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I feel sad. It's been a great two months. Great is not as strong as I really feel that can reflect my feelings about Japan. I'm planning already to return soon and return to GenkiJacs. I am going to study on my own, of course, but I feel that you need that kind of interaction and immersing myself in Fukuoka is the way to do it. And of course GenkiJacs is the best way to do it. Why? Let me tell you.

1. The people. Yes, Japan is full of great people. Fukuoka has people that are always helpful and kind. But GenkiJacs have a staff that goes out of their way to make you feel comfortable and at ease. They spoiled me with chances to find things in Fukuoka and in Japan for things to see and do. It was my own fault that I didn't do all of them. The teachers were the best. They always found a way for me to remember certain things to help me speak and understand the language. It wasn't just a way to repeat things because we know that set phrases and set responses do not work. That's why outlessons were so fun. Outlessons were the times we shopped for groceries for our Takoyaki party. Or when we asked travel agents about recommendations for places to go in Japan and why. Or when we went to the shrine and were shown what to do and why. Or the 'extra' outlessons when we went to the yatai to order food or went to the photobooth to take pictures with our friends. I mean it was a constant learning experience. The fun seemed to be more of a primary factor than the learning, but next thing you know what we did helped me later when I was at the market alone without my teachers.

2.Location. GenkiJacs was right there in the center of Tenjin. Three points of subway stations were less than 10 minutes away on foot and one,Hakata station, was also a JR point that can take you to the rest of Japan. Buses are everywhere and they take you everywhere. Plus temples and shrines were always a walk away. Ohori Park was two stations away for a nice walk or good run. Tenjin Station was the hub of buses and the Nishitetsu(sp?) Line, plus it had over 6 floors of shops and restarants. It was hard not to shop or eat there. ha. Also, nearby was an arcade with a place that you can bowl, play darts, badminton, or just games. GenkiJacs is right in the middle of it all.

3. Lessons/Schedule. All the lessons were 50 minutes long with a 10 minute break in between and a lunch after two hours, usually. At least that was my schedule. I didn't have to wake up early everyday. There were days my classes started at 11am. Nice!! I could sleep in, catch up on homework, extra study time, run errands, or whatever. Or sometimes I had a 2 hour lunch so I could go somewhere with friends and not just pick up my favorite bento. Our schedules were always different. Just like our lessons. All of my lessons were always fun and something new. My day could be like 1st a Conversation Class. We would talk about our weekend or what we did yesterday. Mind you, this is all in Japanese. The only time you spoke in English was to ask how to say what you wanted to say in Japanese. And you even asked in Japanese. So I ended up building my vocabulary. We would use our Grammar structures we just learned to feel more natural in our speaking ability. Funny for me, I always reverted to being polite in the -masu form. Ha. But I was speaking. ha. The great thing was the topics were always open. Sure, it would start to be us talking about work, but then we would start talking about people at our work, or crazy things on the differences among all our countries. So it made it real easy to learn. Then I would go, or stay in the same room, and have my Grammar class. This was the nuts and bolts of Japanese, or any other language. And I have to say, Japanese has it easy. People think it's hard but it's not. Like to create a question you just add -ka. That's it. For English, we change word order, add a question word, and sometimes conjugate the verb to create a question. Grammar class was also fun. It's actually a conversation class with a topic, haha. Once we go over the what's and how's, we start talking by role-playing. And we didn't just follow the book on the grammatical point. Our great teachers would throw in something that would help us remember or even add on to show us more. This is also when we worked on Listening. We would watch a short dvd clip or a cd and listen. The we would interpret or fill in the blank. This could be then end of the day, but I wanted to add an extra conversation class, so I would get more out of my stay. Some of these extra classes, we learned more cultural points and played games. I learned how to play Shoji, Japanese Chess, and a card game where you have to find a card with a certain syllable and the card has the picture that the reader is describing. In the end, I took a pop culture class and we went over a few pages from a manga. We interpretted and discussed the grammar points and looked over a few cultural points because of the way the language was structured. Fun stuff.

4. Staff/Teachers. What can I say? They were more friends than staff. But I still spoke to them with the polite form, haha. They always were there to help and talk. for me, I had to break study and return home for a funeral, the staff sent me an email while I was in America to tell me when I had class on the day I returned. Also, my teacher gave me a few pages of homework to make sure I didn't fall behind. Nice huh? What I thought was cool was how you may have mentioned something in class and then a few days later, they would comment on it. Most people would forget. Also, the staff would help us when things came up. One student had an issue with the bank, the teachers were willing to go with her to speak or interpret for her. I also had the chance for my own interpreter when I had the TNC television studio come to my apartment for a taped interview. The staff always looked for opportunites to make us feel comfortable. Level checks were given to see where you would start. I may have known the kana and some words, but they let me start in the Basic Foundation class because I wasn't comfortable. I can't pick anyone to be my favorite because I liked them all. Each teacher had their own style but they also shared the idea of who we were as non-native speakers and tailored their teaching for us. Another great point is how the teachers were so energetic, it was infectious. During outlessons, I wasn't as shy as I usually am. I had fun. I'm gonna continue to study Japanese because of them. They added to my interest in the Japanese language and culture. And when I return, I want to be a little more advanced than I am now, not to impress them, but to better communicate with them and everyone else.

5. Size. The school was small, but that was only because there were a lot of students. This should show you something. Unfortunately, I missed the expansion. But I will be back to see it. Yay! The only thing I'm worried about is that the classes were perfect for us to have classes with a max of 6. I'm hoping it doesn't get bigger. I like smaller classes. The interaction was perfect. This was important because, in my opinion, our levels and comprehension of the language was still a little different among the students in the same class. I know there were times I felt I held the class back, but it helped when the other students were still helpful. The thought of a class of ten is bad. One or two who fall behind can really hold up the others, plus it can get out of hand with our conversations. haha. I like the class sizes as they are with 2 to 6 students. It also made it better for outlessons. I love those outlessons.

GenkiJacs is a real good school. They are making it bigger as they should because more of us are coming back and the students keep expanding. I made a lot of great friends from around the world. Where else can you say that. I met a few people from other countries in my Army days and in college, but it's different. Maybe it was how the school made the classes small enough for us to get to know each other in such a short amount of time, but I feel I made better friends here. I like how GenkiJacs made everything fun. I learned a lot because of that. Just take a look at my vocabulary list. haha. I'll keep that to myself. You build your own. I'll be back soon and blog again.

Day something jan 24

it's sad, i'm getting close to the end. I made a lot of good friends from around the world which makes it real cool. Erin from Aussie land is going home tomorrow. we came here at the same time, but she was in a more advanced grammar class. At least I caught up to her in conversation. We all went bowling for the fun of it. I say for the fun of it because most of us weren't very good. haha. After the first round we played with our left hands. Then the next round we mixed it with our left first and then our right, then we played our left on the first throw, then if we had a spare, we could throw with our right. Just weird rules but it made it fun. One of our instructors went with us. He's pretty cool. I'm actually older than him. Two of us won prizes by getting strikes when they surprise announced that there was a contest for strikes. We got a group picture through the bowling alley. That was cool.

earlier this week, we went to a yatai stall for ramen and oden. My classmate from France never been so we all went. it was fun, but really cold. haha. luckily the stall was very warm. the ramen was real good.

Also we have been doing a lot of out-lessons. this is where we learn a few things then go to a store, restaurant or place of amusement and fill out a worksheet in Japanese by asking japanese workers questions. it helps in our way of conversing in a real life situation. the people we ask are always cool. They don't speak english and speak as they normally do. they don't dumb it down so it's tough sometimes. One time our teacher had to tell a store clerk to talk to us in japanese only because the clerk was trying his english with us. haha.

I havent been travelling much since i have little time. I'm studying more cause it's getting tougher. But these lessons are more natural and are the building blocks of lessons to come, so if you don't get it now, you won't get the rest.

I'm including a picture of Mandarake. one of the big anime, toy, and manga store in Kyushu. it's cool. let me give you a brief layout. The first floor was the manga that just came out and the ones from the previous week/month. The second floor had the stuff for guys, like porn. Really. haha. They had the fantasy stuff, the fighting stuff, the robot-mecha stuff, and of course, the porn. The third floor is the 'gay floor' as i call it. hahahaha. It was geared for women, but the majority of stuff was yaoi stuff. I was going to try to find stuff for my sister, but there was just too much 'yaoi' i had to leave. haha. The fourth floor was all toys and movies. This was cool. Being a collector myself, they had a lot of the collectibles I wanted. And just like on ebay, they had the stuff that cost big bucks. I saw a 'sexy' Rei figurine from Evangelion for 500 dollars. They didnt let me take a picture. damn them. I wanted to buy stuff but I know I was going to spend too much money. so i left. haha. I may go back.

Tomorrow is our takoyaki party. My french classmate is going to make crepes. it's going to be fun. see you.

A quick post

Yesterday, Saturday the 12th, One great thing and one very bad thing. Unfortunately, I found out my aunt passed away. It's very sad because I grew up with her with her being my mom's sister. We went to the PI and she took care of us over there and then she came to america and she took care of us when we went to Florida too. I will be going home for a day this week to go to the viewing. I don't want to write about this in my blog since this is a private matter and I just wanted to briefly comment since I will not be posting for a while.

travel is limited with the amount of time and immigration issues. I found out in Japan that they limit the amount of people who visit other countries is very limited. It affects me because of the amount of people who travel on the weekends.

On Saturday, a TV station, TNC, visited my apartment to film me. They already visited other students, but I live the farthest from school so they scheduled me for Saturday. I found out they wanted to see what we do in each country to treat the common cold. I made chicken noodle soup. It was okay, but I felt dumb because all the japanese I learned went out the window. I could understand them most of the time but I could barely speak. The show will be on the 31st of this month, maybe I'll get a copy.

ahh!! I'm losing track of my days

This is a picture of an amusement park next to the daizafu shrine.


ok ok. it's been a while and I forgot to write in here. It's been a while cause i moved up again in class. Supposedly my Japanese got better, but when it comes to speak, I freeze up sometimes. haha The school is great. They really help me a lot. I'm actually in two different conversation classes. One is still in the beginner 1 stage where I need to be polite. well, really in my polite form. And the other we get to be more casual and its more of an everyday form. Kind of what you hear on TV and anime. Though not as advanced as anime. From what I was told, anime has a lot of advanced stuff and high vocab. The news is probably the only thing that is really advanced.

I may get to be on TV literally tomorrow or on Saturday. There's a TV station TNC that will come by the school. They want to interview us and see who has "cool" ideas or recipes on getting rid of the common cold. I guess because its cold season and they want to hear from us foreigners. I want to give them my whiskey hot toddy. We'll see if they pick me, then I'll be on TV!!! yay! For note, I think TNC is the same TV station that did one of my favorite shows, Ainori.

Also, my new classmate is a French girl and she's really cool. Down to earth person. She's very intelligent and speaks three languages already. Another note, I noticed she's the fourth or fifth European who can speak more than two languages. One girl at the school is self talk in Japanese and she's in the intermediate Class. Smart, huh? That motivates me to continue hard when I return home. Well, this french girl is like a hit with the school. She's funny, cute, and she has a good personality. We're planning to have a takoyaki and okonomiyaki party soon, and she offered to make french crepes. mmmmmm. I can't wait. She's funny in a way where she says she doesn't know Japanese well, yet she puts together sentences with no problem. That's a lot if you've studied Japanese with the grammar a lot different from Romantic Languages.

Well, it's cool that coming up we have a 3day weekend. lots of trips planned, yet I have to pick only one since I have to watch my money. When I get paid, I want to go to the Asahi Beer Factory. Free Beer!! Really!!! And I'm planning to go to a musical, or opera, or something with two friends from school on the holiday, Monday. Plus there's a place outside of Fukuoka to get live squid and eat it like sashimi. mmmmm. Lots to do. And then my new friend, she wants to go to Yahoo Dome for the Soft Bank Hawks and Fukuoka Tower. I think she wants to go with me to the Asahi beer Factory. We'll see. At least the factory tour is free.

Oh well, time to study. I have a test tomorrow. Gambatte!!!　がんばって！！！

I for got to add another one to my list. To save the eco, they turn off buses at stop lights to avoid more fumes. literally shut off the bus. Funny.

More things from Japan(kind of a list)

1. Portable ashtrays. Really. People have it on keychains, or its the other half of the cigarette case. Then they dump it in the burnable trash. I got one for my brother in law. I should promote these in America.
2. Smoking booths, tents, chambers. Cool. I see most of these at the bigger subway or train stations. I saw a tent in Marinoa shopping outlet too.
3. Vans that do the advertising for you. In the cases I've seen, they were for people running for office.
4. Celebrities doing shows. Like you'll see the same comedian on a game show, variety show, talk show, and then a drama all in one week. Oh and they're also in commercials. You won't see George Clooney doing that.
5. Celebrities having fun. Most American celebrities show themselves when they want to look good, like fundraisers or something. Those are cool, but then they look like they never have fun.
5a. Celebrities on smart game shows. This is where they compete in things like knowledge in school subjects to what is the kanji or whatever. They're not afraid of not getting the answer. American celebrities are too afraid of looking dumb. Except for Britney.
6. Man-bags. And I mean very nice brands like Dolce and Gabbana, Coach, Gucci....
7. Nice shopping bags used as giant purses.
8. No paper towels or even hand-dryers in bathrooms.
9. And all the water is cold. No hot water.
10. No trash cans on the street. Also No trash on the street.
11. After you purchase something, Shopkeepers take your bag, escort you out, then bow real deep as you leave.
12. To try on clothes, you have to try it on over your own. Mostly shirts and jackets, I haven't tried on pants. haha
13. It's not strange to order a beer 11:00am with your lunch. Cool.
14. Pachinko bars are everywhere. They even have one named after Winter Sonata, the korean drama.
15. Most stores have more than two floors. Tower Records has 7, An electronic store has 12, One clothing store I went to has 5, and this one Dept store has 8. But they are all narrow.
16. Almost everyone has an mp3 player in their pocket. I think thats why I fit in a little.
17. I barely hear anyone honk at each other.
18. more than one bus stops at the same stop. so it gets confusing even to the residents where each bus goes.
19. If someone japanese speaks to you in English, speak back in English. They love it and then when you compliment them, most blush. I talked to a nice lady and she was happy when I told her her English was good.
20. I got 10 things of tissue in one walk to my school. I also got a giant cheese puff.
21. japanese girls are easy to approach and nice. Not as intimidating as the women in America. Some asked my friend to sing karaoke for them. funny.
22. Police officers are very nice here. they even give you rides if you're lost. i saw a kid get a ride from a cop to the subway station.
23. Umbrellas are left in front of stores, post offices, and some subway stops for people to borrow. And yes people return them.
24. You better slurp your ramen. They think something is wrong if you don't. I'm still learning.
25. I returned a phone i found in the bathroom. all the clerks thanked me. All of them. wow.
26. 24 hour udon shops, also internet cafes. people use these when they miss the last train or are waiting for the first train. Though the food is really good too. I'm looking for a 24 hour ramen place.
27. Cell phone accessories are huge. At the Loft, half of one floor had different things for the phones. cases, stickers, straps.
28. I've only seen the young couples hold hands

That's it again for now. I do have to mention this sushi place, Hyootan. It has the revolving sushi with four sushi chefs behind the bar. It was so good. And cheap. What I usually get in the states for 50 to 60 dollars, I got for 2500yen. NICE!! plus it's all you can drink green tea. The fish was fresh and they had it all, Sea Urchin, maguro, eel, salmon, roe, on and on. It's on bottom floor in the Solaria Plaza. I highly recommend it.

Day something, Jan 4

Back to school and we took the full day to go to two shrines, The Tochoji Temple and something-something shrine. The Tochoji was the same from before with the giant buddha. Since it was the new year, most people bought charms or even lit incense and prayed. That one guy from Mexico bought two charms of each kind. Talk about really wanting a great year. Ha. They had this one chart we looked at to see if we were going to have a good year. Mine was half black and white, supposedly meaning that my first half of the year will be good and the last half would be bad or okay. Thanks alot Year of the Rat/Mouse!

We also had to write out our wishes for the year on the wooden cards you tie up. That was cool. I forgot to do that when I went to Dazaifu. So we headed back to school and us students had lunch together. Though we come to see about half the students leave. Damn. One was the Mexican guy who shopped all throughout school, another was my friend from New Zealand, he's going to teach as an ALT in Kuramoto(sp?) another was June from Australia and the another was Janine from Australia. Now Janine was very advanced. She was a graduate from a Japanese university. the last was my friend from the UK, James. Too bad we didn't get to hang out much. We only talked in passing, but that's kind of my fault since they usually went out and I never tagged along.

But I do have fun with my roommates or just wandering around Fukuoka by myself. haha. Some people will call me depressed at home for being a loner. Maybe I'll tell them I cut myself too to feel alive. Just kidding, bad joke. tomorrow I'm going to try a sushi place Hisako-san mentioned. I went there but the line to get in was superlong. It's one of those revolving belt sushi places but very good and very cheap. I may bring home a small platter for my roommates.

I think next week school, I'll be in for a full six hours a day, plus I think I'm alone in my classes. we'll see. sorry no pics today.

New Year's Day!

hello. It's 2008 and I'm still in Japan. Damn. Only one more month. Anyway. I woke up late and decided to go to Dazaifu Shrine. Look it up. It was snowing but it was worth it. I had to buy a 400yen ticket to go from Hashimoto to Dazaifu. The subway was fine, not that crowded considering everyone usually heads to the shrine for the new year. But when I transferred to the train, it was packed. I was nice enough to give my seat away. There were a few cute babies dressed up in kimonos. But I felt creepy if I took their pictures. Anyway, it was a short 20 minutes to the shrine. Very fast these trains.

When you get there you can see the snow has been falling since the morning. It was real beautiful. There was an 80km walk to the shrine from the station and it was laid out in shops and restaurants. These were packed too. the shops were selling the mochi you have for the new year and the shops had souvenirs. I also noticed the smaller food stands, but I was getting pushed along with the new crowd towards the shrine.

We crossed the bridge over the lake and it was real pretty. The time I forgot my hat, it was snowing and under the trees the melting snow rained on us. One person was nice enough to put their umbrella over me for a bit. I love this country. When you get to the front of the shrine, it became a frenzy. Not a real crazy, mad frenzy, but the kind where you see so many lines and booths, you don't know which way to go first frenzy. I decided to head for the main shrine where you pray and toss money for offerings. I also bought a wish you can tie to the tree, or bull as some people did.

I went to the Kyushu National Museum. Very nice, but I was strapped for cash and didn't buy a ticket for the exhibit. I walked around and looked at the things we can look at. Also, we couldn't take any pictures inside. Too bad, they had a lot of old buddhas and sculptures from a castle. Sorry I can't read the kanji yet.

I came back down the hill and ate the food from the stands that were right outside of the shrine. mmmmmm. they had everything. Takoyaki, okonomiyake, yakitori, hotdogs on a stick, corndogs, okonomiyake on a stick, bbq corn, candy... it almost felt like a fair. Of course I brought money for food. I also bought mochi for my roommates. They were fresh too. mmmmm. I do have to laugh at one thing. THey had numerous stands on selling stuffed penguins. I thought it was the year of the mouse. oh well.