歌を歌うよ

While there are many things that I like about Japan compared to my home country, probably one that has stood out for me is karaoke. Affordability and atmosphere are probably the two things that really stand out compared to back home.

Where I live in Australia, while there are a few places to go for Karaoke, there's always something wrong - it's either pricing or a very limited song list to songs that are nearly a decade old. For the worse of the two types, the price is ok, but I just do not enjoy it. The other place that my friends and I go for Karaoke is usually really pricey, not to mention that when you request for the Japanese system when booking, they don't bother to tell you until the day you turn up that the Japanese system has been broken for a few days - and this has happened when my friend made a booking for her birthday a few months back. 

However in Kyoto, it's just so much more fun - pricing is pretty decent. For about the equivalent of $15 for myself and friends, we get all we can drink for about a good 5-6 hours (aka 飲み放題/nomihoudai - literally 'bottomless cup'). The only catch was that at this particular place they don't serve alcohol, so it's BYO - but given that alcohol is ridiculously cheap and can easily be bough from convenience stores (there was one right next door to karaoke), that's really not a problem at all. Furthermore, the song selection is so much better than what you can get back home. While it was possible to play Japanese songs, it was never extensive as here (but then again, I am in Japan, so, duh). What was even more interesting, I could get more Weird Al songs than back in Australia, even if it's only just "Fat" and "Eat it" and I enjoy those songs. 

Some of you are probably asking - Can I sing? The answer is no, no I can't.

I'm good at songs that require screaming. Lots and lots of screaming. That's why I love some of JAM Project's and Hironobu Kageyama's songs (especially Gate of the Hell and Super Survivor respectively). Even more interesting is that they have some vocaloid songs available for selection. I found a couple of Luka Megurine songs when I went to karaoke for the first time, but alas - I cannot sing any of them that well, especially "ggrks" given that you need a guy (aka Gakupo) and a girl (aka Luka) to sing it - and I cannot switch between the two very well >.>.

That's my highlight of the week. Until next time, じゃね。

Three Weeks in to my Stay in Japan...

It's been over a week since I had the placement test. The result? After taking a second test, and a surprise second interview (that only I had to to do for some reason), I got in to the class I needed.
Perhaps I should explain. In order to receive credits from my home university, my main requirement is that I need to be placed in a certain level in order to be eligible. If I didn't get in to the corresponding class, then I would have been in trouble, as there's no way to switch up to a more advanced level once placements have been made. Fortunately, after two weeks of stressing and some last minute studying after two and a bit months of study before leaving for Japan, it all paid off.

However, while the semester has started, this week has been more about sitting in on classes and figuring out which subjects I want to take this semester(aside from my compulsory Japanese language units). Yesterday, I attended a class about Igo. The lecturer is apparently pretty good at the game. However, there was only 6 of  us in the class - and it looks like it might be a lot less from next week onwards, as some of the people don't seem to be interested. As I've never heard of the game before, I was intrigued and have been going through the handout he had given us. However, despite my best attempts so far, I still cannot figure out how he calculated scoring for both players.

I also attended a lecture on Japanese Society - probably one of the only lectures that is taught in English. Aside from that reason, the syllabus covers a number of topics that I am actually interested in, including issues on foreign labor force, and consumption in Japan. Not surprisingly, a number of international students also attended this lecture, including one of my friends. Furthermore, one of the tutors from my dorm also attended the class.

In terms of assignment and workloads, I'm not sure what to expect. Speaking with friends yesterday who had been speaking with other people, the workload is supposedly a lot easier compared to our uni back home. Apparently, some students think that a 800 word essay is hard. Really? For us back home, 1500 words is normally the minimum for essay writing - for a standard essay, it's about 2000-2500 words that we have to do. So it looks like this could possibly be a lot easier than what I am used to.

I've been trying to relax in between studying, with limited results. On the up side, I bought some cool figures and models, and just today I bought a Lily Nendoroid figure. At some point, I'll be sending a box full of my goodies back to my parents, to hold on to until I return from Japan. I promised a friend to get a Revoltech Woody figure for him, which I managed to do on my second day here (albeit it is a sepia colours version), so I hope he'll be happy with it.

That is all for the moment. Hopefully I'll have something a little more exciting to write about. Ja ne.