Komugi-san: Study Abroad Scholarship Post

So I received a small scholarship for my study abroad program and as part of that I had to write blog posts for my school study abroad program website. So far only one is up on the website (front page!) but I wrote three. I'll post them here so you can read them! 

Entrance to the school

This summer, I decided to take a break from my biochemistry and biophysics major to study Japanese at Akita International University. The 11 person language class is definitely a big change of pace from my 150-450 student science classes, but it has been really nice. Usually I have 3-4 hours of classes and culture workshops a day and the weekend to do homework and explore beautiful Tohoku area. The campus itself is small and really beautiful. Surrounded by trees and interesting buildings all interconnected by hallways because of the intense snow this area receives in the winter. The student population is less than 1000 students and there is only one dormitory and two areas of student apartments, almost all students living on campus because the university is surrounded by forests and rice fields (this makes my Oregonian heart very happy). There is only one cafeteria on campus with two places to get food, which is fantastically different than what I got used to in my year at my home university. I’m allergic to wheat, which in case you didn’t know is quite prevalent in Japanese cooking due to soy sauce containing wheat, so this poses quite a few problems for me. Luckily for me, everything is labeled with allergens and the school prepares special food for those with allergies difficult to avoid.

Food options are displayed every meal. The charts next to them show allergens

The way this system works is at the beginning of the program you sit down with a cook and one of the program organizers and they fill out a card for you that lists all the things you are allergic to. You keep this card with your meal plan card and hand it to the lunch ladies and they will bring you food that you are able to eat. For the first week, I would hand my card to the ladies, they would look at it, then bring food for me. After about a week, some of the ladies started to recognize me so all I would have to do is make eye contact and they would smile at me and ask for me to wait a little bit. One of my friends also had to wait for special food and one day he mentioned that the lunch ladies had started calling him halal-san (Mr. Halal). Next time I went to get food, I listened and sure enough I heard the lunch ladies calling me komugi-san (Miss flour/wheat). It sounds very strange but it’s actually a good system for if multiple people are waiting for food and they need to specify who the food is for. Almost all the lunch ladies recognize me now and instead of having to hand them my card I am greeted with a smile and “ah! Komugi-san!”. Even some of my friends have started calling me komugi-san.

Another day in the cafeteria

Because of my allergies, I don’t really get a choice in what I eat. I never know what I am going to get aside from the fact that it doesn’t contain wheat. I wouldn’t say I’m a picky eater, but I’m not the most adventurous eater either. However, here every meal is a surprise. Sometimes I have no idea what I am eating to be honest. Many of the foods I am given I have never had before and some I still don’t know what they are. One of the most interesting things I was given was a piece of fried flounder, and by piece of fried flounder I mean it still had scales, skin, a couple bones, and fins. My American palate was definitely not used to eating something that still looked like its live version and I honestly wasn’t sure how to tackle the hard outer skin and fins. I tried with a fork and knife at first but after one of my Thai friends laughed at me for trying to eat it like I steak I admitted I had no idea how to go about eating this chunk of fish. Thankfully, one of my Japanese friends tried to show me the technique of getting pieces of the meat using chopsticks. Eventually I figured out how to get meat from this piece of fish, though a bit inefficiently. Definitely gave my friends a good laugh. About a week later I was given the same dish but managed to eat it without much trouble. Ate the fins too. They are quite crunchy and tasty, by the way.

Here's what the fried flounder looked like

Anyway, I cannot praise the food staff at this university enough. They make me delicious Japanese food I would never be able to eat otherwise and forced me to try things I have never tried before. Have some new favorites from the meals here. The staff even give me gluten free baked goods sometimes, which is not something I thought even existed in Japan. We don’t speak much of each other’s languages, but we still have daily interactions of greeting and thanks. Every trip to the cafeteria is an adventure, from the smile of recognition to responding to my new nickname to trying whatever delicious food has been prepared for me that day. Relationships like this are what motivate me to learn other languages. It doesn’t take much language for these sorts of simple yet meaningful interactions, so I encourage you to also go out and seek these interactions as well. Maybe you will even get a cool nickname too.

Oga Peninsula Field Trip: Study Abroad Scholarship Post

So I received a small scholarship for my study abroad program and as part of that I had to write blog posts for my school study abroad program website. So far only one is up on the website (front page!) but I wrote three. I'll post them here so you can read them! 

At the end of my first week of my study abroad program, the whole summer program and some students from AIU went on a field trip to Oga Peninsula. The trip had four destinations, each unique and fun in its own way. The trip was full of new experiences, learning, and making friends. Let’s get started, shall we?

This giant tank is the first thing you see when entering the aquarium part of the aquarium

So the day started off with getting up earlier than any college student wants to get up on a weekend and eating breakfast in the wonderful cafeteria they have here (I especially love the cafeteria here because I have food allergies and the ladies here make me delicious Japanese food that I can eat). After eating breakfast, we all loaded into buses and headed out. Our first stop was GAO Aquarium. It’s right on the beach so there are some wonderful views just walking to the building. Once inside the building, we were in front of a giant tank of fish, sting rays, and a couple turtles. Everyone stood there in awe taking pictures and admiring what ocean life had to offer before working our way through many more hallways of fish, jellyfish, octopi, polar bears, seals, penguins, and all sorts of other aquatic life. The seals were very cute and enjoyed swimming around near us and the color changing jellyfish looked like something out of a science fiction novel, but I have to say the Amazon tank was probably my favorite. There was this fish that just hung out near me and looked so dorky and hilarious. The rest of the life in the tank was cool too, but that fish just made my day. Also just a warning but the gift shop is absolutely amazing and you will want to buy everything in there. Just be prepared. 

This dorky looking fish 😂

After exploring the aquarium, we all piled back into the buses and were on our way to Nyudozaki Cape to eat lunch and do some more exploring. The way there required driving on some windy roads, so my friend wasn’t feeling too good but the lovely organizer on the bus gave her some magical Japanese motion sickness medicine and she was great for the rest of the day. Anyway, we got to the cape and ate our lunch then started exploring the area. There were a lot of nice views to explore and some cool shops to check out too. A specialty to the area was black salt ice cream. Sounds super weird, but it’s actually super good (just be careful not to get a mouthful of salt!). With some help from a friend I managed to order some ice cream and helped a friend of mine order as well. The lady looked so happy when I managed to properly order ice cream for my friend. Experiences like this remind me of why I want to study Japanese. 

View from Nyudozaki Cape

Some Namahage dudes in front of the ice cream place

Lunch was over and then it was time to head to the next stop of the day, the Namahage Museum. Namahage are monsters of the winter that come to your house to scare children into being good kids. Kinda like Santa but scary and loud. Well, to me they aren’t scary they are fantastic but at the Namahage show we went to there was a little kid that started crying when the Namahage came in banging on the doors and stomping and yelling. Anyway, the Namahage are great fun and the costumes are impressive. There was a station where you could dress up as Namahage and take pictures so of course we had to try that. The whole Namahage Museum was great fun. After exploring the Namahage museum, some of my friends and I went to visit the shrines behind the museum. They were really beautiful and I got a charm thing from one of the shrines, but our little trip made us late getting back to the buses. The guy at the temple must have gotten a good laugh out of a group of exchange students running to get back to our bus but of course we ran the ran the wrong direction first. We made it back to the buses a little late but everything was fine.

My friend and I became Namahage

The last stop of the day was a viewpoint at Mt. Kampuzan. There was a road up to the viewpoint so we thankfully didn’t have to do too much walking to get amazing views. There were some souvenir shops here as well, all of which are amazing. Honestly, I wanted to buy everything in every one of the shops I visited. That could have something to do with my love of cute things (like at the aquarium), and my newfound love of Namahage (they are just so great). I got myself some Namahage socks because Namahage socks are important obviously. After that I walked around with friends on the viewpoint which eventually culminated in rounding up as many summer program students as we could and taking a group photo. After that we were summoned back to the buses and started the ride home, all the while chatting and comparing finds. 

Many students from the summer program and the school posing for a picture

Between the cute seals and unique ice cream and loud Namahage and beautiful viewpoints and everything else, that field trip was probably the most fun field trip of my life. We went to a huge aquarium then explored viewpoints and learned about the traditions of Namahage and other history of the area. I got to see so many amazing things, learn, and spend time with friends. Through this experience, I feel like I became closer friends with others in my program and learned more about the wonderful place I am studying in. If you ever find yourself studying at Akita International University in Akita Japan, you too will get to experience this whirlwind field trip of amazingness. And if you do, tell the Namahage I said hi.

Differences

Ha ha so much for keeping up with the blog, huh?

So yes I have returned from my crazy Japan adventure! Six weeks of studying and three weeks of traveling! Spent 57 days in Japan last year and 67 days this year. Holy cow I've spent 124 days of my life in Japan. Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, the point of this post is supposed to be the differences between my two trips to the land of the rising sun. Let's get started, shall we?

Last year I had studied Japanese for around 6 months but when I arrived in Japan I realized I couldn't understand anything and proceeded to get lost in Haneda Airport and train stations for the next 4-5 hours. This knocked down my confidence considerably so the only traveling I did was with my study abroad program and getting back to the airport. By the end of my trip I was able to understand basic stuff and it felt magical.

Now we have this trip. Didn't get lost getting from Narita airport all the way to my university and made friends starting as early as my night bus ride from Tokyo to Akita. Made a ton of friends and was going out every weekend from the first week. Had class 3 hours a day five days a week. My vocabulary about doubled (still only about 500 words, though 😂) and learned enough grammar to communicate my thoughts and reasoning a bit. Learned how to take buses, buy train tickets from a cashier, visited an onsen, played the famous taiko drum arcade game, wore a yukata to a festival, and traveled all over Japan. I took city buses, night buses, trains, subways, shinkansens, and of course flew to Japan. My program had two big field trips to Oga peninsula and Kakunodate and in the three weeks after my study abroad program I traveled to Sendai, Matsushima, Tokyo, Nagaoka, Ojiya, Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka.

Okay so yes I went a lot more places this time but the biggest difference I noticed in those last six weeks is that I can actually talk to people now. I started talking to people when I had host students but by the time I finished my study abroad program I realized I can actually somewhat follow some of the conversations around me. At the convenience stores I can actually understand what they say, not just guess from context. When I got to Ojiya I went to a fireworks festival with one of my host students and when I met her at the train station she commented that I actually understand now 😂. Talked to her and her friend as best as I could in Japanese and could understand them if they talked directly to me (simply, of course) and could follow their conversation at times. Went to another festival and lunch with an adult student of mine and could at least function trying to keep up with any questions that were asked. However, I have to say one of my proudest moments was talking to the lady next to me on the train from Nagaoka to Niigata. She just asked me where I was from and how long I had been in Japan and if I was traveling alone and stuff like that, but the fact that I could talk to a complete stranger was amazing.

Not to discount my studies last year, but this year I learned a lot and got to experience Japan more than before. Both experiences are important to getting me to where I am today. 

Patience

Something I noticed the second I got on that 12 hour flight to Japan was that I don't understand much Japanese. This is understandable given that I had only taken two terms of Japanese, but getting A's both terms gave me a sense of confidence that I could actually understand stuff. I could not.

Upon arriving in Japan, I realized what I could understand was about five phrases: hello, thank you, excuse me, goodbye, and sorry. I knew more than this obviously and could speak more than this, but for understanding Japanese people this was it. Definitely a shock and really stressful. After about a month I started being able to understand more, but that first month was rough. Still struggled with understanding, but what changed was that instead of hearing a jumble of sounds I heard a jumble of hiragana. 

However, something I noticed is no matter how terrible my Japanese was, people were incredibly patient with me. I'll share some stories below. 

My program was connected to an English school and some afternoons before our lessons some of the students would show up to hang out and speak Japanese with us. The other kids in my program could speak good Japanese so they could have full on conversations and such but me...not so much. About two weeks into my stay the other study abroad kids were off somewhere and I was the only one in the house when the girls showed up. They kept trying to talk to me but I couldn't understand them. Felt terrible that I just wasn't getting what they were saying no matter how simple they went. However, these girls got creative and used some English and google translate to ask me a few questions then proceeded to teach me some sort of word game. Basically it was just say a word with a certain number of hiragana characters. I learned some new words and managed to understand a few sentences ("I want to eat food" and "do you have jet lag?").

 These three came to hang out with us a lot and still liked me despite my inability to speak Japanese decently. Wonderfully patient and fun.

At one point my housemates and I joined an elementary school field trip to a potato farm. It was a fun trip hanging out with a bunch of kids and digging for potatoes and smashing watermelons (highly recommend suikawari it's so fun). On the way back, I sat in front of two girls and they started talking to me. I'm forgetting if they were asking me questions in English or Japanese, but they were asking me simple questions that I could answer like "what is your favorite color?" and "how old are you?" and stuff of the sort. At one point I noticed one of the girls was wearing a shirt that had the name of her school on it, east Ojiya elementary school. For some reason or another I decided to try saying the name of her school even though I have trouble saying the word for elementary school. Failed a lot trying to say something as simple as "east Ojiya elementary school," but these girls kept helping me pronounce it until I got it right. These girls were only 9 years old but were patient enough to speak to me in Japanese I could understand and help me even when I was failing at saying something pretty simple.

 Digging for potatoes with a bunch of elementary school students. That was pretty awesome.

One time I was at the grocery store and the cashier was asking me if I had a store card but I didn't know what she was asking me. For the record, the Japanese word for card is literally "ka-do" so it's not like there's a vocabulary problem here. The lady asked me a couple times and I just wasn't getting it. The lady behind me in line saw me struggling and pulled out her card and pointed at it. It was something pretty dumb to be struggling with, but she helped me anyway. She was an older lady with an oxygen tank and she gave me the sweetest smile and was really helpful despite my stupidity.  

A few months later when I was hosting Ojiya students at my house, I was always trying to speak in Japanese to the girls. They knew more English than I knew Japanese and sometimes would say "Juno, we don't understand you" but still were patient with me as I struggled to form sentences or words or explain things. They were also very patient in teaching me origami and how to make onigiri. Not particularly skilled at either of those things, but they helped me and laughed at me as I freaked out over trying to tear a piece of origami paper in half and squished my onigiri way too much.

Me with an origami samurai hat on my head

These are just some of the many, many times people were extremely patient with me while I was in Japan or otherwise attempting to function using Japanese. Very often I just wouldn't get it when trying to go about my life and despite all my stupidity about basic things like the word for card or how sinks work or not being able to understand anything spoken, people were still patient and helped me. These were just random people I met, many of them children! Everyone was so incredibly patient with me and I will never forget that. 

Hosting Japanese Students

I may or may not have mentioned this before, but the study abroad program I participated in last summer goes both ways. It's a little different for students coming to America, though. My understanding is that when the students of the English school are in middle school, interested students go to America for a week to experience America and tour schools (a high school and an English school) then later they can go to high school in America or graduate high school in Japan then go to English school and eventually community college in America. Or something like that. These are just some of the options I've seen. 

Anyway, sometime after returning from Japan the program coordinator messaged me asking if I could host some students that December. I said I would love to and come my last final I quickly pack up, say goodbye to my friends, and hop on a bus home. The next morning I go to the airport to meet their leader (an Australian girl who was in the study abroad program with me) and the nine girls at the airport. Recognized most of the girls from lessons at the English school and it was wonderful to see everyone again. Corgimama (the Australian girl, their bilingual America trip coordinator) was exhausted and the girls wanted to shop so being familiar with the airport I took the girls to the shops upstairs. Had seven of them with me and took them around to various shops, counting to seven a lot to make sure everyone was there. Let me tell you, it's a lot to keep track of seven girls wandering around shops. Often they would point at things and ask me what they were and I did my best to explain in my limited Japanese or simple English.

Corimama and me worked together to show the girls around the city for the day before taking them back to a hotel for the night. The next afternoon, the girls were going to various host families for the weekend, my family being one of the host families. There were a lot of girls, so I was asked to host three girls. Originally three high school girls were going to stay with me, but two middle school girls who were my students previously said they wanted to stay with me so things got changed a little :D. My mom and I picked up the three girls and I did my best to translate for my mom when asking questions or explaining where we were going. Actually tried my best to translate a lot that weekend despite not knowing much Japanese (the girls knew more English than I knew Japanese but I tried anyway). Because I knew the girls, I didn't mind messing up a lot while trying to speak Japanese Sometimes they would say "Juno, we don't know what you are saying" 😂. 

Over the weekend, we took them to a Christmas tree farm (and met Santa!), the mall, mini golf, and the zoo, which had a special event going on where everything was covered in Christmas lights. The girls also taught me how to make onigiri and origami. They instructed me in Japanese and despite not knowing what they were saying sometimes I managed to understand what they wanted me to do (learned a lot of new words too!). I'm not particularly good at either but they were patient with me and laughed with me at my mistakes. There was a lot of fun had and speaking in a mix of languages to communicate. We shared our cultures and I got to share my home with some of the people that welcomed me into their community that summer. 

When I took them to the mall, they would often come up to me and ask what things were. It was super cute (well, basically everything they did was super cute but I found this particularly cute). We also yelled a lot and otherwise had a good time while playing mini golf. Spoke very little English while playing so my parents were just watching on wondering what was happening XD. Something else really funny is due to both jet lag and the magical ability of Japanese people, the girls fell asleep if they were in a vehicle for more than 15 minutes. At one point I was sitting in the back seat of the car with one of the girls and hugged her because she was cold then she proceeded to fall asleep in my arms for the remainder of the 45 minute car ride. Something really funny that they liked was "uh huh" so while waiting in line at the zoo we said "uh huh" a lot and were otherwise ridiculous. They also had me recite all of hiragana then when I successfully did that one said "welcome, you are Japanese now." When it finally came time to drop them off at their hotel near the airport, they all said "see you again!" before we parted. The optimism and happiness was so adorable. So many precious memories that I could never fit into one blog post. These girls will forever be part of my life.

 Here's a picture of my mom and I with my three adorable Japanese little sisters (they are beyond adorable but I'm covering their faces for privacy reasons) at the zoo event. It was really cold and windy so everyone bundled up and at one point I had all three of them huddled around me because apparently I give off a lot of body heat 😂. Hopefully I'll see them again this summer when I'm in Japan for yet another study abroad.

Weird Kit Kat Flavors

HELLO ALL I AM BACK! IN THEORY. IT'S ONLY WEEK TWO OF THE TERM SO THINGS ARE ABOUT TO GET A LOT BUSIER REAL SOON. I'LL TRY MY BEST Y'ALL.

Anyway, onto the actual post.

So as you may or may not know, Japan really likes Kit Kats. This is because the name sounds like the phrase きっとかっつ (kitto kattsu), which translates to something like "you will surely win" so the candy are used as a good luck charm for exams. There is actually a space on the back of the packages for you to write a note. In America, we only seem to have three flavors of Kit Kats (milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and white chocolate I think) but in Japan there are over 300 flavors. Pretty wild, huh? (you can find a list and further information on the Kit Kats in Japan Wikipedia page)

Now, you may be thinking "Juno, you can't even eat Kit Kats so why are you talking about them?" Well, for one all the Kit Kat flavors in Japan are pretty awesome and secondly I have friends who also know this and can eat Kit Kats. Before I went to Japan, I was asking people if they wanted anything from Japan and a friend of mine wanted some Kit Kats. I was determined to get my friend some cool flavor, so I looked around a lot for something you couldn't get in America. One day, I was walking through the 7/11 near the main guesthouse in Ojiya and saw some small packages of a Kit Kat flavor I had never seen before. I couldn't read the label, but it looked fun so I bought it.

During my travels in Japan, I had started using HelloTalk and decided to post a picture of the Kit Kats I got for my friend to see what flavor I had. When I posted the picture, the first thing people started asking is "where did you get that?" Many of them had never seen the flavor before and were genuinely confused as to its existence. Apparently it had a picture of some famous announcer on it and was cough drop flavored 😂😂😂

 

Yeah I didn't end up giving it to my friend for somewhat obvious reasons. I'm going to Japan 
again this summer and I promise I'll get you something that will actually taste good 😂

Let's Cook: Miso Ramen!

First full new post of the Azuki Ice Cream reboot! 行こう！(let's go!)

So I'm a full on college student now. Like dorm room living, group work doing, midterm related crying, sleep deprived spacing out college student. I was in community college before so technically a college student but I feel a lot more of the student activity related soul death now. Anyway, this new living situation makes cooking a lot more difficult. My residence hall does have really nice kitchens, but there is the issue of that they are shared and that I don't have very much equipment (like literally all I have is one pot, a cutting board and knife, two bowls, one spoon, and three sets of chopsticks). Time to get resourceful because I enjoy cooking and don't want to eat dining hall food all the time. I developed quite a taste for miso soup while I was in Japan and have been making it back home. My mom found these rice ramen pack things at Costco so I can eat ramen like a proper college student. Combine my taste for miso soup and my college student desire for ramen and you get miso ramen! I make this ramen usually twice a week, sometimes more depending on how I feel. Okay, enough with the life update, let's watch me make this!

Step One: Chop Up Ingredients!

First things first get all your ingredients. I do as much as I can in my dorm room because I don't exactly trust the other people using my floor's kitchen. Ingredients are up to you, but I start by putting 1/3 to 1/2 a block of tofu into the bottom of my tupperware (it's pyrex so I can bake in it too. Pretty cool, isn't it?). Then I put 2-6 cut up green onions in there as well. Why so many, you ask? Because the campus grocery store sells them in bunches and for some reason I can't get them to store well so I just buy them then use them. Also onions are fabulous.

Step Two: Gather Other Ingredients!

Next grab your noodles (I use rice ramen, but you can basically use any noodles) and miso paste. Get your miso paste from a Japanese store if you can. It's a million times better than what you can get in a regular grocery store, even a nice one. You can use as much or as little of these as you want, but I use one ramen hunk (what would you even call that...?) and about a tablespoon of miso paste. Sticking the miso paste to the lid of your container makes it convenient to grab it to stir into your boiling water later.

Step Three: Pack Up Your Stuff and Head to the Kitchen!

Close up your container of ingredients, get your pot, and grab some sort of utensil. I try to keep everything as self contained as possible so I have less to carry to the kitchen. Also, it was snowing when I was making this! 😄

Step Four: Boil Some Water!

Put 2-3 cups of water in your pot and bring to a boil. If your kitchen has one of those hot water things like my kitchen has, get hot water from that so you don't have to wait as long for the water to boil. Also putting a lid on your pot makes the water boil faster. Once your water boils, grab the miso paste hunk from the lid of your container (see why I do that?) and stir into the boiling water until the miso paste dissolves.

Step Five: Add Other Ingredients!

Now that your water is boiling and miso paste is dissolved, add the other ingredients from your container, but don't add the noodles yet. These ingredients are not hot so they will decrease the overall heat of the solution so you must add more heat for your soup to boil again (haha can you tell I'm taking general chemistry? 😜).

Step Six: Add Noodles!

Once your soup is boiling again, add the noodles! Cook them for however long it says to cook them for, which for my noodles is four minutes. Make sure to stir things around every minute or so.

Step Seven: Put into Bowl and Clean Up a Bit!

Remove your pot from the heat and wait for your noodles and such to cool for a few minutes. Transfer your noodles and such to a bowl. Clean up a bit while waiting for your bowl to be cool enough to carry and so the custodial staff won't hate you. Once cool enough to carry, carry everything to where you intend to eat your food.

Step Eight: Add the Seaweed!

Given that the most readily available seaweed is sushi nori or seaweed snacks, I use that in my miso ramen. Take two sheets of sushi nori or however much you want and tear it into pieces. Stir into soup. You add this now because it maintains flavor better and doesn't explode. Learned this the hard way last term. One time a Japanese exchange student saw my failed noodles with exploded seaweed and made fun of them for a solid 10 minutes. We are friends now, actually 😂

Step Nine: Enjoy Your Miso Ramen!

Now that you have everything cooked and mixed in and stuff, it's time to enjoy your ramen! Do your dishes later because ramen is best fresh. I'm a nerd so I eat at my desk while watching youtube gaming stuff or kpop music videos or whatever suits my fancy that day.

Hope you enjoyed my little tutorial on how I make miso ramen! I make this all the time when I want something home cooked and that reminds me of my adventures in Japan.