Perks of being in Japan

There are a lot of perks to living in Japan. It's the best place to be for learning Japanese. I get to train with some of the country's possible future Olympians. And I get the chance to go watch high caliber tournaments in Japan, such as the Tokyo Grand Slam last weekend.

It was great to be there. Judo is really a spectacular sport to watch. Even though I've seen so many fights in my life, judo never ceases to amaze me. It was also great to be able to put faces to some of the people in my division. I've seen their names written on the world ranking list but until now, I didn't really have a clue who they were. I also got to talk with some fellow Canadian athletes. Seeing a familiar face is always comforting when you're living alone in a foreign country.

The tournament was long however, going till about 7 o'clock both Saturday and Sunday. I had to commute every day, which took about one hour and a half one-way. So it was tiring but definitely worth it. It's not every day you get the chance to watch a tournament of this caliber.

Taking a little rest between matches : p

The judo trainers

When I got back to school on Monday, I found out my voice had pretty much deserted me, the result of 1) my allergies (they really act up when the seasons are changing) 2) a cold and 3) cheering on the fighters during the weekend. It's something I knew I would have to deal with eventually. Getting sick in a foreign country can be difficult. My mom isn't here to take care of me. I can't just skip class and sleep during the day. And the medicine here isn't the same as in Canada. There's no Benylin or any of the other familiar cold medicines I normally take when I'm sick.

I'm feeling better now. My voice is slowly coming back. I'm trying to speak as little as possible because I'm supposed to go to kareoke on the weekend... so I need my voice in top shape for that ; )

Since I'm in Japan, I've also had the chance to buy some new gis. I needed new gis for the competition in Korea. Because of the new rules, all judogis must now have the "IJF approved logo" on them and can only be made by certain companies such as Mizuno and GreenHill. And since I'm in Japan, I was able to get my name written in Japanese on both of my gis and on my new belt as well. See for yourself. It reads "Blais-Shokawa" in Japanese characters.

My patch for Korea

A few random notes

A few random things I find interesting to mention:

1) Bugs: There are plenty of them here. You can hear them buzzing all day and night. There are also flying spiders, which I've been unlucky to see during my first days at the dorm. And what's probably most funny is how scared the girls are of bugs. Even at the dojo the girls will leap up and shriek and shake until the bug is off of them.

2) Going grocery shopping is still quite challenging. I'm still learning what certain products are. I swear, it might seem obvious but you should try grocery shopping in a foreign country. How can you tell what is in a countainer when you can't see what's in it or read the information on the package? Today I brought my dictionary with me and looked up certain words like toothpaste (nerihamigaki) and sweet potato (satsumaimo). Really handy although I'm pretty sure it makes it quite obvious that I'm a foreigner.

3) When sick, people will wear surgical masks to cover their mouths. I saw this last time I came to Japan so it isn't new for me. To me, it goes along with what I know of Japanese culture: it's very important not to create problems for your peers. You do whatever you can to contribute to a healthy and efficient working place. So Japanese will wear masks to prevent from passing on their germs to others.

4) I find kanji (the complex characters Japanese use in their writing) to be very poetic. The other day, I learned that the kanji that make up the word hanabi (fireworks) is made up of two characters, the one for flowers (hana) and the one for fire (bi). Put together you have : fire flowers. As an artist, I find it creates beautiful images in my mind.

5) Lastly, the toilets... I don't have a picture to show you, but you can probably google it if you really want to know. Essentially, it's simply a hole in the ground. Now I don't know why, in such a highly developed and technological country, they still have such toilets. I do not see the appeal in crouching down (and there's no even a bar to hold on to) in order to do one's business. Thankfully they also have Western style toilets. In the university's bathrooms, there is usually one Western style toilet for each 3 or 4 Japanese style toilets. If I enter a bathroom where there are only Japanese style toilets, my urge to pee often disappears miraculously lol. But some Japanese prefer their toilets. My friend from Denmark, Zara, told me that she once entered a bathroom where there were both a Japanese style and a Western style bathroom. And to be polite, she offered the Western style bathroom to an old lady who had come in at the same time. But the old lady said she preferred the Japanese style bathroom! .... This remains a mystery to me.

That's it for today. Actually wrote quite a lot so hope you enjoy. If you have any comments/questions, don't be shy! Have to go work on a Japanese composition now where I'm supposed to write about myself. Catch up with you later!