Saturday, October 30, 2010



From Nagoya, Japan, happy Halloween everybody! In this episode, I talk about my Japanese Halloween costume as well as create a time lapse. (I have been looking for something to time lapse so I am happy I finally found it) My friend Roxanne was the one doing the make-up and she did a great job. Some friends and I dressed up for Halloween and went downtown to party. It was really fun and definitely a memorable time. Now I have to start studying again for midterms. :( Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.



Happy Halloween!!!

-Tristan

Tuesday, October 26, 2010



Hello everyone, I took a break from the constant studying and went to Osu with some friends. Osu is a very popular shopping district and it lives up to its fame. There are oodles of shops ranging from the generic clothing store to the just bizzare. It is a great location if your looking to lighten your wallet.

Halloween is approaching soon and this week I am on the search for my costume. I have something in mind but I will keep it a suprise for next week.

Missin everyone back home!!!

Peace,

Tristan

Wednesday, October 20, 2010



Hello everyone, this episode I travel to Shirakawa-go. It is a small village in the mountains of Japan. The air was really clean and the scenery was beautiful. It is definetly the place I would want to live if I joined the JET program. (The JET program is a teaching program in Japan. It forces you to live in the country side but does give you some preferences.) Not to say I want to join the JET program as of yet. I really enjoyed the whole experience.

Sayonara,

Tristan

Sunday, October 17, 2010



On the weekend of October 9th, I stayed two days with a home-stay family. The family lived in Nagakute city which is close to where my apartment is. I was amazed by the kindness and warmth the family showed towards me. Like the name implies, I was treated like a family member durring my stay. We were complete strangers in reality but none of that seemed to matter. There was a mutual interest in each others' culture that bridged the gap between our nerviousness.
The first day we sat around and talked about our lives. They were very interested to find out about life in Texas and what I thought about Japan. I observed something while I was being questioned though. Specifically I remember the question: What does your dad do(for work)? Yet, there was no question about what my mother does. I do not know enough about Japanese culture to make a fair observation but it seems like women are not given the same respect as men when it comes to work(run-on sentence?). Regardless, it was a pleasant conversation. Later that day we went to the Toyota museum downtown and watched a movie (Angels and Demons) at their house. I let the family choose the movie. It was fun watching a movie but we watched it in a room with no furniture. The father had designed the movie room to be a traditional Japanese room with a big screen projector and surround sound. Watching the movie on the hard tatame mat floor was... interesting. Honestly, it was a little uncomfortable but fun to experience.
On the second day we went to the anual Nagakute festival. It is a war reenactment festival that includes hundreds of volunteers. They even had martial arts demonstrations at one point. The festival was a great experience and some clips can be seen above.
All in all, the homestay experience was a blast. To anyone studying abroad, I highly recomend staying with a homestay family. Hopefully, I will get an oppurtunity to visit my home-stay family again before I leave.

Thanks for reading,
Tristan