My initial excitement began to wind down once October came around and all the students had settled into their class schedules, myself and Marquie having been placed in the low-intermediate language class. Typhoon season was also coming to a close allowing us students to better explore Osaka. The first major even was the school's international lounge's, known as the iChat Lounge, welcome party. All of the students, including Japanese, were invited to get to know one another better through some field games and a chocolate fountain party afterwards. I even met one of the lounge's coordinators who attended CSUMB. The after party featured socializing, group photos complete with props, and many different kinds of sweets to dip in the chocolate fountains, all pictured below. The next big event was the school's annual Kishibe festival in which students could participate as booth coordinators selling a unique snack from their home countries. I was apart of the Barbados Bakes booth. The idea came from one of the international students from Barbados named Dawn who taught us how to prepare and cook a snack known as bakes from her country. I designed the sign that was to be displayed on our booth featuring Poseidon and the Barbados flag (pictured below). The festival was a healthy competition between students to see who could raise the most money and towards of the end of the festival was a performance by a group of students who banded together as apart of the iChat Lounge's iPop Band. During October I was also able to explore some of the major city wards such as Umeda and Tenjinbashi where we explored museums and shopping districts. One such destination was the Osaka Museum of Housing and Living, an indoor museum featuring the recreation of buildings and streets from Osaka during the Edo Period. While exploring the museum visitors are encouraged to don a kimono or yukata to get a feel of life in old Osaka. There were buildings of old hotels, restaurants, and houses all of which featured traditional tatami flooring and paper screens instead of wooden floors or doors. Afterwards we went to a nearby curry house that was shown to me by one of the staff at the International Center as I absolutely LOVE curry. I was luckily enough to be taken on another field trip this time with my Japanese Religions class. We first visited a Shinto shrine, Kasuga-taisha in Nara. From there we lectured and guided by one of Tenrikyo's international coordinators as we toured the main headquarters in Tenri, Nara. We were able to walked through the main building where we witnessed various acts of worship. Similar to Christianity, Tenrikyo believes in a single God and focuses on performing acts of kindness towards others in order to live a joyous life. Afterwards we explored Nara, feeding many deer along the way. October came to a close and Halloween drew nearer. Though Japan does that celebrate the holiday as it comes from purely Western traditions, many of the shops featured crazy and cute Halloween decorations. Baskin Robbins even featured a bunch of special Halloween flavored ice cream decorated with ghost and bat sprinkles. The iChat lounge hosted a Halloween party to which all of the Western and some Japanese students dressed in costumes. I was also invited by Eva to a Halloween party for some local Japanese children. All of the children had dressed up as some sort of American movie characters, which was interesting considering how many unique and cute Japanese characters there are. It just shows what a strong influence Western media has on other countries.
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Authorまいど!おおきに! Archives
December 2014
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