Welcome to my blog..Throughout the course of this semester I will document my travels, trials, and tribulations in Japan. As one of the few people studying at Kansai Gaidai who are visiting a foreign country for the first time, I am seeing everything through fresh lenses. I am a newbie to both Japanese language and culture, which should make for some blogworthy experiences.
This past weekend I traveled with international students (2 Columbians, 2 Germans, an Australian, a Swedish-Brit, a Ukranian, and 3 other Americans) to Lake Biwa, the biggest lake in Japan. This was about as intercultural as it gets. The campsite we stayed at was one of the most aesthetically pleasing places I have ever been too. It felt almost as if we were on the set of Lost. For 3 nights we camped out, bbq`d, swam, explored, danced, and even tried to start conversations with the local Nihonjin.
There were some pretty big differences I noticed between us and our campsite neighbors. Other than a random guy that windsurfed past us on the first day, we were the only foreigners in site. Most campers stayed for only one night, whereas we decided to make the most out of Silver Week and rough it in the wild (no showers, etc) for 3 days. Despite this, we still had the shoddiest tents on the beach. This was evident when one of them snapped halfway through the trip and we had to duct tape it back to stay under cover.
One thing I noticed about Japanese culture thus far is that they take everything seriously. They even relax seriously. Their tents looked like they could have had a basement dug underneath with possibly a kitchen. Their also seemed more organized in planning their meals. Although our bbq ended up being delicious, our inability to read japanese food labels left us with cow intestines and 64 hotdogs on a stick. All in all, it was an amazing trip and I am looking forward to experiencing whatelse Japan has to offer outside the city of Hirakata..
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