The House and Bamboo

Neat Bamboo Grove by the path I take to the Train Station:

(I expect to glimpse a fox god any day now...)

The Ito Family's Front Gate:

Where I'm Living:

Where I'm Living 2:

The Front Door!

My Room and Stuff

The View From My Bedroom Window: It's our garden!

My Bed!

My Closet!

A View of My Room and the Other Window!

First Post!

This blog is specifically intended to let anyone who is interested follow my upcoming school year in Tokyo, Japan though anyone and everyone are welcome!

In starting this off, let me first give a few background details. I am living with a Japanese family in the suburbs of Tokyo, fairly close to my university, and they are awesome! I expect to have a great year with them and also learn a lot of Japanese! They have hosted foreign students for several years and are quite relaxed.

Now let's start with my first impressions of Tokyo! Firstly, I love the trains, they're easy, fast, and fairly entertaining to ride. Additionally, the ticket machines function in English as well as Japanese, which makes things much less stressful.

Secondly, there are tons of little green spaces throughout the suburbs and it's very entertaining to glimpse an orchard, garden, or park amidst the press of houses and roads.

Thirdly, I love seeing all the little references to mainstream Japanese pop culture that in the U.S. are considered part of a sub-culture. Posters displaying Japanese pop stars, anime, and manga are used in shops, on billboards, and in commercials. It's fun to see something that in the west is considered slightly unusual be totally mainstream. It's an obvious point but highly entertaining to see in action. (Just to name drop a little, ARASHI was one of the first examples I noticed, for those who don't know who they are: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asgI9Yzc17U)

Lastly, CELLPHONES! Cellphones here are attractive and functional. They don't just come in black, silver, and red. They have phones in every color imaginable with interesting and creative designs that are also pretty cheap. Not to mention the amazing amount of functions that come STANDARD on most phones. Just to mention a couple out of many, mine not only has a pretty good dictionary but also automatically informs me of various holidays. If only it also worked in the U.S. where the idea of an "amazing" cellphone is the iphone which, while excellent, is foolishly expensive.

P.S. Did I mention I love the trains?

So in my first few days here, I have gotten a seemingly magical cellphone, tried numerous tasty Japanese foods, explored a little around my family's neighborhood, visited a Japanese department store, and also an outlet mall. The outlet mall btw, was really cool and is apparently very popular with most Japanese. Though my favorite part had to be all the people walking around with their dogs, I even saw a corgi!

Hope this was enough to intrigue everyone and see you next week!

P.S. Pictures are here!