet come September 😁.

So during this time I have been trying to sort out some of the details of my Japan trip and one thing that is nice about this mobile phone era is that there are apps for pretty much everything, and many of them are quite helpful. You are probably saying "Juno! Your phone won't work in Japan!" However, I have been doing my research and I will make a blog post about that soon 😉. I guess this is a little bit of putting the cart before the horse but downloading apps is more fun than searching through phone plans.

At the moment, I have these put together:

So let's go through them and I'll tell you why I put them there.

LINE: From what I can tell, it is basically the main way of contacting people in Japan. It's essentially texting from what I can tell. I have this so I can contact some friends here and hopefully for when I make friends in Japan.

Translate: So while google translate doesn't have a great reputation (google translate sings exists for a reason), but for Japanese it has this really cool function where you can point your camera at kanji and it will tell you what it means (tested that out a bit here). I also often use it while doing Japanese homework and I don't want to dig through my papers or textbook to find a word.

Discover: Basically it's just an app for Discover card. Discover doesn't have foreign transaction fees and I believe no foreign ATM fees as well. It is also something students with no credit like myself can get. However, I don't know how many places or ATMs in Japan will take Discover.

First Tech: It's an app from the bank I use (also yeah I'm a west coast child). Basically this is so I can keep track of my finances while overseas. This bank also offers cards that have no foreign transaction or ATM fees and is through MasterCard, which while it may or may not be accepted more places than Discover at least it is another option.

Skype: This is so I can stay in touch with my friends back home. I usually just message people on here but I could also video call as well, but in general I do that on my computer.

Google Maps: Apparently Google Maps works in Japan and since I know how to use it I am inclined to want to use it to navigate.

Japan Travel: It is a train app that is in English. Basically you just put in where you are and where you want to go and it will tell you what trains to take and how much it will cost. Still a little confused on how to use it but I am playing with it to get a feel for how it works.

And there you go! I may add or remove apps from this list as I find what is useful and what isn't, but for now this is what I am going with.