Toyosu and the Tokyo Gas Museum
May. 27th, 2010 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foolish_m0rtalSo I didn't feel sleepy again, so I just stayed up and worked on my story I'd had the inspiration for on the flight (and had to decipher the personal code I usually use, except it was written on facial tissues with a fading pen. Oh stories, the things I do for you).
Then I got my housing contract and rent squared away, which meant I could now use the internet. I have a new name now, Usu-gaonn-kah-san.
We went with Dorota and Kamila to Nishi-Kawaguchi station, and then on the trains (plural- we take the rapid transit, which skips a couple of stations, down to Tokyo and then double back using the local subway train) to Toyosu. I kind of almost ran out of money today because Zhuo hadn't brought any yen with him, only travellers checks. So I had to pay for all his train tickets for two days and his groceries. I finally ran out of small bills during lunch and after a lot of awkward 'ano's and 'gomen nasai's ended up paying for my lunch with a credit card. One of the other exchange students, bless him, paid for Zhuo's lunch and then helped me pay for his train ticket back to Warabi house.
Toyosu is HUGE. Toyosu. Is. HUGE. It's really really new- all the buildings look really new and pristine- this is apparently because all the factories pulled out and others came in to fill the empty space. Everything is so organised and neat and clean. It's ridiculous. The trains always come on time and are fast and efficient and spotlessly clean. I can't stand it sometimes.
I got my student ID card for the university (exciting!). When I was introduced to the rest of the International relations team by Kageyama-san, one of them was like, "You can call me Barbara" and everyone else was like "LOLZ Barbara!" And the person beside her said his name was Tachibana, and I thought, "oh, that's easy to remember. You're that guy from S-cry-ed whose car keeps getting destroyed. ("not the car!")
(name, ID number, and picture obscured for obvious reasons)
and then went to a talk about a Gakusei Project, a student initiative for a Japanese <--> English exchange. I learn Japanese (and did!) and they learn English. It's a really neat culture swap lead by my now favourite person in the entirety of everything, Yamaguchi Izumi. Izumi-san was so cheery and helpful and enthusiastic about everything. She apparently knew everyone everywhere, so it was kind of like a game of Katamari Damacy, where we just kept picking people up. The students from the meeting and I went to get lunch, where they discussed their problems with the canteen- all the food was on display, but it was all in kanji and no English, so foreign students couldn't order. I ended up getting a bowl of rice with some croquettes and...french fries? (I didn't ask why)
Izumi-san sat near me and was so unbelievably nice and terrific. She was really happy that I could use chopsticks well and was interested in Japanese culture. We then went around the building to check out labs, introduce me to friends she knew, and show me parts of the campus. The Cognitive Engineering lab deals with emotions and communications, so they have a giant display case up front filled with giant robot figurines! They have the giant legit Wing Zero with the buster rifle, the tiny Gundams, Dragonball Z characters, Gurren Lagann! People were also kind of surprised we watched anime in the U.S and laughed at how much I was geeking out over the display case. Apparently it's really rare for a girl to like Gundam.
My favourite professor was the one that came outside to ask his students why they were standing outside talking, and then was introduced to me. I was many times introduced as 'from an American university but from India' to alleviate any confusion. He was like, I have an Indian friend. I want to go to India. To eat CURRY! We'd just been discussing curry in the elevator and laughed really hard. Luis, the Brazilian exchange student and Takahashi Keita, one of the co-leaders of the Gakusei project, went along with us and were totally awesome. Izumi-san kept saying Keita-san should take lessons from Luis, who would always hold the door and elevator for people. Luis yasaashi des and Keita-san was not, according to her.
Zhuo, who'd left to be introduced to his professor and lab partners, showed up later, and we all went to walk along the bay and then to the Tokyo Gas Museum (yes, they have one). It's so incredibly awesome! They have a frying pan where you can use gas to cook virtual food, and a heat-seeking room, and a room with a heated floor, and a hot air balloon at the entrance that goes up and down with a column of flame! How is gas so interesting now?!
I was also able to freak the hell out of Izumi-san some more in the food area, where I correctly IDed all the different Japanese food pictures (except the gelatinous azuki dessert). I'd already told her the kinds of Japanese food I'd made and the yukata I'd sewn for class (I brought it with me and need to find a belt). But after the food thing she was like, "oh my god, you're Japanese." And I was like, "no, I just like to eat," and she repeated, "You're Japanese!" ^_^
Some of the other students that came were speaking Japanese because they were too shy to speak English, but it was really fun putting together random Japanese and English and hand gestures, and I think we all had a great time. I think some of them found it easy to talk to me because I didn't have an American accent and they could slip in some Japanese in their English and I understood most basic phrases. So that was nice.
Then we went to the bank (ginko) to exchange Zhuo's traveller's cheques (toraberaz chekku) so he was able to pay me back (sugoi!). I learned a lot of stray Japanese words and differences in them. Gomen is used amongst friends but is too rude to use around professors so 'gomen ne' is preferred. Yokoso is a casual 'welcome' whereas 'iraeshimas' is used more formally around clients and customers. Wakarimas means 'I understand' and 'youkai' is similar to the more friendly and flippant 'roger.' (lojja) I am now starting to speak with my l's and r's switched around. And it's only been the second day...
Notes:
* All the streets are straight lines, and the terrain is so flat that it's perfect for bicycles, so you don't even need a car- just a bicycle or the trains. And they have specially made bicycle lanes, and everything is clean, even in a major metropolitan city. And cars and small and compact and yield to bicycles. Why is it not like this everywhere?
* Japanese people seem to really like cute little dogs. I swear I saw more chihuahuas and papillons and beagles and Pomeranians than anywhere else. And they were all so cute. ('kawaii des')
*It's true- people here seem to love megaphones. I even saw one of those political vans with megaphones attached to the roof.
*When the trains first start, they make that high creepy noise you always hear in horror films when someone's about to get knifed by a previously unseen shadow behind them. It gets louder and louder. And then the train takes off, and you almost knock into the salaryman sleeping on the seat next to you. ('sumimasen')
*People seem dismayed that I don't know much about baseball or Michael Jackson. They brightened up a bit when I mentioned I used to play softball, though.
*Barney Stinson would love it here, because everyone wears a suit. EVERYONE. The business people, the school kids. He's right, it just makes automatically makes people look really good. This is...so wrong for me to say...
But now I want my university to require everyone wear a gakuran. Everyone.
*Whoever advised not to pack jeans because no one wears them over here and will think you're a weirdo...is a LIAR. It's a bit cool here right now, and I didn't pack any long pants (BAD idea in general). It's not bad- I can wear what I have and be fine. But really, I see rows and rows of people at the station wearing jeans, and I feel like smacking my face into something solid and unforgiving. When I told Izumi-san about the whole jeans thing, she thought it was really funny.
Then I got my housing contract and rent squared away, which meant I could now use the internet. I have a new name now, Usu-gaonn-kah-san.
We went with Dorota and Kamila to Nishi-Kawaguchi station, and then on the trains (plural- we take the rapid transit, which skips a couple of stations, down to Tokyo and then double back using the local subway train) to Toyosu. I kind of almost ran out of money today because Zhuo hadn't brought any yen with him, only travellers checks. So I had to pay for all his train tickets for two days and his groceries. I finally ran out of small bills during lunch and after a lot of awkward 'ano's and 'gomen nasai's ended up paying for my lunch with a credit card. One of the other exchange students, bless him, paid for Zhuo's lunch and then helped me pay for his train ticket back to Warabi house.
Toyosu is HUGE. Toyosu. Is. HUGE. It's really really new- all the buildings look really new and pristine- this is apparently because all the factories pulled out and others came in to fill the empty space. Everything is so organised and neat and clean. It's ridiculous. The trains always come on time and are fast and efficient and spotlessly clean. I can't stand it sometimes.
I got my student ID card for the university (exciting!). When I was introduced to the rest of the International relations team by Kageyama-san, one of them was like, "You can call me Barbara" and everyone else was like "LOLZ Barbara!" And the person beside her said his name was Tachibana, and I thought, "oh, that's easy to remember. You're that guy from S-cry-ed whose car keeps getting destroyed. ("not the car!")
(name, ID number, and picture obscured for obvious reasons)
and then went to a talk about a Gakusei Project, a student initiative for a Japanese <--> English exchange. I learn Japanese (and did!) and they learn English. It's a really neat culture swap lead by my now favourite person in the entirety of everything, Yamaguchi Izumi. Izumi-san was so cheery and helpful and enthusiastic about everything. She apparently knew everyone everywhere, so it was kind of like a game of Katamari Damacy, where we just kept picking people up. The students from the meeting and I went to get lunch, where they discussed their problems with the canteen- all the food was on display, but it was all in kanji and no English, so foreign students couldn't order. I ended up getting a bowl of rice with some croquettes and...french fries? (I didn't ask why)
Izumi-san sat near me and was so unbelievably nice and terrific. She was really happy that I could use chopsticks well and was interested in Japanese culture. We then went around the building to check out labs, introduce me to friends she knew, and show me parts of the campus. The Cognitive Engineering lab deals with emotions and communications, so they have a giant display case up front filled with giant robot figurines! They have the giant legit Wing Zero with the buster rifle, the tiny Gundams, Dragonball Z characters, Gurren Lagann! People were also kind of surprised we watched anime in the U.S and laughed at how much I was geeking out over the display case. Apparently it's really rare for a girl to like Gundam.
My favourite professor was the one that came outside to ask his students why they were standing outside talking, and then was introduced to me. I was many times introduced as 'from an American university but from India' to alleviate any confusion. He was like, I have an Indian friend. I want to go to India. To eat CURRY! We'd just been discussing curry in the elevator and laughed really hard. Luis, the Brazilian exchange student and Takahashi Keita, one of the co-leaders of the Gakusei project, went along with us and were totally awesome. Izumi-san kept saying Keita-san should take lessons from Luis, who would always hold the door and elevator for people. Luis yasaashi des and Keita-san was not, according to her.
Zhuo, who'd left to be introduced to his professor and lab partners, showed up later, and we all went to walk along the bay and then to the Tokyo Gas Museum (yes, they have one). It's so incredibly awesome! They have a frying pan where you can use gas to cook virtual food, and a heat-seeking room, and a room with a heated floor, and a hot air balloon at the entrance that goes up and down with a column of flame! How is gas so interesting now?!
I was also able to freak the hell out of Izumi-san some more in the food area, where I correctly IDed all the different Japanese food pictures (except the gelatinous azuki dessert). I'd already told her the kinds of Japanese food I'd made and the yukata I'd sewn for class (I brought it with me and need to find a belt). But after the food thing she was like, "oh my god, you're Japanese." And I was like, "no, I just like to eat," and she repeated, "You're Japanese!" ^_^
Some of the other students that came were speaking Japanese because they were too shy to speak English, but it was really fun putting together random Japanese and English and hand gestures, and I think we all had a great time. I think some of them found it easy to talk to me because I didn't have an American accent and they could slip in some Japanese in their English and I understood most basic phrases. So that was nice.
Then we went to the bank (ginko) to exchange Zhuo's traveller's cheques (toraberaz chekku) so he was able to pay me back (sugoi!). I learned a lot of stray Japanese words and differences in them. Gomen is used amongst friends but is too rude to use around professors so 'gomen ne' is preferred. Yokoso is a casual 'welcome' whereas 'iraeshimas' is used more formally around clients and customers. Wakarimas means 'I understand' and 'youkai' is similar to the more friendly and flippant 'roger.' (lojja) I am now starting to speak with my l's and r's switched around. And it's only been the second day...
Notes:
* All the streets are straight lines, and the terrain is so flat that it's perfect for bicycles, so you don't even need a car- just a bicycle or the trains. And they have specially made bicycle lanes, and everything is clean, even in a major metropolitan city. And cars and small and compact and yield to bicycles. Why is it not like this everywhere?
* Japanese people seem to really like cute little dogs. I swear I saw more chihuahuas and papillons and beagles and Pomeranians than anywhere else. And they were all so cute. ('kawaii des')
*It's true- people here seem to love megaphones. I even saw one of those political vans with megaphones attached to the roof.
*When the trains first start, they make that high creepy noise you always hear in horror films when someone's about to get knifed by a previously unseen shadow behind them. It gets louder and louder. And then the train takes off, and you almost knock into the salaryman sleeping on the seat next to you. ('sumimasen')
*People seem dismayed that I don't know much about baseball or Michael Jackson. They brightened up a bit when I mentioned I used to play softball, though.
*Barney Stinson would love it here, because everyone wears a suit. EVERYONE. The business people, the school kids. He's right, it just makes automatically makes people look really good. This is...so wrong for me to say...
But now I want my university to require everyone wear a gakuran. Everyone.
*Whoever advised not to pack jeans because no one wears them over here and will think you're a weirdo...is a LIAR. It's a bit cool here right now, and I didn't pack any long pants (BAD idea in general). It's not bad- I can wear what I have and be fine. But really, I see rows and rows of people at the station wearing jeans, and I feel like smacking my face into something solid and unforgiving. When I told Izumi-san about the whole jeans thing, she thought it was really funny.
