Parkour

This is my newest video about doing my laundry. Since I showed this video to my Senseis, the washers have been repaired. This video was for fun, but when put to good use it has made doing laundry easier for everyone. Not saying that parkour laundry is not fun, but doing my laundry that way everyday would be a little bit difficult. Check out the video.

youtube.com/dillbondinjapan

DTRAIN

Daily Life Inspired by Ryan Knight

I was reading my friend Ryan Knight’s blog recently and saw that he posted his daily schedule. I figured I would do the same so you know really how my days go here in Okayama University.

7:25 computer itunes alarm goes off

7:35 cell phone alarm goes off, i hit snooze, computer alarm continues

7:38 cell phone alarm goes off

7:40 small plastic alarm goes off, computer alarm continues

7:42 I turn off all alarms and get out of bed

7:43 brush teeth and use mouth wash

7:48 eat cereal and toast for breakfast, watch an episode of gummy bears or duck tales

while eating

8:05 take a shower

8:15 get dressed and pack my bag

8:30 leave my room to meet with Shae to go to class

8:33 ride my bicycle with no hands to class

8:39 arrive at class

8:40 class starts

10:10 go to the bathroom

10:11 SUPERMAN!

10:13 stand in the hall and talk to Ali, Abdul, and George

10:17 go into class and talk to my Chinese friends

10:25 class continues

11:10 check my watch to see if class is almost finished

11:55 go to lunch with Ali and Abdul in the Peach Union.

12:30 leave for 3rd period kanji class

12:45 class starts

2:15 go to my religion and history class

2:30 class starts

2:45 try not to fall asleep

4:00 leave and go to use internet in the English Cafe

4:05 check e-mail

4:45 go to Japanese Cafe and practice speaking Japanese

5:15 step outside of Japanese cafe and talk with friends

5:30 go to the store

5:45 buy bread, snacks, cookies, tea, milk, cereal, and udon

6:45 go home

7:15 cook miso udon, or miso ramen with two fried eggs

7:35 eat dinner and watch an episode of The Office

8:00 study 24 new vocabulary words

9:00 forget 24 new vocabulary words

9:05 walk around the dormitory

9:15 study vocabulary

10:15 brush my teeth

10:20 go to the bathroom

10:25 get ready for bed

10:40 go to bed

Most of my days are actually very different, especially because most classes only meet once a week, except for my Japanese classes. I hope this gives you some idea of what goes on during my daily life.

Dill

Udon tsukurimashita

This last saturday I went to Kotohira to udon school. I learned how to make udon with 100 hundred other people. Here are some pictures of my friends and I. I will now be updating Picasa with my pictures more frequently, depending on when I take pictures. I have only taken pictures this on time, so don't count on it happening too often.

Here is the link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dillbondinjapan/

Steele

Ryugakusei Kaikan Tour

Hello Steele's Followers!

I just posted a video touring my mansion in Japan.

Please check it out at www.youtube.com/dillbondinjapan

Steele

Address & Phone #

I warmly welcome you to send me almost anything. If you want to send me something but do not know what to send, please send me peanut butter and any of your favorite snacks. If you do not want to send me anything, send me something anyway. Please send me a picture of you so I can put it on my wall. Feel free to give me a call, or schedule a Skype chat with me.

Address:

Dillon Adams

International House, Okayama University

6-1 Kuwanoki-cho, Tsushima,

Okayama, 700-0084 JAPAN

S101

Phone Number:

08063405741

much love,

Dillbond

Dodgeball, Rice Harvesting, and A Nightmare Come True

Hello Friends and Family,

This is Dillon Adams bringing you Japan’s top stories. It has almost been a entire month since I arrived at Okayama and a lot has happened since then.

There is a club on my campus called WAWA. This club’s purpose is to serve international students and throw parties for them. All of the international students in my program are provided with Japanese tutors/helpers through this club. I decided it would be a good idea to start a club to help WAWA. So I have unofficially started the WAWAWA club. WAWAWA’s slogan is, “help me, help you, help me, WAWA.” I figured that WAWA has no idea how to help international students and what better people to teach them how than international students themselves. Our group is open to both international and Japanese students unlike WAWA witch is only open to Japanese students. I knew WAWAWA was becoming big when students and faculty at my school started recognizing me as the WAWAWA leader.

I am now officially a rice farmer. My school advertised a rice harvesting day as a fun way to experience what it is like to work in a rice field. Really, it is a trick to get students to work for free. It turned out to be pretty fun, as are all experiences that remind of you working in Mexico mixing cement. One scary part about harvesting rice was that there were literally hundreds of spiders. Here are a few shots of me and some friends hard at work.

More recently I have had a few fun experiences. Last Wednesday I went to one of the 10 futsal clubs students from my campus run. I met up with my friend’s friend, who took me to play futsal with him. Luckily he only spoke Japanese and did not try to speak English, this helped me get lots of good speaking practice in. I did not know where the futsal club met, so I just followed Dake across Okayama on my bicycle. After riding for about 20 minutes he told me that it takes about 40 minutes to get there. I was not expecting to get that kind of a warmup before playing my first futsal game in Japan, but it turned out to be fine and quite the adventure. My longest bicycle ride before attending the futsal club was about 20 minutes. When I arrived I was quickly introduced to a few people in the club. Soon after that the futsal club formed a large circle on the field and my new friend Dake introduced me to the soccer club. Everyone cheered for me when I was introduced. Soon after that we started counting off numbers to form teams. The club members started counting in Japanese and then switched to English with a few Japanese numbers thrown in here and there. I’m pretty sure they thought I could not count to five in Japanese. When it got to me I said “yon” and everyone cheered for me because they were exited that I could say the word four in Japanese. Everyone at the futsal meeting was extremely nice and helpful. Most of them were more skilled than me, which was good because it gave me a good chance to become a better player. A lot of people tried to talk to me in English as usual, but I always responded to them in Japanese. I think the clubs different clubs at the University are always excited when a foreigner comes to play. After my 40 minute bicycle ride to the field and 2 hours playing time, I set off on my 40 minute bicycle ride back home. It was on a Wednesday night, so I was considering wether or not I should stay at home and work on homework or go to futsal. I am sure I made the right choice by choosing to go to futsal and practice speaking Japanese, rather than sitting at my desk memorizing vocabulary. I plan to go back to the futsal club again in the near future.

This last friday I attended a welcome party held by WAWA for international students living in my dormitory. All of the international students were given free food and I was able to talk meet some new people. There are 12 people in my intensive Japanese class and I was able to talk to most of them at the party. This really helped me build stronger friendships with many of them. Some of my Chinese friends from my class invited me to go and explore some parks around Okayama in the future. After the welcome party I went out for one of my first late night adventures. For those of you who who have not shared a house with me in the last two years, you might not know that I get tired around 10PM and try to be in bed by 11. Of course I am writing this blog right now at 11:36PM, but that is because I love all of you who read it and want to keep you updated. After the welcome party about 16 of my friends and I went to karaoke. This was my first time singing at a karaoke bar in Okayama and second time in Japan. It was definitely a lot of fun, but I couldn’t make it past 1AM. The others stayed until about 3AM.

The following morning I headed off to a dodgeball tournament wearing a bandana that has the word Tooko (fighting spirit) written on it, long soccer socks, and war paint on my face. Throughout the day I received some very strange looks and laughs. The other players just didn’t take dodgeball as serious as I did.

The nightmare of all nightmares happened this past friday morning. I woke up a little earlier than usual and decided to shave my face. I grabbed my shaver to do my weekly shave and once I finished shaving about half of my face, my shaver stopped working. Apparently it was broken and was not really charging overnight like I thought it was. After I realized I was not dreaming, I quickly ran to my neighbors room and nocked on his door. I realized he was not awake and didn’t want to wake him up. I went back to my room and found out that my shaver gains more battery life if I let it sit for a few minutes without turning it on. I did my best five second shave on the other half of my face. I still had a mustache and goatee on my face and I was fine with that. That was definitely one of the scarier things that has happened to me in Japan so far. I plugged in my shaver again thinking that it would charge and the next morning I turned it on thinking it was working properly. Then I started shaving my goatee and my shaver started failing again right away. I can’t believe I was tricked by my shaver again. I let it sit for a few more minutes and then got everything except for about half an inch of hair on my chin. I let the shaver sit and with my shavers last breathe I shaved off the last patch of hair. What I learned is, do not trust your shaver and always make sure it is working. If you suspect a problem do not take a risk without a backup shaver handy. I ordered a new shaver on amazon.co.jp yesterday.

Last week it started getting really cold and the temperature change happened over night.

Here is the link to my youtube channel for those of you who missed it.

youtube.com/dillbondinjapan

I just posted a video of a trip to Kourakuen garden. This is garden is rated as one of the top three gardens in Japan. The video mainly shows some of the other people I have been hanging out with. It doesn’t show me because I am the one filming it. I will upload a video with me giving a tour of my room by next week.

Information for future visitors:

The Family house is about 3,000 yen per night.

If you want to stay for super cheap, you can stay at an internet cafe for about 1,500 yen per night. Thats right, people stay overnight at internet cafes here and showers are included.

I am also down for people to stay in my room. Just let me know what you are thinking and planning in advance.

I hope to hear from you all soon.

your son, brother, nephew, cousin, uncle, friend, and sister,

Dillon STEELE Adams