Tsukiji Lunch!

I wanted to eat Tuna in Tsukiji before I left Japan so I went with a few of my dorm friends this weekend. The Tsukiji fish market is famous for being the biggest wholesale fish market in the world and the nearby restaurants have access to the freshest possible fish.

This was my friends Tuna bowl—isn’t it beautiful?

In the early hours of the morning, starting around 5AM, there are auctions for giant Tuna. I heard that these were a little boring to watch however so I just wanted to actually eat the Tuna (as I mentioned before in my post about my favorite foods in Japan, I love Tuna).

This is mine— I ordered the three-flavor bowl with Tuna, Squid and another kind of fish that I don’t know the English name for. 

We ate at a really small restaurant that my friend found good reviews for online. Those tuna pieces were the most amazing things I have ever put in my mouth. Like you don’t even understand. I don’t think I can eat another piece of convenience store tuna sushi anymore ):

Afterwards we walked through the market where there were a lot of vendors and outdoor eateries like this. If I had multiple stomachs I definitely would have eaten again..it all looked so good!

The market had a lot of produce including wasabi roots and other intriguing things..I thought this was pretty interesting, it’s whale bacon. 

One of my classmates is doing her term project for our Japanese class on whaling in Japan. We had one class where we were each paired with a Japanese person and interviewed them to research our topics. She happened to be paired with a lady who was in her 60’s who told her that when she was growing up, eating whale meat was very common and it didn’t raise all the ethical concerns that it does today. She said that children would eat whale meat because it was high in protein and therefore good for their growth. Nowadays, whale meat is still eaten and it’s not rare to find it in a sushi restaurant. However, I think it is common knowledge that there is controversy about whaling due to species being endangered. When asked if she thought whaling should be stopped now, my classmates interviewee said that she agreed it should change since there is no longer a need to eat whale meat as a source of nutrition because there are many other food options nowadays.

Tokyo Disneyland!

I have the day off school today so I’m going to Tokyo Disneyland!!!!! I’ve been before but there’s a special student discount going on right now, and also my friends and I are going after 5PM so it’s a lot cheaper :D I’m soo excited.

Also I was surprised because my main blog (this one) suddenly started getting more new followers than ufocatcheraddict. I didn’t even know this existed but I found out it was because my taiyaki ice cream post got a “blue tag” on it, cool :D 

lovelyheartworld asked: what's it like being an exchange student?

Hm I had to think awhile before I answered, since it’s not something I can describe in just a few words. Living in a different country, you really learn what the good and the bad things are about both your host country and your home country and learn to appreciate the good things in both places. Sometimes it can be a love-hate relationship…I love Japan but there are many things about it that I could live without and I can say the same of how I feel about the States. And they’re not always obvious things that you can see, like how I always complain about how expensive fruit is in Japan. The way you’re expected to interact with people, academics, and other things differ a lot as well. I’m so conflicted that I can’t decide which country I like being in better and where to live in the future ><;

As for my daily life (remember everyone’s study abroad experience will be different), I live in a dorm full of Japanese students where I am the only foreign exchange student, although there are some who have either lived or studied abroad for awhile. Thanks to this I was able to improve my Japanese speaking skills a ton. I’m grateful for that because some of my american friends here live in dorms with several other exchange students, and they tell me they wish the could speak more Japanese (but I’m jealous of their writing skills because now I write how I speak, which is nearly never proper grammar). I think the location of my host university is very nice because its on the outskirts of Tokyo rather than in the middle of the city, so it’s actually rather quiet here. However, its not too far from the city such that I can go with my friends on the weekends to have fun :)