Learning

Three different sets of characters are used to write the Japanese language: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Kanji (漢字) are adopted from Chinese characters and literally means "Hans characters." From what I understand, there are over 10,000 Kanji and they are used to represent specific words. They're relatively complex (up to 10-15 strokes to complete 1 complex Kanji) in my opinion, but I also think they are the coolest looking set of characters.

Hiragana was developed from Chinese characters but aren't literally Chinese script like Kanji. When Hiragana was first developed, it was not completely accepted by Japanese society. In fact, the elite members and men in general preferred Kanji while women used Hiragana. Eventually, male authors came to use Hiragana in writing literature, and Hiragana was adopted in writing traditional Japanese.

Katakana was developed in the early Heian period (AD 794 - 1185) by Buddhist monks from Chinese characters as a form of shorthand. In modern Japan, Katakana is used to write out "foreign words." For example, it's used to write out American names:

ブライアン
Bu-ra-i-a-n'

Also, in writing Japanese, there are no spaces between words. You just know how different words are spelled out. One last fact about Japanese writing is that "Romaji" is used to write the language in Roman letters:

Domo arigato gozaimashita.

Anyways, I'm not blogging just to give a short history of Japanese script. I just wanted to share my still brief experience with learning how to write Japanese. April pointed out to me that it should only take a couple of days to learn both Katakana and Hiragana and that it just takes practice to really remember both sets of characters. So I took it upon myself and learned both these sets in the past week. I find myself walking around Iwaki suddenly being able to understand certain things like "ドラグストル(do-ra-gu su-to-ru)" or "Drug Store," which is a term borrowed from English. Of course, if I read something in Hiragana I still don't know what it means because it's a Japanese word, but it's still cool knowing I can read some Japanese.

In addition to learning Japanese, I've also just learned so much about the culture and life-related things. Last Thursday, a couple of our friends came over and we made takoyaki while we watched a documentary called "Ending Note." The documentary was very sad as it centered around a dying man whose daughter was filming him preparing for his eventual death from a cancer too late to treat. I definitely recommend watching it, but you better stock up on that Kleenex before doing so. If you don't already know, takoyaki is a sort of breadball traditionally filled with "tako" or "octopus," ginger, and green onion. We expanded this filling to include other types of seafood, cheese, Japanese sausage, and even chocolate.

First batch was squishy because we had twice as much water than we needed =X 

Ingredients

Our friend Ayumi cutting tako 

Happy tako-making friends

Every batch starting with the second batch produced these beauties 

Takoyaki is usually topped with mayo, tako sauce, and dried fish flakes.

A couple of days later, we went to Sendai for a mini weekend vacation. You may recognize this city name because it was all over the news 2 years ago as being the epicenter of the Great Tohoku Earthquake. It is called the city of trees in Japan and is also a sprawling metropolis almost on par with Tokyo IMHO.

Tree

Dat phonebooth

Trees... Trees everywhere

Sendai offers a city tour where you board this bus at the central station and it drives around in a loop. Interestingly enough, the tour bus is called "The Loople." It stops at 15 different locations and buses come every 20 minutes. And it only cost ¥600 (~$6). At one of the sites, these real-life anime characters stopped to greet us. Okay, they were in traditional Japanese garb but they were quite silly.

Yay!

The site is famous because a castle once stood there. It also offered a great view of the city:

Metropolis!

We also ate the famous local cuisine: Cow tongue. It was quite tender and just tasted like softer cow meat.

In stew form, served with barley rice, salad, and soup. 

In a steamed bun form.

We stayed at a hostel on Saturday night and went to another part of Sendai called Matsushima on Sunday. This part of Sendai was very quaint and reminded me of Berkeley because of the mom and pop shops lining the streets next to the bay.

Well, it's slightly colder in Matsushima than it is in Berkeley.

Matsushima is famous for its seafood and rightfully so, I had ramen... with Oyster.

Other spots we explored in Matsushima included a wooden doll-making shop, a cafe where they served coffee in bowls and melonpan, a nice stroll through a woodsy area, and lots and lots of snow.

 Dolls

Melonpan (Crispy on the outside, soft and gooey on the inside)

Coffee in bowls 

Cool Woodsy Area

Best friends :) 

Snow 

Snow+April

It was such a fun trip and an amazing experience, compounded by what happened when we tried to go home. It was snowing pretty much all day Sunday and I guess it was all leading up to small blizzard. This cancelled our bus home and forced us to take the Shinkansen, the expensive high-speed bullet train. We actually had to take the Shink to another city (Koriyama) and then take another local train home. The Shinkansen experience was actually quite fun: it was a quiet ride and we were going so fast that the water streaks on the window were completely horizontal (the shink's top speed is apparently 186 mph). While it was much more expensive than the bus trip (~$65 vs. ~$20 each), I think it was worth it timewise: 35 minute train ride vs. 1.5 hour bus ride to Koriyama. This was a crazy learning experience because it was really stressful trying to figure out how to get home. Everyone and their mom was in the Shinkansen ticket line because of all the bus cancellations. In the end, I figured we were part of the lucky few that were able to travel home because buses that weren't cancelled got stuck in heavy traffic and other people were completely snowed in. I think the experience served as a testament to Japan's public transportation system as there are so many options and so many different ways to go anywhere.

Life is an adventure, especially when you get stuck somewhere because of water (albeit solid water).

Sunshine

The Iwaki Sunshine Marathon is an annual race held in Iwaki and usually occurs during the winter season. Because of this, in the past runners have had to endure cold winds, icy roads, and snowy conditions. But this year, it was unusually warm and also quite sunny.

These Taiko drummers were motivating racers at the start line

This year, there were 6000 participants including April. I did not participate because one of my knees is semi-healing from exercising/jumping on it too much. But this gave me the opportunity to be the spectator and take a lot of pictures! The Iwaki Sunshine Marathon is also famous for people dressing up as random characters while they run.

Elvis (he's still alive)

Bunnies

I have no idea

Taking a random shot and hoping I catch some costumes

I wish I caught more of these costumes on camera, but they were constantly moving and it was pretty difficult. I saw a Mario, a guy dressed as a girl (I think), and there was a guy that played a guitar during the entire marathon. I actually saw him cross the finish line and he looked super parched 0_0

I was so proud of April because she beat her previous time by over 30 minutes!

April at the finish line

April said it was the best race she had ever participated in because she heard her named called out at least ten times by students and fellow teachers. Iwaki is a tight community indeed :)

Post-marathon, we ate at a sushi boat place called Sushi-Ro where you purchase sushi off of a conveyor belt for ¥105 (roughly $1.25) each. I love this place because it feels like a buffet but with better quality food.

The one on the left was my favorite. I think it was seared salmon with pesto and cheese. The one on the right is an egg custard thing that is delicious.

The damage

White plates were sushi without wasabi and yellow plates were sushi with wasabi. In Japan sushi chefs usually place a little wasabi between the rish/topper and the rice. Considering that I would usually pay about $20-25 for an alright sushi buffet, I think this place is a steal. I ate 10 plates myself and April had 5 or 6. We also had Udon and it all came out to ~$22 total for the both of us. If you visit me, I'm taking you here :D

As a reward for her efforts in the marathon, I made April breakfast in bed the next morning:

Pancakes, Japanese Sausage with scrambled eggs, freshly cut Fuji apples and bananas. I should note that all apples in Japan are injected with honey to make it a little bit sweeter

Just another weekend in Iwaki!

The Shakes

In the 2.5 weeks I have been in Japan, I've felt as many earthquakes as I did living in the bay area for 7 years. I have felt 4 or 5 earthquakes, the most recent of which was the largest at magnitude 6.9. The epicenter was near Obihiro-shi, Hokkaido Prefecture:

A. Iwaki-shi (where I am)

B. Obihiro-shi (epicenter of earthquake)

To give you some perspective into my actual distance from the epicenter, it's about the same distance from the San Francisco Bay Area to San Diego. That may make you wonder how I even felt the earthquake if it was that far. Well guess what, I felt it and it lasted for about 10-15 seconds 0_0

April experienced a magnitude 7.4 earthquake at a closer proximity in December and said it was the scariest earthquake she's experienced. She said that right before it happened, all of the peoples' phones around her started ringing and she wondered why everyone was getting called at the same time. A couple of seconds later, the ground started shaking. Apparently, Japan employs a phone-alert system for earthquakes and tsunamis. That's why everyone's phone was going off simultaneously. 

Despite these earthquakes, I feel relatively safe in our apartment because it withstood a magnitude 9.0 earthquake 2 years ago, as you all know. April told me that it was actually the only building in Taira (the more specific area of Iwaki-shi that we live in) that had running water after the earthquake and tsunamis hit. Speaking of which, I must say that it is really interesting and sometimes heartbreaking hearing about the different stories of people who experienced the Great Tohoku Earthquake in 2011. I don't want to mention specific stories as I don't want to put anyone on blast, but I just have to say that it made me appreciate the culture here even more.

On a lighter note, all of these earthquakes here in Japan make me wonder why this side of the ring of fire is so much more active than the Americas side. I feel like all of the tectonic plates just meet up in Japan and at least one of them is always in motion. I bet they have group meetings to decide which one moves that day. Heh.

In any case, I've still been enjoying my time here despite the earth shakes and the cold shakes. In fact, it has been a tiny bit warmer the past few days. For whatever reason after that snowstorm we experienced last week, the temperatures have been higher here in Taira, Iwaki-shi.

A couple of days ago, we went to Koriyama-shi, a city east of Iwaki-shi that is still in Fukushima Prefecture. We went ice skating, kareoke-ing, and we ate at this legendary Mexican food joint (it's a hole in the wall that we had only heard of through word of mouth).

I know you can't tell, but there is an ice skating rink behind that glass (we weren't allowed to bring electronic devices out on the ice).

Carnitas Tacos

Apparently, many people have spoken about this Mexican food place, but only few have ever actually found it. I must say that even though it was expensive (about $15 for 3 tacos), it was amazingly delicious. The owner is Mexican and came to Japan originally to teach English. He eventually married a Japanese woman and decided to start this Mexican restaurant in his spare time while he runs another business selling Japanese action figures. The tortillas are homemade (you can't find soft tortillas anywhere in Japan), and his ingredients are relatively expensive. But that's why it was so good! If you are ever in Koriyama, I would definitely recommend eating at El Jalapeno... if you can ever find it :D