Hi everyone! My name is Mia Switzer and I am one of the two people who joined the gang for the Northern Experience. First, I’m going to be introducing our adventure to Jinbocho, Tokyo, and then I’m going to be talking about one of the activities that we had with herbariums.
The night before, we were split up in two groups, one lead by Stewart and Katy at 10:15am, and the other lead by Kris at 1:45pm. Even though I knew that we were going to Jinbocho, had no clue what we were going to be be doing, but I was excited nonetheless. After doing a little research, I found that Jinbocho is famous for their used-book stores, publishing houses, antique shops, music scene, and universities. While walking to the station in the afternoon, since I was a part of the 1:45pm group, I was pleasantly surprised at the cool temperature and lack of humidity. That immediately changed once I got in the station and off at Jinbocho, where the temperature was still cool enough to be about 70 degrees, but the humidity made it feel like 90. Being from Indiana, where the humidity doesn’t have as much impact, I’m always surprised everyday at the power of Japan’s humidity, and it’s ability to make me drenched within seconds. When we walked out of exit A7 to meet Kris, I was delighted to see one of our friends from the Purdue Club of Japan standing right next to him in the alleyway. Once we were all gathered, he lead us up some steep steps into a room where we were welcomed by more members of the Purdue Club of Japan.
Once we were all gathered in the room, Noriko-san, the Purdue Club of Japan’s secretary, told us that we were going to be split up into two groups, one that was going to tour the neighborhood of Jinbocho, and the other that was going to partake in an activity making herbariums. I was intrigued by the herbarium activity, since there were tons of dried flowers laid out on the table with tweezers that were the length of half your arm. A herbarium is a collection of preserved plants or flowers that can be used for science as well as aesthetics. For our activity, we were going to be making our own herbariums with dried and artificial flowers, small glass bottles, and herbarium silicone oil. One of the members of the Purdue Club of Japan, Chizuyo-san, demonstrated the steps that we had to take to create our bottles (pictured below) and then left it up to us to have our artistic side run wild. I ended up choosing yellow as my main color, and the entire activity was one of the most calming, peaceful, and even therapeutic, as we all rearranged the dried flowers into our bottles.
Next, Tammy is going to be talking about the tours that we had and her experience walking through Jinbocho.
Hi my name is Tammy Johnson and I’m the second person who joined the group for the Northern part of the trip. First, I will be explaining what happened after we finished the Herbarium arrangements. Once we all took pictures of our pieces and packaged them up we were split into 3 groups: sports, books, and musical instruments, and was given a tour based off said categories. The group I chose was sports because I figured it would be interesting to see the similarities and differences between sport centers in America compared to Japan. As well as all of the equipment for the different sports depicted. 
After briefly looking at the equipment, we decided to go visit Meiji University which is known for its focus in Law and making sure those attending succeed in leading the modern society of Japan.
This was specified by one of the Purdue alumni that gave us the tour, as being the most important reason for the university, because it was named after the 122nd Emperor of a Japan, known as Emperor Meiji. During his rule Japan was closed off from the world, to reduce foreign influence. However, once they were asked by the United States to open back up their boarders, they noticed how being closed off from the world for so long resulted in them being behind industrially. Emperor Meiji moved to rectify that with the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Reform, or Renewal, this resulted in the change that makes Japan the modernized country that it is today. Meiji University still pushes this ideology to their students. During our tour of Meiji University, they were kind enough to give us guest passes into the library. 
Our guides found it important for us to see how much the University values their history and comfortable studying environments for the students. One thing that I found really interesting was how their cafeteria was set up. They had this 20% off rule where they cut the prices of the food by at least 20% to make it cheaper for the students. 
This is interesting because usually schools in America make their food and stores more expensive and it would be cheaper for the students to go somewhere else to get food. While here it’s vice versa. I love how much they cater to their students needs. Another difference I noticed was that the university was a single building compared to the multiple that Purdue has. We were told that it used to be a bigger and more spread out campus on the rural areas of Japan, however it was moved, so to conserve space they decided to just make it a tall building instead. 
Next, Mia is going to be talking about the dinner portion of the night and specifically the significance of the place that we had for our last dinner.
After saying goodbye to the Purdue Club of Japan, we made our way to our Goodbye Dinner in Nishiazabu, Minato City, Tokyo. The restaurant that we went to was Gonpachi Nishiazabu, which is famous for being the location of former US President Bush and former Prime Minister Koizumi’s Izakaya Summit, as well as being a set for Quentin Tarantino’s 2004 film, Kill Bill. On the outside, it just looked like your regular restaurant that you would pass by on the streets, however, as I walked in through the sliding wood door, I was proved completely wrong. I had never in my 20 years of life seen a restaurant even as close to this restaurant anywhere in America. The room was almost like you were in the middle of a town back in the history of Japan, with only lanterns being the main source of light. The floor of the restaurant was cement, wooden tables lined the right side, as well as a bar that wrapped around a cooking station on the left. To the far right was an elevated area, covered by a terrace, and up above were more rooms to eat that were more traditionally decorated. For dinner, we had a ten course meal made up of an appetizer of tofu, salmon carpaccio, fried shrimp dumplings, fried chicken, chicken, vegetable, and beef skewers, stewed beef and tofu, soba, and ice cream. The dinner was bitter-sweet, considering it was our last dinner that we would have as the family that we have become over these past 6 weeks. I tried not to think about the fact that I would be going home in two days, and tried to focus on being with everyone and being able to enjoy this amazing food, with my friends, in Japan.
After the beautiful last dinner, the mentors decided to take us to the Warehouse Arcade. 
It was by far the coolest building I’ve ever seen. The minute we walked in we all gasped in astonishment as we walked up to the door and were met with a loud sound of gas releasing and bright neon red lights. All we could see was cut of exits and bordered up walls. Once we finally took the escalator up to the actual arcade, the group quietly shouted in excitement. The arcade gave me the feeling of those underground, invite only, places that you see in movies that you’re sure that never exists in real life until you’re actually standing there looking around in excitement. The entire arcade had a hand built rustic look to it, which added to its character. The walls were rigid and filled with graffiti and the floor was made of cold concrete. It was everything I picture a warehouse arcade to look like and more. 
After the initial shock of the place wore off we all ran to our own parts of the arcade that we were most excited about. The majority of us decided to check out the claw machines first because we heard here they were easier to get than the others that we’ve been to. At first we couldn’t really see a difference, and then after a while, almost like a ricochet effect, everyone started getting all kinds of prizes. Those of us who didn’t go to the claw machines decided to play the arcade games. Specifically dance dance revolution. 
Overall it was by far the most fun I’ve had in days and the perfect way to start off our goodbye week.
As our trip comes to an end, we just wanted to say thank you so much to Stewart, Kris, and Katy for putting in all of the hard work to make this life changing experience happen. We also wanted to thank all the Purdue Club of Japan for hosting the dinner we had, as well as our fun activities in Jinbocho. As Purdue students, we are so grateful for the opportunities that we were given and all of the effort that was made by everyone involved in creating this study abroad.
Thank you again,
Mia Switzer | Public Relations and Strategic Communication
Tammy Johnson | Pharmaceutical Sciences
Japan Lived Experience 2019 