Organizing Tango

Hello again everyone, and welcome back to the Stir-Fried Tango. Sorry it’s been a while since my last post. Lately I’ve been trying to get my ideas organized so I can start having cohesive posting, also I hurt my leg so it hurt to sit in front of a computer.

So quick explanation. There were two good reasons and one excuse why I haven’t posted for the past few weeks.

1^st is that I was trying to make sure I have more organization for this blog and that I didn’t just throw up random unplanned posts. So I spent some time coming up with a few things to talk about so the posts don’t sound scatterbrained.

2^nd is because I’ve not been home the past week. Christine and I have been (at long last) travelling around Japan. It’s about time because we’ve been here about 7 months and still haven’t been hardly anywhere. I’ll be talking about our trip in a later post though. Today is just letting you know why I haven’t post.

And the excuse, was I hurt my leg and had to go to the doctor… it really hurt to get up and sit down. Plus the chairs here in Japan are so tiny. Why would I want to hurt myself sitting on that? So that I can work on a computer? I didn’t say it was a good excuse, just an excuse.

So things to expect in the future.

I’m about to start a short travel series to tell of the fun things I did in the past week. I would also like to get a few others started, and I’ve gathered a few ideas on things to write about. I hope you guys will help me come up with more ideas.

Thank you all for your patience.

First Japanese Post!

Hello again everyone, and welcome back to the Stir-Fried Tango.

Sorry about my last post. I have started to gather together some organized things I will post about in the future, and I will also try and have pictures taken before I make the post.

Again, Sorry.

こんにちは。私はリチャードだ。よろしくお願う。このページはStir-Fried Tangoだ。このブログで私は色々なことを話しますつもりだ。最近、私はあまり日本語を使わない。将来にもっと日本語を使うつもりだ、でも今私は上手じゃないだ。あなたは私に日本語を教えてください。

Also I updated the last post to include some photos.

Sakura Blossoms and Pocky

Welcome back, everyone, to the Stir-Fried Tango. Today I will be talking about my difficult experiences here in Japan.

As you know I’m currently studying at ICU in Japan. Although, it may sound really fun, it is not all sakura blossoms and pocky. Before I came here I was a full time student while also working full time. It was super difficult. とても難(むずか)しいだろう。But I just knew that when I got to Japan, because I wouldn’t be working, I would have lots of free time. でも、違(ちが)う。I was wrong. Now sure I definitely ad more time than I had before, but the Transition from the US to Japanese lifestyle was difficult.

３か月(がつ)。It took me about 3 months to make the transition and start feeling comfortable in the new environment. I even took it easy the first semester and only took 3 classes but that didn’t make much of a difference. I didn’t know where the best place to buy food was, I had to come up with different ways to make foods because almost everything contains meat (oh yeah my wife is a vegetarian and I only eat certain meats), had to figure the bus system out, figure out where to get bikes, and where to “rent a fridge.” Yeah that last one was crazy, so it’s not always the case but it seems like some apartments do not come with refrigerators. Who knew? I didn’t.

So basically my first 3 long months in Japan were just to get settled. It wasn’t terrible, and in fact I’ve quite enjoyed my time here, but it was a difficult adjustment. I’ve talked to some students here who have set up some-type-of-thing so all they have to do is show up and they have a fully set up apartment with electricity, Wi-Fi, and everything as soon as they get there. It sounds nice, but I’ve seen later that I got a lot of side benefits from not having done that. I’ve gotten to talk to many Japanese people and find out how to get a lot of these questions answered. The interactions helped me learn more about Japanese culture, which if you spend the extra money to not have difficulty, you would completely miss out on. So to me that experience was worth the trouble.

After discovering the cheap place to shop for groceries Japan began to be about pocky. If you take the bus from ICU to Musashi-sakai station 武蔵境駅, exit the bus and go through the center of the station (south entrance to north entrance), exit the station and go to the right you will see this store just past the McDonalds that sell really cheap groceries. Also, note: if you like to drink Pepsi, and not the weird kind, this may be the only place and cheapest place to find it. I’ll try to find out the name of the store and post pictures on it later.

The next 3 months here have been a lot better, well… sort of. I made a bad choice. I took the Japanese intensive class. It tried to kill me. No really! The last month of class I never left my room except for class, groceries, and church. All of my time was spent studying really hard just to not fail this class. It was really rough and I don’t think I remember learning anything. We just went through the material so fast that I could not learn it, all I did was cram for quizzes and forget it all because the next day would be another quiz. 毎日クウィズがある。Yes every day there was a quiz. All I can think now is that I’m glad spring break is a month long.

So now I’m on spring break and the weather has been warming up a bit. To me the winter wasn’t very cold but I’ve heard a lot of other people complain. But since it is over the sakura blossoms have begun to bloom… so now Japan is all sakura blossoms and pocky, but it didn’t start out that way. I think that things will probably only get better from now. Next semester I won’t be taking intensive, so I should survive the class.

Sorry this post has seemed sort of stream-of-consciousness in construction. It’s partly because I’m writing it with little-to-no brain power left. Even though I’m on break I haven’t been breaking. I’m trying to make sure I learn all of the things I didn’t get during intensive class and studying up on my own personal photography goals. I hope my next post sounds a little more thought out.

Thank you for reading my Stir-Fried Tango. Let me know what you guys think. Feel free to leave a comment down below, and/or ask a question about something you may be interested in me talking about next time.

Welcome to Stir-fried Tango

Hello everyone and welcome to the Stir-fried Tango. Now I know for you native English speakers that “Tango” is a dance, but it is not here. This “Tango” references the Romaji Spelling of the Japanese word “単語 (たんご)” which means “words.” I’m Richard, and this is my story.

Since I started out with an awkward explanation to some random Japanese word, I should probably explain why. I’m currently learning Japanese – and the struggle is real. Learning Japanese, for me, has definitely been one of the hardest pursuits of my life; and I often find myself mixing up words in both English and Japanese. So, sooo mixed up. What better name for my blog than “mixed up words” thus the Stir-fried Tango was born. On this blog there will be many topics including, but not limited to: traveling, Japan, life, photography, studying abroad, and whatever else I find interesting. I have no clue how this will turn out, but I look forward to having this journey with you. Now enough with that, as my first post you probably want to know “who is this mixed-up-word-speaking guy?”

As I stated above my name is Richard and I am currently participating in a one year study abroad program in Japan at International Christian University (ICU). Sadly, I will be returning to the US sometime in July of 2016. Before studying abroad and struggling with Japanese in Japan, I was struggling for about 2 years with Japanese in the US, so after a discouraging two years it was time for immersion learning. I had spent those two years planning and preparing for the trip to Japan, but even with all of my research I was not fully prepared. I knew one of the things I wanted to do was blog about the things that others may want to know before traveling to other countries or places.

One of the hurdles that I was challenged with was figuring out how to pay for this trip to Japan. This was absolutely one of the biggest fears I had about trying to study abroad because even with my wife and I both working full time it was hard to pay for life as a full time student. Sometimes we were so excited for a new semester to start because student loans would cover gas for the next few months. I will definitely be talking about how to survive as a poor college student in this blog. Now I won’t tell you to “not worry there is a way to fix all problems,” but I will give tips that will help.

Something fun I will include are Japanese segments in my posts. As I am working toward my skill in Japanese, I want to practice share and encourage others learning languages, especially those who may find it as difficult as I have, to keep going. Don’t give up because it is hard. The reward is well worth it. Now for those who do not speak Japanese, don’t freak out! Most of what I will say will probably be something I already just posted in English. This just allows me to practice something I enjoy doing.

Also I love taking photos. I’ve actually been wanting that to be my direction in life, although skill wise I don’t feel prepared. For me it is an art and an inspiring way to tell a story. So, while I write these posts I will also try to include some of the photos I take, whether they are beautiful or not, the story I want to tell with them will be. I am also interested in making videos, but I have not decided if I will add any or not. Hopefully as we journey together, we will learn more about the places around us and grow to see the world in all of its beauty.

Finally, there is something I feel is very important. This blog will grow. A lot of people don’t like change, but people do it all the time, and because of that it should be clear that even I will fall victim to it. I will have thoughts and opinions that change or grow and later it is possible I won’t feel the same way at all. Because of this, what I blog about will begin to vary as I gain experience. While writing I may start with a few topics, but in the future I would love to have a great many things that I can talk about and to share it all with you.

Thank you for reading this post. I look forward to sharing, learning, and growing more with you in the future. Please feel free to comment and request future topics, and I hope to hear from you soon, but most of all thank you for being a part of my Stir-fried Tango.