Hello Robo

I met a robot today.

No, seriously, I totally did!

The Starbucks near campus is in the same building as a Mitsubishi showroom, and about two months ago, they tore down the wall separating the cafe and the showroom so you can sip coffee while gazing at shiny new cars. Mel, Sarah, David and I were getting coffee when we noticed this short yellow robot gliding around the showroom!

We watched a salaryman try to speak to it briefly. It didn't seem like the robot responded, but it was so cool-looking we all wandered over to check it out. It happened to be standing near its own info panel which listed words and phrases that the robot, named Wakamaru, would respond to.

Sarah asked, "What time is it?" loudly in Japanese, and the robot responded with the correct time in a Japanese woman's voice. It was so cute! There is a panel on its chest that flashed pictures like the time, a heart, and its battery life. Sarah asked it several questions, like What are you doing, What is your name, etc, and it responded to each question with a really cute answer; to "What are you doing?", it replied, "I'm wandering around the room, smiling all the while." Chou kawaii!

But what made it really interactive was it has sensors on its head that allows it to locate whomever it is talking to it. Every time Sarah moved, Wakamaru moved its face to keep its focus on her.

Here is a link to Mitsubishi's Wakamaru website in English if you want to check it out: http://www.mhi.co.jp/kobe/wakamaru/english/

One more experience to check off on my Japan to-do list!

Goodbye Freeman-ASIA

I am deeply saddened to be sharing this news with you today: I just received an email from Freeman-ASIA , a program administered by the Institute of International Education which awards scholarships to students studying abroad in Asia, announcing that it will be closing after this spring term. You can read this announcement on their website here: http://www.iie.org/programs/Freeman-ASIA/p_announcement.shtm

Freeman-ASIA is one of the three organizations from which I received scholarships for my year in Japan, and I started this blog as part of my service project required by the Freeman-ASIA and Gilman scholarship programs. Over 4,000 American undergraduates have gone abroad with help from the Freeman-ASIA program, and I am honored to have been one of its last recipients.

いろいろなこと。。。

Though I am trying to keep my blog updated about once a week, there's actually not a lot for me to post about at the moment. Nothing big, anyway. As the title says, there are various things going on right now, such as:

Video games
This month, my boss, Marc Cellucci, is getting hitched to his long-time girlfriend in Hawaii, and they're also having their honeymoon there. He's from Texas and she's Japanese, so their parents are flying in from both countries to meet halfway in Hawaii for the wedding. おめでとう、マルクさん！

Also in the world of JVG this month: the eagerly anticipated Kingdom Hearts spin-off for the Nintendo DS, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, releases in Japan on May 30! That's next week, people! To help with my Japanese study *coughplaygamescough*, I have pre-ordered it from Amazon Japan. Sooooo excited! Don't worry, my fellow American KH fans: the English version is coming to the States at the end of August.

School
Interesting how I put the video game paragraphs before the school update...
My core courses in Japanese are going along swimmingly. I really like the textbook we're using, and the professors are very skilled at explaining grammar in Japanese.

My Special Focus course, Intermediate Aural Comprehension I, is boooooooorrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnnnngggggg. I always leave that class feeling like I downed a bottle of sleeping pills. But on the flip side, listening is my worst skill, so it's necessary. According to Mel, who took a similar class last semester, it greatly improved her listening skills, so I'm hoping that the painful hours of mind-numbing listen-and-repeat exercises will pay off in the end.

The comparative literature class I'm taking is quite interesting. I've really enjoyed the selections so far. It's so nice to have a literature class again; it makes me less homesick for CMU. And in my Buddhism class, I've joined the team focusing on gender and social discrimination in Japanese Buddhism. It's fascinating how similar, at least in my perspective, Japanese Buddhism and certain types of Christianity are in their use of particular interpretations of core teachings to discriminate against disenfranchised groups. I plead the First.

My Imminent Return
With only two-and-a-half months left, I spend a lot of my time considering all I need to do before I return to the US. I bought a plane ticket for July 29, two days after the last day of finals, which will give me approximately three weeks home with my family before going back to Pittsburgh. Apparently, while I've been abroad the airline companies have decided that financially raping customers is O.K., so I have to keep my two suitcases under 50lbs. or pay $150 extra. Why hasn't someone at CMU invented a teleportation device yet?

Packing aside, I also have a few lists of things I need to accomplish before leaving. There are still at least half-a-dozen places in Tokyo I haven't been to, such as the Tokyo Fish Market. I have a lengthy list of omiyage (souvenirs) to buy for people back home. And, since I just received IRB approval for my thesis interviews, I need to start contacting Japanese video game developers to find willing subjects. So much to do, so little time.

I'm also nearly done with my second of two video game books (in English) that I found at Keio's library. I don't think I've ever been so enthralled in non-fiction before. Did you know that Sega was started by an American in Japan? Yeah, it's true, look it up. And Miyamoto, the genius behind Nintendo's Super Mario Bros, plays blue grass guitar and banjo! These tidbits may seem insignificant to you, but already I am finding that Japanese and American video games have a more intimate history with each other than I suspected.

Seriously: best thesis topic EVER.

Golden Week

Howdy, everyone! How's everybody doing? I'm doing just fine myself, thank you. Now, on to business:

Last week was Golden Week, a period of four holidays in a row during which many Japanese leave their homes and go on a short vacation. Tokyo pretty much empties of people as everyone flocks to the countryside to enjoy spring, the south to party at the beach, or to Tokyo Disney, which is notoriously crowded during Golden Week.


Since I still have a long list of places to visit in Tokyo (and little cash left), I stayed in the city. Mina also happened to be in town at the time for a club of hers. She had all of Monday completely free, so we decided to go to the zoo.






As did the rest of Tokyo.

Monday was May 4, which happens to be Midori no Hi, or Greenery Day, and on this day all the zoos are free of charge. So the Ueno zoo, the largest and oldest zoo in Tokyo, was PACKED with grandparents, parents, and small children. Mina and I were probably the only people between the ages of 10 and 30 in the whole park. Normally, I'm not that fond of children, but Japanese kids are about as cute as kids can get, especially when they chase ducks around, as they did near the zoo's pagoda.

I don't really know why, but they had this giant string of fish kites/flags strung up near the entrance, and I thought it was cool.















We were really surprised to see this guy: an American Buffalo. A lot of people were looking at him and taking his picture. Mina and I couldn't believe how massive his head was! It's a bit difficult to get a sense of scale in this photo, but there were some wild pigs in the enclosure with him, and they weren't as big as his head.

I was excited to get to see an aardvark, or ant eater. I had never seen one before. He just kept pacing in front of the grate of his enclosure, giving everyone a good look. Mina and I noticed that he seemed to be walking on his knuckles, kind of like an ape.

We were at the zoo for maybe an hour and a half before wading through the throng just became too tiresome, so we missed some of the big cats and arctic animals. But all in all, it was a nice zoo. For some reason, they had the kangaroo situated in the Africa area, but I'll forgive them.

If you ever decide to visit Ueno Zoo, take this advice: pony up the $6 and go on any day BUT Greenery Day. And don't be shy about taking a picture with the super cute panda statue- Mina wasn't!