We’ve arrived and survived without any scars, though not without quite a bit of jet lag, which is the reason I am posting this late (sorry!) I think the jet lag must be due to the fact that we didn’t consume a few drinks and participate in Karaoke, as I did the last time I was here (which left me with no jet lag at all!)
Things went smoothly at the airport. We pulled 30,000 yen from the ATM, picked up our rail passes at the JR office, and each bought a train ticket to get to the hostel. Transportation is equally awesome as it is confusing. You have many options, and they’re all very efficient. However, all the options lead to a lot of confusion. To get to our hostel, we had to take the Narita Express from the airport to the Aoto stop, then transfer to the Toei Asakusa line on the same platform that we got off. At least, these were the directions provided to us from our hostel. Well, we waited for this Toei line to come, but we never saw any trains that said said Toei, Asakusa, or combinations of. So, after waiting for about 30 minutes and seeing 3 of the same trains pass by multiple trains, I decided we should just get on one of the trains that looked like it stopped where we wanted. So we took a risk, but it all worked out. Anyway.
Yesterday was our first full day (yesterday being Saturday in Japan…right now, it’s about 11:00 am Sunday, Nov 30, where in Chicago it’s about 8:00 pm, Saturday, Nov 29) I familiarized Cally with the area around our hostel (an area I was familiar with from last year) and we walked to Senso-Ji (just down the block from our hostel). This is Senso-Ji and some random female who decided to smile at my camera 
. Senso-Ji is Tokyo’s oldest temple, constructed in 645 AD for Kannon, the Boddhisatva of Compassion. When you first enter the Torii (gate to the temple,) you pass through the gauntlet of stores selling all sorts of goods from crackers to swords.
Next stop was: Ueno park . I’ve blogged about this in the past, so feel free to check out the this post
Today’s Menu
Yoyogi Park – Japanese Elvises and Japanese Punk and Rock bands
Harajuku
Akihabara
Another update tonight!
Elementary Japanese has been the primary text I’ve been using to study the language. I’ve looked at a couple other texts before, and this has been the most superior in my opinion (I think I may have even converted a professor at DePaul University to use this book for her classes..) The format is excellent! Each chapter begins with a cartoon-box-style dialogue that introduce grammar and vocabulary to be covered in the rest of the chapter. You can listen to these dialogues and more on the accompanying CD. The dialog is then provided in a line-by-line format, translated into English, and then you are provided with special remarks, such as exceptions to what you’ve been taught previously, etc. The chapter continues by covering the grammar used in the dialog, as well as provides small examples of each individual grammar point. After the grammar is covered, various exercises and quizzes are provided to use either with yourself, or with another. The end of each chapter provides the vocabulary learned. 
I haven’t used this text in great length, yet, but I’ve gone through the first 2 chapters. The great thing about the book is its practicality. It provides you 250 of the most common kanji (Japanese symbols representing a complete object or idea) used in Japan, and does so in a concise manner. As the title says, the book provides examples for situations that you would encounter in a typical week living in Japan, such as eating out, shopping, going to the post office, etc. The format is simple. The first page of a chapter shows a photographic taken in Japan (for example, the first chapter shows a photo of food for sale at a store.) The next section translates the meaning of the each set of kanji shown in the picture. Then, each kanji is displayed singly and the various meanings of the kanji are provided, as well as the strokes involved in writing the kanji. That’s pretty much it to this one~ It’s very practical, and the real-life photos make this an exciting way to learn kanji. 
I didn’t understand this at the time when I first saw the film, and I don’t fully claim to understand it now, but the Japanese people that I’ve met have had this “connected” quality during interaction that just feels, well…connected, like there’s no wall in between. Of course, the opposite is probably true, too… But, like most relations, how people act toward each other depends on the social level of the relators. This is supposedly even more true in Japan, for example, there are about 6 different levels of politeness in the Japanese language, depending on who you’re talking to, the situation, etc…But Buddhism (Zen, plus other forms) and Shintoism, the two primary religions in Japan, have an obvious effect in this movie, both implicitly and explicitly. In Zen, clarity of visual perception and perception in general is an important concept, and in Dreams, Akira Kurosawa allows us to see into what might be interpreted as his joys, fears, and perhaps even a look into his past. 
