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At about 12:30 on this past Saturday, everybody in my study abroad program hopped on a bus for 3 hours and went to a place called Karuizama. It is a less urban area that is up in the mountains, and Waseda owns what they call a "Seminar House" up there. Basically, they have a bunch of facilities that student groups and classes can use for field trips, retreats and the like. So we got there and at first just had some free time to find our rooms and settle in a little bit. I was in a room with 6 other guys and we all had bunk beds, so it was kind of reminiscent of being at summer camp. In that free time I ended up playing basketball with some people (they had basketball courts), and then after dinner I went to take a bath. A real bath. It was a Japanese style public bath, so one giant tub for however many people wanted to partake. I ended up going in with 3 other guys from our program and the whole being-naked-in-the-same-tub thing actually wasn't that awkward. But the bath sure was fantastic!
That evening we had a meeting with everybody about how life has been so far in Japan. We broke into small groups and then went through a couple of questions and just chatted. It was really nice to hear what other people had to say about their experience so far. In particular, I was in a group with all ethnically Chinese students, and they mentioned how it has been really weird for them to be less of a minority in Japan. Apparently it can be just as uncomforting to go from minority to majority as it is to go the other way. After the meeting we had a party (basically, drinks and snacks were brought into the room and we all hung out), and it was nice to talk to a lot of people who I hadn't seen in a while.
The next morning I woke up at 5am to go try to find a good place to watch the sunrise with a couple of the other folks on the program. We headed out highly motivated, but it was cloudy and we couldn't find any trails. Ultimately, we settled on the soccer field near the seminar complex and just waited to see what would happen. Unfortunately, the sky was actually more colorful before the sun rose. When it was still dusky there was a little purple on the horizon. As the sun came up, it all evened out to that all-too-familiar shade of cloudy gray. But, we had a good time, and then since we were up went back to the building where the rooms were and played Go Fish for an hour, which was tremendously fun.
Later that morning we had our final meeting, which was about the Cultural Practicum that we are doing in February. Michiyo (the program coordinator) presented all of the different options for this year and we filled out a form with our initial preferences. Right now I'm on the fence between two. One is where you life with a family in a smaller area outside of Osaka and hang out with/teach kids in elementary schools. In the other, you work in at a ski resort for the entire month, working about 10-11 hours a day in all of the different services that the resort provides, living in the resort and having the opportunity to ski/snowboard in your free time (there is a 3 hour break in the middle of the work day). Right now I'm actually leaning toward the ski resort one. For one, I think it would be interesting to see what the work is like (at least for a short duration), and this would give me a great opportunity to practice polite Japanese with resort patrons. Either way, we will have a couple more meetings about it at some point and probably get matched up in a month(ish(maybe)).
Trying to keep y'all updated, so stay tuned!
