Impressions Having never been to Japan before, many things were immediately new to me. While I've spent the last few days talking about the major changes I've been going through, there are many small ones that are what makes Japan so much fun. So today, I'm going to talk about some of those little things. Of course, Japan (and even Tokyo) is very diverse and I'm sure each thing I say will be somewhat contradictory. The first thing I have to mention because it is raining today - clear umbrellas are  soo  popular. I had seen maybe one before arriving in Japan and on my commute to work this morning I have already seen about 500. I would say they are more popular among young people with an alarmingly many among men. I saw some on sale at Don  Quiote  on my way in for ￥398, so I might have to pick one up on my way home... Another thing I was taken aback by was the amount of technology is cars. For the most part, the same vehicle could be found in the U.S. from t...

My Host Family During my year in Japan, I stay with at least 2 different  long term  hosts as well as the potential for many  short term  hosts when I take business trips to different locations or visit different cities or go on an exchange. However, for at least 2 of those families, I have the potential to become a more indepth family member. The family I am currently staying with is the Katsuki family in Koto-ku (near the bay on the Eastside of Tokyo). My family members include my dad, mom (hippo nickname, Jasmine), host brother (Hideyuki, hippo nickname Gamon), and host sister Sena (she does not live in the home and I have not yet met her). My host father works for the Asahi Beer Company (no, it does not mean free beer). He works a lot! Most nights he doesn't get home until after 10 pm. All of last week, he was on a business trip to Thailand and Vietnam. My host mother does not have a traditional job, but she does a lot! Not only does she take care of the ...

Food I made one rule for myself when coming to Japan. I would try everything at least once no matter how bad I thought it would be. However, I've already come to modify that rule to I'll try  almost  everything at least once (I'm not so brave when it comes to fish with their heads on). The largest problem was that I really hadn't had much Japanese food before arriving in Japan. So, when everyone asked me exactly what I liked or didn't like, I couldn't tell them anything. This meant that I told them I was willing to try, which led to almost a challenge to find things for me to eat. Within two hours from being off the plane, I had one of the members in my hippo club running to find something special. He bought natto, which is a fermented soybean product. I was already feeling a little nauseous from being on a plane for so long and here I was asked to eat something even Japanese have a hard time eating. In the end, I did not like it, but I did promise my fa...

Arrival In Japan What an experience! I'm Michael Gobin. I will be the 2009-2010 LEX Intern in the Tokyo Office. LEX America has been telling you a lot about me, so I won't take a lot of space on introductions. I will be contributing to this blog a couple times a month over the next year. However, my mentor here in the office is gone on a multi-country adventure for the next week, so I will be spending those days contributing more often. I'll try to paint a picture of what my first few days in Japan have been like. Even though I spent 14 hours on a plane headed to Japan. It wasn't until I took those first steps off the plane that it hit me like I walked through a curtain that I was in Japan. First of all, it was immediately warmer. Kana went from being an equal language in places where it mattered, to everywhere with English only as a back-up in the important areas. Most importantly though, I became completely illiterate and that's when I knew the adventure h...

Half Way The arrival of March marks my halfway point through my Year-Long stay in Japan. In the past six months I have made more language discoveries than I am even aware of. Japanese, Thai, and Korean have started sneaking their way into my dreams at night and are invading my thoughts throughout the day. It's a transformation that I didn't consiously make but one that comes with the nature of being in this language rich environment I call home. In the past 6 months I have had countless opportunities to meet people from all over the world and all over Japan. Recently I gave a presentation at an elementary school where students from Thailand, Korea, and England participated in our activity. At the end of the school visit, the guy from Korea came up to me and asked "nan nen gurai nihon ni imasuka?" "how many years have you lived in Japan?" Although it is a fairly simple question, I was thrilled at the way it was worded. At the time he asked me that, I ...

Nami This month I am helping prepare for the In Japan Midterm Meeting. It's an event for all the students that came to Japan from all over the world who are doing a year long homestay. It has been 3 months since they arrived and we want to check in with them and give them a little motivation. Yoshiko, Gotaro and I had a lengthy meeting talking about some issues that develop during this time and ways we can help the students overcome their homesickness, culture shock and language challenges. As we talked about this, of course, I offered up some suggestions and personal ideas about dealing with these difficulties. After the meeting I couldn't help but continue to think about culture adjustment and language acquisition. During the meeting, some personal struggles, challenges and triumphs came rushing to the front of my consciousness. Although it is my job to be a mentor to the high school students throughout their stay, I am also going through a similar struggle. Although,...

Rainy Day Update Today is an extremely rainy and humid day. The office is fairly quiet and slow due to the current 4H Conference in the US so I thought I:d take this chance to update a little bit about some of my projects. The first project is the most important and also the biggest project of the year for me; the cultural project. Each year, the  LEX  intern must decide on an area of culture they find most interesting, or most passionate about since they will be dedicating their  free time  researching it throughout the year. Past interns have done projects such as tea ceremony,  calligraphy , and so on. Since my major is Printmaking, I thought I'd be worthwhile to study Japanese woodblock printmaking since is a very unique printing method. I've started taking a  moku hanga  class every other week to learn this process and hope to develop a solid portfolio of images reflecting my year living in Tokyo. I also want to investigate Japanese  ...