Japan_trip

Konnichi wa! Watashi wa Laurie de gozaimasu. Hazememashiete, doozo yoroshuku onegai shimasu. Watashi wa Nippon ni sumatta ne.

Wow! It has been awhile since I lived over in Japan. It's hard to believe that I was ever fluent in the language, like I was when I left there in 1994. Such a world and another lifetime away...but the memories I have will stay forever. It was really fun looking at all of these pictures again in my dusty album.

While I was a senior in college, I decided that I wanted adventure, to see the world as I'd never seen it before. I had been taking Japanese for two years by then and I knew that if I didn't study abroad there at least for the summer, I would really miss the chance to experience life in another culture, so different from my own. What I came to realize, remarkably, is how so utterly similar Japan is to the United States, with its Americanized teenagers, gambling halls, fashions, wealth, and power. And yet at the same time, Japan was (and still is) completely different.

Here is the house where I lived, located in Gujo-Hachiman, Gifu Prefecture. Hachiman is a small, beautiful town about 2 hours from Nagoya and Osaka. Our house sat right on the river and the word, serenity comes to mind whenever I think back to my time there. To the right is a picture of one of the best rooms in the house. This toilet did just about everything but sing! My favorite little "extra" was the heated toilet seat. Notice at the bottom of the pictures. Slippers await your entrance...