Asuke Well, this was my last day in Japan, and so the teachers took us to a remote village in the hills of Aichi to relax and just wander around. There were large forests, a big river, and small hills to climb. Overall, a great place to end my trip…

Origami Back in elementary school I used to think origami (literally “paper folding”) was pretty cool. Then I didn’t do any of it for like 10 years. And now, here I am origami-ing again. I thought we’d be doing the traditional cranes. Instead, it was something much harder. We made…

Nishiura This weekend I decided to take it easy a little compared to last weekend. I can’t be too tired this next week because I’ve got a speech to do as well as the tiring flight back and some more things to finish after that. Anyways, I ended up going…

Tokoname After coming back from Osaka, this week has been fairly relaxing. Not too much stuff to do, though we did visit a few places. One of these places was Tokoname, a city that is renowned for its ceramics throughout Japan. I was able to work with clay with my…

Osaka Osaka is the “Anti-Tokyo”, as one would put it. That would make it the Anti-Anti-Okazaki, huh. Anyways, Osaka is the second largest city in Japan, and is famous for its laid back attitude despite the large-city feel. There’s also a ton of things to do there. So I woke…

Gifu and Nagoya So last time was a bit rushed. Anyways, please see the previous post for those pictures. So Gifu is one of eight landlocked prefectures in Japan, famous for its mountains and rolling valleys. What amazed me the most about Gifu was its natural beauty. Everything was a…

Disclaimer This is really rushed, so most of this will likely be pictures. Again, please go to Panoramio for more and better pictures: https://www.panoramio.com/user/2916748/tags/Japan&comments_page=1&photos_page=6 and http://www.panoramio.com/user/2916748/tags/Japan&comments_page=1&photos_page=7 More pictures when I get back from Nagano on Wednesday. Gifu Gifu is a mountainous prefecture north of Aichi, perhaps famous for the World…

Program Details So this program is much more intense than I thought it would be, which is great. I spent three hours in a row learning various introductory phrases and the Japanese hiragana and katakana. There are around 48 of each, so trying to learn them all in a couple…

Orientation Today I went through orientation, where an administrator and a teacher explained to me the basics of how this course is going to go. I must say, it’s going to be a nice challenge for me, as they expect a lot out of all their students. In addition, everything…

I’ve just arrived at my living quarters in Okazaki. It looks kind of small, though it’ll do for now. The thing to get used to is sleeping on that futon and making sure I don’t fall off. Other than that, it’s at a very nice residential area, and fairly close…

Introduction My name is Tony Z. Jia and I’m a senior double majoring in Chemistry and Business, Economics, and Management at Caltech. For the next month or so, I’ll be blogging about my experiences in Japan. I would first like to thank the Caltech Fellowships and Study Abroad office, which…