Bus Trip

Today we went to Lake Tazawa about 1h40 away. It's the deepest lake in Japan. The scenery was beautiful with the mountains that surround the lake and the sun shinning on the golden lady.

Me at Lake Tazawa

Golden Lady

The legends says that the golden lady is the goddess of the lake, she was transformed into a dragon and lives a the bottom of the lake. After lunch some of us went swimming to try and find the dragon! No success! But the water was really nice.

Lunch at the lake

The next stop of our bus trip was Kakunodate Samurai Mours, we visited two samurai houses. The first was build 200 years ago, our guide was the twelfth generation of this samurai family. The houses are very small but very beautiful with nice views on their gardens. The gardens have a lots of plants, flowers, trees and ponds. They grow very tall trees in there gardens, one was 4m wide and 30m high.
The next house was a smaller house but had a huge garden, with a tea shop in the middle. We stopped for tea and apple pie ;)

Trygve and I in a samurai house

Samurai armor

The tatamis floor

In both houses you had to take our shoes off to walk around because of the tatami floor. I heard that this is how they compare houses sizes, in the number of tatamis you can fit!

Gardens

Powdered green tea and apple pie 

  

Out for dinner

Tonight Anthony, Ivan, Trygve, Loan, Dom and I went to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. It was a eat and drink as much as you can type for 21€!! There was all sorts of different sushi's(salmon, tuna, calamari, white fish, shrimp, roe etc...) Probably had 20 of them. Then you get a selection of raw meat that you can help yourself from and cook it on the mini fire grill your table... It was amazing!!! Tried grilled pineapple for the first time, it was DELICIOUS. Ate so so much.

Japanese restaurant 

Food cooking on mini fire

Earlier that day we had a football game(soccer for my US friends). It's was great fun, with all different nationalities playing ( Japanese, Americans, Dutch, Italian, French, British and even a Norwegian...) I think my team won but it was very hard because our striker was a Norwegian Peter Crouch and blew up at least 10 goal opportunities!!!
Tomorrow going to visit Lake Tazawa and the Kakunodate Samurai Manors.

First Baseball Game

Waking up at 6:30 am for a baseball game was a bit hard, didn't sleep that well with excitement of the game! It was one hour drive to the stadium. Yes because for a friendly games we play in little a stadium in front of a few hundred of peoples. ( a lot more then Pineuilh or Pessac) We played against a private university (sorry I don't remember the name), so a lot more players then us. They had 30 players in there team compared to 15 on are side. We unfortunately lost 5 to 3, but it was a good lost! It was our first match together. We have got a very good team, that loves to play baseball, we just need to play more. Lucky! We are going to play every week! I pitched the last 2 innings, 1 hit 1 K 0R. It was a good outing for me. It's maybe to early to judge but the Japanese are very aggressive( just like the Cubans) they swing on the first strike... It was a little bit strange pitching with Kenko balls but the good thing is that the balls move a lot! Hoping to get ready for the major tournament in September where we will get the a chance to play against the best teams of the prefecture . The fun thing about it all is that I get to bat! ( no DH in our games) Batted 1 for 2, with a RBI single to right field ;)
Japanese baseball shoes are very light, but are in leather!!!! My feet where so so HOT, I actually thought about pitching in socks.

Ps: Met my roommate! He is a very nice boy, a little older then me. He studies Chinese and is pretty shy.

Miss you all xxx

First Baseball Practise

This moring I went down to the baseball field to watch the university team practise. They are a good team that seem to enjoy playing baseball and are willing to attend the East Japan University Baseball Championship. Tomorrow afternoon I will join them for practice. On Wednesday we will play are first game together against another university. Today one of the players, took me to a sports shop to buy some baseball shoes. It was amazing!!! It was just like Decathlon or Intersport but you replace the football section by baseball. I was lucky to find my size! I really didn't have a choice the only pair that fitted my was the biggest size they had in store. Fortunately they were pretty cheap( 65€).    

New shoes Japanese style

In the store I also saw so interesting shoes that you definitely only get in Japan !!!

Only in Japan! 

Day in Down Town Akita

This afternoon we went to Akita City. It's a very beautiful city, we went to visit the park and it's fountains. It was a very hot day (33°) what is not to bad but it is just so humid. I felt like I had just walk into a shower with me clothes on. We went to have a look at some old mans painting exhibition, it was very... interesting!

Me at the park

At Akita train station we got the chance to see the bullet train. Was hoping to get a ride on it, and visit Tokyo and Osaka but it's pretty expensive( more then plane...) It's become an attraction. Best way is probably the night bus, maybe next week...

Ivan and I in front of Akita train station

After that we went back to the mall to buy some shampooing, because mine exploded in my suitcase!!! Good thing is that all my clothes smell very good ;) In the mall, an association were rising money, and where selling piece of wooden puzzle, that you could wright a message on. They then put all the bites together in the middle of the mall centre.

Giant puzzle in the mall

Fireworks in Omagari

So yesterday evening we went to Omagari for the fireworks. We missed the last bus(great start...) so called a taxi to takes us to the train station where we jumped on a very crowned train. The train was more like a tram, some people sit but most people have to stand. It was a long hour...

When we arrived, we brought some food and went to sit on the river side to watch the fireworks. It was a lovely evening sitting on the river bank with our pork ribs and beer. To give you an idea it was like watching the fireworks on the 14th of July in Paris but in a lot better. They had some many different styles, colors and figures( smiley faces, 3D fireworks, huge wipping willow ones etc...)

Ivan, Anthony and I

Unfortunately not a lot of good photos...

Akita mall

After missing breakfast thinking it started at 9am when it actually closes at 9. Some friends and I decided to go to the Aeon Mall in Akita. Bus is pretty cheap 150yen (1,5€) for the ride. I had quite a lot of thing to do ( like always...) I go some cash from the bank, because you can't pay with credit cards or only with Japanese ones. So with me best Japanese and a little help of Anthony managed to find a ATM machine that would accept my "Mozaic Master Card"not very common in Japan...
Also managed to find an adaptable plug for french plug. To my great surprise was a lot easier then I thought.
By this time it was 10:45, and we were all really hungry!!! Only one solution good old McDonalds.
I went for the McTeriyaki, large fries and coke, defiantly a sandwich to recommend in France. For dessert I had something I remember having when I was just a wee lad back in Scotland, Apple Pie. It was absolutely delicious. I feel really bad for the french people how have never had the opportunity to try it. After brunch, I went looking for a camera to illustrate my words. Unfortunately I was unlucky I didn't find any thing that interested me. I also had more important purchases to make, BEER!!! Tonight is the Omagari Japanese national fireworks competition, with 30 of the best firework markers of all over Japan and 1million people are expected to come and watch. (hopefully I wont get lost... )

Beer is roughly the same price as in France, I bought a little can for tonight to keep warm while watching the fireworks. (photo below)

 for tonight ;)

Ok of to catch the bus, to the train station. It's a 1hour trip to Omagari.  We've got to get there early to get good spot!!! 

First Days in Japan!!!

After 2  LONG days of travelling I finally arrived at Akita university. When I arrived in Tokyo airport I quickly realised why unemployment is so low in Japan, it was like an ants nest. They have people who's job is to take your luggage of the conveyer belt... Everybody is really nice. They don't all speak very good english, some just answer "yes, yes" to every thing you ask! So I quickly came up with a solution to find out if he was really trying to help, or just answer "yes, yes". In the middle of trying to get directions, just throw in a "Ah t'es PD! " If he answer "yes, yes" my advice is to go and ask some else before getting sent in the wrong direction. A couple did answer "euh?", and help guiding me through Tokyo.
When I arrived at the university, got my room A108... but also a roommate Yamaguchi kazuma. I haven't met him yet he has moved in, but I think he'll come back when school start. Room is pretty small, 20m2. The bed is a bunk bed, the mattress is latterly a piece of wood and the pillow is a big bag of rice( no joke)!!! This moring when I woke up, I seriously felt like I had been run over by a bus! On the bright side of things, I'm in Global Village, alcohol and GIRLS are allowed compared to the other Houses. So overall I think having a beer and a girl in an uncomfortable bed, is better then having no beer and no girl in comfortable bed.
Today was orientation day, I've met a lot of people already from all over the world. Anthony and Ivan from New Jersey are two of them. We went to visit around the campus this afternoon, it was very hot and very humided. We were going to go for a walk in the woods but didn't go very far after seeing a sign ' Beware of Bears".  We are planning to go into town to visit Akita City and do a bit of shopping. Hopefully I can buy a camera and putt some photos on. Tomorrow night, there is a big fire works party in Omigawa (1h train trip) , 1 million people are expected so should be great to watch!