CET: A Taste of Osaka!

I’ve only been part of the CET at Osaka program for less than two weeks, and it’s been nothing less than hectic… in a good way. I’m happy to say that while studying the Japanese language is the main focus of the summer program, that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing that happens here! A little about the program then about the available events.

ABOUT THE CET PROGRAM:

大阪学院大学(Osaka Gakuin Daigaku or OGU) is located on north side of Osaka, about 10 miles from the center of the city at 梅田 (Umeda) andなんば(Nanba). The school has a gym and four cafeterias located throughout the campus.

The OGU International Center (Building No. 2) is the place for the CET program and Japanese classes. Conveniently located closest to the京都本線 (Hankyu Kyoto line), it’s also the only building at the school with wireless internet!

Language Pledge:

(Language pledge of all the names of summer 2012 CET students signed in brush)

The language pledge is an essential part of the program, where the students swear to not speak English from the time of the pledge until the culminating ceremony. No doubt, the pledge is frustrating the first week or so, but the mind adapts. The idea is to create sentences starting from Japanese first without doing a whole word by word translation.

Vending Machines

(There are A LOT of these at Japan!)

I’ve given up resisting the temptation of the infinite number of vending machines. There’s enough variety to try a different drink every day of the 8 week program, and most of the drinks are pretty good! At about 100 円 (yen) each, it’s definitely worth trying them out.

EVENTS AT CET:

Landlady Events:

(Old school rice cooker)

有山さん（Ariyama-san, our landlady）offers various Japanese culture events for CET students during the first month of the program. The first one for my group was the creating mochi event! We had the chance to create the mochi from scratch. I had no idea that mochi is made from rice before this event!

(First steps are to take out the rice, form its shape, and hammer it down!)

(Form the mochi by hand and add seasoning, bean paste or soy sauce and seaweed)

(Seaweed mochi, very tasty!)

(Bean paste mochi, quite a treat for everyone!)

(The landlady’s friend taught us how to play the Japanese drum!)

Future landlady events of the month are creating theお好み焼き (okonomiyaki) and たこ焼き (takoyaki), wearing the 着物 (kimono), and going to the Asahi beer factory. Definitely looking forward to those too!

CET Events:

(CET sushi roll making event)

CET has weekly events on Thursday nights, the first week being the sushi roll creating event, and the events extend throughout the whole 8 weeks. We the students had a chance to create (and eat!) our own sushi rolls from all its ingredients all for free! It was a fun experience, not to mention how awesome a sushi roll dinner is. Future events include a movie night and a class trip.