but Japan is a close second.

With Thanksgiving past and Christmas right around the corner, I am realizing that this is my first holiday season away from home. I recently thought for the very first time since being here “Yeah, I would like to be home right now.” I certainly feel a little homesick and miss my family very much, but being the optimist that I am, I try and put a positive spin on it.

Instead of being sad that I am not able to be with my family this year, I am instead thankful that I have such an amazing family to even miss this much. I know plenty of people who are away from home and never even seem to miss it at all. I take my feelings of homesickness as a testament to how lucky I am to have such a wonderful and loving family. My parents allowing me the opportunity to come here is something that I will never really be able to truly express my gratitude for. (Mom, maybe now I know a little more how you felt that one summer in Vermont.) I am incredibly lucky to have such amazing people in my life, and I can not wait to see them again!

The last few weeks have been quite eventful here in Tokyo. I joined another frisbee team, went to another tournament at fuji (Where the 2 best frisbee players from the States happened to be, awesome), hiked up a beautiful mountain, went to the Tokyo Motor show, and made some awesome new friends. My time here seems to be flying by, but I am determined to make the most of it!

My best friend Brian from New York is coming to visit me in 2 weeks!!! By best friend I mean the kind of friend who would come all the way to Japan to visit you. Again, I have the most amazing people in my life.

If this isn’t nice, what is?

My mother just wrote me asking me to hurry up and write another blog. She asked for an astute observation of Japanese culture. Instead I will share a weird story about Japanese culture. This past weekend I went to a frisbee tournament right near Mt. Fuji. There was a really nice view of the mountain right from the fields where we were playing. The entire team stayed at a Ryokan, which is a traditional Japanese kind of hotel. They have roll out beds and serve amazing meals for breakfast and dinner. The weird part of the story has to do with the bathing situation at this Ryokan, where they had a Sento.

A Sento is a large communal bath. It is essential a giant hot tub, with showers along the outer rim. I went down to take a shower and when I got there I was not alone. I essentially showered with a 70 year old man and about five 8-year old boys. To Japanese people a Sento is great place to go and relax, they are completely normal. The whole experience was pretty weird to me at first, but after a while I just accepted it as another cultural experience here in Japan!

I want to start this blog by telling the story of “Taxi Lady.”   It was Thursday night around 6:30 and I was on my way home from school.  When I arrived to Shinjuku station I found out that the only three trains that run to my home neighborhood, Ogikubo, were all stopped.  The announcements were in Japanese so all I could make out was that the trains were stopped due to a passenger injury for an undetermined amount of time.  This usually would not be a big deal and I would just wait around until they started running again, but on this particular day I was in a hurry.  I was going to Osaka that night by bus, so I had to hurry home and grab my stuff and get to the bus stop.   After waiting around for a while near one of the trains a heard a woman ask a worker about Ogikubo.  I couldn’t understand the entire conversation but after it ended the women hurried off, and I followed her.  I stopped her and asked if she spoke any English.  She must have thought I was hitting on her because she quickly said no and sped up.  I stopped her again and explained in very broken Japanese my situation and asked if I could follow her.  I thought she new some route that I was unaware of.  She then told me she was going to take a taxi and asked if I would like to go with her.  We had a very nice conversation in the Taxi.  She spoke a little English so I tried speaking mostly Japanese, but supplemented with English when I had to.  I made it home with just enough time to spare to make it to my bus.  I call her taxi lady because I can not for the life of me remember her name (A problem I have with almost every Japanese person I meet.) I was so amazed that she was so willing to help a complete stranger, a foreigner at that.  That kind of genuine kindness is very rare in today’s world.  The entire event put me in a great mood for the next few days.  It was great way to start my trip to Osaka.

Osaka is one of Japan’s largest cities.  I went with my friend Aileen from SUNY Purchase and our mutual Japanese friend, Tomohiro.  Aileen really wanted to go because her favorite Japanese musician had a concert that weekend.  I went along because I was interested in checking out the city.  We only stayed for 2 days, but went around a lot of the city.  The two coolest places we went were the Osaka castle and an observation tower.  Rather then write about them I will just post pictures.

The concert we went to was actual very cool.  It was a Japanese Guitar player who’s name is Miyavi.  He is insanely good at guitar.  Here is  a link to him playing one of his songs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yShY9tyrc8c

His stage presence was awesome.  It was a really great show.

I was pretty busy with midterms and papers last week, but now they are all finished.  School here is pretty easy so I did well on everything.  Like I said before the classes are for Japanese students with English as a second language, so the work is not very intensive, not that I am complaining.

To any Burns family reading this, my host mother bought me some shirts the other day that completely reminded me of shirts my Nannie would buy me.  Shirts I would never normally wear, but of course I told her they were nice.  I wear them around the house and when I go to practice, just to make her happy.

I have two big shout-outs to make to end tonight’s blog.  First is my sister Kyra,  I love you and miss you.  I hope getting your teeth pulled wasn’t too bad!  Second is my brother Justin and my soon to be sister-in law Shannon.  They just got engaged!!!   I am so excited for you two.  Love you both.

That’s all for now.  Frisbee post coming soon..

Day 2 started off about the same as Saturday. Small cleats, and familiar drills. The big difference here is that almost all of the drills are done with some sort of a mark. It just gives the entire drill a much more realistic feel. I was out-throwing almost everyone during the hucking drills, with the exception of 1 or 2 guys. The captains seemed pleased with my throws, which will hopefully lead to a good amount of playing time for the upcoming tournament.

After drills we went back in to the zone D practice for the freshman. This time I was put as the left side handle and we shredded the freshman even worse then before. They run a strange 4 person cup with 2 wings and 1 deep. All it takes is 1 or 2 swings from the handlers to open a giant hole in the middle of the field. I wanted to recommend a more traditional 3 person cup, but did not know how to say it in Japanese. Oh well. Next we ran a bunch of Offensive and Defense sets for a while. Even though it was nothing too exciting, it was a good opportunity to get more flow going with the team. We ended practice with a 30 minute scrimmage within our own team. By the end my toes were killing me but I still played pretty well, helping my team win by 3 or 4. Seriously though, my toe is purple right now.

I was impressed with how solid the team was for being made up of only freshmen and sophomores. Though it was easy to distinguish between the 2, the freshman were still quite good in my opinion. Every single freshman on the team can throw. A lot of them probably have better throws then some of the upper classmen on GUNX. A lot of these kids are just plain fast. I definitely would not consider myself slow, but some of these guys I simply can not keep up with. I think if I continue to play my consistent style of Ultimate I will be able to get a good amount of playing time as a big thrower for the team. The team’s play style is short and conservative, with quick give and go type passes. But if any of these fast guys want to get out and run, I will gladly throw it to them. Now that I bought some cleats that are not size 9 I think I will do even more work at the next practice.

Some words of wisdom from the far east for my GUNX back home:

Drills with a mark are just way better.

A beautifully executed cut is completely meaningless if it is timed wrong. Continuation cuts are Awesome.

The most basic aspect of this game is throwing. Everyone MUST have the basics down and game ready.

This last one I’m not to sure how I feel about so I want to hear feedback…against a zone, when the stall count is in the upper half (5 or above) the poppers will crash the cup and then continue to go directly behind the handler as another dump option. (This seems to work well when everyone on the team can throw)

After practice some of the guys and I went to get ramen for lunch. They are a funny  group of guys, from what I could understand of what they were saying. None of them speak much English so I think the team will really help my Japanese improve.

Alright that’s all for the first weekend of practice. I look forward to seeing what the rest of the semester has in store as far as Ultimate goes. I am going to Osaka this weekend with some friends, so look for pictures and a post about that soon!

It is Tuesday night and I am still tired from this weekends practice. That is awesome. We practiced Saturday from 10-4 and Sunday from 9:30-2:30. I woke up on Monday with that same feeling in my legs I usually get after tournaments. Long practices are sweet. The practices were only for the freshman and sophomores because of their upcoming tournament in a few weeks. I am going to be playing with them in the tournament so I was allowed to practice with the team this weekend.

Day 1: After getting lost for about an hour, I finally made it to the park where 2 members of the team were waiting for me. We walked to the fields and met up with the rest of the team. Everyone seemed very excited to meet me. I left my cleats back in the States so a guy on the team lent me a pair of his, and boy were they small. After a brief introduction in broken Japanese, it was business as usual.

The drills we ran in the beginning were nothing new to me. Go To, End zone drill, Hucking practice, and some short throwing. We then had 2 quick, 30 minute, scrimmages against two of the other teams that practice at the same park. I only played 1 or 2 points in those games, and didn’t do all to much. After the scrimmages we did some zone practice within our own team. It was a zone defense of all freshman and an offense of all sophomores, including myself as the middle handler. I did quite well during this set, getting any throw I wanted. Everyone told me that my flick motion was very fast, and they were impressed with the small holes I could fit it through. In my opinion the zone was just not that good (I’ll discuss that later.)

After a break for lunch we did a 20 possession set against one of the teams from earlier. It was 10 defensive and 10 offensive possessions. I was on the field for 5 man defense possessions and all 10 of the offensive. The first 2 defensive point my man did not do too much and didn’t touch the disk. The 3rd and 4th points though he decided to turn it on and roasted me. He caught at least 4 passes on each of those two possessions, and almost scored on me (I got bailed out by a terrible throw). Playing defense in muddy conditions with cleats 2 sizes too small is really hard.

No excuses. Win your match-up. Hand-blocked him on the last defensive possession.

Offense went pretty well. I didn’t have much trouble moving the disk around, and was able to get a swing off whenever I needed too. I threw the only point we scored during the offensive set. We should have scored more but people had stupid drops and bad throws. My only complaint about their offense is there are not enough cuts coming immediately from stall 0. I had to wait until 3 or 4 until one of the cutters would make a move. I talked to them about it and it was much better on Sunday.

That’s all for day 1, and this post is getting a bit too long so I will post about day 2 in a separate blog.  And don’t worry, after tonight my blogs will not be entirely about frisbee.

So for those of you who don’t know, I love Ultimate Frisbee. I am a member of the New Paltz team, Gunx. Frisbee has been the best part of my college career so far. It is a serious and competitive sport, filled with some of the nicest people you will ever meet.

As soon as I knew that I was going to study abroad, I planned on finding the ultimate team here at Meiji. For the entire first week of school, I asked ever new person that I met if they knew anything about a team here at school, but no one did. Finally I met a guy on the lacrosse team who happened to have a friend on the ultimate team. That friend also happened to be fluent in English. His name is Yuki. Score.

I could not have asked for a better person to introduce me to the Ultimate scene here in Tokyo. In true frisbee player fashion, he was beyond helpful. Within the first 48 hours of meeting Yuki I was on the Meiji team, signed up for JFDA (Japan Flying Disc Association), and granted eligibility to play in a tournament in early October, usually meant for freshman and sophomores. Just tonight he introduced me to a women who is very involved in the Ultimate world in Tokyo, who said she might be able to get me on a mixed club team so I can go to another tournament.

My first practice with the Meiji team will be this Saturday. I am extremely excited, but also slightly nervous because I have not played in over a month and feel out of shape. I have been told that as a frisbee player, I am “solid all day” though, so I am sure I will be fine. I look forward to seeing how practices here are run. I hope to learn a lot and gain a new perspective on the game. As a bonus bit of great news from what was already a great day, Yuki told me that we would be able to go watch Japanese Club Nationals finals. As he put it, “It will be basically going to see a cooking lesson by Buzz Bullets, we get to watch them roast their opponent.” Can’t wait!

Gunx Love. Also happy birthday to 2 of my absolute closest friends Brian and Tom, sorry I couldn’t be there to celebrate with you both. And for those of you who aren’t interested in frisbee, I apologize. Here are some random pictures to make up for it.

This past friday I finished my first full week of classes here at Meiji. I honestly did not expect classes here to be so laid back. In almost all of my classes, the majority of the students sit in the very back of the classroom. The entire front half of the class will be simply empty desks, while the back is packed with students. Once class begins the students are constantly talking to one another, using their phones, or just plain sleeping. I was completely caught off guard by this, as I expected classes to be similar to the way they are at New Paltz. I asked my host family about it and my mother came back with this reasoning.

Junior-high and High school is extremely tough for students here in Japan. Rather then having many opportunities to apply to colleges, throughout a long application process, students here get one chance at their entrance exams.  One morning for 4 or 5 hours, Japanese seniors take the one tests that will decide if they can get it in to a good university or not.  I assume the test can be taken over if you do poorly, though I am not certain.  To prepare for this test students go to their normal school for the usual 6 hours a day.  Then once that school is finished, they go to what are called “cram” schools, to further study.　Their nights then consist of homework and more studying, and this is life for Japanese students for 4 years.  So once a student get in to a university here in Japan, they are finally able to relax.  Professors realize they worked extremely hard to get here, and are therefore lenient when it comes to class lectures.  Despite the seemingly informality of classes, the students are still expected to learn the material and pass the midterms, finals, and the other few assignments given.  The education is certainly not inferior in any way.  It was simply surprisingly different.

As for my classes specifically, they are going great.  The program that I am in was designed for international and local students, who will be attending the university for all 4 years.  What that means is that the classes I have been placed in are primarily freshman level courses.  Very little homework with only 1 to 2 tests or papers.   This combined with the leisurely lecture style makes for an easy course load this semester, not that I am complaining.

So that is about it as far as classes go here in Tokyo.  I am on a school computer, so no pictures this time.

I am not really sure how to start of my first blog now that I am in Tokyo. I suppose the best thing to do would be to introduce myself for anyone reading this who does not already know me. My name is Alex Pinn. I am a Junior and a Marketing Major at SUNY New Paltz. I will be living and going to school here in Tokyo until the beginning of February, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. These first 2 weeks in Japan have been amazing.

After a quick 13 hour flight I was in the airport, ready to begin my journey. Figuring out my own way through customs, to the bus station, and eventually to my host family’s house was an exhilarating experience. It felt like a rite of passage.  I think the word “surreal” is used too easily a lot of the time, but being in an entirely new country. One you have dreamed of going to for years, can be describe by no other word. As someone who has never done any sort of international traveling, I felt prepared to tackle Tokyo head on after that. Let’s just say I wasn’t quite as ready as I thought.

The very first day in Tokyo I wound up getting lost in Shinjuku station (One of the biggest stations in the world) for an hour and a half before I found the person I was meeting. I also quickly realized that my language proficiency was no where near good enough to feel confident speaking with native Japanese people.

Despite getting lost and not really knowing a whole lot of useful Japanese, I am still having the greatest time here in Japan. I spent the entire first week being a complete tourist. Conquering the train system, and traveling to all parts of the city taking in all of the sites.  The food here is incredible!  Some of the most delicious food I have ever had has been in the past week.

So that is all for now.  It is getting late and I am tired.  I will post again soon about school and my host family.  Next time there will be more pictures, maybe even a moving one.  But for now these two sum up my first week pretty well I think.