Hiroshima Castle Area, 6 Month Mark, Japanese Media
These photos are from the area surrounding Hiroshima Castle. Overall The city of Hiroshima is beautiful, if not slightly worn in some areas, and full of things to do for all interests. I hope to make many returns.
6 Months
November 30 more or less marks 6 months since leaving Boston, USA and arriving in Tokyo, Japan. If only 7th grade me had known that his dreams to live in the land of Gundam Wing would eventually come true. Although often times are tough learning this new language and culture, I am living my dream and feel exceptionally privileged to be allowed this adventure. ^___^
Japanese Media
I’ve continued with more of the same methods in my ongoing pursuit of native fluency in Japanese. Everyday I learn the meanings of at least twenty more kanji (the pictograph alphabet) as well and attempt to never go a second without some sort of Japanese input. Even as I write this, the fifth Harry Potter movie plays in Japanese with matching subtitles in my new Japan region DVD player. Although this isn’t the best technique for trying to mimic the lip movements of spoken Japanese, the purpose here is simply to have Japanese surrounding me at all times. It’s exciting. I’m not burning out as I feared, but quite the opposite. I find myself continually hungry to engage in the language. I’ve allowed myself a small allowance each week to buy new Japanese media in order to continually keep my interest peaked. In conjunction with this budget, I’ve figured out of how to use the Yahoo! Japan Auction site in Japanese (the eBay of Japan) and have therefore spent more than I should have on rediculously cheap video games. 
Japanese Media Purchases this week:
- Nintendo Magazine
- Mario Party 5 (video game)
- Link’s Crossbow Training (video game)
- Japanese DVD Player
- Harry Potter 4 and 5 DVDs
- The Matrix
This past week was mid-year testing for all my students in both schools. As a result I had very few classes. Next week will be back to a full schedule of teaching and preperation. Also, I’ve started an English club at my MWF school. Our first meeting is tomorrow (Monday, Nov. 30)
See you next week.
