Month: July 2015

Hi All,

Sorry for not posting for a while, but we’ve had a very eventful week. So this post is going to be a short summary of our journey in Japan thus far.

After being here for a little more than a week it’s been a fun, but busy schedule. We have visited several rural communities in Japan including Kayagasawa, Arawa, Tenjing, and Akata. So far we’re spent most of our time in Akata and have really gotten to know the community well.

In all the villages we have heard from several community leaders and local citizens, and have had a number of exciting adventures.

Our first day out, we went to Mt. Takao and did observations similar to the ones we did on Fitton Green. The view was fantastic and we walked up to the Torii gate, but only went part of the way. During that outing we had lunch a farmers restaurant. I think we all ended up having the special soba noodles. We also had a chance to talk with the owner of the restaurant and hear about how she started the place. We were served tea and watermelon at her house, and that was the most juiciest, sweetest, and delicious watermelon that I’ve ever had!

July 6 and 7, we spent that time in Tenjing. When we arrived we met the community leaders and then went up to a waterfall at Mt. Chokai. We couldn’t go all the way to the top of the falls, but we stopped at a lookout point and the view was great!

That night we had a dinner party the first night and there was so much wonderful handmade food that the local women made. It was definitely a feast! We gave a short introduction presentation on who each of the students were and then we had the chance to mingle with the community members.

We stayed the night at the Chokai-sou hotel where we relaxed in the onsen, hot springs. In the morning we woke up a gorgeous view of Mt. Chokai, and had a nice breakfast. Then we met the owner of a small beef industry and interviewed him about his business.

The rest of the time we have spent in Akata, which is near Yurihonjo City. We visited several temples and shrines in the area. The best was probably seeing the Akata daibutsu (Giant Buddha), which is one of the three Hase 11-faced Buddhas. The others are located in Nara and Kamakura, and those will be the places I will visit the next time I’m in Japan.

On another day we visited the Akata waterfall and some students explored a little bit of the abandoned mine that was on the hillside. We then harvested sansei, which is one of many edible wild plants. After lunch we even got to see the new food processing facility and saw how the sansei was packaged. It wasn’t the plant that we picked that day, but another woman’s harvest.

The following day each group was separated. I was part of the forest group, and we went up into the mountain to a logging site that Kato Timber Company was working at. They demonstrated how they fell trees and it was so cool to see the process in action. We also ended up hiking to the top of the mountain and saw the amazing view!

In the final days of our time in Akata, we had a fully packed schedule. On Saturday morning, we helped pull weeds out in the agriculture corporation’s asparagus field. It felt really rewarding helping out in the community, even though it was only a small task. Then in the afternoon we made pizza in the pizza oven next to the community center. We were taught how to make the dough, roll it, and then create our own pizzas. They were so good, and I wish I could have had more but we needed to save our appetites for the dinners we would be having later that night.

For the later part of the evening and night, all the students were split up in pairs and were spent with our host families. I was paired up with Kasumi, and we spent our time with the Taguchi family. They were so gracious and welcoming. That night we had a great big dinner with sushi, boiled pork, mountain vegetables, and an array of other dishes. In the morning we had another delicious meal and then we went out for a bit, and then picked some blueberries on their farm. It was so nice getting the chance to have the homestay that I didn’t want to leave, but alas, they drove us back to the community center where we met up with the rest of the students. It has definitely been a memorable experience and I can truly saw that this has been a wonderful experience for all the students!!

Yesterday we also went to the AIU Summer Festival and some of us participated in the games like the watermelon smash, and water ballon fight. There were also student performances all through the night. But the best thing was seeing the Kanto festival in the evening. All the performers were so skilled and it was just a neat experience.

We’re a few days into field work here in Japan, but first I want to congratulate America on two special days while we’ve been away; Happy Independence Day and Congrats on winning the Women’s Soccer Final (against Japan). We caught the introductions to the game just before we left for the field, so naturally we sang along to the National Anthem and had all the Japanese students in the lounge giving us funny looks!

We’ve had a few jam-packed days here in Akita Prefecture! We started off our fieldwork in Japan by travelling to Mt. Takao and practicing our observational techniques. This is similar to what we did on the first day of class when we discussed the view from Fitton Green Natural Area. From the mountain we could see the surrounding landscape which consisted of many rice fields, some small villages, and the Omono River. We also looked around and found an old Sumo ring and further up the hill the entrance to a deep shrine. We walked part of the way up to the shrine, but due to time constraints couldn’t go all the way to the top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following our trip up Mt. Takao, we went to a local farmer’s restaurant. For about $10 we each got a huge tray full of food produced from the owner’s garden. She even had a factory downstairs where she made her own noodles! It was really good and a great business opportunity for her to utilize her skills and help the local economy.

Following our meal, the owner invited us back to her house (next door to the restaurant) and told us her story. She explained to us about how she came to create the restaurant and some of the challenges that she had to overcome in the process. She also served us a fresh watermelon out of her garden that was very juicy and sweet! 🙂

 

Following lunch we also visited a couple more villages, Arawa and Kayagasawa. Here we met with the community leaders at their community centers. In Arawa we also walked along the streets and compared the current shops with a map from the past. There were a lot of shops that had closed down or changed and homes that had been abandoned and torn down. We did get to go into a shop where they were making tatami mats which was really interesting and cool to see.

At the end of the village, we went into a shrine where we got to talk with the priestess.

 

Lastly in Kayagasawa we talked to the village leader and looked around a little before heading back to Akita International University for the night.

 

Hello all!

Thank you for your patience in waiting for our latest updates! We lost about 16 hours when we flew across the Pacific, and have been really jet lagged, so finding time to tell you about what we’ve been up to has been challenging!

On Tuesday morning our class all got back together again, after a 3 day break, at the Portland Airport. We then flew a 10 1/2 hour flight to Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan. It was a really long flight, but we got to enjoy a broad assortment of entertainment including many movies, tv shows, games and music. I made the most of it and caught up on some newer movies I have been too busy to see. I managed to fit in 4 movies: Into the Woods (which Holly also watched and has been singing snipets from since we got here), The Maze Runner, Cinderella (the new live action version), and Big Hero 6 (which I am pretty sure is in my top movies of all time list). We also figured out how to utilize the game system so that we could play trivia against each other and had a digital Texas Hold ’em Poker game between Maya, Christian, Ryoko, and I. We also got served Dinner, Ice Cream, and Breakfast on the plane, which were all surprisingly delicious for airplane food.

 

We finally landed in Tokyo on Wednesday afternoon (most of us didn’t really sleep on the plane, so we have been a little confused as to which day it is). We caught a bus from the airport that took us through Tokyo to our hotel.

After we got all checked in (it was a really nice hotel in Shinagawa) we ventured out on the subway system to Shibuya where Ryoko took us to a traditional Japanese restaurant, and ordered a variety of different dishes for us to try. It was an interesting experience. We had sushi, a cooked open face fish, some yummy potsticker things called gyoza (don’t quote me on the spelling, but I think that’s what they’re called) and some little crunchy shrimp that you eat whole that were salty and were kind of like potato chips.

 

 

After we left the restaurant, we went to Shibuya crossing to see all the lights and people. It was a fun experience, but we were so tired from travelling (and the fact that it was 4 am back home) that we didn’t stay very long. We did get to see the famous Hachiko dog statue at the train station though!

The next morning we had breakfast at our hotel. It was one of the nicest hotel restaurants I have ever seen. They had a buffet style breakfast, full of a wide variety to foods, most of which I had never seen before. We tried a little bit of a lot of different things, but the best part was the view. The entire restaurant was surrounded by a beautiful garden. The part we sat in was right up against a pond where we could see Koi fish and a Heron landed there during our meal too.

After breakfast we went back to Shinagawa station and took a train to the Haneda Airport, and then flew to Akita airport. Akita International University sent a bus to pick us up at the airport and bring us back to the school. When we arrived at the school, we were given our room assignments in Komachi Hall, a freshman residence hall, where we are each staying with a Japanese student studying at AIU. My roommate is Tomomi and she is really nice.

A big thanks to Holly for letting me utilize her pictures!