Live from Japan

That's it! I am in Japan.
I'm totally out of my mind, I'm really excited. I slept a bit, 5 or 6 hours, not more. I'm totally wasted, I look like a zombie. But hell, I'm in freakin' Japan. What can you say to that? Nothing, it's simply awesome. Hell now I don't regret that cavity search anymore... still hurt a bit tho.

Seriously.
We took the flight from Montréal to Detroit yesterday. Then Detroit to Japan. 13 fucking hours. I can't say it was a nightmare, but hell sure close to it. Compressed with other passengers, it was hot in the plane like you can't imagine. The food was... huh... food... Even then. I still have the egg in my stomach and I have the impression it's gonna take the two full motnhs to waste them. Couldn't sleep at all. They played movies. 4 in total. Kit Kittranger (or something like that), Speed Racer, Swing Cote and Kung Fu Panda. The only use of these was to keep me more from sleeping. Horrible, simply horrible. I didn't remember movies could be that boring. Except Kung-Fu Panda.

So basically, 13 hours of flight and we land in Narita near Tokyo, exhausted, food poisoning and stinking. There we try to check-out. Yeah try. Get out of the plane, really not unhappy to walk after 13 hours sit in the plane, I'm with my brother and we both wonder where we shoud go. We follow people as much as we can, checing everywhere like two paranoide crack user, and we sure looked like ones. TO finally end in the immigration lobby. Which, of course, trouble us since we're not here to immigrate. SO we turn back, look around some more for our fixe of crack. Nothing, so we go back to the immigration lobby and there we stumble on a kind of old security agent trying to speak english. I don't know exactly what he said, but apparently we were at the right place, but we couldn't buy crack tho.
So right there we have to complete little formula paper. Detailing name, family name, flight no, passport no, and the adress where we're gonna stay.... Holy crap! My brother take the rapsheet of his family and try to write what it thinks, more or less, his the family adress. Me I search my bags as much as I can, while the old security guy who doesn't exactly speak english look at me with suspicion, or maybe he was blasé. Really can't tell, was too much afraid for my "cavities" at this moment to really notice. So I can't find my paper, I decide to go without it.

Right at this moment come the boarder security check. Say "Hello" to NiceGuy-san. Stern, callous at best, maybe a little bit agressive. He looks like he could strangle a bear single-handlely. So he checks my passport and doesn't seem to like that I don't have any adress to tell him. So I try to explain that I can't find the information and he simply keep staring at me with the killer look. OhmyfreakingodIdon'twanttogetacavitysearchpluuuuuueaszze. Then he said:"Okay, go on, welcome to Japan." But before that say hello to security check again. Put your fingers in this mahcine and smile to the camera. *click* I'm officially in the Japanese governement system now. No matter what thy'll find me and probably rape me in my sleep.

So we follow the sign with lugages on it. Our instinct was good. We find our precious bags pick them. Cool. We see the "exit" sign. We're close now. And then come the other security check. Again another sheet where I must write my name, where I come from, my flight number.... and guess what? The adress I'll stay. Crap. Fill out the form go see NiceGuy-san #2. He looks cooler, but he have this perverted look I don't like. AT least he speaks english. So I explain that I don't have the family information. He seems to udnerstand and then look at me and my brother and decide he is gonna search the lugages. No prob! Anyway nothing wrong with them. And then look at me, apparently sceptical. And I swear at this moment I had a flash of me, bent over a table while this guy put his fist in my ass. SO Niceguy-san #2 say he must search me. Oh fuck NOOOOO! He comes near me, pat me a bit here and there. Find my zippo, he finds it pretty, tell me so and then tell me :"Okay, welcome to Japan, have a nice stay." He search my brother. And we're good.

Still don't know where we going exactly, we wonder near the exit door aimlessly, and then come our savior. Kimura-san. Nice little guy, probably not older than me, or he hide it well. He show up with a nice and warming "Konichua". He look at us with a smile and say some thing:"U look tured." Yeah, can't disagree with that. He just explain to us that we can sit over there and wait there gonna fetch the bus. He put us in a bus, telling that I'll be the first to join my host family. OK. Then the bus start and I realise that I still don't have the adress.

45 minutes later, the guy stop at a kind of nowhere place, I can only see a convenience store and 3 colossal tower of 20 floors each, and the guy seems to want to let me there. huh.... no...
He spend 10 minutes trying to explain to me something, he doesn't speak english and I'm not evens ure he's talking to me in Japanese. And then what is going to be my second angel of mercy show up. Miyako-san. She simply say "Konichua" with the sweetest smile I've ever seen. Ask to the driver something about the Kudan Institute. And then she help me transport the lugage. Goes to the 15th floor, apartement one. So 1501 it is.

So officially I'm here. Miyako-san show me the apartement, my room, washroom, toilet, kitchen and everything. She doesn't speak english. But can't help to find her really warming with he kind smile. She finally ask if I'm hungry. Well, yes. We eat. And while we eat we try to speak. The funniest try to communication you'll see in your life. She have on her side a kind of, really kind of, french-japanese guide. She have all the problem in the world pronouncing the words. But she try hard and I understand. On my side I have my pocket french-japanese dictionnary that doesn't contain half the word I would like to say. 30 minutes later, and a lot of "Naniiii!", I finally understand that we are eating porc, calmar and chicken. Cool. I can't even remember the words this morning. So we try for a while to communicate after that, she shows me how the shower work. I still don't get it exactly. I'll post a picture later, if someone can help me I would appreciate greatly.

Later that evening, the third angel of mercy shows up, Aika-san, who insist that I call her Aika. She speaks english, not very well, but she still do. We spent 3 hours talking about me. Which mean, that we had a ton of scrap paper where I would right the english she doesn't understand and explain them to her. Which finally turn out to be the main point of the conversation. "Tabunne" is probably the word I heard the more, which mean maybe. She took time to precise that guy should only say "tabun" or else it will look gay. Thanks Aika, wouldn't like to pass for gay the first time I open my mouth.

After that, I was completely wasted, totally and completely wasted. Went to sleep. 6 hours and I write this.

I'll stop at that. More to come, probably later today in fact. Both Aika and Miyako are going to work this afternoon, so i'll have free time.

So 13 hours from home and live from japan,
Cya.

See you later

5 a.m.
Totally wasted, not awaken yet. Sipping coffee, burning cigarets. Yeah nothing too good in the morning. In one hour, more or less, we're gonna climb into the car, make a 3 hours run to the airport and take the fly to Japan.

This post here don't have much in it. I was simply thinking that I should post something before I leave... you know... just in case.

It's strange tho, I was over-excited yesterday evening, couldn't stay still for a second, but now I feel like ... nothing.

Simply don't know what to do while I wait.
I feel excited of course, a little bit nervous. Afraid they may find the explosive in my lugage, it's nothing dangerous really. Seriously, no explosive. But some good friends of mine, assured me that they sent anonymous mails to the border check. Thanks guys don't know how would have been this trip without a good anal search before entering Japan. I do wish the guy gonna buy me diner after, you know, wouldn't like to end this with a cold touch.

So basically that's it. Nothing much to say, I jsut had a few minutes to spare.

I'll be back in 13 hours, more or less.

Cya

Host Family Information

Ok, ok, ok... Right now, right about now, I'm totally looking like a virgin senior schoolgirl getting ready for her prom night and her first time sex. I'm nervous, excited, don't know exactly what to do, my heart is beating strangely. I received the family information about 20 minutes ago.

I know, I'm over reacting, yes I am. But, hell, I was so incertain about this trip that I didn't know where to put myself. Understand that I've been thinking about it for over half a year now and always had this fear that something might go wrong for no reason, maybe the Kudan institue wouldn't be able to find a host family, or that the trip would be cancelled cause they wouldn't have enough students. You know, anything Murphy might comes up with, the guy's pretty inventive sometimes. But those informaiton clearly means that next friday at 9:00am I'm taking my leave for Japan. How awesome is that?

So anyway, regarding the family:
I'll be at 30 minutes from the school. Which is really cool, knowing that my brother's going to be at 50 minutes of the school. I don't understand the adress for a second, I only know that I'll be in Tokyo directly.
It gonna cost me 11660 yens everymonth in transportation. Which would translate roughly at 100$us bucks, really roughly. Happy I'm there only two months, wouldn't want to go bankrupt cause of metro tickets, you know.
I'm gonna live with the Nakano family compsed of Miyako, the mother, 46 years-old, working part time, not specified where or what. Her Daughter, Aika, 24 years-old, nurse and according to the rapsheet(if I can call it that), she likes music. Ans, I know a guy or two who are gonna smile at this, there is no one else, I'm going to be the only man in the house.

Ok, I'll admit it, I thought about it. I'm like every manga/anime fan on the planet, I've read hentai, in fact I like hentai, and this is the best potential situation you'll see in every hentai in the world or almost. Really hard not to think about it. I've smiled at the information sheet. The idea is funny and entertaining, what can I say, I'm a wee bit pervert. Forgive me baby Jesus!

But that said, it's really not the point of this trip, I simply appreciate more to be with a mother and her 24 years-old nurse daugther then let say a father and his 35 years-old otaku/geek son.

So, anyway, I'm really excited (in a non-sexual way, mind you) to meet them both. I'll be happy to share those two months with them and I'm eager to know them more closely. It's gonna be fun, it's a totally new experience for me, I just can't be more excited....

Fuck now everything I write sounds dirty to me. I'm gonna stop now... better go check some... aw hell.

Cya

Japanese 101

Guess what? I felt like sharing my experience at learning japanese. Hopefully, this message on the english blog gonna be shorter than the one in french. I assume that most people that will read the part here are from AnimeNfo and already know a thing or two about japanese already. But I do have one or two things that been itching since I've been on the actual learning.

Yeah of course I knew there was different form of written japanese. Hiragana, katakana and kanji. Which was already something strange in my mind. Why in hell would you need three differents form of wrtting in one language. I mean what the hell was the idea? Who thought of that? And worst, who said to this guy that it was a great idea? "You're genius dude-san! Keep with it you'll be rich!" But hey, just before starting I started checking on it seriously it came to my mind that it was no more different than having capital letters for names or to start a sentence. So... maybe "Genius-san" was not that dumb, only different and special... special like little kid that have their uncle as father.

So anyway... I first learn that kanjis are drectly from chinese inspiration. Ok. Fine to me, I mean even Genius-san needed a source to start from. Ok.

Second, there is hiragana. Those little 46 symboles are actually inspired and are contracted form of.... chinese's kanjis.... again... Why... not? So I start on it. Five hours a day during one full week. I learn by heart every single symbols with every variation. 104 sounds.

And yes the kanjis are hard to udnerstand and read. But Genius-san thought about it, and the hiragan is the solution. Which is really, truly brilliant in fact. Cause it would have been a pain to try to explain every symbols to everyone everytime they see something they don't understand. It was intelligent, well thought adn certianly needed. The easy way to understand all this chinese gibberish. So yes, there is a seal of approval for Genius-san there.... except... except... that... he had another strike of genius.

Katakana.

Somewhere from his twisted, he thought, that in all wisdom, we needed a third form of writting. Yes, of course, obviously. Why no one thought of it before. We needed this third form for giving more dept to the writings. And in a xenophobe way of thinking, needed something to make minority apparent even when writing. And worst of it, you discover that these are the exact same 46 sounds your learned in hiragana but written differently. I am learning the same thing a second time for a different form of writing that don't even look like the first one. Oh my gog, Genius-san is probably the earlier version of Machiavel. I can't see no other explanation, or he was some kind of Satan's reincarnation maybe.

And even going through all that the absolute cherry on this fucking cake. Kanjis... have... two prononciations... depending if they are alone or complex. And I have to learn over 1500 of them to read a newspaper.

So, briefly:

46 Hiragana and variations (104 sounds)

46 Katakana and variations.

1500 Kanjis with 2 prononciations each (3000 words)

And I still can't remember every hiragana perfectly and even less for katakana.

I think I'm going to go cry in the corner now, close my eyes and hope that everything will be better when I open them again.

God, I really love this language (no sarcasm) the more I learn, the more I appreciate it.

Seeya.

Not yet gone

Ok... so here's a first post. And I don't have any ideas of what I'm supposed to say.
First if there is people from AnimeNfo coming here, please just leave a comment. Anything will do, just so I know that someone actually reading this.

Second, I'll try as hard as I can to write in proper english. For those who don't know, I'm french, from Quebec, not France, and even if I'm quite at ease when it comes to reading english, I'm not that good for writing it.

I first wanted to have one blog for both english and french, but I found I was either going to have really long posts, which I know I can cut, slice and arrange around the way I like, but still really long ones. And most people wouldn't want to go through a lot of french babling to simply tumble on the porrly written english part. So here's 13 Hours Later. The english counterpart of 13 Heures plus tard. Basically I'll write the same thing in both blog.

To the right is a list of Missions, that I call. Basically friends that goes :"You're going to Japan? Really? Could you find [insert object name here] for me?" or "Could you check on [insert events/places/cultural behaviors here] and tell me if it's true?" So, I'm gonna try as hard as I can to accomplish them of course. Right now there's only three but I know for sure more will be added before I leave. And I do hope so. I'm gonna be there two months, better have something useless to do no? If anyone have any missions for me just say so wither here or on the forum and I'll see if I can.

I don't know how many times I'm gonna post in this blog. It could be once every few days or several times every hour. I just don't know. As far as I know I can't tell if I'll have access to Internet other than webcafé or stealing wi-fi bandwidth from total strangers. I hope at least to be able to post four times a week. Maybe more, maybe less, depending on my free time and what happen exactly there. Also I'm not fond of pictures and mementos in general, so don'T expect to see lot of pictures here. Well... I say that, but I do believe that at the end of this I'll have over 100 pictures stuck in my computer and this blog.

So... well... hum...
=^_^= <-Kitty !

Stay Tuned