Sayonara

Whew, we have lots of ground to cover today. :)Sunday was my last day of sightseeing in Singapore. Katie and I had pretty much worn ourselves out on the first 2 days so we decided to take it easy. Our first stop was the botanical gardens! They're huge, and mostly free. There were tons of families having picnics, and it's definitely a cool place to hang out. I love that Singapore has so many lush green areas to counteract the big city feel.
My favorite part of the garden was definitely the orchid garden. They were gorgeous! It was a little too hot for me to spend too much time enjoying them, but they were really pretty. I took tons of pictures!After the garden, we walked around in Orchard Road, a huge area known for its shopping (especially the ritzy variety). We saw a ton of designer shops along with a really cool art museum. Here's one of the sculptures inside...cute puppy!Our next stop was the Charlie Brown cafe! Apparently they're all over Asia...Peanuts characters are really popular there. The food was nothing to write home about, except for the crepes.They have little characters on them! I had the Charlie Brown one and Katie had the Lucy, but they also had Snoopy and Woodstock crepes. Adorable!

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful! We had a mac and cheese party with some of Katie's friends (which was excellent), and went swimming at the campus pool and went to bed early. XD

Monday I went to classes with Katie! She had 3, all of which I don't remember the names for. I first attended the class on physics applications to medical equipment - for example, the lecture when I was there was on radiation and the various machines used to dispense the treatment. We had a lovely talk during the break about the nuclear plants at Fukushima - it was nice to talk to someone who knew what was going on. XD Afterwards, we went to the opposite side of campus for lunch. Before that, though, we stopped by the school market. All of the buildings on campus are clustered into groups (science, arts, engineering, etc.) and are their own islands, kind of. You take the bus to get from cluster to cluster. And each cluster has a huge market! A bunch of people set up tables and sell things, usually clothes and jewelry. I found fork and spoon earrings. XDLunch was in the huge cafeteria in the arts building, more like a hawker center than anything else. I had Chinese food, which was okay. After that I went to Katie's Malay tutorial session. She had a Malay dialogue book which I borrowed from her to try and learn a bit, because the lesson didn't make any sense to me. I managed to learn "Apa khabar? Khabar baik" (How are you? I am well.), "Nama saya Kelsey" (My name is Kelsey), and the various greetings (Selamat siang, for example, is good afternoon). It was fun. :) Her last class of the day was about natural conservation of Singapore, and I must admit I wasn't a huge fan of the class - it was the same conservation stuff we always learn!
We had dinner in the canteen (ie cafeteria) in Katie's dorm, and I got to have pad thai! It was tasty. And afterwards we headed out to Clarke Quay, the area of Singapore known for its nightlife! The cab driver we had was a really odd guy...he talked to us about all sorts of things (but especially safety when crossing streets/exiting cabs and our boyfriends). XD Clarke Quay is gorgeous at night!We also went to a bar called The Clinic. All of the bars and clubs in Clarke Quay are themed. A lot of them are themed around foods - Indochinese, Mexican, Brazilian, Japanese, and more. But some are really quirky, like the Clinic. It has a medical theme! You sit in wheelchairs or on couches that look like medical beds and you can get drinks that come in "IV drips" and big syringes. We decided not to get any of those because they were super-expensive (there's a really high alcohol tax in Singapore, probably to discourage drinking), but I did get to try a Singapore Sling. We then just wandered around Clarke Quay some more before heading back home. It was a great last night!And Tuesday was probably the longest day of my life (no, really). I woke up at 3:30 to catch a cab at 4 am to get to the airport for my 6 am flight. I had my last fresh-squeezed juice and a quick breakfast before heading through security. Note the "Texas Chicken" sign. :) This state follows me everywhere! My flight from Singapore to Nagoya was fine - I watched a really silly Japanese comedy and chilled out on the plane. I had an hour and a half layover in Nagoya, where I picked up a few last-minute gifts as well as my last shaka-shaka chicken (T.T I'm going to miss that) for lunch. While waiting for my flight, I sat next to a really cute American family who had just adopted a little boy from Vietnam. They had a son about the same age, and they were getting along really well. :)

The flight from Nagoya to Minneapolis was not a very pleasant experience. I sat on the aisle (big mistake), with a woman and her young daughter sitting next to me. The daughter wanted to get up every hour or so. X.X Add that to an inability to sleep on planes and an hour and a half of solid turbulence and I was SO ready to get off that plane.

I was so excited when we landed in Minneapolis because I could text people again! I spent my 5-hour layover going through security (no big deal), eating at Chili's(my second lunch of the day!) and catching up with friends. When the plane took off out of Minneapolis, I was dead asleep. And then I arrived in Dallas at 8:30! (yes, still Tuesday).

I must admit, it was a little emotionally exhausting to arrive back in the states. When I got to baggage claim in Dallas and saw my parents, I almost burst into tears. Sort of silly, isn't it? During all of this mess of dealing with leaving early, I've teared up all of twice. And then, the waterworks turn on as soon as I get home. But, life is starting to get back to normal. My first day home I slept in until 2 and schlepped around the house, but I've done quite a bit since then! 2 weekends in College Station and quite a bit of time spent at home trying to get my summer plans squared away. So much to do now that I'm back!

So, with this last post I'm afraid the chronicle of my semester abroad has come to an end. I wish it could have lasted longer, but I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! I like that I will have something to look back on to remember the trip by.

Your last language lesson of the blog is the word "sayonara". Everyone knows that word, right? If you ask anyone on the street what Japanese words they know, the first that come to mind will be "konnichiwa" and "sayonara". But "sayonara" has a more specialized meaning than goodbye. "Ja ne!" or "Ja ato de!" or "Ja, ashita ne!" (bye, see you later, and see you tomorrow respectively) are used on a day-to-day basis. Sayonara is a word used for more special occasions, in which you're saying goodbye to someone you may never see again (or will not see for a while, at least). So it's a much more formal saying. I'd say it's proper for this post, since it is my last!For those of you considering study abroad or even traveling in Japan (or elsewhere!), I highly recommend you go! Japan is an amazing place, full of really cool things and incredibly nice people. And my study abroad experience couldn't have been better, even with all of the "fun" we've dealt with lately. I've made so many good friends and had an awesome semester where I wasn't overloaded with work and had time to just relax. I feel like I've come back with a totally different perspective on life. So, JCMU, thank you! And to the rest of you, thanks for listening. :) I hope to see you soon!

Adventures in Singapore, part I

Hello from Singapore! It never ceases to amaze me just how different Singapore is from Japan – for one thing, the weather! Singapore is just south of the equator, so it’s hot all year long. Imagine leaving a country with highs in the low 50s and arriving at a country where the temperature is never much lower than 75. That’s one huge difference. Also, dealing with constant 94% humidity and a lack of air-conditioning almost everywhere (including my friend Katie’s dorm room) takes a bit of getting used to! There are distinct advantages to being in Singapore, though. My current favorite is the fruit juice! Fresh fruit can be had year-round here, so all of the juices are made fresh (ie, to-order). I had pineapple juice for breakfast yesterday morning and it was fantastic. It tastes so much better when it’s fresh. And fruit juice can be gotten everywhere! It’s awesome.

My flight to Singapore was pretty nice – I had an entire row to myself! I even got a bit of sleep, which was good because I landed around midnight Singapore time (1 AM Japan time!). So I did some catching up and went to bed as soon as we got to Katie’s dorm.

Speaking of which, it’s huge! It’s a 30-building complex, and there are other dorms, too! Somehow they still have trouble housing everyone that wants to go to the National University of Singapore (NUS). O.o

Where all have I been so far? A lot of places! We started yesterday morning with 3 of Katie’s friends and headed to Little India. Mainly, there were a lot of shopping spots and a lot of little restaurants. We started at Mustafa, an enormous shopping mall that has pretty much everything, from Western goods to Japanese snacks to gorgeous sari fabrics and Bollywood movies. Our next stop was lunch at an Indian chain fast food place. I ordered some sort of onion crepe thing called a dosai with naan, which was a little spicy but pretty good!

After a bit more shopping (and a stop for fruit juice!), Katie and I split off and headed for Chinatown (yep, we got the international experience yesterday!). Chinatown and Little India are similar in that they are both full of shops and places to eat. Chinatown is probably my favorite of the two, though, because it’s so pretty!

I also had ice kachang there, a common Singaporean treat! It’s very strange. Take jello, then add lychees, a weird Asian fruit, and red beans (ie the Japanese treat). Then top it with shaved ice, add 3 flavors of syrup and condensed milk, and then top it with canned corn. O.0 It’s really odd. XD I kinda liked it though!

Plus, there’s a temple there! We went inside – it’s a temple that houses one of Buddha’s teeth, as well as his sacred relics. The story goes that when Buddha’s body was cremated, instead of forming ashes crystals formed, signifying his purity. They have a lot of different relics (brain, heart, etc.) housed in one area and his tooth in another. The temple was so opulent and gorgeous! Really a cool place.

After the temple tour, we had dinner at one of the many little restaurant stalls. I had chicken and rice, a common dish and one of Singapore’s famous! It was delicious.

Afterwards, Katie took me to one of her favorite places in Singapore – Marina Bay. And after dark, I could see why! As you can see, it’s all lit up and gorgeous. The area is named after the Marina Bay Sands, the resort with what looks like a cruise ship on top. It also has a mall and a casino. XD Have some more pictures of the skyline!

My other favorite part of the area was the DNA bridge – it looks just like a double helix! And on the ground are little light-up letters that are (mostly) paired correctly! The DNA geek in me was a very happy camper. :3 The lookout points were hairpin loops, too! So very cool.

Today was no less busy! Our first stop was Clarke Quay, a festive area close to Marina Bay that’s full of bars and swanky restaurants. We started by taking a Hippo boat tour of the bay area. More pretty buildings. :)

Our next stop was the statue of Sir Raffles, founder of Singapore. Singapore is one of the few places that actually embraced the introduction of a foreign power. As an example, here’s the inscription on the statue. “On this historic site, Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles…first landed in Singapore, and with genius and perception changed the destiny of Singapore from an obscure fishing village to a great seaport and modern metropolis.” XD

Next stop, the Asian Civilizations Museum. They just opened an African exhibit, and this weekend they were having an open house so we got in for free! They had a lot of cool stuff there; I love Asian sculptures from all of those cultures because they’re so beautiful and intricate.

For lunch, we ate at a hawker center. They’re really common in Singapore! They are basically a bunch of little food stalls all under one roof, surrounding tons of tables. You can go and pick out whatever you want and then eat it there. It’s like an enormous food court. I ended up cheating a bit and getting Italian food (instead of Singaporean), but I did get dragonfruit juice! Both were tasty.

After lunch, we went over to the Chinese gardens. They're huge, and really pretty. I liked getting to see the pagodas and such, and there was even a Zodiac statue garden.

The garden was cool, but Katie's favorite part was the turtle museum. Basically, a guy made a turtle rescue that is record-setting and has thousands of turtles! And you can feed them and touch them and all sorts of things. It's sort of silly, but that's okay.

Tonight for dinner I went out with a bunch of Katie's friends, and we had seafood! It was really a family-style dinner, so we ordered a bunch of plates of food and had a bit of everything. I had chili crab (a Singapore special), barbecue pork, steamed buns, and even stingray! It just tastes like flaky white fish. :) It was all delicious!

And now it's bedtime...we've been rushing around all day for the past 2 days so I need a rest. I hope your weekend is going well!

Leaving Japan

At last, we have reached the day I leave Japan. I'm currently in the Centrair International Airport in Nagoya. Brad's flight left at 8:00 so I got up early to see him off(thus, the sunrise pic. I've been up since 4:30 and at the airport since 6:15). My flight's not until 11:30 so I'm just hanging out here until boarding time. This past week and a half has been a few bad days sandwiching some really really good ones. Today is one of the former…I'm trying to think of the silver linings to this (meeting Amanda in Narita, spending 4 days with Katie), but it's not easy. I'm not ready to leave, because I have so much more I want to do here: so much to see and experience, a semester to finish, and all of that. And it's getting cut short.

Let’s go back to happier things, shall we? I’ll start where I left off, on Monday. Monday was our recharge day from 2 days of traveling, and it was very relaxing. It was Vernal Equinox Day, which apparently qualifies as a national holiday. XD I went to breakfast with Jade before she left, and hit Sapna for lunch and Cainz for a bit more shopping. Other than that, though, I stayed in my room and cleaned. It was really odd going into Beisia...some of the shelves are completely empty because all of the instant food is being shipped north for the earthquake victims.

On Tuesday, Brad and Addie and I went back to Osaka. The first half of the day was pretty much a repeat of my last trip – we had kebab sandwiches from the same restaurant and then went to the aquarium. It was still awesome, even after having been just a few weeks ago. Have some more pictures and a video! :)

After that, we went to a shopping mall area close to the aquarium, where I had gelato! It was yummy. We also found a traditional shop that had fans and really pretty wall-hangings. I got one with goldfish on it! There was also a Hello Kitty store. :3

We wanted to go see the Osaka Science Museum, but we were unable to. All Japanese museums are closed on Mondays, or Tuesdays if the Monday of that week was a national holiday. Therefore, all museums in Osaka were closed. So, instead, we went to Shinsaibashi for some browsing. Shinsaibashi is one of the more famous shopping districts in Osaka – it has lots of stuff! What I found interesting is that in addition to modern clothing stores and flower shops, they had kimono shops! You could see fabrics in the back and all sorts of designs and people working on yukatas and kimonos.

For dinner, we went to Shakey’s Pizza, a pizza buffet. It was a really nice place! If IKEA decided to make a pizza buffet, it would look like Shakey’s. They even had Swedish meatballs! It was definitely not American pizza, but beggars can’t be choosers. :)

Our last stop in Osaka was Book Off in Shinsaibashi. Book Off is a huge book and music and videogame resale shop. This one was 4 stories tall! One floor was entirely devoted to manga, another to music and video games. On the top floor, I found the cooking section. Guess who now has a dessert cookbook in Japanese? :D

Yesterday I checked out of my room and went to Nagoya. Checkout was a piece of cake! I just had to finish cleaning the kitchen, check in my bike, take out the trash and have Iga-san come by (our student services coordinator) to do an inspection. Then, I turned in my key and we took a quick trip to Vidal before hopping on the bus to Hikone Station.

Our trip to Nagoya was not nearly as smooth as we had planned. We decided to take a train to Maibara, ride the shinkansen to Nagoya and arrive around 12:30. We’d then rent a locker to put our suitcases in, head out to The Little World Museum of Man (more about that in a minute), then on the way back pick our bags up and check into the hotel to go to bed early. The Little Museum of Man is about 50 minutes outside of Nagoya, and requires a train ride followed by a bus ride to get there. It’s an open-air anthropological museum that is basically like the Epcot World Showcase on steroids. There are 22 countries represented, and they all have cool displays. I really wanted to go.

Of course, on the one day it mattered life did not go our way. Due to some weird circumstances I don’t really understand, the train out of Hikone was 20 minutes late and the one we wanted was canceled. So, we waited at the station for half an hour. Luckily we got there early enough that we got to Maibara in enough time to catch our shinkansen. That was a little frustrating as well, because we apparently only bought one of the 2 tickets we needed and the ticket guy knew no English and just repeated himself in Japanese we couldn’t understand. Finally a woman in the shinkansen area intervened for us and helped us out.

We got to Nagoya only to find that all of the lockers were full, so we decided to go to our hotel first and drop off our bags. The staff there were gracious enough to take our bags up to our room for us and everything. However, it took an extra 45 minutes to take care of that, so suddenly we were short on time. We decided to try and make it out to the Little World anyway, so we hopped on the train. We actually got fairly lucky – the station right by our hotel ran straight to Inuyama, the city where the bus stop was. It was a ways out there, though, and we didn’t arrive until almost 3. When we stopped at the tourist desk, the man informed us that we really wouldn’t have enough time to enjoy the museum so we should go another day. How disappointing! So, we headed back the way we came.

I thought the afternoon was going to be a complete loss, but there was hope. There was also a science museum at the SAME STOP as our hotel. So, we decided to go see if we still had time (it was 4 by this time) to enjoy it. We got there just in time! And it was awesome. :)

The museum had 6 floors, a life science building attachment and a planetarium. Besides the interactive portion on the first floor and the planetarium, we got to see all of it. There was a lot of cool stuff!

My favorite part was probably the section where they showed how everyday objects work. I learned about vending machines, sewing machines, and rice cookers. The life sciences area was a little lacking but the physics area was really cool.

When we got back to the hotel, we learned that the museum had only just opened on the 19th! So we had been walking around in a 4 day-old museum.

After we got back from the museum, we decided to go find dinner. I was craving katsu-curry, a fried cutlet (usually pork or chicken) with rice that’s covered in curry. Just 2 blocks down was a Coco’s Ichiban, a chain known for its delicious curry. Win! And it was indeed delicious.

Which brings us to today. Today will be a long day of flights! I have a 1.5-hour flight to Tokyo, followed by a 5-hour layover. I intend to enjoy my last Japanese lunch in that time (hopefully chahan and gyoza!) and do some exploring of the airport. My flight to Singapore leaves at 6 and I arrive there at 1 AM. I’ll let you all know when I arrive safely. Have a great week and I’ll see you in Singapore. :)

Kyoto and Nara

Hi! It has been a very busy/tiring 2 days. Remember that whole "enjoying Japan to the fullest" thing? So, I've been traveling up and down the JR Biwako line (and by that I mean from here to Kyoto and back/beyond). Yesterday Brad and I went to Kyoto for part of the day, came back and checked in our luggage to be shipped, and then went with some friends to Omi-hachiman to hang out with our history professor at his house (and yes, he is that cool). And today we went to Nara! It was the biggest trip I've taken during this study abroad program - 6 of us went! I had a lot of fun. :)

The night before our huge traveling adventure began, we went out for yakiniku. It was still delicious! :) Some of the beef they serve there is melt-in-your-mouth.Onto the pictures, because I know that's what you're interested in. In Kyoto, we first went back to Fushimi Inari so I could get to the lookout at the top. It was an arduous climb, but totally worth it!After that, we went to a restaurant we learned about through a friend's recommendation: Falafel Garden! It's an Israeli restaurant. It was amazing how easy it was to find - we just went to the station we were told it was closest to, then asked the station attendants. One of the women knew where it was, and rattled off directions in really rapid Japanese. We just caught the main points like "exit 6" and "go right", and walked right to it. XD Kyoto was really a win day, as far as finding things and catching trains was concerned. And we got yummy kebab sandwiches out of the deal.
Our last stop in Kyoto was Nijo Castle, palace of the Tokugawa Shogunate, a family who ran Japan for 250 years. The outside is impressive enough - it's a huge compound with a garden and the castle is sprawling. But the inside was my favorite - I wish I could post pictures but we couldn't take pics of the inside. Each room is full of decorative carvings and gorgeous screens, but the best part was the floors. They're called "Nightingale Floors" because they are designed to creak with every step, to prevent burglars. The cool thing, though, is that their creaking sounds like birdsong! Beautiful. :)

Our Omihachiman trip was fun, too! We got McDonalds (which is way better in Japan than the US, by the way), then ate at our professor's house and watched a movie with him, Taken. It was fun! I just wish we would be able to do it again. :/ There were so many things he wanted to plan for us...we were going to go on a field trip to Osaka and have a huge barbecue at his house and all go out to karaoke as a school after our graduation ceremony (which we were also supposed to have...), but no such luck. :( I'm not really upset about everything that's happened any more, but I do keep getting reminded of things that I was going to do, and then I think "...Oh. Yeah, I don't have time for that now." Just means I have to do it when I come back, right?
Next stop was Nara, yesterday! We had a full group: Me, Brad, my roommate Amanda, Jade, her roommate Rebecca, and Addie. :) It was a pretty long train ride - over an hour and a half - and we had to change trains in Kyoto anyway so we decided to stop by Crepe Ojisan one last time! It was yummy.Once we got to Nara, we walked to Todaiji Temple (which literally translates to "East Big Temple") because it is the most famous in Nara. Nara is the old capital of Japan so it has tons of places to visit. But there are 2 things Nara is really known for:Daibutsu, the biggest Buddha in the country! It's 14 meters tall (46 feet!) and really quite awe-inspiring. You can't imagine the size of it until you're there, and it's astounding. Really really cool!Todaiji also has some other statues inside. They're all pretty neat!And the other thing Nara is known for? The deer.Have some cute deer pics! These deer are awesome! They cross streets en masse at crosswalks (but only when the walk sign is on), and they will bow to you! If you bow to them, some will bow back. It's like the hippogriffs in Harry Potter, and it's awesome. XDAfter oohing and ahhing over the big Buddha and all the deer, we headed back near the station for some okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki literally translates to "As you like it cooked", which is not descriptive at all. Basically, it's like a savory pancake, but the batter contains stuff like cabbage and green onions (and spices, of course). Beyond that, the possibilities are endless! Here are some of our orders: shrimp, pork, and pumpkin.I ordered "Modern Yaki"(Modanyaki), which is from Hiroshima. It has noodles and usually bacon cooked into one side. You can also get stuff cooked into the batter, like ground pork or beef. It was so good! Watching them cook it in front of us was the best part. I'm definitely making some when I go home!And, after a long train ride home, we made it back here. :) It was our last hoorah for some, as Jade is leaving tomorrow. :( Ah, well. It was fun! And I know I'll be up to Michigan to visit everyone.

Have a great day! Next time I'll be posting Osaka, part II.