An up close and personal look at a thached roof. The roof is a little over a foot deep.  

This is a house built in the unique Gassho-zukuri style of this area. These houses always have the triangular thatch roof that somtimes spanned 2-3 floors, and sometimes up to 60 people lived in these houses at a time. The roof is sloped as much as possible because this area of Japan gets a large amount of snow. The first floor contains a large hearth and each floor contains numerous large vents to let the heat and smoke up to the roof. The smoke helped preserve the thatch roof and heat the silkworms that the villagers grew in the roof to earn money. The thatch roof needs to be replaced every twenty years or so.  

This is Shirawake-go. It is located deep in the mountains of Northern Gifu Prefecture, and as a result was cut off from the rest of Japan. Electricity did not appear in Shirawake-go until the 1960s. As a result the area still holds on to its unique culture and architecture.  

Exciting News!!!!!

Hey Minna-san (Everyone)!!!!!!

Guess what Guess what....Okay you'll never guess so I'll tell you. Exciting weekend coming soon!!! Saturday, Cindy (my roomate), Karen, Stephanie, (friends) and I are going to Nagoya to see the Matsuri (festival, carnival)!!!! It is a Matsuri honoring the three men that unified Japan after the Warring States Period (1183-1603 A time of constant civil war). It is going to be very exciting!!!

Then on Sunday Cindy and I are going to Gifu, a near by city and prefecture, to be tourists. I've never been to Gifu so I am very excited!!! We will be visiting many important sites from the Tokagawa period as well as some districts that have been preserved for hundreds of years. More after my trips!!!!!!

School Start!

Well School has begun, finally. I have come to the conclusion that Yamasa is in Okazaki because there is not much to do so you have to study. It is not like Osaka (the city I lived in last year with my hostfamily) which is very busy and easy to get around. I had to by a bike to be able to go anywhere, luckily you can get them used!

A bike? you say. Yes, a bike. And let me tell you the first few days of bike ownership were quite...interesting. Mind you I haven't been on a bike in at least two years, and of course I live on top of a hill. This makes going to school quite a breeze, but coming back after class is a very different story. *huff puff* But if I didn't have a bike it would take me 25 minutes to get to class and over a half an hour to get to the grocery store.

Speaking of classes, they did start last week (which was supposedly the whole point of this blog). So far so good. First Test A! First Quiz 9/10 (it was a pop quiz)! Hardest part so far is that all the explanations are in Japanese and sometimes it is hard to understand new grammer. Vocabulary is no problem though because of my new nifty Electronic Dictionary. Which has become indisposible. So far I have class from 9-1:30 but I will be adding more classes next week.

The pictures are pretty interesting right? Okay maybe not but I will post more pictures of the town and my school later. Gotta go study!

Alyssa

This is my bed. It's actually a Japanese style futon on a frame. Did you know that the Japanese use bean bags for pillows? They are very hard and uncomfortable. I was very happy that I brought my own pillow with me.  

This is my desk, messy isn't it? 

Test

The below was a test, only a test.

Smile 

Nihon de Konnichiwa (Hello from Japan)

Hello Everyone!

Well I made it to Japan in one piece, kind of. The plane ride was terrible, really, really terrible. I flew from Boston to Atlanta, GA (2 hours) then from Atlanto to Tokyo (14 hours) then had a 5 hour layover in Tokyo before flying to Nagoya (1 hour) and then ending with a 50 minute car ride to Okazaki. I was very tired at the end of the trip let me tell you. But I made it

My roomate's name is Cindy. She is from Taiwan and both her Japanese and English are very good. I was quite happy about this. I live in a apartment block with other Yamasa Students in a very quiet part of town. It's nice that it's quiet but it is very far away from everything. Pictures forthcoming soon!

Introduction: Part Two

The first Introduction was just to see how the site works. It was fake. This is the real Introduction.

Welcome to Where is Alyssa? The blog where you get to find out where Alyssa is and what she is doing. Aren't you lucky? Of course you are!

Eventually, I will put the old information from my web page on this site. (Emphasis on Eventually)

Introduction

Welcome!

This is Alyssa's new web experiment, a blog. On these pages I will keep a public diary about where I am and what I'm doing. If you are interested please read on, if not, well I probably didn't want to talk to you anyway!

Jaa Ne!

Alyssa