Author: Jennifer Wu

On Monday, 08/20, the Dartmouth LSA+ students had the pleasure of meeting Ryan Goldstein, our senpai and a Dartmouth '93 alumnus who is currently practicing law in Japan.

We met Ryan Goldstein and Professor Dorsey bright and early at 8:00am in front of Matsuhidai station and rode a bus to the sumo stable 佐渡ヶ嶽部屋 (Sadogatake). On the way there, Ryan gave us a quick introduction to sumo, explaining the basic tactics of the sport (getting to the belt being key) and emphasizing how difficult it was to make it to the top and stay there. He told us that the ranking of the athlete was important, as it would determine their salary, when they practiced, whether they stayed in a 10-person/5-person/3-person/1-person room, etc.

We got to 佐渡ヶ嶽部屋 a bit before 9am, and then we had the chance to watch the morning sumo practice. We watched as the sumo wrestlers of lower rank practiced first, and then another group of higher ranked wrestlers go next. After Ryan received the okay from the sumo coach, we took some pictures of morning practice.

Once all the wrestlers finished practice, we had a chance to eat chankonabe (ちゃんこ鍋), a famous stew made to help sumo wrestlers gain weight. It was delicious and pretty heavy. Not all of us managed to finish our bowls, but as a group effort, we managed to eat most of it. Afterwards, the sumo stable even treated us to watermelon.

We hurried to leave after finishing eating so the sumo wrestlers could eat too. They let us eat first, and they did not eat until we finished. However, we still had some time to take pictures with the sumo wrestlers. We took many group photos, and I also got a picture alone with two sumo guys (as did some other students).

After the sump stable, we boarded the bus again to go visit his law firm in Tokyo. On the way we asked Ryan some more questions about sumo, and he explained many interesting aspects of a sumo wrestler life and some of the controversies to us. On the last half of the ride, some of us fell asleep, perhaps thanks to the ちゃんこ鍋.

When we got to his building, we all went to use the bathroom first, and then Ryan treated us all to Starbucks before we headed up to the 25th floor of the building, where his firm was located. There, he led us into a conference room. The views from there were gorgeous! Ryan explained the surrounding area to us, such as the gardens of the Imperial Palace Building and the famously expensive Imperial Palace Hotel.

Then, he told us about his time at Dartmouth - he did the study abroad while at Dartmouth as well and how he interned for the company Sharp in Japan. While interning was lonely and not too fun, afterwards he decided still wanted to study Japanese - as paraphrased: there are much worse things than being lonely and while being lonely he could study Japanese or do other things. Thus, before he went off to Harvard Law School, he studied Japanese at Waseda in Japan on the Tokyo Monbusho scholarship. He encouraged us to persevere in studying Japanese too, and let us know we could reach out to him about Japan-related things. Ryan also shared with us his experience being a lawyer in Japan - and a sort of celebrity, as he has appeared on TV and in journals before. He also runs a ramen shop called Gakuramen in Burlington, Vermont.

Ryan's stories and advice were very inspiring and entertaining, and we are thankful that he is continuing the Goldstein internship opportunity for Dartmouth students. We are also grateful that he took time out of his busy schedule to bring us to watch sumo morning practice and share with us his experiences learning Japanese and being in Japan.

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*Note: From 08/10 - 08/18 we were on the Kansai trip. Instead of writing a blog post for this, I will be making and uploading a video soon. Look forward to it!

After classes and lunch on Friday, 08/03, Dartmouth students went to Odaiba in Tokyo. Odaiba is made up entirely of reclaimed land - it is a man-made island. More than that though, it is a popular shopping and entertainment district. Many Japanese people go to Odaiba to shop and relax, and there are many popular date spots including a Ferris wheel and malls.

Some Dartmouth students who had bought museum tickets earlier went to the Mori building Digital Art Museum in Odaiba during the day. The pictures they took there made for some great Instagram posts!

I went with some other Dartmouth students to look around the malls. We went to DECKS Tokyo Beach mall and wandered the stores there. There were a lot of interesting things, including Daiba 1-chome Shoutengai and a takoyaki museum. We also spent a little over half an hour in the Daiso there. Afterwards, we went to look at the other mall Venus Fort before going to Oedo Onsen Monogatari.

When it became evening, we met up with 7 other Dartmouth students at Oedo Onsen Monogatari. Oedo Onsen not only includes huge indoor and outdoor onsen, but also a foot bath and indoor amusement such as arcades and food stalls. Maxine and Serena, Dartmouth '21s who are not on the LSA+ but happen to be in Japan, joined us. After getting wristbands, which we use to buy food and such within Oedo Onsen, we changed into the yukata that came with the entrance fee and entered the park.

After looking around the inside part, we went to look at the outside foot baths! It was beautiful, and since Oedo Onsen was having a lantern festival promotion, everything was brightly lit. There was also a sections with a bunch of wind chimes and festival games. Some of the Dartmouth students walked in the "Japanese Garden" themed foot bath, which Oedo Onsen claims to be a bath "paved pebbles stimulate your foot as you walk." Many of the Dartmouth students found it fun but mildly painful. Their feet were indeed stimulated though.

Next, we went into the onsen part of Oedo Onsen. It was huge compared to the other places we have been (in Nikko and Apa hotel), and there was an indoor portion and an outdoor portion. There were also two saunas and two salt baths. It was very refreshing, and some of us spent almost an hour there.

Once we got out the onsen, we went to buy and eat food. Since it was already 8pm, many of us were very hungry. They had Japanese food, ranging from tsukemen to okonomiyaki, as well as Korean, Chinese, etc. foods. I had the okonomiyaki, and it was delicious. After dinner, many people got deserts. There was ice cream, shaved ice, and more.

When we all finished eating, we hurried on home, since Odaiba is an hour or two from where some of the students lived. It was a fun and busy day.

On July 29th, the Dartmouth LSA+ students, Dorsey-sensei, and I all set off to go to Nikko. Let me copy Kimberly's introduction of Nikko from 2 years ago - though slightly edited, as she puts it very well:

"Nikko is located in Tochigi Prefecture, which is not too far from Tokyo. It is home to several famous sites, including Kegon no taki (華厳の滝、Kegon Falls) and Tōshōgū (東照宮、Tōshōgū shrine complex, which was built by Tokugawa Ieyasu and bears his remains). [Note: There is a mausoleum in the temple, but it is not believed to bear his remains.) Here are some maps for reference!

"

We met at Tobu Asakusa Station at 8:30am on July 29th (Sunday) and took a limited express train to Nikko. After arriving at Nikko around 11am, we left our backpacks in coin lockers and headed towards Lake Chuuzenji to see Kegon Falls. We took a bus, and I and a few others napped on the ride.

When we got to Lake Chuuzenji, it was a bit cloudy, but the weather was nice. We ate lunch first at a shop near Lake Chuuzenji that offered items with some of Nikko's famous "yuba" (tofu skin). I had a curry set containing a small serving of curry and a small serving ramen, as did some of the LSA+ students and Dorsey-sensei. I loved tofu skin since I was young (Chinese dishes use it as well!), so Nikko was a sort of paradise for me.

Afterwards, we went to see Kegon Falls. We looked at it from a free observation point, and then rode an elevator 100meters down to the base of the falls. Kegon Falls was very beautiful and majestic, but 5 minutes after we got to the base observation point, it started pouring - really hard.

We tried waiting out the rain, but it didn't stop. So, after Kegon Falls, we skipped wandering around Lake Chuuzenji, and headed to a Japanese inn called Oedo Onsen Monogatari. This inn is actually a chain, and it is famous for its hot springs. The inn also supplies its guest with a yukata to wear while there.

We stopped by the station again to catch a bus there. While we waited, we looked around the shops nearby and ate delicious snacks such as maple honey-ice-cream and fried yuba manjuu. One student, Sydney, was joining us later at the hotel (her dad was in Japan), so I took a picture of Dorsey in front of the Tobu Nikko station pointing to the stop of the bus that goes to Oedo Onsen Monogatari inn.

When we got to the inn, everybody rested until 6pm, when we met up to do karaoke. Sydney met up with us right before karaoke and sang with us. Dorsey-sensei sang with us as well! Afterwards, we all went and ate dinner at a buffet style. After dinner, we hit the hot baths, and then some of us did karaoke again before going to bed.

The next day, we woke up bright and early to eat a buffet-style breakfast and then checked out of the hotel by 9:45am. We left our bags in a coin locker again before going to Tōshōgū.

At Tōshōgū, we saw the 三猿 (sanzaru) or three wise monkeys. Their names are mizaru, kikazaru, and iwazaru - a pun of saru and the phrase "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." We took some pictures in front of them, mimicking the pose. We also saw the famous and adorable nemurineko ("sleeping cat") and some other extravagant carvings.

After Tōshōgū, a couple of us headed over to Shinkyo Bridge. There were chimes hanging right before the bridge, and they not only looked beautiful, they sounded beautiful as well. The bridge itself was also stunning.

Once we finished looking at Shinkyo Bridge, we hopped on a bus back to the Tobu Nikko station area. There, we had lunch and shopped around until around 4pm, before meeting up with everybody at the station to catch our train back to Tokyo.

We got to Tokyo around 6pm and headed to the restaurant Casablanca Silk in the Marunouchi building next to Tokyo station. There we met up with a bunch of Dartmouth alumni who were in Japan. There were several '18s and more recent graduates (I knew some of them!), but also people who had graduated 15 years and more ago! We had a lot of fun talking and eating. Everybody left before 9pm to get back to their homestay families, but some of us added each other on Facebook once we got back. It was a good way to end the Nikko trip.

Last Saturday, 07/21, marks the somewhat middle of our LSA+ program! On that day, all the students and the most the homestay families got together at La Paz's second floor Balcone, バルコーネ, (one of KUIS's cafes) in the morning.

A little less of than half of the students on the LSA+ switched host families on 07/21, as some students have a different host family for the second half of the program. This is partially because many families want to host Dartmouth students, but there are only 12 students. In those cases, both of the homestay families came to the party and tables were very lively.

Before we started, there were snacks/chocolates and drinks, and people just chatted while we waited for everybody to arrive and settle in. After everyone arrived, people passed out materials to do chigiri e, and we all started cutting and ripping. There were three chigri e sensei that walked around to help us out. Chigiri means to shred or tear, and e means picture. Chigiri e includes pasting washi paper on a background, to make a sort of collage art. For more information on chigiri e, visit this website.

While there was a stencil we were supposed to cut out and use, many of the Dartmouth students did not follow the template and made their own designs, or edited the template design. American individualism! However, a Dartmouth student did mention to me that since everyone else was changing up the design, she felt compelled to do so as well.

I ended up making my own design because I thought that was more fun, but my homestay mother followed the template and hers looked beautiful. She is very good with her hands and is detail-oriented, and has even arranged flowers in a hotel in London before!

After doing the chigiri e, we had a buffet style lunch with kara-age, small sandwiches, and even taco salad (and regular salad). There was even tiny pieces of cake for desert! It was delicious.

After lunch, the homestay agency and Dorsey-sensei gave speeches, and those who were switching homestay families said good-bye to their first-half homestay families. It may have been good-bye in words, but the students tell me that they are still in contact with those families. I still meet up with my homestay mother from two years ago (when I did the LSA+ as a student)!

The little boy from Revant's first-half family actually followed him and second-half homestay family back home - with the second-half homestay family's permission, of course. He stayed there for a day because he didn't want to leave Revant.

Homestays are one of the special parts of the Japan LSA+, and we are extremely grateful towards the families who put in the time and effort to host Dartmouth students. My homestay family this year and two years ago were integral to my LSA+ experience; and they both helped facilitate my settling into the LSA+ program and Japanese college life. Although it sounds cheesy, I will always remember their kindness and the happy feelings that stemmed from our conversations together.

On 海の日, 07/16, we took a Dartmouth-funded trip to Tokyo DisneySea! Tokyo Disney has two parks - DisneyLand and DisneySea. The LSA+ students this year chose DisneySea unanimously. DisneySea tends to be more popular among adults compared to Land, as it has rollercoasters and serves alcohol. However, we still saw many small children there. While there are also Disney-based attractions in the United States, DisneySea and Land are a bit different and reveal parts of Japan's culture. For more information, I would recommend the reading that the DA from two years ago recommended called "Bwana Mickey': Constructing cultural consumption at Tokyo Disneyland".

All the Dartmouth students except one, who took advantage of the three-day weekend to visit relatives in Korea, went to Disney Sea. Another Dartmouth '21 who studied Japanese at Dartmouth and is spending the summer in Japan but not on the LSA+, Maxine, joined us, making us a group of 12. We met at 9:30am at Maihama station, and once we all arrived, we took a picture of our tickets and entered the park.

The first thing we did was get fast-pass tickets for Tower of Terror. Fast-passes work a little different in Tokyo Disney. For one, you do not pay extra money for it. Instead, you scan your ticket and get a pass for a ride with an hour time slot you can line up in a much shorter line. You can only get a fast-pass around once every 2 or 3 hours. Once we got fast-passes, we split up to look around shops near the entrance, and some of us ate lunch. After eating, we caught the end of the  Disney's special summer event show - "Disney Pirates Summer."

Afterwards, it was a scramble to get headgear (cute ears! bows!), as well as fast passes for the rides Raging Spirits and Temple of the Crystal Skull. We wandered around the whole park between 1pm and 5pm, taking plenty of drink breaks (on Dartmouth) and stopping in gift shops with AC. I found it interesting that while water was not a given at every drink cart, tea was. We also lined up for rides with shorter wait times like Sinbad's Storybook Voyage, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Jasmine's Flying Carpets. There were many couples in the line with us.

We tended to have no idea what rides were like until we rode them. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was a shock - a fun one, and Aquatopia was also a fun surprise. There were two lines for the Aquatopia ride - one being a "Get Wet" one. We were unsure which one we lined up for until the ride started... and everyone walked out of the attraction looking like they fell into a pool. It was very fun though, and the sun dried us off quickly.

Afterwards, some people had a snack while more and more students acquired Disney headgear. We wandered freely, planning to meet up at 6:15pm for the Tower of Terror ride. One student bought a Danish pastry, and was about to eat it when the wind blew it on the ground. However, a worker nearby saw and got her a new one for free! I am always impressed and touched by the hospitality of workers at Disney. The cleaners there would nod or say hello, and the shopkeepers were very friendly.

Afterwards, everyone decided to go on the Tower of Terror except Maxine. I might have hyped it up a bit, as I couldn't remember much from two years ago except that there was a scary backstory, but the ride itself was not that scary. However, a student criticized the backstory for exploiting native cultures as a fear tactic, and suddenly it was not that scary anymore. People still seemed to enjoy the ride though.

We went on one more ride afterwards, and by then it was 8pm, so we stuck around for the fireworks show they play every night. It was my first-time seeing it, and the Dartmouth students seemed pretty excited.

We went for dinner in a mall nearby Maihama station and finished around 10pm, right as the food court there was closing. Everybody went home tired... right before a big test on Tuesday. (Majority chose to have DisneySea on Monday instead of Sunday though, because it was predicted to be very crowded on the Sunday before Umi no Hi.)

Today the Dartmouth students had their second unit test. Afterwards, they went to Dorsey-sensei's class, and after that... we all went to Sushiro, a kaitenzushi (conveyer-belt sushi) place for lunch!

It was only about a 15 minute walk from the school, though Dorsey-sensei and Victor got there first because they rode their bikes.

When everyone got there, it was very crowded, but we only had to wait 10-15 minutes to seat all 13 of us. (Since Kaitenzushi places are not built to seat a group of 13 people, we separated into 3 groups.) The sushi there was delicious and very cheap! The cheapest nigiri only cost 100 yen. Everybody ate a lot since it was Dartmouthの奢り again. We even had a competition of which table could eat the most plates of food!

Although it was a sushi place, many people also ordered karaage, fried squid, and various deserts - one table also ordered ramen. I had a strawberry crepe cake with ice cream, and it was delicious! In the end, everybody left with a full belly.

07.06.16 – 07.08.16

Overview

Last weekend, Dartmouth students visited Nihonmatsu-shi in Fukushima. Nihonmatsu is Hanover's sister city, and it is also home to Kan'ichi Asakawa (朝河 貫一). Asakawa-sensei was the first Japanese person, by birth and citizenship, to study and graduate with a BA from Dartmouth College (class of 1899). He went on to get a Ph.D. from Yale University studying history. In addition to becoming a professor at Yale University, Asakawa-sensei was an advocate for peaceful US-Japan relationships, speaking out against the growth of militarism in Japan.

Dartmouth students visit Nihonmatsu every year to pay respects to Asakawa-sensei, and we are thankful that the citizens and mayor of Nihonmatsu give us such a warm welcome. We even have the opportunity to do a two-night homestay!

07/06 (Friday)

We met bright and early at 7:30am at Tokyo station to catch the shinkansen from Tokyo station to Koriyama Station in Fukushima, where we were greeted by officials from Nihonmatsu’s city hall. From there, we took a bus to Asaka History Museum, which is part of Asaka High School. This was the school Asakawa-sensei graduated from. The staff of the museum led us on a tour, showing us the well preserved schoolhouse and explaining Asakawa-sensei's history to us. In high school (junior high school in the old Japanese system), Asakawa-sensei would eat the pages of an English dictionary as he memorized the words. Once he finished the dictionary, he buried the cover under a cherry blossom tree, now called "Asakawa Zakura." We got to see that cherry blossom tree and took a picture with it.

After visiting Asakawa-sensei's Alma matter, we went to Adachi High School and received a warm welcome from the teacher and students. (My home-stay sister, Mei, was there!) We ate a bento box with the students, and then had the opportunity to try doing calligraphy. The students wrote beautiful kanji, and we tried to copy them. We also had the chance to watch the kendo club and try the sport out ourselves.

Afterwards, we said good-bye to the Adachi High School students and got on the bus to go to city hall. We were greeted by many officials clapping as we walked off the bus, and then by the mayor when we went up to the city council's top floor conference room. There, the mayor give us an overview of Nihonmatsu - its sights and history, and welcomed us to the city. Each Dartmouth student also gave a self-introduction, using as much keigo as they could. After meeting the mayor, we took a photo together, and then visited the grave of Asakawa-sensei and his wife to pay our respects.

We then walked to the reception area, where we rested for a while before meeting the middle school students who will be visiting Dartmouth, Yale, and NYC in late July. They showed us the games they were going to present in the United States, and then we got to speak with them in small groups. Afterwards, we changed out of our sweaty clothes to get ready to meet our homestay families and eat dinner with them.

Before eating a wonderful buffet dinner with our homestay families, the mayor of Nihonmatsu and Dorsey-sensei gave inspiring speeches. After the reception and food, we went home with our respective homestay families.

That night, I really bonded with one of my homestay sisters over manga. We had read a lot of the same things, and both loved the manga series Kamisama Hajimemashita and Akatsuki no Yona! She even gave me some of the Akatsuki no Yona merchandise she got from buying magazines. I feel really lucky to have met her.

07/07 (Saturday, 七夕)

On Saturday, everyone spent the day with their homestay families.

My homestay family took me to Furusato Mura, where we looked around a museum and made uchiwa from washi paper. We also bought some of Fukushima's speciality snacks. It was a lot of fun! Afterwards, we went and met up with Autumn's homestay family and had nagashi somen. We also wrote our wishes on tanzaku and hung them on bamboo to celebrate Tanabata. My homestay sisters showed off their amazing singing voices, and we also partook in a Japanese tea ceremony. The green tea and snacks were delicious!

After, we went shopping and then we went home. I took a nap before we all started making gyoza (pot stickers) together. After eating dinner, we went outside and did senko hanabi as well as other types of specialty fireworks. It was so much fun, and definitely an unforgettable two days.

07/08 (Sunday)

We spent one more morning with our host families, and then all the Dartmouth students met at Nihonmatsu Station. The homestay families came with us to the station, then all the way to the platform, where they watched us board the train and waved good-bye. The good memories we made over the weekend made it very difficult to leave.

We got to Tokyo by lunch, and some of us walked around Tokyo before going back to our Chiba homestays. A student even went and got a haircut in Tokyo!

Although it was just for a weekend, we were all touched by the kindness and hospitality of the Nihonmatsu citizens, especially our host families. We hope to continue this relationship between Nihonmatsu and Hanover that Asakawa-sensei has started, as well as strengthen the one between US and Japan.