Journals from Abroad

Hey, Hey, Hey,

I’m in my room! Again! How fun!

So this won’t be long, it’s just a brief update on the happenings of Coronavirus.

Okay so, coronavirus is in Japan (obviously) and there are (I think) over 800 cases and counting. “Scary!” you say, “why don’t you come home?” you follow with. In response, I simply don’t want to. I am personally unconcerned. I think the panic in the United States is both laughable and concerning because all it’s doing in the US (and internationally) is allowing people to be racist, and the panic is causing more problems than solving them.

*GASP* “I am not racist! I have a friend who’s Asian.”

Chill homie, I’m not calling YOU racist, I’m calling your discriminatory actions racist. If you’re in the US you have great (extremely expensive) healthcare and most importantly, most Americans just have ACCESS to healthcare professionals. Anyone can have corona, just because it started in Wuhan doesn’t mean you need to be rude to anyone who looks Asian (this isn’t just a rant, this is happening to my friends). The coronavirus is a flu. You can’t eradicate it, but you can be healthy.

Here is Japan I am unconcerned because:

• I have had swine flu before. Was bad, don’t want to do it again, but I figured it out.
• I am a healthy person. Try eating healthier, getting lots of rest, I cannot stress the importance of hydration enough, and working out.
• The onsens here are genius for preventing illness. You just go to the hot pools or rooms and burn any diseases away

Over the weekend, the Japanese government asked people to stay inside so they could do an extra count of cases, but that genuinely did not stop anyone and everyone from taking that as a “the world is burning down” and bought all of the toilet paper and ramen.

As a side note, I kind of like Japanese panic. If you just came here as a tourist, you would never think that people are becoming concerned. Because there’s this idea that people need to be polite here, there is rarely any verbal exclusion. With that, I’ve talked to a woman who’s in her sixties and she says it’s worse for her. Older people have a higher rate of getting coronavirus (and men are more likely to die — there’s a fact for ya), and this woman said that she coughed on a bus (she was wearing a mask) and someone in front of her got up and moved away. Now, that was just her situation, and I haven’t coughed in public in a while, but I’ve noticed more discrimination towards Japanese people from Japanese people than any other demographic.

just briefly on masks, there are two schools of thought:

“WEAR A MASK ALL THE TIME IF YOU DON’T YOU DIE” and

“masks don’t do anything for corona so why would I even bother?”

Choose your fight folks! Don’t be discriminatory (no matter where you’re from) and please be healthy.

Until next time,

Isis

Okay everyone I have to be up in three hours and you need some information so let’s go!

To finalize my road trip let’s start with Yamanashi. Getting to Yamanashi from Tottori was really crazy because it was supposed to be a 7-8 hour drive that quickly turned into late night, sleep deprived chaos. This all began with Emi’s car navigation malfunctioning and taking us the wrong way for four hours. The way the road trip has been informally structured is that two people will sleep at a time so everyone is rested (that’s not exactly followed all the time). Emi and Marina figured this out and switched to phone navigation, but when we switched drivers with an hour and a half left to go we didn’t communicate and turned the phone navigation off and fell asleep (mind you we’re still on two hours of sleep). We woke up in Kawasaki, 20 minutes away from Emi’s house and 2 hours away from our hostel.

We then had to turn around and drive all the way back to Yamanashi where we almost got hit by a truck (long story) and were put in potentially dangerous, vehicle-involving near incidents along the way. Aside from this, I have been reading a spiritual self-help book that Emi brought, and all of us have been practicing living in the Now. Now meaning our every moment, and living life where if we decide that we are going to be lazy (for example) you are fully lazy and not lazy but also thinking about what you should be doing. Do something or don’t; and if you can’t do it then, don’t bother thinking about it because it’s interrupting your current ability to enjoy everything you are doing in the moment. It has kind of been the theme of this trip which I really appreciate and am glad to have brought into my life.

If you remember from one of my first posts, we took Alecia to the same place I went last time where you can see Fuji. Unlike last time where it was cloudy, this time the sky was quite clear and it was easy to see Fuji-san at the temple and everywhere we went. Afterwards we went to an onsen to see Fuji outside and relax which we managed to do for three hours (super relaxing, I am addicted to onsens as in I’m going tomorrow). Then we went to eat houto, a flat, udon like noodle with lots of veggies, where we all got food babies and then drove home to Emi’s house. I finally got to meet Emi’s family which was so fun and explained so much about who Emi is as a person, and met her dog ichi-go (15, whose name both means strawberry and the discounted price they got him at lol) and prepared to take Alecia to the airport at 4 a.m.

Now on to Alecia.

To start, I forgot a lot of the good Linfield has done for me. Sometimes it’s hard to study abroad because your head is so full of what you don’t have at home rather than what you have. Amongst the Linfield community there are about five people I see taking with me throughout the rest of my life and one of those is Alecia. Alecia and I are both the same and total opposites. We have the same morals and beliefs but different approaches, and even when we’re agreeing we still manage to argue. But as a whole Alecia makes me a better person, reminds me of who I am, and always pushes me to change for me and no one else. She has quickly become one of my greatest supporters and vice versa, and having her in Japan made me realize the importance of having someone like Alecia around. I’ve realized that while I have had an amazing time and met truly some of my best friends for life, it is so important to have the people you love around you.

It was interesting bringing both of my worlds together and seeing how they fit, understanding the chaos of my best friend and how that matches with my own. Alecia being here reminded me of the importance of taking pictures (even though she hates them) because you want to save precious memories, the thrill of seeing a country for the first time, the nervousness of traveling alone — I had to FaceTime her at the station while she was in Ikebukuro trying to find her way to her hostel and talk her down from crying, and she then returned the favor when I broke down in a Starbucks because of how overwhelmed I felt by life. I have learned that while I don’t cry in front of a lot of people, I can cry in front of Alecia. She brings stability to unstable situations, and although she doubts herself I think she’s perfect at being in foreign countries.

As I am writing this, as it is now tomorrow, Alecia is currently waiting for the counters to open at the airport. She goes off on her own study abroad journey today. Saying goodbye was really hard for Emi, Marina and I, but we left each other with the understanding that we will see each other in Alaska, as it’s now Alecia’s turn to show us her home.

While Alecia was here we had many interesting conversations about how she felt to be in Asia. Alecia and I share a similar relationship with identity, as I grew up feeling like I didn’t fit into either the stereotypical lives of “fully” black or “fully” white families, and Alecia is ethnically Asian but grew up within a predominately white community and therefore feels like she’s not Asian enough. This changed my perception of my own ability to walk through Asia, as the treatment the two of us received was very different: she would be spoken to in Japanese and me English immediately, and the look on people’s faces when she responded in English was very insightful to immediate perceptions (not to sound accusatory but it is just interesting to see how Alecia adapted to that).

Actual adventures with Alecia:

I break down Alecia’s visit in three different parts, one for each week. First we have our adventures with Emi and Marina at Emi’s apartment. This mini-insight in how we would live together was so much fun because we laid out futons on the floor in the living room so we were always together, and this was the general break down:

1. wake up from 10-12 ***Alecia was jet lagged so she would always wake up at 7 or 8 and then go back to sleep and Marina was looking for an apartment or had plans with friends so she would wake up at 10 and be out by 11***
2. make “breakfast” usually something healthy around 12
3. have second breakfast directly after — usually ramen
4. take a nap because eating was exhausting and we deserve it
5. wake up and leave by 4pm to go do some fun adventure
   1. Alecia had a list of places she wanted to visit in Tokyo so we went there:
      1. we first went to Akihabara which was pretty short because even though I was the only one that has been there, it’s not very interesting if you don’t like anime or maid cafes. ***I bought a Star Wars sticker and we saw some creepy guy talking to a maid on the street who was advertising her store**
      2. repeat steps 1-5 but 5.1.1 is now Harajuku. We just walked through because it’s a lot of shopping and we saw the Lolita culture (hyper feminine outfits) and then took Alecia to Meiji-jingu to pray at the shrine.

         

      3. that night we met up with Zeno and Rei and went and got dinner and then got Takoyaki in Shibuya before almost missing the last train and having to sprint our way through Shibuya in order to make it (very chaotic, very fun in my opinion, Alecia thinks differently hehe).
      4. the next day we went and got dinner in Shin-Okubo (KoreaTown). After walking around a bit and seeing some shops, we went and ate our weight in food and talked a bit about what Korea might be like for Alecia. I tried to answer her questions as best I could, but at the end of the day you can’t ever be prepared to be in another country for a long period of time.
      5. not to always talk about Onsens, but we went to Yokohama to go to a really cool onsen where they have lot of different rooms of varying heat where you can fall asleep for hours and just purge your body of any stress or toxins. Alecia loved it except the 87 degree Celsius room where she claims she was going to pass out. The spa also had little capsules where you can just nap and a reading area. It’s basically a fun place to take naps in different places (which is extremely under appreciated).

         

      6. TeamLab! Go there! totally worth it but also make sure you have hours to explore. It’s really dark inside and you have no map and the art changes so you have to keep going back to different to rooms to get the true experience. My favorite part was when you got to color an animal or flower and they scan it into the room so your art becomes part of the artwork. I was also jealous of the kids section where they could jump on trampolines and effect the universe by jumping on a star and destroying it and then following the atoms and molecules.  20/10 GO THERE!

The second part of Alecia’s trip is the time that she spent with Minami, a girl who studied abroad at Linfield our sophomore year. I didn’t spend time with her during that time because I had plans that week so I’ll let her tell you of her adventures, but I had to say goodbye to friends. The semester ended and all my friends that were staying for six months had to go home. It was really sad because the best way to have new hope for the world is to talk to the people in the dorm and remind yourself that there are some truly intelligent, empathetic, genuine human beings all over the world. Goodbyes are bittersweet because some people you know that realistically you will never see them again, and it’s really hard to think about. Anyway, I spent time with some truly amazing people, played dungeons and dragons, and learned how to make fettuccine sauce from scratch.

The third part is the road trip up until Alecia left. The day before we went on the road trip, Alecia came out to dinner with my friends from the dorm. It was fun to see all of them getting along and my friend Serena turned to me and went “you guys are the same person!” because Alecia brought up toxic masculinity hehe. Everyone loved her and not that I need it but it’s nice to know that the people you care also care about each other :). Road trip wise, you already got that information, but I will say it was the best trip of my life so far. I don’t know if I’m going to be living in Japan in the future, but I do think that Japan has created some extremely amazing experiences for me to have, and for that I am thankful.

Thank you so much for following along so far, I know I can be a little abstract at times.

I bid you adieu until the aliens attack,

Isis

****I have gotten 2 hours and 45 minutes of sleep within the past two days, forgive me****

AAAAANNND WE’RE BACK BABY!

This time we’re heading toward Osaka.

First, we went to an onsen in Osaka to have a bath because we decided to sleep in the car (because when Emi and Marina were in Washington we decided to sleep in my moms car that was parked in her driveway on our way back from Canada as a joke and now it’s a tradition). The onsen was really fun and I did this weird stem thing for my back in one of the pools and I felt like I electrocuted my whole body — like couldn’t feel my whole right side, kind of crazy. Apparently it’s supposed to help you physically, but I think it ruined me psychologically. I will get back to you on that in the long run. After almost killing Alecia and Marina in the steam room (because they don’t do well with heat), we went to a salt room and exfoliated our whole bodies and then jumped in the cold pool to make our skin smooth. I am only going this in depth because I feel the need to mention that three years ago when I first met these girls, I did not see us having a casual conversation while being naked.

This whole side adventure is all on the way to Nara, a prefecture that has deer that you can feed. I was really excited to do this as well as Emi and Marina, but Alecia feeds deer all the time since she lives in Alaska (odd Snow White flex but okay) and was less impressed by the idea — until she was highly entertained by the deer biting us if we didn’t feed them fast enough. She was also kind enough to teach us how to feed them so they didn’t nip our fingers, and I would like to say another first in my life is reprimanding a deer for biting me.

Example: *deer bites my sweatshirt* Me: “Hey! Stop that! That is rude and won’t get you food! Life doesn’t work that way!” ***DEER LISTENS AND STOPS***

Like what the heck? What kind animals! They even bow to you if you bow to them — it’s an interesting cultural conditioning.  🙂

道の駅 is a place where we stayed, the name literally translates to “road station” but they are basically rest stops where people can sleep in their cars if they are too tired to drive or truck drivers for example (or us — poor college students that prefer spending money on food than lodgings). Logically, sleeping in the car was a bad idea; the car was too small and my blanket was too little, my legs were too long, and we all were freezing. But the adventure was fun and entertaining as a whole 12/10 don’t regret.

After Nara we drove to Kyoto! The first thing we did was hike up to the top of the Inari-San. The hike wasn’t hard and was about an hour, it was funny because there wasn’t any view of the city from the top that we could see (there was an observation deck at the top but it was closed because we decided to do a night hike). During the day there are shops open so you can eat snacks while you walk, but I preferred the night walk because of the quiet and the wind through the trees. It was very peaceful, but kind of scary if you don’t like the forest, or wild monkeys and boars.

Maiko-san is a similar word for geisha. There’s a street in Kyoto, that is predominantly for Maiko-san, but it is still hard to see them. They are only seen while they are working, and are looking to maintain their privacy so they don’t come out very often. The girls speak differently (in a very old Kyoto dialect) act differently, and live in a dorm with other girls who are also Maiko-san. The girls either choose to go into this rigid life, or they are born into a family of Maiko-san and follow their family’s footsteps. We didn’t see anything while we were in Kyoto, but I thought it was interesting that this tradition managed to stay healthy and maintained while Japan globalized.

The next day we went to see Kinkaku-ji, a bamboo forest and another temple,  Byodo-in, and had matcha in a restaurant that’s been open for 500 years. Kinkaku-ji and the bamboo forest were very brief stops, both are famous but as a whole very tourist trap-y in my opinion. The fun thing about Kinkaku-ji is that I went there when I was 13 years old on my first exchange to Japan! Matcha was supposedly created here in this prefecture and this shop has been run by the same family, in the same shop, with no separate locations, for 16 generations. The 13th generation was a tea ambassador to the United States, and presented a tea ceremony in the USA.

Also, in Japan there are nation wide symbols to represent various different things in maps, highway signs, etc. The symbol for tea is this shops emblem that they have used since the start of their business. The day we went to Kinkaku-ji and Byodo-in, by chance we met up with Yusa, a student that went to Linfield my freshman year. He lives in Osaka but texted the Japanese student group chat that he wanted to hang out with someone that day and we were nearby! We met him at Byodo-in and since he has a reputation for knowing everything he taught us about the meaning of Byodo-in (it’s a physical representation of heaven for the Gods) and he also brought us to the matcha place (they still make their matcha today). Afterwards we gave him a ride home to Osaka (by the way, Osaka was ever on the list to visit because Emi said there was nothing to do haha but this would be our second time going in three days) because it was on the way to our next stop, Tottori. In Osaka, Yusa took us to his favorite restaurants where we had okinomiyaki, yakisoba, takoyaki, some fried thing I forgot the name of, then we went to a shrine (that’s famous for being covered in lots of moss??) and they had lots of cats around!

After that we dropped Yusa home and drove on the highways to Tottori. Tottori is famous for having sand dunes which we were excited to joke about being in Dubai in photos, but it ended up snowing really hard so now it’s all covered in snow. It’s really cold here because this area is in a valley (-2 degrees Celsius), so summers are hot and winters are very cold, and the dunes are very pretty and on the ocean. We stayed up until 3:30 a.m. driving and woke up at 6 to see the sunrise. Alecia drove in the snow because she and I have the most experience, but I don’t have an international drivers license so my job is to stay awake with the driver and play music while everyone else rests so they can be good to drive later. In the morning I got to push Emi’s car out of the snow briefly which was fun, but I also felt like my dad for some reason (I haven’t really looked into why I felt that way, and I’m too tired to try but yeah). I’m also writing this on 2 hours of sleep waiting for the cafes to open.

Everyone else got a nap in first before we saw the dunes officially, when we did it was SO beautiful. The sand dunes are really important in Tottori so if you write anything in the sand or take some with you, you will be fined 50,000 USD (which is not worth it in my opinion). Emi and I were in Aikido when we were at Linfield so we did rolls down the mountain until Emi was too dizzy for more. We also (as usual) made sure to lay down in the snow and rest before going to a bakery and getting breakfast. The bakery we went to was so delicious and everything there was 100 ye (about a dollar) so everyone spent way too much money on way too much food, but we girls are not quitters so that food was gone within the hour.  After eating we took off to Yamanashi Prefecture (one I have previously talked about in another blog) that is also my favorite prefecture, to show Alecia another onsen and houto before sending her off to Korea.

That’s it for today!

I’m Isis Hatcher and you’re watching Disney Channel!

Hi everyone!

So today I’m going to talk about my trip to Hiroshima! Let’s start by saying I am not a morning person. By far my least favorite thing to do is to get less than 10 hours of sleep (I happen to do that every night), and for this trip I woke up at 6:20 a.m. and had to make it to my friend’s house where she would be first driver (I got 4). 

Japanese highways are super expensive, a two hour drive on the highways usually cost $60 round trip, and so the four of us budgeted to spend about $100 on highways each (keep that in mind if you ever decide to roadtrip). 

Some fun facts for the trip down!

– We almost ran out of gas twice which shouldn’t be possible but we are really good at going above and beyond so…

– We coasted 1.5 kilometers to the gas station on basically no gas.

– We had several dance parties and listened to some really good Japanese music — both Okinawan and main island Japanese music.

– One artist that’s really famous got arrested for meth possession on Valentine’s Day. 

– I like to hold my breath when I go through tunnels which is fun until Japanese tunnels are 250-3000 meters long which is a wild ride on my body. 

– Tunnels are long bc most go through the mountains

– In the morning Emi lost her contacts and found them underneath her the whole time. 

– Our hostel was super cute. We stayed in the mixed dorm which was cheaper than the all-female dorm. There was a boy who was four years old, the son of the people who owned the hostel, and his name was Haru-kun. He was very cute and showed us his legos. He also called me 変なおねちん and then when I said that was mean Emi asked him to apologize to which he said “even if I apologize she’d still be sad” lolll

– They had a very cute dog named オット (Otto) 

Hiroshima information:

• Hiroshima was very emotional. There’s a way to balance the information they deliver in the museum. You first see the last standing building from the blast. Then you have the ability to see the place where they’ve memorialized the victims. There’s one specifically for the children that died. 
• In the 40s, children after the age of 12 were enlisted to work for the military while at school. The children that died were working to move materials at a demolition site. The museum there is very sad, it’s hard to not cry as they provide you with first hand accounts and some very detailed, unedited footage and photos of people before and after the blast. It also serves as a way for people to understand that we need to live without nuclear weapons and promotes activism towards building a world like that.
•  I thought it was interesting how many people brought up in class or at the memorial that Obama came to visit Hiroshima. There was a general feeling of positive reception with him coming, and I think it was criticized because he was the only foreign dignitary to visit Hiroshima. As a whole it was a very good experience, and after we got 広島焼 (Hiroshima-yaki), which is similar to okinomiyaki but is made with soba noodles. It was very, very good and thoroughly recommend it.

  

If you get this far, tell someone you love them. If there’s anything this trip taught me, it’s that you don’t want to waste your time. If you care, talk about it. If you love, tell them. And if you want something to change do something. There is so much ego involved in our lives that prevents us from seeing people as equals; people worth living. And if we could all think a little more critically when thinking about how WE think, the world would be an infinitely better place.

See you next time for part 2 babes,

“Always have courage and be kind.”

— Cinderella the (better) live action movie

-Isis