The last month has changed me to my very core. Life in the countryside of Japan is completely different than life in Tokyo. My program (Japan Study through Earlham) requires that year-long students go on a “cultural internship” to a more rural setting in Japan for a month. I decided to go to Tanohata, a …
Tag Archives: Japan
Christmas in Japan
It has been awhile since my last post, but the adventures keep on coming! It is already halfway through January, but Christmas in Japan has left quite an impression on me. While Christmas is a big deal in the United States, in Japan it’s a much more (extremely) commercial, just-for-fun kind of holiday. Class is …
紅葉 (Kouyou)
One thing that is interesting (and convenient) about the Japanese language, is that there are words for very specific things. For example, 木漏れ日 komorebi, which means “The sunlight that filters through the trees”, or 積ん読 tsundoku, which means “buying books and not reading them.” Things that take a whole sentence to explain in English, becomes …
What I Love – Abroad!
I came to Japan with the spirit that I was going to find ways to dance here. I had very specific ideas about what that meant. I was going to join a dance club, make cool dance friends, and maybe show off some of my skills in the subway. My imagination and reality have been …
An Adventure in Shibuya
I had a friend message me for lunch, so I headed out to Shibuya to meet her. Rather than lunch we had an amazing matcha dessert parfait, and we spent three hours talking about our lives, our hopes, and our struggles (friendship is beautiful, no?). The three hours felt too short, but since I had …
Host Family
I have begun to find a rhythm for my daily life here in Japan. I have found ways to make my commute a bit more comfortable (the trains get very busy here), to get involved in my interests, and have settled in with my host family. Having a host family was one of the things …
What They Don’t Tell You
I have recently begun living with my host family after spending two weeks in a hotel room. I was shocked by the complete shift in my life. It is as if the two weeks I spent in that hotel room were some sort of strange dream, and I had forgotten what exactly this adventure entailed. …
Convenience Store
I arrived in Japan about a week ago, and the very first night I made my way into a Japanese convenience store. I had watched many videos in the past about Japanese convenience stores, but nonetheless, when I stepped inside I felt completely unprepared. There were so many products I had never tried before; the …
12 Days to Departure!
It is 12 days before I leave for Japan, and it’s starting to sink in that I am leaving the country for an extended period of time. 11 months! My wanting to go to Japan started in first grade with a school project. Ever since then, it has been an exhaustive journey trying to get …
Bucket List–My Final Post
Hello, everyone! I am writing this post from my couch, safe and sound, back in my home state of Michigan. Looking back on my time in Japan, I’ve had a lot of things on my to-do list that I haven’t been able to do due to distance, construction, or time/money restraints, and I did get …
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