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Bryan'S JOURNAL

March 2005

As I felt the plane wheels hit the ground, an inexplicable burst of excitement rushed through my body and refused to leave for the next three hours. I couldn’t stop smiling. During my first year at CC, I determined that I wanted to study abroad in a country that was both far away and one that I had little to no knowledge about.

I chose Japan. Now, in my third year at Colorado College, I am here as planned! I have been in Tokyo a little over two months now, and every day still feels like the first. The city is overflowing with buildings of all different heights, lengths, and widths. I don’t see much vegetation unless I am visiting a temple, shrine, or public garden. These areas are usually accompanied by a sign stating that they are “Beautification Enforcement Areas” and violators will be prosecuted. Everyone seems to be environmentally conscious, so the most litter I see is a cigarette butt here and there, which is surprising because there are no public trash cans on the street.

Tokyo reminds me of New York, but with much cleaner streets and friendlier people during rush hour. “I Love New Tokyo” signs can be seen all over this dynamic city. Any place I could possibly want to go is easily accessible thanks to the convenient train and subway systems, which I also take to get to class everyday.

Official classes at Waseda University don’t start until April, so I have been taking part in an Intensive Language Session to further my knowledge and comprehension of the Japanese language. I currently have class from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. every Monday thru Thursday, and a cultural excursion every Friday. This can be meeting for class at 5 a.m. to visit Tsukiji (a fish market) or noon to attend Kabuki Theatre.

Our last cultural trip was to Kamakura. We had the opportunity to visit a few temples and go inside the Dai Butsu (Great Buddha) Kamakura. The Dai Butsu is a 500- year-old statue made of bronze and copper. At 13.35 meters tall and 121 tons, it’s huge! A few of us went inside the Dai Butsu, sat down and made ourselves comfortable, and then engaged in interesting conversation about the history of the Buddha and the Kamakura Period. I really enjoyed visiting the Dai Butsu because I had never seen anything like it, and the amazing thing is it is not the largest Buddha in Japan. One of my professors said there is an even bigger one that we may end up going to see!

Late morning classes give me an hour to commute to school every day. I ride the trains in the morning rush hour when every one is going to work or school, and it’s crazy! The train is packed full of people! When it stops, people have to push their way out to avoid missing their stop and then people push their way on to avoid missing the train. The trains can get so packed that you have no choice but to get pretty up close and personal to who-ever you’re standing next to. The train line actually has monitors responsible for pushing people into the train so that the train doors can close! It’s so unlike anything I’ve experienced before that I actually think it’s pretty cool. I just listen to my i-Pod while studying for my vocabulary and kanji tests on the way to and from class. I am interested to see what my commute will be like when the official spring semester begins and classes start an hour earlier.

I have had a great academic experience so far, and I am really enjoying my home stay experience as well. My host family is great and has gone out of their way to ensure that I am comfortable and feel at home. I have a host mother and father in their 60’s that have more energy than me! Their two sons are married, working, and living in Osaka, so we are a three-person family. My host mother speaks a little English, and I only studied Japanese for two blocks before Winter Break, so when I first arrived we communicated with a lot of gestures and blank stares. After two months of living with them my language comprehension has improved drastically. On the other hand, my speaking still needs work. I make several mistakes while speaking and am often corrected, but I love laughing at myself and with my host parents when they have no idea what I’m saying or if I accidentally said something completely different from what I meant to say.

Despite the language barrier (which is hardly ever a problem now), we have a lot of fun together going out to dinner at a new restaurant in a different area of Tokyo once a week, visiting their favorite spots, and exploring the famous sites in the city together on the weekends when my host father is off work. A memorable trip to the Tokyo Tower took us all the way up to the 45 th floor of the tower to witness an incredible view of almost all of the city and the beautiful Mt. Fuji! After laying eyes on Mt. Fuji, I decided that I am going to climb it before I leave Japan. (The view was amazing but after having an earthquake a few days earlier, I wasn’t too comfortable on the 45 th floor of any building and chose not to stay atop the tower very long.)

I actually happened to be in class during the earthquake, engaged in listening and dictation exercises with my professor. She would say a sentence out loud and I would have to write down what I heard and read each sentence back to her. While doing this exercise, she said a word that I didn’t know. The word was “jishin.” I wasn’t sure what it meant or what she was saying. Keeping my head down, I asked her to repeat it so that I could write it down.

She repeated: “Jishin, jishin!”

Writing the word down, I repeated, “Jishin,” in a puzzled tone (questioning if that was what she really said) because whatever it meant, it didn’t make sense with the sentence I had written down so far.

Then I asked her to repeat it once more and she yelled, “No, jishin, jishin!” While she was yelling, I looked up to see that the room was shaking and suddenly felt the ground under us moving. “Jishin” is the Japanese word for earthquake. She was trying to tell me that there was an earthquake the whole time, and I was busy trying to complete the exercise. I was so focused on the dictation exercise that I didn’t feel the ground shake until after looking up, observing the quaking room, and then feeling the ground under me. Within the next few minutes, the earthquake stopped, we looked at each other, and burst out laughing.

I have done a lot of laughing here in Tokyo. So far I have been fortunate enough to meet the nicest and most interesting people. Now I am looking forward to spending spring break in Kyoto where I plan to do some serious sightseeing with a group of friends. I am interested to see how Japanese life is different in a smaller city than Tokyo, but right now I am definitely enjoying the liveliness of the big city—I love New Tokyo!

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