Trip to Niigata

I only have 6 days left in Japan, so I'm trying to make the best of the rest of my time here. I've recently been lucky to make a few new friends and we've really hit it off. Anyways, this past weekend Miho and myself took a tour bus to Niigata prefecture, famous for whine, mountains, and friendly people.
We got to visit a whine factory and sample a lot of different types of whine - I got a bit tipsy as Miho kept giving her samples to me in what was surely a conspiracy to get me drunk =P.
I got a lot of video but haven't had the chance to properly put it together just yet, so for now here are some pictures, please enjoy!


To get to Niigata prefecture, which is on the west-coast of Japan, we had to travel up and over, around, and often THROUGH a tonne of Moutains. Going through mountains was scary sometimes - the tunnels are up to 18KM long and they DO sometimes collapse but generally after earthquakes or heavy rains causing mud-slides. Anyways, we survived and came out in the middle of the mountains to be surrounded by beautiful fall colored tree covered mountain ranges!

We took a number of rest stops, one at a service area somewhere on Mount Akagi - my mom went there when she was here but it was my first time around Mt. Akagi - and another at a large dam. The above pic is Miho and me on that dam, the view was spectacular.

After we visited the winery and were treated to a very Japanese meal of rice, fish, natto (fermented soya-bean gue stuff, that actually to spite the smell was not so bad and is said to be really good for you.) We boarded a kind of cruise boat and took a tour down the river through the mountains. It was all very beautiful and ironically the scenery reminded me of Canada and Japan at the same time.

On a side note, I've been studying Japanese a lot while I still have time to be immersed in the language. I've become fairly fluent, at least to some degree, if I may say so myself, but learning new vocabulary is an ongoing process. For straight vocabulary-building, I've found a great (and FREE) website called IKNOW that has a number of games and spaced repetition systems available for learning vocabulary and Kanji (Chinese written symbols). I've embedded a couple gadgets in the right panel of the blog here showing my study time and even showing a review of the latest vocabulary that I've been learning. Many of the words I already know but hadn't learned the Kanji for yet so I'm trying to play catch-up in that regard as to not remain illiterate in Japanese. =P
Well, I'll try to get some video of my trip posted up here soon.

Tim

日本語でブログを書く

I figured Id start posting my Japanese blog entries to this blog too since I refer my Japanese friends here from time to time.

日本語で日記を書くのは久しぶりですね
このサイトを登録した時「もしかしたら　一日おきに日記を書けるかも」と思ったけど・・

もうすぐカナダに　かえっちゃうから　本当にさみしくなちゃった・・
日本にいる間できるだけ生活を楽しみたいと思います。

カナダにいたとき、YESJAPAN.COMというサイトで日本語を勉強しました・・　そのサイトに、1ヶ月かん２回日本語について番組が出ます、日本に来る前によく見ました・・　　この間、その番組に出ている人たちと渋谷へパーティに行きました！　　本当にたのしかった！　　その番組を見てたので、なんか有名な人に会てた気がした。　　あとは、そのパーティで友達を作れた。　またいっしょに遊びに行くと思う・・

今、カナダに帰りたいと思う気持ちもあるけど、本当はあまり帰りたくない・・　ちょっと寂しい気になった・・

YesJapan party in Shibuya!

George and me in Shibuya -
Well I feel really lucky right now. I had a rare opportunity to meet up with a bunch of fellow members and some of the hosts of YesJapan.com where I studied Japanese by myself before coming to Japan! Everyone had a really awesome time, and I will even say I've forged some new friendships. Two of the other members that came are living in Japan because their husbands are stationed here, and the other girl Rachel is here for pretty much the same reasons I am (study Japanese Language and Culture), so yea, everyone there was super cool! We all met at Shibuya's Hachikou statue (famous statue of a dog @ shibuya crossing) and then headed to Shakey's pizza in Shibuya to enjoy all-you-can-eat pizza and drinks and lots of good times. It was awesome to meet George and Hiro in person after seeing them on the YesJapan webcasts so many times over the years! I ended up missing the last train home (sinse I live far from Tokyo and have to transfer, that means the 9:07pm train) but it turned out for the better as we went to a bar in Ebisu to meet a bunch of foreign models (and some cute Japanese girls too) and enjoy drinks and chit-chat. Hiro and I really hit it off too and he's such a cool guy that he let me crash at his place. Great memories all around. I brought my camera of course, and did manage to throw a video together but unfortunately I didn't film as much as I'd of liked to in hind-sight since I was too busy having fun! Here's the video, check it out: