I Have Arrived

Hello everyone,

I should note that all of my time referents from here on will be in Japan time. Right now it's 6:30am, and I arrived yesterday around 1:30pm. The jet lag didn't hit that hard; I was extremely tired by 10pm, but isn't that somewhat normal? Anyway, I haven't done much except go for a walk through Shinjuku and Shibuya to dinner and squeeze in some practice with Japanese. It was still surprisingly sufficient for everyday life. I have been to these areas of Tokyo before, but I don't recall seeing so many sex shops, and I'm not sure who their targets are, because they had advertisements entirely in English outside. Attached are some pictures which show the view from our hotel for orientation. The first picture shows a relatively famous government building with interesting architecture. The others are just for show. Drop a comment just to say hi if you please. I'll update again soon. In the meantime, enjoy what's left of Sunday, America!

A Note on My Feline Profile Picture

While I'm on the kick of study abroad nostalgia, here's a little sharing on the stray cats of Japan. If you are my friend on Facebook, I have an entire photo album dedicated to them called 日本の野良猫. Anyway, stray cats were one of my best friends in Japan. They spoke the same language as the ones at home, and they were always very friendly, usually surprisingly clean, and never gave me rabies. If I am not mistaken, rabies is incredibly rare in Japan. So I was coming home to my host family's house at around 7 one morning after an all-night karaoke outing, an awesome activity to try out. The cat in my picture was there at the bus stop and approached me as if it had been waiting. We became friends and I began to take some pictures even though I really just wanted to sleep. The final picture was taken as the cat looked up at me through some flowers, and I was convinced that the photo was so nice that if you Googled "cat flowers", you could not find a prettier one. So yes, I took that picture, and I like cats.
Another story? Why yes, I have one. My friend, Betsy, and I took a weekend trip to Kyoto while the rest of our study abroad peers went to Hakone. It was expensive, rainy, and completely worth it. One highlight (for me, not sure about Betsy's view) was a cat we found out in the streets of Ginza. After looking for a nice dinner for our final night there and almost failing due to it being around 8 or 9PM, a man from a restaurant approached us and we went in to a bizarre, mirror-lined hallway leading to a small, quiet eating area. It had a very modern feel to it and the food and XYZs (a cocktail) were pretty good. Walking around afterwards led us to a kitten digging through some trash. (S)he got frightened and ran underneath a vending machine, of which there are probably 50,000,000 in Japan. We could not coax it out and settled on going to a convenience store, which are also plentiful, to find food. I explained to the clerk that I wanted food for a stray cat, and I did this with great excitement because I only recently learned the vocabulary for such a situation. He began to suggest food as Betsy triumphantly held up a can of tuna. It was settled. We brought the tuna back, set it in front of the vending machine, and waited. The cat meowed for a bit, clearly annoyed that (s)he could smell food but was afraid to get it. Finally (s)he ate with voracity, clearing most of the can in a few minutes while we just sat and watched. If people pity helpless animals and babies, helpless baby animals are probably the most pitiful sight imaginable. At least this one got some food that day, and maybe now the stray cats of Japan tell tales of the generosity of Americans to each other.

These are some pictures from my previous stay in Japan for study abroad. Expect these kinds of posts in the future. Top: basically a graveyard for destroyed vehicles. Underneath a bridge, people trashed their bikes and motorbikes because they are difficult to get rid of. Middle: I am about to consume a Pepsi Ice Cucumber, a soda laughed at in the U.S. though nobody knew what it was actually like. I thought it was pretty good and tasted more like melon than cucumber (and nothing like Pepsi). Bottom: possibly the best aquarium in the world and that's not a lie. It's in Okinawa, and for scale, those are people and the large beast in the bottom center of the tank is a manta ray. The huge ones are whale sharks. Click pictures to see 9 megapixels of glory.

Inaugural Post

To Whomever It May Concern,

You have either stumbled upon this blog by wondering what someone named Chris is doing, or I contacted you and let you know that I now have a site set up for updates on my soon-to-be life in Japan. I graduated from Lafayette College in 2008 with a double major in English and Asian Studies. I was accepted for the position of an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) for the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Program. I will be leaving on July 26th and will move into an apartment in Kawanabe, a small rural town in Kagoshima Prefecture, an area at the southern end of Japan's southernmost main island, Kyushu. That said, I would like to lay out a rubric of what I intend this blog to be. If you have ever read a blog before, you are likely aware that they often end up to be outlets for pent up emotion and venting. Instead, I intend this blog to be entirely for you.
I will be living in Japan. Each day is likely to provide me with interesting anecdotes that I can share with you. Even more interesting, however, are the little things that I won't even think about that you may wonder about (e.g. "Is this true or a stereotype?" or "Are heated toilet seats creepy?"). So I will post text, pictures, and videos as I see fit to give little glimpses into what Chris is doing. Moreover, I want to hear from you. If you've lived in Japan and want to know what I'm doing for Golden Week or if you met me once because I wrote an impromptu poem about you at a W.O.R.D.S. performance and want to know what raw horse tastes like, go. Ask. I will be busy with a full-time job and who knows how many other activities, but I will try to be vigilant in providing everyone with any information they'd like. I will be living without a number of the everyday distractions that made my college life so memorable but also, in all honesty, less productive than it could have been. Though I try to have no expectations of my life there until it begins, I feel that starting almost completely anew (with hardly any familiar belongings and not one familiar face) will allow me to build a new schedule. And part of that belongs here. It sounds ambitious and maybe a little unrealistically so, but I will do my best. In the end, I want to keep communicating. So let's do that.