More Pictures!

From the top: Ikebana, the view of Tachimachi coast after a beautiful hike, the bikes my friends and rode around Onuma lake on, and the French Trappistine Convent 20 minutes from my house.

Sorry for the silence...here are some pictures!

Various activities:

Jomon archaeological site visit
Kimono/Yukata wearing class
A strange cookie I received from my host mom...
Elementary school festival with my friend Kate and her host family

つけもの and my room

I met my host family this past weekend... Quite an adventure. So far I'm enjoying the homestay, although it was a bit of a shock to discover that they don't have internet. I suppose this is my chance to experience a wireless world, but I believe I'm currently going through withdrawal.

On Saturday I helped my host mother make つけもの, or a type of Japanese pickled vegetable. We cut up the giant pile of...something (maybe similar to rhubarb?), boiled it with salt, and then soaked it with kombu (seaweed) and sugar.

Also, you can see my room!

Hakodate Day 2

The view from my school, and Hakodate at night from the top of the ropeway.

Hakodate Day 1

First day of the program - placements tests and time to walk around! Hopefully more text to come soon...

Pearl Harbor and the North Shore

Last weekend I went on a field trip (the last one of orientation!) to the Arizona memorial (aka Pearl Harbor) and the North Shore. It was interesting visiting the Arizona memorial, although I have to say I was turned off by the number of people posing in front of the names of the dead.

And now I live in Hawaii!

So, about a week ago I moved to the lovely state of Hawaii, where I'll be living for the next two years while I get my Master's degree in Philosophy (and Japanese). I'm living on the East West Center campus at UH Manoa with about 500 other students from the Asia-Pacific region. I think there are about 150 new students, and together we represent 42 countries.
Yesterday we took a field trip to the Kahana valley, where we cleaned trash from the beach (there wasn't much, but we did find an old carpet), then were fed a traditional Hawaiian lunch (rice with poi, which is smushed up taro, which is like a sweet potato, pork, chicken with taro leaves, pineapple, bananas, and coconut gelly-like things) and weeded a taro patch.