Thought maybe you could use this as a blog space or something to give us all the fun, gory, wonderful details of your fabulous travels since it looks like you are getting internet while overseas.
So far things have been kind of fun. First and foremost I want to reiterate that I am here for school so class work always comes first in this situation. However, even the school is interesting. The majority of the population of Hirakata City (where I'm staying, about an hour North of Osaka) rides bicycles as a primary mode of transportation. A bike is a necessity around here if you plan on going to any of the cool stuff in the city. Aside from that, take a bus.
My grasp of the language is slowly coming along, but I've noticed that as long as you put forth an effort to try to talk to them in Japanese, they will at least be friendly enough to speak to you in English. For me this is a good thing, because their English is better than my Japanese.
As for Japan itself, it's amazing. I live in essentially a suburban area, not too big, not too small. The city is surrounded by mountains on three sides with trains leaving out of the open side. Any time you can look around and beyond the buildings are the views of mountains like back home in the Appalachias. It makes me a feel a little closer to home than being on the other side of the world. However, because of the red and white power lines thatdot the landscape I expect Godzilla to come climbing over at any moment. Thanks to the Keihan train line, I can go to any of the major cities in less than thirty or so minutes. Osaka and Kyoto are to the North and the South of us with plenty of smaller but interesting cities along the way.
As I said, the people are kind and decent from what I've seen. I thought I had my bike stolen last week and come to find out one of the people at the store I was at got on it by mistake, thinking it was his and took off with it. He brought it back roughly an hour later and profusely apologized. The crime rate is next to nothing here. You could drop your wallet on the street, come back the next day and not only would it still be there but it may have a few extra notes in it with a message attached saying, "sorry for your troubles."
The women here are worth mentioning as well. Now, first I will debunk the rumor that there are no ugly Asian girls. Wrong. It may be a bit sexist of me, but there are a few ugly ones, just like there are a few ugly American women. However, due to the transportation problems I mentioned earlier they are all quite fit. Even though they deep fry all their foods, the majority of them are toned and seem to be in good health. Style wise, they seem to have a fondness for mini skirts and stockings. The cold weather hasn't dampened their sense for trying to look good and on even the coldest day some of the women I have seen on campus could cause the most devout of men to impure thoughts.
That being said, on to food. It's delicious. Even the sushi you can buy at the supermarket can blow away any sushi I have eaten in the states. Plus it's decently cheap too. Most supermarkets will cut the sushi prices in half at the end of the day to get rid of it quick. I can buy three rolls of awesome sushi for about 7 bucks. As for the regular meals, there is a small mom and pop style diner that sells great food for around 7 dollars too. Any hibachi grill in the states would have a thing or two to learn about how they cook here. The portions are the same too with more rice I think.
I'll write more as it comes to me as well as I may start my own little blog on here to kind of keep people apraised. Until then, everyone take care.
