Merry X-mas and Party Time

Quick note about the picture to the left, yes I know my eyes are closed but it was the only pic I got of everyone together before my camera died.. Well, first of all it is Christmas Eve in Japan already (It is still the 23rd in some parts of the world including my hometown), but I just wanted to wish Everyone a Merry Christmas! Christmas in Japan is a bit different as it has basically no relation what-so-ever to the biblical story, and they also have a few traditions that we don't such as eating Christmas Cake, and eating Christmas Chicken..

Also, yesterday was the Emperor's Birthday so today (being a Monday) is a national holiday. So making the best of it, Kosuke (said "COS-KAY") invited myself, James, and Armin (our German dorm-mate) to a Christmas / Takoyaki party. It was too much fun. In fact, everyone (including us) brought a small gift to the party to randomly exchange with another person at the party using a musical chairs type of game to determine who gets what..
I also enjoyed lots of conversation in Japanese and English, and even taught a small lesson about the difference between using "to" and "for" as Japanese often get these confused.
Anyways, I have a small video as well, my Camera's battery died so I could not take more unfortunately, but it was a blast none-the-less.

Karaoke and Chinese Food

Well, last night a bunch of the students and pretty much all the teachers and a few other Japanese people all got together and went out for Chinese food and drinks, and then off to Karaoke.. Anyways, I tried to keep the camera rolling, and managed to compress the entire experience into a 7 minute video. Please enjoy. PS - it was a blast!!!

Timo Registers

Well, I have officially registered at the foreigner registration office of my ward - something that all foreigners holding a visa are required to do within 90 days of arriving. This essentially *activates* your visa and makes you officially considered an immigrant.

Anyways, now I can do a few things I could not do before such as buy my own Cell Phone (Though it will have to be pre-paid as the regular ones usually come with a lengthy contract that I will not be able to fulfill.)
I can also look for a job, which is something I am going to start doing shortly after the new year as my money supply continues to dwindle away.

I want to quickly digress from this topic for a second and share some culture-shock with everyone. For starters, most of the cars here (and taxis of course) have car-navigation(GPS). Also, taxi-cab doors automatically open and close by themselves as the driver can open the door for you by simply pressing a button. Sometimes at bus stations, train stations and other places with many Taxis waiting for patrons, to spite the automatic doors there is someone dressed like a bell-boy that places their hand over the handle of the door and ACTS like they are opening the door for you and also like they are closing it for you and simply says thank you to you for boarding the taxi.
Akemi told me before that when she was in Windsor she once sat in a taxi and waited for the door to close by itself until eventually the driver snapped at her `Hey lady, close the door its cold outside`.

Anyways, there is no video to post today. But I do plan on continuing my video series...
Mata ne - Timo

Moving Day

Well, I have moved to my new place of residence - a dormitory that houses about 40 people, mostly Japanese students from the nearby Fukuoka Industrial University...

I have once again recorded and put together a small video to share with everyone. This one is not too much more exciting than the last but it is a little better I think. They should progress as I get more of a feel for what I want to do in these videos.

I am hoping to interview some of the other people at the dorm sometime in Japanese and put it on here (I will add subtitles of course)...
Please enjoy this for now though:

Episode 1 of `The Show`

Here is my first composite video that I threw together to go with my blog about my trip to Japan and my time here. This video is a testimate to how boring my current town of residence truely is, but hopefully this will be the first in a series of short clips I will make. Please enjoy and leave comments!

PS - The next videos should be much more interesting, this was more of a test-run than anything. ^.~

Comming soon...

Well, I have given in and bought something that puts me a little over my budget but I think it will be well worth it, and my mom talked about giving me a little bit of money for Christmas and this was the perfect present for myself. What did I buy? A brand new Camera, this one records video with sound, has a VERY nice display, and supports my existing 1GB XD Memory chip. And it only cost 24,800... yen that is..

I haven`t used it yet, but I plan on posting many videos here so stay tuned.

Otherwise, I have not posted on here in a week because not alot has happened that is noteworthy. The vacation type feeling has worn off almost completely as I become more and more integrated into life in this country and begin to really feel like I live here. I mostly keep very busy with school and studying, and might I add my Japanese is improving noticeably to the point where sometimes I talk too quickly instead of too slowly in Japanese. By nature I am a fast talking person so it seems to have carried over to Japanese aswell.

Tommorow I will be moving out of my homestay residents and into a Dormitory in a different part of Fukuoka. I am looking forward to it as I will have alot of opportunity to meet Japanese people of my age there.

Last night we had a very enjoyable Christmas party at the school. Some of the teachers drank too much (I wont name names) and so did some of the students (you know who you are). I only had one drink though, but the party was very fun. Also a noteworthy occurrence last night was the final farewell of my only classmate Allan, as it was his last week at GenkiJACS. So, unless we get any other new level3 students, I think I will be having 1-on-1 lessons for the next while.

Anyways, I have some great ideas for videos to make and things to show everyone with my new Camera, so please check back soon to see what I have in store.
Mata ne,
- Timo

美論 // Miron - Beautiful Theory

Just wanted to share this with everyone. I was thinking about Kanji tonight (Chinese-derived writing used in Japanese), and I found a really nice Kanji for my Family name: ミロン (Miron)

美論

It is said "Mee-rO-n" or basically exactly like the French pronunciation of our name. In fact, Japanese pronunciation of my last name is more correct than the English pronunciation as the RO sound is long and the MI sound is like "Me".

The best part.. is the meaning.. It means Beautiful Theory.

For relaxing times...

I will start things off with a picture. As much as the town that I am living in has nothing to do in it, and as much as I miss Tokyo, there is something to be said for the scenery here, including my extremely Japanese outlook from my bedroom window, pictured to the left. I can look out the window and really appreciate that I have made it to Japan, even 1 month after my arrival, even in my middle-of-nowhere town, there is still a special feeling for me about having made it here and just being in this country.

Well, things have been more quiet lately. It rained a lot overnight last night and I think we had a small earthquake/tremour this morning that woke me up (It wasn`t much, but I`m a light sleeper).

School is going well, but there is so much vocabulary to memorize, it has been rather humbling in some ways as any sense of my Japanese being descent is overshadowed by the realization that I am still so far from fluency. I have 3 decks of blank flash cards filled with 110 cards in each deck, and the first one only took 3 days of classes to fill..

As my favorite Japanese proverb says チリもつもれば山となる - if tiny specs of dust pile up, they can become a mountain. This is something I have to keep in mind constantly.

Oh, and a note to any of my fellow YESJAPAN members, I could of sworn I heard Maria Gadget when I was in AM-PM (common convenience store in Japan) this morning.. But I could be wrong..

Busy Timo

Well, it has been some time sinse my last post on here. This has not been because of any lack of events as in fact I have been very busy here lately between studying and a wide assortment of extra-curricular activities.

I have some goodies to share with everyone as even though I have not been using my camera a lot lately, Boris - my german room mate - has recently purchased a new Nikon camera that not only takes great pictures, but also has nice video (WITH AUDIO) features aswell.

First up, this past week on 2 different occassions some us GenkiJACS students signed up to go to the local university for language exchange with Japanese students there. To my surprise, the classes we visited were almost entirely made up of girls (no complaints though).. Most of them are about 19 years old and they are so curious about us strange gaijin. It is really an interesting experience!

Also, on Thursday a small group of us went to Fukuoka university to learn about and watch Naginata which is basically a Martial art where very long sticks (or in real battle a very long blade) which are curved at the end are used. This first video is of some of the Naginata students practicing form and technique (but without armor at this point as they do not make contact during this warm up phaze of their practice):

*NOTE: During this sport they yell out the name of the body part which they are striking.

Next is another clip from the same place, but this time a couple of the students (Ben - an American, and Uncle Phil) decided to participate:


*NOTE to the left is Phil, and to the right you can see some guys practicing Kendo. After this warm up phase, the girls put on Kendo style armor (see the pic above) and actually wack each other with these big sticks. It was all very interesting.


On friday night after school, we had a Takoyaki party at GenkiJACS. Takoyaki is basically Octapus Balls (not really, but really). Anyways, it is a type of seafood that was surprisingly very good. Alot of foreigners don`t like Takoyaki but I am getting used to everything tasting like the ocean here (it doesn`t all taste like the ocean, but alot of it does). I really liked Takoyaki, but we also cooked and ate Okonomiyaki- Oh-Koh-NO-MEE-Yah-Kee - basically a type of pancake/omelette thing that has veggies and sometimes seafood in it. Okonomiyaki is actually my favorite Japanese food right now.

Yuuji-sensei cooks Takoyaki







Phil and Me enjoy some grub...

Anyways, things have been very fun lately and I actually look forward to going to school tommorow! Well, until next time..
- Timo