The last week of uni semester

It’s the final countdown…du du du duuu! Only four more days left of this semester and it will all be over…well, for another two months at least. Woo hoo!

So as a tribute to this last week, I am going to do a wrap up of my experiences here so far before I return to Australia for the summer holidays.

What to expect for this last week: One test, two speaking tests (but both ungraded) and three extra replacement classes. Oh, whoop dee doo…But frankly, I don’t care anymore because my UTS assignment has been handed in and that is what matters the most. Your performance in Japanese classes only account for 10% of your overall grade so しんぱいしないで！Here’s hoping for a distinction this semester!

What have I been doing in class: Funnily enough, you actually learn quite a lot of things if you bother to attend classes. LOL! Basically, you learn grammar, brush up on essay, writing and listening skills, learn pronunciation and intonation in speech class (this matters a lot in Japanese because you can say one thing but mean another) and learn a crap load more of kanji and vocabulary.

Note: Students are allowed to skip up to three of the same classes per semester before you get cut. Considering that each period is a different class even though it is on the same day…that is a lot of classes that you can bludge off. You didn’t hear it from me though!

What have I been doing in the dormitory: Your room eventually becomes your home and you find that you can spend a lot of time in it especially when the weather is extremely hot or cold. Most of the time, I am on my laptop either doing work (sometimes), streaming movies (often), and chatting (always!). I would definitely bring a laptop with you because it becomes your lifeline to your family and the world.

Food: I hope you guys can cook because it starts to get expensive if you eat out everyday! Comparatively, life in Japan is not that much cheaper than living costs in Sydney. A meal to fill you up will put you back anywhere between 400-1200 yen and upwards. A definite ouchie for those who are cooking-challenged but there are plenty easy things that doesn’t take long to prepare…like a diet consisting of udon and soba noodles. Ha ha ha! That being said, definitely go out and try some of the wacky food that is there on offer and try not to worry about the costs too much. Hey, how often do you get to be in Japan and besides, there is always the parents!

Drink: Fu fu fu, for those who love their alcohol, Japan is the place to be! A big bottle of Baileys will cost only half of the price of that in Sydney and beer is so cheap you could drink it like water. Alcohol is seriously cheap here and you can just buy them at the supermarket! Alcoholics need not apply.

Note: For parents who are reading this and are worried about their children going crazy in Japan, please replace ‘alcohol’ with the word ‘green tea’. LOL!

Life outside the dormitory: Nil.

Just kidding! Gifu isn’t as eventful as Tokyo or Kyoto but you can still do a lot of things here like going out with your friends for karaoke or meals, head to the shopping malls to hang out, take a half hour bike ride just for Freshness Burger (bonus points if you do it while it is raining), climb Mt. Kinka a few times (note: only crazy people do this), swim in the river, and then there is the occasional outing planned by SED. Of course there are more mundane things like doing your UTS homework (ew!), doing your Japanese homework (double ew!) or just chilling in your room. All in all, a pretty pleasant stress-free lifestyle with not as many worries or responsibilities. I am definitely enjoying myself here and it is something I will miss once I have to shoulder again the responsibilities of my old life.

Ode to Vista

How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

I hate thee because thou constantly crash,

If thou had only a face, I would totally smash,

Thou art slow, unresponsive, and your blue screen sets my heart aflame,

Thanks a lot Microsoft, you are to blame.

I hate thee for the amount of RAM you eat,

I hate thee for the hours you make me waste,

I hate thee for your lack of haste,

And I especially hate thee for the time you make me spend rebooting your ass; no easy feat.

This is how I felt today as I spent my afternoon trying to make my silly laptop work. In the end, the only choice I had was to reformat and reboot Vista. Ugh, you are so crap!

Nagara River Fireworks Festival

Last night, the Ryuugakusei Love Club went out to the banks of Gifu’s Nagara River to watch this festival. I was pretty excited to go because usually everyone dresses up in a yukata which is a summer-style kimono made from lighter fabrics. I have to say that everyone looked pretty cool and I definitely think that guys should wear it all the time regardless of reasons – they look so hot!! Break me off a piece of that!

The fireworks are held every year on the last Saturday of July and first Saturday of August and it is sponsored by two rival companies that battle it out to see who can hold the better fireworks display. The display goes on for about two hours so basically you just sit there chatting with friends, enjoying the view and eating whatever junk-ish food you can buy from the numerous vendors that line the banks. Needless to say, these stalls really make a killing; a can of beer for 500 yen when you can normally get it for 100 yen at the supermarket. Crazy, huh!

Things to keep in mind:

1. Bring a bottle of water with you unless you want to be paying three times the usual price.

2. Wear comfortable thongs/sandals under your yukata because the last bus stops way before the fireworks finish. You might have to walk back to the dormitory and that takes over an hour. Doing that in geta (wooden sandals) will totally hurt you!

3. Eat dinner before you go unless you want to stuff yourself with octopus balls, yakisoba or okonomiyaki.

4. Go early before all the good spots are taken because half of Gifu city will also be there that night (roughly 150,000 people). The Ryuugakusei Love Club actually went a few days beforehand to put down a tarp for our personal use that night. It was pretty awesome and we had a lot of space to ourselves.

5. Uh, it might be a bit hard to buy a yukata if you are taller than 5ft 4. Not impossible, but pretty darn hard! Look around in Masa or Uniqlo; they usually start selling them at the start of summer and the cost starts at 3000-4000 yen for a complete set. Or if you don’t want to spend too much money, hit the vintage stores. Liz got her purple plum one complete with obi belt for only 1000 yen which I thought was a pretty good deal.

Atsui ne~

Bloody oath, the summer here is hotter than a baboon’s backside! Sweat is trickling down my face and neck as I am typing this post. It is THAT hot!

One of the more common things you hear is “atsui ne!” (Bugger, it’s hot! – I added the ‘bugger’ because it seems appropriate to describe this heat!). Temperatures in Gifu got as high as 39 Celsius the other day and at that kind of heat, the only thing you want to do is shut yourself in your room with your air-conditioner turned down as cold as it can get! Doing things actually becomes difficult because you don’t want to face the scorching heat and did I forget to mention the crazy humidity? Double whammy for the price of one!

Oh you Gifu kids still back in Sydney, enjoy the cold temperate weather while it lasts! うらやましい!

Juainni/Ju/Jo’s (lol, depending on how you know me) list of things to do to beat the heat:

1. Sit butt-naked in your lovely chilled room, only venturing out for classes and food. The downside of this is that your electricity bills go up but the other option is to swelter in your own sweat. Hey, I don’t mind paying the extra $30 a month when you look at it like that!

2. Shop in malls that have a super strong air-conditioning to keep you cool. (Bonus: get to do shopping!)

3. Head to the Nagara River for a wonderful, cold dip in its very clean waters. You might even get some fish tickling your bits! (Unfortunately, the river is about a 40 min bike ride but it is pretty awesome when you get there.)

4. If you do have to go out somewhere, eat plenty of ice-blocks and drink cold water to beat the heat. I was in Kyoto the other day at a flea market and there were plenty of vendors making good money selling flavored shaved ice. It was good!

Weekend in Kyoto: Day 3

We visited a massive flea market on the grounds of the beautiful Toji temple and also Nijo Castle on our last day in Kyoto. It was a long weekend because Monday was a public holiday so we had decided to take the most advantage from it but I think everybody else had the same thought!

The flea market was pretty packed with people and stalls were selling many different things like old kimonos, antique stuff, food and fruits, plants, knives and whatnot. I had a lot of fun browsing around looking at things but nothing really caught my eye…except for the flavored shaved ice. What a relief to eat and it really cooled me down after being exposed to the crazy hot sun!

Next on the list was Nijo Castle and it’s nightingale floors that squeak when you step on them. These floors are really similar to the one found in Lian Hearn’s Tales of the Otori trilogy which are such great books by they way! Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures within the castle but the sights that I saw inside were pretty amazing. There were a lot of gold-leaf painted doors with tigers, peacocks and eagles and reenactments of scenes from time long past. The outside of the main castle isn’t very exciting though but it is still fairly pretty enough to take a walk around the grounds.