Konnichiwa!

Well, let me start of by saying sorry for not updating for such a long time. I've been meaning to update it for some time, but I never quite got my finger out... so もうしわけありません as they would say in japanese.

As you can imagine, a lot has happend since since my last post. Among a lot of other stuff, I've traveled to Osaka and Kyoto, had a 2-week vecation to Taiwan, and currently I've started on my second and last quarter at school.

Osaka is truly a big city. I didn't take long for me to get tired　and stressed by the never ending sea of people. We saw some of the sights of the city, rode a large ferris wheel by the harbor, and enjoyed the view from one of the skyscrapers.

After Osaka we travelled on to Kyoto. This trip was meticiulously planned by one of the taiwanese girls which we, imo, accurately have named "the boss" (shachou). She had us constantly moving from the one sighseeing spot to the next (there are A-LOT of temples and old buildings in Kyoto) . We (at least I) was quite worn out by the end of the day, but we got to see and experience a lot in a only a few days. And each evening we would all gather in one of the hotelrooms and relax, eat some cup-ramen and joke around. Going on vecation with the taiwanese girls might be a bit tiring, but it's tons of fun :)

3 days after returning home, me and Peter jumped on a plane headed for Taiwan. If you wonder where or what Taiwan is, it's an almost independent chinese island located south-east of China. Being the remnant of the old Nationalist China which lost to the Communists back in 1949, part of population is still unwilling to declare independence as they still see themselves as the rightful representative of China. The younger people on the other hand leans toward independence (probably as they don't have to strong a realtion to mainland China). (Digression: Wow, I find writing about this is much more fun than writing about the stuff I've been doing..) Anyhow, apart from a small aboriginal native population, most people are Han-Chinese and the main language is Mandarin.


We were really lucky and we got to live free of charge in an apartment owned by one of the taiwanese guys at school (Kelvin-san, aka abe) in the middle of Taipei. We stayed in Taiwan for 12 days. And thanks to the great guides we had (もしこれを読んだら、ありがとうございまずガイドさんたち！), we saw alot and pretty much travelled all over the island. The bullet-train from Taipei to Kaoshung (second largest city located in the south) at it's fastest is only 1.5 hours, which goes to show that the islands area isn't that big. While it was quite cold in Taipei +-10 degrees, Kaoshung was warm and I even had a swim in the ocean :)

I've started my last quarter at school. It's probably going to be a bit thougher than the last class, but I don't think i have to break to much a sweat getting through with a good result. I have to learn pretty much by heart 34 new kanji (chinese signs) by tommorow, so I think i'll start on that right after finishing this post.

Oh, almost slipped my mind, japanese fun fact: Japanese television is pretty much 90% humor and entertainment shows, and the rest is news. Pretty much which ever channel you switch too, you're hit by alot of strong colors and text filling the screen, and a prgram where they are either eating something, or making fools of themselves in some way (or both at the same time). It's actually kind of funny :)

See ya,
Lasse

Update!

Hey, long time, no post. I'm having a day off due to a small fever and an unsetteled stomach, thus I have some time to write you guys a post!


I've been here for over a month already, and I feel like I'm always busy with something. But even so it tons of fun! On weekdays i mostly hang around at home studying and spending time with the family. On the weekends I hang out with classmates. The taiwanese girls really take initiative for trips and gatherings, thus I tend to just go along with them. Even though there are some language barriers (only one of them speaks high level english), it's still alot of fun. Another thing I noticed is that taiwanese girls apparently love taking photographs pretty much all the time.


This weekend we went to Toyota to see some classical japanese music arrangement. It was a whole bunch of people playing the shamisen (two string instrument) and singing traditional japanese songs. It was slightly entertaining in the beginning, but after a while i noticed that half the row of my classmates where sleeping (me too...). We went out after 2 hours, and just started walking in a random direction (taking alot of pictures of course!). We ended up at the new Toyota museum of art. The museum grounds were really peaceful and beautiful, and we spent the rest of the day there. I'll post some additional pictures on facebook.


On another note here is an interesting japanese fact: In Japan you eat udon (thick noodles) when you are sick!

Lasse

School life and festival in Nagoya

Greetings to you all!

Just finished my lunch consisting af curry-noodles, liquid banana and a pizza bun.

Well other than that school has started and I should actually be doing my homework now, but I'm sacrifising my time to write this stuff for you! I've gotten into a really nice class, there's five people from taiwan; one australian; a lady from New Zealand; a girl from Mexico; another from the Philippines and an american girl. The teachers are nice and the school looks okay. We're encouraged to speak japanese at all times, and this is sometimes the only option since not everyone speaks english.

Apart from school, I went along with some classmates and other people from School to Nagoya. Nagoya is the largest city and capital in Aichi prefecture (where I'm now). There's a big festival currently taking place in Nagoya. We went for some sight-seeing and to look at the parade. The parade was a mixture between school, brassbands and such, and historical persons (shoguns and emperors i guess), samurais, ninjas and princesses.

On a more personal note, I've learned a lot these two and a half weeks I've been here. Constantly hearing new stuff and trying to memorize it as best I can. But still there is o'so lot to learn!

Today's interesting japanese fact: In Japan you never bring your umbrellah into your house, as this is seen as bad luck (i guess). I made this mistake and the host daughter looked at me like I was total idiot. So I promptly went out and put it in the umbrellah holder.

Well, until next time peeps,
Lasse

6th Oct.

Hi!

Kind of a late update, but better late than never!

It's bedtime and I'm finishing this post which I've been writing on all day..

I arrived in Japan around midday, and then i sat on a train for 8 hours before I arrievd in Okazaki (actually more like 7 trains since I had to change so many times). Well spent the first night in a hotel close to the railway and was picked up the next morning and driven to the school. After fixing some papers and a bit of sight-seeing i was picked up by a friend of the family. The candy shop is actually more of a cake/cafè shop thingy. Then we went to see the host family's apartment.

I think I got the best host family there is! They help me with every possible thing. They try their best at talking to me, even though my japanese is really bad. And the home is constantly filled with friends of the family, so there is always people around. At the same time only some of them know english, the rest not so much, thus I learn alot.

I've eaten a lot of new kinds of food, and most of it is really good! And eating with chopsticks isn't really that hard, you get used to it pretty fast.

Oh, and I was at Karaoke with family and friends (around 13-14 people). I'm not BSing when i say that all japanese have a nice singing voice, I was really stunned by some of the singing talents there! I think the fact that i sang english songs saved me from total embarassment (japanese thinks people who know english are really cool)

Edit (i forgot): Today's interesting fact: The japanese drink a lot of cold tea (without sugar or milk or anything). They just boil some tea, then put it in the fridge. Isn't that bad actually.

















I bought a camera today, so expect some photoes in the next posts!
Lasse

And we're off!

(For the sake of the people who don't know norwegian, I'll write this and future posts in La langue anglaise)

Post # 1! I'm currently sitting in my hotel room in Amsterdam (see picture below). I was a bit late booking my tickets, and thus I have to spend one night in Holland.. You snooze, you lose eh?

I'm leaving for Japan tomorrow afternoon. There I will attend a japanese language school for half a year, hopefully picking up some of the language. I will stay with a host family that runs a traditional japanese candy shop, hopefully not putting on too much weight.

I'm feeling both nervous and excited since I'm travelling alone and I don't really know what will meet me once I arrive. But that is what you will eventually learn through this blog (given that I'm not too lazy...).

I will end todays post with a fact or trivia about Japan, and the same for future posts. So introducing: Todays interesting Japanese fact!:

While I'm not in Japan yet, I have acquired quite the amount of Yen!

Filthy rich right...? No, actually one of those thousand notes is no more than 70 norwegian kroner, just enough to buy yourself a lunch.. But it still feels good.. :P

Next time in Japan people,
Lasse

PS: Hvis du lese dette å tenke "Lasse, e du heilt brød eller? Skriv på norsk!" Så kan eg kanskje prøva å lage ein norsk oppsummering. Ellers så kan du lera deg engelsk...

PSS: I know the camera is crappy, I'll buy a new one soon!