VARSITY ATHLETICS

June 11, 2008

Women's Basketball's Atkins Enjoys Japan

By Junior Forward Kristyn Atkins (Naperville, IL)

So, for the first month of summer break I`m in Tokyo, Japan on a student exchange trip with four other engineering students from Case. The program is a student exchange with Waseda University in Tokyo. We go to Japan mid May, and Japanese students come to Cleveland the week before classes start up again in the fall. Technically it is a cultural experience and language program, but half of us have never had any Japanese before.

This whole experience began about four days after finals ended when we had to come back to Case for four days of intro Japanese language and culture. Basically that meant six hours of class a day to insure that we could introduce ourselves, be polite, and generally not embarrass ourselves. Then it was off to Japan. Unfortunately, we had a late start with a six hour layover in Atlanta, but after a 16-hour flight we had finally arrived. With the time change (13 hours), we had lost an entire day in flight.

Each student on the trip is living with a different host family (some speak English and some don`t). I was lucky in my placement in that the son, Yusuke, lived for a year in Kentucky and speaks very good English. He was able to help me move in and such (unfortunately he doesn`t live at home and was only there the first night). We were also placed in a lab at Waseda. But, the labs here in Japan are different from normal chem labs (it looks like a computer room) because they act as a home base for students. Each engineering student after their second year belongs to a lab with whom they share a major, classes, and advisor. The labs are a mix of undergrad and grad students because the Japanese culture is very big on learning from elders.

So the daily schedule looks something like this. Wake up around 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. (the first week and a half it was 4:30 or 5:00 because of the time change), catch a train at 8:00 to get to class by 9:00. Japanese language class is from 9:00 - 12:00 p.m. Then the afternoons vary. Three days a week we are in Lab and the other two range from sitting in on classes, to lectures, to trips to different parts of Japan. The weekends are spent with the host families or on excursions. This past weekend we headed to Kurizawa for an overnight. It`s in Nagano, and pretty cold. We visited a vocano and a water fall as well as doing some shopping. The two high points of the trip were playing basketball with all the lab students (you never realize how much altitude makes a difference until you realize you can`t breathe), and the onsen. Kurizawa is located in the mountains and the onsens are hot springs that have been turned into a kind of luxury type bath house. The view from the hot springs was amazing.

I think the biggest differences for me in Japan are all the little things. Like the toilets for example. Half of the ones you find are squat toilets and sometimes there are special shoes you can only wear in the bathroom. Also bathing is very different. The bath is completely separate from the toilet and you wash your body completely using the moveable shower head or a bucket before sitting in the bath for a couple of minutes. Shoes are never worn in the house, and the trains are the main form of transportation besides walking or biking.
Plus, you`ve never seen a crowded train until you`re being smashed against five people you don`t know sweating to death during rush hour.

Probably the strangest part of my trip so far is the array of food I have tried. I think the students and professors get a kick out of having us try food and then telling us what it is. Let`s see the list is composed of diakon(a Japanese radish in everything), multiple types of pickles, seaweed, miso soup, soybeans, tempura, all the normal sashimi (raw fish, squid, octopus, roe, etc), and then the more interesting items: Uni(sea urchin, but it looks like a yellow paste), nato (vermented soy beans), kanimiso (crab brains that is somehow green), and basashi (raw horse meat!!).

So far this trip has been amazing. I`m learning tons of language as well as culture. The people are super nice and helpful, and my lab is hilarious.

Posted by: Creg Jantz June 11, 2008 09:04 AM | Category: Women's Cross Country

Posted by: cnj4 (Creg Jantz) June 11, 2008 09:04 AM | Comments (0) | Trackback