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Joy & Alex Hello!

初めまして！Greetings from Joy & Alex!

¡Hola! 你好！Bonjour! こんにちは！Hello!
お待たせしました！We’ve kept you waiting, but we’re finally here – at your service, the 2016-17 LEX America Intern Duo, Joy and Alex! よろしくお願いします♪ The two of us will be filling this blog with snippets of our adventures and discoveries over the next year, so keep your eyes peeled for more posts coming your way~ To kick off our blogging journey, here’s a quick introduction to the both of us!

✯☆✯

Alex Wray

Hello there everyone, my name is Alex! I am from a small town called Alexandria, Louisiana in the United States of America! I am a senior University student at LSU. I enjoy photography, Haruki Murakami novels, and long walks on the beach.

How did you find out about LEX Hippo?
I found out about LEX/Hippo when I came to Japan in October 2015 with my grandmother. She works as an exchange student coordinator for ERDT in America and won the a trip to Japan for placing a large number of students. She was allowed to bring one person with her and she picked me! We ended up going all over Japan with Bird and Kenshi. During our travels around Japan Bird told me about the Hippo internship and I decided to apply! The rest, as they say, is history.

What’s your favourite discovery about Japan thus far?
I have made lots of discoveries in Japan so far! One, Calpis is a wonderful drink that is a gift from the gods! Two, Okonomiyaki is also wonderful! Three, Asahi Dry is the smoothest beer on the planet! Four, Elevator “close door” buttons actually work! Five, Ameyoko is the coolest place in Tokyo!

Pick a favourite SADA!
My favorite SADA song is Soran Bushi! Every time we do it I get hyped up!


Joy Chee

大家好！我的名字是Joy（^_^）请多多关照！I was born and raised on the tiny island of Singapore, but I left my little tropical home to study at Tufts University in Boston for four years. Post-graduation life has since brought me to Tokyo, the Hippo Headquarters, and into the open arms of countless wonderful people. I like cooking, writing, occasionally writing about cooking, dog-watching, collecting interesting words, and of course, Hippo activities.

How did you find out about LEX Hippo?
I stumbled across LEX in my third year of college – given my love for languages and their quirks, I knew that Hippo was something I wanted in my life. The little office in Cambridge became a warm, nurturing space where I could experiment with language while helping and being helped by the members around me. After graduating, coming to the Tokyo headquarters seemed to be the next logical step – the process has felt like discovering a whole new (and incredibly extended) family on the other side of the ocean, and I can only imagine how much bigger the family will be at the end of this year!

What’s your favourite discovery about Japan so far?
My favourite discoveries have been somewhat linked – I was incredibly excited to find cans of grass jelly, a popular Singaporean dessert, at a tiny Chinese store in Ameyoko, and was even happier when I got to speak to the shopkeeper in Mandarin. It was also a pleasant surprise to discover that Milo – Australian in origin but practically a part of the Singaporean drink identity – can be found in pretty much any Japanese supermarket, and that my host siblings also drank it as children. These two moments were little insights into how connected we can be, no matter who we are and where we come from.

Pick a favourite SADA!
Like Alex, I am a huge fan of Soran Bushi – it has a supremely かっこいい feel! – and though I’m not particularly coordinated when I do it, I love Uno Dos Tres for how energetic it is!

✯☆✯

We're both looking forward to sharing our stories with you, and we hope you'll enjoy reading them! For a more pictorial account of our life in Japan, and a sneak peek and the other lovely interns we're working with, check us out at @internrangers on Instagram! じゃまたねー

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