A Truly International Experience

Hey everyone,

Not a picture entry today - just wanted to share a quick thought about a few things that happened to me today.  We were in class studying some kanji when some confusion arose about the meaning of this word: 立候補する (りっこうほする、rikkouho suru), which translates roughly to "announcing one's candidacy" or "proposing one's self as a candidate" in the context of an election or something.  The teacher was looking for a student to explain the meaning of this in Japanese, and called on a Chinese student.

This poor student proceeded to explain 立候補する as being asked by some authority to fulfill a position in government or something.  When corrected by the teacher, the student claimed that this was what her dictionary told her was the proper definition.  The class suddenly realized that, because of the way Chinese government functions, this particular student got the wrong idea about the meaning of this word.

During this discussion, I kept hearing a clicking sound coming from my left.  I looked out the open window to see if it was coming from outside, but it was in fact coming from one of the Chinese students who was trimming his nails in class.

Today was truly full of international experiences.

Spring Break Catching Up - Various February Pictures

Another post to catch up on last semester - here are a collection of random pictures from February.


One of my favourite shops in Japan is a place called Book-Off - I'm sure I've mentioned this before.  They sell second-hand manga, anime DVDs/Bluray, CDs, video games, trading cards...  You name it, they have it.  Still, I was surprised to find these in the Ikebukuro Sunshine City Book-Off...

Spice Girls?

Backstreet Boys?

And then, this...

One of the stranger experiences I had in the dorm was noticing strange 8-bit music being played late at night.  One night I went out to investigate and found this:

Terrible picture quality, I know

Seems that, in Ikebukuro, there's a company that runs a service whereby a truck will deliver gasoline to your house.  And plays nursery rhyme tunes to attract customers.


Next, here's something that was sold at the local McDonalds for a while.

Was not nearly as good as the name suggested.

One day, Jay too Matt and I to a ramen shop in Akihabara.

This stuff was delicious~~~

Also, self-serve FRESH GARLIC?  YES PLEASE!

Now for some random Engrish!

Mmmmm, cake sand...

Definitely a good way to sell tissues, I think

Then, there was one day when the trains were really, really late - found this sign kinda funny:

30 minutes late...

One last picture - there's a holiday in Japan called Hinamatsuri, which can be translated as Doll Festival, but is also sometimes referred to as Girls' Day.  The centrepiece is this arrangements of dolls:

It's an interesting holiday - typically, rich grandparents will buy a set of dolls when their children have their first daughter.  The dolls are to be up the day of the festival, every year, and must be taken down before the day is over, else the daughter suffer the curse of a late marriage.  Yup, that's Japan.

Sakura in Shinjuku Gyoen

Hi guys!


I'm going to preface this post by saying that a lot of my pictures get uploaded to my Google+ page.  I don't like Facebook nearly as much as I do Google+, so this is my way of trying to get you all to join G+...


So I'm going to just dump a bunch of pictures from our school trip to the Shinjuku imperial garden, also called the Shinjuku Gyoen.

Look at all those KCP students

 

Sakura!

This is me pretending to be a photographer - with my cell phone x___x

Saw this guy painting - really looked like he was enjoying his retirement

 

Picnicking is a big deal when the sakura are blooming

 

Hope you enjoyed this picture dump!