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Department of East Asian Languages and LitsJapan Trip 2008
In the air… On my flight to Japan, I sat on the window seat in a two seat row. I sat next to a Japanese business man. At first we did not make any small talk, but I did notice that he changed his shoes into slippers. This was my hint that he was probably Japanese and not American. Closer to arrival, as we were approaching Narita airport, I could see the surrounding area. What stuck out to me from my aerial view was that no land was wasted. Unlike LAX where you can easily see lots of plots of barren land, there was not a bare spot to be seen. Golf courses and rice paddies were juxtaposed, and literally what seemed like ten trees were trying to be grown in one square foot. It just seemed fictional to me! -- Lisa Luu '09 On the Ground...
Meeting my host family was also interesting. Everyone in our group was very nervous; none of us had the experience of staying with complete strangers before so this is going to be a memorable experience. All the information that I knew about my host family was that I have “a father, 51, a mother, 50, and a dog”. My host dad is a very nice gentleman who immediately told me to call him “otosan” with his limited English. He knows almost no English, but he tried really hard to communicate to me, which made me very indebted to his kindness. We talked on the way to Kanazawa station where otosan helped me buy IC bus card. We also talked on the way back, and I learned how to say cherry blossom (sakura), to count from 1 to 10, and okay (dojobu). Then, we went over how to ride the bus from the host family’s house to Rifare. Otosan was very kind to go with me by bus from his house to Rifare and back, so that I won’t feel lost to go to school tomorrow.--Van Nguyen '11
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Page Updated: Wednesday, May 07, 2008
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This photo I chose because we have an awesome group here and even though we're wacky I think this expressed how excited we are to be here as a group. The man in the middle is Mr. Yoshida, the Ishikawa Foundation for International Exchange director, who took us to Kenrokuen Garden and will help us with whatever we need during our stay with the IFIE program. -- John Henzel '10