Sunday May 16, 2010

Today was the MSU Alumni Annual Luncheon. It was real nice we got the opportunity to meet Alumni some who had the same major as us. We also meet up with the other study abroad group who is also in Tokyo the supply chain management group. So we all got to interact together. It was tons of food and open bar which was real cool. There was a short presentation that took place and we sang the fight song which was fun. We had the opportunity to show our school spirit. It was nice to have the chance to  mingle with our peers and Alumni. At the end we took pictures of the whole group.

My study abroad group after the luncheon was on our way to Osaka for a few days. So we had to carry some of our luggage with us to the luncheon so we could leave straight for Osaka. It took us about 2 hours to get to Osaka. We arrived to Osaka later that night. We stayed in a beautiful shopping district full of stores to explore.

Saturday May 15, 2010

Today was cool. We visited the temple. It was a cultural shock for me. I saw men in kimonos and diapers. The temple was very extravagant. There was so much stuff going on.  On the way to the temple there were several shops everywhere. The people participated in cultural rituals. I saw kids banging on drums giving thanks to their ancestors on their way to the temple. Also I saw a group of men and women carrying ritual things to the temple. They were all dressed in ceremonial outfits and special shoes for marching to the temple. On the way to the temple there were all sorts of vendors that sold everything you could imagine and more. I found lots of souvenirs for my friends and family. I was a little disappointed at the fact we couldn’t actually go inside the temple since we had done all that walking to get there. But it was cool the experience of it all and to say the new cultural experience.

Later that day we went to see the Sumo wrestlers. They weren’t as big as I expected them to be. It was cool that I got to see them in real life then just watching them on television or movies. There are a lot of rituals that go into to Sumo matches. They take a lot of breaks to read off and show these scrolls to the audience. The matches don’t really last long they are usually over in 15 seconds. If it’s a real intense match then it will be over in 30 seconds. At the match I tried this new to me flavor of ice cream which was cappuccino.  At the time I thought it was chocolate to I began to eat it.

May 14th 2010

Today we got the opportunity to visit Keio University. It was great to be able to interact with other college students from another country. They have a lovely campus they showed us around and invited us to lunch in their cafe. Keio has a beautiful campus there founder is a very important man he is featured on the yen. They had a presenter who presented on Twitter and how it is used differently in Japan than it is America. For their twitter they use nicknames that only people that know them will know them by. They don’t usually follow celebs they just use it to communicate it with friends and family.

Later that day we met with Q? Entertainment. They are a game publishing company and mobile gaming company. Q entertainment has published games for Sony Playstation, and Xbox360. Their horse game made number one in Japan for the mobile games. It was real neat you get to customize your horse and buy outfits and things for the horse.