Nate Oyama

Back to Our House in Tokyo

It's time to leave Oshamambe. Last night I didn't sleep at all, but I did an assignment of English 2 class. In the morning my roommates laughed at my doing assignment on the last day. And we had last breakfast at the cafeteria. We felt quite unusual, while those meals were usual.

I prepared for leaving there, and I sent five boxes to my house in Tokyo (Satte City, Saitama Prefecture, to be exact.)

My English teacher from Canada and his wife drove me to Oshamambe station and said our goodbye (what kind they are!) He said I would miss there soon. At Oshamambe station, their express train comes every two or three hours, so I couldn't miss it. I saw two friends of mine by accident and rode on the same train, Super Hokuto Express. From Oshamambe station to Sapporo Airport, it spent about two hours. I used to complain about this boring time, but thanks to a United Airlines' eyemask I was sleeping most time then.

We went shopping at the airport and rode each airplanes. Mine was Pokémon Jet! I confirmed my ticket and gate, but mine was Pokémon Jet (let me talk about its detail later.)

Finally I arrived at Haneda Airport, Tokyo, and met my father at Akihabara station. The trains in Tokyo were not so crowded, but many trains and their convenient transportation took me aback a little. My father let me rode on a green car (upper class car.) While going to the station near our house, we chatted about funny things each other.

When we arrived at my house, it was about 9:30 PM. My mother welcomed me with dinner. And I finished the assignment of English 2, before the deadline on Feb. 25.

Visiting Hakodate as School Event

Today we, almost all the student in university visited Hakodate.

Our buses stopped near Goryokaku Park. Goryokaku Park is one of the newest castle that was built in Edo period, so there are traditional but Westernized Japanese scenery. Their autumn leaves were quite beautiful, so we, ten boys in my cluster walked there for a while.

Some of them wanted to visit the Goryokaku Tower — modern giant tower opened in April 2006, and others didn't. Personally I a little bit disappointed this tower since it breaks their beautiful scenery. Others and I left there by streetcar.

It was about 11 o'clock, but we were getting hungry. So we went to Asaichi (Morning Market) near Hakodate Station, and sought a seafood restaurant. Some friends chose noodles restaurant, and we three chose kaisendon, a bowl of seafood and rice restaurant. Their bowl was about 20cm (8'') across while it was about 2,300 JPY (20 USD,) so first we thought this restaurant was something fraud. But it was VERY TASTY. We really enjoyed our lunch very much.

WHALE MEAT! Hakodate is one of the famous Japanese place for foreigners, so I really surprised that whale meat was sold as usual! Some people, especially German, criticize eating whale. They insist that eating whale can cause the extinction of whales, though it was scientifically proved that the number of whales are increasing too much, and as a result whales eat too many fish. That's why Japanese people describe them as uneducated, and ignore their criticism. I don't know eating whale is good or bad, but at least complainers should be rational and insult it scientifically.

So I'd like to eat whale meat. But it was expensive, and all of them were fresh and raw, therefore I couldn't eat whale meat.

RECOMMENDATION: WHALE — Japanese Food Culture

• Sliced Bacon Whale: 3,500 JPY / 150g (30 USD / 5.3 oz.)
• Frozen Minke Whale: 350 JPY / 100g (3 USD / 3½ oz.)
• Salted Whale: 580 JPY / 100g (5 USD / 3½ oz.)

Finally all the students gathered at the bus terminal at 4:30 PM, and went to the top of the mountain to see the night scenery of Hakodate. Hakodate is very famous for their night scenery and our main purpose of visiting Hakodate is viewing it. We were waiting for getting dark. The night scenery was exactly beautiful. Some friends took their digital camera for me to take night scenery, as they believed I was good at taking a picture.

Anyway the thing most incredible is, its cost! University took us to Hakodate in only 1,500 JPY (13 USD) including several pack of snacks, four bottle of juice, and two cup noodles for dinner!

Visiting Whiskey Factory and Otaru as School Event

Today we had a school travel to a Whiskey factory in Go (city) and Otaru. While We were going there by bus, I had a sudden attack of stomach ache. It was very difficult to be patience, but I didn't want to stop the buses only for my emergency. So I moved my the body on a seat  to increase the length of  my bowel. When the bus stopped at a service station, I ran into the restroom as if I was an athlete.  Some guys pointed at me with laughing. "He's fast!" In the restroom, I screamed "NUMBER ONE!"

Finally our bus stopped at the factory of Nikka Whiskey in Go City. Japanese freshman is mostly 19 years old. In Japan, drinking is illegal for 19 or younger children. This school event was very funny. Anyway their garden was large and beautiful. Inside the buildings were also elegant. They had a sample drinking counter, so I had a little whiskey, but I was too young to evaluate it. Some guys drank very large amount of it, and got drunk. I bought their whiskey and sent to my mom and dad.

And we moved to Otaru. I'd been there once, during my alone trip in this summer (I will talk about it later.) so I was familiar with there. When we sought a sushi restaurant, a taxi driver strongly suggested us  to go to his favorite restaurant, so we entered there. While we were waiting for our sushi's coming, we were chatting about the taxi driver. How much the restaurant pay for him in a month? But the meal came 1 hr. 10 min. later from our order. Yet it was very tasty.

 

 

Composing Report about Failed Experiment

As I wrote on May 23, "Chemistry Experiment Did Not Succeed," two buddies and I were confronted with how to compose a report about our failure. Still, we believe that to have serious discussion will enrich our knowledge, experience, and sense of science.

The experiment class is held every Tuesday and we have to hand in its report (only paper, not digital data) until the next Friday at 10:00 AM.

The buddies already finished it earlier, while I hadn't done anything. So I composed it with a computer. I'm sure a computer allows me to compose a document very efficiently. Indeed when I was a senior high school student, I sometimes wrote reports for physics, therefore I have experience.

On the Friday morning, I woke up early, composed, printed, and handed in a half hour before the deadline. Well, from now on I will do homework earlier.

Glasswork

The experiment class in this week was "Glasswork" as a chemistry class. They gave one meter (3' 3") long glass tube for each students. We fired it at a gas burner to cut, attached, bend, and change its shape. Finally we made a test tube.

During the class, I touched burned glass tube by mistake, and I dropped the tube into my bag. The bag is made of synthetic fibers. As a result it made a hole in the bag!

The teacher let us make a funny tube, so I made an extremely long tube. I made about 150cm (5') long tube from 20cm (8") one. He wrote this record in a whiteboard.

Anyway we enjoyed that class. Plus, they didn't made us any homework!

Farming Training

After the class, all students in university gathered their field as farming training. Most elementary school in Japan has such a training for all pupils. I remember when I was an elementary school student, we planted potatoes and tomatoes.

We put potatoes and plants of pumpkin in the field. Some guys were complaining about this childish training while my friends and I enjoyed this nostalgic event.

Chemistry Experiment Did Not Succeed

I have an engineering science experiment class every Tuesday, and I must compose and hand in its report until next Friday.

Two of my friends and I experimented the pH of hydrochloric acid and oxalic acid in each concentration.

However our preparation was not enough, and as a result we made a mistake of using a pH mater, one of the electricity equipments. The time was limited, so we didn't finish it.

The next day the other two visited our teacher and talked about it. Yet they said that we should compose reports for the reason why we made a mistake.

Apologized to Professor

As I wrote on yesterday (Oversleeping,) I absent from the English conversation class. After I getting up, I immediately opened my notebook and wrote a script of their theme: "How can we stay healthy and happy in Oshamambe with new partners?" as fast as possible. Unfortunately when I finish it and visited the professor's room, he wasn't there.

The next day I visited there and apologized to him. It was all my bad. Yet,  he forgave me and corrected the script. Thank you very much, sir!

Party for Softball Tournament

After the softball game, we had a party at Essor Centre, a building for a party in our campus. Some guys including me didn't drink a lot. While the party, bad things happened to us; One guy drank so much and said "MY NAME IS NATE OYAMA," very loudly in the campus again and again. And ***! ***! ***! Actually my friends and I have some funny pictures, but the drinking guy doesn't allows us to talk about it any more. Do you want to know further details? then invite me in your party. But I don't drink.

Softball Tournament

Today all the students played softball for making friendships. Our dormitory can divide into 18 groups, and each groups, called "clusters", has 19 students. My cluster is 21A, and our team name is "Adulty". At that time I played a little and took many pictures.

In the morning we played with 31B. We won though I was struck out. After the game we played frisbee and soccer. Indeed it was first time to play frisbee.

After the noon, we played with 13B. They played better than us. At the end of the game, I was hit by the pitch.
"HEY! YOU HIT ME!" I said loudly.
"Then why didn't you dodged the ball?" they said and the pitcher didn't apologize.
After all we lost the game, and their bad attitude made us angry. Making friendships? What? Fortunately my waist doesn't hurt now.

In this night we partied in the campus. To be continued to the next post.