Google Translate in Latvian!!!

Google has added Latvian to the languages that you can use in Google Translate.

Of course, it is nowhere near perfect, still need a lot of work.

The front page of Asahi Shimbun in Latvian.

The front page of Latvian newspaper Diena in English, Japanese.

Other people

Maura & me



Elena & Yaritza



Elena & Wilma being all serious



Alex & Ben



Jeanne & Jun



Matt & Michael



Maura



Yes, Charlotte, the statue is anatomically correct.



Yaritza & me



Matt, being all happy about something.



Maka, trying to get her surprize cell phone strap out of the machine.



Matt & Alex singing N'Sync's "Bye Bye Bye"



Masha with her black ice cream



10 minute break from the history class



The usual meeting spot - the Shijou bridge over Kamogawa







A bunch of us sitting by Kamogawa on a Friday night

Food

Sorry for not posting for such a long time here.

Everything is great here in Kyoto. Classes have been going on for 3 weeks now, I have gotten used to spending at least 2 hours a day studying for my Japanese class, but I still haven't been able to adapt to one of the other classes. The deal here is that every weekday we have Japanese language class for two hours from 9am-12noon (with 1 hour of self-study), and then everyone of us is supposed to take two of the afternoon classes. I decided to pick Kansai Area Arts and Japanese History Through Film (unfortunately, they did not offer any Compsci or Math. Go figure!). The arts class has been fun this far, but the history one is a bit intimidating. We have to read several hundred pages each week, but there is just not enough time to go to class, sleep, eat, pretend to be a tourist, and then study.

During the less than a month that I have spent in Japan, I have managed to go to a couple of places in Kyoto (there are a lot more important places that I have not gone to), visited Nara (and the deer! A separate post is necessary for that), had Kaitenzushi, sung at a Karaoke, and other things (I tend to forget).

So, to compensate for the long period of time without a blog entry, here are pictures of some of the food that I have eaten here. Most of it has been extremely tasty, maybe except for the natto sushi roll and kareenikuudon.

In Kaitenzushi shop, sushi comes to YOU!





Warning! If you see sushi with brownish grainy stuff on the top, it might be natto. Proceed only if you enjoy natto.








Kitsune Udon - that is tofu skin on top. Tasty!



Meat Udon!



Udon with mochi





Curry Udon - not as good as I hoped it would be.



Donburimono!







Green tea ice cream!






This was the hamburger menu. I couldn't find the hamburger though.

















After devouring 11 plates of sushi.



The end!

Nintendo DS

I was peer pressured into buying a Nintendo DS to use as an electronic Japanese Dictionary. It has already come in handy, and probably will continue to be highly useful for the remaining 3 and a half months.

This picture is so cute, it made me laugh. What is even better is that for the instructions, the pictures are so self explanatory that you don't need to understand Japanese.

Kyoto Station

Two days ago me and a group of people went to Kyoto Station to look around, and to get electronics from a huge store. Here are the pics.

Oh man, those bus rides. They are just too exciting!

Kyoto Tower. Pretty impressive. Kyoto has regulations on the maximum height of bildings, so this tower sticks out very much when compared to the rest of the city.

The obligatory my-map-is-so-much-better-than-yours.

Ahh, Kyoto Station! You can supposedly climb onto the Shinkansen and get to Tokyo from here.

Some of us shared a green bun. MMMMM, tasty...

Host family

I finally met my host family! They live in Kamigyou-ku (上京区), which is considered part of the center of Kyoto.

The house is done in the classic Japanese style, and although it might look small on the outside, it is huge.

A blurry picture of the host mother (on the right), and her daughter Noboru.

Their dog - Yuki

A weird view of the garden.

I'll have more pics later.

Scavenger hunt for Takashimaya

As part of orientation, we were made to take part in a scavenger hunt. I guess the main reason this was done was because the professors had nothing better in mind. Although this was a scavenger hunt, we didn't actually hunt anything, we just had to get to a popular place in Kyoto of some sorts. We were divided up into groups of 5 people (which would make 10 groups I guess), and had to find our way to the destination, and back.

My group picked the name "Takashimaya", but it took us some time to read it (yes, I know that this is one of the easiest names in Japanese, but after writing a 3 hour long placement exam, everyone's brains were fried.)

Before leaving, we had food - rice balls (YAY!)

To get there, we took the metro, which was very clean, when compared to NYC or Philly.

It was my first time in the Shijo street area, which is full of stores

We found Takashimaya! It is a 7 floor department store.

I still haven't seen a non-self-operating elevator.

On the roof there were things to do for the kids while their moms were shopping.

Anpanman!

Doraemon!

There were also pets on sale. Pretty expensive though.

This cat needs a caption...

Next, the bookstore.

Namie Amuro's new album is on sale, and they want you to buy it.

DVDs

Do you really need to cover your golf clubs with pink-purple thingies?

Scary looking mannequins.

Aaah, kimonos!

The cloth is so expensive, it's scary.

The upper part is $5000, the belt (forgot the name) is $3000, and then there is the bag and the shoes.

Don't put your fingers in the elevator door, otherwise they may get wrapped in red cloth!

Ahh, the bottom floor. Always the best floor. This time it had food. It was more like a market place, but without the dirtiness.

We spent around 1,5 hours in the store, and it was awesome, just maybe a bit expensive.

On our way back.

Those commercials sure are funny.

And then we finally were back at the Kyoto University Meeting House.

An hour later I met my host family, but that will be explained in the next entry.

Life in Kyoto

I've been in Kyoto for a little less than 36h, and this time has been awesome. I got to meet all the other students taking part (all American) yesterday. We got to go out and have some Japanese food. I ate raw chicken for the first time - and it was awesome.

I myself couldn't decide, so I just picked one of the items that I couldn't read - it turned out to be chicken in rice risotto with a raw egg on top. Awesome, of course.

Also, I went to this weird bar place, which, coincidentally, was also awesome!

Then I got to try out the toilet - an awesome experience on its own. (Vika - I don't know if I will be able to detach it... )

Today in the morning we finally met all together for a short introduction from the professors. (There is a total of around 48 students here)

In the afternoon we took a tour of the campus done py students of Kyoto Daigaku (Kyoto University), which I don't have a picture of, but in the evening we met with a student group that gets together to speak English - they were really nice people. It turns out that the guy in the front (forgot his name....) has spent a couple of days in Riga! Awesomeness...

Stay tuned for more in a couple of days...

Cosmos!

So there I was waiting for my plane to take off, when half of Cosmos appeared out of nowhere. Here's a pic:

To Japan!

Heh, less than 24 hours left before I leave for Kyoto. Packing, in the most serious meaning of the word, has not started yet, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Anyways, expect to see a lot more Japan oriented posts here. The first one should come soon after I get settled at the hotel, assuming that they do offer free wireless there.