Roora in Japan

Fegely Family History

2008-06-01T19:49:00.002-04:00

We will be uploading the Fegely family history here soon. For now we are testing!

Yatto! Tokyo!

2007-06-02T08:24:00.001-04:00

From here on, I think I won't need a separate post for each day, so the pictures will be all together.

The last picture is the gyuutan (cows tongue) that Jim and I ate in Sendai, right before he went back to Tokyo...which means that I have uploaded all the pictures from when I was with Jim in Japan - are you happy, Jim? It is only a little more than two months after they were taken...

Eighth day

2007-06-02T08:19:00.000-04:00

Not many pictures from the eighth day. Mostly traveling from Kobe to Tokyo, meeting up with Jim, and getting to the hostel!

Yup, that was all!

Seventh day

2007-06-02T06:58:00.000-04:00

Himeji! Himeji castle was my favorite place that I have visited so far, so there are a lot of pictures!

The end.

Sixth day

2007-06-02T06:23:00.000-04:00

Off to Kobe now!

Fifth day...Nara

2007-06-02T05:53:00.001-04:00

On the fifth day, God created...or, umm, we went to Nara. Lots of temples, towers, and deer...

And that was Nara.

Fourth day is sumo!

2007-06-02T05:32:00.001-04:00

Okay I took a lot of pictures at sumo...then I realized that maybe people don't really need to see all that many pictures of fat guys in thongs...

End of the fourth day!

The 3rd day...

2007-06-02T05:12:00.000-04:00

Okay, following the past two examples, I will make this post the 3rd day of my travels! Still no comment though...I have a lot of catching up to do...

This is the end of the third day...the number of pictures is getting lower...

Just pictures for now.

2007-05-22T04:14:00.000-04:00

I kept promising Jim I would upload pictures from when he was in Japan. But I haven't. And I don't really have time today, but if I don't now, I may never get around to it, so for now I am going to upload just the pictures, without commenting. Comments come later.

Unfortunately, this is only as far as the second day of my travels, and I didn't meet up with Jim until the second week...Sorry, I will try to upload more tonight...

Japan travels pictures!

2007-04-28T02:14:00.000-04:00

So after a long break, I will be uploading some pictures from traveling around Japan, finally!

Although, first I still have some other pictures to post...

This is a picture from when Rebeca made Puerto Rican food - it was really good. I don't remember the name of the guy on the left, but continuing on, after me is John, Sawako, and Rebeca (Toshi took the picture).

This is from a couple days later, when I went skiing with Toshi, Pyon, and another guy whose name I don't remember. This is at Eboshi ski lodge.

Here is Toshi, on the ski lift.

And this is from a week or two after that, going skiing with guys from my lab, at Yamagata Zaou! Zaou is huge, there were a ton of different slopes. I think I've gotten addicted to skiing in Japan - the snow is a lot more powdery, which at first was annoying, but once I learned to ski in it, it was a lot of fun.

Scenery from the ski lift.

More scenery - here you can see that it is getting high enough that trees are turning into jyuuhyou (in english, it is usually translated to ice monster) - see below for more information.

Close up of the jyuuhyou - these are trees at the very top of the mountain. They are covered in snow until they bend over, and then blown by strong winds - and this is the shape they turn into!

Everyone posing for a picture - but with goggles on, I can't tell who is who! I think that from the left, it is: Ichiki-san, Takahashi-san, me, Nishigaki-san, Okada-san, and Baba-san.

A mostly buried Buddhist statue at the top of the mountain.

The next day I hung out with Rebeca and two of her friends that came to visit from Nagoya - so we of course had to have Sendai's specialty for lunch - cow tongue!

While walking around Sendai, we saw these people walking around in cigarette costumes, picking up cigarette butts. The back says 'Let's stop that dangerous walking while smoking!'. The dangerous part probably refers to an incident that happened in Tokyo - on a really crowded street, a guy who was smoking while walking put his hand down at his side, and the lit end poked a child in the eye.

Here is everyone at dinner that night - me, John, Yuu, Nia, Frederick, Rebeca, Yuuko, and Jasmine.

This was at a banquet given for foreign exchange students who were graduating in March (and other foreign exchange students were invited). Chris gave a memorable speach on our behalf which included some line about us getting to know the nomihodai before anything else in Japan (all you can drink, alcoholic, you pay for a certain amount of time).

This is at a place called U-Para - it is filled with video games, an indoor soccer place, pool tables, darts, karaoke, bowling, etc. You just pay a certain amount per hour, so it is pretty fun.

And yes, this is a game where you have to walk a dog. Only in Japan.

Albert, curled up in the egg chair.

Having dinner at the professor house, the night before I left to go traveling. Much sake was involved. Ignoring me, from left to right is: Okada-san, Hatakeyama-sensei, Hatakeyama-sensei's wife, and Takahashi-san.

Pretty much the same picture, but this time Ichiki-san is in it. Okada-san moved to a different lab, and Ichiki-san and Takahashi-san to different schools - which is sad, because they were all people that I talked to! Now the only people left in the lab who talk to me are Nishigaki-san and Katou-san!

Finally! Let the traveling begin! Teres and John watching amusing Japanese TV at the airport.

Osaka!

The claw games are popular in Japan, since there are a lot of arcades, but this was the first time I had ever seen one where you catch a live animal/your dinner. Yes, in this one they have giant shrimps that you have to try to catch.

A love hotel! Always pretty easy to recognize.

After checking into the hostel, we went to buy tickets for sumo! All the banners are for different sumo wrestlers who were participating.

We had no idea what this was - it was on the top of the gym where the sumo matches took place. Turns out, when we were leaving, the day we went to see the matches, a guy was up there beating a drum. Though I'm still not sure why.

Story to this picture: In Sendai, there is a building with very reflective windows on your way downtown, and there are always people there, using it as a mirror to practice dancing. Then we got to Osaka, and they had the same thing! Except they have actual mirrors.

Stewardess themed love bar?place?. We were getting weird looks from all the Japanese passing by here. Probably because we were taking pictures of this.

Russell looks excited.

The canal, as seen from a bridge in Nanba.

Pictures from inside one of the ferris wheels we rode! It was really cool - after getting in at the bottom, the part of the cage that the seats were in spun around so that we could see the view. It was really cool.

Teres and John, in the ferris wheel.

View from the ferris wheel. (Front)

View from the ferris wheel. (Back) Front view wins.

The cage is turning to let us out!

One of the famous places in Osaka - the Glico sign. I don't know why. Most Japanese don't seem to know either.

Ah, english writing is on so many products in Japan, and always so interesting. 'Plastic - Convenience of our lives might damage our environment.'

First dinner in Osaka is pizza? At least it is pizza with squid on it!

Nanba by night! (By the way, I didn't explain it earlier, but Nanba is a part of Osaka that is known for being a good night spot, lots of restaurants and shopping.

The Statue of Liberty in a part of Nanba called America Town.

John posing.

Subway on the way home. It reminded me of the airport in Chicago (I think that's where it was, but I don't really remember.)

And that is the end of day one! Will update more later, but for now, I have to get ready to go out with some friends for sushi!

Still catching up...

2007-04-03T01:40:00.000-04:00

Okay, so last night I made it as far as leaving for Hokkaido. If you haven't read that post yet, you might want to. Or you might not. Chronologically it comes first though.

Entertainment on the ferry to Hokkaido.

Map showing the current location of the ferry (We were still just outside of Sendai, which is the red dot that the ship is next to. The red dot at the top of the map is Tomakomai, in Hokkaido, where we were going, and the one at the bottom is Nagoya.)

Karaoke on the ferry.

Me on the ferry.

The stairs on the ferry.

There was even an onsen on the ferry. I like traveling by ferry in Japan.

Attempting to take pictures of the sunrise.

Scenery from the train ride from Tomakomai to Sapporo.

Sapporo Yuki Matsuri! (Sapporo snow festival!) Sculpture based on an anime, I think. Or a commercial.

Penguins!

The words at the bottom say "Youkosou! Sapporo Yuki Matsuri e", which means "Welcome! to the Sapporo Snow Festival".

We had no idea what this was supposed to be.

So I took a picture of the sign for later translation. It says "Entry No. 4 - Charged with living life as ourselves - Alternative School Shibe". So we conclude that it is not actually supposed to be something we would recognize.

Sign reads "Ice Square".

Japanese people really seem to like Disney characters, especially Mickey and Lilo & Stitch.

Characters based on oden (a Japanese stew of sorts, with various different ingredients that you can choose from) and the television tower in Sapporo?

Doraemon! Japanese cartoon character, famous for having a pocket from which anything can be pulled out. The sign reads "Bullying Solution Pocket! - This is a pocket chock full of ideas on how to solve bullying. [I'll] give them to you too! - (Some society having something to do with kids who stammer, I think. I can't figure that part out)". Bullying is a big issue in Japan right now - there was recently a student who sent a letter to the government and the school, saying that if someone didn't do something to stop the bullying by a certain date, they were going to kill themselves.

Advertising for a place that specializes in Gingis Khan - a specialty of Hokkaido, which involves roasting lamb and vegetables.

This sculpture was really impressive.

So detailed!

Samurai Cat.

Posing with the Japanese girls we made friends with on the train!

Me and one of the girls whose names I can't remember...

Aquatic theme! This was much bigger than it seems in this picture.

Kind of hard to see, but this was Disney themed, with Stitch playing a prominent part.

Ice house.

Words read "Milk Land Hokkaido" (Hokkaido is famous for being where a lot of milk, butter, ice cream, etc. comes from. Kind of like Wisconsin.)

Full picture of the sculpture I was standing in front of before.

Probably one of the only chances a person will ever have to snowboard off a jump in the middle of hugely populated city.

Japanese castle. Also very impressive.

Dan and Zhou Peng , posing.

In the process of making a sculpture.

Americans posing in front of the Statue of Liberty.

Chinese in front of the Chinese Phoenix.

Igloos where you can buy alcohol.

Red words say Hina Matsuri (another Japanese festival which takes place on 3/3, and celebrates daughters, I think).

The next day, at another part of the Snow Festival - tubing!

Field of snowmen, all made be people who came to the festival.

The snowman Colin and I made. Sign says "'I wish I had a mouth.' Mmmm... (Kuchi ga hoshii...)".

Snow maze! We did girls vs. guys to see who could get through it first, but unfortunately the girls lost. T_T

Curling! My team (Teres, Colin, and I) won! Without much help from me though. I, apparently, am not very good at curling.

I liked this sculpture - the mice are cute.

I have trouble reading all of this sign. It is from the front of the Sapporo Beer Museum. I do know that it says something about beer made from wheat and hops.

Famous sight in Sapporo - lettering says 'Sapporo Beer'.

Everyone in front of the Sapporo Beer Museum.

Sign translates roughly to "Men, silently, Sapporo Beer".

My cheese and soup curry flavored ice cream cone. Surprisely, not as awful as it sounds.

See below for more great flavors. (Most of these aren't normal flavors in Japan as far as I know - this was the only place I saw them. Don't blame all Japanese for these.)

Squid and salt flavored.

Cheese, soup curry, and the more normal flavors of green tea and sesame.

Lavender, Corn, and then Black Beer and Apple.

On to Otaru!
The Otaru Snow and Light Festival!

Giant Snow flake.

Cave(snow)men.

Let's go camping!

Sign reads 'Grand Cross'. Unfortunately, this is where my battery died again, so I will have to get pictures from other people.

Glassblowing! We got to make our own cups! Colin was first.

The assistants attached the handle though.

Me, making my cup.

Switching poles so I can form the top of the cup.

For some reason this green thing with a bulging crotch is all over Hokkaido, like a mascot or something. I was very confused.

The musicbox shop and the steam powered clock outside of it.

Close-up of the steam clock.

Photo from the train on the way back to Sapporo.

There was nowhere to sit on the train, except the floor.

Was this the last time Chris ever visited my window?! Now I live on the 5th floor, and he lives on the 1st(still)! I believe that in this picture he is feeding my leftover curry to Stan and Randy, outside the window.

I will post this for now. Coming up next: the rest of spring vacation!

Catching up...

2007-04-02T04:03:00.000-04:00

After two weeks of travel in Japan, I have lots of pictures! But that means I should probably fill in the blanks between now and Thanksgiving...

This first picture is from the bounenkai (forget year party?? - party at the end of the year, which involves summing up everything that happened in the lab that year, then going drinking.) This is my tutor, Nishigaki, and another guy in the lab, Ichiki.

And this is that same party, about two hours later...

And then at karaoke afterwards...

This was the "before everyone goes away for Christmas" dinner, at this really good buffet-style restaurant called Hinano. Lots of different types of Japanese foods, all made from fresh, and I think, organic foods.

From the other end of the table - but I am hidden behind Eric (guy on the right).

This is picture of my suitcase, when I was packing to come home for Christmas - before I had packed any of my own stuff - this is just presents and japanese snacks for other people to try...

Here is my Japanese Christmas tree, sitting on my kotatsu!

On my way home, I met up with Sam (Samura Yoshikazu), who studied abroad at Drexel two years ago.

Apparently, this is the only picture I have from New Year's Eve. I was really happy that I got to see everyone though!

Mike's method of peeling potatoes.

The following three pictures are from Mike's 24th birthday - and should be viewed in a flipbook format if at all possible...

Aww, Dad and Leo are getting along!

A picture of Erin, by Erin.

I did come home in order to visit everybody. I just wanted to read for a little. Just a little.

The view from my front porch!

House, I missed you! And this is the only picture I got of Momma! (And the only picture I got of Erin, was the one previously posted...)

View of Sendai from the top floor of the electrical building, on Aobayama campus, where I had my Electricity and Magnetism class, every Friday morning at 8:50. From the dorm, 15-20 minutes by bike, then a 20 minute walk up a mountain. But the view is pretty nice.

More karaoke! With guys from the lab, after the shinnenkai (new year party), I think. Starting in April, we will have four new guys, so now I have kouhai! (A sempai is someone who started at a school, company, club, lab, etc. before you, and therefore should be respected, etc. Kouhai is the opposite. Not that they don't need to be respected. Just that now I am their sempai!)

Endo!

Dontosai! A festival that takes place in early January, which involves burning all the New Year's decorations, since they are religious, and should not be just thrown away. Also involves guys, and sometimes girls, running around in very little clothing in the freezing cold, with a piece of paper in their mouths, although I am not sure why. And my camera battery died, so I will have to get some pictures from friends!

On a field trip to see Zuihoden, the memorial place of Date Masamune (in Sendai). We were invited by the museum to come see it, so we were first invited up to the office. That is probably the most people they have ever had in that office.

The actual memorial/burial? place.

The stairs leading up to Zuihoden.

The family crest of Date Masamune. (Two sparrows)

I think these were grave markers for the servants of Date Masamune, which I am not sure whether they were erected after those people died naturally, or if they all did seppuku when Date Masamune died.

The mountain of beer for Randy's birthday party, at the cabin. All but about three cans of this were finished, with the help of 28 people.

Playing with a manikin head.

The Japanese 2 class - after our last class!

Making dinner together with people from China, and I think Thailand and Korea. But maybe not. I can't remember.

Lee's going away party. We miss you Lee!

Part of the meal that Nishigaki had to make for me. (Because he lost a bet!)

Leaving for Hokkaido! If you look past the reflection, you can see the ferry!

But I think it is time for me to go to bed now! So I will continue updating tomorrow!

I promised to update...

2007-02-27T23:50:00.000-05:00

I promised some people that I would update today, but I got sick, have an awful headache, and feel like crap.

Will update soon. Really. I promise.

Hahaha...I really am bad at this...

2007-02-13T04:00:00.000-05:00

Well, I hope everyone has been doing well since Halloween...

Sorry I haven't updated since then. In fact, I hadn't even downloaded the pictures from my camera since then. To bring you up to date, I am now starting spring vacation - two whole glorius months of being able to sleep in! Oh, and go see Japan too. ^_^ Since it has been so long, and I can't even remember everything I have done since Halloween, I will proceed with a picture tour!

Okay, this is a picture of a bunch of desserts - the @Home group (group of Japanese kids from the college who like to hang out with foreignors and organize events) decided to have this Otyakai - which translates to tea party. We all got split up into groups, made a dessert, and when they were finished, we got to try everything with couple different types of tea. My group was assigned an Indian dessert, which in Japanese is pronounced baafi. This is about as close as you can get to saying barf in Japanese, and since the first step of making it was to curdle milk, it pretty much looked like it to start with. It eventually got better though - added coconut and some other stuff - and it wasn't too bad in the end.

The barfi is the whitish stuff in the front middle.

This picture I took during the break period in Japanese class - all four of the Koreans in the class fell asleep. And they were all in a row.

I found it funny at the time.

I guess it really isn't all that funny.

Ah, I'm easily amused.

Ah, we have now arrived at Thanksgiving! A bunch of American students decided that we wanted to have a Thanksgiving meal, and since the meeting room was already booked for later in the evening, it ended up being a Thanksgiving lunch.

I attempted to make Mom's amazing stuffing, but mine was not nearly as good as hers! And the celery was soooo expensive! $1 for a single stalk of celery!

But we did manage to find plenty of jellied cranberry sauce at the import store! So happy!

Since Japanese people apparently prefer chicken to turkey, turkey is all but impossible to find in Japan. But fish is pretty popular, so our main dish was grilled fish...

Appropriately Japanese I guess...

There was also a vegetable stew type thing with beef in it, so fish wasn't the only meat.

This is the shrimp that Chris tried to force me to eat. I decided at this point that I definitely do not eat anything that still has its eyes.

And it was really, really burnt.

The first of two days of nabe parties! (Nabe is the Japanese word for a cooking pot, so anytime you make a soup which involves throwing everything in a pot and cooking it together, it is called nabe.)

These are guys from my lab - starting from the left

Hirotsu - fourth year undergraduate student

Ichiki-san - I think he is post-Phd. Looks very young though

Hayashi-san - 2nd year masters, I think

Nishigaki-san - my tutor. But I still can't remember whether he is first or second year masters.

This was my first experience with a kotatsu, and I have been addicted ever since. Kotatsu is the type of table that we were sitting at - underneath the blanket is the second part of the table, which has a low powered electric heater built in. Then there is another blanket on the floor underneath the table. Since gas is very expensive in Japan, most houses aren't heated a whole lot, and people use a kotatsu instead. Pretty soon after this, I bought a kotatsu as well, and since there isn't too much space in my room, I ended up taking apart my bed, and pushing the mattress against the wall, and I now sleep on a futon on the floor, underneath my kotatsu. For my next birthday present, I already asked my parents to pay to have my kotatsu shipped back to the U.S. I love my kotatsu. ^_^

There was also drinking involved.

Nishigaki and Ichiki...

At the other nabe party (the next day), after we finished eating, for some reason, we started giving the one guy a makeover...

I think he suggested it too.

Tama really enjoyed the eyelash shaper things. Actually, I think they are pretty fun too.

The finished product!

Haha, kind of scary, but he was actually kind of pretty!

Okay, well, I think I am done updating for tonight! I promise to update again tomorrow!

Sorry, it's been forever!

2006-10-31T03:10:00.000-05:00

Okay, okay, I am sorry, I have not posted in forever. I swear, I am getting internet soon! It just doesn't feel right to go to my lab, and spend the entire time there writing emails and blogging while everyone else works. But then, when I get up to go see what people are doing, they have a tendency to stop doing any work, and instead start teaching me drinking words in japanese, or how to make rubber band guns, or we play baseball instead...

See, this is the rubber band gun...

And this is the origami...

On the 18th we had something called an imonikai, which translates to 'potato boiling party'. It amounts to going to the riverside, building fires and making soup with potatoes in it...

It is apparently a tradition in the prefecture that I am in (Miyagi) and the neighboring prefecture (Yamagata). There is a rivalry between the two over where the tradition started, and whether the Yamagata style soup (soy sauce based) or the Miyagi style (miso based) is the better way.

I liked the Miyagi style better, although apparently the Yamagata style wasn't made properly, and had to be doctored a bit, as seen below...

Adding more dashi to the Yamagata style...

So that was from about 12:00 to 2:30 - from there I returned to the dorm - by bike! One of the guys in my lab, Okada san, gave me his old bike, so I spent about an hour or so de-rusting it when I got back to the dorm, then got a shower, and met my lab in downtown Sendai to celebrate the promotion of one of the professors in the lab to a senior research position (I think).

This celebration involved a two hour nomihodai, which translates to 'all you can drink'. And yes, that is alcoholic drinks - nomihodai appear to be very popular in Japan. Or least very popular among some of the guys in the JYPE exchange program...

What is really funny, is that some of the guys in the lab turned completely red after they started drinking...

After the nomihodai was over, I got to go to karaoke with a bunch of the younger guys in my lab.

I think they could sing in English much better than I could sing in Japanese...

But it was definitely fun to go after everyone had been drinking, because then nobody really cared how they sounded...

Or how bad I sounded...

By the way, it was really hard to get up for my Japanese class at 7:30 the next morning...
(not because of drinking, just being up late - I still don't drink that much!)

But I did recently go to a club for the first time! And get this - I actually danced! But I didn't have my camera with me so there is no proof - ha! That was on this past Saturday, at a club called Bar Isn't It?. A lot of foreigners go there, so they had a Halloween party! I got in for free since I wore a costume (I was a pirate again this year, although it just wasn't the same, since I didn't have my hat or sword...although I don't think they would have appreciated the sword...). I got to sleep about 4 in the morning, then got up at 10 for the international festival that started at 11 - there were tons of different types of food, and some of the performers were pretty good - I also got to try doing tea ceremony!

Luckily the weather was great as well - it has actually been incredibly warm here so far, at least during the day.

However, since they don't have daylight savings time here, it gets dark about 4:30 or 5:00, and it gets dark really fast! Then it is pretty cold - which is really bad, because you don't want to have to carry a jacket when you are climbing a mountain in 65 to 70 degree weather with the sun shining down on you, but you really want it when you are riding your bike back down the mountain in 45 to 50 degree weather at night!

Here I am doing tea ceremony at the festival - I think it was a very much simplified version of the tea ceremony, since it only took a couple of minutes!

The tea was pretty good - it was bitter, but they served sweets before so it tasted really good!

It really made me want some green tea ice cream though! Apparently green tea ice cream is made from the same powder that they use to make the tea in tea ceremony!

In this picture, from left to right, is:
Akira (he is Nana's conversation partner, who I met at the second imonikai that I went to)
Me
Hiroko (she works in the international exchange office - her kimono is amazing!)
Eric - also in the JYPE program, from the US
Nicholas - another JYPE guy, from France

Now since we had gone to the club the night before, and it was a Halloween party, everyone had worn costumes so that they could get in for free - and one of the guys who wore one of the more interesting outfits got locked out of his room, and could not change out of his costume until later the next day.

Actually he probably could have borrowed clothes from some of the other guys, but I think they purposely did not offer because this was just so much funnier...

I think I especially enjoyed this, since he is one of the guys who delights in making fun of me...

This is David, there is another guy Chris - they like to constantly invite me to have threesomes and so forth because they think my reaction is funny...

And Chris found out that I live on the first floor, so he always comes and knocks on my window, most commonly when he is drunk...

And this was all brought to a climax on Saturday night. I planned to call my parents at 9pm here, 8am there - but I left my computer at the lab, so I couldn't take it to the internet cafe to call. My friend Lee let me use his computer, since he already has internet set up in the dorm. So there I am sitting at the computer in Lee's room, talking to my mom, my dad, and my younger sister, when there is a knock on the door, and Chris and David walk into the room only in towels, carrying beers (something called a beer shower has become popular in the international house drinking circles - I don't know the details, and don't think I really need to). They then proceed to place the beers under their towels, and start poking me with them - and yes, this skype conversation was using a webcam, so my parents could see this. During the chaos as I was trying to get them to stop, they realized that I was actually talking to my parents, not friends like they thought. They left then. And Chris sent his regards to my mom.

And they have repeatedly said that this is going to continue for the rest of the year.

It's going to be a long year.

Yay! Now I can edit my blog!

2006-10-06T02:00:00.000-04:00

Okay, so sorry I haven't been posting very faithfully to this blog - the problem has been this - when I went to the internet cafe or the media center and used the internet there, the pages I had to use to edit the blog were in Japanese. I can't read very much Kanji. It was pretty much all kanji. So there I was attempting to write an entry - which was easy enough to write - until I got to the part where I wanted to post it. From that point, it was all about guessing which buttons meant what.

But now I am in my lab, and I have internet here! And the website comes up in English! Yay!

But since I am in my lab, I should be working on reading up on carbon nanotubes, and plasmas. So I will talk to you all later!

I love this internet cafe!

2006-10-02T02:29:00.000-04:00

Right now I am at this really cool internet cafe - for about 410 yen (about $4) I get an hour of internet use, all the drinks (non-alcoholic of course) that I want, access to a massive collection of manga - you can also borrow video games, etc., etc. There are showers, bathrooms, sofas etc. In my own booth I have a huge leather desk chair, a computer, telephone, slippers, a foot rest, desk light - this is amazing. I am drinking a cappucino right now. This morning we had the placement test for Japanese - it was hard! I think I should be able to get into the class I need though. Also, I have heard that it is pretty easy to get moved to the next class if you think you should be. I am having a great time - the food is really good, and cheap too. The most I have spent on a meal so far was 1000 yen (less than $10), and that was ordering the most expensive thing on the menu! I tried the cafeteria at the school today, also pretty good, and very cheap - for 288 yen (about $2.50) I got miso soup, a grilled fish, a bowl of rice, and green tea. So far I have only tried cooking for myself once. I bought what I thought was an instant mix for miso soup, but it turned out to be only the seaweed and onions and stuff that you ADD to miso soup. I also made chicken with a pepper sauce of some kind, but I had scraped out all the pepper at the bottom of the packet, which I don`t think you were supposed to do - because it was REALLY peppery. On the other hand the salad dressing that I found is really good. Some sort of avocado dressing I think. Trying to cook in a country where you can`t read labels isn`t exactly the easiest thing to do, I have found. There are a lot of international student here - apparently this year there are actually a lot more Americans than usual - I think there are 19 Americans, someone said, when normally there are about 10. For the Europeans, there are four from Sweden I think, 2 from Germany, 2 from France (both named Nicholas), and I think there was one girl from somewhere else, I can`t remember where right now. This morning I walked to school for the test - it took about 45 minutes (with a stop at the 7-11 for this amazing hot lemon drink that I found in Tokyo - kind of like hot lemonade, but without the sourness). The walk wasn`t so bad except for the rain - I am going to try and find rainboots once I get out of here. And probably go to the 100 yen store again - everybody has been making fun of me becuase I buy so much stuff from there - the first day I was here a whole group of us went down there, and I bought the most out of the entire group - then the next day, we did foreigner`s registration, set up bank accounts, etc. with the help of a group called Group Mori, and another one called @Home. When they offered different options of placed they could take us, I was the only one who needed to go the 100 yen store again! That is where it began. My addiction has become widespread knowledge nowAnd I am going again today...I met my research advisor briefly when we had our JYPE orientation, but my first meeting with him is on Wednesday - until then, I don`t actually have anything I have to do tomorrow - I don`t have any classes scheduled, so I am free to explore Sendai! Or fill out more forms that need to get done...Choices...

In Japan!

2006-09-27T03:33:00.001-04:00

Hey to everybody who might be wondering-

I am now in Japan, and I am loving it. The city of Sendai is really cool, it has both city parts and more rural parts, so it is the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, it will take about 2-3 weeks to set up the internet at the dorms, and there is no wireless on the campus. And the computer I am at now is limited to 40 minutes, with lots of people waiting to get in line. When I get to the school computer lab, I will write another longer email, and will post pictures once I get internet at the dorm.

For now,　さよなら！

Not in Japan yet...

2006-09-14T00:30:00.000-04:00

This is Laura Fegely. I just finished my third (pre-junior) year at Drexel University, and will be studying abroad in Japan for a year at Tohoku University. I am setting up this blog, frankly, because it is much easier than sending out twenty thousand emails every month to let everyone know what I am up to. Since I leave for Japan the 23rd, this is my first entry...

Sooo much cleaning....
I have been cleaning for the past three days straight. I have thrown away so much stuff, yet somehow, I don't really have much more room than when I started...

As for Japan, I should get my visa by tomorrow (which means I should really go to sleep, so that I am awake for tomorrow...I mean today...). It will be added to my stamp from Turks and Caicos. Sadly, my stamp from Ecuador is in my old passport, so I won't have that one.

Anyway, since Nana (the other girl from Drexel who is going to Tohoku) knows some people in Japan, we are apparently going to get our haircut by a famous stylist in Harajuku (which is in Tokyo) when we get there, and for only about $5. I find it both random and entirely amusing that I already have a haircut appointment in Japan. It's so great.

My tasks for today were to set up Skype, Flickr, and my blog. Obviously, I accomplished at least the blog part. I also did the other parts. Skype is pretty nice I have to say. I still need to sign up for a phone number for SkypeIn. With that I get a 717 area code phone number, and my parents can call that number from their landline or cell phones in the US, and that will call my computer. That means that they will only be charged the local rate for the phone call. Also, if they get Skype, they can call my Japanese cell phone number for the low low rate of $.023 per minute. Not a bad deal. If people want to know my Skype number just drop me an email and I'll tell you. I have found that I really like to talk on Skype, because the headset means that I have two hands free to do other stuff, like typing on the computer, etc. Not that I actually have the multitasking skills to do that....

On Sunday I get to go visit my brother and sister at Penn State! I'm so excited! I'm glad I get to see where they will be before I go - I think I will be less homesick if I can envision where they are when I am talking to them. Is that strange? Ah, doesn't really matter if it is.

Anyway, time for bed, and time to end this boring blog. I'll try to write again when I have something more interesting to talk about. ^_^