All articles by bowens86

I can’t believe that I’ve been living in Japan for five months already! Things here for me are so normal and  I feel so at home that I don’t really pay attention to time passing. At the moment I’m on Spring Break and my first semester finished around the 2nd week of February. I am
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Ohi Pottery

Taking the Experiences in Japanese Culture was seriously the best choice I made. All of my best pictures/ experiences seem to come from this class,  which I guess is the point. So today was the first class of 2010 and we began our work on Ohi Pottery. Last class, which was in the end of
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Tamahime Temple

There are hundreds of temples in Japan. I’m sure I’ll be visiting many during my stay, but here are some pictures of Tamahime Temple. My Japanese friend Mina took me and my friend Chris to the temple, where we watched a traditional doll performance illustrating the story of the Tamahime Princess. I was not able
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Purikura~!

Purikura is photo booth photos taken to the most extreme level! In Japan purikura is a teenage girl’s dream. Not only can you take pictures with all of your friends using the most hi-tech photo editing tools such as skin color alteration and eye widening tools, but after the pictures are taken you can move
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Japanese Noh Theater Performance

My friend Chris, another student here with me from SUNY New Paltz, is an English tutor for a Japanese man in Kanazawa. This man also happens to be a Noh Theater performer. Noh Theater has been treasured by the Japanese for many years as a musical form of theater, where the actors were very intricate
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Japanese Culture Class: Gold Leaf

Another exciting day in my Experiences in Japanese Culture class! We went to the Gold Leaf museum in Kanazawa. Kanazawa is famous in Japan for it’s gold leaf lacquer and other goods adorned with gold leaf. Learning about the process that goes into making gold leaf goods was really interesting. In the museum there were
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Flower Arranging and Tea Ceremony… the best class ever

I’m taking a class called Experiences in Japanese Culture, where the students go on excursions and participate in Japanese cultural events. It is such a fun class! Today we did Ikebana, which is the Japanese art of flower arranging. We went into the mountain and collected materials (branches, berries, flowers, etc.) and brought them back
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Living the Japanese dream…

Five weeks of class and more than one month later, here I am. Living in Kanazawa, Japan as an international student at Kanazawa University. Speaking Japanese every single day. I never thought I would actually be here. I am living my dream and loving every second of it! I had studied Japanese for two years
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