I'm Official

by Bob
(JFMF)

I'm officially ready to go! My passport finally arrived in yesterday's mail. I'd been getting reminders from the JFMF to send it in, and I was getting a little bit nervous that it might not come in time. So that's a relief.

Now I just need to get everything else ready. That won't be easy, since I really only have one day off between now and my departure. I start a summer school class on Wednesday.

The excitement is building since the trip is now less than three weeks away. The organization is started an email listserv for the participants and I'm starting to receive emails from the 200 folks who'll be going on the trip. So far, the main topics of conversation have been deciding what gifts to bring and the ladies lamenting the fact that they're supposed to wear pantyhose. But you can tell that everyone is just as excited as I am.

There's a lot to do between now and then, and I'll keep everyone posted!

Where you can find me in June...

by Bob

I recently got a mailing from JFMF giving me some more details about my upcoming trip. If y'all need to get in touch with me while I am in Tokyo, here's where you'll find me:


It's the Akasaska Prince Hotel, which I must say looks very impressive. It will easily be the largest building I've ever slept in, to say the least. We'll have to see how it matches up with the Hancock Tower in Chicago to see if it's the largest I've ever been in.


Cool fact: The National Theatre is a 5 minute walk from this hotel!

It looks like it has a pretty good view of Tokyo as well.

I hope the view out my window looks that impressive at night. Won't I have some exciting blogging to do while I'm there? Which brings me the the computer quandry: I've been searching eBay and other sites trying to find a cheap laptop that I could take with me. The two hotels that I'll be spending the most time in have internet connections available. So far I haven't found one in my price range, but I'm going to keep looking.

I also found out which Host City I'll be visiting. I'll spend a week in Itabashi-Ku, which is one of the 23 wards of Tokyo. I haven't done all of my reading yet, but it seems like this is basically a Tokyo suburb. I think that's good news for me since it may offer more opportunites to see theatre while I'm there, since I'll still be connected to the subway system.

It's seems like getting more information and specifics has actually made everything seem more overwhelming rather than less. Now my mind is racing with all of the possibilities. I'm looking at websites and trying to see what theatre I might be able to see. But since we only get one totally free day, that stresses me out a little bit! I wish I had a more specific schedule to know if I ever got any evenings or afternoons free, so that I could know if I have more possibilities.

It's all pretty exciting, and I'll continue to write more as I get it all figured out.

Passport Fun

by Bob (JFMF)
I've applied for my passport now, which is done at the Circuit Clerk's office. This is one of the only trips I've made into the Cape County Courthouse. I think that just about everybody else there that day was there for more probabtionary/criminal reasons. It costs about $100 to apply for a passport, and I was told that it could take as many as eight weeks to arrive. I had to send the real copy of my birth certificate away to the State Department. Also, you can't get your passport photo taken there at the Clerk's office. After a little research, I found that Walgreens was the cheapest place to have it done. It was pretty funny. The girl just pulled down this little screen right there next to the little Kodak machine and took my picture with a regular digital camera. Then she put the memory card from the camera into the Kodak machine and made the picture. Here it is:


From what I read, you're supposed to look pretty much like you'll look when you travel. So I didn't "dress it up" any. The tips also said to wear your glasses if you wear glasses. (It also said to wear your wig if you wear a wig, but you can only wear other headwear for religious purposes.)

What's the time? It's time to get ill!

by Bob
(JFMF)

It's a Beastie Boys reference, folks! :)

Current local times in selected cities

St. Louis
(U.S.A. - Missouri)
Thu 8:35 AM

Tokyo
(Japan)
Thu 11:35 PM

Current UTC (or GMT/Zulu)-time used: Thursday, March 30, 2006 at 14:35:38

Thanks, internet!

by Bob
(JFMF)

Japanese-Online.com ::: Online Japanese Language Culture Resource Community :::

I came across this page with a Google search of "learn Japanese online." I've looked at the first couple of lessons, and I'm very impressed. This is a great free resource that I plan to use!

I particularly like it because most of it seems to be recorded in a male voice. All of my Instant Immersion CDs that I've sampled so far are done in a female voice, and I was finding that when I tried to speak the Japanese phrases that I've learned, I was unconsciouly raising my pitch as I said them. That would be kind of weird for me to be greeting people with this sort of breathy tone.

For those folks who are finding my site by searching for "JFMF notification" for "JFMF participants 2006," I would recommend that you try this site out.